Eighteen Years

Eighteen years ago tonight, my husband, my sister and I got in the car and left our little one bedroom apartment and headed to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in LA so that I could be induced to give birth.  We were excited, nervous, and even though I thought I was ready, there was no way to be ready for a moment that would completely change my life, would change and deepen my relationship with my husband, and would change me fundamentally, at a cellular level.  

I was an older first time mom (39), so we had all the requisite tests to make sure that our baby would be healthy.  The amnio was perfect, even though I remember how uncomfortable I was, having to wait an extra hour because there was a celebrity emergency (Los Angeles is full of them). The imaging showed a baby with gigantic eyes, and I remember thinking “an impertinent chin”.  I had to be put on bed rest the last ten days due to high blood pressure.  Other than that, I loved being pregnant, and was so excited to be a mom.  I had a fantastic Ob-Gyn, Dr. Hoffstadter, a laid-back, whipsmart and hysterical, fearsome warrior for her patients; and although I had only met her once, a terrific pediatrician as well.  Lovely Dr. Biederman was the steady, gentle perfect pediatrician first time parents dream about.  When I think about the amount of chance that went into selecting these two remarkable women, I feel certain that I do indeed have lucky stars, because I have thanked them so much over the years for that auspicious start to our life as a family.  That particular Tuesday night, I took a shower and got ready.  It would be the last time I would be able to dry my hair for about a year.  We drove down palm tree lined boulevards in the LA night, I got checked in, hooked up, dialed in, and as the oxytocin started to drip, I began to feel mild contractions.  Charley came in to our room and I told him to get some sleep, and thought I’d get some myself.  This was uncomfortable, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  

Then my water broke.  

Then I started to moo like a cow.  

I knew that I wasn’t going to do this without an epidural, and I had never even pretended that it would be a possibility, so I begged, and a sweet young resident did his best.  I thought that I just had a really low threshold for pain, but it turns out the epidural didn’t hit the right spot, so after another couple hours, the head of anesthesiology came in and did it correctly.

Then I asked him to marry me.

He had no sense of humor, so he didn’t bother giving me an answer.  

I labored several more hours, when I began to run a fever.  My darling, big headed baby had gotten stuck and wasn’t going anywhere.  Dr. Hoffstadter sat at the edge of my bed and said very simply to my husband and I, “One hundred years ago, this might have killed mom and baby, but now it doesn’t.  We’re gonna have to do a c-section”.  I was wheeled into the operating room, and Charley got to put on some fetching scrubs.  I was alone in the room with the anesthesiologist, then another doctor came in and I was convinced he was just giving me a massage, but he had begun the incision.  Pretty soon the party was in full swing - this part is all kind of blurry, but I was awake to meet my gorgeous boy, and Charley carried him over to me so I could see him.  There was quite a rush immediately after, and as I was sewn back up, the doctors and nurses had all gone into high gear, because when they pulled my sweet boy out, there was something different about him.  He had two big fingers on his right hand, and his left leg was bigger than the right.  It would become clear as his body adjusted to living outside my body, that he also had a red birthmark that ran from his left hip to his toes.  His feet were also quite a bit bigger.  But Charley and I didn’t know any of that. We just knew that he was here, and he was beautiful, and he was ours.  There is a picture of my husband holding him up to the window outside the delivery room to show him to the family.  The look on my husband’s face shows a man forever changed.  He was a father now, and so in love.

The next several hours, I was in recovery on my own, shivering in a way I never had in my life.  I was covered in a million hot blankets, and the doctor who had done my incision came and talked to me.  His name was Dr. Bossy, and he was anything but.  He was so kind and asked me all kinds of questions and tried to keep my mind off the fact that it had been hours and no one was coming to see me in recovery.  What I couldn’t know, was that they were all trying to figure out what was “wrong” with our baby.  I put that in quotation marks, because I have never, not for one moment, thought there was anything wrong with my son.  He was born different, but not wrong.  Still, no one wanted to tell me, because they didn’t want my already elevated blood pressure to get out of control.  I don’t remember who eventually came to see me, but thinking back now, even all these years later, my heart breaks that my husband and our family had to take this news that our son had medical challenges without me.  That evening, I got to hold my sweet baby and cuddle him a bit before he was taken to the NICU.  The incredible Dr. Hoffstadter, again sat at the edge of my bed, and explained that they needed to do some imaging of our tiny love to make sure that he could handle food.  They wanted to make sure that the vascular birthmark that he had on his leg was not something more complex involving his organs.  This was not going the way I thought it was going to go, to say the least, but it was the first moment that I experienced true motherhood.  For the first time in my life, I worried.  More than worried.  I began to panic.  This wasn’t good for me, due to my high blood pressure, so I was given high doses of magnesium and put in a cold room.  My darling, caring, incredible husband spent the night with me in that room, and it must have been cold because my guy was shivering.  He LOVES the cold, but this was like being in the arctic without a sleeping bag, yet he never left my side.  

The next days were a blur of doctors, for both Joe-Henry and I, meetings, doctors in meetings, meetings with doctors, meetings with doctors about more meetings with doctors, and after several days of not being able to feed my baby, I finally came unglued.  Joe-Henry, born on a Wednesday, still hadn’t been allowed to be breastfed by Saturday.  He had been on I.V. while his test kept being pushed back by one emergency after another, and while it was finally done on late afternoon Friday, there was no one to read the results over the weekend.  Dr. Hoffstadter (who at this point in the story should really be wearing a superhero cape), doing rounds on her day off on the weekend, came to visit and called in a radiologist from the phone in my room to come read my baby’s test results, saying “look, this mom is my patient, and she is going to have a stroke, and it’s gonna be on your head.”  Someone was there within the hour.  I spent that afternoon, holding and feeding my sweet boy, looking into those trusting eyes, finally getting to bond with this sweet soul.  It took a few more days, but the day before Thanksgiving we were told we could take him home, I ran down the hallway, holding my c-section together, to tell Charley who had gone to get us one more fantastic hospital meal.  I will never forget the ride home and how utterly terrified I was to step outside those hospital walls and be completely responsible for keeping this little bundle alive.  I sat on the edge of the couch, with Joe-Henry in his car seat at the other end of the couch and looked at him.  Wordlessly, Charley brought me a small glass of Guinness.  “I hear it’s good for helping your milk to come in.”  Whether that’s true or not, it helped me relax for a moment, and know that my husband was taking care of me.  I took a few sips, pulled that sweet bundle out of the car seat, took a deep breath, closed my eyes and began to trust myself as a mother.  Granted, that first month my brand new copy of “What To Expect The First Year” became dog-eared and would automatically fall open to chapters I remember being titled “WHY WON’T MY BABY SLEEP?!” and “WHY YOU ARE TOO INEPT TO SOOTHE YOUR OWN BABY”,  but we got into a rhythm. And when at two months, Joe-Henry rewarded me with his first laugh?  I put the book in the closet.  

The intervening eighteen years have been a variation on that first week, spread out like an intricate quilt, with each square being it’s own memory, but instead of being filled with downy feathers, it’s filled with worry defying hope - heavy, but with a warmth of its own.  We have had our share of scares, but we have also had the good fortune to have some truly amazing doctors on our side.  In addition to Dr. Hoffstadter and Dr. Biederman, we’ve had doctors who are like family, wanting to know where he is applying to school, who he is dating, where they might catch his next gig with his band.  We’ve had family and friends who have loved and supported us through every joy and every illness, who have let me cry, vent and talk through the worries until I am all talked out, who have heard all the ways around a diagnosis and treatment, and have let me worry it from every angle.  We’ve had the connection of the K-T community, a place we can go to ask others with the same syndrome about their experiences, a place to be real about our fears and share hope about our triumphs.  I can never get over my luck in terms of all that.  

Through all of this, though, is our wonder, and our great good fortune:  our boy.   In addition to loving this son of ours, his dad and I have had the pleasure of watching his evolution from babyhood to toddlerhood to child to teen to young man.  I can say without bias that he is one of the coolest guys I have ever met, or even imagined.  He has had to deal with an awful lot in his life, but he handles it all with absolute grace, and a double scoop of wicked humor. He has set big dreams for himself and has pushed himself to achieve and try things that we weren’t sure would be possible.  He has had to work harder than most his age to stay healthy, and I am so proud of the way he takes care of himself.  He never takes anything for granted.  He has surpassed every wish, every hope, I could have dreamed of.  There have been COUNTLESS laughs, the kind that make it hard to breathe or see because of the tears.  The best kinds of laughter.  There have been far more joys than worries, but even so, there were so many times that my worry overtook me, however, it all went away when the fever passed, or the pain went away, or the cough subsided.  We would read Shel Silverstein poetry and talk about anything and everything….All that was left was reveling in his smile, his eyes, his soft cheeks and the smell of his hair.   Just the two of us, curled up on his bed, late in the quiet of the night.  Those nights might be my reason for being.

I am preparing myself for this new phase of motherhood - the great letting go.  I see my friends do it, I know it’s inevitable.  It’s like that point in a pregnancy when it dawns on you that the baby has to come out.  I know it will be filled with it’s own joys and worries.  That saying that parenthood is like having your heart walking around outside your body… that.  Only hundreds of miles away.  Will he call?  Will he be safe?  Will he be happy?  Will he change his mind about aviation and go into music instead?  Will he remember to, will he ever, will he learn, will he… 

Will I ever unlearn how to worry?  Nope.  I’ve been a mom for eighteen years.  I’ve perfected it.  I know myself enough to know that it’s never going away.  But I look forward to adding more squares to the quilt, and wrapping it all around us whenever the worry gets to be too much.  

2018 - A Year To Grieve

Some years are full of hope and possibility, some just bump along, status quo, and some years just arrive and knock the wind out of you, continuously, like you accidentally walked into the ring with a punch-drunk prize fighter that has no pity.  I don't know if it's to remind us of life's impermanence, or to make us take stock, or just because statistically it has to happen some time.  Probably the latter, but it still feels no less cruel.

When I was a girl, our family had a year like that.  We lost both my mom and my cousin within months of one another, my dad wound up in the hospital with blood clots and soon after lost a job he'd had for years.  I felt it, of course, all of it, but kids are resilient.  Therapy came later.  It helped, but that year still formed me.  It's one of the reasons I am grateful to work with kids who have trauma.  Not to work out my own stuff, but because I have a certain perspective about it.

This year began with the sudden loss of our nephew in a car accident, and it wracked our family.  It was like a bomb went off.  We are still reeling - grief comes on in waves, and while at times it's less acute, it is no less heartbreaking.  The permanence of it, the marks it has left on our hearts still feels so tender, like we are healing from something completely physical, like someone tore a limb off and put it back on wrong.  Everything feels like we are stepping carefully through a world that we don't recognize.  Even though grief is not unfamiliar to me, it seems the older I get, the less resilient I am to it's randomness.  Sadly, this week delivered another blow.  My dear friend and neighbor collapsed on Monday, leaving her husband, her family and all who knew her bereft.  That's not a word I use often or lightly, but it's the only one that feels right.

I met Angela after they moved in up the street - she and her husband showed up on our doorstep shortly before Christmas with a holiday mug filled with mix for a chocolate lava cake.  I am not the kind of person to just let anyone in my house, mostly because it's usually a mess, so believe me when I say there is no one else on earth that I would allow into my house without knowing them, but Angela could charm her way into anything.  And, hello, she had chocolate!  She was from Louisiana, and while she had the wit and vivaciousness of a Southern Belle, she didn't have an ounce of pretense.  A few years passed and we would see each other on the street and wave hello, but eventually, in 2011, our family got a dog and I began walking her every morning.  Angela asked if I would ever like some company, and the rest is history.  I soon lost that dog, got another, a terrier named Maisy, and two weeks after we got our new pooch, Angela and Don got their dog Marnie.  Then, Angela decided it would be a good idea if we started running in the morning.  Believe me when I tell you - the ONLY person who could EVER get me to run. in. the. morning.... is Angela.  I say run, but what I mean is, I followed her bobbing ponytail from a distance, wondering if each day would be my last.  I hated running.  Until I didn't.  And that was because of Angela.  She wasn't just my cheerleader, she drove me nuts with her positive attitude until I could have one myself.  

Those mornings were the best.  We told each other everything.  There was no such thing as TMI with Angela and I.  I know that I am not the only one who feels this way - Angela was a fantastic friend to so many people.  She and her husband Don were social butterflies, and had a slew of good friends that they socialized with.  I heard about all of them, in detail.  She was meticulous in the way she cared for others, and she always made you feel important.  Her parents told me that she never met a stranger, and I witnessed it.  There were times when we would be out walking and she would strike up a conversation with anyone, much to my chagrin.  My sense of caution, though, was always outweighed by her ability to connect with people.  As a friend, she was a brilliant listener, but she also felt free to tell you when you were full of it, and although it didn't happen often with us, when it did, I took it to heart.  She was wise counsel.  

In 2014, our daily runs were abruptly brought to a halt.  At nearly the same time, Angela wound up in the hospital with a burst appendix, and I developed debilitating migraines brought on by exertion.  During her diagnosis for her appendix, they discovered that she had a spot on her imaging that didn't look right.  It turned out to be a recurrence of a melanoma that she had many years earlier.  My headaches turned out to be something called Fibromuscular Displaysia.  Even with all of this news, though, we continued to walk when we could.  It wasn't as regular, but we still got out there with our dogs, and we always held out hope that we could make it a ritual again.  We knew it would be different, but we both felt sure that it would happen.  We walked a bit slower, and we took breaks, but that just gave us more time to talk.  She made progress with her drug regimen, and for quite a while things looked very promising.  She was a force of nature and it just never seemed possible that we wouldn't be back at it at some point, just by sheer force of will.  

It just wasn't to be.  Things took a turn this past summer, when her scans showed the cancer turning up again.  She was getting ready for chemo, when she had a horrible reaction to one of her non-cancer fighting drugs.  It knocked her down and took a toll, but again, she fought like the champion that she was.  At that point, I had begun walking her dog with mine in the morning, letting myself in with my key.  Her parents had come to stay with she and her husband to care for her while she recovered, and to help her when she started chemo.  She had her first round last Saturday, and on Tuesday morning, she collapsed at home.  That morning, I had let myself in with my key, and just taken them around the block when I came back to find her husband waiting for me in the driveway.  They had just gotten home from the hospital.  We hugged and cried in the street as the sun was rising.  I can't fathom (or I worse, I can)  the loss her family feels.  

I have been walking through this all in a daze.  My family has been amazing, and it has meant so much to be able to just walk up the street and hug her family.  I am trying to stay in the present, though, because it's hard to picture the future without my friend, without our nephew, and knowing that loss is inevitable and will keep delivering to my doorstep.  My tether to this world is to just keep walking, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and to keep hugging the people I love. 

I leave you with this, from my favorite Chekhov play, Uncle Vanya:

"What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile—and—we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. [SONIA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice] We shall rest. [TELEGIN plays softly on the guitar] We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [She wipes away her tears] "

She wipes away her tears.

What Now?

Hey Girl!  What's going on?

Not much, just watching the disintegration of a once-great nation!

I think I'll distract myself by digging rocks out of the dirt, look at Pinteresting ways to organize my shed and get lime stains out of my toilet, install laminate floors and come up with a new hairstyle:

Should I dye it?*

New cut?

Shave it off?

Dye it with Kool-aid, cut it with nail scissors, THEN shave it?

Get a tattoo on my now bald head that says "since my uterus is old, just take my brains instead?"

My eye is twitching.  I think that means I want to line up this entire administration and hit them all on the heads with a cast iron frying pan.

This sour feeling is not going away any time soon - it is the feeling of pure hatred for this vile administration, and I know, it is not doing me or anyone else any good, it is pointless and harmful to myself and those I truly love and care about, so I spend my whole day doing some random order of these things - household chores, cranking music, spending time on-line (DON'T DO THIS) and telling myself to get in GOOD TROUBLE.  I saw a tweet today by Erin Keen (@eekshecried)and it summed it up:  "Every woman I know has been storing anger for years in her body and it's starting to feel like bees are going to pour out of all of our mouths at the same time".  

Drinking seems to be the absolute worst thing to do.  Physical work - where I sweat and can lose myself - is the only answer.  I feel like I could lift a car**.

*for real? Initially I loved my salt and pepper hair, but now I feel a thousand years old

**I couldn't.  

How To Cheer Yourself In the End Days of The Republic

I have spent the last few days despairing the actions being taken in America's name to immigrant children and their families.  I have heard the cries, seen the faces, and watched the heartless lies being spewed by our heinous administration.  

Also in the news today, the administration wants to lump together the Departments of Education and Labor, destroying them both, and they want to cut billions from Medicare and Medicaid.  There is a White Nationalist Rally being held in DC.  On top of this, the First Lady visited one of the shelters wearing a jacket that said "I don't care, do u?"  

I spent a good hour reading about the demise of Mussolini, Hitler, Eva Braun and Marie Antoinette.  I imagined the fence in front of the White House bedecked with the heads of everyone in this evil administration.  I imagined a Secret Service agent going rogue and taking them all out and having Kiefer Sutherland take over.  I imagined them all with giant herpes sores on their mouths.  I started to go down a really, really dark hole and didn't recognize myself.

A friend on FB posted that she was feeling much the same way, and the only thing that outweighed the negative was the community of love warriors she knows have her back.  It reminded me of 1 Corinthians 13:13,

 "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love."

I am trying to have faith.  Not necessarily Christian faith, but faith in humanity, but it's pretty difficult these days.  Hope seems like a distant memory.  But love.... love I can do.  It's a verb. 

I told my son how I was feeling.  "Just look at what's in front of you mom.  Be kind, set a good example. Go out of your way to make it better for others."  

I love this boy with my whole heart.  

The greatest of these is love.

Gonna keep my eyes on that.

Crying In The Car

I read a blogpost by my friend Linnea over at A Mindful Life LA about befriending negative emotions.  She talked about missing her oldest daughter, and crying in the car.  I wanted to hug her, and pat her on her sweet cheeks.  I kept telling myself though, that I would not let myself relate yet.  I wasn't ready to grieve my growing boy flying the nest yet.  He's still at home.  He still has senior year.  There's just too much to do to get him ready.

There's too much to do to get ME ready.

So I pretended I wasn't there yet.  I am not in the thick of it yet. Because I am made of stone, dammit.

Seriously, though, I used to be someone who cried at every sappy commercial.  I was pretty in touch with all those emotions, and enjoyed getting a little damp in the eyeballs, rolling around in that feeling.  It made me feel alive and connected to the world.

But things got really busy, and really real and life has gotten stressful.  Aging, man. I never thought I'd be THIS much of a grown up.  Where I sweat the small stuff.  But I sweat not only MY small stuff, but everyone else's small stuff AND all the big stuff.  I am SUPER sweaty. And some days I feel about a hundred and twenty years old.

Well, today the dam broke.  My husband and I were in the car, running errands.  We were talking in that distracted, disconnected way that you can when you've been married a long time and no longer have any hormones that force you to notice and delight in each other's every word.  We were heading home, and he had put his music on, and said casually when this song came on, "this really reminds me of the boy.  'fly and don't come down?', 'make thunder when you run'... I mean how he runs?!  with those beautiful feet of his...."

I'd heard this song before, and I knew it made me teary, but I kinda forgot.  I was listening and singing along with him one second, and then next thing I knew I started howling like a banshee... Weeping, singing, laughing.....

It made me realize how much I needed to feel.  How much I needed to release and to stop trying to distract myself from those feelings.

I am pretty glad though, that a) I wasn't driving, and b) that the boy wasn't in the car with us.

He's past the eye-rolling stage, for the most part, but I think it might have freaked him out a bit.

Anyway, here are the lyrics.  Kris Drever is a damn genius with a sad, real song.  And my husband is a damn genius for knowing exactly how to pick the locks on my cold, cold heart.

When The Shouting Is Over

Turn like a wheel
into the road into the next town
Take a drink, but buy your meal
out at the point we wait for tight lines.
Build a wall and make it high.
Don't deny your hungry brothers.
If you dig a well, make it deep
and if it spoils, then dig another.
Remember our faces every day
that you roam.*

Chorus:
When the race is run
and the shouting is all over
come on home **

Plow through the fields
push through the crowds, beg and steal
walk through walls, fill empty halls
stand where the magic meets the real***
fly and don't come down****
unless there's no one there to stop you
Make thunder when you run*****
know there's no one who can top you.
If you're tired
if you're down
We will never drop you**********

Chorus X2

*this is when my throat got really tight
**this made me groan and keen and say OHHHH a bit
***with this line I could picture him standing on the brink of his life, ready to fly, and I could no longer see out of my projectile crying eyeballs
****HELLO he wants to be a pilot and this line made me gasp for air and sob doubled over my seatbelt getting my knees wet with my snot
********full on ugly crying, scaring the other car next to us in traffic because they thought maybe I was crazy and might open my car door on the freeway and roll under the semi behind us.

Rewrite

Today began with a royal wedding, and got better from there.

Waking up in Trump's America every day is soul wearying, and I frequently wake in a panic, but this morning I woke up and saw a mixed race woman marry her prince in a cathedral while a black choir sang Stand By Me, and I think they put a spell on the whole day, because it just kept getting better.

I got back to sleep for one thing.  And when I woke up, I got to take my boy to Alaska Airline Aviation Day, and he got to talk to pilots and go in planes and get information from schools with pilot programs, and we took pictures and ate hot dogs and it was just swell.  I am in constant awe of his aviation knowledge.  Like music, flying comes second nature to him.  He is fluent in it, and to see him in his element brings me more than pride, it's pure joy.

Then tonight all three of us went to see Paul Simon in his Homeward Bound Farewell Tour, and it was like going to church.  When we got there, JH said "I don't want to generalize, but I MIGHT be the youngest person here".  Getting our bags checked, the man at security who was in his 60's said "Young man, do you even know who Paul Simon IS?"  "HECK yeah!  I've listened to his music all my life!"  "Good job, mom and dad!"  Then we ran into one of JH's old baseball coaches, who was genuinely so happy to see JH, as well as one of JH's doctors who is on my list of all time most important people in JH's health journey.  She was out with her husband and I almost didn't recognize her without her lab coat!  But it was so much fun to see her out of context, and I thought of her later when he was playing The Boy In The Bubble, and heard "medicine is magical and magical is art".  These are the days of miracle and wonder. Music does something to me.  I feel like I get plugged in to a universal energy and I am one with everything.  It was also like being in a time tunnel and all of the ages that I have been when touched by his music came rushing at me and surrounding me and holding me still in music's magical magnetic field.  I was in my early twenties listening to Graceland on my walkman, walking the hills of Queen Anne in Seattle, hanging out with my roommates; I was in my teens having been through my first heartbreak, riding in the backseat of my sister's car on the way to get a Christmas tree, crying while listening to Still Crazy After All These Years; I was nine years old, in the backseat of a car in San Francisco on a trip with that same sister, listening to Feelin' Groovy (which he played last night to punish himself for forgetting some lyrics to Cool Cool River because apparently he HATES Feelin' Groovy!); I was in my early forties, my toddler singing the wrong lyrics to Loves Me Like A Rock while sitting on my lap ("she loves me like a rock a pages"); and I was 56, right now, sitting next to my son and my husband, feeling all the grief of Mother and Child Reunion (Oh I would not give you false hope...), as well as this magic moment:  Before the concert, I told my guys about the "Still Crazy" story, about crying my eyes out in the back seat of the car.  When he played the first notes, my son, put his arm around me, pulled me in tight and kissed my forehead.  That moment is sealed forever in my memory, in that endorphin-infused place where happiness lives.  He was so giddy all night, and it was so much fun to be next to him and witness the way he soaks up music, how it moves him, how he knows those complex rhythms innately, and to reach around and touch my husband's shoulder and know that somehow we brought this magical energy into the world. We aren't perfect parents by any stretch, we fuck up a million different ways, but we keep trying.

Rewrite.

Help me, help me, help me, THANK YOU.

The First Last

Well, hello old friend!  It's been awhile!  The last time I was here was four years ago, JH was thirteen, and gangly and goofy and flighty.  He hadn't shaved yet, hadn't driven a car, and homework didn't keep him up nearly as late.  Now he drives, has a job, goes to school, is a drummer in a band, and for the love of all things holy take flight lessons.  We are getting ready to go on some college trips this summer.  When I started at my job, he was six.  Now,  I still work with elementary aged kids, and while I can remember him being at that stage, it was a long time ago.  I'm grateful for this blog because he was precious to me and I wrote about allllll of it.  When he became a teen, (and even before, going through puberty) I slowed way down on the blog because I wanted to make sure that I was not divulging too much private stuff.  I realized I was skating close to an edge - I didn't want to exploit our relationship, and I didn't want to write about anything that might embarrass him.  I also wanted to keep it for myself.  To hang on to it, and keep it precious to me.

So why the hell start up again?  Here's my reason - I have been having huge anxiety about him graduating from high school and going to college.  This in addition to living in Trump's America has begun to give me heart palpitations, and I'm realizing that maybe it's time to write about that, and one more thing....

I went back and read some of my old posts, and realized how much gratitude I had for all of it, how much beauty I saw and celebrated, and honestly I want to focus on that again.  This part of my life is very different.  I am very different.  I am older, not "mature" older, but OLDER older.  Heavier, greyer, busier... but also wiser, and I see myself fairly clearly.  Skin tags and all.  I have a lot of faults.  I will always try to be better, but I don't have any misconceptions that I will actually BE better.  But it's all in the trying.  Maybe by writing about it, by saying it out loud, it will ease my anxious mama heart and help me actually lift my face to the sun, instead of crab walking sideways, pinched and worried, through this stage of life.

At work we talk about "growth mindset" and one of the things we talk about a LOT is there is no "I can't".  Still, one of the things I struggle with the most is letting go.  Letting go.  It is the one thing in my life that comes close to "I can't".  It is so, so, so much harder than I ever imagined.

Before I conceived of conceiving, I naively thought that I would be a cool mom.  I would be in the arts, I would have my own life, I would be a pal, all of my child's friends would think I was the coolest.  Now I am fairly certain that all his friends think that the only thing separating me from being a helicopter parent is the lack of a rotor on my head.  When JH was about five, we went to Paris.  We were taking the Metro, and he was looking for the oncoming train and he stepped over that white line, the one that basically tells people STOP OR YOU MIGHT DIE.  He was talking to his dad, and I reached out and grabbed him with my hand, but it wasn't my hand that felt it - it was my womb.  It was like it dropped out between my legs, flopped around on the ground until it found him, sucked him back across that line and then hopped back up inside me.  I am going through a version of this now, not as visceral, but every bit as aching and emotional and vulnerable and out of fucking control.  Every time he heads out the door, I say "drive safe!" but my brain says "I am not going to let you relax until he is back through the door".  Now, just imagine that feeling, and add FLYING to the mix.  As in, HE is flying.  An airplane.  Yes, it's the absolute coolest, and after, hearing him talk about it (he is frighteningly knowledgeable) delights me from head to toe, but when he heads out for a lesson?  I want to throw myself around his ankles and not let go. "Dude, why are you dragging your mom around the tarmac for flight check?" "Sorry.  She just can't let go.  You'll get used to it.  I have.  Her sobbing has gotten a lot quieter."

So that's why I'm writing.  Because I CAN'T throw myself around his ankles.  I HAVE to let go.  And I have to find some of myself without him - to allow myself my mama pride, but also to find some of that badass chick I used to be before him.

Yeah, right.

"Hey, badass chick!  Why is your heart and your uterus flopping around on the ground like that?"

Thanks for reading while I shout out into the void.

Badass Kid

It's the day before my birthday and we were visiting C's parents.  We'd all gone out to lunch, and as we were walking to the car, JH was leaning on my shoulder, holding my hand.  Behind me, I could feel my mother-in-law and sister-in-law taking in this sight:  this nearly thirteen year old boy, a hair shorter than his ol' ma, holding her hand, unafraid of what anyone else might think.  

As we cleared the corner of the building, two boys about fourteen years old, in droopy shorts and cool hats perched on top of their heads like fully popped jiffy pop pans, came around heading in our direction.  

If my son is nearly as smooth with his future girlfriends getting his hand IN theirs as he was getting his hand OUT of mine?   Those girls are in big trouble.  Because it was effortless and seamless and a thing of beauty, really.  If our hand-holding were an object, say, and you were looking at it, why it would have just disappeared before your very eyes!  

As we cleared the boys, I chuckled and said to him, very low and quiet, out of the corner of my mouth: "were you busted?"  and he smiled back, shook his head, looked down with bright red cheeks and said just as quietly "so busted."

The next morning this is the card he gave me.  I am going to have it framed.

the inside of my birthday card from JH

In case you can't read his writing, it says:

Happy Birthday!  To the best mom in this entire galaxy.  

Mommah, whether it's you poning* me at H.O.R.S.E., (by one letter, I might add) or just chillin', I love hanging out with you.  No matter how "unkew"** it is to give u hugs or hold hands, I'm always ur son.  

Here's to you, Ma.

Love, 

JH

(ps.s  It's only when the badass people are around that I won't give you the x's and o's that you deserve)

* this means "owning" or "winning", with smacktalk.  It might also be a sexual term adopted by middle school boys, or idiots who play videogames online but if this is the case, JH and I don't know it.  And I don't want to know it.  So I'm not going to look it up.  Dammit.  Of course I looked it up.  And yes I will be talking to him about this term. 

**think Erik Cartman.  Yes, we let him watch South Park on occasion.  And we've started letting him play some "M" games on his xbox.  

It's a whole new, almost a teenager, badass world.

I understand/ I don't understand....

I understand:

Bravery, selflessness, goodness, love.

These are all things we saw yesterday in the midst of madness and heartbreak.

Someone, in a brave, final act turned on the PA system at school to alert other teachers that something horrible and unthinkable was in their midst.

Teachers, with families of their own at home, instinctively went into action to protect the children.  To keep them safe.  First and foremost.  They acted with courage and love.  Teachers.  Not soldiers.  Not firefighters.  Not policemen.  Teachers, who may have gone into the profession because they thought it might be fun to be around kids all day.  Teachers, who day after day correct spelling tests and do lesson plans and worry over family situations of "their kids" that they have no control over.

First responders, many just volunteer citizens, went in to harms way, not knowing what they'd find, or if they'd come out alive.  But they went in anyway, and did everything they could.

The community, from all reports, tight-knit, close, loving, has gathered to support those who have lost:  innocence, laughter, a future of memories that will never be made.  It's an impossible task, but the community, and the rest of us, surrounded them with love and tears.  It's all we could do in those terrible moments immediately after.

I hope, and I pray with my clumsy heathen prayers that we will all do the same for a young man who lost his mother to violence, and a brother to mental illness.  He will surely need love and compassion to deal with the aftermath of this senseless tragedy as well.

I don't understand:
Why anyone with a love of our country, and good morals and a belief in a loving God, or just plain decency, would defend the fact that it's easier to get a gun than it is to get help with a mentally ill family member.

Because it is.  It's easier to get a gun than a driver's license.  That's a fact.


I don't understand why anyone who likes to use guns recreationally or for sport would feel offended that those of us who do not would like to see this rectified.

I do not wish to take away your right to own or carry a gun.  I assume that you are of sound mind, and you enjoy hunting, or you live in a terrible neighborhood and wish to protect your family or possessions.

But I don't understand why you feel the need to defend how incredibly, UNBEARABLY easy it is for the wrong person to get their hands on a gun.

I don't understand why it is nearly impossible for a person with a history of mental illness, who has exhausted their resources, and their family and community, must be deemed a danger to themselves or others before they are able to get the help they need.  Because THAT, as we've seen in the last DAYS, happens much, much, much too late.  Mental illness is not like any other illness.  Many people with mental illness do not believe there is anything wrong with them.  They refuse help.  And so their families are left to worry about them, about their safety and the safety of anyone in their path.  And there is the stigma as well - "he's CRAZY", "he's NUTS"...an equation of mental illness with evil.  Most mentally ill people are not violent.  But those who are?  Wouldn't it be humane to have the ability to diagnose and treat them before we find out the difference?  To at least attempt to help them return to sanity, or at the very least, safety?

Because bottom line?
It is not "us vs. them".
It is "us".
Just us.
All of us together, with our differences and our passions, living together on this planet.
We're going to need to figure it out.
Hopefully sooner than later.

Wishing you peace and kindness.  Do you understand?

Science facts

"Hey, mom - did you know that most birth defects are caused by something the mom ate or did during pregnancy?"

I am helping him get his compression stocking on, something we do every day.  It's too tight for him to be able to do it himself, even though this week he will be twelve years old, and he is nearly as tall as I am, and weighs almost as much, too.  I have just pulled it up past his knee, and I'm looking at him as he is talking, smiling.  But I was caught off guard, and for the split second it took for me to register what he'd said, he saw my secret, the thing I've battled every day since he was born and we discovered that he had Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome.  The fear that it was my fault, that I had done something wrong, even though I've had specialists tell me it's just something that happens sometimes, just a quirk of nature brought about by a wrong turn on a strand of genetic material.

I recover as quickly as it registers, but I'm caught and he...he is mortified, horrified that he has hurt me.

"But I'm not blaming you, I just have K-T, and I was born that way and I wouldn't want to be any different!  I love you and I know you didn't do anything wrong, and I only think it's sometimes that it happens, maybe most of the time, but it doesn't MATTER because I LOVE who I am and I love YOU, and if I didn't have K-T I wouldn't be me..."  He is in danger of running out of air, and I stop him.

"Sweetheart - it's okay.  I know you were just telling me something interesting that you learned, and it's just science.  Sometimes even in science there are variables.  I know you aren't blaming me.  I love you just as you are, and I know you love me too.  Please don't worry, I'm okay."

We have a ritual after his stocking is on - we have a big hug.  Today's hug is tighter than normal, and lasts twice as long.

"Thanks for helping me with my stocking, mom.  I love you."

"You bet.  I love you too."

Hey, Look!

We've talked before here about JH's syndrome, always in a very matter of fact way.  It's part of our life.  I never wish he didn't have it, although I do sometimes wish he didn't have pain.  But it is an integral part of him.  I don't know if K-T has made him wiser, or more confident, or more patient, or a better friend, or if he would be that way without it.  All I can say is that he is all of those things, and I can't imagine him any other way.

Years ago, when Joe-Henry was three, Charley got his first utilikilt.  He wore it to the K-T conference in Rochester, MN, and I remember that for the first time, people were staring at Charley and not JH.  They were (and still are) fairly audacious and open about their staring.  Some, me included, might call it "gawking".  He has turned heads in Paris, in Los Angeles, and certainly here in our small town where we moved in 2006.  He even turned heads in Scotland, which I thought was sort of odd.  Everywhere we go, my hubby turns heads.  But he wears it well, with confidence, and starts conversations with strangers.  Women love it, and people think nothing about asking if he is wearing anything under it.  The usual response is that he wears it the traditional way.  Or, if they have a sense of humor, "nothing but the breeze and my wife's good graces".

He is friendlier about the attention than I am.  I was raised a Lutheran, and although I went into the arts, and spent a good portion of my adult life on stage, I do NOT like being stared at.  What I don't like even more?  Is having the people I love stared at, or whispered about.  I have been known to take pictures of people staring at his kilt, or JH's feet.  Asking them to smile for the camera.  I try to be more open about it.  I do.  It is getting easier.  I don't notice as much anymore.  I love that he feels comfortable and confident and I think he's sexy as hell no matter what he wears, but more than anything, he has given Joe-Henry an amazing example of how to swim against the current with grace.

Joe-Henry has always had an amazing amount of confidence.  Not OVER confidence, just a real solid awareness of who he is and what he is capable of.  He doesn't feel limited by his K-T, and he doesn't think twice about wearing his stocking.  It's not a fashion statement.  It's something that helps him get through the day with less pain, and not wearing it because other people might stare?  The mere thought makes him make this face like he has a question mark directly above his head.  Why on earth would he let what other people think have any precedence over his comfort and well being?  In the last couple years, he's developed quite a fashion sense, and has taken to wearing a really funky sock on his other foot.  You can't help but notice it, and I love that he has completely made it his own.

I wondered if that quality would change as he entered Middle School.  He was really nervous about going to a new school where he didn't know any teachers and there were more kids.  I could tell the first few days, he was trying to fit in.  But, it was really hot today, so he wore shorts (bright green), with bright yellow smiley face socks on BOTH feet.  I asked if anyone gave him any compliments on his socks today, and he said "no, but I did see a few people staring at my stocking."  My heart sank, but I stayed chipper and asked "How was that?  Did you say anything?"  

"Nah.  Mom, there is no such thing as bad attention."

These men of mine.  One of these days this attitude just might rub off on me.

Whirlwind

This sums it up.  Every year I write this post.  We start school again.  How does it go so fast?  But seriously -

My son will start Middle School today.  When your kids are little, people always say things like "Oh, they'll LOVE preschool!" and "he's so ready for kindergarten!".  No one EVER says "Middle School is the BEST".  Mention Middle School to anyone, and they all look like they're having flashbacks to their days in 'Nam.  When I think about Middle School, I think of K.F. and L. A. telling me I couldn't go out that door, I'd have to go around, or they were going to beat me up.  Or the time someone filled the sleeves of my only jacket with wet paper mache, threw it to the top of some cupboards, then when I climbed up to get it, they took the chair away, and I got in trouble when the teacher came in.

Twitch.  Twitchtwitch.

I'm doing my best to stay positive - I was truly impressed with the presentation they gave at the school, I think he'll be educationally challenged.  I just, damn, I can't keep him safe forever.  He's going to be dealing with his own bullies, making his own way.  How can I let him go?

How can I not?

In three years he'll be in highschool.  In four, he'll have his driver's permit.  In seven he'll be old enough to vote.  And I know that the world needs him.  He's going to be a truly amazing man.

Yesterday afternoon, there was a girl on my lawn.  She and her sister were visiting their grandparents next door.  They hadn't seen each other in two years.  The oldest is JH's age.  She's a darling, daring, fiercely smart and loving girl.  When we saw her last, she was handling a snake they found in my garden.  As she and her little sister caught up with JH, I noticed her twirling her long brown hair in her fingers, lowering her lashes and laughing at his every word.  It wasn't put on, it wasn't as though she were trying on behaviors to see what worked, it was as natural as air.  It was.... sweet.

I think it went a long way toward giving him the boost he needed to get over his jitters about going to a new school.  A big new school with lots more kids and no adults who knows him.

I think maybe that's what I'm not ready for.  Not being the center of his universe.  Oh, I know he still listens to his Dad and I, I know he still takes our words to heart.  But a sweet girl, laughing and talking with you or a good friend agreeing to meet you at your bus stop is better than anything your mom can say.  As long as his friends are kind and smart, I'll take it. 

I started writing this blog when he was six years old.  In kindergarten.  Looking back at those first posts, they too, were about how fast it all seemed to be going.  I had no idea.  

But we still have years left.  They aren't years spent changing diapers or soothing scraped knees, they are far trickier.  You have to still be that parent, but the cooing and cuddling is replaced with admonitions to "clean your room", "lights out", "be home by 9".  With looks and words and "mom, stop touching my head!  I just put stuff in my hair."

I'll do my best, which right now, today, is just hanging on to the rails and trying not to cry.  

This ride is crazy.

On Turning Thirteen

A dear friend of mine recently wrote a group of friends and asked if we could contribute to a book she was putting together for her daughter, who was turning thirteen. This is what I sent, minus the name. It just so happens that this beautiful young woman was born the day before another dear friends' daughter, and, well, since I can remember my own boy rolling around on the rug with these girls when they were all babies, it seems fitting to post it here, as well. I am focusing mighty hard on these young people in the coming months, holding them in my minds eye during election season. Because as exasperated as I get with rhetoric, I happen to know for a fact, that these fine young people will see us through to the other side.

Dear S,

You won't remember me, but I feel as though I know you. I met you when you were first born in Los Angeles (technically, I met you before that when your mom and dad first found out they were pregnant), I babysat for you a few times and have followed your life as your mom has posted wonderful things about you on Facebook. I haven't seen you since you were about 4 or 5, and I can't quite wrap my brain around the fact that you are going to be a teenager!

As a mother myself, of a boy almost two years younger than you, I have to tell you how hopeful I am for the future of our country, and our world. Your generation has so many advantages that previous generations have not. I am not just speaking of technology, I am also speaking of bravery, of truth, of knowledge and new ways of looking at the world. I truly believe that, just as we humans have evolved to lose our tails and stand erect, future generations, beginning with this one, are developing a very finely honed bullshit meter. It might not be an easy thing, but more than ever before, you have more information at your fingertips, to sort through, to disseminate fact from fiction. You are exposed to more of everything, and at a lightening pace. If you can always find and listen to that still small voice inside you, the one that says "yes" or "that's a load of hooey", you will be better than okay. You will be YOU, and that is what the world is so in need of right now.

I remember being your age and walking with my dad. He was the age I am now, and I couldn't get over how SLOW he was. This was way before personal computers and cell phones. This was just out WALKING, for heaven's sake. And now I see the same exasperation in my son's eyes when I can't keep up in some way - sharp mental acuity is the province of the young.

Something to take into account, though, before you all roll your eyes at your doddering parents. Our hesitance, our "slowness", if you will, is merely the gift of time that we have been given. It's like we are watching a giant clock that began to run the moment you were born, and our measured pace is merely the desire to have more time with you. Not necessarily to stop you from growing up, we know this to be inevitable and feel certain the world will be lucky to get such amazing young adults; but to hold on for a bit longer to the idea that you belong to us, the notion that we can protect you and guide you to make the right decisions, before it's time for you to do those things on your own. Just to hold on to you a bit longer. To marvel at you, to enjoy you, and to make sure you know how to wash your dishes and fold a t-shirt. That is our small contribution to your amazing selves. Well, that, and to see you safely through puberty, which is like teething was for you as a baby, with less drool. The next few years are sure to provide you with moments of uncertainty, but don't be fooled by those crazy hormones. Get still, if you can, get quiet, and listen hard to hear your truth, and remember that feelings are not facts. They are fleeting, and while they are of great worth to shape your experiences in life, they are only part of the equation. When you feel overwhelmed by them, that's a good time to take a nap, or eat an apple. Or sit next to your mom on the couch, and lean your head on her shoulder and just be you.


Magnificent teenager.


Lots of love and Happy Birthday,

Annie McQ

Get Back, (Dark) Temptation

Do you know what happens when your boy child hits about 11 1/2?  He starts to SMELL.  Kids going through puberty are little body odor FACTORIES.  They can be squeaky clean, but their armpits?

PEEEEYOOOOOOOO!

I was in the car with him this week, and caught a whiff and remembered the most important thing on my to-do list:  let him pick out some deodorant.  So, today, we went on a little deodorant-buying expedition.

Back when I was a kid and lived with my dad and my brothers, there was only ONE deodorant in our house.  Right Guard.  Spray.  I honestly didn't need to know anything about the ozone to know that this stuff was killing SOMETHING.

Since then, I hadn't looked at men's deodorant.  Ever.  Charley buys his own, so it's not something I have ever considered.  Until today.  And I have to congratulate you, you manly men, because you are sort of eclipsing us girls in the sheer number of deodorant selections on the market.  There were so many, it took us quite a while to choose.  So we did what we do when we go hat shopping for JH, and here I shall helpfully give you the guidelines of shopping for your pre-teen/teen.  This should work equally well for girls.
You're welcome.

Rules for shopping for deodorant (or whatEVer) with your preteen:

1) try as many as possible in the first ten minutes.
2) narrow it down to three
3) add two more (or trade two out, it's your decision, really)
4) be completely unable to choose between two, and you'll run out of time and have to choose two anyway.

This should only take between 1 -3 hours.

As I said, I was impressed by the sheer number of choices, and the creativity in naming men's deodorant/anti-perspirant.

We tried:  Swagger, Sport, Pure Sport, Clean, Extra Clean, Fresh, Extra Fresh, Playmaker, Game Day, Smooth Blast, Phoenix, Danger Zone, After Hours, Fiji, Danali, Matterhorn, Excite, Anarchy, Twist, Kilo, Clix, Essence....The list is long and (hat tip to the marketing department) mighty creative.

We finally settled for Degree Sport and Axe Essence.  Not TOO manly, but it works to tackle those crazy hormonal preteen armpits.

I refused to consider Dark Temptation.  He's 11, and he's my baby, and dammit, I'm paying for it, so I still have a say.

My Young Man

I had a wild hair this summer and decided that I wanted to read some plays.  After making my living as an actor for nearly fifteen years, then taking a break for the last twelve, some part of me was waking up and wanting to stretch.

On a whim, I sent out letters to a couple commercial agencies in town, and got called in for an audition last week.  I had to do a monologue, which to me as an actor when I was doing them all the time was the most nerve wracking, un-natural thing on earth; but now I'm a menopausal wreck who can barely remember my own name on a good day how was I going to memorize a monologue?

As it turns out, there is a lot of muscle memory to this stuff.  I worked and worked and muttered to myself for over a week.  I did my monologue for Charley, I rehearsed it while walking the dog, I did it while doing dishes.  I had the audition, it went okay, but my nerves!!! Oh my gosh.  Even though I feel a thousand times more comfortable in my skin than I did when I was working, I could still feel my heart racing, but I managed to get a callback.

It would be two days later, and with an additional two people in the (very tiny) room.  In the meantime - we had friends in town, we had doctors appointments, I could no longer just focus on "the work".  Still, I treated it like an experiment.  Just flexing old muscles, more for myself than anyone else.

Yesterday, as I was cleaning and muttering, JH asked why I was talking to myself.  When I explained what I was doing, he asked if he could hear my monologue.  I chose this monologue because the woman is crazy, and funny, and I thought it would be a chance to show them something close to myself.  Although I have never been institutionalized, menopause has given me new insight into irrational thinking!

Here is where the whole perspective shift happened for me.  My boy, my amazing kid, gave me his full attention.  He paid me compliments.  He gave me real and valuable feedback.  He was sort of wowed by my (rusty) ability to become someone else.  He helped to ground me, he helped me run lines, he helped calm my nerves on the way to the audition.  We had an appointment right after, so I brought him with me, and he waited in the lobby and played with the agent's 16 month old son.  He made me so, so proud.

I was a wreck.  I don't think I did very well.  I couldn't stop my heart from racing.  I had difficulty staying on track, but I finished the monologue well, I think.  The scene I read with one of the people in the room went better, though, but still, I doubt I'll be going back there any time soon.  But it didn't matter.  When I came down from the audition, saw my sweet young man sitting on the floor playing with the wee one, and later in the car, when he just reached out and touched my leg and said "I'm so proud of you, Mom.  I know you were nervous, but you did your best.  I'm so proud..."  I felt like nothing else mattered.  There was no beating myself up, no self-defeating talk, which had been my constant companion back in the day.

Now, there was only this:  No matter what external forces bring, whether failure or triumph, I am the mother to an amazing human being.

Rough Day Ahead?

So, today should be fun.  C is getting his first colonoscopy tomorrow, which for the uninitiated (those of you under 50), means today he is not allowed to eat anything but jello and popsicles, which is a perfect diet if you're 5, but not so great if you are a grown man; and he has to drink an entire bottle of Miralax over the course of three hours and spend the rest of the day in his bathroom.  He asked his doctor if he could work today, and his doctor said "Do you work on a toilet?  Because unless you work on a toilet, then no, you can't go to work."  So there's that.

If that weren't enough fun for one day, I dished out a consequence for the boy yesterday that entails no xbox and no cell phone today.  Seriously, I'm thinking of locking myself in the bathroom with C.  Or running away to join a chain gang.  At least they sing.

What happened was this - He had a friend over, and they were going to ride scooters to a neighborhood park, and I had to run to the vet to get Emma the wonderdog her special dogfood, and was only going to be gone for fifteen minutes.  He had instructions to be home in an hour.  And he had his phone with him in case of an emergency.  As I'm driving to the vet, I pass the park and see two guys from our 'hood playing basketball.  These guys are in their twenties and they are sketchy.  Like, drugdealing, thieving, but no one has caught them yet sketchy.  As I pull over to call JH, Charley texts me to ask me to pick up prescriptions at the drugstore, which I know will add a bit of time to my run, but no problem, I'll just call the boy and tell him to wait to go to the park until I get home.  I also knew that the other boys mom was home and close by, so I wasn't freaked out.  Yet.

I dialed and got the machine and I leave a message.  He's probably just on his scooter and didn't hear the phone.  I get to the vet, I pick up Em's food, and call again.  No answer.  I head to the drugstore, which is just a few blocks away.  I text.  Nothing.  By this time, I'm standing in line to get the prescription, but my hands are starting to sweat, and I'm envisioning the boys tied to a basketball hoop, robbed of their possessions and crying for their moms.  Or he's lost his phone.  Or left it in the backyard.  I call three more times.  Shoot.  It's in the backyard, and the hoodlums heard the phone and stole it AFTER they tied the boys to the basketball hoop.  The pharmacist hands me the prescriptions and I pay and race out the door, my heart in my throat.

As I pull up the hill, I see the boys walking up the hill with scooters, laughing.

"Where's your phone?!!!"

"Hey mom!  Why'd you call me so much?"

He heard the phone.  He saw my text.  He just didn't bother to listen to my messages OR pick up the phone.

Really, he got off light.  My first instinct was no phone for a week.  But realizing that the phone alone wouldn't do it, I had to take the xbox hostage too.  And after I calmed down and we talked about WHY it's important for him to answer his phone, that I'm not just calling to say "hi"- five phone calls in a row MIGHT be important, I knew he got it, he was remorseful AND wouldn't do it again, I still had to give some sort of consequence.  But a week without xbox is going to be a bigger punishment for me than him.  One day.  Plus he gets to do some work for me today.

I do believe there will be wine for Mom tonight.

Like Old Friends....

I stopped blogging.  I felt like too much of myself was somewhere else, instead of home, like some crazy creature from Harry Potter, my thoughts were characters, floating in the ether, instead of in my head helping me to find whatever it is JH needed me to find, or come up with an idea for dinner, or remember to make appointments with specialists for JH... or one of a thousand other things that I could NO LONGER REMEMBER TO DO WITHOUT WRITING IT DOWN.

But last night, C showed me this this book review about this book and it got me to thinking:  while using my limited menopausal brainpower to find JH's underwear/socks/asthmainhaler/phone/sunglasses/librarybook in his room, I realized that I was a) not doing my son any favors, and b) I missed writing.  I missed recording the stories.  So - new rule.  If it's in your room and you can't find it, that's tough luck.  Keep track.  Put it away.  You're on your own.  That decision freed up 2 mb of brainspace, and I oughta be able to blog a little, right?!

Much has happened since I was last here.  JH played in Little League for the first time; he graduated from elementary school and will be going to a different school in the fall; he didn't get in to the Arts School, which was a devastating head smacker, but we are all moving on to the best of our ability (I now only cry myself to sleep three nights out of the week instead of all 7); JH's leg is getting harder to lug around, he gets tired easily, he's growing like a weed; and to top it all off, he's going through puberty, which if you think it's easier for boys than girls, you have a nuther think comin' (as my dear departed daddy used to say!)  JH has been using wheels more and more - he has two skateboards now, he rides his bike, and he used a wheelchair for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago, which he thought was the best thing ever because he could actually enjoy the art instead of trying not to make a fuss about his leg hurting.  Recently we were in the car and he was absent-mindedly rubbing his leg, and I asked if it was hurting, and without any attitude at all he said "it always hurts".  I knew that it might feel heavy.  I knew that it bothered him sometimes.  I knew it made him run a bit slower than the rest.  But it killed me that, as his mom, I was not aware that it hurt all the time.  Always.

I missed having a place to put these things down in writing.  And while I don't feel a need to shape the story, I do feel a need to share it, again.  And like old friends, even though life has moved me down the river a bit, it seems like no time has passed since last we met.

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.