The Big Hole in the Ground

On Tuesday evening, as I was getting dinner ready, Ethan asked me, "Mom, who's the doctor at our school?" He was asking me the principal's name.
I said, "You mean Dr. Evans?"
He said, "Yes. She makes all the announcements in our school."
"Really?" I asked
"Yeah, and today she said something about some buildings that fell down."
"You know what buildings those were?"
"No, which ones?"
"Remember I told you about the bad men who flew airplanes into those buildings and then the buildings fell down and a lot of people got hurt and died?"
"The one in the picture in the bagel store?" (There is a painting in the bagel store that we frequent that was done after 9/11, it depicts a serpent-like figure in a turban in between the burning towers as people jump from the buildings. It's a little scary actually)
"Yes, those buildings."
"Why did those men do that?"
"I don't know honey. Sometimes people do bad things."

He walked out of the kitchen, the conversation was over and he went back to playing. The impact of 9/11 on him is nothing more than a story about some bad men who did a bad thing. He'll never know what those towers looked like in lower Manhattan because they were destroyed while he was growing inside of me. He'll never know the intense panic I suffered that horrible day when his daddy couldn't make it home because all forms of transportation were suspended into and out of Manhattan. Thankfully, he'll maintain his innocence about the world a little longer, even though he's been past Ground Zero and seen the hole, he doesn't have a concept of what was there before the gaping wound in the ground.

We spend a lot of time in NYC, my in-laws live there and we have free babysitting services whenever we desire a night out on the town. On the drive in, depending on traffic conditions, we occasionally take the Lincoln Tunnel. On the turnpike and on the helix (the helix is the approach to the tunnel, used to be seen in the opening sequence of the Sopranos) there used to be places where there was a clear view of the WTC. There is a void in the skyline now that my children will never know is a void. For them, the NY skyline has always looked the way it does. Maybe it's better that way.

Flatulent in Fanwood (well, Garwood)

I was in the condiment aisle at Shoprite, perusing their rather extensive selection of marinades, trying to decide what I wanted my chicken to taste like tonight, when the man standing immediately to my right farted.
This was not a small, "oops-I-let-one-slip,-but-quickly-buttoned-things-up-again" kind of fart. It was a long, whistling, "I'm-gonna-take-my time-and-let-it-all-come-out" kind of gas passing experience. To further aggravate the social inappropriateness of the situation, he never even acknowledged his gaseous offense with an "Excuse me!"
It left me begging to know, what has happened in our society? Where is the respect for the social contract to which we each must hold ourselves accountable? Where were this man's manners??? I think it's a sad commentary on our society as a whole, and I, for one, am not ready to live in a freely flatulent world!

You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

Yesterday I was the living dead. My sleeping pill wore off and I woke up at 3:30 AM. Not long after, at 4:11, my loving daughter woke up. I tried my best to administer tough love and let her "cry it out", but when she started screaming, "Mommy, I NEED you!" my heart melted and I gave in. Thus began my day...at 4:11 AM on Friday.
It was a rainy dreary day here in New Jersey. At times the rain was torrential. I met the electrician at the house for our walk through at 9:00. On the way over Eliana fell asleep...SO unfair that she got a nap and I didn't!!
Finished the walk through, got in the car and then headed south for a visit to the tile showroom where I was going to find out what tile I could get on short notice. The rain, the cadence of the window wipers and my lack of sleep all conspired to have me doze off at the wheel. I fought it off and made it there and back alive.
Upon hearing the exhaustion in my voice, Alan made an early escape from work and came home to give me some respite. That lasted until 6:44 AM this morning when Eliana came to wake me up. I got up and let Alan go back to sleep. I walked into our micro-living room to find every pillow from the couch on the floor. The place looked like someone had executed a search warrant looking for drugs or some other kind of contraband.
I decided to take a shower. I admit with shame that it is the first time I have done so since last Friday. Yes, it is gross. I feel like Frances McDormand's character in "Friends with Money". I am enjoying the feeling of water hitting my body, I have begun the task of cleansing my hair and I hear, "MOM! MY NOSE IS BLEEDING!!" It's not possible that I am in the shower, no glasses, gunk in my hair and my son is bleeding, is it? I instruct him to grab a wad of toilet paper, hold it on his nose and sit on the toilet and wait for me to finish my shower. What he does is, run amok in the bathroom, head down, dripping blood all over the bathroom. Despite my numerous admonishments to the contrary, it is like he is fascinated with the fact that blood is dripping from his nose and can't stop doing it.
Dripping wet, I emerge from the shower to assess the damages. The bleeding has stopped, now I have to clean up the bloody mess around the bathroom and the rest of the apartment. I can't find my wipes. OK...since Alan hasn't woken up from all the commotion as yet (what mother could sleep through this?) I now go in to wake up and ask where he has hidden my cleansing wipes. "Check under the sink," he moans as he turns back over to try to go back to sleep. Huh??
I make my rounds, cleaning up the blood around the apartment and then command my son to hand over the sweatshirt he is wearing that is now stained with blood. I spray a little Oxyclean pre-treat on it and the bathmat that he has been kind enough to drip blood on and throw it all in the washing machine. Alan makes his debut at the party..
Just another Saturday morning, right? You just can't make this stuff up!

Dysfunctional Family Mother's Day

Yesterday morning, in true "my life" fashion, I got a call from my sister informing me that the Mother's Day celebration we were to share at her home in Allentown would not take place as scheduled because my nephew had been vomiting the entire day and night before and was running a fever. It seems the decision was made that the festivities would be held here, at my new apartment. The guest list included Alan and I, the kids, my parents, my brother, grandmother and Alan's parents. Have I made mention of the fact that Alan and I find it less than roomy here with just us and the kids? Anyway...a quick call to my friend and neighbor, Lisa, supplied us with a folding table and folding chairs to accomodate our crowd. A creative rearranging of the furniture provided us with the space to configure said table and chairs in a way that didn't make the apartment feel like the Warsaw ghetto.
I made a quick trip to Party City to pick up festive paper goods and another to ShopRite to pick up frozen trays of Stuffed Shells and Eggplant Parmigiana and garlic bread, along with a Red Velvet Cake and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cake. I felt like a living combination of Sandra Lee, Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart. I even left time for a trip to Lowe's to investigate countertop materials and pricing. I was feeling good when I got home and Alan had actually figured out how to turn the oven on and had also done a bang up job of stashing our clutter to make the apartment presentable for guests. I felt a synergy and felt no need or desire for a sedative. We were in a groove.
The phone rang, it was my brother, he had arrived. He brought me a single red rose and some chatchkies for the kids. Still groovin'.
My dad calls, "I'm at the front gate, now how do I get to you?" I hear in the background the security guard telling him something that sounds wrong. I try telling him how to get to me, he gets agitated (as he often does). The conversation ends with him yelling that if he does what I say, he'll drive into a wall and me yelling back, "I'M COMING DOWN TO GET YOU!!"
Then, I get downstairs and my mom and dad proceed to argue over a bunch of balloons that are in the car. My mother says to me, after I say, "I'll get them", "DON'T YELL AT ME!" I didn't yell. I tell her that. I also advise that she not start anything, which is something she is famous for doing. We get my 81 yr old grandmother out of the car and go upstairs. The fun is about to really start.
My mother unpacks a bag full of maracas, recorders (remember those from music class in elementary school?) and clown gear. She intends to put on a circus in my 3 square foot apartment living room to entertain the children. I go to the cabinet and take the sedative. Only 1/2 a mg. I'm trying to stay lucid and enjoy the day.
Finally, with the vent from the stove whirring, the rattling of the maracas and the reedy tooting of the recorders I snap. "Can we please put the instruments away? My nerves are shot and I can't take the noise." My children, aged 2 and 6 stop immediately. My mother, age 59 1/2 does not. I have to ask again, this time less politely. She complies.
We eat dinner. We eat dessert. Everyone relaxes and then we caravan over to the construction site. I am about to unveil to my family the biggest project I have ever undertaken, I am about to reveal in detail, on a tour of the house, what our dream home is shaping into. My mother says, "I'll be outside blowing bubbles with Eliana."
"But mom," I say, "I want you to see the house."
"I'll see it later, I want to blow bubbles now."
I think I just said it all. What can you add to that?

Generation Gap

Tonight over dinner, we were talking about who knows what (neither of us can actually remember what is was) and I said something about Michael Jackson's nose. Ethan then said...are you ready???

"who is Michael Jackson?"
Alan and I looked at each other and acknowledged that we have now had a pivotal moment during which we realized that there are things that our kids will never truly understand that were integral parts of our pop culture. We've officially become our parents.

Snow Day

Today there was no school. I found this out at 5:38 AM when my friend, Sharon, the class mom, called me to tell me. I would take some time to delve into the irony of waking people up at 5:38 AM to tell them that they can sleep in because their kids have no school, but I think I just did. So, from 5:38 until 7:00, when Eliana finally woke up, I laid awake in bed thinking about how I would handle the day. I am just starting to recover from a week of illness which began to subside overnight after I started my z-pack (zithromax...awesome stuff!). In recent years for some reason, we have been getting this fine powder-type snow that is useless for anything other than inconveniently covering the ground and causing traffic problems. I always think about what it would be like to make a snowman, but never seem to have the opportunity.
This morning I called my friend/neighbor, Lisa, to ask what time the kids would be meeting outside to play in the snow. She told me that she was planning an expedition to a local sledding hotspot. We agreed to go at 1:00. Ethan could not contain himself, and in a "Rain Man"-like fashion, repeatedly demanded to know when we would be leaving for sledding. He cried over and over how unfair I was being because I wasn't taking him outside at that very instant to play in the snow. I offered to help him into his boots and snow clothes so that he could go out in the freezing cold and play by himself. He wanted my company and I was unwilling and unable to indulge him.
Shortly before 1, Lisa called to tell me that the snow I had been watching fall outside all morning had turned to freezing rain and she thought that sledding would be a bad idea. She said that maybe the kids could just go outside and play in the snow for a bit. Ethan jumped around the house screaming like Ed McMahon had just handed him a larger than life check for $20 million. He had just hit the kid lottery...he was about to head out into the first true snowfall of the year to play. His excitement was palpable.
I bundled up the kids and myself and we headed out. Alan was just arriving home at that very moment. We all went outside. Alan and the kids started shoveling the driveway while I ran back inside for my camera. There are some who ask the question, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" My eternal question, it seems, is, "If our family has an experience and no one has taken a photograph with which to scrapbook the moment, did it really happen?" And so I followed the kids outside to take pictures of their adventures in the snow.
Alan went inside to check his work e-mail and the kids and I tried to shovel the driveway. That is when I made a glorious discovery! I realized that the snow was heavy and wet. "Packy" is the term we use for snow like that. It was perfect snow for snowballs, forts and SNOWMEN!! I ran to the lawn and shouted, "Let's make a snowman!" Ethan, being 6 and never having had the opportunity had no idea what to do. His eyes grew wide as I rolled a tiny snowball across the lawn and he watched it grow into a 4-foot wide ball which became the bottom of our snowman. He was amazed by the process. Soon, Sam and Abbey arrived from next door. The project took on new life as the kids dug for "itchy balls" from which to craft a mouth for our snowman, and I ran to the garage to dig out an old, unused bag of charcoal for eyes and buttons. I ran inside and grabbed a hat and a scarf while Lisa and the kids sought out branches for his arms. In no time we had a nice-looking snowman that the kids were proud of. They all stood beside him for a group picture. It was a precious moment frozen (no pun intended) in time. Years from now, Ethan will look back at these pictures and remember his first snowman. Eliana will probably not remember the day, but she'll think the pictures are cool.
The best part is that at one point I stopped being a mommy and a grown up and truly recaptured the spirit of the little girl I used to be. Instead of being grumpy about having to shovel the driveway, or worried about the condition of the roads, I was just delighted by the simple joy of a snowy day, like I used to be when I was a kid. It was fun.