I can even make him smile. Buck our English lab. The dog I’ve trained. The three-year-old beside him does not smile on command. Cruz does nothing on command. He’s the commander of his own country.

The country I live in. The one I’m trying to take back.

It drives me to my knees.

And I need to confess this right up front. Years ago, I learned something training dogs. There are dogs you can train. And then there are dogs that all but train themselves. If you want to look like a really good dog trainer, find the dogs that all but train themselves.

Another confession, I didn’t teach Buck to smile. He does this on his own. Along with sitting up on his own. Shaking hands on his own. And staying put on his own. The only thing I taught Buck is that he’s a dog. Not the human he thinks he is.

Training dogs before I had kids (one of the first jobs I ever got paid for was training an old lady’s crazy dog) has helped me understand parenting better. Not on the first three or four or even five kids, but certainly with number sixth and seven. Especially number seven.

Number Seven has resurrected the dog trainer in me.

Number Six is that sweet little guy sandwiched between the redhead (Number Four) and the blond with freckles (Number Five). Number Six: G2, “the plain face” as he became labeled one day after G2 said to Number Five, “You’re a freckle face!” And Number Five replied, “Well, you’re a plain face!”

Number Six, the plain face, is like Buck. He makes me look like a good dog trainer. By the time G2 was two years old, I thought I’d nailed parenting. Taking G2 to the grocery store was a pleasure. “What a beautiful, well-behaved child,” people said time after time. “You’re such a good mother!”

Then along came Number Seven.

Scott calls Number Seven, “the Terrorist” He doesn’t let you sleep. Doesn’t let you eat. Holds you hostage night and day.” “He’s three,” I said. “He exhausts me,” said Scott. “It’s Monday morning and I’m already exhausted.”

My poor husband. Number Seven still doesn’t sleep through the night. I used to get up with Cruz as I did all our other kids, change his diaper, soothe him back to sleep, but after my melanoma surgery and breakdown last year, Scott took over night duty. A year later, most nights are still a battle between Scott’s will and Cruz’s. At the dinner table, Cruz now sits strapped in a car seat. I rarely attempt to take him to the grocery store anymore. Not after carrying him like a sack of taters, thrown over my shoulder, kicking and screaming, out of Bel Air (I like the post office there) one too many times.

Cruz makes me feel like a Walmart mom. When I really want to practice humility, I take Cruz to Walmart. By the time we leave the store, my pride has been thoroughly crushed under our shopping cart wheels. In the parking lot, I wrestle Cruz, howling like a banshee, into his car seat. It’s like stuffing a cat in the toilet. And I wonder how many people are jotting down our license plate to call child protective services. I’ve decided the demons live at Walmart and jump on children and their mothers in the produce section when you reach for bananas and your child goes bananas and then you go bananas. On the inside, of course. I recommend only going bananas on the inside in Walmart. If you go bananas on the outside in Walmart, it’s official: you’re a true, blue in the face Walmart Mom.

My first Walmart Mom experience happened with our third child, Luke. He peed on someone else’s tire in the Walmart parking lot while I put groceries in the car. I wouldn’t have known Luke peed on someone else’s tire, but thankfully, another mom with her hair all pretty let me know without the least hint of a smile my child was peeing on someone else’s vehicle. This mom with a well-behaved little girl in tow. I wanted to tell her right then, girls don’t pee on tires. God didn’t give them the equipment for that. It’s not you, Fairest Mommy. Your sweet little daughter just makes you look good. I know. I have two sweet daughters. Wait until you raise a son. It will mess up your hair. It will mess up your world. But I didn’t say that. I shrank down in my mother’s skin and said, “thank you so much.” You may have just saved planet Earth from my evil son. At least you saved the other three tires on that car. Good for you. 

Or maybe this happened at the park… Actually, I think this happened at Walmart, and the park, and our daughters’ elementary school, and… Luke peed on everything as a kid and I said sorry so many times, just melting with shame. Number four boy did the same thing. By then I was past the shame. Some boys just pee more in public. They really do. Life goes on and plants in parking lots get watered.

Luke is now 16. He no longer pees on tires. At least not at Walmart.

But the other day a friend from church called. She has a teenager too. “Some kids from church are drinking.” She tells me as I look out my window while doing dishes. It’s a beautiful, spring day. My lilacs are starting to bloom and my roses about to burst, too. “I’m so glad Luke is already on restriction so he can’t get into that,” I say, completely unprepared for her next bombshell.

“I’m sorry, but Luke is one of those kids,” she quietly says. Suddenly all that sunshine and the blooming flowers outside my window don’t look the same. Not a bit the same.

“Okay, can you give me details?” So she tells me what she knows, which isn’t much, but more than enough. And when Scott gets home, I tell him what I know. And by the next day, I’m pulling Luke out of bed not to go to school, but to work in the orchard. Because he’s suspended. Possibly facing expulsion from his Christian high school. The drinking happened on a Saturday night at a friend’s house when Scott and I were out of town for our anniversary, but this makes no difference.

Through the years as a Christian school teacher’s wife, I’ve watched this play out (incidents involving alcohol) for other kids and other parents. The pain. The payment. The judgement. The mercy. Or lack of mercy from parents with well-disciplined kids. Those dog trainers who have no idea good behavior says more about the dog’s willingness to obey than the trainer’s ability to train.

“Was it worth it?” I overhear several people ask Luke in the days to come. “No,” he says. “It wasn’t worth it. But I’ve learned something.”

As his mother, I’m not sure what he’s learned yet.

“We were once that age. We did that,” says my cousin over the phone, trying to comfort me. “We did. But for Luke it’s different. He’s like a pastor’s kid. More is expected of him because Scott is a Christian school teacher.”

I shed tears and shed more of my pride (I’m amazed I have any pride left after my breakdown) but I guess I do, and it shrivels at my mother’s feet at the kitchen sink after the phone call that dulled the sun and made my flowers fade before my eyes last week.

A day later, I sit with Luke and don’t know what to say. I’ve never raised a 16 year old son before. I’m not mad. I kind of feel bad for him. His totaled Supra lies in our driveway like the dead horse rotting at my parents’ ranch. Poor old Stinger, my dad’s favorite horse. Just hide and bones now, collecting dust and spiders like the Supra. Luke no longer has his phone (that got taken away for out of control and inappropriate texting). He’s been grounded by his dad for most of this school year, and a day after Luke’s suspension, his Playstation 3 broke all by itself. So not only is Luke sweating in the orchard all day, every day, until he goes back to school, he can no longer play his video games without the playstation. Another confession, I’m doing the happy dance over God striking the playstation dead.

“I think God is breaking his vacuum,” I tell Scott as we discuss Luke while lying in bed in the quiet of the night, our voices low and sad. One day my vacuum quit working, and I got mad. This after several power surges destroyed most of our appliances and part of our house’s electrical system. “What is God doing with us!” I snapped, all but kicking my vacuum in frustration that day. “I think God’s breaking your vacuum,” Scott said smartly, when he really meant, God is breaking you. Since then, “God is breaking your vacuum” is our family’s way of saying, God is working on you. Or working something out of you. Which is always painful.

Luke says he doesn’t feel God right now. Doesn’t hear from God these days, but Scott and I see something else. “God is tapping on your shoulder, Luke. Don’t ignore him. Don’t make God use a sledgehammer on you,” Scott says to Luke.

The sledgehammer may be on me. On Scott. Two dog trainers with seven different dogs. Some of our dogs make us look good. Our other dogs remind me of the day my dog Gidget darted out of the show ring and ran circles around the fairgrounds while I chased her feeling like a fool. Funny thing about Gidget, I loved her. She was the best dog I ever trained, though it took years to tame her. Not my best behaved dog, not even close, but the dog that taught me so much about myself. Mostly taught me how to really love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast, it is not proud. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

Thank you Ashton Imagery for these pictures of the Bicknell boys. This last one I didn’t even know Kayla snapped last week as the sun gently settled on the horizon behind us. Cruz was being difficult that day. Wouldn’t settle down for any of Kayla’s pictures so I walked him down the road, praying while we walked, asking God to help Cruz be good and help me be patient. The actual photo shoot and result of the photo shoot were so different. My wild boys– wrestling all over the yard as Kayla tried to take pictures– look so sweet in the photos.

In real life, my sweet boys challenge me like no dog ever has.

On Sunday our pastor said, “If you lie down with the dogs, you’re gonna smell like a dog.”

Of course he meant, the wrong company gets you in trouble. For me it meant, raising boys leaves me smelling like a dog.

Good thing I like the smell of dogs. The smell of boys I like even more.