Four Crying Out Loud

For as long as I can remember, he called me “Mudpie”.   To him, it was a term of endearment.   I always thought it sounded slighting, but never let on.   After he and my mother divorced, he took me for day visits one weekend out of the month.   We went to the mall, a restaurant, or to the art museum.   In the car, he would slap my knee, squeeze and say “Whad’ya know, Mudpie?”   He seemed delighted in the smallest details of my stories.   I mean, I could tell him that I found a red rock that writes, and he would exclaim “How interesting!”   The gifts always came as soon as he started the car.   I sat poised as he would reach into the pocket of his jacket and pull out a small token of some sort.   It was always a surprise.   It may have been a die cut set of Alice in Wonderland stationary or an antique gold metal razor case with a note tucked inside.   The gifts were never predictable, but always anticipated. He was a han...

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 ...

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 ...

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, rid...

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...

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.  ...

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 th...