Acceptance.

We've been learning how to deal with comments about our school lunches in 6th grade this year. It's been fun. Let's give a short list of what 6th graders say:

"Ew. Your mom makes you eat that?"
"What is that?!"
"Um, just eat some meat, it won't kill you."
"That tastes like vomit!"
"That looks like poop!"

Luckily, we're a little ahead in our emotional maturity over here (nah, nah, nah, nah!) and we're just being strong enough to stand up for what is right, without retaliating (retaliating would be bad, right? Right, that's what I thought. Just checking!) If we were Jesus (and funny, you know, funny Jesus?) we could turn their lunches into sardines and crackers (fish and loaves...bar har) and then see who's lunch tastes and smells like vomit. But we're not funny Jesus.

It's hard to explain to a 6th grader who wants to be surrounded with good, fun friends, that kids can be mean. And, that if they act that way, day after day, even after you have asked them to stop...there is no real reason to keep subjecting yourself to emotional abuse. So, you have to move tables...

"Just try moving," I said, "and see what friends follow you. I know you want to be part of the group, but at what cost? If you are confident in God, and in yourself, then it won't matter if you sit at a table alone, or with 12 friends. You will be happy within yourself."

Ug. Who wants to hear that?! Who wants to face a life alone? That's the ONLY reason we put them in school!! FOR COMMUNITY.

So she moved. And, they followed. The lunch hecklers. *sigh*

I should have known that acceptance was sneaking up on me. My kids seem to bring my life lessons to me faster than I am ready for them (please keep this in mind when you are considering having children...some days you send them out into the yard to play only to have them return with a big stinkin' mess squished into their shoe for you to clean up. Still, they are cute.)

Acceptance was the word that found me last week in a way I had not known it. I met acceptance, like a 2 year old: stubborn, sticky and ready to ...well, not accept it!

But Acceptance is my next vocabulary assignment...and rightly so after expectations and responsibility...does anyone else find it amazing that God has been working the 12 steps with me and I didn't even know it? It's pretty crazy.

Why can't I have the "challenge" of acceptance in the positive sense of the word, as in: "your manuscript is accepted!" "please accept this check for $1,000,000!" "your children have been accepted to the finest Waldorf School in Europe, and you have been granted a full scholarship!"

Alas, I have a deeper sense that acceptance is going to be a little tougher than I expect...and, I can accept that.

Growth!

Oh, and my 6th grader? You will be happy to know that last week she told me, "Yeah, they are still saying stuff, but it doesn't bother me. I can't even remember what it was...that is how much I don't care."

When the going gets tough...