As the holiday weekend ends, I’m feeling particularly aware of the various facets of Tim’s current age (or, to use one of my mother’s favorite expressions, “age ‘n’ stage,” which she says so often that at one point in my twenties, before I’d mentally parsed it out, I wondered why everyone we knew seemed to be going through an “Asian stage.”). Often Tim and I go our separate ways for much of the day – he’s at school, I’m working; he’s off playing baseball, I’m at home making dinner; he’s doing homework, I’m reading to Holly – but now it’s summer vacation and we seem to be moving in tighter circles, in closer proximity to each other.
He came downstairs while I was closing up the house last night and asked if he could have some ice cream before bed, knowing there were a couple of pints in the freezer left over from our earlier Fourth of July cookout. I hesitated. “Normally I’d say no to ice cream twice in one day, but I guess it’s okay,” I told him. Although the idea of my kids overeating worries me, the wiry build Tim has had since he was a toddler has not changed one bit even now that he is almost twelve; his ribs stick out still. As he scooped out some mint chocolate chip, I could imagine him as a teenager, going through bowls of ice cream every day the way teenage boys do and still as skinny as ever. “He eats as much as an army, and never gains an ounce,” I’ll tell people, knowing that’s typical of teen boys.
Yes, he’ll still eat ice cream and not gain an ounce of fat, like now, but when he’s a teenager he probably won’t do some of the most endearing things he’s done this weekend. On Saturday we spent hours at the public beach in a neighboring town; there were fireworks and a concert scheduled, and we arrived early so the kids could swim in the pond. Tim and Holly played their favorite swimming game, throwing a ball into the water and then racing from the beach to see who could reach it first, and they made leg-bridges for each other to swim through. Once swimming time ended, Tim pleaded with me to throw a toy football back and forth with him (“Throw it away from me so I have to dive for it, Mom!” he ordered again and again), and at one point when Holly wanted to demonstrate a dance she’d made up but said she needed a platform to stand on, Tim obligingly crouched on the beach on all fours and let her stand on his back to do the act. “It only hurt when she stepped on my neck!” Tim proudly announced afterwards. When the fireworks began, the kids lay side by side on the sand and watched.
But yesterday Tim was all pre-adolescent as he and I helped my father transfer hay bales from the hay wagon into the barn. His answer to everything I said for a solid hour, from “Oh look, there’s a little black snake on that bale!” to “Tim, could you throw the bales a little closer to the edge of the wagon?” to “Good job, honey!” was a thoroughly exasperated, “Mommmmm!” My father and I laughed because in his irritable contempt, Tim sounded so much like the teen he will eventually be. And despite my amusement, that made me reflect on how soon he won’t be a child anymore. He’ll still eat large bowls of ice cream and he’ll probably still help us unload hay bales, but he won’t race Holly into the waves to retrieve a ball, or lie next to her on the beach during the fireworks, or ask me to throw a football with him.
Seeing our kids grow up is perhaps the most natural but also the most blessed part of parenting. When all goes well, we take it for granted that we will see them pass from one phase into the next, and I often express little sympathy with the mothers who say “Right now it’s really hard being up at 5 AM, but I know someday I’ll miss these days!” “You won’t,” I want to tell them. “Think that if it makes you feel better now, but you won’t. I’ve been through that part, and my kids now sleep until eight or nine in the morning if they don’t need to be up for school, and never once have I missed the 5 A.M. wakeups of their toddler days.” Not the sentimental type, I’m pretty easily convinced of the value of moving on, enjoying each stage as it arrives but then being ready to say goodbye to it.
But this weekend I found myself feeling differently. At age (‘n’ stage) eleven, Tim gets a twinkle in his eye when he’s playing on the beach or making up songs to amuse his grandparents (they and Tim have a private joke involving a jingle about Australian cleaning products that I will probably never understand, but it makes all three of them laugh). Even if his personality doesn’t change, I know some of those particular activities, that horsing-around of boys his age, will probably fade away in time.
I’ll miss it. He’ll still eat big bowls of ice cream and burn the calories off quickly, but he might not be quite so willing to serve as dance platform for his younger sister. Between his exasperated exhalations of “Mommm!” throughout the day yesterday and the way he’s resisted cutting his hair this summer, he definitely seems on his way to tweendom; he’ll turn twelve before fall officially begins. New and interesting phases lie ahead if all goes according to plan, I know. But every now and then I pause to get sentimental. Boys are so much fun at this age, and all I can do is try to hold on to the image of Tim racing Holly into the water as long as possible.
Showing posts with label 11-year-old. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 11-year-old. Show all posts
Monday, July 5, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Fifth grade spring concert night
Last night was Tim’s fifth grade concert. Because we’ve been so busy lately and because Tim wasn’t all that excited about it, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, but about an hour before it started I realized that if nothing else, it would be a chance to sit still and in silence for 90 minutes, and that was definitely something I could benefit from. I feel that way at church sometimes too: if I get nothing else out of the service – which never happens, but just if – at least I get an hour of quiet time to myself.
It was a moderately frazzling afternoon. Holly got off the bus complaining, as she often does. She’s not complaining about school: she’s just unwinding after being a well-behaved second grader all day. She wanted her friend Bella to come over and kept asking after I said it wasn’t a good day for playdates; she wanted a different snack from the one I offered; the usual kinds of complaints. I remind myself that this is how she unburdens herself emotionally after holding it together at school and on the bus, and it’s reasonable and healthy even if not particularly pleasant for me. Then the dog decided to go next door rather than come home, so I had to go retrieve her from the wilds of the weeds surrounding the pond; and then I went to pick up the dry cleaning Rick urgently needed for work today only to be told the shirts hadn’t arrived yet and I’d have to wait a half-hour. Naturally, I’d just cleaned out the car and didn’t have so much as a single section of newspaper with me, not to mention a book or my laptop: not a shred of reading material on me, which is rare. Instead, I waited around for a half hour, but the shirts never arrived, so the trip was wasted.
All of this was why once I stopped and thought about it, I was happy for the prospect of the ninety minutes of tranquility I could expect during Tim’s concert.
And I had that, but I also realized I had been overlooking how much I enjoy school concerts. At our school, the kids can start in the instrumental and choral program in fourth grade, so this is only our second set of semi-yearly performances. And this is the first one in which we’ve wrangled Tim into appropriate clothing. We’ve had a bear of a time getting him to wear anything except sweat pants and t-shirts for the past several years, whether the occasion is a concert, a church service, or a family party. In February, when Rick’s grandfather died we finally put our collective parental foot down and told Tim he had no choice but to wear a button-down Oxford shirt and pants with a zipper for the services; as a result, at least Tim finally has one decent outfit for special occasions, and back out it came for the concert. It was the first time Tim was not the worst-dressed kid on stage; I can triumphantly report that there are still two boys in the fifth grade behind Tim in terms of sartorial progress. They were wearing shorts and polo shirts. I glowed with pride at the mundane feat of getting my son to dress reasonably for once.
Even though Tim hasn’t had as much fun playing his trumpet this year as last, I really enjoyed seeing him in the concert, and all his classmates too. The girls all looked so pretty, with their swishy rayon skirts, their spaghetti strap tops and their hair brushed out shiny. The boys would have looked adorable to me if I wasn’t so envious as I noted they still almost all dress better than Tim: now that I finally have him in an Oxford, they’re wearing sports coats.
Almost every year, there are one or two chances to see each child in some kind of performance: class play, chorus, band. And every year, I find myself thinking that surely this is the cutest age. Oh, the Rainforest Play back in kindergarten was great, of course, but they’re cute just by definition then. As they get older, it’s almost more endearing to see them shed (most of) their self-consciousness to act like a toucan or sing an African hunting song. Last year, when Tim was in fourth grade, I thought they were at their cutest because they were still young but clearly so proud to be dressed up and performing in a band. This year they seemed even cuter to me, though, as they take on the physical manifestations and larger size of pre-teens but carry the sweet ingenuity of the children they still are. It was clear that the pride of doing an introductory reading or playing a trombone part meant a lot more to them than a pretty dress or a complicated hair-do. That will surely change, at least for some of them.
So the interlude of tranquility was wonderful, but the performance itself was even more so. Every year, I think the kids have reached their cutest point. Every year they surpass the year before. Only three more years until eighth grade graduation. God willing, we’ll be there and I’ll be once again thinking “Oh sure, the kindergarten rainforest play was cute, and the fifth grade chorale numbers were sweet, but this is their cutest stage yet.” And with any luck, we’ll have Tim in a tie by then.
It was a moderately frazzling afternoon. Holly got off the bus complaining, as she often does. She’s not complaining about school: she’s just unwinding after being a well-behaved second grader all day. She wanted her friend Bella to come over and kept asking after I said it wasn’t a good day for playdates; she wanted a different snack from the one I offered; the usual kinds of complaints. I remind myself that this is how she unburdens herself emotionally after holding it together at school and on the bus, and it’s reasonable and healthy even if not particularly pleasant for me. Then the dog decided to go next door rather than come home, so I had to go retrieve her from the wilds of the weeds surrounding the pond; and then I went to pick up the dry cleaning Rick urgently needed for work today only to be told the shirts hadn’t arrived yet and I’d have to wait a half-hour. Naturally, I’d just cleaned out the car and didn’t have so much as a single section of newspaper with me, not to mention a book or my laptop: not a shred of reading material on me, which is rare. Instead, I waited around for a half hour, but the shirts never arrived, so the trip was wasted.
All of this was why once I stopped and thought about it, I was happy for the prospect of the ninety minutes of tranquility I could expect during Tim’s concert.
And I had that, but I also realized I had been overlooking how much I enjoy school concerts. At our school, the kids can start in the instrumental and choral program in fourth grade, so this is only our second set of semi-yearly performances. And this is the first one in which we’ve wrangled Tim into appropriate clothing. We’ve had a bear of a time getting him to wear anything except sweat pants and t-shirts for the past several years, whether the occasion is a concert, a church service, or a family party. In February, when Rick’s grandfather died we finally put our collective parental foot down and told Tim he had no choice but to wear a button-down Oxford shirt and pants with a zipper for the services; as a result, at least Tim finally has one decent outfit for special occasions, and back out it came for the concert. It was the first time Tim was not the worst-dressed kid on stage; I can triumphantly report that there are still two boys in the fifth grade behind Tim in terms of sartorial progress. They were wearing shorts and polo shirts. I glowed with pride at the mundane feat of getting my son to dress reasonably for once.
Even though Tim hasn’t had as much fun playing his trumpet this year as last, I really enjoyed seeing him in the concert, and all his classmates too. The girls all looked so pretty, with their swishy rayon skirts, their spaghetti strap tops and their hair brushed out shiny. The boys would have looked adorable to me if I wasn’t so envious as I noted they still almost all dress better than Tim: now that I finally have him in an Oxford, they’re wearing sports coats.
Almost every year, there are one or two chances to see each child in some kind of performance: class play, chorus, band. And every year, I find myself thinking that surely this is the cutest age. Oh, the Rainforest Play back in kindergarten was great, of course, but they’re cute just by definition then. As they get older, it’s almost more endearing to see them shed (most of) their self-consciousness to act like a toucan or sing an African hunting song. Last year, when Tim was in fourth grade, I thought they were at their cutest because they were still young but clearly so proud to be dressed up and performing in a band. This year they seemed even cuter to me, though, as they take on the physical manifestations and larger size of pre-teens but carry the sweet ingenuity of the children they still are. It was clear that the pride of doing an introductory reading or playing a trombone part meant a lot more to them than a pretty dress or a complicated hair-do. That will surely change, at least for some of them.
So the interlude of tranquility was wonderful, but the performance itself was even more so. Every year, I think the kids have reached their cutest point. Every year they surpass the year before. Only three more years until eighth grade graduation. God willing, we’ll be there and I’ll be once again thinking “Oh sure, the kindergarten rainforest play was cute, and the fifth grade chorale numbers were sweet, but this is their cutest stage yet.” And with any luck, we’ll have Tim in a tie by then.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Lending a hand
This weekend, the kids and I spent two nights in Portland together. In general, being the only adult and going away with them isn’t my favorite scenario. It’s not that they’re so much work; I just have more fun with Rick or friends along to share the adult responsibilities with me.
But this weekend it worked out well, and one thing I kept noticing was how all three of us were helping each other out. When we’re in the configuration more typical in our family, two children and two adults, the adults tend to help the children; it’s a fairly straightforward equation. This past weekend, with myself, my 11-year-old son and my 7-year-old daughter, it felt more like a symbiotic triangle, as I observed how each of us found ways to help the others.
Saturday, we went for a long walk around town. I had a street map, and Tim helped me read it to figure out the various ways to get to the post office and the playground. He navigated again for me yesterday when we drove twenty minutes to see our friends at the beach, this time from the front seat of the car. We made a few wrong turns based on his misreading of my handwriting, and we would have gotten there a little sooner had we the advantage of state-of-the-art GPS technology, but we didn’t; we had only the directions I’d scribbled down while on the phone with our friends earlier in the day, and we had Tim’s earnest attempts to make sense of them. GPS is great, I found myself thinking, but this kind of teamwork is kind of fun too.
When we needed milk and orange juice, the kids together walked down the street to the market just a block away. Holly carried the grocery bag both ways; Tim handled the change (and, I admit it, the cell phone, since this independence is new to us and I couldn’t help being just a little leery). And when our bikes started to slip off the bike rack on the back of the car, all three of us had to work together to fix the problem: Holly held the duct tape and scissors; Tim supported the bikes; I wrapped lengths of tape around each juncture until the bikes were fastened tight and ready for travel once again.
I was still weary at the end of the day and had the same feeling I do at home of having spent a lot of the day doing things for other people, but when I reflected upon it, I couldn’t deny that it wasn’t a one-way street this time. When Holly realized after we’d left the condo for a walk that she couldn’t possibly go an hour without her blankie, Tim took the door key from me and sprinted back to fetch blankie for Holly. She in turn offered him all the bacon from her breakfast sandwich that she didn’t want.
The biggest thing the kids did for me was agree to bike along next to me so that I could fit in my daily run. They like biking, but might not have chosen this particular course or time of day. Yet they knew it was really important to me to fit in a 45-minute run before breakfast. And they knew I couldn’t leave them alone for that long. So they agreed to go with me. Holly biked a short distance ahead of us; Tim rode next to me and asked questions about every single boat we could spot in the harbor as we passed by – questions of which I knew the answers to exactly none. But I was grateful to the kids for being willing to make my daily run work out for me.
Later in the day, watching them play a modified game of one-on-one in the courtyard outside the condo (because they had a ball but no basket; the game consisted of dribbling and stealing but no shooting), I thought about how much more reliably they get along together when we’re away from home. It’s not that they quarrel at home, more that they generally go their separate ways. The proximity of traveling puts them unavoidably in each other’s company, and they make it work for them, with games like this one, with help here and there, with enjoying each other’s company and making things easier for me when they can too.
Everyone helped everyone. To use my father’s favorite cliché from his years as a camp counselor, we ended the day tired but happy. And I felt a new appreciation for the kids’ attempts to pitch in when needed. It’s one of the great things about traveling: giving them the opportunity to be more than the people they are during normal everyday life. They came through for me in numerous ways, and I really appreciated it.
But this weekend it worked out well, and one thing I kept noticing was how all three of us were helping each other out. When we’re in the configuration more typical in our family, two children and two adults, the adults tend to help the children; it’s a fairly straightforward equation. This past weekend, with myself, my 11-year-old son and my 7-year-old daughter, it felt more like a symbiotic triangle, as I observed how each of us found ways to help the others.
Saturday, we went for a long walk around town. I had a street map, and Tim helped me read it to figure out the various ways to get to the post office and the playground. He navigated again for me yesterday when we drove twenty minutes to see our friends at the beach, this time from the front seat of the car. We made a few wrong turns based on his misreading of my handwriting, and we would have gotten there a little sooner had we the advantage of state-of-the-art GPS technology, but we didn’t; we had only the directions I’d scribbled down while on the phone with our friends earlier in the day, and we had Tim’s earnest attempts to make sense of them. GPS is great, I found myself thinking, but this kind of teamwork is kind of fun too.
When we needed milk and orange juice, the kids together walked down the street to the market just a block away. Holly carried the grocery bag both ways; Tim handled the change (and, I admit it, the cell phone, since this independence is new to us and I couldn’t help being just a little leery). And when our bikes started to slip off the bike rack on the back of the car, all three of us had to work together to fix the problem: Holly held the duct tape and scissors; Tim supported the bikes; I wrapped lengths of tape around each juncture until the bikes were fastened tight and ready for travel once again.
I was still weary at the end of the day and had the same feeling I do at home of having spent a lot of the day doing things for other people, but when I reflected upon it, I couldn’t deny that it wasn’t a one-way street this time. When Holly realized after we’d left the condo for a walk that she couldn’t possibly go an hour without her blankie, Tim took the door key from me and sprinted back to fetch blankie for Holly. She in turn offered him all the bacon from her breakfast sandwich that she didn’t want.
The biggest thing the kids did for me was agree to bike along next to me so that I could fit in my daily run. They like biking, but might not have chosen this particular course or time of day. Yet they knew it was really important to me to fit in a 45-minute run before breakfast. And they knew I couldn’t leave them alone for that long. So they agreed to go with me. Holly biked a short distance ahead of us; Tim rode next to me and asked questions about every single boat we could spot in the harbor as we passed by – questions of which I knew the answers to exactly none. But I was grateful to the kids for being willing to make my daily run work out for me.
Later in the day, watching them play a modified game of one-on-one in the courtyard outside the condo (because they had a ball but no basket; the game consisted of dribbling and stealing but no shooting), I thought about how much more reliably they get along together when we’re away from home. It’s not that they quarrel at home, more that they generally go their separate ways. The proximity of traveling puts them unavoidably in each other’s company, and they make it work for them, with games like this one, with help here and there, with enjoying each other’s company and making things easier for me when they can too.
Everyone helped everyone. To use my father’s favorite cliché from his years as a camp counselor, we ended the day tired but happy. And I felt a new appreciation for the kids’ attempts to pitch in when needed. It’s one of the great things about traveling: giving them the opportunity to be more than the people they are during normal everyday life. They came through for me in numerous ways, and I really appreciated it.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
In the middle of baseball season
When my 11-year-old’s baseball season ramps up, with three evening games and one practice a week, I sometimes catch myself musing that this isn’t quite as much fun as I remembered it being when I thought about it over the winter.
Well, of course. The long, dark, snowy days of winter are when my son, who really dislikes cold weather, tends to become pallid and fade away a bit. At that time I remind myself of what he is like at his best: playing shortstop or on the pitcher’s mound, stretching for a fly ball, winding up for a pitch, taking a practice swing on deck.
But in the thick of baseball season, where we are now, it’s harder for me to remember just why I looked forward to this time of year. Since my husband coaches Tim’s team, both of them are gone four evenings a week from five in the afternoon until nearly nine at night. It’s too early for dinner before they leave; they’re both weary and hungry when they get home, and I spend a lot of time throughout the season trying to think of dinners that I can make early in the evening for Holly and me but that will still be tasty when reheated hours later. This approach to cooking isn’t so hard in the winter, when stews and casseroles are typical fare, but harder with summery meals.
Also Tim gets so tired with all the night games, and often returns home with mild injuries that make it all the harder for him to drag himself through dinner, shower, and bed. Last night a pitch hit his side, leaving a big circular pink bruise. He’s a good sport, but I know it hurts.
And it’s not ideal for Holly and me, either. Since Rick is the coach, there isn’t as much pressure on me as there is on some moms to be at every game, but I try to show up at least half the time. Unfortunately, Holly is not the kind of younger sibling who adores watching her big brother compete. Most evenings, she’d rather stay home. Occasionally I can rouse some enthusiasm in her for going to Tim’s game for at last an inning or two, but that’s usually when the game is at a field where she has a vague memory of once seeing an ice cream truck.
Nonetheless, there are good parts to baseball season. On a warm spring evening, sitting on the bleachers can be a blissful interlude in a busy work week. I run into plenty of friends at the games and can happily pass an inning or two just gabbing with them; Tim doesn’t know the difference. But I also spend a fair amount of the time I’m there watching him play, because I love to watch him play. I’m not a huge baseball fan, but the sight of my own child throwing a fastball or fielding a grounder astounds me. “I created that child, and he can do that?” I marvel silently. “I understand how he learned to read, and swim. And even talk. I was part of it. But how did he get so good at something that has nothing to do with me?
In this respect, baseball is a rite of passage, not so much for Tim as for me. It’s the first thing in his young life that he’s really good at which I have no competency with whatsoever. Even though he’s eleven, sometimes I just can’t get over the fact that he’s branched off from me so visibly. I know nothing about how to play baseball; he knows a lot about it. And this is just the beginning. Maybe he’ll follow me in all kinds of ways – maybe he’ll be a runner, a journalist, a parent, a baker – but maybe not. Maybe he’ll learn to fly a plane, or do surgery. Maybe he’ll speak Russian.
Back in infancy, he was physically dependent on me, and he’s still in many ways emotionally reliant on me, the way children are with their parents at least up to their teen years, which still seem far off. But he’ll grow to be someone different from me, as different as he wishes. Knowing how to pitch a baseball is only the very very beginning of this process.
Spring league ends soon but summer baseball begins soon thereafter. I still have months of night games left to go, and along with them tired children and reheated dinners. But also warm sunlit evenings, energetic ball players to cheer on, and yes, ice cream trucks. All in all I like baseball season. And next winter I’ll try to muster a little more appreciation for non-baseball season, with its early evenings and family dinners.
Well, of course. The long, dark, snowy days of winter are when my son, who really dislikes cold weather, tends to become pallid and fade away a bit. At that time I remind myself of what he is like at his best: playing shortstop or on the pitcher’s mound, stretching for a fly ball, winding up for a pitch, taking a practice swing on deck.
But in the thick of baseball season, where we are now, it’s harder for me to remember just why I looked forward to this time of year. Since my husband coaches Tim’s team, both of them are gone four evenings a week from five in the afternoon until nearly nine at night. It’s too early for dinner before they leave; they’re both weary and hungry when they get home, and I spend a lot of time throughout the season trying to think of dinners that I can make early in the evening for Holly and me but that will still be tasty when reheated hours later. This approach to cooking isn’t so hard in the winter, when stews and casseroles are typical fare, but harder with summery meals.
Also Tim gets so tired with all the night games, and often returns home with mild injuries that make it all the harder for him to drag himself through dinner, shower, and bed. Last night a pitch hit his side, leaving a big circular pink bruise. He’s a good sport, but I know it hurts.
And it’s not ideal for Holly and me, either. Since Rick is the coach, there isn’t as much pressure on me as there is on some moms to be at every game, but I try to show up at least half the time. Unfortunately, Holly is not the kind of younger sibling who adores watching her big brother compete. Most evenings, she’d rather stay home. Occasionally I can rouse some enthusiasm in her for going to Tim’s game for at last an inning or two, but that’s usually when the game is at a field where she has a vague memory of once seeing an ice cream truck.
Nonetheless, there are good parts to baseball season. On a warm spring evening, sitting on the bleachers can be a blissful interlude in a busy work week. I run into plenty of friends at the games and can happily pass an inning or two just gabbing with them; Tim doesn’t know the difference. But I also spend a fair amount of the time I’m there watching him play, because I love to watch him play. I’m not a huge baseball fan, but the sight of my own child throwing a fastball or fielding a grounder astounds me. “I created that child, and he can do that?” I marvel silently. “I understand how he learned to read, and swim. And even talk. I was part of it. But how did he get so good at something that has nothing to do with me?
In this respect, baseball is a rite of passage, not so much for Tim as for me. It’s the first thing in his young life that he’s really good at which I have no competency with whatsoever. Even though he’s eleven, sometimes I just can’t get over the fact that he’s branched off from me so visibly. I know nothing about how to play baseball; he knows a lot about it. And this is just the beginning. Maybe he’ll follow me in all kinds of ways – maybe he’ll be a runner, a journalist, a parent, a baker – but maybe not. Maybe he’ll learn to fly a plane, or do surgery. Maybe he’ll speak Russian.
Back in infancy, he was physically dependent on me, and he’s still in many ways emotionally reliant on me, the way children are with their parents at least up to their teen years, which still seem far off. But he’ll grow to be someone different from me, as different as he wishes. Knowing how to pitch a baseball is only the very very beginning of this process.
Spring league ends soon but summer baseball begins soon thereafter. I still have months of night games left to go, and along with them tired children and reheated dinners. But also warm sunlit evenings, energetic ball players to cheer on, and yes, ice cream trucks. All in all I like baseball season. And next winter I’ll try to muster a little more appreciation for non-baseball season, with its early evenings and family dinners.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Four fussy eaters
“Did I tell you about the Spanish omelet I made yesterday?” my sister Sarah asks me on the phone. “I’m going to send you the recipe. I think everyone in your family would like it!”
Oh, what fantasy words those are. And how utterly out of reach. The thought of making an entrée that everyone in my family likes is a distant dream to me. And I already knew the Spanish omelet wasn’t going to fill the bill; my husband Rick is a fierce opponent of eggs.
Many parents of very young children complain about their kids’ picky appetites, but that’s not really the issue for us. My kids aren’t all that young, and their appetites aren’t exactly picky, in the sense that they’re not the types who will eat only chicken fingers and goldfish, say, or boxed macaroni and cheese. They’re just…well, they’re not omnivorous. They each have several things they like and a few they don’t. The problem is that my husband has his list as well, and I have mine, and if you drew a black-and-white Venn diagram, you’d find very few gray overlap areas. And this is one situation in which some gray areas would be most welcome, but we don’t have many.
My 7-year-old likes fairly plain foods. She likes meat without sauce, starches and vegetables without spice, and so on. This means she can eat a healthy variety as long as nothing has much seasoning, which means I need to remember to separate whatever she’s going to be eating early on in the preparations. I also have long believed she has sort of a biorhythmic appetite: she just sometimes seems too tired by dinnertime to make an effort with eating. When she asks for a bowl of shredded wheat and a sliced apple with cheese while I’m getting dinner ready, I’m usually willing to accommodate her, knowing she probably won’t be interested in anything that nutritious an hour later at the dinner table.
My 11-year-old son has a broader diversity of tastes. Unlike his sister, he likes spices and seasonings, garlic, onions, anchovies. In fact, it sometimes seems that his palate craves extreme flavors the way some people turn to extreme sports because they crave excitement. One of his favorite food items is balsamic vinegar. He’ll pour it on salad, eat the salad, and then finish off the vinegar with a spoon. He’ll refill his salad bowl with straight vinegar once or twice if I don’t stop him, which I eventually do because I think vinegar is bad for tooth enamel.
So his tastes are fairly convenient except that he passionately despises tomatoes. That’s it: just tomatoes. Which brings us to my situation: I’m a vegetarian. People sometimes mistakenly think that means I’m a picky eater, but I’m not: I like just about anything that doesn’t include meat. Still, the kids both like most vegetables, so there are dozens and dozens of wonderful things that I can make for a family dinner, except that my husband dislikes eggs, rice and beans, which are essentially a vegetarian’s mainstay. (He also doesn’t like tofu, but that hardly seems worth mentioning: who unless they are a vegetarian actually does like tofu?) And although he loves pasta, as do the rest of us (as long as Tim’s doesn’t have tomato sauce), for reasons of weight control he has been strongly advised to avoid it.
So making dinner has been a rather wearisome challenge lately. Despite my own vegetarian habits – I haven’t eaten meat since 1985 – I’m comfortable preparing it for my family; I actually think it’s better for the kids to eat some meat than to avoid it altogether. But no spices or sauces on Holly’s. No tomatoes with Tim’s. No omelets or rice-based casseroles for Rick. For years, before the kids were born and then before they expressed preferences, I was fine with cooking for both a carnivore and a vegetarian. That was easy compared to this.
Once in a while I hit on an effective menu, one that everyone eats enthusiastically. Something like pork chops – plain for Holly, sauced for Rick and Tim, none for me – and baked potatoes and steamed broccoli which we’ll all eat, though Rick doesn’t have more than a bite or two of high-carb potato. Tim and I both like salad for dinner; I add some tofu to mine for protein and feel like everyone is in good shape for the evening. But those meals are the minority. So I just keep working at finding the right mix of options for everyone, and sometimes we just all have leftovers and that’s okay too.
In a way, it’s a microcosm of family life. You try to please everyone, and you can’t, and yet everyone eventually finds something they can be happy with. Compromise and flexibility. In menu planning as in interpersonal dynamics. With lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top if at all possible.
Oh, what fantasy words those are. And how utterly out of reach. The thought of making an entrée that everyone in my family likes is a distant dream to me. And I already knew the Spanish omelet wasn’t going to fill the bill; my husband Rick is a fierce opponent of eggs.
Many parents of very young children complain about their kids’ picky appetites, but that’s not really the issue for us. My kids aren’t all that young, and their appetites aren’t exactly picky, in the sense that they’re not the types who will eat only chicken fingers and goldfish, say, or boxed macaroni and cheese. They’re just…well, they’re not omnivorous. They each have several things they like and a few they don’t. The problem is that my husband has his list as well, and I have mine, and if you drew a black-and-white Venn diagram, you’d find very few gray overlap areas. And this is one situation in which some gray areas would be most welcome, but we don’t have many.
My 7-year-old likes fairly plain foods. She likes meat without sauce, starches and vegetables without spice, and so on. This means she can eat a healthy variety as long as nothing has much seasoning, which means I need to remember to separate whatever she’s going to be eating early on in the preparations. I also have long believed she has sort of a biorhythmic appetite: she just sometimes seems too tired by dinnertime to make an effort with eating. When she asks for a bowl of shredded wheat and a sliced apple with cheese while I’m getting dinner ready, I’m usually willing to accommodate her, knowing she probably won’t be interested in anything that nutritious an hour later at the dinner table.
My 11-year-old son has a broader diversity of tastes. Unlike his sister, he likes spices and seasonings, garlic, onions, anchovies. In fact, it sometimes seems that his palate craves extreme flavors the way some people turn to extreme sports because they crave excitement. One of his favorite food items is balsamic vinegar. He’ll pour it on salad, eat the salad, and then finish off the vinegar with a spoon. He’ll refill his salad bowl with straight vinegar once or twice if I don’t stop him, which I eventually do because I think vinegar is bad for tooth enamel.
So his tastes are fairly convenient except that he passionately despises tomatoes. That’s it: just tomatoes. Which brings us to my situation: I’m a vegetarian. People sometimes mistakenly think that means I’m a picky eater, but I’m not: I like just about anything that doesn’t include meat. Still, the kids both like most vegetables, so there are dozens and dozens of wonderful things that I can make for a family dinner, except that my husband dislikes eggs, rice and beans, which are essentially a vegetarian’s mainstay. (He also doesn’t like tofu, but that hardly seems worth mentioning: who unless they are a vegetarian actually does like tofu?) And although he loves pasta, as do the rest of us (as long as Tim’s doesn’t have tomato sauce), for reasons of weight control he has been strongly advised to avoid it.
So making dinner has been a rather wearisome challenge lately. Despite my own vegetarian habits – I haven’t eaten meat since 1985 – I’m comfortable preparing it for my family; I actually think it’s better for the kids to eat some meat than to avoid it altogether. But no spices or sauces on Holly’s. No tomatoes with Tim’s. No omelets or rice-based casseroles for Rick. For years, before the kids were born and then before they expressed preferences, I was fine with cooking for both a carnivore and a vegetarian. That was easy compared to this.
Once in a while I hit on an effective menu, one that everyone eats enthusiastically. Something like pork chops – plain for Holly, sauced for Rick and Tim, none for me – and baked potatoes and steamed broccoli which we’ll all eat, though Rick doesn’t have more than a bite or two of high-carb potato. Tim and I both like salad for dinner; I add some tofu to mine for protein and feel like everyone is in good shape for the evening. But those meals are the minority. So I just keep working at finding the right mix of options for everyone, and sometimes we just all have leftovers and that’s okay too.
In a way, it’s a microcosm of family life. You try to please everyone, and you can’t, and yet everyone eventually finds something they can be happy with. Compromise and flexibility. In menu planning as in interpersonal dynamics. With lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top if at all possible.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Singing for joy, singing while vacuuming
My 7-year-old sings as she makes her way around the house. When she is playing, she sings quietly, long rambling sequences of fairly abstract phrases, as opposed to songs with melodies and lyrics of the sort she might learn in school. When she and her friend Samantha get together, sometimes they sing together in a more organized fashion – verses of a favorite from music class or a Disney movie – but when she’s by herself, she sings just as sort of background noise to keep herself company while she plays.
She also sings questions or observations sometimes. “Mommy may I please have some more orange juice?” becomes its own little melodic sequence, and so does “I can’t find my shoes today; they aren’t where I left them.”
I love hearing her sing. I love the good cheer it connotes, and its gentle yet joyful way of communication. I seldom sing myself because I have a scarily bad voice. When I do break into song, it’s usually to amuse the kids and it’s usually a matter of making up ad hoc lyrics intended to motivate a specific action on their part, such as the song I made to get us out the door on time, paying homage to “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by The Animals: “We’ve gotta get out of this house, if it’s the last thing we ever do! We’ve gotta get out of this house. Or we will miss the bus, and have to walk to school.”
In the past few days, my son has started singing, and it’s a mystery why. Tim, who is 11, never sang around the house. On Sunday, we needed to clean the house quickly, and Rick asked him to vacuum the upstairs bedrooms. With the vacuum running, we could hear him belting out “Row, row, row, your boat!” On and on he sang as the vacuum ran. I suppose it’s like singing in the shower: with noise and rhythm to back you up, it’s easier to let it out. Still, it’s not typical of Tim, and I was amused. When the vacuuming was done, he continued singing.
So much so, in fact, that Holly grew annoyed. She’s not used to having to talk over the background noise of Tim singing and asked him to stop. He reported to me that Holly was crying because of his singing. Then Holly started to cry. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “I wasn’t crying! Then Tim told you I was crying because he was singing, and that made me cry!”
Oh what a tangled web we weave, I thought to myself. My usually withdrawn and rather downcast son seemed to be brightening up and had discovered his loud singing voice for the first time in my memory; meanwhile my usually sunny daughter was crying over false accusations of, well, crying. Parenthood is never dull, even when the details seem to be.
Tim continued singing frequently in the days that followed. Could his cheery outbursts of song be an unexpected change with age? Some of the other boys we know who are his age or just a little older, immersed in pre-adolescence, seem to be growing moodier and more sullen. Wouldn't it be ironic if my son, who has always had a moodier mien than most of his friends, did the opposite as his teen years approached?
Another interesting angle is that a new pediatrician we visited for the first time last month when Tim had a slightly sore throat that I erroneously thought might be strep recommended that Tim start taking vitamins with iron. He’s been taking them for about two weeks now. Hence, singing? It seems like a stretch, but the evidence is bellowing its presence in front of me. Chalk one up for Fred Flintstone grape-flavored chewables, and someone please find me a tuning fork.
She also sings questions or observations sometimes. “Mommy may I please have some more orange juice?” becomes its own little melodic sequence, and so does “I can’t find my shoes today; they aren’t where I left them.”
I love hearing her sing. I love the good cheer it connotes, and its gentle yet joyful way of communication. I seldom sing myself because I have a scarily bad voice. When I do break into song, it’s usually to amuse the kids and it’s usually a matter of making up ad hoc lyrics intended to motivate a specific action on their part, such as the song I made to get us out the door on time, paying homage to “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by The Animals: “We’ve gotta get out of this house, if it’s the last thing we ever do! We’ve gotta get out of this house. Or we will miss the bus, and have to walk to school.”
In the past few days, my son has started singing, and it’s a mystery why. Tim, who is 11, never sang around the house. On Sunday, we needed to clean the house quickly, and Rick asked him to vacuum the upstairs bedrooms. With the vacuum running, we could hear him belting out “Row, row, row, your boat!” On and on he sang as the vacuum ran. I suppose it’s like singing in the shower: with noise and rhythm to back you up, it’s easier to let it out. Still, it’s not typical of Tim, and I was amused. When the vacuuming was done, he continued singing.
So much so, in fact, that Holly grew annoyed. She’s not used to having to talk over the background noise of Tim singing and asked him to stop. He reported to me that Holly was crying because of his singing. Then Holly started to cry. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “I wasn’t crying! Then Tim told you I was crying because he was singing, and that made me cry!”
Oh what a tangled web we weave, I thought to myself. My usually withdrawn and rather downcast son seemed to be brightening up and had discovered his loud singing voice for the first time in my memory; meanwhile my usually sunny daughter was crying over false accusations of, well, crying. Parenthood is never dull, even when the details seem to be.
Tim continued singing frequently in the days that followed. Could his cheery outbursts of song be an unexpected change with age? Some of the other boys we know who are his age or just a little older, immersed in pre-adolescence, seem to be growing moodier and more sullen. Wouldn't it be ironic if my son, who has always had a moodier mien than most of his friends, did the opposite as his teen years approached?
Another interesting angle is that a new pediatrician we visited for the first time last month when Tim had a slightly sore throat that I erroneously thought might be strep recommended that Tim start taking vitamins with iron. He’s been taking them for about two weeks now. Hence, singing? It seems like a stretch, but the evidence is bellowing its presence in front of me. Chalk one up for Fred Flintstone grape-flavored chewables, and someone please find me a tuning fork.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Why is bedtime still the most tiring part of the day?
My friend Anne told me an anecdote several years ago that I think back on often. Anne’s sons were about one and three at the time, and she recounted a scene that plays out every few months between her and her husband. Just as they are about to head upstairs to get the boys ready for bed, she or her spouse will say, “You know, it’s still early. Why don’t we plan to do something after the boys are in bed, like watch a movie or have friends over to visit?”
Half an hour later, one or both of them will stagger back down the stairs looking like a cartoon character that’s been in a fight: glasses askew, skin smudged, clothes torn. “Oh yeah, that’s why,” the one who earlier suggested a post-bedtime plan will say wearily.
My daughter is seven, but I still think back on Anne’s story a lot because in some ways it still feels that way to me. Putting Holly to bed isn’t like dealing with a difficult toddler’s bedtime. She doesn’t scream or struggle or run around the house. She just takes so long and wants so much interaction from me. She wants help putting on her pj’s. She wants me to read to her. She wants to talk about the dream she had the night before and what might happen at school tomorrow. There’s the obligatory glass of water, along with a discussion about the adrenal system and how much I think it’s okay for her to sip before bed without the risk of a bed-wetting incident. There are the traveling rounds throughout the house: goodnight to Daddy, goodnight to Tim, goodnight to the dog, goodnight again to Daddy. And then there are the few details on which I insist: brushing teeth, using the bathroom (sometimes both before and after aforementioned sips of water), and the laying-out of tomorrow’s clothes, which inevitably leads to a discussion on meteorological forecasting, because how can Holly be expected to decide what to wear tomorrow, she says, if we haven’t precisely pinpointed the probable high and low temperature for the day as well as the likelihood of every possible kind of precipitation?
Lights out at last. It’s only eight o’clock. Surely I could finish drafting an article or fold some laundry or –
No. Like Anne and her husband, I can’t imagine how I thought I would get anything productive done after Holly’s bedtime.
The thing with Holly’s rituals is that in general, they are all not only reasonable but fairly enjoyable. I still like reading to her just as much as she likes being read to. I like the orderly feeling of laying out tomorrow’s clothes. I like tucking her in. I just wish it didn’t all have to happen at 8 PM when I’m starting to have an energy crash of my own.
But at the same time, as with so many aspects of parenting, I appreciate on an intellectual level that this too shall pass, and someday I’ll miss all these bedtime rituals. My son, at the age of 11, has long since forsaken the wish to have me help him get ready for bed or read to him. Without discussion, he takes a shower, reads or plays a computer game for a little while, and calls for me to kiss him goodnight (though of course he’d never use those words). And in a way, that’s really nice. I like the fact that getting him to bed no longer takes thirty minutes or more out of my already overscheduled evening. It probably won’t be too much longer before Holly is at the same stage, bathing and changing on her own, maybe even not only content to read to herself but actually not wanting me to be too familiar with the content of what she’s reading.
So as I drag my tired self through another protracted bedtime routine, I remember all of this, and I think too of all the mothers who cannot tuck their children into bed at night: those moms who work the night shift, are inmates or hospital patients, serve an overseas deployment.
It’s a privilege to help Holly get ready for bed. It’s tiring, but it’s one of the best parts of daily life as a parent. And of course, a successful bedtime routine is almost always followed by that most unforgettable gift of all: getting to creep back into a dark bedroom to watch your child sleep, a sight that grows no less adorable from the first night after the baby’s birth until, I would imagine, the night before she leaves for college. And beyond.
So, like Anne and her husband, I’ll continue to have selective nightly amnesia, thinking at 7 PM that there’s no good reason why I can’t still have hours of productivity or at least fun left in my evening, only to be reminded by 8:30 of just why nothing ever happens at that time of night. Someday, my kids will no longer need bedtime rituals, and I’ll have all the time I want. For now, I’ll keep trying to savor the moment.
Half an hour later, one or both of them will stagger back down the stairs looking like a cartoon character that’s been in a fight: glasses askew, skin smudged, clothes torn. “Oh yeah, that’s why,” the one who earlier suggested a post-bedtime plan will say wearily.
My daughter is seven, but I still think back on Anne’s story a lot because in some ways it still feels that way to me. Putting Holly to bed isn’t like dealing with a difficult toddler’s bedtime. She doesn’t scream or struggle or run around the house. She just takes so long and wants so much interaction from me. She wants help putting on her pj’s. She wants me to read to her. She wants to talk about the dream she had the night before and what might happen at school tomorrow. There’s the obligatory glass of water, along with a discussion about the adrenal system and how much I think it’s okay for her to sip before bed without the risk of a bed-wetting incident. There are the traveling rounds throughout the house: goodnight to Daddy, goodnight to Tim, goodnight to the dog, goodnight again to Daddy. And then there are the few details on which I insist: brushing teeth, using the bathroom (sometimes both before and after aforementioned sips of water), and the laying-out of tomorrow’s clothes, which inevitably leads to a discussion on meteorological forecasting, because how can Holly be expected to decide what to wear tomorrow, she says, if we haven’t precisely pinpointed the probable high and low temperature for the day as well as the likelihood of every possible kind of precipitation?
Lights out at last. It’s only eight o’clock. Surely I could finish drafting an article or fold some laundry or –
No. Like Anne and her husband, I can’t imagine how I thought I would get anything productive done after Holly’s bedtime.
The thing with Holly’s rituals is that in general, they are all not only reasonable but fairly enjoyable. I still like reading to her just as much as she likes being read to. I like the orderly feeling of laying out tomorrow’s clothes. I like tucking her in. I just wish it didn’t all have to happen at 8 PM when I’m starting to have an energy crash of my own.
But at the same time, as with so many aspects of parenting, I appreciate on an intellectual level that this too shall pass, and someday I’ll miss all these bedtime rituals. My son, at the age of 11, has long since forsaken the wish to have me help him get ready for bed or read to him. Without discussion, he takes a shower, reads or plays a computer game for a little while, and calls for me to kiss him goodnight (though of course he’d never use those words). And in a way, that’s really nice. I like the fact that getting him to bed no longer takes thirty minutes or more out of my already overscheduled evening. It probably won’t be too much longer before Holly is at the same stage, bathing and changing on her own, maybe even not only content to read to herself but actually not wanting me to be too familiar with the content of what she’s reading.
So as I drag my tired self through another protracted bedtime routine, I remember all of this, and I think too of all the mothers who cannot tuck their children into bed at night: those moms who work the night shift, are inmates or hospital patients, serve an overseas deployment.
It’s a privilege to help Holly get ready for bed. It’s tiring, but it’s one of the best parts of daily life as a parent. And of course, a successful bedtime routine is almost always followed by that most unforgettable gift of all: getting to creep back into a dark bedroom to watch your child sleep, a sight that grows no less adorable from the first night after the baby’s birth until, I would imagine, the night before she leaves for college. And beyond.
So, like Anne and her husband, I’ll continue to have selective nightly amnesia, thinking at 7 PM that there’s no good reason why I can’t still have hours of productivity or at least fun left in my evening, only to be reminded by 8:30 of just why nothing ever happens at that time of night. Someday, my kids will no longer need bedtime rituals, and I’ll have all the time I want. For now, I’ll keep trying to savor the moment.
Monday, February 15, 2010
When your child surprises you (in a good way)
When Tim was an infant, the facilitator of the new parents’ group I attended gave me countless nuggets of wisdom about parenting, especially where babies were concerned.
But sometimes good advice about babies turns out to be good advice about kids in general. One that sticks in my mind is “Let your baby surprise you.” Don’t assume that things won’t go well, the facilitator, whose name was Robin, used to counsel us. Just because you’ve heard that it’s really hard to get a newborn to sleep alone in a crib doesn’t mean it will be for you. Put him to bed and see what happens. Just because you’ve heard breast-fed babies won’t take bottles doesn’t mean you’ll have a problem when you go back to work. Give it a chance. Let your baby surprise you.
The “baby” in question is eleven now, but sometimes when I remind myself of Robin’s soothing maxim, it still works. Don’t worry about things that haven’t happened. Let your baby surprise you.
Tim has had a button aversion since he was in preschool – really, now that I think about it, since he could express preferences, so maybe it’s not something that developed but something he had in babyhood and just couldn’t explain to us. He despises wearing clothes with buttons. Zippers, too. And this poses a big problem when he’s required to dress up. Most of the time, he wears sweatpants with jerseys, t-shirts or sweatshirts. Fortunately for us, boys’ sweatpants have evolved now to the point where they don’t necessarily look like something strictly for gym class, with drawstring waist and puckered-elastic cuffs. Now there are sweatpants ideal for kids like Tim who won’t wear anything else. They come in dark colors, elastic hidden, and hang like regular pants. With a clean jersey or pullover sweater, Tim almost looks acceptably dressed these days.
But with the death of Rick’s 91-year-old grandfather last week, Tim was faced with having to attend his first wake and funeral. And I was not at all happy with the fact that along with the general sadness of losing a beloved family member, I knew I’d have to deal with the tantrum to end all tantrums when Tim found out he’d be expected to don zippered pants and a button-down shirt for the occasion.
But, to paraphrase Robin from the era of my life when Tim’s age was counted in weeks rather than years, my baby surprised me. He wasn’t enthusiastic about the shopping trip – in fact, he refused to try clothes on at the store, so I estimated and bought a couple of sizes, figuring I could return what didn’t fit – but when the time came to get ready for the wake, Tim donned his new attire.
And he didn’t complain, which is what surprised me even more. Not only did I not get the full-scale tantrum I anticipated; I didn’t even get much foot-dragging. Having learned a thing or two myself about adversarial parenting situations over the past eleven years, I told Tim to start dressing an hour before we needed to leave, knowing that needing to rush always makes tense situations escalate rapidly where children are concerned. With plenty of time to prepare, Tim put on his new clothes without a word of protest.
And I have to admit, I welled with pride to see him dressed so nattily. (Compared with his usual hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, an Oxford shirt and cords qualified as natty indeed.) Not only that, but as cliché as it might sound, dressing like an adult really did seem to change his behavior. Once dressed, he was ready to go. He didn’t skirmish with his younger sister; he packed his overnight bag efficiently and helped carry things out to the car. He was dressed like an adult for once and, to my surprise, acted a little bit like one as well.
A couple of hours into the evening, he whispered to me, “Don’t expect me to dress like this all the time now!” No, I won’t. And, needless to say, I hope he doesn’t have to attend any more wakes any time soon. But he surprised me, and in doing so, he reminded me of exactly what Robin tried to tell me over eleven years ago: expect things to work out when it comes to parenting, because a lot of times, they do.
But sometimes good advice about babies turns out to be good advice about kids in general. One that sticks in my mind is “Let your baby surprise you.” Don’t assume that things won’t go well, the facilitator, whose name was Robin, used to counsel us. Just because you’ve heard that it’s really hard to get a newborn to sleep alone in a crib doesn’t mean it will be for you. Put him to bed and see what happens. Just because you’ve heard breast-fed babies won’t take bottles doesn’t mean you’ll have a problem when you go back to work. Give it a chance. Let your baby surprise you.
The “baby” in question is eleven now, but sometimes when I remind myself of Robin’s soothing maxim, it still works. Don’t worry about things that haven’t happened. Let your baby surprise you.
Tim has had a button aversion since he was in preschool – really, now that I think about it, since he could express preferences, so maybe it’s not something that developed but something he had in babyhood and just couldn’t explain to us. He despises wearing clothes with buttons. Zippers, too. And this poses a big problem when he’s required to dress up. Most of the time, he wears sweatpants with jerseys, t-shirts or sweatshirts. Fortunately for us, boys’ sweatpants have evolved now to the point where they don’t necessarily look like something strictly for gym class, with drawstring waist and puckered-elastic cuffs. Now there are sweatpants ideal for kids like Tim who won’t wear anything else. They come in dark colors, elastic hidden, and hang like regular pants. With a clean jersey or pullover sweater, Tim almost looks acceptably dressed these days.
But with the death of Rick’s 91-year-old grandfather last week, Tim was faced with having to attend his first wake and funeral. And I was not at all happy with the fact that along with the general sadness of losing a beloved family member, I knew I’d have to deal with the tantrum to end all tantrums when Tim found out he’d be expected to don zippered pants and a button-down shirt for the occasion.
But, to paraphrase Robin from the era of my life when Tim’s age was counted in weeks rather than years, my baby surprised me. He wasn’t enthusiastic about the shopping trip – in fact, he refused to try clothes on at the store, so I estimated and bought a couple of sizes, figuring I could return what didn’t fit – but when the time came to get ready for the wake, Tim donned his new attire.
And he didn’t complain, which is what surprised me even more. Not only did I not get the full-scale tantrum I anticipated; I didn’t even get much foot-dragging. Having learned a thing or two myself about adversarial parenting situations over the past eleven years, I told Tim to start dressing an hour before we needed to leave, knowing that needing to rush always makes tense situations escalate rapidly where children are concerned. With plenty of time to prepare, Tim put on his new clothes without a word of protest.
And I have to admit, I welled with pride to see him dressed so nattily. (Compared with his usual hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, an Oxford shirt and cords qualified as natty indeed.) Not only that, but as cliché as it might sound, dressing like an adult really did seem to change his behavior. Once dressed, he was ready to go. He didn’t skirmish with his younger sister; he packed his overnight bag efficiently and helped carry things out to the car. He was dressed like an adult for once and, to my surprise, acted a little bit like one as well.
A couple of hours into the evening, he whispered to me, “Don’t expect me to dress like this all the time now!” No, I won’t. And, needless to say, I hope he doesn’t have to attend any more wakes any time soon. But he surprised me, and in doing so, he reminded me of exactly what Robin tried to tell me over eleven years ago: expect things to work out when it comes to parenting, because a lot of times, they do.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Holly can't drive
Just before the alarm clock went off, I started dreaming that Holly wanted to drive the car. She cajoled. She pleaded. She whined. She demanded. I conceded, then realized as she took the wheel that it really wasn’t a very good idea to give a 7-year-old control of the car. “Holly, please, be careful, be sensible….” I fretted as we veered across the road.
The alarm went off and I woke up amused rather than frightened, with these simple words in my head: “Holly can’t drive!”
The light of day showed the dream-conflict for all of its absurdity: Holly is seven! It doesn’t matter how much she demands, pleads, or cajoles: she can’t drive!
The reason I dreamed this seemed clear to me. Holly still has occasional tantrums and I still sometimes find it challenging to stand up to her. Tim was the same way at her age. Though I generally associate tantrums more with the preschool years, both of them at around the same time hit a streak of iron will that enabled them to stand up against every force of parental reason.
But now when it happens I just remind myself: Holly can’t drive. No matter what, it’s not an option.
Reading Eileen Calandro’s blog entry about the importance of saying no and considering some issues absolutely non-negotiable reminded me of that dream and the part its message has played in my life over the past few months. We parents encourage our children to be articulate and analytical, and then sometimes, to use an expression of my father’s, we hoist ourselves on our own petard. “Use your words,” we say over and over again when they are small in an attempt to get them to verbalize their feelings. But eventually, we reach a point where we have to remember their words aren’t always relevant to our decision-making process. Waking from the dream, I realized there was no amount of seven-year-old eloquence in the world that could convince me to let Holly take the wheel; and yet in waking life I still, after eleven years of parenting, have to remind myself sometimes that some decisions are universally mine and not up to discussion.
At 11, Tim is past the tantrummy stage; he may still disagree with my edicts but he doesn’t try to change my mind through force of will. But back when he was Holly’s age, there were similar struggles, and sometimes I found it helpful to ask myself this rather coarse but straightforward question: “He’s still, like, half your weight, right?” It’s not that I would really use physical force against my children; it’s just that reminding myself of this fact underscored the fact that it would be physically impossible for Tim to force me to, say, let him play another half-hour of video games or invite a friend whose presence I found disruptive for a sleepover. No mother really wants to think of parenting as a contest of physical might, but the obviousness of it always jolted me back to reality.
My husband’s simple sense of logic sometimes provides a useful reality check as well. Once when Tim was seven, Rick was present for one of Tim’s and my near-daily arguments about whether I would pick Tim up at school (which he vastly preferred) or whether he should take the bus (my preference). Tim was insisting that I had to pick him up, and I was dithering and arguing and protesting until Rick simply said, “Fine, Tim. You stand out on the school plaza until Mommy arrives to pick you up, because she already said she’s not going to!” And Rick was right, of course. If I wasn’t there to pick Tim up, he’d have to take the bus home. End of discussion.
Not that it’s always easy. But keeping these basic principles in mind helps in the heat of the moment. Just this past weekend, Holly and I were in my bedroom and she wanted me to read to her before bed – but she wanted me to go fetch the book from her room, and I wanted her to do it. She fussed and screeched; she pointed out that she often fetches things for me when I need them. But I simply didn’t feel like it. I was already lying in bed and I was comfortable, and she was the one who wanted the book. So I said no.
She was right; I do often ask her to go grab my phone from my purse or a stamp from the desk. But this time it didn’t matter to me; I wasn’t willing to back down. Because for one thing, when I back down on trivial things with the kids just to avoid prolonging the argument, I end up really irritable. If I went to get the book, I’d be feeling cranky the whole time we were reading. “Fine,” I said to Holly. “If you won’t go get the book, we won’t read. I’m going to do some deskwork. If you change your mind, come get me.”
Holly hates to lose face by backing down. She disappeared into her room, then reappeared a half-hour later to announce frostily, “I’m ready for bed now, if you would please come tuck me in.” So we missed out on reading that night. And I understand it wasn’t all that important an issue. But maintaining willpower against the kids’ demands is a good exercise for me. And so I’m glad once again for the practice. Because Holly can’t drive. And to contemplate allowing her to do so would just be bad parenting.
The alarm went off and I woke up amused rather than frightened, with these simple words in my head: “Holly can’t drive!”
The light of day showed the dream-conflict for all of its absurdity: Holly is seven! It doesn’t matter how much she demands, pleads, or cajoles: she can’t drive!
The reason I dreamed this seemed clear to me. Holly still has occasional tantrums and I still sometimes find it challenging to stand up to her. Tim was the same way at her age. Though I generally associate tantrums more with the preschool years, both of them at around the same time hit a streak of iron will that enabled them to stand up against every force of parental reason.
But now when it happens I just remind myself: Holly can’t drive. No matter what, it’s not an option.
Reading Eileen Calandro’s blog entry about the importance of saying no and considering some issues absolutely non-negotiable reminded me of that dream and the part its message has played in my life over the past few months. We parents encourage our children to be articulate and analytical, and then sometimes, to use an expression of my father’s, we hoist ourselves on our own petard. “Use your words,” we say over and over again when they are small in an attempt to get them to verbalize their feelings. But eventually, we reach a point where we have to remember their words aren’t always relevant to our decision-making process. Waking from the dream, I realized there was no amount of seven-year-old eloquence in the world that could convince me to let Holly take the wheel; and yet in waking life I still, after eleven years of parenting, have to remind myself sometimes that some decisions are universally mine and not up to discussion.
At 11, Tim is past the tantrummy stage; he may still disagree with my edicts but he doesn’t try to change my mind through force of will. But back when he was Holly’s age, there were similar struggles, and sometimes I found it helpful to ask myself this rather coarse but straightforward question: “He’s still, like, half your weight, right?” It’s not that I would really use physical force against my children; it’s just that reminding myself of this fact underscored the fact that it would be physically impossible for Tim to force me to, say, let him play another half-hour of video games or invite a friend whose presence I found disruptive for a sleepover. No mother really wants to think of parenting as a contest of physical might, but the obviousness of it always jolted me back to reality.
My husband’s simple sense of logic sometimes provides a useful reality check as well. Once when Tim was seven, Rick was present for one of Tim’s and my near-daily arguments about whether I would pick Tim up at school (which he vastly preferred) or whether he should take the bus (my preference). Tim was insisting that I had to pick him up, and I was dithering and arguing and protesting until Rick simply said, “Fine, Tim. You stand out on the school plaza until Mommy arrives to pick you up, because she already said she’s not going to!” And Rick was right, of course. If I wasn’t there to pick Tim up, he’d have to take the bus home. End of discussion.
Not that it’s always easy. But keeping these basic principles in mind helps in the heat of the moment. Just this past weekend, Holly and I were in my bedroom and she wanted me to read to her before bed – but she wanted me to go fetch the book from her room, and I wanted her to do it. She fussed and screeched; she pointed out that she often fetches things for me when I need them. But I simply didn’t feel like it. I was already lying in bed and I was comfortable, and she was the one who wanted the book. So I said no.
She was right; I do often ask her to go grab my phone from my purse or a stamp from the desk. But this time it didn’t matter to me; I wasn’t willing to back down. Because for one thing, when I back down on trivial things with the kids just to avoid prolonging the argument, I end up really irritable. If I went to get the book, I’d be feeling cranky the whole time we were reading. “Fine,” I said to Holly. “If you won’t go get the book, we won’t read. I’m going to do some deskwork. If you change your mind, come get me.”
Holly hates to lose face by backing down. She disappeared into her room, then reappeared a half-hour later to announce frostily, “I’m ready for bed now, if you would please come tuck me in.” So we missed out on reading that night. And I understand it wasn’t all that important an issue. But maintaining willpower against the kids’ demands is a good exercise for me. And so I’m glad once again for the practice. Because Holly can’t drive. And to contemplate allowing her to do so would just be bad parenting.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Cell phones, nail polish and other requests that throw parents
Amy Suardi wrote an interesting post about children and cell phones on the Frugal Mama blog today. I wrote earlier this fall about our decision to give Tim a cell phone now that he is 11. Tim didn’t ask for one; what he asked for was more afterschool freedom in the form of going to the library or the school’s “homework club” after dismissal, and when Rick upgraded his phone, it made sense to give the cast-off to Tim.
He doesn’t particularly like to talk on the phone, nor do his friends, so I wasn’t concern that he would misuse the privilege. It’s just helpful for making last-minute changes of plans, and eliminates problems caused by miscommunications or other complications that can result in missed connections, such as the day I told Tim he could go to the library for an hour after school and he arrived there to discover the library was closed.
As Amy points out, a lot of people equate cell phones with accelerating the growing-up process for kids. Although this hasn’t been the case for us, in that Tim’s cell phone is strictly a practical aid, there are other ways in which the debate about acceleration of childhood raises questions for me. For example, my 7-year-old loves nail polish, and I have no particular problem with her putting it on occasionally, especially since it’s something she often does as a social activity with a friend, but one of her closest friends is allowed only toenail polish and not fingernail polish. What is the message I am sending her by allowing nail polish? Is it that she has to add artificial color and shine to her appearance in order to look pretty, that what nature bestows on us is not enough? Or is it just that painting is fun, whether it’s on paper or on your nails?
Earlier this week Holly handed me her Christmas wish list, which included the line item “makeup kit.” This, I admit I balk at. Should a 7-year-old be taking an interest in makeup? But upon further reflection, I can see how a case could be made that letting her play with makeup at home wouldn’t be so different from letting her play dress-up, which she and a few of her friends do by the hour. I wouldn’t let her go out in public wearing blush or lipstick any more than I’d let her go out in my grandmother’s floor-length yellow silk gown, but in a way, both seem to me like reasonable ways of practicing the fun of masquerade. I’ll probably veto the makeup idea simply because unlike silk gowns, makeup has the potential to damage rugs, countertops and other hard-to-clean household surfaces, but not because I’m convinced it’s inherently wrong for Holly to play with.
When Holly was five, she started asking to get her ears pierced, something she was finally permitted to do on her seventh birthday. Some of our friends were surprised we allowed this, but for me, the reason to say yes ultimately had to do with Holly’s reasons for asking. It wasn’t that she wanted to look like an adult; it was that she likes the way earrings look and she thought it would be fun to start collecting them. She’s allowed only stud earrings or tiny hoops, no dangling earrings, and I think they look pretty on her. Moreover, getting her ears pierced for her birthday seemed to me a far more satisfying gift for both value and timelessness than a toy or other object easily outgrown. (Holly’s case was also helped by the fact that when I asked our pediatrician for her advice on ear piercing, she responded, “You forget, I’m from a Hispanic background. My daughters had their ears done at nine months.”)
Maybe cell phones, nail polish and makeup all come down to the child’s intent in wanting them. As with so many things, the objects themselves have no intrinsic meaning regarding who should have them and when; the debate really emanates from how the kids perceive them or plan to use them. Is the value of a cell phone in its use for communicating last-minute changes of plans, like in our household, or is it for furtively getting in touch with friends while bypassing the oversight of parents? I heard a commentator on NPR recently speaking about the small but seemingly critical component of etiquette that has been lost now that kids can call each other directly. No more, “Hi, Mr. Hatch. This is Tim. May I speak to Cole?” now that Tim can reach Cole directly on Cole’s individual phone. When I was growing up, if you couldn’t handle the challenge of speaking politely to a friend’s parents on the phone when you called, you didn’t dare call. (But for counterbalance, I read an essay in which the writer described the unexpected joy that his wife’s cell phone brings him: now that her mother can call her directly rather than through a house phone, he is forever free from the obligation of making awkward small talk with his mother-in-law.)
So in a way, it comes down to a riddle. When is a cell phone not a cell phone? When kids want it to send inappropriate pictures, offensive text messages or arrangements for meet-ups they shouldn’t be having, I suppose. When are clothes and makeup not just clothes and makeup? When girls Holly’s age want to feel and act like teenagers, rather than just like children in costume. If Holly wanted to dress like Britney Spears, it would bother me. But she doesn’t: she wants to wear my grandmother’s long silk ball gown. That’s not about growing up fast; it’s about playing make-believe. And as I see it, there’s nothing about make-believe that’s going to do her any damage at all. And Tim has a cell phone he didn’t even particularly want so that he can let us know when the library is closing early. Every decision comes within its own context, and parents learn to assess, evaluate and decide, one request at a time, over the course of many years.
He doesn’t particularly like to talk on the phone, nor do his friends, so I wasn’t concern that he would misuse the privilege. It’s just helpful for making last-minute changes of plans, and eliminates problems caused by miscommunications or other complications that can result in missed connections, such as the day I told Tim he could go to the library for an hour after school and he arrived there to discover the library was closed.
As Amy points out, a lot of people equate cell phones with accelerating the growing-up process for kids. Although this hasn’t been the case for us, in that Tim’s cell phone is strictly a practical aid, there are other ways in which the debate about acceleration of childhood raises questions for me. For example, my 7-year-old loves nail polish, and I have no particular problem with her putting it on occasionally, especially since it’s something she often does as a social activity with a friend, but one of her closest friends is allowed only toenail polish and not fingernail polish. What is the message I am sending her by allowing nail polish? Is it that she has to add artificial color and shine to her appearance in order to look pretty, that what nature bestows on us is not enough? Or is it just that painting is fun, whether it’s on paper or on your nails?
Earlier this week Holly handed me her Christmas wish list, which included the line item “makeup kit.” This, I admit I balk at. Should a 7-year-old be taking an interest in makeup? But upon further reflection, I can see how a case could be made that letting her play with makeup at home wouldn’t be so different from letting her play dress-up, which she and a few of her friends do by the hour. I wouldn’t let her go out in public wearing blush or lipstick any more than I’d let her go out in my grandmother’s floor-length yellow silk gown, but in a way, both seem to me like reasonable ways of practicing the fun of masquerade. I’ll probably veto the makeup idea simply because unlike silk gowns, makeup has the potential to damage rugs, countertops and other hard-to-clean household surfaces, but not because I’m convinced it’s inherently wrong for Holly to play with.
When Holly was five, she started asking to get her ears pierced, something she was finally permitted to do on her seventh birthday. Some of our friends were surprised we allowed this, but for me, the reason to say yes ultimately had to do with Holly’s reasons for asking. It wasn’t that she wanted to look like an adult; it was that she likes the way earrings look and she thought it would be fun to start collecting them. She’s allowed only stud earrings or tiny hoops, no dangling earrings, and I think they look pretty on her. Moreover, getting her ears pierced for her birthday seemed to me a far more satisfying gift for both value and timelessness than a toy or other object easily outgrown. (Holly’s case was also helped by the fact that when I asked our pediatrician for her advice on ear piercing, she responded, “You forget, I’m from a Hispanic background. My daughters had their ears done at nine months.”)
Maybe cell phones, nail polish and makeup all come down to the child’s intent in wanting them. As with so many things, the objects themselves have no intrinsic meaning regarding who should have them and when; the debate really emanates from how the kids perceive them or plan to use them. Is the value of a cell phone in its use for communicating last-minute changes of plans, like in our household, or is it for furtively getting in touch with friends while bypassing the oversight of parents? I heard a commentator on NPR recently speaking about the small but seemingly critical component of etiquette that has been lost now that kids can call each other directly. No more, “Hi, Mr. Hatch. This is Tim. May I speak to Cole?” now that Tim can reach Cole directly on Cole’s individual phone. When I was growing up, if you couldn’t handle the challenge of speaking politely to a friend’s parents on the phone when you called, you didn’t dare call. (But for counterbalance, I read an essay in which the writer described the unexpected joy that his wife’s cell phone brings him: now that her mother can call her directly rather than through a house phone, he is forever free from the obligation of making awkward small talk with his mother-in-law.)
So in a way, it comes down to a riddle. When is a cell phone not a cell phone? When kids want it to send inappropriate pictures, offensive text messages or arrangements for meet-ups they shouldn’t be having, I suppose. When are clothes and makeup not just clothes and makeup? When girls Holly’s age want to feel and act like teenagers, rather than just like children in costume. If Holly wanted to dress like Britney Spears, it would bother me. But she doesn’t: she wants to wear my grandmother’s long silk ball gown. That’s not about growing up fast; it’s about playing make-believe. And as I see it, there’s nothing about make-believe that’s going to do her any damage at all. And Tim has a cell phone he didn’t even particularly want so that he can let us know when the library is closing early. Every decision comes within its own context, and parents learn to assess, evaluate and decide, one request at a time, over the course of many years.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Tim is 11 years old today!
Today is Tim’s 11th birthday. He will have to forgive me someday when he realizes that I abandoned the yearly habit of writing him a long letter on his birthday sometime around year 5 or 6. (And I abandoned the monthly habit of writing him a medium-sized letter somewhere around six months!) Best intentions, and all that.
Well, I wrote a book about him, along with dozens of essays that have been published in various newspapers – he’ll just have to be content with that. (Or, as some of my readers who are also parents have pointed out to me, I should consider myself lucky if “content” is how he’d describe his feelings about some of my essays. Come on, doesn’t every mom at some point write an essay about her son’s fascination with his athletic protective gear?)
I love celebrating Tim’s birthday. I love the memories it brings back and the sense of accomplishment it engenders. Eleven years of Tim – tell me that’s not an accomplishment. A blessing, to be sure, but an accomplishment as well. I love him, but I certainly do not always understand him. Last June, while I was at the Aspen Summer Words writers’ conference, I had such an interesting discussion with author/writing instructor Bill Loizeaux. We discovered we’d both had the inexplicable experience of meeting our daughters at the moment of their birth and knowing certain things about their personalities at that instant that turned out, years later, to be absolutely accurate. I actually wrote in my journal, still in the hospital, when Holly was one day old, about the kind of person I already knew her to be: generous, kind and good-natured as long as you don’t step on her toes, in which case she’ll be uncompromising about defining her space and making sure you stay out of it.
I laughed as I wrote, knowing I couldn’t possibly have any idea what her personality would be: I was either purely imagining or else projecting, describing the daughter I subconsciously wanted to have. And yet seven years later I know that the description really was Holly. Something about her newborn squawks and sighs, her scrunchy pink face, her curious dark blue eyes – I knew. I knew her character in those minutes after birth. And Bill had the same experience with his daughters.
After he and I discussed it, I thought about the conversation again and realized something I’d left out: But it wasn’t like that with Tim. I don’t remember inferring his personality on the day he was born, or the days when he was an infant. I remember – and I’ve written about – gazing into his eyes, and him gazing back into mine, as we both wondered what it would be like getting to know each other and spending our lives together. But I didn’t know his soul the way I did with Holly. And, I realized as I thought about it that day in Aspen, the amazing thing is I still don’t. Tim is still a mystery to me. I know his preferences – fantasy fiction, baseball, crisp lettuce doused in vinegar, sleeping late on weekends – but I don’t absolutely know what makes him tick. I don’t know how he thinks or who he will someday be. I didn’t eleven years ago, and I don’t now.
But it’s always such a pleasure on his birthday to think about all the celebrations we’ve had for him since his birth and all the ways in which he’s changed. His one-year-old party, on a sunny day in our pretty little yard in Framingham, when we invited all our friends – because he didn’t have his own friends yet – and celebrated the fact that we’d made it through the first year. His four-year-old birthday, when he and his preschool classmates were hoisted into a Peter Pan sling at One Stop Fun to sail through the air. His seven-year-old birthday, ten friends at the Spinners game, the sky clearing after a day of gusts and rain which we did not fully realize then were the outermost edges of Hurricane Katrina. (We held his party two weeks early that year because the Spinners, a minor league team, end their season on Labor Day.) His nine-year-old party, just his friend Austin with us in Maine, when Rick prepared a lobster- and clambake.
This year he wants to do laser tag; for various reasons we’re postponing it until next month, but he doesn’t mind. Tonight my parents took us out to dinner at Tim’s favorite restaurant. He ate all the crab Rangoon he could hold; I ate masaman curry and thought about how much tastier it was than the turkey sandwich a nurse offered me on Tim’s original birth day (since I’m a vegetarian, it turned into a lettuce sandwich for me. Not terribly satisfying after giving birth.). Then we all went back to the house for his favorite dessert, chocolate mousse pie, which I had made earlier in the day. He’s a happy 11-year-old; I’m a happy mom. I may not understand him really well, but I certainly do love having him as a son.
Well, I wrote a book about him, along with dozens of essays that have been published in various newspapers – he’ll just have to be content with that. (Or, as some of my readers who are also parents have pointed out to me, I should consider myself lucky if “content” is how he’d describe his feelings about some of my essays. Come on, doesn’t every mom at some point write an essay about her son’s fascination with his athletic protective gear?)
I love celebrating Tim’s birthday. I love the memories it brings back and the sense of accomplishment it engenders. Eleven years of Tim – tell me that’s not an accomplishment. A blessing, to be sure, but an accomplishment as well. I love him, but I certainly do not always understand him. Last June, while I was at the Aspen Summer Words writers’ conference, I had such an interesting discussion with author/writing instructor Bill Loizeaux. We discovered we’d both had the inexplicable experience of meeting our daughters at the moment of their birth and knowing certain things about their personalities at that instant that turned out, years later, to be absolutely accurate. I actually wrote in my journal, still in the hospital, when Holly was one day old, about the kind of person I already knew her to be: generous, kind and good-natured as long as you don’t step on her toes, in which case she’ll be uncompromising about defining her space and making sure you stay out of it.
I laughed as I wrote, knowing I couldn’t possibly have any idea what her personality would be: I was either purely imagining or else projecting, describing the daughter I subconsciously wanted to have. And yet seven years later I know that the description really was Holly. Something about her newborn squawks and sighs, her scrunchy pink face, her curious dark blue eyes – I knew. I knew her character in those minutes after birth. And Bill had the same experience with his daughters.
After he and I discussed it, I thought about the conversation again and realized something I’d left out: But it wasn’t like that with Tim. I don’t remember inferring his personality on the day he was born, or the days when he was an infant. I remember – and I’ve written about – gazing into his eyes, and him gazing back into mine, as we both wondered what it would be like getting to know each other and spending our lives together. But I didn’t know his soul the way I did with Holly. And, I realized as I thought about it that day in Aspen, the amazing thing is I still don’t. Tim is still a mystery to me. I know his preferences – fantasy fiction, baseball, crisp lettuce doused in vinegar, sleeping late on weekends – but I don’t absolutely know what makes him tick. I don’t know how he thinks or who he will someday be. I didn’t eleven years ago, and I don’t now.
But it’s always such a pleasure on his birthday to think about all the celebrations we’ve had for him since his birth and all the ways in which he’s changed. His one-year-old party, on a sunny day in our pretty little yard in Framingham, when we invited all our friends – because he didn’t have his own friends yet – and celebrated the fact that we’d made it through the first year. His four-year-old birthday, when he and his preschool classmates were hoisted into a Peter Pan sling at One Stop Fun to sail through the air. His seven-year-old birthday, ten friends at the Spinners game, the sky clearing after a day of gusts and rain which we did not fully realize then were the outermost edges of Hurricane Katrina. (We held his party two weeks early that year because the Spinners, a minor league team, end their season on Labor Day.) His nine-year-old party, just his friend Austin with us in Maine, when Rick prepared a lobster- and clambake.
This year he wants to do laser tag; for various reasons we’re postponing it until next month, but he doesn’t mind. Tonight my parents took us out to dinner at Tim’s favorite restaurant. He ate all the crab Rangoon he could hold; I ate masaman curry and thought about how much tastier it was than the turkey sandwich a nurse offered me on Tim’s original birth day (since I’m a vegetarian, it turned into a lettuce sandwich for me. Not terribly satisfying after giving birth.). Then we all went back to the house for his favorite dessert, chocolate mousse pie, which I had made earlier in the day. He’s a happy 11-year-old; I’m a happy mom. I may not understand him really well, but I certainly do love having him as a son.
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