note to the abandoned (a Wish and a sidestep)

Okay, so it's slightly evil to do this while building narrative momentum - I did, after all, just say the words "Eldest" and Wish" in the same sentence - but the Eldest's Wish needs to wait while I settle something.

There are two misconceptions that you might have at this moment:

1. that the Eldest is terminally ill

2. that this is the most extraordinary gift that we could possibly be given, and that bubbling clouds of delight are whisking us far, far up beyond the mundane.

Well, 1. most certainly, he is NOT - and we're grateful for that. The Make-A-Wish foundation grants Wishes to children who are terminally ill, as well as to children with certain life-threatening conditions. The Eldest was such a child some years ago, but he is nothing of the sort now. And 2., well, look at the superlatives. Consider the tone that goes with them. Nod slowly as you realize that, in fact, this Wish makes me deeply uncomfortable.

There is something both humbling and deeply invasive about having a child with a chronic illness, and watching healthcare professionals gather, ready to offer you their time and help. The family home shifts towards being a place of socially constructed pretenses of privacy, whose social patterns are known all too well to those who support it. So, fine. There are other people involved. It was the loss of independence was harder to adjust to, and the ongoing sense of social obligation.

It's not like I can go to an infusion nurse's home and pop an IV into her kid, or cook her dinner. (Although I did try to feed them at every opportunity, and they were very tolerant of my efforts. Oddly, the nurses had always "just eaten something, oh, not fifteen minutes before I arrived." Um, right.) I know that they get paid for their work, and that it is work, and not a personal favor. But their job is inside the family sphere and part of something so very intimate and central to the heart of me - of us - to the point where I can't always treat them as professionals. We force, ask, push, hope them into becoming people, and then relax a bit.

You can have a social exchange, or build a relationship of mutual caring with people. Use it to discharge debt to the point necessary. You can't do either, really, with a professional maintaining an appropriate emotional distance.

And a Wish is a gift bigger than anything we've seen yet, and given by people that don't have a relationship with either the Eldest or me. Yes, there's someone being paid somewhere, but we see the volunteers, the people giving of their time and representing those who gave of their wallet. It's the waving of a wand, held by people we don't know and who are careful to stay remote, and who will happily vanish, post-wave.

And it's just too damned big.

I just can't get comfortable with the idea. After all, look at my kid - he's the kid who throws rocks into the river, irritating painters who've driven wayyyy up to a scenic view.
He's the clown that mugs for the camera with his robotic Lego-thing.
And he's the quiet kid, relaxing post-swim with a book while the light falls just so.
He just doesn't need this. His life is full, rich with pleasures and replete with met needs. It's not uncomplicated, I'll grant you - but he doesn't need a magic wand. Nor can does he need a reward for the twisted, edged complexities of his early years - the kid doesn't remember them, and the Man and I flinch at the idea of a door prize.

Congratulations, your kid got knocked around, so he gets this.

or

Congratulations, you were battered while your kid was sick, so he gets this.

It's unnerving to have the societal powers-that-be offer this as a palliative, whether to their sense of justice or to my own. It's unsettling to have a wand waved to lift the Eldest out of his world, and into a fantastic place where Wishes are granted. Or, perhaps, to argue that he lives in this place, regardless of my stubborn hymns to ordinariness. And it seems ungrateful to be shifting in my seat when the fairy godmother(s) come to call. Or, hell, asking her to produce some ID.

But I am, regardless. I have a wonderful, vibrant son. He is enough, and beyond enough - and replete with our good fortune, the Man and I should gracefully decline the Wish.

But this is not our Wish - it's his. Which might just be why it is going to come true. And it might also be why at some point a mosaic of joy, gratitude and yes, tears, is going to sweep up behind me and smack me on the nose. Because maybe, at heart, my mutterings about not being deserving, not needing or wanting to ameliorate another's sense of guilt/need to act/memory - maybe? Maybe that's all just me, trying to insist that the past stay in the past.

And hoping that this Wish doesn't carry with it too great a burden of memory.

there's a light in here somewhere

Okay, okay, so I flubbed Chanuka. (chag sameach, by the way)

Partially, this was an accident of good intentions: after much discussion revolving around our lack of, um, discussions (okay, communication), I tried to sort through the household miniutae to see where I could comfortably include the Man. Chanuka presents seemed a good bet.

This is how it went:
Me (emerging from my study/DONOTENTER:working/room where we stash junk destined to go somewhere else...someday): I've got some Chanuka gift ideas for the kids. Should I narrow them down, or do you want to help me hunt?
The Man (lifting his earphones off his ears): wha?
Me (holding a fistful of catalogs and notes): do you want to look at these with me, or should I narrow them down?
The Man (recovering from his weekly Presidential podcast): um, well, ah - no, you narrow it down first. Got to go argue with Congress about insurance for children.

So off I go. I have a working budget of about $30 for the kids, plus S&H. And I have rules. No batteries, no small pieces, no cartoon/Disney/commercialized characters. No DVD/computer games. Oh, and both kids need to be able to play with it. Something that takes small hands and brains and imagination. Something that will help me reverse-engineer the perfect child. Easy, no?

Me: Okay, I have a couple of ideas.
The Man (leafing through my clippings and notes): oh, but they already have construction toys. Let's not - oh, no, not that either - nope, I can't see that working - oh, um, no. I don't think so. Good luck, honey!
Me: mumble grumble head onna stick mumble

We hesitated over this (medium small pieces, enough for both children to play), debated this (fun, but flying things in the house? how much trouble is this asking for? maybe I should loosen up?) or one of these. I lusted briefly after this (toy control!), and this (for the Man and the Eldest, both, right?) or any of these (ooooh - I do love me construction toys). But the budget and the rules prevailed, so we settled on this for the Toddles, who adores puzzles and building, and this in softcover for the number-loving Eldest, plus a set of fraction magnets.

Had I not actually ordered everything on Sunday, we might have been okay. But nope, Sunday it was, and there we were last night, present-less. That's okay, I consoled myself, we'll have Chanuka before we have the Festival of Presents. I wonder if I can figure out a vegan, gluten-free latke? Yup, I felt pretty good about that.

One bleed and one trashed day in a series of trashed and scraping-by days later, a tired and hungry mama sat down to dinner with overtired, napless and hungry Toddles and a end-of-day+post bleed=uber-fragile Eldest. Oh yes, and he was hungry too - he said so, loudly and repeatedly all the way home. ALL THE WAY HOME. (and of course I keep food in the car! This was, apparently, entirely besides the point.) The Man was in a meeting at work, and promised to make it home...eventually.

Mum, it's Chanuka today! Do we have candles? A menora?
wearily, yes. After dinner.
Mummummummum - what about presents?
Erm. Eat your dinner.

It was astonishingly clear to me: if I give the kids stuff, then they will be happy. If I don't give them stuff, then the Eldest will realize that he's missing a stuff-opportunity, and be unhappy. I found myself absolutely unable to manage even the thought of trying to console a disappointed child. I was just....too....tired.

So I did what any sensible woman would do. I poured a cup of coffee, pulled out my cell phone and texted the Man: tomorrow I am calling in sick.

And I did. Wise is the Man who heeds the Mama...

turning two

I have a 9/11 baby. I've told the tale of the Toddles on this blog before, but I repeat: I have a 9/11 baby.

Who cares? Everybody's got to be born sometime. And yet, it resonates a bit. I have a 9/11 baby, and he is sunshine and fire and love. And today he is two years old.

There's the silly things about him getting older, like the new gDiapers having arrived (ooh, the colors are lovely and the fit of the dipes on him is fabulous. Bravo, gDipe team - you've really reinvented the diaper!). Our cloth inserts now fit perfectly into the gPants, as Kim from Montana's Diaper Store had promised. And the hemp prefolds are truly tough stuff - many, many washes later, it's holding up beautifully. Between the fabulous fit of the gDiaper pants and the absorbability of the hemp inserts, I am one happy mama.


There's the lovely things about him getting older, like the moment when he looked at my mum, while she sat shiva for her older brother. He ran in, looked her in the eye and said, 'I love you, Savta.' She nearly wept over his ginger curls - that small, careless-serious expression of love hit her in places untouched by the grave, polite friends who came to visit. And there's the way that he leans into me and says, 'I hug you, Mummy,' and does. Sunshine and fire and love. With a dash of giggles.

I woke up this morning, to find him lifting my shirt. 'I have nai-nais,' he informed me, grinned, wriggled and did. 'Yummy,' I was told. Sunshine and fire and love and delighted, deliberate motion - with brief pauses for snuggling.

There was life before the Toddles, and it was good. But this has been two years of Babes and Toddle-dom, and I am humbly grateful. He has been a gift, a challenge and an opportunity to love. When the Man and I rolled the genetic dice, we never expected the Toddles, and oh are we glad.

For those of you who are sans Toddle but calendrically lunar, a happy and healthy (Jewish) New Year. Shana Tova.
And for those of you who prefer your holiday greetings with a little more coolness, here's this from a bleader: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTOdBzSpYc

In the coming year, may we all learn some of the Toddles' joy, his fascination and absolute certainty that the world is full of things to learn and to love.
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Ah, the marvels of modern toydom. Check this out: http://sparkability.net/mobilehome.html The Man, however, points out that a recyclable dollhouse can also come from any number of stylish boxes around the house. And what the heck, we could paint 'em blue ourselves. Still, it's pretty neat.
Frankly, given how often kids like the box better than the gift, you have to figure that this one combines the best of the two. It's a gift *and* a box.

The Toddles' gift, on the other hand, is rather more plebian. And, budgetarily friendly! It cost precisely $12.50, and is some fun, chunky snap-together link things that create three dimensional structures. And it's small - and I resent the increase in our local toy population even so. Sigh. Maybe it is time for another toy purge?
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Readers, beware. Books ain't what they used to be: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/reviews/lone_star_statements.php