Today marks the fifth anniversary of me putting down the cigarettes, and putting them down for good.

I was one of those people who never thought I’d quit. One of those people who simply loved smoking. I loved everything about it. Truly. And the few times I did try to quit, I did it half-heartedly, knowing that it wasn’t for real, knowing that I was just paying lip service to quitting. Because one was Supposed To Want To Quit.

But I didn’t want to quit. Not ever.

And then, out of the blue, RegularDad up and quit chewing tobacco one day in early June, five years ago. And after a few weeks of it, he still hadn’t started back up yet, and I kept quiet about it because it would be terrible of me to try to convince him to go back to it. Truly terrible.

And then he told me about this website he’d come across, and after reading through it, he just up and quit. Just like that. So, I went up to my office with a cup of coffee, lit a smoke and read the website. It took most of the day and most of the cigarettes in my pack, but I read all day long.

That night I poured water over the few remaining cigarettes in the pack, tossed them in the trash, went out and bought myself a huge bag of Skittles, and five years later, here I am.

Oh, I’m not trying to say it was easy. Not at all. The first three days were pretty bad. The next two weeks, a muddle. And I put on about 30 pounds, 25 of which I’m still carting around. And I had to start this blog at one point, to keep myself from running out to buy a pack of Marlboros.

But, dammit. I did it. And I’m really glad.

For the record, here are my stats:

As of this writing, I’ve been nicotine-free for 5 years, 11 hours, and 29 minutes. I’ve not smoked 36,529 cigarettes, and I’ve saved 126 days of my own life. Financially, I’ve saved (at a minimum) $7,882, but when you add in the cost of RegularDad’s chewing tobacco, that total actually comes out to be a little of $10,000.

So, there you have it. Me: nicotine free. Who knew? To celebrate, I walked my dogs this morning, at a nice, brisk pace. It feels good to walk like that, when for so long, I simply couldn’t do even that simple exercise. This afternoon, I’m going to swim in the pool with the kids and enjoy the lack of that phlegmy cough I used to sport, and enjoy the fact that I won’t be constantly disappearing into the side yard or the garage to have a quick smoke.

Did I ever tell you what one of my 8-year-old’s first phrases was, when she was a toddler? It was “Mommy’s gonna take a quick smoke.” That’s what she used to say, in her 2-year-old sing-songy garble. She used to say it all the time. Now, she doesn’t remember me smoking at all. My 10-year-old does, though. Vaguely.

It was good incentive to stop.

I am a lucky woman.

It’s a great class. Worth every penny. They did three performances each this year. My 10-year-old got to be the Count of Monte Cristo in this last one. There was sword-fighting. Lots of extra choreography sessions to get the sword fighting to look right. (And it did. It really, really did!) Here she is as the Count:

You think that’s cool, you should have seen her actually using that sword. Way cool.

Anyway.

The performance was two days ago, and a week before that, the director sent out an email saying that the show was going to be outside because they needed a ton of extra room to do the swordplay, and also that he wanted to have a party in the church parking lot afterwards, and he asked everyone to bring some food item to share. I saw that email, thought to myself: “huh,” and then promptly forgot all about it.

So, when I dropped the girls off on Wednesday morning for dress rehearsal, the director reminded me about it, and I apologized for having forgotten and he said no big deal, and then he said, “Could you bring anything?” And I said, “Sure,” and then he said, “Cupcakes, maybe?” And I said, “Hmmm… how about a cake. I’ll have the bakery write ‘Bravo’ on it.” And he said that would be fine, and then I also offered to bring a cooler full of water because we were in the middle of a major heat wave and the kids would probably need some water after all that sword fighting in the heat.

And then I drove off.

And then, I apparently drove right the hell off some deep end and left my sanity at the edge of the cliff. (Bye-bye, sanity. I’ll miss you. Let’s skype sometime, okay? Or you could just text me, if you’re too busy. It’s so hard to stay in touch these days, isn’t it?)

Because I suddenly realized that cupcakes were far more sensible than a cake. A cake required plates and plastic forks, and a knife to cut it with. Who needs that happy hassle when you could just hand out cupcakes and let everyone eat with their hands? But then I thought: how could I write “Bravo” on the cupcakes? I’m terrible at cake decorating. Really terrible at it. My hand shakes, my arm gets tired, not to mention I’m a lefty. That probably makes a difference, too. Somehow.

Then I mentally priced how much it would cost me to buy enough cupcakes for about 2 or 3 dozen people. And then I decided it would be fun to actually bake the cupcakes myself. Not from scratch, though! I mean: I’m not CRAZY or anything! Right? And THEN!!! I got this idea of making little paper flags glued to toothpicks, each one saying “Bravo” on it, so that EACH ACTOR would have their very own edible BRAVO!

AWESOME!!!

So, I drove home, got on my computer, found a bunch of free templates and Photoshop brushes online, quickly designed these little tiny cupcake banners, set it up to print, drove to the grocery store, bought cake mix (boxed, of course… remember: I’m not CRAZY, right???) and then I saw these fabulous cans of frosting the operated like Reddi Whip cans. I’d be able to spray the frosting right onto those bad boys! Zip zang zoom! Super easy awesome cupcakes! I grabbed some rainbow sprinkles to top it all off, a couple dozen bottles of water and a bag of ice, and I was on my way!

Within an hour, I had my first batch of cupcakes baking. But when they came out of the oven, I realized just how long it had been since I’d actually made cupcakes. You see, I’m more of a muffin baker. And I have one muffin tin. To make a dozen muffins. If that thing had been called a cupcake tin instead of a muffin tin, I’d have made the connection and put my paper cupcake holders into them. Instead I lined up twenty-four cupcake papers on a baking sheet, poured in the batter and baked. And when they came out of the oven, they were all flattened and square, and it took me far longer than I care to admit for me to realize what had gone wrong.

For a few minutes, I entertained the idea of just using them anyway. So what if they were flat and square? They’d still taste the same, right? But then, my baker-mom pride kicked in and I decided to go back to the store and get another box of mix, and another muffin tin, so I could bake a full batch in one session. I figured I had Just Enough Time.  And I did. I baked right up to the last minute, and in between baking sessions, I furiously cut and glued 48 tiny little Bravo! flags, and I found a perfect sized box to line with tin foil to put everything in. And I ended up having Just Enough of that canned frosting to go around and the sprinkles went fine, and the flags looked great! I was AWESOME CUPCAKE MOM!!! My kitchen looked like a batter bomb had gone off in it, and the rest of the house was a serious shambles, and the dogs were bored. But damn! Those cupcakes sure looked FABULOUS! Don’t you agree?

I even got this all done with enough time to spare to eat a very late lunch and put on a little makeup before we left for the show.

RegularDad helped me load all the water and ice into the car and I put my piece de resistance cupcakes in, and we were off to the show.

When we got there, all the children just about cried when they saw us coming in with water. ‘WATER!!!” they gasped. “YOU BROUGHT WATER!!!” And they dove into the cooler in desperation, and I figured, eh… it’s a heat wave. I’m sure someone else will have brought water too. And when they saw the cupcakes, their eyes lit up, and I BASKED IN THE GLOW.  But modestly, you know. I mean: it’s all about the kids, right?

So, after both shows, there was this weird scramble of putting away chairs and trying to get pictures of the actors, and not long into all that crazyness, my 8-year-old ran up to me and said, “Carl is trying to bring the cupcakes out all by himself!” So, making a mental note to deal with the tattling later, I went into the church and down to the kitchen and there was this kid, Carl, obsessing about the cupcakes. When were we bringing them out? Did we need any help bringing them out? It was a bit alarming, watching him deal with the fact that there were cupcakes in the fridge that no one was currently eating. I shooed him away and told him we’d take care of the food after pictures were done. Then I ran back out because I really wanted a picture of my 10-year-old as the Count. And while I was trying to get that shot, the director apparently went and got those cupcakes and put them outside on a little table, where a small cluster of eager, hot and very hungry children immediately formed. And then he told those children, “Do not touch those cupcakes under any circumstances!” and then he disappeared into the crowd to try to get more pictures.

And to make matters even more complicated, those cupcakes were the only food at this party. No one else had brought a single thing, except for one mom who’d brought a bowl of cut up watermelon. Which disappeared very quickly. So, all there was to eat were these cupcakes, and all there was to drink was the water I’d brought, which had already been dipped into.

And all those kids — those Hot, HUNGRY children — began to bicker.

One little girl had apparently picked out the One That She Wanted and had her hand hovering over it, claw-like, so that the SECOND she was given the OK to have a cupcake, she could descend upon it. My 8-year-old and that kid, Carl, were standing at opposite sides of the table, counting how many there were. They kept messing up the count, snapping at each other and starting over. I saw all this from a distance and wandered over to the table and said, “There’s 48, guys. Ask me how I know.” Then began a furious count of How Many Children Were Present In Total. Then my 8-year-old said that Carl was saying that he would automatically get 2 cupcakes because he’d been in both performances. (More tattling… oh joy.) So, I laid down the Cupcake Law. Which was simple:

You Get One.

No one liked that. Then my 8-year-old took hold of the arm of the girl with the claw-hand in ready position and whipped it away from the table. So, I sternly sent her away from the table, because we don’t put hands on other children like that, I don’t care what they’re doing, etc, etc. And my 8-year-old melted down right there. She ran off into the church crying, and the rest of the kids huddled tighter around the box, filling the gap where she’d been, hands ready to grab. I looked up at the director’s wife and said, “why can’t they just have a cupcake now?” and she said that her husband wanted to get a picture of everyone around the cupcakes or something. So, I turned on my camera, snapped a damn picture and started handing out cupcakes.

I then spent most of the “party” guarding the cupcakes that were left. And before long it descended into “well, so-and-so had two, how come I only get one?” etc, etc, etc. And I just got really, really irritated. What a freekin’ nightmare. Never had I regretted doing something for a group of children more than I did making those stupid cupcakes. Other moms tried to come up to me to compliment me on them, but I just shook my head and muttered, “Yeah. Never again,” and looked away from them. In the end, half the kids probably got two, but at that point, I no longer even cared. I’d made a lot of cupcakes thinking that the parents would want some too. Not to mention the siblings of the actors. But none of that seemed to matter. Those kids were hell bent on having at least two a piece, although a dozen would have been better.

RegularDad asked me later why I hadn’t just let the whole thing go. And honestly? I don’t know. He’s right, of course. Who cares if some kids got 6 and some got none? Was it really any of my business? The fact that one of my own kids was responsible for starting the whole mess factored into it some. I had to reprimand her, because that’s how we roll in my house. But then, I guess I expected other parents to corral their own and when that didn’t happen, I felt bad for reprimanding her when all around her, kids were just acting greedy about the whole thing. Talk about a double standard.

Also, toward the end of the Worst Cast Party Ever, the mom who’d brought the watermelon (God Bless and Keep Her) approached the table, her youngest son (who suffers from a myriad of problems, including cerebral palsy) at her side. I looked at her son and said, “Hey dude, did you get a cupcake yet?” And his mom explained that yes, he’d actually gotten two already but both times, he’d gotten one bite and then dropped it by accident, and she wanted to know if he could have one more. So, there I stood, cringing at the thought that they’d think I might take my control-freakness to that limit and not allow it. “Of course he can, ” I said. “You know… it doesn’t really count unless you actually ingest the entire cupcake.”

By the time we were ready to go, there were four cupcakes left. I wrapped them up and sent them home with the director to feed his kids later. In the car, I explained to my girls that they should understand that if Your Mom is The Mom Who Makes The Cupcakes, chances are, there are Extra Cupcakes Still At Home, so you should not worry if someone gets more than you, because in the end you’ll get more than anybody.

“Ohhhhhh,” said my 8-year-old.

We got some Chinese food for dinner, and then, after eating, we went out into the yard, set up the telescope and looked at the moon for a while. Looking at the moon is always a good idea. But it still took me a long time to shake off what became a Very Bad Mood That Lasted Far Longer Than Usual.

So, in spite of all my good intentions, I’ve screwed up again. Now I’m not just the mom who brings the cool cupcakes, I’m also the one who will be mean to everyone when handing them out.

And that’s the long, sad story of how I accidentally became the CUPCAKE NAZI. Don’t you wish you were me?

Bravo.

That last one makes me cry. 

For joy for her.

For the joy of her.

10-year-old: Me!

7-year-old: Me!

RegularDad: What about you hon? You want another?

Me: No. I’m good. I’ve got a big hunk right here still.

7-year-old: No fair! How come you got the big hunk?

Me, chuckling telepathically to RegularDad, who’s sitting at the other end of the table, slightly red and smiling Real Big: Oh honey, let me tell you… because a long time ago, I was THAT HOT.

The Dramatic Rise of Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents: Is It Connected to the Decline in Play and the Rise of Schooling? by Peter Gray.

It’s a bit long, and employs some psychological jargon that takes some wading through, but it’s still an interesting read. Basically, Gray says that the increase in amounts of modern industrial schooling correlate to an increase in anxiety and depression in children. And it’s not just about the school day; the control of children’s after-school hours also contribute. Here’s a quote:

In school, children learn quickly that their own choices of activities and their own judgments of competence don’t count; what matters are the teachers’ choices and judgments. Teachers are not entirely predictable. You may study hard and still get a poor grade, because you didn’t figure out just exactly what the teacher wanted you to study or guess correctly what questions he or she would ask. The goal in class, in the minds of the great majority of students, is not competence but good grades. Given a choice between really learning a subject and getting an A, the great majority of students would, without hesitation, pick the latter….

School is also a place where children have little choice about with whom they can associate. They are herded into spaces filled with other children that they did not choose, and they must spend a good portion of each school day in those spaces. In free play, children who feel harassed or bullied can leave the situation and find another group that is more compatible; but in school they cannot. Whether the bullies are other students or teachers (which is all too common), the child usually has no choice but to face those persons day after day. The results are sometimes disastrous.

When I was a kid, I went to school, and then I went home and did my own thing for hours on end. We were poor, so I had no after school activities like dance classes or soccer practices. I just went home and played. Or read. I didn’t even have homework until I was in the fourth grade.  We lived in a large apartment complex that was surrounded by patches of forest. All the kids in the neighborhood would roam the woods together, or we’d split off into smaller groups and play other games.  On summer nights, there’d be at least two dozen of us still outside way after dark, playing large games of hide and seek, or jumping rope or doing not-so-smart things like setting wasp nests on fire. And then running for it. And yeah, sometimes there’d be fights. But we all survived. When I went into therapy as a young adult, all my running around, unsupervised, late into those summer nights, was not the reason.

When I was older, our financial situation improved somewhat, and for a few years, I had a horse to ride. My mom would drop me off at the stable and I’d saddle up and ride the trails alone for hours on end. I also worked in the stables part time, and at the age of 13 was expected to be able to handle that kind of work. If I couldn’t get a ride to the barn, I’d roam the woods near our house. Alone. As a young teenager. Or I’d play by the creek with my sister. For hours and hours. My mother never came with us. She didn’t look out the window nervously to see if she could still see us. She didn’t say to us: don’t go too far. And I never once considered her inattention to my outside play neglectful.

But that was 30 years ago. Today, kids don’t live like that. They’re rarely left alone, especially outside. All of their after-school hours are filled with sports practices, clubs and other activities, and that, along with their homework is all they have time for. I never see children running around in this neighborhood (except for that pack of middle-school boys who roam the streets on summer evenings and make suggestive comments to second graders eating ice pops, that is), and I don’t let my kids roam around either (because of said pack of middle-school boys). It’s just not done anymore.

We homeschool, so I am able to provide a significant amount of free play time for my kids. But what I’m learning this year is that that’s not good enough. Here’s another quote from Gray’s article, that really drives this point home to me:

By depriving children of opportunities to play on their own, away from direct adult supervision and control, we are depriving them of opportunities to learn how to take control of their own lives. We may think we are protecting them, but in fact we are diminishing their joy, diminishing their sense of self-control, preventing them from discovering and exploring the endeavors they would most love, and increasing the chance that they will suffer from anxiety, depression, and various other mental disorders.

I’m learning that my kids need more unstructured time. What I need to learn now is how to take that next step. How to stop HOVERING. I can say: yeah, I let the kids play and I don’t structure the time or the game. But those hours are still technically supervised by me. I know where the kids are. I can get to them quickly if need be. And I know my 9-year-old wants more autonomy than that. What I don’t know, is how to let go and give it to her.

Of course, the fact that my youngest is only six contributes to my inability to just let them go play. Maybe when they’re a couple years older, this won’t seem so hard. Six seems a bit young to be allowed to wander the neighborhood unattended. The best I can do right now is to take them to the park with their friends and let them get a little far away from me in a group.

Peter Gray promotes an unschooling approach to educating children. I’m not sure I can totally get on board with that. I still believe that a classical education is a good idea. My goal is to educate the kids, and still have a ton of hours of free, unstructured play time. We get our work done in three hours or less, and there is no homework. When we’re done, we’re done. But I’ve still loaded them up with lots of structured activities. Too many, I think. And I do that for the same reason I’ve always done that: because I want to make sure I’m providing enough socialization time. It’s ridiculous, I know. But I still get stuck in that trap.

This summer, we’ll be doing a lot less. And I’m really looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll work up the courage to just let them go play.

Maybe.

Trouble is: when you have a cold in the middle of a blizzard, you still have to go out and shovel snow. RegularDad did most of it. But I still had to go out there quite a few times and clear him a spot so that he could get off the street. And it took its toll on me, that little bit I shoveled. The last time I went out there, I could just tell.

So, I guess I didn’t rest as much as I should have. And now I’ve got this horrible dry cough – the kind that makes your head hurt when you really get going – and a nice little bout of laryngitis. Not a big deal, really. Just one more glitch in my February. But it could be worse, of course. I mean – it’s not like the entire country was leveled by an earthquake or anything.

But it’s quite a challenge, let me tell you, to learn that the proper treatment for laryngitis is to STOP TALKING as much as possible, when you live in a household where you have to repeat the same simple instructions (things like: put your shoes on) a half dozen times before both kids actually have their shoes on. And that’s just the shoe thing. You can only imagine how much talking I have to do when it’s time to do things like math. Or ask for help cleaning up the living room.

I’ve never been more aware of how much time I spend TALKING.

I’m considering making a bunch of signs to carry around with me. I can just wave them in front of the kids until they do what’s printed on them.

It might actually work better. Because Lord knows they never seem to hear me when I’m talking on a regular day around here. Unless the word “candy” falls out of my mouth, that is.

Besides, I think we could still count these days as school days. All that sign reading could count as “reading lessons” and “community skills” as they attempt to actually do whatever’s written on the signs. Things like: “get ailing mother another pillow.”

This is also becoming an interesting exercise in letting the little things go. Like tonight for instance. Tonight after I tucked them in, I came into my office to write a little while, and I could hear the two of them whispering every once in a while. Usually I’d call out to them to stop whispering. But tonight, I let the majority of it just go. Oh… after a half hour or so, I finally gave one call-out to them, but for me, that’s pretty good.

So, who knows? Maybe this is a good thing. We’ll see how well it goes. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I’m off to find a very large glass of orange juice to sip on.

(sigh)

My 9-year-old is a highly sensitive child. She’s been one since the day she was born, and her sensitivity levels were one the major reasons we decided to homeschool in the first place. She’s always been anxious in crowds, and loud noises freak her out, and she simply cannot handle disturbing visual stimuli well at all. We keep television viewing to a minimum, and we maintain a soothing household, and for the most part, she does fine. But Halloween season is always particularly difficult, because everywhere we go, she sees things that are — quite frankly — deeply disturbing. Halloween decor has really changed since the days of Casper the Friendly Ghost.

During the month of October, I rarely take my daughter into any stores at all because of the decorations, the scare-factor amplified even further on most of the stuff with audio tracks of horrifying screaming and gibberish that send her into full-blown panic attacks. Even grocery stores tend to drape the cereal aisle in fake cobwebbing and then glue terrier-sized fake spiders onto it all. In October, she keeps her nose tucked way down in a book whenever we’re in the car, because she just can’t handle all the TABLEAUX OF HORROR displayed on half the front lawns we drive by.

The Catch-22 in this situation is, of course, the fact that she loves Halloween. She loves dressing up in (non-scary) costumes, she loves going to Halloween parties, and she loves trick-or-treating. Of course. So, I spend the month of October mostly getting her through all of this, and by the end of the month, I’m often exhausted from the effort this requires, and from the fact that she comes to visit me a lot more than usual in the middle of the night.

So, now that I’ve explained all that to you, I’m going to tell you what happened on Saturday afternoon at the Halloween party held by the karate dojo the girls attend, and I want your honest opinion about what happened, and how I handled it. Because I probably got some people “in trouble” and I probably now have a “reputation” around there as “one of THOSE moms.” And I’m okay with that, I guess. But I’m curious what your opinions will be about this, so here goes:

The dojo hosts a Halloween party every year, and the girls really liked it last year, so we signed up for it again this year, and I gritted my mental teeth and donned my Getting-My-Sensitive-Kid-Through-Yet-Another-Halloween-Party hat, and we went. And right off the bat, I’ll admit that there are a few adults there that just irritate the living hell out of me. They have kids who attend the dojo, but they also take classes themselves, and they’re a tight group of people, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, but they do often act a bit… well… juvenile. At this party, they were all dressed up and acting like adolescents more than responsible adults. One of the men was dressed as a teeny-bopper cheerleader, which was… well… kinda… GROSS. Especially at a party designed primarily for young children. Others were dressed more appropriately, but were acting like they were at a frat party, running around wildly, jumping on furniture, throwing food at each other. I watched them and realized that if any of the children at the party behaved like that, they’d be reprimanded. And the double standard really bothered me.

So, I was already irritated. But I let it all go for the most part, because this party wasn’t about me. This party was about my kids and my job was to work my 9-year-old through her anxiety, which took some effort. Because, first of all, the party was dark. They’d turned off all the overhead lighting and everything was eerily lit by spooky jack-o-lantern plastic lamps and purple spider web light strings stuck to the walls. My 9-year-old really struggled with this at first, but she soon realized that she could escape the dark room by walking up the short hallway to the front waiting area. There’s a large picture window there that let in a decent amount of sunlight. So, when she began to feel anxious she’d simply leave the main party room and go stand in the light near the window for a few minutes. I realized quickly that she’d found a way to self-comfort. I allowed her to do this, and I’d just follow along and stand with her and let her talk to me if she wanted to. She’d say things like: “It’s much easier to see what I’m eating up here,” and I’d chuckle a little and agree with her. There is such a thing as saving face. I get it.

[Interesting side note: most of the times we traveled up the hall to stand near the window, we'd find two other children -- always the same two kids--  sort of hovering in the light as well. How much do you want to bet they're highly sensitive children as well? And that they, too, had found a way to cope with the unnerving visual situation happening in the back area?]

I was pleased with my daughter. Because what I saw was that she had made significant progress. She’d found a way to resolve her own anxiety, instead of just collapsing into utter panic like she used to as a younger child. So, she relaxed into the afternoon and was able to watch a group of teens (some dressed in very disturbing costumes) do a demonstration, and then participate in the games and have a few snacks, and the whole bit. All without freaking out. And every 15 minutes or so, she’d take a quick break up in the front room where the light was, and then she’d come back for some more fun.

Fast forward about 45 minutes:

I had stationed myself near the hallway so that I could see my 9-year-old when she went up to the front. The main door is there, and it’s always good to make sure no one is leaving or coming in unexpectedly. I was talking to RegularDad about something, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw my 9-year-old break away from the main party and once again head for the hallway. For the light. For her Comfort Zone. This time, there were two large men lounging near the hallway exit. One of them stood at least 6 feet tall, maybe more, and was a black belt of some degree or other. He’s a creepy-looking guy.

My 9-year-old approached them and tried to slide between them to get into the hallway, but before she could do that, the two of them drew together in front of her to form a solid wall of Very Large People. The black belt was holding a banjo as part of his costume. He lowered the banjo like a sword and used it to further block my daughter’s path. The two of them looked sternly down at her and one of them said:

“We’re under strict orders to take down anyone who tries to leave this room.”

And my daughter’s face… oh my God… her face PALED and her eyes got very large and her whole body shrank away from these two men.

And what I saw instantaneously was that they were just joking with her. That obviously someone had asked them to make sure no kids were messing around unattended up front, and that this was their way of trying to make light of their assigned position. But what they didn’t know was all the stuff I told you at the start of this post. What they didn’t know — couldn’t know — was that in my child’s mind, two very large strangers were keeping her away from the one place in the building she had established as Her Safe Place. My child — my daughter — felt threatened and menaced by two very large, very burly men, (one of whom was an accomplished higher degree black belt) in a place where I took her twice a week to learn karate, a place that was supposed to be a safe environment for children.

All of that happened in the space of maybe 35 seconds.

And every single Mama Bear Instinct in every fiber of my being went into TOTAL SYSTEM OVERLOAD. I took two large steps and as my daughter’s body was still shrinking away from these men, my own body was there in time to back her up.

I looked at those men, who had no idea what they’d just done, what their idea of a joke had cost my child, and inside my head I was ROARING and HOWLING and SCREAMING, but what came out of my mouth was a fumble of words, mild and pleasant, something to the effect of:

“My daughter needs to get through here. It’s okay. She has my permission to do so. I told her she could go through the hall.”

They separated from each other and my daughter shot through the gap and disappeared into the light. I followed her and found her sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees. She was crying and hiding her face. She thought she’d done something wrong; she thought she was in trouble; she was frightened; she just wanted to stand in the light for a minute.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “They were just trying to make a joke. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Yes I did,” she cried.
“No, you didn’t. You were just going to a safe place. Going to a safe place is never wrong.”
“They said I couldn’t. I’m not supposed to.”
“They were wrong. Honey, listen to me: those men are not in charge of you. Only I am in charge of you, and I told them that you are allowed to be up here.”

We sat together for a few minutes, and then she was ready to go back to the party. No one was guarding the hallway when we went through it. My daughter wiped her tears away and disappeared into the darkness. It was almost time for the pinata.

I stood there for a few minutes, trying to get my act back together. While I was standing there, the woman who runs the office, dressed as a witch, approached me and asked if I was okay. I guess my face looked funny. I sure felt weird. And so incredibly tired of Halloween. I tried to pass it off on that, too. “Oh, this just isn’t my favorite time of the year,” I said to her. She nodded — all understanding — and said… oh, I don’t know what she said, but pretty soon I was telling her the whole damn story, everything I just told you here, and I knew, the whole time I was talking, that she’d tell it to the owner, who is a very nice man, and very gifted with teaching children, a man who never, ever, EVER would have done something like that to a child.  The woman winced a lot as I talked, and she apologized for the whole thing, and I nodded and said that I understood that the men were just trying to be funny, but that the joke had fallen so incredibly flat that it was actually creepy and horrifying. She said she understood. She has a daughter herself, who takes classes at the dojo. She got it.

We left soon afterwards. And we’d been home maybe a half hour when the phone rang. It was the dojo owner. He asked me to tell the story again, and I did, and when I got to the part where the men said they were going to take her down, he started saying oh my God… oh my God… over and over again in a very tired, whispery sort of way. I reiterated the fact that I understood that they were just kidding around, and I made sure he understood I didn’t want anyone to get in trouble over this, but I told him quite simply that the adults who attend his classes need to be more careful and more aware of how they approach the children in the program. These kids know who the black belts are. And the adults have a responsibility to conduct themselves so that no children feel threatened while in their presence. And the bottom line is just this: One day, my daughter will grow up and be a young woman. She will face risks that women the world over have faced for eons. And I enrolled her in a karate program so that in the event that she finds herself threatened by a man, she will have some potential to defend herself. I find it incredibly upsetting that she found herself in a situation that looked too much like that type of scenario for my comfort. In a place where she is supposed to BE SAFE. The owner said he understood, and that was the end of the conversation.

And that’s what happened at the Halloween party yesterday. So, tell me: did I over-react? I was already irritated with some of the adults’ behavior before the whole thing at the hallway happened. How much of that irritation fueled my response? Does it seem more like I was looking to pick a fight? What would you have done, if it had been you? I need to know. Because I’ve made some big giant mama-bear waves over this one, and we still have to see these people and if I was wrong, I need to know. I need to find a way to apologize. Because this is a good karate place, and I don’t want to pull my kids out of it.

Tell me what you think. Tell me what you really, honestly think.

Anyway. So, it’s dinner hour, and the kids are a bit of a sopping mess after swimming lessons, and RegularDad’s working late or bowling with his boss, or something, so I’m all: “Hey, who wants McDonald’s?” and reveling in those spare few moments when I am THE GREATEST MOM IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, and I pull into a mildly long line  at our local McD’s and wait a while.

Now, mildly long lines at the drive through don’t bug me all that much, because it gives me time to take the girls’ orders, and let me just say that the decision between a Hamburger Happy Meal or a Chicken McNugget Happy Meal followed by the agony of not being allowed to get soda because it’s not the weekend followed by the interminable silence that is my 5-year-old deciding between chocolate milk and apple juice can take a FREEKIN’ ETERNITY. So a long line can sometimes be a bit of a boon sometimes, is all I’m sayin’.

ANYWAY.

So, we get up to the speaker and upon hearing that age-old metallic garbled welcome-to-mcdonalds- can-I-take-your-order, I give the kids’ orders, and then I ask a question about something on the menu, something that’s just a dollar. I dunno what. Just something. And there’s this utter silence at the other end — like the girl in there fell into some BLACK HOLE OF UTTER DOOM AND OBLIVION because I didn’t just say And gimme a #4 with Coke — and then someone else gets on the line and answers my question and we move on to the payment window, and finally up to the next window where I’m handed a few bags of “food” and I pull up a little bit so the car behind me won’t be delayed, and CHECK THE BAGS.

Because long experience has taught me that you never just drive away from the McDonald’s drive-through without CHECKING THE BAGS. Because they always forget the sauce. Or the straws. Or the fries. Or something.

This time, HORROR OF HORRORS, they’d forgotten the TOYS!

MOM!!!!!!!!!! my 5-year-old cried. THERE’S NO TOY!!!!!!

(AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Let Loose The Hounds of Hell!!!!!!!!!)

What? I said. What do mean? No toy?

Then my 8-year-old said: I don’t have one either.

And so much for the drive-through. We parked the car and went inside and waited 10 minutes for someone to help us. There was only one register open, and the girl working that register was obviously, PAINFULLY new at this job. She had someone shadowing her, telling her exactly what to say, which buttons to push, where to find the apple pies, etc, etc, etc.

And you could SEE IT on her face: how frantic she was. What a nighmare her afternoon had been, and that the evening was probably going to be at least just as bad, if not worse. I suspected that if I were to elbow my way to the front of the line and wave my receipt and demand a couple of Happy Meal Toys for Girls, she’d have just collapsed onto the floor in a sobbing teenage ruin, and who needs that on their conscience?

So, I waited in the regular line with my two anxious daughters, watching this frazzled teenager learning valuable lessons about life and capitalism and the importance of a good college education. And eventually, we made it up to the front there and I showed her my receipt and asked for our toys and then we left.

“Thanks, Mom!” the girls said to me, skipping out to the car with their treasures. “You’re the BEST!!!”

They didn’t tack on that part about the WHOLE UNIVERSE, but that’s okay. The universe is expanding anyway. It’s better to not be compared to things that are expanding these days. I am 40 now, after all.

Tonight, I ran out to the grocery store to pick up salad fixings, some cauliflower, and milk (things that will definitely not earn me the GREATEST MOM IN THE ENTIRE EXPANDING UNIVERSE AWARD), and I jumped into the express line and proceeded to wait quite a while because someone up there had written an actual check to pay for her items, and it practically made the clerk’s head explode. He had to type in all these codes and numbers and it wasn’t working at all. He tried it three times, and he couldn’t get it to work. And he was starting to panic. He kept trying, and after every failed attempt, he’d look over his shoulder to where another clerk was working a line and say: “Hey man! I really NEED your help over here!”

By then I was doing that special crane dance: where you start stretching your neck around to see if anyone else is open, because this could take FOREVER. But the only other guy open was the guy that was going to end up over here helping this dude out, so why bother moving, right? Besides, it was the express lane. The lady in front of me had maybe 7 items. And let’s face it, a trip to the store alone is like a mini-vacation anyway. Why rush things? So, I waited. I read some of the Enquirer’s headlines. Patrick Swayze’s not looking too good these days. It’s very sad.

After a while, and without the other guy’s help at all, this dude managed to figure it out. He was so relieved! “You’ve got to hit the pound sign at the end,” he confessed. Ah, yes, we all nodded sagely. The elusive pound-sign maneuver. It’s gotten the best of all of us at one time or another, hasn’t it? But, we all smiled and cheered for him a little. We could tell he was new at this job. He thanked all of us individually for being so kind and patient. And when I whipped out my Visa card instead of a check book at the end, you could tell it totally made his night.

So, there’s me: being patient. Me: being nice.

Isn’t it nice?

yeah…

What I wish for, is that I could remember how to act nice like this when it’s the kids who are frazzled. I wish that I could remember that when they’re freaking out, it’s not at all unlike what these two people were going through. That in their little heads, there’s this weird buzzing sound, and nothing seems to be connecting right. And they don’t need me adding to their stress by being impatient. Or yelling at them and sending them to timeout.

That’s what I wish.

But there you have it. Me — 40 and trying to be cool. Good thing the kids aren’t in regular school. They don’t really have a good grasp of just how out-of-it I really am.

So, things are on the mend around here. Things have been on the mend for a while, but how many times did you really want me to post: Things are on the mend here today…. We did a little math….

OMG! Could I BE anymore BORING?

So, I stayed away. For your reading pleasure.

But we are finally – somewhat – on the mend. It took a massive sinus infection for my 5-year-old, the flu for me, which I still think was really a sinus infection — but we’ll never really know, and then a sudden bout of strep for my 8-year-old, and all of this finished up today with yet another visit to the doctor to find out why my 5-year-old is STILL COUGHING bad enough to keep herself awake at night. Which led, of course, to another trip to the pharmacy for yet another prescription for something that probably won’t do any good. My kitchen window sill, where I keep most of the medicines, looks like an ICU in-house pharmacy. And I’m seriously considering investing in some CVS stock. Because business is BOOMING there right now.

And I almost forgot to mention that 7 days into my round of antibiotics, I developed a nice little case of hives. So I stopped taking the antibiotics and switched over to Benadryl and spent a few days Not Scratching. Note to self: mention this to the doctor next time.

And in the middle of all this happy crappy, yeah, we did a little work. Just the basics. Just a little. A that little bit seems to have been enough. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been homeschooling long enough to know better than to think in terms of behind or ahead. We are where we are. And today, my 5-year-old sat down with me and read me most of Go Dog! Go. Because she wanted to. Which means we are right where we’re supposed to be.

Boy I sure do sound confident. Like I’ve really got my act together! Don’t I? Before you get all annoyed that I’m so TOGETHER, I should mention the state of the house. I really should. The house is a mess. I’d take pictures, but I’m too tired. It’s just gotten out of hand. The kitchen I’ve managed to keep a handle on, but everything else is just covered with clutter and dust and cheese stick wrappers and dog-eared books and just CRAP. 

And I don’t even want to talk about the Laundry Situation. Except to tell you that it’s definitely A SITUATION. And that’s all I’m gonna say about it. Because I don’t want to talk about it.

But that’s okay.

Because we’re on the mend.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my 5-year-old to the doctor because her cold was going on Day 8 and wasn’t showing any signs of improvement whatsoever.  We ended up getting the doctor that drives me batty, the one who reminds me a bit of Dr. House. He doesn’t limp, and he’s not so OBVIOUSLY rude to people, but he’s brilliant enough that he just does not understand how to talk to a 5-year-old during an appointment. In fact, he barely talks to the 5-year-old at all. He talks to me, and he says things like “Oh man, THIS is really gonna be a TOUGH one!” when my 5-year-old shows signs of distress at the thought of a stick or a Q-tip swab anywhere near her throat (which is so sore that she can barely talk or swallow).

What my 5-year-old hears isn’t so much that she’s the tough one. It’s that something will be DIFFICULT during this visit. Which translates into something will be PAINFUL during this visit. Her distress increases visibly.

What I think when I hear this sort of thing is: WHY did this guy ever get into pediatrics in the first place? What I want to SAY is “Dude, do you even HAVE children?”

What I wish is that I could have magically transported our entire pediatric facility from Colorado along with us when we moved, so that the girls would have the same doctors they’d had ever since they first popped out onto this unsuspecting world. The doctors that knew how to talk to them when they felt sick. The ones that looked right at them when they came through the door and gave them a commiserating frown/rueful smile and said: “Not feeling so good, huh? Well, let’s have a look-see.” and then just went ahead and did what needed to be done without pausing to comment on how difficult it might be, just transferring them from the exam table to my lap and encircling arms for things that might prove uncomfortable, and GETTING IT DONE.

But no. None of them thought uprooting their entire practice was a reasonable idea when I told them we were moving. So I’m stuck with this guy, who is apparently BRILLIANT and the ultimate Go-To-Guy when your kid has got some serious rare disease. But apparently, if your kid is just plain old sick, and happens to have some wax in her ear so he can’t really see if there’s an infection in there, and happens to have this aversion to Strep tests, he’s really not all that good.

And in the end, he simply decided Not To Do The Tests. He would give her antibiotics anyway at this point, so he didn’t see the reason for putting her through an ear cleaning and a Strep test that might or might not have resulted in a prescription for Amoxicillin. He saw how worried my kid was, and apparently didn’t want to deal with it. So, we lucked out, I guess, and just got a prescription. At first, I was all: Gee that’s nice of him. Maybe he’s not so bad after all. But then not ten minutes after he’d explained why he wasn’t going to do the test, he gave us a mini-lecture about how we couldn’t ALWAYS EXPECT to get off this easy. That NEXT TIME, she’d probably have to have the tests.

At that point I told him, as nicely as possible, that if he felt the procedures were necessary, we certainly would do them. That he was the doctor. That I relied on his professional opinion about these things. And that if my daughter showed stress or reluctance I was RIGHT THERE ON HAND, IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE  to help her through it. That I considered it my JOB to help my child through difficult medical moments, just as I considered it HIS JOB to tell me what was required.

He gave me a prescription and we left. Without doing any tests.

I guess it would be prudent to mention at this point that I, also, was still dealing with the very same symptoms as my 5-year-old, which made it very hard for me to maintain any sort of perspective or patience regarding this whole doctor visit. And if he was any other doctor, I’d have called the office to complain when we got home. But considering that he’s the uber-brilliant guy there, I figure it would be bad karma to, like, alienate him or something. So, I took my kids, the prescription, their various Webkinz that they brought in with them, all my own personal cold symptoms and got into my car and left.

And this morning, still feeling pretty crappy, I decided to stop pretending I wasn’t really sick, and called my own doctor’s office. I told them I suspected I have a sinus infection, and they said to come on in. So, I took my kids, their Webkinz toys, some Goldfish crackers, and all my symptoms down to my doctor’s office a couple of hours ago, where I was informed by my kindly young doctor that it’s not a sinus infection.

It’s the flu.

“The flu?” I said to him. “Are you sure? I thought the flu would be one of those I-can’t-even-get-out-of-bed-because-of-the-utter-agony type things. I’m up and around. How can it be the flu?”

“Well,” he said. “Not everyone gets the exhaustion. In fact, it’s almost worse when they don’t, because they tend to think it’s just a cold and go about their business, and it takes longer to recover that way.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Did you get a flu shot this year?” he asked.

“Well… no.” I said.

“Definitely the flu,” he said, and started scribbling like mad on his prescription pad. “I’m gonna give you some Amoxicillin along with everything else I’m prescribing, just in case, but chances are, it won’t make a difference. Go home and rest.”

We’re home now. And resting as best we can.

Except for one event tomorrow that we simply cannot back out of, we’re cancelling everything for the next week or so.

I’ve decided that Mr. Uber-Brilliant Doctor Who Never Should Have Been A Pediatrician doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I’ve decided to treat my 5-year-old’s cold as if it were the flu. Sure, she’ll take the damn antibiotics. Just in case. But chances are, it’s the flu, and we’ve just got to get through it.

I’ll be back when I’m on the other side of all this.