My Own Little Mary Poppins

In honor of opening weekend of Mary Poppins and my son Syrus who was born six years ago on opening night, happy birthday, my sweet boy.

My Own Little Mary Poppins

The first movie I saw at the drive-in was Mary Poppins.  I remember peering through the hazy windshield of a 1970s maroon van, sandwiched between my mom and dad, and smiling as Jane and Michael Banks jumped freely and lightly into paintings and sang about spoons full of sugar and words like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  I was mesmerized by Mary Poppins who created a magical world where doing chores wasn’t so bad, musical numbers with penguins were a must, and moms and dads discovered what is really important in life – like making time to fly a kite and play games and tuck kids in bed at night.

And who would have thought that one day, I would get one of my own -- my own little version of Mary Poppins to remind me what’s important.  He is a little boy named Syrus.  He doesn’t come with a trick carpetbag and iconic umbrella.  He doesn’t fly in with a bunch of clever quips and memorable outings. No, he comes with a limited vocabulary and a simple daily request: “Mom, get me!” And yet, it is this sweet command that has a Mary-Poppins-like magic when listened to and obeyed, and does exactly what Jane and Michael Banks were hoping for from their parents.  “Mom, get me.”  Pursue me, know me, hear me, understand me, value me.  Get me.

My son Syrus is essentially non-verbal – his speech has always been a source of frustration for him and me as his apraxia diagnosis means that he knows what he wants to say but he can’t get his muscles to form the words he is desperately trying to communicate.  So, when my son waltzes into the kitchen, and announces with a sly grin and an unforced rhythm, “Mom, get me!” I can’t help but spring into action.  The sheer delight those words offer to a mom who prays every night that words will come from her son’s mouth cannot be described.  And yet, the fact that THESE (Mom, get me) are the three words that my son utters, I believe to be no accident.  They are what Jane and Michael Banks wanted from their parents, what we all wanted as children, what we still want today.  Pursue me.  Know me.  Understand me.  Walk with me. Value me.  Love me.

What my son means when he yells, “Mom, get me,” is “Mom, chase me.”  Come get me and chase me around the house.  Enter into my world.  Be a kid with me – play the way that I want to play, not the way you wish I could or would play.  As I run after him around the house, he repeatedly looks over his shoulder with a wide grin, making sure I am still there, still chasing, still running, still wanting to get him.  He wants me to follow him – to let him lead and see me follow.  Syrus loves that part – the part where my eyes are only on him and he is all I can see, not distracted or pulled away by phone calls and emails and to-do lists -- where I am there, really there with him.  And after multiple laps around the kitchen island and stuffed couch, he flings himself on the cushions and waits for me, giggling and beaming, until we are nose-to-nose.  “Mom, love me.” Don’t worry about my speech and my future; don’t focus on all the things that I can’t do.  Spend time with me here, work with me just as I am, and love this version of me.  The version I am right now – I’ll only be this kid for so long.  And after we have laughed and wrestled and sung a few rounds of a favorite Mary Poppins tune (usually “Jolly Holiday”), Syrus stands up and looks me in the eye, and promptly says again (for the hundredth time, though it never gets old), “Mom, get me.” And we’re off again.

This is the story of our lives, isn’t it? We long to be understood, pursued, known, valued, chased, loved – for someone to get us.  Syrus asks me every day to get him.  And I ask it, too.  Like Jane and Michael Banks, like Syrus Burick, I want someone to get me.  To keep company with me, to enter into my space and life and heart and really see who I am today and love that version of me, today’s version, for that is who I am right now.  We all are.  We live messy lives where hardships come and we muddle through.  Our priorities are at times askew and we lose are tempers and run on empty and could all use a nanny, a caregiver if you will, to come in and pave the way for us to get back on the right track.  I think I feel like that most days – a need for grace, a desire to rest and be cared for and tucked in at night and reminded that someone gets me. 

And I find that I often forget that there is One who is in constant pursuit around the kitchen island after me, who knows me (the today version, and even the yesterday and tomorrow version) and nods His understanding over and over again, and loves me, oh how He loves me in a way that makes me want to chase after Him because every day, as I am asking Him to get me, He is replying, “ Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

For Jim Riebock

My dad had all these funny nicknames for me when I was little.  The one he called me the most was "Loop" which of course has to have a story behind it.  Well, it's nothing like you think, no hilarious story about me getting lost in the Chicago business district. It is much simpler than that.  My dad was nose-to-nose with me, pulling me into a bear hug, and saying in a silly voice "I love you" and he accidentally said "I loop you" and the nickname was born.  He called me Loop till the day he died.  It was his affectionate way of saying he loved me, his "as you wish" a la The Princess Bride. Man, my kids would have loved him.  He would have been 75 years old this January.

I've been missing my dad a lot lately.  Something fierce.  And it has nothing to do with him having a January birthday. Oddly enough, I've thought of him every time I have handed someone an oil to try. Sounds weird, I know, but there is this moment where a bottle of an oil passes from my hand to another's, knowing the potential for what it can do for someone else -- the little scrap of hope it creates when someone has an option they didn't have before.  THAT is what has made me think about my dad.  Not because he used oils himself or because his perfectly sculpted beard smelled like cedarwood in the morning (it actually smelled like stale AquaNet since he sprayed that beard with an admirably consistent ferocity every morning).  No, I have been thinking of him because I wish I could have given that little scrap of hope to him.

The man had a heart transplant the summer after I graduated from high school and all the meds he had to take caused so many side effects which then required more meds which caused more side effects. And his life and world slowly started to shrink.  He didn't go out as much, shuffled around with a cane, stayed in his room on a lumpy love seat watching Sally Jesse Rafael and countless Bears games, and wore the same over-sized purple polo shirt for days in a row.  When I would visit him, he would stumble over so many apologies for his unkempt beard and how he couldn't make it to see some show I had directed or for the state of his room (stacks of newspapers, nonsensical piles, haphazard Pepsi cans and fast food wrappers -- think Sanford and Sons).  His skin was dry and loose, his sleep interrupted by pain and grief, his breathing at times labored, his immune system shot.

And I'm ashamed to say that I didn't want to visit him very often.  I didn't like to walk into his room and be smacked in the face with his illness and his mess and his palpable lack of options.  It was overwhelming and suffocating.  I often felt like I was flailing in a sea of helplessness, and, stupid me, I hadn't packed a life preserver.  There was nothing I could do and it made me angry at him and at God and overwhelmed by the smells and conditions and leveled by the reality that my dad was slipping away.  I didn't want to face that -- so I ran from it and tried to cling to what he was like before....

When I was small (Little Loop), my dad was there for every birthday party and performance, wrapping me in his arms and telling me how much he loved (looped) me.  On hot summer days, he would climb into the baby pool with me.  He would take me on pirate adventures in a canoe on Camp 12 Lake.  He was safe and consistent and accepting.

And I didn't know how to be that for him once he got sick.  I was afraid, a coward.  Not sure how to help him, I often felt like I had nothing to offer, so I would typically lean away rather than into the mess of sickness and pain and fear.  I would hesitate in the doorway of his room, and mumble something about how busy I was and that I couldn't stay.  I didn't know how to get to him, desperate as I was to do so. Sigh. It is hard for me to admit all of this.  I loved my dad more than I can say but I was not always good at it.  And I wish I could do it all over again.  I tell you, regret can be a very dark place to spend your days.  There are times that I drive by my parents old house on Rosewood Drive, and it takes everything in me to not turn in the driveway and run through the door into my dad's room to say, "I'm here, dad.  This time, I'm here."

Here.

Regret is dark, people, but grace....grace is not. Grace is the do-over, the try again, the take your time, the you can do this, the redemption piece we all need time and again (meaning every moment). That's right, it's the unconditional loop.  And, as I've been sharing oils with people,  I've had this crazy moment of sitting with someone, listening to them talk of their struggles, their mess, their illnesses, and realizing that this, THIS, is the do-over I wish I had. It's the walking into that room. It's the choosing to step in when before I didn't. It's the leaning in instead of away. It's giving options where before I had none to offer. It's getting to do what I should have done then.  For my sweet father.

It's for Jim Riebock, from his little loop.

Loop you, too, dad.

A couple more stitches

Ania Trudi Rhine Burick.  

Pronounced AH nee ah.  

We call her Ani (AH nee).  

My little Ani bird. My daughter.  

For a long time, I did not think I wanted a daughter.  I thought it was pretty awesome to be surrounded by my three boys, each day thick with scooters, trucks, buzz lightyear briefs, and dazzling leaps off the couch in a superhero cape. A ruff and tumble, rag-tag little brood, hilarious, and sweet, and all boys. Boys felt safe and good and messy and okay.  So when the big 20 week ultrasound showed us that a wee girl was on her way, I completely freaked out, ugly-cry style. I was afraid.  Big time afraid.

Not afraid of braiding hair, and dolls, and all the stereotypical "girl" things, because I'll tell you, my daughter is the one in a superhero cape most of the day and I've seen her wrestle an IPad away from Vlad before. :)  That is not the issue.  I was afraid of having a daughter because I have spent the last seven years without a mother-daughter relationship.  So, I didn't know if I could go THERE.  I felt fumbly and nervous and unqualified for the job of "mother of a daughter" -- and I would talk about it awkwardly when people would ask if I was excited to finally have a girl.  I would nervously laugh and twitch and say, "but it's going to be so different" and people would ask how and I would mumble, "because, you know, er...." because all I knew is I didn't know how I was going to be HER mom.  I could be HIS mom to any of my boys, but HER mom seemed all together alien and different.

And that's what the last seven years has been like without my parents -- alien and different.  Still is.  I find myself still groping around for them like I've just been awakened at 2am by an alarm I can't seem to shut off. And all that is there is the void, the empty space where they are clearly not.  Ugh. Most of the time, I'm not sure how to put it into words, probably because it is still an open wound slowly being stitched together by so many hands in my life.  And..... I convinced myself that a daughter would simply undue my stitches. Stitches I have worked hard to put in place -- grief is work, people, and I thought a little girl would make me come unglued because it would place me back in a mother-daughter relationship I have learned to live without.  A relationship I no longer have so I don't know how to do that anymore.  And I didn't want to -- I didn't want to go there.  I didn't want to be ripped back apart by a daughter.

And yet, here she is.  :) My little bird. My daughter.  And, my sweet seamstress. Much like the Grinch who finds that after all his efforts, Christmas came just the same, this tiny girl came marching into my world and started pushing into corners of my heart. And while at times it has hurt a bit, it has also been quite delicious, and joyous, and freeing.  I find being her mom is exactly what I have needed in many ways.  It is balm to my broken heart.  It is a do-over.  It is everything I never knew I needed. For it is by walking INTO the relationship with my daughter that I am finding so much healing in the loss of my mother.  I am standing in what I lost, thrown back in time, to when my mother was here, standing in her shoes with a baby girl in my arms, which sometimes makes the tears come.  But yet, as I rock Ani to sleep, I am reminded of how my mom did that same thing every night with me.  Held me, rocked me, loved me, delighted in me. It's as though I have been consumed by this part of my life called "my mom is gone" so intensely that it has erased the part of my life when my mom was here. And little Ani is reminding me.  Reminding me that my mom cared for me, carried me, held me for almost 31 years.  She isn't only gone.  She was also very here.  Gosh, the profound healing that comes from that -- when it seems that all I have been able to see is the vast chasm of her loss -- the great missing piece -- now through this little cape wearing wonder, I am seeing all that I was given, all that I STILL have from my mom, like a treasure recovered from its hiding place.  Maybe having a daughter is helping me with those stitches after all.

Preschool Feelings

Yep, it happened.  Just like that.  I now have three kids in school.  Waving to Whitman as the bus drove away, I felt a lot of large scale emotions -- glorious relief, ugly-cry sadness, strutting proud, and honestly, pretty crazy anxious.

I am of course relieved to actually have some moments to myself during the day while Ani is napping.  It. Is. Glorious.  Haven't had free time during the day for almost 6 years.  Wow.  My brain actually has a few moments during the day where it is not interrupted and able to focus on one thing. This having-kids-in-school thing is pretty awesome. Fist pump!

And yet....

Man, did I cry my face off after I put my kid on the bus.  It's Whitman.  Whitman.  Although at times he drives me crazy with his constant no-clothes approach to fashion, and his emotions and moods which are generally all over the place (good thing I have those oils! sheesh! for him, I mean.  well, also for me...), he is oftentimes ironically my sanity.  He is my go-to kid.  Do you have one of those? The one you rely on to help the others get dressed or to give you a report of what's happening when the boys are all playing in the basement, or to just have an actual conversation with during the day. Did I mention he is only three?  And while he is my baby boy, he functions often as the oldest in our world.  It's a big role for such a little guy.  It just is.

I was proud of the little guy. Yes, Whitman, but, I'm referring here to Syrus.  There are not many times where my dear Syrus gets to be the leader, the one with more experience, the one providing the stability and setting the tone.  So, this was big.  And he knew it, too.  He gave so many hugs and so many smiles to Whitman.  He was the one who got to be the rock. He got to be the big brother. To a kid like Syrus, who is often behind, there are no words to describe it.  So awesome. (tears).

And now the anxiety sets in....it happens a lot, but ironically, about my kids who don't have Down syndrome.  Having Syrus as my first, I have always felt with him that one thing I have is time.  There is a quiet dignity, a glimpse of an unseen mystery, in the fact that he has a developmental delay.  It means that I have him longer in a way.  He doesn't grow up as quickly; he has an extended Peter Pan childhood, if you will. It doesn't feel like it is slipping through my fingers like so many grains of sand. But it feels that way with Whitman.  Oh, sweet Whitman, my little man.  I know I will blink and he will be all grown up, a man, off to a job and a life where the way he needs me will look very different. And with Syrus that day WILL come, perhaps a bit later and in a manner that will look very different. And that is good and beautiful and I do not grieve that anymore because I am reminded that with Syrus, I have the gift of time.  And yet, with Whitman, and, even with my sweet Ani, I am reminded that time is moving at light speed although often times, I don't recognize it.  And when I do, it is so hard. So hard, to look at Whitman and Ani, and feel that I need to hold them a little tighter now because they won't always want me to, and won't need me, at least not in the same way.

One of the profound things someone said to me about parenting that always makes me pause a bit, is that when you are a parent, the days are long but the years are short.  That when you are in the thick of parenting little ones, it is a physical and exhausting kind of parenting that makes some days seem like we will never make it to bedtime, but the years....the years fly by, people, oh yes, they do.  And today, as I put Whitman on the bus, it sure seemed like a little more time slipped through my grasp.

So, I'm learning (trying to learn) not to grasp too tightly, but to allow the ebb and flow of time and instead linger in these moments as they come, soak them up, wade into them knee deep, and gather ye rosebuds while ye may.  Cuz, right now, these little ones are in full bloom. :)

Fighting Giants

My Vladi. It will be four years in April since Vlad became part of our family. He spent the first three and a half years of his life in an orphanage in Ukraine all because of two words: Down syndrome. I face these two words every day. Like two giants that at times seem undefeatable and at other times can be felled with my own little slingshot. Down syndrome often looms large in places like speech, when Vladi has to think and try and strain so hard to pronounce a one syllable word like up or cat. And yet, when it comes to sharing a tattered and well-loved stuffed Mickey with his sister or comforting a crying Whitman who has just nailed his foot in one of his many attempts to really fly, Vlad knocks Down syndrome over like a set of wobbly dominoes. Down syndrome. It can't be explained and it can. And I often don't even try either way. Because he is just Vlad. He is not Down syndrome. I just have to embrace that most days. Embrace my little Vladi. Sigh. :)

There are many unknowns when you adopt a child. Doesn't really matter at what age the child steps into your family. There are things you just don't know and won't. And when your child is primarily nonverbal, the sea of mystery only deepens and widens. And this can be both magical and endearing at times -- I may never know why Vlad lines his shoes up in cute little rows or why his one ear has a delightful little indent in it. And it can also be maddening and terrifying at times -- did the orphanage know he had asthma and just not tell us so that we could discover it on our own one night when he was gripped with pain, and he could not express where or why, and I was begging God that his appendix hadn't burst or he wasn't going to die in my arms of an undiagnosed terminal disease. Ok, I can be a bit melodramatic, you know I direct theatre, right?

All this to say, that for the last number of years, we have had many trips to a variety of doctors, many hospital stays because of labored breathing and respiratory infections dangerously progressing, many tests with inconclusive or negative results, many rounds of antibiotics that seemed to patch Vlad up for the moment, only to send his little system spiraling again. It has gotten old. So, as allergy/flu/cold season began its dreaded congestion march into the semester, I was searching. Sick of the doctors, the meds, the nebulizers, the sick days, the tears, and the watching and holding my son and feeling helpless. And then, I went for it. Dun, dun, dun. I decided to go the all natural route.

GASP! Now, this is not me. I keep my creativity and my risk-taking to the stage for the most part, and keep my regular boring life, regular and boring. I compartmentalize my life quite well, thank you very much. But this fall I had faced a giant that's name was not Down syndrome. It was my sweet kid's chronic "whatever it is" -- allergies? diet? asthma? All of it. And I wasn't able to knock this foe over. So, I decided to try a sneak attack. I had a bottle of an essential oil blend in my medicine cabinet and I thought, why not. Nothing else has given my kid any relief. Every year in December, he is so ill, and nothing helps manage his asthma and build his immune system. Until this.

This December was different. All of my kids. ALL of my kids were healthy for the entire month of December. Syrus. Whitman. Ani (who I should mention was in the hospital last December with a fever over 102 when she was only 2 months old). And yes, Vlad. Gulp. We have been using essential oils and they have been working. Now, look, I had a friend in college who used Tea Tree Oil and I thought he was nuts and smelled funny. And here I am, 20 years later, thinking I should call him and say, dude you were WAY ahead of your time. And I was the one who was nuts. (Although I still think Tea Tree Oil smells funny, haha).

Now, I'm not going to go into some big treatise on oils. All I am going to say, is my kids made it through a month of allergy/cold/flu season without antibiotics and hospital visits. I count that a victory against one of the giants in my home.  And I don't want this to be a one time thing, people.  Much like the Baker in one of my favorite musicals, INTO THE WOODS, I am saying, "No more giants, waging war. Can't we just pursue our lives with our children and our wives till that happier day arrives?" I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me.

And I would love to share! So, if you want to try some of my arsenal of giant-fighting oils :) then Ani and I are going to open up our home on Saturday mornings. Sharing Saturdays if you will. Come. My husband will watch my kids AND your kids in the basement. We'll have a cup of coffee in my kitchen and Ani and I will show you how we combat things like allergies, asthma, colds, flu, trouble sleeping, anxiety, bad moods (hello!), and snoring (yes, that's right, after 15 years, my husband no longer snores because of all this). I'll even let you try and smell and see these mysterious oils. Haha. I know they sound like they might be too good to be true. But you know what, so do giants. Except, folks, I've fought some of those myself.

Saturday, January 10th, 10am -- Allergies, Asthma, Colds, Flu
Would love to have you -- message me if you are coming!

Saturday, January, 17th, 10am -- Sleeping, Anxiety, Moods, Snoring
Would love to have you -- message me if you are coming!

Can't make it on a Saturday?  Let me know and we'll hangout a different morning -- let's just hangout and talk giants and oils and life and what God's doing in our lives.  (I want more community in 2015, people, but that's for another blogpost) :)

A reunion of sorts.

So, here we are again. Life has changed since last we met in so many ways. It is much more exhausting, sometimes defeating, often hilarious, and much richer. Sounds like a lifetime movie. Maybe somedays. But folks, we are plugging along. And most days, loving it. Because most days, we are clinging to the reminder that “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Thanks, Confucius. Time for a reunion of sorts. A reminder, if you will, of our cast:

Vlad. My seven year old sweetheart. 1st grade. Built like an ox. Mumbles like one too, thanks to an apraxia diagnosis, but determined to talk. Obsessed with Mickey Mouse and wearing costumes rather than clothes. And, he has a heart of gold, I tell you, a heart of gold. Down syndrome, whatever. Can't believe he has been home from Ukraine for almost 4 years. Has it been that long?

Syrus. This guy is five years old. Last year of preschool. Spindly and determined. He also carries that extra gene that his older brother has and gets crazy mad when you can't understand his words, which is a lot. But he is the first to greet me at the door and the last to hug me at night. Down syndrome has nothing on him.

Whitman. Three years old and starting preschool in a couple days. Gulp. A little mass of muscle with springs in his legs and a daredevil glint in his eye. Talks a mile a minute and honestly believes he is in his mid-thirties. If you are looking for dramatic, this is your kid. He is crying one minute, almost naked the next, and then holding my face in his hands and telling ME its all going to be okay.

Ani. Just over a year old and the most mature of the crew. She is the icing on the cake. Plowing her way through our home with no fear, she is sweet and all-knowing, yet mischievous and sly. Has a blood-curdling cry and look of death she can throw in an instant. She is trouble and compassion all in one. A delight.

This is us. Alive and kicking. And believing like Rumi says, “Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.” And while we have seen our fair share of what many might call ruin, we are also seeing an abundance of glimmers of treasure. Time to get this blog thing rolling again. And shout out to my girl, Amy Paulson, for a lot of these photos. She is the real deal, folks. And that's what we like in this household. The real deal.