My Truant Pen

My definition for “relaxing” has changed

Yesterday was Patriot’s Day. For those of you not blessed enough to live in the Hub of the Universe (as Boston sees itself), that’s a holiday that is dedicated to Patriots. Most notably, those Patriotic boys in Red playing at Fenway, and the Patriotic masochists who run the Boston marathon. Patriots Day is a state holiday, and oftentimes school break week is designed to fall on Patriots Day. Due to the dyed-in-the-wool Red Sox fandom of my organization, Patriot’s Day is also a holiday for us. (Not President’s Day, not MLK day, not Columbus Day, but Patriot’s Day.)

I celebrated by bringing the boys to daycare. I planned on relaxing. As I told a friend, my intention was to turn into a pile of gelatinous goo.

But first, I wanted to do a little work on the attic.

I managed to get the attic storage space completely cleaned out, vacuumed, identified the bat-entry-zone, laid down old carpets, organized the stuff that belonged in the space appropriately, labeled where stuff went and sanitized the things that were appropriate for Thane either now or soon.

Then I had lunch and watched the Sox wallop on the poor Orioles.

Then I organized the guest room, found new homes for most of the extraneous items, cleared out storage space and checked out the crawl space. I made plans for the modifications we’ll make to the room to make it more hospitable to our guests.

Then I got my hair cut. (An entirely forgettable but acceptable bob.)

Then I refinanced the mortgage. It looks like we’ll save $200 a month. Yay!

Then I left to pick the boys up from daycare again.

The crazy thing was how pleasantly relaxing I found the day. When small children are in the house, you’re always on alert as to whether they need you. The minute you put them down for a nap you hear the tick-tick-tick of grownup time whirring away. Last night as I went over the mortgage stuff with my husband, Grey apparently got out of bed. Not finding us downstairs or in the basement (we were in the attic) he was weeping bitter tears about having lost his parents when we finally heard him on Thane’s baby monitor. That moment did break my heart, but it also points out how a parent is always on-call when their children are around.

I am almost never at home when my children are not. I found it incredibly relaxing! And now the attic is all sparkly clean!

Shouldering the generational load

I’m 30 years old.

I’ve been married 8.5 years and working professionally (not coincidentally) for about the same time. I’ve been a member of my church for 8 years. My husband and I are solely responsible for the health and welfare of two small children.

Some days it feels like I will be crushed under the weight of my responsibilities.

I have this image of what it’s like. I imagine the world sitting on top of these generational rollers, moving along. Gradually, the world rolls off one generation and on to the next, until for a few moments (years, decades) one generation carries the brunt of the load, with some small portion of the weight being borne by the coming and going generations. After a long lead in, my generation is beginning to feel the full weight of that world which will ride on our shoulders for the next two or three decades.

Our society is set up around the idea that there are “the proper authorities”. The first aid flipsheet on my ‘fridge says “then call 911” after nearly every entry. We’re supposed to talk to our doctors before doing exercise or trying a new diet. We’re supposed to talk to our financial advisors before we decide where to invest. We’re supposed to report downed wires and suspected child abuse to proper authorities. At work we’re supposed to notify our managers if someone is harrassing us. For nearly any difficult, sticky or dangerous task for our entire life we’ve been told to tell the proper authorities.

We might be forgiven for thinking there is some super race, set apart, of proper authorities. Clearly, this isn’t the case. At some point, the buck stops and there isn’t anyone up the chain of ability or command to call. Recently, I’ve come to realize that in some areas, I am the proper authorities. I’m the ones my sons should come to when something is difficult. At work, I may make binding decisions for the company. (Ok, ok so those decisions largely revolve around whether to order the Intense Dark Roast or the French Roast this time, but still….) At church, I sit on the board which truly is “Them” as in “They should do something about the website” or “They need to make sure that all the teachers have background checks” or “They should put in a defibrillator”. I would also be the “They” in “They should’ve known” or “Why didn’t they plan for that” or “What were they thinking?”

No one but a nonagenarian would argue that 30 is exceedingly young. President Obama is older than I am still, but the president is no longer of a different, older generation. His girls are only a few years older than my boys. He may have some gray in his hair but frankly? So do I. (THAT is a whole other post!) We cannot argue inexperience, or youth. There isn’t some vast group of wise grownups who is checking our work and making sure we don’t make mistakes that mess everything up.

There is a story about a boy who lifted a baby ox every day from the day it was born. In this way, he became incredibly strong and could easily still lift the ox when it grew to it’s full size. (As the mother of fast-growing children let me opine: HA!) It feels to me today as though my responsibilities have recently undergone a growth spurt and my muscles are slow to strengthen in response.

Just pray to Jesus!

A few vignettes on my oldest.

Last night was gaming night. Usually, Grey doesn’t get to watch tv on daycare nights, but an exception is made when we’re gaming. (Tangent: Last night a cleric with zero combat ability managed to throw a rock, hit, and get past the soak of an unwise wizard. Booyah! Learn the lesson, kids. Never leave your shield grogs at home.) He wanted to watch “Planet Earth: Caves”. Now you might THINK that there is nothing wrong with a nature show. But that is because you have never witnessed the vast guano heap alive with beetles. So one of our fellow gamers very reasonably requested that this not be on the tv while she ate her dinner. I explained that she thought it was scary and he should watch something else. He went up to her, very seriously, and solicitously explained to her that she should pray to Jesus so she wouldn’t be scared.

She nearly fell off her chair. See, she’s in the middle of her PhD in Religion and culture and is in the throes of finals. She just took a 24 hour test that involved having read, remembered and synthesized about 80 books. She has another next week with about 70 OTHER books. I think Grey’s comment overloaded already taxed circuits. It was pretty funny.

It was also nice to see Grey problem solve that way. Instead of yelling, or pitching fits or any of the other things a thwarted, hungry, tired kid might do, he tried to give someone else the tools to deal with their fear so he could watch something scary. I thought it was a pretty good solution, as three year old tools go.

I had been having one of those meals where you don’t actually get to, you know, sit and eat. Between negotiating television with Grey, supervising the requisite bites of chicken, rice and green beans, making sure everything was on the table, and then putting an exhausted, fussy Thane to bed it felt like I hadn’t sat at all. Then Grey asked for salt and pepper for his pizza (dinner #2 after a polite feint at dinner #1). I put my head on the table in mock/not-so-mock exasperation.

Then Grey put his arms around me, patted me on the back and said, “It’s ok mommy.”

It is a wonderful and amazing thing to watch your child develop empathy and kindness, and then turn those skills upon you. I’ve watched Grey be wonderful (and terrible) to other people, but when he is intentionally kind TO ME it’s a truly amazing feeling.

Grey has largely been in an awesome spot, lately. (Well, except that he doesn’t reliably sleep as well during the lighter summer months.) The other day he sat at the table with his father and brother. He started playing with Thane, softly calling his name: “Dane! Dane!” He made his brother laugh. Then his face got soft, and he said, “I love you, Dane.” Thane smiled back at his beloved older brother. And it was good.

Hello, I’d like to speak to my publicist

This weekend was, as you may have noticed, Easter. Holy Week is always one of my big weeks of the year. Last week I went to church 5 of 8 days: Palm Sunday, session on Tuesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and then Easter Sunday. A fellow session member turned to me on Good Friday and said, “I think I might live here now.” I think she might be right. In other news, for the first time in my 8 years doing it, the light on the parking lot stayed on throughout Good Friday services.

But Easter is usually a big service for me because I’m usually playing trumpet. For once, I picked a good combination of relatively easy trumpet pieces, practiced them ahead of time and rehearsed them adequately. (See also: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) But between playing the prelude and postlude, singing in the choir for the anthem and the Benediction Response (Hallelujah Chorus), doing the session-leader bit for welcoming new members (YAY new members!) and playing with the hymns, it was not even remotely possible for me to take care of my children for the service. This usually falls to my patient husband.

Then my patient husband got conscripted to be head usher and wander around in a vain attempt to count all the people in the church. (We kept moving. This was not very fair of us.) Errr…. Happily one of my friends took custody of my kids for the whole service. She did a better job of keeping Thane quiet and happy than I do!

I posted some church pictures to Facebook — I’m hoping they’re viewable even if you’re not signed in.

In other news, I’m interviewing preschools for Grey for the fall. I really wish I felt more like I knew what I was doing instead of being a big fat imposterer. “Dear preschools. My son is really smart, but he needs to learn stuff. Please take him. kthxbye.” Happily, a side effect of parenting has been an increased tolerance for realizing I have no clue what I’m doing.

I found one preschool that I think will be ok. I want Grey to go part day to preschool and part day to daycare. That’s concern one — along with transportation. Concern two is which class to put him in — do we make him the oldest of the young kids or the youngest of the old kids? And if we do the youngest of the old kids, do we have him repeat Kindergarten twice? Once in private preschool and once in public? Do I attempt to enroll him in public schools early? (Darn October birthdays!) Basically, is there one or two years before he starts Kindergarten? I think two, which argues for the earlier preschool class.

Bah. Do other people fret as much as I do about this kind of decision? This is the kind of decision I make and remake for years. (I’m still wondering whether we should’ve bought the house, for example.)

All this is really just a preamble to what I KNOW y’all really want — pictures. Herein please find a slightly more balanced representation of my oldest and my youngest. You get to see my mother-in-law and friends, Easter pictures, an unseasonably early trip to the Middlesex Fells reservation, and actual pictures of my husband and I! Shocking! I also fixed the video links (I think — I didn’t, you know, test) for last month.

Enjoy!

http://tiltedworld.com/brenda/pictures/April2009

Amendments to the parenting manual

I am going to write a book called “The Common Mythology of Parenting”. In it, I will lay out what ~~lies~~ stories we should tell about our holidays so we can all be on the same page.

It’s like this. Saturday night I was lying in bed. I turned to my husband and said, “It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t hold together!”

He replied*, “Yeah, the nest of hydras should definitely be after the spike trap. Good thinking.”

“What,” warming to my argument “Does the Easter bunny have to do with the Easter eggs? We dye them, then what part does the bunny play? And how do the eggs equal the candy? Does it blow our cover if we put Easter eggs he dyed into the Easter basket? Or should he have to hunt for them? And Grey wants a DS for Easter — someone needs to explain to him that the Easter Bunny works on a more constrained budget than Santa does. And then there’s the confusing fact that “die” and “dye” are homonyms. And how does this all tie in to, you know, the Jesus parts of Easter?”

He carefully mulled my words. “Do you think a party would think to use a chime of opening if they came to a dead end?”

I had never realized how poorly constructed the common mythology of Easter is. I’m all up on the theology of Easter. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about the meaning of Jesus betrayal, death and resurrection. Ask me about the Road to Emmaus or doubting Thomas and I’m good. But give me one good explanation for the Easter Bunny that doesn’t use the words “Pagan fertility ritual” and is appropriate for a three year old sensibility while encompassing candy, Easter eggs and why you’re not getting a DS.

Christmas is much better thought out. Thanks to “The Night Before Christmas” and the Coca-Cola Corporation, we know a lot about Santa — from what he looks like down to the names of his reindeer. There’s a plausible, if weak, connection between Santa and the birth of Christ. “Um, we give each other presents because the Wise Men gave Jesus presents.” Well, ok everything but the Christmas tree holds together. But there’s no good mythology of Easter.

Wouldn’t it be a great service if there was a chapter in our Parenting Manual of commonly agreed upon lies that we should all tell at Easter (and similar holidays)? That way we’d know what not to tell the three year old friends who come over to visit, “Oh, the Easter bunny dyed your eggs for you?” and we wouldn’t have to get quite so creative.

Think about it, publishers. There’s a market out here.

Next up: explaining why you shouldn’t be afraid of fireworks set of to commemorate a bloody war of independence.

*OK, so this conversation didn’t actually happen this way. I’m making up his parts of it entirely. It’s funnier this way, though.

The slog

I haven’t been writing much lately because I really don’t feel like I have much to say — at least not much that others would find very interesting. My work life has been worky in a not-very-interesting-to-chat-about way. The boys are great, but I am not finding new and interesting ways to tell you how great they are. Church has been extremely consuming (web projects, Session, membership committee, trumpet for holy week, etc. — I’m at church 4 of 8 days this week), but again not in an interesting to talk about way.

I’m falling behind in most of my chores, so any night I have that isn’t devoted to kids, church or falling into a gelatinous goo is dedicated to laundry, bills or dishes. My husband was gone all last weekend, so that put me even further behind.

And then this morning, Grey goes and gets sick. The nerve of some kids, I tell you. Actually, I’m having trouble figuring out when he started getting sick. He threw up Monday (all over the car), but he throws up all the time. Then he threw up last night at midnight — more unusual. Then twice this morning as I was getting ready to go to work. Yeah, not so much with the going to work. I have a high tolerance for him throwing up, but he’s keeping nothing at all down.

Um, on the plus side, he gets himself to an appropriate receptacle before throwing up? I came downstairs this morning to find out he’d thrown up …. because he told me so. Not because it was all over everything. This is a true, unmitigated blessing. Also, he has diahhrea (I think I’ll just add hs and rs to that until something gives — it’s on the list of words I simply can’t spell and don’t even try to anymore. I can’t even get it close enough for spelling suggestions.)

Thane is constipated and has had a stuffy nose for about three weeks now.

I have a doctor’s appointment at three (aka in the middle of nap time). Guess which of the above conditions merits that? The not-bothering-anyone stuffed up nose. Medicine is weird.

Basically? I have the blahs. I feel like at work I’ve tipped over the edge from experience to cynicism. I’ve decided that experience gives you ideas about how you should attack a problem. Cynicism is when you don’t even bother to attack it because it’s just going to fail again. I do not wish to by cynical. At home, I’m behind and falling behinder. My boys are sick. I’m probably a little sick too but neglecting myself too much to notice.

Ah well. I hope that Holy Week helps me kick it. And spring. I have daffodils and crocuses blooming. The grass is greening. The willows are yellowing and there are thick red bud-clusters on most of the trees. It’s over 50 and sunny today (a sure sign I’m not stepping outside with the plague-ridden).

Baseball is on for real. We got a new big HD tv in December at Circuit City right before they went bankrupt. (It was an amazingly good price when combined with some discounts from Comcast for switching to their service.) I’d been really looking forward to seeing baseball on it. Fenway has almost entirely HD cameras and oh my goodness. Last night’s was an ugly game but I hardly noticed because the image was so beautiful! It seemed more real than reality!

This will pass. I’ll catch up, slide back down to mere experience, get a few good night’s sleeps and start thinking interesting thoughts again.

The news is dead. Long live the news!

I think it is fair to say that once this financial crisis is done, the landscape of America (and the world) will be different. Venerable institutions will have disappeared. New upstart companies will have taken advantage of the tumult to move into markets. Some things that used to happen will permanently be gone. Some new things will have taken their places. The world will be different tomorrow than it was yesterday.

I was thinking yesterday about two of the industries currently in upheaval — the car companies and the newspapers. I was reading this article about how the newspapers that were going under were the ones whose owners had attempted to extract cash from them or who had leveraged them heavily.

When a car company goes bankrupt (or an airplane manufacturer), it pretty much means that there is one fewer car company in the world and likely always will be. The capital requirements for building cars is monumental — all the factories and parts suppliers and designs and dealerships. It would take a mammoth infusion of capital to even produce one car and sell it at one dealership — maybe a billion dollars to start up, even on a small scale. So if a manufacturer disappears, the only way we’ll get new companies is if existing companies with that infrastructure splinter, or someone takes over the remnants of the old one.

But newspapers? As far as I know, newspapers require three things to run them:
1) People to learn the news and write it up (reporters)
2) People to edit that news, check it and hold the reporters to standards (editors — this is where a newspaper is not equal to a bunch of amateur bloggers collating their reports)
3) A way of disseminating the news. That could be a print edition or a web edition.

Um, on the face of it, it requires about as much as an internet startup does. Talented people willing to spend their time for equity, and with experience in the business could start a newspaper from scratch, I believe. Where am I wrong in this equation?

There are lots of printers to whom they could outsource a print run, but I have a sneaking suspicion that paper newspapers might indeed die off in this period, to be replaced by digital versions. (NOTE: The Boston Globe provides me a tremendous service and gives me lots of my news. For free. Online. If I want to give them my money, I have to sign up for their dead trees. I do not want dead trees. So I don’t give them my money.)

There is, of course, still the issue of the revenue model. But could current revenue models work if the newspapers didn’t have to pull the weight of previous debt? Is the problem that these companies can’t honor prior commitments and make a profit today?

So my thesis, to boil it down, is that existing newspapers may go belly up en masse. But the news function of newspapers will move to a new online model which will run partially by subscription and new information companies will arise to replace the old newspapers. I believe that some of the sea changes we are witnessing will include requiring people to pay for content they now expect to be free (online news) and a return to the idea that a company can employ people and throw off a modest profit — and not need to make investors wildly wealthy. I think more people (like my imagined news entrepreneurs) will value a good, enjoyable job that will pay the bills, without needing a promise of vast pelf in order to spend their time in the endeavor.

10 reasons today sucks

So during Lent I’ve been working really hard to look at the good side of things — to pursue the positive and let the negative I can’t change wash past me.

Well, I’m all out of Pollyanna today.

Top 10 reasons today sucks:
10. The laundry and dishes aren’t done.
9. I forgot my iPod at home.
8. Another coworkers returned from maternity leave so now I have to share the pumping room.
7. The pumping room is also the server room. It has a beeping server today and probably will for some time. (They’re working on it.)
6. It’s supposed to rain all day.
5. I had to walk a mile in “office shoes” to get to work this morning. It made me late to work.
4. I don’t see a day on this week’s schedule when I can spend quality time with my husband. We’re also both completely wiped out.
3. Thane keeps crying bitterly and I can’t figure out why or make it better
2. The Red Sox have already postponed today’s home opener
1. Vomit all over my car — the champion’s way to start the day!

PS – If you’re here because you had a terrible day, you might consider reading Gives Me Hope to feel better!

If only…

If there was one skill or attribute I most wish I had, it would be the ability to design as though I’m not a developer who never progressed past fourth grade stick figures. I always wanted to be able to draw. I even took one (1) art lesson when I was a girl. I’m absolutely terrible at it.

Happily, I’m not often called upon to draw in real life. To create websites that don’t look like escapees from 1996, on the other hand… urgh. Not only am I terrible at designing decent pages, I know it. I have visions for what kind of impression I want, ideas of sites I like. I’ve read books on design and navigation. I KNOW what I want to accomplish. But I’ll be darned if I can actually pull it off.

So now I’m looking at the church website. (http://burlingtonpres.org). It was one of my better designs. Seven years ago. AKA a friggin century in internet time. It needs to be redone. I know what I’d like to do with it. Now ask me if I think I can actually implement what I want? Ha!

My only consolation is that it is much, much better than many other church websites, which are often done by amateurs. I may be an amateur designer, but at least I do websites professionally.

Bah. I’m half tempted to do the whole thing through WordPress. So far the only downside I’m really seeing is that I just paid for another year’s webhosting. Also, I think I’d like a professional design. I wonder if I could talk Presbytery into funding it with the “fax” funds they mentioned last meeting. Hmmmmmm…..

Ok. Back to the actual work of the site!

April Fools Day

One April 1st I got a great one off on my friends. I was early in my pregnancy with my first child and was exuberantly sharing all those sorts of details pregnant women think other people find interesting. Then on April 1st I wrote about a doctors visit where to my great shock, I’d had an ultrasound that showed a second baby hiding behind the first! A Beta behind my Alpha!

I got ’em but good. Everyone bought it, hook, line and sinker. My sister called up SO EXCITED! My friends told me about their experiences with twins, offered to connect me with parents of twins they knew and talked about appropriate naming conventions for twins.

It was one of my finer moments.

Sadly, they’re now all on to me. I could say, “I had Cheerios for breakfast” and on April 1st they’d probably quirk a skeptical eyebrow. Actually, last year I thought of delaying announcing my pregnancy until the first of April and make a real announcement when they would expect a fake announcement and then wouldn’t THAT confuse ’em. But I couldn’t wait that long. (Actually, one of my coworkers did that exact thing today! Yay babies! My poor boss!)

My mom tells a story about how badly April Fools translated to Zaire. She and dad were at the hospital (?) and my sister was at home. A woman rushed up to them and told them that she’d been bitten by a venomous snake (a real danger). The woman kept the “hoax” going as long as she could, and for a terrible bit of time my parents thought my sister dead or dying of snakebite. The “April Fools” wasn’t so funny that time.

Two of my favorite hoaxes this year:
Gmail unveils a new tool (I assume)
An awesome new sleeping bag for the Star Wars afficionado (actually, this looks AWESOME – but the lack of a real warehouse is a bit of a tell)
Qualified new leadership for GM (this actually isn’t a bad idea….)

What about you? What’s the best hoax you’ve pulled off? What’s the best one you’ve had pulled on you? What’s the worst hoax you’ve encountered?