Birthday Ponderings

Today is the first day of my 42nd trip around the sun. For the past several weeks, Facebook has been unrelenting in asking me to choose a charitable organization for them to promote so my friends and family could send donations in my honour. The idea is noble and I know of multiple organizations run by good people doing good things. However, after sitting with the thought for awhile, what I really want for my birthday (and for Christmas, anniversary, Mother's Day, etc.) from now until the end of time is for all of us humans to practice being a little gentler with one another. After the very public grief around the loss of Kate Spade and Anthony Boudain and the hauntingly beautiful performance by the drama club from Majorie Stoneman Douglas High School at the Tony's, it seems a fitting request. I'm committed to being intentional about adding more care and real listening to my days, to extending grace when the opportunity arises, to telling my people how glad I am they're in my life. And I'm going to ask that we all try to do the same - when you do it, it will not only be a birthday gift to me, but even better, a gift to the world and the people who may hear a message of hope when they were beginning to think all hope had been lost.

Today's celebration of the first day my parents met me has been a delightfully 'normal' day, with the exception that Philip is out of town on business and I palpably experienced hope in my new professional community. We all got up and had breakfast before Henry and I went to prepare for music camp at the preschool. I arrived to find my office had been decorated in the happiest of colours and filled with some of my favourite things - right down to the red and purple tissue paper in the gift bag on my desk (my favourite colours). There were tasty doughnuts, streamers, balloons and well wishes and I felt known - known in a place to which I'm very new and I'm still learning the ropes. We finished our day and came home for a rest, then wandered to Target to pick up a birthday gift for one of the kids' friends and came back home to make dinner. We had an intermittent candlelight dinner thanks to a stellar summer thunderstorm that rumbled through taking our power with it for a bit. The kids cleaned the kitchen and I was in my pajamas by 6:15pm. While they showered, I did some computer work, talked on the phone with my parents, talked to Philip and wallowed in the goodness of Facebook birthday wishes. It really was a lovely day. To answer Facebook's question about where I'll 'donate' my birthday, I suppose my answer is I'm plugging into HOPE. My money will go to support some very honourable people and organizations doing good things and my time and energy will go to really trying to engage with people so they may also feel known -
even when they're the newbie.

Cheers to this next trip around the sun and thank you to all who have shepherded me along the way to this place - I'm grateful.

Parent Fail

Let's face it - there's so much to juggle as a parent, we're bound to fail. Regularly. I've accepted this as normal and generally keep my fingers crossed that the #fails at least happen somewhat under the radar. Inevitably, though, some slip through and squirm their way into the spotlight - last night, for example.

Our daughter is a natural performer - she loves the stage, she loves the makeup, she loves creating the outfit. When the school announced there would be a talent show, I immediately marked all the dates in my calendar before she even got home because I knew how this would go. Being a stage mom does not fall into my set of gifts - I'm happy to support her and transport her but I'm not the mama who immerses myself so fully in my child's performing that I myself get lost. Dancing also falls outside the realm of my gifts (I'll neither confirm nor deny that Elaine's dance on Seinfeld was modeled after me), so I've let go of pretending I have anything valuable to offer in terms of choreography. I left the entire performance to Lydia - she has the gifts, and we wanted her to have the ownership too.

While I'm neither a stage mom nor a dancer, I excel at behind the scenes - it's my jam. I had drop off and pick up times scheduled, I knew how much time we'd need to get her dressed, I even managed to email her chorus teacher, since musical auditions were the same day as the talent show, to ask if she could audition early in the process. Dutifully, I researched the lyrics and overall message of the song she chose - words and subject matter were appropriate. I made sure dinner was pre-prepped so the family had time to eat before going to save seats for the big show, I remembered to buy flowers and I remembered to get the tickets before I left the house. What I didn't consider, however, was the program. We arrived at the school, were handed a program and queued up before entering the performance space. As is natural, we opened the program and there it was:

Lydia M. - Cheap Thrills

These are words I never wanted to see strung together in all my days - not ever. But there they were - emblazoned for all in attendance to read. Philip and I looked at each other with eyebrows raised and chalked it up to, "Oh well - this one's got the spotlight". We got into our seats, settled into the show and marveled at the bravery of the children on the stage - singing, dancing, playing piano, doing gymnastics. Then it was our girl's turn. She rocked it. I cried the entire time, all the while laughing a little too because my daughter's name was followed by the words "Cheap Thrills". Parenting is hard. There are so many details to remember. Today I'm claiming some grace for letting the song title slip past my attention and I'm focusing on the fact that our daughter is full of grit and grace and danced on that stage and owned it.