Those Kids

I had a conversation a few weeks ago with one of the parents here in town.  We were just passing a little time and making small talk as people tend to do.  The conversation went into the direction of all the trouble kids get themselves into, and one thing flowed to another and I mentioned that the proliferation of drugs around here terrifies me.  This parent kind of shrugged at me and told me it was easy to keep kids away from that stuff.  "All you have to do is keep them away from those kids and it shouldn't be a problem," was the summary I was offered.  My stomach tightened and I felt my fists clench a little but I managed to ask as evenly and cautiously as I could, "Those kids?"  I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms down the seams of my jeans and tried to quietly gulp some air..  "Yeah, the bad kids, you can totally tell who they are."

I fought back the urge to totally explode and beg this person to impart more insightful wisdom they have racked up in their seven years of parenting on how to effectively insulate my children from the dangers of "those bad kids".  My mind somehow managed to keep my mouth from pleading for an explanation on how I could pick those kids out, since it was something so glaringly obvious.  The ignorance of that entire 10 second exchange made my hands sweat, my jaw clench, my stomach churn and my heart pound.  I knew if I opened my mouth in that moment, there would likely be a torrential outpouring of angry words and foul language, and an impending outburst of that caliber wasn't going to do anyone any favors, especially in a public place.  I decided to take a deep breath and excuse myself instead.  It's been eating at me ever since.

I will be the first one to tell you that I never thought drug abuse would be something that, outside of my own history, would ever weave it's way into my family.  Like most parents, I always spoke to them in age-appropriate terms of the dangers they might face on their own journeys toward adulthood.  They both went through the D.A.R.E. program in elementary school.  I have never really thought that program was effective, and as someone that has and continues to battle drug abuse, I have a lot of problems with it.  I can honestly say that while well-intended, the only thing it really taught my kids was one could get high off paint, household cleaners and sharpie markers.  I am convinced that when Midge goes through it next year, she will come home and insist every sharpie, bottle of kitchen cleaner and can of paint in the garage be disposed of immediately.  I did, however, continue the conversation with my children.  As they grew older, we would talk about different things they had heard, friends they had concerns about and why I didn't have a glass of wine with holiday dinner or beer at family parties.  I did all the things that are generally agreed upon that supposedly lessen the likelihood of your children getting caught up in a scene you never hope they end up in.  In eighth grade, Banana was student council president.  Her freshman year she transitioned seamlessly from her eighth grade state-champion winning junior cheerleading squad to the high school Junior Varsity squad.  A few short months after that,  a phone call from the high school on a warm April Friday afternoon was was the first snap of the last straw that announced that our lives would irrevocably be changed forever.  Less than two days after picking my child up from the police station, where she was taken to when they arrested her at school, I began my search for an adolescent inpatient substance abuse facility while she waited in limbo in a locked psychiatric facility.

My kid is one of "those" kids.

The one thing that still blows my mind when I think about it is how, on the surface, utterly unremarkable there was about any child that was in rehab with Banana.  Preconceived notions and preemptive prejudice are unfortunate truths about human nature.   Cliché as it may sound, no parent in their right mind would allow their child to go for a car ride in a windowless van with a creepy looking older guy that offered them candy at the park.  We all interpret visual clues, put that information into context and make decisions accordingly.  It's the first step in the process of self-preservation.  Not a single one of the kids that shared the third floor of the nondescript brick building during Banana's five week stay would have raised a single red flag to me had I seen them out on the street.  They were sons of affluent lawyers, small-town athletes, funny and insightful girls, boys from good homes on the North Shore, talented and artistic students with a vibrant energy, gifted musicians, avid skateboarders and diminutive and beautiful former student council presidents.  I promise you, on the surface you would be very hard pressed to pick a single one of them out of a line up to finger as one of "those kids".  Even as I heard them tell their stories of battling with everything from alcohol to prescription pills to cocaine and heroin, my mind had a hard time wrapping itself around the fact that these stories came from them.  The only telltale sign that came from them was the fact that they were in rehab.

I can appreciate that parents would want to keep their kids away from bad influences.  When Banana was in rehab, part of her release plan included drawing up what is called a home contract.  It basically lays out behavior expectations, consequences, rewards, acceptable places to be and acceptable people to be with.  It also lays out where she was never to be, and whom she was no longer allowed to spend her time with.  This was by far the biggest source of contention in our meetings.  While she was gone, I went through everything I possibly could to piece together where and with whom she used.  She was furious that names of people I had never met and had no previous knowledge of appeared on my offer of the home contract.  She knew I went through her phone as well as her social media to get those names.  I'm sure the fury she felt for what I had done was equal to the fury I felt when I happened upon pictures of her completely obliterated at a garage party, bottle of liquor in one hand and a Newport in the other.  She told me those people were her friends and I didn't know them.  She was right on half of it, I didn't know those kids but I was absolutely certain that not a single one of them was anyone I would call a friend.  We finally agreed on all the terms of the home contract before she came home, but it was a screaming, crying battle of biblical proportions.

We were at a meeting a town over a couple of weeks after she came home.  One of the concessions we made was we didn't expect her to give up smoking right away.  Truth be told, I picked it up again with renewed vigor when she went to rehab.  I know a lot of people saw her with cigarettes and I am sure thought we were terrible parents for letting her smoke.  Quite frankly, I didn't have the energy nor the inclination to give the explanation that she was fresh out of rehab and Newports were the equivalent of baby aspirin in the grand scheme of things in our world now.  I didn't even have the energy to tell people to fuck off if they didn't care to walk a mile in our shoes before busting out with the judgy bullshit.  So there we were, outside having a smoke after breakout was through and a baby faced teenager wearing a long-sleeved tshirt, shorts and sandals came up and gave Banana a hug.  He introduced himself with a smile and an extended hand, and offered his name, a name I already knew and could place with a face because he was one of "those" kids that was placed into the forbidden column of the home contract.  The judgment I so despised in the parent I had this conversation with a few weeks ago was something that was deeply present in myself not too long ago.  Within the first minute of meeting this boy, Banana told him point blank that he didn't make the cut to the approved people on the contract.  He didn't need to have the contract explained to him because he had already been to the same facility and was well-acquainted with it.  He laughed a little at my embarrassment of being put on the spot and told me he hoped it would be ok to see him at meetings because he was trying to get his shit together.  I would have never guessed his demon was heroin unless Banana pointed out that he must be starting over with the sobriety if he was covering his arms in the middle of summer in a long shirt.

Our paths cross on occasion.  Banana and I saw him up at the mall before Christmas and I would see him quite a bit up at the gas station he works at when I would buy cigarrettes before Banana and I both quit a few months ago, and before he switched to graveyard shift.  We do keep in touch on the phone, though.  I have forged an unconventional friendship with this boy, who really isn't a boy I suppose.  He's 20 now, but he is still a kid in my eyes. Recovery-based friendships are a very unique thing.  There is little time spent on superfluous bullshit, and more times than not, a simple "How are you doing?" gets anything other than a simple reply.  We immediately lay out the truth, unfiltered thoughts and reactions, knowing this kind of interaction is what helps us keep our sobriety and hopefully helps others keep theirs. He has provided an interesting, if not at times heartbreaking parallel to Banana's recovery.  While I am still afraid of jinxing it by saying it out loud, Banana has had a remarkable recovery.  He's been in and out of a few different rehab facilities, and while he is off the heroin, he still isn't completely clean.  It's so frustrating in some regards, because he is so very close to getting there and then he backslides.  He loses a little ground but to his credit, gets back up and gains it back every time.  It's an imperfect process, and some of us take longer than others is what I've told him.  What I haven't told him is what remains unspeakable to mothers of addicts.  Having an addict child is like having a toddler that is precariously navigating a long and unforgiving staircase.  When they slip, you gasp and try to catch them before they crash and hurt themselves. It's the same concept, but when an addict slips, more often than not you risk having to bury them.  Fear like that is a constant companion, even if it quietly festers in the back of your mind.  It's always there.  It gnaws at your peace of mind when your addict is having a bad day because addiction is an irrational disease.  Truth of the matter is we lost almost 80 people to overdoses last year in my county.  Some we lost were no more than a year older than my own addict.  If we lost that many to a flu variant or West Nile disease, people would be frantic and we would all be very aware that there was a potentially fatal epidemic.  The only time addiction garners any passing attention around here is social media chatter when another one of our children dies, Red Ribbon Week or maybe a short blurb in the police blotter or obituary of the local paper.  And that needs to change.

There are basically two schools of thought in terms of addicts.  One of them was pretty well illustrated in the anger of people online when Amy Winehouse died.  I can't tell you how many posts I saw lamenting that a junkie that killed herself got any media coverage.  How could anybody have any pity for someone that wasted their lives and talent in such a spectacular fashion?  Why should anybody have any compassion for someone as selfish and willfully neglectful as that?  These people believe, as they have every right to, that addiction is merely a choice, and addicts are simply too weak, too selfish or too stupid to get themselves clean.  I can't say I blame them for thinking that way.  Addicts are generally a really shitty group of people.  I speak from experience.  We lie, we rationalize, we manipulate our environments and those that love us in unforgivable ways.  I completely agree that it's practically impossible to identify a single redeeming quality in anyone that is actively using.  I, on the other hand, maintain that regardless of how unsavory it might be, addiction is indeed a disease.  Lung cancer and emphysema might be the direct result of making the choice to repeatedly light up cigarettes and inhaling their smoke.  Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke are all known possibilities for those that eat a lot of shitty food and sit on their asses instead of getting up off them.  Regardless of causation, it doesn't make these things any less of a disease.  The same holds true for addiction.   There are a number of factors that come into play that make up the whole of addiction.  There are physiological processes such as chemical dependence, withdrawal avoidance, and the basic neurological mechanisms of dopamine and serotonin saturation and reuptake depending on which drug is being used.  There are also behavioral processes such as rationalization, compulsion, denial and obsession that come into play.  Each one of these processes in and of themselves would be daunting, especially if the behaviors are present in our children.  All of these behaviors combined are the mother of all nightmares, and even more so when you come to realize that even if you get your child treatment, and they choose to be willing and committed participants in their own recovery, they will never be cured.  The best outcome is a management of symptoms and relapse prevention.  The price we pay for our sobriety is lifelong vigilance.  If you do not believe that addiction is a disease, there is likely nothing that I can say that will change your mind, and that's ok.  I can agree to disagree if you can.

The truth of the matter is that anger is a secondary emotion.  I didn't act on my anger that day I had the conversation about "those kids" a few weeks ago because I knew it was simply indicative of something else.  It has always been easier for me to be angry about something than it has been for me to admit that I feel pain.  Even though I would never think it about someone else, I have always felt that admitting hurt and vulnerability makes me weak.  I can count on my fingers the amount of people whose opinions of me as a person and a mother actually matter to me.  It wasn't that I was concerned what this parent, had they known the storm bubbling up inside me that day, might think of me.  I truly do not give a single flying fuck about most people's opinions about me.  I'm the first one to tell you that I am a very difficult person to like.  What bothered me so deeply was knowing that the implication was that those kids, that my kid, was the embodiment of a lack of goodness.  That she was lacking.  That she was lesser.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In a few short days, it will have been two years since we got the call from the school telling us that my daughter had been taken into custody.  Those weeks that she was gone were, quite honestly, the absolute worst weeks of my life.  Her absence ripped a hole in my soul that every ounce of fear, heartbreak, anger and grief I felt couldn't even come close to filling.  It took a very long time even after she came home to restore the sense of normalcy, which was probably because what our lives were would never again be.  The first few weeks she was home were no less stressful and terrifying than the ones she was gone.  As time went on, however, our lives began to take shape into something that at least, on the outside, would seem like a normal family.

Many addicts use certain phrasing when talking about their sobriety.  We use the words "I have" in terms of how long we have been sober.  I think the significance of this phrasing is sometimes overlooked.  I think it is significant not just because it's a verb, but the simplicity of it stated being in present tense is really astounding if you stop to think about it.  These days and months and years that we speak about having are a claim.  We've earned them and we own them, but there is no implication that we are them.  Just like every other possession anybody owns, there is no guarantee that they will always be.  Sometimes we lose things, sometimes we give them away, and sometimes we horde them.  Whatever it is that happens to them are of our own choosing, and I have watched this child own and accept responsibility for every single one of her days of her sobriety.  It hasn't always been easy, and it hasn't always been pretty, but I am deeply humbled by what I have seen this girl of mine accomplish.

She has grown from someone that had little cognizance of her own mortality to someone that not only thrives but plans to do so in her future.  Her relationships with not only me and her father, but her sisters  too, are things that she pours her heart and soul into.   She exudes a warmth and energy that is impossible to not be drawn to.  She's funny and a little outrageous, quick to laugh and quicker to smile. She's affectionate and it's rare that she doesn't take an opportunity to tell someone she loves them.  She's genuine and forthcoming.  My time with her here at home is getting smaller by the day, and I would be lying if I said the fact that she is graduating a term early this upcoming winter doesn't bring me a little anxiety.  I know that most parents freak out a little when it's time for their kids to spread their wings and make their way into the world.  Since she is my oldest, I don't have anything to compare it to but I have to believe that I have concerns that other parents might not have.  I have to have the same faith in her that she has in me that she will continue to do the next right thing.  After I published my last blog post, she came downstairs and joined a discussion that her dad had already started with me. They were understandably concerned that I might have been struggling a bit, and since we no longer turn a blind eye to even the smallest of potential problems we immediately got down to business.  She opened her mouth and five of the most important gospel words outside of "I love you" that are spoken in this house  reaffirmed to me one of the most important things I have tried to impart on all four of my kids.

"We are in this together."  Words to live by.

It has been an honor to be this child's mother, especially these last two years, eleven months, three weeks and five days, and I will continue to support her quest to have a limitless amount more of those days.

Congratulations on every single one of these days that you've earned, kid.  I'm proud to call you mine.

Gray Matter

A few weeks ago I got a message on FaceBook from an old friend, a girl I knew in high school.  It was short and to the point.  "You've been awfully quiet lately.  What's cooking?", it read.  I responded to her about 12 hours later and told her that not much was up but I would be happy to call her the next day because I came down with my first and I hope only ever case of food poisoning.  I spent the next day in bed when I wasn't hanging my head over the toilet, and even took a lovely nap on the bathroom floor for an hour, using 2 damp towels Red used after her morning shower that I fished out of the laundry basket as a pillow.  I never got around to calling her.  The next day, my phone rang when I was on my way to take Bean to tae kwon do.  I didn't pick up but checked the voicemail when I got Bean settled into class.  I headed back to the parking lot and crawled into the driver's seat of my van and called her back.  After about a minute of friendly pleasantries, when I told her that pretty much the only thing I've been up to is working, she got down to business.

 "What the hell are you doing?  Why are you doing this to yourself?" 

She had seen me post about work a few times.  Mainly I just wait tables at a restaurant here in town, but I have covered a few bar shifts, because hey, money is money.  I suppose when she saw me posting about being behind a bar with all those bottles of vodka and rum and Jägermeister, she got concerned because I've been so open about getting sober.  The last time I physically saw this woman, we were both still girls, really.  I was a 16 year old junior at the Catholic school here in town when I left to go live with my dad a county over.  That was 20 years ago, yet in that moment it was like those last 20 years didn't happen.  All of the sudden it was like we were teenagers again, and I came into class after lunch in tears over a boy I spent way too much time and energy on.  I'm pretty sure she asked me those same two questions verbatim in 1993.  It's a very rare thing to have people question you about why you aren't being more accountable to yourself, and even more rare to have them come seemingly out of the blue from someone you don't have a daily relationship with.  It's humbling.  I can not convey to you how deeply it touched me that this successful chemist with a beautiful family that has not seen me since my wool uniform skirt wearing days reached out to me because she was concerned.  I assured her my family and I had already discussed it at length and I gave her my word that I wasn't putting myself in a situation that jeopardized the last more than 9 years of my sobriety.

Truth be told, it's more complicated than that.  I've spent so much time and energy on compartmentalizing experiences and emotions to fit neatly into the categories of "black" or "white" that I've avoided dealing with all the gray in between.  There are memories and experiences that really need no second thought on where they belong.  Sober anniversaries, making the choice to eschew narcotics after surgery, even the early days of my sobriety that I struggled with whether or not I even really wanted to be sober all very clearly fit into one side of the equation.  Celebration, pride in my accomplishments, being able to set an honorable example to my daughters are all good things.  Then there are the parts of my past that when I am confronted with them still bring back a deep, stinging shame.  I saw an old picture of me with my best friend at my mother's wedding in 2001.  I had recently recovered from the worst beating I ever received a few weeks before.  I remember being so happy that the broken vessels in my eyes had cleared up even if I still had blood in my urine because my family, that I lied to about my using and all the shit that went along with it for months, wouldn't have reason to pry into my affairs.  I had recently put an end to the two-year long cocaine binge I had been on and had packed on about 10 pounds and was up to a whopping 115 pounds, give or take.  For all practical purposes, I looked better than I had in quite some time.  When things like this pop up, as they do from time to time, the pain and shame is so fresh it's like it happened yesterday.  These things obviously fall into the category where no good things can ever be placed.  But what about the rest?

I went to a meeting with Banana a few weeks ago and we got to talking on the way there.  I know she wasn't happy when I told her I was picking up a few bar shifts.  She expressed concern, I brushed it off but it came up again on the way to the 7:30 closed meeting a town over.  I had been wrestling with something that happened for a few weeks and was absolutely stuck on which category it belonged in.  It fit into both, and neither.  I told her that I was behind the bar and I had a brief, passing moment of sheer jealousy of the people knocking back beers and Jager bombs.  As much destruction and devastation all my years of seeking oblivion had brought to me and anyone foolish enough to love me, part of me misses being able to temporarily excuse myself from reality.  I've had a few of these moments.  There was the time at Dominick's that the woman with the small plastic cups of chardonnay that was on sale told me I deserved a little treat as she held up the wine to me, which I declined.  There was the time last year in Jamaica as I sat overlooking the beach in Negril with a plate full of the most delicious jerk chicken ever that I wanted nothing more than a Red Stripe to wash it down.  Usually the very thought of having alcohol is something I've conditioned myself to have a visceral aversion to, but there have been a few times that it leaves me drooling like Pavlov's dog after a bell rings.

At first, I did everything I could to manipulate this finite piece of data, this singular emotion into the negative category because of the immediate guilt it brought with it.  I've been so vocal about what brought me to the choice of a sober life that I felt the simple admission of one, single feeling would make me a hypocrite.  I felt that the admission that my process isn't perfect somehow tarnished these last 9 years, 7 months and 5 days.  It betrayed the notion that the life I have built for myself is infinitely better than I ever thought it could have been when my days and nights were filled with that never-ending abject hopelessness.  This admission filled me with fear and dread and guilt, I could only imagine what it would do to my husband, who has loved me in spite of myself and when I quite frankly, wasn't worthy of it.  It didn't take very much time or effort for my mind to place this squarely into the compartment it belonged.  I filed it away and washed my hands of it.  It wasn't done with me, though.

This feeling that I had so concretely decided was a negative kept coming into my mind.  I found my thoughts going back to it time and again over the next few weeks and I couldn't figure out why.  Then in one of the many nights I was having trouble sleeping, as I lay in bed staring at the wall wishing that sleep would come to me, it struck me.  Maybe the feeling wasn't a bad feeling.  Maybe there was something redeeming about it.  I had to find a way to accept that just because I decided this recurring experience was a bad thing, didn't necessarily make it so.  I had to figure out what it is I needed to learn from this.  After a few days of thought, I decided that the lesson here was that I still needed to safeguard myself against not just times where I'm struggling, but protect myself from revisionist history tendencies, as well as times that I'm just feeling nostalgic.  My life is full of things that act as a trigger.  Sometimes it's a song lyric, sometimes it's an old picture, sometimes it's a name or a scene in a movie and sometimes it's something as simple as how the air smells on any given summer night.  Out of the over 9 years I have been sober, do you know how many days something relating to using or my sobriety has come into my consciousness?

 Every single fucking one of them.

I've made the decision to start to make sense of some of the gray area.  My end goal is not going to be to find a way to label emotions and put them in discrete categories.  Sometimes things belong in one.  Some things belong in both.  Sometimes they belong in neither.  Some things just are.  They are open to interpretation and what may be your truth may not be mine.  I've decided it's time to start digging deeper because I've racked up a lot of these bad things in my life and carry them around and you know what?  They're fucking heavy sometimes, and that shit is just exhausting.  It's time for me to either bury some of them or find a way to allow them to make me stronger.  The choice is mine.  It's always been mine.

It looks like I've got some work ahead of me and it's time I roll up my sleeves and get my hands a little dirty, which is fine.  I will get to keep my clean body, clean mind, clean heart and clean soul.  I might even polish them up a little and put a shine on them.

Time to Cut the Cord? Already?

I've once again found myself in an episode of "Where has the Time Gone?" this week.  I find myself in new versions of this same theme over and over again, like my own personal version of Groundhog Day.  This week, my plot consists of a 10-year-old's rite of passage of getting to hide the Easter eggs for the one remaining child in my house that still believes in the magic of the Easter Bunny, my first redheaded baby turning 16, and a certain Banana spending her first spring break away from me on the sunny beaches of Florida.  Somebody please tell this bitch of an impeding midlife crisis banging on my door that I don't have the time for her shit, please and thank you.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I've been a mother almost half my life already.  I've spent these last almost 18 years trying to teach my daughters how to do things themselves.  They are their mother's daughters, each and every one.  They're fiercely independent.  I've known this from early on.  On Banana's first day of kindergarten, as I brushed off pointed questions on whether or not I was the nanny of the child whose hand I held as I walked her to her line, I called to her that I would wait for her to go into the building.  She matter-of-factly told me that I could go home, she didn't need me.  Red rejected any guidance I tried to offer her on how to properly tie her shoes, informing me that she could "do it her own self," and I'll be damned if she still doesn't tie her shoes differently than I do.  Midge is my most similar version of myself when it comes to independence.  She considers, and always has, any offer of guidance to be a question of her ability and an affront to her intelligence.  I get that.  Bean, being the baby of the family, is always doing her best to not be the baby, and reminding everyone that she is indeed, not a baby.

A few weeks ago, Banana approached me and her dad with a question.  She was invited to spend a few days over spring break with her boyfriend and his parents in Florida.  Of course, my first reaction was that I wasn't funding anyone's vacations this year.  She had evidently prepared for that reaction because she immediately came back with the answer that she didn't expect us to.  She would not have any hotel to pay for because they would be staying at his family's condo on the beach and that she was capable of purchasing her own plane ticket.  Now I know there are people that thought I have no business letting a 17 year old go on spring break with her boyfriend.  She's under adult supervision from a family I trust and these last two years she has spent a good amount of time and effort proving herself to be responsible and worthy of my trust.  Also, it's nobody's fucking business what decisions I make regarding my child or why I make them and I don't recall asking anyone's input anyway.  The only exception here would be my parents or aunt and uncle (none of which have expressed any thoughts on the matter), and in that case my response would be "I appreciate your thoughts and concern, but I have weighed the matter at length and am comfortable with the decision we have made."  Ahem.  Long story short, Banana used the money she has made at her job and sold her Xbox that has done nothing but collect dust in my family room and bought herself a round-trip ticket.  She bought whatever clothes she wanted to bring with.  She paid for the super-cute haircut she got two weeks ago.  She packed herself.  She boarded the plane this morning after her dad dropped her off at O'Hare and has already texted me pictures of her lounging on the beach with the Atlantic in the background, and she didn't need anything from me other than my permission to make that happen.  And therein lies the rub.  She didn't need me.

I know it's a taste of things to come.  She will be headed to college in about a year and then all these things I've tried to teach her will have hopefully stuck with her.  I thought I had a year until I dealt with this looming realization but reality came knocking this morning sooner than I expected.  I realized that every task I've taught her, every habit I've tried to instill in her, brings us to the end game of her not needing me anymore.  It started with me helping her balance on her own two feet and placing something she wanted just out of reach with the hope of motivating her to go get it.  I guess that's what I've been doing all along.  I guess that's what we, as parents, all do.  One day they're telling you they don't need you to wait outside a brick school building, the next you're looking at tail lights as they drive down the street without you for the first time and before you know it, it's time to set them free and hope that you've taught them all they need to know.  I'm going to be honest with you and this may come as a shock, but I bitch.  A lot.  I bitch about the never ending laundry and mess to contend with.  I piss and moan when I am called on time and again to find whatever lost article needs finding right this very second.  I hear "Mom, I need..." countless times a day and it can be exhausting.  I'm going to let you in on a little secret though.  Most of my self worth is defined by how necessary and useful I am to others.  Healthy?  Probably not but it's true.  I am going to have to figure out how to fix that because it became glaringly obvious to me today that my days of being needed won't be around forever.  All four of them need me less every single day.  I guess that means on some level, I've done my job.  Oy.

True to form, when Banana texted me when she landed today, I texted her back a link explaining in detail what to do if she finds herself dragged away from the white sand shore in sunny Florida by a rip current.  I had to rectify this failure of information dissemination immediately.  There has of course, been no need to enlighten her about this until now because we live in landlocked Northern Illinois, and the last time she was on a sunny beach in Florida, I was with her.  I also might have threatened her boyfriend with hunting him down if my kid were to be swept away into the ocean.  Holy hell, who am I?  I pressed send on the link to the NOAA site, and awaited a response.  It came.  It simply said, "You're nuts."

No shit, Captain Obvious.

No Reason to Get Excited

There are certain parts of me that I see in each of my girls.  Many of them are different.  Banana has my sharp tongue and comes alive in the presence of small children.  Red has my inappropriate sense of humor and deep and abiding love for sleeping late.  Midge has my inability to let anyone else have the last word and unquenchable hunger for information.  Bean comes by her unwillingness to concede defeat and need to prove herself to others honestly.  The one thing they all have in common is my love for music.  They might have differing tastes, but I think Banana and Bean, like me, have the most diversity in what speaks to them.

My dad was the biggest musical influence on my life, which is ironic because it has been a long standing known fact that my family is completely devoid of any musical talent whatsoever.  (Sidenote:  I found out that is a huge lie when I met my dad's family as an adult.  There are so many of them that sing and play instruments and have an amazing amount of creative talent.  It's just our particular branch of the family tree whose only musical gift is confined to love of it, but that's a different story for a different day.)  The only thing better than us singing Happy Birthday as you wait to blow out your candles is us not singing to you, if you catch my drift.  None of us played any instruments but my dad played the hell out of the boxy Bose speakers suspended by brass chains in the tiny living room of the house I grew up in.  As a little girl, I remember snooping through his album collection, memorizing the cover art that went with all the Beatles albums.  As the years went by, he replaced his media with cassettes, then CD's.  Now he's got himself an impressive library of digital music.  I'm sure it's arranged alphabetically by artist, then subcategorized chronologically, just like the tangible music he had all those years ago.

My soundtrack of my childhood included everything from Beethoven to the Beatles, Clapton to Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to U2, and Seger to Genesis.  The man had variety.  The soundtrack of my girls' childhood is a little different, but I think Bean and Banana will likely be the two that carry that with them a little more than Red and Midge.  Sometimes even I am shocked at how the two of them will sing along with what most people would consider unlikely and obscure artists.  The other thing I got from my dad, and that pair of speakers that I remember so well, is our preference to not only hear the music, but have it so loud that we feel the reverberation in our bones.  It's about the closest thing I get to a religious experience.  I see that same connection to music that I have in my girls.  I hope it's the same lifelong gift in their lives that it's been in mine.

Tonight was Science Night up at the elementary school.  I went to the classrooms and saw models of simple and complex machines.  I read an impressive article Midge wrote about German Shepherds.  That kid really has a way with words and loves writing.  We watched a demonstration on robotics and Midge decided to sign up for next year's robotics team.  Time ran a little short to see two more demonstrations, and Midge and Bean of course had their hearts set on different subjects.  Their dad decided to offer them the option of picking a parent and splitting up for the last demonstration.  Midge immediately reached for her dad to go explore minerals.  Bean took my hand and excitedly explained to me as she ushered me down the hall that we were going to a sound demonstration.  We turned into the room by the library and led me into the room where the seats were set up in a semi-circle.  She chose the two seats closest to an electric guitar hooked up to a digital tuner and a very large amp.  We sat through the explanation of all the parts of a guitar, as well as a demonstration of the machine that shows that the guitar is properly tuned.  It was very informational, and there were only eight of us in the demonstration so the presenter opened it up to questions afterward.  A few questions were asked, and finally Bean leaned into me and asked if we were going to get to hear him play.  It was quiet enough in the room and I am sure he heard her whisper, so he smiled at her and asked if we would like to hear him play.  Bean sat up and shook her head yes very enthusiastically.  He smiled, turned on the amp and the volume up, and the opening chords of All Along the Watchtower filled the room.

Bean came alive.

She scooted to the edge of her seat, eyes wide as saucers, back as straight as could be.  Her hand crawled across my leg, found my hand and she took it in hers.  I looked down at her and leaned in as she whispered, "Mom, he's playing Jimi Hendrix" like she was witnessing a miracle.  After what was probably less than a minute but must have seemed like an eternity to her because I don't think she bothered to breathe, he stopped.  Her body relaxed, she exhaled and leaned her soft face against my arm.  I asked her if she liked it and her reply was that it was the most beautiful thing she's ever heard in her life.  We thanked him as we left the room to go find Midge and Sean in the hall.  He asked me how it went, and I told him I'm certain that I just witnessed the birth of a lifelong love affair with guitar players.

He was not amused.

Her mother's daughter.

Sometimes the Gloves Need to Come Off

Yesterday Midge and Bean came home from school and Midge was all flustered about something that happened on the playground at recess. She burst in the door and without taking off her coat or dropping her bag she announced in her concerned big sister turbo speak that Bean had something very terrible happen to her and she just couldn't believe it. That kid has a flair for the drama, heaven help me.

Long story short, the kids were playing tag on the playground. One boy didn't want Bean to chase after him and told her if she did that he'd punch her in the face.  Cue Midge's audible gasp and face full  of shock and disbelief. As Bean turned to tell him that it isn't nice to threaten people, he started kicking her legs and punched her in the stomach. Turns out my little Bean was in her first schoolyard fight, except it wasn't really a fight at all. Generally that would require her to fight back. Yikes. I asked her what she did, and she told me and her dad that she told the recess supervisor right away and she was taken into the nurse and he was taken into the principal's office. She did what is expected of the students, so I'm pretty sure she was a little shocked at what I asked her next.

I asked her why she didn't hit him back.

Now I know this goes against the zero tolerance policy most schools have in place and likely against what most parents teach their kids. "You should never hit someone" is what I hear from so many people. Personally, I think that's a bunch of horse shit. I have always taught my girls that you should never hit someone first. If someone, anyone, puts their hands on you I firmly believe that not only do you have a right to defend yourself, but you also absolutely should. If someone calls you a name, steals something from you or otherwise provokes you, there are definitely ways to deal with that whether it be words or walking away, and that is what I expect them to do. Always. If someone attacks you, though, you had better swing. Bean takes tae kwon do, and one of their tenets is mercy. That means to never attack without reason. Self-defense is one of only two justifiable reasons in my book. The only other reason I will ever accept as valid for any of my girls being in an altercation outside of someone hitting them first is if someone is putting their hands on one of their sisters. If they see that happening, I expect them to do what they have to in order to defend each other if I'm not around.

I'm sure this isn't a popular position, but it is one I firmly believe in. I've heard every argument from turning the other cheek to nonviolent solutions being the only solutions and everything in between. I reject them all in hand. I have not and will not raise my daughters to accept any abuse without defending themselves. I want them to be reasoned, even-tempered, compassionate individuals that can find alternative solutions, if one is to be had. I also want them to be able to throw a mean right hook if they have to.

Hope in One Hand, Shit in Another

One of the things I hear a lot is also one of the things that makes me either want to laugh my ass off or beat my head in the wall.  If you have kids, or even if you don't, I'm sure you've heard it too.  Although it is uttered by a wide demographic, I find it most commonly spoken by people that don't yet have children and are planning to, pregnant women, or people who have very young children.  It doesn't matter what the end of the sentence is, but it nearly always begins with, "My children will never....".  Cue my cackling, please.

Please understand that I'm only laughing at you a little bit, depending on how absurdly you finish that sentence and say it to me with a straight face.  It's taken me a long time to be able to laugh at this kind of idealistic talk because it took me a long damn time to be able to laugh at myself.  We've all been there, myself included.  I'm sure I will be there again.  It's just how it is.

Before I became a mom, and even after when they were still young, I had a very clear vision of how my children would be.  I had it all planned.  As infants, they would feed on schedule and sleep through the night.  I would potty train them effortlessly and they would always be neat and tidy and unfailingly say "please" and "thank you".  When they were old enough for school, they would be the star student of every class they would be in and always achieve their full potential.  They would do their chores without complaint, always do what I asked of them the first time and never dare show a shred of disrespect to me or anyone else.  Their rooms would always be spotless, they would reign all extracurricular activities they were involved in, never fake sick or whine to take a day off from school.  They'd have all the top colleges clamoring for them with full-ride academic scholarships and they will be renowned and respected leaders in whichever fields they make their careers in.  Basically, my girls would be the envy of all other parents and be walking testaments to my superior parenting skills.  I had that shit planned.  While my examples might be a little hyperbolic, you catch my drift.  We all think we have it all worked out before we even get down to business, that's our job.  That's about the time reality pokes her head in and kicks us square in the ass.  She's a bitch like that.

If there is one thing I know for sure, it's that I don't know nearly as much as I thought I did when I started out.  I always wanted my girls to get the few best parts of me I have to offer, and learn from the numerous, often disastrous mistakes and bad decisions I have made.  They'd be smarter, wiser, better people than I am and unless you're one of those weird, crazy people that can't stand the thought of your own children being more anything than you are, that's in all likelihood what you want for your children too.  I was one of those "My Children Will Never" people until a few years ago.  It took me almost half a lifetime to let go of that crazy business and realize that guess what?  Sometimes, even despite my best efforts, my children have and they will.  They're human.  That's life.  My proclamations were often made when I was aghast at the decisions some other parent made in regards to their kids or shocked at the behavior or decisions somebody else's kid made.  I mistakenly thought these proclamations would insulate my family from the consequences I saw affect other people.  Sometimes those consequences can be nothing more than a passing embarrassment.  Sometimes those consequences can be profound and change a life forever.  Either way, I comforted myself with a false sense of security because no matter what it is your kid might do, my child would never.

Another thing I've learned is that no matter what it is I've tried to teach my girls, their actions will be the result of one of three things.  They either do what they do because of you, in spite of you, and the third one is one I've just recently come to realize and it was probably the hardest one for me to learn.  Sometimes what they do has absolutely nothing to do with you at all.  Hard to believe, right?  We aren't the center of their every thought process and choice they way they are ours, and that's ok.  It doesn't matter if they're two or seventeen, every single choice they make will fall into one of those three categories.  I dare you to find one example that doesn't.  That doesn't mean I'm advocating a lack of guidance or ramifications if they make poor choices, make no mistake.  I'm simply saying that no amount of willing or imposing is going to guarantee you a perfect outcome all the time.  If you want to wrap yourself in that same cocoon of false security that I did, feel free.  I sincerely hope that works out for you, but I hope you aren't shocked when it doesn't.

The truth of the matter is my children aren't perfect, and neither am I.  I don't feel the need to sanitize and beautify how I want people to perceive my family.  I understand why people do, though.  Whether it be what the other moms say about you and your kids when you're walking away from them after practice or what one of your friends might think about a picture or a post you've made, having your decisions judged blows.  Knowing that people might think less of you can hurt, if you let it.  The truth of the matter is my kids' rooms are a freaking disaster more often than not.  My little girls fight like all sisters do and I have to tell them at least once a day that the tone they speak to me in isn't going to fly.  They leave their dirty socks on my coffee table, the older girls come by their foul mouths honestly and I've been known to resort to flat-out bribery with all four of them to get them to do something.  I've been in principals' offices and had more than one verbal altercation with a parent or two in my day.  I guarantee my family has more than once been the source of somebody else's "My Child Would Never" moment.  That's ok.  Quite frankly I don't give a shit what judgements people make about how I raise my girls.  If they're crazy enough to actually come after one of my girls, however, that's a different story.  That would be a very poor decision, I assure you.

In my house, the only bad mistake is the one you don't learn from.  I've learned to let go of the notion that mistakes somehow equal failure, whether it be someone else's or my own.  Mistakes are the best conduit to wisdom.  I don't try to cover them up, and unless it's harmed someone else, I don't apologize for them anymore.  Shortcomings and a lack of unwavering perfection are nothing to be ashamed of, and I do not want my girls growing up with my example being that anything less than infallibility isn't good enough.   I want them to know that my love for them really is unconditional, and selfishly I hope the return I get on that is that their love for me is too.  Whatever they do or don't do in this life, if that is the only thing they take from me, that's really all I can ask for.

Boy Toys

We've lived in this house for almost nine years now.  For the first six years, every winter Sean and I would team up when the snow came, bundle up, grab our shovels and shovel our drive.  We have also been doing the neighbor's drive since he moved in because he is 80-something years old, his landlord does not cover snow removal or yard care and even though he has younger family nearby, they don't do squat for him.  Our drives aren't very big, but they do have a slight incline to them, so the worst part of it has always been when the plows come by and throw two feet of heavy, salty slush at the bottom of them.  This usually happens right around the same time we have just finished a pass.  Just because Sean and I work as a team does not mean it's all rainbows and unicorns and wedded bliss.  He can be a little neurotic and over the years, I have learned one of his neuroses is his need for perfectly straight and tidy margins where the concrete meets the turf.  That's not always an easy thing once the snow banks build up and we have quarreled about this on more than one occasion every winter for the duration of our marriage.  It was especially bad the year he ruptured his achilles and snow removal was left to me alone.  I still vividly remember him on crutches in the garage, to "keep me company" while I shoveled, looking like he was going to have an aneurysm while I might have just a little bit purposely made sure those margins weren't quite perfect.  To be fair, I hate the way he folds t-shirts.  We all have our thing I guess.

A couple of years ago, he ended up picking up a monster snowblower off Craigslist and I couldn't have been happier.  Bundling up and schlepping around in the wind and slush isn't fun like it used to be when I was a kid.  I love sledding but pushing, lifting and launching heavy, wet snow is some straight up bullshit.  That slight incline might not be much to the naked eye, but I eat shit at least once a year on that drive.  My ample natural padding doesn't do much in the way of protecting my aging bones.  Or my pride.  Once that snowblower moved into my garage, I kissed my shoveling days goodbye.

The Beast

Since he got that beast, he has been trying to show me how to use it.  I have always refused.  I've never been one to perpetuate gender-specific roles, but I've told him that snow removal can be filed under the category of "man work".  It's total bullshit, and even though he has tried to call me on it countless times, I cling to my lame excuse.  I do all sorts of "man" shit, from refusing to let him drive on road trips to bee and wasp removal because he is anaphylactically allergic.  The truth is I *might* still harbor a little resentment from all those years of hearing him mumble under his breath about my subpar shoveling work and going over the work I just did to clean up my sloppy borders.  Thirty-six going on thirteen, right over here.

A couple of weeks ago, the stupid snowblower broke and we got snow.  He was at work, and since I'm not a princess, I hauled my ass outside and shoveled.  I hurt for two days in places that I quite frankly didn't know existed.  You would think that after that, I would be happy to let him show me how to work it when we got it back from the shop.  Not so.  My pride is a funny thing.

Fast forward to tonight.  We are getting a decent amount of snow.  It's nothing like the Snowpocalypse of '11, but it's a fair amount and it's heavy.  As I passed my night playing Words With Friends and thoroughly enjoying my vegetable soup and grilled cheese induced food coma, he poked his head in from the garage and told me he needed my help outside.  Of course he does, I smugly thought, the mighty snowblower does not conquer all.  I threw on my coat and boots and headed outside.  I scurried my way down the drive to meet him and see what he needed and as I looked up to see him standing with his beloved beast with a shit-eating grin on his face, it struck me.

He tricked me into coming outside to show me how to use that damn snowblower.

He walked me through the gears, how to engage the drive system and the auger, and how to aim where the snow is actually thrown.  I had to listen to him because even though I know how the damn thing works, my secondary bullshit reason I've used is that I wouldn't know how to work such a manly machine.  That came back to bite me in the ass.  I humored him and took the beast for a test drive.  I cleared the half of the drive he hadn't done.  Then I walked that bad boy down the sidewalk and got the old man's drive too.  I'll be honest with you, it was fun.  Sean knew I was having a good time and bullied me into admitting it.  I did so begrudgingly, true to form.  Truth be told, I had so much fun that he'll be lucky to ever use his beloved toy again.

Who's laughing now buddy?