The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Goodbye, Harry
Last Friday, my ten-year old neighbor and I, high on Coca Cola and chocolate frosted cookies, joined the impatient pack of costumed children, teens and their designated drivers to mark the end of one small lifetime of magic.
As we crowded into the local bookstore, serving chocolate cake and pumpkin juice, the noise was raucous and constant, the costumes bright and serious. Parents and children discussed in earnest the possibility of which characters would die, and which secrets might remain unanswered in the final installment of the Harry Potter series.
The mood was festive. Goodwill abounded. Everyone chatted, able to join conversations on any aspect of plot or outcome with eight-year olds or grandparents. Together, we all counted down with the televised clock to midnight, collectively whooping as each minute dropped away, edging us to the ecstasy of wrapping our arms around the pudgy orange book.
As my neighbor and I tried out an iPhone offered from the soccer mom in a full-length Gryffindor cloak ahead of us in line, a group of surly teens argued beside us about their certainty of the story’s outcome. I watched them, posturing and daring each other sarcastically with smirks. But the tension was rife with innocence as evidenced by the lightning scars drawn on their oily foreheads with eyeliner.
Just kids, here for a moment in history. All of us wanted to say goodbye, publicly to this fictional boy we all loved.
After a year of deadening dissertation writing in 1999, I boycotted reading anything involving more neural pathways than required to follow an episode of Law & Order. Sweet little Harry Potter. The Sorcerer’s Stone was the first book I could read compulsively. The innocence of Rowling’s magical story took me out of my burnout and back to reading gluttonously.
All of us at the bookstore that night were enthralled by our beloved little fictional wizard, who pushed himself past what he feared and let himself move from isolation to love. What he reminded me of, and the final book proved about him, was the glowing purity of his heart. Down to the bitter end, he declined to become a killer, regardless of his exigent circumstances or the malevolence of his foe.
He is a universal hero in this regard, triumphant without bloodshed, unblemished despite exposure to too much ugliness. What he found inside himself is the most mothers can wish for our kids in a complicated and ravenous world.
A center of what is true.
So farewell and thank you, Harry!!!
By Avvy Mar
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As we crowded into the local bookstore, serving chocolate cake and pumpkin juice, the noise was raucous and constant, the costumes bright and serious. Parents and children discussed in earnest the possibility of which characters would die, and which secrets might remain unanswered in the final installment of the Harry Potter series.
The mood was festive. Goodwill abounded. Everyone chatted, able to join conversations on any aspect of plot or outcome with eight-year olds or grandparents. Together, we all counted down with the televised clock to midnight, collectively whooping as each minute dropped away, edging us to the ecstasy of wrapping our arms around the pudgy orange book.
As my neighbor and I tried out an iPhone offered from the soccer mom in a full-length Gryffindor cloak ahead of us in line, a group of surly teens argued beside us about their certainty of the story’s outcome. I watched them, posturing and daring each other sarcastically with smirks. But the tension was rife with innocence as evidenced by the lightning scars drawn on their oily foreheads with eyeliner.
Just kids, here for a moment in history. All of us wanted to say goodbye, publicly to this fictional boy we all loved.
After a year of deadening dissertation writing in 1999, I boycotted reading anything involving more neural pathways than required to follow an episode of Law & Order. Sweet little Harry Potter. The Sorcerer’s Stone was the first book I could read compulsively. The innocence of Rowling’s magical story took me out of my burnout and back to reading gluttonously.
All of us at the bookstore that night were enthralled by our beloved little fictional wizard, who pushed himself past what he feared and let himself move from isolation to love. What he reminded me of, and the final book proved about him, was the glowing purity of his heart. Down to the bitter end, he declined to become a killer, regardless of his exigent circumstances or the malevolence of his foe.
He is a universal hero in this regard, triumphant without bloodshed, unblemished despite exposure to too much ugliness. What he found inside himself is the most mothers can wish for our kids in a complicated and ravenous world.
A center of what is true.
So farewell and thank you, Harry!!!
By Avvy Mar
Labels: By Avvy Mar
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Monday, July 30, 2007
Reunion
The flight home from Boston to SFO is over five hours and we don’t have our kids this time. That means five hours of flipping peacefully through Newsweeks and Oprahs and lip-reading the actors’ lines in the straight-to-video box office bombs that United forces you watch despite your best intentions to read War & Peace. Thank God my headphones don’t work. I look out at the clouds, so puffy.
My husband and I are on our way back from our 20th high school reunion. We went to the same high school outside of Boston, were in the same class, and, later in life, re-found each other and ended up living “happily ever after” with three kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. Ok, scrap the fence, but the rest is true.
This was my first reunion since graduation in ‘87. Teens of the ‘80s – Madonna, Billy Idol – with hardly a Rebel Yell and always ready for a holiday, our class of 85 students skipped through our four years, high on Fresca and high-school hormones. We were “a good class” without extreme bullies and with a strong female force.
Twenty years later, we step into the tented, reunion event on the senior quad – a sacred ground that only teachers, visitors and seniors are allowed to walk on during the school year. As a freshman, it is a terrifying patch of grass, filled with threats of humiliation by a squad of seniors if you are caught with a toe on it. Now it’s just another square patch of grass I don’t even give a thought to as my high-heels squash down into the turf, marring its pomposity.
Everyone is exactly the same at our 20th, except nicer all around. The hormonal, cocky sheen of high-school attitude has been replaced by the humble reality of being hit by “real life” over the last twenty years. Jobs, babies, parents, hair, friends, youth lost. Everyone’s been hit by something, and there’s almost a “truce” feeling – an eagerness to connect – with everyone who’s made the effort to come. Geeks sit with beauties. Jocks joke with wallflowers. The old high-school labels hover slightly, but are ignored. We all want to make this work.
My husband and I visit the tree honoring a classmate who died our freshman year. It sits quietly at the end of the football field, looking into the entrance of our school. We take off our shoes and lie down, looking up, through the leaves that are so much higher now after twenty years. Would he be here today? Would he be nicer, too? I hope so. He would.
Back on the plane, I switch to my Vogue. Some mush for my brain. I feel content, a feeling that I rarely felt in high school. The pressure to be someone I am not, or don’t understand, is gone. I am just me, and I realize how lovely that is.
By Annie Yearout Stumble This Post
My husband and I are on our way back from our 20th high school reunion. We went to the same high school outside of Boston, were in the same class, and, later in life, re-found each other and ended up living “happily ever after” with three kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. Ok, scrap the fence, but the rest is true.
This was my first reunion since graduation in ‘87. Teens of the ‘80s – Madonna, Billy Idol – with hardly a Rebel Yell and always ready for a holiday, our class of 85 students skipped through our four years, high on Fresca and high-school hormones. We were “a good class” without extreme bullies and with a strong female force.
Twenty years later, we step into the tented, reunion event on the senior quad – a sacred ground that only teachers, visitors and seniors are allowed to walk on during the school year. As a freshman, it is a terrifying patch of grass, filled with threats of humiliation by a squad of seniors if you are caught with a toe on it. Now it’s just another square patch of grass I don’t even give a thought to as my high-heels squash down into the turf, marring its pomposity.
Everyone is exactly the same at our 20th, except nicer all around. The hormonal, cocky sheen of high-school attitude has been replaced by the humble reality of being hit by “real life” over the last twenty years. Jobs, babies, parents, hair, friends, youth lost. Everyone’s been hit by something, and there’s almost a “truce” feeling – an eagerness to connect – with everyone who’s made the effort to come. Geeks sit with beauties. Jocks joke with wallflowers. The old high-school labels hover slightly, but are ignored. We all want to make this work.
My husband and I visit the tree honoring a classmate who died our freshman year. It sits quietly at the end of the football field, looking into the entrance of our school. We take off our shoes and lie down, looking up, through the leaves that are so much higher now after twenty years. Would he be here today? Would he be nicer, too? I hope so. He would.
Back on the plane, I switch to my Vogue. Some mush for my brain. I feel content, a feeling that I rarely felt in high school. The pressure to be someone I am not, or don’t understand, is gone. I am just me, and I realize how lovely that is.
By Annie Yearout
Labels: Annie Yearout
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Sunday, July 29, 2007
Essential Luxuries
I first heard the story of my father’s birth when I was pregnant with my own son, sixty-five years later.
My grandmother labored alone, without support from my grandfather, an alcoholic. After she was discharged from the hospital, she waited outside with a nurse for my grandfather to pick her up. How desperate she must have felt, standing there holding her newborn, realizing that his father had forgotten them and was probably off drunk somewhere.
Eventually, tired and embarrassed, she had to call a neighbor to come get her. She was so weak from childbirth that she almost fainted walking to the front door, but she was too ashamed to let the neighbor help her inside in case my grandfather was passed out on the floor.
This story made me weep for my grandmother and marvel at her strength. Although my grandfather died of cirrhosis of the liver before I was born, at ninety-five, my grandmother, strong as ever, is still living in the same house and she never remarried. I cannot imagine the difficulty of her life as a mother, raising three boys while married to an alcoholic and working as a maid. She certainly had none of the luxuries that I enjoy as a mother.
The biggest “luxury,” and the one I most frequently take for granted, is the unconditional support of a loving husband. My obstetrician was amazed that my husband attended every single prenatal appointment, rearranging his busy work schedule for a chance to hear our son’s heartbeat for just a few seconds. He would never have missed his birth. Now that our son is a toddler, he has become the father that other mothers talk about. I frequently hear wistful-toned comments about how attentive and involved he is with our son.
At those times, I cannot help but think again of my own father, and how my grandfather missed his high school graduation to go fishing. How painful it must have been for my grandmother to see the disappointment on her child’s face. I remember these stories, not with disdain for the grandfather I never knew, but with true gratitude for my own son’s wonderful father, a luxury essential to my happiness as a mother.
By Rebecca Jackson Stumble This Post
My grandmother labored alone, without support from my grandfather, an alcoholic. After she was discharged from the hospital, she waited outside with a nurse for my grandfather to pick her up. How desperate she must have felt, standing there holding her newborn, realizing that his father had forgotten them and was probably off drunk somewhere.
Eventually, tired and embarrassed, she had to call a neighbor to come get her. She was so weak from childbirth that she almost fainted walking to the front door, but she was too ashamed to let the neighbor help her inside in case my grandfather was passed out on the floor.
This story made me weep for my grandmother and marvel at her strength. Although my grandfather died of cirrhosis of the liver before I was born, at ninety-five, my grandmother, strong as ever, is still living in the same house and she never remarried. I cannot imagine the difficulty of her life as a mother, raising three boys while married to an alcoholic and working as a maid. She certainly had none of the luxuries that I enjoy as a mother.
The biggest “luxury,” and the one I most frequently take for granted, is the unconditional support of a loving husband. My obstetrician was amazed that my husband attended every single prenatal appointment, rearranging his busy work schedule for a chance to hear our son’s heartbeat for just a few seconds. He would never have missed his birth. Now that our son is a toddler, he has become the father that other mothers talk about. I frequently hear wistful-toned comments about how attentive and involved he is with our son.
At those times, I cannot help but think again of my own father, and how my grandfather missed his high school graduation to go fishing. How painful it must have been for my grandmother to see the disappointment on her child’s face. I remember these stories, not with disdain for the grandfather I never knew, but with true gratitude for my own son’s wonderful father, a luxury essential to my happiness as a mother.
By Rebecca Jackson
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Saturday, July 28, 2007
Be the Lighthouse
My teenage son left this morning on a four-hour drive up to Pine Crest.
This is a maiden voyage.
His first time driving so far for so long without parental guidance or supervision. A bunch of kids are up there camping already, so it should be fun. . . for him anyway.
But. . . for me?
A four-hour drive on that highway? The thought was killing me!
Why just yesterday didn't he decide to make a last-minute quick left turn (without looking, mind you), and nearly plow into an oncoming car?
It took hours for my heart to begin beating again!
As much as I tried to control my anxiety, it managed to ooze forth turning me into that "spastic mother," you probably know her.
The one who is controlled by perceived and imagined tragedies.
I frantically followed him around, trying to give him
whatever I thought it was that he needed to have in order to be able to survive another moment on the planet.
"Did you pack this? Did you think of that? You might want one of these!"
"Mom," he said, "Back off. I can do it."
He was right.
But without any conscious thought on my part, when his back was turned, I started packing stuff for him. A towel discretely shoved in his bag. An extra blanket folded neatly on top of the ice chest.
"Mom," he said when he finally discovered my transgressions, "if you pack up my stuff for me, how will I know what's there? I can do it."
He was right.
When I left the parenting workshop last Saturday, I casually said to the person sitting next to me, "it was worth it."
The two-hour drive home was important because it reminded me of some common sense parenting philosophy.
"Be the lighthouse," I heard the facilitator’s voice in my mind's eye.
To become my son's guide, I had to behave as a solid, grounded force.
"Be the lighthouse."
I calmed down a bit, took a deep breath. How could he stay centered and do his job of growing up if I was coming unglued all around him?
I then realized with much clarity, (finally) that the best way I could be helpful to my son was to terminate this negative feedback loop, walk away from the crime scene and support him in the manner that he loves best.
I got in the car, turned my beacon toward the nearest ATM machine and withdrew an ample supply of spending cash for him to take on this fate-less journey!
I took my time returning.
When I got back, the car was all packed. He even remembered sunscreen.
"Thanks for helping, Mom and don’t worry, I’ll be fine," he said, with a genuine smile as he folded the twenties in his pocket.
He was right!
By Rachelle Averbach Stumble This Post
This is a maiden voyage.
His first time driving so far for so long without parental guidance or supervision. A bunch of kids are up there camping already, so it should be fun. . . for him anyway.
But. . . for me?
A four-hour drive on that highway? The thought was killing me!
Why just yesterday didn't he decide to make a last-minute quick left turn (without looking, mind you), and nearly plow into an oncoming car?
It took hours for my heart to begin beating again!
As much as I tried to control my anxiety, it managed to ooze forth turning me into that "spastic mother," you probably know her.
The one who is controlled by perceived and imagined tragedies.
I frantically followed him around, trying to give him
whatever I thought it was that he needed to have in order to be able to survive another moment on the planet.
"Did you pack this? Did you think of that? You might want one of these!"
"Mom," he said, "Back off. I can do it."
He was right.
But without any conscious thought on my part, when his back was turned, I started packing stuff for him. A towel discretely shoved in his bag. An extra blanket folded neatly on top of the ice chest.
"Mom," he said when he finally discovered my transgressions, "if you pack up my stuff for me, how will I know what's there? I can do it."
He was right.
When I left the parenting workshop last Saturday, I casually said to the person sitting next to me, "it was worth it."
The two-hour drive home was important because it reminded me of some common sense parenting philosophy.
"Be the lighthouse," I heard the facilitator’s voice in my mind's eye.
To become my son's guide, I had to behave as a solid, grounded force.
"Be the lighthouse."
I calmed down a bit, took a deep breath. How could he stay centered and do his job of growing up if I was coming unglued all around him?
I then realized with much clarity, (finally) that the best way I could be helpful to my son was to terminate this negative feedback loop, walk away from the crime scene and support him in the manner that he loves best.
I got in the car, turned my beacon toward the nearest ATM machine and withdrew an ample supply of spending cash for him to take on this fate-less journey!
I took my time returning.
When I got back, the car was all packed. He even remembered sunscreen.
"Thanks for helping, Mom and don’t worry, I’ll be fine," he said, with a genuine smile as he folded the twenties in his pocket.
He was right!
By Rachelle Averbach
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Friday, July 27, 2007
Relax!
As I notice my husband sleeping peacefully on the couch I can tell how relaxed he is by the way his arms are up over his head. As he snores softly I can think only one thing: I would like to smother him with a pillow. How dare he take a nap? How dare he relax? I would love to be relaxed enough to fall asleep in the middle of the day. But circumstances will not allow it. There is laundry to do, clutter to straighten, bloodshed to prevent.
A mother’s work is never done.
Why is it impossible for me to relax? I am so ready to be interrupted at any given moment that I hesitate to even start activities. I have half a dozen e-mails saved as drafts because just as soon as I am getting to the good part I am called upon to do something. It doesn’t matter whether or not I am qualified to do whatever it is. It only matters that I am Mommy.
I must try.
I believe when I was delirious after childbirth I must have signed something. Some sort of promise where I signed away all rights I once had to privacy and a life of my own. How else can I explain any of this?
I am aware that many (most) women have it harder than I do. I know I take a lot for granted. And yet… for the life of me I cannot imagine doing my assigned tasks without complaint. How can there possibly be this much to do? I am not a neat freak. My standards for just about everything are low. So how can I be appalled by the mess, dirt, smells, etc?
Simple things perplex me. How is it possible for my sons to hit something across the yard with rocks and still not get their pee into the toilet? Am I really washing the exact same articles of clothing over and over or are they reproducing in my hamper? What is that smell in the refrigerator?
I have books in my bookcase that I have never read all of the way through. These are books I had to return to the library after too many renewals so I bought them. There are parenting books, self-help books, books on meditation, spiritual enlightenment. I believe all of them hold the key to changing my life.
If only I had the time to sit down and read them.
A stranger recently informed me that these are the happiest times of my life. I hope not. If this is as good as it gets --- I am in big trouble. I don’t want to wish my children’s childhoods away, I love them, but there are times when I can’t wait for them to grow up and move out.
I need to look forward to better times.
I spend every minute of every day taking care of things. I make sure we never run out of anything. I anticipate every need of every member of my family. I ensure that they are safe and comfortable and basically taken care of. I feel like I am constantly working and yet… when do I get to relax and reflect on a job well done?
I have not gone five minutes without hearing some variation of “Mommy.” It is screamed, wailed, yelled, whined all day long. I cannot believe I have ever completed a full thought for almost eight years. I have not ever been alone in my own home for more than twenty-four hours.
I imagine running away. I think about which clothes I will take. What will I need? If only I could join the Witness Protection Program. I fantasize about relocating without any attachments.
By Cathy Burke Stumble This Post
A mother’s work is never done.
Why is it impossible for me to relax? I am so ready to be interrupted at any given moment that I hesitate to even start activities. I have half a dozen e-mails saved as drafts because just as soon as I am getting to the good part I am called upon to do something. It doesn’t matter whether or not I am qualified to do whatever it is. It only matters that I am Mommy.
I must try.
I believe when I was delirious after childbirth I must have signed something. Some sort of promise where I signed away all rights I once had to privacy and a life of my own. How else can I explain any of this?
I am aware that many (most) women have it harder than I do. I know I take a lot for granted. And yet… for the life of me I cannot imagine doing my assigned tasks without complaint. How can there possibly be this much to do? I am not a neat freak. My standards for just about everything are low. So how can I be appalled by the mess, dirt, smells, etc?
Simple things perplex me. How is it possible for my sons to hit something across the yard with rocks and still not get their pee into the toilet? Am I really washing the exact same articles of clothing over and over or are they reproducing in my hamper? What is that smell in the refrigerator?
I have books in my bookcase that I have never read all of the way through. These are books I had to return to the library after too many renewals so I bought them. There are parenting books, self-help books, books on meditation, spiritual enlightenment. I believe all of them hold the key to changing my life.
If only I had the time to sit down and read them.
A stranger recently informed me that these are the happiest times of my life. I hope not. If this is as good as it gets --- I am in big trouble. I don’t want to wish my children’s childhoods away, I love them, but there are times when I can’t wait for them to grow up and move out.
I need to look forward to better times.
I spend every minute of every day taking care of things. I make sure we never run out of anything. I anticipate every need of every member of my family. I ensure that they are safe and comfortable and basically taken care of. I feel like I am constantly working and yet… when do I get to relax and reflect on a job well done?
I have not gone five minutes without hearing some variation of “Mommy.” It is screamed, wailed, yelled, whined all day long. I cannot believe I have ever completed a full thought for almost eight years. I have not ever been alone in my own home for more than twenty-four hours.
I imagine running away. I think about which clothes I will take. What will I need? If only I could join the Witness Protection Program. I fantasize about relocating without any attachments.
By Cathy Burke
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Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Harvest
The harvest is in! Peaches, plums, strawberries, nectarines! Raspberries, apricots, mandarin oranges! Ripe and juicy, plump and sweet. Hanging like Christmas ornaments, gleaming in the morning sun.
We grab our wicker baskets and hats, and pull on our long-sleeved shirts. We tromp down the stone steps to the garden beds at the bottom of our back slope. The branches are loaded!
“Lizard!” Mateo calls out, as a gecko scurries across our path and scoots into a dark space between the stones. My son crouches down to lizard level, eyeball to eyeball with the prehistoric thing. “Green!”
“I want all the black raspberries,” Olivia announces, not pausing to look. “Forty-four hundred ninety-two.” She finds a level spot to set down her basket and goes to work, her fingers as nimble as a spider’s legs as she feels in the sticker bush for the ripe fruit. One berry in the basket, five in her mouth, the sweet juice dripping down her chin. As if by instinct, she knows which berries to pull off and which to leave, her extractions as sure and delicate as a surgeon’s.
“Amazing, the way these strawberries put on.” Tim appears on the steps beside me, his basket already full.
I reach in and pick the fattest, reddest specimen. “Glorious,” I say.
Tim is the one with the farm-boy roots, the survivor if someone dropped him in a forest with a compass and a book of matches. He monitors the pollination of the bees and gauges the rainfall. He knows when to fertilize and how to dig the beds so they drain.
I pluck another strawberry and take a bite. “Absolutely perfect!”
Mateo trundles down the steps toward us, his gecko pursuit abandoned. “Peaches!” he says. Tim sweeps him up for a piggy-back ride to the tree. “Come on, big boy.”
The yard is a collage of colors, purple and pink and yellow and red. I smell the earthy bark of the redwood, the sugary aroma of the ripe fruit. A breeze ripples through the branches of the willow, and it sounds like a waterfall.
Today we’ll have raspberries on our cereal, strawberries on our pancakes, plums for dessert and peach ice cream. We’ll stockpile what we don’t use, labeling plastic bags with black Sharpie pens before stacking them in the freezer downstairs. All winter long, we’ll eat jam and sorbet, buckles and muffins, tarts, smoothies and galettes.
I reach for my basket, ready to pick. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swoops in ascending circles, coasting on invisible currents. I watch until he disappears, certain he’s flying toward heaven.
By Jessica O’Dwyer Stumble This Post
We grab our wicker baskets and hats, and pull on our long-sleeved shirts. We tromp down the stone steps to the garden beds at the bottom of our back slope. The branches are loaded!
“Lizard!” Mateo calls out, as a gecko scurries across our path and scoots into a dark space between the stones. My son crouches down to lizard level, eyeball to eyeball with the prehistoric thing. “Green!”
“I want all the black raspberries,” Olivia announces, not pausing to look. “Forty-four hundred ninety-two.” She finds a level spot to set down her basket and goes to work, her fingers as nimble as a spider’s legs as she feels in the sticker bush for the ripe fruit. One berry in the basket, five in her mouth, the sweet juice dripping down her chin. As if by instinct, she knows which berries to pull off and which to leave, her extractions as sure and delicate as a surgeon’s.
“Amazing, the way these strawberries put on.” Tim appears on the steps beside me, his basket already full.
I reach in and pick the fattest, reddest specimen. “Glorious,” I say.
Tim is the one with the farm-boy roots, the survivor if someone dropped him in a forest with a compass and a book of matches. He monitors the pollination of the bees and gauges the rainfall. He knows when to fertilize and how to dig the beds so they drain.
I pluck another strawberry and take a bite. “Absolutely perfect!”
Mateo trundles down the steps toward us, his gecko pursuit abandoned. “Peaches!” he says. Tim sweeps him up for a piggy-back ride to the tree. “Come on, big boy.”
The yard is a collage of colors, purple and pink and yellow and red. I smell the earthy bark of the redwood, the sugary aroma of the ripe fruit. A breeze ripples through the branches of the willow, and it sounds like a waterfall.
Today we’ll have raspberries on our cereal, strawberries on our pancakes, plums for dessert and peach ice cream. We’ll stockpile what we don’t use, labeling plastic bags with black Sharpie pens before stacking them in the freezer downstairs. All winter long, we’ll eat jam and sorbet, buckles and muffins, tarts, smoothies and galettes.
I reach for my basket, ready to pick. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swoops in ascending circles, coasting on invisible currents. I watch until he disappears, certain he’s flying toward heaven.
By Jessica O’Dwyer
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Half-Ass Club
Meeting an offbeat, grass-chewing Southern boy, and driving in his spluttering convertible around the streets of Santa Monica, was a hoot. Kent was unconventional, irreverent and lived a plane ride away -- the perfect escape, a no-obligation bonk.
In the first year together I bought him a belt, a wallet and a watch: items he had not used in years. We went shopping for a suit and got him a financial plan. And though his 101 job-loss stories should have raised a red flag, one of those crazy days I tripped and fell sideways in love.
The day we moved in together, Kent told me that he “just didn't clean.” He also admitted to handymanitis, regularly paying late fees, and pre-planning his sick days. This all seemed surmountable in the filtered light of true love. It wasn’t until we were married with baby that he told me about The Club.
I had always wondered how the homecoming king, senior student council president and rockin’ drummer (with the local heartthrob band ‘Hippie le Peu’ no less) had managed to slither into the background.
According to Kent, it started with a hand-shake agreement between the founding members of The Club, he and his roommate, Dennis. I knew many of the stories. The most enduring visual being two white-legged Georgia boys geared up for a full day mountain bike ride, quitting on the first hill and hitch-hiking back, high-fiving in the back of a hay-filled pick-up truck.
This was the formative moment for “The Half-Ass Club.”
After nine years, seven months and four days, I told Kent I wanted -- no, I needed -- to join. I was done with finishing – finishing the cleaning, taxes, house projects, sentences. More than a dust-free sofa and a flea-free dog, I wanted his happiness quotient. The truth is, he got more done than I, his friendships were well-maintained, his career on track, he was a loving husband and father -- all despite, and because of, his firm commitment to The Half-Ass Club.
Considering the options (Prozac or divorce), he agreed to share the love.
First I learnt that my husband was a closet perfectionist. Underneath his easy-going ways buzzed a far-from-half-ass system of decision making trees -- all pointing to minimum disruption and maximum efficiency (yes, efficiency!). It was not that he was unapologetically lazy as I once considered, but that he had honed a secret mindfulness, a conscious way of deflecting stressful perfectionism. This was more than taking the easy road, this was exciting new age philosophy: I grabbed my digital quill.
“Hold on hold on,” said he who doesn't ruffle. “Don't over-analyze, don't write me into neat little chapters.”
Ah, so much to learn.
…
The Half-Ass Club, Kent went on, is about doing more when your expectations are less. It is about getting started because you can always quit. Ironically, if you are a couch-potato, truly lazy with no aspirations, The Club is not for you.
I was in.
I completed the appropriately unstructured initiation and pledged my allegiance to giving less of a shit (the oath chosen for me by Kent) and now I find that life is moving along smoothly. I've learnt that vendors send reminders. I sleep well under piles of unfolded laundry and walk lightly through my days, without the weight of the details on my shoulders.
No doubt the pendulum will swing and I will succumb to alphabetizing the pantry, vacuuming the cat and other temptations. Then I will recite my pledge to the Half-Ass Club, hand off half the errand list to providence, and half the worry to Kent.
By Robyn Murphy Stumble This Post
In the first year together I bought him a belt, a wallet and a watch: items he had not used in years. We went shopping for a suit and got him a financial plan. And though his 101 job-loss stories should have raised a red flag, one of those crazy days I tripped and fell sideways in love.
The day we moved in together, Kent told me that he “just didn't clean.” He also admitted to handymanitis, regularly paying late fees, and pre-planning his sick days. This all seemed surmountable in the filtered light of true love. It wasn’t until we were married with baby that he told me about The Club.
I had always wondered how the homecoming king, senior student council president and rockin’ drummer (with the local heartthrob band ‘Hippie le Peu’ no less) had managed to slither into the background.
According to Kent, it started with a hand-shake agreement between the founding members of The Club, he and his roommate, Dennis. I knew many of the stories. The most enduring visual being two white-legged Georgia boys geared up for a full day mountain bike ride, quitting on the first hill and hitch-hiking back, high-fiving in the back of a hay-filled pick-up truck.
This was the formative moment for “The Half-Ass Club.”
After nine years, seven months and four days, I told Kent I wanted -- no, I needed -- to join. I was done with finishing – finishing the cleaning, taxes, house projects, sentences. More than a dust-free sofa and a flea-free dog, I wanted his happiness quotient. The truth is, he got more done than I, his friendships were well-maintained, his career on track, he was a loving husband and father -- all despite, and because of, his firm commitment to The Half-Ass Club.
Considering the options (Prozac or divorce), he agreed to share the love.
First I learnt that my husband was a closet perfectionist. Underneath his easy-going ways buzzed a far-from-half-ass system of decision making trees -- all pointing to minimum disruption and maximum efficiency (yes, efficiency!). It was not that he was unapologetically lazy as I once considered, but that he had honed a secret mindfulness, a conscious way of deflecting stressful perfectionism. This was more than taking the easy road, this was exciting new age philosophy: I grabbed my digital quill.
“Hold on hold on,” said he who doesn't ruffle. “Don't over-analyze, don't write me into neat little chapters.”
Ah, so much to learn.
…
The Half-Ass Club, Kent went on, is about doing more when your expectations are less. It is about getting started because you can always quit. Ironically, if you are a couch-potato, truly lazy with no aspirations, The Club is not for you.
I was in.
I completed the appropriately unstructured initiation and pledged my allegiance to giving less of a shit (the oath chosen for me by Kent) and now I find that life is moving along smoothly. I've learnt that vendors send reminders. I sleep well under piles of unfolded laundry and walk lightly through my days, without the weight of the details on my shoulders.
No doubt the pendulum will swing and I will succumb to alphabetizing the pantry, vacuuming the cat and other temptations. Then I will recite my pledge to the Half-Ass Club, hand off half the errand list to providence, and half the worry to Kent.
By Robyn Murphy
Labels: Robyn Murphy
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Come Fly with Me
I remember the first time I picked up my husband, then boyfriend, at the airport. It was ten years before 9/11, so I was able to meet Reese at the gate. I positioned myself at his flight's assigned jet way exit fifteen minutes before his scheduled arrival.
The first person off was a forty-ish looking man in a suit. He wrapped his arms around his wife and two kids. I walked closer to the door, figuring Reese would soon be exiting. A couple more business travelers trotted past. A family with a stroller came out. The guy holding a sign for Mr. Fred Jones found him. A flight attendant exited with her rollaway bag. Still, Reese did not emerge. I began to look for a pay phone to check my answering machine for messages. I was surprised when Reese hugged me from behind.
"What happened? Were you on a different plane?" I asked.
"No, I always sit and read while everyone else rushes out."
I was amazed. He sat for five hours in a cramped plane, yet after landing, he wanted to sit an extra twenty minutes.
Our differences in airplane style became more apparent the first time we rode an airplane together, to meet Reese's parents in Virginia. We got to the gate with about twenty minutes to spare. Reese sat, reading his soccer magazine. Just after the announcement offering early boarding to children traveling alone and others who need a little extra time, Reese announced he was going to the bathroom. Our row was called. Still no Reese. I contemplated getting on the plane myself, but then decided I didn't want to be alone visiting Reese's parents. Just as the flight attendant made the final boarding call, Reese sat down next to me.
"That was close," I said.
"We have lots of time. They won't close the door for another five minutes. I hate the airplane bathrooms. Are you sure you don't want to go?"
I shook my head. Once we got seated, Reese reopened his soccer magazine and ignored the flight attendant's safety instructions. I pretended not to be listening, but as usual, I held the laminated instruction card and looked for the closest exits, both in front of and behind me.
The plane began to lift. I knew that was the time for engines to blow-up and wings to fail. I grabbed Reese's hand. He used his other to keep his soccer magazine open. We landed in Reese's home airport, Washington National, which is about twenty minutes from his parents' house. I was perplexed that neither of his parents was at the gate to meet us. Reese walked up to the pay phone. "I'm going to tell my parents we’re in and on our way."
"Your parents are home, but they don't pick you up at the airport?"
"No, my parents travel too much to ask to be picked up at the airport, and they don't do it for anybody else."
As we waited for a cab, I remembered how my father always drove an hour from Boulder to the Denver airport. He'd get to the gate early to make sure he was there when I emerged from the plane.
Over our ten years of marriage, Reese and I have worked on our airplane incompatibility. Through consistent nagging, I've gotten him to make his bathroom visits before the plane starts boarding. I've come to appreciate waiting till the crowd exits before leaving the plane, especially now that we have two young children.
Reese agrees with me that it is wonderful to have family meet you at the airport, even if the reunions can't be at the gate anymore.
Ever since our first flight together, Reese has held my hand during take-off, usually without me having to ask. During our last family flight together, our seven-year son, Walker, refused to take my hand as the plane tilted upward. Instead, he held both his hands in the air, like he was riding a roller coaster. I let go of Reese's hand, and we all held our arms up, to ear level.
We were starting our own airplane tradition.
By Beth Touchette Stumble This Post
The first person off was a forty-ish looking man in a suit. He wrapped his arms around his wife and two kids. I walked closer to the door, figuring Reese would soon be exiting. A couple more business travelers trotted past. A family with a stroller came out. The guy holding a sign for Mr. Fred Jones found him. A flight attendant exited with her rollaway bag. Still, Reese did not emerge. I began to look for a pay phone to check my answering machine for messages. I was surprised when Reese hugged me from behind.
"What happened? Were you on a different plane?" I asked.
"No, I always sit and read while everyone else rushes out."
I was amazed. He sat for five hours in a cramped plane, yet after landing, he wanted to sit an extra twenty minutes.
Our differences in airplane style became more apparent the first time we rode an airplane together, to meet Reese's parents in Virginia. We got to the gate with about twenty minutes to spare. Reese sat, reading his soccer magazine. Just after the announcement offering early boarding to children traveling alone and others who need a little extra time, Reese announced he was going to the bathroom. Our row was called. Still no Reese. I contemplated getting on the plane myself, but then decided I didn't want to be alone visiting Reese's parents. Just as the flight attendant made the final boarding call, Reese sat down next to me.
"That was close," I said.
"We have lots of time. They won't close the door for another five minutes. I hate the airplane bathrooms. Are you sure you don't want to go?"
I shook my head. Once we got seated, Reese reopened his soccer magazine and ignored the flight attendant's safety instructions. I pretended not to be listening, but as usual, I held the laminated instruction card and looked for the closest exits, both in front of and behind me.
The plane began to lift. I knew that was the time for engines to blow-up and wings to fail. I grabbed Reese's hand. He used his other to keep his soccer magazine open. We landed in Reese's home airport, Washington National, which is about twenty minutes from his parents' house. I was perplexed that neither of his parents was at the gate to meet us. Reese walked up to the pay phone. "I'm going to tell my parents we’re in and on our way."
"Your parents are home, but they don't pick you up at the airport?"
"No, my parents travel too much to ask to be picked up at the airport, and they don't do it for anybody else."
As we waited for a cab, I remembered how my father always drove an hour from Boulder to the Denver airport. He'd get to the gate early to make sure he was there when I emerged from the plane.
Over our ten years of marriage, Reese and I have worked on our airplane incompatibility. Through consistent nagging, I've gotten him to make his bathroom visits before the plane starts boarding. I've come to appreciate waiting till the crowd exits before leaving the plane, especially now that we have two young children.
Reese agrees with me that it is wonderful to have family meet you at the airport, even if the reunions can't be at the gate anymore.
Ever since our first flight together, Reese has held my hand during take-off, usually without me having to ask. During our last family flight together, our seven-year son, Walker, refused to take my hand as the plane tilted upward. Instead, he held both his hands in the air, like he was riding a roller coaster. I let go of Reese's hand, and we all held our arms up, to ear level.
We were starting our own airplane tradition.
By Beth Touchette
Labels: Beth Touchette
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Monday, July 23, 2007
iGroan
Fourth of July at the Sushi Ran bar, I watched two metrosexual executive producer types compare their gear.
The more heavily accessorized of the two was experiencing major phone envy. Wearing a pork pie hat over a white do rag, Bono shades and a meticulously trimmed goatee wasn’t enough. His buddy was flashing an iPhone, and the Treo in his hand was so 48 hours ago.
I’m gonna get one. I have to get one.
He poured more sake into his tiny cup and looked very sad.
At the Marin farmer’s market, I witnessed another green moment. A vendor was describing his encounter with his sister’s iPhone. For hours they played with it. A customer interrupted scooping organic arugula into a bag long enough to detach his phone case from his belt. He flipped open the cover and the vendor moaned. Oh, that’s it. It’s good you got a case for it. . . It’s so cool . . .
My son’s friend got one.
Many parents struggle with the question of when or if to get their kids a cell phone. We resisted until I found myself hypocritically calling my son’s friends' phones to let him know I was on my way to pick him up from lacrosse. It is without question the best way to keep contact with your 14-year old. That or lock him in the basement. After we ironed out the $400 in text message charges, it has become a minor expense. But a $600 phone for a kid?
As parents in Marin we are often confronted with these moments of bewilderment. Tweens are riding $2,000 dollar mountain bikes. Your kid’s friend always has 20 bucks for snacks. Third graders have better laptops than yours, and now 14-year olds with an iPhone.
I miss Marin’s feigned bohemia.
By Mary Allison Tierney Stumble This Post
The more heavily accessorized of the two was experiencing major phone envy. Wearing a pork pie hat over a white do rag, Bono shades and a meticulously trimmed goatee wasn’t enough. His buddy was flashing an iPhone, and the Treo in his hand was so 48 hours ago.
I’m gonna get one. I have to get one.
He poured more sake into his tiny cup and looked very sad.
At the Marin farmer’s market, I witnessed another green moment. A vendor was describing his encounter with his sister’s iPhone. For hours they played with it. A customer interrupted scooping organic arugula into a bag long enough to detach his phone case from his belt. He flipped open the cover and the vendor moaned. Oh, that’s it. It’s good you got a case for it. . . It’s so cool . . .
My son’s friend got one.
Many parents struggle with the question of when or if to get their kids a cell phone. We resisted until I found myself hypocritically calling my son’s friends' phones to let him know I was on my way to pick him up from lacrosse. It is without question the best way to keep contact with your 14-year old. That or lock him in the basement. After we ironed out the $400 in text message charges, it has become a minor expense. But a $600 phone for a kid?
As parents in Marin we are often confronted with these moments of bewilderment. Tweens are riding $2,000 dollar mountain bikes. Your kid’s friend always has 20 bucks for snacks. Third graders have better laptops than yours, and now 14-year olds with an iPhone.
I miss Marin’s feigned bohemia.
By Mary Allison Tierney
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Sunday, July 22, 2007
The Waterhole
It’s hot. 103 degrees and my dog, Ansel, won’t move anymore. Not even to join me today for my daily escape to the nearby waterhole on the South Fork of the Merced while my kiddos nap.
We’re in Yosemite at the family cabin that great-grandpa Floyd Alvin built in the 1950s. The original olive green décor inside has come in-and-out of fashion three times since, I think. I can’t keep up.
It’s our first visit ever for a full week, and by day two, we’re all covered, completely, with the fine, soft dirt that coats the ground of the High Sierras. Our Yosemite tan, I tease. Cancer free and it washes off with an easy scrub.
At the waterhole, it’s quiet. An unusual thing in this kind of heat. Siesta time for everyone, I think. Lucky me.
There’s a monolith of granite that reclines into the hole. The rock is starting to bake, warm in the sun – just coming out from the shadows of the redwoods on the bank. That’s my rock, I drool as I see it just a few hops away.
My left clog slips off my foot as I scramble up the slipery, four-foot cliff. Into the mini boulder field below it goes. Who cares? I’m nearing the top. One shoe on, one shoe off. Made it!
Shirt off, shorts flung, I leap from my rock into the waterhole. The water is like butter.
Buttah -- in my hair, in my ears, in every pore of my body, mind, and soul. I feel the Sierra minerals soaking into my cells, feeding me. Mother Nature’s spa.
The brown, native trout that had been quietly munching on bug treats before my arrival scattered, rolling their fish eyes at the intrusion. Another crazy ape disturbing their lunch. Another hidey hole to wait this one out. Looks like this is going to be a long one, guys.
I float on my back and look at my toes poking out, stretching to the sky. My Yosemite tan now in streaks around my toenails. Dirty. Happy.
Five more days, I think, and then duck down, deep into the cold water to tickle the fins of those fishies.
Five more days.
By Annie B. Yearout Stumble This Post
We’re in Yosemite at the family cabin that great-grandpa Floyd Alvin built in the 1950s. The original olive green décor inside has come in-and-out of fashion three times since, I think. I can’t keep up.
It’s our first visit ever for a full week, and by day two, we’re all covered, completely, with the fine, soft dirt that coats the ground of the High Sierras. Our Yosemite tan, I tease. Cancer free and it washes off with an easy scrub.
At the waterhole, it’s quiet. An unusual thing in this kind of heat. Siesta time for everyone, I think. Lucky me.
There’s a monolith of granite that reclines into the hole. The rock is starting to bake, warm in the sun – just coming out from the shadows of the redwoods on the bank. That’s my rock, I drool as I see it just a few hops away.
My left clog slips off my foot as I scramble up the slipery, four-foot cliff. Into the mini boulder field below it goes. Who cares? I’m nearing the top. One shoe on, one shoe off. Made it!
Shirt off, shorts flung, I leap from my rock into the waterhole. The water is like butter.
Buttah -- in my hair, in my ears, in every pore of my body, mind, and soul. I feel the Sierra minerals soaking into my cells, feeding me. Mother Nature’s spa.
The brown, native trout that had been quietly munching on bug treats before my arrival scattered, rolling their fish eyes at the intrusion. Another crazy ape disturbing their lunch. Another hidey hole to wait this one out. Looks like this is going to be a long one, guys.
I float on my back and look at my toes poking out, stretching to the sky. My Yosemite tan now in streaks around my toenails. Dirty. Happy.
Five more days, I think, and then duck down, deep into the cold water to tickle the fins of those fishies.
Five more days.
By Annie B. Yearout
Labels: Annie B. Yearout
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Saturday, July 21, 2007
Sleeping with Mom
Aiden bounded through the gates of the preschool looking for the largest gathered crowd. He had big news today – big news – and he wanted an audience. His presence was so large, that the kids silenced as he approached. They could tell something was up with Aiden and they wanted to know what.
“My mom slept in my bed last night!!!” Aiden blurted.
The children’s eyes widened. Just the reaction he’d hoped for.
I held my breath and studied my child.
“Wow,” Lucas said. “All night?”
“Yes, ALL night,” Aiden replied proudly.
“Did she fall asleep with you or did she come in the middle of the night?” Connor asked.
“Middle of the night,” Aiden said.
He had them in the palm of his hand. They were rapt and he was gonna drag this story out for as long as he could.
Meanwhile, I silently prayed that my very verbal son, Will, would remain silent. He was looking puzzled.
“Top bunk or lower?” Margo asked.
“No bunk,” Aiden reported.
“Why did she sleep with you?” Lucy asked.
This one threw him a little. He hadn’t considered why, he just knew that it happened and he was damn excited about it. “I don’t know” Aiden said.
Aiden continued to hold court, peppered by the curious children’s questions.
I noticed another woman hanging on every word: Aiden’s mother, Anna. She and I didn’t blink or move. She looked as nervous as I felt. We clearly both had a secret.
I was never very connected with Anna. She kinda bugged me. Right now though, she was my sister and I was feeling her pain.
My son’s silence was an enormous relief and I prayed for it to continue. At last, Anna moved in. “Aiden,” she said, smiling through a clenched jaw, “You may come inside and put your lunchbox away.” She took him by the hand and led him through the parting sea of children.
I imagined what precipitated the evening’s sleeping arrangement – a fight with her husband? Probably. Her face looked undone, uptight, unglued, a sharp contrast to her usual contained, perfect presentation.
I knew what my anxiety was about – co-sleeping. My son and I sleep in the same bed every night. To the uneducated, that’s weird. To people who practice attachment parenting, it’s the best choice for our children.
Studies show that boys who co-slept with their parents between birth and five years old had significantly higher self-esteem and experienced less guilt and anxiety. Other studies showed that co-sleeping children receive higher evaluations from their teachers than solitary sleeping children.
I knew the facts and was sure of my choice, yet, I didn’t want the other mothers to know.
Why?
Was I afraid of their scrutiny, judgment, gossip?
Hell, yes.
This felt personal. Co-sleeping is such a loaded topic that people are very strong with their opposition. I wanted to spare myself of all the stories attributing bed-sharing to broken marriages or maladjusted teenagers.
It amazed me that something normal in our household is clearly abnormal in most others. I don’t mind our abnormality. I just don’t want my son to hold court in the preschool playground about it.
By Beth O’Neill Stumble This Post
“My mom slept in my bed last night!!!” Aiden blurted.
The children’s eyes widened. Just the reaction he’d hoped for.
I held my breath and studied my child.
“Wow,” Lucas said. “All night?”
“Yes, ALL night,” Aiden replied proudly.
“Did she fall asleep with you or did she come in the middle of the night?” Connor asked.
“Middle of the night,” Aiden said.
He had them in the palm of his hand. They were rapt and he was gonna drag this story out for as long as he could.
Meanwhile, I silently prayed that my very verbal son, Will, would remain silent. He was looking puzzled.
“Top bunk or lower?” Margo asked.
“No bunk,” Aiden reported.
“Why did she sleep with you?” Lucy asked.
This one threw him a little. He hadn’t considered why, he just knew that it happened and he was damn excited about it. “I don’t know” Aiden said.
Aiden continued to hold court, peppered by the curious children’s questions.
I noticed another woman hanging on every word: Aiden’s mother, Anna. She and I didn’t blink or move. She looked as nervous as I felt. We clearly both had a secret.
I was never very connected with Anna. She kinda bugged me. Right now though, she was my sister and I was feeling her pain.
My son’s silence was an enormous relief and I prayed for it to continue. At last, Anna moved in. “Aiden,” she said, smiling through a clenched jaw, “You may come inside and put your lunchbox away.” She took him by the hand and led him through the parting sea of children.
I imagined what precipitated the evening’s sleeping arrangement – a fight with her husband? Probably. Her face looked undone, uptight, unglued, a sharp contrast to her usual contained, perfect presentation.
I knew what my anxiety was about – co-sleeping. My son and I sleep in the same bed every night. To the uneducated, that’s weird. To people who practice attachment parenting, it’s the best choice for our children.
Studies show that boys who co-slept with their parents between birth and five years old had significantly higher self-esteem and experienced less guilt and anxiety. Other studies showed that co-sleeping children receive higher evaluations from their teachers than solitary sleeping children.
I knew the facts and was sure of my choice, yet, I didn’t want the other mothers to know.
Why?
Was I afraid of their scrutiny, judgment, gossip?
Hell, yes.
This felt personal. Co-sleeping is such a loaded topic that people are very strong with their opposition. I wanted to spare myself of all the stories attributing bed-sharing to broken marriages or maladjusted teenagers.
It amazed me that something normal in our household is clearly abnormal in most others. I don’t mind our abnormality. I just don’t want my son to hold court in the preschool playground about it.
By Beth O’Neill
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
Music in the Fish Tank, or What Mom Thinks About When the Kids are Gone for a Week
The bubbles rise. Water drips down. The fish swims low. He skims his belly against layers of pink rocks, all the same size as his eyes. He weaves his way through his plant, shimmying between the plastic stems, listening out of his fish ears – wherever and whatever those are – to the rhythmic trickle above him. Nosing his way along the edges, his fins and tail wipe at the glass. This fish swims a pattern known only to him – and, of course, to his friend, the ceramic carp blowing on the sax. For all his days, he’s under the same tones, the same melody, of that pleasant little trickle above.
See you soon, kids.
By Anjie Reynolds Stumble This Post
See you soon, kids.
By Anjie Reynolds
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The War at Home
My daughter is nearing five, and we’ve had many conversations about causes of death and its inevitability. Until now, we haven’t dipped into the topic of death without logic and the cause and effect chain involving brutality and hatred rather than illness.
Yesterday was the first time I had to explain that a friend of the family had been killed in Iraq. Trying to choose my words put me square into my politics, which I try to keep to a minimum when explaining life to my child. I try to speak with more faith in a good world than I actually hold. This one was set to fail from the get-go.
“How did he die, Mama?”
“Someone in an army shot him with a gun, someone who was afraid and trying to protect himself from another country’s army in his country. The different armies that are trying to stay safe.”
Deaf ears.
“A gun? That is so mean.” She shook her head, scowling.
“Sometimes a whole country and the people in charge of keeping it safe feel that what the other country is doing is dangerous,” I try to explain. “So our country sent an army to Iraq.” I was making myself sick with this line of talk.
She interrupted me, “Even if you want to keep me safe Mama, don’t kill anybody.” She started to cry.
Dicey.
I feel fierce in my belief that I could take down, with bare hands or any available heavy object, anyone who came after my kid. Here she was asking me to promise I wouldn’t. Preschool Mahatma, wiser yet again than her bumbling mom.
She threw me a pure example of what I believe my politics to be, and what I find, yet again, is that motherhood has trashed my certainty about what I would do.
I do still feel morally superior to the president, but that bar is set at curb height. My daughter’s a tougher one to live up to.
By Avvy Mar Stumble This Post
Yesterday was the first time I had to explain that a friend of the family had been killed in Iraq. Trying to choose my words put me square into my politics, which I try to keep to a minimum when explaining life to my child. I try to speak with more faith in a good world than I actually hold. This one was set to fail from the get-go.
“How did he die, Mama?”
“Someone in an army shot him with a gun, someone who was afraid and trying to protect himself from another country’s army in his country. The different armies that are trying to stay safe.”
Deaf ears.
“A gun? That is so mean.” She shook her head, scowling.
“Sometimes a whole country and the people in charge of keeping it safe feel that what the other country is doing is dangerous,” I try to explain. “So our country sent an army to Iraq.” I was making myself sick with this line of talk.
She interrupted me, “Even if you want to keep me safe Mama, don’t kill anybody.” She started to cry.
Dicey.
I feel fierce in my belief that I could take down, with bare hands or any available heavy object, anyone who came after my kid. Here she was asking me to promise I wouldn’t. Preschool Mahatma, wiser yet again than her bumbling mom.
She threw me a pure example of what I believe my politics to be, and what I find, yet again, is that motherhood has trashed my certainty about what I would do.
I do still feel morally superior to the president, but that bar is set at curb height. My daughter’s a tougher one to live up to.
By Avvy Mar
Labels: Avvy Mar
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Summer Swiftly Passing
Summer is half over and the many moments I had planned for my daughter and I to have quality time together have not happened. Guilt is bearing down me as inexorably as autumn and the beginning of school.
When her kindergarten “Moving On” ceremony had ended, I had visions of us taking walks, having deep talks and reading lots of books, just the two of us. But so far those moments have been fleeting. What with camps and trips, our days have been full of movement and separation.
Not that it’s all bad. Miranda loves camp and I get to get stuff done. Projects that languished during the school year are being tackled. Old storage containers are being opened and shredding continues apace. Space is appearing in the garage. Writing, reading, and outlines for an improvisation class I want to teach are all coming to fruition.
But, but, but, Miranda is getting older and as they say, you’re only young once.
So, I’ve decided the space in the garage is as good as it’s going to be. The outlines are fine and more days spent at home may be better than day tripping around Marin. As summer is fading, I want more snuggles, more talks, more walks and more books all with Miranda at my side. I want her to remember summer as a time to play and be with Mom.
That is as long as she’s willing to be there with me. For though I find myself missing her more and more, she’s missing me less and less. The great big world and her many friends call to her, call to her to play and play in the fading summer sun.
And that call needs to be answered as much as my call to take a bit more time at my side, before she moves even further away.
By Georgie Craig Stumble This Post
When her kindergarten “Moving On” ceremony had ended, I had visions of us taking walks, having deep talks and reading lots of books, just the two of us. But so far those moments have been fleeting. What with camps and trips, our days have been full of movement and separation.
Not that it’s all bad. Miranda loves camp and I get to get stuff done. Projects that languished during the school year are being tackled. Old storage containers are being opened and shredding continues apace. Space is appearing in the garage. Writing, reading, and outlines for an improvisation class I want to teach are all coming to fruition.
But, but, but, Miranda is getting older and as they say, you’re only young once.
So, I’ve decided the space in the garage is as good as it’s going to be. The outlines are fine and more days spent at home may be better than day tripping around Marin. As summer is fading, I want more snuggles, more talks, more walks and more books all with Miranda at my side. I want her to remember summer as a time to play and be with Mom.
That is as long as she’s willing to be there with me. For though I find myself missing her more and more, she’s missing me less and less. The great big world and her many friends call to her, call to her to play and play in the fading summer sun.
And that call needs to be answered as much as my call to take a bit more time at my side, before she moves even further away.
By Georgie Craig
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Monday, July 16, 2007
Grown Up
All my life I’ve wondered when I would feel grown up. Would it be my graduation from college? First job? First car? First apartment? Marriage, kids, mortgage? My parents’ death?
How many wrinkles and gray hairs would have to sprout before I stopped feeling like a perennial 18-year-old?
I’ve achieved all of these conventional mileposts, but none of them quite did the trick, not even the gray hair.
Instead, I found adulthood in the unlikeliest of places—standing in the kitchen with a bowl of chocolate frosting, fashioning teddy bear ears out of cupcakes for my daughter’s first birthday cake.
I’m not sure what it is about this ritual, but it somehow embodies the culmination of both motherhood and maturity for me. Each year as I cream the butter and sugar together, I remember the real birth day, the one in which I was too busy panting through contractions to even think about baking a cake. I remember my daughter’s ruff of blonde fluff, her incredible self-possession as she slept in her hospital bassinet, oblivious to the din around her and the joyous tumult her arrival brought.
Baking and decorating the cake each year is a kind of meditation on life and the passage of time. How far we have both come from that noisy hospital nursery! As I crack the eggs and measure the flour, vividly recalling that night, it’s like observing my own birth as an adult.
There have been so many cakes, and I am fierce about each one. No Safeway or Costco imposters, even when she clamored for perfect blue roses and cloying drifts of butter cream. Each cake was fashioned from scratch, cut into rough geometric shapes, assembled like some crazy jigsaw puzzle, and coaxed into its final form through the miracle of frosting and colored sugar. After the chocolate teddy bears came pastel bunnies with licorice whiskers, trains with Lifesaver wheels carrying their cargo of sprinkles, rainbow-frosted unicorns and butterflies, a beach scene with candy rocks, cupcake caterpillars.
The cakes are my most sincere offering of homespun goodness. They are charming, impressive but humble, creative, imperfect, structural disasters camouflaged with M&M’s and frosting. They are delicious. They are so much like a ripe life. No wonder they make me feel mature.
Today is my daughter’s first birthday away from home, if you don’t count the day she was born. It’s the first time she’s gotten her cake through the mail, still from scratch, but quite compact and unadorned to better withstand the unloving delivery of the postal service. I imagine it will be a little dried out and crumbling around the edges. So am I, but the purity of the ingredients that went into this cake is as strong as the first.
My daughter is still blonde, still self-possessed, still able to sleep through all kinds of racket. She’s all grown up now. I wonder when she’ll feel it.
By Lorrie Goldin Stumble This Post
How many wrinkles and gray hairs would have to sprout before I stopped feeling like a perennial 18-year-old?
I’ve achieved all of these conventional mileposts, but none of them quite did the trick, not even the gray hair.
Instead, I found adulthood in the unlikeliest of places—standing in the kitchen with a bowl of chocolate frosting, fashioning teddy bear ears out of cupcakes for my daughter’s first birthday cake.
I’m not sure what it is about this ritual, but it somehow embodies the culmination of both motherhood and maturity for me. Each year as I cream the butter and sugar together, I remember the real birth day, the one in which I was too busy panting through contractions to even think about baking a cake. I remember my daughter’s ruff of blonde fluff, her incredible self-possession as she slept in her hospital bassinet, oblivious to the din around her and the joyous tumult her arrival brought.
Baking and decorating the cake each year is a kind of meditation on life and the passage of time. How far we have both come from that noisy hospital nursery! As I crack the eggs and measure the flour, vividly recalling that night, it’s like observing my own birth as an adult.
There have been so many cakes, and I am fierce about each one. No Safeway or Costco imposters, even when she clamored for perfect blue roses and cloying drifts of butter cream. Each cake was fashioned from scratch, cut into rough geometric shapes, assembled like some crazy jigsaw puzzle, and coaxed into its final form through the miracle of frosting and colored sugar. After the chocolate teddy bears came pastel bunnies with licorice whiskers, trains with Lifesaver wheels carrying their cargo of sprinkles, rainbow-frosted unicorns and butterflies, a beach scene with candy rocks, cupcake caterpillars.
The cakes are my most sincere offering of homespun goodness. They are charming, impressive but humble, creative, imperfect, structural disasters camouflaged with M&M’s and frosting. They are delicious. They are so much like a ripe life. No wonder they make me feel mature.
Today is my daughter’s first birthday away from home, if you don’t count the day she was born. It’s the first time she’s gotten her cake through the mail, still from scratch, but quite compact and unadorned to better withstand the unloving delivery of the postal service. I imagine it will be a little dried out and crumbling around the edges. So am I, but the purity of the ingredients that went into this cake is as strong as the first.
My daughter is still blonde, still self-possessed, still able to sleep through all kinds of racket. She’s all grown up now. I wonder when she’ll feel it.
By Lorrie Goldin
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Sunday, July 15, 2007
Morbid Mommy
We spent Fourth of July the way most families do: at a BBQ with friends at their backyard pool, soaking up the sun and each other’s company. It was wonderful.
Nevertheless, in the week leading up to the event, I was overrun with terror.It would be the first time we would be spending time by a pool since our 19-month-old son, Julien, learned to walk, so, naturally, the gruesome, worst-case-scenario visions started: Julien is running along the pool’s edge and I’m chasing and shouting at him to stop. He looks back at me giggling and goes over the edge and into the deep end. I vault to grab his arm, but he slips under. Seconds pass and I’m finally able to snatch him by his T-shirt and pull him out. He chokes, coughing up water, but is OK. I am not.
I know. Horrible. Sick.
Sadly, this was not the first time. Ever since Julien was born I’ve been involuntarily projecting life-or-death scenarios over otherwise innocuous events. Walking the baby in his stroller in hilly San Francisco instantly conjured an image of my tripping and accidentally letting go, and the stroller speedily racing down the steep hill, right through an intersection.
I thought, ‘I’m a freak. A morbid mommy.’ I came to learn that I was not alone. A few moms have confessed to having gruesome visions themselves. While reading The Mommy Brain by Katherine Ellison, I bumped into a casual remark about the crazy, twisted thoughts moms have over what might happen to their children. And, like me, these were not overprotective moms. I thought, ’This must be another phenomenon that comes with mommyhood, like worry and guilt.’
I believe these visions serve an important purpose: they make us hyper-vigilant about protecting our children, while training our motherhood reflexes in the process. Those ugly images of a bath tub drowning kept me glued to my son whenever he took a soak. On walks, I gripped the stroller’s handles as if I were hanging from them.
Babies and toddlers can’t save their own lives, so as mothers we are forced to overcompensate for them.
Now that Julien is a little older and less fragile, and my mommy reflexes are better honed, I rarely get these visions. But new situations will present themselves. When they do, I just have to brace myself for yet another training session in motherhood. I’m certain there are even more yet to come.
By Cindy Bailey Stumble This Post
Nevertheless, in the week leading up to the event, I was overrun with terror.It would be the first time we would be spending time by a pool since our 19-month-old son, Julien, learned to walk, so, naturally, the gruesome, worst-case-scenario visions started: Julien is running along the pool’s edge and I’m chasing and shouting at him to stop. He looks back at me giggling and goes over the edge and into the deep end. I vault to grab his arm, but he slips under. Seconds pass and I’m finally able to snatch him by his T-shirt and pull him out. He chokes, coughing up water, but is OK. I am not.
I know. Horrible. Sick.
Sadly, this was not the first time. Ever since Julien was born I’ve been involuntarily projecting life-or-death scenarios over otherwise innocuous events. Walking the baby in his stroller in hilly San Francisco instantly conjured an image of my tripping and accidentally letting go, and the stroller speedily racing down the steep hill, right through an intersection.
I thought, ‘I’m a freak. A morbid mommy.’ I came to learn that I was not alone. A few moms have confessed to having gruesome visions themselves. While reading The Mommy Brain by Katherine Ellison, I bumped into a casual remark about the crazy, twisted thoughts moms have over what might happen to their children. And, like me, these were not overprotective moms. I thought, ’This must be another phenomenon that comes with mommyhood, like worry and guilt.’
I believe these visions serve an important purpose: they make us hyper-vigilant about protecting our children, while training our motherhood reflexes in the process. Those ugly images of a bath tub drowning kept me glued to my son whenever he took a soak. On walks, I gripped the stroller’s handles as if I were hanging from them.
Babies and toddlers can’t save their own lives, so as mothers we are forced to overcompensate for them.
Now that Julien is a little older and less fragile, and my mommy reflexes are better honed, I rarely get these visions. But new situations will present themselves. When they do, I just have to brace myself for yet another training session in motherhood. I’m certain there are even more yet to come.
By Cindy Bailey
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Saturday, July 14, 2007
Six Toes
Why is it so hard for some of us to get to know our mothers while they are alive?
Every year I get to know my mom better and better. I always knew Dad. He was so enchanting, a story teller, a romantic, and so in need of our love. He deserved it and he got it. I admire him still.
He loved us, but he really, really loved Mom.
They say girls are attached to fathers, their first love. Perhaps, this is true, but I realize more and more that I am a lot like my Mom and she taught by setting an example. She asked for little more than that we be straight-forward, always honest, and do the best we could.
She loved us and wanted us to stay at home forever, but she let us go and admired us for leaving. She was from a third generation of Swedish immigrants that had homesteaded on impossible agricultural land in South Dakota and eventually ended up in Minnesota where they were successful farmers.
She was a woman of few words, (whereas my father, an author, had many). She was
stubborn and tenacious when it came to integrity and honor in all dealings and she was the most kind, understanding person of infants and toddlers that I have every known.
My Mom had an “ear for music.” We used to tease her that she should play with her ears. She would sit at the piano and say, “Just hum the song. I can play it,” and we did, and she would. She really never understood that this was a great talent. In fact, she couldn’t understand why we couldn’t do it for ourselves. It was a natural part of being alive for her.
She never saw herself as special or having any special ability or talent. In fact, I think she sometimes felt like she was not special. I wonder now if this leads back to an accident when she was very young. She was one of nine children on the farm and all went on to get some sort of advanced education. She became a teacher. She was in her early 20s and teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse, which were common at that time in sparsely populated rural areas.
One day, a blizzard occurred and as some of the children came a distance to school each day she choose to keep them there and not allow them to venture out into the storm, visibility being zero.
She rotated the children around the pot-bellied stove that furnished warmth. The storm raged and they spent the night in the safety of the school room. The happy part of the story is that all the children survived, and the storm broke with no catastrophe, except to the teacher. My Mom had saved her class from frostbite, or worse, but on each foot two of her toes had been frozen, and were removed. She, perhaps at first, felt slightly deformed but overcame it and never mentioned this loss as in her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.” It became her mantra. She never saw herself as special, a heroine. She had just done what was right.
When I lost a breast to cancer, the other saying of hers that served me was, “Whatsoever, things be beautiful, look upon these things.”
My mother died of cancer and had but one request and that was that she die at home. The last time I saw her, I knew that this stoic, stubborn, determined child of Swedish immigrants needed to go home. My Dad made that possible.
I called my Dad and he said she could no longer talk. I asked him to put the phone by her ear. I said, “Mom it's okay to go. I need a guardian angel.”
Within a half hour she peacefully died and I have been served at times of need every since. As I grow old and wrinkled, I am renewed by her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.”
I love my Mom, keeping everyone else warm and safe, stoically moving on, not asking for acknowledgment. The deed that serves the day is enough. She is still an inspiration and when in need, my guardian angel.
I’m still getting to know my Mom.
By Ruth Scott Stumble This Post
Every year I get to know my mom better and better. I always knew Dad. He was so enchanting, a story teller, a romantic, and so in need of our love. He deserved it and he got it. I admire him still.
He loved us, but he really, really loved Mom.
They say girls are attached to fathers, their first love. Perhaps, this is true, but I realize more and more that I am a lot like my Mom and she taught by setting an example. She asked for little more than that we be straight-forward, always honest, and do the best we could.
She loved us and wanted us to stay at home forever, but she let us go and admired us for leaving. She was from a third generation of Swedish immigrants that had homesteaded on impossible agricultural land in South Dakota and eventually ended up in Minnesota where they were successful farmers.
She was a woman of few words, (whereas my father, an author, had many). She was
stubborn and tenacious when it came to integrity and honor in all dealings and she was the most kind, understanding person of infants and toddlers that I have every known.
My Mom had an “ear for music.” We used to tease her that she should play with her ears. She would sit at the piano and say, “Just hum the song. I can play it,” and we did, and she would. She really never understood that this was a great talent. In fact, she couldn’t understand why we couldn’t do it for ourselves. It was a natural part of being alive for her.
She never saw herself as special or having any special ability or talent. In fact, I think she sometimes felt like she was not special. I wonder now if this leads back to an accident when she was very young. She was one of nine children on the farm and all went on to get some sort of advanced education. She became a teacher. She was in her early 20s and teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse, which were common at that time in sparsely populated rural areas.
One day, a blizzard occurred and as some of the children came a distance to school each day she choose to keep them there and not allow them to venture out into the storm, visibility being zero.
She rotated the children around the pot-bellied stove that furnished warmth. The storm raged and they spent the night in the safety of the school room. The happy part of the story is that all the children survived, and the storm broke with no catastrophe, except to the teacher. My Mom had saved her class from frostbite, or worse, but on each foot two of her toes had been frozen, and were removed. She, perhaps at first, felt slightly deformed but overcame it and never mentioned this loss as in her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.” It became her mantra. She never saw herself as special, a heroine. She had just done what was right.
When I lost a breast to cancer, the other saying of hers that served me was, “Whatsoever, things be beautiful, look upon these things.”
My mother died of cancer and had but one request and that was that she die at home. The last time I saw her, I knew that this stoic, stubborn, determined child of Swedish immigrants needed to go home. My Dad made that possible.
I called my Dad and he said she could no longer talk. I asked him to put the phone by her ear. I said, “Mom it's okay to go. I need a guardian angel.”
Within a half hour she peacefully died and I have been served at times of need every since. As I grow old and wrinkled, I am renewed by her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.”
I love my Mom, keeping everyone else warm and safe, stoically moving on, not asking for acknowledgment. The deed that serves the day is enough. She is still an inspiration and when in need, my guardian angel.
I’m still getting to know my Mom.
By Ruth Scott
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Friday, July 13, 2007
A Sentence or Two
The best way I can explain my long road back from postpartum depression is that I had to re-find my sentence. I love those people in my life that create a colorful sentence or two.
Create a sentence?
Like the bail-bonds owner, my bleach-blonde, blue eyed, petite and gorgeous Mexican ex-roommate and fervent Catholic, who re-paid a small kindness by moving in, paying half my rent for a year -- while secretly owning several homes and a yacht in the Bay Area, staying occasionally with her ex-husband, and driving off on her once-a-week overnights with a tall, skinny guy in a black Buick.
Turns out the scraped knees explained by her stories of bounty hunting all over Mexico were more likely from her life as a high-class prostitute.
Or the hippie-slash-yuppie with a wallet re-gifted from Larry David, a pajama shirt from Bruce Willis and a refrigerator home to seaweed and kale who invited some free-wheeling friends for a tantric yoga love-fest while visiting our Australian home on a whirlwind international trip paid for by an advance on a script for a sitcom about 30-something hippie-slash-yuppies.
I love these people -- their flavors spice up my sentence-less life.
Every now and then I would try and write my sentence. It was overwhelmingly challenging. At times I could honestly not remember my past -- what I did, what I loved.
But every month it got a trifle easier. I tried not to hyper-analyze this neurotic behavior. No doubt it was about relating to me as a mother, about adjusting to the monumental change -- chemical and logistical.
I envied those new mothers who seemed to have nothing but warm fuzzies augmenting their unfettered lives. I heard their sentences daily as I walked by in my dark haze of insecurity.
For those who (like me) faced motherhood with preparatory books in hand and naivety on pristine sleeves -- keep writing your sentence. Include the past, the present and the future. Embrace your precious child, and hug yourself again hello.
By Robyn Murphy Stumble This Post
Create a sentence?
Like the bail-bonds owner, my bleach-blonde, blue eyed, petite and gorgeous Mexican ex-roommate and fervent Catholic, who re-paid a small kindness by moving in, paying half my rent for a year -- while secretly owning several homes and a yacht in the Bay Area, staying occasionally with her ex-husband, and driving off on her once-a-week overnights with a tall, skinny guy in a black Buick.
Turns out the scraped knees explained by her stories of bounty hunting all over Mexico were more likely from her life as a high-class prostitute.
Or the hippie-slash-yuppie with a wallet re-gifted from Larry David, a pajama shirt from Bruce Willis and a refrigerator home to seaweed and kale who invited some free-wheeling friends for a tantric yoga love-fest while visiting our Australian home on a whirlwind international trip paid for by an advance on a script for a sitcom about 30-something hippie-slash-yuppies.
I love these people -- their flavors spice up my sentence-less life.
Every now and then I would try and write my sentence. It was overwhelmingly challenging. At times I could honestly not remember my past -- what I did, what I loved.
But every month it got a trifle easier. I tried not to hyper-analyze this neurotic behavior. No doubt it was about relating to me as a mother, about adjusting to the monumental change -- chemical and logistical.
I envied those new mothers who seemed to have nothing but warm fuzzies augmenting their unfettered lives. I heard their sentences daily as I walked by in my dark haze of insecurity.
For those who (like me) faced motherhood with preparatory books in hand and naivety on pristine sleeves -- keep writing your sentence. Include the past, the present and the future. Embrace your precious child, and hug yourself again hello.
By Robyn Murphy
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Thursday, July 12, 2007
Fairy Tea Party
My six-year old daughter believes in fairies.
I think it might have started with that scene in Peter Pan when Tinkerbell is near death. Only the chant, "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do," resuscitates her. Sometimes I hear Elena mumbling that chant as she draws fairies, always with long hair and double wings.
Elena constructs offerings for the tiny fairies that inhabit our backyard. She folds ivy leaves around peanut M&Ms and coins and reinforces them with clear tape. "The fairies are my best friends," Elena said one day.
Stumbling, I said, "Aren't I your best friend?"
"You are my mommy, not my friend," she chided me.
Trying to be casual, I asked Elena what the fairies do to earn best friend status. “They gave Annika fairy dust. I want the fairies to leave some for me, too. Annika sprinkled some on a dead squirrel and it came back to life."
"I don't know if fairy magic is that powerful."
"It is Mama. When I get some fairy dust, I'm going to sprinkle it over the bunnies' graves, and they’ll come back to life.”
"But those bunnies have been dead for a couple of months. They've become parts of worms and plants. If they come back to life, the worms and plants will die."
Elena seemed confused. So was I.
A couple of days ago, Elena asked if we could have a tea party for the fairies. "Sure, let's make some invitations," I said.
Elena made fairy drawings, and she asked me to write, in the fanciest cursive, the time, date and location of our party. We decided on Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m., after her non-believing nine-year old brother had gone to school.
Elena took the invitation down to the birdhouse she had redesigned as a fairy home. It had a perch by the front door and medal lid positioned on its side so the fairies could study their reflections. I noticed Elena had taken three plants from my flower bed and put them into tiny plastic pots next to our home. Placing the invitation on top of the house, Elena said, "I can't wait for you to meet the fairies!"
The day of fairy party arrived. I made Earl Grey tea, and put it in a ceramic tea pot I hadn't used in ten years. Elena insisted on arranging ten chocolate cookies on a plate. "Fairies like cookies a lot." I suppressed my urge to make some phone calls for work, do the breakfast dishes, or sweep our hallway.
We sat on our deck, drinking our tea. I thought Elena would be upset that the fairies didn't come, but she seemed content sitting still, listening for fairy giggles in the nearby rose bush.
"Fairies are very shy," she said.
By Beth Touchette Stumble This Post
I think it might have started with that scene in Peter Pan when Tinkerbell is near death. Only the chant, "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do," resuscitates her. Sometimes I hear Elena mumbling that chant as she draws fairies, always with long hair and double wings.
Elena constructs offerings for the tiny fairies that inhabit our backyard. She folds ivy leaves around peanut M&Ms and coins and reinforces them with clear tape. "The fairies are my best friends," Elena said one day.
Stumbling, I said, "Aren't I your best friend?"
"You are my mommy, not my friend," she chided me.
Trying to be casual, I asked Elena what the fairies do to earn best friend status. “They gave Annika fairy dust. I want the fairies to leave some for me, too. Annika sprinkled some on a dead squirrel and it came back to life."
"I don't know if fairy magic is that powerful."
"It is Mama. When I get some fairy dust, I'm going to sprinkle it over the bunnies' graves, and they’ll come back to life.”
"But those bunnies have been dead for a couple of months. They've become parts of worms and plants. If they come back to life, the worms and plants will die."
Elena seemed confused. So was I.
A couple of days ago, Elena asked if we could have a tea party for the fairies. "Sure, let's make some invitations," I said.
Elena made fairy drawings, and she asked me to write, in the fanciest cursive, the time, date and location of our party. We decided on Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m., after her non-believing nine-year old brother had gone to school.
Elena took the invitation down to the birdhouse she had redesigned as a fairy home. It had a perch by the front door and medal lid positioned on its side so the fairies could study their reflections. I noticed Elena had taken three plants from my flower bed and put them into tiny plastic pots next to our home. Placing the invitation on top of the house, Elena said, "I can't wait for you to meet the fairies!"
The day of fairy party arrived. I made Earl Grey tea, and put it in a ceramic tea pot I hadn't used in ten years. Elena insisted on arranging ten chocolate cookies on a plate. "Fairies like cookies a lot." I suppressed my urge to make some phone calls for work, do the breakfast dishes, or sweep our hallway.
We sat on our deck, drinking our tea. I thought Elena would be upset that the fairies didn't come, but she seemed content sitting still, listening for fairy giggles in the nearby rose bush.
"Fairies are very shy," she said.
By Beth Touchette
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Advice
“Don’t grow old,” my mother advised.
What am I supposed to do with this nugget of maternal wisdom? Was she really recommending a tragic early death through cancer, car wrecks or suicide?
None of these poses a particularly good alternative to old age.
My advice to my own daughters is much more prosaic:
“Always pay off your credit card balance in full.”
“If you want to have children, pick a profession where you can work part time.”
“Don’t have a job that requires you to wear pantyhose every day.”
I try not to burden them with unwise wisdom.
I guess my mother was really just reiterating her overall philosophy: “Don’t be like me.”
Another impossible admonition.
Almost every woman I know fears turning into her mother, and, despite their fervent attempts to be different, almost all of them bear at least some traces of their earliest model. Like baby ducklings imprinting on the first creature they see, we just can’t help it.
I’ve seen myself turn into my mother in ways I vowed to avoid, such as assuming political kinship with people who are offended when I trash Republicans. But I also know that some of my mother’s lovely traits infuse me, such as a great sense of humor and a strong commitment to social justice. My adolescent embarrassment made me blind to so much that is worthy of incorporation.
Perhaps growing old is the very act of integrating and accepting the imperfect and attractive attributes of both our mothers and ourselves. If so, it’s to be embraced, not dreaded.
By Lorrie Goldin Stumble This Post
What am I supposed to do with this nugget of maternal wisdom? Was she really recommending a tragic early death through cancer, car wrecks or suicide?
None of these poses a particularly good alternative to old age.
My advice to my own daughters is much more prosaic:
“Always pay off your credit card balance in full.”
“If you want to have children, pick a profession where you can work part time.”
“Don’t have a job that requires you to wear pantyhose every day.”
I try not to burden them with unwise wisdom.
I guess my mother was really just reiterating her overall philosophy: “Don’t be like me.”
Another impossible admonition.
Almost every woman I know fears turning into her mother, and, despite their fervent attempts to be different, almost all of them bear at least some traces of their earliest model. Like baby ducklings imprinting on the first creature they see, we just can’t help it.
I’ve seen myself turn into my mother in ways I vowed to avoid, such as assuming political kinship with people who are offended when I trash Republicans. But I also know that some of my mother’s lovely traits infuse me, such as a great sense of humor and a strong commitment to social justice. My adolescent embarrassment made me blind to so much that is worthy of incorporation.
Perhaps growing old is the very act of integrating and accepting the imperfect and attractive attributes of both our mothers and ourselves. If so, it’s to be embraced, not dreaded.
By Lorrie Goldin
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Extraction
Have you seen that e-mail going around about the way to remove things caught up in your kids’ noses? I think it was originally sent to me via my twins group – which was then followed by a group replys of – “Hey, we had that happen, too!” and “Ohmygod, that is the coolest home remedy ever!”
It’s as simple as closing your little rascal’s mouth completely, airtight, and then blowing gently into the one nostril that DOES NOT have the alien object imbedded in it. A little blow and – poot! – the offending item flies out of the clogged nostril.
When I saw this e-mail come through, I was in the later group: the, “Wow, what a totally cool thing to know as a mom.” The avoidance of speeding down Sir Frances Drake to Marin General Hospital with a large pea up the schnooz is right up there with flying across country with three kids under age four. Both as high in the fear/terror/I can’t-believe-I’m-in-this-situation level of the parental horror-story scale as you can get! Both worth avoiding like the plague (or today’s Bird Flu), so I burned this e-mail tidbit into my memory with hopes I’d never have to use it.
And then, I clicked the delete e-mail button and forgot about it.
Today, during lunch, one of my two and a half-year-old twin girls – the one who likes to lick sunscreen from the tube like yogurt and swipe Chapstick from my bedside table and smear it over and over and over her lips – was fiddling with her pasta. Elbow macaroni, to be precise, with a delicate, yet slick, sheen of olive oil that made it slither around in her dexterous digits.
Yes, it was the perfect, alluring treasure to subtly squish up her nose. And though she’d been busted “pretending” to do it with a loud, and clearly completely ineffective reprimand, “Not in your nose, sweetie, it’ll give you an owie,” she subtly, deftly stuffs it into her left nostril without this eagle-eyed mommy catching a glimpse.
Two hours later, she’s having a rough put-down for a nap. Whining, complaining, stripping off her clothes, goofing, throwing, and finally just plain yelling.
I go in and calm her. As I snuggle her back into her jammies and pink cotton sack, I notice a gleaming, whitish booger peeking out of her nose.
Taking my pinky fingernail and thumb, I am able to slowly, efficiently extract a ½ inch noodle out of her nose. Noodle??????!!! The look of surprise on her face probably matched the horror of surprise I felt. NOODLE!!!????????
So I didn’t need the “coolest way ever to extract an object from a nose” that the mass e-mail had promised. But, I also didn’t need a trip to the overloaded Marin General’s ER. I just needed me, a mom of three, who’s just about seen it all: ‘cept today’s lunch up my kid’s nose. Go figure.
By Annie Yearout Stumble This Post
It’s as simple as closing your little rascal’s mouth completely, airtight, and then blowing gently into the one nostril that DOES NOT have the alien object imbedded in it. A little blow and – poot! – the offending item flies out of the clogged nostril.
When I saw this e-mail come through, I was in the later group: the, “Wow, what a totally cool thing to know as a mom.” The avoidance of speeding down Sir Frances Drake to Marin General Hospital with a large pea up the schnooz is right up there with flying across country with three kids under age four. Both as high in the fear/terror/I can’t-believe-I’m-in-this-situation level of the parental horror-story scale as you can get! Both worth avoiding like the plague (or today’s Bird Flu), so I burned this e-mail tidbit into my memory with hopes I’d never have to use it.
And then, I clicked the delete e-mail button and forgot about it.
Today, during lunch, one of my two and a half-year-old twin girls – the one who likes to lick sunscreen from the tube like yogurt and swipe Chapstick from my bedside table and smear it over and over and over her lips – was fiddling with her pasta. Elbow macaroni, to be precise, with a delicate, yet slick, sheen of olive oil that made it slither around in her dexterous digits.
Yes, it was the perfect, alluring treasure to subtly squish up her nose. And though she’d been busted “pretending” to do it with a loud, and clearly completely ineffective reprimand, “Not in your nose, sweetie, it’ll give you an owie,” she subtly, deftly stuffs it into her left nostril without this eagle-eyed mommy catching a glimpse.
Two hours later, she’s having a rough put-down for a nap. Whining, complaining, stripping off her clothes, goofing, throwing, and finally just plain yelling.
I go in and calm her. As I snuggle her back into her jammies and pink cotton sack, I notice a gleaming, whitish booger peeking out of her nose.
Taking my pinky fingernail and thumb, I am able to slowly, efficiently extract a ½ inch noodle out of her nose. Noodle??????!!! The look of surprise on her face probably matched the horror of surprise I felt. NOODLE!!!????????
So I didn’t need the “coolest way ever to extract an object from a nose” that the mass e-mail had promised. But, I also didn’t need a trip to the overloaded Marin General’s ER. I just needed me, a mom of three, who’s just about seen it all: ‘cept today’s lunch up my kid’s nose. Go figure.
By Annie Yearout
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Monday, July 09, 2007
Shitty Mom
I think about my family that I so take for granted.
I would give them up in a heartbeat if it meant I got my freedom back. I am sure I would not have gone to any great lengths to have them if I was told I “couldn’t.”
Would I have taken that as a personal challenge?
I honestly do not understand why people want so desperately to be parents. I can’t remember why I wanted to be one. How could I possibly have thought that I could do this?
I am sure if there were some sort of parental regulation with certain standards that must be upheld I would have been denied the necessary permits. Even now, I sometimes secretly wish that they would come take my children away and declare me unfit.
I hear them cry and I admit – I don’t always rush to comfort them. I hesitate, not because I know they need to work it out themselves, but because I don’t want to.
I feel their pressure on me both physically and emotionally. I feel their assault on my senses constantly as they scream and pound and shriek and whine and need.
I dread the sound of “Mommy” no matter what the tone.
I am sickened by the sound of my own voice. “That’s not okay.” “How else could you have asked for that?" “We don’t hit.”
Even I don’t want to hear me anymore.
I often feel disconnected from this life I have chosen as if I ordered the wrong color from the catalog and now what I really wanted is no longer in stock.
Is it too late to get what I want?
By Cathy Burke Stumble This Post
I would give them up in a heartbeat if it meant I got my freedom back. I am sure I would not have gone to any great lengths to have them if I was told I “couldn’t.”
Would I have taken that as a personal challenge?
I honestly do not understand why people want so desperately to be parents. I can’t remember why I wanted to be one. How could I possibly have thought that I could do this?
I am sure if there were some sort of parental regulation with certain standards that must be upheld I would have been denied the necessary permits. Even now, I sometimes secretly wish that they would come take my children away and declare me unfit.
I hear them cry and I admit – I don’t always rush to comfort them. I hesitate, not because I know they need to work it out themselves, but because I don’t want to.
I feel their pressure on me both physically and emotionally. I feel their assault on my senses constantly as they scream and pound and shriek and whine and need.
I dread the sound of “Mommy” no matter what the tone.
I am sickened by the sound of my own voice. “That’s not okay.” “How else could you have asked for that?" “We don’t hit.”
Even I don’t want to hear me anymore.
I often feel disconnected from this life I have chosen as if I ordered the wrong color from the catalog and now what I really wanted is no longer in stock.
Is it too late to get what I want?
By Cathy Burke
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Sunday, July 08, 2007
Parenting to Pieces
Pieces: that is how I define much of my life as a parent of two young boys.
When I speak, I find my mind firing thoughts fractured from what they would have been if I had not had children. When I pass a mirror, I find my formerly smooth skin covered in wrinkles and stress lines. I find my once unified brunette hair broken by streaks of gray.
That is why I find LEGOs so addictive. I am an admitted control freak and I am able to take solace in the fact that one thing in my life has a clear instruction manual. I find lame excuses to give my kids a set of LEGOs for reward. “Jack, you woke up in such a great mood today, here is a 537 piece X-wing Fighter.” And “Jacob, thank you for eating that mini-carrot; I have a 210 piece racecar for you.”
There is something clearly selfish about handing my 3- and 5-year olds a toy marked “Recommended Age: 8-12.” I am pretty sure I planned it that way when I gave them their first set after I had convinced myself they were old enough to not eat the small pieces. Even though they are brilliant and gifted, they are obviously too young to put all 537 pieces together. The thought gives me a little thrill.
We don’t even have to wait to visit the store for our LEGO fix because I have a stash of them hidden in the garage. Like a junkie. The three of us rush inside with excitement brimming over the table feverishly discovering how many bags hold the contraband inside.
I clear the table of kid cups and crusted Play-Doh and start separating the pieces according to color. As I open the cover page of the instruction book, I am delighted to get the boring part over right away by allowing the kids to assemble the people. This is the ONLY thing they have the ability to build, thank goodness, because it is only a helmet, head, body, and feet. However, the “guys” are the most exciting part for the youngsters so everybody wins. “Now go play with the guys for two hours so I can build this thing.”
I imagine the twisted designer nestled away in the Netherlands laughing as he teases me with the picture of the completed toy. A mild wave of defeat washes over me as I look at the hundreds of pieces in front of me. Initially, it seems to be a task as insurmountable as parenting, yet I dig in because this one comes with an instruction manual.
To fuel my addiction, I am the only one who can put the pieces back together after they are inevitably ripped apart. I must admit, this is the part that has me rethinking the minimum required age for building these things because even though the control freak part of me is satisfied being the only person to fix these crafts, the perfectionist part of me is taking hits with each piece scattered carelessly around the play room for me to find with my bare foot. This loss of control feels as familiar as accepting a pajama top for school picture day and removes some of the high provided by my beloved LEGOs.
However, like all addicts, I ignore the downside and focus on the fact that LEGOs have saved my life as a mom. They give me a fun, interactive, step-by-step way to unleash my inner control freak and dabble in reassembling the pieces of my life without harming my kids, I hope.
By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy Stumble This Post
When I speak, I find my mind firing thoughts fractured from what they would have been if I had not had children. When I pass a mirror, I find my formerly smooth skin covered in wrinkles and stress lines. I find my once unified brunette hair broken by streaks of gray.
That is why I find LEGOs so addictive. I am an admitted control freak and I am able to take solace in the fact that one thing in my life has a clear instruction manual. I find lame excuses to give my kids a set of LEGOs for reward. “Jack, you woke up in such a great mood today, here is a 537 piece X-wing Fighter.” And “Jacob, thank you for eating that mini-carrot; I have a 210 piece racecar for you.”
There is something clearly selfish about handing my 3- and 5-year olds a toy marked “Recommended Age: 8-12.” I am pretty sure I planned it that way when I gave them their first set after I had convinced myself they were old enough to not eat the small pieces. Even though they are brilliant and gifted, they are obviously too young to put all 537 pieces together. The thought gives me a little thrill.
We don’t even have to wait to visit the store for our LEGO fix because I have a stash of them hidden in the garage. Like a junkie. The three of us rush inside with excitement brimming over the table feverishly discovering how many bags hold the contraband inside.
I clear the table of kid cups and crusted Play-Doh and start separating the pieces according to color. As I open the cover page of the instruction book, I am delighted to get the boring part over right away by allowing the kids to assemble the people. This is the ONLY thing they have the ability to build, thank goodness, because it is only a helmet, head, body, and feet. However, the “guys” are the most exciting part for the youngsters so everybody wins. “Now go play with the guys for two hours so I can build this thing.”
I imagine the twisted designer nestled away in the Netherlands laughing as he teases me with the picture of the completed toy. A mild wave of defeat washes over me as I look at the hundreds of pieces in front of me. Initially, it seems to be a task as insurmountable as parenting, yet I dig in because this one comes with an instruction manual.
To fuel my addiction, I am the only one who can put the pieces back together after they are inevitably ripped apart. I must admit, this is the part that has me rethinking the minimum required age for building these things because even though the control freak part of me is satisfied being the only person to fix these crafts, the perfectionist part of me is taking hits with each piece scattered carelessly around the play room for me to find with my bare foot. This loss of control feels as familiar as accepting a pajama top for school picture day and removes some of the high provided by my beloved LEGOs.
However, like all addicts, I ignore the downside and focus on the fact that LEGOs have saved my life as a mom. They give me a fun, interactive, step-by-step way to unleash my inner control freak and dabble in reassembling the pieces of my life without harming my kids, I hope.
By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy
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Saturday, July 07, 2007
Lost Seasons
When my brother ventured to California for the first time to visit me, he just could not get used to the continually perfect weather. Each morning he marveled over it. I, on the other hand, quickly adjusted when we moved West five years ago and was only too happy to donate my heavy, itchy turtleneck sweaters in favor of winter clothes that would not survive October in upstate New York.
However, now that I am a mother, I find myself nostalgic on my son’s behalf for the blustery autumns, winters and even springs of my childhood. Many of my fondest memories involve jumping with my brother into giant piles of spectacularly colored leaves, freshly raked by my father. I tried to explain the joy and beauty of these autumns to my Oregon-born husband, but he laughingly reassured me that there are “colored leaves” on the West Coast too. It was not until I took him to meet my grandmother in Vermont in mid-October one year that he truly understood the difference.
In the Northeast, autumn’s leaves soon give way to the powdery snowflakes of early winter. It is amazing that entire years go by now without this sight. My first non-white Christmas was undeniably dreary, with the gray Oregon rain pounding down on the matted green grass of my mother-in-law’s lawn. I thought back on the many winters of sledding and building snowmen and snow forts with my father and brother. Of course, the best part was making and eating snow candy with my mother. I cannot help but be sad that my son will not experience these things as a regular part of his childhood. Here, one season flows into the next with such subtlety that you could easily forget what month it is. A trip to Lake Tahoe to “visit” the snow is just not the same as when it falls unbidden into your own backyard.
Sometimes I feel that I owe it to my son to live where he can experience the true seasons of my childhood. That is, until I must grudgingly acknowledge the accompanying black ice, freezing rain and dirty snow that hangs around until April. And of course, those heavy, itchy turtleneck sweaters.
By: Rebecca Jackson
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However, now that I am a mother, I find myself nostalgic on my son’s behalf for the blustery autumns, winters and even springs of my childhood. Many of my fondest memories involve jumping with my brother into giant piles of spectacularly colored leaves, freshly raked by my father. I tried to explain the joy and beauty of these autumns to my Oregon-born husband, but he laughingly reassured me that there are “colored leaves” on the West Coast too. It was not until I took him to meet my grandmother in Vermont in mid-October one year that he truly understood the difference.
In the Northeast, autumn’s leaves soon give way to the powdery snowflakes of early winter. It is amazing that entire years go by now without this sight. My first non-white Christmas was undeniably dreary, with the gray Oregon rain pounding down on the matted green grass of my mother-in-law’s lawn. I thought back on the many winters of sledding and building snowmen and snow forts with my father and brother. Of course, the best part was making and eating snow candy with my mother. I cannot help but be sad that my son will not experience these things as a regular part of his childhood. Here, one season flows into the next with such subtlety that you could easily forget what month it is. A trip to Lake Tahoe to “visit” the snow is just not the same as when it falls unbidden into your own backyard.
Sometimes I feel that I owe it to my son to live where he can experience the true seasons of my childhood. That is, until I must grudgingly acknowledge the accompanying black ice, freezing rain and dirty snow that hangs around until April. And of course, those heavy, itchy turtleneck sweaters.
By: Rebecca Jackson
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Friday, July 06, 2007
Why the Brady Bunch Parents Smile
I knew better than to expect anything like that when my partner and I moved in together. The unfixable loss of divorce is that you never reclaim the wholeness of the original family. There are always conflicts of loyalty, as parents try to decide how to share out their time and money among their kids, their step kids, and their new spouses. The conflicts last until death do us part, and parents must divide up their assets in their estate plans.
For years I thought I should aim to re-create the closeness of an original family within our blended family. My stepdaughter moved in with us full-time, and every day I would put aside the problems of the day before and try for one more tiny step towards togetherness. I was never happier than when I finally admitted defeat, whooshing down those icy slopes I’d been trying to climb and ending up in a laughing heap at the bottom.
Now that I’ve become an every-other-weekend step mom, I’m seeing a new possibility. Maybe this awkwardly joined family offers advantages over the traditional model. For example, when my partner is saddened by his teenage daughter’s nasty hysteria, I can be dispassionate. She’s not my kid. I sit back and remind him that this is a characteristic of her age, and that they have been very close in the past and will probably be so again. And when I talk to him about my son’s budding neuroses and my daughter’s defiance, he listens quietly and tells me I seem like I’m on the right track to addressing those issues.
But if we were co-parents, we probably couldn’t do this for each other. We would both be enmeshed in the issues of each child. We’d have our own deeply held convictions and experiences and would be caught in our concern and occasional disagreements, unable to let go. Instead, our top priority in our relationship is each other. We get involved in kid issues to the extent that we need to in order to support each other, and no more. Frankly, we just don’t care about each other’s kids to the same all-engrossing degree that we have to care about our own.
They say that it’s tough on a relationship for both partners to work at the same company or be in business together. The business ends up taking over the relationship, leaving no space for playful couple time or even down time. Well, I say it’s tough for partners to be parents together. The parenthood ends up taking over the relationship, leaving no space for playful couple time or even down time.
Maybe blended families are the ideal, after all. Just look at Mr. and Mrs. Brady—they’re smiling.
By Meridian James
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Thursday, July 05, 2007
Labor of Love
I’ve learned not to discuss the birth of my son with other mothers. It pisses them off. I stay silent while others discuss their pain wracked hours and days of labor. Occasionally, a mom will ask, “How long was your labor?”
“Three and a half hours,” I say meekly.
“You’re kidding!” the mom responds. “I pushed for longer than that! How long did you push?” I’m not quite sure why a flash of anger flares, but it invariably does.
“Twenty minutes,” I respond.
The head shakes. Conversation shifts from me to the rest of the group. My labor doesn’t count, too easy. I don’t have a war story to share.
I used to explain that the pain went from 0 to a 100 in the blink of an eye. I took a warm shower at the hospital and all over body shakes pushed me from standing to flat on my face, hugging the tiles. I vomited and shook and begged for drugs, but the shot arrived too late. I didn’t know it would all be over soon – I assumed I had hours and hours to go. I don’t recite this litany anymore; nobody has any sympathy for me. To be honest, even the nurse in the delivery room looked a bit disgusted that I complained about the contractions.
I get it – I’m quite grateful my labor and delivery was short. I felt great almost immediately after Nick’s birth because my body wasn’t tired out from a long ordeal. But my experience still counts. I still did it. I gave birth.
By Marianne Lonsdale
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Getting Acquainted
I’ve been so immersed tending to my young children that I didn’t notice when this new person entered our lives until well, she was here. Now she’s hard to miss despite her diminutive size since she makes her presence known by her brazenness and charm.
Apparently she is a child of few manners and few words who can still adeptly manage to get what she wants. This child has the audacity to walk right up to one of my older children and just grab what they’re holding and walk away! Without so much as a “may I?” too! She also demands, yes demands things by ranting “Me! Me! Me!” with little arms extended in front of her.
She’s absolutely enthralled with our 90-pound puppy and lets him know of her adoration by flinging herself on him. But she also wants to remind him to “wait” for treats by walking past him several times with cookies and crackers held at snout level.
We have discovered that she can skip and loves to sing the chorus (even if there isn’t one) to music in the car. I’ve discovered that she enjoys trying on different expressions, especially those of annoyance and consternation while looking in a closet mirror, before walking off in an exaggerated huff.
Her eyes resemble our youngest child Grace, the sweet little baby who would peer out from the sling with such a loving, innocent gaze. And her smile mirrors how Grace would beam while happily accompanying me on errands. But this child is restless in the shopping cart and gives an arched-back protest if transported in the car for more than one stop.
She has sorted through baby Grace’s clothes to find exactly what she wants to wear each day, which often includes accessories. Shoes to match. Ensembles she tries to put on herself and then tries to wiggle out of when I attempt to help have replaced the simple onesies and slip on shoes.
I must admit that I miss our little baby who was so amiable and just wanted to be held. This little girl is a whirling dervish of energy and interest. The days of cradling a little body nestled close in a sling are long gone.
The easy-going, docile temperament of our baby has been replaced by the determined disposition of our toddler. Life is not how it was.
I watch this child enjoying her Music Together CD, clapping along to the song joyfully dancing in that ballerina tutu over jean overalls. She knows what she likes and what she wants. And I’m intrigued.
I don’t know when our little babe became this independent-minded, opinionated young lady of 23 months but I’m enjoying getting to know her.
By Maija Threlkeld Stumble This Post
Apparently she is a child of few manners and few words who can still adeptly manage to get what she wants. This child has the audacity to walk right up to one of my older children and just grab what they’re holding and walk away! Without so much as a “may I?” too! She also demands, yes demands things by ranting “Me! Me! Me!” with little arms extended in front of her.
She’s absolutely enthralled with our 90-pound puppy and lets him know of her adoration by flinging herself on him. But she also wants to remind him to “wait” for treats by walking past him several times with cookies and crackers held at snout level.
We have discovered that she can skip and loves to sing the chorus (even if there isn’t one) to music in the car. I’ve discovered that she enjoys trying on different expressions, especially those of annoyance and consternation while looking in a closet mirror, before walking off in an exaggerated huff.
Her eyes resemble our youngest child Grace, the sweet little baby who would peer out from the sling with such a loving, innocent gaze. And her smile mirrors how Grace would beam while happily accompanying me on errands. But this child is restless in the shopping cart and gives an arched-back protest if transported in the car for more than one stop.
She has sorted through baby Grace’s clothes to find exactly what she wants to wear each day, which often includes accessories. Shoes to match. Ensembles she tries to put on herself and then tries to wiggle out of when I attempt to help have replaced the simple onesies and slip on shoes.
I must admit that I miss our little baby who was so amiable and just wanted to be held. This little girl is a whirling dervish of energy and interest. The days of cradling a little body nestled close in a sling are long gone.
The easy-going, docile temperament of our baby has been replaced by the determined disposition of our toddler. Life is not how it was.
I watch this child enjoying her Music Together CD, clapping along to the song joyfully dancing in that ballerina tutu over jean overalls. She knows what she likes and what she wants. And I’m intrigued.
I don’t know when our little babe became this independent-minded, opinionated young lady of 23 months but I’m enjoying getting to know her.
By Maija Threlkeld
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Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Chocolate Cake for Breakfast
Before I had two children, I never understood how my mother let us eat chocolate cake for breakfast and potato chip sandwiches for lunch.
I am my mother’s daughter, after all.
By Jessica O'Dwyer
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Monday, July 02, 2007
The Harvest
The harvest is in! Peaches, plums, strawberries, nectarines! Raspberries, apricots, mandarin oranges! Ripe and juicy, plump and sweet. Hanging like Christmas ornaments, gleaming in the morning sun.
We grab our wicker baskets and hats, and pull on our long-sleeved shirts. We tromp down the stone steps to the garden beds at the bottom of our back slope. The branches are loaded!
“Lizard!” Mateo calls out, as a gecko scurries across our path and scoots into a dark space between the stones. My son crouches down to lizard level, eyeball to eyeball with the prehistoric thing. “Green!”
“I want all the black raspberries,” Olivia announces, not pausing to look. “Forty-four hundred ninety-two.” She finds a level spot to set down her basket and goes to work, her fingers as nimble as a spider’s legs as she feels in the sticker bush for the ripe fruit. One berry in the basket, five in her mouth, the sweet juice dripping down her chin. As if by instinct, she knows which berries to pull off and which to leave, her extractions as sure and delicate as a surgeon’s.
“Amazing, the way these strawberries put on.” Tim appears on the steps beside me, his basket already full.
I reach in and pick the fattest, reddest specimen. “Glorious,” I say.
Tim is the one with the farm-boy roots, the survivor if someone dropped him in a forest with a compass and a book of matches. He monitors the pollination of the bees and gauges the rainfall. He knows when to fertilize and how to dig the beds so they drain.
I pluck another strawberry and take a bite. “Absolutely perfect!”
Mateo trundles down the steps toward us, his gecko pursuit abandoned. “Peaches!” he says. Tim sweeps him up for a piggy-back ride to the tree. “Come on, big boy.”
The yard is a collage of colors, purple and pink and yellow and red. I smell the earthy bark of the redwood, the sugary aroma of the ripe fruit. A breeze ripples through the branches of the willow, and it sounds like a waterfall.
Today we’ll have raspberries on our cereal, strawberries on our pancakes, plums for dessert and peach ice cream. We’ll stockpile what we don’t use, labeling plastic bags with black Sharpie pens before stacking them in the freezer downstairs. All winter long, we’ll eat jam and sorbet, buckles and muffins, tarts, smoothies and galettes.
I reach for my basket, ready to pick. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swoops in ascending circles, coasting on invisible currents. I watch until he disappears, certain he’s flying toward heaven.
By Jessica O’Dwyer Stumble This Post
We grab our wicker baskets and hats, and pull on our long-sleeved shirts. We tromp down the stone steps to the garden beds at the bottom of our back slope. The branches are loaded!
“Lizard!” Mateo calls out, as a gecko scurries across our path and scoots into a dark space between the stones. My son crouches down to lizard level, eyeball to eyeball with the prehistoric thing. “Green!”
“I want all the black raspberries,” Olivia announces, not pausing to look. “Forty-four hundred ninety-two.” She finds a level spot to set down her basket and goes to work, her fingers as nimble as a spider’s legs as she feels in the sticker bush for the ripe fruit. One berry in the basket, five in her mouth, the sweet juice dripping down her chin. As if by instinct, she knows which berries to pull off and which to leave, her extractions as sure and delicate as a surgeon’s.
“Amazing, the way these strawberries put on.” Tim appears on the steps beside me, his basket already full.
I reach in and pick the fattest, reddest specimen. “Glorious,” I say.
Tim is the one with the farm-boy roots, the survivor if someone dropped him in a forest with a compass and a book of matches. He monitors the pollination of the bees and gauges the rainfall. He knows when to fertilize and how to dig the beds so they drain.
I pluck another strawberry and take a bite. “Absolutely perfect!”
Mateo trundles down the steps toward us, his gecko pursuit abandoned. “Peaches!” he says. Tim sweeps him up for a piggy-back ride to the tree. “Come on, big boy.”
The yard is a collage of colors, purple and pink and yellow and red. I smell the earthy bark of the redwood, the sugary aroma of the ripe fruit. A breeze ripples through the branches of the willow, and it sounds like a waterfall.
Today we’ll have raspberries on our cereal, strawberries on our pancakes, plums for dessert and peach ice cream. We’ll stockpile what we don’t use, labeling plastic bags with black Sharpie pens before stacking them in the freezer downstairs. All winter long, we’ll eat jam and sorbet, buckles and muffins, tarts, smoothies and galettes.
I reach for my basket, ready to pick. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swoops in ascending circles, coasting on invisible currents. I watch until he disappears, certain he’s flying toward heaven.
By Jessica O’Dwyer
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Sunday, July 01, 2007
Side Trip
In a few days I will leave for New York City to see my family. There aren’t many members of my mother’s generation left.
Almost all of her side died during a six-month period; my mother and my aunt on the same day, with the others following within a few months of each other. Then my aunt passed away two years later.
My brother-in-law, Bob, and my nephew, Jordan, 11, will greet my stepson, Jay, daughter, Mimi, and myself at JFK Airport. There is always a rush of excitement to see them, gather our luggage and walk into the stifling humidity on the way to the parking lot.
My sister, Heidi, and Bob have been together since they were 17 years old. Theirs is a great love story. A friend told my sister that there was a cute boy in school that she liked. He was a jock named Bob. She pointed him out to Heidi.
My sister took one look and said, “I want him.” Her friend was confused. Heidi rarely talked. Now she was really saying something. The friend reiterated, “No, no, I like him.”
“No,” insisted Heidi, who never insisted on anything, “I do.”
Heidi and Bob each went with a different partner to their high school proms. At the class picnic they made their way to each other and have been with one another since. It was a long journey to get Bob to make the ultimate commitment. He assured us when he was ready, he would do it the right way.
In a London restaurant he asked the pianist to play their favorite song, fell to one knee and proposed. Bob has been a perfect husband and father ever since. They serve as role models for me about what good mates and parents should be.
But they can be loud.
Yelling isn’t in my family’s blood: it is their blood. My crazy relatives from Brooklyn always screamed. My family was exactly like the characters in Seinfeld.
Perhaps it was from growing up in buildings so close to each other in Brooklyn. Neighbors hollered to each other through open windows. My grandparents lost scores of relatives in the Holocaust, just as their neighbors did. It may be why they never stopped screaming.
But their yelling ways were passed to my mother and her siblings and then to me and my siblings. My stepson doesn’t yell. My daughter does. I’ve never once heard my Asian husband or his family raise their voices.
John has a hard time going back East because our nieces and nephews are so loud. Sometimes I have a hard time visiting his family on the Peninsula because they’re so quiet.
I bring the noise. At first I think they thought I was a little on the loud side. Now I think, or like to think, that they enjoy my honesty and humor.
When I go back East to visit my family it is bittersweet because life is so different now. We’re not the children. We’re the adults. And we have our own kids. What we no longer have is the older generation. No mother for my siblings and I, or grandmother for the nieces and nephews.
The older generation is gone. No wisdom to be passed.
Last year I told my nephews, Jordan and Alex, both are the same age and were born on the same day, stories about my sisters and how they got their nicknames.
“Did you have to tell them?” my sister, Robyne, asked.
“How can we not? Somebody has to and especially the embarrassing stuff. That’s the most fun,” I said conspiratorially to my nephews who laughed and nodded.
Such a wonderful part of my childhood was listening to the stories my mother and her sisters told us of their upbringing.
I do the same with my children so they will know their aunts, uncle and I when we were young. I also tell them about my mother and the rest of my deceased family. It brings them to life.
On this vacation, we’ll have more stories to share and it will be wonderful to see the cousins together. Watching them do simple things, like catching fireflies in jars and seeing the glass light up the night.
I love being able to give these experiences, these memories, to my own children and to my nieces and nephews. My sadness comes only that my mother and all the others are not here to share these times with us.
By Dawn Yun Stumble This Post
Almost all of her side died during a six-month period; my mother and my aunt on the same day, with the others following within a few months of each other. Then my aunt passed away two years later.
My brother-in-law, Bob, and my nephew, Jordan, 11, will greet my stepson, Jay, daughter, Mimi, and myself at JFK Airport. There is always a rush of excitement to see them, gather our luggage and walk into the stifling humidity on the way to the parking lot.
My sister, Heidi, and Bob have been together since they were 17 years old. Theirs is a great love story. A friend told my sister that there was a cute boy in school that she liked. He was a jock named Bob. She pointed him out to Heidi.
My sister took one look and said, “I want him.” Her friend was confused. Heidi rarely talked. Now she was really saying something. The friend reiterated, “No, no, I like him.”
“No,” insisted Heidi, who never insisted on anything, “I do.”
Heidi and Bob each went with a different partner to their high school proms. At the class picnic they made their way to each other and have been with one another since. It was a long journey to get Bob to make the ultimate commitment. He assured us when he was ready, he would do it the right way.
In a London restaurant he asked the pianist to play their favorite song, fell to one knee and proposed. Bob has been a perfect husband and father ever since. They serve as role models for me about what good mates and parents should be.
But they can be loud.
Yelling isn’t in my family’s blood: it is their blood. My crazy relatives from Brooklyn always screamed. My family was exactly like the characters in Seinfeld.
Perhaps it was from growing up in buildings so close to each other in Brooklyn. Neighbors hollered to each other through open windows. My grandparents lost scores of relatives in the Holocaust, just as their neighbors did. It may be why they never stopped screaming.
But their yelling ways were passed to my mother and her siblings and then to me and my siblings. My stepson doesn’t yell. My daughter does. I’ve never once heard my Asian husband or his family raise their voices.
John has a hard time going back East because our nieces and nephews are so loud. Sometimes I have a hard time visiting his family on the Peninsula because they’re so quiet.
I bring the noise. At first I think they thought I was a little on the loud side. Now I think, or like to think, that they enjoy my honesty and humor.
When I go back East to visit my family it is bittersweet because life is so different now. We’re not the children. We’re the adults. And we have our own kids. What we no longer have is the older generation. No mother for my siblings and I, or grandmother for the nieces and nephews.
The older generation is gone. No wisdom to be passed.
Last year I told my nephews, Jordan and Alex, both are the same age and were born on the same day, stories about my sisters and how they got their nicknames.
“Did you have to tell them?” my sister, Robyne, asked.
“How can we not? Somebody has to and especially the embarrassing stuff. That’s the most fun,” I said conspiratorially to my nephews who laughed and nodded.
Such a wonderful part of my childhood was listening to the stories my mother and her sisters told us of their upbringing.
I do the same with my children so they will know their aunts, uncle and I when we were young. I also tell them about my mother and the rest of my deceased family. It brings them to life.
On this vacation, we’ll have more stories to share and it will be wonderful to see the cousins together. Watching them do simple things, like catching fireflies in jars and seeing the glass light up the night.
I love being able to give these experiences, these memories, to my own children and to my nieces and nephews. My sadness comes only that my mother and all the others are not here to share these times with us.
By Dawn Yun
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