The STUFF Sisters - Motherhood

Birthday Lunch

I was cleaning out a drawer in my desk at home recently and I came across this receipt.

On my birthday in 2009 my daughter asked if she could take me to lunch. I, of course, said yes. (Anytime a 5 year old asks you to lunch, you go.) I picked Sol Cantina, because it was a warm sunny day, they have fantastic fish tacos and you can sit outside under festive umbrellas that make you feel like you are on vacation.

It was a delightful birthday lunch. A close friend joined us and we sat talking, laughing, munching and even sipped a margarita or two.

At the end of our meal the check arrived. My daughter picked it up, checked it (very much like her mother usually does), turned to me and said, “Mom, can I borrow the credit card?”.

She presented the credit card to the waiter. And, when the check booklet arrived back, she opened it, signed the check and handed the card back to me without another word.

I will always remember this special day. It hung heavy with glimpses into the future. My daughter becoming her own woman with her own money, her own credit card, her own plans and her own vision for a day.

I am so glad I kept this little scrap of thermal paper. And, I am so glad I came across it before it was completely faded. It brought me unexpected joy. Always a welcome gift.

Note: I did tip the server on my way out.

When Mommies Freak Out

When my darling boy was a little over 2 years old, I drove the wrong way down one way streets and sped through red lights after looking both ways.

When my darling boy was a little over 2 years old, I drove the wrong way down one way streets and sped through red lights after looking both ways. Or maybe my husband did that. Can’t remember exactly who was behind the wheel because I may have been freaking out. We got there and parked in under 8 minutes.

My husband and I escorted our young son into Children’s Mercy Hospital way after midnight all those years ago on feet that never touched the floor. A mere few minutes before that, we had been sleeping in our bed when the sound of troubled breathing from the baby’s room woke us both with a start. We knew something was wrong, and it really sounded like he had swallowed something and it was stuck. Stuck right beyond where we could dig it out with cupped fingers. We know, because we tried.

We had been out earlier that night. The sweet boy had been with his favorite sitter in our home. We had houseguests – my very pregnant best friend and her husband were sleeping over while their floors were being refinished a few blocks away. They were asleep as well.

But not for long. When a wheezing sound from another human hits you that hard, you have trouble breathing yourself. I caught my breath enough to wake our guests, call the babysitter, ask a few questions, and dress us all for quality time in the emergency room.

I can still see my friend Cathy – out to there with baby #1 – in silhouette at the top of my stairs telling me to call her. She had the same look of fear in her eyes that I did.

We flew into the hospital, and everyone could hear that something was wrong. Those geniuses knew what it was from his first exhalation in their presence. They are that good. I believe we heard the word “spasmodic croup” before the next inhalation. We answered 900 questions, filed a gazillion forms, and paid a co-pay with a credit card in the exam room. And then our friend Scott walked in the room.

scott & D — Scott and our son on Valentine's Day this year.

How he knew we were there I will never know. He is a respiratory therapist at Children’s Mercy, and he walked into the room in the heat of it all. He was as cool, calm and collected as the other staff. They all seem to know each other at that particular hospital, and they all seem to love their jobs. It is palpable when you meet any of them – in or out of the hospital.

When it was ascertained that there already was a respiratory therapist in the room for our son and Scott was asked why was he there, he simply stated, in true Scott fashion, “I’m not here for him. I’m here for her,” and he swiftly pointed to me.

He made the whole room smile with that line. He made me laugh hard enough to have oxygen reach the bottom of my lungs – at the exact moment our son ceased to struggle due to the vapors coming at him from a crazy machine. He made the whole room relax.

And then he was gone. Back to the children that needed him. He hugged my husband and me, patted our son on the back, and left.

We spent a few more hours at the hospital, and we never laid eyes on Scott again that night. We went home and slept well. Our son never had another episode in infanthood. Or ever.

Lucky us. For having friends who know exactly when they are needed, and for having a son who knows to just have his croup “spasmodically” and not every day.

Lifecycles

Recently a friend posted a photo to Facebook that shook me a little bit. My mind was racing all over the place with memories of my own life.

Recently a friend posted a photo to Facebook that shook me a little bit. My mind was racing all over the place with memories of my own life. Of comments made in the past by strangers and friends. Then I let my mind go silent.

In the spring of 2008, my last grandparent passed away – My Dad’s mom. I hold firmly to my belief that I am a better person having had grandparents who loved me and were alive well into my 30’s and 40’s. Mostly, I am a better person for having had a hand in caring directly for my grandma during her last year.

When her health dictated that it was time for her to leave her Mid-Missouri home and move to Kansas City to be nearer to her family, she embraced it whole-heartedly. Her statement was, “I’ve always wanted to live in the big city!” The day she spoke those words to me, I wrote them down so that I wouldn’t forget that adventure comes at every age.

My father found a place for her to live in south Kansas City that was very near her primary care doctor, but I think he knew that the best medicine for her was to be super close to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Finally, after all the years of driving to Mid-Missouri to see any of my grandparents, I had one living less that 4 miles from my home. I was a little bit excited.

I tried to visit her two times a week, but some weeks found me there only once. Those weeks were hard for me, because I have inherited from both of my grandmothers a need to not be “cooped up” and to “get out for a little while,” to paraphrase them both. I was always afraid that, when I was unable to visit, she would suffer from this virus we all shared. I called her every day, and we spoke of much. She let loose with a few thoughts she’d been harboring for years, and those utterances left me speechless several times. Deep issues regarding her life with my grandfather and, therefore, my father. I was glad she released them, and, two times in particular when I didn’t respond quickly, she asked if I was OK and I told her I just needed a little time to think about what she said. She replied, “I’ve got time.”

What was amazing to me about my grandma’s last year was that many of my friends and aquaintances were stunned that I would take my son with me to care for his great grandmother. I found no shame in having him help me with her hair, putting away her small amount of groceries, cleaning her bathroom, lotioning her legs, and, on one occasion, trimming her toenails. One person admonished me with this line: “He doesn’t need to see all that.”

Yes, he did. We all do. The lessons that are learned at the end of life are as great as the lessons I learned at the beginning of my son’s life.

He never saw her naked. He never cleaned up the truly messy parts of her bathroom. He sat on the edge of her chair and charmed her with stories of basketball and art class and his younger cousin. He told her about the trials and tribulations of the 4th and then 5th grades. He read her mail to her and described every detail of the art on the greeting cards, because the finer parts were lost to her macular degeneration. He helped her decorate her door and bedside table for the passing seasons and always was a guiding force on how the magnets and photos were displayed on her tiny under-the-cabinet refrigerator.

I was not prepared for the fact that so many people spoke to me about not understanding why I did all this,I talked to a family lawyer from the criminal lawyers Melbourne office. It was more people than those who could easily see why this was so important to me. And why it was important to have my son see the glory of living past 85.

A series of strokes dictated when the time came for her to enter the hospital and never leave. My son only visited her in the hospital once. It was early in the episodes, and she was cognitive and aware, smiling and laughing. She was still his “Gramma Ginny”. He got right up into the bed with her, and her eyes just blazed. I remember thinking he was so comfortable in a place that makes most people ultra-nervous and stiff.

I am amazed at how much he remembers from this year we had with her in The Big City. We showed her a good time, given all the limitations. We made a little magic.

p.s. I want to thank my friend Shelly DeMotte Kramer for letting me share her photo of her daughter with her father-in-law. You can see the second pair of hands to the left in the photo. Shelly has twin girls, and the human caring they share in this photo is amazing. Shelly and her family laid him to rest today.

p.p.s Casey wrote an amazing blog in 2008 about my grandmother. Find it here.

Summer Goes

On this, the last day before Autumn officially begins and my favorite season ends, I wanted to share a blog I wrote in August of 2007. I can still see the evening vividly, and the memories are overpowering.

Enjoy. Here it is.

Sloane

Friday Night Lights

I attended my first friday night football game at my son’s new high school tonight.

I attended my first Friday night football game at my son’s new high school tonight. Football’s never really been “my sport”. It is a wee bit violent for me. When I attended high school way back in the early 80s, I tried to never miss a game. Our school shared a field with another high school, so even home games held the allure of a car ride, before and after I had my license.

I did not sit with my son at the BBQ before the game or at the game. He was off with his friends – new and old – and that made me infinitely happy. He’s building his life and his memories, and I’m merely the taxi driver. Fine by me. Truly.

The light came on again tonight that my son has done nothing but grow away from me since he was born. I should be sadder, or so I’m told. I’ve spent time and energy visiting this issue, and you can see one of those musings here. While sitting in the bleachers with my niece, I was reminded that – even after the lights came on and the world got a little darker tonight – my son knew exactly where to find me. If I’ve been doing my job correctly and have let him grow away from me, he’ll always know exactly where I am.

p.s. If the photo of the field lights I captured isn’t the stuff of a Lori Buntin painting, I don’t know what is.

New Digs

The beginning of the school year does not bring on the deep desire to sniff crayons or markers. It does not make me yearn for sweaters and boots. I don’t even want the cooler weather to drop down too soon. Around our house, it simply means Mama’s got the bug to move furniture.

Last year it was the excitement and sadness of converting the young man’s room from a bunk bed setup into a double-twin-bed lounging paradise. We got him some new furniture on this site. It was a day fraught with tears for what seemed like the true end to the “kid” room and therefore childhood. At least that’s what I manifested it into.

This year – two days before the first day of school – the golden child’s desk moved from the kitchen to the room we labeled years ago “the playroom” due to its housing all the games, the toys and the air hockey table. His desk had been in the kitchen since the second grade when he and I started sharing a computer. The computer and he faced the wall so I could easily see the screen from any vantage point in the kitchen. Not on my watch was he going to accidentally dance with porn! No way!

a boy and his desk — The boy and his new desk.

The domino effect of house re-arranging is that it gave me the opportunity to tweak a few more things that needed change. It just stands to reason that, if he and I are no longer sharing a computer and a desk, we should both get new digs. So this boy’s mama moved a desk into her dressing room, and all has been bliss. I am safely nestled into the second floor of the house with a window for taking in Hyde Park vistas and with seashells on the sill for moral support. Right now I’m loving the sleekness of the desk surface, but I know that will change.

My move from the epicenter – our kitchen – is providing me with much-needed clarity for the writing I’ve been yearning to do. I am able to leave the hubbub after dinner and enter a little silence – which I still love to have pierced by my baby boy as he attacks his mountain of homework.

Sloane

Helicopter Parent

I have been checking in with my father almost every day since he was diagnosed with cancer late this spring. It seems like the least I can do. Sometimes we talk about cancer, sometimes we talk about work, sometimes we talk about movies, but mostly we talk about nothing in particular. And talking about nothing has been taking us at least 10 minutes almost every time we talk.

dad, D and vic — My Dad, my son, and my step mom not too long ago. Well, long enough ago that he still had facial hair. Oh, hell, any hair.

This is an impressive amount of time for me with a phone to my ear because talking on the phone is anathema to me. I’ve never been very good at it, and most of the time I can get a little short and just move quickly towards the hanging up part. I’m getting better, but I’m not cured. Yet.

A week or so ago, a friend of mine, Patti Dickinson, posted on her Facebook page an article in our local paper about the University of Missouri hiring a new person to help parents separate from their children as they enter the new world of living at college, or some such concept. I was disgusted that this was even a job that was needed at any university or college. There was much discussion on her page about how ridiculous this was, and I was in full agreement. Actually, I still am.

However, today something hit me. I have become a helicopter daughter. I am hovering around my father and checking in to make sure he is OK, adjusting and getting used to his new “environment”. I had become one of those dreaded people that can’t let their family out of their sight – or, in my case, hearing range.

At a time in my life when our son is entering his last four years of schooling before college and I am working hard at making sure he’s independent and capable and can troubleshoot some of his shortcomings, I am spending great amounts of time making sure my father is coping and is not overwhelmed by a bully he can’t even lay hands on directly.

Can I be a helicopter daughter while not being a helicopter parent? I think I can. We’ll see.

Bittersweet

Tomorrow morning my daughter will start first grade. Tonight she took her own shower, cleared her own plate, picked out her outfit for her first day of school, and even remembered to brush her teeth. I tucked her into bed with a book and her new kitten. After I kissed her goodnight, she said, “Mom, don’t forget to set my alarm.” I set her alarm and kissed her one last time and quietly left the room.

I then stood outside the door and let the tears fall.

I believe that I never truly understood the meaning of bittersweet until I had a child. Now I hope my life is filled with an endless amount of these moments.

Baby in Chicken Costume — Halloween 2006

The Past as Present

I have been coming to the beach in Florida on average once a year for 9 years. I’m lucky. I have firsthand knowledge of the healing powers of the surf and the sun. I can feel it on my skin and in my soul.

Hunting for shells is a part of life on the island we visit. It juts out from the southern tip of Tampa Bay and collects some real doozies from the Gulf of Mexico. I have the patience for looking for shells, and I find the work cathartic. But I’m not good at it. I have been laughed at for what I bring back and what I find beautiful, but it rolls off of me and I care little. Shelling is a private endeavor, and others need not really know too much.

I have excelled at acting like Madame Cousteau as my son – once little and now not so much – brings me his bounty from the sea. I ooh and ahh and am truly transfixed by his luck in the shallows and on the sand. (Many years ago, I saw a comic in The New Yorker of a young Jacques at the beach. It showed his mother in a beach chair absolutely surrounded by sea life, shells and rocks. The artist had her saying something sweet and alarmingly funny – I have forgotten it, but the image has stuck with me as my son has aged.) This past week, he has brought me miniature wonders and large treasures.

And yesterday – just yesterday! – I realized why I’m not the greatest shell collector. Well, not the greatest collector of perfect shells…why I am drawn to all the shells that are imperfect and broken and damaged. The realization had me looking up from the “shell dump” my son and I were digging in and looking toward the incredible sinking sun as I caught my breath. It had come catapulting through time to strike me straight in the heart.

When I was in the 4th grade, my parents moved us from Des Moines to Kansas City. It was a wee bit hard to join a class mid-year and fit in. Well, I didn’t actually fit in for several more years. I was not chosen for kickball or dodgeball teams. I was not waved over to join a group at a lunch table. I was not picked first for spelling bees or vocabulary teams. It was tough. I was the new kid.

It was well into my 5th grade year when I met the young woman who has remained my best friend to this day. And even then, when she fell in gym and broke her forearm, I was blamed by others because I was near her and fell at the same time. I felt like I was the odd duck and the 5th wheel. I just knew I was imperfect in my classmates’ eyes – broken in some way I could not see in the mirror – and it left me a bit damaged for several years.

This brings us back to the beach and the bounty I carry away and into my home. I have jars on a high shelf in a guest room that house my treasures. I used to be a bit more anal retentive, putting dates and locations on the inside of the lids, but now I mix and match my catches. I will occasionally bring a jar down and place it on my dresser for a few weeks so I can marvel at the different shapes. I can admit to liking the pristine pieces that look like they were purchased at a gift shop, but I mix them liberally with the majority of what I own – odd shells, barnacled shells, broken shells, cracked shells, tips and fragments.

Today I found the shells you see, in the surf up-island from our beach chairs. I dug them out of the sand and clear water, looked at them briefly, and silently told myself to throw them back. They were still been held together by membrane, and one side was barnacled and off-colored, but the other side was nearly perfect and barnacle free. I held it for over a minute while contemplating how these two halves could still be together in the rough and tumble of the sea. One was perfect and one was not. Then, because I knew tossing would damage them, I laid them back gently on the sand in the shallows and walked away.

Ten minutes later, my son joined me where I sat after I had left the flats, and he showed me his many amazing shells, one of which was the pair I had placed back in the sea.

Oui, Madame était très contente.

Sloane

Special note: a “shell dump” is a phrase my sister Casey coined years ago to distinguish regular beach from a section that had a lot of shells collected in it at the last high tide.

Translation: Yes, Madame was very happy.

Almost Stupid

I almost walked right into a grand tour down memory lane. Almost.

While our 14 year old son is off traipsing around Paris, I decided to travel right into the grand abyss that is his closet. It was packed to the gills with old costumes, rolled posters, too-small shoes, last year’s jeans, and his “keepsafe” boxes. That’s where I was almost stupid. Almost.

When he was young and still learning the finer points of the English language, he heard me mentioning his keepsake boxes. To be precise, what he heard – but not what I said – was KEEPSAFE boxes. He will still ask me to put things away in his keepsafe boxes. I have never corrected him, and I doubt I ever will. It’s just too precious to me, and there needs to be some thread to him that ties me to his babyhood.

Back to the closet. Right on top, in the uppermost keepsafe box, was the Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit I bought him in 1997 for my stepsister’s wedding. I went a little crazy in the weeks before the wedding and purchased this amazing ensemble at Saks Fifth Avenue. It’s a pima cotton placketed blouse and a navy blue velvet jumper with button closures. No tacky snaps here!! I finished it all off with white socks and leather Buster Brown ankle shoes. He was 8 months old, and that night his feet never touched the ground. He was held by many and pandered to all night. He was as happy all evening as he is in this picture.

In the box, right under this fashion statement, is the outfit we took him home from the hospital in. I can’t say what else is in that box – or the boxes it was resting on – because I stopped right there. I felt the big cry coming on, and I waltzed right around it. I went back to sorting and dusting and cleaning and ignored the memories waiting in those boxes.

I guess that, because I only have one child, I will not need to remind myself to not go cleaning out the closets of an almost high schooler while they are away. It is a treacherous and slippery slope if you are not properly prepared.

I should, however, remind myself that drying my eyes with the cotton rag in my hands that is coated in lemon Pledge and dust bunnies is almost stupid. Almost.