The Love Infinity

It was a long drive south towards the coast. So close to the coast I could feel the cool air but not close enough to smell the ocean.

Tonight’s wake was quiet, sad like other wakes. My aunt’s husband passed away years ago but I thought I saw him in his oldest son as he exited their house earlier. My aunt was kind and a caregiver all of her life. I am unclear if her four sons were born here in the United States but that didn’t matter. She and her husband raised their sons in the forties and fifties at a time when, unlike today, they were the only Filipinos for miles around. The youngest was born with cerebral palsy and I still remember meeting him for the first time. No one made a big deal that he was disabled. He just was. And while I could not communicate with him, I did feel how much he was loved by everyone around him.

Later my aunt took care of my uncle when he fell ill. In their speeches, her sons remembered she never complained, never criticized. I looked at the framed photos of her and her young family, of her and my uncle later in life. I remembered exactly what her sons recalled. Always kind. Never complained. Never criticized. Always asked questions about you and how you were doing.

It was then I began to feel overwhelmed. I had not been to a funeral since my own father passed away six years ago. I felt so many things at once. Not just of my father. Not just of my aunt.

I felt a sense of loss for those who have passed on. I felt such sadness for the elderly in general, for my grandmother on the other side of the world who passed away three days before A was born. I even allowed myself to feel anger that her pastor was trying to recruit new members during his sermon. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I let the anger rise and fall and I let it go.

Then someone caught my eye. My cousin’s grandson was bouncing happily in her lap. At eight months old, he is quite a charmer. One look from him was everything. Love. Love lost. New love. New life. Love never ends. Love will never lose value, never run out.

Our time on Earth is finite. Our love is not.

Nerdvana: Location Unknown

“You told him what?!”

What was the big deal? “Nerd” is not a bad word.

Or so I thought.

I was on the phone with my husband R to figure out what was going on with our 10 year old. Different would be putting it mildly. He has been clingy while pushing me away. I had no idea how to handle this. Ten years ago he was this long skinny little thing that cried all the time. If he was hungry, we fed him. If he was bored, we played with him. If he was sleepy, we pushed him around in his stroller.

How was this the same kid?

“You were supposed to tell him that he wasn’t a nerd.”

“I thought owning the word would be better,” I said. “As in his parents are nerds. His mom’s friends are nerds. Etcetera.”

“No,” he said. “You have to tell him that he wasn’t a nerd.” Oh geez. I cannot do this by myself. Stipulations. Postulates. If he’s a boy you have to do this, but you can’t say that unless it’s the third Sunday of the month. I can barely get by in my own life let alone help him navigate his. Apparently I cannot even help him with his. It’s not allowed.

After a very long conversation with R, I came up with a lists of do’s and don’ts on how to handle my tweenager.

DO LISTEN to everything he has to say. He needs to be validated.

DON’T GIVE HIM ADVICE no matter much it hurts. Unless, of course, he asks for it. Even then run it by your spouse to see if it is relevant and/or legit.

DO TELL HIM WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH but only if he asks to hear it.

DON’T TELL HIM IT’S OKAY TO BE A NERD. Yes, definitely don’t tell him that. Apparently it has to do with alpha dogs and finding his niche and other things that I pretend to know about when I talk to my husband.

DO FIND AN OUTLET but…

DON’T FORCE HIM TO CHOOSE AN OUTLET. I asked him if he wanted to play a sport. He said no. Well, alrighty then.

DO ASK FOR ADVICE FROM OTHERS like your spouse or your brother.

DO NOT GIVE UP ON YOUR KID!

He’s there. I know it. R is doing his best to prepare me for the tween peer pressure that has reared its ugly head, the teenage angst that is coming. This will be multiplied by three eventually… and females!

R said that from this moment on his focus will be on his friends because he already knows he has the love of his famiy. Is this my cue to find friends for him that I like? No?

Before R hung up, he suggested that my brother take M shooting. He said, “Yeah, it will be something he enjoys, he’ll learn about gun safety, and he’ll gain self-confidence.”

I thought about it. This little brother is a former Marine but would he be able to handle a kid at the shooting range? I said, “Maybe you could call him and tell him what he should and shouldn’t do.”

Silence.

R said, “No, I wouldn’t insult his intelligence.”

Sigh. Guess I should start a list of do’s and don’ts of talking to your brother.

I was wondering when the last kid was going to get the stomach flu. L, down for the count.

The Married-But-Single Parenting Dilemma

My son has been off lately. He had a stomach virus two weeks ago that was heartbreaking. He could not eat for four days. Anything more than a tablespoon of liquid came up quickly. Anything solid came up even faster. Since then, he hasn’t been the same.

He’s become moody. Impatient. Even a bit rude sometimes.

The other day he said I forgot to give him a hug afterschool. I didn’t even know he wanted hugs anymore. “No, just not in public,” he said.

I apologized. I gave him a hug.

Yesterday after a mix up of whether he was to walk home or not after school, I ran into the school office apologizing to the office staff and him, hugging him twice while explaining why we were late. I thought he was going to walk home because it was only sprinkling at the time. I had no idea the rain picked up just before his dismissal bell rang. L even fell, scraping her upper lip, in a rush to get to the car. I hugged him twice.

Yesterday when we got home he cried. “You forgot to hug me again.”

Again I apologized.

I hugged him and he burst into tears.

It’s all too much for him. His absences have given him more work than he can handle. And to him, that is a great disappointment. After all, he gets his work ethic from his father and his type A-ness from me.

He is almost always patient with his sisters, a true feat considering A is one of his sisters. This morning I heard true frustration and irritation in his voice when he addressed them.

Last night my brother came over and I asked my brother to watch the girls while I spend some much-needed time with M. My brother even offered to take M to Game Stop and other cool hang out stops but M refused. He wanted to go with me.

Part of me thinks he may need more time with me and only me. Yet another part believes he needs a change. Spring break begins in two days.

In two days we will be back in the Monterey Bay. We will be going to a funeral of my aunt who was not really my aunt.

If my memory is correct, she had the same maiden name as my maternal grandmother. I believe they were first cousins which would make my aunt something too complicated for me even to figure out. All I know is that she lived across the street from me when I was a child, she took care of me when my parents had to work, and I called her “auntie”. She had a very large family that despite the fact I have known them all my life I still do not know some of their names. It will have been over a decade since I have seen most of them. And that goes without saying that many have not met our children.

Perhaps seeing his cousins and spending time with family is just what M needs.

I cannot even imagine what he is going through right now. I mean, what I go through sucks pretty major sometimes but I’m a grown up. I should and am used to it by now.

But him. I cannot imagine. To yearn for a father’s time and attention all day, every day. To only get his voice once a day for twenty minutes or so. To only see him a handful of times a year and even then having to share him with his mom and his sisters. To have the word “RETIRE” mean something magical. To have problems in school and with no one to talk to.

Last week one of his friends called him a nerd. I love being labeled a nerd.

Not so with a ten year old.

I asked him, “What did that person say?”

“That person said I was a history nerd. Is that an insult?”

How could having knowledge be an insult? I didn’t understand but it took me a whole lifetime to realize that words don’t have to hurt.

I tried telling him what he needed to hear. Hell, I even told him that I wanted to be called a nerd. But nothing worked.

I need to think outside the box. I need for him to realize this on his own.

I need parenting help from his father. Only twenty-three more days until he can help in person.

The Paternal Connection

It feels like we are having a lot more sad conversations. As R’s time in the military comes to an end, he realizes how much he has missed of our kids’ lives.

First time a baby rolls over. First words. First steps. First days of school. All days of school. Birthdays. Halloweens. Christmases.

All for what?

For a pension? For financial stability? Trust me. It will help but it does not promise stability.

Injured in a war that many have seemed to forget about. Aches and pains that go unreported to doctors, to a spouse, to bosses. And for what? Pride? Shame? Guilt?

There is a lot going through our minds now. Too much to write about. Most too personal to publish.

A few nights ago, we both had a weak moment.

“I will never get those days back,” he said.

“I know,” I said because what else could I say? “We could have another baby.”

That statement usually is followed by a few choice words from R and a definite NO. But this time was different.

“We could.”

Come again?

“I never got to see them as babies. I never got to see them grow up… hello?”

“I’m still here,” I said. “Just a bit shocked. I have always joked about having another one and you’ve always said no.”

“I know but they’re all grown up now. And I missed everything.”

No. You haven’t. We talked more about it and realized that while bringing another life into this world that was both him and me would be amazing and wonderful, it would also be for the wrong reasons.

[Don't get me wrong. If it happens, it happens. But with a vasectomy? Don't hold your breath. He would be so mad if he were reading this right now but if he doesn't say anything for a few weeks, I'll post about the day of his vasectomy. Hilarious story about that day.]

A baby would take up his time that would probably be better spent on the kids who haven’t had it, if that makes any sense. A year from now, R will prepare to move home and I believe with my whole heart that when he moves home, it was supposed to be the time he moves home. Our kids will overwhelm him at first. Shoot, everything will overwhelm him at first.

But I welcome it. I welcome the tough transition. I welcome the awkward times we will have together, getting used to each other full-time again. I welcome making mistakes and planning dinners. I welcome it all because I’m sure that in a parallel universe I had nothing.

In this universe I have everything.

Book Snobbery

I have always despised the people who went around saying, “Oh my, the book was SO much better.” I mean, how pretentious is that?

Oh my, I am one of those people.

I never saw James and the Giant Peach. I didn’t see the Willy Wonka movies until the new one came out and you know the first one has been out forever. I only saw the first Romeo and Juliet movie because I had to watch it in class my junior year of high school.

What is this phenomenon about turning books into movies anyway? The book was so great so it will be even better as a movie? Not necessarily.

Take the book and movie “I Am Number Four”. Poorly written and clearly written for the intention of an easy transition into a screenplay. The movie was just… okay. Now replace the book title with “The Devil Wears Prada”. Same exact criticism with better actors. I mean, you cannot go wrong with Anne and Meryl. (Ha! Anne and Meryl. As if we are on a first name basis.)

I won’t even go there for the Twilight series not because it’s a Team-Twilight-VS-Team-Potter. Apples and oranges, dudes. No competition for teen angst to go up against a beloved well-written series, right? Still heart my teen angst occasionally.

It is not so much as a snobbery towards non-readers but the terrible assumption that people don’t read.

They do.

You simply cannot compare an avid reader to one who reads a little because the differences are vast, mostly in terms of hoarding storing books. If someone hears that their friends are reading a book that touches them, that person will go out and read that book. Oprah, Rosie, and e-readers are calling out to readers. They are listening.

My biggest fear for my kids, and all kids for that matter, is that they will not love reading for even a fraction that I do. I told my students (and still do) that I usually don’t watch a movie that was a (well-written) book for one simple reason.

I valued my imagination more than the vision of a team from Hollywood.

Yes, book snobbery there. I know. It has taken three decades to get over that though. It doesn’t kill me now to watch the movie but there is that little, and sometimes loud, voice that is constantly comparing the movie to the book.

This morning I had to tell myself to SHUT UP.

Don’t worry. No spoilers here. I LOVED THE BOOKS but the movie was pretty damn good.

The Decline of the Smartphone

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. In truth I didn’t know if I was sure. I had grown so dependent on it that I wasn’t sure if I could go through with it.

“Oh… look. You’re eligible for an upgrade.”

The newer, possibly smarter, smartphone was silver and sleek. No buttons. Just a touch screen. It was so shiny and metallic, I could feel myself being drawn to it like a magnet.

What was happening to me? I did not need this gadget. I did not have a cell phone for the first twenty-six years of my life. R and I only got one (yes, one!) after M was born so that I could leave our apartment for a few hours at a time yet only be a phone call away if M needed to be breastfed. A decade later I need to have internet access and the ability to check my email at all times of the day? Granted I am an important person without the important (paying) job but did I really need those things?

I thought I did. Seriously.

That is, until a couple of months ago when I realized that having three cell phones along with our calling plan and my data package was costing us almost two hundred dollars a month!

I went into the cell phone store and asked to downgrade our plan. The phone rep analyzed our minute usage and saw that we didn’t use that many minutes. (See? Not everyone wants our money.) And then I took a deep breath. I said, “I need to downsize my Blackberry too.”

I do admit that I went through internet withdrawal and eventually remembered I could do what I used to do before the age of cell phones AND BRING A BOOK WITH ME. I felt pretty silly remembering that but how often do we lose ourselves in our phones when we could be connecting with others right next to us?

Okay, that never happens to me. I am always talking to someone. Anyone. I know it embarasses R and I know it’s REALLY bad since now it embarasses M.

But honestly, I was at the point where I would see the icons for messages and/or emails and I ABSOLUTELY HAD to check. Ridiculous, right?

I still have the hankering to check Facebook every day but can usually ignore the need until later in the week. I now check my email once or twice a day instead of every time I look at the screen. I feel like I can breathe easier as well.

And it feels awesome.

Cheaper Than Therapy

My husband tried to talk me into it earlier this month. I refused.

Vanity is a slippery slope; one that I know too well.

It was vanity that got me into thousands of dollars in debt just out of college. New outfits, new shoes, new make-up. I wanted to look good. I wanted to look hot. I HAD to.

After years of scrimping, I did get rid of my debt but I do feel the need to beautify myself once in a while. It is easy to ignore once you become a mother. Most of your actions, if not all, are for the babies. No time to get my hair styled. No money for a pedicure. I am thinking of our kids dammit.

Alas, I could not ignore the call this afternoon. It started so innocently on a bike ride with L this afternoon. A bike ride to this…

When?

I was unable to make eye contact with her. She is a member of our church yet I still did not want to look at her in the eyes. I was at my annual appointment with my doctor and apart from losing one pound in the last year, nothing had changed.

Or did it?

I was stronger. Even though I could no longer perform two pull ups, I could do four sets of ten push ups. In one workout session.

I was faster. I had two 5Ks under my belt with plans to run three more this year.

I have a better understanding of my dependency on sugar, my uncontrollable hormonal surges, and the onset of… dare I say it… perimenopause.

She asked me the million dollar question. Am I ready to stop taking my antidepressant?

Am I?

Earlier this week I ran out of my medication. Low daily dose in case you were wondering. I was out for four days until I realized that I am not handling stress the way a normal person would. I became teary easily. My temper flared. I am just unpleasant all around to be with.

On Monday morning I called the pharmacy who refused to fill my prescription without my doctor’s permission. Of course. That’s normal. I called my doctor’s office to see if they could grant a refill under the condition I see my doctor as soon as possible.

“You need to allow 24-48 hours to allow for your doctor to check his/her messages. It’s a Monday and she probably won’t even check her messages for a few days.”

I was at the gym, ready to start my favorite Zumba class, and I was very close to bursting into tears. Instead I hopped on a treadmill to jog it out but dammit if that number 4 is not near the 7 on that damn machine. It probably took me a good minute to figure out that I was running at seven miles per hour instead of the easy jog at four miles an hour I normally do.

It was at that moment I realized that I still need them. I wasn’t working as much as I wanted to. R still wasn’t home to help me, for lack of a better phrase, do it all. I needed more time.

But as I sat in the doctor’s office, I realized there is no “good time to stop”. Life won’t get any easier. R may be home but with his homecoming brings more of everything to think about. Coparenting. Having a spouse there twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Discussing what to have for dinner, what we are doing this weekend, when we’ll go to the gym, and so on. Little things that make a marriage and a family. Little things that I have always decided for myself.

My doctor and I decided that I would check back with her in the summer. I told her that I don’t handle stress the way a normal person should. I am a parent and an educator and I don’t take my own advice.

I turn to chocolate. I turn to food. Period.

If you looked up “EMOTIONAL EATER” in the dictionary, my picture would be there. Actually two pictures. One before said incident, in gym gear, and one after with Cadbury stains on my fingers and ten pounds heavier.

Luckily my age is taking its toll. Like R across the country, we are turning more and more towards a healthier diet. Our stomachs just can’t take junk the way they used to, a blessing in disguise. I can’t even shop for red meat, let alone cook it, though I am sure R will never feel that way. I feel physically ill when I have too much sugar– a vast improvement from when I would eat it until it was gone.

Who knows when these simple changes will stick, when these changes will be enough? If anything, I am comforted in knowing that when I fall, I will be strong enough to pick myself up and try again.

Our dog keeps a watchful eye over M, who had a stomach virus for the past week. Poor kid was so sick I kept offering him Jamba Juice and his favorite foods. He replied, “You never offer these things when I’m not sick.” Busted!

Too Fast to Comprehend

For a brief time we were a family of three. Me, R, and our first born son who taught us everything we needed to know about parenting. (At least until #2 came long but that’s another story.)

M was an easy-going baby and had no problems at the day care of the gym or later at the preschool on base. Any separation anxiety came directly from me.

One morning we went to WalMart and had breakfast at the Mickey D’s. He was finally mature enough to sit during a meal in public. Those of you who have kids may have gone through something similar. We learned the hard way that we either took turns eating at restaurants (one ate while the other paced with the boy if he acted up) or we just didn’t go at all.

Imagine our surprise when in one quick swoop M stood up in his chair and pulled down his pants. R was sitting next to him and probably said, “What the…?” and pulled up his pants.

Sure, it’s funny now but we were new parents. Little did we know of the antics to come.

R and I were determined not to spoil him but it was hard not to. Like so many other kids who grow up next to a Barnes & Noble, M loved Thomas the Tank Engine. Couldn’t get enough of them. He watched the show, we rented DVD’s for him, and we even built his collection of Thomas trains, one wooden figure at a time.

M could sing every song. He knew the names of dozens of trains, if not all. When we took him to the zoo or an amusement park, we always bought tickets for the train. He even had a train conductor hat and a whistle that I heard several hundred times a day.

And so it pained me today to look at these wooden trains and tracks this afternoon. Decluttering is easy for me since the kids have dozens of toys, the majority they have played with only once, but this was different.

This represented a young family thousands of miles away from their own, a first born who decided that he was his own person with his own personality and interests, and a time when he was a baby. A time that so far gone that a decade passed far too quickly to comprehend.

Our son M now has two digits in his age and his interests have taken him beyond Playhouse Disney, beyond anything that little boys play with. He reads chapter books, constructs complex and dramatic scenes out of Legos, and creates homemade board games out of index cards and construction paper.

I don’t wish for anything different, save for the longing that R could have been here beside me to witness the decade that passed at warp speed (that I would lessen tremendously), but I love reminiscing about that time so much it hurts. It hurts even more when R and I remember together.

So no, I will not be giving away those beloved toys. These we will save for their children so ours will be able to remember this time too.

The Quest For Less

There will be no before and after photos today. Trust me. It’s bad.

As bad as three kids, two cats, two dogs, and a part-time-sub-full-time-lazy mom can make it.

It’s time to declutter and I can do this… without kids in the house. The baby-who-turns-5-in-July will be hanging out with Grandma today which inevitably means she will take her to McDonalds despite my gentle reminders for the baby that Mickey D’s is a sometimes food, not a tell-Grandma-every-time-you-see-her food.

But first thing’s first…