A Weekend With the Crankertons

"Stop looking at me Charlie. Stop looking at me Charlie. Mommy make Charlie stop looking at meeeeeee."

"If you don't look at him, he won't look at you," I say as I flip down the visor mirror and make sure it is really me talking and not my mother.

"Say 'Stop it!' to Charlie. Why is he looking at me when I'm not looking at him?"

I turn up the volume on the stereo so the rhythmic "aha's" of Voulez Vous drown out the one-sided brawl from the backseat. Charlie's eyes are so dead-locked on Toby I wonder if he secretly understands Toby's complaint and is internally laughing.

"Charlie, stop looking at Toby," I say, just in case.

Before I have a chance to stop it -- and I would have given my right eye -- the final track of my ABBA 1 CD fades away and the changer dutifully ushers in the next disc. Back, Back, Back I push but it is too late and Boz the big green bear repeats "Here we..., Here we..., Here we..." until I finally give up and let him spit out the full "Here we go!" in his irritating jubilation. Toby forgets Charlie's death stare to cheer for Boz, the big fat Christian version of Barney and for a moment I think I might prefer the whining.

Soon it doesn't matter because I can think of nothing but the stomach bug floating through pre-school again and if I remembered to put hand sanitizer on the boys before they ate the animal crackers in my friend Jenn's office. I can almost hear the triumph of the crittery virus making its way into the innards of my unsuspecting children because, I know I didn't remember and now we will all be barfing up a lung come tomorrow. And that makes me cranky.

But not as cranky as Charlie was later in the driveway, protesting the wretchedness of humanity because the front wheels of his riding fire truck were stuck in the grass. He waddled around me a few times with a squinched-up, moaning face before depositing his 2 foot self head first into the yard.

What is everybody's problem?

I could understand this better if we lived in a parched Ethiopian desert and relied on locust wings and cactus dew for survival, but we have no legitimate complaints. The hovering, nurturing parenting style I credit for their neatly trimmed nails and taste for yogurt smoothies is also responsible for the Bratty Crankertons that we have all become.

When it is time for bed, I briskly yank the oversized t-shirt over Toby's head. "Mommy, can we sleep in the living room again? I like sleeping in there with you."

We had a couch camp out weeks ago when he had the flu. What made him recall a night of puking into bath towels as a chummy slumber party I can't fathom. I squish his chubby cheeks in my hands and smooch him. "Toby, we sure did have fun, didn't we?"

And isn't that the beauty of family? Looking back on all these times, good or bad, and remembering only that you were loved.

Couch Throwing

Its the kind of evening when the bits of nothing I did all day lump themselves together into one large energy-sucking wad and sit comfortably on my shoulders while I survey the toy explosion that is my living room floor.

I could get up and sort the tractors and race cars and trains into their beautifully irrelevant bins, but then the world's youngest defense attorney would follow me around to justify the mess in his customary whine and I am too tired to litigate. No, I feel more like collapsing to the floor on my back and tickling the boys as they run by to hopefully avoid an actual game of chase.

This part of our evening, between dinner and bed, I sometimes watch the clock like an employee waiting for the end of my shift. Greg is equally unmotivated and flips between ESPN and ESPN 2 to catch a glimpse of what? I don't know, maybe the famously chiseled super-athlete he would have rather been at forty. The crowd-cheering game highlights and chatty commentary makes it harder to ignore the vehicular debris and the hint of dog smell on our carpet.

Only half an hour more... I think at seven-thirty as if then I will be putting on my sexy jeans and some high heels for martinis with the girls instead of staying in this same position, in this same t-shirt recycled from yesterday, staring blankly at the football stats whizzing below the SportsCenter news desk.

Its not that I mind being with my boys, me with a hyper-awareness that every day is a brief and finite luxury. Its just after replying cheerfully to the quantillionth snot emergency and rhetorical "Do you know...?", even they are tired of my smilingly present face.

These kind of evenings have a way of surprising me. Like when Greg, out-of-nowhere, grabs Toby and throws him on the couch like a giggly bag of sand. When Charlie's knee-high bean-of-a-self rushes toward his dad with arms lifted high, begging for his turn, its then that all of those nose wipes and time-outs have measured value and bring me satisfaction. Suddenly we are the world's happiest family, laughing hysterically as throw after throw, the pleasure of being together sails through the air on a small delighted face.

If tomorrow doesn't bring us a bowlful of sunshine at least we'll know that today, we didn't miss this.

I can think of no greater achievement.

Missing

Sunday morning I sat in church like my usual self, distracted by the people around me. I wondered what I was doing there. I thought about the yucky feeling that follows me around and keeps me from praying. I thought about it until it was with me and I felt bad.

I have been a Christian for a long time. I have been a Christian at church camp and chorused the togetherness songs and spilled my guts and cried and hugged. I have been a Christian in college and fought against legalism! and quenching the spirit! and hypocrisy! I memorized scripture and highlighted and underlined and studied three translations. I was a Christian and I felt good and I served and I was a Christian and I felt bad and I confessed. I was a Christian who rejoiced at birth and I was a Christian who mourned at death. I worshipped when worship meant "singing", then I worshipped when worship meant "living for God everyday". I was a Christian in a pew, I was a Christian on an old couch, and I was a Christian in a snazzy stadium seat.

Now I am tired of being a Christian.

People are hurting so bad around me and it is killing me. Being a Christian is not enough. They have heard it all before.

What is missing, and I mean this, is Christ.

I'm Moving... Kind Of

UPDATE: Apparently there is still a glitch in blogger's custom domain feature. I have chosen to use my blogspot.com address again until it is sorted out. I will let you know when my new domain is up and running. For now, I am staying here.

Inflatable Death

It bobs around on our neighbor's lawn with a gigantic axe and frightens my innocent children (and the dog). Behind it is an array of severed heads hanging from tree limbs and impaled on wooden posts, all draped in faux spider webs. It is irritatingly festive if you are a psychopathic serial killer.

Which I am not.

I have to sneak up behind the stupid thing and unplug the air pump before Toby will walk by. I encourage him to be brave while explaining how it is not a real person, just a blown-up Halloween decoration. But it doesn't seem fair. Reality is very elastic to him and I toss truth and illusion around in an ironically confusing jumble. This ugly, scary thing he can see is not real. The invisible, silent, elusive God is.

"God is bigger than those scary things," I say as I whisk he and Charlie past the skeletal hand reaching forth from its bloody grave. He looks at the grave skeptically and I know I failed the writer's highest calling: show, don't tell.

At night we say our prayers as he crawls into bed. "Where is God?" he says unphilosophically, as if asking for the nearest bathroom. "God is everywhere," I offer because I can't think of an unlousy answer. He sits up quickly and looks at his mattress in confusion. "Am I squishing him?" Excellent question.

No dear, mommy is.

I've been a Christian so long that I barf out illogical religious rhetoric when I don't know what to say. Which is a lot. Toby is bright for three and I can see doubt on his face. Maybe it is my own reflection. Inside, my heart longs for God-- the God who satisfies, the God I used to trust. But an inflatable Death looms in front of my eyes and I can't reach the plug.

My boys are precious and I want them to know a powerful, real Savior.

God, start with me.

What. Am. I. Doing.

It bothers me that we are out of dryer sheets but not enough to go to the store. I sent the boys off to school this morning in staticky clothes and hoped that Charlie wouldn't get sent home for his oozing, crusty eyeballs because I am really busy. Sort of. Two days ago I sent off my first query letter and now I am chained to my email inbox compulsively clicking "check mail" every nanosecond. The magazine has six weeks to respond. My finger is already tired.

And by respond I quote from their editorial guidelines: "Each article idea will receive the attention it deserves." Ouch. I feel sorry for my poor little query whimpering in cyberspace all alone.

I promise I will not junk up Tales From the Running Mama with the tragic epic of a wanna be writer, however, since a lot of you are going down this same road, I thought you might like a little update here and there. So, if you ever wondered what you are doing thinking your writing has actual monetary value, I know exactly how you feel. I am thirty years old now, and my seventh grade self I would kick me if I didn't try.

And trying is pretty exhilarating.

Being A Man

Every little boy wants to know that he is strong, that he matters. Only a man can tell him. Thank you, thank you for loving my boys and not leaving them to wonder...