Sassafrass

My son's home(s)

I am always interested to hear -- or overhear -- how Lil E talks about where he lives. There's a lot behind an address, more behind the explanation from a kid who has only a few memories of when his dad and he and I all lived together. 

He used to say he had three homes -- with me, with his father and with my parents, where we lived for seven months and where he often spends Sunday afternoons or the night when he needs time alone with his grandma and grandpa. Even though he is comfortable and happy at his dad's place, he always calls it just that -- "Daddy's house." It has bins of toys and he hauls Nerf guns and Legos and light sabers in an overstuffed backpack from there to here -- "our home." It's not something I've pushed or ever corrected. It's just how he talks about the places where his bed and books and each parent is.

Perhaps he flips the language when he is with his father. I don't know. He may very well refer to "Mommy's house" around him and call their apartment a few minutes away "their home" on alternate weekends and Wednesday nights. 

Whatever he says, I hope it feels like the Star Wars fitted sheet that somehow stays snug even during fitful nights and wrestling matches and meltdowns and pillow fights and quiet afternoons stretched out with a chapter book. I hope it feels right and cozy and good to call it whatever he does or will or has.

I thought of this all a few weeks ago during parent-teacher conferences. I sat on a tiny chair outside my son's first-grade classroom reading pages from his portfolio. His notes from an inquiry project on the planets, reactions to poems the class memorized, stories, and a self-assessment about how he felt about school were all bound in a notebook charting Lil E's progress over this part of the school year. There was also this, the last page of a story he chose for one of the publishing parties his class puts on. 

Here he is, I thought, as I read the two lines over and over. Here's where he is right now.

 

 

How does your child talk about the home or homes where they live? 

Crossing borders

My passport expired eight years ago. How in the world did that happen?

It happened because of grad school and having $20 in my bank account for several years in a row and then meeting someone and being in love and even more broke, then having a baby and not being able to conceptualize how in the world to get us all somewhere anything other than a drivers license might be needed. These would have all horrified the 22-year old who applied for her first passport just in time to backpack across Europe with her best friend after college graduation. My passport was supposed to be a living, breathing document of all I was learning and doing and seeing on my own, all of my big and humbling experiences. 

But then, I also swore my hostel card would be used many, many more times after that trip. I haven't since slept in one of those foldover sheets on a disgusting mattress in a room full of people I hope don't steal that passport off my body in my fitful sleep. I haven't ever again bought a beer from a vending machine in a hostel lobby or thanked goodness I was eligible for the under-26 places to stay.

My world, on that European trip, exploded. And when I went to graduate school, it got bigger still. And maybe when I met my ex-husband, it zeroed in on him. It shrunk for good reasons of happiness and faith and belief in the expansiveness of love. I wanted an enormous life. I just didn't see at the time how small I was making myself in it.

But that has changed. Last month, I asked my parents to dig out my old passport from my file. I was apprehensive to open it, remembering it hadn't actually been stamped in each country whose borders I crossed, and that I hated the picture, taken in haste to get the application downtown in time. 

It was as bad as I thought. But now that I am 40 and will be dyeing my hair monthly until I am a fire-engine-redhead wheeling through the nursing home, I have a hard time judging that lady too harshly for the moussed up layered bob. And God help any of us who were hitting our stride in the early 90s -- please don't make your mind up about me based on that embroidered vest (with a tank top and most likely, an ankle-lenth wrap skirt with granny boots. 

But the boozy look and Lucky Charms cheeks? Go right ahead and snicker at those. I did. Good lawd.

That year was 1994. And now, 18 years later, I've surrendered the whole passport for something new. It's time to cross into new territory.

This time, I am taking a trip with two girlfriends. This trip, we're celebrating being 40. Our tolerance is lower and there won't be hostels or late-night lingering with men with accents from those hostels. There won't be hiking across ancient cities and -- thank you, Jesus -- I will be rolling my suitcase instead of heaving it on my back. 

No mix-tapes and Walkmen to make the transport there go more quickly. Nary a sleeping bag. No strategy about how to see the world on $50 a day.

This trip I am rushing off to will only involve settling into beach chairs in the sand and lingering over dinner, laughing hard about how happy we are to be where we are in our lives. Oh, and People Magazine. We will be laughing over whatever is in People Magazine. 

You know what will be the same, though? My new passport pictures are terrible, too. 

This time, I care even less. This time, I probably won't get stamped. This trip, I will probably come home sunburned and loaded down in cheapy souvenirs rather than inspired to change the world and tour every single castle in Ireland. No vests with tank tops, either. I promise.

I am just so ready to get back out there again. To show that girl that this way of traveling, all this time in between passports, isn't so tragic after all.

Holy HuffPo!

I am just giddy-thrilled that a post featured here was picked up by Huffington Post last night! I've wanted to see my words in the Divorce section for ages, wanted to see my byline on the site's pages for much longer. 

This isn't a big deal for many people. But for me, it's big and I'm feeling like I can maybe highlight that item in my gratitude journal scrapbook inspiration board post-it note pile of "things to get done already, gaw."

Click here to read it there. 

 

I am also so honored to be included in these posts by the ever-lovely Mommyfriend over on Babble:

• Bloggers share their proudest moments. And I'm guessing I am the only one all chest-puffy about silver hair

• How to avoid blog burn=out. Hint: my tip involves fancy ladies.

I've been writing like crazy, so look for more of my posts to be sprinkled around soon!

 

 

And finally a photo we didn't take of ourselves

It only took one fat bribe of chocolate cake,

three strange mystery photos of the Not Boyfriend's phone,

several thwarted quivery-lip moments over the button-down shirt that I insisted be worn to this wedding, a

negotiation over whether it needed to be tucked in and worn with a belt,

half a can of hairspray, four hot pink lipstick re-apps,

a $350 Virgin America bait-and-switch Groupon "special airfare" to fly in the photographer,

and 17 tiny, grateful kisses (four swatted away from the boy, the rest scattered and very welcomed by the Not Boyfriend). 

Worth it. Totally worth it all.

All too soon, this will erase

 

 

It was a long night. Lil E, still recovering from an unknown virus that came and went with fever and vomitting all week, slept fitfully. I sang him back to sleep four times throughout the course of 8 hours. He woke up at 6 a.m., then again at 7. I told him to read for an hour. I felt like I'd only napped all night.

A little after 8, he crept into my room and slid this white-board next on to my pillow. He whisper-asked if he could watch TV and slid out again. 

I could barely read it, my glasses on the nightstand and my eyes heavy. But I saw the words "love" and "pritty" and silly" just before I fell back asleep clutching it and smearing the word "fun" with my fingers.

"She rock-s!" he scribbled in pink.

All of it will fade soon enough. But he used the word "happy" to describe us. "Happy" after a long month of stress and inadvertent weight-loss and worry wrinkling in between my eyebrows. "Happy" after being up most of the night and being home most of the week and a virus that germy-ed up our home. "Happy" after things have changed around here in ways I can't yet fully explain so that we will be living more simply, so that the stress will be swept out slowly and methodically. 

Happy. 

The note ends with lines of Xs and Os, as we always end our letters and post-its and phone calls to each other. But I hope those stay there along with the happy-us, the dry -rase marker imprinting the wish for the words to stay long after the rest has been wiped from the board. 

Happy Mommy. Happy Boy. Through tired eyes and swells of stress, that's what I want to see most.

Why do so many divorced parents in movies get back together?

I wasn't exactly excited to see "Mr. Popper's Penguins," but there it was OnDemand and an easy pick and better than seeing "Kung Fu Panda 2" again or trying to convince Lil E that some movie I loved from the 80's really is hilarious. 

In a nice turn of "Mommy and Lil E Movie Night" events, Mr. Popper ended up being funnier and sweeter and less slapstick-y than Jim Carrey can annoyingly be. The story was improbable but the penguins were cute and the storyline of an overworked, checked-out dad turning his attentions toward his angry and neglected kids is one we all can get, if even just a little bit.

It didn't have the visual amazement of "The Adventures of Tintin" and it didn't make me laugh out loud like (oh, I admit it) "Despicable Me." But it was good enough. Better than expected.

There's just this one thing.

The parents. 

Jim Carrey and Carla Gugino (who is ridiculously gorgeous in a real and lovely way and should definitely be cast as a leading lady a lot more often) play divorced parents of a teenage girl and tween boy. Without much explanation, it seems that they had been together for many years and were wedged apart by his intense work schedule and inability to tune in to the daily happenings of his family's life and affections. 

Over the course of Carrey's character inheriting penguins from his adventurer (and also absentee) father and Gugino's character pursuing her own big research career with a new boyfriend, the two are brought together, not surprisingly "for the sake of the kids." 

Of course, you know what happens next. The moments with hands hovering over a sick baby penguin and rushing about to find the angsty teen daughter a perfect dress for a dance and escaping the evil zookeeper in a limousine chase all lead them back to renewed love. 

The penguins fulfill the cute-factor. But the parents provide the confusion factor. Why? Because they have to get back together in order for the family to be healed. In order for the family to be a functioning family.

I'm not so naive to think that movies, particularly those geared toward kids, need a predictable arc, a tied-up ending. But as a divorced mama, I see this particular conclusion as more concerning than easy. Or sweet. Or satisfying.

We all grow up with unrealistic ideas of life based on a sparkling scene we see projected in front of us as kids. That enormous screen envelopes us and we believe.

I rushed home from seeing a"Grease" at the drive-in when I was seven, put on my tap shoes and watched myself in the mirror, fully believing I could sing and dance myself into a stunning popularity/red shoes-black leggings transformation. I held on to the scene from "Sixteen Candles" when Samantha Baker and Jake Ryan kiss while sitting cross-legged on the glass dining room table through high school like it was a guarantee that even nice girls have magic moments. I believed I had it in me to be Norma Rae. I was Winona Ryder's character in "Reality Bites." 

And so I can't help but wonder what my son thinks when he sees silver-screen parents reuniting after fights and heartache and divorce. Does he notice? Does it faze him? Does he ever conjure up his own plans for the ultimate Parent Trap? Does it make him wonder about his own split parents and whether the final scenes will be the three of us holding hands? That part of the script is just about as real as a house-full of arctic-imported penguins at this point.

Lil E and I have had many conversations about what happened -- he comes back to this question at different places in the four years since I packed us up and left the home where we lived, the three of us. In every conversation, no matter whether Lil E is sad or confused or curious or indifferent, I acknowledge: what happened was sad and what happened also led us all to a happier, healthier life.

In our home and world, a kid with divorced parents is normal and OK and sometimes, the route to a much more loving life than a home full of tension and untruths and arguments and other bad stuff. I couldn't have that for us then and I couldn't ever return to that.

I love that Hollywood has embraced single mom characters and one parent-one child families in movies -- one of the reasons I adore "Up" and warmed to "Despicable Me" and wanted Lil E and I to see "Where the Wild Things Are" together. But I am angry than divorced families are also treated as "broken" in so many other kid films and that fixing them is trite and calls for the parents getting back together. 

We will always be dealing with divorce in our family. It will always be an undercurrent as Lil E packs up his Daddy Bag for the weekend, navigates time with his other grandparents, watches how his friends' families are, gets to know the Not Boyfriend better, puts the pieces of his own childhood pain and happiness together in therapy or relationships or if he one day becomes a parent, too. But we will deal with it by being honest - sometimes it hurts, mostly it is healthy. We will cope with crayons and little notebooks of lists and books and sometimes just crying into each other's shoulders. We will have tough times in court and driving back and forth between houses and in managing different rules between parents. We will be grateful and prayerful and see the light and love of learning to say goodbye to one life in order to welcome one that fits better. 

But we won't ever be getting back together as a family in the way we were. No matter what movies say to my kid or me or any other person watching, that just is not a happy ending.

 

What movies have helped your kids deal with divorce or your own family situation? Which movies hurt?

 

 

Keep on:

Right after I explained to him what divorce is

Best gifts for kids after divorce

A funny thing happened on the way to the wedding website

Clean floormats have to count for something

I purchased my brand-new car  to salvage my dignity and on behalf of the credit union I bank at five days ago. The new-car smell is oozing from her pores. There's nary a goldfish cracker crumb in the seams. She's shiny and pristine and parked a safe four feet on all sides from any other vehicle.

So how in the world did she attract this card? HOW DARE that little mustached teenager earning less than minimum wage violate her virgin exterior with this offer to haul her away whether she starts or not. WHETHER SHE STARTS? There's 112 miles on her, not 100,000!

Why the insults? Why the blame? Why blatantly call her a JUNK CAR when she's only been hanging out on the curb for a few days. Sure she was just a few yards away from lots of other dilapidated modes of transport, including one Big Red who was sent by her worn-out mother to a place where she can hobble along and clank and let her engine grind on and on half-heartedly with other cars just like her.

(It's OK, she's happier there. She took two ice scrapers and a Lego guy missing a head with her as memento of our adventures together. She can roam the used car lot freely with the other cars with seatbelts that never retract. We promised to keep memories alive of that time my dad got frostbite helping me change a flat tire in below-zero temps in January and how we will get that kid who stole the GPS from the console...one day!)

Big Red was so close to junk, but she definitely wasn't trash. And this car (Darth Vader? Death Star? The Black Pearl? She hasn't been christened yet) is far from all of that. She shall hold her remote-entry fob high and let her headlights dim automatically, slowly -- a stare-down to the metal scrappers who dare to question the rev of her engine, the trunk untouched by Trader Joe's recycled brown bags, the power seats with lumbar support.

You can leave your taunting advertisements, you junk-car dogs. This lady's calling card hasn't even been unwrapped from the plastic yet.

How to have a Ninjago party

 
You wouldn't be clicking on this post if you didn't already know that Star Wars Lego is wayyyy second-quarter 2011 and the ninja Lego who practice a precise and ancient plastic craft called Spinjitsu are totally au courant kiddie toy. If you haven't heard the name "Ninjago" 400 times in the last day-and-a-half, then I commend you on your finely honed parental ignoring skills or you can expect it to come in 3...2...

There was no contest what the theme of this year's birthday party would be. Or there wasn't after we decided Lil E's party would once again be held at his Tae Kwon Do studio, and after I (apparently ignorantly) suggested we somehow weave together Star Wars battles and martial arts to make some kind of killer intergalactic seventh birthday celebration.

Lucky seven

"I can't believe I am all these ages and have lived all these years. I feel like I was just born." 

That's what he told me -- earnestly -- the night before he leapt into seven. It was just after I told him the story of his birth, as I always do on the eve of his birthday and as my mother always does on the eve of mine. 

"The day you were born was the happiest day of my whole life," I said, just as earnestly.

"It was?! Even with all the great and happy times we've had together?" 

"Oh, yes. Because it was the first one," I kissed his forehead. "It's what got all of those happy times started."

His first attempt at fake shaving

He got his first shaving kit a couple of Christmases ago. It came from a neighbor, not an antiqued silver set with a badger brush all tucked in a velvet-lined box, but the plastic kind emblazoned with Lightning McQueen and including strawberry fluoride smelling shaving cream and all enveloped in and impossible-to-open molded plastic casing and wrapped in Mickey Mouse paper. I thought it seemed cute. He wasn't interested.

And then I cleaned out the cabinets under the bathroom sinks, found the box, and placed it on the edge of the tub for Lil E to see. That simple clearing of clutter coincided with an interest in shaving -- not of man faces or even his dad, but of lady stuffs and particularly arm pits.

He is fascinated by who chooses to have clean-shaven underarms and why that mostly seems to be women. Since it is just Lil E and me most of the time, the business of being a lady doesn't faze him. He's used to it. There's evidence of it in many corners, drawers and conversations in our home. It's strange then to catch him staring off, squinty-eyed and wheels clearly turning, only for him to confess he's cranking away on who decided women should shave under their arms and men shouldn't and why "the ladies don't want the tickly stuff that's kind of fun to feel under there" and if they didn't shave, if all that hair would get crazy out of control in some kind of zombie or closet-hiding monster.

Pit perseveration, it's the really good stuff of six-year olds, I guess.

Given that's where his head has been, it surprised me that when he finally chose to unwrap the bladeless razor and test it out on his baby-soft skin, that it went on his face. Of course, he's seen his dad shave on many occasions. But according to Lil E, he's still using the same electric razor method he did during all of the years I knew him. I'm not sure where he learned to lather up or if it was just some kind of mysterious testosterone instinct at work, but there was no question that if he was going to be fake shaving, it would be across his cheeks and shimmying over his lip and carefully rounding his tiny cleft chin.

I had to help him a bit, showing him how to turn the little mountain of pink goop from the Lightning McQueen spray can into a cloud of cream in his palm. He looked in the mirror I pulled out for him while I helped smooth it out where one day, sideburns will be. Then I placed my hand over his hand over the hollow razor and gently pulled down and swept up, showing him the rhythm I've seen the men in my life do a million times. The one I hadn't yet been able to imagine my own boy doing one day years from now. Certainly not one I expected to show him.

He shaved his perfect, sunkissed, sweet face clean. He beamed a big, proud smile at himself in the mirror and then at me, his dimples etched out under the last remaining lines of shaving cream.

He will forget this moment, I imagine. And when the time comes for real, he will scoff at his mother, giggling or maybe even weepy to see him skimming his face to shave away errant bits of fuzz. He may keep wondering about the things women do and the rituals ascribed to gender, and perhaps will choose to follow his father's way with the electric razor rather than using blades. Real blades.

Even as the images of those future shaves flashed through my mind, I let myself believe that it is all very far away even though I know, we all know, that of course it isn't.

Then, because he is six and his face and his confidence and feeling about himself were all smoother than ever from fake shaving, he did something else I didn't expect.

He swiftly poured out a palm full of shaving cream, lathered it up and smeared it all over his....chest.

"Do men or ladies ever shave all the crazy hair off of their chest?" He said it more as a statement of enthusiasm than a question. I answered anyway.

"Well, yes." I said. "Some men do shave their chests."

I was trying not to burst the bubble of his squeaky-clean confidence by laughing and it wasn't easy.

"GOOD! Because I am probably going to be super hairy like Daddy and when I am a man, I am really going to have to take care of that!"

And with that, he pulled and swept that little red plastic razor up and down his concave first-grader chest and arond his half-outty belly button and right up to his clavicle.

If I would have turned to grab a washcloth or wipe up a puddle of water outside the tub, I might have missed it -- the moment when he came to his armpits, the briefest blip in his fake shaving time, when he paused, processed, decided something I'm guessing has to do with being a real guy who shaves his chest but stops short at turning his underarms into something ladylike, who draws some kind of internal line between swiping the chest and face clean and getting all grunty about the gender division of stubbly bits, and then chooses to leave them as is, opts to let that super hairy, crazy, tickly  zombie stuff shine like an emblem of his someday, future, please-God-faraway manhood.

 

 

 

Whispers of songs

He was having trouble settling down as he always does every other Sunday night, long after he's normally sprawled out and deeply asleep. It's probably a mixture of settling back into his bed at our house and being tired from his time away. We're both used to that dance on those Sundays, with me singing extra songs, tucking him in after multiple trips to the bathroom, many more promises that he's safe sleeping alone in his room.

He fidgeted through eleven lullabies and then on number twelve, I finally felt his body calm and the tension in the whole room ease. Just when I thought he was there, asleep enough for me to slip out of the room and let him be, he turned his head to me. His eyelids were heavy and his voice sounded drowsy, but his whispers filled the bedroom.

"Mommy...." he said, first patting the arm I had wrapped around him, then leaning up to kiss it, "Mommyy...you just sing...so...good."

He kissed my arm three more times, curled back up and gave in to the sleep at last.

I smiled. Yes, it was sweet. No, it is not true.

A million years ago, I sang soprano with the other high schoolers in a vocal group at church. Long before that, I was even in Chicago Childrens Choir. My voice these days is nowhere near that. I try to stay on key and sometimes I even work to sing those lullabies with some polish and shine. But in the dark and late hours with a sleep-resistant child, there's no quality to my instrument left.

So it made me laugh that this was his final message to me after all that, before sleep. I took that compliment, though, and I held it close. I want him to think that. I want him to hear that. Maybe it's exactly enough that what he's picking up is the sentiment, the intention, the hope that he will just rest over the proper tone and breath control. Regardless of what it is he hears, I'll take those whispers. And then I will take the silence and stillness and sleep.

When he saw this, he thanked me

I've read a lot about divorce. About being the best single mother I can be and still embrace the times when everything goes completely awry.

About meditation. About traveling alone and traveling alone with a child. About dating with a child. About changing tires and teaching a child to help you change a tire. About kicking my own financial ass and raising a child to be more fiscally responsible than I was for my first 36 years.

About sex, marriage, uncoupling, introducing a kid to a new beau. And about Katie Holmes and the Housewives because...you know, all this other stuff is some heavy shit.

But it felt like time to do more.

Maybe it's because I no longer define myself as Divorced Lady. Or maybe it's I recently realized that even though the Ex is no longer a primary relationship in my life, I give him enough energy and emotion to make it appear that he is.

I've chosen since the day I left to put my son in the center, and I have. Now his needs are different, the situation is different, the way we all relate is different. So it's time to study up, to be hopeful there will be an ease in this still-tough situation that's been normal for a long time. It's time for it to be easy.

Perhaps that's what Lil E got when he read the title himself. Or was it that he simply saw me trying to make things better for him, the small child in the middle of a whole, big past? Whatever it was for him, the moment was powerful for me, too.

I opened the box, pulled the book from it. Lil E asked to see it. I held it in his direction and he took his time, carefully sounding out each word. Divorce was one word he read quickly, like he knew it deep in his consciousness well before he recognized sight words like cat and dog.

"Thank you, Mommy!" He said it enthusiastically. No sadness, no worry. Just happiness that I met him in the place where he clearly is -- or clearly was to me in that brief second.

I closed my eyes, nodded, smiled. I asked him to take it to my room. He grabbed it in his hands, sticky with something, so much dirt under the nails.

I found it later that night when I turned back the covers and adjusted the pillow. It was there, hidden half under my covers and half under the place where I rest my head, wrestle recurring nightmares, have worked so hard to sleep more, better, deeper. It was waiting for me.

Was it a thank you? A reminder? An intimate gesture of hope between a single mama and her sensitive boy?

I'm not sure yet. But I am reading. I promise to him and myself, I am reading.

 

This is who he wants me to think he thinks I am

Lil E has been out all week with a bad case of what I had no idea until today is strep throat, or what in our house is recognizable as barf-and-popsicleitis. He spent one day out of the five at school, tired and unable to make decisions but on a break from the fever and warily eating the tiniest possible bites of apple sauce. On that day, he cried because he couldn't decide whether to play Chase or Stomp the Toad with his friends on the playground, couldn't remember if he had art or music, didn't have the energy to share  his normal, everyday details of who he sat next to at lunch and who got red-carded for bad behavior.

Alas, he did have the wherewithal to complete a four-sentence sheet all about me. Or rather, all about the me he sees. Even better -- all about the me I think he wants me to be.

It's nearly Mother's Day, so this is supposed to be precious. Mostly, it made me laugh. Well, first it made me puzzled, then it made me question, and finally it made me laugh.

Read and you shall see why.

  
Can't read it? Not to worry. Just take a moment to feel the ooze of sweetness drip over you, considering how this child, probably feverish and actively spreading germs to all of the kids in a 20-foot radius, took the brainpower, raw emotion, and complete love to honor his mother in such a confounding fashion. All done? Awesome. Let me walk you through it.

Line 1: My mom is special because she lets me watch TV.

While it is true we've seen every single "iCarly" and "Martha Speaks" ever produced and that my kid is pretty adept at navigating oand onDemand to "his section" (that is, the family movies priced $4.99 and up), I am a pretty stingy mama when it comes to watching television. Unless it is one of our Lazy Saturdays or he's sick or he's finished writing up several homework worksheets full of lies like this.

He seems to have conveniently forgotten that last fall I cut out morning TV altogether and we've barely seen any episodes of (what I hope he always refers to as) "America's HOME Funniest Videos" that was made after 1997 and that three of the most-oft used words in my vocabulary string together to form "NO. MORE. SHOWS."

Oh, and please note in the tiny TV illustration accompanying the text, he's drawn Sponge Bob dancing around on the screen gaily, one of the shows I've vowed -- aloud and often, nonetheless -- will never, ever play in our home. Moving on...

Line 2: She is very good at sports.

OK...WHAT?! Reading this was very much for me like those moments in a conversation with a really, truly crazy relative. You know this crazy relative. She's the one who is telling a story about how terrified she was when you were kidnapped by Arabian knights as a small child and were finally negotiated home by a group of dictators who happened to be vacationing in the area and bearing large amounts of foreign currency and museum-quality artwork and traded it all for your release..and..and..and you pause to think, "Wait...was I really kidnapped by Arabian nights? This sounds true. Could it be true? Maybe I was returned to my sobbing mother wearing only a turban adorned with a crown jewel."

Totally like that. I actually paused and wondered if somehow I'd forgotten I'd kicked off the platform heels and pummeled some dufus goal-keeper to earn the winning point and finally read up on what "off-sides" means and scored big in the office fantasy football league. The answer is no. No, I haven't.

I'm really proud that I've been running for about a year-and-a-half, that I've hit double digits in my mileage, that I've trained my brain to find a treadmill on the days I'm most stressed. I'm even working on embracing the athlete I never new existed within me (this is really not the time to make college jokes, friends, so don't even think it). Oh,and I did (reluctantly and probably not well) coached Lil E's first year of t-ball (with my dad, whispering to me on the sidelines and stepping in to give batting pointers). Really, I am the farthest thing from being good at sports there is. I just happened to be wrapped in professional-looking workout gear and have loads of make-up caked on over sweat.

Sure, I love to outscore my son at soccer at the park and I'll happily cheer on a near-championship team during the final playoff games. I've loved running across the finish line with Lil E and I am weirdly obsessed with the Olympics. But good at sports? Ohhhahahahahahaha. So funny.

Line 3: I like it when she lets me play on the computer.

Here's what I imagine: Lil E's kindergarten teacher, with whom I maybe got a teense too indignant with at one parent-teacher conference when she suggested I might play some phonics computer games with him at home, reads this and winks knowingly at my son, looking deceptively innocent in his little chair, coloring with big crayons.

"I knew it...it's always the most resistant ones. It's always them," she thinks, her mind traveling back to the virtual soapbox I stood upon while explaining that since my entire professional life is online, I am quite aware how soon and how inundated my boy will be with tap-tap-tapping away at a keyboard or on his phone, how quickly he'll be enveloped into social media, how fast he'll learn to navigate whatever arises in his 3.0 or 4.0 or beyond world. THEREFORE, I may have said with a finger pointed like a mighty sword in the air, he will learn to read and write with paper and pen in our house as did many generations that came before -- even before there was a mouse or Atari 800.

I could have said "no, thank you" politely (as I insist my son does). Instead, I felt some weird mom/online guilt I had to lay out all over the teacher's table that my knees were uncomfortably wedged under and Lil E's report card was resting upon.

Clearly, that was all for naught. Now that the fake word is out that I let my kid troll dating sites and buy sad knit caps from Etsy.

The honest-to-goodness truth? I hunt for kitty cat videos for him on YouTube, let him watch the talking twins 17 times in a row and shamefully introduced him to the Rebecca Black video. But I swear, I SWEAR, he still jabs at my keyboard like it is some unknown life form, only occasionally asks to visit one of those damn educational game sites PBS is always pimping out to preschoolers, and doesn't seem to care one bit at home that he's not commandeering the computer.

Who knows? Maybe by leaving my laptop running all night (please don't get all IT on me for admitting that), he's taking it as permission to get up and surf some crazy, 6-year-old site with Justin Bieber lyrics or monkeys you can make jump over piles of letters. It could be far crazier here than I even know.

Line 4: I love my mom because she gives me money.

Is there anything more adorable that a kid who can't spell the very currency he's clearly begging for? No, there is not. Or maybe I'm aging myself simply by saying that. M-U-N-N-Y could very well be the new kindergangsta way of convincing your dopey parents that the quarter you find on the street next the car is insufficient allowance.

So how much M-U-N-N-Y does Lil E love me for so generously bestowing into his plastic sandwich bag wallet?

YES! One-hundred dollar bills!

And look at all of them! There are so many that the president actually looks worn out from being shuffled from my purse to his sticky little apple juice hands. There are so many Benjamins that, as illustrated here, the simple exchange of cash has induced bleeding on nearly half the bills. It's bounteous to tragic proportions.

Could this be Lil E taunting me for forgetting to give him his dollar allowance for 19 of the last 20 weeks I promised he could have it? Or is he making a play for some strategic savings venture to get new rims on his scooter?

***

I looked it over thoughtfully, which really means I was pondering ways to keep myself from laughing out loud and the boy from bursting into tears.

"I love this," I said. And I do. I think it is awesome and hilarious and totally false and I love it.

"I love YOU, Mommy!" He said it in a high-pitched little, adorable squirrel of a voice.

"Ummm, is this really what you think about me?" I promise I was treading carefully.Still, a look of horror flashed across his little face."I mean, this is what you really, truly think about Mommy?"

"YES!" He said it so emphatically, like a teenager who is 1000% positive they are ready to take the family car out on the big street. "Do you not believe it?"

He speaks like this sometimes, in these chopped up sentences that almost sound reversed, the indication he genuinely means what he's saying.

"Oh, honey. I do."

"Then what?" If he'd said in an all-caps kind of way, it would have been easier. Angst and fury are simpler than disappointment and near whispers.

"It's not how I see myself," I replied.( Did you gasp to read that? I gasped to hear myself say it. Luckily, I am good at recovery.) "But if this is how you see me, then I love knowing that. I love seeing what you see. It's a wonderful perspective."

He nodded, hugged me, ran off to count his money during "Phinneus & Ferb" commericals while CNN loaded up on the computer. I kid. I DO! He went off to do self-inspired baseboard dusting and reorganize his Lego bin. More lies. (OK, this is getting to be a bit much.)

My mom says every kid this age writes this stuff about their mom. Crazy enough, that felt like an insult. I mean, if any child is going to excel at falsifying a Mother's Day tribute to his mama, I want it to be mine.

I get that it isn't really lies. I see that it's what he wants to see in me, or at least wants from me. When it comes down to it, I got such a good laugh over it -- long after he went to bed -- that I might even let him believe I buy it all.

With one-hundred dollar bills, of course.

 

 

The day I became a mother

He knows that the first words I said to him were, "Hello, baby. I'm your mommy." They are not remarkable. Those were the same whispers many other mothers said their own swaddled newborns, finally (finally!) laid upon their stretched-tight chests. He stared back at me, alert, brown eyes glassy in the light. His spirit immediately filled the room. It was incredible. It was exhausting. The rest of the world, even my parents, peering down at us and absorbing all the other emotion in the room, faded into the background of my own awareness. For one tiny moment, it was just Lil E and me.

There was more medication that day than I planned for. There was also more sunshine out the window than many September afternoons. There were more people shuffling in and out and asking questions I couldn't answer. And there was more of a high, a feeling of triumph, a mountain-summit sensation than anyone could have prepared me for. There was more pain, but also more laughter than I'd have guessed. There was just as much joy and far more divinity than I knew would be in the room. It was exactly as it should be.

In the years since, we spent a lot more time alone than I would have anticipated. Sometimes, we've shared those same, starey moments, talking before bedtime or cuddling after tears or apologizing or trying not to laugh or wanting desperately to fall asleep. His legs are longer. Time has begun to etch tiny lines on my face. Life, in many ways, has spun faster and farther than a peek into the future could have predicted. But, you know, when we push back the ringing phone and neighbor kids running the hallway below us, exhale the stresses of work and kindergarten and missing the people we love, the wash of calm is much the same as it was on day zero.

I wouldn't change a thing. The pain, as it was even as I held that heart-lipped, red-faced baby boy as tightly to me as I could, was present then, has surfaced many times, and will come again. Of course, of course.It's all part of it, right? The brilliance is sometimes delivered with some agony, or at least discomfort, as we change, as the whole world expands. Even in the middle of it, when there's doubt the person will ever get out, when there's a question of how the story will unfold, who we will be on the other side, where it will take us -- everything is alright.

Achey and messy and completely magnficent.

 

Someone Else's Words Wednesday: Because I'm listening for love, too

Midnight
Stranded at a standstill by the streetlight
Wrestled it around and it just ain’t right
And nowhere are our angels to be found

Well it’s so deep,
Been round 1000 times and still you can’t sleep
You’re buzzing like a hive and it’s a big leap
To anything that feels like solid ground

It’s a big big wall but I’m gonna tear it down.
It’s a big big wall and I’m gonna tear it down.

It reminds me
Of nights that I spent hiding in the bindweed
Wondering if anyone would find me
Lying there afraid to make a sound

It’s a big big wall but I’m gonna tear it down.
It’s a big big wall and I’m gonna tear it down.

It’s only love it’s only love, you know it’s only love & everything
It’s only love it’s only love,

it’s only everything

 

` Lyrics by Kris Delmhorst, "Love & Everything," and with thanks to one of my fave single mamas, Kristi, for intuiting and insisting that I listen to it today. After too many 2 a.m. nights this month, I needed that. So happy she felt that.

 

What if he's gifted? What if he's not?

We crowded into a small auditorium on the IIT campus this afternoon, a Sunday during a time when Lil E would normally be sound asleep in one of the weekend naps we still luxuriate in. But today, bigger plans than resting up from a weekend at his dad's were at work. We were assigned the time to test Lil E for gifted programs in the Chicago Public Schools.

I'd been downplaying the whole thing since we were given the timeslot. At first mention, he asked if every kid in his class would be tested, said he was nervous and didn't want to take the test.

And maybe he doesn't need to take the test. He goes to a good school -- a very good school with some great teachers and an amazing, award-winning art teacher and a committed gym teacher who keeps the kids in stitches. He has a lovely kindergarten teacher and is still connected to his outstanding preschool teacher there. It has magnet status and the climate seems to be ever improving.

Still...I wonder. Is in the right the place? Will this school give him what he needs to really to fluorish? Will he be challenged? We've already spent two-and-a-half years in this building. But have we landed?

He was well-prepared for kindergarten but I worry that it's too easy for him. Perhaps that sounds pretentious. It's not that he isn't learning and doesn't love it. He is, he does. Some people might scoff and say that it's only kindergarten, that it's tying shoes and forming letters. I disagree with that. This is the foundation, the beginning of many years, the time for setting expectations and igniting those sparks that become a much bigger love for mathematic equations or constructing bridges or molding clay or building furniture. Is that loaded? It is. I know it is.

This child has had a reading explosion, jumps at the chance to count money, can spend an hour drawing and writing stories, is excited to learn about almost anything. I don't want that thrilling, furious momentum to stop. I don't even want it to stall. Just as every child has a checklist of talents and adeptness and wonder, I imagine most parents will do everything they can to keep that moving along.

This is what I can think of to do -- pursue a school that's more intense, where he's challenged more. Who knows? He may not fall into that category of gifted. He may not get into one of the schools we've applied to. He may not go even if he does. Opening the door, considering the options, that's what feels incumbent to me as a parent. As his parent.

I tried to counter his anxiousness with comments about it being fun and no big deal, but the worried look on his face told me he wasn't convinced. I gave him an early nap, packed a lunch for him to eat in the car so he could sleep as long as possible. Sitting in his car seat with a Tupperware with half a ham sandwich, a few pretzels and apple slices left, he let out a meek, "But Mommy, I am scared."

I asked him to tell me more.

"I've never been to this place." I told him I hadn't either. This part was new for both of us. BUt I would be there.It would be fine. We'd figure it out together.

We did, finding our way in the snow and person-high piles of slush into the visitor's parking lot and then the auditorium full of parents and children. I smiled to myself as we settled into our seats. Child after child was hunched over maze books and activity books and chapter books. A mother behind spoke a little too loudly, "I BET THIS WILL BE EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY!" while a father down the aisle from us poured over the disciplinary book "1-2-3 Magic". An older sister of a kindergartner worked seriously on a report with a library biography of Jimi Hendrix on her lap. One parent talked on her cell phone for the entire two hours we were there, her other children yelling out and hitting each other in their seats. Other parents had a serious pow-wow on the state of the schools. It was contradictory. It was intense. We were right in the middle of it.Literally, figuratively.

Lil E finished his lunch and asked me if he could draw while we waited for his group to be called.

"My number's a six!" He whispered that to me, flashing the card he was supposed to carry with him. "It's my favorite number!"

HIs favorite number is always the age he is, and I think he was recognizing the good fortune of that shiny plastic beckoning to be brave. He drew a volcano, a man making his way toward it. The figure was grasping on to his head and around the lava and smoke, he wrote, "HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS!!!!" Lil E loves exclamation points. And fire. Also, drawing x-eyed death and people throwing up in buckets, but I tried not to put that into the gifted testing universe.

It calmed him. When his group was called, he hopped up, we kissed goodbye and we hurried off to join the other five- and six-year olds in a long line to a classroom where they would "circle things" and "solve puzzles" and "give out very best guess if we didn't know the answers." I ate chips from the vending machine until he came back and told me, chipper and engaged and maybe even excited, about the test he spent over an hour taking.

Before bed, he told me more, sharing some of his frustrations ("I really think they should read each question more than one time") and accomplishments ("on some, I didn't see the answer I really knew it was, so I circled the one that seemed the most like it") and questions ("are they going to send that little book back if we want to keep it?").

We have almost two months to wait until a letter arrives telling us his percentile among all children in the country tested with this particular tool. In Chicago alone, about 35,000 children were tested. There are clearly far fewer spots in our city's gifted programs and schools. Until then, we go about life as it has been, leaving all those worries and all that wondering in the auditorium where they were shared, understood. We go back to school tomorrow, where I will help Lil E out of his snow gear and he will rush blissfully into his classroom. 

For now, there are no decisions, no pressure, nothing out of our current ordinary. Should Lil E be on a trajectory to a new school, he will still be the kid who regularly appears naked and wielding a...ummm...light saber, who knows every word to "Hey Soul Sister", who cries when I make him put a quarter in the Potty Talk Jar. And the truth is, no matter what school he attends, what program he's enrolled in and curriculum he is making his way through, I will worry about whether he's bored or overwhelmed, is whipping through work or paying close attention, is curious and happy and immersed and loving to learn.

This realization strips away the stress of circles and percentiles. It lets Lil E just keep on being the kid he is, and allows me, even in the brain spinning I do late at night, to keep being the mother I am. Whether Chicago Public Schools deem him gifted or accepted elsewhere or not, it's really just the venue that may change. There's a chance that change could carry its own anxiety and bravery.

For now, though, I see what he's capable of already, who he is. What he will become, I believe will be magnificent, and I believe that because I am his mother. Not the teacher, not the labeler of gifted or great kid.  I'm not concerned about whether he'll get the big G go-ahead. I just want to know he is sitting at a desk -- or clamoring around in a gym or bubbling up stuff in a lab or caked in glue in a studio or not eating his carrots in the cafeteria -- in a school I feel confident in. That I feel confident is where he should be.

Similar to what he did, whisked off in a college campus classroom with a long line of other children and without me, we will wait for the word, look at all our options, take our very best guess and move on to the next thing.

Lil E explains: His resolution

He woke up on New Year's Day and crawled into bed next to me. He started doing this over winter vacation, reverting back to a way-back-when routine of our early days in this home, mornings when we didn't have to arrive at school at a precise time, mornings when I cherished waking up to the snoozy snuggles of a 3-year old. But now he's six and it's 2011 and that first morning of the year, I held on tight as he rubbed his eyes and told me his intent for the months ahead.

TO BE CRAZIER.

He said it like that. In caps. Pretty bold. Assured. Like he'd been thinking of it for weeks while building some 890-piece Lego command center that I gave him with absolutely no intent to follow those directions myself. As if he pondered it over plastic bricks and beheaded Star Wars guys, some perfectly devised resolution for a kindergartener with bins overflowing with toys and pretty well-set schedule of activities and visitation and playdates and "iCarly."

"Yeah, that's it," he confirmed aloud. "To be crazier. Uh-huh."

"You've given this a lot of thought," I noted.

He nodded, brushed wayward bangs from my forehead.

"In fact, the way you say that makes me wonder," I said from across the pillow, "if your intent to be crazier means that you have not been crazy enough in the past year."

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "That's what I think."

"Well then, how will you be crazier exactly?"

Before I was done asking, he showed me that being crazier -- at least to a six-year old -- entails really amping up the sound effects. So there's that.

After taking a few days to really nail how this whole thing's going to go down, Lil E had this to report on this, which very well could be the resolution of a lifetime.

"Being crazier just means...welllll, jumping around. Dancing...like CRAZY dancing. Making goofy noises.

JUST BEING STRANGE. Being weird a lot more. Shake my booty. You know, like you like to do.

Also? You know how Abby dresses kind of crazy? Doing that but like, 1000% more! Or even 300% more. REALLY CRAZY! Like wear a wig to school! YEAH! Or a clown nose. That would be SO. AWESOME.

Pick my nose a lot. Scratch my tushy.

Tell potty jokes probably. Be really annoying to mommy. Jump on Daddy's tummy and poke him."

I stopped him there.

"Waiiiiit a second. Being crazier involved annoying your mommy but poking your daddy? That seems wrong."

"OK! OK! Annoying my mommy AND my daddy."

"Better," I said. "Much better. Continue on."

"Singing kind of loud. Swallowing air and then making burp sounds. That's crazy, right?

Yeah, I think that's crazy. Can I say p-o-o-p at the dinner table? How about t-o-o-t? Because I could make those sounds too! Like this, like with my mouth. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Crazy.

Is there anything else I shoud do to be crazy?"

I suggested be naked more often, or at the least commando. But honestly, I think this kid needs another couple of years before he really jumps into those wholeheartedly.

Until then, I think this list pretty much covers it. And his tiny little naked tushy.

It looks like it's going to be good to be six and crazy in 2011. If those first few hours of the year and these last few days are a good indication of his commitment, and I am quite sure they are, he's really going to see this project through.

 

The business of dying

My grandmother is dying. It is not a surprise. She is 102-years old. Her brain has been consumed by Alzheimer's for more years than Lil E has been alive and now, her body is catching up. We've rushed to be by her side six or more times in the last few years, convinced the hour would soon arrive. Somehow, her body miraculously recovered, and days later, she'd be smiling at one of us or patiently waiting for a nurse to feed her spoonfuls of ice cream for dinner.

It has been exhausting and still, a gift to sit by her side, noting how the wrinkles have seemed to fade on her still-rosy pale skin, in awe of the black streaks that have made their way through her silver hair, silently praying thanks to have her one more day.

The day is coming. The hour will soon arrive.

Her heartbeat is slowing. She has refused more than a sip or two of juice for four days. Her breathing is shallow. She has slipped into unconsciousness. Grandma Alice is finally, mercifully dying.

My mother is with her, conscientous and whispering to her mother that it is ok to let go, that we love her, that we understand. She sang all of the songs my grandmother has loved for a century -- without asking I know that The Old Rugged Cross and Let Me Call You Sweetheart were among them. She filed her nailes, smoothed lotion on my grandmother's hands, prayed.

Now, we are waiting. On the phone last night, my mother and I went over the plans made and paid for years ago for my grandmother's funeral. She wanted pink roses. My mother asked if I thought adding pink poinsettias would be nice too. I do.

She told me stories she wanted to include in my grandmother's obituary. She asked aloud how much it costs to have a long one in two papers and then said, "Never mind, it doesn't matter how much it costs really."

I've composed other posts, the ones about Thanksgiving and other things, but the one about Grandma Alice has been in the way. I've put off making plans. I've worried myself with unimportant logistics, like whether we will make Lil E's winter assembly performance on Friday and if I need my oil changed.

I almost cried when I imagined mother's and grandmother's hands entwined, thinking I would never put lotion on her hands myself again, never brush her hair or place my head on her shoulder, just as I did as a little girl and even when I had to lean over the rails on her hospital bed.

I've almost cried several more times, talking to Lil E about the plans, the details, what may happen over the course of this week. Instead, I've breathed in and answered a thousand questions that make me understand how big this moment is for all of us -- Is it true you can die in your sleep? Is your spirit invisible as it lifts from your body? What do you imagine heaven to be? What if you die with your eyes closed? Can we bring flowers to the cemetary? Can we take cookies to the party after the funeral? Will I miss School Spirit Week? What does it feel like when you die?

Other people have died in the time Lil E has been on this earth, but none that he remembers. And he will remember this. Even in this waiting, we are teaching this child about what it means to die and how it is to grieve. I am centered and still and calm in that. Those moments do not bring tears.

I brought up suitcases, made a list of things to bring, packed up snacks and toys and reminded myself to take the framed photos of Grandma Alice and me off of my wall for the display at the funeral. Still, I did not cry.

But today, when I jumped off the treadmill, realizing I had a doctor's appointment in far less time than it takes to drive there, and, on rushing there, was called by another doctor to see why I wasn't there for a different appointment downtown...I felt flustered and angry at myself for flubbing appointments and screwing up my schedule and having to speed across the city in sweaty running clothes. That's when I cried.

I apologized to the second doctor, promised to reschedule, apologized again. And then the tears. Just tears of sadness, all bottled up under the reserve of waiting until the time.

But the time, at least for crying, is now, as we wait. I've rationalized that my grandmother's death will one day be a blessing because she'd be so mad she was still alive, she'd be so prayerful that younger people's lives have been lost while her own soldiered on, that she has had so many years and these last have not been lucid. I've neutralized because the ups and downs of nursing home emergency calls have taken their toll and because I made peace six years ago with losing the grandmother I knew.

Still, it's painful to pull away completely. Time is ticking. The hands are pulling closer together and I am just so sad.

 

Looking back on my grandma's life:

• I am my grandma's girl: Grandma Alice turns 101

• My grandmother is a century old

• She once was a baker

• ...a flower lover

• and a woman who adored babies.

Cold snap

Tomorrow, the very talented Rachael Garrett Schirano -- perhaps you remember her from when we met at Lilith Fair, sitting side by side, she giddy to snap pictures of Sarah McLachlan from the front row and me giddy to spend twenty minutes backstage talking to Kate Nash -- is coming to take photos of Lil E and me for our holiday cards.

So long as I stick to my promise that he absolutely does not have to dress up (jeans? borderline), Lil E will continue to be happy to do the shoot outside in the bitter cold of our bright yellow leaf-lined street. Since most of our family photos are shot an arm's length away with a milisecond prayer that both of our faces make it in, I'm thrilled to be on the flashy end of the camera. Rachael told us no props or prep are necessary, just to bring big smiles and lots of love. We're good with that.

Last year's cards didn't make it into mailboxes until February. I'm good with that, too. And while I loved our contented grins on those greetings, I'm open to the picture that encapsulates this year being silly, serious, sassy or something Tae Kwon Do-y. Life has marched on, things have changed. We shall see what unfolds out front tomorrow afternoon with the photographer, small and wirey and wired child and a mama who most certainly will be wearing silver snakeskin boots.

 

Pictured: Last year's card. The photo of both of us was taken by my dad. The photo of Lil E was beautifully captured by the very talented Sea Grandon, who I will most certainly have egg on my boy's dimples again.

Postcards from the past: Five winters ago

There was a lot going on that winter. It was 2005. Marshall Field's on State Street was turning over to Macy's. We were broke and it was a very cold and snowy few months. Lil E had just celebrated his first birthday and I kept a list of words that he said in the notebook where we once meticulously tracked times he nursed and napped. He crawled freely in our tiny apartment, made even more cramped by clutter and scrapbooking supplies. I was working hard for too little money teaching art classes to young children. I was in love with this tiny child, trying my very best to make being a stay-at-home parent as bright and happy and creative and fun as it could be. In many ways, I was very happy. Still, I was restless, had a nagging discontentment, wanting something more, something for myself.

What I didn't know then was that my first blogging job, which then led to my very first blog posts and this blog, was just around the corner on that year. I'd been trying so hard to find my way, exploring seminary and getting a PhD. to become an art therapist. I'd been home with Lil E his whole life and before that, had been chronically unemployed, miserable as a consultant, and freelancing my way through all kinds of here-and-there work. I felt like my career had been swallowed up by circumstance. But I used this photo in my application for a blind ad seeking parent writers that pushed me down a path that has become my profession and has survived a marriage, several moves, all those notebooks of baby schedule scribbles, and many more changes.

When I see this photo -- blurry and bundled up -- it reminds me of how elated it made me to have this family, to celebrate the holidays, to be able to momentarily set aside money issues and bitter cold weather and the exhaustion of a baby to be a part of the moment and the city.

I see how tightly I am holding on to my boy. I see hope's soft edge on all that is hard about the time.

I think to that woman, "Keep holding on. So much is coming. More than you can imagine is on its way to you."