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Posts Tagged ‘children’

My Own Mr. Holland’s Opus

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on July 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am fortunate to have actual Mr. Holland moments through my work and my pirates always make me proud.  I do enjoy watching their growth and discoveries.  If I have even the tiniest bit to do with their successes, it makes me smile, a smile that goes all the way through my soul.

Still I came to realize that my opus needed to be told that they are my opus.  I sat down with each of my sons and told them that they are my opus.  They are the greatest part of my life.  I explained to them, explicitly, that my priorities go as follows:

My relationship with God.

My relationship with my hubby.

My relationship with my sons.

…my family.

…my friends.

…my job.

…my hobbies.

Granted, my job may read this (not my immediate boss, but the concept of employer) and think, why her priorities are not in the right order.

But they are.  If my relationship is not right with God, if I don’t maintain that one, I’m of little to no use to anyone else.   Particularly, I’m of little to no use to my hubby or sons.  Hubby and I have a type of short hand that we can use with each other, but we also know how important it is to nurture our relationship.  And even if all we get is 15 minutes to hold a conversation, because we share a brain, we are able to cover a lot of ground.  This was a banner month-two date nights in one month!

But I remembered that my sons are still young.  They won’t be for long, but at this moment I remembered, or realized, I needed to be EXPLICIT with them.  There are two lullabies I sing to them.  One I made up and the other is “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon.  Mr. Holland (played beautifully by Richard “I did Jaws, I don’t need this” Dreyfuss)  sang this song to his son in the movie.  So I related the idea of the the boys’ importance in my life to the movie.  I told them they are my opus, the most wonderful piece of my life, my efforts,  my dreams and hopes.

While I am not perfect and never will be, I told them that everything I do and say and show to them is to help them when I’m not with them.  To help them make good choices and to know they are loved.  I said if we were independently wealthy, I would be at home waiting for them when they got home from school.  I also pointed out how lucky they are to come to their father.  Not a lot of boys get to spend so much time with their dads.

I love the subtle shifts I’ve seen in my sons.  They are talking more, sharing more about their fears, worries, hopes, and dreams.  They are slowing down their pace and taking the moments to explore what they are feeling.  Then they are trying to express it with more clarity.  I know this change  isn’t simply due to me telling them they are my opus.  This is because they are my opus and hubby and I have been working on this opus since the day we found out we were having babies.  It is so neat to see it starting to click for our sons.  It is so cool to watch them as they grow and develop, gain new confidences, and try new adventures.

My opus will not bring me fame and fortune, just as Mr. Holland’s didn’t bring those things to him.  But it’s not the fame and fortune.  It’s the moments.  It’s hearing “I love you , Mom.”  It’s the hugs.  The kisses.  The cuddles.  The wee bits of embarrassments that are starting to rear their ugly heads.  My opus is filled with cacophonous sounds and they are a beautiful noise.                                                                                                          

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My Lunch with Neil Diamond for 30 Years

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , on June 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The man was rocking last night.  You can’t even add the qualifier, for a man in his 70s, because it don’t matter what his age, Neil Diamond was rocking.  I think he’s lowered the key for some of his songs, but he always had a deep voice.  It was a great show, just as great as the shows I’ve seen over the past 30 years.

30 years.  How did that happen?  In looking back through those 30 years, looking at it from how many Neil concerts I attended, puts an interesting perspective on where I am in my life.  He’s been a constant in my relationship with my mom.  Mothers and daughters all have ups and downs, shifts in the normal of their relationships as each role changes over the years.  But through all of the shifts my mom and I have gone through, we have always had Neil Diamond and the concerts as a touchstone.

The song I love the most is “Beautiful Noise”.  It just makes me smile and think about the good things in life.  During our lunch I would try to explain to Neil that the lyrics in the song remind me of so many stages of life.  I also love the rhythm to the song.

“Like the clickety-clack of a train on the tracks.”

“What a beautiful noise coming up from the park.  It’s the song of the kids and it plays until dark.”

My family is my beautiful noise.  The sound of us eating dinner at the dining room table.  The sound of the boys playing in their room or at the park or in the backyard.  That beautiful noise is one I try to keep floating around in my head to remind me of where my energies belong.  I need, want, to spend my energy on my family.  I don’t want to waste any of it on petty situations that arise in my life.  I try to remember that this too shall pass, whatever “this” I’m facing in a day.

Life is full of many beautiful noises if I don’t fill my ears with idle chatter and clatter.  This photo is a visual representation of a beautiful noise for me.  It is Neil in there, you just have to look at it from the abstract.

I enjoyed savoring the music last night, the energy of the crowd that had come together to enjoy the many decades of beautiful noises created by Neil Diamond.

                               

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Simplicity leading to serenity

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on June 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been lucky enough to hear a wonderful tale a couple of times in church about what peace is.  My apologies if I miss a few details…but this is what I took from it.  My pastor told the tale (you may have heard it before) of someone creating an image of a peaceful moment and a man trying to create a picture of a calm and serene place.  Yet the picture he created (maybe painted…can’t recall details) that showed peace was a storm.  The peaceful part was a bird just being a bird in the storm, calm and ready to go with the flow.  Here is a depiction of the image titled “Peace in the Midst of the Storm”  by Jack E. Dawson:

As I continue my journey with simplicity, I find new moments of serenity within my day.  I imagine these moments are similar to that bird sitting calmly in the storm.  As we love to say, these are some crazy days.  They really are no more crazy than what generations before me dealt with, perhaps just a different crazy.  We keep our own peace marching forward in our family, trying not to overwhelm ourselves.  It’s been a big time of transition, taking things off of our plates.  We’ve done an okay job of it, I think, yet we still have kept the things that matter to us the most.

My sons, with all the boyhood activities, bring me peace each day.  Today the moment of serenity came in the form of two very sincere hugs and some quiet moments of conversation when I got home from class.  We only had a few moments since it was a night class, but it didn’t matter.  The moments were full of grace, simplicity, serenity, love.  I’ve had a warm fuzzy feeling all evening basking in the afterglow of those hugs.

Yes, once they were tucked into bed at 10:00pm, I ran errands to a store, came home and exercised while somewhat de-wrinkling the new curtains (what, the curtains?), and then took care of some laundry.  But here I sit, freshly showered after getting stinky exercising, with warm hugs still wrapped around me.

Calm in the storm.  Peace in the storm.  Simplicity and serenity swirling around my home.

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Bucket Lists of Many Kinds

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on June 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I was planning on auditioning for a show in the next week or two, but I am having serious second thoughts.  First, while it would be a fun show, it’s not one that was on my “list” of shows I’d like to do before I die.  I guess one could call it an actor’s bucket list.  I really enjoyed working with the group, so that’s not the issue.  I’ve been looking at the time I would need to spend on the role (presuming I were cast) and as I added it up, I began to think…hmmmm, do I want to do that?  Now?

I would actually have more conflicts than I had thought before thinking to myself that I could easily do a show.  I had remembered the conflict with a wedding I’ll be attending but hadn’t thought of eight or nine or ten other commitments that are not moveable.  That’s almost a dozen conflicts which is about a quarter to a third of the rehearsals.  (Don’t ask me to be more specific, I’m not a math person and I’m really not a fraction person, unless I’m baking and then fractions make sense.)  The other commitments are too important to try to shift or move, but I also do not like being the type who gets a part and then lists a slew of rehearsals I’ll miss.  It happens, I get it, but I don’t like to do it.

Would the person directing the show work around it?  Possibly, probably, maybe.  I don’t really know and that’s not what’s important.  I wouldn’t feel right.  Knowing I had intentionally double-booked myself and forced one or the other to work around my inability to be there would lessen my enjoyment of whichever one I did attend.

Putting all of that aside however, I realize that the main deterrent is the time I wouldn’t get to spend with my family.  Yes I like to indulge my interests and keep myself fresh and excited by doing things I like to do.  But this is the first summer in a decade when we’re not on too many boards (I’m only on one and it doesn’t meet during the summer).  The classes I’m teaching will be over by the end of June, right around the time the boys finish school.

I could feasibly take advantage of the summer hours at work and spend some lazy summer evenings with my family.  I could work on my yard. I could do scrapbooking or beading or sewing or reading or nothing.  Imagine working on my sons’ scrapbooks.  Imagine sitting and having deep conversations about the exoskeleton of cicada with my sons.  Imagine reading a book in one sitting.  Imagine not feeling the pressure of extra, self-inflicted deadlines.  This is the first summer when I don’t have any externally imposed deadlines on my plate.

Do I want to put one on my plate?  Or would that be like putting a big helping of beets on the plate?  I would imagine it could begin to leave a bitter taste in my mouth and I don’t want to do that.  I also feel like hubby should do the next show.  He probably won’t do a show because he always comes up with a reason not to do a show.  But I don’t think I want to do a show.  I think I want to not do stuff that doesn’t have a direct positive impact on my whole family and not just me.  This summer I think I want to be selfish and spend all my spare time with my family.

The boys and I started making the presents for their teachers tonight.  We came up with the idea of giving their teachers a small, hand-painted wooden box personalized with either an initial or a picture of something each teacher likes.  We had a blast working on the boxes tonight.  I want more of that.  I looked at my sons this evening, painting and smiling, and they looked so much older than I expected them to look.  Oldest son doesn’t like me to hug or kiss him in front of people.  Youngest son can’t be too far behind.  At this moment, they still like spending time with me and I’m still relatively cool.  That won’t last and I know it.  It’ll come back another day, but it’s going to change soon and last for quite some time.  While I pray daily for the blessing of a long life, spending time with my sons is always on my bucket list.  Spending time with hubby is always on my bucket list.  I don’t want to take that for granted.  Ever.

At the beginning of this post I had not yet decided the fate of the audition nor did I think I would figure it out today or tomorrow.  And yet I’ve clearly made my decision.  I didn’t go through my normal long and drawn-out process.  Well, there’s one to take off the bucket list.

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Moments into memories

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on June 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Each day offers moments that will become memories.  Some days are more loaded than others.  Today is one of those days.  Last night I raced from class to see the last half of older son’s last ball game of the regular season.  This morning I saw my dad at his induction into the Olde Guard at his alma mater (also my alma mater).  I’m off to “Spring into Poetry” for younger son.  Tonight hubby and I are going to a dinner dance for the theater company with which I played “Vera” in Mame.  But the neatest moment today is that ten years ago my hubby became my hubby.  Ten years filled with laughter, love, tears, loss, happiness, craziness, Addams Family-ness, and the two greatest sons any two parents could ever hope to have.  Happy anniversary to the world’s greatest hubby!

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Game of Thrones

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on June 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Okay, I have never watched the show.  Yet it is part of the reason I have not blogged as much lately.  I’ve been indulging in another hobby I love.  My dear friend, Stephanie, is going to Comic Con tomorrow and wanted to go as the character Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.  We searched online for photographs of the costume she liked and then went to the fabric store.  I sat down and sketched out a pattern and set about to sew.

This is the costume she wanted to wear:

        

 

This is the costume she will wear tomorrow:

                                      

 

I think it came out pretty good.

I had so much fun making the costume.  I love to make my sons’ Halloween costumes, and this was like that.  It is something to do out of pure joy.  Stephanie seemed pleased with it.  Here are some other photos.

                                                       

Yep, she even has an accessory.  She can also summon the cats.

I enjoy sewing.  It’s neat to know that the piece starts as cut fabric, thread, and trim.  Then some hours later (a few hours here and there over the past few weeks) something exists that didn’t exist before.  I hope she has an awesome time tomorrow.

I had an awesome time today.  Field Day finally happened after two rainy days washed it off the schedule.  Sadly, older son has been sick with a fever and had to miss the festivities.  Younger son however was ready to go.

                       

He had a fun time but was a bit sad because I couldn’t stay the whole time.  I could have on Wednesday, even though they had pushed back the start time.  But on Friday work closes early and I had to tutor at 11:00.  He was very sad, cried a bit.  It was a very new experience-I couldn’t stay the whole time and his brother wasn’t there to cheer him on while he raced.  Hubby was able to run over for a bit in between patients.  I told Hubby that while younger son would seem fine when he got there, remember that in his sweet heart, he would be thrilled that Daddy had come for a bit.  Hubby went back after he was done with next patient, but by then it was over.

I went to work, tutored, went to get the milk, and then home to check on older son.  After picking up younger son from school, we got Slurpees and nachos.

This was a good day.

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I’ve been saving time in a bottle

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on May 29, 2012| 1 Comment »

A picture is worth a thousand words…me and younger son at the zoo for his field trip.

                    

 

 

 

 

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Carpe diem, House

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on May 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Again a show that I love has left the airways.  Again I was very happy with the final episode.  I must say I loved that House worked in a reference to Dead Poet’s Society…hee hee hee.  And I know it doesn’t happen often anymore, but I’m glad they left it open. Technically they could do a reunion show, albeit without Wilson, but…

Little bit Thelma and Louise at the end, not that I think they are going to drive off a cliff, but just taking off is freeing.  I was speaking with a coworker about it earlier today and we wondered if House and Wilson would rent a convertible, drive off,  and pick up Brad Pitt, which I think Brad would have done it.  So carpe diem to us all.

I didn’t get to watch the behind the scenes special before the final episode…work.  But I am sure I will watch it over the weekend.  Currently, Kenneth Branagh is playing in the background in Love’s Labour’s Lost.  (Geeky trivia question for you-what does Kenneth Branagh have in common with both Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard?)  Papers must be graded, tests must be scored, laundry must be folded, and trash must be put to the curb.

But it will be done with a satisfied brain, pleased with the end of House.

Oldest son claims he can no longer sleep with his brother in the same bed.  They’ve shared a double-size bed for six years and now he’s decided he can’t share a bed.  At the moment, there really is no other option for him, so his solution is to sleep on the chaise in the living room.  Yeah, sleep.  Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Youngest son was devastated by this event.  He was crying as he tried to go to sleep and fessed up to the fact that he is scared of the dark.  I didn’t tell oldest son this information as I didn’t want him to feel even more power and control over his baby brother.  I checked on youngest son several times as he was falling asleep.  He is sleeping soundly in the bed, cuddling Blue Bear and his Elmo’s blanket.  Oldest son is tossing and turning as he pretends to sleep on the chaise.

Oldest son did not like when I ignored his questions during House.  He kept asking why I was crying and I wouldn’t answer. Then he would ask why I was laughing and I wouldn’t answer.  He kept pretending I was waking him up with my reactions to the episode.  He’s really got to work on his delivery.  It’s too over the top and obvious.  I was trying to make a point however that he was well beyond his 8:30 bedtime.  In theory, they should have been asleep before the episode even started and then it wouldn’t have mattered.  But he likes to be a ham.

I like that the series gave us little pictures, snapshots, of where the other characters went after House’s grand exit.  Fans deserve that type of ending.  Monk did the same.  Left everybody basically doing the same-old-same-old just without our voyeuristic eyes peering into their lives.

But the best lives to peer into are our own.  I know why my sons were still up-they were waiting to see me, or to get a few more minutes playing a video game.  They do like to grab a few minutes with me when I get home and, with my current late night schedule, I don’t mind if they are up for a wee bit when I get home.  I miss the little buggers.

Well, remember the lessons we’ve learned from House.  There are books on the philosophy of House, but I sum it up like this.  Mystery is a good thing, friends do matter, and everybody lies.  Of course, the most important lesson:

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A breath of fresh simplicity

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on May 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The schedule will become even tighter than usual over the next couple of weeks and will stay that way for about six weeks.  I’ll be working my regular job during the day and then teaching at night four nights a week.  With this upcoming restriction to my time with my family, the time with them this week has been all the sweeter.  It has forced simplicity to the foreground.  The five minutes alone with each son after work matters.  The ten minutes with my husband is sweet.  The quiet time once the boys are asleep is valuable.  I am multi-tasking quite wisely.  I’m not trying to over multi-task, but throwing in a load of laundry before dinner and then after dinner throwing it into the dryer.  I can fold it tomorrow.

Dinner was not rushed and the conversation with the family was fun and free-flowing.  The boys took their showers with minimal resistance because of the promise of Lego building once they were all squeaky clean.  They got to hear two pages of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (only two pages because they had to brush their teeth).  More pages tomorrow.

I watched Murder by Death this evening but also wrote three case studies for one of my classes.  I cleaned up the dining room table.

The odd thing is that even though the schedule is getting tighter, I’ve been accomplishing a lot in little bits and pieces.  Some folks say they work better under pressure.  I don’t always, but right now I am and that’s a lovely surprise.

And each day I’ve spent some time with God.  Praying about the boys and their days at school.  Praying for patience at work in each task I need to complete so I accomplish it as well as I can.  Praying for grace and patience with my sons before work in the brief time we share each morning.  And again at night in the hours we spend together before bedtime.  I want to let them stay up late each night but that’s not fair for them.  They truly need their rest since they are growing boys!  I need quiet time at night to take care of house work and my own thoughts.  I need to go to sleep by a reasonable hour as well.

Little changes in schedule and habits can release such energy.  I feel like I am accomplishing more in each day.  It’s powered by time with God and my family.  Try a little change in the schedule.  See what you can do when you shake things up a bit and add a dash of simplicity and grace.

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Simplicity, why do you run from me?

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on May 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am speaking of a very specific type of simplicity today.  Decluttering.  Why can I never finish this process?  I dread to think that I am simply that lazy.  I feel like every weekend I work on clearing a pile here or there or everywhere, but the next weekend, there always seemed to be a new pile in it’s place.

The piles create themselves as each day there are things I plan to sort through-they seem so important-so I set them in a pile.  By the time I actually get to it, they have become obsolete.  I am working on making it a habit to simply deal with whatever it is the first time it enters the house.  I am working on making it a habit to purge a pile a day until they are gone.

I look back over the week and I wonder why the piles are still here.  Part of it is laziness.  It seems overwhelming to try to add in decluttering at the end of the day.

But most days there just isn’t time for it at all.  One thing I made progress with is not berating myself over the clutter when I balance the existence of the clutter with what I did that day.  Today was a fun day.  I went solo to church and had a really fun, connection-filled Sunday school class.  (At least it seemed like the children made connections!)  Stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home to surprise the boys.  Mowed the lawn and then headed to swimming.  The boys had their last swim lesson and older son is swimming.  At yesterday’s penultimate lesson, the kickboard floated away from him and he swam over to get it.  I explained to him that if he can swim to get the kickboard, he doesn’t need the kickboard.  He made the connection.  🙂  Younger son can swim when he isn’t goofing off.  Once I pointed out to him that there were only a few minutes left, he focused and had a great lap.

Then we surprised my mom at work to wish her an early happy mother’s day.  It was Kite Day at her workplace but we got there after the bulk of the festivities were done so it wasn’t too crowded.  She was happy to see her grandsons and her daughter.  We met the two lab puppies and one really looked like Brigs when he was a pup.  And I didn’t even cry.  I actually smiled.  That’s a good thing.

When we got home, the boys tried out the kites their Nana gave them as I made crescent roll pizza  and mozzarella sticks.  We then settled in to watch a movie.  By the time they were in bed, snug as bugs in rugs, it was 10:00.

And the piles sit, staring at me.  Welp, they can watch me sleep.

As I reflect on the childhood we have been building for our sons, I smile.  I cry.  I laugh.  I pray each day that when they are all grown up, they look back and think of their childhoods with a big smile on their faces.  I hope they notice we tried to surround it with simplicity so they could nurture their imaginations.  Right now they just think we’re mean for not giving them a game system and unlimited time with the television.  They don’t think we’re mean when we tell them to read or play with their Legos or trains or dinosaurs, so I know it’s working on some levels.

Simplicity can be a clutter filled house.  The piles of boxes are not actually boxes.  Two of them are a music studio, some of them are part of an IFO (Identified Flying Object to the boys, a UFO to everybody else since they don’t know what it is).  Stacks of books sit in front of the book shelves because we have too many books.  Okay, I don’t think we have too many, but anyone who ever helped us move will say otherwise.  We just need more shelves.  There are booby traps on the bedroom closet doors and science experiments in the bathroom.  Baskets are filled with school work that is still too precious (according to me) or too important (according to the boys) to recycle.

Examining a quest with a different perspective can bring peace to it.  My quest for simplicity has been there all along.  Just because my simplicity is different doesn’t mean it isn’t simplicity.  As I have been coming to realize this glaringly obvious truth, I have found more time to work on the piles.  While those piles used to always get replaced with a new one, that’s not always happening now.

Simplicity has been running from me, alluding me for some time.  Either it’s getting tired and slowing down or I’m catching up to it.

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