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non-Mom status

The first time I worked with small kids, ever, was the summer after I turned 18. I volunteered to be an assistant to an older woman as she taught the 3&4 year olds for Vacation Bible School. I was excited. Monday rolled around, and about 2pm (VBS started at 6pm), Mom got a phone call that Mrs. Evie was sick, and I'd need to take the class. Her daughter was dropping all the supplies, ready to go, at the church and would have everything ready for me. Did I mention I had never really worked with small children before?

I had three 3year old boys, all by myself. After the night was over, I told my Mom how impossible it was to teach the lesson. They were ON the table, UNDER the table, sitting BACKWARDS in their chairs, EATING their crayons, coloring the TABLE, the CHAIR, and asking me five questions (and almost none of them related to the lesson) for every one sentence. In short, it was chaos. My Mom looked at me like I was crazy, and laughed. "Well, that's three year olds," she said. "You have to keep things short, active, and teach them what to do. They're learning." And the rest of the week, I watched Mrs. Evie in action, made mental notes, learned a LOT, and secretly wondered if those kids didn't have springs hidden in their shoes and bottoms.

Fast forward ten years, and I'm working with other women my age, all Moms, on a church Christmas play. We walk into the classroom (where shepherds are whacking each other upside the head with their crooks, slamming stuffed sheep at each other, as well as using them as projectiles) and a mother catches a flying stuffed sheep with one hand, grabs a crook with another, shakes her head and asks, "Whose dumb idea was this?"  All the Moms rolled their eyes, shook their heads, while I gingerly raised my hand. They all laughed, but I got the message, innocent though it might have been. A mother would have known better.

Fast forward another 10+ years to this past Sunday. The kids' Christmas program talked about cookies and hot chocolate, and at every practice my cast talked about how awesome it would be if they could have REAL cookies and hot chocolate to eat during the play OR to have a cast party after the play. Since our church has the play on Sunday morning, there was no way I was suggesting we have a junk food party AFTER church when they're supposed to be eating lunch, and there was no way I was going to organize lunch for 35 kids, plus parents and visiting grandparents, etc. After some discussion with Bobby, we (with some parents' help) threw a breakfast cast party BEFORE church. No cookies, but we did have hot chocolate (or hot cocoa, depending on what your family calls it), sausage balls, mini muffins, and mini chocolate and powdered donuts. (I learned my lesson about serving Krispy Kreme donuts to kids right before a play around the same time as paragraph number two...NOT a good idea.) By the time I got to church (late for adult choir practice, but still 20 minutes before the  kids were supposed to be there), I had a small bevy outside the classroom door ecstatic. I had left the unopened packages at the church the night before, and they had already seen some of what was in store and were STOKED. And of course the boys were delighted because a mother had already informed her daughter she was NOT to eat a powdered donut, and the little girl was confiding they were her favorite. I watched as Mom after Mom walked in with little girls decked out in super fancy dresses and saw the Mom's faces contort in horror that we were having powdered donuts and hot chocolate. Not one parent said a rude or derisive word, but deep down, I knew: A mom would have known better.

The good thing? After 20+ years, I could actually laugh a little about it Sunday morning, and make a mental note (powdered donuts for active events, not dress-up events). The four summers we served as host parents to three foster children from Belarus were eye-opening, life changers for me. I grew to understand and appreciate a small bit of what my Mom friends face on a daily basis. I gained a small sliver of knowledge in how to better pray for my friends, of the emotional and mental toil that being a Mom takes. And yet, there are things that I will never grasp, will never fully understand, and I'm slowly coming to grips with that, and that it's okay. Those four summers made a small bridge between the uphill pastures we females all walk. I can never enter into their pastures, nor they into mine, but we can now meet on the bridge that spans the stream separating our lives. I can hear their burdens and understand a little bit, not just observe them from a distance with a slanted perspective.

That was one of the mental images I had in mind when I started this blog several years ago. That's why my blog site address is burdenbearer: I listen to the burdens my friends carry and try to help, though never fully understanding because my burdens are so very different. And I don't mean burden in a negative way; it's more the literature connotation of one's lot in life. I always thought I would explain the title, but it never seemed appropriate, until now.

So the next time a friend needs me to help carry a load, I'll gladly come and enjoy a chance to be with a little one. And now I'll know to bring powdered donuts. :)


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