Tag Archives: parenting

Silver linings

Posted on August 11, 2010 | 10 comments

The last couple of weeks have been pretty monumental, in a lifetime landmark kind of way, even though they have unfolded somewhat uneventfully.

Two weeks ago, my eldest child completed his thirteenth trip around the sun on this planet. I am now the parent of a teenager, and I will be for the next nine and one-half years (the youngest won’t exit her teens until 2020 — ye gods, what a scary date!) For some mysterious reason, this milestone wasn’t quite as hard on me as the completion of his twelfth circuit last year; maybe it’s because he grew more than a foot in height during the past year, his shoes became large enough to double as lifeboats, and his voice changed. Dramatically. (We think he will end up singing bass.) The actual birthday had an afterthought-like quality to it: “Oh, and by the way, you are now the parent of a man-child.” No kidding! Have you seen my grocery bill?

That same week, my youngest went to sleep-away camp for the first time. Mind you, the eldest didn’t do that until about a month before, so for the ten-year-old to be ready for something like that is a Big Deal. (If you know them, however, you also know that it’s not surprising given their respective personalities.)

And today is the First Day of School, the first day of the last year in which I will have a child in elementary school. My SO helpfully reminded me of this while we were lying in bed trying to get our brains around the reality of once again getting up every morning at 6:00 a.m. I don’t know if he intended to be helpful or if he was wrestling with the concept himself and simply spoke his thoughts aloud. Clearly the notion caught my attention and triggered all sorts of other thoughts. And with my newly-restored hours of peace and quiet, those thoughts congealed enough to become this post.

Maybe this won’t be so weird or difficult after all.

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When life gives you nuts…

Posted on March 27, 2010 | 9 comments

I really dislike bumper nuts—you know, those chrome or plastic imitation scrota designed to dangle beneath the rear end of a truck or SUV. If you have never seen these bizarre accessories, consider yourself lucky. (Someone who feels the need to drive an oversized vehicle and give it genitalia is clearly overcompensating for something.) You can look them up on the internet; if they seem appallingly tasteless on a web site, you should see them in traffic.

I do, however, owe a reluctant debt of parental gratitude to these insignia of insecurity, or at least to one in particular. While sitting at a red light, my children and I were admiring a souped-up sedan in the lane next to us. As the light turned and the car pulled away from us, my ten-year-old son spotted something large and shiny swinging below the rear bumper.

“What’s that hanging off the back?” he asked. I laughed to buy some time, took a deep breath, and answered, “Those are supposed to represent testicles.” Silence filled the car.

“You know what testicles are,” I prompted. A glance in the rear view mirror was not reassuring. Their faces wore expressions of mild puzzlement and deep suspicion. Oh, geez, I thought with dismay, I know we’ve talked about this stuff before! Trying not to appear flustered, I launched into what I hoped was a matter-of-fact description of testicles. After a few sentences, my seven-year-old daughter’s face brightened.
“Oh, you mean balls!” she exclaimed.

“Uh, yes,” I sputtered, caught off guard, then added weakly, “I didn’t realize you knew that term.” A chorus of “Duh!” from the back seat dissolved the tension, and I attempted to reclaim the intellectual high ground by emphasizing the correct medical terminology. That brought “weenie,” “boobs,” and “butt” into the conversation as further examples of slang terms for body parts.

Suddenly self-conscious about where his question had led, my ten-year-old slumped in his seat and buried his face in a large book. Never one to shy away from sensitive topics, his sister pressed on with all kinds of questions, and we had our most detailed sexual information talk to date. I swear I looked in the rear view mirror and saw my son’s ears appear around the edges of his book as he strained to hear every word. All my nervous preparation for a “teachable moment” just like this was finally paying off, and by the time we got home I felt like Supermom!

Call me ungrateful, but I still really dislike bumper nuts.

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Blathering on

Posted on October 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I’ve been diligently microblogging for several days now, I feel as though I have been terribly negligent of my Daily Compost duties. Never mind that I’ve had bronchitis, a child with H1N1,* and an ongoing mental health crisis — wait, that last bit is standard operating procedure by now — I still feel that I’ve let down the three people who check this blog every now and then.

So here I am today, blathering on. I’ve half a mind not to post this just because it seems so trivial, but I suspect that the nagging sense of guilt and responsibility will triumph in the end. I HAVE been busy doing things, even writerly things; I just haven’t been busy posting to my blog.

I’ve been reading: Acedia and Me by Kathleen Norris; The Two Marys by Sylvia Brown; Tall Dark Stranger by Corrine Kenner; Writer Mama by Christina Katz. I’ve also been taking an online course that has required me to do a fair amount of research, so I’ve been taking lots of notes. (I take a lot of notes when I read, too, even fiction: I like to jot down turns of phrase, images, and words that catch my eye.) I’ve been fretting over a review of Star Trek (2009) that I started right after I first saw it back in May; it’s taken me a while to get my thoughts together, and now I fear it’s too late to be relevant.

What else…I’ve started baking bread again now that the weather has turned cool. I’ve kind of let the garden go because everything is so riotously large and wild looking that the weeds are hardly noticeable. (This is a very bad idea, by the way, because huge quantities of seeds are being produced RIGHT NOW by those same weeds. DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!) I remind people daily of their chores and responsibilities, make sure that everyone gets where they’re supposed to go with the materials and supplies they’re supposed to have — library books, lunches, clarinets, etc.

All in all, I’m just cruisin’ through the daily round of things. I guess the rhythm of it has had a hypnotic effect on me, lulling me into becoming a non-blogging zombie. Interestingly enough, just writing this post has given me all kinds of ideas for future postings. I just hope I can remember them when I sit down at the computer tomorrow.

*Probable. They stopped testing around here when the CDC placed Kentucky in the “widespread” infection category.

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All’s fair

Posted on September 7, 2009 | 3 comments

Today I ran afoul of that strange and arcane system siblings use to make certain things are “fair.” Around our house there are weekly chores that are usually done on the weekend: cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, etc. This being a long (holiday) weekend, we played all day Saturday and Sunday, which means we left the weekly chores until today. We actually played most of today, too, until a late afternoon trip to the grocery store heralded the end of holiday time and our return to the ordinary time of our daily lives.

After putting away the groceries, I reminded the children of their chores and went to put out the garbage and recycling for tomorrow’s collection. Resolved to get several large, empty cardboard boxes into the recycling bin, I was hacking away at them with my matte knife when my son came out and announced that he needed me to come because the vacuum cleaner wasn’t working.

“Can it wait for a few minutes?” I asked, slashing with gusto. The answer was no; he had to do his vacuuming right now.

“Can you do something else for — oh, I don’t know — ten minutes?” I tried again more pointedly. Couldn’t he see that it was unwise to exasperate someone armed with such a dangerous implement?

“I can’t think of anything,” he replied. I rolled my eyes, then was struck with inspiration.

“I know,” I said brightly, “you can bring out the bag of recycling from the kitchen.” He shook his head.

“I took out the garbage this morning,” he explained, adding that his sister would therefore have to take out the recycling. Irritated, I nearly launched into a lethal rant about how it didn’t matter who did what and he should do it just because it needed to be done. I caught myself, however, remembering that such things are matters of extreme gravity among siblings.

“Fine,” I said. “Send her out.” A few minutes later my daughter came out with the bag of kitchen recycling. She cheerfully dumped it into the bin and hopped on her skateboard.

“Whoa there,” I caught her at the top of the driveway. “Are you finished with your chores?”

“Everything but vacuuming,” was the glib reply.

“Finish your chores first, then you can play until supper,” I admonished. She explained that she couldn’t because it was her brother’s turn to vacuum first. Never mind that we have two vacuum cleaners (one of them an ancient but very functional heirloom Electrolux); it simply wasn’t her turn.

“You better have everything done before supper,” I said darkly.

“I will!” she replied as she sailed down the driveway and banked onto the sidewalk. I put the recycling bin on the curb, then went to rescue my son so the wheels of domestic industry could start turning once again. (Turned out the vacuum wasn’t plugged in.)

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Stealth grief

Posted on July 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

My first-born turns twelve this week, and I realized today that I’m having a hard time with that. In retrospect, it’s clear now that I’ve been having difficulty with it for several weeks — all sorts of random and dissociated behavior suddenly makes sense.

I found myself weeping this morning, inconsolably wracked with a grief that I didn’t see coming. I recognize it now that it’s swallowed me: something I cherish with every fiber of my being is passing away, and the pain of that loss is immeasurable. Once again the excruciating process of parenting has cracked me open, spilling my soul and leaving a hollow place for something new to grow. I wouldn’t stop it even if I could, but that doesn’t mean it’s a pleasant experience.

Why now, and so suddenly? I don’t know, but I’m quite certain it has far more to do with me than with my son. The changes will continue to find us gradually, as they have from the moment he was conceived. Something within me has shifted, though, and that difference is what grieves me most.

Nothing has ever kindled such fierce joy in me as mothering this boy; what if mothering a young adult, a young man, requires me to let go of that? I will do so without hesitation if needed, but I refuse to dishonor such an amazing experience by pretending that it costs me nothing to relinquish.

It seems as though I’m not giving up much ferocity after all. I suppose I will just have to trust that the joy will take care of itself.

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Notes from the parenting frontier

Posted on July 16, 2009 | 2 comments

Last month I picked up a new (to me) magazine at the co-op: hip Mama. Like many periodicals these days, it has both a print and online incarnation. I decided to check out the online version today, where I found a blog entry that really resonated with me.

The plaintive title “i want a best friend” caught my eye from a sidebar, and I clicked the link (http://www.hipmama.com/node/42477) to find a post that is both current and relevant. Today I had the afternoon off from the 24/7 joys of summertime parenting: I went to lunch and a movie by myself because I had no one to go with.

It can be difficult for primary caregivers to make personal needs a priority, and even more difficult to arrange to have time free to meet those personal needs. Although I understand why other parents seldom have time when I do, it nevertheless feels terribly discouraging when my efforts to set aside personal time only result in further solitude because no one else is there to share it with me.

It’s very tempting to think that it’s just me, that I’m impaired or defective or just plain whiny, but then I read these notes from other solitary outposts on the parenting frontier and realize that there may be something to this after all.

http://lex

ington.craigslist.org/com/1272359392.html

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Surprise pie

Posted on July 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

My son, who is my first-born, is full of surprises. Because he is a sweet and gentle soul, they are most often joyful surprises, for which I am daily thankful.

A couple weeks ago, he surprised me by announcing that he wanted to bake a pie. It turns out he had promised a baseball teammate a pie if the team won their next game, which they did. He now had to make good on that promise and wanted to go on-line to look for a recipe.

Once the first blush of amazement wore off, I suggested that he start with the dozens of cookbooks on the kitchen shelves, several of which are devoted solely to desserts. By the next day he had found a recipe that suited his fancy and was eager to go to the grocery store for the ingredients.

“Why don’t we see what we already have?” I suggested. He read off the list of ingredients and together we located most of them in the kitchen cupboards. We made our shopping list, including some ingredients that we had but not in sufficient quantities, and headed off to the store.

Thanks to a persistent illness that I’ve been fighting for a couple months, I was worn out by the shopping expedition. (My very enthusiastic and slightly hyperactive shopping assistants no doubt contributed to my fatigue as well.) I had to take a nap. But pie stops for no man, so we did a verbal walk-through of the recipe before I lay down on the couch in order to be available for baking consultations. Thankfully, I remembered to suggest that it’s always a good idea to place a cookie sheet under the pie in case it spills over a bit during baking.

The pie-making proceeded without incident. I hazily recall being roused to near consciousness a couple times to pronounce my blessing on the pie-in-process before I finally woke to the delicious aroma of brownie pie baking. The pie had been removed from the oven and the wisdom of my protective cookie sheet advice was loudly acclaimed, as the pie had evidently spilled over. Both kids were in the kitchen munching on the overflow and exclaiming how good it was. They even brought me some to taste, and I found it very good indeed.

Sometime later, I entered the kitchen myself to see this glorious confection. Most of the pie filling had bubbled out of the shell, leaving only a layer of brownie slightly thicker than the crust. (A post-mortem of the preparation revealed that a bit too much baking powder had been used.) No wonder the kids had been so thrilled eating the overflow! I thanked whatever guardian angel had prompted me to suggest the cookie sheet beneath the pie, shuddering at the horrendous oven cleaning I had so narrowly missed. We left for vacation two days later, having cleaned up all the cooking pans and dishes.

Fast forward to today and the inspiration for this posting: the penetrating odor of burnt sugar. We turned the oven on to preheat for a quick and lazy frozen pizza lunch and opened it several minutes later to dark, acrid clouds and the wail of the kitchen smoke detector. Once the haze had cleared, we discovered that my son had placed the cookie sheet on the rack below the one that held the pie rather than directly under the pie itself, so giant globs of overflow had baked onto the wires of the top rack.

So now the oven has been thoroughly cleaned, which is a wonder in itself, and the surprises of parenting just keep unfolding.

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Herding cats

Posted on May 24, 2009 | Leave a comment

I survived the day-long trip to the amusement park with the middle school band. As the parent of a 6th grade band member, I was assigned to chaperone a group of six 6th grade boys. I was supposed to share those duties with another parent, but a minor family emergency prevented her from coming on the trip.

So there I was, in a major theme park with four preteen boys I’d never met (plus the two I had brought with me). One of my new acquaintances immediately informed me that he has ADHD. I’m not sure if he was giving me fair warning or simply trying to excuse his behavior in advance. Personally, I would have diagnosed him as a compulsive shopper: he dragged the group through every gift shop on the property and squandered a good deal of money in the arcades. He spent every penny in his wallet, which unfortunately included money unwisely entrusted to him by one of the other boys.

We headed off into the park. The boy whose mother had to bow out because of the family emergency kept running ahead of the group, and the two who had come with me are notoriously slow. Thus I spent a great deal of the day alternately hollering at Speed Demon to stay with the group and admonishing the Sloth Boys to keep up.

A little more than halfway through our day, Speed Demon decided to check himself out for a visit to the men’s room. We were in a gift shop with an alarming number of exits and lots of clutter; having only two eyes, incapable of independent movement, put me at a distinct disadvantage. To make matters worse, a couple of the boys decided to sit on the floor to check out merchandise on the bottom shelf of a display. I had to comb the shop to locate them, and a quick head count left me one short. Speed Demon was missing.

I asked the Floor Boys if they knew where he was, and they thought he might have gone to the men’s room, the nearest of which was several buildings away around a corner. At this point I failed the Good Shepherd Test; I was unwilling to abandon the five charges I had in hand to go in search of the one who was missing. Even if I told them to wait for me in the store, I wasn’t confident that Mr. ADHD would remember the order once he completed his purchases. I was 100% certain that if one of them left, the whole bunch would follow.

As I hovered in the doorway closest to the distant men’s room, urging the Floor Boys to wrap it up so we could all go in search of Speed Demon, the latter sauntered into sight. I pounced on him and read him the riot act; he seemed genuinely contrite, but the group dynamic took a decided turn for the worse from that point.

We limped through the rest of our day, heat, fatigue, and significantly longer lines taking their toll on group morale. When dinner time rolled around, Speed Demon discovered that Mr. ADHD had spent all of his (Speed Demon’s) money. I bought dinner from a sidewalk vendor for Speed Demon, who then proceeded to take off in search of a table (there were none in sight) while the rest of the party ordered their meals. And then I lost my cool.

I bellowed at Speed Demon in my angry parent voice. He was smart (or experienced) enough to come back, though he was pre-adolescent enough to act like he didn’t know what I was so worked up about. I barked at him to sit on the curb until the rest of us had our food; I was the last to order, and when I turned around with meal in hand I found all six of them perched meekly on the curb. The herd mentality had finally clicked in.

The rest of the day passed without incident. As we headed back to the bus, I sent the rest of the boys ahead with other band members so I could walk with Speed Demon. I asked him about the family emergency that had prevented his mother from coming with us. He actually seemed relieved to have someone to talk to, even if only for a few minutes. I found myself wishing we could have found another adult to go with our group — we might have avoided some of the difficulties of the afternoon if my attention hadn’t been so divided.

At least we got to end our day on a more peaceful and conciliatory note.

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Better living through chemistry

Posted on May 14, 2009 | 1 comment

A nurse I knew once offered that (the title of this post) as a toast when we raised our margarita glasses at a gathering of suburban mothers. Our kids were all in kindergarten together, and we had met at birthday parties and school functions often enough that we decided to get together during the day while our kids were in school. (This was a district with full-day kindergarten.) We only managed it one time before the school year ended, so it stands out clearly in my mind. We had a light lunch of salad and finger sandwiches, then drank a pitcher of margaritas between us.

That afternoon is etched so brightly in my memory, but what shines brightest is the look on the nurse mom’s face when we all heartily echoed her toast. She had offered it as a cynical joke from the nursing world, but we embraced it with a humor that tempered the bitterness of its truth. She was genuinely moved that we hadn’t passed judgment on her for it, and that moment seemed to open up a safe space for all of us. We talked about the joys and nightmares of parenting, about the difficulties of finding balance between work and family, about home repair and yard work. We debated the merits of Ritalin, Valium, and various antidepressants, then saluted them all with raised glasses and the same toast.

That toast has become sort of a rallying cry for me, useful in a lot of different situations. Today, for example, I speak it in praise of the salutary effects of the medications my doctor prescribed to keep my sinus ailment from becoming bronchitis. I feel miraculously improved in a mere 24 hours, proof that my visit to the doctor was not at all premature or unnecessary. I suppose I should toast the doctor, too, and shall do so when I take my next dose of cough medicine. I could probably even use a shot glass to make it seem more festive.

What will you celebrate today? What miracle of chemistry — synthetic, interpersonal, biological, or whatever — has been wrought in your life? Let us raise our glasses together and salute them: “Better living through chemistry!”

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Common to whom? (part 3)

Posted on May 4, 2009 | Leave a comment

(continued from previous post)

The first time I read the piece, this final section had me laughing out loud at what I took for a deliciously silly spoof. Abandoning all efforts at coherence, Mr. Rosemond theorizes that men have been brainwashed by feminist propaganda into participating in their own emasculation. Consequently, he says, men are no longer even adults, let alone fathers or husbands. For proof of this he cites the high-fives they exchange with their children. (As the great Dave Barry would say, “I’m not making this up.”) He laments the passing of “the good old days — when dads came home fully prepared, at a word from their wives, to strike terror into their children,” then concludes by quipping, “Is it too late to bring back the patriarchy?”

Once I suspected that the column I had read was not necessarily intended to be funny, I re-examined it more soberly. With a bit of luck and much hard work, the reader might be able to construct some convoluted line of reasoning that connects all the parts of the column, but it’s a dodgy undertaking at best. Everything seems to be vaguely related, but the same may be said of items in an idea cloud or cluster diagram, both of which are visual tools used to begin the process of organizing one’s thoughts. Had Mr. Rosemond ordered and articulated his thoughts more clearly, he might have delivered a scathing indictment of social mores in general and the current state of the family in particular.

I feel a peculiar sense of loss that he didn’t, although I suspect I would disagree with some of his conclusions. It is so satisfying to sharpen one’s own reasons against the sharp reasoning of another! What a disappointment it was to find Mr. Rosemond’s wit to be duller than I had first hoped.

I imagine that the enemies of the patriarchy sleep much the better for it, however.

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