Jesus is Watching You

I’m always a bit hesitant to reveal my Lenten intentions to anyone because it’s only a matter of time before I succumb to an inevitable failure.  When it comes to Lenten success, my glass is forever half empty.  Except for this year, because for these forty days my glass will be entirely empty. 

Goodbye, Cabernet Sauvignon.  Goodbye, Merlot.

Five weeks isn’t especially a long time.  Except for the hours between nine and ten p.m.

Surprisingly, my Lenten decision was met with much resistance at home.

“Well,” John said pouring me a cup of coffee on the morning of Ash Wednesday, “my life is over.”

“Aren’t you being just a bit dramatic?” I asked through blurry eyes.

Almost on bended knee he pleaded, “Please, don’t give up wine!  Think of your family!  We need you to drink!”

I wonder, is this how Jesus felt when he cued in his disciples his plans for Easter weekend?

At work, when I told my treasured friend Faith of my intention, she said, “No way am I giving up wine.  I know Jesus died on the cross for us and all, but there is a limit!”  Another asked me if I meant to give up all types of alcohol.  Funny, I wasn’t aware there was anything but.

At home, some of the kids fear I am pregnant.  The last time I took a wine sabbatical, Max followed.

With the exception of 9 p.m., I am steadfast and determined.  I silently chant.  I will be fine.  My family will be fine.  And Jesus will be proud of me.

“Jesus doesn’t like a quitter,” John informed me.

Yep, Jesus had his disciples and I have my family.  It’s a stretch but so is my time out here in the desert. 

What do I really expect to get out of the Lenten season of deprivation?  I’d like to say it’s the virtue of temperance and a star in my heavenly crown, but I know, and more importantly Jesus knows, that’s just not true. 

What I really expect is to be twenty pounds lighter by Easter Sunday, but I’d settle for ten.  And in the mean time, I’ll be sure to show up for mass every week.  There’s a chalice with my name on it.

Can You Feel the Love?

There is nothing as painful as trying to help a six-year-old boy make valentines for his kindergarten class.  Helping Kenny make valentines is like saying nineteen Hail Marys on your knees while crawling uphill.

“But I don’t want to give Craig a valentine,” Kenny complained.  “He fights with me!”

I began with gentle encouragement. 

I explained that everyone, Craig included, needed a valentine.

Knowing that the nearby television show he was watching was quickly sucking him in, I drove my point home by loudly spelling out Craig’s name while furiously tapping the table with my finger.

Shaking his head he rebooted, “But he fights with everyone!”

Therein lies the problem. 

I empathize with Kenny.  Giving valentines to people you don’t want to seems to defeat the entire purpose of Valentine’s Day.  Even I had a valentine stuck to the refrigerator that I bought for John several days before.  Like Kenny, I wanted to blurt out, “But John fights with me!”

But it wasn’t really even the fighting that caused my card to remain unsigned.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want John to be my valentine; it was just the culmination of the previous few days along with a few minor skirmishes had put me in an anti-Cupid sort of way. 

We were on day five of what seemed like a never-ending stomach virus that Max had unleashed the previous weekend.  Kenny and I were just recovering, which explains why he wasn’t in school and why we were hastily putting together valentines with his classroom party only hours away.  At that moment, it felt like there would be no end to the plague.  In fact, the last time I had checked on Stancey, she was hanging off the side of her bed with her head in a bucket.

It’s hard to conjure up pixie dust and hearts when your house smells like raw sewage and Parmesan cheese; and getting my son to create a Craigentine was turning out to be equally difficult.  The more I fought, the more I thought about how Valentine’s Day is when you’re young.  When I was in elementary school, I worried that no one would give me a valentine. It also made me remember it was one of those few times when it was perfectly acceptable to be passive aggressive. 

Those I liked got nice valentines and those I didn’t …

It was about then I blurted to Kenny what no mother ever should.

“Just pick out an ugly valentine and put his name on it.  NOW!!”

And so he did.

Turns out, after all that work, Kenny wound up missing his party anyway.  John dropped him off at school at noon, and wouldn’t you know it?  They had the damn party in the morning.

On a side, there is such a thing as a karmic valentine.  I did wind up signing and embellishing the beautiful valentine I bought John.  And waiting for me after work was a homemade card from him. 

Those ugly valentines have a way of catching up with you.

The Hardest Words

It’s not my fault that I want to beat my children most mornings before they go to school.  Ugly personalities plus moderate sleep deprivation can equal bad times in our house.  The number of non-morning people compared to morning people is definitely disproportionate. I joke that John and I have remained married because we wake up at different times, but after an especially brutal morning, I’m not playing.  I sometimes want a separation, if not from him, then from at least one or two of the kids.

This week, after multiple attempts to wake up Madison and Kenny, I found both of them entirely unconscious while midway ejected from their beds.  Kenny was soundly sleeping—while sitting up—and Madison attempted a lame dismount from his teenage sleep nest.  The only body part that resulted in reasonable success was his elbow.

The unwillingness to get out of bed, I can move past, because while my alarm is regularly set for 6:45, I rarely put a toenail to the floor boards before 7.  Anything later forfeits my right to a shower.    

What crazes me most are the chronic fights that begin outside the bathroom as soon as one Thompson encounters another.  It’s like Wild America.  It’s hard to stop myself from repeatedly slamming my head inside the kitchen cupboards.  Some mornings I think a mild brain injury just might improve my personality.

Mostly, it’s the caustic conversations between Stancey and I that gets the blood pulsing in my ears.  Her overuse of such loud phrases as “Shut up!” and “Get out!” causes my eyeballs to twitch.  She’s very territorial of the bathroom and is hardened to Kenny’s pleas to use the toilet.  Someday he’s going to get tired of begging for entrance and just pee on her door.  I might just applaud him.

On a good morning I’ll say, “You know, it’s just as easy to be nice as it is to be mean.”

On a lesser morning I’ll say, “Quit being such a witch!” or other rhyming derivative that too easily tumbles through my coffee-stained teeth. 

Usually, by the time I drop her sulking self off at school, I’ve managed to collect myself and acknowledge that my use of mild language and want of physical violence warrants an apology.  But after our most recent exchange, I reflected on how much easier it is to be mean than it is to be right.  As I pushed through the discomfort of being wrong, I smugly said through twisted lips,

“I’m sorry…Stancey…that you made me be mean this morning.” 

And being the forgiving soul that she is, she countered my apology with a request for five dollars.

As I watched her disappear into the high school with my lunch money, I at least found solace that for six whole hours she would stress out someone else.

For those few moments when the car was all but empty but for Max and me, I basked in the victory that we managed to make it to the other side of yet another morning.