Family

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Scars

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While backing my minivan out of my garage last week, I clipped my side-view mirror and it broke. Some of my kids were in the car – they were aghast. No worry, I assured them. It was an accident. Clearly I did not intend to cause damage to my car. Yes, it is a nuisance, a financial burden, and an inconvenience. But it is not the end of the world.

Sure, it takes age and experience to react this way. In my younger days I would have been more upset and agitated. I would have been reluctant and full of trepidation to tell my husband. Not anymore. This 50-plus year old is confident and liberated when it comes to dealing with life’s foibles. I didn’t mean to hurt my car, I explained to my kids. Like scraping your knee or cutting your finger – these things happen. Yes, I’ll have to eventually replace my mirror, although fortunately I can still use it. But for now it’s just one of life’s scars, a boo-boo if you will.

I was on a roll…what a great analogy for life to pontificate to my kids about on the way to school. Scars are evidence of a life lived. It’s easier to cope with life when things go smoothly but it is the trying times that truly test your mettle. Mustering up grace in the face of adversity is a difficult life-skill to master. I could leave the car in the garage and never drive it – then it would never have dings, scratches or bird-poop splotches. What would be the good of having a car? The same thing applies to life. You can sit in your house and be fearful of experiencing new things, failure, meeting new people or going outside of your comfort zone. Or, you can get out there and live.

So when I picked up my kids that day, they said, “Did you tell Dad about the car?”

“Of course I did – I’m not scared of him,” I assured them.

Okay, I was not exactly chomping at the bit to tell him about the car. However, over the course of our marriage, I have developed a system of communicating bad news that has worked quite well. I would email my husband about potentially difficult topics – getting caught speeding by hidden traffic cameras, ordering drapes that I loved that happened to be exorbitantly priced – so that he could digest and process my news before reacting. As the years have gone by, and we have both been busted by those dreaded traffic cameras, I need to use this tactic less frequently. I just speak to him directly. He wasn’t thrilled about the broken car mirror but he understood it could happen to anyone. Now, when we see the dreaded notice from the Department of Motor Vehicles in the mail, my husband will wonder aloud who has gotten the speeding ticket. One came just this week. I quickly confessed that I thought it was me and predicted exactly where and when it occurred. What could have been a tense and uncomfortable situation had now became a game of recall called “where was I caught speeding?”

So my side-view mirror is partially shattered, but usable. Actually, I kind of enjoy seeing the prism and distortion it creates when I glance at it – it brings a little surprise/psychedelia to the banality of my chauffeur duties. I might as well enjoy the trip until I get it fixed.

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Look Away

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My eldest is leaving the house this month. Seniors at his school graduate in February and go on a three-month trip to Israel with a side-tour to Eastern Europe. He’ll leave a vacant bedroom and the family “hot-seat.” When you have several children, a parent’s attention shifts from child to child depending on who’s the neediest at the time. Our family configuration will change with the oldest gone. I have mixed emotions but mostly I’m happy for him as he sets off for the next phase of his life. Full disclosure – I’m also sad to lose the extra driver in my family. He’s been driving his 13-year-old brother to school for the past year, a job which I now get to resume. I enjoyed the hiatus but am intrigued by the opportunities this presents. I was driving my two youngest to school recently and asked my son if he and his brother talked much when they drove to school together.

“Some,” he said, “but usually we’re pretty tired.”

“Well, now you and I will get lots of time to talk,” I enthusiastically said.

In my rear view mirror, this prompted an excellent, textbook eye-roll from my daughter. I knew I was on to something.

With the eldest leaving the nest, I can turn my attention to the other children in the house. We’re done with driving lessons, college entrance exams, the college search, etc with the first-born. Sure, there will be other things we need to teach him but from a different vantage point. It won’t be that daily, up-close-in-your-face kind of parenting.

It’s the lucky children who remain in the house who are the recipients of our wisdom and attention, whether they want it or not. Next in the birth order in our family is our son with special needs. He gets a lot of attention for his health issues – he has a feeding tube and a medication schedule, but truthfully – as long as he is relatively healthy and happy our attention stops there. It’s the third child who is next in line for our scrutiny. I’m sure he has no idea what’s in store for him. I’m looking forward to getting to know this creature again, now that he’s smack in the middle of the teenage morphing years. Maybe now that I’ve practiced my parenting skills on my eldest, I can perfect them with this child. Or maybe I’ve learned what’s important and I just won’t care about the same stuff. It’s kind of like a weird science experiment – so many variables and hypotheses.

Strangely, I find myself thinking of the swimming pool of all places. For a few years, I volunteered as a “stroke and turn” judge for our neighborhood summer swim team. I had to scan three of the six lanes of the pool to make sure the swimmers were swimming “legally.” If there happened to be only one swimmer and two empty lanes, we were taught to keep scanning as if there were three swimmers so the one swimmer didn’t have a disadvantage of being watched every moment. Each swimmer should benefit from the judge’s gaze being averted.

This struck me as a great metaphor for parenting. I don’t think it serves my children well to have my attention every minute, all the time. I am constantly scanning their lives while deliberately looking away occasionally. Nobody wants to be watched all the time.

By looking away, I may miss the occasional “illegal” strokes or turns in my kids’ lives. Let’s hope my parental scanner will pick up the stuff that really counts.

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A Warm Legacy

A Warm Legacy

Recently I was under the weather for a couple of days with chills and achiness. It was nothing serious, but it sent me to bed at times to try to warm up. I climbed into bed, fully dressed in my jeans and sweatshirt, and piled on the blankets. My mother’s gone from this earth but I felt her presence as I lay in bed shivering. She passed on the wisdom of the electric mattress pad – a bed warmer, if you will, which I cranked up to high and waited to be warmed up like a piece of bread in a toaster.

I don’t remember it from my childhood so I think she discovered this modern adaptation of metal bed warmers filled with hot coals and the hot water bottle when I was an adult. She talked often about how much she loved it. Like many children, I nodded my head, smiled, and said “uh-huh,” as if I was listening or was interested in a discussion about mattress pads. I had no interest, or the need, for such a thing.

I was too busy doing other life-stuff for such trivial matters. I got married, which theoretically produces a warmer with whom to share your bed. Then the kids came along so my bed was heated by the combustible energy of children coming and going. As everyone started sleeping through the night and I was getting older, I became colder. “Old and cold,” I joked. I started to seriously contemplate my mother’s idea. My husband scoffed at it. “I like getting into a cold bed,” he proclaimed. I don’t. Those first few moments of sheer icy-coldness when you turn in after a long day? Not so much.

So what did I give my husband for our anniversary a couple of years ago? Wait for it…but of course, a Sunbeam electric mattress pad. Okay, I knew he didn’t want one but I was hoping he would change his mind when he actually had one in his hands. As you might guess, he was underwhelmed with the gift. I think he was offended that I would call into question his ability to warm up the bed. Plus, it was so obviously a gift for me, not “us,” he said.  He had clearly expressed no interest in this foreign bed invasion and I deliberately chose not to hear him.  It was admittedly not one of my finer gift-giving moments.

“But there are dual controls, so we can each control the temperature on our own side of the bed,” I enthusiastically explained to no avail. That first winter, he resisted it. I don’t think he used it once. By the next winter he was curious, and cold, and finally began using it. He won’t say it, but I dare say he has come to love it almost as much as me. It has become part of our winter, nighttime ritual, in that whoever goes up to bed first turns on the bed-warmers. Getting into bed in the winter has become a delight – a warm, toasty bed greets me.

The added benefit? It’s part of my mother’s legacy. She’s still tucking me in.

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Good Ol’ Teddy

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We recently trolled for treasure at my in-laws house so our kids could pick out some keepsakes. My husband came across his childhood teddy bear, which he decided to bring home with us. I was a little hesitant as Teddy had definitely seen better days. He has black ears, arms and legs and apparently had a white body but most of the fur is gone from so much loving and cuddling. My husband’s grandmother performed a surgical repair to replace his chest and tummy with white fabric. Teddy has reddish eyes with black pupils but almost no nose or mouth to speak of.

Who knew that resuscitating this bear could once again give its owner such joy? Teddy has brought us innumerable laughs. It’s surprisingly been a mischievous break from the daily grind.

On Teddy’s first night in our house, I tucked him into my  husband’s side of the bed so he greeted him when he came to bed. It made hubby smile. We chuckled that Teddy may feel a little awkward having to share my husband’s affection with me. The next night I came to bed to find Teddy perched atop our headboard, lording over the marital bed, my husband joked. I confessed that I thought Teddy was creepy and scary-looking and flung him to the floor.

I have gotten enormous pleasure from surprising my husband by posing Teddy in varying and amusing attire. Part of the rush for me is that I forget about Teddy until I go up to bed, when hubby is generally not far behind – I often have only a few moments, wildly looking around the room for inspiration and humor.  First I tied a bandanna around his head, so he looked sort of like Bruce Springsteen, of whom my husband is a big fan. The biggest laughs so far came when I had him sitting in a chair in our bedroom with my reading glasses on and “reading” on husband’s kindle. It made us both laugh so hard, we cried. The silliness of it tickled our funny-bones – go figure.

If our kids are around, they share in the fun. Otherwise it’s just one of those silly things that keeps life light and fun in the midst of the harder times of being adults.

Apparently teddy bears aren’t just for kids anymore. Or we’re just kids in the body of adults…old and weathered like Teddy.

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Being Prepared

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My husband came home from a meeting the other night and with a smirk told me one of the attendees had been the executive director of a local cemetery. The smirk was for my benefit because I’ve been gently nagging him for quite a while to buy us cemetery plots. He thinks I am morbid and resists. He’s hoping someone will come up with a cure for death before he has to cope with it’s consequences. Maybe this meeting was divine intervention.

I, on the other hand, wish to live to a ripe old age but am not expecting a death cure, or the Messiah’s arrival for that matter, before I die. When I was growing up, my parents had cemetery plots that they had purchased with my grandparents. I always knew where they would end up. Sure, it’s weird to go visit my late mother in Virginia as we always lived across the Potomac River in Maryland but there was a comfort that when one of them died there was one less decision to be made during a very sad and emotional time.

It’s odd, because I’m not necessarily a planner and don’t worry too much about the future. I do know however, that like all living things, my life will end. It just seems like the responsible, adult thing to do. My parents did it – shouldn’t I?

Truth be told, I’m also a little cuckoo about where I’d like my plot to be so I want to have a say in the matter. I have a thing about traffic noise – I don’t really like it. For instance, when we shopped for houses I would always stand outside and listen carefully for highway noises. This would be the kiss of death for a house. My husband thought I was a little crazy but, hey, we all have our quirks.

So my final resting place must be in a serene environment where traffic noise is negligible. I’ve been at a few funerals where the noise is a distraction to my thoughts. I know, I know – I won’t actually hear the noise since I’ll be dead but my survivors would, and that would bug me (although I’m sure it would make them chuckle.) It’s all about location, right? I have no control over when my life will end but I do have control over where I will rest eternally.

“How about buying me plots for my next birthday?” I joked with my husband.

I’m not joking. One could say I’m dead serious.

 

 

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Margarita Madness

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I had three couples coming to my house for a dinner party, but no idea what I was going to serve. It’s 2014, meaning this was not going to be your mother’s dinner party. It had to be a kosher meal that accommodated a vegetarian, a gluten-free person, and some meat lovers. What a challenge to please everyones’ palate. I pored through cookbooks, recipes I’ve torn out of newspapers and magazines, and the internet. I was determined to make everyone happy and try some new recipes.

Then, as if by magic, something caught my eye on a high shelf in my kitchen – those margarita glasses from my wedding registry. We thought we would have many festive parties and use them all the time. I have never used them in the twenty years I’ve been married. So much for that idea. Shockingly, life has not been one big party.

I had found the idea to build my dinner party around – margaritas! Who cared that it was cold outside? Festivities are called for year-round.

Slowly, it all came together. Here’s what I served:

  • Guacamole and Chips
  • Carrot, Chile and Cilantro Soup
  • Sliced Skirt Steak on a bed of Spanish Rice
  • Chopped Romaine Salad with corn, black beans and tomatoes
  • Spicy, Smoky Lentils
  • Corn and Flour Tortillas
  • Sides of Salsa Verde, Chipolte Salsa, Cabbage, Avocado and Green Onions
  • Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Brittle
  • Sweet-Potato Cake
  • Sliced Oranges

It was a labor of love to cook for my friends and create a meal that everyone could enjoy. I’ve put two of the recipes from this meal that my guests enjoyed on my blog if you’d like to try them too. The margaritas were a delicious and fun addition to the usual wine, beer and scotch. Apparently I gave my friend an idea, as she wrote me the next day:

“You inspired me: on our way home, I conducted a mental inventory of our unused kitchen items, and came up with: a vintage 1970’s punch bowl, a waffle iron…and my mother-in-law’s circa 1955 jello molds.  I’m thinking the punch bowl is the way to go for our next dinner party (it’s really groovy, with green blown glass and matching cups), though I’m a little curious to break out the jello molds.  Maybe the ticket is to add some vodka to the jello before I chill it??”

Did someone say Jello? I totally want to be invited to that dinner party!

Sure my mother, in her Martha Stewart way, taught me that things don’t always have to be used for their intended purpose – I may have used the margarita glasses once to serve a dessert in. I am a big cleaner-outer but somehow have not been able to give the glasses away. I knew there was a party waiting to happen, and those glasses were going to be waiting for me saying “hola, what took you so long?”

I can now scratch that off my list. As my husband and I were cleaning up, enjoying the afterglow and buzz of the party, we were deciding whether to wash the glasses by hand or put them in the dishwasher.

“Why not put them in the dishwasher? If they break, I don’t think we’d miss them,” he said.

Nope, I couldn’t risk it so I hand-washed them. It was a delightful evening – God willing, there will definitely be more parties in my future. Who knows what other inspiring treasures I’ll find in my house? Maybe next we’ll have a slumber party and I can finally use those breakfast-in-bed trays.

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Cave-Woman

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Many people begin the parenting experience by making grand proclamations about how they will raise their offspring. Things like, “my child will only watch educational television,” or “my child will only eat healthy foods.”

Then life happens and those strong feelings get tempered, those little babies become people who speak and have opinions, and parents learn to juggle their wants and desires with those of their children.

Sometimes we get beaten down and cave to their incessant demands. In my house, this has played out recently in the form of an iPhone. My husband and I were so proud of ourselves for holding out and not buying an iPhone for our oldest child until he was seventeen, which was last year. “What does he need it for?” we asked. “He has a perfectly good phone. And an iTouch.” Being the dutiful firstborn, he accepted his fate and didn’t press too hard on the subject. So we eventually relented, telling ourselves that he’ll be in college soon.

Ah, but it’s a slippery slope. Now our 13-year-old is lobbying hard. I find that I just don’t feel as strongly this time as I did with our eldest. Maybe because smartphones have become the norm. Maybe because he never seems to have his plain, old phone charged or with him when I need to reach him.

“If we get him an iPhone, it will no doubt be attached to his body and fully charged and therefore he would be reachable, right?” I asked my friend, who also has a 13-year-old boy.

“Absolutely,” she said, “My son’s phone is never dead. I could be dead, but his phone – never,” she chuckled.

Yep, I see an iPhone in the future for this son, once I negotiate this with my husband. Poor guy, he recently attempted to use his legal prowess with our daughter on the very serious subject of her birthday present. He called me one day after dropping her off at school.

“I caved,” he said.

“Oh? On what?” I asked.

“A trampoline. For her birthday,” he announced, defeated.

I’m happy when my husband occasionally caves. Since I spend more time with the kids, I am the recipient of most of the asking, whining, and begging so of course I cave more than he does. I was glad to see my daughter go for his weak spot – it’s a good skill for her to learn. In his defense, he held out for well over a year before caving.

So the trampoline will grace our backyard, where the dog roams too. I’m the one who caved on the dog. I guess we’re even, for now.

Have we lost control or do the things we care about change over time? Once we were rigid about bedtime – now it’s only the eleven-year-old who’s asleep before us. I was talking with a friend about this.

“I’ve lost control of that, among many other things,” she said and went on to tell me that her neighbor has noticed over the years that the lights in their house stay on later and later. The whole world apparently notices our loss of control. What’s the neighbor doing up so late anyway?

I like to tell myself that I don’t cave on the things that I really care about like being a good person and having good manners. Oh, and being a good student – although I confess that I leave the schoolwork to the kids and their teachers. I assume they are doing well if I don’t hear anything negative from the school. I guess I’ve sort of caved on that too.

Ultimately my children will be the captain of their ships and will have to do their own navigating. In the meantime, I’m just trying to have smooth sailing.

 

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A Post for the Holiday Season – How to be a Good Guest

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I was looking for somewhere to board my dog for a few nights next month. I came across a groupon type deal for a company that connects people who wish to board dogs in their homes with dog owners.

The idea of my pooch staying with a family is appealing. After culling through several pages of possibilities, I arranged a “meet and greet” with a woman who seemed to be a possible match for us.

My dog and I set off, in rush hour. What should have been a 15 minute car-ride ended up being 45 minutes. Lewey sensed something was amiss – I had to drag him up the stairs to the front door. We were greeted by the nice lady, her husband, and two pugs. At her suggestion, I took off my dog’s leash so he could explore the house.

A meet-and-greet is a nice way of saying that the boarding family wants to make sure my dog is not out-of-control and I want to make sure they are not psychopaths.

The woman and I sat down in the family room. She pulled out her notebook to ask me questions about my dog, who was being adorable and playing with one of the other dogs. As we continued our discussion, I followed her gaze to the left of my chair.

There, in the corner of the room, on the wall-to-wall carpet, my dog was taking a dump.

Really? After I went through all the trouble to find these people and shlep to their home, my dog is going to put the kibosh on the whole thing within the first five minutes by pooping in their house? I was mortified. He never does this, I assured them. It called into question my dog training skills. Maybe I was a terrible dog parent? Oh, the shame.

They were very nice and matter-of-fact about it. I quickly cleaned up the poop and the husband sprayed the anti-smell-please-don’t-poop-here-again-spray. He told me they’ve learned to take their dog guests for a walk as soon as they arrive as they can be agitated and out of sorts. Apparently my dog’s behavior was not as abnormal or abhorrent as I feared.

We finished the interview and talked about the dates I needed the dog to be watched. They seemed like they were actually still willing to watch my dog – I couldn’t believe it. I figured when I got home I would receive a text saying that something had come up for them and they wouldn’t be able to watch Lewey. You know, the doggie version of “it’s not you, it’s me.”

I felt as if I had ruined a first date. We did the walk of shame out to the car. I called my husband and my sister.

“They’re dog people,” my sister reasoned, “they’re used to this stuff.

To my surprise, they accepted my official request through the boarding website to watch my dog. I will plead with him to be a super good boy and do all of his business outside.

I hate to leave him, but sometimes duty calls.

May your Thanksgiving celebrations include only well-behaved guests.

 

 

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Ready to Launch

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I am in launch mode. My oldest son is applying to college. This transition is not so fraught with anxiety for me – he will have great options and after all, it’s still months away. Rather, my immediate focus lies at the top half of my sandwich – launching my father.

Many people live far from their parents, some happily and some not so happily. I have had the good fortune of living in the same area as my parents for the past 25 years. They helped me with my children – they babysat, drove them around, and provided a lot of love and support. I helped them as my mother became ill and died last year. My parents have had an apartment in Jerusalem for the past 20 years where they went two or three times a year for six weeks at a time. But Maryland was still home base.

My father has decided to make Israel his primary home. I admire his ability to re-engage in life after losing his beloved wife of 54 years. I applaud his continued interest in living and his desire to have a full, meaningful existence. He has been drawn to Israel for as long as I can remember. He likes the people, the history, the religious life, the politics, the culture and the language. He loves living in a vibrant, active city. My mother liked it too, but not enough to livef there full-time. After she died, my father gave himself a year to regroup and form a plan. He seized this opportunity to fulfill his dream to live in Israel full-time. I say good for him. How many 78-year-old men, or women for that matter, can do that? I wrapped my mind around the fact that he was leaving and gave him my blessing. He forwarded his mail to my house, locked up his house and left.

Do I worry more for my father’s safety in Israel than I do in the United States? No. Fortunately I do not have a worrying disposition and he is not worried. I do appreciate the e-mails he sends after any attacks in Jerusalem to tell me he is fine, including the most recent heinous attack in a synagogue.

I don’t feel abandoned by my father. I am secure in our relationship, no matter how his life gets intertwined in new peoples’ lives. I feel my father’s presence and love, no matter where he lives, similar to how I feel about my mother’s spirit. As he always says, the world is much smaller than it used to be with the array of technology at our fingertips. We are never further than an e-mail or text away.

We have spent a lot of time together in the fourteen months since my mother died – it will be nice to have time to miss each other.  We knew each others’ schedules and whereabouts at all times. I’m sure he will appreciate the break from my watchful eyes. My immediate family will miss having him such a part of our daily lives, but as he says, the kids are getting older and going in their own directions. No need for him to sit around here and wait for them to throw a little attention his way. He can e-mail and text them to keep in touch too.

I am grateful that we had each other to lean on during the difficult time after my mother’s death. He’s a wonderful father. But I am thankful that he is healthy and able to pursue his passion.

It’s been two weeks since lift-off…so far, so good.

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Miss Manners

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“When are you leaving?” my 10 year old daughter innocently asked my sister during her recent visit.

“Naomi!” I chided her, “that isn’t a nice question.”

I flash-backed to years past when I asked the same question of my uncle when I was a child. My mother taught me that it is more polite to say instead, “How long will you be staying?”

I relayed this story to her and we had a pleasant little discussion about how posing the same question in a more positive way can make the visiting person feel better. My daughter then continued to hang around while my sister and I wanted to talk privately and have grown-up conversation.

“Naomi, how long will you be staying?” my sister asked with a smile.

All parents want to raise polite children. Why? Honestly, because they are a reflection of us and we want our product to perform well in the world. Also, we want them to be pleasant and productive members of society. Good manners and general amiability will always get you farther in life. On those occasions when a friend or teacher will tell you unsolicited how nicely your child behaved when you weren’t around, admit it, you feel like you won the gold medal in parenting. Even if said child can be a pain in the neck at home.

There are several fundamentals that I strive to impart to my children. Clearly, this list is not exhaustive.

  1. Proficiency in please, thank-you, no thank-you
  2. Making and maintaining eye contact
  3. Offering a firm handshake
  4. Maintaining a reasonable appearance
  5. Crafting a basic thank-you note
  6. Demonstrating basic table manners
  7. Being a good host/guest
  8. Being a good citizen: holding doors, giving up your seat, helping with luggage, etc.

Technology has added further wrinkles into the art of civility. No one would like it if someone stood outside of the door of their home and listened in on a phone conversation, yet so many are guilty of talking loudly on their cell phones for all the world to hear. One of my pet peeves is when people talk on the phone while checking out at a store, ignoring the person who is helping them. To me, that is the pinnacle of rudeness.

Many of us are guilty of checking our devices compulsively.  I was recently with my son, who was looking at his phone as we waited in the examining room for the eye doctor. When the doctor came in, I was pleased to see my son put his phone in his pocket. When the doctor left, he resumed his phone play. It irked me that he didn’t give me the same respect he showed the doctor but at the time I chose not to fight that particular battle.

I am, however, on the warpath occasionally. Electronic devices do not constitute a “manner-free” zone.

“No screens at the table,” I remind the kids.

“Read, talk to each other, or stare off into space,” I suggest, when they protest.

Or maybe experience those most awful, dreaded, very terrible things that no one can tolerate in this day and age – being alone with your thoughts or maybe even good old-fashioned boredom. Oh, the horror.

Teaching manners is part of the job of parenting, just not a particularly fun one.

So, again, thanks so much for taking the time to read this essay. I really appreciate it. You may now resume playing Candy Crush and checking Facebook on your Iphone.