Sing Your Crabbies Out.

"Judah," she directed strong and certain, "get your crabbies out!  Now, sing as loud as you can:  Jesus Loves me" she started the rhyme for him, screaming the words from her corner of the room.

We were at the doctor, once again, in that tiny little waiting room that feels like a jail cell, slowly destroying everything from the lab paper to the book pile, to magazine shards on the floor, then Little Man wacked his head against the swinging computer keyboard table, and screams exhaled.

I'd already tried twice to page the nurse to see if the doctor was on his way, including getting a handful of crackers from her to hold them over.  Then we troused ourselves down to the bathroom for a three-year-old potty with all of us in tow, still waiting and waiting.

Cabbies were amongst us all.  Crabby is what brought us here in the first place.  Too many crabbies.  Too long of crabbies.  Too much of crabbies.  Makes everybody crabby.

So Judah is crying, mommy is crazy, clutching teeth and straining for self-control, and Camilla is sitting in the corner plastic chair, directing the choir:

"Jesus Loves me.." she screams at the top of her windpipe, "Louder Judah!  Get your crabbies out, sing louder Judah!  Now, This I Know...!!"

Her purposeful pomp and circustamces echoed through our little room, shattering his crabbies.  This little three year old ball of crazy, was trying to help her little brother in the best way she knew how: using her own taught-methods of calming the crazy to help him.  It was embedded in her.  Bless her heart.

With Camilla, everything needs to be out of the box.  Every thought needs to be anazlyed, every idea scruptinzed, and every discipline measure re-worked to tweak her brain in such a way that its stimulated for positive, and corrals her intellect and energy elsewhere.

We've tried it all.  We've tried a zillion spankings and red buns.  We've tried time-outs, sitting in a chair (ha!), and taking away toys. We've tried tossing her in a pack-n-play, letting her scream behind the locked door, and sending her outside.  We've tried whatever anyone has suggested and then some.

Fail.

So here we are, swirling more categories in discipline methodologies, creating our own devices and speaking inwardly to whatever angst is insider her, to know, label, and gather it out of her.  Strength.

So a few weeks ago, I was ruminating on who I know of her, studying her like a microscope to a microorganism, dissecting every little piece of the parts of her, three years of twenty four hours a day study....  And thought of the best idea I knew how.  Two, actually.  One: to run her crabbies out of her by her running around my house, holding hands, jostling until the crabbies turned into giggles with our antics, or Two: Singing at the top of her lungs.  Taking all that is inside and getting it out.

Why do I know that method?  Because, she's me.

We have a sign in our house that says "This kitchen is made for dancing."  And it is.  It's the place where Judah goes to point upward with his finger, motioning relentlessly for the iphone4 to blare "Fight Song" or "Baby Boy" or "Church Bells Ringing" or "Peace On Earth" from its speakers, blasting the corridors as loud as it will go, with our legs all twirling and whirling, and my lungs growing hoarse from screaming out the words inside of me, energy released until we all end up expelled on the floor, limps strewn.

So I thought and thought and thought, and took this little two-year old who named her own crabbies at 30 months and said in screaming tears and fear: "How do I get my crabbies out!?  I want my crabbies out!! How do I get my crabbies out!?" I needed to help those scared, beckoning eyes and fearful soul...

Thus, now she stands in her purple room and screams, singing Sunday School Songs from the top of her lungs, with tears and crabbies streaming from every opening.  And I yell, "Louder!  Louder!" to get her to use all her energy and gusto to sing-scream her crabbies out, tormenting the angst additionally with jumping up and down...

And it works.

Almost always.

Because it turns silly, and gets her energy out, and turns the focus on the crazy of scream-singing.

So now, back to the doctor story.

This day in the doctor's office, this little three year old blossomed, as she had planted in her the knowledge and coping skill to teach and train her brother in what to her was "normal," seemingly rational response to crabbies:: to sing praise music to Jesus.  Scream it from the top of your lungs, from the depths of your insides, until all that was within you was released, and you were once gain at peace with yourself, and others, and in that, with Him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Mark and I have a label for noting growth/hope the kids.  We call them "Sprouts."  [I'll blog this whole backstory later].  But on this day at the doctor, my little three year old made what he called a "Shrub" -- sprouts growing into something bigger and greater; taking roots and making larger, visible wholes.  Signs that what I do at home, that what the gospel is, that what we teach our kids, matter.

So Many Words.

My sweet friend came over the phone line, myself either single or early married -- before kids -- and her voice was tender and kind, full of tact and peace.

"I only have so many words a day, and I'm saving them for Hannah."  ~  Bekah Wallace

The exactly order of words in the quote I don't remember, but it was pretty much that summation...  Only so many words to give, only so many words to take in, and they were reserved, carefully, thoughtfully, intentionally, for Hannah, her (probably) almost three year old at the time.

I took her words softly, like wisdom laid out in language.

I knew her well enough to receive them as they were meant: to be a polished line that guarded the space and boundaries around what was entrusted to her that day: her daughter, her Hannah.

She had the grace to use them with strength and tact, with confidence and peace, and to allow me, the outsider, to not ask for excuses or plead for more words, but to respect those lines drawn and feel the pleasuring of letting friendship go at a distance, in love and geography.

We had been dear, close friends for years.  But time and circumstances lead us apart.  Not in heart, but in ability to communicate.  Narrowed to phone calls meant lengthy ones endured, but the pressure cooker of time of that young, pre-school mama was treasured more than I knew.

Now, with a three and one year old of my own, her words drip such goodness, like sweet olive oil down David's forehead or soft streams trickle down wildflower lanes.  I didn't understand them then, I couldn't.  But I do now.

Oh, the wisdom and tact and confidence and peace, all mixed with grace, to give and receive those words!

Silence is a sacred space these days.  Words are frantic gusts, either treasured carefully in number and delivery, or billowing me over in exhalation and amount.  Like mini tornados leaving storms in the day, or specks of rainbows within the clouds.  Depending on the giver; I the receiver.

Today, I stay in silence.  Words quieted, thus my soul finding rest in this sacred space.  And I think of Bekah, and my own little people of many words  -- needing and sending -- and rethink of wisdom for the hedges around this life, in words.