If You're Feeling Anxious, I Probably Didn't Mean You

I am worried that I have set off a storm of self-recrimination among the mothers. Let me reassure:

When I say I "keep the house clean," I mean:

• No one in the family has fleabites all over
• I do not have to worry that my child will realize in the middle of the day that the cat pee smell is coming from his own shirt and spend the rest of the day trying not to sit near anyone
• There may be dirty dishes on the table or counter or in the sink, but not in the cupboard
• The washcloths and dish sponges are not usually rancid
• There is never mold on the bread, cheese, bathroom, and dishwasher all at the same time
• I don't yell "if I didn't have KIDS this house would be clean"
• I don't leave cigarette butts and ashes all over
• My eight year old doesn't have to wash and fold his own clothes if he wants to wear something clean

When I say "I don't freak out," I mean:

• I don't start banshee howling when I miss an exit on the freeway
• I don't break things when I'm mad
• I don't jump in the car in a fury and drive away in a spray of gravel
• I don't engage in road rage that ends in being pulled over
• I don't shut down every tough conversation

When I say "I don't lose my keys all the damn time," I mean:

• I am neurotic about knowing where my keys are all the damn time because I hated hated hated being stranded someplace while my mother did a banshee howl and turned her purse inside out and tried to figure out who she could call to get us
• I can lock my front door because I don't lose my keys, which means my kid does not come home to interrupt burglars in progress (yes this happened)

When I say "making sure there is enough money," I mean:

• The bank account is not overdrawn every month
• Creditors are not harassing us all the time
• The gas and electric are not shut off

These are not things that will individually (or even all together) ruin a child. Children are tough. These are things that made me especially upset given everything else that was going on. I overdo these things because I am so fearful of under-doing them.

(Giving physical affection, not hitting, and not routinely mocking or shaming a child for being upset? Non-negotiable.)

The What Goes Where?!

Friday night was like a cosmic test. HB suddenly wanted to know exactly how a P can fit in a V (he had realized that although he knew where babies come FROM he did not know how they GOT there ... "how does the sperm …?" and he got tearful when I tried to put him off). I started worrying I was going to give him a complex about it being shameful so I tried to launch into it but my explanations (and demonstrations with a toilet paper tube - what? I was desperate!) were going nowhere, so I went looking for visual aids. CAN YOU IMAGINE TRYING TO FIND THOSE PICTURES ON THE WEB IN ANY REASONABLY APPROPRIATE SETTING? With a kid trying to get squeeze behind you to see the screen - "Why won't you let me see?" "Because ... some of the pictures ... are ... silly"? All I got that I thought I could show him were those weird sliced in half drawings that even I can't make sense of and I was resorting to pictures of ultrasound wands in use (imagine highly puzzled, half embarrassed squinting on the boy's part - with me thinking yeah, that's how I felt at the time). So my husband entered the fray. He thought he'd found something that was clinical-ish and not disturbing but of course HB immediately read the caption on the top that TH hadn't noticed: "My husband with another woman!" - Oh. My. God.

We got through all that with everything seemingly fine, but my nerves were shot. Then as I was trying to get the kid into the bath I noticed the exchange student lying on her bed weeping. So I went in and spent an hour trying to talk her down from a pinnacle of teenaged angst (unrelated to the creepy situation from before). By the time I went to bed I was about five exits past Done.

I think I passed the test Friday, but the days since have been particularly tough in terms of it all being on my mind almost all the time. This PTSD crap is just bizarre. Denial was a pretty nice place to live until I got evicted. Although the landlord was becoming a little hard to deal with over the past few years.

Reading and rereading and rereading the comments, I realize how many incredibly good friends I have, IRL, here, and crossover - people I feel I can confide in and trust. Many many more than, say, fifteen years ago, when I had approximately - let me think - one. And she lived in another city. I can't imagine having to do this then.

Five More

[Nanaphiles, take heart: soon I will describe my delicately finessed cease-fire.]

TH and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. Also, a new college class report arrived. This is what I had to say about those anniversaries five years ago. In another post back then I mentioned the most appalling entry of all in the last report. I quoted (again, this is NOT ME):

[2006] I'm in a very happy marriage to P___, whom I met while traveling through France. We have two beautiful, brilliant children. They are trilingual, top of their classes, and are both natural athletes, excelling at virtually every sport they try. We live in a rambling bungalow on an acre of garden and forest in [expensive suburb]. After spending seven years as a management consultant, I felt my career was incompatible with being the mother of two small children. So we moved to France, where I studied for my MBA. After weighing the various opportunities that emerged, I settled on asset management. Now, eight years into my career, I feel as if I've found the perfect fit. My international background and languages, along with my analytical nature, common sense, and natural skepticism, have all contributed toward a successful track record as an international investor. I can attest to the fact that success breeds happiness.

When the most recent edition came, I feverishly flipped to her page, wondering what heights of braggadocio she could possibly have reached. But instead I was amazed and delighted to find this:

[2011] One of the ways we seem to deal with impending mortality is to justify our place in the world, crediting predestination or cleverness or both, while ignoring the serendipitous nature of life. But in my case, I recognize more and more the role pure luck has played in getting me to where I am today, so I feel the need to be more open-minded and empathetic as I age, more liberal in my attitude. Churchill is quoted as saying, “If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not conservative at forty you have no brain.“ Either Churchill had it backwards or I am brainless.

From the rest of her entry, it does not appear that anything bad happened to her in the meantime, so I am claiming this as proof that people change, and it makes me happy.

As for our anniversary, for the first time ever (!!!), HB stayed at his grandparents’ (the “good” ones) while TH and I got a hotel room. HB had decided on his own that it was time he tried being away from a parent overnight, and when he has bought into a project, he usually does well.

What did we do with our time? Simply the things we haven’t been able to: talk for longer than 5 minutes at a time while strolling, going to a coffee shop, seeing a movie, eating dinner, and … no, not that, that we’ve been able to achieve … cuddling. Poor TH is a cuddler. I am not. I can tolerate a certain amount, but I overspend it on HB. I know, I know, the tragedy of the modern parent.
We talked about how we would not be together had we not been running partners. We agreed that we would do it all again. And we talked about the 3 biggest challenges our marriage has faced:

1. HB
2. HB
3. A tie between cycling and HB

I added a fourth [TMI ALERT!!]: lady parts problems. I am too shy/prudish (believe it or not) to elaborate, but I would feel guilty if I left it out.

I never have good advice on marriage or romance. (I am an INTJ, you know.) I do have advice for people who don’t want marriage: don’t let anyone make you feel like a freak. I love my husband, and I can easily imagine a happy life had he not appeared. Whenever a celebrity says something like that in an interview, it’s like, **JUICY BREAKUP ALERT** — and that’s too bad. It can make single people feel like something is really wrong with them if everyone is always all, “Marriage and parenthood complete me!” My mother says that someone who talks a lot about sex probably isn’t getting any, and I wonder if the same holds true here: people who go on and on about how great it is maybe protest too much? In other words: would people please lay off Jennifer Aniston? Sheesh. Her life seems pretty cool.

That said, our 24 hours left me longing for more. (The grandparents said they would do it again, but they said it in very, very weak voices.) I adore my child and am fascinated by him, and he is a remora.

Uncharacteristically Multi-Themed

Running
Do you have any idea how often I have to remind myself to take my own advice? Confession: this winter I am barely hanging on to my running. Happens every winter, but worse this one. I don’t like cold, but even more I don’t like dark, and a lot of my running has to be in the dark in the winter. Then I usually get a chest cold or two, plus somehow my back ends up getting hurt during the winter, and before I know it, it’s days and days between runs. So I chant to myself, “Any run is better than no run,” “If it doesn’t hurt worse when you run on it, run on it,” and, believe it or not, I have to remind myself to slow down.

Nana
Thanks for the Nana advice, and TH will be perusing it. And yes, at this point HB understands that she is unreasonable and he is not likely to be permanently scarred by her, but I would like him to have some kind of relationship with her ultimately, and I don’t want that to be made impossible by her behavior now. Also, the aftermath of her visits have always sucked for us, with him having new fears (he’s going to have to go to her house alone, I don’t love him, etc.) and extra tantrums.

My own mother happened to make a connection I hadn’t realized. I was discussing it with her and she became very agitated. It’s unlike her to a) support Nana in anything or b) get very agitated about anything, so I asked her what the deal was, and she confessed that Nana reminds her of her mother, and she’s afraid that I feel like I was scarred because she left me with my grandmother often. And she’s totally right. Now, she had little choice—she was a widow with three difficult kids and no one to pick up any slack except her parents—so I do NOT blame her (and reassured her on this), but actually, my grandmother did scar me. An episode that haunts me to this day was when I was three and threw a tantrum because she made waffles for my brother but not for me (I woke up late and she’d already cleaned up). The tantrum was a typical unreasonable three-year-old tantrum, but for it she gave me the worst spanking of my life. I never liked or trusted her again, and I still flinch when I see anyone even close to smacking their kids.

Book Reviews
I recently read Keith Richards’s enormous autobiography, and since I finished it I actually miss him. I had no particular interest in him or the Rolling Stones before, but I adore him now, despite his drug-addicted parenting, his temper, and his cattiness about Mick Jagger. He is just so open-hearted, in this sense (and that clip is totally worth the 20 minutes, I promise you, and thanks to B for it), and funny, and unapologetic, and unexpectedly respectful of women, and loyal to people who treat others well, and honest about people who don’t (e.g. Brian Jones). And his love of music is enviable. At first the music talk bored me, but then I started pulling up the various songs he mentioned, and I got a great education and new appreciation for the Everly Brothers, Elvis, Chuck Berry, etc. etc. I still don’t like most of the later Stones music, but whatever.

I followed it up with Patti Smith’s book about herself and Mapplethorpe, which I liked well enough, but wished a) it was about her and not about Mapplethorpe and b) she had a sense of humor. Maybe she does in real life, but it didn’t come through in this book, which was earnest earnest earnest.

Music Reviews
I am loving running to The Dog Days Are Over (Florence and the Machine), Shake Me Down (Cage the Elephant), Bloodbuzz Ohio (The Nationals), Not Fade Away (early Stones!), and Tusk (Fleetwood Mac), which makes me laugh every time it pops up and which someone pointed me to because one of my forever favorites is the marching band version of This Too Shall Pass (Ok Go).

Other running, Nana, book and music recommendations welcomed.

More Please

Why, why do I not ask you all for advice more often? You are so wise.

Jul hit it when she said: “So WHY did I waste all that time trying to make you feel secure, you little s__?” Because yes, my distress really is all about me and wanting to believe that none of my sacrifices have been for naught. Even though OF COURSE THEY HAVE. Most of them, anyway.

And I instantly recognized that Law’s suggested response would work: “… besides it’s against the law to kill anyway.” I said to him, “Hey HB—you know how you can’t be sure Daddy and I aren’t evil?” “Yeah?” he said nonchalantly. “Well you can at least be sure we won’t kill you. Know why?” “Why?” “Because it’s against the law!” “Oh, right right right!” he said. “I mean, everybody would be a robber if it wasn’t against the law!” I didn’t even try to argue with that one, but he seemed to think the subject was entirely settled.

So thank you.

(Another thing he said recently: “A lot of parents tell their kids everything they do is great because they want them to feel happy. But I don’t want that. I want the truth.”)

To tap into your collective wisdom some more: You were incredibly helpful on the subject of Nana in the past, and we could use a little more advice.

Her last visit was the anticlimactic birthday party eight months ago. TH speaks with her on the phone and emails from time to time, and she rarely brings up the topic. When she starts to, he changes the subject, and she usually follows.

Until recently, when he got an email from her:

From: Nana
Date: December 3, 2010
To: TrophyHusband
Subject: HB’s gift

I’m glad he liked the book. I thought chapter books are fun for his age.  ....

We are really devastated that we aren’t allowed to see him.  It makes me sad whenever I think of him growing up not knowing or seeing us.

Love, Mom

TH freaked out and forwarded to me, and I said, what a way to escalate! You never said anything of the kind. Read the original email you sent her. And he did, and then quoted it back to her, and she let it drop.

But this begs the question: where DO we go from here?

HB has asked when we will go up to their “farm” again, because, he says, there are fun things to do there. But he also has asked me out of the blue, “Why did Nana say she would give me a time out if I cried because I missed you?” (When she was babysitting him two years ago.) Recently, he asked if we were ever going to see her again, and I said, of course. (We haven’t let him in on the whole discussion, just told him that he won’t be left alone with Nana babysitting again.) And then he said, “I know a way it could work: I could just do everything exactly the way she says.” Wellllll …. yeeeesss … in an alternate universe. He won’t even get on the phone with her. (And not just now; he never would—he hates to get on the phone when someone tells him to do it, which she always does.) Clearly he’s not ready to maneuver around her without freaking out. Most adults can’t do it consistently.

Traveling to Nana’s is an ordeal, and it isn’t “on the way” to anyplace. So that’s pretty easy to get around. But do we just wait for her to suggest something doable? They come near us on business from time to time, and I could see meeting them for a couple of hours someplace … but I really don’t know. Do we suggest it?

She hasn’t made even the tiniest of conciliatory moves, if that matters, which it probably doesn’t. E.g., HB asked us to take a photo of himself smiling next to the gift they sent for Chanukah/Christmas and text it to them as a thank you. When TH did so, she called and said, “He should write us a thank you note now too.” (Not that there isn’t any merit to the argument that written thank yous are more proper than texts/emails—just that this isn’t quite the place for that argument, is it?) (And the gifts are far from conciliatory—she has always showered him with presents and then demanded that he show exuberant gratitude in return. Once when we were visiting her, she banished him upstairs when he didn’t like a book she bought him. He found a phone and called TH’s cell, which was pretty funny.)

Help?

Normal or Not?

HB said something to me last night that creeped me out so much I couldn’t fall asleep for a couple of hours. We were cuddling before he went to sleep and he said, “Sometimes I wonder if you and Daddy are actually evil and will kill me.” After I regained my speaking ability and tried to say the appropriate reassuring things, he said, “Yes, but … there’s a chance you could be lying to me right now.” I tried to talk him out of the notion with every argument I could think of, but he said, “I’m not saying there’s a BIG chance that you could be evil. Maybe ten percent. I’m just saying, you can never really know what someone else is truly thinking.” Then he went to sleep.

This morning I tried to bring it up again delicately, asking if it was just one of those scary thoughts that people sometimes have at night, and he said cheerfully, “No, it can occur to me whenever. It’s not that big a deal. And I know that you do want me; if you didn’t, you could have given me up for adoption.”

It reminds me of why I don’t smoke pot.

He’s always had a morbid streak; two years ago he told me that everyone dies alone, and when I tried to give him some platitudes, he just looked at me and shook his head. Last year he asked, “How do you know that this isn’t all a dream, and real life is something else?”

Also we’ve been reading a lot of Roald Dahl.

TH didn’t hear the actual conversation, but he’s not particularly concerned. “I sometimes thought my mom was evil,” he said. “But then, she actually was …”

HB has if anything seemed happier than ever lately; he often laughs and goofs around, something sadly rare for him in prior years.

So, normal or not?

Gender Bender Fender Benders

One of the most popular searches that bring people to my site continues to be “boys who wear tights” or some variation thereof. I’m really hoping that this represents parents who are looking to gain insight into or support for their oddly attired sons, rather than … well, I don’t even want to go there.

HB hasn’t been wearing tights as much lately, but he continues to make gender-ambiguous personal adornment choices. He’s currently a fan of nail polish and skin-tight jeans—jeans that can only be bought in the girls’ department, because even the skinniest of the skinny boys’ jeans are too floppy for his taste. He is also cultivating a Mohawk that he talked me into dying black (blue was his first choice, but that proved too challenging). Much of last year he wore a suit and tie (even to the Caribbean); he learned to tie a tie before he could tie his shoes.

For a while I wasn’t sure if he much cared that anyone found his appearance odd. This summer, though, he left his super-accepting school and ventured off to day camp. A groovy, anything-goes kind of camp, but unstructured enough to allow for a lot more teasing than school.

The first thing he got grief for was his swim wear. He finds boys’ swim trunks ugly; he prefers sunsuits. But after one day of being teased for wearing a “onesie,” he switched to trunks.

Another was his nail polish. A boy who waited at our bus stop frequently asked, “Why do you wear nail polish?” And HB would do what he usually does when he finds a question rude or intrusive: he acted as if no question had been asked. (It’s almost spooky to watch that.) On the very last day, though, the kid asked him yet again, and HB finally burst out: “I’m not even wearing nail polish! It’s all worn off!”

“But why DID you wear it? It’s for girls,” the kid said.

HB was quiet for a moment, then looked the boy in the eye and asked, “Do you have a dad?”

Now, HB knew this boy’s situation very well: he was adopted from Russia by a lesbian couple. So the question was really a challenge: You want to talk about people being different? I’ll talk about differences. Game on.

The boy happily gave an answer (that he has a biological father, etc., etc.), and the moment passed and they resumed making scatological jokes.

I wasn’t thrilled about HB essentially teasing someone else, but I was proud of his ability to maneuver through the situation without losing his cool. When he talks about these encounters, he is most frustrated by the fact that no one else can see that their clothes are ugly; he doesn’t question his own taste at all. When he does try to conform (e.g. with the swimsuit), he says it’s because he just gets tired of having to explain himself over and over. And I find it interesting that socially, he is pretty shy; he wants to stand out for the way he looks, not for what he does.

The day after camp ended, HB asked me to paint his nails in rainbow colors, and wore his sunsuit to the pool. He also asked me to buy him a pink shirt: “A lot of boys turn their backs on pink, but it’s a nice color. And every color is for everyone.”

I’ve had some nice comments from guys to my earlier posts about HB’s penchant for tight-fitting clothes and what this doesn’t mean about his future sexual orientation. In fact, HB already seems to have a pretty firm hetero orientation; he gets all soft and gooey around girls (“Lena sometimes pulls on my Mohawk, but gently, and it feels really … niiiiiice.” I can almost hear the bass line thumping) whereas with boys he is mainly interested in beating them at ball sports. On the other hand, he would like to be Miley Cyrus when he grows up. But also a professional pitcher. He was very into t-ball … as long as he could wear too-small pants and some nail polish ... Listen, make your bets if you want, but I truly do not care where he ends up on the orientation spectrum.

I don’t get why anyone gets bent out of shape about any of this. Do you?

Total Anticlimax

She behaved herself. She wore capris and a black top. She said nothing untoward, forward, or bloggable.

I am so disappointed.

As a consolation prize, here is a picture of HB in fresh nail polish, working at his new job:

(He rides with Mr. Softee almost every day. And dips the cones.)

If a Nana Says Something Crazy in the Forest and No One Pays Attention ...

A few commenters have wondered about a) how TH grew up to be not particularly crazy and b) what he thinks about my being happy.

I thought about interviewing him about this. Then I realized that the interview would go something like the following:

DM: How did you grow up to be so awesome and relatively normal despite your batshit crazy mother?

TH: I’m awesome? I’m relatively normal? My mom is batshit crazy? Oh yeah, that’s right, she is.

DM: What was it like growing up with her?

TH: Not good. I don’t remember.

DM: Um, ok. Well, what do you think about my being happy?

TH: You’re happy?

DM: Remember, I told you about this? I’m all different and nice and stuff? I let you read those posts about it?

TH: Oh right. Um, it’s good? … wait, what was the question again?

DM: How was that race you did Sunday?

TH: Great! Riding kit shaving cycling bikes drafting intervals training pack sprint collarbone Cat 3-4 cleats riding Masters power meter laps turns monkey butt holding the line criterium time trial bonk leading out road rash drops watts course hill VO2 bridge the gap embrocation tubes wheels chamois max heartrate shelled monster climb breakaway chase points chafing podium ...

TH is kind, nurturing, tolerant, and overall wonderful. He also lives in a sort of happy fog. He puts a laser focus on one thing at a time, and everything else blurs out. This is actually quite nice for me; I like to fly under the radar most of the time. I’m capable of taking his face in my hands and saying, “Eye contact! Here! Now!” when necessary. He has a hard time remembering things that he has not focused upon. (For instance: our neighbor dropped dead and he forgot to mention it to me.) He also sleeps. A lot. As in 10 hours weeknights and 11-13 on weekends. I think he slept through much of his early years. He really does not remember a lot of the stuff that went on. He has his anxieties, but they’re different from mine. He worries about what’s in front of him, not what might happen down the road — so we tend not to be worried about the same things at the same time, which is good. He is an optimist.

TH’s dad is very much like TH. He was a steady, no-drama support through it all, as was his second wife. TH wishes he’d moved in with them for high school, but he was still too afraid of his mother’s reaction to go through with it. (Nana kicked TH’s younger brother out when he was fourteen because he wouldn’t obey her; he did move in with their father — and gave him a pretty wild ride too. Once past his Rumspringa/rehab years, he grew up just fine; I really like him. The sister, well … she’s sort of Nana minus the Histrionic Personality Disorder, which makes her more tolerable, but only to a point. She regularly dumps her two sons — aged 5 and 3 — with Nana for a week of free babysitting, despite having issues herself with how Nana treats them. Her older son is a rather timid, biddable child, so he just does what Nana says, poor kid.)

TH says he just figured out over time that he couldn’t take any of Nana’s advice or criticism seriously. He has always sided with me in any disagreement. Nana can be very fun, and he decided he was willing to take her as she was. This changed with the arrival of HB.

TH has a lot of healthy denial — he doesn’t dwell on the past or the legacy of Nana’s craziness. When I said he was having flashbacks with the newest drama, he said, “Oh, I wouldn’t say flashbacks.” When I reminded him of recent instances when he’d gotten upset over something small and then said that it was because of something from childhood, he said, “Oh, you mean those flashbacks.”

I’m not complaining. I think one navel-gazer per family is enough.

The Nana Wars Updated Update: Game Back On!

First, as OMDG noted after my last post, b***jobs was not a reference to boob jobs. (I wouldn’t asterisk out that, for one thing.) It was the other kind of b***jobs Nana was discussing. (And did I mention that the underwear she flashes are Armani thongs?)

So of course mere hours after my last post, TH received the following:

From: Nana
Date: May 13, 2010
To: TH
Subject: HB

I was quite disappointed about your reaction to my visit and HB’s melt down. I keep thinking how to respond to your email, since I want to have a relationship with HB and we love him very much! Just to set the record straight about the sequence of events that morning. [Oh boy, here we go: your wife is a big fat liar. Never a wise battle strategy.] I woke up at 8 A.M. and noticed that there was only 1" of snow on the ground. So, I decided while you were sleeping that I should drive home rather than get completely snowed in for 2-3 days. Not knowing that HB would be so agitated by my quick decision to leave, I walked down the stairs and told DM and HB what I was preparing to do. [Nope—she only told me. Otherwise accurate.]

Then HB went crazy [if you call trying to walk away from her “crazy”] and screamed at me “not to say another word” [quite accurate, except I would say “shouted”] and he was out of control. [Out of Nana’s control.] DM didn’t do anything during his tantrum [quite true—and I’m sure this is what pissed her off the most] and I should have tried to find out the reason he was so upset. [He did tell her: because she kept pestering him.] Now I realize that he gets sad and upset when I leave....and my decision was sudden. [Nice rationalization—he loves me soooo much, that’s what made him mad! Only problem: she hadn’t yet told him she was leaving.]

When I was leaving, and he still was yelling, I said to him, “Your behavior makes me feel not unhappy that I’m leaving.” [Nope. It was definitely “I’m leaving because of you.” Did she look up the “constructive” way to argue, I wonder? You know, “When you do ____, it makes feel ____?”] At least he would hear the consequences of how people feel when he behaves that way towards them. [People = Nana.] These things happen and we deal with it, and then go on - it’s a long road to adulthood! [“These things” being that your grandmother is mean to you? Well, we are dealing with THAT! And TH agrees that it was indeed a LONG road to adulthood with her.]

I do feel that this is was an isolated instance. [Not.] We’ve been with him alone lots when he visits here or we go there and haven’t had that happen. [Not.] The loss in this situation is HB not seeing us more often than his birthday when there are many people there or once every 2 years on Thanksgiving. [Who said we were going for Thanksgiving?] I feel that we have a very special fun time when we are together - whether on our tractor or at the adventure park or at the zoo! [Excellent use of guilt, I must say.] We love him very much and do have an understanding about appropriate behavior when he’s with us. He’s OK with it. [Not!] [Too bad she doesn’t have an understanding of what behavior is appropriate on her part …]

So, we plan to attend his birthday party - wouldn’t miss it for the world! We’ll stay [70 miles away] for the weekend and drive in for the day. [Another excellent use of guilt, no?]

Love, Nana

Let me be clear: HB is not respectful of adults in the sense of obeying them simply because they are adults. This is a battle we have not even tried to win with him, because a) we have had a lot of other things to focus on and b) we don’t really subscribe to that philosophy ourselves. It would be nice sometimes if he could be more actively polite, especially to people he doesn’t know, but trying to get him to say something he doesn’t want to say is unbelievably hard. As I said, we’ve achieved the no name-calling, no swearing, and certainly no hitting limits. It’s not too hard to get him not to do things. He can remain silent when he has nothing nice to say. It’s when someone keeps pressing him to say or do something that trouble ensues.

I’m sure some of our friends and family don’t agree with us about not trying to enforce a Because I Said So policy with HB. (Though not my mother; she raised me the same way.) But most of them are very accepting of this being our child, our family and our decision, and are willing to interact with HB on his terms, i.e., letting him come to them.

I’m really not getting worked up about this even though the red italics above may suggest otherwise. This can’t even come close to upsetting my bliss. (A few things can, I’m discovering. More on that another time.) Poor TH, on the other hand, keeps having flashbacks from childhood. He’s holding up well, considering. He says this is going to be his response:

Thanks for your email and for the nice anniversary card.
Looking forward to the party!

The Nana Wars Update

It’s looking like there will be no big drama … which is good for HB, but not as fun for blogging purposes.

There was silence, then TH sent Nana a Mother’s Day card (okay, I handed it to him and made him fill it out), and then TH accidentally dialed Baba (his stepfather) instead of his brother and Baba was pleasant, and yesterday we got an anniversary card filled out by Nana that made no mention of anything.

I’m guessing she’s suppressing the part where TH told her she shouldn’t lie to HB, and has decided that HB just has behavioral issues. Because nothing could be her fault.

Don’t know yet if she’ll come to the birthday party. If so, that will be guaranteed to entertain. (At one birthday party, she wore a skirt short enough to flash her underwear and tried to discuss b***jobs with a rather conservative work colleague of mine.)

The Nana Wars Continue (Continued)

Looks like TH is going to have to gird himself for battle. Gah! Will let you know how it goes.

From: Nana
Date: April 15, 2010
To: TrophyHusband
Subject: HB's b'day

Hi TH:

We can do whatever you're comfortable with that birthday weekend. We can also pay for our own room! It's not possible for us to visit before then? Baba hasn't seen HB since November and I since Dec. I'm feeling that you/HB/DM aren't comfortable around us.....why is that? I know that HB had that outburst when I was there, and it was very upsetting for everyone. Am I the only one he throws tantrums to?

I just don't understand what's going on? Enlighten me, please!

Mom

UPDATE: here's TH's email back:

From: TH
Date: April 17, 2010
To: Nana
Subject: Re: HB's b'day

Yes, HB does act up when you’re around, and after you leave. You and I disagree on how this should be handled, but as his father I decide what’s best for him.

What made me upset about the last visit was not his behavior when you were leaving, but that you told him you were leaving because of him. You were actually leaving to beat the weather, but even if it was because of him, that’s not okay to say to a child.

But that incident is beside the point. The problem is that these visits in general have not been good for HB.

Right now, the best thing is to not have one on one visits.

We love you and HB knows that you love him. It would be great if you can come for the birthday party.

Love,
TH

He's prepared for just about any response including total shunning. He said the only thing she definitely won't respond with is to say "you're right, and I'll be going for a year of dialectical behavioral therapy!" (Loved that comment, victoria.)

So far, no response at all.

TH's Question

Update: TH is reading all of your comments with interest and gratitude. They are surprisingly (to me) consistent. You are right: it is easier to deal with the whole thing if we keep our eyes on the prize, i.e., what is best for HB — and clearly protecting him is best. Also that you can’t argue with a crazy person. (And to be very clear: we are not in the least interested in any money or inheritance from Nana. We just think HB might like to hang out at her place once he’s old enough to ignore the craziness.) So thank you.

So here’s the deal with TH’s mother, Nana of the Histrionic Personality Disorder (and I don’t mean just aspects of it — all of it). (Pardon the wordiness; I’m putting this out as fast as I can since I shouldn't be on here at all!) I’ve discussed some of my (our) struggles with Nana in the past here and there, but there’s of course a lot more. For instance, when HB was around two, after he’d spent any time alone with her, the next time I said “I love you!” to him, he would answer, “No you DON’T.” She frequently talks about some scene in Steel Magnolias (I think? never saw it) where one of the grandmothers pulls a child aside and tells her that the other grandmother is evil, and I suspect that’s what Nana was doing to HB about me. Nice, right? And the time we let her babysit one evening and HB told me that when he cried because he missed us she got mad and told him he would get a time-out if he didn’t stop crying.

TH has awful stories from childhood about how she pretty much lied to him every day to get him to do what she wanted—constantly shifting the rules, telling him it was later than it was, that there were laws against this or that, that he wouldn’t get any presents for his birthday if he didn’t whatever, and, what he found worst of all, making all sorts of promises that she never kept. Then really, really crazy stuff when his parents got divorced. So it really pushes his buttons when she does any of this with HB.

So the final straw happened about two months ago she came down for a grandparent visit to HB’s class – which went fine by all accounts. What I didn’t know was that she kept pestering my husband to let her take HB back to her house with her for a “few days” (she lives six or seven hours’ drive away) — to teach him how to behave. Because “he’s polite when you two aren’t around.” (The only non-polite thing he’d done with her is to prefer us to her — e.g., to sit on my lap instead of hers and to get annoyed when she pressed him on it.) TH said no, of course, to which she said, “Why not? Didn’t you have a wonderful childhood?”

Several times during this visit, any time HB was paying attention to me and not to her, she’d say, “You’re NICE to me when your mama’s not around ... You’re in LOVE with your mama.”

Friday night we hear that a big storm is coming, and that she’ll probably be stuck until Monday earliest. But Saturday morning she realizes the storm hasn’t hit yet and she can drive away from it. So she packs up her car. HB was just waking up and unaware of any of this.

Then HB gets up. He’s not a morning person; it takes him a few minutes to even start speaking. She starts pestering him in her baby-talk way and he’s doing his it’s too early, get the fuck away from me thing that he does to anyone who gets in his face in the morning—nothing serious, no swearing or hitting or name calling, just saying “stop talking to me!” and walking away. So she follows him and says, “It hurts people’s feelings when you’re so rude to them. And you know what? It has consequences. It makes me want to leave. So I’m leaving RIGHT NOW. Because of YOU.”

And she went out the door, jumped into her Porsche Cayenne, and peeled rubber out of here.

TH called her later to see if she’d survived the drive and she started lighting into him about how he has to crack down on HB now or “he’s going to be the kind of eight-year-old who says ‘fuck you’ to his parents!!!” (I will add here that HB is considered one of the best-behaved and politest child in his kindergarten.) (I will also add that TH’s younger brother got into trouble non-stop as a child and was in drug rehab by the time he was fifteen …)

I know that it’s an old, old story, the grandparents who interfere/disapprove with how the grandkids are being raised, and whatever, I’m fine with that, I can agree to disagree. What I’m not fine with is her deliberately trying to bully/frighten HB, tell him lies, or turn him against me. And TH, well, this makes him CRAZY. It brings back so many ugly memories of childhood, plus he’s very protective of HB.

The short-term goal is: only let her see HB in a large group. For instance, we usually have a huge party on his birthday weekend and last year we put her and Baba up in a hotel for a night and that was fine. His birthday is in June. But aside from that, we just don’t want her around him.

The long-term goal is not to start a family feud, and to leave open the possibility of a relationship once HB’s old enough to not be so hurt and confused by her. There are some benefits to having a relationship with her (not least of which is that she lives on 50 acres in a resort area in a house that could be a B&B with no renovations required …)

I’ve offered to let TH use me as a scapegoat. She likes me for my fancy credentials, but personally, well … so no big loss there if he tells her it’s my doing. But he doesn’t want that, in part because he’s noble and because HE doesn’t want her around either. What TH really wants to do is to get her to understand how her behavior is unacceptable—even though he knows that’s useless.

So his question to you all is, what should he actually SAY to her? Anyone have any experience with something like this?

More Helpful Hints

How to Sleep Better Without Pills

This is by request. A disclaimer: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking over-the-counter sleep aids. Heck, I used to take Benadryl every day as a child during allergy season; it’s not like taking Seconal or something. And drinking alcohol before bed is much worse on your sleep patterns than these kinds of medications. However, there are some relatively easy tricks for sleeping better—with or without medications. Most people know that you should have a quiet, cool, dark, comfortable place to sleep. Here are a few things that you may not know: Don’t watch TV in bed, even if you think it lulls you to sleep. Don’t read in bed if you can’t sleep; get up and sit in a chair. Don’t toss and turn if you can’t sleep; get out of bed and do something boring for a while. If you have a snoring bed partner, get a white noise machine. If your problem is waking up in the middle of the night, trying going to bed a half hour later than usual. And here’s one that many people resist: cover up your clock or turn it to the wall so that you can’t tell what time it when you wake up in the middle of the night. If you check the time, you get anxious, and then you really can’t get back to sleep. Finally, if you are taking something to get to sleep every night and want to stop, you should go cold turkey and expect to have 3-4 rough nights before you’re back to normal.

How To Childproof on the Fly

Releasable zip ties. (I have no idea if that’s a good website, I was just too lazy to get a good picture of them myself.) Discovering these was like finding the internet, only less exciting. With a little imagination, you can use these to fashion a way to keep a toddler out of all kinds of things when you’re in a hotel room, visiting childfree friends, etc. I used to keep a pack of them in my suitcase. I still have one around the knobs of the liquor cabinet. (I figure anyone who’s too drunk to operate the release has probably had enough. There’s plenty of beer in the fridge if you’re that desperate.) They’re also good for managing computer cables, keys … make your own magic!

How To Connect Almost Anything to Almost Anything

Non-releasable zip ties. These made it possible for me to put baby gates on our impossibly narrow stairs (gates that lasted years and endured much abuse without failing, despite my husband’s initial skepticism), and they are astoundingly strong. They also facilitated one of my most ingenious solutions:

How To Keep From Losing Tiny Remote Controls


Is this not cool? You can use anything large and squishy. (Note: I do not advise using a cat. A particularly well-trained dog might suffice.) I started out with rubber bands, but for some reason children must put asunder what a rubber band hath joined together.

How To Put Eye Drops Into Uncooperative Eyes

Some of us could pour a shot of Jim Beam into our eyes, but some—e.g., many children, my husband—blink and squirm and freak out over one or two drops of anything. The trick is simple: lie on one’s back with eyes closed, put the drops in the corner of the eye (making a little pool), and then open the eyes. (Gratuitous doctor’s soapbox proclamation: Antibiotic drops for “pink eye”? 99 percent of the time useless—and occasionally allergic reaction-producing. I know we all grew up doing it, but almost all pink eye—especially if it’s bilateral—is viral, usually a cold virus. And it’s no more or less contagious than a cold.)

How To Stop a Nosebleed

You can find that here—an oldy but bloody goody.

How To Keep Cats from Jumping on Your Head To Wake Up and Feed Them

Cats can understand cause and effect, but only up to a point; too many steps in a process and their fuzzy little heads start to hurt. If upon arising you immediately feed them, they will learn to wake you up, and often in creative ways. If you separate getting up and filling the bowls by more than, say, two steps, they will eventually forget that the two occurrences might be connected.

And finally: a picture in which you can see my own personal stomach-sleeping-preventing bumper:

(Levitating child not included.)

DoctorMama’s Helpful Hints

I’ve been neglecting you. To make up for it, I’ve prepared a real treat for you: a whole bunch of helpful hints and ingenious solutions to problems you didn’t even know you had. If I could patent these, I would, but since I can’t, you’re getting them for free. You’re welcome.

How to Stop Sleeping on Your Stomach
Those of us who stomach sleep tend to get cricks in our necks and sore lower backs. If I spend more than a few minutes doing it, I get a back spasm so bad that I am unable to turn back over, and I’m left to struggle like an upside-down turtle. One solution I’d read about was to sleep with a long pillow next to you on the side you usually turn to. Good in theory, but unless your bed is next to the wall, you’ll just end up with a pillow on the floor. My brilliant solution? Tuck the pillow under the fitted sheet, creating a bumper. It won’t fall out, and when you turn over, you naturally sling your knee over it and stop halfway.

How to Keep a Toddler (or Drunk) from Falling Out of Bed
See How to Stop Sleeping on Your Stomach above! It’s genius, I tell you.

How to Use Decongestant Nasal Spray Without Becoming Addicted
When you have a cold and can’t sleep because you can’t breathe through your nose, use decongestant spray in one nostril only. The next night, you can use it on the other side. Don’t use any during the day. You can keep this up indefinitely.

How to Quit Decongestant Nasal Spray
If you’re already addicted, quit using it on one side. Once that side is more or less back to normal, quit the other side.

How to Avoid Losing Your Child in a Crowd
Or rather, how to find your child after you’ve already lost them in a crowd. All you need is some masking tape and a marker. Put a strip of tape across the child’s upper back and write on it: IF FOUND CALL [cell number]. My son adds: tell your child to approach either a Person In Charge or someone who also has kids.

How to Clean Out a Stainless Steel Carafe or Thermos When You Can’t Reach Your Hand In
Put a Brillo™-type pad and some water in there, put the lid on, and shake it like a hurricane.

How to Fix Yellow Toenails
If you wear pink or red toenail polish, you may have noticed that they leave your toenails stained yellow. I searched for years for a cure, and finally discovered that the clear polishes that have names like Yellow Out actually work. Duh.

How to Keep Noisy Toys from Driving You Nuts
Put clear packing tape over the speaker holes. Several layers if necessary. Kids’ hearing is way better than ours; they don’t mind at all, and it makes life so much more bearable. (This trick is not my own invention; I learned from another cranky old parent.)

How to Keep Your Ice Cubes from Getting Smelly
Because I’m sorry, baking soda just doesn’t work. Charcoal odor absorbers, however, do. Drop one directly into your ice bin and voilà.

How to Cure Diaper Rash Quickly and Cheaply
Most diaper rash is at least partly due to candida (yeast). Buy a (store-brand) tube of vaginal yeast cream (throw away the applicators that come with it). It’s good as prescription cream; clears it up in, like, 12 hours. Works on athlete’s foot, too. We call it Toe-Butt-Vagina Cream.

How to Stop Picking at Your Face (Or at Least Cut Down)
Put 25-watt light bulbs in your bathroom.

How to Soothe a Sore Throat
Suck on a baby aspirin. (Do NOT let children do this.)

How to Keep A Cat From Shredding Your Furniture (Besides Declawing)
Keep its front nails clipped. A regular nail clipper works fine. You’ll probably need a second person to do the cat holding, but it’s not as hard as you’d think—nothing like trying to pill a cat.

How to Get Children to Behave
I have no frickin idea.

How Time Inches Along!

HB will be turning five soon.

This is the place where every other parent on the planet adds, How did that happen? They say it goes fast, but it seems like just yesterday he was [born / playing peek-a-boo / taking his first steps / add your own heartwarming milestone here]!

I said to TH around the time HB turned four, “Do you understand what people are talking about when they say it goes fast?”

“Absolutely not,” he answered. “Every stage seems to last forever.”

My child has a Superman-like ability to slow time to a crawl, at least for his parents. It seems like I can feel every minute of every day of the past five years. Other people’s kids get older awfully fast; not mine.

This child just wears you down. He’s an Xtreme Child (as in Xtreme Sports). The other day he went to the park with my parents to play baseball. On the way home he decided he didn’t want to carry the bat home as he’d promised to do before they set out. An argument ensued; he flung the bat to the ground. My stepdad said, “Well, that’s okay, you can just leave it for someone else to find.”

HB did not carry the bat home. He kicked it home. The whole way.

That’s what I’m talking about.

Actually that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the really cool things about HB, in honor of his one-twentieth of a century.

I was raised with a WASPY horror of bragging (e.g., when I was in college my mother wouldn’t even tell people what school I was attending for fear it might sound like bragging. She would say, “Oh, she’s … in college … in another state …” I think some people may have thought I was in prison). So I try very hard to avoid it here, especially the kind of bragging where you’re like, “oh, it’s such a pain, having a child who can do physics at 3—it’s so embarrassing when he starts talking about the degree of the arc of his pee in the restroom!”

So this is a little hard for me, but I will try to do this straight, without HB-deprecation—aside from the tirade above, of course.

• For a preschooler, he’s almost Buddhist in his non-attachment to material things. He doesn’t beg for toys in stores, he doesn’t seem to notice when obnoxious toys “disappear,” and he doesn’t get worked up when something is lost or broken.
• He can read, and as far as I know taught himself to do so.
• He’s agile. He’s in T-ball but doesn’t need the T, for instance.
• He doesn’t mock others for their idiosyncracies. He’s great with special-needs kids.
• He can make scrambled eggs by himself. Really.
• He doesn’t pick his nose or bite his nails.
• He doesn’t like TV.
• He has no irrational fears—the dark, monsters, toilets, etc. do not worry him.
• His pencil grip and scissor skills are excellent for his age, I am told.
• He is affectionate.
• His outfits make me smile every day.

Phew. That was actually really hard for me—I felt the need to asterisk almost every statement, David Foster Wallace-style. The past week or so has been especially rocky. But I am grateful for getting such an amazing kid, the time crawling notwithstanding. Probably one day I will even be grateful for how he slowed the passage of time.

All’s Fair

Who knew that men’s legwear was such an organized movement? Not I, for one. The pro-men’s legwear contingent will be happy to hear that we gave a pair of tights to another boy in the class. (We asked permission first because we weren’t sure how traditional this kid’s parents might be.)

The whole discussion about gender “appropriate” clothing made me think about what goes on in our family; what messages might we be sending HB re: gender roles. And since I love lists, I made one.

Below are the main household/family duties and activities I could think of. I’ve highlighted the more traditionally female ones in pink (since we’re being traditional, you know) and the male ones in blue. I put an item in one person’s column if that person does it 70-100% of the time.

Me Work longer hours Make more money Laundry Gardening Power tools Buying presents Home repair/remodeling Buying clothes for kid Groceries Finances Baking (with kid) Housecleaning

Him Work shorter hours Make (slightly) less money Assemble toys and furniture Schlep kid to & from school Stay home when kid is sick/has day off Trips to playground etc. Dinner Kid birthday parties Playdates T-ball Drycleaner’s Clean cat box

We’re pretty even on bathtime, story reading, taking out trash, doctor’s visits, and getting the kid dressed and fed in the morning.

These divisions were never really spelled out, we just kind of fell into them, but we are both committed to being—or at least feeling—equitable. And either of us will do the things in the other person’s column if specifically asked to do so.

This list looks pretty reasonable to me—and I think we’re setting a gender-equal message to HB. I’m curious—what goes on in your family? Is it a struggle? Do you have to negotiate?

“My Son Wears Tights”—Good for Him! & “Too Old to Run?”—Absolutely Not!

A surprising (to me) number of people land on my website from the above queries, so I thought I’d make it easier by putting the answers to them right up there in the title. To expand:

Re: tights on boys. It makes me a little sad that anyone would feel the need to question this. Yes, my son wears colorful tights. This usually delights people, perhaps as seeing a court jester might. He is occasionally mocked for them by other kids. This concerns him not a bit, which makes me think that I do not need to worry much about him either being bullied or bowing to peer pressure. (Whether he will be pushing others to do the designer drugs of the 2020s remains to be seen. Some of the boys in his class have asked him if he could bring them some tights, too.) Wearing tights does not appear to be a sign of wishing to be a girl for my son, but if it were, I know that there would be nothing I could do about it except try to smooth his path to adulthood. I recently witnessed an 18 month old boy who was reaching for a doll be chastised by his mother because “that’s for girls! You’re a boy!” I guess I’m sheltered in my liberal world, but I didn’t realize this kind of thing still went on. Don’t people know that you can’t influence this stuff? That you’re only inducing shame?

Re: too old to run? If this guy can do it, you can too. (I surreptitiously snapped him when I was out running with my phone.) (No, I don’t ordinarily run with my phone. I was on call.) Most of the queries I see are from 50-somethings. All of my advice applies to everyone of any age, and anyway, 50-something is very young. Go to it, elderly maggots. (But maybe don’t do any triathlons.)

(Sorry, felt the need to rant. Strollers soon.)

Making Friends

Just got back from Mexico, which was lovely, though the trip was a tad short because CERTAIN PEOPLE need to have their Saturdays free so as to take part in bike races. I shouldn’t complain, though, because I am probably the worst packer on earth and it took me almost the entire day Saturday to do it. Seriously, I’m outrageously bad at packing. I once left home on a long car trip and remembered everything except my birth control pills (ha! remember those?) and my wallet. I do now have a system: I have everything I could ever possibly want to pack on a list that I customize for each trip, and I am not allowed to tick off an item until it is actually resting inside the suitcase. Since I have to check off every solitary thing (e.g., “toiletries bag” doesn’t cut it: toothbrush, q-tips, brush—everything has its own little check box), the process is rather time-consuming. Also I tend to go off on hours-long tangents—no quart-size ziplocks for the plane? Target trip!

HB is becoming more and more tolerable on these trips. The main tantrum-inducing problem was that I neglected to pack tights (I didn’t forget—I just foolishly assumed that shorts alone would suffice in 85 degree weather), so when the one pair that he’d worn on the plane finally had to be washed before they wandered down to the beach under their own power he had NO TIGHTS TO WEAR TO DINNER, my god, you incompetent idiot. At least I remembered the nail polish so that I could give him touchups as needed.

At one point during our stay when HB wanted me to play in the pool with him but I preferred to drink another Dirty Monkey, I said, “Why don’t you make some friends?” (I’m not ordinarily prone to asking such asinine questions but reference Dirty Monkeys #1 and #2.) Next day, he spent three solid hours playing with a seriously drunk-plus-something-else-that looked-awfully-fun young woman from Manitoba who was sporting multiple homemade tattoos including a prominent “RIP” for her last boyfriend, severally equally homemade piercings, and a much older gentleman who was probably not her father. It was really very nice of her to lavish such attention on him, though we had to keep a rather close eye on them on account of the drowning risk (mainly hers). Afterwards HB said, “See, Mom, I did make a friend!” and spent the next day pretending to smoke cigarettes and demanding that I point out every “No Smoking” sign so that he could smile and insolently continue puffing away.

This wasn’t the post I started out to write—I meant to discuss jogging strollers—but now I’m out of time, so if you have any advice re that subject, get it ready for next time.

Advice to a New Mother (Whose Own Mother is AWOL)

One of my best friends—let’s call her Darwin—is due to give birth to her first child (a son) in a couple of weeks. This pregnancy was the result of years of trying, a journey that featured an ugly ectopic and expensive IVF. Her mother, who is nutty but usually endearing (I’ve known her since I was about 12), decided that the birth of her only grandchild could not compete with an offer to travel to another country (where she will be mostly incommunicado) for four months. Dar is one of the most good-humored, stable people I know, and she’s incredibly tough (she endured an ovarian torsion with nothing but Tylenol and then had to have emergency surgery for it in her 8th week of this pregnancy, and she’s still walking a mile and a half to work and back every day), but she’s a little apprehensive about this whole new baby thing, and I think that having a newborn is an experience that can be smoothed by a little bit of reassurance from the battle-tested.

Here’s the assignment: for those of you who have some experience in this area, what was the ONE—choose only one!—most helpful piece of advice you received during this time (or if you received no helpful advice, what is the one piece of advice you have to offer)?

Keep it pithy—she’s too sleep-deprived at this point in her pregnancy to focus on long sentences—and I will depart from my policy of never deleting real comments if anyone leaves a horror story.

UPDATE: Check out the nursing basket Dar made based on the advice here:



Some serious nesting going on.