Ball Game II

Robby’s recovery from surgery is slow. To say that he is uncomfortable would be an understatement. Even adding the words swollen, tender, sore don’t really come close to an explanation.

And he’s frustrated. He can’t really do anything. He makes the trip upstairs once a day to sleep for a few hours in our bed. Most nights he makes it until close to 5 a.m. before he creeps back downstairs to wait for the next vicodin dose. Last night he only made it until 2 a.m.

We’re usually a pretty decent team when it comes to taking care of the basics. I do the laundry but he carries up the heavy baskets and we fold it together. He can’t carry the baskets or fold right now. He can’t empty the dishwasher or give the dog a bath. He can’t change the sheets or shovel the walks. He can’t drive– so the ferrying of Jack to and from school and to activities is out.

He was able to make Jack’s lunch last night. Which I appreciated. It took him quite a while– but, with Jack’s help getting the stuff out of the bottom drawer of the fridge– they pulled together a nice little lunch.

We’re ridiculously grateful, of course, that this is a temporary condition. That he isn’t going through this much “discomfort” only to have to face a round of radiation in a few weeks.

We’re just tired. I’m tired of being the only ox in the yoke. And I’m sad to see him so frustrated that he can’t do the things he wants to do. The breaking point was the other morning when I could hear him and Jack arguing downstairs. There was a long break of silence. And then, a few minutes later, raised voices again. Jack came upstairs sullen.

“What’s going on downstairs, little man?”
“Dad was trying to snuggle me.”
“And?”
“It didn’t really work.”

Jack can’t crawl up on his lap the way he would normally. So they’d tried to cuddle with Jack balanced on the arm of the leather chair. It was lopsided and awkward.

We’ll be glad to have him back to his old self.

Ball game.

All’s well that ends well. That’s what you need to know.

The silence as of late has been due to a series of unfortunate events. A few months ago we sat in the good Dr. BooBoo’s office trying to figure out why Jack doesn’t have a sibling. I’d think, “ohh I should blog about this.” But then the next thing would happen– and like dominos clacking into each other it seemed like we needed to wait to see what would happen next first.

Dr. BooBoo ordered a round of tests for me. They came back without incident. So it was Robby’s turn to be poked, prodded and assessed. His tests came back waving tiny little red flags. So they ordered an ultrasound. On his testicles. Think about that. I sat in the room while the poor tech squirted the goop and ran the reader over Robby. We laughed because it’s ludicrous to watch the screen for an ultrasound for any thing other than to see a fetus. And, again, there was a poor woman running the scanner over Robby’s testicles. (Suddenly the stack of forms that I had to get signatures on for the registrar didn’t seem like such a bad day at work…)

The ultrasound wasn’t symmetrical. I noticed that one side had a huge black hole. (Well, it was big on the screen. It’s hard to remember how much stuff gets magnified on the small screen.) I racked my brain trying to remember the tiny bit of information I took in about testicles in 9th grade biology. Should one side have a black hole if the other side didn’t?

No. Black holes aren’t good. The results from the ultrasound came back after a long weekend. Dr. BooBoo called personally to say that he was sure it was nothing but that he wanted us to see an urologist. Dr. BooBoo’s expertise, of course, being ovaries. Not testicles. He got us an appointment for later that same week. The unease I had after the ultrasound began to grow. It made me nervous that he’d called us directly– and then wanted to talk to Robby, too. It wouldn’t have seemed so serious if nurse Clara had called.

On a Thursday we sat in the examination room of the recommended urologist. I’d googled him. He had a good reputation and a good website. (But, here’s a tip, be careful when you try to google about mass + testicle + ultrasound. Yikes.) Dr. P’s staff was great. We like the LPN that examined Robby. (Note to self: make sure, in the future, that I check that the laundry is caught up so that Robby isn’t wearing his Mickey Mouse Christmas boxers to the urologist…) She leveled with us– the mass wasn’t something we wanted on an ultrasound. We needed to rule out cancer.

Suddenly we went from worrying over the age of my eggs and the mobility of Robby’s sperm to Cancer? Cancer? She ordered a round of blood tests and apologized that, it being late on a Thursday, we’d have to wait until Monday to get the results/meet with the doctor.

We ate sandwiches in the waiting room of the lab and tried to talk about other things. Mostly we sat still and quiet. I pretended to read on my Kindle. Robby pretended to play Temple Run on the iPhone. It was a very long weekend.

The following Monday we sat again in Dr. P’s exam room waiting. A horribly inept nurse rattled around her laptop keyboard while she asked questions. We were strained. Taut. Robby was reduced to answering her cheerful questions with one or two syllables.
“Has there been any change? I’m not sure why you are here…”
Robby grunted, “Look. You ran the tests.”

She clacked more on the keyboard then said, “oh.” and left the room.

I looked at Robby. We both exhaled. “There is no way we’d get bad news from her. We must be in the clear. God wouldn’t be that cruel.”

She didn’t come back. We heard murmuring outside the door and then the good LPN came in again. She said things about two of the three tests coming back negative– one was still out. We exhaled again. Dr. P came in. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. He examined Robby. Dr. P doesn’t joke. He’s very literal. So when he talked about still needing to do surgery we understood we needed to listen. We asked about the tests and he explained that the results were consistent with testicular cancer and went on to talk about surgery and removing the testicle and radiation.

We were somewhere back on the negative results of the bloodwork really being negative. (Wasn’t negative usually positive?) Dr. P paused and waited for us to catch up. He was, he sorry to say, 96% sure that we were dealing with cancer here. He gave us the good news– it was small. So probably early. The cure rates were good. Great even. Not like it’s ovarian cancer sibling. Robby was a weird age for it– generally it was 15-25 year olds and then, in smaller numbers 35-40…

Ninety six? That left us with four percent? Were we doing the math right? Dr. P said, 93-97%. Seven percent didn’t feel better. We made feeble, pathetic jokes about only having one testicle while we tried to process the information. Dr. P didn’t know us well enough to know that neither of us cared how many testicles Robby has. We just wanted Robby to be fine. Dr. P mentioned that there are prosthetic testicles. Seriously.

He scheduled surgery as soon as possible– so we were given a slot about 10 days out. We left his office silently. Outside there was snow on the ground. We stood in the cold and didn’t look at each other. Eventually Robby decided to go back to work. I went straight to my mother’s house where, because it was MLK day, my sister was home, too. I sobbed and told them what we little we knew.

The next week was a mess. We ate and slept and went through the motions of all of our usual routines. We went to work. We came home. We played games with Jack. When he went to bed we wordlessly put together puzzles. Puzzles with cartoony pictures of different cities on them. We’d finish one and start another– Robby scooping the finished one into a box while I picked out the edge pieces of the next one.

We couldn’t say it out loud. I emailed Chris and Susan. Their reply came back fast– they were circling the wagons. Susan sent links to websites with positive affirmations. Chris called with an endless stream of jokes that made me laugh until I cried. I emailed Sue who checked in with us every day. I told Wally who sent his wife, Katie, in to the office to talk about vitamins and supplements. Robby downed his resveratrol and handfuls of vitamins and minerals. We canceled our plans for the youth group ski trip. Robby lined up people at work to cover for him. We told our pastors who stopped in the moment to pray.

The week of the surgery was a blur of school activities and church meetings. We stumped through Jack’s cub scout ceremony and the an open house at his school. We didn’t tell our school parent friends until the night before the procedure– we wanted their prayers but couldn’t risk Jack hearing more than we wanted.

We also waited until the 11th hour to talk to Robby’s parents. In the end I did that. Robby didn’t like the idea of telling his parents their only child was in danger of something they couldn’t do anything about. I wasn’t too keen on the idea, either, but I couldn’t get past the idea that if it were Jack I’d want to know. They took the news well. I told them most of what we knew.

We all made ball jokes. It’s hard not to. Testicles aren’t an easy thing to talk about. So we reverted to inane references to balls. Junk. Sacks. Trish made a list on her iPhone (all of her lists are on her iPhone) of every ball-related or shaped food we could think of. Turns out there are quite a few: Meatballs, malted milk balls, cheese balls, ice-cream balls, sour balls, Russian tea cakes, doughnut holes, cherry tomatoes…

The morning of the surgery we left the house early and headed to the hospital. The surgery was out-patient so we checked into the surgical center and got Robby into a little gown that left him looking like a German hausfrau. He’s not an attractive woman. My sister followed the sound of our voices back to the curtained area and laughed at Robby who refused to give up his boxers until the last possible moment. We started introducing ourselves as his sister wives.

God sent the perfect nurses. Nurse one seemed gruff at first– but quickly snapped into the perfect tone of sarcasm. We needed that. She delighted over Robby’s huge veins and then, “Whew. First time. Not too bad.” and then deadpanned, “I usually work in maintenance.”

Nurse two’s name was Trish. We reminded Robby that while he was going under the anesthesia he’d have the comforting confusion of hearing the name of Trish.

Dr. BooBoo was in the pre-op area waiting for his own slate of surgeries– we waved him in where he reassured Robby that this was all probably nothing. He joked with us– we had a repertoire of inappropriate ball references honed now. Dr. P came in– our straight man who looked askance at our frivolity. Dr. BooBoo slipped out during Dr. P’s terse review of what we should expect. He was disconcerted that we had not thought to mark the offending testicle. (Actually, Robby and I had considered doing that the night before but thought it would be frowned upon. Of course, we also considered covering Robby’s nether regions in glitter to make things more festive…) Trish brightly suggested that we cover Robby in artwork. Dr. P earnestly replied that we could but that the important thing was that Robby initialed it.

They gave me a pager. The kind that you get at busy restaurants. I kissed Robby and told him I’d see him when our table was ready.

The surgical waiting room is lacking in many things. We have sour memories of the waiting rooms when my father had colon cancer. Trish came armed with Panera treats and hot rooibos tea. We shared the room with one other woman, at first, and we talked the nice attendant into switching the channel from something morning show with a female host in a blaring yellow jacket to the Today Show where Ann Curry wore a blaring yellow blouse. Matt Lauer wasn’t there. The other lady in the waiting room seemed angry with us after the channel switch.

Later some other people came and went. There were two men sitting on opposite ends of the room. One hung his head. The other had charge of a terribly plastic-y looking purse. He seemed agitated. Trish and I wondered about the purse and the kind of woman that would insist on bringing her purse with her. Both of the men were waiting for OB/GYN surgeons to update them. We felt bad for them. They needed a separate space to wait. A room for men with La-z-Boy recliners and sports on the tv.

Our Pastor Sue popped in. She wore her chaplain badge and a worried expression. We made nervous chatter and waited for the pager to beep or buzz. It told us when he went in to surgery. I called Robby’s parents to let them know. We knew we had a slew of people praying for Robby at 8:30. The surgery actually started earlier– but there was a strange calm at 8:30. If you don’t believe in God or prayer you might say it was coincidence– but I do believe in God and prayer and I knew that we had a lot of good thoughts headed toward whatever was happening in the OR.

Other doctors came and went. One of the men was called into the little side room with another OB/GYN in town. We didn’t like the way he made the man close the door behind himself. The man was so alone. We were pleased, somehow, when Dr. BooBoo came to talk to the other man and held the door and closed it behind the nervous husband.

Dr. P came in suddenly. Trish and I followed him in to the little room. I don’t remember who closed the door or who opened it. I only remember thinking that I was afraid that the little room might be where our world would come crashing down.

Dr. P said, “There is some good news.” I braced for what would come next and barely heard him say that there “was no malignancy.”

He blinked. I looked at him and then to Trisha who had the presence of mind to ask him to clarify. He repeated himself. Dr. P might be autistic. I’m pretty sure he is, at the very least, somewhat socially awkward. He repeated that there was no malignancy and then under the sound of my heartbeat there was something he added about Robby having both testicles still.

We all looked at each other. I was still wondering if Dr. P was in some way autistic and he was probably wondering if I was retarded in some way or hearing impaired.

Trish asked, tentatively, “You said is good news. Is there bad news?”

He said there would be discomfort and swelling. (Sorry Robby, but this was the best news we’ve ever heard. The bad news is just discomfort and swelling? We can handle discomfort and swelling.)

I said to the room, “Oh I can’t wait to tell him!” Dr. P, forever the straight man said, “Oh, he’ll know. He’ll reach down. All my patients reach down to check.”

Trish asked the follow up questions. I shook his hand. I said “thank you” a lot. And then he left. Trish and I held each other and cried and laughed.

Out in the waiting room poor Pastor Sue– who’s been in the waiting room a lot– thought that things must have gone especially bad since we were still in there. We relayed the good news. I called Robby’s parents who cheered. I started calling and texting the circled wagons. There was a lot of relieved laughter and tears.

Eventually we were called back to the recovery area. We sat with a loopy Robby who asked the same questions over and over and told really long stories to very patient nurses. I patted his leg and sipped the ginger ale Nurse three gave me. Turned out Nurse three is a parent at Jack’s school so we talked about school while we waited for Robby to pee.

On the way out one of the nurses said something about our luck. That we should play the lottery.

Maybe that’s true, too. But I can’t shake the weird calm at 8:30 a.m. Knowing that the circled wagons were sending up petitions for Robby. For, as Carol Ann said, it all to be a mistake or something in the 4%. Might have been a coincidence but my odds say not.

Fast Away the Old Year Passes…

In a matter of a few hours this year, 2011, will be in the books. Finished. Kaput. As years go 2011 has been a decent year– I can’t quibble about it. Still, I’m hoping that 2012 is better.

Twenty-eleven is certainly going out in a bad way. I’ve been miserable with a head cold. My right ear is throbbing. I’ve spent a lot of time with a hot water bottle wrapped to my head with a scarf. This only slightly distracts from the many layers I’m swaddled in– slippers, thick socks, leggings, sweats, two shirts, a hoodie, and a scarf for my neck, too. Like an urban bedouin. I stayed in bed for most of the day. I gave Robby a flatscreen TV for Christmas. Today I figured out the remote on it and how to access the OnDemand movies. This led to a trove of cinematic fun. The highlight of the day was an old Judy Garland movie (as opposed to a current Judy Garland movie?)  Me & My Gal… it was smaltzy. And unabashedly intent on getting viewers to either pony up for US War Bonds or join up to fight… Hell. I almost called the local recruiter. The lowlight was when I went off the OnDemand and fell into the brain-cell killing trap of watching Grease. It had been reformatted and modified for television. Grease is really quite a raunchy movie. I’d learned the lyrics to the songs listening to the album on Melle’s record player. We had no idea what we were singing about. There are lyrics that astound me now for their depravity. Half the songs were cut out– leaving some interesting splicing on television. In one song the editors were especially clever in the way they cut out a line here, a line there and still managed to put together a song that didn’t seem to miss much of a beat. My big beef with Grease is that I never liked the way Sandy looked at the end.

Robby came up to check on me at one point. I looked particularly beautiful in a blotchy skin, red nosed, tangled hair, puffy eyed kind of way. He managed to hide his revulsion when I reminded him that he’d married “all this!”

Jack didn’t venture upstairs very often. I think he figured out that laying low downstairs would get him more Wii time with Daddy.

A shower has done me considerable good. At least I’ll enter in to the new year with washed hair. (And a whole new Bedouin ensemble. Thank you, Momma, for the pink socks.)

I’ve been trolling facebook in the last hour– reading the posts of pals that are celebrating New Year’s Eve in varied ways. It’s quite the gamut. Half seem to be staying in. Half seem to be on their way to some fete or gathering. Zukie has a feast planned– crab legs and steak. Mandy’s spent the day in a Harry Potter movie marathon. Ericka has a butter tarts. Jen is disappointed with the lack of entertainment in Ann Arbor. Niece the Older and her boyfriend are watching Big Bang Theory and knitting. Several pals spent the day hiking today. Another came home from hospital with her new daughter in time to ring in the new year with her husband and son.

We’re both bummed not to be in Cincinnati with Chris and Susan and the gang making music and merriment. It had been our intention to hail in 2012 in fine style with friends. Instead Robby and Jack are playing Wii (Jack won’t let Robby scroll through the directions. This has led to some whining from Robby when he loses. It’s a power play that the son has won.). The little black dog is curled up on Robby’s legs. The little gray dog is curled up on mine. Within reach is the iPhone (with some new, downloaded tunes) and the Kindle (with a downloaded book and a season of Arrested Development to watch).

It’s not exactly Times Square around here– but I’ll take it.

Friend Ericka’s fb post said it best:

Here is hoping that 2012 will be the best year you (and we) have ever had but not the best year you (and we) will ever have.

Happy 2012 to us all.

Happy Christmas

Jack Rabbit is beyond excited for Christmas. His body is practically humming. His belief in all the magic of Christmas is at an exquisite peak– each morning he’s hurried to find where Bitte the Elf has landed in the house. At each reprimand he’s asked anxiously, “Mommy? Do you think I’m still on the Nice List?” Today we have, on our list of things to do, a batch of Santa Snickerdoodles to make. (Apparently they’re his favorite cookies. It came in by text.)

I’m pretty awful when it comes to presents. I like presents. I like the agonizing anticipation of which brightly wrapped package under the tree might be mine. But, honestly, the gift this year has been in watching Jack’s joy and wonder at each new yuletide discovery.

Tonight there is church. And lighting a candle on my Dad’s grave. A drive around town to see some of the Christmas lights. Tomorrow Jack will find a small mountain of presents under our tree with his name on them. Robby will be a happy boy, too. We’ll have visits to our parents’ houses and a wealth of good food. My mother will have the Christmas china out. My mother-in-law will have sectioned oranges and serve our drinks in the jingle bell glasses.

And, at the end of that long day there will be a very, very tired little boy. And two tired parents, as well– making Boxing Day all the better for it’s luxurious anticipated Pajamma Day.

I hope that there is Christmas where you are and that it is what you want it to be.

An Exercise in Exercising

Of the many adventures I’ve had in the last few weeks the most unbelievable is that I had a personal trainer. And that said personal trainer had me running on a treadmill.

I don’t run. Not unless there is either something really, really worth running toward (like, say, a Krispy Kreme doughnut truck tipped over…) or something from which to run (say, perhaps, a scary group of Death Eaters). Treadmills were forever ruined by the tag of the old Jetsons cartoon– poor George left stuck on the increasingly faster track while Astro-the-dog relaxes. “Jane! Stop this crazy thing!!” is forever entwined with the concept of treadmilling.

Still. I’ve been in need of some endorphins lately. Our family still feels a little shy of something. It’s not that JackRabbit isn’t enough– but sometimes it feels like there should be somebody with him. A sibling. A pal. A partner-in-crime. The older we get the less likely it seems to happen (though we still hope for some late season hail Mary pass or something. Or a nice infant left on the doorstep). People who exercise are always nattering on about the endorphins. I’m pretty sure they’re all in some kind of conspiratorial agreement to lie. Exercising makes me want to eat. And not a raw vegetable or lemon water– I want to eat some kind of thick, greasy thing. McDonald’s fries. A thick vanilla shake. The vanilla creme filled doughnuts from Dunkin Donuts.

The university where I work has a class in which the students are required to have a “client” to personally train. A guinea pig. It’s a win-win for everyone– the student gets practice in coaching a stranger (and sluggish, older strangers at that) and we lab rats get a free trainer for 6 weeks. I tried to get in on it last year but the students were already paired with faster responding volunteers. This fall I practically hit reply to the email posting before the poor professor had a chance to click send.

I was paired with the school’s women’s soccer team star. I googled her after we met. Well, actually, first I searched her in the campus directory… and she popped up in a recent article about our highly ranked soccer team. She’s the school’s high scorer.

If I hadn’t met her I’d have sprained an ankle or something out of pure fear. In the articles she was lauded, praised, and extraordinary. Luckily, in person, she was pretty down to earth and laid back. We set my goals– more energy. More activity. It’d be nice to lose some weight. And I wanted to win the Boston Marathon. (Okay– that last one I was kidding about. People poo themselves running marathons. Why would anyone run that long? that far? Shudder.)

Maegan ran a pre-test. The amount of push-ups I could do was nothing short of pathetic. I did better on the crunches. And held my own on the bike stress test. Over the next six weeks she had me doing intervals on the treadmill. The pre-programed courses on the exercise bikes. We walked outside in good weather. When it rained she had me in the university fitness room lifting my tiny weights. (There was a dark, dark day that had me working out at the same time as the school’s baseball team. The comparison between their teenaged bodies/heavy weights and me was ridiculous.) I do okay on the elliptical machine when I keep from cracking up over how much it makes me feel like Pheobe Buffay running.

She’s tortured me with this terrible stand where my dangling body is supported by my forearms. I’m supposed to raise my legs up in a crunch or straight out in front of me. It’s my least favorite thing to do. I think terrible things when I’m not pleading to God to keep me from having a hernia or something.

Seven weeks later and there’s enough of a difference to keep me using my staff pass to the fieldhouse. My BMI is lower. There’s some inches lost here and there. No weight loss– apparently gaining a little muscle will prevent that. I beat Robby at Wii boxing one afternoon– a major accomplishment.

Still no big endorphins. But I’m keeping an eye out for an overturned Krispy Kreme truck…

Done in by the To Dos…

Wow. It’s been a while. Sorry for the sudden drop off the earth.

I’ve been a little overwhelmed lately with Stuff That Needs To Get Done. Christmas isn’t helping. I had hopes this year to have a calm, quiet December– we stayed home on Thanksgiving and thought that would help. Ha.

There’s been a lot of Stuff. Work. Church. Meetings at church. School. PTO stuff at school. Youth Group. Volunteering. Traveling (yeah, we stayed in town to eat turkey but we went to Cincy for a much needed visit with our pals…). Dance recitals.

And yes– I know, you have a long list To Do, too.

I’ll pop up here again in a few days. Promise. Thank you for checking in.

On marriage. The good and the bad.

Wally wrote a blog post yesterday that might be one of my favorites of his. And that’s saying a lot. You can read it here. And you should read it.

Not to dump on Kim Kardashian– because really, I don’t care much for or about her and never have… which makes me feel a little guilty for not being kinder to her even though I don’t know her and wouldn’t want to know her necessarily. (Again, guilt for the unkindness of that.) But Kim’s the latest poster child for how marriage has lost value in our culture. (There are others, of course– a long list of people who have taken even the idea of marriage and pooed on it.) Most days that is what we’re bombarded with — the Kim Kardashians and the entirely unreal Housewives of whatever city and the latest celebrity marriage that will be over before I can get the magazine to the recycling bins across town.

We don’t much, as a culture, celebrate the good marriages. The great ones. We might make a mention of the famous people who have found longevity and happiness in theirs. More often we have to wade past the headline of the 44 karat ring that some athlete has bestowed upon some television tart.

And the longer you are married– the deeper you are married– you realize all the gray areas between falling in love, saying I do, and remaining faithfully in love until death parts you. Wally writes about that, too. From his post:

When I first fell in love I remember how much I wanted to be where she was. Lovers linger, waiting for the one we love to pass by, and postponing their departure.

This is often true of engaged couple and newlyweds, of course. The bride in Song of Solomon wanders the streets, looking for lover. “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” she asks the watchmen. And then:

When I found him whom my soul loves,
I held him, and would not let him go.

We start that way. We tell all our secrets and all our plans. But it is so easy to lose each other again, in a whirlwind of children and career responsibilities. We joke about matters of the heart, and dismiss each others fears and insecurities.

Too easily we learn to let go. And too soon. We have to get the kids to practice and the casserole to the church.

We’re in that “take the kids to practice and the casserole to the church” phase right now. We went to Chicago a few weekends ago– a rare break from the act of orchestrating life for Jack and from all the duties we’re responsible for. We pulled into the city in the late afternoon and took great delight in selecting a quiet restaurant that evening where we could sit, lingering, over our small plates talking. I mentioned this to a friend yesterday and he laughed, understanding. His description of a typical meal out with their small children held the mad choreography of waiting to be seated (entertaining the kids), sitting down to a table (removing the knives and projectiles from their reach), figuring out what the children want to eat (scanning the menu for himself), trying to keep the children from doing anything inappropriate while they wait for their food, feeding the children (who pick and poke at the strange food and then are done after 90 seconds), gulping his own dinner while trying to keep his twins from fighting, the older child from mutinying, and then herding the family out of the restaurant…only to have indigestion later.

Not all meals are that way. But some are. It was a treat to sit unconcerned about anything but who would get to eat the last bite of pistachio pot au creme. I can’t say that we sat across from each other deeply in love or as lustily as we were when we first fell into love– but we were appreciative and grateful for the time alone and without interruption. We have good intentions to spend time together, away from Jack and the house and the long To Do list– but it is usually the first thing to be cut out of a busy week.

This Saturday we will turn 17. We don’t have any special plans for the day– mainly because I’ll be in New York with a gaggle of undergrad girls who are going to a conference. The irony that I’ll be in the one of the world’s greatest cities filled with amazing restaurants with nary a kid’s menu in sight is not lost on me.

Maybe next year. In the meantime there’s probably a casserole that needs to be delivered and a cub scout uniform that needs ironing. (Love you, Husband.)

Thanks, Katie and Wally for growing better with age. And setting us a good example.

Thanksvember

Say what you will about facebook and what it’s doing to our ability to actually connect to another human… but today I’ll argue that there’s a lot of good buried under the pile of game requests and stupid quizzes. (Though I like some of those quizzes.)

A lot of us take advantage of the “status update” to post something we’re thankful for. It’s just a November thing which is unfortunate. It’d be nice if we could stay positive throughout the year instead of just the run up to Thanksgiving Day… but I’ll take the wave of gratitude wherever I can get it.

Being grateful is a good thing. Having an attitude of gratefulness begats more joy, more appreciation, more kindness and tolerance.

And it’s eye-opening. Being grateful– ridiculously grateful for my little son– has me appreciating the small things that I too often take for granted. Today, for instance, I spent some time at his school in the morning. Jack goes to school in clean clothes (that have seen both soap and an iron), with a clean body (or mostly), a full belly. He leaves a house that is full of books and toys and age-appropriate movies and games to go to a school that has a beautiful new library filled with books, a classroom led by a great teacher, and a curriculum that encourages him to be an inquirer. I am grateful for all of this particularly in light of some of the kids in his school that have only the school, the good teacher, and the curriculum.

One little boy last week appeared in the office while I was working on the fundraiser with some of the other moms. Admittedly, we were discouraged by the lack of participation of some of the families that we knew should have been able to contribute. (Really, doctor’s family with the fancy cars? you couldn’t pony up a little support for the PTO fund?) I went out to make a copy and saw a tiny little boy pop up on his tiptoes to talk to the school secretary over the counter. He was late to school. And he asked, politely, if he might still have breakfast. She was harried and rushed but, in that moment, suddenly kind and patient. She sent him off to eat and told him to come back for his pass to class. I appreciated her sudden softness. And I appreciated the boy’s politeness. But more than anything I appreciated the choices I’d been able to offer Jack that same morning.

I’ll happily wade through the “So and So has sent you a request to live on their castle island and farm their artichokes” if it means I can be reminded of some of the other things I need to be more grateful about through the posts of friends and acquaintances.

Happy Thanksvember.

Sick Day

Yesterday was a blur of sleep and wishing I was asleep. I got hit hard by some bug. I woke up achy and sore throated and miserable.

And it was supposed to be a day of Jacky Mommy Fun. Jack had the day off school. The teachers had an inservice (or, if my theory is correct, someone in admin had the brilliant observation that Halloween was on a Monday and might make for an entire week of hopped-up kids… that a day off after the night of candy and treating might come in handy to all concerned…) so I took the day off, too, and had a short list of possible plans. Lunch with Daddy? Lunch with AunT and Keegan? (or both– lunch with Daddy followed by a lunch with the girls?) The Henry Ford to see the trains? Cookie baking?

When it hurt to open my eyes I realized that all versions of Plan A were going out the window. Plan B. I texted Momma, Trish, and Keegan. And Jack ended up having a wonderful day. He spent the morning and lunch with Momma and Eric visiting Granny and Hillsdale College. He spent the afternoon with Keegan and the evening with AunT.

Meanwhile, back at the sick ward, I moved from the bed to the couch and used an old headband as a means of covering my eyes from the harsh light of my usually dark house. Philbin and Hildy curled up on top of the mountain of blankets covering me and the three of us slept most of the day away. I ate some yogurt. I drank some juice. I slept. I was almost awake long enough to watch part of Grey’s Anatomy that was languishing on the DVR. Did I mention that I slept?

I don’t know what hit me– or if it had anything to do with the flu shot I got the day before… but oy. Not the way I was planning on spending 1/1/11.

 

A safety lesson from Anakin Skywalker

Jack’s school has a Halloween Parade today. I’m glad. I know there are all sorts of arguments for and against having this kind of stuff in school– and that we’re hanging on to the special occasions by a thread. Christmas isn’t Christmas in school anymore. It’s Winter Holidays. There’s little talk of Easter. Some schools are banning Valentines Day. Thanksgiving is getting a makeover to make it much more PC than our old “Indians and Pilgrims having dinner” theme.  A lot of schools have done away with Halloween. They’ve banned the costumes and the parades in favor of Fall Harvest Celebrations. This is shrouded in an act of empathy for the child who might not be able to afford a costume… but it’s really more about schools not wanting to bother with the headache of happy children. Show me the teacher that doesn’t have a couple of costumes stashed in her classroom closet for the kid that comes without one or forgets theirs at home.

Jack is Anakin Skywalker this year. He’s very specific about which Anakin– not the young, chubby faced Anakin but the older Anakin. His Dad asked, “The podracing Anakin?” Jack sighed, “No Dad, the Anakin with a lightsaber.”

Of course.

The lightsaber won’t be part of his costume at school. I had it packed in the bag with his fake boots and pleather vest and brown tunic.
“Mom! I can’t take my lightsaber!”
“Are you sure?”
“Mom! They said no weapons!”
“Are you sure they didn’t mean swords and knives and guns?”
“MOM! A lightsaber can kill someone in StarWars! It’s a weapon!”
“Good point. We’ll save that for tonight.”

Happy Halloween to you all. Boo.