Growing pains........

         Why on earth is life so fast?  Here it is Christmas time again.  How did we just blow through another semester? Can I hit the slow motion button please?

      I went to the kids school today to help with Christmas crafts for Tate's first grade class.  I couldn't help but notice how much more grown up all the kids were compared to this time last year.  They all follow directions so much better, they are so much more skilled at painting and taping than the kindergarteners they were.  It hurts my heart.

     Before leaving school I popped by Turner's class just to give him a quick hug, let him know I thought of him while I was at school.  Last year I would have walked right in the classroom, hugged him, kissed the top of his head and walked out.  Not now.  This year I asked him to step into the hall.  He's older, bigger, and growing apart from me ever so slightly.  I will always take what hugs and kisses I can get, but it breaks my heart.  

      Each of my children saved my life in two different ways.  Turner B. came first, and he took my breath away.  I'll tell you a secret, although I knew what it meant to be saved, had been baptized, and professed to have Jesus in my heart I didn't understand the depth of this until I met my son.  In the first week of Turner's life I learned just how much my God loves me.  Turner introduced me to unconditional love.  Sure I loved my parents, my sister, and my husband, but my love for my son opened the world to me.  Turner saved my life by helping me really value the salvation Jesus gave me.  Turner made my heart softer and he gave me my purpose.

      While I fell in love with my sweet boy I still battled my own inner demons.  Depression pulls at me.  The voices I hear telling me if I only weighed less, if only my stomach was flatter, if I could only learn to eat less, then I could be happy.  I have always obsessed about my weight, my size, my shape.  Food and I had a terrible relationship.  I loved it and loathed it, never enjoying a single bite.  It tortured me to eat, made me feel like a failure to give in to hunger.  Then my shining light, my bringer of joy, Tate came to me.

       I never worried about my eating disfunction affecting Turner, he's a boy-surely he is immune, right? But the minute Tate was born I was determined to do everything I could to protect her from the monsters that whispered to me.  As Tate became a toddler I knew she watched and mimicked my every move, and every bite.  I had to let go of skinny.  I had to find a way to focus on something good.  Working out and concentrating on how strong I can be instead of how I can starve myself worked for me.  I finally quit weighing and logging every gram of food I ate.  I now try to not judge myself based on what I have or haven't eaten today, instead learn be at peace with what small accomplishments I have each day.  Tate is my tiny mirror.  Every choice I make is reflected in her.  I have to be good to myself, value myself so she will value herself too.  Having her saved me.

     Watching my kids grow up is painful.  Each day I can protect them less.  Each day more of the world is put on their shoulders.  I want to keep them little.  I will try to focus on the minutes that matter.  The way we talk each morning on the way to school.  Listen to what they pray abbout.  Help when I can but also try to be better at letting them do everything on their own, in their own time.  Doing all this is painful.  I think the phrase "growing pains" is more about the heart ache of watching your children grow up than it is about actual cramps.  The pain is also accompanied by infinite joy, if it wasn't no one would sign up for parenthood.  The joy of watching Turner, confident on the football field,

almost made my heart burst.  The joy of watching Tate shine during her gymnastics class is inexplicable.  Joy and pain, its a beautiful life.  

My Moments

     

     Memories are living things, at least mine are.  I have very vivid memories of my childhood, exciting times, vacations.  The special ones are my moments.  I have a very few, very special moments.  I can feel and smell and be in these moments at any time, because they are magic.  One of my very first special moments was combing a dying mans' hair.  I was ten years old and my world, my grandffather was dying of colon cancer.  Everyone has that one special grand parent, and he was mine.  He was magic, he was like Dr. Seuss's mischevious better half.  Cancer is evil and jealous and it wanted all of his amazing life spirit.  Not long before he slipped away from me he called me his little nurse and asked me to comb his hair.  He was still making magic and pretend for me.  He laid on his couch and let me comb his hair and he was mine.  

    I surveyed with my dad when I was sixteen.  His partner died unexpectedly, and he asked me to help him finish a few jobs.  The jobs kept coming that  summer, so we kept working.  He got me my very own machete, and he taught me how to use it.  We worked the hardest job I had ever had that  summer.  Cutting line through swamps and through rivers and mud, I think it was about a hundred acres total.  We sat on the tailgate of his truck, hot as hell, sharing water and Vienna sausages for our lunch.  I have never been more proud to be his daughter.  He is my shining example of what a Godly, hard-working man should be.  I can still smell our sweat, feel the sun bearing down on us, and my dad was all mine.  

      When I was thirty I had the good fortune to have a blood clot.  I thought I was strong and capable and God showed me I am but a fleeting piece of humanity.  A surgery that was supposed to be a three day hospital stay turned into a twenty-three day ICU ordeal with too many complications to name.  I became so worn down, so weak.  My Sweetness stayed every night, would go shower and see the kids for a couple hours and come back to take care of me.  When I was at my lowest, in walked my Sweetness with our kids' travel DVD player, a bucket of microwave popcorn and a chick flick.  He smiled and told me " I came to take my best girl on a date".  I never saw the movie, my lung collapsed shortly after that and I was rushed off to surgery.  But that smile,  those weary eyes full of worry, the confidence he faked for my benifit.  That was our moment and he will forever be mine.

      I love to work out and I have found my tribe. I joined Crossfit Fortify about a month ago and was asked to be a fill in on their team for a competition.   This past weekend I had a moment at that competition.   My nerves had me almost paralyzed as our team was called to get ready for our first heat.  My coach was up first and I watched him rip through his sprint and weights, terrified that I was next. I know it was loud but I couldn't hear anyone.  When my turn came I ran.  Once I was back I had to complete a set of twenty seventy-five pound thrusters.  I have never pushed myself so hard physically that my emotions overpowered me, until this past weekend.  I think I have always done just the opposite, I work out to work through my emotions and handle them.  Saturday I pushed my body until it stopped.  I actually felt tears spring into my eyes when I had two more reps to do.  My lungs and my entire body screamed at me to stop, then I looked and saw my kids.  I saw them worried.  I finished  because Turner and Tate willed me to.  Sweat running into my eyes, pain and pride running through my body, and my childrens clear blue eyes watching me.  That was my moment.  Seeing the two who I made, knowing I am forever thiers.  

It's just a bus.....

    My kids are riding the bus home from scool today for the very first time.  Children all over the world do this every day, so it's fine, right?   My endless praying and pacing around, "what if-ing" myself to death  is not necessary, right?  The bus beats us home every day, their friends all ride on it, they asked to ride home on the bus, so why am I freaking out?!?  Easy: I am a control freak who is desperately hanging on to my kids for dear life.  Turner and Tate are both the reason for my insanity and the only cure for it.  I get driven nuts by them both on a regular basis, but any time they are out of my sight I am a hot worried mess.
      Last week Turner had a doctor's appointment right before lunch, since we had an excuse I decided to take him on a date and skip the rest of the school day.  Papa came and met us for lunch, we even splurged on desert.  Sweetness went back to work and Turner and I had the day to shop together.  We went everywhere, got him a new book on the sea and all it's many creatures, some training equipment to use for football, and even went in and had coffee together before picking up Tater.  He held my hand, opened my car door and talked to me for four straight hours.  No video games, no phones, no noise just me and my boy.  He's funny, he loves music because it speaks to his heart and moves to the rhythm of his soul,  he thinks of others and is possibly the most curious person I've ever met.  To have him or his sister out of my comfort bubble is unbearable.
      We  have always lived away from family, so no grandpas or grandmas to pick the kids up from school.  We move frequently enough that by the time we "make a family" out of our friends, we are telling them goodbye and saying hello to another city.  So, every single day the kids and I go through our routines, which are all intertwined together.  I don't like new routines, but this to shall pass, right?
       It's that time of the job when I am feeling all out of sorts.  The job is ending, we have no idea where or when we are going, like a feather floating on the breeze waiting to see where we land.  Even though we say it's not stressing us out, it is.  Do I start packing?  No.  Do  I start worrying about the kids school year being interrupted?  No.  We may not move for six more months,  so why worry now?
  God is constantly trying to show me that I am not in control, but man I am bullheaded and stubborn, so it's a hard lesson to learn.  God's also been trying to teach me patience for the past 12 years, but I have been in too much of a hurry to learn it.  Brad and I have never known where we are heading, just that we are going where ever it is together.  
       I am trying so hard to take deep breaths and enjoy this journey.  Why worry now? My kids are still little, still sweet, and still innocent.  The world has not gotten it's hands on them, yet.  My husband and I are still young enough to be healthy and enjoy this great gypsy life.  So I'm going to make a cup of coffee, say a prayer that my kids get home safely and keep telling myself it's only a bus.  I will worry about something all new tomorrow.

It's there, you have to look for it.

   I have been LAZY about blogging as of late.  Our time in Texas has doubled from its original six month projection. When we said our tearful good bye to Georgia, I promised my boy that we would go back for a visit.  Life got busy and a school year came and went. Summer fast approaching, we began to try to plan a Macon trip. 

     I'm not about to lie, I was a little nervous to go back. More than a little nervous to have my family of four invade our neighbors' family of five's house for five days. Fish and company stink after three days you know?  But this was Turner's one time in a year to see his very best friend, shorter just wouldn't do. I am such a creature of habit that it's hard for me to step outside my carefully crafted facade of normalcy and sanity.  Tickets in hand  we sailed across the skies to our former home. 

       As soon as I saw Amy walk out to greet us with that beautiful smile on her face, everything felt right. Right like we could still walk across the driveway, right like the sound of a basket ball dribbling, right like  borrowing an egg, right like finally seeing your family again after a year apart.  We managed to spend five whole days together, and it was wonderful.  The kids never once argued, heck they never once looked up from playing together. We got to see so many of our friends, share meals, laughs, a few drinks and so many memories. 

      Our trip lightened a weight that has been pressing on my heart for the past year. I have worried that our gypsy lifestyle was going to break my children's hearts. I thought being moved across the country from their very best friends would put irreparable cracks in their lives.  After seeing how happy they were in Georgia and how equally happy they were to return to Texas I know that I was wrong.  The moving away from and the distance apart from our Green family didn't break Turner and Tate's hearts.  It did make cracks, but those have only served as space for our new friends here.  

        I'm hoping this gypsy - go where the wind blows us- life is teaching my kids acceptance.   So far I  believe it is.  Beyond that it, it is teaching us all that happiness doesn't reside in any one place.  It's any where you look for it.  It's in different states, in different shapes, in different cultures, and within so many different people.  I hope when my children are grown they look back and know that they have friends and happiness spread all over the world.  I want them to not think they will live and die in the same town, but venture out and try out many different kinds of happy.  My happy is in running trot lines on a pond with my dad,  it's in looking across the valley as the monsoons of Phoenix roll in, it's in watching softly falling snow in Utah while holding my baby, it's in looking down a cherry blossom lined street, and it's on the gulf coast basking in the sun with my Sweetness and digging in the sand.  I want Turner and Tate to know that no matter where God sends them they will be happy, as long as they look to find it.