This March, we are taking a break from our regular life. My kids will leave school and I will forgo this column I write for a couple of weeks. My daytime job, that of mother/diplomat/caretaker/insane asylum out-patient, will travel with me down to sunny warm Siesta Key, Florida.

Last February, my husband took the reins for a few days so I could visit my parents in Florida by myself. It was incredibly lovely because I gladly reverted to childhood and allowed my mom and dad to look after me. They fed me, took me shopping and my dad even rescued me one morning when I’d gone running and encountered one of those torrential rainstorms for which the Sunshine state is famous.

Soon, for the first time, my two sons, Charlie, 13, and Harrison, 7, and I will be spending a week living under the same roof as my parents. In the past, my husband, sons and I have always stayed in the same complex as my mom and dad, but in a separate unit. Usually, we spend a lot of time together by the pool or at the beach, barbecuing and going out for dinner in the evenings. There have always been, however, hours in the day when we’ve gone our separate ways. My parents like to play gin rummy and nosh on their porch. My kids like to play their various electronic gadgets, fight over the TV clicker and also nosh. This holiday, all the animals will be on the same farm.

I’m worried. Not give-me-a-valium, call 911 worried, but concerned that my kids might drive my parents crazy and that my parents might drive me to nosh as well, a self-calming mechanism I use when life becomes tense.

Don’t misunderstand. My parents know my sons intimately. Charlie was their first grandchild, the one who could do no wrong. My parents spent hours simply holding him and watching him drool and sleep, mesmerized by his very existence. I think they finally realized he was an actual human being with faults when he was almost seven and his little brother came along. Charlie’s reaction to sharing the spotlight was, well, interesting. He is a kind and perceptive young man, but he often chooses to learn his lessons the hard way , along the road that sometimes leads to the principal’s office. My parents have noted his imperfections and filed them under “Who cares?” in their grandchild assessment files. For them, he will always be lovable.

Charlie calls his grandma, “my secret weapon” because she helps him out when he has parent problems. He looks up to my father, his papa, who is possibly the only person in the world from whom Charlie will take undressed criticism.

Harrison is my parents’ youngest grandchild and they are fully aware of how much effort and faith was put into my pregnancy. Harrison demanded to be born. He commands our attention. He was a hoped for but unexpected gift and his grandma and papa adore him.

But.

Sometimes, okay a lot of times, when my sons are together, I feel as if I’m standing mid-stage at an AC/DC concert with a monster truck rally as the opening act. They are loud. They are unbridled. They squabble like chickens over the last kernel of corn.

I know my boys love one another. They have a secret club. My husband and I don’t even know the password – it’s probably something like penis-breath or diarrhea- rain. When they wrestle, Charlie keeps one hand poised behind Harrison’s head ready to protect him from smashing it on the floor. Charlie isn’t even consciously aware of doing this. It is clear fraternal instinct. But, he also gets a thrill out of revving his brother up into intense crying and shouting extravaganzas. He does it quietly. I call him, “gar” which is a type of needlefish that lurks in the shadows until it quietly spears innocent fish swimming by.

Harrison is only seven, emulates his older brother, and is extremely susceptible to Charlie’s manipulations. When Harrison becomes excited or upset, his voice reminds me of what would happen if Elmo drank a gallon of Red Bull.

I am stressed about this trip because we will be living in close quarters. For my father, this is a working vacation and he will spend half of every day using his computer somewhere in our rented two bedroom condo. I am nervous that my children’s behavior will test even the unconditional, unwavering love of their grandparents. Frankly, I am worried that my alleged holiday will become a referee’s nightmare.

As mother and daughter, I am the bridge between these two generations, afraid my role will be more like that of a customs official, constantly checking the travelers for contraband in the form of moods or misbehavior.

The other day, I shared my concerns with Charlie. He regarded me as if I was missing a link. “Don’t worry, Mom. Harrison and I are so happy to be on this trip and live with Grandma and Papa. We’ll be fine.”

My father reiterated my eldest son’s optimism. “Sweetheart, if the boys get too loud, I will simply ask them to shut up”, he said, a smile in his voice.

I have been “catastrophizing” the future instead of looking forward to it like the other smarter members of my family. How fortunate that my kids and I get to be nurtured by parents and grandparents for a week. We will build on the riverbank of memories already created in our favourite vacation destination. And, my parents are fortunate that they get to spend an extended period of time with their grandsons, at ease with the intimacies performed in any close family.

Maybe, nobody needs me to be a bridge after all because everyone has already arrived. Maybe, all that is required is a pack of playing cards, some suntan lotion and a never-ending supply of iced tea and love.

Stay tuned . . .

“Jason told me that if you step on a sidewalk crack, something really bad will happen to someone in your family.”

My seven year-old son, Harrison, and I were negotiating our way down the street, already late for his hair-cut. Our walk was stop-and-go because

Harrison had to make sure to jump over every crack and crevice he encountered.

“Jason told me that last year he forgot and he stepped on a crack and the next day his grandpa had a heart attack.”

“How’s his grandpa now?” I asked.

“Good” said Harrison. “Jason doesn’t step on cracks anymore.”

I smiled at the simplicity of the logic, at the naiveté of my son. He is just a little boy, I reasoned, but already I could see the worry pushing down on his bony shoulders all because of his friend’s experience. What could I say to lighten his load?

As children, we are taught to respect authority – professional, adult, legal, medical and the authority of other people’s experience, but when is it permissible and even advisable to respect the authority of our own experience?

At an early age, we learn to test and measure our environments by using the five recognized senses of taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. But, are these senses enough to provide the barometer for all our assumptions? We also learn to believe in other people’s experience of these senses. Some say that there are other senses shepherding us through our lives, senses that are as important yet harder to quantify: the sense of temperature, pain, balance and acceleration, kinesthetic sense and the least empiric sense, the one many people thumb their noses at: intuition.

In my own life I have found my intuition to be more worthy of respect than any other form of authority. But, learning to trust it has pulled me down a road of blundering pot-holes.

My oldest son, Charlie, loved his Grade Five teacher. “Mrs. Hart uses this line from the movie, ‘Slapshot’ sometimes”, he told me, one day. “If a kid does something wrong in class or forgets their homework, she says: I want you to go to the penalty box and feel shame.”

“Cute”, I said, half-listening. Charlie went on to say that Mrs. Hart had advised that “Slapshot” was fabulous, a movie everyone should see.

Somehow, that last bit stuck in my brain. I vaguely remembered the peppery hockey comedy starring Paul Newman. Plus, I held deep admiration for Mrs. Hart. She was passionate about teaching the creative process of writing and I wished she’d been around when I was in school because writing was my favourite subject. So, I purchased “Slapshot” when I saw it in a store, thinking that Charlie, my husband and I could enjoy it together over the holiday and that my son could learn something. I wasn’t sure of the lesson, but I knew it would be important because Mrs. Hart had recommended the movie. As a testament to my belief, I actually bought the combo pack of “Slapshot One” and “Slapshot Two”. We were committed.

That Saturday evening, the three of us snuggled up in the master bedroom and turned on the movie. Four letter words punctuated the opening scenes. The first couple of times I heard swearing, I felt a discomfort sinuously crawling up my throat, but I beat it down with Mrs. Hart’s authority. She suggested this movie for a reason, I thought. So, what if Charlie hears some foul language? He’ll understand that people shouldn’t speak that way in real life. Hockey isn’t REAL LIFE! The movie progressed with yet more cursing. The sexual innuendoes began at the same time as the squirming in my toes. This must be an incredibly important lesson, I consoled myself, or Mrs. Hart would not have risked the negative impact of this disturbing language and imagery. I kept my face pointing forwards, feeling my husband’s glare heating the side of my cheek. Another few seconds and spontaneous combustion might ensue.

Finally, he lunged for the clicker and hit “Stop”.

“Why are we watching this?” he stammered in outrage. “It’s completely wrong for a ten year-old!”

I kept my own voice calm. “I agree that the language is pretty salty, but I think it’s going to get better soon. Mrs. Hart recommended this movie, after all.”

Charlie entered the fray at this point. “No, she didn’t, Mom. Mrs. Hart likes to use the line about getting a penalty, but she told us that ‘Slapshot’ is a movie we should actually see when we’re adults. She thinks it’s completely inappropriate for ten year-olds.”

Right then, I took myself to the penalty box, and boy, did I feel shame.

Because I respected the authority of what I thought was a teacher’s opinion, I ignored my own intuition. My family and I were able to laugh at this blunder, but it also taught me a valuable lesson. If ever you feel a large worm convulsing in your stomach, that’s your gut telling you to make your own call. Pay it heed.

“Harrison”, I asked my youngest son now. “Do you really believe that Jason’s grandpa had a heart attack because Jason stepped on a crack?”

“I’m not sure”, said my son, his eyebrows scrunched in consternation. “I guess I’ve been stepping on cracks my whole life and all of you guys are still fine.”

“Good observation” I agreed. “So, maybe, it would be okay for us to just walk normally so we can get to your haircut before the store closes?”

Harrison nodded and ran ahead, his feet crossing the sidewalk cracks like small “t”s. “I know it will be fine”, he called back over his shoulder, “because of the invisible super shield all around our family, the one you told me about that night I couldn’t sleep, remember? It’s worked, so far!”

I sighed and stepped up my pace. I sensed another trip to the penalty box.

It was a Saturday morning in mid-February, and both my sons had the pallor of vampires and the energy levels of sloths. Charlie and Harrison had been fine all week at school, but this weekend morning they woke up sick. There were swimming lessons and birthday parties to attend, not to mention shopping for new, better-fitting shoes. But, it was bitterly cold outside and there was a Jim Carrey movie marathon on television. I needed to make a decision.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when our responsibilities lessen during a holiday or weekend, crazy fatigue or an awful flu rear up and incapacitate us like a tsunami? “Just my luck to get sick during my time off,” we might think, but maybe a more apt reaction should be gratitude that we possess bodies with minds of their own.

Often, our physical selves figure out what’s wrong with us or what we need long before our brains do, and they don’t try to sugarcoat the problem. Getting sick or feeling the physical effects of anxiety can be a body’s way of saying: slow down, relax, remove some stress, I’m warning you.

When I was thirty-four, I worked and played with gusto, but one night I woke up breathing erratically, my heart threatening to leap out of my chest. The dread in the pit of my stomach was so deep that I couldn’t even stand up straight. I felt that I could die at any moment and that moving too far from my bed could put me in mortal danger. I remember my husband convinced me to come outside for a walk. I held on to his arm for dear life and refused to go around the block – I needed to keep our house in sight; I needed to see my safe place. After nearly a whole hour during which the symptoms refused to subside, we drove to a hospital emergency room, where calm is as alien as bacon at a bar mitzvah. Once it was ascertained that I was not having a heart attack, my husband and I settled in for a long wait and a lively sideshow of humanity, watching sick people brought in on stretchers and in handcuffs.

Eventually, the attending physician, a calm, pony-tailed man wearing clogs, examined me and explained that I was merely, merely, suffering from a panic attack. He asked me if I was experiencing any particularly disturbing stresses in my life. I felt puzzled. There were issues at work, arguments with friends, nothing unusual. He gave me a pill called Atavin, a short-term medication that fends off the effects of anxiety. I was instantly relieved — until the next time.

After visiting my family doctor and procuring a prescription for my new go-to drug, I became a semi-functioning victim of free-floating anxiety. I did not understand what was causing this ugly beast to jump out of the shadows and I never knew when it was going to pounce. I spent gross amounts of energy working to hide my struggle from colleagues and to downplay it with family and friends.

The unpredictable attacks prompted me to take Atavin before situations during which a panic attack would be difficult to hide or explain. If I had to attend a big meeting or a family function, I took a pill just in case, a preemptive strike against the possibility of anxiety. By all objective measures, I was an intelligent woman, and yet, I shrugged off concern about my growing psychological addiction to medication. I acted as if my panic attacks were part of a phase that would run its course like puberty or a love of flannel shirts.

My body knew what was wrong with me, but like a dog that barks at a seemingly empty yard, it couldn’t tell my brain exactly what the problem was. Finally, after a year of this nerve-wracking condition, I attended a seminar by a pioneer in holistic health education. When Jack Schwarz (google him; you won’t be sorry!) stated that “all of your body is in your mind but not all of your mind is in your body, I began to learn how to pay attention to myself. I braked for the red stop lights illuminating my insides and realized that I needed to leave my career in book publishing. The politics and pace had become too stressful and the personal rewards had vanished. I also realized that I needed to try to have a baby because time was galloping on and the fear of not trying was literally making my body crazy. Fortunately, my husband’s income allowed me to resign from my job in order to have time to reflect on these realizations. I quit the pills cold turkey, dug up our back yard, built a garden, and six months later I became pregnant with our first son. My panic attacks stopped.

These days, I am very mindful of my body’s warnings and the warnings that come from the bodies of my children. Every cell in us has intelligence to which we should listen. When either of my boys becomes sick, they take time off school and I resolutely feed them chicken soup and love. I occasionally cancel their extra-curricular activities for a few weeks and focus on hanging out at home, creating opportunities for down-time and not worrying about what they’re missing. They have caught the stress bug and I try to give them what their bodies already know they require, time to be still and time to recover. That Saturday in February, we all stayed home and watched Jim Carrey contort his facial features. We laughed and made nachos. Wrestled and nestled. I am hopeful that the lessons I learned as an adult can be passed on to my sons now so that heeding their own bodies’ warnings will be the only medicine they ever need.

“The kid ordered toast, not a bagel” snapped the unsavory server, her eyes rolling up to the ceiling.

“No. My son ordered a rye bagel” I said, tightly. We had endured this woman’s rudeness for the entire visit to our usual Sunday breakfast place.

“I know this for a fact” I added, “because I’m the one who ordered it for him.”

“Fine!” The testy waitress swept the toast back to the kitchen where she would probably reshape it into a bagel using a couple of spit-gobs.

My two sons gaped at me, their brown eyes wide with concern. They are confident kids, yet I could tell by their silence that they were unsettled by my confrontation with a stranger. Still, I would have to deal with this situation or what kind of an example would I set about self- assertiveness?

As a child, I never stuck up for myself, not to my parents, my teachers, my friends, or my “non-friends”, the kids who hurled insults from pea-shooter mouths. While I might have been angry inside, my thoughts remained shelved like library books that are too high to reach.

I didn’t evolve much as an adult either. I spoke up politely for my opinions at work, but if I felt hurt by a friend or treated unfairly by a store clerk, I bore up silently, afraid of unpleasantness and probably afraid to lose the war.

My meekness transformed into something entirely different the moment I became a mother at age 36. During day two of Charlie’s life, a nurse informed me that the foot- prick test that was standard procedure for all newborns had been misplaced and would need to be repeated.

“I’m not allowing you to put my baby through the pain of a foot-prick again just because you screwed up”, I bellowed to the same woman who would later be responsible for administering my enema. My tirade might have been a bad judgment call, but I wasn’t going to let anybody hurt my child.

This outburst heralded the great unleashing of my maternal instincts. But, as with all new skills, I experienced growing pains. I made the odd mistake.

When Charlie was three, we traveled to the Florida gulf coast, and I enjoyed watching my strong-legged boy run crazy eights all over the sand, reveling in the freedom of wide, open space. One morning, as Charlie explored the tide’s detritus with his bagel in hand, a cheeky gull swooped down and stole it. Well, you’d think the bird had taken the boy instead of the bread. I chased that bandit down the beach, screaming at it to stop flying and return the stolen baked good. My husband and son looked on, one laughing, one crying for his breakfast. Soon, the bird returned with some friends, in hot pursuit of . . . me! I finally realized that they were after the other half of the bagel that I still held. But, Charlie needed his breakfast so instead of surrendering, I shooed them away with my free hand, clutching the food to my bathing suit. The gulls didn’t get our bagel, but I got a head decorated with bird poo. When I presented the remaining half to Charlie, he told me he was full and suggested, “Mommy, feed dah birds.” Then, he turned to investigate a dead jellyfish.

“A little bit over-zealous, perhaps?” asked my husband, handing me some tissues with which to mop my hair. But, I felt good. I was a mother standing up for her child.

Nearly ten years later, my younger son, Harrison, aged two and a half, was experiencing multiple ear infections. Both his pediatrician and the specialist to whom we’d been referred recommended the uncomfortable procedure of having ear tubes inserted. Harrison would have to receive a general anesthetic and with it, inherent risks.

This felt all wrong to me. I had Harrison’s hearing assessed and since it was perfectly fine, I decided to wait out the infections having learned that they often dissipate by a child’s third birthday. Fortunately, Harrison grew out of his ear infections and I grew in to trusting my own judgement.

Now, sitting stiffly in the restaurant, my assertiveness was chomping at the bit. There still wasn’t anything else to chew. Our server had not returned with Harrison’s bagel nor had she brought Charlie the bowl of soup he’d politely ordered thirty minutes earlier. Every time I tried to get this woman’s attention, she looked away. Finally, we locked eyes, or should I say engaged our missiles, and she stomped over.

“Look”, I began, smiling wanly like a tired driving instructor on valium. “I can see you’re having a bad day. But, could you please bring my sons’ soup and bagel.”

Apparently, I lost her at “I can see you’re having a bad day”. She raised her shoulders and backed away. “I’m having a bad day?? How dare you!” she squawked.

The restaurant went quiet. The diners’ curiosity caused them to lower their coffee cups and cream-cheese drenched twisters. Our indignant waitress strode halfway across the room and turned. “I will not put up with this abuse!” she yelled. “I’m going to get someone else to take care of your table because I am no longer your server!”

I raised both my thumbs. “Awesome!” I replied.

Harrison got his bagel. Charlie got his soup. I got the bill and thought that chasing the gull down the beach had been an easier way to feed my children than this unfortunate experience.

Confrontations with strangers agitate my nerve endings like feedback in a concert hall. I felt just a little bit less human having been lured into an altercation. But, on the way home, my children talked about “the incident” as it is now known. They even said I “rocked”. Because of their blessed existence, I have learned to err on the side of standing up for those who are dear to me.

Thank you. How many times each day do we say these words or encourage our children to say them? The sales clerk gives you change and a receipt. Thank you. A young woman waits and holds open the elevator door. Thank you. You pay off your charge account at the instabank and the screen says: thank you.

Even the machines in our lives have manners. But, do we ever feel real gratitude? Our children are taught to say, thank you, by rote. The phrase has become a reflex like sneezing or blinking. I wonder if we should be satisfied with vacant terms of civility.

I find cavalier gratitude depressing and I’ve been searching for an example to change my mind. But, if the phrase ever means more than a hollow echo of entitlement, how will I recognize it?

Last week, a friend sent me a link to a You-Tube video of an eight year-old boy opening up his Christmas present. From the setting, it was clear that luxuries were few in this household. The boy tore open the wrapping paper to reveal an X-box 360. What followed was an out-pouring of emotion that reminded me of the lovely and reflective nature of gratitude.

“Is this really for me?” he asked his parents in astonishment.

“All for you, Bud” said the dad.

“I’ve wanted one of these my whole life! But, it must’ve cost you guys a fortune.”

After furiously hugging his parents, the little boy returned to his gift and repeatedly exclaimed over it.

“Daddy, I love this but it’s so expensive. How can you afford it?” he asked worriedly.

“We saved up for a while, Bud. And, now it’s yours free and clear.” You could hear the smile and the pride in the father’s tone. I was struck by how memorable this moment would be for this family. The little boy not only received his heart’s desire, but he showed his appreciation of the work his parents put in to ensuring that he could have it. And, the parents experienced their son’s gratitude as well as the incomparable high that is felt when giving a loved one the perfect present. While the gift was incredible, they will all have visceral memories of that day because of their mutual consideration and joy. (more…)

During the December break, we convince ourselves to have a wonderful time even if it kills us. Worries about money, careers, grades and weight are tucked away in a mental safe which can’t be penetrated for a full two weeks. The padding is family, friends, food and much needed rest. We also lose track of regular time.

Alas, the holiday has a beginning and an end. Eventually, reality knocks and the door to our tribulations is opened wide, flexing its maw like a hungry alligator. What do you do when December’s twinkling lights revert to the harsh fluorescence of winter? How do you feel when the ruts grab your wheels again and spin them without forward motion? Do you sink or do you dog-paddle?

By a fortunate turn, my family was able to leave Toronto for a few days, traveling north to the hinterland – with access to indoor swimming and plumbing, heat, food, ping-pong and a spa. Okay, we weren’t exactly roughing it in the bush although the temperature did dip to frost-bite lows on the same day that I signed up to drive a dogsled through the woods.

For those of you having a “so, what?” moment, please note that I have always nurtured a terror of canines as well as a fright of doing anything that might compromise my body. Hence, there has been no bungee-jumping or white water rafting on my life resume, nor have I started my own dog-walking business. But, I thought it was time to at least face a fear or two. Overcoming them would be a benefit but not necessarily a goal. The point was to trust me with myself and to maybe recover some personal power. (more…)

Charlie and I saw eye to eye for exactly six days this past September.

But, instead of the seventh day being a day of rest the way it is in Genesis, for my thirteen year-old son it was a day of growth the way it is in real life. Suddenly, Charlie and I stood eyebrow to eye. The scary inevitability that my eldest son would grow taller than me became real in one night. How would I manage him now? Moreover, how would I manage myself?

He was just born, for Pete’s sake. A blink ago, Charlie was a twenty inch bundle with candlestick fingers and an insatiable appetite. The appetite remains the same, but everything else has morphed and sometimes I feel as if he’s the Peter Boyle to my Gene Wilder in “Young Frankenstein”, only instead of “Putting on the Ritz” he eats the whole box of them – and then some.

A couple of weeks ago, Charlie and I had an altercation. We often have them – sometimes about small, inconsequential-to-everyone-but-me issues such as why he crams his ski-jacket into a shelf in the closet instead of using a hanger (too much time involved, I’m told) and sometimes about larger concerns like whether or not we should allow him to attend a party at an acquaintance’s house when he’s not sure if the boy’s parents will be home or even on the same continent. As with many of our arguments, this latter one occurred “hypothetically”, right after I asked my son to hang up his jacket in our entrance-way closet. (more…)

Is it just me?

Or do thoughts of the forthcoming holiday break make you feel slightly queasy from too much anticipated ground turbulence in your house?

I’m aware that this time of year is supposed to bring out my inner Mother Theresa. I should be overflowing with human kindness, serenity and peace on earth, which, for the first ten years of my life, I thought were called, ”peas on earth” and caused me to shudder.

I’ve got issues, though.

My Mother Theresa has been replaced by a grouchy Joan Rivers who has just been told she needs to “take a number” at her plastic surgeon’s office. She would scowl, wouldn’t she, if she was able to move her face? I’m scowling now.

During the holiday break, where is the calm in abandoned arts & crafts projects, the Lego splinters in my feet, the constant requests for food, food and more food that is never the food we already have in the house? Where is the tranquility in cabin fever, colds, complaints of boredom and sibling wrestling matches?

(more…)

Is it just me?

Or are you ever so agitated about an event, person or specific justice-challenged situation that you feel compelled to mutter about it in public? Do these grumblings ever grow in volume and clarity to the point at which strangers begin to look at you askance or possibly cross to the other side of the street?

If your answer is yes, read on. If your answer is no . . . liar, liar, pants on fire.

According to family lore, I was born talking to myself. I was always taught to speak nicely and with respect to my parents. Hence, particularly during my adolescence, there were some extremely quiet months in our household, broken only by what my mother called, “the angry ghost”. That was me in my room, the backyard or in a corner of the kitchen growling all the disrespectful, nasty, wrath-inviting things I couldn’t bring myself to say to others. I was both fearful and resourceful.

During the nineties, as a progressive mother I tried to foster free speech and confidence in my children. Apparently, I succeeded. My boys are versatile at speaking their minds. I’m sure, in their hearts, they venerate my husband and me. They don’t always show consideration for our ears though and sometimes, I wish we’d instilled a little more healthy fear. Lately, I’ve noticed a new development: my thirteen year-old son, Charlie, is riffing off his mother, muttering to himself in his room, in the car, at the dinner-table. Should I be worried?

As a young adult, I learned to curb my desire to soliloquy aloud when angry. I alternately smoked, drank, ran and ate chips, instead. When I had my first child in my thirties, I discovered that I could revert to public monologuing. When you walk an infant in a stroller, it is socially acceptable to speak out loud even when you’re bitching about how your jeans don’t fit or how “funny Daddy” put your cashmere sweater in the washing machine. You’re talking directly to another human being – the fact that this person can only burp, laugh or baby-talk is an unimportant detail. You are still considered sane. You are having a conversation.

Last week, I was in the Children’s section of a large bookstore. As I perused the early chapter books, I could hear a little kid crying in the distance, revving him or herself up for a major tantrum. Of course, all I could think was, “Not mine! Yay!”

Moments later, the mother of this sputtering, sweating five year-old, put him on the floor facing a bookshelf quite close to where I was standing – a makeshift time-out, I thought. The little boy sobbed: “I hate this stupid store! Everything here is too expensive so I’m not allowed to get anything. Why did she even bring me here if I can’t choose anything? It’s not fair.”

Two things simultaneously occurred to me as I listened to the boy’s diatribe. The first was that he was actually organizing his thoughts and feelings as he screamed them at the bookshelf. The second, and of even greater importance, was that giving voice to his emotions calmed the child down. In less than a minute, he had sucked up his snot and bounded back to his waiting mom, again ready to take on the unjustness of the bookstore and beyond. Little did the boy know that if he’d stayed put for another moment, I would have gladly offered to buy him anything in the place because his rant had touched my heart with its simplicity of content and purpose.

At what age must we put the kibosh on kids or on anyone getting their rage out of their systems? By howling at the injustice of it all, this little boy had effectively soothed himself in a manner that no amount of hugs or explanations could have equaled. Nobody thought he was crazy. Yet, if a teenager or an adult ever wailed like that in public, we would all assume that someone was off his meds. Maybe, muttering is a compromise that should be borne and applauded, allowing the child within to soothe the outer adult without frightening the world.

I’ve decided to let Charlie mutter, grumble, growl and moan. Occasionally, I will ask him to take the angry ghost to his room for a full exorcism so that the rest of the family can at least hear ourselves think in peace, but otherwise I’m thankful he has inherited this gene. I believe it will keep his blood pressure down through all the unfair trials to come.

As for me, I recently purchased one of those new ear-pieces that invisibly connect to your cell-phone and allow you to use it hands-free. Though I no longer push a stroller, this fabulous technological contraption allows me to walk around ranting in public again whenever I feel so inclined. Thus far, I’ve drawn no strange stares. I am, after all, simply having a conversation with another human being.

Hunched over the kitchen table with his shoulders glued to his ear-lobes, my seven year-old son, Harrison, dug for dinosaur fossils in a clay block that he’d received as a birthday party present. For three hours, I’d been inhaling red dust and reminding myself why not choosing archaeology as a career had been the right decision.

Five minutes later, Harrison’s eyes burned with the brightness of new knowledge as he discovered that wetting the clay with tap water made it easier to chip away. Wet. Red. Dust.

As humans, we possess the ability to stand upright, certainly after we’ve had our first cup of coffee, but what really separates us from the beasts is that we don’t have to live in muck! And, now, my kitchen, the place in which I cut bagels for my loved ones and sometimes stand sleep-eating potato chips deep into the wee hours of the morning, looked like the aftermath of a mud-wrestling tournament.

While I wanted to share Harrison’s excitement for finding fake fossils, my instincts advised me to haul out the Wet-Vac and simply suck up the entire kitchen. What was I missing?

When I was a kid, the closest I came to messing up the kitchen was working on a vanilla cake recipe in my Easy Bake Oven. I remember that some rogue icing landed on our white counter-top, but my mother didn’t notice. She was too busy ensuring that I didn’t radiate myself with the battery-powered oven.

I was raised to revere cleanliness. Anything involving dirt occurred outside in the garden or sandbox. When my brother and I wanted to work on art projects, we were first required to spread enough newspapers to accommodate a litter of Great Dane puppies. For my birthdays, my friends gave me tidy things such as Little Kiddles, yo-yos and macramé kits.

Now, my own kitchen was in squalor because Harrison’s friend had treated him to the gift of gunk. What was this child’s mother thinking? Had she not memorized the Ten Commandments of Birthday Party Going and Throwing carried down from Mount Consideration: (more…)

“Jack was so mean to me. I HATE Grade One!”

“What happened?” I asked. My son, Harrison, and I were walking to the corner for hot chocolate after school. Well, I was walking and he was stomping.

“Jack told me I sound like a girl.”

More like Elmo on crack, I thought, and only when you’re excited.

I tried to think of something wise to say. Jack needs to have his hearing checked. Jack really likes you and is just trying to get your attention. Nothing, I knew, would calm my youngest son’s indignation.

Since the start of school, Harrison had experienced problems with Jack, ten months his senior. With three older siblings to guide him, Jack was savvier than my son and their constant clashing made school an unpleasant experience for Harrison, and by extension, for me. How could I teach my boy to get along with this other child? If I didn’t give him some sharp tools soon, Grade One was going to blow like a puffer fish and school would become a dreaded event like going for a flu shot or even worse, shopping for Mommy in a ladies store without a “Gameboy chair”.

I had met Jack and talked to him during pick-ups. He didn’t strike me as a malevolent kid, just rambunctious. Jack wanted to be my son’s friend. He often asked me if Harrison could play after school. But, Harrison didn’t want to hang out with the same boy who had once smacked him in the face for no apparent reason and who today, had humiliated him by comparing his voice to that of the girliest girl in their class.

“Yesterday, Jack dumped my pencil crayons on the floor,” said Harrison. His teacher had intervened, but when a tearful Jack apologized, Harrison took his revenge by laughing.

“That wasn’t very sporting,” I observed.

“But, he started it, Mom. Jack always starts it. He’s my enema.”

I sucked down my laughter. “You mean he’s your enemy.” I would have to remember to rebuke my older son who sometimes liked to teach Harrison the wrong words for his own amusement.

By now, we’d reached our local Starbucks. I settled my son at a table that I could watch from my place in line and stood remembering my own childhood enema.

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Driving Charlie and Harrison home from school, I felt my patience splintering like a wooden spoon in a fresh carton of ice cream.

“You guys know the rules”, I said. “You can’t say a body part in public if it’s not one you possess.”

“But, we aren’t in public,” said my son, Harrison, his serious eyebrows raised in pyramid formation. “We’re in your car.”

“My car in on a public road that’s paid for by public taxes WHICH MAKES IT PUBLIC!” I declared. I felt momentarily brilliant until I remembered with whom I was debating. Harrison was only six.

“Let’s just do our chant,” whispered Charlie, my thirteen year-old son. And, so it began.

Harrison: Vajeen . . . .

Charlie: Ahhhh.

Harrison: Vajeeeeen . . .

Charlie: Ahhhhhhh.

Their raucous laugher shot through the open sunroof like a geyser and I felt grudgingly proud of their creativity. They’d found a way to be renegade without breaking the law. Still, this was Mom’s law they were skirting here – and in pants. How would I keep the promise I made to raise respectful men? (more…)

Writer Robin Stone’s column, Is it Just Me? makes its debut at Connected Parenting today, with this piece about answering tough questions.

“Mommy, what does G-d look like?”

Six year-old Harrison and I lay in his bed watching the ceiling fan make its clockwise rotations. On another night, he had asked me why the fan didn’t move in the opposite direction. Once, he wanted to know if there was any species in which the “man animal” has the babies.

When I can’t answer Harrison’s questions from my own teeming intelligence, I tell him, “we’ll ask Google”, but there is no Googling G-d and I began to sweat a river.

“I’m not sure what G-d looks like, Harrison.”

“But, what do you THINK, Mommy?” he asked with a dash of desperation.

What did I think? G-d’s appearance was a subject that made my brain hurt. At forty-nine, I still wasn’t sure how to explain what I believed. I owed Harrison honesty, but what was I going to say? That G-d is a guy some people made up to keep us all from killing each other over a clay cup of chicken fat? Or, “Sorry, kid. You live, you die and that’s all there is.” I wanted to ensure Harrison’s spiritual comfort, but the notion of saying that G-d resembled Dumbledore, the benevolent headmaster in the Harry Potter movies, left me hotly uncomfortable.

So, I did what all conscientious parents do when they don’t know what to say: I procrastinated. “Honey, it’s sleepy-time. I promise we’ll discuss this tomorrow.” (more…)