Most Improved Mom — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

It's an act of hubris to brag about our children, but as moms, we're all guilty. After all, those accomplishments we love to enumerate — the straight As, the home runs, the chess standings — they really belong to our children. It's hard, though, to keep our pride from bubbling out of our hearts and through our lips, even when we are doing it out of love and not a vicarious sense of competition.

In Hollywood, the award season kicks off with the Golden Globes in January, but every mom knows that kid awards are in May. In this two-week period alone, I will attend at least five ceremonies for my twins, who are high school juniors. (Please note: the following list does not constitute bragging, as I'm trying to make a point here.) My daughter was inducted into the National Honor Society, will be recognized as an outstanding student by three of her teachers (Anatomy, Applied Science and English), and will receive a few other honors, as well. Her twin brother received a "most improved" award in history.

I'm proud of all my children, but these awards for these two children are particularly meaningful because their futures were so precarious when they were born 16 weeks prematurely. At that time, we were hoping they would breathe on their own, so scholastic achievements weren't even on our radar. As I have proudly touted their most recent accomplishments to friends, grandparents and other relatives, it's been hard not to notice the imbalance of accolades. I hear myself saying "she did this" and "she got that" and … she, she, she. Oh, yeah, and he got an award, too — most improved.

A friend recently asked how my son felt about all this attention being bestowed upon his sister. Frankly, it's hard to say, because this is a boy who doesn't register accomplishments (his or anyone else's). This phenomenon is actually part of his set of learning disabilities and reflects an inability to connect planning and effort to achievement, as well as difficulty reading social cues.

This is the second time my son has been recognized as "most improved". The first was after an extraordinarily difficult transition to high school. When you ask him how he feels about these awards, he says "I'm happy," and then wryly notes that it's not hard to be most improved when you start at the bottom — an interesting observation from someone who is supposedly "socially delayed". When you tell him you are proud of him, he says "Thank you." When you ask how he feels about his sister's awards, he says "I'm happy for her."

As his history teacher presented my son with his award, she made special note of his kindness, his upbeat attitude and his positive contribution to the atmosphere of the class. I wish I could give her an award for recognizing these as accomplishments.

"Most improved" is a stunning accomplishment, especially when you improve upon most improved. My goal over the next year is to follow in my son's footsteps to become eligible for the Most Improved Mom Award — a mom who devotes as much of her braggadocio to her children's behavior and character as she does to the more coveted awards and public recognitions. I will strive to instill in my son the same sense of pride I feel for the person he is. It's clear I have a long way to go, but with a little more effort and self awareness, I may have a fighting chance.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog Post. When Susan isn't boasting about her brilliant, beautiful, talented children, she can be found blogging at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Life's Not a Paragraph

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have already experienced profound loss and those who will.

I've been lucky so far in this life. My losses have been quiet goodbyes, gentle by most standards, the soft leavings of old age, cushioned by the generations between them and me. Secondhand losses. 

After my grandfather died, and my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, I asked her if she was afraid of death. "Oh, honey," she said. "At my age, death is almost a friend. It's a story I read about every day in the paper."

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it is a thief, robbing us of our dearest treasures. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about my greatest fear — a recurring nightmare I have that one of my children has died. I knew even as I wrote it that I was trampling on someone else's grief. Tragically, unbelievably, one of my fellow bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group is living this nightmare right now, having lost her baby just two days after I posted my nightmares.

Madeline Alice Spohr 

(November 11, 2007 - April 7, 2009)

I've never met Maddie's family, but so much of her story is familiar — difficult conception and pregnancy, traumatic, premature birth, eating issues, growing issues — but more importantly:

joy,

fun, 

giggles, 

first teeth, 

first baths,

FIRSTS. 

Her story may not be a long one, but it is a story worth knowing.

This loss, like so many others, was not a quiet one. When a child dies, we roar with the pain, the grief, the missed opportunities of a story barely started. 

A writing friend, Cindy Fey, wrote beautifully about the sudden loss of her dear friend, a peer, a cohort, a man who was walking this life at the same time as her husband when his footsteps suddenly stopped. His premature death left a novella, not a full novel perhaps, but a story worth knowing. 

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it is the harshest of spotlights, the cruelest of mirrors, shining stark light on our own mortality, leaving us gasping and keening.

Another dear friend has experienced more deaths in her family than anyone I know, whittling her immediate family down to a precious few, leaving her clear-eyed and unsentimental. Her losses are a series of short-stories and tall tales, an epic saga — a story worth knowing.

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it's a relentless clock, ticking off the lives of those we know and love as surely as it counts off the seconds of our individual lives — a never-ending death knell.

I know I am lucky — death has brushed by so closely that the hairs on the back of my neck still rise and tremble at the memory. In grateful acknowledgement of those near misses, in tribute to Maddie and Eric and Jill's family, and in celebration of April as National Poetry Month, let's remember that no life is just a paragraph, but a full story worth telling:

since feeling is first

by ee cummings

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all the flowers. Don't cry

- the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

Please click here to share a thought, a poem or a comment.

The Nightmares are Back — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

I have a few neuroses — who doesn't — but I don't live in constant fear. On the rare occasion when my mind travels down "What If" way, I scare the crap out of myself and do a u-turn as quickly as possible. I'm always afraid if I go too far down that path, there will be no coming back. How's that for neurotic — I'm afraid of being afraid.

But the subconscious is like the highwayman of mental health — it creeps up on you in your dreams and steals your sanity. In times of stress (and with four kids and a dog in a floundering economy, there's not much stress-free time), I have nightmares. I know I'm not alone. According to one recent poll, nearly one in three women has frequent stress dreams.

Mine usually start with the basic college stress dream. You know the one. It's the day of the final exam and you haven't been to class since the first session; you get to the classroom and the venue has changed and you go from room to room searching for your professor as the exam time ticks away. It's been a long time since college, but I'm still taking exams in my dreams every three or four weeks.

Next come the dreams of never-ending frustration. The kitchen floor that keeps growing as you try to wash it; swimming across a pool that keeps getting longer and longer; the endless search for a public restroom when your screaming toddlers have to go potty RIGHT NOW. These dreams exhaust me, but I understand them. I recognize they are my body's way of telling me that I've got too much on my plate — that it's time to figure out what needs to be done and what can be let go.

But the nightmares are different. I should say nightmare — it's always the same — only the roles change. In my nightmare, one of my children has died. I am in the immediate aftermath and I have to figure out how to go on, how to keep living and be a mom to the children who survive. It's a different child every time, and the bulk of the dream is about the altered family dynamics that such a devastating loss brings and my utter failure in navigating it.

I have friends who would be appalled that I'm writing this nightmare out loud. "Puh, puh, puh, don't say such a thing." It's strange trying to express and dissect such a visceral experience, complete with the hyper-reality that the dream state induces. It's also strange that, while I'm always overwhelmed and fully present in the dream, I am also somehow always aware that it is a dream.

My intellectual self understands that these nightmares are also stress induced, exploring in my sleep the unknown future, dangers and ultimate loss that face my children in a way that my practical, daytime mind won't allow. My spiritual self grieves for those families who are living this nightmare in real life, and is grateful every day for our health and well being. But my neurotic self, the one I try to keep in check, is truly terrified by these nightmares and, frankly, a little pissed off that I have absolutely no control over them. They come when they come and there is nothing I can do about it.

Over spring break, three of my children and I are driving down to Florida to visit my parents and my wonderful, talented stepdaughter. My oldest son is flying out to Seattle to spend time with his wonderful, generous big brother — my stepson. I've been having the nightmare every night for the past two weeks. I know I'll have it every night until we're all back home again. If you have a cure, let me know. In the meantime, maybe I'll just stay up and blog all night.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't fretting in her sleep about things she absolutely cannot control, she can be found daydreaming about Two Kinds of People and all things pet related The Animal Store Blog.

Photo Credit: The Unmade Bed by Richard Pluck.

No Foolin'

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can tell a joke and those who can't.

Sadly, I'm one of the latter. I have only one joke (nope, I'm not going to tell it here; it's a little inappropriate). The gift I bring to comedy is that I'm a great audience, an easy laugh. I'm not, however, indiscriminate. I admit I never got Howard Stern or the Three Stooges (I think it must be a guy thing).

When I was growing up, I loved listening to my parents' comedy records (I know, I'm old). The first one I ever heard was From the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Who will ever forget this Chicago native's one-sided phone conversations? (You forgot? No worries: click here then click on the "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue" or "Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball".)  

I was too young at the time to get  much of the humor by Mike Nichols and Elaine May on Improvisations to Music, although it became one of my favorite albums in college (when I finally got the references), and I still have it in my collection today (don't tell my parents). Here's their riff on the phone company:

Lily Tomlin's This is a Recording , on the other hand, was easily accessible to my young ears, and Ernestine had me howling from the very first "One ringy-dingy …" (Hmm, I'll have to ponder the cultural significance of why so many of our greatest comedians have turned to the telephone for inspiration.)

When I was a kid, my parents would send us to bed and then often sit in the living room to listen to the Hi-Fi. I have vivid memories of my brother and I tiptoeing out of bed and sitting at the top of the stairs so we could hear, too. It was torture trying not to laugh at Bill Cosby's To Russell My Brother, Whom I Slept With. We'd do almost anything to avoid cracking up and being banished back to bed. We knew as soon as one giggle escaped, we were doomed, so we'd bite our tongues and pinch each other and clap both hands over our mouths. It never worked.

Except once. It was 1972 and a friend of my dad's brought over George Carlin's Class Clown. Somehow we managed to get through "Bi-Labial Fricative", "The Confessional" and "Heavy Mysteries" without getting caught, probably because the adults had fallen into hysterics. When George got to the "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", we knew we had to be really quiet or we'd be in big, bad, ugly trouble. This was definitely stuff we were not supposed to hear. On the other hand, it was valuable information and, consequently, worth the risk. 

There was something delicious about sneaking all this comedy. It's just not the same flipping through channel after channel of cable standup, although I'm the first to admit I would never have gotten through eight years of George Bush or the most recent election season without Jon Stewart and The Daily Show.

Today, of course, we celebrate April Fool's Day with jokes and pranks aplenty. I was surprised to learn that the holiday has been around for hundreds of years, but I'm going to need a couple hundred more before I can pull off any kind of noteworthy prank. I miss the days when my kids were young and dumb and I could crack them up with a plastic fly frozen into an ice cube. What can I say, my kids inherited my "great audience" gene. 

I hope you had a few giggles today. If you're still feeling puckish, check out The Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time. I'm particularly fond of #7, where it was reported that the state of Alabama voted to change the value of Pi from 3.14159… to the "Biblical Value" of 3.0.

Click here to share your greatest practical joke, either given or received. You can even make it up; I'm easily fooled.

Crushed by Parental Paperwork — CMB Post

Originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Of the myriad skills necessary for effective parenting, I would have thought that years of working through school and in offices would have prepared me well to handle the paperwork. Wrong.

Four kids, four schools, six doctors, two dentists, several teams, too many extracurricular activities and one dog add up to a lot of paperwork. That doesn't even take into account my own personal papers. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to stay on top of the never-ending influx of health forms, permission slips, report cards, sign-up sheets, camp forms, registrations, family histories, and emergency contact sheets. And those are just the forms I have to complete and return.

Then there are the read-only materials, the read-and-file materials, the read-and-act-upon materials and the what-in-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-this materials. You've got your newsletters, your flyers, your invitations, your reminder sheets and your save-the-dates. And don't forget or misplace the calendars and class lists and team rosters and schedules. Clearly, the promise of a paperless society is nothing but cruel joke.

On top of the sheer volume, there are the two additional complicating factors in the battle of parental paperwork. First, many of these materials arrive weeks or months before they are due, like the camp forms that come in November for activities that won't take place until the following July; or the forms to schedule a Bar Mitzvah that is still two years away. This early-entry paperwork is just a disaster waiting to happen. Forms are like socks — half of them are sucked directly into the black hole that hovers over our house.

The second factor that interferes with efficient paper handling is that many of these materials want me to return them with checks — you know, actual money — for fees, deposits and dues. I don't know about you, but our family does quite a bit of financial juggling, so I can't always afford to write a check for monies that aren't technically due for a month or more.

So, here is where my tale of woe leads me down a bumpy path directly to the the hall of shame. My daughter, one of the world's most organized individuals, is taking an advanced placement (AP) class in high school. We are new to the world of AP and its particular brand of red tape. In addition to taking the class as part of their regular course load, AP students take special exams that are given on the same date everywhere in the country. There are registration forms and fees associated with each AP class and exam.

About six weeks ago, we got a packet in the mail with all kinds of information about test dates and fees and schedules. The $86 test fee was due absolutely no later than Friday, March 20 — no exceptions. If you have been paying attention, you have probably already guessed that I missed the deadline. I could give you a million very good excuses, but the fact is, I screwed up. My girl has busted her butt all year in a college-level class, and I forgot to send in the stupid check. I couldn't sleep all weekend, waking up a hundred times a night with the same cold sweats and stomach churns that have prevented me from pursuing a master's degree. I can't take the pressure of the paperwork.

What to do? Stoop even lower, of course, and give my daughter some brilliant advice about how to wiggle out of the mess I made — I told her to lie. We woke up extra early Monday morning and headed to school, where I coached her to go in and tell the woman collecting the checks that her mother had been out of town for a week and had accidentally taken the form and check with her. It was a plan — not a good plan, I admit, but it might have worked, except the woman wasn't there.

So, I sent my girl back into school, telling her to put the envelope in the woman's mailbox with a note that said she would check in with her Monday morning. Remember, it was already Monday morning. The implication was that the envelope had been turned in on Friday after the woman in charge had already left for the day. I know, I know. I am a terrible, horrible mother.

The good news is that there were many other similar envelopes in the mailbox, and when my girl checked in with the AP woman (as she promised she would), she was assured that everything was fine.

Fine. Unless you count the fact that I totally flushed my integrity, credibility and any hope of ever claiming the moral high ground again with my daughter, then sure, everything is fine.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't hanging her head in shame or digging out from under an avalanche of paperwork, she can be found writing pulp-free at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Crushed by Paperwork

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who face paperwork with calm equanimity and those who fold under the pressure.

For a discussion on how parenting is impacted by paperwork and how it brought me to my knees, check out my latest post on the Chicago Moms Blog. Feel free to share your own paperwork peccadillos by clicking here .

Premio Dardos!

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Italy and those who don't.

I admit it, I'm an Italophile. It's probably because my first foray oversees was to Italy, and it probably didn't hurt that it was on my honeymoon. Since that very first trip, my best dreams revolve around spending six months a year living and writing in Italy, preferably at the Hotel San Pietro in Positano.

Since I am (at least) several best sellers away from realizing this dream, imagine my delight when the talented and bellissimo Cindy Fey from Well All Fall Down bestowed upon Two Kinds of People the prestigious Premio Dardos Award. Molto grazie, Cindy.

You say you have never heard of this incredible honor? Let me explain. "Premio Dardos" means "prize darts" in Italian. The award is granted in "recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. The award was created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers and showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."

Acceptance carries these stipulations:

Step 1: Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person who has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.

Step 2: Pass the award to another five blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award.

Step 3: Answer the following questions on your own blog, replacing one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and adding one more question of your own.

1) What are you wearing right now? Clothes. And really grungy slippers.

2) What is your biggest fear? As posted on the Chicago Moms Blog, suffice it to say that it involves death.

3) Do you nap a lot? "A lot" implies both time and opportunity, both sorely lacking in my life at the moment. I will admit that my endodontist claimed I was the only patient he ever had who fell asleep during a root canal. Time — about 2 hours. Opportunity — sitting in a reclining chair with no kids in sight while being administered good drugs. Sounded like nap time to me.

4) Who is the last person you hugged? My girl, who just wandered over for a random kiss and hug.

5) What websites do you visit when you go online? The aforementioned We All Fall Down, Chicago Moms Blog and its sister sites, The Animal Store, various writing sites and blogs.

6) What was the last item you bought? Girly martinis yesterday evening at The Globe (well martinis, $5 on Fridays) — one for my friend's birthday, which happened to be yesterday, and one for my half-birthday, which also happened to be yesterday.

7) What are you reading? Anne Fadiman's essay collection entitled At Large and at Small. I love the way she ties the most arcane details into a beautiful whole, and her command of the English language frequently makes me feel like a lazy writer. Click here for an excerpt, and check out her earlier collection, Ex Libris, which I thought was even better.

8) If you could go to the Oscars, who would you want to sit next to? Oh, the pressure of what to wear is already making me a nervous wreck. I think Robert Downey, Jr. for fun, or Robert Redford because, well, he's Robert Redford.

9) Has a celebrity's hair cut every influenced your own hairstyle? If I were to go to the Oscars (see question 8), I'd go for the Rita Hayworth do shown here.

10) What is the one skill you wish you had, but don't? Being able to play the piano brilliantly by ear.

11) What is the last movie you watched? I think it was Slum Dog Millionaire, but we may have rented something since then. Clearly, it wasn't very memorable.

12) What is the luckiest thing that every happened to you? My preemie twins survived and thrived.

13) If you had a whole day to yourself — no work, commitments or interruptions —what you would do? Sleep in, meet a friend for brunch, write, have good Chinese complete with Mai Tais with a friend, see a funny movie, stay up late writing.

14) Is there a major goal that you haven't yet achieved? It was humbling and a little daunting to trace back through the winners of the Premio Dardos Award to discover that most of us have the same goal: to get our book(s) published.

15) What is the thing you wish you could forget? My first phone number, which I haven't had since I was eight years old. It's clogging up needed brain cells. I could also stand to lose a few jingles and television theme songs.

16) What is something that those in blogland might not know about you? I'm a rabid University of Michigan football fan and still in mourning over our dismal 2008 season.

17) What states and countries have you visited as an adult? Alphabetically:

States: Alabama, California, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Countries: British Virgin Islands, Canada, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, USA

18) What do you do to relieve stress? Take a bath; drive and play my music really loud.

19) If you could change one physical trait about you what would it be? I would be tall and thin.

20) In what room in history would you have liked to be a fly on the wall? Let's see, perhaps watching Lincoln rehearse the Gettysburg Address.

21) What is your favorite hotel? As I already mentioned, my favorite is the Hotel San Pietro in Positano, Italy, but I'd love to hear other favorites, so this is my new question.

I hereby bestow the Premio Dardos upon:

Shari at Artichokes and Aristotle

Angela at Domestic Blitz

Peter at Detectives Beyond Borders

Merlot Mom

Kim at Hormone-colored Days

Congratulations to you all.

Please share your thoughts and comments by clicking here.