Mother's day, redux

We are on a time delay in my family. Birthdays are celebrated in slow motion over a month long span, holidays and gifts rarely coincide. We don't get anywhere on time.

We stretched out our little girl's birthday so long, that by the time her official birthday party rolled around (as opposed to the family birthday party and the day care birthday party), she asked if she was 5 now!

The birthday party went surprisingly smoothly. We held it at the Witte natural history and science museum in a big auditorium. About a dozen 3 to 5 year olds ran around the tables and the stage, decorated foam princess and prince tiaras, and wrapped each other up in rolls of toilet paper. There was a unifying theme in there somewhere, but it was lost in the giggles and glee. We finished up with an ice cream cake - chocolate, of course, and gift baggies for the kids. And after an hour of fun and snacks, I sent them out to explore the real princess tiaras of the Fiesta Parade exhibit, and the real mummy in the Egyptian exhibit. My 4 year old glowed with the excitement of being the cause of such a big fuss.

That afternoon we packed up the kids and sent them to my parent's house, while my husband and I celebrated Mother's Day a couple of weeks late, at a cushy hotel downtown. It was 24 hours of bliss - no kids, no work, no phones or email. We treated ourselves to ice cream and coffee, and shared a drink at an Irish pub. It doesn't sound like much to folks who regularly summer at the beach, or jet off to a spa from time to time, but for me and my husband it was 24 hours of time we stole for ourselves, and it couldn't have been any better.

In the meantime, my kids got to share a truly meaningful Memorial Day with their grandparents. And on time! My father served in the Korean War as a first petty officer in the U.S. Navy. He was honored at the Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg Texas as a representative of his ship. My kids sat right by his side during the entire ceremony, and stood proudly with their Grandpa as they saluted the stars and stripes and sang the Star Spangled Banner. It was an experience I hope they never forget, and I am so thankful they had that opportunity to share it with their Grandpa.

These are the special moments I will cling to: the birthday parties, the romantic getaways, and the ties to our family and our past. We are so fortunate to have these magical memories to share with the people we love. I pray the thousand miles between us won't diminish them.

The time delay certainly hasn't!

Keeping busy

I'm doing my best to stay out of trouble these days. At work I am putting together lectures on health and wellness that I will never teach. Last semester I received a grant to develop online fitness courses for my department, they're on the schedule and students are registering for them, so I'm stuck! It's peculiar writing lectures, labs, and quizzes that have me all over them: my words, my voice, my artistic vision stamped all over the PowerPoint lectures and internet tools I am developing. Yet I'll be thousands of miles away. I leave a (very) modest legacy behind.

I'm also teaching this summer. In fact, I'll be teaching up until three weeks before we move. At the risk of sounding self-aggrandizing, I have to say my lectures have been inspired this term. I have a small, receptive class, but they seem to be tolerating my tangents and asides well. We're discussing physical education and fitness. They're not exactly topics that inspire real passion, but I find my self swelling up with righteous indignation at the state of parenting and teaching, at childhood obesity, and schools that make competitive sports a higher priority than their students' well-being.

See? I'm already getting puffed up just thinking about it!

Aside from work, I'm busy planning my four year-old's birthday party. I've ordered the cake, planned the activities, and I'm shopping for snacks and party favors. No clowns or magicians for my little girl - we're going all classy and high brow. My little princess is getting a museum party with mummy races and a design-your-own-fiesta-parade-gown contest. And how about a "pin-the-mustache-on-the-Mona-Lisa"? That was my husband's brilliant idea.

It's not that I've completely forgotten about selling my house, finding a new job, or packing up our worldly belongings. It's just that I've managed to convince myelf that everything else is so much more urgent and pressing right now, and I have plenty of time for those more tedious tasks. I know the reckoning is not far away. This awareness creeps into my thoughts right around bedtime when the kids are sleeping, the house is in order, and the distractions are on hold.

For now I have my husband's undivided attention. I have the luxury of bombarding him with questions about party themes and pinatas. In four months I'll be forced to cope with these trivial matters on my own. Of course I'm capable, but I value his opinion almost as much as I value his support and company. In four months I may have to be more responsible, proactive, independent, and mature.

In the meantime, to you think the museum will mind if I have a dozen 4 year olds wrapping themselves up in rolls of toilet paper? Pass the cupcakes!!

Transitions

It's all about transitions. I watched yesterday as my sweet little baby stopped being an infant. Just like that, this little person whom I brought into this world, nurtured at my breast, coddled, cuddled, fed, carried, and rocked to sleep everynight, became an independent, babbling toddler.

It literally happens overnight. We know it's coming. We see the warning signs: the first time they roll over and sit up, the first attempts at crawling, the precarious balance, and then BANG! She's off and running! Along with the surprise is a mingling of pride and sadness. My baby is gone, but she's been replaced by this awkward, beautiful, determined, bright-eyed, destructive, bundle of thrill-seeking curiosity. Do I celebrate or mourn?

I've been through this three times now, and it never seems to lose it's shock value. My children are constantly throwing me off my equilibrium. How did my 6 year old learn to read fluent Hebrew? When did my 4 year old learn to write her complicated name? Where was I when they got so big and smart and funny?

I thought I was paying such close attention.

Meanwhile, my husband and I are trying to enroll our children in an elementary school, a preschool, and a day care center across country. It's not as easy as one would imagine. Organizing your children's education requires reams of paperwork, signatures, documents, money, determination, and patience.

As does selling a house.

We've never been the most diligent housekeepers. It simply hasn't been the priority in our home. Who cares if there are a few dishes in the sink, or socks on the floor, as long as we get the kids to school dressed, fed, and on time? I've always tried to value the sanity more than the sanitary. Now I face the possibility of complete strangers showing up at my house with little notice, and I've become a raving bed-maker.

I could go on and on with the boring details of apartment-hunting, job-hunting, and juggling our current jobs, but I find denial to be much more effective at this point. Which is perhaps why I hardly recognized that little creature who toddled up behind me yesterday.

The Recital

I love being a Mommy. My children make me so proud I want to burst! In Yiddish this is called naches, as in, "May your children bring you much naches!" And mine do. My son had a music recital yesterday, and I can say, as a strictly unbiased bystander, that he was wonderful! He played his piano music with confidence, his recorder couldn't have been more melodious, and the kid has rhythm! Of course, he gets it from me.

We were quite the picture, too. I came in five minutes late dragging three kids, a diaper bag, a video camera, and my overstuffed purse behind me. My son quickly got into place, my waiting parents and exasperated husband took the girls, and I got the camera out with 15 minutes of film left and a terminal battery. Once again, I failed parenting 101. But with enough creative editing to make Fellini proud, I got the important bits, and the film and battery did a beautifully synchronized pas de deux toward the end. And as the camera sympathetically blinked off, I nearly cursed my poor planning. But then I glanced at my girls, and I caught the sight of my baby with her big green eyes open wide in amazement at the magical sounds coming from her big brother's hands.

These are the moments that no camera can truly capture. No words can adequately bring to life the look of love and awe that I was lucky enough to witness, all because of bad planning and a well-meaning video camera.

Mother's Day

This has been a week of disappointments for the family. Nothing major, just small let-downs that nag a bit. I chalk everything up to the anxiety of the move, but in reality, it's just the little bumps we regularly encounter in life seen through the prism of the move. It's easier to blame the inevitable changes than to accept that life is less than perfect. James Joyce's ineluctable modalities of life.

Here's an example: Friday was my daughter's fourth birthday. My dear husband made a beautiful dinner for the family, and even baked a layered cake, frosted it, and shook sprinkles on the top. It was a beautiful cake made with the love of a Daddy for his little girl. The only problem was it was pink.

My sweet princess wanted a pink birthday cake last year. This year she wanted chocolate. In fact, she told her uncle that the only thing she wanted for her birthday was a chocolate cake. All Uncle Dan-o could say was, "I thought you knew!"

When we cut the cake, my little angel's face fell, and she burst into tears.
"I wanted chocolate!"

She was inconsolable. Not even the dozen or so Dora-themed gifts could help her overcome the bitter disappointment of the pink cake. And no one felt worse than her poor Daddy. Since then, a steady stream of chocolate cakes have made their way to our home from loving neighbors and relatives.

And of course, all is forgiven.

Here's another example. Sunday was Mother's Day, and I had a wretched cold. We went to my parent's for brunch, and then left the kids there while my husband and I went grocery shopping. Then I went home and nursed my sniffly nose and achy throat. That was it. That was Mother's Day.

It wasn't that we had made spectacular plans that had to have been cancelled. It wasn't even that the kids had any expectations at all for the day. I just felt like a big party pooper. I should have insisted we take the kids to a park or for a fun day with Mom, but I couldn't muster up the enthusiasm.

With only two and a half months until the big move, I feel like I should be making memories; doing all of the touristy things we planned to do but never got around to. I want the kids to have fond memories of their hometown and the life we had here. It really has been a wonderful life, in a mundane sort of way.

There's still time, if I can shake this miserable cold!

Moving blues

My 6 year old doesn't want to move. The conversations always start the same way:

"I just thought of something!" Then he proceeds to tell me his latest brilliant idea.

"We could keep our house and just stay with a friend!"

For the next three years? I ask.

"Yeah! And when Daddy's done with law school, we'll just go home!"

He has suggested at various times that Daddy go away to law school and come back when he's done, or that we just scrap the whole thing altogether.

It's enough to break a mother's heart. I know exactly what he's afraid of. We live a pretty idyllic life, and in our little corner of the world my kid is king. Everyone knows him and loves him and looks out for him. It won't be the same where we're going. He's not even sure they speak English there. I'm pretty sure they do in Chicago, but it's not enough to ease a little boy's racing mind.

I have many of the same fears. What if the people there are mean? What if we don't make friends? My little sweetness gives me laundry lists of his concerns and one by one I address them. I empathize, I comfort, and I do my best to get him excited about all of the wonderful things Chicago has to offer: snow, kosher pizza, and great museums for kids!

But Chicago doesn't have Kenseido, or Grandma, Papa, and Abuela, or the best bike racing street in the world. Chicago doesn't have the certainty of people and places so familiar and reliable that he can conjure them up in his mind like a museum diorama.

Too old to blithely go along, and too young to eagerly anticipate the widening of his horizons, my son faces this move with anxiety and courage. I'm so proud of the way he's handling this with a stiff upper lip. His approach, like his myriad questions, is very logical and quite sensible - to a 6 year old boy. He knows it's a fait accompli, but he hasn't given up trying.

Deep down I know this will be a great move for all of us. My husband is expanding his intellectual muscle, and the rest of us are moving onto a bigger and better life full of opportunities and wonderful challenges. Deep down, I think my little wonder knows it, too.

My first blog

May 10, 2006. In two months and 21 days I will be moving across the country to start my life as the wife of a law student. I am leaving my friends and family, a great job, a house I love, and a comfortable life for the dream of a better future. And I'll be taking my three children along on the adventure with me. The logistics of the move are huge: selling our house, enrolling the kids in school, finding affordable day care for the baby, finding a new apartment, finding me a new job. The details are staggering. I'm told the first year of law school is brutal. I've been warned that I will only see glimpses of my husband as he rushes off to the library, or returns home for a quick shower. I've been alerted to the fact that law school is rough on marriages. But we're strong. We're tight. And if we can survive this move, we can survive anything.

I'm not really the blogging type, but I'm hoping this will be a good way to stay connected to my former life, and understand the new one I'm being thrust into. Blog as cheap therapy? Perhaps. Blog as form letter you plug into? Definitely! Stay tuned for the exciting adventures of the Law School Widow!