My Addiction: McDonald's

I'm just going to come out up front. I love McDonald's.... it's as simple as that. My mom, stepdad, sister, and me are all in Brazil. I have been training by myself for swim team. I hadn't eaten fast food in like 3 weeks!... that's a long time for me. The last I had gone to McDonald's was with my best friend on June 26. I go to McDonald's almost once a week... yeah, I know, it's bad.

The other day, my mom, one of my tias, and me were coming home after my swim training. There was a lot of traffic (it was Friday night) and the ride takes about 20 to 30 minutes. I was supposed to have gone to McDonald's that night after practice with my stepdad, but he stayed home with Stella, so I couldn't go. I was quite pissed off about this new change of plans. Anyways, we were driving home and I talked about McDonald's the entire ride. When I say "the entire ride", I mean the entire ride, from the time I got into the car to the time when I got out of the car.

My mom started to get really fed up with my persistent talking. We were about 100 yd from the house when my tia got out her cell phone to call my stepdad. She said she was going to ask if I could go get fast food. My hopes were high at first, but nobody answered the phone so I just dropped it.

The next day, Saturday, my stepdad, mom, sister, another one of my tias, and I went to the hospital. We gone for the entire day. I was getting tired and bored. My mom and tia started telling me that if I did a runway walk down the hospital hallway, that we could go get McDonald's. I said no... of course! I mean, it's a hospital not America's Next Top Model! I asked my mom later if we were going to McDonald's, and she told me that she gave me a chance but I refused! As you can imagine, I was pissed off. I had spent the entire day in a hospital with nothing to do and now I couldn't even have McDonald's!!!

We went home and I started taking off my jewelry and shoes, when my stepdad told me we were going out to eat. I asked where and he said.... FAST FOOD!!!!! O.Mi.Gawd! You should have seen my face! I went from neutral to pure over ecstasy. The best part was that, I could see all of this unfold because I was in front of a mirror.

We got to the food court at the mall, I saw the golden arches, and I swear I had a heart attack. Mom: I think Grace is going to pass out if she can see the golden arches but she can't taste them.

My stepdad wanted to look around at the other places and I started to get a desperate look on my face. Mom: Grace is getting a desperate look on her face like she might not be getting McDonald's. I think you need to reassure her.

I went up to the counter and ordered a number 1 meal. The price? About $8.50!!! That's proof of an addiction right there. I sat down with my meal while my stepdad, mom, and tia (yes, another one) were still deciding what to order. I said that I would wait to eat. I ate one fries, two fries, three fries... so on and so forth. I offered fries to my tia and she took a couple. That's when she said she was going to get Giraffas (a Brazilian fast food chain). By that time I had already eaten all my fries.

Baduh duh duh duhhhh I'm lovin' it

"Grace, there's a big chore you have to do."

Grace just came in the door from school at about 3:30p. It's Friday afternoon and she's ready to kick off her shoes for the weekend and relax. Frankly, I think she's already bummed that she had to go to school today since I think she and all her classmates were hoping for more snow overnight. They didn't get enough for the district to call a snow day, but there was enough to make our already snow covered driveway unable to be traversed by our little Honda Civic. My husband left town yesterday (in the middle of the storm) and thus clearing said driveway is left to us women of the house.

As Grace was pulling off her newly acquired varsity letterman's jacket, I told her I guessed she realized there was a big chore to do before the sun went down. She said yeah, she would get right on it after she got a snack.

Wow, that was easy.

I told her to remember to clear the front and back walks, too.

Huh? she asked. What do you mean the front and back walks?

She thought the big chore was cleaning the cat litter. Oh my. Imagine her reaction to understanding that in addition to her regular afternoon chore of cleaning the cat litter, she would have to clear our driveway.

Nevertheless, after a bowl of popcorn, she pulled her boots and jacket right back on and went at it.

Here's the view from my bedroom window:



Just so you can get some perspective of how long the driveway really is, here's two views from the first floor. I include the picture of the school bus going by for the full effect.



I stayed safely inside the garage to take these pictures. I didn't even put on shoes, I just slipped on my slippers. I snapped the pictures quickly before my arms got too cold since I was only wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt.

Imagine the joyous reaction I got when I snapped this last one out the back door:


By the time she was finished and came in, she called to me, "I know you took more pictures of me." Thrilled, she was, I tell you.

God, I love that kid. She's the greatest.

Homecoming is here again.

Tonight. Tonight's the night.

It's Homecoming at Grace's high school.

Last year I had no idea what Homecoming meant, what the event entailed. This year, I was prepared.

There's a football game, yes, but who really cares about that? Grace especially doesn't care given that she's on the swim team and they had a meet scheduled at exactly the same time as the Homecoming football game.

The most important event, of course, is a dance. A semi-formal. Grace, unlike most girls, goes to a dance and wants to dance. She wants to be wild, be goofy, take pictures, eat, and have A LOT OF FUN. BOOOOOOOO, she says to the girls who go to these events and look and act like princesses, not daring to do anything to muss themselves. A dance is for letting down your hair and HAVING FUN.

Now that you get the picture, here are the essential points I have learned since last year.

#1 - It is very important that you pick out a dress that makes you look spectacular. It is also very important that no one else pick out your spectacular dress.

Grace and I set out a day, a Saturday three weeks ago, to go shopping together for a dress. The two of us with baby Stella in tow went to the mall on a mission. Once we had located the motherload of dresses at our favorite department store, we grabbed as many dresses as we could find and Grace tried on at least thirty. We narrowed it down to eight, and then two. Finally, she decided on a purply-blue satin dress with silver accents. Low cut in the front, yes, but not in a way that looks slutty. It's technically a halter top, but the back has this fantastic look where two straps come from her nape down to the sides of the dress. Like backless with some flair. She said it didn't look like a typical Homecoming dress, the kind that people would expect you to buy (ergo, no one else is likely to pick out the same dress). She also bought $16 silver ballet flats with a big sequined flower at the toes that make the dress stand out and look fun. And that you actually dance in, as opposed to just look dressy in.

Stella behaved perfectly through the whole process.

#2 - You have to weigh the pros and cons of going with a date.

Grace mentioned to me this Tuesday that she might be going to the dance with a date. Now you must realize, Grace has never actually been on a date before. I asked her for more details. Well, she said, it was a friend of hers, someone who has a girlfriend who goes to another high school, but they may be breaking up, but that doesn't matter because Grace and this boy are just friends, and in the end, who really would think much of it anyway? By Wednesday she told me there was no date because she decided that the whole situation was just too complicated. Last night, she told me that several boys had asked her to the dance, but she turned them all down because she didn't want to have to spend all night with one guy when what she really wanted to do was party with her girlfriends. OK, then.

#3 - Corsages are not obligatory.

Last year, at the last minute only hours before the dance, I remembered that Grace would need a corsage for the dance. I called four florists from my office before one would agree that they could get it ready in the space of three hours. I agreed, paid through the nose for it, and it was beautiful. It matched her dress perfectly. I brought it home, my husband gave it to her, and she smiled for pictures with the lovely attached to her wrist. Then she quietly slipped it off before we left for the dance, leaving it on her desk at home. She put it up on display after the weekend as a souvenir. My husband was hurt. She explained to us that it's really weird to wear a corsage if you don't have a date. And though it might be nice to have a corsage and a date, see the discussion under #2.

So, my life is easy. No corsage to worry about this year. Or ever, for that matter, since I only have daughters.

#4 - When you get ready for the dance, it is way more fun to do this with friends.

I have this old-fashioned, idealized notion that every time my daughter has a formal event to attend, she will be close by so that I can relish in her getting ready process and can take an endless number of photos before she actually attends. In the sitting room, by the front door, in a scenic location both in the front yard and the back yard, a beautiful pose, a silly pose, posed with my husband, posed with me, and on and on and on the list goes.

Well, Grace doesn't really have all this as part of her idealized night of Homecoming. She wants to get ready with her friends and go to the dance with them too. The only way for both me and her to have our way is for me to host her friends and let them all get ready at my house. So two of her friends are coming over this afternoon and they are spending two hours getting ready together. Grace wants pizza and other refreshments on hand. I am surprising her by providing Izze, a beverage far too expensive for every day consumption.

I'll take pictures of all three girls in the sitting room, by the front door,...

#5 - Parents should be cool and trust teenagers who have never dreamed of doing anything dangerous in the first place.

'Nuff said.

Happy Homecoming, all you sophomores at Grace's high school.

The fifth member of our family

One member of our family has been completely neglected. I can completely imagine that some of you out there think our family only has four members. My husband and I, Grace and Stella. Four, exactly four. Except for cursory comments, any acknowledgment of the fifth member of our family has been omitted entirely from my blogging content for quite some time now. That member is The Cat. The saddest part about her absence from my writing is that the last time I wrote about her was when I decided not to have a cardiac ultrasound for her. Because I had just found out I was pregnant and had satisfied my desire for something else small and cute in the family. God, I suck.

Since I don't have a toddler or other small child to react to the new baby in the house, I think life has cursed me with a cat that is playing that role in our home. The jealousy, the regression to earlier stages of development, the temper tantrums...it's all there. I can only assume I'll see sibling rivalry in a few years.

Now that we've established how neglectful of a cat owner I am, let's move on to what she's been up to. After successfully navigating a move to our new home last November, she decided in mid-May to stop using her litter box. It was in our basement. First, she deposited her packages in each of the bathtubs in the house, first in the master bath, then in the guest bath, and finally in the hallway bath. We closed the doors to each bathroom. Then she starting using the guest room floor, right behind the bed where you couldn't see it from the doorway. Fine, close the guest room door. She then moved downstairs and starting using the carpet in the den. Where there is no doorway to close it off. Arg. Since this time we've been trying to retrain her to use the litter box. Oh my God. Yes, it has taken more than four months to do this. We've managed to get her to use the litter box if it is in the hallway right next to the stairway to the basement. But only if the top is off of it, because she's finicky that way. She wants her litter exposed to the air; she doesn't want to have to crawl in and out of the box like some kind of lowly domesticated animal.

Then Stella came along. We knew she'd take a backseat as soon as the baby was outside of me. The Cat really is a baby to us, see. We hold her like a baby, we take pictures of her and send them to friends and family, we talk baby talk to her, we marvel at her cuteness. So as soon as something smaller and cuter came along, of course our demonstrative affection for The Cat would abate a tad.

Truth be told, we didn't even know where she was half the time, or if she was home at all.

When things quieted down a bit after Stella's arrival, The Cat gingerly approached her. I noticed it one afternoon when I was holding Stella in the nursery. Stella was wailing her head off about something. The Cat was in the hallway and peered into the room through the doorway ever so subtly. Then carefully, step by step, she ventured in. When she finally reached the loveseat that Stella and I were sitting on, she rested her front paws on the seat cushion and let out a tiny kitten cry. I couldn't help but stop and look. Sure enough, she was empathizing with Stella. She stayed there in the room with us until Stella settled down. When Stella was laying in her crib and falling asleep, The Cat stepped out as quietly and carefully as she had entered.

Since then, I've noticed that she's taken up camping underneath the crib. She never went in the nursery before. Now she walks under the crib to the center, curls up against the wall, wraps her tail around her body and goes to sleep.

I was amazed that this was The Cat's reaction to the new baby.

And then the day came. I should have known it would come, but still, when it came, I was unprepared. The day that we realized we couldn't find The Cat.

I had seen her the afternoon before. My husband had come home late on Tuesday night and didn't find her anywhere. I hadn't opened any of the doors, so she must be around somewhere. Or...maybe not. She could have slipped into the garage when I was loading Stella into the car and then walked right out into the outdoors when I opened the garage door. However she managed to get out, she was gone. She was nowhere in the house to be found.

I called the Humane Society. They took a report, asking me all about her. She's an orange tabby with patches of gray stripes. She has a lightning bolt black streak on her forehead. She's ten years old and she's spayed and declawed in the front paws, and, oh my God, she's been outside by herself for over a day and we live on the woodlands and anything could have gotten her and she would have no way to protect herself! Calm down, the woman told me. She said she had a cat by this description that was 11 years old. Eleven years, you say? And then I realized, The Cat is actually 11 years old. I'm so negligent I don't even know how old The Cat is anymore. No luck, though, that cat was a male. The woman on the phone told me to come by the shelter the next day to look at the cats there. The next day Stella and I spent 30 minutes looking at cats and kittens one by one. I'll bet we saw over a hundred. All of them were so sweet and needy. I reached out and pet some of them through their cage wires. I told each and every one of them that I wished I could take them with us and give them a home. But we didn't want a new cat, we wanted our cat. None of those cats was The Cat.

As I was leaving, I asked to see the report to make sure they had all of our information correct. They did. And then I asked them if there was anything else we could do to help her come home. The woman at the front desk said to put pieces of our clothing outside, clothing we had worn that was rich with each of our scents. With no other ways to turn, I decided to try this.

That night we all went to Grace's swim meet. We spent the whole meet wishing we could go home and search for The Cat. After the meet was over, we four rushed home to see if we could lure family member number five, the outcast. Grace ran to the basement and got some of our clothing from the laundry pile. My husband started walking around the backyard calling for her, shining a flashlight into the trees and bushes to see if he could see the reflection of her green eyes. Stella and I fixed yet another bowl of tuna fish to set on the back porch overnight. No luck. We couldn't find her.

After about an hour, we woefully looked out the sliding glass door into the backyard. The temperatures were dropping; could she survive out there for very long? We turned on the back porch light to see if there were any other critters around. There, right next to the door, sniffing our clothing, was The Cat. We quickly pulled her inside. She was fine, happy in fact. My husband snuggled her in his arms and asked her if she had had fun while she was out on her adventures. Then we all retreated for bed, relieved.

For the last couple days, The Cat has been sitting by the sliding glass doors in the afternoon, basking in the sun. A stray cat keeps coming around and taunting her through the glass. You can hear The Cat's hisses and screams through the whole house. She's protecting us and her domain. And all this while I thought I was protecting her. I'm wondering whether it would be wrong for me to put out tuna fish for the other cat and lace it with gasoline...

And yet, it happened again

Grace was away for the weekend. She spent it with her father and his family.

Her younger sister, her father's daughter, turned three years old last Tuesday. Grace spent that evening with her father's family to celebrate. Then this weekend her father and stepmother decided to travel north, 150 miles, to her stepmother's parent's home to celebrate again. They left on Saturday morning around 10a and returned Sunday by 8p.

When Grace came in the front door last night and said hello, it was apparent she was sick. Not only did her voice sound like a frog's, she was coughing and then said her nose was stuffed up.

Over the weekend, she had taken cough drops from Friday night until she came home and she took an allergy medicine (given to her by her stepmother) on Sunday morning. Then she rode home in the car for 3 hours in a t-shirt and short shorts...when the temperatures were dropping and well into the low 50s already.

Once I had assessed the situation, I gave her a cough suppressant and a mild decongestant. Then I told her if she felt sick in the middle of the night to come tell me so she could take more medicine. This morning at 5a when she woke up for swim practice, she asked for more medicine. I told her that if she felt sick when it wore off to call me from school and that I would come get her. At 11a, she called from school. I went to school immediately and picked her up. She came home, put on her pajamas, and got in bed. She's sick.

The last four times Grace has been sick, this has occurred immediately upon her return from her father's house. In fact, I can't remember the last time she fell ill while being at home. Neither can she. In longer than the past two years, since she started eighth grade, I can't remember a time she was sick and missed school or anything else due to illness when she was home with me. But I can remember many times she missed school in that time period. Each one of these times immediately followed a visit with her father.

I spent the entire hour I met with my therapist this afternoon unloading all my frustration about this. Now that I am finished with that, I have only one question left. What is her father doing in the 48 hours she spends with him that gets her so sick so fast? I mean, this is a kid who never gets sick in any other situation. My God, how oblivious do you have to be as an adult in order for a teenager to get sick so often when she is in your care?

For those of you who (rightfully) give me the following advice every time I broach this issue, I talked with Grace last night about how she can take care of herself. I told her that since she is the only person looking out for her health when she visits with her father, she needs to start paying attention when I teach her about monitoring her own symptoms and about over-the-counter medicines. And I told her that whenever she feels sick, she should call me and ask me what she should do. The last thing I told her was to try and figure out what the factor is that causes her to get sick when she visits with her father (some ideas: not wearing warm enough apparel? not eating well? not getting enough sleep? sleeping on the floor? inhaling second-hand smoke nonstop?)

I wish the courts would mandate that non-custodial parents parent during visitation, not just visit. Maybe they should rename visitation 'parenting time.' Just an idea.

Honest Scrap Award

ONE MONTH AGO, Crys at Modifying Motherhood gave me an award. I thanked her right away and thought, 'thank goodness I have an idea for an upcoming post.' Um, yeah, right. I don't think "upcoming" translates into ONE MONTH LATER. But Crys is a great sort of person, or, rather, I imagine she is face to face since she seems to be a great sort of person as I see her through her writing. So I'm sure she understands that I don't mean any offense by taking ONE WHOLE MONTH to accept this award and pass it on.

Here goes.

Crys gave me the Honest Scrap Award. Sounds nice, eh? I'm supposed to list ten things that you probably didn't know about me. Then I pass the award along. Easy 'nuff. Here is my list:

1. When I was in high school, I was in love with England. I wanted to travel there. I wanted to move there. I thought everything about England was amazing. I knew every single fact about the British royal family and the Beatles that there was to be known.
2. When I was in middle school, around 1984, I thought Michael J. Fox was about the most amazing thing in the entire world. I would have done anything to see him in person. I couldn't imagine that anyone was more fantastic. Then the crush waned. Then about 1998 I told someone how much I liked him as an actor. And that person said, 'yeah, but what has he done lately?' Oh. My. And now? More than ten years later? I respect him and love him even more. He is, in the language that Mrs. G would use, my secret boyfriend.
3. I was a cheerleader in middle school. I would have done anything to be a cheerleader forever and be an 'it' girl. When I tried out in high school I was cut for the squad because I couldn't do a split.
4. I tried yoga for the first time when I was 24. I was really good at it. I apparently am very flexible. I never really did yoga after that. I should.
5. I bite my fingernails. And my toenails.
6. I love Project Runway. I find those designers very talented.
7. I don't understand poetry at all. It's not that I dislike it, I just don't have the ability to understand it.
8. For reasons I cannot explain, I don't like U2. I can't think of any song by the band that I like. I saw them once in concert during their Pop tour and I was bored. And I was completely burned that I had paid so much for the tickets and driven 100 miles to see the concert.
9. In middle school I made up my mind that I was going to go to college at Florida State. There I would major in music and minor in mathematics. I planned on becoming a piano teacher.
10. The only beer I enjoy drinking is Bell's Oberon, only available during the summer.
    

There you go. Now, to the passing onward. I, Heather at Comparative Childhood, do hereby bestow the Honest Scrap Award to:

CDP, aka Aunt Dahlia, at (parenthetical)

Amy at Welcome to Amy's World

Melissa at Buddha Mama

Go visit their blogs! They are very entertaining!

A quick quiz on the ethics of teenagers

Short answer question

Instructions:
Read the following situation. Once you have completed the reading, consider the question. Give a thoughtful and complete answer, including the ethical premise for your choice.




Situation:

It is the last week of summer before the school year begins again. You are on the varsity women's swim team at your high school. You are a sophomore. You are trying to do well this season and earn a varsity letter. Two weeks ago you started pre-season training with your team. Pre-season training is a strain on the schedule -- morning and afternoon practice every weekday along with a morning practice on Saturdays too. WAY more work than optional summer training.

You are also a very social gal, one who wants to enjoy the last week before school starts. You've got lots of friends because you're gregarious like that and all. Last weekend you contacted a bunch of friends and convinced them to make plans with you. All the friends are exuberant and you set the date to go downtown the next Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday, Sept 2nd, that is, and shop, do Starbucks, take goofy photos, and generally kick the dirt up with your heels one last time as you all bid summer adieu.

And then reality hits you. Tuesday morning you look at your calendar. Even though your swimming coach has canceled the last two Wednesday afternoon practices, she's actually holding the practice this Wednesday. Wednesday, Sept 2nd, that is. The same day you have scheduled with your friends to go downtown.

Damn. You made an assumption based on precedent without checking whether the precedent was now a permanent arrangement. Now you have a date with a bunch of friends to go downtown for the afternoon while your coach expects you to be at practice swimming laps. In preparation for the meet on Thursday, tomorrow.




Question:

What do you do?


What DO you DO?!?




Possible Answers:

What I would have done when I was 15:

I would have explained the situation to my coach and said it was a mistake, admitted I was wrong, but gone ahead and kept my date with my friends. It's unclear to me whether in the long run I would have continued to think that this was a good choice.

What Grace did this week, now that she is 15:

She talked to her coach at the morning practice on Tuesday. The coach was not pleased. Despite this, she came home and told me that she was going to go ahead and go out with her friends anyway. Then Grace thought about it some more. She talked to her coach again at her afternoon practice on Tuesday. The coach reiterated that it was 'highly recommended' that she attend the practice the next day and, consequently, cancel her plans with her friends. Or at the best, reschedule for another day. Grace came home from practice and started calling her friends and rescheduling.




Right now I think the plan is for Grace and her friends to go downtown Friday afternoon (when practice really IS canceled) and shop, do Starbucks, take photos, and generally kick the dirt up with their heels one last time as they all bid summer adieu.

Once again, she proves she is better than I.*

* Every time I make a choice between "I" and "me" at this blog, someone notes when I make a mistake according to the prescriptive rules of English grammar. I don't really adhere to those rules here at my blog, but since it always seems to come up, this time I'll defend myself. In "she proves she is better than I," the use of the pronoun "I" could be questioned -- isn't "I" the object of the comparative marker "than," indicating that it should receive accusative case and be pronounced "me?" In actuality, the object of the comparative marker "than" is the entire clause "I am good" in which the adjective "good" is obligatorily deleted and the copular verb is optionally deleted. Since "I" is the subject of the clause, it must receive nominative case. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

more toes

OK, I swear this will be my last update on the toes and feet. It's just that I looked down at my feet this morning and thought, 'no one will believe these belong to the same woman who had those bloated feet three days ago.' So here you all go. THIS is what my feet look like today, what their normal appearance is:


Now can you see why the previously posted pictures were so shocking?

If that's not enough, now that my calves are unswollen, it is sickeningly obvious that my muscles have atrophied significantly due to my lack of physical activity during pregnancy. I look like a turkey, what with my legs looking dinky and my mid-section still bloated and enlarged.

OK, enough. In a few weeks when I'm recovered from my surgery, we'll start a muscle strengthening exercise program. Fun.

Where were we? Ah yes, I remember.

My husband was gone to Brazil from the 12-21st. If you'll recall, before leaving he told his (soon-to-be-born) daughter just not to try any funny business until he got back on the 21st. She complied perfectly. However, yesterday in the evening of the 22nd, a little over 24 hours after he got back...

I started having contractions that wouldn't stop. Every 3 minutes. By the time I called triage at the hospital, they said 'Come in NOW.' And that we did.

We came home this morning at 3 or 4 am after quite an adventure which included among other things: one botched IV that left a huge bruise on my right hand, one good breathing treatment due to a sudden onset of asthma and a baby girl still in utero who decided those few hours in the hospital were the moments to REALLY practice her soccer skills (what, with dad back from Brazil and all). Finally the contractions lessened in frequency and there seemed to be no other immediate health risks to attend to. During the whole time I just kept thinking, 'I can't be having this baby now. I mean, look at my husband....'

...who was barely able to keep his eyes open. His past week consisted of crazy travel itineraries, the death of his father, working all the funeral arrangements out with some help from our newly adult nephew, mourning, and trying to make sure everything was ok here in the US with me. When we got to the hospital last night, he phoned his sister from the triage room because he hadn't even gotten the opportunity yet to call her and tell her he had arrived home safely. It had been a long week, what with his father passing away and all....

Yesterday, we went to mass in the evening in honor of my father-in-law. Seven day mass. It's a cultural tradition in Brazil -- have the funeral the day after the death, mourn for a week and go to mass seven days later. When we arrived home from mass, me still wearing my black, the contractions kicked into overdrive. And thus we found ourselves at the hospital all night. However, before all this ensued...

While my husband was gone, my bestest best friend came in town for a week. She was great. She took care of everything. It was great to see her and visit. I was grateful for her to be here. She even indulged me in a haircut and coloring, a photography session done by her at my house and many lovely dinners. I indulged her in one home-baked cherry pie. Which reminds me...

A couple weeks ago I promised a post on the paucity of cherry crops in Michigan, the state where the annual National Cherry Festival takes place. That post never came. Ah, well, what am I going to do? I think I'm going to make another pie this weekend, so if you're lucky I'll remember to take pictures and post them here. But until then...

Pics of a very pregnant lady with a fabulous new hairdo:



34 weeks yesterday. Still with baby inside. Just stay put, little girl, ok?

A bit melancholy

I'll tell you friends, it's been a long week. A lot of things that have gone on are things that would normally have sent me spinning and carping, but right now these are causing me just to have a short temper with people and write them off, tell them to grow up and get a real problem.

My father-in-law is dying.

We've spent the last 2-3 days trying to get a reasonably priced fare between Michigan and Brazil for my husband, while both of us deal with the oscillating emotions of whether he should go while I'm this close to delivery. But the truth is, if he doesn't go, he'll miss it all, whatever "it" is, that is. Holding his father's hand while he's doped up on morphine and comatose, holding a sister while she cries, getting to attend a funeral, who knows.

And so it is that I find myself before 6a in the morning, unable to sleep any longer despite the first persistent migraine in two months accompanied by severe pelvic pain and one reluctant dose of vicodin, watching the sun creep slowly into the horizon.

I'm realizing that dealing with all this is another way in which I have discovered how much I love my husband.

I want my daughter, the one that's not born yet, to at least be heard by her grandfather, even if that's only over the phone. But I'm afraid it's far too late for that.

The fender bender that happened to our car a couple weeks ago and the ensuing repairs that are taking over a week, that seems unimportant. That I repeated that fender bender almost perfectly with the other car two days ago also seemed like a dream, like it was life passing before me. Everything seems trite and banal. My sister's jealousy over my pregnancy, my ex-mother-in-law dissing me to Grace day by day, the cat suddenly staging a protest over using her litter box and using the carpet in the den instead...all this was really important a week ago. Today? Not so much so.

I'm wondering if being in the midst of clinical depression is making me more melancholy about the whole circumstance. But maybe it's also allowing me to be more in touch with my feelings and be more sensitive. Maybe it's making it possible for me to feel my emotions more accurately than if I was busily distracting myself with the normal overstimulation and hyperactivity I regularly feel.

We saw Grace at a swim meet yesterday afternoon. It was the first time she'd seen my husband since she learned of his father being ill. When she was done with her first event, she came to us and gave him a hug. It's the first time she's ever done this spontaneously, without someone telling her she should (like on Christmas after receiving a gift or sometime like that). The gesture was not unnoticed.

I suppose life is like this. You live, you experience, you feel, you learn. Somewhere along the way you realize, this is what living is. I guess right now I'm wishing that living didn't include the dying part, the dying of people around you and of yourself as well.

The Weekly Slug: 31 weeks

We have a date, a scheduled date for cesarean, that is. August 7th. If you're suddenly finding yourself doing the math, let me save you the time: 36 weeks, 2 days. We'll do a couple shots of steroids 24 hours before delivery and one last sonogram to get an idea of how big she'll be. The obstetrician who's doing the surgery feels confident that all will go well, given her development thus far.

Today I am officially 31 weeks pregnant. There are good days and there are bad days. Really, I'm just looking forward to seeing my baby and not being pregnant anymore. I know, once the baby is born I will have her to take care of and I won't feel so great because I'll be recovering from a surgery. But the amount of negative effects to my body that I either can't treat well because I'm pregnant or that are induced because I'm pregnant is getting a little much.

Last night I was out shopping with my husband. I was pushing the shopping cart and I felt tired. When we stopped in an aisle, I squatted down and took the weight off my legs, while holding on the handle of the cart. It felt so good. I thought, I wonder if I could just push this girl out right here. I'd been having hard contractions all day, so the idea didn't seem too far fetched...

I got my bathing suit, and wow, what a big difference that makes! It makes me feel beautiful. Better than that, I never imagined how good it would feel to get in the pool. I feel completely weightless and I can actually move around. I can even swim a lap or two in shallow water. It feels so incredible to exercise my arms and legs without feeling heavy or getting sweaty! I love it!

I went to a summer swim meet with Grace on Saturday. After the meet, we were visiting with other families from the community team. A woman there asked me when I was due. I told her in August and that we had our feet in both worlds with a high schooler and a soon-to-be-newborn. Her son who was with her and on the swim team was 8. Turns out, her children span in age from 4 to 28. Her oldest grandchild is older than her youngest child. I suddenly felt normal, like my life wasn't so extraordinary. Beyond that, the meet is filled with families with young kids. I realized that I was enjoying myself and that I fit in with the parents of little kids, even more with my teenage girl there with me.

I think up until now I've been trying to figure out how to be two people at once. Like, how do I be the doting, nurturing mom of a baby while also being the hip, mature mom of a teenager? You'd think I'd have figured out sooner that I can be both at once. But really, it wasn't until Saturday that I realized that being exactly who I am is what both of my daughters need.

Hey, anyone out there use cloth diapers recently and have advice for me? Because I could use some first-hand help and coaching.

Guest posting - DragonflyMama!!

Today's post is a guest post by DragonflyMama. DragonflyMama blogs at stepmama metamorphoses. She is stepmother to her 11-year-old stepdaughter and also mom to her 3-year-old son. Her husband and she have been at building a stepfamily for five years now. She also deals constantly with her stepdaughter's mother who is, how shall we say, less than accepting of her role in the girl's life. As far as I can tell, stories like hers are par for the course when it comes to stepmothers' experiences.

Awhile back, I wrote a post about how it makes me feel when Grace talks to me about her father and stepmother's kids. DragonflyMama, who is a longtime reader of my blog, took notice and commented. This began a dialogue between us, one much more open and sincere than the one we had already had going. We realized through that correspondence that though we play different roles in the stepfamilies we are each creating (I'm a remarried biomom, she's a stepmother), we have one thing in common: lots of disagreement and friction with the other stepfamily. Though it would be nice to believe it is possible to have it otherwise, both of us have had to accept that this situation will probably never change and have leaned on each other in figuring out how to make it work anyways. We recently decided to have a joint guest posting venture, her here at Comparative Childhood, me there at stepmama metamorphoses. Her post below was a response to my questioning to her along these lines: "As a stepmother who also has a biological child, do you feel differently towards these two children? If it is different, how? Is it different like the way a mother says, 'You are all different and I love each of you in a unique way, but I don't love any of you more or less than the other,' ? Or is it different in some other way?"

I am deeply grateful for my friendship with DragonflyMama and how much I have learned from her perspective on life and circumstances. We both have a young woman in our lives, one we care deeply about. Having her ear and hearing her opinions helps me be a better parent. Enjoy!

Please leave your comments! We hope to have a fruitful discussion about how many of us feel. EVERYONE is welcome in the discussion! post script - I'll be guest posting at stepmama metamorphoses this Wednesday, so this isn't the end!

by DragonflyMama
The day my son was born I became a mom. Yet, it’s hard to define exactly when I became a stepmom. The process of becoming a stepparent has been a very hilly journey full of emotional challenges, and just exactly that, a process. Quite different than going through the physical challenges of pregnancy for nine months and then suddenly one day I was someone’s mother.

I met my stepdaughter when she was just 6, and I was 28. I remember the first activity her father, she, and I did together was make collages on my apartment floor. We sorted through magazines looking for pictures of dogs and cats, and popsicles and flowers. She shyly watched me, and I overcompensated for my own shyness by being rather excited about her creations. I remember that day being fun and simple and easy. As her father and I got closer and more involved, I became more and more unsure of how to be with the girl. My own shyness, jealousy, and fears held me back a lot of the time, but so did her mother’s dislike of me and disapproval of me in the girl’s life. I wanted a deeper relationship with this man I knew, but often his time and energy was directed at his daughter. I also could see throughout that time that the child adored me excessively, and I knew needed to live up to her praise. For about a year, we three sorted through our various relationships with each other and through all our ups and downs slowly came to a place of understanding. I guess when we decided to live together and move towards family life together would be when I would say I became a stepmom. Though my role continues to evolve as I learn how to stepparent well.

On the other hand, when I became pregnant and chose to have the child, there was much less confusion for me. I knew from the first second what a large commitment it would be. I had rights to be with this baby and teach him and enjoy him in a way that I did not have at first with my stepdaughter. My relationship with my birth child did not need sorting out, or lengthy conversations to understand, or asking permission from anyone. It just was, and is. Though it is fraught with uncertainty and fear at times, in comparison it is much, much simpler. Of course, this too I am still learning how to do well.

Being a stepmom is most certainly different than being a biomom. I have been stepparenting now for about 4 years, and bioparenting for 3. And yes, I do love them differently. In the most basic understanding of it, I have no choice as to whether I love my son. I just do, it is in my being to love him. I have never had to fight anyone over him, and birthing him was enough to make me love him forever, no matter what.

Like any relationship that begins with two strangers, I do have a choice to love my stepdaughter. I have had to fight my stepdaughter’s mother every single step of the way to be seen as a valid, equal, and involved parent. Though I wish it were not so, her mother’s negative behavior towards me does affect my feelings towards the child. It has been a long, hilly road for me stepparenting, one that sometimes I have wanted to get off. Yet, I have also found that this fight with the biomom continues to reaffirm in myself my commitment to my stepdaughter. In the constant reminding her mother that I am here, parenting, loving, caring for my stepdaughter, I remind myself too, and I remember why I do it. Everyday that I get her up for school, make her lunch, take her to softball practice, wash her sheets, take her for a hike in the woods, buy her new books, and all the other things parents do, I do not because I have to, but because I choose to.

I love them differently, but I do not love my son more than I love my stepdaughter. I simply have been down two very different paths to become a parent to each of them. I have more time, more freedom, and more responsibility with and for my son, and thus I think the love I have for him is more constant and defined. And the connection between a birth parent and child cannot be denied as extremely powerful and deep. My relationship with my stepdaughter has many more constraints, boundaries, and walls to alter and overcome. From her side as well as mine. My love for her changes and grows. Sometimes it feels fast and sweet, sometimes it feels slow and painful. More so than with my son, it varies from day to day, and month to month.

There has been one ongoing highlight for me in being a parent to these two kids. When I see the two of them play, bond, and love each other my own heart becomes more full of love than I knew was possible. Watching these two sweet young people laugh together I sometimes forget how or why I came to be here and truly just enjoy the moment. I think, it really doesn’t matter the roads we’ve been down and the hills we’ve had to climb. All that really matters is the love.

Tree climbing - give me your input, please

Alright, all you smart 'nets out there, I have a question for you.

We need to plant some trees in our yard. We've got a lot of space, so don't worry about that being a limitation. We've thought about some good shade tree or maybe fruit tree that would give us some tasty treats in a few years. But then we realized what would be the coolest thing to have: a good climbing tree.

When I was growing up in South Florida, we had two oak trees in my backyard. One got planted about the time my family moved there when I was born, the other when I was about 8 or 10 years old. They were both great climbing trees, especially the one that grew with me. One year for my birthday, my dad and I made a wooden swing to hang from one of the more solid branches. I loved swinging high from that swing, feeling the branch move with me. I loved sitting in the branches of that oak. I would take a book or a video game and sit out there in the evening when it got cool. Sometimes I just went out there by myself to make believe I was someone different. The older tree was completely knocked over when Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005. The yard still looks nice, but that corner feels bare. My dad wants to remove the other one too since large branches of it were also blown off and hit the house, but so far it remains.

I want my soon-to-be-born girl (name still withheld thus far!) to have a good climbing tree. Or two or three. I live in Southeast Michigan, plant hardiness zone 5b. I need your suggestions. Let me know what you think would be a GREAT tree, one that will have a good trunk to get a first foot in, one that will grow strong and tall, one that will sprout branches good for gripping and good for supporting the weight of a growing girl. I don't care if it's a fruit tree and all the fruit gets eaten. I would love it if a bird or two decided it would be a great place to start a family. I just wanna plant a tree and watch it grow strong with the girl.

Also, I would love to hear y'all's best stories of tree climbing from childhood.

How to get over the hurdles

Sometimes in academia, I feel like I don't fit in. It's not all the time, and it's not a big deal. But it has to do with the typical person who chooses a career in academia and how that is a stark contrast to me.

I was not a valedictorian. I didn't get any special awards when I was a student. I didn't get on the high honor role or earn scholarships to college. I was just an ordinary girl. Most people thought I was smart, and my family told me I should work hard. For the most part, I spent my entire educational career at the bottom of the top. Get it? Yeah, I got into the honors classes, but I was at the bottom of those classes. And I got into the honors program in college, but I dropped out within the first year.

This is not what the typical person in academia is like. They are who you'd expect they would be -- very bright, very successful academically, and very driven. Like all professions, personalities vary. Some people are arrogant, while others are humble. A few are out to prove something, but others are more aptly described as curious knowledge seekers. There are workaholics and people who take their breaks and vacations and weekends without any guilt. But overall, they all succeeded academically.

There is a certain group of people in academia though, not so different from myself, that irk me. It's those that come from a privileged group -- smart, affluent, successful, mentored -- and the belief among these people that all they've achieved is directly related to who they are and their hard work. Let me explain. I went to private school all through grade school and high school. I used to find it so funny when the school publications would go on and on about how much higher the average SAT scores of the student body was than the country average. Really? You charge outrageous prices for tuition and require an entrance exam for admittance, and you thought that the average scores would be, well, average? Of course not. If the school's student body had been a fair cross-section of the county's population, then I could where this would be quite impressive that the scores were so high. But it wasn't a cross-section at all. They did the same thing with percentage of students who were admitted to four-year colleges, got scholarships, etc. I know, it's PR, they have to do it because they have to sell the school to prospective students. But it sets up a deceptive image in the minds of the students there. They start to believe they are better than average, and it's all because they have been pushed harder, they have worked harder, and they just did it better than everyone else out there. Those who didn't do as well as they did just didn't work as hard or weren't as smart.

Vicious, isn't it? No mention of how much harder it would be if you were trying to achieve these academic accolades while also working 20 hours a week to help support your family and living in a less than savory neighborhood. And you hadn't gotten the chance to take private music lessons. Or traveled to Europe when you were 14 with your school chorus. It's easy to see how these students didn't see that their higher achievement over other students didn't exactly boil down to who was brighter and harder-working and more deserving. I sure didn't see it that way.

I wasn't exactly a member of the privileged class. Though my parents both graduated from college and my dad made a good living, we didn't exactly come from elite roots, you know? We were raised to work hard. We got piano lessons and such, but my parents didn't treat it like something that we had to do to stay ahead. They encouraged us to work hard and they made opportunities available. But if we said we didn't want to take the lessons or be on the sports team or go on the youth group mission trip, they didn't insist. When my sisters and I applied to college, we didn't really have any legacy to rely upon. My parents and teachers didn't know any big people who would write a letter of recommendation for us to guarantee our entrance into the college of our dreams. We just put our SAT scores and our transcripts into an envelope and mailed them off to colleges hoping we'd get in. And we really believed it came down to who was the best. Little did I know at the time how sorted to situation becomes as to who gets in and who doesn't. Who succeeds, who soars to the top because of who they are and who soars there because they truly are dynamic, this is all a mixed bag. The bottom line is, colleges want to admit students they know can handle the work and that are likely to stick with it to the end. Once that criteria is met, they are fortunate to consider questions of who is likely to bring valor back to the institution. Like it or not, students who are well connected tend to meet these criteria. So if you are not well connected, you have to compete with the rest of everyone who's just trying to look as good as they can on paper and convince a board of admissions that they've got what it takes.

You'd think with as much exposure as I have had to colleges and admissions and all the rest that I would be perfect at looking at my daughter objectively and helping her steer her way through the educational process. She wants to go to college, there's no question about that. But she's not your typical honor roll, eager beaver student. It occurred to me when she was very young that I would need to think outside of the box with this one. She wasn't going to make it to college by playing by the rules. Despite this enlightenment, so to speak, I regret to say I've come at the task in a somewhat naive way. When it comes to Grace's performance in school and her grades, her interaction with teachers, the way she dresses, the activities she's involved in, all of it, I think inside the box. I think, you have to work hard and get good grades. You have to take the right classes and soar above the rest. You have to go, go, go and not stop because it's hard to get where you need to go. And the message she's gotten, loud and clear, is that mom wants good grades and success. If there's not success, mom will probably not be happy.

During the last few days, I was reflecting on my feelings towards people and their success in my own field. I often times find myself listening to someone's tales in academia and tiring of the overabundant evidence of privilege. I think to myself, what have you overcome in your life? What were the challenges put before you? It gets tiring. I sometimes meet undergrads and read their personal statements on scholarship or grad school applications. I'll hit one that cites all the ways their great family, great school, great community, great activities, and great teachers have made them so excited about learning. And I think, that's kind of boring. What did you do other than receive all this greatness? What did you draw on that was inside you that I can see? In the end I think, I want people who are interesting to be at the university. I want the people who have faced a challenge and overcome it. I want my professors to be people who have gone to the other side of the mountain and back.

I'm not tooting my own horn here, because I'm not sure how well I fit this description.

And then suddenly, like a gift from heaven, it occurred to me. I want someone like Grace to succeed at college. She's the kind of person who has faced some real challenges and overcome them. She's failed classes and kept her chin up. She gets a lot of negative feedback, and yet she's never thrown in the towel, never given up on school, never said her effort doesn't matter, nor changed her life plans because she thinks she can't achieve them. She is passionate, and despite everything negative that gets thrown at her, she perseveres. I've said here that I admired her confidence. I've said that I thought she aimed high. But I've never realized that these qualities are exactly the ones that make her the kind of person you want to keep around.

She's faced a diagnosed disability, discrimination, a broken home, tough financial circumstances, the illness of a parent, and move after move after move after move. She's traveled the world, but not the posh world. The third world. And she completely takes in the whole experience and thinks it's normal.

In the end, she looks great to me. I mean, really, it's shocking to me when I think about what her life has thrown at her so far and how much she looks like girls in her school who have lived in the same tree-lined suburb since they were conceived. I realized at the beginning of the swim team season this fall, Grace was the only member of the team who didn't live in an owned home (we were renting an apartment at the time). It doesn't seem like much, but of course when a sport requires practices 5-6 days a week and early morning pick ups and $50 suits that must be replaced every 3 months and year-round training and team fees, it weeds out a lot of the single parents, financially-strapped families, and others. I just use this as an example of how the rich get richer, and if Grace is diligent enough to keep on keeping on despite not having certain privileges, well, hurrah for her!

So that's my great thought of the week. My kid is not someone to worry about in the long run. She's facing challenges and tough challenges they are. But in the end, she is a great person who will triumph. Like everyone, she'll face moments when she feels like she doesn't measure up. She'll have to decide whether to quit or keep going. But so far in her life, she's done pretty well. And who am I to tell her that she can't do something when she believes she can do it?

The Weekly Slug: 15 weeks

This morning I found myself walking through Georgetown to the Metro station at DuPont Circle. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. Me, not even pregnant enough for anyone around me to tell, pulling my small rollerboard suitcase and carrying my laptop in my messenger bag, walking a route I had taken many times before. The distance is a little more than a mile and a half; at a brisk pace it takes about 35 minutes. How much longer could it take toting along an extra suitcase? Taking Metro would only cost me a couple bucks at most and given that I knew I could walk to the station easily, I couldn't even begin to justify another $20 cab fare to get to the airport. And really, the exercise would do me good. The weather was relatively good, though overcast. I was just sure it would be a pleasant walk, especially in the almost spring on a Sunday morning.

Um, yeah. Somewhere about 40 minutes into my journey when I realized I was still in Georgetown, the whole thing got to me. A pregnant me toting my luggage for now 45 minutes in the almost rain, just to save a few bucks. My shoulders were hurting, my back was hurting, my legs were hurting, and I wanted to sit down and rest. And my spirit was defeated. I couldn't have gone even a mile before I felt like giving up. One mile? That's it? That's the extent of my ability to exercise? What is wrong with me?

By the time I got to DuPont Circle, it was raining. My glasses were all wet and I felt like every single step was arduous. But no worries, I was there and now I just needed to get to the station and catch the train. When I got to the station, I could feel my body letting go. I was starting to feel good about the exercise, despite the rain and my aching muscles.

And then the other shoe dropped. The down escalator to the station was out. I was going to have to pick up my suitcase and carry it down the escalator stairs.

If you've never been to DC and taken Metro, maybe you're thinking this is no big deal. The escalators are about three stories high. Here's a picture from the bottom of the escalators upward:


I just stood there at the top of the motionless escalator in disbelief, contemplating whether I was really going to try to pick up my suitcase and walk down. Should I ask where an elevator was? There had to be one; Americans with Disabilities Act and all. But it could be a long way from where I was already, which would require me to walk even further. And what are the chances that the person I asked on the street would actually point me in the right direction? I could spend another 15 minutes wandering around the circle, all in an attempt to avoid the stairs.

Finally I took to the left side of the escalator and took it slow. I stopped on the way down three times. I think even when none of your faculties are impaired the task will give you vertigo, but today I really felt like the world was spinning around me. Though the station was sparsely populated, relatively speaking, five groups of people passed me on the way down.

The whole experience has made me feel like I'm turning a corner into a whole new way of running my life. When I boarded my flight to Washington three days ago, it wasn't until I was already in the jetway that I had no idea how I was going to store my suitcase in the overhead bin. Then I thought, I should have preboarded. Preboarding? For pregnancy? 15 weeks? Is that allowed? But in 6 short months, I'm going to be happily jumping in that preboarding line, with my infant car seat and my gate checked umbrella stroller and my diaper bag and...

And suddenly it's all dawning on me. I'm doing this whole thing all over again. The days of everyone packing one little bag or backpack and doing the town on foot are gone. I passed the threshold of being able to travel with Grace like she was an adult several years ago. Since then it's been no effort. She packs her own suitcase, she carries her own stuff, she goes through security on her own, she knows what to do with her passport, she keeps track of her stuff and doesn't lose it; to sum it up, she's grown up. But now I'm thinking, the trunk of my car isn't big enough for all the stuff a baby needs. I think. What does a baby need these days anyways? I can't even remember. Am I the kind of person who prefers a baby sling or a stroller? Do I want a changing table or is it a waste of space and money? How do I pack for a long flight when I have a baby? How many bottles do you need? Pacifiers? What kind? Do you need them at all?

I feel like a novice, like I've never done this before. I know I did, it was just so long ago that I can't even remember.

Auditions for the spring musical. And other things too.

I've reached a difficult point with parenting. At the start of Grace's 8th grade year, we made decision that Grace would not be able to audition for the school play or participate in any way if she was not on honor roll. She didn't make honor roll (big shock). As it turned out, on the promise that good grades would follow, we allowed her to audition and she was in the play. Her grades continued to be abysmal all year. She was supposed to get a good grade in US History to be able to go on the end of the 8th grade trip to Washington DC. But in the end, we let her go and she finished the year with less than a C average in US History. We had to start making payments for the trip in October and I couldn't see the point in losing the money for nothing. When we were talking the other night at dinner, Grace couldn't name a US president other than those she had been alive through the presidency of (only two), Lincoln and Washington. You can see she missed a lot in that class.

She also wasn't doing so well in orchestra, either. She wasn't practicing. But she really wanted to go to music camp. She auditioned and got a scholarship, and we prepaid her fees, so in the end she got to go. This was despite the fact that she had to take a remedial math course during the summer that conflicted with the camp. She got special permission from the teacher of the summer course that if she had an A average by the time she had to leave for camp, she could go. So she went.

All in all, it wasn't a banner year academically or behavior-wise, and she got to do everything she wanted to do anyway. I have to defend myself a little, though; it's not like we threw the whole year out the window. Since her grades weren't great, we told her that in addition to her school work she needed to do some volunteer activity at least 4 hours a month and participate in a sport for every term. She did that, even though she really didn't want to.

In the end, I don't think we as a family really worked together as a team to help Grace do the best she could at school.

We decided to take things a little more seriously this year. We began the year and told her she couldn't audition for a play until we saw two consecutive grade reports where she had all As and Bs. She can do that; it's not below her abilities. And we told her that if she had difficulty in school to come to us and ask for help.

Well.

She didn't get As and Bs, as we all know. But she didn't come for help either. She sort of just checked out of the subjects she was having trouble with, then she started just not doing schoolwork anymore, and by the time I checked on it, she was really in trouble academically.

The theatre department puts on 4 productions a year. Two have already passed. And next week are auditions for the annual school musical, a production that involves every arts program in the school. There were orchestra auditions for pit orchestra. There are theatre auditions for acting parts. There are singing auditions for chorus and other vocal parts. It goes on and on.

In truth, I found out the real truth of what was going on at school because Grace asked me if she could audition. I told her no, not unless I could see some proof that her grades were pulling up. 5 school days passed...and Grace kept making excuses for why she couldn't bring home the grades. It was then that I knew something really bad was going on.

So. Grace is not allowed to audition for the annual musical.

Moving on: summer camp. Grace really would like to go to the arts camp she went to last summer and do not only orchestra, but also audition to do an additional session of theatre. It's not a cheap camp. And logistically it would be difficult to do this summer (read: Mom will be in her last trimester of pregnancy God-willing).

But...she's not really doing what she's supposed to do in orchestra. She's not practicing. And she's sitting last chair in the combined orchestra (read: worst in her instrument in the whole school) because she's not done her coursework and performance tests on time.

The early registration for camp that would mean hundreds of dollars cheaper registration is due this Friday.

Here are my current thoughts on the decisions that are at hand immediately. I know that a lot of Grace's poor performance at school has to do with untreated ADD, a situation that is currently being worked on. So it's not like it's reasonable to have expected her to achieve the kind of academic success we asked. Still, she didn't tell me she was having trouble. We clearly communicated what the consequences would be if her grades weren't good, and instead of coming to us for help when she had trouble, she decided to hide it. She sort of checked out of school, hoping that if she ignored those bad and missing assignments that they would go away.

I begged her to go to the guidance counselor at her high school before the school year started and ask for help. But she refused. She said she didn't need any help. When the first progress report came home poorly, we made an agreement that if the grades and the comments didn't improve by the time report cards came out, she'd go talk to the guidance counselor. The grades and comments didn't improve, and she didn't go to the guidance office to ask for help. So I went to her school two days before Christmas break and I talked at length with the guidance counselor, all the while begging Grace to just work with me on the situation. In the meantime, her grades were flat-lining and she wasn't doing homework hardly at all. That I didn't find out until Grace asked me about auditions for the annual musical a month later.

So here's what my current thinking is. She won't be able to audition for the annual musical next week, and it's unlikely she will be able to bring her grades up in time to audition for the last play of the year. And there's no way I can justify spending the time and money on performing arts camp given what little effort she's putting into the arts (some of them) at this point. I know she would love to do these things. I know she would adore the whole experience. I believe that she would grow.

Ugh.

I also know that I have to stick to my word and make her realize that her academics matter. You cannot become a successful Broadway actress if you don't know about your country or don't know how to do high school math or have the discipline to practice an instrument you are good at or don't remember to turn in your assignments for theatre class. Or if all of the above are true about you. At this point I think I have to insist that the academics come first. She has gotten to participate in plays and camp and all sorts of trips throughout middle school, and I'm not sure any of it helped in the end. I hope what really will help at this point is to stick to the plan.

So, no play auditions. And no arts camp. Just a year of hard work and creativity at home. That's all.

I feel like I have one foot in and one foot out, like the hokey-pokey

At last night's PTSO meeting:

(yes, I am the chairman of a committee in the PTSO at Grace's high school. Does this change your image of me completely?)

The Vice President is sitting next to me. She's a parent who's been in the loop in the district for years. Actually, make that decades; she grew up in the city herself. The meeting goes on and on...and on. 6:30p start. 7:30p comes and goes. 8:30p comes and goes. We're both a little drained from the length of the meeting, seeing as how I came straight to the meeting with a bag of McDonald's in hand for both myself and Grace who was downstairs at an orchestra rehearsal. About 8p, I started using my laptop to write the VP notes and ask her questions, trying to get everything I need to complete for the PTSO finished before I leave the meeting. Between sarcastic commentary going back and forth between us in tiny font and hushed whispers or giggles, she finally whispers to me, we really should go out together sometime.

oh, oh, oh! Someone wants to be my friend! Someone in town! Someone I just met while doing a job at the school and...she likes me!

I said, that's sounds fun!

She says, yes, we really need margaritas. Afterall, you're not pregnant or anything.

Um, well. Hm. Well. How shall I say this. I'm...hm. Yeah, I guess most people don't start the school year with a high school sophomore while also recovering from childbirth. But indeed, that's where I'll be in a few short months. I hadn't really thought about how much this was going to take me out of the peer circle.

See, I was 22 when Grace was born. It took me a few years to realize, but this makes me somewhat of a freak among the parents of her age group. Most of them are either career people who waited well into their 30s to have a child (10-15 years older than me) or were teen moms (not that much younger than me, but still, different). I knew another mom once who was in exactly the same situation as me and captured it perfectly. She said she went to her daughter's elementary school and at some point in conversing with a teacher or another parent, they would say, 'wait, you're young...and you're smart too?' Yeah. And I look young for my age, so it was especially assumed that I must have been a teen mom. When I started aging and went to grad school, no one even came close to suspecting I had a daughter who was closer to the age of the other grad students than I was. Of course this wasn't exactly fun when people found out, because they then realized I couldn't be 23, but must be closer to 33. I cracked the joke a couple times, "Well, I was twelve when she was born," but I stopped because I realized some people actually thought I was being serious.

So now, now that my daughter is in high school, I'm not quite so far behind the game in interacting with the parents of Grace's classmates. Yeah, many of the other parents are well into their 50s and they see me and figure I must be stupid or something due to my youthful appearance, but some of them are great and I've loved having the benefit of their wisdom. I don't mean that as a slam; life teaches you lessons, and knowing people who have had more of it than you have is a very valuable asset! Even though I'm not graying, I have a job at a recognizable office, I own a house now (that was a big distinguisher between myself and other parents that were more established), and I've been around the block a few times. So I still look like about 27, but people aren't so fast to judge as they were when I looked 16 (and was really 25).

The comment from the PTSO VP last night made me realize, being pregnant and having an infant child again will make me completely unlike the rest of the parents again. Sure, by the time this child reaches elementary school, I'll be one of the seasoned parents, just like the ones who have intimidated me all along. But in Grace's life, I'm a very unusual parent.

It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, but every little thing matters. When you have moved around as much as I have, you hold on to your long-lasting friendships that are far away. The local ones take longer to develop, and sometimes you accept that there's really not anyone in town you really really are close to. I have a couple friends in town who I've known for almost 10 years, but I don't get to see them as much as I'd like. So I don't really go out and have a girl's night out. I'm a homebody, so to speak. It's not that I don't like it; I love being at home and spending time relaxing with my family. But when everything falls apart, I don't sit over coffee with a friend at my dining room table. I call a friend in Ohio or New York or Georgia for that. A perfectly wonderful situation is when the people you see every day, the people you see at your kid's school, the people you work with, the people you live around the block from, just happen to be people who you click with. And when you have kids, this often reduces to the people who are the parents of your kid's peers. Many things factor into the likelihood of success of this: what is the personality or career of your spouse? Do you have a spouse? Did you ever have a spouse? Oh, your child has step-parents? (be careful). What do you do for a living? Where do you live? (oh, you rent?) Where are you from? (oh, you're not from around here? And you travel outside of the country?)

I was just getting to the place where I was feeling normal among the demographic of parents of teens, and suddenly I feel like I'm back to square one again.

Last fall I was on bedrest from my surgery when Grace started the swim season. She was taking the city bus to practices and spending her midday break reading and eating her packed pb&j in the library because she didn't have the time to come home. Meanwhile her teammates were getting shuttled back and forth from practice in minivan carpools back to have lunch at the golf club housing developments they live in. I showed up 6 weeks into the season and introduced myself as the willing, but previously-not-able, swim team mom. This fall we'll start the season with me (most likely) on bedrest again, recovering from a c-section and taking care of a newborn. And somewhere around week 6, I'll show up again as the willing, capable, friendly, but a little odd, swim team mom. And I'll still be driving my 10-year-old Honda and making my kid take the bus when possible and practical. Somewhere in there I'll figure out how to shuffle my responsibilities with the PTSO.

No big deal, except it is a big deal when it hits me. It's not so much about money or station in life or anything else goofy; it's about fitting in and finding friends.

An update on school and ADD/ADHD

We have a diagnosis of ADD from Grace's pediatrician. And some controlled substances in our home to deal with the symptoms of that. The doctor said, 'this is not a magic pill. You have to come up with other strategies to deal with all the effects of this problem.'

Yesterday, Grace and I met with a few people at school to talk about what she could do to be consistent in completing her work. The group was her assistant principal, her guidance counselor, one of her teachers, Grace and me. The meeting went well, and I applaud her assistant principal. I realize I forced this group to do something different: to include the student they are talking about in the discussion and planning process. Her assistant principal was great. I'm a very very picky mom when it comes to these kinds of things because in a former life I was one of the professionals on these teams, trained in how the meetings should be conducted and the reports should be written. Anyways, the asst. principal didn't even blink. He rolled right through the meeting and addressed Grace directly throughout the whole hour and a half. (YES! AN HOUR AND A HALF!)

The resolution was to help Grace figure out ways to stay interested in the classroom and finish the work that she finds 'boring.' The bottom line is, she needs to always get some intrinsic and extrinsic motivation going on. We're meeting again in 4 weeks to check her progress on implementing the motivations.

I had some other thoughts after the whole meeting was over. We talked about delayed gratification and long term goals. Grace explained the way she sees her problem. She said that if she were in college studying theatre, she would feel like her work in other classes wouldn't be so bad to keep at. Being at college would mean that she was working towards her goal of being on Broadway. But while she's in high school, that goal is far away and she doesn't feel like the work she's doing in science or math is really getting her anywhere. In other words, the end goal is just too far removed from her day to day tasks to keep her motivated.

(Really, I'm not putting words in her mouth. That's what she told the committee.)

There was a small bit of a negative reaction to her saying that her goal was to be an actress on Broadway. Now, I know that most people (me included) hear things like this and think, 'what a dreamer. Get your head out of the clouds! Stop being so unrealistic and wake up to the world around you!' This is especially the case if the child is not performing well academically. I think that's exactly what the reaction yesterday conveyed. But I suddenly realized something yesterday. If Grace loved science and wanted to be a doctor, she would say her goal was to cure cancer. If Grace loved history and debate and wanted to go to law school, she'd say her goal was to be a Supreme Court justice. The point is, no matter what Grace found as her passion in life, she would dream big. But because her passion is arts and theatre, she is not taken as seriously as she would be if her passion were a field that is more practical, more respected, more mainstream. Indeed, if Grace wanted to be a Supreme Court justice and she was really good at debate and history, but she struggled with math and orchestra and she wasn't reliable at turning in her assignments in any class, I don't think her superiors would scoff at her quite so readily. They scoff because her ultimate goal is to do something they find frivolous, expendable, unnecessary.

I ask you, how should the educational system deal with students who have big dreams but are struggling with how to reach those high goals? No one doubts Grace has the ability to do well in school; her assistant principal told her yesterday he expects that her grades will be mostly A's if she keeps herself focused and turns all her assignments in reliably. Given this, should we continue to smirk at her pie in the sky ideas of moving to NYC and being an actress someday? Would we do the same if she wanted to cure cancer but couldn't stay focused in history class?

Another high point of the meeting was when her assistant principal asked her how she could stay motivated and focused every day in order to reach the big goals (like good grades at the end of a term). She explained that she had read Michael Phelps' book over her winter break and learned a lot about how anyone needs to make incremental goals in order to reach the big goals. In order to make sure he made it to the Olympics and performed the best her could at those games, Michael Phelps and his coach set regular goals for time trials, and smaller still for times in the practice pool, and smaller still for how many laps and sets every day. By doing this, they could see that every stroke in the pool mattered towards reaching the end goal. Grace told the committee that she wanted to figure out what her incremental goals should be in her school work, and that she needed help.

Was I impressed? Yes, I was. As was her assistant principal. He took the tidbit and ran with it. I didn't notice how the others reacted, but I was proud of her. What would have happened if someone had told Michael Phelps he was wasting his time in the pool when he was 10 and failing out of school? What if someone had told him he would never make it to the Olympics because he couldn't even keep himself together to bring everything he needed to practice or show up to his meets on time? Isn't he lucky that his mother believed in him and that he had a coach that was willing to work with him, despite his ADHD? Yeah, it was hard for him, but that didn't stop him. And he has a college degree now and quite a few other accolades to his name. Thank goodness people didn't stop at his lack of motivation in the classroom and convince him to give up on his big dreams.

You see where I'm going with this, right? It's not that I think Grace will be the next Broadway star or anything like that. It's that I think she has goals and she thinks big, and telling her she can't achieve those big goals because she has underlying problems with organization and attention won't help anything. Quite the opposite, this kind of reasoning and argumentation could really hurt her badly. So I think I'm changing my philosophy of parenting. Find your child's passion and run with it. Never tell them they can't achieve what they've set in front of themselves as a goal. Yes, deal with the shortcomings they have and the struggles they face. But don't ever suggest that they can't overcome those things or that they will interfere with their dreams. Maybe they will, but telling them so won't help anything. Life is hard enough of a teacher to us all; we don't need parents to add to our discouragement.

The "I heart this blog" award :-)

OOOOoooooooooOOOOOOOO!!!! I got an award for the blog! I'm so excited! Dragonflymama at stepmama metamorphoses sent me this award and I am so honored! I've never gotten an award for my blog before! And she said some very nice and touching things about me on her blog when she bestowed the award upon me yesterday. I am very grateful.

Now, my task is to pass it along. I read a lot of blogs and am always looking for new ones that are insightful and fun to read. It was very difficult to narrow down my list and decide who to pass this along to. But after much thought, here are my picks. These are ones I've been reading for quite awhile and that I click onto right away when I see that there is a new post in my reader. When you get the time, check them out!

1. angelawd - This is written by Angela who, despite many trials in life, is consistent in her commitment to walking through each struggle and persevering. She also has a great sense of humor and I love reading about how she's raising two teen daughters with her ever-present husband (the girls' stepdad).

2. coffeeyogurt - always a mix of self-help, opining, and comedy, this blog is sure to make you appreciate the time it takes to smell the roses. She's a psychologist, by the by...

3. Little Miss Sunshine State - It was the name of the blog that made me notice this site, and the writing and perspective that kept me hooked. It's the tales of a New Englander transplanted to Central Florida after her kids made it off to college. Always fun!

4. The Smirking Cat - Cat is a bold, dedicated, mama bear of a stepmom who veraciously seeks to keep everyone in her family safe and healthy. She also is a shameless hockey fan(atic) and does good work in hospice. Besides, I just like her because she was the very first person who ever found my blog and left a comment :-)

5. Mrs. G of Derfwad Manor - If you haven't visited Derfwad Manor yet, you really should. It is a bastion of all the good things every woman should indulge herself in. Mrs. G talks of secret boyfriends, hidden desires, how proud she is of her kids (both teenagers now), and how sometimes she revisits her past and thinks, "what was I thinking?" There's even a discussion of retirement plans, Women's Colony.

To these awarded bloggers, here are the rules:
-post the love award on your site
-link back to the person who sent you the love
-pass it on to a handful of blogs you love by letting them know you've passed the buck to them and linking to their sites
-keep the love flowing and read on!

After more than a year of blogging, I think I'm finally getting to the place where this makes sense to me. Let's continue to connect with each other and support each other in the journey of life! (Oh lord, I'm becoming like the Oprah of the blogosphere I'm so touchy-feely, I swear.)

The two most common ways people stumble across this blog

I wish I could say that people type in "soul searching mother with teen daughter trying to understand the meaning of life" into google and this blog shows up. Ah, well, there's nothing I can do about that. However, there are two frequent searches for which people stumble upon this humble blog. The first I'm not surprised about. The second concerns me.

First and foremost, my most frequently hit post is The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, written in April 2007. But they never get there by searching on a word string or key words. No, there go there for this:


They're doing image searches for Sweeney Todd (in quite a number of languages, I might add!) and want this one. So, that's really not very interesting. I suspect they snatch the image and move right along, without ever reading a word of what I've written.

The second most common way people find this blog is by typing into google something like this:

"Can you kill someone with chlorine?"

or...

"How much chlorine can kill a person?"

or...

"swimming in a pool chlorine kill a person"

It's starting to concern me. So I did some research. Here's what I found by conducting my own searches at google.com :

search results for "how much chlorine does it take to kill you"

Yeah. The number one hit would be to my post of October 1, 2008, How much chlorine does it take to kill someone. Unsurprisingly, these are the results from another search I did:

search results for "how much chlorine does it take to kill someone"

What are people searching this for? I feel like I should include a help-line icon on the page in order to meet people in their time of need! I guess I am somewhat comforted by discovering that my post about the high levels of chlorine in the high school pool is about as close as one will get on the web finding out the answer to this question. So maybe people are just searching this string because they are also worried about their teenagers on the swim team...

Let's hope so.