Inhale Grace

I left work around 4:00 on Tuesday.  I had a club that ran until 3:15, and then I stayed to finish up a few things.  I stopped at the grocery store on the way home, and at about 4:30, I got a call from my son. 

“Mom, the dogs got skunked.  There’s a dead skunk in the dog pen and everything stinks.” 

Great.  That’s great.  I had just purchased the rest of the ingredients for the new recipe I planned to try.  Spicy Peanut Chicken.  I had just enough time to cook and eat before Bell Choir rehearsal.  The evening’s schedule was already full.  I had not penciled in time for dealing with a skunk. 

“HOLD UP,” I interjected.  “I have questions.  First of all, are the dogs back in the house?”

“No.  I left them outside.”

“Okay. Good. Next question. Did THEY kill the skunk?”

“I don’t think so.  I inspected it for bite marks and wounds and I didn’t see anything.”  

WHAT?  “You INSPECTED it?”  

“Yeah.  I put it in a plastic bag.  Can I put it in the freezer?” 

“HELL NO.” 

“But it’s in a scented trash bag, so it barely even smells.  I can use it for taxidermy experimentation.  There’s already a dead goldfish in the freezer.  How is this any different?”

“A GOLDFISH is not a SKUNK.  And I don’t want the goldfish in my freezer, either.  STOP collecting dead animals.” Ugh.  Things You Never Thought You’d Say: Teenager Edition.  

“Fine. I’ll put it in the woods out back. When will you be home?”

“I’m leaving now.  I’ll see you soon.”  

I texted the bell choir director.  There was no way I could make it to practice. I had to de-skunk my two dogs and dispose of a dead animal carcass and try to get the stench out of my house and also feed my children.  A woman can only handle so much.  

I pulled into the driveway and smelled it right away.  I wrinkled my nose and instinctively held my breath.  But you can’t hold your breath forever.  When I finally inhaled, I could taste the skunk smell.  Gross. 

As I walked toward the front door, Lee met me in the driveway.  

“Do you want me to take them to the Dog Wash Station at Tractor Supply? I’ll just load them into my car.”

HOLY CRAP.   My eyes went wide.  Did I want him to take these smelly creatures away from me, to a place that wasn’t my bathtub, and remove the offensive stench?  

“Yes.  Yes, I do.  And I will pay you 50 bucks to do that.”

“Seriously?  I was gonna do it for free, but I’ll take 50 bucks.” 

“I will happily pay for the privilege of NOT bathing those dogs.”  

On the way home in the car, I had started to imagine what the evening would look like.  It involved wrestling the small dog into the bathtub, while she repeatedly tried to jump out.  The ‘little’ one is about 45 pounds of muscle and bathing her is a two person job because she HATES it.  

The big dog weighs 130 sweet, dopey pounds.  She doesn’t actively try to fight a bath, but she’s huge and not particularly HELPFUL about the whole thing.  

And after a dog bath, we would spend about an hour and a half with the blow dryer, trying to dry them off because wet dog smells worse than dirty dog.  And after a skunking, wet dog is a nauseating undercurrent to the lingering skunk smell that will make your life miserable for approximately 72 hours.  Don’t ask me how I know.  

And after the joy of all THAT, I would get the pleasure of cleaning the bathroom that would be covered in dog hair, with drips of soapy water on every surface because no matter how hard you try, you can’t keep them from shaking after a bath.  

Once the dogs and the bathroom were clean again, I would need a shower.  

And, amazingly, I was going to get to skip all of those steps.  Because I have a capable, helpful teenager with a driver’s license.  

Not only was he offering to take care of the baths; he would be able to do it without destroying my bathroom or stinking up my car.  

HALLELUJAH.

I sent him on his way, and skipped ahead to the part where I try to get the stink out of our home.  I opened the windows on the side of the house opposite the dog pen.  I sprinkled baking soda on the furniture and the carpets.  I wiped down the surfaces with a vinegar and water mix.  I lit candles and ran the vacuum and sprayed Febreeze.  

Eventually, I discovered that the worst of the smell was actually emanating from the basement laundry room.   Apparently, the spot where the skunk expired was directly next to the dryer vent.  I rewashed that entire load, using a liberal amount of baking soda and white vinegar.  Even so, they needed a second washing. 

As the machine ran, I checked the yard for skunk carcass.  There was none to be found.  I double checked the freezer, just to be sure.  Just meats and butter and one small, dead, frozen goldfish.  Excellent. 

At that point, it was a little after 6 o’clock.  I decided not to give up on my dinner plans.  Spicy Peanut Chicken, coming right up.  

As I started to chop and mix and measure, another child entered the kitchen.  She put her hand up, as if to stave off an attack.

“Don’t yell at me.  You can yell at me later, but please don’t yell at me now.” 

“What are you talking about?  Why do I need to yell at you?”

“The skunk.  The dogs.  The smell.  Whatever.  It’s my fault-but-I-didn’t-see-the-skunk-and-I-just-let-them-out-and-I-didn’t-know-what-to-do-and-I-know-you’re-mad-and-it’s-my-fault-but-it’s-not-really-my-fault-and-I-don’t-want-to…”

“Stop.”

“…get-in-trouble-and-it’s-really-not-fair-and-I’m-already-punished-and-I’m-never-gonna-get-my-phone-back-and-I-think-I’m-gonna-die-without-snapchat-and-I…”

“Hold on.”

“…miss-everything-because-my-friends-are-all-hanging-out-online-and-if-I-can’t-have-my-social-media-back-I-think-I-need-to-find-someplace-else-to-live-because-I’m-legitimately-depressed-and-it’s-affecting-my-mental-health-and-I-can’t-live-like-this…”

“PLEASE STOP TALKING.”

“What?”

“First of all, I’m not gonna yell at you.  The skunk is not your fault.  You let out the dogs.  I’m glad you let them out.  You didn’t know about the skunk.  It could have happened to any one of us.”

“Oh.”

“And the whole phone thing is a different conversation entirely.  Do you want to talk about that now? “

“Uh… no.”

“Okay.”  Awkward pause.  “Are you hungry?” 

“YES.  I’m starving.  What’s for dinner?”

“Spicy peanut chicken,” I replied with an enthusiastic smile. 

“Yuck.” 

I take a deep, calming breath.  “Actually, it’s made with habanero peppers. You love habanero peppers.  I think you’ll like it.  And if not, there’s rice and broccoli and carrots, too.”

“Fine.”  She was unconvinced. 

“Do you wanna help cook?” 

“I gotta finish my homework.”

She headed back upstairs.  I continued to saute and simmer, washing dishes as I went.  Jack came home and got the whole story.  I poured a glass of wine.  The night was starting to look up, but I was also concerned that Lee wasn’t home with the dogs yet.  It’d been more than two hours. I tried to call, but he didn’t answer.  Understandable. I assumed he was elbow deep in dog shampoo.  

The chicken was browned.  The sauce was nearly done.  It was starting to smell delicious.  The rice was simmering, and I threw the vegetables in the saucepan.  I rinsed the spatula, and accidentally splashed some water on my face.  I wiped it away, casually. Thoughtlessly.  

AAAARGH!  FIRE!  I literally screamed.  Jack ran into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?  Are you okay?”

“No! AAAARRRGH!  Oh, my GOD.  My eye is on FIRE.  It’s on FIRE!!!!”

I began to rinse my eye with water cupped in my hand, but scooping the water with my habanero-pepper-covered-fingertips felt like I was literally adding fuel to the fire in my eyeball. 

“SALINE.  PLEASE GET MY FREAKING SALINE FROM THE BATHROOM UPSTAIRS!”

I heard footsteps running into the kitchen.

“What is HAPPENING?” Cassie asked. 

I couldn’t catch my breath.  I was crying real tears and hanging my head under the faucet and somewhere deep down, I felt like this must be an overreaction but it didn’t matter care because HOLY CRAP it hurt. 

“I got habanero pepper in my eye,” I wailed.

“Oh.  Is that all? I thought you were dying.”

“I AM DYING,” I shouted. 

“Uh… can I help?”

The phone rang.  She looked at the screen.  My head was still under the faucet.  

“It’s Cal.  Should I answer it?”

 “Yes.  Please.  Answer it,” I whined. 

Just then, Jack returned with the saline.  I washed my hands and doused my eyeball and I washed my hands again.  It was reminiscent of the skunk scent.  No matter how much I washed, the spice lingered. 

“Can you go and pick him up? He’s done with practice.” Cassie relayed the message as my eye continued to swell shut.  

Jack seemed happy to have a mission.  “I’ll get him.”  He grabbed his keys.  I couldn’t tell if he felt bad for me, or if he was just trying not to laugh.  

The fire in my eyeball started to subside.  

Jack returned with Cal.  Lee returned with the dogs.

“Thank you.  You’re a lifesaver,” I said to Lee. “I was starting to get worried.  That took forever, huh?”

“I kept washing them and smelling them and washing them again.  Every time, I could still smell the skunk.  And then I realized…”

“What?”

“It was ME.  The smell was ME.”

In spite of ourselves, the five of us laughed.  We stood in the kitchen, giggling and loading our plates up with Spicy Peanut Chicken and rice and veggies.  

We sat down in the dining room, where the faint, lingering skunk odor was finally dissipating.  It was replaced by the scent of peanuts and peppers.  

Anticipating a delicious, hard-earned meal, I took the first bite.

“Meh,” I said, underwhelmed.

“It’s not bad,” Cal chimed in.

Lee ate white rice and broccoli.  Cassie just ate the broccoli.

Jack looked at my swollen eye, with a little bit of sympathy and a lot of barely disguised amusement. “Maybe this recipe isn’t a keeper. I’m not sure it was worth it.” 

I had to laugh.  Sometimes, you have to laugh so you don’t cry.  But, over the years, I’ve learned that these insane stories are the ones that we’ll still be laughing about in 10 years.  We’ll be sitting around the dining room table, celebrating some holiday or someone’s birthday, and someone will say, “Remember the time that the dogs got skunked and mom burned her eyeball making that terrible chicken?”  

And we will retell the story, full of familiar quips and funny one-liners.  We will laugh together and at each other.  We will revisit this crazy night as part of our shared history; as part of our family’s story.  

For better or for worse, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We’re writing our family’s story.  One terrible Tuesday night at a time. 

Jack’s niece got married last night.  We’ve been saving the date for nearly a year.  About two months ago, we started thinking about what everyone would wear.  Last week, we took the kids clothes shopping.  During all this time, we got the typical teenage pushback. 

“Why can’t I just wear jeans?”  

“This shirt is sooo uncomfortable.” 

“Converse ARE nice shoes.” 

But we persevered. Yesterday, everyone had ties and belts and pants that fit.  We got all gussied up and climbed into the minivan for a 40-minute drive to the ceremony. As usual, the kids argued over who sat in the way back and who chose the music.  

We gave them a lecture about appropriate behavior and told them to leave their phones in the car.  They groaned. 

The ceremony was short and sweet, with all the right moments.  A groomsman started off the ceremony with a gag and a great laugh.  Grandpa sang the processional and his voice cracked as his granddaughter walked down the aisle with her father, who was holding it together until that moment, when his eyes welled up. The bride and groom wrote their own vows, and the groom’s sister pronounced them married to a cheer from the crowd.  It was perfect.  And I didn’t have to shoot my kids death glares.  Not even once! 

We were summoned for photos with the new bride and groom, and I got a few shots of our family while we waited.  Our two oldest, Jack’s boys from his first marriage, are grown and flown now.  It’s less and less frequent that everyone is available to get together.  Mark, the oldest, has a steady girlfriend who we all love, and it was sweet to see them all dressed up and making eyes at each other.  Mitch, the next in line, embraces his role as the family clown.  He makes everyone laugh in an entirely open and unself-conscious way.  I admire his dry humor and his openness.  Lee is also coming into his own.  He’s got a unique style and he’s beginning to lose that teenage awkwardness and project confidence instead. Cal has grown in stature, but he still has that puppy-dog goofiness about him.  He’s eager to please, and at 6’1”, he looks like a grown man. Only his enthusiasm and awkwardness give away his age. Cassie still doesn’t know the extended family all that well, so she’s a little bit reserved.  Even still, her sharp sense of humor pokes out every once in a while, and her generosity appears as she offers to grab a soda or hold a sweater as the photos get snapped. She’s a good sport about the whole thing. 

As we entered the reception, I was about to give them another warning about being appropriate and staying off their phones, when I overheard Mitch challenging Lee to a dance battle.   I expected him to get turned down.  I expected Lee to respond with, “I don’t dance, bruh.”  Instead, he started talking smack!  These two went back and forth, trash talking each other and boasting about their moves.  And when the music started, they didn’t disappoint. 

And it wasn’t just Lee and Mitch.  Mark and Cal and even Cassie got out there and that little group owned the dance floor.  It was the exact opposite of what I expected.  I thought they’d sit at their table, trying to sneak glimpses at their phones. I thought that Nana and Papa would have to coerce them into a dance or two with the family.  I thought they’d be shy and self-conscious and withdrawn.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  They were the first ones out on the dance floor.  They danced with each other, with their cousins, with their great aunts and uncles.  They absolutely cut it up.  Our whole family was laughing and enjoying their enthusiasm, and I had this crazy revelation…  

Our kids are FUN!  

Okay.  Wait.  That sounds awful.  Like I’ve never had fun with the kids.  Of course we’ve had fun.  Watching hockey and football games.  Playing board games or cornhole at cookouts.  Building with Legos.  Watching movies.  Boating and tubing and swimming.  At zoos and amusement parks and beaches. 

But last night was different.  Last night, it wasn’t kid fun, or family friendly fun.  It was just regular, adult fun.  And instead of us entertaining THEM, they were entertaining us.  They’ve ALL got razor sharp wit.  They have an affection for each other that is apparent in the trash talk and the pep talks alike.  They were engaged and engaging and enthusiastic.  

When Mitch stole the cherries from Katie’s drink, Cassie silently got up, went to the bar, and came back with a plastic cup full of maraschino cherries for her new friend.  She’s observant and generous and thoughtful, in a totally understated way. 

Katie has been the designated driver for as long as she and Mark have been together.  This summer, she finally turned 21, so tonight was her turn to drink.  Every time she grabbed Mark’s hand and dragged him onto the dance floor, he shook his head and smiled a little.  And then he danced.  He had fun but stayed sober, knowing it was his turn to make sure she got home safe. 

Mitch sang and gyrated and twerked and flirted with the camera as the photographer zoomed in on him.  He made everyone around him laugh with his easygoing enthusiasm.  His smoothness is effortless and his energy is infectious. 

Cal took his inspiration from Mitch.  He has his older brother’s energy and enthusiasm, but he’s still working on his finesse.  He claimed the dance floor as his own, taking his space with squats and kicks that resembled the workouts that have helped him build his confidence and his physique. 

Lee wore his sunglasses all night, but loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves so he could move freely and still rock his effortlessly cool look.  He bounced and bobbed to the beat, occasionally lifting one hand in the air and jumping like he was at the world’s coolest concert.  His moves matched the music, and I was stunned.  I didn’t know he had that kind of rhythm. 

I got to see a different side of all of these kids last night.  I got this glimpse of their grown-up selves.

Confident.  Responsible.  Respectful.  Enthusiastic.  Cool.  Funny.  Considerate.  Strong.  Connected. 

How incredible is that? 

Teenagers are tough.  I mean, they’re also amazing and funny and FUN to be around… until they’re not.  

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that they’re still kids.  They might be HUGE kids.  They might even LOOK like adults.  But they most definitely are not adults.  They are literally unequipped to make smart choices because they don’t have fully functional frontal lobes.  

We try to teach them.  We try to model for them and train them and talk to them but ultimately, they are going to be out in the world without us and they will be faced with thousands of choices.  Sometimes they’re going to make the wrong one.  

Maybe you’ve got one of those teenagers that just always makes good choices.  Bless your heart.  You can probably stop reading now. 

Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to find out about them later, when your kids are ‘safely’ in their 20s and 30s.  Hearing stories from our older boys, we cringe… and we’re grateful that we missed out on all the worrying that would have accompanied awareness. 

Or maybe you’re IN IT right now.  Like we are.  And being IN IT means that we have to make choices about how to handle it.  I’m lucky to have a husband who is right there with me, because he makes it easier to stick to it when we’ve decided on a consequence.  But deciding on a consequence is so freaking hard. 

Sometimes I wonder if being a teacher makes me overthink these things. When I was in undergrad, aspiring teachers learned about positive punishment, negative punishment, positive reward, and negative reward.  In this case the positive and negative aren’t emotional states.  They simply refer to giving and taking away. Positive punishment adds something.  Putting your kid on dish duty for a week is positive punishment. Negative punishment takes something away.  

When my kids do something wrong, the easiest and most immediate punishment is to take away their phones.  It’s a thing I can control, and it’s REALLY upsetting to them when I take it away.  For a while, it was my go-to.  

Taking the phone is definitely a punishment. A punishment is designed to make them miserable.  It makes an impact because it makes them feel bad.  Presumably, that bad feeling will make them avoid bad decisions in the future.  Sometimes it works.  

It took me a long time to figure out what wasn’t working about punishment in our house.  I struggled with it as much as the kids did. If I took away their phones because I was trying to punish them, and then they wound up painting murals or catching frogs or building shelves, I was so torn.  I loved that they were doing great, creative, fun things but weren’t they supposed to be miserable?  Was I teaching them that all of these great things are a result of being ‘punished’?  The whole thing became more about screen time, and I realized I needed to address that as a separate issue… not as a punishment, but on the regular. 

Another concern was social isolation.  I have one child who struggles with friendships and has been through periods of depression.  When that kid was grounded, without his phone, I’d cut off all of his budding friendships.  It didn’t feel responsible.  It didn’t feel healthy.  

The more I thought about it, the more I went back to those undergrad lessons.  I assume they use different language now; we talk more about consequences than punishments.  We talk a lot about natural consequences.  The result of a bad choice should be related to the bad choice.  In some cases, the natural consequences are apparent. If you threw your phone in a fit of anger, now you have a broken phone.  Sometimes we can create consequences that seem to be the obvious ‘result’ of a bad choice. If you graffiti a wall, you have to clean it or repaint it to fix the damage you caused.  In other cases, the natural consequences are so far removed that the kids don’t see them.  The natural consequence of vaping might be lung damage, but that’s not concrete enough to a 13 year old.  They don’t care about that yet.  So you have to come up with something. 

Most parents I know have two go-to options.  Ground them.  Or take their phone.  I definitely do these things.  Those are negative consequences.  Taking something away.  

But recently, I’ve had more luck with positive consequences.  GIVING them something.  A new responsibility.  A daily chore.  A way to prove themselves and earn back our trust.  

We had a recent shoplifting incident.  I was beside myself.  I honestly believed that my kids would never… but they did.  They were banned from the store and from the mall.  They were grounded.  They lost their screens.  They had extra chores.  But the most impactful consequence was that I assigned them a writing prompt each day for a month.  What is integrity?  Write about a time you felt proud of yourself.  Why do we have laws?  These writing prompts opened up a lot of important, meaningful conversations and debates.  They got our whole family thinking and talking about our values.  (Thanks to my mom for the great idea). 

What I’m learning is that positive consequences give me more opportunities to engage with my kids about their choices.  I feel like I’m teaching them instead of just punishing them.  A kid who has a stack of dirty dishes in his room might get put on dish duty for the whole week.  It teaches him something.  He’s building a skill.  Bonus that it helps me out.  Instead of giving me another job, it takes one off my plate. 

A few other things I’ve learned:  

-I don’t have to give them a time frame.  That’s freeing.  I used to think I had to give the consequence an end date.  Now I’ve found myself saying things like, “We’ll revisit in two weeks,” or, “You haven’t earned our trust yet.” 

-I can ‘tweak’ things as I go.  If something isn’t working, I explain why and make a change.  

-I can ‘do it my way.’  I always thought of grounding as social isolation.  But it doesn’t have to be.  If my kid is making bad choices when unsupervised, then they can’t be unsupervised.  But I could decide to still let them have friends over here when I’m around.  

I’m learning as I go here… and I’d love to hear from other parents about what works (or worked) for you! 

Today is the second day of summer vacation.

My body still woke up at 5:30.  That will begin to settle back to 6 or 6:30, and by the end of August, I’ll be sleeping in until 8:00.  But for now, I’m going to enjoy these quiet morning hours with my computer and a cup of coffee.  

Yesterday, I woke up early, showered, and headed to the store.  We needed dog food and I had to buy some snacks to bring to book club. It was my first day of summer vacation, and I was headed to my friend’s beach house in Maine for our June book club meeting.  What an awesome way to kick off summer! 

I felt a little guilty about leaving the kids alone for that long on their first day of summer vacation.  Cal and Lee would be fine.  But we have a new foster daughter.  She moved in on Friday.  That’s a long story for another day, but I especially didn’t want her to feel bored and abandoned while I was away for the day. 

I tried to set them up for a good day.  I made sure we had sandwich stuff and mac and cheese and plenty of snacks.  I put dinner in the crockpot.  I watered the plants and fed the dogs and emptied the dishwasher, just to increase the likelihood that I wouldn’t come home to a sink full of dishes.  

I counted the hours.  If I left at 10:30, Jack would probably be home by 2:30. Four hours.  That’s reasonable.  Two movies.  If we’re lucky, maybe a movie and a shower.  They would be fine.  Of course, it turns out I had nothing to worry about.  By the time I left at 10:30, all three of them were still asleep.  When I texted at noon, they were making mac and cheese. They all said they needed this day to lounge and do nothing.  I’m glad they got a chance to do that… and I’m glad it’s not what I did.

I had an absolutely incredible day at the beach.  The weather was perfect.  Sunny and warm, but not too hot.  We arrived around noon and had some snacks and some drinks before we moved our chairs to the water’s edge.  There were five of us this month, and all five of us have been part of book club since our very first meeting, over 16 years ago. I think it’s an amazing track record.  We actually met twenty years ago; we all taught fifth grade in the same school.  Four of them were classroom teachers, and I was the special educator on the team.  Only Faith still teaches in that school.

As evening approached, we stood on the sidewalk near a restaurant across from the beach, checking out a menu and trying to make a decision about dinner. A vaguely familiar voice said, “Hey, Faith!”  This former colleague stopped to make small talk and then took the rest of us in, one at a time.  You could see the brief moment of recognition when she noticed Cathie.  Her eyes widened and she smiled.  Then she shifted her gaze and recognized Joanne, Noelle, and me.  It was a strange, crazy, blast-from the past sort of moment, magnified by the fact that there were five of us that she hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years.  

Of course, it was nice to briefly connect with this former colleague.  We made small talk and wished each other well.  But it was a bizarre sort of moment for us, too.  It didn’t seem possible that we hadn’t seen that woman in 15 years, but that we hadn’t gone more than a month or two without seeing each other. 

What are the chances?  What keeps a group of friends connecting and meeting and caring about each other’s lives for twenty years?  Why do some people pass through our lives and some just drop their bags on the floor and settle and STAY with us? 

I am so incredibly grateful for the friendship of these five women.  I’m grateful that they’ve made this group a priority for nearly two decades.   Our families often joke about whether or not we’ve read the book.  And sometimes we get a little defensive because we really do read and discuss books.  We have a whole system for choosing the next book and finding discussion questions and sometimes we have really great, deep discussions.  And sometimes, we spend 4 minutes agreeing that the book wasn’t that great and 4 hours catching up on each other’s lives. 

I’m starting to realize that this group works because, deep down, we all see that the books are just a means to an end.  Sure, we like to read.  And we like to talk about books.  But most of all, we like each other.  We rely on each other’s advice and encouragement and wisdom.  We get together and we laugh and we cry and we hold each other up when things get tough.  What an incredible gift.  What a great way to kick off the summer.  

I came home feeling energized and relaxed and refreshed.  

And it was a good thing, too.  Because, of course, I needed that energy to remind the kids to handle that sink full of dishes.