Growing A Spine ~ One Vertebrae At A Time

The drink that nearly caused me a stroke.

Yesterday I wrote about a big risk I’ve decided to take. But, as I was thinking this morning about the steps to becoming a braver, better me, I was confronted by the stark reality that it is honestly easier for me to take a big or foolish risk than it is for me to take a small and relatively painless one. Allow me to elucidate. This morning, I went for an inline skate. After about 9 miles on my wheels, I was hot, tired, and in need of a pick-me-up. I decided a trip to Starbucks was in order. I got back into my car and began rifling through my wallet to see how much cash I had. That’s when I saw it. A gold star card for a free drink. I looked into my crystal ball and spied a Venti Cool Lime Refresher in my immediate future. Come to mama, you green coffee goodness. Then, I flipped the card over. It expired on May 15th. Dammit.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right for thinking it. You’re thinking So what? Ask if you can use it anyway. Right? But, I am a rule follower, and I’m averse to small and completely harmless risks. Need someone to stand on a broken swivel chair on a concrete floor to retrieve a crate of broken glass on a high shelf? That I would do for you without a second thought because I’m not a worrier. I stand on swivel chairs all the time. (Sorry, Officer Buckle.) But, ask the clerk at Chipotle if they’d be willing to donate to the school’s annual silent auction? I’d get the cold sweats before breaking out in hives. Merely to attempt something like that I would need to consume several shots of high-quality vodka, and I’m not sure that’s the right way for a mom to go about asking for donations for a Christian academy’s silent auction.

I attribute this paralyzing fear of small risks to my parents who taught me not to be a bother. I can’t tell you how many times while growing up I was informed that “Children should be seen and not heard.” I was a good kid. I listened to them. I never questioned authority. I never broke a rule. I didn’t even ditch on Senior Ditch Day. You know that squeaky wheel? I was not it. I’m still that way, although I wish I wasn’t.

I sat staring at the card in my hand. Over three months expired. Not a day or two but THREE long months. I found a $10 bill in my wallet and an unused Starbucks gift card. I didn’t need to risk the humiliation of having a clerk tell me they couldn’t accept my free drink coupon. I would just pay for it. End of story. I started my car and put it in drive. Then I thought about Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote: “Do the thing you think you cannot do.” I’d never asked anyone before if I could use an expired coupon. It seemed so brazen. Could I do it? The internal struggle between my rule-following brain and my wanna-be brave soul reached a deafening crescendo in my head.

Finally, I decided. I would not let Eleanor down. I needed to look my fear, sad and stupid as it might seem, in the face. I went to Starbucks, ordered my drink, and handed the gal my expired coupon. I’d thought about going into a long explanation about how I’d just found it buried under a pile of papers in my house and could I please use it even thought it was expired, but decided instead just to hand it to her as if it were no big deal. Sure enough. It was no big deal. She handed me my drink, told me to have a nice day, and I pulled away from the drive-thru window feeling like Bonnie minus Clyde. I know that you must think I am certifiable. You have a fair case. Just remember that everyone has their demons to face. Mine are small and silly, and I think I prefer them that way.

Posted on by Me 4

Do The Thing You Think You Cannot Do: A Coward’s Guide To Becoming Brave

Me with the lovely and talented Miss Vivienne VaVoom

Last weekend I had the opportunity to hear New York Times best-selling author Richard Paul Evans speak. Although he’s sold millions of copies of his books, I’d never read one of them so I had no idea what to expect from his speech or what, if anything, I might glean from it to help me on my own personal book journey. He spoke about the realm of self-publishing and what it takes these days to become a best-selling author. He was engaging and personable, full of positive energy and self-confidence, which is probably how he has gotten as far as he has because publishing is a difficult business that can diminish even the bravest souls. I watched him carefully, trying to determine if I had the same chutzpah he does, wondering if I could be bold. Then, he made a statement that caught my attention: “Every time I take risks, my life gets better.”

I’ve been repeating that statement to myself for five days now. As it has flipped over and over in my head like a rock in a tumbler, it has become shinier and brighter and more attention worthy. Life does get better when we take risks. We get nowhere when we are cautious or fearful. We stagnate when fail to use our imagination. The accomplishments in my life of which I am most proud were only realized after I’d been willing to move in a direction that made me uncomfortable in some way. I probably haven’t been uncomfortable enough often enough.

But, there have been moments when I did take what I felt was a personal risk. At those times, I’ve definitely come away a better person than I was before I began. I once took a dance class from burlesque queen Vivenne VaVoom. This required me to rehearse, create a costume and persona, and perform for an audience. I became much more self-confident after that exposure. And, there was my master’s thesis. It was a three year ordeal that I nearly didn’t finish because I had a child and then became pregnant with child number two. All the while my yet incomplete thesis postured on my desk and hurled taunts at me: You’re not good enough. No one really cares what you have to say, anyway. You think you’re special or something? Still, I pushed myself. I wrote while my son sat in his exersaucer in the room with me. I edited while he slept. I wrote four rough drafts before my thesis director was ready to let me defend. I flew back to Illinois for my defense, pregnant and nauseous, but I at last earned my master’s degree. In doing so, I learned that even with kids I could accomplish goals I set.

Now, I prepare for another uncomfortable risk as I stand on the precipice of authorship. It’s scary up here. I’ve started writing, but I’m not sure if I’m heading in the right direction. I do know, though, that my life will not get better if I don’t take this risk. Still, I’m talking to myself a lot to steel my nerves: You can do this. You’ve got it in you. Believe in yourself.  The part of me that is angry with myself for not taking this risk sooner gets a regular backhanded smack from the part of me that knows that I could not have attempted this in my 20’s because I wasn’t brave enough then. I needed these extra 20 years to set down firm roots so I could begin to inch ever so slowly up and out of myself. Above my head at my writing desk is this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face…do the thing you think you cannot do.” Writing a book has always been the one thing I was sure I could not do. I wanted to do it. I just didn’t think I could. I’m setting out and taking a risk to prove myself wrong and to create a better, stronger, wiser me.

What is the thing you have told yourself that you cannot do? Are you brave enough to risk it to see if your life gets better? What is one risk you have taken that made your life better? Please share your stories because I need all the inspiration I can get as I continue this journey.

Posted on by Me 8

Zen And The Art Of Arm Flaps

The point when I stopped to ponder my arm flapping.

So, after six solid weeks of not doing any sort of regular physical exercise, the kids went back to school and my workout time miraculously returned. Woohoo, right? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Yesterday as I was climbing stairs at Red Rocks (very slowly while sucking a lot of thin air and talking way too animatedly with my friend Heather), I noticed a little something disturbing happening with my arms. The back sides of them, where my triceps used to be and presumably still reside, were flapping. Flapping. They were swaying in harmony with the motion of my arms. Ew. Ew. Ew. I knew this would happen someday. I mean, this sort of thing happens to all women of a certain age, right? I chose to ignore it and not mention it to my friend because she is younger than I am and she doesn’t need to be burdened with this type of miserable yet inevitable discovery. When she is my age and starts to notice this same troublesome phenomenon, I will nod my head knowingly. I kept climbing the stairs and pushed the odd sensation at the back of my arms into a quiet spot deep in the recesses of my busy brain. I forgot all about it. Until today.

For today’s workout, I decided to hop on my mountain bike and do the 6-mile singletrack loop on the open space behind our house. It all started out fine. As I climbed steadily toward the top of the ride, my attention was fixed on my legs, still sore from the stupid stairs at Red Rocks yesterday. I started my descent. That’s when I noticed It was back. Careening down the hill, bouncing over rocks, the back of my arms flapped wildly like the wings of a chicken that is trying to escape from a mouthy red fox. Holy crap. Luckily, I have small arms so the arm flapping was not large enough in scale to knock me unconscious. Still, the depressing fact remained. What I felt yesterday was not an anomaly. My body is betraying me. Dammit! I thought about rushing home and pulling out my free weights to torture my triceps into submission. But, that would require so much work.

So, rather than trying to ameliorate the situation, I did the next best thing. I looked for the silver lining in my cloud. There must be one, right? One that would allow me to skip hours of free weights and kettle bell exercises. I scanned my brain for signs of my zen. Then it came to me….a way to make peace with my fluttering arm flaps. You see, this isn’t a sign of a breakdown of strength. It’s an indication of a loosening of spirit. I’m becoming less uptight. Yeah. That’s it. That’s the ticket. It’s not that I’m becoming soft, per se. I’m simply a bit more relaxed. I’m not falling apart. I’m yielding. I can live with that. My slackening skin, while a bit disconcerting and unattractive, is merely an outward manifestation of inward move toward zen. I’m grateful that I’m healthy enough, sagging flesh be damned, to climb stairs and ride a mountain bike. Those are the things on which I should focus. After all, what’s a little flapping skin among friends? I’m at peace with my wiggling and jiggling but otherwise healthy body. End of story.

By the way, I may or may not also have a bridge to sell you…if you’re interested.

Posted on by Me 1

I Never Wanted To Teach, But I Won’t Pass Up A Teaching Moment

On this isolated beach in the Galapagos, we found hundreds of fragments of plastic. Sad, but a perfect teaching moment.

I spend a lot of time in the car with my kids. It’s one of my favorite ways to connect with them because they’re a captive audience. Tonight’s topic of conversation was the state of the planet. What can I say? Sometimes we talk about what’s better — Thor’s hammer or Captain America’s shield? Sometimes we talk about potential flooding from eventual global warming. It all evens out. Tonight’s topic started with a plastic bottle of water in the car.

“Remember when we were in Ecuador and we couldn’t drink water from the tap in that nice hotel?” Joe asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Why was that?”

“Well, it was because the water that comes from the tap there isn’t as clean as the water that comes from the tap in our house,” I replied.

“Do the Ecuadorians drink their own tap water?” he continued.

“I would guess some do. I would guess many others buy bottled water because it’s safer for drinking,” I said, recalling an article I recently read in the New York Times, which stated that residents of Mexico City spend as much as 10% of their income on five-gallon bottles of drinking water because they don’t trust the city’s water supply.

“Do you realize,” I continued, “how lucky we are to have such a clean, safe, continuous supply of water delivered to our home day in and day out? Do you remember when we were watching The Amazing Race and the racers were in Tanzania and they saw all those people on line in town to fill up their water bottles for the day? That’s how it is for many people in this world. Not everyone has the luxury of turning on the tap and getting fresh water. Many of them have to go fetch it and bring it home, if they can get it at all,” I told them.

“I would hate it if we had to carry water home just to take a shower,” Joe said.

“I would too. You realize that when we shower, we’re using the same clean, safe water we have to drink, right?”

“We’re showering in our drinking water?” Joe said incredulously.

“Sure. It’s the same water for drinking, bathing, washing dishes, and watering our lawn,” I told him.

“That’s stupid,” Joe said. “We should use other water for showering and watering the grass and save the good water for drinking,” he said.

Yes! End scene. That’s exactly the thought I was hoping he would get to. At least he showed some glimmer of recognition that safe drinking water is a precious commodity. Will that stop him from taking his 15 minute shower tomorrow morning? Well, that remains to be seen. But, at least it’s in his head now.

These teaching moments with my boys are sacred to me. I appreciate when I’m handed the opportunity to remind them how lucky we are and how precious our planet is. When possible, I try to steer our car conversations so they become thought provoking ones. I regularly tell Joe and Luke that they need to be thinking about creating alternative energy sources, cleaning up the gyres in the ocean, and finding new means of getting people clean water because, unfortunately, we still need solutions to the problems that generations before theirs have created and perpetuated yet have not been able to fix. I remind them that they’re the future of the planet.

I won’t lie. I’ve also told them that there will be oodles of money for the inventors, scientists, and business people who come up with and market the solutions to these problems. I like to keep them motivated. Even if my smart kids aren’t the ones who will solve the world’s problems someday, I hope that talking to them now about these things might just make them more planet-responsible adults. And, heaven knows, this planet could use more of those. Maybe I’ve been watching too many socially pointed animated features, but I really don’t want to end up like the critters in the waterless town of Dirt in Rango…dancing in the town center and singing an old Hank Williams tune about “cool, clear water.”

 

Posted on by Me 9

Get The Rubber Room Ready For Me!

You’re never too old for the carousel.

I’ve lost my mind. It’s official. Prepare the rubber room. Put some extra fabric softener in when you wash my straightjacket. I’m ready to be institutionalized. It finally happened. Traditionally, the day before school starts has been the one day of the year I was guaranteed to be in a good mood. But, today, I was mopey. We went to the zoo to check our last to-do off our summer to-do list. I was depressed the entire time. Even the elephants couldn’t cheer me up, and they are my favorite zoo animal. That’s when I knew things were bad. Then it hit me. I’m actually sad that the summer is over and that the little buggers (who, incidentally, have been driving me crazy for the past two weeks with their non-stop bickering) are leaving me. Sniff.

No more sleeping in. No more schedule-less days. No more field trips. No more late nights. No more days at the pool. I’m back to volunteering, making lunches, chauffeuring, and early mornings. And, while all that is fine and good and part of my career as Mom, right now I’m sad because I am going to miss my little monkeys. The house is going to seem quiet. I’m not going to have anyone nearby with whom to share my flippant remarks, which means I’m going to be talking to myself a lot again. I never thought I’d see the day when the thought of a tranquil, silent house would vex my introverted soul. A mere couple weeks ago I was dancing in the back-to-school aisle at Target. Yet, today I’m mourning the end of summer and the loss of precious time with my awesome sons. I’m not sure what’s happening to me. Curiouser and curiouser.

I suppose that if there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the years as they’ve been growing older have been flying by at an ever increasing speed. That means that next summer should be here before I know it. Funny how time and the speed at which she travels is both a blessing and a curse.

Posted on by Me 2

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you can go months without thinking about something and then, suddenly, circumstances present that idea to you repeatedly within a short time span, bringing it back to the forefront of your mind? Well, that happened to me this weekend with the idea of growing old. After my 44th birthday at the end of May, I’d kind of drop kicked the getting old concept right out of my head. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. It was too depressing. This weekend, however, I had several conversations about how people are living to be reasonably old these days. Elderly people can live long enough that they, like my grandmother, wonder when they will ever die.

When I was a kid, way back in the 1970s, people talked about wanting to live to a “ripe, old age.” Now that many more people are living well into and beyond their late 80s and early 90s, though, that song and dance about aging has changed. Recently I more often hear people saying they hope they don’t live to be too old. It’s the whole retirement thing. People look forward to retirement, so they retire early. You could very easily retire at 65 today, though, live to be 95, and run out of your retirement savings. That’s a grim prospect.

My grandfathers retired at 65. Neither of them lived to be 75. They didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy their “golden years,” but they also didn’t outlive their pensions either. My grandmothers lived to be 93. They both ended up penniless in less than idyllic nursing homes (not that I think any nursing home situation is idyllic but you know what I mean). When I think about those two options, I have to believe that my grandfathers ended up with the better part of the deal. I’m not entirely sure I want to live to be 98 like the woman who shared a nursing home room with my grandmother during her last six weeks on earth. That poor woman had outlived everyone. She had one relative, and he lived in another state. She was alone and bedridden in a nursing home. No. Thank. You.

Although I seem to be getting older at a rate faster than I would prefer, living to a ripe old age doesn’t appeal to me. What is the benefit in living thirty years beyond your retirement party if you can never afford to party again? I’m not looking to die young (or, in my case, young-ish), but I’m not sure that living to 100 is the greatest bargain either. When I was in college working at the campus movie theater, I got to see Harold and Maude, which is a quirky cult film about a young man obsessed with death. He meets a robust 79 year old woman who believes in living every day to its fullest. It’s Maude’s assertion that 80 is the perfect age to die. When I was 20, I thought Maude had the right idea. Now as I dance ever closer to her magical number, I still find myself thinking she was onto something. But, you might want to ask me about it again when I’m 79 years and 11 months and see if I’ve changed my mind.

Posted on by Me 105

Sometimes Even Thinking About Writing Is Hard Work

This is what my vacation looks like.

I spent all of today (plus two hours last evening) at an informational seminar geared toward helping aspiring writers publish their book. I heard about this seminar through a Facebook friend who has actually managed to do just that. He and his wife published their book called Have Kids — Will Travel, all about ways to see the world with your children without having to sell the family home to do it. With all the changes in the world of publishing today, with the proliferation of eBooks and with the possibilities created by the self-publishing industry, it got me to thinking that perhaps the idea of publishing a book of my own might not be such a lofty dream. So, Friday morning I boarded a plane to Salt Lake to attend this seminar. I wanted a chance to talk with other authors, to find out what has worked and not worked for them. I wanted to catch a glimpse of what I might be getting myself into before I invested hundreds (or, god forbid, thousands) of hours of my precious time here on this earth writing something that perhaps not one other person will ever read. I thought I would look before I leap.

Writing is tough. Unearthing your subject is difficult. Finding your muse is time consuming. Putting words onto a screen is work. Self-editing is tedious. Professional edits are heartbreaking. Revisions are exhausting. The entire writing process is tantamount to giving birth, but instead of the birthing process taking somewhere between a few minutes and 36 hours, writing a book can suck years out of your life. Years. Several authors I talked to today said their books took them between 6-8 years to complete. Wow. Am I really up for that? That’s a lot of freaking time to spend on something that may not ever earn me a greenback. At least at the end of my previous two deliveries I had another human life to show for my effort.

The main thing I learned today is that sometimes even thinking about writing is hard work. My head hurts. I learned a great deal over the eight hours I spent at Book Camp this weekend…how to format my manuscript, how to prepare it for submission to publishing companies, what options exist in self-publishing and eBooks, how to format a pBook, and ways to market and sell my work. I took copious notes on both paper and my laptop. I did research on my iPhone while listening to the instructors. There is so much for me to mull over. Not right now, though. Right now, all I need is a glass of wine to help me shut off my brain. So, since I am on vacation (my kids are at home with their very accommodating father while I take this personal time), I am going to find myself a state liquor store, pick up some take out, and settle down for the evening with a good book. After all, this journey was all about books. I should toast to that, right? If all goes well, maybe someday another woman will sit in her hotel room reading my book and while sipping her sauvignon blanc.

 

 

Posted on by Me 9

I Just Discovered The Job I Was Meant To Do…Airport Security

If you can’t travel for a living, then work where you can torture those who do.

So, all this recent air travel (I’m writing this from a hotel room right now) has prompted me to make an important and potentially life-changing discovery. I have uncovered the job I was meant to do in this life. For most of my adult life, I felt that my introverted orientation would best suit me for a career as a writer or researcher, solitary jobs where I could work with limited human contact. I once even entered library school to pursue a master’s degree in library and information science because libraries, above all else, are quiet places…peaceful places where no one is allowed to yell or run around or disturb anyone else. You see, I don’t generally care for human interaction. It exhausts me and, unfortunately, most jobs require you to interact with other people. Finding a job where you rarely have to deal with people at all is difficult because most of those jobs are already being done by other introverts who got there first. Sigh.

Well, I’ve spent a lot of time in the airport recently and what I’ve realized is that I was meant to be a TSA employee. Yes. I know. Airport TSA agents encounter oodles of people each and every day. But, you know what? They don’t have to be nice to them. Most TSA agents are sarcastic, bossy, and standoffish. You know what? So am I! You know what else? The government pays them to be that way every single day on the job. Have you spent any time watching an airport TSA agent? They have complete and utter disdain for humanity. Why shouldn’t they? Have you met people? Most people are confused. They don’t read signs. They can’t follow directions. They’re completely bewildered in the airport. They’re unwilling and unable to adapt. Even now, nearly 11 years into a post 9/11 world, people still don’t know how to get through this enhanced airport security. They remain unhinged.

Oh. They mean well. They try. But, TSA agents shout so many instructions and there are always newfangled scanning machines and it’s all so darn confusing to the average person who only occasionally travels. The problem is that there are A LOT of those type of travelers in the airports slowing down the screening process and annoying the living crap out of the poor, beleaguered TSA agents. This is why, I believe, they are belligerent. We’re mucking it all up and making it nearly impossible for them to get to their well-earned coffee break.

My mother-in-law who, by all accounts, has traveled a great deal got caught up in the security nightmare last week at the Miami airport as we were going through U.S. screening after returning from Ecuador. They asked her to walk into one of those large millimeter wave scanners where you stand with your feet spread wide and place your hands above your head like you’re being robbed while the machine’s arm scans you down to your birthday suit. Apparently, Marlene did it wrong because the TSA agent yelled at her as she exited the scanner.

“Do you have something in your pockets?” the hefty and thoroughly frustrated agent bellowed.

“Just some Kleenex,” my mother-in-law replied quietly.

“You are supposed to empty your pockets,” the agent reprimanded. Then, in a shrill voice she yelled right over the top of my mother-in-law’s 5′ tall head. “RECALIBRATE!”

This forced another TSA employee to roll their eyes, get up from their stool, and reset the machine that my mother-in-law had obviously disturbed. Now, most of us would not think twice to leave a piece of paper in our pockets because with the traditional metal detectors we’ve been used to for years, a mere piece of paper would not be an issue. “Empty your pockets” used to mean take the metal out of them. Now, it means take everything out…hence, the need for flippant comments when explaining in excruciating and obnoxious detail what the term “empty” means. Having carefully watched this scanning process while waiting in endless lines at the airport, I noted that approximately 1 in every 5 scans may end in a recalibration because someone either touched something or left something in their pockets. That’s a fairly high percentage of people messing with the process and, consequently, a fairly lucrative opportunity for overt sarcasm and disdain for humanity. Where else could I get paid to show how much people annoy me?

So, you see, I might have found a better alternative career for myself. I’d thought about writing some sort of book or something, but a job with the TSA might be more therapeutic and beneficial. I could take out my endless frustrations with clueless humans in a public setting. Then, when I was depressed by the sheer number of perplexed and befuddled individuals wandering through this great nation, I could retire from the TSA and write a book about my experiences. Seems as if I’ve finally found both my calling and my book opportunity. Hallelujah!

Posted on by Me 1

Sometimes A Little Gas Is A Good Thing

Yep. That’s a nitrous perma-grin all right.

The weirdest thing happened yesterday. I went to the dentist with my boys, and I didn’t leave the office crying, yelling, or crusted in vomit. This is a miraculous first. When my boys were very young, I feared they might have difficulty at the dentist, Joe because of his heightened level of fears and Luke because of his obnoxiously enhanced gag reflex. So, they had their first dental visits when they were 2 1/2. I figured better to start them young with innocent visits to prepare them for teeth cleanings, x-rays, fillings, and extractions later in their youth.

It turns out that my best intentions were for naught. Oh. It was all fine and cute when all they were doing in the office was getting their teeth “counted”. But, once the real cleanings and flossings began, the deepest chasm of hell opened. Joe, with his then undiagnosed ADHD, could not sit still. He would flip around in the chair, pull his legs into his chest, and knock the tools out of the hygienist’s hands. Luke could sit still, but when the implements came out he would gag before they even touched his mouth. On more than one occasion, he threw up on the hygienist and me. They even assigned him a specific hygienist, presumably the one with the greatest patience and tolerance for vomit but probably the one who drew the shortest straw. Luke has seen Kristy for every single visit since he was 4. I probably should add her to our Christmas card list and make sure I include a spa gift card.

So, what made yesterday’s visit different? For starters, Joe has a much better handle on his ADHD and after having suffered through three extractions and a year and a half of braces already he’s become a much improved dental patient. And, Luke? Well….they finally had exhausted all their other options with him, so they decided to bring out the big guns. They asked me if it was okay to try him on nitrous oxide for his appointment. Considering that I had researched acupuncture and therapy (for him and possibly for me, as well) to help with these appointments, I was ready to try anything. Desperate, I acquiesced. Just thirty seconds into a little breathing of a bubble-gum scented gas, Luke was visibly relaxed. In fact, he was so relaxed I was wondering if he had fallen asleep. His usual nervous twitching was gone.

“Luke…are you all right?” I asked.

“Uh huh,” he responded after a little pause.

“Do you feel relaxed?”

“Uh huh,” he responded again with his lips in a permanent grin. Then, he hit me with this. “Mom, can we get one of these machines at home?”

Wow. Okay. So I guess we now know what kind of an addictive personality Luke has. Between his competitive nature and his apparent fondness for substance-induced altered states of consciousness, I was afforded a momentary glimpse into what college might be like for him. Beer Pong Championship here we come.

“Luke…if these machines were commercially available, we would already own one and I’d be hooked up every single afternoon,” I replied.

He didn’t respond. He just continued to grin.

Is it right to drug my child at the dentist? I’m positive there are those who would emphatically tell me no. Then, I would tell them to take a flying leap because until you’ve parented a kid like my Luke, you have no clue. Yesterday, on his fourteenth dental visit, Luke finally had his first real cleaning, flossing, and fluoride treatment. Kristy was also able to use the ultrasonic tartar cleaning tool on him simply by telling him that some squeaky little mice were going to clean his teeth. Seriously? Then, the most amazing thing happened. The orthodontist was able to take photos of his teeth, inserting a huge metal spatula in his mouth to capture both the front and the back of his teeth simultaneously on film. I almost fell over. I don’t care what anyone says. That nitrous oxide yesterday was worth the $40 out-of-pocket expense, and I most definitely would drug my kid for a dental appointment again. Sometimes a little gas can be a good thing.

 

 

Posted on by Me 2

Our Kids Are Just Kids

My boys decked out for battle this morning

Yesterday was our sons’ annual well check at the pediatrician’s office. I never know exactly what to expect at these check ups because my kids are loose canons. When the doctor asks them questions, I’m never sure how they’ll respond. When Joe was five, he told the doctor that I fed him only bread and water and that he had no bed time. While the no bed time comment was true because he would never follow an actual schedule, I was in fact feeding him decent foods on a regular basis. Luckily for me, pediatricians are used to all sorts of weird answers from children, so the doctor lets my boys’ weirdness slide. I’m sure he goes home at the end of our visit, however, and tells his wife the crazy things I say immediately after my children make some random declaration of child abuse: “I do feed him. I swear I do. Bread and water are his favorite foods.”

Now that the boys are school age, the questions are a bit different. The doctor yesterday asked them what grades they were going into, what school they attended, and how they were doing in their studies. He then asked them the question I dread the most.

“So, what sports do you guys do?”

“Ummm…we don’t do any sports,” Joe replied.

“I don’t like sports,” was Luke’s immediate response.

“Well, what do you do when you’re outside then?” the doctor tried again.

“Nothing,” Joe said.

“Play with friends,” Luke said.

“I think he means what kind of exercise do you do,” I prompted.

“We don’t like exercise,” Joe replied.

“But, they do get exercise,” I back pedaled. “They hike, ride bikes, and swim in the summer. We snowshoe and hike in the winter.”

“What do you boys want to be when you grow up?” he tried again.

“I’m not telling you,” said Luke, too embarrassed to reveal that his dream is to be an Ironman-like superhero who designs sets for the Lego company.

“I don’t know,” Joe answered honestly.

“That’s okay,” the doctor told him. “Lots of grown ups don’t know what they want to be when they grow up.”

True enough. The doctor breezed through the rest of the well check, clearly unconcerned about Luke’s refusal to eat vegetables (“He’s gaining weight and his blood tests look good”) and Joe’s split lip (“Throw some Aquaphor on there and give it time”).

While we were on our trip, many of the kids the boys played with asked them about sports. Most of our friends’ sons participate in multiple sports and play in all kinds of leagues. We know soccer players, baseball players, football players, hockey players, and lacrosse players. They have friends who do tae kwon do, swim team, and triathlons. They regularly watch sports on television and have favorite teams. Our boys, on a good day, can maybe tell you the names of the four pro sports teams in Denver. Maybe.

Steve and I were discussing the other day the fact that our kids have shown no interest in activities and sports. We’ve registered them for soccer, baseball, swimming, and sports camps and they’ve whined about having to go. They just can’t bring themselves to care. Honestly, I’m relieved they don’t. Our nights are not hurried to get to and through practices and my weekends aren’t spent sitting on a wet, grassy sideline as it snows on my sons’ games. I don’t miss it.

Prompted by the comments of friends, though, about how our boys need activities to get into college and how by the time they decide they’re interested in sports the other kids will be far better than they are and they will not make the team, I have wondered if we’re doing our sons a great disservice by letting them skip out on sports when they’re young. Then, the other day, hubby said something that made me feel much better about it all.

“You know, they may not be great at sports. But, you know what they are great at? Being kids.”

He’s right. They’re 9 and 11. They have their whole lives to decide what their interests are and what they enjoy. For now, it’s good enough that they like to dress up in crazy costumes and run around carrying plungers and being superheroes. Our boys might be short on discipline, but they’re long on imagination. And, that may serve them just as well if not better in the long run.

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