Category: parenting

speaking….and other ways to embarrass a middle schooler

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We are hot wing loving people, and we drove a good 20 miles this day to get them. We said, “Let’s celebrate Labor Day! And the end of a great summer! Tonight….we feast!” We didn’t say the feast part out loud, but I sure thought it.

With one week of middle school under his belt, Jake plopped down next to me at the restaurant table. Instead of getting to talk to my older kid’s face, however, I was granted access only to the back of his head. We were surrounded by no fewer than 30 televisions covering every possible surface in the new chain restaurant. I looked nervously at the giant projection screen hanging precariously above my head. Baseball, football, college football, high school football, what looked like Dr. Oz, and even America’s Funniest Home Videos blurred soundlessly together while music played in the background.

I didn’t harp on the boys about watching the TVs, there were just too many to ignore. I couldn’t help but watch either, just like everybody else in the crowded dining room. When you have that many people together staring at TVs from every possible angle – weird eye contact will inevitably happen. I was sure the guy with the ZZ Top Beard was looking at me because he assumed I was staring at his beard, which I was for a minute. But really, he was probably just watching whatever game was above our table, or at the very least, waiting for the screen to fall on me before my wings arrived.

A girl across the restaurant with a 60’s beehive also seemed to be looking at us. Either that or she was watching the same thing as ZZ, which seemed highly unlikely. No, she was definitely looking at me, and my utter lack of a beehive hairdo, for which I was now very self-conscious.

“Focus, people, focus.” John used his natural leadership skills to bring us all back to the task at hand – ordering wings. The menu was six pages long with an insert. There was a chart, and a graphic of a giant bottle of hot sauce with what looked to be dozens of different wing ordering variables.  There was the sauce side and the dry rub side. There was sweet on one end of the heat spectrum, a picture of flames on the other. We settled on a big platter of very exotic “medium.”

Exhausted from the hardest thinking I’d done all day, I settled back, and my ears perked up. I knew this song. I loved this song. “It’s Dead or Alive!” I yelped, “I don’t feel right saying the name of the song, because it’s not entirely appropriate… but it’s Dead or Alive…the band!” I girly clapped for unnecessary emphasis.

They all nodded.

“Eeeeee.”

“What?”

“Depeche Mode! It’s Depeche Mode.” I girly clapped again, because now it was a terrible habit.

The TVs may have been silent zombie-creating light boxes, but the stereo system was loud and clear, and apparently set to “80’s Stun.”

John took the little one to the restroom as I tried to explain to Jake the significance of Pat Benetar; “60% of her awesomeness must have been her haircut,” I said earnestly. I waved my hands around my head trying to pantomime the swoopiness of her feathering. He nodded again, and I took to my phone to find a picture.

When the guys returned to the table, I was flipping though my results from Googling “Pat Benatar Hair” images. I’ve Googled some stupid things, many of them twice, but this search was a first.

Jake looked at the photos, and then back to the bank of TVs, immediately guffawing at AFHV (when you are a fiercely loyal fan of crotch kicking, wedding-dance-gone-wrong, annoyed animal videos, you may also unapologetically call America’s Funniest Home Videos, AFHV), “Look at that cat. How does it do that?” he said, mystified. I looked around to find the screen with the crazy cat, and sucked in my breath when I spotted something awesome. I nudged Jake. “The woman directly behind you, has Pat Benatar’s exact haircut,” I whispered. He slyly looked over his shoulder, then looked to me, nodding in polite acknowledgement.

Another song came on that I recognized. I’d listened to it on my boombox in my room as a kid. “Catch Me I’m Falling.”  Who sang this? Who. Sang. This? I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable in my not knowing.

My darling husband has many gifts, one of my favorites being his awe inspiring ability to immediately recognize and name the title and artist of songs; and not just any dumb ol’ songs, but 1980’s adult contemporary classics. The more obscure, the better. His childhood weekends were spent with Casey Kasem and the American Top 40. It’s obviously one of the top 3 reasons why I agreed to marry him.

“I can’t remember who sang this,” he admitted. Now he looked uncomfortable too.

“Stacey Q?” I guessed. Wait, she couldn’t have possibly had another song other than “Two of Hearts.” Back in the day, my friend Jenni and I preferred to call it, “Two Pop Tarts.” Hilarious.

John, sounding like Sherlock Homes, began his process of deduction, “This song was out at the same time as a Taylor Dayne song.”

“Is it Taylor Dayne?”

He looked at me like I was asking if he was Taylor Dayne.

“Um, no.”

“Ok, so most definitely not Taylor Dayne, and not Jody Watley…right?” I was grasping now.

The wings were here and my hands were saucy, but it was worth the risk.

“I’m so sorry everybody, I hate to do this, but I have to do this.” I took my phone out again and quickly found what I was looking for. “Pretty Poison? What? I’ve never heard of them.”

“Pretty Poison,” John said nodding solemnly, “Yup, that’s it. Man, I knew that.”

Jake looked at me expectantly, perhaps waiting to hear what the singer’s hair looked like, or where I was when I first heard that song, or maybe how Pretty Poison was the best band in the history of music and a major influence on artists he listens to, like B.o.B and One Republic.

I had nothing, so he quickly turned away in his seat, going back to his wings and AFHV.

Oh no. Was he….embarrassed? Annoyed? Both? It didn’t matter that nobody in this place, whether they had a Pat Benatar haircut or a ZZ Top beard, was paying attention to us. Well, beehive girl was, but I knew that nobody need be present for a tween to be embarrassed. He was a sweet kid, and was doing his best to humor me as I waxed poetic about the old timey music I grew up with. I scrapped my plans to use photos of my freshman dorm to illustrate the lesson One Hit Wonders: 90’s edition.

Alas, he is in middle school, and I now hold more potential for annoyance and embarrassment than I did just a week ago – a milestone for us both. I would let him eat his wings and watch his falling down videos in peace. Just wait ’til the day though, he’s eating medium wings with his kids and he gets excited for the Black Eyed Peas on the classic hits station, and he really wants them to appreciate how the lady at the next table looks exactly like Lady Gaga.

VISUAL AIDES

*The photo at the top is not the most flattering of me by any means, but somehow, I’m delighted by how delighted I look to be there.

*The middle photo is my freshman dorm room that I shared with my roommate Heidi. We actually SLEPT in there, in the midst of the chaos.Please note the EMF poster.

*The bottom photo is my far more refined sophomore room that I shared with Liane. No EMF poster, but I do see a poster for Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and L.A. Style, and that Johnny Depp movie they screened on campus, Benny & Joon. There is a rack of cassettes and cassingles AND a rack of CDs. Everything else, I would put up again today, Pearl Jam, The Cure, Depeche Mode, INXS, and the 34,000 photos I ripped out of magazines like Spin.

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welcome class of 2024

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The sign hanging on the tree was written in big bubbly blue and gold letters, “Welcome Class of 2024.”

Could this be the place? 2024? This must be a picnic for kids much, much, muuuuch older than my 5-year-old. I glanced around the park, hoping to spot another group.

“What about me, mom?” asked the older one pointing at the sign, “when do I graduate?”

“Give me a minute to do the math even though you were born in 2000 and I should know it off the top of my head.…..2018. You’re the class of 2018.”  That couldn’t be right either; I think that’s when my New York Magazine subscription expires.

We’d pulled up to the kindergarten picnic and mixer a few minutes late, which had not been my intention. Unsure of current kindergarten party etiquette, I was shooting for an on-time arrival, but it took 15 minutes to find the 2024 graduate’s shoes; the black shoes, not the blue shoes, because you only get one shot at making a first impression. (For future reference, 15 minutes seems to be exactly “fashionably late” for kindergarten social events, unlike the 20-30 minute late arrival expected at your standard 3rd or 4th grade mixers.)

There were kids all over the play structure, hovering at the food table, and running off into the trees. I greeted a friend and asked where her son was. “He’s over there in the fort, getting tics.”

None of the kids at the mixer though, seemed to be mixing.

Zach would not leave his dad’s or older brother’s side as much as Jake tried to shake him. A lady by the watermelon pointed at her two boys. That soon-to-be kindergartener had suddenly taken a keen interest in watching over his toddler brother, shooing away any other kids who happened by.

A darling little girl skipped past, and I called Zach over.

“Can you say hi, Zach? This is Maddie…she might be in your class.”

“Uuuuggh!  Mooooooom, Where’s Jacob? What’s he doing? I need to go see him.”

“Wait! Say hi to Maddie! Come back, Zach! Woop, there goes Maddie, too. Nice to meet you Maaaaadddddiiiieee!”

Hoping to benefit from the experience of my 2018 graduate’s elementary school years, I knew this was no time to be shy. These other grown ups? The ones trying to calmly manage premature cookie intake and facilitate introductions of kids who would rather squeeze their eyes shut and make fart noises with their mouths, than say “hello?” These are our new classmates. We are going to be chaperoning field trips to the wildlife museum, setting up book fairs, and lamenting homework and eye rolling with these people for years.

I went in with both guns ablazin’, introducing myself to anyone who even glanced in my direction. I think maybe a couple of them were there for some soccer thing, and not in fact to fete the class of 2024, but by golly, I was going to be nice in case I got to see them again at Back to School Night or in the frozen foods section at Safeway.

Fortified by half eaten hot dogs, juicy watermelon and chocolate chip cookies, the little kids finally started to acknowledge each other, playing chase, up and down the slide and around the tree.

Jake would intermittently join in the chase games, and then sit moodily on top of the play structure until finally one of his buddies showed up —  another older brother. The two big guys loped joyfully away to play Frisbee and take advantage of their well developed hand-eye coordination that, unlike their smaller playmates, would allow them to actually catch the Frisbee.

Back on the playground, the little boys outnumbered the little girls  3 to 1, though the girls outstyled the boys something fierce. Dressed to impress, they came ready to mix in bows, sundresses, and sparkly accessories – all of which were now covered in watermelon drippings. Big ups to the girl in the tiara and chocolate mustache.

The gaggle of stick-wielding, sticky faced boys provided a glimpse into the future – Comic-Con 2026, to be exact. The 5-year-old fanboys made their allegiances known through their T-shirts.

“Which kid is yours?”

“Batman.”

“Star Wars.”

When it was my turn, I pointed toward the snack table, “Indiana Jones.”

Soon the unwieldy yelling, chasing and unabashed snacking, gave way to little kids looking for a comfortable place to sit down, or in some unfortunate cases, lay down.

The parents exchanged information on smart phones, plucked dirty picnic blankets from the grass to leave, and then their dirtier, sweaty crumpled children.

The Class of 2024 sign had fallen from its spot on the tree into the dirt.

“What did you think, Zach?,” we asked as he rested his head on his car seat.

“Good. Hey, what’s the name of that kid who’s my new best friend? That kid I was playing with?”

“The one who threw up?”

“No, the other guy. The one with the stick. I like that guy. I’m gonna look for him at school.”

Jake shook his head and stared out the window. He’d looked huge to me today, towering over Zach and his new best friends. I realized at that moment, that this big kid started kindergarten practically yesterday,  just a few precious days before the birth of his brother, and this coming week he would be in the same boat as Zach –one of the younger, shorter, less experienced newbies on campus.

He’s registering for middle school.

6th grade – the kindergarten of teenagers, complete with fanboy T-shirts, sparkly accessories, and awkward introductions, but perhaps with fewer fart noises (fingers crossed!) and more cell phones. Wish us luck.

beachy kleen

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I am human so I love the beach and the water. It’s soothing to stare at and inspirational for all types – photographers, theologians, painters, poets, and I’m guessing, boat builders. You can get wrapped up envisioning the generations of admirers that have come before you, sitting on these same shores in their old timey clothes, happy to escape the grind of old timey life like covered wagons and washboards and lard buckets. It’s easy to think about God and bigness and eternity. You respect the power of the water, and the majesty of the sunsets and mountains.

But when it comes time to clean off two sandy boys in a rented retreat center bathroom, I think not so nice things about nature and the beach, and that maybe a lard bucket wouldn’t be so bad after all. Sand, as noble and poetic as it is, is exceptionally hard to remove from little legs and bobbing heads of thick hair. There are never enough towels, and there’s not an actual lid on this toilet, so anything that comes in a 4-foot radius of it, is most certainly going to wind up in it. This is not your home shower, so its quirks are still a fun mystery to you…. either one drastically wayward stream of water that shoots all over the room, or the nozzle that you somehow left pointed at the front door. That’s fun because when you turn it on, your child is left naked and shivering and dry, and you are clothed, soaked and fake-swearing. “Ding dang! Darg blummit!” The sibling is of course unattended in the other room, still wearing his goggles, with sand coming out of every crevice. He is more than likely rolling around in the sheets of all of the beds and trying on your watch.

Wet bathing suits hang from every available pole, hanger and hook, dripping, dripping, dripping onto your purse, or creating a slipping hazard for later.

If we were living in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog, the beach would be a breeze. Our little toe headed beach adept sand angels would play an innocent game of tag while giggling, then finish with big hugs and brotherly cuddles. I would of course be wearing a designer tunic while preparing fresh lemonade spritzers in my nautically themed kitchen. We would have outside showers and our personalized towels would hang jauntily from conveniently placed kid-height pegs.  But alas, the beach for most people on planet Earth, is not like that.

I grew up vacationing every summer in our family’s travel trailer, either in Santa Cruz or Southern California, but always by the beach. So the trauma and the drama of the beach shower was very much a part of the summer routine. My older brother and dad would wait patiently in our patio/picnic area complete with astro turf and strung owl party lights, while I would scream dramatically from the trailer’s postage stamp bathroom, “Stop! Stop! My eyes! My eyes! I’m blind! I’m drowning!”  My mother would somehow keep her cool and remind me that if I stopped screaming about my eyes, I would be less likely to swallow so much shower water. There was no pesky sunblock back then that we would have to wash off, but my brand new sunburn would certainly keep things interesting. “My shoulders! My eyes! I’m blind! I’m burning!”

When the screaming was over, I would emerge in my terry cloth outfit, freshly pig tailed, gangly arms crossed, 300 more freckles than I started the day with, and undoubtedly frowning. Scott and dad would maybe pump up the tires on the bike or throw a Frisbee. Mom would bring out hamburgers, and 3 different kinds of pickles, potato chips and Shasta Cola, humming. Nobody would speak of the injustice of the mandatory beach shower.

When John manages this process with our boys, he makes it look so easy – everybody lined up, in and out of the shower, no big deal. I thought of him and the serenity my mother would maintain through my hissy fits as I looked for clean shorts for the kid jumping on the bed, and a pair of socks for the one digging through my purse for gum.

With everybody dressed, relatively dry, and smelling better, we made our way down the hall for lunch, when the little one turned to me, “I am so excited to go right back to the beach the second we finish eating!”

interlude

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Between lying in the Disneyworld sun (it’s like they have their own sun!), and lying in bed melodramatically clutching Kleenex in each hand, and lying on the couch surrounded by work notebooks and papers and sticky notes with cryptic half-words scrawled on them, I’ve been occupied. Indisposed? (Either way sounds bathroom related. Everything sounds bathroom related when you’re surrounded by boys all the time.)

I of course would be completely honored and totally surprised if anybody noticed it had been a while since I posted anything. But I noticed, because small funny illustrative moments kept happening, and I couldn’t take advantage of them like I had grown blissfully accustomed to. And I didn’t take notes like I promised myself I would. I’ve walked by my laptop, and run a finger along the top, wistfully recalling how once upon a time I could sit over there *points* typity type type typing the night away while uncharacteristically letting shows stack up in my DVR. (I would very much like to tell you, and in short order, about my waterpark temper tantrum, the bodyguard in the Gucci sunglasses with the book of Sudoku puzzles, Ponce de Leon, the art of confiscation and a less than magical turn on the Magical Express.)

It’s been a whirlwind of activity and emotion that have included a blinding flurry of work and work functions as well as the sun soaked giddiness of a much appreciated vacation and getting to see old friends…all accompanied by the intense desperation for a nap, a mug of tea and a decongestant.

I had a feeling it was bad when three people walked past my office door in a day, gave me a cursory glance and wave, then doubled back to ask if I was ok. I caught a glimpse of my reflection. Wild haired and tired eyed and sorely in need of lipstick.

We’re all victims/offenders of busy (depends on how you look at it), but what’s so acutely new to me this time are the byproducts of being a kid of aging parents and a parent of aging kids. Every conversation in our house is anchored by preschool and or 5th grade “graduation” and what’s next for the boys; what’s next at work; or what’s next as we navigate the unfun health stuff of one of our parents toward what we expect to be a positive, and frankly, more fun outcome.  And then there’s the part where we remind ourselves that it could be a lot worse, and it’s actually the perfect time to count our blessings, and then I feel junky for feeling sorry for myself in the first place. (I just cannot be the only person who does that.)

As I sit in the middle of happy and hard things last week, this week and next, I’m hopeful for the return of the sun, and maybe some sense of normal. I’ve asked for prayers without hesitation, and bent many an ear, and look forward to returning the favor.

bloomers

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I’ve logged enough hours with Wills and Kate this last week that they should be able to do me a solid, and issue a royal decree that it is officially summer.   

I followed the media coverage, and sat on my bed dutifully watching my recording and weeping a little bit, like you do at the weddings of all your friends. John happily excused himself to make dinner, leaving me to my celebration, while the boys drifted in and out the room asking questions. They could not believe how long everything was taking and I hadn’t even told them about the first 200 minutes of pomp I had already watched. They asked about the trees in Westminster Abby and I reported as if she had told me herself, that Kate is very outdoorsy and was really going for an English Garden feeling. Then they asked about the carriage and the footmen, and all of the fancy outfits on the clergy, and it was decided that John should probably get that cool tall hat if he’s gonna get anywhere in this ministry business.

When it finished, and with great sadness and blurry eyes, I deleted the wedding from the DVR in order to make room for May sweeps. I then ventured into my yard to reconnect with the people I know in real life and enjoy the glorious weather.

Zach and I even went outside in the morning before school the other day. It’s Teacher Appreciation week, and we were asked to cut flowers from our gardens to contribute to bouquets for the extraordinarily deserving and saintly pre-school teachers. An absolutely lovely idea. Now if we only had a garden. Thank God for the flowering bush outside, that I can take absolutely no credit for. Its vibrant pink flowers bloom generously just in time for teacher appreciation every year. 

John took Zach to the store the first day of the week and they gallantly delivered beautiful and professionally tended red roses. I thought on the second day, I’m going to go to my garden, aka flowering bush-I-do-not-know-the-name-of, to select some lovely home grown blooms. Zach and I stood at the bush with my pruning shears. They are pruning shears one day a year when I stand at that plant during Teacher Appreciation Week. On every other day, they are the office scissors with the orange handles.

Only this week did I discover that we also have roses growing in the yard. In spite of me, we have roses. The bush must be just far enough away from the basketball hoop to have survived this long. Right now there are four blooms – full and dark red and wildly fragrant. If you put your nose to them, you would undoubtedly note the universal smell of great-grandmother. When I found the roses, I insisted the boys come over for a whiff. They looked nervous and asked if something was going to come out of the petals to get them. Perhaps they do share my wariness of the great outdoors after all.

Just a few feet from the valiant rose bush, is the spot where the Venus Flytrap of a horribly mean cactus is disappearing.  We have a guy who’s making that happen. We don’t ask questions; I don’t want to know how he makes it go away, he just does it. He takes care of the problem. I feel like the mob boss wife of cactuses. While there was remorse for the tree that fell in the storms a few months ago, and even the blooms we cut from the bush in the morning, I have no feelings for the cactus. Its needles were like tiny daggers, and we lost many a baseball to it. It didn’t take long for the kids to realize that when it comes to boy vs. cactus, cactus wins. I was certain it was eyeing the children hungrily. Since the thing has started disappearing in sizeable chunks, two baseball carcasses have surfaced.

My brother, the person in this world with who I am most genetically linked, gardens and grills and does things that require regular trips to stores that specialize in fishing poles and tents. He can grow anything, and to counter his stressful schedule, he lovingly tends his suburban crops. It has to be absolutely perfect weather to get me excited about eating in the yard because there are about 40 extra steps to serve an outside meal. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. You have to clean bird poop off the table before you can sit down outside, and I have never had to do that in my dining room. However, when there are twinkle lights up, I find it much easier to lounge at the table, waving bees away from my grilled veggies and listening to the boys happily chatter without the distraction of the stuff that waits inside like homework and dishes.

So hang the twinkle lights, hose down the poop table, smell a rose, kill a cactus and call me Duchess of the Yard, it’s time to be outside again.

twister

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The pancake house has a twister now. That’s not a euphemism either, and I’m shocked that two posts in a row have been inspired and kicked off by this pancake house. On top of the bacon they cook directly into the pancakes, they now have a twister – or for the civilians out there – a balloon animal maker. I know a guy, who knows a guy who knows a twister, in case you were wondering how I’m privy to the lingo.

We walked in to the restaurant giddy with anticipation and I spotted a giant balloon sword, larger than the proud sword bearer who was struggling under the sheer size, and not the weight I suppose. There were balloons everywhere and though I knew what this probably meant, I held out the hope that it was one of those 8:00 in the morning pancake house kid’s birthday parties that if not en vogue today, might be tomorrow.

Zach put eyes on her first. We followed the host to the table and tried to order juice and so so much coffee over Zach’s suddenly loud and animated “There’s a balloon lady! There’s a balloon lady! There’s a balloon lady!”

I don’t mind the balloon lady. She looked like a very nice person. But nobody can relax at a meal when there’s a balloon lady. Or a balloon dude. Until you make direct eye contact with them, they are the elusive twister. (Unless of course, you don’t want a balloon, in which case they’re the ever-present twister) In the pancake house, there were a lot of kids watching the twister’s every twist, every stretch, every limp and lifeless balloon in her apron come to life at her skilled hands.

You could see the wheels turning in the kids’ heads, trying to count how many other kids are between the twister and their table. And also weighing their options. I like monkeys, but I got a monkey last time. Do you think she knows “dolphin?” What is that she’s doing now? Is that an octopus? That’s an octopus. That’s awesome. “Look, look, look at the octopus.”

The wheels in my head were turning too, and were laced with inner turmoil, as they always are when balloons are involved. This thing’s going to pop and someone’s going to cry. It will probably float away, or cause a fight when Jake undoubtedy touches it.  Seriously, when is the balloon lady gonna get here? Oh no, there are four kids at that table, and that last octopus took like 8 minutes. We’ve just ordered. She’s never gonna get here. “Excuse me miss, my son’s very anxious about the balloon, I mean, I’m not – I’m like whatever – but my son would really like a balloon, would you let the balloon lady know that we’d love to see her?”

Sure there was another table of kids between us and the twister, but in all fairness, they hadn’t ordered, and our handwhipped butter had arrived. We were up against the clock.

One more octopus later, and much to the dismay of the table of girls who were sure they were next, the twister arrived. “I twist for tips” was her greeting. We nodded and asked if she knew “dolphin.”

“No, but I can do flying fish. I twist for tips, I’m not paid by the restaurant.”

“Right, got it. We’ll take the flying fish.” The girls at the other table were turned around in their booth eyeing the fish. I avoided eye contact with the mother who I can assume was giving me a stink eye and timing how long the flying fish was taking.

When the flying fish was finished, it had eyeballs and a fishing pole that was bigger than Zach. It had kissy lips, and I swear, facial expression. We provided the tip (she twists for tips) and got her card. She also does temporary air brush body art and bubbles.

Our food had arrived, and when I wasn’t pouring syrup or cutting pancakes, I was managing the fish, keeping it out of our breakfasts, stopping Zach from sitting on it, and trying to keep it from dangling over the heads of the balloonless girls in the next booth.

When it was mercifully time to go, I grabbed the box of ham that I hadn’t had time to finish, and we began the slow walk through the dining room. We were lead by Zach who, like a royal, gave the diners ample time to ooh and aahhh over he and his fish. When he was satisfied with his grand exit, he went tearing down the sidewalk, the fish flying behind him like a kite. “Stop!” I screeched, “Watch where you’re going! The parking lot is right there.” I turned to Jake who was shaking his head. “That thing is not going to make it to the car.”

Zach turned on a dime to follow the sidewalk toward our car. His balloon banged into the building, and I sighed with relief as it bounced back. He stopped briefly to peek into a can full of cigarette butts perched at the kitchen door. “Zach be careful – don’t swing that thing or it’s going to – “

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

There on the sidewalk by the cigarette butt can lay the balloon eyeballs, relatively unscathed. Zach stood in shock, staring at the eyeballs with a few surviving balloons hanging shapelessly from the pole. There were tears. We carried the parts to the car, and as Jake consoled his little brother, I tried to twist the remains into something recognizable. The lips were gone, as were the fins. I handed the new arrangement to Zachary who stopped sniffling. He and Jacob had moved on to discussing things that stink.

don’t call that vintage: ‘dos and wheels

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We took the boys in for haircuts the other day. Zach climbed up into the chair shaped like a race car and asked confidently for the “Buster Posey,” while Jake’s stylist and I stood over his impressive noggin of thick hair, pawing at it. She said “texturize” a few times and I nodded solemnly. We swept it over his eyes this way and that, and I gave the international signal for “No ‘Dumb and Dumber’ bangs please.” She looked horrified that I would even suggest such a thing would be possible on her watch. But you have to ask – you have to get it out on record that there are to be no straight across bowl cut bangs. We’ve been burned by that before.

That very morning the boys had been running about the baseball fields as the parents sat in the stands lamenting the states of each of our kid’s hair. Everybody’s was long and flopping into their eyes. And now thanks to baseball season, they were having to try to contain their locks under their hats, where we could also count on the bonus of all that sweat. The older boys are of course now responsible for the washing and the rinsing of the hair, which only makes me wonder how many layers of sweat we’re talking about, really.

Courtney the stylist whirled around Jacob like a blonde satellite – her brow furrowed and those funny scissors with all the teethy things snipping away in a blinding blur.  She circled him a dozen more times after she stopped snipping to swoosh the hair around again with her fingers. When she was finally satisfied with the swooshiness I suppose, she swung his chair around so I could see the results. “I love it,” I said loudly and matter-of-factly.  John leaned over to me and asked if there had actually been any hairs cut. It was my turn to roll my eyes. “It’s the style,” I said with the indignant emphasis of a teenage girl whose own style was being questioned, as I walked over to join them and swoosh it around too. Courtney, at my side, hands on her hips, chimed in. “It is….it is the style.” John shrugged and looked out the window to the parking lot, now painfully aware he was sitting in a room not only full of women who took pride in staying current with 10-year-old boys’ hairstyles, but also little boys who were too wrapped up in “Scooby Doo” to be of any help to him.

Jake grabbed his banana split lollipop out of the basket and took his spot next to us on the bench while we waited for Zach’s 1977 Luke Skywalker fluffy mane (his second go-round with this) to be shorn into the Buster Posey. The lollipop was still in Jake’s mouth, when in all seriousness he asked, “can we go to the mall?” John and I looked at each other, and busted out laughing like a couple of tired and predictable sitcom parents.

“What? What’ so funny?” Jake asked, still swirling the lollipop.

There was our little boy, with his styled hair, dirty baseball uniform, Kojak lollipop asking us to go to the mall, in his voice that seemed deeper than it was yesterday.

“Nothing,” was all we could say as we regained our composure. There was no way that he would be able to see himself as we saw him in that moment. Like he was going to ask for a 10-spot and the keys to the ’81 Camaro.

He comes by it naturally I suppose – I’m not making up the part about the ’81 Camaro. His father and I have logged many an hour driving around in an ’81 Camaro. John’s family bought it new back in the day, and he recalls with a gleam in his eye the day they got the call it had arrived. He was pulled out of school, and they headed off to the nearby metropolis of Twin Falls, Idaho to pick it up. I like to picture John in the teensy backseat with the silver interior, beneath the t-tops, with his own crooked haircut and big brown eyes. I also like to imagine him sticking his tongue out at the other kids as his family drove triumphantly through the streets of his very small and gossipy hometown.

John ended up bringing the Camaro, silver interior, t-tops and all, to college in LA where he fielded purchase offers nearly every time we stopped to get gas. He tried to teach me how to drive its manual transmission, but that was a short-lived and failed endeavor. I would instead be in charge of switching out the Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins CDs in the Discman. Still a very important job.

When we got married and moved to San Francisco, we knew the Camaro would not match with our new urbane lifestyle, so it went back to Idaho where it was quite literally put out to pasture. Whenever we go up for a visit, John takes a few minutes alone to trudge out to the field where the Camaro now sits. One year, he glumly reported that wasps had taken up residence under the hood.

Jake points out with excitement new Camaros every time he sees one. (I’m still waiting for the comeback of my childhood car – the Chrysler Cordoba. It’s imminent, I’m certain.) Then the guys get kinda quiet, with what I’m guessing are the wistful thoughts of the wasp hive with t-tops sitting in the field, and their not-so-secret dream of resurrecting it one day. One of them, after all, does have the hair for it.

That’s a high school John and the family Camaro, circa 1991

opening day

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The morning sky was still dark, and Zach stood at the foot of my bed, dressed in his crisp new baseball pants, shirt, socks, and hat… staring at me. With one eye open, and still as under-the-covers as I could get away with, I leaned out to thread his belt through the loops. I sent him merrily back to his room to give me five more minutes of quiet before we’d have to start racing through the house, collecting every camera we have, and hoisting the boys into the car, all so we could make it to the parade staging area for the pre-dawn (not really) call time.  

Though still reeling from the heartbreaking news from across the globe, and like many a U.S. city this weekend, our town continued on with baseball Opening Day for the kiddos.

I found a log to perch myself on along the parade route, and tried to wish a large coffee into existence.  But then, it was here! The parade was here! At the front were, I’m guessing very important local dignitaries in satin jackets being chauffeured in classic cars, waving at me. Yep, me. When it’s a little parade, you don’t have the comforting shroud of anonymity, and they are in fact waving directly at you. Awkward or not, you have to wave back. Finally the teams started coming by. The teenagers looked tired, the kids Jake’s age looked at their shoes, working hard not to make eye contact or wave at their parents. The kids in Zach’s age division were yelling and cheering and high-fiving anybody they could get their hands on.  When Zach’s team finally walked by, he was yelling “Let’s go Yankees!”  and “yeaaahhhh!” In the very brief time I had a visual on the team, John, in his coach shirt, had to gently redirect one little Yankee out of the crowd and back to his group four times. John caught my eye and I could tell it had been a very long little parade.

All of the pomp and fanfare suddenly gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling of nostalgia for an era that I never even experienced first-hand. There were balloon arches and flags and pennants hanging from every fence and post. There were bounce houses, police blockades, boy scouts, face painting, sunshine, lawn chairs, hot dogs and more cameras than you can shake a stick out. The mayor spoke, as did the chief of police and the parks department guy, who John would only refer to as Ron Swanson (please please tell me you watch Parks & Recreation.)

Zach had been counting down to this day for the last three years….the day that he would finally take the field as a real-life baseball player. Up to this point, he’d sat wide-eyed in the bleachers, dressed head to toe in his brother’s team colors, glove in his lap, bat at the ready, and often sporting a batting helmet…yes, sitting in the stands wearing his batting helmet, on the off-chance he was suddenly going to be called up. Unlike the other little brothers, he didn’t run off to the playground, beg to go home or whine about being bored. He did ask for snacks every 5-10 minutes, but there he sat, cheering for Jacob and his teammates and befriending the other parents and fans. This weekend after he proudly donned his own uniform, he tracked down those parents he’d shared the stands with to show them just how far he’d come. “I’m on the Yankees now. I’m # 8. We played the A’s, and it was a tie. It was my first game ever, and I had my first team snacks ever, Oreos and a cheesestick, and also a water.” Then he’d turn around so they could see he had his name on his jersey.

Have you ever watched 5-year-olds play a game of baseball? There are about 10 adults on the field, most tasked with keeping the kids standing up, facing the right direction, and in the case of opening day, off of the bounce house. The coach pitches, or perhaps more accurately, throws the ball at the bat that’s roughly the same size as the batter. The second the ball is hit, every kid in the field, which sometimes includes the base runners, heads for it. Sometimes there’s tackling, sometimes crying. This day, Zach played third where he dutifully stood, foot on the bag, glove in the air, ready to make the out. As it turns out, 5-year-olds don’t throw to third to make the out.

Jake’s team played a couple of hours later, where by comparison, it looked like the actual Cardinals were playing the actual Rangers.

For the three months leading up to opening day, Zach would ask me if I could bring music to the field –  a soundtrack for his debut. You see, we play that fun car game where you pick out what song you would like to hear if you got the chance for an at-bat in the majors; and that other fun car game, where you play “Uprising” by Muse (which next to AC/DC’s “Back in Black” is the world’s greatest batting/walk-up song) and then in your best stadium announcer voice, introduce the Giants batters one at a time, “Noooooow batting…..Cody Ross!,” and then the next person says “Nooooooow batting…Pablo Sandoval!” You know…that game. So naturally, Zach assumed, he would also be entitled to tunes that would make him hit a grand slam and get his devoted fans on their feet.

I’d say, “Zach, I wish I could buddy, but I can’t bring music to your game, as awesome as that would be.” But there on Opening Day, at Zach’s first game…was a DJ. Sure, the guy was most likely assigned to provide a soundtrack for all the festivities – the kids punching each other in the bounce houses, or having their faces painted with fairy wings and fake scars. But along with his first baseball snacks and first baseball parade, Zach got his walk-up music for his first official at-bat. I don’t even think he cared that it was Lynyrd Skynyrd.

a tree falls in side yard

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Last week, I pulled into the garage without noticing that the tree that once stood taller than our house now lay across the side yard. John came home an hour later and gave me the report as I stared lamely at him. At first I couldn’t even picture what tree he was talking about…I don’t venture to that part of the yard much, I guess. (You would think we lived on 30 acres instead of a regular suburban smallish lot). But I finally figured out that I knew quite well about 5 feet of that tree, somewhere near its middle top.

It once grew majestically outside Zachary’s window, with a narrow trunk and long graceful branches that would thwap against his window in the wind or create sinister looking shadows in the night. I don’t know what kind it was, but it was a resting place for many a bird who would chirp their greetings to Zachary inside.

Zach went to his room to look. “There aren’t any branches there anymore,” he said, “That’s where the birdies were.” I thought about the birds too, but was hopeful he either wouldn’t notice, or would celebrate the fact that they wouldn’t startlingly crash into his window anymore. His sweet face looked sad, and the way he said “birdies” made me want to go buy him a pony.

John stood outside surveying the situation. The tree had fallen into a wacky corner of the yard, missing our neighbor’s fence by a few feet. The neighbor stood there too. “Now I have to look at your boring, window,” he told John with his usual charm.

The subsequent days have passed in a flurry, and the tree continues to lay there, beached. Every time the subject comes up, Zach mentions the birds. I have to stop talking about it altogether because every time I do, he flashes me his big brown puppy dog eyes, and I instinctively move toward the candy shelf for a distracting treat.

A few months ago, my parents had to have two of their three front yard trees removed, because alas, the old trees had died…suffering what I imagined a stoic and noble passing befitting of a couple of fine Modesto Ash. Now that, I did notice. I gasped when I drove up to their house for the first time without my old leafy friends there. The home base tree of my childhood, right there near the corner – gone. The hide-and-go-seek tree at the far end – dunzo. My parents have since picked out replacements, but they are baby trees, and I don’t think I could very effectively hide behind one, unless I shed a dangerous amount of LBs.

We’ve taken down diseased trees at the church, and today on my way to work, I saw what looked like a 20-man hard-hatted crew perched on some poor soul’s roof, collectively eyeballing a huge Oak tree. By the time I drove home, half of it lay in the street in front of a wood chipper.

Now, I’m eyeing the palm tree in the backyard. The wind has brought down these pieces that resemble huge pencil shavings, and frankly it looks weird standing next to the uppity, haughty redwood. There’s the orange tree in the back corner. Sure, I like the idea of a fruit tree, but I’ve never actually eaten one of its oranges. My guess is that I’m so much of a city girl that I can’t possibly imagine that any plant life that I’m responsible for could produce actual, edible fruit.

I’ve come to realize, people are weird with trees, me included, which even I find odd since I refuse to camp. Trees are scary or friendly or wise depending on what Disney movie we are watching. They serve as literary metaphors for everything from life to growth to the passing of time, and if I were more well-read, this list would undoubtedly be longer. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has been on my reading list for about 5 years, but I would be willing to bet that’s chock full of smarty pants examples.

I cannot stand that horrible book, The Giving Tree. I so loved Shel Silverstein’s provocative and intoxicating A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends, that I would memorize the poems and recite them for whoever would listen. My copies, with my name written in my 3rd grade script, sit on Jake’s shelf, and are now favorites of the boys as well. But The Giving Tree sucks big time. Spoiler alert! The kind tree gives and gives and gives until it is taken down to a stump for the selfish brat of a protagonist to sit on in his old age. The only moral I take away is don’t be awful, or you will end up tired, alone and confused on a stump.

Heck, the trees in the Bible are kind of a big deal – there was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that Adam and Eve couldn’t resist, getting them kicked out of what up until that point, had been a pretty sweet living situation. Jesus invited little Zaccheus down from his tree so they could break bread. And of course, there was Jonah. Jonah sat and waited futilely and with spite for an entire city to suffer God’s wrath. As he sat there pouting, sweating and waiting, probably still reeking of whale innards, God gave him a shade tree, which promptly withered and died. Jonah grieved and ranted and, much to God’s annoyance and utter frustration, showed more feeling for that day-old tree than he did an entire population of people. And again we learn, don’t be awful or you will end up tired, alone, and confused on a stump.

crazy comfortable

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Can I please have a mulligan on this year?

January is supposed to be the month of new beginnings. For some dag gum reason, January of 2011 is more like the month of false starts.

All of the cheer and cocoa swilling bliss of December has historically made way for the deep breath and the “let’s get back to business” attitude that propels us forward from January into the rest of the year. Very productive and healthy, agreed, especially when we are committed to healthier habits and a snazzy new calendaring system. But this year, I hardly feel propelled. It’s more like that running stumble, where your arms are flailing around, and you are waiting to fall on your face, but your feet somehow just keep going forward…and you are hyper aware of everybody who is watching for you to just hurry up and fall down already. It’s like that.

Now I’m as optimistic as the next gal, but I also revel in my grizzled sensibility; not so grizzled where I’m yelling at the neighbor kids to get off my lawn, but juuuust grizzled enough to make me, hopefully, tolerable. This is the part of me that knew that I should keep simple my plan for “Colleen: a picture of happiness, relaxation, organization, patience, fitness and efficiency in 2011.” Yes, simple. Flossing; getting up early; praying more; exercising enough to justify saying, “yes, I exercise;” spending less; reading more; writing more; driving thru less; cooking more without having to shake stuff out of a box first; forgoing the previously mandatory stockpile of cheeses and chocolates; reading my Bible every day; and keeping it together even when my kids aren’t. That’s it. Simple.

So now, here we are, just over ten days into the year, and I’m 6 days behind on my handy new 3-year-Bible iPad app that John installed for me, and 10 days behind on exercising. Everything I’ve cooked this year has in fact, come from a box, and I don’t know if the boys would call what I’m doing “keeping it together.”

I’ve been to the computer more often than I care to remember in vain attempts at waxing poetic over the wonder that was Christmas; about the angelic children who serenaded us with “Away in a Manger” while lifting their dresses over their heads and waving at their moms on Christmas Eve; and the cozy comforts of spending 76 hours in pajamas while eating cookies and staring wistfully out the window at the snow. But what happened instead? There I sat, staring at the computer, freezing my you-know-what off in the living room that never gets warm, wearing a blanket for a cape… then writing about THAT. That’s when you know it’s bad. This is what came out:

It’s really cold down here, and I find that off putting. Plus my kids are always wanting something, like dinner or attention. But there is some exciting news – I have a soft, new blanket that I have fashioned into a luxurious cape. I totally get capes now. You’re really something special when you’re wearing a cape. Special, and…..we’ll call it… eccentric. I bet Howard Hughes wore a cape. How about that chick in “Sunset Blvd.?” I bet she wore a cape. Crazy is such a strong and inappropriate word, unless you pair it with comfortable. “Man, this cape is crazy comfortable.”

That was pretty much the best paragraph I could come up with in the first 10 days of 2011.

That’s when I realized not only did I have a case of crazy comfortable writer’s block, but I had complete and total resolution induced paralysis.

I was so fired up for being the best me that I could be, I couldn’t even be as good as the “meh, jury’s still out” me of 2010. It was the big game, and I was choking. I was not getting up an hour earlier than I was last year, but now 6 minutes later than before. How on Earth did I ever make lunches AND breakfast AND cheery chit chat in 2010, while getting everybody to school on time and with a smile on their faces? This last week has everybody nearly in tears as we race for the car, a sweatshirt pulled over my pink sock monkey pajamas that are half sticking out of a pair of UGGs, and Jacob’s favorite…the ponytail left over from sleeping time. I haven’t asked, but I’m pretty sure he’s praying the entire ride to school that I don’t choose that day to get out of the car. On the way back to the house to surrender the sock monkey pajamas for another day, I tell Zachary that tomorrow will be different. I’m going to make it happen tomorrow. We’ll all be up nice and early, and we will be a picture of efficiency, and I will be relaxed, and nobody will need to rush or cry or feel stressed. Then he asks if we can please turn up the radio.

Last fall, when every mom I knew was losing their minds a little bit under the weight of activity and responsibility and schedules, my dear friend Kris told me something that somebody told her that was so simple but so significant, that it completely blew my mind. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s already a saying. But what happens when you say it about you, first-person style? It totally feels different…try it:

“I’m not going to be so hard on myself.”

Aspirations and hard work keep us going forward, I know, I’ve read the posters. But take it easy on yourself, or you are going to self-improve yourself right into a cape, and then…you will want to write about it. Shoot, I liked the 2010 version of you, anyway.