Three Chairs

Writing class assignment: It was unexpected

Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.

~Carl Sandburg

The rain had come down in torrents, drumming loudly against the windows and roof. She had lain awake for hours in the middle of the night, watching for the dazzling bolts of lightening and anticipating the subsequent bangs of thunder. She thought back to her childhood, when someone, maybe her mother, had told her that if she counted the seconds between the flash and the boom she count the miles to where the lightening had touched down. She was not sure now, hiding under the mess of blankets on her bed, that there was more than half a second between the two.

The next morning she pulled rain boots on over her pajamas and went outside with her son to wait for the school bus. More alert than she, he noticed the worms right away. They were all over the driveway, dozens of them, stranded on the paver stones. Although the lawn was still soaked, the driveway was drying quickly, and the worms were going to die. We have to save them!, her son insisted.

They each picked up twigs that had come down from the trees the night before, and slowly began lifting up the worms and flinging them back into the grass. They wished each one well before launching them back to safety: Go home! Back you go! Find the mud! Sometimes her son used his fingers when he couldn't get the worm to stay on the twig, and she imagined that he was giving them little finger hugs before sending them sailing through the air, the only flight they'd ever experience.

They had saved each and every one just before the school bus rolled up in front of their house. They hugged and kissed, and she went back inside smiling at her son's compassion for the helpless creatures, the lowest of the low. Still tired from her sleepless night, she walked slowly up the stairs and crawled back into her bed, her own safe place.

Of Ice Crystals and Chickens

"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."

~ Henry Ward Beecher

I think it can be hard, as parents, to stow away our baggage and trust that our kids might experience life's ups and downs differently than we did.  Social dynamics can be a sticky mess for our little people, and a lot of what my kids experience at school throws me right back to the 1st grade.  There I am with my shag haircut, apron dress, and unibrow.

This was the conversation between me and my two sons in the car yesterday.  

D = 7-years-old; A = 9-years-old.

D: Sometimes Cooper is really mean on the bus.  He took Scott's hat and made him cry and I had to tell the busdriver. Today he leaned over my seat and told me that I'm not allowed to have any clubs, and that he was coming to my house to babysit tonight.

Me: Honey, there is no way that I would let a fourth grader babysit you.  He's not babysitting.  And it doesn't matter if he tells you that you can't have clubs.  He has no... jurisdiction over you.  No control.  It would be like telling you that you're not allowed to eat dinner. 

D: But he told me I can't have any clubs!

Me: Do you know what you should do?

D: What?

A: Punch him in the nose!

Me: Do not punch him.  Ignore him.

D, incredulous: I mean, doesn't he know that I'm the Head Boss of the Godzilla Club?

A: You have a Godzilla Club?

D: Yup.

A: Who's in it?

D: No one. I haven't asked anyone yet.  But I will.  I'll sign them up at school and we'll have meetings in my bedroom at home.

Me: I was talking to your teacher today, and she said you have another club, something about ice crystals?

D: Yeah, the Ice Crystal Digger Club.  I'm the Head Boss.  We dig for ice crystals.

A: Is anyone in that one?

D: Yeah, a lot of kids. Except they all left my club today to go be in the Chicken Club, where all you do is bang on sticks.

Me: What?  They left?  What's a Chicken Club?

D: I don't know, it's stupid, you just pretend sticks are chickens.

Me: Why did they all leave the club?

D: I don't know!  They just all left!

Me, feeling sad: Does it make you really...  sad that everyone left your club?

D: No.  It makes me furrous.

Me: Furious?

D: Yeah.

Me: Do you you want to join the Chicken Club?

D: I would never join that club!  NEV-AH!

A: You don't know, it might be fun.

D: NEV-AH!

My seven-year-old stands resilent against the mass exodus of his club.  I'm pretty sure I'd be scheduled to see the school social worker by now.  He's proud to be the Head Boss of not one, but two clubs*, and it doesn't seem to bother him that no one else is in the clubs.  Is this confidence, stubborness, or some combination of the two?

The fine line, of course, is teaching him some flexibility so that he might eventually wander over to the Chicken Club and enjoy himself, or ask his friends why they left the Ice Crystal Diggers Club in the first place.  I have a feeling he's not the easiest 1st grader to work for.

I'm just going to have to pack up my own 1st grade baggage and keep it well out of the way of the Head Boss.  He'll navigate his own way, I have no doubt, through the inevitable conflicts between ice crystals and chickens.

*actually, he has a Fake Mustache Club, too, which I had forgotten about until he reminded me.

 

Carrying compliments in my purse

"Well done is better than well said."

~ Benjamin Franklin

Once a week my youngest son goes to a pediatric therapist to work on some developmental issues that he has.  I do not enter into pediatric therapy lightly; the person working with my child needs to be committed and dedicated to the both my child and the process.  We've been working with the same provider now since February; in the beginning it was pretty rough going, but in the past three months I've seen tremendous progress in my little guy.

Ten days ago our provider handed me a feedback form and asked if I would fill it out for her.  The practice she works for has the therapists do this on a periodic basis; I think they use it both for employee evaluation and testimonial purposes.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but I sat down and filled it out.  It's basically a blank page with the company logo on it and "Feedback on Results" across the top.  There aren't any ratings or check boxes or questions.  You're just supposed to give your thoughts on the results you see in your child as a result of using their services.

I filled the page with thoughts about how hard this therapist has worked on her relationship with my child, how much progress he's made with her, and how her hard work has paid off in the school environment, as well as at home.  I didn't intend to focus so much on her and her dedication and care, but that's what it turned into.

I folded the paper in half and in half again, and stuck it in my purse.  I didn't think about it again until today, just before leaving her office.  We didn't review it, we didn't talk about it - I just took it out of my purse and handed it over.

Tonight I spent some time thinking about how I didn't do a great job complimenting anyone today, and that maybe I should expand my efforts into Random Acts of Kindness or something more actionable.  

Then I got an email from the therapist.

She wrote, in part, "Thanks for making my day! Your Feedback on Results form was so wonderful!"  

It all makes me think that maybe I'm just thinking about all of this too much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sheet of free compliments!

Of Bikes and Hills and Gravelly Endings

"Get a bicycle.  You will not regret it if you live."

~Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"

The kids are back at school, and this gives me two hours and 39 minutes (but who's counting) of free time every morning.  I usually spend this time zipping around town running errands; fun things like buying crickets for the lizard, returning very overdue library books ($13.80 this morning), and getting presents for the birthday parties the kids are invited to.

I figure I spend too much time in the car and this morning was beautiful, so after dropping off the kids I parked the car at home, loaded up a tote bag, and got on my bike.  My first trip was right back to school to drop off socks for my 2nd grader's gym class (they call it KW for Kinetic Wellness, but I cannot bring myself to use that term).  I got an iced mocha, ran into a friend, bought a basket for the front of my bike, bought a dozen doomed crickets, and returned the library books.

How freeing to hop on and off my bike at whim, to feel the wind in my hair, to lift my feet from the pedals and glide, faster and faster...

Actually, no.  I have to draw the line at gliding faster and faster.  While on my bike this morning I had two distinct flashbacks of less pleasant bicycle experiences.  These memories keep me from becoming reckless, from multi-tasking while pedaling, and from getting speed-happy.

The first memory is from my 11th or 12th year.  My best friend, Brandie (real name), and I were cycling up and down the hills between our homes.  Think Tucson foothills, think big hills, think hills with valleys at the bottom, valleys for the monsoon rains to run through.  We started at the top of the hill closest to my house, feet on the ground on either side of our bikes, rolling back and forth to the count of three, then pushing off and coasting down.  We flew down the first hill in seconds and let the momentum carry us half way up the next hill.  We got about half way up, then had to get off and push our bikes up the rest of the way.  We reached the top, breathless, turned the bikes around, and started back down.

About three seconds down that second hill my front tire began to wobble and shake.  The pedals were going too fast to keep my feet on them so I could not brake; my skinny, tan legs were sticking out from the bike like sails (sails on the Titanic, if you will: useless and damned).  The bike was shaking violently back and forth, and for at least four long, horrible seconds I knew that it was all over, that it was just a matter of time before I was introduced more personally to the pavement.

The bike and I went down, tumbling, rolling, scraping and skidding.  I stopped almost at the bottom of the hill, thankful that it was over but not yet sure what the damage was.  Quickly parts of me began to sting.  Parts of me began to scream.  My back, my right elbow, my lower lip... blood began to ooze from various gravel-embedded injuries.

At about that time one of my brothers walked by on his way home from a friend's house.  "Bob, Bohhhbbb..go..get..Dad.  I'm dying," I croaked.  I probably reached up one arm from my prone position in the gravel, a dramatic gesture to demonstrate how quickly I was fading.

Bob disappeared up the hill.  Five minutes went by.  Ten.  Twenty.  No one was coming.  Brandie helped me to my feet and the two of us slowly crawled back to my house.  Did I see my mom rushing from the house with a first aid kit?  Did I see my father in the garage hastily assembling a DIY stretcher?  No.

I saw my brother and my father in the driveway playing football.  Like I said, I was only 10 or 11, but if I had had the vocabulary or the wherewithal I would have shouted, "WHAT ... THE ... FUCK?"  Instead I stood with my bloody mouth hanging open and said, accusingly, "Didn't you tell him?  Didn't you tell him I was dying?"

My dad turned around and looked at me.  "Oh," he said, "I didn't think it could be that bad.  Are you OK?"  No need to discuss why my dad didn't just trust that it was that bad, or that he chose not to come.  I've already addressed that with the therapists.

My mom cleaned and bandaged me up and put my arm in a sling, which I believe was a red cowboy bandanna folded into a triangle and tied above my shoulder.  It was classy.  I still have a scar on my forearm below my right elbow.  And I still have a deep-rooted fear of going too fast on my bike, of gravel, and of hills.

(PART TWO: I'M DOWN, I'M DOWN, I'M DOWN ON THE GROUND! COMING SOON!)