Now that Genevieve has moved from her babysitter on an island in the middle of the Mississippi to a Montessori school in midtown, my afternoon pickup routine has changed as well. Part of the new arrangement involves a block of open time between 2:30, when I am allowed to leave work, and 3:15, when the older kids are dismissed from school, since the baby is now the last stop instead of the first. That 45 minutes may not seem like much to you, but to me it means time to run an errand or two without four kids in tow. After the holidays I plan to use it to (gasp!) exercise a few times a week.
Yesterday, I used my precious child-free time to get the few groceries I needed for cocktail hour tonight. A few times I've made a mad dash from work to the midtown Schnuck's, which is not far but in the opposite direction from the way I need to go to pick the kids up. And if you've ever met me in person, there's a good chance I managed to slip in a rant about how much I loathe and despise every single thing about that store. Even if we met for, like, five minutes. Because that's how much I hate it. So yesterday it dawned on me that there is a closer grocery store: the Crazy Kroger at Poplar and Cleveland. That's right. Kroghetto.
For those of you not from Memphis, let me give you just a few pieces of information about this Kroger and its location.
1. Prostitutes work Cleveland in the daytime. Ones that should really only be seen at night. Without the benefit of streetlights.
2. A few years ago, my Dad's business contracted to redo the bathrooms in this Kroger. When they pulled out the panels from the dropped ceiling, they were hit with a rain of food wrappers placed there by junkies who steal food and take it into the bathroom of Cleveland Kroger to eat it.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. In the past year or so, I chanced to visit this Kroger a couple of times, with all four kids, to grab lunch supplies for us before heading over to my parents' nearby (temporary) midtown abode. I went with a "get in, get what you need, and get out alive" mentality, but even so, I sensed a realization hovering around the edges of my consciousness. And yesterday, with time to walk the aisles unfettered by bolting toddlers or begging kindergartners, it hit me full on: I like the Crazy Kroger. There, I said it!
As I walked in the front doors, I found myself in a produce section very similar to the one in Poplar Plaza Kroger, which is where I grudgingly spend about $700 a month on food. Except for two things. Wait, three things. It was cleaner, less crowded, and there was the cutest little floor display that comprised three bins. Guess what was in the bins. Go on, guess! You'll never guess. In the first one were little cans of Vienna Sausages. In the middle one were bottles of $.49 Kroger brand hot sauce. And in the third were Ramen Noodles. I can't really explain it, but that display filled me with a sense of comfort. And I don't even like Vienna Sausages! I think it was just the thought that someone who runs that store was in touch enough with the client base to put together a display that could have borne a sign reading "You don't have to starve even if you are broke as hell." It kind of reminded me of shopping at the midtown Pig back in my college apartment days, when $45 was an extravagant amount to spend on a week's worth of groceries.
I continued on through the store with that warm, secure feeling, looking around me and marveling at how truly clean the store really was. And it was so empty of people! The things I hate so much about Schnuck's are that it is tiny, extremely crowded, and organized like blind chimpanzees chose where each item should go. This Kroger was big, clean, well-laid out, and at that hour of the day, devoid of Patty-the-daytime-hookers and junkies and just about anyone else. It was the perfect grocery store!
As I checked myself out at the U-Scan machine, the attendant let another customer know that she did in fact have a little change left on her EBT card after paying for her stuff. "That's alright, " she called out cheerfully, "that's another meal. You could find you something over there for that l'il bit of change." I think I may start doing all my shopping over there. Seriously.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The Sharpest Crayon
We just returned home from our mostly-annual Thanksgiving trip to Georgia to see the most immediate portion of BD's enormous Italian maternal family. On the way there, we stopped at our usual McDonald's with the giant playland just this side of Birmingham, Alabama, to let the kids take a break from puking into plastic grocery bags and also stretch their legs and throw away some food.
While waiting in line, we found ourselves behind three honest-to-goodness teenage farm boys. As they talked and joked with each other, I marveled at their almost-unintelligible Alabama drawl. I hear all kinds of Southern accents right here in Memphis, from the ultra-urban to the suburban to the transplanted Louisianans, but this was a whole other, extra-special kind of country accent. And just as I caught myself thinking snide thoughts about how ignorant they sounded, one of the boys flashed his calloused, blackened-though-scrubbed palms, and jokingly said that next time they all worked together, he was going to pretend not to know how to do anything as the others had done. One of his friends turned his equally grubby hands palms-up and protested that he had done his fair share. So, I thought, Miss Smarty Pants, these boys work. They know how to do things. And what do you know?
This thought threaded itself like a ribbon through the remainder of our meal. It was there when I took Somerset to the one-seater family bathroom and watched her sit on the rim of the toilet without noticing that the seat was flipped up, and when she stood in front of the hand dryer with her hands up and wondered aloud "How does it turn on?" in spite of the doorknob-sized, shiny silver button, and when she could not figure out how to open the door, and again back at the table when the box containing her chicken nuggets buckled slightly at the back, making it refuse to stay open and causing her to wail in dismay. It was there when we noticed that Joshua was running around the playland in only one sock, and when he admitted that he'd left the house that way because he couldn't find a matching pair, even though a giant brand-new package of socks was sitting right there in his sock drawer when he got dressed that morning.
All this prompted me to wonder what the hell is wrong with my children. They do well in school; two of them are even in the gifted program! Our house is full of books and art supplies and empty of cable cartoons and video games. I couldn't help compare my supposedly-brainy kids to those supposedly-ignorant farm boys, and wonder who would come out on top in the end. But then I started remembering things about myself as a child. Things like walking upstairs to wash my hands for dinner but brushing my teeth instead because I'd forgotten, in an instant, what I was supposed to be doing. Things like my Mom calling me "the absent-minded professor" and my dad's less patient responses to my mindless goofiness. And I thought, you know, I do OK. I'm not the most organized, together person on the planet, but I'm not the least, either. I hold down a respectable job, keep a reasonable grip on my household (with much pitching in by BD, of course), keep my kids dressed and fed and in school. I function.
Sure, there are things I don't know how to do that I really believe I should. I think it's sheer folly that most Americans have no skills when it comes to growing, making, or building things that meet our most basic needs for survival, and I'm not much better than most. I feel that I should know these things and that I should teach them to my children. So that's something to work on. That's a more constructive way of looking at it, I think, than just shaking my head at the baffling cluelessness of my children, or, worse yet, losing patience with them. They're only little kids, after all. Just like I was once.
While waiting in line, we found ourselves behind three honest-to-goodness teenage farm boys. As they talked and joked with each other, I marveled at their almost-unintelligible Alabama drawl. I hear all kinds of Southern accents right here in Memphis, from the ultra-urban to the suburban to the transplanted Louisianans, but this was a whole other, extra-special kind of country accent. And just as I caught myself thinking snide thoughts about how ignorant they sounded, one of the boys flashed his calloused, blackened-though-scrubbed palms, and jokingly said that next time they all worked together, he was going to pretend not to know how to do anything as the others had done. One of his friends turned his equally grubby hands palms-up and protested that he had done his fair share. So, I thought, Miss Smarty Pants, these boys work. They know how to do things. And what do you know?
This thought threaded itself like a ribbon through the remainder of our meal. It was there when I took Somerset to the one-seater family bathroom and watched her sit on the rim of the toilet without noticing that the seat was flipped up, and when she stood in front of the hand dryer with her hands up and wondered aloud "How does it turn on?" in spite of the doorknob-sized, shiny silver button, and when she could not figure out how to open the door, and again back at the table when the box containing her chicken nuggets buckled slightly at the back, making it refuse to stay open and causing her to wail in dismay. It was there when we noticed that Joshua was running around the playland in only one sock, and when he admitted that he'd left the house that way because he couldn't find a matching pair, even though a giant brand-new package of socks was sitting right there in his sock drawer when he got dressed that morning.
All this prompted me to wonder what the hell is wrong with my children. They do well in school; two of them are even in the gifted program! Our house is full of books and art supplies and empty of cable cartoons and video games. I couldn't help compare my supposedly-brainy kids to those supposedly-ignorant farm boys, and wonder who would come out on top in the end. But then I started remembering things about myself as a child. Things like walking upstairs to wash my hands for dinner but brushing my teeth instead because I'd forgotten, in an instant, what I was supposed to be doing. Things like my Mom calling me "the absent-minded professor" and my dad's less patient responses to my mindless goofiness. And I thought, you know, I do OK. I'm not the most organized, together person on the planet, but I'm not the least, either. I hold down a respectable job, keep a reasonable grip on my household (with much pitching in by BD, of course), keep my kids dressed and fed and in school. I function.
Sure, there are things I don't know how to do that I really believe I should. I think it's sheer folly that most Americans have no skills when it comes to growing, making, or building things that meet our most basic needs for survival, and I'm not much better than most. I feel that I should know these things and that I should teach them to my children. So that's something to work on. That's a more constructive way of looking at it, I think, than just shaking my head at the baffling cluelessness of my children, or, worse yet, losing patience with them. They're only little kids, after all. Just like I was once.
Monday, November 19, 2007
One Day At a Time, Baby Steps, and Other Cliches
I have said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't believe there are many experiences, at least in Western culture, more hellish than the first year of parenting the first baby. Yeah, yeah, the baby is precious and cute, and of course you love the baby and would not change your decision to become a parent for anything in the world. Whatever. Most of it still sucks.
Wait, let me narrow that down. What I'm really talking about is the decision to become a mother. I don't know what it's like for the average Dad that first year, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that it's as hard for them to adjust as it is for mothers. Let me not pretend this is about all parents. It's about mothers, and motherhood, and the impossibility of the whole entire deal.
I know someone who is really struggling with this whole adjustment issue right now. She's struggling with sleep deprivation and information overload and guilt and self-questioning and unsolicited advice and feelings of inadequacy and feelings, I would imagine, of "holy shit, what have I done to my life?" I believe that she feels anxious and possibly depressed and it is impossible for her not to believe, right now, that this is all her fault. That it's not supposed to be this hard. That other women do this every day, and better than she can ever hope to. And she's had a string of bad luck and other circumstances that have just intensified all of those feelings. And we don't know each other that well, so I don't claim to understand everything she's feeling or dealing with, but I think I have an inkling. And like all the other well-meaning, misguided Mothers On The Internet, I want to be able to help, and make her feel better, and offer her some magical solution to all the problems she's facing. But I know I can't do that.
Believing that there is one right way, or that there is a magical solution that will make everything work the way it's "supposed to" is the fastest way to insanity. Every baby is different. Every parent is different. The combinations are infinite, and even within each parent/child combo, time brings variation in the needs of each party. If I had to put my finger on the thing that makes that first hellish year of parenting so hellish indeed, I would tend to put it on the belief that we should not "give in" or surrender to the fact that we are parents now, our lives are never going to be the same, we are never going to be the same, and we have to fight parenthood and the changes it brings tooth and nail. Because parents are boring, aren't they? And maybe we need to believe that our regularly scheduled lives will be back after these messages from the very pissed-off baby. But they won't. They just won't. And for me, at least, accepting that and moving forward with my new life, my life as a mother, was the only thing I could do if I wanted to survive. I can't help but suspect that this is true for everyone. Because that's how that works, right? A little experience goes straight to our heads.
If I were going to speak directly to this struggling friend, here is what I would say: The things you are dealing with are every bit as shitty as they seem to you. They are real. But they are not unique to you. You are not the worst mother ever, nor are you the only mother you know right at this very moment who feels that she does not know what she's doing. We all feel like that. It may be delayed for some of us, that feeling, but it comes to us all sometime in the first year or two. I would say that I understand the temptation to seek out information and hope that the magical answer is out there if only you read one more book or article or website or forum, but you have to stop. Seriously. You can't keep doing that to yourself, and it's not going to help. It's just not. There is no answer that anyone else can give you. I could tell you that sleeping with my baby and sleeping right through feedings worked great for me. Our other friend could tell you that Ferberizing and religiously sticking to the crib worked great for her. It doesn't matter. I'm not you. She's not you. Our babies are not your baby.
Listen to me. You are a good mother. You love your baby and you have done everything that could possibly be expected of you. You would not expect yourself or anyone you know to walk into any other new situation and instinctively know exactly what to do at every given moment in order to achieve the most desirable result. Would you? This thing that you've signed up for? It's really, really hard. It's the hardest thing you've ever done. That's not going to change, probably. The difficulties will take on new shapes as time passes, but they won't really get easier. In fact, they will make you look back at this time, later, and laugh at yourself. What can change, and what has to, is the way you deal with the hard parts. You have to stop beating yourself up. You have to stop believing that everyone else is more qualified to mother your child than you are. You have to find a way to step back a little bit, center yourself as much as you can manage, and just accept that you are doing the best that you can. There is no reason at all for you to believe that if you were doing things differently, things would be different. That logic applies in other situations, but not this one. Love your baby. Love yourself. Get both of you up and dressed and fed every day. Get both of you in bed every night, one way or another, and eke out whatever precious sleep you can manage, and in the morning know that you are one night closer to this part of it being over. Trust me on this one thing: that is all you can do. Really. Accept that this will suck, and then one day, when you've forgotten to think about how much it sucks, you'll realize that it has stopped.
Wait, let me narrow that down. What I'm really talking about is the decision to become a mother. I don't know what it's like for the average Dad that first year, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that it's as hard for them to adjust as it is for mothers. Let me not pretend this is about all parents. It's about mothers, and motherhood, and the impossibility of the whole entire deal.
I know someone who is really struggling with this whole adjustment issue right now. She's struggling with sleep deprivation and information overload and guilt and self-questioning and unsolicited advice and feelings of inadequacy and feelings, I would imagine, of "holy shit, what have I done to my life?" I believe that she feels anxious and possibly depressed and it is impossible for her not to believe, right now, that this is all her fault. That it's not supposed to be this hard. That other women do this every day, and better than she can ever hope to. And she's had a string of bad luck and other circumstances that have just intensified all of those feelings. And we don't know each other that well, so I don't claim to understand everything she's feeling or dealing with, but I think I have an inkling. And like all the other well-meaning, misguided Mothers On The Internet, I want to be able to help, and make her feel better, and offer her some magical solution to all the problems she's facing. But I know I can't do that.
Believing that there is one right way, or that there is a magical solution that will make everything work the way it's "supposed to" is the fastest way to insanity. Every baby is different. Every parent is different. The combinations are infinite, and even within each parent/child combo, time brings variation in the needs of each party. If I had to put my finger on the thing that makes that first hellish year of parenting so hellish indeed, I would tend to put it on the belief that we should not "give in" or surrender to the fact that we are parents now, our lives are never going to be the same, we are never going to be the same, and we have to fight parenthood and the changes it brings tooth and nail. Because parents are boring, aren't they? And maybe we need to believe that our regularly scheduled lives will be back after these messages from the very pissed-off baby. But they won't. They just won't. And for me, at least, accepting that and moving forward with my new life, my life as a mother, was the only thing I could do if I wanted to survive. I can't help but suspect that this is true for everyone. Because that's how that works, right? A little experience goes straight to our heads.
If I were going to speak directly to this struggling friend, here is what I would say: The things you are dealing with are every bit as shitty as they seem to you. They are real. But they are not unique to you. You are not the worst mother ever, nor are you the only mother you know right at this very moment who feels that she does not know what she's doing. We all feel like that. It may be delayed for some of us, that feeling, but it comes to us all sometime in the first year or two. I would say that I understand the temptation to seek out information and hope that the magical answer is out there if only you read one more book or article or website or forum, but you have to stop. Seriously. You can't keep doing that to yourself, and it's not going to help. It's just not. There is no answer that anyone else can give you. I could tell you that sleeping with my baby and sleeping right through feedings worked great for me. Our other friend could tell you that Ferberizing and religiously sticking to the crib worked great for her. It doesn't matter. I'm not you. She's not you. Our babies are not your baby.
Listen to me. You are a good mother. You love your baby and you have done everything that could possibly be expected of you. You would not expect yourself or anyone you know to walk into any other new situation and instinctively know exactly what to do at every given moment in order to achieve the most desirable result. Would you? This thing that you've signed up for? It's really, really hard. It's the hardest thing you've ever done. That's not going to change, probably. The difficulties will take on new shapes as time passes, but they won't really get easier. In fact, they will make you look back at this time, later, and laugh at yourself. What can change, and what has to, is the way you deal with the hard parts. You have to stop beating yourself up. You have to stop believing that everyone else is more qualified to mother your child than you are. You have to find a way to step back a little bit, center yourself as much as you can manage, and just accept that you are doing the best that you can. There is no reason at all for you to believe that if you were doing things differently, things would be different. That logic applies in other situations, but not this one. Love your baby. Love yourself. Get both of you up and dressed and fed every day. Get both of you in bed every night, one way or another, and eke out whatever precious sleep you can manage, and in the morning know that you are one night closer to this part of it being over. Trust me on this one thing: that is all you can do. Really. Accept that this will suck, and then one day, when you've forgotten to think about how much it sucks, you'll realize that it has stopped.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Declaration
I have a tendency to think about things in a way and to an extent that I think is probably not normal. ("She thinks is probably not normal?" I can hear some of you already. Yeah, yeah.) I can't help but analyze ideas and the words used to express them. Part of that is just my nature, and part of it is because of my attempts at work to find a way to help my students crack open a seemingly incomprehensible text and find meaning. And then, to a certain extent, it's because of my not-normal tendencies, and my attempts to figure out how I actually think and why it's not really like the way a lot of other people think (see how that works?). Don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to make myself out as some misunderstood great mind. I'm mostly acknowledging that yes, I know I'm hard to make sense of and, as a result, hard for some people to get along with. But hey, at least I talk about everything that pops into my head!
But that's not my purpose here. It's actually just that I've been thinking about something for a while, and trying to solidify a particular idea, and I feel like I'm closer to doing that now than I ever have been. So of course, being me, I have to talk about it.
Because I'm not religious, or even spiritual in any recognizable way, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the basis for morality; in general, for everyone, but also my own in particular. And really, at times I have found it very tempting to believe that nothing matters. Not in an angry, rationalizing-my-own-wrong-doings kind of way, but in a coldly rational way, because of course I know that "things fade" and "alternatives exclude." In other words, we have a finite number of options available to us, choosing them limits us even further, and none of the choices we make will lead to anything lasting anyway. I know that's a depressing set of ideas to a lot of people, but not to me, and that's too long a conversation to have here. Nor is it the thing I wanted to say right now, which is this:
I have decided that there are only two real things in the world: human happiness, and human suffering. And that everything we do contributes to one or the other, and sometimes both, though not usually in equal measure. I'm not talking about superficial degrees of happiness and suffering. The best way I can explain it is, not surprisingly, through a parenting-related example. As a parent, when I say I want my children to be happy, that doesn't mean I want them to have every material thing or even every experience that they desire, and likewise, I don't think they really suffer when they don't get everything they want. I hope that my children feel safe and loved and wanted and understood, that their basic needs are met so that they are free to spend time and energy on things like creativity and learning and love. I hope they have a sense of belonging, of place and family, and that their lives will afford them more joy than sorrow. And I think that's all the happiness that any of us can hope for. So then the lack of any or most of those things I just listed is what I mean by suffering; a constant striving to meet the most basic physical and emotional needs.
And if I know that, as I feel, finally, that I do, then that belief has to be the basis for my morality. In each thing that I do, I have to try to create more happiness than suffering, and when possible, to transform the latter into the former. Knowing that is the easy part. The hard part, I think, is always being able to tell the two apart.
But that's not my purpose here. It's actually just that I've been thinking about something for a while, and trying to solidify a particular idea, and I feel like I'm closer to doing that now than I ever have been. So of course, being me, I have to talk about it.
Because I'm not religious, or even spiritual in any recognizable way, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the basis for morality; in general, for everyone, but also my own in particular. And really, at times I have found it very tempting to believe that nothing matters. Not in an angry, rationalizing-my-own-wrong-doings kind of way, but in a coldly rational way, because of course I know that "things fade" and "alternatives exclude." In other words, we have a finite number of options available to us, choosing them limits us even further, and none of the choices we make will lead to anything lasting anyway. I know that's a depressing set of ideas to a lot of people, but not to me, and that's too long a conversation to have here. Nor is it the thing I wanted to say right now, which is this:
I have decided that there are only two real things in the world: human happiness, and human suffering. And that everything we do contributes to one or the other, and sometimes both, though not usually in equal measure. I'm not talking about superficial degrees of happiness and suffering. The best way I can explain it is, not surprisingly, through a parenting-related example. As a parent, when I say I want my children to be happy, that doesn't mean I want them to have every material thing or even every experience that they desire, and likewise, I don't think they really suffer when they don't get everything they want. I hope that my children feel safe and loved and wanted and understood, that their basic needs are met so that they are free to spend time and energy on things like creativity and learning and love. I hope they have a sense of belonging, of place and family, and that their lives will afford them more joy than sorrow. And I think that's all the happiness that any of us can hope for. So then the lack of any or most of those things I just listed is what I mean by suffering; a constant striving to meet the most basic physical and emotional needs.
And if I know that, as I feel, finally, that I do, then that belief has to be the basis for my morality. In each thing that I do, I have to try to create more happiness than suffering, and when possible, to transform the latter into the former. Knowing that is the easy part. The hard part, I think, is always being able to tell the two apart.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Life Is Beautiful
Last night we kicked off my official birthday weekend by rounding out our usual Thursday takeout Night with Aunt E and Uncle T (with special guests Stacey and the monkeys in attendance) with chocolate cupcakes and ice cream and a present for moi.
Tomorrow I turn 35. I keep wanting to think "that's halfway to 40," when in fact, it's halfway to 70. And you know what? 70 seems young to me. I laugh to remember myself, on the verge of my 25th birthday, sitting with BD and a friend in old Zinnie's and feeling depressingly old as all the kids from my alma mater started to trickle in just when we were preparing to turn in for the night. For some reason, in my mind 25 marked the end of an era. Even though I had been out of college and married for over three years, I still felt young enough to be considered "college aged," an idea that expired, apparently, at 24 years and 364 days.
Then I found out I was pregnant with Calvin, and I forgot all about that silliness. I had already lost one pregnancy, but that loss was what let us know that we were, surprisingly, ready to have a baby. I knew instantly and unquestionably that the baby would be a boy, and I threw myself into the experience of pregnancy and the process of preparing for him. We bought our house, painted rooms, became parents, and I've never looked back.
Now, on the eve of the big Three Five, I feel amazingly good. I am happier in my life than I ever believed I could be. I know I talk enough about how Big Daddy rocks my world and how wonderful my kids are and how we have such incredible friends. So let me just add to that how much I feel, in a way that is impossible to really convey, like me. Like I get it now. Like I can't wait to see what the next 70 years will be like. Bring it on!
Tomorrow I turn 35. I keep wanting to think "that's halfway to 40," when in fact, it's halfway to 70. And you know what? 70 seems young to me. I laugh to remember myself, on the verge of my 25th birthday, sitting with BD and a friend in old Zinnie's and feeling depressingly old as all the kids from my alma mater started to trickle in just when we were preparing to turn in for the night. For some reason, in my mind 25 marked the end of an era. Even though I had been out of college and married for over three years, I still felt young enough to be considered "college aged," an idea that expired, apparently, at 24 years and 364 days.
Then I found out I was pregnant with Calvin, and I forgot all about that silliness. I had already lost one pregnancy, but that loss was what let us know that we were, surprisingly, ready to have a baby. I knew instantly and unquestionably that the baby would be a boy, and I threw myself into the experience of pregnancy and the process of preparing for him. We bought our house, painted rooms, became parents, and I've never looked back.
Now, on the eve of the big Three Five, I feel amazingly good. I am happier in my life than I ever believed I could be. I know I talk enough about how Big Daddy rocks my world and how wonderful my kids are and how we have such incredible friends. So let me just add to that how much I feel, in a way that is impossible to really convey, like me. Like I get it now. Like I can't wait to see what the next 70 years will be like. Bring it on!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
In another country
Recently, Calvin has been spending a lot of time playing with a kid who lives around the corner. Not around the corner in a house like ours, but in the big house. In the neighborhood for which our street was planned as a convenient abode for the domestic help.
The other day as we were driving home from school, he said to me "I think G's friend who lives two doors down is from another country, because he's always playing that game with the stick that has a net on the end."
"Lacrosse?" I asked.
"Yeah, Lacrosse! That's it!" I tried to keep the laughter out of my voice as I said "Baby, that's not because he's from another country. It's because he's rich." Calvin thought about that for a minute and then asked tentatively "Can only rich kids play Lacrosse?"
"No," I replied, beginning to wish I hadn't said anything, "it's just a sport they really only play in private schools." He didn't ask any more questions, and I was left to wonder what he thought about things like money and wealth. Had he not noticed the differences between his friend's house and ours? I know that he must have. But maybe in his mind, those differences were inconsequential, or just proof that they chose to buy a larger house than we did.
When I told this story to Big Daddy, he laughed and said that kid might as well be from another country; the country of money. It was funny, but at the same time I felt a niggling little worry that we were letting bitterness seep in and infect our kids' attitudes about their place in the world. My parents are solidly middle class now, but they both come from poverty and, for good or bad, they passed on some of that poverty mindset to me. Time, experience, and education have remedied most of that, but I'm still aware of how our attitudes about money can spill over into the way we raise our kids.
I would be lying if I said we don't struggle financially. But at the same time, I can honestly say that I believe I live in incredible luxury. If I feel the need to compare what I have to what someone else has, I feel unfairly fortunate. I don't know what it's like to watch my kids go hungry, or to feel helpless when they get sick because I can't get medicine. I don't have to keep them in the house all day because of constant gunfire in the streets. We tuck them into warm beds at night knowing that in the morning we'll send them to a good school where they have every opportunity they need to learn and grow. All of us are happy and healthy and our house is full of love and laughter and warmth. Bursting at the seams, maybe, but in such a good way. And that's what I want my kids to think about as they figure out how all of that works. We might daydream of things we'd like to have, but I can't really think of a single thing we need.
The other day as we were driving home from school, he said to me "I think G's friend who lives two doors down is from another country, because he's always playing that game with the stick that has a net on the end."
"Lacrosse?" I asked.
"Yeah, Lacrosse! That's it!" I tried to keep the laughter out of my voice as I said "Baby, that's not because he's from another country. It's because he's rich." Calvin thought about that for a minute and then asked tentatively "Can only rich kids play Lacrosse?"
"No," I replied, beginning to wish I hadn't said anything, "it's just a sport they really only play in private schools." He didn't ask any more questions, and I was left to wonder what he thought about things like money and wealth. Had he not noticed the differences between his friend's house and ours? I know that he must have. But maybe in his mind, those differences were inconsequential, or just proof that they chose to buy a larger house than we did.
When I told this story to Big Daddy, he laughed and said that kid might as well be from another country; the country of money. It was funny, but at the same time I felt a niggling little worry that we were letting bitterness seep in and infect our kids' attitudes about their place in the world. My parents are solidly middle class now, but they both come from poverty and, for good or bad, they passed on some of that poverty mindset to me. Time, experience, and education have remedied most of that, but I'm still aware of how our attitudes about money can spill over into the way we raise our kids.
I would be lying if I said we don't struggle financially. But at the same time, I can honestly say that I believe I live in incredible luxury. If I feel the need to compare what I have to what someone else has, I feel unfairly fortunate. I don't know what it's like to watch my kids go hungry, or to feel helpless when they get sick because I can't get medicine. I don't have to keep them in the house all day because of constant gunfire in the streets. We tuck them into warm beds at night knowing that in the morning we'll send them to a good school where they have every opportunity they need to learn and grow. All of us are happy and healthy and our house is full of love and laughter and warmth. Bursting at the seams, maybe, but in such a good way. And that's what I want my kids to think about as they figure out how all of that works. We might daydream of things we'd like to have, but I can't really think of a single thing we need.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Brave New World
Some of you may find this hard to believe, but last night was the first time we've ever paid a babysitter to keep our kids so we could go out at night. Not the first time in a while, or the first time since Genevieve was born, but the first time. Ever.
Babysitters have always seemed like this mysterious commodity to me, kind of like drugs in junior high; you hear other people talking about using them, but you don't really know where or how to find any and you're not sure how it would all work out if you ever did. My parents live in town, and they will usually watch the kids on the rare occasion that we ask them to. But for various reasons, that means they have to come to our house, and by about 11:00 they are wondering where the hell we are and wanting to go home and get in their own bed. And really, my parents are on the young side, they both still work full time, and I'm just generally uncomfortable with asking them (or anyone) to give up their own free time so that I can have some. Those of you who know me may find this shocking, but I don't like to ask people for favors.
So, last night all the usual suspects were going out for the October birthdays (mine included), and I wanted to be able to stay out past midnight without feeling guilty about someone sitting at my house wondering when I was going to get there. That's the good thing about paying the exorbitant rate that babysitters make these days--the money precludes the guilt. I found a very sweet Bio major through the babysitter list at my alma mater , and she played with the kids and even Genevieve seemed to really like her, so I felt fine about that and didn't spend the night wondering if they missed me. They all did great.
I'm sure there will be other more detailed accounts of how the evening was spent, but just to hit a few of the high points, I had my favorite food for dinner, whipped Stephanie's ass at darts and Andria's at pool (ok, I may have also lost to both of them in equal measure), shared several pitchers of draft beer with friends for the first time in who knows how many years, danced to music from a juke box, showed a mildly scandalous amount of cleavage, and indulged in just a little inappropriate PDA. It was a good night, and worth every penny of the million dollars we paid the sitter.
Babysitters have always seemed like this mysterious commodity to me, kind of like drugs in junior high; you hear other people talking about using them, but you don't really know where or how to find any and you're not sure how it would all work out if you ever did. My parents live in town, and they will usually watch the kids on the rare occasion that we ask them to. But for various reasons, that means they have to come to our house, and by about 11:00 they are wondering where the hell we are and wanting to go home and get in their own bed. And really, my parents are on the young side, they both still work full time, and I'm just generally uncomfortable with asking them (or anyone) to give up their own free time so that I can have some. Those of you who know me may find this shocking, but I don't like to ask people for favors.
So, last night all the usual suspects were going out for the October birthdays (mine included), and I wanted to be able to stay out past midnight without feeling guilty about someone sitting at my house wondering when I was going to get there. That's the good thing about paying the exorbitant rate that babysitters make these days--the money precludes the guilt. I found a very sweet Bio major through the babysitter list at my alma mater , and she played with the kids and even Genevieve seemed to really like her, so I felt fine about that and didn't spend the night wondering if they missed me. They all did great.
I'm sure there will be other more detailed accounts of how the evening was spent, but just to hit a few of the high points, I had my favorite food for dinner, whipped Stephanie's ass at darts and Andria's at pool (ok, I may have also lost to both of them in equal measure), shared several pitchers of draft beer with friends for the first time in who knows how many years, danced to music from a juke box, showed a mildly scandalous amount of cleavage, and indulged in just a little inappropriate PDA. It was a good night, and worth every penny of the million dollars we paid the sitter.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Education liberation I love you
My column in October's Lamplighter is up on-line (page 16). This month is the education issue, and in addition to expressing my support for public education, I explain the process for obtaining choice and Optional transfers and getting your child into the CLUE program in Memphis City Schools. This is something I get asked about in person all the time, so I hope some of you will find it helpful.
*In case you were never an eight-year-old girl, the title of this post is from a hand-slapping-game song.
*In case you were never an eight-year-old girl, the title of this post is from a hand-slapping-game song.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Mama don't play that
I woke up feeling kind of disoriented this morning. I had crazy, unpleasant dreams all night, or at least during the thirty minutes between my alarm going off at 5:30, and my actual dragging ass out of bed at 6:00. Ish. I'm not sure what's causing my bad dreams, and I don't want to point any fingers, but I'm pretty sure it's because Big Daddy and SAM are forcing me to play email Scrabble.
I may have told you before that I do not like games. When I mentioned this to SAM yesterday after she had put up the "word" BRAWLIER, using all her tiles and covering a red triple-word square for a total of 101 points for that one word, she pointed out that I just don't like games where people sit quietly and plot each other's destruction. Good point. I do love me some Taboo.
I can remember when BD and I were in high school and he taught me how to play chess. I wanted to love chess because it's a smart people's game, and I like to think I'm smart. Alas, I did not love it. Later, in our college days, we went through a period of playing a lot of Pente. That was all right, and I must have enjoyed it at least moderately because we played it all the time for a while there, but in the end I got tired of it.
I'm not sure why I hate games of strategy. It's not because I can't sit still or be quiet or pay attention for a long time. I can do all of those things (and sometimes wonder if I'm not the last American who doesn't claim a short attention span). I think it has more to do with competitiveness, or more specifically, my lack thereof. It's hard to spend all that mental energy on something I don't care about at all, because it's just a game and if I win, so what? I can vaguely remember, back in the days of learning chess, feeling like I wanted to win, but I found the feeling to be unpleasant and so must have banished it from my emotional repertoire. Maybe it's just me, but I'll take a good conversation over a silent contest of strategy any day.
I may have told you before that I do not like games. When I mentioned this to SAM yesterday after she had put up the "word" BRAWLIER, using all her tiles and covering a red triple-word square for a total of 101 points for that one word, she pointed out that I just don't like games where people sit quietly and plot each other's destruction. Good point. I do love me some Taboo.
I can remember when BD and I were in high school and he taught me how to play chess. I wanted to love chess because it's a smart people's game, and I like to think I'm smart. Alas, I did not love it. Later, in our college days, we went through a period of playing a lot of Pente. That was all right, and I must have enjoyed it at least moderately because we played it all the time for a while there, but in the end I got tired of it.
I'm not sure why I hate games of strategy. It's not because I can't sit still or be quiet or pay attention for a long time. I can do all of those things (and sometimes wonder if I'm not the last American who doesn't claim a short attention span). I think it has more to do with competitiveness, or more specifically, my lack thereof. It's hard to spend all that mental energy on something I don't care about at all, because it's just a game and if I win, so what? I can vaguely remember, back in the days of learning chess, feeling like I wanted to win, but I found the feeling to be unpleasant and so must have banished it from my emotional repertoire. Maybe it's just me, but I'll take a good conversation over a silent contest of strategy any day.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
For the record
About halfway through Friday night cocktail hour(s), I realized that I had inadvertently made my first two vodka-and-gingers with gin. I didn't know that Big Daddy had foregone his usual Hendrick's in the distinctively squat, dark bottle in favor of a cheaper brand in a tall, clear, vodka-like bottle.
About halfway through Saturday, I realized that, apparently, gin makes me act like an asshole. Who knew? And even though my official stance is still that I was not drunk, I'm pretty sure that the gin devil sent me into "people are stupid and I hate most of them" mode. This is unfortunate because, although I do feel that way, I also don't, if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you do know because, while you are people, you are most assuredly not stupid. And that's just what I mean.
About halfway through Saturday, I realized that, apparently, gin makes me act like an asshole. Who knew? And even though my official stance is still that I was not drunk, I'm pretty sure that the gin devil sent me into "people are stupid and I hate most of them" mode. This is unfortunate because, although I do feel that way, I also don't, if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you do know because, while you are people, you are most assuredly not stupid. And that's just what I mean.
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Midsouth Fair
My parents and I took the kids on our yearly excursion to The Fair the other day. Joshua couldn't wait to go, and kept saying "We're going to the Midsouth Fair!" and "Nicholas said he went to the Midsouth Fair last weekend." We went right after the daily after-school roundup and stayed for about four hours. Big Daddy does not like rides, fried food, or crowds of freaks, so The Fair really holds no charm for him. Loser.
Since it was wristband day, we (and by we, I mean my parents) shelled out $20 each for wristbands for the three older kids so they could ride an unlimited number of rides, and I bought a handful of tickets for myself so I could ride a few things with them, and the swings (officially called "the yo-yo") which is my favorite ride. It quickly became apparent that Joshua's $20 was wasted, because he refused to ride anything that leaves the ground in any fashion. No kiddie airplanes or hot air balloons, nothing. He rode the motorcycles twice, and the trucks. He and Somerset and Genevieve and I all piled into the interior of a giant honey bear's abdomen to spin around and around while also revolving around the ride's center axis. He slid down the kiddie version of the giant slide a few times, and he and his siblings went through the house of mirrors three times in a row, and that was it for him.
After the first ride, I realized that all of the operators just assumed I had on a wrist band and were not looking for my tickets, at least in the kiddie section. Eventually, though, I took Joshua's wristband off of his arm and bootlegged it onto mine. This done, I rode Calvin's first roller coaster with him. It was called the Crazy Mouse, and consisted of round cars on multiple casters going around a series of hairpin turns and up and down a couple of steepish hills while sometimes turning around backwards. It was bigger than the true kiddie coasters, but smaller than a real one. A few of the turns at the top make you feel like you're about to be flung out into space, and I had to close my eyes and think about how old I am to have become a wus. It was a major milestone for Cal, because he has inherited his father's temperment, not mine, which means that he tends to be anxious and expects the worse to happen at any moment. I'm always trying to help him overcome that without pushing him to do things that are too scary. I was proud of him for riding a few things that were a little outside his comfort zone.
When we got to the Yo-Yo, he was still undecided about whether he would ride it with me or not. He wanted to, but the fact that we couldn't sit in a seat together was holding him back. In the end, he decided to go for it, and settled for sitting right behind me. As we were lifted into the air, I heard him say "this isn't that bad." Then we started to really spin, and the seats started to tilt back and forth and swing out and back, out of line with each other. I worried that he'd be scared, but if I spoke to calm him, he wouldn't hear it. In a few minutes, it was all over and we had our feet firmly on the ground. "That was fun," he told me. Now he says it's one of his favorite rides.
I had a first at The Fair this year, too: I had my first deep-fried Snickers. I always thought it sounded gross, but at Andria's urging (Steph voted for a no-nut candy bar), I tried it. It was so good! It's all about the meltiness factor. I also had at least a bite or two of a smoked turkey leg, a funnel cake, a box of popcorn (the only Fair food Joshua would eat), chicken-on-a-stick (with a few dill pickles threaded in between the chunks of chicken), and two cups of $1 sweet tea from the 4-H booth. I like to support the farm kids, you know.
Just as we were about to leave, the sky opened up and dumped rain on the great unwashed, causing us to skip the petting zoo visit we'd planned on the way out. All in all, it was a satisfactory Fair visit, and possibly the last since The Fair is being either moved or canceled after this year. Assuming the Memphis city government can decide what to do with the Fairgrounds. Yeah, right.
Since it was wristband day, we (and by we, I mean my parents) shelled out $20 each for wristbands for the three older kids so they could ride an unlimited number of rides, and I bought a handful of tickets for myself so I could ride a few things with them, and the swings (officially called "the yo-yo") which is my favorite ride. It quickly became apparent that Joshua's $20 was wasted, because he refused to ride anything that leaves the ground in any fashion. No kiddie airplanes or hot air balloons, nothing. He rode the motorcycles twice, and the trucks. He and Somerset and Genevieve and I all piled into the interior of a giant honey bear's abdomen to spin around and around while also revolving around the ride's center axis. He slid down the kiddie version of the giant slide a few times, and he and his siblings went through the house of mirrors three times in a row, and that was it for him.
After the first ride, I realized that all of the operators just assumed I had on a wrist band and were not looking for my tickets, at least in the kiddie section. Eventually, though, I took Joshua's wristband off of his arm and bootlegged it onto mine. This done, I rode Calvin's first roller coaster with him. It was called the Crazy Mouse, and consisted of round cars on multiple casters going around a series of hairpin turns and up and down a couple of steepish hills while sometimes turning around backwards. It was bigger than the true kiddie coasters, but smaller than a real one. A few of the turns at the top make you feel like you're about to be flung out into space, and I had to close my eyes and think about how old I am to have become a wus. It was a major milestone for Cal, because he has inherited his father's temperment, not mine, which means that he tends to be anxious and expects the worse to happen at any moment. I'm always trying to help him overcome that without pushing him to do things that are too scary. I was proud of him for riding a few things that were a little outside his comfort zone.
When we got to the Yo-Yo, he was still undecided about whether he would ride it with me or not. He wanted to, but the fact that we couldn't sit in a seat together was holding him back. In the end, he decided to go for it, and settled for sitting right behind me. As we were lifted into the air, I heard him say "this isn't that bad." Then we started to really spin, and the seats started to tilt back and forth and swing out and back, out of line with each other. I worried that he'd be scared, but if I spoke to calm him, he wouldn't hear it. In a few minutes, it was all over and we had our feet firmly on the ground. "That was fun," he told me. Now he says it's one of his favorite rides.
I had a first at The Fair this year, too: I had my first deep-fried Snickers. I always thought it sounded gross, but at Andria's urging (Steph voted for a no-nut candy bar), I tried it. It was so good! It's all about the meltiness factor. I also had at least a bite or two of a smoked turkey leg, a funnel cake, a box of popcorn (the only Fair food Joshua would eat), chicken-on-a-stick (with a few dill pickles threaded in between the chunks of chicken), and two cups of $1 sweet tea from the 4-H booth. I like to support the farm kids, you know.
Just as we were about to leave, the sky opened up and dumped rain on the great unwashed, causing us to skip the petting zoo visit we'd planned on the way out. All in all, it was a satisfactory Fair visit, and possibly the last since The Fair is being either moved or canceled after this year. Assuming the Memphis city government can decide what to do with the Fairgrounds. Yeah, right.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Rockin' the 90s
It's homecoming week here at THE high school. That means things like "tacky day" and "sports fan" day have been going on all week. So today is "Decades Day." Each grade level is dressed in a way that they believe represents a different decade; the freshman are 50s, the sophomores are 70s, the juniors are 80s, and the seniors are 90s. How is it possible to have 90s day when the 90s are barely over? Or at least, that's what I like to tell myself. The kids could not figure out exactly what to wear to look "so 90s," either. A lot of things have changed for the worse since that decade, but at least our clothes are not that different.
For most of my childhood, my parents would load us into the car (sans seatbelts, a la the 70s), and drive us over to my grandmother's house for Sunday lunch. She had a crock pot full of chili, the world's tiniest yet somehow bottomless Corningware sweet tea pitcher, and a cabinet coffee table whose innards were packed with old magazines. By the time I was in middle school, the 80s were in full swing, and I would look at those 70s magazines with a mixture of horror, fascination, and pity. I can clearly remember thinking how bad everyone looked, with their flat bangs and their earth-toned makeup. I also thought the people in the pictures looked old for their age, and I nodded smugly to myself when I thought about how much better we looked now. When I saw people in the real world who still had that 70s look, I was baffled about why they wouldn't get with the fashion program. I couldn't understand how someone could get stuck in a decade that had, quite frankly, seen its better days.
Now I tend to see the 90s as a golden era. Everything was good about the 90s: the 80s were over (never underestimate the goodness of the 80s ending), Bill Clinton was president (I drove to Little Rock at midnight with my roommate, Laura, to see and hear Bill Clinton give his acceptance speech), a lot of great music was being made. It was also an amazing time in my life. I spent the first four years of the decade in college, immersed in ideas, tending bar, experiencing life outside the bubble in which I was raised. Sure, there was some painful stuff along the way, but it was growth and for the most part, I reveled in every minute of it. In the mid 90s, I married the love of my life, and I rounded out the decade by having my first baby. It was a good ten years.
I haven't been participating in the dress days this week, but I couldn't resist 90s day. I suspect that my look is still fairly 90s anyway. How could I pass up an excuse to wear jeans and a black tee, my uniform of choice, with my black Dansko clogs and, the piece de resistance, my biggest, most-loved dangly stone-metal-and-bead earrings from the good old days? No the jeans aren't acid washed, and the tee doesn't hit me at mid-thigh, but my outfit is my millennial version of the 90s look. Hopefully, that means my look isn't completely stuck in the decade of my glory days, even if my heart is.
For most of my childhood, my parents would load us into the car (sans seatbelts, a la the 70s), and drive us over to my grandmother's house for Sunday lunch. She had a crock pot full of chili, the world's tiniest yet somehow bottomless Corningware sweet tea pitcher, and a cabinet coffee table whose innards were packed with old magazines. By the time I was in middle school, the 80s were in full swing, and I would look at those 70s magazines with a mixture of horror, fascination, and pity. I can clearly remember thinking how bad everyone looked, with their flat bangs and their earth-toned makeup. I also thought the people in the pictures looked old for their age, and I nodded smugly to myself when I thought about how much better we looked now. When I saw people in the real world who still had that 70s look, I was baffled about why they wouldn't get with the fashion program. I couldn't understand how someone could get stuck in a decade that had, quite frankly, seen its better days.
Now I tend to see the 90s as a golden era. Everything was good about the 90s: the 80s were over (never underestimate the goodness of the 80s ending), Bill Clinton was president (I drove to Little Rock at midnight with my roommate, Laura, to see and hear Bill Clinton give his acceptance speech), a lot of great music was being made. It was also an amazing time in my life. I spent the first four years of the decade in college, immersed in ideas, tending bar, experiencing life outside the bubble in which I was raised. Sure, there was some painful stuff along the way, but it was growth and for the most part, I reveled in every minute of it. In the mid 90s, I married the love of my life, and I rounded out the decade by having my first baby. It was a good ten years.
I haven't been participating in the dress days this week, but I couldn't resist 90s day. I suspect that my look is still fairly 90s anyway. How could I pass up an excuse to wear jeans and a black tee, my uniform of choice, with my black Dansko clogs and, the piece de resistance, my biggest, most-loved dangly stone-metal-and-bead earrings from the good old days? No the jeans aren't acid washed, and the tee doesn't hit me at mid-thigh, but my outfit is my millennial version of the 90s look. Hopefully, that means my look isn't completely stuck in the decade of my glory days, even if my heart is.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Weekend Update, sadly not starring Tina Fey
Some things I did this weekend:
-Had friends over for cocktails.
-Baked a birthday cake for my Dad.
-Ate pizza for too many meals in a row.
-*censored*
-Threw a bowling party for Somerset's birthday, a week and a day after the fact.
-Finished The Yiddish Policeman's Union .
-Learned that when Genevieve poops in the bathtub, she wants out. Now.
-Watched people more motivated than myself run a 5K past my parents' house.
Things I did not do, but should have:
-Refrain from eating birthday cake, twice.
-Clean my house in any meaningful way.
-Take a nap.
-Anything that remotely resembled running, or exercise of any kind.
-Remember to buy Somerset the ballet slippers she needs while we were in Cordova, where they have stores that sell such things.
-Find the cable that would allow me to upload pictures from the party and post one here.
-Had friends over for cocktails.
-Baked a birthday cake for my Dad.
-Ate pizza for too many meals in a row.
-*censored*
-Threw a bowling party for Somerset's birthday, a week and a day after the fact.
-Finished The Yiddish Policeman's Union .
-Learned that when Genevieve poops in the bathtub, she wants out. Now.
-Watched people more motivated than myself run a 5K past my parents' house.
Things I did not do, but should have:
-Refrain from eating birthday cake, twice.
-Clean my house in any meaningful way.
-Take a nap.
-Anything that remotely resembled running, or exercise of any kind.
-Remember to buy Somerset the ballet slippers she needs while we were in Cordova, where they have stores that sell such things.
-Find the cable that would allow me to upload pictures from the party and post one here.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
The Problem of Evil
Restated: If God is all loving, all knowing, and all powerful, why aren't babies born with all their molars?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Time Flies
As it turns out, time not only travels with a one-way ticket, but it takes the Concord. It seems like just yesterday that I was lamenting the end of summer vacation, and now here we are at the end of the first six-weeks grading period. How is that possible? Once again, in spite of my best intentions, I find myself swamped with papers to grade. And yet, I am oh so easily distracted from that task. Because I don't want to do it.
Not only am I swamped with this week's workload, but I'm already dreading the supremely dreadable Research Paper grading. I figured out last year that if I spent just five minutes grading each paper, I would spend 14 hours on them. And that's optimistic, because I tend to spend ten minutes on each one. Now to make matters worse, the department has decided, in spite of my dissent, that senior papers should be a minimum of seven pages for the regular classes and ten for honors. TEN! That's five pages of reasonably reasonable text, and five pages of slaw. When I discussed this with my students today, they laughingly promised to blend the slaw in rather than stacking it five-on-five. Very reassuring.
Not only am I swamped with this week's workload, but I'm already dreading the supremely dreadable Research Paper grading. I figured out last year that if I spent just five minutes grading each paper, I would spend 14 hours on them. And that's optimistic, because I tend to spend ten minutes on each one. Now to make matters worse, the department has decided, in spite of my dissent, that senior papers should be a minimum of seven pages for the regular classes and ten for honors. TEN! That's five pages of reasonably reasonable text, and five pages of slaw. When I discussed this with my students today, they laughingly promised to blend the slaw in rather than stacking it five-on-five. Very reassuring.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Just Like Old Times
There was a time in my early twenties when I became acutely aware of the fact that we only get to lead one life at a time. Maybe it sounds unreasonable to you, but this was a hard fact for me to accept. I'd learned all about opportunity cost in that required semester of high school Economics, but the concept didn't really hit home for me until I had some life experience under my belt. For a while, I became sort of fixated on the wish that I could go back to certain phases of my life simply by going back to the places where I had spent my time. If I went to my old apartment on Madison, I would find people and things just as they had been when I lived there. You get the idea. Imagining that possibility, and having to admit its impossibility, was a way for me to reconcile myself to the cruel reality that time travels only in one direction.
But sometimes, when we are patient, life will indulge our little whims. This past weekend, I got an opportunity to revisit a part of my life that ended about three years ago. For those of you who don't know, I used to own a little store called Mothersville, which is now owned by my friends Andria and Melissa . The store is located just where the Cooper-Young Festival begins, and for various reasons that are better heard from the ladies themselves, they needed a little help this year. Now, I feel compelled to admit here that I am not one of those people who loves to offer up my time to every cause and person that requests it, mostly because I'm just lazy and I like to have a lot of time to sit around my house in my comfy pants and no bra. However, in this case I willingly volunteered to pitch in. I asked my parents to watch the kids, and I went to work at my old store, and did what I used to do six days a week for a little over two years.
When I got to the store, I warned Melissa that it would be hard for me not to dominate the floor, and that she should feel free to rein me in as needed. She told me to stop talking crazy and get out there and sell stuff. So that's what I did. It was fun to be back there demonstrating sling-wearing techniques and explaining how cloth diapers work. For a few hours, it really was like my little fantasy of being able to walk into a place from my past and find everything there waiting for me, just like old times. I even saw several of my old regulars, who stopped by to say hello. But of course, the babies who were waiting to be born then are preschoolers now, and there were lots of new faces and new babies to meet. I really enjoyed myself, and I'm grateful that I was able to be back there, if only for a little while.
But sometimes, when we are patient, life will indulge our little whims. This past weekend, I got an opportunity to revisit a part of my life that ended about three years ago. For those of you who don't know, I used to own a little store called Mothersville, which is now owned by my friends Andria and Melissa . The store is located just where the Cooper-Young Festival begins, and for various reasons that are better heard from the ladies themselves, they needed a little help this year. Now, I feel compelled to admit here that I am not one of those people who loves to offer up my time to every cause and person that requests it, mostly because I'm just lazy and I like to have a lot of time to sit around my house in my comfy pants and no bra. However, in this case I willingly volunteered to pitch in. I asked my parents to watch the kids, and I went to work at my old store, and did what I used to do six days a week for a little over two years.
When I got to the store, I warned Melissa that it would be hard for me not to dominate the floor, and that she should feel free to rein me in as needed. She told me to stop talking crazy and get out there and sell stuff. So that's what I did. It was fun to be back there demonstrating sling-wearing techniques and explaining how cloth diapers work. For a few hours, it really was like my little fantasy of being able to walk into a place from my past and find everything there waiting for me, just like old times. I even saw several of my old regulars, who stopped by to say hello. But of course, the babies who were waiting to be born then are preschoolers now, and there were lots of new faces and new babies to meet. I really enjoyed myself, and I'm grateful that I was able to be back there, if only for a little while.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Happy Birthday Somerset
Five years and nine months ago, I was just getting used to having two children. I was the mom of two boys, a four year old and a five month old. Big Daddy and I knew we would have at least one more child...some day. I was exclusively breastfeeding and had not seen the dreaded "aunt" in over a year, but somewhere around month six, I got a funny feeling that I might be pregnant. I took a test and, sure enough, two lines. I walked out of the bathroom, looked at BD, and just blew out a big cleansing breath. I think it was two weeks before we even talked about it. We needed a little more time to just be the parents of two boys. But soon enough, the truth sunk in. I remember telling my friend Kimberly as she stood at her kitchen sink washing dishes. Without turning around to look at me, she tossed her head back and just screamed for about a minute. It was outrageous to think that one of us could go from having one child to having three under four in just over a year, but I was about to do it.
The day BD and I went for the ultrasound, I was hoping desperately for a girl, and I think he was too. We could not have loved our boys any more than we did, but both of us wanted at least one daughter, and under the circumstances it seemed likely that the third baby would be the last. I lay on the table with my belly covered in goop, clutching Big Daddy's hand as we both stared at the fuzzy images on the screen. Finally, the tech gave us what we were waiting for: the news that we were having a girl.
That summer we took both boys on the train to New Orleans and then rented a car for the last three hours to Pensacola for BD's little sister's wedding. On the train, we talked about names. I wanted to name the baby Veronica June. Veronica had been my girl name with Joshua before we knew he was a boy, and I was still holding onto it. BD wanted to name her Somerset. I liked the name a lot, but I was still lobbying for Veronica. I was also lobbying for us to move our bedroom into what was then the back den so the baby could have the front room instead of bunking with both boys. So, I made a deal. There on the train, I agreed to name the baby Somerset if he would agree to move rooms, and that was that. Now I can't imagine my Somerset by any other name.
Happy birthday Somerset. You are my beautiful little spitfire. You are the only one of my four children who has my eyes and my bravado. You aren't the baby of the family any more, but you will always, always be my sweet baby girl.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Watch this right now
This is a segment from Al Jazeera television showing Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist from Los Angeles, making very powerful statements about the true nature of the "culture clash" in the Middle East. I fear for this woman's life, but she is amazing and she deserves to be heard.
Let Us Prey
The other night, Big Daddy and I had the opportunity to attend an open house at our kids' school. Since we have three children now at the same fairly large public school, this involved quite a bit of running around. Joshua's math and science teacher was particularly chatty, which meant we had to stand around and wait while she held mini conferences with several other parents. When it was finally our turn, she wanted to tell us a cute story about something funny Joshua had said. Apparently they start each day with a morning meeting on the rug, at which time they may play a variation of a game that will only be familiar to you if you ever attended an urban elementary school. Basically everyone stands in a circle and claps out a rhythm while one person is in the center. In this case, the group chants "Hey, hey Joshua, what do you like to do? Tell us what you like to do." So my sweet little Joshua, according to his teacher, replied "I like to pray."
At first she thought he must have said "play," but upon asking him she was assured that he had, in fact, said "pray." She thought by telling me this, she was acknowledging that we were a good Christian family who had taught our children well, and that maybe we are raising a future priest or something. Imagine her surprise when, in my surprise, I said "Well, that's really funny because we are in no way a religious household." If you live outside of Memphis, you can't imagine what a shocking statement this is considered to be, but trust me when I say it was not the response she was expecting.
Later that night, I called Joshua into my room and asked him very casually about what he said he liked to do during the game in morning meeting, and he replied "I said I like to pray."
"Ok," I said, "but when do you pray?" After looking confused for a minute, he answered "Somerset." OoooK. "Somerset is a who, not a when, honey. Do you know what 'pray' means?" He nodded. "Can you tell me what it means?"
"It means eat," he said, like duh, mom. "You know, like a lion." Slowly it dawned on me that what Joshua likes to do is not pray, it's prey.
Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
At first she thought he must have said "play," but upon asking him she was assured that he had, in fact, said "pray." She thought by telling me this, she was acknowledging that we were a good Christian family who had taught our children well, and that maybe we are raising a future priest or something. Imagine her surprise when, in my surprise, I said "Well, that's really funny because we are in no way a religious household." If you live outside of Memphis, you can't imagine what a shocking statement this is considered to be, but trust me when I say it was not the response she was expecting.
Later that night, I called Joshua into my room and asked him very casually about what he said he liked to do during the game in morning meeting, and he replied "I said I like to pray."
"Ok," I said, "but when do you pray?" After looking confused for a minute, he answered "Somerset." OoooK. "Somerset is a who, not a when, honey. Do you know what 'pray' means?" He nodded. "Can you tell me what it means?"
"It means eat," he said, like duh, mom. "You know, like a lion." Slowly it dawned on me that what Joshua likes to do is not pray, it's prey.
Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
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