parenting and children

Grumpy about field day (we survived second grade)

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Last Tuesday, the second-to-last day at Jesse’s elementary school, I spent three and a half hours chaperoning 10 second-graders (including my Jesse) through field day events. I participated in almost all activities, because that was more fun and because I wouldn’t have time later to get my own exercise in. It was physical and non-stop, 10 to 15 minutes at each of dozens of stations:  a variety of running relays, sack racing, move-water-from-here-to-there sponge and bucket relays, hula hopping (not a typo), jump rope, various throwing events (softballs, beanbags, wet rubber chickens), tug-of-war, tire-rolling, and so on.  My favorite (which we made up at a water station) was shag infinite nerf footballs for Carla and then try to tackle Carla.

Being chased by 10 second-graders was an interesting experience. Frankly, it felt a little ominous as I started off. A couple of them are almost as tall as me, and mostly they look so lithe and healthy, whereas I’m a frumpy 47-year-old mom. Granted, under the blub I’m chiseled, but still I expected them to be faster and more coordinated than me after the first 15 seconds. They weren’t. Also they moved in a pack instead of dividing and fanning out, so I felt like a comet with 10 trailers. I evaded them for long enough that I finally slowed down so they could catch me and pile on.

Jesse really struggled emotionally throughout the afternoon. When we first headed out, the kids were stoked and insane. Jesse immediately turned to me and snapped, almost desperate, “You know I can’t handle this, mom! It’s too crazy for me! It makes me feel crazy!” But she wanted to hang in there, so I did too.  I spent the rest of the event observing her intermittent melt-downs (5 or 6 in all) and pondering how she’ll ever make it in this life without breaking completely, but I also saw hints of why she will make it. Her screaming was always about herself, not others, so she didn’t alienate anyone who mattered. The head she beat with fists was her own. She’s not mean to anyone, really, except herself. Her classmates patiently kept coming to her aid, emotionally and physically. They’ve seen her pull this shit all school year, and still they didn’t judge her for her crazies or give up on her. They circled the wagons on her when I sent her away to take breaks and calm down – indeed, they got pissed off at me. One peaceful little girl took on the mantle of calming and soothing Jesse, filling her hurting soul with hugs, hand-holds, and quiet chatter whenever Jesse allowed it. It was amazing and sweet to see. I felt like I was given a significant object lesson in how to improve my behavior towards Jesse when she’s falling apart.

The other lesson I learned is that second-graders are generally still really temperamental and, well, sociopathic. Jesse’s pretty normal among this crew.

By the end of the day, half my peeps had shed tears. There were tears because I lost, I fell, I was awful, someone made fun of me, I got a scrape, she was mean to me, I’m too wet, I’m cold, this is too hard, my popsicle is the wrong color, I have to pee so bad. I gave out as many hugs and ministrations as I could, and I gave my sweater away.

Girl A was cliquey. She always wanted the same person on her team and she’d make a “we’re so cool we’re together!” exclusive mini-scene about it. Yeesh. I can’t stand that. I started splitting them up at stations requiring teams.

Most of the kids tried to get away with cheating at one point or another — not my Jesse, of course, who’s extremely rigid about that stuff. Boy B — a drama queen who cried a lot, despite classmates’ exhortations not to do it — kept complaining to me about the teams not being fair, not having a chance to go first, other classmates not letting him be on their teams, and so on. Whatever he could think of. He’d walk away from my indifference and comment dramatically over his shoulder, “I just want things to be fair. That’s all. I’m just really wanting it to be FAIR.” He was the biggest cheater of all. I started outing him whenever I saw him cheating (i.e., at every station) and making him go back for not-cheating do-overs. Jerk.

Girl C was being given the silent treatment by a couple girls from the class following ours as we moved through stations. She got quiet and sad for about half an hour, held my hand and stuck close, and then felt better and moved on. Stupid mean girls.

Boys D and E displayed significant attentional issues and were really, really hyperactive. Managing them was like chasing small unleashed dogs around. It was exhausting. They kept bumping into and tackling each other on purpose, they couldn’t keep their hands off anything, they couldn’t stay still to hear instructions, they seemed unaware of their surroundings. But they also seemed a little traumatized by nine months of behavior modification charts, and I didn’t have the heart to come down too hard on them. It would have taken away a lot of the fun. Also they were really good-natured and I enjoyed my time with them. They had so much fun energy, and I didn’t mind that they acted like hooligans. This was an eye-opener.

Girl F got so worn out she was in tears over each new station. I made her do the activities anyway, but I went with her. I ran (shuffled, really) next to her for the 50 yard dashes and tried to buoy her flagging spirits with pep talks, but she really had trouble bucking up. She didn’t scream and rant like Jesse, but she was feeling just as down about herself.

Boy G had so much extra energy that every time we finished an activity I had him run circles around our group for about 20 seconds (I’d yell, “G, run your laps!”). He’d run and run with a crazy look in his eyes and then catch his breath, ready to fall into step again.

And then there was Girl H, who always puzzles me. She took my mind in an unexpected direction. She’s always cheerful and articulate, with a ready smile; well-mannered, confident, strong, and apparently very bright. She seems like such a great kid who should have a lot of friends. But it was clear she hadn’t really connected with anyone in our crew. She went about her business from station to station, a smile planted on her face, the most athletic kid of the lot — but she never interacted informally with her classmates, and never let loose. I know from the volunteer admin work I do for second grade that she’s struggling academically, well behind in both math and reading test results. I know from my Jesse that she frequently cried at school about her academic difficulties.

H caused no trouble at all to me as the chaperone, but by the end of the day she was the one I walked away worrying about. I hope all the masks don’t stop that sweet little girl from succeeding, hiding her woes until it’s too late to address them. I hope she makes friends next year.

Despite the struggles of parenting Jesse, I’m thankful that she’s raw and naked, showing me everything that hurts so that we can work through it together. Otherwise, who knows?

Fecal Friday: the wilderness poop

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When I was a little girl, I lived in Korea where people would often sit comfortably in a wide full squat, feet flat on the ground, their arms or armpits resting on their knees. Very relaxing. My grandma’s home had a well-dressed latrine hole in the bathroom for human waste, so if I had to vent when I visited her, I squatted just like that. It worked great. But by the time I grew up and was going backcountry, I had lost the knack.

Americans don’t do much squatting except in exercise routines, and that sort of half-squat will do you no good when it comes to a comfortable rest, a bowel movement, or child birth for that matter. My brother Mark (who is weirdly full of sage and practical information) once told me that the best approach to a wilderness dump is to find a young sapling you can grab with both hands as you squat, and that lets you bear down without falling over. It was great advice.

I have very few memories of pooping in the wild, but I must have done it many times. I assume it must be traumatic in some way, so that I block it out. I don’t get it. I don’t want my kids to feel weird about it. I just want them to comfortably go about the business of voiding their waste, with no fuss, taboo, or remorse.

Nick was born ready for the wilderness poop. He learned not to crap in his pants mainly by running outside and pooping in our yard. He would just drop his ass down into a textbook poop-squat, his hands resting lightly on the ground in front of him, and let loose. Since his tiny cheeks were spread so wide by the stance, usually there was nothing to clean off his butt. One little wipe to make sure, and done. If you’ve ever pooped in the wilderness and handled it right, then you appreciate what a great thing this is. You pack out what you pack in, including used toilet paper, so a low-maintenance poop is highly valuable. Way to go, Nick!

I used to think the OCD would make wilderness pooping extremely difficult for Jesse. But Jesse’s OCD, like many mental disorders in kids, doesn’t seem to exist in a wilder setting. Nature begets all kinds of wellness. The foul, filthy outhouses we often find in campsites drive Jesse (and me) to madness. On the other hand, she’s perfectly fine with a lovely bit of earth covered in leaf mold and peopled with a few creepy crawlies.

One day on a hike through some woods and meadows in the Tetons, Jesse had a sudden and desperate need to poo. We scurried off the trail and looked for a good spot. It was a bit marshy, but we managed to find a place dry enough to set her feet on firmly. She settled down and issued one of those enormous stools that sometimes come out of children, an anatomical impossibility. It took a while for her to clear her colon, and of course flies gathered, buzzing the poop and Jesse’s bare ass. Jesse wanted to know what the flies were doing on her shit. Eating it, I answered. It’s fresh food for them. La la la. We took care of business, wiped Jesse’s ass down, bagged the used TP in a ziplock. We headed back to the trail, but after a few paces Jesse paused and looked back. “FLIES!” she cried out joyfully and musically, throwing her arms wide with a Broadway flair. “FLIES, come eat!! I have left a Jesse poop feast for you!”

Now that’s the right proper spirit of a wilderness poop.

grumpy about parenting books

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It’s spring break and I’ve started in on at least six entire, whole, non-stop, all-day-long days with both my children. I’m hoping Anthony will give me a break on Saturday, and then I’ll have two more full days before the kids go back to school. I’m taking prophylactic deep breaths every few minutes to keep myself from panicking.

Parenting books and websites will tell me to have fun activities lined up. Collect sticks and broken pavement, and make animal shapes with a hot glue gun! English cucumber caterpillars! Make flower cookies out of healthy quinoa and avocado gruel! yuuum. Make counting and adding games out of the rabbit pellets uncovered by the melting snow! Build a backyard fort made entirely out of the cleaning sticks that come in each case of yellow swiffers you buy at Costco, of which I’ve collected 200!

I don’t think so.

Parenting books will also tell me not to do the following things during spring break (or ever, for that matter), all of which I will definitely do:
1. Yell at the kids.
2. Let them watch too much TV (does it count if I put closed captions on so Jesse can read along?).
3. Let them play with electronic devices too much.
4. Ignore them while playing with my own electronic devices.
5. Let them eat unhealthy. (but the chocolate bar was fair trade sourced and had a sea otter on the wrapper, so does that count?)
6. Let them stay up late.

In fact, I’m going to do all of these things today. It’s Monday, after all. I told my spawn this morning that they’re the bosses and can do whatever they want. TV all day! Nick said. IPad! Jesse said. Done. If they change their minds, they’re the bosses and they can do something else. My guess is that, in a couple hours, they’ll spend some quality time in the massive pond that formed in the woods out back after last night’s heavy rains. For dinner, Nick wants oatmeal. Jesse wants hamburgers with homemade buns. Done.

Kids live under constant duress, in my opinion, bound to the whims of their parents and other grownups. It’s too much, and I’m not running a military academy. Once in a frequent while, I like to give mine a taste of total freedom. I no longer remember or care if any parenting book says this is good or bad, right or wrong.

When I was pregnant with Jesse, I bought a lot of parenting books. I read, I studied, I planned. Shortly after she was born, I bought a lot more parenting literature, because the books I had so far were of no use. Jesse broke all the rules. It was clear from day one that she wasn’t part of the 25th-to-75th percentile, or maybe even the 10th-to-90th percentile. But even the latter option left her in a category with 20 percent of infant humanity — that’s one in five babies, people! — so I felt sure that there had to be something out there for me.

I started with mainstream books, which were recommended to me by friends and relations, and then I moved on in a desperate hunt for the Holy Grail: a parenting manual that fixed everything that was wrong in my life. Some books I considered intensely but didn’t buy after investigating their authors and tactics (like Baby Wise). By the time I was done, my library of bought and borrowed books included at least the following, not including potty training books (I recommend that you read the names aloud really fast like a run-on sentence, or better yet just skip to the end of the list while thinking “blah blah blah”):

What to Expect When You’re Expecting
What to Expect the First Year
What’s Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life
The Happiest Baby on the Block
The Happiest Toddler on the Block
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
The No-Cry Sleep Solution
The Baby Owner’s Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance
Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, by the (in?)famous Richard Ferber
The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight
The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent’s Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5
Baby Sign Language Basics
The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems (really? You can do that?)
Super Baby Food
Breastfeeding Made Simple: Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers
Ina May’s Guide to Breastfeeding
Touchpoints
Raising Your Spirited Child
Last Child in the Woods
The Baby Book

It’s insane. I know I missed a lot, and more is published every year, but I was building my library almost a decade ago. The last book on my list above is by Sears, and I ended up buying every other parenting book he published as well. It turned out I wasn’t looking for a book to solve my parenting problems. I was actually just looking for a book that agreed with what Anthony and I already intuitively felt was right for us as a family. By reading a book like that, I could feel that I didn’t suck as bad. The books that made me feel like I didn’t suck the most were attachment parenting books, though I don’t like to be labeled that way. We didn’t do the attachment-parenting-thing because an attachment parenting book said we should. We did it because it was right for us. We naturally fell to co-sleeping with Jesse because that was the only way we got any sleep, and so we continued with Nick. Breastfeeding until the kids weaned themselves naturally felt right to us. It felt right to listen to our kids’ cues instead of driving them into narrow tunnels devised by some distant author without reference to their actual personalities and needs.

And that’s the rub with parenting books. The authors have never met you or your children. But their material sells best, like all advice material, when they can convince readers they’re universally right. As a result, I think parenting books tend to bring out the worst in humanity — a judgmental, my-way-is-the-only-right-way attitude that makes peeps pull each other down instead of lifting each other up. We’re not just talking about normal humanity either. These parenting books prey on one of the most vulnerable sub-sets of humanity — sleep-deprived, hormonally disrupted women. If our government wanted to implement some serious torture tactics, methods that will really mess with someone’s head and emotions, it would find a way to replicate the hormonal challenges of pregnancy and childbirth, coupled with the sleep and infant-interaction cycles of a new parent.

I’ve hung out with “attachment parents” who wear that label like a merit badge, but who act like the lifestyle is a ball-and-chain and busy themselves with criticizing anyone who doesn’t do it. I have no respect for that. I’ve hung out with parents who are sleep-training hard-asses, guilt-free and intense. They love their kids as much as I love mine. They’re doing what they think is right for them. I tend to look across the fence at them with a mix of longing and curiosity, and I hope I don’t judge them.

The only way to avoid this mess, in my opinion, is to read none of it or read it ALL. Or at least as much as you can stand. Then, with eyes wide open, you can either choose a path that’s right for you or accept the path you’re already on. I knew I had found that lead when I opened up Sears’s book and started reading. Instead of my brow furrowing and my jaw dropping, I found my head nodding in agreement. It was a good sign.

 

 

Grumpy about the tic list

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Jesse is hitting the ropes. As I type, she’s screeching at her beloved swim teacher Sarah and refusing to swim, and also whining and ululating — noises I haven’t heard in a long while. Every face in the swimming pool area is watching her, mostly in shock. It’s a busy time at the JCC pool, so at least 60 or 70 peeps are being forced to listen to my horrible child. There’s a lot of parent judging going on, probably based on two false assumptions: 1. I haven’t worked really hard for years to help Jesse control this stuff, and 2. I have the power to fix the situation here and now. It’s why I’m thumb-typing a blog on this iPhone from a distant spot in the arena, instead of paying much attention. I’m cooool as a sea cucumber.

This used to be a constant phenomenon a few years ago when we still embraced the probability that Jesse was autistic. That was upsetting in a different way. We talked about trust funds, schooling alternatives, acceptance, and social cues training. Now we’ve wrapped our heads around the notion that we’re more likely talking about mental illness than developmental disability, and more specifically, behavioral problems that Jesse ought someday to be able to control. So now I just get pissed off at her instead of doing what I should, which is talk about trust funds, schooling alternatives, acceptance, and social cues training.

Oh screw this. It’s been 15 minutes of screaming. I’m calling it. I’m going to grab Jesse out of the pool and move on. I’ll be back later to finish this.

It’s later. It’s tomorrow actually. I have a cut on my thumb and had to put a bandaid on, so then the thumb-typing doesn’t work and this is the first chance I’ve had to turn on the computer. Does anyone produce touch-screen compatible bandaids? Also I went out with some moms last night. The timing was terrible. I was so fried by Jesse’s behavior that I was destined to drink too much, but the girlie pink martini drinks were sooo delicious.

Um… So back to the pool: I marched over and told Jesse, get out of the pool, we’re leaving. She acted shocked. What, she thinks it’s okay to act like this? Much begging and bawling ensued as she quickly showered, dressed, and followed Nick and me to the car. I was grim. More bawling emanated from her room after I sent her there and told her to write down what she thinks Sarah feels like when Jesse goes apeshit on her. When I went to check on Jesse 20 minutes later, all she had written down was “I don’t know.” I could have sworn she’s shown more empathy than this succinct sentence suggests. (Just say those three words over and over again for a while. Fun times.)

Sarah and I chatted briefly while Jesse showered. Sarah had used a pat adult tactic on Jesse, along the lines of “I can’t hear you when you’re screaming and whining at me.” In response, Jesse leaned in close and yelled in Sarah’s ear, “What, YOUR EARS ARE DEAD???” Classic. It’s why we love Jesse anyway.

All of this is part of a cycle, I know. Just like me during the past month, Jesse’s in a valley, and eventually we’ll help her climb out of it. The tics are coming back too — still not as bad as they used to be, but they are so damn annoying! So I think it would be a useful exercise – in the quest for sanity – to catalog Jesse’s major tics and OCD compulsions through the years, for a little perspective. I do mean tics — not just bad habits or annoying choices, but repetitive compulsive behaviors that feel impossible to control, that sometimes happen before you even notice you’re doing them, over and over again. She’s overcome or grown out of many of these, but once in a while they return for encore performances. It’s always frustrating and disappointing when a long-gone tic returns, but we have to soldier on.

One of the most wonderfully strange things about Jesse’s tics is that she announces them. As a result, they have names. For instance, “feet on the table” (see below, meal category) is what she says as she puts her feet on the table at meals. She’s very prosaic. I used to think the announcing was attentional and combative, but that’s not right. She didn’t get the kind of feedback that would make a normal child continue the behaviors for gain. Now we understand that the announcements are cries for help, a sort of “oh no here we go again I can’t stop this crazy shit help me!” I suppose I’m glad that she’s communicating, but there’s something surreal about it at times.

Anyway here’s the tic/OCD list, for my personal gratification, categorized for my convenience. I’m not including the common OCD stuff Jesse deals with, like the constant hand-washing, the various sensory issues relating to clothing, and her deep commitment to perfection. If you’re bored with this post, now is a good time to bug out and move on to more interesting stuff; but if you’re sticking with me…

Meal-related

“Feet on the table.” Jesse sits down and puts her feet up on the table alongside all the food. Ew.

“Cough on it.” Jesse comes to dinner and carefully coughs once on each of the communal plates of food. Ew. Also WTF.

“Punch the window. ” Just what it sounds like. The window next to her chair at the kitchen table.

“Spill my drink.” Yup. Just what it sounds like. Every meal. This one was very messy, but we solved it by only giving her water to drink, so then bonus! A clean table after wipe-down.

The finger-lickers

Touch public toilet seat, “lick my finger.” (usually followed by a curious lilting whine, “eh-eeeeh, eh-eeeeh”)

Touch dirty surfaces in gym locker room, “lick my finger.”

Touch bottom of dirty shoe, “lick my finger.”

Touch bakery products at grocery store, “lick my finger.” This could also go in the injury category, because she knows baked goods usually contain eggs and she’s severely allergic to eggs.

Something is Sticky/Smelly/Wet

Touch crotch or butthole, stick fingers in mommy’s face, “smell my fingers.” Gag-worthy. Ever grateful this one is gone. For now.

“Eh-eeeh, eh-eeeh, my sleeve is sticky,” while fidgeting madly with her sleeve end. It’s not sticky. Why I used to wash 3 or 4 shirts a day for her.

“My hair is sticky, my hair is sticky,” while rummaging in her hair for whatever she thinks is there.

Play with the fat seam at the crotch of her pants, while curling her back into a fantastically flexible c-shape so her head is down in her crotch area. “My fingers are stinky.” Really?

“Eh-eeeh, eh-eeeh, my shirt is wet,” while hunting madly for a wet spot on her shirt.

“My shoes are dirty,” while checking the bottoms of her shoes incessantly.

Mean words

“I hate [insert name of friend or family member].” We’ve never been sure why on this one. These days she tends to run away with her hands over her mouth to try to stop it.

“[insert name of anyone] is fat.” Hands over mouth, or muttering it under her breath like a weirdo.

Injury

“Take my hands off.” Of the bicyle handlebar while pedaling at full speed. Very painful results every single time. We had to put her bike away for half a year because she was getting so badly hurt. We all cried the next spring when she finally was able to ride it without taking her hands off the handlebar. It was a profound victory over a sucky compulsion.

“Choke you.” Plainly stated, painfully applied.

“Punch daddy.” More specifically, his balls.

“Diddle your boobies.” Mine.

Snuggle… “Head butt you.” This would have been a rear head blow to my chin while spooning sweetly.

Anti-authority (aka, I’m not supposed to, so I really feel the need to)

Yawping when she’s supposed to be quiet. This was probably one of the main symptoms that made Jesse’s early ed teachers think she was autistic. “AAAAWP!” She would hurl it into silence, a bold burst of sound rising in pitch from beginning to end, causing all the other little kiddies to jump in terror. My favorite reaction was from Jesse’s K5 teacher, Mrs. DLP, who one day realized nothing was going to stop Jesse’s yawp. So instead she invited all the other students to join Jesse in a group yawp, and they had a little yawping party. I could have cried for loving Mrs. DLP when I learned of this.

“Pull down my pants.” And underwear. In public. Normal for a 2 year old, not for a 6 year old.

“Pull up my shirt.” Full frontal exposure. Same story as pants.

* * * *

That’s all that comes to mind off the top of my head, and wow. I do feel better. No wonder I’m bat-shit crazy after almost 9 years with Jesse.

I haven’t been grumpy. Just depressed. Whatever.

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For the past few weeks I’ve been sinking into a funk. Superficially I blame Jesse, and also sometimes Nick, but I know it’s really just me. Jesse’s anxiety and PITA syndrome have been in a healthy UP cycle for a good month. It’s a whole lot of emotion management. She lashes out at me a lot, whines a lot, beats up on herself a lot, complains about things from all sides, churns little blips into major issues. It’s all “a lot.” Nick is always A LOT, even when he’s on an even keel (for him). When they’re together with me, they yell over each other constantly to get my attention so I can’t make out anything they’re saying, and even when they’re getting along (which I admit is most of the time) they’re just crazy people. So it only takes a moment for me to reach some serious sensory overload.

I could share anecdotes and stupid stories, but honestly, who cares, because all I’m really saying is this: it’s just the same old boring shit. When I deal with Jesse’s bursts of negativity these days, I feel a combination of bored, bleak, and blank. I’m going through the motions: feed the kids, put on a fake cheerful attitude for other moms, play with the kids (yawn), get my exercise, pick up and drop off the kids here and there, read some news, homework, blah blah blah. What I’m feeling inside is a vague need to escape. I found myself yesterday fantasizing about what my life would be like right now, at 47, if I had never had kids or a partner. Would I be a partner in a law firm instead of a partner to a human? Rich as Roosevelt, socking away bucks for old age, my wardrobe and hair well-attended, a secretary to send my mom flowers on various occasions?

It’s a lame thing to imagine, of course, because it’s just exactly what I rejected, a path that would have been filled with loneliness and long hours and extreme stress. So I think it speaks to a sort of sub-clinical depression. Rationally, I know I’ve been down this road often, most plainly when I began working hard on emotional self-control a few years ago with Jesse. My first order of business when we started taking her to a shrink was to stop losing my shit and screaming at my family. I struggled with it for a few months and felt like I was succeeding, but Anthony eventually confronted me with a big problem. The exorcism was not going as well as I thought. It seemed I had a binary switch: insane rage or sullen bleak depression. This bothered Anthony. I was angry and defensive when he brought it up. It’s all I’ve got, I told him. It’s the best I can do. I’m emptying myself of emotions so I don’t feel anything at all, and that’s how I stop the yelling. I thought that’s what everyone wanted. I don’t have anything positive to fill the chasm my rage usually fills. How come what I’m doing isn’t good enough for you? How come nothing I do is good enough?

When I was done feeling sorry for myself, I took heed of Anthony’s words – spoken in compassion and perhaps fear, not in recrimination — and eventually I was able to work on a more constructive mood, along the lines of calm but not blank, an open space where my mind can think about the problem confronting me, without self judgment, and evaluate whether I can add positive sense or whether I should walk away for a spell. Oftentimes, I can actually find my way there.

But when I get like I’ve been the last few weeks, I’m back at sullen. I don’t know what it is about Jesse that’s so exhausting for the adults around her. I don’t have answers, but I have a lot of fears and I’ve been out of ideas for the next evolution. I also haven’t felt the warmth I need to help her overcome whatever hurdle is lurking in her heart right now, which I’m sure she intuits. I haven’t had a sense of humor about it all, which is essential to survival in my world. I haven’t even felt grumpy, and I’ve had no desire to write and share my vapid thoughts with the 20 or 30 folks who read my dribble. This is really bad.

Stick a fork in my ass and turn me over; I’m done. I’ve been attending my pity party for weeks now and I’m pretty tired of myself. A couple days ago a song came on the radio, and there’s nothing better than a good pop song to break a cycle. “Let’s Be Still,” recorded by The Head and The Heart, brought it on. I listened to that tune and the lyrics, and it broke a dam inside me with an easy sigh and no tears. First it made me laugh, because of course I thought, hey, it’s another mommy song! I’m always asking my kids to be still. But it took me someplace else too. All the hours I spend  trying to own the emotional status of my kids, to spy out the path of their lives, to love them and live with them peacefully and fully — it’s all too much. Living in the moments and small battles, I forget that I have to slow down my racing thoughts and just be still for a moment. Also the song and its band remind me of a lot of music I listened to in a less complicated time in my life, with hints of the Beatles, VU, Mazzy Star and even Tiny Lights. It’s all good, I thought to myself. We’ll make it. It’s not that complicated.

 

Perineum isn’t a dirty word

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My note yesterday about Nick’s investigation of his penis got me mulling about sexism and modesty. It’s common for moms of little boys to share news about their male spawns’ unsavory penis antics — doing things to or with their penises as they explore their bodies, having silly conversations with or about their penises. I haven’t noticed the same lively chatter about little girls, but if my Jesse is any indicator, free-minded little princesses can get down and dirty with their ‘nads just as well as any little boy. So why do I feel a social compulsion to avoid sharing Jesse’s tales?

I’ll give it a go. My fingers hesitate as I prepare to type this: when Jesse was a toddler, she was fond of exploring her crotch. While naked of course, and, well… She masturbated. One night she got out of the bath and assumed a porn queen position on our bed, got busy with herself and started yelling gleefully, “Mommy! Daddy! Watch this watch this!” Anthony took one look and ran out of the room, yelling back in an earnest state of fright and horror, “Jesse, stop doing that! You’ll hurt yourself!!” I turned away from Jesse so she wouldn’t see me laughing as I yelled back, “that wasn’t PAIN you saw on her face, Anthony.”

Jesse was all of two or three when it happened, and it was extremely funny to me – exactly the kind of thing I’ve talked openly about when it was Nick and his boy body. Both were equally naive and innocent in their behaviors; both were really normal toddlers openly exploring their bodies. So why does it feel eye-rolling and funny to talk about Nick and this stuff, but skin-crawling and kind of vulgar and dirty with Jesse?

We don’t really do “modesty” at home, nor are we body shy. Our bathrooms are open-door; we dress and undress in front of the kids and vice versa. My philosophy is that little kids learn a lot about the adult human body in a safe way by seeing their parents nude, and they observe the naked body going about the practical business of life — hygiene mainly — with no sexual under- or over-tones. In the sexed-up gestalt of 21st-century America, that’s important to me.

We teach “privacy” of course, the usual yadda yadda: go ahead and get to know your bodies with your eyes and hands, whatever you want, but please don’t put dangerous things into ANY of your body holes and please explore your genitalia in private, because JEEZ mommy and daddy don’t need to see you do that.

There’s a lot that’s funny about the cringe-inducing dissonance between our grown-up need for this sort of privacy and a small child’s indifference to anyone’s discomfort as she whacks her privates around in the living room. So why do I have an instinct to cloister Jesse, but not Nick?

I could argue that it’s because I’ve been fully immersed in our cultural sexism my whole life, and this is just another example of ways I carry on those biases without even realizing it until it’s too late. I’m sure this is a big part of it, though I hate to admit it.

I could argue that there’s an anatomical basis for the more modest instinct I have with my daughter. A man’s gonads sit front and center, on full display, while the woman’s are less obvious to the eye. I’m not convinced.

Maybe it’s just language. “Penis and balls” about covers it on a boy human, and that’s easy to work with in sharing notes. It’s so much harder for a girl. There’s a lot of equipment and holes down there. I’ve gone over the words and parts with Jesse, and her eyes glaze over like I’m chanting the periodic table of elements to her. Vagina, pee-hole (honest, I don’t know the formal name, except maybe urethra), clitoris, vulva, labia, etc. Ew. I mean, what do you call all that stuff in coffee chat? I used to call it Jesse’s “girly parts,” but that started to feel prudish and wrong. I hear moms telling their kids that a boy has a penis, a girl has a vagina. That strikes me as pretty wrong too, because they’re not quite equivalents.

My nurse neighbor Jill came over to a house party one night and, after a couple drinks, started talking passionately about how we mis-use words about this stuff. She was irate about women teaching their girls to call their entire crotch area the “vagina,” and equally irate about the euphemisms we use to describe all the business down there. She pointed out that the medically correct term for the the region that includes our genitalia is “perineum,” and there’s no reason NOT to use that word with kids. It’s accurate, it’s gender-neutral, and there are no weird cultural/sexual connotations associated with it.

She made a compelling point, but until now I haven’t made a concerted effort to change my speech patterns. I’ve taught my kids the word, but maybe I need to use it more consistently. Perineum isn’t a dirty word. Maybe it’ll free my mind a bit and help me think of Jesse and Nick in the same light. I’ll practice.

Pull your pants up NOW, Jesse, no one in this restaurant wants to see your perineum!

Nicholas Lee, don’t even think of touching that sandwich, you just had your hands in your pants and were playing with your perineum!

Stop being such a perineum head!

Get your head out of your perineum!

It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but maybe it’s worth a try.

traveling with my kids sucks, but not as much as it used to

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best airport pizza ever

best airport pizza ever

Tuesday, 6:30 am PST, Stockton, CA (8:30 am in Wisconsin). Nick and Jesse are awake. I beg them to snuggle just a little while longer so that we don’t wake Little Grandma and Grandpa up. They sort of comply, but it involves painful wiggling and poking all over me, and lots of shushing.

7:00-9:30 am. We explode out of the bedroom. More accurately, two little people explode. I stumble out, slouch-shouldered and exhausted from yet another sleepless night spent between Scylla and Charybdis on a queen-size bed, alternately poked in the eyes by Nick’s elbows and bludgeoned by Jesse’s head. Jesse has also had a terrible night’s sleep, full of bad dreams and much moaning and groaning. She’s in dissonance mode, trapped between sadness over leaving Grandma’s house and happiness over getting back to Dad, and loaded up with anxiety over the changes to come. My mom’s already awake when we hit the living room because she always gets up early on the day I leave, which I forgot happens, otherwise I would have unleashed the kids on her at 6:30. Thank heavens she’s made coffee. I do a one-quart coffee bong, feed the kids, rush through a shower, get everyone dressed, and pack.

9:30-9:45 am. I secretly run to the grocery store by myself in Grandpa John’s car to buy a few travel snacks for the kids. Actually, that’s a tangent to the primary reason for going, which is that I’m desperate for just a few moments away from Nick and Jesse before I’m hopelessly stuck with them for hours and hours in travel mode. I get 15 minutes’ peace.

10:00 am. Jesse’s dissonance is reaching full pitch as we prepare to depart. My brother Mark’s dog, a gorgeous and gentle pit bull poetically named Girl, has been relaxing with Jesse; but even this sweet therapy dog can’t help her now. Jesse’s starting to cry, ululate, and disappear silently to places we can’t find her (literally, somewhere in the yard), in a repeating circuit that appears to be designed to make it easy for relatives to say goodbye and rush us out of town. Meanwhile, Nick has decided he can only pee outside where the feral cat goes. As I’m pulling up his pants after that fun thing, I notice there’s a huge tear in one pant leg which will leave him in a half culotte by the end of our trip. I rummage through our suitcase, find new pants, and tend to that. Nick gets in the car and we start yelling for Jesse.

10:15 am. Got her. Sticky roller has been used to get visible dog hair off her (don’t forget the crotch of her pants) so she won’t freak out about that, and she’s in the car. Everyone’s gotten kisses and hugs, and Uncle Mark is ready to drive us to the San Francisco airport.

10:15 – 11:45 am. Nick is an angel who falls asleep in 15 minutes. Jesse spends most of the drive groveling, whining and groaning about feeling sick, and also making gagging/choking/coughing noises that suggest she might puke. Uncle Mark tells her she’s faking it as he cheerfully swerves over the Altamont Pass, mixing bold accelerations, terrifying lane changes, and sudden braking to maximum effect. I cling to the oh-shit bar and try not to yawp too much, while snapping helpful things to Jesse like, “If you puke on yourself, you’re gonna smell like puke for the next 10 hours so you just ask yourself if you can handle that!” I ask her several times if she needs us to pull over. She says no each time and then groans even louder. She asks me 427 times when we’re going to visit Little Grandma again. Jesse’s sense of time is off. She wants to know if we’ll come in summer, in two weeks? How long is it to summer? How many days? How many months? Will I be out of school? When will we visit Grandma again?

Deep down, I know this is all an expression of anxiety and transition issues, and intense sadness over leaving family (human and canine) behind. Knowledge does not stop my irritation, nor does it stem my rising panic about the 7 hours ahead of me.

11:45 am – 12:30 pm. We check in with relative ease. Jesse even helps with the luggage. We spend a final 15 minutes going crazy with Mark before heading into security as late as reasonably possible. Saying goodbye to Mark is always difficult for the kids and me. We spend a lot of time together whenever I visit Stockton, and I always want that to last longer. The kids handle it remarkably well this time, and there aren’t even any visible tears shed.

Jesse and I visited Mom when Jesse was 3 and I was pregnant with Nick. On our last day, Mark and Mom both came to the airport to see us off. Only passengers were allowed up the escalator to security. We said our last goodbyes, everyone started crying – even Mark – and apparently this is when Jesse realized Little Grandma and Mark weren’t coming with us. She was shocked. She wailed as we rode up the escalator, reaching back as if her parents had just died in a fiery car crash right before her eyes, or I was a kidnapper. She didn’t stop. It cascaded into a 7 or 8 hour ordeal as we made our way back to Wisconsin. More on this later.

12:30 – 12:45 pm. Security. This is when I start saying one of many blessings to my brother Ted and all his future progeny for using his frequent flyer miles to get these tickets for me and the kids. Ted travels a lot for work, so he gets “premiere” tickets on United. We’re flying coach, but we’re treated first class. We get to skip the line at security. A security dude lets us through a cut-in-line rope while about a dozen waiting travelers glare. I don’t even care, because Nick immediately makes a run for it, with Jesse after him like a dog to a rabbit. Two security guards herd the kids back to me, and then we have a minor melee as shoes come off and I dig out the 18 electronic devices I’ve brought for the kids, along with Jesse’s epi-pen and emergency allergy meds. Then we’re sent through a couple odd rope angles to get to the x-ray box kids are allowed to walk through. It takes several more guards to keep Nick and Jesse on course, because they’re confused now and moving in completely random directions, like pinballs. We make it through and collect our things. I don’t bother to apologize to the 4 businessmen whose crotches have been mashed by Nick’s erratic moves.

1:15 pm. We’re at the gate, after a quick stop to pick up a pizza which we’re sure has an egg-free crust. (Finding safe food for Jesse during travel can be difficult. Firewood Cafe is a pizza joint in the SF Int’l United concourse that’ll make you a fresh thin-crust pie in 5 minutes or so, delicious and to-go. Whenever we fly out of SF, we stop in.) The first boarding group is already through when we arrive at the gate. I thought we’d be a little earlier, but Jesse dawdles at every step and refuses to stay close to me, driving me crazy as we move through heavy crowds. Still, with a good deal of snapping and cajoling from me, we make it; and I and my premiere access tickets march right over to the attendant, skipping ahead of all other passengers. But my kids aren’t with me. I look around wildly. Where are they?? Oh. Nick is right behind me, hiding as my third butt-cheek. Jesse is dawdling 50 feet away. I yell at her to come over here NOW, gesticulating madly, oblivious to whatever wicked observations others might be making. She shuffles over, ornery, and I shove the kids ahead of me down the boarding tube. I shove them all the way to row 42. If I was a tired soldier holding a bayonetted rifle and moving unruly POWs along, I’d be using the same move.

1:15 – 6:00 pm PST, or 3:15 – 8:15 pm CT in Wisconsin. On the plane. Direct flight to Chicago. Dreamliner! Yay (blessings to Ted). Free TV and on-demand movies for each passenger! Double yay (more blessings)! Also I have my iPhone, two iPad minis, a Kindle, and two DVD players. We’re set, except for not really. I could go into excruciating detail, but what’s the point. Four year old, eight year old, grumpy mom, 5 hours on an airplane. You can imagine the rest. I’m on call the entire time of course, filling a need, moving things around, managing feelings, taking potty breaks, finding food. As my mom used to say: ee-tee-see, ee-tee-see.

About twenty minutes before we land, Jesse starts losing her cool and Nick gets loud. Nick’s volume control goes out of whack several times a day, and it happens on the plane. It’s hard to be mad, because he’s a really cheerful little guy and he’s yelling happy things, but it’s still painful on the eardrums. Also no one really wants to hear him bellowing at me about the angry birds level he just nailed. Jesse’s issue is that I tell her to stop playing the touch-screen video games on the United TV, because she’s beating the chair in front of her with her feet while poking the screen so hard that the passenger in the seat has to feel like he’s being bonked at both sets of cheeks. By the time we settle that row, Jesse has punched and head-butted me a number of times, and I’m making empty threats about taking her iPad away. As if. Still, she quiets down for the rest of the flight. She’s got the crack in the dam plugged with a little finger. I’m satisfied.

8:30 pm. We find Anthony by baggage claim. Despite Nick’s best efforts as he careens around, I haven’t lost him, but my voice is getting hoarse. Jesse has been crying and whining since we started deboarding. She doesn’t stop when she sees dad. Unfortunately, just then is when I observe that the kids have gotten something yucky and black all over their hands. I pull out wipes and try to fix this, but Jesse’s tired OCD mind becomes absorbed for some long moments with how totally disgusting this is, a la Adrian Monk, and she just lets loose. In fact, she pretty much keeps crying (with brief intermissions) for the next hour, until we’re in the car and well on the way home. The only thing that eventually shuts her up is simple exhaustion: she falls asleep.

11:00 pm, Glendale, Wisconsin. After driving through nasty snowy conditions for two hours, we make it home. The kids are fast asleep. It’s been almost 11 hours since we left Little Grandma’s house. Anthony gets out first to take the dog for a walk. The plan is for me to wait until they’re around the corner (otherwise the dog will be too excited to do her business) and then unload the car before waking up the kids. But of course, they wake up without any help at all. Nick comes to first, and he’s in whiny mode. He wants to snuggle, he wants mommy, he wants his iPad. He dissolves into tears in a few moments and I stop being able to understand anything he says. The noise of him wakes Jesse, and she starts crying too. She wants Little Grandma, she misses Girl and any other dog or relative whose name she can remember, she wants to snuggle, and everything else isn’t human language. That goes on incessantly for a good half hour until we manage to get them into jammies and settle them down to sleep. I only yell at them a few times.

Whew. Time for an episode of MI-5.

* * *

But really, it wasn’t that bad a travel day. I’ve had some awful experiences traveling with Jesse, and this trip doesn’t even touch them. When she was about 7 months old, we traveled to California for Christmas. She had a fit of diarrhea so bad that it shot up her back all the way to her neck. It was inhuman. It wasn’t fit for an airplane restroom, so Anthony and I took care of it together at our seats, best we could. No one complained, but the flight attendant refused to take our ziplock bag full of used diaper and 500 wipes, claiming airline rules prohibited it. So, I’m thankful no one pooped their pants this time around, or vomited, or peed in their pants, especially since I didn’t keep extra clothes with me.

The trip home when Jesse was three, which I mentioned before, was one for the ages. After the betrayal of leaving Little Grandma and Uncle Mark behind, she screamed at me with only a few minutes’ pause until we boarded the first of two flights. Back then in the stone ages (almost 5 years ago), I didn’t have an iPad, and also Jesse was still at a place where any electronic visual stimulation sent her into unbalanced sensory overload for hours. So I had books and toys, and I applied my best effort, and I nursed her, but it was all to no avail. She screamed, cried, ululated, kicked, head-butted, punched, and tortured me all the way to Colorado. The man sitting in front of her stood up and glared at her a couple times. Notably, that did not help. In fact, no one helped me. When we got off that flight in Denver, Jesse was calm for about 15 minutes and then started yelling again. I wasn’t sure they would let us on the second flight, and I had a 2-hour layover. I didn’t know what to do, and I was pregnant and uncomfortable. I eventually buckled her into the umbrella stroller and just sat glumly next to her while she screamed at me. This is when I saw the man who had been sitting in front of us on our first leg. He stopped as he walked past to say some rude niceties to me about Jesse’s behavior, so I asked him what connecting flight he was on. He told me someplace other than Milwaukee but I replied, “Hey, that’s where we’re going, maybe we’ll be seated near you!” He ran off in dismay.

The second leg of our journey was on a 3-seat-wide commuter jet. Jesse was just quiet enough for just long enough that they let us board. But as soon as the cabin doors closed, she released her misery. She never fully calmed down. It was 2 more hours from hell. The flight attendant swung by a couple times to ask me things like, “Is there anything else you can do to help?” Not “I.” Again, no one helped, except for one lady sitting in the row behind me who put in about 5 minutes’ effort distracting Jesse. By the time we landed, which was late in the evening, I was cooked. I got Jesse off the airplane eventually, set her on her feet, and walked away. When I got to the end of the security zone, she was 30 yards behind me, lying in the middle of the empty concourse screaming. Anthony and I waited until she got up and came to us, and then I walked away with no feeling of guilt.

To this day, I have to fight back tears when I think of that trip. I felt alone, crushed under the wave of Jesse’s emotions, and no one stepped up to show me kindness. Compared to that, Tuesday’s trip home was a happy dance in la-la-land. Final assessment: traveling with my spawn doesn’t suck as much as it used to.

Day 5 solo parenting-off to a good start

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Anthony is supposed to arrive home this afternoon. I’m pessimistically optimistic about that happening, because I’m seeing flight cancellations all over the country. It’s becoming a parenting emergency. We were only awake an hour before I screamed at the kids because they harassed me and each other while I was on the phone for 5 minutes with Anthony. It’s not like I’m on the phone all day. Still, I was over-reacting badly.

They ran upstairs in a flash. I calmed myself by starting to color a Hidden Transformation picture, another gift from Santa. This one is a peacock and also a school of fish becoming birds becoming flowers. I found a butterfly too. When I was calmer, I pouted in the basement a bit and then went upstairs. I found my babies huddled up together under the covers on Jesse’s bed, watching Care Bears on the iPad mini. I stuck my head under the sheets and muttered “sorry for yelling at you.” Jesse gave me a stern look and announced firmly, “we are hiding from you.” Nick ignored me.

Good choice, because it looks like Exorcist Mama is back in town. I better start having fun with the kids before my head starts spinning on my neck again.

Solo (un)parenting day 3

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Today I embraced the unparenting philosophy, kind of like unschooling. I woke up and headed out with the dog. I don’t know what the kids were doing, but they were still in two pieces when I got back. Good enough. I made coffee and ignored them until they told me they were hungry. I think they had the TV on by then (which I almost never allow) but I’m not actually sure. I dutifully fed them and then ignored them some more while I cleaned up a bit. Still no idea what they were doing, and I didn’t need to know because no one was yelling or crying. They asked for sweet treats. Sure, why not? Then the babysitter came over for almost 5 hours.

WOOOOHOOOOOOO.

I had lunch with a friend and attended to shopping errands. In three not-having-lunch hours I made successful visits to 7 retail establishments – SEVEN – and kept an eye appointment, and also had time to slump for a bit with a cuppa at the book store cafe. All of that would have taken two weeks if I had to lug the kids around, and I saved the 25% mark-up on expenditures I associate with co-shopping with my minions.

I got home and walked the dog, and then I ignored my children until dinner, which I slapped on the table indifferently.They actually complained about my not making a better meal, but fell quickly silent when I reminded them they usually refuse to eat my dinners. (Nick frequently announces dinner is “disgusting”, which is very cute out of a four-year-old mouth.) While I was considering not doing the dishes, the electricity went out and I couldn’t ignore the kids anymore because it was pitch black in the house. But by then they seemed to understand that today I’m pretty much on strike. Jesse worried over our frightened dog while I found the emergency flashlight, and then she rounded up a camping lantern and a couple LED book reading lights. Nick hovered but didn’t beg to be held. They were great. We got ready for bed and relaxed until the lights came back on and then they went to sleep peacefully.

I don’t understand why they haven’t been more difficult. I feel like I’m in the eye of a storm and I’m pretty sure I’m going to pay for my behavior tomorrow, when day 4 of solo parenting commences. I’m already feeling stressed and grumpy about whatever revenge they’re planning. I’d better have a drink.

Solo parenting day 2 commences

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I wasn’t born to be a solo parent. Anthony is an extremely useful second parent, and when he’s out of town, I struggle. I especially have a hard time getting the dog out for walks. The kids refuse to come outside with me in these frigid temperatures, but then when I’ve walked out the door they’re filled with intolerable dread over being in the house alone. So Nick does things like run out of the house bawling, “mommy mommy where are you??” and Jesse chases him down the driveway screaming “Nick come back, COME BAAAACK!!!” It echoes through the entire neighborhood like rolling thunder, drivers-by observe my half-naked, shoe-less kids wandering the front yard at sub-zero wind chills, the dog’s too distracted to take care of business, and then she waits until I leave and shits in the basement.

To avoid this horrible spiral in the mornings, I let the kids turn to electronics while I walk the dog. They never took to rubber binkies as babies, but WOW the iPad minis do the trick. It’s a fun way to start the day, until I tell them to put the iPads away and get going. It’s all downhill from there, but at least my neighbors don’t have to witness as much of our insanity.

The rest of today and 3 more days to go before Anthony returns. Somebody help me not hurt my kids until then.