A Mom Like Me with a Kid Like Brooka

She’s never said it more clearly than she did today: “I think God wants me to live in Indonesia.” Not just go to Indonesia, but live there. She used the words “mission” and “preach.” In Indonesia. And she’s only seven.

We’ve always had that “one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others” feeling about our third child, Brooka. She is comfortable with everyone. She walks into a room and believes everyone there wants to be her friend. She’s freakishly confident. She requires adventure. She can’t remember ever feeling afraid. She doesn’t much care about privacy or quality of restroom facilities. She does sick better than anyone I’ve ever known. She prays passionately. (Of course she also picks her nose, runs off in parking lots, fights with her siblings, and is generally way too hyper. When she was two, all that independence and adventure caused me to consider drinking.)

The Indonesia thing started a few years ago. She was reading books about tigers, her great love, and learned about the islands of Java and Sumatra. She started talking about Indonesia, and how she thought she might live there some day. It came up at random times. My youngest daughter would say, “Mommy, I will always live next door to you and take care of you,” and Brooka would chime in, “Not me! I’ll be clear in Asia and you’ll never see me.” She also says things like, “Gee, Addison, I hope I can make it to your wedding, but you know I’ll be in Indonesia.”

I’m starting to think there’s something to this. And if there is, then I wonder how a mom like me, whose world is so small, prepares her child to live in a world so big. Or how a mom like me is supposed to develop her daughter’s natural confidence and independence when those things are so foreign to her. It seems almost laughable. I’ve barely been out of the United States, speak only English, and won’t try a new food on a bet. I had to look up Indonesia on a map! I have a strong preference for things that are familiar and comfortable, and yet this is the child I get to raise? It’s almost like God’s trying to make a point. Like this is going to happen because of His strength and skill and not my own.

So, by the grace of God, a mom like me is going to do her best to help Brooka find her calling and prepare her for it. I’ll do that with all my children, it just might look different with Brooka—like buying Indonesian language tapes or setting up meetings with missionaries or finding world travelers who can teach her the ins and outs of catching trains and exchanging currency. We’ve already stumbled upon the perfect Indonesian pen pal for her, and today she ate her first Indonesian candy, sent by the pen pal, whose mother says Brooka always has a place to stay there. She’s seven, and it seems like the wheels are sort of in motion already. I’m still teaching her to wash her face and load the dishwasher and tie her shoes, but all the while I’m preparing myself to watch her leave for good some day.

The only thing sadder than the thought of one day putting Brooka on a plane and sending her across the globe is the thought of holding her back because of my own fears. I won’t be that mom. She’s all yours, Lord.

We Are the Draw

In my last entry, I mentioned how my daughter Addison and I were in Denver this summer to celebrate her 10^th birthday a little early. It’s a big deal for me to have alone time with any of my kids, so I wanted to do this right. I made reservations at a nice hotel in downtown Denver. Our room was on the top floor. We stayed for two whole nights! With all my inherent cheapness pushed aside, I tried to create a real event for my daughter, something she would remember for the rest of her life. But it wasn’t quite what I had pictured.

I let her pick the restaurants, thinking there might be some fun new food she’d want to try. We ate fast food. (Her food highlight was getting her own Jamba Juice and not having to share it with another kid. I guess that’s a big deal when your inherently cheap mother has four children.) I asked if she wanted to get her ears pierced. She thought about it, and we made it as far as Claire’s, but instead just tried on funny glasses for a few minutes and left. “Do you want to go for a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, Addison?” I thought this might be the thing that made the trip for her. “Well, the horses look a little hot and tired,” she said. “Maybe we should just walk.” So we did, hand in hand, for a couple miles.

“Do you want to get a manicure, Addison?” This would be it! A lifelong nail-biter, she had worked hard all summer to grow out her nails, and now they were beautiful. “Hmmm,” she said. “Maybe. But maybe you could just do my nails.”

I’m stumped. What is up? I’m trying to create an event here, and she’s declining my every offer. Then I realize she’s been looking up at me with these googley eyes—the look she’ll someday give to her first love. But today, when she’s nearly 10, I’m her first love, and those googley eyes are reserved just for me. She tells me again, as she has pretty much every seven seconds since we got here, what a wonderful time she’s having. And I start to get it. I’m the draw here. I’m the event.

A friend had asked me, before our trip, if I was taking Addison to see a show or a play in Denver. I hadn’t even considered it and felt a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to do that for my daughter. But what I didn’t realize then was that walking hand in hand with her mom, eating cheeseburgers with her mom, snuggling in bed and watching TV with her mom was all she wanted. And here’s the thing: I don’t believe Addison is any different from your son or daughter. Parents everywhere need to get this. WE ARE THE DRAW for our kids.

The American advertising machine has done its best to convince parents we must buy more, spend more, eat more, travel more in order to have children who will remember their childhoods fondly and treat us decently during their teen years. It’s a lie! We know it’s a lie, way down deep, but do we live like it? Do we live like it at the end of the day, when we’re tired and just want to crawl into bed, but are cornered by a 10-year-old who just wants to talk about life now that the house is quiet?

Let’s not miss out on this, parents! We are the draw. They want us more than they want stuff, no matter how many messages we get to the contrary. It’s us they want—our time, and even better, our focused attention—more than anything else. I don’t know how long it will last, but I’m going to try to make the most of every minute. For right now, those googley eyes are all mine.

What Needs to Be Done Here?

Time to start writing again. I enjoyed the break, and needed it, but my mind is filled with new ideas to explore and thoughts to process, and this is how I do that best. I pick back up with a reminder to myself of why I started this blog. It’s not my personal soapbox, not my forum in which to convince others of my beliefs or to share my great knowledge on life, God, parenting, or how to attractively wear sweatpants. I write because this is how I process what God is teaching me. He’s teaching me every day, and if I’ll just slow down and pay attention, I’ll grow. By making this public, maybe someone else can grow alongside me. That’s why I write. Simple as that.

So with that ground covered, I will launch into some of the things I’ve been thinking about this summer. But first, I have to applaud President Obama for his “speech” at Ground Zero yesterday. They were the perfect words at the perfect time. Just a few days ago, I saw the stupidest bumper sticker I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying something): “He’s not MY president.” See? Stupid, huh? You don’t get to substitute your own reality about something as cut-and-dried as who the president is. He is your president, foolish driver, and he’s mine, too. That’s a fact. And I have never been more impressed with our president as I was yesterday morning.

OK, moving on.

I’ve been reading a book called Spiritual Parenting by Michelle Anthony. It would be more accurate to say I’ve been “whooped upside the head” by this book. It falls along the lines of Crazy Love and Radical but within the context of parenting. Plenty to feel missing-the-boat-worthy about here, but it’s also got some very practical take-aways. One of the things she writes about that I’ve been practicing with my kids is to walk through life asking, “What needs to be done here?” Is there a breakfast plate I could take in, even though it belonged to my sister? Is there a door that needs opened for a mom pushing a stroller? Is there some trash in a parking lot that needs picked up? Is there someone who needs some encouragement? What needs to be done here?

Of course the idea is that these little acts of service will become a way of life in our children, so that in a decade or two they are asking, “What needs to be done about poverty in my community?” Or “What needs to be done about AIDS in Africa?” It makes sense that children who think this way and become adults who think this way are the key to changing the world.

So I’ve been working on introducing “What needs to be done here?” into our children’s thinking. But more than anything, I’ve been wondering about this question in my own life. Am I myself willing to be a person who goes through life with this mindset? I think I am, but then I consider the evidence to the contrary.

This summer, my daughter and I were walking down the 16^th Street Mall in Denver eating Dairy Queen Blizzards. I took one bite of mine and realized I had only gotten it because she wanted ice cream. I didn’t want ice cream, yet here I was, preparing to slurp down 16 ounces of it. At the same time, we walked by a man rifling through the trashcan for something to eat. He was filthy, stinky, scary looking. My heart went out to him. My ice cream did not. It actually didn’t even cross my mind until I was about a block down the street. Why had I not given him my Blizzard? Instant justifications came to my mind. Well I had already taken a bite—and licked off my spoon. It was second-hand ice cream! How pathetically middle class of me. A man digging through trash for food is probably not real concerned about germs. I felt horrible. My ice cream melted, uneaten, as we continued to walk and I frantically searched for someone else to give it to. But we didn’t see anyone. We saw only people like us, happily eating their own ice cream and hot dogs and coffee, unaware that six blocks away, someone was pulling his dinner from the trash.

Am I willing to do what needs to be done? I wan to be. Am I aware of what needs to be done—at the moment it needs to be done? That’s where I’ve got so far to go.