Blue is for Boys

My daughter was nearly five when I told her that we were expecting an addition to our family. All little girls are thrilled at the prospect of a new baby in the family, before they evaluate the consequences of another small voice clamoring for her mother's attention, that is.

The baby was welcomed as a somewhat cute oddity in her little world. Getting to hold him, laughing when he peed on Mom while she changed his diaper, listening to his strange baby gurgles; all of these things were appealing to her while he was in his baby stage. She wasn't very pleased that she got a baby brother instead of a baby sister, but at this stage it didn't make a lot of difference.

As The Boy grew into a toddler, The Girl wanted to play games with him but the age difference and the gender difference made it all a bit difficult. The Boy couldn't play more grown-up games with her, she didn't want to play trucks. She daily chastised me for bringing home a brother and not a sister.

And then one day The Girl devised a scheme so brilliant, so sinister in its objectives, that she just had to try it out. She had somehow convinced The Boy to play house with her. However, rather than being the daddy or some other male figure in the family, she had decided on a surprise role for him.

When The Girl called to me to come see their play - barely managing to get out the words between giggles - I had no idea what I would find. When I saw The Boy, my reaction was a mixture of amusement and horror.

She paraded him like a contestant at a beauty pageant. He was dressed in her best sparkly skirt and frilly top. She had put her pink plastic sandals on him and some strings of beads. She christended him anew with a femininized form of his name as she proudly displayed her "little sister".

Something about my less than enthusiastic reaction made it all the more fun for her, and for a year or so, she kept trying to dress The Boy in girl's clothing - no matter how much I tried to convince her that confusing him wouldn't be a good idea.
Sibling rivalry is one thing, but practicing sibling gender reassignment is quite another.

As The Boy grew it became more apparent every day that he was all boy, through and through. His daily routine was to find new and interesting ways to nearly kill himself and age his mother beyond her years. The Girl not only failed to make him into her little sister, she didn't even dampen his enthusiasm for boyish terror and danger.

I often wondered if things would have worked out better with a second child of the same gender. Certainly it would have been more economical. The younger could wear hand-me-downs from the elder, they could share a bedroom and Christmas could be the season of buying two of everything.

But The Girl probably never considered the ramifications of relinquishing her status as the "only girl" and I am sure would have tired quickly of the competition. She's lucky she didn't succeed in creating her own little sister, but I must acknowledge her efforts. She really gave it a good try.

A Hogeous Post

Tolstoy wrote " Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". What he didn't mention is that every family, happy or unhappy, speaks its own language. A lexicon peculiar to that family and its members, trickling down through generations, enhanced by new additions to the family through marriage and passed on. An oral tradition, if you will.

My mother's family had a rich tradition of words. I don't think so many words have ever been spoken in all of New England as were uttered by her family. By volume alone they are staggering. I did not know, however, nor suspected as a child, that the language I was learning from my mother was not quite English but some strange concoction resembling English and complementing English, yet wholly their own invention.

My mother's version of family history includes a huge migratory period of her ancestors from the Ukraine, traveling ever westward across Europe, settling in England for a time and then ending up in the American colonies and Canada. I am not sure what they were running from, this was never made clear to me, but apparently it was greatly appreciated that England had provided asylum for them in their flight from whatever it was. It may have had something to do with their brief stint in France.

In any case they were so indebted to England for something, not sure what ( not throwing them out perhaps) that they refused to fight against the English in the Revolutionary War and became outcasts once more, being forced to flee to Canada due to their unpopularity. By this time, I should think they would have gotten used to being chased out of countries.

I mention this as it may hold the keys to some of the words and sayings that I heard as a child, and still use today despite the occasional odd stare. "Hogeous" is a perfect example. I am not sure of the spelling, this is how my mind's eye always saw it spelled. It may well be spelled "hojus" but I doubt it, that would be spelling it as it sounds. I am sure that is too sensible an idea to be true.

Hogeous has many uses, usually meaning something vile or distasteful, often related to pungent smells. However it can also be used to describe a rather unpleasant dish being served to you, as in "I dont know what they had to run down on the road to make that stew, but it was hogeous"!

Anything cunnin' was cute. A soulcase was a person, most often a child. If you were called a cunnin' soulcase, you could be sure that meant they liked you. You did not want to be called a poohcat, though I confess to not knowing what that was. It was just bad. Something hogeous.

My mother had a gift for delegation and if you were so insubordinate as to ask why you were elected to any unpleasant chore, she would simply shrug and say "Why keep dogs and bark myself"? We were advised to "scud to school or you'll rue it". Education was important, and we had to scud to get it.

And then there was the mysterious medical condition known as a "split straddle". A girl always had to be careful of certain types of physical activities such as riding a boy's bike with the bar across, as there was a possibility that she might "split her straddle". She usually followed this up with the story of a girl she had known personally who had this happen to her, and it was horrible and irreparable. That touch of realism usually did it for me. My mother was good at supplying horrifying graphic images to make sure you were sufficiently emotionally scarred.

And more than anyone I ever met, my mother knew how to use words to her advantage. I remember her telling my father "Jack, I am your wife. Your money is my money and no one is going to tell me how to spend my money". Her logic was impeccable.

Now I must go and do my daily readings. Reading the blogs of others is a great way to avoid writing your own. I mean, why keep blogs and write myself?

Bus Spotting as a Hobby

School began in earnest this week, with full days and homework assigned. So far it's going well. The Boy's bus has a rather unpredictable schedule thus far, but it's only the fifth day of school. I am sure it will start to be more regular, at least I hope so because right now the window of time of its possible arrival extends for about an hour.

I get a little anxious when it comes to the school bus. Okay, I really just drive everyone crazy while I am waiting for the school bus. I watch for its arrival in a near panic. It isn't the Boy's fault - he's always come straight home from the bus, it's not as if he's ever missed it and tried to cross highways to get home while sustaining himself on the pretzel crumbs in the bottom of his backpack. He's never done anything that would indicate that he's not capable of getting home on a school bus. The problem is really just a holdover from my first experience with a school bus when the Girl began school.

The Girl had been cared for by her grandmother until that first day of Kindergarten. I had watched the school bus come by every morning the year before to pick up the two boys that lived upstairs. Although they were not going to the same school anymore, I assumed the bus would make its regular stop for my daughter. That first day we stood expectantly outside the house until well after the time that school was beginning. The school apparently hadn't told the bus company that they still had to stop for children at that location.

The next day the bus did stop to pick her up. Not taking any chances, I hopped in the car and drove to the school to be sure that they had delivered her to the right place.

The third day of school, the bus picked her up, but never dropped her off. When the bus driver finished his route he noticed that he still had a small child on board. He drove her back to the school (with which I had been in feverish contact) and I had to pick her up there.

Things then went rather well for a while. I followed the bus to school for several days and all continued to go as planned. I began to relax. Then they did it again. Another bus driver who had my child on board at the end of her run, and didn't know where she belonged.

As you can imagine, my faith in the reliability of the school bus has been somewhat shaken. I drove both children to different schools for many years rather than face the uncertainty of bus stops and drop off points.

So now when I sit by the window looking for a patch of yellow to show through between the houses on the next street over, or nervously watch the clock from ten minutes before it's supposed to arrive and call the school immediately if the bus is a moment late, it seems to others that my anxiety is far greater than is warranted.

Perhaps when the Boy is 16 or so, I will be able to go about my day without looking out the window for the bus, or anxiously count the minutes till it arrives. Perhaps, but I doubt it.

Hair Don'ts

We're on the countdown to the first day of school, and even after all these weeks of wishing it would come quickly, it still seems to take us unawares.

I shopped for school clothes online, making sure they all had plenty of time to arrive. Everything was a big hit, but some of it was just too tempting and now and again special permission was granted to wear this or that item. There goes that nice, crisp, brand-new feeling and look.

The Boy has got a suitably horrid new haircut. He wants his hair long like his cousin and I have no objections to slightly longish hair. When I was growing up, all the boys had long hair - it was these convict-style bald heads I found scary. But I knew that to have him show up at school with his long bangs hanging over his eyes would only lead to an emergency parent-teacher conference.

One of the things we feel is impeding your child's progress is his inability to see his work through that wall of hair over his face

No, I wasn't going to have that, so I sent him off to the hair salon, with instructions to leave it long but sort of clear away the hair over the eyes. I envisaged a rather nice modern layered style.

What I have is either Little Lord Fauntleroy or a lead singer from a 60s rock n roll group. The bangs are far too short, the sides are far too long. It took long enough to convince him to go in the first place, now I have to convince him to let me fix it.

I suppose it will look its absolute worst on picture day, which is usually scheduled early on, as it is one of the most important days in the school year as we all know. Field trips, school parties and picture day - these are the major events. Schoolwork is what they do to pass the time until the next big day.


So, I am off with trusty scissors to try to salvage some of his cool and save both of us a little embarrassment. I knew I should have had his hair cut last month - it would have grown out by now.

The Secret Lives of Parents

Children have a sixth sense. It tells them when you are having fun, so they can make sure they put an end to it. They are particularly attuned to video games.

For instance, The Boy and his cousin went to the park, leaving the Playstation unattended. Seeing this, I whispered conspiratorially to the husband "Wanna play some Sonic"? We both grinned in glee.

I found the game, loaded it and our hearts beat wildly at the trilling of "Se-ga!". The music began and we were off on an exciting hedgehog adventure.

Then the phone rang. The boys explaining that they were coming straight home from the park as they both needed to use the bathroom facilities.

We didn't relinquish the game right away. But despite our assurances that we had been playing Sonic the Hedgehog before they were even born, they insisted on giving us tips on how to play. All kids know that parents can't play video games - what a silly thought!

Although the children quickly gather around the TV as soon as their spidey sense tells them that the old people are at the PS2 again, we have one secret weapon up our sleeves.

School starts next week.

A Balancing Act

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...

These stirring words from the Declaration of Independence express the desire for all citizens of this glorious land to have equal rights and equal protection under the law. Unfortunately, it is not so.

This was pointed out to me accidentally today by The Girl, who spent some time complaining to me that the rights in the household were unbalanced - she felt she didn't have enough rights. A quick tally of rights and responsibilities soon made me see the inequity.

The rights are out of balance, and tilted heavily in her favor. She doesn't pay rent, and yet she has a comfortable place to live. She doesn't pay utilities and yet she has lights, heat, electricity to run her PC, her radio, her blowdryer, her flat iron...the list goes on and on.

She doesn't work or earn money yet she has food, clothing, medical and dental care. Without performing any tasks of hard labor she gets spending money to go out with friends - sometimes it's offered just to get her to go out with friends instead of fighting with her brother.

I certainly had to agree with her that there don't seem to be enough rights to go around, and it appears that there aren't any left over for me.

Okay, this is normal. Parents provide and care for children because it is right and normal to do so, because it is what parents are for. Children don't realize what real life is like because childhood is supposed to be a time infused with a certain amount of light-heartedness and it is the time to be care-free, before adulthood brings responsibility to rest heavy on their shoulders.

And because I was once a child and am now a mother, I know that there will come a day when she will understand and appreciate what I have done. I know it will be the day that one of her children complains to her about how unfair she is being. So it has always been, and so it always will be, from generation to generation. I don't think it's wrong that I am going to giggle just a bit when it happens... do you?

Of New and Old

I am very proud of my new car, although it is new only to me, having been what is now termed "pre-owned". Car dealers believe that the word "used" carries negative connotations as does the term "used car salesman" so they tend to have only "program vehicles" (used rental cars) and "quality pre-owned vehicles" (used cars) on their lots.

The car is a little hungrier for gas than my last vehicle and quite a lot larger than any other car I have owned - which means my days of zipping into tight parking spaces is over. However, it was time to accept the fact that I had two children in the back seat who, for the sake of undistracted driving, should sit as far away from each other as possible.

I would be inclined, however, to believe anyone who told me that my car was driven only on Sundays by a little old lady who used it to go to church.

You see, yesterday was the first day it was hot enough to turn on the air conditioning in the car. Until now, we have used the heat, the defroster, and played endlessly with the electric windows until the perfect air flow and temperature were achieved in the car's interior.

We pushed the little button with frosty snowflake on it, eagerlyawaiting the first blast of cool air. Next we chose the button that limits air circulation to inside the vehicle, excluding the stiff, hot air from outside. With the fan setting at medium, a wonderful thing then occurred.

Emanating from the vents in the dash was air that was not only cooled and conditioned, but air which filled the vehicle with something that the car had lacked up until that moment.

This is why I believe the former owner must have been a little old lady who rarely drove it. Little old ladies are rarely too warm, and so the AC was likely rarely, if ever, employed.

Hidden deep within my car's ventilation system were the last remaining whiffs new car scent. As it wafted past my nostrils, I inhaled hard and long, sucking in its delicious fragrance. I realized also, that for my generation, that new car smell symbolizes so much more than the age of the vehicle. It brings up memories of prosperous family times, sibling squabbles, the excitement of accompanying dad to the dealership to pick out the new family car and stirs up nostalgia in an unsettling blend of warmth and sadness.

It also reminded me, as I endured the kids in the back seat having ridiculous arguments, giggling for no reason or making noise for the sheer pleasure of making noise, that I was once sitting exactly where they were. And in the natural course of time, they will one day be sitting where I am now. Then it will be that these days which now seem so ordinary and unremarkable will have become part of them, sealed into memory, only to be suddenly awakened by a chance sensory experience.

I Am Not a Supermom

Have you ever woken up one day and wondered what your kids ever did to deserve you? Or rather, do they deserve better?

Recently I have had the experience of meeting "accomplished" mothers. These are the mothers who have such a list of credits to their names, it's nearly impossible to imagine how they managed to squeeze in time for pregnancy and birth. I do know one thing, they were probably multi-tasking during labor.

These mothers have immaculate houses. They make elaborate meals out of vegetables and grains they have grown themselves - organically. They sew, they churn butter, they knit the kids new bicycles out of steel wool.

I start to feel inadequate. I begin to pity my kids. I start to wonder why I had them, why did I want to bring children into the world when I wasn't prepared to make cookies for the bake sale, volunteer to sew costumes for the school play, head up the local fund-raising efforts and do spot welding on fighter jets in my spare time?

Then reality hits me. My mother never did any of those things either, and I don't remember ever resenting it. In fact as I face homework sent with my child that requires that I participate and then sign that I have participated, I can only imagine my mother's reaction should any of my teachers ever tried to send her homework.

I don't want to be without influence in my children's lives but I am not sure that constant accomplishment equals influence. I want them to know what I believe, know what I think is important, understand how to have compassion and how to forgive failings and foibles.

I don't live up to the perfect suburban mom standard. I am disorganized and scatterbrained and rushed and forgetful. Some days I get tired and order pizza. I let them eat it on the fly instead of forcing the family to sit down and talk about our days. But if they have something to tell me, I can listen instead of needing to wash the dishes, finish my needlepoint or paint a mural on the side of the garage.

Motherhood is hard enough without having to try to live up to impossible standards. I believe more mothers are like me and my mother than are like the supermoms. At least I hope so. And my children are lucky I am not a supermom, because truthfully, they're not perfect either. For now, we will each just have to make do with what we got.

Lessons My Children Have Taught Me

The children have a week off from school, which they face with great joy and I face with great trepidation. Keeping two children happy and occupied with something constructive for 9 days in a row is not an easy task. Especially since, in the time-honored tradition of siblings, their preferred occupation is bickering with each other.

A little fighting and arguing between siblings is to be expected, even more so because their age difference has always been a part of it. Teen girls basically view 8 year old boys as a disease. I expected this 9 days to seem like 9 years.

But so far they have surprised me. The Girl decided to play school with The Boy. I even heard her reading a book to him - and he was actually listening! The Boy never allowed me to read to him until he found a Goosebumps book about garden gnomes that come alive and do mischievous things. That sounded scary enough to interest him, and scary enough to require my presence while it was read.

After the reading, it went quiet for a while, then for a while more. Finally, the silence was too much - I burst into the room to check on them. Appears it was nap time at school and I interrupted.

That's a key lesson, however. I have decided that children make bloodcurdling noises and scream over nothing in order to reassure mothers that they are still alive and well. It's when it all goes quiet that you wonder what could possibly be wrong. You can't really ignore it, because they might be doing something dangerous. If they are not, then it becomes obvious to them that you have noticed how quiet they are and feel that they aren't living up to their potential.

Equally inadvisable is to notice how good they are behaving and compliment them on it. It sounds like the right thing to do - reinforcing good behavior and rewarding it with praise - but again, children realize they have been lax in their duties and will redouble their efforts to make noise and fight.

I am trying to re-educate myself and work on changing my instinctive reactions. Even now, as The Boy decides to clean the refrigerator, I am smiling and being totally non-reactive to his assurances that "only three eggs broke" even though I desperately want to know how they got broken.

It's going to be a long 9 days.

Lessons My Children Have Taught Me

The children have a week off from school, which they face with great joy and I face with great trepidation. Keeping two children happy and occupied with something constructive for 9 days in a row is not an easy task. Especially since, in the time-honored tradition of siblings, their preferred occupation is bickering with each other.

A little fighting and arguing between siblings is to be expected, even more so because their age difference has always been a part of it. Teen girls basically view 8 year old boys as a disease. I expected this 9 days to seem like 9 years.

But so far they have surprised me. The Girl decided to play school with The Boy. I even heard her reading a book to him - and he was actually listening! The Boy never allowed me to read to him until he found a Goosebumps book about garden gnomes that come alive and do mischievous things. That sounded scary enough to interest him, and scary enough to require my presence while it was read.

After the reading, it went quiet for a while, then for a while more. Finally, the silence was too much - I burst into the room to check on them. Appears it was nap time at school and I interrupted.

That's a key lesson, however. I have decided that children make bloodcurdling noises and scream over nothing in order to reassure mothers that they are still alive and well. It's when it all goes quiet that you wonder what could possibly be wrong. You can't really ignore it, because they might be doing something dangerous. If they are not, then it becomes obvious to them that you have noticed how quiet they are and feel that they aren't living up to their potential.

Equally inadvisable is to notice how good they are behaving and compliment them on it. It sounds like the right thing to do - reinforcing good behavior and rewarding it with praise - but again, children realize they have been lax in their duties and will redouble their efforts to make noise and fight.

I am trying to re-educate myself and work on changing my instinctive reactions. Even now, as The Boy decides to clean the refrigerator, I am smiling and being totally non-reactive to his assurances that "only three eggs broke" even though I desperately want to know how they got broken.

It's going to be a long 9 days.

The Anticipation of Precipitation

It's been three years since we had a snowy winter, and The Boy was much younger then, much easier to pry off a snowbank and convince that we should take refuge from the icy pellets striking our faces. During that time, I had forgotten what it was to be a child in the snow. I had forgotten that children don't get cold. They don't notice icicles hanging from dripping noses or that their mittens are ice-caked, nor the brittle, frozen digits encased therein until they nearly break one off. I had forgotten how many pairs of pants, gloves, and mittens are soaked through in only one afternoon's snow play (The Boy set a record of 8 pairs of pants this weekend). But mostly, I had forgotten what snow means to a child.

To them, the snow is a mysterious gift. It covers the hard and unforgiving ground with a soft blanket. It cushions their falls and wraps itself around them. It transforms the bleak landscape into a white playground of delights. Surely, snow was made for children. They belong to the church of the Anticipation of Precipitation, and truly they believe.

They are glued to the television as the snow evangelists talk about rain/snow lines and visions of the storm as seen by satellite and radar - the tools of the meteorological prophet. In an ancient ritual, they don pajamas inside out and backwards to insure enough snow to cause the schools to close. They lay down at night with prayers on their lips. "Lord, thank you for the snow we are about to receive".

And when it comes, they erect a monument in thankfulness for their bounty, as those who came before have always done.

Life is a Puzzle

I have just finished my online jigsaw puzzle. Please give me a moment to congratulate myself. There, that should do it. Thank you. I won't be submitting my time or checking high scores because for me,it isn't about trying to be the fastest and the best. In fact, I don't think I could enjoy doing a jigsaw puzzle if the goal was to complete it blindingly fast, sliding pieces into place without error. A jigsaw is a slowly built masterpiece, a project, a hobby that both exercises the mind and soothes it at the same time, giving it a break from real world problems and replacing them with the problem of why this piece that has just the right tip of blue and stripe of white doesn't fit perfectly where it ought to. But jigsaws, like life, often don't make sense until you see the whole picture.

I learned to love jigsaw puzzles when I was a kid. On Sundays my parents would often travel to Maine or other parts equally distant to attend church or visit relatives and if we were lucky, my younger brother and I were allowed to stay home with the older siblings to watch over us. Often this privilege came with the obligation to clean the house, which we all happily agreed to. Surprisingly, we worked well together. Staying home meant no parental control over the stereo. The elder sister and brother took turns spinning records our parents would never allow to be played in their presence - The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys.

And when we were done scrubbing floors and folding laundry to our forbidden rock n' roll beats, my sister would spread a jigsaw puzzle across the dining room table. We could all sit and work on this wonder together. That was the time for my sister's quieter taste in music and we listened to Johnny Mathis , The Mama's and The Papa's and Neil Diamond. I learned the pleasure of the quiet pursuit of a dream - the dream pictured on the box. Many years later, when the elder siblings had grown and moved out, I could still be found on a winter's day, alone in my room with nothing but a stereo and a jigsaw puzzle.

Time moves on and life gets busy. A real jigsaw is large, takes up space and time and doesn't fit in. I have no extra table that can be devoted to such a project. Pieces are more than likely to go missing long before they are properly set into their places.

So, an online jigsaw puzzle has to do. They can be a pleasant way to while away time on the net but the experience is not complete. They lack that tactile pleasure, the fingering of a piece, the satisfaction of feeling it snap into the spot that your eye finally spied and that smug knowledge that your mental calculations of its parameters were unerring.

If you like jigsaw puzzles, there's a new one daily at Shockwave.com and sometimes they can be nicely challenging, like the one that is in black and white and doesn't colorize until you fit the pieces into the right place. But, if you truly love jigsaw puzzles, I highly recommend a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle spread out over a dining room table, with music on the stereo and preferably an assortment of family and friends to sing along with you as you explore the mystery of its construction and the quiet pursuit of a dream.