In the Wake of The 2017 National Fine Arts Competition

The best substitute for experience is being sixteen. ~Raymond Duncan

Teenagers are so complicated. They are sure they are right about everything about which they think they are right and they just do not know what they do not know, so they do not know when they might be wrong and they do not know that they are wrong until...they are there cornered in the inescapable reality of it. My daughter had such a reality check with the competition. The Princess realized immediately after watching a few teens play that she should have stepped up her game. There was really serious competition for her and that is when she confirmed (out loud, if you can believe that) what her father and I had been saying all along: she should have practiced more.

Now in fairness, it was not all her fault, but still it was also. She was acting on advice she was given by Guitar Guy, who told her that she would do better to not play the same piece she had done for the state competition. So, the Princess was determined not to play Mozart's Tarantella for the national competition and tried to learn another piece in time for it. She should have inquired further because she would have found out that all of the competitors played the same piece as they did for the state competitions. They do not expect them ever to try to learn another piece because there is barely enough time after the state competitions.

The Princess did it, but that was her second mistake. She did not really commit to practicing it enough to do it as well as she should have and could have. The real shame was that the Tarantella was her best piece ever, which showcases her very best strengths: nibble, quick fingers with crisp notes. The piece the Princess played is a good piece, but she just did not love to play it like she did the Tarantella, which is funny because she is not fond of Mozart in general and she just really plays Bach.

She was given one superior rating and two excellent ratings, hard to take when the girl had not received anything lower an superior for seven years. She was disappointed but not devastated. Of the 40 some competitors in classical piano, she fell in about halfway, which I thought was still rather good considering the circumstances, but she was hopeful she would be higher up. My husband, being there with her, was able to observe the competitors and most were older than she is and perhaps more experienced. I am still sure that she could have been in the top ten at least with the Tarantella, perhaps higher.

However, she learned something from that competition that will stick with her better than my reminding her to practice. She learned that if she wants to win a competition like that she will have to commit to it and seriously practice.

Last year at this time, I was working on boosting her self-confidence in the aftermath of the J-void incident. Playing at the restaurant helped a great deal. She has actually been paid to play the piano! That reinforced her self-worth, in her eyes. However, typical of teenagers, she then swung over into arrogance as in her mother did not know anything because she was good enough to earn money, which she would throw back at me whenever I would encourage her to learn more songs and to practice to be better for playing at the restaurant.

So, I have come to view this little reality tap back as maybe just what she needed and God provided, although it is hard to watch as a parent. I want her to succeed, of course, but I also want her to learn that she needs to go after the things she really wants, to be self-motivated. I want her to think well of herself but not to think everything she does is good enough, as if she does not need to try to improve. Those are very hard lessons to learn, but fine tuning is what God does.

The Princess wants to try again next year, which is a very good sign.

My Lord, I thought about all the parents who were mostly likely praying the same prayer for their children competing and I knew that there were going to be many more who would not place than there would be who did. I wanted my daughter to be one of the few, like all the parents. I do thank You for the lessons my daughter has learned from the experience and pray that You keep guiding her.

Teenager Extremism

I never sleep on planes. -The Princess

Since I have had a few days to myself, I realize how much I have been living the life of teenager extremes for about seven or eight years now, because it started when she was a tween. There's a lot of never's and I cannot do it or I don't know how (if she does not want to) and I can do it (if it is something I don't want her to do and she does). There is also a lot of "I am that____(whatever)" when she hears, sees, or reads something that portrays a dark humor.

And just silly things any teenager does without thinking, like she sent a picture of parts of a gun to a friend that is a boy, as all but one of her friends are boys. In context, she is taking an online hunting course in which this was appropriate, but I found sending a picture of a percussion lock which shows and names just three parts of the gun: the cock, cap, and nipple, with the caption she added on the picture "Folks, get you a percussion lock like this" to be just...well, she sent it to a boy out of the blue, out of the context, so to me that was inappropriate because a boy would likely add his own take on the context. I immediately confronted her on that and she immediate apologized to the boy for being be inappropriate. She still needs the guide rails she keeps bumping into!

Since January, my husband has been saying "two more years" as if there will magically be a cut off time for her to stop acting like a teenager and have adult maturity on her 18th birthday; he knows better, it is just hope he hangs onto like looking forward to retirement.

It is not enough that I roll my eyes at things 

the Princess says or writes, now my husband too?

Since I see all my daughter's conversations being texted, emailed, or through messaging on all her accounts, I get the double dose: what she says directly to me and what she says to her friends that she knows better than to even try to say to me. For instance, she would not say the following to me, but she did text it yesterday to another friend.

Her friend told a couple of stupid jokes and then says he feels she is going to kill him when she gets back. She says he must be psychic. 

Friend: Well hey at least if you do bad Thursday then you'll still have a very important reason to come back. 

The Princess: No. I think it would be worse if I disappeared and you never knew what happened to me. Instead of dying, you would just go through your life constantly wondering, worrying, and searching. But never finding, therefore slowly becoming more disheartened and hopeless.

There is some begging for her not to do such a thing and then...
The Princes: I will consider not doing it.

I call this thing she tends to do, this making everything as bleak as she can, going to the darkside. She often tells me how she knows how to defend herself, as if her petite 110 pound body could become a lethal weapon without any training. Well, she does carry a knife on her most of the time, but still....of late I have threaten to make her watch the Addams Family movie on Netflix, which delights me that she thinks it would be torture. I guess seeing how much she can act like Wednesday would be a nightmare for her. But then if she ever actually watched it, she probably would like it and be worse than she is now.

So, when my husband sent me this picture of her sleeping on the plane....well, they always look so sweet and innocent and everything we hope them to be when they are sleeping.

But, of course, she is not sleeping, just resting her eyes because....

she never sleeps on planes!

My Lord, I wonder if we all seem like immature teenagers to You. If You also think we look so sweet and innocent when we are sleeping. If You hope that we will mature to be what You hope we will be. If so, my Lord, I am even more thankful that You are my Lord and watching over us.

Not-Yet's and Not-Ever's

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

My daughter has friends who are raised quite differently than she has been. Many of her friends label us as over protective because they are allowed to do things that our daughter is not. Some things are just not-yet's and others are not-ever's, at least while she lives in our home.

One not-yet is getting her driver's license. Although many of her friends have gotten or are getting their driver's permits at fifteen years old so that they can get their licenses at sixteen, my husband and I decided years ago that we would not rush into getting her license just because she legally could, although our state has a tiered system with three stages depending on age and other provisions. There are several factors that play into this:

• Local driving is far away from Atlanta traffic, but many people here commute and by the time they drive that distance, they are short on patience and have a whole different idea of what a speed limit is other than what is posted on the signs. 
• The Atlanta area is one of the worst in the country for teenagers causing accidents and there are several reasons for that, but probably the main reason is that they are teenagers and do not take driving as seriously as they should and easily get distracted thanks to latest in tech. 
• Another reason is related to illegal immigrants...they are not licensed or insured so there are many stories of accidents when a number of them jump out of the vehicle and ran away from the accident and that the vehicle itself was not registered so there is no way to find them. 
• Such events have caused steep increases in our vehicle insurance over the past few years and adding a teen driver to the policy is not something we are eager to do. 
• Lastly, waiting until she is seventeen also means we do not have to pay for a driving course as the tiered laws requires presently. It is enough that our car insurance doubles either way!

Her friends may get the not-yet's better than our not-ever's. A seventeen year old boy with which the Princess has been friends for a few years is leaving for college at the beginning of August. He wanted to spend some time with her so he offered to pick her up to drive her to the skating rink he likes that is about a 45-minute drive away. Now we expect attractions at this age but the Princess will not ever be allowed to date and being alone with a young man in a car...that sounds like a date to me. Of course, that is never going to happen. 

We have strict rules about going out with friends and courting. We have done things with her friends that are boys, like hiked in a park or gone to a movie, but I was there with them. The Princess does not have but one good friend that is a girl and that would be because she finds most girls fickle, boy-crazy, and shallow, except for this one. 

She just does not connect with girls. Even as a young child, she liked playing with boys and doing the stuff boys were into more...and this when she would dress in a fancy dress for church and often for dinner just because! She was a tomboy and a girly-girl, depending on the setting and her mood. For a few years, when she was middle school age, I could barely get her in a dress except for recitals. Now she is swinging back to her former loves, although she does not dress for dinner, but now and then she will wear a dress or skirt to church or just because.

Anyway, when she was younger, I mostly had to worry about what she and the boys were going to dig up in the backyard or injuries from sword fighting and she has always had this fascination with all kinds of knives, like boys tend to do. Although she is aware that some of her friends are attracted to her, she rarely will talk to us about it. The bad experience with J-Void left its mark on us all, so I think that one side of her does not want to like a boy or even been liked by a boy, but the other...well, she is still a teenage girl. We see the conflict she tries to hide.

Our rules have some flexibility depending on the situation and persons involved and we do invite God's say in the matter. However, the Princess is never to get into a car alone with a boy or go off anywhere alone with a boy at any time...period! She is allowed to go with a mixed group of friends as long as there is a responsible chaperone. We, at times, will allow her to do something with a boy as long as one of her parents is with her or we really know and trust the chaperone.

We do not need to know everyone in the group, but when it comes down to a one-on-one situation, we like to meet the boy and his parents if possible, just to be sure we all are on the same page. We did not do this with J-Void because....well, they both were only fourteen at the time. From our point of view, they were too young for courtship.

Now that the Princess is sixteen (and still too young, but it is not unexpected at this age), should a boy profess his interest in her as anything more than a friend and she feel the same, we will treat it as a courting situation. We are not there yet, although we have had some boys expressing their feelings for her, she has been more careful to reciprocate since J-Void. When we think it is a mutual attraction, then we will handle it as a courtship, in that we be more involved with their time together and work on getting to know the parents also.

Although the Princess has been made aware of these rules most of her life, I think it is still difficult for her to see the pictures of the girls from her youth group in their formal dresses with their dates for homecomings and proms. One girl in particular has had the same boyfriend for over a year, yet her mother has said that she is immature for her age to me several times, so I am still wondering why she allows her to date...? Anyway, a few times the Princess has asked why she does not feel anything towards any boy other than friendship, as if she thinks she has something wrong with her. It breaks my heart that she thinks that about herself, but I just tell her it is because she has not yet met the one God has chosen for her.

I know that this may be hoping for too much, but I am still hoping that God's chosen mate for my daughter will be a man who recognizes that our strict rules are not against him but for him and that appreciates that we all worked to guard her virtue and her heart for him. That would be ideal, but I will try not to have that expectation. Still, I have heard God tell me that He has selected her husband, the one we have been praying about for all these years, and that we are going to love him. In someways I cannot wait to meet him and in others...well, that it changes so much that I am also not in a hurry to see change. I will trust God's timing.

My Lord, I look forward to my daughter coming into adulthood, but it is a bittersweet feeling. Please give us all patience and help us to really hear You as we all grow through this process.

In the Whirlwind

Build me straight. O worthy Master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This week was kind of the concentrated epitome of the last few months of life as it had been going here, but it always requires some background to explain it fully.

Last Weekend

We all have been feeling more ill these past few weeks than we usually do, especially my husband, who never gets sick unless he is under stress and there is a lot of stress between his work and his mother. He has been to Florida three times in the last two months to sort out protecting her estate and get her on Medicaid for long term care in a nursing home.

The fact that his boss was fired just the week before and the man, who had seem to be threatened by my husband and kind of made it difficult for him since he started there has been promoted to manager over my husband and all the other field service engineers, who are not happy about it. So, after getting over a cold that had him down for most of two weeks previously, my husband began to come down with another.

He asked what we needed to do during the weekend as is his custom and I demanded that everyone just rest...and he really did. He slept the better part of both days and we ended up missing church again. I think we have been to Sunday morning services only once since the New Year. 

Monday
This was the day I started to have a headache, which obviously suggests that it was the first day of many. Trying to maintain some sense of normalcy, my daughter and I have devotions in the morning as often as we can, but we rarely miss Monday mornings because we flow from devotions with Hearing God Through the Year: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone by Dallas Willard into assessing our homeschool of what was done and left undone from the week before and all our plans for the week. All this usually takes half the morning because devotions can also spur conversations, the kind of mother and daughter conversations that I love and feel is beneficial for both of us.

When I look back to compare my daughter a year ago to now, I thank God and I am overwhelmed with pride. She is a normal teenage girl with mood swings, some quite wide, but she no longer sees us, her parents, as the enemy. We are close. She is generally happier than she likes to admit. She has friends, mostly guys. She loves playing the piano again, although she again will not admit it, but now at least she has friends into music, especially one boy, Guitar Guy, who is phenomenal with guitar and his ear training, and he is planning for that to be his career. The Princess has been learning to play my 12-string of late.


Tuesday
Our errand day is always a day of much to do and I did not feel like doing any of it, but this one was more because I have been a board member at the co-op health food store for the last year and the meeting which is usually held on the second Tuesday of the month was moved to this one as last week it would have fallen on Valentine's Day. So after all the errands are done, instead of heading home before traffic, my headache and I had to go back to the grocery store that I shopped at earlier with all the food in my cooler for a meeting that begins at 4:00 and lasts until it is over, which varies wildly from just 30 minutes to around 2+ hours. This one was was one of the long ones.

Traffic in and out of the Atlanta area is fickled. My husband would tell me that if he left the house an hour later to get to a customer site that is about two hours away during the morning rush, he would get there at the same time and without the aggravation. It is like that in the evening too. So, the only real benefit of the meeting being longer, because nothing was resolved, was that it was a breeze to get home. I took sips of my pink lemonade 5-hour energy drink, which is the only thing I have found to ease my headaches with its caffeine and B vitamins, to get through the day.


Wednesday
My husband was working locally on Monday and Tuesday, but he had to leave in the morning for North Carolina, which meant that I and my headache, my new come-and-go-but-never-really-gone-gone headache, would have to take my daughter and her piano to church for the youth band practice. Digital pianos are bulky and heavy, but the new case with wheels we gave the Princess for Christmas is helpful. And the youth pastor had called a meeting with the parents and youth after the Wednesday night service. So after the drop off, I went home, fed all the furry ones, rested for about an hour, and then went back for the meeting, which I thought was about the youth pastor's recent engagement, but...well, leave it to Busy Bee, my name for her here, to surprise us all.

Busy Bee had met a brand spanking new Christian on the first week of December—yes, just weeks ago really—and saw him baptized. They started "officially dating" by mid December. At the end of January she was wearing a ring, but had not made an announcement of the engagement until about two weeks ago. I thought that was what the meeting was going to be about, as she told me that several parents had expressed their concerns over the speed of the relationship.

This meeting was in three parts, but they did not tell us that there was a third part until we had got through the first two:

Part 1 was only the parents with Busy Bee and the pastor up in front and Busy Bee's intended on the side. The announcement was not about the engagement but her wedding date: next week on Friday. I think it delighted her to see the reaction on everyone's face. It would be a private service with just their families and the church would hold a reception for them later on.

Woosh! My headache is now adding its two cents to the conversation to which I am trying to listen. Of course it had to be that way! Busy Bee is a both feet in first kind of person, who believes she can make it work more matter how difficult that may seem to everyone else and most of the time she is right.

We were encouraged to discuss our concerns openly. Of course, everyone was concerned about the timing and with her being a role model for our children. However, the one thing that everyone wanted to say was not being said, probably because it was impolite with Busy Bee's intended right there, so I asked him why so fast especially being that he is a new Christian not having much time to mature in that new spiritually. He became defensive and said that I could not make that judgement because I did not know him...and there is was! He had said it himself and now it could be discussed. None of us, not even the pastor, had been given the chance or time to know him, and yet he was going to be the youth pastor's husband and around our kids because of it.

A marriage can have a rough start and work out well, but right after we found out about the engagement, I talked to her as I have my own daughter, that marriage is not a marriage of two people but two families and it is much better if the two families are invested in the marriage, if that is possible. She had told me that he asked if she had any family and she replied that she had 28 kids. So, she is marrying him to a large church family and we all need time to get to know him so that we are invested. I have been in a marriage where the family was invested in their son's happiness but not the marriage, so when he stepped out of the marriage, they did not help to support keeping it together. I was not family to them. In my family, once you marry into the family, you are family and we all work to help keep the marriage together.

Part 2 was to bring in the youth and go through this process all over again. The kids were all over the map in their responses. One girl just thought it was great. One boy, the son of the associate pastor came up to sit with Busy Bee and her intended to talk with them in a more personal way, so much like his father. My daughter was not enthusiastic and had concerns but did not discuss them because she had talked to Busy Bee about the engagement on last Thursday afternoon and she really had nothing else to say.

Everyone seemed ready to go and then....

Part 3 was completely unexpected. It was to discuss if Busy Bee would continue to be the youth pastor. Whoa! She was willing to quit if her marriage was going to be a problem. It was suggested that while she is not going on a honeymoon, that she still take at least a month off from her duties at the church.

Now I love Busy Bee. She is also our housesitter and we were counting on that as we have to go to back to Florida quite a few times to get things done there. So, at that point I am beginning to realize that she is just not going to be able to do all the things she has been doing including being involved other ministries in the area with youth. Also, knowing how she likes to jump in with her being 26 years old and him being 32, I would be surprised if they wait very long before starting their family.

So, after all that my head pounded and I could not sleep well.


Thursday
The last time I woke up from the small bits of sleeping I did have to feeling weepy, head pain, sensitive to light, generally sick to my stomach, and food tasted awful! All of which came and went in crashing waves all the day. I just could not function.

My daughter was invited by Guitar Guy (he likes being called that) to an annual conference event for teens through his church denomination, but we were short on facts and being that I was barely functional, my husband took point and got everything arranged last minute with the youth pastor. The Princess would be leaving Friday evening and return Saturday night.

She made an extra effort all week to get her lessons completed just so she could go and now that her father had worked it out, she is very, very, VERY happy. I am, at that point, still not fully functional and looking forward to going to bed early, but....

Leave it to a teenager to add a crisis!

In the evening, my daughter comes in completely unglued screaming through tears that her friend is committing suicide RIGHT NOW. I take that very seriously, but I stay calm and try to get information from my hysterical child so that I can try to get a hold of the boy's parents. After asking another mother whose son goes to the same school to give me the contact information for his parents, I made calls that were not answered and while waiting I began reading through the thread of their Instagram conversation and realize that my daughter was misunderstanding. Actually, my daughter had led the poor boy into this, creating the crisis that was not really a crisis.

So, when I tried to explain to the Princess that she created the belief that he was suicidal and that I was not pleased with the language she used in conversation even though it was obvious that she was very upset and frightened for him, she ran out the front door into the night...and all my pride in her that I wrote about on under Monday went with her!!!

I did say my head was really pounding that day, right? Well, now I am too ill to even try to be upset. I call my husband, who is helpless to help, to tell him of the events of the last 20-30 minutes while I go out in the van looking for my daughter who is in dark clothes and barefooted. Oh, and we have new headlights ordered for the van because they are rather weak and it is hard to see at night. You got to love it when the perfect storm comes together!

I did not find her but she came home as I gave up and was pulling into the driveway. She talked to her father, then I talked to her for a few minutes but I could not focus, and then her father took over again on speaker while I lied on her bed....moaning as quietly as I could wishing I could just go to sleep.

I rarely drink anything with alcohol and hardly ever when my husband is away, but I found a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade left over from a case we bought a year ago. And just when I was about three swallows into it, the boy's mother called.

I have to go into my closet to talk so that my daughter will not hear the conversation. Apparently, she and her husband were having a date night out seeing a play and they left during intermission to get home to be sure all was okay with their son. The only message I left them was that I wanted them to call me back...not the message my daughter would have left them obviously.

We talked for about an hour about it and she was very nice and gracious as I was apologizing over and over for my dramatic daughter and ruining their night out. I explained that the Princess seems to attract and be attracted to a number of more troubled and depressed friends, which is true, so in the back of her mind everyone is on the brink of harming themselves. When I took the time to read the conversation I realized that she was the one who brought that up in the conversation, that she was worried about her son doing something like that. When he did not respond as she thought he should if everything was okay, she went ballistic.

Nice woman but still not the best way to meet a parent....and when the conversation ended it was quite late and the drink I had been sipping on did not really help make me sleepy, so I was awake until 1:30 a.m.


Friday
I wake up early, but even with little sleep feel far better than the night before. The headache was...well, you know when it is not really hurting, but it also feels like it is not really gone either? That was where I was, but throughout the day it would come and go in waves again.

My daughter and I have devotions in the morning and I talk about her triggers. One is that the boy—hmm, let me call him Templar as it goes with his real name in a way—mentioned that he has had a crush on the Princess for probably two years and he finds her "distracting good looking." (I so love that term as it makes her blush so lovely.) He went to the Home Learning Center when she did but he is a grade lower than the Princess. He explained to her that one day when he was supposed to be taking a test, he did not finish it because she was playing with some other kids outside on the basketball court and he just could not stop watching her.

First trigger: Two years with an unspoken crush is very close to things J-Void, the Stalker, used to tell her, so it makes her uncomfortable and she tries to tell Templar that there are other girls who will like him.

Second trigger: He says he will die when he cannot talk to her while she is away, meaning it as a flirty, joking thing, but the Princess sees the word "die" and her being responsible for his happiness, which feeds the first trigger.

So I was not too surprised as I read a few more back and forth's that she had turned the conversation to him being suicidal, which he assured her he was not. He just did not know how it got to that or how to handle it once she went hysterical and he had to go put his brother to bed. Poor kid.

I assured her that how Templar is expressing himself about his attraction for her is completely normal, balanced, and expected, which surprised her. I think she thought we were against all boys with a crush on her, which is not the case. We probably are aware of far more boys who have crushes on her than she is.

So, although she is grounded from social media conversations for a week, we decided to allow her to still go to the youth conference, which is where she is presently.

My husband planned for us to eat at a new upscale fish restaurant called Bonefish and have a relaxing evening together. Of course, my headache was still coming and going, but the meal was delicious and spending time with my husband was wonderful. As we walked out, my head was really pounding again and I was just a tad unsteady so I grabbed him and to people waiting outside he remarked that I had too much to drink—we both only had sweet iced tea!

And so, here it is the weekend again and my headache is still with me. Oh, and the refrigerator won its war, we are ordering a new one today. More no more defrosting it every two weeks.

My Lord, keep me strong as these storms keep coming at us because we see them on the horizon.

The Things in Change

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. ~Bertold Brecht

This is a bit different for me. I am just going briefly write on some things that have changed recently and could change soon. I usually do not like to write about things before they have happened because sometimes they just do not happen and yet because I wrote them, it feels like they should've-could've-would've.

Instagram
I originally opened an Instagram account to help bring encouragement to the Princess, who has a propensity for looking on the dark side of just about everything. I already had access to her account, but there were a few times I just wanted to nudge the conversation to be more uplifting. However, I found that I really like Instagram. I have never really been a fan of social media in general and seriously dislike Facebook because it requires real names, but Instagram allows usernames.

180° Teenager

Every day is different with a teenager, but since the incident with J-Void on the Instagram Direct Message, I now hear and read my daughter advising her friends to talk to their parents and do not hide things from them or go behind their backs. She is saying the things we have told her for all her life, but she mostly rejected since she hit the tweens. That is when we parents somehow transformed into her enemy and she knew so much more than we did...until the J-Void incident when she realized she had not seen that one coming and began to appreciate a little why we read all her conversations. The Princess has begun to stop seeing us as the enemy and trusting us again, although she still mostly knows more than we do.

Also, the Princess she is beginning to love to play the piano again. In part, that is because of the youth praise band that has been gotten off to a rocky start during the summer with vacations, but is now picking up steam. Another part was I heard her playing something on the digital piano without her earphones when she thought I could not hear from just outside on the porch. I suggested she play it for the Coffee Shop Recital this fall and she said she would not be allowed to do that. It took both her piano teacher and me to convince her that it is a casual recital so she has a far greater variety of choices, not just classical music, and that we all would love it. So, she is doing this very pretty piece that is played much faster originally, but sounds so lovely slowed down with dynamics.

Child Sponsorship

We have been sponsoring Judite Joao for the last three years with only three letters and two pictures from her, although we sent more. She should be about 14 years old at this time. A few weeks ago, we received a letter from a 7-year-old girl written to the Princess, who is the named sponsor. There was no notice, no explanation, and no choice of this change. All I could think was how awful it is to have a child write to someone, who she thinks is going to sponsor her, when that has not even been decided. I mean, we do not even know what country the child is in...! I called the agency and was told this was an interim sponsorship because Judite did not "qualify for the program"—whatever that means, because I was not told—so we are just suddenly cut off from her completely. I like sponsoring a child, but we do not like the way this particular agency goes about it, so we terminated our participation through them.

On the Horizon

My husband is being highly recommended for a opening with another company this month by a man helping to find his replacement so he can relocate. This man used to work under my husband in another company and thinks highly of him. This change would be highly welcomed if the pay offered is worth it. The stress from his current job has been difficult for him and he still has not been promoted after being promised for five years?

Braces Soon

Once we know if my husband is going to be switching jobs this month or not, the Princess is going to have braces. Our present dental insurance does help pay for them, but if we have to switch insurance companies, then we would have to think about our options. We were told she would be in them for about 2 to 2½ years. I found an orthodontist that I just love, who is board certified (meaning lots of extra hours of peer review), but he is on the higher end of pricing. There are cheaper places, but I do not like their impersonal clinic atmospheres and question how thorough their orthodontists would be.

Will Change

My husband and I named a cousin and his wife as the Princess' god parents when she was a baby. Since that time, some things have changed within their home and with their health, so we decided to consider a family we trust in the area. Actually, one of the Princess' best friends. Hopefully, it will never be necessary, but since neither one of us has family and the Princess has lived in this area all her life, we thought this would be a better choice for her should it be necessary.

My Lord, help us to only change in the direction You wish for us. Guide us to be where You wish us to be.

Deception and Distrust

When one side benefits more than the other, that's a win-lose situation. To the winner it might look like success for a while, but in the long run, it breeds resentment and distrust. -Stephen Covey

On the day my daughter finished her standardized test and I was feeling rather elated, I found out something that she had been hiding from us...and my emotions went to a very different direction. This all happened on August 17th and it is the reason I have not been blogging.

Just a week or so before, I discovered that the Princess had opened an Instagram account about two months prior without our permission. I looked it over, what I could see on my computer, and there was nothing going on with her and her contacts that my husband and I would oppose. So, even though we expressed our disappointment with her breaking our rule about not opening any accounts without asking us first and then not telling us about for two months, we decided that we would allow it on two conditions.

The first was simple: change her user name. She had used her real name and I will not even use my real name online, which is one of the many reasons I will not do Facebook. She has been warned about this many times and it was a simple fix.

The second one...well, that takes some explanation. There was a boy at the Learning Center that had a crush on the Princess from the beginning of the school year last year when they were both 14 years old. Having full access to all my daughter's accounts, I was reading all their Google Hangout conversations. Things went from casual teen talk to professions of his love within two weeks and I noticed that he seemed too possessive. Our daughter had been having anxiety and sleeping issues and she became a bit too dependent on this boy at the same time. It just seemed to be an unbalanced and unhealthy start for just a first crush. We had to restrict her tech and start placing extra rules on her about how often and when they could talk. That is when we began to really see obsessive behaviors from him.

After the high school retreat in the first week of November my husband and I decided to pull the Princess out of the school mostly to get her away from contact with this boy and his mother. I am not going to go through all that transpired between that time and this latest incident as I have already bogged about in November and December last year (2015), but I just want to say that could easily see where this would go if the boy was not supervised and with what happened at the retreat, we also felt that his mother was not someone we could trust either.

So, the boy, now 15 years old (and just a year away from having car), was also on Instagram because he and the Princess understandably share some of the same friends. Seeing this, the second condition was that the Princess kept everything between them public and would not allow any private contact. We were hoping that this way they both would keep things on a friendship level. She agreed. I even asked her if she had contacted him privately and she said no, but there was just something....

My husband suspected she was in contact with the boy two months before and she again was not sleeping at night, dragging in the mornings. Seeing the Instagram we thought, we hoped, it may be just that, although I do not think either of us really believed it. I wondered if there was more I could see if I had direct access to her account. Apparently, Instagram only shows the public stuff and the general account settings on a computer, but when I downloaded the app to my cell phone with account access...well, let me just say that I was not happy to see that she had been talking to the boy privately even after she said she had not been. Teenagers!

But what really upset me is what I read.

Now, I just have to say that my daughter is naive in a good Christian way—was naive, actually, because we had to explain to her just what the boy was referring to during some of their conversations. Once she fully understood, she began seeing the boy in a different tint than the rose-colored glasses she had been wearing. He had dishonored God and her. She is hurt, confused, and quite angry. My Princess has a tendency to try to shut off her emotions, hold them down, and not be angry at anyone, but there are times one has to allow herself to be angry at the person who hurt her to overcome it and truly forgive, otherwise the unresolved anger will sour many other relationships. Trying to let it out has been a trial for her as she is sorting out her emotions.

However, I believe she finally understands that her father and I set rules about all conversations on the Internet to protect her from whomever she is talking as well as protect both of them from themselves. Chaperoning all her contacts online and in person is the only way to insure that such contact is kept honorable.

I had planned to start homeschooling the Thursday after the standardized test, but instead my husband had read the conversation Wednesday night and decided to take off for that day for a family emergency and... then actually ended up getting sick from the stress it caused him. Even though the mother had known about the private conversation three weeks before us—we knew that because she posted a message to our daughter through her son's account—she did not tell us anything about it. After my husband contacted the mother by text about the conversation, she still tried to get us to think about allowing our daughter to meet with her son...supervised, of course. My husband advised her to get some expert help.

Details will not be discussed here, but...yeah, it is that bad!  Next step if the mother or her son contact the Princess ever again is to get a restraining order and they have been warned. Even our daughter wants no contact at all from the boy now.

It will take some time for the Princess to recover from this one. Right now we have to focus on the emotional well-being of our daughter so that she herself can recognize the difference between a healthy, honorable relationship and an unhealthy, dishonoring one. Almost an entire year has been spent on this, but at least this time, this very last time, the boy did exactly what my husband and I knew he would when given the opportunity and our daughter could see it for herself.

Still makes me very sad for both of them.

My Lord, the world is so different than when I was fifteen. We did not have the Internet to provide 24/7 access to any of our friends. It has its good points but also it has its bad side, especially for teenagers who lack maturity. Too much access to too many things that teens should not have access to. I pray the boy receives the help he really needs and that this situation will not escalate. Please help my daughter to deal with her feelings of betrayal.

Telling a Secret, Breaking a Promise, and Just Trusting God's Timing

Better break your word than do worse in keeping it. ~Thomas Fuller

The Princess is much like I am but more so like I was when I was her age. Her father refers to her as seeing things in "black and white," and I so get that. It makes sense. Either something is in God's favor or it is not. However, the world has many shades of grey and there are times when a gray does not seem to fit into the black or white category. She also has this gift with people, she draws them in and draws things out from them that they would never tell anyone. I remember sitting and talking with the loneliest looking kids in high school, basically segregating myself permanently from the popular teens, who looked down on me. So, I get this with my own child.

This past week, I broke a promise I made to the Princess. From her point of view, it was a promise that was to be for-e-ver. From my point of view, it was a promise that was meant only for a time. It is a sensitive issue that centers around one of her friends and it also, it is an issue that I felt that should be known by the parents of the child eventually.

I love having information at my finger tips and being able to stay in touch with friends far away, but the Internet has its bad side and teens being teens will be drawn into it and pass along this darkside knowledge and practices. Plus, there seems to be no subject that is taboo in this day and age. Having been youth group leaders for some years, some years ago before home computers became a necessity of life, I have to say that we had our share of troubles that go with the territory, but the territory of teens has changed so much that there are a number of things we never even heard of until the past decade. Even then, my husband and I had to walk a fine line between keeping the trust of our teens and keeping the trust of the parents and the church. Sometimes teens tell a youth group leader things that their parents really need to know.

The Princess had been asking me for advice on a matter about an anonymous friend and I so appreciated her trust in me in comparison to where our relationship was last year with her keeping secrets about herself. The more she talked about the problem, little things slipped that helped me to identify the person. Still, I kept this secret for a couple of months until my Lord placed it heavily on my mind every day to inform the child's parents.

Now there were many factors to consider, like how the child's parents would take the news being a big one. However, the biggest factor for me was how my daughter would take me telling them. You see, after all that happened last year, I have been working and praying to have a good relationship with her again. We have bumps, but I knew this one she might consider unforgivable.

I felt like Abraham taking his son to be sacrificed. We were in this good place (so I thought but that will be another post) and here God is now asking me to do something that may sacrifice that relationship with my daughter. I did not want to do it and wrestled with it for a couple of weeks. Finally, I just had to trust my Lord. Trust His timing. Trust Him with my daughter. Trust Him to help this friend and the family.

The mother took it well, although I am sure she was concerned. She thanked me. She is thankfully one of those mothers who would rather know, as I am. This is why my husband and I were in disbelief last year when found out things that other adults in charge of my daughter knew but had not informed us. Forgiveness and restoring trust was high on our agenda for the much of the past year.

So the friend told my daughter that I had told the parents. My daughter was livid. She felt that she was handling the situation herself well because she had been encouraging her friend to talk with the parents, even suggested that the friend could have her there for support. While I appreciated her willingness to help her friend, I also had God tugging me to do it differently. I was hoping that the parents would not say anything that would make it come back to my daughter being the leak, but she told the friend herself.

They are still friends. I hear that the friend is really angry with me, which is understandable, as well as worried that I will not allow them to talk in the future, which is not the case. And, I am again trying work on that trust issue that came up between my daughter and me. I know it was the right thing to do, because I am certain it was God's will. I am hoping my daughter sees that God's will is the best way to go, even when we have made other plans we think are good ones. As for the friend, I think he has great parents who love him and have a very strong desire to help him find the path God has for him. His mother told me about a week or so later that they found a Christian counselor whom her son loves and he is willing to talk. Seeing that it was working out well, made it easier for her to forgive me.

I have been trying to teach the Princess—or more likely it is God—to trust God and His timing, to trust me, and learn discernment. She has many gifts but lacks good discernment.

My Lord, this was very hard for me but I thank You, praise You, that it proved You were guiding us all. Help the boy with his challenges and my daughter learn discernment.

The Purple Cockroach Story

Violet will be a good color for hair at just about the same time that brunette becomes a good color for flowers. ~Fran Lebowitz

Somewhere hiding around my house is a purple cockroach.

You think I am kidding, don't you? I so wish I was.

This is one of those stories that I was told, by the perpetrator, would be funny ten years from now, but there was some question earlier that she would live long enough to see that day.  

Yes, the perpetrator was my very own Princess.

My story begins with me preparing for bedtime in my bathroom and hearing a scrubbing noise on the wall adjacent to my daughter's bathroom. I walked around to knock on her bathroom door to ask what she was doing: "Cleaning."

Now I knew something was up because I have to go from reminding to begging to threatening her liberty for 20 years before she will clean her bathroom, and it is never done at night. However, I was having some back pain, so not too in the mood to investigate, and I remembered that she had not done it on Saturday as she is supposed to do.

Yeah, I tend to be hopelessly idealistic at times, especially when I am not up to dealing with reality.

Back in my bathroom resuming the nightly routine, I again hear the scrubbing, only worse. I walk back around and again knock.

"What are you doing? It sounds like you are trying to scratch through the wall?"

"I'm not." (I did notice the lack of volunteering more information.)

"Uh-huh. Open the door now!"

On the wall behind the door is a purple spot about two inches in diameter. I am immediately upset.

Now, to understand what is going on in my mind, you have to remember that because we had the windows replaced last summer that every single room in my house with an exterior wall needed to be touched up at the very least to the entire room painted and I have only one room done and another partially done, because life threw us some curves so progress has been slow. Besides the hallway, my daughter's bathroom—the guest bathroom, actually—is the only room (quite literally, the ONLY room) in my house that does not have a window (other than one of the basement rooms, which has the wallpaper peeling off and needs painted as well).

Also, there is a sentimental value to my guest bathroom. Before the Princess was born, my mother came for a visit and this was the room I finished especially for that occasion with a hand stenciled border of magnolias that I liked but also knew that my mother would like. Although my mother acted like it was nothing to her when she saw it (and that was typical of our relationship), I still remember the efforts I made fondly.

All this went through my mind in just a quick moment.... Then came the next moment.

Why was there a purple spot on the wall?
 
I turned to look around and found all the cans of colored hair spray we gave our daughter for Christmas. My daughter quickly explained that she was going to tell me once she cleaned it up.

Okay, but.... Why was there a purple spot on the wall?

Apparently, she saw a cockroach too high for her to kill herself, so instead of calling her father, who was actually home that night, or me, she decided to kill it with hairspray—colored hair spray. She said it was kind of a joke and that hair spray would come off with water...but then it did not.

I just looked at her thinking how, in just a little more than a month, this girl will be fifteen years old...not under ten, when I would have expected this kind of naivety, but fifteen? Of course, I am beyond talking to her at this stage, because I am livid; I am yelling at her that the color of the hair spray is made to wash out when it is on hair as it is meant to be used and about how it must have escaped her when she took science classes that putting one chemical formula onto another can have unexpected results like adhesion or bleed through as dyes can do, all while grabbing cleaning supplies hoping that I will find something that will not damage the paint, yet remove the purple spot.

Yes, I did say all that in just one breath...and more too!

My husband had come up from his desk in the basement to see what I was raging about and used the calm approach to talk to the perpetrator while I finally made some progress with the purple spot. She came to apologize, a genuine apology. I looked at her sweet face with her heartbreaking, pleading eyes and said that I was very appreciative that she want to do the right thing, but I was far too angry to receive it at the moment. That is when my husband tried that same calm and gentle approach on me...and you would think the man should know better after the first two decades that we have been married.

"Have you never done something that you tried to hide and fix it before your parents found out?"

I honestly was too angry to think of anything right then because I was not living with my parents most of my teenage years, but I do know this one thing: I never graffitied walls!

Later, after the purple spot was eliminated and the paint on the wall did not seemed to be damaged by the third chemical formula I had to use to remove it, I accepted the Princess' apology...and I allowed her to retrieve all cans of the colored hair spray that I had thrown into the trash as I complained loudly to my husband that she never allows me to use them in her hair after begging for them, yet she will use them on things she should not, like to graffiti a wall!

The perpetrator has been pardoned and I am laughing about this now nine years, eleven months, and thirty days earlier than predicted. 

In a much calmer state, I began to think over the scene. The Princess did not just grab the first color but specifically looked for the purple one. A day or two before she wanted me to give her an idea or even just a word to challenge her in starting a new fictional story and I came up with something I thought would be fun and challenging off the top of my head: purple kitty.

I really have to be more careful of my suggestions with a child having such a creative mind, but who would have ever thought...well, other than her, that is?

After all was said and done, my Princess was giving me my goodnight kiss and it was then that it hit me....

Where was the purple cockroach?

She said it escaped down the vent.

My Lord, may the purple cockroach rest in peace...if not yet, then very soon.

Some Expectations are Necessary

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises. ~William Shakespeare (All's Well That Ends Well)

Friends who know me well, know that I have a philosophy that expectations are what allow us to be hurt by other people so I usually have no or, at least, very low expectations of other people. That being said, before I had devised the new homeschool plan described in my last post, my daughter and I were still hashing it out over trying to fit into the old one. At one point, she screamed that my expectations of her were too high. It was during this time that I was beginning to accept what we had been doing was not working well for either of us. Her perception was not entirely accurate, but it also had some truth.

We sat down and talked about those expectations during one of our morning devotions, because the reality was that she was not meeting mine, but she also was mistaken in what my expectations were. She also knows my philosophy, so this was her teenage gotcha-now way of finding fault in practicing my own ideology on expectations, spurring our discussion about reasonable vs. unreasonable expectations.

People we trust the most are the ones on which we have the most expectations and most are reasonable. This is practically inescapable in human nature. As parents, we expect our children to obey us. When children disobey, there is a consequence, a punishment, to remind them and help train them to comply with the rules that are set for their protection and to train them to behave. You cannot explain to a toddler why he should not run out into the street, because he will not fully understand that he will be in harm's way, that he could be injured or killed by a car, but he will remember the spanking of a repeat offense. (For those against spanking, I feel it is better than letting them learn this one by experience.)

Unreasonable expectations are the ones that we have not communicated to the other person, like I might expect my husband to call me if he is going to be home late, but his idea of late maybe 9:00 pm and mine might be 6:30 pm. It is unreasonable to think he just knows what I have in mind without talking with him and coming to an agreement on the time.

Another unreasonable expectation is to want someone to be different than they are. This is something that cannot be agreed upon and cannot be changed by the person who has the expectation. Imposing an expectation, even one that you have communicated to the other person, is not going to change him and is only going to hurt you because it is continually unmet. I had such a relationship with my mother; she just never was and never was going to be the mother I needed her to be, but once I identified that expectation and let go of it, I was finally free to love and enjoy her for the person she was. We were never close, but I was no longer hurt by her casual remarks; in fact, I often laughed about the things she said that used to feel like stabbing into old wounds and upset me for days afterwards.

I explain to my daughter that with education, there will always be some expectations, that is why there are test scores. Her father must at least meet most of the expectations of his employer to keep his job and exceed them to be considered for promotion. This is just how the world works. Likewise, I, as both her mother and her teacher, have some expectations of her when it comes to homeschooling. I cannot hug her and and comfort her because she felt the teacher was mean to her at school as her mother, because I am also the teacher. I cannot be detached about the quality of the work she hands in and I grade as her teacher, because I am also her mother, who can be disappointed.

So, I am not lowering the bar on my expectations of my daughter because I do believe I should have some, but not unreasonable ones. I do not see her as an "A" student in math, but I still want her to strive to do her best and she has earned some A's. I do see her as an off-the-charts student in Language Arts because she is and I do expect very few grades lower than A's there. Mostly, I expect her to learn, really learn, the material she is assigned. I also expect her to be a teenager, who one minute wants her independence and the next the security of her parents. Now that we have a chart and daily communication about assignments so that there are no unspoken expectations, things are much better...and probably as good as they can be between a teen and a homeschooling mama. 

My Lord, help my daughter to understand that expectations are a part of life, but how she deals with them is very important. Let her not be crushed by the weight of expectations place on her by others, let her set her own reasonable expectations on herself, keeping ones on others very low.

Our New Homeschool Plan

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
~Corrie Ten Boom

I have not been writing on my blog for a number of reasons, most are excuses, but a few are quite valid. One is that I needed to focus on getting our homeschool structured. I wrote about this in Homeschooling Mama Still Learning the Hard Way nearly two months ago. After much seeking my Lord on the issue, I began to give in on my ideas of working towards the perfect college-prep transcript and come back to the things I loved about homeschooling; teaching to the child and encouraging her gifts and talents.

I think that going to the Home Learning Center encouraged a sense of conforming to the conventional academic expectations and with this being my daughter's first high school year...well, we both got caught up in everything counting with far more importance than the previous years. For instance, when the Princess began taking a science class it was to supplement our homeschool, although it was quite demanding. The next year she took the full STEM program, which it seem to take the position of priority in our homeschool. Knowing that this year everything would go on transcripts for colleges to look over, we both put far much importance on that.

I had to come back to placing my trust about our homeschool to my Lord... completely.

My daughter is a writer and an artist. She tries to sneak in writing one of her fictional stories whenever I am not watching over her and she knows how access her stories with every technical device with Wi-Fi access because she saves them online in Google Docs. We have some new rules about her tech now. She cannot have any tech in her room at night, because she will write when she should be sleeping and she was also having issues with her sleeping patterns that have been corrected for the most part after working on this for a few months. We believed that her abnormal sleeping patterns were contributing to her anxiety and depression, and she is doing far better now. We allowed her to have an extra 30 minutes for her bedtime curfew, but she has to be off all screens an hour before. Now she falls asleep more easily and stays asleep through the night most nights. She also cannot have any tech in her room until all her assignments are completed or I have given her permission for an assignment she wants to do in her room or listen to music. Permission depends on attitude, what she plans to do with the tech to help her with an assignment, and how responsible she has been at getting her assignments done.

My daughter takes a clipboard, pencil, and paper with her everywhere when we go out so she can draw whenever she can. She is also great with anything to do with dramas and, even though right now it is not something she loves, she is a pianist. We are in the perfect church for her. The people heading up the dramas actually teach acting. More recently couple of the youth have decided to start their own praise and worship band asking her to be on the keyboard and I am again seeing her spend extra time on the piano playing things for her own enjoyment once in a while.

This is what I felt led to do with her home education:

In the morning, we begin with devotions. We were skipping them when she got up late, which was more often than not. (I know, I know, and it was meant to be the most important thing of the day, but unfortunately, we made the schedule a higher priority.) To emphasize its importance and give the Spirit time needed to speak to us, we just do not have a schedule about how long to take with devotions. Sometimes they are quite long, because we still have some challenges to work out.

After devotions, we talk about the assignments for the day. On Monday, we look over scheduled appointments and such to plan the entire week assignments. I made a check-off chart so that we both could see everything that she is expected to do. Last week we went to the science museum for the Lunch & Learn on Rocket Science, so I had to cross off a few assignments for the week. Part of her problem was she could not see what I expected from her each day, each week. I remember she used to say that the more work she did the more I would give her, while I was thinking that she was under achieving what I wanted from her most of the time and I was trying not to overwhelm her with giving it to her all at once. We are communicating better now.

My chart has two columns, the first is the daily assignments and the second is the assignments that need to be done during the week at any time she wants, with the only condition that I have to check each assignment done before she starts the second one in the same subject. We also continue to have talks about time management and that she might have to rethink her expectation that no matter what she did or did not get done, she feels she should not work on any assignments after 4:00 pm. The first week we started this was rough, partially because she was ill for two days. The second week was a bit better. The third week, I was seeing her take more initiative—I actually found her working on her grammar in the evening after dinner!—but she came down with a cold so it fizzled out understandably.

The daily assignments are mostly morning ones, but we are flexible so if I have something I must do in the morning, we can flip them to the afternoon. All this is discussed after devotions each day, so we both have a clear understanding of the expectations of each other for the day.

Daily Assignments

The first assignment is piano practice for at least 45 minutes, which is usually always the first thing done.

Algebra is timed to one hour a day and the Princess also has to sit at the dining room table to do it, so that I am right there to help her should she need it. This is because she gets distracted when doing math. I cannot tell you how many times she was doing math in her bedroom that took hours because she actually was writing a story.

Latin or Greek may be before or after math, but we both take together because I am learning it also. Ideally, we should do two lessons of each one during the 4-day week. (We have only four days because Wednesday is our errand day.)

Vocabulary, based on Vocabulary from Classical Roots, is also mostly done at the dining room table because I have most of her studies on Quizlet, so she needs tech to do it. However, for each lesson, I require a writing test: I give the word and she must use it in a sentence that is graded on spelling, use, and identifying the root from Latin or Greek, which is indicated by underlining. She can earn extra points with five more words from the challenge words and variations lists. This overlaps Greek and Latin as well.

Weekly Assignments

Grammar is two assignments per week. When we finish with Analytical Grammar with all the parsing, sentence diagramming, grammar rules, she will be completely done with Grammar and we will move on to more writing and reading assignments.

Literature is something that got pushed to the wayside for too long now, but we have added it to our weekly assignments.

World History is one assignment per week. These are done in units of my own design. Each unit requires reading at least three chapters from various resources and then journaling at least one paragraph and drawing a picture of her choice associated with the time for each chapter. Her writing is checked before she prints out the paper and draws the pictures. So, this also is also a grammar and writing lesson.

Civics is one assignment per week, which is one chapter of Uncle Sam and You. Although it is intended for middle school students, I think it is more in depth than most get in high school. The tests are a little light, but the chapter review questions are quite good. It reminds me of my tough 8th grade social studies text and teacher, who expected every one of those review questions answered in full sentences.

Science was the one subject I was dreading, mostly because I have not taught it in two years. However, I obviously had my Lord's leading when I bought the Bob Jones Physical Science textbooks she was required to have for the school because I bought the entire set! Teacher's manual, lab manuals, everything! When I finally got the courage to look into the books, I fell in love. Right now the Princess is just doing reviews of the chapters she covered when in the school, because she did not do all the assignments and could not recall many things. She can get most things from the book without me, but we will be looking into doing lab work when we do our weekly plans.

French is still being worked on, but she decided that she likes the Duolingo app on her Kindle better for now and she is supposed to do two 30-minute sessions.


I feel this is how my Lord wishes it to be for now. The Princess is so much happier and far more engaged with both her father and me than she was. She seems willing to take more responsibly in her own education, even though the stories in her head are practically screaming to get typed out. I keep telling my Princess that college may not be where she is to go; she could be a published author making money while most of her peers are sinking into their student loan debt. She rolls her eyes, but then as soon as she can she sneaks away to smile at her computer screen as the words stream out of her.

My Lord, it has been a difficult time for my daughter. I see her gifts, gifts You gave her, but I hear the world and its demands for her education loudly. Quiet the world. I only want to hear you, my Lord, what You want for her. Thank you for guiding us and making things better for us.

Our Kissing Tradition

Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they're already asleep. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

From what I have seen on the Internet, this topic seems to be very controversial but I am going to write about it because I think people make too much of it, especially considering the variety of cultures within all the Western countries.

We have had this tradition, since my daughter began sitting up to eat, that we ask God to bless our food to nourish our bodies and then we all kiss each other...on the lips. It was cute when the Princess was young, but we just never stopped. When we are at a restaurant, we touch our finger to our mouth and then touch our fingers, when it is not convenient to kiss across the table.

Now, this kiss after a prayer was not a tradition in my family, nor my husband's. It is just something we began doing and it stuck. We also kiss on the lips when saying good-bye and good-night.

Sometime after the Princess turned twelve years old, she began to be a bit more self-conscious about our kissing tradition in front of people and where her friends might see, like when I would drop her off at the Home Study Center, so I accommodated with kissing her cheek when she would present it instead, which was off and on.

Now, as to the controversy, I was raised in a home with sexual abuse from which my Lord has healed me. I honestly and with all good intentions look forward to seeing my father in heaven, because I have completely forgiven him and hold absolutely no ill will towards him. I admit that I did not want even the possibility of exposing my daughter to him, because while I had fully forgiven him for what was done to my siblings and me, I also did not trust him with any children. Forgiveness does not equate to trust. Forgiveness is given, trust is earned. All this is to say that I would NEVER put my daughter at risk for her to be abused and since I have had that experience in my life, I know very well what can make a child more vulnerable to such abuse. Hold that thought for a minute.

I remember when I was in middle school, the time when children become so self-conscious, my aunt kissed me on the lips when saying good-bye. At the time, I was still enduring the abuse that she would not know about for a few more years (actually she was the one who figured it out and brought it to an end). She thought nothing of the kiss probably because half of our family is French descent and that is what they all did. I, on the other hand, felt it was the one intimate act that I had kept apart from the abuse. I could not stop anything else, but I made it clear that kissing was off-limits. This simple act that my aunt did out of love and respect and tradition felt foreign, surprising, and perhaps a bit of an invasion in a way to me. I was keenly aware that she was a woman kissing a girl, even though she probably had done it many times when I was younger, but since I only saw her a few times a year at the most, I had probably forgotten.

That one good-bye kiss from my aunt is something she probably does not even remember, but it was burned into my memory. Being that I was of the age of being self-conscious, I realized it was a familiar, casual, and perfectly normal act from her point of view and that is why it bothered me; it was not that for me at that point and I knew that it could have been and probably should have been because all the relations on my mother's side kissed on the lips. Also, it is not something done in just my family, my husband's family also kisses on the lips. Come to think of it, maybe it was also a generational tradition since they are the same age as my aunt and uncle?

I read many books about personalities and teaching approaches particularly in regards to children, but the one book that really stuck out to me was about the love languages. I still have not determined what my daughter's love language is and I think that is because we have kept her bank full in all of them. If she was deficient in the one she needs the most, we would know what that one is. For instance, the child has always loved to give gifts, but is not particularly disappointed when she does not get gifts...maybe she is divergent or factionless in the love languages? Regardless, I did not want her to be needy in the physical touch arena, because I knew that would make her more susceptible to an abuser or a premature physical relationship. I wanted her to know genuine love and respect through appropriate touching so that she would reject anything that was not appropriate.

When she was a baby, we used to give her a massage before bedtime. My husband changed her diapers and bathed her as often as I did. We wanted her to know that she could trust both of us and that is how she grew up. I wanted her to know that a kiss on the lips from a close family member is a show of love: her paternal grandmother did not even have to be encouraged in that! When she was a toddler, the Princess kissed a sick baby on the mouth and got a stomach flu, afterward she stopped kissing other children and today she thinks kissing anyone else but close family as...ewwww!

So, as to why I am writing about this now: The Princess and I went to a science museum to which we have a membership for a Lunch & Learn with a presentation on Issac Newton. Although I was fasting, the Princess grabbed a tuna salad sandwich and a salad from the cafe to eat during the presentation. She prayed, holding my hand which is also our tradition, and then to my surprised she kissed me on the lips. I was not surprised because she rarely does it, because we do this at least twice a day, but because she did it in public without giving it a thought in hesitation.

Immediately, I wondered what the other people there, mostly homeschoolers, would be thinking, but I did not look around because I really do not need their approval or their disapproval. I was just so very pleased that my daughter felt comfortable enough in that setting to do what we normally would do if we were home. There are glimpses of maturity in the child now and then that just leave me in awe.

Now I have a question:
Do you think you would feel odd to kiss Jesus on the lips?

My Lord, thank you for our ability to show affection to each other with all that is good, without fear and distrust. Thank you for breaking the cycle of abuse and victimization in me so that none of it has touched my daughter and influenced her relationships.

Rise Up to Fall Back Down, Down, Down

Chaperons don't enforce morality; they force immorality to be discreet. ~Judith Martin

Remember the abyss I was talking about in my last post? Well, last night the Princess decided it was time to have a talk with both her parents together....

As she spoke, I lost my foothold and fell back down to the place from which I had started.

It is not so much that she was confessing to us that for the last two weeks she had again circumvented our rules, it is not knowing how to proceed. On one hand she came to us before we found out on our own, which would have happened eventually. So, we want her to understand that was the better thing to do (with the best thing being not to have done it at all), but we appreciate her coming to us.

On the other hand, she carried on a secret conversation for two weeks purposely knowing that she was breaking our rule...again! The Internet just provides way too many opportunities to socialize. I have the child completely locked down, but she still has access to her Google account, as do I and I see everything. However, I just did not think to be watching in her Google documents. Apparently, if the document is created to be shared, those who have access can make comments on the document. This worked well when she was collaborating with a science project/report, but...well, kids are resourceful and she was having a conversation that I could not read because they both were deleting them as they went.

Let me put this on hold for a moment and evaluate the other part that is digging into me...and I mean that quite literally because I usually do not get increasingly nagging back pains unless I have a nagging emotional issue. Last night, I think I figured it out.

• The school did not inform us about the Princess not handing in but half her work since school began. 
• At the retreat, no one informed my husband about the Princess going out early in the morning to meet with a boy who had a crush on her.
• The leaders of the play did not inform us about the Princess breaking their rules until the time that they were taking the leading role from her.

In every instance, we were apart from our child and left her in the care of people we thought we could trust and with that was the expectation—a very reasonable expectation!—that they would enforce their own rules and they would inform us, her parents, if the Princess had broken any. With the play, there was at least enforcement, but we now know that she lost her role because it was a repeated offense...and yet we, her parents, were not told about any of them until they called a meeting to remove her.

On one hand, I have a teenager doing things I think is actually pretty typical of teenagers: making poor choices and breaking a few rules, nothing terribly major, but that need to be addressed. On the other hand, I have people left in charge of her for specific and limited events that act with disregard of us as her parents, which does not allow us the opportunity to guide and correct the child's course.

Now, back to that thought: Just as I was beginning to relax and think that everything is stabilizing, I find that my daughter has been sneaking around me, so I am back to feeling I cannot trust her...and this feeling is compounded by the facts that my husband is away more than home AND the people I trusted with my daughter are not informing me of things I should know as her mother.

My husband and I both are just on the edge of not going to any church for awhile and probably the only reason we have stuck with this one was because our neighbors went there and the play. Our neighbors' daughter is still in the play but they left the church and are back in their old one. Everything with the play ends this week and I just am not sure what we will do after that.

My Lord, please show me where to plant my feet, every little step I need to make.

A Tough Read for My Creative-Sensitive Mind

Thoughts are like an open ocean, they can either move you forward within its waves, or sink you under deep into its abyss.
~Anthony Liccione

I started a book called Strong-willed Child or Dreamer? that was given to me by a friend. She is the mother of my daughter's bestest friend that she met last year in her science class. The mother has given this book to many parents because it changed her perspective so much about her own daughter and how she thinks: She knew her child was not strong-willed, she is too selfless of a peacemaker to fit in that category.

After reading just two chapters, I had to step away for a little while for a couple of reasons. One, I am still working through my remaining feelings from all that transpired since the beginning of September. We went from the Princess' deepening funk to finding out she was not turning but half her schoolwork to a boy with a crush on her to the high school retreat to losing the lead role in the play to leaving the school to my husband being away from home for four weeks all with the holidays creeping in. I am thankful that the Princess is now a pretty normal teenager with the up and down moods that go with it, but at least there are the up ones and laughter now. I, on the other hand, have been walking on the edge of the emotional abyss and I slipped down into it a little ways so I am trying to climb out, but also I keep losing footholds and progress is hampered.

So, as I began reading the book weeks ago, the introduction of the workings inside the creative-sensitive mind, I am meeting myself in every page and I began slipping down again. It is not like I do not know who I am and how I think. I have known me for a very long time. I think what began hurting is that even though I know who I am, how I think, and what I need, being well aware of the all three does not ensure the third one: what I need.

What I need I have pushed aside for many good reasons, like homeschooling my daughter is my highest priority in this season my my life. That is a good one, right? Half of the inside my house is in a needs-renovation state because of damage to the walls from the window replacements so that has a priority. Another good one, right? The Princess needs more space and organization so she explore and refine her creative talents. That one is important for creative-sensitive minds...but that is the one that gives me a pinch.

Just two chapters in and instead of being thrilled to better understand myself or my child, I only feel confirmation of what I already knew about both of us. But, worse, I realize more keenly than before that I have been denying myself what I would never want to deny my own daughter. How many years has it been? There have been moments, but most of my life I have pushed back, pushed aside, and even given completely up the very things I am trying to make sure my daughter has, what I did not and still do not allow myself to have. I am every bit of the creative dreamer that she is. I am not jealous...well, maybe I am, not of her but of the encouraging mother she has—twisted as it sounds. I am jealous of myself for being the mother I wish I had, but I am also jealous that I do not allow myself the creative time that I allow for my daughter.

I just have not been able to continue the book without a loosing a foothold. The book is very good, but I may have to take it in by small bits. I believe my Lord placed it in my hands to help me understand what I have done to myself, what has become a habit for me for many years. The book was not so much for me to better understand my daughter, although I am sure I will glean some good from it, and it was not so much for me to better understand myself, I know me, but to better understand how I deny my own desires to use the gifts He created in me for His pleasure, as well as my own. If I take pleasure seeing my daughter use her creative gifts, certainly I have been denying my Lord that pleasure.

My Lord has made it clear to me that I need to go through this, to come to terms with it. I do not want these underlying feelings to taint the relationship I have with my daughter nor our creative workings. I want us to enjoy creating together and apart from each other as well. We have different styles, but we can appreciate the differences and learn from each other because of them.

There is one other thing I wonder: If I am the mother I wish I had, does that also get twisted around that my daughter is the daughter I wish I had been able to be? I catch my thoughts going that way sometimes. I was given a vision mentioned in Just One Year Ago that suggested that when my daughter was just a year old. I feel I also must be very careful not to place such an expectation on her.

My Lord, lead me on this walk. Let me place my feet only on the solid places You show me so I no longer slip down on my way up and out.

When the Train is on the Wrong Track

The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down. ~Jawaharlal Nehru

My Princess...it seemed that everything was going so good for her, that God was blessing her so abundantly, but she had become unreachable emotionally. Now she is again reachable but she began on a track that was the wrong one and her train just kept rolling on it, seemingly without God as the Engineer. Yes, she has been going on very rough rails and it breaks my heart to watch, but as teenagers become more independent thinkers, they can make some bad choices, which they rationalize to fit their own sense of justification. This often means that very rules we set as parents to protect them (because we have wisdom they have not yet acquired) will get bent and broken in varying degrees. It is a time of learning wisdom for themselves and it can come at some very high prices. Had the Princess used wisdom in respecting our rules and honoring us, she would not have broken the other ones that were set by the church play acting group and she would not have lost her role, the lead role, in the play.

We found out about her losing the part in the play on Sunday, November 8th, after church and that was the second whammy. The first being described in all the detail I felt comfortable to write in a public blog in my last post.

Then came the third! They say these things come in threes so I am very much hoping this is the last...for a very, very, VERY long time. (Three for three!)

This one happened at the school science retreat that she and her father were on the first week of November, because on Monday, November 9th—the day after we were given the news about the play—the mother of my daughter's best friend, a girl, at school and I talked. It was then I that learned about my daughter breaking another rule.

My friend's husband was also a chaperon in the only cabin where the pitiful air conditioner was not working at all in heat and humidity of Florida; the coolest night temperatures were in the 80's. My husband and this man were tentatively planning to have lunch on Monday. He has a similar job in another company so he was about to go out of state to the north and my husband was doing the same although he would be turning eastward after they ate. However, he realized something involving our daughter on the last day of the retreat and did not get to talk to my husband that day as they were preparing to leave. Sunday he thought we all would need to rest, so it could wait until Monday, but the lunch plans changed when we got the news about the play. We felt that we needed to be together as much as possible so my family went out together instead.

Back to Sunday, after the news about the play and being concerned about my daughter's mental/emotional state, I texted the wife to ask if her daughter, my daughter's best friend, could stay over night the coming Saturday as I had suggested a few weeks previously. Unfortunately, they were expecting family to visit so it was not possible, but she also texted that she had some concerns from the hardships and observations at the retreat. Considering her husband was in the cabin with the worse conditions, I figured that was at least one of the main ones, and we made plans to talk after I returned home from lunch on Monday with my husband and daughter.

Within the first few minutes, she told me what her husband had been hoping to tell my husband that day. I found myself moaning "no" and yet believing it completely.

After we completed our conversation that included other things which concerned her regarding the retreat that had nothing to do with my daughter, I called my husband, who almost turned right back around to come home, but instead he worked to make the two day job he was being sent to do done in one day and came back the following day with just two hours of sleep...actually, neither one of us slept well that night.

My husband was unaware of her breaking any rules while at the retreat; no one told him. The boys and girls are kept separate, except for group and team activities during the day, and while my husband was there he was the single chaperon in the cabin of a small group of boys. Due to the subtropical heat and sun, three of his boys became ill the first day, but one in particular had a bad time with the heat the entire week. Also, my husband is a very helpful kind of guy, therefore he was doing above and beyond his assigned duties, like changing the a flat tire for the school leader and such. So, although my husband was right there, he rarely saw our daughter and her chaperon failed to talk to him about the matter, even though she was aware of it...even facilitating what was against the rules on the retreat.

Many of those wonderful blessings God provided for the Princess as opportunities are for now just really sad reminders of what was taken away while she was trying to hide things from the very people who love her the most, could help her the most, and who will forgive her the most.

I have been having the weeping eyes syndrome off and on for about three weeks now. I go through the day with that uniquely exhausted feeling one has after a long gut wrenching cry, even though I have not had one...well, maybe in my spirit I am continually having one? I have been teetering between anger and despair. I can barely even pray because I start talking to my Lord about these things and I just end up ranting, forgetting completely that I was talking to the All Mighty. Peace eludes me or I, it.

After my husband spent much time in prayer and attempting to myself, I agreed with what he felt was God's answer: to remove our daughter from school. I was surprised that I actually feel relieved when he said it. The Princess is in a far better emotional and mental state since we found out about the incomplete school work, even with the lost of her role in the play. She has bad days still, but at least now she is also having good ones. She has been laughing and smiling and teasing like my Princess, the girl who bounces back and makes the very best of where she is with a happy heart. I see her in the cracks.

Perhaps we were not supposed to place her in the Home Study Center at all this year. Before we had paid our enrollment fees last spring, I felt that we should take this year off from the school. It really took a toll on my homeschooling and our relationship last year to get all her assignments and special projects done. I thought I just wanted a break and maybe that I was being selfish, but in retrospect I now think God was telling me not to do it this year.

We waited to tell the Princess of our decision to remove her from school until after her piano recital on Sunday, November 15th, but we prepared her about the possibility that the school could suspend her (although it is in the handbook, we doubted they would). She withheld her emotions during that talk, waiting until her father left for another longer work trip to have it out with me alone today. She told me that she was not happy that we did not "consult" her before making the decision or at least give her the right to choose, because she wanted to continue her classes there. I raised my eyebrows: "You did make that choice. You made it quite clear that you did not really want to be in the school by your choice of actions for the past two months, like not completing your assignments, including the lying you did to hide it." (Ironically, we have been doing devotions for the past two months based on communication and how much more actions and body language and then tone have greater weight than the meaning of words spoken—did I not say that God has been guiding her path and stays steps ahead of her?)

There were many reasons that contributed to the decision to remove her from the school besides what I have written so far and not all the fault of the Princess, at least not directly. One was that it concerned us that she could hand in only half of her work from the very first week of school and on, yet we were not told about this until two months had passed, after I asked her teachers to contact me about it. Since any assigned work handed in a week late only gets 80% credit and 0% after that, I would think that two to three weeks of incomplete assignments would warrant communication from the teacher to the parents.

There is more, but the worst of it all, I hate that I cannot trust my own daughter right now. It has been tearing me apart for weeks. I just want to hug my child with all the love I have for her to love away her self-hating thoughts and these tears that keep seeping out of my broken heart.

My Lord, I feel we are at a pivotal point and You want us to turn sharply in another direction. Please guide us to the right path that You have prepared for us and have prepared us for.