Guns Germs and (no Steel)

I apologize for my title. Stolen from a fabulous book which I did not read but heard excerpts from as my much wiser husband read it. The two things weighing on my mind right now are guns and germs. I could not think of anything steel related hat would work, thus not using the full title.

So when someone says 'Boy Scout’, what so you picture? Probably an eagerly helpful young man helping old ladies across streets and listening respectfully to authorities. Okay, maybe my picture is a little too idealistic (I find this gets me into all sorts of trouble). But imagine my shock when we pulled up to the campsite for Eli and Jeremy’s debut as Boy Scout and Leader and a string of about eight seven to nine year olds push past me, running full tilt, voices raised and guns aimed.

I have been fairly adamant that I am not okay with my kids playing with guns. After having lived in a country where it was common to hear of an acquaintance being held up at gun point, having a friend’s boyfriend shot and killed and having had guns aimed at our own car, I vowed to myself that I would never handle a gun. Since then I have heard so many more stories of senseless acts of violence carried out with guns and have NEVER heard of a single story where a gun saved a life. A fellow teacher at Jeremy’s school witnessed her husband being shot and killed in front of her on the south side of Chicago, a parent of one of his best students came home and shot and killed his wife in front of their children.

Guns are a weapon for cowards. You don’t have to think to hurt or kill a person with a gun. Studies have shown that kids who play a lot of video games that use target skills are almost equally skilled at pointing and shooting a gun even if they had never held an actual one before. So why is it that so many people think that guns are an acceptable toy for young boys (or boys of any age)? Why did those parents allow their sons to bring them on a Boy Scout camping trip and then stand by and watch them carry on as they did? Were they not appalled at all? Are they so desensitized to violence that this seemed mild to them?

The stranger thing is that one Dad finally told them to put the guns away and that “Boy Scouts don’t use guns” and then several hours later they were all given awards for BB gun shooting which they had earned by going to summer camp. Are we sending mixed messages? It terrifies me to think that this is what I have signed my son up for.

Aside form the guns, these boys were just plain horrible to each other and not anything of an example that most people expect them to be. Around the morning campfire, a bunch of them ganged up on one other boy and kept calling him gay. After abut fifteen minutes of standing there hoping that someone’s parent would have the sense to stop their child, I cracked and let them have it. Then I talked to the leader and let him know that I did not want my children around these kids. (I think one of them was his own, but he still needed to know since no one else there seemed to care). The fact that all those parents could stand there and listen to their own children talking the way they were is very sad. Jeremy pointed out that using the word ‘gay’ as an insult these days is like using the ’n’ word has been for some time. Is our community SO monogamous that this kind of behavior is still tolerated??

It saddens me deeply to have learned this side of what I thought was a fabulous community we live in. Maybe I had my hopes up too high but my feeling is that if you don’t expect better of your kids, you can’t expect them to turn out to be the wonderful people you want them to be. And I don’t want my son to be a gun-toting foul-mouthed fool who builds himself up by putting others down. I want him to be a humble, respectful and thoughtful person who can have a good time without it costing another person’s dignity.

Funny thing is, the youngest boys there were the best behaved by FAR. Maybe we need to split away from the rest of the pack?

And the germs, you ask? What about the germs? Ah yes. Back to the beginning of the school year and one of my pet peeves has come around again. That being the constant reminders from the school of the three Cs of flu season (Clean your hands, Cover you Cough and Contain your illness). The first of which there is no time for in the tight school day and yet they keep pretending that it happens. It is such hypocrisy to keep posting this all over as if it matters when they know full well that they do not have time to let kids wash their hands before eating. They claim that alcohol based hand sanitizer is just as effective and is available to the kids at school. Baloney. It is not as effective. First of all it does not do much for viruses, mostly only for bacteria and then it weakens their immune systems so that they are less able to fight off illness when it does present itself AND they are less and less responsive to the antibiotics given to treat disease when needed which leads to the development of the so-called super-bugs.

I talked with a friend today who used to work with a firm that designed schools and she said that if it was a plumbing thing that is not required by code, schools will not pay the extra for it. So for example, the private school that one of my professors worked at that had a trough-style sink long enough for ten or more kids at a time to wash their hands in the hallway upon entering from the playground on their way to lunch will never happen in a public school. Too bad since we just got a new school. Apparently hand washing was not enough of a priority then.

Thankfully my daughter has a teacher who realizes this and gives each student a hand wipe before lunch. Love her! And I send my son with a wipe for his hands. We will do our best to work with the system, let’s just not pretend we are doing things we aren’t, okay?

And no steel. (told you)

In a Blink

Teach me to number my days
And count every moment before it slips away
Taking all the colors before they fade to gray
I don't want to miss even just a second more of this

It happens in a blink
It happens in a flash
It happens in the time it took to look back
I try to hold on tight, but there's no stopping time
What is it I've done with my life
It happens in a blink

When it's all said and done
No one remembers how far we have run
The only thing that matters is how we have loved
I don't want to miss even just a second more of this

It happens in a blink
it happens in a flash
it happens in the time it took to look back
I try to hold on tight but there's no stopping time
What is it I've done with my life
It happens in a blink

We arrived home from a fun weekend with family to the terrible news of the death of another family member. Jeremy’s Uncle Doug had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack Monday evening. We are all still in shock and deeply sad for the loss suffered by his wife and son and daughter in law. They are a small, close family. They had been out to dinner, the four of them just the night before. And that evening, he and his wife were picking up Gram to go to dinner at Mom and Dad’s.

In a recent discussion with my mostly-estranged sister, she expressed her anger towards me that I think that the blood of family means that you work harder at those relationships. It has been the source of huge frustration for me that my own family has this deep division. I have tried. Heck, I got a degree in psychology that was mostly based on this frustration. But our most recent discussion was so disappointing to me because I had such hope in the beginning that things might change for the better now. Unfortunately I seem to be infinitely naive.

I know that DNA-based relationships are not the be-all and end-all in life and there are certainly times when they aren’t even possible (adoption) or may be harmful and in those cases people find or get a new family that takes the place. But for the most part, family is something worth fighting for.

Jeremy and I chose to live in the Chicago area in order to be close to family. His family had a greater concentration here and my family is far-flung and tends to move frequently so this made sense to us, to raise our kids with the most family possible. And we see family fairly frequently. Even my family. Especially this month with it being my brother’s wedding! But I do get to feeling that we should be spending more time with family than we do right now. When Hannah was a baby and we had no classes or after-school activities, we went in to visit family or they came out here pretty frequently. But time moves on and people get busy and more children are added to the picture and activities pile up.

With the loss of my Grandma only a few weeks ago so quickly followed by Uncle Doug’s passing, I have become keenly aware of the truth in the lyrics above. That these things happen in a blink. So how can I make the most of every day with my family? I felt pretty guilty when I knelt by my Grandma’s bedside and introduced her to almost two-year-old Evelyn only a day before Grandma passed away. How had we not made it down there in all that time? I want to commit to carving out more time for family. I’ll start right now by looking at the calendar and figuring out when travel is possible and when hosting here is easier and open up communication with all the family involved. I want to establish family times as a number one priority for us.

Because a few weeks ago Uncle Doug was sitting on my back porch goofing around with the kids at Eli and Dad and Gram’s birthday party and I treasure that memory. I want to be sure that the kids grow up with lives filled with memories like Uncle Doug cheering them on when they take bites out of the Gingerbread house on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve will not be the same here this year. We will miss Uncle Doug’s laughter. But we will keep on gathering family and making more memories as we number our days.

Slow down, slow down

Before today becomes our yesterday

Slow down, slow down

Before you turn around and it's too late

It happens in a blink

it happens in a flash

it happens in the time it took to look back

I try to hold on tight but there's no stopping time

What is it I've done with my life

It happens in a blink

My Grandma

My Grandma is dying. I sat on her bed yesterday and held her hand, listening to her labored breathing and watching her eyebrows rise in response to our voices. When we arrived, I leaned over her and said, “Grandma, it’s Martha, I am here and this is little Evie.” She opened her eyes, looked right at Evie and said, “Happy Birthday.” It was barely audible. It was special because Grandma is not talking much anymore. But we heard it. Of course it is not Evie’s birthday, but her birthday is only a month and a half away and Grandma had never met her before yesterday.

Poor Hannah understood what was happening to Grandma. My sister found Hannah crying in the living room when we had asked her to come in for a picture with Grandma. She talked with her and Hannah seemed to understand that soon Grandma will be at home in Heaven. We try to make it sound so simple and easy but it never is. It is a goodbye that has no earthly hello; it is beyond our capacity to comprehend. Yet somehow Hannah has found her peace with it. We talked again tonight and she seems to be doing okay with the whole idea. Last year at Aunt Barbara’s funeral I think she was just starting to put it all together. She was only six at the time but when they carried the coffin out of the small church, she had turned to me and asked, “What is in that box, Mommy?” I told her that is was Aunt Barbara’s body, that her spirit was gone to heaven. So confusing. Not just to a six year old, but still to me. I just pretend to understand it. Don’t we all?

Eli just turned six and yesterday he seemed more at ease with being by his Great Grandma. He came into the room a little timidly. But he came up close to Grandma’s bed and held her hand even though she could not really respond to him. I can’t tell how much he understands about death. He uses it as a punch line a lot which is disturbing me lately and I know Jeremy has talked to him about not doing that but it is his age, his stage in development to explore the idea of mortality. Maybe being near and holding Grandma’s hand helped him to see that death is not a great punch line to immature jokes, but something that is hard and sad and complex. Maybe. I don’t really know what he took from the experience. I was Eli’s age when my Grandpa died from a heart attack. I remember feeling quite adrift and confused. Feeling that at one moment I understood everything and the next I hadn’t a clue.

And sweet baby Evie came in and out of Grandma’s room with ease although she would become visibly uncomfortable when she looked at Grandma, I guess she too could tell that something was happening, that Grandma was not feeling well. She heard Grandma coughing and said, “GG need water!” (they call their Great Grandma’s GG for short). She was very insistent that we should get GG some water. She said, “I vuv u GG!” (I love you).

Once I re-introduced myself to Grandma upon entering her room again and she opened her eyes and said, “Hello sweetie.” Reminded me of being a little girl coming into the kitchen at camp and seeing her sitting on the edge of her stool, peeling carrots to make muffins for breakfast.

We had dinner with my Aunt who has dedicated these last years of her life to caring for Grandma around the clock and is already having a hard time adjusting to impending freedoms. I know it will be a difficult journey for her. One for which she is owed all of our support and encouragement after all that she has done for us in caring for Grandma all these years. She put on a fabulous meal and we had a good time talking and telling our favorite stories about Grandma. I wanted to hear her tell about Grandma and her sister starting a fire in their alley as little girls. I told about getting up early at camp when she and Grandpa would take us out for breakfast. I would get dressed quickly so I could go and watch her brush her LONG beautiful hair and then twirl it up into a pretty bun and pin it with all those hairpins that we would find for weeks after she had visited us. I like to think about her being madly in love with Grandpa and going out to San Diego to marry him before he went off to serve in the Marines in WWII. I remember her telling us about smoking with her friends out behind the cabin as a teenager. She sure was a spunky lady! She made me my first tea when I was four and I felt so special. She gave me a beautiful blue velveteen skirt with pink and purple and green ribbons on it for my sixth birthday and it was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.

When I went to tell Grandma good-bye one last time, I struggled to hold back tears as my sister and I sat on either side of Grandma’s bed, holding hands across Grandma and each holding Grandma’s hands. I know Grandma knows she is dying but the reality of it is still something that seems so surreal. Does death ever become something ordinary? It is a necessary part of life and yet we never ever get used to the idea of death. Kids joke about it in the attempt to reconcile themselves to its existence in their lives. I myself knew that Grandma was getting older and was not in the best of health and yet still death is not something that I am prepared to deal with. I wanted to say the 23rd Psalm by her bedside but I could not get past saying it in my head over and over and over. I wanted to sing the benediction for her but could not get it past my lips. I felt weakened by the nearness of an ending that I did not want to recognize. And yet I knew that I had to say good bye. The lump in my throat was too large. Evie came running in, looking for me. I asked her to say good-bye to GG, and she did. She said, “bye bye, bye bye, bye bye GG, I vuv u!” I could not hold back the tears. Death makes no sense. Even to me.

Grandma is still holding on. She has more visitors coming. Her newest Great Grandchild may not get there until Wednesday. Her youngest child, my Uncle, will come on Monday. Her little sister will get there on Wednesday.

Grandma Susan (yes, that is her last name) is my last living grandparent. I love her and I will miss her.

On Being a Martha

It happened again - I sat through another sermon on the importance of being less like Martha and more like Mary. I cannot remember how many of them I have heard in my life, but I know my reaction the minute I hear the lesson for the day being read. I brace myself. I glance around to see who is thinking, 'hmm, there she is, that ‘Martha’, I hope SHE is listening’. Okay, most of the time it was my own father, the man who named me (and joked about giving me the middle name Martha as well, to better match the way Jesus addressed the Martha of the Bible).

Now, I know that they are not talking about me specifically, but addressing a general attitude that is prevalent in our society. I get it. But think about this - how many other sermons are there where the pastor is up in the pulpit talking down about a person with a name that could be someone sitting next to you? Herod? Haven’t heard that one in a while. Pontius Pilate, nope. Jezebel? Not lately. Okay, there may be a few, but clearly this one speaks to me.

Martha was Jesus’ friend, right? So why the criticism of her? Was Mary really that much better? I mean, wouldn’t Mary and Jesus have gone hungry had it not been for Martha? And would Jesus have really wanted to visit them again if she did not take such good care of her home? I know a few Mary’s and yes, it is good to be a Mary every once in a while. I think my next chance to be a Mary will come when Evie goes off to college. T minus 16 or 17 years.

Was Mary herself even always a Mary? I wonder if her sister would have been living with her if that was how she was every day?

The problem for me is that I am incapable of saying ‘no’. I’m guessing that was her problem too. “Hey, Martha, go fix some dinner for us, will you? Jesus is coming to visit!” “Sure, no problem Mary!” “Hey, Martha can you help me with this?” “Of course!” Didn’t Jesus himself act like a Martha most of the time? Sure there were times when he said, "okay now we are going to take a break and pray" but most of the time he was walking hither and yon and helping everyone he could.

So let’s hear it for the Marthas out there who get it done and get it done right, the Marthas who work without stopping and never turn down a plea for help.

25 Things I Know Now as a Parent

1. It is worth every sacrifice to spend as much time as I can with my babies - childhood goes by too fast.

2. Water, bubbles and giggles are three things you can never have too much of.

3. Letting them learn from their own mistakes can be hard and sometimes painful but the empowerment they gain in the end is worth it.

4. TV is not necessary.

5. I will never be done 'cleaning up'.

6. We don’t sleep alone in a bed with no covers, so why should they?

7. If I would not eat it, I will not feed it to my child (think pureed dinners in a jar).

8. No matter what the studies say, sugar makes children become little demons.

9. BUT - sometimes a lollipop IS the best way to buy yourself a little time.

10. Just because it worked for you does not mean it will work for me.

11. Buying shoes on sale and guessing on the size they will need in 6 months or a year will always backfire. If you do, buy big and then at least they will work a year later. Maybe.

12. Take pictures, lots of pictures!

13. It is SO not about you anymore.

14. We all do the best we can with what we have.

15. All those milestones you can’t wait to reach will come - being anxious will only make it seem longer and distract you from the present.

16. You know that toy that they ‘just have to have’? If you wait a week or two they probably won’t want it anymore.

17. It is always worth finding good quality shoes.

18. It is SO hard to hear the worst qualities of yourself come out of your children (picture the eldest exasperatingly shouting at her brother, “not like THAT!”) Oops!

19. Every day is a new day to try again to be that really awesome parent you intended to be yesterday.

20. Eventually you will have a day when you think, “I did good”. And you did.

21. Deep breaths can save a lot of trouble.

22. Take advantage of the “I DO IT MYSELF!” phase and let them learn to do it for themselves, whatever ‘it’ is.

23. There is nothing that will bring tears to your eyes like the gushing compliments from an elderly stranger, telling you how wonderful your children are.

24. Breastmilk really is a miracle cure.

25. When they wrap their little arms around your neck and say “I Wuv Oo, Mommy” you know you would go to the ends of the earth and back for them.

Vaccines

Hot topic, I know.

I recently had a student stop coming to my Bradley Natural Childbirth classes. I was not sure why until she started emailing me with long rants about how she ‘just could not understand how someone would go to the trouble of having a natural birth only to then pump her kids full of unnatural stuff (vaccines)’. REALLY? REALLY? You quit coming to a class that is here to teach you how to conduct yourself in labor to achieve your goal of a natural birth because you disagree with the instructors stance on vaccinations? Wow.

She thinks I am a hypocrite. But aren’t we all at some point? And does this really make me a hypocrite? Am I so upset about this because I do still question whether I did the right thing by my kids?? Possibly.

Vaccines are a very tricky thing because there are those who have been fully vaccinated and are totally fine (two of mine did fine with the regular regimen). Then there are those who have had horrible experiences that I could never deny were not at least contributed to by the vaccines themselves. There is a LOT of science to support both sides. Everyone is passionate about their stance. I’m passionately in the middle and respect those on both sides.

I have lived in a third world country and seen (and had) some pretty nasty diseases. I know a vaccine for malaria would save millions of babies and children every year around the world. I know some wonderful people who work in the medical field and refuse to deem the medical establishment as the devil that those opposed to vaccines view them to be. I owe the medical establishment a huge debt of gratitude for giving me my baby sister who otherwise would not have survived her first year.

But then there is the pharmaceutical industry. Individually I’m sure they are in it to help people but then as a large corporation there seems to be more than a reasonable amount of greed. Could that be driving the push for vaccines? To an extent, sure.

There is the argument that the rate of most diseases we vaccinate for dropped significantly before the vaccines were introduced because of the improvements in sanitation and hygiene. I buy that. Women stopped dying following childbirth when doctors realized they needed to wash their hands in between patients. But cleanliness alone was not enough to eradicate many diseases.

I like Dr. Sears’ take on vaccinations because he does not throw it all out the window as a vast and evil conspiracy. He evaluates each vaccines with it’s pros and cons and gives an alternate schedule for vaccinating children that is easier on their little bodies (after all who has not witnessed a poor little groggy babe following routine vaccinations?). This schedule has worked very well for Evie. My doctor is on board with this schedule 100% and completely agrees that some vaccines seem to be less necessary these days. Which is not to say that I will skip many of them as I do feel a sense of social responsibility as well - I don’t want to be the one whose kid starts a measles outbreak (but don’t get me started on what is behind the drug companies’ discontinuation of the separate MMR).

You can read all you want to support your own beliefs (it’s called confirmation bias) and say that you are more educated on the topic than I am. I did not go to medical school so I won’t pretend to know more than my doctor but I will educate myself in a balanced way so that I can feel empowered in my decisions.

We all do the best we can with what we have. That is the job of parenting.

Gym Membership

I have this theory that it is only because Americans are inherently lazy that we need gym memberships.

Seriously, if more people mowed their own lawns (and no, not on riding mowers!!), raked their own leaves, tended their own gardens, cleaned their own gutters, and all the other messy and difficult jobs that go with owning a home, they would not need the membership to a gym to keep them fit!

Admittedly, a lot of people don’t own homes, or they live in a condo with no maintenance. Sure, give them their gyms.

But really, there are people who PAY people to do the hard jobs and then PAY to get a gym membership to work out the very muscles they would have had they done those jobs themselves.

Okay, I am being a bit high on my horse here because I have been working in my yard for a large portion of every day for the last week or so. And I am beat but I feel good!

I may even pull out the old reel lawn mower and give that a go later (because I’m not strong enough to start the gas mower!).