Charity and the Introvert

I try. Really I try. But at my heart, I am an introvert. I can do okay in social situations, but I recharge with time alone. I need wide margins of less-planned days to feel okay and when I look at my calendar and see it filled from end to end with appointments and events, people and things for which I have responsibility, I get a little claustrophobic (I am a lot claustrophobic as it is). I'm trying to cultivate true (not grudging) charity. Frequently that charity extends to me treating people the way that seems gentlest to me, in the absence of direction to the contrary: giving them wide margins, not bombarding them with visits in times of stress and challenge. CE (and M too) is an extrovert; she thinks my "wide berths" are abandonment. She plans parties for the fun of it (that I shoot down because the idea makes me tired) She energizes with people, with visits, with parties--the more the merrier and can only imagine pulling away as punishment, when I see it as blessed cocooning. I don't want anyone to feel that I have abandoned them in their time of need, that I don't like them anymore, because I have stepped aside a bit in deference to what I would want in the same situation.

I struggle with feeling selfish and grumpy when I don't think that more is merrier, when I cannot imagine frosting a birthday cake with thirty three kids hovering around me (I'd end up doing the proportions all wrong, I don't do math in crowds!), when I need a day or two of sitting around in my jammies after too many days of insufficient margins. My guilt-brain tells me that if so-and-so is rejuvenated in the midst of a trial by having lots of little ones around, I should feel begrudging and selfish that I barely want my own children around some days, even on good days, and don't feel at all up to extras on many many days. I have been treated to such great kindnesses by people laboring under their own stresses. Why don't I derive energy and focus from serving in times of stress? Why do I need so much downtime, resting on my sword as it were, in order to get up and fight the fight again? Why am I so self-absorbed? I don't know. I also vacillate between the need to get outside myself and the need to be honest with myself and how I function best. Where is that line? How much of introversion/extroversion is natural (wo)man--an enemy to God? How much of it is a framework to be worked with in, an eternal nature of my spirit?

I don't know; I'm still working that part out, but do know if you're going through something and you need me and I seem to disappear, I'm applying the Golden Rule and it's not working out that well, because while a cocoon may be what I would want, a party may be what you want. Tell me. I can do party; I can take direction. I can be taught!

Fifth Graders get promoted; they don't graduate

Or so my dear fifth grader told me repeatedly. So, he had no cap and gown and his "promotion" was much longer than his little brother's. It focused a great deal more on progress and skills learned and beginnings made. The middle school principal even spoke!



Z hates to pose for pictures these days. Hates even more being noticed or smiling on purpose. So it was sheer dumb luck and a fast shutter speed that I got the pictures I did. Regardless, he is promoted!

Again, his teachers were wonderful. Ms. S truly got him and all his quirks and that is such a grand blessing for this mother's heart. She put up with his ugly unfriendly "friendly" letters at the beginning of the year. She drew him out and made him learn and think and process. She encouraged him and loved him. I love my kids' teachers!

Now Z goes on to middle school with its pseudo autonomy and crazy schedules and homework and organizational needs. Organization is not Z's strong suit. Hopefully we will come out only slightly singed on the other side. We have graduations in the future to plan for!

Another kindergartener going, going gone

Here we have more "gratulations" as M would say it. Bam is done with kindergarten now. He was so excited, despite how the cap and gown picture appears.



His teachers were so so wonderful. I loved coming into his class and watching him learn with his classmates, interact with them and be so very Bam with them. I loved how excited his teachers were to teach everything to their class. We truly have an embarrassment of riches in teachers for my children!

Nine Years of Wonder

As in, I wonder how it's been nine years. In some ways, CW's arrival to our family marks the beginning of when things changed forever. Four days before he was born, DH was made the Elders' Quorum president and has never again regularly been home on Sunday mornings to help us get ready for church. Each successive calling has meant less DH for us and more responsibilities for him. So, CW's entire existence has been marked by me, his mother, losing more and more control of things.

But while I may have less control, less sanity, CW has always been more. More energy, more devilish twinkle in his eyes, more finely tuned sense of justice. Just more. The way he thinks about things is so original. In school this year, he has been involved in GATE, which is the gifted and talented enrichment program. It's more than just accelerated learning, a GATE kid has to be able to and enjoy thinking outside the box. This program has been sheer heaven in school for CW. He has loved it.

His birthday this year fell at the beginning of the last week of school. He loves electronic games, so he asked that I make him a "DS" cake, as in Nintendoo 3DS. This was not an easy concept for me. I told him I could put a frosted brownie on top of the cake and he decided he wanted to frost "the controls." Here's our combined efforts:



Thankfully my kids love tasty cakes, even when they're not so aesthetically pleasing or when they don't exactly live up to artistic visions.

We love our CW. I can't imagine our family or my life without his exuberance. Happy Birthday CW!