FAMILY – Page 35 – Wrekehavoc.com

Category: FAMILY

phone call never made.

Posted on September 4, 2007 by wrekehavoc

one time — BC couldn’t have been more than 3, for i know i had not yet gotten pregnant with jools — BC and i took a walk through our neighborhood. we walked often before dinner; i loved to take her around our block to admire the colonel’s wife’s flowers, miss maxine’s flag, step up miss jeannie’s steep steps, and end up with miss hattie and maybe mr. bob out on his back swing. this time, though, we went a little further afield and walked around to the next street.

while we were walking, we came upon a woman and her two little girls, one the same age as BC and i think the other was slightly younger, though i don’t recall. we stopped and BC played on the lawn with the girls, rosemary and anne marie. i really enjoyed talking with the mom, and we exchanged phone numbers, hoping to start up a little playdate fun.

unfortunately, i worked, and i suspect she did, too. and as all well-intentioned folks can foresee, we never got together. i held onto the slip of paper for a few years, and finally, one day, i tossed it, figuring that they would not remember us.

fast forward to now.

anne marie is in BC’s class. BC said she’s such a nice girl. and anne marie told BC that she remembered her from all those years ago. sadly, though, her mother died last year, so the family will be moving back to presumably where more family lives.

i guess i couldn’t do anything to stop certain events from happening. but i cannot help feeling a sense of loss over a person i never really got to know.

trainwreck day

Posted on September 2, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i really loathe long weekends. i know; i should look forward to time spent with family or friends. but somehow, it never ever works out the way i would have liked.

take today.

today actually starts as last night. see, on the same weekend before BC starts at a new school [READ: stressful, teary nights ahead], i also decided to start night training jools (who will hate me for writing about this one day.) last night, BC fought bedtime due to fears; jools had nightmares from 1-2 a.m.; BC had nightmares from 2-3 a.m.; jools started right back up at 3 until i don’t know. and then, he awoke for good at 6:15.

when people are tired, they respond to exhaustion differently. me, i get weepy and sick. others might get angry or psychotic. but it’s hard for me to fathom why the day just kept getting worse and worser, so to speak.

my usually brave and intensely independent jools is currently terrified of his own shadow. apparently, his nightmares involved “knights, scarlet knights, (something else) knights.” he refuses to go into detail beyond that. [maybe it has to do with all the Rutgers paraphenalia that BS and i, both alums, have. i dunno.] he doesn’t want to sleep alone; he doesn’t want to visit the bathroom alone; he doesn’t even want to go to his room alone. i tried to show him some funny knights, but nothin’s doin’. is it because of the nighttime potty training? or something else?

meanwhile, back at the neurosis ranch, BC is freaked out about, well, basically everything. bullies. mean people. hell, give her some time and she’ll be freaking over knights, too, i guess. she won’t sleep.

and BS is way overtired, too.

i took the kids out this afternoon to the pool so that BS could attempt a nap. we returned, and the world seemed calmer. then, while getting groceries at harris-teeter, something happened while i was at the meat counter. BS and the kids were going after a smaller kids cart for the kids to push. i saw BC walking with a kids cart but with no one else. she had lost BS. so we went to the front of the store, where i saw BS, who mouthed at me: “where’s julian?”

my heart fell into my feet.

teary and bleary, i grabbed BC and we walked in the fruit and veg section, parallel to BS, who was walking over to the area by the carts at the front door. then, when we walked back, i saw BS with a dazed-looking jools. long story short, jools decided he wanted out and started for the door. on his own. at least he was safe and sound.

so we’ve had dinner and baths and books. jools wanted someone to sleep with him (which won’t happen), then promptly crashed. meanwhile, BC is still up and asking me to stay up until she falls asleep. ironically, i think i’m the person with the least amount of sleep in this house, and i’m too upset to sleep.

pleasepleaseplease be a better day tomorrow.

please.

vacation. all i ever wanted.

Posted on August 30, 2007 by wrekehavoc

we went on a magical mystery tour of sorts over the past week. i’ve got a ton to say about a lot of things, but i suspect it will come over a few days, as i also planned brilliantly and have an IVIG treatment today. yep, i’ve been home a grand total of 14 hours, and i’m off to fun and frolic all over again. if you can call being hooked up to an IV for 5 hours fun and frolic. yippee.

but some of the places we went, in no particular order:

fire museum of maryland;

please touch museum (with apologies to my dear roommate from college — we didn’t quite get it together to go together for lots of reasons. major bummer.);

hersheypark, including the new Boardwalk waterpark, which was a lesson in how not to be prepared for consumer demand;

a visit to allaire state park and a ride on the train (and a personal lesson about switching tracks);

a lakewood blueclaws game;

a visit to atlantic city (where the kids accidentally walked through caesars’ casinos and we were escorted out — but all we wanted to do was go and get some taffy and take the kids to yet another rainforest cafe);

a stay in wildwood crest at a kitschy 1950s-era hotel, and;

a ride home on the cape may ferry.

and i wonder why i’m tired.

high school musical II

Posted on August 21, 2007 by wrekehavoc

you know, i’ve reared my kids on the classics: the beatles, the stones, the ramones, bob marley, the white stripes… okay, the white stripes are a little too new. but still. my kids can sing along with bruce and bono… and yet BC has gone and gotten herself hooked on high school musical, which now includes the sequel.

(which, btw, just set a record as the most watched basic cable program. ever.)

tweens galore want to look like the leads. and BC, being a red-blooded american tween, adores them. especially sharpay. and mama, if you tell me sharpay is also the name of a dog [misspelled, i would add], i’m gonna scream! yes, making fun of every aspect of high school musical and it’s sequel, while akin to shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel, is a no-win proposition. they love it.

on the bright side, the kids in the movie are allegedly a lot better behaved off-screen than, say, lindsay lohan, another star who made her mark in the disney stable of stars. not that la lohan hasn’t valuably taught my daughter than drugs and alcohol a mess can make.

but sheesh. my teeth hurt from watching this treacle.

she's my pride and joy

Posted on August 20, 2007 by wrekehavoc

BC entered a poem she wrote last year in 2nd grade English class in the county fair. she re-typed it (her teacher had typed up the original after she had written it, and everything had to be done by the kid, so i made her do it.) and even though our printer was on the fritz and printed the poem in lavender ink rather than black, in it went. BC didn’t think the lavender ink was a problem. my kid writes purple prose, bahahaha. (english major joke there.)

nevermind the fact that in the poem, she talks about how i’m getting ready to go to a party. like i’ve been to a party recently? one that doesn’t involve a guest of honor below the age of 10? so thanks to her poem, the greater metro area thinks i put on makeup and go out evenings, leaving my poor beleaguered spouse to fend for himself with the kids. as if.

but anyway, i’m absolutely tickled. the chick won 2nd prize — a red ribbon — for her poem. i tried to take her picture with it — five times– and she blinked. in every single photo.

yep. that’s my girl 🙂

open letter to mattel

Posted on August 16, 2007 by wrekehavoc

dear mattel,

i’m sure you aren’t having a great week, what with recalls all over the place and the possibility of a really terrible financial downturn looming for you, other toy companies, toy stores, and the like. no one likes to see major companies flipping about like fish gasping for air. and right now, it’s really easy to point the finger and say BAD CHINA! there’s poison in our pet foods, poison in our people food, medicine and toothpaste, my gosh, plenty of tires are faulty, lead in baby bibs, and now this toy thing. just makes you wonder who, if any, of the residents are running the proverbial asylum, huh.

but i have to wonder how much of this you brought on yourself?

i know, i know. you did it because there was demand for it. american consumers clamor for cheap. they clamor for cool. they clamor for things, and you only want to deliver. it’s as american as ronald reagan, a guy i sometimes want to blame for these sorts of things. what does the gipper have to do with any of this, you wonder? the dude’s long been dead.

but you see, he isn’t. not really. somewhere in our history, he kicked tom joad the hell out of our collective consciousness and took up residence. see, he’s now the one who lives in every american who feels entitled to a certain lifestyle that is wildly beyond his or her means. he lives in every citizen who feels like they ought to have everything — now — and for the cheapest price possible. he lives in every person in this nation — maybe this world — who ignores the real costs of good and services in their daily lives. so what if some eight year old is working in a factory? so what if they’re putting diethylene glycol into cough medicine? if i can get lots of bling-bling at walmart for 50% less than i can at joe’s mom and pop store, man, i’m there.

so, following this ethos, you did what every american company tries to do — make a profit. nothing wrong with that, right? but who knew making a profit could get so complicated? doing business overseas — well, nothing wrong with that i suppose. cut costs because you don’t have to pay people a decent wage. [check.] then that company probably has to put the squeeze on their workers to make a profit. maybe put the squeeze on the product quality. maybe do some subcontracts with others who do things very cheaply. lead paint? no problem! [check.]

and of course, all with your consumer in mind. who are, in your case, children. often young children who are known to put things in their mouths, or ears, or up the dog’s ass, for christsake. that’s what kids do. even the most supervised child in the world will manage to do something completely insane with a toy in that one second you close your eyes to sneeze or blink. so how could you allow your designers to make toys using rare-earth magnets? these puppies, smaller and more powerful, can kill a child if s/he swallows it. period. i’m stunned.

and now, the biggie. see, you don’t have to live with my kids. but i do. and right now, between thomas the tank engine trains that were recalled, polly pockets that have just been called home, and even a barbie that my daughter has being sent away, my house is not the happiest place on earth. i just spent 2 hours with my eight year old howling. her favorite polly pocket toy has to go away. well, actually, three of them plus a barbie. but this is her absolute favorite.

and we parents, sometimes, we take toys away from our kids in an effort to teach them to behave. it’s a discipline thing, and we sometimes are in the difficult position of punishing/ teaching, our kids a lesson. only sadly, the kids are now being punished because american corporations couldn’t learn a thing or two about international commerce. i wish i could stick each and every one of you in a room right now with my screaming daughter. no food; no toilet; no way out; and one very pissed-off little girl.

it might be a lesson you’d not soon forget.

yours truly,

wreke

gifted

Posted on August 16, 2007 by wrekehavoc

a friend of mine posed a question to the ed reporter in the washington post today: tell us about the gifted and talented programs in the area? i don’t know about them other than the fact that for some reason, they teach accelerated math to all of the kids in BC’s elementary school. and i’ll be interested in the answer, though how that will impact our collective lives here is another question. i’m what you call a skeptic 😉

as the parent of an 8 year old and a 4 year old, i am seriously amused at the number of people around here who think their kids are gifted. i guess we all live in a super-special lake wobegon, where everyone is not only above average but in the top second percentile. i am often amused at how agitated parents get over whether the school is providing enough intellectual stimulation for their child/ren.

i once blogged on this topic awhile back because i was just so annoyed by the never-ending onslaught of parents obsessed with the state of their particular child’s “giftedness” (for lack of a better term).

honestly, for every child i’ve met who was designated as “gifted,” i think i’ve met only two or three who truly were. and the one thing i truly fear are parents and programs who believe that if a child is gifted in one area, then the child must be accelerated in all areas. this happened to me; and while i was arguably gifted in some areas, i was just your regular sort of student in math. put in a class with folks who truly should have had accelerated experiences in math, i ended up a fearful math flunky who didn’t recover until graduate school, years later, when a professor helped me rebuild my confidence in my abilities.

i remember when a certain psychology was in vogue — past life regressions — where people would be in some sort of hypnotized state and then come out believing that their ancestor was Cleopatra, or George Washington, or someone famous. no one seemed to come out of it with ancestors who were just regular people building the pyramids or fighting in the Revolutionary War. thus it is, i think, with children around here and gifted programs. somehow, every child who is bright is suddenly dubbed gifted.

and, if you pardon my grammatical error, it just ain’t so.

my hero zero

Posted on August 14, 2007 by wrekehavoc

BC is worried. BC feels that she learned math and science all in spanish last year and that she doesn’t know the english words for things. she says she knows her times tables — but only in spanish. in short, three weeks til school starts at her new school, and BC is freaking out.

no one should be freaking out as they enter 3rd grade.

part of me kicks myself for sending her to the spanish immersion elementary school. i really thought i was doing a good thing. you always hear the cases of parents availing their families to opportunities that they never had; well, this was one of them. i very much loved the idea of the school. i loved the idea, too, that my kids would be with kids of all sorts of backgrounds, not just kids of backgrounds like their own.

but unless you are either native spanish speakers; are fluent spanish speakers; or are a parent so enthused by the idea of your child going to a school where they speak spanish for one half the day that you are willing to learn spanish; then this model is somewhat flawed. my kid was essentially dependent on one child at her table, one native speaker, who could help her understand what the hell the teacher was saying (since the teacher didn’t encourage interruptions). and if that child had the audacity (yes, i’m being sarcastic here) of wanting to learn herself rather than helping other kids at the table, well, the non-spanish-speaking kid essentially is screwed.

it probably didn’t help that her spanish teacher seemed more interested in being strict than in being understood.

so my kid, who was allegedly gifted in math in kindergarten, is now telling me that she really does well in english and social studies. which, of course, happen to be the subjects that were taught in english in her school and which she liked very much. she doesn’t feel like she’s very good in math. GRRRRRRR! and this global citizen i am trying to raise is pretty dismissive of spanish. “spanish is okay learning it just as spanish,” she says, “but i really don’t want to learn a subject in it any more.”

i can’t blame her.

so this morning, i did what any crazy parent who needed to calm things down (for both of us) did. i put on multiplication rock, including my fave my hero zero (a song i will definitely cover if i ever get the chance to be in a band ;-). we sat and watched it all. and i think we’re going to watch it again and again and again. anything to help her build up her confidence. after all, it’s how i learned to memorize my times tables. (i also made up songs to some of my chemistry formulae as well, but we won’t go there right now.) she said she didn’t care much for the song for 6s, but that’s ok. she’ll learn stuff after a time. she’ll sing them loud 🙂

just like i do this in the car (another song i’d cover in my own band). yep. i can’t wait til we get back to the days when the worst thing in the world isn’t scary math but is the scary embarrassing mom who sings pearl jam at the top of her lungs. with the windows open.

hi, my name is sisyphus

Posted on August 13, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i have this problem, you see. it’s not as critical as world peace, or hunger, or the state of the planet. i recognize that. but it is something that bothers me, all the same.

let me tell you about today, for example.

today, after waking, getting hellboy dressed and fed and ready for school, i got BC showered (well, she does it herself, but i’m the prodder), fed, lunch made, and carted off to gymnastics. then, i ended up at three different supermarkets. HUH, you ask? well, giant didn’t have meat or chicken that we needed, nor did it have the particular bread that BS wanted (nothing exotic, but they were out of it). i stopped then into whole foods, which had lovely meat and poultry, but still not the bread. so, off to safeway for aforementioned bread.

after putting away the groceries, i literally peeled and chopped five pounds of carrots. (i bought the 5 pound organic bag instead of the two pounder. oops.) i put the whole chicken into the oven (after preparing it, of course), followed by some carrots; i made some really wonderful carrotty-chocolate cupcakes (which sound gross but which are actually really yummy), and a really, truly vile sweet carrot salad (make only if you require a homemade emetic). oh, and i washed and cut two pounds of strawberries, too.

then, i did dishes and proceeded to pick up.

[i’ve provided a musical interlude here. otherwise, you’d be bored if i described picking things up. this seems appropriate. although i’ll also include this one, just cos i like it.]

after all of this, i was left with 45 minutes to work on my novel. which i did. but then, i had to pick up BC.

long story short, the chicken wasn’t cooked enough, the carrot salad was, as mentioned before, nasty, and i ended up scrambling eggs for the kids and eating a bowl of cereal. kid bathed; kids read to; kids in bed. there are dishes everywhere, and i feel like whatever i did today meant a whole lot of nothing.

i push the rock up the hill. and down it comes.

don’t get me wrong. i am lucky as hell that i can do this. i kiss the ground that i can do this. but there are some days when, well, i wish i were doing more for the world. like all that education and all that oomph are sort of hiding themselves under a bushel. i want to be involved in my kids’ lives, but i fear that i will start to get over-involved because i lack much of a life of my own. and there’s not much worse than an over-involved mom.

so what to do?

i guess hope the rock doesn’t crash down on my head, for starters.

are these parents 4 real?

Posted on August 9, 2007 by wrekehavoc

…and then there’s the story about the New Zealand parents who are mad that they cannot name their kid 4 real. since the NZ registry office won’t let them register a name with a number in it, they’re naming him the highly rational name superman instead. but they’ll stick to their guns and call him 4 real in daily life. they have chosen this name, 4 real, because when they first saw his ultrasound, they knew he was … wait for it … 4 real.

now, people should be allowed to name their offspring whatever the hell they want. but i often marvel at the names people choose for their kids. as if there’s something meaningful and important in naming your child qwerty because you conceived him while laying on a keyboard. i’m still marvelling at the popularity of the name nevaeh, which is heaven spelled backwards. its especially popular among holy rollers. but isn’t the opposite of heaven hell? is your baby the new god of hellfire?

for me, naming my children was a cultural experience. in my culture, we name our children after beloved dead people. (or, at the very least, we use their initials.) but i wanted names that i thought were beautiful, names that wouldn’t get my kids’ asses kicked on the playground. i cannot imagine what some parents are thinking when they drop names on their kids that will surely land them in therapy one day.

and those parents in NZ? well, one day, i figure the kid will do what zowie bowie did.

when zowie was about 12, he asked people to start calling him joey.