No one should ever refer to the killer of Kansas gynecologist Dr. George Tiller as being pro-life.
He wasn’t.
Any person or group that resorts to killing doctors as a means to an end of medical abortion is certainly advocating death.
The gunman who stalked Dr. Tiller in the lobby of his church was a murderous terrorist, plain and simple.
I can’t change your mind if you feel potential for life, and not life absolutely, is what matters.
There’s little I can say to a person who sees human existence in such black and white terms. I can’t sway anyone from the belief that some lives are more valuable than others. Some people just value life in reverse proportion to its weight and innocence; the smaller the more valuable.
I can’t expect them to understand a parent who doesn’t want to watch their children suffer and die over the course of a few minutes or more years than they have on this Earth to care for them. It’s a cost that will haunt them, too.
I know they have their reasons for believing what they do just as surely as I have my reasons:
I am pro-life, I am for medical privacy and I am pro-woman. It is not my place to decide what is best for anyone else regardless of what I would decide for myself.
I am not walking in their shoes.
Putting aside our most fervent moral beliefs, the giant irony in all of this – beside the horrible, tragic terror of such an unconscionable act in the name of life -- is that no babies would likely have been saved in the killing of Dr. Tiller, even if the gunman had leveled his gun and hit his mark 30 years ago.
Late-term abortions – clinically referred to as Dilation and Evacuations - are rare, and the people who have them are not women who waited too long to decide they didn’t want to be mothers. They are women who desperately want the babies they’ve carried. They have hoped beyond all hope for healthy, squalling newborns.
Instead, their babies were given a grim prognosis, perhaps one that determined a condition that might be incompatible with life outside the womb, or one that would present a lifetime of suffering. They may have found themselves in a hospital fighting for their own lives, perhaps battling preeclampsia, a pregnancy-related hypertension that can set in after 20 weeks of gestation.
The Preeclampsia Foundation estimates that globally hypertensive disorders account for more than 76,000 maternal deaths and 500,000 infant deaths each year.
There are many different conditions, each as rare as late term abortions, that can turn a pregnancy from a joyous occasion into a nightmare through no fault of the mother and with no redress by the doctor.
There are genetic maladies commonly detected in the second and third trimesters, such as severe Dandy-Walker syndrome or hydrops fetalis, which can produce babies not meant for this world; babies who will never breathe on their own.
These mothers who would like to choose to deliver a healthy baby, instead are faced with choosing how they will mourn their loss. Some wait and deliver stillborn babies. Some need closure sooner. Some are faced with having to protect their fertility and their mental health the best way they know how.
Those decisions should be every woman’s to make with her family and her doctor in private.
Doctors like Dr. Tiller.
I believe he was willing to pay this price -- enduring more than 30 years of protest lines and lawsuits, suffering bodily harm, ultimately even death -- to make sure women had the best care possible when facing such dire circumstances. I believe he did that out of compassion and a firm belief in what he was doing was necessary and ethically right for his individual patients’ health.
Dr. Tiller was no butcher.
The butchers were the back-alley doctors women turned to before the law of this land protected them.
The butcher was the man who shot him down as he attended church.
You have every right to disagree. But if you call yourself pro-life you must mourn the doctor’s death and see it as the abomination it was. You can not hold that the man who murdered Dr. Tiller was in any way doing God’s work.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
An open letter to the graduate
Dear Ittybit,
Your last "Special Day" at the Marilla Cuthbert School for Unspeakably Charming Children snuck up on me.
It was the last day in which one of your parents **points to self** showed up bearing healthy snacks that none of your friends would touch with a ten-foot pole.
It was the last day I'd have a chance to slip the photos I'd taken throughout the school year into the bags of your classmates. Photographs tucked in envelopes that you dutifully sealed with "Love" in a color representing their name ... Blue for Billy ... Magenta for Madeline ... Silver for Sierra.
It was the last day in which one of your ever-patient teachers would tilt their heads and cluck in my direction ... as I so obviously hanged the paintings in the wrong place or as I read books when I should have been helping kids put on their smocks so they could paint.
It would be the last time I’d hear their chittering as I broke some other rule ... such as talking to you when you were in line instead of making sure you were all as quiet as church mice.
It's been more than three years since you first walked through the doors of this cooperative preschool ... the very one I went to when I was your age ... the very one I lived above when I was a young adult.
You already know those stories, you say, rolling your eyes and looking upward when I try to retell them.
You also know numbers and the difference between upper and lower case. You can spell you name and recite your phone number. And every day you come home with a new letter and all the words you learned that begin with that letter.
Both of us have learned a great deal these last three years.
In addition to writing your name and remembering your numbers, you've learned to cut with scissors, recognize letters and understand about cause and effect, as it applies to so many things.
On the last Special Day I was finally proficient in hanging the paintings to dry, and collecting all the crafts so that parents wouldn't have to search. I easily did the chores that needed doing ... cleaning paintbrushes, wiping tables, vacuuming floors and taking out the trash.
I didn't even mess up snack time.
"O" was the letter of your last special day.
I brought the things we'd agreed on: Oranges and Oyster crackers and Olives (though you were quite sure no one would eat them). I also brought orange smoothies, blended at home the night before.
You helped. We blended oranges, pineapples, papayas, mangos and bananas with ice and orange juice, squeezing in the juice of a lime for good measure.
When we tested it you gave it your highest praise: "The most delicious of deliciousities I ever had in my whole entire world or worlds."
I beamed. And then I set the blender up for a second time ... this time adding kale to the mix and a plan to call the new creation "Oscar Isn't Such a Grouch After All Smoothie."
But as the kids' luck would have it, the blender broke.
And then your father gave me his patented eyebrow arch: "Kale? Really?"
"Yes, Kale. ... I just wanted to see Ms. Cuthberts' eyes roll back in her head one last time."
I didn't need a green smoothie to do that, all I had to do was put out the green tractor trikes in the play yard.
"In the wrong place again, mom. In the wrong place again."
*Sigh*
Look out Kindergarten, ready or not here I come.
Love,
Mommy
Your last "Special Day" at the Marilla Cuthbert School for Unspeakably Charming Children snuck up on me.
It was the last day in which one of your parents **points to self** showed up bearing healthy snacks that none of your friends would touch with a ten-foot pole.
It was the last day I'd have a chance to slip the photos I'd taken throughout the school year into the bags of your classmates. Photographs tucked in envelopes that you dutifully sealed with "Love" in a color representing their name ... Blue for Billy ... Magenta for Madeline ... Silver for Sierra.
It was the last day in which one of your ever-patient teachers would tilt their heads and cluck in my direction ... as I so obviously hanged the paintings in the wrong place or as I read books when I should have been helping kids put on their smocks so they could paint.
It would be the last time I’d hear their chittering as I broke some other rule ... such as talking to you when you were in line instead of making sure you were all as quiet as church mice.
It's been more than three years since you first walked through the doors of this cooperative preschool ... the very one I went to when I was your age ... the very one I lived above when I was a young adult.
You already know those stories, you say, rolling your eyes and looking upward when I try to retell them.
You also know numbers and the difference between upper and lower case. You can spell you name and recite your phone number. And every day you come home with a new letter and all the words you learned that begin with that letter.
Both of us have learned a great deal these last three years.
In addition to writing your name and remembering your numbers, you've learned to cut with scissors, recognize letters and understand about cause and effect, as it applies to so many things.
On the last Special Day I was finally proficient in hanging the paintings to dry, and collecting all the crafts so that parents wouldn't have to search. I easily did the chores that needed doing ... cleaning paintbrushes, wiping tables, vacuuming floors and taking out the trash.
I didn't even mess up snack time.
"O" was the letter of your last special day.
I brought the things we'd agreed on: Oranges and Oyster crackers and Olives (though you were quite sure no one would eat them). I also brought orange smoothies, blended at home the night before.
You helped. We blended oranges, pineapples, papayas, mangos and bananas with ice and orange juice, squeezing in the juice of a lime for good measure.
When we tested it you gave it your highest praise: "The most delicious of deliciousities I ever had in my whole entire world or worlds."
I beamed. And then I set the blender up for a second time ... this time adding kale to the mix and a plan to call the new creation "Oscar Isn't Such a Grouch After All Smoothie."
But as the kids' luck would have it, the blender broke.
And then your father gave me his patented eyebrow arch: "Kale? Really?"
"Yes, Kale. ... I just wanted to see Ms. Cuthberts' eyes roll back in her head one last time."
I didn't need a green smoothie to do that, all I had to do was put out the green tractor trikes in the play yard.
"In the wrong place again, mom. In the wrong place again."
*Sigh*
Look out Kindergarten, ready or not here I come.
Love,
Mommy
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Thrill seeking, one tot ride at a time
Hoffman's Playland.
I promised Ittybit we’d go.
Blessing? Curse? I know many-a-parent (and grandparent) who are trying to avoid that particular stretch of Route 9 for at least another month now that the rides have come to life for the season. But I promised.
The Champ’s been here before -- a few times during the past two seasons to be exact -- but he was of an age in which he was neither interested nor conscious enough to notice the candy-color amusements and the tiny tots lining up to ride.
It's possible we could have eked through our afternoon outing without the boy's involvement. He fell fast asleep on the 30-minute commute and his temperament beforehand indicated he needed the shut-eye.
There was also a satisfying breeze that, with all four windows open half way, cooled the car nicely. The Dad was more than happy to wait with the boy and practice his ability to sleep in a reclined bucket seat whilst I braved the tortures of the big-kid rides.
I agreed to make our first ride the Tilt-a-Whirl, vividly remembering the gastric upset from last year's excursion, but theorizing a full stomach back then may have been a contributing factor. It had been hours since I'd eaten, perhaps I'd be safe.
I was wrong.
Oy, motion sickness, how cruelly you've crept up on me in my old age.
I fought my way past her other favorites -- the parachute ride, the cautions for which we read AFTER asking papa, the heart patient, to accompany her the first year we visited; The tiny roller coaster, which jerks so violently in its turns that I always feel in jeopardy of falling out; and the Scrambler, the name alone is enough to explain why I walked past saying NO! NO! NO! -- to the car.
"Your father will have to go on those rides with you, Ittybit. I just can't do it."
In the parking lot, we stood for a second watching the boys snooze. And then I pounded on the window.
"Can you go with her? She wants to ride the Scrambler. I. Just. Can't."
"Gee. Thanks a lot," he said peeling himself out from behind the steering wheel and taking her hand.
As I sat in the car with the snoozing toddler, I could see her Dad's head and shoulders snapping backwards as the cars whipped around. She's too small to be visible from my vantage.
I will the boy to wake up. "You don't want to miss this," I whisper over and over. "Playland ... Playland ... Playland."
I didn't want to miss it either.
Louder: "WAKE-Y, WAKE-Y EGGS AND BAC-Y."
One eye opens, and then the other.
Still groggy from sleep, he’s still rubbing his eyes as I’m whisking him around the park, looking for his sister.
We find them near the boats, which is perfect as there is no finer first ride you can take than those boats floating around in a mechanical river.
I'm a giddy. Poised with a camera ... ready to take a picture from the same vantage my father took one of my sister and me.
Together they sit. He scowls. She rings the bell. He scowls some more. She rings the bell louder. He starts to cry. She stops ringing the bell to comfort him.
When the ride stops, I lift him out as Ittybit scrambles out next, translating his sobs.
"He's not a fan of the boats, Mom. Not enough aventure. ... He's a high flyer, I think."
As he smiled and waved his way through a plane ride a few minutes later, she proved her point.
My kids are thrill-seekers unlike their old mom.
I promised Ittybit we’d go.
Blessing? Curse? I know many-a-parent (and grandparent) who are trying to avoid that particular stretch of Route 9 for at least another month now that the rides have come to life for the season. But I promised.
The Champ’s been here before -- a few times during the past two seasons to be exact -- but he was of an age in which he was neither interested nor conscious enough to notice the candy-color amusements and the tiny tots lining up to ride.
It's possible we could have eked through our afternoon outing without the boy's involvement. He fell fast asleep on the 30-minute commute and his temperament beforehand indicated he needed the shut-eye.
There was also a satisfying breeze that, with all four windows open half way, cooled the car nicely. The Dad was more than happy to wait with the boy and practice his ability to sleep in a reclined bucket seat whilst I braved the tortures of the big-kid rides.
I agreed to make our first ride the Tilt-a-Whirl, vividly remembering the gastric upset from last year's excursion, but theorizing a full stomach back then may have been a contributing factor. It had been hours since I'd eaten, perhaps I'd be safe.
I was wrong.
Oy, motion sickness, how cruelly you've crept up on me in my old age.
I fought my way past her other favorites -- the parachute ride, the cautions for which we read AFTER asking papa, the heart patient, to accompany her the first year we visited; The tiny roller coaster, which jerks so violently in its turns that I always feel in jeopardy of falling out; and the Scrambler, the name alone is enough to explain why I walked past saying NO! NO! NO! -- to the car.
"Your father will have to go on those rides with you, Ittybit. I just can't do it."
In the parking lot, we stood for a second watching the boys snooze. And then I pounded on the window.
"Can you go with her? She wants to ride the Scrambler. I. Just. Can't."
"Gee. Thanks a lot," he said peeling himself out from behind the steering wheel and taking her hand.
As I sat in the car with the snoozing toddler, I could see her Dad's head and shoulders snapping backwards as the cars whipped around. She's too small to be visible from my vantage.
I will the boy to wake up. "You don't want to miss this," I whisper over and over. "Playland ... Playland ... Playland."
I didn't want to miss it either.
Louder: "WAKE-Y, WAKE-Y EGGS AND BAC-Y."
One eye opens, and then the other.
Still groggy from sleep, he’s still rubbing his eyes as I’m whisking him around the park, looking for his sister.
We find them near the boats, which is perfect as there is no finer first ride you can take than those boats floating around in a mechanical river.
I'm a giddy. Poised with a camera ... ready to take a picture from the same vantage my father took one of my sister and me.
Together they sit. He scowls. She rings the bell. He scowls some more. She rings the bell louder. He starts to cry. She stops ringing the bell to comfort him.
When the ride stops, I lift him out as Ittybit scrambles out next, translating his sobs.
"He's not a fan of the boats, Mom. Not enough aventure. ... He's a high flyer, I think."
As he smiled and waved his way through a plane ride a few minutes later, she proved her point.
My kids are thrill-seekers unlike their old mom.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Our Mary ...
Mary died.
She was the last of the "Great Aunts" on my mother’s side. My grandmother's baby sister.
She would have been 96 on Thursday, a long life by most standards. Nonetheless, the night my mother said she'd gone, the words tumbled over each other, preventing me from sleep.
Mary. Died.
Loveable Mary.
Stylish Mary.
Mary, who family lore puts kicking her knickers into the Hudson River once they’d lost their elastic and dropped to the pavement of the Green Island Bridge as she and a beau were walking across. Her grace, it is said, made him none the wiser.
Mary, who, despite a gentle demeanor and slender calves, was herself a brick house beneath tendrils of ivy.
Mary who’d lived through wonderful luck and terrible loss with the same cheerful grace -- a woman who was always "as truthful as kindness allowed" -- was gone.
If anyone could, we all thought, Mary would live forever.
I have many memories of Mary; many more than I have of my own grandmother, who died when I was a child: Her voice, her smile, her devil-may-care but the angels-will-call demeanor. A glint in her eye that was proof she enjoyed the world and the people in it.
I also remember the things that surrounded her: photographs of family members above the fireplace; magnets on the fridge holding up paper milestones from loved ones far-flung; the candy kisses on the coffee table, help yourself; the sodas in the pink ice box, sadly replaced when it couldn’t be fixed; the tea kettle on her pink, push-button stove. ...
Pink was her color. I wanted it to be my color, even as I robotically wore black.
Most memorable for me, however, was one night nearly 20 years ago when my mother phoned to ask if I would get Aunt Mary from the hospital and stay with her the night.
She'd had an "episode" and was alright, but shouldn't be left alone.
Such a request no one had ever made of me, nor would they have had they any other choice. No one else was available.
Great Aunt Mary had been having these episodes of stroke-like effects; and they scared her. She didn’t want to be alone.
I was scared, too. What if something happened to her in the night? What would I do?
When I arrived at the hospital she was waiting, dressed in a robe and slippers. The moment I saw her my fear evaporated. Though noticeably tired, she was the same charming person I’d always known her to be, ready with a laugh and a smile and an "I’m so glad you’re here ... I really hope it wasn’t an inconvenience."
It was the first time in my life when I felt not only needed, but trusted, too.
How could such need ever be an inconvenience?
It was just a single moment in time. A minute. A second. Insignificant.
Many years later she attended my wedding; she held my first child in her arms on the golden swivel chair; she met my second child in photographs after she’d moved away to live with her daughters.
After that I saw her only in photographs.
Her smile hadn't changed.
As news of her final days traveled back home, however, I remembered that night so long ago that I slept in her spare bedroom.
"There will never be another like Mary," I thought then. "I am lucky to have known you," I think now.
Goodnight, Great Aunt Mary.
Sleep well.
She was the last of the "Great Aunts" on my mother’s side. My grandmother's baby sister.
She would have been 96 on Thursday, a long life by most standards. Nonetheless, the night my mother said she'd gone, the words tumbled over each other, preventing me from sleep.
Mary. Died.
Loveable Mary.
Stylish Mary.
Mary, who family lore puts kicking her knickers into the Hudson River once they’d lost their elastic and dropped to the pavement of the Green Island Bridge as she and a beau were walking across. Her grace, it is said, made him none the wiser.
Mary, who, despite a gentle demeanor and slender calves, was herself a brick house beneath tendrils of ivy.
Mary who’d lived through wonderful luck and terrible loss with the same cheerful grace -- a woman who was always "as truthful as kindness allowed" -- was gone.
If anyone could, we all thought, Mary would live forever.
I have many memories of Mary; many more than I have of my own grandmother, who died when I was a child: Her voice, her smile, her devil-may-care but the angels-will-call demeanor. A glint in her eye that was proof she enjoyed the world and the people in it.
I also remember the things that surrounded her: photographs of family members above the fireplace; magnets on the fridge holding up paper milestones from loved ones far-flung; the candy kisses on the coffee table, help yourself; the sodas in the pink ice box, sadly replaced when it couldn’t be fixed; the tea kettle on her pink, push-button stove. ...
Pink was her color. I wanted it to be my color, even as I robotically wore black.
Most memorable for me, however, was one night nearly 20 years ago when my mother phoned to ask if I would get Aunt Mary from the hospital and stay with her the night.
She'd had an "episode" and was alright, but shouldn't be left alone.
Such a request no one had ever made of me, nor would they have had they any other choice. No one else was available.
Great Aunt Mary had been having these episodes of stroke-like effects; and they scared her. She didn’t want to be alone.
I was scared, too. What if something happened to her in the night? What would I do?
When I arrived at the hospital she was waiting, dressed in a robe and slippers. The moment I saw her my fear evaporated. Though noticeably tired, she was the same charming person I’d always known her to be, ready with a laugh and a smile and an "I’m so glad you’re here ... I really hope it wasn’t an inconvenience."
It was the first time in my life when I felt not only needed, but trusted, too.
How could such need ever be an inconvenience?
It was just a single moment in time. A minute. A second. Insignificant.
Many years later she attended my wedding; she held my first child in her arms on the golden swivel chair; she met my second child in photographs after she’d moved away to live with her daughters.
After that I saw her only in photographs.
Her smile hadn't changed.
As news of her final days traveled back home, however, I remembered that night so long ago that I slept in her spare bedroom.
"There will never be another like Mary," I thought then. "I am lucky to have known you," I think now.
Goodnight, Great Aunt Mary.
Sleep well.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
It's Mother's Day .... If you need me, I'll be napping
It’s been quite a while since the fledgling (and wholly imaginary) organization “People for Less Unrest in Marriage,” has called upon me to speak on its behalf.
I just wish it didn’t have to be so early in the morning.
What time is it, anyway? Yawwwwn.
No matter. Here I am, on Mother’s Day, representing PLUM when I should be inspecting the insides of my eyelids all because I found myself awake at some ungodly hour, looking at the clock on the bedside table and wondering a thousand insignificant questions: Wasn’t I supposed to be sleeping right now? Isn’t that what that person who takes up a sliver of the bed I hog (and whose laundry I often separate from the dirty diapers before washing) told me would happen? Why is this toddler toddling up to me with a full diaper? And why is his shirt soggy to the shoulders? Is that the fireplace lighter he has in his hands?
Too many questions for one groggy mommy, for sure.
Yes, it was just another Sunday morning. However, since my husband was home from being “on the road” and vanquishing art emergencies (or whatever it is he does when his iPhone buzzes, sending him and his trusty Sprinter Van away any give weekend day to deal with a enormous sculpture’s problematic placement) I had planned to sleep in.
In fact, I do recall that the guy (whose clothes I often fold before jamming on a shelf or stuffing into a drawer) had promised to take the kids to breakfast, or to the park, or some other place outside of the house so such a feat of motherly negligence could be realized.
Those of you who are moms realize that no matter when your kids get up any sleep YOU get after 8 a.m. is gravy. I, however, hold out hope for a noon rising. Not today.
After I snatch the lighter out of the boy’s hands and wrestled him into a fresh diaper and dry t-shirt, I meander out into the living room to find the man wrapped in a blanket like a cocoon watching Sunday morning television.
“Sorry. ... I feel sick," he groans pitifully. "I have the chills.”
"I hope it’s not the Swine Flu,” I grumble, remembering the days I used to bid him good travels by saying I hoped his plane didn’t crash.
“Don’t say such a thing,” he protests in response.
“Well I do ... hope it’s NOT the swine flu. I hope it’s just allergies and not some antibiotic-resistant flesh-eating super bug inhabiting your nasal cavity. ... Hey, did you make coffee?”
See, I’m not bitter. We at the People for Less Unrest in Marriage realize that sometimes the waves of our best intentions are dashed on the rocks of some opportunistic microbe lurking on some fine art gallery door knob, and there’s just nothing anyone can do about it ... not even if they immersed themselves in vats of hand sanitizer.
Yet, if he were “The Mom” the virus’ effects would be beaten into submission by sheer willpower and a single shot of well-aimed Lysol. Someone, after all, has got to get the kids’ lunches made, or get them to school, or wipe up that spill someone else (and I’m not pointing fingers) made when he was making himself a cup of tea.
It’s really not a big deal. Making my own cup of coffee and corralling tiny soldiers bent on seeding the dining room with toy landmines, isn’t the same arduous task when you’re not running late for work or trying to get to dance class.
Sunday is more laid back. It’s a day in which we might even be thinking about the estimable concept of forgiveness.
“Mom? I’m sorry I let The Champ flush dad’s boxer shorts down the toilet. I didn’t want to get them out by myself. It’s kind of gross.”
“That’s OK, honey. He won’t miss them. Your dad mentioned he was getting low on underwear. I needed to buy him some new ones anyway.”
I just wish it didn’t have to be so early in the morning.
What time is it, anyway? Yawwwwn.
No matter. Here I am, on Mother’s Day, representing PLUM when I should be inspecting the insides of my eyelids all because I found myself awake at some ungodly hour, looking at the clock on the bedside table and wondering a thousand insignificant questions: Wasn’t I supposed to be sleeping right now? Isn’t that what that person who takes up a sliver of the bed I hog (and whose laundry I often separate from the dirty diapers before washing) told me would happen? Why is this toddler toddling up to me with a full diaper? And why is his shirt soggy to the shoulders? Is that the fireplace lighter he has in his hands?
Too many questions for one groggy mommy, for sure.
Yes, it was just another Sunday morning. However, since my husband was home from being “on the road” and vanquishing art emergencies (or whatever it is he does when his iPhone buzzes, sending him and his trusty Sprinter Van away any give weekend day to deal with a enormous sculpture’s problematic placement) I had planned to sleep in.
In fact, I do recall that the guy (whose clothes I often fold before jamming on a shelf or stuffing into a drawer) had promised to take the kids to breakfast, or to the park, or some other place outside of the house so such a feat of motherly negligence could be realized.
Those of you who are moms realize that no matter when your kids get up any sleep YOU get after 8 a.m. is gravy. I, however, hold out hope for a noon rising. Not today.
After I snatch the lighter out of the boy’s hands and wrestled him into a fresh diaper and dry t-shirt, I meander out into the living room to find the man wrapped in a blanket like a cocoon watching Sunday morning television.
“Sorry. ... I feel sick," he groans pitifully. "I have the chills.”
"I hope it’s not the Swine Flu,” I grumble, remembering the days I used to bid him good travels by saying I hoped his plane didn’t crash.
“Don’t say such a thing,” he protests in response.
“Well I do ... hope it’s NOT the swine flu. I hope it’s just allergies and not some antibiotic-resistant flesh-eating super bug inhabiting your nasal cavity. ... Hey, did you make coffee?”
See, I’m not bitter. We at the People for Less Unrest in Marriage realize that sometimes the waves of our best intentions are dashed on the rocks of some opportunistic microbe lurking on some fine art gallery door knob, and there’s just nothing anyone can do about it ... not even if they immersed themselves in vats of hand sanitizer.
Yet, if he were “The Mom” the virus’ effects would be beaten into submission by sheer willpower and a single shot of well-aimed Lysol. Someone, after all, has got to get the kids’ lunches made, or get them to school, or wipe up that spill someone else (and I’m not pointing fingers) made when he was making himself a cup of tea.
It’s really not a big deal. Making my own cup of coffee and corralling tiny soldiers bent on seeding the dining room with toy landmines, isn’t the same arduous task when you’re not running late for work or trying to get to dance class.
Sunday is more laid back. It’s a day in which we might even be thinking about the estimable concept of forgiveness.
“Mom? I’m sorry I let The Champ flush dad’s boxer shorts down the toilet. I didn’t want to get them out by myself. It’s kind of gross.”
“That’s OK, honey. He won’t miss them. Your dad mentioned he was getting low on underwear. I needed to buy him some new ones anyway.”
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Your life follows wherever you move
"It smells a little like the Bronx zoo in here," said the friend as he was walking up the stairs, sandwiched between me and the man who would become my husband.
From my position as lead guide I smiled and laughed, but in my thoughts I was so violently crossing him off our Christmas card list I think I may have ripped the bit of gray matter where his words had been indelibly written.
Our home has always been, shall we say, primitive. Even the people who sold it to us said they knew it was time to move on when their kids started referring to it as "The Dump."
It is, after all, a barn made habitable for humans by generations of either semi-skilled or completely untalented craftsmen ... all of whom had pets.
The offending odor detected by our honest friend wafted up from the carpet on the main stairs. Up until his pronouncement we'd been ignoring it by mouth breathing and opening windows to let it dissipate. There was so much to do before it would feel like home, ripping out entryway carpeting wasn't a priority.
Of course, the stench might have come from the rotting sub-floor under the bathroom carpet ... also deemed less of a priority than the kitchen, which was almost as closet-sized as the loo.
"Don't think about what's under there ... Don't think about what's under there ... Don'tthinkaboutwhat'sunderthere" became my mantra every time I stood at the tiny sink.
Slowly and steadily, hopefully, goes a life. And so too, it seems, does the work of making pretty the place you live that life.
There were walls to reconfigure, closets to built, a kitchen to remodel and so many things we'd never even considered that nearly sent us, as a couple, off to separate apartments. "How are we going to renovate the bathroom if there's only one bathroom?" became the Catch-22.
That was so many years ago. … Before we decided to get married. … Before we envisioned kids.
But as flawed as it was -- as crusty and haphazard -- we loved this place. We agonized and fought bitterly over changes. Should we open this up? Should we close that down? What about windows here? Skylights?
And then the kids came. A beloved dog left us and became entombed in the "garden." We finally managed to finish the hardwoods and change out the repugnant bathroom floor. Real walls replaced plywood safety measures. Molding.
I couldn't imagine ever leaving. We were so close to getting the master bathroom of our dreams. (Granted, I am the type of person who dreams I've gone to the Post Office to mail letters, but that's not really important to the story.) A home has memories that can be more valuable than masonry.
And then the opportunity presented itself ... as opportunities always present themselves: in murky, cloying ways that can be just as easily perceived as bad omens ... but we ignore them. Or rather the man that I love ignores. Rewards, he feels, sometimes involve risks ... calculated risks.
So we jump. Thinking we've secured a safety net at least so how bad can it be?
This time will be different. We’ll do all the work that needs doing first. We won’t live amid sheetrock dust and unfinished floors. It will be a real house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms and a choice of three rooms to make the playroom.
Good things can come in threes, too. (Or so I tell myself.)
We plunge ahead.
Yet when we open the door to this new life we find our old one right there waiting for us.
"It smells a little like the Bronx Zoo in here."
From my position as lead guide I smiled and laughed, but in my thoughts I was so violently crossing him off our Christmas card list I think I may have ripped the bit of gray matter where his words had been indelibly written.
Our home has always been, shall we say, primitive. Even the people who sold it to us said they knew it was time to move on when their kids started referring to it as "The Dump."
It is, after all, a barn made habitable for humans by generations of either semi-skilled or completely untalented craftsmen ... all of whom had pets.
The offending odor detected by our honest friend wafted up from the carpet on the main stairs. Up until his pronouncement we'd been ignoring it by mouth breathing and opening windows to let it dissipate. There was so much to do before it would feel like home, ripping out entryway carpeting wasn't a priority.
Of course, the stench might have come from the rotting sub-floor under the bathroom carpet ... also deemed less of a priority than the kitchen, which was almost as closet-sized as the loo.
"Don't think about what's under there ... Don't think about what's under there ... Don'tthinkaboutwhat'sunderthere" became my mantra every time I stood at the tiny sink.
Slowly and steadily, hopefully, goes a life. And so too, it seems, does the work of making pretty the place you live that life.
There were walls to reconfigure, closets to built, a kitchen to remodel and so many things we'd never even considered that nearly sent us, as a couple, off to separate apartments. "How are we going to renovate the bathroom if there's only one bathroom?" became the Catch-22.
That was so many years ago. … Before we decided to get married. … Before we envisioned kids.
But as flawed as it was -- as crusty and haphazard -- we loved this place. We agonized and fought bitterly over changes. Should we open this up? Should we close that down? What about windows here? Skylights?
And then the kids came. A beloved dog left us and became entombed in the "garden." We finally managed to finish the hardwoods and change out the repugnant bathroom floor. Real walls replaced plywood safety measures. Molding.
I couldn't imagine ever leaving. We were so close to getting the master bathroom of our dreams. (Granted, I am the type of person who dreams I've gone to the Post Office to mail letters, but that's not really important to the story.) A home has memories that can be more valuable than masonry.
And then the opportunity presented itself ... as opportunities always present themselves: in murky, cloying ways that can be just as easily perceived as bad omens ... but we ignore them. Or rather the man that I love ignores. Rewards, he feels, sometimes involve risks ... calculated risks.
So we jump. Thinking we've secured a safety net at least so how bad can it be?
This time will be different. We’ll do all the work that needs doing first. We won’t live amid sheetrock dust and unfinished floors. It will be a real house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms and a choice of three rooms to make the playroom.
Good things can come in threes, too. (Or so I tell myself.)
We plunge ahead.
Yet when we open the door to this new life we find our old one right there waiting for us.
"It smells a little like the Bronx Zoo in here."
Sunday, April 26, 2009
New mantra: Challenges build character ... say it with me
Oh, the snub.
That terrible rite of passage that begins when your very bestest, bestest, bestest friend-ever pretends you don’t exist … in public.
You know what I mean, right? It’s when you see someone you know, you run over to say “HI!” and they pretend they didn’t hear.
Even when you say “HI!” again, this time on your tip-toes, two inches from their upturned proboscis, they act as if you were invisible, turn on a heel and walk away.
“Why wouldn’t she talk to me, mama?” Ittybit asks, as I look over and see a little girl looking in every other direction but ours. I could also see she had some big-girl friends with her.
“Oh, honey. She’s just busy. Don’t worry. We’ll see her another day.” I try not to make a big deal of it. Sooner or later, probably when she gets to school herself in a few more months, the shoe will be on the other foot and we’ll be here again, reminding her just how sharp this jab felt.
Growing pains.
It never ends. It just leads to more furtive interactions, and the beginning of the dance in which we pretend we aren’t hurt; a dance that has us eventually preemptively crossing a street so that we allow the potential for that person to have a running start.
There are so many times, as a parent, that you want to just plunge your hand into a kid’s back (often your own kid, though sometimes others) and wriggle it around until you get a nice, tight grip on the inside of their jaws so that when they speak it will be your words that come out of their mouths.
If it could only be that simple.
Ah, but no matter how much we’d like it to be, and despite having seemed that way for the first couple years of our experience, parenthood is nothing like puppeteering.
The ability to whisper to your parents, friends, not-to-mention perfect strangers at the grocery store: “Oh, it’s not you, he’s just t-e-e-t-h-i-n-g,” comes to an abrupt end right about the time his older sibling overhears you and drowns you out with … “No, Mom. It is him. He only seems to cry when he’s around. I don’t think he likes him very much.”
GAH!
It’s also about this time when most pleasantries disappear.
Gone are the days – and there WERE days -- when you didn’t have to remind your tiny humans to say “Please,” or “Thank You” or “Excuse Me.”
And coming soon – if they haven’t already arrived -- are the days in which you get nothing but sullen looks and blank stares when you ask simple questions such as “How was your day?” “Will you please pick up your jacket?” “Please put your shoes on, it’s time for school.”
Not even a “Fine,” an “OK” or a “Sure.”
You get nothing … or worse ... you get the dreaded eye-roll.
There are times when I think schools cause this; schools with their cattle herding from class to class, leaving enough time in between the ABCs and 123s to allow alliances to be made and cliques to form over the lunch room tables and the playground games of tag.
The mama bear in me wants to insulate my cubs from any slight that hurts.
But the part of me that wins is the part that admits that without differences of opinion -- without fighting and brainstorming and storming off; without meeting anyone who was different, or trying or infuriating -- we’d miss a lot of potential.
We might also miss the potential of our own ability to rise above it.
That terrible rite of passage that begins when your very bestest, bestest, bestest friend-ever pretends you don’t exist … in public.
You know what I mean, right? It’s when you see someone you know, you run over to say “HI!” and they pretend they didn’t hear.
Even when you say “HI!” again, this time on your tip-toes, two inches from their upturned proboscis, they act as if you were invisible, turn on a heel and walk away.
“Why wouldn’t she talk to me, mama?” Ittybit asks, as I look over and see a little girl looking in every other direction but ours. I could also see she had some big-girl friends with her.
“Oh, honey. She’s just busy. Don’t worry. We’ll see her another day.” I try not to make a big deal of it. Sooner or later, probably when she gets to school herself in a few more months, the shoe will be on the other foot and we’ll be here again, reminding her just how sharp this jab felt.
Growing pains.
It never ends. It just leads to more furtive interactions, and the beginning of the dance in which we pretend we aren’t hurt; a dance that has us eventually preemptively crossing a street so that we allow the potential for that person to have a running start.
There are so many times, as a parent, that you want to just plunge your hand into a kid’s back (often your own kid, though sometimes others) and wriggle it around until you get a nice, tight grip on the inside of their jaws so that when they speak it will be your words that come out of their mouths.
If it could only be that simple.
Ah, but no matter how much we’d like it to be, and despite having seemed that way for the first couple years of our experience, parenthood is nothing like puppeteering.
The ability to whisper to your parents, friends, not-to-mention perfect strangers at the grocery store: “Oh, it’s not you, he’s just t-e-e-t-h-i-n-g,” comes to an abrupt end right about the time his older sibling overhears you and drowns you out with … “No, Mom. It is him. He only seems to cry when he’s around. I don’t think he likes him very much.”
GAH!
It’s also about this time when most pleasantries disappear.
Gone are the days – and there WERE days -- when you didn’t have to remind your tiny humans to say “Please,” or “Thank You” or “Excuse Me.”
And coming soon – if they haven’t already arrived -- are the days in which you get nothing but sullen looks and blank stares when you ask simple questions such as “How was your day?” “Will you please pick up your jacket?” “Please put your shoes on, it’s time for school.”
Not even a “Fine,” an “OK” or a “Sure.”
You get nothing … or worse ... you get the dreaded eye-roll.
There are times when I think schools cause this; schools with their cattle herding from class to class, leaving enough time in between the ABCs and 123s to allow alliances to be made and cliques to form over the lunch room tables and the playground games of tag.
The mama bear in me wants to insulate my cubs from any slight that hurts.
But the part of me that wins is the part that admits that without differences of opinion -- without fighting and brainstorming and storming off; without meeting anyone who was different, or trying or infuriating -- we’d miss a lot of potential.
We might also miss the potential of our own ability to rise above it.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
For parents, little chairs mean big responsibilities
Dear Ittybit,
You slipped into the shower with me this morning, wanting your first kindergarten experience to be clean of preschool dirt, no doubt.
You dug through your dresser looking for the shirt a friend had given you because you'd decided to wear it to the big interview: kindergarten registration day.
You were sure the bright yellow hand-me-down was a "Kind-y-garten" shirt, since it was bequeathed to you by a kindergartener. But when you pointed to a word and I read it as "Preschool," you put it back and selected an alternate."I want to wear jeans, mama," you said to my surprise. "Big girls wear jeans," you explained.
But you didn't have any jeans; I'd long ago stopped buying them since you prefer soft, stretchy pants. You settled for a pair of purple corduroys with riveted pockets that were wadded up in the back of a lower drawer, one of last children's apparel purchases I made without your approval.
We were just about ready.
Your father had left the paperwork up to me. I'd collected the information - immunization records, birth certificate, registration forms, proof of residence - the previous night.
We were all excited.
You were going to be great. We all knew it. As I checked off the boxes on the assessment, I was kind of stunned that I needed a check list to remind me what a great kid you really are:
Then the questions get more difficult to answer.
In stead of yes and no answers, they offer graduated check boxes ranging from “almost always” through “almost never.”
Why was I worried? When we arrived in the office and met the principal's assistant you were charming and all “Hello and how-do-you-do. ... Will I meet my teacher today?"
When a woman came to get you and bring you to the place where you’d be asked to play some games so that a panel of clipboard-toting administrators could decide your future class placement, you never looked back. You are not so much brave, I thought, as you are confident.
As you were reciting numbers and letters (and getting gold stars for showing the nice ladies with the clipboards how you could cut with scissors and catch a ball) we were getting sent to remedial parenting school in our minds, and likely the minds of the school's administrators.
I'd missed half of the forms that needed to be turned in, and had to quickly scribble them out as your dad tried to cover by cracking jokes and asking questions.
We look on sheepishly as the mother behind us received praise for getting all the forms filled out properly. Our shoulders slumped forward just a little bit more.
When we are brought together again, the three of us, to meet the principal we became THOSE parents; the one's who are afraid you won't be seen for who you are; the ones who are afraid you will be molded into student who repeats information by rote. We have no idea what we don't know.
I admitted to the smiling woman behind the desk that we have no doubt that you are ready for school and that you will do well. We are not worried about your abilities at all. I tell her we are the ones who are scared. We are the one's who will have trouble fitting in.
She nods her head with something in her face that says she knows us better than we know ourselves.
With love, and promises to work on getting more gold stars,
Mommy
You slipped into the shower with me this morning, wanting your first kindergarten experience to be clean of preschool dirt, no doubt.
You dug through your dresser looking for the shirt a friend had given you because you'd decided to wear it to the big interview: kindergarten registration day.
You were sure the bright yellow hand-me-down was a "Kind-y-garten" shirt, since it was bequeathed to you by a kindergartener. But when you pointed to a word and I read it as "Preschool," you put it back and selected an alternate."I want to wear jeans, mama," you said to my surprise. "Big girls wear jeans," you explained.
But you didn't have any jeans; I'd long ago stopped buying them since you prefer soft, stretchy pants. You settled for a pair of purple corduroys with riveted pockets that were wadded up in the back of a lower drawer, one of last children's apparel purchases I made without your approval.
We were just about ready.
Your father had left the paperwork up to me. I'd collected the information - immunization records, birth certificate, registration forms, proof of residence - the previous night.
We were all excited.
You were going to be great. We all knew it. As I checked off the boxes on the assessment, I was kind of stunned that I needed a check list to remind me what a great kid you really are:
Manage bathroom needs without assistance? Yes.
Can follow two step directions? Yes.
Can count to 10? Yes.
Recognizes own name in print? Yes.
Can write her name using uppercase and lower case letters? Yes.
Can stand/hop on one foot? Yes.
Can cut curves with scissors? Yes.
Classifies objects by shape, color, and size? Yes.
Then the questions get more difficult to answer.
In stead of yes and no answers, they offer graduated check boxes ranging from “almost always” through “almost never.”
Is she easily upset? Not usually, although there was that time last week when her brother threw her new toy in the commode. … That doesn’t really fit into the easy category, right? That seems like an appropriate response. Where’s my eraser?
Does she respond to basic requests? Sometimes … although it greatly depends on whether or not the television is on.
Does she grab, hit, kick or whine? No, No, No, and Yes, sometimes, but I blame Caillou for teaching her that.
Why was I worried? When we arrived in the office and met the principal's assistant you were charming and all “Hello and how-do-you-do. ... Will I meet my teacher today?"
When a woman came to get you and bring you to the place where you’d be asked to play some games so that a panel of clipboard-toting administrators could decide your future class placement, you never looked back. You are not so much brave, I thought, as you are confident.
As you were reciting numbers and letters (and getting gold stars for showing the nice ladies with the clipboards how you could cut with scissors and catch a ball) we were getting sent to remedial parenting school in our minds, and likely the minds of the school's administrators.
I'd missed half of the forms that needed to be turned in, and had to quickly scribble them out as your dad tried to cover by cracking jokes and asking questions.
We look on sheepishly as the mother behind us received praise for getting all the forms filled out properly. Our shoulders slumped forward just a little bit more.
When we are brought together again, the three of us, to meet the principal we became THOSE parents; the one's who are afraid you won't be seen for who you are; the ones who are afraid you will be molded into student who repeats information by rote. We have no idea what we don't know.
I admitted to the smiling woman behind the desk that we have no doubt that you are ready for school and that you will do well. We are not worried about your abilities at all. I tell her we are the ones who are scared. We are the one's who will have trouble fitting in.
She nods her head with something in her face that says she knows us better than we know ourselves.
With love, and promises to work on getting more gold stars,
Mommy
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Is allowing toy guns the same as playing with fire?
When I was growing up kids (in my age-group anyway) didn't play with guns. It was a mindset that most of our parents held: guns were not toys; there was nothing of value to be gained from leveling the barrel of a plastic peashooter in any direction, even at an imaginary foe.
Had we hailed from a family of hunters, maybe we'd have a different take on the subject. But no, we, and nearly everyone we knew, were doggedly anti-gun.
My assumption has always been that the war in Vietnam — which had recently ended — was the main factor behind the boycott. Too many young men our parents had known just never came home, or they'd come home so affected by the horrors they'd seen or participated in that they weren't the same people they’d been when they left.
I was quite a bit older when I first saw a child playing with a toy gun. I must admit the sight shocked me.
But then again, I was a girl — a tomboy, perhaps, but a girl all the same. The boy stuff I was interested in wasn't playing cops and robbers or war games so much as going fishing or climbing trees or catching snakes. I was all about scaling walls and getting dirty. I have come to think of it as a testament to my lack of imagination. I wasn't interested in thinking and role play as much as I was fixated on getting things done. I wanted to be the Engine Who Could. I wanted to be as high as I could get. I wanted to face fear and stare it down.
Guns didn't frighten me; they weren't even on my radar.
It didn't occur to me until much later, though, that guns were all around as I grew up. They didn't much look like the genuine article of course: just a red button on a rectangular hunk of plastic, tethered by a chord to the television screen. The explosive blasts sounded more digital than mechanical, and the targets were little men from outer space.
Few could work up much opposition to something so fanciful.
Shooting aliens, after all, would be a desired skill in the unlikely event of an interstellar invasion.
Of course, my interest in such things never lasted long; again I credit my gender. Even with the advent of Charlie's Angels, I was more interested in the caliber of their coiffs than the caliber of their side arms.
But boys will be boys.
My husband's mom was not much different in her perspective than my parents. She was another mother who forbade games depicting mortal combat. Of course she herself fell victim when her only son — unhappy with the edict — chewed his toast into the shape of a revolver and brazenly shot her over breakfast one morning.
"Where do they get this from," I recall her recollecting.
I have to admit, I had the same degree of wonderment when The Champ, a few months ago, picked up a roll of wrapping paper, aimed it at the dog and said: "Psssshoooooo!"
I shook it off. He's only 17 months old. It didn't mean what I think it means.
Then a month or so later I found him quietly stalking our furry, incontinent beast with the core of a toilet paper roll. One eye shut. BOOM!
"We don't shoot family pets," I bark and lunge for the weapon.
"No. Pshooooo?"
"No Pshooooo."
I sent out the APB: "The Champ has a gun," but I didn't bother asking where he got one.
"Bond. James Bond." Has been his dad's nightly routine for falling asleep since Santa brought him the complete boxed set. Together father and son watch car chases and explosions as I read bedtime stories about cute and fuzzy bunnies to Ittybit.
I suppose as the recent mass shooting in Binghamton settles on our psyches, we’ll be reassessing how we glorify gore.
We’ll argue for a time over whether shooting at imaginary targets in play translates into warped moral standards. We may even look to ban more of this primordial play.
We may even hear a new call for a ban, despite studies that show toy guns and violent play acting might actually have an important role in our children’s healthy development.
To me the studies makes sense. Not only do we learn through play, but it doesn’t seem as if outright bans instill knowledge as much as they reinforce fear. And looking back, I can honestly say that none of the kids I knew who played cops and robbers ever became either. Although it's possible one or two are still shooting at aliens.
Had we hailed from a family of hunters, maybe we'd have a different take on the subject. But no, we, and nearly everyone we knew, were doggedly anti-gun.
My assumption has always been that the war in Vietnam — which had recently ended — was the main factor behind the boycott. Too many young men our parents had known just never came home, or they'd come home so affected by the horrors they'd seen or participated in that they weren't the same people they’d been when they left.
I was quite a bit older when I first saw a child playing with a toy gun. I must admit the sight shocked me.
But then again, I was a girl — a tomboy, perhaps, but a girl all the same. The boy stuff I was interested in wasn't playing cops and robbers or war games so much as going fishing or climbing trees or catching snakes. I was all about scaling walls and getting dirty. I have come to think of it as a testament to my lack of imagination. I wasn't interested in thinking and role play as much as I was fixated on getting things done. I wanted to be the Engine Who Could. I wanted to be as high as I could get. I wanted to face fear and stare it down.
Guns didn't frighten me; they weren't even on my radar.
It didn't occur to me until much later, though, that guns were all around as I grew up. They didn't much look like the genuine article of course: just a red button on a rectangular hunk of plastic, tethered by a chord to the television screen. The explosive blasts sounded more digital than mechanical, and the targets were little men from outer space.
Few could work up much opposition to something so fanciful.
Shooting aliens, after all, would be a desired skill in the unlikely event of an interstellar invasion.
Of course, my interest in such things never lasted long; again I credit my gender. Even with the advent of Charlie's Angels, I was more interested in the caliber of their coiffs than the caliber of their side arms.
But boys will be boys.
My husband's mom was not much different in her perspective than my parents. She was another mother who forbade games depicting mortal combat. Of course she herself fell victim when her only son — unhappy with the edict — chewed his toast into the shape of a revolver and brazenly shot her over breakfast one morning.
"Where do they get this from," I recall her recollecting.
I have to admit, I had the same degree of wonderment when The Champ, a few months ago, picked up a roll of wrapping paper, aimed it at the dog and said: "Psssshoooooo!"
I shook it off. He's only 17 months old. It didn't mean what I think it means.
Then a month or so later I found him quietly stalking our furry, incontinent beast with the core of a toilet paper roll. One eye shut. BOOM!
"We don't shoot family pets," I bark and lunge for the weapon.
"No. Pshooooo?"
"No Pshooooo."
I sent out the APB: "The Champ has a gun," but I didn't bother asking where he got one.
"Bond. James Bond." Has been his dad's nightly routine for falling asleep since Santa brought him the complete boxed set. Together father and son watch car chases and explosions as I read bedtime stories about cute and fuzzy bunnies to Ittybit.
I suppose as the recent mass shooting in Binghamton settles on our psyches, we’ll be reassessing how we glorify gore.
We’ll argue for a time over whether shooting at imaginary targets in play translates into warped moral standards. We may even look to ban more of this primordial play.
We may even hear a new call for a ban, despite studies that show toy guns and violent play acting might actually have an important role in our children’s healthy development.
To me the studies makes sense. Not only do we learn through play, but it doesn’t seem as if outright bans instill knowledge as much as they reinforce fear. And looking back, I can honestly say that none of the kids I knew who played cops and robbers ever became either. Although it's possible one or two are still shooting at aliens.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
‘Workings’ together not just side by side
At Christmas or a short time thereafter a box arrived on the doorstep from my father-in-law addressed to his son.
Inside were two pairs of ordinary work gloves made of blue and red stripped canvas ticking and gray-colored leather; one was an adult-sized “Large,” and the other was a tiny replica meant for a child.
However, it was a letter tucked in with the pristine protective hand wear that was the true gift, for it bestowed the origin the family tradition of “workings.”
“Workings” being the term my husband’s grandfather had good-naturedly bellowed most weekend mornings after breakfast; a term his children (and later, grandchildren) understood to mean they were expected to dress for the weather, whatever it be, and join their elder taskmaster outside, where they would be expected to assist him in an endeavor that was destined (as it was loudly and proudly announced) to “save the universe.”
Usually, my father-in-law’s letter stated, “workings” were small tasks the elder gentleman thought convenient to share that morning with his diminutive workforce: Saving the world, one leaf pile at a time.
As I read the missive, I pictured “workings” as the ordinary tasks that always need doing: the raking of leaves, the weeding of gardens, the painting of fences, the organizing of tools.
I felt a surge of shame.
All the tasks that are woefully neglected at our house since the people over the age of six have proven incapable of keeping their eyes on those under the age of six and still manage to accomplish a task.
But it was winter: The wind was biting, the temperatures daunting.
And despite the urge to bundle up the kids and drag them outside in the snow to push something around with a shovel calling “WORKINGS” into the winter wind, the desire to stay warm and comfortable blocks forward momentum.
Oh, we of prematurely sedimentary ways.
I closed the gift box. I put it away. It left my mind.
Until just the other day when I awoke to the sound of the coffee grinder, slowly oozed out of bed and lumbered into the kitchen, lured by the aroma of fresh drip.
With my husband sitting behind his computer at the desk, and my son perched next to him plunking away of the keys of his own plastic laptop, I saw our 21st century equivalent of “workings” in action.
The scene reminded me of the shame and the box and the letter, and my winter desire to do something else: to plant something, to just dig in the dirt, to accomplish something together, not just silently side by side. There is so much to do; so many workings to share if we could only get started.
The wind is still biting, and the tasks that have piled up are enormous. One would need to grow a will the size of a walrus to keep the whirling dervish and the toddler busy AND still manage to make any progress. And I haven’t forgotten there are naps to navigate, a kitchen to clean and laundry to fold and put away.
But Ittybit knows what workings she wants to do; she wants to start planting. She’s got the seed packages ready and the scissors poised, just waiting for the final “OK, we’ll do it.”
I wasn’t so sure. I had just mopped the floor. And how would we keep the Champ from eating the dirt?
But she was adamant. “It will be fun …”
“OK, we’ll do it.”
And with that we gathered our supplies: “We’ll need egg crates, and potting soil, a teaspoon and water. We’ll need newspaper to spread on the table. We’ll need to roll up our sleeves,” I said as the things piled up.
“And we’ll also need gloves,” she said with a smile.
Inside were two pairs of ordinary work gloves made of blue and red stripped canvas ticking and gray-colored leather; one was an adult-sized “Large,” and the other was a tiny replica meant for a child.
However, it was a letter tucked in with the pristine protective hand wear that was the true gift, for it bestowed the origin the family tradition of “workings.”
“Workings” being the term my husband’s grandfather had good-naturedly bellowed most weekend mornings after breakfast; a term his children (and later, grandchildren) understood to mean they were expected to dress for the weather, whatever it be, and join their elder taskmaster outside, where they would be expected to assist him in an endeavor that was destined (as it was loudly and proudly announced) to “save the universe.”
Usually, my father-in-law’s letter stated, “workings” were small tasks the elder gentleman thought convenient to share that morning with his diminutive workforce: Saving the world, one leaf pile at a time.
As I read the missive, I pictured “workings” as the ordinary tasks that always need doing: the raking of leaves, the weeding of gardens, the painting of fences, the organizing of tools.
I felt a surge of shame.
All the tasks that are woefully neglected at our house since the people over the age of six have proven incapable of keeping their eyes on those under the age of six and still manage to accomplish a task.
But it was winter: The wind was biting, the temperatures daunting.
And despite the urge to bundle up the kids and drag them outside in the snow to push something around with a shovel calling “WORKINGS” into the winter wind, the desire to stay warm and comfortable blocks forward momentum.
Oh, we of prematurely sedimentary ways.
I closed the gift box. I put it away. It left my mind.
Until just the other day when I awoke to the sound of the coffee grinder, slowly oozed out of bed and lumbered into the kitchen, lured by the aroma of fresh drip.
With my husband sitting behind his computer at the desk, and my son perched next to him plunking away of the keys of his own plastic laptop, I saw our 21st century equivalent of “workings” in action.
The scene reminded me of the shame and the box and the letter, and my winter desire to do something else: to plant something, to just dig in the dirt, to accomplish something together, not just silently side by side. There is so much to do; so many workings to share if we could only get started.
The wind is still biting, and the tasks that have piled up are enormous. One would need to grow a will the size of a walrus to keep the whirling dervish and the toddler busy AND still manage to make any progress. And I haven’t forgotten there are naps to navigate, a kitchen to clean and laundry to fold and put away.
But Ittybit knows what workings she wants to do; she wants to start planting. She’s got the seed packages ready and the scissors poised, just waiting for the final “OK, we’ll do it.”
I wasn’t so sure. I had just mopped the floor. And how would we keep the Champ from eating the dirt?
But she was adamant. “It will be fun …”
“OK, we’ll do it.”
And with that we gathered our supplies: “We’ll need egg crates, and potting soil, a teaspoon and water. We’ll need newspaper to spread on the table. We’ll need to roll up our sleeves,” I said as the things piled up.
“And we’ll also need gloves,” she said with a smile.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The way nature intended (patent pending)
My husband and I were perfectly happy with our standard-issue; single-setting; no fuss, no muss; fixed shower head. It was roughly the diameter of a half-dollar and probably cost the same way back in the '70s when it was initially installed in our rinky-dink little stand-up shower unit.
But then someone — a houseguest (and I’m not naming names, not even if you twist my arm) — decided that we needed something more exciting, more robust … more in keeping with the times. And that person bought us a super-duper 10-setting, pivoting shower head that, for a time, did everything except change the light bulb above the sink.
It had all kinds of spray options:
Simple massage
Nebulizing mist
Rain
Power rain
Full rain with massage
Directed pattern spray
Random pattern spray,
Aeration spray,
Twirling spray,
Pulsating jet spray
It was Class-ay!
After that, and this was a while ago, my husband and I started having the hassle of having to change the other's selection of shower spray to the water-dropping-pattern-ratio of spray we preferred whenever we were scrubbing up.
I had the added problem of having to turn the shower head towards the wall so as to keep the water in the tub, something my husband can't really do because he'd never be able to get all the soap of his body. I figure the fact that the shower head is the size of a salad plate and our shower is the size of a gym locker is the cause of that added adjustment.
Of course time and minerals conspired against us, and eventually no matter what setting we wrestled the shower head into, what we got for our trouble was Do-it-Yourself Carwash (Patent pending).
We eventually stopped adjusting the spray, but continued to adjust its direction. Neither of us wanted to sandblast the sheetrock or cause a wading pool to collect on the floor.
Lately though, I noticed the shower head has been providing a rather unexpected, but pleasant effect; big, soft, fat drops seemed to be falling lightly now in a concentrated area. I found the change to be quite refreshing. The effect wasn’t really comparable to nature, nevertheless I tend to equate it with a summer rain shower, and I imagine THIS is probably what the shower head designers had in mind all along.
Soon, the spray wars in our house began anew.
I mentioned this revelation to my husband as we begin the dance with the setting once again. He likes his shower to be injected with little needle spindles of water whereas I'd be fine if mine were dumped over my head in a sudden rush of water as if coming from the spigot of a pump. My newly discovered “Rain Drop” was a few clicks to the right of his “Sand Your Skin Off Blast.”
"You know, I kind of like the way the shower isn't all scrub your skin off anymore."
"Oh, that," he replied. "You didn't notice? I just wiped the crusty mineral build-up off with my thumb."
"Now that's class-ay."
But then someone — a houseguest (and I’m not naming names, not even if you twist my arm) — decided that we needed something more exciting, more robust … more in keeping with the times. And that person bought us a super-duper 10-setting, pivoting shower head that, for a time, did everything except change the light bulb above the sink.
It had all kinds of spray options:
Simple massage
Nebulizing mist
Rain
Power rain
Full rain with massage
Directed pattern spray
Random pattern spray,
Aeration spray,
Twirling spray,
Pulsating jet spray
It was Class-ay!
After that, and this was a while ago, my husband and I started having the hassle of having to change the other's selection of shower spray to the water-dropping-pattern-ratio of spray we preferred whenever we were scrubbing up.
I had the added problem of having to turn the shower head towards the wall so as to keep the water in the tub, something my husband can't really do because he'd never be able to get all the soap of his body. I figure the fact that the shower head is the size of a salad plate and our shower is the size of a gym locker is the cause of that added adjustment.
Of course time and minerals conspired against us, and eventually no matter what setting we wrestled the shower head into, what we got for our trouble was Do-it-Yourself Carwash (Patent pending).
We eventually stopped adjusting the spray, but continued to adjust its direction. Neither of us wanted to sandblast the sheetrock or cause a wading pool to collect on the floor.
Lately though, I noticed the shower head has been providing a rather unexpected, but pleasant effect; big, soft, fat drops seemed to be falling lightly now in a concentrated area. I found the change to be quite refreshing. The effect wasn’t really comparable to nature, nevertheless I tend to equate it with a summer rain shower, and I imagine THIS is probably what the shower head designers had in mind all along.
Soon, the spray wars in our house began anew.
I mentioned this revelation to my husband as we begin the dance with the setting once again. He likes his shower to be injected with little needle spindles of water whereas I'd be fine if mine were dumped over my head in a sudden rush of water as if coming from the spigot of a pump. My newly discovered “Rain Drop” was a few clicks to the right of his “Sand Your Skin Off Blast.”
"You know, I kind of like the way the shower isn't all scrub your skin off anymore."
"Oh, that," he replied. "You didn't notice? I just wiped the crusty mineral build-up off with my thumb."
"Now that's class-ay."
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Having sleepless nights over sleepless nights
The Champ’s room is empty save for a trundle bed bought for a handful of dollars at a yard sale and a corner dresser filled with clothes he’s still months away from fitting.
A beige towel — remaindered and untouched from the last overnight guest — lays folded on the chest’s blonde-colored top. It serves as a rough terry mattress for a smattering of keepsake toys with which he’s never played.
The tiny corner boudoir — more extension of hallway than bedroom — has been a concern since the moment the ultrasound technician detected his wand with hers.
Thus he’s never spent a night in his room. He rarely spends the night in his crib.
His clothes — the ones that do fit him — are straining a cheap chest of drawers pushed into the back of my closet. The ones he’s outgrown make their way to a bag tucked in beside it, presumably to be left, like an orphan, on the steps of a charity in a moment of eyes-closed-shut resolve.
My husband wonders if we’ll have to wait until he goes to college before we get our room back. His jokes have sharp teeth that he wraps in humor to dull the effect on my soft flesh.
I refuse to talk about it.
I don’t want to give voice to all that I am thinking:
* That we are showing a kind of deep seated favoritism to our boy since we shuffled our girl off to a room of her own when she was barely one year old.
* That he is my last child, and losing his baby-ness with each passing day.
* That things are progressing in the other house — the house that is not the home we brought our children into but the one in which they will grow up — and that means more change. It means moving our stuff into new rooms; reconfiguring, becoming unsettled to resettle. It means moving him into his own room; a real room — a room that rivals his sister’s.
I don’t want to be reminded that my babies are growing up even though the fact of it confronts me each morning at breakfast. Each day they get taller and taller, able to reach previously unattainable objects as they perch on tippy-toes.
Such happiness I feel in their accomplishment, and yet a somber tone sounds in my head '... soon they won't need me.' Not in the way it feels nice to be needed. When the night time feeding is over; when they’ve mastered the stairs and understand that the woodstove is HOT.
I’m probably going to be the mom who rolls her eyes and goes boneless when her kids want her to find their soccer gear … or get them a glass of juice when they’re mere inches away from the refrigerator.
The day is coming when we will have our room back. When we look at each other and have to figure out how to be alone again. How to just be us.
I don’t want think about that day if it means it will be missing the equivalent of the children’s weight in joy.
A beige towel — remaindered and untouched from the last overnight guest — lays folded on the chest’s blonde-colored top. It serves as a rough terry mattress for a smattering of keepsake toys with which he’s never played.
The tiny corner boudoir — more extension of hallway than bedroom — has been a concern since the moment the ultrasound technician detected his wand with hers.
Thus he’s never spent a night in his room. He rarely spends the night in his crib.
His clothes — the ones that do fit him — are straining a cheap chest of drawers pushed into the back of my closet. The ones he’s outgrown make their way to a bag tucked in beside it, presumably to be left, like an orphan, on the steps of a charity in a moment of eyes-closed-shut resolve.
My husband wonders if we’ll have to wait until he goes to college before we get our room back. His jokes have sharp teeth that he wraps in humor to dull the effect on my soft flesh.
I refuse to talk about it.
I don’t want to give voice to all that I am thinking:
* That we are showing a kind of deep seated favoritism to our boy since we shuffled our girl off to a room of her own when she was barely one year old.
* That he is my last child, and losing his baby-ness with each passing day.
* That things are progressing in the other house — the house that is not the home we brought our children into but the one in which they will grow up — and that means more change. It means moving our stuff into new rooms; reconfiguring, becoming unsettled to resettle. It means moving him into his own room; a real room — a room that rivals his sister’s.
I don’t want to be reminded that my babies are growing up even though the fact of it confronts me each morning at breakfast. Each day they get taller and taller, able to reach previously unattainable objects as they perch on tippy-toes.
Such happiness I feel in their accomplishment, and yet a somber tone sounds in my head '... soon they won't need me.' Not in the way it feels nice to be needed. When the night time feeding is over; when they’ve mastered the stairs and understand that the woodstove is HOT.
I’m probably going to be the mom who rolls her eyes and goes boneless when her kids want her to find their soccer gear … or get them a glass of juice when they’re mere inches away from the refrigerator.
The day is coming when we will have our room back. When we look at each other and have to figure out how to be alone again. How to just be us.
I don’t want think about that day if it means it will be missing the equivalent of the children’s weight in joy.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
If you're looking for me, I'll be where the sun doesn't shine
Daylight Saving Time always makes me want to go into hibernation.
It’s not that more daylight isn’t welcome or that I’m sad to see winter melt away. I’ll admit, every February 2nd, I’m the first person who’d like to send that infernal groundhog in Pennsylvania – the one that ALWAYS sees its little rodent-shaped shadow no matter what - to its maker.
No, by the time DST rolls around I am ready for warmer weather and a few more hours of light after the workday ends.
What I miss is that one single solitary hour of sleep.
I’m a creature of habit, until Eastern Standard Time rears its ugly head again and I get that hour back, I know I’m just going to be a growling, sleep-deprived monster that would just as soon go back to bed than revel in the budding flowers.
My husband, though, until recently, hadn’t quite figured out how to circumvent this beast, and often plunders right into its lair.
In our house, DST is usually heralded by a protracted disagreement between him and me over whether we lose an hour or we gain an hour in the Spring-Ahead scenario.
Each year he charges right into the argument that because the clocks go FORWARD we must GAIN time. To him going forward means to progress, and all progress must translate to gains or some other form of profit.
And each year I retaliate by calling him names like “Troglodyte” and “Doltish Buffoon,” whilst showing him how the clock actually works.
By the time he begrudgingly agrees that, "yes ... it does appear that when a person goes to sleep at midnight and the clock mysteriously jumps ahead an hour at 2 a.m., that hour seems to disappear from the sleep cycle," we’ve already missed more than an hour of shut-eye.
It matters not that we have the fight every year, nor does it seem to register that he ALWAYS concedes that I was, in fact, correct. The argument is still more a harbinger of spring than the first robin.
This year, though, we never spoke about the time. We didn’t bother setting the clocks back before we went to bed.
In the morning as we were waking up at our usual 7:30 he quietly reset each clock to read 8:30.
I got out of bed and changed the baby’s diaper without making any comment. I brushed the big kid’s hair with my fingers and pestered her to wear clothes that actually fit. When I made my way out to the kitchen I took the coffee he offered.
I puzzled a while over the quiet. Where was the rant to come? Perhaps he had finally understood that his instinct for this particular argument – as I understand my instinct for spelling the word CALENDAR – is always just plain wrong. ... I’ve learned over time it’s best just to go with one’s second choice, too.
But then I thought maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s a result of the recent economy. Maybe the fact that so much presumed progress has really translated to regression ... or recession ... or depression.
We have yet to see.
In the meantime, I get the kids ready to walk to the playground. It's been months since we've seen the swings.
After all, it’s not going to cost us anything but maybe an afternoon nap.
It’s not that more daylight isn’t welcome or that I’m sad to see winter melt away. I’ll admit, every February 2nd, I’m the first person who’d like to send that infernal groundhog in Pennsylvania – the one that ALWAYS sees its little rodent-shaped shadow no matter what - to its maker.
No, by the time DST rolls around I am ready for warmer weather and a few more hours of light after the workday ends.
What I miss is that one single solitary hour of sleep.
I’m a creature of habit, until Eastern Standard Time rears its ugly head again and I get that hour back, I know I’m just going to be a growling, sleep-deprived monster that would just as soon go back to bed than revel in the budding flowers.
My husband, though, until recently, hadn’t quite figured out how to circumvent this beast, and often plunders right into its lair.
In our house, DST is usually heralded by a protracted disagreement between him and me over whether we lose an hour or we gain an hour in the Spring-Ahead scenario.
Each year he charges right into the argument that because the clocks go FORWARD we must GAIN time. To him going forward means to progress, and all progress must translate to gains or some other form of profit.
And each year I retaliate by calling him names like “Troglodyte” and “Doltish Buffoon,” whilst showing him how the clock actually works.
By the time he begrudgingly agrees that, "yes ... it does appear that when a person goes to sleep at midnight and the clock mysteriously jumps ahead an hour at 2 a.m., that hour seems to disappear from the sleep cycle," we’ve already missed more than an hour of shut-eye.
It matters not that we have the fight every year, nor does it seem to register that he ALWAYS concedes that I was, in fact, correct. The argument is still more a harbinger of spring than the first robin.
This year, though, we never spoke about the time. We didn’t bother setting the clocks back before we went to bed.
In the morning as we were waking up at our usual 7:30 he quietly reset each clock to read 8:30.
I got out of bed and changed the baby’s diaper without making any comment. I brushed the big kid’s hair with my fingers and pestered her to wear clothes that actually fit. When I made my way out to the kitchen I took the coffee he offered.
I puzzled a while over the quiet. Where was the rant to come? Perhaps he had finally understood that his instinct for this particular argument – as I understand my instinct for spelling the word CALENDAR – is always just plain wrong. ... I’ve learned over time it’s best just to go with one’s second choice, too.
But then I thought maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s a result of the recent economy. Maybe the fact that so much presumed progress has really translated to regression ... or recession ... or depression.
We have yet to see.
In the meantime, I get the kids ready to walk to the playground. It's been months since we've seen the swings.
After all, it’s not going to cost us anything but maybe an afternoon nap.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Some ground rules for 'Goodwill Hunting'
Ever since college (when I was trying to make the nightclub money stretch as far is humanly possible) I’ve had a thing for Goodwill Hunting — the thrift store experience, not the feature film.
I mean, if you are a person who can enjoy the better part of an afternoon wading through racks and racks of color-coordinated outerwear (you’d never be caught dead in) to find an armload of bargains (now half-price because it’s Blue tag day) why would you ever endure a trip to the mall and empty your pockets for the sake of style?
It’s a sport unto itself. What woman, when asked about her Marc Jacobs’ anything, doesn’t absolutely DELIGHT in telling her inquisitor how much of a steal it was? The only thing better would be if she actually stole Marc Jacobs or fished him out of the trash.
I’m that woman, although I probably wouldn’t know Jacobs or Louis Vuitton if they tapped me on the shoulder to say ‘oui.’
But I digress.
Even when I had something resembling a disposable income I flatly refused to spend more than $15 for sweaters, $10 for jeans and $6 for t-shirts. Of course adherence to such an outdated formulary in the acquisition of new clothing components means that my wardrobe will always be “new to me.”
Now that I have children who are outgrowing clothes by the hour, Goodwill Hunting has even more meaning for me. I’m thankful that Ittybit, who is now fashion conscious, isn’t thrift phobic.
I can’t tell you how her wanting to spend her hard-earned “I-was-bribed-to-sleep-in-my-own-bed” money on new pajamas from Goodwill warmed my cold consumer heart.
But like all sports, Goodwill Hunting has some rules its players should understand:
1. DON’T SHOW UP EMPTY HANDED:* Need a new coat? Why not bag one (or three) of your old coats and drop them off in the collection bin?
While you’re at it throw in those pants you never wore, the paisley shirt you outgrew, and you might as well ditch the sweater you got last Christmas that had to have been a gag gift.
You can’t do much about the cosmetics counter mistakes that are filling up your bathroom drawers but you can absolve yourself of any and all clothing sins via tax-deductible donation.
*Of course in this vein, Ittybit – like all children – in an effort to get her hands on a new plush animal (that might have come straight from the CLAW machine at the local bowling alley) is keen on getting rid of the heirloom toys she has no current use for. “But I’m never going to play with that wooden pull toy (that was handcrafted by someone’s grandfather 100 years ago) THAT’s A baby toy!”
2. SPEND TIME NOT MONEY: There are bargains to be had if you are willing to spend time and look beyond and between the Circo and Massimo overstocks. If it’s not really worth $9 new, don’t pay $7 when it’s been dumped.
3. SHOP EARLY, SHOP OFTEN: Thrift stores are constantly getting new merchandise. You never know … you may be there one day just as those new fangled ride-on toys -- the very ones that snagged an Oppenheimer award and cost $70 each – are being donated by someone “whose kids just weren’t that into them.”
4. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF: Your Neiman Marcus mistakes will always be pricier than your Goodwill gaffs. SEE RULE ONE.
Speaking of gaffs and Goodwill Hunting, I’ve never mentioned the time I quite literally ran into Matt Damon in Boston have I? I wasn’t watching where I was walking and nearly knocked him over. I apologized and he held a door for me. I thought he was quite a gentleman. But come to think of it, he never mentioned my sweater, which was new ... well, new to me.
I mean, if you are a person who can enjoy the better part of an afternoon wading through racks and racks of color-coordinated outerwear (you’d never be caught dead in) to find an armload of bargains (now half-price because it’s Blue tag day) why would you ever endure a trip to the mall and empty your pockets for the sake of style?
It’s a sport unto itself. What woman, when asked about her Marc Jacobs’ anything, doesn’t absolutely DELIGHT in telling her inquisitor how much of a steal it was? The only thing better would be if she actually stole Marc Jacobs or fished him out of the trash.
I’m that woman, although I probably wouldn’t know Jacobs or Louis Vuitton if they tapped me on the shoulder to say ‘oui.’
But I digress.
Even when I had something resembling a disposable income I flatly refused to spend more than $15 for sweaters, $10 for jeans and $6 for t-shirts. Of course adherence to such an outdated formulary in the acquisition of new clothing components means that my wardrobe will always be “new to me.”
Now that I have children who are outgrowing clothes by the hour, Goodwill Hunting has even more meaning for me. I’m thankful that Ittybit, who is now fashion conscious, isn’t thrift phobic.
I can’t tell you how her wanting to spend her hard-earned “I-was-bribed-to-sleep-in-my-own-bed” money on new pajamas from Goodwill warmed my cold consumer heart.
But like all sports, Goodwill Hunting has some rules its players should understand:
1. DON’T SHOW UP EMPTY HANDED:* Need a new coat? Why not bag one (or three) of your old coats and drop them off in the collection bin?
While you’re at it throw in those pants you never wore, the paisley shirt you outgrew, and you might as well ditch the sweater you got last Christmas that had to have been a gag gift.
You can’t do much about the cosmetics counter mistakes that are filling up your bathroom drawers but you can absolve yourself of any and all clothing sins via tax-deductible donation.
*Of course in this vein, Ittybit – like all children – in an effort to get her hands on a new plush animal (that might have come straight from the CLAW machine at the local bowling alley) is keen on getting rid of the heirloom toys she has no current use for. “But I’m never going to play with that wooden pull toy (that was handcrafted by someone’s grandfather 100 years ago) THAT’s A baby toy!”
2. SPEND TIME NOT MONEY: There are bargains to be had if you are willing to spend time and look beyond and between the Circo and Massimo overstocks. If it’s not really worth $9 new, don’t pay $7 when it’s been dumped.
3. SHOP EARLY, SHOP OFTEN: Thrift stores are constantly getting new merchandise. You never know … you may be there one day just as those new fangled ride-on toys -- the very ones that snagged an Oppenheimer award and cost $70 each – are being donated by someone “whose kids just weren’t that into them.”
4. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF: Your Neiman Marcus mistakes will always be pricier than your Goodwill gaffs. SEE RULE ONE.
Speaking of gaffs and Goodwill Hunting, I’ve never mentioned the time I quite literally ran into Matt Damon in Boston have I? I wasn’t watching where I was walking and nearly knocked him over. I apologized and he held a door for me. I thought he was quite a gentleman. But come to think of it, he never mentioned my sweater, which was new ... well, new to me.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
A mother's day begins at the crack of covers
Cold. Air.
Ittybit has pulled the covers off my bedraggled head and now she’s screaming into the sheets.
"Mom. Get. Up."
"No. No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! … I don’t want to get up. I want to lay right here. Like this. Until you go to college."
She doesn’t believe me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and drag the quilt up to my shoulders. I shove the rest of me under the pillow.
I can think of a thousand things I don’t want to do. Why bother getting out of bed to face them?
Her father snorts back a laugh. He’s been awake for hours.
Together the pair has been milling about the house breaking eggs and fixing coffee, waiting impatiently for the pair of lazy bones to get a move on. They’ve emptied the dishwasher, started a load of laundry. They’ve learned what happened in the world overnight and they’re beginning a list of what the day has in store.
Meanwhile, the boy and I have been ignoring the clattering of empty pots for at least 45 minutes now. Every so often he lifts his head - his face screwed into a puzzled look as if to say ‘Morning? Already? No. Can’t be!’ - only to plant his face back into the pillow and resume a pleasant snore.
"Mooooooooooooooom!" she chides, undeterred by my lack of forward motion. "… You are missing out on everything."
With the exuberance of youth and boundless energy, she tells me of all that the day could hold:
We could go sledding. … Or I could take a ski lesson. … We could go to lunch … or on a play date … or to the movies … or to the park.
"I know. We could go to Disney World.
My silence in the face of this revelation is not a deterrent to her.
"I’ve always wanted to go to Disney World," she chirps away to herself although I am listening.
I brood over the images now swirling in my head.
It occurs to me as she continues to sing the praises of a place she's never been, that if Disney World were a warm, dark cave filled with fluffy pillows and warm down comforters — if Mickey himself never so much as opened his mouth, not even for a muffled chortle — it would be a very happy place for people like me: People who not interested in seeing a marketer’s version of the Happiest Place on Earth.
People such as myself need to sit in the dark like mushrooms, for as long as we are allowed, and bask in the glow of anti-social oblivion.
We are people who sit on the edge of that one last straw, the one that threatens to fracture the dromedary’s back.
If we're lucky what we wait for is some little someone to peel back the covers, open the windows and chase away the dark.
Ittybit has pulled the covers off my bedraggled head and now she’s screaming into the sheets.
"Mom. Get. Up."
"No. No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! … I don’t want to get up. I want to lay right here. Like this. Until you go to college."
She doesn’t believe me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and drag the quilt up to my shoulders. I shove the rest of me under the pillow.
I can think of a thousand things I don’t want to do. Why bother getting out of bed to face them?
Her father snorts back a laugh. He’s been awake for hours.
Together the pair has been milling about the house breaking eggs and fixing coffee, waiting impatiently for the pair of lazy bones to get a move on. They’ve emptied the dishwasher, started a load of laundry. They’ve learned what happened in the world overnight and they’re beginning a list of what the day has in store.
Meanwhile, the boy and I have been ignoring the clattering of empty pots for at least 45 minutes now. Every so often he lifts his head - his face screwed into a puzzled look as if to say ‘Morning? Already? No. Can’t be!’ - only to plant his face back into the pillow and resume a pleasant snore.
"Mooooooooooooooom!" she chides, undeterred by my lack of forward motion. "… You are missing out on everything."
With the exuberance of youth and boundless energy, she tells me of all that the day could hold:
We could go sledding. … Or I could take a ski lesson. … We could go to lunch … or on a play date … or to the movies … or to the park.
"I know. We could go to Disney World.
My silence in the face of this revelation is not a deterrent to her.
"I’ve always wanted to go to Disney World," she chirps away to herself although I am listening.
I brood over the images now swirling in my head.
It occurs to me as she continues to sing the praises of a place she's never been, that if Disney World were a warm, dark cave filled with fluffy pillows and warm down comforters — if Mickey himself never so much as opened his mouth, not even for a muffled chortle — it would be a very happy place for people like me: People who not interested in seeing a marketer’s version of the Happiest Place on Earth.
People such as myself need to sit in the dark like mushrooms, for as long as we are allowed, and bask in the glow of anti-social oblivion.
We are people who sit on the edge of that one last straw, the one that threatens to fracture the dromedary’s back.
If we're lucky what we wait for is some little someone to peel back the covers, open the windows and chase away the dark.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Running away never gets you that far
I didn't even know she was upset; she was chattering away as I was poking around in the paper bags my husband had brought in from their trip to the store.
Milk …
Orange juice …
Bread …
Eggs ...
She walked past me in her usual flair, with a kind of brisk pounding of feet and a dramatic flounce of hair as she trudged down the hall to her room.
"She's packing ... " my husband informed me a few minutes later as I was still putting away the groceries. "She says she wants to leave."
Before she stormed out I had heard her voice chirping away, flittering between octaves — "Ip ip ip ip ip ..." as I opened and closed the refrigerator door, "ip ip ip ip ip ip" as I folded another emptied bag and stowed it beneath the island with the other recyclables … "ip ip ip ip ip ip ip."
I really hadn't been listening.
I sigh and roll my eyes. It’s been a long day and I don't want to deal with another tantrum.
I finish stowing the food and found my way to her room. We bumped into each other at the door.
I was going in ready for a fight and she was coming out ready for flight.
She'd slung my old drawstring backpack over her shoulder, filled to the brim.
The bag was bigger than she was.
Her eyes will filled to the brim, too. The fight had gone out of me when I saw her eyes. She was earnest and upset.
I asked her to talk to me, to sit in her room and discuss what had happened. I took the pack from her shoulders when she tearfully agreed.
As we sat on her bed, a tiny lifetime of upset streamed out with her tears. Upset that seemed to go back as far as the hospital ... when she was born.
"I remember another mother — not you — a mother who was nicer to me. Who listened to me. Who didn't just SAY she was going to do something she DID it. That's the mother I'm going off to find."
I listened as the story brought her to my pregnancy with her brother, and how she really wanted a girl. ... How she wanted to share her room and her toys, and talk about girl things, and sing girl songs ... and how she got a boy.
"But I was happy because everyone else was happy. I wasn't happy though. I wanted a sister and YOU GAVE ME A BROTHER! My real mother would have given me a sister."
For a moment I felt sorry for her.
Poor unloved little waif who waits (somewhat) patiently for her mother to get up from behind her computer and get her a glass of milk, only to have to ask 13,000 times ... or 18,000 thousand, depending on whom you ask.
She was right. Everyone wants to hug The Champ.
They all say how cute he is, how funny, how patient, how loveable.
She feels invisible.
I look over at the bag she filled with clothes. There’s not a single toy. She's serious about leaving.
"I'm just a rotten egg," she wails.
It's difficult to assert yourself when you’re five.
I was five once, too. I even ran away twice. Neither time, however, did I get further than the mailbox on the edge of our lawn.
I wasn’t allowed to cross the street.
Ittybit isn’t as timid as I was. I suppose she’d find her way to Timbuktu if she has it in her mind to do so.
"You're not a rotten egg. You know that," I tell her ... hoping something brilliant will come to me as I'm feeling around for an answer that will make everything all right.
It doesn't. All I can tell her is I'm sorry she feels the way she does, and I'll try to do better. I remind her of how her brother lights up when he sees her ... not when he sees us but her. And I admit that she has every right to feel sad, and to even demand attention. Fair is fair.
"Why don't you come with me to the store. Your father forgot the lemons. You come with me. We'll get a special and some time to ourselves."
"O.K.," she said unsteadily. "I'll go, but what about my bag?"
"We'll just leave it for when we get back. I'll help you unpack."
Milk …
Orange juice …
Bread …
Eggs ...
She walked past me in her usual flair, with a kind of brisk pounding of feet and a dramatic flounce of hair as she trudged down the hall to her room.
"She's packing ... " my husband informed me a few minutes later as I was still putting away the groceries. "She says she wants to leave."
Before she stormed out I had heard her voice chirping away, flittering between octaves — "Ip ip ip ip ip ..." as I opened and closed the refrigerator door, "ip ip ip ip ip ip" as I folded another emptied bag and stowed it beneath the island with the other recyclables … "ip ip ip ip ip ip ip."
I really hadn't been listening.
I sigh and roll my eyes. It’s been a long day and I don't want to deal with another tantrum.
I finish stowing the food and found my way to her room. We bumped into each other at the door.
I was going in ready for a fight and she was coming out ready for flight.
She'd slung my old drawstring backpack over her shoulder, filled to the brim.
The bag was bigger than she was.
Her eyes will filled to the brim, too. The fight had gone out of me when I saw her eyes. She was earnest and upset.
I asked her to talk to me, to sit in her room and discuss what had happened. I took the pack from her shoulders when she tearfully agreed.
As we sat on her bed, a tiny lifetime of upset streamed out with her tears. Upset that seemed to go back as far as the hospital ... when she was born.
"I remember another mother — not you — a mother who was nicer to me. Who listened to me. Who didn't just SAY she was going to do something she DID it. That's the mother I'm going off to find."
I listened as the story brought her to my pregnancy with her brother, and how she really wanted a girl. ... How she wanted to share her room and her toys, and talk about girl things, and sing girl songs ... and how she got a boy.
"But I was happy because everyone else was happy. I wasn't happy though. I wanted a sister and YOU GAVE ME A BROTHER! My real mother would have given me a sister."
For a moment I felt sorry for her.
Poor unloved little waif who waits (somewhat) patiently for her mother to get up from behind her computer and get her a glass of milk, only to have to ask 13,000 times ... or 18,000 thousand, depending on whom you ask.
She was right. Everyone wants to hug The Champ.
They all say how cute he is, how funny, how patient, how loveable.
She feels invisible.
I look over at the bag she filled with clothes. There’s not a single toy. She's serious about leaving.
"I'm just a rotten egg," she wails.
It's difficult to assert yourself when you’re five.
I was five once, too. I even ran away twice. Neither time, however, did I get further than the mailbox on the edge of our lawn.
I wasn’t allowed to cross the street.
Ittybit isn’t as timid as I was. I suppose she’d find her way to Timbuktu if she has it in her mind to do so.
"You're not a rotten egg. You know that," I tell her ... hoping something brilliant will come to me as I'm feeling around for an answer that will make everything all right.
It doesn't. All I can tell her is I'm sorry she feels the way she does, and I'll try to do better. I remind her of how her brother lights up when he sees her ... not when he sees us but her. And I admit that she has every right to feel sad, and to even demand attention. Fair is fair.
"Why don't you come with me to the store. Your father forgot the lemons. You come with me. We'll get a special and some time to ourselves."
"O.K.," she said unsteadily. "I'll go, but what about my bag?"
"We'll just leave it for when we get back. I'll help you unpack."
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Home (show) is where the heart is
Sundays used to be all fun and games around our house. But to hear them tell it, the day had not gone well.
It had started out fine: She’d gotten up early to play computer games in the dinning room as her father busied himself with making breakfast and brewing coffee in the kitchen.
When I finally emerged, puffy-eyed from my down comforter-wrapped cocoon, at the late hour of 8 a.m. — drawn out by the dark, rich perfume of hot caffeine not the high-pitched shriek of excitement as computer animated teamwork had my husband and first born on the brink of breaking their all-time “Smooth Move” record — she had made a decision. She was going to spend the day with daddy.
But almost as soon as she’d decided to hang out with her dad instead of going on errands with me and her brother, things started to go downhill.
After all, her father wasn’t going to be sitting around the house all day playing games in Webkinz World or making mad scientist milkshakes from whatever was leftover in the refrigerator. He was planning on going to The Home Show to get ideas for the new house.
Still, he was optimistic. He thought the long trip from the parking lot to the arena would be made bearable by the promise of pizza and popcorn. He thought, as most men do, that toys big people like – such as car-tire sized shower heads – should have a magnifying effect on children.
“WOW! Ittybit ... LOOK at that flapper valve ... We’ll need a bigger flange to adequately address the inconsistencies in that flue baffle.”
But he is an adult who had been a child once, too. ... He could understand why her eyes might glaze over as they moved on to laminated flooring options, and why her voice slipped into a distinct whine as they passed one hot tub after another.
Father-daughter outings, especially if they are centered around home improvement activities, tend to have their bumps.
Both of them were disappointed, he hadn’t found the show useful in our endeavor to renovate a house … we didn’t need a hot tub or a high-end shower unit with surround sound and steam bath options. And the little miss didn’t really understand the joy of windows and gutter systems.
When they got home the complaints came fast and furious.
“It was boring.”
“She wasn’t cooperative.”
“They didn’t even have balloons.”
“It was packed with people.”
“He never took me to get pizza.”
“When I asked if she wanted pizza, she wouldn’t go.”
“Well I wasn’t hungry just then.”
“You were just being difficult.”
It was as if I wasn’t even standing there, pretending to referee.
“Well … was there ANYTHING about the day that you did like?” I asked, hoping to change the direction of the conversation.
“I did like that pet.”
“What pet?”
“You know, that weird pet thing that was black and white and looked like a squirrel but that guy was holding?”
“Oh yeah … that was weird. Do you remember what they said that thing was?”
“I don’t remember, but it looked like a lemur.”
“It DID look like a lemur, but it had a crazy name that sounded made up.”
And as they were laughing about why people were trying to sell exotic pets at a home show, they forgot about the whining and the dragging of tiny feet through a sea of sales kiosks. They forgot about the forgotten junk food and the lack of balloons, and they fired up the old computer to end the day as it started: all fun and games.
It had started out fine: She’d gotten up early to play computer games in the dinning room as her father busied himself with making breakfast and brewing coffee in the kitchen.
When I finally emerged, puffy-eyed from my down comforter-wrapped cocoon, at the late hour of 8 a.m. — drawn out by the dark, rich perfume of hot caffeine not the high-pitched shriek of excitement as computer animated teamwork had my husband and first born on the brink of breaking their all-time “Smooth Move” record — she had made a decision. She was going to spend the day with daddy.
But almost as soon as she’d decided to hang out with her dad instead of going on errands with me and her brother, things started to go downhill.
After all, her father wasn’t going to be sitting around the house all day playing games in Webkinz World or making mad scientist milkshakes from whatever was leftover in the refrigerator. He was planning on going to The Home Show to get ideas for the new house.
Still, he was optimistic. He thought the long trip from the parking lot to the arena would be made bearable by the promise of pizza and popcorn. He thought, as most men do, that toys big people like – such as car-tire sized shower heads – should have a magnifying effect on children.
“WOW! Ittybit ... LOOK at that flapper valve ... We’ll need a bigger flange to adequately address the inconsistencies in that flue baffle.”
But he is an adult who had been a child once, too. ... He could understand why her eyes might glaze over as they moved on to laminated flooring options, and why her voice slipped into a distinct whine as they passed one hot tub after another.
Father-daughter outings, especially if they are centered around home improvement activities, tend to have their bumps.
Both of them were disappointed, he hadn’t found the show useful in our endeavor to renovate a house … we didn’t need a hot tub or a high-end shower unit with surround sound and steam bath options. And the little miss didn’t really understand the joy of windows and gutter systems.
When they got home the complaints came fast and furious.
“It was boring.”
“She wasn’t cooperative.”
“They didn’t even have balloons.”
“It was packed with people.”
“He never took me to get pizza.”
“When I asked if she wanted pizza, she wouldn’t go.”
“Well I wasn’t hungry just then.”
“You were just being difficult.”
It was as if I wasn’t even standing there, pretending to referee.
“Well … was there ANYTHING about the day that you did like?” I asked, hoping to change the direction of the conversation.
“I did like that pet.”
“What pet?”
“You know, that weird pet thing that was black and white and looked like a squirrel but that guy was holding?”
“Oh yeah … that was weird. Do you remember what they said that thing was?”
“I don’t remember, but it looked like a lemur.”
“It DID look like a lemur, but it had a crazy name that sounded made up.”
And as they were laughing about why people were trying to sell exotic pets at a home show, they forgot about the whining and the dragging of tiny feet through a sea of sales kiosks. They forgot about the forgotten junk food and the lack of balloons, and they fired up the old computer to end the day as it started: all fun and games.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Motherhood magic: Being in two places at once
A small room in the Time & Space Limited warehouse contained all the magic a one-year-old could want: Crayons, markers, bottle caps, paper plates, wooden sticks, cardboard cylinders from spent toilet paper rolls and fistfuls of uncooked lentils that just begged to be tasted.
We were there to make musical instruments out of the recycling, however, not to play test kitchen.
For what seemed like hours, The Champ had been happily perched on a makeshift stool, drawing purple and red magic marker lines in an EKG-like pattern all over the paper-covered table in front of him.
When he’d filled his canvas, including the palms of both hands, he abandoned his instrument-making station — where his sister was still busy making guitars, kazoos and maracas — and moved into the corner where a handmade sand table offered tiny test drives of toy cars as well as fistfuls of fine-grain sand for the tasting.
With her own projects completed, Ittybit flitted from this room to the next, a larger open space where the band was setting up for its gig. She was so beside herself that she and herself were having some spirited conversation about what they would wear to the “rock show.”
Ittybit was still wearing tights and leotard from her dance class that morning, while Herself was itching to get into the pink flouncy dress, which had been packed for just such a special occasion. Though, neither could be still long enough to change.
I, however, was straddling both rooms, trying to take pictures and keep an eye on my progeny.
Her brother didn’t want to leave his little piece of heaven until he did leave it. When I poked my head into the room after snapping a few pictures of his sister waiting on the band, he was gone. I hadn’t seen him going past me so I head in the other direction: Toward out.
He wasn’t there either, thankfully.
I went back into the main space and stood staring blankly into the crowd of tiny jumping beans and their accompanying parents. It wasn’t until I looked above knee level that I saw somebody else’s mother raising her hand and pointing it downward.
She knew where he went.
As did the grandfatherly fellow who pointed in the direction of my little escape artist the next time I found myself without him.
I really miss the days when he’d happily hang out in the sling watching the world go by.
I digress.
Neither of my children want to miss anything these days, yet their interests never seem to be in the same room.
“When are the rockers playing,” Ittybit bleated impatiently as I tried to wrestle the popcorn away from her whirling dervish of a brother who is, in turn, trying to wriggle his way back to the floor and the trail of snacks that his sister accidentally spilled.
“Soon,” I tell her, using the word that has become my catch-all response for all queries beginning with WHEN.
I sweep the kernels into the box and hide it as The Champ moves back toward the sand table.
She sways back and forth when Uncle Rock bursts onto the “stage,” a cleared triangle of concrete in front of a bistro set-up of a dozen or so carpet remnants. She clapped her hands, wagged her hips and jumped up and down on her little piece of green shag.
Next Ittybit was up and running; out of the room and out of sight. When she returned she had her new best friend, a girl she’d met while I had been chasing her brother; the “Kitars” they’d made from a paint sticks and paper plates; and a desire to be center stage.
It’s a good thing the band didn’t mind sharing the limelight.
We were there to make musical instruments out of the recycling, however, not to play test kitchen.
For what seemed like hours, The Champ had been happily perched on a makeshift stool, drawing purple and red magic marker lines in an EKG-like pattern all over the paper-covered table in front of him.
When he’d filled his canvas, including the palms of both hands, he abandoned his instrument-making station — where his sister was still busy making guitars, kazoos and maracas — and moved into the corner where a handmade sand table offered tiny test drives of toy cars as well as fistfuls of fine-grain sand for the tasting.
With her own projects completed, Ittybit flitted from this room to the next, a larger open space where the band was setting up for its gig. She was so beside herself that she and herself were having some spirited conversation about what they would wear to the “rock show.”
Ittybit was still wearing tights and leotard from her dance class that morning, while Herself was itching to get into the pink flouncy dress, which had been packed for just such a special occasion. Though, neither could be still long enough to change.
I, however, was straddling both rooms, trying to take pictures and keep an eye on my progeny.
Her brother didn’t want to leave his little piece of heaven until he did leave it. When I poked my head into the room after snapping a few pictures of his sister waiting on the band, he was gone. I hadn’t seen him going past me so I head in the other direction: Toward out.
He wasn’t there either, thankfully.
I went back into the main space and stood staring blankly into the crowd of tiny jumping beans and their accompanying parents. It wasn’t until I looked above knee level that I saw somebody else’s mother raising her hand and pointing it downward.
She knew where he went.
As did the grandfatherly fellow who pointed in the direction of my little escape artist the next time I found myself without him.
I really miss the days when he’d happily hang out in the sling watching the world go by.
I digress.
Neither of my children want to miss anything these days, yet their interests never seem to be in the same room.
“When are the rockers playing,” Ittybit bleated impatiently as I tried to wrestle the popcorn away from her whirling dervish of a brother who is, in turn, trying to wriggle his way back to the floor and the trail of snacks that his sister accidentally spilled.
“Soon,” I tell her, using the word that has become my catch-all response for all queries beginning with WHEN.
I sweep the kernels into the box and hide it as The Champ moves back toward the sand table.
She sways back and forth when Uncle Rock bursts onto the “stage,” a cleared triangle of concrete in front of a bistro set-up of a dozen or so carpet remnants. She clapped her hands, wagged her hips and jumped up and down on her little piece of green shag.
Next Ittybit was up and running; out of the room and out of sight. When she returned she had her new best friend, a girl she’d met while I had been chasing her brother; the “Kitars” they’d made from a paint sticks and paper plates; and a desire to be center stage.
It’s a good thing the band didn’t mind sharing the limelight.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Holding back isn’t leaving behind is it?
February is an angst-ridden time for parents of the soon-to-be post preschool set.
In February, kindergarten registration looms large. It marks the beginning of a new era in the parental experience: The time when the real-deal school, now only two seasons removed, mandates its way into the lazy days of our lives. This new life will dump boatloads of homework on our kids’ (and, by extension, our) laps the weekend we plan on visiting the grandparents. It’s inevitable.
Our priority as a new human herder will shift from active learning to passive education.
Some of us were lucky and were able to stave off that initial march into the schooling factory because of a timely cutoff. Our kids just barely missed the arbitrary date of readiness. Others of us wrestled with the question and corresponding decision: Is my kid ready? Should wait another year?
We researched and researched. We stood, pencil poised, over checklists …
Can my daughter listen to stories without interrupting?
Can my son recognize rhyming sounds?
Do they understand actions have both causes and effects?
Does he understand there’s a morning, an afternoon and an evening?
Can she cut with scissors? Follow the rules? Share her toys? Manage the bathroom? Button and zip?
Do people understand when she speaks?
Can he look at pictures and make up stories? Identify the beginning letters of words? Sort by color, size and shape?
Does he recognize simple words like STOP and MOM when he sees them written out?
Can they count to 10?
We agonized over societal norms: Is it better to be older? Will they get bored? Am I holding them back? Am I coddling them? Am I giving them an advantage or am I pushing them out?
We parents also wonder if our kids are ready to be the one sitting on the bus or in the cafeteria alone? Will our kid be the one who gets tripped up by the outstretched leg of the bully? Will our kid be the one doing the tripping? Will our kid be forced to toe the line and color within them, or will they be allowed to use their imaginations? Will they be encouraged to question authority or kowtow to it?
Will we be THOSE kinds of parents who fight THAT unbeatable fight at every turn? Will we be the thorn in the side of the teacher? Will the teacher be one who has invested in her role or just playing a part? We’ve all had bad teachers. We know they exist in larger numbers than anyone cares to admit.
In these simple details do we hover? Do we let go?
We’ve all heard stories about members of the five-year-old set being reprimanded for not using green when they color in their trees.
I know. I know. The teacher has his reasons. There’s always reason. There’s always a test to gauge performance.
But it always makes me wonder what it is they’ve proved.
Kids seem to know better than most adults about rules and how to follow them even when they don’t. They have a strangely acute sense of fairness, even when they aren’t playing fair. They know tree leaves are usually green … unless they’re red or yellow or orange.
We are not the first parents to send our kid out into the world. Yet as I read through the checklist, I got the feeling that once our kids are ready for formal education, they’ve already learned all the things that Robert Fulghum explained in his book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
Perhaps the revised version, which keeps being rewritten by my mind — “All I Really Need To Know I Learned Before ‘No Child Left Behind’” — is what really has me frightened.
In February, kindergarten registration looms large. It marks the beginning of a new era in the parental experience: The time when the real-deal school, now only two seasons removed, mandates its way into the lazy days of our lives. This new life will dump boatloads of homework on our kids’ (and, by extension, our) laps the weekend we plan on visiting the grandparents. It’s inevitable.
Our priority as a new human herder will shift from active learning to passive education.
Some of us were lucky and were able to stave off that initial march into the schooling factory because of a timely cutoff. Our kids just barely missed the arbitrary date of readiness. Others of us wrestled with the question and corresponding decision: Is my kid ready? Should wait another year?
We researched and researched. We stood, pencil poised, over checklists …
Can my daughter listen to stories without interrupting?
Can my son recognize rhyming sounds?
Do they understand actions have both causes and effects?
Does he understand there’s a morning, an afternoon and an evening?
Can she cut with scissors? Follow the rules? Share her toys? Manage the bathroom? Button and zip?
Do people understand when she speaks?
Can he look at pictures and make up stories? Identify the beginning letters of words? Sort by color, size and shape?
Does he recognize simple words like STOP and MOM when he sees them written out?
Can they count to 10?
We agonized over societal norms: Is it better to be older? Will they get bored? Am I holding them back? Am I coddling them? Am I giving them an advantage or am I pushing them out?
We parents also wonder if our kids are ready to be the one sitting on the bus or in the cafeteria alone? Will our kid be the one who gets tripped up by the outstretched leg of the bully? Will our kid be the one doing the tripping? Will our kid be forced to toe the line and color within them, or will they be allowed to use their imaginations? Will they be encouraged to question authority or kowtow to it?
Will we be THOSE kinds of parents who fight THAT unbeatable fight at every turn? Will we be the thorn in the side of the teacher? Will the teacher be one who has invested in her role or just playing a part? We’ve all had bad teachers. We know they exist in larger numbers than anyone cares to admit.
In these simple details do we hover? Do we let go?
We’ve all heard stories about members of the five-year-old set being reprimanded for not using green when they color in their trees.
I know. I know. The teacher has his reasons. There’s always reason. There’s always a test to gauge performance.
But it always makes me wonder what it is they’ve proved.
Kids seem to know better than most adults about rules and how to follow them even when they don’t. They have a strangely acute sense of fairness, even when they aren’t playing fair. They know tree leaves are usually green … unless they’re red or yellow or orange.
We are not the first parents to send our kid out into the world. Yet as I read through the checklist, I got the feeling that once our kids are ready for formal education, they’ve already learned all the things that Robert Fulghum explained in his book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
Perhaps the revised version, which keeps being rewritten by my mind — “All I Really Need To Know I Learned Before ‘No Child Left Behind’” — is what really has me frightened.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
When the Golden Rule goes against the grain
It was a joke the adults got immediately. It was a novelty: a roll of toilet paper printed with the likeness of the 43rd U.S. President.
At nearly $10 a roll, it was an expensive bit of uncouth humor. But we come from a long line of Tax-and-Spend Liberals, most of whom were celebrating the end of the Tax-Cut-and-Spend Neo-Cons’ rule, so it wasn't terribly surprising to find this crass toiletry among our gifts this past Christmas.
And it might have remained merely a tasteless bit of memorabilia had we not run out of bathroom tissue."Mama? Who is that man on the toilet paper?"
And in one sentence a new era in our lives as parents barged into the room, not bothering to knock. She had cracked our code; and soon, I knew, the days of spelling things we didn't want her to understand would be behind us, too.
I looked around, exposed and embarrassed. I am confronted with the fact that my behavior is in direct opposition to how I want her to behave. This little joke, at this very moment, seems juvenile and mean-spirited.
"Well," I stammered, flirting for a moment with the idea of a lie. "That's our former president. To use his likeness as toilet paper is showing distain or disrespect."
"But he's not our president anymore,” she replied “Why don't we have images of Barack Obama?"
“We approve of him,” I stammered. “We wish to show him respect.”
She doesn’t understand. Everything she’s learned up until now has pointed her in the direction of The Golden Rule … an ethic of reciprocity … Do Unto Others.
It seems as if no other time in our history has the line between adult and child — prankster and parent — been so hard to distinguish.
Yet, it falls to me — a person of a certain age — to make sure that she is prepared to be an adult. It is my job to make sure she has the skills she needs to successfully maneuver through this life. She must learn how to play by the rules. She must learn the art of diplomacy and tact. She must understand what it means to care and how to turn the other cheek without allowing it to be slapped.
But she must also learn how to question the system. She must learn that being polite isn’t always preferred.She must learn that we live in a country where people have the right to live without fear of oppression, even if that right has morphed into a kind of crass protest. She should learn that with that right also comes great responsibility, and sometimes great personal harm, too. In making choices, we are not afforded the right to determine what people think of us. And we can’t always direct how they react.
So when I write about the little roll of toilet paper in my bathroom, stashed away now for emergency use, I know I run the risk of ruffling feathers, changing opinions and even incurring the wrath of harsh judgment.
I know I can handle that.
But what I never really counted upon was the fast work of Karma.
Let’s just say there’s a reason most people steer clear of harsh dyes and printing inks in their toilet paper.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Welcome to Hell ... social networking included
I’d like to introduce Jenny, Ittybit's virtual pet Webkinz.
Jenny's pseudo real-life counterpart, a stuffed dachshund toy, has been sleeping with Ittybit since we activated the plush pet.For those of you still blissfully unaware of this particular corner of hell; let me enlighten you:
These are -- for the most part (but not in Jenny's case, of course) – the crummiest looking stuffed animals ever manufactured. Many have stringy hair that protrudes in all directions, even if they’re supposed to be reptilian.
But the toy itself isn't the real draw; the $12-$14 you shell out for it also covers the cost of a secret code that allows entry into the Webkinz World, an online hub for video games that promote all that is wonderful and annoying about the interwebs including social interaction and consumerism.
All the things we love and hate about reality are realized in Webkinz World, too.
In Webkinz World you can get a job, earn cash to feed and clothe your little friends, and collect over-priced virtual stuff to decorate your intangible pet's imaginary house. You can play some games for hours on end, but other games are only available to players once a day. You can click on ads, shop in fake stores, put crazy-looking purchases in shopping carts and proceed to a one-click check out.
You can watch your imaginary money dwindle away as you buy $900 tables that don’t really fit into your pet’s tiny room anyway. You can work at the pizza joint for a few thousand hours and make enough dough to buy your pet an extra room.
You can even sell your pretend stuff back to the make-believe shop (which sold you the invented junk in the first place) -- no questions asked. You will have to resort to that once you get fired from your ghost job at the shoe store that the employment office set up for you because you aren’t terribly skilled at matching shoes, and you won't be making any tips in the replacement gig you got on your own by visiting the Arcade: It's hard to make pizza when the video game won't allow you to do two things at once.
Of course, you can't do two things at once in real life very well, anyway, so quit yer bellyaching.
There are benefits to living in an imaginary place.
In this virtual world you don’t have to deal with folks dressed in floral housecoats, wearing socks and sandals, trying to negotiate a lower price for the stuff you’ve dragged curbside for your twice annual yard sale. You can just get your money back for that apple you bought for $25 bucks regardless of when you bought it.
Of course, parents can learn a lot about their kids’ priorities when they activate an account and look over their shoulders as they go hog wild.
For instance, Ittybit isn’t terribly patient when the Web site crashes and I have to sign her in again (because she can’t read or spell her sign-in and passwords.
“MOM! I feel like I’m 25!”
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s taking so LONG!”
You also may find, as I did, that poor fake Jenny gets neglected. … That your precious little peanut barely even visits her online pal, or cleans her room, or puts her to bed at night. Instead she opts to head straight for the Arcade. And instead of buying healthy fake food for her pet she buys hideous furnishings for her already cramped room.
You may even find yourself going online late at night, trying to figure out what ails the poor pooch, whose icon is perpetually sporting an ice bag, by putting it to bed or feeding it some vitamins before you head to the arcade for a few rounds of Cash Cow yourself.
Not that that’s ever happened to me.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Perhaps I should skip riding that bike
In order to observe a clear example of what the opposite of athletic looks like, all one had to do was be standing on the top of a particular sledding hill, in a particular columnists’ home town, on a chilly Sunday in January and overheard the following conversation:
Big burly man in Carhart overalls: “Now … remember to steer.”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, already seated in sled with snow-suited child: “Steer? How do you steer a sled?”
Big burly man in Carhart overalls: “Are you kidding me?”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, holding on to the ground, trying to stop forward motion: “Well. There’s no steering wheel on this thing … there are no pedals I can see … Therefore I would say NO! I am NOT kidding you.”
Big burly man in Carhart overalls: “Really?”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, becoming increasingly panicked: “Really! Now, listen you: I’m sitting here at the top of a very steep hill, ready to hurl myself and my first-born child forward at a rate of speed I’ve never been comfortable with and I’ve just explained to you that I don’t understand the concept of steering a overturned plastic lid. Could you for once stop mocking me and explain how it is I’m supposed to get down there before it’s too late?
Big burly man in Carhart overalls, fully laughing now: “OK, OK. Just use your rudders.”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, now fully prepared to throw down the gloves: “Rudder? Rudder!? This is a sled not a boat … WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”
Big burly man in Carhart overalls, now gesturing with arms outstretched: “Use your arms.”
This is where I prove that communication, even under the best conditions, is merely an exercise in futility, and push off with both hands dragging behind me as if to slow down the ride. Predictably we skitter off sideways, rudderless.
Big burly man in Carhart overalls, after dropping Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom’s expensive camera in the snow, nevertheless, saves them from an embarrassing collision in the trees: “I meant put your arm down in the direction you want to go. If you want to turn left, put your left arm down. If you want to go right, put your right arm down.”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom, now mortified as the snickering from others gathered on the hill becomes audible: “Ok … OK. ..I’ve got it.”
And off we go …
To the left. …
I put my right arm down … and we still go to the left. ..
I lean toward the right. … and still we go left.
WHAT is GOING ON!?! I refuse to panic.
I look down and notice Ittybit’s arms and legs are off the sled and digging in to snow on the left side. She’s trying to help. I figure she’s processed the previous conversation and had decided to take steering into her own hands (and legs).
I bump her legs into the sled with my left leg and dig in with my right hand. Miraculously the sled rights itself and shoots down the hill, straight to the bottom, and slides to a smooth stop in the field.
Soon we’re climbing back up the hill for another turn, and to face the other smirking faces.
“It’s been quite a while since I’ve been sledding,” I say aloud to cheer myself up.
“It’s definitely not like riding a bike.”
Big burly man in Carhart overalls: “Now … remember to steer.”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, already seated in sled with snow-suited child: “Steer? How do you steer a sled?”
Big burly man in Carhart overalls: “Are you kidding me?”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, holding on to the ground, trying to stop forward motion: “Well. There’s no steering wheel on this thing … there are no pedals I can see … Therefore I would say NO! I am NOT kidding you.”
Big burly man in Carhart overalls: “Really?”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, becoming increasingly panicked: “Really! Now, listen you: I’m sitting here at the top of a very steep hill, ready to hurl myself and my first-born child forward at a rate of speed I’ve never been comfortable with and I’ve just explained to you that I don’t understand the concept of steering a overturned plastic lid. Could you for once stop mocking me and explain how it is I’m supposed to get down there before it’s too late?
Big burly man in Carhart overalls, fully laughing now: “OK, OK. Just use your rudders.”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom in down parka and rain pants, now fully prepared to throw down the gloves: “Rudder? Rudder!? This is a sled not a boat … WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”
Big burly man in Carhart overalls, now gesturing with arms outstretched: “Use your arms.”
This is where I prove that communication, even under the best conditions, is merely an exercise in futility, and push off with both hands dragging behind me as if to slow down the ride. Predictably we skitter off sideways, rudderless.
Big burly man in Carhart overalls, after dropping Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom’s expensive camera in the snow, nevertheless, saves them from an embarrassing collision in the trees: “I meant put your arm down in the direction you want to go. If you want to turn left, put your left arm down. If you want to go right, put your right arm down.”
Stay Puft Marshmallow Mom, now mortified as the snickering from others gathered on the hill becomes audible: “Ok … OK. ..I’ve got it.”
And off we go …
To the left. …
I put my right arm down … and we still go to the left. ..
I lean toward the right. … and still we go left.
WHAT is GOING ON!?! I refuse to panic.
I look down and notice Ittybit’s arms and legs are off the sled and digging in to snow on the left side. She’s trying to help. I figure she’s processed the previous conversation and had decided to take steering into her own hands (and legs).
I bump her legs into the sled with my left leg and dig in with my right hand. Miraculously the sled rights itself and shoots down the hill, straight to the bottom, and slides to a smooth stop in the field.
Soon we’re climbing back up the hill for another turn, and to face the other smirking faces.
“It’s been quite a while since I’ve been sledding,” I say aloud to cheer myself up.
“It’s definitely not like riding a bike.”
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Sometimes all you need is one small change
Lately I’ve been feeling as if people around me are cheerleading in a kind of Paul Revere fashion as the hours close in on another year. Their excited chant: “The New Year is coming! The New Year is coming!”
These harbingers of all things hopeful are hanging their optimism on the next digit in time.
For me a new year is only a moment not unlike any other moment wherein a person looks to the future and wonders at its potential … and then makes a liquid-y air-letting sound with their mouths and gives up hope.
What’s the point?
I rarely wait for the end of one year so that, in a wine-addled haze, I can resolve to be a better person in the beginning days of the next year.
But I’m not a cynic.
I try to change the error of my ways as it occurs to me, whenever it occurs to me, lest I forget. Not that it matters. I don't really change.
My diet doesn't get better, my clothes don't become stylish. I don't keep up with the laundry or count to 10 before I snap angrily at a child who annoys without intent. I speak my mind even when my mind is telling me to shut up.
I'm the same person I was yesterday, and the day before that and the year before that day. So forth or hence, whichever applies. Even in the New Year, despite the fact that I quit smoking 10 years ago, I know it will be the same me who tips back the glass and toasts tomorrow, a little older but none the wiser. I’m still going to see the glass as half empty.
I'm also one of those persons who THINKS I let things go when I merely tie my grievances to the longest leash I can find just in case I need to haul them back in when it's cold or raining or otherwise inclement.
I'm not particularly proud of this. I know I am a mule with the stubborn.
“Fester. Fester. Fester. Rot. Rot. Rot.”
Still … I hear the cheer. I am drawn to it the same way I am drawn to the fresh glut of media snippets instructing us how to actually stick to the resolutions we make. Just like they reported last year … only the talking head is someone we’ve never met before, and she’s wearing a blouse that implies she's in the know. I imagine she’s also got a matching handbag and she owns the secret of accessorizing. She’s a professional.
She gives me hope that maybe this year I can put the festering rot away.
Maybe this is the year I can give up my status as the sometimes spokesperson for PLUM -- The People for Less Unrest in Marriage – an imaginary think tank that hasn’t really risen to the status it deserves anyway. It’s merely acquiesced, which is not to say it has truly found agreement.
Acquiescing rarely means that no matter what the person with whom you’ve aligned your opinion thinks. It simply means you’ve given in; you’ve compromised but not in a healthy or constructive way. You’ve thrown up your hands and said: “Fine, whatever.”
As a parent, I find this a lot in my responses as well.
For instance, when Santa bought Ittybit an unfinished dollhouse for Christmas I knew that she'd want to decorate it. I could have guessed she'd want to color the roof and door knobs in marker or crayon, and furthermore, that she'd get tired midway through and start scribbling blindly.
Had it been my dollhouse, I would have left it alone. I would have wanted it to be clean and fresh and new -- the opposite of how I see my life and everything in it.
At that person, I couldn't help but to try and dissuade her from slapdash decoration. But she is not me. She has no qualms about her abilities. She sees opportunity and beauty where I see only the indecision and imperfection.
Soon I stopped lobbying for tasteful colors and decorator paint swatches, and instead tried accepting the true beauty in her patchwork of scribbles. Not to acquiesce.
After all, Santa didn't bring the dollhouse for me. He brought it for her.
These harbingers of all things hopeful are hanging their optimism on the next digit in time.
For me a new year is only a moment not unlike any other moment wherein a person looks to the future and wonders at its potential … and then makes a liquid-y air-letting sound with their mouths and gives up hope.
What’s the point?
I rarely wait for the end of one year so that, in a wine-addled haze, I can resolve to be a better person in the beginning days of the next year.
But I’m not a cynic.
I try to change the error of my ways as it occurs to me, whenever it occurs to me, lest I forget. Not that it matters. I don't really change.
My diet doesn't get better, my clothes don't become stylish. I don't keep up with the laundry or count to 10 before I snap angrily at a child who annoys without intent. I speak my mind even when my mind is telling me to shut up.
I'm the same person I was yesterday, and the day before that and the year before that day. So forth or hence, whichever applies. Even in the New Year, despite the fact that I quit smoking 10 years ago, I know it will be the same me who tips back the glass and toasts tomorrow, a little older but none the wiser. I’m still going to see the glass as half empty.
I'm also one of those persons who THINKS I let things go when I merely tie my grievances to the longest leash I can find just in case I need to haul them back in when it's cold or raining or otherwise inclement.
I'm not particularly proud of this. I know I am a mule with the stubborn.
“Fester. Fester. Fester. Rot. Rot. Rot.”
Still … I hear the cheer. I am drawn to it the same way I am drawn to the fresh glut of media snippets instructing us how to actually stick to the resolutions we make. Just like they reported last year … only the talking head is someone we’ve never met before, and she’s wearing a blouse that implies she's in the know. I imagine she’s also got a matching handbag and she owns the secret of accessorizing. She’s a professional.
She gives me hope that maybe this year I can put the festering rot away.
Maybe this is the year I can give up my status as the sometimes spokesperson for PLUM -- The People for Less Unrest in Marriage – an imaginary think tank that hasn’t really risen to the status it deserves anyway. It’s merely acquiesced, which is not to say it has truly found agreement.
Acquiescing rarely means that no matter what the person with whom you’ve aligned your opinion thinks. It simply means you’ve given in; you’ve compromised but not in a healthy or constructive way. You’ve thrown up your hands and said: “Fine, whatever.”
As a parent, I find this a lot in my responses as well.
For instance, when Santa bought Ittybit an unfinished dollhouse for Christmas I knew that she'd want to decorate it. I could have guessed she'd want to color the roof and door knobs in marker or crayon, and furthermore, that she'd get tired midway through and start scribbling blindly.
Had it been my dollhouse, I would have left it alone. I would have wanted it to be clean and fresh and new -- the opposite of how I see my life and everything in it.
At that person, I couldn't help but to try and dissuade her from slapdash decoration. But she is not me. She has no qualms about her abilities. She sees opportunity and beauty where I see only the indecision and imperfection.
Soon I stopped lobbying for tasteful colors and decorator paint swatches, and instead tried accepting the true beauty in her patchwork of scribbles. Not to acquiesce.
After all, Santa didn't bring the dollhouse for me. He brought it for her.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
How do you spell fun? We spell it S.K.A.T.E.
“She certainly knows what she wants,” said the manager of the Skate Factory. Ittybit was standing in front of her, rearranging the order of the games.
“No … I don’t think we should do the lesson just yet. … Let’s play some games first,” she told the woman, the roller rink’s manager and MC, who was standing in front of her holding a microphone, bemused.
It seemed appropriate to me: we’re always going ’round in circles but Ittybit is nothing if not decisive.
She’s known for a year that she wanted to have a roller skating party to celebrate the big F.I.V.E.
No manner of reason (or deflection) could dissuade her. It didn’t matter that she’s not a terribly agile skater or even generally interested in the sport.
All that mattered was that she attended a skate party at this place the year before and decided it had to be spelled F. U. N.
And spelling is big on her list of all-important things these days, as are playing games set to music and walking around on shoes that could cause her untimely demise.
What five-year-old wouldn’t love to strap on a pair (or four) of wheels and take a spin around the floor?
Well ... Me. I’d have rather gone bowling. But I’m not five. Neither is The Champ, but he was happy with her choice. Although his feet were a tad too small for the toddler skates, he was thrilled to walk around with the big kids and climb on the lap of anyone who sat down at an arcade game.
From his joyful squeals, I could deduce that he’ll like driving fast. (Not going to worry about that right now ... I’ll give it another year or 14 before I panic).
Where was I?
Oh yes, a roller skating party.
I said it over and over in my mind.
“What were we thinking?”
“Ice storm. Christmas. Looming nor’easter.
“No one is going to come.
“We’ll be like a handful of loose marbles, rolling around a big empty tin can all by ourselves.”
To be honest, my husband was a little more concerned about this than I was. I knew Ittybit only needs a party of one to be happy. Still, we thought we should prepare her for the worst just in case no one showed up.
We let her know that even if it was only the four of us, it was going to be the best birthday ever.
She looked at us like we’d grown a third head.
“Don’t worry. People will come ... it’s a S-C-R-J-F-P party.”
“You mean S-K-A-T-E.”
Of course she was right. People did roll in, some even came from considerable distances. Others brought their own skates. From the moment the music started, the hours just glided by. We cruised the floor like it was 1984. We did the Limbo and the Funky Chicken. No egos were bruised even though everyone fell. ... They got up ... and then they fell again.
Another thing we fell for, looming large and well lit in the arcade, was The Claw.
No matter what you call the thing (my favorite term is “Brother, Can I Have All Your Quarters” machine) it is more addictive than sugar to the kids.
My husband, trend-spotter that he is, had seen it coming when we’d preemptively gone to check out the place the previous week, and had brought a roll of quarters to keep their addictions fed.
The screams of delight when the fuzzy blue panda got snagged, and then the silly poodle with the purple hat, were deafening.
I’m sensing next year we might just as well rent one of those things and let the kids take turns trying to hook some stuffed animals.
Of course, with our luck, The Champ would be one of those kids; the kind who climb through the collection flap and get stuck inside the box with the toys. Then we’d be getting our own visit from the fire department.
Now THAT would be F.U.N.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Holiday logic and Murphy's Law collide
I've been laughing at folks who tell me being without electricity for five days last week effectively put us back in the 1700s.
I laughed because my husband's generative powers -- with his Ranger 2000 and a few dozen gallons of gasoline -- it felt more like we'd effectively revisited the somewhat affluent '50s: Our refrigerator is running, but there wasn't much else in the way of amenities.
For instance:
We washed dishes by hand;
We watched television; but not cable;
We were able to cook on a hot-plate;
And, as a result of limited light, we turned in early.
Yet, it's not nostalgic or idyllic or even "romantical," as our firstborn would say.
The laundry is piling up but will have to wait until the power returns or we can schlep ourselves to the Laundromat, which mightn't be soon since I've had a sore throat for two days and The Champ got some vomity illness that is inconsistently realized (usually in the middle of the night when the generator has quit or run out of gas) as I'm fumbling around in the dark.
And this, for all intents and purposes, means I risk having to wear my prom dress to work (If I could muster the will to drag my sorry-for-my-Self out of bed again) because the aforementioned lack of clean clothes, combined with the growing pile of vomity duds are divided by no way to launder them (until the power comes back online or The Champ musters enough vim to make it through a trip to the local Sit and Spin).
But that's not the worst of it.
When I was able to get a few minutes away to run a cart up and down the aisles at the grocery store with Ittybit, I somehow managed to lose the car key between the shopping and the buying and the pushing of a full cart out to the parking lot.
Yep. Lost.
Which means I had to get the husband to pack the vomity kid into the car and drive me the spare set.
Yep. He did.
After we got home, put away the groceries, I promptly found the keys in my sweatshirt pocket.
Yep. Found 'em. ...
Right where I'd jammed my panicking fists about a half-dozen times.
Still, I was hanging on to the corners of my smile. "One more day," I told myself. "We'll get the electricity back and the bad luck will turn on its heel and march back where it came from."
Should have known better.
Enter regularly scheduled doctors' appointment, wherein I learn that my insurance isn't of the variety they accept any more.
Turns out I had to pay the full boat right there and then and submit the claim myself. Even the lady in the checkout area looked shocked for me when she whispered the total: $180.
So much for health insurance.
I almost laughed when I got to work and learned our struggling company will - as of January - stop contributing to our 401Ks (that are only two years old) in order to get itself in better fiscal standing. Almost. Laughed.
So much for retirement.
There's more, but I won't bother you with it. It'll just make me wish I were home with my vomity boy and my silly husband and my ice princess daughter.
I'll just try and count the one blessing this week had in store for me: I filled the gas tank up from empty (for the first time in I can't remember how long) for under $20.
Let's just say, with the luck I've been having, I'm not going to be taking any long trips ... not even with an $18-fill-up.
I laughed because my husband's generative powers -- with his Ranger 2000 and a few dozen gallons of gasoline -- it felt more like we'd effectively revisited the somewhat affluent '50s: Our refrigerator is running, but there wasn't much else in the way of amenities.
For instance:
We washed dishes by hand;
We watched television; but not cable;
We were able to cook on a hot-plate;
And, as a result of limited light, we turned in early.
Yet, it's not nostalgic or idyllic or even "romantical," as our firstborn would say.
The laundry is piling up but will have to wait until the power returns or we can schlep ourselves to the Laundromat, which mightn't be soon since I've had a sore throat for two days and The Champ got some vomity illness that is inconsistently realized (usually in the middle of the night when the generator has quit or run out of gas) as I'm fumbling around in the dark.
And this, for all intents and purposes, means I risk having to wear my prom dress to work (If I could muster the will to drag my sorry-for-my-Self out of bed again) because the aforementioned lack of clean clothes, combined with the growing pile of vomity duds are divided by no way to launder them (until the power comes back online or The Champ musters enough vim to make it through a trip to the local Sit and Spin).
But that's not the worst of it.
When I was able to get a few minutes away to run a cart up and down the aisles at the grocery store with Ittybit, I somehow managed to lose the car key between the shopping and the buying and the pushing of a full cart out to the parking lot.
Yep. Lost.
Which means I had to get the husband to pack the vomity kid into the car and drive me the spare set.
Yep. He did.
After we got home, put away the groceries, I promptly found the keys in my sweatshirt pocket.
Yep. Found 'em. ...
Right where I'd jammed my panicking fists about a half-dozen times.
Still, I was hanging on to the corners of my smile. "One more day," I told myself. "We'll get the electricity back and the bad luck will turn on its heel and march back where it came from."
Should have known better.
Enter regularly scheduled doctors' appointment, wherein I learn that my insurance isn't of the variety they accept any more.
Turns out I had to pay the full boat right there and then and submit the claim myself. Even the lady in the checkout area looked shocked for me when she whispered the total: $180.
So much for health insurance.
I almost laughed when I got to work and learned our struggling company will - as of January - stop contributing to our 401Ks (that are only two years old) in order to get itself in better fiscal standing. Almost. Laughed.
So much for retirement.
There's more, but I won't bother you with it. It'll just make me wish I were home with my vomity boy and my silly husband and my ice princess daughter.
I'll just try and count the one blessing this week had in store for me: I filled the gas tank up from empty (for the first time in I can't remember how long) for under $20.
Let's just say, with the luck I've been having, I'm not going to be taking any long trips ... not even with an $18-fill-up.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sugared snow dusts the houses of tradition
She was all ready to get started. She’d cast off her coat, hat and gloves and was eager to take a seat next to one of the fragrant gingerbread boxes dotting the centers of tables set up throughout the bakery.
“Which one is ours, mama?”
“Have patience, little might. They will tell us.”
It had been a long week of questions and concerns since some friends had signed us up to attend one of Zachary’s Pastry Shoppe’s gingerbread house workshop.
“When are we going to build the gingerbread house?
“Is it going to be just you and me?
“Can we invite more people?
“Can daddy come, too?”
“Are we really going to be able to take it home?
“Can we eat it?”
“How are we going to build it?”
I just shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea.
Though we’ve lived in various states of housing renewal during the past five years, none of us had any inkling of how to manufacture a confectionary cottage. And since I generally view consistency as the hobgoblin of baking, I felt it was probably best to go where the professionals can be on hand should a roof collapse or a wall cave in.
After all, weekend warriors such as myself, should never attempt heavy lifting –- even of the gingerbread variety -- without a spotter; safety first.
You can imagine my relief when I saw the houses had already been constructed, their sugared masonry perfectly cured, awaiting only finishing touches.
When I saw the bag of candy and the area of space needing to be spackled and shingled and decorated, however, I began to doubt all over again.
“We’ll be here all day,” I thought as my husband leaned back and cracked his knuckles, heaving a deep sigh of contentment. “This is what I’m talking about,” he says with confident bravado, no doubt assuming his years of home improvement with stand him in good stead.
I wasn’t convinced. I’ve lived in a renovation zone for nearly a decade without taping or trim.
When our friends arrived we were shown to our seats, at which point Ittybit started to sob inconsolably.
Turns out, no one answered her question about which house was “ours,” and when her friends sat down – one in front of each kit -- she assumed the answer was neither.
In moments that seemed like hours I was able to clarify the situation. Soon we were sitting, puffy-eyed but happy, next to one of the houses and a sweet little gingerbread girl, who’d quietly appeared next to Ittybit’s chair during the turmoil.
She opened the bag of building supplies and started looking through its contents as the bakers brought parchment-paper funnels of icing glue and specialty candy accouterments to our table. Carefully, she lined up all of her materials and asked if I might please spread some icing so she could get started.
Soon she was lost in her work, occasionally looking up at me with a polite request for more mastic.
She says please and thank-you a lot these days, keenly aware that Santa is watching.
She didn’t even mind that much when her father built a picture window out of pretzels on his wall, throwing off the symmetry she’d constructed on her side.
She never complained when her baby brother stuck a soggy gumdrop to the roof. She just handed him something he could unwrap and kept her nose to the grindstone.
She selected chocolate buttons for a chimney stack, and peppermint sticks for door jams. She’d carefully shingled the roof with Smarties and licorice whips.
She planted Marshmallow Christmas trees next to the doors as a landscaping feature, and affixed flower boxes made of chocolate truffles under the windows. She crushed up pink ribbon candy and sprinkled it on the roof … presumably ice that had formed from lack of proper insulation. She even cemented together a pile of pretzel sticks, presumably to feed the woodstove that she imagined to be inside.
She turned to look at the bakers’ example after she was a few candy pieces from finished, having barely tasted any of her building supplies.
“Oh, wow. Look at THAT chimney, daddy.”
“Yes. … but our house doesn’t have a fireplace inside … only a furnace. We don’t really need such an ornate chimney as that,” her father answered defensively.
“Well, after Christmas we should eat this house, move into a house WITH a fireplace, and then next year we can build another house that has a chimney like THAT one.”
“Let’s just finish this house for now,” her father tells her, licking a smear of frosting from his knuckles and eyeing the chocolate chimney, perhaps wondering if anyone would notice if it was one or two Kisses shorter.
From the smile on his face I know we’ll be back next year, probably armed with blueprints and an extra bag of chocolate, (for energy).
As holiday traditions go, I suppose eating the cost of a gingerbread house really isn’t that hard to swallow.
“Which one is ours, mama?”
“Have patience, little might. They will tell us.”
It had been a long week of questions and concerns since some friends had signed us up to attend one of Zachary’s Pastry Shoppe’s gingerbread house workshop.
“When are we going to build the gingerbread house?
“Is it going to be just you and me?
“Can we invite more people?
“Can daddy come, too?”
“Are we really going to be able to take it home?
“Can we eat it?”
“How are we going to build it?”
I just shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea.
Though we’ve lived in various states of housing renewal during the past five years, none of us had any inkling of how to manufacture a confectionary cottage. And since I generally view consistency as the hobgoblin of baking, I felt it was probably best to go where the professionals can be on hand should a roof collapse or a wall cave in.
After all, weekend warriors such as myself, should never attempt heavy lifting –- even of the gingerbread variety -- without a spotter; safety first.
You can imagine my relief when I saw the houses had already been constructed, their sugared masonry perfectly cured, awaiting only finishing touches.
When I saw the bag of candy and the area of space needing to be spackled and shingled and decorated, however, I began to doubt all over again.
“We’ll be here all day,” I thought as my husband leaned back and cracked his knuckles, heaving a deep sigh of contentment. “This is what I’m talking about,” he says with confident bravado, no doubt assuming his years of home improvement with stand him in good stead.
I wasn’t convinced. I’ve lived in a renovation zone for nearly a decade without taping or trim.
When our friends arrived we were shown to our seats, at which point Ittybit started to sob inconsolably.
Turns out, no one answered her question about which house was “ours,” and when her friends sat down – one in front of each kit -- she assumed the answer was neither.
In moments that seemed like hours I was able to clarify the situation. Soon we were sitting, puffy-eyed but happy, next to one of the houses and a sweet little gingerbread girl, who’d quietly appeared next to Ittybit’s chair during the turmoil.
She opened the bag of building supplies and started looking through its contents as the bakers brought parchment-paper funnels of icing glue and specialty candy accouterments to our table. Carefully, she lined up all of her materials and asked if I might please spread some icing so she could get started.
Soon she was lost in her work, occasionally looking up at me with a polite request for more mastic.
She says please and thank-you a lot these days, keenly aware that Santa is watching.
She didn’t even mind that much when her father built a picture window out of pretzels on his wall, throwing off the symmetry she’d constructed on her side.
She never complained when her baby brother stuck a soggy gumdrop to the roof. She just handed him something he could unwrap and kept her nose to the grindstone.
She selected chocolate buttons for a chimney stack, and peppermint sticks for door jams. She’d carefully shingled the roof with Smarties and licorice whips.
She planted Marshmallow Christmas trees next to the doors as a landscaping feature, and affixed flower boxes made of chocolate truffles under the windows. She crushed up pink ribbon candy and sprinkled it on the roof … presumably ice that had formed from lack of proper insulation. She even cemented together a pile of pretzel sticks, presumably to feed the woodstove that she imagined to be inside.
She turned to look at the bakers’ example after she was a few candy pieces from finished, having barely tasted any of her building supplies.
“Oh, wow. Look at THAT chimney, daddy.”
“Yes. … but our house doesn’t have a fireplace inside … only a furnace. We don’t really need such an ornate chimney as that,” her father answered defensively.
“Well, after Christmas we should eat this house, move into a house WITH a fireplace, and then next year we can build another house that has a chimney like THAT one.”
“Let’s just finish this house for now,” her father tells her, licking a smear of frosting from his knuckles and eyeing the chocolate chimney, perhaps wondering if anyone would notice if it was one or two Kisses shorter.
From the smile on his face I know we’ll be back next year, probably armed with blueprints and an extra bag of chocolate, (for energy).
As holiday traditions go, I suppose eating the cost of a gingerbread house really isn’t that hard to swallow.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Retailers may feel Scrooged, but the kids won’t notice
I’m standing under the warm glow of our new, seven foot-tall Blue Spruce Christmas tree, cursing.
The Champ just ran over my foot with the back wheel of his ride-on car. As the ache subsides I realize I should really be thankful he careened into me and not the newly festooned tree with its many breakable baubles.
The dressed up house, just one day before December was official, is not the norm for our family. Ittybit insisted we decorate as soon as the first flake of snow floated down from the sky. She’s got the Christmas bug, and, evidently, only miles of twinkle lights and crinkled tissue paper can cure it.
And although I agreed to open the door to a tree (Ittybit can be persuasive) I wasn’t prepared to be ushering in the Christmas spirit so early.
I knew this holiday season was going to be a tough one.
I watched nearly half of my 401k swirl down the drain with a stiff upper lip. I laughed this week as people in-the-know finally announced the recession that the rest of us had already known about for months. We’re all tightening our belts, even those of us who are still wearing our “fat” jeans.
Sometime last summer I vowed to start living a more frugal life: I pledged to buy fewer things, leave my plastic money at home and do more with less. It didn’t really happen. My monthly Visa bill hovered at the same balance every month. Even when gas prices dwindled something else -- usually small trinkets, purchased on a whim throughout the year -- filled the gap in the balance sheet.
Nevertheless, I stashed the stuff away like a squirrel stashes nuts.
“Oh, maybe my sister would like that?”
“That would be fabulous for my mother-in-law.”
“What is that? The kids will LOVE it.”
I thrifted and crafted though I am neither thrifty nor crafty; I visited Goodwills from Maine to Connecticut, and looked for treasures tucked in among the Target overstocks. Sometimes I got lucky. Other times I took the loss, returning the items in another donation bin along my travels.
Yet, when I cleaned out my closet last week as part of my usual “let’s make way for the excesses of our Christmas presents by donating the excesses of our Christmas pasts,” I found the evidence of my Christmas future in the small bags filled with tiny puppets, pencil sharpeners, slippers and socks. There are sparkly shoes and story books, toy cars and drawing pads. There are change purses made in exotic places by people who were paid a fair wage. There’s even a set of wooden blocks I couldn’t buy in a store for a small fortune let alone the pennies I paid at salvage.
No one could be more surprised than I was to realize that not only am I prepared for Christmas morning, but by the time the 24th page of December is peeled off the calendar I will probably be simultaneously hiding eggs for Easter.
I’m not trying to gloat. My holiday organizational skills this year are purely accidental.
After all, it doesn’t take a lot of planning to decide you’re going to attend Christmas morning dressed as a modified Ebenezer Scrooge.
There will be no big ticket items and no expensive gadgets. There will be nothing of the must-have gift varieties under the tree. Santa isn’t visiting anyone over the age of 12 this year in our house, and he’s not bringing anything that requires batteries or an electrical outlet. He’s only bringing things that require an imagination.
I look though the bags wedged in between my shoes and handbags, and immediately make a mental inventory of their contents. I smile. In my imagination, I fill the stockings and stack the boxes under the now, very real tree standing in our front room.
There is more than enough, and there’s more than meets the eye.
There will be no more trips to mall. We’ll spend the rest of our weekends sledding if the snow permits or baking cookies.
It may not be a good Christmas for retailers, but I’m sure it’s going to be a good Christmas for the family.
The Champ just ran over my foot with the back wheel of his ride-on car. As the ache subsides I realize I should really be thankful he careened into me and not the newly festooned tree with its many breakable baubles.
The dressed up house, just one day before December was official, is not the norm for our family. Ittybit insisted we decorate as soon as the first flake of snow floated down from the sky. She’s got the Christmas bug, and, evidently, only miles of twinkle lights and crinkled tissue paper can cure it.
And although I agreed to open the door to a tree (Ittybit can be persuasive) I wasn’t prepared to be ushering in the Christmas spirit so early.
I knew this holiday season was going to be a tough one.
I watched nearly half of my 401k swirl down the drain with a stiff upper lip. I laughed this week as people in-the-know finally announced the recession that the rest of us had already known about for months. We’re all tightening our belts, even those of us who are still wearing our “fat” jeans.
Sometime last summer I vowed to start living a more frugal life: I pledged to buy fewer things, leave my plastic money at home and do more with less. It didn’t really happen. My monthly Visa bill hovered at the same balance every month. Even when gas prices dwindled something else -- usually small trinkets, purchased on a whim throughout the year -- filled the gap in the balance sheet.
Nevertheless, I stashed the stuff away like a squirrel stashes nuts.
“Oh, maybe my sister would like that?”
“That would be fabulous for my mother-in-law.”
“What is that? The kids will LOVE it.”
I thrifted and crafted though I am neither thrifty nor crafty; I visited Goodwills from Maine to Connecticut, and looked for treasures tucked in among the Target overstocks. Sometimes I got lucky. Other times I took the loss, returning the items in another donation bin along my travels.
Yet, when I cleaned out my closet last week as part of my usual “let’s make way for the excesses of our Christmas presents by donating the excesses of our Christmas pasts,” I found the evidence of my Christmas future in the small bags filled with tiny puppets, pencil sharpeners, slippers and socks. There are sparkly shoes and story books, toy cars and drawing pads. There are change purses made in exotic places by people who were paid a fair wage. There’s even a set of wooden blocks I couldn’t buy in a store for a small fortune let alone the pennies I paid at salvage.
No one could be more surprised than I was to realize that not only am I prepared for Christmas morning, but by the time the 24th page of December is peeled off the calendar I will probably be simultaneously hiding eggs for Easter.
I’m not trying to gloat. My holiday organizational skills this year are purely accidental.
After all, it doesn’t take a lot of planning to decide you’re going to attend Christmas morning dressed as a modified Ebenezer Scrooge.
There will be no big ticket items and no expensive gadgets. There will be nothing of the must-have gift varieties under the tree. Santa isn’t visiting anyone over the age of 12 this year in our house, and he’s not bringing anything that requires batteries or an electrical outlet. He’s only bringing things that require an imagination.
I look though the bags wedged in between my shoes and handbags, and immediately make a mental inventory of their contents. I smile. In my imagination, I fill the stockings and stack the boxes under the now, very real tree standing in our front room.
There is more than enough, and there’s more than meets the eye.
There will be no more trips to mall. We’ll spend the rest of our weekends sledding if the snow permits or baking cookies.
It may not be a good Christmas for retailers, but I’m sure it’s going to be a good Christmas for the family.
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