An American-Christian’s Christmas. It’s a tricky one. I don’t have to rehearse the litany of Christmas-as-related-to-materialism issues for you. You are living with them, too. You make your peace with them as you see fit.
The problem is that Bryan and I didn’t feel a lot of peace with these issues. We had this ideal of celebrating Christmas as the birth of the Savior of the world, the day God came down to pitch His tent among us. But in practice, we were training up our kids to look forward to the presents. We could say, “Think about Jesus, Think about Jesus, Happy Birthday Jesus!” all we wanted. But, come on, when they know that Christmas is The Day they open Presents, are these children really supposed to care that much about Jesus?
In practice, we were teaching them to say, “I love Jesus’ birthday because I get lots of presents!”
As for my part: so much energy spent trying and hoping for a gift that would please and delight them and make “this year’s” Christmas one they would “never forget.” Maybe Bryan didn’t feel that way about it, but something about the mother inside me felt that way. And so built into the celebration was also the expectation that our delight would be or could be in the presents.
We’ve had only 3 Christmases, really, where we had children old enough to understand the whole “wake up and open presents” thing. The first two, there was a sense of let down in each one. Not in the moment, of course. In the moment, it was fun. But before even just one day was over, the happiness from those gifts had worn out. Well, duh, Amy. Stuff doesn’t fulfill you and it won’t fulfill your kids, either.
The third Christmas, I only remember being glad to have a day off from radiation.
I entered this Christmas season with a deep sense of foreboding. Gemma just turned 7. Time was running out to set a new course for our family. Enter a new Christmas.
The new Christmas isn’t about not getting any presents. Presents are fun. I like getting them. I really like giving them. But Bryan and I also had to take a hard look at our kids’ lives as compared to how we grew up.
When we were children, we got gifts on our birthdays and on Christmas. And. . .that was kind of it.
Gemma and Joshua? Sheesh! They get stuff all the time! They get goodie bags from birthday parties. They get stuff from AWANA throughout the year. They get souvenirs when we travel, which is a great deal more than Bryan and I traveled at their age. They get souvenirs when Bryan or I travel. They get gifts when people visit us. And when grandparents come. And they get things when we find it for pennies on the dollar at garage sales and auctions.
And this is all just extra stuff! When it comes to supplying their physical needs, we give them everything right when they need it.
Believe me: there is no shortage of toys and craft materials and, and, and. . . We are flush with stuff. There is more stuff in their future, throughout the whole year. It really is OK that Christmas is not going to be another day on which they open presents for themselves.
And a new Christmas doesn’t even mean no gifts at all. There are other people in our kids’ lives who wanted to give them gifts. Bryan and I didn’t tell the kids, “You won’t get gifts from us, but don’t worry, because so and so will send you something.”
But others did send them or give them something. Gemma and Joshua opened these gifts early, throughout the season of advent, and it seemed to me as though they enjoyed the presents even more because they were surprised by them, and because they were spaced out.
All the while, Christmas was still coming. Would this be the year our Christmas would really be a celebration of Jesus’ birthday? Because, as Bryan and I see it, if Christmas really is about Jesus, then it’s pretty clear whom the gifts should be for.
I was hesitant about suggesting a new Christmas to the kids. Mostly, I did not want to create any resentment in them towards Jesus. As in, “My parents are Jesus freaks, so we don’t get to have any fun.”
But the Holy Spirit suggested to me, “Don’t underestimate their compassion.”
So one day, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I sat down with Gemma and Joshua and the Samaritan’s Purse “gift catalog.” This is an outstanding organization. They work in the poorest parts of the world, caring for people in the name of Jesus. The gift catalog gives a description of the things we can give a poor family simply by giving American dollars to Samaritan’s Purse: a water filtration unit that lasts for a lifetime ($100), a flock of chickens ($14), education to rescue a woman from exploitation by giving her a trade (a mere $70...)
After perusing this catalog, I said to the children, “Mommy and Daddy spend a certain amount of money on Christmas presents each year. What if we used that money to buy things for the families like we see in this catalog?”
Do you know what Joshua’s reaction was? He shrugged. He’s only 4. There’s nothing in a 4 year old that looks forward to Christmas morning as an old school Christmas morning.
Do you know what Gemma’s reaction was? Her eyes got big and she smiled a huge smile and said, “Can we give them chickens?!?”
So that was our plan as Christmas approached. We weren’t sure what they would think when the day actually arrived.
Then it came. We woke up. Had breakfast. And I am telling you the truth: There was not one scintilla of “She looked around, saw there were no gifts, then remembered, and her shoulders slumped a little but at least she didn’t complain.”
No mention of opening presents at all!
The four of us sat on the couch with a dollar amount written on some paper. Then we shopped for Christmas gifts and subtracted the amount as we went. Water filtration units. (My choice) Two dairy goats. (An idea we all liked.) A fruit tree. (In honor of Papa Pedro.) A stocked fishing pond. (Bryan’s choice.) Chickens. (Gemma, of course.) Honey bees. (Joshua’s idea.) Clothing and shoes. Soccer balls and other sporting equipment. (The children both insisted.) And several mosquito nets to protect babies and small children from malaria.
Then we sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesus and blew out candles for him. (Technically, this was an electric candelabra Grandma Gayl had up, and Josh unplugged it at the right moment.)
And so a New Christmas was born. It’s beautiful. I’m already looking forward to it next year.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Gingerbread
What is it about gingerbread houses that I like so much?
Long time readers know that each year, we host a house decorating party. Bryan bakes all the pieces. I whip up the icing and assemble the structures. Last year, in a fit of madness, we made trains--an engine for each family and a box car for each child. In the recovery period after chemotherapy and before radiation, it somehow felt like the normal thing to do. In fact, we did it twice: one party for our home school co-op families, and one party for our cul-de-sac.
This year, we made a house for each child and a country chapel for each mother. Why do I enjoy the whole thing so much? I think I've put my finger on it: It's a party, yes, I know about that part. Assembling mass quantities of houses is a problem-solving excursion. I like figuring out how to get not just 1, but 15 roofs to dry right without having to hold them in place.
But most of all, gingerbread houses combine a practical challenge with the ultimate whimsical goal. On the practical side: How can I make my house look nice, with a design that somehow makes sense while on the other side, I know I am constructing something that makes no sense whatsoever.
A gingerbread house?
What would a prospective home buyer have to say? "It's nice. Good neighborhood. Good square footage. I just kind of wish they had downgraded from peanut m-n-m shingles to regular and then used the cost savings to install indoor plumbing."
Or: "I love how the landscaping looks. But I don't think the Oreo step-stones could withstand a hard winter freeze and I'm afraid the candy canes would attract deer."
The kids have their own view of it. The first year we did a neighborhood party, Gemma had just turned 4 and Josh was about 18 months. We decorated one house together and proudly put it on our kitchen island for display and nibbling.
Gemma, Bryan and I were in the family room when we heard an explosive, disastrous smash in the kitchen. We ran there to find that Josh had climbed up, tried to pry a piece loose and brought the whole thing tumbling down to the tile floor where he now sat, eating part of the wreckage, not noticing that we'd all rushed over to him.
Gemma wailed at the sight. Her house! Her beautiful house!
Then she looked down at Joshua and despite her anguish, did the math. She, too, joined him in gathering the carnage and eating it, though she was crying the whole time.
Bryan and I were laughing and laughing. And taking pictures. I just finished putting that page into the scrapbook. (Do you hear that, Sister #2? I am a full 3 years behind!!)
Our current houses and chapel will sit undisturbed for a while starting Wednesday, when we leave for Florida to spend Christmas with Bryan's parents. This will very likely be their last Christmas in their island home. For several reasons, it is time for them to transition into a planned retirement community that is just across the bridge, on the mainland. They are both in excellent health, so at least the move is not shaded with a twilight of decline. And the place they plan to move to is beautiful. A robust social life awaits them. But it's a change, and probably not one that is part of their ideal world.
Isn't that something, though, to have lived for 14 years on an island, just a block from the ocean? Their house is so pretty, a two bedroom, open floor plan, jewel box of a home, with a great big deck Gemma likes to sit on in the mornings when she's there, eating Papa Pedro's exotic fruit and tossing the pits and seeds over the railing. And that fruit! Their entire lot is covered with either short ground cover, or a plant that produces something edible, including many kinds of mangoes, abajacava, bananas and a bunch of fruits I'd never heard of before Pedro planted them.
It is a short walk from there to the ice cream store, a short bike ride from there to the light house, a short drive anywhere around an island that is about 12 miles long. Bryan and I think of it as the place where we fell in love, during the visit when I was first meeting his parents. (He called it "checkpoint zulu" because it was the last point of approval to get before the engagement.)
We live in a place of beautiful skies that rise and set against mountains. But they don't compare to a Florida sky, rising and setting in extremes upon a Gulf. Their home, and the place where it sits, seems like its own little fantasy that we step into (during winter months, and not being there in the summer is an important part of the fantasy). Really, with just a couple pieces of licorice thrown onto the roof and some Gummie Bears iced around the doorway, it would be a whimsical dream come true.
Long time readers know that each year, we host a house decorating party. Bryan bakes all the pieces. I whip up the icing and assemble the structures. Last year, in a fit of madness, we made trains--an engine for each family and a box car for each child. In the recovery period after chemotherapy and before radiation, it somehow felt like the normal thing to do. In fact, we did it twice: one party for our home school co-op families, and one party for our cul-de-sac.
This year, we made a house for each child and a country chapel for each mother. Why do I enjoy the whole thing so much? I think I've put my finger on it: It's a party, yes, I know about that part. Assembling mass quantities of houses is a problem-solving excursion. I like figuring out how to get not just 1, but 15 roofs to dry right without having to hold them in place.
But most of all, gingerbread houses combine a practical challenge with the ultimate whimsical goal. On the practical side: How can I make my house look nice, with a design that somehow makes sense while on the other side, I know I am constructing something that makes no sense whatsoever.
A gingerbread house?
What would a prospective home buyer have to say? "It's nice. Good neighborhood. Good square footage. I just kind of wish they had downgraded from peanut m-n-m shingles to regular and then used the cost savings to install indoor plumbing."
Or: "I love how the landscaping looks. But I don't think the Oreo step-stones could withstand a hard winter freeze and I'm afraid the candy canes would attract deer."
The kids have their own view of it. The first year we did a neighborhood party, Gemma had just turned 4 and Josh was about 18 months. We decorated one house together and proudly put it on our kitchen island for display and nibbling.
Gemma, Bryan and I were in the family room when we heard an explosive, disastrous smash in the kitchen. We ran there to find that Josh had climbed up, tried to pry a piece loose and brought the whole thing tumbling down to the tile floor where he now sat, eating part of the wreckage, not noticing that we'd all rushed over to him.
Gemma wailed at the sight. Her house! Her beautiful house!
Then she looked down at Joshua and despite her anguish, did the math. She, too, joined him in gathering the carnage and eating it, though she was crying the whole time.
Bryan and I were laughing and laughing. And taking pictures. I just finished putting that page into the scrapbook. (Do you hear that, Sister #2? I am a full 3 years behind!!)
Our current houses and chapel will sit undisturbed for a while starting Wednesday, when we leave for Florida to spend Christmas with Bryan's parents. This will very likely be their last Christmas in their island home. For several reasons, it is time for them to transition into a planned retirement community that is just across the bridge, on the mainland. They are both in excellent health, so at least the move is not shaded with a twilight of decline. And the place they plan to move to is beautiful. A robust social life awaits them. But it's a change, and probably not one that is part of their ideal world.
Isn't that something, though, to have lived for 14 years on an island, just a block from the ocean? Their house is so pretty, a two bedroom, open floor plan, jewel box of a home, with a great big deck Gemma likes to sit on in the mornings when she's there, eating Papa Pedro's exotic fruit and tossing the pits and seeds over the railing. And that fruit! Their entire lot is covered with either short ground cover, or a plant that produces something edible, including many kinds of mangoes, abajacava, bananas and a bunch of fruits I'd never heard of before Pedro planted them.
It is a short walk from there to the ice cream store, a short bike ride from there to the light house, a short drive anywhere around an island that is about 12 miles long. Bryan and I think of it as the place where we fell in love, during the visit when I was first meeting his parents. (He called it "checkpoint zulu" because it was the last point of approval to get before the engagement.)
We live in a place of beautiful skies that rise and set against mountains. But they don't compare to a Florida sky, rising and setting in extremes upon a Gulf. Their home, and the place where it sits, seems like its own little fantasy that we step into (during winter months, and not being there in the summer is an important part of the fantasy). Really, with just a couple pieces of licorice thrown onto the roof and some Gummie Bears iced around the doorway, it would be a whimsical dream come true.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
B, G and J Day: Toppers
B:
The island in our kitchen is undersized. There are at least 9 square feet on the side of it that need to be filled to keep the space from seeming awkward. Right now, those feet are filled with a child-sized table, which has been of some use to us.
But now the kids are bigger, and they do their crafts and art work on the big kitchen table, and with increasing frequency, the kids have some kind of project going on the kitchen table when dinner approaches.
Ah, wouldn't it be nice to have a bigger island with a breakfast bar and tall stools so that we would have an additional place to eat meals if and when projects are launched on our table?
So began a few months of trying to trouble shoot and problem solve. At one point, the idea got as big as replacing the entire island, which meant replacing all the flooring on our main level and also replacing all our counter tops. We didn't want to go that big, but when it comes to home improvements, sometimes a chain reaction triggers.
The problem with simply replacing the top of our existing island with a bigger top than is already there is that it would be stupidly expensive to match the Formica of our other counters, a piece of granite would look ridiculous and a big ole slab of butcher's block came with an insane price tag.
What. To. Do. . .
We were the auction house on Friday to preview a set of shelves for our basement when I saw a huge desk with a beautiful oak top. I mentioned to Bryan, "How about this for the top of our island?"
He didn't scoff at me, per se. But he shot me a certain look. A certain purist, this-is-a-desk-and-who-takes-apart-a-perfectly-good-desk-except-those-who-do-not-properly-respect-furniture? look.
Well, then.
Not two hours later, we were at a furniture store, looking for a counter-height table that might work. If we could find one the same width as the island, we could make the two abut, right?
No such table at that store. Nor anywhere on-line.
But I got to talking with the salesman about having a top custom made for the island from one of their furniture manufacturers. Bryan caught the end of this discussion, knew that the salesman would look into it for me, and said, once we got to the car, "Well if you're serious about that idea, I think that desk at the auction would work."
Willing to take a desk apart, are you?
"Well. . . it's not an antique."
He got the desk top (and the desk that is attached to it) for $20. I'm fairly certain this is cheaper than the custom-ordered table top quote will be.
G:
The kids and I went to a community production of Robin Hood the other day. It was put on by the Academy of Children's Theater. The production was excellent. The script was a disaster, which means the play itself could not be great. But still: Good direction, quality performances. It was impressive.
Gemma has seen other plays, you know. And has never said much about them. This time, with such a boring, talk-heavy, plot-less story unfolding on stage--one that was hard for me to understand, let alone Gemma--I thought I might have actually damaged any enthusiasm she might have one day for performance.
Instead, she said on the ride home, "That lady mentioned there are acting classes for children 6-9 and I am 7, so can I do that class?"
Huh!
She brought it up again later, on her own, so I asked her why she would be interested in trying it. She said, "I could learn new things and find out what acting is all about and make new friends."
Huh!
So I signed her up. Knowing how to speak in front of an audience, knowing how to take direction, knowing how to work with a cast to create a finished project--these are all really good Life Skills I'm glad to encourage. Being in plays and musicals was one of the highest highlights of my adolescent years. If Gemma tries it and likes it, I will drive her to as many rehearsals as she needs to attend.
She starts in January.
J:
Speaking of performances, our co-op had "Presentation Day" at which each child prepared and delivered an oral presentation on a bunch of different topics related to Colorado history. It was amazing. All these kids did a really, really super job.
In the middle of them, Joshua curled up on a bean bag chair to watch. This was fine, except that he kept squishing his feet in and out, making the beans in the bag crunch. The noise was distracting. And rude.
I asked him to stop and he didn't. It could have been that he didn't realize the noise he was making. Or it could have been that he was just being a twit. In any case, I made him leave the bean bag and come sit next to me on the couch. This ticked him off. I had to bring him upstairs so the show could go on without us.
He eventually collected himself. He eventually rejoined us. The rest of the time with our friends was just fine.
Later that night, I was hugging him and I said, "We had kind of a hard day today earlier, didn't we?"
Josh said, "Yes."
"Do you remember why it was hard?"
He said, "Yes, you made me cry when you wouldn't let me sit on that bean bag."
Hmm. . .
"I didn't 'make you cry,' Josh. I just told you that you couldn't sit there because you were making a distracting noise."
Hug continues. Nothing is said.
But my point was not yet made. "Josh," I began, gently, "Maybe today would have been easier if you had just obeyed Mommy right away."
Now, I'm about to punctuate his answer in just the way necessary to communicate his exact tone:
He backed up from the hug, looked right at me and said, "Maybe it would have been 'easier' if you had just let me sit on the bean bag chair."
I got to tell you: I so admire his mental acuity for language. Only 4 1/2!!!! And yet, his powers cannot be used for good unless we also train him up to be virtuous and to walk in fear of the Lord. So I laughed. Bryan heard all this and laughed. And then the discussion continued. . .
Another related story:
One morning this week, Josh had been pushing the envelope with me. You know how kids do that. I called him on it, told him that just one more little thing would get a spank. Now, please get dressed, both of you.
They were upstairs in the bathroom when I heard Gemma shriek. A minute passed. Another shriek.
"What is going on?" I called.
Gemma reported, "Josh held the toothpaste cap up to the water and it sprayed water all over!"
Several minutes of drama and discussion ensued, in which we determined that he did it twice, that the first time was an accident, but that he chose to do it the second time on purpose. And I spanked him.
After a spank, my children need to tell me (or Daddy) that they are sorry, and we tell them that we forgive them, that God forgives them, that we love them so much, and we hug and the whole issue is completed.
But Josh wouldn't say he was sorry. He kept clinging to this defense that "it was an accident," though I had already shown him that if he did it twice, it could not have been "an accident."
I sent him to his room to have some time to calm down and collect himself.
A few minutes later, he was out: calm and collected.
"Hey, Josh," I said, and patted the couch next to me. He sat there. I said, "Are you sorry you sprayed the water the second time?"
And he said, "The water didn't get into the bathtub."
What?
"Gemma said the water went 'all over' but it didn't go into the bathtub. So it didn't go 'all over.'"
I laughed and laughed and laughed. Was I not supposed to? I couldn't help it. . .
Finally, I explained what the phrase "all over" means.
To which he said, "But the tub is in the bathroom, so the water didn't go all over."
Heh heh. Here's the difference between Joshua as a child and Amy as a child: When I marshalled a defense like this--and I did it often--the people responding to me were only ever irritated that I was "splitting hairs" (Mom liked that phrase) or "bickering," or something else of equal annoyance. ("Oh, Amy! You always have to have the last word!") (No, you could have had the last word, so long as it had been "I see your point," or, even better, "You're right.")
When Joshua says these things to me, he is saying them to someone who loves a good argument! Who loves to parse words! Who is not the least bit bothered to have to present an argument of my own for why his does not work. I can't wait to see this blossom in him. I can't wait to help him develop and hone his skills in rhetoric and logic
And poor, Joshua. He doesn't know that as these arguments arise, he's never going to win with me anytime soon. He is so out-gunned.
Bring it on, little boy! I am delighted with you. I am delighted to know that you spent your time in your room thinking of an argument to respond with. (Of course, in terms of character, it's not great that he didn't want to take responsibility for his mistake, but we dealt with that.) I am delighted that you sense the power of words and what they can be used for.
And one day, when you do win an argument with me, I am going to tell everyone all about it.
The island in our kitchen is undersized. There are at least 9 square feet on the side of it that need to be filled to keep the space from seeming awkward. Right now, those feet are filled with a child-sized table, which has been of some use to us.
But now the kids are bigger, and they do their crafts and art work on the big kitchen table, and with increasing frequency, the kids have some kind of project going on the kitchen table when dinner approaches.
Ah, wouldn't it be nice to have a bigger island with a breakfast bar and tall stools so that we would have an additional place to eat meals if and when projects are launched on our table?
So began a few months of trying to trouble shoot and problem solve. At one point, the idea got as big as replacing the entire island, which meant replacing all the flooring on our main level and also replacing all our counter tops. We didn't want to go that big, but when it comes to home improvements, sometimes a chain reaction triggers.
The problem with simply replacing the top of our existing island with a bigger top than is already there is that it would be stupidly expensive to match the Formica of our other counters, a piece of granite would look ridiculous and a big ole slab of butcher's block came with an insane price tag.
What. To. Do. . .
We were the auction house on Friday to preview a set of shelves for our basement when I saw a huge desk with a beautiful oak top. I mentioned to Bryan, "How about this for the top of our island?"
He didn't scoff at me, per se. But he shot me a certain look. A certain purist, this-is-a-desk-and-who-takes-apart-a-perfectly-good-desk-except-those-who-do-not-properly-respect-furniture? look.
Well, then.
Not two hours later, we were at a furniture store, looking for a counter-height table that might work. If we could find one the same width as the island, we could make the two abut, right?
No such table at that store. Nor anywhere on-line.
But I got to talking with the salesman about having a top custom made for the island from one of their furniture manufacturers. Bryan caught the end of this discussion, knew that the salesman would look into it for me, and said, once we got to the car, "Well if you're serious about that idea, I think that desk at the auction would work."
Willing to take a desk apart, are you?
"Well. . . it's not an antique."
He got the desk top (and the desk that is attached to it) for $20. I'm fairly certain this is cheaper than the custom-ordered table top quote will be.
G:
The kids and I went to a community production of Robin Hood the other day. It was put on by the Academy of Children's Theater. The production was excellent. The script was a disaster, which means the play itself could not be great. But still: Good direction, quality performances. It was impressive.
Gemma has seen other plays, you know. And has never said much about them. This time, with such a boring, talk-heavy, plot-less story unfolding on stage--one that was hard for me to understand, let alone Gemma--I thought I might have actually damaged any enthusiasm she might have one day for performance.
Instead, she said on the ride home, "That lady mentioned there are acting classes for children 6-9 and I am 7, so can I do that class?"
Huh!
She brought it up again later, on her own, so I asked her why she would be interested in trying it. She said, "I could learn new things and find out what acting is all about and make new friends."
Huh!
So I signed her up. Knowing how to speak in front of an audience, knowing how to take direction, knowing how to work with a cast to create a finished project--these are all really good Life Skills I'm glad to encourage. Being in plays and musicals was one of the highest highlights of my adolescent years. If Gemma tries it and likes it, I will drive her to as many rehearsals as she needs to attend.
She starts in January.
J:
Speaking of performances, our co-op had "Presentation Day" at which each child prepared and delivered an oral presentation on a bunch of different topics related to Colorado history. It was amazing. All these kids did a really, really super job.
In the middle of them, Joshua curled up on a bean bag chair to watch. This was fine, except that he kept squishing his feet in and out, making the beans in the bag crunch. The noise was distracting. And rude.
I asked him to stop and he didn't. It could have been that he didn't realize the noise he was making. Or it could have been that he was just being a twit. In any case, I made him leave the bean bag and come sit next to me on the couch. This ticked him off. I had to bring him upstairs so the show could go on without us.
He eventually collected himself. He eventually rejoined us. The rest of the time with our friends was just fine.
Later that night, I was hugging him and I said, "We had kind of a hard day today earlier, didn't we?"
Josh said, "Yes."
"Do you remember why it was hard?"
He said, "Yes, you made me cry when you wouldn't let me sit on that bean bag."
Hmm. . .
"I didn't 'make you cry,' Josh. I just told you that you couldn't sit there because you were making a distracting noise."
Hug continues. Nothing is said.
But my point was not yet made. "Josh," I began, gently, "Maybe today would have been easier if you had just obeyed Mommy right away."
Now, I'm about to punctuate his answer in just the way necessary to communicate his exact tone:
He backed up from the hug, looked right at me and said, "Maybe it would have been 'easier' if you had just let me sit on the bean bag chair."
I got to tell you: I so admire his mental acuity for language. Only 4 1/2!!!! And yet, his powers cannot be used for good unless we also train him up to be virtuous and to walk in fear of the Lord. So I laughed. Bryan heard all this and laughed. And then the discussion continued. . .
Another related story:
One morning this week, Josh had been pushing the envelope with me. You know how kids do that. I called him on it, told him that just one more little thing would get a spank. Now, please get dressed, both of you.
They were upstairs in the bathroom when I heard Gemma shriek. A minute passed. Another shriek.
"What is going on?" I called.
Gemma reported, "Josh held the toothpaste cap up to the water and it sprayed water all over!"
Several minutes of drama and discussion ensued, in which we determined that he did it twice, that the first time was an accident, but that he chose to do it the second time on purpose. And I spanked him.
After a spank, my children need to tell me (or Daddy) that they are sorry, and we tell them that we forgive them, that God forgives them, that we love them so much, and we hug and the whole issue is completed.
But Josh wouldn't say he was sorry. He kept clinging to this defense that "it was an accident," though I had already shown him that if he did it twice, it could not have been "an accident."
I sent him to his room to have some time to calm down and collect himself.
A few minutes later, he was out: calm and collected.
"Hey, Josh," I said, and patted the couch next to me. He sat there. I said, "Are you sorry you sprayed the water the second time?"
And he said, "The water didn't get into the bathtub."
What?
"Gemma said the water went 'all over' but it didn't go into the bathtub. So it didn't go 'all over.'"
I laughed and laughed and laughed. Was I not supposed to? I couldn't help it. . .
Finally, I explained what the phrase "all over" means.
To which he said, "But the tub is in the bathroom, so the water didn't go all over."
Heh heh. Here's the difference between Joshua as a child and Amy as a child: When I marshalled a defense like this--and I did it often--the people responding to me were only ever irritated that I was "splitting hairs" (Mom liked that phrase) or "bickering," or something else of equal annoyance. ("Oh, Amy! You always have to have the last word!") (No, you could have had the last word, so long as it had been "I see your point," or, even better, "You're right.")
When Joshua says these things to me, he is saying them to someone who loves a good argument! Who loves to parse words! Who is not the least bit bothered to have to present an argument of my own for why his does not work. I can't wait to see this blossom in him. I can't wait to help him develop and hone his skills in rhetoric and logic
And poor, Joshua. He doesn't know that as these arguments arise, he's never going to win with me anytime soon. He is so out-gunned.
Bring it on, little boy! I am delighted with you. I am delighted to know that you spent your time in your room thinking of an argument to respond with. (Of course, in terms of character, it's not great that he didn't want to take responsibility for his mistake, but we dealt with that.) I am delighted that you sense the power of words and what they can be used for.
And one day, when you do win an argument with me, I am going to tell everyone all about it.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Turkey Triage
Some excerpts from the past week:
Gemma and Joshua wrapped up their swim lessons for November. Gemma now knows the 4 major strokes, though they are far from perfected. She seems not to know that swimming lengths of the pool is "work." It's all one giant, fun time for her.
Josh, too. Though he has not been told to swim lengths yet. Because of his age, he "should" have been placed in the pre-levels. But because of his progress this summer, I signed him up for the Big Kid league. They didn't ask for his birthday, and I didn't tell. I was walking by him at one point and tried to catch his eye just so I could wave. He, instead, was fascinating by something in the water (perhaps on the pool floor?) and after a few seconds of staring, just stuck his whole face in to get a better look, as though the water were no barrier at all.
So fun to see. I'm still not as comfortable as that. But my technique must be improving because I can swim longer now.
***
Gemma was the Special Student at her program at school (where she goes for one full day a week--it is called the Home School Academy and she loves being part of her K-1 class of 10 students).
Being the Special Student required that she make a poster about herself and present it to the class. The temptation to intervene and "improve" her poster was great. But I held off. I really did. My only contribution was getting her the photographs and supplies she wanted and making sure she had spelled everything correctly.
Her teacher told me she did a great job, and that she now knew "everything" there was to know about Sparks. (This is Gemma's AWANA club.) This I found heartening. Her scripture-memory club was the one thing she was most excited about sharing!
She also included a pink ribbon and told, so she told me, the class that her mom is a "breast cancer champion." Interesting. Of all things to say about me. . .
***
Joshua does not know his ABC's. He can't identify most of the letters. He has no interest in learning.
This does not worry me. You don't need to write in words of comfort and assurance about how he is a boy and how boys develop verbal skills later et al. Truly: I am not worried. If he ends up being one of these kids who does not read until he is 12 years old, that's fine. That's one of the advantages of home schooling. He (and Gemma, for that matter) are not on any institution's time table.
But I still try. I surround him with all the same tools of literacy I surrounded Gemma with. When his letter-switch flips on, there will be letters available to him.
So, the other day, when he finished up his table work during our "school" time, and asked to play a game out of my home school cabinet, I pulled out one he had not yet seen. The Leap Frog Fridge Phonics game.
It was inside a non-descript box, waiting for him. This game is clever. It includes one big piece that plays the ABC song and 26 additional letter pieces. You put one into the big piece, and a song plays that is specific to each letter and the sound(s) it makes. Genius!
I told Josh, "This is a special game you haven't seen yet. But it's noisy." He grinned. "So you can't play it down here while we are still working. You can wait until we go upstairs together, or you can go upstairs to discover by yourself right now."
He took the box and was off.
Clump clunk, up the stairs. Rustle bang. Music plays. Rustle bang. A little more music. Rustle clunk. Then clum clunk, back down the stairs.
He appeared with a scowl. A piercing scowl, that is, aimed straight at me as though I were guilty of a trick that was very much unappreciated. "This," he announced, plunking the box on the table, "Is the ABC's!"
Can't blame a Mom for trying.
***
We spent Thanksgiving in Hastings, Nebraska, with my brother and his family. Bryan baked pumpkin pies the few days before. He makes his own crusts, and culls his own pumpkin mush from his own garden pumpkins. So this pie-making evolution is one that spans a few months.
He finished late Tuesday night and gave me some directions as he came to bed, for what he needed me to do the next morning with the pies.
The conversation that night went something like this:
(I was already reading my book. Bryan enters.)
B: Can you do something for me tomorrow?
A!: Uh huh.
B: Can you ________(insert white noise here because, come on, after 11 years of marriage, doesn't he kind of know that once I'm reading in bed, I am no longer listening to anyone else? I'm done. Done with the day. Done being nice to other people. Done practicing good manners. I am now in the "going to sleep" process, which, for me, includes at least a solid 45 minutes of reading before the light goes out. I'm not going to apologize for that. Bryan has his own "going to sleep" process, too. His only lasts about 16 seconds from the time he gets into bed to the moment he is asleep, but it's still a process. And I don't interrupt it with lengthy instructions for the next day's details.)______ for me?
A!: Yeah.
The next morning, I came downstairs to find pies scattered all over the counter tops, island, and inside the fridge.
I called him at work. "Good morning, Baby Duck," I began. "Uh. . .what am I supposed to do with these pies, again?"
Wrap them, now that they've cooled. Freeze several in the outside deep freeze. Prepare some to be brought to Hastings. "And those little ones," he said -- oh yes, the little ones, because he has several individual, personal-size pie tins -- "I thought we could bring with us on the road."
"On the road?" I asked.
"Yeah," he clarified, "As little pie snacks."
Pie snack. This phrase tickles me. Pie snack. I couldn't get over it. I still can't.
Later that afternoon, as we loaded into our sedan for the 7 hour drive, Joshua saw the pie snacks going into the cooler. "Is that a snack for us?" he asked, with great optimism.
"Yes," his father replied. "It is an exquisitely delicious pie snack for us."
And this was funny, too. That word exquisite. Have you ever heard it used naturally in a real-life context that does NOT include a reference to fine jewelry or art?
Exquisite.
Go ahead. Try to use that word today in normal conversation and see if the person you speak it to doesn't trip over it.
***
Thanksgiving was a delight. John had cooked the turkey the day before, and he and Bryan prepared all the side dishes the day of, so it was a logistically relaxed kitchen. The kids played together all day. Adults chatted and caught up with each other around tasty appetizers and wine and, frankly, too many cups of iced coffee rounded off by Caribbean Cinnamon creamer. I may be brunette, by I like my coffee blond. . .
Are there certain people in your life you like to make laugh? In some crowds, I don't try for too much humor. Maybe these are crowds that have already demonstrated an unwillingness to laugh (at me, anyway) or they are crowds that already have a very funny person in them and I like to be among those laughing. I realize that I really like to laugh with my brother and sister-in-law and to make them laugh, too.
If you are this type of personality, you'll know that it's not anything you try for. Trying is the surest way to be not funny. There is just a certain chemistry in the air that encourages you to say stuff. Stuff you might not say if you were to think it through first.
Like, when we were sitting around at dessert time having a lively discussion with family and a few others guests who had dropped by and, suddenly, the door was opened to another guest: Fr. Walsh. And I said to my brother, with a fake scowl, "Hey! Who ordered the priest?"
Not that the priest heard me.
Later that night, after the guests had gone, 6 of us remained around the kitchen table to play a family favorite: The Questions Game. I won't describe it for you. . . but it requires only pen, paper, and people and I have never not had a great time playing it.
Part of the fun is that people can either go for the laugh or go for the win (sometimes they can do both. . .) and that night, John went for the humor. I laughed so hard, again and again--the put your head on the table, shoulder-shaking, tear-streaming, gut-busting laughter that can never be foreseen. It just shows up. When we're lucky.
The next day, the upper part of my abs ached. It was an exquisite pain.
***
One guest there was an old lady. (Am I supposed to say "older"? Of course she was "older." 50 is "older" to me. This lady was old. In anybody's book.)
She was a former student of John's, from his memoir writing class. Over a year ago, through a tragic yet petty set of mis-steps, a stack of her writing at least 6 inches thick got thrown away. She had no copies of it.
Somehow, this got mentioned to someone who mentioned it to Susan who told John and though he had thrown away the final projects of all his others students (as all teachers do--what? are we supposed to hang on to everyone else's work???) he had saved this woman's.
This Thanksgiving, she and her husband came by to say "hello" and to collect an inch of her work back from what she had lost.
Her husband explained that she liked to write, that she specialized in capturing all her family and personal stories for posterity, but that without a class that demanded homework, she would never sit down and actually do it.
I could relate. (Though I'll tell you: What does this woman have going on in her life that she can't "make time" to write? Geez. I implore all of you to remind me once my nest is empty: Amy! Get to work!) So I shared with them how I keep this blog, how there are a few people who e-mail me to tell me I'm a lazy slacker if and when I miss my Sunday deadline, how this keeps me honest. More honest than I'd be otherwise, that is.
They both looked at me blankly. "We don't do computers," the husband said. I'd gathered this. The woman's final project was all hand-written.
Still. Blogspot is very easy technology. . .
He also commented that at my young age, I'm "just at the beginning," and "what do you even have to write about?"
Ah, I smiled. You have a point there, sir. . .
***
Gemma turned 7 last Tuesday. We gave her a birthday present and we ate at IHOP and her friend next door gave her a book titled Gemma the Gymnastics Fairy, which of course shocked us all because Gemma is not a popular name in America. But other than this, we delayed our celebration so we could spend it with her cousins in Hastings.
For the occasion, Gemma, Josh and I made a pinata. In the shape of a turkey. Long time readers know already that I love pinatas. Love to make 'em. Love to watch kids beat them. Love the sense of occasion they bring to any celebration.
Instead of loading it with candy, Gemma prepared a goody bag for each person who would be there. She did this all on her own, using the cards she had made in her Home School Academy art class, and some of her own stickers, and some of her own Halloween candy.
We used a big balloon for the turkey's body, a small one for the head with a cone of paper for the beak and a loose, pink balloon for the waddle. I attached the head to the body by means of a toilet paper roll and then cut two wings out of a cereal box. It was brilliant, really.
We paper mached that sucker periodically over two days. On Wednesday morning, hours before we were due to leave, we painted it.
Then, in an inexplicable moment of exquisite stupidity, I lifted that bird up by the head and cracked the neck clean off.
DOH!!!!
What to do what to do what to do what to do????? The kids looked at me with great concern. Gemma's suggestion, "We can duct tape it."
While I applauded her willingness to find a solution and her faith in the when-all-else-fails duct tape strategy, I announced, "Turkey triage!!!"
I mixed the paint into the bit of paper mache paste I had left and used paper towels to re-paste the neck into place. Joshua stood watch with the space heater, moving it in stages around the wound to dry it faster. And it worked. Disaster averted.
Gemma beamed at me as I worked quickly. She beamed when she saw that the neck was fixed. She beamed when I packed it, our bottles of wine and their puffy winter coats into a laundry basket for safe transport.
Her celebration on Friday was perfect. John and Susan got their chocolate fountain going and we stuck Gemma's candles into a piece of the pound cake that would later be used for dipping.
Joshua thought this fountain was a wonder. He dipped some stuff, took his plate to his seat, climbed onto the chair and surveyed his goodies. He spied a strawberry that, somehow, had no chocolate on it and said, "What's that for?"
Then we whacked open the pinata outside. By the time we got back in, it was already 3:00. We'd planned to come back to the Springs after the party. But, eh, 3:00 is late in winter time. And we were having such a nice day, we stayed one more night and shoved off first thing Saturday morning.
I asked Gemma if she'd had a good time. She had a great time. Did she like her little party? Did she like the pinata? Did she like spending 2 whole days with her cousins? Yes, yes, and yes again. She liked it all very much.
We listened to the remainder of The Railway Children on the way home. (An audio book we'd been enjoying since last week.) And we listened to all of Charlotte's Web, too. She loves audio books.
This is a 7th birthday she will remember fondly. There is no colored ribbon for a mother and father who would champion it for her as we have done. Just thanksgiving. One day.
Gemma and Joshua wrapped up their swim lessons for November. Gemma now knows the 4 major strokes, though they are far from perfected. She seems not to know that swimming lengths of the pool is "work." It's all one giant, fun time for her.
Josh, too. Though he has not been told to swim lengths yet. Because of his age, he "should" have been placed in the pre-levels. But because of his progress this summer, I signed him up for the Big Kid league. They didn't ask for his birthday, and I didn't tell. I was walking by him at one point and tried to catch his eye just so I could wave. He, instead, was fascinating by something in the water (perhaps on the pool floor?) and after a few seconds of staring, just stuck his whole face in to get a better look, as though the water were no barrier at all.
So fun to see. I'm still not as comfortable as that. But my technique must be improving because I can swim longer now.
***
Gemma was the Special Student at her program at school (where she goes for one full day a week--it is called the Home School Academy and she loves being part of her K-1 class of 10 students).
Being the Special Student required that she make a poster about herself and present it to the class. The temptation to intervene and "improve" her poster was great. But I held off. I really did. My only contribution was getting her the photographs and supplies she wanted and making sure she had spelled everything correctly.
Her teacher told me she did a great job, and that she now knew "everything" there was to know about Sparks. (This is Gemma's AWANA club.) This I found heartening. Her scripture-memory club was the one thing she was most excited about sharing!
She also included a pink ribbon and told, so she told me, the class that her mom is a "breast cancer champion." Interesting. Of all things to say about me. . .
***
Joshua does not know his ABC's. He can't identify most of the letters. He has no interest in learning.
This does not worry me. You don't need to write in words of comfort and assurance about how he is a boy and how boys develop verbal skills later et al. Truly: I am not worried. If he ends up being one of these kids who does not read until he is 12 years old, that's fine. That's one of the advantages of home schooling. He (and Gemma, for that matter) are not on any institution's time table.
But I still try. I surround him with all the same tools of literacy I surrounded Gemma with. When his letter-switch flips on, there will be letters available to him.
So, the other day, when he finished up his table work during our "school" time, and asked to play a game out of my home school cabinet, I pulled out one he had not yet seen. The Leap Frog Fridge Phonics game.
It was inside a non-descript box, waiting for him. This game is clever. It includes one big piece that plays the ABC song and 26 additional letter pieces. You put one into the big piece, and a song plays that is specific to each letter and the sound(s) it makes. Genius!
I told Josh, "This is a special game you haven't seen yet. But it's noisy." He grinned. "So you can't play it down here while we are still working. You can wait until we go upstairs together, or you can go upstairs to discover by yourself right now."
He took the box and was off.
Clump clunk, up the stairs. Rustle bang. Music plays. Rustle bang. A little more music. Rustle clunk. Then clum clunk, back down the stairs.
He appeared with a scowl. A piercing scowl, that is, aimed straight at me as though I were guilty of a trick that was very much unappreciated. "This," he announced, plunking the box on the table, "Is the ABC's!"
Can't blame a Mom for trying.
***
We spent Thanksgiving in Hastings, Nebraska, with my brother and his family. Bryan baked pumpkin pies the few days before. He makes his own crusts, and culls his own pumpkin mush from his own garden pumpkins. So this pie-making evolution is one that spans a few months.
He finished late Tuesday night and gave me some directions as he came to bed, for what he needed me to do the next morning with the pies.
The conversation that night went something like this:
(I was already reading my book. Bryan enters.)
B: Can you do something for me tomorrow?
A!: Uh huh.
B: Can you ________(insert white noise here because, come on, after 11 years of marriage, doesn't he kind of know that once I'm reading in bed, I am no longer listening to anyone else? I'm done. Done with the day. Done being nice to other people. Done practicing good manners. I am now in the "going to sleep" process, which, for me, includes at least a solid 45 minutes of reading before the light goes out. I'm not going to apologize for that. Bryan has his own "going to sleep" process, too. His only lasts about 16 seconds from the time he gets into bed to the moment he is asleep, but it's still a process. And I don't interrupt it with lengthy instructions for the next day's details.)______ for me?
A!: Yeah.
The next morning, I came downstairs to find pies scattered all over the counter tops, island, and inside the fridge.
I called him at work. "Good morning, Baby Duck," I began. "Uh. . .what am I supposed to do with these pies, again?"
Wrap them, now that they've cooled. Freeze several in the outside deep freeze. Prepare some to be brought to Hastings. "And those little ones," he said -- oh yes, the little ones, because he has several individual, personal-size pie tins -- "I thought we could bring with us on the road."
"On the road?" I asked.
"Yeah," he clarified, "As little pie snacks."
Pie snack. This phrase tickles me. Pie snack. I couldn't get over it. I still can't.
Later that afternoon, as we loaded into our sedan for the 7 hour drive, Joshua saw the pie snacks going into the cooler. "Is that a snack for us?" he asked, with great optimism.
"Yes," his father replied. "It is an exquisitely delicious pie snack for us."
And this was funny, too. That word exquisite. Have you ever heard it used naturally in a real-life context that does NOT include a reference to fine jewelry or art?
Exquisite.
Go ahead. Try to use that word today in normal conversation and see if the person you speak it to doesn't trip over it.
***
Thanksgiving was a delight. John had cooked the turkey the day before, and he and Bryan prepared all the side dishes the day of, so it was a logistically relaxed kitchen. The kids played together all day. Adults chatted and caught up with each other around tasty appetizers and wine and, frankly, too many cups of iced coffee rounded off by Caribbean Cinnamon creamer. I may be brunette, by I like my coffee blond. . .
Are there certain people in your life you like to make laugh? In some crowds, I don't try for too much humor. Maybe these are crowds that have already demonstrated an unwillingness to laugh (at me, anyway) or they are crowds that already have a very funny person in them and I like to be among those laughing. I realize that I really like to laugh with my brother and sister-in-law and to make them laugh, too.
If you are this type of personality, you'll know that it's not anything you try for. Trying is the surest way to be not funny. There is just a certain chemistry in the air that encourages you to say stuff. Stuff you might not say if you were to think it through first.
Like, when we were sitting around at dessert time having a lively discussion with family and a few others guests who had dropped by and, suddenly, the door was opened to another guest: Fr. Walsh. And I said to my brother, with a fake scowl, "Hey! Who ordered the priest?"
Not that the priest heard me.
Later that night, after the guests had gone, 6 of us remained around the kitchen table to play a family favorite: The Questions Game. I won't describe it for you. . . but it requires only pen, paper, and people and I have never not had a great time playing it.
Part of the fun is that people can either go for the laugh or go for the win (sometimes they can do both. . .) and that night, John went for the humor. I laughed so hard, again and again--the put your head on the table, shoulder-shaking, tear-streaming, gut-busting laughter that can never be foreseen. It just shows up. When we're lucky.
The next day, the upper part of my abs ached. It was an exquisite pain.
***
One guest there was an old lady. (Am I supposed to say "older"? Of course she was "older." 50 is "older" to me. This lady was old. In anybody's book.)
She was a former student of John's, from his memoir writing class. Over a year ago, through a tragic yet petty set of mis-steps, a stack of her writing at least 6 inches thick got thrown away. She had no copies of it.
Somehow, this got mentioned to someone who mentioned it to Susan who told John and though he had thrown away the final projects of all his others students (as all teachers do--what? are we supposed to hang on to everyone else's work???) he had saved this woman's.
This Thanksgiving, she and her husband came by to say "hello" and to collect an inch of her work back from what she had lost.
Her husband explained that she liked to write, that she specialized in capturing all her family and personal stories for posterity, but that without a class that demanded homework, she would never sit down and actually do it.
I could relate. (Though I'll tell you: What does this woman have going on in her life that she can't "make time" to write? Geez. I implore all of you to remind me once my nest is empty: Amy! Get to work!) So I shared with them how I keep this blog, how there are a few people who e-mail me to tell me I'm a lazy slacker if and when I miss my Sunday deadline, how this keeps me honest. More honest than I'd be otherwise, that is.
They both looked at me blankly. "We don't do computers," the husband said. I'd gathered this. The woman's final project was all hand-written.
Still. Blogspot is very easy technology. . .
He also commented that at my young age, I'm "just at the beginning," and "what do you even have to write about?"
Ah, I smiled. You have a point there, sir. . .
***
Gemma turned 7 last Tuesday. We gave her a birthday present and we ate at IHOP and her friend next door gave her a book titled Gemma the Gymnastics Fairy, which of course shocked us all because Gemma is not a popular name in America. But other than this, we delayed our celebration so we could spend it with her cousins in Hastings.
For the occasion, Gemma, Josh and I made a pinata. In the shape of a turkey. Long time readers know already that I love pinatas. Love to make 'em. Love to watch kids beat them. Love the sense of occasion they bring to any celebration.
Instead of loading it with candy, Gemma prepared a goody bag for each person who would be there. She did this all on her own, using the cards she had made in her Home School Academy art class, and some of her own stickers, and some of her own Halloween candy.
We used a big balloon for the turkey's body, a small one for the head with a cone of paper for the beak and a loose, pink balloon for the waddle. I attached the head to the body by means of a toilet paper roll and then cut two wings out of a cereal box. It was brilliant, really.
We paper mached that sucker periodically over two days. On Wednesday morning, hours before we were due to leave, we painted it.
Then, in an inexplicable moment of exquisite stupidity, I lifted that bird up by the head and cracked the neck clean off.
DOH!!!!
What to do what to do what to do what to do????? The kids looked at me with great concern. Gemma's suggestion, "We can duct tape it."
While I applauded her willingness to find a solution and her faith in the when-all-else-fails duct tape strategy, I announced, "Turkey triage!!!"
I mixed the paint into the bit of paper mache paste I had left and used paper towels to re-paste the neck into place. Joshua stood watch with the space heater, moving it in stages around the wound to dry it faster. And it worked. Disaster averted.
Gemma beamed at me as I worked quickly. She beamed when she saw that the neck was fixed. She beamed when I packed it, our bottles of wine and their puffy winter coats into a laundry basket for safe transport.
Her celebration on Friday was perfect. John and Susan got their chocolate fountain going and we stuck Gemma's candles into a piece of the pound cake that would later be used for dipping.
Joshua thought this fountain was a wonder. He dipped some stuff, took his plate to his seat, climbed onto the chair and surveyed his goodies. He spied a strawberry that, somehow, had no chocolate on it and said, "What's that for?"
Then we whacked open the pinata outside. By the time we got back in, it was already 3:00. We'd planned to come back to the Springs after the party. But, eh, 3:00 is late in winter time. And we were having such a nice day, we stayed one more night and shoved off first thing Saturday morning.
I asked Gemma if she'd had a good time. She had a great time. Did she like her little party? Did she like the pinata? Did she like spending 2 whole days with her cousins? Yes, yes, and yes again. She liked it all very much.
We listened to the remainder of The Railway Children on the way home. (An audio book we'd been enjoying since last week.) And we listened to all of Charlotte's Web, too. She loves audio books.
This is a 7th birthday she will remember fondly. There is no colored ribbon for a mother and father who would champion it for her as we have done. Just thanksgiving. One day.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
An Argument for Memory
Let's take the StoryTime Machine back to a year I do not like to revisit: my freshman year of high school. It will be instructive. This was the Fall of 1989.
I'm telling you now: my recollection of these details might stun you.
What's more: I've never told this story before. I've hardly even thought of it until just recently. But before recent history comes ancient history.
Hence: the Fall of 1989.
This year, my high school had hired a new Theology teacher names Cameron Cehola. This was Czek name, he told us on the first day. There we were, 23 or so students on our first day of high school, staring agape at a teacher who had just told us his first name.
Forget "Cehola" and its ethnic origins. Who in the heck is named "Cameron"?
He had earned his Masters degree in Theology. This was shocking, too. You mean to say that people actually studied theology?
Mr. Cehola was a young man. He would sit on his desk, gripping the front edge with both hands as he leaned forward and swung his legs. To demonstrate what, exactly? I think it was to show us how very engaging he found our young minds. To show us he was interesting enough to dispense with standard teacher formalities and get serious, instead, about opening the world of theology to us.
If this was his strategy, he had miscalculated. We were not the class of kids in Dead Poet's Society who rejoiced to find an inspiring voice singing in an institution of academic oppression. We were just in Theology because that's where the guidance councilor scheduled us in Immaculate Conception High School because that's where our parents had sent us.
Most of us, anyway, saw things this way.
A few held Mr. Cehola in utter disdain. I recall Lauren Guidice's older sister, who was a Junior, bragging to those of us near her in study hall (which was all ages) that she called him "Cam" to his face, repeatedly. I remember feeling so scandalized by this older girls' boldness. Had she gotten away with that?
Maybe there were a few others who were like me: I didn't know what to make of a guy who sat on his desk as he taught us, or who wasn't actually Catholic (we discovered early on), or who used words like "exam" instead of "test," and "hypothesis" even though this wasn't a science class.
Part of me was Dead Poet's Society-ish. I did find it thrilling to have a teacher who wanted to make a challenge out of his class. Even though it was Theology. Do you know that for our first "exam," we were to memorize the Beatitudes as found in the Gospel of Matthew??? This was an extraordinary assignment! Memorize part of the Bible? No way! (I experienced 11 years of formal, Catholic school education--grade 6 through 16--and this is the only time I was required to memorize scripture!)
I responded to the challenge gladly. I remember sitting on the Sorce's couch, where I was babysitting one afternoon, memorizing those Beatitudes, thinking that I was going to blow Cameron Cehola away by getting a perfect score on his exam.
There were other things to know for this exam, and I studied them, too. I went to class the day of and wrote out my answers and left confident that I had aced that thing. Do you remember that feeling of knowing you've done well on a test after you've prepared to do well on it? It's been a long, long time since I've taken one. . . I miss that feeling. . .
We came back to class the next day and Mr. Cehola had already graded our exams. He handed them back. There was a red mark on mine. Points taken off. It was surprising. My grade was a 98%, and yet there could be no rejoicing until I looked into something.
I consulted my notes that I had transcribed from the chalkboard. I looked back at my test. I was not wrong.
The question had stated, "Define 'theology.'"
My answer (and I promise that I am going from memory here, sick though that is):
"Theology is the study of all things in relation to one another in light of revelation."
(Today, I would quibble with that definition. But back then, all I knew is that this is what Mr. Cehola had written on the board and told us to know for the "exam.")
I asked, basically, what I had lost points on.
"Ah," he said smugly. "Theology is the study of all things in relation to one another by light of revelation."
This drew scoffs and some guffaws and a bit of outrage from several others who had also prepared for the test.
To which Mr. Cehola took up his perch on the desk and launched into how the two words were different and their uses created a world of difference between his definition and ours. My peers tried to argue that he was being too picky. He easily defeated their argument because, well, he was right. There is a difference between "by" and "in."
Finally, I had the chance to weigh in. "The point is not that we got the definition wrong. The point is that we all wrote down the definition you put up on the board."
This shut everyone up. They liked what they were now hearing.
Mr. Cehola, not so much. "I would not have put up the wrong definition," he said.
"Let's check every one's notebooks," I said. "If we all wrote down 'in' instead of 'by,' we'll know what was written on the board."
He refused to check. He hopped off the desk, made another comment from the previous argument--the one he could win--about the differences between the two prepositions. And he tried to go on with the lesson.
I couldn't let him. I couldn't. The injustice of it consumed me. It was so logical for him simply to fix the problem. Recollect the texts. Award 2 pts to each student who deserved it. Move on.
But he couldn't admit that he'd made this mistake. And that's when I decided he was a fraud, and my disappointment crashed on top of the injustice. I was incensed. I would not let it rest. There was nothing he could say that would make me stop arguing the point, which the rest of the room found very entertaining. They cast their lot with me. This teacher now had a full-blown uprising on his hands.
He announced that we were all to write out answers to some BS chapter questions. It was seat work. Silent work. Nothing was resolved about the test. I was crying. Seriously. It was that important to me to hear him admit that he was wrong and I was right. But it wasn't a pride thing. Everyone in the room knew I was right. In this way, I had "won."
I just needed to hear him say it out loud. I never did.
Something clicked over for him, though. Something about that day, plus all the days of upperclassmen calling him "Cam," plus, most likely the biggest dynamic of all, something about seeing this high school for a couple of week and realizing that there were a lot of average kids inside of it--something made him quit. His job. I mean, he left the school.
A replacement came soon after, Mrs. Diesing. We loved her. And she either stood at the podium or sat behind her desk. And though she was one of several people who taught, as the text book did, that the wondrous stories we read in the Bible are "biblical myth," she also confided to us one day that she, "Reads the Bible while take a bubble bath--it's corny, I know, but I do it because it relaxes me," thus making her my first teacher ever to say that she read scripture.
So much for ancient history. Flashing forward now:
The other day, Joshua was still in his pajamas. We were ready to start our school work, for which we all must be dressed. I asked him to go upstairs and change.
"But Mommy," he said, calmly, "Sometimes you stay in pajamas all day."
"No," I said, calmly, "I get dressed every morning before we start school work."
He insisted, "There are times when you stayed in your jammies for a long, long time."
"No there aren't," I told him. Then, sternly, "Please go upstairs now."
He headed upstairs, but was now perturbed. Seriously. "I know it's true," he pleaded. "You stay in your jammies sometimes!"
"When, Josh? Like when I was sick??? Like when I was doing chemotherapy? Is that when I stayed in jammies????"
"No," he said with certainty, now at the top of the stairs. Talking down below to me through the railings. "When we came home from Betsy's and Daddy brought us but you were here and it was all day, that's when."
I had no idea what he was talking about. Still don't.
But he said it with conviction. There is something he knew that I didn't and he wasn't stalling to avoid getting dressed. He just needed to hear me validate his point. I remember that feeling. I remember that it wasn't about getting a different result out of the other person--100% or 98%? who cares?--it was about the argument itself. It was about what I knew and needing the other person to acknowledge that what I was saying was important.
I could hear his frustration. What others would take (understandably) and have taken (understandably) to be an argumentative spirit or bratty-ness, I understood this was just what God built into him. He loves words. They are important to him. It is impossible for him to move on from the place of being misunderstood. I know that feeling. . .
"OK, Josh," I told him, "I don't remember the time you are talking about, but I agree that there have been some days when I have stayed in my jammies for a long time. Today is not one of them. We both need to be dressed."
He nodded at this. Clearly, I had scratched his itch. He stood and the galloped like a horse to his room where he got dressed in just a few minutes.
I kind of feel like I passed this exam. Blessed are they who remember the past well enough to apply it to the present.
I'm telling you now: my recollection of these details might stun you.
What's more: I've never told this story before. I've hardly even thought of it until just recently. But before recent history comes ancient history.
Hence: the Fall of 1989.
This year, my high school had hired a new Theology teacher names Cameron Cehola. This was Czek name, he told us on the first day. There we were, 23 or so students on our first day of high school, staring agape at a teacher who had just told us his first name.
Forget "Cehola" and its ethnic origins. Who in the heck is named "Cameron"?
He had earned his Masters degree in Theology. This was shocking, too. You mean to say that people actually studied theology?
Mr. Cehola was a young man. He would sit on his desk, gripping the front edge with both hands as he leaned forward and swung his legs. To demonstrate what, exactly? I think it was to show us how very engaging he found our young minds. To show us he was interesting enough to dispense with standard teacher formalities and get serious, instead, about opening the world of theology to us.
If this was his strategy, he had miscalculated. We were not the class of kids in Dead Poet's Society who rejoiced to find an inspiring voice singing in an institution of academic oppression. We were just in Theology because that's where the guidance councilor scheduled us in Immaculate Conception High School because that's where our parents had sent us.
Most of us, anyway, saw things this way.
A few held Mr. Cehola in utter disdain. I recall Lauren Guidice's older sister, who was a Junior, bragging to those of us near her in study hall (which was all ages) that she called him "Cam" to his face, repeatedly. I remember feeling so scandalized by this older girls' boldness. Had she gotten away with that?
Maybe there were a few others who were like me: I didn't know what to make of a guy who sat on his desk as he taught us, or who wasn't actually Catholic (we discovered early on), or who used words like "exam" instead of "test," and "hypothesis" even though this wasn't a science class.
Part of me was Dead Poet's Society-ish. I did find it thrilling to have a teacher who wanted to make a challenge out of his class. Even though it was Theology. Do you know that for our first "exam," we were to memorize the Beatitudes as found in the Gospel of Matthew??? This was an extraordinary assignment! Memorize part of the Bible? No way! (I experienced 11 years of formal, Catholic school education--grade 6 through 16--and this is the only time I was required to memorize scripture!)
I responded to the challenge gladly. I remember sitting on the Sorce's couch, where I was babysitting one afternoon, memorizing those Beatitudes, thinking that I was going to blow Cameron Cehola away by getting a perfect score on his exam.
There were other things to know for this exam, and I studied them, too. I went to class the day of and wrote out my answers and left confident that I had aced that thing. Do you remember that feeling of knowing you've done well on a test after you've prepared to do well on it? It's been a long, long time since I've taken one. . . I miss that feeling. . .
We came back to class the next day and Mr. Cehola had already graded our exams. He handed them back. There was a red mark on mine. Points taken off. It was surprising. My grade was a 98%, and yet there could be no rejoicing until I looked into something.
I consulted my notes that I had transcribed from the chalkboard. I looked back at my test. I was not wrong.
The question had stated, "Define 'theology.'"
My answer (and I promise that I am going from memory here, sick though that is):
"Theology is the study of all things in relation to one another in light of revelation."
(Today, I would quibble with that definition. But back then, all I knew is that this is what Mr. Cehola had written on the board and told us to know for the "exam.")
I asked, basically, what I had lost points on.
"Ah," he said smugly. "Theology is the study of all things in relation to one another by light of revelation."
This drew scoffs and some guffaws and a bit of outrage from several others who had also prepared for the test.
To which Mr. Cehola took up his perch on the desk and launched into how the two words were different and their uses created a world of difference between his definition and ours. My peers tried to argue that he was being too picky. He easily defeated their argument because, well, he was right. There is a difference between "by" and "in."
Finally, I had the chance to weigh in. "The point is not that we got the definition wrong. The point is that we all wrote down the definition you put up on the board."
This shut everyone up. They liked what they were now hearing.
Mr. Cehola, not so much. "I would not have put up the wrong definition," he said.
"Let's check every one's notebooks," I said. "If we all wrote down 'in' instead of 'by,' we'll know what was written on the board."
He refused to check. He hopped off the desk, made another comment from the previous argument--the one he could win--about the differences between the two prepositions. And he tried to go on with the lesson.
I couldn't let him. I couldn't. The injustice of it consumed me. It was so logical for him simply to fix the problem. Recollect the texts. Award 2 pts to each student who deserved it. Move on.
But he couldn't admit that he'd made this mistake. And that's when I decided he was a fraud, and my disappointment crashed on top of the injustice. I was incensed. I would not let it rest. There was nothing he could say that would make me stop arguing the point, which the rest of the room found very entertaining. They cast their lot with me. This teacher now had a full-blown uprising on his hands.
He announced that we were all to write out answers to some BS chapter questions. It was seat work. Silent work. Nothing was resolved about the test. I was crying. Seriously. It was that important to me to hear him admit that he was wrong and I was right. But it wasn't a pride thing. Everyone in the room knew I was right. In this way, I had "won."
I just needed to hear him say it out loud. I never did.
Something clicked over for him, though. Something about that day, plus all the days of upperclassmen calling him "Cam," plus, most likely the biggest dynamic of all, something about seeing this high school for a couple of week and realizing that there were a lot of average kids inside of it--something made him quit. His job. I mean, he left the school.
A replacement came soon after, Mrs. Diesing. We loved her. And she either stood at the podium or sat behind her desk. And though she was one of several people who taught, as the text book did, that the wondrous stories we read in the Bible are "biblical myth," she also confided to us one day that she, "Reads the Bible while take a bubble bath--it's corny, I know, but I do it because it relaxes me," thus making her my first teacher ever to say that she read scripture.
So much for ancient history. Flashing forward now:
The other day, Joshua was still in his pajamas. We were ready to start our school work, for which we all must be dressed. I asked him to go upstairs and change.
"But Mommy," he said, calmly, "Sometimes you stay in pajamas all day."
"No," I said, calmly, "I get dressed every morning before we start school work."
He insisted, "There are times when you stayed in your jammies for a long, long time."
"No there aren't," I told him. Then, sternly, "Please go upstairs now."
He headed upstairs, but was now perturbed. Seriously. "I know it's true," he pleaded. "You stay in your jammies sometimes!"
"When, Josh? Like when I was sick??? Like when I was doing chemotherapy? Is that when I stayed in jammies????"
"No," he said with certainty, now at the top of the stairs. Talking down below to me through the railings. "When we came home from Betsy's and Daddy brought us but you were here and it was all day, that's when."
I had no idea what he was talking about. Still don't.
But he said it with conviction. There is something he knew that I didn't and he wasn't stalling to avoid getting dressed. He just needed to hear me validate his point. I remember that feeling. I remember that it wasn't about getting a different result out of the other person--100% or 98%? who cares?--it was about the argument itself. It was about what I knew and needing the other person to acknowledge that what I was saying was important.
I could hear his frustration. What others would take (understandably) and have taken (understandably) to be an argumentative spirit or bratty-ness, I understood this was just what God built into him. He loves words. They are important to him. It is impossible for him to move on from the place of being misunderstood. I know that feeling. . .
"OK, Josh," I told him, "I don't remember the time you are talking about, but I agree that there have been some days when I have stayed in my jammies for a long time. Today is not one of them. We both need to be dressed."
He nodded at this. Clearly, I had scratched his itch. He stood and the galloped like a horse to his room where he got dressed in just a few minutes.
I kind of feel like I passed this exam. Blessed are they who remember the past well enough to apply it to the present.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Veteran's Weekend
Yes, yes, I know Bryan is the veteran in this family. Thank you, Bryan. And thank you to all serve.
Now, let's talk about me.
I am a veteran of something, too. Pre-school motherhood. The days of caring for little ones are behind me. I don't think I had realized it until this weekend.
We left on Wednesday afternoon for Weston, MO, where we have some land and a big tobacco barn that was full of. . .shtuff that Bryan needed to get rid of. We also have dear friends in the area, Helen and David, and, from our time in Korea, Parin and her family who are now stationed at Leavenworth.
Bryan spent both days selling stuff out of the barn. The kids and I spent Thursday with Helen and David and then Friday with Parin and Jason, and their two girls, who are the same ages as our two kids. A delightful time all around.
A note on our drive out: The kids travel so well now, it is painless to drive long distances with them. We were not commited to making it all the way out and with two hours to go, Bryan considered stopping in Topeka for the night. But then we caught a talk radio program that covered something outrageous. It really got his dander up and with this mighty shot of adrenaline, he felt great for the tail end of the journey. We checked in at 1:45 AM.
This is also where I noticed the first difference. Gemma and Josh can both do everything for themselves in the back seat now. And they're both thrilled to watch DVD's on their little players. There was a time when I could not sit for 20 minutes without having to turn around for some reason or another. This time, Bryan and I had the chance to talk for a couple hours without interruption.
Aunt Helen and Uncle David are the kids' Godparents. Helen has a giant service dog. I would tell you the breed--it's something French--but I don't remember it and you've never heard of it anyway. His name is BroJean and he's wonderful. The kids love him, too.
We discovered on the weekend of our ParTAY, whence BroJean sat outside with Helen, several of our neighbors and a yard full of neighborhood kids, that this breed shepherds. At least, BroJean does. He just couldn't lie still. He could not stand watching a bunch of children scatter and run around. So he got up, loped over on his long legs, and proceeded to herd them into a group, either by circling them, or nudging them, or--yes indeed--nipping them.
Well. Just one. And it happened to be Mr. Colorado's daughter. Mr. Colorado loves dogs more than Colorado, I think, and was very understanding. Instinct. What can you do? Besides, Kate was fine. . .
Helen, David, BroJean, their doberman who is called Tootsie, the kids and I drove over to our land. The dogs love to run there and I was glad the kids would have a chance to poke around, too.
The went for it. Almost immediately. It was cold out, but something about the fields and thickets beckoned. Later, Helen remarked to me, "Um. . .We have 2 kids and 2 dogs wandering around out there that we can't see."
I shrugged and said, "BroJean is with them. I am completely confident he's watching over them."
This is why shepherding dogs are so great. Why we had planned to get one if we had moved to that piece of land. Why we would still get one if we end up moving to the country at some future point.
Would I have let them go off if they had been much younger? No. But this is what it means that Joshua is now older. I know how he thinks and he has the maturity and good sense to stick with his sister and not do anything stupid. (Like what, even? It's not like we have cliffs to jump off of. . .)
They eventually returned. After nearly an hour. BroJean was right by their sides. Joshua's wool coat was stuck full of thistles, which gave us some clues as to their adventure. I asked Gemma what BroJean had been doing. "He was just by us the whole time," she said.
What a dog!
Bryan made a wad of cash from the sale. I had Gemma count it. In our conversations throughout the day, certain turns of phrase would come up, like, "barn-burner," or. . .a few others that now escape me. One of the kids would ask us to explain, and we would. Helen said, towards the end of the afternoon, "I'm seeing that homeschool is really just an all-the-time thing." Yes. On days like that, I am reminded of it.
By the way, the name Weston, Missouri might seem familiar to you now due to recent news. Those maniacs from that cult in Topeka scheduled a protest at a fallen soldier's funeral the weekend before last. They have to obtain a permit to protest, and they have the constitutional right to one.
The townspeople of Weston knew their rights, too. They organized in about 24 hours. Over half the town turned out to do the following:
Take up all the parking spaces along the funeral route and surrounded the protest area;
Wire up a sound system from one of the bars and blast "Amazing Grace" and other songs whenever the protesters started singing;
assemble the Patriot Guard (a biker group that will show up whenever requested for this purpose) to gun their engines whenever the protesters tried to speak;
stand right in front of the protesting group with a giant flag held up so that none of their hateful signs could be read;
and, of course, stand on the flag line approaching the funeral home to specifically honor the fallen.
This didn't just hit CNN and other national news, it actually got international coverage as well. Letters poured into the Weston Chronicle from all over the country.
The hope, I would think, is that other towns will use this as a model for handling future attempts by these hideous cult members and after a year of getting shut down systematically, they'll find some other way to garner attention and money.
It was a glorious day for Weston.
Helen says they'd like to see "Pull a Weston" enter the vernacular.
I entertained visions of what this would look like 50 years from now. My best hypothesis: it will come to mean, "to take up space or opportunity another party thought it had privy to." So, when you pull into a parking space someone else is waiting for, you would be "pulling a Weston."
No part of that carries the sheen of honor. But that's how language is. At least, that's my prediction for how this language will go.
Finally, David, Helen and the Ponces had dinner out at the best BBQ place I've ever enjoyed, and it was a joy to revisit it Thursday night. The kids were a delight to have with us and once again I found myself really liking that we can all like having them around.
Quick Josh story here: I brought their scooters with us and they zoomed around David and Helen's cul-de-sac for a while to burn off their pent up car energy earlier in the day. Josh's scooter needed a quick inspection, and when I gave it back to him, he jumped on and yelled, "Ride on!!!" and zoomed away.
What a boy.
On Friday, the kids and I got to Parin's on-post house at 9:15. We did not leave until 9:00 PM, and this following a leisurely day of the kids playing somewhere else and Parin and I chatting and chatting and. . .you know, there are just some friends you can re-connect with without labor. It was awesome.
In all that kid-playing, there was not one single squabble. The four of them just got along really well, and had a hard time saying good-bye when it was time.
Parin remembered, "Amy, we used to sit on the floor with them in Korea and say, 'OK, Sarah, now we share the toy with Gemma, and Gemma says, 'Thank you'" and on and on. . . I had forgotten! But she was right! We used to pour a lot of energy into teaching those girls basic kindness and manners. All the Mommies in our little group did, actually, and I know now what an unusual blessing that was.
Well. There we were. Reaping what we'd sown. Polite, sociable children who loved to just play, play, play with each other!
Saturday morning, we took the time to swim in the pool before loading up for the long ride home. Instead of movies all the way, we listened to some audio books. That's a simple pleasure, too. We had finished up Paddington before the trip, a book that made all three of us laugh out loud as we tootled around town. This time, we listened to Clementine and it was short and sweet. Then we started The Railway Children, published in 1906 or so. Normally, books that old are not written in language that I or the kids want to listen to. But this one. . .we are all enchanted.
So. I sign off as a happy Veteran. Those early years were not easy for me. I am thankful for them, of course. For some mothers, those baby days are the highlight of parenthood. For me, they were the woods that I knew I'd get through one day. That day is here! God was so good to have helped me persevere to a season of sweet harvest.
Now, let's talk about me.
I am a veteran of something, too. Pre-school motherhood. The days of caring for little ones are behind me. I don't think I had realized it until this weekend.
We left on Wednesday afternoon for Weston, MO, where we have some land and a big tobacco barn that was full of. . .shtuff that Bryan needed to get rid of. We also have dear friends in the area, Helen and David, and, from our time in Korea, Parin and her family who are now stationed at Leavenworth.
Bryan spent both days selling stuff out of the barn. The kids and I spent Thursday with Helen and David and then Friday with Parin and Jason, and their two girls, who are the same ages as our two kids. A delightful time all around.
A note on our drive out: The kids travel so well now, it is painless to drive long distances with them. We were not commited to making it all the way out and with two hours to go, Bryan considered stopping in Topeka for the night. But then we caught a talk radio program that covered something outrageous. It really got his dander up and with this mighty shot of adrenaline, he felt great for the tail end of the journey. We checked in at 1:45 AM.
This is also where I noticed the first difference. Gemma and Josh can both do everything for themselves in the back seat now. And they're both thrilled to watch DVD's on their little players. There was a time when I could not sit for 20 minutes without having to turn around for some reason or another. This time, Bryan and I had the chance to talk for a couple hours without interruption.
Aunt Helen and Uncle David are the kids' Godparents. Helen has a giant service dog. I would tell you the breed--it's something French--but I don't remember it and you've never heard of it anyway. His name is BroJean and he's wonderful. The kids love him, too.
We discovered on the weekend of our ParTAY, whence BroJean sat outside with Helen, several of our neighbors and a yard full of neighborhood kids, that this breed shepherds. At least, BroJean does. He just couldn't lie still. He could not stand watching a bunch of children scatter and run around. So he got up, loped over on his long legs, and proceeded to herd them into a group, either by circling them, or nudging them, or--yes indeed--nipping them.
Well. Just one. And it happened to be Mr. Colorado's daughter. Mr. Colorado loves dogs more than Colorado, I think, and was very understanding. Instinct. What can you do? Besides, Kate was fine. . .
Helen, David, BroJean, their doberman who is called Tootsie, the kids and I drove over to our land. The dogs love to run there and I was glad the kids would have a chance to poke around, too.
The went for it. Almost immediately. It was cold out, but something about the fields and thickets beckoned. Later, Helen remarked to me, "Um. . .We have 2 kids and 2 dogs wandering around out there that we can't see."
I shrugged and said, "BroJean is with them. I am completely confident he's watching over them."
This is why shepherding dogs are so great. Why we had planned to get one if we had moved to that piece of land. Why we would still get one if we end up moving to the country at some future point.
Would I have let them go off if they had been much younger? No. But this is what it means that Joshua is now older. I know how he thinks and he has the maturity and good sense to stick with his sister and not do anything stupid. (Like what, even? It's not like we have cliffs to jump off of. . .)
They eventually returned. After nearly an hour. BroJean was right by their sides. Joshua's wool coat was stuck full of thistles, which gave us some clues as to their adventure. I asked Gemma what BroJean had been doing. "He was just by us the whole time," she said.
What a dog!
Bryan made a wad of cash from the sale. I had Gemma count it. In our conversations throughout the day, certain turns of phrase would come up, like, "barn-burner," or. . .a few others that now escape me. One of the kids would ask us to explain, and we would. Helen said, towards the end of the afternoon, "I'm seeing that homeschool is really just an all-the-time thing." Yes. On days like that, I am reminded of it.
By the way, the name Weston, Missouri might seem familiar to you now due to recent news. Those maniacs from that cult in Topeka scheduled a protest at a fallen soldier's funeral the weekend before last. They have to obtain a permit to protest, and they have the constitutional right to one.
The townspeople of Weston knew their rights, too. They organized in about 24 hours. Over half the town turned out to do the following:
Take up all the parking spaces along the funeral route and surrounded the protest area;
Wire up a sound system from one of the bars and blast "Amazing Grace" and other songs whenever the protesters started singing;
assemble the Patriot Guard (a biker group that will show up whenever requested for this purpose) to gun their engines whenever the protesters tried to speak;
stand right in front of the protesting group with a giant flag held up so that none of their hateful signs could be read;
and, of course, stand on the flag line approaching the funeral home to specifically honor the fallen.
This didn't just hit CNN and other national news, it actually got international coverage as well. Letters poured into the Weston Chronicle from all over the country.
The hope, I would think, is that other towns will use this as a model for handling future attempts by these hideous cult members and after a year of getting shut down systematically, they'll find some other way to garner attention and money.
It was a glorious day for Weston.
Helen says they'd like to see "Pull a Weston" enter the vernacular.
I entertained visions of what this would look like 50 years from now. My best hypothesis: it will come to mean, "to take up space or opportunity another party thought it had privy to." So, when you pull into a parking space someone else is waiting for, you would be "pulling a Weston."
No part of that carries the sheen of honor. But that's how language is. At least, that's my prediction for how this language will go.
Finally, David, Helen and the Ponces had dinner out at the best BBQ place I've ever enjoyed, and it was a joy to revisit it Thursday night. The kids were a delight to have with us and once again I found myself really liking that we can all like having them around.
Quick Josh story here: I brought their scooters with us and they zoomed around David and Helen's cul-de-sac for a while to burn off their pent up car energy earlier in the day. Josh's scooter needed a quick inspection, and when I gave it back to him, he jumped on and yelled, "Ride on!!!" and zoomed away.
What a boy.
On Friday, the kids and I got to Parin's on-post house at 9:15. We did not leave until 9:00 PM, and this following a leisurely day of the kids playing somewhere else and Parin and I chatting and chatting and. . .you know, there are just some friends you can re-connect with without labor. It was awesome.
In all that kid-playing, there was not one single squabble. The four of them just got along really well, and had a hard time saying good-bye when it was time.
Parin remembered, "Amy, we used to sit on the floor with them in Korea and say, 'OK, Sarah, now we share the toy with Gemma, and Gemma says, 'Thank you'" and on and on. . . I had forgotten! But she was right! We used to pour a lot of energy into teaching those girls basic kindness and manners. All the Mommies in our little group did, actually, and I know now what an unusual blessing that was.
Well. There we were. Reaping what we'd sown. Polite, sociable children who loved to just play, play, play with each other!
Saturday morning, we took the time to swim in the pool before loading up for the long ride home. Instead of movies all the way, we listened to some audio books. That's a simple pleasure, too. We had finished up Paddington before the trip, a book that made all three of us laugh out loud as we tootled around town. This time, we listened to Clementine and it was short and sweet. Then we started The Railway Children, published in 1906 or so. Normally, books that old are not written in language that I or the kids want to listen to. But this one. . .we are all enchanted.
So. I sign off as a happy Veteran. Those early years were not easy for me. I am thankful for them, of course. For some mothers, those baby days are the highlight of parenthood. For me, they were the woods that I knew I'd get through one day. That day is here! God was so good to have helped me persevere to a season of sweet harvest.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Derby
Our AWANA club hosts a Grand Prix pinewood boxcar derby each year. Gemma (and Bryan) started participating in AWANA 3 years ago, yet this is the first year we did the Grand Prix.
That's because Gemma seemed not to know what it was and we were just as glad not to put it onto her radar.
That's because each year so far, we have figured we would want to be doing something else on a Saturday morning. Plus, we knew that we would get into it eventually. Later seemed better than sooner.
This year, someone told Gemma about it. And so it began. . .
In each club level, there are prizes for the 3 fastest cars. The club levels include the pre-schoolers, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and high school. Each car in each level races 3 times and the highest average scores win.
That is a lot of racing, which is why this event lasts Friday night and most of Saturday.
There are also three trophies for best car design (which is determined aside from its speed) and, for the 3 youngest levels, three trophies for best "Dress Like Your Car" entries.
Bryan has never raced these cars before. He knows that there are tricks to it, that many of those tricks are on the internet, and that several different power tools could be used to great effect. (A few different couples host "pit parties" on the weekends leading up to the race and all are welcome to stop by and use the woodshops.)
But we weren't going for speed this year. I think we figured we'd test the waters and come up with a good plan for next year.
This left the design categories open. Joshua dressed in Bryan's fatigues and painted his car with camo-colors. It looked great. But in this town, the military thing is not unique. He didn't win any design trophies.
Gemma dressed as Little Bo Peep (using a costume from 2 Halloween's ago) and made her car look like a sheep. She did the whole project by herself and the finished product was impressive! It took a great exertion on my part not to do some of it for her, not to correct her as she worked, not to improve on it. But when it comes to these creative endeavors, we must shut up and keep our hands to ourselves.
She was very pleased with her own work. I told her to hope for a design aware because there is no way she would win by speed. (The "fleece" was made of cotton balls, of course.)
Friday night, check-in and registration for all cars was from 5-7. We all went together and decided to stay for the older clubs' racing. The track was a marvel. It included electronic sensors hooked up to a computer that calculated the speeds and put them up on the big screen in about 2 seconds.
Gemma and Josh loved watching each race.
I loved seeing the older kids participate. AWANA is a Bible-memorization club. By these older grades, the work is very intense and demanding and it culminates in a national tournament held in St. Charles, IL each year. (AWANA started in inner-city Chicago! Just learned that. . .)
One would expect to find a big crowd of pretty geeky kids populating the older levels. While there's room for maneuver in defining "geeky," it seemed to me like most of them were really great kids: well-adjusted, very social, with so much camaraderie and love among each other. I've never seen anything like it.
The next morning, my kids sprang out of bed, ready for Game Day and, having seen the spectacular trophies the night before, they were now pretty interested in winning. Something.
Joshua's car placed 13th overall.
Gemma's at least got across the finish line each time without needing a push.
And there was a 3rd place design award in it after all.
(That thing behind her is Sparky, the mascot for her level. "Who are we?" "Sparks!" "Who for?" "Jesus!" "What do we do???" "LIGHT THE WORLD!!!!!")
(Speaking of mascots: Bryan put on the Cubbie Bear suit last weekend just to give our clubbers a special treat. The 85 children were either DELIGHTED to see Cubbie in person, or FREAKED OUT, in which case, Bryan popped his top and showed them his real face, which seemed to help in most cases...)
The speeds of the winning Cubbies and Sparks cars beat the champion cars of the older kids the night before by at least 4 points. (The numbers weren't posted in seconds or mph. . .they were just numbers.) Obviously, this was a competition among parents.
And some of the Dads were into it.
One family there had two biological children and two foster children, all in the Cubbies club level. And this Dad grew up racing cars with his Dad and so built the 4 cars that took the top 4 speeds.
I walked up to the fastest car owner, Blake, age 3, and said, "Great job, Blake! Can I see that championship car?" And I inspected it carefully. I learned some things. . .
His older brother came along and I said, "Hey Hudson! Pretty great cars you guys build. Do you do the trick with only putting 3 wheels down?"
He said, "Yeah, but that's not the secret."
"Oh really? What's the secret?" I have no shame about asking, by the way. I figured it was worth the shot. But the kid wouldn't tell me. . .
His Dad told someone, though. He told one of his best friends, Rick, and the two of them have sons in the Sparks club level. Sure enough, Rick's son's car was fast. So fast, the two boys had to have a race-off because their average times were identical. And Rick's son won! Guess he shouldn't have shared that secret. . .
Speaking of which: If you know a super secret squirrel secret that's not even on the internet, please pass it along. We've got less than a year to figure this out.
I knew as soon as I reported all this to Bryan, who is working this weekend and so missed the Saturday morning races, he would be thinking, "There's the gauntlet. Game on." And I was right.
I'm just hoping that rising to the challenge won't include the acquisition of any new power tools.
That's because Gemma seemed not to know what it was and we were just as glad not to put it onto her radar.
That's because each year so far, we have figured we would want to be doing something else on a Saturday morning. Plus, we knew that we would get into it eventually. Later seemed better than sooner.
This year, someone told Gemma about it. And so it began. . .
In each club level, there are prizes for the 3 fastest cars. The club levels include the pre-schoolers, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and high school. Each car in each level races 3 times and the highest average scores win.
That is a lot of racing, which is why this event lasts Friday night and most of Saturday.
There are also three trophies for best car design (which is determined aside from its speed) and, for the 3 youngest levels, three trophies for best "Dress Like Your Car" entries.
Bryan has never raced these cars before. He knows that there are tricks to it, that many of those tricks are on the internet, and that several different power tools could be used to great effect. (A few different couples host "pit parties" on the weekends leading up to the race and all are welcome to stop by and use the woodshops.)
But we weren't going for speed this year. I think we figured we'd test the waters and come up with a good plan for next year.
This left the design categories open. Joshua dressed in Bryan's fatigues and painted his car with camo-colors. It looked great. But in this town, the military thing is not unique. He didn't win any design trophies.
Gemma dressed as Little Bo Peep (using a costume from 2 Halloween's ago) and made her car look like a sheep. She did the whole project by herself and the finished product was impressive! It took a great exertion on my part not to do some of it for her, not to correct her as she worked, not to improve on it. But when it comes to these creative endeavors, we must shut up and keep our hands to ourselves.
She was very pleased with her own work. I told her to hope for a design aware because there is no way she would win by speed. (The "fleece" was made of cotton balls, of course.)
Josh did all the painting himself, too! I picked out the colors and told him to make blobs, and he did all the rest.
***Friday night, check-in and registration for all cars was from 5-7. We all went together and decided to stay for the older clubs' racing. The track was a marvel. It included electronic sensors hooked up to a computer that calculated the speeds and put them up on the big screen in about 2 seconds.
Gemma and Josh loved watching each race.
I loved seeing the older kids participate. AWANA is a Bible-memorization club. By these older grades, the work is very intense and demanding and it culminates in a national tournament held in St. Charles, IL each year. (AWANA started in inner-city Chicago! Just learned that. . .)
One would expect to find a big crowd of pretty geeky kids populating the older levels. While there's room for maneuver in defining "geeky," it seemed to me like most of them were really great kids: well-adjusted, very social, with so much camaraderie and love among each other. I've never seen anything like it.
The next morning, my kids sprang out of bed, ready for Game Day and, having seen the spectacular trophies the night before, they were now pretty interested in winning. Something.
Joshua's car placed 13th overall.
Gemma's at least got across the finish line each time without needing a push.
And there was a 3rd place design award in it after all.
(That thing behind her is Sparky, the mascot for her level. "Who are we?" "Sparks!" "Who for?" "Jesus!" "What do we do???" "LIGHT THE WORLD!!!!!")
(Speaking of mascots: Bryan put on the Cubbie Bear suit last weekend just to give our clubbers a special treat. The 85 children were either DELIGHTED to see Cubbie in person, or FREAKED OUT, in which case, Bryan popped his top and showed them his real face, which seemed to help in most cases...)
The speeds of the winning Cubbies and Sparks cars beat the champion cars of the older kids the night before by at least 4 points. (The numbers weren't posted in seconds or mph. . .they were just numbers.) Obviously, this was a competition among parents.
And some of the Dads were into it.
One family there had two biological children and two foster children, all in the Cubbies club level. And this Dad grew up racing cars with his Dad and so built the 4 cars that took the top 4 speeds.
I walked up to the fastest car owner, Blake, age 3, and said, "Great job, Blake! Can I see that championship car?" And I inspected it carefully. I learned some things. . .
His older brother came along and I said, "Hey Hudson! Pretty great cars you guys build. Do you do the trick with only putting 3 wheels down?"
He said, "Yeah, but that's not the secret."
"Oh really? What's the secret?" I have no shame about asking, by the way. I figured it was worth the shot. But the kid wouldn't tell me. . .
His Dad told someone, though. He told one of his best friends, Rick, and the two of them have sons in the Sparks club level. Sure enough, Rick's son's car was fast. So fast, the two boys had to have a race-off because their average times were identical. And Rick's son won! Guess he shouldn't have shared that secret. . .
Speaking of which: If you know a super secret squirrel secret that's not even on the internet, please pass it along. We've got less than a year to figure this out.
I knew as soon as I reported all this to Bryan, who is working this weekend and so missed the Saturday morning races, he would be thinking, "There's the gauntlet. Game on." And I was right.
I'm just hoping that rising to the challenge won't include the acquisition of any new power tools.
Monday, November 1, 2010
No Cancer!
YAY! and Ahhh. . . and Phew!
Why the "Phew!"? I'll tell you: by the 3rd week of September, I had become reactive to sugar again. I tested it a little: sugar out of my system, better. Sugar back in, bad. Sugar still in, increasingly worse. Sugar out all together, completely better.
None of which necessarily has anything to do with cancer. It's just that after the chemo, when I could suddenly eat sugar again to no ill effect, I said, "Hmm! Well, if I ever become reactive again, I'll know to look for cancer."
Dr. Science was puzzled, too. And he said it was a good enough reason for him to order a PET scan, just to check and be sure. He likes for his breast cancer patients to have a scan some point during this second year anyway. But, as of today, there are no markers in the blood work to indicate a problem.
Hoorah!
But I'd like to tell you a little about the last two weeks, after I was certain there was a sugar problem, but before I could learn the results of the test.
These weeks were tense. I did not tell many people about my concern because, well. . . I just didn't want to give the flame of concern more oxygen than it had already. On the other hand, an immense pressure came along with them, and telling one person here, one person there was like unhooking the lid of a pressure cooker.
It wasn't anxiety. I guess you have to take my word on that. I was not consumed by worry or thinking the worst of all thoughts. It was more like, "Amy, there's a good chance that you have stage IV cancer now, what does that mean to you?"
I tried to avoid the sad thoughts. I came up with some exceedingly practical ones:
I still have my wigs and hats.
Chemo won't be dreadful this time because I know what to expect.
Speaking of which, I now know that an eye doctor can prescribe a salve that will help with styes.
Though I need to get my hair trimmed up, I won't until I know that I won't be going bald a month from now.
Speaking of which: I bought clippers for Joshua's hair and so won't have to borrow them from my friend this time.
Two weeks of this, people. It's crazy, now that I can look at it and afford to call it crazy.
I'll tell you what else came of it, though. And this other thing answers my chief question all along, which was, "God, if this isn't cancer again, why are you letting me think that it might be?"
Because God's guidance to me as I prayed and worshipped over the last 2 weeks was not a rebuke as in, "Amy, we've been through this before, right before your port removal and I answered you then and now you are choosing not to believe Me."
His guidance was not a simple, "You're fine. No cancer."
His guidance, instead, was this:
"I am sovereign over all the world and I'm sovereign over you. If this is a sacrifice I'm asking you to make, won't you make it?"
and
"There is no circumstance I would permit in your life that I will not use for My glory. Do you want the chief purpose of your life to be My glory?"
and
"So what if it is stage IV cancer, Amy. Do you believe I am working out a purpose in your life? Then stage IV cancer is part of that purpose. Part of My glory. Part of the best version of yourself that only I can bring you to. Which version of yourself do you want? Yours or Mine?"
Given all this guidance, can I be blamed for expecting Dr. Science to tell me he was very concerned about my blood work?
But, as I've said, the cancer is not back.
So why did God permit this two weeks of concern and give this two weeks worth of guidance? I believe it was to have that conversation with me about where my committments lie, about why I am alive in this body at this time, in this place. I believe that in this conversation, God declared an end to our season of celebration and rest and the beginning of the next season of growing to become more and more like His Son.
The details of this are hard to share. I just tried to write about them and had to delete the paragraphs because they just don't belong on this blog at this moment. Suffice it to say that God is showing both me and Bryan what we need to do next and it's dramatic enough that we're a little scared about it. Not cancer-scared. But: this-is-going-to-change-everything-scared.
To sum up, then. . . No cancer ahead. There's something far more exciting instead.
Why the "Phew!"? I'll tell you: by the 3rd week of September, I had become reactive to sugar again. I tested it a little: sugar out of my system, better. Sugar back in, bad. Sugar still in, increasingly worse. Sugar out all together, completely better.
None of which necessarily has anything to do with cancer. It's just that after the chemo, when I could suddenly eat sugar again to no ill effect, I said, "Hmm! Well, if I ever become reactive again, I'll know to look for cancer."
Dr. Science was puzzled, too. And he said it was a good enough reason for him to order a PET scan, just to check and be sure. He likes for his breast cancer patients to have a scan some point during this second year anyway. But, as of today, there are no markers in the blood work to indicate a problem.
Hoorah!
But I'd like to tell you a little about the last two weeks, after I was certain there was a sugar problem, but before I could learn the results of the test.
These weeks were tense. I did not tell many people about my concern because, well. . . I just didn't want to give the flame of concern more oxygen than it had already. On the other hand, an immense pressure came along with them, and telling one person here, one person there was like unhooking the lid of a pressure cooker.
It wasn't anxiety. I guess you have to take my word on that. I was not consumed by worry or thinking the worst of all thoughts. It was more like, "Amy, there's a good chance that you have stage IV cancer now, what does that mean to you?"
I tried to avoid the sad thoughts. I came up with some exceedingly practical ones:
I still have my wigs and hats.
Chemo won't be dreadful this time because I know what to expect.
Speaking of which, I now know that an eye doctor can prescribe a salve that will help with styes.
Though I need to get my hair trimmed up, I won't until I know that I won't be going bald a month from now.
Speaking of which: I bought clippers for Joshua's hair and so won't have to borrow them from my friend this time.
Two weeks of this, people. It's crazy, now that I can look at it and afford to call it crazy.
I'll tell you what else came of it, though. And this other thing answers my chief question all along, which was, "God, if this isn't cancer again, why are you letting me think that it might be?"
Because God's guidance to me as I prayed and worshipped over the last 2 weeks was not a rebuke as in, "Amy, we've been through this before, right before your port removal and I answered you then and now you are choosing not to believe Me."
His guidance was not a simple, "You're fine. No cancer."
His guidance, instead, was this:
"I am sovereign over all the world and I'm sovereign over you. If this is a sacrifice I'm asking you to make, won't you make it?"
and
"There is no circumstance I would permit in your life that I will not use for My glory. Do you want the chief purpose of your life to be My glory?"
and
"So what if it is stage IV cancer, Amy. Do you believe I am working out a purpose in your life? Then stage IV cancer is part of that purpose. Part of My glory. Part of the best version of yourself that only I can bring you to. Which version of yourself do you want? Yours or Mine?"
Given all this guidance, can I be blamed for expecting Dr. Science to tell me he was very concerned about my blood work?
But, as I've said, the cancer is not back.
So why did God permit this two weeks of concern and give this two weeks worth of guidance? I believe it was to have that conversation with me about where my committments lie, about why I am alive in this body at this time, in this place. I believe that in this conversation, God declared an end to our season of celebration and rest and the beginning of the next season of growing to become more and more like His Son.
The details of this are hard to share. I just tried to write about them and had to delete the paragraphs because they just don't belong on this blog at this moment. Suffice it to say that God is showing both me and Bryan what we need to do next and it's dramatic enough that we're a little scared about it. Not cancer-scared. But: this-is-going-to-change-everything-scared.
To sum up, then. . . No cancer ahead. There's something far more exciting instead.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
That Time of Year
Halloween. Again.
I have resolved to stop fighting Colorado Springs on the issue of their trick-or-treating madness. That is, instead of kids going out while the sun is shining, kids wait until nightfall when it is a LOT colder than it had been just 3 hours earlier.
By "stop fighting," I mean that I made no attempt to make costumes for the kids. No attempt to mold an idea they may have had with my own ingenuity to create something both original and suitable for the temperature. I said, simply, "Kids, today we're going to the Good Will to find your costumes!"
And there we found them. Both warm. Both cute (enough). Both pleasing to Gemma and Joshua. When they put them on tonight, the fate of Ponce Halloween will be sealed: This holiday is not about the creativity after all. It's about the candy.
It looks to be a warm (enough) night, though. Probably in the low 50's. Our cul-de-sac will get together around our fire pit and hand out our candy from our lawn chairs there. As a new addition to our autumn celebration, we'll also serve hot apple cider to the parents passing by as well as ginger snaps, cheese ball with crackers and caramel apple slices. I'm actually looking forward to the whole thing!
This is all for now. Tomorrow is the other "that time of year." Time for a check-up (check-in?) with Dr. Markus. I left my blood at the lab early in the week.
(To their great puzzlement:
"Where is your port?"
"I had it removed in July. I called ahead of time to tell you this would be an arm draw. . ." Long pause. "Why would you get it removed?" Long pause on my part. . .
"Because I'm done with treatment...?..." Another long pause.
"So, putting it in is easier than keeping it in?"
Now, genuine confusion on my part. Why would I have kept it? Doesn't she know that you have to flush your port every 3 to 4 weeks if you're not actually using it?)
They will scan it, looking for certain markers that will indicate the presence of--or lack of--cancer in a body. This is the appointment where Dr. Science would say, "You are in remission."
I'll write before going to sleep on Monday with a full report. I'm sure you all miss hearing about him. I know I miss seeing him. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
I have resolved to stop fighting Colorado Springs on the issue of their trick-or-treating madness. That is, instead of kids going out while the sun is shining, kids wait until nightfall when it is a LOT colder than it had been just 3 hours earlier.
By "stop fighting," I mean that I made no attempt to make costumes for the kids. No attempt to mold an idea they may have had with my own ingenuity to create something both original and suitable for the temperature. I said, simply, "Kids, today we're going to the Good Will to find your costumes!"
And there we found them. Both warm. Both cute (enough). Both pleasing to Gemma and Joshua. When they put them on tonight, the fate of Ponce Halloween will be sealed: This holiday is not about the creativity after all. It's about the candy.
It looks to be a warm (enough) night, though. Probably in the low 50's. Our cul-de-sac will get together around our fire pit and hand out our candy from our lawn chairs there. As a new addition to our autumn celebration, we'll also serve hot apple cider to the parents passing by as well as ginger snaps, cheese ball with crackers and caramel apple slices. I'm actually looking forward to the whole thing!
This is all for now. Tomorrow is the other "that time of year." Time for a check-up (check-in?) with Dr. Markus. I left my blood at the lab early in the week.
(To their great puzzlement:
"Where is your port?"
"I had it removed in July. I called ahead of time to tell you this would be an arm draw. . ." Long pause. "Why would you get it removed?" Long pause on my part. . .
"Because I'm done with treatment...?..." Another long pause.
"So, putting it in is easier than keeping it in?"
Now, genuine confusion on my part. Why would I have kept it? Doesn't she know that you have to flush your port every 3 to 4 weeks if you're not actually using it?)
They will scan it, looking for certain markers that will indicate the presence of--or lack of--cancer in a body. This is the appointment where Dr. Science would say, "You are in remission."
I'll write before going to sleep on Monday with a full report. I'm sure you all miss hearing about him. I know I miss seeing him. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Chicago and My Ever After
I’ve gone there and back since I last wrote. The days before departure were hectic with preparations. The days after returning were muddled with playing catch-up. All the while, I thought, “I should have done my homework ahead of time and had posts scheduled to go up on Sundays.”
But almost everything that starts with “should” is something I don’t want to do. This is the problem with e-mail and blogs and, if I were ever to take the plunge, facebook: I like them when I want to use them. When I don’t, they hover on the horizon each day as something I “should” do.
Bah!
***
It is October again. No longer do we need the trees or pumpkins or vests applique’d with scarecrows to tip us off. Ditch the calendar. We have pink.
You all know my feelings on this. As I become farther removed from treatment, I’m getting more critical. And noticing how pink exercises a certain tyranny. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t had breast cancer is allowed to be critical of it. What kind of jerk would say, “I think we’re aware enough, don’t you? What are they spending those pink portions of profit on, anyway?”
But I think some people are with me on this. I was at the egg case in the commissary. I picked out a dozen and a half box, noted that a portion of the profit Egglands Best would make on that box with “go to fight breast cancer,” and then opened the lid to check them for cracks.
Staring back at me were 18 Susan G. Komen running ribbons. Every egg had been stamped.
I remarked to a guy standing next to me, “This ribbon is everywhere!”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. A daring display on his part.
***
As I wrapped up that shopping trip, I asked myself what about the pink ribbons bothered me so much more than last year. I realized that seeing them infringed upon my sense of closure. Kind of like: Will I ever be done with this?
I wrote the story of breast cancer. I am still writing it in that I sense the memoir should not end with the last surgery, or the last treatment, or with Dr. Science telling me that the scan has come back clean. (A scan I will take in about 3 weeks.) Bryan and I are forever changed by our experience with this disease. I think a few pictures of that change belong in the story.
But when will it end? When will I stop thinking, “And now, ladies and gentlemen: the rest of my life!”
It seems cerebral as I write it here, but as I loaded Bryan’s yogurts into my cart (each of which had a pink ribbon. . .) I was nearly crying.
A couple paces down, I turned from the shredded cheese to see a tall man coming towards me with a Creighton shirt on. I caught his eye and said, “Go Bluejays!”
And then realized who he was: one of the ICU nurses at Evans who tended to me following that first surgery. I asked him if he was a nurse there, then reminded him who I was.
He said, “Oh that’s right. . . but you didn’t really need to be in the ICU.”
Right, I recalled. It was a precaution because my surgeon thought he might have dropped my lung. The nurse chuckled at this.
(I think medical professionals like to hear about mistakes surgeons make so long as they don’t hurt anyone. Surgeons are the confident-jocks-big-men-and-women-on-campus. There is a certain rejoicing among the others when they biff it. I don’t think I ever remarked on that last year when I observed it.)
I caught up quickly with this nurse—done with treatment, feeling good and so forth. His wife came up the aisle towards him, and instead of making him tread the HIPPA line, I said, “Thanks again,” and rolled on.
Seeing the nurse who had stripped my drainage tubes in the middle of the night while I’m grocery shopping? Geez. Either I’ll need to manufacture or decide on my own ending to this story, or it will never end.
***
Travel with the kids to Chicago was great. They each had their own airplane TV to watch. That kind of cartoon access was a Top 10 highlight for them.
***
We got to enjoy a lot of time with my family. I saw all of my sisters (except #1, who was travelling—but, bonus!—this meant my parents were already slated to housesit for them and take care of the cats. And that home happens to be in downtown Chicago. More later on city adventures).
I soaked up one of parenthood’s unexpected pleasures: seeing my kids play with their cousins. And what a terrific herd of children those cousins are together. No one sour in the bunch. All of them for each other. I just loved it.
***
Speaking of children, we spent a day with my friend, Sarah (a.k.a. SEL) and her two children. Another delight. We walked up to Visitation, our alma mader, where we met in 6th grade, to pick up her son, Luke, from kindergarten.
We arrived to find a line of cones in the parking lot with a crowd of mothers and strollers standing behind it, waiting for the classes to get out.
Sarah and I and the kids, however, were standing in front of the cones, in no particular order.
“Are we in the right place?” I kept asking Sarah. Yes, sure, she repeated.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling: at any moment, a nun is going to pop out and tell me that I am wrong. About something.
***
We rounded out our day together at a park. The kids played hard. Sarah and I remarked that here we were, 20+ years down the road: The Mommies at the Playground.
***
We spent 5 days downtown. Sister #1 has two cats, one of which didn’t want much to do with us, the other, Sammie, was very social.
Joshua was dazzled at how Sammie could jump up to the top of a thin wall divider, by how he stalked his little cat toy, by how he purred.
Gemma couldn’t have cared. Surprising, really, because she’s a nurturing kind of girl.
After 5 days with this cat, I wanted one myself, for one reason: Every time I looked at him, how he moved, how his fur was striped, how his little white chin jutted out, I found myself marveling at his Creator. Seriously. I looked at Sammie and then thought, “God is amazing. Creating a work like this would be a lifetime achievement for me. Yet, he’s just one of a billion miracles of God.”
By the time we got home, I had decided I don’t want to deal with cat hair.
***
Each day, we went on a little adventure with my mom, got home in mid-afternoon, rested a bit, then played at the park down the street before dinner and bedtime.
We went to Navy Pier on Monday. Saw many people wearing their Chicago Marathon Finisher shirts from the day before. They were all walking funny.
One guy, not as much. I remarked, “Looks like you’re walking OK!” He shook his head and said, “Downhill is murder.”
On Tuesday, the Art Institute. The key to enjoying a place like that with kids is going in with no expectations of them. They loved the Thorne miniature rooms. They liked seeing the Serraut in person. They were underwhelmed by the Rembrants. (“But, kids! Those are the actual paintings we have only before seen in books!”)
On Wednesday, we took the train out to Naperville to meet Sister #4 and her 3 kids and went to the DuPage County Children’s Museum. Very well-executed place. Plus, we rode on the upper deck of a double-decker commuter train, which G and J had not even known existed.
On Thursday, we strolled on Michigan avenue and did a bit of shopping, most notably at the Lego store. Who knew Legos could build so much?
On Friday: home. Another great trip. Colorado Springs smelled really good.
***
What’s that? The reason we went? Right. Friday Night Fun for Funding.
Sarah, who did all the organizing, and I didn’t say up front what we were hoping for. I guess at least 100 guests. At $20 a piece, I guess: $2000. I don’t know. . .
What happened? A crowd of about 100. Plus several on-line donations from people who couldn’t make it. All told: $6700. Wow. I mean—wow. What generosity! And, I think, goes to show how far and deep cancer touches.
Why a night like that? I guess. . .after our big ParTAY, our grand celebration of looking forward after a hard season, it just didn’t feel right to move along as though I had no obligation to people who came before me. God used a state of the art medicine to heal me, and that medicine would not have been developed if other people hadn’t paid a foundation to pay a scientist to do the work.
In a most basic sense, I wanted to both pay something back and, when I think of people I love being diagnosed at some point in the future, pay something forward.
And I’m so thankful to have a friend like Sarah who would help me discharge this responsibility, and a family and community that was so glad to jump in.
One more happy chapter in a story that goes on.
But almost everything that starts with “should” is something I don’t want to do. This is the problem with e-mail and blogs and, if I were ever to take the plunge, facebook: I like them when I want to use them. When I don’t, they hover on the horizon each day as something I “should” do.
Bah!
***
It is October again. No longer do we need the trees or pumpkins or vests applique’d with scarecrows to tip us off. Ditch the calendar. We have pink.
You all know my feelings on this. As I become farther removed from treatment, I’m getting more critical. And noticing how pink exercises a certain tyranny. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t had breast cancer is allowed to be critical of it. What kind of jerk would say, “I think we’re aware enough, don’t you? What are they spending those pink portions of profit on, anyway?”
But I think some people are with me on this. I was at the egg case in the commissary. I picked out a dozen and a half box, noted that a portion of the profit Egglands Best would make on that box with “go to fight breast cancer,” and then opened the lid to check them for cracks.
Staring back at me were 18 Susan G. Komen running ribbons. Every egg had been stamped.
I remarked to a guy standing next to me, “This ribbon is everywhere!”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. A daring display on his part.
***
As I wrapped up that shopping trip, I asked myself what about the pink ribbons bothered me so much more than last year. I realized that seeing them infringed upon my sense of closure. Kind of like: Will I ever be done with this?
I wrote the story of breast cancer. I am still writing it in that I sense the memoir should not end with the last surgery, or the last treatment, or with Dr. Science telling me that the scan has come back clean. (A scan I will take in about 3 weeks.) Bryan and I are forever changed by our experience with this disease. I think a few pictures of that change belong in the story.
But when will it end? When will I stop thinking, “And now, ladies and gentlemen: the rest of my life!”
It seems cerebral as I write it here, but as I loaded Bryan’s yogurts into my cart (each of which had a pink ribbon. . .) I was nearly crying.
A couple paces down, I turned from the shredded cheese to see a tall man coming towards me with a Creighton shirt on. I caught his eye and said, “Go Bluejays!”
And then realized who he was: one of the ICU nurses at Evans who tended to me following that first surgery. I asked him if he was a nurse there, then reminded him who I was.
He said, “Oh that’s right. . . but you didn’t really need to be in the ICU.”
Right, I recalled. It was a precaution because my surgeon thought he might have dropped my lung. The nurse chuckled at this.
(I think medical professionals like to hear about mistakes surgeons make so long as they don’t hurt anyone. Surgeons are the confident-jocks-big-men-and-women-on-campus. There is a certain rejoicing among the others when they biff it. I don’t think I ever remarked on that last year when I observed it.)
I caught up quickly with this nurse—done with treatment, feeling good and so forth. His wife came up the aisle towards him, and instead of making him tread the HIPPA line, I said, “Thanks again,” and rolled on.
Seeing the nurse who had stripped my drainage tubes in the middle of the night while I’m grocery shopping? Geez. Either I’ll need to manufacture or decide on my own ending to this story, or it will never end.
***
Travel with the kids to Chicago was great. They each had their own airplane TV to watch. That kind of cartoon access was a Top 10 highlight for them.
***
We got to enjoy a lot of time with my family. I saw all of my sisters (except #1, who was travelling—but, bonus!—this meant my parents were already slated to housesit for them and take care of the cats. And that home happens to be in downtown Chicago. More later on city adventures).
I soaked up one of parenthood’s unexpected pleasures: seeing my kids play with their cousins. And what a terrific herd of children those cousins are together. No one sour in the bunch. All of them for each other. I just loved it.
***
Speaking of children, we spent a day with my friend, Sarah (a.k.a. SEL) and her two children. Another delight. We walked up to Visitation, our alma mader, where we met in 6th grade, to pick up her son, Luke, from kindergarten.
We arrived to find a line of cones in the parking lot with a crowd of mothers and strollers standing behind it, waiting for the classes to get out.
Sarah and I and the kids, however, were standing in front of the cones, in no particular order.
“Are we in the right place?” I kept asking Sarah. Yes, sure, she repeated.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling: at any moment, a nun is going to pop out and tell me that I am wrong. About something.
***
We rounded out our day together at a park. The kids played hard. Sarah and I remarked that here we were, 20+ years down the road: The Mommies at the Playground.
***
We spent 5 days downtown. Sister #1 has two cats, one of which didn’t want much to do with us, the other, Sammie, was very social.
Joshua was dazzled at how Sammie could jump up to the top of a thin wall divider, by how he stalked his little cat toy, by how he purred.
Gemma couldn’t have cared. Surprising, really, because she’s a nurturing kind of girl.
After 5 days with this cat, I wanted one myself, for one reason: Every time I looked at him, how he moved, how his fur was striped, how his little white chin jutted out, I found myself marveling at his Creator. Seriously. I looked at Sammie and then thought, “God is amazing. Creating a work like this would be a lifetime achievement for me. Yet, he’s just one of a billion miracles of God.”
By the time we got home, I had decided I don’t want to deal with cat hair.
***
Each day, we went on a little adventure with my mom, got home in mid-afternoon, rested a bit, then played at the park down the street before dinner and bedtime.
We went to Navy Pier on Monday. Saw many people wearing their Chicago Marathon Finisher shirts from the day before. They were all walking funny.
One guy, not as much. I remarked, “Looks like you’re walking OK!” He shook his head and said, “Downhill is murder.”
On Tuesday, the Art Institute. The key to enjoying a place like that with kids is going in with no expectations of them. They loved the Thorne miniature rooms. They liked seeing the Serraut in person. They were underwhelmed by the Rembrants. (“But, kids! Those are the actual paintings we have only before seen in books!”)
On Wednesday, we took the train out to Naperville to meet Sister #4 and her 3 kids and went to the DuPage County Children’s Museum. Very well-executed place. Plus, we rode on the upper deck of a double-decker commuter train, which G and J had not even known existed.
On Thursday, we strolled on Michigan avenue and did a bit of shopping, most notably at the Lego store. Who knew Legos could build so much?
On Friday: home. Another great trip. Colorado Springs smelled really good.
***
What’s that? The reason we went? Right. Friday Night Fun for Funding.
Sarah, who did all the organizing, and I didn’t say up front what we were hoping for. I guess at least 100 guests. At $20 a piece, I guess: $2000. I don’t know. . .
What happened? A crowd of about 100. Plus several on-line donations from people who couldn’t make it. All told: $6700. Wow. I mean—wow. What generosity! And, I think, goes to show how far and deep cancer touches.
Why a night like that? I guess. . .after our big ParTAY, our grand celebration of looking forward after a hard season, it just didn’t feel right to move along as though I had no obligation to people who came before me. God used a state of the art medicine to heal me, and that medicine would not have been developed if other people hadn’t paid a foundation to pay a scientist to do the work.
In a most basic sense, I wanted to both pay something back and, when I think of people I love being diagnosed at some point in the future, pay something forward.
And I’m so thankful to have a friend like Sarah who would help me discharge this responsibility, and a family and community that was so glad to jump in.
One more happy chapter in a story that goes on.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Port Removal
I wonder now why I didn't write about my port removal procedure.
Yeah, it was a busy summer. Yeah, we were at Grand Lake the weekend after it came out, so there were other things to share. But I think now that I just felt so done with medical appointments that I figured anyone who has been reading along surely also felt done with them, too.
But some funny things happened. It'd be a shame to forget them. . .
We travel back to mid-July. I knew already that Mayfield would not be there to cross the finish line with us because the Army--in its persistent crusade to make its best people hate their employer--had moved up Mayfield's deployment date from September to late May. With less than a week's notice. (Which means he and his wife had to cancel their vacation to Germany, too!)
No one's asking for violins, here. I'm telling you that in order to tell you this: In the midst of last-minute preparations and the intense pressure couples endure before saying goodbye for un-natural lengths of time, Mayfield both faxed in paperwork to assure my continuity of care when our insurance switched from active duty to retired coverage AND he spoke with the surgeon at the hospital he recommended to remove my port.
So. One last round of applause for my awesome surgeon.
The guy he recommended got the nod for one single reason: I wanted to keep my port. Patients are not allowed, by regulation, to keep their ports. But Dr. Golden (that's a code name) has selected 06, and Colonels are kind of. . . not messed with in hospitals. Colonels have already passed 20 years, and so they are "working for half-pay" and generally could be earning much more outside the military.
They don't get fired for letting patients keep ports.
I went to my appointment with Dr. Golden on a Tuesday afternoon with the expectation that I could get on his schedule in 2 to 3 weeks. (That was the time when I felt a painful lump and was assured it was scar tissue and not returning cancer.)
Dr. Golden is a quiet, little man. Friendly enough. Not cold. Not super warm. Very clinical. As I sat there answering his standard questions, I thought, "Thank You, God, that I did not have to experience this past year with this surgeon."
Dr. Golden was quiet for several seconds, after the last answer. Then he said, "Are you free tomorrow?" At which the Golden-o-meter shot up about 17 points. Tell me what time to be here. . .
Bryan drove me down and stayed with the kids in the waiting room. On the way to the office, I ran into a woman in the corridor who was leaving pediatrics. I stopped and said, "I know you. . ." It was Su, a friend from Korea I had known 5 years earlier. Her husband is now stationed in the Springs.
Well. It had been 5 years. We hadn't been close--just knew each other from a Bible study on Post. How much do you say in a 2 minute conversation? On one hand, there was the question of "What are you doing in a hospital?" On the other hand, wasn't the fact that I had breast cancer now just another piece of my history? No longer 'What is going on with you?' and how often do we need to tell each other 'What was going on'?
Still. Good to see her. And what were the chances?. . .
Once I checked in, I was taken to a room across the hall from the offices and exam rooms I'd been sitting in all year and this procedure room didn't look too different. Better lighting, of course. More stuff. A crash cart. . .
The nurse assisting was a man. Some middle-aged guy. Very sociable. Told me a funny story about Mayfield.
[What's that? You want to hear it? Well. . . So Mayfield was doing some kind of stitching and he left the thread on the body. The nurse's words: "And I asked him the wrong way--because what I meant was, 'Which procedure are you going to use at this point because there's 2 different ways to do it?' But what I said was, 'Are you going to leave that there?' And he turned to me and said, totally stone-faced, 'I've done these before. . .'"
Heh heh. That is not a Mayfield story. That is a surgeon story. These people have to be like this. How else are they going to cut human bodies open and muck around with their insides?]
The nurse turned on a soft-pop music station and assured me that most patients found this palatable. I said, "Hey--whatever Dr. Golden wants to listen to!"
Which prompted the nurse to tell a Dr. Golden story.
[What's that? OK, OK. . .]
Following a 4 hour surgery, this nurse witnessed the surgical team exit the OR with eyes rolling and great exhaustion in their step. "That took forever," they complained.
4 hours? That's nothing!
"No, no, no," they explained. "Dr. Golden had one CD going the entire time: the Oklahoma! soundtrack. The entire time!"
I badly wanted to talk about Oklahoma! with Dr. Golden during the procedure because I payed the part of Aunt Eller at the pinnacle of my theater career. But I didn't want to get the nurse into trouble with the doctor, and how else would I know to bring it up if the nurse hadn't been gossipping?
Here's something interesting about that afternoon. I was unclothed, of course, from the waist up as I lay awake on the table. With two men in the room. And I didn't feel an ounce of self-consciousness.
The nurse sat to my right. The port was in my left. Dr. Golden flipped open the surgical fabrics to isolate the work area and then he settled them on me. He examined the scar from the the port installation and after some time, commented, "You have some abrasion here."
I popped my head up to look, the fabric was in the way, so I pressed it down to better see, whence he said, "Don't touch that."
Too late, of course.
He had to re-dress the area with a new set of sterile fabrics. I could not help but comment, after apologizing, "You know, when you opened the first set, I saw particles of dust puff off of them in the light. So, really, how sterile could this fabric be?"
He said, simply, "Those were sterile particles of dust."
I do not know if he was joking. . .
But none of this stopped me from chatting with him throughout. Why does he stay in the Army? Because he likes taking care of soldiers. And their families. Somehow we got to talking about pets and he does not have cats, but his wife does and he lives with them. And where he was from. And where we went to school. And on with all kinds of other chit chat.
Which was interrupted by his statement to the nurse, "I'm going to need a BOVIE." The nurse hopped up, got something out, told me it wouldn't hurt, but to be aware that it would be very cold, so don't sit up from the shock.
Then he slapped a very cold adhesive patch to my right chest wall and plugged me in. "You might see smoke," the nurse said, "Don't worry."
"Smoke?" I asked. Silence.
"Are you plugging that end in?" I asked.
"Just grounding you," he said.
Oh. OK. Right.
Wait. Grounding me????
Then I heard sizzlin' and poppin'. And I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I learned later what I suspected, and why the nurse had not done much to explain what a BOVIE is.
It's a cauterizing tool.
You can google that if you want to. I have easy-queasy sisters to think about here.
I could have done the whole thing as an out-patient, you know, with the use of a knock-me-out drug. But as much as I love a good ether story, I didn't want to have to go through a 2 hour check-in appointment on one day and then show up for an early report time for the actual procedure. I wanted convenience.
And I wanted to know what it's like to be awake while someone cuts your skin open and digs a hunk of titanium out of it.
Answer: Not as horrifying as you'd expect.
I couldn't see anything. I felt several pin pricks when he injected the local anesthesia and then had no way to know when or what he was slicing. The messing around he did in there sounded a little like. . . a dog chewing chicken. There was definitely the sound of sinew disturbed. And the BOVIE, well, that made sounds, too.
At one point, Dr. Golden remarked that it should be out, but wasn't coming out. Then I felt--and reported--a sharp pulling from the inside at the farthest right point of where I imagined the port sat.
Aha. Another stitch.
Moments later, it was out--which I didn't feel at all--and moments after that, I was stitched shut. Moments after that, it was thank you and good-bye, Dr. Golden. I haven't seen him since.
The nurse flushed the port out for me. It's purple. Kind of iridescent. Heavy. Shaped like a rounded triangle, almost like a heart. I keep it on my bathroom counter with the ambition of having a jeweler turn it into a key chain. For now, I like seeing it every morning, there, on the counter, unused.
I put it into a little bag and walked back into the waiting room. The kids had no idea what a big moment it was. For Bryan and me, it was the kind of moment you couldn't say anything about. He just hugged me.
Then Josh started crying over not being allowed to finish watching the cartoon on the waiting room screen and Gemma wanted to know what was in the bag. And the moment was over as the rest of our life beckoned us.
Yeah, it was a busy summer. Yeah, we were at Grand Lake the weekend after it came out, so there were other things to share. But I think now that I just felt so done with medical appointments that I figured anyone who has been reading along surely also felt done with them, too.
But some funny things happened. It'd be a shame to forget them. . .
We travel back to mid-July. I knew already that Mayfield would not be there to cross the finish line with us because the Army--in its persistent crusade to make its best people hate their employer--had moved up Mayfield's deployment date from September to late May. With less than a week's notice. (Which means he and his wife had to cancel their vacation to Germany, too!)
No one's asking for violins, here. I'm telling you that in order to tell you this: In the midst of last-minute preparations and the intense pressure couples endure before saying goodbye for un-natural lengths of time, Mayfield both faxed in paperwork to assure my continuity of care when our insurance switched from active duty to retired coverage AND he spoke with the surgeon at the hospital he recommended to remove my port.
So. One last round of applause for my awesome surgeon.
The guy he recommended got the nod for one single reason: I wanted to keep my port. Patients are not allowed, by regulation, to keep their ports. But Dr. Golden (that's a code name) has selected 06, and Colonels are kind of. . . not messed with in hospitals. Colonels have already passed 20 years, and so they are "working for half-pay" and generally could be earning much more outside the military.
They don't get fired for letting patients keep ports.
I went to my appointment with Dr. Golden on a Tuesday afternoon with the expectation that I could get on his schedule in 2 to 3 weeks. (That was the time when I felt a painful lump and was assured it was scar tissue and not returning cancer.)
Dr. Golden is a quiet, little man. Friendly enough. Not cold. Not super warm. Very clinical. As I sat there answering his standard questions, I thought, "Thank You, God, that I did not have to experience this past year with this surgeon."
Dr. Golden was quiet for several seconds, after the last answer. Then he said, "Are you free tomorrow?" At which the Golden-o-meter shot up about 17 points. Tell me what time to be here. . .
Bryan drove me down and stayed with the kids in the waiting room. On the way to the office, I ran into a woman in the corridor who was leaving pediatrics. I stopped and said, "I know you. . ." It was Su, a friend from Korea I had known 5 years earlier. Her husband is now stationed in the Springs.
Well. It had been 5 years. We hadn't been close--just knew each other from a Bible study on Post. How much do you say in a 2 minute conversation? On one hand, there was the question of "What are you doing in a hospital?" On the other hand, wasn't the fact that I had breast cancer now just another piece of my history? No longer 'What is going on with you?' and how often do we need to tell each other 'What was going on'?
Still. Good to see her. And what were the chances?. . .
Once I checked in, I was taken to a room across the hall from the offices and exam rooms I'd been sitting in all year and this procedure room didn't look too different. Better lighting, of course. More stuff. A crash cart. . .
The nurse assisting was a man. Some middle-aged guy. Very sociable. Told me a funny story about Mayfield.
[What's that? You want to hear it? Well. . . So Mayfield was doing some kind of stitching and he left the thread on the body. The nurse's words: "And I asked him the wrong way--because what I meant was, 'Which procedure are you going to use at this point because there's 2 different ways to do it?' But what I said was, 'Are you going to leave that there?' And he turned to me and said, totally stone-faced, 'I've done these before. . .'"
Heh heh. That is not a Mayfield story. That is a surgeon story. These people have to be like this. How else are they going to cut human bodies open and muck around with their insides?]
The nurse turned on a soft-pop music station and assured me that most patients found this palatable. I said, "Hey--whatever Dr. Golden wants to listen to!"
Which prompted the nurse to tell a Dr. Golden story.
[What's that? OK, OK. . .]
Following a 4 hour surgery, this nurse witnessed the surgical team exit the OR with eyes rolling and great exhaustion in their step. "That took forever," they complained.
4 hours? That's nothing!
"No, no, no," they explained. "Dr. Golden had one CD going the entire time: the Oklahoma! soundtrack. The entire time!"
I badly wanted to talk about Oklahoma! with Dr. Golden during the procedure because I payed the part of Aunt Eller at the pinnacle of my theater career. But I didn't want to get the nurse into trouble with the doctor, and how else would I know to bring it up if the nurse hadn't been gossipping?
Here's something interesting about that afternoon. I was unclothed, of course, from the waist up as I lay awake on the table. With two men in the room. And I didn't feel an ounce of self-consciousness.
The nurse sat to my right. The port was in my left. Dr. Golden flipped open the surgical fabrics to isolate the work area and then he settled them on me. He examined the scar from the the port installation and after some time, commented, "You have some abrasion here."
I popped my head up to look, the fabric was in the way, so I pressed it down to better see, whence he said, "Don't touch that."
Too late, of course.
He had to re-dress the area with a new set of sterile fabrics. I could not help but comment, after apologizing, "You know, when you opened the first set, I saw particles of dust puff off of them in the light. So, really, how sterile could this fabric be?"
He said, simply, "Those were sterile particles of dust."
I do not know if he was joking. . .
But none of this stopped me from chatting with him throughout. Why does he stay in the Army? Because he likes taking care of soldiers. And their families. Somehow we got to talking about pets and he does not have cats, but his wife does and he lives with them. And where he was from. And where we went to school. And on with all kinds of other chit chat.
Which was interrupted by his statement to the nurse, "I'm going to need a BOVIE." The nurse hopped up, got something out, told me it wouldn't hurt, but to be aware that it would be very cold, so don't sit up from the shock.
Then he slapped a very cold adhesive patch to my right chest wall and plugged me in. "You might see smoke," the nurse said, "Don't worry."
"Smoke?" I asked. Silence.
"Are you plugging that end in?" I asked.
"Just grounding you," he said.
Oh. OK. Right.
Wait. Grounding me????
Then I heard sizzlin' and poppin'. And I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I learned later what I suspected, and why the nurse had not done much to explain what a BOVIE is.
It's a cauterizing tool.
You can google that if you want to. I have easy-queasy sisters to think about here.
I could have done the whole thing as an out-patient, you know, with the use of a knock-me-out drug. But as much as I love a good ether story, I didn't want to have to go through a 2 hour check-in appointment on one day and then show up for an early report time for the actual procedure. I wanted convenience.
And I wanted to know what it's like to be awake while someone cuts your skin open and digs a hunk of titanium out of it.
Answer: Not as horrifying as you'd expect.
I couldn't see anything. I felt several pin pricks when he injected the local anesthesia and then had no way to know when or what he was slicing. The messing around he did in there sounded a little like. . . a dog chewing chicken. There was definitely the sound of sinew disturbed. And the BOVIE, well, that made sounds, too.
At one point, Dr. Golden remarked that it should be out, but wasn't coming out. Then I felt--and reported--a sharp pulling from the inside at the farthest right point of where I imagined the port sat.
Aha. Another stitch.
Moments later, it was out--which I didn't feel at all--and moments after that, I was stitched shut. Moments after that, it was thank you and good-bye, Dr. Golden. I haven't seen him since.
The nurse flushed the port out for me. It's purple. Kind of iridescent. Heavy. Shaped like a rounded triangle, almost like a heart. I keep it on my bathroom counter with the ambition of having a jeweler turn it into a key chain. For now, I like seeing it every morning, there, on the counter, unused.
I put it into a little bag and walked back into the waiting room. The kids had no idea what a big moment it was. For Bryan and me, it was the kind of moment you couldn't say anything about. He just hugged me.
Then Josh started crying over not being allowed to finish watching the cartoon on the waiting room screen and Gemma wanted to know what was in the bag. And the moment was over as the rest of our life beckoned us.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Friday Night Fun for Funding!
This idea has been cooking for several months. You can read about the event on my earlier blog. You know. The one that was not about cancer. . .
That is where I have posted for this week as we head into the publicity stage of the process. It's not great timing, actually, as I have a story to tell you about the two policemen who were standing on our porch this morning as neighbors looked on.
Alas. Superhero business comes first.
The other blog: The Big "C"
That is where I have posted for this week as we head into the publicity stage of the process. It's not great timing, actually, as I have a story to tell you about the two policemen who were standing on our porch this morning as neighbors looked on.
Alas. Superhero business comes first.
The other blog: The Big "C"
Sunday, September 19, 2010
B, G and J Day: Part of the Problem
From the bottom up, this time. And with a little "A!" thrown in.
A!: Bryan and I both take the kids to swim lessons at the Peterson AFB indoor pool on T and Th evenings. We lap swim while they do their thing. (And they're both really good for their ages. It's fun to watch them.)
I completed 7 laps on Thursday. That's 14 lengths, which is 350 yards. Of course, I caught my breath after each round trip. Still. This marks my progress. I can actually think about something else while swimming, the strokes are becoming that natural.
Does that sound lame? To have to concentrate so hard on something as simple as a free style swim? Part of the problem for me had been is that I am super-sensitive to water up the nose. Just a tiny bit really hurts. So I started wearing a nose plug and voila! 350 yards!
Did I mention that I was wearing foot-fins during this swim? Hey. If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.
G and J:
The other day, I made lunch for myself and the kids. That is, I re-heated the pizza we had made the night before and that Gemma had gladly eaten.
This time, she looked at it, grimmaced and asked if she could make herself a PBJ instead. I told her "no." Because that's the kind of mother I am.
Josh and I finished up while Gemma sat at the table, pouting. Not eating.
I had several things to get together before moving on to our next thing, so I left the table and began darting around the house. Gemma snipped at me. I don't even remember what it was.
Josh asked, "Why did Gemma just say that?"
I said, "Because she's cranky."
She whined back, "No I'm not."
Josh said, "I think she's still cranky, Mom."
This made me laugh. And it annoyed Gemma. So he repeated it, "Gemma is cranky." This annoyed her further. I shook my head at him, making that non-verbal Mom-cue that he shouldn't say this. Then I went on with my tasks.
I headed down the stairs and heard him say, "I think Gemma's still cranky."
Gemma: "No, I'm not!"
Josh: "See? Still cranky!"
Gemma: "Josh!"
Josh: "See? Still cranky!"
Gemma: "Josh!!"
Josh: "See? Still cranky!"
Then two seconds of silence. Then the sound of Joshua wailing. By which time I was headed back up the stairs with my last item.
"Gemma pinched me!!" he reported.
Gemma's lips were closed tightly. I know my daughter's looks. She regretted hurting him.
I said, "That's what you get when you choose to annoy people on purpose." This made him scowl. It also made Gemma nod in vindication.
I told her, "We don't hurt people on purpose, even when they deserve it." And this satisfied Josh, too.
Then I looked at them both and sighed. "You two are both part of the problem." But they'll read this one day and see that their worst problems with each other are just another version of their delight.
B:
On Monday, Bryan began work as a Government Servant. He's still doing his same job at the same desk with the same e-mail and same co-workers. Through May, it was the US Navy that wrote out his paycheck. In June, July, August and part of September, it was a government contracting firm. And now it's the US government proper.
Timely, too. Secretary Gates just announced a 100% hiring freeze on all government servants in the military effective Thursday. So. . .is three days too long to be considered "the nick of time"?
How does this fit into today's theme?
Are you kidding me? Bryan's a government servant! This kind of makes him part of the problem. . .
A!: Bryan and I both take the kids to swim lessons at the Peterson AFB indoor pool on T and Th evenings. We lap swim while they do their thing. (And they're both really good for their ages. It's fun to watch them.)
I completed 7 laps on Thursday. That's 14 lengths, which is 350 yards. Of course, I caught my breath after each round trip. Still. This marks my progress. I can actually think about something else while swimming, the strokes are becoming that natural.
Does that sound lame? To have to concentrate so hard on something as simple as a free style swim? Part of the problem for me had been is that I am super-sensitive to water up the nose. Just a tiny bit really hurts. So I started wearing a nose plug and voila! 350 yards!
Did I mention that I was wearing foot-fins during this swim? Hey. If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.
G and J:
The other day, I made lunch for myself and the kids. That is, I re-heated the pizza we had made the night before and that Gemma had gladly eaten.
This time, she looked at it, grimmaced and asked if she could make herself a PBJ instead. I told her "no." Because that's the kind of mother I am.
Josh and I finished up while Gemma sat at the table, pouting. Not eating.
I had several things to get together before moving on to our next thing, so I left the table and began darting around the house. Gemma snipped at me. I don't even remember what it was.
Josh asked, "Why did Gemma just say that?"
I said, "Because she's cranky."
She whined back, "No I'm not."
Josh said, "I think she's still cranky, Mom."
This made me laugh. And it annoyed Gemma. So he repeated it, "Gemma is cranky." This annoyed her further. I shook my head at him, making that non-verbal Mom-cue that he shouldn't say this. Then I went on with my tasks.
I headed down the stairs and heard him say, "I think Gemma's still cranky."
Gemma: "No, I'm not!"
Josh: "See? Still cranky!"
Gemma: "Josh!"
Josh: "See? Still cranky!"
Gemma: "Josh!!"
Josh: "See? Still cranky!"
Then two seconds of silence. Then the sound of Joshua wailing. By which time I was headed back up the stairs with my last item.
"Gemma pinched me!!" he reported.
Gemma's lips were closed tightly. I know my daughter's looks. She regretted hurting him.
I said, "That's what you get when you choose to annoy people on purpose." This made him scowl. It also made Gemma nod in vindication.
I told her, "We don't hurt people on purpose, even when they deserve it." And this satisfied Josh, too.
Then I looked at them both and sighed. "You two are both part of the problem." But they'll read this one day and see that their worst problems with each other are just another version of their delight.
B:
On Monday, Bryan began work as a Government Servant. He's still doing his same job at the same desk with the same e-mail and same co-workers. Through May, it was the US Navy that wrote out his paycheck. In June, July, August and part of September, it was a government contracting firm. And now it's the US government proper.
Timely, too. Secretary Gates just announced a 100% hiring freeze on all government servants in the military effective Thursday. So. . .is three days too long to be considered "the nick of time"?
How does this fit into today's theme?
Are you kidding me? Bryan's a government servant! This kind of makes him part of the problem. . .
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