Smoking My Kids

In a recent essay in The New Yorker, David Sedaris talks about taking up smoking as a young man. He said it was as if he'd been fumbling around on a stage his whole life, and then the propmaster finally showed up.

At last! He knew what to do with his hands. Finally! He had an instant conversation-starter. Sure there were downsides to smoking, but to him, they paled in comparison to what were then some pretty obvious social benefits.

I get that. I really do.

I haven't smoked a cigarette in ages, but it was an awfully convenient accessory in college, and in some of the years after. Arrive at a party before anyone else I knew? Just ask someone for a cigarette or a light...boom!...instant interaction, with little flashes of knowingness, being now a smoker engaging with another smoker.

Traveling in a foreign country? Smoking'll come in handy too. First there's the comfort of seeing familiar brands abroad, and second there's another thing to have in common with someone whose language you might never understand. Smiling eyes, engaged hands...offering a cigarette, accepting a light. Piece of cake.

It occurred to me the other night, as I arrived to pick my middle child up from soccer practice, that my children are my cigarettes. I usually take my four year old with me to these soccer games but on this particular night I didn't have her with me. I found myself hesitating before approaching the group of parents. I was on my own. No prop, no built in distraction, no obvious conversation starter. Just me and a group of people I didn't really know. Usually it's not obvious that I don't really know them, so busy am I chasing around the four year old. And if she bounds towards them, golden-retriever-like, I lump along behind her and then end up having little snippets of conversation with them. Likewise, if she decides to roll down the hill over there over and over and over, I'm perfectly comfortable setting up a blanket and sitting alone on it with a magazine, keeping an eye on her, but also keeping near her and feeling justified in my decision to set up camp away from the other grown-ups. On this particular night I didn't really know what to do. Aiming directly towards the group of other parents seemed brash and forward. My intent would be clearly visible, and if I wasn't greeted with eye contact and welcomed into the fold I wouldn't really know how to get away. But setting up camp alone seemed ridiculously unsocial. I felt naked without her. It was then that I remembered the Sedaris piece. I was on the hilltop without my prop, and I wasn't sure how to behave.

I started thinking of all the ways that my kids have been my cigarettes through the years.

The biggest thing that stands out is the first grown-up party my husband and I were invited to after our first baby was born. Of course we brought him, he was just a few months old. But this wasn't a party full of parents, it was a medical school crowd. Sleek Grey's Anatomy folk mingling, having adult conversations about adult things. Since my social life had been swallowed up by pregnancy and childbirth--meaning that it was all I was ever required to talk about, I'd completely lost the ability to chat up strangers, if we weren't talking about episiotomies or cracked nipples. So there we were, my husband and me and the baby, attempting to schmooze and mix, but really we just kind of hung out by the dip all night and tried to steer conversations towards the baby. We fought over who was going to hold him (because whoever wasn't holding him might be asked to weigh in on some topic like politics or graduate school), and the poor kid probably got about seven diaper changes. Lull in the conversation? Oop, think I should go change the baby. Kind of like having to go put OUT that cigarette.

We took the boy to Chile when he was almost two. He was a platinum blonde kid whose looks got us more and more attention the further we travelled from Santiago. In one beach town about seven hours north of the capital, every restaurant we went into seated us in a front window. Places that my husband and I might have been nervous to go into--you know that uncertain feeling at the threshold of a new place, where you wonder if it even is a restaurant? No problem when there's a baby around.

I just returned from my twentieth college reunion. I brought my four year old. It didn't make sense to many, but it made perfect sense to me; I've since found out that the proper term for her in this case is 'distance regulator'--a chapter heading in books about intimacy (and how people avoid it, I'm guessing, though I haven't peeked). It was a perfect weekend, the perfect amount of being with old friends, and the perfect amount of being interrupted--oh, excuse me for a minute, I need to make sure she finds the dessert table--as well. There were extras on hand to help out with her, but it was always ultra-convenient to have her in the periphery.

Maybe someday I'll quit. Oh wait, I mean, maybe someday my children will grow up and move away and I'll be forced to find my way back to being comfortable without them. Or maybe I'll move on to some other kind of 'distance regulator.' I have a hunch that a blackberry might do the trick.

Babysitter Rejection

My most vivid rejection memory from childhood is of playing in the front yard with two older neighbor girls--the one who I choreographed the Dancing Queen routine with who ended up working at the U.N., and the one who became a track star in high school who teaches public school in the South Bronx. The Dancing Queen/U.N gal decided that we should race to her front door and so we all started to run there. I got there last and by the time I got up to the little cement step with the white iron railing they'd shut the door and announced that I wasn't allowed to play with them anymore. What a terrible feeling! I'd been slow, I'd been duped, I'd been dumped.

Aside from that, I wasn't the victim of a lot of rejection in my early years, or even in my later years. Maybe that's why I don't have tough-rejection-proof skin. Maybe that's why I can, on a certain kind of day, feel rejected so easily. Maybe that's why I can find rejection in the strangest places. Maybe that's why I cringe so much at the thought of calling around for a babysitter.

I know it's ridiculous. I do. I'm not always this sensitive. Just when I'm not feeling at the top of my game, or when I'm feeling a bit blue or disconnected--more often in the winter than in the summer. If I could just use that knowledge to my advantage I'd be fine. But I never know when a pair of tickets might end up in my lap, or some other kind of night out with my husband might present itself, and all of a sudden, no matter my mood, I find myself in need of a sitter. And the agony begins.

Take Jane. Jane never calls back right away. (Why doesn't she ever call?) But she usually comes through in the end--'Hi it's Jane? I'm so sorry I never called you back! Do you still need someone? Cuz I can do it if you haven't found anyone else.' Great, Super. She loves the kids, and ours are the only ones in her life. She's in school with a weird schedule and so I know (intellectually) not to feel bad if a Wednesday evening class means she can't watch them on a Wednesday night. But still...why doesn't she ever call?

Then there's Carly. Carly watched the kids once and wrote us a long note describing how wonderful they were. And now she's NEVER available. But I keep trying, especially since there's always that big gap between leaving a message for Jane and hearing that she can do it. Carly always sounds convincing when she says she feels bad, and she's a bigtime neighborhood babysitter and I'm usually calling at the last minute--so there's a chance she really is always busy. But still...should I be reading between the lines here?

Yolanda is fabulous, but has a way of accepting a job that unnerves me and makes me feel desperate. 'Yeah sure,' she'll say drowsily as if I just asked her if she liked milk in her tea. 'You can do it?' I implore. 'Yeah. No problem.' I can hear her shrugging through the phone. This indifference (even though it's a yes) triggers some nervous energy in me and I find myself prattling on 'really? really, it's okay?' It must drive her nuts. She said 'Yeah, sure' four mintues earlier and I'm there nervously rambling on, 'really? tomorrow? So, you can do it tomorrow? Really?' Several times I've gotten off the phone with her, still not confident that she understood what I was asking.

Adding to the awkwardness is that I call some of these women so infrequently it's impossible to avoid calling them in weird places and at weird times. Like in the middle of their own wedding ceremony ('whoa, sorry...I mean, congratulations'), on the other side of the world ('ouch, what time is it there?'), or in the wake of some tragedy ('ohhh, sorry...' I'll say, feeling guilty that I'm calling about such a ho-hum-life-goes-on reason--'so I guess that means you can't watch the kids so Joe and I can go out to dinner?' I might add sheepishly, depending on how desperate I'm feeling). Several Pratt students have just moved on with their lives (tends to happen to twenty-one year olds after they graduate): Peace Corps, Boston...but I rarely see this coming and feel foolish when my call finds them in some far off place.

And don't even get me started on the no-shows. Or the last-minute no-explanation cancelers. To be sitting in my going-out clothes with the kids in the living room all hopped up on pre-babysitter adrenaline in anticipation of some girl who never shows up is the worst feeling. My four year old LOVES babysitters, my seven year old loves it when ANYONE does an art project with her, my son LOVES that his sisters leave him alone. It's like being stood-up times four. I can know that it's a reflection of the lousy woman who didn't come, and not a reflection on me or my kids. But in the moment it feels pretty personal.

Hooray! I just got a pair of tickets to Wicked! What fun! Joe scored Knicks tickets! Wonderful! my friend just invited us to Ethan Hawke's new show! And ohhhhh crap....I think, picturing a stack of phone calls to wonderful women with busy social lives and oddly-timed classes. All it takes is one yes. One yes erases all the uncertainty, all those gaps of not knowing. It's just too bad it can take so long to find it.

Ring Around the City

My daughter is four and her friend Zed is 3. He was over the other day and they played like they usually do, all over the house. A little tv in the living room, some upper bunk time in my son's room, some action figure exploration, some water play in one of the bathrooms, sometimes they manage to sneak cookies upstairs and I end up vacuuming her bed with one of the funky hose attachments, to get rid of all the crumbs.

At one point the two of them started walking awkwardly across our oriental rug near the kitchen. They were kind of measuring out their steps and holding hands. She announced to all of us (Zed's mom, and several older siblings who were doing homework at the kitchen table) that she and Zed were getting married and we'd all have to yell out 'yip yip yerray,' at the right time.

She mumbled something about 'spitting up flowers,' though she might have meant 'putting out flowers.' Didn't matter, her imagination is pretty vivid and as long as a few of us waved our arms around and said 'flowers flowers flowers' she was pleased. They marched a bit, got distracted by Scooby Doo for a bit, and then remembered to kiss. He sat frozen while she puckered up and moved towards his face in slow motion. She made it to his chin, at which point we all yelled 'Yip Yip Yerray!' My camera was charged, which is rare in off-the-cuff moments like this one, so I even snapped a picture. Very very cute.

Eventually Zed's mom decided to head home to try to make a real meal for her kids. My older daughter went with them (it's the only time she eats vegetables), and my youngest, the new bride, got engrossed in Scooby Doo once more.

I did everything but make dinner. I folded sheets, sorted socks, watched some MSNBC, vacuumed up some more Milano cookie remains. I sat down at my computer to check emails and noticed my skinny wedding band sitting near the keyboard. It was then that I remembered taking both bands off much earlier in the day, during yet another frantic 'calgon take me away' email-checking moment--pretty soon they'll have to change that expression from a watched pot never boils to a checked email never arrives--nothing major going on in email land, but it begs to be checked every time I walk by my computer. Earlier in the day I'd walked home from Manhattan--over the Williamsburg bridge, and I'd gotten caught in a really chilly drizzle. I must have slipped both wedding bands off in an attempt to pare down and warm up, plus maybe my fingers were a bit swollen from all the walking.

So there was my skinny wedding ring--the one my husband and I designed to match his grandmother's engagement ring that he'd given me when we got engaged. I'd long since stopped wearing the engagement ring because I don't do well with jewelry that's pokey or with anything that requires extra thought. I'd managed to snag bathing suits (when did bathing suits start costing $80?) and scratch the cheeks of all of my children, drawing blood at times, forgetting the sharp art deco edges that held the diamond in place. I began to wear his grandmother's own wedding band instead, in addition to the skinny one we made. A thick chunky circle of sunflower-halves that gets much more attention than I could have ever imagined. It's practical, doesn't act like a weapon, and gets along nicely with lycra and nylon.

But it wasn't there.

Honey...I began, realizing that it was going to be hard to get her interested in anything now that she had Scooby Doo all to herself. Honey...I continued. Remember Mommy's shiny special ring?

I was feeling a bit frantic, but had to approach the situation with caution. Kind of like dismantling a bomb. Snip the wrong wire--in this case, reveal how important this is or act too accusatory, and the whole thing might explode.

What Mommy? She looked at me idly out of the corner of her eye.

Well, where do you think it might be? I asked cheerfully.

She shrugged noncommittally. I dunno.

Well, do you think you put it somewhere? A song in my voice--again, cross the line into 'you might be in trouble' territory and I'd lose whatever chance I might have of enlisting her help.

Maybe upstairs? She suggested. Maybe upstairs--but that's too vague. Maybe she's just looking to get rid of me and all this pestering.

Where upstairs? Another shrug. I dunno.

Well...did you put it on?

Shrug/I dunno.

Did you play with it?

Shrug/I dunno.

Could it be under the couch?

Maybe! I check it now, she said slipping under the pulled out futon where she and Zed had spent part of the afternoon. Nope, she said, backsliding out. Not there.

Where do you think it might be, I asked again.

Maybe in Zeddy's pocket?

Zeddy's pocket?

Yep. Maybe in Zeddy's pocket?

Did you put it in Zeddy's pocket?

Shrug/I dunno.

Was she saying this to put the whole thing to rest?--or could she be telling me the truth?

Zed is a pockety kid. He always shows up in blue jeans and several layers of shirts--each of which usually has a pocket somewhere, topped off by a jean jacket. This wasn't very specific. I think his boots might even have pockets.

Which pocket do you think you might have put it in? I asked.

Shrug/I dunno...pause...maybe the blue one.

The blue pocket?

Shrug/I dunno.

I went to the phone and called his mom. They were eating their healthful meal when I called. Zeddy stand up, I heard her say. And then. Yep, here it is. I've got your ring. She put it on the mantel for safe keeping. It was on the mantel in her house eight blocks away, deeper in Brooklyn.

Phew. Huge sigh of relief. The bomb was dismantled--the red digits stopped somewhere just before zero. Of course this was a teachable moment. But how? Should this be the time that I lose it completely and show my child who's the boss? The moment she'll always remember, the one that will make her afraid to go near any of my stuff? The one that might end up being her first vivid memory? Nope. Just a good time to remind my kids that the truth is always best.

I'm not even mad because I'm so happy that you told me the truth, I told her, but frankly I had to compete with the 'and we would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for you meddling kids' moment so I'm not sure she heard me at all.

I picked the ring up a bit later when I went to pick up my other daughter. The mom handed it over to me and laughed nervously. She was almost more freaked out that it had been in his pocket than I was. That she'd been in possession of it, and we might not have ever really found it.

I'm not one of these moms who has fun match-making toddlers--I understand the interest in doing it, but I think it does them a disservice, acting like they're grown-ups to be instead of little kids who are. But it would be awfully convenient if, eventually, she and Zeddy did fall in love and get married. She's already given him her great-grandmother's wedding ring, we've already yelled yip yip yerray. We'd be those kinds of people--the ones with the excellent stories to tell at the wedding.

Loving My Tree

My seven year old daughter and I have been taking African Dance classes at our local YMCA. It's a family class full of mothers and daughters, led by a beautiful and powerful woman, accompanied by an energetic and incredibly focussed drumming teenage boy.

As long as we've lived in Brooklyn I've been tempted by classes like this; friends of mine have raved about African dance, Belly-dance, etc. Problem is I've never danced at all ('cepting for those occasional moments when the mood strikes--rare rare times indeed, especially if alcohol isn't involved) and have been basically too uptight and self-conscious to try anything with the word 'dance' in it. But like people who get dogs find that their social lives pick up, so I've discovered how many more things I'm willing to try in the name of my children. What a fantastic excuse they are to get out in the world, to try new things!

Taking my daughter to this 'family class' became a safe entree into the world. And I've really loved it. Hard to believe I could love anything that involves prancing around in front of an enormous mirror in front of other people for an hour, but I really do. Moving in concert with a roomful of women--hammering out steps and movements, moving as one, applauding each other, it's fantastic.

One day after class my daughter said 'Mommy whenever you raised your arms up everyone could see your belly.' Of course I'd noticed this, and because I am who I am I'd considered being embarrassed about it. But it's hard to feel that way in a class full of strong rhythmic heavyset mamas--where size is strength, and where self-consciousness of that sort would seem as out of place as pausing mid-beat to apply eye-liner.

Years ago I saw Eve Ensler's The Good Body on Broadway. I remembered snippets of a wonderful speech given by a Masai woman about her body called Love Your Tree.

"Its your stomach. Its meant to be seen...look at that tree? Do you see that tree? Now look at that tree. (Points to another tree) Do you like that tree? Do you hate that tree cause it doesnt look like that tree?"

In the afterglow of this particular class, I turned to my daughter and replied "I'm proud of my belly, my body's given me three strong children and a wonderful, capable life. It's part of who I am and how happy I am and how proud I am to have had all of my wonderful experiences."

She considered this for a split second and then said 'Oh, well I was embarrassed."

"You were embarrassed when your own belly showed?" I asked, cringing at the thought that she be on the verge of being crippled by self-consciousness.

"No Mommy, I was embarrassed when YOUR belly showed."

At any other time this might have pinched, but again, there in the wake of that empowering class, I channelled the Masai woman and found the words to say "Well I'm not embarrassed about my belly, so you don't need to bother being embarrassed by it either. It's just a waste of your own good energy."

Of course, it was a moment of mommy-strength not unlike the power we're supposed to access in order to lift a small car off of one of our children in an emergency. And this comment does not speak to any consistently true feelings about my body. But it felt right to say it, and I'm hoping she heard it. And now I want to play Belly's song Feed theTree over and over (because it seems related), and tack Love Your Tree up on the refrigerator. And see if we can't get some major tree-appreciation going.

Don't Be My Guest

The other day I overheard my daughter arguing with her friend Fifi, who was visiting our house. They were both standing with their hands on their hips, bending forward in rage, noses almost touching. They're four.

"But I'm the guest!" Fifi said.

"No, you're not!" responded my own child.

They were in a squabble about who was going to go first with my nine year old's magnetic dart board. Needless to say this item only held their attention for as long as their fight lasted; they moved on to find other things to fight about moments later.

"Yes, I'm the guest. I'm at your house!" Fifi said again.

"Noooooooooo..." my child started slowly. Condescendingly. "I'm the guest" (actually, she says 'ine' instead of 'I'm' so I'll just insert that from here on).

Fifi saw me lurking in the doorway and looked up at me, confused. "She says I'm not the guest, but I am the guest and the guest always gets to go first," she insisted.

"The guest does always get to go first," mine countered. "But ine the guest. Remember? Your mom said so yesterday."

"But that's when you were at my house. Today I'm at your house so I'm the guest."

"No ine always the guest. You were there when your mom said it!" Then she started to tick the number of times off on her fingers......"your mom told me ine the guest, Chloe's mom told me ine the guest, Aliza's mom told me ine the guest...ine always the guest!"

OHHHHHH, I finally realized what was going on. At this moment, as with other similar moments, I remembered that Fifi's eleven days younger than my own daughter. Yet another example of something I forgot to teach my kid. Don't even get me started on the time the boy who's four months younger showed us all the movements to eensy weensy spider. I hadn't even taught my child the song.

In my girl's world, 'guest' has nothing to do with location, it isn't a status that can change. She's been told she's the guest by so many moms, so consistently, that she thinks she's perma-guest. Must be nice to live in her world.

Fifi turned to me for help. Instead of doing what I should have done, instead of intervening on Fifi's behalf (after all, she was the guest, shouldn't I have worked harder to make her comfortable in my home?), I just gave Fifi a look of exasperation. "You know what honey? she just doesn't understand" I explained." I'll have to explain it to her, but I think I'll have to do it another time. I don't think she's in a position to understand it right now." Fifi (did I say she was younger?) shrugged her shoulders and moved on to play with some other seldom-played-with item that was about to be elevated to sudden preciousness. And so the afternoon went.

I stuck to my word and I did try to explain the concept to my four year old. Several times. She nods like she understands, but of course she doesn't like it. Massively demoted, if you ask her. Sometimes when we walk to school and she's doing things like peering in pipes for watery eyeballs, or balance-beaming her way across someone's stone ledge, I see an idea flash across her brain, and she stops me and says "Mommy, sometime when no friends are at my house, can I be the guest?'

"Sure" I say. "No problem."