Some things were meant to be

Posted on December 12, 2013 by missemtoo

This life stuff doesn’t always go as planned. I suppose that’s what makes it, you know, life, but still, when things don’t work out the way you’d thought they would, it can really be a shock to the system.

New Coke: I’m looking at you.

Nick and I had always talked of having two children, but we’d wanted them three years apart. We’d carefully reasoned it out: Ella would be out of diapers and we wouldn’t be dealing with a toddler and a baby at the same time, but she and her younger sibling would still be close enough in age to share some of the same toys, go to the same school, etc. It was going to be great.

Then, when Ella was a mere fifteen months old, I unexpectedly got pregnant. I realize that some people find it difficult to believe that a pregnancy can be “unexpected,” especially after having already birthed a child (so we clearly understood the whole birds and the bees thing, if you know what I mean), but it was. I’d carefully done the math, but – sparing you the details (you’re welcome) – The Math and I have never been real tight, and I’d gotten something wrong, and suddenly, there we were, pregnant.

For those of you who also struggle with The Math, 15 months (Ella’s age) + 9 months (gestation) = our kids would be two years apart rather than three.

Not only that, but this baby was also due in December – Ella’s birth month – which was really not cool with me. Like many teachers, I’d hoped to give birth in the spring, take my 6-8 weeks of maternity leave, and then back up the end of the leave right into summer break, giving me the maximum amount of (paid) time home with my newborn. Again, sparing you the details (and again, you’re welcome), we became pregnant with Ella sooner than we’d thought we might, and our “spring” baby arrived right before Christmas.

I had no childcare lined up, and didn’t plan to get any, because the following school year, I’d be job-sharing with Sarah, a wonderful friend of mine who’d also recently had a baby. For half of the week, each of us would teach, and for the other half, we’d watch both babies. It was a fabulous win-win, so I didn’t want to search for temporary childcare for Ella knowing I’d just give it up in a few months. Instead, Nick and I managed to cobble together a network of family members and friends, with each of us also using personal days, to watch Ella when I returned to school. We made it happen, but it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.

Giving birth in December also meant that I was essentially homebound for three months, because our pediatrician had warned that we shouldn’t take the baby into any “crowded spaces” — malls, restaurants, libraries, stores, basically anything with walls and a roof — because of germs! And RSV! And you never know who’s carrying a deadly disease! Given that it was, you know, winter, it was too cold to be outside with the baby (and even if I’d dared to brave the elements, there was no place to go outside with a newborn in the winter; it’s not like she’d enjoy checking out the local playground). So that kind of sucked.

And then there was the whole birthday-a-week-before-Christmas thing that was a big ol’ pain in the neck. Christmas is already its own unique kind of crazy; adding a birthday to that each year seemed ridiculously daunting, and I wasn’t really excited to take on the challenge. Plus, I worried for Ella’s sake. She’d get birthday presents wrapped in Christmas paper! Her special day would be outshone by Christmas’s glare! Not fun.

We would make it work, of course, but back then if I’d had to choose, Ella wouldn’t have been born in December. So I vowed: absolutely no more December babies.

And then The Math and I had a tussle, and suddenly the little plus sign was taunting me from its perch on the bathroom sink.

I’m not going to lie: I was not excited. Nick and I have always felt that everything happens for a reason, and we never considered terminating the pregnancy, but I did wish fervently that I wasn’t pregnant right then. In fact, more than once, I peed on yet another pregnancy stick and hoped that it would come up negative. I didn’t want to lose the baby, not at all… I simply didn’t want to be pregnant at that time, if that makes any sense. Happy just wasn’t happening.

More to the point, I was downright angry. Actually, I was terrified — of having another baby so soon, of having another being growing inside me, of the whole December-baby thing, of how having a sibling would disrupt the lovely life we’d built for ourselves and Ella, of the logistics of the whole thing. The details just seemed insurmountable: we lived in a small, three-bedroom house that was just barely big enough for Nick, Ella, and me. I couldn’t possibly ask Sarah to watch the baby AND Ella when I was only watching her son, so I’d have to scrap our arrangement and return to teaching full-time, putting Ella and the baby into daycare… But, thirty miles outside of New York City, the cost of living was so high, I’d actually take home LESS working full-time and paying for daycare than I was bringing in working half-time.

It was just impossible.

In our calmer moments, Nick and I reasoned that, somehow, we’d be okay. We’d always wanted another baby. This one was just coming a little sooner than we’d expected. We would figure out the job/childcare/housing thing. Everything happens for a reason. We’d make it work.

But the part I couldn’t wrap my head around was why I got pregnant when I did. (Okay, I know why I got pregnant, because… I’ll shut up now. You’re welcome.) Why another December baby? Why NOW? The universe and God work in mysterious ways, yes, but the reason behind the timing absolutely eluded us.

Spring turned into summer and still I wasn’t excited about being pregnant. I did all of the things I should – I ate right, I took my vitamins, I exercised, I cut out caffeine, I didn’t consume a drop of alcohol – and, as my stomach expanded, we did our best to prepare Eleanor to become a big sister… but I just wasn’t into it. Summer ended and I returned to teaching and, as the months crept toward my due date, despite my own personal scolding and pleading and chiding and stern talkings-to, I simply could not muster happiness about the arrival of this baby.

And then, right around Halloween, I was watching something on TV featuring a pregnant woman who lost her baby. It wasn’t A Baby Story or anything like that, and actually may have just been a dumb sitcom, but as I watched, I felt this terror take hold of me and I realized that I did not want to not be pregnant. I could not lose this baby.

It was quite the shock, that: realizing that I no longer wanted to not be pregnant. (Yes, it took me until I was SEVEN MONTHS along… Mom of the year before I’d even given birth, that’s me…) It wasn’t exactly the same as actively being excited to have another child, but it was a helluva lot better than outright dread.

As November progressed, my indifference slowly shifted to acceptance, until finally, by December, I was – at last – looking forward to meeting this wee one who’d been renting space with me for the past 8.5 months, THANK YOU SWEET BABY JESUS AMEN. Nick and I still had no idea why the timing worked out the way it did, but at least we were psyched to become a family of four.

Being psyched, however, could not guarantee a smooth delivery. Alas, the baby was sunny-side up and became trapped in the birth canal – and so, after laboring for seven hours, completely turning down the epidural so I could “feel” where to push, then pushing for nearly three hours, an emergency c-section was ordered. (Good thing, too; poor babe came out with a bloody mark on her forehead where she’d been smooshing up against the bones of my pelvis.)

Annabelle Grace arrived at 8:11 p.m. and was healthy as could be. Damn cute, too.

Showing some ‘tude straight out of the womb.

Nick went home that night to be with Ella, and I phoned him around 2 a.m. asking if he could find any Allegra or Claritin to bring me — it seemed I’d forgotten mine and was developing hives. (Have I never mentioned that I have chronic, unexplained hives [technical term: chronic idiopathic urticaria] and, every night since I was thirteen, if I don’t take an antihistamine, I break out in full-body hives? No? Well, I do. They’re swell.) Even after taking the medication, however, the hives never abated, and it was finally determined that I was allergic to the Percocet they’d given me for pain. My other drug allergies ruled out Vicodin and the like, which meant that my only options were Advil and Tylenol.

Advil. And Tylenol. For pain from an emergency c-section, after which the doctor ordered that I remain in the hospital an extra day because, having pushed for so long and so hard, it was “as though (I’d) given birth twice.” Super fun.

The second night of my hospital stay, I received a call from Nick at 2 a.m… Ella had thrown up all over her crib. Yep, our almost two year-old had come down with her first-ever tummy bug, and there Nick was, in the middle of the night, trying to change crib sheets and clean up a pukey kid, while I was in the hospital, unable to even lift Annie from her bassinet without tearing my stitches (I’d taken to just holding her in bed with me so I could nurse her when I needed to and not bug anyone for help), all hopped up on TYLENOL AND ADVIL.

Extra super fun.

Taken in the hospital before Ella began her barf-a-thon.

The following morning, Nick’s mom – who’d flown in from Minnesota to help us out – became ill (unrelated to the stomach bug) and had to fly back home. Nick’s dad and GranMary were able to catch the next flight from Minnesota to offer their assistance, and none too soon, because the day after I returned from the hospital, Nick came down with the pukes… which meant, clearly, that he couldn’t be near Annie, because a five day-old really isn’t supposed to catch the stomach flu. And I couldn’t really help out with Ella, because I wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than Annie…

So, yeah. Extra super duper fun.

Still, pretty much from the moment she arrived, Annie was magnificent. I wasn’t stuck inside with her like I’d been with Ella; when you have your first December baby, you stay home for three straight months because the thought of germs is paralyzing. When you have your second December baby, you understand that your two year-old is harboring more germs on her right forefinger than the entire children’s section at Barnes and Noble, and you give up and just get on with things already.

Sometimes this works brilliantly, and sometimes your newborn develops RSV. Ah, well. Builds stamina!

It became clear almost immediately that our family, while perfectly happy, had been incomplete without her. She was a precocious baby, immediately engaging, and an obvious daredevil from the word go. Eventually, Annie would come to command the attention of everyone in the room everywhere she goes — she has the most magnetic, draw-you-in personality of anyone I’ve ever met (and she’s freakin’ hilarious, so that helps) — but in her early months, she definitely took a backseat to Ella.

It wasn’t that people weren’t interested in Annie, who was, by all accounts, an adorable and fun baby, but rather that Ella was so full of life, so talkative, so bold, people naturally gravitated toward her and didn’t pay Annie too much mind. That is, until she met my grandmother.

I don’t know what it was, but from the moment they laid eyes on each other, Annie and Phoofsy were smitten. Phoofsy had always loved Ella – there was no worry of that – but there was something special about her relationship with Annie. They lit up when they saw one another; where everyone else would be captivated by Ella’s stories and songs and dramatic reenactments, Phoofsy would go up to Annie and coo at her, instead. Annie’s biggest fan, we called her. It was pretty damn neat.

After mulling over (and over… and over…) our options post-baby, Nick and I decided that his 90 minute commute into lower Manhattan was simply too much. My going back to work full-time was too much. Finding childcare that would cost more than my half-time salary was too much. We could not stay in Bronxville any longer. As luck would have it, Nick’s company had a branch in Rochester, and because we already knew the area (with my mother and her sisters having grown up here, and my grandparents still living here, with a house on the lake where we visited each summer), we decided it made the most sense for him to change jobs and for us to move here. And so, in July of 2007, when Annie was seven months old, we did.

With “Great” in August, 2007

We split the time that summer almost evenly between moving into our new house and going to the lake. I’m pretty certain that I saw my grandparents more in those first few months than I had in the previous thirty-one years of my life. The girls had the incredible experience of spending unlimited time with their great-grandparents. Things were good.

At the very end of September, my grandfather went in for surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm. Although that sounds scary, the location of the aneurysm and his overall good health caused his doctor(s) to predict an easy fix; they expected him home within a day or so. At 2:38 p.m. that Friday, he sent all of us the following email:

going to hospital at 4. TTYL

Very sadly, there would be no “later.” The operation wound up being much more complicated than they’d anticipated, and although they successfully repaired the aneurysm, he never woke up; we lost him on Sunday morning.

The weeks following his death were a blur, with family coming and going, but eventually, everyone left and it was just my grandmother (and my brother and sister-in-law, who were living locally at the time) and us. We made sure to see her often, both because we didn’t want her to be alone and because we really enjoyed her company. Thanksgiving eventually rolled around and my extended family came back into town to celebrate together. While I was thrilled to have them visit, it struck me that it felt a little funny with them there; we and Phoofsy had fallen into a kind of (irregular) routine, and interrupting it was a bit uncomfortable. We were the ones who were supposed to be here.

Wait a minute: we were supposed to be here. HERE, in Rochester, right exactly then. If we hadn’t moved when we did, we wouldn’t have had that summer with my grandfather. We wouldn’t have been there when he died; my brother and I wouldn’t have been the ones to stay with him in his hospital room and say goodbye to him after they turned off all of the machines. We wouldn’t have been there with my grandmother after his death, dragging her gamely along to the children’s museum and the apple orchard, and accompanying her to mother/daughter celebrations at her social club. If we hadn’t moved when we did, she certainly wouldn’t have had Annie and Ella nearby to cheer her up, to make her smile, to give her hope.

It was all so ridiculously clear: If Annie had not been born when she was, we never would have moved when we did, and life as we know it would not exist.

Everything happens for a reason, indeed.

Click on it to see it bigger; it’s worth it.

It wasn’t just my grandma who benefited from Annie’s timely birth, of course. We’ve all – everyone who meets her – been so tremendously fortunate to have Annie in our lives. She defines the word character. She is vibrant and exceedingly full of energy. She never stops talking. No, I mean it… Never. Stops. Talking. Wait, I take that back; she stops talking when she’s singing. Does that count?

She wakes up happy nearly every single day, and greets me – whether it’s first thing in the morning or when I pick her up from school – with the broadest grin imaginable and an elated, “MOMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!” She’s one of the most hilarious people I’ve ever met, as evidenced here and here. She certainly has no shortage of self-confidence and purpose, as is shown in her frequent use of phrases such as, “I’m going to give them a gift… It’s called The Awesome of Annie.”

She can turn on a dime and be the crankiest kid you’ve ever come across; and then, just like that, she’s laughing again. For three parent-teacher conferences in a row, her teachers referred to her as a “pistol.” She’s so exuberant and funny and delightful and just plain crazy, we kind of didn’t realize that she’s also crazy smart; her kindergarten and first grade teachers let us know that we’d greatly underestimated her.

I looked, but apparently I didn’t turn my “six” photo from last year into a collage… Oops.

She’s utterly exasperating in the mornings before school, when I head downstairs to let the dogs out and she’s got her pants on and is putting on her shirt and tells and will be down shortly — and then, twenty minutes later when I realize she’s never appeared, I go upstairs to check on her and discover that she’s now undressed and is rolling around on the floor, teeth still needing to be brushed. She’s similarly exasperating in the evenings before bed when it takes fifteen minutes to put on her pajamas.

She is kind and generous and sweet and a truly fabulous dinner-making partner; she now makes all of our salads every time and has, more than once, been responsible for cooking virtually all aspects of the meal. There is nothing she cannot turn into an art project (no, really, nothing; I know this from experience). She idolizes Ella and would do anything for her – just today, she earned a prize at school for twelve consecutive days of good behavior and “spent” her points to buy a gift for her sister instead of herself – but also purposely needles her – gleefully – with all of her might.

Annie is unbridled joy and to-her-core happiness. When I say that our lives wouldn’t be the same without her in it, I mean that in every possible way; we’re literally here today because of her. She fills us all with her light; we didn’t even realize how bright things could be until she came along. We may have been thrown for a loop when I got confused with The Math and became pregnant with Annie, but I’m so very glad we’re along for the ride.

And it turns out that December birthdays aren’t so bad after all. Go figure.

Seven years, Banana. Seven years of awesome.
Lucky, lucky us.

Happy Birthday!
xoxo

7 tonight

Stepping back

Posted on December 11, 2013 by missemtoo

A couple of weeks ago, I was headed to the bathroom when I happened to notice that Nick was watching the end of Amadeus in the living room. (The fact that I was heading to the bathroom is largely immaterial, but I do like to be precise.) I hadn’t seen the movie in years, and found myself absolutely fixated, unable to move until the closing credits.

I’ve loved Amadeus since I first saw it in the theater when I was eight (let’s just pause here for a moment, shall we, and ponder that my parents took me and my brother — who was SIX — to a movie about Mozart, where nude women run amok and the focus is about, you know, Classical music… Yes, yes they did… Which, I think, gives me latitude to show Ella and Annie just about any movie I choose and receive absolutely no sideways glances whatsoever, no?). The ending – where Salieri is frantically scribbling out the Confutatis maledictis from the Requiem as Mozart dictates the parts to him from his deathbed – is one of my favorite, most chill-inducing passages of any movie, ever.

I have always loved that scene, but, having not seen it in years – since well before I became a music teacher – I’d never gotten it in a technical music sense. Now, as Tom Hulce hummed and pounded out and sang each line, each section, and F. Murray Abraham put notes to paper… and then as the music came together, piece by piece, until we finally we heard Mozart’s unbelievably beautiful vision for the first time, I was completely enthralled. It wasn’t just gorgeous; it made sense. It clicked.

It’s not that Mozart died and left the Requiem uncompleted that makes it so awe-inspiring (although that certainly adds to the mystique); it’s the work itself, Mozart’s genius being so definitively and wondrously realized. I have yet to hear the entire Requiem live, but it’s absolutely on my bucket list. (Lest you think my bucket list is all classy like that, you should know that it also includes learning how to properly wolf-whistle and smashing truckloads of tomatoes into perfect strangers at the Tomatina in Buñol, Spain.)

Fast forward to last Friday, when I was subbing for a high school music teacher – not my typical gig. Although I’m qualified and certified to teach music K-12, my professional experience (subbing aside) has only been K-8, so I always regard high school music subbing with a bit of curiosity. Friday proved to be a fantastic experience, and one that I was not expecting.

Yes, it was great that one of the classes was AP Music Theory (which might sound either terrifying or horrendously dry, depending on your perspective); I was psyched, because although I hadn’t dabbled much in theory since college, I did genuinely enjoy – and excel at – it way back when. I wasn’t disappointed. Despite it being students-bring-in-a-song-to-share-with-the-class day — a classic, dummy-proof move for when you have a sub, especially if your sub might not be a music teacher — this was no throwaway class. The kids brought in everything from Zeppelin to instrumental celtic songs, and used phrases like “I thought it was interesting how the measure of 3/4 immediately bumps up against the 4/4 measures, giving them a heightened tension” and “I enjoyed how that measure doesn’t end on the tonic, but rather how the dominant sets the stage and leaves you hanging” to describe what they heard (no, I am not making this up). It was pretty rad.

And, yes, there was the 10th grade choir, who were almost entirely student-led and sang a raucous version of Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus. But it was the Polyphonic Choir – arguably the school’s most prestigious group – that really took my breath away.

For one thing, it was like stepping into an episode of Glee, or what Glee might be like if the students actually read music and were concerned with phrasing and diction and warm-ups. Each of these kids wanted – really wanted – to be there, from the obviously gay young men in their smart pants and patterned sweaters to the grungy girls with their heavy eye-liner and spiky earrings, and the moment they came into the rehearsal room, they were focused, poised, excited, ready. You don’t really get that in your average Calculus class.

For another, these kids could sing. They were good. And not just with their voices; they could read music like it was nobody’s business, play piano with prodigious skill, and fine-tune their singing when something wasn’t quite right. They fully directed themselves (I was really only there so they could claim that an adult was in the room), doing warm-ups alone for a full twenty minutes, and sounded stupendous.

But also? They had a concert the following Monday (like, two days ago), and one of the pieces they were performing was Mozart’s Requiem.

O
M
G

I couldn’t believe I was hearing it – live – and that these seventeen year-olds were not only singing it, but conducting themselves, and singing it well. Their voices rang and echoed, filling the space with wonder and satisfaction (I realize the phrasing is weird there, but really, there was wonder and satisfaction just floating around the room. For real). It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced as a teacher; I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be there to witness it.

As soon as the period was over, I texted the following to Nick:

The choir I was subbing for is performing Mozart’s Requiem; they led themselves in rehearsal. Felt like Salieri. SO COOL.

Before Nick and I went to sleep that night, I just had to talk about it more; I couldn’t quite let it go. I relived the rehearsal, dissecting each warm-up and playing for him the audio recordings I’d surreptitiously made of the choir with my iPhone. We both agreed that this was a damn good choir.

And I couldn’t help but wonder: does their teacher feel this way every day? Does he go home every night, rushing to share the delicious details of every rehearsal with his wife (who happens to be a friend of mine; first time I’d ever subbed for someone I “knew”)? Does he sit back and let the music wash over him, soaking up the choir’s soul-stirring abilities, reveling in his AP students’ knowledge and interest and abilities?

Does he come home every single day thinking, Holy crap, I get to do THIS for my JOB?? I must be the luckiest person on the face of the planet!

Well, let’s be honest: no. He probably doesn’t. Not if he’s human, anyway. In part, because not every day is like the day I witnessed. These kids had been rehearsing for months for a concert that was one day away; no wonder they were so good. Surely rehearsals back in September bore little resemblance to what I witnessed on Friday.

Also, let’s not forget that these kids didn’t learn how to conduct a choir rehearsal or identify when the melody ends on the tonic or dominant all by themselves. They learned it from someone – I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess maybe they learned it from the teacher for whom I was subbing – and that someone likely had to work damn hard to get these kids to come so far. While I’m sure it’s been gratifying to have such motivated and talented kiddos in your classes, I’m also sure that there are days when – as with all professions (or, let’s say, being a parent) – you want to pull your hair out.

But I hope, for this teacher’s sake, that he has some of the moments I experienced. I hope that, between the pressures of putting on a concert and helping kids understand voice-leading and working to make sure the tenors aren’t sharp and having the warehouse fall behind on the sheet music shipment and figuring out how Common Core affects the curriculum and budget cuts and colleagues who raise eyebrows and question whether or not you’re a “real teacher” because you “just” teach music, there are genuine moments of joy and gratitude and awe, moments of, I truly must be the luckiest person on the planet, if only for this one song.

Truth be told, I could stand a few more of those moments myself these days. Like everyone else, I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off. This fall/early winter have been so freakin’ busy, and now with Christmas and two birthdays on the horizon (I will have a seven year-old in two minutes, omg!), it’s just become absolutely insane. There are days when my “free time” begins after midnight, when I awaken in the morning to have my FitBit tell me I’ve already walked 800 steps that day. Only once in the past ten days have I gone to bed before 1:30 a.m.

It’s unsustainable. I realize this. I’ll wind up making myself sick, and then my holiday spirit will really go to hell in a hand basket.

I need to stop and breathe. I keep thinking, if I just get this done, just accomplish this one more thing, then I can relax… But I keep a to-do book, not a to-do list, and it’s absolutely never-ending, so I have yet to reach the relaxation point.

And yet, surely there are bits of the Requiem going on around me. Maybe it’s in my girls’ faces as they find Hermey our elf in his new location each morning. (Shit. Note to self: Hermey must be moved to Annie’s room tonight. Birthday girls always get a visit from Hermey.) Maybe it’s in the fresh falling snow we’re getting each day. Maybe it’s in the irresistible toffee my aunt sends us each year (we received it two days ago and it’s nearly gone; send more!).

I’m not entirely sure where it is, but I’m going to make it my mission to find it. Every year, I lament that this season has gone by too fast. I can’t make it slow down, but I can at least try to find some joy and gratitude and awe, if only for one song.

Come to think of it, maybe the Requiem is hidden in the chocolate chip cookies I made for the cookie exchange and the Girl Scouts caroling. They did taste pretty damn good.

Setting the bar reeeeally low

Posted on December 3, 2013 by missemtoo

A couple of weeks ago, I took Annie shopping with me at Trader Joe’s. Although I typically avoid taking her to the grocery store (despite her “helping,” things are just much faster when she’s not trundling along beside me), Trader Joe’s is the exception because I don’t do our regular shopping there. When you’re only picking up pumpkin cream cheese, Peanut Butter Tracks ice cream, and Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels, you can be in and out in a jiffy.

Annie loves coming with me to TJ’s because a) free samples, b) she can find a stuffed animal bee and receive a lollipop or an apple (guess which one she chooses every single time), and c) stickers. Each visit, the checkout person pulls out a roll of Trader Joe’s stickers and tears off five or six for my girl and she just thinks this is the best thing ever. (I, on the other hand, do not think always think that this is the best thing ever because, despite having heard the WHERE DO STICKERS BELONG? mantra for her entire life, my almost seven year-old continues to adhere stickers to the car windows. Curse you, Trader Joe’s stickers! Maybe I’ll speak with the management.)

Anyway, we were at the checkout and the conversation went like this:

“Would you like some stickers?”

(barely looking up from her lollipop; did you guess correctly earlier?) “Yes, please.”

“Here you go!”

“Thank you.”

“Wow, you’re very polite!”

“Thank you.”

“Since you used such nice manners, here are a few more stickers!”

Annie left the store with 18 stickers from three different sticker rolls and thought it might have been the greatest day of her life.

It got me to thinking, though. When on earth did simply saying please and thank you amount to being “so polite” or “such nice manners”? Not that I’m complaining; Annie did speak politely (although we still need to work on eye contact, especially when lollipops are involved) and she did use nice manners, but it’s not like she composed a sonnet on the spot about what a lovely store Trader Joe’s is, nor did she compliment the checkout lady on her stunning eyes… She just did the very basics – but still the checkout person was genuinely taken aback.

This was far from an isolated incident. Annie and Ella, both, are actually informed quite frequently that they have awesome manners. Once, we went out to eat and were surprised when the manager suddenly appeared at our table. Turned out, he happened to overhear the girls order their own meals from the server (saying please) and then, when the plates were presented, saying thank you, unprompted… and he (the manager) just wanted to let us know how much he appreciated their good manners, and how very rarely he hears kids using them. It was really cool having him come and talk to us like that (until the girls started walking around with their chests puffed out like maybe they’d rescued a litter of kittens from a burning building), but we were also like, Dude. They hardly spoke. This really called for accolades?

Last year, when we were in Disney World, Ella and I stopped into a candy store on our way out of The Magic Kingdom. It was after dinner and the park itself had closed, so we had the store to ourselves. We also were a bit hard to miss because I was pushing Ella in a wheelchair, her recently un-casted broken foot not yet being strong enough to take on the parks. She got some Jelly Bellies for herself and Annie, and I was ordering a ridiculous caramel-peanut-butter-cup-chocolate-covered apple concoction at the checkout counter when we had the following conversation with a Cast Member:

I’d like that one, please. (I point to the monstrosity that supposedly has an apple at its center.)

“All right. And the Jelly Bellies?

Yes, please.

(The Cast Member rings up both and hands back the Jelly Bellies, putting the apple into a bag.)

“Thank you!” (Ella takes the Jelly Bellies.)

“Mommy, may I please have some of these now?”

Sure. That would be fine.

“Thanks, Mommy.”

(Cast Member stops what she’s doing and actually reaches out to touch my hand.)

“Do you have any idea how rare that is?”

Um, pardon me?

“Do you have any idea how rare it is, what your daughter just did?”

I’m not sure what… (No, seriously, WTF is happening here…?)

“She not only said ‘thank you’ to me without you reminding her, but she also politely asked you if she could have some of her candy instead of demanding it… and then she thanked you too!”

Oh, that! Uhhh, yes, she did. She uses really good manners.

“Yes, she does! I hope you appreciate how unusual and wonderful that is. You must have taught her well.”

Considering that I’m stammering my reply, I’m not sure that that’s really the case…

“We have so many extra cookies, and they make us throw them away every night. I’d really love it if you took them with you to your hotel.”

And that is how we wound up with two dozen delicious cookies that were passed around our group and enjoyed all night long. FREE COOKIES. IN DISNEY WORLD. All because Ella said thank you and asked me if she could have candy.

THAT WAS IT.
No, “My greatest appreciation to you, fine Cast Member, for your truly incredible service tonight” or a letter written in golden ink… Just the absolute bare bones in terms of respectful, polite conversation — and for that, we got free cookies. !!!

When on earth did using the very most basic manners go from being the rule to being the (apparently exceedingly rare) exception? What the heck are other kids saying — or not saying — to make my kids’ simplest manners seem so amazing?

Now, lest you think that I’m writing this to toot my girls’ horn, please let me be the first to tell you that isn’t the case. While I’m not at all above writing something to showcase how fantabulous my offspring are, I promise I’ll let you know I think it’s super and that I’m bragging. Sometimes a proud mama just needs to brag.

But this time? Not the case. I’m just thinking this through.

It’s not that I’m not proud of my girls for being polite and using good manners. Quite the contrary; some of my proudest moments as their mom have come when other people have commented on their manners. But I kinda don’t get it. You see, not having good manners really isn’t a choice in our family — unless you ask nicely, things are absolutely not going to go your way – so when the girls do it when we’re out and about, I don’t even notice. Not saying please and thank you – unprompted – would be akin to deciding to pee on the floor instead of in the toilet or eating ice cream with your fingers. It just doesn’t fly.

Which isn’t to say that Annie and Ella are perfect and always deploy spectacular manners. Believe you me, they have their fair share of floor-peeing and ice-cream finger moments. Case in point: the reason Ella and I were leaving the Magic Kingdom, just the two of us, was that she’d thrown a full-on, all out tantrum earlier in the day (despite being the oldest kid in our group, she had a fit so terrible, she was escorted back to the hotel and missed out on the second half of our day at Animal Kingdom), and by dinner time, she was just done for the day, so we left alone. Considering her behavior that morning, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d thrown the Jelly Bellies on the floor – so I was particularly pleased that she managed to pull out her lovely manners for the Cast Member helping us.

In fact, the reason I’m writing this post today is to remind myself that my kids really do know how to be sweet, polite, and kind… because Sunday was bad, y’all. BAD. Horrendous, rude, disrespectful, eye-rolling, sobbing, Mommy-yells-till-her-throat-hurts bad, the kind of bad that results in skipping out on getting the Christmas tree, threats of canceling advent activities, and tear-stained letters written to Santa apologizing for their over-the-top nastiness.

So… yeah. My kids are hardly angels. They are not well-mannered and polite every minute of the day. They definitely have their moments. Many, many of them.

But usually, they’re pretty good about it. Maybe it’s because they know that if they don’t ask politely for a snack, there will be no snack, so they’re respectful out of self-preservation (hey, pretzels are a powerful motivator). Maybe it’s because they genuinely understand that speaking kindly to others is just the right thing to do. And, heck, maybe it’s because they know that if they’re rude when we’re out and about, they’ll be sent off to Azkaban for the night… I don’t know.

But I do know that they get complimented on their manners an awful lot, and that people are well and truly floored by the simplest of pleases and thank yous.

Which, on the one hand, is really kind of sad, you know? What Ella and Annie are doing is so freakin’ minimal in terms of being polite – to think that other kiddos encountered by store managers and check-out clerks and restaurant servers are falling short of a bar set that low is just plain depressing.

But on the other hand, it makes it pretty darn easy to blow people away. Super low expectations rock!

Unfortunately for the girls, we’re not really letting them get away with just pleases and thank yous anymore. No, we’re moving on to looking people in the eye when they speak, shaking hands with a firm grip, asking questions to show someone you’re interested in them, and holding the door for the person behind you. Annie and Ella are not terribly pleased with this development.

They are catching on, however. On Sunday, Annie held the door for me at church before throwing her jacket on the floor of the Great Hall and leaving her trash on the table after coffee hour. And Ella definitely looked me in the eye while rolling her own eyes at me as I was reading her the riot act.

This is a marathon, people, not a sprint. Thank God there are stickers and free cookies at the aid stations.

Thin Ice

Posted on November 12, 2013 by missemtoo

So many people have kindly been asking how I’m doing.

And I always answer the same way: I’m okay. Some days are better than others. Thanks for asking.
But that’s only part of the (long) story.

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Previously, on Homeland (except I don’t mean Homeland, I mean in our lives, but in my head I hear Mandy Patinkin’s voice saying it. Anyhoo. Carry on)…

About a year ago, Ella broke her left foot, quite badly. She wasn’t doing anything crazy – just happened to fall off of her scooter exactly wrong – but every single one of the myriad doctors, nurses, and technicians who looked at her x-rays would literally gasp at the severity of the break, usually expressing how shocked they were that she wasn’t screaming bloody murder (always a comforting statement). She had a temporary cast put on, but we were told we’d need to revisit soon thereafter so another pediatric orthopedic surgeon could examine her foot and give his opinion.

When he took a look – again with the x-rays, and also just, you know, looking at her foot – he told us we had a decision to make: he could cast it again now and, because the foot itself didn’t look crooked (always a good sign), keep our fingers crossed that the bones would fuse together and heal properly – as children’s bones usually do – and that would be the end of it. But… if they didn’t fuse together and heal properly… if, because of the severity of the break, they healed poorly and all wonky… she’d need surgery in about a year — big, invasive, painful surgery with a nice, long recovery time. So, that was option one: cast it and hope for the best (the most likely outcome) – but recognizing that if things didn’t go well, we’d be headed down a rough road in a year or so.

Option two was to simply do surgery right then, which would probably guarantee that her foot would mend correctly. The surgery would be less intense than the one she could possibly need in a year, but would still be, you know, surgery — which would mean putting her under, plus a much longer recovery period than just putting her foot in a cast and allowing it to heal on its own. Since that was the most likely outcome anyway, this pre-emptive surgery was just an exceedingly overcautious measure… but it would be easier on her than the potential fix-it-up surgery.

Both options sucked. What on earth should we do? Make Ella go through surgery just in case? Or take things more slowly, assuming her foot would heal as it should – requiring only a few weeks in a cast – but potentially screwing her over even more in the future? THANKS SO MUCH, PARENTHOOD. THIS IS FUN.

Nick and I were unprepared to have the doctor lay it out like that, to put the decision to us. We choked. We sputtered. We were totally lost. And so, while the doctor went to gather his technicians to remove Ella’s temporary cast, I left the room, too… and called Bill. He wasn’t a doctor, but he’d had a lifetime’s worth of experience in the medical field. Surely he could help us through. (He did.)

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It’s been been nearly seven years since I was in my own classroom, and man, have I missed it. I love, love, love being home with my daughters (when they’re not maiming one another or painting the bathroom walls with nail polish or wearing my lingerie as dress-up clothes during a playdate; TRUE STORY), but I miss teaching. I miss the students. I miss having my own classrooms and the cheesy teacher posters (“Shoot for the moon! If you miss, at least you’ll land among the stars!” “CAN’T is a four letter word!” “YOU DON’T SCARE ME – I TEACH!”) and even telling the kids that if they use the xylophone mallets one more time before I say go, they’re to hand them over for the rest of the class.

I’d so hoped to be back in the classroom full-time this year, what with Annie in first grade all day, but it just didn’t happen. (Although, with all that’s been going on this fall, can you even fathom if I’d been teaching all day, every day?? Oh, Universe/Karma/Fate, you foxy vixen. I’ll say it: uncle! You knew. Well played.) And then came the chance to sub, and it has been SO GOOD! Back in school again! With kids again! Arriving in the classroom to discover that the teacher didn’t realize that a qualified music sub would be in, and has left a movie, instead; oh hellz no! We will be doing recorders and yes, I CAN teach them to sing that canon in a round, thank you very much! SO VERY GOOD. Once or twice a week, I’m in that classroom, and a little bit of magic happens. LOOK AT ME, I AM SO HAPPY!!

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As school started this fall, Ella needed new shoes and we bought sneakers without incident, but when it came time to buy flats, she could find none – none! – that fit. I took her to (I am not kidding, and yes I actually counted) ELEVEN stores, from WalMart to Nordstrom, and she tried on every single damn pair of flats available, and NONE OF THEM WORKED. At first, I assumed she was just being exceedingly fussy and picky (I believe I may have actually muttered to her something along the lines of, “Sometimes, shoes don’t FEEL GOOD, but you just WEAR THEM ANYWAY!” because that’s always an awesome strategy), but finally, many tears later (both hers and mine; she’s eight, so she has an excuse; I’m just a crier), it dawned on me: her once-broken left foot was wider and shorter than her right. So, in fact, she wasn’t being fussy or picky; truly NOTHING fit.

Patted myself on the back for quite a nice long time after that one, I did. AWESOME JOB, MAMA.

Long story short, I finally tracked down some wide, impossible-to-find shoes that cost as much as the ones I wore for my wedding, and they fit and she was thrilled and the angels sang and chocolate poured forth from the heavens. But the shoe fiasco reminded me that it was nearly a year since Ella had broken her foot, so I’d better schedule her follow-up appointment with the surgeon, especially because they fill up so far in advance, I knew I’d have to book something immediately if I wanted to get her in anywhere near the twelve month mark.

Naturally, they’re not open on weekends, and afternoons are dicey because of piano lessons and Annie, so I chose a weekday appointment, smack dab in the middle of the day so that Ella would miss lunch and recess but as little actual instructional time as possible. Because of TESTING and COMMON CORE and ELA and MATH PROBLEMS THAT I CANNOT DECIPHER BECAUSE THEY SAY THINGS LIKE, “USING AN ARRAY, EXPLAIN WHY EQUAL GROUPS HELPED MIGUEL FIND OUT HOW MANY APPLES TO BRING TO THE MORTUARY.” Third grade is not what it used to be.

Anyway, I made the appointment and, knowing that this office tends to run at least an hour, if not two hours — TWO HOURS — behind, I was in constant communication with the surgeon’s receptionist, the school’s secretary, and Ella’s teacher, keeping the appointment time in flux so that she’d be there to learn how to help darling Miguel with the apples. PRIORITIES, PEOPLE.

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OH! Subbing is SUCH A JOY! Sorry for the excessive caps lock, but it is. I LOVE IT!! Have I mentioned that? No, really. I do.

But, sheesh, the scheduling. If I teach first thing in the morning, Nick needs to get the girls off to school. If I teach at a school that ends after my own kids’ classes end, I need to find someone to watch them until I can get home. All doable, but still… scheduling. If I teach on a day when I have piano lessons starting at 3:00, I need to either only teach a half-day or cancel my first piano lesson. Add to that mix Nick being out of town on a relatively frequent basis, and it’s been a hell of a thing keeping it all straight and figuring out when I am available. There have been days when I’ve received an email — not a first-thing-in-the morning, OH MY GOD WHO DIED? phone call, but just a friendly email — asking if I can sub… and I look at it, and everything in my brain gets a little wavy, like that time I was on Vicodin for knee surgery and Nick and I went to a hockey game and I asked him to get me “a drink” – you know, like a soda – and he assumed I mean an alcoholic drink and I didn’t have anything else to imbibe, so I drank that, and the booze mixed with the narcotics and suddenly I was watching the action on the ice, the teammates sliding prettily back and forth, saying to him, “Wow – the players down there look like a school of fish!”

So sometimes, my brain gets school-of-fish-y just looking at the subbing emails, and suddenly everything is so overwhelming, I can’t even beGIN to think what my schedule is next week, and I just burst into tears. Right there, in the kitchen, and the dogs are all, Was it something we did? We already apologized for eating the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter (also: true story. Except they didn’t apologize). Crying. In the kitchen. Because I just can’t think straight, not even about something I adore.

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The office told me they were running about 30 minutes behind, so I called the school secretary to let her know, then tended to some things around the house and let the dogs out one last time. I called them in and Langston came running immediately, but Jambi did not. Wondering if perhaps she had found another apple from the tree and was ignoring me, I set out to bring her in, but no, she wasn’t by the apple tree. Nor by the playhouse. Nor the garden. Nor, well, anywhere. Both gates were locked, so I knew she hadn’t gotten out of the yard that way, and although Joey (our ~~jackass~~ other dog) can both go under and climb over the chain link fence, Jambi has never indicated that she can, so I was dumbfounded. Where could she be??

I called her, over and over. I walked the perimeter of the fence to look for holes where she might have escaped. NOTHING. She was nowhere to be found. And I had to leave in three minutes to take Ella to her appointment, the one that had taken two months to properly schedule, the one where they’d tell us if all had gone well or if she’d need major surgery. But I couldn’t leave, because I couldn’t find Jambi.

See, it’s not like your own pet just running off, where maybe you could be all, She knows where she’s fed, I’m sure it’s fine! and go about your business. Because Jambi isn’t ours. I mean, she is for the next ten months, but technically she belongs to CCI; she’s just living with us. There was no way in hell I could just allow our 10 month-old service dog-in-training, who had never so much as wandered (alone) ten feet beyond our property line, to just go on an adventure through the neighborhood and assume she’d come back safely. Have fun! Smell some hydrants for me! Catch ya later! No, I had to find her — I HAD TO FIND HER RIGHT THEN — and if I couldn’t, I had to keep looking until I did.

Nick, as is always the case when something unexpectedly calamitous happens, was out of town, and although he was empathetic when I called him in hysterics, trying to calm me down and helping me to see that Jambi had to the the priority here — Ella’s appointment could, technically, be rescheduled, but Jambi needed to be found — it wasn’t long before he had to say, “My flight’s about to board — good luck!” and I was on my own. No one else could take Ella to her appointment, and I couldn’t really ask neighbors to track down Jambi; I needed to find her myself, to make sure she was okay. Minutes ticking by, Ella’s appointment slipping ever further away, I got in the car and set off around the neighborhood, screaming Jambi’s name out of the windows.

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Pinterest is a dangerous place. I don’t just pin madly; if I see stuff that I have no interest in (scrapbooking and making anything that involves a sewing machine, I’m looking at you), rather than be intimidated or self-deprecatory or vindictive or spiteful, I just move on. To each their own.

But when I find stuff that DOES grab me, hoo boy. It is ON. Hermey (our Elf on the Shelf) is going to have some mighty fine adventures this year, let me tell you, and the entire family agrees that that recipe for crockpot cilantro chicken kicked some serious boo-tay.

Such was the case when I found the pumpkins. After all these years of just carving, WHO KNEW?? There was an entire WORLD of pumpkin decorating out there, just waiting for me to bring it into my dining room. Yes, the girls oohed and ahhed over what they saw on my Pinterest page, but who are we kidding? I was the one with pumpkin-decorating fever. It took no prodding at all for me to “convince” them to go to Michael’s at 5 p.m. on a Sunday, nor did I have any trouble filling the cart with the necessary accoutrements. I CAN USE BOTH MOD PODGE AND A GLUE GUN FOR THIS DESIGN? There is a God.

The dining room was filled to the brim with pumpkins for a solid ten days, and they were GOOD days! Happy days! Each time I saw them, they made me smile, big, shit-eating, jack-o-lantern smiles. WE ARE SO HALLOWEEN-Y AND CRAFTY AND LIFE IS JUST HUMMING ALONG RIGHT NOW!!! Once soccer ended, we wound up with a free Tuesday afternoon (a free day! OMG!), and the girls and I spent THREE STRAIGHT HOURS decorating pumpkins. I could physically feel myself relaxing with the application of each sequin. Ooooh, pumpkins. I love you so!

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I drove around looking frantically for Jambi for forty-five straight minutes, until my voice was hoarse from the screaming and my eyes stung from the crying. She was nowhere. Before I could stop them, the litany of possible horror stories invaded my thinking… She’d gotten hit by a car. Someone had come by and taken her. Her collar had fallen off and no one would know who she was and we’d never get her back. We’d never get her back. What would I tell CCI? How could I ever explain? We’d never have another CCI pup again. This was it. Our darling puppy was missing.

Ella’s appointment time had long come and gone, and after leaving a watery message for the surgeon’s receptionist saying we hoped maybe we’d still get a chance to be seen, I’d told the school secretary to just send Ella off to lunch, realizing that I sounded every bit as frazzled and maniacal as I felt.

I finally came back home, hoping that perhaps Jambi had returned and wormed her way back into the yard. I stopped briefly in the kitchen, screaming out her name (no, I mean it, SCREAMING) in a way that would put Marlon Brando to shame.

I absolutely deserved an Oscar. Either that, or a padded room.

After a particularly hysterics-filled shout-out, I took a deep breath and said out loud to myself, “Holy shit. Maybe I’m actually going insane.” Wandering aimlessly into the backyard one last time, once again painstakingly walking the fence perimeter, looking behind the shed, looking in the shed (even though it was closed and locked), calling and calling and calling… I couldn’t see her anywhere.

And then, just as I’d turned to go back into the house, I heard something. It wasn’t a yelp, certainly not a bark, but maybe a little bit of whining. I whirled around, trying to see where it was coming from, and happened to notice a tiny bit of rustling behind the wisteria tree that is pressed against our house. Wedged between the tree and the house – the exact same tawny color as the tree trunk, and smaller than it by quite a bit (which would explain why she was essentially invisible) – was my girl, shaking uncontrollably, whimpering, and clearly as glad to see me as I was to see her.

She’d been there all along.

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The pumpkins were SO FREAKIN’ FUN. I genuinely loved each and every one of them, especially just relaxing (much needed) and being with the girls while we got our creativity on, and am so excited that we now have a whole bunch to add to our collection for future Halloweens, as well as a few other (fake) ones I bought on sale for next year, because heavens knows there are a whole bunch of ideas we never got around to. LONG LIVE PUMPKIN PINTEREST!!

But, oh dear god, the mess. The glue sticks that globbed onto the floor. The hot glue that burned my fingers. The paint all over the dining room table, despite careful preparations to protect it. The googly eyes and the stick-on gems and the superfine glitter — oh, sweet baby Jesus, the superfine glitter — that has seeped into EVERY SINGLE CORNER of our home. There was SO MUCH MESS, and only so many hours in which to clean it, which meant that surely I’d be going to bed MUCH TOO LATE yet again.

(For all of the tea in China [wait, is that even an appropriate metaphor anymore?], I canNOT get myself into bed at a reasonable hour. It’s not that I sleep poorly… it’s that I don’t go to bed in the first place. Just put your butt under the covers earlier, you say. And I’d agree. Except if it were that easy, I’d be under the damn covers.)

The girls helped with the clean-up, of course. They’d definitely made a good portion of the mess, so they were really good cleaners, but still a lot was left to me. The best time to do the cleaning was after they’d gone to bed, but it was just so hard. There were so many other things I needed to do — make lunches, fold laundry, answer essential emails — and then other things I wanted to do, like finally looking at YouTube links that friends and family had sent me weeks ago, or editing photos (I haven’t edited my own family’s photos SINCE MARCH, Y’ALL), and by the time I looked up, it was freakin’ 1 a.m., and the dining room was still a disaster, and it was just too much — all of it too much — and there was nothing left to do. Except cry.

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I ran over to where Jambi was, and immediately saw why I’d failed to notice her during any of my prior searches of the yard: she had curled herself into a tight ball on the ground between the wisteria tree and the house, and – being the exact same color as the tree trunk – become invisible. Hiding in plain sight for nearly an hour.

Although she whined some as I called her name, she never barked at me, nor did she leave her perch and bound up to me, which would have been typical. As I got closer, I called her again, reaching out to her, but still she didn’t budge. By now, I was beginning to think that something was seriously wrong – maybe she’d broken a leg or something? – and I leaned down to examine her hind quarters for any injuries, but could find none.

What I did, find, however, were wisteria vines — oodles of them, wrapped all around our sweet Beast and binding her in place as though she’d been tied there by a stagecoach bandit. The harder she struggled to free herself, the more the vines constricted, leaving her absolutely stuck. It took only a moment for me to reach my hand under one of the offending ropes and snap it in two, which in turn loosened the remaining coils, and Jambi sprang loose like a magic snake shooting out of a fake peanut can.

OMG I LOVE YOU!! I’VE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME! YOU WERE CALLING AND CALLING AND I COULDN’T GET TO YOU! IT’S BEEN SO GODDAMN SCARY! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! YOU ARE THE BEST HUMAN EVER! DO YOU HAVE ANY TREATS FOR ME??

After all that – the driving around, the shouting until I became hoarse, the sheer panic and horror, the hysterical sobbing, the wondering if she was gone forever or dead or if we’d ever again have another CCI dog – she was right there all along, not making a sound.

(‘Course, if she’d made any noise while I was looking for her… let out even the tiniest of barks… I could have found her so much sooner… But, ah well, it’s only my sanity we’re talking about here. No worries.)

I so wanted to just play with her, to let her know that I hadn’t meant to strand her all wrapped up in wisteria vines, and I tried to hug her wriggly-fish body… but then had to usher her immediately inside and into her kennel because there was still the slightest chance that Ella could be seen that afternoon. Tears dried, purse grabbed, car started, GO.

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To put it mildly, it has been a crazy fall, with typical back-to-school nuttiness combined with new sports schedules, additional homework (Miguel isn’t going to get the apples to the mortuary alone, y’all), Nick’s MBA program, my subbing… It’s a whirlwind. And so that’s a huge part of why I’ve made very sure to make time for me as often as possible. Sometimes, it’s just a Caramel Macchiato while I answer emails (Starbucks, holla!), or extra time flipping through People while I’m on the can. Other times, it’s making sure that Nick and I watch Homeland together, or going to a concert (even if I come home smelling like a patchouli factory).

Still others, it’s making time to hang out with friends, be it chatting around the soccer field or going out for dinner with rebel Girl Scout moms. Those times have been my saving grace this season; sitting with a group of girlfriends – or just one fabulous pal – talking, sharing a bottle of wine, and laughing. Oh, the laughing! GIRL POWER, PEOPLE!! TIME SPENT WITH MY HOMIES! It is so awesome and healing and just generally fabulous.

It’s taking those moments just for me that make me remember that I still AM me. Thank God for being selfish every now and again.

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I barreled into the lobby of the school (except that you can’t “barrel” into any school these days because of heightened security measures, but anyway), doing my best to look all I’m Not Completely Insane So Sorry For Phoning You 83 Times This Morning Where Might My Daughter Eleanor Be? The secretary, ever-patient with me, directed me to the lunchroom, where Ella’s class had just gotten seated. I tried calling for her across the cafeteria, but that was as effective as trying to light a candle in a waterfall, so, whooshing past the other third-graders in a mad rush to reach her before she dug into her food, I whisper-shouted to her to Hurry up! We need to leave NOW!! Um, please.

She dutifully grabbed her tray and her jacket and we hustled out to the car. While we drove, as she balanced her lunch on her lap and chattered away about her morning, I explained why I’d been late.

“But Mom – Jambi could have gotten hit by a car!” I know, baby.
“We might never have seen her again!” I’m well aware, kiddo.
“She was by herself and stuck all that time?? Poor puppy!” Breaks my heart, too, sweetie.
“CCI might never have let us get another dog again!” Preaching to the choir, ma’am.

Once Ella was satisfied that Jambi was safe and sound, she turned her attention to the appointment at hand. What would the doctor be doing? Why did he need to check her foot again? If it hadn’t healed properly, what would happen?

I answered the first few questions, but kind of lied about the last one. “I’m not sure, honey. But I bet it’s just fine! How’s that pizza?”

I, myself – still feeling the rush of adrenaline from searching for Jambi and not forgetting my “Stella!” moments in the kitchen – had no appetite, but I ate the leftovers I’d brought, anyway. It could be a long afternoon, and I didn’t want to have an empty stomach on top of it.

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One morning, after a wonderful evening out with a friend – just a couple of hours, but so very needed and good, with each of us drinking a single beverage, talking the rest of the time about how we were both handling some fairly emotionally harrowing times – I received an email from her, asking how I was doing. The night before, I’d told her I’d been doing okay — actually, pretty fine. I felt good. I was coming out of the fog. I was feeling put together! Yay me!

But, as I answered her email, this is what I said, instead:

Today was okay. Turns out I forgot that it was Crazy Hat Day and also didn’t give Ella her allergy meds this morning, meaning I had a call from the school nurse to see if it was okay for Ella to receive the meds at school because they were having the Bus Safety demonstration, plus recess, and Ella would have turned into one enormous hive. 😐 So there was the slap in the face that, damn it, I guess I’m not as on top of all this as I’d thought. Shit.

Even when I try to take time for myself, to breathe and do right by me, something falls apart. Apparently, I truly just can’t do it all, despite my best intentions.

And then I cried.

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We got the to appointment and I took Ella’s hand as we walked into the building. Walking in, her and me; I remembered what it had been like a year ago, taking the elevator or carrying her up the stairs as she attempted to make her way on crutches. So much had happened in just twelve short months.

Ella took a seat in the waiting room – which was unexpectedly empty – and I apologized to the receptionist for the wacky phone messages I’d sent earlier. She laughed obligingly (a good sign, no?) and said that, as luck would have it, because we were late, there was a gap between appointments, and we’d be seen immediately. Ella was actually annoyed with me when I pulled her away from Toy Story II to go to the exam room.

She was weighed and had her height charted (which, thankfully, produces none of the cold sweat in her that it does in me when I see my own doctor, thanks very much), and then the doctor came in. He remembered us – remembered the severity of the break – and asked how Ella was doing. I let her answer for herself, and she told him that she was great. Aside from not finding shoes that she liked (an unforgivable crime at the age of eight), her foot wasn’t bothering her at all.

The surgeon examined Ella’s foot, turning it over slowly and carefully, and told us that although it looked good, we wouldn’t know for sure until she’d had some x-rays. And so off Ella went (no parents allowed; radiation and all), while I waited for her future to be dictated by a single black-and-white picture. I’m not sure I took a single breath while she was in that room.

Even if I could, there would have been no one I felt I could talk to at that moment. Nick’s plane had yet to land, and the person I’d called a year ago when we’d had a crisis with Ella’s foot is only reachable through a medium. And I didn’t happen to bring one with me to the doctor’s office.

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Every session, my therapist greets me by asking how I’m doing. Except it’s not the perfunctory, small-talk “How are you?” nor the weird, psycho-babble “HOW ARE YOU?” but a genuine, honest, tell me what’s up. What’s REALLY up.

Well, I began. I thought I was doing well. I thought I was doing just fine. I recounted all of the Ways In Which I Am Doing Well: The girls are good – really good. They seem to enjoy school, even when they can’t figure out how to help Miguel get the apples to the mortuary, and they love, love their extra-curricular activities. It’s been a bit wild trying to work our schedules out, but truth be told, I think that having to fit the puzzle pieces together has actually been helpful for me.

I’m subbing and I LOVE it. LOVE IT!! Nick is doing really well with his MBA. We’ve seen concerts and gone to hockey games. We’ve been doing more together as a family, from bowling to watching movies to tossing the football on the weekends, and it hasn’t felt forced or strange but really, truly good. I’ve been laughing and hanging out with friends, and Halloween preparations have been SO MUCH FUN this year. I Am Doing Well.

But… I’m also crying. Like, a lot. And it’s been just so WEIRD, because one day I’ve had such a good day — I’ve felt happy rooted all the way to my core — and I feel like I can conquer the world. And on those days, or in those hours, I make plans! I am a Pinterest fiend! I play games with the kids! I cook something new and fabulous for dinner! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD!

And then, just like that, BAM. I’m at the very bottom, and the wind has been completely knocked out of me, and I am so Not Doing Well, I can’t even catch my breath. AND IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY, this whiplash, this roller coaster, this back and forth. What the hell is WRONG with me??

It’s almost, I told her, as though I’m bipolar or manic-depressive, because I have friends who have battled those disorders, and their oh-so-highs, followed immediately by their oh-so-lows, seem an awful like what I’m going through. Except I’m not really bipolar… right?

I hoped the question was rhetorical.

————————-

While we waited for the doctor to examine the x-rays, Ella and I read some of Harry Potter, which served as both a great way to pass the time and a way for me to avoid expressing my fears to her. I might have been terrified that she’d wind up in an operating room within the next few weeks, but she certainly didn’t need to know that.

He made small talk with us as he attempted to pull up the x-rays on his computer, with Ella gamely telling him about the swim team and me sending up a silent prayer to the patron saint of sports that she’d still be able to swim after this appointment. The doctor continued his chit-chat as he showed us the x-ray that had been taken the day she’d broken her foot, then a week later after it had been casted, and my anxiety quietly soared through the roof.

Please, let it have healed well. Please, let it have healed well. Please.

And then he paused over the final x-ray — the one taken just minutes ago — and ran his finger along the computer screen, up the line of her metatarsals. “You see that?” he asked us. I nodded, unsure what he was getting at.

“You can’t see a thing, can you?” Um, no. I don’t speak x-ray.

“That’s because her bone is perfectly straight. In fact, they all are perfectly straight — all three of the bones she broke. You can’t even tell there was ever a problem.

She’s healed perfectly, and she’s good to go.”

Do we need to come back any time for a follow up? I asked, as Ella put her shoes back on.

“Nope. And,” he grinned at Ella, “no offense, because you’re a delightful young lady, but I really hope I never see you again.” No offense, doc, but same here.

On the way back to school, Ella asked what would have happened if the bones hadn’t healed straight. And so, with those options now firmly off the table, I told her – about the surgery, about the choice her Daddy and I had made and why we’d made it, about the gamble we’d taken, hoping with all our might that it would pay off.

“Well…” She paused just a moment. “Looks like you’re pretty smart!”

I gave her a half-laugh that I hoped she wouldn’t hear the fear and disbelief behind it.

“The only thing I’m bummed about is now I don’t ever get to use crutches again. They were kind of fun!”

She returned to school less than an hour after I’d picked her up, with plenty of time to learn how to help Miguel with the apples, my healthy girl trotting down the hallway to her classroom.

It all worked out. She hardly missed any school. We had no wait at the doctor’s office. Her foot was great. Everything was good.

I should have felt relieved. Hell, I should have felt elated. But all I felt was numb.

—————————

My therapist’s answer was as swift as it was firm: No. No, you’re not bipolar. (Good to know.) And all of this? This almost fanatical I Must Fill My Time With Something, and the trying new projects, and the feeling so wonderful, followed by the tears and the sadness and the feeling like you don’t know what on earth is going on… it’s not you. You’re not just being impulsive. It’s not your ADD. It’s not you taking on too much because you overestimate what you can handle. It’s not you letting things slip through the cracks. It’s not your anxiety. It’s not depression.

It’s grief.

And I was all, DECORATING PUMPKINS AND FORGETTING CRAZY HAT DAY IS GRIEF??

And she was all, MMM HMM.

(Except she wasn’t quite like that, but suffice it to say she’s excellent.)

Grief, it turns out, is like an unpredictable toddler: you never know if it’s going to make your day the best ever with an enormous hug and a lisped version of the ABCs or if it’s going to take a crap in the middle of your living room and throw animal crackers at you while you’re folding laundry. It looks different in absolutely everyone, and it is no better or worse, no harder or easier, for you than it is for the next person. The worst kind of grief is your own.

And also? The manic-like highs and the deep, dark lows? They actually have a name: Manic Defense. As in, you do all of this stuff (maniacally, wildly) because you want to defend and shield yourself against whatever yuckiness is going on. In many cases, it can actually be a good thing, because it’s self-protective.

YOU HEAR THAT, SUBSTITUTE TEACHING AND THEN STAYING UP UNTIL 2 A.M.?? I’m not doing it because I’m CRAZY. I’m doing it because I am apparently INCREDIBLE at PROTECTING MYSELF.

I am a grieving ROCKSTAR.

BOO YAH.

—————————-

Nick’s plane landed shortly after Ella’s appointment ended, and because he needed to change his clothes before going to the office, I met him at the house. I told him – most importantly – about Ella’s foot, about how it was completely healed, about how we never need to visit the surgeon again. Then, I told him where Jambi had been, how frenzied I’d become, how terrible I felt that she was there all along.

“Em,” he sought to reassure me, “you know this wasn’t your fault, right? You didn’t do anything wrong. The gates were locked, the yard was safe, you checked on her regularly. You searched the neighborhood. There was absolutely no way to know that she’d become tangled up in the vines, especially if she didn’t bark at you. You did everything you could. And look – it all turned out just fine!”

I know I should have felt good about that… pleased… reassured, if nothing else. Instead, I (wait for it…) began to cry.

I’M JUST SO SICK OF IT!

Sick of what?

Sick of all this. Sick of feeling on top of the world, decorating pumpkins with the girls yesterday and feeling like it was the best afternoon I’d had in forever, and then sobbing because the dining room is a mess. Sick of being so thrilled for the girls that GranMary sent them the coolest Halloween cards of all time and then bursting into tears when they open the cards and I know that Grandpa Bill’s name isn’t on them. Sick of Jambi disappearing, and instead of taking it in stride, falling apart and screaming like a lunatic in the kitchen. Sick of some stupid crisis occurring when you’re on a plane and wanting to call your dad so much but I FUCKING CAN’T BECAUSE HE’S NOT FUCKING HERE ANYMORE AND I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW THAT CAN POSSIBLY BE TRUE.

I’m SICK of it. I’M JUST SICK OF IT.

There were hugs, of course. Lots of them. And then these words before he left for work, promising to return home early because he understood that I was completely depleted, that I’d just had it for the rest of the day, “I’m so sorry that you’re so sad about my dad. But I’m not sorry that you had such a great relationship with him. And I’m sick of it, too.”

—————————

When I told my therapist about the Jambi/Ella incident, I asked for her, again, to please tell me that I wasn’t crazy, because I sure as hell felt crazy when I was going all “Stellllaaaa!” in my kitchen. She looked at me like I had three heads.

No, of course you’re not crazy. YOU’RE GRIEVING.

Yes, yes. I know. Grieving.

You need to cut yourself some slack!

I know, I know. Be gentler with myself. And I am! Or, at least, I’m trying to be… I KNOW that I can’t do it all. I KNOW that I’m likely to forget stuff like Crazy Hat Day – and there’s comfort in that, in knowing it’s not my fault. But I’m still forgetting, and it’s frustrating… And I seriously freaked out about Jambi.

But, Emily… You thought you’d lost her.

I know. It was awful.

It sounded terrible! But think about it for a moment… You thought you’d lost her. FOREVER. You thought she was GONE FOREVER… which is not exactly a foreign feeling to you right now.

Oh yeah. Right.

And you lived in that state – that complete and utter state of terror – for almost an hour, all alone, AND you were worried that your daughter might need surgery.

When you put it like that…

No wonder you seriously freaked out. If you HADN’T seriously freaked out, I think that would be much more crazy.

Well, I AM a grieving rockstar, after all.

Think of it as walking on thin ice. You’re not going to fall through – don’t worry about that – but it might crack around you, and you’re never quite sure when. You can make it across… you WILL make it across… but you’re going to get your feet wet along the way.

—————————

So… I guess that’s how I’m doing. Practicing my kick-ass Manic Defense skills, inching along, trying my damnedest not to get my feet wet but knowing that it’s inevitable.

Some days, I cover a lot of ground. Others, I slide backward. My feet are prune-y, but overall, there’s forward progress. And I manage to take time, every single day, to genuinely appreciate how beautiful the ice is, cracks and all.

I’d love to sit here and be philosophical with you some more, but there are Christmas catalogs to pore over with the girls – I LOVE ME SOME CHRISTMAS CATALOGS!! And we’re hosting friends for Thanksgiving, and I cannot WAIT to find new recipes to try! Plus, it’s almost time for Hermey the Elf to appear, which means that I have a date with Pinterest tonight.

I’m okay. Today is a good day.
Thanks for asking.

Honesty is apparently not the best policy

Posted on October 25, 2013 by missemtoo

Annie’s final soccer game is tomorrow. This is our family’s first foray into the world of soccer, and I’d been a bit ambivalent about being a Soccer Mom, but all in all, it’s been a really good experience.

Photo brazenly stolen from my sister-in-law’s Facebook page.

Annie has loved everything about this season, from practices filled with being pirates and superheroes and princesses (the coaches came up with really fabulous games to get the girls interested in the drills) to having family come and watch during the games. Plus also, the snacks handed out after each Saturday game don’t hurt.

Post-game beer. We start ’em young around here.

Her coaches have been absolutely out of this world, handling squealing (I’d accidentally written “squalling” – which is also accurate) first graders with grace, humor, and endless patience. They were also clearly in tune with the personalities of giggling, distracted, hands-on six year-olds, because a few weeks into the season, we heard one of the coaches offer the following keep-it-real instructions: “Remember our One Rule? No picking up the other players off the ground!”

YES. This. Stop picking each other up. You do not need to profess your love for your teammate by ferrying her across the field. Please put her down.

Annie was similarly frank in her post-game interviews.

“You really think it was a good game?? I think maybe that they scored, like, ten more goals than we did.”
“Why didn’t I take off the jersey? Because I decided not to listen.”
“I like scoring, but I think I’m better at trying to stop the goals. It makes me REALLY REALLY mad when they try to score. Maybe I should work on that.”
“That other girl is SO GOOD. I think she could be in Abby Wambach’s family. I wish she were on my team. And I also kind of wish she’d just stop playing.”
“Whenever they ask for other players to come in, I want to do it every time because I just love playing so much! Except for the days when I’m tired. Or in a bad mood. Then I don’t want to play at all.”

It’s really a shame that this candidness disappears in the world of professional sports. Sure, from time to time, you’ll find a player or a coach who really tells it like it is, but by and large, they seem so scripted when they speak, it’s as though they’ve been rehearsing their soundbites in the locker rooms before the games. (Then again, maybe they have. And it’s also probably preferable to butt-grabbing.)

As I got ready this morning, Nick had the bedroom TV tuned to the hockey network, and I was again reminded of how utterly outrageous sports interviewing is. The interviews on game day are where the level of absurdity is taken to new heights, with the reporters asking the most asinine questions possible – questions that are practically rhetorical – and forcing the players to give the least-informative, most watered-down answers imaginable.

As a pitcher, tell me what went through your mind when that ball went over the wall and he scored that home run.
Sometimes, that happens. You just gotta pitch the game. I made a mistake, and he made me pay for it.

What do you need to do during the second half to turn this game around?
We have to play harder, stop their offense, and up our defense.

Here we are, with you coming this close to being the victors, if only you guys had been able to make that field goal. We really thought you had it! What happened?
We played hard and went at it to the end, and I guess it just went wide. They’re a great team with a great coach, and we nearly had ’em.

You’re up three goals to one. How do you think you can pull out the win in the third period?
We need to just keep at it and stop them from scoring, and I think we’ll have it.

You looked a little sloppy in the final minutes of the game. How did you feel when you missed that three-pointer?
You know, man, I was disappointed, but sometimes you make the shots and sometimes you miss. I just thank the Lord every day for the opportunity to play, and I figure next time that one’s mine.

It looks like they really outplayed you today. Did you expect that going in?
We knew that they were strong, and they’ve played really well on the road. But we’ve got a great group of guys here who give it their all each and every game, so we’re going to move forward and not let this stop us.

Really?? Is this the best you can come up with? Your entire job is to interview people, to extract answers, to give insight, and these are the questions you’re asking? The mid- and post-game interviews are more obtuse than political speeches. They could easily give presidential debates a run for their money.

Just once, I’d love to see the players give some first-grade soccer-style answers. Sure, the television censors would get paid overtime, but it would be worth it for sheer entertainment value.

As a pitcher, tell me what went through your mind when that ball went over the wall and he scored that home run.
I was like, awwww shit. That is not good. Just had to hang it out there over the plate like a douchebag, and he smashed the hell out of it. Between me an’ you, I think he’s been doin’ a little Lance Armstrong, but don’t quote me on that.

What do you need to do during the second half to turn this game around?
Basically, we have to stop sucking. If everyone here would just get their damn heads in the game and out of whatever the hell is going on off the field – I don’t care if you just had a baby or you’re thinking about those Roma gypsy kids or what – maybe we’d stand a chance. We need to PASS and we need to SCORE and we need a tight end whose fingers can actually hold onto the ball.

Here we are, with you coming this close to being the victors, if only you guys had been able to make that field goal. We really thought you had it! What happened?
What happened? We lost. We missed. He tried to kick a field goal and he failed. What do you mean ‘what happened‘? What do you think happened? Were you watching when the ball didn’t go through the posts? Did you see how we didn’t score? That’s what happened.

You’re up three goals to one. How do you think you can pull out the win in the third period?
Well, it’s really pretty simple. Since the high scorer is the winner in hockey, if we continue to have more goals than they do, we’ll win. Obviously, what we’re doing so far is working, ’cause as you just said, we’re up by two goals. I think we can pull out the win by not letting them score more goals than we do. You writing this down?

You looked a little sloppy in the final minutes of the game. How did you feel when you missed that three-pointer?
How do you think I felt? Betrayed. Bewildered.
No, man. I felt like crap. You’re damn right I was sloppy. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, you know, and I’ve been running on Red Bull and Five Hour Energy all day, and I thought maybe the adrenaline would keep me in it till the end, but I crashed – I mean, like, DOG TIRED, man – and as soon as that ball went into the air, I knew. I am totally taking an Ambien tonight.

It looks like they really outplayed you today. Did you expect that going in?
Hell yes we expected it. They’ve dominated everyone they’ve encountered; I actually had a nightmare about them, a for-real nightmare where they were dressed like zombies and we’d all forgotten our pants and my third-grade gym teacher was there… Anyway, they’re 8-1 and we were 2-6 coming into today. We suck this year. I could really use a beer.

I understand that the players probably have it written in their contracts not to say stuff like this, but man, I wish we could hear it straight. Or, in the absence of that, I wish that the reporters would stop asking questions to which there are no good answers. What are they going to do to win? They’re going to try really hard. How do they feel after a loss? Like crap. THIS IS NOT COMPLICATED.

I guess if I want honesty, I’ll have to rely on Annie’s post-game reflections. So long as she can remember the One Rule and leave everyone on the ground, I’m sure her final game of the season will be a good one.

Evening practices meant rainbow skies.
And plenty of time for gossiping with the other ~~loner moms~~ soccer moms.

Turns out the invisibility cloak isn’t as much fun as I’d thought

Posted on October 9, 2013 by missemtoo

I’ve been wanting – needing, actually – to write this post for some time. It’s been on my mind for weeks, but I haven’t figured out just what I want (or need) to say. I still haven’t, but I’m going for it anyway. Bear with me, please.

I knew that it would be really hard when Bill died. That’s a completely ridiculous statement, of course, because – duh – it’s always really hard when you lose someone you love. But I knew it would be more than emotionally hard; specifically, I knew it would be difficult being the spouse of someone who’s lost a parent.

‘Cause, y’all, this is not easy. It’s not easy answering your kids’ questions about death. It’s really not easy helping them navigate their own grief, when they can’t always verbalize their thoughts and feelings. You wind up second-guessing their meltdowns and seemingly unusual behaviors and wondering, Is this because Grandpa Bill died? Is it because of their new, crazy schedule? Is it simply because they’re being little schmucks? If you’re just being a schmuck, there’s an app for that. If you’re exhausted, we can re-work things so you get more sleep. But if this is Grandpa Bill-related, we can skip the time-out and go straight to the hugs. Shepherding kids through grief is complicated and scary and really damn stressful.

It’s also not easy being a supportive wife. Nick is so deeply sad, more sad than I can fully grasp, and I so want to help him… But there’s so little I can do. He’s working through his grief in his own way, and as much as I want to crawl in there beside him, I just can’t; it’s not my grief. It is a tremendously awful, peculiar feeling, watching and knowing that someone you love so very much is suffering, and you can’t fix it, you can’t take away their sadness. It’s a strange and anxiety-riddled spot, this spouse-of-someone-who-lost-a-parent place.

I know that just being here, both literally and emotionally, is perhaps what Nick needs the most (that, and someone with whom to not eat anything for five days, for the love). And I’m trying, very hard. I’d read that one of the best things a spouse can do when their partner is grieving so freshly is to take over most of the household chores, and so I’m trying to do that, too. I’m still doing what I used to, of course – getting the girls off to school, emptying the garbages, making most of the meals, doing the laundry, paying the bills – but I’ve been actively taking on chores that Nick and I used to share, from mowing the lawn to feeding the dogs. Perhaps surprisingly (given that I have a tendency to sometimes, um, keep score of who does what around the house; I know… not my finest quality…), I don’t mind any of this. I absolutely get it; the little things are just too much. And if I can’t help Nick actually feel less sad, at least I can let the dogs out before bed. There’s a comfort in that.

But that doesn’t make it easy. Running a household (for lack of a better term) is trying under good circumstances, when you’ve just gotten home from work and have dinner to make and homework to supervise and dogs to feed and floors to be vacuumed and laundry to be put away and emails to be written and books to be read and lunch boxes to be packed and fights to break up. It’s especially trying when you’re doing all of that and trying to help your children and your husband in the wake of losing their grandfather and their dad. I don’t mean to say that it’s harder being the spouse of someone who lost a parent than it is being the person whose parent died. Not at all. I’m not comparing. I’m simply saying that this spouse role is really tough.

It’s downright paralyzing when you, yourself, are grieving deeply, too.

There have been many, many times when I’ve wanted to curl up in bed and sob it out… but I just can’t. The girls need to get to school. Groceries need to be purchased. Dogs need to go to the vet. Life is going on, and when it’s up to me to see that we dot our Is and cross our Ts, plus actually shower every once in a while, there’s time to burst into tears while mowing the lawn and time to cry after reading emails that had long been forgotten, but there just isn’t time to fall apart.

Man, though… there have been times when I wanted to. I miss Bill fiercely.

Lest I give the wrong impression, Nick, for his part, has been fantastic. He knows that this has been hard for me, this balance of grieving and being there for him and the girls and making sure that the house-stuff functions as it should. We’ve talked many times, and he has done his damndest to support me. He knows that I’m sad, too.

But the thing is… No one else seemed to realize it. Whenever Bill’s death would come up in conversation, people would – rightly – jump in and ask how Nick was handling things. They’d maybe ask about the girls. They would offer their condolences. But very few people asked how I was handling things.

True story: people showed me more support and empathy when we lost Madison than when we lost Bill. Now, for sure, Maddy was tremendous, and I was heartbroken to see her go. But losing our dog wasn’t exactly in the same league as losing Bill.

In fact, not only did people not acknowledge that Bill’s death was hard for me, too, they purposely minimized it. When I saw the doctor for my bronchitis, he – very kindly – warned me that I was more susceptible to illness because of the stress in our lives. Then he said (and I quote, for real), “Even if it’s only your father-in-law, you’re still feeling that stress, so you need to take care of yourself.”

Even if it’s only my father-in-law.

Clearly, losing one’s spouse’s parent doesn’t even register on the list of things to feel sad about; who on earth would feel sorrow at the loss of a parent-in-law?? Which means that there’s not a whole lot of support offered to those in my position. We become invisible – necessary, helpful, but invisible. And yet, in reality, this has been the most difficult, most raw, most heartbreaking experience of my life. I cannot do this without support. I cannot do it without grieving.

But how was I supposed to grieve – while keeping our lives humming along – if no one even recognized that I could be grieving? How could they possibly offer strength and encouragement when it didn’t even occur them that I might need it, because it’s “only” my father-in-law? And how on earth was I supposed to explain that I needed it? It’s not really common practice to enter a room or a gathering of friends and gamely announce, “Hey, y’all. Rough waters. I need help.” I debated pinning a button to my shirt that said, “I’m really sad because I lost someone important to me. Even if you don’t realize that he was important to me, he was. So I’m sad.” But that didn’t feel quite right.

To be clear, I was not wanting people to emphatically throw their arms around me and forget about Nick. He absolutely, justly, deserves and needs people’s support, sympathy, words of love, prayers, shoulders to cry on, proffered glasses of whiskey, and whatever else they would like to give. I have never wanted Nick to be unnoticed, nor for me and my desires to trump his. And, sure, if you want to get technical about it, I’ll grant you that he possibly deserves those things “more” than I do. Like I said, he’s experiencing a kind of sadness that I cannot truly comprehend. I am not comparing me to him.

But I’m still awfully damn sad, and I needed support.

That was what this post was originally going to be about – about my explaining why this was so hard for me, saying that no one gets that I’m upset, too, and to please acknowledge that this really, really sucks. But then two things happened: I wrote about Bill, and I spent some time with a wonderful friend. And now, this post is about something else. Or it’s about to be. Hang on.

Although I’ve been talking to, and seeking support from, friends and family on the phone and online, it just wasn’t enough, and my therapist strongly encouraged me to chat with someone face to face. I knew just the person – a new-ish but already very dear friend – and we tried for weeks to find a night to go out, but our schedules just didn’t mesh. At last, ten days ago, the stars aligned and we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant… and something changed.

She listened – really listened – to everything I had to say. About how stressful it was running the house, about how worried I was for the girls and for Nick, about how very sad I was about Bill but how no one even acknowledged that I could be sad, and I didn’t know what to do. She offered advice. She commiserated. But, most of all, she listened, and I felt heard – and , for the first time since Bill’s death, I felt un-crazy for being so sad. I felt supported. And I felt so very much better, like maybe I can make it through this after all.

Thank god for awesome friends.
And delicious Greek food the night before a five day juice cleanse.

Right around that time, I decided to write about Bill – because, even if no one understood that he could be that important to me, he was that important to me, and I just needed to say it. So I did. And, really… saying it made all the difference. That may be a cliché, but it’s true. Talking about Bill was so freeing, so good; writing let me get it out. As friends began reading the post, I – finally! – felt heard. People got it – no button-pinning necessary.

While I appreciated the catharsis, I didn’t expect to learn something in return. As friends commented about the post on Facebook, however, I came to understand how truly rare Bill’s and my relationship was, and how very, very lucky I am. Apparently, most people truly don’t mourn the loss of their parents-in-law the way that I am. They have a different kind of relationship with their in-laws, and when they die, profound sadness is – according to them – pretty unusual.

I guess, because I loved Bill so deeply, I couldn’t quite understand why people didn’t offer me an, “I’m so sorry, Emily” or “But how are you doing?” Now, I know differently. Now, when someone learns that I’ve lost my father-in-law and they don’t acknowledge that it’s my loss, too, I know it’s not because they don’t care (unless they’re just, like, jerks), but because they don’t know. I no longer become hurt or frustrated; instead, I try to count my blessings. I am reminded of how exceptionally fortunate I was to have loved Bill as I did, and to have been loved by him in return, and I am profoundly grateful. Gratitude is a pretty powerful thing.

So… if I’m all good, then why write this at all? Well, because I’m not all good. Yes, I no longer feel so alone, but this grief thing is still a load of crap. Even though not everyone understands having a fantastic relationship with one’s in-laws, everyone, on some level, can understand grief. And it’s just absurd to be putting constraints on grief based on preconceived notions of how someone should feel, or how close someone was “supposed” to be to the deceased. It’s high time we stopped doing it.

When my BFF Kiki lost her dad in the spring of 2006, there was absolutely no doubt that my mom, my stepdad, Nick and I would attend his funeral. John was very special to me; I’d known him my whole life, and his death hit me hard. Moreover, he was my oldest, awesomest friend’s father. She wanted me there, and I wanted to be there – for me as well as for her. No questions asked.

That is, until I returned to my classroom (after having called in a sub) and had to explain my absence. I’d already used up my personal days for the year, so taking a day “just because” wasn’t acceptable. I suppose I could have lied and said I was sick, but that was, you know, wrong, so I applied for a bereavement day instead. A couple of weeks later, I was contacted by the HR department to clarify my relationship to the deceased. You see, “best friend’s father who I have known my whole life and loved dearly” just didn’t cut it.

On the other hand, if John had been my parent, or my parent-in-law, or my cousin or my uncle, that would have been fine… even if he and I had hardly spoken over the years and I was taking the day off because I’d heard the food at the reception would kick butt. I puzzled over the form for the longest time, becoming more and more annoyed and angry with each passing minute. Who were they to determine what relationships were special enough to warrant “needing” a bereavement day? Who were they to tell me who I should, and shouldn’t, grieve? Who are we, as a society, to be doing the same?

I call bull.
Grief is grief. It is not something to be quantified or compared, but is our own, and only we know how deeply it affects us. Whether someone lost a spouse or a child or a third cousin once-removed or a childhood babysitter, grief is painful and it is real. People who are grieving deserve respect and support.

In the end, I decided that my sadness was real, and so was my relationship to John… or, should I say, “Uncle John.” Bereavement day granted.

And so this is why I decided to write this post: to propose three things. First, if you are grieving, please talk to someone. Whether that’s in person or via email or snail mail or in a blog entry that the entire world can read, talk. Get it out. Say something. Say anything. That, alone, can be so very therapeutic.

Secondly, if you learn that someone has recently experienced the death of a family member or friend, ask how they are. Don’t put constraints on their grief. Don’t assume that, because they lost a parent, they’re wallowing in sorrow and can hardly get out of bed. Don’t assume, because it’s “only” an in-law or an uncle or a 95 year-old great-grandparent who’d “lived a long, happy life,” that the person isn’t enormously sad. Don’t assume, period. Instead, ask. A simple, “How are you doing?” opens the door for the person to spill their soul to you or mutter, “Fine, thanks,” but at least it allows them to determine how they’re doing, rather than you doing it for them.

And finally, after you do ask how someone is doing, listen. Really listen. Let them talk – or not – and be there while they do. Let them know that you hear them, that they’re not alone, that you support and love them, that this sucks, but you’re there. Listen.

By doing so, we can all become a little less invisible. And, with time, a little bit better.

I guess I just miss my friend

Posted on September 28, 2013 by missemtoo

After we visited Minnesota in June to celebrate Bill’s 70th birthday, but before I wrote a post about how it had gone so uproariously wrong, I emailed Bill to ask if he would be comfortable with my mentioning his cancer. See, we knew that time was limited. A couple of months prior to the trip, we’d been told that nothing more could be done, and it was quite likely that this was the last time we’d all be together. And so, when illness struck and planes were delayed and the power failed and the car keys went missing and the painstakingly-created plans slowly but steadily began to crumble, we absolutely did our best to pull ourselves together and enjoy it, damn it! But somewhere, in the back of everyone’s minds, was the thought that this really, really wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This was our last time together. It was supposed to be different.

Bill phoned me back, thanked me for considering his feelings, and then very politely asked me to not mention the cancer. First, he’d like to think that we would have gotten together to celebrate his 70th, anyway (we would). Second, he didn’t want people feeling they needed to fawn over him after they read the post (fair enough). Bill did want me to write about him, about cancer; in fact, he specifically asked me to do so. “I hope that you’ll talk about this later; I would be honored if you wrote about me.” He simply wanted me to wait until after he was gone, and then he was sure that I would do him justice.

Awesome. No pressure, Bill. Thanks.

It’s been four weeks since we lost him, and I’ve been thinking about what I want to say, how to possibly talk about someone who meant so much more to me than I can ever hope to illustrate. I could go on forever telling stories about him, trying to illuminate who he was as a person (as Nick did so very perfectly at the memorial). But I realize that I’ll never truly capture him the way I want to. Moreover, Nick – along with Bill’s other friends who spoke at the memorial – has already captured him so wholly that I don’t want to just repeat what they’ve said. And so, instead, I am simply going to talk the tiniest bit* about who Bill was to me… because he sure as hell wasn’t “just” my father-in-law.

* I realize that this is relative, given that this is probably my longest post ever. Work with me.

Nick and I met over twenty years ago (omg!), when we were freshmen at Connecticut College. We formally began dating the following spring, and I met Bill around that time – whether it was when he came to visit Nick at Conn, or whether it was when I visited Nick in Minnesota that summer, I don’t recall, but I do know that we’ve known one another for over nineteen years – more than half my life. Despite Nick’s and my gag-inducing No One Has Ever Experienced A Love Like Ours behavior, Bill welcomed me cordially and openly; I did not have to “earn” my spot but was, instead, immediately one of the gang.

Bill is well-known for his sense of humor. He found something laughable in almost every situation, could tell enormously funny and clever jokes and stories, and was a terrific teaser. I knew early on that I’d fully been accepted into his world when he began to tease me, mercilously, about almost everything. Since forever, I’ve slept with a white noise machine, while Bill preferred to sleep in silence – or, better yet, with the windows open (something I cannot do, because my ADHD brain causes me to jump at every hint of sound… “Ooooh, some crickets!” “Is that a woodpecker?” “I didn’t know there was a train near here!” “People still listen to Kenny G?”). We each found the other’s sleep/noise preferences to be utterly baffling, and we discussed it – with mock seriousness – not infrequently.

One day – well before Nick and I were married, before I’d “officially” become family – this cartoon arrived in the mail: (click to see original size)

If you only tease the ones you love, Bill clearly thought I was the bees’ knees.

As nineteen years passed, Bill and I communicated regularly, sometimes over the phone or through texting, but mostly via email. Because Ella and Annie’s birthdays are in December, I try to get the rest of our Christmas shopping done early, so I’m not rushing around like a crazy person (well, no more than usual). One year, I’d already asked Bill what he’d like for Christmas, but had yet to receive an answer. In the meantime, Ella had lost a tooth, but the Tooth Fairy accidentally forgot to show that night. Bill, being perfectly him, touched upon both with his reply…

From me to Bill
Subject: Me, bugging you again

Hi!

Okay, I know I’m being a pain…
But I’m wondering if you’ve had a chance to think of anything that might be on your Christmas wish list.

If so, I’d love to hear it. 🙂

Hope all’s well…
Thanks!
xoxo 🙂

Reply, from Bill to me
Subject: Re: Me, bugging you again

This is me bugging you. You gave me Twins tickets covering birthday, Christmas, father’s Day, fourth of July and Guy Fawkes Day. No Christmas present for me other than that, thank you very much.

.

Is it true that the Tooth Fairy reported you to county social services?

.

Love you

Although not a doctor himself, Bill had a lifetime of experience in the medical field, advising many medical boards and being — to me, anyway — somewhat all-knowing when it came to medicine and medical care. A year ago, when Ella broke her foot, Nick and I were faced with an extremely formidable decision: to allow her foot to heal as it was (without surgery), knowing that, if it healed improperly, she would need a much more complicated surgery down the road… or try to avoid potential problems and go ahead with surgery right then, even though her foot seemed to be healing just fine. Nick and I were absolutely stumped. While the doctor left the room to get his assistants and remove Ella’s cast, I excused myself… and called Bill.

Last summer, when my aunt was dying of cancer and I wanted to speak with her but was uncomfortable picking up the phone, I called Bill to ask him how to talk to someone in a situation like this. His advice gave me the courage to phone her; we had a lovely conversation. She died less than a week later, and I am forever grateful that we had the chance to talk. Likewise, it was Bill who helped me when Ella first developed her allergy to the cold. Not only was her condition scary and baffling, but we couldn’t even educate ourselves on it because of the scarcity of information. Unprompted, Bill emailed me links to scholarly articles on the subject, so that we could be better prepared.

Come to think of it, Bill often sent me links to things I might find interesting, be it an article about storm chasers (because he knew I have a strange desire to see a tornado up close and personal; or, at least I did, until they went all Twister crazy these past few years), or a link to a children’s choir singing at the Queen’s jubilee celebration. But perhaps more than anything else, Bill and I emailed about cooking. We shared a love of all things epicurian, from restaurants to recipes to actually preparing food ourselves, and we bonded over our mutual appreciation of food time and time again. We exchanged recipes, gave one another cookbooks and culinary magazine subscriptions, and sent countless delicious goodies one another’s way, from bread-of-the-month clubs (omg, the chocolate sourdough) to unique oils and vinegars (the peach balsamic is still my favorite).

While I certainly turned to him for advice, he did the same to me; and every single time, I was honored and touched that he’d considered my opinion worthy of the asking. When taking photographs, he would inquire about lighting and angles. A few years ago, as he began teaching a new class at the U of M, he toyed with doing part of the course online, and asked what I thought of it, as an educator. Bill sought my assessment of music and musicians, and listened to me in earnest when I presented my point of view on a political topic. That my thoughts merited deliberation, when he himself was so intelligent and well-educated and witty, never ceased to please and humble me.

Typical Grandpa Bill humor…

Bill was an extremely eloquent speaker and writer, always able to get his point across quite succinctly (even if his handwriting was atrocious). He also had a gift for reaching out and letting me know when he was proud of me, that he was thinking of me, or simply that he loved me. For the past five years, I’ve made separate photo books of Nick and me with the girls — one photo for each week — and have sent them to our respective parents. Always, Bill would reach out to let me know just how much they meant to him, while also managing to compliment me and make me feel like I was on top of the world.

I’m sure you know how much more than “just pictures” these gifts are. Please know that we appreciate the effort, skill, caring and consideration involved in their preparation.

And that, really, was one of the things I loved most about Bill: his ability to make me feel fantastic. He did this with everyone he cared for – sharing stories, freely giving compliments, letting those he loved know that they mattered to him – so I know that I wasn’t unique… but I felt unique. I felt special. That’s probably because I was special to Bill. Yes, part of this was because we were related to one another. That he respected and appreciated me as his son’s wife, his granddaughters’ mother, and his own daughter-in-law, was never in doubt.

The following was sent four years ago as a prelude to a poem he’d found and wanted to share with me, entitled “To My Son’s Girlfriend” by Michael Milburn

It was at that point that I was struck by the realization that Nick has been with you for nearly as long as he was at home with me — to the extent that anyone can claim to be the “woodworker” here, the resulting table is as much of your hand as anyone’s. That thought then led to a brief reverie on how happy it makes me to see Nick in such a wonderful family and how proud I am of you, him, Ella and Annie. It is one thing to watch one’s offspring take their first steps, do well in school, head off to college. It is quite another to watch their lives unfold and enfold in the context of the family of their own making. It’s a wonderful thing, this family stuff.

Our family ties meant a lot to me, too. I was honored and gladdened to have him as my father-in-law, as the father of my husband, and as the grandfather of my children. He and Nick shared an uncommonly strong partnership, and seeing them interact together filled me with awe and deep, unbridled happiness. I reveled in being with the whole clan, watching him as a father to Nelle and Em, and seeing him blossom whenever he was with Mary, our girls’ GranMary. Alongside her, Bill was a superb grandfather, delighting in the girls’ accomplishments and interests and constantly looking for new and inventive ways to connect with them. I relished every one of these familial bonds.

Talking with the tooth fairy via video chat

Posing as the Tooth Fairy for a video chat, after Eleanor lost a tooth.

There can be no doubt that the roles Bill and I played strengthened our relationship. With that said, Bill was not just my father-in-law, nor my husband’s father, nor my children’s grandfather – nor was I, to him, just a daughter-in-law, nor his son’s wife, nor his granddaughters’ mother. What is perhaps most remarkable about Bill’s and my relationship – and what, I think, I will miss the most – is that we loved each another just because, regardless of the roles we played in one another’s lives.

This is not to discredit the relationships where role does play a central, if not the most important, factor. When Ella and Annie were born, I felt an immediate and irrefutable connection to them; they were my children, they were part of Nick and me. I loved them with every fiber of my being and would have thrown myself in front of a car for them or – God help me – braved the line for Justin Beiber tickets, had they asked me to, before their personalities had even emerged – simply because they were mine. As they have grown into the human beings they are today, it so happens that I genuinely like the people they are becoming, and the love I have for them has deepened as a result; but, at its core, I adore them because they are my daughters, and I am their mom.

Likewise, there is a particularly warm and terrific feeling in being my own parents’ daughter, and to having them as my mom and dad. I know that I am loved at the simplest and most profound level, and that is comforting and incredible. On the other hand, it is also incredible to know that Bill loved me, no matter what our roles may have been. I am firmly convinced, if Nick and Ella and Annie had somehow disappeared, and we had nothing left to tie us together, no assigned parts to play in each other’s worlds, that Bill would still have continued to think I was fantastic, just because I am me.

We did not have to love one another; surely, we could have gotten by with pleasantries and some form tolerance or perhaps even mutual admiration, as so many in-laws do. Instead, we chose to love one another, and that kind of love is, indeed, elusive and special. He was Bill, and I was Emily, and I miss him oh so very much.

I miss playing Words With Friends with him. He was an intimidating and daunting opponent (although, not to brag, but I totally beat him a lot), and our games were some of the ones I looked forward to the most. I haven’t played WWF with anyone in at least six weeks (sorry, peeps), because, as he got sicker, Bill had stopped playing, and I was terrified of being informed that our game was over. I still am.

I miss his hugs, the way his long arms circled all the way around me and pulled me in tight; I can’t believe that I’ll never hug him again. It is simply not possible that he won’t be the Tooth Fairy when Annie loses her next pearly white. Bill’s sideline cheering is the stuff of legend, and I cannot wrap my head around the idea that he’ll never attend Annie’s soccer games or see one of Ella’s swim meets or congratulate Nick when he earns his MBA. That he won’t walk through my door again with a stack of photocopied (and annotated) recipes for me to try makes my stomach hurt, quite literally.

I can no longer phone him when a medical crisis strikes, nor ask his opinion on how to comfort a friend in need, nor tell him about my subbing assignments and how ecstatic I am to be back in the classroom. There will be no more games of Hand and Foot with him and Mary and Nick after the girls go to bed, wherein he scribbles “Them” and “Us” or “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys” to keep score. There is no one with whom to discuss the finer points of extra virgin versus flavored olive oil. When we visit his house, I can turn on the sound machine in my bedroom, and know that he won’t be there to shake his head and laugh. God, how I miss his laugh.

And, quite frankly, that’s just shit. It’s not okay. It just isn’t.

A few days ago, I was trying to describe Bill, and my relationship with him, to my therapist. The emails, the articles, the jokes, the recipes. Card games, meals, phone calls, laughs. Oh, how he laughed! He laughed at so many things, but he also laughed at me – not like that, but rather because he thought I was funny – really, truly funny. I made Bill laugh, often; little has given me more joyful pride.

As I rambled on, I began to falter, because I couldn’t put my thoughts into words. He was my father-in-law, yes, he was my family, but he was so very much more. We talked; we shared; we consulted; we hoped. He was Bill, and he meant the world to me.

My therapist listened, thought for a moment, then looked at me and said, simply, “He was your friend; your dear friend.”

My friend.

Perhaps this is odd, but I’d never thought of Bill as my friend. To be sure, Bill was a tremendous friend himself, and had a great many of them, but I’d never included myself among them. I knew, certainly, that he was a phenomenal friend to Nick. In fact, not too long ago, when Nick was at a loss for how to express his sadness, I attempted to help give voice to his feelings by (mis)quoting Red from The Shawshank Redemption: “I guess you just miss your friend.”

But, somehow, I’d never considered that Bill was my friend, too.

After his memorial two weeks ago, a group of us gathered at a nearby bar to more raucously celebrate his life. Although Nick and his sisters were surrounded by marvelous friends and family, and although I knew many of them, I felt out of place. I’d been battling bronchitis and felt like crap, and when sadness threatened to overtake me, I decided that, instead of being the morose, coughing, teetotaler in the corner, I’d take myself away for a bit. Not knowing where to go, I found myself in our rental car, curled up on the passenger seat, tears flowing freely.

To make the maudlin scene complete (because I do so like a good drama), I determined that now was a good time to re-read some of Bill’s old emails to me, including one titled “Brown”.

.
Hi — on the off chance that you have not seen the TED talks by Brene Brown, I encourage you to watch these two.

I’m using these to teach leadership, but I think her message is widely applicable. Moreover, she’s a great speaker and reminds me a bit of you, except you’re a better story teller. Love you.

Bill

I remembered receiving the emails way back in February, but – to my dismay – realized that I had never watched either video. (Cue lots more tears.) And so, hunched up in the car in my brand new eggplant-colored memorial dress, I resolved that now was as good a time as any to click on those links.

I listened to every word, all forty-one minutes of them. Brené is, without a doubt, a great speaker (and certainly a better story teller than I, despite Bill’s generous assertion); I found myself utterly drawn in. Moreover, I found myself hearing – really hearing – what she had to say; it was a watershed moment.

If I had listened to these talks back in February, they wouldn’t have resonated with me. These last few months have been so nutty, so sad, so unbelievable, I truly don’t think I could have processed Brené’s message – or, if I could, I would have lost focus along the way. Today, although I’m hardly in excellent shape emotionally, I feel much more open, much more receptive… much more vulnerable. Which, by her definition, means that I’m standing at the birthplace of joy and love (holla!). And, man, could I use some joy and love right about now.

Practicing gratitude? That, I can do. Looking for the good and the funny and the beautiful? I think I’ve got that part down. The rest is not going to be smooth sailing, this being accepting of myself, of my imperfections. Breathing through this time is incredibly difficult. And believing that I’m enough? Far easier said than done.

But Bill believed it. For him, I was enough, just as I am. Bill loved with his whole heart and told me – told all of us, for whom this was true – that he loved us, constantly. He was also imperfect, having made a great many mistakes, as we all do; but he embraced his imperfections and moved forward.

As much as I wished I’d seen these talks six months ago so that I could have thanked Bill for sharing them, I think that I was meant to see them now, when I need them most. That I saved them and then magically found them again, when I am actually ready, is surely not a coincidence (right, Bill, wherever you are?). Brené’s words resonated with me to my core – so much so that, upon completing the second video, my very first thought was, “I’ve got to tell Bill!”

Oh. Right.

Fuck.

“Father-in-law” is such a generic term, and Bill was anything but generic. He was bold. He was thoughtful. He was thought-provoking. He was funny. He was highly intelligent. He was kind. He was empathetic. He was curious. He was impish. He was loving. He was a gifted storyteller. He was devoted. He was good.

He was my husband’s father. He was my daughters’ grandfather. He was my father-in-law. He was my family.
He was my friend; my dear friend.

My life is forever changed for having lost him, and forever better for having known and loved him. Every day, I am moving forward – partly because I want to, and partly because there is no choice. Yes, there is genuine joy and so very much gratitude. I am trying consciously to live whole-heartedly, to accept myself, to breathe through these days. But Bill is never far from my thoughts and my heart, which still hurts more than I thought possible.

I guess I just miss my friend.

Okay, Universe. I’m listening.

Posted on September 19, 2013 by missemtoo

This was not the post I’d started to write. I’d meant to talk about something entirely different – and maybe I will tomorrow – but then this thing happened this morning and now I’m writing this instead. Funny how that works. (Then again, maybe the universe just didn’t like my other post. Stay tuned…)

So, I’m at the hair salon, right? It’s (almost) fall and, after letting my dark, winter shade gradually fade out and get much lighter over the summer, I figured that now would be a good time to change it up. In addition to feeling all kicky with a new color, I was also really looking forward to the time just for me, especially gabbing with my stylist, and those glorious, quiet minutes waiting for the color to set. Also, what better place for an impromptu therapy session than at the salon, ladies, am I right?

I’d purposely scheduled the appointment as my stylist’s first of the day, thinking that I’d be in and out and there would be no delays. But when I got there, there was, in fact, a woman already in the chair! Not only that, but she and my stylist were all chatty-chatty, sipping Starbucks and giggling away. When I finally sat down (fifteen minutes late), I was champing at the bit to not only change my look, but also to unload my very important thoughts.

My stylist remembered, the last time I’d been there, that we’d been returning from Minnesota, and she asked how it went. As she started putting in the foils, I began telling her about that trip and the others, about Bill, about how difficult it had been, going all Good Will Hunting and ready to let the healing begin… And then I learned that her grandmother had just passed away last week, only two days before she (my stylist) was to be in an important wedding – and the wake is tonight, with the funeral tomorrow.

Oh. And I was her first customer today. The lady who’d been in the chair before me? Her aunt. Who’d requested a quick blow-out for tonight’s gathering. And who’d also brought along Starbucks as a way of thanking her niece.

I’ll just wear the I’m a Presumptive Asshole sticker right on my shirt, thanks. YES, UNIVERSE. I HEAR YOU.

So, anyway, I’m finally sitting in the chair waiting for the color to set, right? And I just know that now is the time for me. Now, I will relax. I will read. I will accomplish things. It will be beautiful and incredible and angels will sing.

My stylist has taken her next customer to the sinks – a mother, accompanied by a stroller-bound baby – and I just start to write a blog post (see above) when this unbelievable ear-piercing screech emanates from their direction. The baby’s howl soon turns into a wail – not just crying, not yelling, but a make-your-ears-bleed, life-is-ending, what-do-you-mean-there’s-no-more-chocolate-cake screeeeeaming. It’s so loud, it’s physically painful, and I can’t concentrate on even one word of my narrative, so I sit back and close my eyes, hoping that maybe it will just magically stop.

As my stylist returns to her chair, her customer follows, pushing the screeeeeaming baby along in the stroller. As she sits down, she reaches into her bag and hands the baby a large pretzel rod, which quiets her, and I think that maybe my prayers have been answered… But, no. Not five seconds later, the baby has started again, unleashing yet another unearthly, window-shattering scream.

She’s not wriggling around in her stroller. She’s not hurt. There’s nothing wrong — except that her mommy is getting her hair cut and is unavailable to hold her, which, when you’re a baby, means the world is ending. And it’s your responsibility to let everyone know just how upsetting this is.

I’d needed to use the restroom anyway, so I decide that now is a good time to go, assuming that the closed door will provide some protection from the wailing… and it does, to a degree, but I’ve got to give this kid credit. I’ve heard many, many crying babies, and this kid’s scream is, by far, the loudest, most eye-twitch-inducing – maybe in the history of babies. She has lungs, y’all.

In addition to slightly muffling the screeching, the (subjective) quiet of the bathroom also allows me to hear the conversations of the other stylists and customers, who are standing just outside of the door, a bit away from the mom and the baby. At first, they’re saying just what I’m thinking: “That poor baby!” “She seems really upset!” “She really wants her mama!” “Goodness, she’s loud!”

But then, as the screaming continues, their conversations begin to shift: “I wonder why she doesn’t do something about it?” “None of the rest of us enjoys hearing that.” “Can you believe it?” “When my children were little, we never let them behave like that.”

Until finally, the shift is complete: “This behavior is unacceptable.” “If she wants to get her hair done, she should leave the baby at home.” “When you’re a mother, sometimes you make sacrifices.” “She should just get up and leave right now.”

‘Cause, yeah. That’s how this works.

It’s really easy when you have a baby, right? First off, they always behave exactly as you’d like them to. They are in full control of their emotions and are careful to show excitement at appropriate levels, and, naturally, they never cry in public. They come out of the womb with their bodily functions running like military institutions, peeing and pooping on schedule, which means they never crap through their onesies while sitting on your lap just after you’ve boarded an airplane.

They fully understand when they are, and are not, hungry – and, heck, they can feed themselves really easily (my girls learned to make coq au vin when they were about seven months old; such global palates!) – so they never allow their blood sugar levels to drop, resulting in any behaviors that might be considered impolite or testy. They speak in full, elaborate, metaphor-filled sentences and can clearly communicate their wants, needs, desires, and visions of world peace.

That’s one of the best parts of parenthood, is it not? That there’s never any guesswork when it comes to babies?

They wipe themselves (especially after the 4:04 p.m. poop – that one’s always a doozy!). They neatly rearrange the toys in their cribs, careful to fold the hand-made blanket just so and hang it adorably over the railing. They sleep – well… like babies! – which is to say, brilliantly, always sure to get the requisite twelve hours (straight, of course), then awakening at a perfectly acceptable hour in the morning, upon which they delightfully request their bottles (or breasts) like one might ask for Grey Poupon.

In fact, babies are so simple, being the parent of one is a little like owning an iPhone — everything is bright and shiny, easy to navigate, and they’re so stinkin’ awesome, you want to show them off to everyone you know. Plus, on the very off chance that there’s a malfunction, you can always update them to iOS 7 (although you might want to wait just a few weeks until they work the bugs out).

Best of all, babies — and kids in general — never throw you a curveball. If babies are one thing and one thing only, they’re predictable. As soon as you’ve got them figured out, you basically just hit cruise control and enjoy the ride.

And let’s not forget how easy being the parent of a baby is, shall we? Naturally, you’re well-rested. Your clothing is stain-free (unless you’re a klutz – *raises hand*!). Your diaper bags and purses are perfectly organized, because you’ve never needed to frantically rifle through their contents looking for a set of toy car keys when your baby has become fussy in the middle of the first dinner out that you’ve had in four months, and you just know his favorite toy is in here somewhere.

You almost never have to schedule your life around that of your baby, which is so freeing and open, just like you’re living on a baby commune. If you do prefer to arrange your life around your baby, you can rest assured that your baby will stick exactly to your schedule and will never, ever disrupt it. In fact, when you’re the parent of a baby, your whole day is so wide open, you can do virtually anything you want at any time, especially meet friends for surprise lunches, decide to spontaneously begin marathons of both Downton Abbey and The Walking Dead, keep the house spotless, and go on regular date nights with your spouse.

Because your baby is so independent, you’ve also got oodles of time to yourself – to do things like, say, get yourself a haircut (which means you’re never literally months overdue for a cut and your bangs are so long you’ve already cut them twice yourself with Fiskars and you’re trying to cram the haircut in next Thursday between your six month old’s well-visit and your Mommy and Me class before the older ones get off the bus, but that should be no problem because you have a sitter who is always healthy and doesn’t cancel on you for any reason whatsoever).

Your baby’s perpetually sunny disposition, predictability, and level-headedness also mean that you can continue doing all of the activities you used to do pre-baby. Come to think of it, you’re so calm and even-keeled these days, you no longer need therapy or even a glass of wine in the evenings, because taking your baby out in public is essentially a zen experience. Since babies are welcome in every single setting, virtually everyone – especially older folks and people without children – ooohs and ahhhs over your how very cute your little one is, and you’re never, ever given the evil eye over a parenting choice, nor are you ever made to feel like a leper because you’ve brought your baby along.

But I think the best part of being the parent of a baby is how utterly confident you are in all that you do, and how awesome you feel as a parent every minute of the day. Since your offspring never misbehave, you never have to worry about tantrums while you’re out and about, which, in turn, would lead to everyone around you judging you as not only a parent but a human being. Thank God there are never meltdowns in the middle of the grocery store, because then you’d have to be concerned with that age-old question, Do I stay here and let everyone around me think that I’m a horrible person (which they might or might not say to my face) while also knowing that my child’s screaming is louder than that of a jet engine and is causing hearing loss in everyone within a ten mile radius… or do I pack up and leave everything right where it is and hightail it out of the store, knowing that the window of opportunity for grocery shopping is exactly 23 minutes long, and there is just no way I can come back and finish the shopping even if the baby does magically stop shrieking, and so leaving might result in us eating Ramen noodles and Kosher pickles for the third night in a row?

Yes. Thank sweet baby Jesus you never, ever have to make those decisions.

As I’m washing my hands, I mull all of this over, trying to decide what to do. Given what we know about babies and parenting, this situation is – obviously – the first time anyone in the salon has ever heard a screaming child. Clearly, either the baby is defective, or the mother is doing this parenting thing very, very wrong.

And so, after weighing all of the evidence, I opt for the only solution that seems truly reasonable: I leave the restroom, approach my stylist and the mom and the baby, and ask if it would freak the baby — or the mom — out too much if I unbuckle her from the stroller and walk her around for a while. The mom, who is clearly frazzled, mutters that she’s not sure how the baby would respond… but my stylist immediately chimes in that maybe I can simply wheel her about in the stroller. (Perhaps this would have occurred to me, too, had both of my daughters not thrashed about like addicts undergoing drug withdrawal every time they were strapped in a stroller or car seat.)

I turn the stroller away from the mom and walk a few feet away to the brightly-colored bottles of exorbitantly-priced shampoo and styling gel… and, just like that, the screaming stops. Yes, she’s still sniffling and hiccuping the way that all of us do post-hysterical sobbing, but she’s got her pretzel and her mama is no longer just inches away but unable to touch her, and all is right with the world. Phew!

Sure, I could have said something to those ladies, the ones making the absurd statements outside of the bathroom. I could asked if it occurred to them that maybe this mom hadn’t intended to bring the baby with her, but at the last minute, she had no choice? And maybe she would have rescheduled, but sometimes, finding a time when your stylist’s schedule matches yours is more difficult than balancing the federal budget? And, similarly, perhaps she could have left, taking the baby in tow, but then we’d be back at the whole rescheduling thing, and we’ve already discussed this, have we not? (Then again, they might have had a difficult time remembering what had been said, considering that they clearly could not recall what life was really like when there children were babies, unless they actually had one of the mythical babies mentioned above.)

I could have reminded them that perhaps this baby has never pitched a fit in her stroller before, so there was no reason for the mom to assume that she’d go all I’m melting! What a world! today. I might have let them know that, while parents make countless sacrifices, basic hygiene shouldn’t have to be one of them; just because it’s basically a rite of passage for new parents to walk around for days in the same mystery-stained clothes, and sometimes just brushing one’s teeth seems to require more energy than can be mustered, that doesn’t mean that this mom shouldn’t be able to get a damn haircut every once in a while… even if it means bringing her baby along with her.

I gave serious consideration to pointing out what should have been obvious: that no one was more upset by the baby’s behavior than the mom. Here she is, just trying to get a simple haircut, and her kid unexpectedly freaks out, so now not only is she concerned that her baby might give herself a hernia, she’s also worried that everyone around her is going to suffer some kind of hearing loss. And, of course, any shot at her actually experiencing a quiet and relaxing haircut has long gone out the window.

Okay, to play devil’s advocate… Might this lady routinely bring her child to places where children aren’t usually present? Sure. Might she be one of “those” people who seem to think that they, and especially their children, are more important than everyone else around them? I guess so. Might she have not given a hoot whether anyone else in the salon was having a miserable experience, instead thinking to herself, “Babies cry. Deal with it“? Perhaps. Would that make me less sympathetic to her? Probably.

But here’s the thing: sometimes, shit happens. Sometimes, babies do cry, even the best of babies, under even the best of circumstances. And, to me, there’s a vast difference between a screaming baby whose parent is doing everything she can to rectify the situation — within reason — and a screaming baby whose parent seems oblivious or flippant to both the child’s distress and the distress the child is causing in everyone else. (For the record: this mom was definitely the former.)

Was it pleasant listening to this kiddo wail away at the top of her lungs? Hell no. It was downright painful, quite literally. And, given that I’d hoped to use that time to relax — and given that my salon is generally not full of screaming kiddos — the baby’s shrieks were even more disturbing and stress-inducing. Not fun. Not at all. But at least I was just, you know, getting a haircut, rather than, say, performing brain surgery or attending a funeral or doing something important.

Which isn’t to say that getting a cut and color isn’t sometimes absolutely essential. Like Starbucks lattes. I do have priorities, people.

In the end, I decided that more than telling these women what I thought, I’d show them (and, yes, let’s be honest – I hoped that the baby would stop freakin’ screaming). I’d show them that, kidding aside, parenthood is the hardest gig there is, but that it’s made just the littlest bit easier when we help one another out and show compassion rather than contempt. That whole It Takes a Village thing wasn’t made up by accident.

More importantly, I’d show the mom that she’s not alone, she’s not doing it wrong, and that I understand: being a parent is hard stuff. Sometimes, we all need a little help.

And, hey, by actually helping, instead of baby-shaming in the corner, maybe the baby’d stop crying, and we all – mom, baby, the entire lot of us – would be better off, and helping someone else might feel really, really good.

Turns out, being a presumptive asshole doesn’t really get you anything but a shiny sticker.

SEE, UNIVERSE. I TOLD YOU I WAS LISTENING.

Oh, and the color? Autumnal and lovely.
photo-43
before

now

Forgotten, but remembered..

Posted on September 11, 2013 by missemtoo

Since school began last week, I have spent some time each day looking through old photographs to find pictures of my father-in-law. Part of this is because his memorial is coming up, and part of it is simply because it helps me to feel closer to him. I’ve always loved photos, wasting roll after roll of film to take “artsy” pictures in the days before digital photography was invented, creating my own scrapbooks before I’d even heard of Creative Memories, and saving nearly every photo I’ve ever taken or been given.

Which means that locating photos of anything specific is a daunting task, indeed. There are boxes of actual prints, boxes with film negatives, scrapbooks and photobooks, dozens of floppy disks bearing helpfully descriptive labels like “Snow” (which can only be viewed on a laptop that is at least fifteen years old, is missing three of its keys, and whose “A” button no longer functions), folder after folder of digital photos on external hard drives, and troves of photos I’ve uploaded to a minimum of six sites online. I recognize that this sounds absurd, but going through old pictures is exhausting, man.

The discoveries, however, have made the search process worthwhile. Nick with his permed hair (I’m not even kidding); the rodeo we attended in Colorado; the cross-country trip my brother and I made when I graduated from college; the one of me with Harry Connick Jr. (I believe I sent it out to friends and relatives that year for Thanksgiving, with the caption “I’m thankful for this…”) – and, of course, many photos of Bill.

I remembered a lot of them, but some were true gifts – ones that I didn’t even know I’d taken, that were likely glossed over because they weren’t “good” pictures. While I’ve forever loved taking photos, it’s only now, finding these, that I’m coming to truly be grateful for the bazillions of pictures I’ve stored up, because each one – even the ones where no one’s smiling at the camera, where something’s blurry, which might even have been taken by accident – perfectly captures him just as he was, and gives me a brief glimpse into a long-forgotten memory, and that makes my heart so very happy.

It was while going through these tomes of photos that I came across another collection of pictures that I didn’t remember taking, this time of a visit Nick and I had made to the Statue of Liberty in March of 2000. Except they weren’t just of Lady Liberty, but of the vista surrounding her… including this:

It took my breath away, quite literally.

At the time, Nick was completing several months of training in NYC, and I visited him once or twice from our apartment in Denver; we must have made the journey to Liberty Island during one of those trips, although I don’t remember doing so.

I do remember where we were a year-and-a-half later, on the day that life changed. Our new apartment was less than thirty miles outside of Manhattan, and I remember the blue of the sky; the silence of the trains; the roars of the fighter jets; the whirls of the helicopter blades; the “All Circuits Are Busy” recording as we frantically called our many friends and relatives both in the city (to see if they were okay; miraculously, they were) and across the country (to let them know that we were okay).

I remember, in the days and weeks that followed, walking through the dust and ash that covered so much of Manhattan, extending a great deal farther from Ground Zero than I had thought possible. I remember the smells, though I wish I could forget them. I remember the posters of the missing, hung from every available telephone pole or fence post. I remember the view from one of our best friend’s Battery Park-facing windows, and how horrifically empty it now was.

I remember reading the New York Times’s “Portraits of Grief” – every single one – feeling, somehow, that the very least I could do was learn a little bit about the lives of those 2500 (plus) who were killed, wanting to get to know them individually, rather than just lumping them together as so many, anonymous victims.

And I was struck by how often the biography mentioned something along the lines of, “The last words s/he said to me that morning were ‘I love you.’” Or, heartbreakingly, “I forgot to say ‘I love you’ that morning.” It seems like such a little thing, but since that time, I have made a point of (trying to) never – ever – leaving Nick, the girls, or my family and friends without telling them that I love them. No matter how brief the conversation, even if it’s just an “xo” at the end of an email, no matter how angry or frustrated I am, I tell them that I love them. Because, well, you just never know. Plus, a little extra love is always a good thing.

(Ironically, the only other trip I remember taking to the Statue of Liberty was with Bill [and his wife, Mary] in the winter of 2002 or 2003. To my dismay, I don’t have photos of that visit, but I remember that it was bitterly cold… and that we were happy.)

So much changed on that Tuesday morning twelve years ago, far beyond the new rules for air travel and the ever-present “If you see something, say something!” signs that are all around Manhattan. Yes, of course, I will never forget. But I will also remember – the sights, the sounds, the smells – but more than that, how we all, however briefly, came together, supported one another, and held fast to hope.

And how very much we loved.
More than anything, I am still remembering that love today, and always.

Move over, Jackass

Posted on September 5, 2013 by missemtoo

The start of school smells good. I don’t just say this because today was one of the most perfect days, weatherwise, we’ve experienced maybe, like, ever, nor because of the girls’ fresh, clean, new school stuff, all of which comes with its fresh, clean, new smell… New backpacks, new supplies (erasers, I heart you), new clothes, new lunch boxes… Each has its own crisp aroma, un-stained, not yet having taken on the stank of leftover spaghetti or forgotten sneakers.

Beyond that, however, there’s still the geeky kid in me who always loved the start of school each year, and that kid sits eagerly beside the teacher in me, who met the beginning of each September with equal parts trepidation and exhilaration. Yes, the year holds the possibility of something dreadful, of birds pooping on your head while you wait in line to go inside from recess (first grade, true story; Sarah Tallman was kind enough to help get the poop out of my hair while everyone else laughed), of classmates who are tyrants hiding behind polo shirts and jeggings, of parents who think that little Junior deserves special treatment and plays the not my child card every. single. time. But there’s also the promise of new friends, of clean notebooks and smooth desks, of games at recess and giggles during library, of field trips and science experiments, of fall and cinnamon and hay rides.

A month in, school begins to take on the metallic, pungent smell of tiny, sweaty bodies who defy logic and seem to need deodorant, despite being only eight. But the start of school? Those first, unblemished, ripe-with-promise weeks? They smell great.

Each year, as the girls begin school, I try to do something special for them – a fun first day breakfast, a treat when they come home, a dinner of their choosing, notes in their backpacks – something to make this day stand apart from the other 179 days of the school calendar. This year, with the (very) recent loss of my much-adored father-in-law (there will be more to say on this in coming weeks – I promised Bill it would be so – but right now, I need to wait and process and grieve, and think about just what I’d like to write), I have had to cut myself a break and be patient with my lack of focus… but I still want to be doing these special things. Not for any grander purpose, not because of any outside pressure, not even because of expectations that I may have inadvertently raised in my children, but simply because they make me happy.

And, I’m learning, that’s a pretty damn good reason for doing most things.

Except watching Real Housewives (of Anywhere). Or wearing Uggs year-round. Or preferring dark chocolate to milk. There are rules, people.

I’m also learning what I can and cannot do, and I’m learning to be okay with it. Which isn’t such a novel concept, except I recently read two seemingly opposing blog posts and found myself agreeing with basically everything they both said. Which means… thinking. And growing. And learning. Or something. And all that jazz.

First, I read this post, and loved it not only because “Pinterest Bitches” is a fabulous phrase and they worked “explosive diarrhea” into their narrative, but also because, hell yes! Crazytown! A stitched-together pencil caddy? “Yay school” and a little globe? Have we all gone insane?? Reading that post made me feel instantly better about getting the time wrong for Ella’s meet-the-teacher day, and going to Target yesterday in biker shorts and a dirty Zumba t-shirt.

But then I read this post today. Michelle had me with “braless in the drop off lane”(and also made me feel a little like maybe she was stalking me with the whole, Does Emily pause before posting about finally, finally having her depression under control because she knows there are other moms still struggling? thing), but also got my attention by mentioning, despite her house never being company-ready, that she does throw “Pinterest worthy” parties… both of which sounded awfully familiar. (Not because the parties I throw are necessarily Pinterest worthy, but because I, um, did post photos here specifically so I could put them on Pinterest.)

So… It seems that the Pinterest Bitch would be… me.

Conundrum, no?

The more I’ve thought about it, however, the more I’ve decided that the dichotomy not only makes sense… it’s okay. It’s good, even. It’s just me; it’s who I am. It hurts no one (except myself, when I stay up too late making Looney Tunes birthday cakes or getting pancake batter ready to go for the first day of school). It’s a bit nutty, but that’s fine. It makes me happy.

And it’s high time that I reconcile what I can and cannot do, and become okay with it. Or, as Michelle puts it, it’s high time that I “quit being a jackass” to myself.

I can make cute first-day-of-school breakfasts with pancakes shaped like school buses and the girls’ current grade numbers.
Don’t worry; Annie eventually received more than 1 cut-up strawberry. We are all about equity in this house.

I can make brownies for when the girls come home from school, with their newly-begun grade levels powdered-sugared onto them.
Notice how these are the corners? I ate the gooey middle piece. It was delicious.

I can send my kids off to school, and welcome them home from their first day, with a bang (a bang that is created with the help of boxed mixes from Wegmans, but a bang nonetheless), and they love it, and I love it, and it’s just the way it goes. I cannot, however, manage to keep our fridge and cupboards stocked with actual necessary food, so when my kids request a sandwich with pepperoni and cheese, they’re going to get some pepperoni and a torn-up cheese stick instead.

Yep. Real lunch from last year. Super proud moment.

School bus pancakes. Cheese stick sandwiches. Pretty much me in a nutshell.

I can send my girls to school each day with a joke in their lunch boxes (or a joke told over the phone)…

“Ellen” and her Facebook page FTW!

… But I cannot organize the papers in the kitchen – nor manage to replace the window shade that’s been broken for at least two years – to save my soul.

I know you’re jealous. Just keepin’ it real.

I can make number signs the night before and pose my adorable children in front of the house on their first day…

ella first day 3rd
HOLY CRAP, she has gotten so absurdly old.

… But, for the life of me, I cannot get ahold of the weeds that are overtaking every spare space in our garden, in the yard, and on the sidewalk.

The foot-tall “bushes” to the left, in front of the bricks? Yeah. Weeds. Every last one.

It used to be that both sides of this coin bothered and embarrassed me. I didn’t want to admit that I studied hair blogs so that I could send the girls off to school with cute and fancy ‘dos, because that somehow felt like something I should be ashamed of – as though admitting it would somehow be showing off, or trying to put other non-hairdo-ing parents down, or saying that I had too much time on my hands, or making a judgement one way or another.

And yet, I also didn’t want to admit that the third seat of the car is so filled with dog fur, we cannot have people ride there without producing a towel for them to sit on. That was also something to be ashamed of, an admission that I cannot keep everything together, that I let some things go.

But lately – and quite uncharacteristically – I’ve been going easy on myself. I’ve come to realize that I don’t always have it all together (a shocker, I know, I know), not even in a scattered sort of way, and that’s okay. I’ve certainly never felt that I’m Super Mom, but I’m coming to see that my priorities are just that — my priorities — and that automatically makes them different from everyone else’s… but it doesn’t make them bad or wrong, nor something to be bothered by or ashamed of.

Again, to paraphrase Michelle (can you tell I really liked her post?!), I’m being a good parent. I’m loving my kids. I’m doing the best I can.

And it makes me happy.

I’m going to scour Pinterest for ideas and then send my girls to school with Halloween-themed Bento boxes – because it makes me smile – and doing so says nothing about anyone else who thinks that Bento boxes are as absurd as The Real Housewives. It says only that I like them, and that’s okay.

I’m never going to knit the girls a scarf, nor make them fabulous scrapbooks, nor send them to school with stitched-together pencil caddies, because that’s just not my bag… which is also okay. And I will always have a perpetually messy stovetop, because making Halloween-themed Bento boxes takes priority over stovetop scrubbing (plus also, hello ADHD), and that says nothing about people who do prize a gleaming kitchen. It only says that I don’t, and that’s okay, too.

Some things I can do.
Others, I can’t.
Or maybe I just don’t. Either way, it’s okay.

I’m going to give myself more of a break, cut myself a little more slack, and allow life to slowly come back together, without rushing it or being impatient with myself when I need to take a little more time. I’m going to do the things that make me happy, and worry far less about the things that don’t (except for, like, mowing the lawn and paying bills, because when I let those slide, it doesn’t work so well), and I’m going to stop apologizing for both. And I’m going to encourage everyone around me to do the very same.

In short, I’m going to quit being a jackass to myself.

All Together in a Scattered Sort of Way

Finding humor in even the most inappropriate places

Category Archives: thinking and talking

Some things were meant to be

Stepping back

Setting the bar reeeeally low

Thin Ice

Honesty is apparently not the best policy

Turns out the invisibility cloak isn’t as much fun as I’d thought

I guess I just miss my friend

Okay, Universe. I’m listening.

Forgotten, but remembered..

Move over, Jackass