A Musing Maralee

March 18, 2020
by Maralee
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This is Not Homeschool. This is Survival School.

Deciding to homeschool your kids is a huge decision. You think about what curriculum will work best for your kids and for your teaching style. You research. You talk to other people about it. If you have kids with medical or education or social skills needs or behavioral challenges, you think about your ability to meet those needs at home vs. the services they could receive through the school system. You rearrange your work schedules or other activities to make it work for your family. You pick socialization options to keep your kids involved in the things they’re passionate about– music, art, dance, sports, debate, drama, etc. You delegate what you don’t feel competent to teach to the local co-op or public or private school.

Many of us thought through all those variables and we decided homeschooling was not for us.

And yet, here we are.

Which is why I think it’s important we remind ourselves that this is NOT homeschool. This is about facilitating the education of our kids while we’re riding out an unprecedented global health crisis. This is Survival School.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

We now have some things in common with our homeschooling friends. We’re all experiencing the education of our kids at home. We are involved in the process to varying degrees. We’re all at home most hours of the day as we figure out how to be the teacher, janitor, lunch lady, occupational therapist, counselor, IT person, etc. But for many of us, that’s where the comparison stops.

I’m not picking or planning curriculum. I’m hoping to supervise what their teachers have decided they need to work on to finish out their year. I’m also continuing to work a job, as are many parents who picked an option other than homeschooling because we need to work to feed our families. I can primarily work from home which is a huge blessing, but also now means I have to figure out the dynamics of working alongside a bunch of “coworkers” who are intent on derailing whatever I’m trying to accomplish via questions, requests for snacks, and crying outbursts– not typical coworker behavior I’ve experienced before. Continue Reading →

March 2, 2020
by Maralee
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Bring Your Kids to Church (radio interview)

Maybe somebody out there has a really easy time getting through the morning insanity of church prep, then their kids sit so nicely and quietly during the service (hands folded, obviously) and afterwards the kids have these insightful conversations about all they learned.

That is not my life. Yet. I’m still hoping.

But we keep going. We practice what we want to become. Some weeks I think we’re almost there and some weeks I nearly cry on the way home with how desperate I am to be able to be fully present during a service and how frustrating it is when that can’t happen. If you’re there too, just know we’re in it together.

Here’s my radio interview about why we’re so committed to being in church every week and how we make it work. I’d love to hear your thoughts about making it through Sunday mornings with your sanity intact. Your survival tips are always appreciated.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

Here are some additional thoughts on kids and church:

I Let My Kids Play Tag in the Church Aisles: “I think of the formality of the Old Testament temple– the rules, the harsh consequences for disobedience, the separation from God outside of that temple experience. And I think of how God now makes his dwelling with us. I think of Jesus welcoming the children. I think of the little people I am raising and how I want them to know their worship matters. I think of the children in the congregation who may feel their contributions are more welcomed because they see someone like them up front. I think of the adults like me who sometimes need a reminder that unless we become like little children– helpless, curious, trusting– we won’t enter the kingdom of heaven. Maybe having her peacefully present with me is a blessing even if in some ways it feels humbling to me.”

40 Things I Say at Church Every Week: “During the greeting time, it is not polite to growl at people.”

I Go to a Church Where I Don’t Agree With Everything: “As a church, we are meant to represent the Body of Christ, but too often we self-segregate into clumps of The Body that make us feel the most comfortable. We’ve got hands hanging out in this denomination, eyes over here, and a bunch of feet at that church on the corner. It’s just easier that way, isn’t it? If we only go to church with people who fully agree with us on each point and sub point of our denominational creeds, we create a really pleasant echo chamber. But I don’t think that’s how we were intended to be.”

A Human Chain of Beachgoers and The Church: “The response was overwhelming. I got email after email of people willing to help, to the point that we may need to have a waiting list to serve in our nursery. A WAITING LIST. This is a body of people I have watched again and again link arms to rescue the drowning. The mom working to get her kids back. The addict in recovery. The ones struggling with marriage issues or parenting issues. The family in financial trouble. Those struggling through job loss or homelessness. Me.”

Worship in the Mess: “Maybe it’s hard to find the worshipful moments during the music time at church. That’s okay. God was there when you and your kids were singing His praises in the car on the way to the grocery store. Maybe it’s hard to catch up on your plan to read through the Bible in a year when you’ve gotten a few weeks behind. That’s okay. When you cried while reading to your kids from The Jesus Storybook Bible, God saw your tenderness towards His Word. Maybe it’s hard to string together five quiet minutes in a row to pray without leaving your kids unsafely unsupervised (or let’s be real– without falling asleep). That’s okay. God has heard you cry out to Him during your most frustrated mama moments and He heard you teaching your toddler to thank Him for her food.”

February 27, 2020
by Maralee
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A Time to Shatter the Functional to Make way for the Beautiful

We walked through the door because it was called “The Shard Shop” and that’s just a name that calls out to you. Our friend uses the word “shard” to describe the shattering of your heart that happens when something is too precious to take in. Looking at old pictures of your newborn baby? Shards. Reading old Mother’s Day cards from your children? Shards. Watching your kids hold hands as they walk down the block. ALL THE SHARDS.

So we went in, wondering what in the world a ShardShop might actually be. Turns out it is a studio where people create their own art out of broken glass. They take glass pieces, put them on a canvas and it goes through a glazing type process overnight. We didn’t have time to get involved in a class, but there was something that spoke to my heart from the bins of broken glass, divided up by color.

There has been a lot of shattering in my life. My expectations of what my life would look like. My ideas of how easy it would be to become a mother. My thoughts on what marriage would be like. My ideas about what kind of career I could pursue. All of these things have felt shattered for a season.

Sometimes the shattering was painful and all at once. Sometimes it was a slow process of recognizing how shattered things had become. Sometimes it was a relief to let go of the old to make way for the new. Shattering the old ways and old ideas can be exciting as we look to the next challenge.

But what resonated with me most was seeing the perfectly good (as far as I could tell) blue glass cup sitting there on top of the bin of blue pieces, amidst all the wreckage. My gut instinct was to wonder if maybe it’s still useful. Maybe it just needs to be washed up. Maybe that tiny crack can be repaired. Why shatter something that still has some usefulness? Continue Reading →

February 18, 2020
by Maralee
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We Spent the Morning Arguing about Cereal. I Don’t Regret It.

I woke up early to come wake you up. Even though you don’t need me to. Even though you’re capable of waking up on your own to your own alarm clock in your own room. Every day you become more independent and every day I’m wondering what my role is in your life. My motherhood job description keeps changing and I’m doing my best to keep up and change accordingly.

So I woke up to wake you up so we could spend some early morning moments as just the two of us, the way it used to be before all the other kids came along. I treasure these times of hearing your heart and laughing at your jokes. It’s important to me to know what’s going on in your life— what classes you love, where you’re struggling, and what your friends are up to. But today we didn’t have any of those conversations.

Today we spent all of our 20 minutes alone together arguing. About breakfast cereal.

We didn’t have the kind you like so nothing else could be discussed. We needed to talk about how “dumb” our current selection of breakfast cereals is. How it isn’t fair that I don’t have to eat breakfast if I don’t want to, but you have to eat breakfast. Then while I was making coffee, you poured the sugary cereal you knew you weren’t supposed to have first. I turned around, saw what you did and poured it back in the box. You sighed and huffed even though you knew the family rules about cereal choices. You poured a bowl of approved cereal and acted like it was eating poison to have to choke it down. You grunted and groaned your way through and then left the table. . . leaving a mostly full bowl of cereal behind. I called you back. You stomped and whined. You finished the cereal. You went off to school.

For a brief moment I thought that unthinkable thought— What if this is the last interaction I have with you. Life is short and unpredictable. What if something happened to you or me today? Would I forever regret spending that 20 minutes debating the merits of breakfast cereal vs. other breakfast options? Would I wish I had let it go or just made you whatever else you wanted? Continue Reading →

February 6, 2020
by Maralee
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Bring Your Kids to My Funeral

At my funeral, hand out lollipops at the beginning. Kids like lollipops and they help keep them occupied. We used to bring lollipops to court hearings when we were foster parents so our kids would have something sweet to help keep them quiet. Once an attorney saw us outside of the courtroom and said, “I’ve never seen your kids without lollipops in their mouths.” I was almost embarrassed, but life is too short for being embarrassed about dumb stuff. So hand out the lollipops when kids walk in. And give adults one too and don’t make them feel weird about it. Everybody loves sugar, why do we pretend like it’s only for kids?

And make my face into a coloring sheet and hand out those tiny packs of crayons like they do at restaurants. Put my favorite things into a word search on the back. Start with these words: writing, hot dogs, kids, books, blankets, sunshine, flowers. Tell the kids they can fold them into paper airplanes when they’re done and release them at my graveside, as long as they pick them up afterwards.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

If the kids want to touch my body, it’s okay with me. When I was little and my grandpa died, my mom told me that when she touches the body, it helps her understand that the soul isn’t in there any longer. I have watched my mom tenderly pat cold hands and kiss cold cheeks. Tell the kids it’s okay to pat my hand so they know it’s just a body that’s being buried and it’s not really me anymore. If they touch it just because they’re curious or it makes them nervously laugh, it’s okay. And if that’s gross to them, they don’t have to do it. It’s okay to feel weirded out by death. We aren’t meant to be comfortable with it. Continue Reading →

January 28, 2020
by Maralee
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Where Was I The Day You Were Born

I’ve tried a thousand times to remember. Every year I think about it again. Where was I on the day you were born? Did I somehow know something momentous was happening in a hospital room on the other side of town? Did I feel something in my gut? In my bones? Was it truly just another day of making breakfast, and reading to my toddler, and staring at the phone, willing it to ring with news of a child that needed us?

You are so precious to me. You have changed my world so fully. I can’t fathom that the world kept spinning just the same in that moment you were born. It doesn’t seem possible everything kept going just as it always had. But try as I might, I can’t remember where I was, what I was doing, what I was feeling the day you were born.

In that moment, you were a stranger to me. Received into this world by other arms. Medical decisions made by doctors and caseworkers and a different mother. First bottles and first baths done by nurses I met so briefly and can’t remember anymore. Your height and weight written down and tiny footprints inked onto a piece of paper I treasure. All of this happened before I knew you had taken your first breath.

What I wouldn’t give to have been there with you. I wish I could have been the one to hold you when you first opened your eyes. I would have hugged your mother and told her what would always be true– that we would love you well and that we would always love her too and speak well of her for this beautiful gift of life she’s given you. I would have snuggled you close and marveled at your tiny fingers and toes. I would have cried with joy at your beauty and with a little bit of fear at the weight of becoming your caregiver for however long we were blessed with you in our lives. Continue Reading →

January 24, 2020
by Maralee
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You’ll Never be Good Enough to Have a Voice. Speak Anyway.

There are people in this world that won’t agree with you. That’s fine. This is life. Some of those people will want to silence you by telling you that you haven’t done enough, experienced enough, advocated enough, marched enough or posted on social media enough to have a certain opinion.

That’s garbage.

I feel it whenever I go to publicly say something about my pro-life views. I feel the arguments coming that I must only care about the lives of the unborn and then do nothing to support women in crisis or policies that help the children born to those mothers. I know the accusations will come. And so I couch my statements in all my credentials and my credibility on this issue. I believe that children have an inherent right to life because they are humans with souls. I have dedicated my life to caring for those children through foster care and adoption. I have advocated for policies that support those kids. I volunteer my time for organizations that are the voices for those children and families. I work every day to help educate other parents on how to best love and care for those kids and the biological parents who love them, but may be struggling.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

I have the right to have a voice on this issue. I back up my beliefs with my actions, my time, my finances. The value of ALL children is not theoretical to me. It is what I do every day.

And still it’s not enough for some people.

There will always be those who ask what I’ve done to advocate for those on death row, or to speak out against family separation at the border, or to be sure women fleeing domestic violence have a safe place to go, or to support policies that provide healthcare or free lunches or whatever the bill of the moment is. There are some people who seem to believe unless you have done EVERYTHING (and can show public receipts for all that you’ve done), then you can’t speak about anything.

That’s ridiculous. Continue Reading →

January 21, 2020
by Maralee
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Let Me Catch My Children in the Act

A Prayer for My Children as They Make Their Own Choices

Lord, let me catch my children.

May I always listen to that still small voice that tells me to walk into the room without warning. Let me not avoid that nagging Holy Spirit prompting that gnaws at my heart when I think about what could be on that screen or under that bed or on that phone or in that drawer. Please let me forget my coffee cup in their bedroom and walk in at just the right moment to know what they don’t want me to know. Let them ask me to help put away their laundry so I might find what they most want hidden. Lord, even if I don’t have the strength to intentionally look for what I don’t want to find, make me accidentally stumble across it. Don’t let me hesitate because of anxiety or a fear or not knowing what to do next, just let me help reveal what you know has been hidden and trust you for the next steps.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

May I wake in the night with a holy nudge to go check on them. Let me catch a snippet of that conversation outside their bedroom door. Don’t let me turn and walk away, but hold me fast until I know what they need me to know. Don’t let me worry about privacy when it comes to matters of safety, but remind me of the agony of a guilty conscience and the relief of sharing a burden. Remind me that they are still children even when they seem so grown. They need my help to navigate life even if they don’t always know how to ask for it. Continue Reading →

December 31, 2019
by Maralee
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Teaching Kids to Respect Other Cultures Starts With Understanding Your Own

I remember being about nine years old the first time I realized my family culture was different from the culture I was growing up in. My mom had bought a boxed set of cassette tapes of “The News from Lake Wobegon” from a library book sale. As I listened to Garrison Keillor describe life in the midwest, my life started to make just a little more sense. I was a girl growing up in California being raised by a mother from Iowa and a father with Germans from Russia Mennonite ancestry. The attitudes and customs I heard described on those cassettes resonated and connected me back to culture I didn’t even know I was missing.

My Grandma (on the left) making New Year’s cookies

I now live in the midwest and I’ve heard it said that news anchors are taught to speak like they come from around here because we are people with no describable accent. We don’t sound like we’re from any particular place and I think sometimes we feel like that about our culture too. We have none. We are the default. We’re just “normal.” Nothing special to be noticed or embraced.

Which, of course, is a very big part of our culture and our attitude about life. Being normal, being humble, is a very high value.

When we adopted kids who came from different cultures, I wanted to help them embrace cultural traditions they would have grown up with, but were unfamiliar to me. This is a delicate dance when you want to do it respectfully, thoughtfully, intentionally. It’s meant signing our daughter up for Mexican dance class, learning West African recipes, and buying books about important Lakota leaders so we can learn the stories. The more we’ve worked to incorporate their histories, the more I’ve found myself looking for ways to embrace my own. Which is why I started making New Year’s cookies. Continue Reading →

December 19, 2019
by Maralee
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Being the Keeper of Your Foster Child’s Story

Every Christmas I have pulled out the ornaments and along with the fancy and the breakable and the milestone ornaments, there is a little group of handmade ones. There are the photo ornaments my oldest son made in his preschool class. There are the salt dough ornaments I made one year with our little ones so we’d have a fingerprint one to send to a foster child’s biological family. There are the many cut-out snowflakes and handprints and school crafts that hold precious memories. And for years, there has been this little set:

I remember the day I received this bunch of ornaments as a Christmas gift from a little guy I loved at the group home where we were houseparents. He made them in Sunday School and put them under our Christmas tree in a white paper bag, all decorated with markers and glitter. There were some ornaments he made for me and some he made for his mom in a separate bag. I loved that his Sunday School teacher had understood and anticipated what he probably struggled to express– that he had two families who loved him and would each want their own set.

For years I have been the keeper of these treasures. I’ve lovingly pulled them out and used them to decorate our tree. I’ve remembered his sweet face, his forever positive outlook on life, the precious times we had together, the last day I was his housemom and how I told him he would always be family to me in my heart.

Although it’s been 12 years since we spent a Christmas together, he has always been on my heart and these ornaments were always on my tree. But last year it was time. It was time to let him own his own story. Continue Reading →