Manifest

Every so often, I make a biting comment about my mother within earshot of the girls. When the words are escaping my mouth, I think nothing of them. They are my thoughts, my complaints, my perspective, my truth.  

The girls see it quite differently though. They love my mom, and their entire extended family fiercely, but from a distance. As children should be, they are only exposed to the best of the best and shielding from the unsavory moments. 

These are the moments that make Matt and I parent the way we do, with our sometimes excessive amounts of hugs and I Love You’s. If there is such a thing. We talk about hopes and frustrations openly. We encourage discord and yelling if for no other reason than to make sure the feelings are liquid and flowing instead of ice slowing turning into immovable burgs. We talk about bodies and femininity as is appropriate with the pre-school set.   

And we talk about how we can talk about anything.

One story that I will certainly tell the girls, when the time comes, is about how many of those things were broken in my childhood. It’s the kind of story that comes up fairly regularly with girlfriends because every so often, anyone can get caught completely off guard by an early cycle.

I was 12 years old when I got my period. It is bit unbelievable (from the raised eyebrows I get from friends), but I didn’t know much about menstruation despite it being 1990. I was the first of my very small group of friends, and must have been one of the first in my grade to get it. It was terrible. I didn’t know what to do, and was afraid to talk to my mom.

She and I didn’t talk about anything.  I take that back, she constantly talked, and I might have been listening, but it wasn’t substantial conversation. Right now, sitting here typing, I can only recall one substantial conversation with her in my entire life. And it was in the last year. She didn’t prepare me. She didn’t warn me. She didn’t even notice anything was wrong with me.

And so I kept my secret, slyly taking maxi pads from under the counter and searching the dryer for forgotten dimes. For six months, I kept my secret, only to be undone by an Aunt who noticed a change in my skin. It was a crass moment, filled with soul crushing shame on my part and screeched words and laughter on hers.

I still remember how I shook, so afraid of my mother’s reaction to the news that her daughter wasn’t a physiological little girl any more.

I remember how her face blanched at the realization, presumably, of her failure.

There was still no conversation. Just the arrival of my own supply of maxi pads on my bed the next day.

And so, Matt and I talk to our girls. About everything. I don’t cover my body in front of them. I don’t like shut doors. We ask about days and friends and loves in the hope that nothing will be big enough to be kept secret.

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This post was inspired by the novel Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton. After witnessing her children's school set ablaze, Grace attempts to find the arsonist as her teenage daughter lies in a coma in Lupton's suspense thriller. Join From Left to Write on April 11 as we discuss Afterwards. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

 

Blurred Lines

Growing up, I thought the world’s population fell into 3 categories:

1. Irish or Polish Catholic

2. Italian Catholic

3. Other

In my little Chicago suburb, we have 3 Catholic churches within a 2 mile triangle radius of each other. You were defined by the church you attended. The Polish church said one of three masses a day in Polish. The Irish church’s Father had a thick brogue. Our family bucked tradition, and attended the church with German roots, but was taken over by a mix of the remaining who had quarreled with the other two parishes. Plus, it was an easier walk from our house than the Irish church.

When I was in my early tweens, my Aunt married into an Italian family, and my experience with cultures that didn’t stew cabbage on a regular basis was expanded. I think I loved my new Uncle from the first moment I met him, pronounced by the fact that he is Clare’s Godfather. Still, some in the family whispered about his parent’s off-the-boat Southern Italian bloodline. He’s not white. What on earth were they talking about?

When I went to college, it was the first time I was put in a situation where not everyone I knew fit into categories 1 and 2. My first assigned roommate was Shaniqua from East Saint Louis. Seriously. While I made jokes about we might be confused with each other since our names were so similar, I was terrified to know that the person I would be sharing a small room with for the next year was coming from such a hard area. She never showed up though. Instead, the day before school started I was assigned a new roommate, Emily, who was a transplant from a blessedly soft suburb much like my own. While we were not best friends by any stretch, we were definitely solid enough that she explained what a perm was. If it wasn’t for her, and later Chris Rock, I would be clueless.

When I started taking my Political Science courses, I became friends with a black guy who was a constant in many of my classes. We would study together relatively often, I presume because we were in the small faction that wasn’t already set on the notion of law school. One day, as we sat in an open quad after class going over notes, a group of black girls past us. I was mostly oblivious, but he groaned. Moments later he told me that he couldn’t study with me in the open any more, that the fact we had just been spotted together was going to earn him a lot of grief with his friends. I can’t be seen with a white girl, it ruins my chances with anyone else. What on earth was he talking about? He later apologized, but we never hung out again after that day.

Today, I think I have finally found a place where I can surround myself with like minded people, regardless of race, and more importantly, have been able to incorporate Grace and Clare into environments where they see more that Irish and Polish faces. From the time they were born, they have been cuddled, cared for and honestly loved from faces spanning the world. Mexico, Cameroon, Somalia, Egypt, South Africa, India, Iran, China and Japan on skin. Catholic, Methodist, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim in hearts. I love the fact that culture, outside of our new slice of suburbia, is a constant in their school and lives.

We talk about race occasionally. Most of the time it is about tradition and celebrations, but occasionally, skin color comes up. When playing doll dress up games on my iPhone, Grace often picks black skin colors. She asks if she had dark skin, if she would still have freckles, because dark skin colors are so much more fancy in their pigments; but, then decides that she likes her white skin because she doesn’t want to take the chance of NOT having those freckles anymore.

I know that these experiences won’t stop someone from not wanting to be their friends because of skin color, but I do hope that it isn’t even a factor for friendship for them.

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 This post was inspired by The Black Count. 

Alexandre Dumas' works were heavily influenced by his father, also named Alexandre Dumas. In the biography The Black Count, author Tom Reiss tells how Dumas went from slavery to become the equivalent of a five star general in the French military. Join From Left to Write on October 11 as we discuss the The Black Count. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes

Cookies

The last two posts I've put up were kind of throw aways. Two weekends in Chicago, over 1200 miles in the air. It's exhausting.

But it's been making me think about family a lot.
All of the things we are missing. All of the memories that aren't being made for us and our girls.

During the first weekend, my mom was at the center of the trip. She had grand plans for Gracie. She wanted to make up for lost time with some of those memories. She wanted to bake.

Armed with three kinds of chocolate chips, they worked together, side by side, in a sweltering kitchen without pause.

I'll crack and you stir.
You pour and I'll stir.
Careful, only the eggs are supposed to go in the cookies, not the shells.
Let's taste. Does it need more chips?

There is something so back to basics about baking. I can't imagine a childhood without it; without those memories of stirring, pouring and kneading. Teaching your kids how to cook is like teaching them about soul. How to put love into something inanimate, that has the ability to animate.

And I'm glad that Grace was able to have that afternoon in the kitchen with my mom baking cookies.

Eggshells, salt pockets and all.

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This post is inspired by Sarah McCoy's The Baker's Daughter. In a small Texan town, Reba discovers Elsie's German Bakery and falls in love with more than the pastries. Shes drawn to Elsie's life in Germany during the last year of WWII. Join From Left to Write on August 29  as we discuss The Baker's Daughter. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Blue Christmas

Christmas was rough this year.

I take that back. It was horrible. There, I've said it. It only took me a week to say. It was horrible.

We seem to be in a .... complaining phase .... around our house. Grace whines every time she doesn't get precisely what she wants within 30 seconds of asking for it (or within 30 seconds of her thinking about it but forgetting to ask), and Clare says NO! to everything.

A friend and I once had a conversation about how much harder it is to be a calm parent than one that yells and hits. These last few weeks have been a challenge. I have never (and will never) hit either of the girls, but I find myself yelling so much more that I want to, in a primitive attempt to raise my volume over theirs in an emotional (nonsensical) attempt to have my desires heard too.

It is soul crushing, this new feeling of parenting failure. I keep oscillating between thinking it is just two and four year old growing pains, and wondering if we are to blame for the constant poor behavior and we are doing our jobs wrong.

Maybe it is both.

And in admitting that, comes new stomach churning worries that the behaviorisms of our parents that haunt us and are constantly fought against are seeping into our girls lives too. Are we expecting too much of them? Are we too quick to take out our frustrations with frowns and sharply spoken orders? Are we too quick to drown those frustrations in an extra large glass of wine?

The answer is probably yes to all three, but how do we change that? How do you teach a two year old that it is not OK to climb on the kitchen table during dinner without frowns and sharp words? How do you teach a four year old about patience after the same request has been made 10 times in a row without frowns and sharp words?

Matt and I have spent a lot of time taking about the future lately. Four months from now, 12 months from now, three years from now. How our future will be brighter, relaxed and secure. For now though, I am worried about the now.

Tomorrow starts another three day weekend.

Eyes Wide Open

I like my natural disasters to be straight forward. To give some sort of warning.

I grew up in a Chicagoland tornado alley, so honestly, those whipping columns of wind hardly even phase me. I'm like a human radar. I look at the sky patterns and color, sniff the wind and then head back inside.
       Meh, it's fine. Let's finish dinner.
Most of the time it's a false alarm. Either way, you've had plenty of warning if something is going down.

Hurricane's too. While I do not claim to be an expert on this weather phenom, you can see them coming. There have been days and days of incessant news stories and time to prep. And you'd better prep early because everyone now has the fear of Katrina in them. I never see the downside of buying extra milk and canned goods though. There is never any such thing as too much milk in our house. In fact, I think we will be stocking up for Irene this Friday.

Earthquakes though, those are tricky things. No warning. No odd goings-on in the sky or newscasters instilling panic in us. Just BAM: Shooka-shooka-shooka.

Yesterday's earthquake only lasted 36 seconds. It was 36 seconds of quiet panic though. In the metro DC area a person's mind tends to wander towards man-made causes of a shaking building, not Random Acts of God.

It was 36 seconds of panic and then a few minutes of:
Where are my babies? What do I need to grab to leave? Do I have time to tweet this? Does Matt feel this too? Is this an earthquake? Yes, it is an earthquake. No, I don't know what magnitude it is, I am using my phone to tweet. Make sure you grab your stuff, who knows if we'll be let back in. What if the parking garage collapses? What if this building collapses; lowest bidder you know. No, I don't know the magnitude yet, I'm texting.

After an hour of sitting outside with Clare (relatively) in my arms, solidified with confirmation that we did indeed part of the East Coast earthquake and feeding a miraculously found sleeve of Ritz crackers that were in my purse to hungry children, we were sent home so building assessments could be preformed.

While there has been reports of damage to buildings, including the disheartening indefinite closure of the Washington Monument, our house remained unscathed.

Unless you find shifted books and photographs upsetting.

Happy Feet

I have a dent in my forehead.

It's only noticeable when I raise my eyebrows, and if I'm raising my eyebrows at you there is probably too much going on to notice an imperfection in my scull. I received it as a consolidation prize for walking / falling into the corner of the dishwasher when I was 3 years old. Shortly after that incident my mom signed me up for dance classes.

I will admit those classes served me well. I am a klutz to the extreme. I tend to look down when I'm walking to avoid tripping. The 10 years of tap-jazz-ballet-pointe, has spared me from a lot of injury that could have been much, much worse.

******
Case in point:

Clare's new hobby is throwing my cookbooks on the floor.

I will admit they are very colorful, ideally located at toddler height and ripe for tossing, so I can't really blame her. On Sunday night, I didn't immediately clean up her thrown book pile. I let it sit until after dinner. Grace was playing on the floor and I was carrying Clare down the single step to our slightly sunken family room. The books lay in our path just on the other side of that step. I was looking down at them. Grace called my name, and suddenly I was no longer looking down at them.

And I stepped on a banana peel book. One foot in motion on the sunken, wooden floored book and one foot stationary on the tile above. While holding a writhing 20lb child.

Was my thunk loud? Yes.
Am I injured? Yes.
Did I have enough grace not to drop the baby? YES!

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And that, combined with her incessent begging lately, is the reason why Gracie will also be starting to dance classes on Tuesday.

The class is 20 minutes of tap, followed by 20 minutes of ballet, followed by 15 minutes of creative movement where I assume they just let the kids run around in circles and do the alligator on the floor. Her shoes came yesterday. A full test run was required.

Fully outfitted in tights, leotard and ballet slippers, she jumped into her daddy's arms for an impromptu Swan Lake-esque lift.

She then asked me how she actually does ballet, and I showed my little girl how to put her arms and feet into first and second position, complete with pliés.

Ahhhhh.

OK, maybe her enrollment in these classes are as much for me as they are her.

Daddy-Daughter

Everyone has things from their childhood that they can’t or won’t let go of. (Right?)

One of mine was the Daddy-Daughter Dance. I was in 4th or 5th grade and I desperately wanted to go. I remember begging my dad nonstop to take me.  He wouldn’t even consider it. He didn’t dance and had no interest in going. He had no interest in going with me.

For weeks it was all anyone talked about at school. I withdrew (even further) from the conversations and into myself those weeks to avoid being asked why I wasn’t going. What would I tell them? The day of the dance I cried in my room. He sat in his favorite chair and watched TV.

My mom loves to tell me how much Matt reminds her of my father sometimes. I vehemently disagree with that statement and it drives a wedge even further between us every time she says it.

This past Saturday, Matt took Grace to our local carnival on one of their frequent ‘dates’.

They rode rides, ate snacks and played games. Gracie almost won a ham and a goldfish. (Neither one would have lasted long in our house.) Matt’s superior college dart skills paid off and he won her princess posters. They rode and snuggled and had the kind of love filled experience Grace has come to expect from him.

And I know Matt will always be the first one in line to dance with his little girl.

The Softest of Chew Toys

Clare is a breastfed baby. 100%. I am exceedingly proud of this fact.

Grace was a fight from the start. It took weeks of coaxing and effort to get her to breastfeed. At 5 months old she starting refusing to drink again. I have no idea why I didn't just go the route of pumping and then bottle feeding her. I think I tried and just couldn't produce enough. I know I took that as some sort of misguided failure on my part, so when she wouldn't breastfeed I gave her formula. Honestly though, I think she preferred the formula. At 7 months old, she began rejecting me completely so I gave up the fight.

Clare will be 7 months old next week. A 100% breastfed baby. She will drink expressed milk from bottles, but she prefers me. She took to me instinctively after birth and has never looked back.

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From the stories I have heard, my birth was a traumatic one. My mom started hemorrhaging and was rushed to the hospital 5 weeks before her due date. Her c-section scar isn't the traditional hip bone to hip bone, it is belly button to pelvic bone, preformed without anesthesia.

She was unable to even consider breastfeeding me. It was 1978 anyway, so who's to say she would have even if given the choice. I do not question her decision at all. Formula was what was right for her to feed to both my brother and me. I really do believe that. It was my opinion before I ever had kids too. She, on the other hand, questions my decision to breastfeed at every turn.

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Tonight, I discovered that Clare has sprouted her first tooth.

(Have I told you what an amazing baby she is? I knew she was teething, I could feel the hard edges behind her gums. But this tooth- I'm not quite sure when exactly it popped though. Not a peep from her, just solid nights of sleep and smiles galore. Business as usual.)

I discovered it because she bit me while nursing. Hard. One little edge of one little tooth, but it did damage. She and I will have to work out a new system. I think it will involve nipple callouses and cold packs on my end, with impish smiles of apology on hers.

When I shared the joyous news of new enamel with my mom though, her response?
...So does this mean you will finally stop breastfeeding or is she going to still be nursing when she is in high school?

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I am lucky. I have supportive friends. The daycare teachers are beyond supportive, bordering on insistent. I work in a supportive environment. While many are surprised at my ability to keep a full time job and supply enough food for an ever increasing appetite, nobody seems to blink at the notion of my mammary glads fulfilling their intended purpose.

Nobody, except my own mother.

Tomato, Tomahto

Growing up, our gardens was my favorite part of summer.

The smell of the roses at noon and honeysuckle at night. Veggies galore. Peppers, melons, herbs and tomatoes.

Oh, the tomatoes. I would plunk myself right in the middle of the tomato area with a salt shaker for lunch. One summer I broke out with an incredible rash, that only intensified as the days went on. Diagnosis: tomato allergy. I'm fairly certain I had eaten little else for the previous week. Even after some heavy doses of Benadryl and laying off the fruits for a few days, the rash would return every time I ate anything tomato- ketchup, pasta sauce, soup- which was a major problem in my tomato heavy diet. No worries though, by the next year I was fine and realized I needed to bring a loaf of bread to the garden with me.

As an adult, I seem to be perpetually trying to recreate that rash. Every year I grow more tomatoes than I know what to do with. And every year I seem to plant more than the year before.

This was today's haul:

And the plants are still FULL. I only picked the ripest of the bunch. I may be starting a big batch of tomato sauce tomorrow and canning. Anyone want some?

Excuse Me Please, One More Drink....

My Grandpa is dying.

I think.

I’m not really sure. Either he’ll be dead soon or he will be as fine as some who is 87 years old and getting senile can be.

Honestly though, I really don’t care either way. I don’t talk about him much. I really don’t think about him much. This is why………

My Grandma died September 1995. I was 17 years old. She was my world; I know that is naive and perfection through the imperfect eyes of a child, but in my eyes she could do no wrong.

My brother and I spent almost everyday with her. Grandpa would drop her off at our house at 6am on his way to work and pick her up around 5pm on his way home. We spent at least one weekend a month at their house, often more. We went on many, many vacations with them. Even as a licensed teenager, I still choose to drive to their house and stay hours on end.

Grandma was the family matriarch. She held everything and everyone together. She arbitrated family fights, she gave the last word on right, wrong and priorities. I always saw my Grandpa as an accessory to her; the one who carried out the commands. Sure, I loved him and have plenty of good memories of him, but they all end after her death.

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I was informed of her death moments after he discovered her on the couch via the phone. I don’t blame him for this, I just still wish it had happened differently. He called our house looking for my mom, I answered the phone instead.

Shan, he cried, she’s dead. Grandma is dead. I don’t know what to do. What should I do? Grandma is cold and dead and I don’t know what to do....

Yeah I was 17, but had never really lost anyone close to me. How was I supposed to give him guidance? Really, I don’t blame him though. She was his whole world too and now she wasn’t there to tell him what to do….

*******
A few months after Grandma’s death, my mom booked him a trip to Florida to visit his sister. He never came back. His first week down there he met a lady. Less than 6 months after the death of the woman he was married to for over 35 years and had 7 children with, and without telling anyone what was happening, he married her in a civil ceremony.

He organized the sale of his/their home via the phone. His children and grandchildren found out about this, and the marriage, via the For Sale sign in the front yard and another phone call telling us we had one week to go through the house and take anything we wanted before cleaners came though to get it ready.

He never came back. He left all the family photos hanging on the walls and bookshelves. He left the pictures of me and Jerry in their frames. He declined offers from my mom to mail them to him, claiming it would make is new wife uncomfortable.

*******
I take that back, he came home for a weekend about 2 years later in 1997. My mom decided she wanted to take me and Jerry to the Mall of America for a spur of the moment weekend trip. She bought me everything a teenaged heart desired and took us to an Indian casino where I won something like $400 dollars playing a slot machine.

On the way to the airport she claimed to have a voicemail from an Uncle saying he was having a party that night and we should come. My mom strong armed us into attending playing the goodwill card from the weekend. If Jerry and I had known he would be there we wouldn’t have gone. Not only was he there, but he brought his wife too.

When we walked through the door, he smiled and said hello like nothing had changed and that he wanted to introduce us to our grandmother.

I ran out of the room in tears, while his wife proceeded to tell my brother how selfish we were to hurt him this way and that our grandfather is much happier with her than he ever was before.

I think he went back to Chicago a few times after that, but I never attended. The wife died sometime around 2001. After her death he claimed that she was a drunk and emotionally abusive. Good.

*******
Matt and I married in 2003. Under pressure from my mom, we invited him. I did hug him and stood next to him for 5 minutes to snap a few pictures. I can’t remember what words were spoken, but I do recall thinking about how old he looked now as opposed to the man in my memories. The man from my childhood was my Grandpa, this is just some look-a-like in much wrinklier skin.

Those pictures are the only ones from that day without a smile.

*******
Over the years my mom brings up that I should call him at least once a season. My reply is always the same. What is there to say? Nothing. My Grandpa died when Grandma did. I do not know the man living in Florida and I have nothing to say to him.

As a compromise, I usually send updated photos of Grace when I get them. That takes little effort on my part to address one more envelope. According to relatives, he has a little shrine on his piano of all the photos I’ve sent him of Grace, ones my mom has supplied of us, and the unsmiling picture from my wedding day. I still have nothing else to say.

******
Yesterday, as I browsed through the online clearance section of a store, I stopped short and thought of him. There in front of me was a pair of Santa Claus and Rainbow suspenders. Rainbow suspenders were always his signature piece. At $3.00 each, I thought about purchasing them and sending them anonymously. I didn’t.

When I got home yesterday, Matt said my mom left a message on the machine saying my Grandpa was in the hospital. Apparently he has several blood clots in his lungs. Testing today should determine if they can do anything, but it doesn’t look good. She once again pushed me to call him.

My answer is again, unchanged. I am sorry for the pain this is causing her. I am even sorry for the pain and confusion that he must be going though, but my Grandpa is gone.

My Grandpa is dying.

I think.

I really don’t care either way. I don’t talk about him much. I really don’t think about him much. And now you know why.

Reflections

I know Gracie pays attention. That details don't really get past her. They just become absorbed until they are needed at a later date. The mundane of our lives that is part of the auto-pilot of the everyday.

At daycare this morning I was regaled with a story about such things.

Yesterday, Gracie was playing house (aka in the kitchen setup) with her two year old love J. The teachers said they were being good so they weren't really paying attention, until they started to notice the conversation they were having. Key words. Gracie's key word of 'honey'. That got their attention, so they started watching them play.

Gracie was bossing J around in the kitchen, telling him what to do and he allowing her to do so. After all her instructions were over, she picked up a purse, put it on her shoulder and declared, "Bye bye honey! I go work. You make me dinner!" and walked away from him.

The teachers erupted in laughter and started counting the minutes until they could pass the story onto me.

First of all: I have never demanded that Matt make me dinner. I have occasionally demanded that Matt be the one to order pizza or Chinese, but never a demand to cook.

Second of all: Do I have a bossy kid? I keep getting reports of this, but I just don't want to believe it.
I know I am bossy, but one of my most distinct childhood school memories is of my 2nd grade teacher making me stand in front of the class while she lectured me on the evils of tattletaling. My recollection of my tattletailing was because some boys in the class were calling me names. That episode drove me so far into a shell, I was afraid to raise my hand to even answer a question much less report on the cruelties inflicted by other kids now that they knew *I* would be the one in trouble if I told.
I don't want this for Gracie.

Finally: Where did she get the idea that I actually want to go to work? And leave Matt at home? Hell no kid, if I have to go to work, so does daddy.

This is me and Matt reflected though Gracie's eyes. Despite the 'of all's' of this, I embrace it. We are raising a strong little lady who knows her own mind.