Mine is the one with the shirt in his mouth

When I peered into Gus's backpack last Friday, I discovered a summer school progress report that had managed to escape my notice. Its contents renewed in me a bit of long-held worry that I've had regarding my youngest.

For nearly every skill, Gus received a "P" for please practice (as opposed to a "*" for I can do this!). I wasn't concerned with the marks for skills like writing, scissors grip, and organization of personal belongings. He's 3. Those will come.

It was seeing the comments in the areas of "follows safety rules" and "responds to adult requests" that made my stomach do a little flip. Next to the former, his teacher wrote that he has "difficulty following in a line, even when he has a specific color shirt to follow." For the latter, she noted that "he does not stop or listen when his name is called." Finally, at the bottom, she concluded that Gus needs many daily/hourly reminders of the expectations, saying that he is a loving, funny, outgoing boy. Yeah, that about sums him up.

I can't say that Gus's teacher's comments shocked me. I've been coping with his larger-than-life personality basically since his birth. I was hopeful, however, that G was doing really well in summer school, that he would somehow experience a transformation.

For a year or two now, I've had this nagging fear that Gus may have ADHD. It's a big what-if that I turn over and over in my mind. What would we do? What would it be like for him? What would his Gus's teachers think of us? Neither Ben nor Paul has had any major behavioral problems to speak of. This is new territory for us.

Spurred by my increasing angst, I emailed Gus's teacher, asking whether Gus's activity level and attention spanned seemed out of the norm for a child his age. She wrote back assuring me that Gus did show improvement throughout the session but that he still was inconsistent, which is normal for his age. She further reiterated that he was friendly and played well with other children, which are great characteristics that can't be taught.

The reassurance made me feel better, but realistically, I know that still might not quiet my deepest worries. A lot of times, with my anxious mind, I just let the what-ifs keep piling without even answering them, a sure-fire way to let anxiety multiply. So what if Gus did have ADHD? Well, it would be tough news, but we'd adapt. He'd adapt. I know that "if" is a big if. Either way, we've got a boy with a lot of energy and we'll need to find ways to work with that.

As I watched Gus's talent show on the last day of summer school, I saw a boy boiling over with excitement and enthusiasm. In the video I took, you can see Big G biting on the collar of his shirt, his arms flapping with anticipation of singing his song. You can hear his teacher whispering "Gus, get your shirt out of your mouth." That's the boy I know and love. At the end of her email to me, Gus's teacher wrote, "I have no doubt that Gus will do great in school and in life." I have no doubt either, even if the journey is a little more challenging than I'd anticipated.

Deep thinking while mowing the lawn

So, I love this joke I once heard on A Prairie Home Companion. Q: "How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?" A: "Change?"

Early last week, I had seen on NPR's Fresh Air Facebook page, a promo for a show asking the question, "Can you be Catholic and have a questioning mind?" I sure hope so, I thought, because I am. I do. This, I had to hear.

A little background first. My brothers and I were raised fiercely liberal and Catholic. Probably in that order. We grew up attending Mass weekly, completing all our sacraments, going to CCD (as we called it back then). We also bore witness to my mom storming out of church in frustration from time to time when a priest would utter something she deemed ultra-conservative or offensive. My upbringing heavily informed my political and religious viewpoints as an adult.

In my college years, I didn't think much about my faith. But after Mark and I married, and especially after we started a family, it came back to the forefront. We felt that it was important to introduce our kids to the faith with which we were both raised. We had the boys baptized, attended church weekly, enrolled them in what is now called faith formation. With kids, I reasoned, you have to make a firm decision about religious teaching. It sends a confusing message to attend church sporadically, I thought. So we were in. Are in.

Over the years, I suppose I've become ever more like my mom, though I have yet to storm out of church. I've watched the priest abuse scandal unfold with sorrow and disappointment. I've witnessed the Church becoming more and more conservative. When I hoped for change for the Church, the recently introduced new Mass translation was not what I had in mind. As Catholics, we're asked to accept the Magesterium, the infallible teaching of the Pope and bishops. In the face of mistakes the Church has made, ranging from small to huge, I simply cannot buy into its infallibility. I struggle with that. A lot.

That brings me back to the present. As I set out to mow the lawn on Friday, I decided that while I did my work I would listen to the Fresh Air episode, which featured an interview with Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR). I expected an interesting program, but I was stunned to hear someone, speaking with tremendous grace and intelligence, echo, almost verbatim, my views about the Catholic Church.

The LCWR represents 80 percent of the nuns in America. According to the program, "Four years ago, the Vatican group responsible for enforcing doctrine, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, began an assessment of the LCWR, motivated by the Vatican's concerns that the group expressed radical feminist views and challenged core Catholic positions on contraception, homosexuality and the ordination of women to the priesthood."

It goes on, "The final assessment was released in April, and it orders the group to conform to the teachings of the church. The archbishop of Seattle, assisted by two American bishops, have been appointed to oversee the group and work with it over the next five years to revise its statutes and review its programs."

Throughout the interview, host Terry Gross addresses with Farrell many of the issues that are important to me. For example, Gross points out that the LCWR was criticized for its stands on contraception and gay rights. Farrell explains that those criticisms are more a result of her group's refusal to speak against contraception and gay rights, saying further, "There are issues about which we think there's a need for genuine dialogue, and there doesn't seem to be a climate of that in the church right now."

The abortion debate is one I'd prefer not to touch with a 49-and-a-half-foot pole. But I will say that I heard great wisdom in Farrell's synthesis of the Catholic position on right to life. Here it is in its entirety, because I thought it was so good.

"I would say that all of us have a limited repertoire of what we're capable of talking about, and I think its absolutely valid that we choose to emphasize certain things over another. The bishop's conference itself selects certain issues to talk about and, understandably, would have to not be talking about everything.

"So I think the criticism of what we're not talking about seems to me, again, unfair, because religious have clearly given our lives to supporting life, to supporting the dignity of human persons. Our works are very much pro-life. We would question, however, any policy that is more pro-fetus than actually pro-life. You know, if the rights of the unborn trump all of the rights of all of those who are already born, that is a distortion too, if there's such an emphasis on that.

"However, we have sisters who work - all of our congregations have sisters who work in right-to-life issues. We also have many, many ministries that support life, who - we dedicate our efforts to those on the margins of society, many of whom are considered kind of throwaway people: the cognitively impaired, the chronically mentally ill, the elderly, the incarcerated, the people on death row. We have strongly spoken out against the death penalty, against war, hunger. All of those are right-to-life issues.

"And there's so much being said about abortion that is often phrased in such extreme and such polarizing terms, that to choose not to enter into a debate that is so widely covered by other sectors of the Catholic Church - and we have been giving voice to other issues that are less covered, but are equally as important."

Catholics who hold views contrary to the Church sometimes are labeled with the pejorative "cafeteria Catholics." But as Farrell so astutely points out, we're all "cafeteria Catholics," choosing to focus on the issues that are important to us, maybe remaining silent on others.

This program was so full of insight that I don't feel like I can adequately cover it, but if this interests you, give the program a listen or read the transcript. http://www.npr.org/2012/07/17/156858223/an-american-nun-responds-to-vatican-condemnation. And consider listening this week when Gross interviews Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, the Vatican's delegate for the assessment.

At the end of the program, Gross asks Farrell why she would want to stay in an institution that doesn't think of women as equal? That doesn't think of her as worthy of being equal. Her response: "I have faith that the church can respond and change, but I would answer that in the same way I would say why would you stay in a country in which you severely disagree with the leadership of a president? I'm an American, and I am the church. I'm a Catholic. I am the church.

"So I will continue to work for the rightful place of women in the church, but it's easier said than done to just talk about walking away, because I also feel some responsibility, as the church, to bring that corrective to the church for the sake of the whole."

I feel much the same way. I think of the Church as my family. I will love it always. I'm often angry with it. When those outside my family attack it, I will defend it. In the way of familial loyalty, only those in the family can criticize it and get away with it. Speaking as a family member to my family, the Catholic Church, though, I've got to say, brother, it's time to make some changes.

Heat exhaustion

Summertime and me don't always exactly go well together. This summer, in particular, is serving up big doses of a few of my least favorite things. From unyielding heat to bickering children, I've found myself complaining a lot lately.

I know living in Wisconsin, it is practically blasphemy to complain about this beloved season, but I don't do well in heat, especially the merciless kind we've been experiencing. It's put a damper on everything from my outdoor exercise plans - trying to run in this weather just saps all my energy - to my days with the kids.

The parks are a no because there isn't enough shade at most, and the equipment ends up dangerously hot to the touch. Really, the only practical outdoor activity has been swimming. Our little backyard pool is nice, but I'm still not brave enough to take all three kids, plus the inevitable friend or two, to the pool or beach myself. These 90-degree days, I'm sorry to say, we're spending a lot of time staying in the house, tethered to the AC.

Part of me really struggles with the lack of structure of these warm months. Spending the summer trying to keep three boys occupied feels like staring out at a yawning chasm filled with cries of, "I'm bored!" Ben will just read the day away, but Paul and Gus run out of ways to keep themselves entertained, and pretty soon they're B-O-R-E-D. And boredom inevitably leads to fighting. So, you see, it becomes my problem pretty quickly.

The other day illustrates a perfect example of a typical day for me. Paul and Gus needed something to do, so we got some paper and crayons, sprawled out on the living room floor and did some coloring. Not long after we started, Gus wandered away. I heard him open the fridge and then a dull thud. He returned holding a yogurt tube, though I've told him umpteen million times to ask when he wants food rather than trying to get it himself. "What happened, Gus?" I said. "It's the pineapple!" he said. No, actually it was the cut of watermelon I'd just purchased, lying smashed on the floor. Immediately my mind flashed to the large sum of money I'd spent at the grocery store. Yes, this melon cost less than $3, but suddenly I was livid.

Next, I took in the splattered, sticky fruit that had spread far and wide and thought of the sugar ant infestation that's been plaguing us all season thanks to, we learned from the exterminator we've had to call, the extremely hot and dry summer we've been having. I felt completely defeated and exhausted, and it wasn't even lunch time yet. What can you do but take a deep breath and try to move on? I do a lot of that ...

Sometimes I'll catch my inner monologue and think, gosh I complain a lot. This was confirmed when I came across some journaling I'd done about five years ago. I was struck by how negative it was. This cannot be good for me.

In the spirit of trying to introduce some positivity into my life, here are a couple things I love about summer. Taking the boys to the library to pick out books and do the summer reading program is one of my favorites, even if it can be a headache-inducing experience. Watching Gus's face light up as he pulls out his little prize with the goldfish net makes it all worth it. I love summer nights. Mark and I took a walk on the Lawrence campus after our dinner out a few weeks ago. It was blissful - still warm but starting to cool. I adored every minute of it. I love Ben's baseball games, watching the boys splash in the water and ride their bikes. One more thing I'd love? Maybe a couple 75-degree days ...

Today's lesson: Back off, Mom

Well, they're at it again. My kids are teaching me instead of the other way around. I'll call this lesson "less is more," and it took me two go-arounds to begin to learn it.

When things aren't going the way I'd envisioned, I tend to go into hyperdrive trying to remedy the situation. As I've made abundantly clear, Gus was not a quick study when it came to potty training. I was at my wits' end after months of little to no success getting my little man toward a life without diapers. Our children's incontinence, I lamented to my husband, was getting expensive.

We tried everything from small rewards to promises of big ones. Sometimes we took a hard line, making him sit for potty breaks against his will. Sure, we had fleeting brushes with success, but nothing was getting us consistent results.

In desperation, I searched the internet one day for "potty training resistance" and came across an article from Contemporary Pediatrics. The first sentence that caught my eye was this one: "The most common cause of resistance to toilet training is that a child has been reminded or lectured too much." Ooh, guilty as charged.

The article went on to state that healthy children older than 3 who are not potty trained are assumed to be resistant, not under-trained. Transfer all potty-training responsibility to your child, the author wrote. Apologize for forcing him to use the toilet in the past and make it clear you will not be doing that again. Stop all reminders, as they are a  form of pressure, which only furthers the power struggle. Have the child get himself cleaned up after accidents.

All of this made sense to me, especially with Gus. As soon as I read the words power struggle, it was obvious to me that we were in the grips of exactly that. I also knew that this advice would not be easy to follow. No, it would be a leap of faith. The stopping of reminders was the hardest part. I did my best to stick to it, though I admit I did cheat from time to time, kidding myself that telling Gus to "listen to his body" wasn't exactly a reminder. Stick to it we did though, and little by little we began to see results. Of course, it was a process. But after about three to four weeks, he had come a long way. For the first time ever, I felt confident enough to send G to drop-in at the Y wearing underwear rather than a Pull-up.

It's been about two months since Gus's breakthrough. He's not perfect, but he's right where I'd expect a boy his age to be. After waiting so long, I still feel a rush of glee every time he remembers to get to the potty.

You would think after all that, I would have learned my lesson, but no. This spring, Mark and I decided it was time for Paul to learn to ride a two-wheeler. His friends knew how; it seemed like something an about-to-be-first-grader ought to know how to do. The only problem: Paul didn't want to learn. He had no interest whatsoever. On we pressed, though, coercing him into trying it, offering a small reward for success. Sound familiar? I don't know if you've ever taught a child to ride a bike, but it's pretty difficult if he is taking no initiative.

After a few days of trying and failing to make any progress, Mark and I set aside the goal, didn't even really think about it. Weeks passed. Then one night, out of the blue, Paul said he wanted to learn to ride his bike. Darn if he didn't learn that very night. I don't know what changed his mind, but I do know that the decision needed to be his.

As I celebrate the joy of no more diapers and my middle son taking yet another step toward growing up, I hope I've finally learned my lesson. Next time a situation that may or may not need my intervention arises, I will stop and think - and maybe choose to be just a little more hands-off.