WRITING GRANDMA’S BOOK…finishing what she started

As requested by struggling writer, I am posting about my son’s stuffed animal, Hobbes, today. Here is a picture of him (Hobbes, not struggling writer!) in the back seat, where I tossed him Tuesday when I was rushing to go see vomit-boy at overnight camp. Since I never actually made it to camp (see yesterday’s post), Hobbes is still in the back seat, awaiting his boy’s return this afternoon.

Of course, he named the tiger after Hobbes from the popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. One Christmas (was it two or three or even four years ago…?) my in-laws gave him a complete set of Calvin and Hobbes. It’s a set of three massive oversized books (I thoroughly recommend this set as a special gift for kids). I recall many times seeing him trying to maneuver these books into his lap to read comfortably. Now that he’s bigger it’s easier, and he still goes on Calvin and Hobbes binges. He’s also moved onto the Far Side now, though he does not own a comparable set, only second-hand and much smaller books.

Clearly my son wants to be Calvin.

He isn’t.

My child is far too concerned about what other people, especially parents and other adults of note, think of his behavior to act up the way Calvin does. But reading the comic strip gives him, undoubtedly, a chance to live vicariously through the little rebel boy and his wily tiger. Here, Here!!! Everyone needs such opportunities, right? And isn’t that one of the greatest things about reading — to get the chance to live other lives and see other places and experience other times, all through exercising our imaginations?

I can’t wait to pick my son up from school today. Hobbes is pretty excited, too. I caught him doing flips earlier when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Tues. at 9 a.m. the phone rings, and it’s my son’s teacher, Mr. S. Always a lump in the throat when your kid’s teacher calls, right? Well, in this case, my son is away at overnight camp all week, so my heart leaped into my throat big time.

Turns out that my son had thrown up twice, once the night before and once in the morning during breakfast. Mr. S suspected that it was probably homesickness. Huh?

Everything in me said no way, not my kid. My son LOVES going on overnights wherever and whenever he can. He has never been homesick while on one of these excursions, as far as I know, (and he’s been away to overnight camp twice, albeit those were shorter jaunts). It just didn’t ring true to me. Then again, I wasn’t there. I asked to speak to my child, and he called me a few minutes later.

“I want to go home!” he wailed. Why?

“I threw up…TWICE…and I want to go home.” How would going home help, honey?

“I’d be more comfortable. I only ate a cracker for breakfast and now I’m supposed to go on a hike all morning,” he began crying again. Well, I’m sure you don’t have to go on the hike if you’re not up to it. Do you want me to come and see if I can help you get more comfortable there? Do you want me to bring you a stuffed animal — Fuzzy or Hobbes?

“I want to go home.” I understand that you don’t feel well, but if you really were still terribly sick, then I think the teachers and everybody would see that. I can help you today, but I’m also telling you right now that you are not going home for the whole rest of the week. You’d be missing out on a lot, and I’m sure you’re going to be fine.

“It would help if you came. Can you bring Hobbes? … It would be even better if you came every day.” I’m NOT going to come every day, but I will come today, honey, and help you get more comfortable and assess the situation. Can you give the phone back to Mr. O?

So I hopped in the car, stuffed animal in tow, and drove off towards the camp. En route I got a phone call from the camp counselor, who informed me that my son was homesick and would benefit greatly from going on the hike (”It’s not strenuous, not like real hiking!”) Oh, there’d be all manner of team-building and stuff going on that my son would miss out on if he didn’t participate. Clearly, she thought that I was somehow encouraging my son to turn coward. I countered that I didn’t think he was homesick but merely exhausted because he came into the week already depleted from our weekend at camp in Maine. She was not convinced. Finally, she agreed to ask him herself and see what he wanted to do and call me back.

I continued driving. Then, less that five minutes later I got another call from the counselor, and she informed me that my son’s other teacher, Mrs. O. (who is out on maternity leave but is coming to the camp here and there this week) had spoken with him while we were on the phone earlier and convinced him to give the hike a try. Hmm.

Camp counselor assured me that she would call when he got back and let me know how he was doing. So I detoured to the grocery store to get some shopping done (might as well make use of the gas burned to drive that far in the car). When she called later around 11:45, she said that he had participated well in the hike, etc., etc. Clearly, she felt vindicated, thinking that it was clear now that he only needed to get involved in a fun activity to stop feeling homesick. I remarked that he always has a good attitude and enjoys activities, and that is why I did not think he was homesick but actually sick. His participation, though, seemed to indicate that perhaps he was on the mend. She said she’d call me after lunch and let me know how he did with the meal. Then she never called.

No news is good news, right?

At 6:30 p.m. I finally broke down and called Mr. S.’s cell phone but had to leave a message. I was pretty sure at that point that he must be okay or I would have heard. But the last I spoke with my child he was crying and sick and I told him I was on my way. I know it’s best for him to be able to handle things himself when possible, so I tried to “suck it up” myself all day and talk myself out of worrying.

Then around 9:50 p.m. I checked email and saw a slew of messages on our church listserv with families saying they had come down with a bad stomach bug on Mon. night! The very kids with whom he had spent the weekend were some of those listed as sick. Luckily, most seemed to be recovering after 24 hrs. Yikes!

I called the camp counselor directly and informed her about the stomach bug in our church and asked how my son was doing. “Well, if that’s what it was, he’s doing fine now.” IF!! IF???

AARGGHHHHH

Apparently, he had been doing great all day. He and his beloved Mrs. O. had spoken several times and my son kept saying that he wanted to stay. This teacher is such a doll, and my son has really been missing her in class since she had her baby. I’m sure it was a terrific comfort for her to be around when he wasn’t feeling well. And I’m equally sure that she would see that he was actually sick and not merely MAKING himself sick from missing home. As if!

The counselor apologized, twice, for not calling earlier. We ended the conversation with my warning her to be on the lookout for other kids getting sick later in the week now that they have been exposed. The church emails indicated that this was a quick onslaught, extremely violent, but short-lived bug. She didn’t seem convinced that any such thing was possible, but we ended the call politely.

What! Does she think I’m lying about dozens of my fellow parishioners getting sick?? Or was she so stuck in her mindset after years of dealing with homesick kids that she just could not hear what I was saying in order to shift her reality? Did she actually believe me but was merely distracted and thus didn’t respond in such a way as to show me she understood?

Ah, well, let’s face it — the only important thing here is that my son is fine and having a good time at camp. He really has something to be proud of. What a great kid! I’m glad that he found a way to get through it and stick it out — such things are great character building events in a child’s life. Wed. I did hear back from his other teacher, Mr. S. (the one with whom I left the phone message Tues.) and when I told him the news, he immediately accepted it: “Well, that explains that!” I asked him to tell my son that he caught the bug from his church friends. After all, who wants to be known as the kid who missed him mommy so much that he threw up?! As if vomiting isn’t bad enough! And then to get that reputation.

The truth does matter, especially to a ten-year-old boy who is trying desperately to spread his wings. Hobbes never made it to camp, by the way. My son remains stuffed-animal-less this week. Apparently, he’s just fine on his own.

This weekend my friend gave me some advice. Breathe. She said breathe in and then out and then in again and out, and just do that on and on for five minutes. Hmm. Breathing is easy, right?

Turns out there are different ways to do this…

(1) While you breathe in, say in your mind one phrase and then while you breathe out say another. This is that mantra thingey. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated or foreign. You can say whatever you need to put in your head. Just pick something positive, short, and empowering.

OR

(2) Try to get your breathing as smooth as possible. Inevitably there is that small jerk at the transition between breathing out and in and vice-versa. Can you smooth this out completely?

OR

(3) Count as you breathe. If you want to gain energy, breathe in longer then out less time (that is, in to the count of 4 or 5 and out to the count of 3). If you want to get in a more relaxed state, do the opposite and extend the breathing out portion of the cycle.

She said that EVERYBODY has five minutes to do this, and the people who say they don’t have five minutes are the ones who most need it! I invite you to take five minutes right now and breathe. Oh, and I’d be really interested to know which method you tried and how it felt…

Just got back yesterday afternoon from our annual all-church retreat to Ferry Beach, on the southern coast of Maine. About 250 people usually come from our Unitarian Universalist church to this yearly weekend away. It’s always held on Mother’s Day weekend, and pretty much every year my husband stays home and let’s us have our special weekend (besides, it’s chaos there, and though my son and I like a little chaos every once in a while, it’s not the hubster’s cup ‘o tea.) Anyway, as always an awesome time! And as always, I’m exhausted.

About my lovely weekend…

It takes a village. The most notable thing about this annual weekend is how we work cooperatively to take care of one another. We cook together (everyone signs up for one chore during the weekend) and eat together, sleep in dorms, hang out on the beach (if it’s not raining!!) or in the common areas, and care for the children in small groups or what have you. The weekend is relaxed and slow-paced, with a variety of activities, planned and spontaneous. The retreat center where we always go is lovely though fairly basic. I like that it is not a luxury hotel or some such nonsense. I like it’s age and homey-feel.

To give you a taste, here is a picture of a sign out front. Cute!

No nonsense here! Just good old-fashioned fun. “If the rock is wet, it’s raining.” Yup. And the rock stayed dry all three days! Having no rain all weekend was a special treat — that’s a rarity this time of year. More times than not it rains at least half of the weekend. One year, we all stood on the deep, covered, wrap-around porch and watched a huge lightning storm rage for an hour. That year the majority of the dunes were destroyed, and I returned home to a city flooded at 100-year stage levels. Yikes! But this year, no rain. Cool but sunny about half the weekend and quite bearable cloudiness the rest of the time.

…which meant that my son and I were able to spend a lot of time on the beach. He dug a huge pit with his pals. Of course. What else would a ten-year-old enjoy half as much?

That was pretty much most of Saturday. Then on Sunday we took a walk on the beach down to the breakwater (HUGE granite boulders piled in a line a mile out to sea). Last year we discovered a quiet cove right on the other side of those rocks, so we returned this year to check it out again. Along the way, we searched for flat rocks to skip into the water. Here’s my son proudly holding up his latest find:

Amazingly, before going to bed last night, I managed to do most of the laundry and get us unpacked — as well as get my son packed and ready for his week at nature camp! Happy Mother’s Day to me, boo hoo. No, I’m just joking! I got what I wanted for Mother’s Day — a lovely time with my son on the beach in the morning and squeaky CLEAN front windows, when I returned home, washed by my hubbie!! Yipee — life is grand!

My son is not particularly tough. I love him to pieces. He’s just not one of those kids, though, that engages in physical activity with no eye to personal safety. He has always been cautious (thank goodness!) And though he has played soccer now for six of his ten and a half years on this planet, he still has a tendency to be non-assertive on the playing field.

Well, maybe the word “still” is misplaced. Apparently, he’s changing.

Last Saturday’s game (which I did not attend but heard all about when my husband and son got home) is a case in point. Apparently, some kid on the other team had the ball and was outstripping everyone. My son went after the ball, but from the sidelines it looked like he just decided the best way to stop the kid was to take his legs out from under him.

Funny thing is that my husband says that everyone on the sidelines had just been yelling, “STOP HIM!!” And right after that he tripped the kid.

Now, I know better than to think that he heard anything that the crowd was yelling. That kid tunes out everything except his teammates and coach when playing ball. He never hears “helpful advice” from the sidelines. So it’s just coincidence not cause and effect.

I also know better than to think he was actually trying to trip the poor kid. In fact, he was trying to reach the ball to steal it. After the ref blew the whistle and called a foul, my son turned to the kid and asked if he was okay. He hates the thought of actually hurting someone — which is a big reason why this big kid of mine (5′1″ at ten years old) often just reaches out a foot instead of using his whole body. But at least these days he waits to succor the enemy until after the ref stops the play.

The thing that I see here is that he is starting to get more assertive. He went after the ball. He got close enough to cause a collision. He laughed (later) about getting a foul. (That’s actually desirable in a sensitive kid like that.)

He’s also getting in there with the under 12 team, where he practices once a week with his old coach. His official team is the under 10’s (he started the year as a nine year old). He is about a foot taller than almost everyone on his team. But with the U12 team, he’s more evenly matched in height and weight. Those kids are a lot more assertive, though. And it’s been interesting to watch him practicing with these older kids. Clearly, it’s also helped him to get into the fray with his body a bit more, too.

SO…last night was the weekly practice for U12. And I was watching him get in there with the older kids. He was doing okay — clearly still not entirely at ease, but holding his own. Then someone passed the ball to the kid next to him, who kicked it hard to my son. Wham, it hit him in the face and then headed straight for a teammate, who took the ball down for a goal. I thought at first that my son had inadvertently “headed” the ball, and I was thinking that maybe that would help him to start doing that manuever on purpose more. But NO!!

He starts walking off the field quickly, walking not running. And I see blood streaming down his face. Did you cut your lip or is it your nose? “My nose.” Tears welling in his eyes and blood everywhere. There I am looking in my purse for a tissue, and the coach says, “Ah, took one on the nose, eh?” And she slaps a red “penny” (those mesh shirts they wear when they divide into teams during practice) on his face. I love that woman. She is so much tougher than I am. And she is exactly the right influence on my son.

I finally took over holding his face and she went back to coaching. Eventually the blood stopped, but not before getting on his shirt and arms and face. I had just begun just wondering if I would now have a battle on my hands to force him to go back onto the field, when he surprised me.

“Do I look tougher?” I stepped back and saw him as with new eyes. Absolutely.

He ran back out on the field.

Later he took a shot to the eye, and he was a mess on the car ride home. But he handled everything so much better than he would have been able to in the past, even a few months ago. Once back home, he bragged about his war wounds to dad and then started singing in the shower.

My little tough guy.

It’s that time of year at school when the voluminous mounds of lost and found items are presented on a couple of tables in the hallway for parents to sift through in our spare hours.

Ah, here is the mysteriously disappearing royal blue windbreaker that simply vanished out of my son’s locker one day. Did it walk off to join the party in the lost and found bin? Was it mad at my son for dragging it along the ground after recess? Was it teaching him a lesson? Because most certainly he did NOT lose it himself.

At least it has been recovered just in time for the rainy season in New England! There it was the other day — right on that lost and found table. How on earth it could have materialized there, one might well wonder!!

The funny thing is that there is also an orange polartec pullover from LLBean in my son’s size that I could swear is his…yet I just can’t remember. Did he used to have one like this and now I am merely remembering the old one? Did I buy him this at Christmas and now forget? Was it a hand-me-down? Am I merely wishing it were his because it’s in nice shape and would fit him?

So I check the table every day to see if anyone has yet claimed it. I mean, honestly, if people can’t keep track of their clothes, they don’t deserve to keep them…

Last night Grandma’s house in California was in imminent danger of burning down. In my dream that is. I was there helping to save everything important in the house. My newish neighbor (here in Massachusetts) was sitting with Grandma, comforting her. He is a minister of the more traditional variety and has a soothing and calm manner — thus he appeared in dream, I guess.

I moved from room to room in Grandma’s house looking for what mattered. Over and over again I chose photos: big and bulky framed photos, loose photos, photo albums. I quickly found these hard to carry, so I looked for bags to hold them: old purses, shopping bags, luggage, etc.

Every once in a while, I paused and looked at an item and thought, this is special. Hokey but special. Wall plaques with sentimental sayings — but SOOOO Grandma.

From the front of the house, as I moved towards the back and then the upstairs, I heard Grandma and my neighbor. Organ music began to drift through the house, a plaintive and old fashioned tune. It sounded like funeral music but was somehow peaceful. I thought, Grandma is comforting herself with music. She was playing the organ in the dream, though she rarely played her organ and didn’t really know much about music in real life — certainly not enough to play that well. But she did have an organ in what she called the “music room” of the house.

When I got into the dining room, I had a flashback to my early childhood, well before my folks divorced. I remembered visiting Grandma and Grandpa’s house before they built the addition that turned their kitchen into a formal dining room and their patio into a kitchen/family room. I must have been about five? This really happened, but it was strange how I was remembering this lost detail while in a dream. I was thinking at that point about how much had happened in that house.

The thing that bugs me about the dream is how I didn’t even bother trying to help Grandma herself. She was alive in the dream, but I basically ignored her. Or more accurately, I took her presence for granted. It was the pictures I had to save. They were the thing that would be lost. Grandma was safe and comfortable, talking to my minister neighbor. We would have plenty of time to get out safely — the neighborhood was being evacuated soon but not yet. There was time to gather the things we wanted to save.

I wonder what all this means….

Last week was my son’s school vacation, and like many families in Massachusetts, we scrambled to find cheap and enjoyable things to do.  Playdates were very high on our list, and we managed to squeeze in three, including a sleepover.  My son has been bugging me for months to go to the Museum of Science in Boston, and since our membership is about to expire (tomorrow!) and we still had not used our free IMAX theater passes from this year (or last year), I figured a visit to the museum was a must for vacation week.

We watched two films at the IMAX: one on Mummies of Ancient Eqypt and another on the Colorado River and Grand Canyon.  Both were very well done.  The Grand Canyon one, though, actually brought tears to my eyes.  The message of the critical state of our planet’s fresh water supply and the damaged world we are leaving to our children was so poignant.  Though, not at all overdone, I thought — you know how sometimes it’s all doom and gloom?  This was more subtle, plus hopeful at the end.

We also saw a planetarium show about the questions that scientists can’t answer and how the latest discoveries have only added more questions to the list:  are there other living organisms in the universe, what is dark matter, etc.  Fascinating and hard to wrap the ole head around!

After that presentation, my son was ready for some hands-on activities, so we headed to the children’s discovery area.  It’s clearly deigned for younger children, but he didn’t care.  We had been sitting outside that exhibit earlier eating our lunch, and he had spied an angled blower that was holding up a beach ball.  As soon as we were free of the shows, he made a bee-line there to investigate.  From that, he moved to the magnet maze wall shown here:

Each piece of pipe has a magnet bolted to its back, so the pieces can be arranged on the big metal wall however one chooses.  Kids can create mazes that balls fall through, ending up (ideally) in a bin below.  This activity was good for over twenty minutes.  After a while, I jumped in as well ’cause it was fun!

We meandered around to other exhibits and ended the visit with a lightning show in the weather exhibit.  LOUD!  When our son was younger, he hated loud noises.  We tried to attend this show back then, but he had to be led out after the first bolt.  He’s certainly grown up since then.  “No problem, Mom,” he answered when I asked if he were sure that he wanted to attend this show. He tossed me a look like, duh, I’m not a baby!

As we drove home in the dark (we had been at the museum for almost eight hours!), we talked about the mysteries of the universe. Maybe you’ll grow up to be one of the scientists who solves these mysteries…

From the back seat came the sound of his small, quiet voice, “Yeh.  I might just do that.”

Yesterday my son went to a friend’s house for a playdate while I went to work and attended a department meeting. Spring has finally arrived in New England, and it was over 80 degrees. YEEHAW!

Soon after we arrived, the kids were already soaked by the sprinkler, running gleefully through the shooting water, cackling loudly and squealing as the cold water pummeled their legs. Ah, summer! Yes, I know, I’m getting ahead of myself. The trees are blooming but not leafed out yet. Flowers have magically appeared all over the place but there are still bare branches. It’s only April, for goodness sake. Not August.

But it was a lovely summery day yesterday, and the children knew exactly how to spend it. Spend. That’s an interesting idiom, isn’t it? We SPEND our days. And what does spend mean?

The Oxford English Dictionary provides these relevant definitions (among others):

• To pay out or away; to disburse or expend; to dispose of, or deprive oneself of, in this way
• To employ, occupy, use or pass (time, one’s life, etc.) in or on some action, occupation, or state.
• To use up; to exhaust or consume by use; to wear out.
• To suffer the loss of (blood, life, etc.); to allow to be shed or spilt.
• To waste (time).
• To allow (time, one’s life, etc.) to pass or go by; to live or stay through (a certain period) to the end.

Some might say running back and forth all day over the same ground, getting soaked by cold water, is a “waste of time.” But because they are children, somehow this is acceptable, even desirable. Why can’t adults do this without censure? Perhaps the world would be a better place if every once in a while we actually lived in the moment and just “allowed time to pass” without a constant attention to efficiency and work and lord knows what else.

I hear that in Scandinavia, they have learned the fine art of relaxation and that they think Americans are nuts because we are such workaholics. Perhaps they have a point. Perhaps our children know the best way. Or at least they know how to seize the day and “use up” every last minute in fun and exploration and healthy exercise and companionship. Perhaps they spend their day in the best way possible.

Yesterday I came upon a very fresh accident with a school bus and a munched car.  EMTs were on the scene attending to the injured (or worse).  I hurriedly told my son, who was in the back seat, to cover his eyes.  An awful sight, not for a ten-year-old.

I pass through this intersection at least four times a day.

It wasn’t me and my son in that munched car.

I had the stomach flu this week.  I rarely ever succumb to such bouts, so it is always a shock to me when I ACTUALLY throw up. (Now you know why I haven’t posted all week.)

But a person I know at church has stomach cancer and is only one step ahead of her disease, taking each new, experimental drug as it becomes available.  She’s a trail-blazer and a real trooper.

Me?  I just threw up a couple of times and then recovered a couple of days later.

Our yard is a mess and desperately needs some professional lawncare.  Spring is FINALLY here and the poor quality of our lawn is startlingly obvious as everyone else’s lawn is already getting pretty green, but ours remains patchy and gray or tan in many spots.  But we can’t afford to pay for services right now.

The village of Laguna in the Culebras Valley of Peru, though, has worse troubles.  The river flooded the whole town, wiping out not only all of the work that we did there in January (biodigestor, solar irrigation system) but also their very homes.  These people get by on less than a dollar or two a day.  They live in huts made of woven bamboo mats lashed to poles.  They have next to nothing and now they have even less.

So our lawns sucks.  Big whoop.

I’m counting my blessings today and they are abundant.