Robin's Chicks

Nudge The Nest & Pray They Fly

I’m Not Too Scared Anymore

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All of my life I’ve been Too Scared. Not as in I am beyond scared but I’ve always been terrified of being myself because I thought I was too much of one thing or another.

Too religious, too coarse, too awkward, too emotional, too Christian, too liberal to be a “good” Christian, too Christian to be a good artist… too much.

I felt that I was a contradiction. I have been afraid of being myself. I have tried to stay in the center of the road when at times I wanted to veer off the road all together, chasing rabbit trails and exploring what lies beyond the everyday.

I have held back. Here in this space that is mine, and yours if you want it to be, I have self-edited. I have deleted words that were too racy or religious. I have worried what my pastor, preacher, teacher, banker, parents, kids, friends’ children, church members, and peers would think if I said what I really thought. If I dropped the mask all together and was 100% totally me. Unfiltered. Raw. Vulnerable.

That’s what it boils down to really. I’ve been too scared to let it ALL hang out and in doing so I feel like I’ve cheated not only myself, but my readers. Because I’m more than just a punchline.  More than just a mother. I’m not “just” an anything. I am Me– and the older I get, the more I like Me.

This past weekend I had the amazing opportunity to be at Creative Alliance 2012.

It’s very difficult for me to articulate what this experience meant to me… it was a creative retreat, a conference of 50 women. The differences between CA and other conferences I’ve been to is staggering but when I was explaining it to Sister Wife I said, “Other conferences I’ve been to have been about self-promotion. At CA everyone there was thinking, ‘What can I give to this group? How can I help the women that are here?'” And because everyone there came to give, everyone there left with something.

The last night of CA my dear, sweet, friend Ann (read her blog, stalk her regularly, you will love her to bits and pieces) hosted a reading featuring about 20 of the attendees original works. She had gently prodded me to read and I shared a story I thought I could never share anywhere else. When Ann read it she emailed me: WHY can’t you read this somewhere else??

Because it’s too much of me, I thought immediately.

I read the piece there, knowing that I was surrounded by a safety net of creative women who were all in this one space trying to dig deeper into themselves to produce better art, to be more creative and more themselves. And you know what? They loved me– Jesus freak, f-bomb dropper, and one big contradiction. They laughed and they accepted me and they got it. 

And just like that, surrounded by the laughter of some of the most diverse and amazing women from all over the country, something broke inside of me and I realized– I’m not too scared anymore.

If Cuss Words Burned Calories I’d be Skinny

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I’m exercising again. Once every nine months or so I like to give the whole fitness thing a good college try. So far I’ve had about ten consecutive days that involved me doing something that actually required a sports bra, tennis shoes and sweat. I’ve been eating healthier and trying my darnedest to rejoin my real life after a year of sporadic travel, hectic hours and less than stellar eating habits.

I’ve actually eaten breakfast, juiced carrots and made myself go to sleep early. I’m beginning to feel more like myself— more rested and relaxed. Since my kids opted out of most of their after school activities this year, I’ve even gotten creative and tried to include the whole family in my new lifestyle.

Sunday afternoon I made a proposition to my family, “Let’s lay down and rest for a little bit and when we get up we’ll all go for a walk on the levy.”

Sadie, my three-year-old, squealed and clapped her hands, “The WHOLE FAMILY?!”

“Yep. The whole family. Even Moses!” I said referencing our new black lab.

Everyone was excited by this idea and found a quiet corner to read or nap for an hour. After a little cat nap, I hopped up and got dressed and yelled for everyone else to get ready. Aubrey, my eight-year-old, was already dressed, she slipped on some flip flops and waited by the door. Emma, six-years-old, heard the word ‘levy’ and made the leap to ‘river’ and ‘swimming’ and showed up at the front door in her two piece bathing suit. Sadie had sunglasses, tennis shoes, a doll sized baby sling and had her favorite baby doll strapped to her chest.

Realizing that we were going to be moving at a snail’s pace I told Emma to change clothes, told my husband who was in the kitchen filling a water bottle that me and Aubrey and Sadie were going to start walking.

He nodded vaguely.

Moses lost his mind when he saw us all outside and after wrestling with him briefly, I finally got him on his leash. We were about three houses away from home when Zeb came running up behind us with a water bottle in his hand. “Where’s Emma?” He asked casually.

“She was with you. She was standing in the kitchen with you when I told you we were going ahead. Go get her.”

He turned and jogged back to the house returning shortly with our middle child. Bless her heart. We had barely made it to the levy when Sadie started asking for something to eat.

“Honey, we will be back home in a few minutes and you can eat then.”

Aubrey dragged her flip flops in the dust and gravel sending clouds of red dust in the air and coating my legs.

“Please pick up your feet and walk,” I requested.

Moses was off the leash running and playing while Sadie screamed at him like a panicked mother, “No Moses! NO!! Oh no! Moses! Don’t go down dere! Dat’s so dangerous!! Moses, here!! HERE!!!”

Emma came skidding up beside me on her bike, slamming on her brakes and throwing herself to the ground.

“Oh my knee!! MY KNEE!” She cried.

“I WANT A SNACK!!!!” Sadie cried.

Aubrey rolled her eyes. “I’m bored and it’s hot.” She reached out to hand Sadie an apple she had apparently gotten from her Daddy and accidentally dropped it in the dust. I’d have picked it up and wiped it off and shoved it in Sadie’s mouth if Moses hadn’t chosen that exact second to come running by and pick the apple up like it was a tennis ball.

Sadie screeched, “MY APPLE!!!!”

Emma, “My KNEE! Momma, HOLD ME!”

“I quit.” I said. “Turn around we’re going home.” I herded and cajoled and wrestled Moses back onto his leash.

“But I don’t want to go home,” Sadie moaned.

Moses wrapped himself around my legs, taking the leash with him. Zeb saw something in my eyes that alarmed him and took the leash from my hand. With Sadie on his back, Moses’ leash in his hand and Emma riding on her bike beside him, he lead the trek home. All four hundred feet.

If muttering cuss words under your breath burned calories, I’d have lost twenty pounds on the walk home.

 

Things I Never Thought I’d Say to My Kids

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I can remember crying in the back of my mom’s maroon and cream Dodge Ram van, “When I have kids I’m NEVER going to say, ‘Because I said so!'” Oh the injustices I suffered in that van. Being forced to sit in the back seat, being forced to sit beside my brother, being forced to get out of the car at school. When I was a kid I knew there were a few phrases I swore I would never say to my kids:

“Finish that. There are starving children in Africa.”

“I don’t care who made that mess I”m telling YOU to clean it up.”

“If I have to pull this car over!!”

Oh I had a plan. I would reason with my children. I would explain to them that they needed to eat their dinner to be healthy and strong. They were part of a family and must contribute to housework because we were all members of the same team and I would never ever have to threaten them. No, we would be so close. I would be so understanding.

In one of those curveballs that life likes to throw, I’ve heard some of the things that have come out of my mouth lately and I’ve realized I’m saying things I never expected to have to say to my children. Here are a few of my favorites:

“If you hadn’t licked my armpit you wouldn’t have deodorant in your mouth.”

“No panties, no dinner.”

“No hissing at the table.”

“Don’t lick the TV screen.”

“Why are there 12 toothbrushes in y’all’s bathroom? There are only three of you.”

“I wonder how much I could get for you on Craigslist.”

“I don’t care if your sister begged you to draw a butterfly on her face. You know better.”

“You can’t jump on the trampoline topless, just go ahead and write that down somewhere, it’s going to apply for the rest of your life.”

“Just because it says the marker is ‘Washable’ does NOT mean you were supposed to color the entire bottom of the tub blue.”

“Because I said so.”

And my parents score another point.

WHAT HAVE YOU SAID TO YOUR KIDS THAT YOU NEVER IMAGINED YOU’D HAVE TO SAY? 

The Anti-Soccer Mom

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It happens to me on a regular basis. I push my cart into the grocery store, bribing my three-year-old with my iPhone to sit in the seat. I chat with her as I wander through the produce trying to find a banana that’s not the same color as the limes and I’ll bump into a Mommy acquaintance. We are both a mess wearing faded out yoga pants with our dirtyish hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. My youngest daughter Sadie has dressed herself: kitten rain boots (90 degrees and sunny), hot pink leotard with rhinestones bedazzled around the neck and one of her sister’s miniskirts hanging off her hips.

“Hey Robin!” Tired Mommy says.

“Hey! How are you? Where are the rest of your kids?” I’ll ask.

“Oh soccer practice, gotta be back at the field in a few minutes. Then pick Princess up from dance. Then we have art tomorrow, and karate. And Boy Scouts. And piano lessons…” and on and on and on it goes.

I usually walk away from these conversations feeling guilty.

Thoughts race through my head. My kids don’t do enough. They aren’t going to know how to do any of that. if they decide they want to play soccer when they are 10-years-old they are already going to be six years behind everyone else. 

Last year my five-year-old and my seven-year-old took dance. They seemed to enjoy it through out the year but when it came recital time Emma, my five-year-old, balked. More literally? She lost her mind. She threw a fit worthy of Toddlers & Tiaras and refused to put on her clothes to go to the dress rehearsal. My husband was out of town on business and so I called upon the Fount of All Wisdom– my mother.

I explained that Emma had lost her mind and was refusing to put on the most elaborate and sparkly costume I had ever seen. I had paid for her to take dance all year and now she was refusing to dance.

“I feel like I should make her do it. I’m the adult, right? Doesn’t she need to learn to finish what she started?” I asked.

“But she didn’t start it. You did. You signed her up to see if she liked and guess what? She doesn’t. Move on. Nobody cares,” my mother said.

I let Emma off the hook. She held my hand and smiled when we dropped her older sister off at the rehearsal. She practically beamed from her seat as her friends danced on stage and she watched.

I feel guilty because my kids don’t do enough, then feel guilty when I make them participate.

I came to the point where I had to make a decision for our family. By the time I pick my kids up from school I have already gone grocery shopping, cooked dinner, put the baby down for a nap, worked at least a few hours from home, done laundry, and picked up around the house. After school we barely have time to eat dinner and do homework before it’s time to bathe and get in the bed.

I’ve had to decide what my kids will remember of their childhoods.

I am the anti-soccer mom. I believe in building forts and jumping into creeks. I believe in eating popsicles and letting them drip down your elbows and ruining your good shirt. I believe in spraying the trampoline with a water hose and digging in the dirt for worms. I believe in playing hide and go seek until the street lights come on and your Momma has to call you inside more than once. I believe in making my kids take a bath before dinner because they are so dirty from simply being kids that they can’t possibly sit at my table. And I believe in sitting at the table and looking them in the eyes every night instead of chauffeuring them all over town to events they show no interest in.

Aubrey and Emma chose not to take dance again this year. Aubrey asked if she could take piano lessons and I agreed. I asked Emma if there was anything new she would like to try. She tucked herself beside me on the couch and slipped her tiny arm around my neck and whispered, “I just wanna be wif you Momma.”

That is time worth investing.