The Way She Sees Him

The new cousin is a hit.  Cecilia can say “Chah-lie” (still conspicuously missing from her vocab – “Mommy”), and Ellen has created what she calls her “Charlie face.”  Apparently she believes that Charlie looks like a total stoner, because here it is:  

"Charlie face"

 You’ll have to ignore the Hello Kitty band-aid on her face, which in this photo is covering a scratch that was remarkably smaller than the allergic reaction she subsequently had to the band-aid.  

Requiem for a Restaurant

After two less-than-satisfactory outings on Wednesday, I’m declaring this family’s restaurant days officially on hiatus.  Wednesday at lunchtime, my sister and I headed to Original Pancake House – a long-time favorite.  Our waiter said to us, “Today all our specials have fresh peaches – waffles, pancakes, or crepes.”  When Ellen exclaimed, “I LOVE peaches,” he didn’t miss a beat.  He bent right down to her level and said, “Would you like me to bring you some peach pancakes, sweetheart?”  Ellen nodded.  “And would you like some chocolate milk to drink?”  She nodded again.  (Really, his entire pitch could not have been more tailored to Ellen).

When our food arrived (after ten minutes of trying to get Cecilia to eat something, anything), Ellen’s peach pancakes came with a humongous dollop of real whipped cream.  She stuck her finger in and licked.  “Mmm.  I LOVE whipped cream,” she said as she swiped again.  Rachel cut her pancakes into bite-sized pieces, and Ellen continued her Whipped Cream Finger Dip.  “No more finger dipping,” I said.  “Try your pancakes.  You’re supposed to eat them WITH the whipped cream.”  Ellen’s response to this request was to attack the whipped cream with her spoon instead of her finger.  While I silently gave her props for considering that the introduction of a utensil might improve her chances of being allowed to continue a whipped-cream-only course of action, I said to her, “Enough of the whipped cream.  You need to take a bite of actual pancake, or peach, or both.”  Again, she took a cream-exclusive bite.  “Okay,” I said.  “Next time I see you eating only whipped cream and no pancakes, I am going to remove that big dollop.”  She looked me straight in the eye, slowly put her spoon down, extended her pointer finger, and gave her whipped cream a little test swipe.  I grabbed my own spoon and relocated her whipped cream onto my plate.  Next came the eruption of tears and screaming “I NEED MY WHIPPED CREAM!  I NEED MY WHIPPED CREAM!”  Her whining did not stop, so I got up from my own chair, picked her up, and carried her out of the restaurant, where she continued her tantrum for another minute or two.  Then we snuggled, sang the alphabet, and went back inside, where Rachel and Cecilia both greeted us with smiles.  Rachel said to Ellen, “I will fix for you the Perfect Bite – peaches, pancake, and whipped cream – and then we can ‘cheers’ and take bites at the exact same time.”  The Perfect Bite was carefully constructed, Rachel put together her own perfect bite of strawberry crepe, and she and Ellen clinked their forks together, opened mouths wide, and stuffed them in.  “Mmmmm,” said Rachel.  “Yuck,” said Ellen, after reopening her mouth and letting her Perfect Bite fall back onto her plate without even chewing at all.  “What, you don’t like pancakes with peaches in them?” Rachel asked.  “No way,” replied Ellen.  She sat there with the pain of the world on her face for a few minutes, periodically taking little sips of chocolate milk, and sighing dramatically.  Finally I said, “Do you think you might like to try your peach pancakes with a little butter and syrup?”  She shook her head and said slowly, as though the thought was just occurring to her, “Maybe they need some whipped cream or somethin’.”   Aaaand…we’re back.  She downed a grand total of zero bites.          

So Wednesday night, Ellen had swimming lessons.  Our usual routine is to have Panera right after lessons, since it’s so conveniently located across the hall from Foss in Knollwood Mall.  But on this particular night, we trekked a little further to Applebee’s, to meet Dad and Sami for some dinner. 

This time the dining ruckus was caused by Cecilia.  She just really doesn’t care much about eating.  This is a quality that will serve her well later (ability to refuse unneeded brownie), but doesn’t serve me very well now (inability to distract with snacks).  When she wasn’t shoving away the hand that was holding her spoon, she was reaching out for me and letting loose her shriek.  (You know the shriek.  The other times you’ve heard it, it was coming from the kid in the seat behind you in the airplane, and it was so ear-splitting that it made you turn around immediately, almost involuntarily, to give the mother the stink-eye).  Taking her out of the high chair resolved the shriek, but presented a new problem – uncontrollable wiggling, which eventually necessitated restaurant bail number two for the day.  We returned to the table just in time for our waiter to arrive and ask if we’d be interested in having some dessert.  I laughed and said, “Only if the kids can go hang out in the kitchen with you while we eat it.”   He should’ve taken me up on that, because I would have left one hell of a tip.             

Arrows and Flowers

On my right forearm is tattooed an arrow with its tip encircled by cherry blossoms.  The image is inspired by a story in a book by Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, in which she discusses the ability of mindfulness (being fully present in each moment) to transform evil/difficult/ugly things into beautiful things – in other words, to “turn arrows into flowers.”  The “turning arrows into flowers” story is one that has stuck with me, and its representation on my forearm is intended to remind me of the value of embracing whatever “the moment” can throw at me, particularly where parenting is concerned.  Admittedly this is usually way harder than it sounds (and I think it even SOUNDS hard).  There are a lot of Arrow stories – bad moments in my life as a mom – and plenty of Flower stories.    

Arrows

·         When Ellen was 2.5 and Cecilia was 6 weeks old, Dave took his close-to-annual trip backpacking with Pat and left me to fare alone.  If the post-partum depression, extreme newborn colic/incessant screaming, and slow-going adjustment to two children weren’t enough for me to deal with solo (and I assure you, they were enough), during that same time Ellen suffered a bowel obstruction which caused her to throw up in her sleep in the middle of the night, over the course of several nights.  I’ve known very few people (sober ones, anyway) who sleep through throwing up but for some reason, fast asleep is the only way I’ve seen Ellen do it, excepting the one time which also involved Cecilia’s rolling off our bed.  It’s not good.  Awake throwing up leads to immediate cleanup and therefore saves the parent from the confusion that I suffered on the morning after the first time this happened, when I found a perfectly content and clueless Ellen sitting in her bed with a mysterious dried substance in her hair and on her pillow.  I examined quizzically, touched, and sniffed before figuring it out.  Gross.

·         Since we’re on the subject, the following pregnancy Arrow counts as a parenting Arrow, since while I was dealing with the effects of Cecilia on the inside of me, I was also dealing with Ellen on the outside of me.  One morning at about six months along, I left Ellen to play in the living room while I went to take a shower and brush my teeth.  When a hard kick to the ribs caused me to inhale sharply, some toothpaste flew back into my throat.  I should’ve gotten a glass of water right then, but since I was already completely undressed, I did not go to the kitchen to retrieve a cup.  (I’ve made this mistake before, and our lack of kitchen window treatments combined with my lack of motivation for bathrobe retrieval has resulted in more than one accidental show for our very close neighbors).  No, I figured I’d be fine for a few more minutes, and I stepped in the shower.  The intense minty-ness of the ill-lodged toothpaste became more and more irritating as I lathered, rinsed, and repeated.  A coughing fit ensued.  Finally, the heightened gag-reflex of pregnancy bit me in the ass.  And so began a cycle of gagging, purging, and repeating, which lasted long enough for me to bail on hair-rinsing and step out of the shower, where I continued the purging, naked and dripping wet.  As my sister would say (sarcastically of course), “[Pregnancy] is a beautiful journey.”

·         See these sweet faces?  This was five minutes before Ellen decided she wanted to continue browsing through the greeting cards that sing when you open them, against my firm directive to sit back in the cart so we could leave.  She had a public tantrum so loud, and so great, that we bailed on our completely full cart in the middle of the store and tried to ignore the stares of everyone around us as we walked out (I guess I basically dragged her out while carrying Celie).  Of course I couldn’t remember where we parked when we got outside, so it all continued for much longer than it should have.  When we finally drove away, I started crying too.  It’s an irrefutable truth that if you have children, you will someday be “that” mom.  And then you will cry and momentarily dream of your life without children while a maniacal voice inside you says “mwah-hah-hah-hah…it’s too late…you can’t give them back…” and a maniacal voice in the back seat screams “all this cryin’ is makin’ me hungry, and I NEED fruit snacks!”     

Flowers

·         Ellen says so many things that make me laugh.  Yesterday, out of the blue, she told me that she would LOVE to be able to fly.  “Where would you fly?” I asked.  “Everywhere,” she said.  “Okay, where would you fly FIRST?” I asked.  “To the bank,” she replied.  I thought to myself, “That’s a good plan.  If you’re going to fly everywhere, you’ll need some cash.”  I said, “The bank?  Why?”  Her answer – “To get a sucker.”  And at the hospital the other day, after meeting one of Dave’s colleagues – “What an interesting doctor.  Some doctors are interesting.  Daddy’s a doctor.  But he’s not very interesting.”

·         My girls showing their love for me, which at these ages they do both willingly and often, is a great big Flower.  I love when Cecilia reaches out her arms and shrieks for me when I’m the first person she sees in the morning.  Her hugs are the best, bar none – they last forever and her head rests on my neck while both arms hang on.  A few seconds in, she’ll start doing “The Pat” – rubbing and patting my back very gently.  I’m sure “The Pat” is a genetic inheritance from my mom.  So adorable.  Ellen can show her love with words now, which is so fabulous.  One night when Dave was putting her to bed, she came out and gave a goodnight hug to Uncle Pat, then headed back to her room.  “Hey, what about me?” I said.  She turned around and said “MOM, I could NEVER forget about YOU!” as she ran over.  Lately she’s been trying to think of ways to quantify her love – “Mom, I love you as big as that building.  Mom, I love you as much as I love Thomas.  Mom, see that huge cloud?  I love you as big as that.”  And yesterday, an All-Star moment, while singing along to a Kindermusik CD – “Mom, I think you are a LOVELY singer.  You are the best singer in town.” 

·         I love how my girls love each other.  Often, while we’re driving down the road, I’ll look back and find both of them stretching their arms so they can hold hands across the middle seat.  Other times, I will see them playing together and hear Ellen saying things like, “Celie, that’s the GREEN crayon.  Watch Big Sister use it to color leaves.”  Ellen is a natural protector and teacher, and Cecilia has such a loving and trusting nature that she would follow Ellen to the end of time.        

Before I had kids, or even knew for sure that I wanted them, I would hear parents relay their own stories, so similar to these.  I would think to myself that the horror stories sounded so horrifying, and the good stories so lame, that the scale was clearly tipped to the “No Kids” side of the debate.  I mean, if a few hugs and cute comments are all you’ve got to redeem waking up to puke all over a bed, then those toddler and preschool years are just not worth living through.  But here’s the remarkable thing – when these stories are about your own children, the Arrows are the ones that seem lame and ridiculous.  And the Flower stories are so wonderful that they change your outlook on the world at large.  They are a garden.  And the scale tips over to “I Can’t Imagine This Not Being My Life.”

Hot Town

August typically drags for me.  By now, I’ve pretty much had enough of all the summer things that I dream about from December 26^th until April-ish.  When we don’t have preschool and story-time and choir and other things to keep us busy, I have to think of things for us to do which are entertaining (or at least distracting) and cheap.  (Away-from-home morning activities are at the top of the list of things that I need in order to maintain some sort of maternal Zen.  If we’re not out of the house by 9, my desperation to flee the four walls starts manifesting as extreme impatience with normal levels of Preschool-Putz.  Sometimes I explode and have to apologize later; just the other day Ellen and I had the following conversation over PB&Js: Me: Ellen, I’m sorry that I yelled this morning. I was very angry, but that wasn’t a good way to show it.  Ellen: It’s okay Mom. We can still be friends.)  Thinking of something to do every day is drudgery at this point.  I recycle things from June and July, and those things were lame the first time around.  I’m bored and ready for my life to resume.  Plus, there’s still at least four more weeks until State Fair cheese curds. 

So, I tried to get away.  I took a solo getaway while Dave was hiking in Yellowstone.  But I was lonely and sad, and coming home and getting a giant Cecilia hug (she puts her little head on my shoulder, wraps her arms around me, and doesn’t let go for a long time) was the best part. 

Now I’m trying to focus on the little moments of good stuff until September rolls around to deliver me.  Here are a few that I’ve captured.        



Ellen and Auntie Rachel being silly



Ready to create a masterpiece



Walking together



Charles James Hatten, Nephew Extraordinaire



Charlie likes his cousin



Ellen and Moddy enjoy the carousel



Celie and Auntie nap together



Little Cutie



Shorn

Last week, Ellen announced to me that she wanted short hair.  “Like Auntie,” she said.  I told her she needed to sit with that idea overnight, and if she still wanted short hair when she woke up in the morning, we would go to Kids Hair and tell them to chop it. 

In the morning, I asked her if she still wanted hair like Auntie’s, and she didn’t hesitate.  “YES!!” was the response. 

So we got dressed, and I told her that we needed to take one last picture of her long hair.  Here’s her pose:

As she sat in the chair at Kids Hair, eyes glued to the movie Cars, which was playing on every TV, Alicia her stylist worked her magic.  I was a little nervous that Ellen might really have misjudged her yearning for a new style once she actually saw her hair drop to the floor.  But when Alicia told her to look in the mirror and tell her if she thought it looked okay, Ellen’s reply was that it was not short enough.

When it reached the point just below her ears, we proclaimed it to be done.  It was utterly darling coming out of the salon, and continues to be so a week later. 





One unforeseen snag - now her bed head is much more dramatic than anything her pillow rendered while her hair was long.  “Mom!  I’ve got crazy hair!” she’ll yell with a huge grin.  I have to attack it with a lot of water, which I get from Addie’s disciplinary spray bottle (Addie has learned not to be nervous if a hairbrush accompanies the bottle). 



EXTREMELY MILD "crazy hair"



But I think short hair really suits her.  She looks like such a big kid.



Charlie likes short hair



Baby-waiting

There is a giant metaphorical tarp of excitement and anticipation which sprawls across the western suburbs with one corner at our house, another at my mom’s house, another at my dad’s house, and since I guess I need a fourth corner, another at the hospital…where my nephew will FINALLY be born today.  I suppose the hospital corner is feeling nervousness and exhaustion more than excitement and anticipation, not only because that is where the labor and delivery will occur, but also because Rachel and Jim have already been at the hospital for two nights to try to get this baby out of my sister.

We (the girls and I) went to visit them yesterday to help them pass the time.  Ellen had a few conversational gems worth noting:

Ellen (yelling directly into Rachel’s belly at point blank range): Charlie come OUT!  We want to MEET you! 

Rachel: There are a lot of people he needs to meet.  Can you think of some?

E: Me. 

R: Yes. 

E: You.  Uncle Jimmie. 

R: Yes.  Anybody else? 

E:  Hmm.  Don’t say Piper because Piper’s dead.  [The death curiosity continues; yesterday’s conversations included a query about what dead people look like, and if they’re “flat.”]

R: Three important people…

E: Bryn, Scout and Anya!!!

R: That’s right, because they are Charlie’s-

E: BIG SISTERS!!

R: Do you like being a big sister?

E (thoughtfully): Well, sometimes it wastes time from my art [she is an artist; if we suggest that she might go to school someday to learn about art or to become an artist when she grows up, her retort is that she doesn’t need to because she is ALREADY an artist], and also it’s hard because my trains are allergic to babies.  [This isn’t a new idea – if Cecilia gets too close to her trains, Ellen will start “sneezing” and yell “Mom, get my sister away!  My trains are allergic to babies!  Do ya hear them sneezing?”]

I’m guessing that when Charlie arrives, the trains will meet him without sneezing, which seems contradictory.  Maybe babies are hypo-allergenic until they become mobile.

Love, Loss, and Train Bequeathal

In the spring of 1999, my mom and Rich decided (after a nudge or two from Rachel, Michael and me) to allow into our family an eight-week-old West Highland White Terrier puppy.  They decided to name her Piper (I think it was my brother’s suggestion – he has a knack for this sort of thing), and she was just a little red-collared bundle of snow-white fur and delicious puppy breath.

Dave and Piper, ca. 2003



She acquired several nicknames through the years (like everyone in our family), some which developed organically from the others – Pipey, Pee-be, Little Buddy, Pipedream, Dreamer, and Drimkerd (which is Dreamer in the language my mom and sister and I made up in 1991).  She knew all our friends, and needed to be broken of the habit of peeing from excitement then rolling onto her back (and usually into the pee) for a tummy rub whenever anyone she knew came to visit.  (She never broke the tummy rub portion of the greeting, however).

Piper wakes Ellen



She especially loved Ellen, and was a champion snuggler where Ellen was concerned.  During quiet time at Mom’s house, she would nestle in the crook of Ellen’s knees.  When we watched her for overnights at our house, she would lie outside Ellen’s bedroom in the morning until we opened the door, then would run inside, wake Ellen with kisses, and claim a place next to Ellen’s head on the pillow.

She was part of our family’s head-count through some of our most important years – years which brought two high school graduations, three college graduations, two grad school graduations, three weddings (one through which we welcomed my three beautiful step-nieces), the birth of six grandchildren, and of course every holiday and several family vacations.  She was a great Comforter whenever any of us were feeling down – those three college graduations were obviously the four-year conclusion to three college send-offs, and I know that Piper witnessed a few empty-nester-Mom-tears.



Really.  She was part of the family.



Piper meets Cecilia



A year or so ago, a visit to the vet revealed a growing mass in Piper’s abdomen.  Activities which Piper used to do with reckless abandon grew more and more difficult.  Finally, it became so that it was more painful for Piper to live than it would be for us to live without her…so this past May, Mom and Rich made the difficult but compassionate decision to let her go.  As every pet-owner knows, the love we have for our four-legged family members is unique, because it’s tinged with loss.  We love them more, or at least take them for granted less, because we know that one day we have to lose them.  We say good-bye…and then we have to help our children say good-bye too… 

*          *          *

From the very early days after Piper’s diagnosis, my mom-wheels started spinning.  Inevitably, I would have to broach the topic of death with Ellen – one of those land-mine topics.  I had to be conscious on every level about what kind of information I was going to give, but more importantly, how I was going to give it.  I didn’t want to screw up.  When the time finally came, I decided that I would break the news to Ellen when we went to Mom and Rich’s house.  There, Piper would be conspicuously missing, so the concept of “we will not seePiper again” might be slightly more understandable than it would be in a place where Piper isn’t really supposed to be anyway. 

So one fine day I suggested that we “head over to Moddy and Boppa’s house to play.”  We loaded up and drove over, walked into their house and settled Cecilia into some toys, and I began to wonder if I should just tell her outright, or wait to tell her when she actually noticed that Piper was gone.  The latter seemed way too much like avoidance, so I said to Ellen “let’s go onto the porch and have a talk.” 

She snuggled into my lap.  “Do you notice that there’s somebody who is not here right now?” I asked.

She nodded.  “Boppa.” 

There has to be a little dash of cuteness in every conversation.  “Well, that’s true, Boppa is at work.  Can you think of anyone else who isn’t here right now?” 

“Piper,” she answered. 

“That’s right,” I said.  “Honey, Piper died.  We won’t see her at Moddy and Boppa’s anymore.”

Without skipping a beat, she said, “But we can THINK about her.” 

Wow.  Could this be just way easier than I thought it would be?  Does she have no questions at all for me?  “We can DEFINITELY think about her – as much as we want.  And we can miss her too.  It’s okay to be sad and cry when we feel like we are really missing her.”  Ellen thought for a minute, without moving from my lap.  Finally, a question: “How did she get dead?”

Ooh, a toughie.  Choose words carefully; under no circumstance should the phrase “put to sleep” escape my lips.  “Well, a veterinarian came to Moddy and Boppa’s house and gave Piper some medicine to help her die.  She was hurting so much that she couldn’t be alive anymore.”

“But WHY?”  Oh, the eternal WHY.  Think back to Algebra, or Calculus (or whatever subject I’m glad I never have to study again to which this pertains), and the x-y graph.  Remember how lines are made up of two points whose location on the graph you can calculate?  Remember also how you can ALWAYS calculate the existence of a point BETWEEN any other two points?  So, like if Moddy and Boppa were standing in a line, there would be room for Ellen in-between them.  Then there would be room for me in-between Moddy and Ellen.  Then there would be room for Uncle Brother in-between Moddy and me.  Mathematically speaking, you can always calculate a place for one more person, or point, between two others.  Now, I didn’t just spew all that information because I loved high school Math so much.  I did it because I wish to illustrate the nature of the “WHY?”s of a three-year-old, which are exactly like those points that can go on to infinity.  There is ALWAYS another “WHY?” to answer, which probes at a detail even more obscure than one from the answer before. 

“Well, Piper had lived a long time and she was sick.  Sometimes that just happens.”  (The closer the whys get to obscurity, the more likely it is that they will elicit this unfortunate answer, which signifies arrival at the outer limit of parental knowledge.  In other words: “We’ve reached the Dummy Zone.”) 

“Where was Piper when she died?” was Ellen’s next question.

“I’m not sure, sweetie.  Probably lying in Boppa’s arms, and I bet Moddy was petting her too.” 

A few moments of thought finally brought the answer “I think you’re right.” 



Quiet time at Moddy's house



  *          *          *

As luck would have it, we bumped into several more opportunities to discuss end-of-life issues.  Cases in point:

·         Just two days or so after the Piper talk, we were stuck in some heavy traffic and on the side of the road was a dead fawn.  As soon as I saw it, I involuntarily gasped – a road-killed fawn is not only a rare sighting, but a tragic one.  “Why did you do that?” Ellen asked.  “Well, there was a fawn on the side of the road, and it was hurt very badly.”  Then I thought to myself “no need to shy away from this” and added, “In fact, it was dead.”  Several days later, Ellen recalled the dead fawn and said, “Mom, I wish I could’ve seen that dead fawn.  I wanted to see what it looked like.  What did it look like, Mom?”  “Like a little fawn, with white spots, lying on the road.  Maybe we can see some deer when we go up to the cabin next weekend.”  “Will one be dead?  I want to see a dead one.”

·         I sang at a funeral recently – the wife of a friend from choir.  I had to drop off the girls at their regular babysitter’s house, and so the night before, while tucking Ellen in, I said “Tomorrow you get to go play with Katelyn!”  “Why am I going there?” she asked.  “Because I am going to sing at a funeral.”  As soon as I said it I realized that I was going to launch another round of questions.  “What is a funeral?” we began.  “It’s a church service for someone who has died.  We go to celebrate their life and to say good-bye to them.”  “But when will you sing for Piper?” 

·         Out of the blue one day – “Mom, do people die too?”  “Yes they do.  Anything that is alive will die when its life is over.”  “Do trains die?”  “No, they’re not really alive, so they don’t die, sweetie.”  Ellen looked skeptical.  A few days later, I entered her room, where she said “Mom, Henry’s dead.”  I looked down, and sure enough, Henry (the one who “toots and huffs and puffs” according to the Thomas the Train theme song) was lying on his side and a few other trains (upright ones) were stationed around him.  “Oh my,” I said.  “How did he die?”  “His boiler burst.”  So she answered her own question there, I guess. 

·         One day coloring over at Moddy and Boppa’s, I said “I sure enjoy being over at Moddy and Boppa’s during the day.”  “Me too,” said Ellen.  I continued, “Sometimes I miss Piper though.”  “Why?”  “Because she’s not here and I wish I could see her and pet her.  So I feel a little sad.”  Some peaceful coloring, then from Ellen, “I am sad.  I am worried about who will watch my trains when I die.  Mom, will you watch my trains when I die?”  A great responsibility.  “I would be happy to watch your trains, but I wouldn’t worry about dying, sweetie.  Kids your age don’t usually die.”  “Okay, but then if you die, Dad can watch my trains, and when Dad dies, then Addie can watch my trains.”  (Apparently in Ellen’s mind Addie outlives all of us.  And makes a trustworthy train-sitter.)