I didn’t really forget them. I just didn’t always remember them. I always knew about them, I would just sometimes forget where I left them.
It was 20-something and a busy year. With kids in fourth, sixth and eighth grade, we were at the apex of sports and activity involvement, and it was busy. In lower grades kids practice once a week; in upper grades they practice more often. They also often practice at the same time as their siblings but in different locations.
On Sunday, I would look ahead and with the deliberate precision of a general leading troops to battle, plan the dinners and carpools in order to get everyone to and fro and end each evening with a healthy dinner. Like assembling a puzzle, I organized three practices each for three kids for a minimum of 18 excursions, factored in slow cooker vs. pressure cooker vs. oven cook times, allowed for food prep, variety (can’t have chicken every night) and the potential for leftovers and with a personal “atta-boy” to myself, designed each week.
It was inevitable, really, that someone would be left somewhere too long, taken to the wrong practice, taken to the right practice on the wrong day or that practice would be completely forgotten. I’m pretty sure there were times when I was driving north on Lake Drive only to see myself in the southbound lane. If ever anyone needs to be able to bilocate, it is a mother with active kids.
Having three kids is just enough to make things nutty but not enough to elicit sympathy. I knew women with four, five or six kids who effortlessly maneuvered the web of crazy and never appeared frazzled. I, on the other hand, would show up in slippers because I’d forget to change into shoes in my rush to get out the door. I went for weeks without putting on any make up. Baseball caps were my friends.
Three kids is perceived as manageable and it largely is, albeit without an intricate carpool plan in place it would have been impossible for this mortal. I usually knew where I was going or at least could get myself turned around fast enough that it would look like I knew. I only once so completely forgot to pick someone up from practice that I was surprised to see him getting out of a strange van in front of my house (the coach was kind enough to bring him home).
But here’s the thing: I may have looked like a disaster, I most certainly was late, and my car may have smelled funny from a food item shoved under the third row seat, but even when I forgot, at the end of the day, our family sat down to dinner together to feed our bodies with food and our hearts with each other.
Dinner time fell anywhere between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. (although with teens, we broke our own record and ate at 9:15 p.m. one night). We may have had wet hair or body odor, and sometimes we weren’t even nice to each other until we got some food down. But we made it. And those nights are the highlights of the days.
Sometimes we discussed our days, but more often we just talked. One kid regularly threw his napkin across the table at his sister who was adept enough to catch it while not skipping a beat in the story she was telling. One kid was such an easy audience that he frequently had to stop eating lest he choke because he was laughing so hard. The meal invariably ended with the question, “what’s for dessert?” and if we were lucky our daughter whipped up something earlier out of pure kindness or my husband came up with something exciting behind Door No 2.
Conversation ranged from navigating friendships to quirky teachers to STDs to fart jokes. There was an ongoing attempt by the youngest to shock us, but mostly it was the time when we got to know each other deeply. It was more than just conversation, it was discovery. How else could we have discovered that one kid is the king of awkward segues, another a master of pop culture, the third is unable to succinctly get to the point of the story, Dad has a rubber face, Mom is possibly the most inappropriate of all, and that we could never have a foreign exchange student because we would scare the poor kid?
So yes, I forgot to pick up my kids, and I forgot to take them places. What I will never forget was our nightly family dinners. I will never forget the bursts of laughter, the joy of being together, and the very real presence of the Holy Spirit. It is only because of his grace that we got to enjoy one another as we did. A friend told me that if you let Jesus into your foyer, he will take over the whole home. He will most certainly take over the kitchen.
This time together provided a lifetime of memories and a very real encounter with Christ each night. We invited him in, he stayed for dinner and almost without fail, it was a great time.
Fasting Experiment Update: Fasting from music and podcasts turned out to be harder than expected, which is good because an easy fast seems not worth it. This month, I fasted from sleep by getting up earlier than necessary. Again, harder than I expected because both daylight saving time and a vacation happened. So far though, I feel good about this project, and I believe that while I may not see the fruits, the discipline still matters. I shall persevere.
