December 12, 2012 · 7:58 am

Winning Isn’t Everything, Unless You’re the Loser

In our house, someone is always up for a game. Cards, checkers, chess, football, dominoes, or one of several we’ve made up through the years. Balls in the Hall, anyone? We take turns rolling balls down the hall. The person who comes closest to the door at the end of the hall without hitting it, wins. We made that up before we ever even played bocce. And we thought we were onto something.

As our kids have gotten older, my husband and I have introduced them to Yahtzee, Scrabble, Sequence, Ratuki, and more, bending the rules if necessary so everyone can play.

Games teach skill, strategy, quick thinking, problem solving, computing. They teach kids about winning and losing. Unfortunately, for someone in this family, losing does not come easily. In fact, my husband and I make this person agree beforehand that there will be no fussing during the game. There will be no crying. No card throwing. There will be no fits whatsoever if he loses. Oops. Did I let on that it was my son?

Nearly every game that he loses ends in tears, and it’s been that way for nearly all of his nine years. It’s so bad that every now and then, one of us, including his seven-year-old sister, will let him win so we won’t have to endure the agony that is to come.card games

As much as we all hate it, my son has no one to blame but his father. My husband does not like to lose, though he is no longer prone to tantrums and throwing clubs like his parents will tell you he did during the infamous putt-putt game when he was a boy.

This trait did not come from me, oh no, it did not. My childhood games were spent dealing with a sister who cheated at Monopoly. I always called her out. I never cared whether I got Boardwalk. I could care less if she had more houses or hotels or money than me. I just had to pay attention that she wasn’t slipping some extra pastel cash into her hands. I made sure she played nice.

At least my son isn’t a cheater, but his competitive streak can be unbearable. I try to remind myself that competition can be a good thing. I never cared about winning or losing, mostly because I didn’t excel at anything. I didn’t have the drive.

Even so, I don’t particularly like having to deal with my husband’s childhood paybacks. It’s not really fair to the rest of us. But I quietly endure the losing fits, chuckle, and tease my husband, saying, “He’s just like you.” I do this because I know my paybacks are still to come—when my daughter enters the teen years.

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December 10, 2012 · 9:24 am

The Thing About Grandparents and Their Magic

We all know it: that magic our grandparents possess. If you live far away, they want to see you the minute you roll into town. They want to squeeze the dickens out of you as much as possible to bank away until next time. As a kid, they offered up treats you didn’t get at home. For me it was a refrigerator drawer filled with all the flavors of Nehi at one grandmother’s house. I could pick an entire bottle for myself and burp grape delights all afternoon.

My other grandmother took my sister and me to the movies, smuggling in candy in her purse. Had we ever been caught, I can hear her signature “Oh, golly” as an excuse.

As a kid, the four-hour trip to her house was over some bridges and through the woods, along hilly, bouncy roads. My sister and I used to sit backward in our seats to get the full effect of the hills and giggle when our stomachs would drop. We’d get antsy after a couple of hours and fight if someone crossed the imaginary line dividing the middle of our Granada’s backseat. We’d argue. My dad would reach back, swatting at air as we giggled and scrunched up in our corners to avoid a smack on the leg.

“Are we there yet?” I’d ask every ten minutes. “It’s too cooooold in here,” I’d complain. Ten minutes later, “Daddy, can you turn the air on? I’m hot.”

After that eternal drive, nothing was better than walking into my Nanny’s kitchen, smelling the pot of whatever soup she had simmering. It didn’t matter what it was. It was always good.

My sister and I raced upstairs to our room. She always had a treat waiting for us, something small, a cheap dime-store toy, but it made us feel special perched on our pillows waiting to be opened and played with.

Nanny died this weekend. She was the last living grandparent I had.

Dealing with her death has been what you’d expect. Dealing with the fact that I no longer have grandparents has been another thing entirely. As a kid, I always thought my grandparents were old because they had gray hair. Frankly, they seemed old for a long time, but they were always around. I guess at some point I thought somebody always would be. Somewhere along the line, I guess I never realized that someday I wouldn’t have grandparents.

Sure they couldn’t always sit on the floor and play with me. My other grandmother didn’t even drive. When I went to her house, I sat in a rocking chair all day, got a certain education from the tabloids, and watched her “stories” with her. When she nodded off, I’d holler, “Meemaw!” and tell her to flick the three-inch ash of her cigarette into the ashtray. Then I’d wonder how she didn’t burn the place down when I wasn’t there.

My grandparents always made me feel special. I spent many weekends with Meemaw and Peepaw. They took me to diners for dinner and showed me off to the waitresses who knew them by name. They died twenty years ago, when I still had a lot of growing up to do.

Nanny cooked elaborate Thanksgiving feasts served on crystal, china, and silver. Entertaining was her specialty. She got to see my wedding, my family. We got to laugh about babies and nursing and naughty children.

The thing about grandparents is, there’s never a time when they don’t want to talk to you or when they don’t love you.

However old and gray in my child’s mind, nothing prepares you for a future with no grandparents. For now, I can only concentrate on letting my kids make memories with theirs.grandmother

Losing grandparents can be tough. While I may no longer require a picture book to get me through, they can be a great way to help kids cope with loss. Good friend Gina Farago’s The Yearning Tree and new friend Lynn Plourde’s Thank You, Grandpa are two books my family has for just such a time.

 

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December 5, 2012 · 10:00 am

Santa Is Real If You Know Where to Look

I’ll never forget it. I was in fourth grade, December, cheerleading practice after school in a room full of bubbly girls. One minute I jumped with excitement, innocence. The world was a good place. The next minute, Anna walked up to me, got in my face, and stared hard at me with her enormous eyes. I wondered what I had done to tick her off.

“Did you hear?” she asked.

“What?” I cowered.

“Santa isn’t real,” she said. With those three words, my childhood was crushed. I never doubted her. She was a fifth grader after all. I was stinkin’ mad. “Why did you tell me that?” I growled back. The magic, the possibility, the awe—she yanked it away like my favorite baby doll and ripped its head off. And I’ve always kind of hated her for that.

I never mentioned to my parents what Anna said. I played the charade, spent several Christmases pretending I believed because I didn’t know whether I would still get presents, but Christmas morning just wasn’t as fun anymore. (Turns out, you do still get presents.)santapic

And it turns out the magic didn’t really go away either. It just took me a long time to find it again. I never got it as a kid, that whole thing about giving is better than receiving. I’ve found in my older age that if I can do a little something extra every year for at least one person, that’s what the season is about. It’s about giving to someone in need, giving to someone you love, giving to someone you don’t know, making or doing something a little extra special for even one person. In a world where there’s never enough time to stop, this is the time of year when I try to go out of my way anyway.

That’s what I try to teach my kids, but it’s hard when I’m also trying to get them to pare down their Christmas lists. I don’t know if they get that, but one day they will. And I don’t mind them wanting some Christmas magic too. I know how important it was to me as a child, daring to dream of bigger things.

So when my fourth-grade son asked me yesterday, “Is Santa real? I think it’s you. Please tell me,” it was hard for me. I thought about Anna and how I didn’t want to be that person for him. But I told him the truth because one thing I’ve learned after all these years: Santa exists, in all of us.

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November 27, 2012 · 8:29 am

Anatomy Lessons While Driving

Sometimes the car is not the place for an anatomy lesson. Sure, if you’re 16 and in love, maybe it’s the place where you learn what getting to second base is all about. But if you’re a mom, anatomy lessons while driving can be dangerous.

Questions don’t quite jar me like they used to. I’ve learned to expect anything from my kids on the open road, or on the ten-minute trek home from school. Either one. Oh, my kids have thrown some doozies at me just as I was trying to maneuver a busy intersection with the stealth skill of a Frogger champ. They somehow break through that tough barrier of concentration. It’s like someone’s in the backseat yelling, “Hey, driver, driver! Hey, driver, driver, hey!” I try to block them out, but those pesky kids are determined to chip through my focus. An innocent question hangs over my head and I hem and haw and brake and steer and hyperventilate all at once while my mind screams, “Get me out of this tiny box with these kids!” and “How come they never ask my husband these things on the way to school?”

Through the years, my kids have found the stained gray velour seats of our van a safe haven for asking the tough questions, a therapy bench if you will. I’m convinced it’s the no eye contact thing. That or the questions have been brewing in their minds at school all day, and their brains finally explode like steam from a kettle as soon as they get me alone.

“But what I don’t get is, how does the baby get in there?”

“Where does the baby come out of?”

“Parker told me on the playground that his mom is Santa. Is that true?”

“Mom, is s-e-x-y a bad word?”

And recently my kids were talking about crotches, which led to this: “What I want to know is what a girl’s private parts are called.”

Now I know I’ve mentioned that to them before, but I told them again to a response of giggles. And then a song about it. And then “a va-what?”

Just once I’d like for my husband to get those questions and I’d like to be a fly on the wall when he squirms and tells them the answer—and then I’d like to sing a song about it. Because I think I am finally over the discomfort and the hemming and hawing and the surprises from the backseat.

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November 20, 2012 · 9:58 am

A Mother’s Thanksgiving

As a mother, every day is Thanksgiving to me. I am grateful when my family walks out the door at their varying times every morning and we all come back together for the mad scramble that is dinner each night. Amidst the kids’ taunting, the whining about science fair projects, and me on the very brink of falling apart myself, I stop to take note that everyone came home in one piece. That alone makes it a good day.

As much as I nag about my son’s socks on the floor, I’m thankful they’re still size 2 and even more so that they’re still here, in my home. He’s only on my watch for so long.

I can’t stand to see the teeny, tiny trinkets that cover my daughter’s dresser, a housekeeping nightmare. So often I skip right over the menagerie and save the dusting for another week. Still I smile when I examine each one closely and remember how I would have wanted a half-inch glass turtle as a seven-year-old girl. One day curling irons and pictures of boys will replace them.

When my nine-year-old son asked when I planned to stop reading to him at bedtime, my heart dropped to my knees. It’s the time of day when we can still snuggle like we’ve done since he was young. We talk and giggle and for a few minutes, he has no show to put on for anyone. Toughness and independence left at the door, he enjoys our time together. I’m not ready for it to end, but that day will come soon. For now, I’m ever so grateful for each night that he doesn’t announce our ritual is over.

I’m grateful for a daughter who puts her brother in his place. She’ll be a tough girl who doesn’t take it from anybody. And he’ll be a better man for it.

I love starting my day with a chaotic send-off to school. And just when I think everyone is too busy for good-byes, my son always turns back, buries his head in my gut, and hugs me tight. Then my daughter squeezes me with the strength of a python and bolts out the door, skipping and jumping.

They’re not too old for me, not yet.

For every meal I silently bless and sprinkle with a bit of hope that everyone will eat it, for every afternoon that I am grateful I held myself together when both kids pulled my emotions in every direction, for every odd and scary health mystery that turns out to be gas or eczema, for every tear wiped, for every hug, for every kiss, for every loud howl of laughter, for every moment of quiet broken by shouts for me, I am so grateful every day of my life.

turkey

I have a feeling my thankful thoughts are different from this guy’s.

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November 15, 2012 · 9:57 am

Shirts vs. Skins and an Uninformed Boy

My nine-year-old son had his first basketball practice last night and everything was going well. The group of ten boys ran up and down the court with the energy of a litter of puppies. They sprinted toward the basket, took an awkward shot, and ambled away with the gangly misery of a newborn pup. Every now and then, they glued their eyes to the net, held their arms in perfect position, and sunk the ball, fists raised in victory.

Basketball

(Photo credit: mvongrue)

When the coach split them into shirts and skins teams for a scrimmage, three boys yanked their shirts off without a second thought. My son and another teammate stood baffled. Shirtless? In public? From courtside, my son appeared to be bargaining with the coach. He pulled his short sleeves up onto his shoulders as if that would make enough of a distinction from the other team. The coach got a good chuckle. My son edged to the side of the court. The team waited. Like a cowering pubescent teen in a locker room, he slowly peeled his shirt off and revealed a pasty white chest that has never seen the sun. He felt exposed. During the scrimmage, instead of covering a player on the other team, he tried covering himself with his arms.

“When the coach said we were skins, I thought he meant the Redskins,” my son said later. “Then Henry ripped his shirt off and I figured it out.” My kid had never heard of such a thing. And why would he? Growing up in sports where kids practice with flags or scrimmage vests to distinguish teams, no one uses shirts versus skins anymore. At the pool, I’ve always made him wear a rash guard to protect him from the sun. He doesn’t go shirtless in public.

My husband said they used to play shirts versus skins at school. My son’s jaw dropped at the thought. An image of all the boys in his P.E. class praying they didn’t get put on the skins team must have been flashing through his mind.

The truth always comes out though. My son goes bare-chested at home. It’s not like he’s uncomfortable without his shirt. So what’s the real reason behind the embarrassment? He was afraid a bunch of girls on the other side of the sports complex would see him shirtless.

That will change. One day, he’ll hope they do.

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November 6, 2012 · 9:16 am

After 15 Years, He Still Likes Me

At 22, I arrived at my first job fresh out of college with a degree, cheap clothes, big dreams, and little else. Happy to have work as a feature writer at a small daily newspaper, I settled into what I thought real-world living was. I found my own apartment in a dingy area of town, made my own meals, paid my bills, and still had a taste for fun and freedom. I figured if I got married, I’d be 30.

The serious dark-haired reporter who covered the cops and courts beat changed that. His deep voice carried across the newsroom. He didn’t have time to goof off. He was always on deadline or rushing to crime scenes or court.

Four months after I started my job, we were engaged. We had become fast friends. It wasn’t a storybook romance. It was more like we saw each other at a party from across the room and thought, “There you are. I’ve been looking for you all my life. Let’s get out of here.”

We just knew. It wasn’t that I couldn’t imagine the rest of my life without him; it was that I could only imagine the rest of my life with him.

Fifteen years later, here we are, a boring couple with two kids living in the suburbs. He works. I stay home. We live the American dream. We’ve had little drama. Frankly, I think it’s a good life. We laugh, we wrestle, we get on each other’s nerves, we ignore each other, we taunt each other, we get each other.

For fifteen winters he has put up with two pairs of socks on my feet, ugly flannel pajamas, and a sticky plastic strip across my stuffy nose to help me breathe. Nostrils flared, I look like a proud pig coming to bed but he doesn’t say anything, though he does roll the other way.

He puts up with the used tissues I leave all over the house year-round and the fact that I make him clean the unidentifiable objects from the back of the fridge. I suffer with the fact that he refuses to throw certain clothing away when it is so riddled with holes a moth wouldn’t touch it. I made a pact with him early in our marriage that I would never throw his things out without asking. And I don’t. I did not, however, say I wouldn’t nag about those items—or his box collection in the garage.

We’ve been through times when I wondered if we’d ever be the same happy couple again. Nights when our young son wouldn’t sleep, my word, there were hundreds of nights. But somehow when the sun came up, we always saw things differently.

When you’re young and stupid and you’re mumbling those wedding vows in utter fear, you know you mean them, but after fifteen years you understand them with all your heart. The honeymoon ended long ago, awkwardness replaced with being too comfortable in human skin. If something itches, you scratch it. My husband has held my hair for me while I puked, put ice packs on my head to ease migraines. He’s helped me through stomach disorders that I never wanted him to witness. He probably saw things during childbirth that I don’t want to know about.

That’s when you know you’ve got it good. Between all of that and those sticky nose strips, he loves me anyway.

We’ve been married fifteen years this month and he’s still that young reporter who invited me to his house to do my laundry and cook dinner for me sixteen years ago. And he still does my laundry and cooks dinner for me.

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October 23, 2012 · 12:57 pm

Son’s Trip Benefits Worrying Mom

When I got the letter in May, my heart sank. I didn’t get a spot. I had wanted to chaperone the two-night field trip that my son would be taking this week. He admitted he couldn’t wait to go without me. My heart sank a little more. My baby, OK my oldest, was growing up. As much as I needed him to need me, he just didn’t.

I think mothers and fathers differ greatly in how much they worry about their kids. In some families maybe the dad does all the worrying. But I think there must be some balance. One parent has to worry so the other can have some sense of reason. The other can say, “It doesn’t matter how many hours you obsess over pajamas. He isn’t going to wear them.”

In our family, I am that worrier. For the past five months, I have worried about everything from my child falling off the mountain his class will be hiking on to not drinking enough water. In some sort of cruel, maternal way, I worry that my son will miss me.

I have lost sleep over things that could go wrong, causing migraines and stomach issues. The chaperones will keep an eye on my son. I know them. They are great parents, but they’re not me. But I have to trust my son and let him go. Despite a few jitters, he’s ready for this even if I’m not.

My son has always been the kind of kid who jumps into things when he’s ready and not a moment sooner. I try to remind him about all the things I won’t be able to when I’m not there—use your manners, change your underwear—but I shouldn’t overwhelm him. My gut says to back off. I know if he forgets, it’s not the end of the world. This independence will be good for him, boost his confidence. On the parenting scale of free-range to helicopter, I find I’m pushing myself more to the middle these days and this trip will benefit me too.camp gear

My husband will start to think about packing the bag days before. I have been thinking about it for two months, worrying about the best way to pack three outfits, sweatshirts, gloves, extra shoes, a pillow, a sleeping bag, sheet, and just extras in a way that my son can carry them from bus to lodge in one load. I’ve always been a planner.

I won’t be able to drop my son off at school the morning of the trip. Even though I’ve been preparing him for this independence, I haven’t really prepared myself. I can only put my brave face on for a short time before I turn back into Mom at the stroke of 7 a.m., and I don’t want him to see that: a quivering lip, me lingering for too long, turning back for just one more hug.

I’m proud of him. Some kids won’t go without their parents. He’s a little nervous, mostly excited. I know he’ll have a great time.

I’m embarrassed of me. I won’t sleep. I’ll worry every second. And when he gets off the bus brimming with details of the trip, I’ll tear up in relief. I’ll shed the worry like a heavy coat.

My months of worry will have been for nothing. But for both of us, it will have been a practice run for the many more times I’ll have to let him go.

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October 19, 2012 · 9:00 am

When Dining Out Becomes a Workout

We often dine out one weekend night with the kids. With four of us, it’s difficult to find the one restaurant that makes all of us happy. You would think we would learn our lesson….

Where do y’all want to eat tonight?

Pizza!

How about Mexican?

Blah, I hate Mexican.

I don’t really want Mexican.

We just had pizza Wednesday.

So?

We could go to Elizabeth’s.

No, we always eat there.

What about Mellow Mushroom?

I don’t like their pizza.

It’s pizza. What don’t you like about it?

It’s too saucy.

What about the deli?

No, Daddy won’t eat there.

Mimi’s?

We ate there last weekend.

Pastabilities? They have macaroni and cheese.

It’s too cheesy.

There’s no such thing.

Well, if we can’t agree on anything, let’s just eat at home.

Ugh, you are so picky! You ruin everything!

Fine! I’ll go to Mexican.

I don’t want a taco!

Well, neither of you wants Mexican. Don’t yell at her for being picky if you are being picky too.

Let’s just eat at home.

(Tears. Kids run away. Sigh.)

(Quiet.)

What do you want to do?

We could go someplace new.

Where?

I don’t know.

(Quiet.)

How about Mario’s Pizza? Everyone likes that.

We can see what the kids say.

If everyone agrees on Mario’s, we can go out.

Yay!

(Everyone smiles and gets into the car.)

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October 16, 2012 · 9:58 am

School Picture Day Captures the Awkwardness of Time

We, or I, picked out clothes last night. I sifted through stacks of T-shirts in my son’s dresser until I found something that didn’t have a picture of a Star Wars character on it. A Polo shirt would do nicely.

My daughter’s wardrobe proved easier: Dresses in many shades hung in a mad jumble in her closet. Brown with stripes would look good for fall.

School picture day is the one day a year I get to pick out clothes for my kids to wear. It’s an unwritten rule in this house. My day. So this morning my son put on his royal blue Diary of a Wimpy Kid T-shirt and threw on a white button-down over it. If he sits the right way, the words “Are You Ready to Rock?” show through his shirt, which will probably make him look washed out anyway. I didn’t feel like fighting it so early in the morning when everyone still had puffy eyes and bedhead. My daughter walked in wearing a charm necklace displaying giant baubles in a rainbow of colors and geometric shapes, sure to cast bright reflections in every direction. She adds her own touch to everything.

I will hate those pictures. I’ve just dished out $40 for pictures I will hate, at least for now. I buy school pictures every year and when they come home in my kids’ backpacks, I open them with fingers crossed, hoping this will be the year I love them. But no. My son’s hair has always been combed straight down over his forehead even though he wears it to the side. One year my daughter’s lips dried and curled up on her gums, disappeared entirely from the photo. My kids grimace, smirk, strain, or look like they can’t wait to get away from whomever stands on the other side of that camera. Just who do they send to take school pictures anyway?

It’s funny now to look back at the older pictures and say, “Oh yeah, that was the year you lost your front teeth,” or to my son, “That was the year you wanted long hair. Don’t try that again. It was a bush.” But 20 or 50 years from now, what will we think?

The thing is, when I look back at my own school pictures, they mark a passage of time, the same pose year after year. When you have them all together, nothing shows my transition from elementary school to middle school to high school better. Some pictures are cute, hideous, sad, but they are all me. They all mark my awkward progression through time. And as a mother, I really want that time line of my own kids for myself.

school pic

Muddled sixth-grade kid making her awkward way in 1986.

When the kids bring their school pictures home, I send them to family, put them in a scrapbook, and we wait. In ten years, those pictures with their tousled hair, missing teeth, giant baubles, and T-shirts will have documented more than I could have ever imagined. Maybe I’ll notice something I didn’t see before when I’m searching for something that I miss.

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