Why my son isn't special, and yours isn't either

Someone sent me a link to the (no longer airing) television show Psychic Kids the other day.

My son, the person contends, might be like these kids. Not socially maladjusted, probably, and not with these abilities, but he's got a special something. He's not like most kids. Check this show out.

I'd never watched it. I had a feeling it would just rile me up, and I was right. I felt dirty watching it. It really seems to border on child abuse. These smart, sensitive, fascinating kids were getting all the wrong messages; their parents were getting all the wrong messages; and no one was being helped. The kids want validation, guidance, understanding; and they can't get it except through exploitation and fakery.

But here's the thing: I kind of, sort of, understand where the parents are coming from.

No, not like that. I'm still me, after all. Rational, skeptical, wholly anti-woo. What I understand is the parents' urge to have their kids be special. Unique. Like really, really unique. Their talents are different from everyone else's talents, so of course their problems are different from everyone else's problems.

And they're right. The kids' talents and problems are unique, and difficult, and nuanced. Just like everyone's problems. Their kids are hard to reach, and their problems are hard to address. Just like all kids.

I see it in Arizona all the time, these two extremes. At one end, you have the hard, grizzled "I ain't buyin' this 'Everyone's a special snowflake' bullshit; now pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" guys. Think ranchers, cowboys, farmers. Everything is black and white. Every problem is easily addressed, and there's one -- and usually only one -- common-sense solution. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a namby-pamby idiot. At the other end, you have the froofy, kooky "We're just the universe getting to mystically know itself" crowd. Think UFOlogists, Sedona vortex seekers, and the folks who love to talk about the Phoenix Lights while showing you their crystal collection. (I actually had someone do this.) Now I truly love the grizzled Arizona frontiersman, and I love me some dreamy Sedona artists, but this is silly. Truth and validation are not magical, but neither are they simple. It's not always either "Here's your problem. I fixed it!" or "There is no answer on this physical realm." That's what I'm talking about with Psychic Kids.

It's entirely possible that these kids have more -- maybe much more -- talent and difficulty in some areas. The kids have mental issues and aptitudes that their peers won't understand. It's necessary to grant them this validation. However, it's just as likely, and just as necessary to express to the kids, that other children have issues and aptitudes that they don't have and won't understand. You don't get to be the star of the world. You don't even get to be the star of your own world. You're a spectator and participant, and it's infinitely better and more interesting that way.

Maybe these kids' talents and problems lie along more difficult-to-discern, difficult-to-deal-with lines. Maybe the parents decided they don't understand what their kids are going through -- which is fine; but then decided that it must be incomprehensible to anyone, paranormal -- which is not fine. You don't need to resort to magic for your kid to be special. Magic isn't real. Your kid's specialness is. Your kids problems are.

Am I one of those hippie parents who thinks everyone's a winner? Yeah. I guess I am.

But here's the difference: I'm not saying your (or your kid's) special beauty lies in some unable-to-be-grasped magical aura. I'm specifically saying it does not. It's real. You might not be able to grasp it, but it's graspable. It's concrete. You're special, and there are ways to find out how. You have problems, and there are ways to pin them down and address them. Same for your kid. Everyone is special. Everyone's a winner. This doesn't diminish the words "special" and "winner," because we all win at different categories. And we all suck royal donkey balls at several categories as well. Same for your kid.

Apparently (according to the original link sender), this makes me a closed-minded wet blanket. I don't see why. The choices aren't "My kid has black and white talents and foibles that I can readily describe" or "My kid is a magical starchild." Do you really think every kid but a select few is less complex, less nuanced, less worthy of wonder and consideration; than psychic kids, savants, "Indigo" children, "Crystal" children, kids with an affinity for animals, or whatever specialty your kid has? How is that better than "My football player can kick your honor student's ass?"

Of course I think my kid is the most special kid in the world. And it doesn't feel like an opinion. But it is an opinion, and none less valid for being one. He's the most special because of his unmatched (in my limited experience) imagination and way with animals, because of his intelligence and insight, because of his kindness, and yes, because of his flaws. (His ability to focus, for example, is so miniscule that while we were ice skating the other day he stopped, simply because he forgot to keep moving his legs. I'm relieved that breathing is involuntary.) His specialness is born from his specific set of characteristics as well as those of everyone he encounters. His shared experiences and private thoughts write a specific story that's his, and to a much lesser extent, mine and my husband's. His story is staggeringly beautiful. It is mind-searingly tiresome. It is heart-breakingly, uniquely painful. It is heart-meltingly amazing. I'm proud, touched, annoyed, exasperated, and amazed every moment that I'm with him. I try, from time to time, to share some of that with you. But here's the thing -- I share the qualities of it. I share the universal -- or near universal -- parts, including the universal happiness we all feel from witnessing someone's distinct footprint on the world. I share the details to show the beauty. I don't expect the details themselves to impress anyone, because I know they're not objectively special, at least not in the sense that they're unique to us. And they don't need to be. The whole package is special. Isn't that enough?

Which brings me back to what I suspect some of the Psychic Kids parents are doing. Their kids have talents, sensitivities, and problems that happen to be hard to put a finger on. Fine. So spend time with your kids. Validate them, even if your answer is "I believe you, but I don't know what is happening. There is a real answer out there. Let's find it together." Even if it takes a lifetime to find, even if you never find the answer. Because you'll make your own answer along the way, and it will be built of a million real things. Early morning cuddling and dinnertime fights. Walks through meadows in the golden hour and homework nagging. Sleepovers and playground fights. Snapshots by road signs and sinks full of dishes. Board games and cats and dogs and backyards and cookies and toys and baseball games and school dances and a million other things that won't be special to anyone on the planet but you and your kid. And that's fine. Think of the world you'll discover together. Think of the people he'll meet, who'll get to know him in return. He will grow up with volumes of special experiences. What's more, the understanding that it's the big picture that makes who we are, that no one's concerned about his mundane trivialities -- but only because each one of them is carrying a whole universe of their own, waiting to be explored -- I think he'll be infinitely better for it than if you told him he has magical powers and sent him to a spooky house with some wacko.

No fear

Someone told me again today. I should teach my son to fear. Revere? I asked. Respect? No, they said. Fear. A little fear is healthy.

The context doesn't matter. I've heard it many times. Fear strangers. Fear injury. Fear failure. Fear the other.

Fear God. Fear authority.

Fear me. His father.

Sometimes people actually say "fear" -- I am shocked, every time -- but sometimes, they only imply it. Better to fear injury than to be injured. Fearing parents means you obey them. Fearing the stove keeps you from being burned. Fearing gods saves your soul. You have to teach him to be afraid of something, don't you? You're not going to just teach him to go up to the whole world and ask it what's up, now, are you? What if THINGS HAPPEN?

Really, I can think of no more soul-crushing experience than fear. So yes; that's exactly what I'm doing. He'll know fear in his life, and I'm sad just knowing that. It's a natural, visceral reaction to evil or tragedy, I think, and it's understandable. But it should never be a strategy. It should never be a decision. I will never teach him to fear. For as long as possible, I'm going to keep him from really knowing fear. If I screw up everything else; I'm really, really proud of doing this one thing. It's not about being brave. It's about being alive.

Go on; change my mind. I'm completely serious. Tell me one single instance in which fear -- not caution, not prudence, not revulsion, but fear -- is the way to go. I'll make an exception.


You can't, can you?

What's up, world?

On being a better example

I wrote several things about the Tuscon shootings, first angry, then confused, then mostly just sad. Most never saw any eyes but my own, much less appeared on this blog. After everything, one bit stood out, however: on Sunday, as my son prepared to practice the clarinet (passed down from my father), I just watched him. I'd done a lot of extra kid watching since the shooting, not that it should take a tragedy like that to make me realize how damn lucky I am. But then something occurred to me, and I wrote:

So I don't know. I don't have anything new to offer about this tragedy, except maybe from the perspective of a perpetually analytical parent, and here's why: I'm a million times better as a person since having my kid, and not for the reasons you might think. It's not because I realized, holy cow, I have a human being to care for, and got my life together (though, to some extent, I did). It's not because I matured (I didn't), got all insta-lovey (I didn't), or hooked up with a network of other parents (I tried, and believe me, I can't). It's because, for the first time, I realized something that was true all along: There is someone who is paying attention to what I say and do.

Not all the time. But having my son just THERE, all the time, made me realize that, you know? This person sees me, really watches me. He has real expectations of me.

What you say, how you say it, and what you do have consequences, good and bad, far beyond what you might imagine.

Obama, of course, said it better, but I feel like I was on the same wavelength:

They are so deserving of our good example.

I want America to be as good as she imagined it.

Yes. Exactly.

I've justified my blog's title said all along that Arizona's true story is in its people. We lost some damn good ones. Let's all be better people, for them and for us, OK?

With apologies to all my out-of-state friends, Arizona is the most amazing state there is. Our sunsets are so unbelievable that other countries used to think photos of them were doctored propaganda images. You can't go out a door without seeing at least a few mountains, and we have this little hole in the ground you might have heard of. You can look down the Grand Canyon and look back in time, through billions of years in our planet's history. Our animals ... well, you know how I feel about our animals. We pretty much own the saguaro. We have a great art scene, seriously amazing food, and, well, I could go on for a while. And dude. I wore shorts today.

And the people, seriously. Arizona's got real, honest-to-goodness cowboys. (My mom's old boss used to say his top three priorities in life were 1) his horse; 2) his dog; and 3) his wife; in that order.) But it's the regular folks, mostly. I hear stories every day of people who help, always and extremely -- and half the time, I hear it in the course of reporting some other, unrelated thing, like it's a given and unimportant: Well, yeah; I was still in some pain from being shot and carjacked yesterday. I just figured, no one ELSE is going to help my friend move before he's kicked out. (Real example.) If you're ever visiting Arizona and decide to take a hike and run into an Arizonan, you can count on a brief lecture on heat and the importance of hydration, but you can also count on that person sharing his or her last quart of water.

Arizona rocks, everyone. Let's show it. Our kids deserve our good examples. These victims sure deserve it. We all deserve it. It won't make it better; it won't make it worth it, not by a very long shot. But it's a chance to honor them, and a chance to do what we should have been doing all along.

Let's make it count.

Because it can't be said enough: Vaccinate your kids

This has nothing to do with Arizona, per se. It also has nothing to do with me or my parenting, because it's not a decision on which I have ever wavered one scintilla since my son was born. We shall return to our regularly scheduled programming (I even might have a regular schedule! How d'ya like that?), but first, this:

Vaccinate your kids.

I'm sure you've all read by now -- the study's been known to be bogus for years and years now, but dangerous ignoramuses have made the issue much, much bigger than it ever had to be -- that the infamous 1998 Andrew Wakefield study linking autism and vaccines, published in the Lancet, is a fraud. This is slightly new news because not only have there been numerous studies since then showing no link between the two; not only have even the supposed "triggers" in vaccines been removed (no effect on autism rates was observed, except maybe a rise due, probably, to diagnostic improvements); not only have most of the co-authors dropped out and just about everyone disavowed the findings ... the study is out-and-out fraud. FRAUD. Fake. Garbage. Bullshit. And everyone knows it now.

So vaccinate your kids.

This moron is either lying through his teeth, or is in the deepest denial I've ever seen, but I don't really care which. Now avert your eyes if you are my mother, or are offended by strong language, because:

FUCK this guy.

Children have died because of what he started. Wakefield LIED in his study, he was hired by a lawyer who had it in for vaccine manufacturers, he refused to admit that he might possibly be wrong, other idiots took his bogus conclusions and ran with them, and rates of vaccine-preventable diseases -- death rates due to those diseases -- have risen. FUCK this guy.

If you were misled, I don't blame you at all. I realize I'm on the pretty extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to keeping up with these things, and probably even more extreme when it comes to detached, pragmatic, rational skepticism. I would contend that this is simply the right way to use one's brain, but I know there are drawbacks as well. I'm not so great at being sensitive. You, undoubtedly, are better at not pissing off your spouse or random Internet friends with extreme bluntness and an unquenchable need to correct others. And if you've been misled, anywhere along the way, I know it's not because you're stupid. You probably have a different circle of friends than I do. They are probably also smart parents. Many of them probably said, seemingly sensibly, that there must be something to this vaccine danger. Better safe than sorry. I get it. You were being the best parents you could.

But now it's out. It's all out; it's corroborated; you don't need to "trust the establishment." Independent researchers, doctors, reporters. They've all checked it out and come to the same conclusion. Everyone, really, but the ridiculous crack Wakefield, who might just be lying anyway. His study was FRAUD. Vaccines save lives. They do not cause (or "trigger") autism. If vaccines are readily available, and you decline to vaccinate your child, you're no less culpable than a parent who doesn't use a seat belt.

You ask me sometimes in messages, or on Facebook, or in parking lots, because you know I'm into this sort of thing. It's nothing like that this time, really. We're all "into" saving our kids. Maybe you refused vaccines before because you were trying to do just that. You were fed lies. Vaccinate your kids.

If you want to read more, here is the editorial in the British Medical journal, here is a CNN piece, and here is a slightly older comic that does a surprisingly good job explaining the whole thing. You can find countless other examples with the most cursory of Googling.

OK, OK. Inhale ... exhale. I'm not an angry person, really. If you have concerns / questions / commentary, if you agree or not, I really do want to hear about it. Are you still afraid to vaccinate your children? If you were, does this dispel any doubts? If not, what would?

Shrek, chimpanzees, world suffering, and an idea

My son. Awesome.

People ask me how I pose him. Short of the occasional "Do it again! Only over there, in the pretty light!" I don't. This stuff just happens. He throws his head back and laughs. Reaches out to brush a backlit weed. Sits on a stump, before a snowy canyon, and raises his arms to the sun, as if conducting photosynthesis of the soul. I don't arrange these things. They're just ... him.

It's the same with our conversations. Stuff I say is nothing compared to stuff he says sometimes. I couldn't plan it if I tried. Yesterday, an abrupt conversation went like this:

(Preceded by Fiona's announcement that she's pregnant in Shrek the Third): "I'm sad the baby died inside you."

"Well, yeah. Me too. But that was a long time ago now, and we have each other, and..."

"No, I mean, really. I would have made a good brother. I'd have my other arm around him-slash-her*, and I'd be a good brother."
*This is really how the kid talks. No they/them nonsense for him.

"I know. You would be."

"And this week one of our words is newborn, and I was telling my teacher about the baby, and it made me feel like crying. I didn't, but my cheeks did that thing. Not the throwing up thing. The fifty-percent-cry thing."

"Aw, sweetheart..."

"So what about chimps? And people in the earthquake place?"

"What about... What?"

"What about when they die? And people don't care? I want to be an animal expert and teach everyone about animals and the world for my job, and that one lady already does that for chimpanzees. But what about for now? Who does that for poor people? What about when the earthquake place is done being in the news, and they're still poor?"

"Well, there are ways we can help. We can talk to others, just like you're doing. We can realize jus how lucky we are. People who can are donating money, from all over the world, to help. Maybe some of those people will remember to care about it after the earthquake is old news."

"I want to donate money. Let's donate money."

"We really don't have any money right now."

"But we're rich!"

"Well, yes, we are. But as far as cash money, we are barely paying our own bills right now. We can find other ways -- remember that picture I sold online so money could go to Haiti?"

"OK. I want to do that."

"Do what?"

"Sell my pictures. Let's take them to a store. Can we take them to a store tomorrow? Then we'll send the money to the earthquake ... to Haiti. Or to other people who need it. Maybe to people in Haiti AND people here. We can do both."

"Well, that's a wonderful idea, but it's not quite that simple. If you don't do it one at a time and on the group I did, I don't know off the top of my head. You'd have to organize something..."

"OK. Let's do that, then. Because I want to help. And my pictures are good."

So now I'm trying to figure out if there's any hope of organizing some photo auction to raise money, or photo donations, or ways to get other people on board, preferably some in Arizona but online if that's a better way to go. I have no freaking idea. I don't do these things. But he woke up asking about it this morning, and he's serious.

And his pictures really are good.

Summertime and the living is easy (snapshots)

School's in -- around here, we start early, and his school starts earlier than most -- and I was afraid we'd squandered our vacation time. It flew by, and now it's back to work. Back to reality. Now we'll have even less time together. I was sad.

I was stupid. He thrives in school, as always. I'm almost eking out a routine that will actually produce some stuff. I'm getting stuff done around the house, and when I pick him up, we make sure to treasure our hours together. We're all getting into a routine, and it's far from drudgery. It's comforting.

Continuing another routine (hey, three times is good for me), here are the snapshots. His pictures, my words.

**He set up a notepad on the shelf of our backyard grill and took notes on everything: me ("Mom seems to enjoy taking pictures of the storm"), my husband ("Seems to have trouble telling boys from girls") (not what it sounds like), the cat ("Likes to smoosh his paw against the window and purr"), the birds ("Like to fly crazy in the clouds").**

**He wrote other stuff, but he said the rest is secret. He hunched over the tiny blue notepad, pencil scratching. The sun sank, casting bright platinum and gold strings, tracing his chin and upper lip, each fine hair along his arm, and the pencil in a glowing ribbon.**

**As I tried (in vain) to get work done in the afternoon, I heard "Hey. Hey! What's that spilling all over the coffee table?!" followed by the sound of pounding feet, frantic towel-fetching, and "Sorry! I'll get the carpet too. Sorry!" I drowned it out with the sound of fingers on keyboard.**

**A black cloud of some bird or other (we said doves, but they were so wild, so primal), now rippling along its ranks and now morphing and globbing like a giant amoeba, slowly made its erratic progress across a heavy slate gray sky. The three of us stood watching from our driveway as a fierce wind hurled dust and leaves into our eyes.**

**I dropped him off at school this morning, and instead of lining up he dawdled in a patch of tall grass. "I don't know what he's doing," I said, half-irritably, to no one in particular. "They're looking at spiderwebs in the grass," a neighboring mom told me. "Oh!" I replied. "Well that's fine then!" She looked at me as if I had said it was fine for them to poop in the hallways. My son glanced over, smiled, waved, and raced to line up.**

**After the spill in the living room, I continued to tune out my family as I heard the commencement of a raucous game of living room ball (the object of which appears to be to kick a ball about the living room until the cat is traumatized or something gets broken). My husband kicked the ball, which bounced off my son. "You hit me in the ASS!" he said. "Your what?" "My ass!" He replied, pointing, my husband later told me, to the front of himself. Discussion ensued. Some minutes later: "David! No one has one giant booby!" I snickered, gave it up and joined them.**

**I came in from working in the yard for an hour, dizzy and radiating heat. He ran to hug me. "You smell like the sun," he told me. "Thanks a lot," I said. Are you saying I smell sweaty?" He shook his head. "Nope. Just like the sun. It's beautiful."**

**He whined, groused, and dug in his heels about homework. Even counting to three in a threatening tone didn't work. "Fine," I said. "You can be grouchy alone."**

**Pink sunrise light streamed through his bedroom window. We moved getting-up time back ten minutes, and played with action figures on his bed.**

**Fifteen minutes after the homework confrontation, he crept into the office, walked silently up to me and kissed my cheek. "I'm sorry I was a grouch," he said. All his homework was done.**

**He brought me a curled brown leaf, probably left over from months ago and dislodged during yard clearing. It was wholly unremarkable. "Here," he said. "This one is special." I took it. I still have it.**

Harry situations

The world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters. --Sirius Black to Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Accio brain! --Ron Weasley to giant brain, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Also what some folks evidently need to say, provided they ever find theirs again.

[Warning: This post isn't intended to be spoilery, and it segues (very lamely and very briefly) to what this blog is meant to cover, but I'm not trying not to be spoilery. If you haven't read/watched through HP No. 6, be ye warned.]

Recently I've been receiving (or re-receiving, in most cases) a small mountain of correspondence in the form of forwarded e-mails ("FW: Fwd: FW: RE: FW: Re: Ur DESTROYING ur CHILDREN") relating to Harry Potter. It coincides with the theatrical release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. But really? I thought we were over this.

Even so, I'd be slightly sympathetic to (though not in agreement with) claims that the movie/book in this case is too dark or morally ambiguous for children under, say, ten to handle. I'm sympathetic enough to these claims to clam up when says so in my presence, instead of pointing out that my seven-year-old son is currently part of the way through Half-Blood Prince, scary stuff, complexities and all. And I'd be in agreement with some claims against the movie, namely the baffling absence of two nearly made-for-the-screen scenes at the end of the book, severe abridgment of dialogue, the removal (again) of the Dursleys, heavy dilution of the titular aspect of the book/film, and other issues.

That's not what these e-mails are about, of course. They're all the same. Though they all go into considerable pseudo-depth, decked out with numbers, bullet points, emoticons, and glittering smiling Jesuses; the upshot of every single one is: Witchraft = evil doings. Harry Potter teaches witchcraft. Kids learn witchcraft, turn evil. (Or, at least, the potential is there for them to learn to mutter incantations and sacrifice Fluffy at the next equinox. Or it might just desensitize them to occultism and they'll blithely hand over Fluffy. And really, who wants to take that chance?)

I take exception right away. Witchcraft isn't real, people. It isn't. It makes me want to restate it with all caps and periods after every word, it's so frustrating. Also, that's not what the Harry Potter series is about, any more than The Jungle Book is about the ability of animals to act in an anthropomorphic manner.

But what if kids don't realize that? What if they turn evil in some misguided quest to be like Harry?

But you know what; I say who cares, because the occult issue distracts from the bigger theme. What if kids don't know? Know what? The difference between real and fake? Between moral and immoral? Good and evil?

Kids are smarter and more nuanced than we acknowledge. If we've done a halfway decent job as parents, they can identify friendship and greed, right and wrong, Mom smiling indulgently and Mom looking like she wants to chuck me out the window of a moving car if I don't stop whining. In fact, if there's anything I really love about the Potter books lesson-wise, it's maintaining an understanding of these things in the face of ambiguity, flaws, and the startling realization that no one (not parents, not authority figures) is perfect. I think that's what makes people uncomfortable, even more than all that evil potion brewing. (For those who haven't read the books, the classes are used far more to show character interaction than magic. Potions, for example, resembles nothing so much as the dictatorship that was my seventh-grade Home Economics class.) It's easier to just tell our kids this is allowed; this is not. This is evil; this is good. Bad people lack love; good parents never make mistakes; teachers and parents and cops never screw up.

It is easier, and I think it's necessary -- almost constantly when they're young, and to some extent throughout childhood. There is a threshold at which parents, teachers, and other authority figures have to have authority just because, a trust from kids that they do know what's best even when kids imagine adults to be far stupider than themselves. But what happens when the teacher is unable to protect you from bullies? What happens when you see Mom and Dad bellowing at each other, slamming doors unnecessarily? If your positive view of them hinged on their supposed perfection, and you've gotten old enough to realize adults are flawed, what then?

The characters in the Potter universe work through these realizations. It is our choices that define who we are, Dumbledore tells Harry. Love and protection and friendship and loyalty are hard won and diligently maintained. Almost all the parents love their children fiercely, even a bad-guy mom, and in all these people, love is to be admired. Bad guys turn out to be good. Good guys turn out to be bad, owing to poor choices. Look more closely, the whole series nearly shouts. Really get to know.

We've used the series to spark a number of conversations, and none of them about wand waving. We do miss people who are gone. Parents aren't perfect, but the good ones never stop trying to be. They'd do anything for their kids, they just don't always do the right things. However, they usually do, and you'd better listen to them if you ever want to receive another Bakugan toy. I think he respects me for being honest. I know it makes him more honest. And it makes him want know more about us. He's taken to keeping notes on us, and it has nothing to do with what we give him or what we won't let him do. He cares about us, as people and as parents.

I wish the e-mail forwarders would look more closely, or at least modify their write-it-off-automatically policy. It's like how David looks at the natural world. Did you know cockroaches spread disease rampantly? That daddy-longlegs have the most potent venom? David knows otherwise, because these things aren't true. I'll keep him away from actual bad influence, as well as disease and deadly venoms, but he has an overwhelming desire to see what's really up with just about everything. To branch out. To discover nuances, freak out about them, make the wrong assumptions, and come around to an understanding about life he didn't previously have. To challenge himself. To question. I'll never keep him from that.

We hit the father lode

Last week at this time, my husband and I were planning to have lunch with my mother-in-law. As we contemplated if the restaurant would be packed and keep us waiting like a bunch of goobers (not good for an impatient perpetual motion machine kid, a hungry post-church mother-in-law and grandma-in-law, and a couple who manages to turn an idle ten minutes into a passive very aggressive whispered argument over who has been nicer to whom, vis-a-vis an incident the night before involving Tuna Helper), my husband said, "Well, isn't it Father's Day?" My heart/brain/facial expression melted. I raced through options in my head, rushed "secret" trips to the store/cards made/goodies baked, until I realized it wasn't that weekend -- I thought. But I wasn't sure. (I totally promise to be easy on you next year when you forget whether my birthday is on the second or third, babe.)

But others are much more on the ball, and I've been watching/reading a fair bit online the last few days about dads, their roles, their treatment, and so forth, in time for Father's Day.

The thing is, I've never really given much thought to "Do fathers get a raw deal," "Can they do just as good a job as mothers," or "Are fathers treated as second-class parents." Partly because my brain is busy thinking things like "Is the toilet going to flood our bathroom for a third time today," "Why on Earth did the universe entrust me with such an awesome kid and give me such a great partner," "Can we afford mortgage this month," "What the hell is that smell," "What's the difference between an eared grebe and a pied-billed grebe," and "Which Bakugan is blue, again?"

(Not necessarily in that order. Sometimes, though.)

(Yeah, these are all thoughts in my head at this moment.)

But it's also because my own family was never like that. Sure, there were times, many, that my mom was the "primary" rule giver, and when the shit (which, if it was there because of us, we'd better clean it up ourselves or ELSE) really hit the fan, she usually took charge at home because 1) she was the one home most often and 2) she was her (if you know her you'll know what I mean). But they were a team, and my father was about the most involved father one could possibly have. He taught me reading and humor and music appreciation and that Beach Boys are great if you're happy and Jim Croce is good if you're sad and how to be sarcastically snide to the music guy at Best Buy if he calls him "Jim Crochet." He taught me as much about baseball as is possible to cram into a three-year-old's head, and later, everything else about baseball. (I've fallen out of following it, but could still properly keep score in my sleep, backwards Ks and all, and I know that Ozzie Smith switch hit. Go crazy, folks.)

More than that, my dad was sort of a superdad. He was the popular teacher/coach at school, the goofy (though you can't really help but be goofy if you're as tall as a phone pole and wear SHORTS in front of 11- and 12-year-olds), sarcastic, teacher-it's-cool-to-like teacher. If a kid needed guidance or coaching or extra anything, he was there. We shared our dad often, and it somehow always seemed to add rather than take away in terms of his dad-ness.

I've written on my dad before. I pretty much idolized the guy. That, I always thought, is the standard by which all dads are to be measured. I have never exactly made a secret of how I felt.

So already, you can possibly see where my husband could have maybe felt pressured. Just a tad.

But it's not even that. I ... well, I don't hide it exactly, but there are some things I don't exactly broadcast. I used to think it was to not make my husband feel weird, or even my son. But it's me.

It's just: David didn't start out Aaron's.

But that's not how it is at all. The thing is, Aaron chose David. He chose both of us.

If I were telling another story, a romantic story, I’d tell here how my husband and I came to be married one December afternoon, with my son as ring bearer, how the ceremony went on to recognize the union of my husband and son as father and son. I’d tell how we all got to that point -- how Aaron and I had dated through high school and a few years afterward. How we had been the forever and ever couple. I’d tell about taking Aaron to my prom, unbothered when his family threw scandalized looks at my dress straps, as if this was exactly why their son had been home-schooled.

I’d tell the usual tired stories about betrayal and sex and school, and maybe some less-tired ones involving a diabetic coma (his), a black bear encounter (both of us, and we think a black bear), and even more daunting, encountering my mother after a particular indiscretion ("... and a teenage female, last name Henry-Ocean-Sam-Edward-Yellow. I think the male's head is about to implode from mortification. Wait, I just heard 'im yell 'Your mom has a POLICE SCANNER?!' I think I'm gonna make 'em wait a minute more, mess with 'em.") (Most definitely both of us, as my mother was delighted share).

I’d tell how our relationship had survived fights, only to disintegrate from stagnation. How it had nearly torn us both apart as individuals. How I’d dived headlong into a job I didn’t really like, met someone I didn’t really like, had a child, alone, and why I honestly never think about that man. I'd tell who Aaron had used that time to date. How, when we finally became good friends once again after three years of little communication, all of that seemed to fall away and it seemed natural and easy that we’d be together again. How it hasn’t really been that easy, if I'm honest with myself. How I know so completely that I want it, and him, anyway.

But I'm not telling that story. I guess the only important points here are: Aaron and I have known each other for about eighteen years. We've been super-close friends for the better part of those years, if not consecutively. We dated, then we didn't. I had a kid. He married me and embraced that kid. He loves my son. His son, our son.

No matter what we'd ever gone through, even before he was his "father," Aaron was there for David. He was the first visitor when I had him, a fixture around the house when I brought him home. Even before we'd considered anything like getting back together and back when he still thought he hated kids, he loved David. He was covered in spit-up and at least tried to change a diaper. Which is what parenting is, in my experience. I'm not a mushy goo-goo girl. I didn't know how to change a diaper until after I had a son. I am much more kid-inclined now that I used to be, but it's more by immersion and philosophical understanding. Kids are still a pain. But it's different with mine. And that's how Aaron is. He's not a kid person. But he's definitely an our-kid person. He's a dad.


Aaron isn't just like my own dad. Which isn't better or worse, just different. (Actually probably better for me specifically, since I never would have married someone just like my father -- two sarcastic, opinionated, never-backing-down bigmouths wouldn't have worked too well.) We're our own family. He's his own person, learning and growing and loving and screwing it up just as often as he gets it right just like the rest of us. But the one thing that is the same between them is the caring. I haven't known very many people who care as fiercely as my own father, and this one:



Happy Father's Day, baby.

(It IS this weekend, right?)

Maybe we'll rent a movie next time

My son hosted his first mostly-independent-of-my-hovering visit the other day. By all accounts -- his own, his friend's, his friend's parents' -- it was a success. Which is funny, looking at a transcript of the event:

My son: Let's play Guitar Hero!
His friend: No! Let's play Battleship!
Son: OK, fine. I have Battleship. I'll show you how to play.
Friend: No! Don't show me! I know how!
Son: Fine! Let's find it.
Friend: Nah. Let's go outside.

Outside

Friend: Let's swing!
Son: No! Let's slide!
Friend: But I WANT to swing!
Son: OK, fine. But I get the good swing. You can have the guest swing. ("Guest" here means "crooked, ass-pinching, not-as-high-swinging.")
Friend: But I want the good swing!
Son: (Looking at me giving the be-a-good-host glare) OK.

Several minutes of genuine contented swinging follow, interrupted only when a who-can-go-higher contest nearly upends the thing.

Friend: Let's play football! ("Play football" here equals "Throw the Nerf football at each other, occasionally sort of catching it. With our faces. Follow with crying to Mom.")
Son: No! I'm tired of football. Let's play soccer! ("Play soccer" equals "Kick the flattened Spiderman ball at each other, occasionally sort of passing it. To each other's faces. Follow with crying to Mom.")
Friend: Football!
Son: Soccer!
Me: Guys, does it really matter?
Friend: Hey! Look what I can do! (Takes flat Spiderman ball, turns toward neighboring yard, gives Spidey a good hard kick in the webface. Ball disappears over brick wall.)

Back inside

In a display of extreme idiocy, I suggest they find a two-player video game to play. Since these things always end well. My son wants to play Ben 10 (single player); his friend wants Transformers (also single player). I trick them convince them to agree upon Lego Star Wars, because it's a two-player game and come on, who can bicker when they're watching Chewy rip Lego Darth Vader's arms out? They begin the game in this fashion:

Friend: Hey, it's a movie!
Son: You know it's not a movie. It's just those scenes before the level.
Friend (In his best I'm-gonna-be-a-contrary-idiot voice): COOL. A MOVIE. You know it's a MOVIE.
Son (In his best I'm-gonna-be-a-bickering-ninny-even-though-it-totally-doesn't-matter voice): QUIT it. It's NOT a movie.
Friend: COOL.
Son: QUIT it!
Friend: COOL. It's a MOVIE.
Son: It's NOT.
Friend: It is. IT IS! LOOK! See! I was right and you were wrong!
Son: QUIT IT QUIT IT QUIT IT!
Friend: COOL! It's so COOL!
Son: It IS cool. Cuz it's a SCENE for the GAME.
Friend: It's a MOVIE. That is so COOL.
Son: QUIT...
Me: GUYS?!
Both: We're having fun!

Son: So you go over there when we get into the ship room, and I'll get the Storm Troop... WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU'RE MAKINGMELOSEMYGUYQUITQUITAHHHHH!
Friend: I WANT to go this way! And I don't want to be this stupid character!
Son: That's C-3PO.
Friend: Well, C-3PO sucks!
Me: He's kind of right, David. 3PO does kind of suck.
Son: Well, he can be the other rebel guy...
Friend: I wanna be the Lego guy!
Son: That's the rebel guy! You can be the other one...
Friend: I wanna be the one with the RED shirt.
Son: Fine! You can after I do this part. Be Princess Leia until then. She has a blaster.
(Friend grudgingly agrees.)
Son: Ah ha! You're a GIRL! You're so girly! You have boobies!
Me: David!
Son (very insincerely): Sorry.

A blessedly unblogworthy and relatively quiet half hour of giggling, talk and cooperative play follows. The friend's father arrives to pick him up. I open the door and we hear the boys bellowing from upstairs.

Son: Quit shooting me! You did that before!
Friend: Well, YOU shot ME.
Son: Only because you're not as good at that part and you kept losing all the coins! I was taking them to carry them!
Friend: Well, you don't have to SHOOT me.
Son: Yes I do!
Me: GUYS!
Both: Sorry! We're having a lot of fun!

As I go upstairs they've made up and are entertaining themselves by making R2-D2 fall repeatedly off a precipice, because he does this pathetic dying-away scream each time. I hate to tear the little angels away from their sadistic fun, but it's time for his friend to leave.

****

5 frickin' a.m. this morning

Poke.

Poke poke.

I crack open one eye. My son is looming over me, with one of those inflatable sticks people bang together to distract free throw shooters. Only it's raised like a hatchet or something. I propel myself from bed. My husband seems unconcerned.

"Good morning, Mom!"
"David. It's a little early."
"But I want to know when my friend can come over again! We talked in school yesterday about how much fun we had! I always get along with him. I wished he lived here all the time."
"Mrflgrfff."
"Mom?"
"Sweetie, it's really early. Can I just lay down for a little longer?"
"Sure, Mom."

5:12 a.m.

"Good morning, Mom! I love you more than anything in the universe or if there's more universes more than anything in the universes! Ready to get up?"

There's no turning back now.

"Good morning. I love you too."

"So when can he come over again?"

What about when swine flew?

"Never."

"You will."

"I won't. Ever. Not even when pigs fly. Not freaking ever."

So went an exchange I had over seven years ago, while pregnant with my son. I'd just heard about a mother who was so afraid of spiders, snakes, allergens, and imagined dangers that she'd kept her baby completely sheltered from the natural world. The girl was so unfamiliar with the outside world ... with outside, period, that when her aunt placed her on soft grass at ten months old, she freaked out.

"It's understandable," my friend had said. "You'll become like that. Just wait."

Of course, I was unequivocal in my insistence that I would never, ever, not once, be like that. So you can see where this is going.

This week, I killed a bunch of spiders in a maternally induced, poison-spraying rampage (some of which I did on the sly, to hide the carnage from my son) and I became paranoid about swine flu.

I'm not this person. I mean really. If you're rolling your eyes at me and thinking how ridiculous it is and it would never be you, it's even more not me.

When my son was growing inside me, I became obsessed with the fragility of small things. I signed up for no less than a dozen "what your baby is doing now" widgets and calculators. The third month: Your baby is three inches long and has his own fingerprints (assuming you cease vomiting long enough to read about the baby). The sixth month: Your baby is growing hair, hiccuping, developing billions of neurons in a head now graced with proto-eyebrows, and weighs a little over a pound.

The smallness of him freaked me out. Anything could happen. What if I bumped into a table or chair or fell on my face or ass, as I so often did? What if some idiot pulled out in front of me in traffic? What if I had exposed him to too much of the chemicals I worked around? I had always mucked around in the chemical vats, fixing and stirring and squeezing my body behind heavy machinery. I'm the opposite of paranoid, when it comes to my own safety. But I began to shuffle around, resisting the urge to shield my abdomen with my arms, giving everything a wide berth, doing paperwork while someone else fixed the machines.

It was real and frightening, but not frightening because it was real. I had dealt with the reality of the situation almost at once -- coping by scarfing down a platter of ribs and confessing to an ex-boyfriend and then my family. Much crying had been involved, and much much barfing, but my near-pathological pragmatism had been a blessing, slipping me swiftly from panic to acceptance to happy anticipation. No, the frightening quality was the size. The fragility. I was totally freaked out that I was going to be in charge of a baby, a whole person, or at least a potential one. An empty vessel; an innocent, undifferentiated being who, somehow, I was supposed to raise to be a full person. Through interaction with the world around him, through how I would present that world, he would learn ... what? Caution? Trust? Love? Fear? Indifference? What if I couldn't even keep him healthy and whole and uninjured?

It reminded me of when I was a kid. I saw a butterfly, some kind of swallowtail though I didn't know it at the time. Bright yellow and bold black. I reached out to it, caught it, very gently. I brushed a wing. I loved it. And injured it. I was scared to touch a butterfly for a while after that.

I'm reminded of this now because I'm still the opposite of paranoid when it comes to myself, or even those close to me. You feel sick? Suck it up. Sore muscles? Deal with it. Spiders outside? Give me a break. Worried about abduction or disease or vehicular injuries? Come on. Do you even realize the vanishingly small numbers of people, in the grand scheme of things, who suffer these things? It's confirmation bias, people. Get over it.

But with my son, it's different. I'm fully aware that season flu kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, and that there are only tens of recorded deaths from swine flu. If it was just me, I'd be acting like a total know-it-all jackass, going around telling anyone who would listen how hyped-up and silly this all was. But my son comes in and coughs, and it's all about potential. What could happen. You know, I tell myself, the real danger of swine flu isn't how many deaths there are so far, it's the lack of immunity from it. In just a few generations, a few months, the number of infections could rise exponentially. That's why it's got pandemic potential. It can infect anyone who is exposed. Anyone. In fact, I think I've developed magnification-powered super vision, and I swear I can see flu viruses crawling all over my son's filthy fingers right now, the same hands that rub his nose and play with other kids who probably don't wash after wiping their butts, and OH MY GOD he just stuck his hand into his mouth. And now I can see, just from where I'm sitting and without even turning my head, all the spoils of my newly acquired paranoia: pocket-size antibacterial wet wipes; anti-flu, anti-cold, virus-and-bacteria-obliterating wipes in a huge cylinder dispenser; a new box of bar soap; hand soap; hand sanitizer; and surface wipes for each time someone uses the computer.

I know I'm being ridiculous. But I can't keep my head from going there. What if? We had a black widow infestation recently around our house and garage, and my initial fascination was followed by an ill-advised online search about how much worse black widow bites can be for children.

But that isn't me. And I don't want it to be him. I'm the one who gets inches away from spiders, who looks up medical information before freaking out, who embraces the world. So is he, so far.

Here is my struggle: How do I raise a son who grows up taking chances, holding the cricket, going nose-to-nose with the python, climbing the tree -- but who also, well, grows up? As in, remains alive? How do I raise a human being to live, and also to live? How do I not go crazy balancing the two? I can't make him care about the world while telling him to run in the opposite direction.

I guess it's all about example. Engagement. He never did go near the widows' webs. But he goes near webs of every other kind, and he's kind of sad we had to get rid of them. We brought them in to study. He skinned his knee today -- apparently, he was horsing around really roughly. Could have gotten hurt badly. Could have ... well, that doesn't matter. He didn't. And now the bandage is hanging dirty and loosely, forgotten except as a token feel-better gesture, and he's running. He doesn't think, he acts.

For now, it's up to me to think for him, to make sure he both survives and cares, but not for long. He didn't run to me this morning when a few kids tried to harm a lizard on the playground. He marched right over to them, let him know he was almost-crying because he cared, and they should care, and it can't hurt them and they're big jerks if they think smooshing a lizard is cool. He's realizing the potential, becoming a real person, with his own thoughts and feelings influenced by me but not the same as mine.

Then he rescued it, found his friend and went inside, almost forgetting to wave goodbye.

We're exiting the potential-person stage and entering real personhood. I think we'll survive this stage. It may be seen from between fingers, but I'll be watching with pride.

As long as his fingers are sanitized. And not in his mouth.

Don't go making waterfalls

In case you've contacted me today and are wondering why I'm taking even longer than usual to reply, let me provide you with an illustration, drawn by my son this morning:


That's him and me. He's got the frown and the cascade emanating from his mouth; I, the smile (because I'm "nice," he says; which makes sense because I'm certainly not happy -- I take about as much delight in this situation as I would in being audited by the IRS while the IRS is being represented by my least favorite teacher from seventh grade, who resembles a shorter, fatter Mommie-Dearest Dunaway on a particularly bad day -- while we're both on our periods). I also have a branched wrist, apparently, so I can both hold his germ-infested paw and offer a continually re-chilled washcloth. The alien at our feet is our cat, who sat by David's side all night and morning and alerted us like some kind of feline Lassie every time he stirred. Which is cute, except when he's just stirring and I want to be sleeping.

So that's what I've been up to today. He started the fun last night by producing a very believable recreation of Niagara Falls (only tinged cherry-Pop-Tart pink) in the bathroom and then holding a repeat performance, and another, and another. He finally retired, and we were only treated to one Linda Blair-esque episode, so that's something.

I was going to post another question post, and probably will later. For now, you can have my questions du jour to tide you over.

• How does a thimble's worth of liquid turn into seventeen gallons in the stomach of a seven-year-old boy?
• Is there a way to suspend a person in a mid-air forcefield while he sleeps so you don't have to, say, get up at 3 in the morning to groggily lug a wad of puked-on bedding downstairs; and so that you don't feel something seeping up your arm toward you elbow and this time you actually hope it's pee? I mean, just for example.
• Anyone know of a way to force a grown man to do his share of pukey kid duty? Or how to find him, for that matter?
• Can you safely spray Lysol on a cat?

Listless

I read this article yesterday in the thirty seconds the Internet wasn't being monopolized, 25 Things I Didn't Want to Know About You. My first instinct was to nod smugly to myself, even though I have recently written such a list. Yeah, they are dumb. Look at us; you can see the degradation of intellectual interaction and of real, relevant communication.

But that lasted about a second. For one, I couldn't feel too superior. I did one, after all, and now the world (or anyone who cares to read it) knows I once forgot to wear pants to class. So yeah.

But also, I quite love lists. There something poetic in the enumeration of items that, by themselves, would be trivial or superfluous; but as a whole, paint a picture that's more complete and relevant than you could've otherwise gotten. There's something beautiful in the placement of silly items (Subway gave me peppers instead of onions. It ruined my night) next to deep, meaningful ones (I never told my mother I loved her). I'm kind of addicted to the whole phenomenon. I know we need longer, for-real deep items in our lives for good. I kind of hate Twitter (which, apparently, is evil) and other micro-info things. It makes me feel like my brain's been scribbled on or something. But these lists, and other lists, are an exercise in thinking. What do you put on a list? What makes the cut? What gets included under your narrow heading of a premise? What do you share with others? What have you accomplished? What would you like to accomplish?

The last few days have called for lists. There's been so much going on -- some really good, some really not -- that I feel like I can't get a handle on it all.

I used to hate lists, or at least I thought I did. My mom would write them to the point of excess. Lists of things to do, things I hadn't done, when to call, what to pick up, what she was picking up and if I wanted something I'd better look at list No. 2 and call at the number she listed before the time she listed on list No. 3. Her lists to herself frequently included the item "Write list." She says she was joking, but we know better.

But I've caught the bug. It's therapeutic.

I hate:

• That nobody does, or even rinses, dishes in this house except me.
• The feeling, sound, or even idea of teeth anywhere near a Popsicle.
• Myself, sometimes.

I love:

• My son.
• My husband.
• Cream cheese frosting.
• Springsteen songs.
• Rainbows.
• Sleep.
• Myself, sometimes.

See? already, I've discovered something about myself. I love more than twice the amount of things I hate. That's good, right?

In the past couple of days I've made:

• Two cakes -- one red velvet, one carrot. Both with copious amounts of frosting.
• Two batches of chocolate chip cookies.
• Two batches of fudge, one with walnuts and one without.
• Bouquets for my sister's upcoming wedding.
• Tortellini.
• Plans that I failed to keep.
• Bread.
• Frito casserole.
• Myself a little bit fatter.
  
• Several paper cranes, with my son.
• This list.
• My son laugh.
• My son cry.
• A mess.

Yea, lists! I feel so much more productive now.

So far this week, I've lost:

• This list, twice while making it.
• My keys, five times.
• My cool.
• An argument (due in large part to the item above).
• A gallon of milk. (Apologies to the poor soul who eventually discovers it.)

In the past two days I've read:

• A large chunk of Order of the Phoenix with my son. It's the darkest, most complicated book we've tackled. How is it that fiction so elegantly illustrates tough realities?
• Most of Leslie's book, Let Me Eat Cake.
• Terry Pratchett's novel Thud, which I found while unpacking straggler boxes and promptly sat down to read.
• Much of a blog about orangutans that I can't seem to find again.
• A book about condors.
  

In the past two hours I've read:

• Several top-five-various-things lists on Facebook. (I seem to be more into reading them than responding to them, but if anyone wants to know a few top-ones, here. Farm animal: cow. Person I've been told I look like: Lisa Kudrow. Flower: tulip. Thing I don't leave the house without: Well, nothing. I intend to leave the house with my license, keys, money, ChapStick, pens, purse, cell phone and a million other things; but I'm lucky if I cover two of these.)
• Mary's latest Nonfictionist, an interview with the inimitable Dinty Moore.
• My uncle's post on the anniversary of my grandfather's passing. It was a fitting and touching tribute, and filled me with a host of simultaneous isn't-it-funny feelings. It's funny that I never can seem to remember the anniversaries of people's passings but always commemorate their birthdays long after they're gone. It's funny that, unrelated and just last night, I was going over pictures of my grandfather and father with my son. It's funny that I never much cared about sports talk but would dearly love some with either of them now. Maybe funny's not the right word. But you know.
• A brief reveiw of Froth! The Science of Beer, which looks fun.
• A bunch of things pertaining to an idea for a story I have, but which I'm not sure will pan out so I'm not telling (yet). But it's so fun: once you really set into something, become immersed in it, stories come at you from everywhere.

And see? I can't even write lists for long without telling stories.

My mind is a right mess. But there's some really good stuff in there. Lists, sometimes, bring it out. It's like Dumbledore's Pensieve in Harry Potter; it lets me take my life, break it up, reorganize it, and look at it from a once-removed point of view; which somehow, gives me a closer look.

I'll leave you with my son's list of activities on a farm recently. You'll notice cow poop gets a smiley face. Naturally.

What I did over spring break

What did you do for spring break?

It's a question I heard asked a few dozen times this week, and not by my son's teacher for an assignment (though my son recently brought home a creature he drew, with phalluses for nearly every body part, which leads me to wonder what assignment prompts they do have).

The moms ask each other.

We moms drop off our progeny and then line up side-by-side at the playground fence, watching, waving dutifully and conversing in varying states of wakefulness. It's like King of the Hill or South Park where they all line up and talk, only the topics are less interesting ("Really? Sale on American AND cheddar at Fry's?"), and I'm sometimes even less eloquent than Boomhauer, depending on whether the migraine fairy has visited that night/morning.


I'm already at a disadvantage here. I parked next to a fellow-mother-acquaintance-friend this morning. She opened the sliding door on her spotless, scratchless, rustless, cat-piss-on-the-tires-less, brand new van and ... wait, no. She didn't open the door; it opened its-frickin-self, like some kind of Star Trek door. Anyway, I got out, helped my son out, and walked around to reattach the passenger-side mirror, which falls off about once a trip and thereafter hangs by its cords like some kind of sad, redneck ornament. We walked our kids in and I was happy to notice that her son and mine were similarly well-groomed, though I'd be willing to bet hers hadn't weaseled out of a bath last night and wasn't secretly wearing two different socks that only matched above the sneakers.

As our kids sprinted off, she smoothed her mint-green cardigan over a pearlescent blouse, and sort of fluffed it out over her Capri pants. I ... well, I don't own a cardigan or anything that could be rightly termed a blouse, and my calves' disobliging habit of not tapering at all pretty much rules out Capris. But I wore that ASU T-shirt and jean shorts. Her hair did this thing that looked sort of like an elaborate frosting swirl and sort of like an ornate piece of jewelry, but still left it looking shiny. Mine was in the ol' standby ponytail. Her feet were perfectly pedicured, slender little French tips to the last toe. Mine ... let's just say I don't have a desire to draw attention to my feet.

And it's not for an office; she goes back home just like me. So already I'm feeling less-than-successful in the effort-making department and wifeyness/momminess in general.

And then the bragathon starts. And let me tell you, guys don't hold a candle to our pissing contests.

"So, what did you do over Spring Break?" Perfect Mom asked.

"Well, we taught our martial arts class most of last week, but we made time to go to the Hilton in Sedona, after a ton of walking and shopping. They have flat-screen televisions there now," said Sporty Mom, who doesn't dress as impeccably as Perfect Mom but looks like what would happen if Angelina Jolie and Jessica Biel had a baby.

"We went camping. And hunting! It was great. Our youngest took his first big animal," said Renaissance Mom, who near as I can tell has done every activity in existence with her three kids. I was at the other end of our row, which was good because I was too tired to keep the distaste from my face when she described searching for a photo devoid enough of gore so her little one could show off his kill. I am an avid non-fan of recreational hunting, and tried to remain politely impassive as the other mothers voiced admiration. I passed the time entertaining thoughts of a Celebrity Death Match-style throw down between Renaissance Mom and PETA Mom, a mother from David's old school; and also by silently thanking the registration gods that my animal-activist son was in another class and wouldn't be scarred for life by today's show and tell.

The pissing contest continued. Disneyland (whoosssssh), Six Flags (pissss), England (foreign piss!), thirteen-kid sleepovers (actual piss! Beat that!), Tiki parties, day camps.

"So what did you do?" Perfect Mom finally asked me.

"Eh, we just stayed around the house mostly," I demurred. "Harry Potter marathon. Playing in the backyard. We went to the Riparian Preserve a few times, did some hiking."

"Oh, that's ... nice," one of them said. "Must be nice to just step back and stay at home for a change. Oh, did I tell you about the fusion food at that rooftop cantina?"

But it's not for a change, I wanted to say. That's how we have fun. Pretty much always.

Sure, about once a year we do the big-V Vacation thing. Sea World, the beach (which is way exotic for Arizonans), ocean kayaking (which couldn't be described as a vacation experience so much as an ordeal, at least the way we did it), that whole bit. We're looking at maybe going to Hawaii some time.

But most of the time our time off is, well, off. Relaxing. It made me think: Am I being too slack? Sure, overscheduling sucks, but aren't you supposed to want to cram as much into your time with your kids as possible?

That's the thing, though. I feel like we do that. We didn't really do much over spring break. We stayed at the house. Read a bunch of books. Watched a bunch of movies (or the same few, a bunch of times over). Went to the park, went on some walks, played in the back yard.

Or maybe I don't realize how much we did. I'm taken in by the argument that proximity-to-house equals loser-vacation.

We saw the sun set every single day. We found ladybugs and they crawled on our faces. We discovered a tree where the cormorants at the preserve like to roost, and we stood there as the sun set and painted the sky orange and pink, watching and listening to them squabble over perches and burp at each other. (Ever heard a cormorant? They don't chirp; they burp. Grab yourself a seven-year-old and find a cormorant. It's good for an hour of laughter, at least.)

We listened to the Canada geese honk as they flew in formation in the evening. We watched egrets; their white primary feathers forming aprons around their forms and glowing almost a painful white as the sun lit them; skim the water as they pulled back to land, necks folding and unfolding in graceful curves. We watched the light play through the trees and the impressionist flowers and grasses, and saw it hit on the glaring red flashes of blackbird shoulders as they called for mates. We feed the geese and ducks.

We saw Saturn through the local observatory telescope, looking as it won't for another fourteen years. The planet's rings are wide but thin, so as the earth passes through Saturn's equatorial plane you can see just a faint line as you get an edge-on view of the rings, and their diminished glow allows Saturn's moons to show more vividly. David didn't want to stop looking. He still hasn't stopped talking about it.

We pulled weeds, and pulled weeds, and pulled weeds. Which doesn't seem like a particularly great spring break activity, but if you happen to be a bug lover, and if your mom's lack of diligence in the yard has turned it into a conglomeration of every arthropod native to Arizona, it's great fun. We found orb spiders, aphids (which explains the ladybugs), rainbow-colored beetles, and grasshoppers in every color imaginable. We'd never seen yellow grasshoppers. We're watching a resident spider as she grows and molts and snacks on crane flies.

We had kicked off spring break with a party for my son's birthday, which was only attended by a few kids (the rest were undoubtedly busy getting passports or firearms), but was full of much sweaty play and cake and Transformers paraphernalia. A few days before, at his request, I had taken him to Chuck E. Cheese, where we spent 30 bucks to win a 25-cent toy and left smelling like feet and pizza, and he had a blast (despite the place housing his one phobia: Chuck E. himself, who, blessedly, never shows up).

We ate cheese sandwiches every day, always on fresh bread with cheddar, Swiss, AND American, the good kind, which was in fact on sale at Fry's. We drank the fancy juice that comes in boxes. We stayed up late every night. We looked at flies' wings and cat hair and leaf cells through the microscope and we played light sabers.

"Mom?" he asked the night of our last day off.

"Hmm?"

"Whenever I'm sad I try to think of you, like what we did today and yesterday. Sometimes when I'm happy too. Sometimes I think of other things instead, but then it always makes me think of you anyway. I like that."

We did nothing for spring break.

And everything.

Looking back

Since I've started blogging at least semi-regularly, I've begun to get requests. I'm one of only a few bloggers among my offline acquaintances, and so it was kind of slow going at first. Blogging. Um, sure. But in the months I've been active, blogging's picked up in popularity among even the uninitiated, and I like to think I've also hit a stride of sorts. So it's my thing now, and I get requests. They take three forms, with some overlap -- the topical ("You have to write on such-and-such issue!"); the experiential ("Come on! When are you gonna write about when you: forgot your pants/hiked the Grand Canyon/got mugged for your trash?"); or the writerly ("I loved reading your essay. You should so post it!").

I find the last one particularly flattering, being a writer and all. But I always feel kind of like it's, I don't know, cheating. I'm supposed to write new stuff, right?

I'm cheating today anyway. But this one's different.

David's seventh birthday is tomorrow. I can't freaking believe it. Seven. And between the preparations for his birthday and assorted drama in my own life, I haven't written much about it yet. I will. But I'm feeling too darn nostalgic right now. So here, a repeat for some of you and with less polish than I'd like but pretty much the way I wrote it years ago, is his birth.

*************

It didn’t occur to me until I saw the blood.
This is not how motherhood is supposed to begin.

Blood soaked the sheets, forming a pool, the slick surface undulating. Mine. It never happened like this in the movies. It happened in those “emergency childbirth” shows - blurry, strobe flashes and a melodramatic drumbeat, the narrator grave.

My most coherent thought was that the shows underplayed the drama.

It had begun routinely. The doctors asked the requisite questions and calculated the number of humiliating positions I could assume. After posing me on hands and folded legs, like a terrified jackrabbit, the anesthesiologist prepared the epidural and reassured me. I produced a crackly squeak, which I hoped he would interpret as a polite laugh.

As I steeled myself for the jab, the electronic beeps monitoring my son’s - David’s - heart rate slowed conspicuously, like a neglected wind-up toy. The doctors’ eyes narrowed.

I was flipped on my right side. “…definitely a placenta abruptia.”

On my back. “…gonna need a C-section.”

On my left side. “… don’t want her to bleed out.”

As I wondered if they would employ a mother-to-be rotisserie, the bone-white sheet turned reddish-black.

“Whoa, that’s too much blood. We gotta deliver now.”

I signed to have the operation. I would have signed for a C-section, lobotomy or castration. My hands shook. My arms, legs, torso followed, as if a maniacal puppeteer were throwing a tantrum with my limbs. And why was it so cold?

My sister stood aside as my mom frantically tugged on one-size-sort-of-fits-all sky-blue scrubs.

“She’s in shock, isn’t she?” she hissed to my mom in a stage whisper. She fingered circlets of hair, pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt up and down - she would not be in the operating room. And there was no father. Only my mom came with me.

Fluorescent lights raced overhead as I sped feet-first down the hall. I gazed at the floor. The beige and taupe tiles became tracer bullets in my path. My limbs crashed against the cot, with a thump-clang-rattle-thump as they hit sheets, frame, sheets again.

It’s all wrong. I’m not ready. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

A Caesarean section, I’m told, takes about forty-five minutes. Mine took nine. I managed to turn my head and watch David’s birth. He was blue. Not bluish. Blueberry Popsicle blue. Ice blue. I held my breath with him. The doctors - there were a dozen now - rubbed him, rolled him, and fed him air. Finally: a small, uncertain, “Wah.” His cyanotic tint faded into a coralline red-pink.

Six years later, I’m still not ready. But you’ll know who I am.

A plastic tarantula, empty juice pouches and the books Slinky, Scaly Snakes and Bugs, Bugs, Bugs! litter my car. A Vivaldi CD I played impulsively on the way to the lake one evening has remained in the player for three months, by decree of my son. The only acceptable replacement, I’ve been told, might be the Shrek soundtrack.

My philosophy discussions, once rooted in Kierkegaard and Hume, now begin with “If it’s time to make baby birds, why do the girl birds run away from the boy ones?”

My bedroom-playroom-home office is a hodgepodge of academia and an advertisement for Toys “R” Us. A plastic Superman bust looks over cosmology texts. A scientific paper titled “Candidates of red shift 5.5-7 galaxies” bookmarks Diego Saves the Whale.

I spend days playing, reading, running, teaching, kissing and making it better. I spend nights, and a few afternoons, working. I seldom sleep. I smell like chicken sticks, bubble mix and Play-Doh.

My prayers have turned from generic petitions to the weirdly specific: “God, please let my son pee in the toilet this time. I’m out of dry underwear and paper towels.” Or, “God, please let me say the right thing when the dog dies. I can’t stand to break his heart.”

Every issue is weighty - eating (you can’t have Pop Tarts nine times a day), religion (sure, God might sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus on Christmas), animal care (cats and dogs cannot “play robots”). He wants to be an animal rescuer, and volunteer at the zoo. It’s an hour’s drive. I can’t wait to take him.

Asked to name my favorite actor, I couldn’t decide between Squidward Tentacles and Scooby-Doo. My physics and calculus are rusty, but I can recite every Dr. Seuss book and know how many times SpongeBob has taken his driving test (thirty-nine).

David’s wide, tooth-packed smile is an explosion that takes over his face. His laugh trickles like the lyrical, playful flow of a mountain stream. To feel his rose-petal lips on my cheek, or his silky, gold-brown hair in my fingers, is to experience love.

It came to me, at the arboretum, as it often does: just watching him. He danced and swirled near a bush, disturbing a flurry of black and iridescent-blue butterflies, which spun briefly about him before alighting elsewhere. This is exactly how motherhood is supposed to be.

For many a young to middle-aged woman, a pivotal moment of anxious resignation is when she finds herself filing coupons alphabetically, scolding drink-from-the-carton culprits or uttering the phrase “You’ll poke your eye out,” and realizes she has become her mother.

Not me. I have become my son.

I giggled the other day when the cashier farted while ringing up our purchase. I have developed an unusually high affinity for Pop Tarts and string cheese. I was always horrible at delivering punch lines, but I don’t even know the jokes anymore. My son’s favorite joke goes:

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Me! Ah ha ha! Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Me!”

(Repeat for ten minutes.)

Other than that, I don’t really know any jokes. But my days are still filled with humor. I do know, for example, that the nature-show narrative “The boobies come in great numbers, as far as the eye can see,” is good for an afternoon of laughter. I know the simple joy that comes from pulling up to the stop sign beside the neighborhood horse stables at the exact moment two mares engage in synchronized defecation, or the snickers borne from lifting one snail from the dirt only to discover a second one attached to it, the hermaphroditic parts “lined up.” I’ve relearned the joke that “your epidermis is showing.” I know that spelling out the word “up” on the talking computer at the science center makes it say “You pee.” I know that I don’t get invited to any parties. I choose to believe everyone in attendance wishes to avoid being overshadowed by my newly acquired comedic repertoire.

I was warned motherhood would mow me down like a trimmer over wild, unruly grass. Make me into a tame, monotonous turf. Get ready for boredom, I was warned. Be prepared for repetition.

Instead, we have tended the wild weeds in each other. There is repetition, sure, and I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand how the same cartoon episode remains enthralling upon viewing forty five times. But rarely is there monotony. We seem to have an unspoken pact, a refusal to abandon wonder. If this is an anomaly of nature, either his as a child or mine in my simple-minded refusal to be bored, I welcome it.

*************

And lastly, if you're wondering where he got the baby-jowls, I give you me, circa 1980: