A Fine, Fine Line

Yesterday after the gym, I threw in the mom towel.

Too many days of having two kids alone in sweltering heat and pouring rain meant we all needed a play break. So I headed to that bastion of all things American and good...a fast food joint with an indoor playground.

My son decided he didn't want to eat any "junk food" and just ordered a drink. I believe that may qualify as an actual miracle. He sat quietly while his sister finished her lunch and then they were off.

That playground was rocking. There was another family there with a bunch of kids of different ages. My kids asked if they could play with them, and a raucous game of hide-and-seek ensued.

I sat at a table just outside the glass and sipped my Diet Coke. I occasionally stepped inside the play structure to implore my son to "please stop screeching!" as he is prone to do. But all in all, they seemed like they were holding their own.

Another family arrived with a three-year-old little girl. She was hesitant to enter the fish bowl of screaming children, and with good reason if you ask me. She worked up her courage and joined in the fray but kept popping out every few minutes to exclaim that she had been pushed, hit, or assaulted.

She wasn't accusing my kids and her own family made excuses, so I let it go. But I also started cleaning up and giving the kids a warning that it would be time to leave soon. Mommy can only take so much.

My kids left happily and even thanked me for taking them. Okay, that's not a miracle, but it made me feel pretty good.

That evening while my son was taking a bath I noticed a red mark on his back. Then a noticed a huge red mark on his thigh.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"That boy today kicked me," he informed me.

"What? Who kicked you? How did that happen?"

He went on to tell me that an older boy had come up behind him and kicked him in the back. He fell hard and got the raspberry on his leg.

"And what did you do?" I asked him.

"I was gonna tell him that was bad and not to do that, but you said it was time to leave," he explained.

I must admit I was livid.

My kids are always the kickees and never the kickers. They're always getting hit and never hitting back. Are they destined to get beat up for the rest of their lives?

When my daughter was younger, she was what I would call a prime victim. She was quick to trust, quick to cry, and put on such a dramatic show. She was a bully's dream.

But my son? I always thought he could stand up for himself. I never expected him to hit or kick back. That doesn't jive with our moral code. But he has a sort of presence and a deep belief in his own self-worth that I thought would serve him well.

He's roleplayed the victim/bully scenario with us a hundred times because we had to go through it with his sister. There was a time when we feared she would be really injured so we taught her "The Defensive Move" suggested to us by our dear Kindergarten teacher friend.

I think there is a fine, fine line between having a kid who will stick up for himself, and having a kid who can get violent. There's a fine, fine line between using words and attitudes to defend yourself and striking back to protect yourself. It's too fine of a line for a five-year-old to tread.

My father once told me that when you raise really well-behaved kids you put them at a certain disadvantage. He said that most kids are awful and from time to time, your good kids will be victimized because of it. But my dad was a cop and saw the world through jaded eyes. I only half believed him.

I should have whole believed that little three-year-old girl yesterday though.

There is a fine, fine line between protecting your kids and letting them make their own way in the big, bad world. It's almost too fine a line for a world-weary mom to tread.

Best Laid Plans

The best advice I ever got from a more senior military wife was to use the time during a deployment to focus on myself.

"Do all those things you've always wanted to do but never had time for," she told me. "Set some goals and use your time alone to meet them."

It's excellent advice. It really is. But it's advice I've failed to follow over and over again.

Every time my husband deploys (four times so far) I have these great expectations. I'll write a book! I'll lose weight! I'll train for a race!

Yet every time he comes back from his deployment he returns to the same old wife he's always had. No book written. No weight lost. In fact, usually quite a few stress pounds added. And I've yet to ever run a race.

It's disheartening. I hate to be a failure. It's tempting to just not set any goals for myself at all. Isn't just getting through a deployment with my sanity intact enough?

Well, no. To me, overachiever that I am, it is not enough at all. And so today I headed to the gym.

I nearly killed myself just walking for a half hour on the treadmill. But it is a place to start. Where else can I start but at the beginning?

Today I am concentrating on the fact that I went at all. It is so very tempting to not leave the house. It is even more tempting to stay in bed all day and let the kids watch DVD after DVD. It is yet even more tempting to curl up with a tub of ice cream, a bag of chips, and a gallon of soda and let the world melt away.

But I refuse. I am a survivor. Even if today the word survivor to me means nothing more than getting out of bed, leaving the house, and going to the gym.

I have plenty days alone left to build from there.

E-mails from the Front

My husband isn't much of a talker. Oh sure, I know how to get him going if I want to, but when it comes to communicating through e-mail it's like pulling very stuck teeth.

I have been writing him at least a few paragraphs every day, letting him know what we've been up to. In return, he'll send me a sentence or two. He's even ended his e-mails with, "I don't know what else to say."

Apparently, I laid on a bit of guilt. What? I didn't mean to! I didn't even know I was doing it.

So, after our last phone call he decided to sit down and write me a good e-mail. Man, when he decides to communicate, he really decides to communicate.

He talked about what it is like in Iraq. He told me about his co-workers and roommate. He told me what his daily routine is like. He sent me a list of things to send him.

And he told me that it is his job to pick out the movie for Saturday movie night.

That is truly disturbing. I mean he may have mentioned something about mortars and rockets, but the truly scary thing here is that they are letting him pick out the movies.

Clearly they don't really know him yet at all. He asked me to send him Team America.

I'm scared.

Home Again

I didn't know it until just a few hours ago, but the five most beautiful words in the English language are:

BOSSIER CITY
NEXT 3 EXITS

We are home again. It only took us about twenty-four hours of driving to get here, but except for a moment during the last hour when I yelled like a demented television mom, the ride went pretty smoothly.

What is it about kids that makes them argue when they've been confined in a small space together for hours and hours? Oh, that's right. It's called human nature!

The house is still standing. Except for one moldy toilet seat and one non-functioning satellite television system, everything is fine here on the home front.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have twenty-two answering machine messages to slog through. Ah, it's good to be home.

Harry Who?

On Friday night, the kids' Uncle Patrick (AKA: my best friend) had a brilliant idea. The Scholastic bookstore in SoHo was having a huge street bash to celebrate the release of the last Harry Potter book. Uncle Patrick thought the kids would love the activities, performances and face painting, so we took the subway downtown after he got off work.

We had to wait in a line that wove down three city blocks. At first my son didn't want to enter the gate because he was afraid of the huge, moving Womping Willow tree, but he was soon distracted by jugglers and magicians.

The kids made wands. They saw the first issue of each book in the series. They left their very own Muggle messages on a huge wall. They posed with the Womping Willow. And then we got in line for the face painting.

Forty-five minutes later we neared the front of the line and Uncle Patrick read the sign to the kids.

"Full face painting only! No small pictures! You can have your face painted as a Witch, a Wizard, a Werewolf, a Unicorn, a Dragon, a Giant, a Dementor, a Death Eater, a Phoenix, or Harry Potter."

And my daughter loudly asked, "Who's Harry Potter?"

Oh, did I not mention that the kids haven't read any of the books or seen any of the movies? I thought they were going to throw us out of the place.

While Uncle Patrick choked on his shame, my daughter quickly decided on a unicorn.


I guess I'll have to break out the first book now and start reading to them. Maybe by the time we're ready to read the last book, the kids will be old enough to handle The Deathly Hallows.

A New York Weekend

When I was a kid, I lived along the commuter train line into Boston, but we hardly ever went to the city.

My impression was that my parents thought the city was a scary, noisy, dirty, and dangerous place to be. Maybe they just didn't want to deal with the traffic and the parking. It's too bad we didn't take more advantage of living near a great city, though. I think we really missed out.

During all those growing up years, we never once went to New York City, even though it was only about a four hour drive or train ride away. If my parents didn't want to go to Boston, you can imagine how they felt about New York.

My senior high school class made a day trip to New York City on Halloween back in 1990. But we only saw Fifth Avenue and City of Angels on Broadway. I barely count that as a real city visit at all.

I came to New York as an adult for the first time during Christmas in 2004. Now I am completely hooked. I love New York and I am determined to introduce my children to the city too.

I think it is important to expand your children's horizons. But I think it is so hard to be anything more than a tourist most places you can travel. In New York, I have so many local friends that we can see the city from another perspective.

My son can navigate the subways. My daughter knows where everything is in Central Park. We do what the locals do, and we mix in some touristy attractions too.

My friends made a gift of the city to me and I hope I can make a gift of the city to my kids as well. At the very least, I don't want them to be afraid of cities the way I once was.

I am so thankful that we are able to do these things with our kids.

On the Road Once Again

I made a spur of the moment decision last night to cut our vacation short. I packed up all our stuff, closed up our Cape house, and hit the road within a matter of hours.

I had just had enough. I wanted to be home. I was writing an e-mail to my husband when I realized my sudden need for home.

I want to be back home where my husband is a part of things. Even when my husband is away he is such a part of things in our home.

From the small things like his toiletries in our bathroom to the big things like the routines he created, I just feel more connected to him in my own home.

So tonight I am writing from New York City. The kids and I decided to stay with my friend in the city for a long weekend.

It's not quite home yet, but it's closer. I can hear the highway calling my name.

Connectivity

After weeks of being connected on dial-up Internet access, I must admit that I am over it. Over it, big time.

I hadn't even realized how completely connected my life was until I was unplugged for a while.

Between my home computer, the kids' computer, our laptop and my Treo, I was never really out of touch. My closest friends are scattered all over the country but we remain close online. Most importantly, my husband is serving his country overseas but we stay in touch over the Internet.

I have often thought that this has drastically changed what it means to be a waiting wife.

I cannot even imagine having to wait weeks for one letter from the man I love to know how he fares as was the case in so many wars that have come before. Not only am I able to talk to my husband on the phone every week or so, we can exchange e-mails whenever he is near an Internet cafe and has time. I could even see him via a Webcam if I really wanted to.

There is a downside to all of this instant access. As horrible as it was for a new widow to find out her husband was KIA via a telegram from the War Department, I imagine it is just as horrible to find out that something bad may have happened to your husband via CNN.

In fact, after September 11, 2001 I stopped watching grown-up television all together. If it wasn't Dora the Explorer or a DVD it was just too risky. I didn't want to have my world rocked via the evening news. If I'm going to find out that my husband is dead, I want a live human being at my front door looking me in the eyes.

But now you can't even check your E-mail without the national news popping up on the screen. It seems like it has become impossible to disconnect completely.

Just a few moments ago, I was checking to see if I had another e-mail from my husband when I spotted the headline that there was an explosion during rush hour in midtown Manhattan. A steam pipe had burst sending a plume of muddy steam as high as the Chrysler Building.

My dear friend works in Midtown. I immediately whipped out my cell phone to call him.

It rang for a long time and I was starting to get nervous when I finally heard his voice. You know something bad happened when the first thing someone says is, "We're okay, but..."

My friends were walking a block and a half away from the explosion. They're fine and they were eating dinner when I talked to them. My guess is they decided to fuel up for the long walk home to their apartments.

This time it was a steam pipe in New York City. But next time...well...you just never know.

Sometimes I don't know if all this connectivity is a curse or a blessing.

The Student is the Teacher

The summer my daughter turned three-years-old, she wouldn't swim at our beach. In fact, she wouldn't go anywhere near our beach without crying and screaming her head off. She was afraid of the crabs.

Today, she spent an hour on the beach collecting sea life and showing them to us. She'd tell us all about what kind of crabs they were and how she could tell. She explained how one could differentiate between male and female.

"How do you know all of this?" my mother asked.

"I read all about it in a book, " my daughter answered.

I always think of my daughter as the child who is most interested in fairies, princesses, fairy tale love, and unicorns. But in truth, she will always choose a non-fiction book over a story. Her favorite school subject is science and she wants to be either a veterinarian or a marine biologist when she grows up.

It's amazing to me how I can have an image of my child in my head the doesn't quite jive with what she really is. It's even more amazing how she has changed as she's grown.

At her core, she isn't much different today then when she was as a toddler. In fact, I think most of her personality traits were in evidence when she was an infant. But she has grown so much. She is continually surprising me. And she is continually teaching me.

Even about crabs.

Eight years ago tonight...

Eight years ago tonight, I was living in a cute little subdivision where I didn't know any of the neighbors. We were new to this base, and I hadn't made any friends yet. My husband was flying and I was eight months pregnant.

And my water broke. I've never felt so alone in my life.

Of course the first thing I did was call my mother. Since she was a couple of thousand miles away, there wasn't much she could do but confirm that yes, all of that rushing liquid is your water breaking and you should call the hospital.

After confirming that I wasn't having contractions, the nurse at the hospital told me not to wait for my husband to land, or to call an ambulance. She advised that I drive myself to the hospital.

My next call was to the Command Center. "I have no idea what to do or who to call," I told the young lieutenant who answered the phone. "But my water just broke and I'm on my way to the hospital."

Bless that young, nameless lieutenant. He basically told me not to worry about anything, and that he would contact the aircraft as soon as possible. He told me to drive carefully to the hospital and take care of myself and my baby.

"Okay," I told him, my voice finally breaking and my stress and nerves finally starting to show. "But this is early and he won't even believe that it's me."

"Yes, Ma'am. It's okay Ma'am. Do you need me to call an ambulance?"

"No, no." I was tough. I could do anything. Besides, this wasn't really happening. As long as I took one step at a time, everything would be fine.

Luckily, at least from my point of view, my husband's aircraft had an emergency engine failure and was already on its way back to base when my water broke. That lieutenant had passed on the word and some unknown Colonel was waiting on the flight line to drive my husband to the hospital. Ever the self-sufficient folks that we are, my husband refused the ride, wanting to have his own car at the hospital. (I think he was under the mistaken impression that this may take a day or two.)

Meanwhile, I walked into the emergency room, clutching a purse and my stomach, and a nurse stopped long enough to ask me if I was in labor.

"Well, I guess so," was my reply. "I mean, my water broke so I guess this is the real thing, right?"

As the nurses in the maternity ward were getting me checked in, they told me that they were getting phone calls from "every Colonel on that base, asking after you and yelling at us for not sending an ambulance. It's not like you were having contractions, after all. Jeesh. Men!"

Then, I impressed them even more because American Airlines called the hospital, trying to track me down. My mother had coerced some ticket agent into helping her track me down (she had no idea what hospital I was at) and help her book an emergency fare on the next flight.

So, at this point, they do a little test to see if you've actually broken your water, or if you've just wet yourself. And they told me, "Nope. This is just urine."

Now, I may have been a first-time mother, but I know the difference between wetting myself and having all of the amniotic fluid in my womb rush out of my body and flood the toilet over. "Try again," I insisted.

Can you imagine? All that drama and it wasn't even the real thing? But it was. Whew. I would have been a little embarrassed over that one.

An hour after I arrived in the ER, my husband joined me. It was the middle of the night and he fell asleep almost immediately. Except for a trip home to feed the dogs, (priorities!!!) he slept until I started pushing. Lot of good he did me.

Because my contractions had to be induced, they were extremely painful. I have no idea how I got through the eight hours of labor, until I got my epidural.

That anesthesiologist was my hero. After that I was joking with the doctor and really enjoying the whole experience. My husband didn't enjoy the joking so much. He told me recently that he was terrified that day. The most terrified he'd ever been.

And you know, I wasn't at the time, but looking back, I should have been terrified too. We were looking at having a premature baby, and all the health problems that could entail.

But at 12:29 p.m., Tuesday, July 13, 1999, my little girl slipped into the world. Within moments they had her breathing and she was just fine. Except for a scary bought of jaundice, she was perfectly healthy.

Technically, eight years ago I became a mother, but I sort of feel like I was always my kids' mother, even before they were ever with us.

My daughter's rushed entry into the world is quite indicative of her personality. She is the most intense, yet sweetest child ever born.

Happy eighth birthday, sweet girl. I love you!

Downhill from There

No matter how confidant you are of your parenting skills, there will come a time when you truly believe that you are the Worst Mother Ever.

I had one of those moments this morning.

Funny how most of those moments come during the morning for me.

I had planned on getting up somewhat early and taking the kids to Plimoth Plantation. My daughter had studied all about it in school last year and she's been excited to go. But I couldn't drag my sorry carcass out of bed.

Even after I got the kids a healthy breakfast of fresh Dunkin Donuts (ahem), I somehow managed to climb back into bed and fall asleep. The bedroom I've been using here in our summer house is right off the kitchen, so I kept half an ear on the kids and dozed on and off all morning.

We didn't get out to lunch until after 1 p.m.

Maybe I was compensating and trying to assuage my Mother's Guilt, but we spent the rest of the day going, going, going. First the playground, where we were surprised by a phone call from my husband. Then the bookstore, carousel, arcade, and bumper boats with water cannons. Since I was soaking wet, I picked up Burger King on the way home.

How did a day in which I had planned a much anticipated educational outing turn into a day of arcade games and junk food?

The people who love me are always telling me to give myself a break. I guess they're right. But I just set three alarm clocks for tomorrow morning. I'm getting to Plimoth Plantation even if it kills me.

Without junk food to look forward to, it just might.

Question and Answer Time

Today the kids and I spent the afternoon at our beach.

This summer home that we are extremely lucky to have sits on a hill along a gravel side road. The road ends at a small, private beach belonging to an association comprised of the families who own the eleven homes along the gravel road.

My husband grew up with these families.

To be honest, I have a hard time keeping the members of these families straight. But they all know my husband and they all love him.

Whenever I go down to the beach I know it will be question and answer time. They all want to know where he is. They all want to know what he is doing.

I appreciate that they care for him, but I must admit that it's getting old.

I'm tired of explaining to people that my husband is deployed. I'm weary of answering all of the questions that follow. I do answer every one, with a smile on my face. I feel like they are all fascinated by me and our situation.

But I'm not the first wife who has slogged along at home while her husband was at war!

I know it is petulant and immature to feel this way, but I can't help it.

The kids are starting to feel their dad's absence. All this talk about it isn't helping them. At the oddest moments they'll suddenly say how much they miss him and start to get teary-eyed. It's heartbreaking.

Today we were sitting in a restaurant waiting for our food to arrive when out of the blue my daughter said, "I'm sorry, Mommy."

"For what?" I asked her.

"I'm sorry that Daddy had to go away. I know how much you must miss him."

Talk about broken hearts! Sometimes I feel like we all feel too much.

The Lost Ring

My friends say that I am stoic. In fact, they claim that I am too stoic for my own good.

I think the fact that I am able to deal with my most polarizing and dramatic feelings by writing them out makes me appear much more stoic than I really am.

But I'd rather be stoic than a blubbering mess.

I blubbered this past weekend.

On Friday afternoon, my friends and I drove up to Provincetown again. As we were parking the car, I tugged a bit at my earlobe. It is a nervous gesture that I probably do I hundred times a week. But this time, as I tugged I realized something was missing.

When my son was born, my husband gave me a pair of diamond earrings. My husband isn't much for sentimental or extravagant gifts. He's straightforward with his love and practical and generous in his giving. But these earrings meant the world to me.

They represented that moment when I knew clearly that our family was complete. We were extremely lucky to conceive and bare two healthy children in relative ease. I was extremely lucky to be married to a man who loves me as much as I love him. The earrings weren't a reward or a symbol. But they were special.

I put them on that day and never took them off.

I sat in the car on Friday stunned for a moment. How could it really be missing? Where could it be? I frantically looked all over the car, but I knew that I couldn't remember when I had it last. It could be at home or in a parking lot somewhere.

I had a moment when I teared up, but I didn't want to ruin my friends' day. And I still thought I might find it at home. I hadn't let it go yet.

When we got home that night, my friends helped me look for my earring. But once I didn't find it in the bathroom where I brushed my hair or in the room where I changed my clothes, I knew I had to give it up for lost.

It's just an earring, I kept telling myself. I knew it was true, but it didn't stop the hurt. I don't usually get so attached to objects. But that earring had been a part of me for five years.

I sobbed that night. I admit it. So much for stoic. My best friend asked if I wanted to call or e-mail my husband, but I didn't think that was a good idea. That just wouldn't be fair. I knew I'd move beyond it sometime soon. I didn't want my husband to worry about my emotional state.

My best friend also asked me what my husband would say. I knew exactly what he would say.

"It's just an earring, Karen. We'll replace it."

When I finally talked to my husband on Saturday and told him about my lost earring, he said exactly what I thought he would. "It's just an earring, Karen. We'll replace it."

But I don't want another earring. I still have everything those earrings represent. That's what matters. Maybe some day I'll have the remaining diamond set into a pendent or something, but it's time to move on.

It is just a piece of metal after all.

Pahking My Cah

Whenever people hear that I am from Boston, they always ask me the same thing. "Where's your accent."

The sad truth is that I used to have a very thick Boston accent. Not only did I grow up outside the city, but my working-class family had lived in the same town for generations. Yup. I'm a townie.

Or I was anyway. When I first got married we were stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I quickly found that people had a hard time understanding me. I dropped my "r"s and I added them in where they didn't belong. And I talked way too fast. I sounded like every Boston television character ever developed for the small screen.

So I set out to lose my accent. It took me about a year but it was surprisingly easy. When you don't hear it a lot, it is easy to overcome it.

Even though my kids were born and raised right here in Northwest, Louisiana, they don't have an accent. We've done the best we can to raise them to speak broadcast English. I think as a military family who will be moving around a lot at some point, it is a good idea.

When I come back to Massachusetts and I hear that accent, it makes me cringe. The more I talk with my family and the locals the more I can slip back into my accent. I can pahk my cah in Hahvahd yahd with the best of them. But not my kids.

When my mother says, "I have an idear. Let's get some shots," my daughter gets a little upset. She's not a big fan of needles. Of course Grandma was talking about buying new shorts.

But eventually my daughter will tell her that she's fixing to put up those shorts she didn't like and everyone is even.

The Great White Whale

Happy Fourth of July!

My mother took my kids and my nephews to a parade today. I am here on Cape Cod with a houseful of friends and it feels great.

My friends and I are headed to the beach town of Provincetown for a day of fun in the sun. The beach isn't usually my favorite place to go. There are all of those swimsuit issues, and sand issues, and sand in the swimsuit issues to contend with.

Plus, my complexion could be called alabaster at best, ghost-like at worst. In truth, my skin is so pale it seems to take on a blueish glow. Being slathered in SPF 200 sunblock, sporting a Little House on the Prairie hat, and wrapping up in one of those silver survival blankets makes me just a bit conspicuous on the beach.

But my friends have promised me an amazing dinner, a night of dancing, and maybe just a cocktail or two, so I think I'll suffer through. For them, of course.

I hope everyone back in the SBC has a wonderful Fourth of July, with or without SPF 200.

Out of Touch

A few days ago my husband let me know that he would be out of contact for a while.

Up until now, I've been able to talk to him at least once a day. Those phone calls have been great. Not being able to talk to him anymore has made this deployment finally seem real.

I'm not just on yet another vacation that he had to miss because of work. He's not just gone on a relatively short TDY to some place warm. He's not just working so hard that I barely see him.

He is gone. Really and truly gone until March.

Let's hope the coming weeks fly as fast as these last few have.

Signing with Baby

When my kids were little babies, we taught them American Sign Language.

This was before Meet the Fockers and baby signing was still a relatively new idea. I know that there were people in my family who thought we were nuts. But once my oldest made our lives immensely easier by signing milk, more, and all done at four-months-old, those family members changed their minds. They thought we were geniuses.

Or most of them did anyway. Some of them still thought we were new-age, hippy, parenting freaks.

I will always be thankful to our good friends Jim and Melanie and their first daughter Hannah for introducing us to the idea of signing with our baby. We met Jim and Melanie during aviation training when we were trying to start our own family. We were then lucky enough to be stationed at the same base out of training. The more time we spent with our wonderful friends, the more we knew what kind of parents we wanted to be.

Signing certainly is a great way to communicate with your baby. An infant really does know when she is hungry, thirsty or full. Before long our kids were also signing when they needed a diaper change and when they were tired.

But signing went so far beyond that for us.

For one thing, before our kids turned one, they were able to share their world with us through sign. We had a give and take of conversation way before they were verbally able to express themselves. They could see a dog and sign dog to us, and we could verbally say, "Oh, yes. You see a dog!" Consequently they were both early talkers. I truly believe this helped develop our relationships.

And I'm not saying that our signing is directly responsible for our daughter's high verbal scores or our son's extensive vocabulary, but it certainly couldn't have hurt.

More importantly, early signing also enabled us to share our values with our kids. In fact, if I had to label our parenting style it would be value-based. Right after the signs for milk, more and all done we taught them the signs for please, thank you, and sorry.

While they were still babies they developed the habits of good manners and respect. They might not have completely understood the importance as infants, but they do now.

Parenting is so hard. So often we question the things we do and the decisions we make. To be able to look at one certain thing and say, "Yes, we were absolutely right. That contributed to the great kids we have today," is a huge confidence builder. Signing with our babies is that thing for us.

Check out further discussion in the RedRiverMoms forums.