Before church this morning

Climb mountain with tiny steps (and a list)

From today's Briefing:

Every May, it’s the same old story.

Events stack up, crowding our calendar. There are double, sometimes triple bookings for meetings, parties, rehearsals, recitals.

Some of those require advance work — like the two receptions I’m helping with this week. It’s not difficult to gather tablecloths and pretty napkins, flowers and cookies, but it’s time consuming on top of everything else going on.

Some require help from others — like Friday, when Katie is attending the elementary school sock hop and Cooper is playing in the middle school band concert. They both begin at 6:30 p.m. Katie will be dancing the night away under supervision of a dear friend while I’m sitting in an auditorium to listen to “A Freaky Fantasy” and other catchy tunes.

I was feeling particularly overwhelmed Monday morning. I should have been focused on a complex work project, but my mind couldn’t let go of the mountain of tasks waiting for me after hours.

I took a short break and made a giant master list of the week ahead, organized by category, with bullet points under each heading.

No task was too small for the list. After the entire page was filled with action items, I no longer felt overwhelmed. I was relieved to see tiny attainable steps leading to bigger goals.

It’s the same with the world’s woes. And it happens year-round. I’m easily overwhelmed by poverty, injustice, hunger, disease.

When I’m overwhelmed, paralysis creeps in. I can’t possibly solve all the world’s problems. Or even one of them. From there, I’m one small backward step from “Why bother?”

But one small forward step leads to hope. And to get there, I make a list, then attack that list one task at a time.

This year, Cooper, Katie and I have set aside a small amount of money from our monthly budget to donate to nonprofits that are meaningful to us. Every few weeks, we talk about people who need help. I do a little research. Then we vote on where to send our money.

Our priorities have been focused on health care, education and nutrition. We pay special attention to children — no doubt because two of the three members of the bloc are children.

We’ve supported the North Texas Food Bank and Frisco Family Services because we want hungry people to have access to healthy food.

We’ve sent money to Children’s Medical Center Dallas because Steve, my late husband and Cooper and Katie’s daddy, worked there for the final nine years of his life. He was passionate about quality health care for children — all children, regardless of how much money their parents earned.

We’ve donated to Faith Presbyterian Hospice, the folks who helped care for Steve in his final weeks, because we know how important it is for loved ones to say goodbye with peace and dignity.

We’ve given a little money to a classroom in Little Elm, so that first-graders would have books to read.

Our modest gifts won’t end world hunger or cure diseases or solve illiteracy troubles. But we’re taking tiny steps toward hope. We’ve got faith that people all around us are taking similar steps and that a few are making huge leaps. We’ve got faith that others are doing more than donating money — they’re devoting time and talents to solve some overwhelming problems.

It’s easy to complain this time of year about too much going on, not enough time to fit it all in. I suspect I’ll always grumble a little in May. At the same time, my family sure is fortunate to be overwhelmed by celebrations. To be healthy and well fed. To lack for nothing we truly need.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. Email her at tyradamm@gmail.com.

Three Billy Goats Gruff

Each year Frisco hosts the Lone Star Storytelling Festival. The event features national and regional storytellers plus a few students.

Katie chose to audition for this year's festival, scheduled for October. We don't know yet if she was accepted, but I want to share her audition video.

This was the seventh or eighth take. In the previous recordings, she would freeze or laugh or Margie would bark. She was happy this version.

Before Sunday school this morning

These soundbites pack a mouthful

From today's Briefing:

At home I cycle through sound bites, depending on the current state of affairs.

“Make good choices.” This catchall is especially helpful when children are walking out the front door or walking in to the school building. It’s an umbrella statement, designed to cover the basics of safety and respect. It means use kind words, think before you react, follow the rules, apply wisdom to decisions.

“I am not a servant.” This is used when towels are left on the bathroom floor or dishes on the kitchen table. It’s shorthand for a much longer diatribe that addresses responsibility, cleanliness and gratitude.

“We are a team.” This is a handy phrase when one child doesn’t want to fold socks that belong to others or put away clean towels in all the bathrooms. It’s also good for explaining to one child the necessity of small sacrifices of time or money in support of the other.

“You get out what you put in.” This phrase is in heavy rotation. It’s helpful for explaining why we study for spelling tests and vocabulary quizzes, why practicing an instrument daily makes you better, why we invest in relationships.

Over the weekend, both Cooper and Katie experienced the joy of reaping rewards from hard work.

Cooper was recently selected as a candidate for Order of the Arrow, an honor society of the Boy Scouts of America that recognizes Scouts who exemplify the group’s oath and laws.

Cooper is serious about Boy Scouts. He rarely misses weekly meetings. He’s reluctantly missed just a few camping weekends because of conflicts. He works with a Cub Scout troop as a mentor. He spends free time at merit badge classes.

Being tapped for Order of the Arrow is an honor, but that’s just the beginning. Last weekend, he and a bunch of other candidates camped in less-than-ideal conditions. They remained silent, ate little food and performed manual labor to improve the campsite.

He arrived home Sunday morning dirty, exhausted and genuinely happy. He had survived the Ordeal (the descriptive name of the weekend) and was inducted into the Order of the Arrow.

He didn’t have much time to rest after camping. He unpacked, cleaned up and joined the rest of the family for Katie’s first violin recital.

Katie started violin lessons in January. She’s practiced almost every day since. (You can’t possibly understand the meaning of the word “squeaky” until you’ve heard a beginning 7-year-old violin student practice every day for four months.)

She began by learning to stand and hold the instrument, tucked between her chin and shoulder. Then she learned to pluck the strings. Then she learned how to hold the bow. Then, finally, she learned how to hold her fingers and move the bow along the strings to make the strings sing.

We have heard “Old McDonald Had a Farm” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” more times than I can count.

On Sunday, she stood in front of a friendly audience, bowed and played both songs with practiced precision. There was a little bit of squeak, but it was her smoothest performance yet.

She smiled slightly as she bowed again, returned to her seat and beamed, buoyed by pride from a job well done, after weeks and weeks of dedicated work.

“I’m proud of you.” I try to remember to use those words at every bedtime. It’s what I say when they’ve brought home quality work. They are the words du jour when they’ve made good choices, acted like team players and worked hard to accomplish goals. It’s one of my favorite sound bites, and I don’t think it can be overused.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at tyradamm@ gmail.com.

Coop, just after arriving home Sunday from his OA Ordeal

10 Things You Should Know about Katie

Katie is student of the week (a designation that rotates throughout the class all school year). She's prepared a poster about herself and has packed five items for weeklong show-and-tell. I've written a letter about Katie for the class, a tradition at Bledsoe for second grade.

Steve and I wrote a letter for Cooper four years ago, when he was in second grade. (Read it here.) Even now he talks about the letter and how many of the details he remembers. 

For this letter, I'm on my own, of course. I think that Steve would agree with everything here, though. 

***

Katie is creative. She’s almost always in the middle of a project at home. She likes to write stories, draw pictures, invent skits and plays, create sculpture, make her own books and more.

Katie is a poet. She likes to rhyme. She has a gift for using language to express the beauty of the world around her. Here are some of the phrases that remind me that she is a poet:

“If you're afraid of making mistakes, all you'll do is pretty much stand still.”

“People never run out of love. Love is everywhere in our bodies.”

“It's OK to be different. Everyone had a different path in life.”

“It's weird to think that baby seals start out so cute and then they grow up and eat cute penguins.”

Katie is musical. She loves to sing, play violin and dance.

Katie is adventurous. We have been lucky enough to travel all over the United States and even to Europe and Canada. She always has a good attitude about trying new things, such as riding a horse in the mountains of Colorado, kayaking in the Broad River in South Carolina, and parasailing over the Gulf of Mexico in Florida.

Katie likes to learn about words and languages. She often asks about the origin of words. She easily picks up phrases from foreign languages. She can ask “Where is the Eiffel Tower?” in French just like a native speaker. And she can roll the letter “R” to speak Spanish words beautifully.

Katie loves to help others. She is often seeking ways to raise money to give away. Last Christmas, she made and packaged homemade hot chocolate mix to sell. The year before, she sold her supply of jingle bells and puff balls. She donated all the money to help feed malnourished children in undeveloped countries.

Katie has big plans for her life. She’s been thinking of what she wants to be when she grows up almost her whole life. So far her list has included archeologist, teacher, marine biologist, zoologist and artist.

Katie loves the beach. She loves to jump the waves, dig in the sand and search for treasures. Her dream is to one day live in a cottage near the water in California or Florida.

Katie loves to read. She often wakes up early and stays in bed to read. At night we often read books together, like Harry Potter, The Secret Garden, Ballet Shoes and The Penderwicks.

Katie is faithful. She has had some sad things happen in her life, but she remains positive and cheerful. She knows that God loves her, and she is eager to share that love with others. 

'Single mom' is a way of life, not just a label

From today's Briefing:

In general, dads don’t require a qualifier.

We moms, on the other hand, take our labels seriously: stay-at-home mom, working mom, work-from-home mom, single mom, full-time mom (the most pejorative of them all, with its implication that moms who work outside the home are somehow part-time moms).

Last month, Michelle Obama called herself a “busy single mother” during a television interview. She quickly corrected herself, stating the obvious, that she is married but that being married to the president makes her sometimes feel like a single mom.

Many of you can relate, right? Your husband travels for work, often leaving you responsible for the kids, the house and yard, carpools, discipline, shopping, logistics — often on top of your own job or volunteer activities.

Or your husband goes on a hunting/ gambling/fishing trip with the guys, and you tell your friends that you’re a single mom for the weekend.

This drives me kind of crazy. It has ever since I became a single mom. The Obama slip has forced me to evaluate why.

First, I’m a stickler for precise word choice. “Single” in this case means unmarried. If you are married, you can’t be single.

Second, “single mom” is code for so much more than unmarried.

It means one person shouldering responsibility all the time. There’s no relief in sight at the end of the day or week or month.

When the air-conditioner needs to be repaired and then inspected and then repaired again, there’s only one adult to take off from work and hang out at the house. There’s only one adult with the ability to earn the money to pay for all that repairing.

When a child breaks a rule and you’ve run out of ideas on how to help that child follow the rule, there’s no temporarily distant spouse to text, call or Skype for advice or venting. There’s no tag-teaming at bedtime or on days when you’re ill.

The whole experience can be emotionally, physically and mentally exhausting.

Why can’t all you married moms let us single moms — more than 10 million in the United States — have our label?

Maybe because motherhood isn’t a competition.

Strip away the adjectives, and we’re all simply moms. We’re all charged with raising, nurturing, loving, encouraging, disciplining, praising, shaping, challenging, rewarding, growing these little humans into big, responsible, compassionate humans.

Yes, my experience can be tough, but so it is for every other mom, married or single, no matter if “work” is in an office or in the kitchen.

We are all at risk of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion because we pour so much of our souls into theirs. We worry about their choices from the moment they show the ability to move independently from us. We second-guess ourselves. We hold on too long. We struggle to let go, to let them grow.

We are fiercely proud and protective of our people.

I wish we could all agree to drop the labels, to stop trying to “win” the contest of who’s got the most difficult mom job. (Who’s judging that contest, anyway?)

In this week leading to Mother’s Day, I’m working on letting go of irritation toward women who borrow a term that doesn’t exactly apply. I’m focusing more on the joy of motherhood — my motherhood — because it totally outweighs the sorrow.

I’m acknowledging that there’s no contest to win, but instead, children to raise. And those kids don’t care about labels. They just call me “Mom.”

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. Email her at tyradamm@gmail.com.

Tyra, Katie & Cooper, Hilton Head, S.C., March 2013

Before Sunday school this morning

Learning with your child is a big parenting perk

From today's Briefing:

One of the great perks of parenthood is drawing from the innate enthusiasm of children.

I’ve driven into downtown Dallas thousands of times. I’m a little numb to the experience. But every time we journey as a family from the north into downtown, Cooper and Katie find details worthy of exclamation. The arena! The tall green building! Reunion Tower!

Another perk: learning details about the world that you somehow missed — or possibly forgot — during childhood.

When, say, Cooper is immersed in a self-taught study of Greek gods or the Civil War, I get to hear all about it.

Katie’s been on a zoology kick for a couple of years now, so the whole house knows about dolphins and harp seals, wild turkeys and porcupines. We’ve watched every episode of Wild Kratts multiple times.
Imagine, then, the enthusiasm level attached to an overnight stay at the Dallas Zoo.

We! Were! Super! Excited!

I help lead Katie’s Girl Scout troop, which, in this case, means that I helped convince all the other Brownie mommas to spend the night removed from the comforts of home. In a giant room with a concrete floor. Not far from wild animals.

The field trip was a success, save the lack of restful sleep. (The word sleepover has always been a misnomer.)

Our suburban crew started the adventure in the reptile house. Before we entered, though, we heard the unmistakable roar of lions.

A serenade, our zookeeper called it. Then he shared the most comforting news of the night: There are “Code Red” animals that are doubly locked away after hours. That roar would be our only sign of the most dangerous zoo residents.

We relied on flashlights to check out a healthy collection of venomous snakes. We learned the difference between a deadly coral snake (red touch yellow, kill a fellow) and a harmless milk snake (red touch black, friend of Jack).

We stared in awe at Butter, an albino, yellow and white, 20-foot reticulated python. Butter was safely contained behind glass, but we learned that the 200-pound snake likes exercise and gets to slither freely on the floor — the very floor on which we stood — in the mornings before patrons arrive.

Our tour continued, offering hands-on interaction with dead animals in the form of wallets and jackets, shoes and doodads — a lesson designed to encourage protection of endangered species. We handled a few live animals, too, gingerly petting a snake (a fraction of Butter’s size), a lizard and an opossum (much cuter than I’d expected).

Our zookeeper-led discussions covered habitat, adaptation, natural predators, diet and more. Did you know that flamingos mate for life? That the okapi wasn’t recognized as a distinct species outside of its native Africa until the early 1900s? That the blue-tongued skink tries to trick predators into thinking it’s a death adder snake?

After so much learning and exploring and some campfire s’mores, the group was more than ready to settle into sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses. By midnight, we were in bed, if not exactly asleep.

The next morning included breakfast (mercifully with some coffee for moms) and more touring and animal watching before we shoved our gear into minivans and SUVs for the drive home.

Katie was too tired on the trek north to say much about the flashy Omni Hotel or the waterfall billboard. She did say, before “resting” her eyes, “Momma, thank you for zoo sleepover. I’ll never forget it.”

That’s one of the other great perks of parenthood: creating memories with your child that you’ll both remember forever.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. Email her at tyradamm@gmail.com.

Katie on a butterfly bench at the Dallas Zoo (photos by Julianne Amezcua)

Brave Girl Scout leader

After Sunday school this morning