Birthday Celebrations

Today is Spencer's birthday.
Spencer is my middle child, my oldest son. He has taught me more than any of my other children.
Grace and Tucker are more like me in temperament and thought patterns.
Spencer came out speaking truth to power. In the case of him being little, I was the power.
What Spencer does is name emotions.
I remember when he was four or five and I was trying to convince him he should go to Grace's dance recital. I can't remember the words I used, but he looked at me with his big blue eyes and said, "Are you trying to guilt me into going?"
Yes, yes, I was, I realized, although I hadn't thought about it that way.

Another time, he and his friend Michael were playing a game and they got into a fight. I don't remember the fight, but I remember Spencer's words. "I think you care more about winning than you do about our friendship."

Don't get me wrong. Spencer isn't all wisdom. Being his mom has brought me joy and sorrow.

He makes impetuous mistakes. He drinks too much and hangs out with a party crowd. Just a few weeks ago, at a house party, one of his friends was getting beaten up. Spencer handed another friend his glasses and waded into the fray to defend his friend. I admire Spencer's willingness to defend his buddies, but the friend who held the glasses knew that Spencer couldn't afford to get in trouble. He followed Spencer, picked him up and carried him away from the fight. Not an easy task if you've seen my 6-foot, 4-inch son. Luckily, he's still pretty thin. The original friend getting beaten up ended up with two broken jaws and a collapsed lung. Spence sat by him waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Each time I hear a story like this, I'm so glad that Spencer is still alive. I talk to him, lecture him, about not putting himself in situations like this, but I'm not sure they stick.

When the phone rings and I see a strange number, my heart beats a little faster. Is Spencer hurt? Is he in trouble? My fears for him continue even though he's on schedule to finish college next summer with a double major in marketing and sociology.

If he can survive these young adult years, I know he'll be fine because I know the heart that lies within him.
Happy birthday, Spencer.

Saturday Snapshot -- Mother's Day

For more than half my life now, I've lived far away from my mother. When I was 24 I went off to grad school in Washington, D.C. then moved to Florida, Michigan and back to Ohio with my parents long since moved to Florida.
I try to go down there at least once a year and they come to Ohio a few times each year, but it isn't the same as living close.
Here's a picture of Mom and Dad at a recent Kentucky Derby party. You can see that they are definitely enjoying themselves.

Here's a picture of me with my parents at my wedding. Mom was just about the same age I am now. 

And, finally, the piece de resistance, a family photo from 1968. You can see that Mom had her hair teased high and she let me sister get her hair teased too. Tammy was 9. I even got a little lift to my hair. I was five. 

I'm sure there were plenty of Mother's Days when I wasn't thankful enough, when we kids tried to plan a special mother's day and instead it left a big mess for Mom to clean up. 

I'm really grateful for my mother. 

And I get to see her next week!

Selfish

Since the beginning of the year, I've been blogging like a whirlwind, but these past few weeks, I've had my writing soul sucked out as I deal with children complications.
And I really don't want to write about them. I'm tired of thinking about them.
I'd like to just be selfish for a little while.
I have one more class to teach on Friday night and then I'm going to take some me time this weekend.
Do you ever take time for you?
What kinds of ways do you spoil yourself?

Reviews

As a writer, I've kind of girded myself for tough reviews. I peer at them with my eyes squinted shut as if it can save me from the pain of hurtful words.
And nice reviews make me feel happy, but the reviews for I See London I See France, my latest novel,
thrill me because I feel like my writing might actually be making a difference. People are connecting with my character and the feelings of the character.
This review on Suko's Notebook almost brought me to tears.

The main character shares her private thoughts about sex and ruminations about romance in a way that's bound to resonate with many women, and I appreciated her candor....Caroline realizes that she must tend to her own needs as well as those of her children, and that it's up to her to discover a passion, her passion, outside of her children, which will bring her personal fulfillment and happiness.  I read this book quickly--not because I was on a deadline to post my review, but because I was eager to know how things turned out for Caroline.  I cared about this character.  Although she's not perfect, she loves her children, fiercely, and she does think about what's best for them.  Caroline seemed like someone I'd want to be friends with in real life.  Paulita Kincer's writing brought Caroline and her story to life.

Here I am with my three kids in France.

And, I thought, yes. That's exactly what I want people to understand, not just about the character, but about mothers raising children.

I also really enjoyed the review on I Am Indeed.

I think I enjoyed this story mainly because I wanted to have the courage that Caroline showed: chucking it all in and heading to Europe to just travel  and escape the reality of a situation at home that feels untenable. ...While I often wondered at just how she managed to pack kids and head off to Europe with a loosely defined itinerary, I also was able to see that perhaps Caroline was much more passive in her life, waiting for decisions to be made for her, instead of making those choices. During her trek, she had the opportunity, and took the chance to confront that more passive approach to life, allowing herself to be subjugated and last in the equation.  While not always comfortable, her growth and willingness to take accountability for the situation she is in, as well as the steps needed to make a change that will decide the next decade of her life was the perfect climax point for her story, and made the ending all that more satisfying. 

I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing nice things about my characters or my writing.
How can you top a line like this from the review on Mommasez?

Kincer writes Caroline’s tale of mid-life crisis with a light-handed realism that will make many women think that Kincer has read their diaries. 

I mean, does it get any better than that? I can definitely see that on a book jacket.

And on the blog Making My Mark, the author writes:

As the story progressed so did Caroline. She started off beaten and slowly but surely she came into her own. The evolution of Caroline as a woman is fascinating and inspiring. But can she discover what she was looking for? I won’t spoil it for you. But I will say, read the book to find out. Who knows, you may learn something about yourself.

Maybe this second  novel is better than my first was. Maybe it has simply found a more fitting niche of readers. Either way, I'm finding reviews much more enjoyable this time around.
Most of these reviews have ebook or paperback giveaways if you want to click on them and get a chance to win a copy of my new novel. Hope you all love it.

My Hiatus With Grace

I haven't updated everyone on my daughter Grace. If you read my blog, you know that I'm crazy about my daughter. She just turned 21 and she's a junior in college. Last year she traveled to France for three months and made huge leaps in language and independence.
Grace started college in the fall of 2010 at St. Lawrence University, up by the St. Lawrence seaway in New York -- 10 hours from home. Some parts of St. Lawrence she loved; some parts were rough. Last fall, as she struggled, not with classes, but with little sleep, not eating correctly, sorority rush, and sorority house living, it became clear that she was not thriving in this environment.
She would call me in tears more days than not.
We began to struggle with the idea of having her transfer to a college closer to home, and when she came home for Christmas break, she stayed.

She's taking classes now at the college where I teach and planning where she'll finish college, someplace within an hour of home. She just finished acting in a community theater musical and she did the makeup for the college performance. She has a job at a French restaurant and still goes salsa dancing on Friday nights. She's dating a guy she met at salsa, and flirting with a guy from acting class. Other than her own place and her own car, she's living a pretty typical college life.
And I just want to say, even though this hiatus can't last forever, I'm loving it.
We've watched The Bachelor together and now we've started watching The Amazing Race. She comes to campus with me and hangs out between classes. We go to youtube and laugh at the songs which incorporate the screaming goats that sound like humans.
She rolls her eyes with me when my teenage son is surly or rude.
She's the one I want to tell first when something exciting happens with my book or the one I turn to when I want to complain about work.

I know Grace will go on to have her own, separate, exciting life, but I'm so glad for this brief reprieve that I get to share with her.

Last Dance...Last Chance

Tonight was the Spring Fling -- a mother son, father daughter dance for the seniors in Spencer's class. We had a nice dinner then dance, which Spencer admitted was awkward, but he got out there and moved around on the floor with me a little.

As we walked in the door at home, I was humming that song: Last Dance, last chance for love... and I got to the next part, which is a little more true for me and Spencer. "I need you by me, beside me to guide me..." or at least that's what I imagine to be true for Spencer.
But he's fairly autonomous. He'll be okay as he goes far away to school in Florida. I'll miss him though.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- What Came First

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm back to entertaining, escapist books now that I'm teaching full tilt again. I just picked up What Came First by Carol Snow. Here's the first paragraph:

The chickens are getting restless.
It is just past sunrise on a chilly Saturday morning in January, and insomnia kept my brain whirring until after two a.m. Now all I want to do is stay buried under my hypoallergenic faux-down comforter and return to the dream that is already slipping away.
But the chickens have other ideas -- assuming their primitive little brains are capable of anything that can be termed an idea.

Hmmm. The opening doesn't seem to offer much, but I kept going and the book is pretty entertaining. It follows three women who used the same sperm donor to father their children for various reasons.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Here's my teaser from page 140:

He said good night and turned to go.
I said, "Wait." I was going to ask him if he wanted my phone number. Instead I kissed him. We held each other for a long, long time and then exchanged phone numbers. Later I asked him why he hadn't asked for mine in the first place. Was he just going to walk away and forget about me? He said he'd been planning to find me in the Sears houseware department the next day. He was going to buy some pots and pans and then ask if he could make me dinner. How weird: Eric's most romantic gesture is something he never actually did.

Being Unkind

Being mean to someone is more work than you would think.
It's not something I normally do, so maybe I'm just out of practice.
Here's the story, this summer, Spencer and some of his friends got in trouble. His friend Danny didn't have any consequences for the actions and the mother told me she had encouraged Danny to be a better influence on Spencer, which made me crazy, because he was doing the same things that Spencer was, but he lied to his mom about it.
So this summer, when the mom came up to me and put her arm around me, I said that I couldn't talk to her then. I was still mad that she fell for Danny's BS.
What I discovered through the summer and fall, was that it is kind of nice to not be talking to this mother. She has ADD and talks incessantly. She gossips about all the kids in the high school and she doesn't understand limits. I'm constantly having to say, "You're in my space" when she moves in too close, or "We were in the middle of a conversation" when she walks up and starts talking. So that can get kind of tiring.
The mother of another boy and I had planned to ride to a basketball game together Friday night. I got a message from Danny's mom saying "Can I ride with you to the game?"
We were leaving in about 20 minutes and I had looked forward to spending time with the other mother. I simply ignored the text.
Well, about half an hour into the game, Danny's mom arrived and sat by us.
The other mother isn't as good about setting limits. She had even complained that Danny's mom had ridden with her to most of the soccer games and she tried to leave town early to avoid her, but she couldn't bring herself to say no.
At one point, the other mother and I were talking about her brother who is going to New York for Thanksgiving when Danny's mom jumped in: "Now who was this? What was happening?" Aaargh. See how annoying that is?
So I left without having made eye contact or talking to Danny's mom.
I don't think I can keep it up through the whole basketball season though.
So what should I do? Simply accept the fact that she's going to glom onto us throughout the season and put up with it.
Lay out some boundaries, like "you can ride with us to every other away game but not every time."
Point out that she is very annoying the way she talks constantly and interrupts people?
My running friends said I was being too harsh, but she really doesn't get boundaries unless they are clearly stated.

The Color Purple

Purple is the color I look best in. I know this because every time I wear purple, and I mean every time, someone says, "That color looks great on you."
They don't say it when I wear red or pink or coral, other colors that I also think complement my coloring.
On Sunday, I was trying on shirts in the dressing room. I don't know about you, but I don't look in the mirror of the dressing room while I'm trying on the clothes. I wait until I get dressed then take a look. I put on a heather purple shirt with a vneck and some details around the v. I turned toward the mirror and my face seemed lit up. Wow. That color looks great on me, I thought.
I tried the exact same shirt on in a heather red and it didn't do anything for me. So I bought the purple.
Maybe I notice that people say I look good in purple because they don't see me wear it that often.
Now you're thinking, "Wait, if purple looks good on you, why don't you wear it very often?" It's because my mom co-opted the color purple when I was a sophomore in high school.
It seemed a small thing to give up.
When I was a sophomore, I was just coming out of my really bratty middle school phase. I began to enjoy being with my mother again. I'm not sure why I remember this so specifically, but we were walking in the Towne Mall in Middletown, Ohio, and we were probably shopping at Paul Harris. (Does anyone else remember that store?) We also frequented The Limited. And, at one of those places, we bought a wool skirt in three colors of purple, plus a solid purple cotton sweater for me.
My mom loved that outfit, and slowly, purple began to creep into her wardrobe too.
Now, many, many years after my sophomore year of high school, my mom wears purple everyday. Most everything in her closet is purple or goes with purple. She was known as the lady who wears purple long before it became the popular color for retired women to wear.
I never take any purple clothes with me when I go to visit my mom in Florida. If I were to wear purple, her friends would definitely comment on the fact that I'm just like my mother. So I avoid purple most of the time, but sometimes it creeps into my wardrobe, and I don't mind at all when people say I look just like my mother, whether I wear purple or not.

Treasuring Memories of Mom

Today is Mother's Day. I'm not sure why we decided to have a day to honor mothers. In a lot of societies, mothers are revered every day. Here, I think it kind of depends on how much respect a mother demands.
For me, even though Earl declared it Mother's Day weekend, starting Friday with lunch out, I've felt a little lonely for my mother, who lives in Florida, and for my daughter, who's at college in New York.
Don't get me wrong. I've been wined and dined and gifted. When one of my sons woke me at 3 a.m. after a bad dream, he remembered to tell me Happy Mother's Day in the middle of the night. I got flowers from my daughter, good smelling Aveda products from my husband and sons, and a mustard-yellow fondue pot from my oldest son who went to the garage sales yesterday. I had coffee with friends, went to a writing conference, attended dance class with my husband and stopped for drinks on an outdoor terrace in the sunshine. I have no reason to complain about the amount of attention I received on Mother's Day.
I have been thinking, however, about what makes a good mother. Some days, I know I'm a good mother. Other days, I don't quite reach that high bar.
What I have decided is that everything good I know about being a mother, I learned from my mother.

Here she is young and in love with my dad.

Some of the snapshots I have in my mind are the tough times my mom overcame, raising four little kids and crying into a dish towel. Then I think of her jumping rope with us in the slanted driveway with her teased hairdo.
She finished college while raising four children. She worked full time as a teacher. She took kids to baseball and basketball and brownies. I remember every time she raised her voice at us, because it happened so rarely.
I remember my mom being calm, and mostly loving us more than anything else. And that's what I tried to give my kids.

Here's a picture of mom and dad with my two brothers and me at Christmas time.

I haven't always been the best wife, and sometimes I've jumped off the cliff of crazy mothering, but most of the time, I've tried to accept my kids for who they are and let them know that I love them.
This mom experiment is still under way for me, but for my mom, I just want you to know that you did a great job. I always felt loved. I always felt that no matter how I messed up, I could talk to you about and you would tell me that everything would turn out okay. And it has.
Thanks, Mom.

Stormy Fifteen

Last night, after dropping Tucker at swim practice, my eyes blurry with tears, I planned the blog post I would write. He turns 15 today and our relationship is stormy.
As a child, he loved me most ferociously. No one else would do for Tuck. He had to have Mama.
Now as a teenager, he hates with an equal passion.
Oh, I know that this will pass. I know he is marching toward an adulthood where his strength will be an asset, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with him now.
I see him wince at every word I say. Any suggestion, any observation, any witticism is like a dagger in his teenage heart.
I spent the day shopping for the list of clothes he requested for his birthday, entering stores where the music is too loud, the lights are low and the scent of cologne burns the inside of my nose.

As he berated me on the drive to swim team, he couldn't know that I had skipped the Statehouse Rally to make his birthday special.
Earl called me as he walked past the rally on his way to work. People chanted. Bands played.
"Those are for people who don't have a kid having a birthday tomorrow," I explained to him as I walked past the Cinnabon inhaling deeply.

He also had no clue that his girlfriend and I were coordinating a surprise birthday party.

So all of those thoughts were racing through my brain as I went back home. I helped Grace with a French project by phone and nearly fell asleep before it was time to pick Tucker up from swim practice.
He got in the car and I decided to begin my birthday present to him. Silence. I would make no comments that would make him cringe. I would say nothing for most of the day.
"What's wrong? You okay? You tired?" he asked after a minute of silence.
So I broke my silence to say I was fine.

"You know, it's amazing how much better I feel after some exercise," he said.
Don't even get me started. I wanted to bat him upside the head. But I went back to silence instead.
I'll take the good mood when it comes and check out the sky for a blue moon while I'm at it.

Shoes and SAD

This week, I bought two new pairs of shoes. Now, that isn't like me. I am definitely not a clothes horse. My husband even pointed out recently that I am nothing like those women on House Hunters who complain about the size of the walk-in closet and say laughingly, "Well, I don't know where he'll put his clothes."
What spurred me to buy new shoes was my walk to the coffee shop with my computer. My winter boots are warm and furry, but they are not made for walking miles.
I don't want to wear hiking boots, which make me feel like a lumberjack, so I tromped off to Macys that day after I walked to the coffee shop. And, for you judgers, yes, that is the only day I have actually walked to the coffee shop -- so far.
However, I have exercised every day, except Wednesday, which is (coincidence or no?) the day that I fell into SAD.
Seasonal Affective Disorder hits people in the winter, however my SAD, Son Affective Disorder, can hit year round and usually does.
I realize that I'm a mother and mother's are supposed to give selflessly, never expecting anything in return, and most of the time I'm fine with that. Sometimes though, I snap.
The day began at 7 a.m. when I picked up bagels for the basketball team. Not my basketball team, mind you, but my son's basketball team. Then, because he couldn't get the ice off the inside of his windshield, at 7:15, I drove him and his friend to basketball with the bagels and the gallon of chocolate milk. At 7:45 I drove Tucker to school.
At 8:15 the swim coach called and I talked to her for half an hour (see the previous post). At 10:30 I took Tucker to the eye doctor and at 12 we drove through Subway to get him lunch before I returned him to school, only to pick him up again at 3.
"Mind if I run up to the grocery store to get sour cream?" I asked him. It was a rhetorical question. I was going to the store anyway.
"Only if you get me chocolate milk," he said. (What is it with teenage boys and chocolate milk?)
So we started driving and Tucker began the latest litany of the ways I have embarassed him and how I need to change. "At that other eye doctor, when you laughed, it was obvious you were mad," he said.
"Yeah, well, I was mad. I wasn't trying to hide it."
"Well, why do you laugh then? You always do that and it's so obvious."
I turned the car down a side street and took him home. How long are we expected to sit and list to our shortcomings?
"I'm not perfect and neither are you," I told him. "Some day..." well, you know how the rest of that sentence goes.
Home from the grocery, I prepared for the class I teach Wednesday night.

"Spencer," I called.
"What?" he reluctantly responded and came up the basement stairs.
I told him that his aunt and uncle would be at the basketball game that night since neither Earl nor I could be there.
"After you guys go in the locker room, go back out and talk to Uncle Jim and Aunt Vicky."
"What? Why? Why does this have to be such a big deal? Why can't I take a shower first?" said my ungrateful elder son who ended up getting a free meal when the aunt and uncle took him out to dinner.
They were doing us a favor. I hate it when my kids have sports events and no parents to watch them. Spencer, now 17, needs to show a little more gratitude.
So feeling like I'm raising selfish teenagers (which I am) I left for class. I stopped to get a mocha hoping it would dispel my SAD. Then I tried a Peppermint Pattie. Alas. The SAD remained.
This morning, as I slipped on my new shoes and left for work, I stopped at Starbucks for one more try to kick the SAD. The sun was shining; the thermometer hovered at 1 degree. Finally, the double shot of espresso mixed with white chocolate launched me out of SAD.
And the new shoes made me feel better too.
The black shoes are by Born. I love the way they look from this angle, which is the angle I see them at the most. At least twice before I travelled to France I bought Born shoes. They last forever and are great for walking, plus dressy enough to wear to work.
The other pair I bought are by Jambu. That's the same brand that I bought last spring before Earl and I visited Paris. Last spring though they were wedge sandals in patent leather. This year, obviously, slip-on, sporty shoes. They still have a bit of a heel and will be perfect the next time I walk to the coffee shop, which should be when the thermometer rises above 35.

Homecoming

Grace and Earl are driving through the night right now on their way home. Grace has a week off for Thanksgiving.
Her sheets are clean and the blankets are folded back on her bed.
I can't remember what it was like when I came home from college. I think I was so caught up in spending time with my friends that I probably didn't even notice the comfort of being home.
I hope that when Grace walks through the door at home she feels the same way that I do now when I walk in my parents' house, no matter what house they live in -- Ohio, Kentucky or Florida. Of course, as an adult and as a mother, walking in my parents' house has always felt like a shedding of the weight that I carry on my shoulders. Whoosh! All the responsibility melts away and I'm a duaghter again instead of a wife, mother, teacher, writer.
I joked with the students in my class last night that I imagined we might spend the entire week with me on the courch and Grace's head on my lap.
But that's a fantasy too, since I'll be in bed when she gets home and then I'm off to a swim meet at 6:30 a.m. before a basketball scrimmage at 10 and... well, it's a typical weekend at our house. There will be little time to sit with her head resting in my lap.
Still, just having her at home makes everything feel a little more secure.

She's Fine

I talked to my husband Sunday morning.
"So what are you guys going to do today?"
"Nothing," I said. "Same thing as last night. We're doing nothing."
I think this was a mystery to him. He probably pictured hiking and spending time delving into buildings on campus. Checking out the nearby rivers and locks.
My visit to Grace at college wasn't about sightseeing or shopping. It was only about spending some time together.
That's why when I picked her up at her dorm, after hanging out for awhile to meet some of the people, I whisked her away to a hotel where we plopped on the bed, turned on the football game and talked. She leafed through People magazine, reaching over to hold my hand occasionally.

Slowly, the good and the bad came out, covering the three weeks we had been apart.
We spent the 22 hours together just talking except when we slept. She doesn't have a television at college, so after the football game I let her surf. She put on Cake Boss and took out the knitting that I had brought to her. She started making a scarf in her new school colors.
We looked at the blogs of mutual friends and Facebook statuses. And we talked some more.
She has landed pretty well. She got a great roommate who makes her hot cocoa when she's melting down and brings her goggles over to the pool when she forgets them. She has some terrific friends who spend their weekends performing at the talent shows and keeping an eye on the drunk people who stumble in. She loves most of her classes.
She's just having a hard time leaving behind this group of friends, and family. Now, she admits, if she came home, she'd miss the group of friends at college.
Loving both sets of friends is how it should feel. Missing the old, but embracing the new.
In the parking lot, as I prepared to leave, she held onto me tight and cried. But she didn't cry as hard or as long as last time

Buttons

When I was a little girl, my mother had a big coffee can filled with buttons. They were all those left over buttons that had come off clothing and all the buttons that she bought on the card of four or six from the store that weren't needed on sewing projects. I loved to dump out that can full of buttons and sort through them.
The feeling of the buttons running through my fingers was magical. And then I did what kids do naturally -- I sorted them according to size, according to color, according to shape. It's a natural Montessori lesson.
So, as an adult, I, of course, have a coffee can full of buttons too.
My grandmother, on my father's side, has a gorgeous rose-colored vase -- not really a vase, more like a glass container that stands on the floor then narrows as it rises and comes up to my waist that she filled with buttons. When my grandmother asked my mother if there was anything she would like from the house, my mom said she would like the vase with the buttons. My grandmother said she could have the vase but not the buttons. I think part of the allure of this vase/container was the buttons. My mom wanted the buttons too. I'm not sure whatever happened in this saga. Perhaps the container is still at my grandmother's house in Kentucky. She's 93.
This morning I had to look through my coffee can full of buttons for a button to go on Spencer's cargo shorts. His button had disintegrated in the middle. I wasn't worried, I knew I would find a button the right size that was compatible with the khaki shorts.
I did and sewed it on, but I couldn't resist playing with the buttons some. Even though the buttons are mine, I don't know where most of them came from.
What about this furry button?
Did I ever wear anything that had this button? I don't think so.
I picked out the tiny buttons, so small that I'm glad I don't need to sew them on anything right now.
I put a dime in the picture for comparison to show how tiny they are.
I found some cloth covered buttons. These are pretty specialized and I can't imagine that I'll use them ever again, but you never know.
And some buttons shine like jewels.
Maybe they should be made into jewelry and I could wear them around my neck. Maybe buttons should be interchangeable and I should be able to snap them on different blouses according to my mood that day.

Cougars are Mothers Too

We were talking last week after the Emmy Awards. One of the shows we enjoy, Modern Family, won awards. Spencer said he preferred the show CougarTown which comes on after Modern Family.
Courtney Cox stars in CougarTown. She's in her 40s (early 40s), is divorced, and has an 18-year-old son. She is, of course, surrounded by zany characters, including her ex-husband.
I was trying to pin down what Spencer liked about the show. Is it the ex-husband and the 18-year-old son?
He thought maybe because Courtney Cox reminds him of Friends, which is a show he likes.
"I can't really picture Courtney Cox as the mother of a teenager," I protested.
"To me, she just looks like a mom," Spencer said.
"Really?" I asked. "Whose mom do you know who looks like that? Think about your friends. Do any of their moms look like Courtney Cox?"
Tucker piped up. "Yeah, she looks like Cathy J."
My friend Cathy has five kids. We used to homeschool together until she sent her three oldest to school so she could raise the younger two. We still go to church together and taught religious ed together until I bailed on that a couple years ago.
I wonder if she would consider it a compliment that my sons think she looks like Courtney Cox? I don't think she'd see it as a compliment to be compared to the sometimes flaky, wine-drinking characer on Cougartown.

Of Course

As if to prove me wrong in my past two blog posts, yesterday I managed to run 3.5 miles, work on my novel, exercise with Grace, make pancakes for Grace before she left for work and Spencer after he finished his workout at the gym. Then I answered emails to my students and planned my next class. I successfully wore all my hats, although my husband, who did laundry and moved a new refrigerator into the basement, may point out that I didn't play the role of wife very well. Today, I'm just tired and going to get to work on grading papers.
My other blog post, reminiscing about those chubby little hands, was put to rest when both of my boys were incredibly surly rather than snuggly. They both got grounded in the space of 10 minutes as they sniped at the rest of the family. Of course, this was as we were planning family night -- enforced time together.
All three of the kids requested an at-home family night. I think they were afraid we'd plan another 22-mile bike ride. We talked about dinner and renting a movie. Grace was scheduled to work until 5. In the middle of the afternoon, a thunderstorm came through so she walked in the door at 3. Shortly thereafter, we lost power. We opened the windows and the air outside that had cooled during the thunderstorm quickly heated back up into the 80s so we had a nice sauna effect.
I looked through the newspapers for a movie we could all agree on. At least it would be cool in the theater. No concensus.
So I made dinner early, goat cheese pasta with peas and ham. Sitting around the dinner table, we were sweltering. I grabbed a section of the newspaper to fan myself. Earl remembered the hand fans we had at our outdoor wedding, little paper fans shaped like palm fronds on wooden sticks. He got one for each of us and we sat at the dinner table fanning ourselves in the heat. Well, Tucker, in a snit about something, had already abandoned the dining room for the couch.
We talked about walking to the ice cream shop downtown, but the kids protested. The car had air conditioning.
"Couldn't we just drive around in the car and listen to Harry Potter?" Spencer asked. We all still love the Harry Potter CDs.
We drove to get ice cream then, ever the optimists, decided to rent a movie in case the electricity came back on.
I stood outside the grocery store waiting in line for the Redbox Video rental. It began to rain. Thunder rumbled. Lightning struck close enough to make me jump. Still, I valiantly waited for the video. (Where are all the heroes today? People willing to brave a lightning strike for a good movie?)
I got Men Who Stare at Goats and when we returned home, the power was back on! We closed the windows and turned on the air conditioning. We're becoming such typical Americans. We used to go most of the summer without air conditioning so I could leave the windows open and hear the kids playing outside. Now they don't play outside.
No complaints from the movie. Everyone stayed to watch, but family night broke up early after that. I went to bed, Grace went out with friends and the boys headed to the basement of entertainment -- XBox and computer games.

Motherhood Changes Everything

I was working tonight in a tutoring session with a couple of other teachers. One of them is in her 20s, recently married. The other, a single man in his late 40s, was wondering how to handle a situation where a woman left his class repeatedly to take cell phone calls. She said she had to answer her phone because her son was epileptic and the school might try to reach her.
This could be a reason why she needed to check to see who was calling her, but the school probably hadn't called her twice during that hour. The male teacher wondered what he should do about it.
The earnest young teacher turned to me first and asked, "Do you have kids?"
I said yes and she said, "I will probably offend you then."
She turned to the other teacher and said, "I would tell that woman that having kids is her hobby and not my problem."
I was biting my lip to keep from laughing. I wonder if I ever felt that having kids was a "hobby."
This woman was so sure that she was right. Her students' personal problems, even if it was epileptic children, had nothing to do with her.
I remember talking to another teacher who now has two young children. She lamented that she had been so unfeeling toward her students who were single mothers who worked fulltime and took care of their children.
I told the young teacher, "Someday, you'll look back and cringe that you said having children was a hobby."
She didn't believe me.
That's okay.
Was I ever that naive about being a parent? Probably. The more vehement they are, the harder they'll fall when they have their own kids.
BTW, I don't allow my students to leave in the middle of class for cell phone calls either, but not because I don't respect their dedication to their children.
It's disrupting to the class.
"If you have to take a call, just take your things with you and go," I tell them so you don't interrupt the class again by coming back in.

Long-Distant Reassurance

Being a mom far away from the happenings doesn't remove the stress.
6:16 a.m. Earl texts: "Grace is up and getting ready. Seems OK."
I reply to him then message her:
6:18 a.m. "You can do this. It's what you are good at. Your talent. Well -- one of your talents."
That's a take off of a David Sedaris story that always makes us laugh. He and his mother overheard someone talking about their house being on the garden tour, "Well, one of our houses," the woman laughed. And he was amazed at the insouciant manner that she could throw in the extra house. I knew it would make Grace lighten up.
6:59 a.m. Grace replies: "Haha! Thanks mom i love you.
6:59 a.m. I text: "I love u too."
7:47 a.m. Grace texts: "Issue...difficult to get my warmup suit on. What am I going to do with my fast one? Im scared and tired and need you."
That fast swim suit is a bitch to get on. It takes careful tugging and pulling, like trying to stretch delicate faberge eggs over your entire body. It is worse than the smallest pantyhose or girdle. Luckily, they have been made illegal as of Dec. 1, so only a few more months to wear it.
Each time Grace has worn it, I've stood outside the bathroom stall and sometimes inside the stall, helping her tug it into place. Not this time. She's on her own.
7:50 a.m. I reply: "Pull it up high on your calves to start. Borrow plastic bags for your feet."
The plastic bags help the foot slide through the tight opening.
7:54 a.m. "Ugh. Maman im scared and tired. Im so nervous. i wish you were here.
7:55 a.m. I tell Grace: "You can do this. It's just a swim meet."
7:57 a.m. "A big swim meet. I miss you. Need a hug. Can't go upstairs."
7:57 a.m. I reply: "Just do it. GO"
8:01 a.m. Grace texts: "Hmmm! I love you
8:03 a.m. I reassure her: "YOU ARE THE BEST"
8:04 a.m. "Ok"
9:02 a.m. Grace texts: "Got my suit on. Going up to see dad."
9:05 a.m. "Yea!"
What a relief. When she put that suit on at championships, it was so hot in the bathroom I thought we were both going to pass out. She got blisters on her fingers from pulling it up. I knew things would be better once she was dressed.
9:50 a.m. Grace texts: "They're streaming live from swimnetwork.com if you can/want to listen to us..."
9:50 a.m. as I'm walking toward the class I have to teach: "Awesome. What time?"
She tells me 11:50 and asks whether I'll be in class.
9:52 a.m. "Not at 11:50. I will watch."
9:54 a.m. She replies from the pool deck:"Yay!"
So I let class out a little early and zoom home. I call ahead and ask Tucker to find the website. They're running about a half hour behind, so I have time to call my parents and help them figure out where to watch for her.
12:12 p.m. The stress is rising again for Grace: "Are you home?"
12:13 p.m "Yep. Watching. How many events before you?"
She told me there were two more events so I sat in front of the computer screen. Spencer pulled up a chair and I stayed on the phone with my parents. My mother was getting ready to run to the hair salon. She brushed her teeth, hurrying back to the computer just before Grace's relay.
I saw the backstroker jump in the water with her little flourish, pulling her knees up high. And they were off, at the top of the screen. They were first or second the whole way in backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and then Grace dived in the pool. I watched her long arms, a blur on the computer screen, spin in the water. I couldn't see her face or tell if she turned her head to breath. And from the angle of the camera I couldn't see if she finished first or second, but she had done it. She had swum at the national meet.
12:49 p.m. I texted: "Great job. I watched u the whole way. Nena and Gran watched too."
1:17 p.m. "Aw really! Thank you i love you guys. It felt awesome. And of course now that its too late, i swam the cut for the 50."
1:18 p.m. I replied: "Nice. This fall"
1:25 p.m. "Oh yeah"
She called later and told me that their time was fast enough to qualify for winter nationals next year in Ft. Lauderdale and summer nationals next year. This time, I'm definitely going. Handling the mom thing is so much easier in person than by text message.

Teenage Influence a la francais

I didn't run this morning because I was up at 5:30 working on a French essay. Oh, you didn't know I was studying French? That's because I'm not.
I was helping my daughter with her French essay. I'm pretty rusty in French. I can make myself understood, but the writing and getting all of those le and la and de and des in the correct place is a little sketchy for me. I sent the essay to my friend Clare, who teaches French, last night without even reading it through. The glance at the essay haunted me through the night and called me to the computer early. She had used conditional tense when she should have used future tense. We worked for over an hour on the essay, but it still has many mistakes. I discovered later that the email to Clare had bounced back.
After I dropped the kids off at school, I drove to the library to return some overdue books and thought I'd run when I got back home. That's when I got the urgent text message. "Email project to Mr. Hecker asap. Can't find flash drive."
The flash drive held the powerpoint project on the book SeaBiscuit that she finished at 10 last night. I'd reminded her twice to get the flashdrive before we left the house.
If I hadn't gone to the library, I would have been on a run without my phone when she texted. As it was, I was across town, driving home from the library and she would have to wait until I got home to send it.
I didn't run after I sent the essay because a heavy fatigue had settled on my shoulders. I unloaded the dishwasher and made a cup of tea, ready to read the newspaper when the chimney guy walked up the back sidewalk and said he would start putting up scaffolding.

I suppose people are tired of reading complaints about my children. Truthfully, I'm tired of complaining.
I let the whining children ruin my morning. They kept me from a run that would have helped my mood and my health. I need to be responsible for myself and rise above their squabbles. That's why I'm going out the door now for a run.
Oh, did I mention I confiscated Tucker's phone this morning too. I'll save that for another post. Or maybe I'll just let it go while I'm running rather than boring you all.