Jon agreed to go to a parenting class with me for 14 weeks during the second hour of church. He did it mainly to get out of listening to the sermon. Not that he doesn’t like them. It’s just that he doesn’t like to talk, or listen to anyone else talk, until about 1PM every single day. Mornings just aren’t his jam.
Despite the fact that it began 2 hours before he officially wakes up, we loved that class. One week, the guy in the video told us that when our kids become teenagers, it is very likely that they will be incredibly insecure. Which means that as they begin to venture out into the world more and more on their own, they will wonder who they really are. They will feel vulnerable and anxious about every single thing and possibly run away to join a hippie commune in Oregon. He also said we probably all remembered feeling the same way when were their age. When the video was over, we split into groups.
One of the guys at our table clearly had something to say. You could tell by his face that he couldn’t wait to talk. I was relieved. We weren’t going to have any of this “well, should we start with the first question?” followed by awkward silence nonsense. We were jumping into the deep end without even feeling the water. I looked around at the other groups and knew they wished they were us. They wished they had that guy. In my head I said, “Sorry, Suckers,” and turned to hear what he had to say.
He said, “Could you all relate to feeling that way as teenagers? Insecure? Cause I can’t.”
Then he described his teen years for us. He had grown up on a farm, and he spent every day working with his dad. He was the oldest and the other 2 sons were more “bookish,” but he loved to work with his hands. So his dad entrusted him with the operation of the farm. He learned to use the equipment and was driving the tractor on errands when he was 14. His face lit up as he described what it was like to be his dad’s right-hand man.
He knew who he was. In the family, the town, the world. He was a Layne. There was an identity that went with the name. I am a Layne and this is what we do. He was dependable and capable, so his dad conferred on him some of the responsibilities that provided for his family. They had worked the same land for generations. He could look at the ground and know that his grandfather and great-grandfather had lived and worked in the same soil. That does something good to a person.
I kept glancing over at Jon, knowing that he was glad I made him get up early. This was exactly what we’ve been thinking lately with our own family. I shouldn’t say exactly. Not the farm part. We would totally starve. But we had started thinking we should try to work together. And not just work together pulling weeds in the yard or doing the household chores. ‘Work together’ as in create a family business. With our kids.
Here’s the thing. We aren’t those people that can handle having a lot going on. Jon and I both are easily overwhelmed. Maybe it all comes down to a desire to simplify our lives. To pay the bills by doing something that we already do anyway. All four of us love stories and love to draw. Jon has the ability to take our words and drawings and make them into an interactive story. And he is teaching us how to do it, too.
It is our hope that our kids will grow up knowing what it means to be an Alexander. We hope that along with knowing that they are beloved, talented, “fearfully and wonderfully made”, they will think of themselves as capable creatives. We are trying to instill that identity in them by involving them in the process by which their ideas (the good ones anyway), through hard work and discipline, are turned into something awesome. Something that people may even want to pay for. That’s what we have tried to do with Kalley’s Machine, (our first interactive story). We still don’t know if anyone will buy it. This whole thing is still in the “experiment” phase.
We are operating under the theory that children who grow up knowing that they play a vital role in their family will go out into the world knowing that they will also be immensely significant there – kind of like what the guy in our class said. He wasn’t insecure out in the world, because he had learned at home that he was important.
That guy’s dad taught him to drive a combine when he was 9 years-old. We don’t have a combine, but Jon scooted over in his computer chair so our 6 and 7 year-olds could climb up and learn how to draw in Adobe Ideas. Recently, I asked Corbett to do some concept sketches of a character for our next app, and she gave it to me all separated – the body of the person separated from the limbs. Exactly what you do if you’ve learned to animate with different layers. Jon was thrilled.
One time, the girls sat us down in the kitchen and told us to watch a play that they had made up. We did, and it was terrible. We told them how awful it was and why it was so boring. We didn’t even care one bit about their main character, and they had introduced way too many side plots. We assured them that no one would ever, in a million zillion years want to see that play, and then we got out our giant whiteboard. Together we drew out a storyboard for a really good play, with a main character that we all cared about. And we had a blast.
This is our family’s version of plowing a field together. Feeding chickens. Whatever the heck else you do on a farm.
I just want to do whatever I can to avoid that hippie commune in Oregon. Actually, I don’t think the video guy ever said exactly that. I think I made that part up in my head. The one other thing that wasn’t exactly true about what I just wrote now was the part about how I looked around at all the other people in the class, the ones that weren’t in our group, and called them ‘Suckers’. Nobody does that, who would do that? In a class?! At church?! No way. I absolutely did not do that. I just kind of wish I had.
One of my jobs in our new little family story company is social marketing. I am totally owning this.
I had lunch at Kalley’s school today. I sat next to Abby, and Kalley sat next to her, then Hadley. On the other side of me was Emma, and next to her was Lauren. Everyone who wasn’t sitting there totally wished they were.
I was like, “Hey Kalley, I just showed your machine to your teacher she thought it was SOOO cool.”
And Abby was like “WHAT!!!!!!”
And I was like, “Kalley tell her what.”
And Kalley was like, “Well I was listening to a song and this idea popped to my head and it was bashers and stuff and then other stuff so I drew it down and showed it to my dad.”
And Abby was like, “Mrs. Alexander I don’t know what she’s SAYING!!!!!!”
And I was like, “Let me explain. Kalley drew a picture of a machine that makes food and showed it to her dad and we all made it into a story for the iPad that you can play with and it is really awesome and fun.”
And all four of these girls were like, “CAN WE SEE IT NOW!!!!!”
And I was like, “NO. It’s not done.”
And then some other girls at ANOTHER table were like, “What are you talking about!!”
And I said, “Kalley made a machine and we made it into an app!”
And they were like, “WE WANT TO SEE IT CAN WE SEE IT NOW!”
And I said, “NO! Its not done!”
And I said, “We are working on sound effects. Kalley show them some of the sound effects for your machine.” And Kalley whistled and said, “POP POP” and they all cracked up.
And Abby had to jump out of her seat to say this: “But what does it LOOK LIKE when it is on the PHONE!!!”
And I said, “It looks like Kalley and a cat.”
And Lauren said, “My dad is ALLERGIC to CATS!!!”
And Emma said, “My dad is allergic to CATS AND DOGS!!!!”
And Lauren said, “My dad runs 10 miles in ONE DAY!!!”
And Emma said, “My dad ran the PIG race!!”
And Lauren said, “My dad did TOO!!!!”
And I said, “I DID TOO! That pig race is pretty hard! Because of the hills! So your dads must be really AWESOME runners!!”
And then we all just sat there, finishing our peanut butter and jelly and feeling happy about how their dads are awesome runners and how Abby’s mom is about to have a baby and about how Kalley’s machine is so awesome. And then we played Duck Duck Goose on the playground.
And as I walked away, sweaty, to my car, I thought, “I am totally rocking this social marketing thing.” And I came home and told Jon, and he said it was only really social marketing if I posted about it here.
WHATEVER, Jon.
Lately I have heard myself saying to my daughter, ‘It’s not what you say, it’s what you do that matters.” There are lots of opportunities for me to say this. Her bed. Her homework. Her dinner plate. When I notice that the bed is still not made, the conversation goes something like this:
Me: “Corbett, your bed is not made.”
Corbett: “I’m sorry Mommy.”
Me: “You said you were going to do it”
Corbett: “I forgot.”
Me: “It doesn’t mean anything if you just say that you are going to do it, it’s what you DO that matters”
And as I am saying the words, they are coming right back to my own heart. Parenthood is awesome for that. I realize again that I am in many ways, like Corbett, all talk. I say all kinds of stuff, then I don’t do it. There are countless examples. Here is one.
In my twenties, I worked as a nurse, and once I figured out how much I hated it, I would say things like “After I get married and have kids, I am going to stay home with them and write and illustrate children’s stories.” I pictured myself in the second or third floor of a big old home surrounded by trees, my desk next to a window where I would work and occasionally gaze outside for inspiration while my children happily played on the floor behind me. Fifteen years later, this has not occurred.
I did get married and I did have kids, and not once did I sit at a desk and write while my kids played. It was seriously all I could do to keep them alive for the WHOLE DAY and make dinner. Thankfully, I was able to do that successfully enough for several years. My girls are still alive and spend the day in 1st and 2nd grade.
And now my husband has come up with this crazy idea: Let’s use this time to write and illustrate children’s stories together. Wait, what?
Before I met Jon, the first thing I heard about him was that he had built his own Olympic Torch and had gone downtown to run with it 5 minutes ahead of the guy who was carrying the real torch to the Olympics. I loved him immediately. My friends and I agreed that it sounded like something I would do. We were all desperately wrong.
I would never have done it. I may have had the idea, and if I did, I would have talked about it, would have imagined the crowd’s reaction, would have told all of my friends and anyone I met in the grocery store about it. I would have said “that would be so awesome, ha!” But that would have been the end. I would not have:
- Taken newspaper with picture of Torch to Home Depot to buy parts to build my own.
- Constructed Torch in Parents’ garage.
- Chosen appropriate outfit for Torch Run (T-shirt that says ‘Mexico’ ).
- Prepared get-away vehicle for in case things go badly.
- Gone to downtown Cincinnati on the day of the run, and, finally,
- Run, while shouting “Happy Olympics” to the crowd.
This of course, is exactly what Jon did.
So here’s the thing. Maybe I should be more careful about what I profess to want to do. If I had never said I wanted to do this, I would feel fine about being reluctant to write stories now. But I think that the issue is not whether or not I want to do it. The truth is that I am just plain terrified of failing. Maybe it all comes down to what we fear.
But the stakes are much higher than they were in my nursing days. I have two little girls watching me. Girls who I want to be brave. And all of a sudden, bowing to my fears has a new cost that it never had before.
So now, our whole family has a new Torch. It’s called RocketWagon. It’s a little company where we make stories and games together (hopefully for profit). And we are going to run down the street with it together. (Warmest thanks to those of you who have already started cheering).
I am being offered an opportunity to become a person who does what she said she would do. And since these girls are following my lead, Corbett may end up being the kind of person who makes her bed. Even better.
