I remember plastic bobbled ponytails and faded iron on t-shirts and socks with colored bands around my calves.
I remember dancing with my friend in front of her record player, the Bee Gees pumping night fever, night fever, we know how to do it. And collapsing into bean bags chairs, gulping down Kool Aid out of sticky McDonald’s glasses.
I remember roller skating, crunching over sandy sidewalks, rolling around and around the playground while my brother pushed his cars in the sandbox.
I remember cramming into the back of my parent’s station wagon with friends, a faded green swimsuit, powdered rubber swim caps, piling and pushing each other out and lining up in front of a freezing swimming pool.
I remember testing out a quick kiss with a boy named Matt under the jungle gym and wondering what the big deal was.
I remember speeding through the neighborhood on a banana seat bike with glittery orange and pink fringe whipping in the wind from the tips of my handlebars.
I remember car trips and train trips and camping with my family. I remember Disneyland and climbing trees and learning how to dive under waves at the ocean. I remember figuring out how to wash my own hair and standing on a chair backed up to the sink helping my mother wash dishes. I remember asking if driving a car was fun and what it felt like to be tall. I remember believing in the Easter Bunny and Santa, kind of.
I remember being seven.
And now my oldest child is turning seven.
I know memories are being created and carefully slotted into his mind everyday. And I know I am charged with tending to his childhood, tilling his experiences, allowing him to grow and be and explore and eventually remember it all. Hopefully fondly.
But in a mind blowing, “this is the meaning of life” kind of way, my seven does not seem that long ago. Only a few years back even. The taste of Kool Aid and feel of ponytails and fun of climbing trees and trust and wonderment and identity of seven only just happened. It seems.
Yet now here’s his seven. His childhood has arrived.
This small boy who I gave birth to on a rainy May evening is now experiencing his world in ways that will create the person he will become. And while fighting off my own self indulgent tendencies to insist that I am still a child in fact and any child of mine could not possibly be… seven. While I’m doing plenty of that, I hold tight and steady myself. It’s on me to make sure that his seven counts. That these years are good years that he will look back on and laugh and wonder and ask who remembers Wii and the 2010 Tampa Rays and Little League and chocolate milk after school and popcorn during Friday night movies and swimming for hours at the local swimming pool.
His seven is right here, right now.
But my seven is still here too, reminding me what it means, what really matters, and insisting that I cherish all of what seven should be about.
I wonder. Has he ever heard the Bee Gees cranked at full volume? It may be time that he does.
I don’t claim to be much of a gardener. But by no means should that imply that I don’t love to garden. I’m not sure how it happened actually. I fought it for years, but it’s joy lay deep below, patient and waiting.
As a child, my mother had a garden plot a few blocks from our home. She piled my brother, myself and her garden tools into her station wagon and hauled us all over there. We didn’t particularly like going. We were bored. I would wander down the mulched paths in between stringed off gardens boasting lovely heads of lettuce, squash and snap peas lost in whichever fantasy I had currently replaying in my mind. My mother would call me back, and could I bring the wheel barrow over while I’m at it.
I remember the year she had grown so many tomatoes. Heaps and heaps of them. She was given a book about “Too Many Tomatoes” and set to canning. I remember the smell of vine ripened tomatoes and then stewing tomatoes. I didn’t even like tomatoes. There were just so many of them which she found very amusing and clucked on about daily. *Shrug* I was six. What did all of those tomatoes really matter.
When I finally moved into my first apartment with a little bit of land, I never expected to consider gardening. But as the cold months finally passed and green buds piqued the trees, something unfurled within. As if some gene which I had no control over had finally matured itself and pushed through. Maybe I should go pick up a few bulbs? Maybe a trowel. Maybe some better soil.
But I am missing the skill portion of this gardening gene. And so my first garden was a catastrophe. Bulbs had been placed too close together, enormous plants grew on too small a plot of land and then one flower took over like a weed and spread everywhere. Things were leaning, nothing matched, hopeful flowers were strangled and started dying. I forgot to water. What’s the difference between and annual and a perennial, I had no idea.
Years have passed and I have my own home now. Usually I tend to my small garden of children so I spend less time heeding my temptation to grow much outside. But I try every few months to make an effort with my garden. It is a Florida garden however with extreme heat and humidity and then occasional damaging freezes. We have horrid sandy topsoil which is regularly overturned and dug through by a local armadillo. And then there are hoards of fire ants ready to strike any flip-flopped foot that happens to misstep. I don’t know the names of what grows here so growing any of it is some version of garden Russian roulette. But I dig a hole, plant one in there and certainly try. Sure, only about 50% of what I have put in has had lived on with much success, but I try.
Today I put in sod. Last year our backyard was bulldozed suffered at the hand of a wild boar and five of her babies. The weeds whooped and hollered as they crowded in and took over. But today my husband and I trucked in slab after slab of sod and threw together a patch work of grass which we hope will make its mark and regain the upper hand. As we stood there coated in dirt and sweat, watering and stomping at the ground, I felt good. The dirt felt good. The soil and water and all of it combined in a muddy green grassy mass smelled divine. I am growing something.
A few weeks ago, I tentatively planted a tomato plant in a pot on my back porch. Because, you guessed it, I like tomatoes now. I adore them. I wish I could ask my mother how she did it but I would bet the care and the organic mulch and the specific zone she lived in had everything to do with it. Nevertheless, I am trying it. And so now I go out onto my porch everyday and stare at my plant. Would you believe one of those lovely papery tomato flowers bestowed a small gift the other day? Yes, a small green tomato has shown itself. I hardly have too many tomatoes – but I have one. One and maybe another as I tentatively water it’s soil and will the next papery flower to produce a friend.
There is a magic in growing. A small, dry seed can become something real and green, stalked and hardy. Soil and all of it’s rich substance anchors the potential of food and beauty and shade. Water. Have you ever seen what a good soaking rain will do to a garden? It all stretches to the sky and reaches and reaches. It greens and buds and flowers and creates fruit and color and hope.
Clearly, there is also therapy in gardening and growing. We lose ourselves, find our thoughts and enjoy this quiet peace while tending and tending and tending until it exhausts us. We place our attention on something which doesn’t take anything away. We find creativity in growth and life while reigning in and respecting all the possibilities of the natural world.
It is certainly no coincidence. I have snuck back into my garden because it offers a careful promise of life and hope. A promise I tend to, hoping my love of gardening which was passed on to me might actually heal me.
Its a phenomenon to be sure.
And again, it’s not one I claim to have much of a handle on. Don’t expect bright swaying trellises of bougainvillea and enormous bushels of Birds of Paradise or hearty fruit trees weighed down with orange treasures or even a lawn that grows one type of grass (as much as I lust for all of this). But you might expect a small tray of sunflowers poking their way up on the sunny side of the house. Or one clump of Bird of Paradise make a respectable run for it in the front yard. And a fairly successful patch of petunias keeping my mailbox company.
Oh yes and one small green tomato, which smells exactly like my mother’s garden plot. You’ll find me next to it, staring it down and finding pride in it’s possibility. I’m here remembering my mother and hoping to find all the same amusement and joy she plucked out of her own garden. And also, like my mother from 30 years prior overwhelmed by her harvest, I am here clucking on about my one dear tomato daily. Because this first tomato does matter.
Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.
Nothing spells out a fabulous day of preschool like a sweet little face covered with glitter.
While so trying so very often – I do adore this age. Where life is a curious and carefree collection of moments such as circle time, ABCs, sitting criss cross applesauce, line leaders, elmer’s glue, juice boxes, hand holding, being happy and you know it, peering at ladybugs, make-believe, washable crayons, swings and slides, freeze dance, squishing play-doh and falling into an exhausted heap at nap-time. They are old enough to have thoughtful conversations but still too young to be self conscious about any of it. They make wild leaps of logic with adorable statements such as a headache while eating an apple would be “apple brain” (as opposed to “brain freeze” while eating ice cream). They hum and swing their arms and live for the present – assuming there is not a bad thing in this world. They trust, they adore, they snuggle, they are much more than wee toddlers but hardly true, rough and tumble, “whatever, mom” kids yet.
Glitter on your face. Such is the wonderful world of a three year old.
(However, I will say that an enormous tantrum erupted from this child once I did try to wipe the glitter off before nap-time. Kicking and screaming and “No wipes! I NOT TIRED!!!!” and wrestling and wrangling until he was in his bed, clutching his bear and weeping about how I wasn’t being nice to him. So. This post was a therapeutic reminder of the glorious, gleeful glitteriness he was only an hour ago. I do adore him so.)
I had no idea. I guess I had vaguely seen brightly colored kinked plastic bracelets on kids in passing at Little League, at the grocery store, just around. I thought they were just some new kind of jelly bracelet. And something girls were into. I have two boys who have zero preference about what they wear EVER. So bracelets just weren’t on my radar screen.
Plus my six year old is kind of a serious, by the book, I want to do my own thing kind of kid. Peer pressure has yet to sway him too much.
But recently he has been untethering his independence. And shrugging on the language of a grown up kid.
“Mom that is so awesome, did you see that play? So cool. Dude.”
And I’ve been seeing him goof off in the dug out and wrestle his friends to the ground at the park and yell out the open car window at friends: “Hey! Ryan! Matthew G.! Hey you guys!!! Over here!”
This is nothing like my timid, skirt clinger who hid under a table for his first two months of preschool.
And this is a good thing.
But the other day, my boy watched a pack of kinky braceleted kids walk by. He turned and looked up at me.
“Mom. You know those Silly Bands?”
“Those what?”
“Silly Bands. …They’re cool.”
“Oh yeah?”
He had grabbed my attention. Because in my mind, my sweet boy was perpetually hiding under the world’s table, yet to really peer out. His teachers describe him as very quiet. A good boy. Bright, straight As, certainly the least of their concerns. But my husband and I always worry about how it all goes down with his peers. We fret over his “cool” factor. And were we doing anything at all to encourage or maintain it?
So these Silly Bands. They are indeed a new version of jelly bracelets but apparently every one of his friends wear them at school. And when you take them off, they make shapes. And sometimes glow in the dark. They’re cool. I guess.
“Do you want some too?”
“Yeah.”
So after dropping him off at school yesterday, I pulled up to Walgreens. Their digital billboard outside blinked that they had just received a new shipment of Silly Bands. Huh. Am I the LAST person to know about these things?
I walked in. I couldn’t find them. I walked up to the twice my aged cashier, half dozing on his stool. “I’m looking for these… um…” and started touching my wrists. Before I could spit out the word “bracelet”, he pointed me to a bin at his right.
“Silly Bands. Oh I know all about those. Fastest selling things in the store.”
Even the guy two times my age at Walgreens was more current than I am. Ok then. I grabbed two packs.
And while the “letter” ones I had picked out apparently aren’t as cool as the animals or other shaped ones, my six year old carefully put each colored band on. He practiced walked around the house, staring down at his wrists. He kept stopping, taking them off, arranging them in rows, and putting them back on. We made a special ziploc bag for them. We talked about which ones the other kids had. And this morning, he put them all back on. Coolness checked and rechecked, he stomped out the door, backpack bouncing behind him. And I caught him glance down at his wrists one more time before he was gone.
I should know better. I remember jelly bracelets and slap bands and garbage pail kids and sticker albums. I remember how badly I wanted to be able to have some reference of cool in first grade. I remember wanting to “get it”.
So while I’m not rushing out buying every Wii game the other kids have or electronic whatever just so my kid maintains his cool, I think investing a few bucks in some strange little plastic bracelets so my kid feels like he can be part of something is absolutely worth it.
I declared Sunday a Pajama Day. It was pouring rain, we didn’t need groceries, so we stayed in. And while cuddled together on the couch under a blanket in our pajamas, my six year old and I played on my husband’s iphone. He has an app on there that is something like Boggle. A random collection of letters are displayed on a grid and the player taps connected letters to make as many words as they can in a limited amount of time. He’s as good as I am: Dog. God. Wet. Stew. Scold. Cold. Weep. Pew. We kept making words and racking up the points. A fun innocent use of a Sunday afternoon, no?
During one particular round, he found a word first. He tapped out three connected letters:
S…E…X.
…..!!!!!
Insert my garbled, surprised laugh here.
“Um hon, do you even know what that means???”
He just giggled back at me. And kept punching out words.
And what did this very brilliant, oh so intuitive mother do? Nothing. I kept on playing too. And I stuck to a favorite parenting standby: ignore the obvious and maybe it will go away.
But of course I haven’t stopped thinking about it. He knows the word “sex”.
Granted, knowing the word and understanding the word are two different things. But he’s SIX! How does he know this word!?
What, was I born on the moon? He can read. Sex and the word sex is woven into our mainstream culture everywhere we go. And my kid happens to have one of those steel trap minds for words. He read very early, he aces spelling tests, he has always soaked in much more around him than he lets on.
I would bet if I asked him to spell the word tampon he’d get it right.
But would he know what it is? …Would he???
I’m thinking.
I don’t know. They’re sitting right there in my bathroom. They come with instructions after all…
Oh dear Lord. I am not ready for this. He’s SIX!
There is a part of me that wants to say something. You know, something very cool and collected like “If you ever want to know what the word sex means, let me know and we can talk about it.”
Ugh, no. NO! He’s six! Just because he knows this word, doesn’t mean he wants to understand its intricacies or all of its “ins and outs”. So to speak. He’s too young still. He just knew the word, that’s all. I mean I know we’re supposed to talk to our kids about sex early and – don’t get me wrong – I WOULD talk to him about it if he asked. I just feel like… he’s a wee innocent boy. He really isn’t ready for this, no more than I am.
*wringing my hands*
Yep. I’ll leave it be. For now. Just a couple more years. We’ll revisit this topic no later than eight. Yeah that’s about when you should kind of sort of know where a baby comes from right? That’s about when kids should have more than a vague idea that “mommies and daddies make them”. …I think.
(Cue flashback sequence: I was eight years old and over at a friend’s house. She and I were innocently playing Barbies on her bedroom floor when her older sister pranced in. Her sister had just started menstruating and, deeming herself a new expert on all topics below the belt, she decided to tell us allll about it. Later that afternoon, I remember walking home in stupefied haze, kicking stones, shaking my head the whole way. Of course I had to come face to face with those guilty of such deeds: my parents. So when I sat at dinner and they passed me the peas, what was my reaction? I let them have it. I spat at them “How could you??? How could you do… that???? That’s just… DISGUSTING!” Granted, I’m still not entirely convinced that they actually did do that. The stork was most likely involved with my brother and I – just in this one instance. But I digress.)
The lesson learned here is that these six year old eyes and ears are absorbing the world around them. (A shocking realization, I know.) And we can’t take for granted what they are sifting out or what they deem as “must know information” vs. “stuff grown ups worry about”. We can’t expect them to make that distinction. I have to be ready and I have to do what I can to introduce this crazy world at an appropriate speed.
That sounds responsible and about what a parent should do, right?
Now to actually apply that practically. To make sure my kid learns and sees and hears just about what he can handle without being cut off from the world or without protecting him too much…
We are two months past Christmas and in the meantime, my six year old has been losing teeth and growing them back in faster than I can start weeping “I remember when you were just a drooling, teething, gumming mess!” And thanks to all the pasteled cardboard bunnies decking the halls of my local Target, I have been reminded that Easter is right around the corner. So what does this mean?
A whole lot of lying to my kid.
Why?
Because within a span of a few months, I will have told my kid that yes, one more mysterious magical being will creep into our home and leave him things.
Santa.
How does he get in? The air vents? Why can’t we hear him? Do you promise he doesn’t come into my room?
The Tooth Fairy.
How big is she? Is she like Tinkerbell? Can she fly? How does she carry all this money and what does she do with all the teeth?
The Easter Bunny.
Does he lay these eggs? Does he like to eat plastic grass? Where does he come from? Why do I get jelly beans? What would the Tooth Fairy say?
And I come up with fascinating, complex responses to each of his questions. This year, I even managed to have the Tooth Fairy be in cahoots with Santa. If he does a good job brushing his teeth, she’ll let Santa know. His eyes were wide, considering all of this, hoping his rep remained in good standing for all of these magical home invaders.
And yet, those wondrous tales I weave? Lies. All of them.
Here I am trying to teach my six year old facts about the world. At school, he learns about gravity, liquids, solids, what floats, what sinks, where his nation’s capitol is and that Abraham Lincoln was our the 16th president. He helps me bake and bring his dishes back to the sink. He is learning responsibility and asks me questions about current events on the news. He is learning and processing and showing brief glimmers of (…I can hardly bare to consider it…) adulthood.
And then here I come along and throw in fat men squeezing into vents in our house (no “stranger danger” to worry about hon, I promise) and fairies flitting about dropping change and bunnies hopping through our home with an odd fetish for plastic grass.
It just feels a little… off.
But I try to back up and think of the six year old world I experienced some 30 odd years prior. I remember gleefully celebrating everything magical, fantastical and far from realistic. As fast as I learned about how serious and strange our world actually was, the hope of magic and fairies and gifts being left in the dead of night if I was a good girl absolutely appealed.
Because at six years old, magic still makes a lot of sense. Santa is about as real as some guy named Abraham Lincoln anyway. So let’s go with it.
But the guilt remains. I can’t help but feel like I’m lying. As much as he seems to enjoy these silly traditions…
Ok, wait. I’m lying again. He went through a faze at about 4 years old when the concept of some strange man coming into our home on Christmas Eve seemed more frightening than any spook left behind from Halloween. I promised he didn’t have to sit on his knee. I promised he wouldn’t go into his room. I promised that I was right down the hall. Yay for Christmas, isn’t this fun?
That has since passed. But during it all, I could not help but question why I had to shove this strange myth down his throat. Believe in Santa, damn it. After all, I believed – so YOU must too! Like some screwy rite of passage, you better be good for goodness sake.
And what will happen when my six year old learns about my litany of lies after all these years? Because what is all of this for? So that he can grasp onto some hope of magic only to have it dashed? I worry he will be so disappointed. Because he is wound deep into the tradition of it all now. He adores it all and takes it very seriously. I cringe a little while he solemnly places carrots for our reindeer in our driveway, making sure they are well fed for all their work. And then runs his pajama-ed feet back inside to find NORAD online and track Santa’s progress.
All of it is still so believable.
He believes because the barometer of all that is real and safe and ok – that would be yours truly, Mommy - said so.
Gawd, I am such a liar.
But there have been times where I have hinted that the magic isn’t there. I have forgotten to fill the advent calendar only to have him ask me to fill it, but could I do it when he’s not looking? He wants that candy to magically appear. And I have left the tooth fairy writing paper out, and the pen I used. He overlooks it. Maybe he didn’t connect the dots – or maybe he doesn’t want to.
I think I was close to ten years old before I was 100% sure there was no Santa. I held on for as long as I possibly could. I kept the faith, thinking the non-believers were totally losing out while I stubbornly bought into every last drop of Christmas magic. I knew that Santa and the Eater Bunny’s handwriting looked an awful lot like my parents. But I didn’t care. There were a lot of things we couldn’t explain, let’s just believe the magic is real.
And I think I still have to.
I need create magic for as long as he wants it. Because there is something special about believing. It fosters wonder and hope and possibility in their imaginations. If there is a tooth fairy hovering over my head, slipping change under my pillow, well anything seems possible, right?
Yeah.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed how I rationalize my lies. Yes, saying there is a Santa means my child will have a fantastic imagination. Awesome.
But I will continue with these traditions and routines. They are woven into our culture. Watching them believe brings us back to a time when we believed. And that feels ok and fun and, who cares, everyone enjoys it. So I’m ok with that.
But when my six year old puts it together that my handwriting is the same as Santa’s and the Tooth Fairy’s and the Easter Bunny’s, when he comes home telling me what they are all insisting on the playground, when he mourns the fact that all of this magic is just, you’ve got to be kidding me, his mom… well. I’ll be back on here. Oozing with guilt and parental self doubt.
Until then, I am wondering if the Easter Bunny should leave a new toothbrush too – a little something from his “cuz” the Tooth Fairy. With all of those anticipated jelly bellies, the Easter Bunny might need to encourage a little dental care too. Yep, let’s weave some guilt into my tale of lies. It just might work.
It’s Groundhog day! It’s my holiday. Cheers, a toast to me.
Well, its my holiday in the Groundhog Day MOVIE sense of the holiday. Do you remember that movie? With Bill Murray? From about 15ish years ago? I remember going to that movie with an old boyfriend. I thought the movie was kind of lame at the time. So did he. I don’t think I ever thought about that movie again. At least not for a long while.
However. Years later, this holiday – in the sense that it is in the movie – has become my day. And I am sure you can guess why. Or why any mother home with her kids might relate. Stuck in my own personal Groundhog Day, I wash the same damn dishes every day, I yell the same demands of “stop beating your brother on the head with a baseball bat” about the same time everyday, I ask daily that they eat their carrots, and pee in the potty, and pick up their underwear off the ground, and not slosh every drop of bathwater onto the floor, and stop jumping on the bed, and WIPE for God’s sake, and yes you DO need a nap, and look both ways. Its always the same. THE SAME. Everyday.
In some ways there is a certain comfort in it all. I know there is for my children. By nature, kids require adults to create predictable rhythms and army issue schedules which we can set our watches to. They need that routine. And parents abide. To a child, in an ever-changing world, that schedule is wholly welcome and needed and comforting. And who am I kidding – the guarantee that I will see my 6 year old at 3:45 everyday is assuring and wonderful and something I look forward to daily.
But while I look forward to 3:45pm, to see him bopping up to my car with his backpack on, it always seems that this day could be the same as the last or the day before or the next day coming. The same buses pass me on the way to school, the same cars line up and sit next to me in the car line, the same fights happen in the backseat on the way home.
Its Groundhog day. Everyday.
Ugh, so… do I really need to make a disclaimer here? And say that while this painfully predictable same same saaaame-ness in my daily schedule can be extraordinarily tedious… and even though I admit to that plainly here… even so, I do truly love being here for my children. Do I need to say that? I hope not. I hope it is clear that I cherish my time with my boys. Just because my job is mind numbing and exhausting, doesn’t mean I don’t love it. I know. It makes perfect sense.
But oh once just to throw nap schedules to the wind, to bust out of the car line, to not have dinner ready at 6pm. My children would be better off for some spontaneity now and then. Which we try to do. And succeed at now and again. But I will tell you this. While the crazy fun is exciting initially, they don’t do so well with unpredictability long term. And they are much easier to parent if they know what’s happening next. So the routine is a must. It allows them to grow, to flourish and to trust that their world around them is still the same and that dinner will be ready by 6pm, I promise.
But still. Happy Groundhog Day to me.
And if you forget to wish me a happy one today, well that’s ok.
So. I’m going to finally come out about it. I’ve been quiet for a long time figuring it was no matter, quite sure I’d lose some street cred for saying so anyway. But since I can never keep my trap shut for long… here it goes…
I’m into “Twilight”.
I’ve read the books. I own the movie. I play the soundtrack in the school car-line. And I’m going to “New Moon” as soon as it’s released and I can find a group of Twilight Moms to go with me.
Oh wait. Am I a Twilight Mom now?
And now I see Twilight Mom’s bristle everywhere. Is there anything WRONG with being a Twilight Mom? What am I really trying to say, huh? …What, am I like BETTER than Twilight Moms because I’ve been all closeted and snobby, claiming I’m not INTO teenage vampire books?
Yeah, no. Well. I just. I never thought I’d get into it. Before I even considered dipping my toe into the Twilight series, I joked it off sneering that “Twilight” simply HAD to suck without starring the two Coreys. (Yes, this was my sorry attempt at a humorous reference to the movie “The Lost Boys” which – ironically – I adored as a 14 year old angsty kid).
But then I picked up “Twilight” at an airport to read on the plane. I was indifferent about finally jumping in. *Shrug* it was something to do for three hours. Not expecting to really like it. But of course, I did. A lot. And I surprised myself. And now I just don’t know where that leaves me exactly.
I mean what IS IT about these books anyway?
The series follows the lives of kids half my age while re-introducing a familiar vampire premise (“vampire wants woman he can’t have”) that is as old as Edward himself (maybe older). And further, they are wrestling with moody, predictable teenage stuff that really should be soooo “1987″ for someone like me. AND. I have to say. The writing is only fine, not great, not unpublishable, but nothing to blow your socks off either. Just…eh… fine.
So what is it? Why was I so hooked on “New Moon” that I literally could not put it down for the entire 24 hour period it took to read? I actually found myself cooking, cleaning, *insert daily chore here* and reading at the same time. I would mumble that I’d be right back to my husband and steal away to read another chapter in my bathroom a secluded section of the house.
How could I be THAT drawn in?
Well, let me ask you another question which may answer the first question.
Do you know what really attracts me to this series? Yes, sure, the fantasy but I’ll get back to that point in a minute. And no, not Edward particularly either (cough, yeah RIGHT, cough) or Jacob (I’m old enough to be his mother, for the love of Pete…). Its the author, Stephanie Meyers, who has drawn me in.
Watch this interview of her. I honestly couldn’t believe my ears. Pay attention to the first portion of the interview which discusses how she began writing this book series. You should understand right away why I can relate.
She had never written a book before. She was just a stay at home mom. With three boys. Simply trying to get out the door everyday to swim lessons. And she took a kernel of an idea from a dream she had and turned it into all of this. She wrote 10 pages a day from her computer in her kitchen, while her children climbed over her lap and Blue Clues blasted on the television. A mother with no real experience, a mother who didn’t follow any of the rules, a mother who just loved to write made this entire Twilight thing happen practically over night.
Wow.
Do you understand how deeply that inspires me? That element alone has pulled me right in. How couldn’t I leap? While I also type away on my laptop within a swirling windstorm of boy activity and the theme of Wonder Pets as my Morningside Mom soundtrack, she has shown me the potential of what I could do as a writer. That maybe somehow its out there, within reach, if I do as she did and write, write, write. I’m awed and inspired, I tell you.
But also, let me get back to the fantasy part of what also pulls me (and so many other readers) in. Stephanie wrote this tale from her little corner of everyday life. Stephanie, like many women my age, has already met her life partner and is now living in the practical reality of “happily ever after”. I’m there too. Generally, we know how our lives will play out for the most part. Fairy tales are replaced by reading bank statements and report cards. Fantasy is saving up for a family trip to Myrtle Beach. The dreams and hopes and “what ifs” of every teen-aged girl are long past. And that’s ok. It’s called being a grown up.
But sometimes we miss the wonder and possibility of it all. It was kind of fun to be lost in some of that girly, dreamy crap. As a teen, such fantasies came as naturally to me as breathing. As a thirty six year old, maybe I need a book or four to prod me along a bit.
So Stephanie has dreamed up an escape that relates to teens but pulls Twilight Moms back to a time when the thrill of romance or possibility of adventure was more likely than your kids eating their vegetables. Its just an innocent, indulgent escape really. And for some of us, Twilight leaves us breathless, giggling, teenaged and transported. Caught in a place where the perfect writing technique doesn’t matter but a good heady story does. Escape. Possibility. Magic. Fralalala, Edward, and I don’t care.
And thus I have justified my attraction to a 17 year old vampire.
But let me also point out my feminist tendencies shift in their chairs a bit over this whole series. So excuse this sidebar while I say my piece. The whole “tracking a woman” (done by either wolf or vampire), coming after her, wanting her to such an obsessive degree, being unable to help themselves and too strong for their own good, sometimes hurting her even though they “love” her…. ugh. And she choosing to fall for a man who could hurt and kill her, putting her life second to “love”… well. Eh. The hunter versus the prey thing bugs me here. It just does. And I will leave it at that.
So.
Anyone else want to see “New Moon” with me next weekend?
If you knew me in the mid 80s, you would have known I was a die hard Michael Jackson fan.
Ok, well not maybe right away. I was extraordinarily awkward and hardly drew attention to myself in public. I had these horrid tinted glasses in big brown frames, a blond mop of usually unbrushed hair and teeth too big for my face. I was shy, I was insecure, I seemed made of glass and ready to shatter if a teacher called on me in 5th grade. I had friends of course, but usually I just hoped my catholic school uniform would act as camouflage, and I could just melt into the background.
So shouting to the world for all to hear that I was a Michael Jackson fan was extremely unlikely in those years.
But if you happened upon me back at home, downstairs in the security of my basement or up in my kitty postered bedroom – you would know that I adored Michael Jackson. Why? You’d hear why. My Thriller tape seemed perpetually on repeat on one of those small cassette tape players (you know the rectangle shaped ones with one speaker and big chunky buttons that you had to really push down on). I had his posters up too, next to the kitties. I had pins on my jacket. I had worn copies of special edition People and Life magazines – Michael pictures splashed on every page. I even had a glove. It didn’t have sequins, it was picked up at the the Goodwill store down the road, but it was white and I wore it. Often.
I also spent my days perfecting the Michael Jackson “Billie Jean” dance. I think I even had a hat. The high water pants were (unfortunately) not hard to come by, I wore those too. With white socks. And penny loafers.
And, lost in the fog of my 10 year old imagination, I used to day dream Michael Jackson’s limo would happen to be driving by on a dark and stormy evening when suddenly, right in front of my home, it would break down. Oh no! He would need to call a mechanic! Well, he’d run right up to my house and ring the doorbell – sequins glittering in the rain. And I would answer – tinted glasses, blond mop of hair and all. And while we waited for the tow truck, we’d roll up the carpet and he’d show me how to perfect that dance in the middle of my living room. And he’d be stunned by my talent. Oh yes he would be.
(Lordy, it pains me to write this. How mortifying. To the core, these memories make me criiinge and wish to camouflage myself in my catholic school uniform once again. But. I’m afraid it’s true. All of it.)
A few days ago we learned Michael Jackson had passed away. No doubt, the news was shocking. And I have been going into my MP3 archives and even blipping some favs to play in his honor. He was a fantastic performer. He set the bar for pop music stardom. Few, if any, have met the standard of being “as big as Michael Jackson” – or at least as big he was during those years in the 80s. A true phenomenon.
But here’s the strange thing. I was not all that blown away when he passed. And I have been trying to figure out why. He clearly made a very strong impression on me growing up. So why am I not shedding any tears and lighting a candle? Or something?
I think it’s because many of us had already lost him years ago. Adulthood left him confused and unsure. Fame swallowed him. Fans and stardom sent him running into seclusion. Being told he was so fabulous for so long clearly affected him. He turned inward, changed himself physically, he became consumed in reclaiming the childhood he never had – and was simply lost. A lost boy, like Peter Pan. In Neverland. Dulling himself with painkillers, bringing children into his world, determined to stop time. Hoping to never grow up. That’s what he wanted for himself. No doubt about it.
We lost Michael Jackson – the Thriller dancing, glove wearing, hee-hee singing, sidewalk lighting, glitter and magic making Michael Jackson that we all fell in love with – long LONG ago. And I had already said good-bye well before he actually passed away.
I think what has happened to him is almost a syndrome of stardom I think our culture needs to consider very carefully. I think many celebrities have come to the brink of losing themselves this way. Watching a recent Britney Spears special, I remember saying “she’s turning into another Michael Jackson”. Sure, she’s not sleeping in oxygen tents and playing with little kids. But she is just as isolated. She has nothing real around her. She seems just as lost.
So, my point here is that yes, I am certainly mourning Michael Jackson. But I don’t think the person that was Michael Jackson in recent years was the same person in the days of Thriller and sparkly socks. How could he be? I just know I wouldn’t have wanted his limo stopping in front of my house these days.
Because as much as he was a fabulous performer once upon a time, in my heart I have to wonder if he abused those children. Nothing was proven but… this man was just not right. Whether it was fame, wealth or some emotional psychosis - this man was broken.
And you know what else? Secretly, I am somewhat relieved for him. I truly hope he is finally at peace now. I hope he has now found the Never Never Land he’d been searching for all along.
Rest in peace now Michael. And I will try to remember THIS Michael Jackson and all that he was as a performer.
Underpants. I want underpants. Dry ones specifically. I don’t ask for much, really. Just dry underpants ON my three year old.
We are in the midst of conquering another milestone here in the Morningside household (although, this one has been dragging on for awhile now): potty training. And we are really (I mean it this time) just about there. We’re rounding the last bend: all of us cheering wildly behind my three year old, toddling ahead with his potty in tow. At the end of the finish line, a wonderful prize awaits… dry – wonderfully dry – underpants.
Yup, my kid knows all about where to put his business when he needs to go. And he is certainly a pro when pants-less. But alas, we cannot go through life pants-less (much to the dismay of every boy in this household). However, as soon as I put him in underpants, his training switches off and his “diaper brain” switches on. He goes right in them with not a care in the world. Ho hum. Pee. Poop. Whatever.
So while we wait for him to piece it all together, those underpants are staying on. As “used” pairs are peeled off and new pairs are pulled on throughout the day, we bait him with special treats and put on one heck of a show when he happens to get it right.
I think we went through nine pairs yesterday. Today? We’re on our fourth pair. But I haven’t checked since I started typing this. We may be onto pair number five.
Yesterday my husband mentioned my last post. And while he is also feeling a little misty about our babies growing up, he got all “glass is half full” on me. He pointed out just how CLOSE we are to finally being diaper free. He makes a fantastic point. I am trying to picture life without the regular costs of pull ups, the mess of bodily functions and finding them just about… everywhere. The smells, the squishes, the sanitation issues, the “whoops mama I made a stake (mistake)!”
We are SO close. The end is in sight. I can see dry underpants flapping their reward in the breeze at the finish line. Until then, I will keep washing basket fulls of dirtied little boy skivvies that need a super soapy hot water cycle asap. But. I’m hopeful.
*Sigh*
…Dry underpants.
Oh but guess what? I just checked. Underpants pair #4 are good to go. No change needed. So close I tell you. SO CLOSE.
I remember plastic bobbled ponytails and faded iron on t-shirts and socks with colored bands around my calves.
If you knew me in the mid 80s, you would have known I was a die hard Michael Jackson fan.
Underpants. I want underpants. Dry ones specifically. I don’t ask for much, really. Just dry underpants ON my three year old.
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