Notes from Marc

I don't know if anyone reads this other than Marc - but I'm trying to get Marc to start his own little blog for an online local paper, and these were his sample entries - I thought they were fabulous!

Mom and Dad are NOT the same…

Part of our morning ritual in our house is watching what the kids refer to as “the weather”, but anyone else would recognize as “Good Morning America”. Last week they had a human interest story about more families getting their children involved in mixed martial arts. For those unfamiliar with the term, mixed martial arts is a combination of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and jiu jutsu. Participants learn and practice various techniques, hit the punching bag, practice wrestling techniques on each other, etc. Eventually, they spar – and sparring can be rough. People put on headgear and gloves, put in cups and mouthpieces, and have at it. They punch, kick, perform take-downs, put each other in arm locks and choke holds.

My wife and I were sitting next to each other, drinking our coffee, watching the same story at the same time, and my wife spit out,

“I hope Sammy never gets involved with anything like that.”

My head spun around at her in shock.

I am a fairly sophisticated fellow. I graduated from a top University. I work for a successful e-commerce company. I read the economics papers for personal enjoyment.

But I also have ALWAYS enjoyed rough sport. I trained and competed in martial arts for 10 years, from age 13 to 23. I would have LOVED to participate in something like mixed martial arts as a young man, but it simply wasn’t available then. As it was, I DID train in it for a couple of years in my early 30’s. But now I’m my LATE 30’s, married, with a career and hordes of children, and I don’t have sufficient time to commit to it. Still, I do manage to make it to the YMCA one or two nights per week to box. But if I had a buddy to go with, a member of the family, so that we could combine family time and training time; somebody like my son Samuel, now 21 months old…

I told her, “I can’t WAIT for Sammy to get old enough to do that.”

“But he might get hurt!”

I mentally went down the list of injuries I sustained in martial arts: severed Achilles tendon, torn medial collateral ligament, dislocated hip, pulled groin muscle, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, broken wrist (twice), chipped teeth, and COUNTLESS forearm bruises, shin bruises, and black eyes. I bounced back from each injury with no lasting impact. And they never really HURT, either. I always LIKED it when someone threw an attack, I blocked it, and there was an audible “crack” sound as our shins and forearms collided. If you prepare and train hard, you can shrug that stuff off.

“Yep,” I replied, “almost certainly. So what? He can get hurt playing football or hockey, too.”

“I don’t want him to do any of that, either.”

What? No FOOTBALL? He ALREADY plays tackle football with me, with that new Nerf football we got him. He loves to climb, and jump, and swing - and he is FEARLESS about it, too. Already most days he sports a bump on his forehead from his most recent daring exploit. I look at those bruises with pride, proof that my little guy is tough. She looks at them with utter incomprehension. If he fell the first time he tried it, why on Earth would he try it again?

So we sat there, looking at each other with shocked expressions on our faces. We just weren’t going to communicate on this one.




The “organization” man

I love my wife. It’s too bad that she’s crazy.

You have probably heard the oft quoted phrase “the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result”. Now, I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the definition of insanity is the inability to understand the criminal nature of your actions; that’s beside the point. My wife has a hard time keeping track of things – things that she needs, like her car keys, or wallet, or (most recently) fingernail clippers.

She is still breastfeeding our son, who is currently almost 21 months old. But she complains that his nails are getting too long, and he is “scratching” her.

“Just clip his nails,” I say.

“But I can’t find the clippers!”

We literally own 10 pairs of nail clippers. I am incredulous. Every time she needs nail clippers, she looks for them, can’t find them, then goes to the store and gets another pair. I can understand losing one pair of clippers. I can even understand losing TWO pairs. But TEN? How is it possible? How are we not stepping on them on the way to the bathroom? I don’t know if I could INTENTIONALLY hide 10 sets of nail clippers in our apartment, and successfully KEEP them hidden for any length of time. Certainly, after a day or two, one of the kids would find something, right? I mean, we can’t hide the darn HALLOWEEN CANDY from them for any length of time, right?

I am far from perfect, as my wife will confirm. But I RARELY lose anything important. It’s not that I never lose anything; it’s that I mentally assign an importance level to everything in my universe. And because this is ME we are talking about, there are only two categories: Vitally Necessary, and Who Cares. Anything in the Vitally Necessary category ends up with a very specific Place Where it is Supposed to Be. And very few things get assigned to this category, so that I can fully keep track of them. My wife will ask me, “Honey, where are your car keys?” and I’ll reply “In the left side front pocket of the pair of pants hanging from the bed post of our bed closest to our bedroom door.” It’s like I have a GPS on them. On the other hand, my wife will ask me, “Honey, where are those new diapers you bought for Sammy?” , and I’ll reply “I have no idea.” And that’s absolutely true. I have no clue in the world where they are. In fact, it’s possible that I even have no recollection of buying them in the first place. That’s just me, All or Nothing.

Two days ago, my wife bought another pair of nail clippers. She’s already lost them.

Academic dilemma

Actually, I guess it's not really a dilemma. We enrolled Jess into Worcester Public Schools and signed her up for the lottery to get into the "good schools." Worcester has a really convuluted system, you have to sign up for your neighborhood school, but you can apply to get into a better neighborhood school or even enroll in a lottery to see if you can attend one of the magnet schools. Our neighborhood school was crappy (I love that word), so we had her enrolled in two of the lotteries and on the list for the top neighborhood school in our district.

Then the more I thought about it, I got nervous that we might not get into one of the better schools. So we went for a tour of New Jewish Academy and I fell in love with it. Tiny class sizes, serious academics, great faculty, etc. But it's well over thirteen thousand a year, and we're... well, we're broke. Not really, but certainly not wealthy enough to even consider it. But consider it we did, and filled out the application and the financial aid paperwork and then prayed for a month. Hoped, prayed, hell, I even considered doing a 'scholarship dance', similiar to a rain dance. And it all worked, we got a big scholarship, and the actual tuition we end up paying will be a little more than what we pay for preschool. Granted, the next three months will suck, because we're actually paying for preschool and private school at the same time, but we can swing the tuition after that without a problem, and we'll be done paying for the year in November (just in time to save up for next year).

Yesterday and today, I got two letters in the mail - Jess was accepted into both of the magnet schools. I'm having a tiny bit of buyer's remorse, that's what Marc calls it. I know that NJA is far superior to any public school, but a part of me is still hesitant to send her to a religious school. I just always thought it was a little over the top - religion and spirituality should be taught in the home, not at school. But I guess Hebrew is something I can't teach her at home. And it's okay if she learns religion at school - I'm still in charge of her spirituality. Actually, what I want is for her to be in charge of her spirituality - and I can still encourage that. And Judiasm is not Catholicism. She won't be criticized for asking too many questions. And she'll learn and grow - it's such a nurturing environment. I feel a lot better about her going to kindergarten now.

He worships at the alter of Dessi

Poor Sam - Jess is gone all day today - her first full day since two Fridays ago, and he's going thru some serious withdrawal. He's dressed in a pretty denim skirt (because Jess put on a dress this morning, and he cried until I gave him one) and every time one of our neighbors comes up the stairs, he drops everything and goes running towards the door, yelling "DESSI, DESSI." He's literally carrying around framed pictures of her that he demanded I take off the wall...

I worried that three and a half years would be too much, that they wouldn't be as close growing up. Happy to report that it's not an issue. He adores her - she's the center of his little universe. Me, he needs like he needs air, it's not something he thinks about. And he's pretty fond of Daddy too, but it's nothing compared to the all consuming devotion to Dessi. And as long as we're out of the house, she's the doting older sister. Don't get me wrong, she spent most of yesterday trying to kill him, but if we're at a party, or over a friend's house, she's very protective and loving.

There's little that makes me happier as a parent than seeing the bond grow between my two children :-)

First visit to the park this year

Today was a bad day - for a whole bunch of reasons. It just was. A lot of temper tantrums, on both Jessie's part and mine - she'd be screaming as loud as she could for as long as she could and I bit my lip so hard, trying to make sure I didn't just slap her little screaming face... my day was filled with bad mommy moments. I never hit her, but I certainly didn't react to her tantrums in a way that I'm proud of. When she gets super upset, we have a thing we do - we take three deep breaths together and then go to her "happy place" in her mind - a sunny day with a picnic and kites and lots of good food and time together as a family. And when I'm myself, I can pull it together and give her that stability and calmness - today, not so much... I'm not sure why it was so bad for her, if it was just a reaction to the stress of getting her eye done, the trauma of surgery and she just let it all hang out today. We also got the info from the school and I think we'll be able to send my baby to private school for a really good education, but only if we don't eat for the month of April. So I was on edge too.

After all the babies left, I left the leftover dinner on the table, didn't clean a thing. Put Jess in jammies, Sam in sweats and popped them both into my double stroller and went for a nice long walk. We bounced over potholes fast to listen to Sam giggle, and Jessie sang to us. We went down slides, swang on the swings and growled at the dinosaur slide. We went over the big bridge, and waved to the "quack quacks." It was exactly what we all needed, some time to remember that we loved each other.

Really bad day - but awfully nice night :-)

Jessie's fine

I didn't cry until she left

The living room. I didn't cry until she left the living room and by the time she made it outside, I was out and out weeping. Jessie is getting her tear duct unblocked today. General anesthesia, quick ten minute procedure, but still...

She's so sweet and so little still - and I know she was scared. And even though in my head, I agree completely with the decision to have Marc take her, it was still really hard to let her go and not be beside her for it.

For my sake, bear with me while I reiterate all of the reasons why it made sense for Marc to do it instead of me

1 - He loves her as much as I do, and she knows it and loves him back. I've worked hard at making sure that they have a close and loving bond and that she feel as safe and secure with Daddy as she does with Mama.

2 - He really wanted to do it - I think it was important for him to be able to the parent that she leaned on for this, Lisa would never allow it. And he is a phenominal father, he'll cuddle and cajole her and make her feel safe.

3 - He's supremely confident that this a minor thing and she'll be absolutely fine, plus he's better able to distance himself from the situation. I'm also secure that she's going to be fine, but I'd have a harder time not getting upset because she was scared, which would reinforce, for Jess, that there was a reason to be scared. Marc will be better able to assure her that there's nothing to worry about.

4 - (and this isn't a top contender for the reason why I stayed home, but it does factor) Marc gets paid time off, and I don't. Not only would I lose the money that I earn today ($80), but I would also seriously inconvenience the parents who depend on me for child care.

Still waiting for financial aid paperwork - and very stressed that it hasn't appeared. Gotta figure that it's good that it's taking so long, at least they didn't look at the application and laugh, right?

That's right - I walk with children in the rain

And we are a soggy wet bunch. But everyone was pretty cheerful, despite being cold and wet. Not that it's cold out, but when you're sopping wet and the wind is blowing... it's chilly. But we got stuff to make rice crispy treats and dough for fresh bread for dinner tonight, so it was worth it. Plus it was just so nice to get outside and get some fresh air.