Gratitude

My cell phone just rang. My cell phone never rings. Everyone knows that I'm always home, and I never answer it anyway. I have it so I can call from the grocery store and ask what that other thing was that I was supposed to get. So there I was finding my purse, which I had left on the kitchen table, then struggling with the zipper, because Ezra decided to be helpful and zip it (I have never zipped my purse, and now I know why). Then I had to find the phone in the recesses of the purse, while it blared "Flight of the Bumblebee" at me. I finally found it and saw "mom-cell" on the display. Of course. She's the only one, other than the occasional telemarketer, who calls that number.

I answered it and was told, "Jeanne is gone."

One of my mom's oldest friends, she was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago. Particuarly because of its unspecified origin, they attacked it with everything the local hospital and the Mayo Clinic had. And a couple of months ago, she started to improve. I should have realized she had merely been granted more time (of course, isn't that all we ever have? never all the time in the world, only more than right now, if we are lucky). She was able to attend a famliy reunion, spend time with her sons and grandchildren, and go on an annual trip with her girlfriends to the Boundary Waters. Then the cancer regained its strength and slowly took all hers. Last week they decided it was time to stop treatment, to let go, to get ready to let her go.

I am full of grief for my mom, for Jeanne's children and her dear grandchildren. For her husband, whose great joy in life has been sharing a tandem bike with his wife--now left without a partner. I am soberly reminded that there are no guarantees, that even "remission" does not mean "cured." That a time will come when I must say my goodbyes as well.

But while I think these things, life goes on. Matilda insists that she must eat noodles like the big kids, which not only means using silverware, but for some reason, eating them directly off the serving spoon. So one noodle after another goes onto the spoon, then she spends most of a minute trying to slurp it off with her lips. Ezra eats his favorite lunch with unbridled enthusiasm, saying things like "Thanks, Pishy, Pishy," then laughing hysterically. Zachary shows me that he has indeed eaten his broccoli and then is excused to go play with his new Batcave, where I hear him telling stories to himself about buying gas and never stopping until the job is done.

I am sad, but oh so happy. For in the same moment, my heart is full of aching grief for a mourning family--and aching gratitude for the family I have.

Pants Optional

It's been brought to my attention that Ezra almost never wears pants. I mean, seriously, he never wears pants. Somehow, since he is: 3, at home with me, and extremely strong willed, I haven't made a big deal about it. But maybe the time has come.

We're working on potty training, which means that some time after he gets up in the morning, I get him out of the (with any luck) poopy diaper and into underpants and a clean shirt. He's currently convinced that he can't poop on the potty, so I'm not making a big deal of that at the moment. So every morning, I say, "Pick out a shirt and underpants." And every morning, he answers, "I don't want pants, though." And since I convince myself that he's more likely to have potty success with fewer barriers to making it to the toilet on time, I agree. But this morning, I realized I'd really set up a system, when he added, "But after nap, when Zachary gets home from school, I'll put on pants and we'll go outside."

So I've apparently established a system where you don't have to wear pants, as long as you're in the house. How is this going to play out in the next few years? Will I convince him to wear pants to school, only to have him take them off as soon as he gets inside because, hey, we're not outside? Will he disrobe in front of his girlfriend's parents, explaining, "I don't like to wear pants"? Will he have to find employment in a pants-optional office?

Considering that we are talking about Ezra here, that's actually a possibility. The kid's got more force of personality than anyone I've ever met, including his father, which is saying something. But I figure I've got a few years before the kid with no pants on becomes an actual problem. Until then, he can go pants free--except when we leave the house. Then we all wear pants.

My Dad's Marriage(s): Part 1

I felt it was appropriate to title this one "Part 1" because I know this is going to be one of those stories that, even though you think it's done, there's really more.



Let me begin with the most basic information. My parents were married--to one another--all my life. I was born (several weeks early after an unplanned conception--yay me!) a little over a year after they got married. I grew up as one of the only kids I knew whose parents were married to one another. It wasn't the greatest marriage in the world, but I figured they were doing a good job, because they were still together. I always knew, although it was almost never discussed, that my dad had been married before. It was short lived and there were no kids. In fact, it was very shortly after his first marriage ended that he met my mom; the story went that he was visiting a friend to "get over" his divorce, and they threw a dart at a map to decide where to go. It landed on Crystal Ice Caves, where my mom was a tour guide. And the rest was history. Until 2005, when, a month before Ezra was born, my dad announced that he was moving out. There had been stirrings in the marital waters to be sure; in 1997, when I was studying abroad for six months, we learned that he'd had an affair with one of his (graduate) students for pretty much the entire time. There had been speculation, mostly between the siblings, that this wasn't the first time. But officially things were back on track. And then suddenly they weren't. Officially they were taking a break, he was going to "find himself" or something for a year while living on his own, but it was pretty quickly clear to everyone but my mom that he wasn't looking back.

He told us all that this was a hard time for him, that he was really a private person who'd been living for the last 30 years as though he were a very social person. He was trying to be true to himself, to be the fundamentally alone person that he was. And no, there was no way on earth that he was seeing someone--not now, not while he was still with Mom, not at all. Those rumors that he was dating my friend--the one who had coincidentally gotten a divorce around the time he moved out, the one who was his student, the one who had kind of stopped calling me? Those rumors were completely false, and it was kind of insulting that we would think otherwise.

Until the day he told me they were true. And they were getting married. And, as I have tried over and over to explain to him, I don't have excesses of friends or family. And my dear friend, the first one to visit me in the hospital after Zachary was born, the first friend I'd made at my first grown-up job, the one with a daughter 9 months older than Zachary, my friend and my dad had chosen one another over me.

There's more, of course. There's always more. But that continues to be a crux of the situation for me. My mom is hurt and angry and insists that the only thing we can do to help is "be loyal." My brother, who has always looked up to my dad, is not speaking to him. My sister is sick of being the one my mom turns to, sick of being the one to take care of her and tell her it's going to be all right. And I'm the pushover, the easy one, the one who's always been closest to him--and terrifyingly, most like him in personality. And I'm the one they betrayed most, at least more than my siblings. And though I haven't actually spoken to her since all this happened, he has never once apologized. He's said he understands that people are hurt and it's too bad that things worked out that way, but he's never once said, "That must really be hard on you. I wish you hadn't beem hurt like that. I'm sorry."

I smelled the chemicals and that's how I knew

I had this roommate in college, Gwen, who was this really unusual mix of trying too hard to be different and genuinely being different. She was pre-med, very scientific mind. But she also wore this long red velvet cloak all the time and hung out at the Renaissance Festival. She also claimed to be a wiccan, which frankly has colored my impression of all other people I've met who claim to be wiccan. It didn't seem to be so much an identity or a religion, so much as a thing she could call herself when she wanted to stand out: "Don't mess with me, I'm a witch," and so on.

But the thing that always amazed me was that in addition to all this trying to hard to be different, she was genuinely different in some of the most amazing (though not always good) ways. I first met her when I was a freshman in college and a friend of mine had had it with her assigned roommate, so she moved into the on-campus apartments. She was assigned three roommates there, two other freshmen and Gwen, a sophomore. Gwen was a whole year older than us and way more experienced in just about everything. She was an EMT and worked odd hours and knew boys and stuff. So she was the one we went to with all our problems. For example, one winter morning Gwen had worked late the night before and was passed out in the bedroom. Her three roommates were up and around, making toast for breakfast. Suddenly, the toaster caught on fire. It was placed under the cabinet in the kitchen and flames were shooting up out of the toaster and touching the cabinets. In a fit of terror, the girls ran into the bedroom and started screaming, "The toaster's on fire! The toaster's on fire!" Gwen rolled over, said, "Put it out," and covered her head with the pillow. They ran back into the kitchen and, seeing the toaster still shooting flames, turned around and ran back into the bedroom, screaming. Gwen realized they weren't going to stop, so she got out of bed, stumbled into the kitchen, ripped the toaster out of the wall, walked out onto the balcony, threw the toaster off the balcony and into the snow, and went back to sleep. Saved the day, classic Gwen style.

A few years later, Gwen and I shared a house near campus with three other friends, five of us there altogether. And by this time, she had developed some truly strange habits. Now, granted, we were not the neatest people you'd want to meet. I don't know that we vacuumed the entire year we were in that house, and the dishes just piled up until we ran out. Then it was an entire day (there were A LOT of dishes in that house) of washing disgusting smelly dishes. But Gwen had her ownthing going on. A favorite was that she liked to keep her cheese in the couch. I'm completely serious. She would buy a block of cheddar cheese and stick it in a zip-loc bag, then she would shove the plastic bag between the cushions of the couch. She insisted, "I like my cheese warm." And that in itself wouldn't have been so terrible if she hadn't always included a knife with it. So you never knew, when you sat down on the couch, whether you were going to be stabbed in the ass by a cheese knife.

She also had a propensity for falling asleep on the couch and just staying there. One night our roommate had been bartending all night and was finally coming home. But this night was special, because she'd had a long-term crush on a friend of ours (who had been briefly, painfully engaged to another one of our roommates). He'd hung out at the bar all evening with her and was now coming home with her. This wasn't so unusual since many of the people in our large group of friends often ended up coming over after the bar closed, but this was the first time it had been just the two of them. When they walked into the house, there was Gwen, asleep on the living room sofa. She was wearing a peasant dress and nylons, nothing else--and the dress had hiked itself up to her armpits. So my poor friend grabbed kitchen tongs and used them to lift the blanket back over Gwen while she slept; it did not turn out to be the most romantic evening. (In case you're wondering, yes, they did get together eventually; it was always rocky and he finally broke up with her via email.)

Another time she was sleeping on the couch, we decided all of a sudden to pln a party--a themed party. So as we were coming up with storybook characters for people to dress as, we thought of the Seven Dwarfs, from Snow White: Dopey, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Doc, and someone else. I always forget the name of the other dwarf, and neither of us could remember it. So we ran into the living room to ask Gwen. We shouted at her, "Gwen, what was the name of the seventh dwarf?" The logical question would have been, "Which six have you already named?" But that wasn't her style. She definitively announced, "Pinchy Smurf." And that was her nickname for years.

But the best ever sleeping-on-the-couch quote was heard by me alone. I had been tending bar and came home later to find her passed out in her usual spot. I probably said hello or "Are you ever going to get off the couch?" or something like that. And she mumbled, "10... 9... out of 10 birds are dead. I smelled the chemicals... and that's how I knew." It seemed to sum up something, although I've never been certain what it was.

It's been more than 10 years since I last saw her, and I still think of that quote all the time. My husband, whom I met years after losing touch with her, will sometimes repeat it. I hope she no longer keeps her cheese in the couch and that she sometimes sleeps in a bed these days. But I hope she still offers up such entertaining nuggets of wisdom.

19 and other tricky concepts

There are few things I love more than listening to my kids talk to one another. They are trying so hard to piece together the world, and much the same way I do, they often have to fill in the blanks.

My oldest son is in kindergarten this year, and it's been extremely exciting. He loves going to school every day, even if he doesn't love getting up. He tells me he has 4 friends (though their identities vary) and that there's not that many girls that like him. He tells me he's being bullied, but when I talked to his teacher, she said that it was a pretty boy-heavy class this year; he's not being targeted, there's just a lot of boy energy going around the room, with a lot of rough play and some fights. Then, a few weeks after that conversation, I happened to walk him to school (he usually gets a ride). I decided to take the chance to poke through the lost and found for the various hats and mittens that have gone missing this year (no luck). And as I was on my way back toward the door, his teacher hailed me. It seemed that she had been out one day recently, and she wanted to know if I had heard about the "incident." I hadn't, and of course I immediately wondered what my kid had done. I shouldn't have worried--about that--because as it turns out, another student had choked him because he wanted my son's crayon. That's right, strangled over a crayon. She assured me that she was dealing with it and had spoken with the other child, but in case my son had said anything, she wanted to make sure I knew it was being handled.

Of course, I told my husband about it that evening, and we both sort of had the same reaction--that we were very surprised that it had happened but more surprised that he hadn't said anything. So after dinner that night, I asked him: Are you doing okay in school? Yes. Are you getting along okay with the other kids? Yes. I heard you had trouble with another kid the other day. No. Okay, cards on the table: Your teacher told me that another kid tried to choke you--that he put his hands on your neck. Do you remember this? No. Can I watch my show?

I couldn't get over this: My kid keeps telling me that he's being picked on, that there are bullies in his class, but it's no more than what he deals with from his little brother at home. But the one time he has every right to complain, that a kid actually is mean to him, he not only doesn't mention it; he apparently doesn't even remember.

Some time later, there was a day when both my boys went to work with Daddy one day. While they were there, he got them each a little toy from the hospital gift shop--a miniature measuring tape. They love the real ones and are always getting in trouble for playing with them, so these were extra cool toys. In the car on the way home, they were measuring everything in sight--the windows, their seats, one another. And my oldest said something about 21 inches. So I said, "You were 21 inches long when you were born. Your brother was 19 inches long. Can you find 19 inches?" He's been having trouble with the teen numbers, mixing up 19 and 90, for example, so learning to properly identify all the teens has been a math goal lately. He worked hard for several minutes, looking all over his measuring tape, considering and then rejecting several choices. Finally, very thoughtfully, he announced, "I found 19. Except it has a 2 in it."

Never stop finding the answers, my son. And in the absence of any useful answers, never stop provinding your own.

Who Do You Think You Are?

I've been thinking a lot lately about identity. I'm sure that for some people, they think of themselves first and foremost in terms of their profession. "I'm a lawyer." (I guess that when you spend that much money to become something, it better be a pretty important part of your personality when you're done!) And I hear other people describe themselves in terms of their hobbies or interests: I'm an avid read; I'm a volunteer; I'm a passionate fisherman, or whatever. And of course, a lot of people describe themselves as parents. And I do the same thing. I mean, to most of the people who know me, I'm Z, E, and M's mom. But a few years into parenting, especially if you're a stay-at-home parent, I think you have to start to wonder if you're ever going to be anything other than your kid's mom again.

There was a time when I was widely considered to be smart; when people actively sought out my opinion about things ranging from punctuation to politics. There was a time when I had an active social life and knew which places to frequent when, depending on the kind of crowd you were up for that night; when I knew how to make a martini and how to drink one and still usually chose beer. There was a time when I had all kinds of friends, all ages, all interests, all backgrounds; when we used to get together and just see what was going to happen that night. There was a time when I was considered funny; when I used to say witty things and people would laugh. And let's not forget one of the fundamentals: There was a time when I used to spend all my time with people who were totally, completely potty trained--people whose poops were no one's business but their own. Those were the days, huh?

Now I'm considered an authority on how to get babies to sleep, on how to stop fights from getting out of hand, on how to handle diaper rash (there are several schools of thought on all of those, just so you know). Now the places I go rarely vary: the living room, kitchen, and E's room for most of the day, occasionally interrupted by the TV room and bedroom. Once a week or so, I venture out to the bank, and on Saturday I usually make it to the grocery store. Once every couple of months, I make it to book club, and I'm trying to make it to PTA once a month. I remember only that you shouldn't put too much vermouth in a martini; but I'm very good at mixing a bottle, even with that tricky, crazy thick formula. I still usually drink beer, but now it's always at home. I haven't heard from most of my old friends in years. We lost touch when I got married and had kids and they didn't. I had birthday parties and day care, and they had budding careers and new relationships. Now they may have the birthday parties and day care, but too much time has passed, and we just don't connect anymore. We try to email or call occasionally, but it never lasts. And new friends are hard to find when you never leave the house. No one thinks I'm funny anymore, unless you count my 10-month-old, who laughs when I stick out my tongue and wiggle my finger at her. And very few people in my life are potty trained. Let's face it: poop is now a major player in my life/

I'm not complaining per se. It's not that I would leave my kids and go off to some sparkling new job all day if I could. I love getting to be here with them, and I love the kids I stay with. (Both genuinely true and the "standard mom disclaimer," as my sister calls it.) But I think in addition to the isolation that comes with staying home with kids, which is another post in and of itself, it really calls into question who exactly you are; if you're not all the things you used to be, who are you instead? And have all the previous dimensions of your personality been replaced by "my kid's mom"? I try to do things--this blog is an example--that remind me and everyone else that I am more than just the person I appear to be from day to day. But I wonder how everyone else handles it. And how women have handled it for hundreds of years. Because I do wake up most mornings wondering, now that things have changed so much in the last 5 years or so, just who I think I am.