Category Archives: Family
Locker Intervention
When my son showed up for his English class last Friday without his textbook yet again, his saintly teacher staged a locker intervention. In the email she sent to us afterward, she explained that not only had they found the book he was missing, she had also discovered a veritable cornucopia of food in his locker. There was enough to feed an entire continent…if it weren’t for the fact that it was growing limbs and developing individuated personalities. There was an entire wardrobe of clothing crammed in there too. On Sunday when the usual mad scramble for “church pants” was going on, I serenely pulled a pair out of the dryer that I had just washed from The Great Locker Clean Out 2014. Unfortunately, I failed to take into account the fact that they’d been stashed in my son’s locker for a few months:
So…tea length capris – that’s a good look, right?
Kindle
One wintry day many years ago when I was a poor graduate student subsisting on a daily diet of one can of Campbell’s tomato and rice soup for lunch and dinner, I was wandering down Broadway when I stopped at a vendor’s cart piled high with CDs. Was it the intoxicating aroma of roasting chestnuts and honey roasted nuts from the neighboring carts that was my undoing? The unmistakable smell of snow in the air? Whatever the reason, I found myself handing over money from my meager student stipend to buy the Boyz II Men Christmas album.
“Ya wanna plain brown paper bag fuh dat?” the vendor asked.
“Hunh?” I looked at him blankly.
“Ya don’t wanna be seen walking around in public widdat, do yas?”
Damn. Openly scorned and mocked by a street vendor to whom I had just forked over my last dollar bills.
I guess my taste in music has always been embarrassingly haphazard at worst, “eclectic” at best. Nevertheless, my playlist is a reflection of who I am and where I’ve been. Similarly, my bookshelves full of Russian literature, poetry, and children’s picture books are also an accurate record of my life and interests.
I recently borrowed my son’s Kindle to read a book I didn’t want to add to my already overflowing bookshelves. In reading through his “Archived items,” I unearthed a treasure trove of information about him. There were things you might expect to see on any eleven year old boy’s reading and app list, like soccer books and games, “fart-themed” apps, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Legends of King Arthur, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and Treasure Island. There were some surprises as well. For example, I hadn’t realized how deep my son’s interest in Civil War history was until I read through the extensive list of memoirs, histories, and documents on his Kindle including that classic: A Refutation of the charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having authorized the Use of Exploive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65. I’ve always known that my son’s the kind of kid who likes to figure out how things work. Even so, his list of “How-to” guides still managed to surprise and entertain me: Clutter-Free Home Living, How to Get Cash in 24 Hours, Hotel Room Workout, Make Perfect Coffee, How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs, Evening Yoga for Women. And then there were the cookbooks. To understand my puzzlement over these, it would probably help to know that we often refer to our son as “White Boy.” This has nothing to do with the color of his skin, and everything to do with his preference for white food…the blander, the better. Imagine my surprise to discover such exotic cookbooks in his archives such as The Kerala Kitchen: Recipes and Recollections from the Syrian Christians of South India and Taste of Romania: Its Cookery and Glimpses of Its History, Folklore, Art, Literature, and Poetry.
I’ve learned a lot about my son’s wide-ranging interests by going through his Kindle archives. My budding renaissance man is interested in cookery, wildlife, the ancient ballads, poetry, and songs of the English peasantry…And also? The boy’s a sucker for free downloads.
The Rivanna Trail
We took advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday to walk an easy, quiet little stretch of the 20 mile long, mostly wooded Rivanna Trail that loops around the city of Charlottesville.
Angry Turtle
Baby Boy
A few summers ago, we were heading to the beach to meet up with family friends with whom we were sharing a house. Our children would be sharing a bunk room for a week, and, we imagined, all the knowledge that they had amassed between them through friends, family, and sex ed classes. We knew that our friend’s son, who was going to school in another state, had already had these classes, and that even before this, his parents had dutifully taught him everything there is to know.
We, on the other hand, as usual, were woefully behind the curve. Not only had our son not yet gone through the “Family Life Education” classes as they are euphemistically called here in Virginia, we, as parents, had not given him any real information at all. I’m sure my son would say that we are overprotective parents, although he’d probably put it in a slightly different way. When he first asked me where babies came from, I flat out panicked and blurted out the first thing that came to my head, “You go to the hospital and the doctor helps you have the baby.” Period.
And so, as we drove down to the Outer Banks, my husband and I decided that at the very first opportunity, he would head things off by taking our son for a walk on the beach to have “The Talk.”
Later, he reported their conversation to me with a half grin on his face. It had been going pretty well, he told me, until he got to the actual mechanics…
“Ewww! That’s disgusting!” my son exclaimed as he recoiled in visceral horror.
“It’s really not that bad,” my husband tried to reassure him.
“Why? Does the doctor put you to sleep first?” my son asked with such sweet innocence that I really had to wonder if we had made a terrible mistake in tearing away the veil.
As a firstborn, our son has had to weather his parents’ inexperience. It’s often difficult for us to gauge how to treat him. I’ve always felt guilty about the fact that at the tender age of two, he automatically became “a big boy” in my eyes, the very minute his little brother was born. When I look back at pictures of how very little he was back then, I am filled with sorrow and regret that I didn’t baby him for longer.
On the other hand, he has always been the kind of kid who has bridled against being treated as a child. I remember one morning, when our son was a Kindergartner, my husband returned back home after seeing him onto the school bus with his shoulders slumped and a mournful expression on his face. As he had done every morning for months, he had given our son a big hug as he saw the bus pulling up to the stop. Our son bore it stoically, but as he mounted the stairs, he stopped and turned around for a moment. Gazing into the distance he said with a world-weary sigh, “I wish people wouldn’t hug me in public.”
It’s only gotten more confusing with time. He can now finally sit in the passenger seat next to me when I drive, but I usually have to remind him of the fact as he automatically heads towards the back of the minivan. I still have to nag him to do his homework and to pick up his clothes, but to do so, I have to crane my neck to look up at him as I shout my directives. Last week my husband bought our son his first razor and he shaved for the first time. He absolutely refused a tutorial, insisting that he’d figure out how to do it “on the internet.” This week, he’s going to get braces. And so we bumble on, hoping that he feels as cherished and loved as a newborn, while knowing that we are cheering him on as he makes his way to adulthood.
Nicholas holding up one of his baby outfits.
Related posts:
Adolescence
Rite 13, Pt. 1
Rite 13, Pt. 2
I am truly evil
The Inferno
This morning…
Lost and Found
Im/maturity
Weekend Smiles
Dog spoiling
Discovering this on my door knob:
Stop me before I volunteer again…let’s just do lunch instead
left for me by my friend Annika, with whom I led Helping Hands!
This poem by Russian poet Osip Mandelshtam, (1898-1938)
I’ve been given a body – what should I do with it,
So singular and so my own?
For the quiet happiness of breathing and living
Tell me, whom should I thank?
I am the gardener, and I am also the flower,
In the world’s prison, I am not alone.
The windowpane of eternity is already marked by
My breath, my warmth
A pattern is imprinted upon it,
Unrecognizable in recent times
Let the dregs of the moment trickle away
The sweet pattern will not be erased.
And this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.:
You shouldn’t have!
These days, my husband and I only get presents for our children, never for each other. Every once in a while, I pick something out for myself, but I always give Colin the credit. It’s a win win every time.
“Oh my gosh! I LOVE it! How did you know this is exactly what I wanted? Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! Mwah!”
Here’s what “he got me” this Christmas:
I love it! It was perfect after it was resized, free of charge, to fit my finger, which has apparently become even chunkier than before.
And here’s the drawing it came from:
I’ve always adored this picture, depicting all three of my children. It was drawn years ago by my oldest son on a tiny scrap of paper. Now I can wear the drawing on my finger every day!
Mia Van Beek, a jeweler whose studio is here in Charlottesville, can use your own child’s drawing to create everything from a pendant to a ring. Best of all, the whole process can be done by email. You can check out her beautiful work here:
o wonderful, wonderful 