Sunday, October 30, 2005

Out Space Ba-bie

I bought Ramona her first Barbie on Friday. But it is a NASA Barbie and I bought it at a Thrift Store and her hair is brown and her feet are flat. Of course she also has a tiny waist and giant boobs without nipples. Go figure.

We've had many Barbie moments in the last two days. Some of them are common Barbie experiences and some are unique:

1. Her head popped off within 10 minutes of buying her. Why does that always happen?
2. Her arms and legs can bend into all sorts of unatural positions, which Sumner has to undo for Ramona.
3. Ramona called her "Girl-Dollie" and then "Airplane Girl" because she was from a Rocket Ship. Then Sumner renamed her "Rocket Girl", but as Ramona fell asleep (with the new Barbie sitting next to her--you can't cuddle a Barbie) she started calling her "Out Space Dollie" or, my favorite, "Out Space Ba-bie"
4. We've done her hair, which is too much for her head, several times. Ramona brushed it for quite awhile at the sushi bar while we waited for dinner to be served.
5. Sumner exclaimed after a part of an hour of owning her, "We could take her clothes off!" And we did. The next day. And her clothes are now missing so we have a naked freak of nature laying on the living room floor.

Barbie, Barbie, Barbie. What is it we see in you?

Friday, October 28, 2005

Just A Regular Person

As I sat down to write this quick anecdote, Ramona was running behind me, from the front door to the back and back and forth again. She was wearing wings and told me she was a butterfly. Just before this she asked me to show her how to shoot Sumner's play guns. Then she came up and told me, as she took off her wings, "I'm not a butterfly any more. I'm just a regular person." There's nothing regular about her.

This morning Sumner told me that he wants to invite 32, no 34, people to his birthday party, which is in March. What theme does this fun loving 6-year-old want to have? A chess party. Why does he want to invite 34 people? He wants for 32 of them to dress as live chess pieces and he wants for two of them to actually play chess with the live chess pieces in our front yard. That will be a sight. He said that Ramona's friends can be the pawns.

When I suggested that some people, including me, may not know how to play chess or enjoy standing in the cold with a crown on their heads, Sumner said, "There could be other activities. Like regular chess." Ramona just offered to teach me how to play chess. Then Sumner had a bright idea, "They could also play checkers."

At least the cake would be an easy shape. There are no "Regular People" in this house.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Through Ramona's Eyes

Today there is a Nor'eastern here in Boston. That's a bad storm, usually with snow, which forces you have to stay inside and blows your garbage cans around your yard. The wind is wild.

Sumner, Ramona, and I, being the troopers that we are, still braved the rain and wind this morning when we walked to Sumner's bus stop. It was pretty wet. Sumner walked backwards for part of the journey. When we got to the "bus stop" (an unsheltered corner two blocks from our house), Sumner and Ramona and I huddled close together. Ramona exclaimed, "This wind is going to blow me off the corner." Sumner and I chuckled, imagining Piglet flying on the end of his sweater string in "The Blustery Day".

Finally, the bus came and Sumner climbed into the sauna of a bus. I wanted to ride a couple blocks with him to warm up. Ramona and I waved goodbye to him. Then we stood on the curb, waiting for a gap in the traffic to pass. A wet paper plate lay in front of us on the street. Ramona said, "Look mom. The moon." It seemed to her that all this wind blew the moon from the sky to our feet.

It made me think, once again, about perspective. The old a-dog-is-as-big-to-a-child-as-a-horse-is-to-an-adult idea seems applicable. The wind, which got my pants a little wet and the kids glasses speckled and all of us wanting for hot chocolate, blew Ramona's moon down. Wow.

Monday, October 24, 2005

The Two Me's

I am the victim of a very happy childhood. I was happy, but not in a clueless way. I was sheltered, but not naive. Of course, my childhood--like everybody else's--was not without knocks, yet I was generally content and confident and at the same time thoughtful and sometimes serious.

The problem is that my parents believe in me (and still do) and told me so all that time (and still do). This shaped me. It made me a believer. I believe in a lot of things, including Jesus (and his resurrection). I believe that there is good in everyone. I believe that singing camp songs can improve a bad mood, not create it. I trust and am rarely afraid of people. I believe in children. I believe in quick forgiveness and I like to give lots of compliments. I don't worry much about locking doors (but I do it to appease my husband and mother).

While I think all of these beliefs are good, I harbor one that causes me a lot of anguish: I believe that I can be and do anything I want to be.

You see, not only did my parents tell me that they believed in me (and still do), they sent me to theatre and basketball and soccer camps, women in science workshops, church retreats, and a series of schools that equipped me with some skills and reinforced the notion that I could be anything I wanted to be.

All of this cheerleading is a good thing. (I still believe that I could be President on day.) The thing is that while it was assumed that I would have a family, no one ever told me what it takes to be a good mom or if being a "just a" mom is on the approved "Anything You Want To Be" list. I knew that while missionary, politician, professor, writer, and artist were on the list that doctor, lawyer, and groundskeeper were off. Mom was not even on the map.


I have a lot of passion for equity and education. I believe that in my small way I can affect change and help push us towards a more equitable world. (This is doing anything I want to do.) Where race and poverty intersect interests me and I love to teach children. They energize me. I believe on some level that I was called to some sort of work that involves these things. I have always been drawn to children and I have always seen unfairness in the world. I want to do something about it. I want to work really hard in a job fighting the good fight.

I also have a lot of passion for Sumner and Ramona and Philip. I like to share meals, that I have cooked, with them. I like to have time with them that is not rushed and always task oriented. I like giving my undivided attention to my family. I want to have more members in our family. Homemaking (whatever that means) is even growing on me.

So there are two me's. One is 16 going on 31 and she wants to take the world by storm, fighting inequity and fostering hope where I can. She has only work on her mind. The other me is 31 with many years ahead of me and a little experience to stand on. I know I love teaching, but I also know that every moment spent creating a family is precious. So I am conflicted. I am not sure how I can be the two me's and so I am not sure how to be me. Right now, I can’t be everything I want to be. Thank God I am the victim of a happy childhood, not a hopeless one. I will have to pace myself.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Raw

Debra by Beck is playing. ( Jake and Phil and I had some fun listening to this with Jake's friend Luke in Quito in 2000. That seems like a long time ago.)

When I blog, I often blog about the trivial and use it to tell about something--an idea or a joke or a value--that I am working out in my own head. I also use my blog to just practice writing and describing things.

There have been a lot of times when I want to write about more. I want to write about hard stuff. I want to write about fighting with Philip and I want to write about the intricacies of race that I am thinking about and I want to write about the pressure of choosing a residency program and city to move to and that making this choice feels like we are choosing the rest of our lives. I want to make the blog rawer. Mainly it would help me to articulate my thinking and feelings about these harder things. I want to capture more vunerablity. Sometimes I think that I paint a picture of only the bright side of things. I would like to paint every side of things.

The reality is, although I can write about turds of pooh, I just can't get into the raw stuff. For goodness sake, my mom and my mother-in-law and Philip read this. This blog has a PG rating. But really, the hard stuff is--naturally--hard to write about. I have attempted to write about these things, but these blogs remain in my edit box, probably never to be published to the public. Yet I think these are the things people really could get a lot out of reading. I know I would get a lot out of writing these things.


If I write a "raw" blog, it will carry an R rating.

Fat Things

Ramona is interested in fat things. First it was fat boobies. Now it is fat butts.

You see, she does this thing where she puts her head face down on our couch or comfy chair, right by at the back of the chair. Then she kicks her legs up and over the back of the chair, all the while chattering.

In the minivan today, she said, "Someone with a fat butt couldn't do the thing I do in the living room on the chair." Of course, she is 100% correct, but where did she get this understanding of fat butts and, inversely, teenie tiny butts (like her own)?

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Readers

In his first year teaching, an old boyfriend of my roommate once told my mom, "I used to read, before I started teaching."

I want to read too. I want to read a couple of books a week. I think reading is a good thing. I love reading a thought that is new or one that I have been trying to articulate for a long time or one the rings true or one that makes me go "eww". I do believe that reading, if you choose wisely to read things that are diverse, stretches you and gives you a circle of ideas that you may not be able to access in your social circle. See, reading is a good thing.

The thing is, I watch TV. The reason is my mind is always buzzing. All day long, everyday, I am thinking, making connections, and rethinking. Sometimes it can be almost manic. If I read, my mind continues to buzz. It doesn't still itself. I continue to make connections with myself. When I watch TV I can finally push pause and now think. I need that. So I tell myself.

The other thing is, I am also just too tired to read. If I get into bed and read, I am lucky if I make it three pages. But I need time to chill. If I don't chill, I can't rest. I can sleep, but it isn't quite as restful.

So I am going to push myself to start reading more than three pages a day (not including school reading and the newspaper) and see if I can also allow myself to watch TV.

I'll update the blog later on how its going and what I am reading.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Talk About Digging Deep

Sumner "passed" the quarter! Now what kind of parlance is that? Passed? As though he passed it from one person to another.

It is a well know fact that there are a lot of kind of poops. Some poops stream out. Others slowly ease themselves out. Some explode and still others plop. Sumner's poop on Saturday night, his first since the Thursday afternoon pooh I dug through, was a plopper. When he called me (and the chopsticks) in, there were about 5 or 6 firm little turds in the toilet.

I stabbed into one that was lying in the bottom of the hole where everything gets flushed. To avoid any unnecessary stink, I poked it apart underwater with the tip of the chopstick. No money. Then I jabbed into the biggest turd of all. It would not crumble as the first one did, so I brought it close to the surface of the stink-protective water. And there it was...the grooved edge of a quarter. Sumner, standing next to me with his pants around his ankles was happy to see it. He wanted to get it out of there and keep it, but I have my limits. So we flushed New Hampshire down to the sewers. I shudder to think who it may "pass" onto. Be wary of New Hamphire quarters that you find on the ocean floor. You never know.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Annabelle Grace

My friend Darcy, who I have known since we moved down the alley from her when I was nearly three, had a baby and she dared to name it Annabelle. Annabelle Grace. Heaven help us.

To say that Darcy and I have strong personalities is an understatement. She has been likened to (and played the part of) Lucy (from the comic strip Peanuts). And me? To Darcy's Lucy I am Peppermint Patty.

Some of my first memories were of arguing with Darcy over who was the boss. She was older and a little taller and she had a little sister, so I pretty much was stuck under her regime for a while. Later, her little sister came over to my side, I grew and she didn't (she's like 4'11"), and I realized that she was only a month older than me. I managed to get a word in edgewise and we fought some more. Most of the time, we get along just fine. It is so comfortable to be with her and her husband. It's just...if she would listen to me and do what I said--and vice versa--we'd all be just fine.

We love to play games with Darcy and Thad and her sister Dell and husband Tony. We giggle and giggle and giggle.

As you might have gathered from this blog, good old Annabelle has some punch too. She taught me how to stand up to Darcy. She and Darcy both are direct and they don't mince words. They are smart and snappy. They aren't afraid to stand up for themselves.

When my parents exiled themselves to Iowa, Darcy and her husband Thad were already in that strange land, for Darcy's medical school. She and Thad would spend random Sundays and lonely holidays with my parents. My parents would visit them in the big city of Des Moines and see Darcy's latest decorating home project or the new addition Thad put onto their house after dinner and a movie. There is a lot of affection between the four of them.

So Darcy dared to name her brand new baby Annabelle. Annabelle Grace. I recently heard that grace is how God resources us to handle out lives in all of their beautiful and bleak reality. Darcy will need some grace to raise another Annabelle.

God bless them all. I can't wait to meet this little one.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

I Know An Old Lady

who swallowed a fly...I dunno why she swallowed a fly...perhaps she'll die.

I have a young son...who swallowed a quarter...I dunno why he swallowed a quarter...perhaps he'll die.

Have you ever dug into your child's feces with a single chopstick in an effort to double check that the foreign object they swallowed "passed"? I can now say, I have.

Last night at 6:30, just as I was tidying up the dinner dishes, Sumner slumped into the kitchen and asked for a glass of water. After taking a sip he admitted he had just swallowed a quarter.

"And how did that quarter happen to be in your mouth?" I asked.

"I was playing with it. In my mouth."

Annoyed and worried, I called Phil and the Children's Hospital ED and my pediatrician’s help line. They all concurred: take him in.

Now I don't want to sound heartless, but I did not want to take him in. Sumner woke up that very morning at 4:15AM, early even for him. The weekend before I was in DC staying up too late acting like it was Phoenix 1997. Monday I tried to recuperate. Tuesday I turned in a paper and had a late-ish night out with the kids (9PM) for a Parent Council Meeting while Phil was on call. I was so looking forward to children in bed and asleep at 7PM and an hour or so to myself before Phil came home. And now this.

Well, he wasn't having trouble breathing, so I made the kids take their meds, clean their toys up, and brush their teeth. Ramona got in PJs and Sumner changed into pants he could sleep in and we took off, in the rain, for the hospital. Phil met us there and took Ramona home while Sumner and I registered.

We were there for about 4 hours. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Coloring on Xeroxed sheets of Sponge Bob and Pooh Bear and other such nonsense with some of the other children in the waiting room and then turning over a Scooby Doo sheet and free styling a couple colorful designs and drawings. That got every child at the coloring table's attention. Why don't places like that stick with blank paper?
  • Watching Sumner get a little scared and mainly thrilled by a made-for-TV kid's Disney movie: his hand was over his mouth as he said, "My heart is beating so fast."
  • Exposing him to the original "Parent Trap" when we finally got a room and borrowed a video from the ED video shelf. Sumner's reaction, "They're sisters."
  • Watching the nurses get a kick out of Sumner, who loves to have his blood pressure taken and oxygen tested, "I just love things that squeeze something on me and show numbers about me."
  • Hearing him explain to one of these nurses that he doesn't like needles and needing reassurance that he won't need to have one poke him. I said, "Let's not worrying about that right now." He said, "I am not so good at putting away worry."
  • While he was getting his chest x-rayed, he smiled for the camera--really big and cheesy. Later, after we saw the film, he told me, "I thought I was going to be able to see my face and the face on the quarter."

The film proved that the quarter was not in his lung or esophagus. By 10:30PM it was already in his stomach. While we were waiting for a cab, I lectured him about how ridiculous this whole situation was and told him to lay off the quarters. “Don’t put things in your mouth ever again.” He smiled at me and said, “Even food?” We were home by 11 and his was asleep about 2 minutes later.

In therapy I have learned to be able to say: a lot of crazy and often difficult things have happened to me in the last seven years. Now it is October 2005. Hurricane. Retina. Quarters. What next?

Two final thoughts: 1. My brother swallowed a nickel in seventh grade, never told anyone, and is still worried that it is inside of him doing damage. So, I am going to be digging in more poop so that this doesn't haunt Sumner at age 25. 2. My brother also shoved a hot tamale up his nose once. They rushed him to the ED, but it had dissolved there and stung like crazy. 3. The quarter was a New Hampshire quarter.

This is that most blog like blog I have blogged.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Ramona Told Phil

That he didn't have fat boobies, like Mommy, and that when she grew up she was going to have fat boobies, like Mommy. Lucky her.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Policy change

I just can't have all of these annoying advertising comments on my email, so from now on you need to register to make a comment. Sorry that I have to do that.

TFA Take Aways

Young Americans, David Bowie is playing.

I went to Teach for America's 15 Year Alumni Summit in DC this weekend. I have felt rather unsure about my opinions of TFA since I entered the Corps. in 1996. There are good things about the program (good experience for well-educated folks with privilege to carry with them throughout life; some quality, committed teachers come out of the program; there is power and support in numbers; many TFA people want to change the world but they don't spend their life being depressed about the state of the world--they get change done) and some not as good things (teachers who teach with little training and experience take away from movements to professionalize teaching; the culture of TFA also sometimes leads one to think that teacher is just a springboard to something else instead of a viable career) . This weekend I realized that a lot of good things have come out of the movement: good teachers, other movements to reform education, lots of powerful story tellers--to name a few. No one is claiming that this is the only way to change education--it is just one of the many ways. So, I am going soft on TFA.

There are several things I "took away" from the conference that I have to pass on:

from Marian Wright Edelman (Children's Defense Fund):

Keep moving.

We need to redefine success: Service is what counts, not "success".

Her life is shaped by living her faith.

Keep connected to children.

Don't underestimate the progress that has been made in the world towards justice.

We need different leaders pursuing different strategies of change (incremental and radical) at the same time.

Every child is sacred.

from John Lewis, US House, Georgia:

Get in the way.

Non-violence is a way of life.

You need a sense of calling/mission/mandate.

We must deal with the intersection of poverty and race.

from David Gergen, Director of Center for Public Leadership and a guy who worked for a lot of Presidents:

"Leadership is mobilizing others in the pursuit of shared goals." Gary Wills

Leadership is a journey. An inner journey too.

With leadership, context matters. It influences the styles of leadership, but there are three universals of leadership. Leaders are people who:

  • have ambitions. For what? Self? Others?
  • have character.
  • have personal capacity, the ability to make good decisions. B/c of this, leaders must be informed by history and their experiences. They must be able to take this info and reflect and then make good decisions.

Leaders are readers.

Every leader needs a candid friend.

Be unassuming so that you can work with people better than you.

Give voice to community by listening and then act.

Choose something. Be scholar in that area. Develop the social skills to persuade people.

Have ambition for others.

Positive character includes: integrity, candor, confidence, compassion, empathy, and consistency.

Keep reading.


Those are my notes. May be a bit boring to you. Maybe not.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Echoing a Plea from My In-Laws

I just received this email today. Please speak up. To write your congresspeople, click here for reps and here for senators.

Friends,

The reports by the national media have not accurately shown the destruction that has occurred in New Orleans. It is on a scale that can't easily be captured by a camera. Imagine the entire island of Manhattan or all of San Francisco under 8 feet of water. We have driven through the affected neighborhoods and they go on for hundreds, actually thousands of blocks. It's like a ghost town.

The city can't be saved by a mayor or a governor. It can only be saved by Congress.

Please contact your elected officials in Washington and ask them to immediately enact legislation that will authorize the aid to help rebuild.

Time is of the essence. It has been more than five weeks since Katrina and progress is alarmingly slow. It is becoming apparent that New Orleans is rapidly approaching the point where saving it may become academic.

Please act today.

Thanks,
Lynn & Rick

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

We Are Who We Are: Mom's Surgery Part II



So there we were, just the four of us. That is a very unusual thing. Once you grow up and get married and have kids it is very unusual to be alone with your mom and dad and brother. Family means something new once you get married and procreate. Mom and Dad especially pine away for being just the four of us, but it is not reasonable. We are not a family of 10. Sure, they really love their four grandkids and the in-laws are growing on them (read my sarcasm on this point), but their very own kids are still the apple of their eyes. They want us to themselves. They probably really want us to just shrink back into our fourth grade selves and live at 348 Washington St. with them.

Being the four of us felt so comfortable. We sat in an empty hospital wing in vinyl recliners, which would be set aside for patients on a weekday. Mom was the only patient, so we could all put our feet up. We were all our regular old selves. Mom was worried about germs and refused to tell the nurse her weight within our earshot. Dad, Jake, and I all chewed on the skin around our fingernails. Jake was dressed in his usual hip getup. Dad was talking about people he saw at his Florida conference who he knew from a number of obscure places and times and connects with in his easy way. At different times all of us--except for mom--took naps. We prayed for Mom and the grandkids and Philip and Miranda who were with the kids. We called the people who needed to know what was going on. We all tired up and got silent a couple of times. Humor also reigned. We are funny people and can crack each other up so we laughed a lot. My dad got a few of the medical details confused. I read my beloved fluffy magazines.

Mom had her surgery and it was successful. The retina reattached, but she was in bad shape for awhile (I'll spare you the pukey and pain-filled details). I stayed for a couple of days and coached Dad on how to take care of Mom, Jake and Miranda took their family back to Chicago, and then Aunt/Nurse Liz came and helped Mom out.

The thing that I keep coming back to is that we are who we are in crisis. With the hurricane and this little family emergency, I have seen it again and again. In crisis we are the same people we were the day before the crisis. After the hurricane, Rick, my father-in-law still said dollar as "dalla" and tomorrow as ta-mah-ra and hearing him say those words were still music to my ears. After my mom's surgery she was still trying to accommodate me and make sure I was relaxing enough (while I was supposed to be helping her) and I wanted her to stop worrying so much. In crisis, we rise to the occasion and we may grow and change, but essentially we are the same people who are irritated by the same things and who eat the same foods and who need the same amount of sleep. This is somehow comforting to me.



Sunday, October 02, 2005

I'm back

from the movie theatre (saw "Thumbsucker) and I am listening to Burning Spear. I am resetting myself, as my week was a little hectic. Going to a movie helps to clear my head and gets me to think about someone other than myself.

The Friday before the one that was two days ago, I got a call from my dad informing me that my mom's retina had detached. My dad doesn’t like it when bad things happen. He under-reacts to things and the thought-you-may-want-to-know tone of his message seemed to be in great contrast to the information he was delivering. A retinal detachment is a pretty serious thing. So I called Mom.

She was, understandably, a little worried and emotional--crying in her silent, sweet way. Yet she was pretty calm and accepting. The problem was my dad was in Tampa, my brother and his wife were in Chicago, and Philip and I were in Boston. My brother's kids were with my mom because Jake and Miranda (brother and sister-in-law) were moving to Chicago and needed to be there looking for a new apartment. So she was kind of alone.

As you know, my parents live in Iowa, but we are not from Iowa. She knows a lot of nice people there, but there is only one distant blood relative in the state and no sisters or children and no Ruth Holmes. Ruth is our old around-the-corner neighbor and she’s your basic cookie-in-the-oven-giving-church-lady. She is someone safe that you can rely on in this kind of situation and you won't feel like you are putting her out. We have a lot of Ruth Holmes in Oregon, but my mom was kind of alone in Iowa. She got some help with the boys from her neighbor and my dad’s cousin twice removed, who is a freshman at Grinnell.

So on the Friday before the one that was two days ago, Jake, Miranda, Dad, and I all did our best to get home. Jake arrived at 4 AM on Saturday morning and slept for a couple of hours and then got up and took my mom to the doctor in Des Moines. Dad and I arrived at 11:15AM and learned that Mom needed surgery right away and all four of us headed to the hospital.

To Be Continued...