A Gift To Be Simple

My young child’s innocence…...its sweetness……I want to bottle it up, treasure it, and hold it tightly to my heart. But even as I celebrate its unblemished shine, I grieve the thought of its eventual transformation into awareness…..worldliness……self consciousness. It’s inevitable.

But for now, Little Squirt believes he can find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, heal a broken heart with a Band-Aid application, reapply a fallen rose petal, and resurrect a deceased child. When I told him I was going to a funeral because a friend’s young daughter had passed away, he joyously said, “Let me go with you! I’ll take her by the hand and say, “Get up!” just like Jesus did. It’ll work, Mom. Then she’ll be okay.” If only.

And today, after explaining that we didn’t need to go to school because he has three days off, he said, “If I find a wishing well, I will wish that every day is a school day.”

He lives in a world where wishing wells and Tooth Fairies are real. Where death is only temporary; just a fleeting condition like a cold. Where Mommies and Daddies stay married forever, and a spritz over his bed of Chanel #5 will keep monsters at bay. He snuggles warmly under his covers without a care in the world, knowing to the core of his being that he is deeply loved.

Today, as he snuggled on my lap, I smelled his little boy scent of watermelon shampoo, fresh air and sweat. I breathed deeply, cherishing the fragrance of innocence, wishing I could capture this moment forever.

Firsts

New beginnings…….

Rock Star began his first week of high school after 7 years of being home schooled. So far so good. He’s navigated the large public high school arena without any major mishaps.

And Little Squirt…..(Sniff)…. began kindergarten today. He insisted on wearing his yellow rain slicker and hood buttoned all the way to the top because of the inclement weather. The only part of him you could actually see was his huge grin. Super Hubs dropped us off in front, as the principal greeted the little ones and encouraged parents to walk them to their classrooms if they preferred. Well, I preferred. Little Squirt indulged me, and happily swung my hand all the way to Room 21, where his lovely teacher greeted him with a big hug. I snapped a picture, then skedaddled back to my car in tears as I left my baby boy. Super Hubs took me out to my favorite breakfast place to cheer me up, where I dined on comfort food of cream cheese-stuffed French Toast with blueberries. We had a coffee toast to a Kindergarten-Entry Gone Right.

Then a quick couple of hours later, Little Squirt was back at home with a rampant case of School Day Dementia. “I don’t remember nuffin’ so stop asking me,” he said, between bites of PB&J.

All is well.

Hooked

I am giving this U-Verse thing mixed reviews. One the one hand, it’s delightful. I had a friend over for dinner the other night, and I could happily relish her company while taping my favorite show to watch later. And it merrily tapes all the “Mad About You” shows for me, so I don’t have to buy the dvd set. I can leisurely enjoy a marathon of that popular 90s sitcom when I have the time.

On the other hand….already my brain is turning to mush. I can tell because I am making poor parenting decisions. For example, Little Squirt and I have been enjoying hanging out alone all week while The Teens are back in school. Today I made spaghetti for lunch. I turned on the TV with the intent of going to the music channel, so we could dine with the lovely Vivaldi playing in the background. Or jazz. Something relaxing. But as I was surfing to find the music channel, I happened upon “Clean House.” It was about a family that lived in pig sty surroundings, not unlike Rock Star’s bedroom earlier in the summer. A team of talented people came to the rescue and turned their squalid surroundings into an organized showplace in no time at all. I was hooked.

Little Squirt and I grabbed our plates and ate on the coffee table, eyes glued to the set. Now that’s not Good Parenting. I had a number of options to do with my 6-year-old that hour after eating, none of which included (what my mother used to call) The Boob Tube. But what’s done is done. Yes, we lost an hour of our lives that could have been spent swinging at the park, playing Go Fish or reading Curious George. Instead, I got swallowed up in meaningless drivel. Which is okay on occasion. I’m just a little worried I’ll make this a habit. Because then there are the soaps……

#38 is my guy.

To V or Not TV?

We just purchased U-Verse, because I thought we needed to become even lazier than we already are. Why encourage my kids to read Jane Austin, when it’s easier for them to just flip through a smörgåsbord of 200 channels? Is having their minds dull and sluggish really such a bad thing? Now I can get rid of those nasty library cards! And what can be more bonding as a family than to hunker down on the sofa, watch the quality “Celebrity Plastic Surgery,” and gain 30# a piece of Twinkie weight?? Isn’t there an old adage that says, “The Family That Grazes Together Stays Together??” Or, if “Celebrity Plastic Surgery” is not to everyone’s liking, we can spread out upon the 4 TV’s in the house and each watch our own program. Ahhh, the beauty of diversity.

The U-Verse Dude was here at our home a few days ago setting this up. He examined our basement, fiddled around with the big silver box in the park across the street, and made nice with the shadowing Little Squirt. He fell on the floor laughing hysterically when he saw our bedroom television, purchased in the mid-eighties, complete with a knob to change channels. And in about four hours he’d worked his magic and we became a U-Verse Family.

Now I have no idea how to work the TV! The remote scares me. It’s got too many options and I’m afraid if I press the wrong one I will blow something up. Or red flag Homeland Security. But, although this was clearly not my idea (hence the dripping sarcasm in the first paragraph), I consented to the opinion of the majority. So off I go to learn U-Verse code words. I am delightedly finding out that I can record my favorite shows to watch later, kind of like Tivo in U-Verse Land. And if I am in a “Scott Bao” kind of mood, I can plug in his name, and up comes all the listings for “Happy Days” and “Charles in Charge.” And, I must admit, we’ve never had such a sparkling clear picture.

So maybe this won’t be such a bad thing after all. We do have long winters in Chicago…..

Good-Bye Grill

Yesterday was a day to celebrate! Rock Star finally had his braces removed. (Did he actually only wear them for two years? My gosh, it seemed like 20!) I really think the orthodontist removed Rock Star’s braces just to get us the heck out of his practice. My son was clearly not the Star Patient. He consumed everything on the “Do Not Eat” list, brushed his teeth only on Tuesdays and holidays, wore his rubber bands NEVER, and don’t get me started on the headgear.

And because my son was so non-compliant, I felt judged. My Discernment Barometer detected slight chilliness toward me on the part of the office staff. And overwhelming disapproval. And since I’m such a sensitive soul, I’d hang my head in shame whenever I walked through their door, and hide in a corner behind a magazine. Then would come the moment I detested the most of all- The Lecture at the end of the appointment. I’d be cornered by an Ortho. Tech. wearing purple scrubs and carrying a clipboard. With a furrowed brow, she’d go over every fault and failure of Rock Star’s since his last appointment, and she’d throw in a few of mine. She’d end with a patronizing, “You really need to be monitoring his oral hygiene a little better, Mrs. Incompetent Mother” or some such. I’d slink out to my car. But for pity’s sake, the boy is 14! I cannot be on him every second!

Now we are done with all of that, I thank the Good Lord. Except for the retainer. I will pick it up tomorrow so that Rock Star can kick it under his bed and forget about it. So eventually, down the road, his teeth will shift back to their former crookedness. But that won’t be my problem anymore. It’ll be his. Or his wife’s. Then she can deal with the cold and surly office staff. I’m done. Wohoo!!

Flying The Coop

I brought Little Squirt to his new school today to have his Individual Assessment. (Translation: Is Your Kid Smart Enough To Enter Kindergarten?) While my boy was meeting with his teacher, I sat in the waiting area and filled out an endless form, which asked questions such as:
What your child's 3 greatest strengths?
1. Lip syncing songs from multiple genres, with extreme proficiency in rap, reggae and 80s pop revised.
2. Making authentic farty noises with his armpits.
3. Incorporating the word “butt” into his every sentence.
What would your goal be for your child’s school success this year?
That he would officially learn to urinate only in the toilet. (I choose to aim high.) (Pun not intended.)

After I had finished with the questionnaire, I had time to sit and reflect, while I waited for Little Squirt. My Little Caboose…..The Grand Finale… The Last of the Fledglings....would be leaving the nest soon. (Sniff.) My child, who just yesterday was an adorable little bologna loaf with huge eyes and an ever-present smile, would be leaving me! I was handing him off to the professionals to be educated within these cold halls of academia. (Big sniff.)

Then the warm and sunny kindergarten teacher shuffled the beaming Little Squirt back to my presence. “He did very well,” she said. “We’ll see him when school begins next week!” Then she handed me a little Mother’s Survival Kit, complete with a tissue, cotton ball and tea bag. The note said, “Thank you for entrusting your child to me….After you have wiped your tears, make yourself a nice warm cup of tea. Put your feet up and relax. Then hold the cotton ball in your hand. The softness will help you to recall the gentle spirit of your child. I will work alongside you this year to help your child grow.”

(Sob.) My Baby Boy……My Munchkin Muffin..... I needed to use the tissue by the time I got to the car.

Check Mate

Sometimes I wish I could wear a marquee upon my head, so I could alert people to my current temperature without having to explain:
“PMSing, therefore in a rage. Kindly step aside before I smack you.”
Or:
“Distressed. Please offer hug. Or a dirty martini, straight up.”

I am just insane when I am lacking sleep. And I’ve been battling insomnia all week. My marquee of today should read:
“Warning: Functioning at 2% brain capacity. I am nonsensical and illogical. And my memory is shot. And my memory is shot. And my memory is shot.”

This evening I carved up something from my vegetable bin that I thought was a zucchini, and grilled it. Turns out, it was a ginormous cucumber. Which tastes dreadfully dreadful grilled. I just could not remember what I had purchased on grocery shopping day! And I couldn’t find my table cloth, which I swear I remember washing and putting away on Tuesday…..but now it’s gone. Just gone. How does one lose a tablecloth?? And then I opened a door on my foot, thus scraping off part of the nail on my big toe….ow……

I blame it all on the insomnia. And the insomnia blames it all on the stress. And the stress blames it all on the horrible people that are behaving in a vile manner toward my teenagers. It’s been a heckuva coupl’a days. My two oldest children are licking wounds this week caused by some wretched people that are in their lives. And when wretched people hurt my children, my Mother Bear claws come out and I want justice. No, I want revenge, truth be told. (Would some public beheadings in the town square be over-the-top??)

It’s hard, as a mother, to watch my children hurt. Or maybe they don’t hurt as I much as I hurt when they hurt?? (I told you! Insomnia=Illogical) Do I let them fight their own battles? Or follow my instincts and jump in front of them, guns blazing? (Metaphorically speaking.) And how do I teach them forgiveness, when it’s the farthest thing on my heart at present? Gosh it was easier when they were babies!

So, for tonight, I’ll put them in the hands of The Good Shepherd, whose rod and staff will protect and comfort them…….and then I’ll take two bendadryl and try to figure it out in the morning.

Battle of the Bugs

The Japanese beetles should return to Japan. Honestly. They have long worn out their welcome. They are unruly narcissists with a sense of entitlement and no tree empathy whatsoever.

I am usually quite the pacifistic soul, even when it comes to insects. (With the exception of spiders. They all must die.) I do not swat flies, or squish ants, or catch lightening bugs in jars and squash them when they glow. I allow bees to buzz, roly-polys to tumble, and feel a fondness in my heart for the ladybug. But even my pacifistic nature has its limits. And one doesn’t just come to my home, unannounced and uninvited and start chewing up my trees. That is so not okay!

I realized we had this problem, the other morning, as I sat on my deck drinking a cup of java. Noticing a bunch of leaves at my feet, I picked one up, and exclaimed over its beauty. An intricate, lacy pattern proliferated its mocha-color, and I praised God for His variety in creation….when the thought occurred to me that I did not have any trees on my property with leaves like this. On closer inspection, I realized they were chewed up and dead.

I called to Super Hubs, who took one look at the leaves, scanned the horizon, and then said softly, “I believe we’ve been invaded.” With that statement, he began examining the Elm with the expertise of a horticulturist. After strolling around it a few times, and tapping its bark, he scaled the first few feet. He scraped his knee on the ascent, uttered a string of profanities on the descent, and then squatted on the ground, deep in thought. After a moment, he shook his head, sighed deeply, and mumbled a single name, “The Japanese Beetle.” (I have no idea how he knows this stuff. But his father was an Eagle Scout, so maybe it’s in the genes.) Thus war was declared upon the little buggers.

Super Hubs sped off to the hardware store, and then came back with a toxic substance, a large trap, and a garden hose. He opened the trap, attached the toxic substance to the hose, and, climbing an 11-foot ladder, began spraying carcinogens all over the top of the tree. The Japanese Beetles, who were neither bothered by nor impressed with the carcinogens, gravitated over to the trap, which apparently attracted them by some sort of poisonous pheromone gas or something. This Pheromone Insect Trap is apparently like an Opium Den for Beetles, where, after enjoying a bit of mingling and flirting, they have a euphoric trip, and then keel over dead on top of our trampoline.

So this War Plan of Super Hubs worked for a few days, but then bigger and stronger brothers of the original beetles arrived. And began invading more of our trees. So now I am really ticked! And I’m done with the Kind and Painless Death Penalty of these ugly adversaries. No more clubbing, partying and tripping! No more passing painlessly into The Great Beyond! And in addition, I’ve heard through the grapevine that their more fearless and destructive cousins, the Asian Long-Horn Something-or-Others, are on their way over here. They are currently flying Business Class over the Pacific, and due to arrive any day now. So I’m getting me a shotgun, and I’m gonna blast the little scavengers to smithereens! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Old Mother Hubbard I Am Not

Grocery shopping, a chore I abhor under most circumstances, has gotten increasingly complicated. Not only do I have my list that I painstakingly put together after many minutes of meal-planning, but then there are the add-ons from The Teens that I try to decipher. Butterfly (written in pink sharpie and dotted with smiley faces) always adds “pizza rolls (cheese only-hate the meat ones)," “water bottles” and shampoos and cosmetics that I always buy wrong. Always. Wrong brand, wrong shade. Wrongly wrongishly wrong. Rock Star scribbles “pizza rolls (pepperoni because I hate plain cheese)," “ice cream,” and a myriad of other fattening sustenance that I have a difficult time decoding because his hand writing is illegible. (The boy should become a doctor.)

And now, the complexity has been magnified. On the way to my weekly grocery shopping excursion a few days ago, I dropped Butterfly off at the local food pantry, where she was meeting her church youth group. They were participating in a two-day serve of various places in the community, and for a few hours that day, they were going to sort and hand out food. As I pulled into the parking lot, she verbalized concern that, although she could see numerous people outside the food pantry, she did not recognize any of her friends. Perhaps we were in the wrong place?? She questioned this at the same time she was making sure she’d added all her “wants” to my grocery list……when suddenly the light dawned on us at the exact same moment. We looked at each other, eye growing big, and then gaped at the crowd in front of the food pantry. These people were here to receive food. Duh! These individuals, lining up outside(since 4:30am, I later learned) were there to collect handouts to feed their families. Because they were in need.

“Wow, Mom. These people need food,” she said softly, as I let her out of the car and continued off to the store. But it was a vastly different shopping experience than usual. I purchased with new eyes. I was struck by the vastness of the varieties. All the choices I had. Did I want fresh green beans or frozen? Chicken with skin or without? Would Little Squirt be tempted by the store brand of mac & cheese or should I stick with Kraft? And as my cart began filling up, so did my awareness. There were families today, in my community, that struggled to put a meal on the table. Little children who went to bed hungry.

As I scanned my debit card at the checkout, I felt heavy with emotion. Weighing down my heart was a large dose of sadness mingled with a dropperful of guilt and a big handful of confusion. How could I reconcile the fact that I have so much when others have so little? While my family is by no means wealthy, I have never ever had a day when I worried about how I could feed my children. Not once. The cupboard is never bare.

“A little boy told me he didn’t have a home,” Butterfly told us later that evening, recapping the day’s service project. “No home! Can you imagine??” I cannot. I’ve always had a home. And then some. So how do I resolve this tension I feel; wanting to be grateful for the blessings God has given me, yet aware of the considerable uneven distribution of resources? Do I enjoy with a grateful heart a monthly pedicure, when I know the cost of that pedicure could feed a child in Africa for a year?? I don’t know. But I am inviting God into my processing. Seeing those families lined up outside the food pantry changed my daughter. And it changed me. So we are going to have some conversations as a family about what to do with what we know. How is God calling us to love? I ponder……..

Strength Demonstrated

I am just in awe of the Steven Curtis Chapman Family, who lost their youngest daughter, Maria (5), in May to a roll-over accident by their teenage son.. This godly family was interviewed on Larry King Live last night. They are pillars of love, grace and faith in the face of tragedy. If you ever have any doubts that there is a God………there could be no other explanation for their strength, peace and ability to carry on.

Connections

To bond or not to bond? That is the question. I believe it was first posed by Hamlet…….or Pierce Brosnan……or The Elmer’s Glue Company or something. I’m not quite certain. But I ponder it now, as Rock Star has a new relationship in his life.

He is once again navigating the Dating Terrain, if you can call it that. Dating in the world of a 14-year-old, I’ve discovered, involves a tad bit of clumsy hand-holding and a lot of marathon t.v. watching. And bike-riding to the 7 Eleven for slurpees. Rock Star is again going out with Cute Girlfriend of the Sad Breakup of last summer. Which had me wary at first. What if Cute Girlfriend again called off their romance by a curt and unexpected text message, thus stomping on Rock Star’s tender heart and leaving it crushed and bleeding all over the street?? Allowing my children to make their own mistakes and hurt their own hurts is, I believe, the absolute hardest thing about being a parent. I just hate that part.

But back to the bonding. I don’t want to! I don’t want to bond with people that will leave my life someday. I bonded with Butterfly’s boyfriend of 1 1/2 years. It was as if I had a third son; he enjoyed my cooking, accompanied us on family outings, and shared much of our lives. Then one day there was a messy break up between the two of them, and I’ve never seen him again. It's sad, really.

And I am beginning to like Cute Girlfriend. She is charming and adorable. She's a determined "go-getter"; the polar opposite of my eldest son. She has convinced him to wear Polos instead of his gnarly t-shirts. (Halleluia!) She has exposed him to more sophisticated music. And she’s written him a love letter. A sweet love letter! To my boy! What’s not to adore about a girl like that??

But yet….I realize that someday the inevitable will happen. They will break up. And then she won’t be coming around to our house for dinner anymore. (Big sigh.) And I am a bond-er. Which makes this piece of mothering excruciatingly difficult for me.

Oh, What A Night!

How I love live musical theater! There is nothing so energizing or uplifting to me than watching a production of talented artists and musicians. I was able to experience this on Saturday afternoon, when we went to go see "Jersey Boys" with some friends. This outing was a late birthday present from the husband to the wife, and Super Hubs and I reaped the benefits of accompanying them into the city to view the performance.

I am no super stalker fan of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, as he was a bit "before my time." (And the majority of the patrons were quite a bit older. Which made me feel unexpectedly wonderfully young!) But I recognized much of the music, and completely relished the genius of the various vignettes with accompanying songs; little pieces of mosaic telling the story of Frankie's life.

And what is not to looove about musical theater?? Or the delicious cuisine in the Italian restaurant later? Or the child-free ride on the train back home. We could actually talk without interruption!!

A thoroughly enjoyable Saturday.

Day With Our Little Caboose

A pizza lunch.....visit to a train museum.....then a wind-down with his favorite DVD. What more could a 6-year-old want??

And we threw in one teeny-weeny adventure for me.....a stroll through some fabulous model homes of grandiose proportions which I could never afford in my wildest dreams. Quite frankly, I couldn't even afford one of their toilet seats! But that's okay....I live in a very nice and comfortable home. I am content with my life and I will not covet. But yet....OMG you should have seen the kitchens! And the hand-laid mosaic floors...the closets the size of my entire downstairs....(Sigh.) One can dream.