Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Nerds Rule!

By Nina

I saw it with my own eyes at every single HS reunion I've attended. The nerdiest most unlikely to "succeed" kids inevitably ended up being the coolest, realest and most interesting ones at the party.

Somehow the mean alpha girls just got meaner and smaller.  The cheerleaders got fat.  The grinds had been ground down by life.  But a lot of the nose picking, pocket protector, AV Squad boys and nerdy girls were the ones who'd cashed out their dot.com businesses and were now pursuing their bliss, sailing sloops around the world, taking on second careers, shepherding foundations, that sort of stuff. Even Marsha Miller, who was so horsey she practically whinnied, had turned into a way-cool art gallery owner in the Bay Area. 

No surprise learning that a high school A-lister like Robby Benjamin went to med school, made a lot of money, retired early to Florida and was proudly wearing his trophy 2nd wife on his arm.  But whoa, let's hear it for Geek-O-Rama Marty Tessler, who went to med school the hard way, after being a Physician's Assistant for 7 years and then chose Emergency Room medicine in a hospital in Queens.  Way to go dude!  You may not be making the big bucks, but you've earned my respect and I bet you feel good looking in the mirror every morning.

So while I wish my own nearly 16-year-old geek in residence had a more robust social life and was feeling a little higher up on the high school food chain, I try to remember that being a tech nerd often means having the last laugh. 

My kid is a tech assistant this summer before he leaves for Israel.  He's helping to install new computers in the new building at his school . . . and he's getting paid for it!  He's enjoying the radical paradigm shift as he works with the school's resident technology staff who are (gasp) Republicans and Libertarians, unlike the mushy skwushy  liberals who teach at his crunchy granola private school.  This week his reputation as a nice reliable kid who knows his way around Macintosh computers landed him an off-site gig at the home of one of the school's two college advisers. There he successfully installed a Wi-Fi network and in the process got on the radar of the person who is going to help him navigate the rocky shoals of college applications.  And he got $100 smackeroos. 

Like I said.  Nerds rule.

Final Exams in the junior year

Preparing for final exams is a rite of passage. Studying, writing final papers, finishing those final major projects, building forts.

Building forts? Yes, La Petite and friends regressed to their childhood and built a fort in their apartment living room using (you guessed it) blankets and furniture.  Despite having no design or architecture students in the mix, they assembled quite a unique dwelling. Here's the exterior view.

Perspective from sitting inside, looking toward the kitchen

The spacious interior can fit up to five students...

...and of course, a rabbit.

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards - Musings

As a first time mother, you don't know any  better.  The second time 'round, you're just too tired to care.

I hope that you had a happy Mother's Day!!!

Our dreams (plans) for our children change over the years.  A parent can keep those dreams until you get hit in the face that they must be modified.

Looking back, I can see that some of my hopes for Abe (17.5 yo, PDD, ADHD, NVLD, etc) were too expansive.  When he was born, I hoped for a wonderful kid who was going to have a wonderful life.  He's a wonderful kid (when he wants to be) who has had a hard life in terms of figuring out how to deal with his disabilities.  I still hope that when he's older, he'll think that he had a good childhood.

When Abe first started at an out-of-district, special education  placement school in the middle of 4th grade, I had dreams that he would be back in the mainstream during the high school years.  When Abe went to a high school SPED placement, I had dreams that he was going to graduate "on time" and go onto a regular college.

Now my dreams look somewhat different.  I want him to repeat 11th grade so that he can have more time in the therapeutic environment of the residential school that he's starting at the end of June.  I still dream of him going off to college and living an independent life, but I know that he is years away from that.  Abe's going to get there, but it's going to take him longer than other kids.  But I have faith that he's gonna get there (ya gotta have faith, baby).

My dreams for Rosie (14 yo, NT, ADHD) were never different than mine for her brother.  Be a good person, be of good intelligence, learn at nice schools and have a wonderful life.  I never dreamed that I would expose my children to the harshness of both parents having cancer or to domestic discord; but that's some of my legacy to them.

A mother always has hopes and dreams for her children.  Those wishes have changed over time as to specifics, but the basics of wanting the best for your kids always stays.

Why is the World Round, and Other Imponderables by Jenny Gardiner

Me and my teen mom homies, we've been dealing with it all, and then some, lately. We're almost cliched, in fact, pondering as we are how much easier it was back in the days when we merely had to drag a tantrum-hurling 2 year-old from the grocery store, versus tackling the many heady issues parents of modern teens face as their offspring teeter on the precipice of adulthood. It's enough to make a girl go gray, stress-eat the ever-so-divine limited offer Indiana Jones Mint Crisp M&Ms, and cuss a blue streak to no one and everyone in particular. Not that I would be susceptible to the latter two...

I think in the world of raising children, barring unforeseen circumstances, you start out with the cake course. Parenting 101. You know, the diaper changing, the calming of an irrationally petulant child. The easy stuff (that at the time seems insufferably impossible to navigate). By the time the kids are teens, parents have unwittingly entered into the post-graduate phase of things. Everything becomes so much more involved, so much more complex. Black and white blurs into gray, with no necessary right or wrong, but rather a "hope I don't screw this up too badly" mode. At this point, I find visualizing into the future, to a point at which your kids are through with college, in the work world, happily dating, or maybe even married, is a vital coping tool. Because only then might we be secure in the knowledge that we were able to transcend the stressful makes-your-head-hurt stuff that is the domain of the teen parent.

Consider a few recently teen quandaries my homies and I have encountered lately:

*The high school senior, the one who can't yet seem to keep track of a permission slip let alone a passport, who wants to travel alone through Europe this summer. That same one will be off on his own by summer's end, so perhaps allowing this risk-taking venture is a way to encourage some necessary maturation before he cuts loose altogether? Or perhaps that un-street-savvy kid will end up mugged and left for dead in a gutter, passport, cellphone and wallet lifted, unable to contact his parents for help. Of course approving this venture for the boy then means his younger sister must also have this opportunity, and hey, like it or not, there is a double standard when it comes to females traveling alone abroad, especially at that young age.

*The high school sophomore who met a boy last year one week before he moved six states away. They've remained in cellphone/IM contact throughout the school year. Now he wants to come visit, staying at the girls house over a holiday weekend. Having this complete stranger under one's roof can be one of two things---a positive chance to spend plenty of time with him, to get to know him and trust his intentions. Or it can mean ready-made opportunities for him to hook-up in the middle of the night with the daughter while the mom sleeps (the dad will be out of town at a soccer tournament with one of the kids). To deny this certainly offers up a large platter of forbidden fruit, and we all know how much tastier that type is...

*The teen girl who insists upon booking her first Brasilian waxing. (clearly this girl has no clue what she's getting herself into, pain-wise!). Truth is, we all know why anyone chooses a Brasilian wax job. And it ain't comfort. So that in and of itself suggests there's reason behind this (trust me, it has nothing to do with swim suit season being upon us). So now that that mom knows what her 16 year old is up to, what's a mom to do?

*The high school prom, for which an alternate, unsanctioned prom sprung up after school administrators decided that grinding was far too scandalous and issued a 10-inch rule (get your mind out of the gutter, not that type of 10-inches!): a mandatory 10 inches of air must be sustained between a dancing couple. Is grinding mighty sexually suggestive? Sure. Is this much different than adults banning Elvis and the Twist? Not really.

*Then there's the high school senior who questions what it's all about---after all, why bother with any of it when ultimately we're all gonna die. Um, how do you truly answer that question? Anyone deep enough to ponder such things is not going to be satisfied with a pat answer. And who actually has a legitimate answer to this question?

Okay, some of these issues are far bigger than my head can wrap around. The we-are-merely-a-speck-of-dust-on-the-pinhead-of-some-larger-entity is far more than I can/will/choose to ponder with any success. It makes me too dizzy and slightly depressed. But at least I'll tackle the prom thing, and by extension, perhaps address my feelings and worries about the state of teen-hood today.

The pat advice to all parents is this: pick your battles. On the issue of dirty dancing, I do feel as if this is a battle best left alone. After all, teens nowadays have their wings clipped to the point of no longer being birds of flight. In our home we have a parrot, and when she was younger, we regularly clipped her wings (a practice akin to trimming fingernails). The idea was to keep her from flying around the house. But the reality was it caused her to fall off her perch and drop like a lead weight to the floor---her wings sans flight feathers sort of led to her fall from grace.

After our parrot fell enough times so hard that her breast bone punctured through her skin, our vet decided it was a good idea to let her flight wings grow out. And you know what? She doesn't fly around the house. Sure she still spreads her wings, flaps them vigorously on occasion. But if she falls, the amount of feathers she's got enables her to enough loft to land without such a violent thud.

I think society has gone way overboard in clipping back the flight feathers of our teens, particularly at a point at which they need to be spreading their wings and learning to fly, even if it means they fall hard and fast to the ground. The simplest of bad judgment errors for teens nowadays can result in a loss of all academic honors, membership to sports teams, hell, even college admissions. We don't allow teenagers the chance to make mistakes and learn from them. They're expected to learn vicariously from others' errors, I suspect, when in reality that doesn't quite work the same way. We have raised a generation of future adults with probably far less life experiences than we ever had, because most were never allowed to take risks, were clamped so tightly in their car seats and then strapped down with onerous activities and then just when biology started mandating that they stretch away from the weight of our protective shield, we further reduced their ability to take those important strides toward adulthood, errors or not.

I remember once reading about Eunice Kennedy, mother of umteen children, and she spoke of how she let her children fail, even when it meant they suffered for it. We parents---armed in this dreadful age of information with the myriad fearful possibilities of what could go wrong---cherish our children so greatly that we are afraid to allow failure to happen. We don't want them to be hurt, or even worse, killed. We don't want them to fall flat on their faces, to suffer the pain and/or humiliation of trying and faltering.

But have we really served them best in this regard? I know so many of my contemporaries look each other in the eyes when discussing our own jaded youth with that knowing wide-eyed gaze of "Damn, how the hell did we live to tell about it?" The sad reality of it is there were those of our peers who didn't live to tell about it. That's the sucky thing of it. For this, we are all so fearful that our kids will be amongst that unfortunate group. Thus we keep our birds caged, wings clipped, hoping they can get to adulthood injury-free. Yet truly, probably, sorely untested, and lacking some important life experiences that they need to become complete adults.

All of these ponderings lead to me to wonder what is the answer to these teen parent dilemmas. Of course I no sooner have these answers than do you. I'm just muddling through it the best I can, trying not to eat too many of those Mint Crisp M&Ms. After all, they are a limited edition, and when they're gone, they gone.

Rewards of my Good Behaviour

Written by Ilona

Last spring, after four years of university at my very own alma mater (I'm so proud) my eldest earned herself a degree in anthropology. Haley loved her studies, particularly those aspects surrounding ritual and rites of passage. She loved university, she loved her courses, her profs, all that amazing new information. When she finished her undergrad, she was going to pursue a Master's degree. Field work in some exotic locale. It was all very exciting.

Which is why, three weeks after her courses ended and before she had the B.A. in her eager little hands, she'd enrolled in college to become an RMT -- a Registered Massage Therapist. Not grad school. College.*

She didn't want to become an anthropologist after all.

When she told me last spring, she was a little nervous. Would mum go ballistic? Berate her for the waste of time and money? Scold her for not being able to make up her mind? Try to guilt her into pursuing the field of her degree? Worry to death about her daughter's inevitable starvation on the streets? Scream, cry, faint?

Perhaps some of those options flitted through my head as she spoke, but when I opened my mouth, gracious pearls of motherly acceptance fell from my lips. Sincere gracious pearls.

"You're twenty-one. This is your time to explore your options. This is your time to decide who you are. If you don't chase what interests you now, you may never get to. You'd already planned on a master's. You'll be spending the same amount of time in studies, and this way, with the therapist training, you'll have two possible career options to pursue."

You know, I totally ROCK as a mother. Sometimes I just sit back and watch myself in maternal action with a big silly grin on my face.

And last month I received the reward for my Excellent Mothering. It was March Break up here. (No, we don't call it "Spring" break. When it's 22F out there, and the snow outside my window is drifted five feet deep... Spring? HA.)

It's March Break, and I spent the first three days of the week visiting Haley at her apartment in her city, seven hours away.

And while I was there, I went to her college, where her classmates were delighted to meet "Haley's mom". While I was at the college, where they are always looking for guinea pigs on whom to practice their craft, I ...

- received a salt scrub. Oh, my invigorated body! Oh, my tingly new skin!
- AND have the recipe to do it myself, at home!
- sat in a steam box for twenty minutes. Warm, warm, warm to the marrow of my bones. Mmmmm...
- had an hour-long massage on my creaky old back
- got a diagnosis of potential cause of the the recurrent back pain!!
- and was taught some stretches for it
- had a second hour-long massage to get rid of a series of knots in my calf. (I told you I was creaky.)

I went home a NEW WOMAN, I tell you! I am totally ON to something here. Once you're past forty ... Huh. Let us not be coy: When you're pushing fifty, those aches and pains are only going to get more common. And now, right in my very own family, I have an ache-and-pain PROFESSIONAL.

And have I earned a lifetime of free massages and general whole-body pampering?

You bet your butt I have.

*In Canada, university is for professions; college is for trades. Universities grant degrees; colleges give certificates and diplomas. There are the odd hybrid exception to this rule, but it's pretty standard.

THE WIMPY BURGER FACTOR

by Jenny Gardiner

I know you all know about the Wimpy Burger. Because we are all old enough to remember Popeye, right? Back when we were kids, there was nothing else on television but that lame-o cartoon several time a week (and of course Leave it To Beaver, but that's a story for another day). So for lack of anything better to do, we kicked back in front of the TV console (remember those consoles?!) and watched Popeye pouring on the spinach, Brutus forcing himself on Olive Oyl (talk about a wife-beater type), and Wimpy always in search of the elusive burger, for which he had no cash.

Wimpy's famous line, of course, was "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

I have come to recite this line with regularity, sotto voce, around my teenaged son, who loves to "rob Peter to pay Paul" in order to borrow time. In other words, he's a Grand Master Procrastinator, and it's making me nuts.

You know the cliched line about Little Kids, Little Problems, Big Kids, Big Problems? Well, it's true. To a certain extent. Granted, your very small child can indeed get into all sorts of vexing, and even deadly trouble. Like swallowing something out of those bottles with the Mr. Yuk stickers would constitute Big Problem for Little Kids.

But generally speaking, once they get bigger, you can be assured of mental stresses that will add fat to your ass and gray to your head faster than you can say "My kid didn't do that!"

That is, of course, if you are a stress-eater (which I am), and inclined to sprout gray hairs under duress with the rapidity of a tender bean pod unfurling on a time-lapse video (ditto). [By the way, if something happens to my hairdresser, I sure as hell hope they can unearth his wonderful recipe for my bogus blond hair color or I'm screwed.]

Okay, so I'm beating around the bush. But here's my Big Kid issue. And really, it started out as a Little Kid issue, but we failed, failed, failed to quash it in its infancy, and so it has become a problem that has grown and spread like that bright yellow fungus that shows up magically in your mulch after a heavy rain.

It's all about teen boys and procrastination. Oy, vey.

Now, I know that there must be those boys who are punctual and get their homework done on time and go to bed before 1 a.m. and when they're supposed to be home at 11:30 they're home at 11:30 and not 12:10 with every legitimate-sounding excuse in the book as to why they're not there on time. But I haven't ever experienced that myself. And it makes me CRAZY.

I think the thing of it is that my son is such a fabulous kid in every way (except the procrastination, which, admittedly, bleeds into every aspect of our lives) that I have excused away this bad habit to the point that it's now a firmly-entrenched personality trait that constantly comes back to bite not only him in the butt, but us as well. I have been his procrastination enabler, feeding the addiction instead of stopping it early and often.

And I wonder often: is the procrastination of a 17-year old a trait that will never recede? Much like a 15-year old nail biter, really unlikely to ever cease that obsessive habit. Or, say, a 45-year old stress-eater who blithely pops peanut M&Ms when anxiety hits the flash point.

This all came to a head this week when college admissions letters came out. And to our great dismay, our intellectually curious teenaged son, with a passion for learning and smarts to spare and who truly deserved admission into most of the colleges to which he applied found himself wait-listed for his top choices (this of course hastened by the fact that this of all years is officially the hardest year to get into college, thanks to the Type-A overachieving Baby Boomer parents, whose children have all reached matriculation peak this year). And these wait-lists? A direct result of years of Wimpy Burger behavior that sadly cancelled out SO many of the hugely important and relevant things he's done over the years, because when it came time to crunch for that AP Calculus exam, he was too engrossed in debating other political buffs on some website where you create and sustain your own nation-state to bother with integers or whatever it is you learn in Calculus. A really well-meaning kid whose track record was exemplary in so many areas, but who just couldn't help but reaching for that Wimpy Burger time and again when he should've been focusing on those irrelevant classes that ultimately mean nothing down the road, because really, who actually uses Calculus anyhow?

On one level my heart aches for him that he couldn't squelch the Wimpy Burger in himself, couldn't see far enough down the road to realize that even if he would rather spend hours on the computer debating world events, the fact is you have to play the high school game if you want to get past it and ultimately into the area in which you have a passion. You can't keep blowing off the have-to's to deal with the want-to's, even if the want-to's really matter. The have-to's are sort of the tolls on the highway toward your dreams, and you can't jump the tollbooth---eventually it catches up with you.

Our philosophy all along has been that our kids need to learn to sink or swim on their own. We refuse to be helicopter parents, hand-holding and hovering and ensuring every step they take is the right step. And so it's been agonizing for us to watch this unfold, to watch his dreams now have to re-shape to fit this new reality, a reality that exists because of those damned Wimpy Burgers. You can be sure I am left to question whether we should have, could have, done something to stop the Wimpy Burger behavior from getting beyond him. And to hope that perhaps this time the lesson will take hold (but most likely won't)...

)

The irony has not escaped me that a wait list for college admission is almost a Wimpy Burger sort of thing in and of itself. "I'll gladly accept you Tuesday, that is, unless I can't find an opening for you, er, um..."

Am I the only mom with a perpetually procrastinating boy? Or is this the rule, rather than the exception?

Kids and who they leave behind

By Judy Merrill Larsen

It's not like I didn't see it coming. 

First, they toddled off to kindergarten, maybe glancing over their shoulders, running back for one last hug, but then entering a new sphere where they'd make friends I hadn't hand-picked.

Then, the big steps.  High school.  A driver's license (man, that's when I really became obsolete.  Except as a human ATM).  Finally off to college. 

And each time, I'd call them back for one more kiss, then I'd wave, and stand with the dog.  His wagging tail beating against the open door like a metronome.  We'd watch them leaving and he'd look up at me as if to say, "Now what?"  His tail always drooped just a little and his step was a bit slower until they returned

Now, if I'd really been able to orchestrate things, that first dog would have lasted until #2 Son shuffled off to college.  That was the yellow lab pup we brought home three weeks after their dad (who hadn't been crazy about having me for a wife or getting a dog) had moved on to greener pastures.  The boys had been 4 and 6.  I'd done the math, figuring dog years and all, and my plan had been for Tank, the wonderdog, to make it until the kids were away at college. 

But, not quite.  Dogs and kids rarely worked on my schedule.  So, one hot summer day before #2 Son's junior year in high school, we helped our old, sweet, dying dog into the car and took him to the vet, where we sobbed and petted his silky ears as he fell into that long final sleep.  We brought his collar home with us and divvied up his dog tags for our various key chains.  And when that same son came to me and asked, "Is it your intention to get another dog?," well, how could I say anything but "of course." 

So, Ernie, a golden retriever joined our household.  And it's now Ernie and me, standing at the door, just like we did this week, waiting first for their arrival, where Ernie's joy is palpable when they come in the house, hauling dirty clothes and ravenous appetites.  He follows them around, happily hopping on their beds (the only ones he's allowed on), sleeping until noon with them, and imagining they are home for good.

And he can keep believing that, but I know that it is likely they'll never live here full-time again.  #1 Son spent 5 days of his spring break interviewing for jobs in Seattle (two time zones away).  #2 Son will be here this summer, but after next school year, who knows. 

And I know that I've done--am doing--my job.  I know I'm supposed to raise them to leave me.  And that we're entering a whole new phase of our mother-son relationship.  They have girlfriends I adore.  They not only ask for my opinions and advice, they occasionally follow it. 

But, the first few days after they've left, I'll notice Ernie, wonderdog #2, wandering around whimpering and looking for them.  He'll go all the way up to their third floor bedroom and eagerly sniff around.  Sometimes I even catch him on one of their beds as if he's waiting for them to return, pet his head, sneak him a chicken nugget or pizza crust.  And then he'll come downstairs, slowly, looking just a little bit lost.  And I'll call him over and ruffle his hair and scratch behind his ears because I know, in his little (very little) dog brain what he's thinking. 

When will they be back and how could they just grow up and leave me?

Sometimes Even a "Concert Mom" Has to Say No

My sons, like many college students, are concert-goers.  They come by it honestly, I suppose.  I’ve been going to concerts since 1976.  My first was The Beach Boys.  The ticket was $5.  Times have changed.  And while I’ve gotten much more selective in my concert attending, they know there is one performer I will go to extremes to see.  They respect my dedication.  Partly because they know it makes it easier for them.  I’ve crossed several state lines, a time zone, and driven 7 hours round trip (on a work night, with two broken legs) to see Springsteen, and they’ve done the same (without the broken legs, I should add) for Dave.  The Dave Matthews Band for the uninitiated.

So, when my #1 Son called to get my take on his latest concert plan, I was ready to say yes.  In the past few years, I’ve said yes to he and his two best buddies taking a 10-day driving tour of the Midwest to see 7 shows.  I said yes to him leaving a family vacation a day early so the same two friends could pick him up and head to NYC for two shows.  I even said yes this past fall when he’d won two tickets to a show at West Point which required him to buy an airline ticket from Ohio (where he’s in college) and miss two days of classes.

But this time, I had to say no. 

Because it would be the night before his college graduation.  The night when family from several time zones would be congregating in Columbus, Ohio to watch him graduate and celebrate with him.  Now, as he pointed out to me, this was a once in a lifetime event.  The concert, not the graduation.  Dave would be performing at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.  His (#1 Son's) hometown.  His favorite band playing in his favorite team’s home.  He said to me, “Mom, it’d be like Springsteen playing at Wrigley Field.  Or Lambeau.”  I told him I understood that, and I sympathized, and I wished I could say yes, but I just couldn’t. 

He asked one more time if that was a firm no.  It was.  He sounded unconvinced and I suspected he’d still check to see if there were any flights that might make it workable—you know, him seeing the concert and being back at OSU in plenty of time to don his cap and gown.

But then, a few days ago this same son called to thank me for making him do the right thing.  As he said, it would be rude to not be with all the people who had supported him and looked out for him his whole life. 

It felt good to know that not only had I passed on a love of concerts but also a love of family.

Labels: college, concerts, Dave Matthews Band, Family: Never a dull moment, parenting, Springsteen, teens

There Are Never Too Many Cooks

Posted by Melanie

Next week my older son will come home from college for spring break. (It would be nice if his spring break coincided with my younger son’s – still in high school – spring break but of course, it doesn’t. Sigh.)

Naturally, we’re looking forward to it, and I know, now, what to expect because we’ve already had the first winter break from college. Which turned out just great, despite the fact that I had been warned by those with experience that the first time the college student comes home for a significant period of time can be tricky. The kid's used to being on his own, the parent still wants to be in control, etc., etc.

But I have to say that we did not experience any of that.

He seemed genuinely happy to be home, we were genuinely happy he was, and yes, it did, almost, seem as if we all slipped into the patterns that were so familiar before he went away to college, last August. But I quickly learned that however happy we all were, it was different.

He had just matured so much, in such surprisingly sweet ways. When I did mess up and go all parental on his a** - which, to my credit, I really tried not to do so much - he didn’t throw a tantrum, he didn’t react like a typical teenager. He just very calmly explained to me why my concern wasn't really necessary, and then he moved on. No grudge holding, no icy silence – typical responses when he was still in high school. No, he really has learned to handle his emotions, his relationships, like an adult. That's pretty cool.

And one thing that was REALLY cool was that when he was home in December, he wanted to learn to cook. Apparently he grew tired, pretty quickly, of eating ramen noodles and fast food.  So he asked me to teach him.

"What do you want to learn?" I asked.

"Everything. I want you to show me everything you know how to do."

And I thought that was neat. I did not do that when I was his age - you couldn't have paid me to ask my parents to teach me anything. For me - and it still holds true, today - I had to do everything my own way. Sometimes the hard way. But it had to be my way - nobody else's; like most teenagers, I wanted nothing to do with my parents' choices and lifestyle. We were - we are - so different, and I'm very stubborn, and for some reason, I just really had to make a big break from everything I'd grown up with, in order to forge who I really wanted to be.

Now, of course, I think that in my old age I'm coming around, just a little bit, to appreciate some of the things I was brought up with. But I certainly didn't when I was my son's age.

So it really pleases me that, as he's growing up, arming himself with the skills he wants to take with him when he really does leave the nest, he's choosing to take at least a little bit of what he's grown up with. I know it's just cooking; just a certain way to fry a chicken, or make spaghetti, or peel potatoes.

But it's something - something he appreciates, something I've done that he wants to bring with him, as he forges his own adult identity. And like every great cook, I'm sure he'll tinker with the recipe, improve on it, make it his own.

But the base is mine. And that makes me feel pretty good, as a parent.

(And as a cook.)

Labels: college, cooking, spring break

Detour on the road

Posted by Ora

Abe is in the middle of a detour on the road to college- and I have no idea what shape this detour will take.  His emotions got so out of control that he had to be admitted to a hospital.  Deciding to do this was one of the saddest things that I had to do.  But I went to visit him over the weekend, and he seems to be much happier now.  And, surprise, surprise, the report is that he is talking in the therapy groups and also to the other kids.

Both sides of the family are highly supportive, although you know who ends up thinking that everything is my fault.  (If I can't remember everything that was told to me about this treatment, and he doesn't think about asking until one of his friends asks him about it!)

I'm waiting for a call back from the doctor, but so far nothing.  I wonder how long this detour will be, even though I know that it's for the best.