A Different Royal Dress

Okay, so we're not the Royal Family and we're not into a wedding just yet, but Adrienne does have her first communion on Sunday. And that certainly had the two of us a little white dress crazy for ahwile. What she picked is beautiful. However, I should admit up front that the dress is more "mini-bride" than "first communicant."

I wasn't raised Catholic, so this shouldn't matter to me, but for some reason, I'm fretting (which is not something I normally do) over the merits of a traditional dress versus one that is not.

Adrienne is no Kate Middleton in age or circumstance, but I used the Royal Extravaganca this morning to make one last ditch effort at expressing my opinion about the importance of the appropriateness of dress. I said to Adrienne: "Isn't Princess Kate understated yet, elegant?" Adrienne stuck her tongue out at me and made a face, with no clue of my inner struggles.

Although there are plenty of age-appropriate options in stores and online, there are just enough dresses with that “new,” “more adult” look that little girls feel tempted away from "old school" and totally enticed by a red carpet worthy option.

Do I need to tell you that everything available for third grade girls is styled above their age range, to begin with. I didn’t have a prayer getting Adrienne to wear a tea length with cap sleeves and a round neck (i.e. TRADITIONAL COMMUNION DRESS!!! Exhibit A).

Adrienne and her sense of style comes to her honestly (see last blog post where I say it's better to look like you know what you’re doing than to actually know, and I think you'll agree that type of person would surely birth an offspring with the same world view). She sees what she likes and that's it, there's no changing her mind. I should have expected she would want a communion dress that would be more modern and especially would want one with a little Hollywood flair.

But with all that said, I present to you Exhibit B—the white flower girl ensemble that Adrienne wanted. And forgive me Father, but Exhibit B is what I bought (despite my misgivings) and what Adrienne will be wearing.

In all fairness, it’s not that I don’t agree with her dress. There will be other girls in long, less traditional frocks. And the school and church will take care of keeping the traditions of the ceremony to the traditions of the ceremony. It’s not like choosing a more modern dress makes her communion any different…

It’s just that I’m struggling with family traditions right now--how to make them memorable for my kids. And let's be honest, my irrational concerns over the appropriateness of the dress are really more about the stress of the day.

My parents will travel from Indianapolis, but my dad more than likely won’t go to the church (he didn’t go to Andrew’s two years ago; he watched baseball in the living room). When services are over, he and my mom will bolt out the door like the house is on fire, more than likely passing on the meal that I planned and shopped for this morning. So, left will be Eric’s mom , and sister (along with sister’s child that seems to have a multitude of developmental delays that make him prone to wrecking the kids’ LEGO town painstakingly built and displayed in the basement; In the last week the LEGO town was just restored to the glory it enjoyed before his last visit of destruction at Christmas).

It’s not that we have issues with Eric’s mom, sister and sister’s child, it’s just that we have a very superficial relationship based on two or three visits a year where conversation is just as superficial. There is no depth, only duty.

So, when Adrienne asked for a big party for her communion, “like all the other girls,” I got a headache thinking about what a “party” at our house might be like--especially compared to the huge gatherings and extended family celebrations that her classmates will have.

It is for this reason I let Adrienne get the mini bride dress and the clear “high heels” and the crown for the “up-do” I’ll create out of her hair.

But the lesson that I've learned from this is one that I teach my students: "We only know what we know." That might seem a little rudimentary and simplistic, but it's actually based off of Plato (the ancienty Greek philosopher) who tells us that we are easily shielded from seeing everything in the world. We have to try to make sense of it all.

So here's what I know, on Sunday, Adrienne won’t care if it’s raining or only 46 degrees. She won’t care if the skies are gray or if Poppa stays home to watch baseball. She won’t recognize the superficial conversations or the headache I will surely have. She won't miss my parents at the dinner following the services. The only thing she will know and acknowledge is that her mommy bought her the dress she wanted. She’ll feel good about herself and THAT is what tradition is made of, and THAT is what she will remember.

When I frame it that way, traditional dress versus non traditional dress makes no difference. Adrienne as happy girl... priceless.

Enough already! Part II

Dear Robin,
Here I sit, looking out to another crappy day in Chicagoland--high 42, rainy, windy, and gray.

An interesting tidbit of information that may shed light (for a Southerner like you) on the severity of this nasty, awful, persistent weather is that our outside cat, who LOVES the outside, won’t even go outside. She paces around the front door, but when I open it for her, she sniffs the air then turns around, slinking (low to the ground in disgust, I might add) in the other direction, in favor of spending the afternoon in a comfortable chair in my closet ( get it? INSIDE the house, NOT OUTSIDE where she loves and belongs). Good grief…

A few weeks ago, when the local news predicted warmer, dryer temps, but Mother Nature remained stubbornly cold and rainy, I consoled myself with a double whammy “spring” shopping spree, thinking the rush of endorphins would last until the weather broke.

I started on-line with two pairs of wedge sandals, two dresses (decidedly shorter and more “spring-like” in both fabric and design) and a few short-sleeved cardigans from Nordstrom.

After a brief workout and a lunch that undid the workout, I went to a local boutique and bought two pairs of jeans and a half dozen short sleeved shirts.

It made me happy for a day or two, until the weather persisted and everything just hung in my closet lifelessly with the tags weighing it all down, making it feel like an incredible waste of effort and money--a quick fix that didn’t bridge the gap to anything.

Ultimately, I rationalized the whole thing with the idea that it had to get warmer AND when it did, I would wear these cute things to class, making me a very professional-looking professor, even in the spring. So on the days when I’m feeling less than scholarly and less than qualified to do my job, I would at least look the part. My dad always taught me that looking like you know what you’re doing is sometimes just as good as actually knowing. This idea has saved me more than a handful of times from various predicaments—scholarly and otherwise.

But you know where this is going—I haven’t had the chance to wear any of it AND MY SEMESTER ENDS NEXT WEEK!! And after my semester, where in the heck will I wear these “professional” looking items? Once I’m done with class, I spend my mornings at the gym and my afternoons taxi-ing my kids around—most days in the same yoga pants and tank top I started out in. It gives me a headache to even think about it. And so to Mother Nature, in my loudest outside voice, I say, yet again, Enough Already!!

Enough already!

I am literally waiting for animals, two by two, to start organizing in my neighborhood. It has rained for more than 16 consecutive days. Yesterday, while walking on campus, it even downpoured when the sun was out, although that was only for a minute or two before the sky went drab and gray again.

That's my house, blending into the background of leafless trees.

Only three more classroom days left in my semester. Only 30 school days left for the kids. I'm just wondering: will we ever get any sunshine? Will we ever get a day warmer than 46 degrees, up here in the tundra off of Lake Michigan? Just curious.

Ironic

I was raised by hippies--never baptized, never schooled on any faith tradition, just left to my own devices for religious practice and education.

It’s ironic to me that as a college professor, at a private, Lutheran university, for a brief part of my semester, I teach the Harper Collins Study Bible—selections from Genesis, the Gospels, Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians, First John, Song of Songs, and the Book of Ruth.

Sometimes I feel self-conscious about my lack of childhood experience with Sunday School—especially in a crowd where these kids never missed a day. Maybe dad was the Pastor or mom directed the choir. That’s par for the course at Valpo. I’m definitely a new experience for them.

But my class is a freshman seminar where experience or lack of it (even for the teacher) is what it’s all about. So, I’m truthful about my hippie parents raising me in a Catholic neighborhood. I get a laugh when I tell the students how I was the only kid on my street that actually wanted to go to Mass on Sunday. Or especially when I tell them how I learned the Lord’s Prayer (from a Gideon Bible I stole from a Days Inn) under the covers with a flashlight because I didn’t want my parents to know but I couldn’t stand for my friends to think I wasn’t like them.

My students seem to like the fact that I am so different from the Lutheran homes in which most of them come from. They nod their heads in amusement when I talk about the friends that could never play on Sundays—how, instead, they had to dress up in fancy clothes, report to family meals at grandma’s or some uppity brunch restaurant.
On the flip side, they have no idea how alienating it was to be the only family who devoted Sundays to yard work, or to be the only girl without patent leather maryjanes. They can’t even fathom it, so they sit on the edge of their seats and they soak in every word—wondering how their lives might have been different if they had such a chance to skip out on Sunday obligations. Their own fantasies of my past reality give my tales an elevated level of interest.

But then I deliver the buzz kill by telling them I was married in a Catholic church and that my children attend Catholic school. Their eyes shift back to their bibles, their postures slump back down to normal. They’re disappointed in the fact that my Sundays in cut-off shorts and flip flops no longer live on.

But here’s the God’s honest truth: even in this pseudo-Catholic skin I’m in with a husband and children who belong, I can’t get used to Mass, especially on Easter Sunday. It’s too crowded. There’s no place to park, there’s no place to sit when you get inside. No matter what’s happening during services, I can’t help but sit in the pew and wish I was wearing yoga pants and a tank top, deadheading flowers in my yard, or reading a good book on the porch. Sometimes, I see myself as a 5th grade girl sitting on the front steps of my childhood home, wishing for the chance to go church and I smile at the irony of life.

State of the Union

When I asked Eric and the kids to choose a picture that could be characterized as the best representation of our family, they chose this one.

Although it was taken nearly five years ago, the action and emotion are "totally us." We were at Kings Island, outside of Cincinnati. It was the first year that Andrew was tall enough to ride all the big roller coasters and Adrienne was old enough to hang with us all day. The coaster we are on was called The Scooby-Doo when I was a kid. But updated with Nickelodeon themes, it's now the Fairly Odd Parents. It's a good starter coaster because in it's wooden track, it's bumpy and fast, and produces a decent adrenaline rush. But best of all, the camera for the "memory photos" is totally visible. And as you can see, we all take full advantage of the chance to show off our personality when having fun.

We rode this coaster close to 25 times (yes, in one day) and I think we bought 11 of the pictures. Each time we spent $9 on a photo, we knew it was ridiculously expensive and probably a waste of money, but it was just so fun!! I mean, really fun!! I guess that tells a lot about who we are as a family. If we're all in it together, with the same investment... well, we go with it. We are definitely an "All for one and one for all!" kind of musketeer-type family.

That was us then, but it's still us now. Adrienne is 9. She's finishing 3rd grade. Andrew is 11 and just about done with his time at St. Paul Catholic School. He'll switch to the public middle school in August which right now, is front and center in our lives. We're all waiting on pins and needles for the word about whether or not he qualified for the honors tract. He took a math and english test a few weeks back, but I think his results were mediocre. I'm sure I'll talk more about it later because there are so many schools of thought about how much to push kids in these early years and how much its best to just leave them to find their own way. So for now, I'm leaving it up to the 6th grade team of teachers to make the decision.

Like most families, the kids' activities dictate most of our lives. Adrienne plays piano and does gymnastics. Andrew runs cross country and track and plays basketball. Both kids also do Kumon, an after-school math and reading program.

As far as any other backstory? I'm not sure... Eric and I are still lovebirds. His practice has grown--which is good for the retirement account but sometimes not so good for cortisol levels (the stress hormone). He has a love/hate relationship with it. I love my job teaching on most days. My only frustrations are when students don't read or they don't engage in class discussions. I like doing both of those things and so of course, I want all the kids in my class to do the same thing!

As I find my voice and my story, I don't know if those things will be relevant or necessary to know or not. I guess we'll see...

In the meantime, I'm glad to be here on this page and I'm glad to be back in contact with you. I plan to post on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. So, until next time...

An Invitation

Dear Robin,
Hi. It’s me. I know it’s been years ...
The idea of writing to you again has been floating around in my head for nearly a year. But between track practice, gymnastics, basketball, and piano, or laundry and dinner, or reading and planning for class, the idea that “I’ll get to it tomorrow” turns into next week or next month when track season is over or my student portfolios are graded. But when I get to tomorrow or next week or next month, there’s always a new set of things waiting for me, leaving the idea of “letters to Robin” tucked away for “some day.”

But lately, “writing letters to Robin” has been so prevalent and immediate that I do it in my head each morning. In that brief moment when I’m just awake, but not yet ready to get out of bed, I compose letters to you about what we’ve been doing in the Hein House. Sometimes I tell you why I loved my students (or hated my students), about Andrew’s “girlfriend,” or what Adrienne said when we had to have one of our cats put down.

I don’t know why, while lying in my bed, I get such a clear vision of you at your mailbox followed by fragments of story. For whatever reason, you seem to be a muse of some sort. Or maybe the whole thing is logical and it’s just the universe showing me the way. Here’s what I mean:

A few months ago Eric challenged me to finally write the book I’ve talked about writing for years. He’s tired of me complaining about wanting to be a writer, but never writing. And he’s tired of me whining about bloggers that get book contracts and how I always say, “someday…I’ll get to it someday.” He says I’m all excuses and no action and that if I took action magic surely would happen.

In the past when he’s said this to me, I’ve tried to explain to him that although I’ve always talked about writing a book, I don’t really have a clear idea of what that book would be about.

His response has been “just start writing and I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

My response to that has been, “It doesn’t work that way! Writers usually know the story they want to tell before they start writing the story. Duh! ”

But lately I’ve had to admit to myself that I’ve been trying to figure out my story for about twenty years now. And that is just pitiful. So Eric is right…
And actually, what Eric has been telling me is what I tell my own students. In the composition course I teach at Valparaiso University, I tell my class, “Just get started with something and keep writing, the bigger picture will eventually emerge. Trust the process.”

After a two year hiatus from writing (in favor of teaching and reading student writing), I need my own place to get started, a place where the bigger picture will eventually emerge. And you’re the only person I could think of who might care to read my ramblings. Or better yet, might get a kick out of them. And in some strange way, your showing up in my foggy morning brain at some fictitious mailbox convinces me that you’re part of the plan. So I’ll be here once a week with a story of some sort, a thought, a memory, a rant, or a rave. I don’t know what will happen, but I do know it’s time to get started. I hope you’re in.