How My Hair Turned Gray

(Circa 1979-1985)

Yes, my hair is gray – and I like it that way. I’m just too cheap and lazy to do anything about it anyway. My hair used to be thick and shiny and dark brown – but then I had children (and a husband too). Things change when that happens – and there’s a reason for it. Here are some random stories that may explain why…

A VERY TINY CAR

We had two cars: a large Ford van and a tiny yellow Honda 600 sedan. The Honda had a motorcycle engine so it would only go a maximum of 55 mph – and that was when it was floored. Eventually the car began having transmission trouble and the reverse gear went out. So in order to back up the car, I would have to open the door and use my foot to back the car up, kind of like a scooter. And I would always have to make sure I wasn’t parked on an incline, never heading downward. It did make driving an adventure.

Sometimes the whole family would pile into that car to go shopping. One evening we came out of the store with two very full grocery carts. The car had a tiny back hatch, into which we stuffed a few items. Then we put the kids in the back seat and carefully packed groceries under their feet and all around them. Then I got in the passenger’s seat and Bill piled groceries under my legs, around my body and on my lap.

Just before he got into the car to drive home, we noticed a family in the parking lot, who had been watching us. When we were finished packing the car, they applauded and came over to tell us, “We just wanted to watch and see how on earth you were going to fit all that into your car. We thought it would be impossible, but you did it!” Yes, Bill is spatially gifted.

On our anniversary Bill and I celebrated one Saturday night by driving to downtown Los Angeles to go to one of our favorite restaurants. We drove through a pretty bad area of town and ended up in a one-way tunnel … going the wrong way! With no reverse gear, we were in trouble! Thankfully the traffic was very light and we emerged, unscathed, out the other side, our hearts wildly pounding, and made it safely home. The next day we drove the car to church and when we got into the car to go home, it had died, never to drive again. We were so grateful it waited to die then, and not the night before, late on Saturday night, in a very bad area of Los Angeles.

THE DAY THE POTTY BROKE

Luke, just like Daddy, was always very curious to see how things worked. Our house had only one bathroom. One week we had two guests from New Zealand staying with us to go to some meetings for our church. One day in particular, 4-year-old Luke went potty. However, rather than just flushing the toilet, he decided he needed to find out how the mechanism of potties work. So as he flushed the toilet, he lifted the lid to watch what happened inside. The lid slipped out of his hands and fell down into the tank. The tank cracked wide open, sending water gushing out, flooding the entire bathroom and hallway.

I was putting groceries away in the kitchen when both kids started screaming “Mommy! Mommy! We need to buy a new house!” As I rushed into the hallway and splashed through the flood, I realized that I had to make a choice: either to laugh or to cry. I decided to laugh – and laugh – and laugh. However, I did have to do something – and FAST! After cleaning up the water, I frantically called Bill at work, who advised me to go to a “potty store”. He would fix it when he got home.

So I piled the kids into the Honda car and drove to the potty store. As we entered the store, there they were: a very long row of all kinds of potties. Little two-year-old Shannon was just being potty trained at the time and as we walked into the store, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. She had just entered potty heaven! My life flashed before me as she ran down the aisle, chose a potty, pulled down her panties and began to sit on it. Nnnnooooo…..!! I sprinted down the aisle, caught her just in time and pleaded with the salesman to lead us to the real bathroom. Whew!! That was a close one!

I chose the potty I wanted, paid for it and asked the salesman to strap it to the top of our Honda car. We must have made quite a sight, driving down the street with a potty balanced on top of that tiny car. But we made it home just fine and, taking advantage of our very generous next door neighbor, used her potty for the rest of the day whenever necessary. When Bill got home, he installed the new potty just in time for our guests’ arrival home.

TESTING THE LIMITS

I was convinced that Luke’s purpose in life, from the time he woke up in the morning until he fell asleep at night was to see how far he could push me. (He was such an adorable “stinker”.) He had one of those “big wheels” that he loved to ride around on – especially on the sidewalk in front of our house. However, he began to ride a little too far away from the house. I decided that I needed to set some limits as to how far he could go. So I told him he could ride as far as the two neighbors’ houses on either side of us. But he kept pushing his limits, going further and further away.

Finally, I realized I needed to be very specific with him. So I marched him over to two cracks in the sidewalk on either side of our house and told him not to cross either one of them. Then I watched as he rode up to one crack, looked directly at me, and purposely rode across it. Really? He acquired a little red spot on his behind (if you know what I mean) – and I grew a few more gray hairs that day.

Luke’s household chore, when he was 4 years old, was to empty the little trash cans in the house a couple times every week. No matter how nicely I told him to do it or how fun a game I tried to make the task, he always fought me. A job that might take five minutes could take 3 or 4 hours. In utter frustration one day I called a friend of mine who had two older kids. She encouraged me to not give up – to not give in to his protests. If I persisted, he would learn some valuable lessons and help him grow into a responsible adult. And so I persevered. She was right. Luke, despite my doubts, did grow up to be an amazingly good, responsible, dependable adult (but not without a few more gray hairs added to my collection).

SNAIL SLIME

Little two-year-old Shannon was playing in the back yard one sunny day. She came in the back door, holding something in her hands, and had a very perplexed look on her face. I looked closer and saw that her mouth was smudged with some unidentified substance, then looked at her hands. She was holding a very dead, very smashed snail. She had been eating a snail! As bile rose into my throat, I fought off the resulting nausea and began to clean off the dried snail slime. Do you have any idea how tenacious snail slime is? It took much scrubbing but after a while, I successfully removed it.

Then the awful thought crossed my mind: could the snail be poisonous? I called the Poison Control hotline that was, strategically, taped to my kitchen phone for use in such an emergency as this. I told them my dilemma. After a thoughtful pause on their end, they said, “Well … they eat snails in France … so I guess they aren’t harmful.” After hanging up, I was still grossed out and decided to play it safe. I stripped Shannon down to her “altogether”, placed her in the bathtub and administered the ever-dependable Syrup of Ipecac, waited for it to do its magic, and cleaned up the mess afterward. (Still more gray hair grew on my head.)

WHAT … IS … THAT … SMELL?

For a week or two, every time I entered Luke’s room, I noticed an odd smell emanating from somewhere within. Every day it grew a little stronger. Finally, I decided to make a concerted effort to find its source. So I began to sniff deeply, walking around and around his room, zoning in as the odor grew stronger. I ended up with my nose breathing a rather strong scent – under his bed! It was stale urine! He had been peeing under his bed!! REALLY?!? Now how does a mother discipline a little boy for peeing under his bed? Time out? No. Spanking? That didn’t seem quite appropriate either. Luke was sentenced to 10 minutes, lying on the floor, with his head under the bed, ordered to breathe deeply – and “enjoy” the stench. He never did it again. (But … more gray hair.)

A MAZE OF STRING

After his bath and favorite book one night, I tucked Luke into bed, trying to ignore his nightly protest. He quieted down – a little too quickly. And he stayed really quiet – suspiciously so. After a while, I decided I’d better check on him. I turned the handle on his door and tried to open it. Something wasn’t quite right. I pushed a little harder and finally got it open just enough to peer inside. A maze of string greeted me. There was string everywhere – wrapped from the door handle, to Luke’s bed, to his desk, to his closet door, back and forth, up and down – everywhere.

A pair of scissors fixed the problem, but what about Luke? I didn’t think this antic required any discipline and, I must admit, I was a little proud of him for using such ingenuity. But it did add a little gray hair to my head, even after scratching it in bewilderment.

A PRICELESS INVESTMENT

We did have a clothes dryer but sometimes I enjoyed hanging clothes outside on the line to dry. One beautiful morning as I was outside, enjoying the fresh morning air, I took a hard look at my life. It seemed so very mundane. Every day I spent taking care of a house, two children and a husband, day after day after day. I cooked and cleaned and wiped runny noses and administered discipline. It seemed painfully monotonous. So I told the Lord how I felt. Then he began to show me something: with every nose I wiped, every book I read to a child who was tucked beneath my arm, every spanking I administered (and yes, I did lovingly spank my children whenever needed), it was an investment. I was investing into their future. No matter how exhausted I was, no matter how frustrated and at my wits’ end I was, I was making an investment. I had to constantly keep that end result as a vision before me.

God was using me and Bill to mold two precious lives. What an overwhelming responsibility, yet such a worthwhile endeavor. Its results are so far-reaching, even shaping the future for generations, like the ripples of a pebble tossed into a pond.

It’s worth the gray hair. My mother was a perfect example. Every new gray hair she discovered on her head, she treasured – she never pulled it out. I guess she knew how valuable each strand was: a badge of knowledge and wisdom, gained only through the experience of life and cherished by all who knew her.

Oh, may it be so with me!