One of the benefits of Catholic school is that my kids and their classmates do a lot to serve the community and those less fortunate. I am NOT saying that public school kids don’t serve their community, so don’t start hatin’ on me.

I am, however, speaking from my own public school experience and we didn’t do diddly squat.

It wasn’t until I was in high school that I even knew what a service project was and it usually involved picking up trash down by the river. Last year, my daughter’s class spearheaded a project that raised $8000 to build a well and clean lavatories for a school in Afghanistan. Hmm…picking up gum wrappers vs. clean water for third-world schoolchildren? It’s a toss up.

There are collections for toys, clothing, toiletries and once a month, every child brings in canned goods. It teaches the kids early, and often, to give of themselves.

Yesterday, my daughter and some of her friends visited a local soup kitchen to serve lunch. Before they went, they had to write a “pre-reflection” on what they were about to do. Here is what my kid wrote:

I’m really excited to go to the soup kitchen. I really want to learn and experience the act of giving to others. My goal is to really, truly understand what it means to help out the community and be able to come back, and not just say, “I liked helping because it made me feel good”…but, maybe something along the lines of, “I really enjoyed helping out at the soup kitchen because I could see the joy and thanks on their faces.”

See that? It wasn’t about her…it was about them.

And, that makes the tuition bill a lot less hard to pay.

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1. If a friend wins a memory foam mattress on an adjustable base (think Craftmatic commercials without the elderly people) and GIVES it to you, you may think it’s so incredible that you insist that your friends and family sit on it when they come to visit.

2. Then you may take delight in putting the head AND the feet up to their highest point and watch your friends get smashed in the middle.

3. When you weigh more than you have since your last pregnancy and you just sprained your foot, then your husband says, “We’re starting 1/2 marathon training on Monday”, there may be an audible GULP as that news sinks in.

4. But, not as big as the gulp that was heard when you stood on the scale.

5. No matter how often you bathe your stinky dog, you can’t completely eliminate the stank.

6. And, no matter how often your nine year old son takes a shower, he will still have dirty feet.

7. There should be a 12 step program for House Hunters addicts. Mostly, so that people like me can stop yelling at the home buyers when they pick out the worst house. Never mind that cracked foundation! There’s a linen closet! Sold!

8. Don’t even get me started on House Hunters International, where your pantry has to share space with your stand-up shower and the stacked washer/dryer, and your youngest child…and her guinea pig. We can see the beach! Sold!

9. Sometimes clocks don’t display the correct time. This will make you late. You’re welcome.

10. Your husband may think he’s doing a good job of using clean language in front of your kids, but when your nine year old tells his therapist that he “can tie his shoes, but they look pretty jacked up”, it may be time to reconsider the words you are using as substitutes.

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My husband was working in the yard last weekend when he saw me through a window and asked me to come outside. I went out of the front door to find him waving me over to a flower bed. When I joined him, he pointed at the ground and said, “What is that?”

Photo courtesy of The Hiker's Notebook

We both crouched down to get a closer look at the patch of things growing from the mulch. Then we got a whiff of it.

The green, sticky substance on the end smelled like dog poop. My husband pulled one from the ground and tried to put it near my face, you know, for a closer smell. As I ran away, he chased me.

Herein lies the question: Did the house next door take so long to sell because our flower beds smell like poop, because my husband acts like a 12 year old or because it looks like we’re growing male body parts?

Any way you slice it, our new neighbors are going to love it here.

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Roughly 11 years ago, my friend Bean and I found each other. The details of our early friendship are long and sordid and involve way more than anyone, other than the two of us, would find amusing. Just know that we had known each other for years, yet barely acknowledged one another, then one night, in the light of a full moon, we bonded over a single Zeppelin tune.

Okay, I don’t know if that moon thing is true, but the way we connected…my mind sees it that way And, the Zeppelin thing? Totally happened.

I was at a point in my life, with a young daughter, where I was looking for friends whom I truly respected and I felt like that about her. So, a few months later, I sat down to discuss being friends with her. I ASKED her to be my best friend like it was a business transaction. Weird, right? Only, it wasn’t. Nothing has ever been weird with us.

We used to talk. A lot. Every day, actually. We were pregnant for our sons at the same time…due just three weeks apart. And, when mine was born seven weeks early, she listened as I cried over what was happening to him. She heard me as I wept over not knowing what the future would bring. She comforted me, and when she couldn’t comfort me, she would just quietly BE THERE.

Her son was born nine weeks later with two collapsed lungs. Was I there for her? Not like she was for me. I had a nine week old, very sick baby. Did she understand? Of course she did. She has always understood.

She is always there for me. I love her a lot. Through every bit of the ups and downs of having a special-needs, medically-fragile child, she has been a rock.

Almost three weeks ago, her son came down with…something. Fever, vomiting, cramps and other symptoms that made it seem, at first, to be a run-of-the-mill virus. But, it didn’t go away. He kept getting worse.

A few nights ago, he was admitted to the hospital and we have come to find out that it’s not just a virus. This boy who was a typical, active, healthy nine year old just a few weeks ago, is now fighting a battle that no one saw coming. Just like that, my best friend has joined me in the ranks of being the parent of a child with medical problems.

And, now it’s my turn to be what she has always been. It’s my turn to hold her hand, and listen, and comfort her and quietly BE THERE.

I kind of hate her for giving me such big shoes to fill.

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