Hobbit Tales

I’m reading The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien, to M-ito. I’ve been waiting to read it to him forever. Well, since I read it when I was ten or so. My friend Joe showed it to me and I read it and fell in love with it’s total sense of adventure immediately. I’m a sucker for a fantasy story. Dwarves, dragons, elves, hobbits, hero’s wizards – you can’t beat it. Since then I’ve read it twice but it’s been over ten years since the last time. I’ve told myself it would be great to read it to my son or daughter one day. Now that I have a son, I’ve been eyeing it each year, and looking at M-ito to wonder if it was time yet. This year since starting school he read How to Train Your Dragon by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (traslated from the Norse by Cressida Cowel) and a number of other books on his own that speak of adventure and new worlds, swordplay and dragons. With Hiccup under his belt I thought it was time for The Hobbit. It’s dark and there’s lots of danger and the tone is menacing, but so far he’s loved it.

Reading it has been hard, though, bitter-sweet to be exact. My friend Joe, who told me about the book after he’d read it, had been my best friend since we were both in 4th grade together. We met the first day of school – a new school for me – I left my lunch box behind and Joe took it home with him. He lived down the block from me. I went to his house to retrieve it and so a friendship was born on a sunny September day. We saw each other every day until, when we were both in seventh grade, maybe a month away from the end of school, he was killed. It was a freakish accident. He walked home from school early without letting anyone know. There were torrential rains. Crossing the rail road tracks he was hit. I can still picture the black sky, still hear the downpour against the school roof while I sat in math class. They announced his death over the loud speaker just before school ended.

So many things I do as a father remind me of my own childhood. I watch my son and watch myself as a child, or I watch my son and think of what was and what could have been. I have to remind myself, like so many other parents, that he is not me. Now that’s a challenge they never told me about in the school for parents.

The Hobbit is a wonderful book and I love the way my son pulls the covers up closer around him while I read to him about the three Trolls arguing about how to kill and eat good old Bilbo and his dwarven companions. He peers over my shoulder, snuggling in close. At the scary parts he covers his ears with his hands and closes his eyes. “Don’t read anymore!” He says, then takes his hands off his ears and asks me to read on. “Which do you want?” I ask. “Read on!” he says. I love being able to comfort him, being able to be his warmth when the story makes him shiver.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says, “Hold the sadness and pain of smasara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.” I try to remind myself of this, when my heart aches. I try to see the beauty of my son’s smile.

Today M-ito told me he wanted to write a new book of his own. In school they’re writing stories now – fiction. They’ve moved on from non-ficiton memoir and he’s thrilled because he loves to tell stories. “I’m going to write a story,” he says, “about a character I’ve had an idea about for a long time. His name is the Sizzler.”

All I can think of is the restaurant chain called The Sizzler, but I tell him to go on – to tell me about him.

“It’s about a Sizzler that has never had any adventures but he gets dragged into a bunch of them and all kinds of things happen.”

Now I can see the Great Eastern Sun.

I Help People Who Help People

Friday last week was Community Worker day at M-ito’s school. I’d scheduled an hour in the morning to attend and talk to the kids in the second grade about what I did for a living. Poppi, my father, was coming too. He’s an animal rescuer and rehabilitator, liscenced (not certified as he would be the first to remind me). He specializes in ducks and geese, uses the moniker, Duck Man. In other words he was set up to be a real hit with the kids.

I’d just come home from a trip to North Dakota where I got to run a 3-hour workshop for 100 judges, lawyers and drug treatment workers. I spoke right after the governer of the state and the supreme court justice spoke. They got ten minutes each and I got the rest of the day. Knowing that made me smile. What I hadn’t really thought about was how I was going to explain my work to a group of second graders. What is it that I really do?

I remember when my son first explained my job to someone else. He was four and said I was an officer because I worked in an office. Once he said I was a fencer, because he saw me fence once. I liked both of those answers. Now he knows I travel, teach yoga, teach other subjects like public speaking to judges and lawyers, and do other public health work with people who have diseases of some sort or another. But… he d0esn’t really understand the public health part. I’ve left it at that for the moment.

I sat down at a small desk with my knees hitting the underside. Poppi sat down and spread out his handouts at another collection of desks – his station – he’d made some copies of a how-to about how to take care of a baby bird or wounded bird if they ever came accross one. A mom who was an orthodontist had packages of lip balm, tootpaste, toothbrushes, small toys, glittering things (this was the third time she was doing this) I had… nothing. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. It hadn’t occurred to me to bring anything. And what would I bring? Condoms or syringes wouldn’t go over very well.

M-ito was in my first group of kids. He came over to me and gave me a big smile and hug. He rarely does that at school. Usually he just presents me with the top of his head for a kiss on his crown. But I got a hug, a real hug. That pretty much made my day right there, even without anything to give to the kids but words.

So here’s what I learned about myself when it comes to my work.

1. How do I describe my job: I’m a public health worker. The kids could spell it easily because it was written on my name card. It took me two groups to figure this trick out. I tried different ways to explain public health. I settled on working with people who work in hospitals, clinics, and treatment centers. I’m pretty sure hospital is what stuck in their heads. I left HIV/AIDS, drug treatment, Sexually Transmitted Infections, Methadone, Mental Health Issues, and Hepatitis C out. I wanted to come back next year. I heard my dad tell the kids he was a rehabilitator – then, when he realized they had to spell the word – told them to just call it rehab. “Your teacher will allow that,” he told them confidently. With some groups I added that I was a boss and a teacher also. That didn’t need any explanation. I left out writer. It would have been too complicated and, well, I just haven’t been feeling very writerly lately so I left it out. It made me sad for a moment but I moved on, letting it simply be.
2. When second graders interview you and they have to take notes on what you say – long sentences are out. Bullet points are in. “Just give us the bullet points,” a colleague of M-ito’s told me in the first group. From then on I adjusted all my answers to one to three words, keeping them as short as possible.
3. What are the tools of my trade? Computer, LCD projecter, my voice, and my body. I think they understood the first tool best – everyone knows what a computer is. Some associated the projector with the smart board used in their classroom so that worked too. I’m not sure what they thought of my voice and body answer. I tried to explain a few times but gave up after the fourth attempt.
4. What do I like best about my job? To teach. But I told them my favorite courses to teach were yoga, public speaking, and leadership. Three bullets – three answers. They understood yoga. I told them public speaking was teaching someone to speak like Barak Obama – which seemed to work. I told them teaching leadership skills was teaching someone how to be a boss – bingo.
5. Finally… how does my job help the community? I kept trying to figure out a way to explain it but I didn’t have a lot of time – mere seconds before I had to come up with something. So I ended up with this. I help people who help people. “That’s people twice?” One boy asked looking up from his clipboard. “Yes,” I responded. “Yes it is.”

My Dad drove me to the train station later and we sat and had coffee while I waited for the train to come in. I let two trains go by, sipping coffee and catching up with him. He walked me from the coffee shop to the train the way he had my brother so many times before when we were younger and my brother lived in Manhattan. My brother died almost twenty years ago, dually diagnosed with schitzophrenia and chemical dependancy (he used one to treat the other) murdered for little real reason. What reason could ever be sufficient? The moment echoed for me. I’m sure it did for my father too. He gave me a big hug and a kiss before the train doors closed.

Later that evening I told M-ito how great it was to have the three of us in the same classroom, three generations all together for a purpose. “What’s a generation?” M-ito asked. “It’s every twenty years or so,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t be good enough. “I just liked having all three of us together,” I added. M-ito nodded and smiled.

First Day of School

Who’s more scared? Parents or kids? At a new school for the third time in my child’s life I think it might be a tie. Mom-ita and I drove M-ito to his first day of school last week and I took two days off to be there for the whole first day and for the one hour intro to school the day before. The commute was fine, not to much traffic, but lots of nervousness in the back seat and the front.

Mom-ita cried and I found tears coming to my eyes also as we gave him a hug before he was lead off to his classroom. M-ito’s first day was well planned out by the school he’s going to. They welcomed new students by name, with a handshake and gift from an upper classperson, in a morning assembly that all parents were invited to. We ate lunch with our kids then took off and did some food shopping while we waited. It was something to do. It was a day of waiting and of reflecting and shopping was a nice concrete something to do. We had about four hours to wait – on and off during – that first day in between meeting his teacher, seeing his classroom, being told by school administrative staff and the headmaster that “everything will be okay,” over and over again. Sure – easy for them to say.

I was surprised at how strongly I felt about sending him to school. This was truly the summer of transition from one school to another, from one set of friends to another, and for us as parents from one set of parents whose kids M-ito knows, to another. We are in the midst of meeting all these new parents, just as M-ito is in the midst of meeting all these new kids. Each of us is having to manage new relationships like crazy. I have to put my hand and my “self” out a lot. I have to say hello and introduce myself, try to remember which kids are which and which go with which parents. Mom-ita has been doing it all summer and I’m still catching up. Now I’m putting faces to names I’ve heard and trying assign kids to them.

What has caught me a little more by surprise than these difficulties is how watching my son go to school has reminded me of my own going to school when I was his age. It has brought up deep feelings of loss and sadness for what was. I changed schools and homes when I was going into fourth grade, M-ito is changing schools in 2nd. I remember leaving people behind and meeting new kids, best friends-to-be, none of which I’m still in touch with or becuase they have died long ago. I remember getting a new father and house to live in. I can feel this viscerally, in the tingling in my fingers as I type away. What a mix. Seeing this kind of history spread out in front of my son overwhelms me. But it’s my past not his.

At lunch after the assembly my son came over to me, so that Mom-ita wouldn’t be able to hear, and said, “I want to go home.”

I looked at him with my heart breaking. “Can you last for a few more hours?” I asked him, looking deeply into those brown eyes of his.

“How many hours is that?” he asked.

“Two.”

Then he nodded and hugged me. I didn’t tell Mom-ita about this until later.

When we came back to pick him up at three o’clock he was happy and seemed fine. He’d had science last period and he loves science and so his whole experience was framed by what he did there. His teacher had told them to pick a kind of scientist they would like to be – M-ito said paleontologist, of course – and to draw a picture of one on the front cover of their science notebook.

From the back seat of the car M-ito said, “I tried to be small in the class, but they wouldn’t let me be.” Mom-ita smiled while I drove. In his last school M-ito could “be small” and not noticed – not get attention – if he was quiet and followed the rules. He could “dissapear” if he wanted to – which I think he did a lot. In this school they introduced the kids to each other, asked them to play games with each other in recess (stopping cliques from arising – or at least attempting to) and seemed to try and notice what kids were doing and not doing. Small classes, good teachers. So far so good. But it meant that M-ito had to be more social than he was used to being. He is a shy kid who takes time to warm up. He must have been exhausted from all that kind of work. I know I was. I said hello and shook many hands in the parent meetings, at the coffee shop where I saw more of the same parents hanging out – just like us – and when we picked M-ito up. I had to force myself. I learned new names and forget them all within a matter of moments. Still, it’s part of the job of a parent. At 47 I have to tell you it’s not easy to go out and make new friends. I don’t necessarily want to put in that kind of effort but it comes with the territory. I guess I like to “be small” too.

After not talking about school for a few hours – even though we pestered M-ito left and right about what he did, at dinner time he finally gave us the whole run-down.

His second day I went to work with a knot in my stomach.

It’s his third day today, this beautiful Monday morning, and his first whole week of school. I’m doing my deep breathing exercises, trying to stay present, and not slip into the past. Mom-ita and M-ito left 45 minutes ago. I’m heading out too. I find I have to remind myself, this is his school experience, not mine. And this is my parenting experience, not his. The idea, I think, is to try to keep things that way. The challenge is in making it so.

Buddha Sutra

The Buddha, in talking about our own true nature, gives a talk on the four kinds of horses: the excellent horse, the good horse, the poor horse, and the very bad horse. I’m reading Pema Chodron’s The Wisdon of No Excape and the Path of Loving Kindness (only she could group those two statements together and get away with it) and she talks about this teaching with regard to our approach to meditation. The moral of the story is it doesn’t matter whether you are the excellent horse or the very bad horse because in any case it simply is your nature and you will learn from and through it.

When it comes to meditation I konw I’m the very bad horse. My innate “badness” at the task is probably what makes me teach it well. I have to really work at meditation and I make lots of mistakes from which I learn what to do and what not to do next time. This insight would have been lost on me if I’d simply started meditating and found samadhi. I’d be telling everybody, gee all you have to do is sit down, stop the chattering of your mind and find the peace that resides within. No big deal, see? Watch and I’ll show you. You can cross your legs into lotus, can’t you?

I was wondering how this would translate into fatherhood. First, what kind of father am I and then how does that then relate to my own true father nature? But perhaps here I have to also add in, How does it effect my son and my family? Not as simple as in the meditative analogy - my mind is chattering away like a monkey (monkey mind supreme) but I’ll learn how to manage it in a year or two and then, oh boy, then I’ll have such insight on it. When it comes to being a Dad-dito, any mistakes I make, well… my son feels them in the here and now. I lose my temper over him taking too long to get out of the house on a school day and my son hears me yell. He cries. I cry. We both suffer. Him for getting scared at my yelling and me because of the my own terrible guilt over yelling at him and seeing him get upset. And the lesson? Don’t yell. Get up earlier. Simple really but the drive to get more sleep is deep and insistent. It’s an interesting paralell.

I hear my own father and many other parents of his generation say, “I hope I was a good father to you,” and looking back now I can say he was (and still is), though at different times I’ve gone up and down on the rating scale depending on how our relationship is going- none of which makes me love him any less. I don’t think any of us wants to think of ouselves as the very poor horse when it comes to being a father – even though I know there are times I clearly am – perhaps more than I care to admit. At those times, I take it to heart that though my son has suffered through my inability to get on track, if I at least learn something from the experience and do better next time, he may not have to suffer in quite the same way again. I may be a very bad horse out of the starting gate but I’m an excellent horse on the turns. It’s good to know there are turns up ahead. The straight-aways make me humble. The turns make me smile. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Classroom Blues

One of the most difficult tasks I’ve had  as a father has been to choose a school for my son. It should be simple. You have a good public school nearby  and you send your child there for free. That’s what I did where I grew up in Nassau County. I didn’t like school too much – there was a lot of drug traffic and some violence and I was glad, breathed a huge sigh of relief, when I left High School. I remember two friends burning their books in the school yard our last day. I can still see the flames in my mind’s eye. I loved books too much to burn them, but I understood the significance of their act. I was tired of learning and had been for a while.

M-ito’s last day of first grade at his school was yesterday. There was a small party – his class had only twelve kids – and a meloncholy air. A good third of the children, including my son, will not be returning next year.

For pre-K we sent him to public school, one for which we were zoned. We found it not to be a good fit for M-ito. I’ve learned that fit is important. A good school for one child will not be a good school for another. M-ito got lost in the pre-K in our neighborhood. He follows rules, raises his hand, does what his teachers tell him, doesn’t speak out of turn, and listens to what his teachers say. What happened to him in pre-K? His teacher didn’t pay attention to him. She didn’t know M-ito outside of his trouble getting his coat on by himself. (He liked it when she helped him put his coat on because she paid attention to him and talked to him, listened to him tell her stories, while she helped him put that jacket on.) He knew how to put his own coat on and he also had figured out a way, within the rules set out for him, to get a little attention for himself. In his class there were three other kids who had behavioral problems. The only other way for my son get attention was to hit others, yell, take other’s toys, push kids in the hall or on the stairs – but that’s not his way. The kids who did this took up 90% of both the teacher and teacher’s aide’s time. The teacher tried to shame the children into leaving their stuffed animals at home in preparation for kindergarten. I still can’t forgive her for that. The school had no idea how to use parents to help them with the children. They said they wanted parental involvement but they didn’t. We pulled him out of there after one year. Many other parents pulled their kids out too.

M-ito didn’t get into the charter schools in our area. He didn’t win a seat based on either of the two lotteries we entered him in. We didn’t have any contacts or “know anyone” who could influence our chances either. We looked at private schools. I still can’t believe it. Both Mom-ita and I went to public schools and I just assumed M-ito would too. After one year’s experience with public school as a parent I don’t want to do it again.

So I starting saying yes to every consulting gig I could get. I still say yes to them all. Private school is expensive – but we both think it’s worth it.

In kindergarten we sent M-ito to a local private school and it was terrific. The school seemed good and the kindergarten teachers were excellent. But around the kindergarten class, in the classes above, there were problems with bullies, and there were behavioral problems that we encountered and heard about throughout the year. We stayed in our kindergarten bubble and tried to ignore the other problems. A child was asked to leave the school in the grade above. A younger brother in M-ito’s grade left with him. This happened past the half way mark of the school year. The administration took a long time to act – but eventually did.

In first grade M-ito overall had a good experience. His teacher was good and the small band of classmates created a nice bubble again within which learning could occur. But another bully appeared in the grade above – and M-ito’s class had recess and gym with him. There was an outbreak of stomach aches in M-ito’s class in the fall because of the upper grade’s less supervised and rough play. They were switched to have recess with the kindergarten. Gym was still held with the upper grade and the threat of the second grade bully was felt all year. He made M-ito’s classmates cry, making fun of them or calling them names when the teacher wasn’t paying attention (which seemed often), and the bully’s own grade suffered his behavior too. The last day of school my son had a long discussion with us about whether he could wear a favorite shirt – a tie-dye shirt – or not. Was the bully going to call him names? Make a comment to him? M-ito stopped wearing any colorful shirt by winter’s end. Pink left the list of his favorite colors. It wasn’t worth it to him to deal with the bully commenting about what he wore. It was safer to go below the radar. M-ito knew which teachers were good in afterschool class (ie: kept control of the kids and didn’t allow bullying) and which did nothing and let the kids run riot. I’m still amazed he made it through ballet all year, walking from his classroom to the music room one floor above in t-shirt and black tights – his leotard hidden underneath. He must have really wanted to dance.

Bullying in a private school is a challenge just as it is in a public school, but the school had and still has no comprehensvie approach to address it. It’s done on a teacher by teacher basis. But not all teachers are good at classroom management. It seems most are not. Private schools also have the issue of  dealing with troublesome children whose parents make large donations of money to the school. Behavior that should not be permitted sometimes is. That’s another thing I learned.

And there are good teachers in good schools, bad teachers in good schools, good teachers in bad schools and bad teachers in bad schools. It’s tough to get a match. Friends of ours with kids in an upper grade suffered through a year with an abusive teacher. the teacher will not be coming back next year. There was some disturbing violence done to a teenager in an upper grade also. A teacher was fired. A child was expelled. What is the atmosphere of a school in which all these things happen? How is it taken in and absorbed by my son? Should I pretend that it doesn’t affect him? I know that it already has. But how much? Is he safe in his school? Administration dealt with each problem, but always seemed slow to react. I’ve found that administrators of schools are always slow to react. It’s not easy running a school with all these variables.

It’s been hard to pretend my son’s in a bubble when events happen around him. I can pretend but at a certain point I need not to. I worry what will happen next and whether it will happen to a child I know or if it will happen to my son. I wonder if every school is that way. Many people have told me it is so and that I just need to take the good with the bad and leave it at that. Others say, “boys will be boys.” I hate that. Boys are “boys” because parents and schools allow them to be. It is fostered by the school environment. There you have it. That is part of what is eating at me.

When I was in junior high school my best friend was hit by a train walking home from school in a downpour. I witnessed a kid I played football with – who later overdosed in high school – beat up a bully he’d been paid to take down. I witnessed it and walked away. Many of my friend’s lunches had been stolen by the bully. Many of us had been pushed around in the halls by him and his gang, had our books knocked out of our hands by him. I played football so was exempt from much of it. My smarter friends who didn’t play sports were not. 

For this upcoming year, the tuition went up a significant amount. We were notified only a few months ago. We’d already been looking at other options for a school but that was just about the last straw. We decided M-ito would be going to another private school in the fall. 

M-ito will be leaving behind friends as will we. Many families are leaving for similar reasons. Many are just tired of fighting and advocating again and again for slow and only partially satisfactory responses. Is this the way all schools work? Does change move so slowly? We’ve tried to find a school that matches the needs of our son. Will it be the right school for him? We hope so. We’ve investigated this new one in depth but the truth is you never know. There are so many variables. There is the school itself. What the school says it does and how it says it functions and how it in reality acts and functions sometimes are two different things. How teachers will be with your child may or may not work. What will be the mix of children? Will there be bullies? Will the staff be capable of handling him or her? How will my son fit? These are the thoughts that wake me in the early morning hours and stare at the ceiling with my heart racing.

We went to M-ito’s last day of first grade with heavy hearts. Other parents who are staying are not happy with us for leaving. Lines have been drawn, pickets thrown up and demilitarized zones created. It’s been lonely for Mom-ita. These are women she has called friends. Now some won’t talk to her. That’s another tricky part of your child’s school. You meet parents and develop new friendships. Your child’s friendships bring on new relationships for you as a parent also, whether you want them to or not.

I’m sure the parents who are keeping their children in the school are questioning themselves just are we are questioning ourselves. Should we stay? Should we leave? They care about their children and we care about our child. M-ito feels it too. He played Uno with his teacher and friends most of the party, smiling and laughing. But he has told us he’s scared about going to a new school and having to make new friends. We’re scared too. It’s a daunting prospect. Change is a scary thing. But sometimes status quo is even scarier.

And change is not only about loss, even if today it’s hard to see around it. It is also about growth. As a parent I have to remember to honor this both for myself and for M-ito. And for us, we hope, it will bring about a better education for our son.

Wii Wars

Mom-ita plays a mean Wii. M-ito plays a mean Wii. I can hear them battling through five levels of animated storm troopers, alien cantinas and pod-racers. This is what it sounds like.

“Go over here, Mom-ita – follow me.”

“You have to wait for me.”

“Follow me, Mom-ita, I know what to do here.”

“M-ito, you have to wait for me.”

“Follow me.”

Or…

“Mom-ita, you have to wait for me.”

“I know what to do here so you follow me.”

“Mom-ita!”

“M-ito, sometimes you have to follow. That’s what playing together is all about.”

I step over to see them from the kitchen. I’ve just about finished the dishes. They are both sitting there, nonchucks in one hand and control wand in the other. Their eyes are glued to the TV screen which is filled with flying projectiles, coins and red hearts.

“Get the heart! Get the heart!” M-ito says.

“I’m trying to but you keep moving away from it and I can’t get to it.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got it.”

I play sometimes with M-ito but I’m not a big fan of electronic games. I was when I was a kid and adolescent. I spent a lot of quarters on Pong and Space Invaders, Galaga, Asteroids, and Defender. But I also got lost in them and disappeared while I played for hours on end. I get worried my son will do the same. He has had a different life than me so he doesn’t have the same need to disappear that I had at that age, but I get worried never-the-less.

Back on Tatooine, Mom-ita has put her controls down and has crossed her arms, sitting back on the couch, chin tucked, brow furrowed.

“Mom-ita, what are you doing?” M-ito says as he continues to blast away at furniture and creatures, gaining coins and hearts and points.

“No,” Mom-ita says.

“I’m sorry,” says M-ito. “I said I’m sorry.”

Mom-ita picks up the controls and leans forward.

“I can do this part,” she says and M-ito nods, his mouth hanging a little open.

I return to the dishes, shaking my head. Mom-ita says she wants to practice with me at night after M-ito is asleep. She says this in front of M-ito as a joke, but also to let him know how good he is. But… I don’t think she’s kidding.

Movie and Dinner

Typing away at my computer I looked across the room at Mom-ita to see what she’s doing. I know already – she’s on her computer, sitting at the coffee table surfing the web and alternately watching what’s on the TV – but I look anyway. We can see each other but not each other’s computer screens. We say a few words to each other once in a while, perhaps I go in to see what’s on the TV if I hear something interesting, before going to back to my work. 

If I go in to sit on the couch next to her I know she will look up at me in surprise, an almost, “What’s this about?” question hanging in the air between us. Our relationships with our computers have become close. 

When do we have time to talk to each other without M-ito around? When do other parents talk to each other? We have car rides, but only if we talk low, because these days M-ito wants in on all conversations. “I’m bored!” is his refrain if we leave him out. We’ve debated getting him an ipod just so he can occupy himself with it – only he gets car sick so that is risky. We have our evenings after he is asleep. That is if one of us (usually me) doesn’t fall asleep with him. We have the time before we go to bed, while lying next to each other, if neither of us is reading or, again in my case, not falling asleep. The day is long and we are both pretty tired by the time sleep catches us. We’ve also always been on different rhythms, mine an earlier one, hers a later one. We have our computer time when our individual work gets done, emails, yoga business, maybe some writing.

Perhaps it’s time we had a date? It has been a long time since we’ve had dinner together, without M-ito – or seen an adult movie or even any movie for that matter, that we sat all the way through. Last one was Space Chimps (horrible) and WallE (wonderful) but left with 45 minutes remaining in each so I don’t know what happens in either of them. M-ito get’s scared or bothered by the loud sound (we bring ear plugs to help with this) or he gets afraid for characters he cares about – and we have to leave before the movie is over.

I tell new parents all the time – make time for your baby. Now, I think, I need to tell myself to make time for Mom-ita and me.

Parenting Lessons

There’s a lot we can learn from Gerbils as parents:

• When a toddler goes exploring too far from home simply track her down, pick her up in your mouth, and carry her back to the nest.
• If you take the padding away from an exit tube your children, even with their eyes closed, will sense the drop, turn around and go back to their nest.
• Some children are daredevils and take the drop anyway. These you have to chase down, pick up in your mouth, and carry back home.
• If all else fails simply block the entrance/exit to the nest with your body and don’t let any of your nine children leave.
• Take turns watching the kids so each parent gets a break.
• Sleep together in a family bed – it’s warmer that way but you can wake up with a paw in your face.
• Breastfeed while you sleep.
• Eat a lot of sunflower seeds.

Mayonnaise and Mustard

When I was seven I remember thinking my mom was playing head games with me with my lunch. I remember hating meatloaf sandwiches because the kids at school made fun of me because my lunch smelled bad (or perhaps stronger than the average lunch?). Then I remember my mom making me meatloaf sandwiches and me telling her to not make them anymore.

She said, “But you love them.”

I told her I didn’t.

The same thing happened with hamburgers. My mom said I liked mayonnaise and mustard on my hamburger and I told her I never liked it – that she was wrong and crazy for even suggesting it. I’m pretty sure I only ever liked ketchup. 

M-ito told me yesterday morning that he didn’t like oatmeal with raisins. He told me he didn’t like the raisins at all and that he’d never liked them. And… that he hated oatmeal. I reminded him that he’d been eating oatmeal and raisins for about a month now, almost every day. We played a game. I hid the raisins at the bottom of the bowl and he ate them with the oatmeal. It was the only way I’d get him to eat the oatmeal. “I hate oatmeal. I hate raisins,” he said again, arms folded across his chest.

This happens a lot with M-ito. He loves strawberries and then all of a sudden he hates them. He loves broccoli and then he hates it – never liked. “Why did you buy them when you know I hate them? I’ve told you a million times I hate them.” Hmm.

Usually I find out he’s changed his mind about a food right after I’ve stocked up on them from the grocery store. I’ve got a lot of oatmeal to eat on my own right now. And… many packages of raisins.

Maybe I did like mayonnaise and mustard on my hamburger?

Nah. That’s crazy. 

Paleontologist Tools

I’m in Dallas on a Business trip. Mom-ita tells me on the phone that earlier, while M-ito was ’supposed’ to be falling asleep, he sat up in bed and asked her, in all seriousness, “Mom-ita, when I grow up and am being a paleontologist, where will I get the things I need to be a paleontologist, like, I mean, shovels and things like that? You know, grown-up shovels…?”

Mom-ita said, “After I explained to him that he’d probably work for a school that could provide all that, he was not reassured, and kept asking where, oh where, would he get these things?”

“What did you say?” I ask, looking out of the hotel window’s 23rd floor view of downtown Dallas, feeling very alone and left out of things.

“I told him that we should ask Den-ito (Artina’s father), because he knows all about tools and things like that, and where to get them.”

Tools are not my thing so I let my chin fall to my chest and nod. “Did that work?” I ask.

“This calmed him down and he went to sleep,” she says.

“I’m glad.”

Later that night, when I couldn’t get to sleep because I was anxious about the trainings I would have to do in the morning for 100 drug court coordinators from all over the country, I got out of bed and threw my feet up against the wall in an inversion – took twenty deep breaths – a sleep trick from yoga practice. I thought it was funny, him not wanting to go to sleep, me not able to. In a strange way, it made me feel closer to him. And that’s a good thing, always.