The gender of your child isn’t all that important, I know. But when I found out we’d be having a boy – and then two boys – I was very excited.
I was a tomboy. I climbed trees and played sports and never had any interest in dolls or makeup or sewing. I am from the era when I was forced to wear skirts and dresses to school, so these were the girly things I was “supposed” to like. (I am old.)
When I visualized my future children – several decades before I had any – I only chose boys’ names. I couldn’t come up with any girl names that I liked. (I can now, although they are still rather ambiguous.) Before we knew they were males, we’d finally agreed on Casey (for Dylan) and Jamie (for Shane) – both of which can be used as boys’ names, too.
It was also important to me that I spend my adult years hovering near the dugout while my kids played baseball. I pictured myself in the bleachers, cheering as the little guys raced around the bases.
So I put them both on the baseball field at age five. I bought them a tiny glove and a tiny hat and plunked them out there, waiting for my dream to begin.
By the age of six, though, both boys hated baseball.
“I just stand there,” Dylan whined. “There’s nothing to do!”
Three years later, I had a similar conversation with Shane: “It’s so boring!” Shane told me. “I just wait the whole day for my turn to bat!”
I realized, too late, that I hadn’t spent enough time preparing them for the doldrums that happen while the other team is at bat. I also didn’t explain why baseball is fun, even when you’re just standing there.
Maybe we just didn’t play enough catch.
But the boys tried other sports, too. Dylan played baseball, basketball, soccer, and football. He was in chess club, if that counts as “sport.” He learned how to swim, ice skate, roller skate and ski. He played ultimate frisbee for three seasons. One day he decided to run a mile, and he did – and later, he joined the 8th grade cross country team. The following year, he quit cross country and learned how to play tennis. He was going to play at school, but tennis team conflicts with the spring musical.
Dylan is quite good at sports, too. He has real natural ability, particularly in basketball and tennis. But he quit everything except ski club – which is now in danger of closing due to insufficient participation.
Shane was a bit less traditional. At age two, Shane asked to take dance class, and did. Then he played baseball, basketball and football. He loved football, but only played flag – no tackle. Like Dylan, Shane also learned to play chess, swim, ski and skate. (Shane was so good at roller skating that I once googled “roller derby for kids.”)
Shane played a lot of tennis, and he was good at it. But in spite of the cost of lessons at the fancy tennis club, Shane never played a single match. A year later, he fell in love with ping pong. His friends are on a swim team – but Shane declined to join, and took up rock climbing instead. Since he also runs like the wind, Shane is considering trying track. He just signed up for ping pong classes.
Both boys are athletic and talented. They could play any sport.
But on weeknights during baseball season, I sit in the bleachers outside at dusk, watching someone else’s kids play.
I play a computer game called Song Pop. It’s a game that supplies short clips from songs, and requires me to guess the song from the clip. I’m given a choice of four songs or artists and I try to guess the one that’s correct. Since I memorized every song I heard for nearly three decades, this is mostly fun for me.
My favorite thing about Song Pop is that each song I recognize represents something – and usually transports me instantly back to my youth.
For example, I hear three seconds of “Let It Whip” and I am instantly transported to parties after work at an amusement park, where I’d squeal uncontrollably and fly onto the dance floor. Or I hear two seconds of “You’re So Vain” and suddenly I am lounging on the scratchy white-and-gray couch in my parents’ house, playing my dad’s Carly Simon albums on the old console stereo. Or I hear five seconds of “With Arms Wide Open,” and I’m once again pregnant and simultaneously sobbing and singing as I drive home from work in my little blue Mazda.
I can run through the gamut of my entire life in 30 seconds. It’s wonderful! But recently I had an experience that sent me into some kind of emotional Song Pop tornado.
I heard about three seconds of a Bee Gees song – “Too Much Heaven.”
My Song Pop choices, however, suggested that it might be “Donny Osmond.” At the height of his popularity, Donny Osmond – with his prepubescent voice – sounded a lot like the Bee Gees.
My emotions suddenly and temporarily imploded.
Because when I was eight years old, Donny Osmond was my whole world – well, except for the rest of the Osmond family. I played Osmond albums over and over, singing along and staring at Donny’s puppy-dog eyes. I knew the whole world loved Donny. So, as only an eight-year-old can, I truly believed that someday I would grow up and marry Jimmy Osmond, because we both had freckles.
When I hear a clip of an Osmond song, I am instantly transported to sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor listening to my plastic turntable for hours on end. These are some of the happiest flashbacks from my childhood, so I love getting Osmond clips on Song Pop. It’s one of those things that takes me back so fast, I forget how old I am now.
But the song I actually heard in this incident was by the Bee Gees. I saw the name “Donny Osmond,” sending me into a tailspin, but I knew that wasn’t right.
“Too Much Heaven” was the number one song in the country when I was 15. I was a devastated teenager. When “Too Much Heaven” played – and it played a lot – I retreated into a depression so deep, I could have cried. But I was too angry to cry, so I would sink into a funk that could last for the length of the song, or for a month. (I was overloaded with hormones, so I never knew what would happen.) I flashed back to days of sulking on the floor of my bedroom closet, doors closed and providing a darkness to match my mood.
And that was the complete opposite of my childhood Osmond experience. So when I heard “Too Much Heaven” and saw “Donny Osmond,” my brain whipped from childhood ecstasy to depression, and back, and down – and I was lost in a sudden sort of memory fog.
Then I clicked “Bee Gees.”
And thankfully, I returned to the present.
As a mom, my birthday takes a backseat to everything related to my kids – but I no longer let that stop me.
My birthday is at the end of August. I begin celebrating sometime in late July (if I can wait that long). For the month of August, I treat myself well.
This is unusual, actually. For the other eleven months of the year, I whine and moan about all the things I wish I had. And if I’m not whining, I’m (at least) thinking about what I don’t have.
I don’t give myself anywhere near the amount of attention (or stuff) I give to my kids.
I don’t want lavish things. I don’t think, I wish I could buy a vacation home or my own private island. I don’t think, I wish I had a 14-carat gold bracelet that glorifies my name with diamonds.
No. These are not the kinds of things I want.
Still, in August, I allow myself to really dream.
For example, I dream when I make fried eggs.
I have four spatulas for flipping. I don’t cook often, but when I do, I only like using one of my four spatulas. I like the green one. But the green one is often in the dishwasher, having been used by someone else. So my choice is to use one of the spatulas I don’t like, or to hand-wash the green one.
Naturally, I use a spatula I don’t like. And I gripe and complain (to myself) the whole time the egg is cooking, because I don’t have the right spatula.
So this year, I bought another spatula. After all, it’s my birthday! I can get whatever I want!
I have no idea if I will like my new spatula or not. I haven’t used it yet. But I am happy, knowing I have a new one. (I bought the green one for my birthday two years ago.)
And this year – in a clever ploy – I took advantage of my birthday for something even more dramatic.
In my bedroom, I have a light switch that, when flicked to the “on” position, illuminates a table lamp in the corner.
For many years, I have been walking into my bedroom and hitting that switch and … I wait and … a tiny ray of yellow light is emitted from the table lamp. For 13 years, since we moved into this house, I’ve gotten nothing but a minimal streak of yellow when I flick that switch.
This means I can’t see what’s in my drawers to find matching clothes. I can’t read a scrap of paper on the dresser across the room. In fact, the only thing I can see is the table beneath the lamp – which I don’t even use, except to strategically hold my alarm clock.
Several months ago, I bought a floor lamp for Dylan to use in his bedroom. It was only $60. But when I hit the switch in his room, I almost cried. It’s so bright in there! Dylan’s whole room lights up, and he can see whatever he wants! Heck, he could even read a book by that light.
But in my room… there was just that tiny ray of light from that little table lamp.
Until now. I bought myself a floor lamp just like Dylan’s. I moved the table lamp to my dresser, and now I have sufficient brightness everywhere!
It’s my birthday! I can get whatever I want!
This year, I got a lamp and a spatula. And I am totally happy.
After Dylan and I came home from our jaunt around town on segways, I asked him a question.
We’d ridden segways once before, and my feet hurt substantially less on our second go-round. I wondered if it was that I’d worn different shoes, or if we’d had an easier ride, or if the ride was a little shorter.
“My feet just don’t hurt this time,” I said to Dylan. “What do you think?”
Dylan looked up from his chair, where he was smiling and tapping away on his cell phone. “Huh?” he said.
“What do you think?” I asked again.
Dylan said, “I think – if you illegally copy a movie, and you do it on an island somewhere in the southeastern part of the United States…. Does that make you a Pirate of the Caribbean? That’s what I’m thinking about.”
Sometimes I don’t get what I expect from my kids. In fact, I am starting to realize, most of the time, my kids surprise me.
Last night, I was on my way to bed and Shane followed me down the hall.
“Mom! Mom!” Shane whispered frantically. I turned around, tired but wanting to know what he needed.
“Yes, Shane?”
“Mom, what did the pirate say on his 80th birthday?”
I am not sure how this is so urgent that he needs to chase me down the hall at midnight, I thought. Still, I waited a second before giving up. “Arrr,” I said.
“No,” Shane said. “He said, ‘Aye, Matey!'”
“Aye Matey,” I repeated aloud. “Oh, I get it! That’s pretty clever.”
Two pirate jokes in one day. I am not a fan of pirates, or pirate jokes, or anything to do with pirates, except Johnny Depp – who, I must say, is better without the drunken Jack expression.
Still, pirate jokes from my kids are okay. It sure beats yelling, screaming and trying to control their every move.
I guess it was a pretty good day.
Today I went sightseeing in D.C. with Dylan.
We had a reservation to tour the city while riding on segways.
We had to be there at 9:30 a.m. The website made it very clear that if we were even five minutes late, we would lose our reservation and forfeit our tour. It was not a cheap tour. And D.C. is not next door. We had to get up early.
I needed to be awake by 7:15 to get out the door by 7:45. Dylan needed to get up by 7:00 and, if we were lucky, he would remember to eat breakfast before we left. Dylan always takes longer to get ready in the morning than anyone else in the family.
As is usually the case when I am worried, I barely slept. I was worried that Dylan wouldn’t get up in time, and/or that my alarm wouldn’t go off, so we would sleep through the entire experience. I woke up when it was pitch black – twice – then again in early morning light – three times. When I finally woke up for the last time, it was 6:30 a.m. Half an hour later, I gave up on sleep and rolled out of bed.
Several times during the night I thought, If I were going with someone else, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.
I started getting ready for my day. At 7:20 a.m., I stood silently outside of Dylan’s room. Dylan’s bedroom door was still closed.
Do I let him sleep? I wondered. Should I pretend to bang into the door to wake him up? Or should I sit down on the top step and cry? I truly believed that Dylan would sleep through the segway tour, and we would both miss it. Why was I expecting Dylan to be responsible enough to get up and go?
And then I thought, I am NOT missing this! And I threw open the bedroom door with a flourish.
There was Dylan, still in bed … but sitting up, listening to music, and typing something on his iPad. He was wide awake, but hadn’t bothered getting out of bed.
“I’m going to kill you!” I said without thinking.
“Why?” he said, unruffled. “I’ve got tons of time.” He kept typing on his iPad.
“PUT DOWN THE ELECTRONICS!” I whisper-shrieked in a very muffled voice, so as not to wake Shane. “Get ready FIRST!”
“Okay,” he said. He finished typing, plopped the iPad onto the bed and got up.
It was the beginning of a beautiful day.
No, really.
He got ready, made himself a healthy breakfast, took his vitamins and got in the car without any issues. We were in the car at 7:45, arrived early to our segway tour, and had an absolutely wonderful time together. It really was the beginning of a beautiful day.
When we got home, we both took a very serious power nap.
People who don’t live in the Washington, DC area can be surprised by its summer weather.
Summer here can get hot. It stays in the upper 80’s and 90’s for most of the summer – which usually starts at the beginning of May and doesn’t end until the end of October. It goes above 100 degrees on a regular basis.
It is sunny nearly all the time, which means standing in the direct sun can add another ten degrees to what – in my cloudy hometown of Pittsburgh – might be what “87 degrees” is expected to feel like.
And the humidity can be absolutely brutal. Unlike the hundred-degree weather in the western parts of the United States, where the desert makes the air particularly dry and relatively comfortable on summer days, the hundred-degree days here feel like a sauna. When I open my door in the morning – sometimes every day for weeks – it feels like I am opening a giant oven. The heat gushes into the house in waves.
So when I decided to get married – outside – in August, people were skeptical.
I felt completely confident that it would be fine. We got some shady pavilions for guests, for the reception. The service was outside, too, under a very big tree in a local park.
At one point, I got a few signs from God that I was doing the right thing: a deer in the woods, a groundhog nearly climbing up my leg as I sat on a picnic table. (The stories of how these are “signs” would take too long.) So I never, ever questioned the weather.
When our wedding day came – August 7, 1999 – our guests arrived in droves. They sat in their chairs outdoors and we got married under a tree, as expected. We had our reception with the help of some shady pavilions.
And the weather was absolutely glorious. It was not hot, nor humid, and there was a light breeze blowing the entire time. We all loved the experience, which was entirely untraditional. It turned out better than anyone could have anticipated.
But I often wonder about the weather. Our summers are crazy hot – but not that day.
So I looked back at the “weather history” on the internet. For our area, for that week in 1999, the high temperature was 98 degrees. This could have happened on my wedding day, but it did not. Instead, the mean temperature for the week was 82 and the average temperature for the week was 73.
It was perfect! I thank God for that. After all, He sent the deer and the groundhog, to let me know it would be okay.
This past weekend – in 2017 – showcased the same glorious weather. I spent as much time as possible outside, enjoying the breeze. The week before was typical sauna weather – which made this past weekend so much more glorious.
Today is our 18th anniversary. I also thank God for getting us this far. I think the weekend weather was a fitting tribute.
And I think that someone mighty special must have gotten married outside this weekend, since God did it all again for them.
With Dylan in camp for a week, I’ve had lots of time to spend with Shane.
We’ve gone out to lunch, to the zoo, and to a museum. We’ve played board games and card games, built with Legos and Contraptions. Shane’s been learning magic tricks – again, since he was a serious magician for three years in elementary school. So I’ve watched lots of card tricks, which are pretty amazing actually.
Shane and I have spent lots of time talking, sometimes philosophically. We’ve had some serious conversations and some silly ones. For the most part, we just chat about whatever comes into our minds. Getting to know him, one-on-one, is a pleasure.
Like his brother, the older he gets, the more there is to like.
And Shane is very, very funny. His wit is so dry, it’s like sandpaper.
“Most people don’t get my jokes,” he said to me as I nearly buckled over with laughter one day. “I don’t know why.”
“They have to be smart,” I told him. “You have a very intelligent sense of humor.”
“But sometimes people laugh at me when I don’t even mean to be funny.”
I laughed again. “Sometimes you are funniest when you don’t mean to be,” I said.
“See?” he said. “I don’t really get how that happens.”
“Sometimes you point out something so obvious, it’s funny,” I told him. “Not everyone thinks like you do, so they don’t think about things the way you do.”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s funny.”
“Well, when you tell someone about the way you see it, it can be wildly entertaining.”
“But when I say it, I don’t think it’s funny,” he said.
“For those of us who like seeing things in new ways, though, it can be extremely funny,” I said. “It’s a good thing to be funny without trying. People aren’t laughing at you; they’re laughing at the way you describe things, because the way you describe things can be very interesting.”
“I guess,” Shane said. “But I’m not sure why sometimes I’m funny and sometimes I’m not.”
“I think we all feel that way.”
I don’t know if he understood what I was saying, or even if he’ll remember talking about it.
But I sure have loved spending time with him, laughing when he’s trying to be funny, and when he’s not.
Shane helps me see the world in a whole new way.
It happened again. With Dylan in day camp, I went back to my old ways.
His “camp” is an electronic music extravaganza, so he is working in the classroom all day.
Being “in the classroom” means he has to focus.
I got up early, and worried that he wouldn’t be ready in time. The first day, I checked on him in the bedroom. The second and third day, I checked on him in the bathroom. He was late, I knew, and I pushed.
Then I went downstairs and started making breakfast. I made sure he had his vitamins and plenty of water. I pulled out some coffee for him. I made sure he had a breakfast that was rich in animal proteins, so his vitamins would work properly. I gave him a pack of gum, asked if he wanted any snacks, and panicked when he wasn’t in the car on time.
And today, only three days into my coddling behavior, I blew up.
“NOT ONLY ARE YOU LATE EVERY, SINGLE DAY,” I screamed, “BUT YOU DON’T EVEN SAY ‘THANK YOU’!”
“It would be better if I did everything myself,” Dylan said. (He did not scream.)
“FINE!” I screamed back. “THEN DO EVERYTHING YOURSELF AND I WILL JUST SIT IN THE CAR AND WAIT FOR YOU!”
“Okay,” he said. “But you’ll be doing everything for me again in no time.”
Sigh.
These are not new words. My throat has hurt from this exact screaming speech before. This is certainly not new territory.
So why, I wonder, did I go back to my old behavior so easily? Why do I insist on doing everything for him, even now that he is old enough, and quite capable, and even eager to do things on his own?
Having pondered this only briefly, one thought stands out. Maybe it’s because Dylan is my baby, and I use him to make myself feel needed. When I feel needed, I feel better about myself.
But this is not okay. Using him for anything is not okay, let alone for my own self-esteem.
And I know it’s not okay, so I back off to an appropriate distance most of the time.
Then he goes to day camp, and I go kerplooey.
Maybe I need to get another dog.
When I was growing up, I wanted to have a whole slew of kids. I believed that life was like The Brady Bunch and that I could choose three boys and three girls of my own. I always wanted a huge family.
I picked names out for the boys. All my life, I only had names for boys. In my college years, I decided I wanted to have six boys.
When I actually (finally) got married and had kids, I ended up with 2.5 boys. My stepson is totally awesome, but since I do not “parent” him, I usually exclude him from my blog. I was thrilled to watch him grow into the fine young man he is today, but he never, ever needed me. He had two perfectly wonderful parents of his own.
I like to be needed. For me, it’s what parenting is all about – even if it means being needed from a distance.
Now that I have kids of my own, and since I am too old to have any more, I regularly consider whether or not I really want another baby.
And when I really allow myself to ponder the question, I realize the sad and shocking reality.
I do want another baby. In fact, I want more than one. I still want (at least) those other four kids.
I want them in the worst way.
I regularly wish I had gotten married about 15 years earlier, so I could have had more kids. My husband didn’t want more children – and I was, of course, nearly 40 when I had my second child. Bill was worried about money mostly, and retirement. He’s ten years older than me.
I even considered adoption because of my age but, for us, that didn’t make any sense. So we got a dog instead.
Still, it makes me sad to know that I only have 2.5 kids, when I really wanted more. I don’t have that Brady Bunch life with kids all over the place. My boys are nearly grown, and there aren’t any new kids to replace them as they leave home. I wish it weren’t almost over, like it is.
It makes me sad that I waited so long to have kids. To be fair, I had no choice but to wait, in order to marry the right guy for me.
But still. It makes me sad that there was a gaping hole in my life for so many years, and I didn’t even know it was a gaping hole.
Or more accurately, it makes me sad that I tried to fill a gaping hole for many, many years – but didn’t realize that giving my time to my children was a more worthwhile endeavor than any of the ideas I had in my youth. My ideas for gaping-hole fillers were utterly pointless.
I am old now, and I know this. I didn’t know anything then.
I guess I feel the gaping hole coming back, as the kids are growing up. And to be honest, I don’t have any idea what to do with it now.
Dylan has been practicing his driving with Bill.
He’s driven for a couple of hours, and Bill told me Dylan has been doing really well.
I have not been practicing with Dylan. I didn’t think I could take it.
But Dylan has been acting responsibly.
For a teenager, Dylan is acting really responsibly. He’s been getting up on his own – and getting ready for the day. When he wants to do something, he looks at the calendar and figures out a time to do it. Then he asks. He knows which days he has to work – even if he doesn’t know his whole week’s plan – and he lets us know when he’s ready to go (on time). He usually even gets in the car with his stuff. If I give him a note with times that we need to do things, he sets reminders on his phone so he knows when to be ready.
So when he worked for hours last night (although he forgot to wash his uniform beforehand), and then he got in the car and asked to drive…
I said, “NO. You have to be kidding. Forget it. No way.” It was nearly midnight, and the road from his work to our home is mostly two- to three-lane highway which, not coincidentally, was also undergoing construction. I made all of these points very quickly.
And Dylan works at a concert venue. The concert had let out for the evening, so getting out of the area was an extra challenge. Nearby roads were closed for about a mile, except for those covered with special police crews directing traffic. Pedestrians swarmed places where pedestrians don’t normally swarm, and cars were stopped in long, long lines.
“I know a better way to go,” Dylan said. They say that people with ADHD would make great lawyers, because they are constantly negotiating.
“No,” I said. “I don’t need a better way to go. I need less stress and that means I will drive.”
So I drove – until we were about a mile from our house. Then I stopped the car.
“Ready to drive?”
“Okay,” he said, and got carefully into the driver’s seat. He made seat adjustments and checked the lights and put the car in neutral and slowly hit the gas. The car didn’t go.
“It’s in neutral,” I said.
He was already on it.
He put the car in drive, and pulled out. He drove slowly and carefully, like a new driver is supposed to drive. He knew when to turn on his turn signal (and did) and hit the brakes gently when he needed to come to a stop. When he got to a red light, he braked just behind the appropriate line.
I held my breath the entire time. My heart was stuck in my neck. But I tried not to say anything panicky.
And it worked. Dylan drove all the way home without incident, and parked the car in the garage perfectly.
My son is learning to drive.
