Tag: Parenting

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Will There Be School Tomorrow? Cultivating Patience During a Polar Vortex

It has been a long winter in the midwest. I mean, given that we have Netflix and all, probably not as harrowing as, say, the long, cold winter that the Ingalls family faced in the Dakota Territory in 1880, but a long one nonetheless.

My children have missed five and a half days of school due to weather. Five. And a half. A feeling of restlessness has descended upon our home, the kind of restlessness that all midwesterners in January know, a restlessness born of grey skies and static cling, born of dry skin and chapped lips, born of socks that keep getting wet when you step in a piece of snow that has been trekked in and left upon the floor.

The first snow day, as always, was joyful. We knew the weather was coming, and we got the snow pants and mittens and hats and boots all lined up the night before the storm. The next morning, with snow covering the ground, we texted friends and hosted, in our yard, a neighborhood snowball fight. Kids came from all around. A few of them made snow angels. Others built a snowman. Our enterprising young neighbors across the street made a sled ramp on their front steps. It was about as Norman-Rockwell-magical as a person would have a right to hope for in 2019.

And then.

Snow Day #2. Okay. Not quite as exuberant as Snow Day #1, and maybe the kids should check Google classroom to see if they’re missing anything, and maybe I should check those work emails. But okay.

And then.

Snow Day #3. When Snow Day #3 arrived, it had been more than a month since Snow Day #2. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with preparing my classes for the new semester at the community college where I teach, and I didn’t have it in me to organize a big neighborhood snow hoopla, but the kids and I spent the afternoon snuggled under a blanket drinking hot chocolate and watching the rebellion take on the AT-ATs in the great snow battle on Hoth, and what more could a person want, really, from a snow day?

And then. Snow Day #4.

And then #5.

By Day #5, I was getting rather desperate to get more work done. The kids were getting restless, too. In an effort to make myself buckle down, I organized something I called “let’s have one-room schoolhouse.” For two hours, the children and I sat at the dining room table, and they worked on doing extra reading and schoolwork while I worked on my classes. My youngest, ever a good sport, claimed to enjoy this and asked if we could do it again. Her older brothers? Not so much. That afternoon, when everyone seemed to be really getting twitchy after too much time indoors together, I declared that they should all go outside and play for at least 15 minutes. It was cold, sure—pretty darn cold—but they could bundle up, right? The pioneers used to stay outside for longer in worse weather, I figured, and they were fine. Right?

My children obliged. They bundled. They went outside. They sort of aimlessly walked around in the cold and half-played. But, as B.B. King once observed, the thrill [was] gone.

And then came another half. An early dismissal due to blowing winds.

And here’s the thing—the forecast says that for the next week, the weather is going to get worse. Daytime temps below zero kind of worse. And wind. And, hey, more snow.

Even as I type this blog, I am literally just waiting for the phone call to get the news for tomorrow’s inevitable cancellation. School, this semester, seems to be happening more in theory than in practice.

On social media, my friends debate: Should school have been cancelled? Maybe, maybe not. It’s always a tough call, and I do not envy superintendents for having to make it. I tend to err on the side of caution, but I realize I am lucky that I work at a job that also tends to cancel in bad weather, making those snow days at home a lot more manageable, save for the boredom and the twitchiness.

Meanwhile, we wait—something we aren’t too used to having to do in 2019. At a time when we can run much of our lives as we see fit from the press of a single button on our phone, winter in the Midwest reminds us that maybe we’re not in charge after all. We wait for the “school has been cancelled” phone messages, for the next storm to hit. Will it be as bad as predicted? Even better? Even worse? We wait for the boots to thaw, for the roads to get plowed, for the sun to shine. We adjust, we adapt. We make it work. We shovel the walks for our neighbors. We scrape the ice. We get seed catalogs in the mail and dream about baseball, and gardens, and bare feet, and we wait for spring.

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Midnight at the Walgreens Oasis

I am no longer the parent of little children. Young children, but not little.

On the plus side, after the kiddos go to bed, my husband and I can binge watch House of Cards. Sometimes, we’re even able to stay awake while we watch it.

But, when I am walking along the sidewalk with my children, no child automatically reaches to hold my hand.

I can take a shower now without interruption. Sometimes even a bath. With a book.

But, no more lazy mornings cuddling on the couch and waiting, in great anticipation, to find out “the letter of the day” on Sesame Street.

Taking our children to a restaurant is no longer an act of daring. We arrive, we sit, we order, we eat. We even talk. It’s like we’re people in the world. We no longer send a steady stream of urgent, telepathic messages to the kitchen to “hurry!,” or eat like we’re being hunted.

But, no more chubby cheeks, bright eyes, and big smiles greeting me from a crib in the morning, as sunlight streams through the window. No more little person whose whole world lights up just because I entered the room.

So it’s a mixed bag, to be sure.

It’s easy sometimes, when I am missing those big belly laughs and outstretched arms, to start feeling wistful.

Also, at the moment, there are babies everywhere. Everywhere! Okay, by “everywhere,” I mean my Facebook newsfeed. But in 2017, that counts as everywhere, right?

I was on the older side when we had our daughter, our third and final child. As she has gotten older, I have become Facebook friends with some of her classmates’ mothers, many of whom are young and just starting their families. Similarly, college students who I taught a dozen years ago and with whom I am Facebook friends are having children, too.

I am far enough away from the infant years that when I look at these posts—babies with crazy hair, snuggly PJs, and big yawns—it can be easy to forget just how hard parenting these sweet, adorable little people can be.

Enter Walgreens.

Whenever I am tempted to wander down the “Oh, I wish my children were little again” path, I remember Walgreens. More specifically, I see it.

I drive past the Walgreens near my house nearly every day, and I am reminded that there was a time in my life not long ago that everything felt so overwhelming, so exhausting, so hard that a solo trip to Walgreens used to feel like a vacation.

When our two boys were little, they contended with a number of ailments and medical issues—everything from your everyday assortment of infectious delights to an “unusually intense” case of rotavirus, and more challenging conditions like colic, gastro reflux, and pyloric stenosis. (Fortunately, they emerged healthy from the maladies of these early years, and for that, we are grateful, grateful, grateful).

Between their health issues and our need for everyday necessities, we ran to Walgreens a lot. I mean, a lot.

Usually—if it wasn’t the middle of the night or the middle of a subzero snowstorm—I volunteered.

My husband frequently noted that picking up one prescription for medicine or buying one loaf of bread took me far longer than it should.

He was not wrong.

Walgreens was my oasis. It was like my very own personal spa, but instead of a masseuse and fluffy white towels, I was surrounded by rows of cleaning products and toilet paper.

No matter. I was alone. Blissfully, wonderfully, marvelously alone.

No one needed me. No one was crying for me. Well, maybe they were, but if they were, I couldn’t hear them.

I meandered down aisles studying make-up and face lotions that I had no intention of buying. Toothbrushes. Random bargain bin books and DVDs. Greeting cards. Candy—so much candy. And all of it in its place, sitting there quietly and neatly, under the fluorescent lights, wanting absolutely nothing from me.

Mostly, though, I hung out with the magazines.

I was shameless. It would be nice to say I just skimmed the promos on the covers as I walked past on my way to the pharmacy to pick up my sick child’s medicine. But, no. I would stop. I would open the magazine. And I would read it.

I had my rationalizations.

Really, I just needed a break so badly. So badly. The good people of Walgreens would surely understand, right? My children, too—that is, if they were old enough to be capable of understanding.

If only I could have fifteen minutes to find out just how Katie Holmes escaped from Scientology with her daughter Suri, I would come home revived. Ready to throw myself into the breach again. Ready to be loving and devoted. And it wasn’t just my children who would benefit from my stopping to read that article about Katie Holmes. No, I would be a kinder, gentler, more patient person with all of mankind if only I could have a few flipping minutes to myself to read celebrity pop culture garbage. So, really, it was for the good of humanity. Right?

I even took my shameless Walgreens-as-Oasis show on the road.

One time at a Walgreens in another state, when my oldest was a baby and I was feeling particularly stressed, I went to a nearby Walgreens to pick up some Tylenol. At this particular Walgreens, there happened to be a metal folding chair that had been left, fortuitously, near the magazine aisle.

I took that chair, I dragged it over to the magazines, I picked up the latest Vanity Fair, and I read the lengthy first interview with Jennifer Aniston since her split from Brad Pitt. Yes I did.

I will not divulge more about the circumstances involved. You’ll have to trust me. Let’s just say I needed it.

In the song “On My Own” from Les Miserables, Eponine sings that, when she comes to from her magical reverie, “the river’s just a river.” Well, now, for me, the Walgreens is just a Walgreens.

These days, if I see a magazine with an article I want to read, I buy it. I take it home and read it there. Because I can.

When I see super cute baby pictures and posts, it serves me well to remember this other part of parenting. The part that made me choose to sit in the aisle of a Walgreens in a folding chair to read a celebrity interview because doing so felt like the only available life vest to keep me from drowning.

A few days ago, a former student who is the mother of a newborn, in a gracious act of “keeping-it-real-Facebooking,” posted a picture of herself looking disheveled and exhausted as she described her morning. I will spare you the details, but they involved the words “diaper explosion.”

It was another good reminder that all stages of parenting have their ups and downs. That evening, my son and I snuggled under a blanket on the couch as we took turns reading the seventh Harry Potter book aloud to each other. It wasn’t the “letter of the day,” but it was good.

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On Dance Recitals, Backbends, and Epiphanies

Tucking laces into ballet slippers, fluffing tulle, fastening bobby pins. It’s all part of that familiar spring ritual: the dance recital.

My six-year old performed in her first-ever recital last week. As she lined up in a hallway against a row of lockers with her fellow dancers before taking the stage, I thought she might be nervous, and I offered to stay with her. Some of the other mothers were staying.

Instead, she motioned to me as if shooing away a fly.

Go, go, go, her fluttering hands told me. I’m fine.

 That’s my girl. “I do by-self” may not have been her first words, but they were close.

I returned to my seat and waited. I wasn’t nervous for her, exactly. I assumed she knew the dance reasonably well. And no matter what happened, or how well the group performed (or didn’t), the audience was likely going to be smitten with the sight of five and six-year old girls in sequins, tutus, buns, and ballet slippers performing against the backdrop of a starry night and bright crescent moon, skipping and jumping to a Disney tune about dreams.

The event, however, did bring back some not-entirely-pleasant memories from my own childhood. To simplify, the equation boils down to two fundamental truths:

1. I love dance

2. I can’t dance

In the writing courses I teach, we might talk about how this could be considered a paradox. It would certainly at least pass the Alanis Morissette definition of ironic.

I took dance for four years, from about the ages of 5 to 8, at a small studio on the edge of our subdivision. The whole place seemed exotic to me in a wonderfully interesting way.

Our dance teacher wore tights—a grown woman in tights! She usually wore black, too. She was not the warm and fuzzy type, but she was not unkind. She had a dark tan and a big laugh. Over time, my mind has ascribed to her traits I know were not real—a vision of her standing in her black leotard, elbow resting on the grand piano that stood in a corner of the room, with a cigarette and a cocktail—but they seem like they should have been.

I tried. I really did. But even from the start, it was pretty clear that I was not catching on to things as quickly as the other girls.

My attempts at ballet resembled the famous Abbott and Costello skit more than attempts at ballet should:

What was first position again? Wait? Is everybody moving on to second? Are we supposed to be on second? Why am I still on first?

 Still, I pressed on. Ballet. Tap. Finally, in third grade, I added tumbling.

I blame Nadia Comaneci. As one does. I had loved watching her performance in the Olympics. My friends, who were going to take the class, probably had something to do with it, too. Some of them had been doing running round-offs for ages, while I could barely manage a cartwheel. One of my friends could even do handsprings—if you’re an eight-year-old-girl, there’s always that one friend who can blow everyone away with her handsprings—a whole bunch of handsprings, actually. In a row.

Maybe if I took tumbling, I would catch up.

Alas, by the time our recital rolled around that spring, I was still miles away from a handspring. Even my cartwheel had remained stubbornly impervious to improvement.

Still, on the night of the big performance, I was optimistic. It was all going to come together at just the right time, like the scene in a movie, with a triumphant end.

I was wearing a periwinkle blue tumbling outfit with Olympic rings emblazoned around the collar, and I just loved it. My long hair was in braids that had been pinned up on top of my head—special occasion hair, to be certain. And I would be performing to “Tomorrow” from Annie. Tomorrow, for Pete’s sake!

The sun will come out, indeed!

Except it didn’t.

None of my passes on the mats, a series of slow and unsteady round-offs and front walkovers, were what I hoped they would be, though the audience clapped, I’m sure. The slightly nervous, well-meaning, kindly, “well at least that little girl up there with her fancy braids is trying” sort of applause that one gets when one is doggedly determined and visibly failing.

And then came the back walkover.

I was supposed to get myself in position by doing a backbend. That part I managed. Then, I was supposed to kick a leg up and over my head. The other leg would inevitably follow. I kicked. My leg went up, up, up . . . and back down. Nope. Didn’t make it.

Well that was embarrassing.

The audience was watching. My classmates—who had been flying and whirling past me in a blur of competency—were waiting to use the mat, lining up behind me.

That’s okay, I thought. I’ll try again.

I looked up at the bright stage lights, suspended so impossibly high above me. I was aware of the dark audience that watched beyond the stage, to my right.

Brave little Annie was singing her big brave song.

I just stick out my chin, and grin, and say . . .

Annie had moxie. She had pluck. She could do this. I had moxie. I had pluck. I could do it, too.

Except I couldn’t. My leg, it seemed, had not gotten the memo about the moxie.

Somewhere in that place, my back arched, my hands on the mat, my uncooperative leg stuck and suspended in midair, staring at the faces of my classmates waiting in line behind me (their exasperation plenty visible, though their faces were upside down)—it began to occur to me that I might not be the next Nadia Comaneci after all. I might not even be the next Annie.

I do not recall for certain how many attempts it took for me to get that leg over my head. Somewhere between 3 and 17 is a fair guess. Let’s just say it was three.

It may not have exactly been a moment of triumph, but I did take away a few valuable lessons that I have come to think of as “The Great Backbend Epiphany.”

First, like Kenny Rogers said, “You gotta know when to fold them.”

We get fed a lot of rah-rah “don’t quit!” advice in our lives. And often that is valuable. Certainly, it’s good to try. I’m a big fan of grit.

But once you’ve given it a good shot, and the thing that you are attempting is causing more pain than pleasure, it’s probably time to move on.

I want my children to know this.

Perhaps more importantly, I want my children to be able to recognize the difference between wanting to want something, and actually wanting it. Because there is a difference.

I realized after that recital that I had always liked the idea of being a dancer and the atmosphere of dance. But not the actual dancing. The world of dancing seemed beautiful and mysterious and enthralling. The actual dancing, however, caused me to feel little more than anxiety.

Life is short. Doesn’t it make sense to do things we actually enjoy? If someone had given eight-year-old me a list of choices of how I could spend my time, dancing would have been far down on that list. What would have topped it? Reading, watching movies, listening to music, writing, and drawing (pretty much the exact same list I would make today, as it turns out).

I have continued to appreciate dance through the years, in my own way—mostly by watching movies and reading books about dancers. In fact, I just finished the wonderful Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead.

It was fun to attend a dance recital again, especially one that did not involve my having to attempt a back walkover.

I do not know how many years my daughter will take dance or if she will turn out to have any ability for it, or how much she will enjoy it. But I do know that she will, inevitably, have a few of her own backbend epiphanies throughout her life. I hope when the moment comes, she is able to face it with courage and wisdom. And a Broadway soundtrack never hurts.