by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
9:00:04
When the hour is
late, I find myself thinking
of dangerous things.
9:00:05
I know the hour
isn’t exactly late—but
this is late for me.
9:00:07
What if there is something
more to this catch in my
throat? What if it’s bad?
9:00:08
What if those allergies
are not just allergies?
What if it is worse?
9:00:09
What if the doctors
aren’t able to cure my
brother? What if he dies?
9:00:10
What if something happens
to our car? How will we
run all the errands?
9:00:11
How will we work? How
will we recover from a
setback like that one?
9:00:12
What if I never
publish another book? What
if I can’t keep up?
9:00:13
What if one of my
children is lost, hurt, damaged,
bullied, broken, killed?
9:00:14
It only takes a
few seconds to run through all
the scenarios.
9:02:57
Anxiety runs
cold, hot, numb, excruciating—
and always there.
9:03:36
I turn my thoughts to
happier things; it’s like turning
a ship around.
9:03:59
I think about love—
the beauty of loving
another and the world.
These are excerpts from The Book of Uncommon Hours, a book of haiku poetry. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Martin Castro on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
I never thought I’d be a mom of all boys. When I first started my parenting journey, I thought for sure that I would have one or two girls in the mix, because everyone I know does. But then we had boy after boy after boy, and I realized, soon enough, that I was not meant to be a girl mom.
I was meant to be a boy mom. And there’s something really special about boy moms.
1. You’re the prettiest girl they’ve ever seen.
You’ll always be the prettiest girl they’ve ever seen. You are the standard to which they will hold every other girl, at least for a while. They think you’re beautiful when you’ve been wearing the same workout pants for three days in a row and when your hair hasn’t been washed in a couple of days and when you don’t even have makeup on. They think you’re beautiful when you’re in a bad mood and a silly mood and an I-don’t-really-want-to-be-a-mother-today mood. They think you’re beautiful because they see through a lens of love.
2. You will get grossed out daily.
Most kids are pretty gross, but boys are the worst. They don’t care about the snot running all the way down to their chin; they’ll just reach their little tongues up to “wipe” it away. They don’t care that if they hug you, they’re going to get a big slimy glob on your shoulder. They don’t care that when they poop, they probably need at least three good wipes. They’ll leave it at one and then stripe the toilet with the rest. Boys are pretty gross. Just get used to it.
3. You’re a flower repository.
Every time you pass a wildflower field, boys will want to go pick as many flowers as they can and bring them back to you. They will want you to try to put those centimeter-long stems in your hair, even though they’re too short to wrap around your ear. They will want you to put the pink ones in a vase so they can show off the bouquet to whomever may come to visit today, which is usually no one, because when you’re a mom of boys, you’re not often entertaining anyone else. Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one afraid of social contact after being slimed all day by boys.
4. You will have regular exposure to potty humor or humor related to bodily functions.
Boys think all bodily humor is hilarious. And I mean all of it. If you make a farting sound between the lyrics to “Happy Birthday” while you’re singing to their brother, they will fall apart giggling. If you end your prayers with an arm fart, or try to pretend like you’re arm farting the ABC song, they will laugh until they’re crying. If you say anything about “penis” or “naked booty,” or “burp-farts,” they will shriek with delight.
5. They’re obsessed with their body parts. One in particular.
Not only do my boys love streaking through the house naked, even though they’ve been instructed to put on their pajamas directly after their bath so that we can get along to story time, they are fascinated by their body parts—well, one body part. They will play with their penises and compare penises and try to smack each other’s penises just for the fun of it. They are uncivilized and untamable.
6. When you burp at the table, you feel like you’ve just won an award.
Boys will be contagiously delighted when their mom burps at the table. They think it’s the funniest thing ever. Which is great, because holding in gas was never really my strong point. I always thought it was a flaw. Turns out it’s not, because, that’s right. Boys. I win the table every night, after the last bite. They’ll laugh and applaud and I’ll feel on top of the world, because I’ve never won anything in my life.
7. You get used to naked people.
As soon as the 6-year-old gets home from school, he likes to strip down to his boxers or underwear, whichever it is he’s wearing for the day. He knows, of course, that he has to put on clothes to go outside, but that doesn’t even matter. He’ll choose a whole new ensemble if he goes outside, because those other clothes were the slightest bit damp from the walk home, and he “doesn’t like to sweat.”
The time just after baths in our house is a constant chorus of “Go put on your pajamas” and “Here are your pajamas. Put them on.” and “You can’t sit on my lap naked,” because, well, boys just like the feeling of running free.
8. You don’t get to hold them for long.
A few days after my youngest turned 1, he started coming over to give me a hug and then immediately squirming out of my arms before I was ready to let him go. Boys are active and rambunctious and prefer, always, to move. Every now and then I can entice this littlest one to stay a while, if I’m bouncing around or doing a ridiculous dance, or if I start running through the house, but if I’m not doing any of those things, he’s not going to make an effort to stay.
Boys want to be moving at all times. I, on the other hand, don’t. But I do want to snuggle with my boys every now and then, so sometimes I’ll pick myself up off the floor, with great, sighing effort, and run around, too. Sometimes it’s the only way I can steal a quick hug.
9. Disgusting smells become everyday smells.
My upstairs smells like a swamp, because there’s a bathroom with a toilet up there that the boys always, always, always forget to flush. Their room smells like a locker room, because not only do they need to start wearing deodorant right about now, but they also like to wear their soccer socks for three days in a row, and, believe me, you haven’t smelled disgusting until you’ve smelled worn-three-days-in-a-row soccer socks (or the shoes that have embraced them all day). Not only that, but whenever a boy is sitting on my lap, a cloud of fumes inevitably forms around us, because they’re really, really good at SBDs (silent but deadlies—it’s a type of fart you probably don’t ever want to experience, in a class of its own). I can usually tell who’s the culprit because of the self-satisfied smirk on his face while he looks around to see if anyone noticed. Of course we noticed. It smells like a sulfur plant in here. My nose hairs are singed.
Boys aren’t easy. They’re a whole lot of work. They require more energy than we’ll probably ever have, because they never, ever stop. They’re always getting into things, especially the food, and they’re always making a mess, especially with the clothes they stripped off and left on the floor, and they’re always asking us if we smelled that or if we want to see what they just did to the toilet (forever and ever answer: Nope.).
But the most amazing thing I’ve learned about boys is that they will love the insecurities right off a mama. They will love her doubts to disintegration. They will love away all that has come before and infuse hope into all that comes after.
I know, because that’s what my boys have done for me.
And I’m so very glad.
This is an excerpt from This Life With Boys, the third book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by This is Now Photography)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I sat in my bed, reading. My eight-year-old appeared by the side of the bed and said, “The speech teacher took me out of class today. She said I say my s sound wrong.”
I know this already; I’ve been in communication with his teacher about it. I said, “Oh yeah? How did it go?”
“She taught me how to do it right. But I forgot.” He danced out of the room, as though the conversation was now done. I watched the doorway for a minute, thinking maybe he’d gone to get something.
A few minutes later, when I’d returned to my book, he crept back inside my room. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say my s right,” he said. Before I could answer, he shot from the room again, this time racing his words out.
It didn’t take him long to return. He said, “It’s something like this.” He tried to say an s. He tried again. And again. His eyes filled. “I can’t do it.”
I took him in my arms and told him that just because he couldn’t say the s sound correctly doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with him. I don’t always know the right thing to say at times like these, but I do know that kids need reminding—often—that there is nothing wrong with them, they are brilliantly spectacular as is, they are loved. I always start there.
He pulled away and said, “What if I don’t ever say them right?” He looked at the ground, not at me.
This son is my pessimist. He will try and try and try until he is weary from trying, but he will rarely believe, even in the trying, that anything good will come of it. When he loses something, it will surely be gone forever (but he’ll still keep looking). When a friend isn’t home to play with him for a day, he’ll probably never be able to play with this friend again (but he’ll still knock on the door and ask tomorrow). When he has to clean up his mess before tech time, he’ll probably never, ever, ever be done (but it’ll only take him a minute).
I could feel his anxiety, hanging like a heavy cloud between us.
I said, “How old are you?”
“Eight.”
“For eight years you’ve been saying the s sound wrong. It will take more than one session with the speech teacher to correct your habit.” I paused to make sure he was still listening. He was playing with something on my bed, his head tilted a little. I knew his ears were tuned to me. I said, “You’ll get it. I believe in you.”
Sometimes a parent believing is enough.
I’ve had to reassure him of this same thing several times over the last weeks. There’s nothing wrong with you, remember who you are, you’ll get it. With enough repetition, the words will get lodged so deeply in him that he’ll never get them out.
In the middle of all that repeating, all that reminding, we continue to help him practice his s sound, perfect it, have a little fun with it. And maybe, by the end of all this, when the s sound comes easily and naturally as though it were never a problem in the first place, he’ll realize that nothing is impossible when you have a team.
(Photo by This is Now Photography)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
i
Why do we do what we do?
How can we act differently?
What keeps us from doing the unthinkable?
Can we replicate more of it?
ii
What causes anger?
What does hatred have to teach us?
What have we done with our expectations for being human?
iii
What does our digital world do to our emotional stability?
What can we do to practice empathy?
iv
Who are you?
Who am I?
What links us together?
v
What is the relationship between what I want and what you want?
How do we both get what we want?
vi
How do we find our way in a world of terror?
How do you find courage to be a parent?
How do you parent without damaging your children?
What would cause a mother to strike her child?
How do you teach your children about love, mercy, justice, empathy, tolerance, truth, hope, wonder, dreams, intelligence, relationships?
vii
How do we improve ourselves?
How do we improve our society?
How can we expect more?
How can we expect less?
What is tolerance?
How do you make concessions without losing yourself?
viii
What is the shape of this world?
How could we shape it differently?
What causes a person to pick up a gun and shoot a Russian ambassador because of a political preference?
How might we step in the path of that bullet and stop it from meeting its intended mark?
Would we find it imperative?
ix
What kind of love is this?
x
How do we create a better society, a new knowledge, without asking a whole world of new questions?
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Ousa Chea on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
Every new year I sit down to make parenting goals, in addition to my professional goals. Some years are better than others—I end the year on a laughing note and so can make humorous parenting goals that will continue to launch the laughter into the brand new year.
This year has been a difficult year for us, though. I’ve struggled through some severe depression, one of my sons is currently struggling with severe depression, and we are constantly trying to reconnect and spend time together during an especially busy season.
So this year I decided to make some more serious goals for my 2019 parenting life. Here’s a look at those goals.
1. I will eat mostly healthy.
Kids sometimes make it difficult to make healthy choices—not just because by the time the locusts have finished with our fridge there isn’t much left to choose from but also because parenting is so difficult that sometimes I just want to eat all my feelings. So this year I’ve decided to be more intentional and make better choices on a minute-by-minute basis, one day at a time (we eat mostly healthy already, so it shouldn’t be terribly hard). And the days I reach for a handful of Annie’s bunny grahams or my leftover Trader Joe’s peppermint patties, well, that’s where the next goal comes into play.
2. I will cut myself some slack.
Though I laugh at myself in retrospect—mostly through the humor essays I write—I want to laugh at myself more in the moment. Despite how I might come across in the humor writing you’ve read, I very often take things too seriously. I’m hard on myself. I chastise myself for eating those Annie bunny grahams or leftover Trader Joe’s peppermint patties. In the new year, I want to be nicer and more accepting of my weaknesses.
3. I will get out of the house more.
Even if it’s just for a short walk in our neighborhood, I want to get out more. I walk my sons to school every day and I go to the grocery store and church once a week, but other than that, I’m a hermit, particularly when I’m going through a tough time. I withdraw, huddle inside myself, build my walls. Getting out of the house more will help me in multiple ways, I think.
4. I will hug my kids more.
Our days are so busy that sometimes I get to the end of them and realize I haven’t even hugged a couple of my sons. Some of them act like they don’t want hugs anymore, but they still need them. Even if my hugs are not reciprocated, I will still give them lavishly.
5. I will let them see me cry and open a conversation about it.
This year one of my sons voiced suicidal thoughts. We’ve been on the lookout for depression, because it runs in both our families and was passed to both my husband and me. My sons feel when I’m sad, but they don’t always see it—because I don’t like to let them see it. But the more conversations we can have around this sadness—which sometimes doesn’t have a specific cause and sometimes has an abundance of them—the greater understanding and acceptance they will have of their own sadness. What lives in the dark always seems scary, so we’ll shine the light on it and talk.
I’ll be working hard this year to make sure I take greater steps toward accomplishing these goals. And on the days I fail? Well, there’s always goal number two to keep me trying again and again and again.
I’ve never been one to give up.
(Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
“Can I show you this real quick?”
My oldest son held out the old phone we gave him for his creative projects and a bit of technology time for which he has to complete a number of things before it’s earned. I was putting the last touches on dinner—some baked chicken, some roasted beets and zucchini, and slices of watermelon for dessert. I was moments away from calling in the rest of my sons, from hearing them all complain about how gross dinner looks, from sitting down and trying to remain present.
I’d had a lot on my mind lately. My first traditionally published book had just gone to press, I was waiting to hear back about a potential deal on a second one, and a third manuscript was not quite there yet, giving me fits and starts, making me wonder if it might not just be easier to give up on it.
This summer has felt like a constant battle to remain present.
So I watched the video, impressed by how meticulously my son arranged his LEGO mini figures and took their pictures and set the scene for a story.
“You put a lot of work into that,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“How long did it take you?”
“An hour.”
An hour for five seconds of captured video. He is more patient that I’d ever known him to be. And, like it always does when faced with a moment of brilliance from my children, my heart looked up, straightened from its wilting posture, squared its shoulders, and said, Life is grand, isn’t it?
Until it was time to do after-dinner chores and the same son who spent an hour arranging tiny LEGO pieces and taking pictures could not be bothered to spend fifteen minutes rinsing and stacking dishes into the dishwasher.
The things we love are much easier to spend time doing than the things we loathe.
(Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
It is the words that stay
long after the faces have faded;
the words are the treasures,
of such great worth that
when used poorly they do not
simply fade into a background
but stand like sentries
at the entrance to a heart,
beating out all other words
intended for good
Grow a thicker skin, they said,
but, alas, I cannot. This is me,
the thinnest skin around,
everything sinking in like it
holds the key to me, or, rather,
locks the truth in a dark dungeon
And so it is not easy to simply
grow a thicker skin
How does one do such a thing?
How does one put on dismissal,
become someone they were not
only moments before,
ignore the ones who
slash and scrape?
They say they cannot
teach me anything,
that the words must be
burned in a blaze,
but this, too, is not so easy
The words are my blaze
burning away my pieces,
charring sacred spaces,
consuming who I was
But perhaps this is not
so awful a purpose at all
It is only in the burning
that one rises from the ashes
in a splendid newness,
with a stronger construction,
as a more secure human being
And so
I let
them
burn
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I could feel it coming: the nervous anticipation of the first day of school.
When I was a kid, I threw my nervous energy into choosing my first-day-of-school outfit (which got progressively more complicated as I grew older and cared more about first impressions). I would lay out my clothes, visualize the next morning, plan for the unexpected.
My sons are not so conscientious. I am the one who usually lays out their first day of school outfit, not because they can’t but because for now they humor me with a special coordinated outfit (which is not the same as matching, by the way; in their coordinated outfits I try to choose pieces that account for their color and style preferences and their personalities, within reason. No, the 8-year-old cannot wear a fluorescent orange Pokémon shirt the first day of school.) Once I’ve released the outfit, which I keep in my closet for security purposes until the night before the first day, they will stare at their shoes, drape socks over the sides, run their hands across their new backpacks, presumably thinking about what the next day will hold—or perhaps thinking nothing at all.
This year we had a brand new experience for the first day of school: my oldest son was entering middle school. So the nervous energy that accompanies all first days of school held something else: a tinge of fear.
He hovered outside our bedroom, meandering in every so often so we could tell him, gently, that he needed to get to bed so he would be well rested. He lingered. He paged through books on my bedside table. He examined his fingernails.
I could tell he wasn’t quite ready to close the door on summer. He knew—he knows—that life from here on out will be much different.
Growing up isn’t always easy. I daily watch my sons pull against the tether that keeps them dependent on me, ever ready to assert their own independence, even if they’re not quite capable yet. And then a new stage of life presents itself, and freedom widens, and they huddle at the precipice, peering over the edge, questioning whether they are actually ready. They wonder if they have what it takes to fly. They assess how hard the ground might be, because their safety net isn’t quite as thick as it used to be (though this is just an illusion; they always have a thick safety net).
At some point, I drew my son nearer to me. I held his hand. I did not tell him he would be fine, school would be fun, everything would be easier than he thinks; none of that is assured. I only said, Remember who you are.
He knows what this means. Since our kids were young, any time we drop them off somewhere we will not be, we have told them, Remember who you are: strong, kind, courageous, and mostly son. It’s a phrase they have heard all their lives. It’s a phrase that speaks of love—that they will always, no matter what, be loved.
An easy, fun, even good year is not assured my son; that’s not how life works. But what is assured is that at the end of this next season of life, he will have grown, learned, and walked deeper into who he is. And no matter what kinds of twists and turns this year holds, no matter where he goes or what mistakes he makes or victories he has, he will never be anything other than who he is: strong, kind, courageous, son.
Worthy.
Half an hour past his bedtime, he finally found his way back to his room, filled his diffuser with essential oil, and read until he fell asleep, covers pulled up to his chin, book marked with a finger.
The same kid—but different.
(Photo by Helen Montoya Henrichs.)
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
I’m a very task-oriented person. I make my goals, I make my list of tasks to support those goals, I work myself every hour I have and don’t quit until the clock says my work day is officially done.
This means that while I accomplish a ridiculous amount of tasks during my working hours, I also creep close to burnout frequently.
I solve this problem with rest.
Every six or seven weeks (depending on my sons’ school schedules—I like to match up my time off with their holidays from school) I take an entire week off work. I don’t do anything work-related. I read some books, hang out with my kids, play some board games, maybe even do a little sewing. I play. I take naps. I breathe.
I call these weeks Sabbaticals. They are my time to recover from my weeks of focused and intentional work.
I’m coming up on the last Sabbatical of the year, which extends for two weeks, as a sort of celebration and goodbye to the previous year and welcoming of the new year (plus, my kids are out of school for two weeks and counting down to Christmas Day, and getting any work done is highly unlikely). I use this two-week break to make New Year goals, prepare for the holidays, and schedule my next year—including Sabbath weeks.
When you spend so many weeks (even if you don’t have many hours in a day) in such focused and intense work, burnout is a given. Add to that family life and adult responsibilities and the unpredictability of life, and it’s a wonder any of us get anything done.
Intentional rest opens up the space to breathe again—which is necessary to create.
Resting keeps me focused on and energized for the work ahead of me—and I’m always ready to get back to work once those seven days (and especially the fourteen days) have passed.
(Note 1: I don’t completely forbid myself to write during my Sabbaticals; writing often keeps me sane when I’m home with my sons. And creative work is never really predictable. If the urge strikes me to write something—as long as it’s not a project I’m currently working on—I write. It’s usually something playful or silly or experimental that could potentially become something greater someday. I never want to lose that opportunity to create something new, but I do want to rest well.)
(Note 2: Your Sabbatical will look different than mine. There is no one right way to do it.)
(Photo by Angelina Kichukova on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
books on the floor
books in a chair
books all around
stretch out
on the floor
let the kids
climb on a back
no matter
how weary
get those accents
ready
all the acting
cued up
voice prepped
for action
and then
the giggles begin
woven around story
and knowledge
and magic
this is how
to read to your children
This is an excerpt from This is How You Know: a book of poetry. For more poetry, visit my starter library, where you can get some for free.
(Photo by This is Now Photography.)
