Whoops!

This is why I should never clean house.

In the midst of rearranging and securing the site I accidentally removed the link for people to add comments, so if something’s raised an eyebrow, and you haven’t been able to comment, that would be my fault.

The Leave a comment link is back and working again, and I promise to never clean house again.  At least not till fall.

It’s All Good

Blog post 4 30 2013 its all goodsmall

“I almost decided to work in childcare,” she said, “but then I decided I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut if I saw someone, I mean a parent, doing something wrong.”  I watched her take a few more snips, and I was fairly confident that I was watching her doing something right with my hair.  I decided it was better not to argue with a woman with a pair of scissor in her hand, but inwardly, I smiled.

This young woman had meandered to the subject while talking about her child – about six from what I could gather, but it wasn’t just the scissors that kept my mouth shut when she expounded on her theories on chid rearing.  To be sure, I have plenty of my own, and I didn’t agree with all of hers.  But, with one child with moving into the teenage years and another child whose body needs to follow his spirit into the stratosphere on a regular basis, there’s only one belief I firmly hold.  It’s the idea that, with a few extreme exceptions, there’s no wrong way to parent, and that there is an infinite number of right ways to get a kid from cradle to college.  Ultimately, I think those right ways are just different strategies, and often, it’s the infinitely unique personalities of the kids that determine which ones we use.

My twelve-year-old, Thing1, was always our easy child – even before we had a Thing2.  He had a few weeks of constant screaming while we got the hang of breastfeeding, and I’ve had to carry him out of a restaurant here and there, but he’s always been a serious (read, quiet) kid.  Thing2 is not quite so quiet.  My social butterfly and a wriggling bundle of Prozac, his never-ending supply of energy creates different challenges.  But the tables are turning.

Thing1 is approaching adolescence.  His brain is achieving independence.  His discovery that his parents are mortal and even fallible results in increasingly frequent challenges of our judgement and authority.  I know this is a good and natural thing.  I know they’re supposed to start thinking for themselves, but navigating this latest phase of his life and our parenthood has made me realize that we’ll never be experts at this job.  We’ll still be in training when Thing2 hits this phase, posing a completely different battery of challenges, and that’s just fine with me.

I’ve always thought the best jobs aren’t necessarily the ones that pay the most but that offer the most challenges and that teach the most.  Watching our kids grow, testing us and forcing us to evolve, I know that, not only will we never be experts, but I doubt I’d ever be able to tell another mother, who loves her child as much as I love mine but in a different way, that her parenting style is wrong.

The reality is that the hairdresser and I each want the best future for our children.  We may take different paths to get them there, and we’ll certainly take away different memories and lessons from our journeys, but ultimately love will guide both of us.  And that’s all good.

 

Do you think there’s too much criticizing of mothers in our popular culture these days?

Great Escapes and Guilty Pleasures

I’m in the middle of my latest favorite guilty pleasure. It’s Monday. The kids are in school. I have the day off, and I’m hanging at Bob’s Diner, indulging in a veggie burrito and listening to Queen on the jukebox as I write. There’s no champagne or pate on the menu, and I’m not likely to blow through 17 rolls of film recording it, but my Monday mini-vacations are fast becoming great escapes.

Once upon a time and for a few years, the Big Guy and I were DINKs (double-income-no-kids), and we loved every minute of it. We ate out. We went to movies – at an actual movie theatre. We took our time wandering through museums, and we watched rated R videos before nine o’ clock. It was one long date.

We knew kids were in our future, and, while we looked forward to that time, we had enough friends with school age kids to know we didn’t want to take our freedom for granted. Eventually, we got tired of just enjoying other people’s kids and decided it was time to have one of our own. Before we embarked on that journey, however, we decided to take one to Europe as a last hurrah with just the two of us.

So for two weeks, we skipped around Spain and prowled the streets of Paris. Letting serendipity steer us, we eschewed schedules. Spain and Paris were already sultry in April. We consumed art in the mornings and tapas and sangria in the afternoons. We wandered gardens and sampled chocolate concoctions with our afternoon tea. It was an escape filled romance with just a bit of hedonism, fortifying our marriage with fun before a third person came into our family.

Fast-forward fourteen years, and our future is here and full. We’ve added two the family roster, and there are no waking moments when one of us isn’t busy playing chef, referee, chauffeur or tutor. Reality is everything we hoped for when we fell in love with the idea of being parents. It’s also very much what we anticipated, and, while the memory of sun and sangria still makes me smile, sipping a soda, uninterrupted by email and household eruptions is the ultimate great escape.

What’s your favorite great escape?

 

 

The Little Devil in My Details

My devil in the details

In my quest to make my windowless office less disconnected with the world on the other side of its walls, I’ve feng-shuied the shelves, and power-positioned the desk and acclimated myself to working in a room without windows.  I’ve explored other ideas too.

The aforementioned mirror threatened to eat the entire tiny decorating budget, and, aiming for a flexible solution (I’m a creature of change), I decided to install either a bulletin or magnet board so I could tack up my dog-eared sketches and family photos.  Thinking of the bare feet that frequent the mom-cave, I opted for a magnet board, hoping a lost magnet would do less harm than a dropped pushpin.  But the devil, as they say, is in the details.

I found a board on sale at the big box.  That purchase and a can of spray paint kept the project comfortably under budget.  Painting the board to match the trim in my office, I dropped a few hanging hints on the Big Guy.  I also bought a few cheap packs of magnets that looked like colorful neutered pushpins.  I figured they’d be easy to find, and I was right.  Thing2 found them right away.

The board was still leaning against a shelf when the kids came home from school the next day.  Twelve-year-old Thing1 and I dove into homework drama right away.  Behind us, Thing2 quietly danced around the room.  My antennae were out of focus because normally, that kind of silence means trouble.  The movement eventually ceased, and Thing2 curled up on the easy chair with the dog, waiting for a break in the action.  Thing1 finally left for his desk, and Thing2 popped out of the chair.

“I’ve got a game for you, Mommy,” he said.  “Let’s play Hide-and-Seek.”

I noticed an empty magnet package on the shelf behind me.  Thing2 began flitting around the room, showing me all the clever places he had stuck the magnets, and I decided to play along.  A few magnets were stuck to lamps.  I found a couple stuck to hinges.  By the time we had found seven of the 10 hidden, however, Thing2 was seeking in earnest, having forgotten a few of his more clever hiding places.

We moved books and papers and boxes.  Then my heart stopped.  At the back of my pull-down desk, near the hole the Big Guy drilled for my power cords and lying between my iPad and my computer was one of the clear, colorful plastic magnets. Illuminated by the tiny bit of light coming through the hole, the tiny green piece of computer Kryptonite had rolled dangerously close to my backup hard drive.  I grabbed it and then carefully lifted everything up to make sure no other ‘surprises’ lurked.

From behind the desk I heard Thing2 cheer.  “I found the other two, Mom!”   I breathed a sigh of relief and then laughed as I s at back down.  We had a chat about the things that kill computers and asking before we hide things that belong to other people, and Thing2 dutifully arranged the magnets on the board where they belong.

Once upon a time, I would have stewed for hours after the near-death of my digital life, trying to foresee and forestall every other potential mishap.  But Thing2 isn’t a mishap.  He’s an integral part of our plan.  And as much as we plan for and around him, the bubbling cauldron of creativity in his brain has taught both of us that not everything in that can be controlled.  That can be terrifying, but it can also be a good thing.  It makes otherwise mundane moments memorable in a way we might not appreciate if we weren’t forced to change our plans once in a while.

The board is still on the floor leaning against the shelf in my office.  The magnets have been artfully rearranged at least 3 times.  The installation hasn’t progressed exactly as I’d planned, but the computer is alive, and nobody’s had a tack in their foot.  I’d call it a qualified success, and that’s definitely good enough.

Sunny with a chance of SuperDude

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I can predict the weather once a year with near 100% certainty.  The last Saturday in April will almost certainly be sunny and cold.  I know this because this is the day Little League begins in our town, and it would not be the official start of the game season if eager young T-ballers weren’t being watched by smiling parents bundled up in coats and sweatshirts.  There is one thing about this year’s opening day, however, that I failed to predict.  

Most weekdays I get up at 5AM to write or to work while it’s quiet.  Last night, however, I turned off the alarm and decided to let the sun, instead of the gong wake me.  But the official first day of baseball season (as far as Arlington, VT is concerned), is a lot like Christmas, and I found out when a different son – my six-year-old, Thing2 – fully dressed in jeans and a black button-down shirt and tie  crept to the side of my bed and, gently patting my face with his hand to let me know that it was time to go.  

Knowing that it wasn’t an emergency requiring us to ‘go’, I lazily opened one eye and noticed that the sky wasn’t entirely dark.  I turned my head to check the clock on the other side of the snoring Big Guy and, deciding that, at six a.m. I had bought an extra hour of sleep, decided to get up.  

“You still have a few hours till we have to be there, Buddy,” I said quietly as I headed to the bathroom.  Thing2 was too excited to let me have a morning to pee alone, and followed me in.  “But I’m glad you’re dressed warmly.  Do you think that tie is going to be comfortable under the new team T-shirt?”

Thing2’s thought for a moment.  Then his mouth popped open, but before he could reveal his solution he had scurried back to the bunk room at the end of the hall.  I could hear the sound of toys being excavated from a corner and Thing1 grumbling that it was too early for this.  By the time I sat down at my desk with my morning caffeine, Thing2 had found and implemented the solution.  

Breathless, Thing2 came racing into the study, still wearing the shirt and tie.  Over it, he had donned his fake superhero muscles and another T-shirt.    I checked the clock again.  It was six thirty, we were on outfit number two, and Thing2’s superhero alter ego SuperDude had already started to emerge.

“Do you love it?” he asked.

 I smiled, but I didn’t say anything.  In an hour and a half we’ll need to leave the house with him warm and wearing clothing that won’t leave a permanent indent on his skin if it gets hit with a baseball.  But even super heros evolve, and a lot can happen in that hour and a half.  

Little Miracles

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It’s always an event when we’re not late getting out the door to school.  I can count on one hand the times Thing1 has been about to rush out the door without a backpack or Thing2 had to go back to their room to grab one more action figure for show-and-tell.  So when we got out the door this morning with both backpacks fully packed, homework finished, and two boys breakfasted and brushed (Mom eats after the chaos), it was nothing short of a minor miracle.

We bundled ourselves into the car and headed out the driveway.  We go the same way everyday, and most days I slow a bit as we approach the little horse farm at the bottom of our dirt road.  Today, I stopped.

Over the last week, Mother Nature had put away the pinky-browns and blues she’d been using during mud season and pulled out her spring palette.  As we descended, the morning sun bathed the hill in gold, and we all noticed how the grass had suddenly become green.  A few daffodils were poking through the leaves by the fence that runs along the road, reminding us that, whatever else is happening in the world, it’s still April.  I exhaled again and snapped a quick pic before rebooting the morning school run.  

There are more mornings than not that I have to stop and snap a few photos of this hill and the tiny horse farm framed by the rounded mountains.  Part of me is always surprised that, after over ten years living on this road, the scenery still takes my breath away.  It’s the answer to a question I started as a teenager while visiting southern Bavaria with friends of the family.

Our friends had a vacation home in one of the centuries-old towns that dots that mountainous regions.  We were there in the summer, and the crystal blue lakes and then-snowcapped Alps in the back ground constantly took my breath away.  I always wondered, though, if living with that beauty everyday would minimize its impact.  Today, as I’m snapping pictures and smiling on my way to school, I’m thinking once again about how the answer to that question is still one my favorite daily miracles.

A Journey of 5000 Meters

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Diet-wise, this year is looking pretty much like last year and the year before – two pounds forward and 2.5 back.  There was one year where I did have diet success.  It was more of a lifestyle victory than a diet.

One spring about three years ago, I started a job with abysmal pay and benefits but lots of walking around the building.  I added a walk to my lunch routine.  An app junkie, I found a calorie counter and began controlling my portions. Summer progressed, and getting really serious, I started running.  With the aid of  another app, at summer’s end, I ran my first 5K with my sister and her kids.  It would turn out to be my only 5K.

That fall I headed into one of the periodic depressions that have plagued me since childhood, and I fell off the the diet and exercise wagon.  I fell hard.  Even with a better job with great people, pay, and benefits, I started spiraling down in early fall.  I knew the mental health benefits of daily exercise, but I could not get myself to run (after 40+ years, I’m still surprised that depression isn’t always rational).

This winter has been a lot like that winter three years ago.  Work was good.  Life was good, but every single day was a struggle to get out of bed and, once out of bed, not give into the temptation to dive into a permanent oblivion.

I plodded through winter, knowing the cycle would progress eventually and getting help when I knew I needed it.  I’ve been coming out of this curve for a few weeks, seeing pieces of the moderation and even the mania that will follow.  Spring is coming.

Outside, spring is here.  As with the last two years, sun has inspired thoughts of exercising again (dieting is a more distant goal).  Last Monday, however,  news of the Boston Marathon Bombing took all attention away from spring and diets and work.

Tuesday it rained.  The weather fit my mood in the aftermath of the tragedy.  It didn’t inspire running, but it became a good day for reflection.  Knowing little would change during the day, and that there was even less I could do to change things, I’d already decided not to gorge on news of the bombing.

The kids home for Spring Break, so working and keeping them busy helped divert me.  Thing1’s improved report card had won him back some forfeited computer time, and Thing2 embarked on a new construction paper sculpture.  We all worked quietly for a while.  Then, forgetting it was a rainy day, I accidentally broke the relaxed rhythm.

“Why don’t you two go outside?”  It was an automated question, timed, after all these years, to go off when children have been inside for too long.  “Go do something. You’re wasting your lives in here.”  Thing1, with the perfect amount of pre-teen sarcasm, quickly reminded me of the downpour outside.

Rebuffed, I lumbered back to my desk.  I sat down, my girth forcing air out of the seat cushion with a sharp whooshing sound.  I didn’t, as usual, automatically push from my mind the irony of a behemoth of a mom telling two wiry kids to get moving.  Today, I reminded myself, once again, that they deserved a mother who could keep up with them now and into their futures.

I shook off the irony and clicked on my email.  Then, despite my resolve, I clicked on a Boston webpage.  Pictures of Monday’s victims flashed on the screen.  Below, there were life stories of people who had been physically whole until the day before.  Then I saw a story of a school trying to raise money for the wounded.  My spirit lifted a bit as I found another story of a man who had never run a mile resolving to run the marathon next year to fundraise for the survivors. Through all the stories ran a theme of people trying not only to help but to live fully.

I got back to my email.  I’m physically whole, but I had to admit that I take a lot of my life for granted.  There are even some parts of it, like my health, that I toss aside very casually.

Wednesday morning I got up before the kids.  The rain was gone.  Without waking the boys, I slid on a pair of running shoes that hadn’t seen daylight since October 2010 and slipped out the door.  For the next 30 minutes I ran when my app told me to run and walked when it told me to walk, and there were times I had to stop.  I doubt I’ll be in that marathon group any year, but, chasing my acorn-squash shaped shadow through the woods around our house made me hope that I was taking the first steps of a better journey.

No Ordinary Day

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Today wasn’t the perfect day to begin with. I’d planned a day off to spend time with the kids on their first day of Spring Break.  Instead, most of my morning was spent working, and filing and paying taxes.  The morning was gone in a heartbeat, but, even though I had squandered this day of freedom on busy work, something made it feel like the perfect day.

I’d finished a couple loads of laundry.  Dishes were done.  The sky was crystal blue, the kids were still excited about yesterday’s news that we were headed to Fenway to see Paul McCartney in July, and six-year-old Thing2 and I were heading out to the garden as soon as I checked my email for any fires from work.  And then the day caved in.

I sat down at my desk and checked my email.  I finished repairing a database for a customer, flipping back and forth between work and webpages while I waited for things to upload.  Nothing much was happening.  The gun background check legislation was front page along with fluff pieces on Tax Day.  I wrapped up my email quickly, hoping to go spend some quality time in the garden with Thing2.  It was only as I was shutting things down that I noticed the big yellow headline on the front page of Yahoo!

By now everyone’s learned of the bombings at the Boston Marathon.  Part of me wishes I had ignored the word Boston in that yellow strip and preserved what little was still perfect about this imperfect day.  Boston was our town once upon a time.  It’s where the Big Guy and I lived when we were first married.  It’s where we explored art and culture and each other.  It’s where we got addicted to Sunday brunch at the Freedom Trail Diner (since replaced by a shi-shi bistro).  It’s where, thanks to the Big Guy and the adventures our town offered just outside the tiny backyard of our basement apartment in the North End I learned to believe in people again as I left behind a life that had long been lived in fear since an armed robbery in another place and another life.

Now, as the sun goes down, Boston is under a shadow of fear.  The Big Guy takes things in stride, but I can tell he’s numb, as am I.  We haven’t mentioned this at all to six-year-old Thing2 (We’re still going to Fenway in July, and I don’t want his joy tainted by the fear of things that we can’t control).  Twelve-year-old Thing1 is much more aware, however, and I can see the news has him upset.  Like most of New England and much of America, I’ve been glued to the internet since learning about the lives ended and torn apart on what is normally a day for a city to celebrate itself.

Ironically, the internet has, for once, been a small antidote to some of my numbness.  Fred Rogers once advised parents to tell children in times like these to look for the helpers.  Today it’s been easy to see those helpers in their Boston Police Department uniforms and fluorescent jackets and vests, running toward trouble when they should be running away.  But I’ve also seen plain, ordinary people stopping to help complete strangers in all kinds of need.  I’ve seen a shirtless runners who must be exhausted after a 26.2 mile run stopping to help a man down on his back.  I’ve seen an ordinary man shielding an injured woman with his body and trying to resuscitate her.  I’ve seen pictures of everyday people cradling other everyday people, even though they must be terrified.

Boston may go to sleep tonight under a cloud of fear, but I don’t think it’s going to live under it for long.  One thing that city taught me was that nothing is completely safe, and, while you have to be vigilant, you still have to live your life.  Chaos tried to upend the city the day today, and I’m sure fear and anger will be part of what propels the search for the deluded person or persons who thought killing and maiming innocent people was an effective way to influence a country or a city.  But the fact is that it was humanity and courage that prevailed today.  We have the pictures.  And those pictures tell me that this town that holds so many memories and lessons for me and the Big Guy will not surrender its soul or character to fear.

from our roof

Fab, Four and Going to Fenway

Abbyroad

We don’t take many vacations anymore.  Most of our holiday time is spent at relatives’ homes, so when we find time and opportunity for a trip that involves seeing something new, it’s an event.  So it was Serendipity Sunday this afternoon when the Big Guy stumbled on the ultimate humdinger (or hum-hummer in this case) of a family summer vacation.

I can’t remember a day when at least a bar of a Beatles tune hasn’t sprung from the Big Guy’s lips or emanated from his Martin guitar.  An excellent musician, the Big Guy has most of the Beatles songbook programmed into his fingers, and our kids have grown up listening to their Dad serenade them at all times of the day with Blackbird or Ticket to Ride.  It’s no accident, obviously, that twelve-year-old Thing1 and six-year-old Thing2 are avid fans, and, aware of the possible alternative musical fixations, neither the Big Guy nor I have discouraged their affection for a band that disbanded over 40 years ago.

Living in Vermont, the only other entity that could claim that kind of loyalty from our boys is the Boston Red Sox.  There are a few Yankee fans around here, but having parents who met, married and lived in Boston, Thing1 and Thing2 were Red Sox fans before they knew what baseball was.  The irony of their afflictions (being a Red Sox fan is an affliction, condemning one to a lifetime of heartbreak) is that, until two years ago, neither of them had been to Fenway.  Ticket prices are not what they were when the Big Guy and I were living six blocks from the Green Monster, so even Thing1 has only seen it as part of a school tour.

Enter Sunday afternoon.  The Big Guy was sitting on the couch, quietly browsing the web for car parts for an ongoing project when a soft ‘Huh’ escaped his lips.  I waited a few minutes before asking ‘What?’

“The Stones are coming to Boston this summer,” he said.

“Really?” I was cautious.  We’d seen the Rolling Stones years ago at the Boston Garden, and we both want to see them again before they throw in the towel.  The kids love the Stones too, so I asked, “How much are the tickets?”  I held my breath.  They hadn’t been cheap 15 years earlier.  The Big Guy scanned through the ticketing site.

“They’re not on sale yet,” he said.

“I heard cheap seats were selling for $600 someplace in Cali-” I started, but the Big Guy cut me off.

“And Paul McCartney’s playing at Fenway!” He exclaimed.  “And the tickets are cheaper.”

It wasn’t much of a toss-up.  In the end, we quickly decided our Fabulous Four would have its first Fenway experience with one of the original Fab Four.  It’ll be old and it’ll be something completely different.

High Crimes and Restaurant Demeanors

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Easter Sunday we blamed it on the candy.

We knew that, contrary to what medical experts claim, only the special sugar found in jelly beans and chocolate bunnies could have turned our normally restaurant-ready kids into the pair of unrecognizable frolicking fiends sitting next to the Big Guy and me. Twelve-year-old Thing1, normally my gentle giant, should have known better, for example, than to instigate a game of table hockey with wadded up straw wrappers for pucks and burgeoning glasses of OJ for goals. Six-year-old Thing2 definitely knew better than to lap his milk like a dog. But chalking the antics up to the candy, the Big Guy and I doled out the discipline and, once back at home, buried the incident in our subconsciouses with the rest of the childrearing-related traumas we’ve accumulated over the past twelve and a half years.

But the medical experts turned out to be right about the sugar. Another saturday and another breakfast at Bob’s (our favorite) rolled around, and we were joined once again by our children instead of the two imps who had overtaken Easter Sunday Brunch. Things seemed back to normal, so we decided to tempt fate again on Sunday. Sadly, fate took the bait.

Unlike the previous Sunday, Thing1 and Thing2 hadn’t been freebasing candy since dawn, but, for some reason, they could barely contain their giggles as we walked in the door, and we knew we might be in trouble. I haven’t had to carry one of my kids out of a restaurant or store in years, but, even though my instinct suggested we should do that right now, we thought a quick ‘ENUFF!’ would put the kibosh on any drink-spilling festivities. I should have listened to my instinct.

By the time the drinks came, they had lost every privilege we could think of. They had been sentenced to firewood stacking by the time the order was put in. The food came just as I was wondering if the Big Guy was still capable of carrying Thing1 (who’s taller than I am) back to the car. The imps fell quiet as they feasted, but not even the long list of chores they had racked up could keep the silliness from jumpstarting again as soon as they got back in the car.

I’ve come to expect a day of defiance from one or both kids here and there. Two almost consecutive episodes of abysmal restaurant demeanors, however, were beginning to shake my confidence that, after twelve and a half years of long nights and time outs and minding their manners, I had any idea of what I was doing.

As we drove home, we tried to determine the cause of the craziness and, more importantly, the corrective. By the time the Big Guy had reached the top of the driveway, we had decided that wood stacking would be followed by a full-scale room cleaning would be their penance. Despite the threat of more dire consequences – an evening of Jane Austen movies – if the jobs were not completed in short order, however, the giggles from the back seat and then the hazard zone at the near end of the hallway continued.

In the end they got their chores done (there’s nothing like the threat of hours of costume dramas and star-crossed romances to wrest order from two chaotic boys). As I listened to them giggle and clean, however, I heard two brothers who, in spite of their ability to argue over the color of the sky on a clear day, can ultimately pull together when the chips are down.

When the Big Guy and I finally peered into the bunk room, my confidence was on firmer ground. The floor was clear, the beds were made, the point had been made and we were clearly getting the hang of this parenting thing. To the back of my mind, like so much dirty laundry to be hidden until next years’ spring cleaning, I shoved the admission that this round had almost been a draw and not a victory.

But it was a victory, and I’ll add it to the little collection of trophies we’re accumulating as we shepherd our boys through their childhoods. They’re the reminders that we do have some successes – even a few important ones. The reality, though, is that I’m not sure we’ll ever completely master this game. If we do, my guess is that it we’ll hit our stride about two days after Thing2 moves out of the house.