The Bed You Lie In

There’s an old saying that goes, “You make your bed, now go lie in it.” It roughly means, if you create a situation, you have to deal with it yourself. But whenever I see my children’s beds unmade and my repeated pleas for them to pull up their comforters are ignored, I think of that phrase and of the literal importance of my kids making their own beds. Yes, it would be easier not to push them to do it. That would be one less daily battle to fight in a seemingly endless war of skirmishes over shoes left in the middle of the living room, clothes dumped everywhere, and an endless array of dishes that pile up in the family room, making it look more like a diner than a place to watch t.v. Yeah, letting them skip making their beds would be easier. I could make the beds myself in a shorter time than it takes for me to yell at them. Or I could let the cleaning lady do it. But then what would my kids learn if someone else always does those types of things for them?

When I was about six or seven and my mother worked as a nurse, there was a woman who came to our house to watch us after school and to clean and cook until our parents came home. Her name was Ernestine Johnson, I think – funny I can remember that far back when I can barely remember my own children’s names. Even as she cleaned the rest of the house, Mrs. Johnson was given strict instructions not to empty the trash cans or make the beds in our bedrooms. My brother and I had to do those ourselves. I vaguely remember complaining to my parents and wondering if Mrs. Johnson was here to clean and make beds, why she didn’t clean and make beds in our rooms.

When I was in my early 20s, some old family friends came to stay with us for the weekend. I went to make the bed in the guest room. Our friend watched me do it for a second, and then shook his head. He pulled the sheets off and instructed me to make the bed again, but this time he wanted to show me how to make a bed the way he’d learned in the army. To this day, I don’t know if he was every really in the army or not, or if he was just trying to give me a difficult time about my sloppy bed making. Whether he was a military man or not, he sure knew how to fold crisp hospital corners and make the bed look as if, once tucked in, you could bounce the proverbial quarter on it. Here was a guy, a very successful businessman with a car and a driver, a own household staff and several vacation homes, making the bed with great precision. It’s important to know how to make a bed correctly,” he said, carefully tucking in the last corner, “It’s not just about how you make your bed, it’s about how you make your life.”

He was right, although it took many years of unmade beds for me to figure it out. I know it’s silly, but in a way, I find I feel better when my bed is made. Things feel more in order. In a weird way, I feel more in control. If I can have some order in my bed, in my room, at my desk, then maybe, just maybe, can be at peace with the chaos in life I can’t control.

My children need to know how to make a bed correctly because just as you make a bed, you make your life and however you do it – well or sloppy – you will be the one who will have deal with what you do. So will I continue to push them to make their own beds? Will I force myself to pull up my own covers and tuck the corners in properly during the rest of the week and not just on the weekends? I will try. Now if I could just remember the trick to those hospital corners!

No Naughty Children Here

Santa has a list. He checks it twice to see who has been naughty and who has been nice. I’ve always hated that depiction of Santa, yet have been guilty myself of warning my children that they better be good or they’ll end up on the dreaded naughty list. A punitive Santa – a guy who will retaliate against a kid for their bad behavior by denying them toys on the one day of the year when everyone should get a present. Not a nice concept when you really sit down and think about it. We want our children to behave nicely regardless of the threat of the naughty list. But anyone who has children knows that just doesn’t happen and we need everything (from bribes to threats) to keep them in line.

But really, when you think about it, for the most part, there are no naughty children. There are children who are scared, misunderstood, frustrated, tired and hungry. There are children whose parents are impatient or distracted or frustrated in their own right and taking it out on their kids. Under those circumstances, those kids are going to act out, they are going to misbehave and they will end up with the naughty label and their name on the dreaded list.

Recently, when my kids were going bonkers one afternoon and really making me crazy, I started to lay into them, shouting (or barking as my daughter likes to describe it) and ordering them about. But before I exploded, I stopped for a moment and tried to think about how we went from peaceful morning to afternoon anarchy with more bad behavior than you’d find in congress on any given day. I caused it. Not my children. They were behaving badly, naughty enough to end up on the list, but they got there because I had been rushing them, not listening to what they were saying, misinterpreting their actions and yelling at them because of it. My bad behavior incited their bad behavior. Now I’m not saying my kids are angels or that they never behave badly on their own. There are too many instances for me to mention of them crossing the line from good little girls to unholy terrors. In fact, one of my oldest friends affectionately calls them “Children of the Corn.” But in this particular instance, they were naughty not nice because of parental bad behavior. I think, probably more often then we’d like to admit, it is our own unfortunate reactions to things, our own bad behavior which brings out undesirable behaviors in our children. Conversely, we can bring out the nice as easily as we can incite the naughty. I’m only hoping my behavior doesn’t earn me a spot the naughty list this year!

So Many Reasons to be Thankful

November and the impending holidays always trigger more frequent conversations with my daughters about being thankful. Back when grocery stores would give away free frozen turkeys for purchases over $150 (they don’t seem to do that anymore), I would cook up two or three (because how many turkeys does a family really need???) and all the accompaniments – gravy, mashed potatoes and stuffing, plate them, drive around my neighborhood looking for homeless under overpasses or by the freeway exits and handout the plates of food the day before Thanksgiving. I did it for several years before I was married and had children, but last year my husband, David, suggested that it wasn’t the safest idea. I really hadn’t had a problem and the response from the homeless who I gave the food to was always one of surprise and gratitude with the one exception of the woman who complained (and in retrospect, rightfully so) that there was no beverage to accompany the meal. So this year, I will be content with taking my daughters to pack food boxes for a shelter to hand out, rather than doing our own makeshift meal delivery.

But I struggle with how to teach my kids about need and want, particularly when they are surrounded by messages that confuse the two. Do they need an iPhone? A flat screen in their bedroom? Real Ugg boots? No, they want those things, but they certainly don’t need them. And yet in their world – being hit by ads, tv, music lyrics and friends who have and encourage them to want the same - they believe they are deprived without them. I had to bite my tongue from snapping at Natalie when she came home and rattled off a list of things that another child at school had, wants of hers which she considered needs that I refused (and in her mind stubbornly and maliciously so) to provide her with. They included a European vacation over winter break, horseback riding lessons and a credit card at Justice. Not that I could have done any of those things right now anyway, but even if I could, I wouldn’t. Yet, her seven year, old credit card toting friend had all those things and I was the mean mommy keeping my second grader from having them. Natalie complained that we must be poor because she couldn’t have those things. That’s when I regretted that I wasn’t making them come with me to take turkey to the homeless. Then they’d see what poor really was.

It also feels like what kids think they need nowadays has changed drastically since I was young. Maybe I’m having selective memory, but I don’t think I ever coveted lines of credit in elementary school. So, I’ve ramped up the being thankful discussions and all this talk about it inspired me to come up with a small list of my own:

Here are ten things – in no particular order - that I’m thankful for beyond family, health, friends and shelter:

Bubble wrap and the fact that popping it still makes me laugh

That JJ Abrams cast black people as leads in a television drama series that isn’t about race, even if NBC was silly enough to cancel it

Playdates that don’t end in children (or parents) crying

Dark chocolate

My ten year old telling a boy who asked her, that she was too young to be anyone’s girlfriend

Having ten minutes alone in the bathroom without someone under five feet tall knocking on the door and needing me from something

That even with my bad back, I can still touch my toes without bending my knees

Feeling energized after arguing politics

Getting old enough to realize that whatever it is, isn’t as bad as it seems

Being able to appreciate (and mostly accept) myself and those around me for who we are

Cairo and Other Things That Go Boom

My husband David was offered an opportunity to go to Cairo with a band he plays in. The lead singer is popular abroad and when this gig came up, she called the musicians she plays with to see if they were interested. An all-expenses paid, luxury trip to Egypt, the instruments would be shipped over and the musicians would receive salary and per diem for their services. The concert was being sponsored by some big international group who catered to high worth clientele and this group wanted to hear this singer and her band. Who wouldn't jump the chance to go? The downside? You're flying into a region of political unrest which experiences frequent militant attacks against foreigners, particularly Americans. Oh, getting blown up, yes, that's a downside.

Now, I love to travel, so much so that I am affectionately called a travel 'ho by my husband because I will do anything to go on a trip - buy bubble gum with a credit card to earn airplane miles, enter travel contests, finagle any situation to be included on an excursion. So of course, when he got the offer, my first question was, "Can I come?" David was hesitant at first, which really pissed me off. What, he doesn't want to go to Cairo with me, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity (which it really isn't because Cairo will still be there long after I'm gone), it will be like a second honeymoon, it will be an adventure to shake up the all too frequent routine we find ourselves falling into and making us crazy. Then I thought, oh, he doesn't want both of us to go because of the danger factor. What if we both go to Cairo and something happens to us? What about the kids?

I did research about the situation there, came across articles on how to travel in unstable areas, even saw an article in a travel magazine called "Exit Plan," about how to get out of a country during a political coup. Did you know they have private companies you can hire that will go in and extricate you should you be caught in the middle of a hot zone? The main advice I came away with...book a hotel near the airport (in case you need to get out fast).

But really, there are ways to make yourself less obvious and less a target when abroad, or anywhere for that matter. Observe the local customs, dress appropriately for the region and religion, try to stay out of large crowded areas (markets and bazaars being a favorite target of suicide bombers) and sadly, if you see that large bus of American tourists visiting from Florida, don't go anywhere near it.

I floated the idea of going by several friends to see what their thoughts were about the danger factor. Most echoed the "You only live once...once in a lifetime" concept, and dismissed the idea that Cairo was that much more dangerous than here. "You could easily get mugged and killed on the street down at Hollywood and Cahuenga Boulevard if you hang out after 1am," one friend said. See, I could die locally without the expense of an airline ticket or thirty hours of travel time. Note to self, avoid Hollywood and Cahuenga after dark...

I talked to our dear friends who are our children's guardians. She was very encouraging, hopeful that we got to go. Then I reminded her that if something happens, our children would be moving in with them. She paused for a beat - she hadn't thought about that one - I think she was trying to figure out how an already overtaxed schedule (because whose isn't with kids) was going to absorb two more bodies, and then she said something like, of course we hope that wouldn't happen, but if something did, we'd raise them (my girls) right. Good answer.

So I go back to David, at peace with the idea that we should risk the journey, that will would be fine going together and that he should talk to the singer to ask if wives can come along. Of course, the singer's significant other was going on the trip...with some dubious title of sound man/manager, she didn't say no, but she back peddled when David asked. "The band members may have to share rooms, but I'll see," she responded. So much for all expenses paid, luxury trip.

David was still lukewarm on the idea of both of us going. I thought he was concerned about our girls possibly losing both their parents because I insisted we go into a crowded marketplace to buy leather sandals. Instead, it was much more simple than that. "I'd like to take my first trip on the road with the band on my own. None of the other musicians wives are going." I felt like the mom whose kids don't want her to walk them into their classrooms at school anymore. So it wasn't about security, it was about fitting in with the band.

I resolved myself to the idea that he wanted and was going to go off to Cairo on his own. I fretted a little - both of us getting blown up together is one thing - I can deal with that because I wouldn't be around to have to deal with it. But him going on his own and having something happen? He would be leaving me alone with the girls -which really is a rather terrifying thought - forget about losing the love of my life, the kids would outnumber me - never a position any parent wants to be in. I was about to suggest to David that maybe going on the trip wasn't such a good idea after all, which sounds awful because it was a good idea when I was going to be able to go...but then the call came. The singer said that the group sponsoring the show was making her bring only a skeleton crew, not the full band, just bass and drum (and her sound man/manager/significant other, of course). I was sorry for David, but relieved. I was surprised by his response. Yes, of course he was disappointed, but in some ways he didn't want to go. Why? The guy who loves, steak and potatoes, fast food and pizza, who doesn't like anything too exotic or spicy, was worried about what he was going to eat in Cairo.