…arms and legs in

Accidents are teaching moments and if I have learned nothing else from all my son's boo-boos, I now know that emergency facilities are not well suited for emergencies. Perhaps a better name for them would be  Urgent, Only if Your Head-is-Missing, facility.[1] Don’t waste your precious time waiting, unless you have a cold (which appears to move you to numero uno in the queue.)

Dear journal,
My friend was run over by an SUV…her own…that she was driving. This should not surprise you. She is after all, my friend, and birds of a feather do flock.
Flapping, T.

The emergency room is not really intended for non-screaming emergencies. They are more for the kind on television; GSW’s, RLJ’s, KRQ’s.[2] All others should be seen by their primary care physician.

…It should also not surprise you to hear that it happened while she was reaching into the vehicle to put it into park after exiting the vehicle, which she left in gear, while trying to speak on a cell phone, over the hubbub of children. Again, no surprise!

If you schedule your emergency during your physician’s four working days a week, between nine and five, but not during lunch, his assistant will begrudgingly fit you right in with a minimal two-hour wait. Unless, she reports gleefully, he is on vacation, at conference, golfing or vacationing on the boat you helped buy him.

…it should not be a surprise to hear that the vehicle pulled her under the front tire, rolled down over her left side and then dragged her. What was a surprise was that when it finally stopped, it was not on top of her, but inches away from her neck.

Again, no surprise that her primary-care-physician was unavailable and the face-less answering service recommended that she hop right on that medical merry-go-round. Their advice, “In the case of an emergency, please call 911.”

Let’s talk about the value of an ambulance. When you get hurt, you should not only be wearing your cleanest undies, but you must also be carrying your best purse.[3] Then disregarding your Mother’s second rule—the one about thrift—go ahead! Splurge and call an ambulance. Enjoy the ride; think of it as renting a really expensive Humvee limousine without windows.

…what is the real shocker is that she spent four hours sitting in a nicely furnished, suburban emergency room squished and bleeding and waiting to even be considered a “patient.”
What a pain in the spleen, T.
The key is in the handbag (a rare and most unusual place for any of my keys to be). A really great purse that arrives by ambulance can move you past the triage nurse and directly into the emergency room. A designer bag can get you into a bed and seen by an intern[4] in half the time it would take if you arrived at the hospital of your own accord and in your own private transport carrying a faux-leather off-the-rack.[5]

Our experience with near drowning is that it won’t get you seen any quicker—five hours. Stitches will average 3 ½ to 4 hours, depending on the bleeding. If you can pop and spread a couple of packets of catsup from the cafeteria, it may help.

The visible fracture of both bones in a three-year old’s lower arm took nineteen hours, because after four hours in the waiting room, her Mom caved and broke out a fruit bar for the child to eat.[6] True stories! mostly, Terina

Emergency room nurses follow the same basic premise as parents mediating a sibling battle. If you wait and be patient, given time most problems will resolve themselves... one way, or the other.

Reality Bite: Hospitals are only good when you’re too sick to care or it’s too late to matter.

[1] A triage nurse actually said that a more urgent case would be decapitation.
[2] Anything with initials is life threatening.
[3] A perfect place to exert your “purse-onality.” What does yours say about you? Mine says “Honey, you’re gonna die waiting for a doctor.”
[4] The going rate for a Prada is a resident.
[5] Buying faux funds terrorism, opposed to buying real which funds…?
[6] To conduct accurate scientific sampling, survey the Mom’s at the Park.

…inconsequential

To me, myself and I,
“Consequences” has become the maternal mantra that I, the mynah Mom screech rhythmically day after day as the offspring make each and every misguided decision. Bwwwwaaaaak, T

Chemistry teachers can easily teach to relationship of chemistry to life—particularly to teenagers, but I think physics teachers miss the opportunity to promote physics as a necessary life skill.

Cause and effect and action/reaction are essential life skills and a wise parent can use these and other scientific laws of nature as teaching examples of natural consequences in life.

To me,
Another of my favorite examples is inertia and teenage boys, the law that states objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon.

..unnatural consequences

When the children were young, teaching cause and effect was simple. The natural consequences were as easy as letting the grass grow or the dishes pile up. The resulting growth of jungle and fungi were natural consequences and resulted in a simple matter of choice. The child could either choose mower v. machete, or dishcloth v. chisel. The natural results made excellent teaching tools as the child scrubs or scythes.

The newest parenting philosophy suggests that if the natural consequence will eventually be
negative, but due to some unfortunate situation will also be delayed, (which somehow occurs most of the time,) then parents must initiate an appropriate effect that has lasting impact.
These structured consequences, require some of the most brilliant thought.

To you honey:
I’m worried that the warning message of the dry ice and two liter bottle story was lost on the boy and I think that he thinks the gunpowder in the attic story was a how-to story.
I know that plastic shrapnel embedded in his legs and behind seemed a good visual, but maybe we should watch what we say? Whichever, T.

Quick! On the fly, think up an immediate response for finding the teen on the front porch extending the good-bye kiss to the length and breadth of your last dental root-canal. What’s the logical consequence in this situation and how can it be restructured as negative yet natural?
Once we recover from the shock, and wipe the surprise from our face, it is difficult to choke out a civil response, let alone structure an immediate natural consequence.

To me,
I’ve had another epiphany about laundry and teenage boys. I’m countering all advice and intervening on natural processes.
I’m keeping his clothes in the laundry room where they will be protected from the cross-contamination of being shoved in pristine condition under the teen’s bed or dropped onto the floor of his closet.
This interrupts the natural cycle of unused clothing being salvaged, rewashed and returned when Mom yells, “Laundry day.”
If I interrupt this never ending cycle and secure all the clothing in the laundry room, then once every so often, when I felt the need to feel needed, I could pluck the clothing from the fold shelf, and run it through the wash and dry cycles, then I’d return it to the shelf without once having to yell or pitch a fit.
The side-effect of a cleaner bedroom would go far to boost that coveted, yet ever elusive, teen-esteem.

And thus we see that there are parenting situations that confound even the best and brightest manual and I find solace from the life-skills learned from history: “It could be worse,” “Such is the nature of youth,” and my own personal favorite, “Remember when.”

Reality bite: In these situations, I also respond with the long-range curse of “What goes around …”

…the strike continues

I’m on strike and nobody has noticed! I feel like the pianist in an a-cappella choir or the designated seamstress in a nudist camp. I’m not cleaning, driving, cooking, washing, or working and nobody cares! A strike worked for the lady in the newspaper; she gained adoration from her family after her walkout! How? What am I doing wrong? I’m unsuccessful because no one notices.

It will take a couple of weeks for the family to really care that the bathrooms aren’t clean (since that’s not an aberration.) I suspect that it will be two more weeks before they get sick of fast food and another two weeks before they miss swimming, piano and tae-kwan-do practice. (Most likely, never.)

I don’t think this is going to work. I have a job that doesn’t need to be done. I wonder if the secret of a successful strike is that a person must be a necessary commodity. The youngest child is adept at fixing his own peanut butter sandwich—even cutting the bread.

To: wipeitup@swim.out
The neighbors are amazed that the three-year-old fixes his own lunch. He goes to the freezer, pulls a corn dog, pops the wrapper, runs to the microwave, pushes the open button, flings the food over his head into the back of the microwave, slams the door and presses go. He grabs catsup out of the fridge and voila! Dinner is served.
It’s sick and wrong I know, but at least it’s tofu and fat free.

A successful strike must have at least two affected parties, at least one of them who cares, who suffers, or in lieu of that, can get media coverage. Who can I call and what can be their news angle? I need a new angle because there is really nothing new or sensational about another mother who is tired of being unappreciated.

What if I spice the story up by eating something that’s been growing in my refrigerator for months, or maybe I could bungie-jump over the river of laundry. What if I slap, cuss, curse and pull the top off my vacuum? I’m a housewife desperate in true reality.[1]




[1] The media will love it.

...fore-knowledge

I believe there is a special place in the darkest depths of the hereafter that is reserved for persons who have greater knowledge—those who have experienced some soul-destroying act and in spite of their fore-knowledge, who then go forward and encourage others to share—even introduce them—to that choice and the ensuing life of misery.

These include, but are not limited to, drug dealers, pornographers, alcoholics, boyfriends and parents.


Still parenting in futility today.

..by a thread

Parenting is an inexact science that combines the volatility of unstable elements in an uncontrolled environment and then introduces absolute chaos. In laymen’s[2] lingo, children are a disaster waiting to happen!


To me,
The scientific string theory says there are nine different dimensions and time is relative. I’m watching a PBS special with the eldest son, trying to relate. He’s excited by this theory, so I am too.
Viewed from inside my eyelids, I agree that this theory must be valid, because I’m not really here or there, but stuck somewhere in between.[1] Keeping it simple, Terina

Parenting is not a new scientific phenomenon. It’s been happening for centuries, and certainly at some point during the whole process, someone must have kept detailed scientific notes on their hypotheses[3] and the procedures that proved tried and true?

To me,
I keep explicit notes, mostly written in the dead of night, on paper that is soggy from an upended water glass. In the depths of darkness, I am certain that this flash of brilliance will illuminate all childrearing mysteries.
Alas, as the stark light of day dawns, the scrawls bleed away into murky blots. The notations that are still discernable are written in foreign tongues—the language of night, inane mutterings and indistinguishable dream gibberish. Lost in translation, T.

It turns out that because the science of parenting is imprecise, experimentation can result in a series of accidents run amok!


And that’s one more reason that the world keeps parenting. It’s another of life’s adrenaline rushes that results from uncertainty and the thrill of the unknown. We live for the excitement of the surprise ending.

Reality Bite: My working hypothesis, is that when the experiment is finally harnessed, I’ll examine what I’ve created and discover a whole new life form!

[1] Tomorrow night the topic is the chaos theory. I’m an expert on that!
[2] Persons who have not been doing science homework at midnight.
[3] If someone did, it’s probably all in Latin.

...Mayhem

To Me,
When my science teacher told me I’d need this stuff later, he didn’t say that the primary use would be to help my children pass science class. Does anyone else spot the sick cycle here? T.There are some natural laws that govern the entire world, therefore it follows naturally in my perfect world, that I should be able to use the scientific method to test parenting theories.

I passed science like the rest of my high school courses, free of any mental imprinting, and so I’m learning basic scientific theory from my children. There seems to be a three step process consisting of formulating a hypothesis, then experimenting, and after it’s all said and done, evaluating the result.

And then, in the sure and likely event of failure, the process is begun with a different hypothesis. And here we go round again.

Dear me,
I’m tempted to adopt a new childrearing rule, “If at first you don’t succeed, there is always child number two to experiment with.” Thinking, T

When I am introduced to a new parenting concept, I incorporate it into the on-going plan and then test the new theory. If it is successful and it appears that behavior is actually being modified, it’s a done deal. Otherwise, it’s back to the testing lab for more modification, more experimentation and even more feedback.

The children hate this![1] They feel that each child should be treated equally. My thought is that only a fool repeats the same experiment over and over, expecting a different conclusion;[2] so why would I continue to use the same methods with each child, expecting a different result?

When children accuse me of being feckless and vacillating, and I charge back with the response, “My hypothesis and conclusions change with the introduction of new ideas. What do you do with new information?”

Reality Bite: And they respond predictably with “Huh?”

It’s my fervent hope that periodically the tables[3] will turn and my new experimentation will reach a logical conclusion, but that’s impractical, for each problem must be gauged empirically.[4] (Isn't science wonderfully confusing?)


[1] Another side benefit.
[2] Ben Franklin, trust me.
[3] The only possible use I can imagine for the periodic table.
[4] Practically, without regard for the variables of puberty.

…greek

I’ve said it before, go right ahead and be eccentric, if you’re a millionaire. Different is an acceptable word in polite society but only if it’s coupled with the word “affluent or famous.” Otherwise, when you are tagged with the word different, they really mean “freak”.

Well-meaning parents battle the hard, cold, cruel world by arming a child with deflector shields against the barrage of sharp words—but we are never very successful.

Dear Me,
The conditioning didn’t work. I explained to the teacher that I made a special effort to yell at my children daily to minimize this very problem because I’m always looking ahead and striving to do what is best for them. The second-grader still has a paralyzing response to the teacher’s yelling. Maybe I should have slapped her too?

I’m working to defuse the explosive power of the word “Freak” so that when it is dropped over and over in the proximity of my children, they can survive the blast and in the ensuing barrage, escape with minimal damage.

Reality Bite: Combine freak and geek and get Greek and that is what this all is to me.

…fruition

To me:
My kids are freaks! The conversation that centers round the husband’s water cooler doesn’t give my children much of a chance of ever being “normal,” and it’s “due to their eccentric parenting”. Could the boss have meant moi? T.

My children don’t fit the media-kid mold—the “Y” generation. “Y can’t I have more of everything handed to me, and “Y” can’t I have it faster, cheaper and made more exciting?” “Y” can’t you clean up the environment?” and “Y” did you start this conflict?”

In fact, my children avoid making any such rash statements because such a query would unleash the teaching dictator in me and they would be subject to an hour of social reprogramming.

I begin with an auditory harangue, followed by a visual representation of others who have it worse, and climax in a chore or two to actualize the kinesthetic learning concept.

Thus far, the teen-agers at my home are humble, modest, and caring yet cynical about all things in the world. My strongest behavior modifier is the threat of removing their library privileges. Television disgusts the lot of them and if it weren’t for their eerie fixation with old videos of Monty Python, I would be seeking immediate psychiatric intervention.[1]

To me,
My offspring are just like me, a bunch of non-conformists. They go up the down, and today she went in the out. She ignored the door sentry and his persistent, “Excuse me, may I help you?”
When he persevered and asked her twice more, the daughter finally stopped, and deigned to give him a short appraisal up and down and then retorted, “Not unless you are headed to the bathroom too?” Tired, T.

Those three children relate well with adults and each other; they are responsible and respectful and I am worried sick! I’m scared witless of the rebellion that is sure to come! Will they become stable contributors, marry happily, sacrifice to raise great kids, and end up living satisfied, debt-free lives? Yikes! They may never fit the “Y” generation’s idea of normal!

And so, I respond like each and every parent who has ever tried to translate the foreign language of parenting into their own lingo, I claim insanity.

My goal is to raise children who are unique, responsible, and considerate but I'm getting frustrating, confusing, exasperating, maddening and wearisome. I guess I can settle for the word different!

Reality Bite: Weird but wonderful was Grandma’s term for my teenism.

[1] Oh I already have? And they were no help! So, maybe the whole rest of the world is nuts too!

…ties that bind

Dear Diary,
The son passed his well-child check-up. We fly with colors past the psyche tests, sleeping alone, dry at night, eating healthy, plays well with others.
“Your best friend’s name is Rope?” The doctor frowns under his brows.
“Yes, he’s in Mommy’s purse and it’s really dark in there! But, if we’re nice at the doctors, then he gets out and we get ice cream!” A trifle tetched too, Me

One morning, I walked unsuspecting across the kitchen and tripped on a string strung across the space creating a web from cabinet to cupboard. The fridge door flew open, hit me in the back, and I fell forward to meet face-first, the cupboard door careening toward me. Behind me, the youngest son doubled over giggling uncontrollably.

I asked for it, I trained him by implementing Mom’s old stand-by for keeping the toddler out of the cupboards. I tied the cupboards closed to keep the toxic stuff in and the lethal child out. I use shoelaces rather than those new-fangled plastic thing-a-ma-bobs that require a degree in engineering to install, and the only one they keep out is me. It seems simpler to tie the doors shut and in a pinch, the children can untie them for me.

The stairs now have cobwebs strung across the expanse from banister to banister—a snare. He insists that it is not intended to be a tripping trap and even offers to demonstrate as he attempts to swing over the top rail and rappel twenty feet down the wall.

But I know! I know that it’s subconscious payback for the shoelace and the cupboard trick! Children tend to remember these things and when they get older, they attribute unnatural significance to the power of string.

Reality Bite: What other tortures did I unknowingly inflict that will be revisited upon me in my old age?

…survey says

Dear me,
If we knew, what we know, when we knew it, would having children even be an option? I’m doing a comparative analysis of parental headache and heartache vs. happiness payoff and with the day that I’ve had today, I’m losing the debate … T

On my last spin through the web, I was trapped by an old survey[1] that found that seventy percent of Americans wish they had never become parents. It was in response to the query, “If you had it to do over, would you?”

I was shocked! In a nation as diverse as America, I was floored! I'm amazed that an entire nation’s worst parenting moments could be coordinated with such precision![2]

But, other that that initial misgiving, the results didn’t surprise me. Surveys conducted early in the summer are often skewed by parents faced with the spine-chilling dread of coordinating their children’s upcoming summer activities. I am certain that the survey was further biased by being conducted in the ‘70’s. Parenting during that decade must have presented a particular paradox.

We may never know the real reasons behind those results, because it seems that by October of that same year, ninety-five percent of parents had responded in reverse to the same survey. The simple explanation for this spans the decades: Of course the entire nation, even now, heaves a universal sigh of relief once school starts.

To me,
This survey makes abundantly clear the ambiguous nature of this job and the unvarying constancy of those persons who adapt to this challenge. It solidly expresses the inconsistencies of parenting.

And if this double-spoken clarification doesn’t confound you, you should look into running for political office. T.

Reality Bite: If politicians don’t present Evolutionists with certain evidence of human beings devolving, I don’t know who does.

[1] June 1976 Ann Landers—two seconds research—love that internet.

[2] This was prior to the computerized survey skewing of American Idol.

…mum’s the word

I remember the day when I had these thoughts.

"I’m going to love staying at home with the new baby and being a Mum! Wow, no more work! This will be so great—just me and the baby, loving, tending, teaching, and no one bossing."

… or even talking to me, no one to sympathize with me. Every day, all day long, cleaning, and washing. I’m stuck here, just me and that baby. I’m pretty sure I’m in hibernation, sleeping, nursing and diapers are my life. I live in a cave. Unbearable me, T.

Just think of the savings, no lunch expense, no gas, no extra miles on the car, no expensive work clothes, working at my own pace and on my own schedule.

…nothing to get up for—I’m sleeping, and waking, living in sweats, because nothing else fits.! I can’t remember when I last slept four hours continually, I haven’t watched another adult eat in weeks. Still me…I think T.

I’ll have all this free time, because I’ll be at home. I’ll set my own hours; I’ll come and go whenever I need to with no interruptions. My stress level will decline. I can volunteer…

…at school, at church, in the neighborhood, and for the city. I organize this event, that fundraiser, and bake sales—I don’t even know how to bake! Everybody thinks that just because I don’t have a full-time job that I have all this free time! Me

I’ll daycare for a friend, so my baby will have company, and the income will help with the mortgage. Besides, having one is just like having two. It will make me become more organized.
…In fits of pique, I tell people they are twins, one blond, fat, and bald, the other lanky, dark, and curly. Don’t I look like a frazzled twin mom? How do real twin parents do it? Nobody can pay you to love their baby, as much as they do. Bedraggled x two, T.

I’ll work on the computer at home. I don’t have to get dressed up. I don’t have to commute; I am already here so I can slip downstairs to work, while they’re napping.

…where do the hours go? I’m sneaking down to work after dark. The husband wants an accounting of my life, to help me organize! I chortle, and roll my eyes. T., hee, hee, whee!

We’ll have so much time together, exploring the world, discovering beautiful things and enjoying every part of the happiness to be found in life.

All the seasons rush past. I look up and she’s one. Where did the time go and with whom? Yikes!

At least I’ll have some of the precious memories on paper, written on post-its that have slipped under the fridge, on receipts in the glove box of the car, on the bottom of unpaid bills and on the back of homework papers.[1]

Reality bite: I write so I can remember all the humor. The four-year-old remarks that he doesn’t know about diaries, but he does know all about diarrhea…


[1] Note to teacher: Please sign and return. I need my list back to know what’s on for tomorrow.

…a full deck

Dear Journal,
Just when life’s little snow globe is settling, things get shaken up again. I’m feeling bereft without my daycare daughter. I tended that girl from birth for two years and suddenly one day, Mom stops work and she’s gone!
Oh, and in other news, I’m expecting. T.

Here I go, I’m working at home. I’ll put the baby to nap, and run down to my basement office and work! Oops, I just need my day-minder, Oh, yeah, and the baby monitor. I’ll just mentally shift gears and get this work done. All I need is this notebook, and those receipts. Working at home is going to be so easy. I just walk downstairs ... I don’t need anything but, oh yeah that telephone log to return all those calls.

Now I’ll just ... take that checkbook to enter all reimbursable expenses. I don’t need anything, except for that box of envelopes outside in the trunk. [1]

Okay, one last look around, the arms are full. Items are stuffed in the neck of my t-shirt and in the waistband of my sweats and now am I ready to go downstairs. It’s a good thing. . . working at home.

On my way into the dark, cavernous den, I stop and drop everything to toss in that load of laundry. I make a mental note to remember to whip out a belated card for the brother’s birthday last week, …and take those books and preschool CD’s back to the library. Better write it down in my day-reminder—when I remember where I left it.

The littlest one wanders out of the TV room, his educational programming ended. He is so cute when he insists that I get off the computer so he can have a turn “working.”

He is back watching TV, maybe he’ll nap too—I need just one more hour. Don’t they take naps in daycare too? I only work one or two days a week, so it’s much better at home.

I whiz by the post office, whip by a fast-food drive-by for lunch, drop off a negative for a photo shoot, zoom by the printer, skip by the office supplier, pick up paint for the front door and slip into the library. Rats I forgot the overdue books, but I’ll pick-up some more challenging CD’s, and the dry cleaning.

Back home I reward them and me for driving around all afternoon with that ever-so-nutritious pizza dinner.

Dear Diary:
One hour. Wow, what I could accomplish if I had just one more hour in the day! Maybe I’ll get it when they go to sleep tonight because right now it’s time to pick the oldest up from school, change clothes and play the wife again. Wee, T.
P.S. Get me off this coaster!

It’s a new day. Babies grow and toddle off to pre-K and come back six foot tall and seventeen. Where did just one more hour, or day or year go? Did the time disappear while the baby was napping?

Everything changes, yet some things remain the same: There is still no time.

Reality bite: Well, I was at home. Were there benefits? Who knows?

[1] Inklings of Steve Martin in The Jerk?

…saving baby stuff

Okay, I’ll donate the crib. I planned on keeping the last baby keepsakes until the youngest was driving, but he’s reached grade school and I’m ready. It’s time that I let go.

To me,
I sort through the baby detritus from infanthood and struggle to part with the stained bibs and leaky sippy cups. I’m exhuming boxes of bottles and nipples, chewed up pacifiers, stretched out plastic pants and memories. Sniff, sniff, T

Reviewing the past stirs up memories and reflection of faults and successes. There is a rededication to put things from the past into the proper perspective.

Dear me!
Twenty-five receiving blankets? Was there some reward for the biggest blanket collection? I vaguely recall those first frantic days that consumed diapers by the dozen—when blankets doubled as burp cloths and bath towels. Has anything really changed? T.

It’s gone now—the crib. I know… big mistake! I should have kept something, a crate of diapers, the four-foot-tall potty bear or the jogging stroller that in reality was mostly used to move groceries. I guess I could have kept any puerile object as insurance against accidentally repeating this whole thing.

I expect to be pregnant again tomorrow.

Reality Bite: I should be safe though because I’m still wearing all the maternity clothes.