Tag: kids

I Don’t Have Any Answers

My mind has been reeling the past two days, watching the news, watching what everyone has to say about the news. And honestly, I don’t feel like talking about it. The press has covered it Ad Nauseum, almost everyone I know has voiced an opinion. (I’m not saying that’s a bad thing!) As I thought about writing my blog today, I thought, well, I should address what is happening in the country. Give my opinion. And I have finally realized that I really don’t want to do that. 

First, I feel like my opinion is half-baked at best. I am bewildered, torn, and kind of feel like I’m in the middle of a blizzard of information and ideas. I don’t know anything and I don’t have any good thoughts to share at the moment. 

Second, I really don’t feel like I have a finger on “What does the Bible say concerning these matters?” I am still searching and praying. I don’t know. 

So, let’s talk about how we’re doing with just life in general right now. 

Do you realize that we just finished a month and half of celebrating: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years? And did you know that it’s a common phenomenom that when you have an emotional high, it’s followed by an emotional low? I for one am sitting nice and firm in that low. My kids went back to school this week and I started homeschooling again. The kindergartner was not happy to start homeschooling again. It’s taken me to Thursday to get him through a normal school day in a normal amount of time. And then this afternoon I got the news that “due to the possibility of inclement weather” all the kids will be home for virtual school tomorrow. 

Wonderful.

Tomorrow I also have to take my 7th grader to get a covid test because he is having surgery on Monday morning. Something that just got scheduled this week. (I’ve never had this doctor’s office move so fast in getting a surgery lined up.) It’s an old complaint. Fluid in his ear causing hearing loss. He already had six sets of PE tubes when he was little. We’ve had a good long stretch of no problems, but now it seems it’s back. 

Our family has managed to stay healthy through all this Covid junk, but it’s concerning to me to hear, every day it seems, of more people I know who are sick with it. My daughter is going to bed right now and told me that she is cold, even though she is wearing really warm pajamas, socks, gloves, hat and is under a blanket. All I can think is that she’s getting the chills that come before a fever. And I just feel tense, wondering if the three days back at school was enough for her to pick up something that will now spread through the whole family. Who knows. We’ll see. And, as I think about it, if this daughter ends up getting sick, it will probably affect the other child’s surgery. Uggh. 

Emotionally I’ve been struggling with feeling like a failure. The old voices are speaking loudly in my head. 

So, here I am, just hanging on, and then the news explodes and everyone’s social media explodes and I get all caught up in it. And I realize. I can’t do this. I can’t let the drama of this dysfunctional country keep me yo-yo-ing up and down. I’m already having a hard time without focusing on what’s happening in Washington D.C. 

Someone suggested on their Facebook that now was a good time to get off the social media and focus on Jesus and His Kingdom. And I have to agree. I need wisdom, discernment, love, patience, power. I’m not going to get any of that by focusing on the world. I will get that by turning my focus back on God. Repeatedly. Over and Over again. Habitually. 

I’m not saying that I’m going to just ignore everything that is happening in the world. I live in the world, my personal life is affected by what is going on out there. But, if I take a look at how much time I am devoting to every activity in my day, social media and the news should not be taking up the majority of my time. (And I can hear my husband in the background saying, AMEN!) 

So, that’s where I’m at. Post-holiday blues, regular stresses of taking care of lots of kids, trying to resolve to spend less time on the internet, more time in real life, more focus on the Real King. 

I’ll talk to you all later. 

It’s Been Rough on the Kids

One of my little kids just came inside and told us that she heard gunshots. THREE SHOTS! REALLY FAST! I looked at my husband, he said, tell the kids to come inside. I called everyone in. They didn’t want to come in. The gunshots were far away! They weren’t close! Yeah, well, what if the person shooting the gun is in a car and he drives this way? Lets, just come inside for a while. They were disappointed, but came in, and within minutes were distracted by some new game they were playing. 

Such is life in our neighborhood.

Tomorrow the kids won’t go to school because our entire district has gone “RED” due to covid numbers, and so we will have a week of virtual school before Christmas break starts. My kids were not happy about this news. My daughter’s best friend in her class does not have internet in her home. They are an immigrant family, the little girl in my daughter’s class has been diligently learning English this year, and it’s possible that she speaks the best English in her family. Our district is offering help for families to get internet, but some extenuating reason is keeping this family from getting connected to help. My daughter cried and cried because virtual school means she doesn’t see her friend any more. 

Such is life in one of the poorest schools in town. 

We walked down to the park this past Friday afternoon since the weather was nice. There is a Children’s Museum at the park that we used to have a membership to. Covid shut the Muse down and then when they finally opened it was with so many restrictions and weird hoops to jump through, that I decided to not renew our membership until it gets easier. One of my kids saw the Muse, Can we go there???!! No sweetie. Not right now. WHY??? Covid. It’s just made things too difficult. But, we’ll go again as soon as things get easier. 

Such is life with a pandemic.

My three year old informed another sibling that he had friends. What’s their names? I don’t know. But I have friends! He is remembering last year when we were at a homeschooling co-op once a week and he would play with kids his age. I decided to not do the co-op this year, mostly because I didn’t know how Covid was going to affect my public school kids and how often we would be home or in quarantine. Fortunately, my elementary kids have had a good run, no quarantines, been in school all semester till now. But, we didn’t know that in the beginning of the semester, and we have been pretty isolated this year. My three year old is blessed to have lots of siblings who play with him, but he doesn’t see many other children. 

Such is life with social distancing.

It’s been a rough year for our kids. I’ve had a couple kids who have been struggling with depression, anger, frustration that life is not going like it’s supposed to. And it’s really hard to see my kids struggle. It weighs me down. I feel like I’m working overtime to keep my head above water, keep my outlook positive, focus on the good, not the bad, and I finally get into a kinda-good place and then my kids start falling apart, and I start the mentally strenous journey of trying to help them see the good in life, help them focus on the positive, help them get to a kinda-good place…You know, we are supposed to preach the Gospel to our children, well, I would say this has been my most prolific preaching year yet. God’s in control. We need to count our blessings. Let’s talk about the good things that have happened. Let’s pray about it. God has promised to help us. One day at a time. 

We’ve got Christmas coming up, typically a stressful time of year as we try to add celebration preparations to all the other things we have to get done every day. We, as parents, are already running on empty. And with kids being off of school for the holidays, needing time and attention, I am trying to remind myself just how much grace my kids need. 

I have decided that I am not going to take this next week of virtual school too seriously. Sure, we’ll give it our best shot, but if we miss something, or accidentally skip something, or get really confused about something, I’m not going to give it a lot of weight. Oh well. Let’s move on. I’m also not going to try and be super strict about anything this Christmas. You want to watch tv? Sure. Go ahead. We’ll still do our regular chores, and I hope I can keep the kids interested in playing outside, reading books, playing games etc, but if everyone is in meltdown mode? Well, I might pull out some candy canes, or just turn the tv on for several hours. This is not the time for rigid rules or really high standards. We are all mentally exhausted, including our kids. Let’s be as kind as possible to each other. 

Panic Attack

I found myself having a panic attack and decided to write my way through it. Here’s a snapshot of what is going on in my brain during a panic attack..

I’m having a rough day. I had to take my nine year old to the hospital for surgery early this morning to get rods put into her broken arm. My other daughter is sick and I will be heading off to another doctor’s appointment this afternoon to help her. I’ve been fighting a cold for ten days and in this era where Covid fear rages, having a cold is not a small thing. 

Today my mind is stewing on silly things. An online conversation with a blogger that turned into a veiled interrogation of me and my life choices. A scary notion that I am failing in this game called life. An overwhelming feeling of impending doom. 

And suddenly, I stop and realize that I’ve got things flipped upside down in my mind. In my mind, all these crazy things are happening, and as a result, I am responding with anxiety. 

I think the actual truth is I am struggling with anxiety and so everything that happens is being filtered through that anxiety and blown way out of proportion. My life isn’t causing me anxiety and stress. My anxiety is causing my life to feel anxious, stressful. 

Next question, why am I feeling so much anxiety? 

Typical culprits: lack of sleep, social media and the news, having to forego church due to sickness in our house, being physically sick myself.

When you can sit back and analyze things, it helps take off that big load of self-condemnation. Cause when I’m feeling anxiety, I feel like a personal failure. I have failed. I am not at peace. I must be feeling anxious because I’ve done something wrong. Not just that I’ve done something wrong, but that there is something inherently wrong with me. 

So, it’s time to hit the Refresh button. Speak some truth. 

I am Esther, daughter of the King. I have been saved. God no longer looks at my sin, but instead looks at me and sees Jesus’ goodness. My future lies with spending eternity with God. I am loved. God has blessed me with parents and parents-inlaw and a brother and brothers and sisters in law who love me. I have been blessed with a husband who loves me and children who are amazing. I belong to a church body that is there for me, that regularly supports me in all ways. Our world is crazy right now with political upheaval and covid, but God is still on his throne, none of this is a surprise to him. I am not perfect, but when I make mistakes, it’s not the end of the world. I can apologize. I can make restitution. I can go back and try again. 

My life is in God’s hands. 

So, I say Thank you Lord for this beautiful day. Thank you that my daughter made it safely through surgery. Thank you that my other daughter has a doctor she can visit and that medicine is available. Thank you for freedom of speech in that, so far, we are still able to hold opposing opinions with others and live in a diverse world. Thank you that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that you thought creating me, in all my quirkiness, was a good idea. 

These verses come to mind..

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

My Cats are Lame

My cats stink at being cats. 

 

We have had a mouse in our upstairs for a couple weeks, and you think, well, surely if you have four cats, this will not be a problem at all. In fact, the first time my daughter frantically texted me from her bedroom (on a night when my husband was not home), telling me she saw a mouse in her bedroom, my first response was, put the cats in your room! They’ll save you! (Cause I’m sure not going to do anything!) And my daughters ran and got the cats and the cats’ response was to get comfortable on my daughter’s beds (the cats are usually refused entrance to the teenaged hallowed domain). 

 

I talked to my husband about the mouse problem and he suggested that our cats would surely take care of it. Just give them a minute. 

 

Several minutes or weeks later, (today actually) my daughter complained again about a mouse in her room. Ugh. I guess it’s time to go buy some traps. I hate killing things. Even annoying mice. 

 

Then tonight as I was trying to get kids to bed, my daughter starts yelling out in the hallway. 

 

THE CAT HAS A MOUSE!! 

 

I ran to the doorway of the room I was in and saw the cat with a very alive mouse in the hall. 

 

Playing with it. 

 

Not hurting it. 

 

Not killing it. 

 

Not dragging it away out of our sight. 

 

Nope. 

 

Just letting it go and then chasing it whenever it ran. 

 

I looked around for something to jump up on, just in case the mouse ran in my direction. Little kids started running into the hall to see what was happening and I was yelling at everyone to get back into their bedrooms. Yelling at the cat to just kill the mouse or take it away! Then the mouse ran under a folded sheet that happened to be on the floor. (I have no idea why there was a folded sheet on the floor, it seems to be a favorite pastime of my children to haul things off the linen shelf and just leave them on the floor, it’s a mystery.) 

 

The cat was circling the sheet, trying to figure out where the mouse was and the five year old thought he should come and pick up the sheet, just to see what would happen. I’m yelling for him to get away before the mouse runs up his legs. Then the eleven and thirteen year old boys run out of their room. 

 

What’s going on? 

 

GET THE MOUSE!! YOUR CAT HAS A MOUSE! CATCH IT! 

 

They both quickly jumped into macho-man mode and tried to catch the mouse. Working in tandem, one son pinned the mouse to the floor with a stuffed animal. 

 

Ok. What are you going to do now? 

 

He shrugs. I don’t know. 

 

Then he lets it loose again!

 

DON’T LET IT LOOSE AGAIN!!!

 

But he redeems himself by scooping up the mouse with the sheet and making a run for the stairs to take it outside. 

 

YAY!! You are our hero!

 

Dumb cats. 

My Tank is on Low

Some days you are Spiritual and Aware, and marching along, knocking problems off your path right and left as you confidently push forward. And then other days, you are huddled in a corner in your room, yelling at kids to go away and just give you TEN MINUTES FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!!

 

In the past 60 seconds I have told the five year old to stop talking about “butt cheeks”, told the three year old to get his biscuit out of my bedroom and take it to the table, and told another child that it’s not appropriate to kick people. 

 

I’ve just told a little girl that No, she can’t store her artwork in my window sill. And if you leave it on the floor of my bedroom, I WILL throw it away. Please stop winding up my music box. Stop wrestling on my bed. Have you finished your chores?? Did you do your homework? Why are you eating a biscuit on my bed? Go finish your chores!!!

 

It’s that crazy time of day when I’m supposed to be making supper, the kids are supposed to be doing their chores and their homework while I cook, and my husband is supposed to arrive home sometime in the middle of all this. Hopefully after the house has been tidied up. And of course, this is the time of day when everyone needs my input on something. 

 

And I have been running full-steam since 6 am this morning and my nerves are feeling rattled. I have a pot of soup cooking and so I had hoped to sneak away for TEN MINUTES and maybe write a bit while everyone busily did their business. Right. 

 

Today I have dealt with sick kids staying home, a child at school getting hives, talked to therapists and social workers and doctors, chauffeured my daughter to work, cooked a lot of food from scratch because I need to go grocery shopping, and I’m out of all the quick easy stuff. I’ve arranged complicated plans for tomorrow, paid a giant pile of bills (Yay!), took care of banking business with a new teller at the bank who happens to take three times as long as normal, and looked up recipes for soup and how to treat hives. 

 

Right now I am feeling frazzled and tired and wondering how I can shed off some of my responsibilities to lighten the load, and at the same time, trying to not get discouraged. 

 

So, what’s the difference between today and say, two days ago? 

 

I think I need recharging. 

 

Time changes, major crisis, sickness, kids crawling in my bed at night cause they’re scared…it’s all been draining my resources. I need to refill the tank. 

Hmmm. I’m thinking I need a date night Thursday night. That sounds like a plan. A light shining at the end of the tunnel. Something fun and NON-kid to look forward to. So, my dear husband, who is reading this blog right now…I am going to set up the babysitting, you’re in charge of planning the evening. 🙂 

There. I’m feeling better. 

 

Oh wait..Thursday won’t work…Friday? Saturday?

 

Have Yourself a Very Hygge Christmas

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The other day “hygge” was my Word of the Day and I loved it. I thought, This is My word. A word I can get behind.  Then the next day, I saw this picture with the definition again. And suddenly it seems that I’m seeing it everywhere.  And I love it. It fits into the lifestyle that I try to have, noticing the small things and realizing that the small things are actually the big things.

 

Right now, as I sit in my chair I can look out a window and see the early sun slanting in on my neighbor’s house, and just seeing that sliver of sunlight makes me happy. It gives me a feeling of hygge. 

 

Sitting at the breakfast table this past Sunday morning with twelve children all gathered together, everyone chatting happily to each other. Hygge. 

 

Walking through the house last night, right before bed, turning off lights, checking locks on doors…I stopped and noticed all of our stockings hung on the mantle, waiting for Christmas morning. Hygge. 

 

Today I will spend the day baking a humongous pan of cinnamon rolls and a quadruple recipe of pumpkin bread. I’ll get various children to help me and the house will soon smell like a bakery, the smell of cinnamon and warm bread filling the air. Hygge. 

 

Tonight my husband and I will stay up till the wee hours wrapping presents and putting them under the tree. When we are finally done, we will sit on the couch in the dark, maybe with a hot cup of tea, and admire the twinkling lights of the tree and all the surprises waiting underneath. We’ll grin as we imagine the excitement of the kids in the morning when they see all these presents waiting. Hygge.

 

Tonight also, per tradition, all the kids will gather in one bedroom, snuggle in their blankets, and one of the older children will read aloud the book, “The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever”. The younger children will fall asleep halfway through the book, the older ones will squirm around, wishing that morning would hurry up and come. The anticipation will be thick in the air as one by one they drop off to sleep. Hygge. 

 

Life is so rich if you can just stop and take notice. May your Christmas be one that is full of hygge as you pause and enjoy the small moments that are all around you. 

 

Merry Christmas!

 

I hate you…Merry Christmas!

So, I’ve decided every holiday season needs at least one blog to point out the underbelly of Season’s Greetings. Today is the day of the Heneise Family Christmas Party. If you didn’t get an invitation, consider yourself invited and come on over. I love this tradition. One of my girls asked me, rather annoyed because she is having to do a lot of cleaning today…Why do we always have a Christmas Party??? I said it’s because Christmas is about family, and since we don’t have a lot of family living close by, our friends are our family. And this is an opportunity to get together with them at least once during the Christmas Season. 

 

She harrumphed. 

 

If you can’t tell, attitudes haven’t been the best today. My kids love having a party, but they hate getting ready for a party. It involves cleaning, and deep cleaning, and decluttering, and picking up things that we usually ignore. Wiping down surfaces we usually leave for later. Then there is also the maintenance of the Said Cleaning. I JUST VACUUMED THAT COUCH!! GET OFF IT!!! 

 

The kids, already feeling put upon for having to clean, are taking it out on each other. I hate you! You’re stupid! I wish you weren’t here! And other horrible things that I don’t allow my children to say to each other, have been said today. I have had some rather uncomplimentary thoughts about some of my children as well, though at least I managed to keep it to myself. 

 

My husband told me yesterday that he was going to devote the whole day today to helping me get ready. I envisioned him washing some dishes and running a vacuum. This morning he announced he was going to clean the basement (???) and fix the two holes in my floors that have needed repairing for months. 

 

Ok.

 

Not exactly what I had in mind. 

 

But, the holes did need fixing, and apparently cleaning the basement was tied into fixing holes in the floor.

 

Ok. Give me a minute to readjust my expectations. 

 

Now, in a couple hours, people will start showing up and we’ll forget about cleaning the house and we’ll settle in to just having fun with friends. MERRY CHRISTMAS! PEACE ON EARTH! 

 

So, are we all raging hypocrites? Hateful one minute, sweet and nice the next? Or maybe being hypocritical is just part of human nature.  A human nature that we all need to be saved from. A human nature that was completely lost in it’s sinfulness and yet Jesus decided to give us value to the point that he was willing to come to earth and make the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be saved from this sinful human nature. 

Christmas…Emmanuel…God with us. 

 

I have believed in Jesus, decided to follow him. My sins are forgiven. But I still have this sinful human nature. I will spend my whole life learning how to be more like Jesus. Sometimes I’ll do really well. Like today! The meanest thing I said was, YOU GUYS STINK AT CLEANING! Which is mild compared to some of the verbiage that was being slung around. But then, there are days where I completely step out of grace and wallow in my sinful nature. 

 

So, really, I hate you…Merry Christmas… is completely appropriate for this time of year.  I hate you: I’m not the best person. I say and do bad things. Merry Christmas: that’s why Jesus came! We can devote an entire month to celebrate that we have a Savior now who wants to rescue us from ourselves. 

 

Let’s have a Chat!

Hey Everybody. It’s Tuesday and it is apparently time for me to write my blog. And I’m not feeling it. Sometimes this blog feels narcissistic. It’s time to write about ME again. Uggh. 

 

So, let’s make this about someone else tonight. How are you all doing? How is life out in internet world? Are you crashing at the end of the day and seeking some mindless relaxation on Facebook? Right now I am sitting in my little boys’ room, waiting for them to go to sleep. It’s Andy’s night off and I am solo parenting. 

 

How are you coping with the holidays? Are they a fun-filled nostalgic time for you or are they a non-stop hectic, stressful race to the end? I seem to seesaw back and forth on that one. I am trying to have a slow, peaceful holiday month, but life keeps interrupting. 

 

How are you feeling with the shorter days and winter weather? (If that applies to you, maybe it’s summer in your part of the world.) For me, I love winter, but the cold weather gets to me. Maybe because my kids don’t want to be out in the cold, so then they’re running around the house, shooting nerf bullets at each other, or literally, climbing the walls, trying to see if they can make it up to the ceiling. 

 

How’s your peace doing? Is all right with the world or does everything feel out of whack? Me? Well, I’m in that interesting place where everything is out of whack, but despite that, I’m at peace and can feel God’s presence in all the craziness. So, I guess it’s good. I’ll tell you what, Jesus is the only one that can do that for me! I hope that you can find peace in your craziness too. Cause, if I’m being realistic, there probably isn’t anyone of you out there that doesn’t have some level of craziness going on. 

 

How are your dreams coming along? It’s taken me years to even give myself permission to have dreams. For a while there, just taking care of little kids was so overwhelming, I did not have any time for dreams. It’s not a great place to be. Feels a bit dead. I’ve been trying to let myself dream again. One dream is to be a full-time piano teacher. I had four piano students this school semester and it was really fun. We had a little recital of sorts last night and it felt good to see how well they did. It’s a small dream, but I’m taking steps towards it and that is nourishing to the soul. I hope you can find a way to, first of all, have a dream, and second of all, pursue it in small ways tucked here and there in your busy life. 

 

Let’s see, we’ll just skip politics. And sports. Read any good books lately? I found a new author I like, recommended by a friend, Amy Harmon. Fluffy, funny, PG, but also some stuff to think about. Just what I’m looking for right now. I’ve also been reading 1,2, and 3rd John, in the Bible. I found 1 John to be very comforting for my perfectionist self. I am never sure if I’m doing enough, being enough, striving enough etc. And the main point I took away from the book was, Obey Jesus’ commands. This is his command. Love God, Love People. The End. And that doesn’t seem too burdensome. It seems like a joyful task, not a hard chore. And it also feels like a load of expectations dissolves off my shoulders every time I read it. Good stuff. 

 

Well, if you were sitting right in front of me, this is about the time I would start digging for the nitty gritty stuff, how are the relationships in your life? How are you feeling about yourself? How’s your spiritual life? What’s making you happy these days? What’s dragging you down? 

 

So, you should come on by when you can, sit at my kitchen table, where the kids will run around us, kind of like a rock sticking out of the current in a river. We’ll drink some hot tea, I’ll dig up some cookies, or carrot sticks, depending on where you are at with your diet, and we can chat (with plenty of interruptions, but it won’t matter!). 

 

Good night friends, let’s talk again soon!

 

NOT a Bad Day

I needed to write. So you all get a bonus Blog today. 

 

My lifetime enemy, depression, has been rearing its ugly head lately. I’ve been in denial. I’m fine. I’ve got this. I’m ok. Then today, when I found myself glued to my chair, not wanting to move, except to climb into bed and sleep, I realized, oh, yes, I recognize this pattern. 

 

I’ve decided to fight back a bit. The worst thing about depression is that it whispers, “Failure!” in my ear, constantly. So, I have decided to compile a list of ways that I did not fail today. Speak a bit of truth. 

 

First, my two and five year old boys, who were in my charge all day, are alive and well. They ate, got cleaned, played, watched tv, went outside. As far as they are concerned, it was a great day.

I got all my school age kids to and from school without a hitch, and they are all in a good mood, playing with friends.

Supper is cooking. The dishes are caught up. The laundry is doing ok. The downstairs of the house is clean. Sure, I paid the kids to clean it because I wasn’t able to force myself to do it. But, the kids got some pocket money, they’re happy, it was cheaper than hiring a maid, and I can say that I used my delegating skills.

I also signed our family up for health insurance for the next year on Healthcare.gov, which is a soul-sucking experience in itself. It actually took me two days to finish the whole application. But, it’s done! 

 

I kept the fire going in the woodstove. 

 

I’m getting along with my husband. 

 

My pets are happy. 

 

It wasn’t a failure day.

 

So, for all my friends out there fighting depression and anxiety, this is actually a pretty good tool. Write down everything that was right in the day, even if you have to grasp at straws, like, The sun came up today and set as normal. No tornadoes blew my house down. My car didn’t explode. I didn’t catch the plague… See! It works! I’m feeling better already. 🙂 

 

Thanks for listening. 

 

 

The Circus!

The Shriner’s Circus is in town. I was at the grocery store a couple weeks ago with my ten year old. An elderly man approached us and asked my son if he liked the circus. My son said yes and so the man handed us ten tickets to go to see the Shriner’s Circus. I hadn’t planned to attend, but after that I decided, Why not? 

 

We took our six youngest. It was held at the Thompson-Boling Arena, the same public venue where I watched my husband graduate from UT, watched our oldest two children graduate high school, and the place that our family went for years to see the annual performance of the Living Christmas Tree. I have enough good memories there that it always feels good to walk inside. 

 

We found some nosebleed seats which were actually very nice because we were right by the exit and close to the bathrooms and water fountains. As the lights went down for the show to begin I had a flashback of all the circuses I went to as a child. I remember the first circus I ever saw was in Haiti when I was five or six. After that, in Morehead, Kentucky, I remember the circus setting up in big fields right outside town. I remember the carefully organized parking lots they would create out in the cow fields, carefully stepping over large clumps of grass as we made our way to the tents. 

 

I think my parents must have been pretty on top of their game when it came to circus attendance. I’m pretty sure we went whenever the circus was in town. As a child my absolute favorite part was the ladies in their bombastic spandex outfits as they climbed up ropes and did daring feats as they danced far above our heads. They always looked so graceful. Princesses. Afterwards I would go home and climb up the rope to our swing and practice diligently, sure that I looked just as graceful as they did. 

 

Now, with my own children in attendance, I took just as much pleasure from just watching my children’s faces as they looked on in awe and amazement. Then, about ten minutes into the show, the two year old freaked out. Way too much stimulation going on here. My husband, who was sitting with him down on the other end of the line of kids, awkwardly managed to pass him to me. The poor toddler clung to me, tears coming down his face. I held him tight, murmuring into his ear so he could hear me. He calmed down and then settled into my lap, leaning back against me so he could watch from a safer position. 

 

The six year old’s eyes were shining as she gasped, sure that the acrobat was going to fall. The twelve year old jerked back in his seat when the trapeze artist fell from the sky. We had all been so focused on their antics that we hadn’t even noticed the safety net strung below them. We all breathed a sigh of relief as we saw that she was ok. When the resident daredevil did his tricks on top of a large white contraption that spun around in a big circle with a spinning wheel, I had the presence of mind to pray for his safety. I really didn’t want my children to witness him splatting on the concrete floor. I don’t know if we ever would have recovered from that. 

 

As I watched I thought about the week to come. As a child, for me and my friends, the best part of going to a circus was playing circus afterwards. We would spend hours practicing our routines, trying to figure out how we could make our own trapezes, balancing ropes, and could we get our pets to do some amazing tricks? We would practice and practice, and try to come up with some fancy costumes, usually involving our swimsuits, the only spandex we owned. Then finally, we would try to rope in some of the parents to come and watch us: charging admission, handing out paper home-made tickets. I have some vague memories of getting caught up in a rope and ending up dangling from a tree by one foot. I also seem to remember that one trick ended up with my cousin getting a near-concussion. Yep. I’m pretty sure that after the circus comes to town, the ER visits increase for a while. 

 

Now I kind of feel the need to give my kids a couple more instructions than normal. 1. Our pets don’t know how to do these tricks. Please do not try to launch one of our animals from a high place just because you saw the dog do it at the circus. 2. Even though the lady and her partner put ropes around their necks and spun from the ceiling in a fast circle, WE are not going to try to do that. 3. The motorcycle tricks were awesome, but I don’t think that a regular bike will be able to accomplish the same feats if you attempt to jump your bike off a home-made ramp. Just saying. 

 

All in all, I’m glad we went. Yes, there were some moments in the middle where the two and four year old were driving me crazy as they were unable to sit still in a seat. Not having a small fortune to spend on light-up toys and elephant rides was a bit of a downer for the kids. But, everyone got to try some cotton candy, the opinion split down the middle over whether this was AMAZING or YUCKY. (I vote Yucky). We shared some popcorn and managed to get large quantities all over the floor. We spent an afternoon together making memories. It was good. Hurray for the circus!