February 11th

Last night on the way to a concert,  Joe-Henry was nearly hit head on by a bus.  He thought he was on the sidewalk (we were walking through a gas station lot and the driveway for it was huge).  He was about three steps ahead of us, chatting with his dad.  I had just had the thought "is that the sidewalk?", when we heard the horn.  We couldn't see the oncoming traffic because there was a bus shelter blocking the view.  The bus was doing thirty mph easily.  Luckily, Joe-Henry was wearing a new white sweatshirt he had gotten from his grandma for Valentine's day and was easily seen.  The driver slammed on the brakes, and honked, stopping less than five feet from him.

The blink of an eye in slow motion.  Charley was yelling his name. His eyes got huge.  His face was lit by the headlights.  Suddenly, somehow he was in my arms and I was holding him so tightly.  The twentysomething in the bus shelter said "whoa!".  I didn't see the driver, but wanted to thank him/her for being so alert.  The bus moved on.

Joe-Henry was so apologetic.  He felt awful for the bus driver.  He felt stupid for not noticing that he was walking in the street.  We were all weak in the knees.  While we waited in line for the venue to open the doors to let us in, we talked around it.  Then Charley said "two years ago, I was nearly hit by truck" while riding home from work on his bike.  It ran a red light, and clipped his front tire.  He said, "I'll never forget the date.  It was February 11th."  He and Joe-Henry realized at the same moment that it was February 11th.

Until we were inside, watching the amazing band, enjoying the music, and being in each other's company, I kept having visions of my boy flying through the air out of my peripheral vision; of having to explain to loved ones that there had been a sudden tragedy; of living a life suddenly without him.

A long time ago, I had to find tools to deal with all those "what if's".  I use them every day, in dealing with growing pains, tummy aches, headaches... They can be completely incapacitating.  They can stop you from  enjoying the moment, each and every one of them.  But last night, it just came too close, and I am still shaking, although in my mind I am beginning to see more of his face at the concert, beaming, full of joy and lit by the colored lights from the stage, instead of the white headlights of an oncoming bus.

Catching Up, Growing Up

Joe-Henry turned ten in November.  He is ten going on forty.  In fact, I took him to the walk-in clinic one Sunday for strep throat and we had a doctor we had used before and he said "Hey!  I remember you!  You're that kid that talks like he's forty years old!"

In many ways, like many boys, he is still not as mature as the girls in his class.  One particular girl comes to mind.  She is smart and bossy and pretty and he will do whatever it takes to make her laugh.  She shhh's him in class (which cracks me up, because he's been known to do some shhh-shing of his own) and rolls her eyes at him alot.  But when they come out of Marimba band practice together he makes her laugh so hard and blush so much, he is on the moon for the rest of the night.  He told me recently he has dreams about her.  But he also told me they're "just good friends".  And I'm glad, because she's a good friend to have.  His fourth grade class recently had their "growth and development" unit for science, which grossed him out, but "explained a LOT!"  This unit also covered hygiene, so he now showers every morning (in addition to the bath every night - WATERWASTERS is the word you are looking for), and has begged me to get him some deodorant.  I've said no for now, but I did cave and get him some Axe bodywash.  He tells me his "balls hurt", and I ask him kindly to please use the word testicles because his mother is a delicate flower (and I tuck that little bit of information in my worry bag), but it's sporadic and I asked C who said that there is a lot going on down there right now, and not to worry too much.  So I worry just the proper amount.  I worry that it has something to do with the kt, because I know he has some involvement there.  We need to go in for our yearly exam, so we'll bring it all up then.  Unless of course it gets worse.  Then I'll put my BIG worry hat on.

In addition to girls and testicles and Axe bodywash, he is all over the map emotionally.  When I told him the other day that he needed to do a better job of washing his hair because it looked greasy, and explained that increased hormones meant his hair and skin would change, he wailed "I'm turning into a BEAST!"  He gets really moody and upsets easily, and sometimes it seems like he's in hyperdrive.  He had a friend over all afternoon yesterday and they called each other "Dude" 1,367 times.  I'm kidding.  I didn't actually count.  Had I done that, I'm sure the number would have been higher.  He has developed specialized hearing.  Meaning, he completely ignores me when I tell him to do something.  It drives me 100% crazy. He wants a skateboard.  His dad says this summer, and I find myself tempted to go along, but also terrified.  So, if I cave, he'll be the kid at the skatepark wrapped head to toe in bubblewrap.  But because I'm crafty, I'll stencil some skulls on it, so it'll be cool.  He picks out his own clothes, and, thanks to family who totally came through on his birthday and Christmas, he is ready to kick Justin Bieber's ass.  (NOTE:  I like Justin Bieber.  I think he's adorable.  I worry that he's being exploited and pushed around.  But the only thing that makes it okay that he has a bio-pic documentary coming out is that it's in 3D).  Volcom, DC, Quicksilver.  Friendship bracelets, sillybandz, and a sterling silver guitar pick he wears around his neck.  Duuuuude.

Still.  He loves his stuffed animals.  He is still polite to his elders (unless it's his dad or I).  In fact, his kindergarten teacher just told me that he still speaks to her every afternoon, and I wanted to cry because he was just IN kindergarten, using those adorable little tiny scissors, and now we have to worry about his aching testicles.  But he still wants a snuggle from me at night.  I decided at Christmas that I would turn that time into something a little more age appropriate, so I got him To Kill A Mockingbird, which is my favorite book of all time.  Every night I read a chapter, using all my rusty acting skills to pull off my best Southern accents, which seems to be working because he is all eyes and ears.  He asks incredibly smart questions, and makes some very astute observations about the characters.  We both wince at the liberal use of the "N" word, and I'm pretty sure Harper Lee would want it that way.  (She's still alive, by the way.  Joe-Henry looked it up on Wikipedia.  When we're done with the book he plans to write her and tell her she "rocks".)  I feel so lucky every night that we get to share this.  I know he could read it himself, but I wanted to be able to answer questions that pop up and stop along the way to discuss the context of the book.

Last night when we were reading, he was mesmerized, taking it all in, then I noticed he was staring at me.  I thought he might be mooning over my double chin again ("mom, it's sooooo soft!"), but it was my ear.  "Mom, your ear is SO PRETTY.  It's so round and clean and flawless!  Like mine.  Except for the clean part."

How on earth am I ever going to be able to say good-bye to this time?  

It's Not Sophie's Choice, but...

... it still sucks.

When I was Joe-Henry's age, I contracted Scarlet Fever.  I was horribly sick for nearly three weeks.  Because my mom had passed away two years before, there was no one to stay home and take care of me.  My dad had just gotten a new job after the plant he worked for selling meat was closed so that the Army Corp of Engineers could change the shape of the Snake River,  forcing businesses and homes to move to higher ground.  Or close.  It was during a terrible economic crisis (remember the early 70's?!), and he needed to keep his job, so he couldn't stay home with a sick kid.  A neighbor brought me lunch everyday, but didn't stay long because she had two kids of her own, and didn't want to catch it.  I don't remember the worst of it, just the last week - the loneliness, the jigsaw puzzle I finally finished and really, really missing my mom.

But I did it.  I managed to get through it.  I was a tough kid.

This year, due to the horrible economy and District Wide Budget Cuts, they have decided that when a parapro like myself gets sick (or their child gets sick), unless there are two other parapro's out, we cannot call for a sub.

I get that the District needs to save money.  And I get that this is a move that is saving jobs.  I do.  It's still a horrible idea though.  The kids I work with have some pretty significant behaviors (hitting, kicking, etc.), and in a room that can, on a normal day, seem like there isn't enough staff to go around, having a person out is, to put it mildly, stressful.

Yesterday, JH had a procedure done on his big toe.  He'd had an infected ingrown nail since JUNE.  We have been trying everything to get it healed, including two round of antibiotics, and it didn't work.  So yesterday we had an appointment, and I thought it was just a first visit, that they'd decide what to do and we'd go back if anything needed to be done.  But that's not how it went down.  They gave him four horribly painful shots to numb the toe, then took out both sides of the nail.  He did amazing.  He cried when he got the shots, but tried soooo hard to be tough.  After the procedure he did great.

Until the numb wore off, and then last night, he cried for three hours.  I gave him tylenol at first, then ibuprofen, and he finally went to sleep around eleven.  This morning, he woke up sick to his stomach.
So I called in sick, but I'm going in later, now that we're getting the stomach upset under control.  But I'm feeling stressed and guilty and horrible and ANGRY for having to choose.

A voice in my head told me to calm down.  I'd been through this as a kid.  I didn't have a mom to get me through  it - he'll be fine.  It's just an afternoon.

Here's the thing though.  He DOES have a mom.  And he will remember that I made this choice.

EDIT 12/14/10, 1:00:

I went to school for about an hour and a half.  Then, there was a severe weather warning, that quickly turned into a TORNADO WARNING.  This was not anywhere on the list of things I would need to worry about if I left him home alone.  Needless to say, I came home right away.  The weather fizzled, and I felt silly for coming home, for about a minute.  Then I realized I did the right thing, forgave myself and ate a bite of chocolate.  All is right with the world.

In Sickness and In Health

It's been a very trying emotional time for some dear friends of mine.  Illness, divorce, financial woes.... it's an ugly list, and my heart feels so heavy as I think of these dear ones.  Then today, when I heard of Elizabeth Edwards' passing, as two dear friends put loved ones in the hospital tonight, I was just overcome.

There was no weeping, but anger.  And oddly, gratitude.

One of my friends is sitting by the bedside of her very ill partner.  She is devoted, and caring, and loyal.  Like my dear friend Annie and her partner Anita, this friend is showing the rest of us how to do it right, and that there are those that think they are less worthy than my husband and I to check the "spouse" box on the hospital form? It makes my blood boil.  I don't get it.

I just. don't. get it.

Because clearly, that legally binding piece of paper you sign after the ceremony and the party you pay for for the first ten years of your marriage (if it lasts that long) doesn't guarantee squat.  Sadly.  I mean that.  When a marriage is dissolved, for whatever reason, the ripple effect it has on the family, on the community that supports that family, causes stress and tension and heartache for anyone who cares about the individuals at the center of it.   Still, it's worth the risk when you love someone.  Because it's about hope and the belief in each other, in our promises to be the kind of people we want to be.  Together.  And that some are denied the right to have a crack at it, as faulty an institution as it is, seems petty and archaic.

And as pissed as I can get about it, there is not anything, outside of voting, that I can do about it.

Except this:  make it worth it.  Be kind to my husband.  Be grateful for him - not just for his humor, intelligence, generosity and kindness, but for his faults as well.  I meant it then, and now that we are getting to an age where it really means something, when we are no longer dewy young things, it means even more.  I do not take his love lightly, I do not take his presence in my life for granted.  

I am grateful.

Reasons why...

There are a few reasons I haven't blogged:  limited time is one, reconsidering my son's privacy is another.  He's getting to an age (TEN if his birth certificate is to be believed) where my writing about his antics, or my reaction to them needs more consideration.  A need for more, well, not privacy necessarily, just keeping my cards, my life, closer to my chest.

The main reason, though, I think is that this sense of time speeding past, like a bullet train, has me straining and squinting to trick myself into seeing it in slow motion.  Or at least slower motion.  Writing doesn't slow it down any, I need to watch closely, enjoy the view.

I ran across this poem today that sort of sums it up nicely:

The Size Of Spokane
The baby isn't cute.  In fact he's
a homely little pale and headlong
stumbler.  Still, he's one
of us _ the human beings
stuck on flight 295 (Chicago to Spokane);
and when he passes my seat twice
at full tilt this then that direction,
I look down from Lethal Weapon 3 to see
just why.  He's

running back andforth
across a sunblazed circle on
the carpet - something brilliant, fallen
from a porthole.  So! it's light
amazing him, it's only light, despite
some three and one
half hundred
people, propped in rows
for him to wonder at/ it's light
he can't get over, light he can't
investigate enough, however many
zones he runs across it,
flickering himself.

The umpteenth time
I see him coming, I've had
just about enough; but then
he notices me noticing and stops -
one fat hand on my armrest - to
inspect the oddities of me.

Some people cannot hear.
Some people cannot walk.
But everyone was
sunstruck once,and set adrift.
Have we forgotten how
astonishing this is? so practiced all our senses
we cannot imagine them? foreseen instead of seeing
all the all there is?  Each spectral port,
each human eye

is shot through with a hole, and everything we know
goes in there, where it feeds a blaze.  In a flash

the baby's old; Mel Gibson's hundredth comeback seems
less clever; all his chases and embraces
narrow down, while we
fly on (in our
plain radiance of vehicle)

toward what cannot stay small forever.

Heather McHugh


I'll be around once in a while.  You just might have to knock a little louder for me to hear you.

Growing Pains

When JH was little, he had nightmares about "the bad ladies". They were dressed in black, you couldn't see their faces, and they didn't talk. They came for him silently, and when he was awake, he was always afraid to go certain places, because in his dreams, this was where he'd see the bad ladies.

He sort of laughs about them now, although I know that while it might not be the bad ladies that make him scared to go downstairs in his own house, they started it. His deepest fears. The fears of the unknown, of change. And I've always felt in some mother's intuition way that the bad ladies have something to do with me. This is never anything he's said, but I fear the bad ladies too, and have told him a million times that I would move entire buildings to save him from them. We haven't heard from them in quite a while, but I know they aren't gone completely.

We had a very lazy day here yesterday. Charley's back went out at work the day before, so he's been taking some heavy duty motrin that puts him out like a light. Normally, we'd be out and about, but I think just the stuff emanating from his sleeping form made JH and I really sleepy too, and we didn't fight it.

He took a bath before bedtime, and was taking FOREVER to get out, so I jokingly told him if he didn't get out I was going to get a tattoo. Looking at me, so seriously, said "No you won't." He once told me that he was so grateful that I didn't have any tattoos, and I don't smoke, and I don't pick him up at the bus stop in my pj's and slippers, smoking a cigarette.

"I think maybe a BIG tattoo, of a flower with your name in the middle! Right here on my arm!"

"No you wouldn't! You're not serious..."

"Well, stay there in the tub and you can find out!"

He doesn't move, just looks at me with a strange smile on his face.

"Well, I guess I better go get my cigarettes!". This is the biggest joke of all, so I figure he's on to me for sure...

He burst into redfaced wailing tears, then choking sobs, while I tried to undo the damage. I was CLEARLY joking. I had been laughing when I said it, and we joke about this stuff all the time.

After I had him calm, and wrapped in a towel, his giant, heavy, gangly wet self on my lap, I asked him if he knew I was joking. He said yes, he did, but "I was afraid you wouldn't be you. And I love YOU".

I know just how he feels.

Lullabies on repeat

Music has always been important to Joe-Henry. When he was a baby, he'd scream and cry on our two hour drive from Grandma's to home because a) we were leaving Disneyland and headed for the bootcamp that was home, or b) the sun was in his eyes and I'd sing "You are my sunshine" over and over the entire ride because the cd player wasn't working and it was the only song I could remember while being screamed at.

It must have been then that putting songs on repeat became the thing that calmed him, because ever since he's wanted to listen to music at night. Not a whole album - that's too distracting,he wants to listen to the same song, over and over. Nothing new to make him stay awake and think, just the same lyrics and melody, like ocean waves, lulling him to his dreams.

Lately he'll grab my old iphone and put a song on repeat. Usually it's a calm, soothing song, something from Alexi Murdoch, say, or Shawn Colvin. But last night, he chose this song. And I found myself staying in his room after he'd gone to sleep, remembering my freshman year in college.