Am I "That Kind of Mother"

I am apparently the kind of mother who will let her barely two year old use his favorite shubbel(shovel) to collect the hideous dead cricket off the garage floor and dump it into the trash can. I did hold the lid of the can open for him. Do I get points for that? Or was I just making sure that the creature actually landed in the can? Probably the latter. On the other hand, he likes to be useful. And he was... I can once again enter the garage (aka my sewing and laundry room) without fear.


The whole "that kind of mother" thing is on my mind because of some acquaintances of ours. They've been married about two and a half years. She has an eighteen year old daughter and a fourteen year old son. He has a ten year old son. Her son lives with them. His son lives in another state with his mother. He is active duty Navy and was recently given the choice of either going to Iraq (unacompanied by his family for a year) or to Hawaii with his family for three years. Not his whole family of course. He will see his own son even less than he does now. He makes the nine hour drive to his son's house fairly often for long weekends, school vacations, etc. Her daughter will not be going. They've arranged for her to share a house with a young sailor they know pretty well. The thing is her son (who simply doesn't have any other father) will be going with them. A smallish caucasion boy who is a little bit geeky and wears glasses. Into Hawaiian public schools. I am a military wife and we have never considered Hawaii as an acceptable duty station unless we had the budget for private school. Therefore, we've never even considererd Hawaii.

These newly married folks are HOT for each other. I've known them for over four years and they can hardly keep their hands off each other and their clothes on when their together. They telephone and email each other constantly. They hate to be apart. But come on...


I love PC; he really is my prince. But I can assure you he would NEVER question whether him alone in Iraq versus any of our kids in Hawaiian public schools was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He simply wouldn't consider it. And I'll tell you something else, if it was PC's friend's biological son - the one in the other state - they wouldn't be going to Hawaii. How very judgmental of me. But I KNOW this is true.


So then, I've established I'm not THAT kind of mother. I don't send my kids to public schools where they are destined to get the shit kicked out of them every day for the crime of being Haulie (sp?). We chose to purchase our smallish homes in excellent school districts (although I admit I secretly long for a McMansion) and I am certain we'll continue that tradition. We were supposed to be able to live anywhere now that T has graduated but along came the Pumpkin so we're in for another 18 years or so of choosing a house based on its schools rather than its charm.


On the other hand I do let any of the three pick up creepy bugs so I don't have to. I have been known to dose a possibly sick baby with Motrin or Tylenol (or their generic equivalents) so that they can be dropped off at daycare (aka "school") and I can get at least a half day of work in before the school calls to inform me that my baby is sick.


I am also the mother who refused to bail her oldest son out of jail when he was arrested for selling narcotics. I'm sure it was a hideous lesson - but I suspect he truly learned it.


I held the middle one close to me on the day, in his senior year of high school, when he was expelled for having a knife in his car. I know it sounds awful - the knife - but we have them in each of our cars, they're very handy for opening packages, making small repairs, etc. Since the school police officers also found remnants of marijuana in the back seat pocket of T's car that is what I was concentrating on... And then the school principal explained that he had no choice but to expel T for having a weapon on school property. I am a licensed attorney but the fact that the school thought my boy brought a weapon onto school property had never crossed my mind. Except once he said it, based on my skilled legal background, I realized that there was no way out for my boy. In the end that middle boy somehow managed to remain in school, complete all his required classes and actually graduate in June. I am now the kind of mother who is so grateful for the graduation that the fact that neither of the "big kids" were prepared to attend even community college (they COULD have, they just wouldn't - although R now attends full time) hardly even registered on my panic scale.


I am a mother who works hard for her money (with a husband who works harder still). Neither of us was ready for college immediately after high school (PC's parents sent him but he has a transcript full of Fs to show for thier investment in one year of partying). We each eventually went to college as adults, at night, while raising these same kids and we paid for the privilege. In my case, we'll be paying for the next 20 years. We're paying for R's college now because he finally seems to be serious about going (we've actually paid several times but he never completed any courses until this summer). When its time for him to move on from the Community College (VERY inexpensive in California where R lives) he may be on his own for the expense. We haven't really talked about what will happen next because we're still watching what happens now.

I am THIS kind of mother:

1. I love them all fiercely;


2. I make them face the consequences of their actions (well, perhaps not so much with the Pumpkin);


3. I send them to excellent public schools (again, the Pumpkin - being two, doesn't qualify so he goes to a lovely private daycare center);


4. I help them with college but I don't think I owe it to them - I think they owe it to themselves;


5. I would die for them but I won't bail them out of jail;


6. I will watch ridiculous TV shows with the older kids, if they invite me, just because I'm flattered to be asked;


7. I will watch endless repeats of the Pumpkin's favorite shows and movies just because he like to know I'm there repeating "oh no" at the thrilling parts and pat, pat, patting to get rocket to fly faster;


8. I have asthma but I will inflate up to ten ballons a day because the Pumpkin loves them; and


9. I tell them every day how much I love them and I try to explain that being their mother is the best thing I've ever been.

Good Neighbor/Bad Neighbor

Ah Neighbors. We've had many. I'm pretty much a wave as I drive by neighbor. Here in Virginia Beach we live in a real neighborhood of ranch houses built 40 years ago. Our block has several original owners, two rentals, a few childless couples around my age, and a few families including young children or teenagers (ours is, of course, the only family with both). I am a good neighbor in the sense that I clean up my yard, don't play loud music, put away my trash cans, usually bring in my newspaper, and NEVER park any of our four cars on the grass.

I'm not so great in that I know the names of exactly three of the families on my block. I know the first names of two other women. And I've forgotton the name of the very nice woman who introduced herself to me at the high school graduation in June (she lives across the street and two doors down - I recognized her immediately because the day they put new mulch down their 16 year old son threw a cigarette out his bedroom window and it ignited - PC ran to the assistance of her very irate husband).

I'm busy. I know I'm not the only one.

Good Neighbor Points: When my friend across the street had a baby in June I was on vacation, when I got back I was sick, the first day I felt completely well I bought his present and took it to her. I explained I'd been too sick to come over before and she seemed to understand and appreciate it. I've never complained about the next door neighbor's band. Probably because I like it. I used to dance on the deck with the Pumpkin when he was a baby and now we run around the yard like wild things during practice.

Bad Neighbor Points: I don't pay attention to them. My dogs bark A LOT (if they bark at night I do lock them in the house). My husband built a new wood fence, using the posts of the neighbors existing chain link fences for support. Their side isn't very attractive (in my defense I was extremely opposed to the fence). I sometimes let the baby hold the car keys and the red button that sets off the alarm is his favorite.


Which brings me to a funny story. I've noticed that my blog is a complete downer house of gloom and doom. I actually consider myself sort of funny (the Pumpkin always agrees, PC not so much). One of my good points is that I am never too vain to tell a terrible story about myself if it is funny. Don't worry, this all wraps up into the baby setting off the car alarm thing....


Ever since T (the 18 year old) was born, I have had slight to moderate bladder control issues. Heavy sigh. My friend who is a doctor frequently tells me that "it's never too late to build a muscle" and I kegel away for a couple of days and then I lose interest. So anyway, by the time I get home in the afternoon I am frequently RUSHING to get to the bathroom. One day a few months ago was such a day. So I pull to a screeching halt in front of the house, race around the car, wrench the Pumpkin from his carseat, and haul ass to the front door. So far I have placed stress on my very full bladder when halting, racing, wrenching, and carrying... So I fling the door open, leaving the keys in it and race off to the bathroom. The pumpkin, left alone in the entryway, is delighted that he can just reach the keys. I get to the bathroom and discover that - oh no! - not only did I not quite make it - it wasn't only my bladder that was full. I know, TMI, but how else can I get the point across. So I'm trapped in the bathroom... finishing up, cleaning up, finding clean play clothes etc. In the meantime, I hear the car horn occasionally honking, the alarm going off then stopping, the beeps of the car being locked and unlocked and I'm just not paying that much attention to it. Then, just as I struggle into clean undies, I hear the car alarm go off and it doesn't stop. Not good. So I race to the entryway in my underwear to discover that all of the neighbors across the street (three or four houses worth) are on their porches or in their driveways approaching my house to see what the ruckus is about... And there I am to fix it all IN MY UNDERWEAR.


As gracefully as possible while crouching in a ridiculous position to try to hide the fact that I'm wearing only underwear, I removed the keys, slammed and locked the door, and tried to explain to the pumpkin that he should NEVER hit the red button. Oh the shame and horror.


Another bad neighbor point: I am occasionally seen in my underwear. Ugh.

What if ....

I have been thinking a lot lately about people I couldn't live without. Its not a long list. It was prompted by a few conversations I've had lately with my friend A. A's husband is one of the Navy divers who recovered the bodies of the people who died in the Minneapolis bridge collapse. We grieved and agonized over the woman who was five months pregnant and had her two year old in the car with her. All gone. But what we thought would have been worse is if the mother had somehow fought her way out but had to leave her baby behind. We also can't imagine the life of a two year old who is left without her mother. The father of that little family probably doesn't agree with us. There was also a mother who died with her 20 year old son who had Down syndrome. Apparently they were never apart. Again, how could one have managed without the other. And yet, she had two daughters who almost certainly wouldn't agree with us.

When I hear of the death of a child I think "I could never get out of bed again". Yet I know that people do... If you have other kids you must. But if something happened to the Pumpkin I don't think I would even want to get out of bed ever again. I don't know if I could do it to be strong for my big sons who don't need me for much anymore. PC would expect me to but he is so strong, so stoic, that I don't think he could even relate to what it would feel like to be me.

I am many things more than the Pumpkin's mother but, right now, there is nothing as important, nothing as all encompassing as that role. PC and the Pumpkin are going away for the weekend to PC's brother's house. An easy three hour drive. I was supposed to go but I've missed some work this week due to a back injury (and yes, it is quite possible, that the medication I'm taking has accellerated this morbid train of thought). And so, until they get back next Sunday, I will periodically test the hypothetical devastation that would follow IF SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED. Its how my mind works. I have to think up all the awful permutations of a situation and run all the way through them in my mind.

The truth is almost certainly: They'll be fine; PC will discover that traveling alone with the Pumpkin is not quite as easy or as difficult as he anticipated; I'll get caught up on a lot of my work; I may get to put in some time in my sewing room; I'll try to have a couple of chats with T about his current plan to not enroll in college this fall; I'll miss them in a background sort of way because I'll be very busy; I'll be so glad when they're back to monopolize every second of my time.

Now You're Scaring Me

Last Saturday I told my very close friend Amber that I felt a little hurt that I didn't "feel" my Mother in Law near me since she died in July. Now before you click away, please understand even though I'm from California I'm not a freaky kind of mystical weirdo. (But if you are a freaky kind of mystical weirdo I can totally accept that. Not that you need my acceptance - good Lord this is complicated.) What I meant was, when my Dad died and I missed him unbearably he would come to me in dreams. One of the dreams I remember most vividly was shortly after he passed, when I was still crying myself to sleep every night, and in the dream I was telling him how lonely I was without him and he looked at me and said "Don't you think I'm lonely too". It made sense to me. I believe that he was reunited with his parents, his brother, his beloved grandmother, and the rest of the loved ones he lost once he passed. But I know he would have missed me and my brothers no matter how many loving souls were there for him. Its been 24 years since my dad died but his was the only death of someone truly close to me that I've experienced.


So I expected my Mother in Law to visit. To maybe tell me to watch out for the boys and for PC. Something. And my feelings were a little bit hurt that she didn't. Okay. Now I'm over it. She is haunting manifesting through my desktop computer. Not in a bad way. My desktop always boots up slowly. The clue that it is finally finished is when the weatherbug and AIM pop up. I don't use AIM but my older sons do. It pops up every day and expects my oldest son, R., to log in. I close the login screen and thats it. Every day. Until now. Now it pops up with Linda's buddy list. I'm sure she logged in to AIM when she was staying at my house after the Pumpkin was born but I certainly didn't change the last person to log in. I don't mind. I find it weirdly comforting. Yesterday though was creepy. In addition to her buddy list my computer froze on a picture of her husband. Now although the picture does reside somewhere in the My Pictures folder I have never deliberately accessed it - at least until I decided to show YOU. It is hideous. I see it flash by occasionally when the screen saver is on and the slideshow of all my pictures plays. But that is the screen saver. There should never be a picture along with the regular opening stuff. She only recently passed maybe she only has enough energy to cause an electrical disturbance rather than a dream visit. I don't know the rules. Before you rush to judgment (see note above re freaky mystical weirdo - NOT) I can see I'm going to have to explain similar things that have happened to Me or to People I Actually Know. Here goes:


Other than the aforementioned dreams of Dad, my personal experience with "spiritual" weirdness is this: My oldest son R was conceived when a good friend of mine and I had a brief sexual encounter. It wasn't the first time, we were old friends. Nonetheless once he learned of my pregnancy - through a friend - he never spoke to me again (R is 21 years old). This occurred in the same year that my dad died, shortly after my brother joined the Army, when I was living alone in the house where only recently I had lived with my family.... So, I'm pregnant and I'm alone. I'm actually good with that because in my mind I already had R and therefore was no longer alone - I was in fact a walking family. I happen to be one of those people who is terrified of being alone in a house. I imagine sounds and creatures and serial killers under the beds and REALLY have a hard time being alone in a house. So, asleep in my pitiful twin bed I roll over one night and glance around the room for intruders (as I did, in those days, 20 or 30 times a night) and I see, hovering over me, a face. At first, I was completely petrified given that someone in the house is what I was so afraid of. After a few minutes though, I realized that this "person" was not whole - at least not standing at my bedside - only sort of hovering over me. And, more importantly, that this "person" meant me no harm. It was an elderly lady that I didn't recognize. When trying to reason it out I decided it must be my dad's Granny, whom I'd never met, but who, I reasoned, had been gone long enough to "check on me" for him. Like I said - I don't know the rules. We watched each other for a while. I had a clear sense of being "measured up" and then I went back to sleep. The next day when visiting a friend I learned that R's biological father's mother died that night. I think she was checking out her future grandchild's mother. Weird. It didn't change anything. R's NF (not a father?) never did consent to see us again. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.


My only other "direct" encounter: My cousin Barb's (I think she's my second cousin - she and my dad were first cousins) husband died a couple of years before I moved away from California. After he passed, the remote control car that was his - and was not permitted to be touched by his innumerable grandsons - kept going on when nobody was manning the controls. Replacing the batteries didn't help. Removing the batteries didn't help. My cousin finally gave it to one of her sons so he would get it out of her house because it creeped her out. A lot. In the drawer of her dresser it would start up at night. Yuck.


To get back to Linda (my Mother in Law), I tried to think what she might be telling me, with her list of friends and her creepy husband's pciture, if anything. Maybe she was just trying not to hurt my feelings. Maybe dreams are too hard. Maybe she knows that PC and the boys/men are fine. I decided (in what may have been a phenomenal example of thinking what you want to think) that she wanted me to try to use my trusty, albeit rusty, lawyer skills to persuade her husband to drop the lawsuit he has filed against my sister in law. (Note to readers: You thought I gave a little TMI but you were wrong....) So I wrote him a letter. Not my best effort, I was mostly putting in words the actions I want to take - shake him until his teeth rattle and he gets a clue.


Anyway, mission completed, when I got home tonight there was nothing peculiar frozen on my screen. Its just my lame old desktop computer in the bedroom (the Pumpkin got the office when he was mysteriously conceived). I don't want her to give up. I don't want her to leave me. I miss her so much.... I love you Linda.

Signature Dish

I avidly watched this season of The Next Food Network Star. As I watched the competitions I went over the assignments and the timelines and wondered how I would stack up against the contestants (I wouldn’t – I can’t even breathe, much less talk and cook, if there is a camera pointed in my direction). The problem I had is: what is my signature dish? What is my “approach” to food. Hmmm. I love Italian food. I make great Chicken Cacciatore. My brother in law loves my Beef Stroganoff, I can make, and love to eat, really great tacos. But a Signature Dish? I don’t think I have one. At the stadium food remake I’d have done Frito Pies (homemade chili, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, and/or guacamole on top of fritos) yum. I’m sure I’d have won. But what about the rest of it?

I recently read “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver and her family. Ms. Kingsolver (one of my favorite authors) deplored the “food culture” of America as something like – and this is ABSOLUTELY paraphrasing – what you can eat in your car between appointments. I want to adopt the “local” food culture but it requires a LOT of planning. You may have heard of the “100 mile food” initiative or something like it. I probably won’t adopt it this year but I am making efforts. I have been buying masses of “salad” size tomatoes (not quite as big as a golf ball, but too big for one bite) and drying them in the oven. In a couple of weeks, when tomatoes become dirt cheap at the Farmer’s Market I plan to buy 100 pounds (4 largish boxes) and make and freeze sauce – when I moved here, pre-Pumpkin in 2003, I made 25 pounds into sauce for no reason at all so I’m certain I can manage 100 pounds when I DO have a reason. I DON’T CAN. But I might next year. Also this month I must buy masses of zucchini (you know, when people will pay you to take it) and shred and freeze it. If you go to AnimalVegetableMiracle.com you can find the Fabulous, Amazing, Incredibly Delicious recipe for Disappearing Zucchini Orzo and you’ll know why. Yes, you can make it in winter with zucchini grown somewhere other than Virginia but I’m doing my very small part to eat things when they grow here and do without them when they don’t. Since I have a toddler and this would require that I never again buy bananas this is clearly NOT a firm commitment but I’m trying.

Do I have a signature anything? What do I stand for? When people think about me – what do they think? What do I think about when I think about me? (Yes, I think Toby Keith did write a song about that…) I agonized over this for several days, in part with this post in mind. Most nights, my sweet baby Pumpkin reminds me that if I’m around all is right with his world and that is how it should be. But what about the rest of the world? I think I expend a lot of effort to not care too much about anything that doesn’t directly impact my family. But if you start to think about things like how much energy (read: foreign oil) it takes for me to buy lovely pre-washed California Lettuce in December in Virginia you have to go a little farther - is it possible that I could eat lettuce only in the Spring and Fall – when it actually grows here? Is this where I draw the line? Do I stand for this? If I do, I’d better get cracking; according to Ms. Kingsolver, the time to think about what you’re going to eat in February is in August.

What I’m really trying to get at through this whole food analogy thing is: Do I say anything of enough general interest to say it to the general public on this blog? I want to be a person with enough belief in SOMETHING that I can pour my heart out to the world at large in an effort – not to exactly sway anybody – but to show that even if your gut instinct is to disagree with me totally, maybe I have a sliver of an idea that you agree with and perhaps, even though you don’t agree with most of my thought processes, my point is valid enough to address.

Hmmm. That seems kind of whiny… I am essentially a very private person. I received a phone call from Jack Webb’s campaign committee shortly before the election in – was it November: I can’t even remember, I am a formerly intelligent sleep deprived person with no memory – well anyway, fairly recent election when Virginia surprisingly voted in a Democrat to the Senate – asking if, as a registered Democrat, I wanted any campaign materials for my lawn. I told the very nice man that although his candidate definitely had my vote, it was my quiet, private, vote since if I put Mr. Webb’s signs on the lawn, that would require that my PC put the other guy’s signs on the lawn, then the neighbors might get involved and, most importantly PC might actually remember to vote and then my vote would be canceled out, etc….

Now, I’m throwing myself out there for public perusal. Ick. Still, before I state a conviction out loud I think it through pretty thoroughly, so here I go. I believe in local food (with the apparent exception of bananas which all toddlers seem to feel are a god-given right). I’m trying to live up to my belief. I believe that I have a duty to do my best to pass on the planet to all of my children and to their children and so I am committed to recycling (this is new – I pretty much ignore recycling and landfills whenever I have a child in diapers).

I hope that as I continue with this blogging adventure I will become confident enough to express more of what I believe in. I am more of a listener than a leader but I think I might try to talk a little more. Maybe I can become a persuader. What a concept…

Requiem

We are back from our trip to El Paso. As funerals go, it was nice. It was really great to see our oldest son (we haven’t seen him since Thanksgiving) and the Pumpkin had a great time with his brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents . There are two good things about El Paso: Boots and Burritos. I ate an unbelievable quantity of really good Mexican food and bought the Pumpkin a pair of Justin cowboy boots and a “real” cowboy hat.

We spent too much time in the lobby of the Embassy Suites watching the SEVEN kids under eleven run like wild things. They swam, got kicked out of the fitness center, played “elevator tag” and were generally unsupervised and out of control. We forbade the cousins to take the Pumpkin on the elevator (because looking up to the open 8th floor corridor and seeing his head peeking out of the railings was too terrifying for words) but other than that he ran with the worst of them.

The Pumpkin and his oldest brother R

running amok in the Lobby of the hotel

The Pumpkin escaped from my clutches TWICE during the service and ran across the front of the chapel yelling “and beyond” (as in “To Infinity and…). The minister, who was wonderful, bore an uncanny resemblance to one of the guys in Flight of the Conchords (the one on the right)and so I was seized by an absurd impulse to hold up my lighter when he sang “Praise God” over and over to the tune of Amazing Grace because he only knew the words to the first verse. It is one of my least attractive traits – I tend to giggle uncontrollably at funerals. If my youngest brother is with me I virtually have to get down on the floor to smother the gales of laughter that inevitably overcome my good sense. I did NOT actually laugh at the service this time but I thought silly thoughts and wished we weren’t all too sad to tell the funny stories she wanted us to tell.

I went back to work today but was feeling weepy and out of sorts. Between Mrs. Chicky’s loss of her Gram, LawyerMama’s loss of her Grandma-in-law, my own loss of my MIL, and Robin Roberts’ breast cancer I’ve been fighting tears all day. I am hoping that after I slog through tomorrow the weekend will cure me of my blues. I’m planning to work on some quilts this weekend – there is no better way to pay homage to my MIL. Maybe LawyerMama will come back and we can go to the beach and baste the kids.