Here, But Not Here

It has come to my attention that some of you have noticed I've taken a break from blogging during the past two weeks. It wasn't planned, but it sure feels good!

No, nothing's wrong. There haven't been any sicknesses or emergencies. No, I don't have writer's block (I've started lots of drafts). I'm just chillin' with the family over Christmas break.

(Also, I prefer not to spend long periods of time on the computer while the kids are home. And they've been home since 3:30 pm on December 18.)

In the meantime, I hope all my cyberfriends are enjoying the holidays! Looking forward to catching up in 2010!

PS - There will be a new post tomorrow, January 1. I can't let New Year's Day come and go without comment ;)

Offer

This weekend, while finishing up Christmas shopping at the mall, I stopped in a little snack shop. Having not eaten in hours, I was hot and tired and hungry - and the yogurt parfait was calling to me.

Unfortunately, my wallet contained only $2.00 cash - not enough to cover the $3.50 snack. No problem: I was armed with plastic. I laughed with the sales clerk about having to pay with a credit card for such a small transaction.

Just then, the gentleman behind me (maybe 10 years older than I - does that make a difference?) extended his hand, containing $2.00, toward me. That, along with the $2.00 I already had in my wallet, would be enough to cover the yogurt.

Let's stop here. What would you do in response to his offer? Would you accept or decline? Would it make a difference whether you are a man or a woman? Would your age, in relation to his, make a difference? Would the sum matter?

Here was my reaction and my thought process to support it: I smiled and graciously (body language, tone of voice) declined his offer. Although hungry, I could have lived without a snack at that moment if necessary. Yet I didn't have to, because I could pay with a credit card. Silly, due to the size of the transaction, but doable. If I hadn't had an alternative means of paying, and really needed to eat (for example, for fear of passing out due to low blood sugar), then I would have accepted his offer readily.

In that moment, I felt comfortable with my response - politely declining his offer. Yet his response made me wonder if I had done the wrong thing: He slowly and reluctantly withdrew his hand. He didn't smile back at me. He looked confused.

Was it my obligation to accept money from a stranger - money I didn't actually need - in order to make him feel good? By declining his offer - no matter how nicely it was done - did I act rudely? Or was the decision to accept or decline the offer a true choice that I could make freely?

The moment lasted about 30 seconds in its entirety. Yet I've been thinking about it, on and off, all weekend. What would you have done?

Do I Do It or Don't I Do It?

After that disastrous dental procedure in October - the one in which I suddenly and uncharacteristically felt an attack of anxiety - I was not happy to discover that I needed another such procedure. The lower tooth is now perfectly fine. But when I felt an all-too-familiar pain in the upper tooth right across from it, I knew what I was in for. The dentist merely confirmed the diagnosis.

Because of my previous anxiety attack, I asked about taking anxiety medication prior to the second procedure. The dentist's office staff readily agreed to write the prescription. Ask, and ye shall receive. I felt relief just over the thought of receiving relief.

Yet as the date drew near, I began to think again. I didn't take the Valium that was strongly suggested before my Lasik eye surgery four years ago, and I was fine. I didn't have an epidural when in labor, and I was fine. Clearly, I was not fine during my last dental procedure, though. Hmm.

The second procedure was scheduled for this morning.

Up until yesterday, I still didn't know what to do. Then I decided that my indecision was indicating that, deep-down, I didn't want to take anxiety medication after all.

So I didn't.

Yet I wondered whether my reluctance was sign of (1) my stubbornness to receive perfectly acceptable help, or (2) a desire to face my anxiety head-on by finding emotional and mental ways of dealing with it.

By that time, it was out of my hands (no time to fill the prescription). So the answer was anyone's guess.

Before the appointment, I worked out. Exercise always helps to clear my mind and give me positive energy for the day. Then I took a hot, hot shower and put on warm, comfortable clothes. While showering and changing, I visualized the steps of the procedure (which was easy to do since I'd gone through it so recently). I imagined what the dentist and his assistant would be doing during each step, how it would feel (I hoped to feel nothing!), how I would feel about it.

Then it was time to see whether my relaxation and visualization strategies worked.

And did they? you wonder.

Actually, yes - they did! So now, in retrospect, I can label this experience not as stubbornness, but as successful coping.

And I'm not worried about my next dentist appointment. Whenever that might be... Hopefully, not soon...

Promotion

Last weekend, we put up our tree and decorated the house for Christmas. And I was struck by how hands-on my kids were in the process, and how much more fun it was for me.

When my kids were toddlers, my husband and I did everything ourselves. We had to be mindful of little parts the children could ingest or delicate objects that could break apart and hurt them. As the worker bees, my husband and I were exhausted by the time the project was done.

As they grew into kindergarteners and very young elementary schoolers, the kids wanted to do everything. No, they didn't have a sense for decorating. They just put ornaments, figurines, foliage, etc, in the first place they could see and reach (think under 4 feet!). Although over the course of several years we guided the kids into decorating in areas they couldn't easily see, anyone could tell that ours was a home with young children. Still, my husband and I had become managers with a staff of three: we were hands-on, but slightly removed from the labor.

This year, with our children older, my husband and I were promoted to consultants. It's the best Christmas decorating job I've had yet! The five of us formed an assembly line to efficiently move boxes from the attic to the family room. My son and husband put up the tree together. But the kids took it from there. By now, they have a sense of balance, theme, and color when placing ornaments on the tree. And they look up! So with a stepladder and/or our help, we now have an even distribution of ornaments on the tree - top to bottom and around all sides. It's pretty! As for the other decorations, they remembered what we typically place where, and set to work unpackaging items and placing them deliberately and attractively around the house.

The kids knew what to do, and simply consulted us when in doubt or when in need of an opinion. Meanwhile, my husband and I enjoyed a bottle of Artesa. Yes, I like this new promotion.

Get a Room

After my breakdown in confidence the other night, combined with the stress of meeting a deadline (which I did - with 2 hours to spare - yay me!), it felt great to go to the gym today.

I was doing pull-ups when I first heard the sounds of childbirth labor.

Turns out the heavy breathing came from a late-twentyish-looking guy at the machine two down from me. No baby. I guessed he must be lifting really heavy weights. (Now, I know everyone breathes heavier at the gym, including myself. But this was crazy loud and dramatic - not typical.)

Though I wanted to use his machine when he was finished, I didn't want to stalk him, so I skipped to my dumbbell exercises a little farther away.

The sighs floated across the gym about halfway into my second set. They sounded a little better than the heavy breathing, but also more... intimate. Being nosy, I looked around to find the sighs came from - you guessed it - The Heavy Breather.

Well, that's a little unusual, I thought. My curiosity satisfied, I finished my third set and moved to a machine even farther away from the guy.

The grunts were what did it for me. Alone, I know grunts are not unusual in a gym. And heavy breathing is typical in a gym. The sighing - well, that was a new one. But put them all together: it sounds like a porno.

By this time, I was sufficiently creeped out. And I felt like my presence there was an intrusion into a private moment of his.

Like next time, he should just get a room.

Wanted: Thick Skin

I'm curled in a near-fetal position, in writer's agony. At alternating moments I'm thinking, "This is actually pretty good" and then, "No one will ever want to read this."

Both refer to the same piece of work.

I've held the editor's pen enough to know that no one - no one - produces a flawless piece on a first or even second draft. A writer can always find ways to improve her story. The only thing that ultimately stops the revision cycle is a deadline. Logically, I know that review and revision are part of the job.

My reviewers gave both constructive criticism and complimentary responses that are helpful and consistent with the other reviewers. All but one, that is. He just didn't like it - any part of it. So why is his review the one that I replay in my mind? Why is it the one that paralyzes me? Why is it the one that makes me want to crawl up in a ball and whine, "I can't do this"?

Why can't I just brush it off and say, "You can't please all the people all the time"?

It's the fact that my emotional response to his criticism is overpowering my logical response to all the others that is agonizing right now.

But I've got to get over it. After all, I've got a deadline to meet.

Cooked or Instant?

Like most parents, I try to get my kids to eat new things. With more or less - usually less - success.

But do you ever secretly hope your child will hate something new - that you like - just so you can get their rejects?

My husband and I have differing tastes when it comes to chocolate pudding. I prefer the kind you cook on the stovetop, then chill. He prefers instant. But we'll both eat whatever's available.

Usually, he's the one who gets a hankering for pudding, so he makes it, and he chooses to make the instant kind. That's fair.

But the other night, we had only a box of the cooking mix available in the pantry. So he made that instead. {Worked out great for me: The pudding I like, and I didn't even have to make it myself.}

We soon realized the kids had never had this kind of pudding before. So they all tried it for the first time. My son and one of the girls took a small bite, declared they didn't like the skim top, and proceeded to eat the pudding beneath the skim.

I gave them a fair chance - they tried it, they didn't like it - so I asked for their "waste." They gladly relinquished it. Mmm-mmmm!

Second daughter came along a little later, and put a big scoop of pudding in her mouth. That scoop consisted almost entirely of the skim layer.

I watched her with bated breath. Will she like it or not? Will I be 3-for-3 in getting my kids' leftovers?

It didn't take long to find out. From the look on her face, I thought she was going to vomit right there in front of us. She was repulsed, to say the least. It was safe to say that, no, she doesn't like the skim layer of cooked pudding. She gladly handed over what was left of her portion.

Jackpot! I was one lucky mama!

Yeah, I kind of felt bad for hoping my kids would hate a new food, just so I could get more of it.

But not really...

First Love - Part 3

Our children's piano teacher is of Eastern European descent. She speaks with a pretty thick Russian accent in a stern, no-nonsense manner of speaking. She takes the piano very seriously, and expects her students to do the same. If they don't practice sufficiently throughout the week, she knows it. And the disappointment in her tone of voice is crystal-clear. So they practice.

Most children - and some adults - are intimidated by her. Afraid, even.

(Those kids don't realize she has a soft spot and that she actually shows tremendous affection - a motherly love - for her students. But I won't tell...)

Now picture my daughter. She had colic as an infant, and we swear it never really went away. Now, at age 10, she's got a quick temper and likes to always be right. She hates to compromise - she wants it either her way or no way. Once begun, she won't back down from an argument. And she likes to do things perfectly on the first try. When she doesn't (yes, she's human, so of course she doesn't always get it right on the first try), that's when it hits the fan. Frustrated and angry, she "expresses herself" to whomever is nearby. {Oh, but I love this child! She makes life challenging and interesting every day.}

Now put the two of them together. My daughter is not afraid of Zena (she's well aware of the soft spot and uses it to her advantage). All too frequently, I hear Zena's matter-of-fact guidance in the piano room, followed by my daughter arguing and even yelling back at her. I was mortified the first few times it happened but - sigh - it's all too commonplace now. Zena softens, my daughter yells some more, I sometimes step in with an appropriate threat-of-removal-of-privileges, and then the situation is de-fused enough for life to go on.

{I realize you're wondering what this has to do with First Love - but you need to have some background before the punch line...}

So, the other day, in the middle of a lesson and before the yelling had begun, my daughter stops playing and turns to Zena, all giddy: "Guess what? I have a boyfriend!"

Zena: "You do? Tell me about him."

Daughter: (gives details)

Zena: "Well, he sounds like a nice boy! But you know, when you like a boy, you can't talk to him the way you talk to me or your mother. You have to be nice."

I about fell off my seat! Yes, our Zena knows my daughter well.

On the other hand, I don't think I'll ever have to worry about my daughter standing up for herself with a boy. And I think I like it that way.

Because if she can hold her own against Zena, and keep our precious Russian tied around her little finger, then surely she can handle a fourth-grade boy.

First Love - Part 2

Or, Fifteen

My daughter is experiencing her first love (in her mind) - a crush that will likely last just a few weeks (in mine) - at roughly the same time that Taylor Swift's song, "Fifteen," is making its way up the pop charts.

Swift sings about being a freshman in high school, fifteen years old, believing an older boy who tells her he loves her, and not knowing who she's going to become yet but thinking she's got it all figured out.

My daughters are 10, and they're naive enough to believe that a smile and a wave from a boy as he's getting on the bus is a sure sign that they'll get married someday. "For real!" she says.

But this is all in their minds so far, since they're not nearly old enough to date yet.

When they're 15, it's likely they'll be naive enough to believe that a kiss and an "I love you" from a boy is a sure sign that "he's the one." But then they'll be old enough to date. So it will be a different story altogether.

When I was 15, I was that naive. Even when I was 18, I was. And 21.

But that naivete collided hard with reality when I was 23, with a lesson that was painful but pointed.

I'll guide my own children away from naivete and toward reality at a much younger age. Perhaps not precisely at 15, but certainly before they leave my nest.

It'll hurt, and I'll hurt watching them hurt. But it's inevitable, and I'll be here to help them through it. As many lessons as it takes.

Meanwhile, I've got a few more years. We're still in the very simple first phase of boy/girl relationships with my girls. I'm going to simply appreciate watching them experience this cute, harmless, "boy-like" stage while I can. After all, they're only 10. Not 15. Yet.

First Love - Part 1

Excerpt from backseat conversation overheard between Twin A and Twin B, both age 10:

Twin B: "I have two boyfriends I'm going to marry. Evan and Benjamin."

Twin A: "Oooh! Do they like you?"

Twin B: "I think Benjamin likes me, but I don't know. But we both have very neat handwriting in common. I know Evan likes me because he smiled at me yesterday just before he got on the bus. So I know I'm going to marry him. FOR REAL!"

{giggle giggle}

The conversation was much longer, but the excerpt above was the highlight. I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to overhear it, as we three girls drove home from dinner the other night. Such a precious, unplanned moment.

So, she's had other crushes before - but this one is more serious. She looks for clues to his heart (one boy's more than the other, I think). She talks about them both often - and about Evan every day. She gets that unmistakable grin on her face and that sparkle in her eyes, the way the lovestruck do, when she talks about him.

She doesn't know it yet, but she'll move on to other crushes. These two will fade away or break her heart.

And so it begins...