Tag Archives: siblings

The Tidal Basin…or: L’enfer c’est les autres

The cherry blossoms hadn’t quite popped yet, but the Cherry Blossom Festival was in full swing this weekend.

After lunch, we decided to go paddle-boating in the Tidal Basin.

Two people had to peddle in our four person boat. My three kids argued over who would get to peddle as if they were vying for seats on the U.S. Olympic rowing team. The man who was helping us into the boat solved the problem by suggesting that we return to the dock halfway through to switch positions.

“Remember! You’re not allowed to switch positions in the middle of the water,” he warned, “When you’re ready to switch, you have to come back here and we’ll help you do it.”

The boys took the first shift:

while my daughter and I relaxed:

Halfway through the hour, we returned to the dock so that my daughter could have a turn. My oldest son graciously gave up his coveted spot to switch positions with her…

Moments before all hell broke loose.

…and immediately transformed into a crazed martinet. “FASTER! Peddle faster, you maggots!” he shouted gleefully.

His siblings bore his strident orders with good humor at first, but the relentless nature of his hectoring soon began to pall. Undeterred by my dirty looks and increasingly forceful requests that he put a sock in it, he kept goading his younger siblings. We were like the characters in Sartre’s Huis Clos, who eventually come to realize that they are in hell, and that their punishment is being trapped for eternity with each other.

To distract the kids, I suggested that we go investigate some white rocks I could see in the distance. I didn’t recognize them and wanted to get a closer look.

The two kids got the boat fairly close to the rocks, but not close enough for me to make out what they were.

“I still can’t see what they are. Can you get a little closer?” I asked.

My conscientious eleven year old, our family’s own Jiminy Cricket, advised me against this unwise course of action. “It will take us too long to get back to the dock if we get any closer to the rock.”

“But I really want to see what they are. How about you get us just a little closer?”

Meanwhile, my eldest took this as a signal to renew his taunts.

“CLOSER! Get CLOSER! Peddle harder, you maggots! I want to see bubbles in our wake!!!”

Against his own better judgment, Jiminy Cricket steered us close enough to the rocks so that I could see at last that it was the new(ish) Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial:

“OK, let’s head back now!” I said, sneaking a peek at the time.

“How much time do we have left to get back to the dock? NO! Don’t tell me, it will just stress me out. OK, go ahead and tell me.”

“Ummm, well, we have about ten minutes.”

Now Jiminy Cricket was pissed. He started scolding both of us.

“You HAD to see the rock! And NOW we’re going to be late getting back to the dock. Don’t blame me if they make us pay more for the boat! I TOLD you it would take too long, but NO, you HAD to get closer.”

“Don’t stress out about it! If we have to pay extra, we’ll just pay extra. It’s not a big deal,” I tried to reassure him.

All the while, his brother provided a steady dose of maddening counterpoint: “Is that the best you can do? We’re not even moving! Come ON! Peddle for all your worth, Maggots!”

Jiminy Cricket lost it: “YOU peddle then. I’m not going to peddle anymore!”

“I’d be glad to peddle, but we’re not allowed to switch.” (For some reason, now my eldest son switched to a velvety, smarmy English accent dripping with evil).

For dramatic effect my second son stopped peddling, even though I know it was killing him not to be making any progress back toward the dock.

“Well somebody has to peddle…,” I ventured, as the boat came to a standstill.

At that point we realized the youngest was not feeling well.

“I think I might throw up,” she moaned.

“Just stop peddling. STOP PEDDLING! Take your feet OFF the pedals. I can manage myself!” shrieked my poor little Jiminy Cricket as he resumed peddling as fast as he could, “UGH! My back is KILLING me! My legs are killing me!”

“QUIT your whining, you maggot and peddle!” (I whacked the boy to shut him up – to no avail). “Don’t tell me that’s the best you can do. Peddle harder!!!”

The ridiculousness of it got to me and I started shaking with silent laughter.

“You think this is FUNNY?!” asked Jiminy Cricket, apoplectic with rage.

“NO! I’m sorry! It’s not funny at ALL!” I said trying to get a hold of myself, “I’m sorry, I wish I could help you peddle, but….”

Finally, we made it back to the dock, about fifteen minutes past the time we were due. Fortunately, they took pity on us, and let us stagger off into the sunset without any additional payment.

As we walked on, my sweet Jiminy Cricket said, “Thanks so much for taking us on the awesome boat ride, Mommy.” I looked at him suspiciously to see if he was mocking me, but he continued with earnest sincerity, “It was so much fun!” (That one’s a keeper, I’m telling you)!

The three siblings reconciled…

and we headed back to meet up with my sister for our ride back to Arlington.

Im/maturity

It can be tricky to have children who are at different developmental stages. Our conservative strategy for navigating these treacherous waters is to wade in only as far as would be knee-deep for our youngest child. Recently, for example, the kids watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, even though the boys would much rather have seen Gravity. A couple years ago I caught my daughter, who was then six years old, reading The Hunger Games, which I had gotten for her oldest brother. I snatched it away from her and told her she could read it when she was older.

The other day I asked my thirteen year old son, “When do you think T will be old enough to read The Hunger Games?”

“Well, to be honest, I think she’s old enough now.”

“Really? But she’s only a third grader.”

“Yeah, but to tell you the truth, she’s way more mature than I am now.”

“Seriously? You really think so?”

“Yeah. And when I realized that, it kind of ruined my day a little bit. But I’ve come to terms with it, and I’ve accepted it now.”

This may also explain why I’ve heard the thirteen year old say to his younger brother, “We have to be nice to T now, so she’ll let us play video games in her basement when we’re all adults.”

I’ll be back in a week…Happy weekend and Thanksgiving!

Wheat Belly Sisters, or: “Hangin’ with the Harpies”

fenwickI laughed. I cried. I scarfed down some Cheetos.

In his current incarnation as a paleo adherent and owner of two CrossFit gyms, my brother Teddy has transformed himself into a rock solid mass of rippling lean muscle and sinew. Once the wearer of “husky” size clothing, Teddy now refers to his more humanly-proportioned former self (the one we, his older sisters, always cherished and adored) as “that guy” and “morbidly obese.” He has found his passion and calling. His clients gush about him. He changes people’s lives. They say things like, “Thank you for creating an environment where people push each other to be the best that they can be.”

So last summer all my siblings and I got together at my parents’ house in Arlington. It had been awhile since we had seen each other. Teddy sized up his three dear sisters and he came up with an action plan.

The following week three identical amazon.com packages were delivered to three different households. There was no note, just this:

Wheat Belly

Now of course on an intellectual level we understood that our brother was expressing his concern for his sisters. That this was, undoubtedly, a ham-fisted expression of love. But…Ouch. Just…ouch.

A three-way email flame-fest of epic proportions ensued. My oldest sister wrote the first message. She reported coming home exhausted from a long day at work, being happily surprised to see a package addressed to her, opening it…and bursting into tears. My second sister was incensed. Me? I opened my package and read lying on the couch, eating a bowl of Cheetos, the book propped up on my big fat wheat belly. Knowing that our little brother had sent all three of us the same, bluntly-named book (did a caveman come up with that title?!) was a sister-bonding experience like no other.

Fairly early on in our email flame-athon, my sisters and I began addressing each other as “Wheat Belly” or even just: “Fatty.” When my sister Amie said that all she wanted to do to was to console herself by eating a bagel with her fellow Wheat Belly Sisters, it occurred to me that we really should and that we could do this. The Wheat Belly Harpy Weekend was born. (Oh, did I mention that my brother likes to refer to his sisters collectively as “The Harpies”?

The planning went a little something like this:

On Friday “we would have a delicious carb-laden dinner and then go to the movies…On Saturday, we would roll around on our wheat bellies by the pool after a huge breakfast of bagels, pancakes and waffles. Then another really starchy, carby dinner…”

The weekend was awesome. We spent the weekend in a hotel. We went to a spa. We filled our wheat bellies.

…And we made a special toast to our little brother, who had made it all happen:

Bread toast

Thanks, Teddy! Love, Fatty

Post script: All was forgiven when my beloved brother went with us to the boardwalk this summer and had a token lick of cotton candy in solidarity with his sisters.

Cotton candy toast!

Related post: Golden, Pt. 3

Working It Out

I love the moments when my boys are like this:

But let’s get real. There are plenty of days when they’re like this:

This afternoon they left in high spirits to play tennis at the courts in our neighborhood. I’m still not sure what happened at the tennis courts, but they returned home separately, both filled with fury and absolutely certain that the other had been grievously, outrageously, unforgivably in the wrong. Venomous words and death stares were exchanged. Bitter tears were shed. They retreated to opposite ends of the house to marinate in their own bile.

I wondered if I should dispense a few bromides, make them hug it out, or exact insincere apologies from both aggrieved parties. Being the exceedingly lazy person that I am, I decided to do the easiest thing: nothing at all.

I was reminded of how my mother dealt with us when we quarreled as children…

One day my older sisters were bickering with each other. My mother frogmarched them into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, drew up a chair, and in a brisk, business-like tone instructed them to punch each other.

My sisters looked at her and then each other with intense embarrassment and discomfiture.

“Well?! You wanted to fight. So fight. Go on!” she said, drumming her fingers on the kitchen table.

They stood there looking miserable.

“Amie, you punch Annabelle,” she urged. Weeping now, my sister declined.

“You wanted to fight, so fight, I said! Go on! Punch Annabelle as hard as you can!”

Seeing that my mother would not be deterred, Amie weakly nudged Annabelle with a closed fist. Now my mother was really enjoying herself. She took another long swig of her coffee and said, “OK, Annabelle. Now you punch her back. Go on!”

When Annabelle, who was also sobbing by now, returned the nudge, they were both finally released from the horror show.

Years later my brother and I were squabbling about something or other when my mother remembered the diabolically clever penal scheme that had sprung like a miracle from her brain: the perfectly formed child of her fertile imagination. She couldn’t wait to relive the glory of the moment.

“You want to fight?! OK! Go on, fight! Adrienne, you punch Teddy.”

I can only imagine the satisfaction she felt as she watched the scene of her past triumph repeat itself.

“But I — don’t want — to hit him!” I blubbered and spluttered and managed to gasp out.

“I said, HIT him! You want to fight so badly, here’s your chance. I’m not stopping you! PUNCH him as HARD as you can!”

It was clear to me that we were mere puppets in this twisted demonstration of my mother’s disciplinary ingenuity and that the show would only end when we did as we were told. I delivered the first symbolic “punch,” a mere brush with my knuckles.

My mother pounced, practically spitting in glee, “Teddy! It’s your turn. Now you punch Adrienne!”

She didn’t need to tell him twice. He turned and punched me so hard I landed on my beleaguered ass clear across the room. That was the last time she ever tried that. But hey, it all worked out in the end…My brother and I love each other, and I even named my own son after him. The slurred speech and blurred vision eventually cleared up. And as for the memory loss? Who wants to harbor bitter, unpleasant memories anyway?

This afternoon I heard a lot of sniffling and muttering that went on for hours. Nicholas eventually started to do his homework in the dining room. Teddy took up his ukulele in the living room next door and started strumming it softly.

“Who’s playing the ukulele?” I heard from the dining room. I braced myself for the brouhaha that was sure to ensue and tried to head it off.

“Teddy,” I said, “Nicholas is trying to study. Why don’t you go up to your room and play?”

“No, I like it.” Nicholas said from the other room. “Teddy, you sound really good.”

And that was that. Peace in the valley once again.

Golden, Pt. 2

IMG_4682All the grandchildren performed for their grandparents’ 50th anniversary party. My sister explained why…

Many years ago we had a family reunion with all my aunts and uncles and their families in San Francisco. The granchildren gave performances every evening in honor of my grandparents, who had flown all the way from Korea to be with their sons and daughters. My cousins are an accomplished lot, and like most Korean children, they were given music lessons from the moment they became zygotes. In nightly talent shows our cousins would perform for my grandparents. One cousin played alto sax like Charlie Parker. His sister played Chopin études with a sensitivity and understanding that belied her youth. Cousin after cousin displayed their brilliance at the piano. The youngest cousin, a mere toddler at the time, sang a lovely song with admirable poise and considerable charm.

My siblings and I were the only ones who were apparently devoid of any talent. As my sister explained, she and my other sister had in fact received piano instruction when they were little girls. They received exactly one lesson before they were fired by their teacher, who proclaimed it a hopeless cause. That teacher was our mother.

So at the family reunion, night after night my siblings and I sat, politely clapping for our cousins as they gave one virtuoso performance after another. One night, some of the cousins pushed my brother Teddy forward. Finally, our family’s talent was going to be showcased for our venerable grandparents! All week Teddy had been regaling the cousins with Eddie Murphy routines. Now, Teddy gamely stood up and performed a completely inappropriate routine for my grandparents. While I can’t remember the exact details, I’m sure there were penises involved. My grandparents probably didn’t understand a word he was saying, but tears were rolling down their cheeks as they laughed hysterically.

We were so very proud.

My siblings and I may never have had any talent, but our kids did their best to redeem us:

This little guy didn’t want to be left out.

For the finale, the kids performed In My Life, by the Beatles. My son had arranged a version for the three of them to play and he had cracked the whip like a martinet all month long trying to get them to do it right…

We were all glad when that was over and it was time for cake!

Tomorrow: Teddy’s speech and Sibling Love

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Leaving today…

We are finally heading out to rejoin my husband and son in England today. My oldest son and daughter have been mooning around the house for more than a week missing their brother. My son, in particular, has surprised me by the depths of his melancholy. He keeps asking to see my phone so he can look at the photos of his brother my husband sent by text. I am reminded of when my oldest sister left for college. All that first year my mother would stare out the window as she washed the dishes, sighing mournfully with large tears trickling down her face.

“Is he missing me as much as I’m missing him?” he broods as he stares at the photos. Just in case, the other day he handed back my phone and said, “Here, take a picture of me to send to him.”

On Saturday after gazing wistfully once again at the photos we’d received so far, he started laboriously pecking away at the minuscule keyboard.

I’ve learned my lesson. Our time together is too short. We will never travel separately again, if we can help it.

And now, at long last, we are on our way! I’m looking forward to having the time to write at reasonable hours while we are away. (I winced a little when I realized the photo would reveal the embarrassing hours I tend to keep). I hope I’ll be able to send dispatches from England and Scotland. Until then, I hope every single day is wonderful!

Wheat Belly Sisters

Siblings

In his current incarnation as a paleo adherent and owner of two CrossFit gyms, my brother has transformed himself into a rock solid mass of rippling lean muscle and sinew. Once the wearer of “husky” size clothing, he now refers to his more humanly-proportioned former self (the one we, his older sisters, always cherished and adored) as “that guy” and “morbidly obese.” He has found his passion and calling. His clients gush about him. He changes people’s lives. They say things like, “Thank you for creating an environment where people push each other to be the best that they can be.”

So last summer all my siblings and I got together at my parents’ house in Arlington. It had been awhile since we had seen each other. My brother sized up his three dear sisters and he came up with an action plan.

The following week three identical amazon.com packages were delivered to three different households. There was no note, just this:

Wheat Belly

Now of course on an intellectual level we understood that our brother was expressing his concern for his sisters. That this was, undoubtedly, a ham-fisted expression of love. But…Ouch. Just…ouch.

A three-way email flame-fest of epic proportions ensued. My oldest sister wrote the first message. She reported coming home exhausted from a long day at work, being happily surprised to see a package addressed to her, opening it…and bursting into tears. My second sister was incensed. Me? I opened my package and read lying on the couch, eating a bowl of Cheetos, the book propped up on my big fat wheat belly. Knowing that our little brother had sent all three of us the same, bluntly-named book (did a caveman come up with that title?!) was a sister-bonding experience like no other.

Fairly early on in our email flame-athon, my sisters and I began addressing each other as “Wheat Belly” or even just: “Fatty.” When my oldest sister said that all she wanted to do to was to console herself by eating a bagel with her fellow Wheat Belly Sisters, it occurred to me that we really should and could do it. The Wheat Belly Harpy Weekend was born. (Oh, did I mention that my brother likes to refer to his sisters collectively as “The Harpies”?

The planning went a little something like this:

On Friday “we would have a delicious carb-laden dinner and then go to the movies…On Saturday, we would roll around on our wheat bellies by the pool after a huge breakfast of bagels, pancakes and waffles. Then another really starchy, carby dinner…”

The weekend was awesome. We spent the weekend in a hotel. We went to a spa. We filled our wheat bellies.

…And we made a special toast to our little brother, who had made it all happen:

Bread toast

I’m hitting the road again today. I’m going to be hanging with the harpies at our Second Annual Wheat Belly Weekend in NYC! Can’t wait to chow down on those fresh, piping hot H&H everything bagels smothered with cream cheese!

Chubs, Fatty, and Doughy

Thanks, brother! Love, Fatty

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Weekend Snapshots 2

FRIDAY

The SPCA. Helping Hands, the elementary school service group I co-lead, took a field trip to our local SPCA. Miraculously, we left with no more and no fewer than the bodies we came with, though one of our second graders piped up at the end to announce that he had money in his pocket and was ready to make a deal…

“Price of admission” – an item from the SPCA wish list.

SATURDAY

Soccer Games. My girl kept a clean sheet as goalie in the first half, and then scored the only goal for the win in the second!

Fundraising. My son’s Destination Imagination team is going to Globals along with another winning team from his elementary school. Between my daughter’s and his own soccer games, we worked at a huge yard sale both teams held in the school gym to help offset the considerable cost of the trip. My daughter was wandering around the yard sale when she spotted something on one of the tables.

“Is that my jack-in-the-box?” she gasped in horror.

I squirmed as I said, “Ummm, well, yes, but that’s a toy for babies.”

I told her we would take it back if it didn’t sell, and fortunately, it is now back in our house, where it belongs. For the rest of the weekend she kept pointedly reminding me about how my sister had asked me for a pair of her baby sandals that had the perfect imprints of her tiny little feet and was furious when she found out I had thrown them away.

“My beloved Janel” surprised us by sending a check to help with the fundraising. We haven’t been able to see each other in way too long. We had a phone conversation to hatch a plan to fix this!

Gardening. I made the rounds of some local garden centers and got my fingernails dirty in my own garden…

SUNDAY

Theological Debate. My oldest son and I had a hasty and somewhat tortured discussion in which we weighed the merits of atheism vs. agnosticism and discussed the importance of being reflective, keeping an open mind, and always asking questions. All this in the church parking lot, minutes before Sunday School was about to start, as I fervently prayed that he would stop asking questions for Christ’s sake! I broke into a sweat as I surreptitiously snuck glances at the clock, and mentally calculated how much time it would take to cut up the paper strips we would need for the purple “cloth weaving” we were going to do as part of the lesson I’d prepared on Lydia opening her heart to Jesus.

Wrestling. Back at home, having just partaken in Holy Communion, where they symbolically sought “reconciliation in every instance of conflict or division,” the boys decided to have a wrestling match. As always, it ended up in tears and bitter recriminations. For the next half hour, I made them practice for their piano recital, but Beethoven’s Rage Over a Lost Penny, kept derailing into Rage Over a Lost Wrestling Match. Finally, I was forced to bellow, “STOP TALKING TO EACH OTHER! YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO EACH OTHER AT ALL! NOT. ONE. MORE. WORD!!”

Piano Recital. My husband headed off to Lynchburg for his own concert with his singing group. The rest of us dusted ourselves off and staggered to the boys’ last piano recital of the year…Rather than run the risk of more bickering, I made the oldest sit up front with me during the ride, instead of in his usual spot in the back of the minivan with his siblings. En route, he and I devised a post-recital game plan.

Obligatory Photo Op. As you can see, the boys worked it out, as they always eventually do.

The kids took turns taking pictures of their own.

Then they took a series of “artsy shots” and insisted I post them on the blog today. There you go, kids:

Not bad at all!

Dick’s Sporting Goods. After the photo session I announced that it was time to go to Dick’s Sporting Goods.

“Why are we going there?” my younger son asked.

His brother and I answered him simultaneously:

N: “To buy a punching bag.”

Me: “To save your relationship with your brother.”

When I went to check on the boys tonight, I realized that N. had set up a makeshift bed for himself on the floor of T’s bedroom. Peace in the valley. I’m heading to bed.

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Working it out…

I love the moments when my boys are like this:

But let’s get real. There are plenty of days when they’re like this:

This afternoon they left in high spirits to play tennis at the courts in our neighborhood. I’m still not sure what happened at the tennis courts, but they returned home separately, both filled with fury and absolutely certain that the other had been grievously, outrageously, unforgivably in the wrong. Venomous words and death stares were exchanged. Bitter tears were shed. They retreated to opposite ends of the house to marinate in their own bile.

I wondered if I should dispense a few bromides, make them hug it out, or exact insincere apologies from both aggrieved parties. Being the exceedingly lazy person that I am, I decided to do the easiest thing: nothing at all.

I was reminded of how my mother dealt with us when we quarreled as children…

One day my older sisters were bickering with each other. My mother frogmarched them into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, drew up a chair, and in a brisk, business-like tone instructed them to punch each other.

My sisters looked at her and then each other with intense embarrassment and discomfiture.

“Well?! You wanted to fight. So fight. Go on!” she said, drumming her fingers on the kitchen table.

They stood there looking miserable.

“Amie, you punch Annabelle,” she urged. Weeping now, my sister declined.

“You wanted to fight, so fight, I said! Go on! Punch Annabelle as hard as you can!”

Seeing that my mother would not be deterred, Amie weakly nudged Annabelle with a closed fist. Now my mother was really enjoying herself. She took another long swig of her coffee and said, “OK, Annabelle. Now you punch her back. Go on!”

When Annabelle, who was also sobbing by now, returned the nudge, they were both finally released from the horror show.

Years later my brother and I were squabbling about something or other when my mother remembered the diabolically clever penal scheme that had sprung like a miracle from her brain: the perfectly formed child of her fertile imagination. She couldn’t wait to relive the glory of the moment.

“You want to fight?! OK! Go on, fight! Adrienne, you punch Teddy.”

I can only imagine the satisfaction she felt as she watched the scene of her past triumph repeat itself.

“But I — don’t want — to hit him!” I blubbered and spluttered and managed to gasp out.

“I said, HIT him! You want to fight so badly, here’s your chance. I’m not stopping you! PUNCH him as HARD as you can!”

It was clear to me that we were mere puppets in this twisted demonstration of my mother’s disciplinary ingenuity and that the show would only end when we did as we were told. I delivered the first symbolic “punch,” a mere brush with my knuckles.

My mother pounced, practially spitting in glee, “Teddy! It’s your turn. Now you punch Adrienne!”

She didn’t need to tell him twice. He turned and punched me so hard I landed on my beleaguered ass clear across the room. That was the last time she ever tried that. But hey, it all worked out in the end…My brother and I love each other, and I even named my own son after him.

This afternoon I heard a lot of sniffling and muttering that went on for hours. Nicholas eventually started to do his homework in the dining room. Teddy took up his ukulele in the living room next door and started strumming it softly.

“Who’s playing the ukulele?” I heard from the dining room. I braced myself for the brouhaha that was sure to ensue and tried to head it off.

“Teddy,” I said, “Nicholas is trying to study. Why don’t you go up to your room and play?”

“No, I like it.” Nicholas said from the other room. “Teddy, you sound really good.”

And that was that. Peace in the valley once again.