Due to the heat advisory, we stayed at the Meyer’s house for the day. We spent our time either in the pool, playing video games, and enjoying each other’s company.
We love these people, and it’s totally worth the 20+ hour drive to their house to see them. If I write more about it right now, I’m going to cry. So just know our day was perfect, just the way it was.
Steve took responsibility for all 5 kids plus others for VBS at his church, Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Rochester. Such a nice surprise to find ourselves with 4 hours of free time downtown. We meandered to a cool coffee shop near Eastman School of Music. Our only goal in exploring the city was to visit the library, because we’d heard it was cool. And it totally was. We read about Stonewall in a clear and well-written exhibit, wandered around admiring the details, perused the bookstore, and read silently above the Genesee River. It was pretty perfect. Without knowing anything about it beforehand, we discovered we really liked downtown Rochester! We ate lunch with Carina and then picked up the wild ones for nap time/reading time.
Playtime and pool time finished up our day. I didn’t swim because I have Floridian standards (the water was just too dang cold for me!) The water should warm up tomorrow because the heat wave puts the temperature here as the same high as Seminole FL (93 degrees!). Where is the cooler weather we deserve for leaving Florida in July? Arriving soon, I hope, with summer rainstorms in the forecast.
Last night when Keith asked what time the hotel pool opened in the morning the clerk responded with a grin, “Do whatever you want to do. I don’t care.”
Challenge accepted.
We didn’t swim because we had a busy day of driving through three states, but we are doing what we like because we’re living that vacation life.
We had planned to stop to play at a park in Dunn, North Carolina, but Elliot was asleep so we continued north to Rocky Mount for lunch and park time.
Sunset Park (1550 River Drive) was an awesome detour. We rode an antique 1920 carousel and a 1952 Model G-16 Miniature Train around the park including through a tunnel. For train aficionados, it had a 20 horsepower Wisconsin gasoline engine and is a scale model one fifth the size of the train it depicts (F7 General Motors Diesel Locomotive). There were actual seats for 36 people (unlike the Largo Central Park trains) and it went FAST (well, faster than I thought it would, topping out at 8 mph).
The kids’ favorite part was the spray ground, where they ran (until Elliot wiped out) and then walked and chopped their way through the water making friends. For $5 a person (E was free) I definitely recommend it!
Getting out of the car for a bathroom break in Virginia, Henry said to me, “Thanks for planning such a great trip, Mommy. I’m having a great time.” I asked Keith if he prompted the Hen to say this, and he came up with it all on his own. No, I didn’t cry, but my heart soared.
We made it to the lovely Casa Browne in Alexandria just before dinner and we are so thankful to spend some time with Vanesa and Scott. Complete with a champagne welcome, presents for the kids, and a home-cooked meal we feel so welcomed and loved. An evening passeggiata to the playground (actually 4!) combined with races and climbing fun rounded out our evening.
Miles driven today = 504 miles
Tomorrow we leave for a 17-day great American road trip as a family. That’s right, we’re taking our 3 and 6 year olds with us in our Toyota Corolla up the East Coast from Florida to Maine and back. You’re probably thinking we may be crazy, and as I pack, clean, and do last minute preparations, I’m thinking you may be right.
Just kidding, we’ve got this.
I’m mostly sure.
Our idea for this trip was planted when we realized how many people we loved lived from the mid-Atlantic to New England and we missed them so much we knew we needed to schedule a visit. Flying four people anywhere costs a fortune, and then we’d have to rent a car anyway once we arrived. So we drive!
Each kid has a tote bag of car distractions that include a whole lot of Melissa and Doug, coloring books, games, and building toys like Legos and Tegu magnetic blocks. I also have another tote with school-type stuff for Henry – reading and math workbooks as well as books to read aloud so he can get to Home Base for Reading with the Rays (and fill my only official summer learning requirement of reading 30 minutes a day). He’s going to try to read “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which will be incredibly challenging so wish him luck and persistence. Finally, we have iPads for each kid to watch movies and play games when the time on the road becomes too intense.
The kids expectations regarding our trip are mixed at best.
Henry thinks it will take 3 hours to get there, and that time frame is entirely too long. “Why aren’t we flying?” is the main question he’s been asking. Such a privileged kid, mostly flying everywhere since he’s been alive. He’s most excited to visit Vermont, for reasons involving a horse and ice cream.
Elliot thinks we are visiting Spain and chose it as his top state on this trip because it’s like church. I wish we could drive to Spain, buddy. He has also asked when and how we are seeing Marlon Bundo while we are in DC…Tia Nesa is somehow making that difficult request happen.
I’m excited to see friends and family who we don’t get to see as often as we’d like. So is Keith. Overnight stops include:
• Walterboro, South Carolina
• Alexandria, Virginia
• Spencerport, New York
• Bristol, Vermont
• Wolfeboro, New Hampshire
• Jamestown, Rhode Island
• Rockville, Maryland
• Yemassee, South Carolina
We’ll be stopping at least every three hours so the kids can run around at parks and playgrounds along the way. Hopefully, that will break up the monotony of interstate travel and let them get their energy out. And nap. So no one goes crazy.
I don’t know about you, but it’s been just so hard to make it to playgrounds this summer with this crazy heat making it unbearable outside. But last week I got our act together and we made it to a park a little before 10am and it only felt like 87 degrees. Or something like that.
A couple weeks ago, I spied a park that had SHADE on our car tour of South Pinellas! So it was totally worth it to make the 23 minute drive into Gulfport for a mostly shaded playtime adventure at Caldwell Park (Gulfport Blvd and 64th St, Gulfport). Pulling into this small neighborhood park, Elliot exclaimed, “This is so cool!” He wasn’t wrong.
The boys loved spinning themselves silly on the multiple spinners, climbing up the fun webs (and laying in their hammocks), racing cars down the slides, and of course swinging on the swings (which were also partially in the shade – a Pinellas park miracle because there’s rarely any shade cover for the coveted swings!)
The playground abuts the busy Gulfport Boulevard, but the park is fully fenced and set back behind the trees. Kids can watch cars, but you don’t have to worry about them running out in front of them. It’s nicely mulched and well-kept with and adjacent adult fitness area so you can work out while your kids play. There’s also benches and a picnic table for you to sit back and watch your kids when they aren’t asking to be spun like maniacs. The only drawback is no bathroom facilities, so it’s not the best if you’re potty-training. Everyone agreed we had to go back this summer.
I have a secret. Sometimes I want to not care about things happening in our world today. It would be easier. I’d have more time for fun. I could be frivolous at will. Maybe I would live in the moment more easily than I do now. Certainly, it would be a relief to live in a bubble free from deep thoughts and anything unpleasant that didn’t directly affect me. Society’s problems would not disappear, but it wouldn’t matter because as a member of the white population in the United States I’m super privileged.
But this indifference to others is not me. I hope for a more peaceful world, and understand that I need to actively participate to create change in it. I care beyond what’s happening in my immediate world.
I care so much it makes me cry tears of rage and sorrow when yet another white male perpetrates a school shooting and kids are killed in the line of fire or while protecting their classmates. The papers call the murdered ones heroes, but that’s not the right word – martyrs would be better. We don’t have to continue our complicity and keep allowing our children to be murdered in mass shootings. We can change the laws by providing better access to (and quality of) mental health care and limiting gun rights in the name of public safety. The Florida legislature’s response (besides its usual thoughts and prayers) to all this of arming teachers – it will not help. Kids deserve and need to feel safe and protected at school. If their teachers are carrying, they are inherently unsafe. Guns do not belong in classrooms with students.
Another facet of education that I wish I didn’t care about is the world of high-stakes testing. My kids aren’t old enough for the FSA, and the incredible pressure that comes along with it. I feel anxious for their future selves because I know how terrible it feels to bomb a single test that determines whether you get to move on to the next grade (or get into a top tier law school). I am a mediocre test taker when only given one shot to prove myself. I may know the material backwards and forwards, but my anxiety causes me to freeze up, misread questions, and panic. And I’m an adult. Now think about how kids feel when faced with the FSA.
We fail our students when we submit them to testing that is designed in the name of education reform but is truly created to destroy the great equalizer that is public education. Tests are rigged so a certain percentage of students fail, which allows the government to label schools as failing. Parents rightfully become upset and begin looking for a way out through vouchers and for-profit charter schools that are publicly funded with our tax dollars (siphoning off money from public school systems) but with less (or no) public oversight. I have family and friends who send their kids to these programs because they view the public schools as broken. They aren’t wrong. They want what’s best for their children. We all do. But as a collective society, if some kids are slipping through the cracks it is our duty to look out for them and lift them back up.
The current inequity in our public schools is astounding, but it can be fixed. Rozella Haydée White’s new book, Love Big: The Power or Revolutionary Relationships to Heal the World, contains a roadmap for seeking peace through moving toward justice. She “define[s] justice as equitable access to resources that provide people with the ability and agency to create a life of meaning. Working toward justice requires dismantling any system, ideology, or institution that promotes inequity….Justice becomes a reality when we recognize that we need one another. When we become justice seekers and peace bearers we recognize that our lives are inextricably linked. What one person does, thinks, or even believes affects another.”
As I read her words, it clicked that I have been actively working through this philosophy of peace and justice through my membership with FAST. Over the past two years I’ve become increasingly involved with its youth suspensions and arrests committee where we have researched and learned that if restorative justice practices (RP) are properly implemented in our schools, students and teachers succeed. Behavior issues are handled with student accountability and compassion, giving kids a toolbox to deal with the big emotions they feel on the daily. This in turn allows teachers to spend more time teaching the material and keeps kids in the classroom versus being removed, suspended, or arrested for disciplinary issues. Teacher retention rates in schools using RP methods are higher (but we still need to pay them what they are worth, an entirely different battle).
Changing the culture in public education is difficult, but I truly believe RP is the real game changer into creating an inclusive culture where all students feel heard and wanted as assets in their classrooms. Because I truly believe this transformation needs to happen, I’ve had to step out of my comfort zone and feel uncomfortable. With FAST, I flew to Louisville to learn about RP from a school district that is effectively implementing the initiative. Earlier this year, I spoke directly to school board members not only at meetings but also in front of a crowd of 2500+. This scared me because I’m uncomfortable speaking in public…not only the everyone’s eyes on me part but also my need to deliver my message perfectly using the correct words with the proper gestures and presence. I want to convince people this matters, and I know my discomfort is nothing compared to what kids face at school. So I woman up, lean in, and demand change to make the system more equitable.
I’m not an expert in any of this. I’m a parent who believes that public schools offer the best chance for all kids to become the people they are meant to be. I care, and I want others to take responsibility in creating change, too. Don’t you?
I feel like I’m being told that women don’t matter. We can be believable in our statements but at the end of the day men can set that belief aside and totally disregard fact in order to protect and honor themselves.
Our bodies must be regulated.
By men.
Men’s bodies are not similarly regulated and in fact are enhanced by performance equipping drugs.
Our pain is not believed. Our statements are not trusted. If a man causes a woman pain and suffering the burden is placed on her to deal with it. The man often has no repercussions.
Judge Kavanaugh’s job interview for the Supreme Court should be terminated and his nomination rescinded. There are plenty of other jurists out there who don’t have these types of allegations against them. Pick any of them. I’d prefer a female Justice, but at the very least I want a truth-teller.
This election season, I just want to watch the whole thing burn.
But I can’t.
Because part of me still hopes for a better United States. Especially because of my two young sons. I want them to be kind and know limitations when someone says stop or no. But they’re figuring it out at an early age, so I’m hopeful.
White men, you better have outstanding credentials when running for elected office because I’m just not sure I can vote for you. I’m ready for women to run the world, for our ideas and policies to create change. We can do it. I’m voting for you. I’m ready for people of color, people who are LGBTQI+, refugees, and all people who feel like second-class citizens in this great nation to rise up and be honored. I support you and your ability to lead when hope seems dark. I’m rooting for and voting for you.
I’ve read through the Beatitudes several times today looking for clarity. I’ll continue meditating and working through them many more times in search of some kind of answer. I don’t know why I feel like an answer exists, and it can be found in part by reading Matthew 5, but I feel an urge to keep searching. I feel the need to be blessed and at peace. I’m seeking…
For my birthday, Keith got me an ancestry.com DNA test because I’ve always been interested in seeing where my family originated from. My dad’s side of the family has been in the United States since before the Revolution, and so has some of my mom’s (my mom and grandma are big into genealogy and have looked into this.) But I wanted something more concrete, and there’s nothing as definite as DNA, right?
It turns out, my mom’s theory that we had a Native American relative could possibly still be true, but it did not show up in the testing. I’m not going to be on any television shows about surprise DNA discoveries – I’m as white as they come. My people hail from Western Europe, Scandinavia, and Great Britain for the most part, with a sprinkling of a few other European areas.
At some point, my people were immigrants. Across the board, my dad’s family were Mennonites seeking a place to practice their faith without persecution. My mom’s family were farmers and who knows what else, but they were still searching for a better life when they made the trip to America. I’m unaware of a pre-Revolutionary immigration system in the Colonies, so they didn’t violate any man-made laws to come here.
This country has a history of being unkind to immigrants. One of our very first laws were the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it harder to become a citizen and allowed the imprisonment and deportation of those the President deemed dangerous. We have repeatedly demonstrated our ill-will towards those coming to this country – unwanted groups have included the Irish, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, and Mexicans. We have continuously persecuted blacks first in the form of slavery, then with Jim Crow laws that kept life separate but incredibly unequal, and now with the prison industrial complex and many other ways.
White America others people of color because it is afraid of becoming the other. The Trump Administration’s policy has mandated the separation of parents from their children.
I think about my own young kids being forcibly separated from me and placed in a tender age shelter where they are not permitted to be touched by an adult. I picture Henry having to change Elliot’s diaper because a caregiver cannot do it. I hear their cries for mama and daddy when I hear the devastated screams of the kids currently being detained alone.
Our immigration system has been in need of a vast overhaul for years, but this is my breaking point. This is not okay. This is not Christian.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions forgot to include the most important part of Romans 13 when he used the text to justify the separation policy – Romans 13:10, “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
Love is what life is all about. God’s love for us and our love for others are vital to serving God’s will. Anything else is insufficient.
Micah 6:8 is probably my favorite verse…so much so that we named our firstborn Henry Micah because of it. It states, What does the Lord require of you? To do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Our government is wrong on immigration; they are acting in direct contradiction to the latter parts of this verse as well has God’s commandment to love.
We must demand they stop this atrocious practice. Donate to organizations actively helping the least fortunate – the ACLU, RAICES, and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are great ones to consider. Contact your Representatives and Senators and demand change. Ask what they are actively doing to stop this practice. Ask follow up questions. Tell them you will continue to follow up on their action plans. Tell them these people matter because we love.
Because most of our ancestors were immigrants looking for a new and better life.
Because it is our duty to love our neighbor, no matter what.
Because we are commanded to treat them as if they are our loved one.
Because God loves us, no matter what.
Today I had my first overtly negative, specifically addressed to me, response to my kids being in worship at church.
Congregations say they want kids in worship. That we need more families in the pews because they are the future of the church. Right? That’s the line I continually hear, especially from older parishioners. But when kids are actually present in a Sunday morning worship service are they actually welcomed? Are the parents?
As the pastor’s family, my kids feel like the church – the building and the people who come together as Christ’s Family – belongs to them. They are quintessential pastor’s kids (PKs) who have tons of energy and love for the church.
They’ve been known to run laps around the altar and play hide-and-seek in the pews (usually after worship, but not always).
My almost 5-year-old has been especially inquisitive lately about Jesus – specifically how he lived (“tell me more about the cave and the big stone”) and why he gets to live forever when everyone else just dies.
My almost 2-year-old invaded the Palm Sunday processional because he heard his jam begin on the piano (“All Glory Laud and Honor”) and he needed to get closer to where the music is happening so he can get down. A loving choir member took his hand to help.
They love the teens (and have already attended more youth group meetings than I can count) and get so excited to see their friends both in worship and at Faithworks (our version of Sunday School).
They hug and high five their honorary grandparents each week during the passing of the peace (when we make it to that point in the service without fleeing to the nursery for a break).
They dip their fingers in the baptismal font and then do crosses on their foreheads (mine, too) on their way up to communion, which they aren’t quite old enough to take.
They are usually the last ones out of the building on a Sunday afternoon, and are there multiple times during the week to see their Daddy. And his office’s toys – because he always has some scattered throughout his office.
We three are there together, practically every week, to hear the Good News and worship with our chosen faith community. The majority of my time is spent wrangling the littles – trying to keep them in a pew, or sitting quietly on the ground near the pew, eating all the snacks and coloring all the pictures. But they are little. And like to run. And play with their friends. So it can be rowdy. When it gets to be too much, we head down to the nursery (the area, as Henry calls it), and play there until Communion or for the remainder of the service. It’s a nice break for all of us.
Even on the Sundays where I am frustrated or overwhelmed, generous people in our congregation come up to me and thank me for bringing the boys to church. They tell me tales of how they raised boys and totally understand my life, and that it will get easier. They tell me I’m doing it right.And I take comfort in their kind words.
Until today.
After service, a woman decided it was important to tell me that my children were rude and distracting from the reverent atmosphere that is church on a Sunday morning. She told me that she had kids, so she knows all about that, but that I needed to do something about my kids’ behavior in worship. She mentioned that she was a visitor, and that she couldn’t hear my soft-spoken husband over my kids. I said some kind of apology I didn’t really feel about how I was sorry they bothered her worship today, and she cut me off to say that it happens every week. It seemed like she was going to continue indefinitely, so I turned around and walked away.
What. The. Shit.
Never mind her emotional baggage that made her feel it was her duty to inform me about my kids’ behavior, which I already knew about. In fact, I thought they were mostly fine at church this morning (there was some airplane throwing and palm frond sword fighting that got quickly shut down). Better than a lot of Sundays, that’s for sure. Keith only noticed when Elliot grabbed a maraca and shook it like a salt shaker, so I’ll take it.
I cried in the Sacristy. I cried outside Keith’s office while talking to one of my favorite people. I cried inside Keith’s office. My tears came from a place of embarrassment, exhaustion, and anger because each week I already internally feel all those words she said to me. I’m doing my best, but it’s just so damn hard. But I don’t give up. I continue to bring my boys to worship because it matters to me that they are worshiping with their community. Not separate from it.
As I calmed down, I read the comforting words Pope Francis spoke as his Palm Sunday sermon. Children should shout out loud and be like those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem instead of those who yelled to crucify him.
I find my sons’ joy in the Lord and for their family and friends to be an all-encompassing love, and I refuse to silence it. Their presence at church matters. So does mine.
A couple of readings for today seem especially on point (even though I’m only reading and reflecting on them now, since I was a bit preoccupied when they were first read); here they are, in part:
The Word comforts, but I remain incensed. My kids will not be invisible at church. They continue to be a vital part of the community. I love them, and trust in God as I seek peace over the whole thing.
We spent our last day in North Carolina hiking up a mountain. You may be thinking, they have two kids not even school-age – they must be crazy! Naysayers be damned – the kiddos did splendidly!
Keith selected Black Balsam Knob (via the Art Loeb Trail) in the Pisgah National Forest (Mile 420 off the Blue Ridge Parkway) as the location. It’s the second highest mountain in the Great Balsam Mountains at 6,214 feet tall! The weather was freezing for us Floridians – in the 40s! It was quite a shock from the temperature in Asheville, so I took Henry’s hat for myself because he had a hooded coat.
Henry has been preparing his whole life for hiking. He has an abundance of energy, climbs everything in sight, and has been doing trail walks since he took his first steps. Up on the mountain, he acted like a little mountain goat hopping from rock to rock and sprinting the straight-aways. We have a great backpack carrier that Elliot rode in since his walking skills weren’t up to snuff for a mile and half hike. He could look out and see over Keith’s shoulders, and looked quite relaxed so long as we didn’t stop moving.
After the one mile hike to the peak, we took a break for snacks and water, reclining on the grass while enjoying the beautiful view. On a clear day, you can see Shining Rock, Looking Glass Rock, Mt. Pisgah, Cold Mountain, and occasionally Mt. Mitchell (the highest point in the Eastern United States). In other words, the view is pristinely lovely. Henry only needed the tiniest bit of help going down the mountain when the rocks were slippery. We didn’t see any bears (thank goodness!), but ran into a few hiking dogs (much to the Hen’s dismay).
We stopped for ice cream at Dolly’s Dairy Bar (Lutheridge is a special flavor!) on the way back to Amber’s (kids were sleeping so we got to enjoy a mini-date), and ended the day with an evening stroll and playground adventure in her neighborhood. It was such a great visit; I hope we return soon!
