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.

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?"

Word to my mother

I never go to bed early enough. So, usually, when I wake up and see this:



...I'm sometimes pretty unenthusiastic, even though it's my favorite sight in the world 99 percent of the time. However, last night as I tucked him in my son said "Mom? Can you leave out some pretty paper? And also a pencil and safety scissors? Oh, and don't get up early."

(No one ever said he was a master at secrecy.)

So I did as I was told, and when I cracked open one eye this morning, to see much surreptitious tiptoeing and peeking, I stayed "asleep." Then I actually did fall back asleep, and when I awoke I was covered in Mother's Day spoils: He'd come back in to put my card, another card he made and a present (a recipe book he wrote himself, with ants on a log, cowboy cookies, edible nests and at least a dozen others) on top of me.


Later in the morning, I also got this ------------>

There were only a few hundred aphids on it.

I have the best kid.

I rarely, however, feel like the best mom. I spend too much time online. I'm not a good housekeeper. I'm not that great at feigning interest in video games or endless games of tag. He's wearing second-stringer shorts right now because I neglected to throw in a load of laundry.

But I'm hopeful I'll develop into a pretty decent mother. I had, after all, an awesome example.

You know how everyone says it will come?

"You just wait," they say in resigned tones, as the inevitable event has apparently come to pass for all but me. "You'll wake up one day and realize you've totally become your mother."

I'm still waiting. When? When do I get to be my mother? It can't be as inevitable as all that. It seems pretty evitable to me. I'd LOVE to turn into my mother. I'd love to be good with bills. Keep a clean house. Get people to freaking listen to me without feeling like my head will implode. Remember that the littlest things are the biggest things.

My mom not only did everything a mother does, and at least made it look easy, she did it by herself for several years. After my dad passed away, she was mother and father, disciplinarian and buddy, the parent who says "What were you thinking?" and the one who pretends to turn a blind eye. When my own first Mother's Day rolled around, she not only made sure I got a card "from" my son, she got me one on Father's Day too, as I was "both mother and father" to my son at the time. I appreciated it so much, but I never really thought about how she was both for so long. And she didn't have herself helping out and reassuring her.

When I was still flying solo, my son was a baby. He was difficult sometimes, and I was clueless. But he ate. Pooped. Slept. Pooped. Cried. And pooped. That was about it. He didn't even stray from where I put him until he was pretty old, since motor skills (or lack thereof) in our family ensure we're nearing puberty before we can walk.

When my mom was on her own, we were pre-teens and teenagers. We argued. We devised schemes to get around the draconian, horrible world she had created wherein we actually had to do our share. I crashed a school dance and rode home in a wildly careening car driven by a crazed friend. I crashed (in the literal sense) my own car on the third day of owning it. My brother flipped a car going about 90 miles an hour. My sister ... well, my sister was pretty much perfect. But she was annoying sometimes.

My mom was always ... there. Always. Now that I've been around the block of supposed adults a time or two, I'm starting to realize that's incredibly rare.

One of the most peculiar things about becoming a mother is the shift in identity. You become so-and-so's mom. I'm at about half-and-half right now. People still know I love critters. I'm a writer. I'm terrible with directions. I'm a better driver now, but I used to be pretty awful. I hate cilantro. I'm keenly interested in politics. I love sci-fi and know an embarrassing amount about the Dune universe. But more and more, I'm losing these things as definers of me, even if they're still parts of me. I'm David's mom. I'm the one who makes cookies, buys Bakugan toys, prefers SpongeBob to Patrick and can believably voice most of the characters in a Harry Potter reading. I love being these things, probably even more than "just" being me. Being a mom has become the biggest definer of me, and I like it that way. But it makes me think: If that's "me" after just seven years, how many cool things do people probably not know about my mom?

My mom is amazing, quite apart from her ability to put up with me.

• She's the best improviser that I know. She can make anything from anything. Crooked mailbox post, animals in need of a place to feed/hide, messed up wiring, missing ingredients for dinner -- she doesn't have "training" in home improvement, carpentry, or cooking, but the lady's like MacGyver.
• She's a fervent environmentalist, a card-carrying member of Greenpeace, and one of the best appreciators of the natural world ever. I like to think it's where I get it.
• She does not like to be startled.
• The Navy was interested in her at one point.
• Her views on faith are among the most nuanced, and at the same time strongest, that I know.
• She's almost always the one behind the camera. (I plan to work harder at turning the tables.)
  
• She's a great editor. She can spot a grammar, punctuation, or spelling mistake from space.
  
• She really does not like to be startled.
• She loves to watch CSI, Without a Trace, Cold Case and the like. However, she has a hard time remembering characters' identities and who's done what, so if they rerun an episode after a span of a month or more, it's a whole new show for her. This is a source of much amusement and teasing from my brother and me.
• She was way shorter than my dad, and unless she "cheated" he'd pose by clamping his arm down/ around her.
• She was a badminton champion in high school, as well as a kick-ass archer.
• She pretty much totally hates being startled.
• She graduated top of the class when our town held a citizens' police academy. No one was surprised.
• She was a children's basketball coach for years.
• She's a pretty big Trekkie. Especially TNG. Patrick Stewart would probably be on her "list," though possibly in character, since when we saw him in a movie, she told me "Hey! Picard's the bad guy in this one!"
• Speaking of the "list," Tom Selleck would be there too. She used to have a big Magnum, P.I. poster in her closet.
• She published an excellent article on Circlestone in the Superstition Mountains. (Something that I have yet to do, though I was on the trip too. Who's the writer again?)
• She absolutely, forever and always, unreservedly and completely for all of her days, eternally and as long as time shall stand, despises being startled.
• She totally, unabashedly loves John Denver.
• If you are ever in any kind of emergency situation, she is the very first person you want by your side.
• She loves chimes and clocks. Our house was a lovely cacophony growing up. (Well, the cacophony provided by the clocks and chimes was lovely, anyway.)
• She is an excellent bowler. I take bowling just a tad too seriously thanks to her tutelage, but those lessons are also the only reason I routinely make it to triple digits.
• We startled her regularly growing up. OK, we still do. Sometimes. It's just too easy.

I've left out tons. But hopefully you get a piece of the picture. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

(Boo.)

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.

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.