"He stole my gnome and then he pinched me on my foot."
"Well, she tookt my esperamint and woozent given it bact."
They've been bickering all morning. He coveted her Lego Gnome figurine with the fishing pole and hat set at a jaunty angle. She wanted his Mad Scientist with the pointy, rubber wig and plastic beaker filled with green bubbles. Neither wanted to trade.
MOM! I NEED YOU!
When they stood shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen door trying to prevent the other from getting to me first, I wanted to run away from home.
The only thing keeping me from screaming right there and then was a case of allergy-induced laryngitis.
"You," I croaked, pointing toward my son: "Stop touching your sister. And you," I turned to my daughter: "Stop tattling on your brother, and handle this yourself. You are a big girl."
Her eyes got all big and she clutched at her chest as if mortally wounded from being falsely accused.
"Me? I'm not tattling. Tattling is when you tell something that isn't true about a person, and he most definitely PINCHED me AND took my Lego. It's not fair."
"No. Telling a lie is 'fibbing.' Tattling is when you tell of someone's actions, hoping to get them into trouble. It's really a breach of confidence."
"No it's not. Not telling when someone hits you is letting them be bullies, and it's not allowed. You have to speak up. Anyway, you're the parent. You are supposed to tell him to apologize for hitting me and then get back my toy."
All I wanted to do was soak my throat in a mug of warm tea and honey, and arguing with a seven-year-old over my perceptions of the effectiveness of Zero Tolerance polices wasn't going to get me anywhere.
The bickering continued and I thought I would lose my mind. Even our mostly-deaf, incontinent dog started to bark, presumably because one of my warring minions had left their breakfast uneaten and teetering just out of her reach.
The only recourse I could muster at that moment was to let loose the full power of my rage and hope it didn't do permanent damage to my vocal chords or the children's tender hearing.
"OK! EVERYBODY STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! TO YOUR SEPARATE CORNERS! NOW!"
My voice sounded like a cartoon. And yet, only the cat, who launched herself three feet straight up into the air and then shot into the next room as if her tail were on fire, seemed to be upset by my Exorcist-like outburst.
I felt bad for scaring the cat. A little, anyway.
Everyone else (except for the geriatric dog, who still wanted the waffles) started to laugh at the feline's fleetness.
And then a real, Miracle of Supply happened. The boy handed back the girl's Lego and she in turn told him to keep it.
It must have been a true hardship to have lost the appetite for bickering just when the rewards were greatest. For I could see in their eyes how much they wanted to see their old mom make the cat fly again.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Like mother, like son
The Champ used to be so sweet.
A happy child. Friendly and amenable. A parent's dream. That's what people called him. Of course, they'd see him playing happily by himself, nary a whine nor whisper of discontent ...
OK. ...
He was never one to immediately share his toys, or anything even remotely resembling toys — lint balls, perhaps from under the bed — with visiting playmates, but eventually the kindness of others would rub off and he would relent. He might even ofter a broken rubber band to the patient guest.
But that's just how kids are sometimes. Selfish little jerks.
Mostly you try to let that stuff pass with small reminders of how we "should be treating our friends," hoping the operative word FRIENDS will eventually make an impression with repeated use.
Lately, though, life with The Champ has seemed a little like being forced to to sit in a darkened movie theater watching sneak previews of his teenage self saying all manner of unscripted lines, in a language I don't quite understand. Only the smell of butter-flavored treats or the feeling of an arm's length detachment would make this "phase" seem less dreamlike.
He growls at strangers when they try to make his acquaintance, or worse, he'll describe physical features instead of using names when asking questions of his own.
Even when he's trying to be pleasant, there's the unmistakable awkwardness of candor:
He'll respond to an emphatic "Thank You Very Much" with an equally effusive "You're not welcome."
"Hey, Mr. Fat Guy, did you ride your bike all day way over here? Dat's pretty cool."
"Mrs. Old Lady. You dropped somepin from your poctet."
"That kid is out of control. I'm not playing wit him."
I smile painfully, wishing I could clasp my hands tightly over his mouth two seconds before the words tumbled out. But there is no two-second delay in real life. ... It only feels like time slows, since the words hang in the air taunting you with the fallacy that they would be so easy to clear away with only the swish of a hand.
Those moments of pure mortification, however, are the flip side of the moments of undeserved perfection.
Like the time, in high school, I walked home from the bus stop and some catcalling seniors drove by in their muscle car making a spectacle of themselves.
I thought it may have been some act of divine intervention when their transmission fell out onto the roadway a few yards after they sailed past me. I remember feeling vindicated as I walked by the broken down jalopy and they were quiet as mice.
Or when my otherwise disobedient pooch, heeded my whistle at the dog park and ran to sit at my side. As a crowd watched.
Even though you know these moments were gifts and unlikely to be repeated, the seed of hope that you can control the universe is planted anyway.
Someday ... if you just keep reminding him ... he will be charming again.
"Oh, Champ. That's not polite. We don't describe people ... we use their names. We try to find something nice to say. We try to avoid things that could hurt people's feelings. What if I said you were out of control and I didn't want to play with you?"
"You do!"
I stand there squinting in the glaring light of truth: Parents can really be jerks sometimes, too.
A happy child. Friendly and amenable. A parent's dream. That's what people called him. Of course, they'd see him playing happily by himself, nary a whine nor whisper of discontent ...
OK. ...
He was never one to immediately share his toys, or anything even remotely resembling toys — lint balls, perhaps from under the bed — with visiting playmates, but eventually the kindness of others would rub off and he would relent. He might even ofter a broken rubber band to the patient guest.
But that's just how kids are sometimes. Selfish little jerks.
Mostly you try to let that stuff pass with small reminders of how we "should be treating our friends," hoping the operative word FRIENDS will eventually make an impression with repeated use.
Lately, though, life with The Champ has seemed a little like being forced to to sit in a darkened movie theater watching sneak previews of his teenage self saying all manner of unscripted lines, in a language I don't quite understand. Only the smell of butter-flavored treats or the feeling of an arm's length detachment would make this "phase" seem less dreamlike.
He growls at strangers when they try to make his acquaintance, or worse, he'll describe physical features instead of using names when asking questions of his own.
Even when he's trying to be pleasant, there's the unmistakable awkwardness of candor:
He'll respond to an emphatic "Thank You Very Much" with an equally effusive "You're not welcome."
"Hey, Mr. Fat Guy, did you ride your bike all day way over here? Dat's pretty cool."
"Mrs. Old Lady. You dropped somepin from your poctet."
"That kid is out of control. I'm not playing wit him."
I smile painfully, wishing I could clasp my hands tightly over his mouth two seconds before the words tumbled out. But there is no two-second delay in real life. ... It only feels like time slows, since the words hang in the air taunting you with the fallacy that they would be so easy to clear away with only the swish of a hand.
Those moments of pure mortification, however, are the flip side of the moments of undeserved perfection.
Like the time, in high school, I walked home from the bus stop and some catcalling seniors drove by in their muscle car making a spectacle of themselves.
I thought it may have been some act of divine intervention when their transmission fell out onto the roadway a few yards after they sailed past me. I remember feeling vindicated as I walked by the broken down jalopy and they were quiet as mice.
Or when my otherwise disobedient pooch, heeded my whistle at the dog park and ran to sit at my side. As a crowd watched.
Even though you know these moments were gifts and unlikely to be repeated, the seed of hope that you can control the universe is planted anyway.
Someday ... if you just keep reminding him ... he will be charming again.
"Oh, Champ. That's not polite. We don't describe people ... we use their names. We try to find something nice to say. We try to avoid things that could hurt people's feelings. What if I said you were out of control and I didn't want to play with you?"
"You do!"
I stand there squinting in the glaring light of truth: Parents can really be jerks sometimes, too.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
And justice for ...
I'm one of those moms people have been talking about.
Kind of. ...
I'm surely the kind who can picture themselves faced with the horror of dealing with a missing child. Or, more likely, not dealing with it. Picturing themselves, instead, crumpled up on a couch somewhere in a darkened room, not coping at all.
Truly, I don’t know how I’d react to such a tragedy, and I hope I never have to find out.
But I’m not the kind of mom who could bear to watch the media coverage of the Casey Anthony trial. And not because I couldn't fathom how a woman could kill her own child. Or how a child could die and a mother move on with her life, seemingly unaffected by the loss.
I can fathom that, and it is soul crushing. No one will ever have satisfying answers. I know this, too.
What I really couldn't stand was to see all the law-abiding citizens lining up for a chance to gawk at a woman they believe murdered her daughter and then covered it up, rationalizing their own behavior as anything other than morbid fascination combined with mob mentality.
I couldn't stand the presumption of guilt.
And then Casey Anthony was acquitted, stunning pretty much everyone except, it seems, folks who believe evidence should weigh more heavily than the circumstances surrounding that evidence. More heavily than emotion. Especially when first-degree murder is charged.
I can understand the shock. I can understand the anger being raw and natural. But I had to admit I was proud of that jury. Proud that they came to such an impartial judgment based on law for an otherwise unlikable woman, especially in light of the vocal, pitch-fork carrying masses.
Most people it would seem, at least the ones who stepped up to the microphone in the immediate aftermath, see the decision as proof of a fatally flawed American justice system. And already states around the country are trying to remedy it with more hastily constructed reactionary laws that will will more likely erode it than strengthen it.
Laws proposed that seek to revoke double jeopardy and the fifth amendment among them.
I hope they come to their senses, though. Because what happened in Florida is how the system is supposed to work. It is supposed to err on the side of the accused, especially in cases where the death penalty will be imposed.
The prosecution has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And it didn't.
They can't just trust their guts. Proof and evidence are not just technicalities. Crimes that call for the death penalty can't be judged on basic instinct. Ever.
Of the many things I heard people say about what they really thought of Casey Anthony in the wake of the verdict, the most interesting to me was how many believed the jury failed because of a technicality. “Her daughter probably did drowned, but Casey Anthony was still responsible because she tried to hide it. ”
That statement alone shows me this jury didn’t fail. The prosecutor did. The crime they describe does not fit the charge of first-degree murder, it is more in line with manslaughter.
And somehow, I think the more we craft laws that are steeped in the emotion of high profile cases, the consequences won't be justice for all. It will be vengeance for the mob.
That's not justice for anyone.
Kind of. ...
I'm surely the kind who can picture themselves faced with the horror of dealing with a missing child. Or, more likely, not dealing with it. Picturing themselves, instead, crumpled up on a couch somewhere in a darkened room, not coping at all.
Truly, I don’t know how I’d react to such a tragedy, and I hope I never have to find out.
But I’m not the kind of mom who could bear to watch the media coverage of the Casey Anthony trial. And not because I couldn't fathom how a woman could kill her own child. Or how a child could die and a mother move on with her life, seemingly unaffected by the loss.
I can fathom that, and it is soul crushing. No one will ever have satisfying answers. I know this, too.
What I really couldn't stand was to see all the law-abiding citizens lining up for a chance to gawk at a woman they believe murdered her daughter and then covered it up, rationalizing their own behavior as anything other than morbid fascination combined with mob mentality.
I couldn't stand the presumption of guilt.
And then Casey Anthony was acquitted, stunning pretty much everyone except, it seems, folks who believe evidence should weigh more heavily than the circumstances surrounding that evidence. More heavily than emotion. Especially when first-degree murder is charged.
I can understand the shock. I can understand the anger being raw and natural. But I had to admit I was proud of that jury. Proud that they came to such an impartial judgment based on law for an otherwise unlikable woman, especially in light of the vocal, pitch-fork carrying masses.
Most people it would seem, at least the ones who stepped up to the microphone in the immediate aftermath, see the decision as proof of a fatally flawed American justice system. And already states around the country are trying to remedy it with more hastily constructed reactionary laws that will will more likely erode it than strengthen it.
Laws proposed that seek to revoke double jeopardy and the fifth amendment among them.
I hope they come to their senses, though. Because what happened in Florida is how the system is supposed to work. It is supposed to err on the side of the accused, especially in cases where the death penalty will be imposed.
The prosecution has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And it didn't.
They can't just trust their guts. Proof and evidence are not just technicalities. Crimes that call for the death penalty can't be judged on basic instinct. Ever.
Of the many things I heard people say about what they really thought of Casey Anthony in the wake of the verdict, the most interesting to me was how many believed the jury failed because of a technicality. “Her daughter probably did drowned, but Casey Anthony was still responsible because she tried to hide it. ”
That statement alone shows me this jury didn’t fail. The prosecutor did. The crime they describe does not fit the charge of first-degree murder, it is more in line with manslaughter.
And somehow, I think the more we craft laws that are steeped in the emotion of high profile cases, the consequences won't be justice for all. It will be vengeance for the mob.
That's not justice for anyone.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Of mice and men and plans that go askew
You know how it goes, right?
You get an idea. Perhaps it is the best idea in the history of ideas, though you and just about everyone you have ever known sincerely doubts it. No matter. You have this idea and you must follow it until its bitter end — usually to a place called Harsh Reality.
If you could see me right now I'd be waving and drawing attention to myself.
Yup.
I'm that person.
Rabid with ideas but completely insusceptible to inspiration.
Now, usually these notions are harmless. However sometimes they wake me up at night, which means they are likely waking my husband, too.
And that can be dangerous.
"Who died?"
"Nobody. I just had an idea. ... What if we were to have an art show for children and invite all the neighbors to submit their favorite pieces?”
"Sounds fine .... but it would sound even better sometime other than whatever ungodly hour it is right now. Go to sleep."
Ok ... That's not the best example.
A better one would be the time ... back in January ... when I was trying to keep the kids busy one winter vacation and thought it would be pretty awesome to make a Parade Dragon for Chinese New Year.
Neither fact that the Chinese New Year had already passed nor the reality that the winter months are not optimal for parading around in the Northeast could rain on my parade.
I had cardboard boxes. I had red paint. I had yards and yards of shimmery fabric, and most of all I had a cool idea for Peoples' Parade — an Independence Day extravaganza that brought out all the big-idea and little-idea people together in one place.
Most of all, I had six months to get it all together.
I could just see it play out:
Kids would come from all corners of the county to march to the beat of this drummer.
We'd line the driveway with kids gluing do-dads and twiddly bits and all manner of sparkly attachments to the miles of fabric our dragon would trail.
The kids, as kids are wont to do, would come up with their own labor-intensive additions. In our case, that entailed making dozens of dragon-shaped cookies to be handed out along the parade route.
“Oh ... this will be fun,” you think as you wonder if handing out homemade cookies during a parade is something that one might need a permit to do, or at least a brief but thorough inspection from the health department?
“No,” you answer, fingers crossed. “It's not as if we're selling anything.”
But alas your mind’s eye doesn’t have 20/20 vision:
Vacations. ... Holidays ... schedules ... never seem to match up.
Or that's what you tell yourself ... and the kids ... when folks start declining your invitation and you realize everyone is going to be busy that day doing something other than walking in a parade under a cardboard dragon.
Not that you lose hope. Not even when the kids, who called at the second-to-last minute to join in ... but changed their minds at the actual-last-minute. You know they made the decision BEFORE they saw you walking down the street with your box of Dayglo-colored fluff and your bags of individually-wrapped (and slightly over browned) sugar cookies.
That's just how it goes.
There's always room for improvement.
Something to think about, anyway. ...
For next year.
When your plans will be bigger and better than ever.
Little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
— Robert Burns'
You get an idea. Perhaps it is the best idea in the history of ideas, though you and just about everyone you have ever known sincerely doubts it. No matter. You have this idea and you must follow it until its bitter end — usually to a place called Harsh Reality.
If you could see me right now I'd be waving and drawing attention to myself.
Yup.
I'm that person.
Rabid with ideas but completely insusceptible to inspiration.
Now, usually these notions are harmless. However sometimes they wake me up at night, which means they are likely waking my husband, too.
And that can be dangerous.
"Who died?"
"Nobody. I just had an idea. ... What if we were to have an art show for children and invite all the neighbors to submit their favorite pieces?”
"Sounds fine .... but it would sound even better sometime other than whatever ungodly hour it is right now. Go to sleep."
Ok ... That's not the best example.
A better one would be the time ... back in January ... when I was trying to keep the kids busy one winter vacation and thought it would be pretty awesome to make a Parade Dragon for Chinese New Year.
Neither fact that the Chinese New Year had already passed nor the reality that the winter months are not optimal for parading around in the Northeast could rain on my parade.
I had cardboard boxes. I had red paint. I had yards and yards of shimmery fabric, and most of all I had a cool idea for Peoples' Parade — an Independence Day extravaganza that brought out all the big-idea and little-idea people together in one place.
Most of all, I had six months to get it all together.
I could just see it play out:
Kids would come from all corners of the county to march to the beat of this drummer.
We'd line the driveway with kids gluing do-dads and twiddly bits and all manner of sparkly attachments to the miles of fabric our dragon would trail.
The kids, as kids are wont to do, would come up with their own labor-intensive additions. In our case, that entailed making dozens of dragon-shaped cookies to be handed out along the parade route.
“Oh ... this will be fun,” you think as you wonder if handing out homemade cookies during a parade is something that one might need a permit to do, or at least a brief but thorough inspection from the health department?
“No,” you answer, fingers crossed. “It's not as if we're selling anything.”
But alas your mind’s eye doesn’t have 20/20 vision:
Vacations. ... Holidays ... schedules ... never seem to match up.
Or that's what you tell yourself ... and the kids ... when folks start declining your invitation and you realize everyone is going to be busy that day doing something other than walking in a parade under a cardboard dragon.
Not that you lose hope. Not even when the kids, who called at the second-to-last minute to join in ... but changed their minds at the actual-last-minute. You know they made the decision BEFORE they saw you walking down the street with your box of Dayglo-colored fluff and your bags of individually-wrapped (and slightly over browned) sugar cookies.
That's just how it goes.
There's always room for improvement.
Something to think about, anyway. ...
For next year.
When your plans will be bigger and better than ever.
Little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
— Robert Burns'
Sunday, July 03, 2011
A mother's work is never done, but the cat's is always half finished
The cat skulked into our room just as the blue-speckled morning light inhaled its first breath of pink from the sun. No one paid any attention until she started to bray.
"Your turn," I say to the mountain of covers to my left. "I already handled a squirrel, two chipmunks and what I can only presume was a bird this week. I'm taking the morning off."
Grumbling a few words I can't make out, he then wordlessly pulls on a shirt and stalks downstairs. "Thank you," I chimed after him.
He passes Ittybit in the hallway, who was awakened by all the commotion.
"Where's he going?" she asks, scooping up the squalling mass of feline flesh as awkwardly as humanly possible. The animal stops yowling and resumes her usual calm demeanor.
In Ittybit's arms, our black, domestic short-haired is more of a rag doll. She just drapes over her arms like a limp rubber band, just barely elastic.
I don't get a chance to answer her question before a stream of expletives and a few Lords'-Names-in-Vain come charging up the stairs.
"OH GOD! JAYSUS CHRIST! OHHHHH, FOR-FUGS-SAKE!"
Curiosity may not have killed our cat, but it always gets the better of me.
"What did she kill?" I yell down, almost proudly.
"Nothing!' he replies, with all the excitement of an undertaker whose work just woke up. "She didn't KILL it. It's still alive and it's running around in the kitchen!"
When I reach the place where my coffee and toast are made, I find him inexplicably standing by the counter, hovering over the coffeemaker. I give him the benefit of the doubt: perhaps he's willing the technologically advanced water boiler to become a Haveaheart trap. Though I suspect he's more interested in getting a cup of caffeine to clear his mind, I say nothing. Helpful hints, at this point, would only be received as criticism.
"Coffee first. Then I'll think about what to do. It could be anywhere at this point."
He’d seen it scoot behind the dog food container and a case of bottled ice tea we store beside the refrigerator. All sorts of critters have gone back there, he figures, never to be seen again.
I couldn't wait.
I moved the containers and found the terrified chipmunk all curled up in a ball. No head nor tail visible in the shadows. On the counter above it I found a small movie popcorn box, saved for reuse because of its red-pin-stripe quaintness and lack of visible butter stains.
I grabbed it and bent to scoop up the cat's escaped snack, half expecting to force an adrenaline rush that would have us all chaotically chasing the rodent around the house.
Instead, the plan worked. Into the popcorn box it went without incident. It scrabbled around for a second and then settled back into its protective orb at the bottom of the container.
I headed for the great out of doors.
Ittybit wanted to help release the varmint, but minded my urgent request to feed the cat as a distraction. I promised I'd wait for her by the tree in front yard.
When she arrives I pour out the popcorn box, kernels, critter and all. For a long moment, the chipmunk crouched all stretched and low to the ground. Frozen. I fan the box in its direction and it skitters up the tree trunk. Ittybit follows, circling the tree and telling it all manner of helpful advice.
"Have a nice life."
"Be more careful."
"Stay away from cats. ... It's for your own good."
As she skipped around the tree — a first-grade Ann Landers in Hello Kitty pajamas — the rescued rodent chittered at her loudly.
She was delighted.
"You're welcome!"
"Your turn," I say to the mountain of covers to my left. "I already handled a squirrel, two chipmunks and what I can only presume was a bird this week. I'm taking the morning off."
Grumbling a few words I can't make out, he then wordlessly pulls on a shirt and stalks downstairs. "Thank you," I chimed after him.
He passes Ittybit in the hallway, who was awakened by all the commotion.
"Where's he going?" she asks, scooping up the squalling mass of feline flesh as awkwardly as humanly possible. The animal stops yowling and resumes her usual calm demeanor.
In Ittybit's arms, our black, domestic short-haired is more of a rag doll. She just drapes over her arms like a limp rubber band, just barely elastic.
I don't get a chance to answer her question before a stream of expletives and a few Lords'-Names-in-Vain come charging up the stairs.
"OH GOD! JAYSUS CHRIST! OHHHHH, FOR-FUGS-SAKE!"
Curiosity may not have killed our cat, but it always gets the better of me.
"What did she kill?" I yell down, almost proudly.
"Nothing!' he replies, with all the excitement of an undertaker whose work just woke up. "She didn't KILL it. It's still alive and it's running around in the kitchen!"
When I reach the place where my coffee and toast are made, I find him inexplicably standing by the counter, hovering over the coffeemaker. I give him the benefit of the doubt: perhaps he's willing the technologically advanced water boiler to become a Haveaheart trap. Though I suspect he's more interested in getting a cup of caffeine to clear his mind, I say nothing. Helpful hints, at this point, would only be received as criticism.
"Coffee first. Then I'll think about what to do. It could be anywhere at this point."
He’d seen it scoot behind the dog food container and a case of bottled ice tea we store beside the refrigerator. All sorts of critters have gone back there, he figures, never to be seen again.
I couldn't wait.
I moved the containers and found the terrified chipmunk all curled up in a ball. No head nor tail visible in the shadows. On the counter above it I found a small movie popcorn box, saved for reuse because of its red-pin-stripe quaintness and lack of visible butter stains.
I grabbed it and bent to scoop up the cat's escaped snack, half expecting to force an adrenaline rush that would have us all chaotically chasing the rodent around the house.
Instead, the plan worked. Into the popcorn box it went without incident. It scrabbled around for a second and then settled back into its protective orb at the bottom of the container.
I headed for the great out of doors.
Ittybit wanted to help release the varmint, but minded my urgent request to feed the cat as a distraction. I promised I'd wait for her by the tree in front yard.
When she arrives I pour out the popcorn box, kernels, critter and all. For a long moment, the chipmunk crouched all stretched and low to the ground. Frozen. I fan the box in its direction and it skitters up the tree trunk. Ittybit follows, circling the tree and telling it all manner of helpful advice.
"Have a nice life."
"Be more careful."
"Stay away from cats. ... It's for your own good."
As she skipped around the tree — a first-grade Ann Landers in Hello Kitty pajamas — the rescued rodent chittered at her loudly.
She was delighted.
"You're welcome!"
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Silence might just be the new voice of parenting
Zombified, Ittybit sat staring at the T.V. watching a pint-sized prodigy perform a song from Phantom of The Opera.
The little girl, Jackie Evancho, is tiny but her voice is bigger than life.
"I want to be like that girl," she said emphatically. "I want to be famous."
It wasn't for art's sake that Ittybit wanted to make her voice lift above the songs she hears on popular radio stations. Although the beauty of the music drew her in, it was the sight of a pretty little girl in a floor-length dress that held her imagination hostage. "She's only a kid ... and she's on TeeeeVeeee!"
"You don't want to be that girl," I say immediately and without thinking. Just as quickly I want to kick myself for saying it that way.
Of course she wants to be just like that little girl. She wants to flesh out the mental picture we all have about fame. How special it would be. How good it would feel to be adored by strangers. How happy it would make you.
It's easy to find fault with the logic, but more difficult to dismiss the emotion behind it. Don't we all have some degree of desire for acknowledgement and adoration? Only we want the well-deserved kind of fame that wipes its feet when we invite it in, doesn't snoop in our drawers when it uses our facilities, and never wears out its welcome.
"No. I do want to be like her. I want to sing on a stage in front of lots of people. Or I want to publish a book. Or I want to act in the movies. I definitely want to be on TV."
I try a different approach.
"Well, I wouldn't want to be that girl. I was listening to an interview with her and she seemed extremely anxious for a little girl. She was worried about what would happen to her career when she became an adult. Would she be able to keep the momentum? Would her voice change? Would it be as pretty when it did?
“I just think that's a lot of worry for a little girl to handle."
Ittybit shrugs her shoulders. She doesn't share my concern. Time is fleeting. Even at her age she understands the importance of youth. The gun has fired and the stopwatch has started. The time to make your mark, she thinks, is now.
"She's already 11. Maybe that would be a problem if she were not yet 10," she explains as if she's already decided it's all over once you reach the chronological double digits.
Maybe I should have mentioned the hours of practice, the stress of performing for a crowd night after night after night and the lack of time to just play.
But that just takes the stance that hard work ise something to be avoided at all cost. And the idea that childhood is supposed to be carefree and easy, is just another lie we tell ourselves.
I just smile and let her dream alone.
What does her old mother know about fame and what it's like, anyway?
Maybe the best thing I can do is nothing at all. Don't help. Don't hinder.
We all have our dreams and anxieties no matter where we go or what we do. We all swim against tides. We walk down roads others travel and they're always new to us. The only thing I can really advise her to do is to follow what makes her happy until it makes her miserable. Then maybe she'll be ready to forge her own path.
The little girl, Jackie Evancho, is tiny but her voice is bigger than life.
"I want to be like that girl," she said emphatically. "I want to be famous."
It wasn't for art's sake that Ittybit wanted to make her voice lift above the songs she hears on popular radio stations. Although the beauty of the music drew her in, it was the sight of a pretty little girl in a floor-length dress that held her imagination hostage. "She's only a kid ... and she's on TeeeeVeeee!"
"You don't want to be that girl," I say immediately and without thinking. Just as quickly I want to kick myself for saying it that way.
Of course she wants to be just like that little girl. She wants to flesh out the mental picture we all have about fame. How special it would be. How good it would feel to be adored by strangers. How happy it would make you.
It's easy to find fault with the logic, but more difficult to dismiss the emotion behind it. Don't we all have some degree of desire for acknowledgement and adoration? Only we want the well-deserved kind of fame that wipes its feet when we invite it in, doesn't snoop in our drawers when it uses our facilities, and never wears out its welcome.
"No. I do want to be like her. I want to sing on a stage in front of lots of people. Or I want to publish a book. Or I want to act in the movies. I definitely want to be on TV."
I try a different approach.
"Well, I wouldn't want to be that girl. I was listening to an interview with her and she seemed extremely anxious for a little girl. She was worried about what would happen to her career when she became an adult. Would she be able to keep the momentum? Would her voice change? Would it be as pretty when it did?
“I just think that's a lot of worry for a little girl to handle."
Ittybit shrugs her shoulders. She doesn't share my concern. Time is fleeting. Even at her age she understands the importance of youth. The gun has fired and the stopwatch has started. The time to make your mark, she thinks, is now.
"She's already 11. Maybe that would be a problem if she were not yet 10," she explains as if she's already decided it's all over once you reach the chronological double digits.
Maybe I should have mentioned the hours of practice, the stress of performing for a crowd night after night after night and the lack of time to just play.
But that just takes the stance that hard work ise something to be avoided at all cost. And the idea that childhood is supposed to be carefree and easy, is just another lie we tell ourselves.
I just smile and let her dream alone.
What does her old mother know about fame and what it's like, anyway?
Maybe the best thing I can do is nothing at all. Don't help. Don't hinder.
We all have our dreams and anxieties no matter where we go or what we do. We all swim against tides. We walk down roads others travel and they're always new to us. The only thing I can really advise her to do is to follow what makes her happy until it makes her miserable. Then maybe she'll be ready to forge her own path.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The business of childhood
The guest room was awash in orangey-pink light. "Sunrise never ceases to amaze me," I thought to myself as I dragged my broom past its doorway, whisking a cloud of dirt and debris from the mudroom toward the laundry area.
"What are we going to do today," she asks fretfully, and then answers herself: "Probably nothing. Again."
Saturdays around our house aren't the joyous, lazy affairs they once seemed to be. Each passing year brings with it taller children, bigger messes, larger laundry piles and fewer days of the week for restoring order and restocking closets.
"I just need to get this done," I reason, "and then we can do something fun."
She just shrugs. She's heard it all before. I can’t blame her. I don’t believe me, either.
As I bend to try and sweep a week's worth of dog hair and snack crumbs into the dustpan, I know I've barely made a dent. This will take me all day.
The phone rings. I pick it up and hear the welcome voice of another mother who's trying to find something for her kid to do so she won't have to make dolls dance and ponies talk.
Magical timing.
Ittybit is squinting at me as I tell her her day — and mine — has been saved by a last-minute play date.
When her friend arrives the two girls skip off to discuss their plans for world domination, trailed by the "Little Bother." It's an often spoken rule in our house that if there are to be play dates little brothers are to be included in all plans for world domination or they are to be given chores that will make them less likely to require intervention from the Hague.
Oh sure, there are disagreements.
Blah-blah ... "It's not fair." Blah-blah "Why doesn't he have his own play date. Blah-blah "He won't leave us alone ..."
But I find that reciting the rules to myself, above the din of any screaming, seems to work to everyone's advantage.
That and "Maybe I should just call her mother and tell her it's time to call it a play day."
Silence. "No, no. Never mind."
It's amazing how fast they figure it out for themselves.
It's also quite something to realize that together, two little minds can come up with so much more entertainment value than any of the things my mind can scrounge.
They will build cities out of sofa cushions as I vacuum under the couch. They will have picnics of finger foods they forage from the fridge on the front porch.
It takes no more than an hour before they've settled on a plan that will take them all day to execute and be of no interest to the Little Bother. When they get my approval, the pair disappears into the guest room, which also houses my office, a stash of fabric for crafting and two sewing machines.
There is quiet. Which should be the first clue for any parent of trouble. And then there are more questions:
Can we use some of this fabric?
How about this fabric?
Do you have any glue?
What about tape?
Eventually they hit an impasse and came to find me.
The same orangey-pink light from the morning is spilling out into the hallway as I approach the room. This time, however, the sun has nothing to do with it; it was the light reflecting off a sea of fabrics they'd cut up and strewn about the floor.
I didn't even have time to be annoyed when I saw what was left of the stash: Two perfectly lovely doll quilts arranged on the guest bed awaiting a few sweeps through the sewing machine.
"Can you help us sew them?" Ittybit asked. "We've got to get them finished so we can start working on the marketing campaign."
"What are we going to do today," she asks fretfully, and then answers herself: "Probably nothing. Again."
Saturdays around our house aren't the joyous, lazy affairs they once seemed to be. Each passing year brings with it taller children, bigger messes, larger laundry piles and fewer days of the week for restoring order and restocking closets.
"I just need to get this done," I reason, "and then we can do something fun."
She just shrugs. She's heard it all before. I can’t blame her. I don’t believe me, either.
As I bend to try and sweep a week's worth of dog hair and snack crumbs into the dustpan, I know I've barely made a dent. This will take me all day.
The phone rings. I pick it up and hear the welcome voice of another mother who's trying to find something for her kid to do so she won't have to make dolls dance and ponies talk.
Magical timing.
Ittybit is squinting at me as I tell her her day — and mine — has been saved by a last-minute play date.
When her friend arrives the two girls skip off to discuss their plans for world domination, trailed by the "Little Bother." It's an often spoken rule in our house that if there are to be play dates little brothers are to be included in all plans for world domination or they are to be given chores that will make them less likely to require intervention from the Hague.
Oh sure, there are disagreements.
Blah-blah ... "It's not fair." Blah-blah "Why doesn't he have his own play date. Blah-blah "He won't leave us alone ..."
But I find that reciting the rules to myself, above the din of any screaming, seems to work to everyone's advantage.
That and "Maybe I should just call her mother and tell her it's time to call it a play day."
Silence. "No, no. Never mind."
It's amazing how fast they figure it out for themselves.
It's also quite something to realize that together, two little minds can come up with so much more entertainment value than any of the things my mind can scrounge.
They will build cities out of sofa cushions as I vacuum under the couch. They will have picnics of finger foods they forage from the fridge on the front porch.
It takes no more than an hour before they've settled on a plan that will take them all day to execute and be of no interest to the Little Bother. When they get my approval, the pair disappears into the guest room, which also houses my office, a stash of fabric for crafting and two sewing machines.
There is quiet. Which should be the first clue for any parent of trouble. And then there are more questions:
Can we use some of this fabric?
How about this fabric?
Do you have any glue?
What about tape?
Eventually they hit an impasse and came to find me.
The same orangey-pink light from the morning is spilling out into the hallway as I approach the room. This time, however, the sun has nothing to do with it; it was the light reflecting off a sea of fabrics they'd cut up and strewn about the floor.
I didn't even have time to be annoyed when I saw what was left of the stash: Two perfectly lovely doll quilts arranged on the guest bed awaiting a few sweeps through the sewing machine.
"Can you help us sew them?" Ittybit asked. "We've got to get them finished so we can start working on the marketing campaign."
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Not everything gets lost in translation
"He was a Wego man but he didn't have arms, so my mom got me a new Wego man who did have arms, but I didn't wike his hair. I took it off. But now I can't find it. I frink I left him outside, but the cat won't bover it. I hope. I don't know. Dad said she awmust kiwed a bunny what's not living in our house anymore. If I were a bunny I would not like that."
The Champ was standing in the driveway, in his pajamas, talking a mile a minute and waving a toothbrush for emphasis. He looked like an eccentric professor.
A grandmotherly woman is smiling at him and nodding her head. He takes a breath and asks her: "Did you see dat?" She looks up at me. Her smile has tightened and I realize she didn't understand a word of what he was so emphatically telling her.
I perform a loose translation: His Lego figure lost its arms and so I bought him another one, however he lost it outside and he's slightly worried that the cat — who attacked a young rabbit recently and brought its stunned but still living body into the house — also may be hunting his toys. He was wondering if you may have come across any bald Lego people?
She pats his head as he hugs her legs. He tells her he has to wear "Aqua Arms in the pool swim."
"He wears a life preserver when he goes into the swimming pool," I say, and then whisper, "which is next on the to-do list today."
The Champ starts to bounce. We have to move on.
Schedules must be kept. We're on the meter. And everything has to be just so:
He's got his underwear perfectly positioned backwards so the Super Hero is in the front (where you can see it).
He's wearing his black Spider-Man shirt (pajamas) with his dinosaur pants (also pajamas), although he's changed twice because he spilled a drop of water near a cuff when he was brushing his teeth.
He's wearing his favorite shoes (his "golf shoes," though no one he's ever met plays the game) that must be worn at all times with socks, which are never the first ones you grabbed out of the drawer. His feet, once property encased, can never touch water — not even slight dampness — lest he have to deal with the dreaded squeaking.
His "packback" must have at least one toy, which is different from the toy he brought three weeks ago yesterday. And it must be red. ... Or blue. ... Or green. Though not today. Today is anyone's guess.
He's sleepy at nighttime and "watchy" in the morning time. Curious George on PBS is his favorite show, although sometimes he wants to watch Lego Spider-Man movies on YouTube ... unless he wants to watch "Not Wego Spider-Man moobies" on Hulu.com.
Food is a whole other kettle of fish, and even my own understanding of what he'll eat is precarious.
Did I pack the right sandwich? Was it peanut butter on Daddy's Bread (wheat) that he wanted or was it Turkey Lurkey on a Pillow (roll)?
His father, holding out a buttered bagel the boy had just begged him to make, doesn't understand why he's now so upset.
"YOU FRENCHED IT!"
"He didn't want his bagel toasted," I explain. "He likes it hot with butter, but not toasted. The brown bits make him sad. Microwave, 20 seconds."
Everything seems to get lost in translation, especially patience.
"Why does he get to do everything HIS way? Someday he's going to have to put his two feet on the ground even if it's raining," complains his sister, who only recently began wearing her left and right shoes on their proper feet.
"Because, little miss 'I-Don't-Want-To-Wear-Jeans-Because-They-Feel-Ichy,' you know as well as I do that some battles aren't worth fighting.
"And besides, I'm saving my energy for clean pajamas and brushed teeth."
The Champ was standing in the driveway, in his pajamas, talking a mile a minute and waving a toothbrush for emphasis. He looked like an eccentric professor.
A grandmotherly woman is smiling at him and nodding her head. He takes a breath and asks her: "Did you see dat?" She looks up at me. Her smile has tightened and I realize she didn't understand a word of what he was so emphatically telling her.
I perform a loose translation: His Lego figure lost its arms and so I bought him another one, however he lost it outside and he's slightly worried that the cat — who attacked a young rabbit recently and brought its stunned but still living body into the house — also may be hunting his toys. He was wondering if you may have come across any bald Lego people?
She pats his head as he hugs her legs. He tells her he has to wear "Aqua Arms in the pool swim."
"He wears a life preserver when he goes into the swimming pool," I say, and then whisper, "which is next on the to-do list today."
The Champ starts to bounce. We have to move on.
Schedules must be kept. We're on the meter. And everything has to be just so:
He's got his underwear perfectly positioned backwards so the Super Hero is in the front (where you can see it).
He's wearing his black Spider-Man shirt (pajamas) with his dinosaur pants (also pajamas), although he's changed twice because he spilled a drop of water near a cuff when he was brushing his teeth.
He's wearing his favorite shoes (his "golf shoes," though no one he's ever met plays the game) that must be worn at all times with socks, which are never the first ones you grabbed out of the drawer. His feet, once property encased, can never touch water — not even slight dampness — lest he have to deal with the dreaded squeaking.
His "packback" must have at least one toy, which is different from the toy he brought three weeks ago yesterday. And it must be red. ... Or blue. ... Or green. Though not today. Today is anyone's guess.
He's sleepy at nighttime and "watchy" in the morning time. Curious George on PBS is his favorite show, although sometimes he wants to watch Lego Spider-Man movies on YouTube ... unless he wants to watch "Not Wego Spider-Man moobies" on Hulu.com.
Food is a whole other kettle of fish, and even my own understanding of what he'll eat is precarious.
Did I pack the right sandwich? Was it peanut butter on Daddy's Bread (wheat) that he wanted or was it Turkey Lurkey on a Pillow (roll)?
His father, holding out a buttered bagel the boy had just begged him to make, doesn't understand why he's now so upset.
"YOU FRENCHED IT!"
"He didn't want his bagel toasted," I explain. "He likes it hot with butter, but not toasted. The brown bits make him sad. Microwave, 20 seconds."
Everything seems to get lost in translation, especially patience.
"Why does he get to do everything HIS way? Someday he's going to have to put his two feet on the ground even if it's raining," complains his sister, who only recently began wearing her left and right shoes on their proper feet.
"Because, little miss 'I-Don't-Want-To-Wear-Jeans-Because-They-Feel-Ichy,' you know as well as I do that some battles aren't worth fighting.
"And besides, I'm saving my energy for clean pajamas and brushed teeth."
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Attachment disorder in the reverse
I push on the door. It silently protests. It doesn't want to budge. I press harder against its panels, feeling as if I'm trying to move a big, lazy dog who is behind it, fast asleep. Slowly it opens.
Standing on the threshold, I stare into the eye of the disaster.
She's only seven but her room is teaming with a lifetime's worth of things. In the same way Dog Years inflate Earthly time, the Toy Years have a tendency of magnifying tiny collections and making mountains out of MEGA Bloks.
A pile of books leans precariously as it balances a full-sized China tea cup. All of them gifts from the neighbor's garage sale. A herd of stuffed animals, released from their basket holding pen, graze around the dust bunnies that have grown to freakish size in the darkness under her bed. All manner of skirts and shoes and socks, dropped where they were changed, mingle with dolls and drawing pads and greeting cards and bits of paper saved for no discernible reason.
I leaf through a stack that has spilled all askew.
The shiny, colorful postcards are emphatic: "SAVE BIG! TRACTOR SUPPLIES! PORTABLE GREENHOUSES! DOOR BUSTERS!"
So this is where all the junk mail goes. ...
And the cardboard out of the recycling pile. …
And sheets of bubble wrap, with only two cells left to pop. ...
And the plastic tags from the back of Band-Aids.
The shock of pink walls and chalkboard decals are muted by the realization that I can find no evidence of a structural surface below them. Not anywhere. The floors are carpeted with bath towels and blankets an all manner of trip-ables. The window ledges are encrusted with legions of colorful figurines.
I'm raising a hoarder.
Even the dresser is packed to overflowing. There are winter duds stubbornly planted amid the short sleeves and bathing suits. Didn't I pull these out and pack them away? I shrug. I consider culling the clothes again, but I know it's a waste of time. Instead I try to close the drawers, which are stuck open at perfect, stair-like intervals. It is another losing battle. The drawer exacts a fair price in winning, pinching my fingers as I try to tuck and stow its proud contents.
I am here, in her room, because she is not. My motive is spurred not by well-founded fears of fire hazard but a random request for "outgrown princess dresses." ... Dresses she couldn't find if I asked her for them, and wouldn't part with despite being unable to squeeze their size-infant bodices over her growing-girl body.
Attachment disorder in the reverse.
It took some doing, but I found oodles of the lacy, shimmery gowns in a bag at the bottom of her closet. They were big puffs of nylon and net that, by volume, could fill the room but when folded and slipped into a bag would compress to the size of a small pillow.
Mission accomplished, I was standing at the threshold again looking at the room. Satisfied there was no noticeable sign of my having been there. I knew she'd never miss the dresses I'd hauled away. But I wasn't as sure that I wouldn't miss them.
The weight of the bag was so light in comparison to the weight of what I was doing: a thief, in the afternoon, carting away her childhood one donation at a time.
Standing on the threshold, I stare into the eye of the disaster.
She's only seven but her room is teaming with a lifetime's worth of things. In the same way Dog Years inflate Earthly time, the Toy Years have a tendency of magnifying tiny collections and making mountains out of MEGA Bloks.
A pile of books leans precariously as it balances a full-sized China tea cup. All of them gifts from the neighbor's garage sale. A herd of stuffed animals, released from their basket holding pen, graze around the dust bunnies that have grown to freakish size in the darkness under her bed. All manner of skirts and shoes and socks, dropped where they were changed, mingle with dolls and drawing pads and greeting cards and bits of paper saved for no discernible reason.
I leaf through a stack that has spilled all askew.
The shiny, colorful postcards are emphatic: "SAVE BIG! TRACTOR SUPPLIES! PORTABLE GREENHOUSES! DOOR BUSTERS!"
So this is where all the junk mail goes. ...
And the cardboard out of the recycling pile. …
And sheets of bubble wrap, with only two cells left to pop. ...
And the plastic tags from the back of Band-Aids.
The shock of pink walls and chalkboard decals are muted by the realization that I can find no evidence of a structural surface below them. Not anywhere. The floors are carpeted with bath towels and blankets an all manner of trip-ables. The window ledges are encrusted with legions of colorful figurines.
I'm raising a hoarder.
Even the dresser is packed to overflowing. There are winter duds stubbornly planted amid the short sleeves and bathing suits. Didn't I pull these out and pack them away? I shrug. I consider culling the clothes again, but I know it's a waste of time. Instead I try to close the drawers, which are stuck open at perfect, stair-like intervals. It is another losing battle. The drawer exacts a fair price in winning, pinching my fingers as I try to tuck and stow its proud contents.
I am here, in her room, because she is not. My motive is spurred not by well-founded fears of fire hazard but a random request for "outgrown princess dresses." ... Dresses she couldn't find if I asked her for them, and wouldn't part with despite being unable to squeeze their size-infant bodices over her growing-girl body.
Attachment disorder in the reverse.
It took some doing, but I found oodles of the lacy, shimmery gowns in a bag at the bottom of her closet. They were big puffs of nylon and net that, by volume, could fill the room but when folded and slipped into a bag would compress to the size of a small pillow.
Mission accomplished, I was standing at the threshold again looking at the room. Satisfied there was no noticeable sign of my having been there. I knew she'd never miss the dresses I'd hauled away. But I wasn't as sure that I wouldn't miss them.
The weight of the bag was so light in comparison to the weight of what I was doing: a thief, in the afternoon, carting away her childhood one donation at a time.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Not much difference between an Apple and a pear tree
Birthday breakfast made by a seven-year-old and delivered at the crack of dawn with the help of her father.
Check.
French toast and hot coffee in bed.
Check.
A slice of yellowing apple with a bite already missing.
Sigh, check.
Breakfast-skippers be damned. You will eat the delicate little heart-shaped toasts and you will LIKE them. The burned bits, you'll exclaim, are a delicacy.
It's a little daunting, though, when the whole family perches on the end of the bed, staring at you as you lift the fork to your mouth.
Extending my plate I offer samples to those who are salivating.
"Maybe we can go get your mom's present today," says the husband, who is always slightly behind on his special-occasion shopping. "This is a Birthday-Fourth-of-July-Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-and-New-Year's present," he says with a wink and a nod.
I had dropped a hint that I would like an iPad.
"You know ... I think I might actually like an iPad," I said when he asked what I might want for my birthday. "I don't know. ... I'm just thinking that I'd like one for reading books. I read so rarely since the kids were born. And there are so many books being distributed electronically ... I'm just thinking ... maybe it's not as bad as I thought. Maybe I'd actually read more if I didn't worry about collecting books or library fines ... "
It was more of an inner-monologue gone astray than a hint, but he got the message.
He was still smiling at me as I looked at him in furtive horror.
"You got me an iPad?" I asked with the tiniest bit of apprehension.
His answer was all important: If he HAD ordered the tablet computer I would have be “thrilled” and immediately commenced searching the land of electronic libraries for available titles. But if he hadn't gotten the thing I would be … relieved.
"I didn't order it yet. I was trying to figure out whether we should get one that's 3G or not."
"Let's just forget it, OK?” I tell him.” Don't get an iPad. As it is, with the phones and the computer and twitter and facebook and flickr and texts — and all the other made up words that sell gadgets — I'm already distracted enough. I don't want another screen through which the kids have to compete for my attention. You say all the time how much we're missing ... Let's not add to it ... "
I didn’t want to start a war based on the last time we argued over attentions paid to machinery, but there it was.
I knew he agreed with me, yet I could still see a sliver of disappointment. The problem of being without a gift was still at hand.
"I'd be happy with a tomato plant," I said. "We could go to the plant center."
He's a stickler, though. A $4 plant I would likely kill within 48 hours wasn't going to cut it for him.
"Let's go get a tree. What do you think? Wouldn't it be nice to have a fruit tree?"
I was a little skeptical. Trees are expensive ... and you probably need two if you want them to bear fruit. ... And then there's the thing of planting them ... and caring for them. ... "Maybe we should just research this a little before we jump in."
"You Google, I'll get the keys."
Before I knew what was happening, there we were at the apple tree store peering at rows of fruit-bearing plants. As we stood there reading the tags, the kids careened down the stone-covered walkways dragging the garden center's big-wheeled wagon behind them as if they had just been let loose in a theme park.
It dawned on me that the Apple store, with its many sales people and its knee-high computers loaded with games, may have been a less complicated place.
"What I don't get is what's the difference between the apple trees and the pear trees," he said to no one in particular.
I choked back laughter and any hope of a clever response: "Really! Really?"
He just smiled and said he was going to find someone who could help us.
"OK, but please don't ask that question when you get to The Genius Bar."
Check.
French toast and hot coffee in bed.
Check.
A slice of yellowing apple with a bite already missing.
Sigh, check.
Breakfast-skippers be damned. You will eat the delicate little heart-shaped toasts and you will LIKE them. The burned bits, you'll exclaim, are a delicacy.
It's a little daunting, though, when the whole family perches on the end of the bed, staring at you as you lift the fork to your mouth.
Extending my plate I offer samples to those who are salivating.
"Maybe we can go get your mom's present today," says the husband, who is always slightly behind on his special-occasion shopping. "This is a Birthday-Fourth-of-July-Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-and-New-Year's present," he says with a wink and a nod.
I had dropped a hint that I would like an iPad.
"You know ... I think I might actually like an iPad," I said when he asked what I might want for my birthday. "I don't know. ... I'm just thinking that I'd like one for reading books. I read so rarely since the kids were born. And there are so many books being distributed electronically ... I'm just thinking ... maybe it's not as bad as I thought. Maybe I'd actually read more if I didn't worry about collecting books or library fines ... "
It was more of an inner-monologue gone astray than a hint, but he got the message.
He was still smiling at me as I looked at him in furtive horror.
"You got me an iPad?" I asked with the tiniest bit of apprehension.
His answer was all important: If he HAD ordered the tablet computer I would have be “thrilled” and immediately commenced searching the land of electronic libraries for available titles. But if he hadn't gotten the thing I would be … relieved.
"I didn't order it yet. I was trying to figure out whether we should get one that's 3G or not."
"Let's just forget it, OK?” I tell him.” Don't get an iPad. As it is, with the phones and the computer and twitter and facebook and flickr and texts — and all the other made up words that sell gadgets — I'm already distracted enough. I don't want another screen through which the kids have to compete for my attention. You say all the time how much we're missing ... Let's not add to it ... "
I didn’t want to start a war based on the last time we argued over attentions paid to machinery, but there it was.
I knew he agreed with me, yet I could still see a sliver of disappointment. The problem of being without a gift was still at hand.
"I'd be happy with a tomato plant," I said. "We could go to the plant center."
He's a stickler, though. A $4 plant I would likely kill within 48 hours wasn't going to cut it for him.
"Let's go get a tree. What do you think? Wouldn't it be nice to have a fruit tree?"
I was a little skeptical. Trees are expensive ... and you probably need two if you want them to bear fruit. ... And then there's the thing of planting them ... and caring for them. ... "Maybe we should just research this a little before we jump in."
"You Google, I'll get the keys."
Before I knew what was happening, there we were at the apple tree store peering at rows of fruit-bearing plants. As we stood there reading the tags, the kids careened down the stone-covered walkways dragging the garden center's big-wheeled wagon behind them as if they had just been let loose in a theme park.
It dawned on me that the Apple store, with its many sales people and its knee-high computers loaded with games, may have been a less complicated place.
"What I don't get is what's the difference between the apple trees and the pear trees," he said to no one in particular.
I choked back laughter and any hope of a clever response: "Really! Really?"
He just smiled and said he was going to find someone who could help us.
"OK, but please don't ask that question when you get to The Genius Bar."
Sunday, May 22, 2011
It's not fun unless you guess
"Mommy! Mommy! Guess what I found!"
She was gently cupping something in her dirt-ground hands. And I was afraid.
I hope whatever it is it hasn't been dead long, I say to myself with complete disregard for the child who stood before me beaming. I was remembering a first grader from long ago, in the salad days before I was a parent, who lead a parade of preschoolers up a dusty hill carrying a flattened squirrel as a flag.
It took a long time after witnessing that macabre cavalcade before I thought I was up to the job of parenting.
"I can't guess," I tell her hoping to return to pulling weeds from my garden of ...well, more weeds.
"Try. It's not fun unless you guess."
"OK, let me think. ... It's not the neighbor's cat ..."
"MOM! The neighbor doesn't HAVE a cat!"
"Yeah ... that's why I've ruled that out. Smart, right?"
She squints in playful exasperation. "Really? OK ... I'll give you a hint: It starts with an E. What's your guess?"
"I dunno .. an earthworm."
Her mouth twists into the unmistakable expression deflated surprise. "Oh-how-soon-ye-adult-types-cop-out-of-this-very-fun-game-of-guessing."
I take another stab at an answer. "Is it a earworm?"
"An earworm?" She exclaims. “That's gross.”
"Oh, it most certainly is. ... I've had one all day from that ‘Kidz Bop’ CD you've been playing in your room."
We could play at this game all day if I had the patience of a saint. But I barely have the patience of a three-year-old and she knows it.
"So you give up then?"
"I give up."
Her hands open like a flower and inside is a tiny porcelain elephant.
She gives it to me so I can see it better. The elephant is a watery blue color, about an inch tall. It's striking a circus pose, standing with its truck tucked under and its legs evenly placed on a circular dais.
"I found it buried in the garden."
"Wow. That's amazing," I said trying to channel my own seven-year-old self as I handed her back the treasure. "You've found yourself a mystery for sure."
She looked it over more carefully, and read the letters she found embossed on the base. "'WADE, ENG'. ... What do you think that means?"
I slip my phone out of my pocket and start up the search engine. "I'm not sure, but we can find out."
I type the words into the machine and slowly it takes me to a well-known tea company. The figures, made in England, are modern and still given out as premiums with the purchase of tea. I start to tell her about their origins, but she holds up her hand and begs me to stop reading.
She likes her mysteries with fewer facts.
"I need to do more investigation. I have to search for clues," she says running into the house. "Where's my notebook?"
I slip my answers-at-hand back into my pocket and continue my halfhearted attempts at pulling weeds. I wonder if I can find some more of that tea.
She was gently cupping something in her dirt-ground hands. And I was afraid.
I hope whatever it is it hasn't been dead long, I say to myself with complete disregard for the child who stood before me beaming. I was remembering a first grader from long ago, in the salad days before I was a parent, who lead a parade of preschoolers up a dusty hill carrying a flattened squirrel as a flag.
It took a long time after witnessing that macabre cavalcade before I thought I was up to the job of parenting.
"I can't guess," I tell her hoping to return to pulling weeds from my garden of ...well, more weeds.
"Try. It's not fun unless you guess."
"OK, let me think. ... It's not the neighbor's cat ..."
"MOM! The neighbor doesn't HAVE a cat!"
"Yeah ... that's why I've ruled that out. Smart, right?"
She squints in playful exasperation. "Really? OK ... I'll give you a hint: It starts with an E. What's your guess?"
"I dunno .. an earthworm."
Her mouth twists into the unmistakable expression deflated surprise. "Oh-how-soon-ye-adult-types-cop-out-of-this-very-fun-game-of-guessing."
I take another stab at an answer. "Is it a earworm?"
"An earworm?" She exclaims. “That's gross.”
"Oh, it most certainly is. ... I've had one all day from that ‘Kidz Bop’ CD you've been playing in your room."
We could play at this game all day if I had the patience of a saint. But I barely have the patience of a three-year-old and she knows it.
"So you give up then?"
"I give up."
Her hands open like a flower and inside is a tiny porcelain elephant.
She gives it to me so I can see it better. The elephant is a watery blue color, about an inch tall. It's striking a circus pose, standing with its truck tucked under and its legs evenly placed on a circular dais.
"I found it buried in the garden."
"Wow. That's amazing," I said trying to channel my own seven-year-old self as I handed her back the treasure. "You've found yourself a mystery for sure."
She looked it over more carefully, and read the letters she found embossed on the base. "'WADE, ENG'. ... What do you think that means?"
I slip my phone out of my pocket and start up the search engine. "I'm not sure, but we can find out."
I type the words into the machine and slowly it takes me to a well-known tea company. The figures, made in England, are modern and still given out as premiums with the purchase of tea. I start to tell her about their origins, but she holds up her hand and begs me to stop reading.
She likes her mysteries with fewer facts.
"I need to do more investigation. I have to search for clues," she says running into the house. "Where's my notebook?"
I slip my answers-at-hand back into my pocket and continue my halfhearted attempts at pulling weeds. I wonder if I can find some more of that tea.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Mom never warned me about zombies
Ah. Modern times. Or are they Post Modern? We're probably beyond all that at this point. Ah, yes, I checked with Wikipedia. We're staring directly into the face of Hypermodernity.
I'm sure there's an App to figure it all out, but one thing seems clear: History, always repeating itself, seems to have recorded some new tracks as it careens at break-neck speed down the high-speed internet.
Of course we're often wrong about such things. History runs in some strange and asymmetrical loop that can only be figured out by scholars or small children. Certainly not mothers, whose conversations with scholars and small children haven't changed since humanoids first started painting on cave walls.
Until now.
Let me set the scene:
It's the morning commute on a gray, rain-threatening day. The landscape, still crisp with fall colors though it has been spring for some time, rolls past our windows at 45 miles-per-hour. The boy is in his car seat talking non-stop about the things he sees - asking and often answering his own questions. The mother is only half listening.
"Ders a guy with wandry. Where's he going? Maybe to da wandrymat."
"Can we go the wong way? I yike the wong way. It's faster than the short way."
She wonders if she and her mother ever had conversations like this.
"The long way it is."
They drive past school buildings and playgrounds. Past apple orchards and cattle ranches. Past miles and miles of fields.
"Is that a farm?" He asks as they drive past acres of wide open land.
"Yes. That's a farm," she answer absently, momentarily wondering to herself if there will be a train at the crossing up ahead.
"What do they grow there?"
"Oh, I don't know," she says, trying to focus a little more on his conversation. "It's a pretty big field. It could be hay or corn, or something like that."
"Don't they grow zombies there? I bet they grow zombies there."
She starts to laugh. She and her mom never had this conversation, that's for sure. Her childhood nestled safely in an era before smart phone apps provided a crystal clear windows into the agricultural practices of the undead.
"That's just a computer game," she answers. "There's no such thing as zombies."
"Well ... I think it would be fun if they did grow zombies. Because if they grew zombies I could keep one for a pet."
"If zombies were real," she tells him (as if this is the most natural conversation in the world to be having with a three-year-old) you most definitely would NOT want one for a pet."
"I would. too. I would keep him in a cage and feed him every day. I would be a good zombie owner!"
"What would you feed him?"
"I don't know ... maybe Zombie Food. It costs five dollars and you can buy it at the store."
"I don't know how to break it to you bud, but zombies - which are not real anyway so don't go chasing nightmares - eat human brains. And that makes it completely unsafe to own a zombie."
"Well ... If I had a zombie I would train him not to eat human brains. That's what I would do."
She excitedly thinkis of how this moment will look stretched out over the walls of her Facebook page. She can picture the primitive drawings she might use as illustration. And then she realizes history may be on repeat after all. Caves have just gone viral.
I'm sure there's an App to figure it all out, but one thing seems clear: History, always repeating itself, seems to have recorded some new tracks as it careens at break-neck speed down the high-speed internet.
Of course we're often wrong about such things. History runs in some strange and asymmetrical loop that can only be figured out by scholars or small children. Certainly not mothers, whose conversations with scholars and small children haven't changed since humanoids first started painting on cave walls.
Until now.
Let me set the scene:
It's the morning commute on a gray, rain-threatening day. The landscape, still crisp with fall colors though it has been spring for some time, rolls past our windows at 45 miles-per-hour. The boy is in his car seat talking non-stop about the things he sees - asking and often answering his own questions. The mother is only half listening.
"Ders a guy with wandry. Where's he going? Maybe to da wandrymat."
"Can we go the wong way? I yike the wong way. It's faster than the short way."
She wonders if she and her mother ever had conversations like this.
"The long way it is."
They drive past school buildings and playgrounds. Past apple orchards and cattle ranches. Past miles and miles of fields.
"Is that a farm?" He asks as they drive past acres of wide open land.
"Yes. That's a farm," she answer absently, momentarily wondering to herself if there will be a train at the crossing up ahead.
"What do they grow there?"
"Oh, I don't know," she says, trying to focus a little more on his conversation. "It's a pretty big field. It could be hay or corn, or something like that."
"Don't they grow zombies there? I bet they grow zombies there."
She starts to laugh. She and her mom never had this conversation, that's for sure. Her childhood nestled safely in an era before smart phone apps provided a crystal clear windows into the agricultural practices of the undead.
"That's just a computer game," she answers. "There's no such thing as zombies."
"Well ... I think it would be fun if they did grow zombies. Because if they grew zombies I could keep one for a pet."
"If zombies were real," she tells him (as if this is the most natural conversation in the world to be having with a three-year-old) you most definitely would NOT want one for a pet."
"I would. too. I would keep him in a cage and feed him every day. I would be a good zombie owner!"
"What would you feed him?"
"I don't know ... maybe Zombie Food. It costs five dollars and you can buy it at the store."
"I don't know how to break it to you bud, but zombies - which are not real anyway so don't go chasing nightmares - eat human brains. And that makes it completely unsafe to own a zombie."
"Well ... If I had a zombie I would train him not to eat human brains. That's what I would do."
She excitedly thinkis of how this moment will look stretched out over the walls of her Facebook page. She can picture the primitive drawings she might use as illustration. And then she realizes history may be on repeat after all. Caves have just gone viral.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
The day to celebrate hasn’t yet arrived
Where were you when you heard commercial airline planes had crashed into the World Trade Center? Or the Pentagon? Or that that one had crashed in a Pennsylvania field on its way to a Washington landmark, possibly the White House, on Sept. 11, 2001?
The events of that day created a picture you won’t ever forget.
We know where we were and even remember every detail of that day, and the days that followed, because it was more than somber, it was sobering. In our minds that day changed everything.
Now, nearly 10 years later, we mark a new memory in our minds' indelible ink -- the killing of the man largely blamed responsible for the terrorist events that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil.
When I heard the news of Osama bin Laden’s death I was watching the end of an episode of "Treme," an HBO series depicting another American tragedy -- New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
As I watch TV these days I find myself a slave to not only the ripped-from-the-headlines dramas, but also my smartphone, obsessively turning it on and off to allow the programs for email and text messages to update. (The latter obsession being the demon my husband would like to cast out.)
As he sees it, it’s not enough that we’re there on the couch, together, that matters anymore. With the constant contact of thoughts and ideas swirling around the ether, it’s what the world has to say about what we’re seeing that adds the spice.
It’s both alarming and amazing: We witnessed revolutions and every manner of revulsion alike, with strangers we know only by their avatars.
It is what it is, I tell myself in a brief sadness for the seeming demise of the simple life. Taking stock of an electronic timeline is just part of our present and probable future:
At 8:40 p.m. My children, just barely ideas before the first anniversary of 9/11, were now peacefully asleep upstairs.
At 9 p.m. we are watching television on the couch.
At 5 minute intervals I check my phone.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Until 10:43 p.m. when the New York Times email alert read: "Osama bin Laden is Dead."
For a moment I wondered if his previously reported health problems had caught up with him. But opening the email I saw the word "killed" and realized it was not incidental.
I didn't feel anything. Numbness, perhaps. Definitely not the celebratory vibe that took hold overnight and lasted well into the next morning. I didn't even feel a sense of relief.
It's not over. We haven't closed the book on terror, or even finished the chapter. We've just torn out one sheet of paper as the prevailing wind fans all the other pages.
But it's not fear I'm feeling, either. It’s more of a low-grade dread. This interconnectedness we feel online offers the biggest disconnect of all:
As the picture on the television (now changed to a news broadcast) shows celebratory crowds in Washington and New York, I feel even greater dismay.
Not for the first time, I stare down at my phone and realize the crowd streaming into my life via the pound sign, are merely adding noise to my life instead of nuance.
I stop checking messages. I can’t be a witness to spontaneous outbursts of celebration. I can’t help them grow.
As a mother, I’m finding it’s the line I can’t cross.
There is something inherently wrong about celebrating a murder, regardless of how reviled the character.
May 2nd was an historic day, and one that will be pondered well into the infinite future. It was a day of reckoning. But it was not a day for jubilation. The day we all stand together as mothers and brothers and friends in reconciliation; that will be the day to celebrate.
The events of that day created a picture you won’t ever forget.
We know where we were and even remember every detail of that day, and the days that followed, because it was more than somber, it was sobering. In our minds that day changed everything.
Now, nearly 10 years later, we mark a new memory in our minds' indelible ink -- the killing of the man largely blamed responsible for the terrorist events that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil.
When I heard the news of Osama bin Laden’s death I was watching the end of an episode of "Treme," an HBO series depicting another American tragedy -- New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
As I watch TV these days I find myself a slave to not only the ripped-from-the-headlines dramas, but also my smartphone, obsessively turning it on and off to allow the programs for email and text messages to update. (The latter obsession being the demon my husband would like to cast out.)
As he sees it, it’s not enough that we’re there on the couch, together, that matters anymore. With the constant contact of thoughts and ideas swirling around the ether, it’s what the world has to say about what we’re seeing that adds the spice.
It’s both alarming and amazing: We witnessed revolutions and every manner of revulsion alike, with strangers we know only by their avatars.
It is what it is, I tell myself in a brief sadness for the seeming demise of the simple life. Taking stock of an electronic timeline is just part of our present and probable future:
At 8:40 p.m. My children, just barely ideas before the first anniversary of 9/11, were now peacefully asleep upstairs.
At 9 p.m. we are watching television on the couch.
At 5 minute intervals I check my phone.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Until 10:43 p.m. when the New York Times email alert read: "Osama bin Laden is Dead."
For a moment I wondered if his previously reported health problems had caught up with him. But opening the email I saw the word "killed" and realized it was not incidental.
I didn't feel anything. Numbness, perhaps. Definitely not the celebratory vibe that took hold overnight and lasted well into the next morning. I didn't even feel a sense of relief.
It's not over. We haven't closed the book on terror, or even finished the chapter. We've just torn out one sheet of paper as the prevailing wind fans all the other pages.
But it's not fear I'm feeling, either. It’s more of a low-grade dread. This interconnectedness we feel online offers the biggest disconnect of all:
As the picture on the television (now changed to a news broadcast) shows celebratory crowds in Washington and New York, I feel even greater dismay.
Not for the first time, I stare down at my phone and realize the crowd streaming into my life via the pound sign, are merely adding noise to my life instead of nuance.
I stop checking messages. I can’t be a witness to spontaneous outbursts of celebration. I can’t help them grow.
As a mother, I’m finding it’s the line I can’t cross.
There is something inherently wrong about celebrating a murder, regardless of how reviled the character.
May 2nd was an historic day, and one that will be pondered well into the infinite future. It was a day of reckoning. But it was not a day for jubilation. The day we all stand together as mothers and brothers and friends in reconciliation; that will be the day to celebrate.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Mirror images
"Are we there yet? When will we get there? Are we there yet? "How far have we gone? Are we there yet?"
"Yes! We're there!" I say with eye-squinted sarcasm. "And in a few minutes we'll be there, too."
She looks at me skeptically. She knew as well as I that we'd not yet passed the edge of town and it was going to be a long drive until we reached our destination.
What she didn't know was the exact number of hours in which she could continue making us wish we were rendered temporarily deaf.
"When the clock says ‘3:00’ we will be there," I instruct in my most stern Don't-Be-A-Pest voice.
I don't expect it to work.
It's not as if she were the first child to join the Society for Sapping Parents' Sanity. It's an institution that predates history. I'm sure somewhere, on the walls of a cave, there are drawings of bison hunts in which large stick figures are depicted holding their hands over their ears as smaller stick figures are cushioned by bubbles of text that would loosely translate as: "When do we eat?"
As much as we all complain about being a captive audience in a cross-over vehicle, it's all so tame compared to how it will be once we get to the hotel.
The questions don't stop they are just addressed elsewhere, often embarrassingly so.
"Why does that guy have a towel on his head? Did he forget to hang it by the tub after he showered?"
These are the kind of questions that make you wish you could just keep kids in their car seats and drive them right to the room. In fact you daydream that the entire vacation could be experienced via drive-in:In your mind a visit to the pool would be the same as popping the trunk, filling it with water and handing them swim goggles. Go ahead, kids, splash away.
The big problem we face as parents, though, seems to have little to do with our kids' big-mouthed questions and more to do with our pathetic and shriveled answers.
Often we just don't know what to say so we pretend we don't hear.
And thus continues the never-ending cycle. We avert our eyes and when we raise them again we are always catching the glinty-eyed disapproval of fellow travelers. Perfect strangers, we think, until they scrunch their noses in our direction and wonder aloud about children being seen and not heard.
We are THOSE parents. The ones all the single people hope not to be and newly retired folks have, up until now, successfully avoided. We feel slightly panicked by the notion that our kids could be an annoyance to the childless, but not enough to make us book our destination to Kid Central instead. I can't face that roller coaster just yet.
We just repeat The Rules as often as we can.
“You can not bother the desk clerk. It is not their job to get you a cookie.
“Your seat is next to mine. Do NOT try to sit on lap of the lady at the next table.
“We are not getting room service. Put down the phone. “
Thing is, children will be children wherever they go.
Ittybit strikes up a conversation with another little girl poolside and is delighted to learn they share not only the same grade number but also the same name, spelling and all. After the discovery the pair will be inseparable in their minds if not their activities roster. They call out their own names in novel delight.
The questions become more pointed.
“When can I see her again?
“Can we go to dinner?
“Can I see her room?
“Can we play tomorrow?
“Can we have a sleepover?”
I see where this is going.
"We are not going to stalk this little girl and her family. I am not asking the hotel for her room number. ... We can go to the pool and the lobby and if they're there fine ... but I don't want you to get your hopes up. Families have plans and they're not likely to include perfect strangers you meet at a pool."
She gave me the squinted-eye look again. I knew exactly what it meant.
Somewhere in the hotel was a mirror of the same conversation, being begged by a girl named Ittybit with a different last name. ... And we WERE going to stalk them.
Eventually we'd find each other and know that the really wonderful part about being THAT parent is the realization that we're not alone. And the only reason we gain this wisdom is because our children refuse to stop asking questions.
"Yes! We're there!" I say with eye-squinted sarcasm. "And in a few minutes we'll be there, too."
She looks at me skeptically. She knew as well as I that we'd not yet passed the edge of town and it was going to be a long drive until we reached our destination.
What she didn't know was the exact number of hours in which she could continue making us wish we were rendered temporarily deaf.
"When the clock says ‘3:00’ we will be there," I instruct in my most stern Don't-Be-A-Pest voice.
I don't expect it to work.
It's not as if she were the first child to join the Society for Sapping Parents' Sanity. It's an institution that predates history. I'm sure somewhere, on the walls of a cave, there are drawings of bison hunts in which large stick figures are depicted holding their hands over their ears as smaller stick figures are cushioned by bubbles of text that would loosely translate as: "When do we eat?"
As much as we all complain about being a captive audience in a cross-over vehicle, it's all so tame compared to how it will be once we get to the hotel.
The questions don't stop they are just addressed elsewhere, often embarrassingly so.
"Why does that guy have a towel on his head? Did he forget to hang it by the tub after he showered?"
These are the kind of questions that make you wish you could just keep kids in their car seats and drive them right to the room. In fact you daydream that the entire vacation could be experienced via drive-in:In your mind a visit to the pool would be the same as popping the trunk, filling it with water and handing them swim goggles. Go ahead, kids, splash away.
The big problem we face as parents, though, seems to have little to do with our kids' big-mouthed questions and more to do with our pathetic and shriveled answers.
Often we just don't know what to say so we pretend we don't hear.
And thus continues the never-ending cycle. We avert our eyes and when we raise them again we are always catching the glinty-eyed disapproval of fellow travelers. Perfect strangers, we think, until they scrunch their noses in our direction and wonder aloud about children being seen and not heard.
We are THOSE parents. The ones all the single people hope not to be and newly retired folks have, up until now, successfully avoided. We feel slightly panicked by the notion that our kids could be an annoyance to the childless, but not enough to make us book our destination to Kid Central instead. I can't face that roller coaster just yet.
We just repeat The Rules as often as we can.
“You can not bother the desk clerk. It is not their job to get you a cookie.
“Your seat is next to mine. Do NOT try to sit on lap of the lady at the next table.
“We are not getting room service. Put down the phone. “
Thing is, children will be children wherever they go.
Ittybit strikes up a conversation with another little girl poolside and is delighted to learn they share not only the same grade number but also the same name, spelling and all. After the discovery the pair will be inseparable in their minds if not their activities roster. They call out their own names in novel delight.
The questions become more pointed.
“When can I see her again?
“Can we go to dinner?
“Can I see her room?
“Can we play tomorrow?
“Can we have a sleepover?”
I see where this is going.
"We are not going to stalk this little girl and her family. I am not asking the hotel for her room number. ... We can go to the pool and the lobby and if they're there fine ... but I don't want you to get your hopes up. Families have plans and they're not likely to include perfect strangers you meet at a pool."
She gave me the squinted-eye look again. I knew exactly what it meant.
Somewhere in the hotel was a mirror of the same conversation, being begged by a girl named Ittybit with a different last name. ... And we WERE going to stalk them.
Eventually we'd find each other and know that the really wonderful part about being THAT parent is the realization that we're not alone. And the only reason we gain this wisdom is because our children refuse to stop asking questions.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Reaching the sugar glass ceiling
In the blink of an eye the mystery of Easter was forever mangled by the silver screen: The Easter Bunny (or E.B. as he's known in the diminutive) was sitting on the hood of a Volvo, hunched up his haunches. There was a clattering sound and when he stepped aside ... a pile of candy.
Ewwwwwwwwwww.
"That kind of gives new meaning to 'you're full of beans, doesn't it, mom?" said Ittybit, first as a whisper and then a wall of giggles. "Full of beans."
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
It was too late. A new understanding had already taken root. "Hop's" jelly bean fountain overflowing with a rainbow of color, which had made us all gasp at its beauty as we sat in the darkened theater, was nothing more than cartoon sewer system for all the animated inhabitants of Easter Island.
Eww.
Shh.
A tub of popcorn accidentally spilt on the floor. Two trips to the snack bar later and the credits started to roll. With them rolled Ittybit's questions: "Mom?" she said cautiously in a whisper: "Is there really an Easter bunny?"
Ah ... the seven-year-itch. The phrase generally accepted to mean the time in a marriage when the strength of fidelity weakens. The magic is gone or maybe it wasn't ever there to begin with.
In my mind that kind of thinking may start at the average age of seven, when we begin to understand that Santa was just a nice old man with whiskers moonlighting at Macy's to supplement his pension.
The gossip was probably all over school.
I knew it was only a matter of time. The fabric of the fantasy was beginning to unravel around the edges ... all those threads that were just at loose ends were now starting to fray.
I was silent. I didn't want my baby to disappear completely. Even as I roll my eyes and wish she could read the pulpy fairy stories by herself already, I didn't want all the magic to vanish.
"Did you hear me? Mom? Is the Easter Bunny real?"
"What do you think? Do you think he's real?" I ask with equal care. I don't want to douse the magic but I don't want to be accused of perpetrating an outright lie."
"I don't think there is one," she said softly, not wanting to tip off her happily oblivious brother to the possibility. Maybe she didn't even want to be right. "I think parents bring the candy."
I shrug my shoulders. What can I say? The story always seemed a little unclear. ... A rabbit, dressed in velvet and silk, hopping around the world delivering baskets of treats to kids as they sleep? ... And doing it all without thumbs?
She's probably been asking herself the same questions.
How would a rabbit even hold the baskets? Why do some children get toys and others get candy? Sometimes he hides the baskets and sometimes he just leaves them out in plain sight. And how does he deliver to all the children of the world in just one night? It takes us two hours just to go to the grocery store. It just doesn't make sense.
And those inconsistencies don't begin to explain the reasons why Hollywood has cast every single bunny as a boy. Ittybit finds it completely unfair, especially seeing as her favorite Easter story is about a mommy bunny with 21 children who defies all odds and is chosen to be The Easter Bunny. There must be a sugar glass ceiling in Movieland's ornate panoramic eggs.
It's all too complicated. There has to be a simple answer: The Easter bunny isn't real.
She takes a deep breath.
"You're the Easter bunny, aren't you?"
I shrug my shoulders.
"I can't explain magic," I tell her. "I just believe."
She smiles and accepts my explanation. But she can tell it's just the icing of denial spread thinly over a bitter-sweet chocolate cake. She only wants the frosting anyway so It's not hard to swallow. Her truth is underneath it still, waiting for her to take a bite.
Ewwwwwwwwwww.
"That kind of gives new meaning to 'you're full of beans, doesn't it, mom?" said Ittybit, first as a whisper and then a wall of giggles. "Full of beans."
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
It was too late. A new understanding had already taken root. "Hop's" jelly bean fountain overflowing with a rainbow of color, which had made us all gasp at its beauty as we sat in the darkened theater, was nothing more than cartoon sewer system for all the animated inhabitants of Easter Island.
Eww.
Shh.
A tub of popcorn accidentally spilt on the floor. Two trips to the snack bar later and the credits started to roll. With them rolled Ittybit's questions: "Mom?" she said cautiously in a whisper: "Is there really an Easter bunny?"
Ah ... the seven-year-itch. The phrase generally accepted to mean the time in a marriage when the strength of fidelity weakens. The magic is gone or maybe it wasn't ever there to begin with.
In my mind that kind of thinking may start at the average age of seven, when we begin to understand that Santa was just a nice old man with whiskers moonlighting at Macy's to supplement his pension.
The gossip was probably all over school.
I knew it was only a matter of time. The fabric of the fantasy was beginning to unravel around the edges ... all those threads that were just at loose ends were now starting to fray.
I was silent. I didn't want my baby to disappear completely. Even as I roll my eyes and wish she could read the pulpy fairy stories by herself already, I didn't want all the magic to vanish.
"Did you hear me? Mom? Is the Easter Bunny real?"
"What do you think? Do you think he's real?" I ask with equal care. I don't want to douse the magic but I don't want to be accused of perpetrating an outright lie."
"I don't think there is one," she said softly, not wanting to tip off her happily oblivious brother to the possibility. Maybe she didn't even want to be right. "I think parents bring the candy."
I shrug my shoulders. What can I say? The story always seemed a little unclear. ... A rabbit, dressed in velvet and silk, hopping around the world delivering baskets of treats to kids as they sleep? ... And doing it all without thumbs?
She's probably been asking herself the same questions.
How would a rabbit even hold the baskets? Why do some children get toys and others get candy? Sometimes he hides the baskets and sometimes he just leaves them out in plain sight. And how does he deliver to all the children of the world in just one night? It takes us two hours just to go to the grocery store. It just doesn't make sense.
And those inconsistencies don't begin to explain the reasons why Hollywood has cast every single bunny as a boy. Ittybit finds it completely unfair, especially seeing as her favorite Easter story is about a mommy bunny with 21 children who defies all odds and is chosen to be The Easter Bunny. There must be a sugar glass ceiling in Movieland's ornate panoramic eggs.
It's all too complicated. There has to be a simple answer: The Easter bunny isn't real.
She takes a deep breath.
"You're the Easter bunny, aren't you?"
I shrug my shoulders.
"I can't explain magic," I tell her. "I just believe."
She smiles and accepts my explanation. But she can tell it's just the icing of denial spread thinly over a bitter-sweet chocolate cake. She only wants the frosting anyway so It's not hard to swallow. Her truth is underneath it still, waiting for her to take a bite.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
It's a bargain, I tell you
I couldn't sell ice water in hell, and not because my conscience prevents me from profiting from another person's pain.
In fact, I'm fairly certain that were my life to depend upon getting some thirsty soul to pony up a few pennies for a drink, I'd be pushing up daisies in short order.
Weighing the value of time and energy against the perception of a finished commodity has long made me uncomfortable. It might all boil down to the fact that I hate to ask for money. I'm much better at forking it over one paycheck at a time.
My daughter, on the other hand, is at the age where there is no better use of her playtime than selling some chunk of rubbish to an unsuspecting neighbor.
The wily world of finance has her rapt attention: "This lovely piece of crystal can be yours for only five cents," she calls over the fence toward Sunday strollers.
She's always working some angle.
It was a beautiful day; the first in weeks in which people ventured out of their houses on foot. Just the sight of all the people walking past our house gave Ittybit hope that her shop would be a wild success.
Behind the fence ... yards from the road and sidewalk ... she continued to hawk her wares.
"We got rocks. Lots of rocks. ... and crystals ... Pretty crystals for sale. Five cents a pieces. Buy one get one free. Pay no money down ... Just a nickel. That's it, just a thin nickel. Give us a quarter and we'll give you back two dimes. That's 20 whole cents you'll get back. ... It's the bargain of the day."
"Get yer rocks here. We got yer rocks here."
It was all so intoxicating to her as she gathered supplies and readied her shop for the onslaught. She lined up her wares — two dozen ancient wine bottle corks, a handful of gravel and two chunks of driveway sheared off during winter plowing — and set them in neat little rows.
Repetitively she pawed through a tin box full of change and separated each coin by denomination.
"There is so much to do," she fretted, as she taped a few cardboard signs to the fence.
"5 cents per cristal!!!!!" and "Get your rocks here, cheep!!!!"
A few kind souls ventured down the length of driveway where the shop stood a safe distance from traffic. They exchanged a few nickels for rocks.
Emboldened by the transaction, she taped another sign to a pencil and handed it to The Champ.
"Your job is to walk back and forth with the sign. Don't forget to hold it up."
He waved the piece of cardboard in front of my face. Crossed out was: "We have ALL colors" In its place read: "We have RED rocks."
I turned and saw that all the colors of the rainbow had spilled out onto the driveway.
She watches me look at the puddle of paint.
"Sorry. Will it come out?"
Yes. It will come out ... of your profits," I say with a laugh and a faux stern look.
"Ok ... but the rest I'm donating to charity."
Turns out she's not terribly fond of profiting from another person's pain either.
In fact, I'm fairly certain that were my life to depend upon getting some thirsty soul to pony up a few pennies for a drink, I'd be pushing up daisies in short order.
Weighing the value of time and energy against the perception of a finished commodity has long made me uncomfortable. It might all boil down to the fact that I hate to ask for money. I'm much better at forking it over one paycheck at a time.
My daughter, on the other hand, is at the age where there is no better use of her playtime than selling some chunk of rubbish to an unsuspecting neighbor.
The wily world of finance has her rapt attention: "This lovely piece of crystal can be yours for only five cents," she calls over the fence toward Sunday strollers.
She's always working some angle.
It was a beautiful day; the first in weeks in which people ventured out of their houses on foot. Just the sight of all the people walking past our house gave Ittybit hope that her shop would be a wild success.
Behind the fence ... yards from the road and sidewalk ... she continued to hawk her wares.
"We got rocks. Lots of rocks. ... and crystals ... Pretty crystals for sale. Five cents a pieces. Buy one get one free. Pay no money down ... Just a nickel. That's it, just a thin nickel. Give us a quarter and we'll give you back two dimes. That's 20 whole cents you'll get back. ... It's the bargain of the day."
"Get yer rocks here. We got yer rocks here."
It was all so intoxicating to her as she gathered supplies and readied her shop for the onslaught. She lined up her wares — two dozen ancient wine bottle corks, a handful of gravel and two chunks of driveway sheared off during winter plowing — and set them in neat little rows.
Repetitively she pawed through a tin box full of change and separated each coin by denomination.
"There is so much to do," she fretted, as she taped a few cardboard signs to the fence.
"5 cents per cristal!!!!!" and "Get your rocks here, cheep!!!!"
A few kind souls ventured down the length of driveway where the shop stood a safe distance from traffic. They exchanged a few nickels for rocks.
Emboldened by the transaction, she taped another sign to a pencil and handed it to The Champ.
"Your job is to walk back and forth with the sign. Don't forget to hold it up."
He waved the piece of cardboard in front of my face. Crossed out was: "We have ALL colors" In its place read: "We have RED rocks."
I turned and saw that all the colors of the rainbow had spilled out onto the driveway.
She watches me look at the puddle of paint.
"Sorry. Will it come out?"
Yes. It will come out ... of your profits," I say with a laugh and a faux stern look.
"Ok ... but the rest I'm donating to charity."
Turns out she's not terribly fond of profiting from another person's pain either.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
In marriage, some assembly required
The next order of business: The purchase of a ground-based structure resembling an aviation contraption in which many children can play at different altitudes. It comes in a box. A heavy, heavy box. With many pieces.
Who would like to second?
All in favor?
"AYE! WILL VOLUNTEER MY HUSBAND TO ASSEMBLE IT!" I blurted, a little too eagerly, as I registered my vote during the monthly board meeting of the Marilla Cuthbert Academy for Unspeakably Charming Children.
I was angry with him, you see, and could think of no better way to express my true feelings than to sign him up to sift through a-thousand-and-one teeter-totter pieces. I was giddy just imagining him having to fuse the parts all together with a million-and-one bolts ... on his day off.
Oh, I could see it all so clearly: He'd bring all his tools ... except the one that would REALLY help. The first bolt he'd need, the M80-10, would be in a mislabeled packet on the bottom of the pile, and would turn out to be missing two pieces to boot.
The drawings wouldn't look anything like the parts strewn about the play yard, and some frowny-faced emoticon would vex him as the realization set in that some way, some how, he'd managed to install the whole contraption backwards or inside out.
My voice would ring in his head in sing-song annoyance: "You should have read the directions first."
I pictured a black cloud, heavy with his expletives, hanging low over the playground like a cartoon bubble. Unable to be borne by the wind, it would hover there until Monday when the children arrived, hopefully wearing ear muffs.
For him — a fabricator and installer of large scale sculpture — it would be more like a dare than a busman's holiday. He'd do it, of course, because there's nothing that makes a man feel bigger than when his son thinks he's a superhero. And there's nothing that says superhero more perfectly than a shiny new toy assembled out of shapes no mere mortal could ever imagine.
In this crowd of knee-high beings, there are few paths to superherodom: Wearing a suit of all one color, driving trucks that crush solid waste or being responsible for the coolest plaything on Earth.
Oh sure, he'd be swearing under his breath as he turned the directions this way and that; he'd be demanding to see the designer's credentials once the drawing diverged from reality. But that's just part of the fun. The moment his son gazed at the Not-An-Actual-Flying-Toy (Nor to Be Used as a Flotation Device) and realized HIS FATHER had been the man who made it happen, it would all be worth it. There would be a ticker-tape parade in his honor. There would be praise and adulation. There may even be the unsolicited gift of pie. Pecan pie.
Then there would be the let down. The moment when the gift horse is asked to open its mouth. The moment that inevitably reveals the punishment for that particular good deed.
"That's ... uh ... really nice ... but it would look better over on the other side of the playground. Can you just move it, please?"
I was practically salivating at all the myriad ways this simple mission would be miserable.
*Clap* *clap* *clap*
His applause brings me back from my demented daydream.
"That will be great," he answers cheerfully, giving me a sly look. "We can all go to the school on Sunday and work together as a family!"
Turns out my husband has a few bones to pick with me, as well.
Who would like to second?
All in favor?
"AYE! WILL VOLUNTEER MY HUSBAND TO ASSEMBLE IT!" I blurted, a little too eagerly, as I registered my vote during the monthly board meeting of the Marilla Cuthbert Academy for Unspeakably Charming Children.
I was angry with him, you see, and could think of no better way to express my true feelings than to sign him up to sift through a-thousand-and-one teeter-totter pieces. I was giddy just imagining him having to fuse the parts all together with a million-and-one bolts ... on his day off.
Oh, I could see it all so clearly: He'd bring all his tools ... except the one that would REALLY help. The first bolt he'd need, the M80-10, would be in a mislabeled packet on the bottom of the pile, and would turn out to be missing two pieces to boot.
The drawings wouldn't look anything like the parts strewn about the play yard, and some frowny-faced emoticon would vex him as the realization set in that some way, some how, he'd managed to install the whole contraption backwards or inside out.
My voice would ring in his head in sing-song annoyance: "You should have read the directions first."
I pictured a black cloud, heavy with his expletives, hanging low over the playground like a cartoon bubble. Unable to be borne by the wind, it would hover there until Monday when the children arrived, hopefully wearing ear muffs.
For him — a fabricator and installer of large scale sculpture — it would be more like a dare than a busman's holiday. He'd do it, of course, because there's nothing that makes a man feel bigger than when his son thinks he's a superhero. And there's nothing that says superhero more perfectly than a shiny new toy assembled out of shapes no mere mortal could ever imagine.
In this crowd of knee-high beings, there are few paths to superherodom: Wearing a suit of all one color, driving trucks that crush solid waste or being responsible for the coolest plaything on Earth.
Oh sure, he'd be swearing under his breath as he turned the directions this way and that; he'd be demanding to see the designer's credentials once the drawing diverged from reality. But that's just part of the fun. The moment his son gazed at the Not-An-Actual-Flying-Toy (Nor to Be Used as a Flotation Device) and realized HIS FATHER had been the man who made it happen, it would all be worth it. There would be a ticker-tape parade in his honor. There would be praise and adulation. There may even be the unsolicited gift of pie. Pecan pie.
Then there would be the let down. The moment when the gift horse is asked to open its mouth. The moment that inevitably reveals the punishment for that particular good deed.
"That's ... uh ... really nice ... but it would look better over on the other side of the playground. Can you just move it, please?"
I was practically salivating at all the myriad ways this simple mission would be miserable.
*Clap* *clap* *clap*
His applause brings me back from my demented daydream.
"That will be great," he answers cheerfully, giving me a sly look. "We can all go to the school on Sunday and work together as a family!"
Turns out my husband has a few bones to pick with me, as well.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Cupcakes for dinner and other shared traits
She couldn't keep her hands out of her hair. Or maybe she couldn't extract her hands from her hair. Her knotted, bedraggled hair.
Realizing the finer point of distinction, such as it is, I find it hard to tell. I try to smooth it, saying her hair needs some kind of protein salve or cream rinse or some other product of detanglement that has thus far eluded me, too.
"Leave it be," she says and shoos my hand away.
So I rationalize her smile outshines her lank locks. That's what I tell myself as we are out in the world, just the two of us. My mini me, or so has been marveled by many-a stranger.
"She looks just like you," they'll say with a smile. I wonder if it's the long messy hair that people see in common ... or the clothes that seem to have been selected by covering the closet in kibble and seeing what the dog drags out. It can't be our features or our personalities.
As I look at her, with her easy smile and solid profile, I see each feature in terms of fruit tossed into a salad by the family tree. She has father's eyes and her grandfather's nose. She has one grandmother's hair, and the other grandmother's hands.
I find it curious how all these bits and pieces seem to have played genetic hop-scotch in shaping her, and yet I don't see myself in her at all. Especially in personality, she seems to be my polar opposite.
Yet it's near impossible to put yourself down when someone is comparing you to your child.
She is easy going. Cautious but not shy. Once she's jumped in, I know pulling her out will take all my resolve. "How much do we really need to be home by bedtime?" is a question I've asked myself far too often. We all know who runs the show.
These thoughts and more (like how long can a person go without food before they start to shake and growl and chew at their clothes) were going through my head as Ittybit snaked her way through the crowded Art Center, trying to fill up her passport sheet with stamps from each workshop station.
Drawing, check. Jewelry, check. Printmaking, check. Pottery, check. Swing dance, check. Art installation, check. Music, check.
"Hey, look. ... Cupcakes! Let's go check the kitchen."
I follow her, knowing she is following her own drum beats. And we might get lost along the way.
It's girls' night, after all. And it's a rare event. Time alone with mom usually means bursting into the bathroom unannounced and being shooed out unceremoniously. It might also mean sitting in a darkened room, crying, whilst listening to mom rattle off a laundry list of reasons why playing hide and seek with your brother must include actually going to look for him.
Doing something fun together is as rare as eating cake for dinner.
"Have one," she says, holding up a her creation: A Chocolate Vanilla Delight"
"You'll like it ... it has protein."
I bend down, brush the hair from my own face and take a bite. I don't have to tell her how many times I've eaten cake for dinner.
Realizing the finer point of distinction, such as it is, I find it hard to tell. I try to smooth it, saying her hair needs some kind of protein salve or cream rinse or some other product of detanglement that has thus far eluded me, too.
"Leave it be," she says and shoos my hand away.
So I rationalize her smile outshines her lank locks. That's what I tell myself as we are out in the world, just the two of us. My mini me, or so has been marveled by many-a stranger.
"She looks just like you," they'll say with a smile. I wonder if it's the long messy hair that people see in common ... or the clothes that seem to have been selected by covering the closet in kibble and seeing what the dog drags out. It can't be our features or our personalities.
As I look at her, with her easy smile and solid profile, I see each feature in terms of fruit tossed into a salad by the family tree. She has father's eyes and her grandfather's nose. She has one grandmother's hair, and the other grandmother's hands.
I find it curious how all these bits and pieces seem to have played genetic hop-scotch in shaping her, and yet I don't see myself in her at all. Especially in personality, she seems to be my polar opposite.
Yet it's near impossible to put yourself down when someone is comparing you to your child.
She is easy going. Cautious but not shy. Once she's jumped in, I know pulling her out will take all my resolve. "How much do we really need to be home by bedtime?" is a question I've asked myself far too often. We all know who runs the show.
These thoughts and more (like how long can a person go without food before they start to shake and growl and chew at their clothes) were going through my head as Ittybit snaked her way through the crowded Art Center, trying to fill up her passport sheet with stamps from each workshop station.
Drawing, check. Jewelry, check. Printmaking, check. Pottery, check. Swing dance, check. Art installation, check. Music, check.
"Hey, look. ... Cupcakes! Let's go check the kitchen."
I follow her, knowing she is following her own drum beats. And we might get lost along the way.
It's girls' night, after all. And it's a rare event. Time alone with mom usually means bursting into the bathroom unannounced and being shooed out unceremoniously. It might also mean sitting in a darkened room, crying, whilst listening to mom rattle off a laundry list of reasons why playing hide and seek with your brother must include actually going to look for him.
Doing something fun together is as rare as eating cake for dinner.
"Have one," she says, holding up a her creation: A Chocolate Vanilla Delight"
"You'll like it ... it has protein."
I bend down, brush the hair from my own face and take a bite. I don't have to tell her how many times I've eaten cake for dinner.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
No one really wants to rain on a parade
Ittybit was brimming with excitement. When I got home from work she greeted me at the door holding a familiar drawing, enhanced with new and unfamiliar autographs.
She'd been reticent to go to her after-school program but unable to pinpoint why. With gigantic huffs and theatrical eye rolls, she recants a litany of complaints: "It's no fun. There are bullies. No one plays with me. I can't get to the craft table soon enough. I just sit there. And. Wait."
We didn't want to minimize her concerns, but the four days a week she attends its programs getting her to leave has been similar to extracting a confession from a statue. It's just that Tuesdays, the day after her three-day respite from respite, that seem to be the problem. It's all in the lead up.
So, in an effort to get her past this moment of dread, I offer a vast and changing array of suggestions: "You could bring a game or a toy? You could bring a book and read? "Maybe you could get a game of Freeze Dance going? You love Freeze Dance."
It was plain from the tilt of her head and the diminished distance between her eyelids that I'd grown another head.
I was not deterred.
"How about you bring some drawing paper and pens?"
Her eyes widen and her head balances evenly on her neck. I had her attention.
"You know, we need kids to help us with the parade dragon we've been making. ... Maybe, if you take the drawing with you, you can explain what it is we're doing and recruit volunteers."
She liked that. It appealed to the wee little art director in her soul. And as her face brightens, I can picture her flitting from student to student trying to gain their interest.
As she stood there ... beaming up at me gripping her autographed plans, she wanted me to know the day had been G-R-E-A-T. Everyone loved the idea and wanted to be a part of it. It was going to be the best parade ever and she'd be making flyers and cookies for all who came to dance down the road under a cardboard box trailing a quarter-mile of iridescent fabric.
"Look," she said, thrusting the paper in my direction.
I turned over the drawing and found a list of names neatly printed alongside a column of phone numbers.
Numbers like 555-1234.
"When should we call them?" she wondered. "A month before? A week? How about tomorrow?"
“Next Tuesday in Never” sprang to mind, but I knew I'd need to put it more delicately.
"Honey, these phone numbers aren't real phone numbers. We can't call these. My guess is you asked some older kids who didn't want to say "No" but didn't want to get a phone call either."
"Are you sure?" she asked with a wry little smile. "Would someone really give a little kid like me a phony phone number?" she said squinting at the numbers.
"There's too many patterns. Most real numbers don't go in such clear order," I explained and showed her a listing from a phone book.
She just shrugged her shoulders and skipped off. Every bounce of her being proclaiming it "Their loss."
They won't get any of the special "dragon cookies" she'd been planning to bake for the crew. They wouldn't get to throw candy at the crowds who gather at the edges of their driveways. They would miss the best parade of the year and they wouldn't even know it.
My shoulders weren't as relaxed as I wondered aloud if I should have mentioned the deception. I could have just as easily asked her about all the kids we know well, children her own age, who'd actually LIKE to be in her parade.
My husband just shrugged his shoulders. "I think it's best to tell her the truth. She'll find out anyway. If someone's going to rain on her parade, it's probably better that it's you."
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Worries linger but construction paper fades
I had imagined parents the world over have been quietly slipping their children’s artwork in with the recycling — saving only the most precious for posterity — since the invention of paper thousands of years ago. But I had no idea it was a subject of great consternation until the New York Times in January published a much-shared expose on the most ruthless of all art critics: Mom.
Maybe the stick figure families committed to scrap paper make it to the refrigerator before finding their way into the trash, maybe they don’t. Or maybe the squiggle-made “elephant” of an undecipherable color helps start a fire moments after it is prodigiously praised for the arch of its trunk and the way its girth fills up the page space.
Health care premiums sky high, education budgets in the toilet; taxes up, jobs down – those worries will always be with us while the color on construction paper fades.
First-World problems, perhaps, but serious business nonetheless, and one more reason our kids will end up in therapy. “Mom is throwing out ART WORK? HO-MY-GAD!”
To be brutally honest, there’s only so much construction paper a one-family construction can hold. But how do we know WHAT we should be saving what we can safely toss?
Some parents have told me they save only "original works of art" that come from the child’s imagination, as opposed to a web-site’s step-by-step instructions. We hate these folks (except for my husband) and have crossed them off our Christmas card list.
Others — *cough*NOT ME*cough* — will save only the stuff their kids insist on sleeping with because they know if they take their eyes off it for even a millisecond, their glorious glitter-covered princess will be art napped and never heard from again.
There rest of us fall somewhere in between. We save probably more than we should, push it around our desks for a while. Moving it from closet to closet — maybe even from old house to new house — before we decide to let some of it go.
We know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so most of us tend to save art work based on our own preferences. In addition to just "liking" something, I tend to save anything that has words used in explanation or that include stories. (Drawings containing misspelled expletives are framed).
But HOW we save it becomes another conundrum.
The following is a list of the most popular methods for saving cherished works of kinderart, which vary by cost and complexity:
Hold the dough, sauce and cheese-y goodness The most cost effective storage: Use a clean, empty pizza box to store artwork by year. Use one box per school: Elementary and Middle school. (High Schooler’s works will probably be off limits. They save what they want themselves). These can easily be stored on closet shelf or under a bed.
Artist Colony You can save all kinds of flat work a handled portfolio case. They are relatively compact but are large enough (if you are discriminating in what you save) to hold most two-dimensional creations a child makes during their entire educational career, unless they plan on going to an art college. In which case they will likely burn all their old drawing and use the case for their "real work."
Artistic Ant Colony This would be similar to the above portfolio case option, but scaled down in size to fit into ordinary office binders. This means parents are limited to keeping only art that conforms to the standard 8 ½” by 11” paper size. Think Origami originals.
Art Recycling Using techniques of collage, create new artworks from old ones: Laminate and make placemats or bookmarks or greeting cards. Use as gift wrap. Or literally recycle by putting lesser-loved works the revolving file ... in the middle of the night ... on the eve of recycling day ... whilst your petite Picasso sleeps. (Then pray the truck makes it to the curb before the bus comes).
The Mother of All Storage Schemes The overachiever parents among us** are digitally documenting each and every work of art Junior makes — from his pencil squiggles to his pipe-cleaner sculptures — and using any one of a growing number of self-publishing sites to turn them into carefully composed coffee table books that can be admired and cherished for generations.
**I have not done this … though I have take pictures of some of my favorites and uploaded them to the photosharing website flickr, where I’ve tagged them as "art" so I can search for them later. (But I pray, perhaps even more fervently than for schools to hold on to their arts programs, that flickr doesn’t go out of business taking all my carefully archived photos with it into the ethosphere).
Now, with the Whats and the Hows solved, the only question left is Why? What will eventually happen to all this pent up creativity?
One day you'll drag it out, dust it off and present it in all its musty glory to the artist, now grown and in possession of piles of his own children's creative genius. What he does with the collection will be the final answer to what has been the real question all along: whether hoarding ... like artistic prowess ... is an inherited trait.
Maybe the stick figure families committed to scrap paper make it to the refrigerator before finding their way into the trash, maybe they don’t. Or maybe the squiggle-made “elephant” of an undecipherable color helps start a fire moments after it is prodigiously praised for the arch of its trunk and the way its girth fills up the page space.
Health care premiums sky high, education budgets in the toilet; taxes up, jobs down – those worries will always be with us while the color on construction paper fades.
First-World problems, perhaps, but serious business nonetheless, and one more reason our kids will end up in therapy. “Mom is throwing out ART WORK? HO-MY-GAD!”
To be brutally honest, there’s only so much construction paper a one-family construction can hold. But how do we know WHAT we should be saving what we can safely toss?
Some parents have told me they save only "original works of art" that come from the child’s imagination, as opposed to a web-site’s step-by-step instructions. We hate these folks (except for my husband) and have crossed them off our Christmas card list.
Others — *cough*NOT ME*cough* — will save only the stuff their kids insist on sleeping with because they know if they take their eyes off it for even a millisecond, their glorious glitter-covered princess will be art napped and never heard from again.
There rest of us fall somewhere in between. We save probably more than we should, push it around our desks for a while. Moving it from closet to closet — maybe even from old house to new house — before we decide to let some of it go.
We know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so most of us tend to save art work based on our own preferences. In addition to just "liking" something, I tend to save anything that has words used in explanation or that include stories. (Drawings containing misspelled expletives are framed).
But HOW we save it becomes another conundrum.
The following is a list of the most popular methods for saving cherished works of kinderart, which vary by cost and complexity:
Hold the dough, sauce and cheese-y goodness The most cost effective storage: Use a clean, empty pizza box to store artwork by year. Use one box per school: Elementary and Middle school. (High Schooler’s works will probably be off limits. They save what they want themselves). These can easily be stored on closet shelf or under a bed.
Artist Colony You can save all kinds of flat work a handled portfolio case. They are relatively compact but are large enough (if you are discriminating in what you save) to hold most two-dimensional creations a child makes during their entire educational career, unless they plan on going to an art college. In which case they will likely burn all their old drawing and use the case for their "real work."
Artistic Ant Colony This would be similar to the above portfolio case option, but scaled down in size to fit into ordinary office binders. This means parents are limited to keeping only art that conforms to the standard 8 ½” by 11” paper size. Think Origami originals.
Art Recycling Using techniques of collage, create new artworks from old ones: Laminate and make placemats or bookmarks or greeting cards. Use as gift wrap. Or literally recycle by putting lesser-loved works the revolving file ... in the middle of the night ... on the eve of recycling day ... whilst your petite Picasso sleeps. (Then pray the truck makes it to the curb before the bus comes).
The Mother of All Storage Schemes The overachiever parents among us** are digitally documenting each and every work of art Junior makes — from his pencil squiggles to his pipe-cleaner sculptures — and using any one of a growing number of self-publishing sites to turn them into carefully composed coffee table books that can be admired and cherished for generations.
**I have not done this … though I have take pictures of some of my favorites and uploaded them to the photosharing website flickr, where I’ve tagged them as "art" so I can search for them later. (But I pray, perhaps even more fervently than for schools to hold on to their arts programs, that flickr doesn’t go out of business taking all my carefully archived photos with it into the ethosphere).
Now, with the Whats and the Hows solved, the only question left is Why? What will eventually happen to all this pent up creativity?
One day you'll drag it out, dust it off and present it in all its musty glory to the artist, now grown and in possession of piles of his own children's creative genius. What he does with the collection will be the final answer to what has been the real question all along: whether hoarding ... like artistic prowess ... is an inherited trait.
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