Podcasts

I'm a relative newbie to the world of podcasts, after resisting even trying them out for many years, and you know what they say - there's no zealot like a convert.  Podcasts are awesome!! And I want to spread the word, because you might really like them too!

Here are the reasons I waited so long to give them a try, and why you shouldn't let these things stop you because podcasts are great!:

• Technology is hard - I'm kind of a technophobe.  I don't want to learn new forms of social media, I don't want the latest gadgets, I still keep my calendar on paper, and I will guaranteed mess up group texting at least 50% of the time.  Podcasts sounded like a complicated thing to figure out.  It turns out:  not complicated at all.  You download a free app to play them (I use Stitcher), and then you search for the shows you want to listen to, and then you hit the play button.  Easy peasy!
• I don't need more in my digital diet - I already spend more than enough time on Facebook and Instagram and don't really need or want more screen time, but podcasts feels like listening to an old-timey radio program.  You're not looking at a screen while you listen, and it's not as frenetic and bite-sized as most digital pieces of information - if anything, it probably helps increase the attention span to listen to 20-60 minutes of focused content on one topic.  Also, you have more control over the content, so you're less likely to accidentally stumble across something that makes you angry for the rest of the day.  
• I don't have time - This will look different for everyone depending on what your day looks like, but you probably do have time, because podcasts fit in perfectly as a multi-task to engage your mind while your hands are busy.  I listen when I'm cooking dinner, or folding laundry, or making sure my 1 year old doesn't drown in the bathtub - they are an excellent distraction for chores, which we all have.  But you could also listen during a long commute, or during exercise, or in some cases, during work. 
• Podcasts sound boring - There is such a variety that you're sure to find something that appeals to you.  There are practical podcasts on home improvement, parenting, cooking, etc.  There's spiritual encouragement.  There is tons of commentary on news, politics, and pop culture.  All the NPR shows are available.  There are stories told in episodes.  There are interview shows.  And one of my favorite types, which will appeal to any of you who have Input or Learner as your Gallup strengths, are shows that give you information about random topics (such as, "how mirrors work"). 

It's hard to do recommendations in a blog post because it depends so much on what you're interested in, but here are a few that I really like:  Risen Motherhood (on Christian parenting), Stuff You Should Know (exactly what it sounds like), NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour (on movies and TV shows), and What Should I Read Next? (book recommendations).

What would you recommend?  I'm always looking for a good new podcast! 

In Defense of Team Sports

Our two oldest kids are elementary school age, and so we have entered the world of team sports.  We're just dipping our toe in so far with an 8 week recreational soccer league.  I played 4 sports over the course of high school, including the off season travel teams and summer camps, so I know how very much team sports ramp up in intensity as the kids get older.

We all want our kids to be happy and have fun memories, but there is the question of whether the enormous amount of time and money that can go into team sports is the right way to make this happen.  Everybody's circumstances are different, and I'm not saying every kid has to do all the sports all the time, but I think team sports can add tremendous value and teach important lessons in childhood.  (I'm writing this blog as a reminder to myself, too, because being a sports parent, while it has it's fun and cute and thrilling moments, is a very different experience from being the athlete.)

Here are just some of the things I think kids can learn from participating in sports:

• Cooperation - How many times in life do you work together with others on projects, whether it's a team assignment at work or raising a family or being on a church committee?  Team sports are a fun way to start to learn that delicate balance of working well with others: sometimes taking the lead and sometimes being the follower, sometimes doing more than your share and other times relying on others to make the big plays.  Watching teammates do things that sometimes amaze you with their brilliance and other times flabbergast you with their foolishness, and learning to handle it either way.  
• Discipline  / Hard Work - I have SO many memories of doing wind sprints, stair drills, and other torturous exercises designed to get you in peak physical shape.  There's nothing fun about doing these things that make you feel like your legs or lungs are going to collapse, except this -- that moment when you're playing the championship game and you're able to go hard through the whole game because of the work you've put in when no one was watching.  This practice of working hard day by day so that you'll be ready when the big moments come along has benefits in education, work, spiritual life, and so many other things.  
• Resilience / perserverance - Many athletes will get to experience the thrill of victory; all at some point will experience the agony of defeat.  Learning how to deal with the various disappointments that come with sports - injuries, getting cut from a team, losing the big game - is great starter training for the bigger disappointments that will come along in life.
• Time management / responsibility / organization - In the high school and college years, athletic practice takes up at least a couple hours per day.  You have to learn how to fit this in with other things (homework, job, other extra-curriculars), and how to eat and sleep at least well enough to make it through practice.  (Sometimes these lessons are learned the hard way, like the time when Surge was doing a promotion and giving away free sugary sodas right before basketball practice.)
• Friendship - There's something special about relationships that are formed when you're embarking on a shared mission.  When you go through some of these things listed above together - conditioning until you puke, winning the championship or losing every game the whole season - it forges a special bond.  Add that to the enormous amount of time you spend together, and chances are good that some of these teammates will be your friends for life.
• Healthy Living / Exercise as a Habit - This one is a little more obvious, but it's great to incorporate exercise early on to set kids on a trajectory for a healthy life.  Participating in team sports gives you some knowledge about how to do things like stretches, weight lifting, aerobic conditioning, and agility drills.  It gives you muscle memory for pushing past pain.  And it sets a high standard in your mind for what physical fitness should look like.  (I'll be honest, I rarely meet this standard since becoming a parent, but I still think it's a good thing to have in mind and strive towards.)
• Strategy - By learning plays, or learning that there are better and worse ways to do things, or learning that you need to set several consecutive things in motion to have a successful outcome - these are all valuable starts to learning that it pays to have a strategy in your various endeavors in life.  
• For girls especially, body image and self confidence - There is enormous pressure on women to look good, as defined by the fashion magazine standard, and girls base much of their self confidence on their physical attractiveness.  Sports can't take this whole problem away, but I think it can make girls feel more body positivity by seeing the amazing physical feats that their bodies are capable of, and confidence based on athletic accomplishment rather than just how they look.  

Ordering equipment from the Internet = you might end up with shin guards sized for a newborn.

That's my case for why team sports are worth it.  Of course  every team sports experience is not going to provide all of this; and not every kid is going to be into team sports. 

But some of my very best friends, some of my best preparation for the rigors of college and law school, for how to conduct yourself in a job, for how to get through the harder times in life - it came from lessons learned in sports.  Anything you would add to this list?

Special Needs Parenting and Perspective

There's been a few things on my mind lately, all orbiting around the themes of special needs parenting and perspective.  So I'm going to consolidate it all into one post and we'll see how that goes!

Item One:  Balancing Chill with Vigilance

Here is a key ingredient to both good mental health and a strong faith: you don't spend all your time worrying.  One thing that helps cut down on hours spent worrying is the realization is that you're not in control of most things anyway (and, for people of faith, the belief that God is in control).

Not worrying goes *way* against the grain of my natural personality.  When you add in special needs parenting, you get the added (perverse?) incentive that sometimes worrying DOES pay off in a big way.  The more time you spend discussing ideas with other parents, or pouring over medical journal articles, or checking and checking and checking the Facebook groups, the more you increase the chances that you will find the doctor / medicine / sensory solution / diagnosis / diet / therapy / school support / supplement that will improve or possibly even save your child's life.

But, it also means you will worry needlessly about extra things, both things you have identified and things you worry you might have missed.  My latest round of worry for Joshua was the possibility that he had a blood clotting disorder.  I was worried about this mostly because it's common with his chromosome disorder, but also because he has some trouble with nose bleeds and history of a blood transfusion with surgery.

It would be crazy to get a referral to a specialist to check on hemophilia just because a child living in a dessert climate gets nose bleeds -- you would never do that for a medically typical child.  But the nature of having a child with a rare disorder is that you can expect 1) that unexpected things WILL (sometimes) go wrong, and 2) that the doctors (again, sometimes) will NOT be watching out for these things because they're so unusual.  

When we went in to the hematologist, we discussed a bunch of things about Joshua's medical history, the doctor Googled at least 3 things in front of me, and then at the end of the appointment he thanked me for educating him (about the link between 4q deletions and Hemophilia C, and about the latest treatments for Pierre Robin Sequence) - which is cool, in a way, but it also puts a lot of pressure on special needs parents to know their stuff, because doctors need you to educate them when you're dealing with rare.  

The good news in this anecdote is that J does NOT have any kind of blood clotting disorder!  His labs were normal!  But then this begs the question -- was my worrying worth it?  If he would've tested positive, then it absolutely would have been - but he didn't.  This is the example that we're dealing with this month, but new concerns come up all the time, and it's tricky to know how to handle that in a way that's healthy (for me and for Josh).  I would love thoughts on how others strike this balance between not worrying and watching out for the medical things that doctors might miss.  

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Item Two:  My Lent Challenge, Perspective, and a School Update

I'm doing a Lent challenge with my prayer group to turn complaints into gratitude.  When it comes to Joshua's special needs, I am a complaining machine, so this is the place where the rubber hits the road for me, and the place where it would be most helpful to do the exercise and realize all that I have to be grateful for.  Here we go!

The complaint:  I'm tired of Josh having procedures and blood draws and doctors appointments as a constant part of his life.  I'm tired of the stress it causes him and the worry it causes me.  

The gratitude:  I'm very grateful that Josh does not have a blood clotting disorder.  And I'm grateful for other things that tend to come with his syndrome that he has not had trouble with (such as seizures), and for things he was born with that healed on their own with no surgery (such as his atrial septal defect).  I'm grateful that God has protected him through all his surgeries, and provided medicines and supplements to help with other issues.

The complaint:  I'm tired of school being a struggle.  I feel sad that the chromosome disorder causes learning struggles, and frustrated that since school is designed for a typical student, it often doesn't work perfectly for him.

The gratitude:  I'm grateful that he's at a school where the administration, teachers, and staff value and support students with special needs, even (especially?) as the district is strapped for cash.  I'm grateful that Josh likes his teachers and is making forward progress.  I'm grateful that things are going okay with fellow students.  I'm grateful that everyone on his team knows the things that make him excited and use those things to motivate him.

The complaint:  I'm tired of food still being a battle and still needing to be planned in every situation.

The gratitude:  I'm grateful that we have a wonderful private occupational therapist.  I'm grateful that, after YEARS of spinning our tires with eating, Josh is having a huge burst of willingness to try new foods.

And, in areas that continue to be challenging, I'm grateful that God will someday wipe away every tear and make all things new.

Calling Congress: it's not as scary as you think!

Like everyone else, I was so sad to see the news of another mass school shooting yesterday.  And I quickly fell into the trap of cynicism:  there will be uproar for a few days, no real changes will be made, it will happen again.  But you know what?  That's how people always feel until change DOES happen.  This is not the time to throw our hands up in the air, this is the time to speak up!  So I'm writing a blog with some thoughts on calling your Congressperson.

I've talked to a few people who feel passionately about a political issue but are intimidated to call their Congressional representative.  I interned at a U.S. Senator's office for one summer, and while I was the low low low person on the totem pole, it did help me see some things about how this all works.

There are several ways to contact your Congressperson -- email, letter, and phone.  (Also visiting, if you happen to live close to one of their district offices.)  All of these are easy to find through Google.
The phone call is the best combination of effectiveness and efficiency for making your voice heard.  We are a culture that's shying away from phone calls and I get this - I rarely make phone calls when you can instead communicate by text or email.  But Congresspersons take phone calls from constituents more seriously than an email petition that people signed with one click.  (Not that this is a bad thing to do -- all the communications help.)  Phone calls on issues are tallied, and the tally is given to the Senator.  With emails, it is a lot more variable. 

Here is what usually happens when you call a Congressional office:  the person answering takes your name and address.  This tells them if you are a constituent and sometimes facilitates a response letter.  Then they will ask why you are calling, you tell them, and they thank you for your call.  The whole thing takes less than a minute, unless you choose to try to keep them on the phone longer. 

Here are some things that will not happen:

• They will not be rude to you - even if they vehemently disagree with you, they know that their job depends on pleasing constituents.  They may not be able to vote the way you're hoping, but they will be nice about it.  
• They will not try to engage you in a policy debate - they have access to the leading policy experts on both sides of the issue, so they don't need to engage constituents on policy matters, either for sport or for information.  They do need to know which way public opinion is leaning.  
• They will not keep you on the phone for an extensive amount of time - they will respect your time, and they need to get the phone lines open for the next caller.
• The Congressperson won't answer - it will be a staffer or intern on the line.

It is perfectly fine if you write down exactly what you want to say on a piece of paper and read it verbatim.  If you have a personal story related to the issue and can succinctly communicate it, that is helpful.  You can call with a very specific request ("I want the Senator to vote against LB???") or a very general request ("I would like the Senator to take action to oppose gun violence".)  

I hope this blog doesn't come off as patronizing, but I really want everyone to feel empowered that you CAN call your Congressperson and they DO want to hear from you (because being in touch with constituent opinion helps them keep their job!).  Now I'm going to make a few phone calls :).  

Life with 3: Actually, it totally does live up to the hype

Last year, i wrote about how adding a third child was no big deal , when we were a breezy one month into the experience.  Now that we are 15 months in, I'd like to amend my opinion. 

Here are some things I didn't take into consideration when writing that first blog:

Easy newborn

1.  Ivy was a SUPER easy baby.  Especially as a newborn.  She slept all the time (probably 20 hours a day).  She fed easily, she let me set her down, she hardly cried, she would fall asleep anywhere - it was pretty unbelievable, honestly.  Now that she's older, she still has a super sweet personality, but she's a very typical toddler - very active and independent, and needing more in terms of interactive play and snack preparation and supervision.  She's a full time project, which hugely changes the dynamic of how easy or hard it is to balance everything else.  Which leads into item 2...

2.  Attention for each individual child is spread super thin.  Even when Kenny's home, there are times when it's very challenging that the kids outnumber the adults.  You get these moments where Josh needs intensive help with his homework, Zoey wants to read a book, and Ivy's climbing the bookshelf.  Or Josh needs

Active toddler

supervision in the bath, Zoey wants to play a board game, and Ivy wanders into the kitchen to eat some dog food.  It's a precarious and crazy making project to meet all the physical and emotional needs.  Hats off to all of you who somehow do this with MORE than three.

3.  It makes life more fun and interesting to have kids in a range of stages, but more challenging too.

For example, it's fun to play increasingly complicated games and read increasingly sophisticated stories to the big kids, but it's hard to do this well when you have to pause every 30 seconds to check on the one year old.  And it's restful to cuddle the one year old to bed, except when the two bigs are simultaneously having an unsupervised wrestling match downstairs.  There's just not a lot of down time in this stage of life (except for breaks graciously provided by my husband and in-laws).

This blog probably sounds like such a debbie downer, but I don't mean it that way.  It's more of an attempt to be honest about the challenges of of raising three kids.   (I'm sure there were some of you who read that first blog about how adding a third child is easy peasy and thought "just wait" - and I'm telling you that you were right.)  While it's challenging, it is absolutely worth it - I can't imagine life without any of the three in it, they all add something special to our family.  There might be forthcoming blogs about that.  In the meantime:  any advice from veteran parents about how to parent older kids well and still keep the one year old alive?

Books I Read in 2017

It's that time of year again!  Here's a visual of the books I read in 2017.  Scroll down to the bottom for my favorites...

it was amazing

it was amazi

it was amazi 

it was amazing

This is my annual blog post reviewing books I read last year.  If you're interested in learning more about any of the books pictured above, here is a link where you can click on any of the covers and get more information.  And here are the "best of" picks:


Best fiction:  This was another strong year in fiction, so I would recommend almost any that appear above - but here are the cream of the crop (in random order):

• "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" by Gail Honeyman (this book is *amazing* and was my favorite book of the year)
• "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
• "Exit West" by Mohsin Hamid (me and Barack Obama have an overlapping favorite, NBD!)
• "Still Life" and "A Fatal Grace" by Louise Penny (technically two books, but they are by the same author and use the same characters)
• "Lucky Boy" by Shanthi Sekaran and "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng.  [Note:  These two have some really uncanny overlap.  I SO want to have a book club about this.]

Bonus - two fiction books that were light but really fun:

• "Big Little Lies" by Liam Moriarty
• "Sourdough" by Robin Sloan

Best nonfiction (also in random order):

• "The Locust Effect" by Gary Haugen
• "The Broken Way" by Ann Voskamp (this was my favorite non-fiction book of the year)
• "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" by John Gottman
• "Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?  And other questions you should have to answer when you work in the White House" by Alyssa Mastromonaco
• "Savor:  Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are" by Shauna Niequist (I had some caveats with this one, which I put in a Goodreads review).

People sometimes ask me how I find time to read.  I wrote a blog post about this a few years ago, but the biggest three things are 1) read books that you really love, because then you will be motivated to find the time to read, whatever the details of that look like for you; 2) have a plan to keep the good books coming (i have a list of 3 dozen books on hold at the library, and when i get close to finishing one, i check out the next one); and 3) have books available to grab whenever you have a moment.  I usually keep a book on my nightstand, near my living room couch, and in the car.

Another tip that I haven't tried yet, but might try this year, is to experiment with different forms of books.  It's hard to beat a printed paper book for that classic reading experience, but reading on a Kindle would make it easier to check out more books from the library when it's hard to find time to physically get to the library building, or to bring several books traveling when you don't have room in your suitcase.  And an audio book allows you to proceed through books while you're in the car, or chasing a one year old up the stairs, or going for a run.  During the busiest stages of life, these alternative forms of reading might be a big help in getting through more books.  Those of you who have used Kindles and audio books, what do you think?  Are there other book formats to check out?

And my favorite question every year:  what books have you read recently that you loved?  I would especially love tips for great non-fiction books (on any topic).

Day 30: A Single Moment Today

I am grateful for the moment today of decorating the Christmas tree.  We put on some Christmas music, got out the ornaments, and carefully spread them across the (upper 2/3rds of the) tree (because Ivy).  Our family has a tradition where each member picks out a new ornament each year, so it's fun to reminisce about years past as we put the ornaments up.  We also have a few that are sentimental for other reasons - I have a Geo Metro ornament from my friend Katie that brings back good memories of high school, we have some homemade ornaments from Joshua's preschool years, and I have one that contains a baby picture of me.  We also have some ornaments with words like "peace" and "hope", and I am such a sucker for inspirational words.  The kids get really excited about it, which I know will not always be the case, and it's fun to do a family project together.  I'm grateful for the mix of nostalgia, holiday cheer, and anticipation that goes into decorating the Christmas tree.