3 toys, 2 girls, 1 lesson in sharing

My three old and soon-to-be-one year old are learning to share.

If you've been three recently, know anyone who is three or are blessed to occupy the same home as a three year old, you know it's a hard life lesson. 

Darci loves her baby sister with same all-out vigor and humor that is her trademark in life. 

It manifests itself in ridiculous nicknames, frequent hugs and kisses and unsolicited wake-up calls (much to my chagrin), when she just can't wait for Audrey's nap to end so they can play. 

The feeling is fully mutual Audrey lights up right down to her adorable chubby toes when Darci so much as looks at her. 

Lately though their love is tested by each one's independent thinking and mobility. 

The main point of conflict, as you can imagine, is the toys. 

Every day, Darci battles her inherent desire to reign supreme over, well, everything, and show her love by sharing.

When I look at them learning and struggling to get along day after day, I'm reminded how we all struggle to set self aside and really genuinely show our love to others. 

There are three toys Darci shares with Audrey that have taught me to think more about how I care for others. 

Sometimes Darci shares a little people Cinderella toy with Audrey. It's servant Cinderella, without sparkles or a tiara. 

It's the toy she shares when she doesn't feel like sharing. It pacifies Audrey for a moment and is a token of obedience. It's not heartfelt but it is a small effort at consideration. 

For a three year old, it's a good start. 

But I wonder how often I, who am a little beyond toddlerhood, am offering the people around me servant Cinderella. I know I need to offer a bit of myself and I don't want  conflict, so I do the least I can get away with. 

Other days, Darci feels like being sweet and really showing her baby sister how much she loves her. 

On those days, she shares a bedraggled orange beanie baby cat, named Amber. 

It's one of Darci's prized possessions. She sleeps with it often. She is distraught when it's misplaced. 

Sharing that toy with Audrey is her ultimate expression of sweetness. 

Audrey doesn't care a thing about that cat toy. She holds it gratefully for a moment, then sets it aside and goes on to find something more interesting. 

I'm so impressed when Darci shares her cat. It takes a lot of love and effort. 

Likewise, I feel great about myself when I go out of my way to really give someone something that matters to me, my time, my talent or my advice. 

But sometimes what I'm offering may be more about me than them. 

As a side note, let's remember to see what others give us through their eyes. A bedraggled beanie baby cat doesn't look like much, but it can really communicate a lot. Don't dismiss the generosity of others just because it doesn't look like much to you. People have a hard time expressing their love for each other, and we need to be ready to accept it with gratitude when it's offered. 

That brings me to Flynn Rider. 

Audrey and Darci both adore the Flynn Rider toy. It's Darci's -- a birthday gift, but Audrey has loved it from day one, even more than Darci does. 

On her very best days, Darci shares Flynn. These are the days when she's thinking, asking and listening to what Audrey actually wants or needs. 

Audrey is so happy to receive Flynn from Darci. Her eyes light up, she teethes on his head and boots with glee and carries with with her wherever she goes for quite a while after. It's a treasure to her. 

Like Darci, we become the best blessing to those around us not by appeasing others with token kindness, not even by giving them what we think they should want, but by listening and meeting their needs and desires to the best of our abilities. 

This takes more effort and time because we really need to get to know the needs of those around us become more involved in their lives, but it's worth it every time. 

Let's do our best to share Flynn today and every day. ...well, you know what I mean. 

#Winter

Yesterday, Nov. 24, 2014, I drove my car on an ice rink and didn't crash it.

Let me paint you a word picture of my commute.

First, let's set the scene:

The night before, ice started falling from the sky, landing on water that was snow before two days of unusually high temperatures.

Clear, shiny ice coated the entire city by the next morning.

I was having an unusually bad hair day, which doesn't even matter because it was definitely hat weather outside.

The dress code at work mandates that we dress "business casual" unless local schools are cancelled.

Ladies, testify with me for a moment that there is no form of "business casual" that involved dressing for -13 chill factors.

So, I throw a pair of leggings under my loosest pair of slacks and a sweater under my thermal coat and sprint out of the apartment, knowing it would likely take me twice as long as normal to get to work.

The "sprinting" comes to an abrupt halt when I reach the door that leads to the parking lot.

Thick glossy ice coats everything, especially the sidewalks and parking lot.

Luckily I decided to wear my snow boots. What they lack in fashion, they more than make up for in traction.

Still this ice is not playing around, and I skate/slip/walk very slowly toward the garage. Imagine a giraffe learning to ice skate -- that's me walking on the ice.

There's a thin path of snow in front of our row of garages. Score! I walk at a little faster packing the snow under my boots for traction.

Finally, I get the garage open -- not an easy feat with stiff gloves on, since the latch is small and stubborn.

Once I'm on my way I test the ground a little in the apartment driveway. It's slick but not too terrible.

I pull out into the road and immediately turn, taking my usual path to work.

Whoa! That was no small turn. Even at a turtle's pace my car slides several feet to the left. Only the momentum of my car is propelling me forward. Luckily there's no one around.

There is no traction.

But I slide the block west I need to go before I turn again.

This is where my story fizzles out.

The city has applied fresh sand to the major roads, so I have no more serious issues.

By the time I head out again they've sanded all the roads, even the ice rink by my apartment.

The sidewalks all have rock salt on them -- everything is back to normal.

...just another beautiful fall day in North Dakota...

A kayaking adventure

Our shoes barely escaped the adventure with their lives. 

My dear J turned 25 this month, so we decided to celebrate by doing things we had never done before.

First on the list: tandem kayaking.

The local university wellness center offers inexpensive equipment rentals and happens to be very near a coulee, meaning we wouldn't have to strap the surprisingly large kayak on our compact car.

Instead, we could easily carry it about 50 yards, drop it in the water and row around on a pleasant little stream, right?

Wrong.

We had no idea what we were doing, and the poor college students trying to help us had no idea either.

Where do you lift a kayak? Why is something made almost entirely of plastic so heavy? Why are there so many trees in the way? How far will we have to walk to find an access point?

Finally, we wrestled the kayak onto the bank of the "water."

I have been in some very disgusting water in my life -- Stock tanks, cattle troughs, mud puddles, etc. But I never experienced anything quite like this. The weirdly green algae on the top of the water didn't bother me, neither did the suspiciously tar-like mud on the banks.

It was the smell. ...and the garbage.

I got in first.

I'm glad no one was watching as I tried to crab walk into the front seat of the boat. Balance has never ever been my strong suit.

Finally, I got situated and J pushed the boat into the water thinking he could easily hop in where the water was shallow enough to barely cover his shoes.

Wrong again.

The mud on the edge of coulee is actually a stinky tar monster looking to devour limbs and shoes -- especially shoes.

I was facing forward and focused on shifting my weight to keep the kayak from flipping, so I'm not sure what exactly happened. My understanding is that J fought the tar monster with all his might to first retrieve his left leg. Once that foot was safely in the kayak, he rescued the other. His shoes barely escaped with their lives.

By the time he got in the boat, the tar monster had coated his legs in mud to the knees and he was soaked nearly to his waist. He took quite a bit of the monster with him, coating the bottom of the kayak in smelly, black tar/mud.

He smelled like a warrior  ...who fights in the sewer. 

We decided to go to right and paddle as far as we felt like. Surely the water will get clearer and nicer as we go, right?

Wrong again.

Within a few minutes we saw a giant, dead fish (or maybe it was a baby whale), a bicycle, a hubcab, a 99-pack worth of empty beer cans and countless other forms of trash.

There was a low point where the bottom of the kayak scraped on something. I'm pretty sure it was the rest of the car that belonged to that hubcap. Most likely the tar monster stole it out of someone's driveway for a midnight snack.

Then we came to a tunnel with three possible points of entry. It was low and scary, and I couldn't see well what was on the other side. From what I could see, two of the three routes were blocked with something big, brown and scary. A bear? A rock monster? A refrigerator box?

I'll never know, because we elected to turn around, instead of braving door number three.

To the right of the tunnel was a fairly large drainage pipe.

As novice kayakers? kayakis? kayakians? people who paddle a kayak, our steering left much to be desired.

I think you know where this is going...

We narrowly escaped paddling right into the drainage pipe.

The list of things we crashed into is fairly short, but I feel bad for the poor cattails that are probably still leaning over at a 45-degree angle.

After we turned around we went quite a ways in the other direction. The water got clearer, smelled slightly better and there were live animals including a turtle and several ugly ducks. I imagine the pretty ducks banish the ugly ducks to the polluted stream so they can keep the nice river for themselves. They are such snobs! The poor ugly ducks are probably forced to become minions of the tar monster and scout out cars, bikes and dumpsters for him to steal and snack on. 

I was happy to be in water that could sustain life again, so I gladly embraced the sight of ugly ducks and turtles as we paddled along.

It was a little overcast and still. So we decided to just coast a little while and rest our incredibly out of shape arms.

During our brush with death at the drainage pipe, I was so focused on maneuvering the boat I hadn't realized how hard my arms were working.

Update: Three days later I am still quite sore. 

Finally, we decided we were hungry for lunch and headed back.

This time we found a path through the trees we had overlooked before that would be a shorter walk to the building.

We paddled the boat as far onto the bank as we could. Now it was my turn to fight the stinky tar monster.

I braced myself.

The mud I stepped on after I awkwardly crawled out of the boat had no water standing over it.

But it didn't matter.

The tar monster is not limited to locations with standing water.

I sank fast, my left shoe, ankle and most of my calf disappeared like lightening. I took a big step away from the water with my right foot and used the hard ground to leverage my leg free.

But I still had to pull the boat out of the water.

Stepped toward the boat, just close enough to reach it.

It was too close. The tar monster grabbed both of my ankles.

On the bright side, being so well anchored in the mud, made it easy to pull the boat forward.

I fought free, stepped back and pulled again.

J hopped out lightly escaping the tar monster almost completely this time.

We navigated the path of least resistance through the brush, and, swarmed  by mosquitoes, we drug the boat toward the building.

Then, having finally discovered the best place to lift the boat, by the very ends where it's narrow in case you were wondering, we carried it through the clearing back the the building.

Needless to say everything was covered in mud, us, the boat, the paddles -- even the life jackets didn't come out completely unscathed.

It took a while to get it all cleaned up and, three loads of laundry later, I'm still waging the final battles with the tar monster.

But, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Over lunch at a restaurant we had never tried we laughed and laughed about how ridiculous our adventure was.

I'm pretty sure we'll talk about this day on J's 50th birthday, too.

Happy birthday, dear!

Friday Favorites I

Homeschool high five!

Step one: hold your left hand high over your head with you palm facing right.

Step two: take your right hand and quickly raise it over your head with your palm facing left and clap your already raised left hand. 

Congratulations! You have just completed your first, homeschool high five!

Note: Just in case you haven't caught on yet, this is funny because if you're homeschooled you have no classmates to high five, so you high five yourself.

In the future you can vary it by raising right and then left, or both arms simultaneously. 

Mix it up, and make it your own!

Homeschool jokes and silliness of all kinds were encouraged at the institution I attended from K-8th, my house. 

Finished your math worksheet: homeschool high five! 

Got your animals cared for for the day: homeschool high five!

Changed out of your PJs before noon: homeschool high five!

Sometimes, randomly someone in the house would yell "HOMESCHOOL HIGH FIVE!," and we would do it unison.

I know what you're thinking, and you're 100% right. We were are weirdos.

Still, I'm proud to say I started the homeschool high five tradition in my house. 

At camp, when some unsuspecting girl who had no idea I was homeschooled told me this joke for the first time, I knew it was a gem. 

My memory of the original joke telling is hazy, but I'm pretty sure I made her feel horrible about telling it, by instantly declaring that I was homeschooled. 

I would like to take this moment to apologize to whoever that was, because I really did (and do) find it hilarious. 

Despite the awkwardness, the homeschool high five helped teach me something that's almost never easy to learn, how to laugh at myself.

Today, I'm glad to support and encourage those who choose to homeschool their kids because, in hindsight, I think it worked well for me.

But, when I was a homeschool kid, there were times I was pretty sure it wasn't right for me at all.

In fact, I would beg to go to public school with my friends.

It's still not always easy to be a homeschool kid, but <insert 'back in my day most people thought all homeschoolers were serious wackos' story here>.

When you're not sure about such a significant part of your life, it can make you a little defensive. I was a little very dramatic kid to begin with, so at various times, I sported a family-size bag of chips on my shoulder.

Having a long-running joke out of being homeschooled was one of the things that really helped me lighten up.

Around that time, my friends started struggling through middle school, which of course ranks among the worst parts of almost everyone's life. Their complaints helped me see that, even for kids who like school, it's not all pep rallies and pizza days.

If public school wasn't perfect and homeschool wasn't perfect, I needed to figure out how to be happy either way.

So I trashed that stale bag of chips and homeschool high fived whenever the mood struck me because I learned that laughing at ourselves is about understanding no one's life is perfect and how we react to that truth dictates how happy we are.

So no matter how you were educated, go ahead and embrace the homeschool high five, because sometimes we all need to lighten up just a little.

Romantically involved

Note: I have to get to read a lot of "Dear Amy" columns at work, so I decided to adopt her style for this post. 

Downtown Grand Forks

Dear Amy, 

There's a man I work with and we are romantically involved. He's tall, smart and handsome with gorgeous green-blue eyes and great hair. 

Recently, we've been taking walks together during the day exploring the area we work in. 

Mostly we talk about our days and funny things that have happened since we last saw each other. 

Sometimes we talk about what we observe as we walk. 

This brings me to my dilemma -- we walk by all these restaurants in the late afternoon when their preparing for their dinner rush and the food smells so smoky and delicious. We love to talk about food. It's one of the things that brought us together in the first place. 

So my question is this: Is it love or is it just delicious ambiance of Grand Forks?

Sincerely, 

Fattie and Falling in the Forks

I imagine the response would go something like this:

Dear Fattie, 

A love of food and men is easily confused, but since you're walking with Mr. Gorgeous Eyes and not some other random individual, I'd say there's at least something about him you like. 

If you want to know for sure, take him to the least romantic place on earth and see if you still like him. If you do, keep walking.

If you don't, run! 

But when it all falls down around you, don't blame me. Blame the fried chicken. 

Amy

Dear Dad, it's Father's Day.

Dear Dad,

We've had some good times. And even though I'm 1,300ish miles away from you today, I'm thinking about you, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite moments.

Remember when you had all your hair and I didn't?

Remember when I was a kid, we were always on a team? We built fences as a team, played golf as a team and played games as a team.

When I was really small, you would take me to the auction barn with you a couple of times to get cows, and I would wear my red cowboy boots and try to act cool because we were a cow-buying team.

We drove your truck as a team, too. You would let me steer the truck or shift the gears for you. I learned that holding the steering wheel perfectly still did not make the truck drive perfectly straight like I thought it would. That was scary.

Remember when you were teaching me to drive on my own and made me back the stock trailer up to the sheep pen? That was terrifying. Remember how I backed up too far and hit the fence? Thanks for not freaking out.

... Just like you didn't freak out when I crumpled up your license plate while backing up to the utility trailer.
... Just like you didn't freak out when I put two creases in the side of your farm truck in the parking lot at my part-time job.

"It happens," and, "That's why we have insurance," were good things to say in those moments. Thanks for that.

Remember when I was in high school and mom would send us to the grocery store for things, and you would sing whatever random song happened to be playing on the radio in the store? I told you that was embarrassing because I knew that's what you were going for, but I kinda loved it.

Remember when you got me out of school junior year to go to that basketball game in San Antonio? Remember how Amar'e Stoudemire dunked on that old man Tim Duncan a few times? That was awesome!!! I try not to remember how the Spurs won in double overtime anyway. You were pretty smug about that, weren't you?

Remember that time you said "sad day" when I was a freshman in college to make fun of me for turning into one of those girls? That still makes me laugh.

Remember when Scott and I picked you up from the dentist in Abilene and you were really heavily sedated and said all kinds of ridiculous things? Nope, you probably don't ... But we will laugh about that for years to come.

I guess what I'm getting at is thanks for being my dad. You're pretty good at it.

Love,
Bug