Category: Parenting

Don’t Answer That…A Lesson For Every Penis-Packing Person

The photo in question

This afternoon my boys and I were sitting on the couch watching a documentary film in air-conditioned comfort while the temps soared above 90 degrees outside. As we were watching frigate birds in the Galapagos, a new message popped into my email inbox on my laptop. It was a photo hubby had taken of my sisters and I at Kathy’s wedding rehearsal lunch today. I downloaded the photo onto my laptop and examined it. We look pretty good for a few old ladies, I thought. (Only one of us is under 40…and that one will be 40 in less than a year.)

Then, I got curious about something. I paused the movie, turned my computer so the boys could see it, and asked them a question.

“Who is the prettiest?” I inquired, showing them the photo.

They looked at me like I was crazy and said nothing. They were not interested in playing my reindeer game. I looked at Joe who is by far the more honest, less polished child.

“This isn’t a trick question. I promise,” I said.

He scanned my face but his expression said it all. He had no intention of touching my question with a 15 foot pole. He uttered not a single word. So, I turned to Luke. He smiled at me.

“What do YOU think?” I asked, staring into his cute little face.

With the ease of a future politician, he answered, “You’re all pretty.”

“Uh huh,” came my reply. I could see right through him, so I pressed a little harder. “You think we’re all equally pretty?”

“Yes,” he asserted, sounding 100% convinced. I had to give it to him. The kid is slick. I gave up on him and focused again on Joe. I was certain Joe would crack under the scrutiny. His honesty would betray him. I knew it.

“I promise I won’t get mad if you say it’s not me,” I pressed. “Really. I’m just curious what you think.”

He continued to look at me, saying nothing. He was glancing over my shoulder at Luke. I spun around quickly to see Luke pointing at me. He was prompting his brother, lest Joe should offer up what they assumed would be an incorrect response. I rolled my eyes and gave up. They clearly did not believe me when I said I was merely curious and that there would be no repercussions for admitting that I was not the prettiest girl in the photo.

And, you know what? Good for them. Although I truly wasn’t testing them and was simply curious about their opinions of their old mom and their aunts, had I been testing them they would have passed with flying colors. I was impressed by their ability to spot a potential land mine of feminine wiles and avoid all pitfalls. Joe is smart enough to keep his mouth shut when cornered. He’s definitely learned that it’s better not to say anything when you’re not sure. And Luke, with his textbook, female-friendly answers, will be very popular with the girls someday. Every once in a while I get the rare opportunity to see how staying home with my boys and talking openly and honestly with them, especially about how to deal with women, has influenced what kind of young men they are becoming. Today was one of those days, and today I got an A. Yay, me! Now, if I could just get them to put the toilet seat down, I’d finally earn that A+.

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Folding Up My Map So My Kids Can Unfold Their Own

Yes. That’s my 11 year old wearing a swim mask in the zero depth pool. He’s cool like that.

You know how you want for your children all the things you never had? I cannot tell you how many times that has screwed things up for me and for my kids. You would think somewhere along the line I would figure it out and stop trying so hard to give them what I missed out on and focus rather on helping them find what they want or need. You would think that. You would be wrong.

One thing I always wanted for my kids was for them to be able to swim well. By “swim well,” I mean the kind of swimming where your face is in the water and you know how to time your breaths and you don’t hit the wall with your head. Basic stuff. I simply wanted them to swim better than I do because the best thing I can say about how I swim is that so far I have managed not to drown. Knock on wood.

To ensure that my kids would be able to swim well early, I had them on a swimming time table from birth. I enrolled in Mommy and Me swim classes with them when they were infants. They were both in regular swim classes when they were 3. They loved the water. Loved it. Yet, they each failed to pass the first level class two times before I decided that the community pool was the wrong place for my kids to learn to swim. I reasoned that the large class sizes, the too cold water at the rec center, and the myriad distractions there led to their lack of swimming success.

Next, I enrolled them at a pricey, private swim school. The water was warm (90 degrees) and the classes were only four students. This was just what they needed, right? Wrong. After a traumatic incident where Luke fell into water over his head during class and bobbed for a while before being safely recovered by his teacher, he refused to go back. Honestly, my confidence was then shaken too. I figured my dreams for them to become great swimmers were just dreams. I tried to move on, determining they would learn the way I did…over time with lots of informal practice. It wasn’t what I had envisioned. I pretended to make peace with it.

For the past four and a half years, our boys have been allowed to view the water as fun. They’ve slowly gotten braver and a bit more skilled at swimming on their own. We didn’t push them. They merely began to figure things out. Still, they have not become truly proficient swimmers. So today, once again pushing my luck, I enrolled them in a different swim school. This move was precipitated by our upcoming trip to the Galapagos where being able to swim and snorkel will be a really good thing. They’re 9 and 11 now. I was certain they were ready, but what is more important is that they were certain of it. You know what? They LOVED practicing in the pool with their instructor today. As we were leaving the school, they excitedly mentioned they wished they could go back again this week. I smiled as they told me all about the class I had witnessed via video camera from the lobby. Finally. Now we’re getting somewhere.

It’s okay to want things for your kids. It’s even okay to set them up to discover more about the things you want for them. But, it’s not okay to push them into what you want according to your time schedule or your plans for them. When my kids failed to pass out of swim class that first time, I should have backed off and realized they weren’t ready. I didn’t do that. Instead, I forced the issue, which then led to a worse situation from which we spent years trying to recover. We all want the best for our kids. Sometimes, though, we forget that what’s best for them will only be uncovered when we allow them to decide what interests them when they’re uniquely ready for it. If your child gets accepted into Harvard because you nagged, pushed, and henpecked them into living your dream, I suppose you can count that as an accomplishment. But, wouldn’t it be better if your child got into Harvard because it was what he wanted and worked incredibly hard on his own to achieve? I guess that if I want my kids to find their own way, I’d better stop handing them my map.

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Surrender Isn’t Always A Bad Thing

Heading up Mesa Trail near Boulder

“Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up.”        ~ Eckhart Tolle

Yesterday, Steve and I decided it would be a great day for a family hike. So, we loaded up the car and headed up to Boulder. I found a 4+ mile hike just outside of Boulder near Eldorado Canyon on Trails.com that looked promising, so we went for it. Because we got a late start on the day, it was already 82 degrees when we pulled into the South Mesa Trail parking lot around noon. I knew the boys would whine about the heat, but we were there and Steve and I were bound and determined to get the exercise.

The boys, usually quite able bodied and semi-amenable to hiking, were in rare form from the start. Joe had consumed so much water on the drive up that he was wanting to mark his territory every half mile. Luke, a kid who hates to be either too hot or too cold, was moving slowly and in a constant state of whine about how sweaty he was. Being not the world’s most sympathetic person (understatement), I told them that if they’d stop using so much energy to complain they’d have more energy to hike faster and finish sooner. True story.

The first mile was a bit rough as the boys complained and dragged their feet, hoping we would suspend the exercise. We were annoyed but persisted in our determination to complete the hike. During the entire second mile, I was fairly certain my husband (who is one of the most patient people I have ever known) would eventually strangle Luke, who could not seem to tamp down his whining. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about children, it’s that they’re like animals; they can smell hesitancy and fear and will use your weakness against you. Luke was working it.

As Luke whimpered and cried foul, Steve went from grimacing about it to full on bitching at him while I went to my happy place. I’m not sure what it is about Boulder that makes me so dang happy, but I’m at peace there. As the war between Luke and his father began to escalate, I became increasingly calm. I took turns talking to both of them, positioning myself in between them as a buffer, and trying to resolve the situation with a positive attitude. The more they bickered, the less I seemed to care. I was able to focus on the beauty of the landscape, the pine scent rising from the trees, the cool breeze on my sun-warmed skin, and the joy of being somewhere that I love to be with the people who mean the most surrounding me. I escaped from the negativity of the situation by focusing on what I loved rather than on what I disliked. It was very zen of me, I thought.

As we got into the third mile, we hit the forest and Luke was shaded enough to stop whining a bit. Joe had at last peed himself out. Steve had nothing left to feel frustrated about. The hike became what I envisioned it would be, a fun little walk with my family somewhere new. I’m not sure if it was my attitude that diffused the negativity or the negativity that changed my own attitude, but something made the whole experience positive rather than negative and we ended the 4.5 mile hike feeling good about it overall.

How often do we tense up when things aren’t going the way we want and in our tension merely compound the situation? Sometimes, the best thing we can do when things get rough is to let go of expectation and relax. And, as we yield to the way things are rather than dreaming of the way we wanted things to be, we make peace with the present moment and life begins to look not quite as bad as we thought. Occasionally we waste too much energy on a battle when we should surrender instead. Sometimes making peace with a situation is not a defeat at all but a victory in disguise.

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Our Son, The Science Experiment

Me and my science experiment

Our son, Joe, was just 8 years old when we took him to Children’s Hospital in Denver where several psychological professionals interviewed and observed him and told us they were certain he had moderate ADHD. He wasn’t the worst case they’d seen, but they felt he would improve the most quickly with medication. We discussed the benefits and side effects associated with this type of treatment with the doctors and decided to go ahead and start him on a low dose of Concerta, an extended release form of the drug Ritalin. We had hoped never to have to put our child on medication and had investigated other possible explanations for our son’s poor grades, non-existent attention span, nervous gestures, and total lack of impulse control before finally being able to admit that perhaps he truly did have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

One of the side effects the doctors discussed with us at length was the possibility of slowed growth due to the medication. They assured us that children on the medication do continue to grow but at a much slower rate. Born prematurely, Joe was on the small side to begin with. One suggestion the doctors had was to take him off the medication during breaks from school, especially long ones like summer vacation, to allow his body a bit of unrestricted time for growth. Up until now, we had elected not to do that because we were focused on using the medication to get him caught up in school and with his self-esteem issues. But, after seeing him with his classmates at Field Day this year, we finally decided it might help to take him off the Concerta for the summer. You see, Joe is the oldest boy in his class by nearly a year and yet he’s still the shortest. There’s nothing wrong with being short, but if we can help him catch up it seems like we should.

So, a week ago we took away Joe’s medication and asked him to try going two days without it. He was adamantly against the idea, but we persisted. We managed to turn two days off into four and then eventually into an entire week. On the plus side, we’ve seen a definite improvement in his eating and sleeping habits, an indication that he might just grow if we keep this up. But, I’m not going to lie. These past seven days have been tough. Our boys, who get along 95% of the time when Joe is on his medication, fought quite a bit more this week. I spent far more time than usual trying to solve disputes and suppress whining. Joe’s been more argumentative, impulsive, and distracted. He’s been on the medication for nearly three years now, so I had almost forgotten this side of him. If there’s been a silver lining to this little experiment, it’s that if we’d harbored any concerns about whether he truly had ADHD or whether the medication was honestly working, those concerns are gone.

Today Joe announced that he was going to take his medication again starting tomorrow. He told us that he’s tired of feeling out of control. I understand that. I do. But, I feel that Steve, Luke, and I are partly responsible for his feeling that way because we’re not used to his behavior off the medication and we’re acting differently toward him, expecting things of him that we expect from medicated Joe. That is simply not fair. Before he went to bed, we had a little family discussion. We asked Joe to forgive us for our impatience because as much as this is a period of readjustment for him it is also one for us. We promised we’d lower our expectations of him a bit if he would be willing to work a little harder to focus and try to meet us midway. Luke, exhausted from fending off Joe’s poking and prodding and teasing and belittling, told us he simply wants the “old Joe” back. Luke definitely bears the brunt of Joe’s ADHD symptoms, so we’re definitely taking that into consideration.

After the boys went to sleep, hubby and I decided that we’re going to give Joe’s medication-free trial run one more week…one week when we resolutely try to understand where he’s at and not where we expect him to be. Our biggest fear right now is our not being able to control our expectations and then making Joe feel bad about his behavior when it’s really not his fault. So, we’re going to try to rein ourselves in and let him be. If at the end of the next week we feel this time off is going to do more harm to him emotionally than good to him physically we’ll put him back on daily doses. I hate feeling like he’s a science experiment, but right now he kind of is. I would love to see him experience a growth spurt, but not at the expense of his self-confidence and self-esteem. Some parents, I’m sure, put their child on medication to save their sanity. We put Joe on it to save his. If taking him off for a couple weeks causes him to feel bad about himself again, the experiment ends. I’d much rather have a shorter-than-average happy kid than miserable child of average height. Science experiment be damned.

 

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You Must Be This Tall To Ride

Tonight we took our boys to Lakeside Amusement Park and, as we walked around, I realized that it was their first amusement park visit. Well, we did take them to Disneyworld when they were 3 and 5, but since they were both so small we didn’t get to ride as many of the rides. Oh, sure. We’ve let them ride on coasters and log rides in the Mall of America and on those small, portable coasters they set up for fairs, but for the most part my boys have been devoid of amusement park memories. I started to feel a bit bad about it.

Then, as we were in line for the Wild Chipmunk, I got a reminder about why we haven’t been in a hurry to take them. Our boys are tiny. Both have late spring birthdays. Both have been under the 25th percentile in height from the very beginning. We gave both of them a chance to attend junior kindergarten so they could catch up in stature. Still, both boys are the oldest and the smallest in their classes. It doesn’t make much sense to me. Hubby and I are considered to be average height. And, yet, our children are borderline Oompah Loompah (they’re just missing the orange skin and white hair). As we were waiting for the Wild Chipmunk, the roller coaster Luke had been dying to ride, a park employee came by and delivered the disappointing news. Luke was 4 inches too short to ride. He cried. It broke my heart. And THIS is why we don’t take them to amusement parks, I thought.

Then, I thought about it again. Luke did get to ride quite a few other rides. He loved the Tilt-A-Whirl and had a blast in the Labyrinth Crystal Palace. He rode the Matterhorn and the Scrambler multiple times. He had a blast flying his own little plane on the Satellite. He even rode with Joe on Joe’s favorite ride, the Ferris Wheel. (Seriously. The Ferris Wheel. What 11 year old kid loves that ride?) And, he would have missed all of that if I’d kept him from going to the park tonight. Then I realized he would have missed more than that. He would have missed the opportunity to face disappointment and to work at getting beyond it.

I need to do a better job at giving my kids room for disappointment and freedom. They need to be able to deal with adversity and heartache, responsibility and reward. How are they going to do that if I don’t allow them small opportunities to build their skills? So, as hard as it was to watch his heart break, I’m glad I let my barely over 4 foot tall Luke attend this privately hosted night at Lakeside, courtesy of my college roommate Michelle who proffered the invitation. It was a good experience. Life is full of “you must be this tall to ride” experiences. Sometimes we don’t measure up. But, you can judge a person’s true stature by how they deal with their disappointment. In time, I hope Luke’s experiences on the short side prove that he’s actually 7 feet tall.

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The Adventures of Cow Man and Big Muscle

Cow Man and Big Muscle…new superheroes.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ~Albert Einstein

My boys finished school the other day, but it wasn’t until today that it was obvious that summer had at last begun for them. At 8:15 p.m., they were still outside, tearing around the neighbor’s yard with their neighbor buddies, chasing, yelling, and laughing incessantly. They were so loud I had to close the kitchen window so I could hear the television. I knew it then it was officially summer vacation.

Before they ran outside, they had gone into the basement and put on some ridiculous costumes. Their buddies were also at home donning crazy costumes for what Joe swore was going to be an “epic battle” between good and evil. They’ve been watching too much of The Avengers. Joe’s costume was comprised of pieces from two different Halloween costumes. His bottom half was a ninja and his top half was a knight. The best part was the fuzzy helmet from last year’s Warrior Dash, which gave him horns. He explained that his character was Cow Man. Cow man is half cow/half man and is not to be confused with a Minotaur, which is clearly half man/half cow. Luke’s character was Big Muscle. He was wearing part of a Star Wars costume for Darth Maul. Underneath that muscled costume were two other costumes added to give him the appearance of massive, bulky muscles. Luke’s outfit was completed by an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball cap, which somehow made him look like his two-year-old alter ego, Race Car Man, but I didn’t tell him that. Big Muscle, Luke informed me, is also known one day a year as Big Butt, but he told me that was a story for another time and they rushed out the door to rendezvous with their equally crazy superhero friends.

This morning the boys had their award ceremony at school. It’s one of my favorite events of the year because each child is given an award based on their character. Today Luke was, for the second time in three years, given an award for being “Delightful.” (No doubt in my mind that he wholeheartedly believes that award is well-deserved.) Joe was given an award for being “Tenderhearted,” which aptly describes my deep thinker. While I highly doubt either of my boys will ever earn the highly coveted Principal’s Award, which is given to students with straight A grades and flawless conduct, I like to think that their vast and unbridled imaginations will carry them far all the same. I appreciate their ability to think outside the box, to envision the seemingly impossible, and to dream beyond their reality. When I see Cow Man and Big Muscle, I recognize their potential. I have creative boys who take something like The Avengers and remake it into something all their own. They don’t simply parrot what they see; they improve upon it. My guys aren’t superheroes yet, but I imagine it could happen. When they do become Cow Man and Big Muscle someday and come to visit me, I know Cow Man will leave his cow patties in the backyard and Big Muscle will not discuss his Big Butt at the dinner table. After all, behind every great superhero is a supermom who taught him everything she knows.

 

 

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The World’s Best Kindergarten Teacher

Luke with Miss Jackie at Unique Prints. He had to try to stay inside the barrel why she tried to toss him out. He loved that game. The look on his face is pure joy. Money well spent.

My boys were fortunate enough to have the world’s best kindergarten teacher. She literally changed their lives with her insights into them and their issues and with her genuine love for them and their uniqueness. Sandra was the first one to suggest to me that there might be an issue that was causing our oldest son to be years behind his classmates in terms of fine and gross motor skills. It was Sandra that pointed us to Unique Prints, a therapy gym specializing in children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Sandra gently helped us to see what we had not understood or were not willing to acknowledge. Our boys needed extra help, and there was no shame in that.

As I look back now over the last five years, it’s amazing the progress I’ve seen in my boys. They still battle some sensory issues, but they’ve come such a long way. The time I spent driving them an hour round trip to Unique Prints two or three times a week so they could “play” in the occupational therapy gym while I sat in the waiting room was well worth it. Because of Joe’s original diagnosis with SPD, we were able to diagnose more quickly that he had ADHD as well. Therapy is expensive, but we were fortunate to have great insurance that paid for most of what our boys needed. There are plenty of people out there who want to do the right thing to help their children but don’t have the means we do to get them the help they need.

When our youngest was in Sandra’s kindergarten class, he had a classmate with whom he continually knocked heads. I often worried about Luke in these tussles because Luke is a small kid and his classmate was on the other end of the size spectrum. I was concerned that Luke was being bullied because Luke told me he was sometimes afraid of the other boy. I went to talk to Sandra about my concerns, and she pulled me aside and let me know that the other child involved had issues of his own. She never disclosed exactly what was going on with him, but she told me that his family struggled with his issues the same way we were struggling with Joe and Luke’s issues. She also told me that they were good parents who were trying to do the best for their child that they could. Her honesty about the situation helped me to understand. I felt bad that I had looked at that other child the way I’m sure other parents had looked at my children with their issues, with no compassion or desire to understand but with judgment. And, in the end, when the other boy left the school to get more specialized treatment, I was truly sad to see him go.

Today, Sandra posted a link to this video for a family looking for assistance for their not one, but two, sons with autism. The family would love to get a therapy dog to help their boys. But, therapy dogs cost around $6k, and that’s a lot of pocket change for most families. I watched the video because Sandra had recommended it, and Sandra is good people. I immediately recognized that the older son in the video was Luke’s old classmate. I watched the video and had a good cry. It’s amazing how life works sometimes, how it puts you in touch with people and situations that, if you’re lucky enough to be paying attention, will teach you the lessons you need to learn.

Life is hard. We all have our challenges and limitations. We all are on a journey that no one else can take for us. I can’t expect other people to be patient with my sons’ issues if I’m not willing to be patient and understanding about the struggles other families are having. And, as hard as it has been at times to parent my unique, sensory-challenged boys, I’m so incredibly blessed to have gotten off as easily as I have. Sometimes it takes a special reminder to bring you back to gratitude and peace with the way things are. Today I’m grateful for such a reminder courtesy of the world’s best kindergarten teacher ever….the one who even manages to teach adults a thing or two.

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How To Survive Chuck E Cheese

The birthday boy practices his Skeeball skills.

Eleven years ago, when hubby and I were the definition of semi-young, urban professionals living in Denver without children, we swore up and down that you would never catch us in Chuck E Cheese. We would drive by one and shiver. Why would anyone purposely enter an establishment with mechanical, singing characters, an underpaid dude wearing a large mouse suit, sub par food, and way, way too many noisy and germ-enhanced children. Ewwwwwwww. When we had our boys, we vowed we would never take them there. Never.

It turns out never is a really long time when you have a 4 year old and a 6 year old who have been invited to a birthday party there and don’t want to miss it. In fact, it’s amazing how quickly “never” becomes “imminently” when you’re listening to your children whine non-stop about a place they’ve never been. So, hubby and I decided that attending a soiree hosted by the incredibly popular Chuck E Cheese was simply a right of passage into the American Parenthood Club, and we caved.

Perhaps it was because we were so terrified of the place that our first experience there was actually not that bad. We quickly discovered what many parents already had; the beauty of Chuck E Cheese is that you can spend two hours without your children while still technically being with your children. We hardly saw our boys during the time we were there. They were off tearing through the place like squirrels on crack, and no one even noticed their behavior. With all the commotion, our kids’ usual decibel level (which hovers somewhere between snow blower and rock concert) seemed not at all off-putting. Steve and I somehow managed to have an hour’s worth of mostly uninterrupted conversation and we played video games for the first time in 25 years. It was very nearly a date. Our babysitter was a human-sized, baseball-cap wearing grey mouse.

Over the years we’ve come to embrace the occasional trip to Chuck E Cheese as less of a prison sentence and more of a night at the carnival. It’s not something we want to do all the time, but once in a while we can stomach it. Here is how we do it.

1) We bring a friend. Tonight’s friend was Captain Morgan. If you’re going to have kid-friendly pizza and soda for dinner, you might as well make it a meal you enjoy. It’s a little easier to palate the pizza and ignore the ambiance when you have a drink to take the edge off. Sure. Some of the restaurants sell beer and wine, but it’s not worth your money. Besides, it’s more fun to be a rebel, smuggle in your own booze, and spike your own punch. Come on. All the cool kids are doing it.

2) Set yourself up in a booth as far away from the party space as humanly possible. I mean, you can only tolerate singing mechanical animals for so long before your IQ begins to drop. And, it will only depress you when you realize that the animals are singing songs from when you were in high school, and that’s why now you’re singing them too. If you leave singing “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight,” don’t say I didn’t warn you.

3) Come prepared to spend a wad on game tokens. You’ll need an ample supply to keep the kids away, and you’ll need some for yourself too. Think of Chuck E Cheese as Vegas without the show girls. You’re not going to win big, but you’re not really there to win. You’re there to play. So, play. Check your decorum at the door, throw some footballs at a target, and play Frogger if you want. No one will judge you if you try to beat the high score you left behind in 1985.

Chuck E Cheese is not my favorite place. It’s certainly not where I would choose to spend my birthday dinner. But, it was where my 9 year old wanted to have his birthday dinner tonight. Five years ago, I would have freaked out at his suggestion. Tonight, I merely relished the opportunity to kick his little butt at Skeeball. Chuck E Cheese isn’t the Antichrist. It just seems that way at first. Like most things in parenting, it’s all about perspective.

 

 

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Every Age With My Boys Is A Good Age

Our little boys

One of my husband’s college roommates came to breakfast at our house today. Because Scott lives clear across the country near Philadelphia, this was only the second time he’s had the immense privilege of hanging out with our boys. The last time he saw them, they were roughly 4 and 6, and a bit more difficult to manage than they are now. Today, while we enjoyed steak and eggs and a few hours of conversation with Scott, our boys played quietly either upstairs or in the basement. They interrupted us only once to ask us to look at the whale that had appeared on Wii Sports Resort while Joe was jetskiing.

A couple times during his visit, Scott commented that our boys were so well-behaved. I had to laugh. While I know our boys are pretty good kids, I never truly think of them as being well-behaved. I suppose that’s because most of the time I’m with them they’re driving me insane with non-stop chatter, fart noises, and references to “gunships,” “hot lava,” and “Sector 4.” But, today, they were quite accommodating while we were with our friend. They didn’t stay in the room eavesdropping or run in and out being noisy or even bother us for snacks or drinks. They were inconspicuous and borderline polite. It was pleasant.

Lately I’ve been doing a bit of walking down memory lane, reviewing old videotapes I recently found of our boys when they were roughly 4 and 2. The videos tug at my heart. The boys were so cute with their speech impediments, their mischievous grins, and their funny dancing. I watch those videos and feel a bit sad that I didn’t enjoy that time in their lives more. When they were at that age, though, I was exhausted. I was simply too tired to be zen about the whole thing and live in the moment. And, every time a woman stopped me and told me to appreciate this time with my little boys, I wanted to scream, “I’m too tired to appreciate them. I’ll appreciate them later when they’re bigger and I have the energy.”

So, now that they are bigger, I am trying very hard to live with them in the present and pay attention to this time in their lives. After Scott left today, my well-behaved boys and I spent a perfect rainy day afternoon watching Iron Man and Iron Man 2 together, curled up on the couch discussing how much Luke wanted to be Tony Stark. Having the time and energy now to appreciate them has helped me understand that it’s okay that I wasn’t better about relishing the present with them when they were smaller and such a handful. I was doing the best I could at that time. And, I did enjoy them. If I hadn’t found them darling and interesting, if I hadn’t treasured the place they were at, if I hadn’t understood how ephemeral it all was, I wouldn’t have recorded hours upon hours of video of them dancing, celebrating birthdays, taking baths, and playing with Thomas the Tank Engine.

I’ve cherished every phase with my boys. I’m sure in the end I will think they all went by far too quickly. But, for now, I’m not focusing on that. I’m busy being here with my guys. They’re amazing. And me? Well, I’m doing the best I can, and that’s good too.

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Rocking It Old School

Party favors for 14 classmates and one chocoholic brother.

Our youngest son will be turning 9 next week. It’s crazy. What’s crazier still is that late last week I decided we should host a surprise birthday party for him. Luke has been talking to us for five months about what type of birthday party he would like this year. Luke loves any sort of party, but a party where he gets to be the center of attention is the best kind of celebration on earth as far as he’s concerned. He offered us ideas about where we could host it, whom he would like to invite, and what type of food we should serve. He’s coached us on what type of gifts he would welcome (Legos, Legos, and more Legos) and what type of gifts would be eschewed (clothing, especially socks or underwear). His frenzied birthday party planning was heading toward a crescendo last week. I decided I could take it no longer. I told him that his father and I had decided that we simply could not spend money on a big birthday party for him or his brother this year. End of story. Being the resilient and optimistic child he is, with visions of a Lego avalanche persisting in his mind he simply replied, “But, I’ll still get a family birthday party, right?”

The longer I thought about it, the more I realized that denying Luke a party is tantamount to canceling Christmas. He’s been on honor roll all year at school. Last month, he was awarded Student of the Month, and we still haven’t celebrated that distinction yet. And, he’d been such an exceedingly good sport when I’d told him he couldn’t have a party. Honestly, the kid has earned a party, just not the kind of party he had envisioned. The pool Luke wanted to have his party at would charge us $185 for 15 kids to swim and for us to have use of a party room for one hour. Add to that, invitations, pizza, cake, soda, and paper goods and we’d easily surpass $250. Then there are the party favors. Don’t get me started on party favors. When did it become standard to give each party attendee a bag of treats? This blows my mind. We have to reward these children for getting free lunch and cake at a party? Still, it’s a common gesture now, so you have to add that to the party cost. Insanity.

Certainly a birthday party for a 9 year old doesn’t need to bring us to a second mortgage situation, I reasoned. So, I planned to do this surprise party in a way commensurate with the kind of party my parents would have thrown for me, back in the old days when people used to host parties at home with a cake mom made. I whipped up 15 invitations on the computer and mailed them with stamps we already had on hand. Then I ran to Target and bought the ingredients for cupcakes, got a couple plastic table cloths, some two-liters of soda, a few cans of Silly String, and plain, white paper plates and napkins. My spree at Target cost about $50. I then tackled the notion of gift bags. For that ridiculous overture I bought some recycled pencils and Hershey bars and packaged them together using curling ribbon I had on hand. We are going to splurge and order pizza for 15 kids, completely justifiable cost by my estimation because I have no desire to cook. When it’s all said and done, I expect this party to cost us approximately half what we might have spent otherwise, and we’ll still get the same result…an exceedingly happy birthday boy. Imagining Luke’s glee when he sees his friends gathered here for him when he least expected it makes it all well worth the reduced price tag. I’m not going to tell him that, though. I’m really good at keeping secrets. 😉

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