Burning Down the House

The other day, as I sat in speech therapy with my vivacious, rambunctious, fuller-than-life child (don't pretend you don't know who I'm talking about) while he alternately struggled valiantly to meet the challenge of a new phonological sound head on or stubbornly refused to say anything at all, K's therapist placed what must have been the 20th picture so far in front of him during one of his particularly long mute streaks and asked him to say the word.

I saw it before he did and I think I must have groaned out loud from my little chair in the corner of the room because both of their heads snapped towards me before focusing in on the picture again. He looked at it for just a moment and the internal struggle that ensued could be read on his face as easily as if it were typed in large print edition - to keep the tight-lipped silence or capitulate before the OCD Gods -before his sweet, innocent-as-they-come little boy voice piped up clearly in a perfect rendition of the word: "Match."

Just typing that word makes me cringe and run to double check that our stash of the handy little tools are safely under lock and key - the tools that, in the wrong hands, can quickly become a gateway to hell. Or at least what hell might look like in the middle of the woods on a dry winter day. Trust me. I know about that of which I speak.

I think it started with firefighters. Watching "There Goes a Firetruck" with the ever popular Dave and Becky over and over again until the script could have been recited word for word if my most special of K's had been able to make his brain organize them correctly. Or perhaps it was the old family pastime of brush burning, piling the limbs of trees long felled for firewood or the electric line high into massive pyres (sans corpses) to be doused and burned all over the farm until all that remained was a smouldering pile of ash - a budding pyromaniac's delight. I certainly know that the wood-burning stove, our only source of heat in the house, did not help matters. I should have been wary the moment he started jockeying for ringside position as fires were meticulously laid and tended, his sharp, obsessive-compulsive little eyes missing nothing.

It seemed a manageable obsession - unlike some of his previous flings. Put the matches up on the highest shelf in the highest cabinet in a hard-to-open tin - a place that challenges even me and my trusty step stool. Viola'. Obsession managed.

Uh huh.

Lesson #294. Please refer to my previous accounting of his ability to channel his inner spiderman, if you have not yet already. What can I say? I'm a bit slow sometimes.

I should have been on high alert the moment he started bringing twigs into the middle of our house and piling them carefully. But in my ever-optimistic, homeschooler sort of way, I simply paused and was impressed by his skill and mastery of brushpile construction at such a young age. I was proud, even, of the life skills he was learning. I basked in my Mom Moment and continued on with my chores, leaving him as contentedly busy as a beaver weaving his dam.

I don't remember where I was in the house when I heard the scratch. That unmistakeable sound of match running slowly down the side of the box, immediately followed by a muttering. I was back to the middle of the house in a flash... I can perform cardio when I absolutely HAVE to. There was my youngest, crouched in the floor, box of matches in hand, hunched over his little brush pile. "Wite it?" he said as he looked up at me expectantly, clearly believing wholeheartedly that I would assist in his burning of the twigs and producing a wrath like no other when I failed to comply.

After that, the match stash was moved to another, highly covert, location. Strike Anywhere matches were permanently banned from the premises, as a precaution. Temporarily thwarted, all was quiet on the pyro front.*

*Please note the use of the word "temporarily."

My little fire marshal's obsession continued to flourish. He talked only of becoming a "firefighter cooker" - his two obsessions meeting and melding into one very plausible job opportunity down the road - being the firefighter responsible for cooking in the station. I have to say, I was impressed. I put all fire extinguishers on the topmost shelves in the laundry room to prevent him from lugging them around as makeshift oxygen tanks strapped to his back and said small prayers that any house fires would start in that general vicinity. He was rarely without his rubber (fireman) boots, fireman hat and makeshift goggles. Sometimes he'd throw his plastic fireman coat on, but the broken buckles seemed to frustrate him and cause more angst than delight. He began to get very hands on with the woodstove chores. He would eagerly trot in with small pieces of firewood, bargaining labor for a chance to shove one in the stove. It never worked, but he never gave up hope. He was always by my side as I re-filled the stove and if he wasn't, as soon as he heard the door to it open he would mysteriously appear and just as mysteriously disappear after the door closed, his dream of firemaster once again thwarted. He patiently waited.

I was upstairs putting away laundry one winter day a couple of years ago when I heard the stove pipe which runs up the middle of our house crackling and popping - a telltale sign the stove is WAY too hot. Now, our house is open to the center, with a loft running around 3/4's of it. I looked over the railing to see what in the world might be causing the stove to have gone amok and immediately spied my then 4-year-old son standing back from the open stove door, half a log sticking out, vents wide open and the stove roaring like I've never seen it before. I ran down the stairs and luckily was able to push the flaming log all the way into the stove, slammed the door shut and completely shut it down until the stove pipe turned from cherry red back to its original stovepipe black. I lashed the freestanding gate (originally placed to prevent children from accidentally tumbling onto an 800+ degree stove) to the railings enclosing the other two sides of the stove and hoped that he wouldn't learn to untie ropes anytime soon.

I think that bout with the flaming log sort of scared him, because while his passion for all things firefighter remained at a high, his zealousness to actually implement his knowlege of the profession seemed to have dropped off somewhat. The stove was now contained in a maximum security enclosure. The matches were now under lock and key in my filing cabinet. We seemed to have come to a stalemate.

Until late this past Fall, as I sat in my office, back to the window whilst the kids meandered lazily in and out of the house, enjoying the dwindling days of warmth that Fall in Kentucky often brings us at her leisure. I was working over something when Oren walked into my office in front of my desk to talk about something. As he's talking, he looks out the window behind me, stops dead mid-sentence and yells, "The woods are on fire! THE WOODS ARE ON FIRE!!!!" And in the next breath,"Kellen!"

I turn behind me and there, in their late autumnal glory, are my woods. Burning. (Have I mentioned that we are surrounded by over 200 acres of forest?) Kellen's coup de grace. We ran out the laundry room door (past the fire extinguishers long forgotten, I might add) which happened to be the nearest exit to my office and the closest entrance to Dante's Inferno. Oren immediately went into high-gear, grabbing a large stick and pushing dirt around the fire, creating a fire break (yes, we've had a forest fire before... though that one wasn't of our doing) and then smothering the fire with dirt and buckets of water we have for the dogs. Within minutes, my eleven-year-old WonderBoy had the situation single-handedly under control whilst K and I stood dumbly, looking at each other. He, with the fear of a deer caught in headlights, not knowing whether to make a break for it or stand his ground, but knowing that either way he was completely screwed; and I, with thoughts of "what if" competing with the homicidal urges rushing through my adrenaline-drenched blood.

I didn't kill him that day, and I'm very proud of my self-control in that regard. In hindsight, I realize that I am very lucky that he chose to burn the woods in line of sight of my window, that Oren walked into my office at that particular moment, and that he only had one box of matches. However, I'm not so lucky that he learned how to pick my filing cabinet lock. I'm beginning to think that I just need a vault. Or a cage.

Oh God, my leg!

You ever have those moments of unspeakable stupidity? You know, those moments when you are glad there was no one there to witness them, or you try your best to convince yourself that no one did just because everyone was too polite to say anything? I had one of those tonight as I sat down to take off my shoes, getting ready for bed. Now, usually when I sit there is some measure of crunching as my sad, sad little knees strain to maintain the balance between upright and… well… not upright. But tonight, when I sat, there was the most horrendous cellophane crackling sound that I have ever heard issue forth from my lower body region. I looked down at my thighs, half expecting to see something protruding from my legs.

Nope. Nothing. I touched them. No pain.

I picked up my left leg - the one the sound seemed to come from - thinking I must have heard wrong or it was some horrendous fluke to be unrepeated in future testing. As my thigh lifted up off the seat, it crackled like no tomorrow. I grabbed at the muscle, thinking that maybe the 630 pounds on the seated leg press really WAS a little too much after all; here, finally, was my penance for my overly-competitive nature. No pain. Just a knotted muscle. Oh God, what have I done?

Straightened my knee out, just the normal crunch of bone grinding against the place my healthy cartilege should be. Let it drop. Raised the thigh off the chair again and the noise was horrendous. Up and down I repeated it, each time with the same horrible, horrible crunching noise. I watched it in horror, waiting for something to show itself on my leg, or for the pain to finally kick in. Surely I would lose it. I clutched at my abdominal region, my innards in turmoil (not enough protein after that last workout, I guess), and my hand closed around a lump in my left jacket pocket. Immediately the horrible cellophane crunch issued forth. It took me a couple of seconds before I realized what it was. THERE was that cellophane-wrapped protein bar I had completely forgotten about.

Yeah, I know. Really though, it COULD have been the leg.

An Alligator Ate My Boyfriend

Okay, not really. But as R embarked on his very first game of golf with my father in what would prove to be quite the ball-losing expedition, and as I warned him not to reach into the ponds in search of them (something you just don't do in Florida if you like your limbs), I have to admit that for just a moment (I SWEAR it was a very, very brief, short-lived moment) I thought to myself, "Gee, wouldn't that make a nifty blog title?" But of course, I then very quickly realized that:

1. I would be without what is surely the only other man in the world brave enough to be around not only me, but my 3 very loved demon spawn as well,

2. I'd have to tell his mother that an alligator ate him while he was looking for his balls,

and 3. well, I have to admit I'm rather fond of him.

And while the second one sort of makes me snicker because, as I've been told repeatedly on occasion, I have a juvenile sense of humor, I do realize that it would be fundamentally wrong of me to sacrifice my love for the amusement of others.

I did mention that I'm rather fond of him, didn't I?

I'm Heading to Florida!

Oh yes, I'm heading to Florida, where my Mama awaits in all her forgetful glory. And the kids are. staying. home. One week and no kids, whatever will I do? (Really, whatever will I NOT do? Kids really put a damper on life sometimes, you know? I guess I should be thankful for them - they've surely kept me from crashing and burning a fiery death somehow. But at the same time, they've driven me one step closer to insanity, so I can't really say which is better.)

What should be interesting is that I'm taking the boyfriend, R, with me. To meet the family. For the first time. It's been well over a year, I'm thinking it is time. Because The Fam lives 12 hours away, I haven't seen them since May of last year and they didn't know I was seeing someone other than my husband at the time (and yes, the husband knew). After almost 19 years of seeing my family with the same man in tow (yes, that would be the wonderful father of my children), this is going to be a Weird Thing. I haven't taken a guy home to meet the family since I was 19 years old and it didn't really go over so well that time. I'm hoping that this time it works out a little better or I may be sending updates from a make-shift shelter on the beach. I wonder if there is wireless...

To top it off, not only is this the first time R gets to be scrutinized by my family, but it is the first time he has ever flown. AND we are flying back on Friday the 13th. I hope we have better success than the travelers in NY did this past Friday the 13th. And I wondered why the tickets were so cheap.

All of these firsts... it is bound to be an interesting trip. Wish me luck!

How Many Parents...

...have to argue with their child to get the chicken out of the car? I actually had that argument with my eldest. And yes, it was an argument. He had a counter-point to every point I issued. Now, because the hen has learned that she might find french-fries or other odd accoutrements in the car, she pecks my legs when I block her attempts at entry.

Yes, I battle a damn hen to get into my car and then pray to all the Gods that I don't run her over after slamming the door shut and throwing it in reverse.

Not to mention the arguments as to why the hen does not belong in my laundry cum animal room evacuating all over my washing machine when it is cold outside (have you ever seen chicken poop?). I don't feel like it is unreasonable to ask her to sleep in the CHICKEN COOP. Am I being unreasonable????


When we all get the bird flu, is it petty to say, "I told you so?"

OK, maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all...

Ever have those moments? That sinking feeling that occurs when you've realized that what you've just done can't be undone and that maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't have even gone there? When you think to yourself, "Oh man, what the &@%! was I thinking?"

As I sit contemplating the $2k bill for the beautiful set of new silver teeth Kellen is now sporting, knowing that the bills for the general anesthesia they used to knock him out with so as to repair every single non-loose baby tooth in his head (ok, except the one they pulled because it was beyond saving) have not even yet arrived, making me rue every single day of the 4 years that he sat with lips clenched stubbornly shut refusing to let them be brushed due to that inhuman gag reflex of his (thank YOU mr. sensory integration disorder), my beautiful, temporarily disfigured nine-year-old daughter Elke sleeps restlessly upstairs, every now and then moaning in her sleep. (Holy cow, that was a mouthful, but i'm frankly too damn tired to go back and fix it. Sorry.)

And I know that part of those moans are because what was once a beautiful upper lip is now a grape-sized lump of swollen flesh stuck to the front of her mouth and I know that even the Arnica and the ibuprofen aren't going to make all that hurt go away. But the other part of those moans are because I know that she's REALLY wishing she'd not decided to Heely down that steep concrete drive, even after I told her repeatedly NOT to do it as I rushed out of one pool's swim lessons on my way to the next pool where my team was anxiously awaiting my arrival to coach them to their next great swim victory. Of course, being nine, and being my strong-willed, strong-armed, spontaneous, devil-may-care child, my words went unheeded and she took off, alone and defiantly courageous. Just a girl, her Heely's and a concrete slope of doom.

He of the new silver mouth and dual six-shooters and I set off down the path most travelers out of that particular center take... the stairs from hell... whilst Braveheart stood at the top of the hill, arguing her case to my retreating back. I had not even made it to the bottom of the hill before I heard her screams and knew that my fears had not been without merit. I saw two college boys standing huddled around, looking at what I assumed was my broken daughter, though I could not see her. The car was closer, the silvertoothed cowboy and his sideshooters were already standing beside it, ready to mount our semi-trusty Subaru steed, so I made a snap decision and hopped in the car to gather my screaming, fool child.

Now, what happened next I cannot say I'm proud to recount. I will not lie and say that I rushed to her aide, and consoled her in her time of great need. No. I was PISSED. I knew from the screams that it wasn't life threatening and I didn't fear for her permanent disability or disfigurement. I know that the people who had gathered and stopped to help must have thought I was the mother from hell as I dashed out of my car to grab her and stuff her, bloody and screaming, into the car, late for one of my team's final practices before State Finals. I was late and she had expressly disobeyed me and, in doing so, had risked life, limb and tooth. I was NOT at my pinnacle of parental sympathy.

I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that my daughter may have heard a couple (ok, a few) variations on the "I told you so" theme. Once I'd exhausted all possible ways to let her know that she should have listened to me, and she'd finally calmed down, we surveyed the damage. Beneath the grape sized, bloody lump that her lip had quickly become, her fate as a snaggle-toothed princess was revealed. Yes, she'd managed to not only eat the pavement, but when she spit it out, she'd spit out a quarter of her top front (permanent) tooth, too.

On the ride home tonight, as she gazed in the passenger-side mirror and broke down in tears of regret contemplating what that decision has cost her, fearing that she will have to get false teeth, Elke had, without a doubt, one of those moments. And knowing how that feels - to wish more than anything that you could turn back the clock and undo that one fateful thing - I could finally let my frustration at her go and hold her hand and tell her that her false teeth will look just fine. But now that I'm sitting here, contemplating that $2k dentist bill of my sleeping Pecos Bill and his silver crowns, I'm thinking that maybe we should go back, do some digging in the dirt tomorrow, and see what a little Superglue and Duct Tape will do for a tooth.

The Consequences of Caving

Posting all of these old blogs about my little Kellen, or 'Special K' as he is often affectionately referred to, I got to thinking about all of the phases we've gone through in his 6 years of life. Such a short time to do so much, but he seems to be the master at really packing life in where he can. Good for him? Sometimes. Good for me? Not so much. (Honestly, every week or two I check my head for the gray hairs I keep expecting to find - not because i'm heading over the hill - but from sheer stress. To my utter amazement, I still have yet to be christened by that milestone.)

Believe it or not, I'd actually forgotten the fecal fetish. Let's take a moment and really think about that. I'd FORGOTTEN my young son's predilection for diaper diving. I'd completely BLOCKED the feelings associated with finding one's young genetic carrier smeared from head to toe in his own excrement. (For those of you new to this blog, you can find the expanded version of that particular stage here.) That must give you an inkling of just how on my toes he keeps me.

K has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (among other things). When I tell people this, they just smile and nod and tell me that all kids have their "quirks" and things they focus on. Oh ho HO they really have no clue. That sort of response usually launches me into the, "Oh no. You don't understand..." And then I come out with some of my earliest hell. That when he was 18 months old, before he had hardly any words at all, he used to walk around every morning signing to me that he needed his: boots (rubber), jeans, hat, gloves, screwdriver and keys. And if I could not locate one of these essential things, the day could not start. He would follow me around screaming for the missing item (usually the keys or screwdriver as he was want to lay them down wherever he may have been - woods, dirt, in some obscure little box hidden in the house) until I could retrieve them for him. Sometimes this would last hours until his daily uniform was complete.

For a time, he would wear nothing but the same pair of jeans, boots and shirt. I mean, identical. He literally had 5 of the same shirts and jeans in his drawer so that his uniform could at least be clean every day. 95 degrees or 15 degrees, he wore the same jeans, rubber boots and long sleeved shirt. That quickly morphed into a pajama obsession which pinnacled in the summer of our first real family vacation to Washington D.C. (oh, but that is a different blog unto itself). There was the mailbox obsession, the tractor obsession, the dirtbike obsession, the helmet obsession, the fire obsession (oh, give me time)... I know there are more and if I really sit and force myself to relive the experiences I will probably just cry trying to list them all. That should suffice enough to give you the big picture for now without completely throwing me into a state of depression.

And of course, there is food. His entire life, food has been an overriding theme. Just to type this produces in me a rapid pulse, tightness in the neck and forehead (explaining the overabundance of premature forehead wrinkling, I should say), and a hot flush throughout my body as my blood pressure involuntarily shoots up. Or perhaps that could be because he's sitting beside me over and over begging for something I bought for him last night at the grocery to eat for lunch today.

You've seen the padlocks. Or, if you have not, stop, check out Adventures in Refrigeration and then come back here. My beautiful little K has the most infuriating inability to wait for anything, especially if it has to do with food. "I'm hungry" have become two of the most dreaded words in the English language to me. I'd rather hear, "I hate you!" screamed with passion at me at the top of his lungs than to hear him utter those other words. Because I know what is coming. 20 minutes of food negotiation, usually with a litany of impossible requests met with steadfast denial. Let me tell you, it is impossible to negotiate food with a 6 year-old boy in the throes of OCD hell. And if it so happens that I have made a trip to the grocery and purchased a favorite food, I will not hear the end of it until it is conumed and out of our lives. One night I made the mistake of purchasing hoagies for the kids to eat the next evening. What can I say? I was in a hurry, the kids were, no doubt, eating me alive with their demands and I caved. I'm alone with my homeschooled kids for 5 days a week without cease. What can I say? I'm weak. Sometimes I just need peace, any way I can get it. So I caved. And got the hoagies.

In the car, on the way home:

"We eat hogies tonight?"
"No. We already had dinner. They are for dinner tomorrow night."
"But I hungee now." (Did I mention he has speech and language disorders, too?)
"Then you can have a snack. The hoagies are for tomorrow."

10 minutes later:

"But I wanna eat hoagies. I hungeeeeeeeeeeee."
"No Kellen, the hoagies are for tomorrow. NOT TONIGHT."
"We eat hoagies tomommow?"
"Yes, Kellen."

5 minutes later:

"Tomommow we eat hoagies?"
"Yes, Kellen."
"And I eat my hoagie tomommow dinner?"
"Yes, Kellen."

And for the remainder of the trip home (a 45 minute drive if I'm unlucky and unable to pass all the slow drivers)and up until bedtime, some variation on these exchanges will occur about every 5 minutes. Assurances that the hoagie will be there tomorrow night are required upon bedtime tuck-in. A kiss, a hug, and a "Yes, Kellen, you get your hoagie tomorrow night for dinner."

1.5 hours after bedtime:

"Mommy? I STAHHHHVED! I have my hoagie PEASE?????"
"DAMMIT NO YOU MAY NOT HAVE YOUR HOAGIE STOP ASKING AND GO. TO. SLEEP!"

4 a.m.

"I hungee. I have my hoagie now?"
"GO TO SLEEP Kellen!"

Silence.

And a whimper. "But I hungeeeeeeeee. I have my hoagie now I no be hungee."

Ahhhhh, the negotiation. Followed rapidly by the smackdown.

"If you don't go to sleep RIGHT NOW I am going down and feeding your hoagie to the dogs and then you won't even have it tomorrow night." That should do it.

"Gahhhhhhhhhh!" he growls in a huff and I feel him roll over. Then, blessedly, silence. Usually it takes me a good hour to get the blood pressure to return to normal so that I might sleep again.

7:30 a.m.

"I have my hoagie bekfast?"
"NO KELLEN YOU MAY NOT HAVE YOUR HOAGIE FOR BREAKFAST! IF YOU ASK ME AGAIN I'M GOING TO STOMP UP AND DOWN ON YOUR HOAGIE AND LET THE ROACHES EAT IT!"

9:00 a.m.

"Is it dinner time now I have my hoagie???"
"OH GOD HELP ME NO YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR DAMN HOAGIE!!!!"

11:15 a.m.

"I eat my hoagie dis time?"
"JESUS CHRIST EAT YOUR DAMN HOAGIE I DON'T CARE YOU AREN'T EATING ANYTHING EVER AGAIN AND I'M NEVER BUYING YOU ANOTHER HOAGIE EVER!!!!"

Ok. So I probably don't handle it as well as I should. If it is a Monday when something like this occurs I can usually go for many many hours, if not all day, before resorting to empty threats. If it happens to occur on a Thursday, after 4 days alone with them, it will probably sound more like the above exchange. Or I may just pull out the duct tape and chase him around like a lunatic. Depends on the week.

Sometimes, it is ramen, or a can of Chef Boyardee. Sometimes it is some special sweet treat. Often, it is the prized hoagie. Whatever it may be, each time I swear I will never put myself in this position again, but then I think how awful it would be to never experience anything special as a kid and I take pity. This morning, as he begs for last night's grocery score (a little lunchbox from the deli with a turkey sandwich, cheese stick, little bag of chips, apple and a juice box - it is the little things in life I suppose) I am falling somewhere inbetween Patience of a Saint and Call Social Services, and cursing my weakness. For those of you who have ever wished for Friday, you have no idea.

Ch- ch- ch- cha- changes

I am a word lover. My first journal was started when I was a mere 6-year-old lass and my early journal entries went something like this: "Went to school. Came home. Ate." I even have my first kiss documented. First grade, Jon Mattox. If and when my memory starts going, I am blessed that I can always crack open a journal and find myself in it again.

I don't remember why I decided to start keeping a diary. I think, perhaps, someone gave one to me and I ran with it. I had unlocked the mysteries of reading the year before, hunched over a book about bedtime in a darkened kindergarten classroom, and in that instant a lifelong love affair with words was begun. Reading, writing, spelling: if it had a letter in it, you can be sure that I was on it.

My diaries were my soulmates and if I filled up one and didn't have time to get to the store for a new one, I'd start suffering withdrawal. They were my closest confidants, my way to make sense of the world, my very soul in word format. When, as a young teen, I found out that my little sister had been reading my journals, I felt violated in a way that even sexual assault couldn't touch. All the angst of growing up, of finding myself (and losing myself and finding myself again), can be found in the pages of those journals. In fact, I still don't know what I want to happen to them when I die. To know that who I am, in the complete, unabridged format, may be exposed to anyone is a sobering thought.

Somewhere along the way, I lost my words. I got a job, fell in love, got married, and the time that was just my own - mine and my journal's - somehow got pushed aside. I attempted to journal many times, but somehow I had lost that intimacy with them. For some reason, I couldn't put my soul into words anymore. In some ways, I think that I was afraid to have a document attesting to any of the tumult or darkness going on in my head. I couldn't even face it myself, at times.

But in the past couple of years, as I've found myself faced with the trials and tribulations of raising 3 rambunctious, often inhumanly challenging children mostly on my own and doing a complete internal remodel (no, this is NOT a mid-life crisis... I won't be mid-life for another good 5 years or so, thank you), my need for the solace of words has reared its head again and I find myself retreating to the comfort of writing when I need to cope, make sense (or fun) of the world, or just myself. Sometimes it happens in the form of (often bad) poetry, and sometimes it happens like this... a blog.

And as I move through this year, I don't want to lose the lessons I learn from it and all of the changes that are hovering over the horizon for me. For some reason, for me, if it is written, it IS. Life is a series of beginnings and endings, often overlapping, and my life is no exception. Like a caterpillar in metamorphosis, this is my ending, and it is my beginning.

Should be interesting.

The roller-coaster of life

Originally published Sept. 17, 2007

It has been a long time since I've blogged, despite the fact that a few of you have repeatedly begged for more tales of parenting woe (you know who you are and SHAME on you for wishing these things upon me). My lack of writing has not been due to a lack of material. In fact, the stories pile up so ridiculously fast that I can't even remember them all. Last night, as I was stripping duct tape off of a howling Kellen's (aka Dennis) little butt after he'd giddily let his big brother tape both sides of his cheeks together, I was wondering how many other parents have had similar experiences. I know I am blessed that I have these things to moan about. A lot of things have put that into perspective in my life this year.

At the beginning of the year, my mother (age 57) was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. This has been a huge struggle for me and it is one that is not going to end any time soon. As we get older, we are forced to confront mortality - our own and that of those we love - whether we are ready to or not. My mother lost her own mother a few years ago. Watching her go through this at the time, going through it myself in a different way, made me confront the fact that someday I would be saying goodbye to her, too. I never in a million years thought that I would not even be 40 years old and confronted with this reality. Losing someone to an illness like Alzheimer's or Dementia is not quite the same as losing someone through death or sickness. My dad's mother has lost herself in this illness. 2 years ago, she knew me, even if she couldn't quite remember my name. Now she does not recognize her own children. One of my aunts cares for her every day and she has one of the most beautiful attitudes of acceptance about it that I've ever heard. I'm sure that she went through this initial roller-coaster of emotions, but it is the place she is on the other side that I look at and hold up as a light. My aunt said to me, when talking about it, that even though her mother doesn't know who she is, she is one of the neatest old women she knows and she loves being with her. I can't wait to reach that point, because just thinking of that inevitability - acknowledging that my mother, the woman who holds me always as her child, who knows all the countless hurts and boo boo's, the childhood triumphs, the only person in the world who holds my entire existence in her mind and heart, will look at me one day in the not-to-distant future and not see ME...

This year was the first time in 36 years that my mother forgot my birthday. When I think I have the tears and this grief that lodges itself in my throat like a poorly chewed hunk of meat under control, an inevitable reminder throws itself in my face that this fate is hurtling at me faster than I feel I have the ability to cope with. Losing oneself to an illness like this is like watching a comedic tragedy. It is profoundly sad, but at the same time, one has to be able to laugh at the day-to-day craziness that is a natural result of the process of forgetting. I gather these little follies to myself and laugh until that inevitable sob creeps up and grabs me by the throat again.

The hardest part of all of this is that my mom lives 12 hours from me. When I was a young teenager, my mom and I talked a lot about growing old and I told her that I would always take care of her. And I meant it. Growing up, she was my best friend. I have only ever had one female friend in my life as close to my heart as a friend as my mother and in a way, I've lost her this year, too. My mom was the kind of mom that all my troubled teenaged friends would come to for advice. She was the kind of mom that I can only aspire to be. And to live 12 hours away and not be able to fulfill the promise I made to her is one of the hardest things I've had to live with. I can only hope that sometime soon my dad will decide to bring her up here so that I can do for her what my aunt does for my grandmother. Because of all the people on this earth, I am the one that that task belongs to.

Losing one close to you like this is a constant reminder that we only have the opportunity to do this thing called life once. If we don't tell the people we love how important they are to us, show them every single day, tomorrow we may wake up to find that it is too late and all we are left with is a pile of regrets. I'd like to think that my love for mom, the love that we have for each other, will somehow transcend this disease; that someday I will look in her eyes and, while she may not remember me, maybe she will feel a recognition, somewhere deep inside, of that love I hold for her and she for me. When that time comes, I hope to be able to move through the grief and just see the beautiful person that remains, as my aunt has done. I don't think that this crushing grief will ever go away, but I hope that at some point it hurts less.

And while I have cried so much more this year than I have in the past 10 combined, I have also discovered a newfound desire to live my life to the fullest and not to get to the end of it with a big bag of "wish I had's" and "should'ves." My mom won't have a chance to do all those things she kept putting off for one reason or another. So I'll pull the duct tape off of little butts with gusto (and quite possibly a flourish) and I'll celebrate life in the ways that make me happy. Because life's just too damn short not to.

Victoria and Thongs and Kids, Oh My!

Originally published June 27, 2006

My eldest son - we'll call him "Casanova" - loves the ladies. Since he was 3, he has been connecting with the girls on a level that no 3-year-old should connect on. His cousin was the first lady he showed his moves on. I'll never forget these two little 3-year-olds, sitting side by side on the steps, and he turns to her, cups the back of her head in his hand and leans in to plant a soft kiss on her lips. I don't think he'd ever seen anyone make that move before... I concluded he was a natural and that I was in for some big trouble down the road.

Most boys go through a "oooooooh, gross, girls!" phase. Casanova apparently decided early on to take a detour around that particular stage of life. His mission from age 5 on was to get the girls naked. (At this point, I feel I should add that he has always been a natural nudist and feels better out of clothes than in.) If any girl (especially a pretty one, but they are all fair game in his book... at least he's equal opportunity) came over to play, you could bet that it wouldn't be long before you'd see them both streaking around buck-naked. Thankfully, the people we tend to mingle with aren't uptight about nakedness and have never cared too much.

The blissful days of stripping down naked in an innocent quest to check out as much girl booty as possible has, sadly, about come to an end. Casanova recently turned 9 years old. These days, he spends his days pouring over the Victoria's Secret catalogs that come in the mail. He giggles and goggles over the acres of skin and his eyes miss nothing. He evaluates and assesses and pays particular attention to their attire.

Much to my chagrin, he has turned the same laser-sharp criticism to me, these days. "Mom, why don't you wear thongs?" And then, in answer to his own question, "Probably because your butt is too big. That would hurt..." little man-giggle. (Come on, I bore his ass and both of his siblings in a labor of love... of course I don't have hips like those childless hussies.) "Hey Mom, have you ever worn one of these?" he might ask as he holds up the pages for me to see a sultry beauty slinking around the page in a lacey, barely-there teddy. "Ummmmm...." I answer, mind speeding rapidly around searching for an answer that would satisfy his curiosity yet not brand me as a complete liar should he somehow find all that dusty lingerie that hasn't seen the light of day (or night, for that matter) in years. "I don't remember..." Okay, lame, I know.

I guess I should give a little background: I grew up with the subject of sex being a pretty approachable thing with my parents. Perhaps it was watching all of that Mutual of Omaha as a kid (for those of you who aren't familiar with the Mutual of Omaha, think Nature Channel in a show with a very, very old man similar to Bob Barker as the host), but mating was just something that animals did... and we are animals, so it just never phased me. I try to keep sex from becoming a mystery... I think that is why kids are so determined to check it all out so young - because it is this big mysterious thing that no one talks about. So I try to make myself approachable when it comes to relations with the opposite sex. And it seems to be working, because they don't seem to be afraid or embarrassed to ask me anything.

So anyway, back to Victoria and her tantalizing secrets. Over a period of weeks I see Casanova's interest in Victoria's little magazine turn into an all out obsession. As a woman, I'm against males expecting women to look like cover models. I try to celebrate the variety of shapes of women in all their beauty. So to watch my son become increasingly obsessed with the crème de la crème of youthly, womanly perfection was a bit distressing. I started throwing the catalogs directly into the recycling when they arrived. Then I started burying them under all the other magazines. My attempts were fruitless. More and more VS catalogs were making their way into my house... the bathroom, his room, his sister's room (his partner in crime, I should add), the kitchen table... no area was sacrosanct. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

"Hey Cas, what do you like so much about those magazines?" I asked.
"I like looking at all the women," he answered.
"What is so special about them? You've seen women naked before," was my curious reply.
"Yeah, but not like these. I like the ones with the thongs that don't wear a bra. But it is so frustrating because you can't see anything."

Oh my. I just was not prepared to deal with this... I thought I had a good 3 or 4 years before we really got into this stuff. Over a period of weeks, talk around the house centered on thongs. Casanova and his sister were obsessed with them. "I bet that feels weird." "Oooooh, gross, I bet they get poop stains on them." and I'd hear Casanova and his little sister dissolve into fits of raucous giggling. I prudently decided that making an issue out of it would only fuel the fire, so I took the only way out I knew. I ignored them, thinking this little obsession would burn itself out in a few weeks. Ummm.... no.

I was on the phone yesterday with a friend, doing the dishes, when my daughter came into the kitchen and grabbed the scissors.

"What do you need the scissors for?" I ask suspiciously.
"Oh, Cas is just making something," she answers innocently and exits stage left.

About 10 minutes later:

"Hey Mom, look!" I go out of the kitchen, where my son is flailing a little piece of white cloth in the air over the balcony railing. "I made E a thong!" he laughs wildly as I realize that the little scrap of cloth he is waving had spent its previous incarnation as a pair of my daughter's panties.

Today they are both proudly sporting the fruits of their labor, evaluating and discussing the merits versus the pitfalls of thong-wearing. My daughter's initial assessment is that thongs are gross. Casanova, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying his quite a bit. Needless to say, I worry about him.