Idiomic Reality

Dobby was outside barking his fool head off; he does this now and again. It was late. Well, lateish. I didn't want the neighbors bothered. So I went to the back door and called him.

This usually works. It almost always works. But tonight, he kept barking. Finally, when my calls turned to commands, he obeyed. But as Dobby was coming in the back door, Snug was exiting. Seconds later, he'd reappeared...with a large creature in his mouth. He dropped it at my feet. It was a not-an-infant-but-not-full-grown opossum. And it was dead.

"Baroy!" I yelled. "Snug just brought a dead possum into the house!"

Baroy came into the family room, Em trailing right behind.

"Em, get me a garbage bag," Baroy said finally, after staring at the lump o' possum for a few seconds.

"And an oven mitt," I added. Because right then, I'd noticed the opossum blink. "He's not dead."

In fact, as we were about to learn when Baroy reached to pick him up, he was very much not dead. So much not dead that he sprang to his feet and dashed toward Baroy's desk.

But Baroy was faster than he; he grabbed the creature by its tail, and held it susupended in the air.

"Put it outside, over the fence to the side of the house, so the dogs can't get at him again," I told Baroy, and he headed out the door.

"What was he doing?" Em asked then, pointing to the animal. (She'd cowered outside the room after she'd delivered the supplies, so had missed the events.)

It was then that I realized: "He was playing possum," I said.

* * * * *
Minutes later, as Baroy was putting Nature's Miracle on a wet spot we simply did not want to know the origin of (god, I hope that stuff works on possum pee), he looked up at Em and me. We were standing near each other, making frightened-and-grossed-out girl noises.

"Why did I have to do that?" he asked. It was a rhetorical question, but I chose to answer it anyway.

"Who has the penis in the family?"

"Not us!" said Em.

Baroy shook his head, disgusted.

Later (after an incident in which Baroy had gone outside to make sure there were no other half-dead young possums in our yard and stepped in some dog poop, but didn't discover it until he'd walked through the house and back out again...and the less said about that the better) the "why me?" conversation came up again.

"Well, would you prefer me to have picked up and possibly been attacked by a rabid possum?" I said, indignant.

"Hell, yeah," said Baroy. "But I knew it wasn't going to happen."

"Ach!" I said in mock disgust, gesturing toward him but looking at Em. "See? Chivalry is dead."

"No, chivalry is not dead," said Baroy. "I took care of it. I didn't make you do it."

"Fine then," I replied. "Chivalry isn't dead. It's just really reluctant."

My Blues Buster

A couple of days ago, I posted this on Twitter:

Why does depression always hit right when everything in my life is upside down and I can't really focus on myself? Oh...wait... 9:22 AM Feb 4th from web

It was a bit of a throwaway...Those of you on Twitter know what I mean. It was just what was on my mind at that moment; within thirty seconds, though, I was thinking about something else. I mean, sure, I've been struggling a little lately, but...you know. You KNOW. I know you do.

What I'd forgotten, however, is that Baroy is on Twitter. Rarely, but he's there. And he just so happened to check his feed that day, and I guess my comment worried him. When I got home that night, he pulled me aside, looked deeply into my eyes, and asked me if everything was OK.

I, of course, had no idea what he was talking about.

"Yeah. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh," he said, taken aback. "It's just...I read on Twitter...and..."

"Ah," I said, understanding, waving my hand dismissively, embarrassed. "Well, yeah, you know how it's been. Just a hard time right now. I was just feeling sorry for myself. But I'm fine. I'll be fine."

Except, of course, that for my (you know what men are like, right?) need-to-fix-it husband, "I'll be fine" wasn't good enough. And so he's spent the last couple of days trying to make me feel better.

His first couple of attempts were totally male, and that's all I'll say about that. But then I came home today, after a morning out with the kids, to a newly mopped kitchen floor, a scrubbed stovetop, and a oven that...Wait. You have to see it to believe it.


To make it even more impressive? That is an OOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDDD oven. At least 35 years old. Maybe more. So to get it that clean? Took some serious dedication.

I sometimes forget, in the midst of being annoyed at him about this or that or the other little thing, what a good guy he is. What a good person he is. In many ways, a better person than I am. Because I can say without hesitation that, were the tables turned, I'd be all eyerollingly annoyed that he was falling apart on me at a difficult time. I would not, on a free-to-do-what-I-want-by-myself Saturday morning, be scrubbing years-old sweet potato leavings from the bottom of an ancient oven to try to make him feel better.

That my friends, is love. I'm so lucky. I just need to remember that.

Pride

[This is a shot from an exhibition match Em's team played at a local community college a few weeks ago. The guy to the left in the foreground is Baroy. The player in blue farthest to the right on the field is Em.]

The soccer thing got even more complicated after my last post. Way more complicated. Almost too complicated to explain, but I need to. So I can also explain my pride.

On Monday, Baroy got an email from the scout I wrote about. It was addressed to four or five different parents, and it was an invitation for our girls to play in an 'elite' soccer tournament over Thanksgiving weekend. Whether or not this was a prelude to being invited to play on the sectionals all-star team, we didn't know. But it was exciting. Em was positively beaming.

Baroy made sure to reply quickly, saying Em would be thrilled to be part of the team. A few hours later, he received another note, saying, "Great! Your daughter is the tall, dark-haired one on the team, right? #345?"

Uh, no. Em is short and blonde. And her number is 346. (Actual numbers changed to protect the innocent, of course.)

Em overhead Baroy tell me about this, and oh. I know life is disappointment, and blahblahblahblahblah, but if any one of you could watch your child's face fall and her upper lip quiver, even if she manages to stiffen it within seconds, without your heart shattering...well, you're not me.

"Does that mean he was never there to scout me at all?" she asked.

"I don't know, hon," I replied.

Meanwhile, Baroy is sitting in his chair at his computer, and you can literally see the steam rising off of him. He's easily annoyed by incompetence or sloppiness under normal circumstances. Do something like this? Make a mistake AND disappoint his kid? As my friend A (one of the girlfriends I was IMing with while this went on) said, "You almost have to pity the guy."

(My other girlfriend, S, said, "No way. He should get the full Baroy." The full Baroy. Hee!)

Despite being furious, he managed to calm down enough to send a terse but emotionless email that told the guy what number Em was, then added: "Are you looking for not-Em, #345? I need to know immediately, because I already told Em she was invited to the tournament."

He then sat and simmered in anger and resentment for quite a while, while I put a very-subdued Em to bed.

This morning, however, the coachscoutguy replied to Baroy's email, saying, "I'll take her to the tournament, and I'll go see her team again this weekend." (We presume he meant in order to look at the other girl, who really is a great player.)

Baroy and I discussed our options, but decided to ask Em what she wanted to do at this juncture. Her answer? "I don't want to be on the team if I'm not who he wanted. He doesn't need to do that just to make me feel better."

I don't need to actually say, do I, how proud that made me? How mature that was? Seriously, I'm kvelling here.

The upshot of the story, by the way, is that Baroy responded and told the coachscoutguy what Em said, adding, "She's a good player, and one of the team's best, but doesn't want to be in a tournament because of a mistake. So here's what might be fair: Come to the game on Saturday, and watch her and not-Em play again. If you like what you see, take her. If not, she'll understand." He then offered to introduce coachscoutguy to not-Em's parents if coachscoutguy wanted.

Coachscoutguy's immediate reply was that that sounded good to him, and that he'd let Baroy know after the game Saturday. And there it stands for now.

You know what? On second thought, I'm proud of both of them. Because I know this wasn't any easier on Baroy than it was on Em. But they did me proud. Both of them.

Speaking My Language

You know how sometimes you read something that really, completely changes the way you think or do things? And then, if you're me, you know how you immediately forget who the brilliant person was who presented you with this particular ephiphany?

Well, some years back, I read something somewhere by someone..and it changed my life. In a small way, but very much for the better. Said someone somewhere was talking about decluttering and cleaning, and basically suggested that you were better off working within your habits than trying to change them, especially if they were ingrained. So, for instance, if everyone in your family drops their coat on the floor right inside the front door, put a coat rack there. Maybe you don't want a coat rack there...but wouldn't that be better than constantly fighting the battle to get people to not drop their coats there in the first place?

It is for that reason that I put a wicker basket by the front door, which leads out to the garage, where the laundry room is. When someone pulls their socks off in the living room, they just toss 'em toward the basket by the front door. When I notice that a dishtowel has gotten dirty, I put it in that basket. Then when I walk out the front door, I see those bits and pieces sitting there, and I will either add them to the laundry basket I'm carrying out, or toss them into the garage as I go past. I no longer have to yell about clothes laying all over the house; there's a quick, easy and obvious place for them now.

Similarly, that's why I bought a coffee table with a shelf under it. Baroy and the kids always take their shoes off while sitting on the couch. The coffee table is right there. So they just place their shoes on the shelf, and voila. They're not scattered all over the living room.

I, on the other hand, have gotten into the habit of taking off my shoes in the kitchen and piling them all up right at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to my and Baroy's bedroom. When I come down the stairs in the morning, I just step into the shoes of my choice, and I'm good to go.

But having a pile of shoes in the kitchen--even in a relatively out-0f-the-way part of the kitchen--can be unsightly, and I've been fighting my own tendencies for years now. (Why I never think to solve my own problems the way I solve my family's is an entirely different psychoanalytic session.) Invariably, this means that, the day after I've dragged all the shoes back upstairs, I'll come down and realize I was expecting them to be in their regular kitchen spot. Going up and down stairs seventeen times each morning? Makes me pretty cranky.

All of which is prelude to this, which I found sitting in the usual pile-place by the stairs when I came home from work last night:

Baroy made it for me out of scrap wood in the garage, and leftover paint from the wall behind where I stood to take that picture.

I almost literally swooned. If I have a "love language," this is it. Something cheap and simple that solves a problem for me. Just like that. And at a time when my stress levels are so high that any release of the pressure feels like a new lease on life.

He's a keeper. And so is that shoe rack.

Choice

One of N's friend's moms emailed and later called me tonight, asking if N would like to join her and her son at a restaurant for a back-to-school lunch tomorrow.

Sounds like fun, right? Except N doesn't do well with last-minute plans. And he's not comfortable in restaurants. Especially since he doesn't eat much in the way of 'unusual' foods. (It's a Japanese restaurant of the Benihana type.)

So he said he only wanted to go if I could go. And I can't go, because I have to work tomorrow. Oh, let's not even go THERE. (Nutshell: My one-year anniversary at work was today. It's a great job, and since I have to work, it's where I want to work. But I don't WANT to have to work, and when it comes down to my kid needing me and me not being able to be there, well...Guilt and resentment. A fine combination, no?)

Despite the three paragraphs just spent on it, the story above isn't going anywhere, really. I emailed the mom back and declined, explaining briefly that N was a little anxious about a lunch date, but we should definitely get the boys together to play soon, maybe go bowling, something like that. The end.

Except.

The problem with these situations is that there are a lot of ways to handle them. The problem with these situations is that none of those ways is necessarily THE way. And the simultaneous problem and blessing in my life is that my husband, with his own way of thinking about things, doesn't always agree with my way, the road I choose. Nor I his.

Which is the literary way of saying that we fought about this decision. I could hedge and say we discussed it--there were no raised voices, and there was certainly no name-calling, because that's just not anything we DO, so it could be called a discussion. But it was a fight. What I call a fight, at least--where we disagree and never do find a common ground, and despite an ultimate agreement to disagree there's resentment in the air, if only for a short while. (And then, within an hour, we're on to something else--talking about politics, analyzing So You Think You Can Dance, laughing at the dog. Our marriage isn't perfect, but it's fine. For some reason, whenever I talk about this sort of thing, I feel the need to make that point. Otherwise, I always worry that it looks from the outside like we're on the edge of complete implosion, when really, we're mostly on the edge of giggling.)

We could all discuss the relative merits of choice--of letting kids have a choice, of when choices should be given, when they're not appropriate--until the cows come home (and have babies, and those babies come home, and so on). And, for a while there, it looked like that's exactly what Baroy and I would end up doing. Instead, I threw up my hand and said, "When the ball's in my court, I do what I do. And I'm not going to second-guess my instincts by wondering what YOU would like me to do."

Which, in retrospect...I think I would hate hearing if the tables where turned. But I also think it's true; I think it's the only way to actually make sure-footed decisions. When *I'm* the one with the ultimate decision-making ability, that is. But when he's the one? I know it would drive me nuts to think he was doing the wrong thing, only to have him basically say, "Tough noogies. It's my choice. Live with it."

I remember when people talked about marriage being all about compromise, and god, no matter how closely I listened, I had no IDEA what that really meant. It's like that whole "yeah, childbirth hurts" thing that is simply NOT POSSIBLE TO FATHOM until you find yourself so fully and completely terrified by the weight of the pain--having never known before that pain could, indeed, be heavy--that you can't even draw in a breath. Marriage and compromise are the same thing: There are times--and, for me, they've all been since I became a mother--when the mere idea of compromise becomes something breath-stealingly, absolutely massively heavy. When it's painful. When, as is too often the case with me when talking about Em and N, it's impossible.

But that doesn't mean I can't see Baroy's side. That's what's so painful. Because if he's right, then I'm wrong. And if I'm wrong, my kid has been, at best, slighted, not given the chance to grow and stretch. And if I'm wrong, my kid has been, at worst, stifled, not given the chance to grow and stretch.

And so while I stood my ground tonight, and while I stand it most nights like this one, I also have to consider the other choices, and what those roads not taken could have, might have, meant to me, to Baroy, to our son. My mind wanders down those roads, some of which are dark and lonely and scary, and I realize that maybe this is, in the end, where he'll wind up. Maybe this is, in the end, where I'll have led him. Or maybe, with my help, he'll find the clearing. Or maybe, it'll be his dad's help that gets him there, despite me. Maybe.

It's enough to paralyze a person, it is. Enough with the choices. Bring on the certainties.

You Never Know

Baroy started running four or five years ago, a year or so before his 50th birthday, and has since run three marathons, a handfull of half-marathons, and more 5Ks than you can shake a sneaker at. Being an obsessive-compulsive (though he refuses to admit it), he does all of his training runs on the same route, going up and down the main drag of our neighborhood, a minimum of five times a week.

How he manages to deny the obsessiveness of his running if beyond me. Although he is literally impossible to deal with if he misses a run, that's not the most obvious obsessive characteristic. That honor goes to the fact that he not only refuses to run a different route EVER unless he's in a race, but also that he will only run on the north side of the street, never on the south. I mean, come ON. I may be the obsessive pot, but I am TOTALLY comfortable in calling this kettle compulsive.

But, as usual, I digress.

Because of the consistency of his running habits, he's probably even more recognizable as Crazy Running Guy than I am as Crazy Walking Lady. You never know where you'll find me wandering, but you could set your watch by Baroy. Our friends constantly comment on where and when they saw him; he rarely makes it through a run without someone beeping and waving at him as he goes. There are other runners who he's come to 'know' through their passing one another on a regular basis. And then there are strangers who know him just from seeing him so often.

All of which is background to a story Baroy put on Facebook this afternoon, which literally brought tears to my eyes. Apparently, Baroy was walking out of the local hardware store with N when a guy stopped him and said, "You don't know me, but because of you, I lost 10 pounds."

Baroy looked confused. The guy explained. "You're the guy I always see running on Local Main Drag, and it made me decide to start running and riding my bike again. I've lost 10 pounds, and it's all because of you. Thanks, man." He then shook Baroy's hand, and walked away.

Is that not the coolest thing? It just goes to show you...You never know who you're going to touch, and how, just by being you and doing what you do.

That story totally gave me shivers of pride. But N's response? He looked up at Baroy and said, simply, "That was weird, Dad."

There's nothing like a kid to bring you back down to earth, huh?

Thirteen

It's hard for me to think of myself as a person who does anything for 13 straight years, including being married. But, apparently, I am a person who does that...and so is Baroy. Our 13th wedding anniversary was on Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day.

[What? It was the perfect date for two Jews to marry. Before the 'wedding season,' so much cheaper. Took the whole 'color scheme' decision right out of my hands...we even signed our marriage license and our ketubah in green ink! And, most importantly, the place we wanted didn't already have a wedding planned for that day. Sold.]

It was last Sunday, amidst the bustle of serving food to all 18 members of our Sunday gang, that Baroy looked at me and said, "We haven't even thought about our anniversary and what we're going to do, have we?" And I looked back at him with pleading eyes. "If you love me, your present to me will be that we won't do presents or cards or ANYTHING, because I just...can't...right now. It's too much. There's too much going on."

"Done," he said. And so it was...aside from the his-and-hers Facebook status updates announcing our pleasure at finding ourselves still married, still happy, 13 years later.

We're hoping to get out to dinner one of these nights soon. It's hard, though. I'm not quite ready to leave Em to watch N for several hours at night; we do an hour or two during the day on rare occasions, but that's it. And the thought of paying for a babysitter sort of takes all the momentum out of us to actually do this thing. So we'll wait for a convenient night, one where one of our friends (TC waves at Susanna, Ambre, Deb) is home and wouldn't mind an extra couple of kids. Or we'll just not get around to it. Which is OK, too. Because, really, aside from feeling like other people would think it's a sign that there's something wrong with our marriage for us to care this little, to make this little of an effort...it really doesn't bother me.

After all, our marriage was never about candlelit dinners at a steakhouse. It's always been about making a home together, raising our children, just being. It's always been about dinners in a well-lit, warm, spicy-smelling kitchen...which is exactly how we commemorated it. Thirteen years from the day we took vows to do just this.

All's Well That Ends Well

Baroy's play went beautifully. I mean, BEAUTIFULLY. I'm so proud of him, and of M and G for the incredible production values they put into it (the set alone is totally worth the price of admission), and of the remarkable cast. I wish I could drag every single one of you to see it. It's that good.

I'm also really proud of Em, who not only sat through it totally rapt, and understood how important the night was to her father, but also chatted with the cast afterwards like an absolute adult, throwing in occasional references to how she'd sat through the "dry tech" and how nice it was to see it "all come together." I'm not as poised, at 44 years of age, as my 10-year-old is. (And then, this morning, she got up, gathered up her American Girl dolls, and went to have a doll party with her friend J. She's 35 by night, but 10 by day. Which is as it should be.)

I'm especially proud of N, who not only made it through the first act behaving almost perfectly, but slept on my shoulder through the second...including the curtain calls. There's nothing so well-behaved as a sleeping child. (He also stuck like glue to the side of his betrothed throughout the intermission and the champagne celebration later on; at one point, he told me--in all seriousness--that he had to go, because he had to bring some crackers to W, "the love of my life." How could anyone NOT eat him up???)

And the best part? My friend Deb is having both kids over for a sleepover tonight, now that I'm sure N's fever was just flukey thing, and I'm going back to see the play again tonight, just me. Anyone want to join me?

I feel badly about whining so much. The fates have been kinder to me than my behavior deserves.

-----
And, on a mostly unrelated note, so has my husband. To wit: Last night, as he was gathering up all the opening-night gifts he'd gotten for the cast and crew (framed original script pages for the various cast members, posters, stuff like that), he handed me a package with a note on it that read, in part, "...Know how proud I am of you for all you've accomplished lately."

This (except in black...and except he swears he didn't pay that much but instead got an awesome deal on it on Amazon) was inside.

Now, my camera has been on its last legs for about a year; it has never been the same after N dropped it on a concrete floor and we had to send it in to be repaired. These days, it seems to arbitrarily sprinkle white snowflakes across about half the photos I take in low light, and it only focuses when it really WANTS to. (It apparently wanted to for N, who took this self-portrait of himself two days ago; it had no intention of working for me, however, when I took a photo of Em and her beloved Mr. D on the last day of school.) So I'm thrilled. And so is Em, who now owns my old camera. And even moreso is N, who now owns Em's old digital camera, which used to be my old digital camera, which was originally Baroy's very first digital camera...a birthday gift from me to him four months before N was born.

We are about nothing if not the hand-me-downs in this family. But, hey. It totally works for us. For all of us.

Everyone Loses

Speaking of supposed-tos...Tonight Em and I are supposed to go see the opening night of Baroy's show. N was supposed to go sleep over at his best friend's house; he hasn't seen WeeyumWise in two months, and they are pining for one another.

Last night, N felt warm to me. Took his temp; right around 100. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.

There are circumstances under which I might have pretended that never happened. After all, he woke up this morning with a temperature so low he might actually be dead. He's fine. I know he's fine.

But here's the thing: On Monday, we got a call from the Urgent Care where we'd taken Em on Saturday, because she'd been running a low-grade fever for three days and was complaining of a sore throat. And although the doctor there had sworn to me that Em did NOT have strep throat--that he was so sure of it he wasn't even going to do a rapid strep test, but would just take a culture 'to be safe'--guess what she had?

Which does not mean that N has strep. In fact, he's more likely to have whatever's been dogging me since Wednesday. I, too, had a low-grade fever and a slightly sore throat, so I hoofed it over to Urgent Care immediately, only to find out that I do NOT have strep. In fact, the doctor--whom I will never see again because I despised him and he pissed with off with every word he uttered--laughed at me and pointed out that in order to have strep you actually have to have a red throat, and mine was not even a little red.

But still. Not only is it POSSIBLE that he has strep, but Weeyum's mom has always been one to insist on canceling plans when either boy is even slightly ill. So I just couldn't drop my well-right-now-but-feverish-within-the-last-24-hours kid at her house.

Assuming he's fever-free, however, I will take him with me to the theater. Because I'm not going to miss this on the basis of a one-time so-low-it-would-be-OK-to-send-him-to-school fever. Even if I end up spending most of the play out in the lobby; I'll at least be able to be there for Baroy.

But damn. We've all been looking forward to this for months; Baroy to having his wife and daughter in the audience on opening night, Em and I to being there, N to seeing Weeyum. Plus, I just know--in that 'best laid plans' way--that N will end up spiking a fever at around 3:00 this afternoon, and that will be that; I'll have to stay home, and I'll resent the hell out of it.

I know there are worse things that can happen to a person, but it pisses me off irrationally. All I wanted was one fucking night to be there for my husband, one night to not have to be in the back of the room or on the outside looking in. I planned it all out, I juggled all the balls, I made it all work. But no.

I'm just pissed, is what I'm saying. Just totally pissed. At no one.

On My Own

Baroy has a play--a play he wrote--opening in a week-and-a-half down in Anaheim. (There is an entire post that could go here about how I was about to post a link to the show, and then realized that somehow, while posting links to my Time article doesn't set off my Stalker Alert System, posting information that not only gives Baroy's name, but the times and dates of where he will be really and truly does. Which actually makes sense, since Stalker Girl knows my name...it's not like I'm giving her extra information if she were somehow to find this place. But to give not just Baroy's name, but his whereabouts...I know it's been years since she's been any sort of 'real' threat, and yet I'm just not well enough for that. Still, if you live anywhere near Anaheim and would like the info, just drop me an email at ihavethings at gmail dot com, and I'll be MORE than happy to pimp his show to you!)

Anyway. As I was saying, he has this show opening. And it is a wonderful thing, because he is in all his glory right now. He's feeling useful and worthy, and those are feelings his life doesn't often engender in him.

But it means that he's away from home a lot. For the past month, they've been rehearsing three or four times a week, and he wants to be there at every single rehearsal. He's been helping the theater's owners (friends of ours) build the set, so he goes down during the daytime sometimes, too. And this week and next, they're rehearsing five or six nights out of seven...and they start early and end late.

Keep in mind that this is a man who, even when he's working, works from home. It's WEIRD not having him here. All of our schedules and all of our routines are based on the idea that he's the go-to guy, that I never have to worry that I have to be home at a certain time, because he's there to pick up my slack if needed.

So I was sort of dreading these weeks, figuring that I was going to be completely and totally overwhelmed by having to actually be solely responsible for my children. (Shudder. The horror!)

Instead, I've been completely and totally overwhelmed by coming to realize how much of a slacker I've become these past couple of years, just by knowing that Baroy has my back.

In other words, this is a piece of cake. When I *know* that I'm the one who has to pick up the kids, cook dinner, clean up afterwards, supervise all activities and homework, tidy up around the house, and get both of them to bed at night, I do it. I do it easily. Not only have I been doing it, I've been going above and beyond, deep cleaning here and there as I go, taking time out to play with N when I normally would kvetch about how I have work to do, spending time cuddling and chatting with Em. And I've even been able to find ample 'me' time, though rather than long walks during the afterschool hours, I've instead relocated to the backyard garden where I can still be available when needed. That doesn't really bother me at all. I love gardening. (Em commented to me last night, when I came inside from weeding, that whenever I work in my garden I come back in a much better mood. She's right. Gardening is definitely one of my most potent antidepressants.)

And yet, when Baroy is home and he asks me to help him out with one of what I perceive to be HIS tasks (he cleans up after dinner, he is in charge of certain activities, he tidies up around the house, he gets one of the kids to bed while I do the other), well...I'm just surprised I've never injured an ocular muscle, what with all the eye-rolling I do in response. How can I be expected to do EVERYthing around here! I'm only one person! It's not faaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrr!

Whoops.

I know this would be no fun to do over the long term. I'm not Superwoman, and Doing It All would get really old, really quickly. I love having Baroy here to help out. But I'm truly surprised by how a circumstance that I thought would show up all my parenting weaknesses has instead showed up my resilience. I can do this. I really can.

Just don't tell Baroy. Because I'm planning on getting him to pay me back for my HUGE SACRIFICE for months to come, once the play closes.

Forth and Back

I had a long post here about how Baroy hit a wall with N and his homework the other day and ended up saying to me in frustration, almost spitting the words out, "He needs to be in special ed! He needs more help!" And you could just tell that he thought that would hit me as either some kind of insult, or some kind of revelation. I'm not sure which. But all I did was to stare at him for about three seconds and then hiss back, "Well, what the hell do you think I've been talking about all this time?"

But I deleted that post, because trying to explain why that was possibly The Most Infuriating Statement of All Time was taking more patience and finesse than I have right now. Take my word for it. Steam came out of my ears, even while I felt bad for him in some ways, because he sees so much of the world--his son included--in black and white. And, to him, the fact that everyone agrees that those IQ tests that pegged N as borderline retarded were wrong meant that N is fine. Which he isn't. And...urgh. Infuriating.

But because I can't stop thinking about it right now, I'm going to exorcise that conversation with a much-less-aggravating and yet still-illuminating example from tonight's less-annoying homework session, where N had to write sentences for his spelling words. We were dealing with the word soil, and N wanted the sentence to be a question. (He likes writing question marks.)

After thinking for a few moments, what he came up with was, "Is the soil wet? Is the soil dry?"

"You could also just say, 'Is the soil wet or dry?'" I suggested.

He considered that. "That's a good idea," he admitted. "But I'm going to say it like, 'Is the soil dry or wet?'" (Which he did, spelling soil perfectly, because this child--who can't reliably remember the days of the week or add simple numbers or pass a freaking science test--has what is undoubtedly a better-than-90-percent average on his spelling tests.)

And it's not like there's anything wrong with that. But it's just that most people don't say dry or wet. They say wet or dry. Rain or shine. Back and forth.

N, on the other hand, is all about dry or wet and shine or rain and forth and back. And as much as I want to only believe that that's what makes him quirky and wonderful, I also believe that that's what makes him quirky and vulnerable.

He definitely needs more help.

I'll Let Baroy Explain It Himself

The email Baroy sent to his brothers, with this picture attached, was simply titled, "Me."

This was N's picture of me. I think he captured my eyes, not to mention the blood (blud) around my mouth since, as he explained it, I'm a vampire.

Warning, Mom: I'm about to be wildly inappropriate

One of the really sad things about trying to be semi-pseudonymous and protect your kids' privacy is that you can't post that great photo of your daughter and her father from Friday night, as they were getting ready to leave for the Daddy-Daughter (aka 'bring your favorite guy') Dance at our elementary school. Which is a pity, because my girl looked AWESOME. Too mature, and too gorgeous, but awesome nonetheless. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Em had an absolute blast at the dance, and even Baroy came home grinning. But the most fun, for me, came before the dance...in watching Baroy struggle with the whole concept of dating his 10-year-old daughter.

It started when I tried to convince him that he should get Em a wrist corsage for the evening, and he made very possible excuse short of "I'm just afraid I'd stick her with the pin and then she'd get flesh-eating bacteria and die and it'd be all my fault."

"What is your PROBlem?" I finally asked, exasperated.

"It just seems...icky," he admitted. "I can't explain. But it just seems wrong to give your daughter a corsage the way you gave your prom date a corsage...especially knowing what I expected from my prom date."

I would say that I rolled my eyes so violently they may just stay stuck that way, but the truth is, I was soon presented with a MUCH BETTER reason to roll my eyes...and to actually start seeing it Baroy's way, courtesy of the "How to make the Daddy-Daughter Dance even more special" notice that came home the night before the event.

I can't find the actual sheet--and more's the pity for that, because I've forgotten most of it--but I do know that one of the tips will be forever emblazoned in that "ewwwww, icky!" part of my brain. That would be the tip that suggested that, just before re-entering your home that night, the Dad should tell the daughter what a good time he'd had, and what a special night it was.

Maybe it's the way it was worded, which I can't recall precisely. Or maybe it's just that I'm sick. I know that most people would probably just see that as sweet, but my mind went directly to The Bad Place.

"And after that?" I said, my mouth gaping in astonishment. "Does it say whether or not you should use tongue when you kiss her goodnight? Because that's totally where it seems like they're going."

It's moments like this, I believe, that convince Baroy that he made a good choice in marrying me. Because I understand. And am willing to go there--no matter how awful there is--for the sake of a good, lasting belly laugh. Which, of course, I got.

Burst bubble

[N, putting, at the gorgeous-beyond-belief children's golf academy where he takes lessons]

I was doing my Thursday-in-the-first-grade-classroom activity--distributing the week's marked-up work into folders for each individual child--when I noticed that almost all of N's work from class, especially anything involving language arts, had a "with help" written on it. I decided it was probably time to ask the teacher for a sit-down, just to check in on how N is really doing. I've been buoyed by watching him really 'get stuff' when he does his homework, and by watching what seem to be his blossoming social skills in a variety of different social situations, like his golf class and at Hebrew school, etc., but I still wanted to check in to make sure this wasn't a real issue, and to maybe ask the teacher about how she thinks his speech is.

By the time I was done with my 'job', the class was outside having recess. As I approached, N came over from the bench where he was still working on his snack. All the other kids were on the playground. Suddenly, his teacher appeared:

"Mrs. Confused! Thanks for all your help today. I do have a favor to ask of you, though...N, would you please go clean up your snack so I can talk to Mommy?"

Uh-oh. "Yes?"

"Um, could you maybe work with N on getting him to join the other children to play during recess? This is my first time on yard duty this year, and I hadn't realized, but he doesn't play with the other kids. And when I ask him to go play, he sometimes refuses. I can insist he go out there, and I do, but then he just stands on the sidelines as a bystander, sucking his thumb, and..."

I hold up my hand. "Funny you should bring this up. I was coming out here to ask if we could set up a time..."

"...for a conference? Oh, good. I was hoping we would get to talk before the end of the first marking period."

"Yes. I was wanting to talk to you about his classwork, but also to get your input on some other things. For instance, I'm planning to take him to get a speech..."

"Oh, I've already asked several times for the speech therapist to do an assessment on him, and she says he's already on her list, but she hasn't gotten to him yet."

This was followed by a not-worth-recording conversation about how to make that happen more quickly, and another on how she (teacher) should not for a second think that I (mother) am not aware of any of these issues, etc. And then I left. And even though I was the one who was going out there to talk to HER...I felt totally deflated. I guess I was hoping that we would just talk about how he's having trouble following directions, but otherwise he's just fine! Totally normally! All the kids love him! Nothing to see here, you over-involved, worry-wart mom!

But, instead, I got: He has really obvious social issues. I got: I told the speech therapist I thought it was important for him to get help RIGHT AWAY! I got: I'm so glad you want to talk about this because I think it's important to work on these issues RIGHT AWAY! Time's a'wastin'! This kid isn't going to get any better just because you wish it away, you know! (OK. Maybe that last one wasn't so much verbatim, but it was clearly her point.)

What it really comes down to is that instead of, "Yeah, I see what you're saying, and you're right, but I hadn't really been thinking about it much because it's just not that big of a deal," I got, "I've clearly been thinking about this a lot, and acting on it, too, and I just wasn't sure yet how and when to bring it up to you, but it's big and it's obvious, and he may be looking better to you these days, but to me, meeting him for the first time, I see deficits, and they're glaring, and you really do need to do deal with them." And that's depressing.

I've been down this road a minimum of 76 times before, of course. Most of you have read it; most of you are doubtless tired of reading it and having it go nowhere. You know those times...where I get all het up to do xyz to help N, where I recognize that there's a problem, but then I start to see progress and start to wonder if I'm overreacting, only to have The World slap me in the face and say, "No! You're not overreacting! Progress does not mean over and done with. How many times do I have to tell you? GET HIM HELP." You'd think that by now...

Once the letter to the school district--the one I just finished writing--is received, they have two weeks to do the assessment. But (I know, I know) that likely won't be enough, so I'll get an outside SLP appointment set up, too. I was hoping to wait until after the likely-to-be-combined hernia-and-testicle surgery to do it, but that may not work out, since he still needs to be seen by a general surgeon before we can even schedule that. And that may take more time than, it turns out, I should let slip past. Already, it's been nearly 7 years...or, to be fair to myself, between 4 and 5 years since I first noticed a problem. Perhaps it's time to stop waiting for 'the right time.'

---
BTW, on a completely unrelated note, today is Baroy's birthday. 52. He's so OLD! But I love him anyway. Happy birthday, hubby mine.

Baroy's OK

It was, he reports, 80 degrees at 4 am, when he left for the race. The instructions given to the runners at their 6 am start time was that the course was at yellow alert (or something like that), and that they were to be aware that the danger of heat illness was high, meaning that nobody should be aiming for a PR (personal record) that day. Not that Baroy could have even considered going for a PR, he said, since within half a mile of the starting line, his shorts were so wet they became like a weight around his hips, slowing him down. (You should SEE the enormous abrasion on the inside of his thigh from the rubbing of those wet shorts as he ran. Well, OK, maybe YOU shouldn't see it. But you know what I mean. It's nasty and intense and painful. My poor running man.)

So, yeah. He finished. He won't let me say how long it took, except to note that he was at least 15 minutes off his usual pace, but considers just having finished to be a triumph, considering. I have to agree. An insane triumph, but a triumph nonetheless.

And now he's set his sights on the next half marathon, some LA thingy in December. With any luck, the temperatures will have settled back down into the 90s by then.

An iPhone? For ME?

Baroy is TechnoBoy. I am Amish girl. Not only do I generally not understand technology, I oftentimes actively dislike it. I certainly actively distrust it.

When I turned 40, my beloved girlfriends gave me a then-just-recently-introduced iPod mini. If I had only been able to listen to music on it, it might never have done all that much for me. But I discovered audiobooks. And I discovered just how many audiobooks you can cram onto a 4 MB iPod mini. So when the original mini died an untimely death after just 18 months, I grumbled about how it was all a scam, that this was planned obsolescence, that Apple could bite me if they thought I was going to plunk down another $200 for a portable mp3 player with a battery that *you can't replace" when it goes bad.

Apparently, Apple did not need to bite me. I'm not sure 48 hours had passed before I realized how badly I needed that pain-in-the-ass piece of crap...and how much I loved it.

It's been another 18 months, and today, my recently sputtering iPod mini (same sleekly, unobstrusive silver color as the original) gave up the ghost rather spectacularly. I threw a full-fledged temper tantrum, complete with tears and a remarkable number of curse words, none of which were unobtrusive in color.

I came back a little while ago from a very long post-tantrum walk--listening to an audiobook on Baroy's video iPod as I went, of course--with some perspective, and allowed in conversation with Baroy as to how maybe, just maybe, the fact that my iPod goes EVERYWHERE with me, gets knocked around in my purse and even sometimes knocked around on the floor of my car, and how, yes, once or twice it's fallen from a height onto the pavement...how MAYBE that might account for its no longer working. But hell, we don't have the money for a new iPod right now, and my 50th birthday isn't for another seven years, so I can't really look longingly in my friends' direction. So, what am I going to doooooooooooooo, Baroy? Oh me. Oh my.

Which is when Baroy looked at me and suggested that rather then sink money into a Nano that might go the way of my minis, I instead buy myself an iPhone.

No, we can't really afford it. But, he pointed out, it would save us about $30 a month in phone charges, since I currently carry a Blackberry. And so in one year, it would more than make up the difference between itself and a Nano. Plus, we could sell my Blackberry on ebay and recoup some costs. And then I wouldn't have to carry both an iPod and a Blackberry hooked onto my pants everywhere I go.

It sorta kinda a tiny little bit makes sense. But ME? A first-generation iPhone? BEFORE Baroy gets one? It just seems...obscene somehow. Wrong. Very, very wrong. I don't even WANT one, really. But I have to admit it makes some amount of sense, if you throw out completely the idea that I not get a new iPod and get a cheap mp3 player instead and only load one or two CDs of each audiobook onto it at a time. Which...nah. No way.

I just don't know. Help!