DARE to be different

I'll admit, I was miffed. My fifth grader was preaching temperance, and it was grating on me.

“Smoking is bad. It causes lung cancer and wrinkles … and man, did that D.A.R.E. Officer have stories. I about jumped out of my skin at least once,” she declared in a voice like a roller coaster.

It's not as if she needed to convert me. I'd already joined that particular church long before she was born. Of course, she also knows I had my heathen moments … especially in college.

If I've learned anything from the experience of explaining how a Jolly Old Elf can travel around the world delivering presents with the help of eight tiny reindeer, it's that trust is difficult to regain once it has been lost. Let's just say, I'm not one to mince words.

But I've also learned "telling it like it is" ... isn't necessarily the same as telling it accurately.

“I know drugs are bad …” she continued, ready to toss me another sobering fact she learned during the 10-week drugs and alcohol resistance program, which, critics claim, hasn't done anything in decades (statistically speaking) to curb the use of drugs among the nation's youth. “... but I don't know what they are.”

"You don't know what what are?"

"Drugs! I don't really understand what they do."

I suppose I can understand the confusion. Talk of drugs is everywhere in the pop culture landscape. From illegal narcotics, improperly used prescription medications, regulated and unregulated food additives, and even to flavorings that coat our breakfast cereals, we have a tendency to over-prescribe. People even talk about some rare side effect of physical activity known as a “runner's high.”

If I were 11 I'd be confused, too.

“So what have you learned?” I asked, as she handed me an invitation to the fabled DARE graduation, an annual event that promised to be fun, festive and, as it claimed in bold type, filled with barbecued meats.

“Well … I learned a song,” she explained, warming her voice before starting to sing:

“D, I won't do drugs; A, Won't have an attitude; R, I will respect myself; E, I will educate me.”

Grammatically it's a bit off, but I'll admit it was a catchy tune.

The look in my child's eye told me I was being too harsh. And as I saw her ernest self deflate as she tried to recall her required D.A.R.E essay from memory, I regretted suggesting she write about D.A.R.E.'s shortcomings.

She is not a bastion of unpopular speech.

And, since I am a bastion of open mouth, insert foot, I decided to go to the Dr. Google Algorithm School of Research and Finding Out Stuff to make sure my knowledge of soundbites was at least up to date.

Turns out it wasn't.

It is certainly true that during its first 20 years, most research of D.A.R.E.'s programs suggested it was not effective in curbing drug use in any age group – elementary, middle or high school. And it's true that no substantive changes in curriculum were made until after the Department of Education removed D.A.R.E. from its National Registry of Effective Programs in 2001 because it didn't meet federal guidelines for effectiveness.

But having friendly-faced police in the classroom is a popular idea, and one that conventional wisdom embraces.

So in the early 2000s, a nearly 14-million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation helped develop a new program for DARE known as “Take Charge of Your Life.” It was intended to improve skills students could use to resist substance abuse, however after eight years of study, the program had mixed results. Namely, that marijuana use declined among students who had already tried it when they went through the program, but tobacco and alcohol use had increased among students who hadn't experimented prior to seventh grade.

In 2009, DARE shifted course again, this time to a program called “Keeping it REAL – a research-based model that encourages students through role playing and other exercises to Keep it R.E.A.L.:

"Refuse offers to use substances;

"Explain why you do not want to use substances;

"Avoid situations in which substances are used; and,

"Leave situations in which substances are used."

This one seems to have a promising future, at least according to Scientific American, which cited a sample of student questionnaires that indicated these D.A.R.E. students' anti-drug attitudes were higher over time than control groups.

So there it was … a shred of proof that that thing in my mouth that was garbling my speech was indeed my foot.

“But I did take your advice,” said my new DARE graduate. “I couldn't promise I'll never try cigarettes or alcohol, but I know I can promise to respect myself and make my own decisions.”

I can only think her own decisions will be for the best.

Homeschool and holograms

I could barely comprehend the letter in my hand …it just didn't add up. … Which, I'll admit, was ironic since the page-long epistle was trying to spell out how my second-grader would surely benefit from summer school.

As I reread the words, I pictured his beloved summer camp and all of our day-trip plans disappearing with the liquid-y snap of a soap bubble.

He needs summer school? I thought he had improved so much this year ...

Of course, his teachers didn't call it summer school.

They called it “Invitations,” and sprinkled the script with colorful words that made it seem like it would be more fun than a barrel of simian superlatives.

They'd have to be crazy to think such a name would fool anyone, (much less a kid) into thinking a two-hour literacy class, scheduled smack-dab in the middle of July, was going to be a party.

Not if it didn't have basketball …

or Knock Hockey …

or ice cream and cupcakes ...

or firefighters, with a big red truck, who would spray all the kids at camp with a cool mist from the hose.

“How am I supposed to sell this?” I asked the dog, who had sidled up to me and dropped her head on my lap as I opened the mail. She was no help, though, and disappeared once she realized the fine people at Milkbone hadn't sent her any samples.

As a parent, I don't have to SELL anything.

It's having to do the unsavory for the good of humanity, or at least for the good of my future grandchildren who should have a father who can read.

No, this is just one of the many moments when parents have to do The Hard Thing.

The Parenting Thing.

The thing that rocks the boat and muddies the water.

The thing that hurts us more than it hurts them.

The thing that will, hopefully, make all the difference in the world.

And, according to the letter, the thing that will make a difference is sixteen more days of school.

I am prepped and ready.

I am talking the talk:

“Of course education comes first, of course it does,” my mother's mind says reflexively.

“Buuuuut … Education shouldn't be punitive,” rationalizes the kinder, gentler, pushover-like being in my soul who yearns for the calm and tranquil waters we will miss if we aren't poolside.

“Perhaps we can make some kind of compromise,” this touchy-feely mush mouth proposes. “Lots of people homeschool.”

“We know so many teachers … and there are so many programs we could use to supplement summer reading.”

Of course, I'm not opposed to threats.

I picture The Talk. The one where I sit him down and show him the letter. I tell him the predicament and give him a choice. He buckles down and does his reading and comprehension from now until school ends, or I sign him up for summer school.

He cries. I stay calm, cool and collected. The world doesn't implode.

I am patting myself on the back at my newfound fortitude. My we-pull-ourselves-up-by-our-bootstraps mantra when … an imaginary bubble hovered over my psyche. In it I can see my daughter vigorously shaking her head.

“Oh ye of modern motherhood's discontent,” her hologram-like apparition warns. “Woe to she who can't say no.”

“I know,” I reassure my tisking conscience. “Home schooling would be a huge mistake. ...”

Plip. Her bubble pops while mine slowly expands:

“But home summer schooling seems entirely possible.”

For a moment, my daughter's imaginary bubble returned, but she was speechless.

I took that as a good sign.

No, really. I can do this. Who volunteered in her kid's Literacy Block every Wednesday since October? I did.

And who actually went to Third Grade and didn't fail? Again … Me!

Who found all these cool, age-appropriate reading programs that even seem like video games? Me, that's who.

“We can do this. It's not rocket science. … it's third-grade reading.”

My mature child's bubble returned … and with it came another proof of my folly:

“And who celebrated a cavity-free dental visit with lollipops and licorice?”

To which I can only respond: “And who doesn't have cavities?”

Plip.

Magic miles

I was at the starting line.

I wasn't nervous. Not one bit.

Of course, I had been facing backward, but that's a mistake anyone could make.

“I'd trained for this,” I told myself and everyone who was in listening range. Two days a week whenever time allowed, and at six o'clock on Saturday mornings. I'd drag myself out of bed and lace up my sneakers, rain or shine. In just a few months time, I had accumulated an ever expanding weekly distance despite moving at a glacial pace.

Two hours and thirty minutes. That's when I expected to cross the finish line.

At some point during this middle-age experience filled with blisters and chafing and jogging uphill (both ways), covering 13.1 miles without using wheels had become not only thinkable but doable. It had also seemed like a two and a half-hour vacation at the end of each week.

I wasn't proud, exactly. I was amazed.

The kind of amazed I felt when I got married …. or when the kids were born … or when they started making their own lunches.

The kind of amazed one might feel when they get a hug from a child or a smile from a stranger.

Granted … it's not the kind of amazed one feels when seeing a George Lucas film for the first time. Or when a hypnotist at the county fair makes a whole bleacher-section bark like dogs. But that's beside the point.

This was real and somewhat elusive, albeit mundane. As I joined the ranks of the Spandex-clad huffing and puffing by the side of the road, somewhere inside my head I had to wonder:

Why do we put ourselves through this?

Shin splints, stress fractures, muscle tears and a laundry list of self-diagnoses ending in ITIS.

It has to be for something other than the subtraction of a few seconds from a stopwatch.

We all have our reasons: Testing limits; pushing boundaries; setting examples; strengthening our bodies; clearing our heads.

I used to think it was all just mind games, mostly.

But that's always how we all feel in the beginning.

When the gun goes off, and you start to run -- a slow jog that stops short a few times before the pack thins itself out – you realize how often we forget to hold ourselves back.

Starting out too fast is a common problem in all human races.

Eventually, I will pace myself. I will settle into a cadence I can sustain.

My body doesn't have much of a choice once my mind realizes it has to pitch in and help.

Miles one and two fly by as I keep up with the pack.

Eventually, I do begin to pace myself. Though my brain – the sad, tired, mathematically impaired thing that it is – can't seem to keep up. The mile marker has a number four on it. That can't be right.

What happened to mile three?

I kept rounding downward.

Mile nine seemed like mile seven. I had scaled the wall I usually hit full on.

I came up on Mile 12 with the feeling of invincibility.

So, of course, finally being the hare in this tortoise fable, I did want all hares historically do.

I started to walk, which startled the nice lady I'd passed at least five times already. She touched my elbow as she passed me again, this time saying the magic words: “We got this.”

We did have this.

I was going to finish.

I just wasn't sure my family would see me cross that line if I didn't slow down.

They'd never expect me to pull a rabbit out of my hat.

Cleans up well

“I love that jacket,” my friend exclaimed. She gestured for me to spin clockwise and then counterclockwise so she could see all its angles.

Such is the standard greeting in most corners of kinship. But finding myself in unusual territory, I turned my head to gaze down at my outstretched arm, needing a reference to remind myself what I'd thrown on that morning.

It was my faaaaaaavorite jacket: A black, neoprene hoodie with vents and reflective tape striping its length, and fashionable thumb holes at the end of each sleeve.

I mumbled a meek thank-you, but in my mind, I twirled through an awkward humble-brag response: “Oh this old thing? I found it washed up on a beach. It's practically an endangered species.”

Blank. Stare.

So … I wasn't just thinking that, huh?

See, this is just my fashion sense. Dulled, apparently, by thrift and absurdity. Someone compliments me on my attire, and I explain how I bought it for pennies at a flea market or fished it out of the trash.

Give it a shake.

Hand wash.

Tumble dry.

Repeat.

Still, with the staring?

“I'm going to need you to explain that one,” she ventured.

“Well, one morning last summer I was walking on the beach, and I thought a dead seal had been brought in by the tide. So I went over … you know, to poke it … and it turned out to be this jacket. One swim in the wash, and it was good as new.”

“So I guess you could say it is an endangered species.”

I don't know if you can tell, but I don't receive many compliments.

Not that I would expect them.

My wardrobe consists of roughly a dozen garments that orbit my person in a fairly consistent three-day rotation.

Today is Sunday, so I am likely wearing my Lucky jeans (Marshall's clearance) a cobalt blue sweatshirt (Goodwill) and a green Lands' End hoodie (overstuffed hand-me-downs bag meant for the kids). It is also likely I'll be wearing several of these pieces come Wednesday, as well.

Now, you probably think I have nothing to wear.

Go ahead, pretend you are a 15-year-old girl and imagine me saying “I have nothing to wear.”

Can't do it, can you? You can't because you KNOW such a notion is totally ridiculous.

My closet -- like every 15-year-old-girl's in the western world -- is cascading with frocks and fabrics that haven't seen the light of day since they were acquired. These things are arranged by color (or, in my case, varying shades of lack of color) and hung like great works of art in a Closet Museum.

A dresser contains another wing of this fiber repository. I don't even have to claw through its deep drawers to find my usual favorites. Fancy fibers sink to the bottom; everyday wear floats to the top like flotsam.

“Oh, I love this headband. I found it in a mud puddle in the parking lot of the supermarket. Came through the wash like new.”

I know I shouldn't be proud of this. I have socially acceptable clothes that take up precious real estate in my wardrobe but rarely get worn.

Doesn't matter how much I paid, I keep them around because of sentiment. Each clothes hanger holds the place of a distant memory that I don't want to see evaporate because of rote generosity. Therefore, I flout my own rule of thumb: For every Good Deal goes two for Goodwill.

Which means every year, I just wedge a few more pieces between the already tightly packed hangers. Clothes that are waiting to take a spin.

I'm not a clothes horse; I'm a clothes hoarder.

… But I could use some new shoes. It is almost beach combing season.

Sleep walking

It's been a long time since I've just gone for a walk.

A get out of bed, grab a sweater and go kind of walk.

A don't really care what shoes you wear kind of walk.

A meet up with a friend and gab kind of walk.

A stop on the way home for coffee and a bagel kind of walk.

Walks like these used to be a routine. Now they seem to be a rarity.

Even the dog looks at me with disdain and the plumpness of four extra pounds gained since the Fall.

There's enough blame to throw around: Long winter, short-hair dog. The lure of an extra half hour of sleep.

When the veterinarian mentioned the weight gain, I immediately blamed the new cat, her overflowing food bowl, and her dainty little appetite.

But the real blame has to be be placed firmly inside my own orthotics-inserted, blue and orange over-engineered kicks.

I'd rather run.

And not just run. … Obsessively run. Compulsively run.

Run the way a handheld computer tells me to run.

Four miles today, five tomorrow, eight to ten by the end of the week.

Easy. Slow. Fast. Race pace.

Run with all the gizmos that, as I cross my fingers and mouth a silent prayer, I hope will help me shave off a few measly seconds from my best time.

Which, let's face it, never seems fast or far enough. Not to mention that it doesn't allow the time my furry friend needs to sniff fire hydrants or chase squirrels.

Yes, It's all my fault. I would rather run, and the dog slows me down.

More and more, I'm coming to the realization that I'm not running for the health benefits as much as I'm running for the data.

Rafts and rafts of it, over various applications. I know how far, how fast, at what elevation; and, mile for mile, how it compares to other runs going back all the way to the beginning.

Even when I measure one run on one device, I enter the metrics into four others.

Because …

Well …

I'm insane.

Which reminds me ...

Now I have a new device.

A Pebble Watch, which is like the Apple watch, only not as Goliath.

It tells the time. And buzzes my arm when I receive text messages. And it shows the data from my running tracker without having to fish my phone out of its sleeve.

It also tracks my activity throughout the day, as well as the quality of my sleep. All of these numbers, however, have made me skeptical of their validity.

As if the chunk of plastic strapped to my wrist is a tiny Dr. Oz reminding me I've bought into the amazing properties of snake oil metrics while the price was at its height.

Of course, even snake oil works some degree.

For instance, the watch has determined that I sleep only six hours (two of them deeply) most nights, which can only be accounted for because I usually manage to walk 80 or 90 steps in my sleep.

However, the prospect of exercising in dreamland turned into a nightmare as the watch logged a meager 3,000 steps on days I don't run and barely reached the target 10,000 on the days I do.

Then my crazy suddenly blossomed. Standing at the bus stop my watch-side arm started to twitch. Then swing. And then, before I knew what was happening, any passerby would have thought I was snapping in time to some doo-wop band in my head.

At baseball practice more of the same. I was lurching forward and backward like I'd developed a palsy or some previously undetected tick.

All to log just a few more steps.

Metric compulsions from which my dog would soon benefit.

I got the leash -- and a big, goofy smile from the dog – and I set my tracker app to "Dog Walk."

“Wipe that smile off your long face,” I warned. “We're stepping it! No squirrels. No birds. And no sniffing fire hydrants. We're on the clock.”

No appointment necessary

She was at the door when I arrived, a bundle of nerves rising on tiptoes and weaving back and forth. I hadn't even gotten into the house before she thrust a $50 bill at me and her teal-colored lifeline, its touch-screen glass all smashed to smithereens.

Tears were in her eyes and a chunk of her savings in her hands.

“I dropped it in the driveway. It didn't even land on the face, but it shattered anyway. I didn't mean to … it was an accident. I looked it up, I think it will cost about $50 to repair.” The declaration seemed to come out of her mouth as one long, beseeching word.

And then she paused and said slowly:

“Are you mad?”

See, that's what she was really afraid of. That I would be mad at her the way I am about homework and arguing with her brother, and all manner of other little incidents that neither she nor I can really control .. like the spilling milk … or cereal … or milk with cereal.

“Of course I'm not mad,” I say, reassuringly as if she'd have to be crazy to think that I'd be mad about something like that. As if all accidents were the result of carelessness and that all carelessness could be avoided with a modicum of forethought.

And as if all forethought wasn't somehow linked to me saying “I told you so,” in the harsh light of an inevitable outcome.

But the truth was, she'd gotten me on a good day. I didn't have anger or resentment or anxiety hanging over me, so I could handle news of a disappointing nature with an added amount of grace.

Which I immediately translated into guilt currency, and how much of it I owe.

I hadn't been so gracious with her brother the day before … you know … Crying over spilled milk?

Turns out, I'm not good with tears. The crying? The carrying on? The Whole World is Ending phenomenon because someone is using his scooter … or because she can't get her hair into a bun … or because we arrived at the party four minutes later than everyone else? The helplessness I feel at the meltdown that follows?

That. Makes. Me. Completely. Insane.

And it occurred to me, it's because I don't know how to fix it.

I know what to do about a broken computer screen. I know it will take time and money and a trip to the computer store's “Genius Bar.”

But a broken heart isn't as easily mended.

And at that very moment, as I was pondering all the things that I don't know how to do (and trying to get an appointment at the computer store) while simultaneously perusing Facebook, I clicked on a link to a Huffington Post story. It was a piece by Rachel Macy Stafford, an author and special education teacher, who put forward a simple answer in the form of a question:

“How can I help?”

As I reread the piece, it occurred to me that I don't have to have the answers. I don't even have to feel bad about NOT having the answers. I just have to be willing to support someone as they figure out what they need to do.

The next time emotion overtook my son, I took a deep breath and tried saying those four words, only this time without my usual sarcasm.

“How can I help?”

Before I could begin listing ideas, he had stopped crying.

“I know what to do,” he said, drying his eyes.

For a moment, I felt like I'd gotten the key to the universe.

And it didn't require fifty bucks and an appointment at the Genius Bar.

Apple, meet tree

It's 2:30 in the afternoon. I hear downshifting and the protest of brakes. I imagine a big yellow bus, lights flashing and stopping traffic, is spitting out my firstborn.

I don't rush to the window. I just wait. And listen.

Any second now. ...

The door opens. And closes. A heavy bag drops onto the floor with a thud. For a moment, there is silence.

I hear a cheerful, “Hi, mom” from the kitchen; a rummaging through the refrigerator; bouncing steps to the door; and a quick “I'm goin' outside!” before it opens again, and she's gone. The sound of a basketball slapping against the driveway and hitting the backboard ricochets through the living room. And with a random cadence, there is calm.

I take a new, deep breath, realizing I had been holding on to that last one for a while.

We always hope that girl gets off the bus. She is happy. She does her homework, feeds the cat, makes lists of all the things she's going to do before summer. She starts checking them off one by one, singing as she goes. She plays with her brother, she lends him books and doesn't even mind when he tries to annoy her. She might even tell us about what happened in school, skipping through to the good parts.

She makes it easy to feel like a successful parent.

As if we had anything to do with it. We recognize this girl since the day she was born, trying so hard to stand on her own. She was always THAT kid.

Another girl arrives home in her place more often these days. A sullen twin, who rarely smiles. She brushes her hair over her eye, and hangs her head at an uncomfortable angle. She doesn't want to talk about her day.

This girl complains that she has nothing to wear; we have nothing to eat; and that someone hid her basketball. She stomps upstairs and slams her door. She wants to be left alone in her hurricane of a room. She doesn't want to be reminded to do her homework or feed the cat or brush her teeth. She doesn't want to be questioned about anything.

She is painting adolescence on her face and trying on its clothes, becoming delighted with the fit and expressing it in a new language of disdain. “You couldn't possibly understand how it feels to be me.”

We have become uncomfortable furniture.

But this girl is familiar, too. My husband may not recognize her right away, but my parents might. This girl lived in their house during the late 80s, had raccoon eyes and listened to Pink Floyd albums in the darkness of her room. This girl worried them, too.

Apple, meet tree.

We love this girl, too, even though we feel better when she's not around.

“Well, you might like her but I don't,” says her brother. “She never lets me do anything anymore. … and she's made the basketball hoop too high.”

Inside the bubble

I am a monster.

Or I'm a sheep ... which, I guess, could be a monster if it was all matted and rabid and charging at you in a wooly frenzy.

I am also firmly on the wrong side of history.

I'm not exactly sure if I can be all three. But that's how I feel – like I've hit the bad-parent trifecta -- each time I scroll through Facebook and see all the posts exclaiming the virtues bestowed upon those refusing the state's standardized testing.

The slogans are brief but powerful: “Strong parents.” “Strong kids.” “Refuse the test.”

Yet, while the history pioneers' kids are sitting around reading leisurely for the three hours my kid is using to color in bubbles with a Number 2 pencil, I'll be shrugging my shoulders and lamenting my position in the flock.

It's not that I don't care. Or that I think everything's fine. I know there are problems.

It's not that I think standardized tests are an important part of the evaluation process. I do not.

It's not that I don't value teachers or care about their plight. I do.

It's not that I think everyone should be learning at the same pace or the same level, or be carbon copies of each other. That's the plot of a novel, not real life.

Maybe it's that I just find it hard to believe that it matters all that much in the final outcome.

You know, in a "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it," kind of way.

I remember the first time I sat down at a desk to fill in all those bubble circles. I'm not sure how old I was … they called it the Iowa Tests back then … but I remember it felt exciting to be doing something so totally different.

“These won't count for your grades,” said the teacher as she handed out papers and sharpened pencils. “But you must take them seriously.”

She made it plain as day that we weren't to be making pictures of dogs with droopy tongues or play tick-tac-toe with our answers no matter how we were tempted.

And how were we tempted.

I'm not sure what happened with the scores some computer must have spit back. My mother probably crumpled up the results and threw them away. Or perhaps she packed them in some box that is mouldering in the cellar. All I know is she never told me about such measures of intellect.

“You're not as smart as you think you are,” was all she'd ever say. “Remember that.”

Honestly … I don't know what happened to most of the information that came home in our backpacks, never mind what was supposed to be etched in my brain. It can't have gone missing.

But it was there. It just needed a little cosmic recycling and a few hand-outs brought home by the kids. Soon the bits and pieces loosened up and started to move around in my mind. All of it becoming more limber.

I sand off more of the rust with each passing page. How long has it been since I've diagrammed a sentence? Did I ever really understand the difference between commutative and associative properties?

Happily, I doodle alongside of her. Feeling accomplished as I ACE all of her fifth-grade problems.

... Or not, as the expression on my kid's face makes apparent when I finally look up.

“That's NOT how you do it,” says my daughter. “It's like this ...”

She snatches my pencil. Erases my existence on the scratch sheet. Starts again.

“See?”

And I do see.

I see that my kid understands.

I see that when she doesn't understand, she seeks help from someone who knows how to explain it differently.

I see she can prove me wrong.

And I see that there's a whole lot of things I can't fix. … Things I maybe shouldn't try to fix.

That win or lose, good teacher or bad, developmentally ready or not …

Here she comes.

I know my kid has got this, I don't care what the test says.

The windup

This year is going to be different; I told myself this as I sat in the bustling cafeteria, sipping hot coffee and watching my son schlep a bag of gear bigger than himself toward the gymnasium.

For the first time, I am glad I am not allowed to watch.

He wasn't crying. He wasn't sporting the start of a shiner from when his father -- feeling guilty for going a whole year without throwing a ball around with his son – pitched him a fastball in the minutes prior to the big evaluation that the poor boy caught with his face.

That was last year.

This year IS going to be different.

This year, as in past years, my son has all the enthusiasm of a team full of kids.

He even has everything he needs unlike previous years. All the tools of the trade are now at his disposal: a mitt, a bat, a pair of batting gloves, a few baseballs and a helmet. Of course, this collection was the product of two years of birthday presents from people who understand the game as well as the fact that this kid's parents are clueless.

… Which would have been evident to anyone who noticed the bag he was dragging into the gym: a homemade duffel made out of striped sun-colored canvas.

It looked like he was going to the beach.

I shook my head. Who am I trying to kid? This year won't be so different. It's not as if any of us have changed.

My husband still loves soccer.

My son still says he loves the sport, but his attention is constantly being syphoned away by any number of distractions from passing butterflies to the epic battle (complete with sound effects) between the superheroes and the regular heroes that is always playing out in his mind.

And it's not as if I'd rather have a root canal than sit through another baseball game, but I still feel the same uneasy anticipation that I have always felt whenever my little player takes the field.

The big difference now seems to be the other players.

There are fewer of them like my son.

Increasingly, they are starting to focus on the ball. They connect with it on more and more occasions. And when they do, it doesn't just hit the ground and bounce harmlessly toward the pitching coach. It sails into the air on a direct path to the fence … where my son is usually playing air guitar.

Now, I don't care if the kid ever becomes a modern Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays but I'd like for him to live to see the third grade.

Getting beaned in the head by a ball he wasn't watching doesn't seem to be a likely way to meet that goal.

So we had THAT chat … the one where I try and talk him out of loving baseball. The one where I try to show him the player I see by straightening out the fun house mirror he's been gazing into. The one where I try to tell him, ever-so-lovingly, that I don't think baseball's his game.

Of course, I just wind up stepping all over his feelings and tripping over mine.

“No, no, no … that's not what I meant,” I plead when his eyes well up with tears. “I didn't mean any of that to say you are bad at baseball. All I meant was that you don't give it the same attention you pay to other things … like video games and imaginary creatures.”

It occurs to me that right this very second the only thing I can do is drink my lukewarm coffee and hope this is the year baseball will finally leave an impression.

And that the impression it leaves won't require a trip to the emergency room.

Unfriends forever

What am I seeing?

I blinked, rubbed my eyes and looked again.

The picture on my Instagram feed was blurry and awash in digital filters, but it made my nose twitch and my heart race.

Yup. That's a rabbit, alright. A cute little Lionhead bunny that looked exactly like unconditional love and overused steel wool. It's adorableness only magnified as it snuggled in underneath my daughter's chin during an afternoon play date two towns and several wifi networks away.

I knew I should never have helped start a 4-H group and this was proof. We hadn't even had our first official meeting yet and already The Other Leader's kids were posting pictures of their new menagerie member online.

That that wasn't all ...

“And we also got six chicks!” they gushed.

If I had pulled out a selfie stick, taken a picture and uploaded it to my Instagram account at that very moment, you would have seen a color-drained woman pulling out her hair in disbelief and rethinking all of her life choices.

You know … as if a picture without a sharpie-written protest sign taking up half the frame could have conveyed all of that.

My mind started roiling. I feared I might hyperventilate.

All of a sudden it seemed obvious what had happened: war has been declared on my sanity.

I quickly text my friend and 4-H co-leader. “What is this, an April Fool's joke?”

“Nope,” came the return text. “We stopped at Tractor Supply today. Kids are going to enter him in the fair.”

Of course, now my kids will want a cute and fuzzy bunny to show at the fair. And if such a thing should comes to pass, we might as well make way for chicks, pigs, pigmy goats and a pony. Zoning be damned.

I had to fortify.

I searched the interwebs for ammunition and came up empty. Oh sure, public service ad after public service ad warned of the harm that would befall the peeping chicks and cuddly bunnies when Easter was over, but they still showed the most adorable, heart-squeezing pictures.

Must. Stay. Strong.

Note to self: Shoot a public service ad that opens with a baby cooing at an adorable ball of fluff in a pottery-barn-style living room and morphs into an ugly, one-eyed rooster chasing a toddler around a yard littered with rusted out old cars and mountains of trash. Then make it go viral for next Easter.

“This isn't an IMPULSE,” argues my daughter. “We checked off 'rabbits' in the areas of interest section when we submitted our registration forms,” she adds, throwing me a sugary grin and sideways head tilt, which wouldn't fool anyone except the people with whom she shares DNA.

“And you did say once that we could maybe get a rabbit to raise for 4-H,” she reiterates with confidence since she knows picking a battle that uses the opponent's ammunition gives her a devastating advantage.

But two can play at that game.

“I know I said we might be able to get a rabbit, but that was before we adopted a second cat, who, as you know, will be lobbying for the acquisition of a bunny on your behalf for her own not-so-altruistic purposes, such as late-night snacking.”

She's unconvinced: “The cats and dog all get along, and they are supposed to be mortal enemies.”

I try humor: “Hey! Why don't we just rename the new cat Bunny and call her a short-eared, long-legged Lionhead?”

She didn't even dignify my suggestion with a response.

“Here let me give you the name of the breeder,” says Misery, the person who heads the 4-H group from which I now want to secede, and who has probably nicknamed me “Company.”

“If I could unfriend you I would.”

Fever dreams

There is nothing “easy” about waking up.

I was in bed, warm and comfortable, sleeping peacefully in a tangle of quilted blankets when the alarm went off.

Not that alarm. That alarm doesn't go off until 6 a.m. That alarm, despite being cloyingly shrill, can be ignored for at least two intervals of nine minutes each.

This alarm, which is soft and gurgle-y, goes off in the dead of night. This alarm will not be quieted with a pat on the head.

“Mom … I don't feel so well.”

“Mmmmf,” I answered from somewhere inside an unusually deep slumber.

If I had been dreaming the scenes in my subconscious must have been serene and without the usual confounding drama. There was neither the anxious panic of not being able to find my twelfth-grade history class nor the sickening heart-race that jolts one awake just before their dozing psyches hit rock bottom.

Everything just felt a little muffled.

The kitten had padded in, as has been her nightly habit of late, and made herself a beard under my chin. She had purred herself to sleep, but now, her long arms stretched in the direction of the whispering discomfort standing at the side of the bed.

Her movements and the chill sent down my collar bones, helped amplify my son's voice.

“I think it's my tummy.”

And then he ran away. Quick, walloping footfalls I could trace to the nearest bathroom, where the boggy evidence of his infirmity sloshed into the septic.

I was groggily awake now. Awake and thankful for his big-boy ability to aim. Awake and pondering all the ways the schedule for this day would change. Awake, but strangely feeling as if I hadn't slept a wink.

Three flushes later, he was curled up underneath my chin – displacing the cat – in a clammy ball of sleepy discomfort.

Wide awake, I begin composing emails, rescheduling meetings and refusing to realize this might not be a twenty-four-hour detour.

Truth is I do not know what to expect. All around me, people had been falling victim to this new and vile virus. I just hadn't paid much attention.

Tummy upset? Tsktsk.

Nausea? Big deal.

Fever? Bring it. We have the miraculous Vitamin I (ibuprofen).

But this one was tricky.

By late afternoon, my pale-faced boy was rosy-cheeked and raring to go.

And then Day Two came. And with Day Two the tummy upset, the nausea, and the fever revisit.

What the ...

“Yeah, this thing can last five days,” explained another mother, whom I had only half heard when she shared the agony of her middle-schooler's malaise. “It seems better in the afternoon, but then it gets worse at night and in the morning.”

Soon, Day Two replicated itself twice over.

Then his sister sashayed into my room during the pre-dawn hours, holding her stomach and moaning pitifully.

“Mom … I don't feel so well.”

I sat straight up as she scampered off to the loo.

It was the same thing only different: Headache, fever, vomiting.

The only thing I can do is begin to count all the revised promises I will have to break.

And then the unthinkable happened. The mountain of blankets to my left … the one that has managed to sleep through all manners of viral eruptions for the past eleven years started rumbling to life.

“Hon … I don't feel so well.”

I hold my breath. This can only mean one thing:

Three down, one to go.

Oh well, at least I might get some sleep.

Syncope

I sat there on the sidelines, a deer in the headlights, wondering what to do.

Of course, I hadn't been watching. I had been reading some dumb thing about some dumb thing on the interwebs while he was busy running, jumping and kicking. So now I didn't quite understand what I was seeing.

I didn't see him fall over. But there he was, on the mat, crying. He was clutching his stomach; eyes, squeezed tight. The teacher was looking at me. They usually like me to stay at arm's length.

What should I do? What. Should. I. Do?

Now, I was in the process of deciding whether his belly had accidentally collided with another kid's kick at the dojo. And whether this was a mom-should-intervene moment, when another parent came over to tell me what I was looking at was urgent:

“No one was near him when he went down. He just fell face-forward. It looked like he was having a seizure.”

Instinct sometimes needs a kickstart.

His mouth had blood inside. He'd bitten his lip, not his tongue. His teeth were fine.

Sit him up. Give him juice. It's possible he just fainted.

All these actions swirled around me without my intervention.

Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm.

Another juice.

We head to the ER by way of urgent care. He gets an ambulance ride as a precaution. Each person along the way asking different versions of the same questions:

How do you feel? Do you know what happened? Did you feel dizzy or like you were going into a tunnel before you fell? When you woke up, did you know where you were? Push against my hand. Pull my hands toward you. Does this hurt when I press here? Can you touch the tip of your nose … and now the tip of my finger? Tip of your nose again?

Pretty silly if you ask him.

Pretty frightening, if you ask me.

Everyone stays calm except the people who aren't with us.

“He's going to be OK,” I tell them. “This is just a precaution. Don't worry.”

Ittybit breaks down in tears when they load him into the ambulance. His father started texting furiously to my unheeded phone.

"What is going on?"

But I can't pay attention to the pings. I am listening to the EMTs. Trying to stay calm as I answer questions about what I saw and what other people reported. I was trying to be precise. Couldn't be two places at once just then.

All I can do is listen and hope they understand.

Time does its roller coaster thing; it slows down and then speeds up. First there's not enough of it to think and then too much.

Eventually, things do return to normal.

There is a diagnosis: Vasovagal Syncope, a scary-sounding medical term that simply means benign fainting. Precautions and preventions are discussed, and we are sent on our way. Tired but relieved.

Soon he is his annoying lovable self again only this time he has a new superpower, which is curiously resistant to the word "NO." A word his sister is now putting into full practice.

“Did you faint yesterday? No? I didn't think so.”

I believe it's called guilt.

All the rage

Skrit, skrit, thump. Skrit, skrit, thump.

My face is red. My hair is plastered to my neck. A trickle of water twines its way down my cheek. I am halfway there.

Skrit, skrit, thump. Skrit, skrit, thump.

Three times a week (give or take) since the first frozen day of winter I have dutifully climbed onto the most torturous device in the western hemisphere and performed my best impression of a gerbil on a wheel.

I'm not sure why I thought the treadmill would be easier than braving the elements, which I've forced myself to do on the seventh day, when normal folks are resting. It hasn't turned out that way.

Who am I? I wondered silently, trying to drown out the pounding bass that is hammering loudly from secret speakers stashed throughout the gym.

A year ago I was not just happy but amazed with my new-found ability to jog around the block.

Now a slave to a tiny conveyor belt, I am a rodent on a wheel, counting every mile as if collectively they would reveal the secrets of the universe. So long as I am able to cross the finish line of my first half-marathon in May.

A part of me, I realize, has gone crazy.

I don't know why I thought this would be easy.

Set a pace and go, I thought. Don't worry about road hazards, I thought. There won't be wind or ice or snow.

But I didn't think about the monotony. Or the drudgery. Or even the rats on the wheels next to me.

I didn't think their breathing and bravado would bother me.

But there they were each week. An ever-changing gaggle of annoyances I could usually ignore.

Until this week.

The guy and his trainer took over the three machines next to mine, ramping one up to top speed while he jogged on the other, and she cheered him on. Then, quick as lightning, he jumped from one machine to the other as she proceeded to reenact Hanz and Franz.

I tried not to be distracted. I tried to keep my eyes forward and my foot falls even. I tried to block them out. But I failed.

A spastic movement caught in my peripheral vision set me off kilter. I shifted unevenly and lurched forward, accidentally hitting the emergency stop bar with the crook of my arm.

Everything came to a stop. My elbow hurt but my anger dulled the pain.

And worse than failing at focus, I had utterly failed at composure.

I stormed off. Angrily stuffing gear into my bag and slamming locker room doors as I flew off the handle. I didn't even bother changing my shoes.

A demented Mr. Rodgers singing in my head: “You. WON'T. be. my. Neighbor,” as I chuffed out into the parking lot.

“What happened to me?” I wondered as I sat in my car, waiting for calm to reappear before I turned on the ignition.

Exercise was supposed to make me happy. Running was supposed to make me relaxed. I don't want to be this way. I don't want to be THAT person who complains about the other people at the gym. Angry that they are breathing heavily or grunting … or just using the treadmill next to mine.

I mean … Did I even wipe down the machine I was using before I stormed out?

Unlikely.

Could the mixing of gym culture and Daylight Saving Time produce such an explosive side effect? And then it dawned on me: I must be experiencing a contact 'roid rage.

I hope it's not habit-forming.

Unhappy endings

It was time for bed.

Which means it was time for books.

Which means there would inevitably be twenty questions no matter what time it turned out to be.

And, mostly, these questions would be rhetorical:

“Do you know Koko is the first gorilla who could communicate with humans?

“I read about her in school. Do you know how she communicated? She used sign language. She also had a pet kitten.

“I'd like to visit her one day.”

His choice for this particular evening, however, was a photographic book on polar bears that he'd borrowed from the school library.

It was a beautiful, uplifting volume about a little bear named Knut, who was born in the Berlin Zoo. Each full-color page elicited the same exclamation: “Aww, how cuuuuute.” It was an involuntary response.

Knut's perfection was unreal, as if, instead of fur and flesh, this baby polar bear was made out of stuffing and fluff at a factory at the North Pole. Each picture cuter than the next.

But as I leafed through the pages, I also felt a chill.

For some reason, my father's voice popped into my head: “Do you remember when we took you to the National Zoo when you were little,” he'd asked. “I always felt bad about that,” he added with a laugh. “It was not a stellar moment in parenting because right after we went to the zoo we took you to the Museum of Natural History. All I could think about was how first we take you to see the live animals, and then we take you to see the same animals, only now they're stuffed.”

I'm not sure I made the same connection as a youngster staring into the glass-bead eyes of a lion while we strolled through the Hall of Mammals. But, more than 30 years later, it seems impossible for me not to follow this story to its likely conclusion.

So, as The Champ was brushing his teeth, I Googled Knut.

“Dif you glnow that (spits) polar bears' fur is hollow? Its fur isn't really white, either, it's transparent.”

“Mmmm hmmm,” I answer distractedly as I peruse Wikipedia for more information.

“I glerned awl alout (spits) Knut in school today. He didn't walk around or open his eyes until he was a few weeks old. His mom rejected him so he had to be raised by zoo keepers.”

“Sounds like a nut to me,” I tried to joke.

“Not funny, mom. It's pronounced CahNooot! And he could have DIED if it weren't for those zookeepers.”

And just as he said the "D" word, the passage I'd been dreading was there before me: 'In 2011, Knut died suddenly at the age of five, probably the result of an infection, as hundreds of visitors watched in horror.'

Of course, the book left that part out.

And, of course, my son cut right to the chase:

“So … if we go to Germany, will we be able to see Knut?”

“Well … I'm not sure,” I stammered.

But he didn't bother waiting for me to cobble together something warm and comforting. ...

“Not every story has a happy ending, does it?” he asked.

“It's true. Not every story ends happily. But most stories have a few really good chapters.

“And, hey, Koko's still alive. I checked. She's almost 44 years old.”

“But how long do gorilla's live?”

“Oh! Look at that … Dang internet is down.

“Remind me to look that up in the morning.”

High points and Lowes points

Maturity.

It starts innocently enough. Dolls sit prettily, if un-played with, in a tidy row on a shelf. Other beloved interests follow suit, becoming opaque or waning altogether. Each past-time is slowly replaced by something that dances across a computer screen. It's "future" time.

There are uncomfortable questions, but even more alarming are the uncomfortable silences. Closed doors, loud music, laundry in heaps.

Even though I'd barely noticed I'd been ending most of our communications with “… in that mess you call a room,” I am not blind to the fact that she is growing up.

Frightening, really.

But the terror of all terrors – the moment I've been dreading for SIX YEARS – arrived with a request and a ceremonious presentation of the latest Pottery Barn catalog …

“Pleeeeeeease, mom ….”

Did I mention the puppy dog eyes?

“I can't stand pink.”

Of course I knew this would happen. From the moment she picked the Pepto-Bismol colored paint when she was five, I knew there would come a day that same hue would turn her stomach. Every time we pulled into the driveway at night and her walls winked at us from the corner of the house – “Oh look, Ittybit's home,” I would say with sarcasm, a reprimand for not turning off her lights -- I knew I was just one more snide remark closer to a trip to the paint store.

“You realize what this means,” I said with a sigh …

She looked hopeful …

“You will have to clean your room …

“And be nice to your brother …

“And put away the laundry …

“And turn off your lights …

“And pave the driveway …

“Is that it?”

“Oh … and bring about world peace. That's all.”

She squealed and jumped up and down.

Seems silly, I know. But EVERYONE hated that pink. House-guests who were unlucky enough to arrive after the lumpy couch in the living room and the low-rise bed in the drafty sewing room had been snapped up by other visitors would require sunglasses and cocktails to fall asleep in the electric-colored room.

Everyone except for me. I didn't hate the pink.

When I looked in her room, it wasn't the mountain of toys or tangle of clothes that made me sigh. It was the memory of a five-year-old girl who had helped paint every single wall, visible brush strokes and all.

Deep breath. “What is this going to involve?”

She dove right in ... She searched through paint samples, floor plans and fabric swatches. She found light fixtures and room accessories one Google search at a time. Finally, she came up with a proposal I couldn't refuse:

Paint. Move furniture. Make curtains. Dust hands.

And so, when the fateful day arrived – a day that happened to coincide with the last weekend of the winter break and a sub-arctic temperatures – the three of us traipsed off to the hardware store and watched, in rapt silence, as the clerk mixed up a gallon of “Mexicali Turquoise.”

Back at home, the kids jumped around the supplies in excitement.

The rules were reiterated: No whining. No fighting. No horseplay. I WILL need many coffee breaks. And the first person who doesn't listen and/or follow directions is going to have to just sit here and watch paint dry.

There was a roller lesson: “Roll letters on the walls – W and Y works best.”

There was a brush lesson: “Dip the brush halfway, and then scrape both sides against the inside lip of the cup.”

And there was the “Uh-Oh” tutorial: “Keep looking at the floor. If you see a drip, use a damp rag to wipe it up.”

I couldn't stall any longer.

Two and three-quarter hours later – the walls (and parts of the ceiling ... and a few dots on the floor) were a glorious and refreshing shade of blue.

As we stepped back and surveyed our work, I could see Ittybit was giddy. But she could tell I was a little disappointed.

“What's wrong,” she asked wearily.

“Nothing. I just noticed I can't see any visible brush strokes.”