Don't Start the Rapture Without Me

Apparently it was the end of the world last Saturday and I almost missed it. My husband emailed me to let me know that it was coming in about two hours. I announced to our girls that some minister predicted that the end of the world was imminent. Nicole asked what imminent meant. I replied, "Any time now." Natalie cheered and said, "Tthat means quesadillas for dinner." I'm really glad my children don't take anything I say too seriously, but it’s somewhat puzzling and a little disturbing that Natalie continues to equate Armageddon with Mexican food.

I told them, honestly, if the end of the world were coming, I would have tried to have been better prepared. You can't let something that momentous that happen without preparation. Nicole asked me what I’d prepare. I told her I’d pack my favorite clothes, some comfortable shoes and some heels (just in case). I’d pack a little snack for us as well. Natalie started suggesting treats we could bring when Nicole burst our little end of the world plans with real facts learned in science class. She announced that the end of the world would only happen when the sun died out, which was in about a couple of million (or did she say billion?) years. Natalie chewed on that fact and asked me if I intended on being around then. I informed her that I would not. Natalie thought about it for a moment and decided that she too was going to miss the sun dying out event. Nicole, again with the facts, assured Natalie that none of us would be around to witness it, not unless they froze our bodies and then defrosted us just in time for the end. I let them both know that there would be no freezing of my body under any circumstances (although I think I better put that in writing). I went to college in Chicago, I know what cold is. I’m not going through that again, especially not for a few million (or possibly) billion years.

One of the things that I love about kids is that you can have nonsensical, theoretical conversations like our doomsday discussion and they will present their arguments and opinions and look at all sides of the issue even if the issue makes absolutely no sense at all. Adults like to call it “out of the box” thinking. Kids were born out of the box. We’re the ones who put them in there when they’re young and then they spend the rest of their lives trying to relearn how to think outside it again.

But enough about that…I have lots of packing to do. Apparently that minister has discovered that he made a miscalculation. The end of the world wasn’t May 21st; it is going to be on October 21st! Now I still have time to get the fixings for quesadillas.

That’s So Porno: Part 2

The tweenager shock jock talk continues at my daughter’s school. Last week, Nicole came home and asked me for a definition of porn because some friends in her fifth grade class were tossing the word around and mocking her for not knowing what it meant. This week’s word starts with a “c” ends with a “t” and I don’t really have to tell you the letters in between. Why do I feel like I’m on an X-rated version of Sesame Street? Her two friends (both of whom have older siblings) were using the word to describe another girl and when Nicole asked what the word meant, they again laughed at her and walked off. Now, knowing that I’m a fountain of information when it comes to defining four letter words (all those years bantering with Teamsters on set weren’t wasted), Nicole came home and immediately asked me to make things clear.

I gave her a very clinical definition, told her my opinion of the word, and of the use of curse words in general. The next day she came home and said that she’d told the kids that she now knew what the word meant. When they asked who told her, she said to their shock, “my mom.” She went on to tell them, bragging ever so slightly, that she can ask me anything. I told Nicole I was glad that she felt she could ask me/tell me about anything and encouraged her to continue to do so, no matter what my response was.

I both love and hate that my daughter feels like she can talk to me about anything. She should be able to and I want her to feel like there is nothing she can’t say to me. That’s my grown up side talking. Sounds so adult and together, right? But what I really want to say is, “OMG, I don’t want to deal with it! Don’t ask me those things! Don’t make me explain that stuff to you! I want to get mad at you and your little friends for growing up too fast – IMO - and already starting to talk about that stuff! La,la,la,la…I’m not listening!” Whatever happening to picking up this stuff in the street instead of asking your parents about it? Damn this progressive, 21st century, uber communicative childrearing. Can’t we go back to the days were misinformation was passed around in school restrooms and you learned about cursing and sex from your friends gossiping at sleepovers or at boy girl parties where the fast kids couple always disappeared into darkened basement bedrooms and whispered details of it later? Oh, yeah, remember those days and they weren’t all that informative. Most of what was said, rumored and done was incorrect or just plain stupid. I still giggle when I think of my seven year old friend who said in all earnestness that her big sister claimed you could get pregnant touching a doorknob. That must have been a hell of a doorknob.

I have no doubt that Nicole’s friends will test her theory that she can tell me anything by feeding her more salacious words to bring home and ask me about. I will continue to keep informing and correcting Nicole when she comes to me with these questions, even at the risk of being labeled the foul mouth dictionary mom - I’ve been called worse…starts with “c” ends with…you get the idea.

That's So Porno

Porno, porno everywhere…it was found in Bin Laden’s compound, and now in the classroom at my kids’ elementary school. This week, while the news reports continued to come out of Washington that the treasure trove of information seized from the raid in Pakistan included large quantities of pornographic films, my daughter’s fifth grade class was shown a “maturation” film. The film is something they have been showing to the graduating fifth graders for decades, one for boys and one for girls, which talks about how their bodies mature, sexuality and personal responsibility. The parents had to sign a release form to allow their kids to view it. Nicole was more excited about the promise of goody bags at the end of the screening which were rumored to contain tampons, pads and deodorant – all in a nice little carrying case for girls, than she was about actually seeing the movie.

The reports of porno films in Bin Ladenville had already intrigued me as I grappled with the irony of a religious sect hoarding skin flicks when Nicole came to me and asked, “Mommy, what is porno?” Surprisingly, I didn’t freak out about how to respond to the question as much as I thought I would. We have had the ongoing conversation about where babies come from, body maturation and sexuality ever since she first started asking at age six. I always tried to answer only what was asked, not elaborate unless she wanted more information, be direct, honest and non-judgmental in my responses. My husband, David, would rather our girls not get any information at all because in his mind, that means they are growing up, something I don’t think he’s quite ready to face. He cringes when Nicole comes out dressed for school looking more mature than her 10 years only by virtue of how clothes are now fitting her and he often sends her back into her room to make her change out of skirts and tank tops into sweats and camp shirts. So when Nicole asked me the porno question, several questions of my own raced through my head. I wondered where she had heard the term – assuming at first that she had picked it up from the news reports I’d been watching. But then, the thought popped into my head that maybe someone had exposed her to it. Before I could start imaging the worst, I said, “Why do you ask?” Nicole explained that after they’d seen the maturation video, the boys and girls were exchanging notes about it and one of the boys said to her, “Oh that film, that was so porno.” I smiled, relieved that she hadn’t been pulled into some back alley somewhere by persons unknown to watch Debbie Does Dallas.

I back-tracked, asking her what she thought of the girls’ maturation film. As expected, she said that we had already talked about almost everything that was in it. I asked her if she had any questions about what we hadn’t discussed or what she had seen. She circled back to the porno question, clearly the only part (which wasn’t even in the school film) which confused her. I searched for the appropriate words (I’d gone over in my head a million times how to answer the where do babies come from question, but this one was off my radar in terms of questions I’d be asked) and finally said, “It’s a movie that exploits people having sex.” She thought what I said for a moment and then asked, “What’s exploit mean?” I gave her a Merriam Webster response for the word. She didn’t ask for any more details about porn and I didn’t offer any. Finally, she shook her head knowingly and said, “He was so wrong about the movie.” She went on to tell me that when she didn’t know what the word porno meant, the boy waved her off dismissively and went to chat with the other girls who were up on their porno definition. Rather than being upset or bothered by the concept of porn, she was more frustrated by not knowing a word that everyone else seemed to know. Although I suspect a lot of those girls were smiling and nodded without having a clue. I explained to her that different people learned about (say/do) different things at different times (a mantra in my house that my girls make fun of me for saying) and that if he was rude enough to dismiss her for not knowing the word, that it was his problem not hers.

Fifth graders, who are generally 10, 11 or in some cases even 12, are so conflicted at this age. They want to be grown, and like this boy, toss around titillating words or phrases, pushing to see movies or listen to music which is probably too mature for them, asking for cell phones and solo visits to the mall or ice cream shop – all things which they think prove how grown they are or that they are in the know, while at the same time, they are still so little, wanting a hug or a cuddle. They struggle daily, caught between the desire to remain a kid and the wish to be adults.

So now, at the ripe old age of 10, Nicole knows what porno is. Not really, but at least she has a sense of the word and she knows it is not the maturation movie shown at school. But she was disappointed; they didn’t get the tampon-pad-deodorant goody bags this year because of budget cuts. The economic crisis strikes again.

Extreme

I don’t like reality shows. Cheaper to make and often much more profitable, they have just about killed scripted television and the incomes of those who work in it while simultaneously rotting our collective American minds. Who today doesn’t know who Snookie is, whether they want to or not? But ask them to name the senator from their state and they’ll stare at you blankly. Reality t.v. has created stars out of ordinary people, rich kids, experts in obscure fields and B-list stars seeking a comeback, people who in many cases have no particular talent other than a willingness to exploit their personalities and, as my grandma used to say, “Act the fool,” for the camera, inviting millions of people into their lives as housewives, bigamists, extremists of any kind, hoarders or residents of a house by the shore.

My daughters forced me to watch two of the competition type reality shows with them and I am slightly embarrassed to say I enjoy them, despite my rallying cry against reality. But at least dancing and singing take talent and passion and watching people struggle to get a routine or wow a judge shows honest effort and sometimes real defeat – something that I think is often missing from television today, both scripted and reality. As much as I love Law & Order, the detectives always get the perp and the prosecutors always win their case. Unfortunately, it’s not so in real life.

I was laid up in bed in recovery mode, drinking a Diet Coke and munching on one of my homemade cookie creations, a “faux nut” butter cookie – a recipe I created to satisfy my desire for a good old fashion peanut butter cookie for someone who can’t eat peanuts or wheat. Natalie curled up in my lap and started channel surfing and together we happened upon a new show, “Extreme Couponing.” Natalie and I looked at each other, both wondering how watching people who cut coupons could be an interesting t.v. show. We had to watch. They profiled a woman who spent 4 hours a day cutting coupons from the 9 newspapers she subscribed to (not to read the papers, of course, but to get the insert coupons – why be bothered with all that current affairs dribble?), and then spent 6 more hours of her day prowling the aisles of her local grocery store checking on special in preparation for her shopping day! She bragged that she usually put close to $1,000 in items in her shopping cart and usually only paid, after coupons, $5 to $10 dollars for all of it. Now while that savings is impressive, hell, it’s extraordinary, she complained about not being able to spend time with her husband and children because she was couponing, and how her house was being over run with the 2 year stockpile of products that she had. One woman they profiled even had a very expensive, complicated looking rack (which I think she designed herself) made to store her purchases in a way that the items with the oldest expiration date were pushed to the front so nothing would spoil. All the couponers complained of running out of room in their homes – one woman had 1,000 rolls of toilet paper stuffed under her son’s bed - in the same breath that they boasted of saving $40,000 or more a year on groceries.

As much as I’d like to cut back on the cost of my groceries, that kind of effort, time, dedication and ingenuity (a specially designed rack???) is being wasted on shopping. And despite the fact that they had stockpiles which would see them through five natural disasters with enough to feed the entire block, they still continued couponing and shopping. I had to turn the show off. Their obvious obsession was difficult to watch. As much as I was fascinated, I was also repulsed. It’s like the hoarder show – amazing to get a glimpse into their minds and their homes, but it’s a little uncomfortable once you’re inside.

I tried to watch the couponing show again, but I had the same response. I was talking with another friend of mine about it – he’s a reality show devotee who keeps up with several of them – and he told me that some of the coupon women actually use their “talent” to get groceries for free (or nearly free) and then donate the grocery items to charities/shelters, which made me feel slightly better. I mean how many families need a two year supply of dishwasher soap?

But I guess if it wasn’t extreme, it wouldn’t work on t.v. Who wants to see me go to Ralphs, fumble through my purse at check out for the three coupons I managed to tear from a mailer tossed on my lawn, to find that only one of the three coupons was for an item I actually purchased? I got $1 off because they doubled the coupon and I felt like a winner. But that’s how most people deal with coupons in real life. And real life would never work well on reality t.v., now would it?

Half Baked

My husband doesn’t like it when I sell things on the street. Now I have my daughters doing it, too. Today it’s cookies, last time it was cupcakes and brownies. It’s always for a good cause – political campaign, puppy rescues, or like today’s sale, it’s to raise money for a camp for kids with sickle cell disease.

There is something about a bake sale that is in some ways far more effect in getting people out to support a cause. Unlike a dinner dance, pancake breakfast or wine tasting – all of which I have been involved in organizing – there is something so simple about a bake sale. It is a low cost, easy way to contribute. It doesn’t require any long term commitment on the part of the person making the donation. And besides, who can resist a cookie?

A friend of mine who donated twenty but declined to take the twenty cookies because she said she didn’t need an excuse to eat a plate on her own, told me she liked that my girls and I did cooking fundraisers together. I confessed to the reason behind it – I love to bake. Second only to writing, it is my favorite thing to do. If someone would actually pay me for my baked goods in the retail world, I would jump at the chance to make it a second act profession some day. I also want my girls to know what it feels like to help others, to raise money and turn it over to a charity, to recognize that no matter what we might be going through ourselves, that there is always someone else worse off and in need of our efforts. My mother used to always say to me, “Whenever you’re feeling bad, find someone who’s feeling worse and do something for them. You’ll find that it’s the best way to make yourself feel better.” Lastly, it is an easy ask of friends, neighbors and family – come by, eat a cookie, help someone.

We did a benefit bake a few years ago where the girls raised over $300 in less than two hours. Thanks to the beauty of email and forwarding, people we didn’t know, who were friends of friends, showed up to participate. David refused to be involved, citing his objection to my selling things on the street habit. At one point, we had about twenty or more people milling in front of the house eating baked goods and contributing for the cause. David was finally forced to come out of the house where he’d been hiding for the duration of the sale, hoping that the neighbors didn’t call to complain. Thing was, most of the neighbors were now out in front. When he finally came out, I overheard him chatting with a neighbor, who assumed he’d been part of the fundraising effort. When he didn’t deny it, I had him, and he was forced to help with clean up.

Today we’re adding milk to the occasion. And at $1 a cup, that’s extra money for the camp. Besides, what goes better with cookies than milk?

Missing Part 2

My daughter Nicole came back from her Washington D.C. trip a changed person. The person who came back is much more mature, confident and independent. It’s a little frightening and as much as I marvel at the change, I miss the little girl she was before she went on the trip.

When we went to pick Nicole up at the airport, there were fifty or more other parents waiting for the plane to land. Natalie, Nicole’s younger sister, made a beautiful welcome back sign which read, “Welcome home Nicole! We love you! Don’t Ever Go Away Again!” I felt the same way. I would never say, but part of me yearned to yell at her, don’t ever go away again! I missed her, badly. But Natalie then decided, as eight year olds will do, that she was too embarrassed to hold it up because she had drawn a bunny on it and she didn’t want the fifth graders to think she was babyish.

The parents gathered, excited and eager to see our kids, a little fearful until all of the wheels of the plane touched down on the runway. We waited, making small talk about end of the year festivities – the upcoming fifth grade culmination ceremony which seems to have grown to mythic proportions making it only slightly less important than graduating from Harvard. We talked middle school choices and thoughts about what the next school year would bring. I had brought balloons, but David made me leave them in the car. He said, “She’s not coming back from Iraq, just a week in D.C.” I didn’t care, I was getting balloons anyway, even if she would only enjoy them for the car ride home! Other parents filtered in as their arrival grew closer, balloons clutched in their hands. I gave David a look which he pretended not to see.

When the first kids started filtering into baggage claim, the parents let out a cheer, screaming, clapping. I felt sorry for the other passengers on the plane. Not only did they have to tolerate a 5 hour flight with 44 kids, but now they had to deal with the parents, who were probably missing their children more than their children missed them. We spotted Nicole, but it was difficult to get through the crowd to embrace her. She hugged and kissed us, and Natalie flashed her the welcome sign so quickly that I’m sure Nicole barely got to see it. But instead of being teary or bubbling over with excitement to see us, Nicole said – in a voice that seemed liked she was making an effort to sound grown, “Hi Guys, good to be back. Let me get my bag.” She walked over to the luggage and refusing help from both me and her father, insisted on taking her giant, 45 pound suitcase off of the carrousel. I couldn’t believe it. The girl who used to ask me to carry her lunch box into school for her because it was too much to juggle with her backpack – why she refused to put it in her backpack is still one of those mysteries of the universe which will never be solved – was now handling a suitcase that was almost as big as she was, as well as a backpack. She looked at me and said, “Mom, I’ve been lugging around my own stuff, getting myself washed, dressed and ready every morning for eight days, I got this, I can handle it, I’m Miss Independence now!”

I was shocked, surprised and amused by her comment. We’ll see how long her Miss Independence reign lasts, but I do know that the change in her has been marked since she returned and that in some ways, what my neighbor said was true – a trip away, an opportunity to go to Washington D.C. (or anyway away from their parents for a week and be on their own) will be life changing. It’s a good change for the kids, harder on the parents. I love Nicole’s newfound confidence, but in some ways, I was missing my little girl. The next day, I told David how I was feeling about it and he looked at me like I was crazy, reminding me of all the times I’d tried to get Nicole (and the rest of them) to do a better job of picking up after themselves, keeping track of their own things, basically being more responsible and independent and now that she was doing it, I was complaining? As we were talking, Nicole, who was starting to show signs of jet lag on her first day back, interrupted us and curled up on the sofa next to me, burying her head in my arms. She murmured, “Good night, Mommy,” and allowed herself to drift off before the sun had even set or dinner was served. She was tired from her trip, from all the changes, and when everything was said and done, she still needed me to comfort her and help her get some rest. Okay, independent, but always my little girl.

Note: As we head into spring break, I’m going to do just that and take a break from posting next week. Okay, yeah, I know, I’m not in school anymore, but some habits, like taking spring break, die hard. Also, isn’t half the point of having kids so that you can relive all those things you loved about childhood even though you are an adult? Posting again on 5/6!

Missing

I don’t know where my ten year old daughter is at this moment. She is somewhere in Washington D.C. on a class field trip. Four teacher/chaperones, who clearly give Job a run for his money when it comes to patience, are taking forty-four fifth graders on a tour of historic sites – Monticello, Congress (unless it’s closed), the Liberty Bell. They will travel over three states during eight days where the kids will be responsible for packing and unpacking their suitcases, keeping up with their belongings, personal grooming (at least enough that they don’t offend each other), making sure they get proper nutrition, all in addition to doing written assignments and keeping a photo journal. Oh, and the kicker…they can’t call, email, text or contact their parents in any way for the entire trip! I’m not sure I could do all that now, let alone at age ten.

When Nicole was in second grade, she announced that she would never, ever go on the D.C. trip. She repeated her declaration in third and fourth grade. But suddenly, when the teachers started talking about earning points to go on the trip – being allowed to go is merit based – Nicole promptly forgot her vow of several years earlier and became obsessed with not losing points so she could take the trip. I had mixed emotions about letting her go. I had been relieved when she said that she didn’t want to, but when she made an about face, I resigned myself to her going, knowing that I would be nervous and would miss her terribly. However, I also knew it would be, as parents of some older kids from our school have told me, “a life changing experience” for her. And indeed, I know now that it will be. It was amazing watching her in the days leading up to the trip. She has never been to sleep away camp, never traveled without us to visit family or friends. Yet, she was not nervous, and on the ride to the airport she was giddy, not worried or homesick. Even her goodbye as she got into the line to check her bag was more like a “goodbye I’m going to school,” rather than “goodbye, I’ll see you in a week!”

The teachers are tweeting the experience several times a day so we get to see photographs of the kids at various monuments. As a friend of mine said, it’s like playing Where’s Waldo? with the pictures, hunting each one to find your kid, making sure that they are still present and accounted for, checking to see that they have on their coat or combed their hair. It is our only way to know what’s going on during the trip. But the one thing I noticed in each photo is how happy and engaged the kids appear. And I marvel that my baby of ten is three thousand miles away from me, for the first time having experiences on her own. A mom I know with a toddler scolded us for letting Nicole go on the trip and said that she would never let her child travel on a school trip that far away at such a young age. She said that she knew her child would not be ready for it. And that may be true. However, I firmly believe that even if they aren’t exactly ready, most kids will rise to the occasion in order to have a chance to experience such a journey.

When I was 13, my French teacher aunt took me to Paris under the guise of taking several of her students on a study abroad trip. In fact, it was really just a booty call on foreign shores, with her promptly coming to our hotel room a few moments after arriving, teaching us a few survival phrases in French, informing us that we should not come to her hotel room for the next two weeks and instructing us not to tell our parents about it. And then she was gone. I was 13, alone in Paris with a hotel room, return ticket, guide book and a credit card. I was scared for about a nano second and then realized what an amazing opportunity I had. I cut a deal with the two girls I was traveling with, both older, high school juniors, but unable to speak the language as well as I could, that if they would go with me to museums during the day, I would translate for them at night when they went on the prowl hunting cute French guys. It was an arrangement that met the needs of all the travelers and resulted in hilarious results and lifelong memories. It turned out that my aunt had a boyfriend who I suspect was at the embassy and that she’d been following around the world for years and meeting in exotic locales. We had always marveled at her foreign trips and wondered how and why she went on such fascinating journeys – now I knew. But as a woman teacher in her day who’d lose her job to a married man with kids to support, I guess she thought it best not to marry and keep her relationship hidden – maybe her embassy guy was married, or maybe she just wanted to keep her job, either way, in retrospect, it was both terribly sad and horribly romantic! However, the biggest thing I learned on the trip was that I could take care of myself anywhere under any circumstance and it was a lesson that sparked a lifelong interest in travel and one that I carried with me as I traveled extensively, often alone and to unusual places during my pre-kid years. And as my aunt asked, I kept her secret and didn’t tell my father about my abandonment in Paris until I was 36. He shook his head and said, “That sounds like my sister.” I had been left alone in Paris for two weeks and I survived. So I knew that Nicole, who is way more mature than I was at that age, would do fine. I was the one who might not fare so well on this trip. I would miss her.

So Nicole is out of the house and it is very quiet now. There is no one dancing in the kitchen after dinner when she should be sitting and finishing her meal, no constant chatter repeating stories which she’s told us time and again, no bickering between sisters over what to watch on t.v. or who was longer on the Wii. Instead, there is a place at the table which goes unset, a bedroom neat and bed nicely made without clothes strewn about the room and the daily morning angst over what to wear. I thought I wouldn’t miss all those things, but I do. Nicole is missing from our home, and I miss her and the liveliness and love she brings to our life. Even though I know that within hours of her return, I might long for some of that quiet time again, I will be glad that she went on her journey, but happy to have her home.