Feed on
Posts
Comments

Musical Taste

May 3rd, 2011 by

Matt would describe many of his musical favorites as “interesting”, as in:

“There are lots of interesting sounds going on in that track.”

“Interesting” in this context often translates to “no melody”, “annoying”, or “ear-splitting” from my perspective. It’s an argument that we’ve been having since we moved in together 19 years ago later this month.

Simon, who inherited my noise sensitivity, often concurs with me. However, by virtue of being 4 1/2 and wanting very much to be like his father, he goes along with Matt’s preferred tracks more often than I do. Up to a point. Even a preschooler has his limits, and last Tuesday stretched his to the limits.

After a crabby morning and afternoon, Simon took himself upstairs at  4:30 on Tuesday to rest on my and Matt’s bed. He woke up, with help from Matt, three hours later, at which time he came downstairs and found himself greeted by a concert on Palladia. After a moment or two’s consideration, he laid down the law:

“I did not sleep for three hours to watch this.”

Tell him, Simon!

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... | 3 Comments »

Generous Heart

May 1st, 2011 by

I try not to brag. And when I do, I try to balance out my bragging about Simon with an acknowledgement of a weakness. No one likes the obnoxious, bragging parent, and no kid is perfect.

Having said that, tonight I’m going to brag. I’ve got the sweetest kid I could imagine having—a kid for whom I am supremely grateful and by whom I am sometimes humbled. Tonight’s gushing centers around Simon’s little house, which as of today became Ruby’s little house.

We got the house for Simon for his second birthday, and for two and a half years he loved it and played in it every chance he got. This spring, his interest began to wane, and once our new play set went up, he was finished with it. But the girls weren’t. Caroline still loves it, and Ruby still loves it perhaps most of all. The last few times we had Ruby over, she would swing for a few minutes and then head straight to that little house. Her dad’s new house doesn’t have the right space for a play set like ours, but it could accommodate a play house.

So one day, when Greg came over to pick up Ruby, I started to free associate. “Simon doesn’t play in his house any more,” I mused. “If that keeps up for a few more weeks, you can have his house.” No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I began to regret them. What if Simon changed his mind? What if this were just a phase? That play house was expensive, a gift my Dad went in on with me and Matt. I couldn’t believe I had just tentatively offered it up with so little thought.

And that’s the thing about me: I’m quick to be generous, and then quick to second guess. I am more acquisitive and possessive than I’d like to be, and I often talk before I think things fully through.

Yesterday Greg asked us about the house. And I honestly didn’t know what to say; it’s rained non-stop for two weeks so we’ve hardly been outside. That’s when Matt had the idea to ask Simon directly. Nothing can enflame the passion of a little kid for an old toy quite like the threat of its going away.

“Simon, would you like to give your house to Ruby?” he asked.

“Let me think about that,” was Simon’s reply. Then, a beat later, he continued: “Ruby really loves that house. I think she should have it.”

When I brought it up again today, testing the waters a bit, I referred to it as “your little house.” Simon corrected me. “It’s not my little house any more. It’s Ruby’s house now.”

I’m going to have to remember this the next time Simon sees another kid’s toy and asks me for one just like it, or falls in love with every toy he sees on TV. Because while I always love Simon and know his heart to be generous, this weekend he frankly surprised me. I just didn’t think he, or any four-year-old, had it in him. It was a moment that makes me feel like I won the parenthood lottery.

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... | 1 Comment »

My “Cheap” Hobby

Apr 28th, 2011 by

The dawn of my decision to run went something like this:

“Hm. You are forty (one) and beginning to have skinny-fat legs. What are you going to do about that? Yup, yup, there’s no use denying it; you are going to have to work out. But how? Back to the gym? No. You never go, and it’s expensive. I know! Let’s run. It’s cheap and you don’t have to go anywhere. Just strap on a pair of shoes and go. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll run.”

Hahahahahaha!

I got part of that right. I don’t have to go anywhere, and I’m enjoying it more than the gym. I am now 8 weeks into running and 13 weeks into working out. This beats my previous stick-to-it record by about 450%. Sad but true.

So running is much better than the gym for me. Oddly, I would skip going to the gym if it meant walking or driving through rain to get there, but I have run in rain at least three times now without thinking much of it. But the cheap part? Hardly. Here’s the breakdown on my “cheap” new sport:

No Boundaries program fee: $75

Winter/early spring running wardrobe (on sale, including a bra and two insulated tops): $100.50

Summer running wardrobe (two tops, one Capri, a skort, and shorts): $82

Shoes: $118

Socks (including special wool ones): $30

Water bottles*: $24

Race entry fee for first 5K: $25

Pro Stretch: $30

Cheapest iPod available to keep me company: $50

Total to date: $534.50

And I’m not finished yet. I need one more bra and an extra top or two going into summer, I’ll also need a hat or visor or some sort, and by late fall I’ll need to buy Gortex shoes because on colder days I’ve had problems with numb feet and white toes.

I can understand and justify most of these expenses, but I have to confess to an element of bewilderment. I imagine there are people—lots of them—running across the open spaces of this world for much greater distances and at twice my speed, equipped with nothing but shorts, a shirt (maybe), and bare feet to keep them going.

So is my $534.50 outlay a reflection of Western values, wherein we spend money and buy stuff for everything? Or does it reflect the reasonable cost of running for fitness as a middle-aged person living in a variable climate? I’m not sure, but something seems terribly, terribly out of whack even before I spring for a watch that tracks my mileage and time, electrolyte pills to keep me going, a trigger point therapy kit, a second pair of shoes to alternate, a fancier iPod, etc.**

*The water bottle. Determined to keep costs in line, I bought a cheap, $4 water bottle at Tuesday Morning about two weeks ago. I used it once. The thing was too heavy, too big to comfortably hold, and attached to a wrist strap that was too springy to be useful. After one run with this sucker, I went out and bought the $20 contoured model with an adjustable strap and zipper pocket. I still think Jeff, the owner of Fleet Feet, planted the cheap ones at Tuesday morning to prove a point about cost vs. value.

**I won’t be buying any of these items, fyi. I cannot imagine the day that I will run far enough or fast enough to require electrolyte supplements or a technical device to track my “speed”, especially when my fastest time to date is 29 minutes for 3 miles.

Posted in Jessica, No Boundaries | 5 Comments »

Unwelcome Guests: Welcome Proposal

Apr 26th, 2011 by

What a day. Around noon-ish yesterday, I noticed a yellow jacket in Simon’s bedroom. “Hm,” I said out loud. “How’d you get through the screen?” Then I pushed the screen out a tad and let the unwelcome guest fly out.

Later, I saw another yellow jacket in the living room. “Shoo!” I said, this time opening the front door to usher her out.” Unfortunately, I heard more buzzing almost as soon as I shut the door. Had I let another one in? I looked up. There was a yellow jacket, hovering over my light fixture. I did! What was with the yellow jackets today?

I had no idea what was to come. With about thirty minutes left before Simon’s playdate with Caroline was due to end (school was out for Passover yesterday), I thought I heard buzzing—a lot of buzzing—around my   dining room window. When I opened my shutters to look, I was greeted by the sight of five yellow jackets circling against the glass. Instinct led me to dart downstairs. There, on the same wall as the dining room window, I saw twenty or so yellow jackets hovering against the glass block window over my washer and dryer.

We have a problem. I quickly ushered Simon and Caroline onto the front porch to blow bubbles in an attempt to get them away from the yellow jackets before they noticed them and got scared. That part worked, as Barry arrived to pick up Caroline before she realized what had been going on. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before Simon saw a yellow jacket and flew into a panic.

I yelled for Matt to watch Simon and calm him down while I went out exploring. It didn’t take long at all to find the hundred or so yellow jackets going into and out of a gap in our mortar on the back wall of the house.

Crap. We had a nest in the wall of our house! I’ve been on the wait list with a mason who can match my mortar exactly for two years now. Time to escalate and just find someone to plug the hole. Three weeks ago, preferably. But in the meantime, I had a newly awakened colony on my hands, some of which were tunneling through my walls and coming in basement cracks.

Caroline’s parents graciously allowed us to bring over pizza and decamp at their place for the afternoon and early evening. Jim and Evie agreed to a last-minute sleepover. And at ten o’clock, bedtime for yellow jackets, Matt and I headed outside armed with a flashlight and a can of poison. We had hats on our heads, boots on our feet, long sleeves and pants covering our arms and legs, and terror in our hearts. A less poinsonous spray was used on our basement sill. We sucked up the sleeping dining room guests with the vacuum.

This morning, with bated breath, we went to inspect the area and determine if our deadly mission had succeeded. First thing I saw? A dead honey bee. Second thing I saw? A window sill full of… … dead honey bees.

They weren’t yellow jackets after all. They were honey bees swarming while looking for a new hive. Damn. It’s not that I want them in my walls or house. It’s that I would have preferred to call an expert and explore non-toxic ways to remove them. I leave violets in my yard, have a wildflower section in my yard, and leave at least a few piles of leaves over winter specifically to encourage and protect honey bees. And I now I went and killed a ton of them without thinking.

Sigh. I’ve got the name and cell of a pest control expert now, a man who sounded audibly dejected when I told him about what had happened and offered to help me over the phone at any time for free. His advice? Leave the outside alone, but inventory numbers and activity. Leave the downstairs ones alone if I can stand it. Vacuum up the ones in the dining room—these are non-aggressive workers. And call him with the stats on Thursday. If there’s still a group trying to build a hive, he’ll come and help me then. He’ll also advise me about the best inside sealants and let me know when it’s safe to have my mortar repaired.

It wasn’t all bad news though. Because last night, my fondest wish also came true: Caroline proposed to Simon. I’ve had my eye on this one for a year now. Simon has lots of good friends in his class, including a lot of bright and funny girls. I know most of these kids pretty well by now and have a proprietary fondness for them. Even so, Caroline is a standout. Bright, sweet, athletic, and pretty, she’s the whole package. And as much as Simon enjoys several opposites-attract friendships, his play with Caroline is the most fluid. They agree easily, share well, negotiate effortlessly, and require little adult intervention.

I also dig her parents, who live any easy 5-10 minute walk from us and are interesting, smart, and fundamentally nice folks. They see the world the same way Matt and I do, and their house is littered with books we have read or are interested in reading. In other words, this is the exact family I’d want Simon to marry into. I’ve joked more than I should that were this the old days in the old country, I’d try to make a shidduch* with Caroline’s parents.

Having said this, you can perhaps imagine my glee when Caroline finished her dinner last night, put a scarf over her head to play “bride”, and asked Simon to marry her.

Caroline, honey, I know you’re only (not quite) four, but can I get that in writing?

*A shidduch is a traditional system of Jewish matchmaking in which parents or other interested parties make inquiries about the character, intelligence, level of learning, financial status, and health of prospective partners prior to formal introductions and supervised dating.

Posted in Friends, Jessica, Little Boy | 2 Comments »

Pretty Tiches

Apr 23rd, 2011 by

Agotich smiles for the camera at her mother's shower while friends Achon, Adhieu, and Arouar look on.

If there is a single lesson I’ve learned from my Sudanese friends, besides to be grateful every day for the life I was born into, it’s that charity does not exist the way I had previously imagined it. It’s not just that I think altruism is a myth (most people I know who volunteer find that it adds to happiness), it’s that acts that look charitable can turn around and become reciprocal before you realize what is happening.

With one of my friends, a fellow board member, her initial sponsoring of a single Lost Boy turned into her helping this man bring his wife and two-year-old son over from Kenya. Then the couple had a second baby. And while I’m sure my friend was hoping to get to know this larger family and incorporate them into her life, I doubt she saw where it would end up, which is with the two boys being her grandchildren. As her only other grandchild lives a day’s drive away, these two boys fill a very real void. She visits nearly every week, she gets antsy if she goes too long without seeing them, and she gets a spark in her eye when she talks about them. This isn’t charity any more if it ever was; it’s family.

As Gabriel and I are part of the same generation, and as he has a more reserved personality, our dynamic is different. We’re friends and sometimes confidants. (Gabriel is still traditional enough that he did not tell me about Alek’s pregnancy. It’s bad luck in Dinka culture for men to discuss babies before they arrive safe and sound, a sort of extreme version of the Jewish superstition I grew up with.) By now, Alek is a friend, too.

Where things have taken an unexpected turn in my house is in the flowering of the friendship between Simon and Agotich. Those first few days/weeks, Simon wouldn’t even come downstairs while Agotich was here. He hated her crying and probably resented her being here and interrupting his familiar morning routine. Then she stopped crying, and he deigned to interact with her. And then at some point, a time I cannot pinpoint, Agotich went from being the child he tolerated twice a week to being his weekly highlight.

“Is today an Agotich day?” he’ll ask me with hopeful eyes. If no, I may get a trembling lip and a tear or two. “How am I going to see Agotich again?” he’ll ask after every goodbye. When she’s over here, he tries to get her to play games, he describes everything she says and does like a proud parent, and he gets his feelings a bit hurt if she leaves him in one room to come visit me in another. And just in case he’s not being clear about his feelings, he’ll periodically—out of the blue!—say things like, “I sure do love Agotich.”

Perhaps the greatest manifestation of his esteem is that he has coined a nickname for her. I started calling her “Tich” (pronounced “teach”) early on. It’s my legacy as an American to give everyone a nickname, even though I resisted one myself and chose a mostly nickname-proof name for Simon. Go figure. But Agotich (“Uh-GO-teach”) seemed like a lot of name for a tiny little thing, so I couldn’t help myself. Once Simon fell in love, he upped the ante. Tich wasn’t cute enough. “Tiches” was better. And better still?

“Pretty Tiches.”

When this little preschool carpool favor began, I never could have foreseen this. And when people tell me how great or amazing or nice I’m being for watching a little girl and driving her to school twice a week, they can’t imagine how much it means to my son—and to me, as I get to see him in a big brother mode I never thought I would. It’s not charity at all, it’s enrichment, and proof for me that happiness can be measured in relationships and interpersonal responsibilities.

Posted in Friends, Jessica, Little Boy | 2 Comments »

Everyone’s a Critic

Apr 20th, 2011 by

Last night, right before my evening run, I set out my clothes on the bed: running bra, tank, skort.* Simon walked in the room, looked at the skort, and picked it up.

“What’s this, Mommy?”

“It’s my running clothes.”

“No, Mommy, this looks too small for a grown-up. It must be for me.”

Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

*Yes, I bought a running skort. I tried on four pairs of running shorts, and all were traumatic until a pair I found today. Matt says I look like I’m off to tennis, but that beats the heck out of the diaper look I otherwise would have been rocking.

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... | 2 Comments »

King of the Road

Apr 19th, 2011 by

Sunday night Simon, Matt, and I went over to my Uncle Sam’s house to visit with my cousin Connie and her husband Louis.  Connie is  Sam’s oldest daughter and the only other granddaughter of Helen and Aaron. As I’m the youngest grandchild–we’re 18 years apart–I’ve always thought of the two of us as the Goldstein bookends.  Louis, meanwhile, is one of the coolest rabbis I’ve ever met and a wonderful addition to our family.

It had been a long and stressful week for Connie as she settled her father into an assisted living facility, returned home, to New Hampshire, got news from my dad that things didn’t look good, and then traveled back for a funeral and shiva. As the administrator of her father’s trust, she also had to wedge in a fair bit of business among the grieving. Throw in some moving-related chaos as her brothers tried to figure out how to move large pieces of the estate back to their homes in Missouri and Florida, and you have one woman pulled in way too many directions.

By Sunday night, the house was nearly bare and she was a bit shell-shocked from the rapid series of events. Matt and I decided to bring over dinner and see if we could offer some laid-back socialization. And so the evening unfolded with stories of her dad, stories of her parents’ travels together (Sam was married to my Aunt Marcia), a tour through memory lane via family portraits stacked against walls and a few remaining trinkets, and a bit of comic relief compliments of Simon.

Towards the end of the night, Connie began telling me of her brother’s plans for this May, plans that were now up in the air. David was going to fly up with his youngest daughter (a girl Simon enjoys playing with), drive with his dad to Indianapolis to hit the children’s museum, and then drive again  to Cincinnati to visit the zoo. The conversation was emotional because Connie had been worried that her dad wasn’t up to that much driving and because now, of course, the whole question is moot. Simon, looking for  a way to enter this very adult conversation, heard the word “Indianapolis” and seized his chance.

“Indianapolis is on I-65 North!” he proclaimed loudly and with great enthusiasm.

He brought down the house. It was so funny that he knew this, and so funny that he wanted to join discussion so badly. Later on he found ways to explain that Cincinnati was on I-71 North and that Lexington was on I-64 East.

Having him there to laugh and make us all laugh was a balm. And he couldn’t have chosen a more apt way to go about it. My Aunt and Uncle traveled the entire US and to over 60 foreign nations. They of all people would have appreciated that their great-nephew is shaping up to be a little king of the road.

Posted in Family, Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... | No Comments »

Respite

Apr 17th, 2011 by

I took a little break here. Did you all miss me? The reasons being:

1. I got sick again. My sinus infection never really went away, so I saw my doctor on Wednesday and am now four days into a new round of stronger antibiotics. The day I decided I needed to take action was the day my throat hurt so badly I could not eat solid food and that even drinking water hurt.

2. My dad’s older brother, my Uncle Sam, died last Saturday. It all happened very fast, as he didn’t seem that ill until about five days before he died. Maybe even less. Which made it all very shocking at the time, but is a relief in hindsight. I figure we should all be so lucky as to  live a long, great life, travel to over 60 countries, live until 84, and spend all but the last four days in your own home before suddenly dying. The funeral was Tuesday, we made a shiva call on Wednesday, and I’m arranging to visit my cousin Connie again shortly.

3. I hosted a baby shower for my friend Alek yesterday. I’ll have to re-check my list, but I think we ended up with five American women, 10 Sudanese women, and 9 or 10 kids. The babies stayed on the main floor with their moms. the kids, ranging from 2 to 5, went downstairs to play with Matt and Simon. The party was called for 3:30, I arrived with the guest of honor and two of her friends (by way of a last-minute Target errand) at about 3:35, the phone rang constantly for directions until about 4:30, and we got fully started when the last guest arrived at 4:45. I left to drive Alek back home–now with tons of pink loot–at 7:15. And that, my friends, was quite an introduction to African-style entertaining. I’m pooped.

4. And finally, the running. Between all the shower-related cleaning and preparation, being sick, and being with my family, I had training runs to get in. They are getting longer now–we’re up to a full 3 miles and I’m slow–and involve a lot of stretching and a cool down and warm up period. Come to find out, I get comfortable after about 2.5 miles. Next week, when I’m supposed to go 3.5, I’m going to bump it up to 4 or so and see what happens.

More on most of this shortly. And Happy Passover everyone.

Posted in Family, Friends, Jessica, No Boundaries | 1 Comment »

TV Land Mines

Apr 12th, 2011 by

It’s amazing to me how fraught family friendly television programming can be.

Case in point: Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. When I was a kid, if my fuzzy memory serves me, this show was usually about Jim nearly getting his face eaten by a lion while Marlin sat in the Land Rover providing color commentary. Everyone was always OK in the end, and my family gathered around pretty regularly for the nature safari. I don’t ever remember going to bed in tears.

Have you seen the new version? An episode four years ago focused on elephants in Namibia. A baby starved to death after its mother died, and the cameras captured the whole thing in agonizing real time. I wasn’t entertained; I cried and had nightmares that night and for a while after. The image of that poor baby elephant with its sunken head still haunts me. But at least Simon didn’t see it.

Whereas last week we tuned in for an ostensibly “cute” show about sea otters. Sea otters!—cute, smart, frolicking sea otters. Except this show decided to focus on the plight of a mother-baby pair threatened by an aggressive male newcomer. Right about the time the music shifted to the minor key and amped up the bass, I turned off the TV and badly lied to Simon that the show was over. Good thing, too. According to the Discovery Channel website, the mother otter was critically wounded in a fight, after which the baby was never seen again. Matt tells me that yesterday’s Discovery Network fodder was a show about dolphins threatened by sharks.

Does Disney own Discovery now? It’s the only explanation I have for the unhealthy obsession with parental demise. I have no explanation at all for the kid-jep stuff.

Then there are the harmless Super Friends video Simon so loves. In one of the lost episodes, Superman travels in space in time to Krypton just before the planet is about to blow up. He somehow keeps the Krypton sun from exploding, thereby saving his home planet. All is well and good until he returns to Earth, which is under the thumb of the League of Doom. There never was a Superman in this alternative reality, and Earth is a terrible place. (Really, any Star Trek fan could tell him what would happen if he violated the Prime Directive and messed with a timeline.)

So, without even a thought or detectible waffle, Superman zips back in time and space to reverse his deeds and watches with no emotion as Krypton is destroyed. When I first saw this episode, I thought the writers glossed over a moral dilemma too simply. After several viewings (but no comment from me), Simon drew the same conclusion. He asked Matt about Krypton’s sun. Then he asked why little Kal-El was sent off in space. Then, with moist eyes and a quivering chin, he asked what would happen to everyone on Krypton.

Add another TV land mine to the long and growing list of family programming not suitable for the sensitive child. Thank goodness for Winnie the Pooh, Scooby Doo,  and the programming on PBS!

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy | 3 Comments »

It’s the Little Things that Matter

Apr 10th, 2011 by

Carter’s has a very nice line of children’s goods for Target called “Just One Year.” When Simon wore onesies or slept under blankets of this brand, it made sense. But about the time I bought pajamas in size 3T I began thinking, “Are they talking about dog years? Or did the line expand and no one noticed that the name was off?”

Four years later, someone noticed. In helping Alek choose baby goods, I noticed a brand shift. You can now shop for Carter’s exclusive Target line under the moniker “Just One You.”

Pretty sly and good I’d say. Maybe I’ll look and see if they do pajamas in 4s or 5s now…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »