Extraordinary

Grandpa is in the hospital again. Just like last time they are using phrases that I do not like.

DNR.

Hospice.

Extraordinary Measures. As in, they don't think they should take any.

They mentioned hospice over a year and a half ago. And if I think of all the memories we've had since then, all the stories he's told us, it makes me angry at them. I want to bring them all the pictures I've taken since they last told us that he was going to die. Look. Here he is at the koi pond, laughing as the kids throw bread at the turtles. Here we are out for dinner at a Family Style Italian restaurant for my birthday. There he is toasting champagne at my cousin's engagement party. 

They don't know my grandpa.

When we visit him in the hospital on the first day he is pale, but seems in good spirits. "Did you go to school today?" He asks Annabella. The kids tickle his toes and squeeze his hands. When we leave he says, as if he's just spent the day pulling weeds in his garden or walking a few miles on the beach, "I'm going to sleep well tonight."

Over the next week, we visit Grandpa every day. Some days are better than others. He gets a blood transfusion, a colonoscopy. They find nothing wrong. We sit by his bed and hold his hand and listen to story after story.

One day, in the car on the way home, Annabella says "I am going to really hate it when daddy is that old. And when he's that old Mimi is going to be really, really, really, really, really old." Mimi is what she calls my mom, my grandfather's oldest daughter. At the next stoplight I look in the rearview mirror and watch Annabella. She is processing everything.

On Friday night after the kids are in bed I go to the hospital so my parents and my aunt and uncle can take a break and go out to dinner. It is the first time I've been alone with grandpa since I can remember. He talks about his mother, who died of a blood clot when he was only thirteen. He talks of his sister Elsie, who had only a semester left at Skidmore, but came home to take care of the family and never went back. When my parents finish dinner they come back to the hospital.

"Meg's here," my grandfather says, "and she's taking everything down."

On Sunday when we visit he is sitting up in a chair eating lasagna. The sun is pouring through his hospital room window. We know he's feeling better because after a few minutes he says, "I appreciate you coming to visit, but I'd really rather you were out playing in the park."

No More Obligaparties

Me: I'm going to figure out a way for Annabella to go because I have a problem not taking her to birthday parties that she's invited to.

Wise Mom Friend: Have you ever heard her mention the kid who's party it is?

Me: No

Wise Mom Friend: Did the mom invite the whole class?

Me: Yes.

Wise Mom Friend: So, the mom feels obligated to invite the whole class, even though she really doesn't want to and then you feel obligated to go, even though you really don't want to. Now that's just silly.

Me: I know!

Wise Mom Friend: If I've never heard my daughter talk about the kid who's birthday it is, then we always RSVP "no."

Me: Wow. Can I do that?

Wise Mom Friend: Yes, yes you can. 

1997 vs. 2007

Do you want to go the bar after work? It's free pizza night!

Who wants grilled cheese sandwiches shaped like butterflies for lunch?

*

You're taking all the covers.

They're crying and I went in there last time.

*

Unmute! Unmute! The commercials are over.

Is iTunes done downloading the next episode yet?

*

I think it's time for me to start thinking about a real career.

I think it's time for us to start thinking about where she's going to go to kindergarten.

*

Do you want to go see live music tonight?

You want me to sing "I've been working on the railroad," again?

*

Let's ride our bikes to the bar, so we can drink more.

Yes, you can ride your bike up and down the driveway, as long as you put your gymnastic's leotard on first.

*

Did you get our tickets for the Phish show yet?

Did you pay for this month of preschool yet?

*

Do you think we'll ever get married?

Were we ever not married?

*

You forgot to turn off your alarm. It's Saturday.

Why are they awake already? Don't they know it's Saturday?

*

I love you.

I love you...and you and you and you.

*

Overheard at a party

Dad #1: I saw your kids downtown the other day with a blonde girl.

Dad #2: Yup, they were probably with the nanny.

Dad #1: Yeah, that's what I thought. (He pauses to take a sip of his beer.) You know you're old when you see a hot girl and the first thing you think is, "I wonder if she babysits?"

Last Tuesday at the Park

She is standing by the swings minding her own business. The sun reflects off her head of dirty blonde hair. Sometimes I recognize kids on the playground, sometimes I don't. I recognize her because of her spectacular smile and because she has Down Syndrome.

I've seen her with her mother at at the library, and once I saw her playing with her father near the fountain downtown. I remember exchanging a few words with her father, like people do who have kids the same age.  I've never spoken to her mother.

I watch my two year old son approach her. I'm wary of his recent behavior at the playground, but I hope for the best. He hits her on the arm, quickly. Both of my boys hit everyone lately. I know it's their way to get attention. They're saying, "Hey, I'd like to play with you." Unfortunately, no other kids speak that language.

"No hitting," I say, gently. I am not a stern person, even when the situation calls for it. I wish I could be sterner. He hits her again, so I grab him and pick him up and hold him. "That's not OK," I say. I look around for the girl's mother. I am the biggest playground tattle tale there is. Even when the mothers don't see what happened, I always tell them, "My son hit your child. I'm sorry."

Their response is nearly always some variation on, "He's two. He'll grow out of it." I then force my son to say he's sorry and when he does some moms even compliment him on his manners. They've read the same books I have: reinforce good behavior.

But this time I don't get a chance to apologize. When the girl's mother approaches I try to make eye contact with her. Is it my imagination that she avoids me on purpose?

Before I can say anything she picks up her daughter and looks at my son and says sharply, "You hit her. That's wrong. You hit her even after your mom told you to stop. You need to say you're sorry right now."

She is standing a foot away from me and I can feel her anger and so can her daughter.

"I'm sorry," the little girl says.

"You didn't do anything," the mom says to her daughter. "He needs to say he's sorry."

I'm not trying to make eye contact with this mother anymore. I look down. My son doesn't say anything.

We all stand there in silence. How does this woman even know that my two year old son is capable of saying he's sorry?

"I'm sorry," he finally says.

And they walk away. I'm still looking down, but my face is burning. I put my son down and he runs off to play. He's forgotten everything, but I haven't. I reach into my bag for my sunglasses. Only when I have them on do I start to cry.

More cotton candy and hot dogs!

There's an interesting opinion piece in this month's Newsweek about how our parent fears could be more dangerous than the things we actually fear (old playground equipment, unrefined sugar, summer.)

I especially enjoyed the reference to an Australian study about how playground injuries are on the rise, despite extensive safety improvements.

"One of the suspected reasons: the safe new play structures are so boring that kids are taking more risks in order to have fun."

This really spoke to me since I'm afraid of just about everything. So, last night we decided to be fearless and make brownies an hour before bedtime.

We even licked the bowl.

Link to article.

Lessons of the Egg Hunt

On Sunday we attended our first ever egg hunt. Four years and three billion diapers into my parenting career, you would think that I would be well-versed in the mores of the egg hunt. However, two of my four Easters as a parent happened when I was still reeling in a post partum haze with either one or two newborns attached at the boob. Easter? What is Easter? Can I take a nap?

I'm not sure what compelled me to drag my family to this community egg hunt. Because, yes it was me dragging them since the kids didn't know what an egg hunt was and Marco was smart enough to know that this was not going to be our thing.

As we're parking the car we see kids carrying their Easter baskets and Annabella says, "Uh oh. There is something really wrong here! We forgot baskets."

For the record, I didn't forget baskets. I didn't want to bring baskets because then we would have to bring home stuff in the baskets. But Annabella's worrying makes me feel bad. How is it that she already worries that she's not like everyone else? This is one of the secretly horrible things about parenting, when your kids start to exhibit the qualities that you like least in yourself. 

We arrive and the lawn is covered in plastic eggs cordoned off by some plastic flags. The eggs are just sitting out there, not hidden at all. Marco says, "This is hunting, only in the Dick Cheney sense. And we all know how well that turned out."

The egg hunt is divided by age, so Milo and Huck go in the first group. Huck could care less and prefers to sit in Marco's lap with Annabella. I walk out into the lawn holding Milo by the hand. We stop next to a green plastic egg.

Me: Do you want to pick that up?

Milo: OK.

We wander back to the rest of our family. He opens the egg. There are stickers inside. He hands them to Annabella and she uses them to decorate the brown paper bag someone has given her because she doesn't have an Easter basket.

Forty five minutes later it is time for the older kids to hunt for eggs. And they're doing it Dick Cheney style too. But this time there's even less mystery, because all the kids watched as the high school volunteer walked glumly around the lawn dropping the eggs in the grass.

A woman on a microphone asks if the next group is ready. Annabella is standing there poised with her brown paper bag. The anticipation has been building and I can tell she is anxious and I just know this isn't going to turn out well. There is a "Ready, set, go" and I watch as all the parents take their children by the hand to help them find these eggs that aren't hiding. Annabella wanders out there alone, picks up two eggs and then stands there in a daze. I ask Marco, "Do you think I should go out there to help her?" He says no, but I go out there anyway, because that's what all the other parents are doing. By the time I get to her all the other four year are running around gleefully with baskets overflowing. There are no more eggs to be found.

I suddenly feel like Annabella is in 5th grade and I've decided not to do her homework for her, but then I get a little glimpse of all the dioramas-in-progress and I know that no 10 year old child did that by herself. And then I see that Annabella too can recognize that her diorama is kinda crappy in comparison. So, I decide to help her, but it's too late, and it’s still kind a crappy. And we don't even have the satisfaction of her doing it herself.

That's when another mom stops and sees that Annabella is almost in tears. She encourages her son to share his eggs with her and this big-hearted little guy does, even though he's not totally sure he wants to. Annabella feels a little bit better and we return to the sidelines where Huck is still sitting in Marco's lap and Milo is investigating the trash can. Annabella explains that she only got two eggs and that a little boy shared his with her.

"Well, that's a good lesson," Marco says. And I know he's not doing that thing where he's pretending to talk to Annabella, but he's really talking to me. But I still think that as far as lessons go, this one's a good one for me to learn too. Egg hunts really aren't our thing.

But there was one more lesson I had to learn yesterday. In the car on the way home, I asked Annabella, "Did you have fun?" And she said, "No, not really." And I said, "That's OK. Some things aren't fun."

Then later that evening my parents come over and they ask Annabella about the egg hunt and she says, "Oh, it was really all kinds of fun. A boy shared his eggs with me!"

And this, my friends, is one of the secretly wonderful experiences of parenting, when your child exhibits the kind of behaviors that you aspire to. There was no brooding about the lack of challenge, the encouragement of greed, the plastic. It was just all kinds of fun.   

The sadness of a small plastic toy

Last Saturday Milo was in tears, screaming, "Can you tape it? Can you tape it?" His world was literally coming apart. And by that I mean that this little plastic globe keychain that he'd gotten as a favor at a birthday party had broken and I was not doing a good job of fixing it.

That's when I started to calculate the sadness that this little plastic toy had wrought upon the world.  First, I doubt the working conditions for the people in China who created this toy are ideal. Next, I know the mom who bought the toy for the birthday party favors was not happy. Because even if it's only a dollar, when you're buying enough of these little toys to fill a pinata, that adds up. And since there was only one globe, my children fought bitterly over it. More sadness. And then as soon as we returned home, the globe broke, which brought Milo to tears. I'd like to think those tears were for the working conditions in China, but who am I kidding?

I know this seems all doom and gloom. It's just one little plastic toy, right? But, it's not one. We go to birthday parties at least once a month and my boys aren't even in school yet. Our house is littered with those little plastic toys. Do I just have to live with this until my kids are of the age when their party goody bags are filled with illegal drugs and booze? What's a mom to do?

When bad goldfish happen to good people

Risa Green of Tales from the Mommy Track always has funny things to say about being a manic mom, but yesterday's post just cracked me up. Of course the rushing around is all too familiar, but so is the forgetting, the lying, and the self-recrimination. Everything was familiar except this line:

"It was all I could do not to tell her that if she didn’t inform me that she was hungry, I would probably forget to feed her, and that the only reason our dog is still alive is because she’s learned to bark at me when I’m on my way out the door in the morning if I’ve forgotten to put food in her bowl."

If we had a dog I might be inclinded to ignore the barking. Perhaps that's why we don't have a dog.

How to Mark Your Children's Growth

Some parents track their children's growth with sweet little growth charts they hang on the wall. We mark ours by how much further away from the edge of the counter we have to move the knives, so our children won't grab them and stab each other.

As of this morning that's about two inches.