BC (beloved child the elder) – Page 12

Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

the letter

Posted on April 28, 2008 by wrekehavoc

Dear Fairfax Hospital Administrator:

Today, my child went to INOVA FFX Hospital for Children. She had both a CT scan and an upper GI. We arrived a little early just because as my child could neither eat nor drink, I thought it best that we just get to the hospital. The people in the CT department were stellar: they got my child in and out right away, including her paperwork for the upper GI, which had to be done through pediatric radiology.

We arrived at about 9:15 in pediatric radiology. We checked in, and my daughter had the pleasure of overhearing the initial woman who greeted us complain to her coworkers about how much she didn’t like working there. That woman left for parts unknown, and another lady took her place, a lady who apparently didn’t get the message that we were there. We sat. We sat. At 10:30, after watching several people get taken before us, I went up to the desk. The woman had no earthly idea we had been there and were waiting. She called the GI folks and explained what I had told her, although she provided misinformation — making it sound like we had just arrived when we had been there for a long time already — and I had to continue to explain to her that we HAD BEEN THERE for NEARLY 90 MINUTES, waiting. Once the GI tech came out, the tech apologized profusely, stating that they HAD BEEN WAITING FOR US FOR A LONG TIME. They had no idea we were waiting.

I think the best part about the experience was how the receptionist broke out a big tub of spaghetti at about 10:15, which was just near the jar of candy in front her her window. My daughter, who had not eaten since 9 pm last night, nearly burst into tears, she was so hungry. In a room where several children may not eat or drink before their tests, how on earth does that demonstrate any sort of empathy for the children in the waiting room?

I actually chose to bring my daughter to Fairfax Hospital for tests, as I was under the impression that FFX specifically knows how to treat children with respect. It actually costs me more to do so. My child — at AGE 9 — has now asked me: HOW COULD YOU TAKE ME THERE? I NEVER WANT TO GO TO FAIRFAX HOSPITAL AGAIN! This is a child who has been to Arlington Hospital as well as other medical facilities. She is quite upset with me and with the entire experience. Frankly, I cannot blame her.

The doctors and the techs we encountered were professional and kind to my child. Pity your administrative staff cannot act accordingly.

Yours,

Wreke

guilty pleasure monday: choo choo boogaloo (buckwheat zydeco)

Posted on April 28, 2008 by wrekehavoc

it’s official: i have lost my mind.

and what better day to lose your mind than guilty pleasure monday!

today’s guilty pleasure selection, choo choo boogaloo by buckwheat zydeco, is with us thanks to the fact that i’m a mom. you can’t not love this one, even if it is a kiddy song.

when i first became a parent, i swore up and down that my children would listen to all sorts of music. never would they listen to music that was dumbed-down for children: i wanted my kids to hear the straight dope. why, i even agonized over julian’s first mix CD before he was born. the kids are reared on the classics: the beatles, bruce springsteen, the clash, and that sort of ilk.

when you have a baby, you get all sorts of presents, and some of them are CDs. at least, some of mine were. and i don’t know whether it was hormones or something else, but i actually grew to love some of the music i heard. for example, one compilation, the planet sleeps, has a song i think is absolutely haunting, Chi Mi Na Morbheanna, by canadian band the rankin family. another compilation featured a song i will always love, good night by the roches.

but probably my favorite song from all of these compilations — and i have a few — is choo choo boogaloo. when i hear my kids sing:

well, it’s one for the money

two for the show.

the name of this music is zy-de-co.

three for the singing,

four for the dance.

put on your dancin’ pants!

i simply crack up. the kids have always loved to dance to this one, and it offers both a geography lesson (from lafayette to new orleans we sing!) as well as a genre lesson (the name of this music is zydeco!).

i picture myself at 90, hearing this song and tapping the ground with my toes. or perhaps my walker. we’ll see.

so yes. i like some music that’s really meant for kids. which must mean that i am inherently a kid.

a really big kid.

hanging on the telephone

Posted on April 25, 2008 by wrekehavoc

dear fairfax inova hospital,

press 1 if you want this in english –>

press 2 if you’re annoyed, press 3 if you’re upset, press 4 if you feel like you want to hurt someone –>

to be sure, it is not your fault that i am having a week from hell. i don’t blame you for my flooded basement, for the response time of the remediation people, or even for my allergies, which seem to have taken on a life of their own.

but i do wonder whether anyone is actually at work there.

my child has some testing to do on monday at your facility. it is difficult enough to face the fact that she is not exactly the happiest person when dealing with any medical procedures whatsoever. (i personally can’t wait ’til i tell her she can’t eat until lunchtime on monday.) in fact, i am specifically taking her to your facility precisely because you deal so well with children during such endeavors. your reputation precedes you.

on wednesday afternoon, someone left a message to preregister my child prior to the procedures. for reasons i do not understand, they left this message on my husband’s voicemail at work. fortunately, my husband, always a guy on-the-job, informed me of this early thursday morning. i called the number and hit someone’s voicemail; only, too bad for me. the voicemail doesn’t identify itself as debra from inova fairfax or even debra, period. it’s just a robo-voicemail-bot. the first three digits of this telephone number don’t even match the numbers of most of the numbers i have since dialed. i could be calling someone at molestors-r-us for all i know with my baby’s info. i think not.

press 5 if you want to leave a helpful, though basic, tip to people who are part of a large corporate entity->

[if it’s a business phone, you ought to leave your name and business info, at the very least, on your voicemail.]

so i went to your website. it should be easy to get a phone number from there, right?

wrong.

basically, i was left with the main hospital number.

press 6 if you are on the verge of volunteering to redesign a corporate entity’s website ->

literally all thursday afternoon, after giving up on hearing from debra, i spent my time bouncing from place to place in your phone system. (though i should say that geraldine, the main operator, is very nice.) so much fun to be had, including being given erroneous information, such as that there’s no way possible my child can be having a procedure, as there’s no pediatric endoscopist available that day. (did anyone HEAR ME? the girl is not getting scoped! she’s getting SCREENED. ARRRRGH.)

lucky for me, of course, i spent the better part of yesterday WAITING FOR THE REMEDIATION GUY, so i had NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN SIT AND PLAY PHONE TAG!

so this morning, because i really love to hear on-hold muzak, i thought i’d try again. (that plus the fact that i have no earthly idea where the hell we are supposed to go.) i tried my new old friend geraldine, who sent me to the wrong place again, only this time, the person on the line gave me a few numbers to try, including a supervisor. amazingly, though, no one is around (only the supervisor gives her name and business on the voicemail, btw). i called the lady back and politely asked her whether anyone besides herself was at work that morning. after our giggles, i got off the phone and wondered what the hell i was going to do.

lightbulb moment: i found the initial scheduling number (thank Dog), and tried there. they don’t preregister there, but maybe, just maybe, they can at least tell me where to show up? of course, there’s more on-hold time:

[we are sorry for the delay. please continue to hold until our next available staff member can be with you.]

press 7 if you are sick of our on-hold muzak->

then finally, after enough time has elapsed for me to clean out the receipts in my wallet and cook a turkey breast, a live human. a live human whom i cannot HEAR. i am not deaf; she just is speaking rather softly.

press 8 if you are on the edge->

so i sit. perfectly still. and i strain to listen to her, best as i can. yes, there’s a record of your daughter’s tests…no, you are already registered; we did that when you set up the appointment. why did that person call you? did they need to verify your insurance?

press nine if you feel your blood about to shoot out the top of your head->

i don’t actually know why the person called. the first three digits of the telephone number are very different from yours.

silence.

uhm. well, let’s hope it was to verify insurance. but here’s where you go on monday…

so administrators at fairfax, i realize there are plenty of insane people out there, and you’re probably reticent to share phone numbers with the public. but people, we need numbers. at least main ones. most businesses have a minimum level of transparency for their customers: you know, so we can actually call you with our business?

and the hours i spent on the phone? i’ll share my hourly rate. you just take that off my bill and we’ll call it even, k?

yours,

wreke

centerfield

Posted on April 19, 2008 by wrekehavoc

this may come as a huge surprise to you folks out there, but i’m a terrible human being. seriously.

and it’s all because of softball.

i grew up with two older brothers; thus, it stands to reason that i had no choice but to learn how to play baseball. if i wanted to go out and play with them, that’s what they were doing. i learned to catch and throw and bat early on, and i wasn’t half bad. sadly, they didn’t let girls in little league back then, so my career was confined to the camp softball team, where i was the only girl who made first string and played on the traveling team.

i managed the boys baseball team in intermediate school, which taught me the fine art of baseball scoring. it also taught me that 13 year old boys like to put their cups over your face and yell air raid!!! thank G-d i had no idea where the cup went back then — how did i not know is a wonder unto itself, considering the aforementioned brothers. but it’s a blessing that i did not know where that plastic thingy had been or else i would have had a few projectile vomiting episodes.

when high school rolled around, i was set to be on the team when i ended up with my thumb in a cast, thanks to an overzealous gym teacher who set me in on a game of kill the guy with the ball. as the only girl, with the JV football captain, the JV basketball captain, and other athletic boys playing, i knew i had to be twice as tough; and i had the ball — i really, r e a l l y had it. i was woman, hear me ROAR! but then, too bad for me: it was pulled out of my death grip, leaving me with a thumb that actually was bent in a position that G-d had never meant it to be.

(i’ll never forget the gym teacher yelling at me: c’mon wreke, take it like a man! i thought, uhm, hello? i’m a GIRL. a girl with a thumb hanging off? fortunately, one of the boys told the teacher that i should probably see the nurse.)

a cast made pitching difficult, and after awhile, i realized i was not ready or willing to make the time commitment to softball. besides, they ran a zillion laps, and while i was a decent sprinter in my day, i was never a long-distance runner. check, please!

so fast forward to today. i have not played any softball in a long while. (i used to play with a team on the mall that played around the washington monument, but 9-11 put a major cramp on all of that anyway.) i have to live somewhat vicariously through my own children, poor things.

BC has been playing for a few years, playing being an interesting choice of words. if she’s covering third, she’ll greet you as you run to the bag and probably offer some hors d’oeuvres. she may even start drawing in the dirt with her free hand if it gets too dull out there, which it does, as few girls seem to be hitting very much yet. i cheer her on, in between bouts of hysteria as i watch jools, who could be running onto the highway, climbing onto the school rooftop, or dousing himself at the water fountain with the older boys.

but it’s hard.

i watch all the girls as they stand and wait for the ball. somehow, i think they all expect it to magically make a path precisely to their person and then leap up into their gloves. run up to the ball and get it? i think not! pay attention to the game? if i feel like it and i’m not busy looking at the dandelions.

i can see now how i had a clear advantage in this department: i had brothers, brothers who taught me that i had no choice but to either go after the damn ball or else get the hell out of the way. additionally, some of the boys on the camp team didn’t like me just because i was a girl. but i was there to play, not make friends. and i played, and sometimes, i would even get a little grudging respect, which felt very, very sweet.

as i am a woman who attended a womens college, this is going to sound odd: but i wonder sometimes whether we do ourselves a disservice through gender segregation? if i had stuck only with my girl friends, i would never have gotten tougher, and not just in sports, either. i’m not discounting at all the contributions of girl friends — lord knows, i adore mine. but at a young age, there was something of value spending time with boys.

back in my day, they segregated the school playground: boys on one side, girls on the other. in one of the very few times i ever got in trouble in my entire scholastic career, i was banished for a week from the playground because of a terrible, awful thing i did: i played with the boys on the boys’ side. i am glad that this is no longer a practice at BC’s school. i suspect she is not playing with the boys at her age, if only because she hasn’t grown up with older boys. that’s ok. as long as she has the opportunity, i can live with that.

oh, and my punishment? well, they wanted me to sit on the pavement every single day for a week. in one of the great deus ex mama moments ever, my mother, a teacher at that school, suggested to the principal that my sentence be commuted to the library, where i could at least sit and read for the week. which mercifully, i did. (she thought it was a stupid rule, too, i guess.)

i love that BC is active and playing and having fun. and the girls on her team are so sweet! but there is a part of me that wonders whether the girls are so passive on the field precisely because they are just playing with other girls.

please, G-d, tell me i’m wrong or that a change is a’comin’. i don’t think i can take another season of daisy chains.

bungle in the jungle

Posted on April 3, 2008 by wrekehavoc

BS has returned! the bat is gone! all’s right with our little world! alert the media! and yet here i am, still focusing on wildlife. go figure.

we have been steve irwin fans since i-dunno-when. BS and i called him dingo boy; and we loved to watch him chase animals all over the place. i especially remember whenever his wife terri entered the picture. when i was pregnant with BC back in 1998, she was pregnant with bindi. we used to hoot and howl whenever clueless steve would put terri’s life in danger, asking her to do things tough for a normal person, let alone a person in the family way: c’mon ter, let’s scale this cliff and make our way down into the [insert scary, dangerous animal type here]-infested area! yep. the only scale i was near was the OBGYN’s at that point; and the only danger i would consider putting myself into was fighting someone at the supermarket for the last pint of chubby hubby.

i loved the fact that the irwin’s two kids were the same ages as mine. and i was wildly astonished by the poise with which bindi spoke at her dad’s funeral. she is an articulate young lady with an apparent passion for animals, though there are times on her kid’s show that she seems like she might be turning into some sort of hyper-energetic, disney-fied being. i love this family, and i really want to root for them.

that’s why i am so sad to read about bob irwin, steve’s dad, leaving the australia zoo. bob, as you might know, is the actual founder of the australia zoo. he not only has lost his son, steve, but i believe he has also lost his first wife. terri denies any sort of family feud, but you have to wonder what exactly would make a man walk away from something he built up from nothing, especially in a time when terri is being sued. there are reports that terri is trying to make the zoo a disney-like destination, with hotels and spas. while several media outlets were willing to pay him for an exclusive interview, bob chose to give his one and only interview, for free, to the aussie ABC. it’s all so strange and somewhat suspicious.

another thing i wonder about: there’s an awful lot of attention on bindi. the girl is clearly being groomed to follow in her father’s footsteps. you have to wonder whether she is missing out on a regular childhood, complete with opportunities to explore other interests. who knows: she could be the next best painter, brain surgeon, poet. i’m sure there’s a certain internal pressure at work here — the good and obedient child wants to do whatever she can do to honor her father’s legacy. but at what cost to herself?

oh, and what about bob? you know, the little four-year-old dude? with all the attention paid to his sister, what does that mean for him? does he absolutely hate his sister? is he jealous?

i hate to watch families implode. especially this one.

driver 8

Posted on April 2, 2008 by wrekehavoc

driver 8, take a break. we’ve been on this shift too long.

i’ve been single-parenting it since sunday morning. and i love my kids. but i’m so very, very glad that BS just called and said he’s on an earlier flight home today, possibly home by dinnertime.

the nice thing about single-parenting it is that the rules are all mine. if we want to eat chocolate for dinner, we can. (fret not. we didn’t.) if we want to make a tent and sleep in it, we can. if we want to sleep a little later, or wear crazy clothes, we can. dance party with the clash? sure. cos i’m the mom, and i say so.

the bad thing, of course, is that the kids cry for their daddy. they miss him and his regulated schedule, his soft laugh, his scratchy beard, his crankiness. every bit of him, they miss.

i do, too.

(here’s the visual: i am self-medicating. it’s mid-morning, and i’m eating two squares of dark chocolate. it will make me happy. don’t tell me it won’t.)

single-parenting has brought me some stellar experiences over the past few days.

1) the aforementioned dead bat who, by the way, is still very much dead. and still on the lawn, waiting for BS’s special way with a shovel.

2) jools. home. every. single. day. i know many of you do this voluntarily, but i am unused to a very active child, 24/7. we’ve been having a lot of fun together, making hummus and guacamole and such, but i haven’t been getting as much done as i need to do. still, no one is dying because my house is a mess, so i’ll lighten up.

3) BC’s cough. BC has had a cough since sometime last year. (when the pediatrician asked her last week how long she’s been coughing, she answered: since first grade. and she was dead serious.) nothing has stopped it; not inhalers, not singulair; not voodoo dolls. (heh. just kidding. i think.) it’s really beginning to bug her; sunday night, it took her quite awhile to settle down to sleep because of it. i finally put my foot down and told the pediatrician that we need to visit a pulmonary person.

but then, we had to do the medical limbo. for some reason, the pulmonologist can only accomodate people with our stellar insurance (and that’s not sarcastic talk — it is the insurance gold standard around here, and a PPO to boot) in their leesburg office. huh? so i have to pull madam out of school and go through rush hour traffic to get her to the doctor’s office in about two week’s time. yay.

but wait, there’s more: oh, can we add sinus waters study to our pediatrician’s chest x-ray order? a wha?

but dutifully, i get the pediatrician’s office to fax it. i call to check it has made it. apparently, the pediatrician checked the wrong box — it’s an x-ray, not a CT scan. (oh really? you’d think the doctor would know that, the receptionist said. i guess he’d know that before i did, being a real doctor, unlike me.) and around and around we go again.

all the while, jools is glued to nick jr. because i suck as a mom.

so today, for fun (and before the wednesday afternoon carpooling duties hit me), we will go for the aforementioned x-rays.

i can hardly wait.

4) yesterday, a magical experience where a friend of BC’s insisted that she had cleared an afterschool playdate with her babysitter. pleasepleaseplease let BC take the bus home with me. pulllllease!!! i said i would drive BC over and just check with the babysitter, since we had not yet met, much less cleared anything. the babysitter was rather surprised at the idea of a playdate; we apologized and moved on.

5) while driving home from said non-playdate, lecturing BC about why i don’t just send her on the bus with any friend who insists that a playdate is ok with the adult-on-duty, i saw a police officer with a laser, and it was pointed at ME. and whoomp: there it was. 37 in a school zone. i have actually made it to my advanced age having never gotten pulled over for speeding. i’m an excellent driver, you know. and now, i’m speeding, albeit not wildly, but technically speeding nonetheless. don’t cry, mama, BC said. you can’t cry in front of a police officer.

oh girl. yes. you. can.

the officer took my license and registration and went back to his motorcycle to call it in. julian kept asking me what was going on. i muttered and muttered. leave mama alone, i heard BC bark at jools. i muttered that my husband and his brother, a police officer, were probably going to laugh at me over this one day. i pictured it in my mind’s eye: yeah, my wife is such an idiot, she doesn’t know what to do when she’s pulled over for a ticket. i muttered because it kept me from crying over my very first traffic infraction at age 40+.

the officer returned and started telling me about prepaying the ticket versus the court date, etc. etc. suddenly, a voice shrilly commanded from the backseat:

exCUSE MEEEEEEEEEE!

it was jools. oh shit. now i’ll get ticketed for some parenting violation, too: this woman has rude children. lock her up.

please officer: i’ve been home alone with two kids for a few days, and i’m a little wound. can you take pity on me and just ticket me over the car and ignore the fact that my young son doesn’t grasp the concept of decorum? pleaseohpleaseohplease?

excuse me, i said to the officer. okay, jools, what do you want?

no, i want to talk to the policeman.

doubleshitdoubleshitdoubleshit. i peered at the officer through my window. is it ok, sir?

sure. what can i do for you? he asked jools.

my uncle mikey is a police officer! he announced to the officer.

is he really? the officer asked. where is he a police officer?

in new jersey, i replied.

BC pulled the facts together: my uncle mikey is a police officer in NEW JERSEY!

well then, he replied, i’m going to give you a warning, thanks to uncle mikey. he crossed out my court date and wrote W A R N I N G over it. slow down, okay?

yes, sir. i took a deep breath as he walked away from my car. karma pulled through for me. all those times i let people in instead of cutting them off; all those times as a patient and courteous driver — it all came back to me in the guise of a kind police officer.

and it also made me thankful for my brother-in-law. my husband has only one brother. lucky for me, he happens to be a terrific person who happens to be a police officer. he risks his life daily, and he’s a person we are all very proud of in this family. and i bet he has been in this situation before and he has been kind. i just know it. he has a good heart.

i waved at the police officer as we drove past; he waved back in that serious, Adam-12 sort of way. i bet he has an insane sister-in-law, too.

last night, jools got a honkin’ big bowl of his favorite ice cream. and BC finished her solid chocolate easter bunny.

my rules, cos i’m the adult-on-duty. and i think that’s fair.

guilty pleasure monday: magnet and steel (walter egan)

Posted on March 31, 2008 by wrekehavoc

the 80s were often silly times, musically speaking. but there is inherent silliness, methinks, in a lot of music from the 70s (music that now resides mostly on office radio stations and in elevators). that’s around the time band members really started embracing the term artist. yes, a word to describe geniuses like pablo picasso (who was never called an asshole) and my fave, paul cezanne (the father of cubism) was now being bandied about by people to describe people like leo sayer.

there’s something inherently silly about thinking this is serious art. (sorry, OTC. i know that’s a fave of yours.) enjoy it, sure. and i suppose it is art because it simply exists. but don’t get all hoity-toity and pretentious with me. it’s a hershey kiss when what i really want is some serious belgian chocolate or at least a little cadbury imported from england. i like hershey’s, but it’s not exactly what i want on most days.

but today is guilty pleasure monday, so i’ll tell you want i want. (what i really really want.) magnet and steel by walter egan. back in the day, the best way to get a song plugged into sales overdrive was to get some heavy-duty backup singers; and that’s what seems to have happened with this little gem. i think both stevie nicks and lindsey buckingham sing backup on this puppy — you certainly can hear stevie nicks, no problem. i love the way the song lazily propels itself forward, kind of like BC on a school morning when she dawdles to get dressed, eat breakfast, and get her backpack together before she ends up late.

anyway, i love this song precisely because it sounds so 1950ish with a slow rock groove, only to get all 1970s with the bridge/chorus, then revert. the bells, which you can hear if you listen reallyreally closely in that part, add a sort of sonic rainbow. (anyone else feel the love? groovy.)

and, if nothing else, the lyric you are the magnet and i am the steel is just a terribly clever pickup line. i’m imagining guys in leisure suits or mid-70s bellbottomed coolness using this and probably succeeding.

while walter egan is still quite active — apparently, he is teaching a popular music course at georgetown — i don’t think he ever had another hit. (please correct me if i am wrong.) i wonder if anyone else remembers this song. anyone under the age of 40ish, that is.

ars longa; vita brevis.

sigh. i suppose as long as there are light rock stations gently lulling office workers into a midafternoon daze, there will always be a home for a lot of 1970s top 40 fodder, stuff that people probably, at the time, thought was work that would stand the test of time as seriously important, especially with two members of fleetwood mac tied on for good measure. like this one. even if it’s not great art, you can still dance to it.

s l o w l y.

three is a magic number

Posted on March 30, 2008 by wrekehavoc

yes it is. it’s a magic number.

and in my case, things come in threes. not always fabulous ones, but three. no more, no less. you don’t have to guess.

1) BC, jools, and i were getting into the car when suddenly, i heard squeals. EWWWWWWWWWW! and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! i looked quizzically at my kids, who are pointing to a tulip, which has not yet bloomed with flower but which has blossomed with a dead bat beneath it. no, not a mouse. not a rat. not a squirrel. not any of these woodland creatures. a B-A-T bat.

animal removal is not part of my contract.

2) woodland being the day’s leitmotif, BC, jools and i decide to take a nature walk behind BC’s school. we walk all the way up a huge hill, then down a steep one, dodging the woodland creature poop, and visiting the creek. i say visiting because i know better than to tempt fate: i will not take my kids too close to a creek when it’s chilly out and fate is laughing at me, daring me to tempt her. no one is getting soaked on my watch. nature’s no fun when you can’t interact with it, BC complains.

too bad, i counter. fate freaks me out more than nature does. i know fate is waiting for me, waiting for that perfect moment, waiting to hit that perfect beat.[note to self: bronski beat definitely qualifies as a guilty pleasure moment. be sure to annoy people with that down the road.]

we move on to the schoolyard playground and play. i am responsible for snack at brownies, and i figure we can play for a short while and then leave with just enough time to drop BC off for her scouting fun. only, too bad for me. i just give my two minute warning to the kids when jools says: uh. is there a bathroom here?

uhm. there is. when school is open. do you need a bathroom? i ask.

uh. it’s ok. i am just a little wet.

i do the mom eye roll. r e a l l y?

uh, well no.

the dude who has been day-trained since, well, since a long time, decides to let the rains fall, metaphorically speaking, just at the moment when i need to pack the kids up and rush them over to the brownie meeting where i must deliver a child and some snack. on time.

crap.

we race home, change, race back, and all’s right with the world. well, for most of the world. not the bat, who is still there, pushing up a tulip.

3) i decide nature is overrated. we are inside now, and inside we will be until tomorrow. for reasons i don’t really understand, jools decides to punch a seedling i have growing in the sunroom. the day before, he took out his little boy scissors and decided to trim some of the leaves of the seedling. leaves it didn’t need to leave. and now, he has given it a whack, something i didn’t know you could do to a tiny plant. it would just have never occurred to me.

i figure the boy is mad at nature. mother nature deposited a bat in our front yard. mother nature neglected to call him in time, so to speak. so whack, take that, mother nature! if only the boy understood: it’s not nice to fool mother nature.

i have a feeling we ought to stay indoors for the rest of the week.

DIY

Posted on March 25, 2008 by wrekehavoc

you can pick your friends.

you can pick your nose.

but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.

–anonymous

maybe you can’t pick your friend’s nose, but you can hire people to pick the lice out of your kid’s head. in fact, you can outsource all sorts of parenting challenges, from toilet training to saying no. some of the things you can get someone else to do for you, quoting NY Magazine:

… TEACH HIM HOW TO RIDE A BIKE
… TAKE HIM FISHING
… TALK TO HIM
… IMPART GOOD BREEDING
… TEACH HIM THE BIRDS AND THE BEES
… GO ON COLLEGE TOURS
… DRIVE HIM EVERYWHERE

understand that i’m not completely innocent here. when BC was young, we had a hell of a time teaching her how to sleep, compounded by a never-ending ear infection, reflux, and an inability to gain weight, which meant she needed to be fed around the clock. i read books, i tried a zillion things. the girl wouldn’t sleep. it caused problems in our health, our family life, our work and everything else.

to make a long story short, when jools was beginning to exhibit serious sleep issues, i heard of a magical person who would help us teach hellboy how to sleep. it was a good thing, too, because BS and i could not agree how to handle the problem. i probably would have never let jools sleep anywere except in our bed or in my arms until he was 40; BS would have simply closed the door and walked off into the sunset, leaving the boy to scream. all. night. long.

(when you’re sleep-deprived, few ideas seem insane.)

this was nearly five years ago, but for $300, this person performed nothing short of a miracle. she taught us how to teach our son to sleep. her sleep solution, somewhere between my and BS’s ideas about sleep training, put us dazed parents on the same page, allowed us to continue dream feeds for a time (jools, too, was underweight), and get the boy to sleep through the night pretty rapidly. the dude is still the best sleeper in the house, and it’s all thanks to the extremely wonderful magical sleep person. if i ever see her again, i will hug her endlessly.

by teaching us, she saved my family.

i often wonder about why some people have children. i think kids are just sort of part of an expected tradition in our society: get married, get a house, have kids. but some people simply should not breed. maybe they simply aren’t ready; maybe they’ll never be ready; maybe other things are more important to them. get a cat; don’t make a baby. unlike any other relationship in your life, the parent-child bond cannot be broken. you can divorce your spouse, ignore your siblings, end friendships.

but your child will always be your child. not an accessory. a living person who requires your involvement and your guidance. it doesn’t matter whether both parents work inside or outside of the home. it’s not the quantity of the time you spend — it’s the quality. and while every single solitary moment does not need to be a Mr. Rogers moment, there are certain things that a parent ought to do. and there are certain things a parent should want to do.

i wonder why parents outsource certain activities. teaching your kid to ride a bike and taking them fishing (or shopping or whatever your recreational activity of choice) — these are fun times not to be missed. and what parent doesn’t want to be there to ask and/or field questions when touring a college? (you can bet your ass i am going to make sure i find out about the party situation on campus and be as involved as the kids will let me when the time comes.)

and simply talking to your child? discussing sex? teaching him/her how to be a decent person? hello??? this is why you’re here. to share your ideas about how to be a kind and contributing member of society. it’s one thing if you need guidance on how to do any of these things; as the cliché goes, kids don’t come with a manual. so seek out help if you need it with some of the thornier parts of parenthood. read books. talk to clergy or professionals. ask friends or relatives.

but when the actual doing needs to get done, do it yourself.

in my house

Posted on March 19, 2008 by wrekehavoc

dear ~~playdate~~ ~~person who seems to have mysteriously landed here~~ friend,

welcome to our home. we’re very glad you’re here! please enjoy your time with my child. let me tell you a little bit about what i expect, conduct-wise, when you’re in my house.

i am honestly delighted to provide you with a snack or lunch or whatever foodstuffs i might have on hand. please let me know whether you have any food allergies; i don’t have an epi-pen handy and would prefer the playdate not end in the ER.

also, regarding food, i have been teaching my eldest child that when she is a guest, she can indicate preference for food if her host gives her a specific choice; however, she is not to turn up her nose at things but try them unless they are pork or foods she knows she cannot have because she’s a red sea pedestrian. (i’m quite proud of the way she actually ate a sandwich on whole wheat bread the other day at a playdate and didn’t say boo about the bread. that’s one major leap for parentkind.)

how nice it is that your parents will make you a completely different meal if you don’t like what they’ve made for dinner. that rule, unfortunately, does not apply in my house. please, if you don’t like something, simply say no thank you. diatribes about how nasty a food is are not necessary. further, i’m sorry if you don’t like the brand of frozen pizza, peanut butter, or what have you. if it is unsuitable, i suggest you eat before you arrive.

you may not go upstairs and play in my room. that’s my room. i’m the mom, and i say so.

the vents come out of the floor. i don’t know why. that doesn’t mean you ought to pull them out. they actually are somewhat functional and probably aren’t appropriate for use as a child’s toy.

that pinball machine? it’s a vintage 1980s piece of our family history. my husband, BS, looked for three years until he found it and bought it. he carefully had it shipped first to the airport and then to our home, where it was put together. is it a little crazy to have a 20 year old pinball machine in your home? perhaps. but it is the same game we played when we were dating back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and it is probably among the top five of the most romantic gestures my BS has ever made for me. hence, while i don’t mind when you and my child play the game, i would appreciate it if you did not angrily bang the glass each and every time your turn ends.

do not act mean to my younger child. while he is a major bruiser and is known in these parts as hellboy, he is still nearly 5 years younger than you are and doesn’t take kindly to insults. as he is a boy of a certain age, he also may resort to physical expressions of his displeasure. and, if i know he has been provoked, i will of course attempt to stop him from such expressions, as i know he can probably hurt you a lot worse than you can him. and i will make a mental note.

despite the fact that casa de wreke usually looks like a bomb hit it, do not be fooled into thinking that the floor is a proper receptacle for trash.

i ~~love~~ loved the pretty tulips. the ones you just trampled. is it customary to step on garden flowers in your own yard? please do not step on them in mine.

i truly enjoyed your explanation of how you get your way in your own home. it was especially entertaining to hear how you have taught your sibling your technique. i would humbly suggest that when that child is a little older, he/she will respond as hellboy would: he/she will whack you. worse, he/she will use it on you. just so you know.

i know you think i’m a mean, hardass mother. please be aware that i expect the same behavior and deportment from my own children. i really do like you, you know. but just as i am teaching my own children how to behave when they are guests in others’ homes, i am expecting that your parents have been doing the same. alas, to paraphrase something my BS often reminds me about others, i cannot expect that everyone in the world has been raised by me. (more’s the pity.) so don’t be alarmed if i gently remind you of our home rules as the situation arises. i am treating you, in essence, as i treat my own.

yours,

wreke

p.s. you’re not sleeping over.