Other Mothers

Ryann started Kindergarten this year.  It has been a much anticipated milestone in this house.  She has always loved school, loved the friends, loved the teachers and the learning.  She also super loved that all of her preschool classrooms had multiple toy phones.  I think the lack of toy phones is the only downside to Kindergarten.  

In our little tribe of “friends who have become a family of sorts” there are three other kiddos starting Kindergarten this year, too.  One in each family.  Each kid started “big school” at a different school last month.  Many months ago the moms dreamed up “Kindergarten dinner.”  We wanted to take these soon-to-be Kindergarteners out for a special dinner, just them and their moms, to celebrate this big milestone. 

A few weeks ago four moms and four five and six year olds met at Portillo’s for Kindergarten dinner.  We ordered hot dogs and hamburgers and chicken nuggets (and a few chopped salads) and moved a few tables together for our feast.  As we’d finalized our plans the week before I’d wondered if Portillo’s was the right choice.  Should we have done something more “sit-down” and grown up to celebrate the big occasion?  After watching their squirrelly excitement multiply with proximity to each other I knew we’d made the right call.  They may be "big kids" but they’re still unable to sit still when they all get together.  We gave each kid a chance to share about their schools and classrooms, what they loved, who they sat by, what the best part of the day was.  They excitedly found similarities in each other’s school lives (“I go to the library too!  You have recess??  Me too!”) and they all reported that they liked their teachers.  At the end of dinner there was a lot of coordinated hands in the circle “go teaming” to the shouts of Kindergarten!  (Five and six year olds are so funny!)  At some point in the meal they’d started planning the band they were going to form and, outside of Portillo's, the drive through line was treated to four raucous kindergarteners singing/playing four different songs on imaginary instruments.  I predict their first record will go platinum. 

In this little Kindergarten cohort there are two boys and two girls.  Finn and Grayson were born just a few days apart in August.  Nine months later Ryann was born and six weeks after that came Caroline.  I’ve known their moms since high school, but it was when these guys were babies that our tribe fully came together and we started meeting intentionally and regularly.  Charity and her family had just moved back to the area and Kelly and her family came into the fold all around the same time.  For the whole of Ry’s life she has known these three women.  Finn, Grayson and Caroline have been her constant playmates.  They’ve celebrated each of her birthdays, she knows the ins and outs of all their homes and their families.  Outside of her siblings, these are the kids that are closest to her, her people.  And their moms are her second moms.  She knows Lauren will pick her up and give her the biggest hug when she sees her, Charity will stop everything to hear about her day and Kelly will cheer her on in whatever she does.  

At one point in the dinner Charity told the kids she was really excited that there were four amazing kids going out into the world to be brave and kind and loving and that we wanted to mark that with our little celebration.  I added that I wanted each of them to know that there are four moms here who love each of them so much and who will be cheering them all on every step of the way as they go out into the world. 

There’s been lots said about the need for a village.  Jen Hatmaker calls them “bonus moms” in her new book and writes a more beautiful tribute to them than I ever could.  Whatever you want to call it, a tribe, a village, bonus moms, second mothers, the experience of other people loving and caring about my kids has changed me and shaped my kids lives in incredible ways.  I am so incredibly thankful for these women in my kids lives.  Thankful that I get to be in their kids lives.

At the dinner we decided that this would be a tradition for the (many) kids we have coming up behind these four.  (Between the four families we have 12 kids…so far.)  This is the only year that each of us have a kid starting kindergarten, but we decided that in the future all four moms will attend the Kindergarten Dinner, even if we don’t have a kindergartener that year.  Because we want all our kids to know that all the moms care about them deeply, that we’re here for them, that we’re cheering them on, rooting for them, eager to celebrate their successes and help pick them up after the losses.  These kids have a tribe and I’m so happy to be a part of it.    

A Few Good Books: August

It’s the middle of the month so I’m linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy to share what I read last month.  I read some good stuff in August!

Here’s the lineup:

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Of Mess and Moxie by Jen Hatmaker

One: Unity in a Divided World by Deirdre Riggs

The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda

The Polygamist’s Daughter by Anna LeBaron

The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

The Best:

read this immediately

Hands down "Homegoing" was the best thing I read this month.  This book was…. I don’t even know if I have the words to properly explain its significance.  It follows the lineage of two sisters in Africa starting at the beginning of the slave trade.  Each chapter gives a snapshot of the next generation, going back and forth between families.  There is a helpful family tree at the beginning of the book that I referred back to constantly.  It is so beautifully and powerfully written.  Each character could have sustained an entire novel, but the fact that we only got what is essentially a short story peek into their lives just made me want more.  Gyasi did an incredible job of tying each generations story together so that you felt like you got resolution to each character’s life.  It was in incredibly ingenious set up and the execution was perfect.  It’s a powerful, powerful story that needs to be on everyone’s “to read” list.

worth it 100%

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t eagerly anticipating this one like I have of Hatmaker’s books in the past.  I loved Jen’s books “Seven” and “Interrupted" and I’ve been a long time reader of her blog, but her last book “For the Love” fell kind of flat for me so I figured I’d get around to “Of Mess and Moxie” whenever.  I wasn’t on the pre-ordering rush.  But after hearing a podcast interview with Jen about the book my interest was piqued and her pre-order incentives were decent so I went ahead and pre-ordered it a few days before it came out.  It came to my door on a Tuesday and I think I’d finished it in two days.  It is classic Hatmaker, honest, funny, thought-provoking.  There was something different about this one though.  She’s been through the ringer over the last year with in the big “Christian Industry” and the book reveals a depth and groundedness that I haven’t seen with her.  She’s been refined and I found her to be even wiser and bolder, my favorite combination.  I shared essays with Tommy, returned to a few later and am still thinking about some.  I couldn’t recommend this one more highly.

this cover conveys zero about the book itself

Another surprise this month was “The Almost Sisters.”  It was on a bunch of “Best Summer Reading Lists” but the cover was such a turn off for me that I kept avoiding it.  Then, a book store owner I follow on Instagram, Annie B. Jones posted about it mentioning that the cover didn’t really fit the book so I added it to my library hold list.  When I finally got it I’d forgotten all about Annie’s post and once again found myself so turned off by the cover that it sat on my desk for a week before I finally picked it up.  I’m so glad I did!  It was a delightful story.  I loved the main character and the world in which she lived.  It’s a story that takes place in the South is one part family drama, one part murder mystery and one part “woman at a crossroads.”  Don’t let the cover (which truly makes absolutely no sense to both the plot and tone of the story) turn you off.

The Rest:

Deirdre Riggs’ One: Unity in a Divided World is a beautiful look at how we can be unity and peace makers in this modern era which seems so divisive.  I really enjoyed it and hope to entice a few others to read it so I can talk to them about it.  The Perfect Stranger is a mystery/thriller in the vein of Gone Girl et all.  I liked this one better than Miranda’s previous book “All the Missing Girls.”  Anna LeBaron is the daughter of an infamous polygamous cult leader and this memoir, The Polygamist's Daughter, documents her life within the cult and her escape from it.  Weird fact about me-I'm fascinated by polygamous cults.  I don’t know why, but I will read any and all cult memoirs.  LeBaron’s story is fascinating and heartbreaking, but if you’re going to read a polygamous cult memoir I’d read The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner (who happens, weirdly, to be LeBaron’s cousin, though they didn’t know that until both their memoirs had come out).

That's what I've got this month friends!  What are you reading?

Rejection!

I was at the farm when I got the email, which is remarkable in that my reception at the farm is always spotty so I don't usually bother checking much.  When I saw the sender and the subject title (re: your submission) my heart leapt and I rushed to open it, praying the few bars I had would be enough for the content to load.  It was and as I scanned over the words of the message I found myself smiling despite what those words said.  It was a rejection letter.  My first rejection letter.

Well, to be clear this wasn’t my first rejection letter of all time.  I’ve received plenty of those.  In fact, there were a few weeks in 2001 when I received a string of rejection letters from almost every college I applied to.  Even the mailman started giving me sympathetic looks as I hopefully awaited his arrival.  This email was my first rejection letter for a writing submission.  And while outwardly I received that solid, unmistakable “no,” inside I was warm and even unmistakably happy.  

I’d thought about submitting pieces to magazines and online publications forever.  I’d toy with the essay contest for Real Simple each month, spend an inordinate amount of time researching “how and where to submit writing samples," think about what I’d write and where I’d submit it, sometimes actually start said submission but never, ever did I actually write, edit, finish and submit any of my writing.  

I don’t even remember exactly what was the catalyst for this submission.  For months I’d been circling the 15th in my calendar each month as a reminder that this was the deadline for submissions to a particular online magazine.  Each and every month the 15th would pass and I would fail to send anything, worried that whatever I’d been working on wasn’t quite “right” for their site.  I do remember, when I finally did finish something, thinking, this may not be quite what they’re looking for, but screw it.  Send it anyway.  And before I had a chance to overthink it or back out, I did.

And, a few weeks later I heard back from them.  The response to my very attempt at the sacred act of “putting yourself out there” in this area of my life was a resounding (but very kind and polite) no.

And so, in the face of that first rejection I became surprised at the overriding emotion of… pride.  I wasn’t upset at being told “thanks, but no thanks.”  Instead I was proud that I’d had the courage to follow through and submit something in the first place.  Instead of deleting that email, dejected, I smiled a little to myself and saved that sucker, proof that I’d been brave and vulnerable and lived to tell the tale.

In his memoir “On Writing” author Stephen King writes about how he used to stick all of his rejection letters to a nail in his wall and that by the age of 14 he’d had to upgrade to a spike because the nail could no longer support the weight of all those letters.  By the age of fourteen he’d had the courage to submit enough work that a nail couldn’t hold all the proof of his chutzpah!  I marveled over this story when I read it and committed to racking up at least a few more rejection emails.

I now have a file, nested under Personal in my complex and numerous gmail label system, entitled “rejections!” It looks just like that, too, with the ! serving as a reminder that these emails are exciting!  They are not rejections, but rather marks of your daring, your chance taking, your “putting it out there-ness”!  Collect them happily because it means you are trying.  In 2018 I just may set a goal for myself to receive a certain number of those emails.

This is easy to say, at the beginning of this journey.  When that file has accumulated hundreds of “thanks, but no thanks” emails, I may not be so cheerful about my rejection epiphany.  Be careful what you wish for and all that jazz.

But I am careful about what I’m wishing for.  I’m wishing to be brave and bold.  I’m wishing to follow through on long held dreams.  I’m wishing to show up and do the work for the work’s sake.  I’m wishing to put myself out there a bit more, to dare and chance and dream.  And so if all I end up with is an email file filled with receipts that I tried and took a risk I will still have gotten what I wished for.

And so, fellow dreamers, this one is for you.  Could we do this?  Can we wear letters of rejection as badges of honor, a testament to our bravery?  Can we face the fear and celebrate when we survive that of which we were so afraid?  What are your "rejection letters" and how can you flip the script on them?  

Let’s do this, friends.  Make your own rejections! pile and let them stack up, smiling with each one.  Follow in the footsteps of Stephen King and really rack ‘em up, high-fiving your chutzpah along the way.  Let’s try something, be brave, put ourselves out there and fail.  And then let’s happily get up and try again.