The healing journey of a widowed, unschooling badass in Delaware.
I’m focusing on these things today.
I lost my temper with my younger son last night. I yelled and it was scary. Yes, he is pushing me, but I am better than this tantrum behaviour would reveal.
I have an amazing family and many people who love me. That’s not a mistake, but I work to reflect all the love that I receive.
Westen is almost 15 and tries to play it cool around Lego, but he is still creating some very cool builds.
Catching up on all our builds!
This year, my sons and I committed to creating a Lego One Piece build every day for the month of October.
This was our most collaborative year participating in Delaware Fun-A-Day.
My eldest son (Westen, 14) and I don’t know much about my younger son’s (Isaac, 12) favorite manga. Isaac was our guide in choosing subjects, finding referencing pictures, and providing narrative context. It was encouraging to see him take on the role of project manager while also putting together a couple of our most impressive Lego scultpures.
His first build was The Red Force, captained by Shanks, mentor of the main protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy.
Westen’s specialty is minifigures and scenes. One Piece has many wild ships and islands, but the characters bring the world to life.
I thought a “raft” would be a simple build, but Blackbeard’s Raft grew into one the month’s largest.
Capone Bege captains Nostra Castello, an amphibious castle.
The Big Top was a fun challenge from the color scheme to the main tent and clownish insignia.
Westen completed the build with an almost-to-scale Captain Buggy.
Westen’s imagination shined on his dynamic depiction of a One Piece game feature.
Isaac’s re-creation of Torino Kingdom is one of my favorites. His waterfall effect is exceptional.
The following builds were from my own imagination. When I was stuck on a One Piece build, I would clear my head with another nautical build.
The orange hydrofoil came out of a challenge to use Lego separators and a single color. I had to bend the rule for a couple bushings.
These two grumpuses are not going to be happy at the Delaware Fun-A-Day Opening!
The Canary Camel was also born out of a challenge to only use the classic Lego yellow.
I made this island oasis when I was intimidated by the more complicated One Piece designs.
WARNING: I include graphic images in this post to make clear the extreme nature of the discussed material.
My 12-year-old son discovered the following book in the New Juvenile display in the entrance way of Appoquinimink Community Library. This is the listing from the Delaware Library Catalog:
It is labeled for placement in adult collections. At the very least, the library should have recognized this as material to be handled with extra care and not featured among children’s books. At worst, it may be an attempt to introduce children to images they are not yet prepared to process.
My trust in Delaware libraries has withered in recent years. I do not assume that this was purely a mistake. I do not believe they have enough concern for local families to protect children from inappropriate material. I do not believe they respect parents’ choices in how they raise their children.
I held onto the book as long as I could, but I returned it today.
I will complete a Request for Reconsideration Form and hope that Appoquinimink can find a better use of this shelf space. I will also request that an additional level of security is placed on materials that the library’s own system labels as pornographic.
As this book will be returning to the stacks this week, I will use this post to make local parents aware that we must keep a close eye on the activities at our libraries. Their actions betray their words when it comes to serving Delaware families.
These images are not the worst I could have shared; but frankly, I was embarrassed to publish the most grotesque depictions.
-Embarrassed Children
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I love meeting new people and finding connections, but moreover, I LOVE embarrassing my kids. They hate it when I hand out random information or try to help strangers find their way. Earlier in the day, I ran across a parking lot to compliment a gentleman on his Lego t-shirt in the style of Van Gogh’s self portrait.
While relaxing on the field between sets at Bourbon & Beyond, I noticed the guy behind us wearing an Offspring Smash t-shirt.
I leaned back and said, “That’s really cool, my first concert was when they toured on that album in ’94.” He replied, “Ha, I saw them in 2018.”
“Oh my God, you’re such a boomer!”
I think it was Kristen’s daughter’s words, but my boys agreed with exasperated teen noises.
I live for these moments. I’m close to three decades worth of concerts under my belt and I still get the rush of emotion to my skin when magic hits the stage. I still dance like I want to and holler like a fool when a band breaks out a surprising cover or solo.
Soon, these kids will be going to shows without me. I’m thrilled for their growing freedom, but I’m going to take advatage of every chance I get to make them red-faced before that happens!
My father taught me how to debate and I have taught my sons.
Although most people are terrible at debating, it is an overrated skill.
What I am striving to teach myself and model for my sons is Listening.
Debating is about power, whether subtle persuasion or overt rhetorical dominance. Listening is about love. What stands out in the Gospel is how Jesus listened and responded to people. I learned too late in life that listening might be the most powerful form of love. In the least, it is a way we can love those who are strangers to us, whether they be foreign in ideology, culture, or any rooted identity.
You make more friends with listening. You learn more. Through this seemingly simple act, you can model the way you live and really persuade people that you are doing something they want a piece of. That’s the persuasion I want to excercise in the world. A persuasion of the heart, so that the person I deeply disagree with walks away from our conversation and proceeds to listen to someone they disagree with. We can all keep disagreeing, but I doubt we’ll enter greater conflict after we’ve listened to one another.
On the practical end, Yes, I would start with the New Testament. Watch Jesus with strangers, enemies, and his closest companions. He is the same Listener to them all.
Next, Iove Lex Fridman and Joe Rogan. Fridman has many guests he disagrees with and handles them with loving grace. Rogan has less challenging guests, but he is an impeccable listener. I believe it is why he is so popular. This skill is as rare as diamonds.
All that said, I still have a blood thirsty debater thrashing around inside me. The most civil and informative debate venue I know is The Soho Forum. Scott Horton recently destroyed Bill Kristol on American military interventions and it was delicious, especially since I formerly held Kristol’s position, until my transformation into a loving, listening, follower of Christ began.
In this interview, Joe Rogan explores a wide range of trauma-related issues with Dr. Gabor Maté.
From Maté’s discovery of personal trauma after decades as a celebrated healer to Rogan’s insightful advice on parenting, my sons and I found a lot of surprisingly useful information in this conversation.
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We needed a change. My sons haven’t been respectful and I wasn’t setting and sticking to proper boundaries.
I took all our social engagements off the calendar, disallowed screen time, and limited their freedom to within my earshot at all times. It was drastic, but I needed them to focus on simple responsibilities this week. Without the distractions, I was able to hold them accountable to the help I was asking for.
There was a rough start to the week, but they soon settled into a helpful rhythm. Moments of rest were peacefully filled with boardgames and Lego play.
They’re too good at this analog life and it was beautiful to watch them entertain themselves. We rediscovered a couple of their mom’s t-shirts and enjoyed new and familiar boardgames.
A small part of me wanted this week to be painful. I wanted them to fear losing all their privileges.
Instead, they got to see that taking responsibility for small things can bring more peace and fun to our time together.
I’ll take that kind of backfire any day.
The Zerbeys are having a stripped-down, analog week.
Today we visited the Little Libraries in our neighborhood and topped them off with books from our collection. We were successful in unloading an entire crate and only came home with two new finds.
Four (or more) witnesses, all aged 13 or under, from three (or more) families were enjoying their free-range privileges far from parental eyes when things got out of hand.
My elder son and his rowdy buddy found a frog. It was alive and then it was dead. That’s where agreement seemed to end as I texted with the other parents hours later.
My patience is most pressed when I am lied to. My son was not forthcoming with the truth and I could only walk away from him to check back with the other parents for more pieces of the story.
A short lecture on respecting all life and the danger and hurtfulness of deceit was the consequence.
I can’t know what happened in the woods. Those who made bad decisions will be judged by their peers and God, I don’t see much of a role for myself. It’s the kind of uncomfortable relinquishing of control that defines free range parenting. As Bridget Phetasy says in her interview with Lenore Skenazy, “That’s kid stuff, don’t bother the adults with it.”