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The thing about Santa.

Lately, my 8-year-old son Michael has been asking me if Santa is real.  I am not at all sure what to tell him, for a number of reasons.  First (and many people might think, foremost), we are Jewish.  That said, Michael has always believed in Santa, but totally understood that because we don’t celebrate Christmas, Santa just doesn’t come to our house.  And he’s always been okay with that (unlike his older brother, who at the age of about 4, asked me “When we’re done being Jewish, can we get a Christmas tree?”)

santa

Michael has, for some reason, always had this fascination with Santa.  When he was in kindergarten, he asked if we could go to the mall to see him.  I said we could, and on our way there, we had a conversation about what we might talk to Santa about, given that, you know, we don’t even celebrate Christmas.  Michael waited patiently in line for about 30 minutes, and when we got the front, he wouldn’t say a word to Santa or sit on his lap, but was completely mesmerized.  I did the talking for us, and told Santa that we’re Jewish but that Michael had really wanted to see him.  He looked at both of us, wished us a Happy Hanukkah, and told us that it’s all really about what’s in our hearts.  I walked away from the experience feeling like I’d just met the real thing.  Michael walked away with a little holiday paperback (containing some really weird story about some kids who get trapped in a giant snow globe, or something like that), courtesy of the mall.  He still talks about meeting Santa.  And the book.  Which, now that I think of it, I hope he doesn’t pull out and ask me to read to him.  It kind of scares me.

Michael and I just read one of Judy Blume’s “Fudge” books, and the topic of whether or not Santa is real comes up.  I tried to gloss over the part where the older brother says there’s no Santa, but Michael was having none of it.  So I read the page, then asked him, “Do you think Santa is real?”  And he seemed very concerned about the whole thing, and told me that he’s not sure, but that most of his friends do believe in Santa.  And then he asked me what I think.  And what I tried to explain to him, in the best way I thought an 8-year-old could understand, was that on some level, yes, I do believe in Santa.  I believe in the magic of the holidays.  I believe that there are people in this world who will show you their best, most generous selves.  I believe in the idea of Santa.

We talked about it some more, and Michael still isn’t sure what to think.  Logic is starting to take hold, and he says that it would be impossible for one person to deliver gifts to everyone in the world in one night.  I am glad that he’s talking to me about it, instead of just sadly realizing that so many of the magical things of our childhood are parents slipping into our room late at night to tuck a dollar bill under our pillows, hiding gifts in the attic, and writing notes in handwriting that won’t be recognized.

Being a mom has made all of those things magical again for me, and I’d like to be able to hold onto that magic for just a little bit longer.

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The problem with holiday cards.

I was thinking about the slew of holiday cards we send out every year, as well as the many that arrive in the mail to us (some, along with those holiday update letters, but more about that later).

I look forward to getting holiday cards – I like to see how faraway friends’ kids have grown each year, and it’s fun for the boys to look at pictures of nearby friends.  We display the cards we receive around a window in our family room.  And we send out a card every year, usually with a picture or two of the boys that comes from a fall backyard “photo shoot” that Dave does with his fancy schmancy camera.  What people don’t see in what’s usually a cute picture would be the hour we spent trying to get the boys to sit still, stop poking each other and making funny faces, or the swearing Dave did when the camera died in the middle of this mess, because he doesn’t use it that often and it wasn’t fully charged.

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This year, we used some vacation pictures for our holiday cards.  And even without the photo shoot, it was no different.  Sure, we had a nice picture of the four of us in a nice place.  But nobody could see the exhaustion on our faces from the 3-hour time change from home or the argument we’d had trying to figure out where to park that morning.

And as for those letters that some families include with their holiday cards, let me just say – blech.  I’ve never thought about actually sending one with our holiday cards, but just for fun, I’ve thought about different ways I could approach writing one…..

1. Dear family and friends:  Well, we survived another year.  Barely.  I continue to drag myself out of bed to teach college classes where an occasional student will nod off in the back of the room.  Things are going great for Matthew in middle school.  Unless you count the day I spilled coffee on his binder and wrecked the cover of a group project.  That wasn’t so great.  Michael is learning a lot in 3rd grade.  I even got to have a meeting with his teacher where she told me about a story Michael had planned to write about Santa getting drunk in a bar.  And Dave has had the opportunity to travel to wonderful and exotic locales for work.  Like New Hampshire.

OR…..

2. To our most cherished friends and family:  We are delighted to be sending you this letter after yet another fantastic year for our family.  You’ll see from the photo on our card that we enjoyed a lovely vacation together over the summer.   Master Matthew and Master Michael continue to excel in school and in their many extracurricular activities.  I continue to shape the lives of young people through my teaching adventures, and Dave receives accolades for his work.

And then, what I’d really like to write:

3. Here we are again, friends.  Another holiday season, another year that has passed too quickly.  We continue to count our blessings every day.  Yes, our boys do well in and out of school.  But wanna know what I really want to tell you about?  The time I spied Matthew lifting a 4-year–old neighbor off a friend’s trampoline at our block party.  When I glanced outside and saw Michael tying his friend’s shoes, because he knows this friend has a little trouble with it.  The day we drove home together from camp and Matthew told me that the best part of his day was helping the counselors out with the little kids.  Is it always easy?  Nope.  But in these small moments when I know that Dave and I have the privilege of helping these wonderful people grow up, it’s all worth it.

Happy holidays.

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Mother of the Year … not.

I had one of those great days today.  I slept really well last night.  I don’t work on Mondays, and today I got a LOT done while the kids were at school.  I was feeling relaxed and happy with myself.

Until the kids got home.

Michael had a friend over.  For two hours, things were great – they were playing outside, making a lot of noise and having fun.  Apparently, just before the friend was picked up (according to Michael, anyway), there was some sort of illegal move perpetrated on Michael in their soccer game, which left Michael with a dirty and bruised knee.  Since Michael didn’t have a yellow card in his pocket, he decided to throw a punch instead.  Ugh.

When his friend went home, I left Michael at home, doing homework and whimpering, so I could pick Matthew up around the corner at a friend’s house.  I was delighted to find that he’d already started walking home, as I’d asked him to.  “How was your day?” “Good! I don’t have much homework.  What’s for dinner?”

And that’s where it started going downhill, when he discovered that I’d made stuffed shells and didn’t keep any sauce-free for him.  Worst. Mom. Ever.

mother of the year

We came in the house, and Michael was still upset over the incident with his friend.  Oh, and perhaps I should mention that when the friend left, I had had the audacity to ask him to retrieve his shoes from our backyard and bring them inside when he came in.  For which I was labeled “mean.”

Matthew joined his brother at the table to get started on homework.  And when he put a binder down, it generated a breeze that blew away the organized rows of little pieces of paper with Michael’s spelling words on them.  Michael burst into tears and then headed toward Matthew to try and throw his second punch of the hour.  I grabbed his arm before he could hit, and pulled him upstairs to his bedroom, crying.  Him, not me.  Yet, anyway.

I left Michael in his room, came back downstairs and asked Matthew to help me pick up Michael’s spelling words.  When my request was met with some, um, let’s say, resistance, I kind of , let’s say, lost my patience.  I believe there may or may not have been some yelling.

After everyone had a few minutes to calm down, I apologized to both boys for losing my cool.  Because as little tolerance as I have for my kids’ poor behavior, I have even less  tolerance for my own poor behavior.  When I look at it objectively, I think I have pretty unrealistic expectations for my own behavior as a parent.  Because, as it turns out, I’m just as human as my kids are.

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I am a rock star.

There aren’t too many moments where I get to be a total hero to my kids, especially as they’re getting older, and my heroic efforts are sometimes met with a roll of the eyes or a sigh that I can only interpret to be sarcastic.

But last night, I got to save the day (can you save the day at night, or did I save the night?).  Dave has been away on a business trip, so I’ve been parenting solo.  Sometime after midnight, Michael came up to my room, shaking, having been awoken by the beeping of a smoke detector with a low battery.  On a side note, why is it that 90 percent of the time, this does NOT happen in the middle of the afternoon, but shocks someone out of a deep sleep with that annoying sound??

Smoke detector

Smoke detector (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyway, since our house was renovated relatively recently, we are up to code with our smoke detectors, which means there are several on every level of the house, and one in every bedroom.  I know that’s a good thing in the unlikely event of a fire, but it’s incredibly annoying in the much more likely event that I’m going to have to stumble around in my pajamas, trying to figure out where that infernal beeping is coming from because a battery is dying.  Michael, who was still shaken by being woken up, insisted on following me around the house, until I figured out (after just 3 beeps – yay, me!) that the battery needed to be changed in his room.  I’ve learned to keep the 9 volt batteries in an accessible kitchen drawer, found something to stand on so I could reach, and had the whole problem solved in less than 5 minutes.  Oh, and the other kid slept through the whole thing.

My victory was met with a sleepy “thank you,” and a tight hug from a pajama-clad 8-year-old.  Could there be anything better?

The majority of my triumphant parenting moments these days revolve around finding lost stuff.  A few weeks ago, I found an iPod that had been missing for several weeks.  It was left on a bookcase, under a piece of paper.  You would have thought that, based on the reaction, I’d found Michael Jordan or a big stack of cash under that piece of paper.  But I’ll take it.

Now, I do realize that if one of the smoke detectors on the higher ceiling in my bedroom needed a new battery, I’d kind of be screwed, but for now, I’m going to focus on my victory.

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Excuse me!

I just returned from a quick trip to Costco to pick up a contact lens order that had come in.  I figured while I was there, I’d get a case of bottled water, (which we like to keep around for occasional on-the-road needs … and yes, I know I’m defensive about my carbon footprint-expanding sometime use of bottled water).  And while I was picking up the water, I managed to spend another $100 on a holiday gift, a cute skirt and sweater, jeans for one of my kids, a bag of mini peppers and some dark chocolate covered pomegranate.  Not that you asked.

As I was making my way to the aisle where the water is, there was a man in my way, stopped dead in his tracks with his shopping cart, just before where I needed to get in to reach the water.  So I pushed my cart around him, went in front of where he was standing and hauled a case of water into my cart.  As I turned back around to leave, he’d just started to move again, and as we made eye contact, he muttered a sarcastic, “Thanks,” as he rolled away.

A row of shopping carts.

A row of shopping carts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Really??!

And as a grown woman in my 40s, do you know what my instinct was?  I wanted to cry.

And that really sucks.  Because I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything wrong.  Or if I did, I didn’t realize I did.  And if I did, it wasn’t a particularly big deal.

For all I know, this guy could’ve been having a bad day.  He could have some personal crisis going on that he took out on me.  His wife could have been taking too long looking at cute skirts and sweaters in Costco.  Who knows.

By the way, I didn’t cry.  And about 10 seconds later, I got mad, and really wanted to go tell this guy off.  As I’m writing, I realize how ridiculous my extreme emotions sound.  But I’m pretty certain that lots of people would have had the same reaction.

A few years ago, saddled with two small kids, I ventured to the supermarket, put them both in one of those shopping carts that has the plastic car attached to the front, and started doing my shopping while pushing a small tank around.  As I was waiting in line at the deli counter, an older woman backed away from the counter and stumbled over the car part of my cart.  She didn’t fall or appear to be hurt in any way.  But she began berating me about how I needed to be more careful, because she had had a hip replacement, and couldn’t afford to fall.  I remember my face getting flushed, and I know I responded, but not as strongly as I probably should have.

A few aisles over, still stinging (and on the verge of tears) from the odd deli counter exchange, a random woman walked over to me, and said, “I saw what happened back there, and I’m so sorry.  Are you okay?”  I immediately felt better.  I could see that I wasn’t alone in my reality, and that what I had perceived to be essentially just grownup bullying was just that.  And I realized that thankfully, in a world that can sometimes be a hard place for a sensitive person, the kind words of just one person can be enough to take away the sting of the unkind.

And clearly, I should just stay away from the shopping carts.

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Baby, I was born this way.

Lately, we’ve been a little worried about Matthew, because since school started a few weeks ago, he’s been having a little trouble falling asleep at night.

I should, by the way, preface this by saying that he’s our first-born, so while we pretend that we know how to parent an adolescent 7th grader, he’s really our practice child.  We hope to have it down by the time we get to the next one.

But, back to the problem.

It seems that whatever is on his mind seems to crop up after the sun goes down.  He’s a perfectly cheerful, goofy, seemingly well-adjusted child until then.  And then suddenly after about 8:00 p.m., he worries that he’s going to fail a math test, miss the bus, misplace his soccer cleats, lose his phone, or never get into college.

Last night, I was wondering why this only happens at night.  And then I remembered back to when Matthew was 9, and when he was 3, and when he was born, and realized this has kind of always been just who he is.

A pacifier

We brought Matthew home from the hospital after he was born, and I have some really super memories of Dave swinging him around in that little car seat carrier thing inside the house, trying to get him to go to sleep.  And I remember doing some serious time in the glider with Matthew in my lap, trying to get him to go to sleep.  I remember driving him around at naptime, trying to get him to go to sleep.  In fact, the majority of my memories from Matthew’s infancy revolve around trying to get him to go to sleep.

Finally, when Matthew was about a year old, he could fall asleep on his own, but only with a pacifier.  Out of desperation for some sleep, we would leave 3 or 4 pacifiers in his crib every night, so he could always find one and get himself back to sleep.  He perfected what we started referring to as the “pacifier derby,” where he’d try all of them until he found the one that was just perfect. This worked out well, until we eventually realized that if we didn’t someday make him learn to sleep without a pacifier, he’d need to take a bunch to college with him.  So we started the painstaking process of taking them away, one at a time, until he could fall asleep without it.

To help Matthew get through the lonely nights without a pacifier, we started putting some classical music on the CD player in his room, to soothe him to sleep.  This was a brilliant idea, we thought, until a few weeks later, when he started waking up around midnight, crying for us because the music had turned off.  Every night.  Like I said, he’s our practice kid, so we didn’t really know this was going to happen.

Fast-forward a few years.  Matthew was 9 years old, and finally falling asleep on his own without the help of any props.  We were doing some construction on our house and had to move out for a few months.  We were fortunate to find a nice apartment in our town where Dave and I had a bedroom and the boys had their own loft space upstairs.  Unfortunately, the room wasn’t an exact replica of Matthew’s bedroom at home.  He could hear his little brother snoring in the bed next to him.  Occasionally, the guy who lived downstairs would cook something that smelled weird late at night.  And so it started again.  And unfortunately, by this point, Matthew was too big for a pacifier or a rocking chair, so it just took a lot of patience on our part.  Eventually, we moved back home, and Matthew happily slept in his own bed, with only the need for complete darkness to fall asleep.  That, I can work with.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that we’ve all got our personality traits and our quirks.  And while I do think that sometimes our environment affects how we turn out, if we think about it just a little bit, sometimes we can chalk it up to just coming into this world a certain way.

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Well, that was fast.

I’m posting a follow-up to yesterday’s blog of self-pity.  I’m done.  Thanks for listening.

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I’ve been wondering today – when are we entitled to wallow in our own misery (sometimes, when we don’t even have anything significant to be miserable about), and when is it time to just stop talking and let it go?

When I broke my ankle last fall, I had a few conversations with friends who were feeling quite sorry for me.  And honestly, I really wasn’t feeling sorry for myself, so it seemed kind of ridiculous to me, and actually made me a little uncomfortable.  I was able to maintain perspective – that my injury was temporary and not life-threatening.  But after a year of some pain on most days, I think I just lost that perspective for a while.

Really, all it took was a conversation with a friend yesterday to put that perspective right back into my face, when she told me that I had every right to be feeling a bit sorry for myself, when faced with pain and a decision about having a third surgery.  You see, this friend has a chronic medical condition, and even though I haven’t known her for long, I’ve never heard her complain once about her own situation.

And that was enough for me.  Bam. There was my perspective.

I don’t think it’s about finding our perspective by seeking out someone who has it worse.  I think it’s about realizing that we ALL have our struggles, and how we get through life is about the lens through which we view these struggles.  And some days, it’s okay to curl yourself into a ball and wallow in a little self-pity (or in my case, try and shake off the self-pity by cruising through the aisles of Christmas Tree Shops, looking for Halloween decorations.  And FYI, that worked, but not for long).  But most days, you’re going to feel a whole lot better when you realize that we all have it tough in one way or another, so talk to a friend, hug your dog, and then step out into the world.

Just try not to break your ankle when you do.

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Sigh….

This weekend will mark the one-year anniversary of my dislocated and broken ankle, the weekend I spent in the hospital to have surgery, and the plate and 5 screws that still remain in my ankle.

I spent the weekend after my injury feeling stupid for missing a step while carrying laundry and hurting myself so badly.  And then during the months I spent recovering  and enduring a second surgery, I felt nothing but gratitude.  For the many people who did so much for me and my family by driving us around, cooking us meals, walking our dog, and just checking in.  For the injury itself, which showed me just what an amazing support system we have.  For the fact that I’d just broken my ankle, and didn’t have a life-threatening illness.  For the many lessons my children learned about how people take care of each other, and that a broken ankle literally is not the end of the world.

And now, almost exactly year later, I’m just feeling pissed.

ankle

According to my orthopedist, who I saw this morning for a follow-up (because my stupid ankle hurts with nearly every step I take), an “ankle fracture is an underrated injury.”  We’re going to try some physical therapy to see if I can get some relief, but after a year, it looks like the only thing that’s really going to help is another surgery to remove the plate and 5 screws (which, he told me, now that my ankle has healed, are just there for “decorative purposes”).  And after that surgery, I’ll need to be on crutches for a month.

Hey, listen, I know that Derek Jeter had a tough season, and I doubt he’s completely recovered either.  But nobody is paying me $17 million a year to spend my days rehabbing, to get back to a career that I’m about to age out of anyway.

I’m annoyed with myself for being so impatient.  And I’m annoyed with myself for no longer having the gratitude that I felt so strongly for months.  I’m hoping it’s going to return.  I guess when I broke my ankle, I thought it was just a little more temporary than it’s turned out to be.

So now, I guess it’s just time to put on my big girl pants and deal.

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Oh, boy!

I’m the mom of two boys.

As I’ve learned over the 12 years I’ve been a “boy mom” (almost 13 if you count the time during my first pregnancy when I knew I was having a boy), I’ve learned that while there are lots of similarities in parenting boys and girls, there are also LOTS of differences.

At this point in my parenting experience, I’m going to chalk the main gender difference up to smell.  Adolescent girls just smell better than boys.  Simple as that.

boys

But it started off pretty innocently.  With a baby, whether you have a boy or girl doesn’t seem to matter that much, except that there are more clothing options for girls.  That said, it’s not a big deal if you have a bald baby boy (because without a bow or a headband, even if you dress a bald girl head to toe in pink, some people are still going to tell you how cute he is).  Plus, I don’t think girls generally pee on the wall when you’re changing their diaper.

In the years between infancy and adolescence, some differences have caught my attention.

Homework.  I have one son who does the majority of his homework standing up.  I have friends who say the same thing about their boys, but I’ve never heard that about a girl.  As a girl myself, I have no idea why or how my son does this, but he’s a good student, so it’s not something I think I need to argue with him about.

I also think boys’ friendships are somewhat less complicated than those of their female counterparts.  Matthew once got into a screaming match with a friend in our backyard.  There were no punches being thrown, so I just decided to wait it out.  They both stormed into the house when they finished yelling, and when I timidly asked, “Um, what’s going on?,” they replied calmly that they were going downstairs to play video games.  That’s it.  It was never spoken of again.  Things don’t work that way with girls.  The screaming match would have been followed by tears, texts, whispered conversations with other girls about said screaming match, and it could have been weeks or even months before whatever started it was forgotten.  The boys, on the other hand, had already forgotten what they argued about by the time they got into my house.

I always thought I’d be the mother of a girl.  I think for many women, we for some reason associate parenting with braiding hair, playing with dolls, and reading the girly books we read as kids (honestly, when it comes to my favorite author as a kid – Judy Blume – the thought of moving beyond the “Fudge” series with my boys just gives me the creeps).

When I was pregnant with Matthew, I just knew he was a boy, and yet when it was confirmed by an ultrasound, I was a little disappointed.  And with Michael, I was SO sure he was a girl that we had a name picked out (Ella, if you’re curious).  I had a test to rule out other things, and when I asked the gender and they told me he was a boy, I asked if they were sure.  Their reply – “Um, XY, that’s a boy.” (that’s the chromosomes, for those of you who might have had as many years since high school science as I have).

And even though I was SO sure that Michael was the girl I always thought I’d have, there wasn’t the slightest amount of disappointment when I found out that our second child (who we knew would be our last) was a boy.  I knew by then that the love for a child is not something that’s gender-specific.  I don’t feel as if I’m missing anything.  I love my boys as much as I could ever love any creature with beautiful long hair (and a better smell).  I’m also convinced that you get the gender that you are meant to have (and I like to think that there’s some higher power somewhere who knows what they’re doing).  Because while I’m pretty sure I couldn’t handle the complicated nature of girls, it doesn’t really bother me to read a book to a boy who for some reason is keeping his hand warm in his pajama pants.

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Hello, I’m your child’s teacher!

It’s that time of year again.  There’s a chill in the air, the sun is setting earlier, I’m sneezing from who-knows-what flying around, and we’ve spent two late evenings this week in overheated classrooms with a bunch of other parents who don’t even seem to be trying to resist the urge to distract themselves on their phones while their kids’ teachers are telling them what to expect from the next 10 months.

hello

It seems a little more straightforward in elementary school.  The teacher (who, by the way, probably hates back-to-school night because odd as it might seem to you, she is a whole lot happier trying to corral a bunch of runny-nosed 7-year-olds into their seats than she is talking to adults whose suit-covered behinds don’t even FIT into those seats), has enough time to show you adorable drawings on the walls, and give you a little show-and-tell about this year’s confusing spelling program, and some sort of diorama your kid will be crying about in a few short months.

You’ll sign up for an individual conference next month, where you can find out if your child is as weird in school as they are at home.

Now, back-to-school night in middle school seems to be an entirely different story.  Given that middle schoolers are a somewhat mysterious brood, prone to periods of silence, followed by periods of intense information-sharing and questioning, it’s possible you know a lot about your middle schooler’s teachers.  Or nothing.

You can expect to be squeezed through crowded hallways of confused, lost parents, looking for the Language Arts room.  The confusion is frequently interrupted by, “Lisa! Over here!!  Oh, my God! I haven’t seen you in so long! How was the beach?”  Followed by, “Excuse me, sorry! Excuse me,” while Lisa prances across the hallway to kiss her friend and they both pull out their phones to see when they can get together for coffee.

This is all happening in the approximately 37 seconds the parents have to get from one class to the next, because if parents were actually given an appropriate amount of time to get around the building, we’d be there until midnight.

You can likely expect to be greeted at the door by a foreign language teacher.  In a foreign language.  This makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.  Our son takes Spanish, and it’s not like I don’t understand when Senora Whats-Her-Nombre shakes my hand and says “hola.” But I’m never sure how to respond.  I’m pretty sure she speaks English, so I could say “Hi,” but given that she’s started the conversation in Spanish, I feel sort of obligated to go along with her and pretend that I’m bilingual.  But I’m afraid that if I say “hola” in return, she’s going to ask me a question or say something I don’t understand in Spanish.  So I just sort of look at her, quickly break eye contact and go sit down.

You can expect that, unless you are an engineer or accountant, your child’s math teacher is going to use a term like “absolute value” or a word like “quadratic” that is going to make you feel afraid enough that you may ask the teacher now if she can tutor YOU, because if your child asks you ANY question about math this year, he is going to find for sure that you’re really not as smart as you like to pretend you are.

When the Phys. Ed. teachers announce that every 7th grader is required to have deodorant in their gym locker, you’re going to think a lot of things.  Like, is there any parent who has never gotten a whiff of their own 7th grader and not figured that out on their own?  Or, please let it not be my kid who needs to be spoken to because he has forgotten to use the deodorant I know he brought in the first week of school.  Or, how is it possible for a teacher to tolerate being in a room full of sweaty 7th graders?

When back-to-school night eventually ends, you hope the sun hasn’t started coming back up again.  Because you still have to get home, get any straggling kids to bed, and start worrying about a math midterm.

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