One of our favorite ways to have dinner as a family is to break out a large platter, fill it with fruit, veggies, cheese, meat, crackers or bread and place it on the ottoman (or outside on the front step). We sit on the floor and dig in, together, no plates, no forks, no tv, no music. Just enjoy the meal and company. I’m not sure if it’s the unorthodox dining method or the location but it makes for an exciting and chatty meal. Maybe it’s that we are all on the floor, at the same level. Katy labeled this event Fruity Friday, even if it’s on a Tuesday. Fruity Friday is typically completed by a rousing edition of “what is” – as in “what is your favorite animal?” “what is the best time of day?” and“what is your favorite color?” We go around the ottoman and usually end up giggling at the answers.

Katy is moving up to the big scary middle school this fall and for the month of May the 5^th grade is having a practice run at 6^th grade. They have padlocks on their lockers and move from class to class with different children for 4 class periods. With just 4 minutes to get from one class to the next they are carrying books with them and using a bell system for class dismissals. She thinks middle school is exciting and cannot wait to get there. It’s admittedly a little scary for me.

At nearly 7 years old, Miss Gretch has taken to a monkey. It’s a stuffed one that went through a bit of an identity crisis but eventually settled on the name Bananas. Saturday night a sleepy Gretchen came to my bed-side scared of a spidery dream. I told her to go back to bed and try to think about something else and got up to let the dog out. When I walked back upstairs she was in the hallway saying “it didn’t work” so I walked her to bed, tucked her in and explained that monkeys eat spiders and other kinds of bugs so Bananas would protect her. “Oh, okay,” she said dreamily, rolled to her side with Bananas snug under her arm and was suddenly sleeping with a faint smile on her little rosebud mouth.

Between the moments of frustration and repeated directions, of ‘what were you thinking’ and ‘how do you think that makes her feel’ are snapshots of our little family just being. I understand that the frustration and other things that are not fun are part of our family also, but it’s the little moments that I cherish. Sitting around the ottoman having dinner, chatter from the backseat about this friend and that, and quieting a bad dream with the assurance that everything would be alright.

These days are numbered. Gretchen will be 7 next month and Katy turns 11 in June. For years we have teasingly celebrated ‘only 12 more years and they’ll be out of the house!’ around their birthdays. It won’t be long and they’ll turn the table on it and start celebrating how many years until they get to move out.

Guidance

The girls and I had been playing cards last night, a marathon of Go Fish and Uno, and I sent them to get ready for bed at about 8:10. Katy sat back down on our bed and spilled her guts. She had forgotten to finish a project over the weekend, saw the teacher's reaction to another student who also did not finish the project, and was scared and embarrassed at the thought of receiving the same reaction in fron of the entire class. The next morning it would be her turn to describe her project and turn it in. She had not finished the hot list (which sounds like a reference page) and had yet to develop a game to go along with the research topic (turns out there is a software program that will build a crossword or word find puzzle if you enter in the questions and answers - who knew?).

Apparently, there was a substitute for most of last week for this particular teacher and the substitute did not instruct the class to work on the project. I asked about the teacher's reaction to the student who also did not finish the project and she described it through tears.

Part of me wanted to be the Momma Bear and say it wasn't fair, that expecting 10-11 year old children to keep track of the deadline for project during a weeklong absence of their teacher and to take the initiative to complete it outside of class was a bit much. I wanted to berate the teacher for leaving insufficient lesson plans for the substitute, who according to Katy told the students just read each day in this class. That surely if these children are expected to finish the project on their own that the substitute could have provided this message to the students and even supervised their work. I had to think of the bigger picture, that this was Katy's interpretation of what happened and not necessarily the whole truth.

It was time to take a step back, take a deep breath and get Katy to stop sobbing so that we could have a conversation. It went something like this.

It is true that it is your responsibility to finish your school work. You know what reaction the teacher had today to a student who had not completed the project and you can probably expect about the same reaction tomorrow. [it's okay, take a deep breath, have a kleenex and a drink of water]

Let's make a plan. How are you going to complete the project tomorrow?

She said that she could work on the project during recess and that if she talked to the band teacher that she could work on it instead of going to band. Okay, if you have not completed the project by the end of the school day, stay after school to finish it and send Dad a text message asking him to pick you up later. [no, no, I promise he won't be mad, I'll talk to him] This snowballed into Katy saying that she likes band and honor choir but maybe she shouldn't go to them so that she could have study hall instead.

Okay, one thing at a time. You have to be honest and up front with this teacher. Tell her that you have not completed the project and explain your plan to complete it today. If she has the same reaction to you as it sounds like she did to another student, remain calm and agree with her that yes, it was ultimately your responsibility to complete the project.

Then she asked what if she cries and everyone sees her. [broke my heart a little so I had to get gross for perspective] Well, you are going to walk into the classroom and talk to the teacher right away. It's not like you are going to stand up in front of everyone and vomit, you aren't going to have explosive diarrhea or something nasty like that. [she laughs through her tears and gives me a 'oh Mom that's just gross'] Yeah, see, it could be a lot worse.

You are going to cry, big deal. You are worried about how this is all going to work out and it's okay to let emotion out by crying. Then I got to her level and quoted Taylor Swift (genius on my part!). How does the song go? "You'll do greater things in your life than date a boy on the football team." Honey, you are going to screw up so much bigger in your life than not finishing a project on time. You are going to run into things with your first car [she laughs], you are going to screw up big time at some point in your life. Let's learn the lesson and move on.

The class starts at 10:30, I'll be watching the clock and hoping that it goes well.

A good flyover

Within the first few days after we moved to Colorado Springs there was a welcome home parade for the 4th Infantry Division, including my husband's unit, the Brigade Reconnaissance Team - later the 2nd Brigade of the 9th Calvary. It was an emotional time for us, our little family of three had just reunited after being apart for a year. We were adjusting to being together in a new place where it was just us for the first time, we knew no one.

This was not a parade of marching bands and little league teams. It was a parade of proud and exhausted soldiers marching in their newly issued boots. Rows and rows of uniforms interspersed with equipment - up-armored Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles. No music, no candy, just a steady stomp and cheering crowd.

Colorado Springs is home to the Army base Fort Carson, and also home to the Air Force Academy, Peterson and Schreiver Air Force bases. When there is a welcome home parade, they bring out every piece of aircraft that was used during that tour of duty for a flyover. Imagine the giant C130, Chinook helicoptors, etc. flying low and fast overhead. There are few tall buildings in Colorado Springs, no one wants to impede the view of Pikes Peak, and so the aircraft fly in low, shaking the ground. The soldiers are stoic and unnerved by the flyover.

I'm sitting on the curb with our three year old daughter standing between my knees, taking it all in, looking for Daddy. She sits down when the aircraft start to come through, unsure of the noise. The C130 soars overhead, seemingly 100 feet above our heads. I can feel the rumble in my feet, pride for my husband, pride for the soldiers he walks with, pride and camaraderie for the families surrounding me. We all made it through this rough year-long tour together. I bury my tear-filled eyes in my daughter's soft, straight hair. To this day a good flyover gives me chills and my eyes well up with tears.

Our hometown July 4th parade this year had a flyover by a two jets from the local Air National Guard unit. Instantly filled with the old feeling of pride in the few seconds it takes for them to fly over I feel like something needs to be said - all I can muster is "I love a good flyover".

There's never a dull moment around here. Even trips to Hobby Lobby are lots of fun.

I am feeling terribly unproductive lately. Seems to be a really awful spell of it. I sit here at the laptop and look for something in my favorites only to see that I have a couple crafty pattern websites saved that I have bought fabric for but am unmotivated to work on. I also have Shutterfly waiting for me to finish a photo book about our vacation last summer as well as figure out how to share pictures. There are two half-read books on my night table - noticing a pattern yet? I blame Etsy.com and too few hours in the day. I could get a lot more done in day if there were just a few more hours to search Etsy for insipiration and still manage to get the boring stuff done.

High points of the day: menu drawn up for the week, grocery shopping all by myself, laundry folded and put away thank you darling daughters, a $4 bouquet of flowers arranged quite prettily and some peace and quiet as the before mentioned darling daughters play nicely upstairs. [emphasis added on the best parts]

It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day of it all. The business of being an adult is at the same time a welcome routine and a burden. The balance constantly changing – home, family, work, friends. Many relationships to manage and never enough time in the day. And then there’s you.

Keep a little time for you. Write, journal, doodle, daydream. It’s true that your children grow older every day but so do you. Today is the only January 18, 2011 you’ll ever have in your whole entire life. Are you going to spend it giving away every minute to someone else or are you going to take one or two – even 15 just for you. Brew a cup of tea, listen to a favorite song, re-read a favorite passage from a book, lay down on the living room floor put your feet up on the couch and stretch your arms out to the sides, find a quiet spot. It’s not selfish to take a break and re-charge yourself. Come back ready to rock, or at least muddle through, the rest of the day.

This Christmas season I find myself humbled by the grace and strength of others. Members of my extended family and community have suffered great loss this year. By all appearances, they are doing okay, making plans, attending events, going to work and functioning each day. Maybe that is the trick, to focus on anything except how miserable and heartbroken you really are. There are many individuals that I think of daily, hoping that they may find peace.

Our immediate King/Faust family has had a decent year. There have been difficult days but all in all we are doing well. I am a fan of lists, and here is one more to end the year.

Things to be thankful for this Christmas season.

Our family is close; in distance (for the most part) and heart.
We are all relatively healthy.
Our homes are warm and safe.
There is ample food in our cupboards.
Good friends; they bring such spirit to our lives.

What I am most thankful for is our little family of four. The days and nights that we worry and work hard to provide and create a good home for our children appear to be paying off. Throughout this year we as parents have benefitted from their love and laughter, their kindness towards others and overall goodness.

This Christmas season, I hope that you are able to make your own list of things to be thankful for. May your list bring you comfort and joy.

My thoughts drift, as they often do, and this morning I was struck by the sun shining through the skywalk window sparkling on the dust. It was so pretty until I started to sneeze and realized that it was dust, not heaven-sent sprinklings of patience and time. What a violent burst to my bubble.

I have written about a sprinkle jar before – the sight of sparkly cinnamon-sugar falling out of a jar melting into butter on warm wheat toast correlating to the warm fuzziness of a happy, worry-free childhood.

Of course, it’s the romanticized version of the sight, the movie set slow motion scene with perfect lighting – I do not recall sunlight pouring into the kitchen and straight into the tiny pieces of cinnamon and sugar as they dissolve into the butter. I recall sitting down with my toast at the table to read the comics and attempt the crossword, plopping down for Saturday morning cartoons or in front of the crackling fire. It’s the relaxation, the minute or two to take a deep breath and just be.

It’s been a long fall adjusting to new grades at school, home improvement projects that seem to have a mind of their own, irregular work schedules, and the stress of balancing work, school, home and parenting. Finding balance is hard – especially because I have trouble balancing myself, have been known to trip over my own feet, fall off of sidewalks and cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

There is an old corporate training program about work-life balance with an exercise where you imagine that you are juggling glass balls and that each ball represents a part of your life – work, home, etc. You are supposed to imagine what would happen if you dropped a ball while juggling and that ball broke beyond repair. Juggling requires balance (which I lack) so I preferred to imagine that all of my glass balls were safely tucked away in my pockets where they were not at risk of crashing.

Earlier this week it felt as if everything was off balance, that the glass balls were about to dig themselves out of my pockets and crash to the floor. I took a few minutes at work for just me, opened up a new Word doc and made a list of everything that was so hard that day. The last thing on the list was ‘refill sprinkle jar’. I took a deep breath, stood up and stretched and just let the worry go. I could do nothing about a lot of the stress so just let it be rather than let it bother me.

At home that night I made cookies with my daughters. A batch of snickerdoodles that failed so miserably I could only describe them as a cookbook type-o. I made a second batch of always successful chocolate chip cookies, half for a company Thanksgiving luncheon today, and half for a co-worker with four children whose husband suffered a massive heart attack earlier this week.

Sprinkle jar, refilled.