Love Letter to My Readers

I rarely respond to comments. Somehow it always seems a little arrogant, like I’m assuming that my readers are checking back in on my blog every five minutes. Although I LOVE it when other bloggers respond to my comments, and I myself often check in on the blogs I read (very nearly) every five minutes. So that is something I probably need to start doing. Responding to comments on my blog, I mean. Not checking blogs more often.

But until I start responding to comments, I want to send out a general thank you: I love all of you wonderful people that comment on my blog. You make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because you say such nice things and because this space here is the only place where just about everyone I love gets together.

My friend Jenny recently wrote a lovely post about moving around and how she wants to gather everyone she has ever known into one place. Now some people are not like this. My husband, for instance, probably thinks that this is a possible version of hell, everyone he has ever known gathered in one place, yammering at him and distracting him. For me, though, this is what my heart yearns for: a place where everyone I love and have ever loved—and I’m using the term love quite freely here—is gathered together, getting acquainted, sharing food and drinking coffee until about three in the afternoon and wine after.

There have been a few times in my life where I have experienced just a hint of this. When we were visiting our families in Alaska and our good friends Troy and So Yung came up to visit, for instance. All of my family and all of Craig’s family and these dear friends all were gathered together for a few days. Or when my friend Jenny moved into the same condo building as my friend Marji in Chicago, and we began to have afternoon kid free-for-alls in their backyard, often including other close friends of mine like Nancy or Molly. Really, to me, these experiences have been a taste of perfection.

And this space here, too, is a glimpse of how I think things should be. Everyone I want in my life meeting in one place. So yes, here’s what I’m saying, cheesy though it may be: my blog is, to me, a little bit of heaven on earth. Until the day that I can convince everyone that I hold near and dear to move onto a big farm somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, this is as good as it gets.

VIPs for a Night

So on Thursday night, Craig and I got to go to the grand opening party at Martini Park courtesy of Dawn, who, thanks to her work in blog marketing and web strategizing, was asked to invite some Columbus bloggers. You can see some pictures of the evening at Pepper Paints and Doobleh-Vay. I unfortunately forgot my camera, so I only have this wonderful picture of us crashed out on the futon at the end of the night. Don’t we look hip?

I was somewhat mistaken when I said it was a trendy bar for hipsters. It is more a club for those thirty and up. But still, when I looked on the website, most of the people in the photos looked pretty hip to me: let's call them midsters. Really, Martini Park seems to be geared toward those thirty and over people that actually go out and also that pay ten dollars for a drink. We are more of the take the kids to happy hour at the local pub for the half off pints sort of folks. But my sister just arrived to stay with us for a while, so we got to leave the kids with her for the night.

I had a very busy and somewhat stressful day, and Craig and I had to go straight from Luke’s school conference to the party. I don’t know if his teacher even recognized me as Luke’s mom, since I was wearing makeup and (cheap fake leather) awesome black boots, while she usually sees me in workout clothes and a headscarf.

Driving from the school to the party, I did what all glamorous folks do: I dried out my armpits by blasting the heating vents in the car. I sometimes have a little bit of a sweating problem, especially when I’ve had a stressful day. At this point, I wasn’t feeling particularly enthusiastic about the evening.

After we got there and each had a martini, however, we both began to have a lot more fun. Craig, usually a beer and whiskey kind of guy, surprised me by ordering a pomegranate martini, which he maintains, even today while sober, was delicious. I had something called the Martini Park #10, which was fabulous. Craig also had one of those. And a cosmopolitan, at which point I knew he was getting a little tipsy. I mean, come on, a cosmo? I ran off to talk to Amy and the PR guy hosting the party for a few minutes, and by the time I got back Craig giddily informed me that he had sampled the mango martini and another cosmo.

So really, we had a great time at Martini Park. It was a different sort of evening than we would normally have. We got to have free food (also quite good) and drinks. And apparently my husband likes fruity mixed drinks. “I love that place!” he told my sister when we returned home. “I want to go back!”

Maybe I ought to take him there for a cosmo on Valentine’s Day.

Happy Second Anniversary, Blog!

I’ve been feeling a little discouraged about my writing lately. Ever since our summer vacation, I can’t get back into any kind of rhythm. I thought that with both of the boys in school I would have more time to write, but the opposite has happened. I honestly don’t know how anyone can be a soccer mom because it is all I can do to get Luke to and from school, get Henry to and from a different school, stay moderately on top of the household chores, and exercise enough so I’m not a sad crazy lady.

To be honest, I’ve been feeling a bit like giving up on the writing. Because this spring, when I was going out of the house in the evenings to write several nights per week, I might only have gotten one piece published, but I felt like I was making some progress. Now I just barely maintain my blog, my small following of mostly friends and family being my current motivation. I put up a post once per week, whether I feel like it or not.

Today is the second anniversary of Just Another Mama Blog. I started it on a sleep-deprived whim, and I’ve plugged along for two years now. I’ve been thinking about this date for a week or two, knowing that it was approaching, wondering what I could say. Because I didn’t feel like there was a whole lot to celebrate with my writing.

But it is shaping up to be a sort of magical bloggiversary. Last night, a couple of new neighborhood blogging friends that I have mentioned before, American Family and That Patti, invited me to go out with a group of local blogging mamas: Milkweed, Amy, Karen, and even the fabled, well-connnected Dawn. Not only did I get some great tips and leads, I also scored my first free blogging perk! Craig and I get to go to a swanky (free!) party at a hip new bar tonight. I’ll write more about it tomorrow, since I’m sure it will provide me a great deal of material. You know, since Craig and I will fit in so well, being the posh hipsters that we are.

And today, my story is one featured on the new Highlights site celebrating former contributors. A poem of mine was featured in the magazine when I was six years old, which was my first publishing experience.

So all in all, I would say that it is shaping up to be a not-too-shabby bloggiversary. Not too shabby at all.

Weekend Update

It is not even seven in the morning and I am currently enjoying a “jam magnificent.” It is the drink I have ordered, having opted for this over the “blueberry surprise” at the internet café that I am at. I took a time machine here. The café is run by pirates. Two pirates named Luke and Henry. I have obtained the secret recipe from the chefs: it is a cupful of jam with sprinkles mixed in.

Craig is out of town with the car, and the weather is cold and rainy. I think this might be a long weekend.

This is a rather strange café. The options are so very limited in some ways, and yet the chefs/owners/operators are so very accommodating in other ways. While my main entrée must involve yogurt and there are no bowls available, I have my choice of a red, blue, pink, or green cup.

Ooooh! I’ve just been given a complimentary appetizer since my entrée is taking so long. Chips with a whole cup of Sriracha hot sauce. For those of you not familiar with Sriracha, it is basically the asian version of Tabasco sauce.

Last night I slept in Luke and Henry’s room. In the middle of the night, Henry sat up in bed and started crying and crying. I kept asking him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t answer me. Finally he said something that sounded like “Forgive me!” and promptly lay back down and was immediately asleep. And a few minutes later, Luke yelled out, “Slimy!”

Oh, I’ve just been informed that the kitchen is out of the yogurt entrée. I must now choose between nachos and “yuckness.” I went with the former. Chef Pirate Luke just told me that he needs a candle so he can roast the nachos.

Nothing like candle roasted nachos with Sriracha and jam to start the day off right.

Slasher Butterfly

I conducted several highly scientific experiments this weekend in pursuit of this elusive question: just what is the difference between the Snickers and the Baby Ruth? Wikipedia helpfully points out that the nougat found in the Baby Ruth is more fudge-like than that found in most American candy. So that is probably it.

I feel sort of awful today, and I was thinking that it was due to the time change, but it is probably more due to the 25 fun sized candy bars that I ate yesterday. Yes, the boys made out like bandits, what with trick-or-treating and class parties and secret happy phantoms delivering treats to our house. If you are reading this, Happy Phantom, thank you.

Henry decided, at the last minute, that he no longer wanted to dress up as Frankenstein’s monster, but instead dug around in the dress-ups bin and devised a costume that he dubbed “alien butterfly.” It was rather fetching if I could ignore the Jason mask part of his costume. (The boys bought the Jason mask for a dime at a thrift store. How could I say no when they have no idea what it is and it was only ten cents?)

I’m glad Henry still gravitates toward more “girly” things now and then, otherwise I would be simply overwhelmed by all of the masculinity floating around the house. The boys are currently preparing their fort outside, a fort designed, Luke says, for “eating, fighting war, and building contraptions.”

Luke tells me that my job will be cooking the food. I think I’ll make seven-candy stew.

And They Still Like Me

Here it’s Monday again and nearly a week has gone by since my last post. It seems that when things are going well and we are settled into our routine, I don’t have nearly as much to write about. I guess I like to write about drama and sadness. And I like to tell funny stories about my kids, and, I’m sorry to say, I think Luke is growing just a tad bit more conventional. Although he did yell this at Henry when he was angry with him for stealing off with a toy a few days ago: “Henreeek! Your stench is so bad I can smell you from 50 feet away!” You go with those metaphors, Luke! And word play, too! That’s my boy.

I can tell a funny story about myself, I guess. I told my two new-ish friends Tracy and Stacy this story the other day, knowing it could either make or break our friendship. I’m a risk-taker.

I was tidying up the yard the other day and I walked to the edge of the grass to pick up a few pieces of trash that had found their way onto our front lawn. I grabbed what I thought was a beer can, but found it was an unopened can of Bud Light. I brought it in so I could dump the beer and recycle the can, but then threw it in the fridge since I thought I could offer it to Craig as a joke. But then, later, when the afternoon stretched on and on and the boys were bickering and Craig still wasn’t home, I drank the beer. The beer I found in my yard. The Bud Light I found. Because I’m classy like that.

Where I Come From

Wow, this election has really made me think a lot, and I don’t mean about the issues. I’m from Eagle River, Alaska, just a fifteen-minute drive south of Wasilla, the town Sarah Palin governs. And then I became a mother and lived for six years in Hyde Park, Obama’s neighborhood. Our first apartment there was only two blocks from Obama’s current home.

And it isn’t just that I have ties to these two places, Alaska and Hyde Park, but that I feel like these two places formed me as a person and a parent. Both places are very unique, viewpoint-shaping sorts of places, which has been made much of in this presidential race.

I’m hoping to write a whole long post about how I had to move to somewhere like Columbus--a more neutral sort of place--to truly find myself as a parent. But I really don’t have the energy for that today. So instead I’ll link to a few of my favorite articles and websites that do a wonderful job of explaining my geographical past and perspective.

First, here is a great op-ed piece about Sarah Palin from an Alaskan woman's perspective on Literary Mama. In this essay, Nicole Stellon O'Donnell pretty much sums up my Alaskan feelings on Palin.

And Hyde Park. There is so much to be said about this place, and I've never been able to exactly put my finger on everything that makes this neighborhood on Chicago's south side so wonderful and unique. But then I found this great article that appeared in the Washington Post last week that does it for me. And here's the website of a place called the Experimental Station on the edge of Hyde Park that embodies the spirit of the neighborhood quite nicely. The year before we moved, we attended a little boy's birthday party here that involved playing mini-golf in an interactive art installation of Rube Goldberg-esque golfing challenges made from scavenged materials.

So there. Go forth and spend hours reading about the two weirdo places that I have lived so that you can understand my personality and background. I know you really want to.

Halloween, Round One

My kids LOVE Halloween. They enjoy dressing up all year round--although Luke's budding self-consiousness has prevented him from dressing up as spiderman for trips to the grocery lately. They also love all things creepy, crawly, and scary. On Friday night we hit the local community center's Halloween celebration, Luke going as a ninja and Henry as Frankenstein's monster. (Yes, my children DO know the difference between Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. I'm putting those degrees in English to good use, darn it!) These costumes are a great improvement over their original hopes to each go as the grim reaper.

Apple Picking

This and That

I think I may have misrepresented our experience with the psychologist just a little. I was trying to describe my emotional reaction to the visit, how unsettling it is to explain in detail the profoundly challenging and often upsetting experiences going on with my child. It was a fine visit, though. I like the guy well enough. He didn’t say, “Wow, you have one troubled little boy.” He basically just acknowledged that there are areas in our family life that are very challenging, and it has reached a point where we might benefit from someone helping us formulate a plan to deal with some of these difficulties.

* * *

When Henry and I were out walking the other day, he said, out of the blue, “When I am a teenager I am going to stay up all night watching horror movies and eating junk food.” Boy, I’m glad I have that to look forward to. I guess there are worse things he could do as a teenage boy.

* * *

Luke has brought a book home several times from his school library called Deadly Spiders and Scorpions. It is part of the Wild Predators! series, which is right up his ally. This is a kid, after all, who had the vast majority of a book called Animal Monsters memorized at age three. No wonder they didn’t seem to like him at his Waldorf preschool.

So the thing that I find a little disconcerting about this book is the fact that it goes into detail about the mating practices of each variety of spider and scorpion. I’m not a prude, and I will answer any questions that Luke or Henry asks me, but so far they just listen to the book. I guess what I find a little funny is cuddling down on the couch, sipping coffee, and reading aloud to my boys choice passages such as this:

As with giant trapdoor spiders, female funnel-web spiders rarely leave their burrows. But males, once they are fully-grown, abandon their burrows to look for a female. Males are attracted to a female’s burrow by the scent that she produces. When a male finds a female’s burrow he taps out a signal to the female. If she is ready to mate, she comes out and lifts up the front of her body, fangs ready to strike. If the male is not alert the female may make a meal of him. But he uses a pair of spurs (hooks) on his second pair of legs to hold on to the female’s fangs, stopping her from striking. He is then able to mate with the female.

Stripped Bare

I had a mole check with a dermatologist this week. It was something I have been wanting to do for a long time, since I have a lot of moles and very fair skin, and also because I had several really horrible sunburns as a child. I guess I knew that she would be examining my whole body, but wow, I was not prepared for the inch-by-inch scrutiny that my body would be subject to. It was a little hard to turn off the inner critic as she examined the fat roll around my stomach, my stubbly armpit, the sole of my foot darkened by walking barefoot on my dirty floors.

And then, the next day, Craig, Luke and I took a little visit to the psychologist. I have been not sure whether I should write about this on the blog, but here it is. I'll keep it general. It is something we have considered doing over the years with our creative, passionate, loving, but very intense and lately, increasingly angry eldest son. We finally decided to do it, because there is a warning bell that sounds in my head every time he gets angry, a small voice that sounds like this: we hear too much about angry boys in this society, and we don’t know what else to do to help you get a grip on these strong feelings.

And there was another quiet voice in the back of my head--a voice without words but more of a wish--that was hoping our visit with the psychologist would be like venting to a girlfriend. Deep down inside I was hoping that it would be all he is a boy, he is gradually gaining control, what great parents you are to him! (you know, basically like all of you wonderful people who comment on my blog) but I have to say that it was not so much visit with a girlfriend as I was subconsciously wanting. It was really much more wrenching and halting and difficult than I was hoping for.

I imagined what it would be like. I held a secret wish for what it would be like. But really, it was like stripping down naked and having a person we had just met look us over, inch by inch, examining every lump, every irregularity, every discoloration on our cold, exposed bodies.

Pooping and Palin

My throat is better now, although I haven’t been exactly steadfast with taking my antibiotics. I take half the prescribed amount half of the time, the full amount the rest of the time. That’s got to be better than nothing, right?

Henry is being a real pain right now. Every time we drive anywhere from mid-morning to lunchtime, he nearly falls asleep in the car. But as soon as I try to get him to sleep in his bed, it is a no go. At least he is pooping regularly again. I guess if I had to choose between regular napping and regular pooping, I would go with the latter.

And with that, on with politics! I don’t think I’ve ever talked politics on my blog. I don’t talk religion much either. I question why I’m shy about these topics, since I ramble on and on about pooping and nursing and other such subjects. Here’s the thing: I am a people pleaser. I hate to make people mad. I’m a mediator. So bringing up clearly controversial topics is hard for me. While poop might be personal, it isn’t exactly divisive.

But I swear there have been close to fifty people who have asked me about Sarah Palin, since I’m from Alaska and all. A few people have stopped by my yard, having noticed our Alaska plates on the Mercedes. I’ve gotten two emails from old friends back in Chicago asking for my special Alaskan viewpoint (hi Dina and Katie!). Really, I probably don’t have much to add to the general knowledge out there, especially since I haven’t lived in Alaska for a long time.

I do feel like being from Alaska gives me a bit more cultural perspective than most people, though, and at the beginning of Palin’s run this made me want to defend her in a few ways. Not politically, because I disagree with her politics. But I didn’t feel like she was so bizarre and extreme as some people had made her out to be—at least for an Alaskan. I know plenty of people who go hunting (many of whom, like my husband, do it purely for the outdoor experience and the free-range, delicious meat), plenty of people who don’t think it would be a bad idea for Alaska to secede from the union as it is purported that Todd Palin did many years ago. Alaskans in general pride themselves on being a bit “maverick” in spirit.

But I am sick of the word maverick. Because, at a certain point, I grew weary of Sarah Palin using this word to defend her bizarre statements. Perhaps it was when, during her interview with Katie Couric, she insisted on maintaining that Alaska’s proximity to Russia (and Canada, she added during the interview, as if to bolster the argument) constitutes foreign policy experience for her. Perhaps it was when, during the debate with Biden, she used her “maverick” spirit as an excuse not to answer the questions, but to “speak to the American people.”

Whatever. I know this has all been done to death by the political analysts. But there it is, the opinion of a former Alaskan (we are now Ohio residents!) and a “maverick” leaning Democrat.

Continuing a Theme

I have step throat.

Luke ran a fever again this weekend.

Henry is still constipated.

But did I ever mention that my sister is moving down here for at least six months starting in November? Really, that is what is keeping me going.

Now I'm off to sip soup and chant my little mantra: "Mara. Mara. Mara."

Regression All Around

I know my posts have been whiney and boring lately. I haven’t been telling very good stories. We’re struggling around here, and either my kids aren’t as fun and funny lately or I’m just not finding the story in it.

But here’s a quick one, before I launch into my complaints. Yesterday, knowing full well that this is not his parents’ choice for president, Luke told me that if he could vote, he would vote for John McCain.

“Why would you vote for him, Luke?” I asked.

“Because he is in the Republic, like in Star Wars.”

At least his reason is something besides rebelling against his parents.

So on to regression. It is happening around here. Big time. Both kids seem to be having a hard time adjusting to school. Luke is very angry these days. He used to be a biter and a hitter, and, although I sometimes have to get on him for being physically aggressive toward Henry, I haven’t had to deal with him being violent toward other kids in a long time. But remember how I was talking about my wonderful new town? How I finally fit in? How my web of friends is intertwining and overlapping and I’m weaving myself a wonderful, beautiful life? Well, yesterday at the park, Luke tried to throttle the son of one of my new acquaintances. Right in front of all the moms.

Not to sound like all I care about is what the other moms think. I’m quite concerned about Luke and his behavior, and I have just taken a couple of very good steps toward figuring out what is going on with him. But I have to admit, I also just felt very humiliated. I cried the whole way home.

And Henry. Henry had no trouble saying goodbye to me at school for the first few days. But yesterday, he pitched a full-on tantrum when we walked into school. I had to hand him, thrashing and kicking, over to his teachers. It might be because he hadn’t pooped since Sunday. We seem to have some sort of control issues going on. He appeared to be constipated, so I kept sitting him on the toilet yesterday morning. By yesterday afternoon, he refused to sit on the toilet even though he was writhing in pain. When he moaned and I looked at him, he said, “It’s nothing, Mom. I’m upset you are eating all the chips.”

He finally pooped in his pants. Now he’ll only go in a diaper.

And now I’m officially the author of a mommy blog, since all I can seem to do is rant about my kids and talk about poop.

In the Wake

Ever since the big storm, my kids like to walk around the neighborhood and take note of what they call “the destruction.”

“More destruction!” Henry will yell, although a week and a day after the storm, they are becoming more and more oblivious to the piles of tree limbs and branches stacked on the edges of nearly every yard. The city assures us that their two wood chipping trucks are slowly but surely making their way around our town.

The electric company gradually restored power throughout the city. Ours came back on Thursday night. My friend Stacy’s was finally reinstated on Saturday morning.

Luke set off to take some pictures of the destruction one evening and wound up with a few good ones—featured above—of the mess in our yard. He asked me to post them on my blog, so here they are.

As far as I’m concerned, the main problem with all of this was the disruption of our schedule. Yes, I’m happy that the kids were forced to do without movies and computer games for a few days, but the cancelled school was hard for everyone involved. Luke swore that he was thrilled to have four days off in a row, but his horrible mood proved otherwise.

We can’t seem to catch a break this school year. Luke’s first week was a day and a half. His second week was a four-day week—the best so far. The third week, Luke was sick and missed three days. Then there was last week, when school was in session only on Friday. Which was most convenient, since I had to spend the whole morning in the doctor’s office with Henry, who had an ear infection. Last night, Luke woke up with a fairly high fever and he missed school today.

I’ll just consider this the wake of the storm. Things will settle down eventually, right? Right? RIGHT???

That Ike

A "wind event" occurred here in Columbus on Sunday afternoon and evening, the tail end of Ike that no one expected would cause such mayhem. Our little town suffered many, many fallen trees and limbs, such as the one above from our yard. This is the same hackberry tree that dropped a huge limb over the winter. Once again, we were lucky that it didn't hit our cars or house. It did take down the power lines, though, and we expect to have power restored on Thursday. Thank goodness our landlord lent us a generator, so we have a working refrigerator and computer. What else do we need?

Our Town

All of a sudden, the whole last year of posts where I wrote about how I didn’t feel like I belonged in our new town—about how moving is so hard and how I’m the only mama around nursing a preschooler and I’m such a big hippy dippy parent—seem just silly. Because a sense of being settled, of this community becoming my own, has crept up on me. How does that happen? I think, for me, it has something to do with a critical mass of people that I must know before I feel as though I belong. And it isn’t that they all have to be like me. I just need to feel as though I have allies scattered around the neighborhood.

I have been getting to know more of the parents at Luke’s school, and I have begun to socialize with a few of them. And I have recently met and hung out with (both pre-arranged and accidentally) two people from my town whose blogs I have been reading, American Family and ThatPatti.

And there’s Milkweed, who I became friends with at the end of my graduate school career but was out of touch with for the whole six years that I was in Chicago, who lives ten minutes down the road from me now and who is a kindred spirit. She is a member of the book club that I belong to, another member of which is a different graduate school friend who has her own Henry, who gets along smashingly with my Henry.

I’m also getting to know some of the parents at Henry’s school, now that he is a big preschooler. His school is just a couple of blocks from our house and is named St. John’s, as was my parochial nursery and elementary school in Alaska. Craig, I have to say, hasn’t been helping much with first impressions there. He went with me to pick Henry up yesterday, and he wore a T-Shirt that says, in huge letters, EAT ME. Underneath EAT ME are tiny little letters, probably a tenth of the size of the larger letters, that say “closet,” because the “eat me closet” was a fundraiser for the dorm in which we were house parents for four years in Chicago. It was a closet full of snacks that the kids would sell for house profit. But anyway, Craig wore this shirt to preschool pick up, and I was a little embarrassed, Craig meeting the director of the school in such a shirt, but we have a long history of conflict over his semi-offensive T-shirts, and I decided to let this one go.

Last night, after a lovely afternoon of meeting up with a new acquaintance and her boys, just the ages of my boys, at the park—where we also randomly met up with my blog-turned-real friend of American Family—the boys and I sat on the porch eating strawberry sorbet cones. The evening was warm and the cicadas buzzed, and I waved at neighbors out for their evening strolls. The boys were humming some random, made-up song, creating harmony for music neither of them knew to begin with. I was just beginning to feel the bliss of the moment, when all of a sudden, after a long pause, both boys came in at the exact same time with the exact same note.

And this place felt like home.

Sick Day

Luke has been quite sick, feverish and achy and congested. Last night he tossed and turned, moaning all night in his sleep. I didn’t even take his temperature, having learned my lesson long ago that I would rather not know. I just dozed and fed him Tylenol every four hours, water whenever he would take it.

He awoke this morning, the worst of the fever broken, when Henry came upstairs and climbed into my bed where Luke had joined me for the night.

“There isn’t room for five in this bed!” said Henry, not used to finding Luke in mom and dad’s bed.

“This is three, Henry, but if we added two more we would have five,” said Luke.

“Well, Daddy can’t come in because I love Mommy best,” said Henry.

“I love everyone in this family so much!” said Luke, in an uncharacteristically mushy mood. “I’m wonderful! I love myself! And I love Henry and Mom and Dad!”

I think Luke is learning a lot in school. Math word problems. Self-esteem catchphrases. Oh, and world religion.

A few nights ago at the dinner table, he said, “There is a holiday going on right now where people don’t eat anything all day and then they eat a huge meal at night.”

“What is the holiday called, Luke?” I asked.

“Hmm, rrrr, rrrr, Romeo?” he said uncertainly. Mrs. Romeo is his new teacher.

“Oh, is it Ramadan?” I asked.

“Yes! That’s it! People RIGHT NOW are eating a large meal to get ready for not eating all day tomorrow,” he said.

“Who has this holiday?” I asked.

“Anyone at all! Anyone who wants to know what it is like to be poor,” he answered. “But I don’t want to do it,” he added quickly, shoveling another bite of burrito into his mouth.

Luke is at home today, still running a low fever and recovering from his restless night. But hopefully he’ll be back to school tomorrow, back to learning all of the important things to be learned when one is in first grade.

The War on Crime

Well, Luke’s first week of first grade is now complete. All in all, it went really well. He seems to like it a lot. Last night I asked him to rate it on a scale from one to ten, and he gave it a 100.

I’m overwhelmed by the drop-off procedure, myself. Gone are the days of three neat and tidy kindergarten lines in the front of the school, patrolled by the crossing guard kids and at least one adult monitor. Now we walk to the back of the school to the huge concrete expanse and three large playgrounds, where all of the kids—I’m not sure how many, exactly, but it’s got to be hundreds—run around until the bell rings. Then they run and line up in the designated line spot for their class. I find it draining. And this is all before 8:15 in the morning.

So it is no wonder that Luke seems utterly exhausted when I pick him up six and a half hours later. It is hard for me to see him so tired and dazed. It usually takes him a snack, a video, and some cuddles and book reading before he can really tell me about his day.

Last night we went out to eat at a local pub, as is our custom on Thursday nights. We go during the happy hour so that the beer and appetizers are half price. The boys color and watch sports on TV while eating French fries, and we drink half price beer. We were all talking about the day, and Luke casually mentioned that one of his former kindergarten classmates, J, bit a boy—one of Luke’s friends and current classmates, H—on the back of the neck during recess.

“Did he get in trouble?” I asked.

“Yes, he had to sit on the thinking wall for all of recess, and he lost his Popsicle during the Popsicle party,” answered Luke.

“Oh,” I answered, relieved to hear that the recess monitors were doing their job. One of my fears is that recess is chaotic and all Lord of the Flies, although I really have no idea what it is like. And not that I’m scared Luke will be a victim. I’m more scared that Luke will be a bully.

“But before they took J to the thinking wall, we got in a fight!” Luke proclaimed.

“Oh,” I said, trying to remain calm and casual. “You got in a fight? What kind of a fight?”

“A bully tangle,” said Luke resolutely.

“A what?” I asked, visions of West Side Story dancing in my head.

“I told J, ‘You better stop it right now!’ and he said ‘No!’ and I said ‘Yes!’” explained Luke. “We said mean words.’”

“Oh, okay,” I answered, relieved. He was really just standing up for his friend H.

Henry is developing his own ideas these days about how to maintain order. As we were walking to pick up Luke from school, Henry said, “I wish I was in a video game with bad guys and I could chop them all up with a knife.”

Now, had I not gone through this very stage with Luke when he was just Henry’s age, I would have been disturbed. But Henry has the benefit of being the second child, and I know that Luke began speaking this way at age three in order to make sense of “good” and “bad.”

“Well, what if you could teach the bad guys to be good?” I asked.

“I told them and told them to be good,” said Henry, “but they didn’t listen.”

“Well, what if you just put them in jail instead of chopping them up?” I asked.

Henry paused, considering this alternative.

“Okay, I would chop them up then lock them in the zoo.”

My Relational Process

I left academia because I worked myself silly, researched myself nearly into the ground. I slept for four hours per night. I was exhausted and not sure how our family would be able to sustain two academics.

But I didn’t leave academia because I didn’t like literary theory. I actually quite liked it. It was one of my focus areas for my M.A. exam.

Lately, while searching for places to submit my writing, I’ve stumbled upon some calls for papers in an area that wasn’t on my radar back when I was getting my Master’s in English: academic writing about mothering. And I’ve got to say, it’ s pretty interesting. But having gained eight years and two kids worth of perspective since I abandoned the proverbial ivory tower, the word play and jargon in this description made me laugh:

While much of Western thought has celebrated the splitting of women’s identity into “mother” or “other”—the perception that women cannot be both—re-thinking mothering from the perspective of “performativity” recognizes the relationality between mother and other. When mothering is conceived of as performative it becomes an active practice de-centering the notion that motherhood is passive and static. Performativity shifts our attention from motherhood as biological, selfless, and existing prior to culture, to a practice that is always incomplete, indeterminable, and vulnerable. A relational understanding of m/othering opens up the possibility of an ethical form of exchange between self and other and allows us to understand the maternal subject as engaged in a relational process which is never complete and which demands reiteration. M/othering as performance contains the potential for a disruption of dominant discourses on maternity and thereby makes room for maternal agency. This re-conceptualization of m/othering refuses to be split, while also remaining ambivalent.

Now that I’ve read it about four times, though—I’ve gotten slower with my advancing age and kid-riled brain—I’m starting to get pulled back in. Really, who can resist such a playful idea: the m/other. I might even submit something. Of course, there’s the little problem of my curriculum vitae. It isn’t exactly impressive. But hey, I’ve been busy. I’ve been engaged in a relational process which is never complete and which demands reiteration. Darn laundry.