Trending Now At The Box House 2.0

Awhile back I wrote a post about all the little happenings going on in The Box House universe, the things that were "trending" in our lives. Here's another installment of where we've been for the past month. 

During the month of February, I did a music challenge along with a friend of mine. The challenge was to listen to only Christian music for 30 days. I suppose she got the idea from K-Love- I'm sure at least some of you have heard of it. I told her I would do it with her, but I wasn't going to listen to drivel that K-Love plays. I blanketly apologize to all K-Love supporters. No offense intended, of course, but those of you who know me, know also my opinion of the majority of Christian music. It's a joke. A tired, worn out, not even good joke. And so, I told my friend I would take the challenge with her, with the stipulation that I created the playlist. Spotify to the rescue! 

Now, listening to "Christian" music is hard for me. Not because I hate Christ, or I despise Christians or Christianity in general. Rather, it's hard because I don't believe that godly music is solely confined to the contemporary Christian music genre, just like I don't believe that godly art is only created by Christian artists, or godly books are only written by Christian authors. The bible says all creation cries out to Him, declares His glory (Psalm 19). Not just the creators. Now, I know, of course, that not all songs, or artwork, or books, are wholesome and godly. Those aren't the kind I mean. But why put a box on what ministers to us, on what gives glory to Him? This is why Christian music is so hard for me- because so much ministers to me. There is no line, in my mind. So much speaks to my heart, to those deep wells that are constantly calling out to deeper wells, proving to me over and over that I'm not truly for this world. That I'm created higher, lower, deeper, fuller, bigger than this life can ever make me. I am more, and I am less, than this world can give me. So when I set out to make this playlist, I chose music that, while all the artists are Christ followers, their music is not necessarily what would be considered "Christian". Most of them certainly wouldn't be played on K-Love. But it was the best I could do. 

Throughout the month, Ashton kept asking me who was "winning", me or my friend. To him, "challenge" meant "contest". I tried to tell him, over and over, that it wasn't about winning against another person. It was to challenge yourself. He couldn't really get that. To him, everything is a competition. Everything is black and white. If he fails in one area, he fails across the board. 

Which made for a really miserable winter for us, thanks to his basketball team being completely Bad News Bears. They won only one game the entire season. I watched him lose over and over, and sink lower and lower. A ten year old should not have to face as much defeat as he did this winter. It was terrible to behold. And you try to convince them that it isn't all about winning, that he just needs to do his best, and that it's just a game. But the truth is, it is about winning. It isn't just a game. What we do, unfortunately, defines who we think we are. And who we think we are is almost always more important than who others think we are. I could tell Ashton repeatedly that he wasn't a loser. But he didn't believe me, because he thought he was one. I was never happier to see the end of a sports season. With practices and games consuming five nights a week, and then not even winning on top of that, basketball ended up creating a huge strain over our household. Jeremy left at the end of the last game of the season, and promptly drove down the road to sign Ashton up for baseball. I just found out that practices will again be five nights a week. When I freaked out over that, Jeremy comforted me, saying, "Think of it this way: it's good practice for football season." Lovely. Don't these coaches have lives?? I don't think I'm cut out to be a sport mom. I can't handle the roller coaster of emotions, not to mention the all consuming practice hours. I get tired just thinking about it. Somebody, please, come and take my son to all of his sporting practices, so I can have 10 seconds to breathe. So I can [pretend I will] fold laundry and [much more likely] sit down and read a book.

While Ashton has been sportsting his little heart out, the girls have been doing what they do best: scream and fuss at each other, slam the bedroom door in each other's faces, say they're telling mom, then make up and giggle hysterically together two minutes later. In other words, being sisters. They would love to do extracurricular activities, too, but sadly, while baseball and basketball are one time sign up fees, the things the girls want to do- dance, gymnastics, figure skating, art classes- all require monthly payments that add up to a small mortgage. I hate for them to feel neglected. When I was little, I would have done anything to take gymnastics classes. So I make things fun for them (I hope) at home and let them waste reams of computer paper and crayons and pencil lead creating masterpieces that either wind up on the fridge or scotch taped to their textured walls, where they never end up sticking because-obviously- scotch tape won't stick to a textured wall. I put on music for them to dance to, and they take it upon themselves to do gymnastics on all my furniture and couch cushions. Which I would actually prefer for them not to do. I love watching them live life together. I pray that they grow up best friends. My sister and I didn't become close until I married and moved out of the house. We missed out. I want so much more for my girls. I want them to realize the gift they have in each other. A built in best friend, sidekick, wingman, even enemy, when they need one. The best kind of enemy: the safe kind. The kind you can get mad at and know that they'll still love you the next day. The kind that tells you when you're screwing up but doesn't try to change you, that lets you make your mistakes and helps you pick up the pieces afterward.

I sometimes like to look for a common theme when I write paragraphs like these. It helps me feel some sense of continuity, like these haphazard, sloppy days are actually part of something bigger; like our life is a fractal that only makes sense the further away you stand to gaze at it. I guess that means it makes perfect sense to God. And maybe even to outsiders who don't see us up close. Not in a way that makes our life a lie, or an act put on to make us look like we've got it together. But in a way that says maybe, just maybe, I've got it a little more together than I think. 

Maybe that's what's trending right now at The Box House: realizing we're more than we think. My music challenge pulled at that deeper part of me that is always calling out to praise Him, whether the means are traditional or not. Helped me to recognize that I'm more than just me, more than just a part of this world. 

Ashton is more than those heart wrenching basketball games he suffered through over and over. He came home defeated and distraught after each one. But he learned to be a team player. He learned that you can get beat up and broken down and feel like you can't go any lower, and to still get up and do it again. He's so much stronger than he thought he was. 

The girls are learning, even without knowing it, that they don't have to be part of a group to create. They don't have to have an instructor to dance, or even a gym mat to tumble (again, not that I'm encouraging the furniture jumping). They do, however, have to have something stronger than scotch tape if they want to hang pictures on their walls. 

And maybe I'm grasping at straws here, trying to tie together threads that don't exist. Or maybe I'm stepping back, seeing the chaos that seems to be my life as the fractal that it actually is. More than I can see close up. More than I can understand, being on the inside. Maybe what I'm doing is realizing that my life is actually a lot more than I know.

 {{February-March Photo Dump}}

Lots of pictures in front of walls lately. What can I say? I love a good, solid backdrop.

P.S. Want to check out my Music Challenge playlist? Click Here.

How I Spent My Valentine's Day

I'm not a fan of February. It's my least favorite month of the year. Although it's the shortest, it drags on interminably, full of dreary, gray days,  long nights, and cold winds. Ugh, I hate it. February is just the month I use to mark time waiting for spring. 

On Valentine's Day, my sister and I decided to hang out, and take Atleigh with us. While we were leaving the house, Atleigh tripped over my foot and planted into the sidewalk. She scraped her knee, ribs, and palms. And cried and moaned for 40 minutes straight. You would think she'd never taken a tumble in her entire life. 

This excessive drama led to her getting to "choose" where we ate lunch. I use the quotation marks because really it means we give her options and then try to talk her into the one we want. She wanted Olive Garden, we wanted Plaza Azteca. We ended up with a compromise of sorts: we went through the Chick-fil-A drive thru for her, bringing the food along for her to eat at Plaza Azteca, and promising her frozen yogurt afterwards. 

That night, Ashton had basketball ball practice. We went to Jeremy's parents' house for dinner, then dropped Ashton off at practice and returned to their house to wait it out. We had brought both dogs with us. Now, I almost never take Neville with me anywhere. He can't stomach it. The poor boy gets green just looking at the car. It's especially heartbreaking to me, since all I ever wanted was a dog I could bring with me everywhere, with his head hanging out the window, ears blowing in the breeze. But we figured the trip was so short he would be okay. He did fine on the way there. The way back home is a different story. We hadn't gotten 3 minutes down the road before he vomited right into Chloe's lap. We had just pulled up to the middle school to get Ashton from practice, and Jeremy left the car to go get him. With that, all hell broke loose. I won't even try to describe the smell of the vomit to you. It was.... It was bad. I've had three kids, and my stomach is not sensitive. But this had my eyes watering. The girls were screaming and gagging. And Neville turned around in the car and threw up two more times. Chloe started stripping off her pants. Atleigh unbuckled her seatbelt and stood in her seat screaming bloody murder, pressed as far into the door as she could. Oliver, our new puppy, was in the front seat yelping over being left alone up there, jumping in circles and yapping. As I'm finally getting the new piles of puke cleaned up, Neville starts heaving again. "Oh NO you don't!!" I screamed, hauling him out of the car by his collar. He vomited onto the sidewalk (the name of the school we were at shall remain anonymous). Atleigh was still screaming, Chloe was now sans pants. Jeremy and Ashton came out of the school, and I loaded Neville back into the car. The girls immediately launched into a dramatic retelling of the goings on, their voices rising higher and higher in pitch as they strained to be heard over the other, comparing who was worse off. I climbed back in my seat, but Atleigh refused to sit back down. She leaned against the door and screamed and screamed. Neville vomited again in the seat right next to her. She tried to climb up the closed window. At this point, I lost my temper. I flew out of the car and swung her door open, causing her to very nearly fall into the street. I caught her before she hit the ground and told her if she wouldn't ride in the car she could stay in the parking lot. She fought me while I tried to buckle her seatbelt.  Jeremy got out of the driver's seat then, and came around to help me, slamming me between his back and the door- I still have a bruise on my hip. As it turned out, Oliver had peed in the front seat, and Jeremy had sat directly in it. The back of his jeans was soaked. 

We finally, finally got back on the road. Neville puked two more times, and twice more when we finally got him into our front yard. We staggered out of the car in various stages of shell shock, Chloe without pants, Jeremy with the seat of his jeans soaked, Neville shaking and heaving. All I could do was look at Jeremy and shrug and say, "Happy Valentine's Day." At which point he looked at me and said, "I'm going to get some beer."

But all of this, all of these misadventures are eclipsed by what I realized after everyone had calmed down: Atleigh's Geehee was missing. Some of you may have read my post about this a few years ago, when Geehee got left in Target. At that time, my friend saved the day and found it. About a year later, Atleigh left Geehee at the school our church was meeting in, and a janitor threw it away. I remember vividly the day I found out for sure it was gone. It was an icy, rainy day, and I rolled over in my bed to face the wall, like Hezekiah, and wept. Some will say it's silly. It was just a blanket. But it wasn't. I won't rewrite all the feelings attached to Geehee here. If you want to read them, you can refer to the older post. 

The only thing that made that situation bearable, was the fact that I found a blanket just like hers online. I reasoned with myself: she's only three. In three more years, she'll have had this blanket just as long as the first. In ten years it will be like the first Geehee never existed. This is how I let myself sleep at night. 

But on Friday- on Valentine's Day- the "new" Geehee was gone. I drove to Plaza Azteca, the last place we remember her having it, pulling into their parking lot at 10:57, three minutes to closing time. My stomach roiled as they looked for it, digging in boxes of coats, hats, gloves, things that have no value to anyone, things that are replaceable. They let me go look in the booth we'd sat in earlier in the day. It was nowhere. People- humans, if you have a heart for anything at all- if you EVER find what looks like a child's lovey, turn it in. In God's name, do not take it. Do not throw it in the trash. You never know what pieces of a child's life, what pieces of a mother's heart, you are trifling with. I cried myself to sleep Friday night. I cried off and on all day Saturday. To happen once was bad luck, which was mercifully avoided. To happen a second time was heartbreaking, although we were able to find a replacement quickly. This time... This time is inexcusable. I tried to joke with my sister, saying, "I know it's just a blanket. At least I didn't lose the baby." But immediately the tears welled up again. In some part of my mind, I feel like I did. Atleigh is my last baby. My last ever. And this blanket, that she cuddled when she was sick, chewed on when she watched tv, hid her face in when she was shy- to me, it was a part of her. A part I can't ever get back. I said dramatically that I would probably think of that Geehee while lying on my deathbed. I meant it as a joke. But who knows? Maybe I will. Now, a few days later, I can be more pragmatic. Truthfully, Atleigh has been fine. I don't know if that makes it better or worse. And I know, of course I know, that a blanket is just a blanket. This is the least of troubles that could have happened. Life will go on. It's just a blanket. And if I say it enough, I will believe it. 

And this is how I spent my Valentine's Day. In scrapes and booboos, vomit and shrieking, and loss. But I spent it with family. I laughed a lot, and I loved a lot. If there were things that happened that soured it, then Valentine's Day is just what I've always said it is: just another day. It is what we make it, and what we allow it to be. Bring on St. Patrick's Day. 

            {{Weekly Photo Dump}}