Formidable

So, I have a five-year-old that most people reading this have met. I was pregnant with him during Hurricane Ivan, and although we were way up in Pittsburgh at the time, we got smacked around pretty good by the storm. But my pregnancy cravings didn't care so much about the rain and wind. They cared about being satisfied. So my wonderful and understanding husband drove me and our three kids to my favorite Indian restaurant in Pittsburgh: Udipi.

While we ate, the power went out once or twice. Thank goodness for generators, because I really needed my channa batura and peas paratha and my mango lassi. Needed. With my cravings thus satisfied, we headed out to the car to return home . . . and had to take a different route because the one we'd come in on had been closed due to flooding. We made it back safe and sound--and full--and had enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

It's only a coincidence that we named our son Ivan. My husband has an ancestor by that name (spelled Ivin, however) and the name just seemed to suit Ivan from the very beginning.

It still does (although I take at least partial responsibility for his stubborn streak). Let me quote from that reputable source, Wikipedia:

"Historic sources present disparate accounts of Ivan's complex personality: he was described as intelligent and devout, yet given to rages. . . . His contemporaries called him 'Ivan Grozny' the name, which, although usually translated as 'Terrible,' is actually associated with might, power and strictness, rather than horror or cruelty."

Ivan is intelligent. I don't know yet about devout. And, yes, he's given to rages--though he hasn't broken anything yet. And he's a strong little kid--a strong personality. "Formidable" is the word I use for him. My sister-in-law said that he's the kind of child who will grow up to be a man who knows what he wants and will go after it with everything in him. I'm sure she's right. But I admit that sometimes I have a really hard time with all of the above: his smarts, his temper, his stubbornness, his determination. It's hard to parent a five-year-old who doesn't understand he's five.

We were at the pool this morning, and Ivan saw a group of three boys about his age. And being Ivan, he swam over to them and asked if he could play with them. The oldest child--probably about eight--said no. Emphatically. "Yell" is the word we're looking for here. Ivan was unfazed. "I wasn't talking to you," he said. "I was talking to him." The older kid said, "I know, but he's my brother. And we don't want you playing with us." I waited for the boys' mother to say something. She did: "Billy. Be nice." But it was more a whine than a command. So Billy, of course, was not nice. "But it's more fun to be mean," he said. She sighed and glanced at me as if now waiting for me to say something. I did. I took Ivan's hand, pulled him out of the pool, and said, "Come on. You don't need to play with them. You can play with your own family." The sighing, whining mom looked away as her sons continued to play alone.

I was tempted to say more. It was on the tip of my tongue to say more. I could have been snide or snotty. I could have been mean to the kids. The Mama Bear in me really wanted to.

But the thing is, Ivan was fine. So the kids didn't want to play with him. Big deal, as far as he was concerned. There were other kids at the pool. Plus, he had his three older siblings to hang out with. If I'd made a big deal about this one pool punk, Ivan would have thought there was a reason to make a big deal. So I didn't. I dropped him off with the rest of my kids, and then I sat down and read my book.

I don't think it's okay for kids to be brats to other kids. Had one of my kids acted like that child, I'd have yanked him out of the pool so fast, he would have been dry before his feet landed on the cement.

But it's not up to me to parent other people's children. It's not up to me to tell other parents what a cruddy job I think they're doing parenting their own children. But it is up to me to make sure my kids can handle the pool punks that will inevitably come their way.

It's up to me to make sure they're formidable, whether they were born that way or not.

A Handy Thing

I'm sick of looking at my old post, so this one is for my benefit. Well, all of my posts are, really, since I read them more than anyone else. And that's not a plea for sympathy. It's me babbling.

A couple of nights ago, my 13yo came into my room and said, "Y'know? Talking comes in handy."

"Handy?" I said. "Yeah . . ." And I waited.

"When you're, you know, like, in 1st grade or whatever, you don't want to just talk with your friends. You want to play, because talking is boring. But then you get older and realize talking can be kind of fun."

Fun. Or handy, apparently. Okay.

My husband and I just got back from lunch out. It was our first "date" in a while. We've hit that stage where we don't necessarily feel the need to escape our children, so neither of us is desperate for time away. In fact, my idea of a good time is to go to my room at about 8:00 (or earlier) and not come out again until morning. I like to read or work or just enjoy the quiet. You know . . . the lack of that handy thing called talking.

But Ron was out of town for two weeks, and as wonderful a thing as Skype can be, talking or listening to someone--even if you can see them--while the reception comes and goes isn't a blast. It varies from being irritating to being frustrating to being stressful. So we needed to reconnect in person.

The original plan was to go to dinner this past Friday night. And then we got into a fight. We don't get into a lot of those, but this one was a doozy.(Why does the spell checker nab me on that? Come on, we all say 'doozy,' right?) Halfway to the restaurant (we were walking), I turned around and headed home. I was done talking. In fact, I was about as close to speechless as I've been since I was 13 and finding out what a handy thing speech in general is.

An hour later we were fine, and not because we talked about it. No, that wouldn't have been brilliant. It's been five days, and talking about it still wouldn't be brilliant. And at this point, there's no . . . well, no point to it. The issue we were arguing about is over and done, gone, finished. I'm perfectly fine with letting that sleeping dog lie (not my husband--the subject).

I've always been a big believer in talking things out. I like closure. I love it. I need it. I'm a little addicted to it. And I love talking. A lot. And I'm more than a little addicted to it. It's handy. I'll agree wholeheartedly with my 13yo on that one.

But sometimes--and I'm no marriage expert here--NOT talking things out with your spouse is the way to go. I'm not talking about sweeping problems under the mat (I'm wondering how many metaphors I can use in one post). I'm talking about realizing that for the sake of not making a mountain out of a mole hill (which I've never seen, by the way--a mole hill--so I don't know how close to a mountain one is in the first place) (I'm also going for a lot of parenthetical asides here), it's okay to just pretend the problem wasn't there in the first place, especially when you're pretty sure it's going to be a one-time kind of problem.

And you can always say, "Remember back when . . ." if the problem does come back. I'm sure that's something every marriage expert would support. Right?

So our lunch today was nice. The food wasn't great, but we don't eat out for the food. We eat out so we can just pay attention to each other for an hour. And so we can talk--if we feel the need.

Onlies

I wrote this a few years ago for a newsletter. Excuse the intensity of it. I was feeling a little intense at the time, as my father had only passed away the year before.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July.


When I was four years old, my family moved from Tucson, Arizona, to Lynchburg, Virginia, on little more than a whim. My parents packed up our Volkswagen van, a rented moving truck, and our camper and off we went. Dad was leaving a teaching job where he was loved and respected and appreciated. He was leaving his favorite brother. He was leaving his best friend who had baptized him. He was leaving his beloved West. And why? Because he fell in love with Virginia and her history. Once in Virginia, my impulsive father, my patient mother, and we six kids camped out at a lake for eight weeks while Dad looked for—and found--a job and a house. It was only recently that a friend of our family pointed out that we were technically homeless at that point in our lives. But for us it was a marvelous adventure experienced all for the love of history.

I grew up in Virginia with evidence of my father's love for this country all around me. We weren't a flag-waving, 4th-of-July picnicking, red-white-and-blue parading family; we were simply a family that knew George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin better than we knew our aunts and uncles. We knew all of the words to every song in "1776." We visited Revolutionary War battlegrounds on virtually every family vacation. We used Dad's own personal library for every history paper we ever wrote. Our home was filled with Americana antiques and framed copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and iron-cast figures of red and blue soldiers and their canons.

When July rolls around, thanks to my childhood, the men and women who struggled for this nation's freedom come to my mind. The miracle of so many brilliant minds and strong hearts and courageous spirits leave me with an immense sense of awe and gratitude. These were individuals who seized not just the meaning of freedom, but of free agency. Read a bit about our founding fathers and mothers and we find that they were "only" farmers and lawyers and printers and carpenters and wives and mothers. Yet they found power within that propelled them forward regardless of those "onlies."

Think about the percentage of time you allow fear to dictate your decision-making process: fear of failure, fear of disapproval, fear of rejection. And when we allow fear to control out lives, how free are we? How truly are we exercising our God-given free agency? My favorite scripture is 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." What power are we giving into if we hand ourselves over to fear either through our actions or inactions?

Where would we be today if not just Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin had given into their "onlies," but if every nameless hero in the years surrounding the Revolution had given in? And are we giving into the "onlies" in our lives? "I'm only a mother, a wife, a student, a secretary, a professor . . ." And where would we be if we found the courage to reach beyond our perceived limitations? Where would we be if more of our decisions were based not on fear, but on true power and love and soundness of mind?

Had my father been afraid to move to Virginia 30-plus years ago without a job, a house, or connections, I'm sure my life would still be a happy one, but it's been so much richer thanks to my association with this nation's past. I'm truly full of thankfulness this time of year for this country. Our history isn't always a proud one and certainly not a perfect one. But I believe God has always been in the details, whether as the conductor of events or the strength within those who struggled and survived and brought us to where we are today.

May we all reach beyond our onlies and in so doing find who we are meant to be.

A Moment

My 13yo son and I had "a moment" last night. He came to me upset about something that's been bothering him a lot recently, and he just wanted to talk. To me. His mother. He didn't want me to fix the problem, so I didn't try. I just listened while he got it all off his chest. And then I said, "I'm sorry you're feeling like this." He sighed. We watched a half hour of TV together. And then he went to bed laughing about something one of us had said.

I feel like I'm faking this whole "mom" thing more often than not. I feel like someone is going to show up at my door any minute and say, "Uh... you're not doing this right. The trial period is up." They'll ask me to turn in my credentials and when they see I don't have any, they'll make me vow to never again try to impersonate a parent.

My husband has been out of town for two long weeks, made longer by the fact that he's not just out of town but out of the country. The time difference really matters, because I can't just call him on his cell when I'm feeling stressed or frustrated. I have to figure it all out on my own--something single parents do all the time.

So my coping mechanisms have been:

1. virtually no cooking (this means lots of oatmeal or popcorn for dinner)
2. paying the kids to do chores
3. paying the older kids to put the younger ones to bed when I need to breathe
4. paying the younger kids to stay in bed
5. taking all of the kids to the movies mid-way through the two weeks

We saw "Toy Story 3" and I bought popcorn (again, it's all about coping). Andy's heading off to college in this sequel, and the toys all end up (by mistake) at a daycare run by a dictator bear. There are lots of sweet moments, sad ones, funny ones--your typical Pixar film. But I didn't actually tear up until the last few minutes, while Andy was playing with his toys one last time before driving off to school.

My 13yo was sitting next to me, so I couldn't cry, of course. I imagine fewer things are more embarrassing to a teenager than having your mother cry about you getting older--except perhaps having her dance in front of your friends.

When he turned five, we had a Toy Story-themed party for him. I made a cookie cake with Bullseye on it. He loved it.

When he turned thirteen, he skipped the party. In fact, he hasn't had one in three years now. They're just not his "thing" anymore, so I don't push him. He's growing up. I can't stop it from happening.

I'm not naive enough to believe our relationship will continue as it has as he goes through 8th grade and then through high school. He'll clam up any second now and won't open up again until . . . until who knows?

But I realized something last night that I'll have to remind myself of time and again as my kids all grow up: Parenting is much more about restraint than I ever thought it would be. It's about not crying in front of them about how much you hate that they'll be leaving home one day. It's about not throwing your arms around them the first time they really talk to you and saying, "You love me! You really love me!" It's about not fixing their problems. It's about not hovering and smothering and hand-holding. It's about not making a seven-course meal when a bowl of Cheerios will suffice.

This morning, my son said, "Thanks for talking to me last night, Mom."

I didn't talk. But if he thinks I did--and if he thinks whatever I said helped--then that's as perfect a moment as I've had in a long time.

But no swearing!

I was watching "The Today Show" this morning, and Meredith Vieira was interviewing a 13-year-old girl named Josie who is being charged as an accessory to attempted murder in the brutal beating of her best friend.

The story itself was horrible. Of course, it was. When we watch the news, we, as humans, are generally most disturbed by those stories that seem like they could happen to us. Watch the local news on any given evening, and you'll see one of my biggest pet peeves: ". . . the local connection to [the latest terrible thing to happen in the world]." I always think, Really? It takes us knowing a fisherman personally to be upset about the oil spill's devastation? It takes us having visited Haiti to be heartbroken over an earthquake? It takes us having children to be sickened by stories of abuse or neglect or text messaging gone wrong? We can't simply care because someone else--someone we don't know, never will know, and with whom we have absolutely nothing in common--because they are hurting?

What struck me in the interview this morning was something little that others might not have paid any attention to at all. Meredith had asked the girl which of the text messages she had read that her friend supposedly sent to this boy. Josie said, "I read the one where she called him a rapist, and the one where he called her a bitch."

I'd say excuse my language, but I don't know which language here disturbs you. But the language that disturbed the censors was "bitch." And it's the wrong word that anyone listening to the story should have been disturbed by.

So here's this news story about a girl who was beaten nearly to death by a 15-year-old boy who stomped on her head repeatedly with steel-toed boots because she might have said something ("might" because the authorities think Josie is the one who sent the message)about his dead brother. She's now brain damaged and is learning everything all over again. The video footage of her in recovery was sad--whether you know a 15-year-old girl or someone with brain damage or ANY other human being besides yourself or not. And beyond the video footage, we're listening to a piece about absolute violence and brutality and kids who are lost and completely destroyed for life.

But the censors said, "Wait. All of that is okay to talk about, but we need to delete that word. And, Meredith, be sure you tell her not to talk like that anymore."

I'm not saying that story shouldn't have been reported. It should have been. I'm saying that when we can listen to a story like that--and be interrupted by a reminder not to use 'the b-word'--we're forgetting our own humanity, aren't we? We're allowing ourselves to be emotionally disconnected from what's going on around us.

Am I the only one that felt that way? And who was sadder because of that one line--"Josie, we have to watch for censors"--than maybe by the story itself?

Discouraging blowouts . . . really?

For someone who doesn't follow sports or even care that much about them, I'm surprising myself by having a third post in a row about sports. But Come. On. People.

I read this article this morning. It's short, go read it if you're interested, and I'll be here when you get back. Otherwise, the gist of the story is this: The Ottawa children's soccer league has introduced a new rule (which it claims is merely a reinforcement of an old rule) that is intended to discourage blowouts. Any team that wins by more than five goals loses. Then any team that loses all of its games wins the championship.

I get that people don't want to see their kids lose a game 0-16. I don't want to see that either. But, hey, that's how life goes. Sometimes you kick butt. Sometimes you get yours kicked. And it hurts. And you suck it up and move on. It's a lesson better learned at 10 than at 20. At least your parents are there to hug you and cheer you on when you're still living at home. If you're 20 and you realize, "Holy cow, I just got creamed on that exam. I had no idea the professor wouldn't grade on a curve. My soccer league did!" . . . then guess who might be moving back home for that hug?

Does losing take the fun out of the game? A little. And getting pummeled takes out even more of that fun. But is losing 0-5 really that much better than losing 0-16, especially if you know the other team could have added 11 more points to its score if the rules had allowed for it?

I read a number of years back that teachers are now being advised to stop using red pens to correct student papers. Red is scary. It hurts the kids' feelings. But apparently we're to understand that getting a bad grade in blue or green or some other "soothing" shade is less hurtful: "I know I failed the test, Dad, but look! . . . I failed it in PURPLE. So it's all right. Now let's go play some soccer, but you have to play blindfolded and with your left leg tied behind you so I can win, okay? Otherwise, you might damage my psyche."

And in other breaking news: Up is down. Front is back. And wrong is right. Yay for the power to change our perception of the world even if we've given up on changing the world itself.

Here's what I'm trying to teach my kids, and I bet most of you are, too: It's okay to lose. It's okay to be wrong. And then it's really okay to learn from the losses and mistakes. It's how we get better. It's how our kids get better.

Stop trying to take the right to grow away from them. Just . . . stop.

Why parenting needs instant replay even more than baseball

I don't follow baseball. It's too slow for me, and I lived too long in Pittsburgh to be able to be a fan.

But I feel for Armando Galarraga, and I think he handled the umpire's bad call with a lot more grace than most professional sports players can come up with over the entire course of their careers. I also think the umpire handled the situation well. It was a close call, he messed up, he apologized. Profusely. I hope he can let it go. I hope they both can. Because (see my last post), it's a game.

Maybe baseball would benefit from instant replay. The technology is there, so use it, right? But, as I already said (and as you already know), it's a slow game. Do you really want to add another hour or two by reviewing the tapes?

I think my own life could benefit from some instant replay technology though, especially since I've become a mother of children with recall . . . because I'm not so convinced their recall is correct. I think if I could review the tapes, show them where they misinterpreted something I said, I could save them a lot of therapy.

Let me tell you a brief story. It's about Mr. Fluffy, my pet rabbit.

When I was about seven, my family lived on a nice piece of property on the outskirts of the city. We had a huge garden, a nice patch of woods, a giant backyard, some apple trees, and a hen house. It was heaven to a kid my age, especially since I was such a tomboy. Back then--in the good old days--parents sent their kids out to play in the morning and then called them back in at dinner time. It was during this time that I remember my mom telling me, "Only boring people are bored." And it's become one of my mantras of parenting and of life in general. I believe it with all my heart.

I loved collecting the eggs those chickens laid. Yes, they pecked the crud out of my hands, but to feel the warmth of that egg and to even smell that barnyard scent that makes some people crave city life? Aahhhh. Heat, humidity, flypaper, straw: man, oh, man the great memories I have based on that little hen house.

But the hens weren't terribly productive, and the black snakes kept busy, and my mom didn't love those chickens nearly as much as I did. So she sold them all for 50 cents a piece.

Then we got rabbits. And I fell in love with a big white one, Mr. Fluffy. Did I play with him? No, I wasn't allowed to take him out of his hutch. In fact, I don't know why I loved him at all. In fact, I don't know whether I even had a name for him until my brother strung him up and skinned him.

Didn't see that coming, did you? Well, neither did I. I was SEVEN. I had no idea that we had those rabbits in order to fatten them up and eat them. I thought they were pets.

But what you think and what you know as a child often have very little to do with reality. See, in my memory, I'm sitting on the hill overlooking one of our apple trees, and my brother Danny is getting Mr. Fluffy ready for dinner--our dinner.

But in that same memory, he's also holding me so I have to watch him.

For years (and I mean until I was in college), I believed that memory. I was so sure Danny had forced me to watch him kill and skin MY pet rabbit. But he couldn't have. Did another sibling hold me? Or was it Danny holding me and Terryl down by that tree? And was someone holding my eyes open? Really? Did I HAVE to watch? Was it Clockwork Orange and a box of toothpicks?

Or was I just curious? And then I got upset and blamed Danny?

Regardless, we had Mr. Fluffy for dinner that night. And, honestly, he tasted pretty good--yep, just like chicken.

Not such a brief story, huh? Instant replay does that to a bad call.

Another story:

I loved drawing as a kid and thought I was pretty good at it. My sister Sandy gave me an art kit--or maybe it was Ginny. See? Even the good memories get messed up. And one day, with that art kit, I spent hours (or what seemed like hours) drawing a duck pond. I took it to show my mother afterward, and she said, "It's good. Not as good as Ginny's art, but it's good."

I gave up drawing. I never took an art class in junior high or high school. I thought for sure I was talentless and would remain so. I thought Ginny would always be better. And I thought my mother crushed my dreams. Does Mom remember it that way? Of course not. She doesn't remember the event at all. But I was 11, and I remember it perfectly. Or not.

Last night, my thirteen-year-old told me that he remembers me offering him $100 when he was eight to hit a home run. He claims that he asked me after the season (during which he had no home runs) why I offered him so much money. He claims I told him, "Because I knew you wouldn't hit one." He went on to say that I offered him $100 to score two goals in a soccer game for the same reason.

The Defense calls me:

1. I remember offering him the money for the soccer game. Only it wasn't $100: it was $50. And I offered it to him not because I thought he wouldn't score two goals but because I thought it would be an incentive for him to play more aggressively. He was a good soccer player and still is. But when he was eight or nine, he just didn't fight for that ball.

2. I NEVER would have told him I offered him $100 for a home run because I thought he wouldn't hit one. NEVER.

But he believes it--with all of his heart, he believes it.

I've tried explaining false memories to him. I've tried telling him about Mr. Fluffy and my failed career as an artist. But he's not listening. And he'll be telling his baseball story to his friends, his wife, and his children. My descendants will view me as a cold and cruel mother who liked to mock her children, enjoyed crushing their dreams, and laughed while they cried.

And there's not a darn thing I can do about it, because parenting doesn't have instant replay. I can't point to the tapes and say, "Look! See? You TOTALLY misheard me!"

Then again, sometimes the calls they miss are the ones I want them to miss. And there's no guarantee they'll handle those calls with the kind of dignity and sportsmanship Armando Gallaraga did. And I probably wouldn't blame them.

Maybe if I paid him that $100, he'd let it go. . . . maybe?