Classy

What does the word classy mean? What do you need to have to be classy? I don't think I've quite got it down.

This morning I told Phil that last night there was nothing good on T.V. Usually, the next statement out of my mouth would be a description of the terrible, awful show I watched (until the bitter end) when I should have been doing something else. I told him that I turned off the T.V. and listened to classical music while I folded our laundry. Of course, this was a boldface lie.

I fessed up (I watched "You're Fired" and some sort of real life mystery-documentary) and this somehow led to a conversation about classiness. I know my mom is reading this and thinking: Emily, you are classy. What are you saying? Why do you question this? Mom, I go to the bathroom with the door open. That's not so classy. I plop down into a chair, instead of sit nicely, as you do. I dunno, the grace thing just kind of passed over me. And the classy thing did too.

But is it a good thing to be classy? I mean class is the root of the word. Are you are classist if you are classy. No way. Can't be true. Please weigh in.

What is class? Who has it? Is it a good thing?

Not classy:

bad TV: CSI
clutter
kitsch
forgetting to pluck mustache or unibrow
leaving your dishes undone
forgetting to return calls
being too blunt
trendy colors
donuts (spelled that way)

Classy:

Mystery on PBS
clean line
expensive plain things wit no personal meaning/history
waxing
neat and tidy
timely thank you notes
reserve
navy blue
croissants

Blood

While shopping with me at the drugstore, Ramona stumbles and falls into a card rack. She immediately sits down and examines her injured knee.

Ramona: Mom, it's bleeding. Mom, there is a little bit of blood.

Me: (Without looking) Ramona, I don't see anything.

Ramona: I think you need a flashlight.

Crying women

In college, Chris, Ajay, and Phil had a club called FLEE. It may have stood for something, but I don't remember if it did. This club bonded them together at its inception as sophomore males who took the opportunity to flee situations where women were overly emotional, especially when they were crying. By the middle of our junior year, Chris and Ajay had learned a thing or two by living with me and my depression. They learned to stay instead of flee. One day I started talking to them and crying, a normal occurrence, and they both just listened and nodded their heads. Then Ajay bravely slung his arm over my shoulder. At that moment Chris and I caught each others' eyes and started giggling. It was a preposterous moment. How could the founder of FLEE have become such a good listener? It was beautiful and hilarious.

It took Phil several years of marriage to really get good and responding to the cry. He gave up fleeing long ago. Here are the rules: 1. Be like Amy Hudkins. That means: Just listen quietly. 2. Don't try to problem solve unless advice is solicited. 3. Tell me everything is going to be okay. 4. At the beginning of the crying, don't try to make me laugh. Phil handles general crying like a pro. General crying is when you are crying over something other than your partner. He can see that I am being irrational and that I will move past it soon enough. I admit that I am being a little nutso.

But what are a girl and boy to do when there is more to it? Today I blew up at Phil over a juice box. A Welch's Fruit Punch juice box. I was wrong. I yelled and then cried. I felt like a crazy person and I was acting like a crazy person. I screwed up.

Yet, I think there was a tiny grain of rational thought in what I was saying (yelling) and some reasonable emotion in what I was feeling (blubbering). How is a woman to get her feelings and rational points across when she is a screaming banshee? When I lose it with Phil, he shuts down. He is probably right to do so. Then all is lost. I am a maniac, he is spinning and needs some ice cream from the carton to calm himself, and we get nowhere.

I need to calm down. I need to speak up more often. I need to avoid the volcano and the downpour and keep the emotion. I need to share it in an honest way. Please, Lord, help me to do this.

More on the mind of a blogging fisherwoman and her reader

So Aarti and I were out for dinner on Saturday and I told her the fishing story. When I got to the point in the story where I was walking towards Sumner and trying to get his attention at the cooler, leaving Demo alone with the hook and pole, she interrupted me. She asked, "At this moment where you mainly wanting the fishing pole for yourself or were you worried about Demo with the pole or were you already forming today's blog in your head?" She was three for three.

There were also several times during the conversation where I started to tell her something or she started to ask me something and then we stopped. She had already read about it. Weird.

Aarti also expressed concern that she would be deprived of my live performances of funny stories because I wanted to save them for my blog. No worries there. I am too much of a glutton for attention to miss out on an opportunity to have all eyes and ears on me. So what if she has to endure the same story twice?

Gone Fishing

Rapper's Delight is playing.

Today the fam went to one of our summer hang outs, the Hale Reservation, with some of our friends to swim, canoe, and fish. Sumner and I love to fish. After several hours of swimming and boating, he and I decided to go fish.

For me, fishing is a constant gamble and I love it. Each time I cast the line, I believe that this time I will catch a fish. When I get a nibble, my hopes grow. If we don't reel it in, I can't wait to get back in there and risk some more bait.

I handed Sumner his half-size Scooby Doo pole and grabbed some of our friend's left over string cheese for bait. The Hale Reservation is a stocked pond and last August we caught fish every few minutes (except for the one time when Phil turned on the video camera last summer to document the phenomenon). I usually use worms or hot dogs for bait, but we caught fish with bagels and corn at the Hale, so I figured string cheese could work.

Sumner is a patient fish man. When I cast my line, I am already looking for a reason to reel it in and cast again. Did it catch on some seaweed? Did the bait fall off? Is it in the sweet spot? Sumner has a different chemistry than me and all of the other six year olds in the world. He casts his line, once, and sits down on the edge of the pond and just waits. This kills me. I want to know I am doing something to catch one; Sumner the Wise knows that it is best to just wait.

We were the only people fishing, so Sumner picked a spot, cast his line and plopped down on the sand, getting his shirt all wet and sandy. I painstakingly made no comment on the muddy shirt and tried to settle in to wait a minute or two, before I started to pester him about reeling it in and casting again. About half a minute later, a little girl in a Strawberry Shortcake swimsuit, who was about Sumner's age, approached us. This bold little stranger asked Sumner if she could try the pole.

Sumner said light-heartedly, "Sure." He immediately reeled in his line and passed it over to her. I was so proud. Sumner is not always the best sharer, but here he was giving the little girl his pole selflessly. I was mused that people watching us must think he has great parents.

This little girl had quite an arm. She grabbed the pole and got down to business. She was my kind of fisher: quick, conjecturing about the fish and bait, and not waiting or pausing just to see what might happen. She was casting out further that Sumner and I ever dreamed of casting. Sumner just smiled and watched. 

Then she cast again, flipping off the string cheese with the full force of her little arm. She demanded more bait and kept going. She was taking over the pole. She cast about 10 times. Sumner was still smiling and chatting with her about the fish that were nibbling whenever the bobber bounced. Finally, I had to jump in. I was not here to be a hook-baiter for some strange child.

"Um, Lillian," I said (We had become familiar), "I think Sumner wants a turn. He has been waiting to fish all day and he just got started before you came. Why don't you let him have a turn?"

"Okay," she said to me, and turned to continue casting and conversing with Sumner.

A couple of casts later I said, "Okay, Sumner's turn."

Sumner took the pole, cast the line, sat down, and said to Lillian, "We can take turns. You can go next." 

I wanted to scream at Sumner. Couldn't he see what kind of a little woman he was dealing with? She was not going to take one turn for his one turn. She would take seven. She was taking advantage of him. She would never let him be her equal. She didn't know how to share. She was trouble. I knew her type. He smiled at her more.

Sure enough, after one measly cast, he passed it back to her. After instructing me on how to bait the hook again, she took control of the pole and cast the line a bunch more times. Sumner was not bothered, but I kept nagging her, "Sumner really should take another turn. Lillian, I actually want a turn too. I think you have had enough turns."

Finally she got the message or got bored with manipulating my precious son and went back to swimming. At that very moment a whole gaggle of kids and a parent came up. Now one thing about fishing that is worth some thought is: there is a hook involved. It kind of worries me sometimes. Whenever someone, myself included, flings the line over his or her shoulder, you never know how the Scooby pole will do. I have visions of the hook catching on someone's shirt or nose ring or belly button. So, when these spectators started flocking to us, I got worried. One unknown mother and her sons waded into the water in front of us, which is strictly prohibited at the fishing part of the pond by one of the Hale's rigid water rules. I politely asked this mother to move, while looking over my shoulder to see where a vicious rule-enforcing lifeguard was when you need one. I also told Sumner, who is totally unaware of personal space issues, to move down the beach further to avoid catching a toddler's pigtails. These vulnerable spectators moved with us.

After a couple of casts, while I was baiting the hook with more string cheese, a 10-year old boy with little evident social graces, demanded, "Let me have a turn."

"Hello," I said, "What's your name?"

He muttered something unintelligible. I asked again. "D-E-M-A, Dee-ma," he said with one hand on Sumner's pole. Sumner let him have it and said, "I'm going to go get some of that turkey bacon that Kira brought. It will work better for bait," and he turned and sauntered towards our towels and cooler.

Meanwhile Dema had taken control of the pole. He has the naked hook over his shoulder and is about ready to cast it. "Do you know how to do this?" I checked as the bobber drops onto the sand behind him. "Of course I do," he snapped.

As I untangled the line, I gave D-E-M-A a few tips. He nodded, softening for the first time, and had at it--wildly flipping the pole in many directions. Every couple of casts he realized that he had no bait and turned to me, waiting at a safe distance, for help. We untangled the line several times; once I even removed the hook from his shirt.

Sumner was no where to be seen. I told Dema that I'd be right back and left him with our pole to hook some poor person's eyelid. I started out towards our towel. About 25 steps from where we were fishing, Sumner came into my sight. He was examining every corner and pocket in our cooler, not Kira's, for the bacon and stumbled onto some breakfast bars. His eyes lit up with this discovery. I called him name about 15 times in my best, booming, middle-school-teacher voice as I walked towards him. "Can I eat this?" he eagerly asked once he finally saw me, as I was in spitting range.

I agreed and sent him over to the special eating area, because I follow the rigid rules of the Hale Reservation in fear that the omnipresent lifeguards might get me, although they never seem available to help me. He chowed the bar in about two bites and I got the bait bacon. As soon as Sumner saw it, his eyes lit up even brighter, "Can I eat that bacon Mom? Please can I have that.”?

"Sumner," I scolded, "We are fishing. This is bait. We are going to go catch a fish." With that I started to walk back to Dema and our possibly damaged pole. I turned back to a baffled Sumner and waved a quarter of the piece of bacon at him. He scurried to catch up with me and gobbled it up.

Back at our sweet spot, I ran Dema off and took over the pole for myself. Sumner found an abandoned bucket and filled it with water for the fish we would catch. I handed him the bacon and told him that he could bait the hook. He cooperated, but it is difficult to bait a hook when you don't want to touch the hook. I got to work, trying to get just one damn fish before someone else bothered us. The next time I looked at him, he was crumbling up our bait into the bucket of water, probably taking a few bits for himself. He caught my glance, grinned, and said, "I'm filling the bucket with food so that we can fed the fish when we catch him. Can I have a turn?"

I wanted to scream, "NO, can't you just let me fish!" But I held it together and passed the pole back to its owner. For what seemed like the third time that day, he cast the line. While he was patiently waiting and daydreaming, I saw the bob go underwater and watched the line move from the left to the right. "Bring it in," I shouted and he calmly did. I took the hook out with my bare hands and we watched it eat the bacon bits together for awhile. When he was ready he threw it back in, still smiling.

Why don't doctors listen?

Friday night I posted a blog that was the longest to date. Saturday morning I took it down. Basically it was a very long and gruesome history of my hormonal ups and downs from the time I was 15. It was not my best writing; it was a little gross. I was working through some things as I wrote it. I do know that a few of you read it and that it ended with a "to be continued". Just talk to me personally and we can discuss.

The one story I set out to tell in that blog (and never got to because I got stuck giving background) was about a visit to the doctor's office I had on Friday. I have had bad experiences with hormonal birth control: various types of the pill and the patch. So about 9 months ago I decided to get an IUD, with only topical hormones. For the first few months this form of birth control worked great, but over the last three months I have been extremely tired during the last two weeks of my cycle. So tired I have had a hard time just getting done the things I need to do. I have also become moodier. This month I also have felt a little sick to my stomach. These are all side effects I have experienced with other types of birth control. I also was finding that a lot of my hair seemed to be falling out when I washed it, brushed it, or put it in a ponytail. This was new.

So, I made an appointment to see my ObGyn doctor. I told her how I was feeling. She told me that she did not think these symptoms were from the IUD. She testified that she puts three of these in a week and that only one other patient has ever complained of side effects: breast tenderness and moodiness from Patient X. She told me that she checked with the makers of the IUD and that we, Patient X and I, should not be experiencing any side effects with this IUD. I don't know what "maker" she spoke to, but at www.mirena.com it lists all the side effects I have mentioned except for hair loss and tiredness. Those side effects ARE listed at www.familydoctor.com and www.mayclinic.com.

In an effort to appease me she said, "Why don't we check your progesterone level, your thyroid, and to see if you may be pregnant?" She also told me that she didn't think we would find anything out of the ordinary. Thyroid was a good thing to check just in case my hair loss was legit and may be related to a change in my thyroid. With her other patient, her progesterone level was normal. She doubted that mine will test abnormal. Then I asked, "What about pregnancy?" She said it is very, very unlikely that I am pregnant (www.mirena.com claims that the IUD is 99.9% effective). Then she advised me to keep the mirena in until next week, when the tests come back.

As an after thought, she told me that if I wanted it out, she would take it out. Every bone in her body was advising me to do otherwise.

I went and had my blood drawn. I did not feel good. The nausea was frustrating and irritating, but I could handle feeling a little queasy. But extreme exhaustion is not easy to deal with when you have two little children and a medical student husband to keep up with. It is not really an option to nap and sleep 8 hours a night and still be tired. Moodiness is also not really an option. I think it is hard for a lot of people to understand what I mean by moodiness. It is something that comes over me and it is beyond my control.

Take for instance the other day. On my dresser I found an address label from the Humane Society with the name Rosie Kamal on it. Rosie and her husband Sajed teach at my children's preschool, The Corner Coop. No doubt I love Corner Coop and my family has been and continues to be nurtured by Rosie and Sajed in an amazing way. But when I saw this label, which Ramona probably used while doing an art project at school, I got all choked up thinking: one day (gulp) we will have to say good-bye to Rosie and Sajed (sniff) and that is going to be (cry face forming) hard. Then my voice of reason realizes, "Yeah, but not for at least a year!! Get a grip." A crying fit avoided, moments later I am ready to pour milk on Ramona's head when she uses her regular (and quite squeaky) voice to say, "Would someone pour me some milk?" I am thinking: And who, Ramona, you demanding little CHILD, might that someone BE? Me. Me. ME. I am nothing but your milk-pourer, the martyr and doormat for my family. I know, after or even as I am experiencing this, that I am feeling irrational things. It makes me crazy. If you can't recall what it was like to be at the mercy of your hormones as a teenager or pregnant lady, this may be hard to understand. I want to be Zen about things, but I feel on edge. I hate feeling like I am teetering on the edge of an outburst.

So, as my blood was being drawn I was on the verge of tears, again. It wasn't the needle or the friendly manner of the woman drawing it. It was that I felt my body was telling me that something was not right. It was that I wanted to do something to make myself feel better or feel that I was making progress to feeling better. I thought taking the IUD out might help, as stopping hormonal birth control had helped before. I had a lump in my throat because it is frustrating to not fit into the clinical experience of my doctor, and thus be made to feel like an oddity. Since three very unlikely explanations were given for how I was feeling and no other ideas floated or promised to be generated, I felt a little angry--gypped. Did my doctor think I was crazy? Did she think I was making these things up? Does she think I was describing symptoms that were just par for the mama course? Did she not hear me when I said that these symptoms were different from my baseline?

I will never know, but I had to trust myself. I went back into her office and asked to see her again. The bottom line is: I felt uncomfortable with the IUD. I was pretty sure it was affecting me. I needed to take it out.

As I write this, it is two days later. My energy has returned. I do not feel queasy. I am a little moody still. We'll see where that goes. Tomorrow I will get the blood test back and see if any of my "numbers" are not in the normal range. I am happy that I listen to my body and I just wish that my doctor had listened to me.

Blog Back

Only the Lonely, Roy Orbison

Over a two hour breakfast of cinnamon French toast and cranberry, walnut, blueberry pancakes with sour cream, strawberries, and warm apricot syrup (Doesn't my life sound luxurious?)with one of my faithful readers a blogging issue came up: Do you want me to blog back? The answer is yes, yes, please yes. No pressure. I’d love to hear from you.

Many of my regular readers (all five) have personally emailed me and others have called in responses. Part of the reason I began this blog was to keep my family and friends in touch with me. I'd love it if it helped me to stay in touch with you. I'm new to this blogging thing, but you can comment on the content or style (spoken like a true English teacher)...whatever you think. Free associate if you choose.

Sumner's Moving Up

Sumner "moved up" into the first grade today. He and his kindergarten buddies had a little graduation like ceremony at school. They sang a few songs to canned music and walked across the stage when their names were called.

When getting dressed, Sumner, excited not to have to wear his uniform, donned his loudest Hawaiian shirt and shorts and a green sequin vest that has been in the family costume collection for a couple generations. The green sequins didn't make it to school, but the loud shirt did.

The craziest thing about the ceremony was that they gave out academic awards to the kids. Sumner got an award, along with two others, for Reading Achievement. In my estimation, this means he is the Best All Around Reader in his class. I am thrilled. Three others got awards for Most Improved Reader. There were Writing, Math, Science, Music, and Computer awards that followed the same pattern. No kid got two awards. Do kindergarteners even know what Most Improved means? I hope not! They shouldn't. We should be valuing all of these kids as whole people and respect their individuality. We need to make room in our schools for nurturing other things with the academics--like their creativity and personality. After the academic awards, they gave an award to all the rest of the kids as for their Haley Peacemaking. Finally they gave out a Best All-Around type of award, for the two smartest and nicest kids. The whole thing was just bizarre.

Phil leaned over and told me he was going to call the principal. "First of all," he said, "Obviously Sumner deserved the academic achievement awards not only for Reading, but for Writing, Science, Math and Computer. This thing is fixed." We laughed. Although he never got to the "Second of all", I think he would have agreed with me that we just need to let the kids be kids. They can earn academic awards later.

The Mind of a Blogger

I thought of about 8 things to write about for today and then I realized that I needed to write about that. Blogging is changing the way I think and experience things. It is a little weird. When I played tetris in college, I could see the pieces falling when I shut my eyes to go to sleep. When Sumner, at age four, was making Thomas the Tank engine wooden tracks everyday, I found myself daydreaming about ways to lay out the track so that all of the pieces could be used. Now that I have started blogging, each thing that happens to me seems to be a possible blog.

When something just a little bit noteworthy happens to me, I start retelling it to myself with a David Sedaris-Seinfeld-Anne Lamont twist. A little philosophizing + a little hyperbole with a little bit of my past mixed in. Things that happen each day all of a sudden seem to be possible stories and possible chances to put out my two bits of my world views.

Take for instance today: Sumner riding the school bus for the second time is a chance to discuss letting go of your child. Phil telling me “You’re not helping me here” allows me to write about the balance between supporting your spouse and drowning with them. Ramona asking me “Where is me going today?” reminds me how much she and I think alike. As I run, I start to think about the struggle of what to do when you past someone—smile, nod, say hello, stare ahead? When I feel (sort of) sick today, it gives me a chance to whine about the fact that mothers just can’t get sick! At dinner, when Sumner asks Phil about the island of Southern Georgia (near Antarctica), it gives me a chance to marvel at the reality that my six year old son knows a lot more about geography than I do and that he and Phil (and Ajay) think almost exactly alike.

Believing

No music is playing, but Phil is watching some English movie in the background.

Sumner is slowly starting to stop believing and start questioning.

The other day we were reading a book about forgiving. There was a reference to forgiving as Jesus forgave those who killed him. Sumner said, "I don't believe it. Why would you forgive someone for that?" There was a bit of awe in his question, but mainly practical, good sense. Why?

Today he showed his friend Nikhil a rock that he's had for a couple of years. He said, "I've had this for two years and it hasn't hatched yet." Then he caught himself. He said, "I used to think it was a dinosaur egg."

I still believe that I may be the president of the USA one day. And that Jesus did forgive his killers. And that that forgiveness is liberating. How can I encourage him to keep believing?

I just can't go to bed.

I Don't Believe You, Bob Dylan is playing.

Sometimes I can't muster the activation energy to get off the couch and and move to my bed.

Sometimes I am laying in bed waiting for Phil to come to bed. I am worried that I will fall asleep before he comes and then he will come in before I am totally asleep and I will wake up and be more awake than ever.

Sometimes I need to do stuff.

Sometimes I lay in bed thinking of things I need to do.

During the day, mainly the afternoon, I am really pooped. I want to take a nap desperately. But when I nap, I can only sleep for about 20 minutes. Then I wake with a start even if there is nothing to "start" about.

Junior Reno

Grannabelle calls arcades Junior Renos. Little dens of sin that prepare you for the real thing, so that once you are old enough to sneak your way onto a casino floor--you are ready.

I do not like video games. Another one of the great deprivations (along with MTV) of my childhood was that we never...NEVER...had a video game system. Thus, I never enjoyed going to the video arcade. Neither did Tina. Or Greg.

But somewhere along the line, probably at a pizza parlor, Tina, Greg, and I discovered that Greg was awesome at winning stuffed animals in the claw machines. Those machines are impossible. No one ever plays them and no one ever wins. Except for Greg. The precision with which he could pick up and win ugly, often hard, stuffed animals was unusual. He constistently beat the odds. I didn't like the stuffed animals we won; I really thought they were kind of tacky. But I loved gambling and knowing that with Greg at the joystick we would do the unexpected.

Recently Sumner has been checking out the claw machines. At various the video arcades, pizza parlors, and airport bars we frequent, he begs us to try the claw. We tell him, as we put the quarters in the Skee Ball machine, that the claw machine is a trick. It is trying to take his money and no one ever wins. Mini golf is so much fun by itself, why do we need to also try the claw? If we do the claw that means one less try to shoot the quarter into a bowl to win a family ashtray? But he pushes on and marvels that the claw machine and the tacky toys that are stuck inside of it.

One day, I broke down and told him two things. First, I told him about Greg and how amazing it was, back in the day, to see his "talent" override the system again and again. Second, I told him that next time we saw one of those machines that I would "teach him a lesson" by showing him how hard it is to win with the claw. This just fueled the fire. Sumner talks about Greg, wonders what he is doing now and how we could recruit him to join us at Chuck E. Cheese next year for Sumner's birthday.

So, on Friday night, Sumner and Ramona and I found ourselves at Papa Gino's waiting for take out. There was a claw machine and Sumner and Ramona stationed themselves at it and gawked at the items inside. I offered to give it a try, finally. We immediately lost 4 quarters before we realized that the machine wasn't plugged in. So, we plugged it in and put another dollar in. For a dollar, you get three tries. Sumner wanted me to be at the joystick. Try one, we didn't even get a prong of the claw on a toy. Try two, the claw fingered an arm that was connected to a bear lodged between two other animals. Try three, bingo, we won a horrible little bird stuffed with something like akin to newspaper and pebbles. Sumner was estatic, "It's like we have Greg here. You are so good at this game. Mom, we won. We won!" This was not what I had hoped would happen

Now, Ramona wanted a try. So, I antied up. Three more tries, three failures. Ramona looked at me through those tiny glasses, dumbfounded and then started to whine. She looked at me at said, "I want to learn the lesson Sumner learned."

Now Grannabelle, what am I supposed to tell her?

Can you be friends...

with someone when there is a power differential between you?

I am thinking of this in the context of race and class, but I think that it can be expanded beyond that. What if your "friend" is more beautiful? More experienced? Smarter? More accomplished? Richer? Younger? Older? Happier?

Can you really be friends?

Pushing Buttons

Shanty Town, Toots

Sumner, Ramona, and I make a fair amount of trips to Children's Hospital each month. One was yesterday. Getting from our car in the parking garage to our appointment is often a battle of will, patience, negotation, and wile. Why? Because of the buttons. As soon as I slid the door shut to the van, all three of us knew what we were going to face in a few steps. Sumner started strategizing three button pushes ahead, Ramona started squeaking about the button she could see, and I tried to over power them both and by saying how it will be. As we were walking towards the elevator, one child holding each of my hands, we were already in a frenzy.

Pushing the inside elevator button is more prized than pushing the outside elevator button. You may push the button that another has touched first, but touching it after the first person has lit it up is not much fun.

Ramona punches the button before Sumner has laid out a grand plan. Sumner remains calm, as he has already calculated that he will press the inside button since his jumpy little sister barreled ahead without thinking. Once inside the elevator Ramona wants to press the inside button as well--it is in front of her and she gets there first. With promises and assurances to Ramona that even if she doesn't pressing the button she sees right now that she will have a chance in a moment to press the inside button, we begin the journey.

After 3-foot-tall Ramona held the door open for every last person who was riding with us to exit, we were on the street level. Next, we faced a button that opens the door for wheelchairs and strollers to the sidewalk. Ramona is more tuned into the door buttons than Sumner (they are not part of his calculations), but once she had pressed one of these door buttons and he realized he had missed a button-opportunity and he was very cross.

He was so cross and she was so gleeful that both of them forgot to press the crosswalk button, but it doesn't light up or make something happen instantaniously, so it was missable. I pressed it just in case it increased our chances of making it into the building, past the pastries and toys, and up to the appointment in five minutes, but niether one of them noticed. I also tries to joke with Sumner. I was not teasing, because he says the teasing is when you are trying to make someone mad and joking is when you are trying to be funny. "It's just a button. Here, come press my nose, my finger, my leg. You can press anything." He was not having it.

We walked up to the front door, I was at the front, dragging Sumner behind me, as he is in no hurry to be anywhere anytime and needs to hold my hand whenever we are walking around in public. Ramona was trailing two to five steps behind us because she hates to hold hands. We walked through the rotating door, made it past the food and toys, ambled up the stairs, ran to the free sticker counter (which is often closed), and to the next elevator.

In theory, whoever pressed the inside elevator button before should have pressed the outside button now and vice versa. This is always a key moment. It could all go fine, if they follow protocol. As is more often the case than not, speedy little Ramona zipped up and pressed the button, without concern for what happened before. Since Sumner was keeping a tally of the last elevator button pressing, the button pressing from the last time we were at the hospital, and everytime Ramona has aced him out of anything ever, he got mads and called her stupid or poopy. She countered with stupid or poopy, whichever he missed. Both apologized and both forgave, but everything still needed to be renegotiatied. Now, no matter what happened at the first elevator, he technically should get to press the inside button. If fairness ruled, then Ramona throws a fit, because she doesn't get the push the inside "precious" button.

Somehow, we made it to our destination without Ramona getting caught in the door, even though she held it open for every nurse, stroller, and innocent bystander that gots on or off the elevator. She thought she was the boss of the elevator. On our floor, the kids rushed into the waiting room and tuned into the TV. They had forgotten everything. I laid the upper half of my body across the check-in counter and wished they had some good beer on tap or a cup of tea brewing next to that big printer back there. The administator who checked us in offers me a tissue.

Yesterday I wondered why all of these buttons matter so much. Why the passion, the tears, the drama? I think I am on to something: Sumner and Ramona want to make something happen. When they are the first to press a button they are responsible for making a big machine or a heaving door do something. They feel accomplished. They feel powerful. They feel excited. The thrill is irresitable.

I realized that this is what I too want more than anything. I want to make something happen. I want to change something, someone. I want to impact the world. I want to make a machine move when I press a button. I want to have an influence on my world. That is why I feel angst and torment about what I am supposed to be doing with my life and when I am supposed to be doing it. Right now I see that I am making something happen. The Skelding machine is running a little smoother right now. We are chugging along. The question is, now that we are chugging more seamlessly, where are we going?

Steer It Up, Little Darlin'

Stir It Up, Bob Marley

I do most of the driving in this family. And I am known far and wide as having terrible taste in music and a very weak knowledge of music that most of my contemporaries know. What can I say? My mom didn't let me watch MTV. I have always been connected to people with excellent music collections and taste and so my philosophy has been if my friends and family can DJ my life there's one less thing for me to do.

When I drive the kids around I let them fight it out about what we listen to. For the last month or so we have been under the tyranny of Johnny Cash. Sumner will sit in the way back of the van and sing, "call him drunken Ira Hayes, he won't answer any more, not the whiskey drinkin' Indian, nor the marine that went to war." He'll shout out requests to me, "Skip 'Six Feet High and Risin''!" But I really don't mind listening to a song 100 times or listening to kid's stuff. Sometimes I listen and sing along to Veggie Tales or Raffi when I am in the car by myself.

Phil is a different story. He is from New Orleans for God's sake. It isn't like he can't enjoy Raffi's "Down By the Bay" or Veggie Tales' "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything". He just can't relinquish all of the car air time to Children's Choice 24-7. So, he opens the kids up to the good stuff. Last Friday he was listening to Catch a Fire and got Ramona to get into "Stir it Up". So she now does this peculiar interpretive car dance to it and requests it constantly. When the introduction begins, she points a couple fingers at me and then swivels her little wrists around, pointing at other things, while opening her mouth when the guitar comes in. It is a sight. She calls the song, "Steer it Up", spoken with a perfect Jamaica accent. Today, when I was listening to it with her, she screamed, "He just said Ramona." Upon listening to it with her several times, I realized that some of his "oh, oh, ohs" could sound a little like Ramona, but the "little darlin's" most certainly are addressed to her.

Maybe there it hope for me. Perhaps my kids can DJ the next 18 or so year of my life and then, just maybe, I can start spinning my own tunes.

Is camping fun?

Packing up, driving with excited kids, setting up, mosquitoes and ticks, bug spray, smoke-in-your eyes, tea with soy milk, sleeping with your kids, sleeping on the ground, trying to keep dirt out of the tent, waking up with your kids at 5:30am on the weekend and no TV to keep them entertained and you sleeping, the dirt-oceanbath-sleeping-in-clothes film that gets all over your body, the stink of that film, packing up, driving home with dirty-tired kids, unpacking, airing everything out all week.

Campfires, smores, bike rides, fishing, finding a catapillar house, getting dirty and not caring, talking with friends outside at night after the kids are asleep, going to bed early and getting up early, cheap vacation, corned beef hash for breakfast, the kids just loving every minute of it, the smell of the forest, campground stores, swimming anywhere that's not a pool, getting buried int the sand by a bunch of kids, surviving without being plugged in, a new car camping stove, brushing teeth over a cup, peeing in the forest and teaching your kids to, making very good use of your minivan.

A Barmaid and An Aristocrat

Today, I was talking to a friend who was going to be staying the night at our house when we were not there. I made a comment over the phone to her, in Phil's presence, that was rather crude. Too crude to repeat here for the more mature readers. I hung up. Phil was shaking his head, aghast. He said to me, "If we lived 300 years ago, you would be a barmaid and I would be an aristocrat." While this may be true, I know our friend would have been a collegue of mine 1705 and that every good aristocrat enjoys a barmaid every once in awhile.

Child free Adulthood

is a mystery to me.

I saw the movie Closer last night and I was puzzled by several things.

At one point one of the characters says to another that she stayed up until 4AM reading a book the other character wrote. This one comment, irrelevant to the plot, gave me something to think about for awhile. That woman, a childless adult, 30-something (like me) could stay up until 4 and then wing it the next day. She might drink a lot of coffee or nap or call in sick or go to bed early. Staying up until 4am, which I do from time to time (once a year, more like it) would set me back a week.

Yet, staying up until 4am sounds fabulous. It sounds like college and Teach for America. It sounds like the good old days when I chose the things I wanted to do at the spur of the moment instead of being spurred on by things that are happening to me at any given moment. It sounds like adolescence. I am jealous of the luxury of staying up until 4am.

But the movie wasn't about reckless abandon in the area of time management. The movie was about four people whose names I can't even remember now. The script was written for the stage and it revolves around intense conversations between these four characters. Woman 1 and Man 1 get together. Man 1 meets Woman 2 and they kiss; Woman 1 knows. Man 1 accidentally connects Man 2 to Woman 2. They get together. Man 1 and Woman 2 have an affair. A year later they end their relationships and get together. Woman 1 and Man 2 hook up. Oh, it goes on and on. Two of them end up together, two end up alone. They run in circles.

It seemed so stupid. I wanted them to just grow up and be less self-involved. It seemed like the life they were living was about silly frivolous feelings of lust and personal frustrations. (I sound like my mother preaching at her kitchen table.) It seemed much removed from real life. Real life is good food and friends. And loyalty and commitment. Friendship. Accepting things as they are and really enjoying the here and now. Loving fully and unconditionally.

Not all child free adults are commitment-phobic or self absorbed. Many get the aforementioned real life ideas, but I can attest to the fact that having children and a husband put me on the fast track to understanding real life. It helped me to set aside the bullshit and dig into the real shit. So, I don't stay up until 4am, but I read myself to sleep every night.

Homonyms

A Day In The Life, Beatles

First Sumner asked what the name was for those pancakes that you roll up with jam, "I keep forgetting the name."

"Crepes," I told him, thinking that I cannot remember him ever forgetting the name of anything.

"Can we have them for dinner?"

"Not with jam, but I could make them with ham and cheese."

"I want them with jam."

"You'll like them with ham." As if I know what he is going to like.

Then he asked me why bat and bat, two words that mean different things are spelled the same way. I told him that there are alot of words that sound the same, but mean different things and that some of them are also spelled the same way, but some just sound alike. He was tracking with me, even if you're not. I gave him the example of two, to, and too and used each one in context.

"Like but and butt," he told me without a smirk.

"Yes. Or like..."

"Ball and ball."

"What are the two types of balls?" I asked, as if I need an education.

"You know, the ball you kick or throw and the ball for the olden times."

"Olden times?"

"Like the ball that Cinderella goes to."

Ah, yes, those balls. What was I thinking?

Some Questions on Sleep

Wise Men Say, Elvis is playing.

Sometimes when I am tired I really think something is wrong with me. Am I tired because I had an exhausting day or is it because I don't have enough spunk left in me? I think it is as if energy is a well and I have already spent a lifetime of it.

At 18, Erika used to tease me about how I "saved up" on sleep. It is a Annabelle (my mom) concept. The week before I moved to NYC to start my freshman year at Columbia I slept extra so that my sleep account would have a lot of cushion for that first semester. It didn't work. I got mono.

Today I woke at 6AM. Tried to pray in bed, but dozed on and off. I ran from 6:35 to about 7:00. Came home, ate, woke Ramona, fed the kids, packed the lunches, got them in the car. Drove to Sumner's school. Drove to Ramona's school. Returned to the mini van in front of Ramona's school and organized the junk in the trunk that needed to be either sold at consignment shop, given to e-bay fundraiser at Ramona's school, or given away. Went to my mother's group, a small group from my church. Went grocery shopping. Watered plants. Ramona arrived home. Read to her. Ate lunch. Took a 10 minute nap. Got up. Went to pick up Sumner. Ramona fell asleep on the way home. Carried her and her car seat inside. Sumner snacked and played. I put away groceries. Put Ramona and Sumner back into car and drove to park to meet friends and play. Took the car to the car wash. Stopped by store to pick up something I forgot and needed. Came home. Made dinner. Put kids to bed.

If that enough to make me feel as tired as I feel? I could fall asleep right here if I laid my head down. Is this normal? I slept 7 hours. Isn't that reasonable?

If I was rested would it mean I would be nicer or happier.

What could 8 solid hours of sleep do for me? I think I'll leave the dishes, turn it in, and try this 8 hour thing. L&O SVU will have go unwatched. More on the realtionship btwn TV and sleep and tiredness later.

Good night.

How did I get here? Loving my no-so-mini van

Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads

I find myself a beautiful wife behind the wheel of a large automobile and I know how I got here. I love my mini van. I can't get over how much I love my mini van. I never, ever (until the last couple of months) have understood how people (my father) could get so much pleasure out of a car. I respect people who don't worship their cars.

Take for instance my friends Chris or Marianne. Chris drove a used Ford Taurus for quite a while without complaint. It worked; he got places. No need to fuss about it. Marianne once told me her dream car was one she didn't have to maintain. Reliability was the only criteria she had when choosing a car. Marianne and I both drove white Toyota Tercels at the time and taught in classrooms right next to each other. Hers was about 10 years older than mine and I would gaze on it thinking happily of the life with my Tercel that was yet to be lived.

My father, on the other hand, loves cars. Buying a car takes him months just because he likes to spend time in dealerships looking at his options, making friends with the dealers. He really does make friends with car dealers. Dad and Mom like small, European cars. He and my mother zip around, only in the summer months, in a little silver TT Roadster. I guess she lets her hair blow (hard to imagine), or perhaps she has it neatly tied in a scarf with Jackie O sunglasses. My dad must be a sight with the breeze blowing through his bushy eyebrows. He's taken me on rides in this car and it is kind of fun, but I just don't get it. My brother, my husband, my son, strangers on the street seems to really get a kick out of the car. The speed, the features, the leather seats. As five-year-old Sumner astutely put it last summer, although Papa couldn't find his way around a hammer or build Sumner a tree house, "He knows sports cars."

I just can't get into it. There has always been this divide between my father and me. I spent a childhood missing the best scenic views and rugged, wooded hikes on family vacations because it was too upsetting for my father to drive his car on a gravel road. My family did get a fair amount of hiking in and were late to most movies and ball games because my father insisted in parking in remote, protected parking spots so that he could minimize (eliminate) the number of opportunities other drivers had to open their doors and ding his car doors. It wasn't as if we needed to exercise as we were on strict eating-only-when-far-out-of-crumb-distance-from-car diet.

I should say I just couldn't get into it until now. I can empathize. Cars where things that got me places until my mini van. Cars were cars and anything bigger than an Accord were obnoxious until I got my mini van. By the grace of God and generosity of my in-laws, we are the proud owners of a new mini van and I just love it. I derive a great deal of pleasure from it.

First of all, you can walk around in a mini van. Walk Around. It is pretty much like adding another room onto your house. You can haul things, lots of things--as if you have a truck--and still drag your children with you when you do it. You can haul other children around with you: more than one, two or three. To drive one extra child home with me I used to have to fight three car seats in an impossible and awkward way just to get everyone safely home. Now they extra kids just climb in and WALK to a seat. It is wild stuff. Sometimes we drive another whole family with us. It is a party on wheels.

And did I mention the doors? They don't swing, they slide. Never again will I struggle not to ding the car next to me as I wrestle a child out of a car seat or cringe when Sumner taps someone else with his door. These doors lock and unlock with a cute little button on my key. The storage? Fan-tastic! We have an arsenal of toys and games that keep the children occupied and we still have room for a Kleenex box and baby wipes. There is even a trap door in the floor with a mini van mini basement. Finally, the cup holders, all 15. I admit, I scoffed at this number when I initially heard it, especially since 8 of the 15 are in the front row, but we have put them to use. On long trips it isn't bad to have a spot to put a water bottle, a cold drink and a small container of snack--not that I eat in the car.

So now, I find myself trolling for "safe" parking spaces where my sliding doors can be free from careless sedan drivers. My children know to wait until we are out of the car to ask for a snack. Ramona strictly enforces these rules with her carpooling buddies when they are in our car.

Becoming a mini van driver seems to be as important of a rite of passage as watching your first child's first soccer practice. After years of puzzling about why people get pleasure out of cars or why most of American mother drive giant boats when wagons would do, I get it. It makes perfect. It feels right. It is pleasurable. Really pleasurable. Mmm goood.

Young and Old

You Were Always on My Mind, Willie Nelson

My ankle hurts. My back hurts. I need to take a nap. I feel like such a wimp. I spent the morning and early afternoon at Sumner's school's tag sale. I netted like $50. What a waste. I am so exhausted. I feel old.

Most of my 40ish parent-friends think of me as SO young, but I am getting older. I like being 30. For most of my twenties I felt like a kid masquerading as an adult. I felt like a wayward adolesent with no one to rebel against. My secret teenage identity must have been well concealed, because schools hired me to teach kids, I got married, I bought big things like cars and houses, I had children, and made my best effort to look like I knew what I was doing. At 30 I finally feel like I am getting the hang of this adulthood thing. I am no longer in a big hurry. My mom always says that I was born two weeks early and that ever since then I've been a month ahead of her. It is true that I have always packed it in, but I can't do it anymore. Part of me thinks: what's the rush? I am only 30. I have my whole life in front of me.

I wonder what I will think (of my age) tomorrow.

Emily

Trying It Out

Bonnie Tyler, Turn Around is playing.

Philip and I are going to have a big year. We are in love with each other and our children. Our kids are both kids, not babies or toddlers. Diapers & sippy cups have been replaced with carpools and school fundraisers. Change isn't happening as rapidly as it was for most of the last six years.

We will both finish our education in the next 12 months and get down to business, whatever that means. Residency will hit us next year about this time. I will be looking for or towards a job and financial responsiblity will hit us in a real way. We will be packing up the house moving somewhere...across town, across the country...there are a lot of questions.

Since I have taken this semester off and have caught my breath, I am reflective. I want a place to write about it all. In some strange way I want to expose my inner self. I hope someone will be able to read about this and comment. This year will not be a transition year (same schools, same home, same friends), yet it will be all about transition. I need to get it all out.

Philip may write too.

Emily