It's Stood the Test of Time

I had a student teacher in 2007-- a really good one-- and I agonized over what to buy her for a congratulatory gift at the end of her tenure with me. “How about a Barnes and Noble gift card?” a colleague suggested. “No, it has to be something she can keep,” I thought.

The gift needed to be like the apple.

I have on my desk an entirely basic ceramic apple. It's complete with a nondescript stem, and sits about 3 inches tall in between my tissue box and three- hole- punch. It probably looks really generic on my desk-- a teacher's apple: what cutting edge décor.

The ceramic apple has traveled with me from Smithfield, RI-- where I received it-- to my first job in W., to my first desk in the old building of my current job, to my barely used work station in our top- of- the- line, 21st- century, bastion of technology that is the new building. I've dusted it several times, and placed it in various prominent positions on said desks, but it looks the same as when I got it in 2000.

My cooperating teacher Christine bought me the apple-- along with a nice pen (though I have no idea where that went), and probably some other things as she bid me farewell and sent me off into the world of teaching. I thought the apple a kind gesture, but I didn't think it would last long. Surely I'd clumsily shatter it in a move, or a kid would bump into it, or I'd slide it too near the edge of the desk and it'd find itself in ruins on the classroom floor. I've lost mugs, a desk clock, and a few other gadgets to classroom accidents over time, but the apple is in tact. It just sits. Still bright red but basic, it sits.

Each year when I set up my room, I carefully arrange my personal affects: I need a catch- all basket on the desk that houses scrap paper for hall passes, white- out for neurotic kids, and scissors for when the students need only a skinny column of paper to write their quiz answers. Next to that, I need a ceramic bowl with name cards so I can call on kids. Then there is the 3- hole punch and the tissues, and my poetry blocks, with which I can have some fun arranging words as a respite from grading. I also carve out space for the books we are reading and for stacks of “to grade” and “to return” papers. When I pull the apple out of the storage box each fall, I'm always surprised I still have it.

This trinket, in addition to weathering many physical moves, has trudged with me through the emotional mire of the past 13 years. It's seen me through difficult conversations I've had to have with kids about their grades or their anorexia or their dad's complete and utter abandonment of them. Kids have shed tears near the apple, and I have too. I've sobbed over personal grievances, like finding out my ex had moved on to someone else fast, and over job frustrations, like the three or four times I've felt burned out and that I. Just. Couldn't. Do. It. Anymore. The apple has sat next to me when I napped at my desk while pregnant, and even once when I was hungover after St. Patrick's Day wildness. It's watched me race to get my semester and term grades in by 12 noon. It's heard me vent with fellow teachers about having no time to get all our administrative obligations met, and it's watched kids come and go for detention and extra help. The apple has seen thousands of kids during its life-- thousands have come and gone from my rooms, from class students to study hall inhabitants. The apple has probably laughed watching me scurry to get my objectives and agenda on the board before class in case an evaluator were to come in, and the apple has rooted me on when those evaluators did come to watch me. The apple has to be my most consistently supportive classroom pal.

Now, it's not because of my distaste for the martyr- mom syndrome (which I wrote a recent blog about), but I really hate when people say “Being a stay- at- home mom is the toughest job you could ever do.” I don't disagree that staying home to raise your kids is difficult-- of course it is. But I don't like classifying ANY job as the “hardest job ever.” I don't think you can possibly qualify any career that way. Because difficulty is such a relative quality. What's hard for one person might not be for someone else and vice- versa. I think being a surgeon would be unreasonably challenging, but maybe surgeons think custodians or airline pilots or news reporters have the toughest job. And so I scowl when people say teachers have the hardest jobs ever and that's why they should get paid more and blah- blah- blah. There are shizzy things about my career, but can anyone name a career that is exempt from shizziness?

So I hope I've made my caveat clear that I don't think teachers have it worse than the next person. (And we all know that teachers get the summer “off” [it's actually unpaid leave time, and many, many teachers have to work in the summer or take classes-- last summer was the first one in which I did neither of the two] but, yes, we have the opportunity to be work- free in summer). BUT I'm gonna go ahead and go to the “crappy things about teaching” segment for just a moment, because teaching is the only job I've known, and thinking about the cruddy stuff actually makes me feel even more relieved that the apple has been with me.

In the old building, we had no air conditioning. There were days in late August and in June when the classroom would be so sweltering that kids were nearly passing out. Paper fans only go so far. In school, we are run by bells. I can't go to the bathroom when I want to, and I can't make phone calls. Most rules that apply to kids apply to teachers too, so we can't have cell phones visible or drink anything that is not in a screw- top bottle or take a quick walk or go out for lunch. In fact, lunch is 22 minutes. (I now finish most meals in that time, and feel like a caveperson when I have scarfed down my food but nobody else around me at dinner has.) We have a Poland Spring water cooler, but we have to pay for it every month. Same goes for the “coffee club”-- you can pay, or bring your own K- cups. Once a year, we get a lunch provided (on Teacher Appreciation Day); other than that, you're on your own. There are no office snacks-- someone may treat the group to some munchkins and that's a very good day. Yes, we are “out” by 3 (that's still an eight- hour day, with only a 22- min lunch break), but we have after school contractual time we have to spend in the building, and I won't go into the grading you have to do on your own unpaid time because that's just a boring topic everyone has heard six ways til Sunday already. I read in some article that you field like 300 questions a day as a teacher. You are “on stage” for most of the day. You can't sit behind your computer and turn people off if you're in a bad mood. Kids can be terribly obnoxious and/ or needy. A lot of kids don't want to be in school, let alone discussing The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail. There have been a few distinct times I have decided willfully that I can't do this job anymore. That I am giving up. But I'm still here. I know I love it deep- down, but anything you love brings along with it much stress, much tension, much frustration and even some tears.

And that's where it's kind of awesome that I can look back over some storms I've weathered as a teacher and be thankful that something always reeled me back in. I don't know what those somethings have been. I've just waited, and then I've felt better – I've decided I want to stick with it. The apple has never argued with me or told me I need to buck up, but it's just sat there-- maybe smirking-- knowing I'm going to come back to my senses eventually.

A couple years ago, I tried to find my cooperating teacher from back in 2000. She wasn't listed on the school's website anymore, and I wondered where she went when she moved on. I wondered if she had any other student teachers, and if she bought them the same apple, the old failsafe that any future teacher might appreciate. I bet she'd be surprised that what probably cost her 6 bucks is a permanent fixture on a now veteran teacher's workspace.

I'm not going to say the apple is a prized possession. I don't like anything particular about it, and I don't associate it with any specific fond memories. But it's stood the test of time. That mothereffer is a strong piece of ceramic. And despite its ordinariness, it's outsmarted me. It's still there. And I'm still there.

I don't remember what I ended up buying for my student teacher in 2007. I have no idea whether it was useful or interesting. While I remember putting time and thought into the gift, I guess it wasn't enough thought to make the image linger in my mind. Maybe it was entirely commonplace like my desk fruit.

Out of the Bubble

This week, for the WSL class that my friend teaches (and that I've been flattered to help out with and attend), she assigned the prompt: "If I knew then what I know now..."   I had to think long and hard about this one, not because I had difficulty thinking of a subject, but because SO many topics came to mind.  Isn't this prompt the very truth of life-- live it, learn it?  Anyway, here goes.

  The year was 1996;  I was on the red line T wearing my jeans with the hems cut and purposely left stringy, and my mauve waffle- pattern short- sleeve shirt with a matching flannel over it.  (What the hell was up with 90s fashion, anyway?)  Lots of college kids were riding the T that day, as my friend and I headed over to Cambridge for a tour of MIT.  (Before you start laughing, no, I was not applying to MIT.  This girl, whose 5th- grade science class rocket ship did not take flight, and whose 11th- grade physics class egg- holding contraption did not protect said egg in the free- fall, would never apply to the most prestigious technical university in the world.  My friend M. was applying and I was just along for the ride.)  A day on the subway, traversing the city from Boston to Cambridge-- ahhh, the independence was palpable.  And in just a few short months, I'd be experiencing that independence all the time.  I liked high school, and was sad to leave it behind, but I couldn't wait to dig my heels into fresh sand and find a whole new everything.

I couldn't wait to go to college.  What a cliche, you're probably thinking.  But I remember feeling suffocated, stuck beneath what I arrogantly thought were oppressive shackles-- AKA parents who cared about me. They had me locked down, or maybe, just positioned inside the bubble. 

As a kid, I remember a few tragedies happening: at school, we watched on the old Panasonic TV with the rabbit ears when The Challenger blew up.  A few kids lost moms and dads to cancer or accidents or heart attacks.  But even in writing this entry, and trying hard to remember other tragedies without going to Google, I am falling short.  I don't remember really sad things happening around me.  And the terrifying things I DO remember were the stuff of the news: the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Gulf War-- I'd see the story, shudder, maybe ruminate on it for ten minutes, and then say, "Well, it'd never happen here."

That's the essence of the bubble: the invincibility complex.  And while this phenomenon is correlated to age, it also seems to be, the more and more I think about this concept, correlated to time period.  I think of my parents' generation: assassinations of larger- than- life figures; killings at college protests; a grueling draft for the Vietnam war and subsequent deaths upon deaths upon deaths of kids you went to "grammar school" (as my mom calls it) with; bomb shelter drills in 4th grade.  And now, in the Millennium, 6- year- olds being shot at school, terrorizing violence and death at Marathon races, unprecedented amounts of gang violence, shootings at movie theaters.  The last thing I feel today is invincible. 

So we had it good in the 80s and 90s, right?  Was it a period of relative peace, or was I just so far into the bubble that I didn't know any better?

Because for sure people still died.  Cancer was everywhere even back then.  So were heart attacks.  They had to have been.  But for the maybe two or three kids who lost parents when I was in high school, my mom would offer me comforting rationale when she would see me get nervous: "He must have had a pre- exisiting condition.  That's why we go for annual check- ups."  Or, "That kind of cancer is hereditary."  And I'd take the heartbreaking story and gingerly rest it way back in the annals of my mind.  It was a self- preservation mechanism, but it worked.

Was my mom blocking me from pain, limiting me to the bubble when perhaps it was time to burst out, or was she doing what I am likely to do for my children-- help them stop worrying when worry is not productive?  Does it do any good to take on the burdens of others and wait for them to befall you when you are twelve?  Is it selfish to cast other people's hardships aside?

Maybe home seemed so insufferably boring and constrictive when I was 17 because of the bubble.  On some level, I must have known that I wasn't really IN the world.  And while I certainly didn't want to experience tragedy, I must have been able to feel the earth shifting somewhere below my safely- in- place Birkenstocks, and I had to have been craving a more genuine feel for what was out there. We are convinced at that age that home is so lame, and so are our parents, and we are going to just DIE of ennui.  What we don't see is that the bubble, whether it's 1985 or 2000 or now, is there for our benefit.  Living in the bubble, while seemingly childish, is actually pretty fantastic.

After the Newtown tragedy occurred, I was stunned that my students dealt so well.  A couple of days of tears.  Many questions-- especially ones like, "What do we have here that can prevent that??"  But then they were back to good.  We had counselors at our call to deal with those who felt too afraid to be in school.  Yet, none of my kids sought those counselors.  Within a week, they were back to complaining about the prices of concert tickets and their not being allowed to drink coffee in school.   I think they came close to bursting through the bubble, but that teenage invincibility complex suctioned them back in.  I envied them.

In the months following, I'd wonder what it was like to be sending a senior off to college soon.  Parents must have been reminded of what happened at Virginia Tech.  They had to have been worried that their caring hands were slipping away too quickly from their kids' backs.  Surely, they could see the bubble about to pop.  While I sympathize with my teenage self and my need to leap from the bubble, I empathize now with parents who are loath to set their dear puppies free from the litter.

I wonder now if the bubble varies in its scope and force-- it seems that many factors shape the bubble.  What generation we grow up in, the level of our parents' oversight in our lives, and our own willingness or refusal to leave behind a proverbial security blanket-- all of these things mold the bubble. What's traumatizing is that now I don't see the bubble in my life at all.  I can't even recognize its outline.  While we were children, it always seemed that bad stuff happened to certain families, to certain individuals, and in certain places.  And we commonly felt far away from vulnerability.  But now-- having witnessed devastating and terrifying happenings to people from even those supposedly safe families-- and even going through a little trauma myself-- I have to wonder if people after a certain age are capable of seeing the bubble.  It might be like one of those high- pitched whistles that keep kids from loitering at store- fronts because only people younger than 25 can hear them.

What I know now and wish I knew then was that the bubble was something not to be taken for granted.  I'm happy I was one of the kids who was ready to move on at age 17.  It was fun to be excited about leaving home.  But I'm also relieved that for those 17 years, I felt utterly safe.  I walked from building to building on my high school campus, with no fear of an intruder following close behind me.  Fatal illnesses were in newspapers and medical journals, and in descriptions for charity foundations, not in the families of way too many people I know and care about.   The outside world back then was welcoming.  And it wasn't just about physical safety-- I was free from tormenting thoughts and questions about existence.  I never wondered why I was here, or what my role or task as a human being was.  I couldn't see beyond my immediate world, and the rest of the world was just ready to be unearthed.  Exiting the bubble carried with it a hopeful promise for the future.

There's a line in Death of a Salesman in which Willy Loman says he "still feel[s] kind of temporary."  Clearly Willy wasn't talking about the bubble, but every year when I teach this play I can't help but think of it.  That's exactly how I feel as an adult and a mother.  Everything seems temporary-- there are no promises that things will turn out all right.  Reminders of comfort that existed in the bubble are nowhere to be found: the smell of my mom's brownies on Sunday nights; the theme song to "Family Ties" blaring through our TV above the clunky, paneled cable box; even that tick- tick- tick of the "60 Minutes" intro that hauntingly reminded me I hadn't yet started my homework.  As a parent, I am supposed to now provide those instances of comfort and safety.  I am supposed to create a bubble.

I suppose it's silly to expect a 14- year- old to worry more about anything than whether she's getting the new hot- pink telephone she wants for her nightstand.  It's not realistic to think kids have any sense of stepping outside of their bubbles.  I wish I knew twenty years ago how awesome my safe space was, but I sure am glad I didn't know the safe space would eventually evaporate. 

Enough with the Victim Stuff

There is this status on Facebook that I've seen people post before, and that I saw yesterday again, which drives me nutso.  It goes like this:

To all the UNSELFISH MOMS out there who traded sleep for dark circles, salon haircuts for ponytails, long showers for quick showers, late nights for early mornings, designer bags for diaper bags & WOULDN’T CHANGE A THING. Lets see how many Moms can actually post this. Moms who DON’ T CARE about what they gave up and instead, LOVE what they got in return! Post this if you LOVE your LIFE as a mom ♥

I can't decide whether I should laugh or vomit each time I see this post.  I mean no offense to the women who post it-- probably with good intentions as an act of solidarity given how grueling parenthood can be.  I get that.  And I get wanting to feel good about something that can make you feel like a totally inept piece of shiz on some days.  But let's face it-- this post unfairly puts those who chose to be mothers on a creepy, martyrish kind of pedestal.

First, this post makes parenthood sound like a chore that has been put upon some folks.  Oh, poor you, you're a mom.  I don't think motherhood should be known as pitiable.  Even on days when I'm bitching my face off about Mabel's temper tantrums, I know I'm lucky to have her, and there are wonderful women all around me who are facing the agonizing devastation of infertility.  Yeah, there are tough days.  But parenthood is still a magnificent gift.  It's hard to feel sorry for the people who are lucky enough to receive it.

I'm also bothered by this dumb- ass status because of its insinuation that mothers are in some sort of elite club.  They are unselfish, and all other people are selfish.  When I was single and on the dating scene, hoping to someday have a family but fully aware of the possibility I wouldn't, a post like this would have made my blood boil.  (I'm glad I didn't see it back then.)  People who get to go to the salon because they have more free time at night, or who spend a lot of money on shoes and clothes because they can and want to, should not feel less.  They aren't any less.  Their lives are different, yes, from those of mothers.  But those lives are still fulfilling.  While I was living on my own, I didn't have Mabel's face to cheer me and to marvel at each day, but I had my own hobbies and loves and pursuits.  That life was not any less meaningful than the lives of my mom- friends.  I hate the assertion that non- mothers are lepers.

Perhaps most irritating about this garbage is that it suggests that once you are a mother, you give up every piece of your own, pre- baby life.  I have gotten a salon hair- cut and color every 5 or 6 weeks continually since we've had Mabel.  If I were a single mom, making the time would be harder, but I would do it.  Yes, I have a diaper bag now, but I still have a purse I like.  Why would you have to pick one or the other?  I have never been a buyer of expensive bags-- they're just not me-- but if I were, I'd find a way to still do it now, even if it meant giving up something else.  And that's the point people should be making-- maybe you have to give up some stuff you used to purchase because the expenses of the baby demand doing so, but you got a delightful gift in return, so STFU.  And really, if you can't manage a long shower-- even if it has to be at night after the kid goes to sleep-- then you've got other issues.  Why does this status suggest you have to give up all your activities and joys because you are a mother?

I've observed that most posts like this-- that include some sort of "share if you believe this!"-- exist to validate people's troubles.  Some mom out there is having trouble navigating the challenges of parenthood-- or she is resentful of it--  so she wants this thing to go viral so she feels better about herself.  Let's make the mothers into martyrs and everyone else into personas- non- grata, and that will make all the hard stuff seem worthwhile.  In the meantime, you seem an attention- seeking victim, chanting "Woe is me!"

I've mentioned in my blog before that I don't think my being a mother makes me any more human than the next person.  I think back to a lunch- table conversation at work years ago, when a well- meaning colleague told another (single and non- parent) colleague that he "couldn't understand" how hard it was to hear some news story (I forget what it was) because he wasn't a parent.  Yeah, THAT makes sense.  You can't understand pain and suffering if you're not a parent.  You can't empathize.  You're basically devoid of human emotion.  Man, that thinking chaps my butt.  I know many unbelievably caring, unselfish, and emotionally in- tune people who don't have kids.  While they might not immediately picture their own kids when they see a commercial for fundraising for Children's Hospital and feel their anxiety levels rise, they know what it's like for a little kid to be sick.  They've got families, and they WERE kids once, and they know how fear and fright feel.

And so, for the moms/ dads/ parents out there who feel yourselves to be praiseworthy or pitiable or whatever it is that compels someone to post that silly status, please remember a few things: you wanted this, you've got a great deal going, and you are supposed to still have a life.  If you don't, it's not for other people to "like" or "share" to give you validation.  Go put cucumbers over your eyes, get your butt to the hairdresser, and quit the complaining.  

A Little Mushy

When I first started this blogging venture, I wasn't sure what I wanted the project to become.   Did I want to write funny stuff about all the things J and I were screwing up?  Did I want to just keep track of Mabel's doings?  Or maybe I wanted a place where I could get emotional?  Since I never really decided, my blog has been a melange of all those things.  And while I sometimes wish my blog had more of a theme, I'm also glad I have a place where I can just be.  Where I can write sad stuff if I feel sad, and make attempts at humor if I'm feeling jokey.  The blog has become a true reflection of myself as a rookie mom-- because I'm not ONLY going through things that concern Mabel.  In this newer stage of my life, I'm observing a lot, and while I may decide I want Mabel to be able to go back and read all these entries someday, maybe I will decide the contrary-- that the pieces are of me, and that I want her to read only some of the material.  Regardless,  today's blog will be one Mabel should definitely read if she should get the chance.  It's about her dad. 

In 2013, I'm still sorting out, from time to time, thoughts about why my first marriage didn't work out.  Of course I know it was for the best that the marriage broke up.  Of course I couldn't picture myself anywhere but with Mabel and J.  I know that the grueling journey through divorce- ville was worth it.  I was married as a kid more or less, at the age of 24, to my college sweetheart.  Looking back, there were signs that my ex and I were too similar and also too different in all the ways that mattered-- yes, that's a weird dichotomy, but it's true.  And so at age 28, I left the marriage and started over.  Started over when nearly all my friends from college were married and most were starting to have kids.  I moved back in with my parents-- a comforting yet dreadful exercise-- and had to figure out just where the fuck my life was going to go from there.

It doesn't really matter what happened over those three years before I met J, but I did date.  And I did go through the pain of repeated dates and even some relationships not working out.  I lived in a teeny- tiny dollhouse of an apartment in the city when I met J-- by chance, at a bar, in the next state away.  And because no other dating interactions had worked out to that point, I had no reason to believe things would go well with J either.

There were traits about J that I found attractive-- and quickly grew to adore-- from the get- go.  He was funny, which has always been my number- one requirement for a partner.  In our very first conversation, we discovered a mutual love of 80s and 90s comedy movies and our common affinity for quoting them.  He listened when I talked on the night we met-- like really listened.  He remembered stuff later that I had mentioned casually.  And on the eve of our meeting, in a crowded, loud club of a bar with a hotel upstairs, he didn't even try to get me to go up with him.  Yes, it's a taboo topic, but let's face it: in the adult dating world, many people are focused just on hooking up.  They want to get some, and they'll buy you a drink and tell you what you want to hear.  But J told me only that it was nice meeting me, and he'd be in touch.  "Yeah, right,"  I thought-- "I've heard THAT one before."  Later, around 2AM, he texted me: "Have a good rest of your night.  Give you a call tomorrow."  And he did.  A real call.  And that's something else about the dating world-- lots of people won't call you with their actual human voices.

I wasn't sure about J for a bit of time because I could feel myself falling for him, being more drawn to him than anyone in a long, long time, and the thought scared me.  He was from the next state over, a good 2 hours away.  He came from a  divorced family, and since my ex did too-- and I still swear that had an effect on his ability to be in a relationship-- I was terrified.  He was carefree and lax-- the total opposite of me.  Yet, I was so, so drawn.

We had a rocky start.  Lots of factors were at play: the physical distance between us, both being hurt and scarred by a long relationship in the past, and maybe some immaturity on both our parts too.  But through even the times of not seeing each other, we were talking.  I had the summer off the year we met, and I remember J calling me every single day on his lunch hour, and often again at night.  And we would sit on the phone for what felt like 5 minutes but was often a full hour.  I WANTED to hear from him-- every time.  And I still do today.

J and I eventually began seeing each other again, and quickly established a serious relationship.  I'd drive down to CT after work on a Friday, giddily excited the whole time.  On his weekends to come up here, I would await the arrival of the nearly- broken- down red jalopy like a kid on Christmas.  No matter what we did, we had fun.  J loved exploring parts of my world, and I his.  His family was different from mine, but from the start, I could see love and support among them.  He's got step- sisters and step- nephews and a married gay brother; it was far from the boring, nuclear "2.5 kids and a dog" scheme that was my family.  But I adored watching their interactions.  Yes, his parents were divorced, but J had made his peace with it long ago-- as did everyone else in the family, including his parents.  And his family life was full of joys that were apparent to any onlooker.

Now that we are married and have a daughter, it seems like time has flown past like one of those montages they play in sappy romantic movies.  J has become an incredibly loving husband and doting father.  I don't think I could have foreseen that specifically when we first met, but I always, always knew there was something about J that was special.  Gut instinct is a powerful thing.

While I hate Facebook mush and public displays of affection, this is my blog, my space, and so I'm going to take a minute to express why I am so grateful for J.  He is perhaps the most genuine person I have ever met: no airs, nothing put on.  While he himself would say he comes from a different "class of people" from my family, he doesn't mind it.  (And by the way, it's not even really true-- not in any major way.  There is, perhaps, a difference in the educational backgrounds of our parents, and a bit of a working class feel when it comes to J's family, but they are successful people who enjoy life and respect and support each other through whatever. And I certainly do not come from a silver- spoon upbringing by any means!) J would give anyone the shirt off his back-- he's gone out of his way to do countless things for my parents, and never wants recognition.  He grew up learning-- from his strong, inspirational Grampy-- that you should just do nice stuff for others.  J acknowledges the world around him, and works hard at what he does, but he does everything with a smile.  I rarely hear him complain about work.  He is the only person I know who, on a Sunday night when I complain about the coming Monday, says, "I'm actually kinda looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow"  and then explains why.  He more than rolls with the proverbial punches-- he welcomes them and takes them on as challenges.  I suck at that.

J has this way of keenly calming my nerves without insulting me or making me feel like a pathetic worry wart (which I am).  He jokes or gives me a hug or explains things in an optimistic way, but never makes me feel like shit for worrying.  I'm SURE he gets annoyed with me, but still responds to my naggy, annoying texts, and sees me through my most worried/ frustrated moments.  He randomly texts me "I love you" and "I really miss you today" just because.  J doesn't write sappy crap on social media to impress others, but instead says and does meaningful things every day.  If I want to take a nap, even if he was the one who got up early with Mabel, he tells me to lie down and takes her outside to push her around in her car, making lap upon lap in the yard so I can sleep in a quiet house.  If I ask him to grab a few groceries for dinner, he does so without grousing-- and always grabs a few extra things I might like.  If he can do something to make my work day easier-- like picking up Mabel if he's gotten out of work earlier-- he just does it.  He gets up before he needs to every day because I leave so early and Mabel gets up soon after I go.   J is perhaps the best cook I know-- and yet, he never brags.  He just cooks. 

I'm fascinated daily with J as a dad-- not because I thought he couldn't do it, but because little things make me see how much he loves Mabel and how being a great dad is the most important thing to him.  He went through some pretty crappy stuff as a kid, and he's determined not to allow that crappiness for Mabel.  Even in her most melty of meltdowns, J has a calm way of dealing when I am ready to pull out my hair.  He plays with Mabel and tickles her and teaches her as much as he can about animals and the yard and manners and life.  One of my favorite things to do is just watch them be together.  If I am gone, I can rely on J to take care of Mabel perfectly.  He is motherly in his fathering, in the most macho way possible. :)

And as a man, J makes me very proud.  As I said, he's faced adversity-- familially, financially, and otherwise.  He had to put himself through school.  He had to cope with a string of crappy boyfriends his mom would bring home throughout his teen-- most impressionable-- years.  He had to deal with REAL (not self- decided) A.D.D. and difficulties with spelling and mechanics.  And where is he now?  In a great job-- that he earned.  He is aware of his weaknesses (something that's hard for many people) and trudges on, never using them as excuses.  He jokes about them instead-- and still works, works, works to do better.  While I can't put a damn thing together, J can put together furniture and all of Mabel's toys.  He adds numbers and figures dimensions at a speed I simply cannot, and knows more about nature than I could ever conceive of.  Just yesterday, I said I wondered if we would get another storm.  He told me about how the leaves on trees turn up if so, and explained how and why.  He can look at any fish-- any fish at all-- and tell you the type and region.  J fascinates me every day.

There's that old adage that opposites attract.  When my first marriage broke down, I felt that cliche to be a pile of hooey, because my ex and I were opposites in lots of ways.  But what I have learned through my journey in singletown and now marriage is that you have to be opposites in the right areas.  You have to have the same life goals, and you need to want to spend your days doing generally the same types of things.  You have to have the same approach to household living, and you must be on the same page when it comes to communication.  The rest of the stuff?  You can be opposite as all heck.  How else would a Nervous- Nellie and a Laidback Larry ever have fallen in love?  How would a fisherman and  a writer ever have formed a bond?

Mabel, if you ever get the chance, I hope you can read this piece.  You deserve to know the wonderfulness that is Dad.

Mabel on the Mend

I know it's never happened that I've posted twice in a day, but that's the joy of life, right?  The unexpected?

Mabel is recovering from a mean double ear infection.  Last week, on Monday and Tuesday evenings, she wouldn't eat dinner.  I knew this to be out of character for Mabel, but I also figured she may have eaten a lot at day care, as sometimes is the case.  Then, however, came the barfing on Wednesday and Thursday, and the general fatigue and fussiness.  Fatigued is a word that definitely does not describe our usual Mabel, and so off to the pedi office we went.

It didn't take long for Dr. B to see Mabel had an ear infection.  There were no words for the screaming that came from Mabel's lungs when the nurse had to do the rectal temp and give Mabel Ibuprofen in the form of a suppository.  J. held her limbs down, and i tried to console Mabel by rubbing her screaming, reddened face.  "I hate you for not saving me!" she seemed to bellow.  By the end of the appointment, we had a script for an antibiotic and our questions answered.  It's totally true that these doc trips are more traumatizing for the parents.

It's been several days, and Mabel has achieved her come- back- to- life gradually.  I knew things were back to good when yesterday she bitched and moaned because she couldn't eat a diaper, and again because we wouldn't let her stand up on a chair.  Ahh, there's the daring and attitudey little gal- pal we know and love. :)

She has given us more completely ridonkulous reasons she is crying (the Tumblr-- again!), and that, my friends, is the mark of a healthier toddler.  Or at least ours.

This I Believe

It's funny how two worlds are intersecting right now: the adult writing group I'm helping a friend with and my own classes here at work are both working on an exercise called "This I Believe."  (Learn more at http://thisibelieve.org/--- it's a really cool endeavor.)

I wrote this piece to bring to the adult writing group this week.  We are going to share in small groups and critique, which is great because it needs critiquing.  But I felt compelled to paste my piece here.  I hope I can pass onto Mabel the very idea it conveys: that you won't be good at everything, and that's the human experience.  And it's actually quite lovely..

I believe I suck at lots of things.  

When I was ten years old, I signed up for recreational softball.  I was delighted to be on the “pink shirt” team with my neighbors Laura and Katie.  That first season, we practiced a lot at Tilden Field, under the tutelage of three ladies-- well, in retrospect, they were girls, probably not more than 18- years- old.  They’d throw us pitches, and we would see if we could hit.  We often didn’t, and our team was awful.  Correction: abysmal.  My supportive and probably still hopeful dad took me out in the backyard on off days and tried to instill in me some basics for improvement: don’t be afraid of the ball, and wearing your glasses would really help in hitting and catching.  You want me to wear my glasses socially?  Never.  The kindhearted coaches continued to embrace our newbie team’s suckiness, and to accept me as perhaps the player with the highest level of suckitude.  They’d stick me in the outfield, where I was more concerned with watching the gymnastics that kids were doing on the monkey bars, or with chatting with a fellow sucky player who was also in the outfield.  By season’s end, the pink team must have been in last place, but we had fun, and I had been on a team with my dearest friends.  I had competed, and I had always shown up.

In season 2, I, apparently a masochist, showed up again.  This time, I was put on Mr. Waldner’s team, and these girls meant business.  They rarely struck out.  And I rarely even got out on the field-- which was fine.  Keep me hidden.  I am still on the team, and nobody will out me as the worst softball player ever to join the rec league.  I remember listening to “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles on my tape player before getting to practice once, and spending most of my time while riding the pine trying to memorize the lyrics to the song.  I didn’t care a bit about the outcome of the game. By ⅔ of the way into the season, I told my parents I wanted to quit.  The spirit of the nice ladies from the pink team was nowhere to be find on this new, seemingly draconian but really just skilled team of girls.  They were always nice to me, but I was scared.  Scared to let them down.  Scared to be observed as horrifically clumsy when it came to catching and hitting an object in the air.  

I could go on about an array of athletic endeavors from there:  somehow making the JV field hockey team as a freshman in high school but spending the bulk of the little time I got on the field in a complete panic about what I would do should the ball actually come to me.  In gym class, I would bristle when I had to join the rotation on the volleyball court, completely aware that I would never serve the ball correctly let alone spike it.  And there was my adventure with the stringent tennis instructor, Stacey, who came right out and told me that perhaps I’d do better with swimming lessons.

And Stacey was right.  I was better at swimming.  While I only focused during these years on what I sucked at, I ignored what I COULD do: I was one of only two girls in my dance class that could warp my body into what we called “the frog.”  I advanced into the final stage of swim lessons faster than most kids at our neighborhood pool.  And the one thing I never rolled my eyes about in gym class was the physical fitness test-- because I could run.  And I could do all the balance moves well.  And I mastered every step in the aerobics component.  I couldn’t throw or catch a ball, and I wasn’t much at joining a feisty clan of field hockey players in a determined fight in which my ankle might be lobbed off.  I wasn’t aggressive, and I couldn’t be counted on in team sports.  But I could do things.   Things that were fun and gave me satisfaction and even some self- worth.

But back then I never gave myself any credit for the stuff I could do.  I’m so bad at even yard volleyball that when we play at someone’s house, I better stay out of the game and just swim.  They’ll get mad at me for screwing up the game. So afraid to let people down, the ultimate people- pleaser, I became terrified of situations where my lack of skill meant I’d bring others down with me.  It’s probably why the one sport I liked and became good at, and as a result developed confidence in, was track and field.  Sure, track is a team sport.  But I didn’t have to pass the ball to anyone, and I couldn’t be blamed for not putting up enough of a defensive fight in front of the goalie.  

I chuckle because even now, I shy away from playing sports.  We have a seemingly fun softball tournament among some daring faculty at school every June, called the Advil Cup, and I never play.  I cheer from the bleachers and give people water.  But even when people say, “It’s for fun and nobody cares,”  I know it’s not true.  People want to win, and they won’t with me among their ranks.  I’ve accepted my lack of throw- and- catch athleticism.  And I’m glad I figured out I can run and swim and do a round of ballet positions and both right and left over- splits.  (OK, I used to be able to do all those things.)

I suck at lots of things.  And if I hadn’t sucked at them, I’d never have figured out a whole litany of other things that I don’t suck at.  It’s good to know you’re horrible sometimes.  This, I believe.

Plagiarism Part 2

More 'Reasons Mabel Is Crying,' to plagiarize the idea of the Tumblr I referenced a couple entries ago:

- She was walking. (yes, that's all, and walking is something she does all day)
- She wasn't allowed to eat an old orange rind.
- She wasn't allowed to drop the iPad on the floor.
- We wouldn't let her eat a dandelion.
- I was dressing her.
- I didn't allow her to eat baby wipes WHILE I was dressing her.  
- I didn't allow her to go down a slide backwards.
- We left day care.
- I didn't allow her to eat my car key.
- She had to sit down at a restaurant. 

Now that I have read this Tumblr (plugging it again-- it's so good-- see my post "Plagiarizing" for the link), I am starting to hate Mabel's bratty cry a little less.  You know, that fake cry that they use when they're pissed.  Yesterday while she wailed because I was dressing her while she wanted to play with books, I told her, "You're right.  Your life is tough.  Yesterday we had a Vietnam vet at the school talking about atrocities he saw in wartime, but you're absolutely correct that having your PJs put on is worse."  She wasn't amused.

Weirdly, the little tantrums are a developmental milestone.  I just read that little factoid yesterday.  It just seems so frickin' paradoxical to put "milestone" in the same sentence with anything relevant to your blood boiling in annoyance.  What I am finding is that if I laugh about the absurdity of the motivation for the cry, I cope with it better.  This guy started a perfect Tumblr for parental therapy.