I’m Happy To See You

One of my college professors let it slip during class that she was sleeping with the superintendent of a nearby school district. Scandalous, I know.

But…

It was her husband.

She was sleeping with her husband, who just-so-happened to be the superintendent at a local district. The phrasing of it always made us laugh. 

She insisted on being called Mrs. Voelker, even though she had every right to be called Dr. Voelker. She said being a Mrs. was harder work, and it was something she was really proud of.

I loved that.

During our last class together, she went around the room and shared something special and specific about each student in the class. It was a really sweet time because her observations were spot-on. Dozens of future teachers, and she recognized something noteworthy and heartfelt about each one.

She told the class that when she looked at me, JOY was always the first thing she noticed. “And isn’t that something Jesus wants his people to share with the world?” she asked.

That was 17 years ago. 

And her words have been tucked in my heart ever since.

The Power of Words

There is something so empowering about having someone SAY beautiful words about you. It unleashes new levels of confidence, encouragement, and pride in being seen and known.

I know words have power. As an introvert and writer, I probably treasure words more than the average person. 

I think and think and think about what I want to say before I start talking. So when I say something, it’s usually pretty important. 

You should probably note that my husband is the exact opposite. 

He talks and talks and talks until he figures out what he thinks. As you can imagine, our communication styles cause all sorts of…frustrations. But it’s also why we’re such a killer team. 

He encourages me not to bottle things up until I burst, and I help him put a lid on things before he says too much. We make each other a bajillion times better, even while we’re driving each other bananas. 

The Early Days of the Pandemic

Like most people, our family had lots of face-to-face time during the early days of the pandemic. It’s been exactly two years since the start of it all, and I can’t help but think back on those first few weeks.

In the years BC (Before Covid), I was a stay-at-home mom. But for my own sanity, my kids and I could not stay at home. We did library classes, grocery store errands, park trips, play dates, museum visits, something, anything to fill our mornings. If we didn’t get out of the house by dinnertime, it wasn’t pretty.

But the lockdown meant we did nothing outside of our home…for weeks.

At first, we found creative ways to pass the time.

We let our kids jump on an air mattress like a trampoline for a few weeks, until it popped (RIP). They set up a 5-person tent in their bedroom and played, napped, and slept in it for a month, until they snapped a pole and broke the whole thing (again, RIP). Why do kids insist on breaking and/or ruining everything?

My husband and I were desperate to make the quarantine fun for our kids, who were 1 and 3 at the time. But it was hard. I’m sure you remember.

Maybe your lockdown stress was compounded by hustling a full-time job while teaching a houseful of hooligans Common Core math. If that’s you, you’re an absolute saint. 

Or maybe you had to wrangle some toddlers while caring for aging parents. Or you waded through big emotions of angsty teens while trying to manage your own flood of feelings.

Or maybe your home was a little too quiet. And a little too lonely. And what you would’ve done to have it filled with a few more faces…

The pandemic left everyone aching for something different.

When Everything Changed

My husband and I were mostly grateful our kids were so young. Because they were completely oblivious to it all. The rumors and divisiveness. The fear and uncertainty. The drama of every little thing. 

They had blissful ignorance. What a gift!

And yet for the adults, every day was the same: the scenery, the people, the problems, the fears, the frustrations. There was no escape. Being trapped in the house with little kids felt suffocating at times. 

But one sentence sparked a change in us.

I can’t remember exactly how it happened. But one day we decided to start saying, “I’m happy to see you!” whenever we walked into a room and saw our kids. 

• After nap times that were waaaay, way too short: I’m happy to see you!

• After coming home from the grocery store to a household of chaos: I’m happy to see you!

• During middle-of-the-night visits from wide-awake toddlers who want “one more drink,” “one more kiss,” “one more blankie,” “one more [literally anything in the world]”: I’m happy to see you!

• During early-morning, pre-alarm screams of a child who’s ready to start the day at the butt crack of dawn: I’m happy to see you!

It’s funny how those words can shift a mindset. It doesn’t have to be the other way around. 

I can’t even say the sentence without smiling. It softens me. I’m convinced there’s some kind of magic in those words.

Telling our kids we were happy to see them reminded us that it was true. 

Sure, waking up at 2 AM to find the baby’s missing paci for the hundred-thousand-millionth time is less than ideal. But even worse is having that baby marinate overnight in the tension of feeling like a burden and an inconvenience. 

No one wants to feel like that. 

Our Bedtime Routine

Some nights at bedtime, we tell our kids all of the ways we’re proud of them. It’s one of the ways Mrs. Voelker’s class rubbed off on me. 

But just so you know, five minutes beforehand, I’m probably yelling at them to quit jumping off the bookshelves, stop throwing trains at each other, and get their butts in bed. But I want the last words they hear before they fall asleep to be sweet words from me. 

So I list some of the things I love most. Our daughter is sweet, silly, and independent. She loves being helpful and doing everything the big kids do. Our son is a really good hype man. He gets pumped about everything. He’s a really good problem-solver and a curious question-asker. 

Sleepy-eyed, they whisper, “What else?” until I kiss them goodnight, knowing full well I’ll see them at least one more time before it’s my turn to hit the hay.

Someday

Saying, “I’m happy to see you” is one of my favorite treasures to come out of the pandemic. 

If you know us in real life, we’ve probably said it to you when you come into our house. We can’t help ourselves.

Someday when our kids tell their kids about the pandemic, I hope they only remember the good parts. That we had lots of fun together. That we built forts and obstacle courses and super tall towers.

And that even when they woke us up from a dead sleep approximately five zillion times a night, we were still happy to see them.