On raising children to dance

Tonight, I watched my children dance in the churchyard under the palm trees, surrounded by scurrying geckos and warm sea air.

I thought of the richness of the childhood moments they will remember from this place – the lilting accents of their grandparents, the swirling nod of their cousin, the raucous cricket games of their uncles.  I thought of the losses and gains this reality will imprint on their hearts – the comforting ability to store their hearts completely in one place, the blissful assumption that the world in front of them is the only one which matters, the conflicting knowledge that their lives root themselves deeply in both the expanse of the Midwestern cornfields and the hurdy-gurdy of an isle in the Indian Ocean. I thought of the ‘normal’ they will take for granted – seeing the whole entire world as just around the corner, playing in a world where three-wheelers and taxis are both viable means of transportation, learning to make cookies with Grandma and chapatis with Aththa.

They don’t know any of these things, of course.

GUEST BOOK REVIEW: Bringing up Brits

I’d like to introduce a new book that looks like it would be appealing to many readers here.  Rachel Dines is guest posting a review of her book.

Being a parent is challenging enough, but for those raising their children in a country that is foreign to them, a whole new level of difficulty is introduced.  I have spent time living in the USA, as a parent of a pre-school age child, but it was only ever a temporary situation and that time constraint saved an awful lot of thoughts, worries and longer-term complexities.

Printable packing list

I made this to help myself pack and thought I’d share.  Click here to view a printable version.  For more of my recent packing tips, check out the travel category on the right sidebar.

Tips for packing a carry-on for a loooooooong plane trip with kids

Tips for pack carry-ons

1. Carry a travel purse.  I use an Eagle Creek Pouch I purchased years ago that has a thick cross-body strap, top flap and lots of zippers.  This is where I keep our passports, itinerary, $, etc.  I don’t ever take it off when we’re in the airport, just to be sure I don’t lose our important info.
2. Take a change of clothes.  You can live with pee/puke dried on jeans for a few years, but its positively miserable to live in it for much more than that!  Don’t forget a few extra pair of underwear!
3. Bring food. Due to the horrible news stories about runway delays combined with the unpredictable quality of airline food + kid moods, I also take snacks like energy bars, fruit strips, goldfish, apples, clementines, and grapes.  When the kids were small, we also had to make sure we had enough formula and our own water (one airplane we were on actually ran out of water once!).  Candy isn’t a bad idea for bribery purposes (like when your kid is screaming while the rest of the plane is asleep!).

Check out these dolls!

I’ve posted before on the availability of multiracial dolls for girls, and was thrilled to find Hearts4Hearts Girls doll.  With a portion of their sales going to WorldVision, these dolls promote a socially conscious message by representing girls from developing regions (Ethiopia, Belarus, Laos, Applachia, and Mexico) around the world.  They’re also a reasonable price and come with a short story about the girl they represent.

I was so enthralled by them, my dear mother got me Nahji, the Indian doll, for Christmas!  It’s a beautiful doll, with special attention to cultural details like henna on her hand and a nosering.  My mom also got me her sari which is beautiful and simple to put on.  (We celebrate Christmas with my family this weekend, and when my mom saw my 35-year-old surprised look at receiving a doll for Christmas, she smiled and said, “There are some things a mother just needs to do.” I was glad she did!)

How to pack for an international trip with children

I’ve just started prepping for our 30+ hour trip ‘home’ to Sri Lanka for Christmas and thought I’d take some time to share my process of packing.  I’m a planner, and I enjoy organizing, so it’s actually a fairly enjoyable task for me. We also have a lot of details to keep track of in our lives, so it helps me maintain a sense of sanity to spread out the preparations over several weeks. Since I’m busy prepping, I thought I’d do a series of posts geared toward packing to travel with children.  Today’s post details the timeline I follow for packing.

Timeline

One month out

• Make a packing list.  I usually start a detailed list this early so that my brain has time to remember all the things I forget.  Making the list early lets me realize what I forget before I actually need  it!  If you’re not the list type, here’s a copy of a generic packing list that I use.
• Buy gifts.  I always take gifts to our family, but it can be a challenge to stay within my budget and find nice things to take.  Some of my favorite go-to gift items are frames, jewelry, books, and music.  They aren’t too expensive and fit well into suitcases!
• Buy supplies.  Airplane snacks, travel toiletries, neck pillows, things to do.  Buying this kind of stuff early early leaves the week before we leave to deal with more pressing matters like paying bills and tying up loose ends.

One-two weeks ahead

• Start packing suitcases.  I usually start on the early side so that I can make sure I have everything washed and ready.  It doesn’t take a huge amount of time to pack because I just follow the list I already made – I just have to plug in the details.
• Finish trip purchases.  I like to leave the week before I leave to just focus on getting everything ready, not running around crazy picking up last minute things.  This way, if I do end up forgetting something, it’s usually only one or two things to track down rather than 10 or 12!

For my children on their baptism

 

http://mattstone.blogs.com/photos/baptism_art/baptism1.jpg

 

Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins;

His mercy endures forever.

 

“You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever,” Father Jim announced as he made the sign of the cross on your forehead.  This sacred moment – a pause in time when Christ marks you as his own – is part of your journey.  It is certainly not the end, but merely the beginning, that I long for you to travel your whole life long.

 

Though I cannot promise you it will be a simple path, I can attest mightily to its richness and depth.  For in every failure, there is forgiveness, in every brokenness – healing, and in every sorrow – restoration. It will surely not appear in the ways you expect, nor as easily as you hope, but as you walk in Christ’s way, it will come, steadfast and sure.

And we prayed for you[i], this:

 Heavenly Father,

we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit

you have bestowed upon these your servants the forgiveness of sin,

and have raised them to the new life of grace.

 

Sustain them, 

O Lord, in your Holy Spirit.

Give them an inquiring and discerning heart,

the courage to will and to persevere,

a spirit to know and to love you,

and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.

.

So many symbols and words that you do not yet understand.  But the simplicity of Christ’s love you see clearly – that he loves you with a greater fierceness than even your mama, and he gently waits for you to come to him for this love.  You are his forever child, cherished and beloved, and it is this love to which you respond.

How this mama loves your little souls -  full of so much wonder, joy, life.  How I both anticipate and fear watching this prayer fulfilled in your lives.  As each generation discovers anew, there will be great need for you to inquire, to discern, to be courageous, to persevere.  Much of this I hope you might learn from me, however, some of it I concede you will not.  As you know well enough already, a perfect mama I am not.

A small gift

in the dirt

we planted them,

eager to greet their cheery blooms.

.

but every last one died, suddenly

(we think maybe it was the hooligans next door)

their cheeriness blackened stiff.

.

but then – this guy!

he just showed up,

all by his lonesome, cheery self,

waiting at the mailbox just for us.

Helping children process being biracial and bicultural

Over the years, my daughter has expressed a variety of feelings about being biracial.  Her reality is compounded by the fact that we currently live in a very white town and until she went to school (in a more diverse setting about 30 minutes away), she was often the only child of color.  She’s been processing again this week – this time about not being the only ‘brown kid’ because the new girl in class is Indian.

“I kind of liked being the only kid from another country, mama,” she told me last night. “Everybody asks [the Indian girl] about India and I want people to ask me about Sri Lanka.  Now that she’s here, I don’t feel special anymore. I wish I were just from one place like she is.”

This was a sentiment I hadn’t yet heard from her.  Most of our previous conversations about race have been bemoaning the fact that there is no one like her.  Thankfully, our conversation got distracted, so I had some time to ponder how I would respond (I don’t particularly think quickly in these situations).  In reflecting, I realized a few things:

• My daughter was feeling insecure about not feeling ‘whole’. Her listening brother even made the comment, “You’re half and half – you’re not ‘whole’ anything!”

• She needed her feelings of inadequacy to be heard.  To clarify – I don’t view her biracial-ness as inadequate at all.  I think it makes her strong, beautiful, and wise. However, even if they’re inaccurate, her feelings are her feelings.  My interpretation of her reality is just that: my interpretation, not hers.

• She needed to hear her questions about her identity are normal.  “You have a great little mind at work in there, sweetie,” I told her as I tucked her in last night.  ”You ask such great questions.  Some kids don’t ask these questions for a long time – it’s good you’re letting them out as they come up.  Keep asking, it will help you understand who you are.”  She grinned, looking relieved that she wasn’t crazy for the feelings she was having.

Working with college students, I see a variety of biracial young adults processing their identities.  Every so often, I encounter students who have never thought about the fact that they come from two worlds – it never occured to them that they weren’t white.  This causes a pretty significant level of angst and crisis in their lives.  Who am I?  is a question asked by all college students, but it’s even more acute from biracial students who’ve never grappled with this question.

                   .

The students I see with in-tact, healthy identities are usually those who grew up discussing the layers of their racial and cultural realities with people older than them.  Of course our children might feel ‘inadequate’ if they are different from those around them, and so many parents try to just sweep that ugliness under the rug by not talking about it.  In reality, our biracial children will never understand the beauty, strength, and perspective that forms their identity if we don’t talk with them about it.  Playing it safe leaves kids feeling isolated and confused.

                                                                            .

How do you talk with your children about race? What kinds of questions do they face about their identities?

Character building in times of transition

“Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed.  Let me look upward into the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.”  – Orin Crain

Life can move so fast that sometimes it’s hard to actually slow down and ponder the decisions we make. Over the years, I’ve learned to slow down in times of decision to listen for the next step.  This is one of my favorite ‘go-to’ checkpoints by my favorite author Jan Johnson when we’re in the midst of making decisions…  I’ve found it helpful so many times over the years as we’ve made decisions.  I use it as a guide to gauge my wisdom, foolishness, and resilience.

Wise Risk Takers	Foolish Risk Takers
Float ‘trial balloons’	Easily distracted, unfocused or confused
Investigate long-range probabilities	Think in details, misses big picture
Improvise easily – thinks on feet, trusts instincts	Overthink/overtalk goals as a way of eliciting ‘don’t do it’ advice from others
Manage fear and indecision	Want guaranteed outcome
Say no to short term gain to win long-term advantage	Fear trying/hearing new ideas
Take high risks after close scrutiny of consequences and variables	Easily discouraged, finds delays depressing
Tolerate delay	Pass the buck, avoids accountability
Use error as feedback	Need dominant experts or authority figures to give advice
Keep playing with solutions
Prefer own answers yet remains open to input, a natural ‘explorer’

Resilient people:

• Are able to identify feelings
• Apply what is learned in a positive way
• Believe life is a process of growth rather than stagnation (or getting stuck)
• Can vent painful feelings
• Are flexible
• Are hopeful
• Are optimistic
• Refuse to give up
• Take things in stride
• Search for meaning in experiences
• View change as a positive thing
• Are willing to work through even the most difficult events

From Living a Purpose-full Life by Jan Johnson, 1999.

BOOK REVIEW: Working Familes

Working Families: Navigating the demands and delights of marriage, parenting, and career by Joy Jordan-Lake

Call me crazy, but I’m currently chewing on the idea of pursuing a PhD after my husband finishes his.  It’s a bit of a tough call, but I’ve discovered that I really do love academia, and that nobody listens to me (if I really do know what I’m talking about) without those little letters after my name.  One of the main road blocks I face in this area is figuring out how to balance family and career, so I’m taking the year to spend some time pondering the implications of such a choice.

As part of this process, I’m revisiting this book – one of my favorites on the topic.  I loved it the first time I read it a few years ago, and am enjoying it even more this time.  Joy Jordan-Lakes takes an honest, challenging look at faithfulness in calling and passion in all areas of our lives, including career and motherhood.  With candor, humor and wisdom, she grapples with how to work out a marriage with two careers, others’ opinions, and the chaos that sometimes comes with the multi-layered life of a working mom.  She advocates working as faithfulness to a calling and your family – not just a paycheck.

Also quite helpful is her chapter on ‘tools for survival’ where she doesn’t just offer simple how-to’s on making the nitty gritty work, but rather reflections on how to make overall life function well (think: making a weekly grocery list vs. establishing a rhythm of prayer…)  To top it off, I frequently laughed out loud at her observations.  It all hit so close to home that I even cried a few times as well!

Some of my favorite quotes:

Combining family and professional life is about treating three callings as always connected, never allowing one part to shift without understanding how that will swing the whole ship.

There can be something very lovely, you know, about untidy lives.

Harsh but True Reality of the Adult World #452:  sometimes two good goals are not achievable at the same time.  Which means this may be a season for being creative or for compromising.  Or for preparing for the next season.  For making some tough choices.

Just keep going

I’ve been chewing on this quote for nearly a year now, trying to decide how it works:

Leaders are ones who learn to absorb the pain without passing it on to others or themselves.

Dr. Pete Menejares, Biola University

Clearly, there are days when I don’t feel capable of absorbing anyone’s pain. But in more lucid moments, I really ponder this idea of absorbing pain while not passing it on.

• How do we let hard words be said, and then forgive?
• How do we acknowledge painful realities, without losing all hope?
• How do we walk, and then lead others, through turbulent waters without drowning?

Part of the answer, I suppose, is to just keep going.  ”Our greatest glory is not in never falling,” said Confucious, “but in rising every time we fall.”

Jesus said it in a slightly different way, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

How have you found ways to absorb pain without taking it out on others or yourself?

Integrating the world into nitty gritty family life

Several years ago, I did a presentation on how we integrate the world into our daily family life for our local mom’s group.  Thought I’d share the presntation here as well: Integrating the World into family…  Some of the toys/TV shows are a few years dated (I’m sure there are now new ones of which I’m not aware…), but I think you can get the picture.

Grace, wine, and smelly men

Kneeling between the old-lady-in-a-matching-sweater set and the man-whose-scent-packs-quite-the-punch, the sweet message of the wine-soaked wafer melted in my mouth.

The body of Christ,

The bread of heaven,

The rector said as he handed me a wafer. What were we all doing there, I wondered, this motley bunch of us?  What brings us to kneel like that, to posture our bodies in humility and quietness?

I fashion myself somewhat ‘put together’.  I have a career, clean my house, take regular showers, love my family.  I catch myself reasoning that these qualities qualify me for a place at the altar over my currently-kneeling-neighbors. My ‘togetherness’ allows me to feel deserving of my place.

In contrast, I examine the old lady, and while her sweater sets are remarkably coordinated, she’s, well, old.  And I’m fairly certain that the smelly man has a few more issues than just lack of shower.  I found myself wondering how such a variety of individuals ended up elbow-to-elbow in prayer, and why anyone but me deserves to be there [reader, kindly note that I'd much prefer to leave this thought sitting subconsciously in my head...].

The body of Christ. 

The bread of heaven.

When I return to my seat, Grace, a sweet woman who has trouble with mental stability, passes my pew.  I catch her eye.

Timeless wisdom from the FDR Memorial

Ten years ago today, I was sitting scared in my apartment 5 minutes away from the Pentagon, waiting to hear if a family member who worked in the Twin Towers had made it out (he did).  The explosion of the plane shook our windows and rattled my soul.  No one really knew what was happening, but everyone knew that it wasn’t good.

After 9/11, I had friends who did not leave the house for weeks.  Tempted as I was to do the same, living with someone who grew up in the country which invented suicide bombers taught me a little something about fear.  Having never encountered such fear, my initial response was to retreat. On that day, I called my husband at work, pleading with him to come home so he would “be safe” and hide with me. He knew better.

As a teenager, when a bomb went off just blocks from his house, his mom sent him out on his bike to see what had happened.  He recounts the incident like that was the most normal maternal response in the world!  “They’ve already set off the bomb,” he rationalizes. “It’s not like anyone is going to stick around to be caught.”

There were also periods of curfew (when the government declared the country so unsafe that no one could circulate freely), where school was cancelled and people stayed in for weeks or months at a time.  He speaks fondly of the games he played with his friends and family during this time, and how he was glad to have gotten out of school.

Those days of uncertainty and chaos instilled in him a deep thirst for justice, redemption, and restoration.  When he came to the US, he pursued two degrees in social work and is now sweating his way through a PhD in Community Economic Development (think: microfinance, development and the like, or check out his blog).   Out of the ashes of his country grew a deep understanding that days of difficulty call for people to step up to, not away from, the plate.

May the ashes of this painful day remind us, like FDR’s words, to do the same.