Goals & Graduation

When Will was in kindergarten, his teacher told me that she thought he had ADD.  "He seems to have trouble staying focused after a few minutes.  I thought I'd bring it to your attention."  Really?  I never noticed.  "Not in a bad way.  He isn't a behavior problem, but his mind tends to wander.  Give him this little test.  Give him directions to do three different things and see how he does."

I took our project home and made a game out of it.  Get your shoes out of the closet, empty the bathroom trash can and practice writing your name on this piece of paper.  Tell me when you're done and then you can pick out a popsicle.  I'd show that teacher that my kid didn't have ADD.  He came back with his shoes and the paper with his name on it and said, "What was the other thing I was supposed to do?"  Oh geez, honey, I can't even remember what the heck I said.  This game isn't very fun for either of us, is it?

And that's how it went with he and I and the school system.  He struggled with reading and I would do flashcards with him before he went to bed - dog-tired and sick of school work.  In 4th grade his teacher told us that he needed to work on his fluency in oral reading and maybe he could practice reading out loud to his kindergarten sister.  That lasted three nights because the five year old read better than the nine year old.

Because of his reading his test taking always had lousy outcomes.  He'd come home every year with the results of the standardized test taken months earlier and my heart would sink when I saw the score.  "How did I do Mom?  Was this a good one?"  It was great, buddy, I'd tell him and shove the envelope in a drawer never to be looked at again.

I signed him up for a reading class at a nearby college and the results weren't even close to the money we spent or the testimonials on the shiny brochure.  Added to the mix was the occasional bullying at school for a host of reasons, and my full-time job became propping him up with praise and motivation and sending him into the den for another day.  The nights were for the school stories, some that felt like a dagger through my heart.

Sometime in high school when another test score came in I put up the white flag.  You know what?  You aren't a number, a percentage or a dot on a graph.  You are capable of great things in your life and this test has nothing at all to do with your future or that creative spirit you've always had.  You just keep working as hard as you can every single day.  That's the test.........to keep at it.  

Which was all well and good until it was time to take the ACT.  He took it twice.  The crappy score my brother's kid got was Will's high score and we knocked wood and lit candles that it would be enough to get him into the program he wanted.

Last weekend when we were at his graduation all those things played like a newsreel in my head and I could have had a weeping good sob at any given moment.  When he got his diploma we watched him walk past his professors and hug them all.  "That's when I almost cried," he said afterwards.  "They told me how talented I was and they couldn't wait to see where the future would lead me."

The valedictorian was proficient in Latin, Spanish and Chinese.  Maggie leaned over and whispered how self-absorbed she was, but that's the way it can be with high achievers.  They're very impressed with themselves while the rest of us are at the mercy of their long bio on our uncomfortable bleacher seats.

When the pomp and circumstance were over and we had gone back to Will's apartment, I noticed this list of goals on his bedroom door.  The things he wanted to accomplish this year................

Looks like he made it.

Let's Move

Long before Michelle Obama took on the epidemic of childhood obesity, The Big Daddy and I were doing our own program called Let's Move.  We are not as high profile as FLOTUS (and suddenly I have developed bingo arms) so nobody was aware of the program, but anyone can participate.  Let's have an overview, shall we?


Eight years ago, we moved Maggie into her first dorm room in August.  It was on the 9th floor.  In May, we moved her out.

In August, we moved Maggie into a different dorm.  It was a suite with two other girls in the lower level.  In May, we moved her out.

In August, we moved Maggie into a campus apartment complex in which she was an RA.  We rented a U-Haul.  It was on the 1st floor.

Two years later, we rented a U-Haul and moved Maggie out of that apartment and back home.

The following summer, Maggie moved out of the house and into an apartment in Kansas City.  It was up several flights of stairs with no elevator.  Guess who helped her move?

The summer after that we helped Maggie move into a new apartment on the 2nd floor with Nathan.  We loaded our cars, they rented a U-Haul and we helped them move.

The summer after that they rented a small house and a U-Haul and we helped them move.

This week they will find out if the offer they made on a house will go through.  They may be moving.


Four years ago, we moved Will into his first dorm room in August.  It was on the 2nd floor.  In May, we moved him out.

In August, we moved Will into a different dorm with a different roommate on the 2nd floor.  In May, we moved him out.

In August, we rented a U-Haul and moved Will into an apartment on the 2nd floor.

Two years later, we will rent a U-Haul (Saturday if you want to help) and will be...........(you guessed it) moving Will back home.


Last August, we moved Mallory into her first dorm room.  It was on the 3rd floor.   In May, we moved her out.

In August, Mallory will move to a house that she is renting with three other girls.  We will rent a U-Haul and help move her in.  Wait until her Dad sees the stairs.


And what has happened to us over these past eight years, two different colleges and more apartments and dorm rooms than we can even remember?  Are we more fit?  No, we are not.

We are older and we have grown weary.  We think the thousands of dollars we pay for college should include strapping young frat boys with pickups to take care of mattresses and microwaves.  Instead it's good ol' Mom and Dad who drop ef bombs when we see flights of stairs and unpacked piles of shit.  Oh sorry you guys.....ran out of boxes.  The kids accuse us of being cranky and negative. 

We are all of the above, but especially we are free laborers who get mail from AARP on a weekly basis. Something isn't adding up here.

                                      

                                                   

Pinning

We went out for breakfast on Mother's Day and it was a packed house.  As cute girls in cute outfits walked by Maggie would say "Pinterest."

Ah yes, the happy place for outfits, crafting, recipes, home decor, gardening, quotes...........

There has been some blow back about all this Pinterest obsession and I agree that it's over the top.  Life isn't perfect but you sure wouldn't know that by looking at all those inspiring boards.  Maybe, though, it's fantasy island for a few minutes.

Yesterday my new writer friend at work threw her hands up in the air and said "I quit" and this morning the place was buzzing.  My boss called me in and said, "Lay it on the line.  What are your thoughts about this job?"

I can keep my mouth shut and stuff things down for a very long time, but if you ask me what I think I'll tell you.  The abbreviated version................

I think this is the most toxic environment I've ever worked in.  Nobody gets along.  Nobody tries to get along.  I have been in the middle of you and your boss and you both use me against each other.  I figured that out the 3rd day I was here.  If I knew this is what I was walking into I'd have never taken this job.  And by the way, I've seen two job postings for the exact job I'm doing here and the pay was $1.00-$3.00 higher than what you're paying me so I think my hourly wage needs to be adjusted.

Sweet jeezus, I told her I needed a raise after five weeks.  What the hell?  I've been underpaid most of my life but I have never spoken up after five weeks.  In fact, I don't think I've ever asked for more money ever, but today was a first for a lot of things.

I came home, started dinner and went on Facebook where a snarky comment was shared about the overuse of the word "hero" and celebrities who get elective surgery to prolong their life aren't heroes and shouldn't be called such.

I love women who take any opportunity (no matter how personal) to throw another woman under the bus.  It's so endearing, isn't it? Maybe we can call a truce for one day.  Maybe deciding to have your potentially cancerous breasts removed is gutsy and brave and we can just leave it at that, and thank God we don't have to make that decision.  Yet.  I responded with a version of those thoughts while a dozen bitchy responses bubbled to the surface.  Then I took a cleansing breath and opted for Pinterest.

Good call.

 
 

                                                             

Raid

When I was a little girl, I would spend a good part of my summer day killing flies.  They liked the side of the house where the sun would beat down and I'd go out with the flyswatter and kill them.  48, 49, 50............

I'd run in the house and give Mom the casualty count and she'd say, "Good for you.  Now get back out there and don't stop until you've killed them all."  Looking back, I think she might have been trying to get rid of me.

I'd run back outside and there would be more flies on the sunny side of the house and I'd swat and count for hours.  Apparently, I lacked friends.

Even as a kid I hated those things and since getting married The Big Daddy has given me a detailed scientific account of what flies do after they've sat on a poo-poo platter.  It's disturbing.

That early experience of killing flies was a precursor to what our first home was like after we said, "I do."  We lived in the basement apartment of a complex that catered to students.  You could say that it lacked charm but it was cheap and I got used to looking out the window and seeing dirt.

It wasn't long into the honeymoon period that I found out we weren't alone.  We had The Cucaraches and they were everywhere.  Like my fly-killing days, I'd go on the hunt for them with a can of Raid and spray them to kingdom come or with a swatter and beat them to a smeary mess.  Before long, I'd see another one and jump to action with my killing tools.

They never stopped coming in and Mark said he could smell the Raid in the parking lot when he got out of the car.

I would rather lay all night in bed awake than have to go into the bathroom and turn the light on and see those disgusting things scurrying everywhere.  We ended up having to put baggies over our toothbrushes because they'd sit on the top of the brush and eat the dried toothpaste.

I was teetering on a nervous breakdown.  Eyes darting looking for signs of movement, cans of Raid in every room, calls to the landlord constantly.  If this was the married life I wanted out.

The Big Daddy told me to calm my frantic ass down and put down the damn can of Raid.  Hell, he said, everything we eat around here is starting to taste like Raid.

Mom, who'd only heard of roaches but had never actually seen one, said he needed to get me out of there - that was no place to live.

We were only months into a year long lease when one night I was awakened by something.  I flung my arm over and that something landed in the chest hairs of The Big Daddy and he jumped out of bed, jumped up and down and started screaming.

"I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.  I CAN'T TAKE THESE SON-OF-A BITCHES ONE MORE DAY.  I.  CANNOT.  TAKE.  THIS!!!!!  THIS IS BULLSHIT! 

He stripped all the sheets and blankets off the bed and was beating them up and down on the floor over and over, and if there was still a roach amongst the percale it was going for a ride.

He went on like that for awhile before he calmed down and we put the sheets back on the bed.  All that screaming must have worn him out and he was soon sound asleep.  Those summer days of swatting flies had prepared me for that moment and I stared at the walls and counted the roaches..............seven, eight, nine.............until the sun came up.

Within the month we'd sublet the apartment to two unsuspecting students, left all the cans of Raid under the sink and lived happily ever after.

                                                               

How My Brothers Tried To Kill The Babysitter

Of my parents half-dozen kids, five were born over a six year period.  Irish quints, I guess.  Mom and Dad loved their social life (and who wouldn't want to escape with all those kids at home) and so they were always beating the neighborhood bushes to find a babysitter.

After some trial and error they found Sheila who lived a few blocks away.  She always seemed nervous and her hands would shake when she tried to pincurl mine and Jean's hair after our bath, but she kept coming back to babysit even though we complained to Mom about her lousy hairdressing skills.

Mom and Dad had plans one Saturday night and Nervous Sheila arrived to babysit.  Earlier in the day, Dad had taken down the screens from all the windows.  He was working his way around the house installing the storm windows but wasn't quite finished with the job before he and Mom had to get ready for their date.

The boys had asked if they could go to the football game at the high school with some friends that night but Mom said they couldn't.  "Sheila's coming and she doesn't need to worry about where you boys are so you're all staying home."  Her and Dad left with the same advice they gave every time they walked out the door, "You kids better behave yourselves."

Jean and I took our baths and Sheila set our pincurls with her shaky hands and I was already worried about the outcome with her nerves and all.

The boys said they were really tired and going to bed which seemed odd because they always gave babysitters a hard time about bedtime.

While Jean and I drifted off to sleep, some friends of Jim, Terry and Tom's came to their bedroom window to get them to go to the football game.  The boys got dressed, made their beds appear to have a body underneath the covers, opened up the window (free of screens or storms) and climbed down to the sawhorses underneath that Dad had left out earlier in the day.  They made a break for freedom and football and were back in bed and fast asleep before Mom and Dad got home.

The next day when we got up the boys were already sitting at the table bright and early with a notepad in front of them.  Dad was so mad at them that I thought he was going to drop them off at the orphanage like he kept talking about.  Instead, he told them to write down everything, and he meant EVERYTHING, that had happened the night before.  Jim's version (I think I left the toilet seat up.) and Terry's (I had a bottle of pop and might have left the cap on the counter.) differed greatly from Tom's who was filling out pages of detailed notes regarding the alleged crime, including the two kids that crawled through the bedroom window after the game and hid under the bed when the dog sniffed them out and started barking.

Jean and I didn't know what was going on until Mom told us that when Sheila went in to check on them they were GONE and she thought they'd been kidnapped.  By the time they got home she was beside herself, a nervous wreck crying and crying.

I couldn't imagine who would want those three and I wasn't defending them, but I did tell Mom that Sheila was nervous long before they went missing as evidenced by my bad pincurl job.  "Oh for God's sake, Kathy, not now," is all Mom had to say about that.

Dad put the boys on a work release program that lasted until they graduated from high school, and after that Mom said we were old enough to be on our own.  Well, that and because no teenage girl would ever agree to watching her godawful kids.

It wasn't long before there was a dinner dance at church and off they went.......Mom all dressed up and wearing lipstick and Dad carrying the suitcase of scotch.  "You kids are responsible now so you'd better behave yourselves," they said when they walked out the door.................and that was the night that the Indoor Dodgeball Tournament started.

Tom, our cousin Mike, Terry & Jim before they were delinquents.

Old Dog

We had to put our previous dog to sleep when the kids were young.  He was a bassett/beagle mix (quite a conversation starter in the park) who had lost his hearing, most of his eyesight and had arthritis in his back legs.  The kids cried and begged us not to let him go, but he was more than ready to move on beyond his misery.

A few months went by and we began to look for another dog.  I would go to the shelters and be overwhelmed.  All those big dogs barking at me felt like indigent beggars rattling their metal cups against the railings for a little porridge.

We heard about a dog adoption at Petsmart and loaded the kids in the car and went.  The kid part turned out to be not so well thought out.  They fell in love with all the dogs, especially the puppies, which is how we ended up with Henry.  A retriever/sheltie mix we were told that would end up to be about 40#.

Three kids and a puppy is a recipe for insanity.  The dog loved the kids and would cry and cry by the door as he watched them play down the street.  If the door wasn't closed all the way he'd bolt down after them and the whole neighborhood would give chase until they got tired and it was just me running and cussing at that damn dog.

He ate every pair of flip flops that were by the front door.  It was to my benefit that those are so cheap because I ended up buying every kid who came in to play in the basement a new pair.  He ate unattended chicken off the table or counter and whether it was cooked or not made no difference to him.

And all along he grew.  And grew.  And grew.

The 40# dog I was told I was getting was actually a retriever/chow mix that finally stopped growing at 85#.  I'd been duped and I looked at him with disdain.

You are making my life miserable you hairy beast.

He kept watch over the front door like he was a Brink's security guard and would lunge at it when the mailman or UPS guy came up the steps.  It would take years to break that habit.  One of the kids in the neighborhood walked in the door unannounced to get some water and Henry bit him in the stomach.  The kid freaked, I freaked, the dog chalked it up to a community service project.  I was sure we would be getting sued, but the parents were dog owners and instead of yelling at me yelled at their kid for going into somebody's house without knocking.

Henry's approval ratings had slipped into the negative.

With Maggie and Nathan close by now we walk him to their house when we're having people over, for he has never earned our trust around strangers.  It is a long, slow walk.  He is old now and like his predecessor is getting close to moving on.  He falls all the time, it hurts for him to get up, the steps to the backyard are getting too hard to go up and down, it is nearly impossible to get him in the car to go to the vet.

After the lab party we had here, Mark and I walked the few blocks to the kids' house to pick up our dog.  It was a beautiful spring night and Henry was in their backyard.  When we walked up the driveway every dog in the neighborhood started barking like crazy.

We let ourselves in the back gate and there was Henry.  His ears were perked up listening but he didn't get up and he didn't make a sound.  For the first time in thirteen years I finally had a crush on my big, hairy dog.

He and I are growing old together and are finally on the same page.....................having figured out that most things in life are rarely worthy of barking.

Coming Out & The Pursuit of Happiness

This is the story that's been begging to be written since I started this blog three years ago.  I wrote this months ago with thoughts that, depending on my courage, it may never see the light of day.  There are people in my family that I have never had this conversation with and all I can say is that I'm sorry.  I am sorry I haven't sat down with you and said all of this, but often it is easier to tell a  stranger than someone who loves this child.  

I can't explain why this is so..............


Our son was born three weeks after my dad died.  I would have loved to have pulled the covers over my head and stayed in bed, and maybe I could have attempted that plan with his three year old sister.  A newborn, however, requires immediate attention and so I'd start my fatherless day caring for a hungry baby and an energetic toddler, both of whom were counting on me to keep it together.

This boy baby required lots of keeping it together as he grew.   He was born with a surplus of energy and after awhile thinking that my father was not around to know his namesake was not my very first thought of the morning when the alarm clock buzzed.  It was that I had to get up and feed that child so he would stop banging his crib back and forth against the wall to signal he was ready to start the day.

I slipped my dad's spirit into my pocket every day when I woke, and raised these kids and the sister that came later.  They kept me busy and I didn't miss my dad any less, but the circumstances of his life became my lucky penny rather than the circumstances of his death.

I seemed to be living a rather charmed life (complete with a white picket fence) until on a perfect fall day this son and his father were having an intense conversation that I walked in on in the garage.  He got up and scurried past me into the house and the charmed rug got ripped out from under me.  He had just told his dad that he was gay.

I let that linger in my brain for awhile and then went in the house to find him.  Alone in the basement, he sobbed.  Heartbreaking, uncontrollable sobbing and when I hugged him he said, "I'm sorry, Mom.  I'm so sorry."

As long as I live I pray to God that I never see one of my kids in that much pain.

What followed next was Mark and I trying to make sense of our new reality when our first thought of each morning when the alarm clock went off was that our kid was gay.  I always pictured myself as being the supportive friend of the mother of a gay kid..........much like a favorite sitcom.   He's great, you'll be o.k., there's worst things in life.  At least you'll never have to deal with a  bitchy daughter-in-law.  Laugh track.  Instead, I was the mother of a kid just like Matthew Sheppard and I was terrified for him.

I made an appointment with my priest friend who listened to me but offered less advice than I had hoped for.  I looked out the window of his office at the fall trees while he talked.  That's it?  That's all you have to say?  Look, I effing need a whole lot more than that so you'd better start bringing your "A" game in counseling to the table.  He had other plans for me.   He offered to call a mom who had walked down this path and who might be willing to talk to me.   Within an hour of getting home I was pouring out my guts to somebody I'd never met.

She arranged for Mark and I to meet with a group of other parents like us.  All parents of boys.  All in various stages of acceptance.  At one gathering, one of the moms said to me, "You know, you're the luckiest one here."  That was news to me, but she said she found out her son was gay in the emergency room after he tried to kill himself.  "Your son talks to you guys.  He trusts you.  Don't forget that."

I clenched that observation of hers and never let it go, even to this day.

Learning to divorce myself from the Norman Rockwellish dreams I constantly replayed in my head was another story.  Every morning I drove him to school, often in silence.  "Are you and dad mad at me," he asked one day.  No, no.  We're just trying to figure this out.  I drove home and said to Mark, "We cannot do this.  We cannot let him think for one minute that we're mad at him.  That we're disappointed."  And so we behaved differently.  In his presence we talked about school and cross-country and getting a drivers license.  In his absence we cried.  When I dropped him off at school I'd cheerfully tell him to have a good day and beg God as I drove away to watch over him..........to not let some macho jerk give him a hard time.  Or worse. 

After that I'd go home and walk the dog.  Walk and cry.  Walk and cry.  Every morning.  I thought of the people I've known that were gay.  Are they happy?  What is their life like?  Why in the hell did I never ask them?  Or pay attention?

I thought of their mothers.

Far later than sooner, me having a gay kid was not the first thought of the morning when the alarm clock buzzed.  It was that I have three kids......one of whom happens to be gay.

In the years since this has become part of our family story, I have changed in more ways than I could begin to count.  Profound ways.  I am fortunate to live in a time when even writing about this is possible.  My mother's generation or her mother's weren't able to be so open, and I know that I will owe these women for the rest of my life.  These women who dared not speak out loud of whom their son or daughter loved.  Women whose emotional health paid a heavy price because they were burdened by secrets.

I try to keep out the noise, but in a society that loves an easy target that isn't so easy.  I have been more outspoken about politics that affect his life because he's my kid.  I know him.  He was born wild and kind with a third eye that immediately senses who is struggling, who needs the world to be a little kinder, a little more fair.  To be his friend is to know the most loyal person in the world.  On the rare occasion he gets a weekend free from school and work, he walks in the door and says the same thing every single time, "I'm so happy to be home."  None of that is threatening.

I have the perspective of time to look back to when we struggled with all of it, and every day we'd roam a labyrinth that led us to what we already knew.



He is everything we ever wanted in a son.

He is a shareholder in the kingdom.

He is our Will.