Tag: family

Wonder-fest

My birthday is the day that I get way sucked up to. In the office, people say “happy birthday.” They want to take me to lunch. Send me cards. Acknowledge the date of my birth. And at home, it is the absolute suck-up fest. I become wonderful. The day is wonderful, because I was wonderfully born on it. It is all wonderful, and all me.

The 14-year-old was wondering and wonderfulling on my birthday.

Him: Happy Birthday. You are the best parent in the world.
Me: Well, I’m your best parent. And also your worst.
Him: No, you’re just great. And it’s a great day because if it wasn’t for this day, many years ago, I wouldn’t be here.
Me: So is it YOUR birthday?
Him: NO! It’s your birthday.

Hmmmmm, it seems that even when it’s about me, it’s not. Well, he’s wonderful, too.

p.s. speaking of wonnerful, the Doc is going off on a R&R journey until mid-August. I will return to my thinkin’ when I return.

Posted on by docthink 0

Time Bound

Today, for Father’s Day the 11-year-old composed a most delicious breakfast of eggs and toast with a side of ham. And quite a good meal it was. He not only planned and prepared the meal, but also plated and served. Presentation IS everything.

I had a drink with a friend on Friday who shared some photos of her beloveds from an professional photo shoot. She wanted to capture in film the moments that she sees as a mom. No phony canned expressions of a traditional portrait. The pics were great–her babes are 9 and 6.

I got to thinking about the pics we have of the kids at different ages. Now that the 14-year-old is man-sized, seeing pictures of him as a 3rd grader doesn’t connect with his current being. We were listening to a recording of him from two summers ago–from before he started singing at a register so low that only dogs can hear. The voice on the recording didn’t belong to my son.

Then I started thinking of my own mom. In her head I am still in high-school. She talks about things that I “like” that I haven’t actually liked in say, oh, 20 years?

You can’t freeze time. You can remember the past. But what and who we were, isn’t what and who we are. I used to hold both of the 14-year-old’s feet in my one hand. I can’t get my hands around one of his size 13 sneakers. I used to poke the 11-year-old in his squishy, baby belly and receive the most beautiful tinkles and bubbles of his baby giggles. Now, his belly laughs come from deeper in his belly–some day soon to come from a lower octave.

Capturing a moment or an afternoon in film can help to loose up a memory at a later time. Reconciling that moment to the person, though, gets harder and harder.

Posted on by docthink 0

Henry

“I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do believe in spooks.” [It’s like the mantra of an agnostic, no? But already I digress.]

Henry visited the 11 year old last night. He wore denim overalls, kind of like a baby. He had a red hat, like an old aviator hat that babies wear today. He was short, too. But most of all, he was scary. A nightmare, to be frank.

When I was a kid, I always had to close the closet door before getting into bed. The times that I thought that it was too stupid to give in to my imagination and left the doors opened ended with me turning back on the lights and closing the closet doors. I was irrationally afraid.

The only thing that worked for me was to really push the fear out of my mind. Not to rationalize and say there wasn’t anything there. To just force myself to think of things like rainbows and teddy bears or riding a roller coaster. I couldn’t rationalize my fears away. I had to ignore them.

Henry who?

Posted on by docthink 0

42

This, of course, is the answer to the question of the universe. It is also the number of posts that I have. Hmmmm, makes you wanna think, no?

The issue, as you may recall, with the answer is that nobody knew the question. Kind of like a game of Jeopardy on steroids. Makes you think that you should be thinking about the question–or at least thinkin’ about somethin’.

Today I was thinking about cancer. We have it on both sides. My 85-year-old Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer this summer. Two weeks ago, his surgeon told him, “John, you are going to die from something, but it won’t be lung cancer.” Dad was blowing the weeds out of his suburban front yard last Friday.

My mother-in-law has advanced colon cancer. She is only 75–everything is relative. She had her info delivered before last Thanksgiving and had surgery followed by chemo. She has been doing miraculously well. She is feeling less better now, though.

A tale of two cancers, of two parents, of two families. My first thought about my Dad wasn’t a thought but a prayer. A prayer that he wouldn’t suffer. My mother-in-law moved in with us for her treatment, and we supplied the chocolate treatment, which was key to her good health.

I hate cancer. It is not a just master. It makes you think that you are in control of your emotions. You aren’t. It tricks you. You mourn when your beloved is told. And you think you have made peace with it. You find yourself lulled into a hopeful state when beloved does well. Then you mourn if beloved takes a turn. You think, again, that you have your feelings in check. You don’t. You can’t.

What was that question again?

Posted on by docthink 0

It’s Chinatown

It’s not really fair. You have a kid, and he starts off really small, can’t walk or talk, heck, can’t even feed himself, or get himself to bed without you.

Then, before you know it, he is tall. Sings in a register so low that only dogs can hear him. Pulls on size 13 shoes and wears these huge shoulder pads while playing football. Oh, and he eats a lot, but is able to feed himself. And, indeed, he does that with great success. (Q: “What happened to the applesauce?” A: “I drank it after practice.”)

The other thing is that he wants to be independent. And, you want him to be, that’s how he gets to be a man. So, he uses city buses to get to school, washes and irons his own clothes, and reminds you that his teachers expect high school students to manage their own work.

Guess what, though, he’s just barely 14. It doesn’t matter that high-school junior and senior dollies stalk him at dances. He is a newly-minted 14. He is not quite ready to fly without a net. Do you have to let them fall first?

He’s a man. (slap) He’s a boy. (slap) He’s a man. (slap) He’s a boy. (slap) He’s my man AND my boy.

Forget it, Doc Think, it’s Chinatown.

Posted on by docthink 0

House As Locker

Today is my first day off in 19 days. Yes, that is 19 days straight working, most days 11 or 12 hours long. (Some longer, a few shorter.) So, you say, “What do you have to THINK about that, Doc?”

Well, here is what has happened. My house has turned into a locker. Not a locker room, mind you. But simply a locker. It is a place that we drop things off, on the way to the next thing. It is not a destination, but a storage spot.

At Target at back-to-school time, you can find mirrors and little storage thing-ees that facilitate using your locker. We don’t use them here. No-SIR-ee.

Our locker is for backpacks, briefcases, clothes (usually plucked from baskets or tossed dirty, willy-nilly), blackberries and phones to recharge, shoes, football uniforms, and piles of mail (which likely include bills). Any food items are to grab and go. One difference is that we sleep in the locker. But it isn’t for comfort, just practicality.

This week included multiple football practices, an evening (okay NIGHT) in the emergency room with a broken hand, big dance, two tests, multiple quizzes, and like a thousand and fifty hours on the telephone and e-mail on Hurricane Katrina, oh, and let’ s not forget the calls not made to check in on the post-lung cancer operative Dad (doing great), and newly jaundiced mom-in-law (TBD). Whew!

Tonight, we had dinner at the table. It was such a treat that the sixth-grader insisted on candles. It was a special occasion.

The same, said, sixth-grader brought up (in a confused movie reference) the John Bloorman movie Hope and Glory. The movie chronicles a young family during the WWII Blitz in London, and how the family (mostly young son) coped most excellently.

So, maybe life with house as locker isn’t as damaging as I thought. Or maybe the plates filled with a meal cooked on the stove in the locker and the candles on the locker table were a welcome relief.

Maybe (I think) the locker might have been transformed back into a home.

Posted on by docthink 2

ADD and Kids

I think that I might be borderline ADD. I present many of the behaviors. I have been very lucky to have professionally partnered with people who have balanced my mile-a-minute idea factory with their more structured (read SANER) approaches. This combo has allowed projects to be successfully completed. Completed! Us borderline ADD’s don’t really care about the completion part, but my boss sure does.

For those who know the Myers-Briggs or the Kiersey temperament Sorter, I am ENTP, and when you look at the traits, you can see why I am borderline ADD. My personality type is clever, but bores easily and has more fun coming up with the solution than actually implementing it. I hate work in cycles–once I have been through the cycle I don’t need to do it again! So it’s on to the next idea, next project, next fun. Oh, and I love a good debate and don’t mean to hurt your feelings as I shred your argument. I might even agree with you, but the fight’s the thing.

Oddly, the popular coping mechanism for ADD folks is to create a grid, label it with chunks of time, then fill in the chunks with tasks. They call it time management [Warning, this link is a PDF]. Then all I have to do is complete the work as presented in the grid. Now WHO THE HELL THINKS I CAN DO THAT? Here is what really happens.

  1. I am VERY excited researching and learning about this technique

  2. Day one, I create the grid

  3. Day one, I follow the model and complete many tasks

  4. Day two, I make the grid, but don’t fill it all the way in

  5. Day two, I do some of the items, but also a few things not on the list

  6. Day three, I am so bored with this technique. I did this damn thing already.

  7. I toss this process aside and go back to my normal scramble.

What are those psychologists thinking? The whole point is I don’t like (hate!) doing rote things, so the solution is to do rote things? Sigh. What was it Einstein said about insanity?

I think that the best “job” for us ADD folks is to be parents. Being a parent means being in constant flux. As soon as you think you know what your kid is up to, they enter a new “phase” and all bets are off. New things to figure out for the ADD-addled. Then you go really crazy and add a second child to the mix. You find out that this one is wired totally differently. You can jump back and forth between the friends, problems, activities, joys of two (or more?) of your homegrown issue-generators.

Like my kids are far from opposites, but they perceive and react to the world according to their own personalities. It’s just like they were people! [uh, don’t take that wrong kids. It was a little funny, wasn’t it? Was I being insensitive again?]

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Charcoal Cake

Here is what we learned this evening. First, the chocolate cake from the Giant gets dried out after a while. Some people are willing to eat it past perfection.

Second, after a few hot and humid days, there is a danger that the chocolate cake might be a bit moldy. Some people are willing to investigate it closely before deciding on a course of action.

Third, when somebody says to put the cake in the microwave to soften it up, it might be a good idea to request information on timing. Some people are very optimistic about the benefits of microwaving and think that if 2-3 seconds on “HIGH” is good, 30 seconds would be even better.

Fourth, there is something in the Giant chocolate cake slice that interacts with a microwave oven on “HIGH” for 30 seconds similar to a marshmallow being dropped into white hot coals. It smells the same. Some people thought that it might be salvageable, though.

Fifth, if your Dad takes a bite out of said chocolate cake that has been irradiated on “HIGH” for thirty seconds and caused more than a little smoke to emit from said microwave, and is blackened in the middle and hard as a biscotti, you might think about whether or not you want to share said experience. Some people are willing to take the risk. (This is especially interesting since the Dad was the one who suggested the microwave in the first place.)

Sixth, if somebody gives you bad advice once, they may give you bad advice a second time.

Last, you should always have a back-up dessert.

Posted on by docthink 1

analogies : SAT

(A) picture tube : TV
(B) Red Dye #2 : Red Pop
(C) Democrats : White House
(D) ozone : atmosphere
(E) knuckle-rapping : Catholic Schools

This is a trick question, or maybe not. It’s either all of the above, and that’s not an available choice. Or choose any and you are correct (well, maybe not really D, and–perhaps–not forever C). For those of you who don’t get analogies, the relationship between the two terms are “is no longer a part of.”

I am sorry to see analogies excised from the SAT. And the addition of the essay. It seems to me –uninitiated in the predictive nature of standardized tests–that you can learn more about how somebody thinks based on the relationships that they see between concepts than the 2-3 minutes spent seeing if there is structure to an essay. Let’s evaluate the quality of the thinking by making SAT examinees write their own analogies and explain them. Naaaah, that would be hard.

You try it. Post your own analogy as a comment to the Doc.

Posted on by docthink 0

Dear Parent of My Kid’s Friend,

You do not have my permission to serve my (waaaay) under-age kid alcohol at your house. Not for a graduation party, not for a birthday party, not for an end-of-the-school-year party. Never, nada, nyet, oh-nay*. No drinkie my kid.

And certainly not because you think it it is better that they drink at your house, “under supervision,” than somewhere else. I would prefer if I made it hard on my kids to hurt themselves. Make it easy on your own kid, if you want. Leave mine to his own devices.

I will walk in your house and meet you. I will ask you if you allow drinking. Don’t save my kid from me.

I am not judging you. My parenting motto is “any port in a storm.” You choose the port that your family is comfortable with, and I will choose my family’s port. That’s my job. Did you know that my niece’s best friend’s mom let her daughter’s boyfriend sleep at their house? She thought is was sweet that the 15 and 17 year olds slept in the same room. Guess what happened? The daughter got pregnant. I am not comfortable with this port action, for example.

Maybe you’re the same parent who was amazed that I didn’t give my kids twinkies and ho-hos, and cheezie-doodles in their kindergarten lunch. I will tell you now what I told you then.

YOU ARE THE PARENT.

*that last one is pig-Latin

Posted on by docthink 2