At the Register

After a long hiatus, (a week), I'm hitting the hey, I'm a writer who sometimes gets published trail again.   My latest is inspired by real life. Your teens will always be your babies.  It's true.

National Catholic Register Today

Find secret ways to say "I love you" to those who would roll their eyes if you said it aloud.

Brotherly Love

I understand from my own experience growing up, brothers and sisters have a dog cat relationship. There may be siblings out there who regard each other with mutual respect, but most of my own life, children see the pecking order, and if they're lower down, they want higher up. If they're higher up, they want to keep everyone else lower down.

Son A wants eggs. Son B owns a skillet.  He refuses to share. I agree, his skillet, his rules.  He (Skillet boy), then offers to help Son A, but only if he's allowed to cook.  Son A refuses.  Son B in an odd show of charity, gets out the ingredients, the butter and as he calls it, the older carton of eggs.  His brother should ONLY use the older carton. He explains to me that I really shouldn't let Son A cook.  I ignore.  He suggest Son A will get hurt.  I ignore again.  Son A gets out the other skillet and cuts some butter. I sense a trap.  The four eggs in the carton are hard boiled...like Skillet Boy's heart.  I consider switching the eggs to pull one over on Son B but opt to get out the proper eggs instead and tell Son B, if he complains about his brother again, he's going to lose out on all the not hard boiled eggs.  

When the sole goal is to make sure you look good or at least better than your brother or sister, even virtue becomes a battlefield.   "I did the dishes."  Sister says.

"Oh yeah?"  Brother turns, scheming, how to come out smelling better, "Well, I agreed to clean the basement."  That works the first time it's tried, but after that, everyone knows it's put up or shut up, promises don't count.  

So you get minute by minute up to the second updates of how kid A is doing so much more work than  Kid B that really, you should just pack Kid B up for someone else's home, or you should send Kid A out to a hammock, bring him a fifteen foot meatball sub and a soda and make Kid B work sun up to sundown until the age of sixty-five.

Corrective measures, even well meant at the start, become fighting grounds for proving one's greatness as versus the other.  "Pick up the markers..." one child barked.  "They're not mine." the other countered and continued making an illustration on a dry erase board.  "They're under your chair." He pointed.

"So? I'm drawing."  She explained they weren't dry erase markers so it wasn't her problem.  He picked them up but not before erasing the head off her drawing.   Having to calm a daughter's irritation at his willful desecration of her artwork, I did fire off a warning to both.

"See the task, be the task." and "It's no virtue to destroy someone's emotional mood because they don't do what you say."   "But Mom, the markers would have dried out."

"So you wouldn't pick them up to prevent that from happening?"
Cue silence.  

No one it seems, is more interested in protecting the actual markers than proving they're the more virtuous person of good intentions.

So when my daughter opted to make cup cakes and said brother wanted to help decorate, I had reservations.   Since he doesn't eat frosting, why would he want to put frosting on the cupcakes?

So the man boy could custom make the desserts and let us all know his true feelings for his sister. Each of the cupcakes had a frowny face  like this:  :(     Alternatively, they had a tongue sticking out like this:   :p   and lastly, in case we somehow missed the point of his efforts, one cupcake had "X's" for the eyes, indicating the face was dead.

But I've promised parity.  His sister will get to frost the cupcakes for his birthday which is coming up.  I foresee a lot of pink glitter and sparkles in his future.  Should be a memorable party.

Catholicy Mommy Tribute

"Pray.  Hope, and don't worry." --Saint Padre Pio. 

My grandmother had a great love of this saint.  I never knew that much about him except for that quote, but it came to mind yesterday when I spoke with my daughter.  She is going to a new school and feels great anxiety about this change.  When I suggested prayer, she didn't exactly roll her eyes but she gave me the look. 

Over the recent years, I've heard the complaint from my teens, "You're going all Catholicy Mommy" on us." Some cringe when they hear EWTN radio on as I do the dishes, others if it is on in the car.  I get it.  All the outside of it can seem too sweet to tolerate even in small doses.   Pray, hope and don't worry sounds almost flippant.   Tra-la-la-lah. I've prayed so no worries.  That's not what the quote means, anymore than "Jesus, I trust in You." means God is my co-pilot.

I struggled to explain.  If it were flippant, it would be merely, "Don't worry, be happy."  But this is a directive.  Pray.  --which means do this first.  Hope.  This is a choice.  And don't worry.  This is an action, a deliberate effort of faith in life.   It means that prayer is an action, and hope is a faith lived, which allows one to proceed forward no matter what, with an uplifted heart.  God answers.  Every time.  Pray, hope and don't worry requires trust in God that He is infinitely good, infinitely loves us and infinitely seeks to bring us home no matter how we wander.

But what does it look like? To pray, hope and don't worry.

If you've ever met someone who deeply understands their vocation and lives it, they bubble with joy even if the work they do is strenuous, obnoxious and lowly.   They aren't trivial. They know the hardness of the life they've chosen, and yet they exude joy.  To be in their presence, is to be steeped in joy.  I've had the blessing of knowing priests, nuns, family, teachers and friends I love, who live this day in and day out.  I searched for examples.  I told her about the sisters of life, women I interviewed for an article and their constant work with crisis pregnancies. They dealt with hard realities of life and death, of struggle and sacrifice, and they yet were joyous people, and I could even feel that joy talking to them over the phone.  She understood.

 Later I thought of how Paul is joyful and we are joyful about him, but that doesn't change the reality of his Down Syndrome. It does however mean his condition is not the arbiter of how we will treat him or how much we will love him. There is still a muscular nature to the work of loving Paul. He requires more vigilance, more patience, more direct hand over hand, but it's all love.  I do not spend sleepless nights over the fact that Paul has this condition. Pray. Hope, and don't worry.  I understood slightly deeper.

So today, she got on the bus and I texted her, "Have a great day, love you." and she wrote back, "Hunger games hand thing." and "Do do doo do."  so I replied, "Thank you for volunteering as tribute."  and privately thought, "Pray, hope and don't worry." as I uttered a Hail Mary for her in my Catholicy Mommy way  and then mused on how very not flippant that sentence of Saint Padre Pio is.  

Top Ten Reasons a Teen Shouldn't Leave Her Phone at Home

*This post in no way reflects any opinion whatsoever about the inability of adults to communicate with any teen in particular despite providing for said communication device even if it is grey, not smart, and ONLY a phone. 

Why you shouldn't leave your phone at home when you go out into the world...

10) Parents might read text messages sent after teen has left for the day by accident, before recognizing the device to be yours.  That might be mortifying.

9) As such, we might (not that we did mind you), respond.

8) We will know the names of some of your school friends and ask about them in front of your siblings, giving your brothers and sisters...potential weapons.

7) To make contact with you about the schedule absent a phone, we might contact the school and have them track you down, again...slightly embarrassing. 

6) Mom will also be put out by an extra trip if she deems it necessary for the good of the whole family to bring it to you.

5) The going price for extra errands such as phone delivery, is dinner dishes including pots and pans for the first offense. 

4) Second time adds free babysitting for an evening, no pizza.

3) Third time....we should not have to consider this possibility.

2) Phones left at home will be reprogramed with a locked ring tone playing Lionel Riche's "Hello."

1) Finally, should the phone continue to be abandoned at home, there are other children here who covet your cellphone.  Just saying. 

Jack Bauer vs. Moms of America

Because the series "24" is coming to an end, this piece will lose it's humor shortly after the show loses its shelf life.  As such, it is time for a rerun because these babies will never be found on a best of DVD.

The running gag/conceit on “24” is that Jack Bauer never gets to do anything to maintain himself, eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, showering. He's always on the go.

Big deal.

Moms have been enduring this sort of relentless timed to the second hard press scheduling for years. Every fall, if you just look at the mini-vans lined up after school you’ll find not one but multiple examples of women talking on their cell phone while writing in a calendar, skimming and signing papers and providing two or more minors with the specialized equipment they’ll need for their afternoon activities, along with a snack. That’s all in the fifteen minutes they’re stuck in the slug line waiting to drive away from the school.

Jack Bauer searches through a myriad of places to find the stash of weapons or suspect or bomb he needs to find with mere moments to spare.

Yawn.

Try finding three pairs of clean white socks from the laundry for children who forgot to lay out their stuff the night before, while fixing five lunches, making sure each gets their breakfast and has their backpacks, lunches, diorama’s, permission slips and gym clothing for the day all before 7:30 am. Also, please remember to take out the garbage, remove the two bikes from the driveway and the car’s on E.

Jack Bauer sometimes resorts to unethical methods of getting information.

Hah! Like we mothers didn’t see that one coming. In the afternoon, after casually offering to charge the eldest’s cell phone, we check the numbers in and out. Moms specialize in benevolence that masks other motives. “I noticed you put your hair back yesterday in a pony tail, it looked nice.” Is mom code for “Your hair looks like the body of an emu, please find a brush and attack it at once!”

Intrigue and espionage? Please, moms invented it. Most mothers usually have more than one child who is a good mole for kid information, both about school and domestic issues. Some have been known to switch the baby monitor to other rooms, helpfully hidden under a pile of laundry, the ultimate camouflage. We conduct unauthorized search and seizure raids to evict illegal television watchers during homework time, and have special vice units (Dads) for serial offenders.

Jack Bauer doesn’t recognize proper authorities in some situations. He often deals with apparently cataclysmic explosions. He uses his wits to survive.

The parents of adolescents everywhere are nodding their heads at this one. We cope with unexpected emotional teen age equivalent of land mines at any waking moment, and must disarm them without so much as a paperclip or a welding rod. We do not recognize opening a locked door within our own home as breaking and entering, we monitor incoming and outgoing email, phone conversations and do background checks on all personal contacts. The HSA has nothing on us!

Jack Bauer has never been known to sleep or use the facilities in the course of a vigorous 24 hours. Parents do this on a regular basis, or irregular, depending upon your meaning. As an aside, all our 24 hours are vigorous, or at the very least, exhausting.

Jack Bauer still hasn’t eaten.

While abstaining from food might help with never getting to use a public restroom, most parents, even Jack's find it isn’t a healthy habit. Just as surely as Jack gets terrorists to spill the beans, we could make Jack eat them. Moms and Dads everywhere, say it with me, “You sit down and you’re not moving until everything on that plate is gone!”

Brave New World

When I was a teen, one of the coolest girls in the senior class drove me to school.  She always was perfectly dressed and she'd drive with her hands flexed on the steering wheel to allow her nails to dry.  With her best friend in the front seat, I got a glimpse into a more polished and avant guarde atmosphere than I would ever experience in high school as they punched the radio stations incessantly searching for the next song they'd allow to play through to completion.  They knew all the cool songs and all things artsy. I kept wondering where they found out all this stuff; like there was a secret club that only certain people were initiated into during those formative years, and that it was on a need to know basis.  I hero worshiped enough to imitate.

Being a first child, it had never occurred to me to be fickle with the radio. I'd always just waited for the next song.  Now, there were buttons to push.  I tried driving like she did with wet nails but I'd always forget and snag the polish on something such that by the time I got where I was going, my fingers were sticky goey ugly messes.  Three car accidents later, I became faithful to two stations for the rest of my teen years, but the temptation to engage in perpetual flipping from one station to another stayed.

Now as I enter the age of having a teenage daughter, a state from which I will not leave until some time in 2026, I am learning a whole new way to have ADD with music as she sat at my computer pulling up song after song from two radio stations dueling online playlists.  She was bopping along, cranking one cool tune after another of songs I knew we didn't own as she worked and I had to ask, "How do you do that?"  She indulged my ignorance and now, I will be even more distracted from life than before. But again, I'm peeking into a cooler rarer world than I normally dwell.  

It's as fun as I remember and while I know I still couldn't keep my nails dry and work the mouse at the same time if I tried such a thing, maybe with the next technological upgrade it will be possible. In the meantime, I'm hoping not to have any computer crashes as a result of my new found distraction.

Cookie Monster

My toddler prefers to make her needs known by silence rather than speaking. She remains an enigma amongst my children. Last night, my oldest took it upon himself to boost her vocabulary. He had a plan. After dinner, he produced a box of chocolate coated dunker cookies from Trader Joe’s. Now these cookies are the favorite of every child in my family, including the sphinx herself.

He opened the box. He took out one cookie, showed it to her from all angles. “See this cookie?” he asked. She glared through almost shut eyes and put her thumb up to her pouty lips, pretending not to notice. “This is a cookie.” He explained. “If you want a cookie, you must say cookie please.” He then ate the cookie with great relish, savoring each bite and talking about how this excellent experience of chocolate crunchy goodness could be hers if only she would say the magic words.

She did not even look.

Upping the ante, my son summoned each of his other siblings and proceeded to dole out the dessert for each child that seal-like, smiled and said “Cookie please.” Some came back for seconds and thirds. She stared. Then she turned her head and shut her eyes.

After the others scattered to their rooms/baths, the teenager and the toddler regarded one another in silence for a while. I cleared the table. I heard occasional attempts to restart the lesson. I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. I heard him try to dart the cookie just out of range. I vacuumed the kitchen and wiped the counters. My son came into the kitchen and put the remaining dunkers in the freezer. “I’m sorry Mom.” He said. I patted his shoulder. “These things take time.” I explained. He nodded and walked dejectedly upstairs. “I let her out of her high chair.” He called back. I went to check.

Now my youngest son is nine months old and loves his baby saucer, so I had him sitting in that for a bit of exercise while I worked. I expected my daughter to come play with my baby son as he is her favorite toy. She wasn’t there. I called for her. No answer. I began looking.

My main floor is an open circle of rooms such that I managed to just miss her as she scootled around the stairway, but I then heard a second set of feet. And I know, her partner in all things, her next older sibling sister is on the case. Exactly opposite of the Sphinx, the loquacious Pixie doll always knows what her younger sister wants and how to get it.

Within five minutes of having been released from the Teen Boot Camp Cookie Drills, my little girls both had acquired chocolate coated dunkers without the obligatory phrase. They had eaten a bit on the run to make sure no one caught them before they got a bite. Following the crumbs, I found the Sphinx brandishing her cookie in a fat fist, waving it at the baby and saying, “Look Paul, it’s a cookie.”

My teen heard it from upstairs. “That’s my work! I should be getting the credit.”

“Eyes on the prize son, she’s talking.”

The Sphinx turned and ran over to the stairs, raised the cookie in triumph and said absolutely nothing.

Catharsis

The other day, my adolescent daughter came to the car and her whole body screamed "Miserable." I asked her what was wrong. (Classic mistake of Rookie Moms to teen girls everywhere). I thought it signaled concern, love, a desire to know what made my child sad.

Based on the reaction, I thought "F" or "Detention" or a major blow out with a friend."Humph." was all I got. Over the drive home, I pestered her, trying to make her laugh, get angry at me instead, anything. "What would make you happy?" I asked. I'd offered chocolate. I offered computer time. I offered time with a friend. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Finally I mentioned I'd be happy with chocolate, computer time and a visit with friends. The chorus in the back of the car now viewed chocolate, computer time and play dates as an oral contract and was singing the "We Love Mom" chorus all the way home, making the unhappy person even more unhappy.We got home. Fortunately, the distractions of raising 9 children prevented a long nagging investigation. She was allowed to sulk in peace for the bulk of the afternoon.

The thing is, sulking doesn't feel nearly as satisfying if it's done in isolation. There must be a audience pained by the expressed silent angst of the sulkee. So she followed around the rest of us participating in life via snacks, cleaning, homework, all the time occasionally letting forth a moan to signal her deep pain. Gentle "Do you want to talk about it?" prods brought scornful stares.

Finally after dinner, I was hooked. I wanted to know what happened. After I'd bathed the babies, fed them all and done the bed time routine for the non sentients, I demanded an audience. (She had skulked to her room to angrilly sit and read). The music was loud and sad.

"Tell me what happened or knock it off." My bedside manner is a cross between Dr. Laura and Olympia Dukakis in Moonlight, sort of a Moral and intelligent Rosanne if such a thing can be imagined. She blinked, as if surprised that anyone would find her behavior of the past four hours out of the ordinary.

"Oh, I got the king spot in kickball and then it landed on a line and I got voted out."

..."That's it?"

"Well, I really like four square."

For those of you looking for a reason for this story, it's tax time and the reminder of how lovely adolescence is, should make even the most swamped procrastinator addressing 1040's feel just...oh, so much better.

For those being audited, I have seven more to go.

Uncharted Waters of Adulthood

My poor kids.

When I was growing up,the worst that could happen was my cousins who lived with us, coming by the front french glass doors of our house as I was ending a date.

"They're kissing They're kissing They're kissing They're kissing!" was the cry that echoed through the house. We weren't but as a teenager, one dies a 1000 times of humiliation. I was certain my Mom had put her up to it, but this has been denied consistently.

Now as the parent, it's my turn. I get to be the gatekeeper. This is uncharted territory. For years, I've supervised playdates, taken the time to know teachers and coaches and parents that surround my children's friends. Now, with a son in high school, I'd be hardpressed to pick his friends out of a line up, given the fact that the instutition at which he spends 8+ hours a day five days a week is more than an hour commute away.

We encouraged him to join a play, a club, anything to make friends more accessible. He did. Now, we must pay the price for our good counsel.

By being in a play, he had met and asked a girl on a date.

We tried to be nonchallant and vigilant at the same time. It meant we wafted between demanding that we be the drivers to pick the girl up and not insisting on getting her home address so we could google her family.

The date was on for this past Sunday. Because we were still unsure how this would work, I volunteered to take four children to see a seperate movie so we'd be oncall and available if anything disasterous happened. (Other than having your mother and two brothers and two sisters crash your first date)!

Our movie ended first. The other show had another hour to go, so I took my party home and returned to stake out the theatre. When my son came up with his date, her mother was talking with them. She had come along too. She had also taken the opportunity to catch a film she wouldn't otherwise get to see. We started up a conversation and hit it off.

I don't know how the date was for my son or for her,but as far as the moms were concerned, it was a fun evening. They gave each other a chaste hug and both parents went home sighing in vague contentment at having managed to cobble through the first hurdle of the next stage of parenting.

I'm thinking of putting in French glass doors and staking out his sisters for future date nights.

Mommy Feeling Energy

A friend of mine was stuck at a dinner where a woman espoused that she planned on purchasing a poodle so she could experience that “Mommy Feeling Energy.”

Now I know that pets are members of the family. They provide comfort, companionship and require good care. I don’t doubt the depth of feeling of owners of dogs, cats, ferrets, horses and all things furry; it’s just that the comparisons themselves are wrong; apples and oranges, kids and dogs, fish and bicycles. The emotional connection between the cared for and the caring is not something I wish to mock, it’s the intellectual argument of equal footing. Any pet owner can leave a dish of water and a dish of food and walk out the door to work, even if the dog is six months old. There is still some questioning of parental judgment if a sixteen year old with a fully stocked refrigerator is left unsupervised for more than two hours.

You can teach a dog to sit. “Stay. Come. Heel. Quiet. Fetch.” All can be taught within the first year. Kids, you have to latch into a car seat and hope they sit, stay, and keep the noise below public ordinance levels. After ten years, they still need daily reminders to put shoes in the closet, not leave milk glasses on top of the piano, and empty garbage cans before they cascade onto the floor. Dogs don’t have homework or relive fights they had with their litter mates that happened three days ago with full emotional vigor. As expensive a breed of dog, cat or whatever as you can find, as gourmet as pet food comes, and as many medical needs as they might have, pets still won’t require a new clothes each year for school, a college education, extra trips for soccer games or a cell phone. At some point, a dog is still a dog, even if it’s a Chihuahua.

Kids demand more from day one. They take over your body, your brain, your house, your life, your whole heart. The stretchmarks they leave on one’s soul are wider and more permanent than any one might find on the abdomen or one’s pocketbook. They connect us to our parents, and to the future and demand via their very own neediness that we become more the people we were always supposed to be.

Finally, no one has ever uttered the words, “I’m going to have a kid so I can experience what it’s like to own a pet. It will give me that Pet Owning Emotional connection.”

Feeling good today, only 30 or less days until Paul arrives so expect the postings to drop off sometime near the end of September. So when that happens, try Humor-Blogs.com!

The Surest Sign there are No More Weeks of Winter

There is one bonifide signal that Spring has set into motion in earnest.

Last minute school projects.

Every parent has had that dreaded moment when they struggle between teaching responsibility for time management and the urge to become a Superhero and pull an all nighter with the child in question to ensure a decent grade. Most of the time, we wind up circling the wagons and helping the delinquent student to finish their work before 1 am, but not without occasionally morphing into the adult from the nether regions...if YOU EVER...I am NOT DOING THIS AGAIN...

The other day, I got a text message. "Need three fold before weekend!"

I ransacked my brain in the desperate hopes of having at some point purchased such an item that went unused. It would have helped if I knew what a threefold was. I text messaged back but before I got six taps in, I grew irritated and just phoned.

“Can’t talk. Turning off phone now.” was the response from my beloved teen.

Now, I couldn’t even text message. I knew a fishing expedition to the local office supply store was imminent.

We had just loaded up in the car from my second son’s baseball practice. It was 6:30. Dinner had yet to be served, showers and bed routines were being thrown out the window, and even microwave pot pies were looking like a time consuming chore.

Twelve year old to the rescue! She knew what a tri-fold was, I thought it was either a hat or a way to properly stow a flag. I had my atm machine card at the ready. We would go to the bank and then the art store. We could do this seamlessly if I booked.

Alas, the errand gods were not with us.

The ATM refused to cooperate. The drive thru had closed thirty minutes before we arrived. We also needed gas. Having experienced the engine light read “Low” before and actually run out, I wasn’t taking any chances, so we tanked up before proceeding with the poster hunt. It was now 7:24.

The art store was closed, but I knew of an office store still open, so I gambled, scrounging through my purse and the pockets of the car. Collectively, we found change amounting to$3.57. I did have to promise to pay the two toddlers back their respective 64 and 12 cents. It was 7:37 pm. They’d get showers the next day. For bed time stories, I handed a book from my satchel to my ten year old and instructed her “READ...aloud…expressively,” although I had to conceed, "Writing Query Letters that Rock!" wasn't my first choice for my children's night time supplimental literacy program. She abandoned it in favor of a discarded Avenger's comicbook. I was in no position to argue.

I drove at a not entirely state approved rate and we arrived at five minutes to eight. The twelve year old went in, I looked at the clock. We’d not get to dinner before 9 o’clock if I cooked.

I phoned the local roasted chicken establishment and placed an order for the family feast for four plus a few extra sides.

My daughter returned triumphant, carrying a poster board as large as herself. She had 17 cents left, so I paid back the 12 cents and listened to the other toddler howl at not receiving prompt reimbursement. For a kid who can't add or count past 15, he knew getting a nickle was getting stiffed. I offered to pay interest. He wasn’t moved. I handed him a credit card, but discovered he was a cash only kind of guy until his sister offered him a turn on the game boy.

We drove to the chicken store, but the cash problem still loomed. Five cents was insufficient to buy the family meal order I had placed, and I wasn't even sure my son would lend me back the five cents!

I took out the toddler rejected credit card and hoped my daughter could go two for two. In she marched, and returned. The card had expired one day prior. Maybe that’s why my son refused it.

I handed over another and waited. Driving in circles in the parking lot, hoping the restaurant would take it, hoping they would let her sign for it and go, the phone rang, but I was too stressed and distracted to deal with it. We saw my daughter waving with her hands full. I drove up, joyfully anticipating an end of the struggle.

Her sister went in to help bring back the bounty.

Driving home, while congratulating ourselves on a successful mission, I planned out bed time routine in my head. Then I got another text message.

“I tried to phone you. Project due Monday moved to next week.”