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The restless and the contented

I'm completely enamored, taken with the American Legion, Sons & Auxiliary Post 281's Facebook page. And no, I'm not joking in the least. 

The Legion Hall itself lives in Harbor Springs, Michigan, the rural burg that is my hometown. As I was growing up, the Hall was just part of the scenery, a place I'd never stepped inside, a place I wasn't at all curious about.

Every summer of my childhood, during Memorial and Independence Day parades, I watched veterans march down Main Street blowing into bugles and pounding on drums. When they passed by, the adults would stand and clap. Really, though, that was all I knew of the American Legion.

Now I live in Seattle. Far, far away from Post 281. But I cannot stop pouring over the photos I've found on Facebook. They belie rifles and flags hanging on white walls, formica tables and standard vinyl chairs. The people in the photos drink Bud LIghts and some smoke (indoors!). Women cook huge vats of chili and prepare tins of salad for whatever event the Legion is holding. There are Chicken Dinners, Five Dollar Brat Nights, Euchre Tournaments and Benefits for local folks who've been diagnosed with horrible cancers.

I keep going back to the page, ogling and shaking my head. I think I'm fascinated because I cannot remotely comprehend being happy living a life where I hang out at the Harbor Springs Legion Hall. Which is crappy and snobby and horrid of me, I know. With my need for cozy coffeehouses, aesthetically pleasing furnishings, richly-colored walls, and microbrews. I'm uppity. Or something.

Flipping through those photos is like an anthropological study. I see several people I recognize from school and wonder, what makes them stay? Or leave, only to return? Why is Harbor Springs enough for them? To me, the photos represent the vast difference between the restless (yours truly) and the contented (them).

And, if happiness were a measurable thing, I wonder which of us would come out ahead.

Solstice

 

Darkest day this year.

But I saw peachy sky when I looked to the West of Seattle, above the Olympic Mountains.

Glaciers are retreating over there, disappearing in Washington (the most glacially-covered state in the lower-48), and also Bolivia, the Arctic, Montana...

I don't particularly want to spend time on a glacier, have no special fondness for their thick, crevassey ice, but I know they should not be leaving us.

I'm happy we are counting down to summer. That each day will be, if not progressively warmer, then progressively lighter from now until June.

I would just like us humans to get a grip, to collectively support each other in the fight against Ziploc bags, wrapping paper and overly warm rooms. Why is it so hard to stop on our own?

I don't want to chip away at a glacier with the heels of the boots I didn't need or the key of the SUV (hybrid, but still) I could've done without.

Celiac rears its hideous dragon head

Usually, it's hardest when you wake up the next morning. When you stir slowly and bits and pieces of your life come back. Then you remember. The bad news. That thing.

But I woke up today already knowing. It never left me while I slept. The understanding that Kitty Cat has celiac disease. Celiac. Celiac. Fucking celiac.

Avoiding gluten isn't the worst thing in the world. There are diseases much more sinister. 

Tell that, though, to the 4-year-old girl who wants the doughnut in the grocery store, or who wants to eat the same cupcake everyone else gets at a birthday party, or who wants a cracker. A simple saltine. And she will tell you it is the worst. That celiac disease is the worst thing ever.

I am (we, in our family, are) prepared for food allergies–-the immediate histamine response of an ingested peanut or milk or eggs (but not really, because who's ever ready to find their baby in anaphylaxsis?). But celiac is brand new.

We will be eating a lot of rice around here. A lot of carrots. And apples. A lot of pure chocolate (because that is not banned yet).

J. and I...some combination of our genes...leads to autoimmune strangeness. I think it's probably mostly me. That's how my brain works.

It's a process of acceptance, I know. And we'll get there...we'll learn what to avoid and what we can have and we'll give Kitty Cat as normal a life as possible, punctuated by moments of heartbreak when she can't have a delicious wheaty food.

But I am still in the place where my eyelids are swollen from weeping and I can think of nothing else and I'm gnashing my teeth at the universe because it's unfair.

There is no "fair".

And, Kitty Cat: I'm so sorry.

Discipline, where art thou?

I've said it before: I hate disciplining my kids. (Who doesn't, really?) I just want to look the other way. Or hug them. Discipline is so hard. It takes so much, well, discipline.

Sure, there's the odd scenario with Fruit Bat or Kitty Cat when I am so irate, so overwrought, that I relish, just for a moment, the idea of yanking them by their ears to the back of the woodshed. But, alas, we do not have a woodshed and I haven't, as of yet, towed them anywhere by their soft, small lobes.

More likely, something happens like yesterday, when we were leaving a large, stimulating, frosting-fueled birthday party and Fruit Bat, because I was trying to convince him that urinating after four hours of not urinating and before a 40-minute drive home would be sensible, pushed me.

Clearly he shouldn't have done it. It was mean and disrespectful. Totally wrong. I could have fallen to the tiled bathroom floor, I could've been hurt.

But he was tired. He felt somehow out-of-control of his own little destiny.

My thought process went something like this:

He shoved me? He SHOVED me! What do I do? How should I punish? What to take away? Yellow Balloon? Yes, yellow balloon. Screaming. Him or me? Him. Shut up. SHUT UP. What do I do with balloon? Okay, first flush toilet. Take balloon back to party room. Leave it there. He's grabbing it. Wrench it from his hand. I hate doing that. Carry it to the Highlander, kids in tow. Where's Kitty Cat? Just behind me. Herd her forward.

Fruit Bat's still screaming. God, every vessel in my brain is collapsing in on itself. Stuff balloon up in front seat with me.

His shriek has changed pitch. Now more of a whine. New issue. What the hell's wrong this time? His goody bag doesn't have a twistie keeping it closed and Kitty Cat's does? What? WHAT? His goody bag DOESN'T HAVE A TWISTIE? Yeah, well, my sock has a hole and my heart is palpitating wildly. Who gives a shit?

Long drive home. Will he make that awful noise the whole way? Kitty Cat's pink balloon drifts forward, attaches itself to my hair. Whack it backward. There it is again. Whack it backward.

Feel sorry for Fruit Bat. It's been a big day for him. He hurt his ankle twice. Badly. Required ice. Should I give him balloon back? No. NO. Don't waffle.

Should I let balloon go out the car window? Bad for environment. Sea creature might eat it and die. Should I teach Fruit Bat a lesson and make a point of popping it when we get home? Too cruel.

Our driveway. Finally. "J.! They're all yours!" Glad this made him laugh. Here comes Fruit Bat in from the garage still going on about the twistie and the balloon. Must collapse. First, okay, snip hole in balloon when Fruit Bat's not looking and stuff whole thing into trash can. He'll forget about it.

Oof, couch is soft. Feels good. Can barely hear kids from wherever it is J. took them. Don't even care. They can watch TV until bedtime. Until tomorrow night's bedtime. Don't even care.

Want cup of tea. Tea too far away. Will I ever feel refreshed enough to care properly for kids again? Yes, have experienced this level of saturation before and always come out of it. Eventually. Want a nap. Want my laptop. Want alone time with J. How many days has it been since J. and I went on date? Since November 3rd. What is that? Calculating... 154 days since last official date. Wonder if J. would be offended if I mentioned this on blog. Maybe I should find a counter widget for sidebar. Funny or just pathetic?

Perfect analogy for my life. Funny or just pathetic?

Wait, is that Fruit Bat whining again about the freaking wretched balloon?

It is better to receive than to give

I think I've finally chipped the dried batter from my hair and scrubbed the fudgy frosting from under my nails. I'm so tired of the cakes. Really. I can't imagine ever wanting another one.

At least until next week.

Overall, the birthdays have gone well. Kitty Cat, on her special day, most wanted scrambled eggs–a delicacy since she can only have them when Fruit Bat is in Pre-K. So we went to Patty's Eggnest, and, of course, despite all the Duncan Hines I'd been sampling and the eyeballs jellybeans I'd been popping, I felt compelled to order a stack of pancakes. This was right after inhaling a giant turkey sandwich for lunch.

Kitty Cat ate eggs and ate eggs and was flexible and sweet and appreciative of her gifts.

Fruit Bat's birthday started out smoothly, but began to fall apart toward the afternoon. I should say HE began to fall apart. In his defense, this was the first full week in his brand new class. He's busy adjusting. He's busy "taking social risks", which is what his teachers, and J. and I, want. He's tired.

So, I wasn't totally surprised that he screamed like the roof was caving in when we asked him for a brief photo op (a quick pic of him in front of one of the many cakes I'd slaved over). I also wasn't too taken aback when he whined (nay, shrieked), later in the evening, because two of his gifts were intended to be shared with his sister. I was mortified by his greed. But the tantrum itself? Not too shocking.

We ended up confiscating the remainder of his presents and lecturing him mercilessly on gratitude.

The next morning, I made him sign five thank you notes before he could open the presents we'd cruelly seized.

For the last 24 hours, I've been cursing the American Birthday Dream. There's SO MUCH. All the gifts and sweets that have pushed our kids' expectations to grander, more decadent plateaus.

I like to think we're fairly modest in our giving. Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat each received two smallish presents from us, a few humble trinkets from our families. And our birthday party tomorrow will consist of four friends. No clowns. No mimes. No bounce house. Not that there's anything wrong with those indulgences. They are just not us.

We'll have some play. Cake (of course). Then a treasure hunt for goody bags.

My relationship with goody bags, as well, is complicated. Bristling. I don't like them. I don't like that, as a kid, we used to get paper cups half filled with M&Ms (and we were satisfied with that. And how old and crotchety do I sound?) and now, if Fruit Bat receives a nifty gifty that is actually a high quality toy rather than a bag filled with a dozen pieces of junk, he feels cheated.

But, still, I partake. Just today I bought several pieces of crap for my child to hand to his best friends tomorrow afternoon.

They will love him for it. And, as long as he's not yelping that I didn't provide sparkly enough swag, I will smile tenderly at his cronies, my heart melty that he has friends as good as these. And we will all feel lucky again.

Doomed

I wrote this on the train Saturday. It's true:

Wet roads, brown, January grass. A smoky lumber mill. Weeds and litter. Broken houses. The Golden Rule grocery store.

The train I’m riding to Portland has just hit and killed someone. We stopped suddenly. The smell of hot metal searing our nostrils.

I find myself thinking now, I hope it’s not a child. But then, I hope it’s not a mother or a father or a brother or sister either. And it is someone.

I see nothing of the accident. I only hear the conductor coming over the intercom, giving us an update every quarter hour. He is sighing, affected. An investigation is ensuing. The body is being removed. “The Mess”, as the conductor refers to it, is being cleaned up.

My fellow travelers seem curiously unmoved. They laugh and eat, assuming it's a suicide and therefore, unworthy of their sympathy. I hear one young guy, after a long time of sitting on our motionless train, exclaim that they should just scoop up the remains and get on with it.

An embittered sixty-something man across the aisle from me checks his watch every few minutes, updating his wife. At the two-hour mark he mutters, “Jesus!” I try to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he’s traveling to visit a sick family member, perhaps he’s hoping to catch a flight out of PDX. But then I hear his wife on her cell phone and their plans, it seem, are social in nature. So we are late. “At least you’re not dead,” I want to snap.

I try to write and listen to Ani Difranco on my ipod and watch the on-board movie (The Nanny Diaries) but I am distracted by images of what lies one car and an engine ahead of us.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative

~Oscar Wilde

I did some things right yesterday. I brushed my teeth. I Christmas shopped (a little). I refrained from screaming my head off the 45th time Fruit Bat announced he wanted to hit me. And Kitty Cat too. His frequent grumblings about how he hoped to pummel someone became such a mantra that I almost wished he would haul off and belt me one so I could punish him. As it was, I was trying to be democratic. I reminded myself that he was using his words and not his hands. Blah, blah, blah.

Yes, hello. Nice to meet you. I'm Pansy Ass Violet.

Or so infers my husband. "Fruit Bat needs swift and firm discipline", he declared last night.

Well, yes, he does, Dr. Phil. But I don't think it's that easy.

There are so many variables that makes cut and dried discipline hard for me to pull off. First of all, there's the fatigue and hunger factors. If Fruit Bat is tired or hasn't had protein in, oh, the last twenty minutes (especially if it's because I've been dragging him around to various stores buying pretty things, or even necessary things), it seems unfair to come down hard on him for whining or kicking a toy across the room.

If Kitty Cat has infringed on his space, which he sometimes desperately needs and which she often does not respect and he swats at her (his "hitting" usually amounts to this--soft whap-whap-whaps--not that I'm excusing the whaps, just sayin') I don't think stashing him in time out without also punishing her is right. And I frankly believe two-and-a-half is too young for much that's punitive.

There are also the mishaps that occur when my back is turned and I have to take Fruit Bat's word that he didn't mean to crush Kitty Cat's fingers in the salad spinner, that it was an accident, or call him a liar. Which I already do too much of.

I try. I really try. He had a time-out this afternoon. After-dinner dessert was retracted. And he suffered much hissing and snapping of my weary tongue. I really attempt to weigh all the variables, give him the benefit of the doubt when I can, choose my battles and allow him to save face in small ways, while I control the larger issues.

Apparently, I did a lot of things wrong today.

Before my sweet, first baby grew into a willful preschooler (always before) I thought yes, of course: Firm and swift. Firm and swift.

I never, in my most vivid and demented daydreams, thought consistency would be this hard to achieve.

My patience...it is a thread

Turns out I do not have the fortitude for artsy/crafty projects with my four- and two-year-olds.

Yesterday they wanted to carve pumpkins. Okay! I thought. Pumpkin carving is festive! It'll be fun!

I exuberantly hacked holes in the tops of two pumpkins and expected much messy mirth to ensue.

There was no mirth. Fruit Bat grimaced and said, "It's just too slimey for me." Kitty Cat parroted him, because that's what she always does.

Hmm. Okay! I said. Why don't you have the job of plucking the pumpkin seeds from the guts and we'll salt them and bake them?!

Again, Fruit Bat grimaced. "It's just too gooey for me." Kitty Cat agreed.

So I, alone, did the scooping. Until we were into our second hour and the children, they were getting restless. I was sticky and muttering that next year we were painting pumpkins, not cutting them up. Who invented this stupid, labor intensive tradition anyway? Certainly not someone with squeamish littles underfoot.

I got a third of the way through "Kitty Cat's" jack-o-lantern, which, sadly, had really become mine. Fruit Bat was grumbling. Kitty Cat was whining. So I set it aside.

Today we went to paint pottery at a lovely little spot in Queen Anne called Color Me Mine. I explained to the kids that they would have to follow some specific instructions, that we were making ornaments and bowls that would LAST FOREVER, so this wouldn't be the watercolor free-for-all they were used to.

They chose colors, they dabbed paint onto hardened clay, they lost interest, they got hot because there was an oven in back the size of ten beer kegs put together. They painted a little more.

I instructed them, patiently at first, to coat both sides of the ornaments, to not dip their brushes in water, but to instead switch brushes, to not smear their names that I'd carefully written along the edges of the freshly painted pottery, TO HOLD THEIR PROJECTS CAREFULLY SO THEY DON'T DROP AND SHATTER.

All my bitching aside, I'm glad we went. It was a new experience and we spent the time with people we really like. I just don't have it in me to relax during such endeavors. Perhaps I'm a control freak. Perhaps it's because they're too young. I don't know.

But I do know that I have cookies to make for Fruit Bat's preschool Halloween Party next week and I'll be baking, by myself, late into the night.

Anger Management technique #1: Making a fool of myself

J. is still out of town. It's been a long three days.

Yesterday I threw pickles (from Fruit Bat's plate) across the kitchen. And kicked the laundry basket hard. I'm really so DONE with my four-year-old's recent aggression toward Kitty Cat. Though I know it's just beginning. And that depresses me.

To cheer myself up I hired a babysitter last night and went out to dinner alone. I ate sushi with a fork, drank a beer and felt a bit better.

Then I came home and tried on the babysitter's sunglasses. That filled me with glee. Really.

Happy Meal toys make me grouchy

But Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat love them. Or love the novelty of them.

To celebrate Fruit Bat's newly diagnosed asthma having done a great job during his appointment with the allergist yesterday, we stopped at McDonald's for lunch. We broke my rule of going only twice a month (we went just last week!! Eeek!) but J. is out of town, so what the heck.

I ordered the Happy Meals and mentioned to the cashier that my son doesn't like scary toys, like the skull thingy they tried to give us last time we were there.

She said, "Oh, these are just Hotwheels."

"Okay!" I chirped. "He likes Hotwheels."

She then proceeded thrust at us a most sinister and ugly vehicle:

Kitty Cat (who is TWO), got this meek little mouse:

Both of these toys will mysteriously vanish sometime in the next few days...