Snide Reply

Tag: children

  • I Don’t Have ADH. . .

    It’s not like we weren’t paying attention. In fact, with only one child, paying attention was never an issue for us as parents. He had our full attention and we thought everything he did was amazing and wonderful.

    We were so in love with him, in fact, that we had a positive explanation for the range of his eccentric behaviors. Running full tilt into a wall for fun? He needs extra stimulation. Lying in the grass in left field, tossing his mitt in the air and catching it, while his teammates are attempting to win a game? Well, who wouldn’t be bored playing left field? Circling the little boy next to him then taking a bite out of his arm while the teacher reads a book on sharks? He has a vivid imagination.

    It wasn’t until we adopted our daughter and were no longer focused solely on our son that it came to our attention that he had a problem with focus. And staying still. And keeping his hands off of things. And blurting out ridiculous statements.

    What did we do about it? We tolerated it. We even encouraged some of it. Really, who wouldn’t be amused by a child who blurts out “Chicken!” at random moments throughout the day? While I knew that his tendency to hang on people (their bodies, not their words), was annoying, I figured he’d learn more from the annoyed taking a swat at him than from my constant nagging. Nope.

    Then he went to middle school. And he started failing. And failing. And failing. We tried punishments. He continued failing. We tried inducements. He continued failing. We talked to his teachers. He continued failing. We tried a homework completion spreadsheet. He failed to complete it, even when he completed the homework.

    He hated writing; he hated reading. His handwriting was so terrible that even if he had the right answer, if the teacher couldn’t read it, what was the point? We coaxed, we cajoled. We checked homework. We reminded. We crossed our fingers. We sacrificed goats. His grades didn’t improve.

    Eventually, he was referred to an interventionist. At this point, I need to make sure you understand that he hated writing, couldn’t remember his assignments and, if he did his assignments, couldn’t remember to hand them in. We’ll ignore for a moment the fact that he was still blurting out things like “I like pie” and hanging on people.

    RTI, response to intervention, is all the rage in schools these days, the goal being to intervene before the child fails. Obviously, we got to it a little late. Still, I was thrilled that our son would be getting help.

    First recommendation from the interventionist was to have him practice writing to a prompt as soon as he came home from school. Second recommendation from the interventionist was to have him track everything he did every half hour from the time he came home until he went to bed.

    There is no witty way to describe my reaction to these recommendations. I believe I said something to my husband like, “Are they freaking crazy?” Still, we tried the tracking thing. It worked if I followed him around and badgered him into filling in the little half-hour blocks. Most of them had notes like, “Argued with Mom.” This, I told myself, is insane. Actually, I probably used the past participle of an “F” word.

    And my son continued to fail. Abandoning the little half-hour blocks and the afterschool writing torture, we sought the advice of other experts. Eventually, thousands of dollars and four professionals later, we had a diagnosis: ADHD.

    Well, duh, you say.

    Yeah, duh, I say. I spent a lot of time kicking myself for turning over every stone looking for solutions while ignoring the big one in the middle of the path. I’m still kicking myself but at least now I’m doing it while I’m learning everything I can about ADHD.

    While it’s a relief to know what we’re up against, we’re up against a pretty formidable foe. Routines and habits are essential coping mechanisms. Tell that to a teen. I’m not even going near the nutrition suggestions yet. He needs all the calories he can get to counter the weight-loss that accompanies his medication routine. Down the road a little, we’ll have to worry about driving. He’s not pushing it and neither are we. Kids with ADHD get more tickets and have more accidents. They are also more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. We’ll cross those bridges when we get to them, but we’re looking ahead so we’ll be prepared.

    In the meantime, I’ve learned that people can be pretty goofy about ADHD. Some people think it’s over-diagnosed. That may be the case, but after resisting the appellation for more than five years, I’m pretty sure we’re finally barking up the right tree. Other people make jokes about it, blaming their day-to-day forgetfulness and distractibility on the disorder.

    ADHD jokes don’t really bother me all that much, but I wondered what my son felt about them. So I asked.

    “I don’t care,” he said, then mentioned a friend who calls it “ADSO.”

    “ADSO?” I asked.

    “Yeah. Attention Deficit. . .Shiny Object!” he said. “But mostly I tell my own jokes.”

    “Really?” I asked. “What are some of your ADHD jokes?”

    “You think I remember?” he said.

  • The Family That Hay Rides Together

    There’s a family I know of that runs together. Mom, Dad, the kids, all tie on their kicks and hit the streets together. I picture them, run complete, trekking into the kitchen together. Glowing with health and familial esprit de corps, they share a glass of orange juice while Mom starts breakfast. Dad helps the kids set the table, pausing to give the youngest a hug and a noogie.

    Never mind that I come home from a run stinking, trail dust stuck to my skin, glued there by sunscreen and sweat. Never mind that no one in my family even likes to run and half of us don’t drink OJ. I want to be that family.

    I’ve tried to arrange family outings with my own gang, mostly with disastrous results.

    For years, I tried to turn us into a Christmas Tree Cutting family. My sister’s family cuts a tree every year. It’s a big deal for them and they speak fondly of it. I thought I could get my own family into it. The last year we cut a tree as family, my son came down with a fever at the tree lot but insisted that he be involved in tree selection nonetheless. I no longer let fevered four-year-olds push me around, primarily because there are none in my home. But he was our starter kid so he stayed bundled in the car while my husband dragged specimens that I had selected over to him for his approval. We have an artificial tree now.

    Autumn seems to bring this family outing urge strongly to the fore for me. Every year, I resist the urge to pile us all into the car and drive miles away to pick apples. The realization that after driving twenty-five miles I would feel compelled to pick entire pecks of apples and then have to do something with them other than watch them rot holds me back. So I visit the local Farmstand, alone, where I can buy a reasonable number of apples minutes from home. Sometimes, I can drag my daughter along if I promise to buy her a honey stick.

    Actually, my daughter is game for any number of bonding opportunities. She’ll even run with me. This spring, she accompanied me on a windy, rainy day and ran one-and-a-half miles before bailing. We saw Bob o’ Links in their mating plumage. Apparently, this is something of a treat in the bird-watching world. I feel like a massive geek even typing the words. If I’ve written of this before, though, indulge me. It’s a fond memory. But it still doesn’t count as a family outing.

    No, family outings must involve my entire family. My husband claims I suffer from Norman Rockwell Syndrome, the sickness that has one believing that a painted vignette is a realistic model for modern family interaction. To which I say, “Yeah. So?”

    My most recent syndrome-induced lunacy was signing us up for a hayride. I was inspired by a field trip I chaperoned for the fourth grade of my daughter’s school. A highlight of the trip was the hayride through a working farm. Why I thought an activity enjoyed by 120 screaming fourth graders was tailor made for my crew, I’ll never know. My daughter was gleefully on board, though.

    Presented with the news that we were going to have fun, damn it, on a family hay ride, my son said, “That might be ok if you take the redneck out of it, like the hay. . .and the ride.” He advocated, instead, for something with concrete and skyscrapers that ended in deep-dish pizza at Uno. While that sounds appealing, it also sounds expensive. Twenty-eight dollars for a hayride for four sounded great to me.

    We arrived at the hayride site and my “oh, crap, this was a really bad idea” radar started beeping. There was no hay in site and no apparent imminent arrival of hay. I opted for a cheerful “hay will arrive soon” attitude. My husband and son, being manly, opted for the “we’ll figure this thing out” approach. They wandered off in search of hay. Time passed. I began casually approaching random strangers until I found someone who looked like she knew where she was going or at least looked like she was wandering around with purpose. She had her head down, reading instructions, the instructions for finding the hay ride that were included in the reservation confirmation, the confirmation that I left at home. My bad idea radar started beeping more insistently; I ignored it.

    Eventually, we found hay in wagons and groups of people waiting to pile onto the wagons and have a wonderful family outing. First, though, we were offered hot chocolate, which my daughter scurried off to find, father and I tagging along though I noted that I did not want hot chocolate.

    I have been getting things for other people for so long that now, even though they are probably very capable of getting things for themselves, I still get them for them. So, I scooped the hot chocolate mix into a little foam cup, added hot water and began stirring it. I turned to hand it to my daughter just as she jumped for joy again. “For Christ’s sake,” I said, as the cocoa spilled on my glove. I turned to make my husband’s cocoa as another family, clearly happy, arrived at the cocoa station. Though there clearly was room for more than one cocoa maker, Mr. and Mrs. Happy stood watching me make cocoa. I grabbed another cup, now in a hurry so as not to inconvenience the happy, waiting couple. As I stirred the cocoa prior to handing it to my husband, he scooted around me and started filling a third cup. Still being surveyed by the Happys, I said, “Jesus Christ, I’m making this for you!” At which point Mrs. Happy said, “Wow! Maybe you should just step away from the cocoa.”

    I chose not to ruin our lovely family outing by accidentally spilling cocoa on Mrs. Happy. Walking back to the hay wagons, though, my son, who looks like Jesus and dresses like a Ramone, said, under his breath, “Maybe you should just step away from my fist before it hits your face.”

    Now, I know this is a completely inappropriate thing for a young man who looks like Jesus to say and that I, as a responsible parent, should have been mightily appalled. But I wasn’t because at that precise moment I realized we were having our version of a fun family outing.

     

  • Number Nine, Number Nine

    My little girl is gone. The bashful baby, so cute she stopped traffic in the aisles at Whole Foods, has left the building. In her place is a creature who alternately cartwheels joyously around the house or howls in anguish over hurts imagined and otherwise. In short, my daughter has turned nine.

    Actually, my daughter has been nine for two months now. I didn’t think anything of it while planning her birthday party. Granted, she wanted a sleepover party with a Hollywood movie theme. That seemed a little more grown up than last year’s Flower Power party with its gardening-related outdoor activities. But, she’s been having sleepovers for a while. Nothing portentous, then, in this year’s birthday extravaganza. I didn’t even make much note of the playing with makeup and pretend fashion show that were highlights of the festivities.

    It was at work one evening that the enormity of my daughter’s age hit me. Three evenings each week, I put my very expensive Illinois state teaching credentials to work providing enrichment in language arts and math to children. I teach every grade level from Pre-K through middle school. By and large, I love my classes. The students are respectful, cooperative and, on the whole, a pleasure to teach.

    There is one class I dread every week, though: the fourth graders. My third graders are a delight. My fifth graders are beginning to show the spirit that will mark them as adults; we have interesting conversations about the work at hand. My fourth graders are a disorderly lot of boisterous, impulsive, barely-controllable hooligans. Every class is a test of my ability to retain my composure while imparting at least some of the learning I am expected to deliver. I’ve developed a style of teaching them that owes more to fencing than to Piaget. I allow a certain amount of pandemonium, then lunge in with a bit of instruction. We continue this way throughout the lesson.

    Recently, during an off-task moment, I happened to ask one of the students her age. “I’m nine!” she said. Well, gob smacked me. I was able to retain the outward appearance of a professional educator, but my brain was screaming, “She’s the same age as my daughter! How could I not have realized that!? How much time do I have before my daughter becomes a howling, uncontrollable hooligan?”

    I didn’t have much time at all. As if aware that I’d been awakened to the true nature of her tribe, she began swinging from sweet to foul faster than a cup of milk left out on a hot day. Happily playing outside with the neighborhood children one minute, she’d come flying into the house in hysterics the next, howling incoherently as she ran to her room and slammed the door.

    When she was little, my daughter would say some of the cutest things. At night, after being put in her bed, she would pretend to read herself a story, beginning each with “Once up a time. . .” My heart would melt. When she got a little older, her mis-sayings still had the ring of innocence to them. Dancing with me to some old disco music, she loudly sang out, “Shake your boob thing, shake your boob thing. Yeah, yeah!”

    Now, she’s beginning to sound like an old soul. Her room is a disaster of epic proportions. She has taken to sleeping in the day bed in my office because she can no longer find the top of her own bed. I have cleaned her room. My husband has cleaned her room. My sister has cleaned her room. Within mere hours, her room looks like Japan after the tsunami.

    “Mom,” she said to me recently, “my room is too small.”

    “Why do you think your room is too small?” I asked.

    “Because there isn’t enough room for all of my stuff.”

    “Oh, but there is enough room for all of your stuff. Everything in your room has a home, you just never put things back where they belong.”

    She sat still, looking down at her hands, considering my words. Without looking up, she said, “Maybe I have issues.”

    One of the issues she has is a fascination with her ability to wail. Crying is no longer enough. Everything must be done on a grand scale these days, leading to fits of seemingly out-of-control sobbing. I say “seemingly out-of-control” sobbing because I now have admissible evidence that some, if not all, of her hysteria is histrionics.

    This weekend, my husband and I determined that we would present a united front to our children over getting chores done. Never having succeeded with full family meetings, we held separate semi-family meetings with each of our children. Our daughter went first. We worked out her responsibilities and the consequences for not meeting them. For instance, anything she leaves on the kitchen table will be confiscated if not removed before dinner. She can buy it back for 25 cents per item. This sounded fine in theory. She was pretty upset about the execution, but I believe a consequence isn’t effective until I’ve seen fear strike their little hearts. Still, she left her conference calmly enough.

    When her brother sat down for his and we engaged in a little pre-torture conversation about Batman, she insisted the three of us cut to the chase. “Get back on topic!” she shouted at us. We continued to talk about the Dark Knight just a few minutes longer. She exploded. “It’s not fair!” she howled. She howled, in fact, for quite some time. We ignored her, going about our meeting with our son. “No one’s making me feel better!” she wailed.

    I ignored the caterwauling until I thought I heard two cats wauling. About a week ago, my daughter spent her allowance on a spy kit, complete with digital recording device disguised as a makeup case. What I heard was the sound of my daughter crying into the recorder then playing back and crying along with her own crying.

    Ironically, my daughter has begun requesting that she be comforted in the midst of her meltdowns. At first, I resisted, not wanting to reward the behavior. I relented, though, and fought through the wall of wail. I held her in my arms, rocking her as I did when she was a baby.

    Being a grown up is hard; becoming one is even harder. So, I’ll hold my little hooligan if it helps her. And I’ll pity my husband and son living with a tween and a woman struggling with menopause.

  • A is for Atheist

    In the list of parental daydreams, wondering if your child will become president is probably right up there with imagining eight consecutive uninterrupted hours of sleep. Among those who’ve adopted internationally, there is even some discussion of whether our children can even run for president.

    I will admit that I did, on at least one occasion, wonder if my son could be President of The United States. He’d be a fine President, I thought, based on the good judgment he showed in being born to my husband and me. As he grew and matured, it became clear that our son was much more interested in making music than in making laws. It’s a good thing, too, because research indicates that more than half of all Americans wouldn’t even consider voting for someone like our son.

    You see, our son is an atheist. When he first said that he was an atheist, I thought he was being provocative.  I wondered if he even knew what an atheist didn’t believe. At this point, though, it’s pretty clear that he knows what he’s saying when he declares his graceless state.

    You might think that our son doesn’t believe in god, with a big or little “g,” because he didn’t go to church. My husband and I don’t really come off as get-up-and-go-to-church folk. Frankly, my husband isn’t even a get-up-and-go-before-10 a.m. kind of guy. But at least until our son was about ten, we were regular churchgoers. I sang in the choir; I served on committees. We went to potlucks. We hosted potlucks, for crying out loud.

    Now, before I get grief from those in the know, I will admit that the church we attended was a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you: UUs will let you believe anything. There is something to that; dogma isn’t really on the offering plate at a UU church. But the idea of questioning and questing for spiritual truth was what drew me to the congregation. I am what initially drew my husband and two-year-old son. We stayed because we found that church thing that can be so elusive: a community of like-minded individuals who also seemed to like us.

    Our son started his religious education in the nursery, playing “I love the earth and everyone in it” kinds of games and having his diapers changed by tolerant, loving people. He moved through the RE program without a hitch. He played his roles in the annual Christmas pageant with more or less enthusiasm, depending on his role. Cow in the manger? Not so hot. Shepherd complete with fake fur tunic and Bedouin head covering? All over that one. He was dedicated in front of the entire congregation by a minister he still considers “bad ass.” He grew up with a number of other children who were known and loved by the congregation.

    I was raised Roman Catholic. I don’t recall thinking any of the parish priests from my childhood were the equivalent of “bad ass.” I’m not real sure “bad,” “ass” and “Catholic priest” should even be in the same sentence, but I wrote it, so I’ll have to live with it. I don’t have any recollection of any of the priests even knowing I existed. My strongest recollection of being raised Catholic was the terrible revelation, at a fairly young age, that my dream of being a priest was just that. After years of saying mass to my stuffed animals and little brother, I felt betrayed in a way that still stings. Eventually, I found Buddhism and I practice it today. My kids will tell you I need the practice. I say they are the reason why.

    I’m going to lay credit for our son’s godlessness at my husband’s feet. He is a Jew. This is something quite different from being raised religiously Jewish. He didn’t go to temple; he didn’t study Torah, he wasn’t bar mitzvah’d (apologies to my Jewish friends for any awkward use of Hebrew). He is culturally Jewish. This means, for him, that he values education, debate, political inquiry and really good lox. We have tried to build a Jewish identity for our children that is both meaningful and fun. My husband is less interested in the fun; he’d rather our Seder were more sedate. The kids, though, still get a kick out of flinging mini-marshmallows and plastic farm animals, among other things representing the ten plagues.

    I would worry about my son’s immortal soul if I were more sure about my own immortal soul. The thing that truly frightens me about my son’s atheism is that it could get the crap beaten out of him.

    Atheists in America are more reviled than Jews or Muslims. I suspect that there is more tolerance of gays than there is of atheists. Americans would vote for a candidate of any religion before one without a religion. I know there is a gay and lesbian support group at his high school. I haven’t seen anything of its kind for atheist youth. I regularly see postings on Facebook about how hard it is to be Christian in America. Really?, I think. Try being an atheist.

    Now the thing that really compounds my worry for my son, is the fact that he has no problem saying he is an atheist. To anyone. He regularly gets grief from Christian friends about his unbelieving. He never tells them they are wrong to hold their beliefs. Recently, though, he posted on his Facebook wall that he only asks for the same respect for his beliefs that he gives others for theirs. It was a brave statement; it got lots of likes.

    I’m deeply proud to be raising a young man who is confident in what he believes and willing to stand up for himself, despite considerable pressure from both his friends and his society. He is tolerant, kind, generous, funny, intelligent and outspoken. He’s all the things I’d like to see in the President of my country. It’s so sad that half of my country wouldn’t even give him a chance.

    © Copyright 2011 by Janice M. Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • Happy Anniversary To Me

    “Dear husband,” I said, “it’s been a year.”

    “No!” he answered. “Really?”

    “Yes. A whole year at the end of this month,” I said.

    “But what about that time our daughter had a sleep over and our son didn’t come out of his cave for hours?”

    “Oh. My. God,” I said. “It hasn’t been a year for THAT! And don’t tell me it feels like it!”

    “Well, then I’m at a loss,” he said.

    Normally, I’m the one who forgets anniversaries, particularly my wedding anniversary. I got married on either the 16th or 17th of October. Never can remember which. So, whenever anyone asks me when I got married, I say, “Saturday. It was a Saturday.” My husband has the PhD in History. He remembers the date and rolls his eyes when I don’t.

    It has been a year since I started writing and publishing Snide Reply. At the risk of sounding like a Holiday Letter, I thought I’d go through some of my old posts and update you on some of the more popular. For those who jumped on the Snide wagon later in its run, I’m including links to the original posts.

    I started running just a couple of months before I started blogging. At that time, I could run about 3 miles. I am writing this having run 9 miles this afternoon. Of course, I can barely get out of my chair to hobble to the kitchen and refill my teacup.

    I still don’t have an attractive website. I have a really cool domain name and I have a website. The two shall not meet in my lifetime. See, the website is totally lame. I built it myself when I had no idea where my life was going. That happens when you make plans and life does that mice and men thing with them.

    I have a better idea where my life is going these days so maybe it’s time to re-tackle the website. To my endless stupefaction and glee, I am now a parent columnist. Me! The self-admitted queen of parental immaturity. Ok, so it’s only been a couple of weeks, but a girl has to start somewhere. Look at Jenny McCarthy! Her parenting qualifications are . . .what?  Oh, yeah, she posed naked and had a baby. Do you think T. Berry Brazelton ever posed naked?

    The worst I’ve done is go commando thought the pharmacist who knows has moved on to Wal-Mart. Actually, I may be going commando again soon. And my husband had to skip the briefs at least once. Laundry used to be his responsibility and lawn mowing was mine. We tried to get our son to do the lawn-mowing thing because he hated doing the litter box thing. He wanted nothing to do with the lawn because it was, as he said, “outside.”

    “Look,” I said. “you either mow the lawn or you do the laundry.” Ha! I thought, now I have him.

    “Cool!” he said. “I love laundry! Laundry smells awesome!”

    So, now my husband mows the lawn and my son does the laundry. We have realized, though, that having a teenage boy with ADHD responsible for keeping us in clean undies was probably not our best parenting move. Many is the time a load made it into the washer and stayed there . . .and stayed there . . .and stayed there. Our son has learned that laundry only smells awesome if it makes it from the washer to the dryer in fewer than 24 hours.

    The portal to hell is still outside our front door. The dog is still insane. The cat is on a diet. So far, so good. He hasn’t broken anything out of spite. He may have taken a nibble or two out of the fish, though, which is looking rather ragged of late. The end is likely near, as evidenced by his tendency to swim sideways. I predict he’ll go to the great toilet bowl in the sky before the end of the year.

    I’m still a pretty bad Buddhist, according to my kids. My son pointed out to me just a few days ago that a good Buddhist probably wouldn’t call the driver who cut her off a “freaking idiot.” I’m better about the cyclists who fly past me on the prairie trail. I no longer mumble obscenities at them. I am saving my obscenities for the people who are treating the prairie as their personal cutting garden these days. My daughter suggested I try out a nearby trail that runs through an equestrian center. I’m pretty sure even Buddha couldn’t keep his cool running behind horses, but then again, it would definitely keep me mindful and aware.

    As my episodes on the prairie illustrate, I still have anger issues. I still hate liver, read crap and get jealous, too. But, I haven’t taken a serious trip to Funky Town in a while. My son is ok with “Spithead” and no one has puked around here lately. My kids are still pikers when it comes to sibling rivalry.

    I am overjoyed to report that the shed never went up. The cosmos aligned in a gigantic “I told you so,” when my neighbor hired someone to survey the property line. I left the hot pink flagging tape which proved the line did, indeed, fall exactly where I said it did as long as possible. We found, in fact, that we have a lot more property than we thought we did. My neighbor and I have entered a sort of cold war, though. He no longer speaks to me and his children run like rabbits whenever I come out of the house. I’m thinking it just needs a little more time and a lot more of me being the nicest, most cheerful person I know how to be. Stop laughing; I can be very cheerful.

    I’ve made lots of people laugh in the past year. I think I’ve made some cry. I know I’ve hurt feelings, unintentionally of course. Still, I’m more careful about what I write and how I phrase things. There are certain things I’ll never write, at least not here and not as non-fiction. But I’ll keep writing and I hope you’ll keep reading.

    Thanks, from the bottom of my heart, for a truly wonderful year.

  • My Kids Always Love Dad Best

    I keep coming home from work to find my family in a great mood. The kids are getting along wonderfully. Maybe everyone is playing Monopoly. Maybe they are all in the kitchen doing homework together. Regardless, everyone is smiling and interacting beautifully.

    It’s really starting to tick me off.

    Not too long ago, we had dinner together every night. Studies showed that kids who ate nightly family dinners were less likely to drink, do drugs, smoke, get depressed, have eating disorders and begin reading sooner. If studies showed it, I was all for it.

    So, I made sure we had dinner together every night. When we first started family dinners, I had visions of me in the kitchen, rattling the pots and pans, with the kids around the table, peacefully completing their homework. As dad entered our charming abode, the kids would put their homework away and promptly start setting the table.

    I was delusional. What I get on the nights I’m home for dinner is my son popping down from his cave around 5 to ask what’s for dinner. News of the night’s meal is met with “Awesome!” or “You’re freaking kidding me!” Fried chicken? “Awesome!” Grilled salmon with a butter dill sauce? “You’re freaking kidding me!” He has learned to replace “You’re freaking kidding me!” with “I’ll make myself a pot pie.”

    My daughter is usually either playing at her friend’s house, or, on a day when she needs a break, watching TV and scattering five million Littlest Pet Shop figurines around the family room.

    Sometime between 6 and 6:30, I start dinner. I call my daughter to do her homework. I bang on the ceiling for my son to come unload the dishwasher.

    Silence. I remain alone in the kitchen.

    I call to my daughter again. I bang on the ceiling again.

    Eventually, my son bounds down the stairs, growling, “What!?” if it’s a “you’re freaking kidding me” dinner or “Is dinner ready?” if it’s an awesome! dinner night.

    “Have you done your homework?” I say.

    “I’ll do it later,” he says.

    “Then you can unload the dishwasher,” I say.

    “Later. I have to do my homework.” And he’s off to the cave.

    “It’s time to do your homework,” I say to my daughter.

    “I don’t have any,” she says, plopping on the couch.

    “I need you to clean up your Littlest Pet Shop things so we don’t have to look at the messy family room during dinner,” I say. Ok, I probably actually say something like, “I need you to pick up all of your things in the family room. I’m sick of living in a pig mess.” I give myself Good Mom points for saying “I need” instead of just going straight for “Pick those toys up before I throw them all away.”

    At this point, we have a meltdown. My daughter begins crying that I am mean. I don’t particularly care if she calls me mean. With me, it’s all about tone of voice and my daughter has a tone somewhere between a car alarm and a banshee’s wail.

    “Fine!” I yell. “Don’t clean up the toys, but I’m going to throw away these things you’ve left on the kitchen table if you don’t come get them right now.”

    She doesn’t move; she doesn’t flinch. Eyes glued to the TV she says, “Ok.”

    By the time my husband gets home, I have generally had two fights with my daughter over toys and homework. My son, being 16, is far less predictable. We may be laughing and joking when dad comes home, or I may have left the house, mumbling something like, “I bet Mexico’s nice this time of year.” I pretend I am so eager to see my husband that I had to come meet him at his bus stop. I’m sure he has an inkling that I’m eager to see him, but maybe not for the reason he’d prefer.

    So, when I come home from work and find that dinner has been made and eaten with no fuss and the entire brood is happily doing homework, playing cards or just hanging together, I want to strangle someone.

    I am convinced that my kids love Dad best and it’s not just the difference in dinnertime that provides my evidence.

    Take, for example, how our son treats each of us. My husband is affectionately known as “Daddy Poo-pookins.” He gets head rubs. He gets hugs.

    I am known as “Big Dumb Mom” and it is said in a voice something like the Hulk’s. I get woken at 6:15 a.m. every morning and told, “I’m leaving.” This is code for “Come downstairs and say ‘goodbye to me’ .” I do, giving my son a hug that he accepts standing completely still. When I kiss him, he turns his head so that the kiss lands not on his cheek, but somewhere between his neck and his chin. I tried not giving the hug, and just saying “goodbye” once. My son glowered at me, refusing to budge until I gave him the unreturned hug.

    My husband wakes at 5 every morning and doesn’t get home until 7:15 at night. On the weekends, we let him sleep. This means that he stays in bed until 10 a.m. The children tiptoe past the bedroom door. When I tell them to “get your father out of bed,” they balk.

    Recently, while I was taking a nap after getting about four hours of sleep the night prior, my daughter came skipping in the room, jumped on me and said, “Mom, you only have ten more minutes to nap.” Then she left.

    Another recent incident gave me a window of opportunity into why Daddy Poo-pookins gets away with parenting murder while Big Dumb Mom gets the shaft. At the grocery store, my son snarls when I suggest a store-brand alternative to his favorite cereal. “It will taste like (insert disgusting noun modified by equally disgusting adjective).” Son and husband came home from the grocery store last night with store-brand frosted wheats. I snarled at my son.

    When my son explained that Daddy Poo-pookins would get mad, I said, Big Dumb Mom gets mad. “But he really means it,” my son said, “you’ll change your mind.” And he’s right. I will change my mind, given a good enough argument. Throwing away generic frosted cereal has taught me that some things are worth a little flexibility. By the way, I’m looking forward to saying, “I told you so” about the cereal.

  • What To Really Expect

    When I was pregnant with my son, I read that “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” book. It did a very thorough job of informing me about what I might expect, month by month, as my pregnancy progressed. I, of course, zeroed in on the things that could go wrong in any given month and spent the entire pregnancy wondering when disaster would strike. I came to think of the book as “What Terrible Thing To Expect When You’re Expecting” but had a hard time keeping away from it nonetheless.

    My son was born and no terrible things happened. So, I immediately purchased “What To Expect The First Year.” I have since renamed the book “What Your Baby Should Be Doing This Month That Every Other Baby But Yours Is Already Doing.” I subtitled it, “All The Exotic Diseases Your Child Probably Won’t Get But It Couldn’t Hurt To Worry About Anyway.”

    Still, very soon into parenthood, I realized things were happening that no one had warned might happen. It began with the nurse placing my son in my arms and I felt . . .confused. When I first saw my son, I thought, “Wow, his head is cone-shaped on one side and block-shaped on the other.” Oh, I’d heard that babies weren’t particularly cute when they first come out, but block-and-cone headed? Nope. I’d also heard that childbirth was beautiful. Sunsets? Those are beautiful. The prairie on a crisp, fall day? Yup. Childbirth? Not so much.

    Many people in my life happen to have babies either coming soon or already in their arms. I have gathered together the things I learned the hard way; things I wish I’d known before the babies hit the fan. You can thank me later.

    You will be covered in truly grotesque substances on a regular basis. You probably have cute little fantasies of changing the diaper of a smiling, gurgling cutie. But if you have a boy, prepare yourself for projectile urination. Keep that little firehose covered or you’ll wind up the subject of ridicule for years to come. My son still gets a kick out of having peed all over his aunt when he was just five days old.

    While we’re in the diaper region, I should mention that poop from breast-fed babies doesn’t really smell all that bad. Kind of like old buttered popcorn. Poop from bottle-fed babies is another story. Think standing downwind of a thousand camels.

    The other end of your child is dangerous, too. I know of a dad who held his six-month old above his head so he could see her darling face smiling down at him. She had just been fed. She spit up just as he opened his mouth to smile back.

    Your child will hurt you. My dad is a Republican. His child (me) grew up to become a Democrat. But that is not the kind of hurt I am talking about.

    Your child will quite literally hurt you. When she was about 13-months old, my niece was standing on her changing table facing her mother, who was dressing the little darling. My sister says that my niece started shaking excitedly then dove into my sister’s shoulder and took a gigantic bite. Because my sister is sensible, she screamed then said, “That hurts Mommy.” My niece pulled back, started shaking again and dove for the shoulder again, probably thinking, “I can make Mommy scream!”

    My son made Mommy scream when he was about two. Toddler hands are generally covered with a toxic mix of germs and sticky things. On top of that, they tend to be sweaty in the summer. My son grabbed a handful of my hair one day and wouldn’t let go. I screamed. I said, “That hurts Mommy.” He kept pulling. I screamed, “You’re hurting Mommy.” Maybe he was thinking, “I can make Mommy scream!” or maybe his sticky, sweaty hands were glued to my hair. He did not let go. I screamed, “Let go of my hair! Now!” He did not. This lead to . . .

    You will hurt your child, once. I smacked his sticky, sweaty toxin-covered hand. He let go. He cried. This lead to . . .

    You will feel like the worst parent in the world. I have felt like the worst mother in the world many times since the hair-pulling incident, but have never smacked my children since. I know other parents who have smacked their children once; they felt like the worst parents in the world.

    You will feel like the worst parent in the world, even when you are being the best parent in the world. When I worked at a full-time, permanent position in Chicago—otherwise known as a real job—I got to talking about disciplining children with some of the African American women I worked with. They told me that white parents are wimps. One of them even mimicked a white parent, saying, “ ‘Now, Timmy, don’t touch the crystal vase again’.” “You know,” she said, “that Timmy is going to touch that vase again.”

    I vowed that I would not be a pansy parent. So, when I was in a store with my son one day and I told him that we would be leaving the store if he did a particular thing again, we left the store when he did the thing. My son did not go gently. He screamed. He kicked. He threw punches. I didn’t even try to make him walk; I dragged him by one arm out the door. People stared at us. People thought I was a terrible parent. I felt like a terrible parent. But soon, I was able to take my child to the store and have him behave appropriately.

    Maybe someday, I’ll gather all the wonderful things to expect with your wee—and not so wee—ones. I’m pretty sure you’re ready for those, though. But there was one truly wonderful, absolutely amazing, totally unexpected thing no one told me about.

    You will fall completely in love with your child. I don’t mean that you will love your baby; you will. I mean that you will hold your child and wish you could inhale her. You will touch your baby again and again just to feel his warm fuzzy head. You will be fascinated by toes, cheeks, hands. You will tip toe into the nursery just to get another peek at the little person who has changed your life forever.

  • Siblings With Rivalry

    I am mean.

    Ask my children. They will tell you how mean I am. My daughter thinks I’m mean for any of a number of reasons. I’m mean when I won’t let her crash the neighbor’s family fire pit gathering. I’m mean when I won’t let her eat cookies for breakfast. I’m mean when I won’t let her spend her entire allowance on those stupid little Japanese erasers.

    My son doesn’t tell me I’m mean anymore. Now, he uses more profane words, but I get the drift.

    Maybe my kids are hung up on one parenting move I made, but it was for their own good. I swear!

    We used to go to the pool a lot, almost every day, in fact. In Naperville, the big community pool is called Centennial Beach because they’ve dumped half a desert worth of sand at the shallow end. I would insist my children shower and change before getting themselves, and their sand, in the car.

    My children continually forgot to put their beach bags in the car. Prior to leaving the house, I would remind them, very nicely of course, to put their bags in the car. Eventually, reminding them very nicely got old. They could remember their darned bags, I thought. I told them, “You are old enough to remember your bags. From now on, Mommy will not remind you about your bags.”

    The first day of “get your own darned bags,” they forgot their bags. Two wet sandy children stood next to my car and expected me to allow them to ride home in it. I said, “No.” I found an old towel and a blanket in the trunk of the car and allowed them to wrap those around themselves.

    The second day of “get your own darned bags,” they forgot their bags. Two wet sandy children stood next to my car and expected me to allow them to ride home in it. I said, “No.” They wanted me to get them the old towel and blanket. I said, “The towel and blanket are no longer in the trunk. They are in the laundry now because you needed them yesterday. You will have to go home naked.” They thought I was kidding. They were wrong.

    All the way home, my son glowered at me, his hands strategically cupped over his naked boy bits. My daughter was still in a car seat, so had a little more coverage. She pouted, nonetheless. And me? I was doing my damnedest to keep from laughing out loud, all the while thinking, “I am bad ass! I am the MOM!!!”

    My kids are nowhere near as good at being mean as I am. Siblings are supposed to be mean to each other, of course, and my kids have their moments. There was the time my son told his sister “I’m gonna kick your ass.” She replied, “I gonna kick you in da cwotch.” We all thought that was funny, even her brother. Probably not the proper response, but she was really cute acting all ninja-y.

    A friend of mine says that her brother would wait until she was asleep, come into her room, grab her by the ankles and drag her out of bed all the way down the hall. We didn’t have much brother/sister antagonism in my house, other than my sister and me calling our little brother nasty names. He’s taller than both of us by at least nine inches, so we just call him by his own name these days.

    The sibling warfare when I was growing up was mostly between my sister and me. We shared a room, probably a recipe for disaster. She was a neat freak; I was normally messy for a child. Ok, I was more than normally messy. I was a pig. Drove my mom and my sister nuts. Maybe that’s why my sister thought it would be ok to stick me with a pin. Or why, when we were in high school and had lockers next to each other, she looked at my outfit for the day, said, “You’re wearing that?” slammed her locker shut and left. I got back at her. One day I tickled her until she wet her pants, despite her screams that she was going to wet her pants.

    My parents eased the situation between my sister and me by fixing up a downstairs room as a bedroom for her. With her own bathroom right next door, I thought it was really cool and was, of course, jealous. She felt like she was being exiled to the basement.

    My husband and his sister went at it when they were young. One day, she was playing ball in the yard when my husband and his friends happened upon her. They grabbed the ball and played keep away from her. This was hardly fair, as they were four years older than her and she was only six at the time. She evened the odds by grabbing a big knife from the kitchen and chasing her brother down the street yelling, “Give me back my ball!”

    The most creatively mean siblings I know, though, are my sister’s kids. They regularly insult each other, in a mostly affectionate way, of course. Primarily, it is my oldest nephew and niece who pick on their younger brother, calling him everything from an idiot to a diaper.

    He gives back as good as he gets for the most part and specific instances are generally forgotten. He won’t forget, though, that when he was a little boy, his brother and sister had him convinced that he was from Mars and he was made of pooh.

    He’s a young man now and most decidedly not a Martian made of doody. In fact, he’s quite handsome. Think Taylor Lautner, only better looking. That’s revenge enough, though his sibs continue to call him silly, insulting names.

    I read somewhere that our siblings are far more influential on how we turn out than even our parents are. I like to think that the teasing, name-calling, pin-poking and knife-chasing are part of learning how to get along in a world that isn’t always kind. It’s Mom’s and Dad’s job to make home a safe, loving refuge. It’s our sibs’ place to ensure we’re tough enough to handle life outside that womb.

  • Zen In An Ear Of Corn

    When I was a child, I believed that one was either Catholic and Republican or went to hell. When I grew up, I chose hell. Actually, I chose to become a Buddhist and a Democrat. Same difference.

    Though I have yet to discover if I will indeed go to hell when I die, my choices led to at least one hellacious family dinner. I had come to visit my parents wearing a “Mondale-Ferraro” button on my coat lapel. During dinner, the discussion turned to politics. I swear I did not start it! My mother, bless her heart, was Southern. She taught me right. I do not bring up politics at the dinner table, but I sure went there when talk turned to taxes and prayer in schools. The conversation ended with Dad walking out and Mom telling me, “I just wish you prayed, honey.” My husband, on hearing this story, said that Mondale and Ferraro were a waste of a family feud.

    Apparently, my Buddhism is less troublesome than my politics. Once I told Mom that Buddhists do, indeed, pray, she was cool.

    I think my Buddhism goes down easier because Buddhism is easier on the non-practitioner than it is on the practitioner. What’s to worry about from a peaced-out, meditating, non-violent vegetarian? Getting to the peaced-out, meditating, non-violent vegetarian state is much harder.

    Before I had children, the meditating and non-violence were easier. The vegetarianism? Not so much. My metabolism seems to require regular doses of high quality protein, otherwise known as “meat.” My children believe that eating meat makes me a bad Buddhist. But I read somewhere, and I am not making this up, that some good Buddhists eat meat. It’s one of those “angels dancing on the head of a pin” arguments. You ponder and obsess about whether or not eating meat makes you a bad Buddhist until your obsession with determining if you are a bad Buddhist actually makes you a bad Buddhist. Better to shut up and eat your meat.

    While the vegetarianism was always a challenge, meditation and non-violence were a breeze. You can meditate for hours when you don’t have any distractions. In fact, there are Zen teachers who create distractions, like whacking their students on the back with a stick.

    Now that I have children, I have no need for a Zen master to whack me on the back with a stick. If I’m busy folding laundry or cleaning the kitchen, my children can be completely occupied with other things, like video games and Selena Gomez movies, things that I would not be able to pull them away from if I stood in front of them naked screaming, “We’re going to Disney World!” But if I settle into a lotus position—really more of a pansy position now that I am over 50—they will be on me like ducks on a June bug.

    No, I don’t need a Zen master anymore. My children are my Zen masters. I discovered this when my son was three. We had been out doing errands. He was being a great little errand runner. I had gotten everything done that was on the list. I was ready to get us both home for a snack and a nap. He was not. He was so not that he executed the Plank Maneuver when I tried to buckle him into his car seat. Those of you who’ve had children can skip the next paragraph; you know what the Plank Maneuver is.

    Children learn, somewhere around the age of two, that they have the ability to solidify every muscle, tendon and ligament in their tiny bodies and that they can do this at will. In the Plank Maneuver, the child solidifies all of the above mentioned body parts all at once, turning his body into a human two-by-four.

    It is hard enough buckling a three-year-old into a car seat. Buckling a plank is impossible. The belt is not long enough to accommodate the plank and the plank is not about to bend. Still, I struggled mightily with the plank. I wanted nothing more than to get home and I was going to get home if I had to bend that kid in half, breaking every bone in his stubborn little body to do it. Then, I realized I was thinking of breaking every bone in my child’s body . . . not literally, of course. So, I stopped fighting. I accepted that he wanted to climb around the back seat of the car. Because he also wanted nothing to do with me—I think he caught the “nice mommy has left the building” vibe—I decided to call my mother. I had a lovely conversation, uninterrupted. My son explored the car to his content, got in his seat and let me buckle him. We went home and had a nap.

    My children aren’t the only Zen masters in my life now. Without much time for meditation, I’m working on turning running into a meditative practice. Unfortunately, cyclists on the trail I use have a tendency to zoom up behind me unannounced, scaring the peace right out of me. I curse them roundly in my head, thereby further ruining my Zen state. I decided to switch tactics. Instead of cursing the cursed cyclists, I would try blessing them, using the words, “May you live in safety and be happy.” At first, the blessing tended to come out as “May you live in safety and be happy, jerk.” This did not achieve the desired state of calm. I progressed to wishing them safety and happiness through gritted teeth, minus the epithet. I’m up to hoping they live in safety because then I’ll be safe. Room to grow.

    I was at a family dinner recently and started a discussion of Zen masters. I related the plank incident and asked the others who their Zen masters were. My brother-in-law said, “This corn.” We laughed. I realize, now, that he was the Zen master at the table. Being present, fully present, in the moment is what Buddhism is all about. How much more present can you be than thoroughly enjoying an ear of summer sweet corn?

    May you live in safety and be happy.

    © 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • With Friends Like These

    When I was a teenager, I fell in with a bad crowd. Cognizant that some of my loyal readers were friends of mine when I was a teenager, I should immediately state, “I’m not talking about you.” It is most likely that none of the bad crowd with which I fell in are regular readers of Snide Reply. I suspect one or two may not be regular readers of anything, but that is neither here nor there. My parents felt it their duty to point out that I had fallen in with said crowd and to do all they could to discourage further falling.

    Though I don’t necessarily believe it, apparently the crowds children fall into these days are even badder—in the bad sense of bad—than those I encountered. There was binge drinking when I was a teen, there was sex when I was a teen, there were drugs when I was a teen. (Again, my high school buddies, I am not talking about you. Oh, OK, I am but I’m not telling who did what or with whom.) The drinking, the drugs and the sex are all bad enough and I’ve worried about my kids doing them since probably a day or two after they started kindergarten. I don’t need to think about worse vices my children may be pressured to try.

    Now that I own a teenager, my parental friend radar has been tuned to high gear. It’s a wonder my son hasn’t noticed the brain hum in the background. Every time a new name is mentioned, my “who the hell is that” button gets switched. I try to be nonchalant as I grill my son.

    “Fred?” I’ll say, “I don’t think I’ve heard you mention a ‘Fred’ before.”

    “He’s a friend,” my son will say.

    “Well, duh!” I think.

    “Well, duh,” I say. “Where did you meet him? Is he in one of your classes? Does he drink, do drugs or have unprotected sex? Is he a member of a weird religious cult?” Well, maybe I don’t say that last bit, but it’s only because I know that’s not an appropriate thing for a parent to say outside of her head.

    As if worrying about new friends weren’t enough, I’ve discovered old friends can go bad.

    We moved to Naperville just as our son was entering fourth grade. He spent his entire first year here friendless. Oh, we made sure he saw his Oak Park friends and installed a phone line in his room so he could call them whenever he liked. Still, fourth grade was tough. In fifth grade, he made friends with a very nice boy. So, he had a friend. One friend.

    Middle school started out miserably, friend-wise. Our son was placed into the gifted program; his one friend wasn’t. Friend ground zero all over again. But, having found his tribe, he started making friends more easily. Eventually, he had a bunch of friends.

    All of his friends, at least all that I’ve met and I’ve met quite a few, appeared to be fine young people. I might have written, “appear to be fine young people” but recent events necessitate a change in verb tense. One of those fine young people has turned out to be quite a . . .hm. . . what’s the word . . .well, it rhymes with “spit head.”

    Spit Head has twice, in the last month, hurt my son’s feelings deeply. The first time, Spit Head convinced my son that he was over-reacting. I wanted to give Spit Head a good talking to, but held my tongue. If my son wanted to remain friends with Spit Head, then I needed to let him do it, I reasoned.

    The second time Spit Head hurt my son, Spit Head’s mother got involved. Now, before you think that she was telling Spit Head he was behaving badly, stop yourself. Spit Head’s mother was proving the old apple falling from the tree thing. Surprisingly, my son has dealt with Spit Head’s latest antic much more calmly than me. “He’s a douche,” he said. “He’s a douche,” one of his other friends agreed. Then, they moved on.

    Me? I never want to see the kid again. And I if I ever see his mother? Well, let’s just say Naperville is gonna look a little bit more like the Jersey Shore that day.

    My daughter is having friend troubles but it wasn’t her feelings that were being hurt. Instead, my daughter is the grand prize in a battle for affections that is largely waged by a gang of siblings we’ll call “The Delightful Children” with all due credit to “Code Name: Kids Next Door.”

    The Delightful Children include two brothers and their younger sister. She adores my daughter, who I’m sure she sees as a big sister substitute. Problem? The Delightful Children seem intent on breaking my daughter’s considerable bond to her Best Friend.

    My daughter plays with Best Friend nearly every day. They can play together for hours on end. In the winter months, things are fairly quiet on the friend front. The Delightful Children are, for some reason, not allowed to play in other people’s houses. So my daughter and Best Friend trash, I mean, “play” in our house. Sometimes they “play” in Best Friend’s house.

    In the summer, the wars begin. The Delightful Children have one of those redwood things with a playhouse on top. The monstrosity is nestled in the branches of willow tree so the playhouse is hidden from sight. I believe the tree may be a Whomping Willow because, invariably, Best Friend rushes home from the playhouse in tears. It being illegal to water board children, we’ll probably never know the details of what ensues in the Playhouse of Pain but it seems to involve harsh words from The Delightful Children toward Best Friend.

    My daughter recently wailed, “It’s like I’m being forced to choose between hurting my Best Friend and hurting a little girl!” My little girl being the one getting hurt, I decided to lay down a law. No playing with Best Friend and The Delightful children together. My husband reports the law is being respected with unexpected results. Recently, Best Friend and The Delightful children played together while my daughter practiced gymnastics in the family room.

    I figured we were finished with friend issues for a while until my son started a conversation like this, “Well, I was talking with one of my pothead friends . . .”