Four Crying Out Loud

The night before Thanksgiving, my husband, niece, and I snuck out of the house leaving my mom with the 6 year old.  We knew we didn't have much time before she realized we were gone, but we wanted to go shopping in peace.  After shopping, we had to stop at the grocery store to pick up a few items that we needed for dinner the next day:  milk, Cokes, and artichokes. My husband pulled up to the door of Giant Supermarket and we all three recited the grocery list again.  My niece and I promised not to dawdle or stray from the list as we shut the car door behind us.  We tried to get our bearings in the unfamiliar supermarket.  We wandered up and down the wine and candy isles saying "Milk, Cokes, and artichokes".  I felt like I was in the old Sesame Street clip of the little girl dancing on the way to the supermarket, "a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter". We grabbed everything we needed and headed toward the shortest checkout line we cou

I don't speak of him much.  He was in my life for such a brief season and I was so young.  Sometimes I recall bits and pieces, but not much of it is significant.  My mother had been dating him for some time and took us to visit him at his home.  He was the radiologist at the local hospital and his house proved it.  I first noticed his refrigerator.  It had a real ice maker and real water dispenser.  I pushed its black lever and the water shot out onto my hand.  His wallpaper had a shimmer and a velvet, intricate design.  I traced my fingers over the blue  pattern.  My walls at home were painted.  He showed us the upstairs; five bedrooms.  My bedroom at home was my mother's room.  My sisters shared a bedroom and a bed.  He had a "sitting room" which was a large ballroom with a fireplace.  We had no fireplace at my house and with only five rooms in our house, we would not have been able to designate one specifically for "sitting".  On his living room walls, se

Feelings should be nurtured, shared spontaneously, controlled when necessary, expressed when too long repressed, and explored with trusted others.  The Troubled and Troubling Child, Dr. Nicholas Hobbs, 1982. When I get really angry, I could hit someone, but hit myself?  Never.  What would that solve?  Hitting someone else would make me feel loads better.  Hitting myself would only make me feel and look worse.  I know a young boy who hits himself when he gets really angry or feels out of control.  He punches himself in the nose and it bleeds.  Everywhere. He has trusted support staff who work with him each day.  They have spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out how to help him have good days to replace all of the bad days he has experienced in his short life.  They know that he likes for his head to be scratched, that when he leans in on you, he wants a hug; that he likes peanut butter, riding bikes, and being tickled.  His staff also know that once he

I work at a residential treatment facility for boys, which happens to be in the middle of the Wayne National Forest.  I am thrust into nature every day.  I expect to see everything from frogs to turtles to crawdads to snakes, just walking from one building to another.  Heck, one time, we even rescued a baby deer.  We all took turns taking selfies with it, before someone came and hauled it away.  I got a call once, from a very despondent nurse saying there were baby snakes under the med cart.  I think I knocked a co-worker down the stairs so I could get there first to see them.  Furthermore, I will stop mid-keystroke if a kid asks me to go to the creek to hunt for crawdads.  I love living amongst nature; until nature decides to live amongst me and my desk and my office. I seldom eat a real lunch.  I mainly exist on Reese cups, Cool Ranch Doritos, gummy bears and Coke.  Its a more enjoyable lunch that way.  One day, I had reached for an unopened Reese cup and realized it had already be

I grew up next to a dilapidated rental home.  So many families moved in and out of that place.  From my sister's bedroom window, we could see them, down in their kitchen, making fried potatoes and mac-n-cheese under a single, dimly-lit bulb dangling from the ceiling.  When my step-father discovered that we could look right down into their kitchen, living room; even bathroom, he planted a series of pine trees in a line along our property.  Eventually, those saplings would give us privacy, he said.  But moreover, it would keep his step-children from becoming peeping Toms.  But, we were curious about their life.  A life so drastically different than our own.  Why did the dad smoke cigarettes right over the food he was cooking?  Why did their bathtub have that "ring" around it?  Why did they drink so much beer?  What were they watching on that t.v. all the time?  The yelling.  What were they so angry about all the time? They had two children; a boy and a girl.  T

I started babysitting when I was eleven.  I wasn't what one would call a "good" babysitter, but no one ever got seriously injured or ran away on my watch.  When my son turned 11, I had no doubts that he could do 100% better than the job I did.  To give him an extra edge, I signed him up for the first Safe Sitter class I could find. He was the only boy in the class.  He took one look in the room, saw all the girls, and started to back away slowly from the registration desk.  The class instructor gingerly placed her arm around him, led him into the room and shut the door behind her.  Eight hours later, I picked up my new Safe Sitter.  Reaching for his certificate, I asked him if he felt like he was ready to babysit his 5 year old sister.  "Well, I can save her if she's choking." was all he said. I should have been more in tune with his aversion to the question.  I should have picked up on the fact that he didn't ask how soon he could start babysitting.

I have never been opposed to sharing my space in the bed.  In fact, when my husband and I were younger, We would drift off to sleep locked in one another's arms and remain that way until dawn's early light.  New baby?  No problem, we would just scoot over and make room for him.  Co-sleeping sounded glorious; not to mention healthy for the baby.  We co-slept our lives and quality sleep away until the baby was 5.  We decided we'd had enough crooked necks and mule kicks to last us a lifetime, no matter how much we loved him. We kicked him out.  But not without the Bed Fairy. We told him that every night that he slept in his own bed, the bed fairy would swoop down, gently lift his pillow and place a small gift under it.  Some nights we were prepared for the placing of the gift.  We were armed with matchbox cars, army men, tootsie pops, or stickers.  Other nights, we failed miserably.  In the morning, after we realized he had slept in his own bed, we were scrambling to produ

My sister has one child.  A five year old boy.  He is nothing less than a prince.  If she could carry him around on a pillow and get away with it, she would.  I am pretty sure she was still spoon feeding him last year. We just went on vacation with them.  She sent me money ahead of time to get groceries for them.  She is horrified by our diet of frozen PB&J sandwiches and partially hydrogenated soybean oil, so I asked her to send me a specific list of what she wanted.  I already knew what it would look like; flaxseed, quinoa, organic everything, and liquor. I prepared to brace myself for a week with the overbearing, label-reading tyrant.  I kept my distance in the morning, allowing her ample time in the kitchen to prepare hot breakfasts with slices of fresh fruit for the little prince.  She scoffed when I ripped open our pre-packaged bowls of cereal, dumped a shot of milk and a plastic spoon in them and called out "Breakfast!" down the hallway.  She made going to th

It's hard to believe that we once lived in a little old apartment above a law office.  When I moved in, you tried to dress it up a bit by adding lace curtains and a fake plant or two.  I could tell by the way your sheets pilled that they weren't an acceptable thread count.  You didn't mind that I upgraded them.  I tried to open the windows but they were painted shut.  I asked for some fresh air so you spent the better part of one afternoon with a hammer and screwdriver prying them open.  We couldn't afford a large grill, so we set a tiny charcoal grill on the rooftop and enjoyed shish kabobs out there. I worked as a life guard at the local pool and you worked at an iron foundry.  In the summer evenings, I lay in bed with you, ate avocados with lime and read aloud to you The Catcher in the Rye.  It was then that you told me you wanted our first son to be named Holden. We had no ATM card.  We had a metal filing cabinet with a bank envelope full of cash.  When we neede

I recently spent two days in downtown Cincinnati.  I could have spent two thousand more.  The city is magical.  Everywhere you turn, an artsy painted building, specialty shops, restaurants, business suits, hipsters, music and...money. One morning walking to work, I dodged scaffolding, skirted orange temporary fencing, performed in a brief ballet with burly construction workers, and almost fatally shared space with a home furnishings truck.    At first, I was overcome by all of it.  Then I realized that it spoke more than what I was seeing on the surface.  Construction means things are happening here.  People are moving in, people are settling in, people are buying in to this city and its magic.  Who wouldn't? In the short time I was there, I ate edamame at a trendy Japanese sushi bar, sipped coffee at a Belgian waffle house, had a cocktail in the business district and a beer in the arts district.  If you live in downtown Cincinnati, this is your everyday life, and trust me,

It was like a 1lb. bag of animal crackers and a box of butter mints were the "admission" price to get to spend time with the toddler.  Paw-Paw would have them ready, exchanging them for hugs and the chance to sit and watch the boy move about his living room, picking things up, throwing things down; rearranging any organization he had to the place.  The baby would take every magnet off the refrigerator and move them all into a clump in one spot.  Half of the magnets were holding up pictures of the baby; in Halloween costumes, in swimmies at a pool, or petting animals at the zoo.  The baby especially loved to press the tea kettle magnet, look at his Paw-Paw with a toothy grin and squeal when it whistled.  You could have stopped the clock for the man, he would have been more than grateful to live the rest of his life in that moment. Paw-Paw soaked up the limited time he had with him, not knowing when he would see the baby again.  After an hour visit in his 90 degree livin

Difficult children exist.  I have one and I know of a few others out there.  The hands of the parents of these special children should be on display at science museums, just like the old smokey lung is.  Instead of talking about how many cigarettes that person smoked, people would stare at the red, worn out hand and wonder how many whippings it had to execute. If you poke holes in the bananas at the grocery, I'm going to bust your tail.  If you spit on the playground swings, I'm going to bust your tail.  If you crush a handful of goldfish crackers and sprinkle them on the kneelers at church, I'm going to...pick you up gently, brush you off, and offer you some fruit snacks and the closest crayon I can find. All public places are fair game for a spanking, except church.   That's where I have to draw the line.  There seems to be something so wrong about saying "Peace Be With You" then hauling off and wailing on someone.  It doesn't mean I don't still

Sometimes I laugh at myself when I think back to my perceptions of the world as a child; the way I saw certain situations or people.  What was I thinking?  It wasn't really like I saw it at all.  When I was younger, I visited my father in Cincinnati during the weekends.  He made certain that the visit was action-packed, full of trips to the zoo, museums, Graeter's Ice Cream stores, and antique shops.  During one visit with him, he told me that he had moved to a new apartment; although he referred to it as The Carriage House.  Dad explained to me that his new apartment was essentially the place where horse carriages were once stored.  I was uneasy with this idea.  Why was my father living in a horse stable?  We drove through an old Cincinnati neighborhood, pulled into the alley and made a left into the large double door opening.  As I walked up the stairs, I could see different herbs tied with a simple string, hanging upside down to dry on the wall.  When we entered the apar

My children don't understand the concept of money.  I like to break it down for them by saying "I had to work 'x' hours to be able to afford those shoes for you!"  Or, "Why did you leave this out in the rain?  I worked 2 days in order to buy that for you!"  I'm pretty sure this technique doesn't work.  My daughter asked me where I was going one morning.  I told her I had to go to work.  "So you can buy me those two Disney princesses?"  Ugh.  Children are self-centered wallet suckers.  I like to heap the guilt on them but my husband just wants them to have all the things he didn't have as a child.  When our daughter loses 3 sets of Monster High doll hands, he simply buys her new dolls.  Although he doesn't agree with her lack of reverence for small doll parts, it makes him happy to spend his money on his girl. When I was in college in Athens, Ohio, I worked at a bookstore.  My boyfriend (now husband) didn't like that I had

I desperately wanted to be the new mom you see in the parenting magazines:  feeding on a schedule, napping when the baby naps, playing the classical music, and taking a shower daily.  A combination of three words put an end to that dream for me:  real live baby. Allow me to paint for you the external factors that were going on as well during this joyous, life-changing event.  Six days after the birth of that bundle of joy, I started back to school for my Master's Degree.  Two weeks after the birth of that angel sent from heaven, my husband went back to work on midnights.  Four weeks after the birth of that swaddled package of love, I went back to work.  With a husband who worked midnights, and an employer who allowed me to bring my baby to work, I was with that sweet infant gift all day and night.  I packed him around in a Snuggli when I had to go to the copier machine.  I changed his diapers in my office and prayed that he would sleep through hour-long conference calls.  When

My mother does our laundry.  I'm not jumping for joy about it.  It comes at a high price.  I'll admit, I like to save my laundry up and do it all on the weekend.  By Saturday, you could stand on one of the piles and change a high-hanging light bulb with ease.  The sight of this makes my mother's blood boil.  The process of her doing our laundry goes in phases: The Allegations of Neglect Phase My mom likes to tie the situation that my laundry is in to how well I care for my children.  "You are neglecting their basic needs!" she says as she sorts delicate tu-tu's from the bleachable tighty-whities.  As she sorts the piles, she says things like "No wonder Milena looks like an orphan half the time!  She has all these cute clothes to wear and they're all dirty!"  (Side note:  Milena looks like an orphan, because she looks like an orphan.  The cleanest of clothes won't change that.)  The Martyr Phase My mom likes to talk loudly while she is