Fireworks and Waterworks

There are two kinds of mothers, and they are most easily identified on the first day of school.  One kind of mother can't stop crying.  The other kind of mother is dancing the jig.  

I have always been a dancing gal, a bye-bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out, write when you get work kind of Mom.  I love the summer, LOVE IT, but when it's over, I am glad to see my boys take those important steps towards independence.  (And, let's face it, I'm glad to have the house to myself once more.)
        But this summer is different.  My oldest has graduated from high school, and as we round the corner and take the last lap before he leaves for college, I’ve become the weepy one.

Lately, everything makes me cry.  It was fine to cry at the volleyball banquet when the coach spoke about my son’s leadership and character.  It was sentimental to cry watching my son and his best friends embrace in their tuxedos, going to the Prom.  And the entire Welch-Ryan Arena was teary at graduation, as they called the names of boys and girls I’ve known since kindergarten.

I cried appropriately all spring.  But then I cried at the Fourth of July fireworks.  

My husband, who is still startled by this change, asked what the hell was wrong with me, and I asked him, “When did Robby stop holding my hand?”

I saw hundreds of mothers down at the beach for the fireworks, and they were all holding children’s hands.  It’s an easy place to get lost, with so many people, and it’s a scary place for a mother, being so close to the lake.
          My son is eighteen years old now.  He’s 6’3, over 200 pounds.  And although I do remember that he held my hand for an awfully long time, so long in fact that my husband was worried that the other boys would make fun of him, he does not hold my hand anymore. 

I remember those chubby brown fingers fitting perfectly into my palm, I remember their stickiness, and the bitten nails.  I can’t remember the last time Robby held my hand, and of course there was no way to know it was the last, and it’s probably just as well or I would have cried then too. 

These days our refrigerator is plastered with his likeness. It is a shrine to him—the celebration of these last precious months that we will be together before he goes away to college.  My younger son came into the kitchen the other day and asked, “Do I even live here?” and I knew what he meant.  His brother has been the headliner for the past few months, garnering all the accolades of a successful high school career.  He has grown up to be a magnificent young man, and it’s a great irony that now that the hard work is done, he is leaving.

Separation anxiety, a term commonly used when talking about pre-schoolers, is now the diagnosis of pre-college parents. 

I talk to other mothers who have survived it.  They speak of those first weeks, crying in the empty bedroom, touching the trophies, smelling the pillows.  We line up the stuffed animals on the shelves.  We read the spines of the books. We stick close to these remnants of an old life. Like us, these well-loved treasures are left behind. 

This fall as I leave my sweet boy in front of his dormitory, I will have the Kleenex tucked into my sleeve as I say goodbye. As our car pulls away, my tears will begin.
            And this time, my son will be dancing the jig.

Wimbledon Shwimbledon

For the last ten years, I have been playing tennis with a group of women who are only slightly less awful than I am.  There’s no doubt that I’m the lowest gal on the tennis totem pole, but they would each lobby for that distinction, and that is why I love them so.

Not long ago at our regular Wednesday tennis game, I hit a forehand shot in my usual herky-jerky way. It felt like my arm was going to come off.  Something had come unhinged.  I could not imagine it was anything serious, so I went to see my girlfriend’s brother Howie who is the sort of doctor you go to when you don’t think anything is wrong.  He’s a lovely man but probably not such a great doctor, which is why you can always get an appointment right away. Howie examined my arm and told me I had tennis elbow.

I laughed out loud. 

The idea that I could be injured playing tennis was ridiculous.  Our 9:30 court time starts with an update on what has happened since last week.  How did you survive the visit with your mother-in-law?  Has Annie been asked to Homecoming yet?  How is Matt’s job search going?  No tennis will be played until these pressing questions have been answered.  We have never opened a can of tennis balls before 10:00. 

Then we warm up.  For our doubles game, we usually pair up with the gal who can best help us with this week’s domestic dilemma. A good match generally ends with a recommendation for a movie to see this weekend, an idea for a Father’s Day gift, or the name of a great math tutor.   

Then we start.  We play about ten to fifteen minutes until someone has a hot flash and needs to take off her sweatshirt and get a drink. 

This is not the sort of game where anyone gets injured.

I tried explaining this to Howie.  He shook his head, perhaps understanding that I was as much of a tennis player as he was an expert in sports medicine. He pinpointed the motion that was irritating my arm. Sideways, it looked like a tennis forehand shot, but if I rotated my arm inward, my palm faced the ground.  Howie explained that lifting anything with my palm down was verboten.

This struck me as a very familiar motion.  Too familiar.  “Like this?” I pantomimed taking wet blue jeans out of the washing machine.

“Exactly,” said Howie.

“Or like this?” I demonstrated the motion of unloading my new stoneware dishes from the dishwasher.

Howie nodded.

“How about this?” I asked, as I pretended to lift four gallons of milk out of my trunk. 

Howie confirmed my suspicions: I didn’t have tennis elbow; I had hausfrau elbow.

Since I’d left my paying job several years ago to stay home with my children, I’d suffered many pokes at my self-esteem, but this was a grand slam. 

Howie said, “I’ll give you a shot of cortisone, and then you can’t play tennis or lift anything with your palm down for three months.”

No tennis for three months! I would really miss my girls every Wednesday morning, but I’d just have to arrange some lunch dates to keep in touch.  As far as my diagnosis, no one needed to know my true ailment.  I was sticking with tennis elbow—very Chrissie Evert.  But no laundry?  No unloading the dishwasher?  No bringing in the groceries?

I had just received doctor’s orders to cease and desist housework.  This was the greatest day of my life.  

Swimmingly

     When my son was 5-years-old, he liked to wear a life jacket around the house.  He'd wear it to play with friends, eat dinner, or to watch television on the couch.
     What was that about?
     When I asked him, he said he just liked it.
     Was he cold?  Did he like the swaddled feeling of security?  Was he afraid of drowning?  From what did he feel he needed saving?
     In my 3:00 a.m. fret-fests, I feared it was me.
     He seemed happy and well adjusted in every other way, but I worried that the life jacket was a symptom of something, or the beginning of something worse.  I watched him closely, and waited.  I read books.  I asked the pediatrician and other mothers if anyone had ever seen this before.  No one had.  It seemed ominous.
     And then one day, without discussion or fanfare, he was done.  He took off the life jacket and lost interest.  Problem solved.
     That was one of the many parenting moments when I wished I'd had a crystal ball.  If only I could have seen into the future, I would have known that it turned out fine.  Hell, I could have bought him some flippers.
     I've always wished for that crystal ball.  There were so many moments raising my sons that if I'd  just known it was going to turn out okay, I could have relaxed.  But I just never knew.
     But now I do.
     This morning was an ordinary morning. I sipped my coffee and read the paper as my two sons got ready for work. It occurred to me that it has been a long time since anyone lost one shoe.  It has been even longer since I had to smell a boy's breath to make sure he brushed his teeth.  If, on a frantic morning in 1998, I could have seen us in the crystal ball on June 25, 2012, I would have wept with relief.
     Of course I'm not finished worrying.  I think that comes part and parcel with the job.  My 91-year-old mother-in-law still frets over her 60ish sons, watching for signs of improvement.
     Mothering is never over. But childhood is.
     And the moment I wanted to see in the crystal ball was this one.

Thanks, Honey

     It's been a banner year for my old boyfriends.
     One guy, (let's call him X) a lawyer, has been seen on several local news broadcasts giving opinions about various criminal trials.  Another old flame just had his latest book reviewed by The New York Times.  (It wasn't a great review, but still.)
     In the meantime, My One, the man I married, has quietly, without press coverage or appearances on The Colbert Report, been working his ass off.
     My husband has a career that doesn't get a lot of press.  But on Father's Day, I thought I might give him some blog coverage for the job he does at home.  After all, I haven't exactly been raising these two amazing boys alone.                                         
     My husband is a nag, in the best possible way.  He tells the boys to clean their rooms, put their dishes in the dishwasher, and help their mother.
     He would win the Nobel prize if they gave it in these categories: Letting Your Wife Know You Think She is Beautiful, Respecting and Loving Your In-Laws and Showing Kindness to Annoying Neighbors.
     He loves the Chicago Bulls, a good bottle of red wine, playing golf in any weather, cooking Sunday  dinner and reading every inch of the newspaper.
     He hates parties where he doesn't know anyone,  restaurants that charge $11 for a cocktail, and having to do the organized dances at Bar Mitzvah parties.
     He thinks you can be a social liberal and a fiscal conservative (wrong) cats are the preferred pet (also wrong) and that I don't know anything about science (this is true.)
     I know this barely scratches the surface, but he wouldn't want me to reveal much more.  The most important thing is that he has been my constant and unwavering partner in loving our boys as hard as he can. He is an exceptional father.
     Thanks, Honey.  Happy Father's Day.  I love you.

Tooth Fairy Tale

     The Tooth Fairy was not scheduled to stop at our house.  I had read all the parenting books that advised against telling my child a bald-faced lie.  I had promised to always tell my five-year-old son the truth, not realizing he would some day ask if I'd ever smoked a cigarette or cut class.  But just like smoking and ditching, eventually I bowed to the peer pressure.  "Everybody's doing it!" my friends said.  They were right, everybody was--and secretly, I wanted to be a Tooth Fairy too.
     Once I fell, I fell hard.  Our Tooth Fairy not only left my son a dollar bill, but she also left candy so more of his teeth would fall out.  The candy left a trail from the window to his bed so he could imagine the Tooth Fairy crawling in through the open window, carrying a bag overflowing with mini Snickers and Hershey's Kisses, and fetching the lost tooth from under the pillow.
     And one more thing.  There was a Grandma Tooth Fairy who came to my mother's house, and she left twenty bucks.
     The last part was not my idea.  My mother is just the kind of grandma who takes spoiling very seriously.
     Like any small lie, this one grew like Pinocchio's nose.  As teeth fell out, my children (now two boys deceived) began to see this as a cash and carry business.  When someone wanted baseball cards, he started wiggling.  I began noticing that in the fall, both my children were yanking out teeth that had never been loose.  My younger son told me that it was better to get all your teeth pulled out before Grandma and Papa left to spend the winter in Florida.
     Occasionally, mistakes were made.  Sometimes the Tooth Fairy fell asleep while watching the news and did not make her appointed rounds.  She learned that a laundry basket provided a clever disguise when faced with a wakeful child.  One time our Tooth Fairy was out of singles, and her rate was mysteriously raised to five dollars--of course there was no way back.  And once when the Tooth Fairy was on a diet and unprepared for a sudden tooth loss late at night, she was forced to leave a trail of Jenny Craig Chocolate Calcium Chews.
     You may have noticed that my husband is nowhere to be found in these nocturnal wanderings.  Somehow, the job of Tooth Fairy has been declared women's work in our house.  Other moms confirm that it is quite rare for dads to assume the title.  I know it seems silly, but if we want more men to equally share these responsibilities, perhaps we'll have to call them something other than Fairies.
     Eventually, my older son heard the whispered rumors on the playground, and the questions began.  Is there really a Tooth Fairy?  If I stop believing, will she stop coming?  Do I have anything else that falls out and pays cash?  I consulted my girlfriends for advice.  One friend decided to confess that She Was The Tooth Fairy.  Her daughter reacted to the news with delight, and said, "Oh Mommy!  Can I see your costume?"
     Somehow I never got around to telling.  My children have come to understand who enjoys this game the most.  They now call the Tooth Fairy on her cell phone to remind her to stop at the ATM.  They have found her stash of chocolate in the winter coat closet.  They have discovered their long lost teeth in her jewelry box amongst her other precious things.
     My mother came over last night and my sixth grader yanked out a molar (she leaves for Florida in two weeks.)  It could be a permanent tooth, I'm not sure.  Anyway, my son did negotiate a higher rate based on the size of the tooth and the silver filling.
     The Grandma Tooth Fairy thinks he's going to be a lawyer.

The Boys are Back

     We were empty nesters for exactly nine months.
     The house was quiet, clean and orderly.  While I missed my boys, I did not miss their wet towels on the  floor, their dirty dishes in every room, or their STUFF.  Rob has graduated college and Jesse is home for the summer, so naturally there is a George Forman grill in my foyer, a night stand in my living room, and  seven baskets of clean laundry lined up in the hallway that will never make it into the drawers.
     At high school graduation, parents cry because their children are leaving.  At college graduation, parents cry because their children are coming home.
     Now there is a good chance my boys are reading this, and I don't want them to think I'm not happy to have them--I LOVE having them home--but it's going to take a little adjusting.
     I was never the neat one.  That distinction goes to my poor husband whose head is going to explode like my laundry room full of dirty socks. But it's not just the mess.  My car keys are not in my purse.  My computer charger is not in my office.  The kitchen scissors will have to be re-named.
    Every night I clean up my kitchen after dinner and put everything away.  I go to bed.  When I wake up in the morning, I find that there has been a dinner party in my house overnight.  Every pot and pan has been used.  Every plate and bowl is out.  A pound of lunch meat, a loaf of bread, a half pound of cheese, two bags of chips and a box of ice cream bars have vanished.  Whatever was leftover from dinner has been consumed, a bag once containing 42 potstickers is in the trash, and the rice maker has burnt residue on the bottom.
     It has been my life's work to keep the refrigerator filled for my big boys and their friends, I'm just out of practice.  It's a task that requires daily dedication and religious zeal.  I worship at Costco.  I am often asked by chuckling strangers what I feed my boys, and I tell them my secret: I feed them everything I have.
     How many people, you might ask, are eating at Chez Solomon between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.?  I only learned recently that our house is the preferred destination after midnight.  Although our house isn't big, it's a ranch, so the bedrooms are far from the living area, unlike a two story where parents can hear everything going on right below.  I woke up at 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom the other night and opened my bedroom door to see if the boys were home. There were a lot of people in my house.  I heard someone playing the piano, and PEOPLE WERE SINGING.
     It might be difficult to imagine I could sleep through all this, but it's true.  When I go to bed around 11, the boys aren't home yet.  When I wake up in the morning, the boys are asleep in their rooms.  Who knows what shenanigans have occurred in my house over the years when I assumed my sweet boys were asleep in their beds?  (If you know, I beg you not to tell me.)
     The only bright side is that I am sure that my boys will never have a party when we aren't home.  I know you are raising your eyebrows at this bold statement, but I know this for a fact:  In order to prevent us from knowing that a party occurred, they would have to clean up after themselves.
     Never gonna happen.

A Grown Man

Part I
     We are late for an important doctor's appointment. It should have only taken thirty minutes to get to downtown from our house, but the expressway was a parking lot. We've been in the car twice that long and we aren't there yet.
     Rob is home for winter break after his first semester of college.  When he first came home it seemed he had matured a lot, but a couple of weeks in his childhood bedroom has somehow rendered him helpless to make a sandwich or his bed.
     As we approach the hospital, I tell him to get ready to jump out of the car.  "Go to the reception desk," I say, "And tell them you are seeing Dr. P.  They'll tell you where to go.  I'll park the car."
     My husband is meeting us at the hospital, so Rob calls his cell phone to tell him we're almost there.  He says, "Dad, come down to the lobby and show me where to go."
     As he hangs up, I scold him.  "Rob, you can ask the receptionist where to go.  For goodness sake, you're a grown man!"
     He looks at me, startled, and says, "I am?"

Part II
     My sons are home from college.  Rob has graduated; Jesse has finished his first year.  Yesterday, we had excellent news: Rob was offered the job he most wanted.  He begins working next week.  He has already begun making plans to move out of the house into his own apartment.
     Today my two sons are out for a run.  They circle around the field at Highcrest Middle School, where both of them attended fifth and sixth grade.  (The field, for regular readers of this space, where I carried home the tuba.  http://sherylsolomon.blogspot.com/2012/02/free-lessons.html )The ten and eleven-year-olds are outside for gym class, and one boy yells to my sons, "Hey, do you guys go to New Trier?"
     Rob yells back, "No, I'm a grown man!"
     Another fifth grader hears the question and asks his friend, "Are those guys in high school?"  The first boy says, "No! Didn't you hear him?  He's a grown man!"