susan hayward photography

Junior High Spy: My Life Story

This is me in 8th grade. I didn't wear a bike helmet because I figured my shield of Aqua Net hairspray would do the job. Not that I did much bike riding back then, or that anyone cared about bike helmets. 

In language arts, he's typing a five paragraph essay in the computer lab. It's not his best work. I want to tell him to start with a hook instead of the predictable "My essay is about my favorite season." I almost say, "Is that the best you can do? What, are you twelve?" And then I realize that he kind of is twelve, having just turned thirteen a few months ago.

When I think about it, I realize that this is how I started essays in school. "My essay is about what I did over summer vacation" and the like. But now I want to try again. Also, I'm tired of watching my son clack away at his essay. So I will write my life story in the five paragraph form.

My Life

by Susan Hayward

This essay is about my life story. My life can be divided into three parts. My birth, my elementary years, and my kids.

My life story begins in a hospital in a small Colorado town. I guess my life started before then, but when I was born all I knew was that for almost a year I had relaxed in a jacuzzi of semiotic fluid and then my mother kicked me out. This pattern of relaxing into a routine and then getting evicted from said routine would be a recurring theme for the rest of my life. 

Next, I went to school. In kindergarten my favorite toy was a steering wheel attached to a wooden box, which I would "drive" to imaginary destinations, like KMart and TG&Y, two of my favorite stores. (Many years later, those kindergarten driving lessons would prove totally useless when I would smash my mother's car into a tree.)  My teacher made us take naps on green mats every day, though I don't recall ever actually falling asleep. (Had I known the sleep deprivation that comes with babies, I would have stocked up on it when I was younger.) In second grade, I played kissing tag at recess with a boy I had a crush on. One day I finally caught him. I can still see him now, standing by the big tractor tire embedded in the playground sand, a grin on his face. So I kicked him in the Privates. It seemed the thing to do.

After surviving public school (but just barely) I went to a private college, where I met the man who would become my husband. We did not like each other at first, which is always a sure sign of attraction in Jane Austen novels. So I should have known we'd end up getting married. For my wedding dinner I ate a subway sandwich in the parking lot of the reception center. I was worried about two things: getting intestinal gas and getting naked. Fifteen years later, not much has changed.

I got pregnant three times and had three babies, all boys. By the last sonogram, I was not surprised to see a one-eyed snake on the screen. "It's a boy," the technician announced. As if I didn't know. But even though I thought I'd have a girl in there somewhere, I like these dudes my husband and I grew from seed. They make us laugh. They make us cry, too, but not as much as they make us laugh. They make us see things from a different perspective as well, like the time I was frying bacon and one of the kids said, "That sounds like a hundred people kissing." And they make us understand what it means to love someone so much, you'd spend the entire day in junior high with them. Plus, they often do dishes and clean the toilets. And that is what makes me love them most of all.

So anyway, that's my life story. Up until now, that is. I know this makes six paragraphs, but if there's one thing I've learned since junior high it's this: some things just don't matter in the end. Or in the middle either. Algebra, for example, doesn't matter in the least. Guess jeans and Swatch watches just don't matter, even if they seemed vital to my popularity in junior high. It's taken me thirty-eight years, but I think I've finally figured out what is important: people--the people you are born to, the ones you live with, the people you marry, and the people you parent. In the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, it's not the movie stars who have the most influence on how you turn out. It's the mom who tucked you in every night, the sisters who attend your impromptu pity parties, the big brother you've always looked up to (literally and figuratively), the husband who endures four nights of turkey leftovers and never complains, and the kids who give your days a shape and a rhythm that sometimes drive you mad, and sometimes--more often than not--make you glad. You just can't squish that into five paragraphs. And you really shouldn't have to. At least not when you're a grown up.

THE END 

Junior High Spy: Lunch and the Ladies' Man

For lunch, we eat salads with ranch dressing on top. This is unfortunate. I am morally opposed to ranch dressing, having spent a semester in college washing out five gallon buckets of the stuff. You haven't experienced food torture until you take a steam bath in ranch dressing every day. This could be why my chin hasn't been free of zits for the last twenty years. But with no alternative, I open the dispenser and try to think happy thoughts. This proves impossible when thick globs of white, preservative-filled goo drop to my lettuce and I imagine what it will do to my digestive system. 

There's so much noise in this room, which once seemed so large until it was crammed with kids, that I want to leave immediately. I am one who needs her personal space, and who needs quiet and tranquility for at least a few moments of each day. But there's none of that here. It's worse than Who-ville in the Grinch, when all the Whos were making a racket with their Christmas loot. Everyone's yelling so loud that I want to hold my ears and lament, "Noise, noise, noise!" 

A kid screams intermittently, writhing in his seat. I wonder if it's ranch dressing poisoning, but by the looks of his buddies, it's not. The boys at his table laugh at his antics, going so far as to bang on the table in approval. Someone else takes up the beat and soon it starts to feel like we're in an earthquake. And indeed, a part of me wants to take cover under the table until it's all over. Also, if one more kid hits my bag as they pass our table I'm going to lose it. 

I start to shovel salad into my mouth, hoping to escape the mayhem as quickly as possible. Then I decide I should be having a conversation with my son. So I ask him about a poster I saw on my way to the potty that morning. 

"Are you going to the Valentine's Dance?" I say. 

"Dance? What dance?" He thinks for a minute. "You mean the dance on Friday?"

"That's the one." 

"Well, yeah," he says in between mouthfuls of salad. 

"You do know they'll play slow songs," I tell him. I assumed this would make him change his mind. From what I recall, boys at this age don't know how to dance to slow songs, nor do they want to. But Calvin surprises me. 

"Good," he says, grinning. I stare at him, then remember how many girls have giggled while looking his way, how many he's waved to in the hall. Then there's the girl who has repeatedly pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head while we've been trying to eat our lunch. Obviously, the girls notice him. And that's a good thing, I guess. It's not like I want him to ignore girls. I'm just not ready for him to get all hormonal about them. I'm not ready for him to pull a girl close to him and dance in the dimmed lights of the school gymnasium, and I'm definitely not ready for him to kiss anyone. I want him to think girls have cooties for as long as possible. What I really want is for him to be my little boy for a lot longer. 

When we finish our salads and make our way to his locker, an older kid grabs Calvin by the arm. The kid turns to me and says, "Your son is quite the ladies' man." Calvin opens his mouth to protest. But the kid cuts him off. "He doesn't talk to anyone but girls," he says with a grin.

Calvin looks confused. And slightly embarrassed. "You don't talk to anyone but girls," he manages to sputter as the boy disappears in a throng of kids swarming the halls. I decide not to point out that both boys have been talking to each other, which would mean that they do not only talk to girls. But the moment is over, and I'm left to wonder if there's some truth to what the kid said. 

Calvin leads me to his locker, where he chats with the girl at the locker next to him. I notice that although his smile is the same one he's always had, his voice is deeper now. And while I used to be able rest my hand on top of his head, by the end of summer he will probably be taller than me. But he's not done being my little boy entirely. He will still linger in the doorway for a goodbye hug in the morning. And at night when I ask, "Who wants reading time with Mom?" he always wants to be first. Granted, we no longer read stories about steam shovels and dinosaurs. Nowadays it's James Herriot, Harry Potter and the like. But there are times when it seems like the old days. There are times when Calvin will forget himself and rest his head on my shoulder just like he used to when he was a toddler. When he does this, I sit very still, remembering how warm his little body felt next to me, how small his hand was in mine. These are the thoughts that make me smile as I follow my son through the halls of junior high. My son is growing up. But he's not done just yet. And neither am I. 

Junior High Spy: Math and Morticia

A mother snaps a picture of her son, who sits with his head averted. He doesn’t look at her. But even if he did turn his head, he couldn’t see her through a thick curtain of dark hair. “Oh, come on,” she says. “Smile.” The boy doesn’t budge.

Finally she gives up and bounces over to where I’m standing. “I told him I would do this,” she said, gesturing to her camera. “I’m a scrap booker.” All of us mothers standing in the corner nod in understanding. Though I’m not a scrap booker myself, I am a blogger, which is almost as bad. As such, I can’t help looking at every situation as a possible story. And to this mother, a day at school is definitely scrapbook page material. I actually considered bringing along my camera too, but figured that would be going too far. Better to scribble notes all day than to be Mama Paparazzi. Plus, I’m trying really hard to raise my child so he doesn’t end up in therapy because of something I’ve done. (It might be too late for that, though.)

It’s during math that I finally break down and use the bathroom. All morning (all two hours of it, so far, though it seems like the day should be about over now) it felt like I needed to go. But I just went! I kept on thinking. Then I remembered that I usually have to pee about five times every morning after I drink my Big Gulp of water. I’m almost always home in the morning, so I don’t notice how many times I have to go. This is another reason why I cannot get a real job. I’d have to find someone who’d give me a desk next to a private bathroom, preferably with a fan for cover noise and a small, well-stocked library. This may be the reason I have yet to find my perfect job. 

On my way to the potty, I see a swine flu poster. This makes me nervous. School is, after all, one big germ pit, teeming not only with hormones, but also with invisible, disease-causing microbes. I do not trust any of these kids to wash their hands properly. But when you gotta go, you gotta go. 

Surprisingly, the bathroom is much cleaner than my junior high bathroom. My junior high bathrooms were were plastered with lumps of wet paper towel wads stuck to the ceiling. But this one had none of that. Nevertheless, I followed my germ-free practices. 

Use the pinky to open doors.

Do not sit down, ever. Crouch.

Read inscriptions on stall, but do not run your fingers over the lettering.

Flush with foot, not hand.

Scrub hands for at least 20 seconds, if not more.

Use elbow to dispense paper towels. 

Back in the classroom, the math teacher calls on a girl to explain an equation written on the white board. About two seconds into her explanation I’m lost. While she blathers on about X and Y, I’m mesmerized by her foot swinging into the aisle. The girl is wearing brown suede boots with a fringe of fur on top. I wonder where she might have bought them and if I could pull off wearing them, too. That’s when I see another girl take off her sweatshirt and let it drop to the floor. I grip my pen tightly, trying to stop myself from snapping, “Pick that up!” Today I am supposed to be a fly on the wall, not a mother. I am not supposed to embarrass or harass my son or anyone else. At least not out loud.

Another girl sitting next to me hasn’t done a blasted thing all period but scratch a few words in her notebook, tap her foot against the desk in front of her, and examine her nails. She wears a plaid shirt over a black t-shirt, low-slung black jeans tight on her skinny legs, big black sneakers, and an ipod tucked into her pocket. Her pale face is framed by long, straight, black hair. She reminds me of a character from that 1960’s series, The Addams Family.

I want to lean over and say, “You look just like Morticia.” I’d snap my fingers and hum the theme song. But I think the reference will be lost on her. She looks like what we used to call Stoners. Only she doesn’t smell like she bathes in nicotine and smokes smelly socks for breakfast. Yet. 

The teacher is talking this whole time, and I consider that he might mistake my incessant note taking for actual comprehension of his subject. But he would be wrong. I’m hearing words I’ve not heard in years, like negative inverse, variables, integers-- things I didn’t understand when I was in seventh grade and still don’t understand now. A thick fog descends upon my brain. There was a reason why I immediately forgot algebra when I graduated from high school. It’s totally useless, for one. And not so interesting to discuss for another. With math, there’s only one interpretation of the information. You can't argue any other interpretations because there aren't any. And unlike literature, math offers no hidden meanings or applications to the human condition. 

When Morticia/Stoner Girl stands up, she’s as skinny as a black licorice whip. Her pants are held precariously aloft her slim hips with a wide white belt. I notice this because she does the classic teenager pant pull-up/pull-down as she saunters out of the classroom. Morticia grabs the waistband of her pants, tugs slightly, then carefully pushes her pants down to within a centimeter of where they were so that the material in the crotch hangs almost to her knees, forcing her to take baby steps down the hallway. She looks ridiculous. 

This may sound like a criticism, and that’s only because it is. But one day Morticia will agree with me. Sometimes I think it would be nice if we could see ourselves from the perspective of our future self. If someone had told me how awful my 38-year-old self would think my 13-year-old self looked in dark foundation, bright green eye shadow, and frosted pink lipstick, I think I would have made some changes. I would have skipped the pink leg warmers for sure. I wouldn’t have teased my bangs so unmercifully. I would not have permed my hair. I would not have pegged my pants at the ankle. And I would definitely not have worn black nylons with a white dress and white plastic pumps. 

Yet when I’m seventy-five, will I look back at me at thirty-eight and wonder why I wore overalls so much? Will I shake my head at how often I let my hair get to the Janis Joplin stage, all frizzy at the edges and shapelessly long, with coarse strands of grey sprouting from my scalp? Perhaps I will be embarrassed by how often I wore running shoes instead of cute shoes. And maybe I’ll shudder at how I stopped wearing foundation even though my complexion was less than luminous.

But then again, maybe when I’m seventy-five maybe I just won't care anymore. I can only hope. 

PS

I have been watching Calvin for two hours now. He has not done anything alarming, like kiss a girl or pull out a flask of whiskey from his backpack. So far, this surveillance has turned up no clues into his psyche, other than the realization that he’s grown two inches since we bought him the jeans he’s wearing.   

Junior High Spy: The Big Bag Theory

In the first hour of junior high, I’m not allowed to actually sit with my son. He makes a beeline to his desk, where he immediately starts talking to a girl next to him, leaving me to fend for my own. I’m not surprised. It’s not that he’s girl crazy—as far as I know—it’s just that he hasn’t cultivated the art of being a gentleman. If, for example, I’m hefting five grocery sacks from the house to the car, he will not leap up to open the door. “A little help here!” I have to shout. Most of the time, no one comes running. As for swinging doors swinging into my face, there have been too many to count. Admittedly, there was a time in my life when I insisted on opening my own doors. But that was a long time ago, back when I was a feminist college student. In college, everything seemed so clear cut. I could put oil in my old clunker car, I could bring home the bacon (though I was a vegetarian at the time, but I could at least bring it home. I just wouldn’t eat it), and never let any man forget that he was a man—a chauvinist oinker, to be precise, one who would not be allowed to open any doors for me. 

I was so taken in my personal movement for Susan’s Liberation that I actually performed “I Am a Rock” for my French 101 class. “Je suis un rocher,” I declared, my voice heavy with conviction.  The other students stared, their faces impassive, almost bored. 

But I ignored them, channeling all of my feminist angst into the performance. Plus, it was a large part of my grade. So I continued. “Je suis une ile,” I said defiantly. I’m not sure, but I might have even raised my fist to the ceiling when I recited this bit about being an island. I was trying to declare a loner’s manifesto. But what it really sounded like was “I am a roach. I am going to be ill.”

Simon and Garfunkel’s song made me think I really could hide out in my room, “safe within my womb.” But it turns out that saying these things to boys doesn’t make them like you, which is what every girl wants, even if she won't admit it. It scares them. And being stuck on an island gets old after awhile. It’s like living on Alcatraz. You can see people having fun through a little window in your cell, but they’re so far away, they can’t hear you yelling, “A little help here!” As it happens, it wasn’t safe in my womb either. Just ask my son, that kid over there trying to ignore the fact that I’m shadowing him for the day. 

While I sit lost in these memories, other parents wander in. We give each other what I call the “man wave,” which is a slight nod, a silent acknowledgment of the other’s presence, but not an invitation to chat. I note that I am carrying the biggest bag out of all the parents. One dad has nothing with him, and another mom has a sensible-sized purse that she holds in her lap. I, on the other hand, look like I'm lugging a small suitcase, an old habit from my diaper bag era. When I had babies, I carried extra diapers, wipies, granola bars, water bottles, an extra change of clothes for the inevitable baby poo blowout, and a book to read to the kids if we got stuck in line somewhere. Now I don’t need any of these things, but for some reason, I can't let go of my big bag.

But here’s a thought. Does this thing go back earlier? Does it hearken back to junior high, when I first noticed that the smart students carried huge backpacks stuffed with books and notebooks, scientific calculators, British novels, and musical instruments? Following suit, I insisted on using a big bag, too. I filled it with all sorts of junk: notebooks, paper, pens, pencils, markers, highlighters, textbooks, hairspray, brushes, face powder, supplies for Bellatrix encased in a drawstring bag. You name it, and most likely it was in my bag. It was my little house, packed and ready to go. Meanwhile, the slackers never brought anything to school except for a stubby pencil in their back pockets, and sometimes not even that. They were the ones who always asked,  “Can I borrow some paper?” with raspy voices and smoker's breath. “And a pen,” they’d add. Or course, they always asked me because they knew I’d have those things. They could tell from the size of my bag.

My son has followed the tradition and now walks the halls with a backpack the size of a steamer trunk. And, true to my theory, he’s a good student. But here’s the thing: Today I am not a student. Yet I carry the bag of one. So I’m wondering, is this really the residue of mothering babies or do I want my son’s teachers to think I’m an intellectual? Am I hoping that they'll think I’ve come prepared to take notes on everything they say? That I am not a slacker? This strikes me as pathetic on both counts and I shove my bag under the desk to hide it.  

Later, the teacher invites the parents to join a group discussion. We are invited to work with four other students on a poster. Then we are supposed to walk around the room and write comments on post-it notes that we stick to everyone’s posters. I enjoy writing anonymous comments on my post-its. It's almost like being in college again, a place where I flourished for many years. That's when something in my head starts to percolate, and I realize it's my brain. This is a hopeful thing. When I had kids, it was like my mind flew south. I feared it would never came back. But now I can just make out the flap of wings in the distant sky. I am mentally flagging down the flock now. “Over here!” I’m yelling. “I’m right here.” The mind is a wonderful thing, is it not? I think to myself. Just when you think your kids ate your brain, you find it on the front porch, waiting for you to come home. Maybe, I say to myself, I’ve moved out of the mom phase far enough to go back to the college student phase. I imagine myself sitting in the classroom, making brilliant comments. Or, here's another one--I'm teaching a class of young twenty-somethings, and they are awed by my intellect.  

But then again, maybe not.

I’m standing by a poster, trying to compose something witty on my little paper when a kid approaches me. “What do I do when I run out of post-its?” he asks.

I don’t know what to say for a moment. The boy looks totally confused, like he has no idea where the post-its came from in the first place, even though his teacher handed him some only ten minutes earlier. He looks at me expectantly, as if he thinks I'll pull some post-its out of my pocket. I point to the teacher. “Ask her for more,” I tell him. He stands there, his forehead scrunched in thought. After a moment, he decides that I'm telling the truth and goes to his teacher.

Why did he ask me, I wonder? Then I figure it out. I am not a rock or an island. I am not a student or a teacher. I am a mother. And that kid knew it. He could tell from the size of my bag.

Back to School

It was supposed to be fun. “You’ll love junior high,” everyone told me when I graduated from elementary school.

But they were wrong. 

Junior High started out well enough, but the more I went, the worse it got. There was homework, for one thing. Lots more than what I had in elementary school. The math was harder, the kids were bigger and meaner, and the teachers all seemed to be about one hundred years old. Sure, there were some good moments. At least, I think there were. But for right now all I can recall are the bad ones, and some of the worst have to do with the discovery that Always maxi pads do indeed leak at some point during the day, usually when you’re wearing pastel colored pants.

 

So when my son brought home a bright pink note from the PTA inviting me to spend the day going to all of his seventh grade classes, I hesitated. Would the memories come back? Would I be reduced to my former thirteen year-old self, unable to comprehend algebra, painfully unfashionable, with bad hair and a spotty complexion to boot? By the end of the day would I need to inhale a milk shake to recover from the pain of adolescence? Possibly.

But I wondered what junior high would look like from an adult’s perspective. And though I’ve observed classes as a student of educational studies, I have never spied on my own son. Sometimes it’s disturbing to think that I don’t really know what he does all day. In elementary, I didn’t worry so much. He had a teacher-mother who kept an eye on him, and only twenty-five other kids to be influenced by.

But that’s all changed. I see the kids who come out of junior high when I wait for my child every day. Some look like they’re escaped convicts, others look like they're on their way to becoming wanton hussies, and still others stumble along the sidewalk like drunken slugs. Surely, he’s not tangled up with these kids. Or is he? If I were to spend the day at junior high, I could find out, taking notes in an innocent-looking composition notebook. And if anything were amiss, I could do something about it. What, I don’t know. But knowledge is power, right? Or is ignorance bliss? I forget. 

Anyway, starting tomorrow I’m taking you on a little journey to junior high. I’m giving you permission to look over my shoulder at the copious notes I scribbled throughout the day. It’ll be fun. And you won’t even get in trouble for it.

Goodbye to a Good Friend

Good bye to my neighbor J. I will miss you, but I know that you are with your husband once again, free of cancer and in a much, much better place than this one. 

My neighbor, who was also a good friend, passed away this week. Yesterday, in an attempt to console her family, I tried to make oatmeal cookies for them. But I couldn't concentrate. I stumbled around the kitchen mis-measuring and spilling everything. The first dozen cookies came out undercooked, flat, and flimsy. The second batch came out only a little better. It was the dinner hour and I had spent all my time struggling to make these stupid cookies, which at the time seemed so much more important than cooking for my own family. But clearly, the cookie idea wasn't going to work. In desperation, I spooned the rest of the batter into a pie dish and baked it until the top looked nice and golden. But when I touched the middle, it wiggled a bit, as if chuckling at me. 

I yanked the cookie pie out of the oven and stabbed it with a small spatula, hacking out the soggy middle like a maniac. Fortunately, I came to my senses before I pulverized the whole thing and realized some of it could be salvaged for the family. So I took the good parts next door.

My neighbor's brother answered my knock. "I made you a treat," I said as I handed him the goods. He looked at the shapes on the platter in the dim light, trying to figure out what I had brought them. 

"They're cookies--or cookie pie," I explained. He looked confused. I could tell I was going to mess this up. Once again, I was going to say the wrong thing. So I kept it short. "I've had a bad day in the kitchen," I said, then left. 

But that's not what I really wanted to say. What I really wanted to say was I have lost a friend. I know she's with Heavenly Father, and I know that she's back with her husband, but I miss her a lot. And you must miss her so much more. So here's what I have to give you: a sorry attempt to provide you with some nourishment as you mourn. Maybe this will make you feel better? For a minute or so? Because that's what I want to do--make you feel better. And this is the only way I know how.

I didn't say any of that, though. I know that food cannot make up for losing a friend, a sister, a wife, a mother. I know because I had eaten quite a few of the failed cookies while making them. Yet afterward, my friend and neighbor was still gone. And I didn't feel any better.

My Secret Admirer

When the doorbell rang, I hollered to the kids to answer it. I was in the kitchen, cooking dinner (I forget what--probably tuna sandwiches again) so Jake answered the door. I glanced down and saw that the doorway was empty. "Someone left a Valentine!" Jake yelled as he ran up the stairs to me. I wiped my hands on my apron and inspected the stash. Jake held a little Hello Kitty paper valentine and a box of conversation hearts. Someone had written "To the hot babe" on the front, and signed it "Your Secret Valentines."  Inside the card, Hello Kitty slid down a rainbow. I flipped the card over and looked at the writing. The letters were large, shakily written, and the author had used crayon. Definitely from a kid who was just learning to write. That meant that it had to be for Jake, although it did not sit well with me that an eight year old girl was calling my son a "hot babe." How did she even know what that meant? 

"It must be from that little girl in your class," I told Jake, giving back the candy. He threw the card on the counter, ripped open the box of candy and threw some hearts in his mouth. 

As he ran back to the basement I reflected on the little girl in question. For these purposes, I shall call her Sally. Sally had a history of love infatuation. The year before, she and another girl formed an exclusive "Love Club," with, as you might have guessed, love as the theme. They recruited from among the boys heavily. But there were so many recess tiffs and near fist fights over who was in love with who that the teacher finally had to dissolve the group, declaring that "We are all in the same club--the First Grade Club." This year, Sally has spent many a recess jumping out from the bushes to grab and kiss my son, who spends his time meandering the school grounds during his fifteen minutes of freedom. I can just picture Jake walking by the shrubbery, deep into an imaginary scenario involving karate and Pokemon, when kazaam! Sally leaps out and grabs him. I can hear the wet smack of her kiss against Jake's cheek and her wild laughter as Sally runs for her next victim. And I can see Jake wiping her spit from his cheek with the arm of his sweatshirt. "Yuck," he would mutter. But then again, he might grin and say, "Cool" instead.

By the next morning, I had forgotten about the Secret Valentine. But then, around dinnertime the doorbell rang again. This time I answered, as the boys were too "busy" playing the Wii. Sally sure is tenacious, I thought to myself as I opened the door. There on the welcome mat sat another box of conversation hearts, this time the sparkly kind. There were two notes next to it, one that read "To Suzy Lee" and another that said "To The Hot Mama." To the Hot Mama? Clearly these were not for Jake, as he is not a mama. But I am. Could the valentines be for me? Then who were they from? The cards were signed S.A. Who did I know with those initials? And who was calling me, a worn-out thirty-something mother of three, a hot mama? 

That night at dinner, I asked if anyone had seen the Secret Admirer running away after ringing the doorbell. No one had, or so they claimed. "Maybe it's Dad," one of the kids suggested. I thought about that for a second, looking across the table at my husband. 

"Nah," I said with a wave of my hand. "That's not Dad's handwriting." 

We discussed the possibilities. The little girl across the street? Her name started with an S. But the "hot mama" thing didn't make sense. I wondered if the little girl's mom had suggested that one as a joke. But then there was the question of knowing my middle name. Hardly anyone knows that, my kids included. Briefly, I considered blogging about the mystery, posting a picture and asking, "Who left this on my doorstep?" But it was a busy week and I just didn't have time. One thing was for sure, though. Jake owed me a box of conversation hearts.

I thought that would be it for the week, but the day after the Suzy Lee Hot Mama Incident, there was more. As I sat chatting with my sister in the front room, the doorbell rang. I sprang from my chair. 

"I'm gonna catch this person!" I said, running to the window. I peeped through the blinds and gasped at what--or rather who--I saw. There, sprinting down the sidewalk with hair flying, was my husband. I fell into the couch and laughed and laughed. And laughed some more. My husband and I are not terribly romantic people. We are not the type to sprinkle rose petals on the bed. We do not write each other love poems. We do not have a song; we do not dance. We do not eat dinner by candlelight. And ever since I had kids, the smell of cologne or perfume makes me nauseous, so gifts of eau de toilette are out. Valentine's Day has come and gone many times with little more than a kiss and/or dinner out for the last fifteen years. So needless to say, I wasn't expecting this. 

I opened the door. This time, my Secret Love had left a pack of gum with a note that read: Hubba hubba here's some Hubba Bubba for Susan.

Rick and I have had many discussions about the use of gum to communicate one's love to another. He had left a pack of gum on a girl's desk in elementary school, letting Wrigley's Doublemint say what he could not: Will you be my girlfriend? Her acceptance was communicated through a friend of a friend. Later, Rick discovered that his new girlfriend did not like a YES song that he admired and the relationship was over as soon as it had started. They did not speak of it, though. Actually, they did not speak at all during their time together, either at the beginning or the end of their relationship. 

Standing there, holding the gum with a stupid grin on my face, my sister across from me saying, "How cute!", I realized that S.A. meant Secret Admirer. And who else but my husband would know my middle name. Well, how stupid am I? And how lucky?

Within a few minutes, Rick came up the stairs. His cheeks were pink, as if he had been jogging outside recently. But I paid that no mind. I wanted to play along with this for as long as possible.

"Look what I got," I said, holding out the gum and the card. 

Rick gave it a cursory glance, his expression innocent, as if he had not just spent the last three days doorbell ditching me and leaving me sweets. But I knew he was guilty. 

The next day the ruse was up. Again, the doorbell rang around dinner. Again, I answered the door. And again, there was no one there, only some candy and another Hello Kitty valentine.

This time Rick had written "Your eyes are like starbursts." And appropriately, he had included some Starburst candies to go along with it. This time, he didn't bother to sign it. But he didn't have to. Even if I didn't know my husband was my secret valentine, I would have figured out it wasn't the little girl across the street, and not her mother either. Eyes like starbursts? Little girls and women friends don't write that to each other. It was time to let him know I knew. 

I found Rick sprawled out on the couch in the basement. "Hey," I said, sitting next to him. I patted his knee. "I know it's you," I said. 

He looked up. "Huh?"  

"I know it's you," I repeated. "You're my Secret Admirer." 

He couldn't keep it in any longer. He smiled in the same way he smiled when we smooched for the first time. Whenever he does that, I have to kiss him immediately. So I did. 

"But wait, there's more," he said. True to his word, I received a few more things, all left on the doorstep anonymously. 

He gave me this:

  

Some Laffy Taffy with "You make my taffy laffy" written on the card:

 And also some pop rocks, a childhood favorite of mine:

On Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang again. This time, when I opened the door, my husband was there. He had his hands behind his back and he was smiling. 

"I thought you might be tired of little kid candy," he said. "So I bought you some jewelry."

For a second, I thought he was talking about an expensive necklace, something with diamonds and hearts probably. As a tightwad, I was worried he had gone and bought something outrageously expensive, something, no doubt, I would feel awkward wearing. So I plastered a tight smile on my face and waited. I knew whatever it was, he was excited about it, as he had paused for a long time to study my reaction.

Rick brought his arms out from behind his back. Cupped in his hand was a beautiful, big, emerald green… ring pop. He had given me a lolly pop shaped like a ring. This was too much. I laughed so hard that I slapped my leg a couple of times. Then I hugged him tightly and said, "I love you," in his ear. "It's perfect." And it was. 

Rick has a friend at work, a single guy with impeccable and expensive taste. When Rick told him about how he had gone to the grocery store, picked out a box of valentine cards and a full week's worth of candy to go with them as a Valentine gift for me, his friend was not impressed. "You're just being cheap," he said. 

But this friend is wrong, so very, very wrong. My husband is not cheap. He's thoughtful. He's creative. I mean, the man thought this all up weeks ago. He came up with cute little things to write. And to make it look like a child's note, he had written in crayon with his left hand. He had come home early to ring the bell, then dashed away before he could be caught. He gave me gum, the quintessential kid gift. And he gave me a ring, the quintessential grown-up gift, albeit in kid form. So you can keep your diamonds and roses. I've got something better. I've got my very own sugar daddy. And, according to him, he has himself a hot mama. I guess we're romantics after all.    

  

Me and Jack and Grandmaster Flash

I was thinking about Jack LaLanne the other day, probably because we have his juicer sitting on our kitchen counter. I had wanted to find some new exercise ideas and remembered hearing something about a regime Jack LaLanne had that did not require fancy equipment. So I hopped on YouTube and found a ton of his old television shows. While there were some shows about exercise, there were many episodes about food--what to eat, how to cook it, and the like. But one in particular caught my eye. "This is a problem that's been on my mind for a long, long time," Jack says. Then he proceeds to compare alcholics to sugarholics. Apparently there are millions of Sugarholics just like me, people who can't eat just a little bit of sugar; instead of eating one candy from the box of chocolates, we eat the whole thing. Just the other day I told my sister that if I take one whiff of sugar, before you know it I'm in the bathroom sniffing the stuff, singing Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines" as I blow out my pancreas. Unfortunately, I was not kidding about this.

So I'm hoping that some of what Jack says in this clip will penetrate. Especially since I was noshing on Laffy Taffy while watching it. Anyway, it's good for a laugh, even though there's a lot of truth to it.  

Conversations

It used to be that my kids and I would work on their Valentine’s boxes together. We’d get out the red construction paper and plan our design. We’d use stencils to write their names. And sometimes we’d paint shapes with glue and scatter glitter over them to make the whole thing shimmer.

This year when I asked the kids if I could help them make their boxes, one said, “The Mother Helper is going to wrap them for us.” Who? Don’t I qualify as my child’s Mother Helper? This felt like the day I got a polite note from a teacher explaining that all treats needed to be store bought and individually packaged. This after I had brought in REAL cupcakes with REAL frosting for my son’s birthday, made in my own kitchen. And now, my youngest, my last hope for bonding moments through construction paper crafts, was not going to need my help. So I tried the next kid.

“Do you need help with your Valentine’s box?” I asked him. “I’ve been saving a red shoe box since August for the occasion.” This was not a lie. When Paul came home from school clothes shopping with shoes packaged in a red box, I tucked the box high on a corner shelf and waited for February. 

Paul frowned. “I don’t want to use the red shoe box,” he said. “I’ll just cut a hole in the top of this one.” He pulled out a grey box that came with his brother’s new church shoes, size tens. Granted, his brother’s box was larger than his red one, but still. Grey is so not a Valentine’s color. 

I was horrified. Just the week before I had found some red doilies among my decorations and thought we could incorporate that into the lid somehow. And of course, being a glitter addict, I thought we might use our vintage stencils to trace his name in glue, which we would outline in silver glitter, then fill in with blue sparkles. But it was not to be. Sensing my uncontrollable urge to take over, Paul got to work. He rummaged through the cupboard and found some blue paper. Then, while I was in the bathroom, he got out the Elmer’s glue, swirled a few lines of it on the sides of the box, and slapped the paper on top. By the time I got back to the kitchen, he was sawing a big rectangle in the box lid with my best paring knife, which also happens to be my only paring knife. What could I do? I admitted defeat and calmly trimmed the edges for him--with scissors, not an Xacto knife like I wanted to.

When I was finished, I tried one more time. “Do you at least want to use the stencils to do your name?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said. “I’ll just write it.” He grabbed a pencil, scrawled “Paul” in the corner, and then ran outside to play.

My boys aren’t the only things that have changed this Valentine’s. While shooting pictures of candy conversation hearts, I noticed that some of the sayings now include “tweet me” and “text me.” And when I ate some, they tasted and even felt different than last year. Curious, I went to the Necco (which stands for New England Confectionary Company) website. Apparently, Necco revamped everything for 2010. Not only did the company ditch many of the old sayings and come up with new ones, they changed the recipe too. “The new Sweethearts have been re-formulated to be softer and more fun to eat,” they say on their website. As a person who ate quite a few conversation hearts during and after a photo shoot with them, I can tell you that the new version stinks. They do not taste like strawberries or apples or lemons, as the package would have you believe. They taste like solid Sweet n’Low—with the same funny flavor and the same bitter aftertaste. And they don’t make nearly the same satisfying crunch when you bite down on them. Instead, it’s like you’re eating a slightly soggy Smartie, only Smarties taste better. I want my old conversation hearts back, the kind that left dust on your fingers and a chalky taste in your mouth.

But I guess change is inevitable, whether you’re talking about your kids or your candy. However, there’s something you can do about it. On the Necco website, there’s a spot where you can suggest sayings for next year’s batch of conversation hearts. I’m going to propose that they stick with the original recipe and add a few new sayings that are truly seductive like: “Make your own dinner”, or “Do the dishes” or “Let me sleep in”, or “Take the kids for the weekend”, or “No, seriously, I really do have a headache.” I could give these to my sweetheart and see what happens. Maybe nothing will. But at least I’ll enjoy eating my words. 

  

Happy Valentine's Day

 

Celebrating Valentine's Day

So far this year I haven't done much in the way of decorating. When I put out the Valentine's Day books, no one so much as glanced at them. So I sat down with my kids one evening and attempted to have holiday reading time. I opened the Winnie the Pooh book first, and assumed my storytelling voice. But by the third page, one kid was laying on the floor feigning sleep and the other two were playing with bits of paper in the carpet. I'll admit, the story line was totally predictable--by the first page you just knew that Pooh would mess up his Valentine's cards by spilling honey on them and Tigger would get so frustrated with the project that he would bounce off to play in the woods, leaving his cards in a messy pile on the floor. No surprises there. 

I tried a board book next, a cute little story about some mice. But that one just made the kids groan. What I really needed were some books with wizards in them, something with a title like Valentines for Voldemort or a an edition of Captain Underpants with a Valentine theme. My kids, I am sorry to say, are too old for the little kid books we've read for years and years. This saddens me. Ever since the kids were babies I couldn't wait for them to grow up. But now that they are, I'm learning that there's a trade off. While I am very glad to be done with potty training three little boys, it sure stinks that no one will read picture books with me anymore or hound me to tape decorations to the windows. 

But I'm not ready to give up a special Valentine's breakfast. Tomorrow I will wake up early and make heart pancakes for my boys. I will put a few drops of red food coloring in the milk to turn it pink. And I will hang those shiny hearts and string red and pink crepe paper from the ceiling. And I will give everyone a big kiss on the cheek, whether they want one or not. Because I'm the mom. And just because they're growing up doesn't mean I have to. 

Here are some links to past posts with Valentine's ideas:

heart cupcakes

valentine's day breakfast

Note to Self: A Fragile and Beautiful Thing

When you are a junior high student, you will notice boys. But they will not notice you. With your zits, bad hair, thick thighs, and shyness, you will become Camouflage Girl, a human speck on the wall of lockers. You will attempt to flirt by flashing the Marsha Brady, all-American-healthy-blond-blue-eyed-beauty-come-hither-smile at all the boys. But you are not blond. And you are certainly not Marsha Brady, with her lanky figure and long straight locks. However, you do have blue eyes. You hope this will be enough. But it isn’t.

Pretend you don’t care. Stand with a cluster of girls at lunch and get into deep conversations about what you watched on television the night before. Ignore the couples on the benches in the quad, the skinny girls in their leggings and big belts, Bonne Bell lip gloss shining on their lips, kissing their boyfriends with loud smacks and giggles. Listen to the pigeons cooing as they wait for crumbs from your lunch. Laugh loudly at your own jokes, trying not to open your mouth too wide because you know how squinchy this makes your eyes look. Imagine how good you will look when you have finally lost twenty pounds and you too can wear tight pants, grow your hair out long, and become someone else, someone who knows how to walk across the quad without tripping on a discarded burrito. When this doesn’t happen and you remain the same old boring boy-less speck, make sure you realize that you’re fine just the way you are. Because you’re only thirteen, after all. Plus, nobody really looks good in leggings anyway.

When you reach high school, you are taller, but much the same person, which you consider unfortunate. At the end of every school year you vow that you will transform yourself into a beautiful butterfly over the summer. “Just wait,” you tell your friends. “I’m coming back a different person.” For two years nothing happens. And then by some miracle you lose thirty pounds. And your hair grows long. 

In September, when you sit down to dig through your backpack, your body feels tiny. What’s more, at lunch, a boy finally talks to you.

He is someone you have known for years, a boy you have secretly liked. But he is not someone who has given you a second thought, let alone a second glance. Until now. Suddenly, he talks to you in the hallway. He lingers at your locker during lunch. One day he asks you to see a movie with a group of friends. You buy Benetton perfume with money you’ve saved from working at the mall and generously spray it on your neck. You hope you look like the girl in the Calvin Klein ad who scowls and says “eternity” breathlessly into the camera. You practice this in the mirror a few times, then resign yourself to the fact that you only smell musky and mysterious; you will never actually be mysterious.  That night, when you walk out of the theatre, you make a lunge for the boy’s hand, and he doesn’t pull away. That’s when you know it’s official. You finally have a boyfriend.  

After awhile, you notice that all you do is make out. You wonder if every boy kisses like this one, so wet and sloppy that when you come up for air you feel like you are drowning in a swathe of saliva around your lips. You consider carrying a towel in your purse. But you think the boy might be embarrassed if you pull it out after a passionate kiss to swab down your mouth. And the last thing you want is for him to leave you alone on the couch. Because without a boy, you are nobody. You know because you’ve been without a boy for many years. And you’ve been a nobody for most of your life.

Time will pass. You will go to college, where a few more boys come and go, some by their own will, some by your request. You take Women’s Studies classes and become enraged at how women have been used and abused throughout history. In fact, you feel like you have been used and abused, too, especially by boys who only liked you for your body, in particular your lips. You tell everyone that you will never get married. It will marginalize you. You are not a commodity, you say, a baby maker beholden to a husband. Plus, you must admit to yourself, who would want to marry you anyway?

The next semester you sign up for a night class and sit next to a guy who’s tall, blond, and slim. You’ve seen him in your department and notice that he always looks like he just finished a J. Crew magazine shoot the minute before. And his shoes never look worn, not so much as a crease where the toes should bend when you walk. You decide that you will not be friends. He’s not your type. You are poor. He apparently leads a privileged life. He drives a shiny red sedan. You, on the other hand, have a bus pass and an old ten-speed.

But through some wild twist of circumstances, you end up working together. He turns out to be so entertaining with his desert-dry wit that you actually look forward to going to work each afternoon. Then you sign up for the same classes and before you know it, you’re spending forty hours a week together, sometimes more. And you enjoy it. Or rather, you must admit to yourself, you enjoy him. He is not who you thought he was. He is much, much better. “I would like to marry someone just like him,” you write to your mother. You find this strange, considering you told everyone you’d never get married. But there have been times when you questioned that. One day you’re working together in the darkroom and he extends his arm. “Come stand next to me and see if you fit under here,” he says. You know that he only wants to demonstrate how much taller he is, but you linger under his arm, surprised that you’re hoping he’ll relax his arm around your shoulder and pull you close. But he doesn’t, even though it seems like the most natural thing to do.  

You decide to leave the country and become a nun for a year and a half, not because you want to get away from him, but because you want to be a missionary for your church. The night before you leave, you ask for a goodbye hug. And that’s when it happens. As you pull out of the embrace, he smiles at you, his arms still at your waist. You smile back. Then he tips his head down and kisses you. Your insides get all fluttery, and you feel slightly warm, even though it’s winter and so cold that you can see little clouds of breath when you talk. When he stops kissing you, you look into his eyes and ask, “What do we do now?” because you know that you love him and he, miraculously, loves you, too. So you spend the rest of the night talking and kissing. And the next morning, you get on a plane and leave. But you know this is not the end of the story, and it isn’t. Almost two years later you will kiss him again, this time across an altar. This time for keeps. 

Over the next fifteen years, you will remember that cold winter night quite often. You will feel the same excitement; you will smile at the memory of his lips against yours. You will think of that first kiss as a fragile, beautiful thing. And you will begin to understand that this is how your marriage is, too. You must remember this. When the kids come, as they grow up and after they leave, you must keep this memory in your pocket and pull it out frequently. And when you do, you must kiss the boy who became your husband. Because after all this time, you still love him. And he, miraculously, still loves you, too.

Love Letter to My Son Paul

This is a letter written for my son's "Cool Kid" week at school. He was not amused by the reference to his early eating habits. "You embarrassed me," he said when he got home from school on the day his teacher read it aloud to the class. "It was also too long--eight minutes!" he added. 

"Yeah, well, I'm supposed to embarrass you," I said. "I'm your mother. That's my job." 

Personally, I think I deserve a raise.

Dear Paul,

As you know, this week your father and I have spent a lot of time looking at baby pictures of you. I have the stack of pictures here with me as I write this, so I’ll tell you what I’m looking at. There’s a picture of you sucking your thumb, a grin visible beneath your curled fingers. There’s you in a snowman costume, strapped into the stroller, clutching the hat you’ve just pulled off your head and laughing. When I look closer, I see that you hold one sock you’ve just torn off your foot, which you are holding up for the camera to see. Your nose is painted red, and with your mouth open, mid-laugh like that, I can see two tiny teeth on the bottom and just a hint of two on top. And your hair! It’s so blond and fine and silky that it’s almost white, like the strands of a spent dandy lion.

But my favorite photographs are of you in the high chair. In one picture you’re wearing a blue terry cloth sleeper suit, and of course you’re smiling, this time without a thumb in your mouth. You’ve got one fist resting on the tray and the other hidden from view. Apparently you’ve had a good meal, because you sit slouched in one corner, as if you’ve just devoured Thanksgiving dinner and couldn’t possibly eat anything more. The tray is smeared with what looks like maple syrup. Something shiny and sticky-looking covers your cheeks and forehead, and your sleeper suit. And what’s that in your hair? You guessed it. Maple syrup. 

We must have wised up after awhile, because in the next picture, you’re not wearing a shirt. Spaghetti sauce covers your little chest, your cheeks, your hand, a sippy cup, and some toys. This time your hand is spread wide and covered in sauce. I’m pretty sure I caught you painting the tray with it. Of course you’re smiling, as if to say, “Don’t you just love the feel of spaghetti sauce on your skin?” Quite often I had to bathe you after meals, so thoroughly covered in food you were. But I laugh about that now, because you obviously enjoyed the process of eating as much as you enjoyed the meal itself. You didn’t just eat a meal; you liked to dress yourself in it, too. 

This way you had of doing things on your own terms we dubbed “Pauly-style”, and it started even before you were born. When I was pregnant with you, you didn’t just give my belly a karate kick now and then, like most kids. You did three-sixties, cartwheels, Ollies, and back flips. Once in church, a friend turned around from her seat in front of us just in time to see your acrobatics. She looked at me, saw your limbs doing the watoosie inside my belly, and gasped. I just giggled and shrugged. I knew that you would be an active kid--and a fun kid, too. 

And I was right. You have this amazing ability to do anything that involves physical activity, be it roller blading, snowboarding, BMX biking, skateboarding, soccer, or basketball. Your body just knows what to do. Usually there’s a jump, a leap, or a trick of some sort involved, too. Something distinctly Pauly-style. 

You even read Pauly-style. When you were in kindergarten, we’d sit on the couch and read those little paper books that were stapled together in the middle, usually stories involving a rat, a mat, and a snake named Sis. I’d turn to the first page. “See Sis sit,” I’d say. Out of the corner of my eye I could see you start to wiggle. By the time we’d reached the middle of the book, you’d be balanced on your head, looking at the book upside down. By the last page, you’d have somersaulted off the seat cushion onto the floor. And before I could say, “The end,” you’d scamper off to other adventures, usually involving a bike or a ball.

But Pauly-style doesn’t only mean you paint modern pictures with spaghetti fingers, or that you style your hair with maple syrup, or that you can hold your own with the big kids at the skate park. It also means that you know how to show kindness with small acts of service. Whenever it snows, I can count on you to be out before the rest of us, shovel in hand, clearing our driveway and the neighbor’s as well. I will always remember the winter we were hit with such a big snowstorm that school was canceled for the morning. Do you know how you spent your mini-vacation? As I recall, you cleared four driveways and some sidewalks too, whistling a happy tune as you did so.

There’s something else about you, too. You’re smart. Often when I haven’t seen you for a long time, I’ll find you in your room, reading a thick book, the cat sleeping on your lap. You’ve also consistently brought home good grades, excelling in math as well as recess. And, to top it all off, you’re a hard worker. When you were CEO of a pretend company for a school project and the computers went down, you covered all the crises that popped up with your characteristic aplomb—which is to say, Pauly-style.

You have the makings of a great leader: charisma, intelligence and good looks. I won’t be surprised if you end up running for president someday. And I’ll tell you this: you’ve got my vote for sure.

Love,

Mom 

 

What's for Tea, Mum?

Had a good time photographing cookies from Ikea and herbal tea from a neighbor. The best part was eating the props when I was done. I couldn't decide which picture I liked the most. Which one's your favorite?   

The Birds and the Bees

Last week, we were gathered in the front room, talking about the creation of the earth. When we got to the part where God created people, my youngest lay down on the floor, did this spread-eagle thing with his arms and legs, and groaned like he was going to throw up or something. 

"What are you doing?" I asked him. 

Jake screamed, then contorted his face into a grimace and bore down. "Hunnnngh," he said. Now, instead of throwing up, it looked like he was having a difficult bowel movement. That reminded me of how one of our kids (who shall remain nameless because he is at that age when this might embarrass him), would climb up to the toilet when he was little, grunt for a few moments, then pronounce, "Nuffin," with an air of great dissatisfaction. He would say this aloud, whether or not someone accompanied him to the bathroom. Then you'd hear the scuffle of a little wooden stool as he descended his throne. It made it quite easy to keep track of his bowel movements. Plus, it always made us laugh. 

But Jake never said, "Nuffin." He just kept on grunting, crossing his eyes for greater effect. I repeated my question.

"I'm having a baby," Jake answered. 

I looked at Rick, who looked back at me and shrugged. Where had this kid seen a woman having a baby? Rick thought for a moment and said, "Star Trek?" We've seen the movie twice, and it does indeed begin with a woman in labor being wheeled through a crashing space ship by a one-eyed nurse. The woman screamed a lot, and I must say she did look authentically sweaty as she winced in mock pain. It was not like some of those shows that make the pregnant woman look like she'd swallowed a wad of lumpy cotton and was shrieking like a sissy to get it out. In those shows, the doctor might as well clip some threads with embroidery scissors at the end of the ordeal rather than snip an umbilical cord. "Congratulations," he could say, "You've just given birth to a throw pillow." 

The whole family stared at Jake. "You're a boy," his brother said. "You can't have babies." Jake paused, as if contemplating the details of baby making. And that's when I realized we haven't had "The Talk" with this child. I'm not looking forward to that one. It was bad enough with the first two. When we told them about sex a couple years ago, they looked at each other, with an expression on their faces that could only be interpreted as "gross." I couldn't even make eye contact through the whole discussion, choosing to sit silently examining the fabric on the chair while my husband briefly revealed, in scientific terms, how babies are conceived. When my husband cracked open an anatomy book he had borrowed from the library, our boys looked at the illustrations with the same polite interest you'd look at a friend's vacation photos. I was worried that the kids would eventually ask, "You and Mom don't do this, do you?" But when Rick was done talking, the boys had no questions. 

But I think at least one kid is on to us. The other night when it seemed the children were asleep, I tapped Rick on the shoulder and announced that the planets were in alignment. Shortly thereafter, I went out to the hallway to check on the children. That's when I found our oldest sitting in his bed, completely awake, watching a show on his brother's ipod, head phones plugged into his ears. Although we'd done our best to keep quiet, our bed is rather squeaky, and our oldest, always a light sleeper, had just switched bedrooms to the one adjacent to ours. I wondered if the head phones meant that he either didn't want to make a sound or didn't want to hear a sound--or sounds, in this case. I feared the worst. 

My son looked up as I approached the doorway. I gestured for him to take his headphones off. "Did we wake you up?" I asked. He looked away. 

"Well?" I said, smiling nervously. 

"Um…no," he said slowly. "I was just…scared." 

Scared of what? I wanted to ask. But I already knew the answer. Just imagining your parents having sex is bad enough. But hearing it? That's the stuff of nightmares. 

The next night as our kids watched television in the basement, my husband conducted an experiment. He stepped into the boys' bedroom and told me to bounce on our bed a little to make it squeak. I obeyed. After just a few moments of this he hollered, "Stop, just stop." He came back to our room, his face red with embarrassment. 

"You can hear it, all right," he said. "Loud and clear."

I wondered if spraying WD-40 on our bed would solve the problem. Or perhaps KY Jelly? I thought of suggesting abstinence, but for some reason didn't think Rick would go for this idea. And that's when I came up with the perfect solution. Our oldest should live with his grandparents. Because, you know, there wouldn't be anything for him to hear in the wee hours of the night. I can't imagine that our parents do that sort of thing anymore. 

Or do they? Oh dear. I think I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

Singing for Haiti

If you buy this re-make of "Everybody Hurts", the proceeds will help Haiti victims. And guess what? It was Simon Cowell, that surly judge from American Idol, who got everybody together to record it. It'll be available starting February 8. You can read more about it here.

A note about the song:

Some of you may remember the original REM version of "Everybody Hurts" from the early Nineties. Though I prefer the original, this version is not bad. It's a little less over the top than "Feed the World," as in no chorus with everyone singing their little stoned hearts out. And there aren't any guitar solos, which is always a plus in my opinion. However, there is a bit of trying to out-sing the other, but that's to be expected when you gather a bunch of soloists together. Look at it this way: When you want to sing along with this song, it'll be a lot more fun to imitate twenty-one voices as opposed to one. Just keep it to a shower concert so no one but the cat can hear. 

A Matter of Perspective

I was in the shower yesterday morning and thinking of how late it was, and how much my day so far had not gone as planned. It was nearly 10:00 and the house looked like a swamp. Dishes filled the sink, baskets of clean laundry blocked the path to my bed, and dirty socks covered the equally dirty carpet. I was supposed to have taken care of all these things by the time I took a shower. I had also planned to run errands and take a little trip to the local thrift shop before picking up the kids from school. 

But then Jake woke up with the sniffles. "I can't go to school," he told me with shoulders slumped and eyes red at the edges. 

Remembering how he had been complaining about school--about a few girls who have made a game of grabbing him and kissing him in particular--I wondered if he was only being dramatic. But then he snuffled again and could hear rivers of mucus flowing in his nasal passages. So, there you have it. By being excited for my day, I had jinxed it. With all of my plans scratched, I sent Jake to bed with advice to go back to sleep. And that's what I wanted to do, too. But I couldn't. So I took a shower instead.

As the water ran, my thoughts began. What a waste! I said to myself. I haven't gotten anything done! I continued. I just don't have enough time to do everything on my list, I complained. Then my friend Epiphany knocked on my brain. Epiphany said that I should stop thinking about what I had (or in this case, had not) accomplished, and ask myself what I had enjoyed that morning instead. So I did. I thought of how I had looked at some baby pictures of Paul sucking his thumb. That made me remember how when he wanted to say something, he'd remove his thumb with a sound similar to uncorking a wine bottle. He'd jabber about what happened to be on his mind, then re-cork himself. I also recalled how, underneath his thumb, you could always detect a slight upturn of his lips. As I washed my hair, I thought of how the night before my husband had remarked how vividly he could remember seeing that grinning, be-thumbed child in the rear view mirror as he drove around town. That memory of long ago, and the smile on my husband's face when he and I reminisced about it were surely things I had enjoyed. 

By this time, Epiphany was positively giddy as I added to my list of morning enjoyments: an unusual but tasty breakfast of steamed spinach mixed with a dollop of mayonnaise, a therapeutic stretching workout, and this nice warm shower. To top it off, when I turned off the water, God gave me a little gift, a bird singing in the tree outside my window. It sounded like a squeaky toy, or a child's bicycle horn, which made me think of riding bikes in the summer. And for a moment, I felt the joy of coasting down the hill on my vintage bicycle, ringing the silver bell attached to the handle bars, my children at my side, laughing and hollering as we raced to the imaginary finish line.

Suddenly, I felt that the morning had been productive. I was calm, and even happy. And yet, I felt a bit incomplete, a little selfish, even. That's when Epiphany suggested that it would be nice to make some enjoyment for someone else, too. So I excavated a book from under a pile of dirty clothes and read it to my sick child. As my son listened to stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder's first home in the Big Woods, the sun lit up the room, reminding me that winter will soon give way to spring. 

I never did get the laundry put away. But you know what? I really don't care. Because I've changed my perspective on these matters. I've decided that it's more important to see, hear, feel and taste what's around me. I no longer feel beholden to my to-do list, because you can't always plan your enjoyments. Sometimes you have to take them as they come. And come they will, if only you will let yourself notice them. 

The Daily Dishes

Instead of washing breakfast dishes, I take pictures of them. 

 

Full Moon

Did you know that the moon was its brightest on Friday night? I did. After watching a bit of local news detailing the phenomenon my youngest bounded up the stairs and yelled, "Let's go look at the moon!" He fumbled in the closet and pulled out our box of binoculars, then ran out to the deck to have a look. His two older brothers did not follow. At thirteen and eleven years-old, things like the moon do not impress them. Funny how if someone shouts, "Look at this cat dancing on YouTube!" everyone will come running. It seems to me if it's on a screen, my kids think anything is more interesting than an actual, three-dimensional piece of reality right in front of them. It occurs to me that maybe I've hit upon a new way to feed my family. Instead of actually cooking, I could show my family a cooking video on the internet. "See kids," I'd say as they gathered round the computer, "You can almost taste it."  

But back to the moon. I happened to be in the kitchen making cookies at the moment my child ran to the deck, so was close at hand when he poked his head through the sliding glass door and said, "You gotta come see this thing." So I did. And lo, the moon did shine with rather more intensity than usual. It was so bright that I wondered if it was safe for my child to look directly into it. I recalled being told in kindergarten that looking into the sun could cause blindness--would staring at this moon do the same? My husband laughed when I asked him this question, though he looked doubtful for a split second. He got over his doubts pretty quick, though. The next thing I knew he had the telescope out on a tripod, focused right on that bright old moon. Let me tell you, looking through the telescope was like looking directly into the headlight of an oncoming car, when you're out in the country on a dark night--and a cold night at that. Or like twisting a light bulb into a lamp socket, not realizing that the lamp is switched on until it suddenly blinds you with a flash of light so strong that you instinctively close your eyes, and under the darkness of your eyelids you still see pops of white spots. Or like when you're deep into a book and your kid says, "Hey, Mom, look over here." And when you do, you're blinded by a camera flash as he snaps a picture of you and laughs as you walk around partially blind for the next five minutes. 

So anyway, the moon was bright. We could see splotches of dark on its surface, with divots here and there that reminded me of acne scars. At the base of the moon there was a small circle that looked like a stem had once been there. I thought it looked like a moldy, albino orange from outer space. I'm sure there's a more technical term to describe it, but to me it's more fun to think that God plucked an old orange off a tree and tossed it to earth for our amusement. Or maybe for his. I can imagine that watching us shiver in the winter night as we tried to comprehend how exactly something that luminous and huge could just hang over us like that, like a giant orb suspended in the sky, might be a nice way to pass an evening. 

When we were done, my husband dragged the tripod and telescope inside. I resumed my cookie making, only to glance over to see him peering through the telescope, which he had turned on me. "I'm trying to see what you would look like with a boob job," he said. This intrigued me. Wouldn't it be nice if the moon had special powers? What if I could be like a werewolf, but instead of going all hairy--because with how infrequently I shave, I'm already hairy enough--I would sprout C-cups? I could just imagine the sound my girls would make as they became women. It would sound like "tawang," or maybe "tawanda." I'd look down at my new and improved figure, lift my eyes to the moon and howl, as if to say, "Hey, thanks for the breasts!" It could happen, you know. Come to think of it, supposedly there is a man in the moon. And if I know men, they do like big breasts.  

Unfortunately, my husband couldn't find my chest in the lens, so he gave up. I'm okay with that. I worry that if he had figured out how to see me at my biggest and brightest, he also might have figured out how to film the transformation. And then you know what he would have done? Yep, he would have posted it on the BoobTube.