Beth Troy's Blog, page 10

Day 4: Woods

Our woods’ time starts at a run, with doggies taking the lead and Tommy and Ezra chasing. Jess hangs back.

“Mom, which of the boys do you think is the most combabitable?”

“You mean combative?”

“I mean “combabitable” – the best fighter.”

“You want me to say you.”

“Because it is me!”

“No, you’re just the oldest one.”

“I also know Kung Fu.”

“Only in your mind, buddy.”

“Three years isn’t that big of an age difference.”

“At your age it is; at my age, less so.”

“True. When you’re old, it’s just old.”

And then Mr. Combatible takes off to join his brothers. Instead of a hike, we’re settling into spot we found on the last hike – the bottom of a ravine with a creek for splashing, fallen trees for balancing, and steep muddy hills for scaling.* So many wide places for each boy to claim a space, and yet, they cluster. Jess immediately takes down Ezra with his boffer, and JB nips at Tommy’s heels while he runs around.

Boffer to boffer. JB, stop biting. Jess, you hit a brother with a boffer, I take the boffer. Ezra, stop complaining about mud. Tommy, keep your boots on. Boys, you can either cross the logs or boffer; you cannot boffer on logs. Ask me one more time about video games, and I’m going to throw them into the creek.

That’s the first five minutes. It’s always the first five minutes. The point I’m ready to give up on being the cool woods’ mom, the boys settle in. Today, that’s going to mean a lot of mud but that’s why I have not and will not clean the van until the spring rains are finished.

Jess has the best imagination of the bunch, practicing his “Kung Fu” against invisible enemies at the top of the ravine. Ez is the best climber, finding invisible paths to circuit the muddy sides of the ravine. Tommy crosses the many fallen logs with one hand out for balance and the other clutching a light saber. He never falls.

I snap some pics.* I take some deep breaths. I hear birds. I find a spot. I take out my journal. Jess looks at his watch. Noon! Lunch! Now all the boys are calling for it, and we pack up and head back – doggies at the front, Ezra and Tommy chasing. Jess hangs back.

“I like being a kid.”

“Do you wish you could be Forever 11?”

He nods.

“That would be fun,” I say. “Do you think if I was 11 we would be friends?”

“Absolutely not.” No hesitation. “We’re complete opposites.”

I make a pucker-puss face, and Jess slings his arm around me, a casual move that almost takes me down. He’s getting so big.

“You’re a good mom, though.”

Then he joins his brothers.

*Locals – this fantastic spot can be found by:

Parking at the Bachelor Pond trail headWalking left around the pondTaking the Reinhart loop on the other side of the pond. It’s about a 3-minute walk from there – down a hill, across a bridge, up a hill, and then down again.

* For some reason, sweet WordPress is rejecting all my image uploads. Probably, COVID. You’ll have to check my Insta for these exploring visuals.

Day 3: ClickList Order #1

So, I did ultimately become concerned about the toilet paper situation. Not worried, but more like, “Maybe I should get some,” because we have four double rolls left.

I filled a ClickList order, which I usually try to keep below $150, but I doubled because who knows? My college had moved online three days prior, the boys’ school two days prior, and now the library was closed.

It seemed time to stock up – past time – and checking the ClickList reminded me of when Matt and I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to complete our wedding registry. They gave us the gun (high tech in 2001), and we ran up and down that store, in the end sort of adding items like a dare. Will people get us this? Let’s try this! Hey, suckers – how about this?! I’m talking about the salad spinner right now – long since given away, but I wish I still had.

That was ClickList for me last Saturday, and I was as excited to see the list of Substitutions/Partial Fills as I was for the supplies to come in. Think of this as “Beth’s Sociological Understanding of Grocery Shopping Choices in Week 1 of COVID Quarantine” (the title needs work):

Burt’s Bees Toothpaste = Out. This is a bougy choice on my part, and I thought it would fly. Plus, I had a coupon (since expired. Midwestern sigh). Thankfully, Matt has three packs of nasty Crest under the sink, so no. You won’t have to suffer my bad breath from six feet away over the next few … Days? Weeks? Months?Organic whole milk = in! Whipping cream = out. Strange, but cool. I’ve often felt isolated in my full-fat dairy ways, and it’s nice to know there’s a whole underground community putting whipping cream in as many things as possible.I don’t feel the same about my Half & Half = Out. Why would you not leave some for me, Oxford consumers? Matt is happy because Matt thinks he’s better than me because he drinks his coffee black, and I do not … at least not Coffee #1. That needs to be more of a blanket than a kick-in-the-pants. Coffee blankets require cream!Method Handsoap = out. Again, bougy. Again, since expired coupon! We should be good for a couple weeks, thanks to the two soap dispensers in the boys’ bathroom that they’ve ignored until now. “That soap smells nice, Mom. How come I haven’t used it before?” Jesse asked me yesterday. Active Dry Yeast = Out. So we’re now a small, college town of bread makers, eh Oxford? Kroger Unbleached Flour = Out but subbed with King Arthur Unbleached Flour. Fancy! I wish I had some yeast to go with it.32 oz Mozzarella Cheese = Out and subbed with 16 oz, which now that I think about it matches the yeast I have left to make half a recipe of pizza dough. The Troys might have to change their stripes. Pizza might have to cease to be its own food group in quarantine.Cucumbers = Out. Spring Mix = In. Cauliflower = Out. Carrots = In. Idaho Potatoes = Out but subbed with Yukon gold ones. Clementines = In! Raspberries = In! Bananas = In! Honeycrisp Apples = Out but subbed with Granny Smith. Selling the boys on the green ones requires all the storytelling + a little lying that they taste just the same. Yum!Chicken Drumsticks = Out but subbed with Chicken wings. Kroger, these are not the same thing. Chicken Thighs = Out but Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts = In. This is fine, but a point of interest. I always thought I was a little rogue in my darker meat, skin-on, bone-in chicken preferences. Turns out, I’m just like everyone else.Toilet Paper = Out. Obviously. Matt went to our local co-op, and spied FOUR WHOLE ROLLS. He bought two and left two for someone else. Maybe you?

Day 2: Sundays

A year-and-a-half ago, Matt and I switched the family to no-screen Sundays. It was a great way to teach our boys autocracy and democracy. Sometimes the Troy Family is a voting family. For example, movie night. And sometimes the Troy Family is an “okay” family – doing what is requested, even when we don’t have a say in the decision.

So, see? I’ve already homeschooled. That’s what I kept telling myself as we moved through Sunday as usual, plus setting up the basement for school. Each boy has a drawer and a work surface. I vacuumed each pillow on our sectional so everyone has a place to sit while we now read with purpose. Ideas for recess look like ping-pong tournaments in the garage and setting up the backyard into a Ninja Warrior course.

“Can we have an hour for recess, Mom?” Ezra asked.

Sure. Take two hours, if you need.

Before we went to bed, Jess wondered how this was all going to go down – like, for real. As the oldest, he’s the most aware of Mama’s limitations, like basically my inability to see through any small, administrative task – for example, the home school schedule he patiently asked me for all day and that I still have yet to print.

“Don’t worry, Jesse. Your mom teaches college students. She can teach you guys, too,” Matt said.

Is now the time to mention that I can’t do Jesse’s math and I’m on the cusp with Ezra’s?

Day 1: The Library

It hit when I got the email from the library at 12:35PM that they would be closing at 6:00PM until April 6. I had 5h25m to get reading provisions for the next three weeks.

I hadn’t felt the same urge over the toilet paper rush, but then again I’ve never packed an extra suitcase of toilet paper for vacation like I have with books. The empty shelves of TP at Walmart didn’t bother me when I finally went looking for it this morning, either. Maybe because there’s still a pile of leaves in the backyard that I meant to move to the curb last fall. Sometimes, if you wait long enough, a pile can be creatively re-purposed.

I feel uneasy about the library, though. And people getting sick. The spread of something I can’t see and wondering if a cough is just a cough. There’s a trip to Israel cancelled. I have three boys at home for awhile. They learn in radically different ways. There’s the remainder of a college semester, now to teach online.

My lot is vastly more doable than many, and I’m not writing to complain. I’m writing because I’m figuring, and I’m sharing here because I can’t really host convos right now, can I? There’s not enough toilet paper for all of you in the Troy household.

I had another blog series set to go, but I don’t think finished thoughts are what we need right now. I’ll share my figuring instead. Who knows for how long? Who knows to what end? But I’ll be here everyday until then, sharing my days as they happen and hoping you’ll do the same.

Day Thirty-One: Return & Burn

So my journal fire was always meant to be more of a garbage toss, but I then I thought … if I’m taking the time to review these suckers, I can probably take the time to build a fire.

(And now feels like the time to mention that I didn’t get around to reviewing my Fall 2019 journal. Holidays + A feverish, coughing Ezra on Christmas + Reading many, many good books (this one and this one, to name two). Next year!)

I built a fire last night. Well, I collected the logs and arranged them. I inserted one fire starter. Nada. Then, a second fire starter, plus a journal’s worth of ripped-out pages. Two boys emerged from the beds I’d just tucked them in.

“What are you doing, Mom?” Ezra asked.

“Burning my journals.”

His eyes filled with tears. Remember about his deep love for inanimate objects? What I was doing wasn’t ceremonial; it was murder. He didn’t mince words.

“We don’t burn books.”

“It’s not a book. It’s a journal.”

“But it’s words! You can’t burn words!”

“They’re my words.”

“What if we want to read them later?”

“We don’t.”

“Well who gets to decide that?”

“The person who wrote them. In this case, me.”

He ugly cried. Tommy joined.

“No fire with paper!”

I affirmed his sentence (four words + a preposition). I hung around long enough to capture some pics for the gram. I bartered a deal with Ez and handed him the hollow journal covers and rescued a couple of pages from the fire, which he is keeping in a hidden place … at least to me, the Word Burner. He might be willing to show you, though.

By the time I made it back down, the fire was almost out. I tossed in another two journals’ worth of pages. They took the show for about ten seconds without doing much for the logs. I went to bed. And this was one moment in a day that had gone sorta like that all day, which is how most days go. There’s intention and the struggle to live through the intention.

Writing the InReview over the last month wasn’t that big of a deal until this last day – probably because I didn’t have a journal page to reference for the wrap-up. I should say something meaningful, and I puttered around all day to find the words. I took down the Christmas tree. I packed for San Francisco. I cooked three pounds of bacon and five pounds of sausage (and there’s still twenty pounds of thawed meat to go, courtesy of a boy unplugging the garage freezer to plug in his hover board). I built a fire. Two boys cried about it. And I went to bed, still not knowing what to write on Day Thirty-One and thinking I could skip it. Yesterday’s post was epic and a great way to end. I could pretend I didn’t know December was one of those months with thirty-one days (I never did memorize that little jingle), but the problem is today’s thirty-one is sort of known. They’ve built a holiday around it.

And now I’m back in front of the fire. It lit easily this morning, and I’m about to take off my Bean socks because it’s hot down here on the floor. I wish the floor had more padding for my bottom. I’m not helping my posture by hunkering over my laptop. But I’m almost done.

Receive, Return, Rejoice & Burn – that’s a sermon I heard this year about living our lives in our days (I added the burn part). It’s a good flow, but it requires honesty. If I don’t accept that I am first, foremost, always and to the end a recipient, I won’t live with open hands. I’ll keep, keep, keep, and I’m not designed for such capacity.

I am limited, but I live without limits when I receive the days, return them, rejoice in the Lord over all of them and clear the way for the next (burn).

Goodbye, 2019! My word going into you was trade-offs. It wasn’t the word I wanted; it wasn’t sexy, but it was good. I learned a lot about my limits this year.

Hello, 2020! My word going into you is imagination. I cannot wait to explore it; I will be blogging about it (later).

“What’s your word for 2020?”

Who, me? you ask.

“Yes, you!”

Oh, I just read here.

“But you could write here – in the comments. It’d give them something to do.”

Don’t you burn words?

“Just mine and only sometimes. Your words, here, will be digital. Not so easily burned.”

What if I don’t have a word for 2020?

“Write several. It will make me happy.”

Okay!

Okay! I’m holding you to it.

Day Thirty: Bear Mama

A winter day flirting with the mid-50s – thank you, Southwest
Ohio! I warn the boys we will break up our cold weather routine of video games
+ video games. The plan is to be gone all afternoon.

Matt was never in on the plan. He can’t handle the revelry.

“You’re a hero,” he tells me before we leave, “and sometimes
heroes do crazy things no one else will.”

To hike with three young boys is not to have your eyes on
them most of the time. You track their path through the woods by their shrieks.
You assume these are shrieks of glee.

“Look, Mom – a snow beach,” Jesse says.

“Sure. Just remember what I said about not going near the
creek.”

He runs away from my cautionary tale, and by the time I
catch up with the shrieks, the boys are on the creek, not near it – a loophole.
So are the dogs. One falls through the ice and jumps right back out.

“Do you see what just happened to the dog?” I shout.

The boys start jumping on the ice. Only cavemen-speak works
in these circumstances.

“Boys. Path. Now!”

They obey and are off.

I come upon Jess a few minutes later, partway down a bit-sized
ravine. His boots are wedged under a large root, and his left arm is wrapped
around a fallen tree. In his right hand, he’s holding a dog leash (not attached
to a dog. Hopefully, she’s gone to play Lassie to the younger two while I sort
this one out).

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Breaking the ice with a leash.”

He demonstrates with a thwack, and the ice shudders. Another
thwack and a chunk of ice breaks free.

“Whoa,” he whispers, his blue eyes big. A pause. “Can I keep
repelling?”

“Another time. We need to find your brothers. I can’t hear
them anymore.”

He tosses me the end of the leash, and I haul him up. The
silence is scary. We walk in it for a few minutes until we hear a shriek. We run
toward it.

Once upon a time someone engineered a dozen cement cylinders
for hikers to leapfrog their way across the creek. It’s a large leap for my
6-year-old, who is now waist-deep in the freezing water and clutching a cylinder,
while my middle son stands on top of another cylinder. They’re 20 months apart
and the same weight. Keeping watch is the best Ezra can do.

Thank goodness for Anne from Darrtown. Of course, I don’t
know her name yet. I just a see a random woman get to the creek before me and
haul Tommy out.

She returns my humble thanks with pleasantness and is on her
way. Ez catches up with her.

“Hey, Lady! Thank you for rescuing my brother!”

Then he shows her some trash he picked up on the trail, and
they discuss it while I do my best to de-creek Tommy enough to walk back to the
car. When we reach the top of the bank, Tommy takes the hand of his rescuer,
and the four of us walk back to the parking lot.

“Thank you for the great time,” Anne says before driving
off. We all wave, feeling a little sad.

“Thank goodness for Anne from Darrtown,” Jesse says.

“Seriously.”

“Were you worried?”

“Only in the part where it went quiet.”

“Do you feel badly you weren’t the one to rescue Tommy?”

“Nah. We made a new friend, and you heard her. We had a
great time.”

Day Twenty-Nine: Love

Thinking like a mom this morning about the thoughts I’d want to fill my boys’ minds, like how:

God loves them.Matt and I love them.Days are new every morning.Today is a day to try. It’s good to try. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work out.There are so many possibilities of who they can be and what they can do.I’m excited to see them every morning.

Thinking of how different my own days would be if I realized – with my whole self – that God wants to fill my mind with the same thoughts. If I could right my mind on how God sees me than I could move myself from defense. I could channel all of my energy toward something greater.

How about the wonderment that comes from love today?

Day Twenty-Eight: Peace

It’s always 1 – one God, one Son, one Spirit, one faith, one
hope, one body.

It’s always 1 – everything according to the plan of He who
works everything in conformity to the purpose of his will.

It’s always 1 – pointing to the time when everything will be under one God.

It’s always 1 – everything of who I am and what I do to the praise of God’s glory.

It’s always 1 – simple, clear, in line, without excuse,
without exception.

It’s always 1.

Day Twenty-Seven: Joy

A cool night, and I’m on my back stoop with a pit fire in
front of me. I built it just for me. I took my time building it, meandering
around the yard to collect sticks. It’s nice to look for sticks by myself. I
don’t have to lay ground rules of what we do and do not do with a stick in one’s
hand. I don’t need to cover fire safety rules every five minutes.

“It’s just us girls tonight,” I tell the dogs before releasing
them to the backyard. It’s a risky move to do with border collies, each
quarter-trained that cars are not cows. But setting up tonight felt risky, too,
so I guess it all goes.

Matt is with the older two at a camp out, and it was supposed to be Tommy and me doing whatever a mom does with only one boy underfoot. But then I thought, I could make a call to my mom and have no one underfoot. That would set me on a new adventure – being alone in my house for a whole night.

Can I? Should I? This isn’t a new pair of questions. Moms ask these questions a lot, and oftentimes, they’re guilt-ridden. But tonight, they come from an ambitious place. Shoot! With everyone gone, I can finally finish the landscaping and after that, write my book. I can do yoga in the middle of the family room without a boy plopping on my back.

The to-do’s come faster than I can write them. Five minutes in, I have a nasty case of writer’s cramp.

That’s when I decide tonight is for rest. Tonight is to read someone else’s book. Tonight is for a fire pit and a glass of wine with leftovers. It’s to take my meal to the back stoop, which is wide enough for one, and eat while I listen to anonymous bird songs – at least that was the plan, until my neighbor started mowing his lawn at 8PM on a Saturday night. Honestly.

So, tomorrow I’ll take my coffee and the dogs for a sunrise hike. It will be different on the trails without the boys, but we’ve hiked them enough. I’ll see all three in our usual places. They will make for quiet memories. Maybe I’ll hear the birds.

Day Twenty-Six: Hope

I bet we have similar barriers. I bet you, like me, have things you want, but then … time. Money. Obligation. Expectation. Ability. Clout. The Past. Doubt. Haters. Energy.

A barrier that’s regulated our family are Matt’s law school loans. For ten years, it’s felt like too many zeroes. They have been the subject of many conversations. They have been the reason for a lot of no and can’t.

And then one night, on our back patio, Matt changed the game
with a question:

“What if the loans have held us right where God wants us?”

Of course, I’m reading Ephesians at the time – Ephesians 5:19-20,
to be clear:

“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God
the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I don’t see leeway in the “always” and “everything” of this
verse, but when Matt asked his question, I didn’t need to because another image
was taking shape:

Maybe the loans aren’t a
wall …Or at least not a bad wall …But a boundary …Like a cool brick wall
surrounding a secret garden (which was my second favorite book growing up … with
Little Women taking first, obviously).

Matt asked the question, I bent my mind, and I saw I was held. I think this is what it means to live in the lot God sets for us. I pray I will hold my lot – this one and the many others – in hope this coming year, working in faithfulness and full praise to the God of everything.