BC (beloved child the elder) – Page 5

Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

i me mine

Posted on May 18, 2010May 18, 2010 by wrekehavoc

this morning, i read an article in the washington post about the clashes between families and childless folks in urban areas. there has been a resurgence in the past five to ten years of people with children returning to the cities and taking over places that childless folks assumed were their domain; urban parks, stores, and restaurants are now places where people with children demand equal footing.

to be sure, some businesses are attempting to bridge the gap with family-friendly happy hours. (!) (wish they had had them when i had young children.) and i certainly think that public parks and public property are places where children ought to be able to share space with dogs and dogs with children. but i also think that parents these days have developed a sense of entitlement — that they are now parents, and so the world should bend to them — coupled with unrealistic expectations about life as mom or dad. don’t get bent if you are asked to fold up a stroller before getting on a bus. i’m sorry if you are upset that you’ve children in tow, groceries in hand, and a bus driver who requires you to take your $500 stroller and fold it. maybe you ought to reconsider how it’s all done– have someone watch your kids when you hit the grocery. use a grocery delivery service. buy a car. take a cab.

move to the ‘burbs.

i once got into a huge tussle on my favorite board, dc urban moms about this topic. a parent was upset because a local watering hole (a place which hosts poetry slams and which, at least at the time, was not meant to be a kid-friendly place, at least not at night) was somehow unable to accommodate her baby with a highchair when she was taking her baby out to dinner with her hubby at 9pm one weeknight. to me, there were all sorts of wrong in this concept. i’m sharing bits of it because it pretty much says it all.

if you sense that a restaurant isn’t family-friendly AND the proprietor is not really interested in making it family-friendly after you’ve
asked about making it so, it is the proprietor’s right to have his/her place of business as he/she feels it ought to be, and it is your right as a consumer to not patronize the place. if everything were family-friendly; if every neighborhood catered perfectly to people with families, well, i think we’d be living in some sort of perverse disneyworld-like situation. no, thanks. i like my world with grime, even if i have to shield my kids from it now and again.

i have two children (one who has always behaved perfectly everywhere and one who, well, to put it nicely, is working on it), lest anyone out there think i am someone who is not herself interested in child-friendly places. and child-friendly places do NOT mean you’re doomed to only chuck e cheese and mcdonalds (which, for the record, i abhore and don’t even allow my kids to eat
their chicken nuggets after watching “supersize me”). [snip] places that are noisy; places that have highchairs; places that welcome you and your business are the places you might consider supporting by bringing your families there. heck, my kids enjoy a variety of ethnic foods, so it isn’t like our life has been wildly limited by this idea.

but what burns my butt is this presumption that because we are in a new phase of life called parenthood, everyone must bend to our experience by having what we want in every venue we want it. face it — there are some places where kids ought to be left home, at least in the evening. as one poster noted, some places are not venues that are even ENJOYABLE to kids; maybe they’re too
fancy or too cool or too high-falutin.’ and while you might not consider your child’s spitup to be nuclear waste, some people might think that this is not the experience they signed up for when they sat down for a nice meal. (and believe me — it isn’t just the childless patrons out there — when i go out for a special evening meal sans mes enfants, i don’t want to see someone else’s kid barf, nor do i want to smell someone steaming in an overdue diaper change, either.) just because *you* have a glass of wine before you have your meal so that you are feeling good about your restaurant experience with your children doesn’t mean that the people next to you who have to listen to your kids shriek through dinner are going to be equally mellow (unless perhaps you buy your dining neighbors some wine, too.) in short, i don’t just get annoyed with the parents for how they manage their children in public; i am annoyed with them for even bringing their children into an inappropriate venue in the first place. and a glass of wine won’t make me feel any better about that.

i was brought up by people who taught me that i have rights, and they extend as far as where the next person’s start. i was also brought up to believe that there are others in the world whose needs and interests are just as important as mine — and sometimes, moreso — so consideration is always in order. that means everything from getting up and offering seats to elderly people,
pregnant women, or someone who clearly needs my seat more than i do. it also means, for me that even though i would like to go to some trendy place, i need to recognize that some venues are clearly better for my kids, for their comfort as well as for that of others. my kids “practice” their restaurant behavior in places where the restaurants are more prepared for little patrons who may not be ready for fancy or trendy places; and anyone who patronizes such family-friendly places knows what they are in for when they walk through the door. (highchairs are a dead giveaway.)

i am certainly considerate to others when i see them bring their children into a restaurant or other venue which i don’t think is an appropriate choice for them — it isn’t like i storm out — but honestly, it does often detract from my enjoyment of the place, and it isn’t like i have a money tree in my backyard to even go out to such places all that often. when i do, i really wish people would think first before bringing the kids. (i mean, sheesh, 9pm is not an appropriate time in my book to be starting dinner out with a toddler –
not if you care at all about the kid being into solid sleep patterns. i feel sorry for the kids in that situation.)

there will be plenty of time for my family to go to nicer places when i think they won’t disturb other diners. if i really, truly want to go to more grownup places, i get a sitter. but right now, mostly i really prefer hanging with my kids. if that means that for a few years, we go to more relaxed, family-friendly places for the time being, so be it. it’s all about expectations. i think some people fall into parenthood and naively think that their life won’t change — they are just adding a child/children into their 20-something, 30-something, or 40-something regular routines. your life DOES change — and in ways for which you aren’t prepared, way beyond sleeplessness and all the other stuff 10,000 parenting books tell you. imo, you need to adjust your expectations a little – it is only temporary, after all.

i got a lot of private email cheering me on; i also received some slams over judging people who take babies out to dinner at 9pm. hey, you are the one with a burgeoning sleep problem looming on the horizon, i thought to myself. unless we were on vacation, we would never have taken our children out to dinner that late. (and even on vacation, that sort of start time is a nonstarter around here. we try to keep a semblance of a schedule in our lives, if only to keep everyone on an even keel.) to each his own, i suppose.

but seriously. people need to understand that children aren’t accessories to and for a life already in progress. children change the equation. as as a parent, you need to alter your expectations accordingly.

it is different; it is not worse.

guilty pleasure monday: put on your sunday clothes (from the musical “hello dolly”)

Posted on April 5, 2010April 3, 2010 by wrekehavoc

oh, don’t be a hater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVA3jgpgIY8

this past week, BC, jools, and i spent our time visiting my parents, my mother in law, and various and assorted uncles, aunts, and cousins (plus my beloved old friend jen, who handed me a tea bag to throw into the potomac when i returned home.) we had a great time — eating, playing, shopping, painting pottery, eating, visiting a used book store, eating some more. i ran my annual speed seder, bringing the old girl in about an hour and a half (including the eating part.) hellboy even read the four questions — in english, but he read them just the same. a very big moment for me, as i have historically been the youngest at the table all my life. BC always refused to read the questions.

and now, the torch has been passed to a new generation.

anyway, speaking of passing torches, my dad taped a few musicals in case the kids wanted to watch something on TV. and while the boy seemed to be more excited about the offerings on discovery kids, BC was enthralled by the musicals. first, she watched gigi, a terrific lerner and loewe time piece featuring a gorgeous leslie caron. and, of course, this unforgettable guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGM3ZTP2nw

(okay, okay. so there is something a little creepy about the leering old fella, but i like the song nonetheless.)

and then, one of my favorites: hello, dolly!

now, you may be disgusted surprised to know that i grew up on musicals. yes, i learned to love punk, metal, and all sorts of other musical enterprises as well; but i also experienced a steady diet of rogers and hammerstein, lerner and loewe, andrew lloyd webber, and so many others in my formative years.

and love or hate her politics, barbra sings like buttah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqPiJ0L7YmY

hello, dolly! is so much fun. barbra and walter matthau are well-suited; a young tommy tune towers over his ladyfriend; and a young michael crawford nearly steals the show as cornelius hackl. i especially love put on your sunday clothes. i actually think about it some days when i feel like crap and adopt it as a sort of mini philosophy. (in fact, years ago, i shared my office with a young lady who told me that she could always tell when i was feeling extra awful — i would actually put on makeup.)

so to see BC falling in love with the movie and the music?

it’s like buttah.

clean

Posted on March 31, 2010March 28, 2010 by wrekehavoc

it’s official: i am laundry-challenged.

i grew up in a family where my mom or dad pretty much did the laundry for everyone in the house; so when i got married, i figured that BS and i would just do giant loads of each other’s laundry and move on with life. after all, it doesn’t really bother me to do laundry; it’s not like i have to go down to the river and beat the clothes on rocks. at the time, i was usually too bothered to separate lights from whites from darks.

this offended his laundry sensibilities; BS told me he would do his own.

for about 30 seconds, my nose was out of joint about this until i realized, hell, i only have to do my own laundry.

and so it went. two kids later, i am the primary laundress around here — though BS still does his own laundry. i wash the kids’ clothes except for certain key moments. like when there’s barf all over them. or, better yet, a bucket of swallowed blood. then, my beloved spouse steps up to the plate and takes on the worst of the body fluids.

(which i sincerely appreciate, i would add.)

anyway, we have had our laundry-related mishaps. for example, there was the time when preschool aged jools left a red crayon in his pocket… a crayon which melted all over our clothes when it hit the dryer. BS was not amused. while several articles of clothing simply could not be rehabbed and thus had to go to the giant hamper in the sky, i still needed to clean out the drum of the dryer, which had lots of red streaks splayed around it.

eventually, after researching the issue (and getting at least 15 different dirty looks from my clean-minded spouse), i discovered that i could clean it all out with a substance called goo gone. the only problem, of course, was that the label indicated that if the goo gone ended up in contact with heat, hilarity would not ensue.

oh, how i fretted! i did not want my laundry machine to blow our family to kingdom come. but i also knew that BS needed to do a load of whites, and he was going to be most unhappy should his clothing end up candy-striped. so i said a little prayer, took a little dab and wiped down the drum. and lo and behold, it WORKED! and more importantly, WE DIDN’T END UP RIDING OUR HOUSE THROUGH THE SKIES TO VISIT THE WIZARD OF OZ!

joy!

so now, i’m careful to check pockets, though a stray piece of gum or penny often escapes my search.

but i’m still mystified: somehow, even though i separate whites from lights from darks; even though i measure my detergent and follow instructions — i cannot get hellboy’s socks clean! what do these kids DO in their socks? i have tried bleach. I have tried baking soda. i have tried drinking a glass of shiraz to try and not care about it.

but Jaysus! my kids walk around in the dirtiest, stinkiest socks on the planet. and short of buying new ones on a monthly basis, i am stumped as to what to do. i have clearly failed the laundry mom experience.

somewhere, my home economics teacher is laughing.

happy just to be nominated

Posted on March 25, 2010 by wrekehavoc

thanks so much for nominating two of my posts for the just posts of 2009 award!

peace train

and

guilty pleasure monday: millworker (james taylor)

voting is over now, and winners have not yet been announced. but check out the page — there are some really amazing thought-provoking posts up there.

it truly is an honor just to be nominated.

daylight again

Posted on March 16, 2010 by wrekehavoc

day two of daylight savings time, and we’re not faring so well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1eLK2OlF6w

somehow, explaining daylight savings time to my two kids makes me feel like i’m trying to sell them sort of evil bill of goods. i mention how ben franklin was behind this — how bad could it be? i mean, this is mr. $50 bill you know, the inventor of:

lightning rods, glass armonica (a glass instrument, not to be confused with the metal harmonica), Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and the flexible urinary catheter.

(any guy behind the flexible urinary catheter can’t be all bad, right?)

well, old ben also devised the whole pay it forward phenomenon, too. so truly, how evil could this guy be?

according to my two kids, extremely.

two days in a row, getting people out of bed in time for school has been akin to asking them to walk across hot coals to a dinner of raw bear brains. they cannot fall asleep at night; they cannot wake up in the morning. it’s quite simple. and all the sleepytime tea in the world cannot change that.

but we do this for farmers — it gives them more sunlight to get things done, i might cheerfully remind them at some moment when they aren’t contemplating whether one pillow or two thrown directly at my head would get me to stop talking.

i guess farming doesn’t happen in our little exurb of washington, dc. at least, no one plans to plow at our house any time soon.

this seems to be the first time that daylight savings has hit these two kids quite so hard. part of me trembles, thinking how this might be shades of teenaged moments to come in the not-too-distant future. i used to bitch that my kids never slept.

now, i bitch that they won’t wake up.

happy birthday to me

Posted on March 9, 2010March 8, 2010 by wrekehavoc

I say, “I remember you.
You drive like a PTA mother.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k00hFKgjsI

yep. today is my birthday. and, as your wildly narcissistic pal, i tend to really love the day because it’s all about me. (well, all about me and everyone else born on the same day… which, among my friends, includes three other people, particularly one high school friend born on the same day in the same year. i’ve never established who was born first. me, i was born just after lunch, so she has the greater likelihood of being born before, i suppose.) in fact, i love the whole week before and the whole week afterwards as well. life is short. 24 hours is too little time to feel delighted to be on the planet another year.

this year is a somewhat big (though not ending in a zero big) year for me. so, now that i’m 25 (oh, stop it — i’m doing inverse dog years), i thought i’d put some goals together and put them out there. hell, it may keep me honest. and maybe, it will inspire someone else to put their goals on the road, too. sure, it’s over two months since new year’s, but my new year always starts for me on my day of natality.

so, as we celebrate what one of my beloved pals from grad school would refer to as wrekehavoc awareness day (and yes, her tongue would be so firmly in cheek that it would indent), in no particular order, the list of goals:

1) improve my health. well, we all know my health has been a struggle, thanks to a genetic crapshoot i lost. but (and with apologies to those doing the 12-step boogie) if i can get some of that serenity to change all the things i can change, then i need to exercise and lose weight. consistently. one of my friends has lost over 30 pounds; she has inspired me to take charge. and while i’m not using any particular diet program, i am watching my calories, using an online tool she steered me to, myfitnesspal.com. (no, this isn’t an endorsement. this is just letting you know what i’m doing.)

another friend — the wife of my husband’s best friend, which sounds scandalous when it’s put like that — has inspired me in the exercise department. i have always attempted the all-or-nothing approach which has yielded me exactly that — nothing. unless all consists of injured, disgusted, and not fit. anyway, she has used her wii consistently and has lost 30 pounds over the course of a year. while it won’t make me the hottest bod in the land, it is certainly a great first motivational step toward bigger things. it gets me started in a way where i hopefully won’t kill myself in the first week.

as we all know goals don’t mean crap unless you operationalize them (thanks, grad school professors for that knowledge!). so the operationalization:

-work out three times a week

-write your food down at least 5 out of 7 days/week

2) institute a writing schedule. i blather, and i blather in a lot of places. this results in a lot of blather that isn’t really taking me where i want to be. if i make a schedule and stick to it, i might actually finish a new book by year’s end while continuing the quest to get the first book published.

yet i still love to blog; and after 8 years in the bloggy trenches, i am not about to give it up. but i think i ought to stick with a schedule for when i write to make sure that i contribute regularly there but not too much! that will be tough to stick to, i know. i love to blog. maybe i’ll only allow myself short bits on days when i am not scheduled to write…

(can you see me caving already?)

so. operationalization, please…

-work on new novel tuesdays and thursdays.

-blog mondays and wednesdays

-friday – open season! squee!

3) unplug the kids. since the snowpacalypse, my kids, especially my beloved son hellboy, have become much more plugged in. in fact, i fear one day that either the star wars video game or the wii lego batman will one day come alive and pull him into the tv to live forever, shooting at dog-knows-what. while i suspect my kids will not grow up to become serial killers (note to self: which parents think their kids WILL?), i need to make a concerted effort to find ways to occupy them — or, more to the point, get them to occupy themselves!

here’s the challenge. hellboy has no kids his age nearby. zero. zilch. nada. BC has one. of course, it’s easier to get BC out of the house and on her bike, especially since i am not as worried that she’ll be in the street when someone zooms up at 60 mph in a 25 zone. but what to do with hellboy? how do i get him into the backyard to play when he’s all by his lonesome? do i book up his weekends with playdates months in advance (since these kids all seem to have much busier schedules than mine do)? gone are the days when you could just run up to your neighbor’s door and ask him to come out and play. (and, in hellboy’s case, there’s no appropriate neighbor’s doorbell to ring.)

hmm. here goes nothin’.

1) look at the calendar at the beginning of the month and plan at least one playdate for the boy/girl.

2) research fun backyard things that the boy would enjoy doing. the girl is pretty good at occupying herself, but the boy will need more than a few slimy bugs to entice him away from luke skywalker.

okay. so three should be a start, right?

anyone out there have ideas to help me meet my goals? that goal three is a bear for me, and i know there are parents out there who do it all much better than i do. please enlighten me with ideas, websites, and hope.

and heck — share your goals if you have any. maybe new year’s came and went for you. so hell — you can say it’s your birthday today, too.

see, i’m 25 today, so i know how to share.

when we grow up

Posted on March 8, 2010March 8, 2010 by wrekehavoc

yesterday at girl scouts, the subject was careers.

BC’s troop sat around several tables while one of the moms graciously volunteered to lead a discussion about opening up young eyes to all the possibilities in the world of work. each girl made a list of five things they like to do; then each girl made a list of five things they are really great at doing. (often, there was a bit of overlap on the lists.) then, several moms, including me, spoke about what they wanted to be when they were 10 or 11, followed by the often torturous path our lives took as we attempted to gain meaningful employment (sometimes reflective of our young aspirations) while balancing the rest of our lives.

i think the moms found it more fascinating than the girls did.

each of us, professional women all, had a story. and every story was a winding road. one told of a father who wanted her educated but assumed that a man would take care of her. she ended up going back to school in her 40s as a mother of two children and becoming a nurse. another told of her lack of direction — though she knew that she loved language and travel — but thanks to the encouragement of some pivotal college professors discovered opportunities she would have otherwise missed, the fork in the road that made all the difference. and of course, my life has been the ultimate case of the longest path to the most central aspect of my being: i have always loved writing, but when told it would be better as a hobby and not a profession, i avoided it for nearly 40 years before accepting it as a calling.

and yes, i remembered what i wanted to be when i was 11. i wanted to be a writer. or the president of the united states. or a rock star.

anyway, i was astonished at how far we women have come. we moms speak of times when we could not apply, much less hold, certain positions. in my feminist studies at college, i thought that sort of thing was reserved for my mother’s generation and earlier. however, i know full well — at least at the early part of my career — how differently women were still treated. i still sting knowing that with the same masters degree that my BS possesses, i had to take a typing test. i do not believe he had to do the same, though i could be mistaken.

and there is this wonderful ignorance these girls maintain. they don’t know of a world where girls are barred from little league. they haven’t heard about women not running companies, or women not holding positions as government leaders, or women not emerging as leaders in science. it is all assumed. it is as it should be. in fact, the only position the girls could muster when asked if there are any jobs left that women cannot hold was as an NFL player. (i whispered sperm donor to another mom as another entry into that competition.)

the girls went around the room, sharing their ideas for their future professions. there were several cartoonists, an FBI agent, some writers, a psychologist, an oceanographer. my girl announced she would like to be a physical therapist. i’m so glad my history of injuries has been the big influence on my daughter’s career choice. still, i give her props. it combines her interest in medicine with her desire to help people.

in this failing economic climate, it is hard to think about these dreams, wishes that are light-years from materialization. still, i fervently hope that my girl’s dream — and her friends’ dreams — are not hampered by the state of the world.

perhaps in time, i pray that the dreams of our children may buoy our planet into a safe harbor.

it’s all too much

Posted on March 1, 2010February 27, 2010 by wrekehavoc

if eight was enough, what does that make 19?

the other day, i spied BC watching yet another taped episode of the duggars: 129 and counting. BC really enjoys a lot of the programming on TLC, and while i think TLC has probably begun going down the supersized family and little people tracks a bit too much, there are some programs i personally enjoy. for example, i loveloveLOVE the cake boss. the way buddy corrals his nutty family and employees and customers is a tour de force. and usually, his show is not something i give a second thought to my kids watching…as long as no erotic cakes are involved.

anyway, back to the duggars. i guess someone in programming thought, well, hell, if people loved the religious jon and kate before they imploded, people will really flip for this bible-thumpin, homeschooling, small city of a family. and of course, these people are not evil people. they have values, they want to share their values with their kids, and perhaps one day, they will breed enough to inhabit a small city as the city’s only residents. (KIDding. what sort of crazies would want to actually do that?)

obviously, they live their lives and we live ours.

but the bright side of this show is that it has opened BC and i up to all sorts of teachable lessons. and i mean, ALL SORTS. because they are all about imparting their values to their kids. and so i, too, sure as hell am about imparting lessons to mine.

teachable lesson number one: is it really fair to continually bear children when there are so many on the planet who do not have loving parents? BC jumped right onto this one, citing yet another TLC/Discovery special she and i watched together about this couple in georgia who adopts special needs children — lots and lots of them — and tries their damndest to help them develop as much independence as they are able to develop. of course, one does wonder why all of these people collect children in quantity the way some people collect coins. but at least, in this case, the latter family is accepting children who, for whatever reason, were not accepted by their own parents. and they are loving them.

meanwhile, mrs. duggar continues to be a breeding machine. apparently, she is accepting all the children that the Lord will give her. are these children considered a reward for her goodness? it does beg the question then about infertile couples — is G-d punishing them for being bad people? i doubt it sincerely. so of course, the duggars have inspired a conversation around here about birth control. i’m sure it isn’t what folks like the duggars would have intended, but kids need to know that you don’t just have to make a baby every blessed time you have sex.

teachable lesson number 2: is it fair that the older kids have to babysit and teach the younger kids in these huge families? this was an interesting point to ponder. the eldest duggars appear to be responsible for teaching their younger siblings and looking after them. i’m all about family; and of course, there are moments when the eldest are called upon to help out in ways in which they are capable (for example, i remember some times when i was growing up where my oldest brother, BTD, babysat me.) but there’s something patently unfair about this expected regular indentured servitude. of course we all want our children to grow together and to help each other; but even BC noted that these teenagers never get to be teenagers.

it just didn’t sit well with BC or me. children always want to please their parents; it’s that whole approval thing. as a parent, i try to encourage my kids to share their opinions and ideas, regardless of whether i would agree or disagree. we discuss. sometimes, we end up agreeing; sometimes, we don’t. but i wonder whether those duggar children would ever complain or point out to their parents respectfully that they do not, in fact, work for them. i doubt it.

teachable lesson number 3: is it enough to help when someone you know needs help? or is it good to help just because it’s the right thing to do? this one stemmed from a moment of mommy behaving badly. (yes, that would be me.) i was rather annoyed when jim bob duggar notes that he was donating blood for the first time because his baby (#19 for those of you keeping track at home) needed his blood. it goes without saying that any parent worth his or her salt would give up anything for his or her child. i know i would do the same.

but a grown man who never, ever donated blood before? ever? that upset me. BC and i talked about how there are things in life you do because they help other people. yes, one day, perhaps you might benefit from these gifts; but you don’t do these things for the personal benefits; you do them because they are the right thing to do. i explained how when i was in high school, i didn’t make the weight requirements for donations, so instead, i helped to run the school blood drives. (and yes, i was scared of the needles, which didn’t help things.) in time, i made the weight requirement (and how!) and donated blood. the last time i donated was a day or so after hurricane katrina hit new orleans. i remember it quite well; BS and i were to have gone to six flags on a grown-ups only date, but it was raining. we decided to go donate instead. i felt honored to do it.

who knew that a few months later, i would be a beneficiary of someone else’s donation?

i’m not the most religious person in the world, but i like to think i am somewhat spiritual at times. and i have often thought that it isn’t about what G-d can give to you; it’s about what you can give to the world. you don’t have to be a person of faith to see that we humans are all in this life together, and we all should try to help each other. i’m sure the duggars are lovely people. but i wonder if inherently, they spend more time looking inward instead of outward toward the world.

and as for BC? she certainly picked up something in sunday school. her observation? mom, the best kind of mitzvah is when you do something to help someone else and it’s anonymous.

i hope she carries that in her heart and it instructs her actions in life.

girls, girls, girls

Posted on January 28, 2010February 9, 2010 by wrekehavoc

mommy’s six-year-old heartbreaker…

we’ve been horribly remiss in setting up playdates for jools for awhile now. part of this stems from the fact that our house has been a complete disaster from the ceiling caving in; but part of this has just been probably laziness on my part. see, back in my day (when dinos roamed the earth), you just went and knocked on a neighbor’s door to see whether they wanted to come out and play. sadly, there are not a ton of people jools’ age or temperament nearby, so the boy usually ends up home playing wii or trying to go and play with BC’s friends (which seldom ends well.)

this past weekend, i decided to get of f my ass and be proactive. as the weather was not going to be bone-freezing, i figured i would take jools, BC, and any friends they could find over to a nearby park to play for an hour or two. first, i called up jools’ main squeeze, mo. mo and jools were in the same kindergarten class last year and became fast friends. mo is lively, sweet, and absolutely adorable. best of all, she is a great friend to him. (once, mo tried to talk jools out of a meltdown he had at soccer practice when the other boys weren’t sharing the ball. if anyone was going to reach him, it was her.) i suspect when they are teens that jools will be lucky if mo is still talking to him, as she is going to be an absolute knockout when she’s older. in the meantime, though, both mo and jools have shared with their respective parents that they are going to get married when they grow up. it’s heart-meltingly sweet.

unfortunately, mo’s mom wasn’t answering the phone; and thanks to the short timeframe we had, i didn’t leave a message. instead, i asked him which friend i should call next, and he picked his newest best friend, a cute school newcomer named L. the previous evening at the school ice cream social, jools and L sat together at a table inhaling a few bowls of ice cream. when they were done, jools was a gentleman and took her bowls as well as his to the trash while BS and i looked on in shock. (i can barely get this kid to bring his dishes to the dishwasher some days without nagging him two or three times.) the two of them looked like they were on a date; it was a bit surreal.

i called L’s mom. sadly, they had plans for that saturday, but could jools come over and play monday after school? sure, i replied, wondering if i would be able to get the boy to do his homework once he came home. so jools was booked for another day, but we still had that afternoon to think about.

who to call next? jools had no hesitation. call P, mom! he announced. i figured if things didn’t work out with P, we were going to have to punt for the day. P, you should know, was also in jools’ kindergarten class. a bright and precocious little girl, P likes to sit on the schoolbus with BC, who is four grades ahead of her. BC, being good-natured, often lets this happen, even though there are kids her own age she’d rather be joining on the bus. last year, this worked to my parental advantage, as P would report on all of jools’ antics, good and bad, at school… which BC of course would then share with me. P kept me better informed than the teacher did. i missed that this year, now that P and jools were in different classes.

so i called P. it’s tax season, so i won’t be seeing her accountant mom for probably a few months, i suspect. but P’s dad gladly let her join us. so i picked up P and off we went to the park, where P and jools played beautifully together (my favorite moment: they decided they were on aircraft in an airfight: he was going to be luke skywalker, she was going to be hermione) while BC ended up practing her mother’s helper skills by befriending a toddler and her mom, then a preschooler and his mom. (she is still the baby and toddler whisperer, i swear. i wish i had her skills with young children. too late for me, of course.) afterwards, i took them for ice cream (it would have been hot chocolate, but all three kids said that dunkin donuts’ hot chocolate was awful, and when a kid passes up hot chocolate, you know it must not be very good) and then returned P home.

jools apparently prefers hanging with the girls in his world than with the boys for the most part, save for a few of the guys. i’m not entirely sure why this is, but at this age, i guess i’m glad he’s playing with anybody that isn’t in a video game. and i must say, the girls he has as friends are really all lovely people, so i’m just glad he has found some kindred spirits who love to play tag, pretend they are fighting evil-doers, and simply giggle a lot.

of course, this comes at a price. on saturday night as we drove to a restaurant, jools was troubled. what am i gonna do? he mused out loud, shaking his head sorrowfully.

what’s the matter, honey? i asked, perplexed.

well, Mo is my girlfriend, and she’s gonna be mad at me because i played with P today and have a playdate with L on Monday.

i thought for a second. you know, honey, it’s okay to play with other friends, and you don’t really have to report about your playdates to Mo anyway if you don’t want to.

the boy looked alarmed. but mom, he protested, i’m her boyfriend. and boyfriends have to tell the truth to their girlfriends. i have to tell her!

BS, who was driving the car, looked at me for a second, probably mirroring the same confused expression that i offered back to him.

is this boy six or 16?

pablo picasso

Posted on January 12, 2010February 9, 2010 by wrekehavoc

pablo picasso was never called an asshole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dQ4owtKH3M

i have two children: one, BC, who will tell me anything and everything about her day from a minute-by-minute perspective; and jools, who may occasionally share a nugget or two beyond my day went okay if the sky is a certain shade of blue, the moon is in the seventh house, and jupiter might be somehow aligning with mars. i usually get my best info from jools while walking home from the school bus in the afternoon if he hasn’t decided to run ahead with other children or hang back, picking up sticks or plodding along with our neighbor’s mellow, slow-trudging lab.

it was one of those wonderful days when i just had to pick the boy up from the bus and he held my hand the whole way home. (well, almost. sometimes, the snow on the side of the road is too hard to resist.) as usual, i asked him about his day; whether classes went well, whether this one bully continued to torture him by telling him he had a small head, that sort of thing. he had had art that day; and i asked how that went.

well, he mused, i have decided that i am not going to get upset anymore whenever art teacher tells me that my work is scribble-scrabble. i’m going to like my work anyway.

hold the phone?

did art teacher actually tell you your work was ‘scribble scrabble’? in those words?

yes, the boy replied. he doesn’t like when people color outside the lines.

i have almost had enough of this art teacher. BC, who is creative and imaginative as the next kid, who normally LOVES art, especially when she has had art teacher #2, used to come home in tears last year because of this teacher. he would berate her for not drawing the way he wanted people to draw. he would criticize her every work. mom, she once told me, he only likes you and your work if you are an actual talented artist. i’m not.

i still remember his one line comment on her report card. and i quote: BC seems to like art.

yeah, well she did before she had you as a teacher.

so now, while BC has the nice art teacher, jools is stuck with the less-than-supportive art teacher. and he has been taking it on the chin for a few months now, trying his best.

i think this art teacher might be laboring under the impression that he is preparing these children for the sorbonne or something. maybe my thinking is a little too basic, but i like to think that an art teacher’s job is to try to get kids excited about art — to see art all around them, to provide them another way to communicate to the world their vision of what they see and how they feel. absolutely, there are technical ideas that they need to convey about colors and perspective and such.

but not every kid will be pablo picasso.

it doesn’t mean you have to make that child feel like an asshole.