BC (beloved child the elder) – Page 13

Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

don't know much about history

Posted on March 14, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i have been quietly but officially branded as The Idiot Parent™ by BC.

i was trying to do six things at one time yesterday as i tried to help her with her math homework from afar. long story short, girlfriend (AKA einstein junior) suggested a way to solve a word problem, and i told her it was incorrect. fast forward to later in the evening, when she was finishing her work with BS. BS told her that her solution was actually correct, and i was wrong.

from here on in, BC only wants to do math homework with BS.

i should be happy about this: one less task (check.) truly, i do have the mathematical ability of a raccoon. my scholastic math experiences didn’t help matters. but over the years, i have built up my confidence, at least to the point that i think i’ve mastered things like long division. (do they teach that anymore?) but where i memorized my multiplication tables to multiplication rock as a child, BC is learning more about thinking about numbers in a way that i never did as a memorizing fiend.

i just don’t want to set a terrible example for her. while i find math about as interesting as watching grass grow, i know i have to put on a big show about how cool math is. (anyone have ideas as to how i do this convincingly, let me know.) and yes, i know math is important in the world; no preaching required. i just never found it interesting the way i found reading interesting.

and, in a related vein, girlfriend wept last night. she has to give a report on the sun. she worked on said poster and picked out five interesting facts about the sun all by herself. however, she is afraid the boys in her class will rip her apart. her sun facts apparently aren’t terribly impressive to anyone but herself. after giving her a mini-lecture about how she shouldn’t care what the boys think (boy, do i see this as something that will come up again and again in the future), and that she should only care about what she herself thinks about her work and what her teacher thinks about her work, i started to have a mini-reverie.

and i got pissed.

in this family, i make my kids do their own projects. (i passed third grade. i don’t need to pass it again.) i was surprised when i went to her parent/teacher conference last week and saw some of the other solar system posters, which clearly had serious adult contributions. what the hell? i want my kid to learn all by herself, and here she has to compete with projects completed by forty-plus-year-olds? i sure hope teachers see through this sort of thing, as it is unfair to compare her work, which clearly looks like the work of a third grader, with the work of a grownup.

what do parents think when they do their kids’ projects? do they think they are helping them? will they be walking into chemistry class later on in high school to help their child complete an experiment? joining them on job interviews? i don’t get it. and i hope my kid doesn’t get penalized down the road because she did her own work. why the hell do they need to start the competitiveness crap this early?

in short, grownups need to grow up.

guilty pleasure monday: the music from Hair

Posted on March 10, 2008 by wrekehavoc

yesterday, it was my birthday. i hung one more year on the line. i should be depressed; my life’s a mess. but i’m having a good time. – Paul Simon

okay, not too depressed, especially since it’s:

guilty pleasure monday!

anybody still with me out there?

cool. since i’m reflecting on my younger years, i thought i’d drop this heavy trip on you, you dig? groovy.

when i was a little kid, i used to listen to hair incessantly. and yes, i danced around the living room and the basement, just like this little kid is doing. i wanted to let my sun shine in, i wanted to let my freak flag fly, i wanted to understand what the hell these people were doing and whether their parents knew. (i was 4 when this came out, people. remember, i was a rather ~~messed-up~~ precocious child.)

a long time ago, i ranted about how much i hated the movie version of hair and how my parents let me run around the house singing a song with nasty, awful words i’ve declined to put in the blog because: a) i get enough weird search referrals, and b) if i did, one day, my kids — probably hellboy — will do a search to find all the naughty words on earth — and he’ll find them here in his mama’s blog? and need lots of therapy? thank you, no.

i don’t need to rewrite the tale; all i can say is that if someone threatened to barrage me with showtunes while i drove cross-country, i’d probably be ok with that if the show was hair.

(it’s my birthday. or at least it was. so indulge me, please.)

the israelites

Posted on March 7, 2008 by wrekehavoc

this morning, BC and i were working on her hebrew homework. i’m stepping up my efforts a bit in israelite land, as i learned last week that BC has been actually memorizing everything rather than reading it. there’s a certain amount of intelligence in having a photographic memory, as she apparently does; but there’s also value in actually learning how to read it properly.

bizarrely enough, i did the exact thing when i was her age. i was terrified of my 3rd grade hebrew teacher, an excruciatingly thin orthodox lady with a scary flippy pageboy wig and a habit of sitting on the desk before us, chewing on her nails. i don’t really know why she scared me so much, but i spent the better part of that year either hiding out in the shul bathroom or feigning stomachaches and staying home to watch the channel 7 4:30 movie.

so when i actually “returned” to hebrew school full time, i had to catch up. i had learned a bit in 2nd grade, with the happy adventures of koopi kof (koopi the monkey) and the idiot children uri and riva, so i at least had a base. but i had to catch up. fortunately, i can memorize anything if you put it to music. (i memorized chemistry formulae in high school later, having put them to a billy joel tune. ah yes, i can sing it now: mole over liter is molarity; mole over kg is molality; p1v1=p2v2…yeah, i slayed in 10th grade.) once i started singing prayers, i knew it would all click.

it all worked fine until the cantor caught up to me when i started bat mitzvah lessons at 12. i couldn’t write my full hebrew name. he made me write it 100 times: sharon chava bat menashe v’etta riva. (i don’t actually have a hebrew keyboard, and most of the people who read this don’t read hebrew, anyway. so you’ll just have to imagine it 😉

yep. the jig was up.

but the beauty is that the cantor also understood that if he made a tape of my haftorah, i would not only sing along with it, but i would read it. and read it i did. (it was a weird story, too, one about which i always felt conflicted. at the time, i went along with the whole remembrance theme, but i was always a little disturbed by that story and remain so to this day.)

but i digress. per usual.

so while i am not too worried about BC learning hebrew in the long run, i feel like it’s my job to help her along here. i never force her to love going to hebrew school (though she is very fond of her teachers and especially of the principal, for whom she made a get well card this morning on her own volition); but i always tell her my rule: you have to understand your culture before you have any right to reject it.

(read: if i had to ~~suffer through~~ attend hebrew school, so should she. nyah nyah nyah. but seriously…)

i honestly don’t care if, one day after her bat mitzvah, she decides to become a zen buddhist. or an atheist. or whatever she wishes. but as long as she at least has the beginnings of understanding about her religion and a portion of her culture (she doesn’t just come from me, you know), i will feel a bit more satisfied. of course, i would love her to find some part of judaism to embrace, but once she is of an age where she can decide for herself, i don’t feel like i will be in a position to make her do it my way.

and i won’t.

life and how to live it

Posted on March 6, 2008 by wrekehavoc

today, BC and i watched a Diagnosis X where a healthy young long island guy suddenly experiences gastrointestinal issues and paralysis. finally, a doctor realizes he has guillan-barre which is an autoimmune illness not entirely unlike the ITP i had two years ago. his immunoglobulins were shot, like mine, so they start him on the magical IVIG, and he starts to improve and live a better life, although it takes him a year or two to re-learn how to walk. which he does. thank G-d.

of course, once i saw that the dude had an autoimmune problem, i started to get a little nervous. when they started him on immunotherapy, i started to tear up. sometimes, TV hits a little too close to home, and i feel so terrible watching people go through things like this. i remember all too well how scary it is when you’re body is going through a revolt and you feel helpless to stop it.

it’s like the flashback that never really leaves you.

enter BC, just as they’re hanging the guy’s IV bag. she sees me all teary.

BC: mama, you really shouldn’t watch these shows with me if they make you so sad.

me: honey, i’m ok. (sniff sniff) i just get a little sad watching someone go through that. you know, people die from this sort of thing. and he’s getting treated with the same stuff i get. i just hope he gets better.

BC: is this like what you have?

me: well, sorta. its a different problem, but it’s autoimmune, and its one of those things that just sneaks up on you and makes you sick and you never knew what happened.

BC: (with insistence) but you’re not going to die.

me: no, honey. i’m not.

cartoon network is looking better and better to me these days.

sad day

Posted on March 4, 2008 by wrekehavoc

it could always be waaay worse, i know; but today is just sort of a sad day while we await some sort of monsoon here in the People’s Republic. i usually hang with my little hellboy on tuesdays, but due to some pediatric scheduling joys, i need to take BC to the doctor’s today for her well-child checkup. her birthday is in december; but between the wait, the apparent need to schedule the checkup after the previous year’s checkup; and some sloth on my part; she’s not getting her checkup until today.

(i suspect we’ll loop back to december appointments by the time she is 18. thank you, blue cross.)

taking them both to the doctor’s simultaneously is a disaster. last week, we did it when jools had a doctor’s appointment right after BC was done with school for the day. another child in his class had impetigo, and it started around her mouth. the teachers, wanting to prevent a wild outbreak (today, impetigo. tomorrow, SARS.), sent him home as a precaution, as the dude has dry cracked lips. guess what? the pediatrician agreed with my assessment. as i had a doctor’s appt that day (which resulted in my whisking myself downtown to his school, then whisking back to mclean (motto: mclean; maclean; mcClean. who the hell knows how to spell our name?)), the dude ended up joining me at my doctor’s office. my doctor took one look at jools and said: this child has dry, cracked lips.

but at the pediatrician’s office, the mecca from which we receive all notes permitting our school entrance (and which i actually like, by the way), we waited for a little over an hour before we saw the doctor. in that time, my kids:

pulled the exam table paper out a little too much (and nearly pushed each other off the table, which, i suppose isn’t a bad thing. i mean, hell, we’re in a doctor’s office — what better place to get a concussion!);

tried to take the antimicrobial hand crap and practically bathe in it;

played 52 pick-up with the books and magazines beneath the exam table;

rolled each other around in the doctor’s chair like monstertrucks;

and generally annoyed the living shit out of me.

okay, okay. they’re just typical kids. and i was a typical mom with a typical i just drove through rush hour traffic for a 5:00 appointment, and now i get to drive through rush hour traffic at 6 to get home headache. but i just couldn’t bear a repeat today.

so the dude abides his time at preschool today. he’s probably cursing me and being traumatized to the extent that he will need therapy later because his mom didn’t apparently love him enough to keep him home today.

so of course, i feel guilt. i miss that little guy. just add it to the list of reasons why i suck as a mom.

and, to top it all off, sunday is my birthday. and i’ll even lose an hour of my fucking birthday, thanks to daylight savings. it’s all a conspiracy, i tell you.

i want my damn hour back, thank you very much.

she blinded me with science

Posted on February 28, 2008 by wrekehavoc

BC has a big science test today. we’ve been reading about the sun, the moon, the tides, matter, molecules, and atoms. she even drew me the little H2O drawing that we did in beginning chemistry. in 10th grade.

BC is in third grade.

i love the way the teacher writes out a plan of attack for studying. each day, we have been studying from a sheet; and each day, we add a little more, then a little more, then a little more. i hope this sort of thing rubs off on madam, as she clearly doesn’t seem to be a person who wants to study because, to quote her, i know this stuff already, mama.

it’s nice to be doogie howser, but you still need to study, darling.

girlfriend seems to be heavily interested in science these days. i’m secretly glad of this, as i somehow never got jazzed much about it. (in fact, i must say that i have probably learned as much about earth and rotation and revolution in this little study exercise as she has.) her TV faves include untold stories of the ER, diagnosis X, and of course my personal fave, trauma: life in the ER — with occasional interruptions from the shows about people having babies, which she likes, too.

while i am secretly glad that it moves her away from some of the crappy cartoons she is prone to watching, i often wonder whether i should be more concerned. girlfriend doesn’t care about watching actual bloody surgeries. and she gets irritated when i start to weep, especially when we watched these two egyptian twins get detached from each other’s brains.

yesterday, we watched a show where a western NJ boy (yes, of course, all magical things happen in NJ) got med-evac’d to UMDNJ in scenic newark because he sawed off two fingers in shop class (moral: mamas don’t let your babies grow up and take shop class.) i couldn’t watch as the kid showed his hands. girlfriend watched with keen interest.

mama, she always reminds me, if you can’t handle it, you should really leave the room. later, she asked me what the words in front of the show meant.

oh, i replied, you mean “viewer discretion is advised”?

yep.

uh, viewer discretion advised means i should use MY discretion over YOUR viewing time, sister.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlHgbOWj4o

big time

Posted on February 20, 2008 by wrekehavoc

well, maybe not the big time, but a first for me. i actually stood up in front of real people, paid-ticket people, people i don’t even know (mostly), and dredged up bits from my ancient, sadly melodramatic journals for the DC mortified show. (proof here, thanks to master wine drinker/pourer kellyo.)

here’s a thrilling secret: i’m terrified at standing in front of people and talking. (don’t tell anyone, ok? 😉

seriously though, as i explained to BS as we drove into DC last night, i like to do things that scare me so that i won’t be scared of them. (neurosis ain’t the boss of me!) i hope my kids are far more fearless than i have been in my life. i intend to continue conquering each and every thing that terrifies me (okay, most things. i think shooting up dope and skydiving are probably not in my future. mom and dad, you can relax now.)

BS, being a most excellent driver, found street parking; and off we hoofed to HR-57. he was patting me all along, telling me i was going to do fine. i think after 20 years, he has figured out that when i get quiet, r e a l l y r e a l l y quiet, that i am nervous. and when i start singing along to the Grateful Dead on the radio, then i am all-out terrified. (oh, don’t jump on me, people. i like the Dead just as much as the next over-X-year old. i just don’t like singing along with them. except for this one and this one.)

(Public Service Announcement: rick. if you’re still out there. please explain to me who the doodah man is.)

anywho, there i was, singing along with truckin’, a song i don’t even like. and there was BS, trying to be the most supportive husband on earth. and suddenly, as i approach the door of HR-57, i hear a voice yell: “SHERRRRRR!” kelly arrived out of nowhere and told me that she, molly, and a friend of her’s from work were next door, tucking into some sake and dinner. i was so touched that they came out, sans tickets, and were going to try and get on the waitlist. (you dudes have no idea how much that meant to me.)

i was warmly welcomed by my producer andi, who should be knighted for actually making a storyline emerge from my written blather. BS bought me a red stripe, and the uber-producer, the divine ms. sarah disgrace, gave me my very own trapper keeper. so i was feeling pretty good about life. and then, my two pals (and a new one) were able to join us up front.

yay!

loved the two people who read before me. loved the people who read after me. and i think i did ok. i kept thinking, jeez, my voice gets squeaky when i’m trying to pretend i’m a teenager. what gives? it’s not like i was a teenaged b-o-y. ah well. but i talked about how i was so busy being superior to everyone else because i was superior to everyone else in my high school. (that’s a joke there for anyone who shows up here from TRN. a j-o-k-e. i certainly wasn’t superior to people like maria ressa, a really sweet, talented, and nice chick who probably doesn’t remember me from adam… okay. so, i might not have been superior to plenty of folks, k? nobody better throw punch at me or pull a carrie on me if i make it to the 25th reunion this summer.)

the martyr of toms river north survived, i tell ya.

after the show, a guy came up to me and said, “did you go to north? you mentioned mr. leonard — i went to TRN, too!” as it turns out, he’s about 10 years younger than i am, but we know similar people and went to the same day camp. in fact, i may have been his counselor. the world is strange and wonderful.

so much fun! so much wine! so much support! i hope i get to do it again if i didn’t eff up too much.

many thanks to the producers, especially andi and sarah grace, queen of cupcakes. many thanks to kelly, molly, and my new BFF elizabeth. humungous thanks to michelle (and you know who you are, madam) who helped me find an awesome friend of hers to watch BC and jools. thanks to my family for giving me years of fodder — and love.

and major thanks to BS. the proverbial wind beneath my wings.

(c’mon. we’re celebrating bad writing here. i had to go with it 😉

are you ready for the summer

Posted on February 13, 2008 by wrekehavoc

here in the people’s republic, planning for summer camp starts as early as january. it’s absolute mayhem if you’re a working parent because you need to get your kid situated somewhere with before and after care. camps make it difficult, too, because the public school programs and the parks and rec programs and the programs at private schools and the programs at the YMCA and so on all have different signup dates.

some of them even have lotteries for the signup. you can end up signing up for three different camps on the same week only because you’re afraid you won’t get into your favorite camp with the latest date so you need to be covered just in case. it’s insane. and some camps are filled up by mid-january; no lie. i’m lucky i am working out of my home these days; the worst thing that will happen is that BC will spend a lot of quality time with me. not a problem in my book, though girlfriend might disagree at times 😉

anyway, it’s a far cry from my idyllic youth, when i attended one day camp for the entire summer. nothing glamorous; we played outside, learned to swim, did arts and crafts, and occasionally ran through the graveyard where my grandma rose was buried. (we played capture the flag in the woods, which are now covered by mcmansions; but i always managed to run through the graveyard and wave to my gram. i was a weird child, even then.) i was saddened to ride past my camp recently, only to see that it is completely overgrown, including the pool where i learned to swim and the area up to the garden state parkway (where my brother, a counselor, would sometimes threaten this one annoying boy (who shall remain nameless, though i’ve learned he continues to be annoying as a grown man) that he would throw him onto the road so he could play parkway tag (rules: if a car hits you, you’re it!) if he didn’t straighten up. good. times.

i ended up working there as a counselor once i was old enough. it was all great fun except since i was a tomboy of sorts, i always ended up taking the boys. it was great — we played soccer, softball, everything — lots of fun until they discovered the tie on my bikini top and chased me all around to try and untie it. did i mention these were good times?

anyway, i wish i could go back to camp. however, times and my abilities have changed. i have made up some new camps i would like to attend.

week 1: Wine Tasting Camp. travel around the countryside while your designated bus driver takes you to 4 wineries per day. sleep it off in charming b&bs.

weeks 2+3: Rock Band Camp. start that garage band you always wanted to be in but were too busy studying and being a good and obedient child. since CBGBs isn’t an option, pick a club of your choice and gig there.

week 4: Indy Brewery Camp. see week 1. substitute independent brewers.

week 5: Waterpark Camp. every day, visit a different waterpark, which has been reserved for campers over 30.

week 6: Spa Camp. visit some ritzy spa for a week. enjoy proper food, exercise, and pampering treatments. wave at oprah, who is leading the camp and who showers you with her favorite things of the week.

weeks 7+8: Follow Your Band Camp. pick a band you like, and follow it to different cities for two weeks, discovering the joys of various cities in between shows.

week 9: Go to California and Watch Films with the Actors Week. make it john cusack, johnny depp (not the captain hook crap, though), and robert downey, jr. week and that will suffice.

week 10: Vacation. a redundant concept, but i’m not as young as i used to be, you know. gotta rejuvenate before school starts.

are you with me?

strange brew

Posted on February 8, 2008 by wrekehavoc

my musically-inclined friend philfree tagged me with a meme: six random habits or quirks about me. i tend to be quirky by definition, so its just sooooo hard to pick six without someone attempting to have me commited. but i’ll try.

1) i am right handed. i bat lefty. this is due to some tomfoolery, courtesy of my two older brothers. (thanks a lot, guys.)
2) i like to wear black. a lot. BC always asks me to break out of my fashion rut. but i say, hey, it’s easy to match when all you wear is black. it’s slimming, it’s fashionable in that bored new yorker sort of way. and it’s what i do. when you see me wearing pink and white, it’s probably best to head for the hills. i’m having a breakdown.
3) i watched I Love the 80s while in labor with jools. it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. i made it all the way up to the 1987 episode before the dude decided to appear. i still have yet to watch 1988 and 1989. not that those years mattered much.

4) during 8th grade, i served as the disk jockey for the disco club at school. yes, kids, while i quietly seethed because i would have preferred listening to the police (a band none of my friends had heard of in 1979), i spun classics like we are family, le freak and of course, everything from saturday night fever that i could hardly stomach. (in other words, more bee gees than human beings ought to be allowed to experience in one year.) yep. all that while having to watch my intermediate school french teacher waddle around on calves the size of wisconsin, teaching kids how to do the hustle. yep. good. times.

5) i love chocolate and consider it an important part of my training table. i love dark chocolate best, especially the 85% cocoa or the type with cacao nibs. it may be too bitter for other people, but i eat it. i like to pretend i am eating it for the flavenoids. chocolate = health food! (a girl can dream.)

6) sometimes, when i am driving by the perfectly-coiffed, perfectly-perfect moms at my daughter’s school, i will dig up some ramones or black flag or dead kennedys, roll down the window, and blast it.

i. am. that. juvenile.

Tagging:

mamma mia

pillowbook

and

everyoneisdoinit

left of center

Posted on February 5, 2008 by wrekehavoc

best. homemade. granola. recipe. ever.

jools keeps eating it up. BC, of course, turns her nose up: EWWWW! did you put cashews or something in it? (almonds, sweetheart. almonds.) i don’t have barley flour, so i used whole wheat. it made the yummy crunchies in it, and it didn’t made a zillion gallons, which is what most granola recipes make. as if you need 5 cups of granola.

guess which way i vote 😉