Facing My Own Fears

I woke up on Sunday morning super EARLY while the rest of my family slept a while longer. Our church service starts at 9:30 a.m., so there was plenty of time for me to jump on the computer for a while and work on some writing projects. I typed an hour away and then another before I jumped up to wake everyone up. It was too late for us to make it to our church, so I said we could go to a different church just south of us that starts at 10:30 a.m.

My husband was on board in spirit, but his flesh was tired. Another twenty minutes went by and my last hope to get to church would be yet another church's local service that starts at 11 a.m. I was determined to get there one way or another.

The boys had been up late the night before. My two teenagers were completely comatose and my three little guys were zonked. I told everyone that I would be leaving at twenty til eleven and all were welcome to join me. My sons, Joel and Adam (ages 12 and 10) said they didn't feel like going to church. I said, "Okay, you don't have to go. You can stay home and I want the laundry folded, the dishes put away, the table set for lunch and your rooms cleaned."

They decided to worship Jesus after all. Hmmmm. Ron and the other three were too pooped to "party" and normally, I would get really aggravated with that, but for whatever reason, I decided to trust that my marriage would stay together even if Ron skipped church one week and that my other three boys would stay out of prison despite their sleeping in on Sunday!

I got in the car with the other two "chore avoiding worshippers" and we headed to the church. I had been to this particular church a few times, but it was still somewhat unfamiliar to me. While driving, I called my husband back at home and asked him to go online to double check that I had the right time. I did.

This is a BIG church (5,000 plus people), and when we got there, the worship singing had just begun. I was greeted by an usher as he opened the door to let me in. I thought we were entering the back of the building, but these doors were on the side which meant we were entering into the second row. I NEVER sit in the front 25 rows of any church with my boys! UGH!

I filed into the row with Joel and Adam following me. We sang four or five songs and then the pastor came onto the stage to introduce a special guest speaker. It was Ryan Dobson, son of Dr. James Dobson. Ryan is an author and speaker who travels around to different churches teaching about Christ. About ten minutes into his presentation, Adam and Joel decided to fight over the church bulletin. Now what 10 and 12-year-old WANTS a bulletin? You couldn't give bulletins away on the school grounds to 10 and 12-year-olds.

Of course, the only reason either one of them wanted it was because the other one did too. They pulled on it until it ripped with a loud tearing sound. Embarrassed, and remembering why I NEVER sit in the first 25 rows of any church with my boys, I collected the two halves of the bulletin and shhhhed my boys.

When Ryan was finished, I thought I would go to the back table and buy his book. I hoped to get a chance to talk to him about writing and speaking since I'm looking for an agent for my book, UGH! The Joys of Raising Boys - Survival Stories from a Mother of Five Boys. I got in line and purchased a book and waited my turn to speak to Ryan and get him to sign the book. As I got closer, Joel and Adam continued to horse around. It didn't matter that I took the bulletin halves away, they found something else to squabble over. UGH!

So, I was very distracted and a bit intimidated. I wanted to ask Ryan if he might possibly be willing to read my book and give an endorsement. But, I didn't want to appear pretentious and the closer I got to the front of the line, the more anxious I became. I chickened out. Joel and Adam were driving me NUTS by this time and all I did was way "Hi, would you sign this?" and I handed him the copy of his book that I had just purchased.

It was pouring rain that day and I sent the boys out to the car ahead of me. I had a newly printed copy of my book in manuscript form sitting between the bucket seats of my mini-van with a note on it for my neighbor, Vivian. I was supposed to drop it off at her house after church.

One of the boys must have stepped on the book because there was a big muddy shoe print smack dab in the middle of it. UGH! "Who stepped on my book?" Once again, I got the usual "NOT ME." I hate that answer!

I decided that my fear of rejection was the reason that I chickened out in mentioning my book to Ryan. I decided to go back into the church with my muddy and wet manuscript tucked under my jacket (like it mattered at that point) and I got back into the line to see Ryan and this time, when I got up there, I said, "I'm so sorry Ryan, I was here before and I bought your book and I wanted to ask you a question, but chickened out because my boys were driving me nuts and we weren't supposed to be here anyway except that my entire family slept in TWICE this morning and this was my PLAN C option for worship and I didn't know that you were going to be here and I wrote a book about my boys and was wondering if you might possibly be willing to read it and endorse it because I would be so honored if you would. BREATH ALREADY!

He starred at me as I rambled on and nodded his head a bit. He was very approachable and during his talk, he mentioned about his little guy who is only 2 1/2 who likes to climb into the dryer and he also talked about his wife and how her mom passed away just before their son was born. His stories touched me because my mom passed away when my first two boys were babies and it was (and is) hard.

Ryan said that he can't give endorsements, but that he would be happy to read it. I was thrilled. "Okay," I said and I handed him a copy and told him that any feedback or advice he cared to give would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the moral of the story.....I almost let my fear of rejection get in the way of me asking for something. It's okay for me to get a "NO," but it's not okay for me not to ASK. As I move forward in the great big grown up world of writing and speaking, I need to just ASK and be okay with the answer.

What are you afraid to ASK for because you might get rejected? Do you realize that you stand rejected if you never ASK? JUST ASK!

The Power of Fear

I took three of my youngest sons to an indoor waterpark over Spring Break (which is no break at all if you ask me). We had two full days of splashing fun at CoCo Key Resort in Arlington Heights, IL, only about an hour drive from our home. My good friend Michelle and her two boys plus two more moms and their seven kids met us there.


It was great. The moms were planted in a corner with our swimsuits on, but neatly concealed under a layer of "cover-up". It was never our intention to swim anyway. We had reading material, but rarely looked at it as we chatted the hours away. The kids only came back to our corner when they needed money or to tell on someone.


Half way through our first day, my youngest son, Caleb (seven-years-old), came over to the mom table with his head down and looking like he just lost his puppy.


"What's the matter, Cae?" I asked him.


"I'm jealous."


"What are you jealous of?"


"My big brothers get to go on the fast slides and I don't." he said.


To that, I quickly redirected his thought process with, "You're not jealous, you're scared! If you want to go on the fast slides, there is nothing but your own fear that is stopping you. Face your fear and go down once. After that, if you don't like it, you don't ever have to do it again, but don't tell me your jealous." (My tone may appear a bit cold, but I call it "inspiring.")


Our mom table was located near the bottom of the fast slides where the people were spit out. I turned Caleb around and said, "Look in there. Do you see any dead people floating in the water? Do you see any blood? Arms and legs missing?"


"No," he said.


"Well, there you go. Then you don't have to worry about dying, losing a limb or getting bloody. If all these people are surviving the fast slide, chances are you will survive too. Be brave and just do it!"


"Maybe I will be brave tomorrow," he said and ran off to the stand under the giant bucket that was clanging indicating that it was about to dump.


That was the end of the fast slide conversation for the day. The next day, I took the boys to McDonalds for breakfast and then we returned to the waterpark for one more day of fun. Caleb was following behind me and my other two boys (Joel and Adam, ages 12 and 10 respectively) were in front of me hurrying to get us a table.


I had all but forgotten about Caleb and his jealous fears until he piped up with "Well, at least I won't die!" as we passed by the fast slides again. Then I remembered our previous conversation and encouraged him to get Joel to go with him.


Joel and Caleb headed up the long stairway to the entrance and stopped at the painted sign that said "You must be at least 48" tall to ride this attraction." Joel shoved Caleb's back up to the sign and placed his flat hand on top of his head.

"Yep, you can ride," Joel said.


Caleb looked nervous, but he followed behind his brother and the two of them waited in a long line of other brave souls. I stood at the spit out spot to get a picture. I looked at the kids in front of my boys and figured when I saw the slides spit them out, my boys would be next. I only took one picutre of a complete stranger. (Someone must have cut in line.)


Caleb had a blast and he faced his fears like a champion. I was so proud of him and he no longer had to feel jealous! When you think about it, fear is a powerful thing that can rob us of a lot of joy!

When I think about all the things I haven't said or haven't tried because I was afraid, I wonder how much I have robbed myself of over the years. I need to take my own advice and be brave and face my fears. Thanks Caleb for teaching Mom something new!!

The Easter Ham that Almost Wasn't

I spent twelve hours on the day before Easter cleaning the house, doing laundry, and preparing food so that I could finally have a holiday go off without a hitch. I grocery shopped (with a LIST) and actually planned a menu of ham (of course), green bean casserole, hash-brown casserole (BTW, Tater Tots DO NOT work as a substitute for the hash browns, so shop early-UGH!), strawberry jello, Italian pepperoni salad (my favorite and see recipe below), banana bars, and dinner rolls. I even planned and prepared in advance two appetizers of bacon wrapped water chestnuts and crock pot cheesy nacho dip.

I woke up early on Easter morning and turned on my crock pot and put my casserole side dishes in the oven. My oven has a setting where you can schedule it to turn on and off at a certain time. I have no idea how to set it, but my husband Ron does, so I had him schedule the oven to crank up right about half way through our church service. That way, the side dishes would be just about done when we got home.

My large electric roasting pan would serve as my second oven for the day. I pulled it out of the basement, rinsed it off, set the temperature to 300 degrees and proceeded to unwrap my ham. The ham had been thawing for three days in my refrigerator (it was a frozen ham that came from a whole pig that my dad bought from a farmer and had it butchered).

Unfortunately, unlike Jesus, even after three days, my ham did not rise from the dead. It WAS DEAD! I unwrapped it and discovered that it had a nasty freezer-burn. (I'd like to know who came up with the term freezer-burn. It just seems wrong that you can burn food in the freezer.) My ham was definitely burned, and pending another Easter miracle, it was headed to the bottom of my garbage can.

My morning was carefully scheduled and time was running out. If Ron and I were going to make it to church with the boys on time AND have an Easter dinner that included a ham, one of us would have to run to the grocery store (a fifteen minute ride to town from our house which is in the middle of nowhere.)

Ron volunteered to go while I showered and got ready for church. He is so much faster than I will ever be in a grocery store! He returned with the ham and I was dressed and had most of my make-up on, the rest could be done on the way. I got the ham into the roaster and we hurried the boys to comb hair, brush teeth, and get in the van. A last minute informal inspection of the boys Easter attire left me wishing I had noticed earlier that one of my boys was wearing a Chicago Bears shirt. I made a slight comment, but reminded myself that God is concerned with the heart and out the door we went. Go Bears!

We made it to church and had a wonderful time of worship. When we got home, we walked through the door and were greeted with a potpourri of aromas including that of baking ham, green bean casserole, and buttery Tater Tots with chopped onions that smelled better than they tasted, but I didn't know that at the time.

All of our family members grouped around the kitchen table and bowed to pray and thank God for His sacrifice and our celebration. We were especially mindful and thankful for the successful rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, the American captain of the Maersk Alabama merchant ship that was hijacked while carrying relief supplies to Mombasa, Kenya. Somehow, my Easter morning frustrations waned in the light of the heroic efforts of the brave Americans that were involved in the Maersk event at sea. What a perfect holiday!!

Italitan Pepperoni Salad

1 head romaine lettuce (washed and torn)

1 green pepper, sliced

6 hard-boiled eggs sliced

cherry tomatoes

1 can drained pitted black olives

2 teaspoons drained capers (usually located near the pickles in the grocery store)

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 oz pepperoni sausage, diced (use more if you are a real pepperoni lover)

4-6 slices of good quality white bread cut into 1/2 inch cubes

On a large platter, arrange lettuce, pepper slices, tomatoes, olives, and capers. This can be done artfully to impress the "Martha" in your life! Heat oil in non-stick skillet and cook pepperoni and bread together for a few minutes until bread is crisp and golden. Remove from skillet, drain and cool.

Serve with your favorite Italian dressing (we LOVE Newman's Own Olive Oil and Vinegar - YUM!) Also delicious with a red wine vinegar dressing or something homemade as long as it is vinegar and oil based, you're good.

You Kids are Driving Me Nuts! UGH!

Imagine what it is like to be the lone female living in a household of five sons and one husband. It's very much like living in a fraternity..........lots of farting, eating, breaking things and puking. Not to mention the bickering, fighting, rough housing, and towel twapping. I can honestly say that I don't ever remember a time when my girlfriends or my sister and I ever snapped each other with wet towels.

My boys go for blood! It's not a friendly game of tag, it's all out war, shield your eyes, someone is definitely going to get hurt. The towel snapping match usually ends with someone in tears, someone in time-out and me yelling "You kids are driving me NUTS!"

UGH! I say that a lot. And, it's true! They do drive me nuts.

I was the girliest girl on my block growing up. I played with dolls everyday. I had a suitcase filled with Barbies (Midge, Dawn, Malibu Barbie, my brother's GI Joe, the Sunshine family and of course, Ken, that hunk of plastic perfection) and I had a gorgeous three room pink Barbie house for my collection with furniture for every room. That was until Ronnie Cruz ran into it with his bike and broke the roof while his sister and I were having a nice afternoon of playing outside with our Barbies! That's a boy for you.

A few years ago I found myself saying "You kids are driving me nuts!" all the time to my boys. And, even though it's true, I didn't want them to blame themselves just in case the men in the white suits rang the doorbell. I wanted their memories of home to be somewhere in between the Osborne's and the Cleaver's - preferably closer to the Cleaver's. But let's be realistic, I don't think June ever ran outside, got into her car and kept driving until the crying stopped.

I decided one day that I would no longer say the words, "You kids are driving me nuts." I think I was secretly afraid that my continuous declaration of my pending insanity might make it so. I replaced those words with "This is very exciting!" Nothing else changed, only the words. I kept the tone, kept the level of intensity, but just changed the words. How hilarious!

The next time I entered a bedroom with the mattresses turned on one end leaning against the wall with one boy bounding down the "slide" and the other dumping all the clothes out of the dresser drawers to make stairs so he can do it to......I proclaimed to all the world "This is very exciting!" It was a true statement, just like the former one about going nuts. It was just funnier. Now my boys think I really am nuts! They can think what they want.

A Tornado Blew Them Away? UGH!

My fifth and youngest son, Caleb (age 7), came to me with a very concerned expression on his face, and I knew exactly what he was going to say. He had been upstairs watching some old videos with his brothers. My third son, Joel (age 12), was doing a science project on the Plainfield, IL tornado that hit in the summer of 1990. I told him that I had actual footage of the destruction because a very good friend of mine lost her house in that storm. He wanted to see it.

Joel got out an old box of video tapes, and before I knew it, my entire family was sitting around a 12" TV screen (it was the only one in the house with a working VCR). They watched the tornado, Nate (my firstborn and now 18-years-old) learning to walk, Joel and Adam (my fourth son, now age 10) when they were still in diapers. For some reason, there were no tapes of Luke (our second son who is now 17), but I think there are tapes of him somewhere, they just weren't in that box for some reason.

Caleb is another story. I regret to say, I do not have any videos of Caleb. I barely have any pictures of the poor boy. When he was born, I had four active boys to care for and they were ages 11, 10, 4, and 2. My husband Ron and I had just started to build a new house out in the country that we were doing a lot of the work on ourselves, and we had sold the home we lived in and were temporarily living with family. The boys and I had moved a hundred miles away to stay with my dad for the summer. Ron moved in with his dad and step-mom because they lived close to his work.

I barely had the resources to maintain my sanity let alone worry about video taping any portion of my life at that time. We are all blessed to have survived. My dad had a tiny house (under a thousand square feet) and he had been a widower at that time for nearly a decade. He certainly wasn't accustomed to five boys circling an endless trail of Matchbox cars around his feet.

I remember once when I had taken the boys to the grocery store while staying with my dad, and my son Joel (four-years-old at the time) was struggling to bring in a gallon of milk. It looked nearly as big as he was, and I could see that he was about to lose it. Too late. I was holding Caleb who was a newborn, and I had three or four plastic grocery bags around my wrist cutting off the blood supply to the fingers. Thump, gush, and glug, glug, glug, every ounce of milk came crashing to the floor and was immediately absorbed in the dining room rug. UGH!

My dad slept in the garage that night.

Thankfully, his dining room had wood floors and we were able to quickly get the area rug out of the house and sop up the milk before it damaged the floors. The rug was thoroughly rinsed and left outside on the deck to dry.

Fast-forward seven years to 2009 and little Caleb with his question about where the video tapes are of him. Well, I was VERY tempted to tell him that we had lots and lots of tapes of him, but a big bad tornado came and swept them all away. But, instead, I told him that we will make some new tapes of him now that we can look back on sometime down the road. I better stick to my promise and dust off our video camera!!

Caleb didn't look very satisfied with my answer, but all I can do is trust that he will understand someday when he becomes a parent. I was the baby in my family too and there weren't many pictures of me. I get it now!

Mother Guilt

I recently suffered a huge case of "MOTHER GUILT". My husband Ron and I decided to take our two oldest sons (Nate and Luke ages 18 and 17) on a long weekend trip to Florida to visit Grandma and Grandpa (who decided that they had had enough of the Chicago winters, so they up and moved about an hour north of Orlando).

Well, we got a great deal on flights and we had free points for a hotel near Disney, so we booked it. We decided to leave our three youngest sons (Joel, Adam, and Caleb ages 12, soon-to-be 10 and 7) at home so that we could have one last time together with the older boys before they are off to college and work and the real world.

We were sort of pigeon-holed into booking our trip over Martin Luther King weekend so that Luke wouldn't miss too much school. But, that meant that we would be leaving on our son Adam's 10Th birthday.

The "MOTHER GUILT" set in right away. As soon as my husband finalized the itinerary and clicked SEND, I started to feel guilty! I promised Adam we would make up for it. The week before Adam's birthday, I took him and our seven-year-old son, Caleb, to Chuck E. Cheese's on a Saturday night, and it was a packed house. But, I promised! Two hours and about 200 tokens later, I left Chuck's with two very sweaty boys with plastic spider rings and a foam airplane (that broke in the car - UGH!)

The day before our trip, Caleb came down with a terrible fever and flu (come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if he picked up some sort of germ at Chuck E's). I took him to the doctor because Luke had had Strep throat the previous week and I thought Caleb might have gotten Strep too. Our doctor said it wasn't Strep, but rather the flu, and he prescribed medicine and lots of fluids and rest.

We left his office and stopped at Osco Pharmacy on the way home. I gave the pharmacy the prescription and proceeded to fill my cart with Popsicles, ice cream, Gatorade and water. I wanted to make sure that Caleb had everything he needed while we were gone. (OMGosh, THE MOTHER GUILT IS GETTING WORSE!)

I didn't have any time to buy Adam a birthday present because I was so busy getting ready for the trip and taking care of Caleb. (More MOTHER GUILT SETTING IN!) I quickly browsed the "toy" aisle in the pharmacy to see if they had anything decent. Was I kidding myself? A CHECKERS game? A lame action figure? A deck of cards?

I ended up buying Adam a box of Fruity Pebbles for his birthday. He loves Fruity Pebbles and I never buy sugar cereal for the boys. I used to, but then Caleb started bouncing off of walls and sugar had to be banned. So, it was a forced decision and not an easy one, but my MOTHER GUILT had the better of me and I bought the Fruity Pebbles.

Caleb was miserable! He could barely open his eyes and he was terribly weak.

My brother-in-law was supposed to come to our house to babysit while we were in Florida, but when we called him, he was in Wisconsin (nine hour drive from us) and he FORGOT about agreeing to babysit. And, on top of that, HE was sick.

I had to find a sub and quick. I called my next door neighbor. Cathrine and I are close friends, and I had recently watched her little girl who had the stomach flu, and it didn't bother me a bit, so I figured I could at least ask. She agreed to watch the boys.

Poor Caleb couldn't even walk down the stairs to go next door. He hadn't had a bath in two days and he was in the same PJ's too.

So there we were, leaving for Disney World on Adam's birthday with Caleb clinging to life with a fever of 105 degrees and dropping them off at the neighbor's house. Thank goodness, Joel didn't seem phased by the whole thing.

On the way to the airport a rock hit and cracked our windshield. UGH! MORE GUILT!

We got to the airport and checked our bags, went through a very long security line and grabbed some grub before we found a place to plop at our gate. Ron, Nate, Luke and I inhaled some McDonald's and we were ready to go.

It started to rain. It was February 26 in Chicago and the weather had been pretty warm for February. An announcement came over the loud speaker informing us that our aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Indianapolis and we would be delayed.

One hour passed, then two hours, then three. Then I noticed a mom traveling with a young girl who looked like she was about Caleb's age. One of the employees for the airline came over to the mom and told her that the flight was full, and there were not two seats together for them. The employee said he would do what he could, but there was no guarantee that mom and daughter could sit together.

Over my dead body will I let one more mother feel one more ounce of MOTHER GUILT tonight, I thought to myself. I got up and walked over to the mom and introduced myself.

"Hi, I'm Tracy and I overheard your conversation (sorry) and I just want you to know that we will give you two of our seats so that you and your daughter can sit next to each other on the plane. Is that okay?"

The mom was very appreciative and that's all it took to rid my heart of MOTHER GUILT. I knew that Caleb was in the capable hands of my friend and neighbor and I was able to help another mom with her situation and as the world turns, we mom's stick together!!

Pulling Myself Together

I went to JC Penney's the other day looking for a pair of orange shoes, (which I found) and in my usual ADD style, I wandered over to the misses department to see if I could find an orange top. I decided that my winter wardrobe needed an injection of color and orange was it. I circled a half dozen racks, and found a half dozen tops, and headed for the fitting room. I hate mirrors in fitting rooms!

I took off my dull grey jacket with white blouse, and before I slipped on a bright orange cotton sweater, I caught my image in the mirror, and out came an UGH! I dropped the sweater and ran my thumbs under each bra strap and gave about a 4" lift. There! That's much better, I thought. The piped in music in the fitting room was interrupted by a pleasant woman's voice who said, "Ladies, our intimates department is featuring BUY ONE GET ONE HALF OFF today on all of our bras. Stop by to have one of our Certified Bra Specialists give you a custom fitted look." I said, "Is that YOU God?"

I quickly got dressed and headed right over there.I walked up to the counter where two employees were busy helping other women who were also looking for a way to lift their spirits. One tipped her head up, smiled, and said, "Can I help you?" "I heard the voice of an angel on the innercom say something about bra fittings. Am I in the right place?" I asked."You bet! I'll be right with you," she said as she thanked a customer and handed her a bag.

"Hi Tracy," the woman with the bag said. It was a friend of mine from church. "Lisa! Did you get fitted too?" We chatted for a moment and agreed that women should get bra fittings every six months or so. I made a mental note to remind myself every time I go to the dentist for a cleaning, schedule a bra fitting. Lisa left looking happy with her purchase and I headed to the fitting room with a lovely woman named Deanne who had a seamstresses tape measure draped around her neck.

Deanne asked me to remove my jacket and raise my arms. She took two measurements, one right under my bust line and one smack dab in the middle. Deanne and I were now gal pals. I couldn't believe it when she said my size. It was a full cup and number size larger than I had been wearing for twenty years.

"Are you sure you measured right?" I asked my new BFF? "I'll be right back," she said. Deanne came back with three bras in my new impressive size while I was still trying to wrap my brain around how this happened. I remembered my junior high days of training bras and tube socks rolled in them and wondering if God forgot about me since my older sister seemed to have all the Pamela Anderson genes in the family. I hated being a nearly B.

To my amazement, the new bras actually fit. I think it had something to do with the expansion program that my hips and thighs have been on for the past fifteen years. The 'movement' had an effect on my upper half too. It reminded me of a tube of toothpaste that has been squeezed from all different directions. When you start at the bottom of the tube and push all that misplaced paste toward the top, "Shazam! You have about a month's worth of tooth brushing left in there!"

I wasn't sure if I should feel good or not about my new shapely shape. I quickly told my "43-year-old-AND-five-baby-birthing-machine-self" to rejoice in a new day, and thank God for the many mercies He offers. I took four bras up to the cash register and thought about asking Deanne if she could recommend a comfortable girdle, but decided to go with the comfort of the all spandex full briefs. Thanks Deanne! You made me feel okay about being over 40 and a little bit fuller than average! And thanks for helping me 'Pull Myself Together!'