On Happiness

K turned two a couple of weeks ago. As I watched her savor cupcakes and ice cream and rip into presents, I was struck by how much joy children find in the simple acts of living. I can’t remember the last time that I stuffed an entire chocolate cupcake into my mouth with abandon.

Children are notoriously impulsive. R shows no hesitation flying down the driveway on his scooter or throwing his body to the ground during a soccer game. K’s recklessness in the swimming pool would drive any parent to require her to wear a life jacket until she’s 30. The risks that adults carefully weigh and consider are only after thoughts in a kid’s world.

Somewhere along the road to adulthood, we grow into individuals who are self-conscious and afraid to take chances and fail. Some might call this good sense. Nobody wants to get hurt, and bones heal more slowly when you’re 40 than when you’re four.

But this indecision creates many roadblocks in our quest for happiness. The very act of risking without knowing what the outcome will be is what makes life exhilarating. Without change and risk, we are destined to live in a perpetual state of monotony. I’m certainly not suggesting that my children (or anyone else for that matter) race trains, play Russian roulette or get tattooed while inebriated. But there's got to be a happy medium between reckless irresponsibility and paralyzing caution.

One day, when R and K have reached adulthood, and faced with a major life decision, frantically find themselves conducting risk-benefit analysis in their heads, here are some of the things I would tell them about what I’ve learned on my own quest for happiness:

-Try new things. Order something you’ve never had before at a restaurant. Take a yoga class. Have a conversation with a stranger (in a well-lit, busy location). Get a new haircut. Go somewhere you’ve never been.

-Live with abandon. Jump into the pool without checking the temperature first. When a good song comes on, sing out loud in a public place. Wear white to a barbecue. Laugh until you snort milk out of your nose.

-Take risks. Accept a new job. Choose the red shoes instead of sensible beige. Say, “I love you” without wondering if the other person will say it back. When we stop risking, we deny ourselves the opportunity to live fully.

-Know yourself. Know who you are all alone without anyone else’s expectations. Take time to do things that make you happy. Throw off the idea that it’s selfish to take care of your own needs. When we do this, it allows us to give to others willingly, not resentfully.

When our founding fathers penned the Declaration of Independence, they valued happiness so highly that they called the pursuit of Happiness an unalienable right. We aren’t guaranteed happiness, only the right to pursue it. I would tell R and K to avoid being their own biggest obstacles to that pursuit. When happiness floats into view, grab onto it with both hands and hold on tight. Don’t let go and don’t look backward or forward. Just savor it like a fistful of chocolate cupcake.  

 Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get, you’ve got to make for yourself. –Alice Walker

Fecal Matters

Last night, I was paying bills when J came into the kitchen laughing so hard he had tears streaming down his face. I asked him what was so funny. Words escaped him as he attempted to gasp out an answer, so he simply handed me a small, photo copied book that he had found in R’s backpack.

It was bound neatly at the top by two staples, clearly the work of an adult. The front cover featured two cartoon children, one a boy and one a girl. Above them, the book read My First Day of School By R. R had neatly printed his name on the line provided and colored the pictured children in with crayons.

“What a fun idea,” I thought, making mental note to add it to his box of keepsakes.

I continued to flip through the book. There was a page with a picture of a red schoolhouse. R’s teacher had neatly written the name of his school at the bottom of the page, and again, crayons were his choice of medium. A self-portrait of R followed, and then a page with his teacher’s name, and another page that listed the number of boys and girls in his class.

By this point, I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about his upcoming kindergarten experience. With a sentimental smile on my lips, I flipped to the next page, and this is what I saw:

Stunned, I wasn’t sure I had read it correctly the first time, but after looking at the accompanying drawing, there was no doubt about it. It was what I thought it was, and it explained J’s uncontrolled mirth.

After I recovered from my own uncontrolled laughing, crying, gasping fit, (trying to be as silent as possible so R couldn’t hear me from the next room) I went from feeling amused to mortified. Had his teacher seen his all-too-accurate depiction of a pile of feces? Perhaps if she had just seen the drawing, she thought he wanted to learn more about baking bread. However, R had left nothing to chance by carefully printing the word P-O-O-P at the top of the page.

I composed myself, banished J to our bedroom (he can’t keep a straight face when dealing with situations like this to save his life) and sat down to have a chat with the R-man.

ME: “R, I really like this book that you made at school today, but there’s something that I want to talk to you about.”

R: “What?”

ME: (Holding up page in question): “Why did you write that you want to learn more about poop?”

R: “It’s the word I can spell and write the best besides my name.”

ME: “Why did you need to write it out? (Pleading tone enters my voice.) Couldn’t you have just drawn a picture?”

R: “I wanted to make sure everyone knew what it was.”

The conversation ended with us brainstorming (with J’s help) other topics that R would like to learn more about this year (dinosaurs, volcanoes, counting money, and reading) and outlining the only occasions in which “poop” will be an appropriate response to a school assignment in the future (while studying the digestive system or dissecting owl pellets in science class).

Luckily, I think R’s teacher has been working with 5-and-6-year-olds long enough to find a modicum of humor in this situation. The next time I see her though, I will be wondering if the twinkle in her eye has anything to do with the first assignment R did in her classroom. To all of my elementary teacher friends, there is a special place behind the pearly gates for you someday.

A New Beginning

Before he finally crawled, R spent months on his hands and knees, hind end in the air, rocking back and forth. Occasionally his top-heaviness would get the better of him, and he would lean too far forward and tumble over. The first time he managed to coordinate hands, knees and feet in a way that allowed him to move across the living room floor, I startled him with my sudden shrieks, urging his dad to come and see what he was doing (I’ve found that subsequent children don’t suffer nearly the level of post-traumatic stress that first-borns are subjected to, not because we aren’t just as excited by their feats, but because we’ve seen the effect too much enthusiasm can have). After he recovered from his shell shock, R continued across the living room floor, but paused to look back over his shoulder at us, as if to reassure himself that we were still where he had left us, grinning like idiots.

He was not nearly so cautious a few months later when he started walking. With the abandon of someone who has never fallen from an upright position before, R would suddenly let go of the furniture that separated him from disaster and attempt a step. I once thought that stretching one’s arms out in front of the body in an attempt to protect it from hitting the ground was an in-born reflex, but it’s not. It turns out that it’s a learned response to painful stimuli. There’s really no other way to teach this important life lesson. I would follow him as he barreled around on his toddler legs, trying to anticipate any unsteadiness that might lead to a face-plant, but in the end, I had to let him fall a couple of times before he understood the arm-face-pain connection.

Having mastered the art of bipedalism, the world was R’s oyster. He no longer cared for being confined to a stroller or held in someone’s arms. With the ability to propel his own body forward, he could now go where HE wanted to go to see the things that HE wanted to see. Shopping malls, parks, the grocery store parking lot and our own front yard became meccas for his exploration and exercises in terror for me when he would wander too far away. I wanted to run after him, scoop him up and keep him close to me.

One day several months ago, I took R to an empty parking lot with the intention of teaching him to ride his bike without training wheels. He insisted that I absolutely not let go of the seat of his bike. He even made me promise that I wouldn’t let go before he would agree to pedal forward. Dutifully, I held on to the seat while he wobbled along, painfully slow, trying to find his center of gravity. I noticed that the tighter I held on to his bike seat, the wobblier the bike became. When I loosened my grip and rested my hand lightly on the seat, R adjusted his weight so that he was centered on the bike and pedaled forward smoothly. After several rounds of practice, R’s riding had improved so much that I was having trouble keeping up with him to hold on to the back of the seat at all. I let go, and he took off across the parking lot, pedaling as fast as his little legs would allow him. At some point, he realized I wasn’t behind him, looked back to see where I was, and crashed.

Of course, he was really mad at me, and reminded me repeatedly of my promise. Looking sullenly at his scraped knees and hands, he insisted that he was never going to learn how to ride a bike. I reminded him that he WAS riding his bike until he stopped, but that we could pack his bike up and go home now if he didn’t want to ride anymore. (Never challenge a kid who likes a good challenge by implying that he CAN’T do something.) Twenty minutes later, R was flying across the parking lot while I cheered him on. I was thrilled that he had come so far in one afternoon, but as I watched his retreating figure grow tinier and tinier, a little voice in my heart wanted to shout, “Too far, come back to me!”

Tomorrow, J and I will drop R off at the doors of his elementary school and watch him as he makes his way into the gymnasium to join his kindergarten class. I will stand there with other mothers of ingoing kindergartners (We’ll be the ones with runny eyeliner, clutching fistfuls of Kleenex like security blankets). Amidst the excited commotion of a new school year, alongside sixth graders who will be twice his size, and under the supervision of what I believe will be a delightfully fun, but firm teacher, R will begin a new journey that will take him a little farther from us.

Parenting is a constant cycle of holding on and letting go, of pushing forward and pulling back. Sometimes the lessons are painful, and sometimes they are triumphant. I guess the best we can hope for is that our kids know that we will stay constant, so that when they need to look back and find us, we will be right where they left us.

So, here’s to a new beginning and 13 years of science fair projects, field trip permission slips, and finding out at 11 o’clock the night before the school chili feed that your kid was supposed to ask you to bake 6 dozen brownies.

Perspectives

It’s been one week since the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial was decided. J and I were out with friends to celebrate his birthday when the verdict was announced. I was on my way to the restroom of a crowded venue when I heard shouting and glanced up at a TV mounted on the ceiling to see Zimmerman’s face and the word “acquitted.” I will admit that my first thought was that there might be rioting, much like what occurred in L.A. after the Rodney King case was announced in 1992. I hurried on to the restroom to be on the safe side. Over the past week, I have read commentary and watched interviews from both sides, seen long diatribes on Facebook outlining people’s reactions, and discussed the case with family and friends.

This case has captivated many because it is so multifaceted. Issues of race, age, character, and the rights of gun owners were thrust into the spotlight. As I followed this case in the aftermath of the verdict, it struck me that one conversation that seems to be missing is our ability as human beings to look at a situation from a perspective outside of our own life experiences. As a nation, we have become less empathetic toward one another in exchange for a false sense of security. When I think too long on this, it distresses me to imagine the kind of society we are leaving for future citizens of this country, including my own children.

As a mother, I feel compassion for any woman who has ever lost her child, but especially for mothers who have lost children unexpectedly and to violence. To have invested all of your love and energy to this life, and then to have that life taken by another would be truly devastating.

I can never know what it feels like to be a young, black man in the United States walking alone at night in a predominately white neighborhood. But I do know what it’s like to be a woman walking alone at night in a rough neighborhood. Gripping car keys between tensed fingers, always anticipating what’s around the next corner, heart thumping in ears, the constant urge to turn around and see what’s behind you. I grew up with cautionary tales of girls and women who had been overpowered, violated, or left for dead. Every news story about sexual violence and every date rape episode of Law & Order reminded us that the world could be a dangerous place to be female. If I had grown up listening to the Rodney King story or felt like I was under a cloud of suspicion every time I wore a hoodie, I might feel the need to defend myself if someone approached me in the dark to ask me what I was doing. I’ll never know for sure, but I can imagine it. That’s part of our humanity; being able to imagine what an experience must be like for someone else.

I find it interesting that the characters of both Zimmerman and Martin have been so thoroughly dissected by the general public. Neither man would have been in the running for sainthood, but I know very few adults or teenagers who are perfect. Their characters, beyond what happened the night of the run-in, seem irrelevant to me. As a former high school teacher, I once taught a first hour English class in which I am fairly certain ¾ of the students were high each morning. These were low-to-middle income white and Native American students from a rural area. While I don’t condone the use of illicit drugs, marijuana is not associated with increased aggression, so unless we are trying to prove that Martin was doing something that many of his adolescent peers try at one time or another, I really don’t think we have proven much.

Zimmerman had lawfully applied for and obtained a firearm, and according to the laws of his state, had the legal right to carry it and defend himself. Feeling threatened, Zimmerman produced his firearm and shot. There’s a reason that when individuals enter into careers in law enforcement, they are required to have extensive training in conflict resolution, mediation, and acceptable situations in which to discharge a firearm under extreme emotional stress. As far as I’m aware, there are no such demands put on individuals who are applying for permits to carry. As a citizen of this country, I’m not comfortable with the idea that the average layperson has the skills necessary to make decisions under extreme emotional stress whose consequences have such potentially grave outcomes. That certainly seemed to be the case in this situation, as it was later discovered that Martin was unarmed.

While many will disagree, it’s my assertion that this is the failure of a society, which in its attempts to feel secure in a post-9/11 era, has created a monster by loosening gun control policies. Like an overzealous parent, intent on protecting their offspring, we have created a nation that is anxious, suspicious, and quick to react. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Like the liberty to allow your 17-year-old to walk to the Quick Shop for a snack without getting shot.)

If I leave out matters of race, personal character, and gun control, this case boils down to one thing for me: Trayvon Martin was not an angel, but he was an unarmed, 17-year-old kid. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and predict that there aren’t many of us (myself included) who can say that we always thought clearly or made good decisions at 17. George Zimmerman was a 28-year-old man who had undertaken the responsibility of owning a potentially lethal weapon. That kind of responsibility should dictate that when a 911 dispatcher tells you to get back into your car and go home, that the police are on their way, and there is no imminent bodily threat, you do it. You don’t get out of your car and follow the person of concern on a misguided vigilante mission. If Zimmerman had acted with the kind of maturity I expect from someone allowed to carry a loaded weapon, Trayvon Martin would be alive today.

It’s important to me that J and I raise R and K to be the kind of people who have empathy for others. When they’ve hurt someone, we ask, “How would you feel if…?” We try to teach them to look at situations from many perspectives before making rash judgments, even if those perspectives are outside of their personal experiences. We ask, “What would it be like to…?” I wonder what the world would be like if more adults asked themselves these same questions.

The Family Vacation

Long the hallmark of the middle class, the family vacation provides hard-working men and women a week each year to focus exclusively on making memories with their spouses and offspring. Without the distractions of texts, e-mails, bills, work or school, moms and dads set out to provide memorable, enriching life experiences that their children can carry into adulthood and reflect upon fondly in coming years. Suitcases (or, as R calls them “case suits”) are packed, itineraries are made, and mail is stopped.

Each February, I turn to my husband and ask him where he would like to go on vacation for a week in the summer. “Somewhere close” is usually his reply. (One has to wonder about the person who first decided that confining family members to a space the size of a Johnny on the Job and driving several hours was the recipe for relaxation and domestic harmony.)

Amidst flying snowflakes and subzero temperatures, usually while nursing a head cold, I eagerly research hotel rooms, cabins, or condominiums and dream of warm summer nights and walking hand-in-hand along a shoreline. Our children, dressed in white, K with a pinafore and bow in her hair, skip ahead of us looking for shells or pinecones or other treasures of nature. The temperature is always a perfect 76 degrees in my fantasy, and we seem to be the only people present in our vacation sanctuary.

Returned from an actual week of vacationing with my family, I have come to the conclusion that reality is the nail in the coffin of expectations. Don’t get me wrong. There are moments from this vacation that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Last year, K was still too young to interact in a meaningful way with her brother. This year, they delighted in plotting against us from the backseat. (Think repeated singing of playground songs and crude noises made by the mouth.) They reveled in discovering new places and seeing things they hadn’t seen before (like the inside of a cave. Evidently, bat poop is endlessly fascinating.) And when I’m an old woman, the image of two happy, smiling faces jumping into my outstretched arms from the side of a swimming pool will sustain me. To quote J, “It seems like we always come away with great memories, but sometimes it’s just so dang stressful.”

Last summer we chose a vacation destination that required us to cross three states and drive approximately 13-hours. That experience fresh in our minds, we decided to stick closer to home and drive east to a popular vacation destination about 5 hours away. R took advantage of his close back seat proximity to his sister to enhance her toddler vocabulary. The “Can You Say?” game took off from the start and was mutually entertaining for both kids. Our not-yet-two-year-old can now utter such helpful conversational phrases as “I farted” and “Where is your butt?” (R’s success rate is even better than Rosetta Stone, which promises that you will be conversationally proficient in a language of your choice in as little as five lessons.)

When they tired of the “Can You Say?” game, R turned to his old standby, tormenting his sister by holding things just out of her reach, and then mocking her when she cried. J and I shut this down quickly by distributing snacks and crayons, which K promptly spilled all over. (I recently found violet lodged in a crack in the console, oddly warped by the July heat.) K also decided that vacation was the perfect time to reveal her intense aversion to wearing shoes, so that I lived in perpetual fear that we were going to leave strays at every rest stop along the way.

Like Lucy and Ethel, Abbott and Costello, Bert and Ernie, and Thelma and Louise (okay, bad example), J and I each play a role when it comes to vacation transportation. I’m terrible at reading maps and giving directions and prefer to drive, while J revels in finding the best, most direct route to our destination. Most of the time, this division of responsibility works well, J calling out directions, me turning left here, merging onto a highway there. As all couples that have travelled together know, even the most solid relationships can bend under the strain of heavy traffic, whining children, and lack of sleep.

My husband is the king of the imaginary brake pedal. If he has even an inkling that you might not see the gigantic semi idling at the stoplight in front of you and brake soon enough to avoid hitting it, he will brake for you. Early in our marriage, I found this charming. It was almost a reflex, like he was involuntarily programmed to keep us safe. Seven years in, I find his sudden foot and knee flexing to be a silent commentary on my driving abilities. That, along with his charming habit of leaning slightly to one side or the other in an effort to guide the car where he thinks it should be going, has led to many choruses of “Would you like to drive?”

This year, I booked a condo with two full bedrooms and two full baths. Sharing a hotel room with two small children means that J and I either have to go to bed at 10 PM or keep the kids up and deal with the consequences the next day. When we discussed these reservations back in February, I pictured us putting the kids to bed side-by-side in one of the spacious king-sized beds, and then having time to relax and have grown-up discussion before we headed off to bed in the second room. As it turns out, kids don’t sleep well alone in strange places, even when they have each other. J ended up occupying one of the king-sized beds while I awoke each morning to R’s bony knee in my ribs and cries of “I pottied Mama!” from K.

I love to document our family travels through pictures, and we have albums full of vacation photographs, first as a couple, and then with R as a grinning toddler, and now the four of us. What I’ve noticed is that not unlike my February fantasy vacations, I tend to photograph the idyllic moments, when everyone is smiling for the camera, as if to prove that this vacation was perfect. This year, I decided to bring out the journalist in myself, dust her off, and strive to capture the truth (good, bad or ugly). Here are a few of the highlights:

-A charming photo of K, on her back on the ground, kicking her feet because her mini-golf ball had to be returned to the clubhouse at the end of the game.

-R melting down on the floor of a conservation center because he was ready to go on the hike we promised and tired of all the “boring” stuff we wanted to look at.

-K pouting in front of a wooden ship’s wheel because she wanted to have complete control over turning it, as her brother stands in the background smiling.

-After an hour of getting everyone ready to go mini-golfing, buckled in, equipment rented and paid for, train taken to get to hole #1, the skies opened up and a torrential downpour of rain soaking the four of us as we scrambled to get back to the car.

-R’s tear-stained, powder sugar-covered face, comparing the amount of funnel cake he got to the amount everyone else got (despite the fact that he ate ¾ of it).

-My husband, looking dazed, as if he has just walked out of a combat zone as he struggles to fold the stroller and load it onto the tram after a long day at an amusement park.

When the photos came back a couple of weeks after our return, I flipped through them, recalled the stories that went with each, smiled, and turned to J.

“What a great vacation! Where do you want to go next year?”

A New Kind of Clean

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Before I had children, I spent one morning each weekend cleaning my house. I would de-clutter, dust, vacuum, do laundry, scrub, and polish. When I finished, I’d look around and marvel at the general order of my life. I basked in the glow of an entirely clean house. When R was born, I tried to keep up with my pre-child standards of cleanliness and soon found the practice to be discouraging, but accomplishable. By the time K came along, I found it to be downright impossible.

The problem is, as soon as one room has been cleaned to my satisfaction, I look behind me and find that my children have not sat idly by while I strived for cleaning perfection. Instead, they have dumped an entire bucket of Legos in the middle of the living room floor and strewn half-naked dolls down the hallway, their underutilized clothes lagging behind them.

Better Homes and Gardens and HGTV rarely feature glossy photos or spotlight homes decorated with The Avengers action figures and varying shades of Disney-princess pink. Not once have they addressed how to arrange light sabers on your living room couch for maximum impact. In fact, the houses they feature must not be occupied by anyone under the age of 21 (or anyone who actually likes to EAT at a dining room table for that matter, because seriously, who actually has time to put napkin rings on cloth napkins?)

I’ve reached a new stage of acceptance though, and now realize that my entire house will never be simultaneously clean again. Instead, I spot clean (this usually happens when something in the house gets so messy or cluttered that I snap). For example, when I can no longer find the kitchen counter to slice an apple, it’s time to sort through the mail, art projects, tools and toys that have accumulated there. (My husband tends to keep his distance when I fall into one of these moods, lest he be unwillingly recruited. He’s a wise man.)

Good Housekeeping magazine has a featured column each month that lists the “best” way to clean something, and also the “good enough” method for the same task. I really took to this idea the first time I saw it. I think it appeals to my perfectionistic side, while also acknowledging reality. So, I’ve decided to try my hand at it. Let’s call this the “BEFORE KIDS” method vs. the “AFTER KIDS” method:

LAUNDRY

BK:  Laundry days were Wednesday night and Saturday morning. All laundry was collected, washed, dried, and folded while enjoying favorite television shows. Laundry was then promptly put into dresser drawers and linen closets and clean towels were hung in the bathrooms. Iron-able items were creased, pressed, and hung in closets.

AK:  Laundry days are whenever someone complains that they’ve run out of clean underwear. Also, how many times can a load of wrinkled clothes be run through the permanent press cycle before you absolutely must take them out and fold them? If your kid wants a particular article of clothing and it’s 10 o’clock the night before they need said article, is it acceptable to pull it from the bottom of their laundry hamper, check for stains, not find any, and then throw it in the dryer with a wet washcloth and a dryer sheet to “fluff” it up? (Not that I have ever done this.) Iron-ables? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

BATHROOMS

BK:  Bathrooms were cleaned every other weekend unless it was deemed that they needed additional attention on weeks off. Clean counters, mirrors, toilet, and tub. Vacuum up lint and hair and mop bathroom floors. Polish fixtures with a paper towel so they are shiny. Empty wastebasket.

AK: Bathrooms are cleaned when I can no longer stand the sight of them. Quickly wipe counters off with a piece of toilet paper. Check around toilet for pee stains. (SIDE NOTE: If a woman can accurately polish her pinkie toenail with a tiny nail polish brush without getting any polish on her toe, why can’t a five-year-old boy hit the inside of a 1-foot wide opening in a toilet seat while he’s standing directly over it? Mothers of boys, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about here.) Wipe toothpaste spit splatters off of ceiling (How does that stuff get up there?!)

TOYS

BTK (Before two kids): “There’s a place for everything, and everything in its place” was my motto. I attempted to buy tubs and organizing systems. At first, we tried to sort all of the kids’ toys out so that pieces of sets stayed together. After all, the world would come to a halting stop if Trio blocks were mixed in with KiNEx pieces.

ATK:  In our attempts to get everyone into bed before the 10 o’clock news anthem starts, we have resorted to just throwing things into toy boxes and bins and letting them fall where they will. You can imagine the scandal when Shredder spent the night in the same tub with Cinderella.

DUST

BK:  Dust all surfaces at least once per week. Pick up objects on top of surfaces and dust those as well.

AK: Dust builds up healthy immune systems, right?


BED MAKING
BK: I loved the crisp feeling of hospital-corner sheets and the sight of duvet covers and pillow shams before falling into bed at night.

AK:  Check to make sure I'm not going to be eviscerated by the spiky tail of a plastic dinosaur who got lodged between the sheet and comforter before falling into bed at night.


Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk while it's still snowing.  ~Phyllis Diller

The Diet Plan

Last summer, K was too young to understand the concept of ice cream. If it was just she and I running errands, I could stop by the DQ or get some frozen yogurt, and she was blissfully content to watch as I spooned creamy deliciousness into my mouth, none-the-wiser as to what she was missing. I will admit that even in recent months, I have taken advantage of the fact that her car seat is still rear facing and quietly consumed a frozen treat out of her eyesight. (All mothers have done this at one time or another.) However, this chapter is quickly coming to an end, replaced by a cry for “I kem! I kem!” if we even pass within several yards of a Dairy Queen sign. (Maybe that’s a sign I should lay off the “I kem.”)

A couple of nights ago, I was sharing a cup of chocolate and peanut butter with her. I took a bite, and then spooned a bite into her mouth. We went on like this for several minutes. A bite for Mommy. A bite for K. She was really getting into the pattern and began opening her mouth as soon as I had consumed my preliminary bite. As she was chewing a particularly large spoonful, I took two bites in a row. She raised her tiny index finger, looked at me from under scowling eyebrows, and screeched, “No Mommy!” Kind of like this:

I think I’ll call it the “I-HAVE-A-TODDLER-WHO-NOTICES-EVERYTHING-PLAN.” I’ll let you know how it works.

The Story of Us

Fifteen years ago this spring, my husband and I went on our first date. He sat behind me all year in Mrs. S’s Sophomore Honors English class, and I could tell when he was concentrating really hard due to an increased intensity in his gum chomping. We exchanged relatively few words throughout the year, except to discuss class-related topics like which pages were due in the novel we were reading, or whether or not we needed an annotated bibliography for a research paper. (What can I say? We’ve always been big on the romance.)

I would like to say that I fell for his brains (he graduated with top honors, and I’ve always preferred smart guys, even at 16), but the combination of dark hair and green eyes with laugh crinkles didn’t hurt. He played football, and ran around with some of the same people I socialized with, but our interactions were mainly relegated to English class.

One day, I was complaining to my friend across the aisle about how far behind I had gotten in A Tale of Two Cities. (In my defense, it was basketball season, and I had after-school practice or games five nights a week.) J leaned over and handed me his copy of Cliff’s Notes. I don’t really remember that he said anything, just handed it to me. (For all I know, he just really wished I would shut up about the damn book.) I passed the final test for A Tale of Two Cities, and J and I broadened our conversations to include topics outside of participial phrases. However, not in the way one might imagine.

Instead of face-to-face conversations about music and movies and teachers and mutual friends, J began e-mailing me. At first, just three or four words at a time. This was back in the days of dial-up connections and AOL. I would rush home after cheerleading practice, boot up the computer, listen to the weea-weea-weea sounds of the modem, and then hold my breath until the e-mail screen popped up. If I heard “You’ve got mail,” my heart would jump into my throat with excitement. All for a message like, “How was your day?”

This went on for months, business-only conversations at school, and then the e-mails when I got home. I was really puzzled. Did he like me? Or did he just want me to return his Cliff’s Notes and was sending subliminal messages through cryptic e-mails? Finally, one day I decided to type out, “Maybe we should do something some time.” I quickly hit the send button before I could change my mind. I waited, and almost immediately, saw his earth-shattering response: “Okay.”

There was just one problem. My parents. They had this Draconian rule that anyone I was going to ride in a car with had to come to the house, have dinner, and meet the family. (Now that I’m a parent, this seems much more reasonable than it did at 16. I even think full criminal background checks will probably be in order when my kids start dating.) There was no way I was going to go through the humiliation of telling J that he had to come to my house before we could go out somewhere. So I did what all 16-year-olds do in these situations. I found the loophole. Instead of having him pick me up at my house, I told him to meet me in the parking lot of a local grocery store. I don’t remember that he ever questioned this, although it must have seemed like a strange request at the time.

I was almost 30 minutes late for our date. As I drove to the grocery store that night, my brain raced with the thought that he might have left. Maybe he thought I stood him up. But when I pulled into the parking lot, there he was. We saw a movie on that date, and while I can’t say that I knew that I loved him then, I was definitely in serious like.

We dated throughout high school, and then chose different colleges our senior year, making the mature, adult decision to go our separate ways and experience college life unfettered. (The actual truth is, I was too proud to be that girl who follows a guy to college, and I went away to school broken-hearted over this “mature” decision.) There were friendships to be made, flirtations to pursue, and relationships to explore (and I guess we studied somewhere in between). Two years passed quickly.

One night toward the end of spring semester in our sophomore year of college, we found ourselves at the same party. Some old, mutual friends were getting together to celebrate the coming of spring and the end of another school year. I was dating someone at the time, and for weeks after that party J would call my cell phone during the most inopportune times (Thursday night bar-night, Friday night date-night, Saturday night movie-night, you get the picture). He was nothing if not persistent, and it took its toll on the relationship, which ended. I still refused to go out with him though (I know this will surprise those who know me, but I can be very stubborn.) He persisted, and I finally agreed to Round 2 the following summer, more than a year after that party.

We dated another 2 ½ years until we were both graduated and gainfully employed. I was living and teaching in our hometown, and one day, J came over to my duplex, and handed me an old scrapbook that I had made of our high school and college days together. Puzzled, I flipped through the photos, old ticket stubs, and the cover from A Tale of Two Cities. At the very back of the scrapbook, a 1x1” square had been carved into the remaining blank pages, and inside the hollow opening was an engagement ring. It was the next chapter in our scrapbook.

On days like today, when the weather is still feeling spring-like, I often think about the decisions we made that led us to where we are today. At 16 and 21, you really don’t think about how the choices you’re making will shape your life going forward. What if Mrs. S had sat us across the room from each other in English class? What if I had been a model student and actually read A Tale of Two Cities as I was assigned to do? What if I had never agreed to go out with him again in college?

Some day, R and K (Okay, probably only K. Do boys care about this stuff?) may ask to hear the story of how we went from being J and S to being their parents. I hope they will identify with parts of this story as they go out into the world and make their own life-defining choices, and that they will recognize that their parents were young once, and felt all of the things that young people who are first falling in love feel. And I hope they will feel a connection and sense of understanding from us when they experience love and heartbreak, and that they will have the perseverance to persist when they find the kind of love worth persevering for.

Overheard

At kindergarten round up, R was talking to a boy I vaguely recognized from his preschool class. The boy had started at R’s preschool a couple of months before, and both boys were thrilled to see a familiar face. After we toured the classrooms, I overheard the little boy explaining to his grandma, who had accompanied him to round up, how he knew R. “We go way back,” he told her confidently.

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J stayed home with R from school one day when R was sick. They were listening to The Beatles when “All You Need Is Love” came on. R was looking thoughtful, so J asked him what was wrong. “Dad, The Beatles keep singing all you need is love over and over, but you need a house and other stuff like that too.” (I’m guessing “All You Need is a 401K” didn’t have quite the same ring to it.)

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About 2 ½ hours into a 3-hour car trip, K had had it with being strapped into a car seat and decided that the rest of us should suffer too. She took up a particularly high-pitched screaming routine that is supposed to signal maximum displeasure on her part. R turned to her, and shaking his head sympathetically, said, “It’s a hard, hard life K, but you just have to get through it.” (That’s right folks, Joan of Arc, the Cambodian people under Pol Pot, Nelson Mandela, and my children; all people who have suffered greatly.)

What Women Want

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Normally, I wouldn’t presume to speak for my entire gender. However, after years of careful observation, conversations with friends, listening to people who confide in me when they hear the world “counselor,” and studying umpteen-thousand country songs, I have decided to go out on a limb here.

When I was in high school and college, I worked a retail job in women’s clothing at a major department store. Without fail, the evening before any major holiday (Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, plus anniversaries and birthdays), a strange phenomenon would befall the women’s department. Where no man had gone before, men would appear (usually looking either A) dazed B) frightened or C) panicked) in the women’s lingerie, jewelry, and apparel departments. Their common shared goal was to get in and out in less than 20 minutes. In honor of Mother’s Day, here’s what I would have told these men if I had known then what I know now:

Most women don’t care about the gifts you give them five times a year. Gifts are nice, and they signal to us that you were thinking about us. (Although, gifts of household appliances and lingerie are generally a sign that you were thinking practically or of yourself. Regardless of how practical your wife is, she doesn’t really want a new dryer for her birthday, even if she says she does.) Tangible gifts that demonstrate that you listen when we talk about our tastes and preferences, no matter how small, score major points. Tickets to a concert for her favorite performer, or that you remembered that her favorite flowers are daisies will ensure that you actually get to see that lingerie out of the box if you catch my drift.

Unless you have the misfortune of being married to a gold-digger, most women are rarely focused on the cost of the gift being given. Think about how your wife reacts when one of the kids hands her a dandelion. Like she just won the lottery. (Disclaimer- I am not suggesting that you go out and pick dandelions for your wife for Mother’s Day this year.) My point is, coming from a child; the gift of a dandelion is huge because of its intent. It says, “I love you, mom. You are the center of my universe, and I didn’t consider any other recipient for this dandelion. It was selected just for you.”

And that, my friends, is what I think women really want. They want to be told that they’re appreciated, and that your world wouldn’t be the same without them. They want to be thanked for being good mothers, for the doctor and dentist appointments scheduled, the dinners cooked, and the fact that your underwear hasn’t disintegrated around you because she buys more when she notices the holes. And they would like to be told more than five times a year. Not everyday, per say, but at least on occasion.

So, on this Mother’s Day Eve, save yourself 20 minutes, and tell your wife (or girlfriend or mother) you couldn’t live without her. Here’s a song to inspire you:

A Woman Like You

In Hiding

When I was a kid, I had a recurring nightmare in which I was running through a dark house, desperately searching for some place to hide. Although I couldn’t see anyone, I sensed that someone or something was chasing me. I would locate a closet, dive inside, pull the door shut behind me, and then silently pray that I wouldn’t be found. When I awoke, heart thumping in my throat, I would peer through bleary eyes around my bedroom to ensure that neither ghost nor serial murderer lurked in its shadowy corners.

I was reminded of this nightmare a while back when I found myself crouching on the floor of my bedroom closet while I tried to have a telephone conversation with my mother. I ducked behind the bathrobes and floor-length dresses to avoid detection. It was not an ax-welding maniac or a disgruntled spirit that sought me, but rather my children, aged 5 years and 18-months old (cue the shower-scene soundtrack from “Psycho”).

For whatever reason, my offspring seem to have a sixth sense for those moments when their mother (or father) needs to have the ability to concentrate on a task that doesn’t directly revolve around them (paying bills, fixing dinner, having a phone conversation, showering, and going to the bathroom to name a few). At those moments, everything takes on a sudden urgency. Case in point:

R: (Standing outside the bathroom door.) Whatcha’ doin’ mom?

Me: I’m in the bathroom.

R: When will you be done?

Me: Well, son, I don’t currently have an estimated time of departure, but I’ll be sure to send out a bulletin as soon as I know.

R: What does that mean?

Me: Never mind. What do you need?

R: I need you to see something. It’s REALLY important, and I need your help.

Me: (Wondering which of his body parts is requiring medical attention.) What’s wrong?

R: The arm fell off of my Ninja Turtle; I can’t get it back on.

These types of conversations have led to further discussions regarding what constitutes an emergency in our house. Here’s a handy checklist for future reference:

1. Has anyone in the house turned blue and stopped breathing?

2. Is anyone bleeding profusely enough that they are going to stain the furniture or carpet without immediate medical application of a tourniquet?

3. Do you see or smell smoke or flames?

4. Has a catastrophic natural disaster occurred within 5 miles of our house? Is our house still standing?

5. Has the local news station announced that apocalypse is impending? (In this case, there is nothing any of us can do anyway, so please let me finish my last shower on Earth in peace.)

Under her brother’s tutelage, K has learned that the best time to do-something- that-your-parents-would-never-let-you-do-under-normal-circumstances is when they are distracted. This is how she has managed to eat potting soil (fixing lunch), bite the tip off of a blue marker (tying R’s shoelace), pull every children’s book we own off of the bookcase (trying to get rid of a carpet-cleaning salesman), and drive her toy car over a flower bed and down a hill (opening a bottle of bubbles).

Of course, some of this could be me too. While engaged in a non-child related task, I’ve become so adept at blocking out non-essential noise (car crash and weaponry-related sounds made with the mouth, sibling squabbling, whining of any kind, the 1,000-decibel singing of camp songs, and the repetitive chanting of a just-learned word) that I sometimes don’t hear or process things going on around me. Don’t judge. It’s called self-preservation. The resulting conversations go something like this:

Scene: In the kitchen, fixing dinner, TV is blaring in the background, K is pleading with me to “Pease up” (pick me up) over and over, while I step over a layer of alphabet magnets on my way to drain noodles over the kitchen sink.

R (Enters stage left): Mom, I want to make a headband like the Indians wore.

Me: Mmm hmm. That’s a good idea. (Stumbles over the letter V.)

R: I need construction paper.

Me: Check downstairs.

R (Exits stage left and returns 5 minutes later.)

R: Now I need scissors.

Me: (Stirring spaghetti sauce while K clings to the back of my calf like a baby koala bear.) Ask your dad.

(Exits)

(Returns with scissors)

R: I need tape.

Me: (Retrieves tape from junk door. Curses under breath because junk drawer won’t close. Makes mental note to clean out junk drawer. Continues to stir spaghetti sauce, which is now bubbling, splattering flecks of red over the range top. K continues her quest for parental domination. Get K a cracker because right calf is going numb. 10 minutes pass.)

R: (Returns and holds up brown strips of paper.) Look Mom, I made one for me and one for K.

Me: (Banging a bag of frozen broccoli against the counter.) That was nice.

R: (Thoughtfully) I don’t know how to keep them on our heads though.

Me: Mmm hmmm. (Pours broccoli into microwavable dish and adds water. K is out of cracker and resumes wailing. Wonders if the pasta is a little too “al-dente.” Adds spices to pasta sauce. Gets fed up with alphabet magnets and starts putting them back on the fridge. Finds some measuring cups to appease K.)

R: Mom, are you listening to me?

Me: (Absentmindedly) Mmm hmmm. (Removes sauce from stove. Stirs broccoli. Wipes up sauce splatters. Gets K a drink of water.)

R: So where’s the stapler?

Me: (Snaps back to attention) Why do you need the stapler?

R: You said I could staple the headbands to make them stay on me and K’s hair.

Me: I don’t remember saying that.

R: (Indignantly) You did too! You said “mmm hmm.”

He’s got me there.

A few of my favorite things

--> -->One night while my husband was picking K’s toys up off of the living room floor after both kids were in bed, he started laughing quietly to himself. I asked him what was so funny. Oh nothing, just seeing the toys and dolls reminded him of cute things K does and says. I knew exactly what he meant. Sometimes in the middle of a work day, something I see or hear will make me think of the kids, and I can’t help but smile.

As the parents of two small children, it’s easy to get bogged down in the routine of every day life. Get up, get ready, get kids ready, feed kids breakfast, drop off at preschool and daycare, work for 8 hours, pick kids up, play, check e-mail, fix dinner, play, give baths, get kids ready for bed, read stories, hugs and kisses, get someone a drink of water, do the dishes, do a load of laundry, watch a little TV or read, go to bed, get up 7 hours later and start over. It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.

Frequently though, I have these fleeting moments during each day when I imagine the curve of R’s cheek, and the way K’s eyelashes stick together when she first wakes up in the morning. Or I picture the way she moves her tiny hips back and forth when she hears a song she likes. For a brief moment, I picture R riding his bicycle with his head thrown back as the wind ruffles the top of his hair. And I feel calm and happy in those moments.

I love the movie The Sound of Music and will probably continue to torture my children by forcing them to watch it with me well into their adolescent years. My favorite song from the movie has always been My Favorite Things. A few years ago, Julie Andrews (who was brilliant as Maria Von Trapp) wrote a parody of the song geared toward senior citizens. Here is my attempt at a version for parents:

My Favorite Things

Handprints on windows and toys on the floor

Tickles and giggles, then asking for more.

Long bedtime cuddles that end with a kiss,

These are the things that fill my life with bliss.

Singing at bath time and forts on the couch

Running through sprinklers and Oscar the Grouch.

Watching a movie for the one thousandth time,

These are the things that make my life so fine.

When the flu hits,

When my head rings,

When I’m feeling stressed,

I simply remember my favorite things

And I know that I’m truly blessed.

Twenty little fingers and twenty little toes,

Chocolate ice cream on everyone’s nose.

Seeing them discover something that’s new,

These are the things that I look forward to.

Soccer on Saturday and pancakes Sunday morning,

Papers and art projects my fridge is adorning.

Sleepy heads on my shoulder as they fall asleep

These are the moments in my heart I’ll keep.

When the milk spills,

When the fits rage,

When the world has me spent,

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I’m completely content.

Sibling Rivalry

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Since the days of Cain and Abel, across generations, cultures, ethnicities, bathroom counters, and dinner tables, siblings have been at odds. Oldest children compete to maintain their rightful place at the top of the proverbial food chain, and youngest children learn to claw their way up from the bottom of the pile (sometimes literally).

When K was first born, she was a novelty, something R could show off to other people. I don’t think he thought of her so much as an actual person, but as a possession that belonged solely to him. He proudly introduced her as “my baby-sister-girl.” This lasted approximately 6 hours. Then K dared to make noise and require the attention of HIS parents, and from then on, he referred to her as “that baby” or pretended she wasn’t in the room.

During the first several months of K’s life (usually when he wanted our undivided attention), R would dramatically say, “THIS is why I didn’t want a sister.” He also told us that he would have preferred a sister who wasn’t a baby, one that could play toys with him.

Of course, K eventually got old enough to play with toys. However, much to R’s disappointment, she wanted to play with HIS toys, but never in the way that he wanted her to. Before she could walk, R would gather up all of the toys within her reach and move them. K would holler with indignation, but since she was immobile, it was futile until J or I came to her rescue. Now that K is walking, she seems to be making up for lost time.

I was in the kitchen the other night fixing dinner when I heard an ear-piercing scream coming from the living room. I turned the corner to find a scene straight out of the World Wrestling Federation. K had ahold of a chunk of R’s hair in one fist, while she stubbornly wrestled with her brother over a plastic car with the other. At her mercy, R crawled along behind her in an attempt to ease the pressure on his scalp. This created the visual impression that her tiny frame was dragging him across the living room floor. I intervened before any bald patches resulted.

My kids compete for toys, attention, couch space, and food. (Like the time I caught R eating the baby puffs off of K’s high chair tray when I wasn’t looking. No wonder she was still hungry. My husband, a second child himself, likes to tell the story about hiding sausage links in his sock drawer so that his older brother wouldn’t eat them all.)

As a first-born, I think I tend to sympathize with R. After K was born, despite the fact that I desperately loved her, I felt incredible guilt over the idea that I had ruined R’s life. After all, we first-borns don’t appreciate it when our universes are altered. J is usually in K’s corner because he is accustomed to looking at sibling relations through the eyes of someone whose best bet was, in his words, “to get down on the ground as quickly as possible because I was going to end up there anyway.”

In spite of their differences, R is his sister’s greatest defender. At Christmastime, we were in a department store at the check out counter. K was strapped into her stroller, happily playing with a sticker that she had been given. A little boy, probably around two-years-old approached her stroller, poked her in the chest and attempted to take the sticker out of K’s hands. R witnessed this transgression and marched over to the little boy. “Nobody touches my sister,” he said before the boy’s mother noticed and retrieved her son.

I’ve heard it said that siblings are the only people who get to know you for your entire lifespan. Not even parents or spouses usually know you from beginning to end. In this way, siblings are like a link from your past to your future self. No one else knows all of the embarrassing, humiliating stories from your childhood (and delights in retelling them) or the triumphs and tribulations of your adolescence. Siblings witness your graduations (sometimes grudgingly), your wedding, and the births of your children. They are our history keepers.

I look forward to the first time K calls R from college because she got a speeding ticket or got busted for underage drinking (not that this has happened to anyone I know), to ask him, “On a scale of one to ten, how mad do you think Mom and Dad are going to be when they find out?” I hope that in that moment, both will appreciate the gift they have been given in one another. And when they’re arguing over which nursing home to put their father and me in, the Econo-Care Lodge or The Four Seasons Geriatric Edition, I pray that each only remembers the times that I sided with them.