Wind and Walls

Lately, I’ve been missing my “dearly departed” loved ones horribly.  

Random things are making me overly emotional.  Like when our family went out for ice cream, and I decided to order a “cake cone” for the first time in ages because it reminded me of how my Grandma Betty used to keep a box of cake cones at her house for her grandkids.  (In fact, I don’t remember eating them anywhere else.  Except for the time during college when I tagged along with a friend to visit HER Grandma, and she offered us ice cream on cake cones.  It still makes me smile to think about that moment.) 

When I visited a special garden the other day, and lingered too long near a small pot of African Violets (arguably one of the *least* impressive things there) because they reminded me of my Grandma Florence.  

These unanticipated emotions come rushing at me suddenly and forcefully like a gust of air.  

Which got me thinking, do you ever think that maybe we’re all walls?  

I picture stone walls.  The kind where the stones are different sizes and shapes, like those dry stone walls in Ireland.  Those walls that were made by the farmers working the land, who just tossed the rocks into fence rows and built the walls up.  No plan, but somehow it all stayed together and lasted for years.    

And if we ARE walls, then maybe when you lose someone you love, someone who was a formative part of your life, you lose that stone… and the cold emotional air rushes in.  

Your wall keeps growing taller, of course.  You make new friends, time adds new people to your family.  You continue to have "stone adding" life experiences that shape the person you are today.  

And maybe sometimes you don’t notice the holes.  Or you allow yourself to forget, momentarily, that they are there at all.    

But even more painfully, lately I seem to be finding myself missing the stones that never had a chance to get added to my wall.  The stone for that career path I chose not to pursue.  The stones for those opportunities I was too afraid to attempt.  

And the big one - the stone where I get to be on the cusp of entering my 40s alongside my first best friend.  

Her birthday always brings a big gust of “emotional wind” into my world.  

Even as I’ll run around today, dropping one kid off at art camp and taking another to the park to burn off some energy… I’ll feel that wind swirling around.  

Even as I’ll make lunch and encourage them to read, and remind them for the millionth time to “stop yelling at each other and use nice words” … that wind will be there twirling my hair around and leaving it tangled.       

But I’m old enough now to know that you can’t fight the wind… especially on June 10th.   

(Happy birthday, JLE.)

Waiting Room: 2

I was in a new waiting room with my son, waiting for (yet another) evaluation for speech therapy, when I notice her.  A woman, somewhere in age between me and my parents (masks make it hard for me to really tell these days) with long blonde hair... who was *fixated* on my son.  

He was playing with one of those "bead maze" toys that I'm convinced they hand out along with a diploma when a person graduates with a medical degree. I was getting some paperwork sorted out at the front desk when she started talking to him. 

"What about the green bead," she asked.  "Can you move that one?" 

I turned around to look.  My son studied her for a second, then dutifully moved the green bead. I could see her eyes smiling over her mask.  I finished my paperwork and headed back to my seat, when suddenly a loud voice trumpets from the hallway off of the waiting room.  

"MAMA!"

A boy, all legs, and probably about 13-years-old, bounds in the direction of the woman. 

"Hey, buddy!  How'd it go?" she asks with those smiling eyes. 

I tried to respectfully ignore their conversation at that point, but I will confess that I had one terrible thought: I don't want to be in this room when my son is 13.  God, please don't let me still be in this room in 8 years.  

Now I understood why she was looking at my son the way she did.  The reminiscing and nostalgia that many parents feel as their kids age, of course.  But I'm also convinced that she was remembering. Remembering the beginning of her special needs journey.  Remembering her own son playing with the "bead maze."  Remembering when their biggest issues were how to properly hold a pencil, how to find the words to interact with friends and teachers, and how to use your voice to let others know what's upsetting you.     

I wonder if she thought she'd still be in the waiting room when he reached junior high.  

But my next thought, after my shameful gut reaction, was about that "MAMA!"

If we weren't in this waiting room... would she still be getting that joyful greeting from her teenager? Probably not.  

Maybe I do want to be in this room with my son a little longer. 

Maybe I'll take that slower start, those endless IEP meetings, the unceasing worry about how he'll be treated by his classmates as he ages.  Maybe that's a fair trade for a little more time spent as the center of his world. A quid pro quo to hold off those teenage eyerolls for a few extra years.    

They walk out the door into the rain, and I'm watching her son jump in puddles and laugh.  

Yeah, I'll think I'll keep coming to this waiting room for a few more years.  

Treehouse Memories

I want text you so much that I'm fighting back tears... and I've never texted you before in my life.

It happened during those early hours of the morning when it feels like my son wants to cram in way too many activities while I'm still half asleep. This time, he built a creation out of Legos that kind of looked like a treehouse.  As he yelled, "Treehouse!" over and over in a melodic way...  a moment from the early 90s hit me like a truck.

We're sitting in your childhood home, booting up your DOS computer to play THE TREEHOUSE.  I can't say that I remember the actual gameplay almost 30 years later, but the theme song resurfaces in my brain like I heard it last week:

 🎵 "Hanging out... at the Treehouse!  Hanging out... at the Treehouse!"  🎵

I wish I could text and ask you if you remember that game. I feel like you would, and you'd probably remember way more details than I do.  

I'd also ask if you remembered playing that "Are You Afraid of the Dark" game that I don't think you really liked, but that you'd agree to play because *I* wanted to play it (and be terrified by it at the same time.) Or I'd ask if you remember that game where we were supposed to be surgeons and follow directions to do medical procedures?  ("Life and Death" or something like that?) My strongest memory of that computer game is when you jokingly carved your name into the patient's forehead and then the game called you a "quack" and we lost.  

I'd like to imagine us making each other "LOL" via text message this morning. 

To be honest, I just like to imagine that we'd still be friends.  

I got together with some of our mutual friends from high school the other day.  I masked up, and took my kids to a park to play with their kids.  (The four of us have 9 kids now, can you believe that?) Would you have been there if you could have been?  Would the kids have been excited to see "silly Aunt Jess?" Would they have begged you to chase them around and growl like a monster? 

It feels odd to miss you during my current season of motherhood, seeing as you were never a mother yourself.  I don't really even remember you babysitting. It's also so strange to have this longing to text you (because it's hard to find a quiet moment to talk on the phone these days) when I didn't even own a cell phone until about 8 months after you passed away.

But in the 17 years since you've been gone, I've learned to let the emotions come.  The happy, the sad, and even the ones that don't really make sense.  Today, I'll build Lego creations with my son.  I'll do a load (or two) of tiny laundry.  I'll put your photo on Facebook and let other people see your face and remember you in their own way.  

And I'll miss our carefree days of hanging out "at the treehouse" a little bit more than usual.   

Green Tea, VapoRub, and Grandpa

I'm sick, and I've been thinking a lot about my Grandpa Paul lately.  Not because he was sick. In fact, I don't ever remember him being sick, even at the end of his life.

No, I've been thinking about him because I'm drinking hot tea for my throat, and he was the only person I knew growing up who drank tea all day long.

He had this coffee mug that was probably a bright shade of "sunshine-y yellow" when it was new, but my memory of it is being faded with tea stains down the sides.  He would heat up his water in the microwave, and he even used his tea bags more than once.  Probably due to the fact that he was a little boy during The Great Depression.  Or maybe using them twice makes a unique flavor?  I don't know.  For me, tea has always been medicinal.

Grandpa Paul also had this giant book of "home remedies" on his book shelf. He would tell us things like, "rub Vicks VapoRub on the bottom of your feet, put on socks, and go to bed."  Or he would encourage you to squeeze really hard in that fleshy spot between your thumb and pointer finger if you had a headache or a toothache.

It's amazing what you remember about a person after they die.

I wish I would have taken more time to ask him questions about his life growing up.  Most of what I know, I feel like I learned accidentally. For example, sometimes when we'd be eating candy bars or another special treat, he'd reminisce that he and his siblings used to eat lard smeared on bread for a snack. "If we were lucky, we'd get to sprinkle a little sugar on it."

That always made me gag a little, probably because "lard" is kind of a gross word.

I also remember how he'd always make time to sit and color with us at the kitchen table.  My Grandma told me once that he never had crayons growing up, which probably explains he was always buying us fresh crayolas to use at his house.

It's odd, because I don't really wish he was still here.  The last time I saw him back in the fall of 2015, I told him that I was expecting my second child.  He smiled, but I'm not sure he really understood. If he was still here today, I know that it's pretty likely he wouldn't remember who I was at all.

But right now, as I'm staring into my tea and struggling to breathe through my nose... I guess I just wish I could hear him tell me to put VapoRub on my feet one more time.

A Full Cup

"You can't pour from an empty cup."

I don't remember when I first heard that phrase, but it was some time after the birth of my daughter.  And initially, it seemed like a light bulb going off in my head.  Well... no wonder I feel so bad!  I'm not sleeping, my child needs me 24/7, and I'm not taking any time for myself. I'm trying to pour from an empty cup.  

But eight years into this parenting thing, I think I might be wrong.  It's not that my cup is empty... it's that it's too FULL of things that I can no longer pour out. 

It's a feeling of being stuffed to the brim with something that's scratching and clawing and dying to get out.  Ambitions and ideas and a potential life that I no longer have time for. The dreams of my youth that I replaced with diapers and wipes, sippy cups and parent teacher conferences. 

It's seeing others doing the things I wish I could, seeing them playing out the dreams that I chose to pause in my own life. Sometimes all that fullness burns inside me and leaves me feeling spent.

Spent.  But not empty. 

Empty would be easier.  Empty you could fill up with food or booze.  Empty you could attempt to ignore by becoming an expert on Pokemon or Minecraft or any of your kid's current obsessions. Empty you could cover over with Netflix binges and entirely too much time on Facebook.

It's the fullness that gets me. 

It sits heavy on my heart, my lungs.  On the bad days it flows up behind my eyes and clouds my vision.  The what-ifs and the should-ofs blind me to the beauty of what IS in front of me.  So I force those feelings back down and they leave a slime of guilt in their wake.

Because what I chose SHOULD be enough. 

But I can't swallow it away.  The feeling of untapped potential. The feeling that there should be, there MUST be, more to me than just my children.  My family will always be number one on my list.  But I just don't think they can be the ENTIRE list. 

So I tell myself, maybe in ten years.  Maybe they'll need me less.  Maybe then it can be about me... and those guilty feelings will be less intense.  Maybe then I'll let it out.

Maybe then, I won't feel like I'm so full I'm suffocating. 

"You can't pour from an empty cup."  Yeah.  But lately I've been having a hard time pouring from one that feels so achingly full. 

Shattering the "Fine"

"How are you guys?"

"Oh, we're fine.  How are you?"

I'm a pretty habitual user of the "fine." Life could be a giant dumpster fire right now, and the majority of the people in my life are going to get the "fine."

Why do I do that?

Is it because I simply don't feel like explaining what's really going on?  Is it because I don't want to bother/burden the other person with my drama? Is it because I feel like if I isolate myself, then the negative feelings will go away?

Why do I default to that automated generic response?  I'm not 100% sure.  But I know that I'm not the only one.

Thankfully, I'm friends with a few people who I think are *really* good at shattering the idea that we always have to be "fine."  The one I want to tell you about today is my friend Emily.

Me (left) and Emily in our 2nd Grade class photo. While I know that Emily has just gotten better with age, I still make questionable "cat sweater level" fashion choices.

Although Emily's done some blogging before, she's recently started a new adventure she's calling "Clean Living with the Crazies."

Don't let the name throw you off.  This isn't another diet blog about attempting to eat "clean" and eliminating all processed foods from your life.  This isn't another blog about how everything in your home is giving you cancer, so you need to remove all "chemicals" from your life immediately and stop poisoning your kids with Red Dye No. 40.

So far, "Clean Living with the Crazies" is a blog about mental health. Not only ideas of things we might be able to do to improve our mental health, but a place where Emily is putting it all on the table. For example: her most recent posts describe her experiences with postpartum depression after the birth of her twin girls.   

(Already interested?  Visit her Blog, or follow her on Facebook and Instagram.)

Emily's going to write about ADHD and anxiety, she's going to write about about Bipolar Disorder, she's going to write about PTSD... and in a world where the majority of people only share the "happy, shiny, polished" versions of their lives online, I think this is amazing.

Sometimes reading about how things aren't always "hunky-dory" for someone else makes me feel better about the times things are going less than stellar in my life.  And because you haven't all been fortunate enough to have known Emily since Kindergarten, I wanted give you the opportunity to read her thoughts.

I also wanted to make sure that, in case you needed to hear it today, it really is OKAY not to be fine.

---

("Clean Living with the Crazies" - Blog, Facebook and Instagram.)

Three Recent Surprises

• My daughter has a new best friend.  This 8-year-old was over at our house earlier this week, and he asked me if I'd ever heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  I told him that I had, and he told me that he finished his novel on November 11. My first reaction?  Wow!  This kid has done something that I've never even been brave enough to attempt.  My second thought?  I like this kid even more that I thought.


• My husband was out of town for a few days last week.  While he was gone, I was a little down.  When my daughter asked me what was wrong, I told her that I really wished I could give her daddy a hug.  She ran out of the room, and came back a minute later with a pillow stuffed under her shirt.  "Here!  This is kinda like hugging Daddy!"  Yes, my sweet girl.  Just exactly.


• Earlier this week, I took my son to the library to kill time while big sister was at Girl Scouts.  I had to shush him... but not because he was screaming.  I had to shush him because he was shouting out the names of the colors he noticed around the building. If you've read any of my other posts about our journey with "expressive receptive language disorder" then you know how awesome that shushing actually was.  Best shush of my life.

Sneaking

It sneaks up on me. The laundry. Empty to full hamper in seconds. I sigh and start another load.

It sneaks up on me. My inevitable aging. During a routine trip to the bathroom, my reflection catches my eye. Have I always had those lines around my mouth?!?

My hair has been far less devious. A slow creep from red to whitish-gray since the birth of my daughter 8 years ago. My boss at the time pointed out the first one.

"You have a gray hair!" she laughed.
"NO! What?"
"Kids will do that to you," she said and smiled in the way that makes it impossible to tell if you're being teased or not.

It sneaks up on me. The shift in a friendship.  Geography, kids vs. no kids, different life priorities, increasing dependence on social media to stay "connected." Suddenly you realize how long it's been since you've seen or actually talked to a person.  And in the same breath you realize how that fact isn't nearly as upsetting as it would have been a few years ago. 

It sneaks up on me.  The intermittent pain.  Neck, back, knees popping.  I sleep wrong and end up hurting for three days.  I spend too much time playing on the floor with my kids, and it hurts to get up.

It sneaks up on me.  The changing seasons.  Driving home yesterday, all the leaves were red.  It's almost as if it exploded into fall over night in my neighborhood. 

Do you know that Fleetwood Mac song "Landslide"?

Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I don't know either, Stevie.  Some days I don't know if I can handle the laundry, much less the life changes... and I'm pretty sure that's why they choose to sneak up on me. 

"Except Joanna"

In October 2004, I went with some friends to a John Kerry rally. 

I wouldn't say I was a HUGE Kerry supporter, but I'd never been to any event like that and I wanted to go.  Plus, my boss had given me a pile of tickets to use.  Not to mention, I'd heard that actor Ron Livingston was going to be there. (And since I can't count the number of times I've seen "Office Space" - that seemed enough of a reason to attend. Ha!)

I don't have many concrete memories of that evening.  I remember it took a bit to get through security, but once we got inside the arena... the excitement was contagious.  Ron Livingston WAS there, and I know he talked about how important it was for us to vote in the upcoming election.  Kerry said all the usual things you'd expect a Presidential candidate to say, but really hammered home that each person here tonight could use their vote and make a difference.

As we were driving the 30 miles back to campus, my friend Joanna looked a bit sad.  She eventually shared that watching the rest of us get excited and inspired by the speakers was hard for her. She felt like every time someone said that EVERYONE could make a difference, there was an unspoken "Except Joanna" playing inside her head.

In October 2004, Joanna was not an American citizen.  Joanna could not vote. 

Being the super unhelpful friends we were - we lightened the mood by giving her crap, and we turned "Except Joanna" into a inside joke for a few weeks.  Joanna and I lost touch when I graduated the following year.  And to be honest, I'd forgotten about that night until a couple of weeks ago when "Except Joanna" turned into "Except MY son."

---

I was at a meeting with the other parents in my son's preschool class.  His teacher was going over what a typical day would look like in her classroom.  As she rattled off her list of activities, all I could think was... MY son can't do those things. 

My son can't start each day practicing writing his name. I can barely get him to hold a crayon without throwing it across the room.

My son can't sit nicely on the carpet for story time and then talk about his favorite part of the story with the group.  When he does consent to looking at books, I have to keep taking them out of his mouth. 

My son can't bring toys from home and share why they are special with his classmates.  He simply doesn't have the words.

"Except my son."  "Except my son."  "Except Joanna."

I'm sorry that I didn't have the right words back in 2004, Joanna.  I googled you once and learned that you became a citizen in early 2009.  I wonder if you've been to any other political rallies. I hope that you haven't had many life experiences that made you feel as excluded as you did that night almost 15 years ago.

I also hope that with each passing year, there will be less activities on the daily school schedule that cause me to worry about my son feeling the same way. 

"ASD MOM" and Me

As I was leaving the library the other day, I noticed that a maroon van had parked in the space next to mine. The first thing that caught my eye was the large yellow sticker on the side of it indicating that the van may contain passengers with autism that might be unresponsive to verbal requests/commands.

"Well, that's kind of awesome," I thought to myself.  "What a smart way to keep your children safer."

Then as I walked past the van to get to my own vehicle, I noticed that the license plate said "ASD MOM."  All of a sudden, my stomach started to hurt.

Is that mom completely defined by her child(ren)'s diagnosis?  As a parent of a young child with his own disorder... I really hope not.  And does she have other children?  Is ASD MOM able to take off that "hat" if she needs to and just be there for her other kids?  How do they feel about that license plate?

Or has the diagnosis permeated their lives so much that there isn't even a hat to remove anymore?

---

My daughter started school today, which means that yesterday was the last day of her summer vacation.  I'd like to say that we spent the day doing fun stuff together, but we didn't.  I spent yesterday being "her brother's mom."

Did she and I get to spend the afternoon at the pool soaking up the last bits of summer?  Nope.  I spent the afternoon in a therapy waiting room listening to her brother scream at his Speech Pathologist through the closed door.

After therapy, did I get to take my daughter out to enjoy her favorite dinner? Did we talk about what she was excited about in the upcoming school year?  Another no.  I spent our normal dinner time at a meeting with my son's new teachers for the preschool program he'll be starting next month.

Yesterday felt like a day I should have spent soaking up my daughter, but I didn't. Was I being a good mom?  Yes.  Absolutely.  I just wasn't being HER mom.

Did I know that having a second child meant that my attention was going to be divided?  Of course I did.  When I began to realize that my second child wasn't developing on a typical path, I knew almost immediately that my attention was never going to be divided EVENLY.  What I didn't realize was how often I felt like I was going to be removing my preferred "mom hat" to put on a different one.

Does the fact that I don't want to wear the "IEP hat" all the time make me a shitty parent?  Does the idea that I wanted to spend yesterday with my daughter (instead of doing tasks directly related to my other child's delays) make me a monster? I don't know.

I'm not native to the "loss of self" that comes with motherhood.  I'm aware that my identity has been completely, irrevocably changed.  And even 20 years from now, when (fingers crossed) neither of my kids are living at home... I know I won't be the same person I was before I had children.

Maybe ASD MOM is just proud of her child and wanted a public way to express it. Maybe ASD MOM has gotten to a place on her journey where she waves the diagnosis in her life around like a badge of honor. Maybe I'll get there someday.

But maybe it's also acceptable to know that I will never put my child's diagnosis on my license plate.

End of Summer Stomachache

My daughter goes back to school in a few days, and my stomach hurts.

About this time every year, I start to have this sinking feeling that we didn't do enough "fun stuff" during her summer break.  It feels like the time is slipping through my fingers, and we just blew it.

In an attempt to combat these feelings this year, I started writing down fun things that my daughter did (or that we did as a family) these last couple of months. Theatre Camp, Rainforest Camp, swimming and splash pads, visiting friends out of town, trips to visit both sets of grandparents... nope.  Didn't help.  I'm still feeling pukey.

If you asked my daughter, I think she'd tell you that she got to do everything she wanted this summer minus one big thing with her aunt that we just couldn't work out logistically.

So why am *I* having such a hard time?

Probably because this isn't really about the end of summer.  You guys, I blinked... and my oldest child is almost eight.  And in 10 years, she'll be almost 18.

And then we'll *really* know if I "blew it" or not.

Am I doing stuff now to build those skills she's going to need in 10 years?  Can she entertain herself alone and play well with others?  Yes.  Can she feed herself?  Umm... does opening a can of Pringles count?

Does she understand that actions have consequences? Does she pick up after herself? Does she tell the truth?  Most of the time.

What it really boils down to is this: In 10 years, will I have done all the things I needed to do to create a human who is ready to leave me?  Or maybe even more significant, a human who CHOOSES to leave... but still finds enough comfort in the feeling of "home" we created to desire to come back occasionally?

Sandwiched between the games of Battleship and the afternoons of too much screen-time, am I teaching the lessons that need to be taught?  Are we balancing the chats about "which super power you'd like to have" with enough *big* conversations?  Am I saying the right things?  Am I imparting enough wisdom?

My God... is there any way of knowing?  Probably not.

Maybe one of the secrets of parenthood is to get comfortable with the perpetual aches. The ache of constant worry, the ache that occurs after you lose your cool with the little people you love the most, and the ache of realizing that no matter what you do... you have no idea how these kids of yours are going to turn out or what they'll remember about their childhoods.

What is it people say about using your mind to reduce your pain? Breathe through the ache.

School stars in a few days, and all I can do is keep breathing.

Origami

The other day, my daughter watched a video of someone doing origami on YouTube and decided to attempt it herself. After getting stuck and frustrated, she asked me for help.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that precise folding and creating sharp lines has never been my strong suit, so I attempted to finish her project.  It was a big fat fail.  In fact, she had moved on to something else before I even accomplished all the steps in the video.

Even though I doubt my daughter will be make the effort to create another crane or lily anytime soon, I find myself thinking about origami a lot lately.

The question that keeps popping up in my mind is:  Do you think a person starts out as a flat piece of paper?  Or do you think that we each start out as a fancy folded piece of art... and growing up is what unfurls us back into a simpler/truer form?  When I think about my life, I guess I'm not really sure if I'm being "folded" or "unfolded."

Maybe both.

I can remember making these definitive black and white statements about myself /my beliefs back in high school.  (You know, with the unwavering assurance that you *completely* understand the world that could only belong to a 16-year-old.)  Things I said I'd do, or things I was positive that I would never do.  Lines that I drew around myself in the sand that were going to be these hard and fast rules for my life.  Maybe those were my first "hard folds."

If so, quite a few of those have already come undone.

And maybe I had to be "unfolded" to make sure there was enough paper for the new folds.  The complicated shapes that I never planned to attempt.  The sculpted corners of my life that only happened because I was nudged in that direction by my own misguided life choices... or by the people that love me the most.

And, my God... some of this folding hurts.

Sometimes I want to push back against the bending paper of life with all my weight and force it to stay where it always was.  Sometimes it feels like bending that corner into it's new location is going to crush me.  And even when I know in my heart the paper HAS to be creased, sometimes it feels like the entire thing might rip in half in the process. 

I don't know if the end goal is a life that resembles a beautifully folded sculpture, or the peace that must come with being a flat sheet of paper that's finally smooth and free of all of life's creases. 

What is am sure of is that I should probably get comfortable with being "unfolded" and "refolded" for the rest of my life.

Getting High on Good Deeds

Scrolling through social media a few weeks ago, I stumbled onto a post about a 6-year-old boy named Bentlee who loves trucks.  Bentlee has special needs, and the poor little dude recently broke his femur and had to have rods put into his leg.  But his mother wasn't creating a "Go Fund Me," she wasn't organizing a "meal train" to give her more time to take care of her other three children... she was asking for photos of trucks.

Apparently Bentlee LOVES semis (he calls him "beep beeps") and his mom thought that getting photos of trucks in the mail (and then hanging them up on the wall) would lift his spirits.  

I'll admit, lots of times I scroll on by stories like this one ... but this time I wanted to do something.

My daughter and I spent an evening putting together a package for Bentlee.  She got out her markers and created a super-colorful semi picture for him.  I printed a photo of my husband's truck, and a photo of a truck belonging to a friend of ours.  My daughter carefully selected about 15 of her "Super Truck Collector Cards" that she thought Bentlee might like.  We each wrote him a letter, and then we mailed it off.  

And I felt great.

This kid lives about 170 miles south of my family, and I will never meet him. I don't expect that he is going to send us a letter back, or that I'll even hear if he liked our package of stuff. But it doesn't matter.  That feeling of doing something nice for someone else was exhilarating.  And this isn't the first time I've felt it.

About a year ago, I convinced my "pack-rat" daughter that the play kitchen set in her room was just taking up space.  After unsuccessfully attempting to give it to a couple of different people I know in real life, I decided to just give it away for free on Facebook.  The set wasn't in bad shape, but my daughter had covered it in stickers that I couldn't peel off.

The woman who replied to my post saying she wanted it told me that her husband could meet me that same afternoon in a public parking lot across town.  SOLD.  I decided at the last minute to throw in a basket of fake food and play dishes/tea set stuff.  When the man arrived, he couldn't stop smiling.

"Oh my gosh!  This is awesome!  And it's bigger than I thought.  And all this food! Are you sure you don't want any money for this?!?!"

I laughed and said no.  We squeezed everything into the back of his car as he told me how much his daughter was going to love it.  Then he thanked me one final time and drove away.

Then I was the one who couldn't stop smiling.

Sometimes life feels really hard.  But somedays are all about trucks or kitchen sets and getting high on doing good deeds.  You know, as weird as it sounds... I think I'll try to give things to strangers more often.  

Waiting Room: 1

She's ready for him, and he'll go in alone this time.

The sessions are more productive when I'm not in there, so I'll sit in the waiting room with whatever book I threw into my bag before we left the house.  Sometimes, it's quiet.  I'm able to read, and the break from reality found in the pages of my book feels almost rejuvenating. 

Today, the waiting room is busy. 

There's a young mom with a boy much smaller than my son.  He's screaming, but I can't really tell if it's in joy or frustration.  Mom is able to distract him with the cup of crayons they keep on the small table.  He's lining them up one by one on an empty chair, and she's proclaiming the color names in a voice that sounds like a cross between a sports announcer and a Sergeant at Arms. Her eyes stay locked on her son, and I can tell she's searching his face and hoping for some mimicking.

He's silent.

And while I'm sure she's relieved he isn't "bothering" the other people in the room, I'm equally sure she'd give anything to hear even a garbled version of the word "blue."  Instead he starts making angry guttural sounds from the back of his throat.  The sounds get louder and louder, and she exhales audibly when it's time for them to go back and start their session. 

Directly across the room from me is another mom. She's got her head down, staring at the phone in her lap.  One of the therapists approaches her with a couple of sheets of paper. 

"I just wanted you to see these," the therapist says.  "This is a sample of his handwriting when we first started, and this is a sample he gave me just now." 

I watch her face fall, and avert my eyes back toward the book in my lap. 

Another mom enters the room carrying a baby who isn't walking yet.  The little girl babbles and I smile to myself and wonder what "she's in for." As if this place was a prison rather than a hub for all sorts of pediatric therapy offerings.

And while I hope my son is having a positive, beneficial experience when he's here... maybe it is a prison... for me. 

It's harder to escape my negative thoughts here.  I feel guilty when I think things like, "At least my kid isn't doing THAT angry growling thing."  I feel my anxiety skyrocket when I realize how my kid refuses to hold a crayon/marker and will likely have the same handwriting issues as the other patient here today.  I look at that baby and I beat myself up for not having my son evaluated sooner. 

These thoughts, these prison bars, close in on me.  And even though I know things could be SO MUCH WORSE... I wish I was anywhere but this freaking waiting room.

My son runs back into the room with his therapist. 

"We had a good session today, " she says with a smile.  "And he didn't hide under the table this time."

Now it's my turn to audibly exhale.

7 AM Tears

It's barely 7 AM and he's on the floor crying.  Face down in the living room carpet, his little body is shaking with sobs.  I keep calling his name and he occasionally looks up - his face red and his eyes filled with hurt. 

"I'm so sorry, Bug," I keep repeating as I sink into a chair a few feet away.  "I'm so sorry I can't understand you." I begin to cry along with him.

Five minutes ago he was happy and smiling. Five minutes ago I asked him if he wanted something to eat.  I suggest all his favorites and he pushes them away.  Then he points to the kitchen and says... something.  It's a "word" I've never heard before and it doesn't sound like anything. He keeps repeating his request, and I'm just not getting it.  I ask him to show me, he refuses.  The more I guess incorrectly, the most upset he becomes. Finally, he just gives up and cries.

His exasperated and frustrated cries are the worst.  It's not like an "I'm too tired" or "I'm whining because I didn't get my way" cry. These cries instantly increase my blood pressure.  They cause me physical pain because I feel like I'm letting him down.  I mean, if your own MOTHER can't understand you...

It's kind of like I still have a newborn.  You remember that newborn "guessing game": Hungry? Tired?  Dirty diaper?  Gassy?   Only it's much worse, because a three-year-old has so many more possible wants/needs.  And I can't seem to figure it out.

Did you ever see the movie "Mr. Holland's Opus"?  There's this scene where Glenne Headly is explaining why she wants, no NEEDS, to spend money on sign language classes.  It's this emotional monologue that ends with her crying and shouting: "I want to talk to my son! I want to talk to my son!" 

I want my son to talk to ME.

So I just keep trying.  I just keep hoping for more mimicking and more new words.

I'm aching to be bored by an endless monologue about dinosaurs or whatever cartoon he likes. I'm longing for future conversations.   

He's stopped crying.  It's time to try again. 

16 Birthdays

16 birthdays.  You've missed 16 birthdays.  16 occasions we didn't get to celebrate with you, 16 cards I didn't get to send.

What would you have done today to mark the occasion?  Would cheesecake still be one of your favorite desserts?  (Would you have remembered what I meant if I'd texted you about the "cheesecake that tasted like sweetcorn?" God, I hope so.)

Where would you be celebrating today?  I can pretend to guess, but I really have no idea.  15 years ago, I didn't know that I'd move to the Chicago area, get married, have a kid, move back to Iowa, and then have another kid. I certainly wouldn't have guessed that I'd currently be a "stay-at-home mom."  Given that I couldn't foresee my own future... it's hard to imagine what path your life would have taken.

But sometimes I pretend to know.

When we were little, you had the most unique aspirations for your future career.  Most kids would answer that age old question with "teacher" or "fireman." Not you.  I can remember you telling people that you were going to be a forensic scientist.  Or a missionary.  Or a truck driver.

Sometimes I pretend that the reason I haven't gotten to talk to you in over 15 years is because you're somewhere where we simply can't communicate.

Maybe you're a missionary in Belize.  You're horribly busy making the jungle a better place and the internet access is almost non-existent.  Maybe you're an over-the-road truck driver.  You're seeing the entire country, but you only use your cell phone for work and like HELL you'd pay to use a computer when you stop for the night.  Maybe you DID become a forensic scientist, but you work for the government and your entire life became classified.  Maybe you ended up in witness protection.  Just typing that makes me smile, because I think you would have liked that sort of "adventure."

I realize how irrational this sounds, but it's nice to imagine you're still around.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm fooling myself.  Maybe we wouldn't even be close anymore.  Maybe our paths would have diverged so much that I wouldn't really know what's going on with your life outside of what you chose to post on social media.

16 missed birthdays.

You know, I can remember your 16th birthday.  We celebrated it riding on a marching band bus somewhere between Iowa and Florida.  I can see this photograph in my mind of you sitting in your bus seat wearing *more* than one party hat. Wish I could find it.

I can remember celebrating one of your birthdays in middle school.  You had a giant sleepover at your house and I ate so many "Nacho Cheese Doritos" that I STILL can't eat them to this day.  I remember another friend of ours was pouring different kinds of soda into the same plastic cup and announced that she was serving us "mixed drinks." I felt so grown up.

I can remember your Mom prepping for another one of your birthdays at your kitchen table.  She was making an ice cream cake roll.  We were circling the table like vultures watching her prep the deliciousness - and then I felt crushed when I realized her creation had to go into the freezer for what seemed like an eternity.

So many birthday memories.  I guess that's how I'm celebrating you today.

Happy happy birthday, my friend.  You only had 20 of them, and that just wasn't enough. 

Getting My Hands Dirty

I have made five batches of homemade slime with my daughter since May 18th.  But it hasn't exactly been a "team effort."  Her contribution has been selecting the color and adding the glue to the bowl.  The bulk of the work has been mine. No matter how much I encourage her... I'm the one who has to put my hands in the goop.

As I worked on a bright pink batch the other morning, it occurred to me that this slime-making process feels a lot like parenting feels lately.

I'm the one who has to kneed it, and determine if we need more shaving cream or contact solution.

I'm the one who has to touch it before it's perfected and ends up with the sticky gunk under my fingernails.

I'm the one who has to put in the time, and make it "acceptable" enough for my daughter to want to play with it. 

Parenting is hard, and while I'm very grateful that I'm getting helpful "ingredients" from outside sources (my husband, my parents, my sisters, my friends) it feels like a lot of it falls on my shoulders. And on the really bad days, it feels like I'm tackling these messy parts alone. 

I guess what really made the connection in my head between parenting and slime-making is that I'M putting the work in, but I'm ultimately doing it for SOMEONE else. 

The things that I teach my daughter about respect and responsibility are going to (hopefully) make things easier for her future teachers.  The things I show her about kindness and empathy are going to help make her a more loving person toward her future friends/partners.  The things I preach to her about working hard and not giving up are going to help her future employers know they can trust her with the big projects and that she deserves that raise. 

So the next time I'm sticky, covered in slime, and muttering under my breath... I'm going to try to remember why I'm *really* getting my hands dirty in the first place. 

Romanticizing the Past

My husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary earlier this week by going out to dinner.  We'd been given a gift certificate a while back to a nice Italian restaurant, but never managed to make the time to use it.  Not only I was exhilarated at the thought of a "kid free" meal, but I was also excited because I hadn't been to this particular establishment in almost 15 years.

The one (and only) time I was there was on a first date. (NOT with my husband, in case you were curious. Ha!) I remember the food being great, and I remember it was the first time I had calamari as an appetizer. It was also one of the nicest places I'd ever been taken on a date.  I'd been talking this place up to my husband for a while.  He's a bit of a foodie, and I was pretty sure he'd like it. 

We got there, and the food was... just okay. Hmm.

I think I may have romanticized my first experience with this restaurant in my head.

Don't get me wrong, the food wasn't horrible.  But will we make the time to go back there again in the near future?  Probably not.

The whole experience got me wondering how often I'm guilty of this whole "romanticizing the past" thing.

Were Saturday morning cartoons *really* better in the 1990s than they are today? Or was I just viewing them through a different "lens" than I view cartoons now?

What about TV?  Were those shows I grew up with actually better than what's on today? Or do I just have fond memories of watching TGIF on Friday nights and SNICK on Saturday nights because they felt like more of a "treat" than watching television does now?

And don't get me started on music.  I'm convinced that many people feel the best decade for music was whatever time period they were in high school/their early 20s. I read a study once that said the majority of people actually STOP seeking out new music/artists once they hit their 30s.  I know I'm guilty of this one.  You're going to hear "PopRocks" (1990s and 2000s pop and rock) on the satellite radio whenever I'm in control of the dial.

While I've only been a parent for 7.5 years, I know I'm going to be having wistful thoughts about the past when it comes to raising my kids.  My first grader is already talking about how much she wants a cell phone when she's a teenager.  (Kid, I didn't have my own phone until COLLEGE.  Calm down.)

So is all this romanticizing harmful?  I don't know.  So far, I don't think I've hurt anyone with my rose-colored views of certain past experiences.  Will I be able to to stop?  I don't know that either.  But maybe I should try.

If nothing else... perhaps we'll be able to have a tastier anniversary dinner next year.

Big Kids at the Playground

I took my kids to my daughter's school (after hours) recently to play on the playground equipment.  At the same time we pulled up, so did a car of three teenagers.  I didn't really pay much attention, as my youngest is a "runner" and diverted my attention away from them pretty quickly.

My daughter noticed them though.

I'm doing that "mom trick" where you're trying to keep one eye on each kid, and I can see her circling them.  She's giving them a wide berth, but it's obvious to me what she's doing.  And I think it's obvious to them too.

This playground has a triple slide, and each of the teens is sitting in a bedway.  Finally I hear my daughter speak.  "You guys just going to sit there?" They laugh.  "Are you too scared to go DOWN the slide?" she continues.  They laugh again.  She climbs to the top and one of the teens immediately moves so she can go down.  She turns around and gives them a look that seems to say, "See? It's not that hard!" before she runs over to another section of the playground.

I'm taking in the whole scene and laughing to myself.  I know that some parents are bothered when older kids hang out at playgrounds, but these three seem pretty non-threatening.  Or maybe it doesn't bother me... because I'VE been the big kid on the playground.

I have memories of hanging out at parks and playgrounds with my friends when I was in high school.  I feel like we usually went at NIGHT, but I could be mistaken.  I don't know if I can pinpoint why we chose to hang out there. Was there really nothing else to do in our small town?  I know I had at least one friend who was vocal about how much she loved to swing.  Maybe we were just going along with her.  Or maybe it was more than that.

Maybe even at 17, we were trying to go back to something familiar. Something easier. You know, playground rules. No pushing.  No cutting in line.  No throwing the sand/woodchips.  No bad words. Maybe we just wanted to pretend we had the ability to temporarily escape the drama of high school.

I like to think that's what those three kids were doing.  I can't imagine being a teenager in today's social media world. It was bad enough to find out on Monday morning that your friends hung out over the weekend and didn't invite you... it would be WAY worse to see it playing out in "real time" on Instagram.

I'm not sure how old those teens were, but maybe they were seniors.  Maybe they are graduating high school in a couple of weeks and are on the precipice of some big life changes.  Maybe as much as they "can't WAIT to be done," they are also a little nervous about the next chapter. 

So if they want to linger a little bit longer in childhood while they still can... that's fine with me.

Just go DOWN the slide so my first grader leaves you alone, okay?   

Dear Bunny

Dear Bunny,

I am so sorry.  You didn't sign up for any of this.

Someone gifted you to my daughter when she was about 3, I think.  It seems kind of rude to tell you, but you were never her favorite.  You lived a quiet life in the toy box. You only ventured out for special occasions like "Stuffed Animal Tea Party" or "How Many Bunnies Do I Have, Mom?"

Just before she turned 4, and I found out I was pregnant with her little brother, I instructed her to empty her toy box.  I asked her to pick a handful of things that she would be willing to give to the new baby.  You got picked.

I've been trying to imagine how that felt for you.  Were you happy for a new assignment?  Were you sad she was willing to give you up so easily?  Were you just excited to get sprung from the toy box for a new adventure/some fresh air?

My son took to you right away.  His "B."  You've been sucked on.  You've been thrown into the toilet.  You've been tied up in a pillowcase and tossed into the washing machine. You've been used (many, many times) as a surrogate Kleenex. You've been loved.

And that "love" has taken it's toll.  You don't look like you used to.  Your fur isn't as soft.  You've completely lost your blue bow.  And most recently, your right ear split open.  I promise I'll fix that, but I'm not a doctor and you're probably going to have a scar.

What do you see when you look in the mirror?  Do you focus on the flaws? Do you see the scratched up eyes, the worn fur, the spot where the bow used to be?  Are you tired?  It's exhausting to be so needed.  Trust me, I know.  To be pulled and thrown and stepped on.  To be covered in someone else's germs.  To just want to be left alone (and not touched) for 5 minutes.

When you look in the mirror, do you see the bunny you USED to be?  Because I hope you can focus on the love. I hope you can see that you are so much realer than those toys shoved in the bottom of my daughter's toy box.  I hope you can see that your beauty isn't tied to your appearance.  Your beauty, your value, is in all those messy moments you shared with my son.

You will never be the same bunny you were before you met my kids.  And that's okay.

You're living a life you couldn't have imagined when you were "born" in that toy factory in China.

---

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” 

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. 

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” 

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” 

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

- The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

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Want to read more of my work?  Check out my essay "Mrs. Norton's Daughter" in WILL WORK FOR APPLES, the latest in the New York Times best-selling I JUST WANT TO PEE ALONE anthology series.  

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