Royal Keepers of the Kindergarten Kingdom

That’s what I call our kindergarten teachers because not only do they keep the Kindergarten Kingdom, they do a phenomenal job teaching the little subjects. I have no idea how they do it. It’s a gift. I don’t have such a gift. I didn’t even have it with my own kids. They’re older now, in the sweet spot of childhood, one who started middle school and a high school senior prepping for his exit exactly four months from now.

With the pandemic, my role at work has me popping in to K-5 classes every third week on a specials rotation. Other weeks, I’m conducting my read alouds and library lessons via Google Meet from my library office. Not ideal, but I get to see once class of students per grade level every day for a week. I’m more comfortable with older kids. I taught 4th grade for 4 years, made it through one year of teaching second grade, and spent a full dozen years teaching sixth graders.

I went into the kinder class today. The door to the girl’s bathroom was locked with two littles needing it asap. It isn’t my classroom, so I had no idea how to jiggle it open. I called the office for assistance. All of the adorable kiddles are coming up to me to tell me their good things of the day; a new student, an upcoming birthday-in summer, a birthday back in September, getting to sit at a friend’s table, a new Among Us face mask, new shoes, two boxes of school supplies, and puppies. Always puppies.

I began the class with one little online and the rest in the classroom. It takes me a few minutes to set up when I arrive, so we chat. I sensed the excitement, which I knew would be the case without sensing it. We started out with movement and my go-to, their favorite, Go Noodle. Until they all start complaining about how they don’t like the video I selected. Sure, there are better ways to involve them in choosing the video, but I didn’t want to get close to a Kindergarten Cop level of teaching and they were getting restless. I wore latex gloves, but the touchscreen doesn’t like them. Before I could start the first video, they all swarmed to the screen to help me. We went through about 10 minutes of movement and transitioned to a read aloud.

We read “The Cool Bean,” an adorable book about a garbanzo feeling awkward in front of old bean friends who were now the “cool” beans of the school. We discussed kindness, feelings, how it can be hard to be kind, the setting, and different kinds of beans. I printed an activity for them with the main character front and center. I popped a link to a Pear Deck of a similar activity for the student learning from home. Most were excited about getting to design new clothes and a setting for the garbanzo. Before I finished distributing the handouts, one little comes up to me, proudly showing me the work.

“I’m finished!” Red marker encircled the bean. 15 more minutes to go. “Well,” I suggested, “where is the bean? Can you tell me where the bean is and draw the setting?” Those were the instructions I gave before they began. When some asked if they could cut out their characters, I encouraged them. Some started retelling the story and others started drawing other bean friends.

I started packing up my cart to transition to the next class. The teacher returned and her littles eagerly shared their activity and story. I did it. I don’t know how, but it worked. I managed the Kindergarten Kingdom for less than an hour and there was no evidence of a Kindergarten Cop in sight.

Air Fried Marshmallows

Around Thanksgiving, my husband found a deal on an air fryer. Nothing fancy, or name-brand, just functional. I’m not a fan of extra countertop appliances besides a toaster and a coffee maker. We’re short on space in our kitchen. To avoid arguing, I gave in. He brought it home, like it was a Major Award and frrra-gee-lee. He opened the thing with the enthusiasm of The Old Man opening his leg lamp in “A Christmas Story.”

I rolled my eyes. He prepped chicken strips. We ate them, but they tasted, well, baked. My husband has a knack for chicken strips. The deep fried kind he dunks in egg wash and a seasoned flour mixture he’s concocted over the years. My kids critique restaurants on their chicken strips, the only thing they order off the menu. If they’re as good as or better than Dad’s, we add it to the list of favorites. This time, they were dry and nowhere close to what we’re accustomed to eating.

Then I opened my mouth. Not to say they tasted bad, we all knew they did, but to discuss the air fryer. I suggested he return it. You would’ve thought I took a lollipop away from a kid. Or a bone from a dog. Or Twitter from…never mind. Anyhow, I asked “What’s the difference between this and using the oven?” I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I surrendered, he found space in the pantry to store it, and we compromised. A few days later, he made chicken wings. Those were delicious.

One evening, he came home with a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers, and chocolate bars. It was a nice evening for hanging out in the backyard around the fire pit. The kids prefer to stay inside glued to their devices. Unless there are s’mores. We enjoyed the evening and I didn’t balk at the kids eating more than their share or toasting extra marshmallows. We’re still in a pandemic and I might as well let them enjoy it.

I put away the extra s’mores ingredients for another evening. But where would I put them so the kids wouldn’t smell them and devour them before the next perfect night for s’mores? I found a spot for the chocolate and graham crackers, but I needed to find a different place for the marshmallows. I’ve run out of good hiding places; my kids are that good. I mean, I thought I was smart when I hid my pint of double chocolate ice cream in the bag of frozen broccoli. Until they found it.

In a rush, I put the bag of marshmallows in the cooking drawer to the air fryer. They’ll never look there. The new appliance was perfect. It was only temporary anyway. I planned to move them later.

One Saturday, my husband busted out his handy dandy air fryer to make his new favorite recipe for chicken wings. My youngest passed through the kitchen to the backyard to jump on the trampoline. My husband seasoned and prepped, whistled a jolly tune, and pre-heated his faithful companion. When my kiddo, who has a bionic nose, skipped into the house, her eyes searched the kitchen. “Ooooh, marshmallows. It smells like marshmallows. What are you making, Dad?”

I brushed her off. “Marshmallows? What do you mean it smells like marshmallows? You’re imagining things.”

“It totally smells like marshmallows,” she commented as she ran up to her room. I kept sipping my coffee, scrolling away on Instagram.

A few minutes later, I heard a few choice words from The Most Patient Man in the World, who hardly ever uses choice words. He started grumbling and slamming things, shouting “Who put marshmallows in the air fryer?”

At that moment, I remembered my clever trick. I countered, “Who the heck doesn’t open an oven–air fryer–before they turn it on?” I laughed as I explained it was a new hiding place and I forgot I put the bag there.

He held the cooking drawer with the bag of perfectly toasted marshmallows nestled inside, the plastic warped and baked into them. “It’s nonstick, it should be fine. Dump it in the trash.”

“Wait, I wanna see!” S came down to inspect the marshmallows. She wanted to eat them. We said no. The trash got them. And the chicken wings came out fine, without a trace of sticky marshmallows on them. So much for a new hiding place.

Road Work

This road ended just beyond the sidewalk. A dead end. Not anymore. I don’t even know when it was extended to connect to the road that winds up at a county park. It just showed up. Years ago, we rode our bikes from home and turned around here. Once, we went beyond the barrier, complete with a shouty sign declaring a Dead End, and discovered a trail. Exploring it, we found ourselves at the park that’s more accessible using this road. When was it completed? Did I ignore coming this direction because there wasn’t anywhere else to go or did I dismiss the trail after that first time thinking it was too cumbersome to navigate, especially on those hundred degree feeling mornings during summer? Or was I ill-equipped to trudge along at dusk without a flashlight, alone?

I knew this road was under construction, so I avoided coming this way because of the noise. I like a bit of silence. But when was it finished? Had it been that long since I’ve been here? Yes. I began my morning walks this direction again last spring, bored with my regular route. When I saw the results, I sucked in my breath. This was the dead end, gone now. What was dead is now, alive. With loud sounds. Noise. Traffic. Mowers. More homes. People in a hurry.

It’s better on rainy weekend mornings or late evenings, but forget rush hour. Everyone shortcuts through here to get home. What once was a nice nature walk has become, like everything else, suffocating. Poor wildlife. Poor wildflowers in the spring that have to listen to the buzz not of bees, but of cars. I’ve seen it change since spring. Full of wildflowers, the deer running away from any slight movement or sound, the summer heat scorching what’s left of all the moisture deep in the ground, and now the cooler temperatures soothing its weariness. But the traffic still flows. I liked it better when there was a dead end. It felt more private, secluded, special. Now it’s another road, well traveled.

We Eat Here, Too

We got a good deal for our table 
from a guy right down the street. 
He even delivered it for us. 
It's solid and if you bang your knee against 
the inside frame just under the table top
you'll swear you hate the thing. 
The top needs refinishing, but kids, 
so we'll leave it. 
And we have left it that way, 
scratched and stained,
losing  a little color each day.
They protest when we discuss a new finish
I protest at the work it will take 
only to have it scuffed and smeared with, 
life. 
I fuss at everyone who doesn't use a coaster, 
but why bother? 
The kids say it adds character. 
And it does.
There's space for 6 or 8 or 12 or more, 
we've stopped counting. 
We manage to squeeze ourselves in 
when friends and family visit. 
Taking turns sitting at the table, 
much like we did at Nana's. 
It's held up well.
Sophia's first birthday, the first big event
It's hosted countless others
Visits from Mom and Dad along with Dad's pile of newspapers, 
notes, pens, reading glasses, 
mugs of his piping hot coffee 
and a small mountain of Mom's tamales.
Halloween parties
Tortilla making lessons
A birthday candle lined with Tacky Glue, 
sprinkled with gold glitter and sequins.
My best friend's graduation party.
Homemade pizzas--
so many homemade pizzas.
Writing sticks of all shapes and colors
Spilled bowls of Cheerios
5 layer Play-Doh cakes
Mixology experiments: 
Mexican martinis, 
wine-usually red, 
blackberry margaritas, 
strawberry mojitos, 
and the good anniversary crystal 
bubbling with cheap champagne.
An almost empty wine glass, a red ornament,
and a red pear gnawed with a little kid’s bite 
protesting “Mommy I didn’t like it!”
adorns the end of a 
"fancy" Christmas dinner. 
That night we used a tablecloth.
Snow days with pancake breakfasts.
Piles of papers that needed grading.
Homework--
the kids' and mine.
Hours of graduate school assignments
Science fair and craft projects
LEGO builds and chatter
Family game nights
A thick smear of blue paint from a 
Halloween costume making session
and nail polish drips I couldn't remove.
Gingerbread house building parties 
that stopped because we outgrew the table and 
got so darned busy taking kids to 
holiday related school activities.
GNO get togethers
where we all sit around and color,
jars of colored pencils, pens, and markers 
snaking down the center of the table.
Pandemic teaching
Online Sunday night meetings 
with family across the miles.
Writing 
every morning, 
at least three pages, 
with a coffee mug by my side.
Asking for and giving grace.
They say home is where the heart is.
Ours gather around this table
where we live and breathe,
hope and dream.
And sometimes,
we eat here, too.

Why Do the Bloomin’ Flowers Get All the Attention?

I didn’t take my kids for a 10 year re-enactment photo shoot in the bluebonnets like I planned. They’re only interested in photo bombing and they hate being outside. They hate road trips even more. Pair that with nature and getting in the middle of a wildflower field, I didn’t even bother. And then the quarantine happened.

I figured we could go anyway and give other wildflowers a little attention. I let that slide, too. Now even the Indian paintbrush, Mexican hat, Texas thistle, and black-eyed Susan are saying goodbye.

This morning, as I walked by a field I pass every morning, I stopped to snap some shots. I wanted to take them when they were in full bloom. Sometimes procrastinating pays off. It moves us into things we didn’t intend, but gives us more than we expected.

We get to see depth. Fitting for Mother’s Day, no? We give our mammas the prettiest flowers because they deserve as much tangible beauty as we can muster. A bouquet created by nature–God–is one of the best ways to express that.

It’s hard to see the intricacies of the core of a flower in full bloom. We see the vibrant beauty created to notice from a distance. When we do get close, we see a limited part of the essence of the flower, the little parts that hold the petals, the rough edges, the thorns that protect it, the powerhouse that holds it together and creates more beauty for another season.

We tend to dismiss the full cycle in a field of flowers. Why focus on them when they’re in full bloom when there’s more to see? The end is the beginning of something stronger.

Motherhood also has cycles. Vibrant young moms. Moms with teens. Empty nest moms who have more time on their hands, maybe. Grandmothers and great-grandmothers who wear wisdom like a crown.

Like wildflowers, moms stand tall, they’re beautiful, they’re tough, but there are days when times are hard and they get worn out. They don’t stop. They keep giving the best of themselves. It’s hard to see the depth of such a complex role because we walk past it like we walk past a field of wildflowers that already bloomed.

And that’s the beauty of motherhood. We give the goodness that blooms within us.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Video Conferencing Yearbook

In honor of seniors everywhere, here’s a yearbook style collection of personalities we encounter in the larger sphere of online video conferencing along with their popularity features. Which one(s) are you?

Athlete

May or may not have worked out or gone for a run. Shows up in active wear. Might still be sweaty.

Popularity feature: Fitness tracker

Blank Slate

Shows up in front of a blank wall. Where are you? Bedroom? Office? Closet? Bathroom?

Popularity feature: Minimalism

Coffee Snob

Summer Moon Coffee, a favorite coffee house hangout.

Sips from a coffee mug. You can see the steam rising. Under normal circumstances, meets from a hipster coffeehouse.

Popularity feature: Chemex coffee pot

Comfy Co-Worker

This one is chill. Shows up without worrying about the camera. Kicks back on a couch or overstuffed chair. You can tell their feet are propped.

Popularity feature: Leather couch

Delinquent

There is nowhere to go. Uses a kid’s room due to lack of space. Would meet in the bathroom if not for interruptions. Wall color varies from bubble gum pink, lime green, or other primary color. A gold glittered version of the word “Princess” or piles of LEGO make a strong statement.

Popularity feature: Cool toys

DJ

Dons high quality noise blocking headphones. Some have separate microphones. Tech savvy. Makes you wonder if they have a side gig. Maybe a podcast or spinning tunes at a nightclub.

Popularity feature: Bose equipment

Fixer-Upper

Shows up in the garage. Probably working on a bunker project prior to the meeting. Make it quick, they’ve got stuff to do.

Popularity feature: Power tools

Ghost

Thumbnail icon is the only indication of this co-worker’s physical presence. There is an aura. Talks and chats, but you never see them.

Popularity feature: Invisibility

Ghost-in-Reverse

Others see a work space, typically a dining room or kitchen. No one ever sees or hears this person. Briefly floats into the meeting, but are they really there? Not there? Hello? Bueller?

Popularity feature: Skipping meetings

Ghostwriter

Characteristics of Ghost. Microphone is muted throughout the meeting. Skilled at using the chat room.

Popularity feature: Fast typing skills

Happy Parent

Littles climb onto their lap and pop into the meeting. These are good parents who cuddle their adorable kids, leave the camera on, let them say hi and then give them something to color. And the child complies. Older kids tend to photobomb the meeting then quickly run to do homework.

Popularity feature: Candidate for sainthood

Librarian

Not pictured: books. They were busy getting checked out.

Identifies with Comfy Co-Worker. Occasionally sips from a book themed mug. Bookcases overstuffed with books and book themed ephemera line walls and are organized by Dewey order or genre. Dim lighting gives off cozy vibe. May wear a cardigan or shawl. Current read is within reach to share with group.

Popularity feature: High IQ and Books

Librarian Wannabe

Strategically placed in front of a highly stylized bookcase. Dips into Librarian and Perfectionist buckets. Wait, are those books organized by color? Please, no!

Popularity feature: Interior decorating

Lost in Space

Enters every meeting with microphone on. Has difficulty finding the microphone muting option despite everyone in the meeting speaking at once offering assistance. Uses remainder of meeting to turn off the microphone and accidentally leaves the meeting.

Popularity feature: Presence

Miss Hannigan

Woke up 10 minutes ago. Thrives at night shift work. Attends in pajamas and bed-head. Work space ambience is irrelevant. Is that champagne or sparkling water? Whoopsies!

Popularity feature: Champagne flutes

Multitasker

Volunteers to take notes. Eyes dart back and forth, up and down, to and from multiple devices. Head posture bows to reply to text messages. Pops in to ask questions. Answers all questions in chat. Eyes zip back and forth from multiple open tabs on screen. Sends relevant link or email as participants discuss said link or email.

Popularity feature: Highest score on Whack-a-Mole

Naturalist

Nature is energizing. But really, she doesn’t want to be interrupted.

Hangs out in the back yard or a park. Natural light is pleasant. Is that a pool? Are those flowers real? Might swat at an insect.

Popularity feature: Multiple Yard-of-the-Month awards

Perfectionist

Has THE perfect home office, Pinterest style. Shows up with everything in place. Could be a Super-Model, but doesn’t apply makeup in front of the camera. Everything is ready to go. A week early. Body position points to a pen in hand and Erin Condren planner for note taking. You can’t stop looking at the home office. Can you give us a tour? You want that office.

Popularity feature: Attends JoAnna Gaines’ parties

RZF-Resting Zoom Face, a.k.a. Jan Brady

Camera shy. Doesn’t know whether to look at the camera, the boss, or the screen. Nervous about turning camera off in case boss thinks they’re skipping the meeting. Does not slouch. Rule follower. Only speaks when addressed.

Popularity feature: Impeccable manners

Supermodel

Attends meeting with full make-up and fashionable wardrobe. Uses camera to make sure every hair is in place. Refreshes lip color before speaking. Looks different in person.

Popularity feature: Beta tester for companies offering camera filter apps

TV News Anchor

Wears a smile throughout the meeting. Dressed in regular work clothes. Posture demonstrates desk sitting. Can lean toward the Blank Slate, but has a well placed piece of wall art or uses a green screen to go “on location” based on the meeting’s topic.

Popularity feature: Wardrobe

Big Tent Revival: Deviled Food

I don’t dance. I don’t dance because Nana said I’d go to hell. I’m afraid of going to hell. I’m afraid of how hot hell is and of the devil poking and prodding me with its pitchfork and its snake-like tail whipping around me. Why is it when I hear music, it bubbles inside me and I’m giddy? It makes me feel like there’s another person inside that wants to come out and laugh and have fun and move and sway. I like the idea of being that fun person who doesn’t care that people watch her move in response to the rhythm and makes up her own swirls and twirls and is just flat out happy. Nana’s voice always stops me.

I didn’t want to dabble with the devil and dancing. When you’re a rule-following first-born (mostly) and spent most of your formative years with your Pentecostal grandma, that’s what you do. No questions allowed because you respect your elders.

“¡Los bailes son del diablo! Dios no quiere que estemos en los bailes. Debemos estar glorificando al Señor.”

No matter how fun and harmless it seemed, dancing never worked for me. I’m stiff and have robotic dance moves. I imagined myself having a good time and maybe even having a boy pull me in close to move in sync with the music. I stared wistfully at other kids while I stood around, the poster child for a wallflower.

I didn’t understand the harm. If people have fun how can dancing be the devil’s work? Why is it so evil? Most kids didn’t even touch each other while they danced unless it was a slow song. Even then, why was that worthy of getting to hell when there were other people around?

I didn’t ask Nana why, she just said to stay away from it. I found that confusing, coming from someone who bought deviled ham on sale from Piggly Wiggly. She fed it to me on days she took care of me while my parents worked. She spread the pink mush on slices of white bread when she packed lunches for all of us as we piled into Papá’s pick-up truck early summer mornings to work the cotton fields. She bought tons of little pull-tab cans, neatly wrapped in white paper stamped with a red devil holding a pitchfork, its pointy arrow tail snaking around, mocking me. You can’t dance because it’s the devil’s work, but here, eat the devil’s meat.

I hated the stuff but ate it anyway because that’s what she packed: sandwiches with salty slimy pink sludge that tasted nothing like ham, smeared on bread. I envisioned a bunch of mashed up devils’ tails packed into those tin cans, with the red faces daring me to eat, winning my soul through hunger.

When I see anything with fiendish depictions, I think about how Nana would respond. I’d take her to Torchy’s and probably get an ear full of Bible verses for taking her to a taco joint emblazoned with cute devilish cherubs tempting you into gluttony. I might order her the Democrat and a margarita, especially since she wasn’t a drinker. She’d denounce the place because she could make better tacos at home, for less, and feed twice as many people. And she’d be right.

She might even top them with a possible nemesis, maybe the devil’s brother, Diablo Verde sauce I found at HEB. The hot one is too damn hot for me, but if you mix it with sour cream, the heat is worth it. The devil is always among us, even in our food. Every time I see a feisty little sprite or hear soul-stirring music, Nana’s voice pops into my head with advice for staying out of hell and I’m reminded about how much I miss her. Except now, I eat at Torchy’s and I might even dance a little.

Spring Outbreak 2020

Day 1 of Spring Outbreak 2020 and The Hubster worked from home. He evicted Sophia from her bedroom, which she rarely uses other than for throwing her clean laundry on the floor and housing her private library of books, stuffed animals, and abandoned craft projects.

“Why can’t you use Ethan’s room?” she retorts.

“Ethan’s room is a hoarder’s room; there’s no space!” True. LEGO are strewn all over the place, pieces in all phases of LEGO project life: spares, in progress, and completed builds. His book cases are full of books, LEGO, empty QT cups, towers of empty cereal bowls he eats from at midnight, and yes, laundry on the floor. But it’s dirty. His three roommates consist of a keyboard, a cello, and a guitar, leaving little room for visitors. Not that we want to visit.

We don’t have a desk in our bedroom. We bought our home without a dining room, spare bedroom, or home office. Out Sophia went.

Boredom begets creativity. I have plenty to keep me busy. Sophia on the other hand, after watching too much Disney Plus, charged her dad for use of her bedroom.

We’re tight on space to offer Sophia Suites to non-family members, but for those of you having to work from home, maybe a trip to the QT for a cherry lime Freezoni is enough compensation for kids you may have to evict from their, ahem-your, spaces. I’m ready to try it as a beverage mixer.

Milestones

I don’t cry at those big milestones like the first day of kindergarten or the end of fifth grade ceremony or the eighth grade social. It’s gradual and comes in spurts. Like crying for a whole month every day on the drive home from work when you find out that the details of maternity leave suck and you’ll have to take your baby to daycare sooner than you wanted. Hell, it sucks when you realize you have to drop your baby off at daycare. Period.

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You don’t cry on the first day of kindergarten. You cry at night at the end of the first day of kindergarten when you process the first day of school (and work), when you pick up your kid from after school care and the counselor tells you another kid hit yours because he stood up for and defended his new friend. And his little cheekbone is bruised under his eye. It hurts that you have to spend all day with strangers’ kids, defending them from the meanies in the classroom.

You don’t cry on the last day of school. You drag yourself from home, exhausted, then sleep in from a year’s worth of sleep deprivation and grading and meetings and motherhood. Then you have to figure out what kind of fun stuff to do because, thankfully, the summer is long, or at least it used to be. But you cry when you have those PD days and you have to drop your kid off again at daycare because the summer isn’t long after all.

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You don’t cry on the first day of middle school because you’re pulling teeth just to get a picture and rushing out the door to get child number two to, you guessed it–daycare, while trying to make it to work early enough so you can welcome the new sixth graders whose parents are crying all the while trying not to crack your ankle while running in heels. Gotta make a good first impression, but in the back of your mind you get choked up because you ran out the door saying “Have a great first day, don’t miss the bus!” You cry months later when you hear them practice the cello in the middle of the year and it sounds like real music, when you’re frustrated because they don’t seem to care about their school work, and when they upgrade to buying clothes from the men’s department because they somehow became too big for the clothes in the kids’ department.

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You don’t cry when you drop them off at the eighth grade social. You cry months before when you drop them off at the high school orchestra’s incoming freshman meet and greet, in the middle of the grocery store. You decided to run errands because what’s the point in going home if you’ll have to turn around to pick them up again as soon as you arrive?

It’s a gradual process, this milestone thing. I didn’t even think about it until my Facebook feed (thanks, social media) reminded me. At work. So I cry at my desk and remember and look forward to what this kiddo will do in high school. We didn’t have an eighth grade graduation, but we had plenty of milestones in between.

Happy New You

Another year in the books. If you consider January first the beginning of a new year. I go with the flow, but I prefer the new year to begin at the beginning of the school year. Technically, I’m half finished with a new year. It also depends on life’s circumstances.

When I was an expectant mom, the year began with the news, then it progressed into trimesters. After each of my two kiddos were born, I broke up time–beginnings and endings–by month. Now that I’m in grad school, it’s moving to semesters or sessions. Chunks of three, fall, spring, and summer (which used to be) break.

How is that resolution thing going? I don’t like them. They sound so…legal, official, unbreakable. Even though we all break them before they start. This year, I found a thread on a Facebook group about focusing on a one word resolution, you know, one of those character flaws we need to improve so we don’t overwhelm ourselves and fail before we start or figure out ways to cheat. One word. Really? Who came up with that? It’s a great idea though. But one word. For twelve months. Aren’t we supposed to focus on small do-able goals so we keep it up throughout the year?

As I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with only one. Happiness. As in choose to be happy every single day even when you want to retreat into a cave or take off on a one-woman road trip to see if anyone will look for you when you’ve been missing for a week. Patience. Ah, patience. Sounds really good, but a whole day, let alone the whole day, every day, for a year? I decided I didn’t like her. She doesn’t like me either, but my other word possibility, acceptance, is our mediator.

Acceptance, as in suck-it-up buttercup and put on your big girl panties because this is how it is. Change it or move on, but don’t think about whining. I tap into my inner toddler too often. And the inner toddler needs to calm down and breathe because her face is turning purple. Which brings my next word, breathe, and it makes me want to cry because I can’t take the yoga class I took last year where I learned how to breathe again. I breathed for a whole hour once a week and flitted out of the room only to come home to start suffocating on busyness all over again. But that one hour a week was my retreat.

Only one word. By the time I got to breathe, I became frustrated and deemed myself a failure because I couldn’t come up with one word. That’s like asking a parent to name the favorite kid. You just can’t. I can’t. Other people happily posted their patient, accepting, breathable words. I crossed my arms and my brain grunted and grimaced in its best two year old way while I told myself it didn’t matter because most people don’t keep their resolutions, but it bothered me. Why can’t I come up with a word?

With so many areas to improve, how could this be so difficult? I’m a lover of words, how could I possibly not have one? After about a week something surfaced. Three. Out of all of the words in the English language, it’s three. As in the trinity God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three because that’s the first place I need to focus. But my relationship with God is like that of a teen with her parents. They kick around trying to go against everything that’s good, decent, and right.

My three is so much more. It means to focus on my husband, my thirteen year old boy, and my six year old girl. Spring semester, summer semester, and fall semester. Mind, body, soul. Wife, mom, daughter. Triple Sec. Menagè-á-Trois (the wine). Strawberry-basil mojitos. Happiness, patience, acceptance. Carbs, protein, fat. Breathe…

How’s that resolution thing going, or did you decide on the one word? Or, in my case, three.

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