Tag: motherhood

The Tale of Two Bunnies

These two bunnies may resemble each other but they are unique in their bunniness.
These two bunnies may resemble each other in form, but at the end of the day they are unique in their bunniness.

I have two sons. Although there are some similarities between them, mothering these two boys forced me to acknowledge the universal parenting truth. Parenting is not a case of nurture versus nature, but rather a case of how you choose to nurture your child’s nature. Now the fact that I know this to be true should in no way imply that I understand how one actually achieves this goal of parenting differently in the best interest of each child’s personal growth. I struggle with this daily because, like most parents, I would like to believe that in a nod to fairness I love my sons in the same way and treat them equally. It’s just not true on a day-to-day basis. They’re different people. They have different strengths and weaknesses and present unique challenges and lessons to me as their mother. They are both easier to raise than their brother in some ways and more difficult to raise in others. It is what it is.

My oldest son, Joe, has moderate ADHD. What that means for him is that he is impetuous, has a hard time focusing on anything, and even though he often knows the “right” way to do something he usually forgets to do it. As a parent trying to teach him to function in the world, his struggle with working memory has been a plague upon us both. When he was very young, his lack of follow through was something I did not think much about. I wrote it off saying he hadn’t yet reached that developmental milestone. But by the time he was six and his four year old brother began following through on things and completing multi-step directions where his older brother could not, I knew something was amiss. Still not aware that his brain struggled with working memory and processing speed, which was why he could listen to me rattle off a short list of things to do and then not remember to do them, I wrote it off as his personality. Joe was forgetful. It was his nature. It was my job as parent to correct this error in his way of doing things. I hounded him. I repeated things until I was hoarse. I followed him around, riding rough-shod over every single thing I asked him to do to make sure he would do it. About this time in my parenting journey, I really could have used today’s Bunny Buddhism quote:

I cannot impose self-discipline upon other bunnies.

I cannot force Joe to behave the way I behave because he is not me and he never will be. His brain does not work as mine does. It is as unique and interesting as he is. And no amount of badgering, belittling, or begrudging will make him act in the disciplined way I wish he would (if only for the sake of his own well-being and sanity). Even if I nurture him by providing charts and introducing him to life hacks to work around his memory issues, this is his dragon to slay. He will take from me what his mind is willing to accept and use and in time he will find his own way through trial and error, peaks and pitfalls. Likewise, I will never be able to stop his brother Luke from chewing on his shirts and leaving holes as if a goat has been wearing them. I don’t understand why he does it, but I know I can’t make him self-disciplined enough to cease and desist. It’s just not happening.

Perhaps someday Joe will remember to hang up his towel and put his clothes in the hamper. Perhaps not. He is his own bunny. He needs to find his own way in his bunniness. I can nurture his nature, but I can’t affect the outcome. And to try to do this only damages the relationship we have. I have made my own bunny peace with Joe’s memory issues. Oh. I still make him come back upstairs to hang up the towel he left on my bathroom floor because, well…I’m not his slave. But I no longer think it is my duty to turn him into the towel-hanging kid his brother is. He’s a different bunny than his brother who chews shirts who, in turn, is a different bunny than me (the one whose mother tried unsuccessfully to stop her from biting her nails).

My journey to zen is aided daily by my children who are teaching me more than I will ever be able to teach them.

Posted on by Me 3

Our Lady of Perpetual Slow Learners

Lovely couple of kids
Lovely couple of kids

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my journey as a parent, it’s that expectations can be your undoing. In terms of expectations, mothers are doomed from the start. From the day we pee on a stick and see pink lines, we are an expectant mother. Our pregnancy bible is entitled What To Expect When You’re Expecting, and we devour the information between its covers because pregnancy is so new and different and impending parenthood is equal parts exhilaration and terror. We want to be prepared…as much as anyone can be prepared for the arrival of something so much a part of oneself and yet totally unlike anything anywhere else. While our children begin their lives unencumbered by the existence of expectations, we embark on our parental career ready to measure them against the rubric of the typical. And that’s the point when we make our first big mistake.

I knew fairly early on that our sons were not typical. They did not follow growth and development charts. They were on their own schedules. Things their peers were readily learning, our sons could not. They skipped letters in the alphabet  and struggled to write their own names. They were uncoordinated with sports and were unable catch a ball or skip or follow rhythm. Physicians noted their shortfalls while reassuring us that they were fine. In school, they displayed obvious intellect while retelling stories or playing creatively, but rote memorization of math facts escaped them. They began to get poor marks on tests science and social studies tests despite knowing the answers when asked orally. We were frustrated. We knew they were intelligent, but their grades didn’t reflect it. Teachers told me they weren’t trying, but I knew how hard they worked. I could see their constant struggle to keep up and fit in with expectations they now innately understood by watching their classmates and receiving their report cards. When we finally realized that they had learning disabilities, the damage had been done. Our sons no longer believed they could be successful. Expectations were crushing them.

This year we pulled them out of traditional school and did what we swore we would not. We put them into a special school, a school for children who think differently, a school for the atypical. We’d been hesitant to take this route, fearful of pointing out to them and to others that they weren’t measuring up in regular schools. But the time for denial being a river in Egypt was over. They needed help…no matter what that help looked like. Their new school was a big adjustment for me. You see, there are no grades there. None. Kids aren’t in 4th grade and they don’t earn letter grades. They’re not evaluated that way, and teachers and students don’t discuss grades. They discuss progress. They discuss solutions to struggles. While the kids are evaluated regularly, they are assessed solely on improvement. If they’re improving, they’re on the right track. If they’re not improving, it’s time to re-evaluate how they might learn better and pursue a different route. It’s so simple it’s scary.

And, honestly, this new system of analysis did scare me. I was so tied to our traditional conventions that the variation seemed dubious. As a culture, we subsist on numbers and quantitative results. Our conversations with other parents about our children often revolve around concrete standards. Bobby came in First at State. Jimmy has a 4.0. Sue got a 1300 on her SATs. Hey. I get it. It’s an accomplishment and a feather in our caps when our child is successful in a way that we can readily point out. I know from personal experience, though, the other side of that equation. When our sons were earning C and D grades, I perpetually feared having someone ask me about their report cards. I knew that based on their grades our boys would be marked as subpar by others, and that was frightening. And now when they’re getting no grades, well that’s even scarier. When you tell someone your son is “around the 4th grade level and is a consistently improving student,” they look at you as if you’re sporting three heads. No one is up for flexible standards of personal success although that is the only type of personal success there is…the personal kind.

If we’re going to live by expectations (which we seem bound by human nature to do), perhaps we could be a bit more flexible with our assessment of others? We could accept steady improvement as our rubric. We could value overall forward progress over typical milestones because the truth is that not everyone is typical in every way. Our sons are slow learners because their brains process information differently than the majority. So what? It’s taken me almost 46 years to believe that a piece of paper doesn’t prove wisdom and all the outward success in the world doesn’t make you a better person than the next guy, and that makes me a pretty slow learner too. I’m learning to let go of expectations and becoming more patient with myself and with others. It might be two steps forward and one step back, but I’m making progress just like my sons. By the end of my life, I like to think I will have evolved not just to standards but beyond them in ways that are immeasurable.

I threw away the books that told me how my children should be. I now appreciate them for how they are.

Posted on by Me 7

The Upside of Upchuck

The reason I'm mellowing...these kids have both puked on me.
These cute kids have both puked on me.

There are some good things about getting older, particularly if that getting older occurs along with parenthood. In my advancing years, for example, I’ve discovered that I have quite a bit more perspective now than I had in my 30s before I had children. My Type-A, uptight self has been given many opportunities to learn not to sweat the small stuff. I mean, there’s a lot of perspective to gain when you’ve spent hours agonizing over the perfect outfit to wear to an anniversary party at an upscale restaurant only to have your six-year-old vomit on you in the car just as you pull into the parking lot. That’s the universe’s way of telling you to relax a little and stop fussing over things that don’t matter. The universe has been working overtime to correct my anal-retentive tendencies. My mother told me once that if you pray for something, it’s not given to you. Instead you’re provided the opportunity to earn it. My life is proof that her belief is true.

Tomorrow we’re taking the boys up for the first of five ski lessons we’ve enrolled them in. I’m a little anxious because they’re not as excited about it as we are. For most of my life, I’ve been a Nervous Nelly before a new experience. Once, in college, I drank two shots of vodka before going out for Thai food with a date because I’d never been to a Thai restaurant before and there were so many unknowns I was petrified. (A therapist would make a fortune off of me. I know this.) As I’ve gotten older and lived for years with unpredictable children, though, I’ve found a coping mechanism that won’t end in alcoholism. I play the Worst-Case-Scenario game. For example, take our skiing day tomorrow. There are dozens of things that could go wrong. We could get stuck in a snowstorm. We could forget our skis. A kid could drop one glove off a ski lift. We could arrive late and miss the lessons altogether. One of us could tear an ACL. It’s all possible, but it’s not likely. I’ve learned that worrying about the “what ifs” is a colossal waste of time. If we forget our skis, we’ll rent them. If the drive is horrific, we’ll turn around and head home. If one of us tears an ACL, well….that would suck, but it wouldn’t end the world as we know it. The more I’ve realized how unlikely it is that we’ll reach Death Con 5, the less I trouble myself over the small stuff. Gradually, my Threat Level Red decreased to Orange and now at last to Yellow. I’m making progress. I doubt I’ll ever see Green, but you gotta have goals and green is my favorite color.

No matter what happens with our planned ski adventure tomorrow, I know it will all work out one way or another.  I’m grateful that the universe found a way to offer me practice in the things I need. I once thought I did not want to be a parent. The universe knew better. Now I have two boys who are providing me with a great deal of perspective. Because of them, I’m less of an uptight loon than I used to be. I try new foods (without requiring vodka courage). I visit foreign countries. I’m interested in experiencing new things. And I don’t even lose sleep over any of it. It’s incredible how having a little person vomit on you can change you forever.

Posted on by Me 4

Just Keeping It Real

Shouldn't every boy's bathroom come with a portable television?
Shouldn’t every boy’s bathroom come with an iPad television?

Since the school year began, I’ve had several opportunities to volunteer at our boys’ new school. While the main goal of these volunteer sessions has been to meet our household required number of volunteer hours, I’ve had the good fortune to spend most of those volunteer hours with my sons among their new friends. I went on a field trip with Joe to Sports Authority Field at Mile High to tour Broncos headquarters with his classmates. I worked at the annual Scholastic Book Fair and helped my sons select a plethora of new books for our ever-growing library of graphic novels. And, today, I helped the boys and their classmates make pies for Havern‘s annual Thanksgiving Day feast, which will be held this Wednesday during the boys’ regularly scheduled lunch times. The classes make the apple and pumpkin pies that the families will eat during that luncheon. It’s both a cost-saving measure (child labor is cheap, you know) and a way for the kids to gain some new skills while working with the occupational therapy team.

During my volunteer session today, I got to watch Luke in action as he used one of those fancy apple peeler/corer/slicer gadgets that always seem like such an awesome thing until you discover all it really does in your house is collect dust back in the corner of a rarely opened cupboard. So there Luke was, quickly and artfully using the gadget that, frankly, I’ve been afraid to buy for fear of peeling, coring, and slicing off my own hand. I was impressed by how he took to the task and how deftly he was managing to use that thing without requiring dozens of stitches. After Luke had whipped through the murder of no less than six apples without any personal or property damage, it was time to turn the apple spirals into slices for the pie.

Luke’s occupational therapist explained to the kids that they could unwind and tear the spirals into slices small enough to be tossed with lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon for the pie filling. And so several children began doing just that. I grabbed an apple too and meticulously began tearing a half of each spiral layer off into a perfect apple slice while Luke stood and watched everyone for a minute. At last with great flourish he seized an apple.

“Wouldn’t it go a lot faster if you just did this?” he asked as he simultaneously tore the peeled, cored, and spiral-sliced apple in half lengthwise through the missing apple core. There he stood with half the slices in one hand and the other half the slices in the other hand, looking at us all as if we were daft for not thinking of it first.

Now I’m not ashamed to admit that my 10-year-old son figured out this simple and speedy solution while I dutifully followed the instructions of the person in charge. I’m also not ashamed to admit that his idea never even crossed my mind. I was too dang busy being proud of my baby for not following directions and for instead thinking outside the box and using his incredible spatial reasoning skills to cut through, quite literally, the core of the task. I love how Luke’s mind works. I see it when he looks at a photo of a Lego creation and describes to me how it goes together before ever opening the box or unwrapping one plastic block. I see it when he envisions a completed piece of art in his head and offers me a list of every item he will need to fabricate it. Luke’s spatial skills remind me that his dyslexia is a gift. His brain works differently, and it is awesome.

The career of stay-at-home mom is often thankless, exhausting, and unnoticed. The days when you feel truly invigorated and confident are few and far between. Tonight I was enjoying Luke’s success vicariously by dreaming that somewhere along the line I’ve done something to contribute to his mental growth in a positive, outwardly visible way. Then, in the midst of my gleeful reverie, I heard my name being called loudly from down the hall.

“Mom….Mom??” the cry came from the boys’ bathroom. It was Joe.

“What?” I bellowed back.

“Mom…I need you. It’s important,” he called. And dutifully off I went to the bathroom.

There I found Joe taking his ritual evening bath. He had his iPad propped up against the tissue box holder. I noted with an eye roll that Monday Night Football was on the screen. I love how my boys have turned their iPads into portable television sets. Rough lives they lead those two.

“What, Joe?” I asked without attempting to hide my annoyance.

“Can you hit Dismiss, please?” he asked.

It was then that I noticed that the game was paused because his iPad battery was at 10%. Ugh.  Are you kidding me? Welcome to the story of my life as Mom. Just when I’m feeling validated about my decision to stay home and raise these two school-struggling children into intelligent, decent, and reasonable human beings, one of them reminds me that I’m merely here to keep things up and running. Yep. My boys are all about making sure I’m keeping it real.

 

 

 

Posted on by Me 3

Mondays Are For Practicing Grace

I think I should start every Monday in a garden like this one.
I think I should start every Monday in a garden like this one.

Monday. Not my favorite word. Not my favorite day of the week. At 6:40 a.m., before my alarm had the opportunity to interrupt my sleep, youngest son busts into my room ready to beat his brother to the first shower of the day. I knew this was trouble because the first shower has traditionally gone to our unusually early-rising Joe, but honestly I was in denial that the weekend was over and not quite awake enough yet to deal with him so I let it slide. I remained in bed, trying to savor the last few minutes of relative peace before my week had to begin in an official capacity. After about five minutes, Luke exited the shower still giddy about his triumph.

“I can’t believe I beat Joe to the first shower. I’m going to hurry and get dressed before he gets in here. I want to beat him downstairs,” he announced to me from the bathroom.

“It’s not a race,” I reminded him.

“I know,” came the rejoinder. “I just never get to be first.”

This is true. He’s the youngest. He’s acutely aware that he is forever behind the curve of his older brother. He’s been in second place his entire life. He gets the hand-me-downs. He has to wait until he’s bigger to do things his brother is already allowed to do. Any chance to be first is a treat. I get that. I also knew Joe would be annoyed because the first shower of the day is a big deal to him for some reason. Sure enough I was right. Just a minute later, Joe burst into my room, saw Luke fully dressed with wet hair, and started yelling.

“I get first shower of the day. I always get first shower, Luke! Why did you do that?”

At this point, the boys began bickering loudly and I began slowly coming into reality. Lovely way to start a week. I rolled out of bed, hoping to minimize the damage to the morning. I told Luke to get downstairs and out of the way and snapped at Joe to get over it and get into the shower, which he did. Less than 30 seconds later, I heard the water shut off. Was he kidding me? All that fuss for a 30-second shower? There’s no way he actually used soap. The kid barely had time to get wet.

“What are you doing?” I asked, striding into the room in full-on, overtired annoyance.

“I’m done,” he replied.

“Oh no you’re not. No way. You didn’t wash your hair.”

“Yes, I did,” he retorted.

“That’s not possible,” I said, raising my voice and upping the ante.

“I did, Mom,” he insisted.

“You threw a complete fit because you didn’t get the first shower. You started my morning with screaming, and now you take a 30-second shower after all that commotion? Nuh uh. Get back in there.”

From there, things rapidly shot downhill like an Olympic bobsled team gaining momentum. Joe was mad I thought he was lying about washing his hair. I was mad that he had made such a huge issue out of his shower time and then didn’t even bother to take it. He began crying and I was beyond irritated that this was the inauspicious beginning to my week. I sent him downstairs while I worked on my frustration by stomping and banging around upstairs. Childish, I know, but I was exhausted. I thought everyone in my house understood that you don’t wake this sleeping dragon beast by screaming in my lair.

When I had finally chilled enough to arrive downstairs, Luke was busily getting water bottles and lunches ready (feeling a bit guilty, I suppose, for knowingly starting a war for the sake of being first). Joe was sitting on the living room sofa crying. I tried to pull myself together and regain control of the situation. I could not understand why he was making such a big deal out of missing the first shower. Then I started to wonder why I was making an even bigger deal about his big deal. I certainly wasn’t helping anything with my histrionics. I stopped, took a long, deep, yoga breath to the count of ten, and went over to hug Joe. I told him I was sorry for yelling at him and for not believing he’d washed his hair. He hugged back and told me he was sorry for starting our day with a fight. He was starting to calm down. I looked at the clock and realized we had 15 minutes before we had to leave. I went off to fix him some breakfast, satisfied that once he had some food we’d get beyond the ugliness. Quietly I berated myself for acting like such a brat.

When breakfast was ready, I called Joe into the kitchen. He came to the counter, sat down to the gluten-free waffle in front of him, looked up at me with a smile and pleasantly said, “Good morning, Mom.”

My 12 year old was schooling me in how to deal with setbacks. He’d decided to leave the mistakes of the morning behind. Yes. Monday had started out badly, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t change it. We could simply declare a do-over and move on. So, we did. I decided right then that do-overs should be my theme for the week. This came in handy a bit later in my Monday morning when I got to the Corepower studio for my flow-yoga class only to discover I’d gone to the wrong studio. Oops. Guess I’d be attending afternoon yoga instead.

Of all the days of the week, Mondays rejoice the most in providing me with multiple opportunities to practice grace.

Posted on by Me 2

Best Weight On My Shoulders Ever

The miracle blankie
The miracle blankie

I think by now it’s fairly well-documented that I have a deep disdain for my sons’ bi-yearly dental cleaning visits. While they’re blessed with cavity-free teeth (and thank sweet baby Jesus in a manger for that), they’re horrible dental patients. Joe is a non-stop fidgeter, and Luke is a serial puker. They must put the hygienists at Southwest Pediatric Dentistry through some sort of post traumatic stress disorder therapy because I’ve not seen even one duck and cover when my boys roll into the office. And these are women who’ve had their eye glasses knocked off their faces by Joe’s flapping hands just before getting to wear Luke’s revisited lunch for the rest of the afternoon. If they didn’t require me to be present for the visit before beginning work, I would drop Joe and Luke at the door and skulk in my car until they at last emerged with their pity-earned treats from the prize box for “good” patients.

The past two dental visits, Dr. Scott (best pediatric dentist on earth) suggested that we use nitrous oxide to sedate Luke so that Luke could finally, at long last, have a puke-free dental cleaning. It worked! It was a thing of beauty. Luke had his teeth cleaned, and I didn’t have to catch any vomit in my hands. So yesterday when we walked into the office I was sure we’d be back in the corner space with the laughing gas machine. But when the hygienist walked us down the hall to a regular room, I began to stress. I scanned that room for any sign of a nitrous machine. Sadly, there was none. I was heavily debating whether asking her to drug my son would raise red flags about my parenting skills while she made small talk with Luke. She had him pick his toothbrush, got some cool rainbow shades on his eyes, and asked him to pop up onto the table. Then she did something new. She told him that because it was cold in the office she was going to cover him with a blanket.

This brought me out of my nitrous dilemma, and I walked over to check out what was going on. It was weighted like one of those vests they put on neurotic dogs that freak out about thunderstorms. I quashed an eye roll. Seriously? They thought a blankie was going to stop the kid who once puked while viewing a preview for How To Eat Fried Worms? Ha. Good luck, lady. I went to check on Joe while the getting was good.

When I returned, though, there was no sign of distress from either hygienist or patient. Luke’s legs were relaxed, his feet drooped to the side. Then I realized the hygienist was actually running the power brush…in his mouth. I was shocked. I wanted to comment but was afraid to ruin the moment. So instead I sat with my mouth agape, shaking my head with disbelief. When hubby arrived to serve as backup troop, I couldn’t even speak. I just pointed to Luke in the chair. He nodded as if he understood, but I knew he did not.

“No nitrous,” I whispered.

“What?” he responded as if he didn’t believe me.

“NO nitrous,” I repeated. Then I clarified. “Weighted blanket.”

Hubby inched forward to check it out.

“Wow!” he mouthed.

“I know,” I mouthed back.

And sure enough, with nothing but a blanket Luke survived not only a cleaning but a flossing and a fluoride application without puking on anyone. Was this the end of our little Luke-a-Puke? I felt like I’d won the Mommy Lottery. All because of a blanket. Dr. Scott explained that the blanket calms the nervous system and eliminates the need for sedation. It sure seemed to work that way for Luke. He also mentioned that his three sons sleep with them every night, and they have worked wonders to improve the quality of their sleep. I told him that Joe has never slept well, presumably due to his ADHD, and he gave me the business card for the sweet woman who makes the blankets for the dental practice. Needless to say, when we got home I immediately ordered one for Joe. I’m counting the minutes until its arrival. I might yet get one uninterrupted night’s sleep before they go to college.

Truthfully, I have a feeling that I will probably end up ordering a blanket for each one of us because heaven knows we could all benefit from some non-prescription sedation. The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that what the world needs now is weighted blankets all around. Put down the chemical weapons and pull on a blanket. Okay. Maybe they’re not quite that powerful. But, I’m still thinking that with a blanket, some noise cancelling headphones, and some wine I might just survive the boys’ teenage years without winding up in a monogrammed straightjacket.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Me

A Reason To Celebrate

Luke and Steve exhausted in Ecuador

Today is Father’s Day. I’ll be honest. It is a tough day for me. I have never had a close relationship with my own father. We spent years estranged. We do not agree on most things. And I am not certain that there is any way to fix the situation because after 45 years of consistency you begin to accept that some things simply are what they are. Picking out a Father’s Day card is difficult because in the myriad cards available in the store there isn’t one that says, “I know you did your best, and I’m learning to be okay with that.” But I am not at my laptop this morning to write about my issues. I’m here to write about my husband and how he has given me a reason to celebrate Father’s Day.

Twenty years ago when my husband and I had been dating for just a month, he introduced me to his parents. We met for dinner with the whole family at an upscale, Swiss restaurant, and there I got my first glimpse of where Steve came from. There are moments in your life when a seemingly insignificant gesture suddenly epitomizes something much more grand. At one point during dinner, my father-in-law, deep in conversation with his son, leaned in closer to him and laid his arm across the back of Steve’s chair. He was talking and smiling and you could see in his eyes how much he loved being with his son and how utterly unafraid he was to show his son how important he was. I had never seen anything like that, such a small gesture that demonstrated the appreciation, love, and affection between a father and his son. That was the exact moment when I knew that Steve was solid. I knew he would someday be an amazing husband and a devoted father. I knew I had no reason to fear.

Steve and Joe
Steve and Joe happy in Hawaii

Now it might have been a bit naive on my part to take such an innocent gesture and ascribe to it such a grandiose meaning, but I don’t think so. Twelve years into this parenting gig with my husband and I don’t think I was wrong in my assessment. (Of course, I rarely think I am wrong about anything.) He is every bit as genuine and affectionate with our boys as his father is with him. From Day One he has been there for us. He never works more than 40 hours per work week. From the beginning he fed, changed, and bathed our boys without complaint. When they were sick, he was the first one to the thermometer to apprise the situation. When they puked up seemingly impossible amounts of pizza, fishy crackers, and juice, he disinfected the mess with the utmost courage and care and far less gagging than I ever could. He read The Hobbit to them, struggling mightily with the lengthy lists of names but muddling through undaunted. Many days after putting in his time at work, he arrived home excited to see us only to find that I was glassy eyed and already AWOL; instead of  being selfish he took one for the team and fixed dinner, did dishes, made lunches, and put the kids to bed so I could regain some sanity. He cried with me when we identified copious obstacles our sons needed to overcome with fine and gross motor skills, speech and language, reading, and academics. He spent hours building and flying kites, untangling fishing line, finding the tiniest of Lego pieces in the largest of Lego storage buckets, and perfecting his driving skills on Mariokart Wii. He has given all that he is and then some for our little family. For all the times that he felt like he was a single parent doing more than 50% of the work in the house, he never balked or grumbled. He’s a far better person than I will ever be.

So now when Father’s Day rolls around and I start to feel a bit melancholy, I think of Steve. I think of the father that he is and the gift he is giving to our sons with his constant presence in their lives, with his patience, and with his dogged devotion. When I see the tender-hearted, gentle, kind young men our sons are becoming, I see their father in them. (When I see their stubbornness, their impatience, and their kookiness…well…that’s all me.) I have plenty of reason to celebrate on Father’s Day. It’s just not the reason I expected.

Posted on by Me 8

Thank God My Son Is A Geek

Sample of a text message I received from my son
Sample text message from my son

The other day I was talking to my sister about Joe and how he’s growing up. I told her that he’s now texting his friends from his iPad. Personally, I find the whole thing reasonably amusing. Joe is not exactly the world’s greatest speller and when he texts me I often have a hard time deciphering what he’s trying to say. I imagine the process is even more difficult for a 5th grader who has less experience with the English language and with Joe’s spelling missteps than I do. My sister is more of a worrier than I am, so her mind immediately went worst-case-scenario on me.

“Who does he text?” she inquired.

“A few of his classmates,” I replied.

“Boys or girls?”

“Some of both, I think.”

“What do they talk about?” she wondered.

“I don’t know,” I answered, surprised at the question.

“Well, don’t you read his texts?”

I have to admit this threw me. Honestly, the thought never occurred to me to infringe upon Joe’s privacy. Maybe it’s naive of me, but I simply don’t see my nearly 12 year old son becoming involved in anything nefarious or sordid via text messaging at this point. First off, he’s barely one step off thinking girls have cooties. Secondly, when Joe texts me he sends me little emoticons of elephants (my favorite animal) and chickens (which he labels as “Kauai Super Chicken). Lastly, he’s the most forthright kid on earth. On the few occasions he’s been dishonest, overcome with self-inflicted, internal, gut-wrenching guilt he has confessed before I even suspected he had lied. And why would I have to read his messages when he tells me what he and his friends talk about all the time?

“No. I don’t read his texts. I have no reason to,” I said confidently, certain that my boy was sweet as seventy pounds of pure cane sugar.

“Well, don’t you want to know what’s going on with him?” she chided.

“Ummm….honestly, no. I don’t really need to read about who has a crush on whom and what episode of My Little Pony has them cracking up.”

“Huh,” my sister replied, somewhat judgmentally. “I’d just want to know more about his life, I guess.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess that I want him to know that we trust him and because I have no reason not to I’m going to let him have some privacy.”

The conversation ended there and we moved onto another subject to avoid a potential argument. But after our call I started to wonder if I was being too idealistic in my approach to Joe’s texting. I mean, I suppose he could be having conversations I might not approve of. He is getting older. They did just have “the talk” at school. He’s a shy, sensitive kid, but those are sometimes the ones you have to watch out for the most. After discussing it with hubby, we decided to take a quick look at the last texts Joe sent. The conversation was with a female classmate and it went exactly like this:

Friend: What are you talking about?

Joe: The realm of gondor

Friend: Ok??

Joe: Middle Earth

Friend: Ok??

Joe: Next to the realm of mordor where mt doom is where the ring was forged

Friend: Is this the lord of the rings?

Joe: Yes. It’s ausome (sic)

Upon reading this little tidbit, I wanted to run to my sister and tell her that I was right. I have nothing to worry about with Joe and his text messaging…at least not yet. He is just a sweet, innocent kid who deserves some trust. But I didn’t do that. Truth is I felt dirty and downright shameful for not sticking with my original instinct. I had been right to trust him in this instance and knowing that I’d violated his right to a private conversation with a friend when I had no cause for suspicion made me feel lower than a downward-facing mole on an express elevator to Hell. (And although I would not hesitate to do some snooping on my son if I did ever suspect something was seriously amiss, I have no plans to make a regular habit out of sticking my nose where it does not belong.) I still feel rotten about it. And that’s certainly not anything to call up my sister and brag about.

If there’s a plus side to this whole experience, though, it’s this…given the substance of this conversation between Joe and a female classmate, I doubt he’s going to be having any unseemly conversations with members of the opposite sex for quite some time. Unless Joe happens upon a preteen girl who obsesses more about The Lord of the Rings, sharks, and Marvel superheroes than she does about make up and the cutest member of One Direction, I likely won’t have to check his texts for at least a few more years.

 

 

Posted on by Me 3

Life’s What You Make It

Joe at the beach
Joe at the beach

Our oldest has had something of a rough re-entry into landlocked life since we returned from our Hawaiian vacation almost a month ago. I’m afraid that on our trip Joe realized that he, in fact, is not a mountain kid but is an ocean kid living in a city over a thousand miles away from an ocean. Since returning home, he’s immersed himself in ocean research, continually forcing us to watch episodes of The Blue Planet all about the seas. He’s been on Google Earth checking out locations for snorkeling vacations. (He’s currently leaning toward the Maldives. We’ll head there right after we win the lottery.) He’s also been driving me crazy by insisting that the incredibly crappy, gravel beach at the small reservoir a mile from our house has to be a regular destination for us this summer. I’ve tried explaining to him that I don’t see myself spending my summer on a bed of gravel next to a big pond that is occasionally closed to swimming because E coli bacteria is proliferating there. He seems not to hear my negatives, simply reminding me that this is the closest he can ever be to a beach and that he’s an ocean kid and not a mountain kid. Don’t we realize we’re torturing him by making him live in Colorado so far away from the ocean? Yes. He’s a bit of a drama queen. And he keeps asking us to move.

Today was the first nice day we’ve had thus far this year. The temps soared into the low 70s and everyone was out in shorts. After nothing but snowfall this spring, today felt like our deliverance. The hope of summer was so close we could almost smell the campfires and see the columbine. We imagined finally putting away our snow gear and justifiably pulling out our flip flops. Although we’re not quite out of the woods yet (looks like we might see snow again next week), we allowed ourselves today the opportunity to imagine the sound of nails being driven into the coffin of a long, cold winter. Joe was beside himself with glee, dreaming perhaps of our warmer days in Hawaii.

Late this afternoon, he asked us if we could go to the beach across the street. All I could think was that it’s starting already…the battle I will face this summer. We told him no. We’d just gotten back from a 30 mile bike ride and we wanted to hang out at home. But Joe persisted. Finally I decided to check the web site for the state park where I discovered that the swim beach was closed until Memorial Day. When I told him the bad news, the poor kid cried. He actually cried. Unable to bear his frustration, we told him we would drive over to check out the situation.

When we pulled into the lot at the beach, we found several families picnicking and having cookouts. The boys were thrilled. There was no going back. We got out of the car and headed onto the beach. Steve and I threw the beach blanket down and settled in for the half an hour of beach time we’d promised. Although they seemed to be a bit shocked by the 45 degree water temperature (not surprising to us given that the lake had ice on it until a month ag0), the boys got their feet wet and walked along the shore. They threw sticks into the water and were giddy every time a noisy speedboat kicked up diminutive, rippling waves. Steve and I watched with wonder as our sons seemed to have nearly as much fun on this beach as they’d had in Hanalei where the strong ocean tides had prohibited them from swimming from that beach. They didn’t care that the lake is so small you can see across it in every single direction. They didn’t care that the water was achingly cold and the beach was not comprised of fine, powdery sand. They enjoyed their moment anyway. After all, they were at the beach.

I am reminded sometimes that my older, wiser, more cynical view of life gets in the way of my appreciating the smaller things. I didn’t want to go to the reservoir. I could not see the point of sitting on a rough, gravel beach with no true waves and freezing cold water. I could not see it until I was there with my boys and I witnessed the incalculable joy this weak substitution offered them. Only then was I reminded that just because a situation isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it can’t be perfectly grand in its own way. Chatfield Reservoir isn’t exactly Poipu Beach on Kauai, but it’s something. Life’s what you make it.

Posted on by Me 9

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Joe and Luke playing astronaut at the museum six years ago
Joe and Luke playing astronaut at the museum six years ago at nearly 4 and 6.

I have always loved the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which was known in my childhood as Denver Museum of Natural History. I remember my school field trips there on creaky, uncomfortable yellow buses back when a trip from the suburbs to downtown felt like a trip to the moon. In college friends and I would trek down from Boulder for a welcome study break and a chance to picnic in City Park. When we had our sons, I could not wait to share it with them. And I did. Most visits consisted of me hurriedly following them as they raced through the exhibits, unable to read and only patient enough to stand still for a moment. On those visits we spent more time commuting to and from the museum than we actually spent in the museum. Still, we’d always have to stop in the space exhibit so they could try on astronaut suits and attempt to dock the Space Shuttle. One time my super speedy, two-year-old Luke beat me up the ramp out of the Mars exhibit and was immediately lost in the crowd. I found him a few minutes later, two floors up, crouched in a weepy ball on the third floor staircase and surrounded by concerned parents who wondered where his negligent mother was. (He’s been more diligent about staying near me ever since.) Most visits ended in the gift shop where often, although not always, they were treated to a small souvenir.

The boys are bigger but they look small next to that mammoth.
The boys are much bigger now but they still look pretty small next to that mammoth.

Today we took the boys as promised back to the museum, our first trip there this year. Joe, ever enthralled by natural history, has been pestering us to take him to the Mammoths and Mastodons exhibit since it opened in February. I carefully plotted to take him closer to the end of the exhibit’s run so we wouldn’t have to share the exhibit with half the city. With a couple visits to this museum every year since the boys were 4 and 2, we now have the rigamarole down to our own science. Today we arrived a few minutes before opening at 9 so we could beat the crowds. We got into the exhibit itself at 9:15, which gave us a full hour to explore before heading down one floor to catch the IMAX movie called Titans of the Ice Age, featuring (you guessed it) more mammoths and mastodons. Afterward, Joe wanted to run through the dinosaur exhibit and the space exhibit before ducking into the gift shop. By that time we were starving but we acquiesced. When Steve and I paused to enjoy the museum’s fantastic view of City Park and the Denver skyline, the boys took off without giving notice. Because they’re older now, there was no panic at their disappearance as there would have been in years past. We simply walked back to the main corridor and looked around. After a minute we spied them on the first floor near the gift shop glancing around nervously. When they saw us approaching, they looked momentarily relieved and then bolted for the gift shop. Some things never change.

Spring in Denver
Spring in Denver

On the way home (without gift shop souvenirs and the subsequent tantrums that used to follow that sad situation) the four of us excitedly discussed what we’d learned. We each had favorite revelations and discoveries. I was interested to learn that elephants are not descendants of either mammoths or mastodons as I had imagined. All three proboscideans are descendants of one common ancestor, which makes them more like cousins. Mammoths lived in colder climes and ate grasses, while mastodons lived in slightly less icy environs and munched on trees and shrubs. The more we listened to our sons talking about their visit, the better we felt about our decision to set our alarm for 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. More than once Joe interrupted his non-stop recounting of myriad factoids about late Pleistocene mammals to thank us for taking him to the museum. Tickets to mammoth exhibit for a family of four: $26. IMAX 3D tickets for more mammoth fun: $20. Gratitude from my preteen son for an educational experience…priceless.

My kids were never quiet or still enough for story time at the library. (We were kicked out more than once.) They’ve never been great at sitting still at the dinner table or a table in a restaurant. Despite the plethora of professional sporting events we’ve taken them to, they’ve only ever one time made it through an entire game. These things used to bother me. They don’t anymore. So what if they’re not quiet readers or princes of table manners or sports fanatics? They are curious learners who get all geeked out over dinosaurs, early mammals, space, rocks, animals, health, and history and who would rather conduct intellectually fueled Google searches and build elaborate virtual worlds than play soccer or baseball or lacrosse or football. Yep. They’re nerdy just like their parents. As the old saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Turns out that’s exactly how I wanted my apples to land after all.

Posted on by Me 3