January 31, 2006

this is what they will talk about when they talk about their childhood

This morning, Wade and Henry were playing with superhero action figures, talking about their costumes and their powers and their enemies, when out of the clear blue, Henry said, ‘Dad, remember that time that you took me to the pool and I got a sunburn?’

This was two summers ago, when Henry was three; Wade took an afternoon off and took the boy to the pool. He forgot to put sunscreen on either of them, and they both got burned. It was Henry’s only sunburn ever and because he has an incredibly high pain tolerance, it didn’t really bother him (it wasn’t all that bad, actually) but it was one of our less good parenting moments and not something we really want the boy to call to mind when he thinks of his childhood.

‘Yes, I do remember that,’ Wade said, ‘and I still feel bad about it.’

‘Yeah,’ Henry said sadly, ‘I feel bad about it, too.’

Nothing like rubbing it in, well after the fact.

Charlie has been calling up some interesting memories as well, although his are more weird than sad. The other day at lunch, he and I were chatting while he was taking his sweet time with his fruit. I don’t know what I said, something about him being the baby, and he said, ‘I’m NOT a baby. I’m a BIG BOY.’

‘Yes, you are,’ I agreed.

‘I’m not a baby because you don’t have to feed me. Babies need to be feeded and I can feed myself.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘But I remember when I used to feed you, when you were a baby.’

‘I don’t remember that,’ he said.

‘You don’t, huh?’ I said.

‘No. But I remember when I was an alien.’ He starts to laugh. ‘And when I was a SHADOW!’

‘Anything else?’

‘No, that’s all I remember.’

That seems like enough, really.

Yesterday the boys and I were playing Pirate Ship, and then Henry decided he wanted to play Doctor, but Charlie still wanted to play Pirates, so we played Pirate Doctor (the Pirate Doctor says things like, ‘Arrr, ye be having a broken arm there, lassie! I’ll be puttin’ a bandage on that there! Arr!’)

Henry was performing some complicated proceedure on my hand with a flashlight and some plastic tweezers and a pretend stethoscope, to make the blood flow in the right direction. So I told him about the four chambers of the heart and how blood flows through them and how important it is that all of the parts work properly. And then I told him about how, when I was pregnant with Charlie, we had an extra 3-D ultrasound because there was some concern that he had a heart defect (no heart defect; apparently, he was holding the umbilical cord during my exam and it slowed his heart rate down. More evidence that the boy is out to get me).

I told the boys that the doctor used a special machine to show us pictures of Charlie’s heart and of the blood moving in and out of it. ‘And,’ I told him, ‘we could see all your teeth, and the bones in your hands. You were sucking your thumb!’

‘I was?’ he said, looking at his thumb.

‘Charlie,’ Henry said seriously, ‘do you remember that?’

‘No,’ Charlie said sadly. ‘I don’t.’

Henry looked at me skeptically. ‘Are you SURE he was sucking his thumb?’

Yes, I’m sure.

January 30, 2006

the Cub Scouts made me cry

I got up this morning and put on a pair of pants that zipped (hooray for me!) and went to tour YET ANOTHER school. This time, I was looking for Charlie, and because I was visiting a Catholic school, I felt like I couldn’t wear jeans (doesn’t it say somewhere in the Bible that Thou Shalt Not Wear Jeans on the Campus of a Catholic School, Excepting the First Friday of Each Month? I swear I remember that). Anyway, I found a nice pair of velvety corduroys and a modest turtleneck sweater and off I went.

The principal was a lovely woman, about my age, with a son in kindergarden, at this very school! What good advertising! She was warm and welcoming, and she said, ‘We can talk a little about the school and then I will show you around.’ I was trying to remember what exactly I wanted to ask her about–art, music, language classes, recess–when she said, ‘Let’s start with a prayer.’ Which threw me a little, as we are not let’s-pray-before-we-chat people here at Friday Playdate, but it is a CATHOLIC school after all, and I don’t know what else I expected. So we prayed, and I was reminded of how terrible I am at the whole prayer thing when I kept thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve had so much coffee this morning that I can’t hold my eyelids still! I hope she doesn’t notice. Wait, she’s praying, she probably has her eyes closed! Or at least she probably isn’t looking at me. Amen!’ So, yeah, not so much with the praying. Good first impression!

Then she told me all about this lovely school, with 20 kids in a class and music and art for the pre-k kids and Spanish starting in kindergarden and computers in first grade. When I told her that we’re not Catholic, she wasn’t thrown by that; she talked about how this is a CATHOLIC school, so they emphasize helping each child form a relationship with Jesus, but that nearly 15% of the students were from non-Catholic families and they were good with that and even had a system where, during Mass, the non-Catholic kids went up with everyone else during communion to recieve a blessing instead of the host so no one felt left out. And how they had sports for the kids, starting in kindergarden, and intramural sports starting in fourth grade. And Cub Scouts, too!

When she got to the Cub Scouts, I got a little weepy. No, not because scouting makes me cry (although the idea of sleeping outside in a tent does) but because, in all of the schools I have looked at for Henry, particularly this year, I’ve never had the luxury of thinking about scouting and basketball. Our concerns for Henry have focused so much on finding a community that could meet his specific needs–very small class size, teachers familiar with ASDs, access to OTs and PTs and tutors–that, until that moment, I hadn’t thought about things like sports and scouting as part of a school experience. And when I realized that this is what MOST parents think about when they look for schools, this idea that their child will fit in and participate and belong, I started to cry and the nice principal had to give me a tissue. Again, excellent first impression.

The principal took me around the school and showed me the classrooms, and everywhere we went polite children said ‘hello!’ and ‘good morning!’ to her. She knew all their names and they were all delighted to see her. When I asked about class size, she said, ‘We do everything we can to keep each class at no more than twenty, but sometimes we have to adjust. When the hurricane evacuees came from New Orleans, of couse, we took them in, and our kindergarden class was a little big for a while. But we did what we had to do.’ I wanted to hug her. But I wasn’t sure that would make a good impression, particularly after the poor praying and the crying, and I really really wanted her to like me.

As I drove away, I had this huge sense of relief. All this school touring has been stressful, to say the least, and I’m ready for it to be over. For the first time since we started looking at schools, I feel like we’ve found what we need, for both kids. I always swore that the boys would go to the same school, dammit, because I wasn’t driving all over town all day, but ha ha! that’s exactly what I will be doing. We’ve found a great school for Henry, one that specializes in kids with learning differences. In some ways, it’s a lot like the school I looked at today; it’s an Episcopal school, so Henry will also be building a relationship with Jesus, albeit with a more liberal Jesus. Both boys will wear uniforms, which makes me happier than you can imagine, as my kids stink at dressing themselves. Both schools are located on the same major road, within a few minutes of our house and each other, so I won’t really be driving around ALL the time. And each school offers exactly what my sons need.

Now just cross your fingers and hope they get in, because if they don’t both go to school full time next year, I cannot begin to describe the bad things that will happen. Really.

January 29, 2006

the people at Kellogs are stalking me

On Friday I wrote about how I am blaming Blogger for the number of unzippable things in my closet. Fortunately, the nice people at Kellogs have got my back(side).

I must have seen this ad a dozen times over the weekend (okay, YES, I was watching a LOT of TLC–I was hoping that Clinton and Stacey might have some good suggestions for camouflaging my ass. No luck). And I learned that if I eat Special K twice a day for the next two weeks, I will lose six pounds! Isn’t that fantastic?

You know how this works, don’t you? The fat cells die of boredom. Seriously–Special K TWICE a day? I love cereal, I would eat cereal for every meal if I could get away with it (in fact, before I met Wade, I did eat cereal three times a day! or more!) but not Special K. Maybe some Coco Puffs or Cap’n Crunch. Which may explain the problem I am having now with those zippers.

The thing is this: for most of my adult life, I was a size that I was happy with (no, I’m not going to tell you the size, that’s not the point). After I had Henry I spent a long time wearing a bigger size; about twenty minutes after I was easily able to slip back into my pre-Henry jeans, I got pregnant with Charlie. And after Charlie, I wore the biggest size I’ve ever worn (nope, still not telling).

The two and a half years after Charlie was born were incredibly stressful, for a lot of reasons. Usually it’s hard for me to see, in the moment, just how stressed I am; it is only looking back that I can say, wow, that was really difficult. But in that particular window of my life, I felt overwhelmed all the time. And, without realizing it, I lost a lot of weight.

Two years ago, we were planning a trip to Florida to visit my brother and his family. When I got my summer clothes out, nothing really fit, so I went shopping. The jeans I was wearing were one size smaller than my original pre-baby size, so I tried some things on in that slightly smaller size. Too big. I bought some pants in the next size down, without trying them on. They were also too big. So I exchanged them for the NEXT size down. And wore them with a belt.

I don’t know how it happened, how I went from a size I was good with to three sizes smaller and needing a belt. I mean, I know how it happened–it was stress–but I don’t know how it happened. Did I just not eat for a year and a half? I have no idea.

Anyway, about this same time, I decided that I was tired of looking like I just rolled out of bed every day, and I started to shop for some nice wardrobe pieces–things I could wear during my day with the kids that were not made of sweatshirt material. And yes, it was nice to see that very small number in the waistband of these very nice clothes. But honestly, I didn’t really feel any smaller or thinner. I just felt stressed out and overwhelmed. And nicely dressed.

In the past year, a lot of things have happened to alleviate at least some of my stress. Charlie isn’t a baby any more, which is a huge relief to me; we have learned a lot about Henry and how his brain works, which is also a huge relief. Other things have changed, too, that I’m not really at liberty to talk about here; let’s just say that I no longer wake up every single morning and three times at night feeling overwhelmed by my life. All of that is good.

But the down side is this: I have gained back some–like perhaps ten pounds–of the weight that I lost in that crazy period. And while I am genuinely relieved not to feel like I am walking on the thin edge of a razor any more, I am sad about the weight. Not so much because I have a closet full of terrific clothes that I can’t wear, although that does annoy me every time I try to get dressed, but because I feel very uncomfortable in my body, and I don’t like that feeling.

I am still a smaller size than the one I was before I had Henry (no, still not telling you what size that was). I am about two sizes bigger than I was when I had to belt the smallest pants. But I feel like there is a lot of extra to me just now. I feel like I am big and squishy. And I don’t like that feeling.

When we were in Florida, two years ago, my sister-in-law said something about how thin I was, and I remember saying, ‘Yes, but the funny part is, I don’t feel any smaller. I feel like I’m the same size I was the day before Charlie was born. Or the week before I got pregnant with Henry.’ And that was true, then. But now I feel bigger. I am conscious that I used to be smaller, and now I’m not.

I don’t know that losing five (or ten) pounds is really the answer. I don’t know that losing ten (or five) pounds is healthy. I don’t know that losing five pounds is even possible. What I would really like to lose is this sense that my body is not a nice place to be, that there is too much of me. I spend a lot of time thinking about what to wear each day because so much of what’s in my closet doesn’t zip. Or if it does, it’s not comfortable to sit in. Or it just looks bad.

I don’ t think this is all about the number on the scale or the pants that I can’t zip. I think it has a lot to do with not really knowing who I am any more. Wade has been joking about how I am counting the days until school starts next fall, when both boys will go all day every day and I will get my life back. And I’m wondering if some of this anxiety about the size of my body is really anxiety about my life. I don’t know.

For now, I will just blame Blogger.