This Reminds Me

Archive for May, 2007

Some days, I despair of my kids ever getting along.  It’ll start with a filched hair brush or a changed TV channel or a muttered insult, and quickly escalate into full-fledged warfare.  I find the ugly words and wasted energy difficult to observe and exhuasting to stop.

Finally I will shout, “Girls!  Stop it!  Show Jesus to your sister!”  They generally stop for a moment, then begin afresh until I separate them.  They are each a master at hurling the vicious insults that hurt worse than any punch or poke.

Adult women can act the same.  Julia and I were waiting in line at HEB on Memorial Day, picking up those last minute items before friends came for dinner.  The woman behind me was trying to corral two smaller, squirmy kiddos.  We got to talking while I unloaded my cart and Julia skated around us on her Heelys….yeah, I got the cheap Pepsi, too…..those melons did look fresh…..don’t you love that HEB Buddy Buck machine……oh, how nice to have this holiday with my husband cleaning out the garage…  She asked, “So where does your husband work?”  To which I replied, “We both work for AT&T.”

A slight pause, and her response, “Oh.  I thought you were a real mom.”

Hmmmmm.   A real mom.

Friends at work were quick to send gifts for Julia, including these capris from Sharon.  Two friends made at work – Vicki and Mary Ann – each stayed with Rachel, Lois and Hannah a week so we could meet Julia and bring her home.

Every working-outside-the-home mother I know struggles with what’s “best” for her family.  It is true – being a two-career family has interfered with things my kids have wanted to do.  As best I can remember, Keith and/or I have made every single evening play, science fair, math night, choir performance, Reflections display, teacher conference, etc. – but there have been events during the day that we simply could not attend.

Hannah accompanied me the office one day in August, 2004, when I edited product content for www.sbc.com.   When my friend Vicki called her at my desk, Hannah explained, “My mom doesn’t really work.  She just types and talks on the phone.”

I’ve noticed growing schisms among women, and those bother me.  Mothers who stay home and those who also work outside the home (we all work in the home.)  Women who home school, women who insist on private school and those of us that use public schools.  (I could never home school because I’m pro-life.)  Women who breast feed vs. bottle feed.   Women who try to defer on every point and women who try to make informed decisions.  Differences are always there, but the schisms grow when we insist there’s one right way for every family.

My mom worked until Judy started school, then returned to work when I was 12.  I am not an ax murderer.  I’ve never ingested a street drug.  I’ve never been arrested.  I’ve had a full-time job and paid plenty’o'taxes since the day after I graduated from high school, including my five years in college.  I was baptized at age 18 and acknowledge Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.  Am I perfect?  No way, Jose.  But I cannot blame my faults, flaws and falls on my working mom.   One day, I hope my girls look back and say the same.

Friends from work lined up (literally) when Lois-the-Preemie and I needed blood.

I read a thought-provoking Wall Street Journal piece when Rachel was just a baby that greatly influenced me.  Basically, a huge study of two-career homes proved that kids from them were just as happy and productive as one-career homes provided two conditions were met.  (1)  Mom had to be happy.  Dad could be unhappy and Mom could make up for it at home, but if Mom was unhappy, wasn’t nobody happy.  (2)  Mom and Dad needed to find out what was most important to their kids and do those things.  They couldn’t do everything, so find out what was most important and concentrate on that stuff and don’t stress about the rest.

And that is how Keith and I try to live.  We try to make each other happy and we do the things that are most important to our kids.

Baby Rachel and my dear friend Diane Konen at the 1992 Pioneer Picnic.  My kids attended many happy events in Houston, courtesy of my job.  Rachel still talks about my pulling her out of school early in second grade so we could go check out Southwestern Bell’s sponsorship of Space Center Houston.  Now they tolerate my chatting it up with the AT&T U-verse sales people at the HEB.  Hey, AT&T U-verse pays my salary which makes a trip to the grocery store possible.  So go get us some bananas while I talk to this guy, okay?

I know many women feel biblically called to stay home.   I understand that.  But…. I also admire Rahab – in the lineage of Jesus – who hid Joshua and Caleb in the flax drying on her roof which she undoubtedly plan to weave and sell.  And Lydia, the weaver of purple, one of Paul’s commended converts.  Thes psalmist tells us “…(a worthy woman) considers a field and buys it from her earnings.” And Jesus himself accepted the perfumed, souful gift of a working girl.

So to the woman behind me in line at HEB, I smiled and said, “I am a real mom.”

And to any other women who feed the schisms instead of acknowledging the differences, I say:

“Girls.  Stop it.  Show Jesus to your sister.”

The Reagan High School yearbook Regalia 2007 debuted this week – 408 color pages bound, personalized and embossed.  Rachel excitedly text paged me news of a candid photo of her – a lowly sophomore livin’ large on page 31.

That’s Rachel – bottom left.  “Rachel Woodworth re-reads (sic) her paper before turning it in.”  So what Features editor let “re-reads” get by, plus that end-of-sentence preposition, hmmmm?  I’ve always said – the cutlines will kill you.  Print anything in the body, no one will catch it.  Mess up a cutline – everybody notices.

I was excited to see it, of course, not only because of Rachel’s picture, but also because I love yearbooks.  I love the slick paper.  I love the way the spine cracks  on those first few openings.  I love the inky smell.  I love the candids, especially if they show truly “timely” items that will cause chuckles in future decades.  I love the autographs – “What did she write?  What did he say?  Look, that dork took up a whole page!”

My favorite yearbook of all time was, of course, Madison High School’s 1974 Mariner – 320 pages with a scant 16 in color, several double page spreads of spot color and the occassional full page bleed.  I love it best because my still-admired teacher – Marilyn Dodd – tapped me to be its editor.  .

That’s me – Becky Hoffman – bottom left.  I’m sure I was rereading my paper, too, before submitting it.  The paper was….ummm….under my gymsuit.

While I’d enjoyed a few other honors – including winning an essay contest that year with a prize trip to Washington, D.C. – I’d never before been invested with so much non-family responsibility.   All the Madison yearbooks before ours had been delivered late, and had lost money.  Our staff purposed ours would be delivered on time, and at least break even.

And we did just that.  We delivered on time, paid off the prior year’s debt and banked a whopping $50, much to the delight of our sponsor.

Yearbook sponsor Marilyn Dodd and me at my 50th Birthday Party in 2006.

The day we delivered our books to the student body, I thought, “This is it.  This is the highlight of my life.  It’ll never be better than this.  Never.”

Of  course, I was wrong about that.  Thankfully.  Lots of things in my life have been bigger – better – more wonderful than the day I rode atop of the crates of Mariners on the way to the cafeteria.

But still – that remains a magic moment for me, and always will.

Yearbook was my first real taste of planning, organizing and leading.  It wasn’t enough to do my own work.  I had to manage everybody else’s work.  I had to worry about schedules, and contracts, and pleasing lots of different groups of people, and finances, and unexpected absences.

Gosh – that’s a lot like life, isn’t it?

In my book, Marilyn inscribed, “I sincerely hope that you will take much more than academics when you leave here.”

I did, Marilyn.  I did.

We celebrated Sisters Day this weekend, to celebrate Julia’s one-year homecoming.  We’ve been talking about it for weeks, asking Julia, “What is Sisters Day?,” and prompting her reply of “When I came home from Russia.”

Walking up the driveway of her new “dom” after 27 hours of traveling on May 18, 2006.  Shelley and John picked us up (and took this picture).  Sarah had baked chicken ready, a welcome relief from our two-week steady diet of home-packed Costco snacks, local bread, cheese and apples.  Rachel, Lois and Hannah hovered anxiously in the doorway, having been warned not to storm Guanna-now-Julia.

We wanted to do something really special so, on the advice of my boss Sharon, we headed to The Antlers Friday afternoon.  Big fun!  Lots of outdoor activities, and weather so nice we actually had the windows open.  For my Hoosier cousins – that’s unusual, folks.  Lake LBJ was “up” from recent rains and too murky in which to swim, our only real disappointment.

Alas, we caught nothing but a few mosquito bites.  Dad gave casting lessons to all.  Rachel misread the bait pellet package aloud as, “Not for human constipation.”

I feared the weekend might morph into “just fun” with no real significance, so I asked the girls to each prepare three index cards – one for each of their sisters.  I asked them to list three things they sincerely liked about each of their sisters.  No silliness, no snide remarks.  I helped Julia with hers.

Julia’s card to Lois read:  “You ride bikes with me.  You help me with homework.  You play guitar.”  What’s not to like?!

Used by permission of the author:  Rachel’s card to Hannah, which I thought showed both insight and deliberation.

The girls read theor cards aloud to each other before dinner Saturday night.  We reflected on this past “gotcha” year, with several chuckles, plus a general anticipation of times to come.  Good times, stressful times, who knows?  Only God.  And thankfully, He doesn’t tell us ahead of time.

We “gotcha” Julia Guanna, we “gotcha.”

Our church family ministered to a gymful of Hurricana Katrina special needs evacuees in 2005, including several senior citizens barely rescued from rising flood waters.  I visited with one elderly lady in the wee hours of a still, deep velvet night, ingesting her stories of Naw’lins and the decades-long bond she shared with her slumbering friends.  She clutched her cup of hot tea and locked eyes with me as she spoke the words that had shaped her recent days:  “Darlin’, all we have is each other.”

Everyone needs someone.

And like my senior friend – we are happy to have each other.