I Told You So

I've often heard the parenting advice that we should never tell our children, "I told you so." I think that advice should actually be

You should never tell your children "I told you so" 

unless it's a really big freaking deal for which 

you totally deserve credit forever and all time.

That's my kind of parenting advice.

Ten years ago, I picked up my oldest daughter from another day of middle school. Another awful, sucky, aggravating day of middle school full of stupid mean kids that said stupid, mean things.

I had already tried all the nice, forgiving, Catholic school mom stuff I was supposed to say. None of it had helped. So I finally told her what I really thought.

Kate, don't worry about it. One day you are gonna be in California doing your thing and all those kids who made fun of you and made you feel unattractive or weird or not good enough are gonna be sitting on their couches in Wichita, Kansas, eating corn chips and watching some show on TV that you worked on. 

Today, I can say I TOLD YOU SO! Today, those Roaring Moms words come true. Today, in fact all this week, the productions she has been working on for months are entertaining the corn-chip eating couch potatoes!

While this post might seem like one big Roaring Mom Brag, that's not totally my intention. You all know how I feel about bragging on our kids. Yes and Always! My point, however, is more that it is perfectly fine to say "I told you so"! Sometimes our kids need to remember that we got it right. Sometimes. we need to remember that we got it right.

This morning, in that same church parking lot, I had a similar conversation with another child o' mine. I reminded him that sometimes the doors we want to open remain closed so that a better door can open later on. Had Kate been hired on with Facebook she wouldn't have still been looking for employment when the CBS job opened up. Working for Facebook would have been cool, but I'm not sure it would have been getting-paid-to-hang-out-with-Jeff Goldblum-cool!

What was cool was what happened when church started. The commentator explained the readings for the day. Simon had failed at fishing all day which left the door open for Jesus to instruct him to throw the nets again. Simon's failure had literally allowed him a chance to grow his faith. If he'd been hauling in the fish all day, he wouldn't not have experienced the opportunity for something greater.

I smiled at my son. I told you so!

If the Gospel backing up your Roaring Mom Words of Wisdom isn't enough reason to say "I told you so", surely Jeff Goldblum is.

Roar On!

Failing Forward

Fail Forward! Have you ever heard those words?

Those words make me cringe. When I hear them, I always imagine myself tripping up the stairs in front of important people at a Black Tie affair, breaking my shoes, ripping my dress, tripping the host—that kind of thing. Going forward, yes. Even going up. But it is not pretty.

Who wants that kind of embarrassment? It would take days to get past the humiliation of the fall before you even began dealing with the I’m-a-loser mentality that inevitably comes along with the failure. And have you noticed that the I’m-a-loser mentality is a mental magnet. The moment you ponder one failure, the rest come rushing at you! It can go something like this:

I forgot the grocery list, so I came home without buying toilet paper.

I also forgot to buy Valentines for my kids’ classrooms.

I didn’t work out.

I ate a donut five donuts.

I forgot to pay that credit card bill from Christmas for presents everyone has already forgotten.

I haven’t taken down Christmas and it’s Valentine’s Day.

I burned dinner.

My hungry, Valentine-less children hate me.

I am Valentine-less, too.

I ate six donuts.

I’m going to die alone. And fat.

I am going to die and I haven’t yet made my will.

And I haven’t saved for retirement.

So there is nothing to will to anyone anyway.

I have to pee and there’s no toilet paper. 

I have failed at life.

See what I mean?

A wise man (AKA, my father, the wisest man I know) sees failure differently. He says that failure is the common thread to learning and knowledge. Failure to recognize failure is the common thread of fools. Failure is the first step to beginning again. The opportunity to begin again is one of God’s gifts. He says he knows this because of the number of opportunities available. A new year, a new month, a new week, a new day, a new hour, a new minute.

If failing, the opportunity to begin again, is one of God’s gifts, who am I to want or expect something different? Even if the opportunity comes with embarrassment and humiliation? If you think about it, who wouldn’t want the opportunity to begin again? I mean, if you got it right the first time, beginning again allows you to repeat the joy of a successful experience. If you got it wrong, of course you want a do-over!

So what if your kids assuage their hunger with half a dozen donuts and you spend the last of their tiny inheritance on delivery pizza. So what if they were the only kids that year with homemade Valentines. And so what if you discover that too much aloe-infused Kleenex can clog a toilet? The next day is a do-over. The next week. The next month. The next year.

God is good. Life is good. And so, it seems, is failure.

Fighting the Good Food Fight

We try. We really do. We understand our food obsession and we fight against it. And then most of the time, we fail.

I remember when I realized this food issue of ours might be a little more serious than I originally thought. I was watching one of those extreme weight loss shoes. The man on the show simply could not lose the weight. He was sabotaging himself with drive-throughs and doughnuts stores. In the end, they said he had a food addiction. Food addiction, they explained, was characterized by eating even when you're not hungry and continuing to eat past the point when you are full on a regular basis.

Uh-oh.

In our home when someone answers the question "Do you want something to eat?" with "No, I''m not hungry," it confounds us. Uh, since when do you have to be hungry to eat? And since when do you stop just because you are full?

But we do try.

There was the time I tried the cabbage diet: 7 days of cabbage soup. I like soup.

By Day 2, I was ready to eat my desk, I was so hungry.

So the Quiet and Calculating One thought she'd give it a try. Show mom how it's done, right?

She started on a Monday, which is consequently the day they return from their father's. That evening, she came home starving, with a side of food anger! I told her to have a bowl of her soup. She could eat as much as she wanted. She informed me she hadn't made the soup. Her dad didn't have the ingredients. So she'd eaten nothing all day because she wasn't supposed to eat anything but soup, and she didn't have any soup, so she ate nothing. Then the food anger kicked in, and she ate everything!

She lasted a bit longer when she decided to become a vegetarian because it was healthier. So I was confused when she picked all the veggies off her Jimmy John's veggie sandwich. She explained, she doesn't like veggies on her sandwiches. The next day, it was back to her usual #4 Turkey Tom.

The kid with the longest success rate is my Food Nazi daughter (and former peanut butter addict) who comes home from college and goes through the pantry describing every single noxious chemical in every single food item.She guilts us into eating nothing but bean sprouts and air--as long as the bean sprouts are organic--while she sneaks Jiff by the spoonful behind our backs!

We should all weigh 500 pounds. Luckily, we aren't afraid of exercise--even if we have been known to go the extra mile only so we can eat the extra cookie.

If there is something I've learned through our food trials, it's this: Life is too short to eat only bean sprouts and air, even organic ones. Also, I'm kinda glad there's a doughnut store on the way to the Y. It gives me incentive to go the extra mile!

There's No Feeling Sorry in Soccer

I almost can't watch NCAA March Madness or Superbowl or NBA Finals with my son anymore. He gets so mad at me. Inevitably, when it gets down to the final seconds, he'll turn to me. "Don't say it, mom! Do NOT say it! Don't say you feel sorry for the losing team."

I can't help myself. I do feel sorry for the losing team--even if the losing team just lost to the Jayhawks.

Yet, as much as I feel sorry for the losing team, I have yet to figure out how to parent losing. It's easier with my Drama Queen Daughters. When they don't get the part, it's easier to understand that maybe they didn't fit the "type". They were too tall, too short, too pretty. It's like this--an actress can be the most beautiful, most talented, most experienced blue puzzle piece on the planet, but if the director is looking for a yellow puzzle piece, she's not going to get the part. So they go on and find the director looking of the perfect blue puzzle piece. Not that there aren't Pity Parties. After all, what's a Drama Queen without her Pity Party?

The analogy doesn't work with athletes, though. When the buzzer sounds, one team was better than another. Period. That's it. Somebody loses and somebody wins. It doesn't matter what color your puzzle piece is. Somebody was clearly better than you.

So here's what happens when a Roaring Stage Mom tries to be Roaring Soccer Mom. Second Place Kid saunters to the side lines. Roaring Mom smiles. "You did great!" Dirty glare from Kid. "I'm so proud of you." More Dirty Glares. "I could tell you were giving it your all!" Huff and Glare. "You don't have any reason to hang your head." Finally, a verbal response, "Mom, we lost." As if Mom wasn't watching the game or something. "Yes, but YOU played great." Another, huffier response, "I don't want to talk about it!" Mom goes in for the hug. "Seriously, Mom!" Huff and Stomp Off.

I have probably spent twice as much time at soccer practices, games, tournaments, try-outs, conditionings as I have at theatre activities. You'd think I would have figured this out by now. No consolations for the Second Place Kid. No Pity Parties. No Puzzle Piece Analogies. No feeling sorry for the losing team. At least not immediately.

World Cup Champion Brandi Chastain, in her book It's Not About the Bra, says it's about finding balance. "One of the first things I learned about losing is not to overreact to the emotion of the moment." I've never been good at not overreacting to the emotion of the moment. I've cried in almost every darkened theatre my kids performed in and, more embarrassingly, on plenty of soccer sidelines as well. But my Soccer Kids rarely do--not on the sidelines. They celebrate victories and accept losses. Then they refocus, reload, and reclaim success as quickly as possible.

And if you think about it, that's what the Drama Queens do, too. It's the Roaring Moms who are left watching, helpless, from the wings--cheering, crying, praising, praying--win or lose. In fact, I think the Roaring Mom has the harder job.

So when the World Series rolls around this year, I won't tell my son I feel sorry for the losing team. I'll tell him I feel sorry for their Moms!