Monday, December 17th

I don't want to go to work tomorrow.

I don't often say this.  I love my job.  I love teaching kids.  I love feeling like somehow, in some small way, I am helping to make a difference in their lives.  

But I don't want to go tomorrow.

To be honest, I'm a little scared.  School shouldn't feel like a prison.  It should feel like a safehouse.  And Newtown does nothing if not remind us that even our safehouses aren't impenetrable.  I recognize that this fear is irrational.  That even on Friday, hundreds of thousands of kids went to school and came home safe.  And hundreds of thousands of teachers too.  But 20 kids didn't, and neither did 6 teachers.  And tomorrow, even though I'm not walking into Sandy Hook, I'm walking into a building onto which so many people project their own demons and fears.  And my kids are walking into their schools, and I don't want to drop them off.  I want to hug them and never let go.

I didn't go into education to figure out how to keep kids safe from an armed attacker.  If I wanted to do that, I would have become a police officer or a sniper.  I became a teacher because I wanted my students to know that I believe that they are good at something.  That they can be something.  That I truly believe in their ability to succeed.  But I also know that I don't reach every kid.  Hopefully every kid has someone who does reach them.  But I know they don't.  And I wonder if every kid is even reachable.  By the time kids get to high school, are some of them too sick, too damaged for us to truly make a difference?  And what then? 

And I am frustrated, no, angry, that as I sit here thinking about how to be teacher, social worker, and police officer, there are so many people out there who think that I deserve less.  That teachers are underworked and overpaid.  That we are union hacks out to indoctrinate children against their parents.  I ask: who is on the front lines?  Who catches the mentally ill kids in need of service so that they don't become Adam Lanza?  Who comforts the children who are tormented by their peers and also try to systematically address bullying so it doesn't happen to someone else's kid?  Who locks the door and huddles in the dark during the lockdown to make sure that your children are as safe as they can be?  And who does all of this while trying to instill a love of learning and also get kids to pass the test?  Who tries to catch up the kids who are behind and challenge the kids who are ahead while pitching to the majority of the kids in the middle? 

Tomorrow, I will worry all day about my two kids, who, by the grace of anything that is good in this world, will be safe in their schools tomorrow.  I will leave them in the morning and go off to meet the myriad needs of other people's children.  And I will tell myself that they are safe, and that I am safe, and that tragedy sometimes just strikes.  But what I know is that something is horribly wrong here.  Maybe it's guns.  Maybe it's mental illness.  Maybe it's something else.  But if I, a person who has committed herself to a lifetime of being an educator, don't feel good about going to work, and I don't feel good about sending my kids to school, the system is broken.  I don't know how to fix it.  But it must be fixed.

Thankful: the Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

I haven't been blogging because I've been a little sick of cooking.  And I've been knitting like a crazy person.  But that's a post for another day.  

We have been eating.  There's been

Goat Cheese and Pesto Quiche*

and tonight we had really good  
Sausage and White Bean Soup
(I'll post the recipe for this one tomorrow)

*want the recipe?  Let me know and I'll post it.

I also "discovered" Nobscot's Cafe, which on Monday has $3.99 burger night, with any burger and fries for that price.  If you're in the area, worth a trip.

I made up for the lack of meaningful cooking with Thanksgiving.  I love Thanksgiving - lots of eating and no religious obligations.  And I like the cooking part of it too.  In fact, this year I made everything.  We had all kinds of good stuff.

 She was dressed up as a pilgrim.  That would be a paper towel bonnet on her head.

Frosting the gingerbread cupcakes.

 He took off his pilgrim outfit.

 The "before" turkey picture (roasted with rosemary butter).

The "after" picture.

 Stuffing, roasted beets, parsnips and carrots, and creamed spinach with blue cheese topping*.

My plate.  Not the best picture.

Also served was mac n' cheese, roasted brussels sprouts and pearl onions in mustard glaze, boursin mashed potatoes, and biscuits*.  

Oh yeah, and there were people at the table too. 

Dessert featured the gingerbread cupcakes from above, a pumpkin pie that I forgot to take a picture of, and this raspberry trifle that Lea helped make.

And of course this Thanksgiving got me thinking about last Thanksgiving.  Last Thanksgiving my father couldn't come to dinner because he was in the hospital with MRSA, and he was really really sick.  Pete had chemo that Wednesday, so he wasn't feeling so hot (to say the least).  And the stress of it all was finally catching up to me and I developed a really fun case of paralytic illius and had a horrible stomachache and basically couldn't eat anything other than Lipton noodle soup and yogurt for the three weeks after Thanksgiving.  Last Thanksgiving kind of sucked, although I have to say we made the best we could of it.  

This Thanksgiving was so much better.  Everyone was here, everyone was healthy.  I know people say that you should be "thankful for your health," but that is a really hard thing to do.  How can you be thankful for something that just should be?  I am thankful that the people I love so much aren't feeling badly, and I am so grateful that they're still alive.  But I am also acutely aware that health is not something that you can take for granted.  It's here one moment and then it's gone.  And then, hopefully, it's back. 

I am a worrier, and when Pete was sick it was really hard not to get ahead of myself.  Lots of "what ifs" pile up when your husband has cancer.  Even though he was responding to treatment and the prognosis was (and is) good, there are so many ways that things can get derailed.  Finally I started saying to myself, "No one is going to die today."  And it made me able to focus on just that one day and be grateful for it.  A little morbid, perhaps, but it kept me from going insane.

This Thanksgiving I said it to myself again.  "No one is going to die today."  And I could be thankful for that.  Every day I can get up and say that with a reasonable degree of confidence is a good day.  So I guess that's how I'm thankful for health.  If someone's going to be here tomorrow, relatively comfortable and participating in life, that's a good day.  There's a lot about life that hasn't gone the way I thought it would, but I try to be thankful nonetheless.

I think that this was the really long winded, old person way of saying YOLO, but hopefully with a little more perspective and more impulse control than the average teenager. I mean, seriously?

Second Best is TOTALLY Good Enough

The kids at the Lowell Spinners.  It's not Fenway, but at least we got to a game this season!

I was reading an article on women who chose to bottle feed instead of breastfeed (a choice which I fully support, by the way) and one of the snarky comments on Facebook was something along the lines of “well, I guess if second best is good enough for your kid...”  For some reason, in spite of all of the other unsupportive comments attached to the article, this one stuck out for me.  Because, you know what?  Second best IS good enough for my kids.  And I’m willing to bet it’s good enough for yours too.

I mean, think about it.  Parenting is like the Olympics.  Only instead of trying to medal in one event, you’re trying to medal in them all.  I want my kids to be smart (scholarship anyone?).  But I also want them to be happy.  Oh, and healthy.  And I want them to be kind, and do their chores without complaining, and get along with each other, and care for children and animals and the environment, and and and and...If they consistently do these things, they’ve won the golds.  All of them.  

But man, is it a lot of work to realize those Olympic dreams.  The cooking, and cajoling, and reminders about please-and-thank-you, and bickering between themselves and with their friends, and and and and...If they get a silver, I’m going to go ahead and be pleased that they medaled.  And I’m going to feel ok about giving myself a silver in the “My Kids Turned Out Just Fine” competition (there’s always room for improvement).  I don’t hear a lot of Olympic announcers saying “Sure, the floor routine was great, but how can she do on slalom canoeing?”  Turning out well rounded kids in the truest sense means placing in more than one event, and that is no easy feat.

The truth is, we all make choices.  Someone’s second best is someone else’s top score.  I believe when we can embrace second best, we can be a lot happier because we can realize how much we’re doing right.  For example, this morning we woke up in a second best house in a second best town.  We could have scrimped and bought a tiny fixer-upper in a town that has a slightly better school system.  But we wanted a big yard for the kids to play in, and we didn’t want them to always be the poorest kids in their class.  TaDa!  Second best it is.  And we could have bought a house with a nicer kitchen and a spare bedroom, but then we’d be farther away from work.  And again - second best!   

We have so many second bests - dogs from the pound instead of the purebreed, clothes from Target instead of Hanna Andersen, frozen peas instead of fresh, Disney Princesses instead of the Paper Bag variety, Graco carseats instead of the Britax, it’s all been an exercise in compromise.  But they have pets they love, they’re not cold or unshod, they play endless imaginary dress-up games, they are harnessed in according to the law and reasonable standards of safety.  

Of course there are times when gold is the only acceptable standard.  Every single time we get in the car, seat belts are buckled.  Every single time they bike off the driveway, helmets are on.  99% of the time, fresh produce is pesticide free.  But those are my first choices, not yours.  I’m not saying parents should never shoot for the gold, but if you don’t sometimes embrace the silver (or, hell, bronze), I’m pretty sure you’ll go batty.  It’s just not realistic or healthy to only accept the best for our kids, because there simply is no objective perfection.  The only thing we have to do every single time without fail is make sure our kids know we love them and we’re doing our very best by them.  We gold in that, our kids will (silver) medal across the board.  And that second best is more than good enough for me.

Why I Don't Spank My Kids (even when I really want to)

I've been having a good time with the kids lately, but you know, sometimes they piss me off.  And in those moments, when I'm yelling and they're not listening and I'm tripping on Legos and all manners of nonsense, I really really want to deck them.  But I don't.  Here's a piece I wrote for offbeatmama.com about why.  (Waiting to hear back if it'll be published - if it is, I'll update).


PS - more recipes and whathaveyou coming soon.  It's been too damn hot to cook.

Their Own Bodies

I love my kids’ belly buttons.  I often point to them and say “Do you know why this spot is special?”  “Yes,” they reply.  “It’s where we were attached,” although as they get older they say it with less enthusiasm than when they first learned of the magic of that spot.

However, as they age, that belly button gets more and more important to me.  At one point, now years ago, our bodies were the same.  They were a part of me, and I was a person who ate for two, wore a seatbelt that wrapped around us both, and had clothes that were built to hold four arms and four legs.  But then they were born, the cord was cut, and our anatomies separated.  I had made people, and now they had their own bodies.  

This is, to quote our esteemed Vice President, a big fucking deal.  As people, we get one body, and, as a feminist, it is damn important to me to claim total ownership of mine.  If my body had been created 500 years ago, it would have been something to be traded for more wealth for my family.  If it had been created 200 years ago, it would have been something that my parents could have sent off to work, but it never would have reaped the rewards.  It my body had gotten married 50 years ago, my husband could have used it for sex whenever he wanted, as there was no such thing as marital rape.  Not anymore.  The best thing that I can ever do for my children is to give them autonomy over themselves.  I want my daughter especially, who came into a world that legally accepts her body has her own, but sends messages all the time that reject that truth, to fill out her skin with a personal spirit that is impermeable.  

She will need to know that having one’s own body is an incredible responsibility.  Having a body is hard work.  You have to nourish it properly.  You have to protect it from harm.  You have to learn what makes it feel good and what makes it feel bad.  It is hard to learn all the ways to do that, and there’s plenty of cajoling on my part.  Autonomy doesn’t automatically mean enlightenment.  Responsible ownership must include education - seatbelts and bike helmets must be worn, vegetables need to be eaten, hands must be held in busy parking lots, hair must be brushed.  I insist that she do these things not to assert dominance over her (despite her frequent protestations over the hair brushing especially) but because, as her mother, it is my job to teach her how to care for the frame that her persona will inhabit for her entire life.

Because having her own body is a privilege.  I want her to discover that her body is capable of amazing things.  I want her to feel the power that comes with a sense of total control over her own private and finite space in the world.  The sense of satisfaction that comes with enthusiastic consent, and the feeling of self worth that comes with a firmly stated “no.”  The ability to exercise that control over her anatomy is one that comes with time, but it is her birthright.  

This is why, in spite of the fact that she is sometimes rude, disobedient, inclined to make poor choices, and can be downright infuriating, I will never spank my daughter.  Spanking is one person saying to another “I am in charge of your body, and I will do with it what I want.”  The essence of spanking is not pain; it is a total lack of permission.  I believe that you can spank your children without hurting them physically, and I believe that spanking can curb some very troubling behavior.  Yet as a sex-positive feminist, I know it would be wrong to violate my basic belief in the power of consent.

I would be heartbroken if my daughter found it acceptable for someone who loves her to hit her; even more so if she believed that someone _should_ hit her out of love. But if I am allowed to hit my daughter because I’m bigger and I’m mad, why isn’t her high school date?  If it’s okay for me to hit her when I’m right and she’s wrong, why isn’t her spouse? If she cannot control what happens to her butt when I’m smacking it, when does she earn that right?  How will she learn that it’s hers so she can feel confident stomping on the foot of that asshole grabbing it on the train?  Equally important, I want her to know when her body wants to say “yes,” (to the ear piercing, to the doughnut, to sex) and I want her to feel a sense of ownership so she can say yes responsibly and enthusiastically.  

I can’t unequivocally give my kids a whole lot.  But after 9 months of sharing mine, their bodies are their own.  Every time I look at those adorable little belly buttons I am reminded of that fact.  And while I often want to “eat them up, I love them so,” I know I cannot.  However, I can marvel at all of the things that they can do with their spirited, gorgeous, energy-filled physiques, and relish the fact that I created amazing things that can now stand on their own two feet.