Simulating bravery

Ittybitty Surfer 

The weekend started off as expected. We had checked-in to the indoor water-slide park and in no time we were all getting soaked: the kids were in Splash-water Heaven and we were in Two-Dollars-And-Fifty-Cents For A Coke From The Vending Machine Hell. 

It was our first time, so we weren't as prepared as we should have been, given the amount of time (during two separate phone calls) I waited on hold for the next available customer service representative.

The descriptions of thrilling rides, drenching playgrounds, surf mountains and lazy rivers circled in the background of my thoughts like water down the drain. The images I wanted swimming around in my cranium were of my children, dashing through sprinklers and screaming down water slides; and me looking up from a trashy novel to wave at their exuberant faces from the safety of a pool chair.

“This was going to be great,” I said over and over again, pushing aside any thoughts of having to wear a bathing suit before the sticky, hot summer tipped the scales into the Not Caring What It Looked Like On Me territory.

Who was I trying to kid?

Of course I was going to look horrible in the swim suit. But more importantly, the kids were going to have fun.

What kid doesn't love spending 48 hours immersed in a slightly warm soup stirred by mechanical currents and flavored by hundreds of perfect strangers, many of them sporting fascinating tattoos?

I mean, who doesn't think being propelled backwards through a pitch-dark tube -- their expensive yet almost inedible lunch creeping back toward its entry orifice -- isn't worth the blockbuster-long line.

At every turn is an event that could change the world, or at the very least pave the way to future Olympic glory. Who's to say the next gold medalist in the 4000 meter freestyle wasn't once one of these hyperactive rug rats filling their mouths with over-chlorinated water and attempting to out-distance the automatic sprayer.

Who in their right mind could resist such a feat?

Not my kids, that's for sure. But I am not in my right mind.

Oh Resortland! … I see you as the swirling cesspool of my immune system's despair. You are the petri dish of my discontent. And yet, we soldier on through scraped knees, abraded toes, slipping here, bruising there.

Yet somehow the glaze I've painted over this pre-packaged recreation can't distort the power super-chlorinated water has on the soul.

I learned this lesson as Ittybit waited on line for hours to ride a few waves.

At first it seemed impossible. Each rider got ample time to test their skills. Once they found themselves either barrel-rolled into the crease or wash-cycled back to where they started, they got a second chance before being sent back to the end of the line.

I looked at my watch, rolled my eyes and gave a heavy sigh: This was going to take forever.

But forever soon turned into the luxury of seeing time stand still. Each rider ahead of Ittybit taught me something about perception and perseverance.

The sporty-looking guy was all confidence and bravado until he couldn't steady the board.

His girlfriend, who'd never attempted surfing before, steadied herself easily and nearly made it to standing on her first try.

The boy who wanted to quit when the water washed him back to the start with a sudden and uncontrollable force got back on the board. His brother, who high-fived him as they switched places, followed in his path exactly, both rides.

And their mom smiled all the way through her own two wobbly rides. What a trooper.

My daughter was next.

She hesitated. She required a steadying hand from the attendant, who held on to the board until she was ready to be released into the oncoming waves.

For the minute or so she was able to hold on to her balance she looked like a natural surfer. Seconds later the board skittered from underneath her, a gush of water rolled her backwards and halfway up the ramp. Her second turn was a fast-forward version of the first.

When it was over she rushed toward me wearing the biggest smile I'd ever seen.

She was ready for another go. I just shook my head and smiled. Where did she come by this bravery? Certainly not from me. I felt fear just watching her bide time.

But the more I witnessed, the less I worried about the price of frankfurters or whether I resembled one stuffed into a bathing suit. And the more I hoped some of her bravery would rub off. Someday I'd like to get the nerve up to hurl myself against a wall of water, smiling all the way as my daughter (and virtually everyone in the water park) watches me conquer the waves.

Hand-me-down fakery

All of a sudden things don't seem to fit quite right.

Pants ride high. Shoes are tight. Belly buttons are peeking over waistbands.

All the clothes that were swimming on them last summer, it has become apparent, won't likely float them through another season.

And it's not just clothes.

So many ideas that once seemed set in stone are slowly turning to rubber.

The tooth fairy tripped up, pilfering a bill from my pocketbook that had been marked and duly noted by its newly toothless recipient.

The Easter Bunny doltishly stored his chocolate likenesses in the car, where they were easily detected by those who wouldn't sit still in their booster seats.

“Here's what I think,” ittybit said to the air, turning on heel to face me and choosing her words with the precision of a deft prosecutor as if giving her closing argument: “I think that YOU are the Easter Bunny … and the Tooth Fairy … and quite possibly Santa Claus. What do you have to say for yourself?”

I bristled under the glare of her accusatory spotlight. All of a sudden all that had once glittered in manufactured magic was exposed as a lie made of sinister intent.

Her eyes were asking: “What could you have gained from lying to a child.”

And at that moment I had to wonder the same.

What would have been the harm in quietly acknowledging milestones without introducing imaginary beings who possess gossamer wings, floppy ears or eight tiny reindeer?

“SHHHHHHHHHHHH,” I hiss. “Your brother can hear us. … Do you really want the truth?”

She nods her head, she's ready. It's time.

Time for the speech I've practiced in my head since the moment I started planting phony evidence (at least thrice-yearly) of mythical beings sneaking around our house as we sleep.

“Technically it's true that your father and I have done much of the shopping and placement of holiday gifts. And, essentially, it's true that much of what you can't see requires varying amounts of faith and, now, skepticism.

But there comes a time when the simple answer … perhaps even the least satisfying answer … is the answer that you can't ignore.

“And yet as you come to accept this disappointment, you also have to come to terms with the idea that the truth isn't really that simple, either.

“This magic wasn't sculpted out of lies and wishful thinking. It was crafted from all the things we try to cultivate in ourselves: generosity, feeling special in the world and that the unimaginable is possible.”

“The Easter Bunny may not be a furry,bow-tied basket delivery animal in the you-might-actually-get-a-glimpse-of-him-on-the-lawn-one-fine-Easter-morning sense, but that doesn't mean the imagination behind such an idea is valueless.

“It's not a lie … it's a parable. It's not history it's poetry.”

My words had come tumbling out in her direction willy-nilly like Super Balls. I could see in her expression that some of them were sailing right over her head as others were breaking her heart.

Nevertheless, her eyes were dry and placid. I wasn't telling her anything she hadn't already figured out on her own.

But the question that remains has to do with how to proceed.

The Champ grabs the not-so-cleverly-hidden chocolate bunny and holds it up. “What is this doing here?” he wonders. “Why would the Easter Bunny put chocolate in my mom's car?”

Before I could open my mouth to throw a bunch of wordy Super Balls his way, she intervened.

“The bunny is just getting old and senile. Probably hid it here last year and forgot all about it. I wouldn't eat that if I were you.”

He smiles a devilish grin and unwraps a section of milk chocolate ear. She rolls her eyes as he bites down.

She' may have outgrown these particular clothes, but she can admit they are still a pretty good fit for her brother.

Scientific discoveries

“I've been waiting for this for nine years,” says The Champ, whom last I checked, had yet to celebrate his fifth year on Earth.

Details.

He'd wrestled the box from my kung fu grip and was trying to pry it open with a plastic butter knife he'd gotten from the kitchen.

For the bargain price of $29.99 the science kit came complete with beakers, test tubes, safety goggles, magnifying glass, a tweezer, an eyedropper, and instructions for simple experiments we could have Googled for free.

Not that I mind paying a premium to excite imagination on occasion. I just don't relish the idea of a mess.

But I knew with his speed and determination it would be a matter of minutes before he'd torn into the slick cardboard box and littered the living room with an array of curious new plastic chew toys for the dog.

I also knew if that happened the potential for tears would be 100 percent since the potential for replacement stood at 0 percent. The only conclusion I could draw was that it would be impossible to predict when the tears would end given the range. I had to act quickly in order to shape the research.

“WAIT! There are some ground rules,” I yelled, slipping the box from his eager hands and holding it above my head as he jumped all around me as if on springs.

In order to be a real scientist, you must first establish a laboratory and keep it free of contaminates.”

“Good idea! What's a contaminant?”

“Debris or dirt that could damage your findings.”

“But what if I'm doing my speriments on dirt?”

“Then you'll have to have your laboratory outside, I just vacuumed.”

His sister just stared at me with her glancing look of disapproval. “You said that his lab should be free of contaminants ...”

“I know what I said. But what I mean is that I want to keep scientific evidence from getting splattered on the walls or ground into the couch.”

“Oh ….” she rolls her eyes in an inaudible assumption that I have no hope on that front.

As usual, she is right.

The phone rings, and within minutes Ittybit has proof of her theory. I leave the room to answer and he collects a box of food coloring and a gallon of water, bespattering a bit of each as he makes his way into his “cleanroom.”

I will feign surprise as I reconstruct the scene.

Why would he have any interest in cleaning pennies with lemon juice, baking soda and vinegar? He tosses the card. BUGS? He's seen bugs already and he'd prefer not to get a load of them under the magnifying glass. They look scarier up close and 10X their original size.

But mixing magical potions with food color, compost and pencil shavings? That sounds like very important work for a some-day-to-be nine-year-old.

He was ready for me when I returned from my minutes-long phone call.

“STOP! GET OUT OF MY LABORATORY!!!”

The declaration told me two things I could have easily guessed a week ago as I was plugging the numbers of my credit card into a secure web portal: He was working on his reputation as mad scientist; and no amount of vacuuming would salvage the cleanroom.

“Let's try that again, buddy … scientists are nicer to their mothers.”

“Sorry, Mom. Could you PLEASE leave? I have some sperimenting to do.”

Walking on eggs

“I should have known by the barrier that this was going to end badly. The tape keeping the throng of sugar-crazed toddlers at bay read 'CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.' Parents all around us were laying out strategies for their kids so complex I expected at any moment a mom or dad would pull a chalkboard out of a stroller and diagram the game plans with arrows, Xs and Os. 

“This was an egg hunt of epic proportions, and we were out of our league.”

That is how I remember the first town-sponsored egg hunt my daughter ever attended. It was chaotic and eerily similar to the event Colorado Springs recently cancelled because of some bad eggs – parents. Ours had all the earmarks: anxious parents, hundreds of kids, thousands of eggs in plain sight and a sufficient amount of technical glitches to cause pockets of confusion throughout the crowd.

It's enough to make you think the seed for the “The Hunger Games” were planted on a field littered with plastic eggs.

Oh, I jest.

Others don't, apparently.

Where I see tiny gladiators fighting house cats for balls of fluff, they see helicopter parents ruining a time-tested rite of passage.

And while some parenting experts worry the modern Easter Bunny won't provide the necessary hard-knock reminder that life isn't fair . … I just want to go home, fill plastic eggs with Cheerios and hide them under the shrubs.

Stupid, fluffy Easter Bunny. Making people think this Easter Egg hunting thing is just a bit of sweetness, not a Battle Royale where two-year-olds must learn they don't always get a happy ending … or an egg.

It's survival of the fittest.

But parents stepping in seems to cross a line. We all know how that usually ends. It's not as if parents haven't been making Little League games and Girl Scout meetings unbearable for generations.

Mob mentality can make the best of intentions come undone.

Our own Egg Hunt education started uneventfully enough: getting to the event early, finding where we were supposed to stand and waiting patiently for further instructions. As we stood behind the tape, holding our girl back from snitching an egg before it was time, a man with a megaphone informed us they would be starting with the youngest group soon. Then he asked for parents who would volunteer to guard the borders so there would be eggs enough for the next horde of hunters.

A quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissor dictated I would volunteer to go into the field of battle. My husband thought it would entice our daughter to run out to me, picking up eggs as she skipped along, no doubt, to an internal soundtrack of “Ode to Joy.”

My inner mother was screaming for me to tell him she would need help not just incentive. But I didn't say anything. We didn't want to cross the line. So instead I watched in mini-horror as the signal was thrown and hundreds of tots broke rank. Our daughter was frozen. She clung tightly to her father's stain-proof pants, afraid to join the fray.

In seconds all the eggs were gone. More nimble arms had swept away all the colored orbs. In the melee I had forgotten my job and let dozens of kids into the next territory. By all accounts it was a dismal failure.

When it was over our daughter realized her basket was empty, and began to cry. Talk about heartbreaking. A toddler at an Easter Egg hunt without a single egg. Even more heartbreaking was, as the crowd thinned out, no one seemed to notice the weeping tot and her useless parents.

We stood there feeling helpless and wondering why we hadn't just brought some eggs to plant in case of such an emergency. A neighbor came over to see about the tears. Her daughter had found four eggs, two of which she happily shared with our daughter.

It wasn't the end of the world after all. On the contrary, it was the start of a lovely friendship and the impetus for planning to survive the next year's hunt if, by some tragic twist of fate, the Easter Bunny didn't see fit to cancel.

It was either that or pray for rain.

Not safe, not sorry

I was looking down, worried that my son would trip on the descending escalator. He's never had even a hint of trouble, but it doesn't stop me from holding my breath every time we approach the splintering stairs.

It's a momentary worry.

My husband shot me a narrow-eyed look and tilted his head in the direction of forward. I took the hint and followed his withering gaze.

“I'd rather have a gun in my hand than a cop on the phone” read the broad back of the man in front of us.

Heavy sigh.

I wondered if he'd read the news stories about Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teen gunned down in a gated community by a volunteer of the Neighborhood Watch. I supposed he'd hadn't.

The shooting happened weeks ago, and only now it seemed the nation was waking up to the tragedy.

Perhaps the news wouldn't matter to Mister Gun-in-Hand. His definition of justice I'd wager is entirely different than mine. In his eyes, I'd reckon, criminals have too many rights.

I'd have to admit in this case I'm in agreement.

The shooter, George Zimmerman, by news accounts, was a student of criminal justice and an obsessive volunteer on the Neighborhood Watch. In the last year he'd called authorities 46 times to report suspicious incidents. He wanted to be a cop.

After he called 911 on Feb. 26 to report a suspicious black teen wearing a hoodie, police saw no reason to dispute his version of the events that lead up to Martin's shooting death that evening.

Zimmerman wasn't charged.

Experts listening to the 911 tapes pointed out a hallmark sign that Zimmerman may have been intoxicated – slurred speech – was apparent to them, but police hadn't tested his blood alcohol level, something that is routine in all homicides.

According to ABC News, police even corrected a witness who said she'd heard the teen yell for help. Police told her it was Zimmerman who yelled. That's what he told them.

They took Zimmerman at his word that he had no criminal history, though it turned out he was charged with battery against an officer and resisting arrest in 2005. That charge was later expunged, allowing him to legally possesses a weapon.

Even when these and other discrepancies came to light, the shooter wasn't arrested.

While pressure mounted to charge Zimmerman and let a court decide what happened based on evidence, Federal investigators warned that the laws of Florida could likely protect the shooter. The law in question allows citizens to protect themselves with deadly force anywhere they happen to be.

Known as Castle Doctrines for residences and Stand Your Ground laws outside of one's home, it means those who feel threatened are legally allowed to protect themselves from any force with deadly force. They don't have to retreat.

But are they allowed to pursue?

Should average citizens who suspect criminal intent -- who actually look for it -- be allowed to stalk, corner, confront and then shoot those individuals they distrust?

What if they're wrong? What if they had a grudge?

No one will ever really know. Not unless thousands of people, from all corners of the country, stand up and demand it.

Shoot first, don't bother sorting it out later.

Justifiable homicide without justification. Not safe, not sorry.

The more I think about it the less I'm sure the crime itself was as racially motivated as the laws that allowed it to play out the way it did. Laws that just perpetuate the deplorable divide.

I think about how this ride will end just as the escalator reaches the ground floor.

The stairs before us straighten and slide under the floor. My son looks at me with his devilish smile and hops off at the last moment.

“I'm Safe!” he hollers.

But I can't help thinking we're still not on solid ground.

The man in front of us had already dismounted, his message of vigilantism disappearing into a crowd.

How can there be safety looking down the barrel of a gun? Even one on a t-shirt.

Practicing for the apocalypse

“Just one more chapter,” she pleaded as I shut the book with a snap. But it was late. And the story was a little frightening ... to me.

True stories of our pioneer days always make me a little antsy.

Can you imagine having to survive the harsh winter without electricity or all-night supermarkets? To grow your own food? Build your own house? Make your own clothes? Butcher your own meat?

Whenever tales of human perseverance trickle into my consciousness I can't help but transport myself into the storyline, and stand stock still in its glow, my eyes fixed like a deer in the headlights.

Should the economy implode and we were to start from scratch … I would surely perish. Page after page tells me this truth is self evident.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's “Little House in the Big Woods” might as well have been Cormac MacCarthy's “The Road.”

Most people see herbs on the windowsills, small kitchen gardens and backyard chickens as pleasant little hobbies from a bygone era. A link to simpler times. Something to connect us to the natural world.

But … if you've ever considered how you'd survive should the modern conveniences you've come to know and love suddenly vanished off the face of the Earth and thought: “maybe I should start a small garden,” you'd be thinking like me.

Only trouble is … I can't even consistently grow weeds.

This troubling lack of ability is not lost on my children, who are vocal in their concern about my potential to take a wrong turn on a country drive and the natural implication that the threat of starvation would loom large.

Without boxes and microwaves and simple directions we would surely expire. Man can not live by the crumbs in the crevices of the upholstery alone.

Which is why I've harbored the notion that our true salvation was in my choice of mates: I married a very capable man whose natural tendencies put him squarely in the classification known as hoarder.

If we can't grow a tomato, he could probably barter for one. There must be someone who grows eggplant who needs a rusty tool from the 1950s or salvaged building materials.

We just have to have faith.

Of course when you put it that way, the idea that you maybe should try and correct past mistakes seems at least worth a bit of the old college try.

After all … how hard can it be to, say, make bread?

I may not have a bread machine, but I have a Kitchen-Aid and enough flour to make homemade clay for a small army of primary school sculptors. Five ingredients is all a person needs, right? Flour, water, sugar, salt and yeast.
Oh. … Yeast.

That living organism that comes dry to the pack.

Warm water is all it takes to revive it.

Except when I'm at the mixing bowl.

“I don't understand … your dough didn't rise? Did you proof the yeast?”

Proof? As in let sit for a few minutes to double in size? Yes, I did that. The only thing I proved in the process was that I can kill yeast with the best of them. Too cold? Too hot? Brick loaves.

“It's really not as hard as all that,” they all said. And truth be told, they were right. Pretending I was going to use the water for a toddler bath time was helpful. Sticking my elbow in the measuring cup proved a little awkward at first, but effective.

Following directions didn't even seem all that cumbersome -- bread gets more naps than my kids: Knead, rest, knead, rest, shape, rest bake.

And when that first loaf came out of the oven, crusty and golden brown, I saw a future I barely thought possible and one that I quickly tried to harness.

Before it even had a chance to cool, I sent the kids to the neighbors' bearing steaming baguettes and crusty loaves.

By week's end, the investment had paid off in a dozen cookies, a hot casserole of eggplant Parmesan and the strength to finish reading “Little House” without feeling alone in the big woods.

Replacement parts

I think we've met.

We've definitely seen each other's children.

Walking up and down the narrow corridor, mine holds his chin and looks concerned. Toy selection is never an easy task for a child, even when permission has been granted in advance of the mission.

It takes time.

It also takes a combination of talent, strategy and foresight that eludes most adults. There's an infinite number of calculations that must be made -- such as the sum of all cool, moving parts divided by the number of removable attachments, which all might be reduced to shrapnel by the invasion of sharp puppy teeth -- and the window overlooking plaything math is closing.

In a few moments his mother (that's me) will create a spectacle by turning into a toddler.

Oh, yes, of this I am guilty.

He will stroll the aisle, stopping from time to time to look at various boxes and make a few comments to himself before retracing his steps. Stroll. Study. Stroll. Each pass is punctuated by indecision.

In a few minutes he'll zero in on LEGO brand building bricks and will narrow his search to a few shelves. The process isn't over by a long shot, but invariably as he's squinting his eyes at the inventory I will be standing by the shopping cart, slowly going boneless.

“Have you made up your mind?” I ask, sounding sweet and motherly at first. Aware that we are not alone. Then slowly everything around you melts away until it's just you and an cavalcade of toys threatening your grip sanity.

He will maintain silence. He's in the zone. I will become more frantic. I am on the edge.

Will it be the 156-piece ninja fan-wing plane or the 98-piece Superheros set? He knows the size limits if not the price prohibits.

“Have you made up your mind? We have to get going now.”

He's still silent and focused as I ask the same question for the 156th, time, hoping for a different answer. I'm losing composure.

I imagine myself to be any man who has ever accompanied me to a women's clothing store. I feel a never-before-felt compassion remembering their hang-dog looks or their bull-in-china-shop discomfort.

I empathize with the desire to sneak away or to just lay on the ground and pout.

“Please just pick one. I. Want. To. Go. Hoooooooooooooome. I'm soooooooo tiiiiired.”

By the time he committed to one of the boxes he's been juggling, he'll have to mop me up off the floor, where I will have melted into a sticky puddle from all the pleading and begging for mercy on my poor, tired soul.

You've felt this way, too. I know because our eyes have met midfield, just as our kids were charting the zone of battle. I saw the lines of frustration cross your face and your eyes glaze over. It was like looking in a mirror.

I can't help but think of you going home to build a beautifully intricate spy plane with the help of an indecisive shopper, a wordless instruction manual and, perhaps, even a dog that eats LEGOs.

That's when I realized we're destined to see each other again, probably even here, looking for replacement parts.

Edjumuckation

The letter came in the mail addressed to “The Parents of The Champ.”

He's turning five this year, and as such he will be required to attend a school of our choosing.

Unless. … The district decides it can no longer afford to offer kindergarten.

Of course the missive didn't put it quite that way. The form letter, sealed in an overstuffed envelope with a glittery smiley-faced sticker, was on top of a ream of festively-colored papers explaining exactly what acrobatics we'd have to perform in order to get him registered.

But it was the wording in the first paragraph … “As it stands currently, we offer a full-day Kindergarten …” that got my attention.

“As it stands currently,” is actually code for “But when you put your adorable son on the bus at 8 a.m. in September, expect to see him return for the day at lunch-time.”

But it seemed worse.

I read in the newspaper that the district had put the nuclear option – getting rid of Kindergarten completely – on the table for a potential savings of $600,000.

“That's the scare tactic,” my husband said, in his most authoritatively hopeful voice.

“Of course. It has to be,” I thought to myself. Much the same way the panel discussed going to half-day kindergarten and a one-bell system of busing during last year's board meetings. Few supported that kind of crazy talk.

Closing two elementary schools and laying off dozens of teachers seemed harsh enough.

Cutting core programs? Putting kindergarteners on the bus with high schoolers? What is the world coming to? Last year when these ideas were floated it seemed as nutty as telling parents that if they lived within three miles of the school their kids would not qualify for transportation.

Oh, wait. They mentioned that, too.

I suppose they're betting they can cut phys. ed. if the kids walk three miles (or fewer) to school, in the snow, up hill both ways.

“So you're saying NEXT year they'll do away with kindergarten, move to lecture-hall style classes and have kids walking home along the main truck route … without sidewalks? Or … maybe we can get rid of school and have children learn from home by punching random words into Google.”

He didn't laugh. Neither did I.

With so many tech companies clammoring for contracts it's only a matter of time.

It's so easy to say how different things are now as opposed to when we were children.

But sometimes I wonder if it's fair to wag our fingers at parents … or teachers … and blame them entirely for “The Kids Today.”

Society is shaped by the politicians, too. Politicians who are saying the idea that all people should have the opportunity to go to college is nothing more than snobbery.

Snobbery.

They are waging wars without taxes. They are giving corporations personhood. They are gutting protections so people can build vast empires on bubbles.

Why aren't we looking at them and rubbing their noses in their policy-making messes?

When New York City released its internal rankings of 18,000 public school teachers based on their students' test scores, the response seemed appropriately if not surprisingly subdued.

In an age when we follow such things as follower numbers, how many people Liked us and Klout scores, it should come as no surprise that we are metric centric.

But Test scores will never be able to tell the whole story. A test is merely a tool … one of many that should go into to the instructive process.

It certainly seems that What's Wrong With The American Educational System will not be fixed by vilifying teachers, denigrating parents and the expectation that awareness of data will solve the problems we have in educating the next generation.

It won't be fixed by weakening teachers' unions or breaking them all together. It won't be fixed by cutting funds and increasing class sizes. It certainly won't be fixed by slashing early education programs because we refuse to raise taxes.

There was a time when this country valued education. We valued it so much that we made it a requirement.

And now with tax caps and austerity budgets, larger class sizes, massive cuts to early education and specialized programing … we are taking away the very things that we know contribute to educational success.

In fact, by denigrating education we are taking away the very thing that has proven to breed success.

But that's where we're going.

And it will be up hill … both ways.

Nature vs. Navigator

You know the driver who, during a long car ride, throws in a CD and keeps replaying one song until their passengers (should they be blessed with any) are forced to calculate the optimal speed and location to minimize injury should they somehow, accidentally, leap from the car on purpose.

Well, I am that driver.

My typical speed is 40 miles-per-hour, pretty much everywhere except the highway where my top cruising velocity is a consistent 67 miles-per-hour. I try to stick to the slow lane.

I make no apologies for it, although I understand you might think people like me ruin your commute.

You've probably seen me smile and wave as you passed by. I know you are emphatically trying to give me a driving lesson using pantomime and single-digit sign language. I don't hold it against you. I'm just grateful it wasn't a true crash course.

At that speed you travel, I worry you won't have time to react to the unexpected.

After all … I've seen you on 787 tooting on a recorder as you drove along on your evening commute. And you with the traveling tag sale, barely able to see out of your '70s-era sedan, on your way, presumably, to Target, I'm looking out for you, too. I'm not going to detail all the ladies (and the occasional man) I've seen applying mascara as they inch along Central Avenue. I know there's not enough time and you have someplace to be … preferably yesterday.

Actually, driving at the pace I do, I see a lot of things I'd ordinarily miss.

I don't demand amends from my alter-ego drivers, some of whom even feel the need to scan radio stations, listening to only a few notes at a time before moving on. Other people would tell you to settle on a song and let it play out.

Not me.

I feel your pain.

Obsession can be terribly misunderstood. People tend to classify them … usually in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Oh, I jest.

It's not as if I hear voices. My rituals don't get in the way of my leaving the house. I don't talk to myself. Much.

It's just the way I'm wired.

I assume others are wired similarly. Why else would commercial radio stations play the same songs hour after hour? Why would Home Box Office offer the same movies day after day, month after month, and in an on-demand basis virtually indefinitely? Let's just say I've lost track of how many times I've seen “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

Whose day isn't ruined when they arrive at work and find their usual parking spot is occupied?

Even when I try something new it ends up being a constant. There was the year I made scarves, followed by the year I made pillows, which turned into the year I made quilts. There was the week I ate nothing but soup because I finally learned to make one I liked. I'd rather forget the month I made cookies by the gross.

It was stress relieving. Until the scale became unreliable, ticking up several pounds.

Then I found the joys of exercise.

Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. Shred. Shred. Shred. Running …Um. Never mind. I'm not doing that unless someone chases me.

Of course, I made excuses for my proclivities. I rationalized.

I used to think that to really understand something, I needed to be immersed in it. Sticking in a toe and testing the water won't suffice. I need to swim around and get pruny.

But I realize now that's not it, really. It's simply that I find fascination in new things and comfort in repetition.

I believe heredity has a hand in it, too. My kids argue over which of their songs gets played over and over again as we ease on down the road. Ittybit wants Track 2 of Selena … The Champ wants Track 17 of Juno. Alternating between the two alleviates the fighting and appeals to their sense of fairness.

And it gives me more than just the comfort of repetition during our commute. It gives me hope that one day, when they get cars of their own, they will also find it in their nature to take their time and enjoy the ride.

Choose wisely ... or not

We live in amazing times. Choice has never been more empowering.

Or more daunting.

You have to make a decision. Nothing big, mind you, but eventually you will have to choose between tarter control paste with whitening particles or fluoride-enhanced gel with mouth-freshening agents. You can hardly remember what you bought last time, can you? Was it the toothpaste on sale? Think. Think. Think. It was minty fresh, but was it wintergreenish or pepperminty?
The clock is ticking.

It's imperative you decide soon because eventually you must move on to the cleanser aisle, where you will spend another chunk of time cogitating on whether or not you need a simple liquid dishwashing detergent or a pressed powder brick containing a mysterious red-dot center and sporting fancy dissolving paper wrappers. 

Oh, the questions such decisions demand. Does this Power of Orange scent smell more like real Florida oranges or children's aspirin orange? Will I still need a rinse aid?

Never mind. It's not as if you weren't going to rewash the dishes by hand anyway before you let guests eat off them. … Unless your dishwasher actually works the way the manufacturer claimed it would when you researched all of the options available in such miracles of modern drudgery.

If that's the case, perhaps later you should buy a lottery ticket.

But I don't want to think about the dishwasher of my disappointment. It just leads me along the carpeting of my discontent. I have yet to find a vacuum cleaner that actually sucks past its warrantee. We don't need to go there. Not when I could just as easily ruminate on which of these brooms will work best when the electric floor cleaner gives up for good.

Nor do I wish to turn my attention to the paper products aisle. As if I had a choice. Soon I'll be standing in front of a wall of bath tissue wondering which one will do the least harm to the septic system and still prove economical, because … let's face it … when you have a four-year-old boy living under your roof whole rolls of the stuff gets jettisoned in a single flush.

The choices don't end once you've filled your cart, either. You still have the checkout lane. Which line will move faster? You can't really tell by looking at them.

The lady with two shopping carts and a accordion folder filled with coupons seems, at first blush, to be a risky bet. However, you could get behind the gent with 14 items only to find out that he's writing a check in disappearing ink or paying in pennies.
Never, ever, under any circumstances, bother with the self checker unless you have found enlightenment or are getting only one item.

Ah … one item …

When was the last time I went to the store for one item? And found it?

I'm sure it's happened. It's not as if grocery shopping is rocket science. It's more like a game of Tetris.

What I can't recall is the last time I perused a shelf when my mind didn't momentarily float away on a sea of choices. Body-building formula or smoothing nourishment? Lather, rinse, repeat.

As if she could read my thoughts, a woman standing next to me in the adhesive bandage aisle looked at me and chuckled. “It was so much easier when there was only one or two things to choose from, wasn't it?”

“But that's not really it,” I tell her nostalgically. “It's something more sinister. It's like we have the possibility of perfection if only we make the right decision on which shampoo/cake mix/bandage is best for our lifestyle. The products will still let us down, only we'll fault ourselves for not choosing wisely.”

She laughed again, a little more awkwardly this time, and pushed her cart quickly and determinedly toward cosmetics. For a moment I wished I'd just smiled and nodded. But then the sound that trailed in her wake gave proof she'd gotten the cart with the wonky wheel and I felt sorry for her. I would soon decide on flexible fabric bandages and head for home. There was no telling how many colors of nail polish awaited her in the make-up aisle.

Little runaways

Narrowed eyes, twisted lips, feet that stomp around trying to find purpose.

That's how it begins.

Sometimes there's a grand, You'll-Be-Sorry announcement, but its equally likely the dejected will disappear with a rucksack and fill it to the brim with provisions needed to live a life of solitude.

Forever and ever …

With another family …

Who will love them and treat them better than you do.

Did you hear me? I'm running away! FOREVER!

The declaration had come from left field.

Literally.

We'd been playing baseball in the yard and he'd stormed past me and into the house while I tried to straighten out my smile.

He was mad that I was trying to insert rules into his game. He didn't WANT to run counter clockwise. Why should he leave the bat at home plate? What do you mean base runners rarely get to bat from first to second, second to third and third to home? It's possible he was also miffed that the pitcher (me) staunchly refused to hurl using my mitted hand.

“You catch with the mitt, bud, you don't pitch with it.”

“This is not how I play,” he replied in an accusatory tone.

Evidently I'd wracked up my third strike.

“I'm leaving and I'm never ever never coming back. Ever.”

He tossed the bat and the ball onto the porch and stomped upstairs in his cleats, changed his pants -- which had gotten muddied on one knee from sliding into Pretend Home – and started emptying his dresser drawers into his backpack.

I listened from staircase, trying to sound more concerned than amused.

“I'm going to miss you, Kiddo. Don't forget your toothbrush and flossers.”

When I was his age I ran away from home twice: The first time I got as far as the edge of the overhang on the front stoop. It was raining in sheets and I didn't want to get wet. The second time I got all the way to the mailbox, where a neighbor, noticing me just standing there holding my plaid suitcase, packed to nearly bursting with toys and clothes, asked what brought me there.

I told him I was running away from home. He laughed a little, then mentioned I really hadn't gotten that far. I told him it was as far as I could go since I wasn't allowed to cross the street.

A few years from now this moment will seem more serious. It's hard to assert yourself when you’re in preschool. Not if you need your mom to make you lunch and help you tie your shoes.

It's my daughter I worry about, though.

When Ittybit decided to exert her independence (around age 5) I was unpacking groceries. She'd 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 said a few minutes later. "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 the shopping bag and stowed it with the other recyclables. "Ip ip ip ip ip ip ip. ..." I really hadn't been listening.

But unlike my son, who appeared before me in February wearing a winter coat, shorts and carrying two backpacks – both filled with clothes that will probably fit him … someday – my daughter's bag was lighter and packed with purpose.

It contained only a few things. A dress. A toy and a book. Nothing I'd given her.

She was crying, but she gave me a second chance to listen to her complaint. 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 felt her pain. Everything she wanted from me was always just another In-A-Minute away. And my minutes take longer than her minutes … unless I'm timing them at the park. Those minutes, like all the years between my own childhood and theirs, go by all too fast.

Third child

Our third child – a girl – has arrived.

Via adoption.

At seven months, she's the picture of health and predictably adorable: Brown hair; a cute-as-a-button nose; and she's an angel when she sleeps, which happens suddenly and throughout the day.

She's perfect in almost every way except maybe one (I wish she'd stop chewing the insoles out of my shoes) or two or four dozen other little foibles ...

Such as pooping in our formal living room ...

Or begging at the table ...

Or stealing socks out of the laundry basket and burying them in the couch ...

Or playing keep-away (and then tug-o-war) with my brand new scarf …

That's puppyhood for you. A period of approximately seven years where dogs pretend to be Kato and their caretakers try not to be Inspector Clouseau -- bumbling and ineffective – every time they walk in the door, even if they were gone for only as long as it takes to put garbage into the trash can.

Her name is Roosevelt, but we call her “Rosie” for short. It suits her, for she's surely progressive if not entirely liberal.

After all, she did learn to sit the first day she arrived. Though most everything else – including housebreaking – is a process requiring much oversight and many, many mistakes.

I'd almost forgotten about these training trials when I saw Rosie's cute little face on the shelter organization's website. All I saw was the puppy my old dog had been way back when and remembering what it was like to have a new dog wiggle its way into your heart.

It's not as if I'd been counting the days. When we lost our dearly beloved, albeit incontinent, geriatric dog six months ago, I wasn't sure how long it would be before I'd be ready to welcome another pooch into our lives.

I thought it might be never after so much time had passed. And there were other things to consider.

We have a cat who, quite frankly, seems remarkably doglike, all she needs to do is learn how to bark. We also have a busy home with small children, toys that will be missed if they turn into shredded plastic and more shoes than any four humans should own. And frankly, I'd gotten used to not cleaning up smelly surprises.

The idea of opening our home for inspection and putting our pet-keeping history under the magnifier of scrutiny seemed like a tough pill to swallow as well.

Dogs had always come into our lives when we least expected. They needed us more than we needed them.

But one look at her picture made me remember Dog People, at some point, need dogs. It also reminded me that pills are only bitter until they start making you feel better.

So off we went to the adoption clinic. An hour after meeting her we knew the chance to bring her home would be worth any blazing-fire, hoop jumping required.

In a week we took her home. In short order she made the house her own, complete with nests of chewed up tissue paper and overly enthusiastic airborne greetings … not to mention the not-so-pleasingly aromatic ones.

Even if she isn't perfect. Even if she chews up all of our pencils, or steals food, or scratches the kids with her jumping, she's a good dog and worth the effort.

And her antics are already imparting wisdom that all my parenting efforts have been unable to achieve:

Such as the value of returning toys to the toy box once playtime has ended, or putting shoes in the closet instead of wherever they land, or eating snacks at the table instead of the couch. Chewed bits of prized possessions inspire more motivation than a mother hollering herself horse.

My bark, I assure you, is not worse than a puppy's bite.

Size matters

“One children's 8, one 12 and a ladies' size 6 please,” I asked the man behind the counter. I slid my driver's license and a twenty-dollar bill through the glass partition. He lined up the skates and passed them to me with a smile and ten dollars change.

Ittybit had disappeared with her friend and the pair of delicate white skates into the ladies' locker room while I labored over her brother, trying to convince his step-sister-stubborn feet to squeeze their way into this strange-looking boot with a blade.

It was hot and the pressure was on.

“I've never done this before,” he said in a whisper. “Ice skating ...”

“It's going to be fun. You'll see.”

I didn't have the heart to tell him that once the skates were tightly strapped to his feet my expertise would reach its end.

I haven't skated since I was 12, and to be quiet honest I'm not sure what I did back then could be called skating. I don't think I managed to glide anywhere effortlessly. How could I? I never strayed from the rails, where I was holding on for dear life. “Graceful” wasn't a word that would describe me now or then.

The fact that I had actually Googled “How to ice skate,” prior to the excursion and taken notes on my arm would have been lost on him.

No matter. The way things were going we were destined to spend our rink time in the “lounge” trying on skates.

As I loosened and stretched the laces – trying to coax his doubled-socked foot into the boot -- I began to doubt my abilities as a mother.

I thought he was an eight, I grumbled under my breath.

“Wait here, OK? I'm going to go back and get the next size up.”

Back to the window.

“Can I exchange these for a nine?”

“Of course.”

A few minutes later, I have his right foot secured and am working on his left, when a terrible realization makes me wish we'd decided on Wii skating instead: His left foot is ever-so-slightly bigger than his right foot.

Back to the window.

“I'm sorry,” I say, pushing the second pair of skates through the glass. “I need whatever size is next.” I am unsure of just what size that might be – 10, 12, 1? – so I don't want to hazard a guess. I can practically feel the motherhood license being ripped from my parenthood wallet and torn into tiny bits.

When I return with the skates The Champ was quieter than usual. The room had filled with skaters who weren't struggling with fit. And though he could see I wasn't much of an expert at lacing either, he didn't accuse me of “getting in all wrong” like he usually does when I make mistakes … such as “frenching” his waffle by leaving it in the iron until it crisps, or playing games by the instructions on the box and not the rules he arbitrarily concocts.

Finally, fitted and laced, he stood on the blades and walked rather confidently up and down the length of the narrow room.

He was ready to go …

I was fumbling with my skates and praying the sweat from my brow wouldn't smear the notes I needed for the next challenge – to actually skate on ice.

“I wish dad were here,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Why's that, bud,” I asked, assuming the answer would be my final vote of no confidence.

“Because he could take me to the men's locker room,” he said almost wistfully. “I bet it's more funner in there than on the ice.”

Like mother, like son.

Beside the points

We barely talk anymore.

With work and kids and crazy schedules … we're rarely alone.

Tragically cliché, I know.

There he was … sitting across from me in the living room, sprawled on the couch as the light from the wood stove painted the room in romantic saffron light.

The television was on … playing a movie we'd barely seen because we continually check emails and status upstates and whatever-else lights up the flickering screens of our smartphones.

Evidently, we're no different than at least 40 percent of US smartphone and tablet users who say they routinely surf the web, visit social network sites or check their email while doing other things … such as watching television.

Personally, I think that figure, arrived at by the Nielsen rating people in October of 2011, seems on the low side, especially since the number of people who claimed to only rarely multitask was around 14 percent. A study released about a month later by Yahoo Mobile and Razorfish put the number at 80 percent, which seems more likely given the substance of most television and the infinite possibilities available on YouTube and LOLCats.

As a society, it pains me to think we learn more about ourselves from Damn You Autocorrect than from The Nightly News, but there it is. … the only daily briefing that makes me laugh until I cry.

We hate it, don't we? Yet, even as I lament the march of progress, I fill my cell phone with apps.

Oh sure, we try to fight it. We make rules we both fully intend to follow …

We promise ourselves we won't check our email during dinner.

We will let all calls go to voicemail.

We won't even look at the text massage that scrolls across the screen.

I won't check Twitter. He won't find out which eBay item he's lost to another bidder. And for a time we are successful. We talk about our day or the the things we have to do tomorrow. It almost feels like the old days … before the invention of the wheel or indoor plumbing.

But before too long the lure of the LED backlight draws us back to it like moths to flame.

In our souls we know the danger, we try to to kick the habit, but we're hooked to the gills on technology.

We talk about an intervention. We talk about where all this distraction will take us in two or 10 or 20 years.

Somehow it feels like trying to stop a flood-raised river with a handful of pebbles.

I type quickly and hit send. A generic alert tone dings across the room. He inhales and picks the phone up off his chest, where it was resting like a pet as he inspected the insides of his eyelids.

He read it and snorted.

“Divorce?”

He sounded incredulous, as if I he couldn't believe I was finally getting serious.

“Yeah … D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

“ … for 72 points?”

“I used all my letters and picked up two triple-letter scores.”

“Nicely played. Nicely played.”

If we can't beat them I suppose we might as well join them.

At least it's something we can do together.

The force of habit

Two weeks into the New Year and I've already reneged on the resolutions I would have made were I prone to making ritual year-end proclamations pertaining to personal improvement.

This year might have been an exception.

In my mind, if not in verbal resolve, I saw myself vowing to make more homemade dinners; taking long, daily walks; and playing family-friendly games after dinner besides “Who has the Remote Control?”

But just as I was just about to say it aloud: “This year I will …”

I was overtaken by viral-turn-bacterial plague. I could barely turn over on the couch, let alone turning over a new leaf.

Truth be told, I'm not used to getting hammered with the mythical “Man Cold.” Something seemingly slight that takes a person down for the count. But by the third week, I began to wonder if I'd ever feel human again.

I also waxed even more dramatic than usual:

“Our time here is so brief. Don't waste it,” I told myself. “Being sick and knowing you will recover is a gift so many people won't receive. Don't take it for granted. ...

“Oh, Hon? Can you get me a glass of ginger ale and a banana?”

Of course, by that point I hadn't handled bedtime bedlam. I hadn't been the heavy behind brushing of teeth or finishing of books. The last-minute sibling squabbles – a standard ploy of the manufactured extension of playtime – had been swept from my room and shushed with a sensitive admonishment: “Mommy needs her rest.”

Oh, how I missed them.

But as I started to feel better – as my achy joints smoothed over and my stuffy head dried out – the idea that I would take pleasure in the small things in life seemed entirely possible again..

I could breath again. I wasn't sneezing or coughing or fearful of spreading contageon. I missed reading stories and good-night kisses.

Until bedtime rolled around on the second night, as it usually does, with overdue housework, overtired kids wanting to hold off visiting the Land of Nodd until they ate everything in the refrigerator, read every word on their book-buckled shelves and secured the OK to brush their teeth in the morning.

One step forward. Three steps backward.

I could taste the familiar threats as they found their way into my throat.

“There will be no books.

“I will shut this door and listen to you cry.

“I don't care. I can find earplugs.

“You'll have no one to blame but yourselves.”

Somehow, perhaps it was a holiday miracle, the words never made it to my lips.

Stopped, perhaps, but a new perspective.

It's not as if we don't have a routine: They always settle down … eventually. They will brush their teeth and they will fall asleep sooner than it seems. Tomorrow we start again.

This is my resolve.

It's not perfect. But, as I look more closely, it certainly doesn't seem broken.

Perhaps the goal shouldn't be to break habits, it should be to smooth edges.

Lucky stars

I never watched TV on New Year's Eve. I didn't see any of the hoopla that surrounds the lowering of an illuminated crystal ball in Times Square.

Truth be told, I barely made it to the kids' holiday-extended bedtime of 9 p.m.

But I wasn't surprised by the sentiment among my friends that some things should come to an end.

Like Dick Clark's life in front of the camera.

I wasn't offended.

Dick Clark, an entertainment icon whose entire career had exalted Hollywood's ideal of being forever young, hasn't sounded anything like we, the unwashed masses, have come to expect from on-air personalities since he suffered a stroke in 2004.

Ordinarily, aphasia would have ended his career right then and there.

What people thought of the business decision to allow an 82-year-old entertainer with garbled speech to continue to be a presence on a show he created and hosted for more than three decades, is opinion that can only come down to dollars and cents.

But I was sad.

I've made it no secret that my mother had a stroke this summer.

… and that by fall she'd been institutionalized, as she required skilled nursing care.

She's not like Dick Clark.

Her conversations follow a thread few can follow at all and no one can follow for long.

Her presence, with its stream of seemingly idle chatter, has been disruptive to the church goers and the concert audiences and even the performers who come to the facility to cheer the residents.

I must admit, it hurts to think church is an inappropriate place for my formerly devout Catholic mother.

But I understand it's my soul, not hers, that's in jeopardy.

I'd like to think I was more tolerant before I faced my mother's deteriorating condition, but truth is I too felt better when I didn't see the things that can happen to a body before the end of life.

This is just how we are.

Fearful.

Unconfident.

Anemic.

It just seems to come across more often than not as being unkind.

The real problem I see, however, doesn't have much to do with the people who show up in the world to challenge our fears. It has more to do with the millions of folks who wind up in facilities that have suffered under dwindling state revenues, cuts in federal funding, underfunded programs and diminished ability to actually find and retain skilled nurses who care.

To be sure, this time of life is not cheap.

Medicaid pays for the majority of it as people needing acute care have incomes that barely cover moderate expenses let alone medically intensive long-term care. And as we all know, reform is problematic, Medicaid is underfunded and budgets are tight all over.

For most intents and purposes, there is no fiduciary return on such investment.

Not when we have kids to educate and an economy to rescue.

But there are lessons in empathy and humanity that are invaluable.

When I see Dick Clark these days … I see a man who, in addition to being very talented, was also incredibly lucky.

I think we all need him to remind us of those who may have been the former, but haven't been the latter.

A dog, not our own

The last thing I wanted to do was stop the car.

I'd just chased one child from the dairy aisle to the lobster case and back while the other kid pretended she belonged to another family. My head was pounding. My eyes feeling as if they were bulging and ready to pop. I was d.o.n.e.

All I wanted to do was go home, unpack the provisions and pop a pair of headache-be-gone.

But a little dog walking alone on the street made me change course.

Now ... it's odd in this day in age to see unaccompanied canines, especially ones of the toy variety.

I tried to see if it was tied up as we passed by, but I couldn't be sure. I circled the block, thinking it may have been a fluffy figment of my imagination and would therefore be gone upon a second drive-by. Nope. It was still there: a cream-colored dust mop on the loose.

The kids were quiet when I stopped the car. I imagine, for an instant, they'd thought I was finally following through on that hollow threat: If you don't stop blankety-blank-blanking I'm pulling this car over ...

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING???”

“Stay right here. I'll be right back. I'm going to see if that dog any tags.”

As any sane dog would do, it started to bark at me and bear its tiny little teeth when I approached. What to do ... what to do ... what to do? It ran to one doorway and then another. Neither opened to swallow her up and save her from my feeble attempts at assistance.

I paced the street a little, looking for someone who might belong to this little beast. The whole town seemed empty. Stores were closed. All the windows above street level were dark. No one even looked in our direction as they passed by on their evening commutes.

How could I just leave her alone a hop-skip from rush-hour traffic? One jaunt into the street and it would be all over.

I decided I'd take my chances that its teeth weren't sharp enough to break skin. When I returned to the shivering mass of hair and nerve endings, it had already decided it would rather go with with a stranger than stay out alone in the cold, oversized world.

I combed through the hair around its neck, where I discovered a collar, but no tags.

It didn't protest when I picked it up, tucked it into my coat and then handed her over to Ittybit, who was more than happy to cuddle a quaking pooch during the four-block ride home. Even The Champ settled down.

I'd cautioned him to be on his best behavior. This was a dog, not a toy.

“I think it's a boy. I'm going to call him George. … Hi George!”

Ah … yes. The other thing this dog was not: Ours.

Don't get attached. This is not our dog. This dog belongs to someone.

“His name is George. I'm going to call him George.”

Not. Our. Dog.

“You mean yet.”

“No, I mean this dog belongs to someone who misses it. We'll find the owner soon.”

I called the shelter to report a found dog.

I called the dog warden.

We took her picture and made fliers.

We waited for the phone to ring.

As I made dinner, this furry scoop of vanilla ice cream stood silently by the stove, willing a slice or two of steak to fall from the counter. I obliged with a bowl full of shavings.

The bowl was licked clean in the blink of an eye and the dog was already curled up on the couch sleeping in Ittybit's lap. Snoring.

It occurred to me how much I missed having a wee beast to clean up the leftovers.

Stop. It.

Don't get attached. This is not our dog. This dog belongs to someone.

I thought of another person to call. And then another. A little lost pocketbook dog would surely be easy to find if we just asked the right people.

Six phone calls later and we had a likely owner.

One phone call after that and we had an affirmative answer. Her was named “Chloe.”

A few tears after her departure made it crystal clear.

It's time to start looking for our dog. The one that that will belong to us.

A Merry Crisis to All

I don't have a middle name.

My first name is worry.

From the moment I sluice out of bed each morning until I pour myself right back in at night, I am a full glass of anxiety.

The whole season leading up to this day just adds to the confusion. Consumerism. Praxises. Pressure.

I move through it like a clockwork mouse – quickly and in circles. So many thoughts. So many directions. Same old things: MOM! Did you send our Santa letters? … HON! Did you get my text? … MOM! When is Grandma coming? … HON! Did you get to the Post Office?

So, I wasn't really terribly surprised when a scratchy throat on Sunday evening turned into a raging fever and crippling body aches by Monday morning. I just grumbled: DAMN YOU, FLU SHOT (that I never got) how could you forsake me?

Only to have the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine reply, “How many times did you go to Target in December? Speak to my plunger, you lilly-livered sap, I KNOW you saw my sign.”

Oh yes. It was laughing at me as I just lay there on the couch in a miserable, radiating heap. “You'll just have to sweat me out.”

My husband took over, bless his atheist soul, and unlike most Hollywood plots would have it he directed the choo-choo station traffic with better precision than I ever seem to manage. I didn't even have to get out of bed to give “kisses goodnight.”

He juggled all the balls I threw his way with grace, but by Friday I was crazed:

I. Am. Going. To. Die. My kids will be motherless. (And they won't even miss me.) Their dad will be a widow. (Until he decides which of my friends to date.)

You can't really blame me. Fevers each day. Feverish dreams each night. But blame you shall: “Get thee to a doctor and muster some little pink soldiers to knock down this invading army of microbes, you twit.”

Or was that my husband?

No matter.

Physician, who had previously advised “Heal thyself,” was now piping: “Here's Z-Pak to-save-the-day.”

Of course, with the first dose I felt better immediately and just in time to witness (if not fully participate in) the amazing three-ring-spectacular that would be a “Craftacular Birthday Party” to mark the start of Ittybit's Year 8.

Three weeks' planning and about 65 tons of glitter went into the extravaganza to which her entire Second Grade class (which if you add for sound and excitement factors equates to approximately 3,004 children) and their siblings (another 5,000) would be invited.

Did I mention it would be at our house?

No?

Should have. Sorry.

Sure the doctor told me to “REST!” but I was feeling better just one day with the Z-Troops. I could go up the stairs. I could go down the stairs. Up. Down. Down. Down. I'm gonna sit down. For a while. Am I having trouble breathing? Do I feel light headed?

I settled the question by answering the 11th hour Phone Call of Concern: “You know, SO-AND-SO nearly DIED when they were recovering from pneumonia? Be VERY careful.”

I'm picturing it all over again.

I. Am. Going. To. Die. My kids will be motherless. (Only this time a birthday will be ruined forever.) Their dad will be a widow. (And he's met many new, potentially single mommies at the party I missed while I went to the ER.)

But I do feel light-headed. I AM having trouble breathing. I need to go get checked out, so a friend takes me.

When the nurse hooks me into the vital statistic pole, it's painfully obvious to me that everything is under control except my anxiety.

I'm lucky it's a slow day at the ER because we're home for the opening of presents.

I'm also lucky to have a husband who is so good in a crisis. I'm even pretty sure he would have been able to talk me out of mine if he hadn't been juggling 8,004 little crafters with only a handful of very lovely assistants.

Merry Christmas to all, and may all your crises be small.

All scars heal

“Where do babies come from, Mom?”

It's the question du jour from the inquisitive four-year-old.

Especially a four-year-old whose new neighbor is getting ready to celebrate an entirely new birthday come the New Year.

And all this newness seems to attach itself quite indelibly and in opposite proportion to the fact that our little ones aren't so little any more.

It doesn't surprise me that the place to reminisce has always been around cakes with growing number of complexity and an increasing number of candles.

In fact, I'm beginning to think birthday parties and birth stories go together like cake and ice cream.

As you stand there watching your children tear through presents and serenade each other with off-key songs with added verses that have been around since you were a child yourself, or choruses of “cha-cha-chas” as is the new way, you can't help but go hurling back in time however many years to the moment this crazy, whirling dervish came into your life.

How many times have I mentioned that “I can't believe they'd let me take an infant home?” I'd hardly ever so much as babysat an infant besides a few minutes of holding them at arms-length, praying they wouldn't cry before their moms got back from the restroom.

So many women. So many stories.

And though each of us has a slightly different experience, we are part of a collective. I stand there blinking as I learn the majority at this party have had caesarian sections. Only one was lucky enough to go the natural, no-drugs way.

I stop myself from adding to the choruses of reassurance that having the doctor hatch them was the only way that our babies were ever coming out. Could things have been different is something I've filed away in that place that makes the disappointment less of a nagging reminder.

These days, though, I'm not doing a good job of reassuring myself that was entirely the case.

So many children. So many questions.

The Big Question, right about now is not exactly “Where do babies come from?” though, that's just how they ask it. They frown a little when you point to your abdomen and tell them they grew inside. “No no no no no no: “How do babies get out of your tummy?”

My best friend in the entire universe gently steered her son from his train table to a popular birth reality television show when a pushing, grunting, screaming woman brings life into the world the conventional way.

“That's pretty much how it works.”

He thought that was pretty cool.

I thought I got lucky … There's only reality for us.

All I have to do is point to my incision and remind them a doctor had to go in and get them.

As they look at me in naked awe, I know there's no need to rationalize the scars that brought them to me. All scars heal but only some scars remind you of something so amazing.

For sale - best offer

You ever look at something so closely that you can't quite see it at all?

That word that you say over and over again until it loses its meaning?

Sitting in front of the old coffee shop, waiting for a friend you haven't seen in god-knows-how-many-years. Maybe you're early. So early that you'd drink your weight in caffeinated beverages if you went inside.

So you sit in your car, waiting. Perhaps you run through the radio presets. Check your bag. Write a list. Think of all the things you have left to do before Christmas. You check the time. Still too early, but getting closer. Once you've exhausted the entertainments inside the car, you turn your attention outside.

Place seems dead. Not like the old days. How many customers have come through the door? You've not been paying attention. You don't think much of it. Times change, people find new hotspots, trends come and go.

Squinting through the windshield you start reading signs:

“Parking for customers only.”

… with dramatic emphasis.

“Parking .. foooooooor cuuuuuuuustomers owwwwwnnnnnleeeee.”

“For Sale – Best Offer.”

“FEEEEEEEERRRR SAAAAAAAAAILLLLLLL.”

“BESSSSSSSSSSSSSST OFFAAAH”

“We've Moved!”

Weavemooooooooved.

Weeeee've Mooooooooooooooooooooooved.

“Oh wait … They moved.”

You read the sign a little more closely, and without the Aussie accent, and head over to the new address … where you find an automatic coffee machine and a few packages of individually-wrapped slabs of marshmallow and puffed rice cereal.

And your friend … looking a little lost, too.

That's a little like the way I felt – lost – reading a piece this week in the New York Times about the unwholesome connection between the nation's schools and the food industry.

“How the Food Industry Eats Your Kid's Lunch” tells the story of how 32 million children in this country – 21 million of them eligible for free or reduced priced meals – feast each day on farm surplus food that, in many cases, began its journey through the elementary canal at the commodities level. It begins its round trip as fresh meat, fruit, milk -- provided free – which is then turned over to for-profit food processors, only to return to the schools' defacto kitchens as nutrient-poor chicken nuggets, potato logs and HFC-laiden fruit drinks.

It's not as if I haven't been reading the lunch menu that comes home monthly with Ittybit. I know the lunch choices in any given week offer two kinds of pizza, two kinds of minced and re-formed chicken substances and the wildcard offering: burger, hotdog or taco.

When I was a kid, walking the school lunch line was a different experience. We had pizza and tator tots on special occasions, it's true. But we also had women dishing out food they'd made from the boxes of greens, sacks of potatoes and trays of whole chickens that waited for their attentions – on a loading dock or walk-in-cooler – each morning.

It seems almost a foreign idea to me that school districts ever provided working kitchens, complete with potato mashers and ricers and hair-netted cooks whose job it was to provide scratch meals for 400 or more children each weekday noon-time.

We've become so specialized, we've outsourced virtually everything.

Someone else can do it better. Cheaper. Faster. More appealing to kids and their picky appetites.

Only, according to the Times article, the savings haven't materialized. Schools may have cut the cost of staffing and preparation, but the fees associated with food processing has made it a wash.

As I sit here, blinking at this new legacy we're doling out like rubbery chicken nuggets, a reality that should have been apparent to me all along finally dawns on me: Even our schools are “For Sale – Best Offer.”

Virtue that is patient

It wasn't going to be a big deal.

We'd checked with all the doctors. All but one were in the network. And the doc who didn't par with the the plan assured us getting approval to leave the green was merely a formality.

After all, he was the only white coat for miles who specialized and The Champ had been his patient since Day One.

But when I called the pediatrician's office the day before the scheduled appointment -- thinking quite naively that this sacred document known as an Out-Of-Network Referral was as easily obtainable as a prescription for antibiotics in the '80s – I learned the wheels of bureaucracy travel from Point A to Point B in roughly four business days.

Patience is a virtue.

That wasn't the worst part, though.

The rescheduling of appointments I could handle. The contradiction was another ballgame entirely.

As one doctor giveth … an office manager taketh away: According to her experience, it was not only possible but “PROBABLE” that my insurance would deny the request and make an in-network referral of their own.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Three offices, five people and seven self-induced heart attacks later I was still holding my breath and my hand firmly on my ...

Eventually it was all sorted out with a few dozen extra steps … Gone was the convenient in-office tests. Replaced with a fun-filled trip to the imaging center of the big hospital, followed by a nearly two-hour layover for the doctor's appointment. Peanuts, however, would be available for a nominal fee at the vending machine.

It would be ok. It really wasn't a big deal. It was just like hopping a connecting flight.

Except I was dreading it.

The instructions were daunting. “Follow the walkway to the main building. Check in at the check-in then go to registration. You will need all of your documents and a picture ID. He needs to be here, with a full bladder, a half hour before the test. … If you have to bring siblings, you will need a second adult to watch them while you accompany your son. If you are late your appointment may need to be rescheduled.”

This is your mission … You have no choice but to accept it.

Truth is, what I really dreaded was spending even a minute in a room marked RADIOLOGY/ONCOLOGY with my boy. I dreaded looking into the faces of mothers whose children weren't there for something routine.

I have to admit, up until that moment, I cursed the insurance company for making me feel as if I were wearing a red foam nose and oversized shoes to jump through their flaming hoops.

But there was my son, dressed in his best worn-out pajamas and bat-winged jacket, selecting a Santa from the coloring sheets and reaching for the crayons one at a time. “He will be a Rainbow Cwaus,” he whispered. “I'll give him to the nice lady at the desk when I'm froo.”

He entertained himself like this from one waiting area to another ... and another ... and another for the better part of hours.

Climbing onto the exam tables. Climbing down. Crawling under chairs. Back up to the exam table. Opening and closing doors. Curtains. Blinds. Fogging the mirrors. Break dancing. Until he realized: The. Rolling. Stool-thing-a-ma-seat!!!!! was out of its garage and ready for a test spin.

He'd just be the valet. He'd drive it on over to the doc once he knock-knocked on the door.

The Champ is one patient who IS truly patient.

Even with the limited space and plentiful requests to stop, sit, shhhh, let go, don't pull on that and leave that thing-I-can't-pronounce alone … he was mostly all smiles … until he had to pee:

“I have to pee.”

“That's good. They're probably going to want a sample.”

“What do they want with my pee?”

“They're going to test it to see if there's anything in it that shouldn't be.”

“Are they going to give it back?”

“Do you want it back?”

And then he was all laughs.

“Only if there's LEGOs in it.”

Rustling up the ghosts of Christmases past

As I rustle through the stores this holiday season mulling the purchases that will either make Santa a hero or me a zero (because, lets face it, blaming the big guy for getting the wrong toy just isn't done) I thought I'd wander down Memory Lane and remember all the gifts that haven't been forgotten the second the wrapping paper had been cleared away:




BIC Mark-It permanent ink markers – $23


We bought the 36-count set ions ago. Likely before The Champ was even born. We still have all 36 and all of them work. There is no substitute for good markers. And no end to how you can use them. This year we'll be making tie-dye shirts with permanent markers and rubbing alcohol.




Optic Wonder by Toysmith – $7


It's not really a wonder … it's a binocular/compass combo that rarely gets used in our house for either of those functions. But this a $7 hunk of plastic (now missing the compass feature) has certainly repaid its price ten-times over … though I doubt I bought it. Honestly? I had no idea what this mystery gadget was. It just turned up one day and it's been an important tool for propping up toys, spying on sisters and viewing the opera from the living room ever since.




FurReal Newborn Chimpanzee - $14

We call him “Monkey Baby” and The Champ won't leave home (or sleep) without him. Luckily (because of temporary misplacement) we have three of these babies. The “real” part of the monkey – chittering, snoring and squawking have all lost their appeal (not to mention battery juice). Even I must admit it's creepy how cute he is.




Vintage camera, thrift shop - $1

The kids will always dig this baby out of the toy box.

You can find them at etsy, but I'd go to Salvation Army … or Goodwill … yard sales. You might also want to check grandpa's attic.




Haba Geomix blocks - $46


We received these Geomix block by Haba as a gift when Ittybit was two. I'm not sure anyone would outgrow these. Ever.




Hello Kitty Sewing Machine by Janome - $115


Cute. Versatile. Sturdy. Indispensable.

Santa brought a Sew Mini by Janome, ($60) which was handy and good for light-weight crafting, but ended up needing repairs after only a few months. Santa now recommends spending just a little more.




Wooden train set - $50

Their father had a small set … probably from the Brio company.

We went with Circo at Target. Got a 120-piece set for about $50. It's easy to assemble, fits with the old Brio set as well as another plastic model recently and lovingly handed down. I think the best part may be that it's a toy that won't end up in a yard sale.

And it's hours of fun.




Legos – Anywhere from $3 to a small fortune

You will step on them, sweep them up, step on them again … but you will never curse the day they were invented. Neither will your kids.




Littlest Pet Shop - $4 to $40


Ittybit got her first Littlest Pet Shop when she was two. I got an apology from the benefactor. “They're like crack,” she whispered so that her own daughter wouldn't hear. Now we have more than a hundred of these little bobble headed things. Parents hate them. Kids love them. Can't win every battle.




Superstar Mic - $1

Target dollar bin. Looks like the biggest piece of crap going: A plastic ice cream cone housing a metal coil. Batteries not even needed. Big whoop.

Yet … It's been the best dollar Santa ever spent.

This year Santa is looking into


A pottery wheel

A marble chute

A microscope

and an ice cream maker

I'll let you know how my kids think they stack up against the best toy ever made …



The cardboard box.

It's true, actually

The Champ knows everything. It's true, actually.

The only thing he doesn't seem to grasp is the ability to get my attention without tugging on my shirt.

As I gaze down at the creature testing all his weight on my boiled wool cardigan, he smiles cherubically from under his favorite winter hat, his ears sticking out at an elf-like angle.

I catch his hand and gently peel each finger away from the over-stretched fabric.

“What is it?”

“Did you know bats mostly don't eat blood? It's true, actually. They eat bugs and fruit. We should have a pet bat. Can we get one next time we see a bat store?”

“Sure thing. Let's make a list so we don't forget.”

His expression, now puckered and overly cute, tells me he knows the bat store is a figment of his imagination. I have failed to take the bait.

He continues to quiz me.

“Did you know that there's a wolf what eats nothing but insects? It's true, actually. They're called ART Wolves!!! I think they also eat paint and crayons if it's winter out and the insects go off to hibernate or something. But that's only in the winter time. On all the other days they just eat bugs.”

For a moment, as I make a mental picture of a jackal-like ant-eater snacking away on a waxy stalk of Cornflower Blue in the arctic chill of a South African winter, I consider correcting him. “Aardwolves, a relative of the hyena, eat mostly termites, larvae and carrion. ARTwolves are mythical beasts who eat the crafts of children who don't put away their markers.”

Another failure on my part.

He and his sister are fond of nature shows. They've been watching “Wild Kratts,” a nature series for children on PBS starring the Kratt brothers – Martin and Chris – two science grads who've taken the basic documentary tenant of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and blended it with the modern animation and dramatic license of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

Among recent topics has been the diet of aardwolves, the tracking of Monarch butterflies and how to identify venomous snakes. There's always some tidbit of information that makes you look at whomever else is in the room and repeat what you just heard.

“Did you know Zebras can't see orange?”

The adults will answer: “I had no idea.”

The sprogs will blank stare you as if you just walked in from the moon. “Of course they can't see orange.”

By the time the show is over both kids want to be zoologists, sneaking up on their stuffed animals in an effort to study their behaviors.

But the Kratt brothers sometimes do things you NEVER want to do … Things that will make you think there's a little more Steve Irwin in the brothers' background than Jim Fowler or Marlin Perkins.

Just little things like vexing a venomous viper … or hugging an 80-pound crocodile … cuddling up with a beaver.

It's not as if The Champ is going to be swimming with sharks or aping gorillas any time soon, but I still feel the need to tell him manhandling nature, no matter how gentlemanly, might not be in his (or their) best interest.

“Did you know apes can talk … with their HANDS? It's true, actually. If I saw an ape I would talk to him with my mouth.”

“That's probably a better idea then trying to get his attention by tugging on his shirt.”