The road to hell, paved with good intentions….

File this under Unbefreakinlievable.

In case you missed it, an Arizona couple is suing Wal-Mart after a store employee in the photo lab developed some of the couple’s family pictures and determined that a few bathtime photos of their three young daughters were pornographic.  The pictures were passed on to local authorities.  Despite the determination by doctors and social workers that nothing was wrong, the investigation continued.  Kids were removed from home for a month.  Couple was required to register as sex offenders.  Mother suspended from job for the duration of the investigation — one year.  After that time, a judge threw the case out.  Because, after all, nothing was wrong.  (Read the story as reported on Good Morning America on Monday.) 

Pardon my language, but WTF?

What parent hasn’t taken a picture of their own uber-cute child in a bubble bath?  Or snug in a towel following said ritual of hygiene?  Or taken a picture of a loved one hugging a child — wrapped in a towel or in a bathing suit or summer shorts?  

To view innocent pictures as perverted speaks volumes to the mindset of that employee who set into motion the wheels of this ridiculous train.  

The couple is outraged, emotionally shattered, and drained.  And what of the agony of those children?  What scars will they carry from this ordeal?  And will Wal-Mart and the local police or that original so-well-intentioned employee be there to mend the wounds?

We all can appreciate our society’s efforts to protect its most innocent members, but this is another example of when those efforts spin out of control.

Like this couple, we try to teach our children to be proud of their bodies, whatever the form that body is.  In a world where sharp focus on one’s appearance leads to devastating consequences like anorexia, bulimia, obesity (and us with three daughters!) self-confidence is paramount.  Love your self, your mind, your body.   To learn that lesson, to nurture and develop as best as you can, you’ve got to know yourself, your mind, your body.

Most kids love to be naked.  Our job as parents is to teach them that there is a time and a place for everything, and the family home, especially the bathroom, is where showing a little skin is okay.  Do we avert our eyes in shame when drying off a toddler after her bath?  Should we remove ourselves from the room altogether and hope for the best?  And if a parent snaps a picture of an irresistibly adorable moment (when naked child chooses to accessorize with a tiara and bedroom slippers but nothing else, or when he piles a two-foot bubble hat onto his head while still in the bath), if a mom or dad captures these moments — for their sweetness or plain hilarity – as the priceless memories  that they are, that’s our business as parents.

Thank you, world, for helping us keep the kids safe when we venture outdoors.  But unless you have some hard evidence that something is actually amiss, keep your Victorian noses out of my home.

(In a not entirely related vein, far more concerning is the exploitation of children for profit that our society seem to be applauding rather than questioning — the recent trend of kids, well, their parents, really, making a buck as precocious adults.  Check out Lauren Beckham Falcone’s recent column on the topic.  And hey, Arizona Wal-Mart staff, you might want to spend a little more time investigating a popular activity in your neck of the woods — preschool beauty pageants.  Nah, not at all as troubling as a naked tush.  My mistake.)

Sunday Gravy

There is no better food in the world than Sunday gravy.

Before I tell you why, let me clear up a few things.  There’s a lot of debate about what to call tomatoes cooked to serve over pasta.  Is it sauce?  Gravy?  Something else?  I won’t tell you that you’re right or wrong, whatever you think, but in my world here’s how it breaks down:  Tomatoes cooked with Italian spices and served over pasta is marinara (I think adding “sauce” to “marinara” is just redundant).  When you add meatballs, sausage and a stick of pepperoni, that’s gravy.  There are, of course, plenty of sauces — clam sauce (white or red), cream sauce (any variety), and many others.

But gravy is what we had on Sundays.  And, apropos of the day, it was heavenly.

For many people, Sunday was — and is — family day.  Playtime with friends is limited, which is to say your backyard is where you play with your friends who had different schedules.   In some areas, Sunday is a visiting day, though when I was young my extended family lived too far away for a day trip.

Sunday gravy.  I don’t know when Mom made her meatballs, only that they were made in advance, as she is a proponent of chilling them before cooking (this helps them to not fall apart when frying).  On Sundays, we’d wake to the glorious smell of frying meat, the air thick with garlic and onions and basil.  We’d all head off to Sunday school and mass, and when we came home around noon, a thick gravy was already simmering.  I don’t know how she did it, since she also taught Sunday school classes and drove us around.  Another of Mom’s brand of magic.

The gravy needed to be ready because our Italian family’s tradition was to have a midday dinner, around 2 or 3 o’clock.  I guess we had a light supper or snack later before bed — I remember a lot of PB&J crackers while watching the Disney movie that showed weekly at 7 p.m. — but gravy was the main meal every Sunday.

After putting on play clothes, you’d wander through the kitchen as much as possible, eyeing the heavy pot.   Whenever you dared, you’d grab a slice of bread (white, not wheat in those days, and this makes a huge difference in taste), slather on some gravy, and dig in.  Mostly, Mom would yell that it wasn’t ready yet, but it was.  Gravy bread is unparalleled in its deliciousness.  Sweet and spicy, and on a lucky occasion with a few pieces of meatball…you’d try to wait for it to cool but that was too hard.  Who cared about burning your tongue, anyway?

When Mom put the water up to boil, Dad would get the unwieldy cheese grater out.  This mammoth device clamped to the side of the countertop, reassembled with every use.  A block of parmesan was cut and a lucky kid got to crank the handle.  Said lucky kid also got to snack on the sharp, pungent cheese while doing the job.

The six of us gathered for dinner, possibly with a good friend, or, later, the lucky boyfriend or girlfriend who had achieved that special level of acceptance (everyone was welcome for Friday night pizza, but only a chosen few made the cut on Sundays).  Thick, fresh bread and an amazing salad rounded out the meal.  Dad served us heaping portions — and when it came time, offered seconds, which we called a “Grandpa spoonful”, which was a heaping ladle of macaroni, far more than you could ever eat, but Grandpa and Dad seemed to agree that all of us needed to be fattened up.  Have another meatball!  More sausage?

Another pause.  We called it macaroni.  I still do, though most of the world refers to it as “pasta,” something I’m still getting used to.

This meal a tradition that I am trying to continue.  Ray and the kids love my cooking, though I am partial to my mother’s gravy and meatballs.  I leave out the pepperoni, though, as it gives me agita (which you know as heartburn).  My brother Stephen also cooks a gravy on Sundays.  Harry and his family do from time to time.  Michelle joins in.   

The kids help me make meatballs and they wander through the kitchen, sniffing eagerly as the gravy simmers.  We crowd around the tiny kitchen table, bumping elbows and knees, and dig in.  Family time over Sunday gravy.

Gravy.  ”Sauce” is far too ordinary for this kind of meal.

The beginning…and an end

After months of waiting, Joanna finally got to start preschool today.  It wasn’t a tough transition.  After all, she’s been going to the school since she was born, when the big kids first started there.  She knows her way around all the rooms, all the toys, all the teachers.  It was hard to get pictures because she was so busy!

So now, three mornings a week, I have an empty house for 2 and a half hours.  For the first time in almost eight years.  The silence is lovely now.  My mind is spinning with plans for how to use those 180 minutes.  

And yet, a part of me aches because the end of a time has begun, the end of the time when I was their whole world, the time when everything they experienced was shared with me, Ray, the family.  Today begins the time when they do what children are supposed to do — leave their parents.   Already Mitzi and Cooper have their own lives, small to be sure, but their own lives of which I don’t know the details.  Friends, teachers, thoughts, feelings, games, laughter , struggles, fears — there is so much that they go through every day that I’ll never know, except what they remember to tell me, what they want to tell me.  They are growing up, and I couldn’t be prouder of who and where they are now.   Still, the leaving, as small as their steps are today, squeezes my heart.

Ellie and Joanna are starting that road too, with as much speed as their little legs can muster.  Not very far, not for very long.  But they are running to greet their own lives.   

It’s what they’re supposed to do.    I stand behind them, savoring the moment.  I hope they always feel the excitement and possibility that they feel today.

I hope they always know that I will always be here, when it’s time, at last, to come home.

Grandma’s rose

As much as I love gardening and flowers and a pretty yard, I’m not much of a gardener.   I’m kind of lazy when it comes to tending the vegetation around my house.  But the other day I got a nice surprise.

After Grandma’s funeral last spring, as we were packing up to return from Connecticut, my mom offered me some plants that had been given by friends as condolences.  I chose a small tea rose, knowing my inability to nurture house plants.  I figured this lovely, delicate bloomer was not intended to last that long, so when it went it wouldn’t be my fault.  I’d get to enjoy it for a few months, as I mourned my Grandma and Grandpa, both now gone, and its beauty might help as I struggled to take solace in the memories of my short time with them.

So it hung around in my dining room, perched in front of the big, sunny windows, and it bloomed for a while.  When the last petals faded, I was surprised to see that the leaves and stem remained healthy.  After the June rains, when I got motivated to dig a new bed in the backyard for some perennials, I added the rose.  What did I have to lose?

Again, I was surprised each day at its survival.  Normally I try to choose plants that don’t require much from me — no pruning, good in drought conditions — definitely not a rose.  Maybe thanks to a somewhat wet and cool summer, the little rose dug in and grew.

Then the other day.  There it was.  A single bloom in the bright September sun, opening just as the kids started their new year at school.

I’ll enjoy the little bloom while it can.  I don’t know what to do with the plant to ensure it comes back next spring.  Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.  Because that’s the way things work.  You do the best you can, but so much is beyond your control.  At some point you have to step back, bask in the wonder of the ever-changing, unpredictable, and often glorious nature of the world we have such a short time to live in.  Much of the time, there’s not much more you can do.  

The wonder of this rose, that it hung on, flourished, even, has nothing to do with me, I’m sure.  But maybe my grandparents’ love had something to do with it.

And maybe that’s the key to it all, what you can always do when nothing else seems possible.  

You can love.

In Support of Team Lucy!

Few things are more exhilarating than a walk in crisp fall air.  If you’re going to be doing it, why not do it for a great cause?

 

Dust off your sneakers and join hundreds of other walkers on October 11 in support of the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress.  The 2009 MDSC Buddy Walk and Family Picnic will be held at Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield.

 

Some other fall walks garner more publicity and national support (such as the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, which I’ll be participating in that same October weekend), but that doesn’t make the cause less important.  In fact, some would say, perhaps this walk deserves much more attention.

 

I’m sad to have already committed last year to the Avon Walk, or I’d be lacing up to join Team Lucy, a group of walkers organized by Boston Globe columnist Beverly Beckham, in honor of her granddaughter Lucy, age 6, who has Down Syndrome.  Lucy is the daughter of Boston Herald columnist Lauren Beckham Falcone, a terrific writer, a great friend, and an inspiring mom.   The team’s goal is to gather 100 walkers and raise $10,000 for the MDSC.

 

Raising a child is never easy under any circumstances, but the hurdles while raising a child with different needs, one that our world is sadly not always prepared for, must seem insurmountable at times.  Lucy is the same age as Cooper.  When Cooper was 15 days old, he was hospitalized for 2 days after contracting RSV (but rebounded quickly and soon grew rather fat while nursing around the clock).  Lucy, meanwhile, underwent multiple surgeries to repair holes in her heart.  I thought our hospital experience was scary — I can only imagine how Lauren and her husband Dave felt each time they took their baby back for more.

 

These days, though, Lucy is a healthy and happy kindergartner, surrounded by an adoring family and a supportive community.  The local paper, the Canton Citizen, recently ran an article about the amazing residents.   

 

At back-to-school time, our society refocuses on kids, encouraging their growth and learning, celebrating their successes and possibilities.  This is the perfect time to also celebrate this amazing group of people — for being exactly as they are.

Nurture your outward adult!

I’m surrounded by children around the clock.  And most of the time I am in awe of the simplicity of their needs and the depth of their innocent observations.  (The rest of the time I’m totally fed up with bickering, screeching and tantruming, but that’s another post. Maybe all the other posts here?) 

We should get in touch with our inner child, right?  Being more child-like is a popular mantra of many spiritual leaders, a concept popularized in nonfiction, and a dream held by many adults in high pressure environments.  I can dig it.  Kids are free-wheelin’, curious creatures motivated by optomism and joy.  They usually listen to their bodies for basic needs like eating and sleeping, and someone else always takes care of them. It’s pretty cool, being a kid.

But here are some reasons why it’s a good thing we all stop being children, eventually:

1.  No one in an adult workplace will streak through the room, announcing that he “needs to poop and will call you when it’s time for wiping!”

2.  Very few adults will refuse a meal because one food group is touching another on the plate.

3.  Likewise, few adults ask you to cut up their sandwiches into shapes — stars, not rectangles, please.  No crusts.

4.  For adults, chewing a piece of gum is a subconscious activity, not a real one.

5.  An adult companion is very unlikely to break a lengthy, meditative silence by announcing “I like to eat my boogers.”

6.  Fist fights do not break out between adults when one claims that the other “won’t stop singing that stupid Batman song”.

7.  An adult won’t break your new office chair by spinning in it non-stop for 4 hours.  Then throw up on your floor.

8.  Adults won’t report to you every five minutes with information about what someone else did wrong.

9.  Adults respect the closed bathroom door.

10.  Finally, most adults will not feel compelled to duck under your shirt to “check if your boobies are still there.”

Poetry Wednesday, revisited

one of mine…share yours!

 

desire

 

 

an ice cream cone

dripping slowly

chocolate rivulets

 

sticky streams

toward scabbed elbows

waiting for red tongue

 

the finest way

to spend a hot

july afternoon

Eunice Kennedy and children of grace

I never gave too much thought for the Kennedy women.  Ray has a certain affection for the Kennedy legacy, specifically, an admiration for the general philanthropic nature of the clan.  The accomplishments of the men (as well as their foibles) are legend.

But the women?  Eh.

Then today brought the news of the passing of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.  Much will be — and has been — written about the various accomplishments of this grande dame.  She was clearly someone to admire and applaud.

Were there more like her!  And why had I never cared before?

Her passing calls to mind many issues she championed, but most strongly the need for valuing those in our society who are born with differences.

Four times I have been blessed with healthy children, a son and three daughters who so far have needed little extra care (okay, there were a few hospital stays with nasty diseases, but those were thankfully few).  But I could have gotten a different hand.

After all, all but Mitzi were, well, surprises, babies conceived when no babies were expected.  (Ages 7, 5, 4, and 3 — do the math!)  And I’m not a perfect person.  That no mistakes made were held against us is a miracle.

When we learned about Ellie, I was more than a little upset.  My life was chaotic.  I already had two small children, one for each hand, who in themselves were a struggle to manage most days.  Ray was finishing law school and took a job far away from our young home, requiring us to stay with my parents for a long time.  Grandpa had just died.  My heart was stretched, torn beyond anything I’d ever felt, and suddenly I was expecting a miracle?

I was a little less than enthused.  ”Miracle” was not the word I would have chosen just then.

The pregnancy was very stressful.  My life was very stressful.  So when Ellie finally came (neo-natal team at standby due to a small complication), and she was normal, healthy, I was grateful.  (I was also grateful that my birthing complications were destined to become faint memories in the grand scheme of parenting.)  Sure, she suffered from extreme reflux which led her to prescription formula and two medications, but she eventually became a happy baby.

Today at four, she remains happy, healthy and on track.  So many mistakes by mom, yet this bundle of complicated perfection.

The same is true for each of my babies, all my surprises and the planned baby.  I should be more mindful of the daily gifts, but too often life gets in the way for that.

When Joanna was identified as having positive testings for cystic fybrosis, I was not entirely panicked.  Through earlier testing with my first pregnancy, I knew I carried the CF gene, but Ray did not, so we were confident baby number four was healthy.  And she was.  She’s a carrier, like her mom, but no disease.  Still, the newborn had to endure a painful (and scarring) procedure that would not have been necessary without that test.

Today, the passing of Mrs. Shriver highlights that were my experiences different, my world would be no less filled with grace.  I always had prenatal testing to determine various health factors of each baby.  For me, I needed to be prepared for what might come (including which gender baby box to open).  For some, this information too often leads to a decision about whether that particular pregnancy is continued.

I am a huge supporter of women’s rights, particularly of the right to choose what happens with one’s own body, be it booster shots or pregnancies.  Since becoming a mom, my views haven’t entirely changed, but my heart has.   Looking at my kids’ sleeping faces, no matter what this day has given us, I couldn’t imagine life without any of them.  Warts and all.  Hospitalizations and all.  Whatever has come, it has brought me to today.

I can’t judge others for their decisions.  But somehow I wonder if we are burdened with too much information these days.  It’s easy for me to say that, having a fairly typical experience of motherhood.  I’d like to think, though, that I would still be me if the cards were different.

I see the children of friends who are challenged in any number of ways.  Perhaps my own are challenged in ways yet to be revealed.  Do those differences define the children, determine their fate, or are they simply a facet of that complicated mosaic that makes up our souls?

Mrs. Shriver, and so many like her, answer question, reply, no.  Differences are not determinations; facets are not fate.

Look into the eyes of any child, and that’s all the answer you need.

Another one bites the dust

Well, I’ve done it again.  Speaking too soon.  Setting in motion the wheels of Fate through casual remarks.

Yesterday a writer friend posted on Facebook that she had gotten her daughter a pair of hermit crabs.  Many comments followed with advice and experience, including mine:

“Ah, Mitzi asked for some for her last birthday. Bizarre pets! She does an okay job taking care of them — luckily, they don’t need too much attention! Ours are called Swirly, Jr. (after the first, which died) and Lumpy. Or is it Bumpy? I can’t remember.”  (My blog post on that one in January:  http://onemomsworld.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/alas-poor-yorick-when-a-child-loses-a-pet/)

Later on I remarked: “We’ve been lucky since, though. Seven months without incident!”

Soon after it was my bedtime.  I checked on the kids, one by one.  As usual, I also checked on the hermit crabs.

It happened again.  There was poor Bumpy (or was it Lumpy?).  Out of his shell, limp, like an icky rubber slug.  I poked him (or was it a her?).  Nothing.  I picked it up.  Nothing.  I washed my hands and went to tell Ray.  (It is my strong belief that fathers are responsible for taking care of dead pets.  Mothers handle the emotional aftereffects.  Call me a traditionalist.)

After the corpse was tagged and bagged, Ray told me that he suspected foul play.  Apparently, Swirly, the somewhat bigger and more aggressive of the two, had been harassing poor Lumpy (or was it Bumpy?) just the day before.   We are convinced it was a crabicide, though without evidence Swirly remains a free crustacean.

Luckily, Mitzi was not that upset.  

(An aside:  This morning there was another post in the Facebook discussion, from the original writer, who was responding to another friend’s comment on her own crab’s death:  ”are you sure it was dead, or was it molting. A friend of mine kept throwing away one that were just molting.”  Uh.  Hmmm.  Well, if he hadn’t been last night, 7 hours in a zipped baggie surely did the trick.  But we won’t share that information with Mitzi.)

A mid-afternoon burial in the shade garden is planned. 

On the left is Bumpy (or was it Lumpy?) as we remember him best.  

Now with his friend Swirly, in crustacean heaven.

RIP.

New pool and clubhouse from Mean Mommy

It was a selfish move, really.  I just didn’t want to listen to the kids complain for the rest of the summer about their not having anything but the tiny baby pool for water fun.  So I took the group to Wal-Mart, where back-to-school shopping is well underway, and summer fun is demoted to a clearance rack.  Luckily they had something called a snapit pool, or some such thing.  It was $15.  I snapped it up.

Kind of a pain to set up, with floppy plastic comprising its walls (but I guess that makes emptying it a breeze).  I hope the kids don’t destroy it in one day:

(Ellie is just showing off her front floating skills, don’t worry!)

On the inside news, the cardboard box clubhouse is surviving, despite “upgrades” by the kids this morning.  I couldn’t get too many good pictures (the room is very tiny and very dark).  But here are a couple:

    

You can see how I used all of my skill as a cardboard expert to curve the tunnel across the midsection.  Also, please notice the fine details in the windows and doors.  I am master of the boxcutter tool!  (I think that’s what it is called).  I may let the kids paint it on the next rainy day — if it hasn’t been destroyed by then.  

I am still a mean Mommy, though, please don’t misunderstand.  Why, just last night, I took Joanna out of the shower when she refused to exit on her own volition after 10 minutes of my cajoling, pleading, demanding and threatening.  I let her sit on the mat, wet and crying, while I cleaned Ellie.  Then I made everyone go to bed — gasp!  – at SCHOOL YEAR BEDTIME!  

The pictures above simply evidence my lapses of meanness and military-like stringency.  Seriously.

It will not happen again!  (Hold on, I think it’s time to go biking.  But after that, no more fun.)