I have been keeping this one for myself, but I'm going to share it now as part of my effort to be more mindful of gentleness. This is a story about Summer being careful of my feelings. She breaks my heart and sews it back up so fast, it pretty much encapsulates what it's like to be a parent.
As I have written before, I'm always trying to find books that I read when I was a kid, and share them with Summer. There's a short story I remember, but I have no idea what it's called. It's about a girl who lives in an apartment and dreams about horses. She wins a pony in a cereal box contest. Her family convinces her to take a cash payout instead, so they can use the money to get someone out of Russia. At the end someone gives her a kitten to console her--probably a more appropriate pet for an apartment dweller. The kitten has huge green eyes. He's in a paper bag, and the paper bag is wet from kitten pee. (I will never find this story.)
Several weeks ago, Summer and I traveled to New Jersey for a bar mitzvah. It was rare girl time for us. The day after the bar mitzvah, we took the train to Manhattan and got in line at tkts for discount theater tickets. One of our relatives was appearing in Follies, but I thought Follies was a bit dark for a nine-year-old. We got good seats to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, starring Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter of the silver screen. I'd seen it years ago with Matthew Broderick, but I didn't mind.
After the show, I decided to go meet up with our Follies relative so she could take us to her dressing room and onto the stage. But because I have no filter, I made the mistake of mentioning that we could wait at the stage door of How to Succeed to get Daniel Radcliffe's autograph (like I have Ferris's, above). With a short window in which to catch the train, we only had time to do one or the other. Summer wanted Harry Potter's John Hancock. I decided that it would be a better memory to go backstage with a real Broadway star than to get a Sharpie scribble from a movie star.
(No offense to Daniel Radcliffe or John Laroquette, who both performed gamely. Real stage pros have MAD PIPES. Ellen Harvey, a theater vet who plays the boss's secretary, OWNED that show with just one number.)
We dashed down the block to the Marquis, where we hooked up with a mom and her college-student daughter that we'd met in line at tkts. Kailey, the daughter, is a musical theater major at Rider University (my mom's alma mater), and her mother Denise was visiting from California; They saw Follies that day and were thrilled to get backstage and meet our phenomenal Tony-nominated, Drama Desk Award-winning cousin Jan. Kailey took this picture of Summer and Jan.
Then we sprinted to the subway in Times Square, which we rode to Grand Central. We stopped for a slice of pizza before our train out of the city. A dad in line at the pizza counter told us he'd just taken his 11-year-old son and friends to see How to Succeed as a birthday gift. "We got Daniel Radcliffe's autograph," he said, pulling his signed Playbill out of his jacket pocket to show us. Summer's eyes lit up. "You're so lucky!" she said. I could see that even with the American Girl store, even with M&M World, and Chinese food for lunch, I might have made a mistake. I might have faltered in my frantic attempt to achieve the best ever girls' day out in New York.
We sat at a table for two. "Mom," said Summer as she chewed on her black olive pizza (the only kind of pizza she eats). "Did you ever feel like you got the kitten in the wet paper bag?"
I was confused for a minute. Then I must have looked crushed, because just like I don't have a filter, I don't have a poker face. I said, "Do you mean like in the story I read when I was a kid?"
"Yeah," she said. Then she said, "Mom, tell me about a time when you felt like you got the pony."
"Well," I said, "I think when we got the new house I felt like I'd won the pony."
"Hm," she said. "Can you think of a time when I got the pony?"
I said, "Well, maybe when we met up with Lauren"--her best friend--"on vacation."
"You know when I think I won the pony?" she said, going all dreamy. "When I got to stand on that real Broadway stage."
And of COURSE, dear reader, as you KNOW, that's when I started to cry. Because even though she kind of felt like she'd gotten the kitten in the wet paper bag, she knew her mom wanted her to feel like she'd won the pony.
(Pretend there is a scary picture of Jack Nicholson here. I Googled to find one but they were so scary, I don't even want them on my blog.)
(OK, maybe just a small one.)
Today I screamed at Oscar like a total maniac over something totally unworthy--full on, eyeballs popping out of my head SCREAMING, terrible things that one should not say to one's worst enemies, let alone one's super adorable, if ever so slightly impish, three-year-old child. I was like, well... see above.
When my kids do something wrong, and then they say they're sorry, I tell them, "Don't say you are sorry. Just do the right thing." So I'm just trying to get back on the gentleness horse and not pitch myself into the river with my pockets full of stones. I'm just going to try again tomorrow to be more gentle. (Though I should apologize too.)
I will try to blog more. I think if I try to blog something gentle every day, it might help me.
Here is a video of a gentle man, a man we just lost on New Year's Day, Cantor Norman Summers. He was the cantor at my hometown temple for over 50 years. His gorgeous voice is the voice I hear in my head when I read any Hebrew prayer. Lucky me! Lucky all of us to have had him. I was absolutely shocked to read that he was twice rejected by Hebrew Union College, because his voice was so, so beautiful. The sanctuary of the temple where I grew up is an absolutely enormous room. It has a stained-glass window that is 80 feet tall. And Cantor Summers's voice filled that room like a cello--warm and resonant.
I wish I had a good personal anecdote, but I can't think of any. My mom probably does. Until just now, she used to bump into him at the grocery store, where they would have a hug in the produce aisle. All I can think of is that when I was studying for my Bat Mitzvah or sitting in board meeting for youth group--I believe I was the "third vice president"--in the classrooms behind the sanctuary, I could hear Cantor Summers doing scales to warm up for services. A secret gift.
In the video, he says "Never berate a child."
I will try harder.
This is a picture of me at a last-minute Girl Scout campfire that Jeff and I threw together when my other planned activity for today's meeting fell through. I'm really quite fond of the Hershey bars as you can see.
When I realized I had to plan a super fun Girl Scout meeting in, like, three hours, I ran around town grabbing supplies, such as matching green bandanas for all of us, because as everyone knows, a Girl Scout must always wear a bandana at a campfire so she doesn't set her hair on fire. I completely forgot that Oscar had his annual physical at 2:30 today. I had received one answering machine message about it, spoke with a nurse on the second reminder call, wrote it on my paper calendar, and got a Google calendar alert about it on my phone and in my email.
I still managed to utterly whiff it.
In the spirit of my Be Gentle resolution, I am not beating myself up. I rescheduled the appointment. Life goes on! I think the gentleness must start with my own self. Isn't it more important that I gave five Girl Scouts the most unexpectedly fun Monday ever? I mean, Oscar isn't sick or anything.
And let me just add: this weather! GLORIOUS! A campfire, with marshmallows, in January, without, like, gloves? It's a dream from which I hope we do not awake.
Charlie, Tiger Cub Scout and proud Girl Scout little brother.
Summer. Actual Girl Scout.
Oscar slept on the couch the whole time. Miss Lucy wore a bandana too but we forgot to take her picture.
Every year on New Year's Eve we stay with our friends Andy and Michelle in New Hampshire, and every New Year's Day we have cheese fondue for breakfast. We started with the fondue 10 years ago, when Michelle made so much food for New Year's Eve that we never even got to the fondue. But cheese fondue is one of the best things ever invented, so we woke up, Andy made the fondue, and we ate it. Now it would seem totally weird to wake up anywhere else, or eat anything else, on January 1.
Last year I made a bold resolution to organize my hideous mess of photos, both digital and print. And I did not even spend one hour of 2011 attempting to defeat that hydra. This year, I made a simpler but perhaps even harder resolution. This year, I would like to be more gentle. I have already broken the resolution; when stopped at Subway in Kittery on the way home to fill Charlie's hollow leg, I had to crush his shoulders with a Vulcan death grip to get him to stop hopping over and around Lucy's leash on the sidewalk like a... well, like a puppy. But I will keep trying.
My Lucy wakes me up at 7:00 every morning. (This is an improvement over 5:00, when she was still getting used to her new house and family.) With the rest of my family still asleep, I am sitting at the computer, working on my Shutterfly photo book about our trip to P.E.I. For one of the captions, I had to look up the spelling of the names of the people who maintain the property where Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery grew up. I found this video, which features the Macneills. P.E.I is known as The Gentle Island, and Jennie Macneill herself was so lovely and gentle when we met her during our visit. So here is some gentleness to start your 2012. Happy New Year. Wish me luck with my resolution. Please keep reading and commenting.
Love,
Jill
that Summer is almost as tall as the person who has been babysitting her since she was one.
Also she made this really beautiful Advent calendar.
And perhaps most impressively, last night when we were late to her Irish dance performance (for the parents, not a big recital) because there was a flipped over car on fire blocking eight lanes of traffic on the interstate and ALSO, we had no gas, Summer did not make a peep! Not a whine! Not a groan! Not a whimper! NOTHING!
She is SO much more mature than I am.
My littlest is now three years old! I can no longer claim a two-year-old.
(Please note that this does not mean that crazy meltdowns--his or mine--are a thing of the past.)
On Oscar's real birthday, he said he wanted a strawberry cake. So he and I picked out a strawberry shortcake at the grocery store. Then Summer and Charlie made all kinds of terrible faces about it. I handed Oscar a wrapped present--a magnetic fishing puzzle that I had in the closet from some long ago TJ Maxx stock-up. He could see that it was obviously not a car, because it was flat, so he said he didn't want it. But we made him open it. Then, he loved it so much that he wouldn't stop playing with it and never ate a bite of his strawberry cake. (See above.) But guess who licked their plates clean? The facemakers, that's who.
Then over the weekend we had a ninja-themed party for Oscar. Charlie and his friend Liam made an obstacle course for the ninjas outside in the dark. Then we decorated headbands (strips of black fabric) with stick on foam stars, hearts, and custom yin/yangs cut out by my friend Maureen.
Look how tough Charlie looks. Then we threw rubber ninja stars and played freeze dance to the original disco version of "Kung Fu Fighting," and ate this yin/yang cake decorated by Summer.
Also Charlie and I made this Rice Krispie treat sushi. Special thanks to my genius friend Lori for all her great ideas, including the sushi.
Happy birthday Oscar!
This is Lucy, my new dog.
Dog!
So I am a crazy pet lady. "No, no," you might be thinking. "All you have is a dozen or so chickens, two cats, a turtle, and now, a 70-pound black lab!
Well that's because I never even told you about Francis and Cashew:
We've had them since this summer, when Babysitter Ellen went off to college. They are mildly diverting, but since Lucy arrived last week, I am afraid Francis and Cashew will not even be getting what little loving they got. Because WE LOVE LUCY!
Those of you who know us outside the computer are probably shocked that Jeff has consented to a canine in the house. She's just so easy, so sweet, so soft, so hilarious when she tears down the path to the water...
I have to thank my sister Susan for the amazing gift of a housebroken, calm adult dog. Lucy was depressed at Susan's house, where there are some younger dogs who were hazing her pretty bad. I've always wanted a dog but couldn't possibly handle a puppy on top of the two puppies I already have, Charlie and Oscar. Now we have Lucy, who is calm enough for Charlie and Summer to walk on a leash--and for Oscar to basically poke in the eye. Plus she has a thrilling bark that will scare away all potential home invaders.
I knew I was a dog person, and I knew Charlie would someday have a dog, but I was going to wait until Oscar got to kindergarten to even start shopping the shelters. But Lucy needed a new home now. And we're all going to live happily ever after.
Charlie came home from school with this little reader for homework. It's about a cat named Tab and a rat named Mac. They are pals. Mac wears a cap. He takes a nap on Tab's belly.
But then he eats Tab's ham, and Tab gets mad. That's when Charlie started to get worried. But I said "This is a book written for first graders. I'm sure nothing scary will happen."
Then we see Mac's tiny baseball cap on the floor next to a whisker-lickin' Tab.
The final page: "Tab is a bad, sad cat." I should say so! HE ATE HIS PAL!
Charlie buried his head under the couch pillows. I wrote a stern note to the reading specialist who sent home the homework.
I mean, honestly.
