"Stranger Danger" or "I Was Reminded"

I was reminded today of Joey's vulnerability.  Every day I see him grow a little more and let go with an appropriate amount of fear.  Well.  Maybe a little more than is normal.  I do.  I worry.

When the kids were littler (like 3 and 5), I'd frequently lump them together in my parenting. Same bedtime, same toys, letting them both alone to play while I did housework or took a shower.  I expected (without thinking it through) that he could cognitively, physically and emotionally be able to follow along with his older sister.

I was reminded more often than I cared to that Joey needed to be watched more.  Toys down the toilet, soap all over the floor, pushing his screens out the window -- followed by all his toys, books and bedding.  Thank Goddess not himself.

Perhaps this is cognitive and social delay, ADHD, or just personality differences between the two children -- because Aubrey never did any of this.  Or if she did, it was as a follower to him as ring leader.

But today I am reminded of the seriousness of whatever this 'spiritedness' is of Joey's.

We arrived at Tae Kwon Do class and parked behind the building.  Aubrey and I filled the parking meter.  She fished coins out of her silver purse, sequins the size of quarters sewn onto the fabric. 

"I'm going in," Joey said.  I looked to where he was standing.  Less than four feet away.

"No! We all walk together.  Wait for us," I said.  I turned back to the parking meter and Aubrey painstakingly looking through her bag for "silver ones."

"I just wanna peek around the corner."  He means the alley.  We have to walk down the alley to get to the front of the building on Willamette Street. He usually remembers to peek slowly around the corner before barreling into the alley-used-as-often-as-a-street.  I paused.

"OK.  Don't go farther than that pole."  And I pointed.  Did he see me?  I was looking at the pole.

I finished with Aubrey and the meter and turned to the pole.  Not there.  I didn't panic but quickened my pace to a trot.  Sometimes he hides behind the wall and "boos" around the corner, giggling.  I turned the corner.  Not there.

I glanced up the alley and saw him standing at the corner talking to someone.  My initial reaction was irritation.

"JOE!" I bellowed.  Then I noticed he is with a man; large and dressed a little dingy.  I quickened my pace. 

"Come here!"  What if he'd been kidnapped?! The man looked at me and I felt ashamed at my second reaction.  I don't want the man, if he's harmless, to think I've prejudged him.  Which, of course, I have.  

"You were supposed to wait for me back here."  I hoped this softened my prejudice to the man, at least to his ears.  It assuaged my guilt -- but only temporarily.  

I don't want my children to grow up thinking that street people, whether they are homeless or not, are dangerous.  I don't want my children thinking that all strangers are dangerous.  But how to tell the difference?  Even I, as an adult, come up with the wrong interpretations of someone's motives sometimes.  Or get a feeling about someone and have it be totally inaccurate later.  

Who am I to teach them about ... vibes?  Shouldn't they be left to decipher that themselves?  I don't want my prejudices to rub off on them -- not when I try so hard to not have them myself. I pride myself on not being racist or prejudiced in any way, but obviously that can't be true if I worry that just because some man is talking to my son that he wants to do him harm.  And that the only reason he didn't carry through with it was because I thwarted his plans by coming around the corner!

When I reached the corner, holding firmly to Joey's hand now, the amiable -- though dusty and patchworked -- man smiled and said, "I like that boy.  He's smart.  He's a good-lookin' kid."  He waved and walked off.

Before he did, I returned the smile and said, "Thank you."  If I take apart his statement, eeww.  I'm terrified.  "I like that boy ... he's good-lookin'"?!  All is well though.  I was here. Joey's safe.  This is what I'm telling myself, but what I say out-loud is different. 

When I turned the corner, I continued my nasty asides to Joey about not trusting him and having to now hold his hand ALL THE TIME.  Even as I did it I hated the sound of my voice.  I knew it was from fear that my voice goes evil like that, but how did Joey feel?  

Looked from his perspective the encounter might have been something like this:  bored of waiting, can't stand still too long -- it hurts to do that (or maybe creates panic or anxiety for him to be still -- thinking ADHD here), I'll just go to class, so excited about class, here I go, Mom and Aubrey are behind me, skipping through the sun, bare feet on concrete feels neat, 'oh hi nice smiling man that would never hurt me, how are you?' JOE!  uh oh, Mom's mad, why?, sadness, I never do anything right, she's always yelling at me.

I feel so completely ill-equipped to take this job of mom.  I hopelessly make things worse for my children, when I only want to protect them and guide them into compassionate, soulful human beings.  When I stop to think "They are compassionate, soulful human beings," I hold my breath with the crushing fear that I'm ruining it for them.  Ruining them for them.  I make it all worse.  

So who is the vulnerable one here?  Is it Joey, who is seven and trusts openly, and doesn't think it is wrong to try and walk home from a public school without telling anyone, just because he thought it was time to go home?  Or walked out of the bathroom and out of the school building during the middle of the day to wait for me to pick him up, when I never pick him up at that time, or on that side of the school.  He didn't tell anyone where he was going and he was lost for twenty minutes.  

(The principal called us after he was found.  When I questioned her about that she said, " ... if we called every time a child was missing and then turned up ten minutes later, we'd be on the phone a lot and scaring a lot of parents."  There was SO MUCH of this conversation that horrified me .. but that is another story.)

Or am I the vulnerable one?  Because I worry so much and feel guilty so much.  And feel like such a bad parent so much.  I know that 'no one's perfect' --

-- but it's always so astonishing when I'm not.  

Blogs and Fins

Today I started a blog for Aubrey.  She'll use this for her grammar, writing, and keyboarding skills.  Also, it's loads of fun to blog!

Her and Joey have been taking swim lessons this past week (p.e.!!). 

Yeah!  I can do this homeschooling thing!  :)

Homeschooling

This is the picture I took last year in September on their first day of school. I wonder what their picture will look this year.  Pajamas?  Sadness? Excitement? Relaxation?  Because I'm home-schooling this year.  EEK!

Admittedly, I have several ideas up my sleeve for content, I'm also nervous about making sure they learn enough to keep them on track for when they re-enter the alternative schools they are on the waiting lists for.  Also the alone time thing.  That's really scaring me.  I am finding creative ways to take those quiet moments for myself. I don't want my writing to suffer because of this choice.

I CAN have it all.

I know I'll be great on the reading, writing and science and PE and art.  

Reading:  We read together ALL the time, I'll take them to the library more often (once a week? or once a month?), and I'll have both of them read out loud to me every other day (everyday?). I'll also encourage Joey to read to himself when his confidence gains momentum.  He still says, without thinking, "I can't read." And I know he can.  And, of course, I'll have Aubrey read in her room once a day.  (She needs the alone time, too.)

Writing:  I am going to open a blog for each one of them to 'write' in.  I'm going to open email accounts for both of them.  And I'm going to instill 'letter writing' day at least twice a month.  I will join them in all these endeavors.  When they blog, I'll blog.  When they write a letter to a family member, I will too. Most of the time I will allow them the choice of emailing or handwriting a letter.  But I do want them to practice their penmanship.  That, I think, should be everyday.  How though?

Science: That's easy.  SpiralScouts

Also, the Science Factory and the Planetarium.

And then I have Homesource to flesh out the math or address other subjects that they each may enjoy.  Like, Aubrey wants to take a clay class and a chemistry class this term.

Socializing will be no problem.  We have friends that are home-schoolers (several, in fact). And the p.e. will not be a problem.  The home-schooling group I just joined has weekly park days and there is a gymnastics place that the kids like that has a home-school open gym.  Currently they are in tae kwon do, but want to take a break from that, and swimming.  (I'm remembering that HomeSource has free swimming classes.  I'll look into to that, too.)

Whew!  I've definitely got my work cut out for me.  I am learning to listen to their interests and involving them more in the search for information.  I want learning to be a fun and for their critical thinking and creativity and curiosity to be nurtured.  I hope I'm up to the task.

How do you home-school?

Ant Busses

I just spent seven minutes squishing ants with a sponge in my kitchen.  Where did they come from?  I've lived here four years and have never seen an ant, much less a colony.  I mean, this is the first literal day I've seen them, too.  I wonder if they came on some fruit I bought at the store. Or my compost bucket.  Hmm.  I better check that and dump it.

Ants.  Well, if it becomes a problem, I at least know a good pest control guy I could call.

Arg.

An additional arg has me in a bit of a strop today.  My van won't start.  I first noticed it at 4:30 this morning getting ready to drive Fernanda to the airport.  Whoops.  So we took Paul's car.

I asked my housemate to jump the van (I was going to say 'jump me' but realized that looked ALL SORTS of wrong) so I could run an errand and take the kids to a birthday party.  No luck. It's bone dead.  (Can I say that?  I know the original phrase is "bone dry" ... )  

Aubrey was really disappointed to miss the party at the park, so I suggested (or maybe it was her) that we take the bus.  Oh goody, an adventure.  But really, what's my problem?  I've been grousing about not using the van so much and biking more places and saving money on gas ($96.60 last time I filled up), so here is my opportunity.  Not to mention the impression it'll make on the children.  Kind of like a field trip.  And I'll need to get used to those if I'm homeschooling this year.  (Eeeep.  I keep finding little challenges with that fact ... now that I've officially made the decision and talked to the children about it.  Sigh.)

So, I'm off to the bus stop.

Babies are coming back!

My babies are coming back tonight!  (Well, they aren't babies anymore ... but they were in this picture!)  Hooray!!!  I can't wait to see them! (Ache, Ache, Ache)

More pictures later because I believe they will look TOTALLY different than when I left them in Massachusetts.

Time to finish last minute tasks before we leave for the airport.

Like maybe wash the van.  Eew.

Need Suggestions

Does anyone have any ideas for educational, fun activities to do with kids ages 7-10 during the year?

I've checked out Nearby Nature, Bounce, Homesource and The Science Factory.  Anything else?

I think I'm serious about this!  

My only concern is when to find time to write that novel in November.   

And Whispered I Love You

I fly home today. And leave my babies behind. This tears at me and feels so unbelievably foreign. They are staying with their grandmother for a month, which is good for them, but feels terrible to me. Most of the time. I watch my son sleep, breathing in and out, mouth open, wrapped in a blue comforter. Fernanda is making muffins in the kitchen.

Joey cried again last night at the prospect of me being gone. It’s the lullaby. Sigh. It started when Aubrey was a baby and I’d sing her to sleep. Some days she’d not fall asleep until I’d dregged the pool of songs I knew way, way back when. It was on such a night – or naptime, I forget which – that I stumbled upon the Beatles’ song “All My Lovin’.” I’ve kept it handy ever since, because I like it and, really, how many times can you sing “Hush Little Baby”? This last year Aubrey’s revived it and at nine years old, asks me to sing it to her most nights.

So I had this brilliant idea to record a cassette tape for each of them with my voice doing lullabys and child meditations, dubbed “dreaming stories” by Aubrey when she was two. I even found a recording of The Beatles singing “All My Lovin’” and recorded it – just so they know what they’re missing when I sing it.

I thought it would bring comfort at bedtime and soft smiles before slumber. Nope.
Everytime Joey hears it – he cries. Now, as I watch him roll over in his makeshift bed, I’m contemplating confenscating it. But that seems underhanded and likely to cause more grief. Even trauma perhaps. Like a well-meaning relative that sends all your husband’s clothes to Goodwill right after he dies so you won’t cry when you see them. Snort. As if. (This didn’t happen to me, by the way, but could you imagine?!)

So I leave the tape and walkman in the chair above his little head – if only so he can find a morose bit of comfort from it.


I woke early this morning, 5:30, and rested with my eye mask against the Eastern sun already shining through my window. For the prior three nights, either Aubrey or Joey or both slept with me in Fernanda’s bed. Last days of sleepovers before I go. A special treat because we don’t do this at home. But last night Joey wanted to sleep in the living room and Aubrey wanted to be alone.

So I was in the bed by my lonesome this morning at 5:30 thinking about Joey alone in the living room. About Joey waking up alone in the living room. About Joey feeling alone this whole month without me. After an hour of thinking what a horrible mother I was for traumatizing my children in this way, I pulled a blanket and pillow off my bed, drug them down the hall, and snuggled up next to him.

I laid there soaking up his baby-ness, even though he’s really seven. I moved my hand several times over the minutes making sure I wasn’t crushing him with my seventeen pound arm. Chest, then waist, now hip and leg. When he rolled over to his back, I nestled my hand on his shoulder and happily closed my eyes, content to be in the same bed with my little love – though my butt and left leg were off the futon pad.

I was reminded of some of Catherine Newman’s writings. She writes of the physical pain of being in love with her children and that’s what I was feeling. Bits of love pain slicing around inside my veins like miniature razor blades. All my insecurities of being Joey’s mom surfaced and dunked below the freezing, murky depths of my consciousness, and then surfaced again.

Joey turned his head towards me and puffed little morning breaths at me. I averted my own face just slightly. Fairly soon he rolled completely over onto his stomach and slid off the futon pad, his left forearm and left foot remaining. His aching freshness was both a delight and something that took the breath from my body.

Should I move him? No. He’d wake. He looked comfortable but I was no longer lying next to him. He was on one side of the twin-sized pad and I was on the other. I could crawl onto it, and my screaming hip would prefer that, but what if he woke up and saw me snoozing on his bed and him off? Like I’d pushed him over in the night, hogging the softness to myself.

But I didn’t want to keep lying here if I wasn’t snuggling with Joey this last ime. I could go and snuggle up to Aubrey the next room. My goodbye to her. But look at this elbow! Pale, with two faint bruises near the bony prominence. How can I leave this elbow? How can I walk out of this room and leave this elbow for three weeks? Even if it’s to walk into another room down the hall where another precious elbow with my same blood and DNA pulsing through it awaits my last snuggles? How can I leave this elbow? I’m distruaght. It looks so fragile lying there, bereft.

And then I remember that I am the one that is bereft, not this contentedly sleeping elbow attached to this contentedly sleeping boy.

He opened his eyes, sat up and saw me. I smiled and he climbed back on the bed and was asleep so fast again, I wonder if he really did see me.

I covered him, kissed his hair and whispered, “I love you.”

I always say it out loud whenever I check on the kids in the middle of the night. Like a talisman of sorts. A motherly shield, a token of love that I believe can be heard through their dreams. Can cure nightmares if they’ve begun and soften any stresses that they’ve carried into sleep.

I tiptoed out the room with my pillow and tucked in with Aubrey. She was more substantial, at nine, to spoon around and I didn’t worry about crushing her as much. When standing she already reaches my shoulders, almost.

Aubrey doesn’t move as much as Joey does when they’re sleeping. I might’ve been able to fall asleep again if I wanted to. Being in an actual bed helped, but I didn’t want to succumb. I breathed in “Aubrey Angel-ness” and thought about her elbows, too. Though I couldn’t see her’s because when I first walked in she was hunched over, fetal-position, under only a sheet and had pulled up the comforter to her chin.

It’s so precious when you do this and your child just melts into warmth – like her muscles were held rigid from the cold before and now can relax.

I thought of the huge burden I put on her last night. She came to my bed to say a last goodnight and I asked her to look out for her brother while I was gone. That he was really going to miss me, and she interjected,

“I am too,” and looked sad.

“I know, but he’s really taking it hard. Please just try to understand that when he’s bugging you and not leaving you alone and just doing little brother things, that he’s really just sad and scared and lonely.

“You don’t have to do anything about it. I’m not asking you to change it or fix it. Just know that that’s what’s happening for him inside and try not to be so angry with him. And be more patient with him. OK?”

She nodded and hugged me. And now I felt like an ass for having dumped something so huge on her. Like a father going off to war and telling his ten year old son, “You’re the man of the house now. Look after your mother for me.”

God, what pressure! And responsibility that is so clearly not their’s to take!

I’m sorry, Aubrey. I felt like crying. Familiar pressure in my head, a holding of my breath and a squeeze in my lungs. Sorry for asking too much.

I slid out of bed, kissed her hair and whispered, “I love you.”