Hope. That enigmatic little word that captured our audacious American spirit (and our vernacular) via Obama. Hope. Theupbeat little sense we carry around that something good and right could indeed happen. Hope. We define ourselves as half empty or half full types, both monikers depend on how much hope we do (or do not) have.

And even among the most hope-less, there is a cultural spirit of hope that still prevails in many circles, albeit often misguided, it still exists. Americans live in a constant state of frenetic activity, spurred on by hope, even in the darkest of times there is a glimmer of light that flickers in the mind of most Americans.

Hope. It’s sort of what we do.

We hope that the economic crisis will reverse itself, that climate change will be tamed, that poverty will diminish, that “golden parachutes” will land in court rooms, that our educational system will improve, we hope that we will overcome whatever proverbial odds are before us.

Maybe even win the lottery.

But lately I have been wondering, is hope a wasted effort, an overplayed emotion? When it comes to the future I dream for my children I balk at those who suggest all is hopeless. I’m a mom. Hope is what I do. For me, there is no other global issue that blitzes and tackles my hope like our current climate crisis. The little cracks of light I bask my hope in seem to consistently land in the shadows.

From lackluster talks in Copenhagen to local ordinances against composting, from clear cutting Amazonian rainforests to my own failures to curb consumption, it seems lately there are more reasons to lose hope than to keep it. And I do wonder if all my daily attempts to help the planet even matter. Do my canvas bags make a dent? So what if my heat is on low. Does that little effort at energy saving matter? I carpool or walk to school. I drink fair trade coffee. Does any of that support my children’s future? really. honestly. does it?

Even if I downsize my home and sell my car, will it matter? Heck, I just wrote a book on why all of this does matter, but then I also learned today that our oceans are being destroyed at a rate that is estimated to be twice the pace of our forests. So what if I skip out on seafood tonight. Where’s the hope in it all?

I found another mom asking the same questions this afternoon, she’s here in a column on Grist: http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-03-on-talking-to-our-kids-about-the-future/#comments

It seems that hope is indeed running thin in a few places. She tells the story of a poet at an event she hosted who ended his time with the community by saying, basically, that when it comes to the environment, things are hopeless.

bummer.

But like this mom (Nadia Herman Colburn), I wonder what to tell my kids. And I do not mean lying to them by saying there is hope when we have none. Seriously, what do I believe about all of this and what do I tell my kids? I’m also a person of faith, so I believe that God is involved in this whole conversation. But I am theologically savvy enough to know that God is not in the business of just swooping in and making our lives all happy and shiny.

We can hope in God and trust in justice, but to think that God will just put a big band aid on our mess because we need our kids to go to hiking someday is more than a little naive and misguided.

So what do I tell my kids then? The truth. That I am not entirely sure how it will all play out. Or perhaps that their canvas bags do matter. That their prayers are heard. And that this world could get uglier by the time they are running it, and that I am sorry for that because it is partly my fault.

But also, that they are wildly creative little beings with sharp minds and a sliver of light in their souls (that yes, God placed there). And that if there is any hope at all, it lies in the mind and the body of my sticky, messy kids. And whatever I can do to bolster in them the integrity, intelligence, and confidence to make a difference, I will do.

I will tell them there is hope because they are my hope. It all matters. Every effort counts. Not because fewer plastic bags can change the trajectory of the world, but because hope itself is a powerful and mysterious thing that can bounce us back on track. It cannot be underestimated. Stunted perhaps, but never stopped. Especially when it lies in the hearts of our children.

“Mom, see what happens when you are not watching!”

My six year old, with one hand on his hip and lungs pushing out an irritated sigh came into the kitchen the other day, along with an audacious little smirk, and alerted me that my ability to parent his two year old sister was apparently lacking.

He then dragged me by the hand into the play room where his sister had dismantled every matchbox car and truck that she could. Pulling tires off this, ladders off fire trucks, and removing the top of an army tank from the body. She, of course, looked up at us like this was the most natural activity she might engage in that afternoon.

My son then said “See mom, you are not watching and now look what she’s gone and done.”

I was not watching because our middle child had just finished sassing me and landed himself in a time out that might have lasted until he was 18 if it was not illegal to do so. That child pushes every button I have and then some I did not even know I had. So I was off timing him out. Thus, no one was around to monitor the health of the matchbox collection.

I could not help but smile. My oldest was so grown up, so aware, and so right, I was not watching and things happen when mama is not looking.

This particular time I clearly had a good reason, and any mom with multiple children can tell you that disciplining one opens the door for the others to take matters in their own hands. So I felt I had an excuse this time.

But so often, I don’t pay the attention to this life, to their lives that I need to pay.

And this is not because I am purposefully neglectful or irrational in my parenting. I love my children and while they are likely to lament my quirks to a therapist when they are older, I am really doing a decent job. They are fed and happy, they are learning to read, they say please and love others. So we are doing okay.

But I “don’t watch” lots of times. And not in the ways you might think. I miss little moments of conversation in the car because I am on my cell phone or trying to catch the traffic report on the radio because we are late for something. I miss little smiles and silly moments because “mommy just has to send one more e-mail.”

I don’t “see what happens” because I freak out when people jump into a pile of fresh laundry for fun or when they dare to eat cookies on the rug I just vacuumed. I miss lots of moments each day because I need to be off the the next thing as quickly as possible.

Like last week when we were a block from home on a walk home from the morning school drop off. The youngest two were still with me. I had exactly 10 minutes to get home, hand the kids off to my mother, collect my life and head out the door for a meeting. I was in a rush.

My little ones wanted to get out of the stroller and walk. Wanted to crunch the leaves. I kept saying “no, no, no.” Finally, just three houses from ours I let them out. Set free from the seat belts of the stroller they dashed off down the sidewalk. My daughter then picked up a gorgeous red and golden leaf. Perfectly colored and capturing the full sense of autumn in every fold and vein on that leaf.

“Look mama.” “Leaf.” “Pretty.”

“Slow down” I told myself then. I did not know she could string together such a lovely sentence about autumn. She clutched that little leaf all the way up the driveway and into the house. “Pretty leaf.” She was elated. Big accomplishment for a little peanut.

Little moments like this. Every single day. One more e-mail. One more phone call. We are going to be late. Look mama, a leaf.

“See what happens when you are not watching!” They grow up and you will miss the leaves. “Now look what she’s gone and done.”

A few weeks ago my husband and I hauled our kids up to the summer camp where he and I met some 15 years ago. Something about summer camp memories insists that you relive them every chance you get. Maybe it is the beach, the waterskiing, all the hot boys or flirty girls. Maybe the lifeguards, the weeks away from mom and dad. Maybe the trees, the sunsets, the lake, maybe keychain lanyards and Sweetarts.

Whatever the reason, we still talk about camp as if we were there last summer. As if, in the intervening 15 years we have not packed on a few pounds and added a mortgage to the mix.

So when this camp announced a small reunion, we threw our kids into the car and headed North for the day. My kids loved it. They played carpet ball and threw rocks into the lake. Can’t beat that for a Saturday afternoon. After spending a bit of time on the beach it got even better, they hit the jackpot. They found, buried in the sand, two plastic army guys. The old school green version that does not move or bend. They just stand still with guns.

You would think they’d just run into Santa. Jumping and hollering they ran to me with their new treasure. They then proceeded to play with these two plastic army men for the rest of the day. We returned home where they stuffed them into pockets and carried them around for the next week. I kid you not.

We have plenty of other toys. Some are big and crazy and loud and they blink and make noise. And they were expensive. But all they wanted to play with were these two army guys. And so begins the childhood fantasy with army men. And lest anyone suspect this is “just a boy thing,” my daughter (just three weeks shy of age two) will lay on her stomach and play right alongside them. Complete with “shooting noises.”

Now I started out my parenting journey all “anti-gun.” For good reasons I shied away from toy weapons and even called squirt guns “shooters.” Then one afternoon my Dad takes my oldest to the store for milk. They come back with a metal cap gun that Grandpa claimed to have been “talked into” in the toy aisle of the grocery story. Oye Vay.

I held my ground. Drew boundaries around the cap gun and insisted it stay with Grandpa. But I have caved everywhere else. Our home has shifted from a demilitarized zone to a fully operational war zone. Nerf darts zip across the house, lightsabers are wielded at every turn. And if we are not firing weapons, my children are dressed in what they call “spy gear” and are spying on my every move.

“Spy gear” is a fishing cap from Yellowstone National Park, a neon green backpack, camouflage vest, set of binoculars and a plastic compass from a McDonald’s Happy Meal. The baby carries a flashlight and refuses to wear a hat but she is totally in on the game.

My oldest talks about “playing army” a lot lately. Last week he caught a glimpse of an Army commercial on TV and stopped in his tracks to watch every second of it.

In the car last week he said this “Hey mom, do you know what one thing everyone in the world knows about?” To which I said “what baby?” and naively thought he might say something like love or God. But what he said was “Armies. Everyone knows about armies because there are armies everywhere.”

His six year old mind thought this was a good thing.

My thirty-six year old heart sank. As I type the Obama administration is reviewing Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan. Rumors are anywhere from 25,000-40,000 additional troops.

This Wednesday is Veteran’s Day. My Father-in-Law earned 4 purple hearts in Vietnam. He is amazing. People who fight for our freedom and our lives are amazing. So this week I am thankful for them. I truly am. I will stand and applaud them every chance I get.

But as a mom with a son running around the house playing army, I get worried. You see, that child has just 12 years before he is draftable. Just 12 years before he might say to me “hey mom, I want to join the army.” And I am praying that this is just a fad for him. But war is not a fad. It is a reality. And someday he may (whether he wants to or not) find himself in real spy gear, running through the streets with a real “shooter.” And this may be a choice he makes for himself or a choice our government eventually makes for him. Either way, if it were to happen, I would cry a ton then pray like crazy.

So as we creep up on Veteran’s Day I am reminded that the men and women who are fighting for my kids this very moment are connected to a mom who used to watch them play army and spy in the back yard. Who worried that they may grow up and be in real danger on foreign soil fighting for freedom. And all moms know that some of these real army men and women will never come home to play again. They will be army men and women buried in the sand.

I’m not normally given to patriotic outbursts. But this week (and beyond) let’s remember our troops. Let’s give them our prayers. And let’s hope the desperate hearts of their mothers get to hug them once again.

The walk to and from school each day gives me such an amazing window into the world of my children. My six year old wants so badly to walk. He never complains about it. Never remarks that the half-mile trip (one way) is too long or too boring. He absolutely loves to walk to school.

On the few mornings that we need to drive (the days when I work and have to drop him off to make a meeting), he lets out a long sigh and moans.

Yesterday, we left the house with a little spring in our step, lots of pretty leaves all over the place and it was a bit balmy outside. Felt wonderful. I pushed a stroller with my two youngest while my six year old walked next to me and said this “Hey mom, I love it when we walk to school.”

“Why honey?” I asked.

“Because I get to talk to you.”

Okay, seriously people, does it get better than that? I could not make this stuff up.

It’s like in that one statement all the horrible parenting moments of the last week were erased. Like the giant pink rectangle eraser they use in school. My walking to school and simply talking with my child wiped out an entire week of my short temper and “I need coffee before I can be nice to you” moments. Just like all the eraser dust on the paper, we walked to school and it all just sort of blew away.

So we walked. We talked about Star Wars and how many pockets he has on his backpack. We talked about why leaves fall off trees and why some people rake them and others do not. And, again, I kid you not, he asked me what people do with the leaves and I got to explain to him what composting was. seriously!

And know that not every moment is like this. Like right now, while I am blogging and it is pouring outside, he is watching the Deadliest Catch and is mesmerized by crab fishing on the Bering Sea. So yeah, not the best afternoon.

On the way home from dropping off my oldest, I was in a rush. Trying to get home so that I can get things done. We passed another mom cramming kids into a mini-van as quickly as possible, backpacks flying around, doors sliding shut.

We passed another woman trying to scoop up leaves off her driveway as quickly as she could. She looked like she was trying to make a quick dent in the raking before work.

Another woman came bolting out of her house, grabbed her Chicago Tribune off her sidewalk, and raced back inside as fast as she could.

I was panting and sweating from walking home so fast.

My middle son, my three year old then asked me this, “Mommy, why are all the ladies in such a hurry?”

Ahhh, very insightful, I thought.

“Why are all us ladies in a hurry?”

Now I am a feminist sort of gal and I have male friends who stay home with kids and mom friends who work. And this is not a discourse on gender roles. But at that moment, that walk home, everyone scurrying about was female.

And I was no different.

And I was suddenly aware that on the one hand, I was “Mom of the Year” as I had just walked to school and offered a discourse on composting (that was actually well received). And then in a matter of five minutes I was sprinting home with the stroller, launching my kids over cracks in the sidewalk. Sailing past other women fretting over the school drop off or the leaves.

“Why are all the ladies in such a hurry?”

I was in the driveway cramming them into the car for an errand when it hit me that I had suddenly stopped being that walking mom, that talking mom. I was now psycho, screaming mom. Hollering at them because they climbed into the car and then over the seat and were walking all over the front seats of the car with wet shoes.

I was upset because we’d lost a sippy cup somewhere along the way.

I was short-tempered because we had places to go, errands to run, and had less than three hours to do them before I needed to be the walking mom again and pick my oldest up from school.

I was no longer the walk to school and change the world mom. I was crazy, neurotic, drive all over the place mom.

And I chose to drive those errands that day. I had legitimate reasons. And this is not a blog post on why you should walk everywhere (although that does help).

But it is simply an observation of how crazy life got the moment I added my car into the picture. When my destination was a leisurely walk to school we were calm and collected. When my goal was to get home as fast as I could to jump in my car and drive all over town, it was chaos.

And if I walked some of those errands, I could not have accomplished as many tasks, but we could have continued to walk and talk. And if I can manage to walk and talk, then life is not such a hurry. And conversations that change little lives can happen.

Also known as “how to stuff your daughter into a new pair of jeans.”

A pure mama post.

Today I woke up our 22 month old and held her on my hip as we browsed the closet. Hair standing on end from a good night of sleep. All warm and soft after being under a fleece blanket for the night. We both stood in our pjs and digested the options for attire on a rainy Thursday in Chicago. “Spider shirt” she finally said.

Indeed, “spider shirt” it is.

An orange little hand me down number with black spiders wearing purple head bows and big green smiles.

“Spider shirt” she squealed when I set her down and slid it over hear head.

Next came the pants. Seemed a denim sort of day. Normally I dress her like I dress myself, lots of elastic. Who wants to be reminded of their waistline all day long?!

But today, denim it was. A cute little pair of Gap jeans I’d scored at a garage sale for a buck. And let me just say that I stumbled upon the best garage sale in the world last summer. Some mom with a ga-gillion dollar house had about 10 boxes of clothing in her garage. All name brand or boutique stuff that she likely had spent thousands on.

A frenzy of moms like myself were ripping through these boxes like madwomen, paying a dollar for barely or never worn items that originally had tags upwards of $30 or more. I grabbed a pair of little gap jeans with pink stitching all down the leg. “score,” I said to myself.

So today we finally donned that denim. It was tight. Really shapely for a pair of 2T jeans. As I started to wedge her baby legs into them she looked at me strangely. With a “hey mom, where are the stretchy yoga pants” sort of look. And they were only at her mid-thighs at this point.

And here is the part I will delete by the time she is in middle school. But at this age, her little thighs are so chubby and so amazingly, adorably cute that I could bite them! Oh I love them so!

But really, they don’t fit into this pair of hip little jeans I had for her. As I yanked them up over her thighs her eyes sort of popped a bit and she yelped “ooeeaaah” and then she looked at me and smiled as I snapped them.

It was a bonding moment I will not forget. And I know that I am probably being dramatic and over playing this moment. But it was like she totally got that wedging yourself into a pair of ill-fitting jeans was a rite of passage. A part of womanhood that she was just ushered into. She honestly looked at me and smiled after I managed to fit them on her.

And then, sitting on the changing table, she lifted her spider shirt and began to poke at her tummy that puffed over the top button of the jeans. “oooeeeaaaahhh” she said again.

And then, just moments later, she is with me in my room. And I am pulling on my own pair of jeans that do not fit quite right. The ones that I have not had on since last Spring. The ones that smell like the wood that comprises the top shelf of my closet because they’ve been up there for months.

“oooeeaaahhh” I said as I did the required squat and walk routine, designed to stretch out the leg of the pants while somehow convincing me that they still fit.

Sucking in my gut and my breath I said “see honey, mama does this too.”

“This” is ridiculous is what “this” is. And I just want to point out that someone needs to make it socially acceptable to show up everywhere in elastic. I think the whole world would be a happier place with more elastic. This is probably the only thing I miss about pregnancy, elastic pants.

But at the end of the debacle, there is something to be said for sharing a moment with your daughter. One of understanding, of humor, and of realizing that it is you and her against the world. Two women with chubby thighs and pouchy stomachs can get far in the world if you’ve got a family that loves you and could care less!

oooeeeaaahhhh