What's hot, what's not

In my last blog post, I wrote about things on Facebook that irritate me and identified a continuum ranging from mild annoyance to substantial aggravation.  Well, I forgot a level. Every so often, Facebook irritation moves beyond annoyance, blows past aggravation and takes me straight to anger. These are the things that get me so fired up I go to sleep fuming about them, wake up thinking about them, and feel compelled to write about them.

This montage of photos makes me angry. Maybe you’ve seen it; it has been making the rounds.

 

As you can see, the image juxtaposes photos of bikini-clad modern day celebrities, looking thin, with photos of retro starlets looking not as thin. The tag line asks, “When did THIS become hotter than THIS?!”

I am puzzled that this image is getting such play. Is it crying out “repost me, repost me, repost me!”? If it is, I can’t hear it. Haven’t we figured out by now, with the richly diverse world we live in, that what is and isn’t “hot” is very much in the eye of the beholder? I’m not sure I get the point of this image and the incessant reposting of it, unless it is simply to elevate one type of woman, based on how her body looks in a bathing suit, by tearing down another type. This is a lose/lose situation, and that’s what makes me angry.

Almost every time I’ve seen this image, it has been posted by a woman. The comments that inevitably follow are also largely made by women, and they always have the same tone: “Amen, Sister!” “It never has been or will be hotter!” “They look like skeletons – gross!” I get the sense these women think they are celebrating “real” women’s bodies and advocating for accepting women’s bodies as they are. Oddly, they seem completely blind to the fact that they’re doing the exact same thing they claim to be against – judging women based on their physical appearance.

Since when are thin women not “real”? I know plenty of women who are thin. In fact, I’m fairly thin myself. I think I’m real. I feel pretty real. I have a job, a husband, a kid. My days are filled with the challenges of balancing work, family and personal time and interests. I get tired; I sleep. I get hungry; I eat. Am I real? It seems run-of-the-mill real to me. Here’s another thing about me: I don’t like being judged based solely on what my body looks like anymore than the fat girl, or the super tall girl, or the short girl, or the girl with freckles.

I don’t think my body is perfect, but I do love it. It takes me from point A to point B in the world pretty effectively. It runs, it does yoga, it plays with my son. It brought my son into the world and that’s pretty amazing. We all have things we like about our bodies and things we don’t like as much. The fact that we put so much focus on physical appearance is the problem.

Objectifying any woman or group of women is objectifying all women. The more women post photos of skinny girls with catty comments or spend precious time and energy criticizing Angelina Jolie or celeb du jour for being too thin on the awards shows, the more women are making it okay for someone else to criticize Adele or any woman for being fat. Media is brutal on all women – they’re equal opportunity objectifiers. One tabloid headline blasts Jessica Simpson for looking fat in her high-waist jeans and the very next is all over Keira Knightly for being too thin. “Is starlet X expecting? It looks like a baby bump! Does Starlet Y have an eating disorder? She looks awfully skinny!” We all know how it goes.

I recently saw Miss Representation, a 2011 documentary film directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The film explores how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power, influence and leadership by portraying women in narrow and often disparaging roles. “You can’t be what you can’t see,” is a major theme of the movie, and our society’s media is not providing positive role models for women and girls to see.

Rarely are women the protagonists of mainstream movies (only 16% of film protagonists are female). Apparently it is a firmly held belief in Hollywood that people want to watch movies about white men and aren’t interested in watching movies about women, particularly strong women who talk to each other about something other than men. What about Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Catwoman, Charlie’s Angels? Yes, there seems to be a whole new genre of action movies featuring women as heroes. Unfortunately, these female protagonists are even more sexualized than the traditional love-interest-of-leading-man roles. Caroline Heldman, a Professor of political science at Occidental College, calls this trend the “Fighting Fuck Toy,” which is an image that is both sad and hilarious; a cross between an action figure and a blow-up doll. “Press the button on my back for badass karate-chop motion!” “Squeeze my thigh for realistic hip-grinding action!” “Pull my hair and I say more than 20 phrases: ‘Take that!’ ‘You’ve been a very bad boy!’ ‘Oh, baby!’ and more!”

I was also shocked by a statistic the film shared about the ages of women in mainstream media. I don’t recall the exact percentages, but the gist was this: the majority of women on television are under the age of 31, while the majority of women in this country are over the age of 45. One of the academics interviewed for the film said something to the effect of “judging by what you see in media, women might as well cease to exist when they turn 40.” Upon hearing this, I clutched my husband’s hand and gave him a panic-stricken look out of the corner of my eye. Yes, I’ll be turning the big 4-0 this year and I will admit I’m a little distraught about it. Now I think I know why: Growing up around media that doesn’t show many examples of women over 40 makes it feel a little like I’m going to cease to exist. I’ve begun to, tongue-in-cheek, call 2012 my “cease to exist year.”

While I consciously know I won’t vanish into thin air when I hit 40, I do know I’ll continue struggling with the results of media’s disparaging and limited depictions of women. That has been going on my entire career. I’ve blogged before about the scarcity of women in highly influential leadership positions in my chosen field – one that is generally thought to be “dominated” by women, at least in terms of sheer numbers. It amazes me to hear people say we’ve gotten past sexism. Are they just not paying attention? When I returned from my three month maternity leave, a high-ranking employee of my organization asked me how I was enjoying motherhood. I told him it was wonderful and I was enjoying it more than I ever imagined I would. He shook his head and said, “Yeah, I’ll never forget what one of my first mentors told me: ‘Never hire a woman of child-bearing age.’” In addition to being sexist, his sentiment doesn’t even make sense. I’m still at my job, working as hard as ever. Besides that over the top example, I notice I am frequently interrupted by men in professional settings and my ideas are disregarded more often than the ideas of men. I know it isn’t just me, as plenty of female colleagues share similar experiences. A friend who is in a high-level leadership position talks about having everyone at a meeting dismiss her suggestions, only to embrace the exact same ideas when they are brought up by a man later in the same meeting.

My friend Llysa Holland recently shared a fascinating article called How the sex bias prevails by Shankar Vedantam. It describes the experiences of two transgendered Stanford University scientists, both of whom underwent sex changes fairly late in their lives – one from man to woman and one from woman to man. The experiences they shared in the different ways they were treated before and after their sex changes are striking. The article posits that perhaps we cannot truly see sexism at work in our society and how it impacts our lives without women being able to experience life as men and vice versa. The scientist who went from being a woman to a man had this to say: “By far, the main difference that I have noticed is that people who don't know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect: I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man." (The italicized emphasis is mine.) The scientist who transitioned from man to woman said this about the differing interpersonal dynamics: "You get interrupted when you are talking, you can't command attention, but above all you can't frame the issues.” This sounds all too familiar.

When smart, successful women can’t get through a sentence in a professional setting without being interrupted, why do we, as women, spend so much time adding our voices to the dull roar portraying us as nothing more than bodies – either too fat or too thin, love-interests, and “Fighting Fuck Toys?” We’ve been well-trained to objectify ourselves and other women; that’s why. We’ve grown up in a media-saturated world that surrounds us with images of how women are “supposed” to look and learned that our value is dependent on whether or not we meet that standard.

How can we get past being critical of ourselves when we apply the same judgmental eye (with the standards simply flipped) to other women? We can’t pick our brand of beautiful and then disparage the rest without opening ourselves up to the same kind of criticism. Let’s stop obsessing about whether Fergie’s tummy-pooch means she’s expecting or if Katie Holmes has an eating disorder. Let’s stop circulating images that compare and judge women based solely on their physical appearance and start concentrating on framing the issues, shall we? That would be hot.

Facebook Irritation: A Continuum

Humor is the greatest thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place. ~Mark Twain

I have a lot of pet peeves (don’t we all) that span various facets of my life and Facebook is no exception. For the most part, I love Facebook. It allows me to stay connected with colleagues. It provides entertainment, ideas, and even inspiration. It has given me the delightful opportunity to reconnect with friends from as far back as elementary school. For all these reasons, I appreciate Facebook and tolerate the endless irritation it also inflicts.

Facebook irritation comes in varying degrees of severity ranging from mild annoyance (Category One) to substantial aggravation (Category Two), with the vast majority falling at the mild annoyance end of the scale. These are the things that elicit nothing more than an eye roll or a head shake. They happen so often that several recurring examples have emerged during my time with the social networking giant. (Before I go any further, yes, I am aware that I probably annoy plenty of people myself. In fact, I may annoy some with this very post. I apologize in advance.)

Just Sayin’

A perfect example of the mild annoyance brand of Facebook irritation is the epidemic overuse, and nonsensical use, of the phrase “just sayin’.” As best as I can ascertain, when employed appropriately, the phrase means the speaker is good naturedly pointing out or calling attention to something the listener might disagree with or be sensitive about. For example:

Person one: I’m tired of doing all the work on this project.

Person two: You don’t do all the work. I did that one thing that one time.

Person one: (glaring)

Person two: I’m just sayin’.

Or . . .

Person one: Do you think I look fat?

Person two: Well, you did eat all that pizza last night.

Person one: (looking crestfallen)

Person two: Just sayin’.

As if “just sayin’” isn’t overused enough in its appropriate context, why do so many people these days find it necessary to insert the phrase at the end of anything and everything they say? It’s stating the obvious at best (if you’ve said it, of course you’re saying it) and completely pointless.

The grocery store was packed tonight. Just sayin’

I hate Mondays. Just sayin’

Baby, I love you so much. Just sayin’

Honey Bunny

It is annoying (and sometimes gag-inducing) when people share the graphic details of their out-of-a-bad-teen-movie romance with the Facebook world.

I wuv you, honey.

Oh baby-waby, I wuv you too.

I can’t WAIT to see you tonight.

Oh really?

Really.

What are you gonna do?

Oh, don’t you worry, you’ll like it . . .”

STOP! Please stop it right now! Don’t you people have private emails? Phones? Public Facebook walls are not for “sexting” or writing your very own Harlequin romance novel. You think it’s adorable when your significant other calls you honey bunny and hilarious that you call his penis Burt. No one else finds it remotely cute or amusing. I promise you.

Today I did upper body at the gym

Why do people feel compelled to share the most detailed minutia of their day-to-day existence in the blandest way possible? This is serious Category One irritation.

I went to the gym.

Uh, okay, thanks for sharing, but that isn’t terribly interesting. In fact, it isn’t interesting at all. It isn’t that you can’t share a status about having gone to the gym but try to spice it up a little. Tell us about how you were on the treadmill next to a guy who was singing along to Britney Spears on his iPod at the top of his lungs. Regale us with a story about how the new yoga teacher’s left boob kept popping out of her tank top with every downward facing dog. Tell us something remotely interesting. Please. For the sake of all your friends who end up reading about it on their news feeds. Friends don’t subject friends to brutally boring statuses.

Re-post unless you hate your own children and want baby animals to be tortured

You’ve seen these statuses. They exist for depression, autism, cancer and every other imaginable disease and disorder:

Cancer is terrible. It claims the lives of (insert statistic here) people each year. More research is needed to find a cure. If you know someone who is fighting or fought a battle with cancer, post this as your status for one hour as a symbol of respect and remembrance. Only some of you will do this, and I know who you are. I hope I’m right about the people who will honor this request.

Cancer sucks. No question. Depression is a real sickness; not good. We need more information about and understanding of autism; absolutely. We all know people who have been affected by these things and we all agree that finding cures for them would be wonderful. So go ahead, post about opportunities to raise funds for medical research, share links to your favorite organizations that are involved in finding solutions and providing assistance, but please, please, please don’t demand that I copy your status and imply that I’m an awful person if I don’t. This is like those bad chain letters (and now emails) that threaten you’ll have bad luck for a zillion years or die a painful and instantaneous death if you don’t pass them on.

Another variation is the statuses that ask you to repost if you are a “true friend”:

If you are a true friend and would be there for me no matter what, then copy and paste this. (I bet not one of my Facebook friends will repost this, but I’m counting on a true friend to do it!)

Hey, guess what, if I’m a true friend who would always be there for you, no matter what, I’m going to pick up the phone and call you, or meet you for lunch, or make sure I’m actually THERE for you. I don’t think reposting a meaningless status on Facebook gets you “true friend” points.

Other statuses demand you repost if you have a sister, mother, brother, father, daughter, cousin, step-aunt-twice-removed, dog, goldfish, or pet rock that you love:

I’ll always need my son no matter what age I am. My son has made me laugh, made me cry, made me proud. He’s hugged me tight, cheered me up, kept me going strong, and driven me crazy at times. But my son is a promise from God that I will have a friend forever. Put this on your status if you have a wonderful son that you love with all your heart.

Here’s the deal: I have a son. He is the joy of my life; truly and completely. For me, the sun rises and sets because of Chester. My life is centered on him in a way I was unable to comprehend before he existed and I’m certain my love for him will continue to expand and deepen in ways I can’t begin to imagine now as he grows into a man. My feelings for my son are so powerful, so heart-rending that I can’t begin to express them. A generic Facebook status sure as heck isn’t going to cut it. I shower him with love and affection in all sorts of ways to make sure he knows how loved he is. There isn’t anything wrong with the sweet sayings, they just aren’t my style. We all love our kids; if a quote or saying resonates with you, by all means, repost it, but don’t imply that if I don’t, I must not love my son.

The “put-this-on-your-status-if” sentence is unnecessary and irritating. If you like something and believe in it and feel compelled to post it, knock yourself out. If people agree with you and want to repost it, they will. You don’t need to be all bossy and judgmental about it.

Those are just a handful of my Facebook pet peeves; the little things that annoy me on a day-to-day basis. Not a big deal. Category One; I just roll my eyes and move along. But sometimes my irritation level rises above mild annoyance and into Category Two – substantial aggravation.

I live and work in a very liberal, urban setting where I am surrounded by people who are a lot like me. My Facebook world, on the other hand, includes many people who are quite a bit different from me. The most typical cause of substantial aggravation on Facebook is a post that represents a political ideology or religious philosophy I do not share. Depending on the topic and delivery, these instances either stay in the realm of mild annoyance or move into substantial aggravation, which means I not only disagree, but feel strongly enough to make a comment and engage in discussion about the issue. The lovely thing about getting this irritated is that it can, when handled productively by both parties, transform a negative reaction into a positive outcome.

In fact, one of my favorite things about Facebook is that, in a highly polarized world where we all gravitate more and more to people, activities and news sources that are like us and support our current views, I have connections with people who think and feel differently than me. When I take the time to engage with someone on an issue, I usually learn a lot. I begin to understand where people with differing thoughts, opinions, and beliefs are coming from, and I realize that we are, in general, more the same than we are different. I love having an intense debate via Facebook and then sharing cute kid pictures or laughing over the trials of parenting.

Of course Category Two irritation doesn’t always turn out so well. It can definitely go wrong when the source of my irritation isn’t willing or able to engage in an intellectual and respectful discussion. I’ve had Facebook “friends” turn disagreements into personal attacks. (Not cool.) And I’ve been “unfriended” by people who apparently do not appreciate, in the same way I do, interacting with someone who disagrees with them. (Sad.)

So, that concludes my rant about things I find irritating on Facebook. Come to think of it, Facebook isn’t so different from the rest of the world. It can be wonderful and it can be irritating. You take the bad with the good and it ends up being worth it. Repost if you agree, honey bunny. If you don’t, you’re a terrible friend. Just sayin’.

What to do with five snow days in a row: A documentary and guide

It started snowing in Seattle on Sunday, January 15. Oddly this snow came just as meteorologists forecasted it would. (If you’ve spent any time in Seattle, listening to Seattle weather forecasts, you know why I say “oddly.”) Now it is Thursday, January 19 and we are on Snow Day #5 or “Nearly to the Bottom of the Descent into Insanity” as I’m calling it and it’s STILL snowing. Don’t get me wrong, I love snow – it’s beautiful and fun and generally a magical deviation from the doldrums of ordinary, day-to-day, winter life. I especially love getting a little snow now and again in Seattle since we so rarely do. The key words here are “a little” and “now and again.” Being home-bound for nearly a week, with a five year old and a ton of work piling up at the office, ceases to be fun, magical and beautiful, and starts to become boring and insanity-inducing. At least it’s still beautiful, with the neighborhood blanketed in white and the trees covered in icy crystals. In fact, yesterday when I suggested shoveling our driveway and sidewalk, Chester looked at me incredulously and sadly asked, “But Mommy . . . don’t you want it to be beautiful?” The answer was, yes, I did want it to stay beautiful, especially considering that’s about all we’ve got at this point.

With the exception of a failed attempt at a school and work day on Tuesday, (Seattle schools opted for a late start and then decided two hours later to go with an early dismissal) we’ve been home – either in our house or neighborhood – for five days now. Five days. And you can only build so many snowmen. Overall I think we’re doing a pretty good job of keeping ourselves entertained. So, as a future reference for myself and anyone else who finds themselves snowed in for the better part of a week, I’ve prepared this list of entertainment suggestions.

1. Engage in typical snow activities

This one is a no-brainier. Of course you should immediately get out in the snow – especially when it’s still super fluffy and fresh. Go for a walk around your neighborhood; you never know what you might discover. We found this brilliant and exquisite skull sculpted out of snow!

Check out the park, have a snowball fight, build snowmen, construct an igloo, go sledding, and make snow angels.

Making snow angels works especially well when you are an adorable child.

As for sledding, it turns out we have a particularly sweet run in our neighborhood – a steep length of side street that is out of the question for cars and therefore quickly claimed by throngs of sledders. Southwest Olga Street, between 37^th and Admiral, has been home to tiny toddlers on itty-bitty sleds, tubing teenagers careening off self-fashioned jumps, middle-aged dads reliving their luge glory days (whether real or imagined, I’m not sure), and people of all shapes and sizes on sleds of all shapes and sizes. Our sledding experience these past few days has been an arctic communal utopia with everyone gathering at the local Starbucks to warm up.

As fantastically fun as snow activities are, they only last for so long. For one thing, you get cold and, as I said earlier, you can only make so many snowmen, which leads me to the next suggestion.

2. Make some new friends                                                 

Hard to believe, but snow storms create a perfect environment for making new friends. Literally. Here’s how to do it: Form a small ball of snow. Roll it around in the snow to make it larger. Repeat until you have three balls in decreasingly smaller sizes. Stack them one on top of the other. Now you have the body of your newest friend! (Yeah, yeah, I know I already talked about making snowmen, but now you’re making FRIENDS. That’s totally different.) Add arms and a face, and style as you see fit. Do you want a super hip, cutting edge friend? A classic, tried and true kind of friend? A preppy friend? Maybe you are feeling rebellious and could use a punk rock friend? A funny friend? A serious friend? You get the idea – style away. Don’t hold back; just think how great your snow friends will look standing in your front yard, mocking the less awesome neighborhood snowmen. The creation of your new posse of pals is the fun part. Unfortunately they aren’t terribly dynamic once they’re complete. Truth be told, they’re kind of dull; they mostly just stand around and act cool . . . super cool.

Super cool friends

3.  Exercise

By day three you are dying from gym and yoga withdrawals. You can’t get there and all the classes are probably canceled anyway. It’s too slippery and slushy to go for a run, and push-ups, wall-sits and ab crunches in your living room are about as boring as it gets. But who needs those things when you’ve got a 50+ pound kid who wants nothing more than to yell “YAH!” and “MUSH!” mercilessly as you pull him around your hilly neighborhood on the sled?

4. Play games

Play lots of games. If you get bored with the games you have, I recommend putting your kid on that sled and pulling him or her to the closest store to invest in some more. For the five-year-old set, allow me to recommend: Sorry, Cars Monopoly, Connect Four, Old Maid, Go Fish, Operation, Toy Story Yahtzee, Crazy 8s, Junior Scrabble, Battleship, Checkers and Jenga. Yeah, like I said, LOTS of games.

 Lots of Games

5.  Work puzzles

Work lots of puzzles. Yes, this is similar to #4, but with puzzles instead of games. Try Toy Story puzzles, Disney puzzles, dinosaur puzzles, map of the United States puzzles, rare tropical frog puzzles. Lots of puzzles.

6. Watch movies

Watch lots of movies. See numbers 3 and 4. Substitute movies and snuggling. Mr. Popper’s Penguins and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel worked well for us. Warning: Side effects involve relentless quoting of the movies which may include, but not be limited to, your child saying, “Hey, Pecky Peckerton!,” pointing at you in the Starbucks line while mouthing “Nimrod,” and even repeatedly singing Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” in a chipmunk voice.

7. Stage an epic battle

Gather your army men, create a brilliant military strategy (or a formation that looks kind of pretty – whichever works for you) and head into battle. This is good for at least an hour of entertainment, especially if your child, like mine, is fond of creating his own games with lengthy, complex rules. Below is a historical photo of the famous Battle of the Toy Snowldiers. Can’t tell what’s going on? Neither could I. It involved rolling two army men like dice and employing some sort of complicated mathematical formula to devise what to do, depending on how they landed. All I know is we lost a lot of good men that day.

 Snowpocalypse Now: Battle of the Toy Snowldiers

8. Build a fort

By now you’ve discovered that building an igloo is a lot of work, the roof is nearly impossible to engineer and it’s too cold to play in for long. So why not build a fort inside? It will take you forever to re-fold every blanket in your house and reassemble all your furniture, that is true, but you should tell that reasonable, tidy, organized voice inside your head to hush up. Twenty minutes of entertainment is well worth the forty minutes it will take you to clean up. In a stunning display of how big an impact a very small person can make, the entire first floor of my house (granted it’s not that big) became . . . well, I’m not exactly sure what it became. I’m going with fort/maze combo. 

My house is not usually arranged like this.

9. Make construction paper monsters

Why? Because it takes up a good two hours, that’s why.

10. Read a book

Opt for a book you might actually enjoy or use the home confinement to compel yourself to get through something less pleasant.  I have Snow Day #5 to thank for forcing me to finally finish Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” – easily one of the least enjoyable books I’ve ever read. I know it’s a classic, by a literary giant (that’s why I forced myself to read it) and my criticizing it is akin to a person who can’t make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich disparaging a five-star restaurant chef, but I can’t help it. I hated it. I know Hemingway “did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer in the twentieth century.” I know he won a Nobel Prize for Literature. I know “A Farewell to Arms” is considered the “best American novel to emerge from World War I.” But despite all that, I hated it. For those of you who haven’t read it, here is my synopsis (spoiler alert): The main character is Lieutenant Henry, an American ambulance driver serving on the Italian front in World War I. He meets a British nurse named Catherine. They don’t really like each other, but then randomly decide they do. There are mountains. The mountains are big and gray and covered with snow. There are rivers that are clear and blue and filled with pebbles and boulders and rocks that are jagged and rough and smooth and wet. There are lots of soldiers marching. They march through mud. It is brown. It is frozen. Lieutenant Henry gets hurt and ends up in a hospital. Nurse Catherine is there and they fall in love. Sort of, I guess. It doesn’t really seem like they’re in love. Their dialogue goes like this:

Catherine: Oh darling, I love you so much. Don’t we have a grand life together?

Henry: Yes, it is very grand, especially at night.

Catherine: I’ll be a good wife for you won’t I? I’m a good girl.

Henry: Yes, you are.

Catherine: Oh, I’m so foolish and stupid and ridiculous. You should go away from me.

Henry: Do you want me to go away?

Catherine: No, I’m nothing without you.

Henry: Good. I don’t want to go away.

This nurse Catherine has some serious self-esteem issues. Anyway, whether or not they’re actually in love, they make love and (surprise) she gets pregnant right about the time his leg is healed and he has to return to the front. There are mountains and farm houses and marching soldiers described in excruciating detail. Soldiers are killed matter-of-factly and their friends barely notice, much less care. Lieutenant Henry goes AWOL and hops a train back to Catherine. They escape the country together via a row boat to Switzerland, where they live for several months.

Catherine: Oh darling, don’t we have a grand time together?

Henry: Very grand.

Catherine: I’m so silly and stupid. And now I’m fat and not at all appealing to you.

Henry: You are more beautiful than you have ever been.

Catherine: Oh, you sweet boy. You are so good to me. You should grow a beard.

Henry: Do you want me to grow a beard?

Catherine: Yes, I think it would be lovely. Oh, I’m so stupid, but I’ll make you a good wife, won’t I?

Henry: Yes, let’s get married now.

Catherine: Oh no, not now while I am so fat. When I am skinny again, then we will get married and I will cut my hair. You will let me, won’t you?

Henry: Yes, I think it will be exciting.

That goes on for a few months. They go on carriage rides and picnics and try to enjoy themselves as much as they can before the baby comes. They fear the baby will ruin everything. Foreshadowing abounds. Finally Catherine goes into labor. It goes on forever. The baby dies. Catherine dies. (You really don’t care.) Lieutenant Henry goes back to the hotel. The end. Seriously, that’s the book. Now you don’t have to read it. Thank you notes are appreciated, but not necessary.

So, there you have it, my top ten ideas for never-ending snow storm entertainment, and not a moment too soon because I just found out school is canceled again on Friday. Snow Day #6 (aka Official Arrival at Insanity) here we come!

Everyone Poohs

We’ve been watching a lot of Winnie the Pooh at our house lately. Santa brought the new movie to Chester for Christmas and it is delightful. It makes Chester giggle uncontrollably, which makes me happier than I ever imagined I could be. All week, I’ve been humming and silently singing, “Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, tubby little buddy all stuffed with fluff, he’s Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, willy nilly silly ol’ bear.” You’d think it would be annoying to have the Winnie the Pooh song on a constant loop in your head, but amazingly it’s not. I can’t be in a bad mood or get too upset about anything with the line “willy nilly silly ol’ bear” running through my mind, and believe me when I tell you that has come in quite handy this week.

It occurred to me a few mornings ago that Winnie the Pooh is sort of the original Toy Story. When the first Toy Story movie came out and rocketed Pixar into mega-super-domination of the animation world, I remember thinking what a great and unique idea it was to base a story on the toys in a child’s room coming to life. I certainly mean no disrespect for Pixar or the Toy Story franchise (I’m a huge fan), but I guess the concept wasn’t really all that new. Chester was watching Winnie the Pooh as I was getting breakfast ready and I was enjoying overhearing the part where Balloon (the red balloon that lives in Christopher Robin’s room) wins the prize for finding a new tail for Eeyore. Rabbit presents the award with a monologue about what a loyal, wonderful friend the winner is. He gets Pooh’s hopes up before excitedly announcing that Balloon wins the pot of honey – much to Pooh’s chagrin. The stuffed animals treat Balloon as an equal member of their Hundred Acre Wood community and why shouldn’t they? He is, like all of them, a beloved toy in Christopher Robin’s room.

I loved Winnie the Pooh as a child and cherished my own stuffed animal versions of the characters that my mom sewed herself. My old Kanga and Roo currently watch over Chester’s room from prime real estate on his dresser and my favorite, Eeyore greets me (gloomily, of course) every day from atop the armoire in my closet. I find it fascinating that the Pooh characters are still so relevant these many years later (A. A. Milne’s first book of short stories about Pooh Bear was released in 1926) and resonate as much (if slightly differently) with me as an adult as they did when I was a kid.

My beloved stuffed Eeyore.

A. A. Milne’s characters masterfully depict common human character traits. I’m certainly not the first person (nor the most articulate) to notice and write about that. The humble little bear and his friends have been used by many authors and academics to illustrate complex philosophical ideas. Benjamin Hoff explains Taoism in The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet. Frederick Crews retold Pooh stories in obscure academic jargon in Postmodern Pooh and The Pooh Perplex, and John T. Williams uses Milne’s characters to illustrate the works of philosophers including Descartes, Kant, Plato and Nietzsche.  

I’m a big believer that, as human beings, our weaknesses can also be our strengths and vice versa. I remind myself of this whenever Chester is being stubborn and argumentative and a general pain in my ass. I take a deep breath and think to myself “This kid will never be anybody’s doormat. He’s going to be persistent and tenacious and will always stand up for what he believes in.” The Hundred Acre Wood characters are so meaningful to generations of people of all ages partly because they beautifully illustrate the somewhat strange but true dynamic that our strengths and weaknesses can be, and often are, one and the same.

Winnie the Pooh is a loyal friend with a pure heart. Unfortunately, he often underestimates himself. Despite being “a bear of very little brain,” he is frequently quite astute and makes great efforts to utilize his limited smarts. Christopher Robin summarizes Pooh well when he eloquently and lovingly reminds him, "You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Eeyore is gray in color with an outlook to match. He is intelligent, but his melancholy mood and cynical wit keep him complaining constantly. He is somewhat of a loner in the forest, often getting left behind, assuming no one wants him around or simply preferring some peace and quiet. Despite his gloomy nature, Eeyore values his friends and, while he certainly never expects kindness or takes favors for granted, he truly appreciates the goodness extended to him.

Piglet is small in stature and timid. He tends to mistake fear for lack of courage. "It is hard to be brave when you're only a Very Small Animal," he says. Piglet’s strengths are kindness, compassion and generosity.

Rabbit is the bossy one of the bunch. He is high strung and strives to create order, as evidenced by his dedication to perfecting his garden, as well as his tendency to make lists, create agendas and generally order the rest of the characters around. Rabbit is clever and knows how to get things done.

Tigger is exuberant; perhaps overly so. He loves nothing more than to bounce – sometimes he bounces his friends in greeting, sometimes on accident, but he always wreaks havoc. He is boastful and overestimates his abilities. Despite his annoying traits, Tigger is so fun-loving and sweet, he is hard not to love. As he is fond of saying, “The wonderful thing about Tiggers is I’m the only one!”

Owl is brainy and immerses himself in intellectual pursuits such as knowing and spelling long words. He can be impatient with the less intelligent characters and often bores them with long-winded stories. While Owl is genuinely smart, he isn’t necessarily as knowledgeable as he leads the others to believe. He occasionally bluffs his way through lack of expertise to maintain his reputation of being wise.

Kanga is the only female of the forest’s core characters and gets along well with everyone. She is nurturing, practical, level-headed and motherly.

Roo is the youngest forest resident. He has the cheerful, optimistic outlook of a child, with an untarnished belief in himself and the world around him. He is bright and brave, but can be a bit of a show-off in his efforts to win praise from his mother and friends.

Milne’s characters have been so beloved, for so long because we all see a little of each of them, in varying degrees, in ourselves. In fact, a quick internet search turned up all sorts of sites that offer descriptions of the characters’ personalities and at least half a dozen “Which Winnie the Pooh character are you?” quizzes. I took a few of the quizzes and interestingly, but not so surprisingly to me, came up with a different character each time. My guess is that it would be difficult for most people to choose only ONE character that represents them. The beauty of Winnie the Pooh is that we can identify with all of them.

A dear friend and colleague of mine had a great product idea based on this concept: Pooh Totems. Totems are usually an animal or other natural figure that spiritually characterizes a person or group of people. In this case, the animals would be Pooh characters and people could construct their own, unique “totem pole” of the characters that represent them best. The objects themselves could take a variety of forms. The characters could be plastic – like pop beads for kids or rendered from precious metals and made into some sort of jewelry concept. They could be key chains or paperweights or any number of things, and they would be appealing to all ages, because honestly, who (besides someone really evil) doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh?  

So, for example, my Pooh Totem is Eeyore-Pooh-Rabbit. I’m cynical on the surface, but ultimately believe in the goodness of people and the world. I’m intensely loyal to and have unwavering confidence in my family and friends, but almost always underestimate my own abilities. I’m nothing if not organized. I could easily give Rabbit a run for his money in the creation of lists department, and while I undoubtedly drive a lot of people crazy in the process, I absolutely get things done.

It’s fun and even somewhat addictive to contemplate what the Pooh Totems of friends and family would be. I’m pegging my husband’s Pooh Totem as Pooh-Roo-Piglet (the compassionate part of Piglet, not the small in stature part), with a touch of Eeyore. My five-year-old son is Tigger-Rabbit-Roo (mostly Tigger at this age!)

I’ve even amused myself in particularly boring meetings or kept myself calm in contentious ones by mapping the Pooh Totems of my colleagues. As annoying as that naysayer is, it’s somehow easier to tolerate when I imagine them as a Piglet who finds it hard to be brave. Who hasn’t come across know-it-all Owl types who use meetings and projects as vehicles to create a perception that they are a whole lot smarter than they actually are? And there always seems to be a Tigger – that person who operates with such a lack of finesse and utter disregard for policy, hierarchy and general professionalism that they leave a trail (or a conference room, as the case may be) full of people who literally feel like they’ve been bounced upon. When I want to strangle these people, I try to see them as good-natured Tiggers who are simply unable to contain their enthusiasm.

                                                                                                 

See how fun and useful Pooh Totems are! Give it a try . . . which Pooh are you?

 

Christopher Robin's "Winnie-the-Pooh Character Guide". Winnie-the-Pooh FAQ. http://www.lavasurfer.com/pooh-faq.html. (January 6, 2012).

Wish you were here

Seriously, I really I wish you were here. Not in a “Look at this beautiful postcard! You should be here having an umbrella-adorned cocktail with me,” way. In an “I’m crawling through dirt and spider webs in a dark basement and you should be here doing it instead,” way.  Not in a “This place is fantastic! You would love it,” way. In an “I’m ankle deep in sewage and trying to talk shop with a couple of burly plumbers,” way.

Wish you were here!

I should back up a bit . . . My husband does a lot of traveling for his work. He’s been gone four of the past six weeks. And when he’s gone, he’s really gone. He’s not in L.A. or Houston or anywhere that would involve a quick flight home if absolutely necessary. Oh no, he’s in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or, currently, China.

The travel in and of itself wouldn’t be so bad. Of course I miss him and so does our son. We would certainly rather have him home with us than constantly gone, but we’re thankful for the fact that there is work to be had, international as it may be. For the most part, Chester and I have become accustomed to Matt’s trips and while we don’t like them, we’re a pretty good, highly functioning little team when he’s gone. It isn’t the travel that’s a problem; it’s the fact that all sorts of issues arise during the travel. If something drastically difficult or trying is going to happen, it happens when Matt is gone and it happens almost every time he is gone. It’s a variation of Murphy’s Law – if anything can go wrong, it will – and it will be when your husband is far, far from home and you are keeping the house, your job and an extremely active child held together and moving forward on an unstable combination of sheer determination, crossed fingers, caffeine, pinot noir and popsicles. (The caffeine and pinot are for me; the popsicles are for Chester. Just to clarify, lest someone think I’m gorging myself on sugary frozen treats and letting my five year old drink wine.)

I used to think the catastrophes that occurred in Matt’s absence were a crazy coincidence, but at this point there are far too many to rationalize with such an innocent explanation. I’m convinced a dark force of the universe is at play. I’ve lost track of all the episodes. But these are some of the highlights (if that’s the right word).

Matt was on a trip when Chester’s first stomach flu struck at eight months old. Chester was playing quietly and happily in his Pack n’ Play, which, now that I think about it should have tipped me off that something was wrong. (That was the first and last time Chester was quiet or happy while confined to the Pack n’ Play.) I looked up from whatever I was doing just in time to see him puking. I had no idea such a tiny being could produce that much vomit. I spent the next hour trying to keep him from crawling into trouble, while I thoroughly cleaned the Pack n’ Play. I can’t imagine this task taking an hour now, but at the time I was profoundly sleep deprived and a psychotic new parent who was certain the world would end if everything was not 100% sanitized at all times.

Illness struck again while Matt was on the road shortly before Christmas when Chester was three and a half. Ah, the Christmas Fiasco of 2009, one of my all time-favorites. It all started when Chester woke up one morning with a nasty case of pink eye. I had a babysitter come over to watch him while I went to an evening meeting at work. I was just finishing around 7 p.m. when my phone rang. It was the babysitter: “Hi Ronda, this is Karen. You don’t need to rush home or anything, but I wanted to let you know that Chester has been throwing up every 15 minutes for a couple of hours now. You might want to pick up some of those Pedialyte popsicles.” By the time I arrived home, Pedialyte popsicles in hand, he had thrown up on the couch, on the floor, on the coffee table and all over himself multiple times. Karen had done her best to clean up and nearly every towel in the house was in the laundry room. By the time Chester stopped puking at 5 a.m. I hadn’t slept a wink and had done more loads of laundry than I could count. A couple of days later, he was on the mend and I thought we were out of the woods – another disaster dealt with. I was mistaken. Shortly after going to bed on Friday night, Chester woke up complaining of an “itchy leg.” I thought he was having a bizarre dream, but his complaining persisted. When I turned on the light to see what was going on, I found an angry, welted, red rash not only on his leg, but over his entire body. A phone call to the after-hours nurse and a lukewarm bath later, we were in the car, headed to the 24 hour pharmacy for Benadryl. We passed through a bar-hopping portion of town and I’ll never forget thinking, “It’s one in the morning! What are all these people doing out?” It took me a while, but I figured it out, “Oh yeah! Friday night . . . I remember that!”

About a year ago, we had another medical emergency involving impact to Chester’s head, repeated vomiting and an entire night at Children’s Hospital ER. The day started well; I took Chester to Rudy’s Barbershop for a haircut and then we headed across the street to Hot Mama’s Pizza. I frequented Hot Mama’s in my young, single days, so I love taking Chester there and marveling at the unexpected and wonderful changes life brings. Hot Mama’s is kid-friendly enough. It’s not the kind of place that passes out coloring sheets and crayons, but it’s a hole-in-the-wall, dive joint that plays good, loud music, and serves pizza and soda. What’s not to love? The only problem is the seating – high barstools are the only option. I tried to impress upon Chester the importance of sitting still and being careful. I know full well that “sit still” and “be careful” are incomprehensible phrases to the little boy brain, so I’m not sure why I bothered. Chester appeared to be listening. He looked at me, nodded his head and then proceeded to wiggle right off the stool, landing smack on his head on the concrete floor. After the initial panic and crying subsided, he seemed fine. Later that evening we met some friends for dinner. We had just ordered our food when Chester turned to me, said, “Mommy, I don’t feel good,” and barfed all over my shirt and the floor. I scooped him up and rushed to the bathroom, leaving our poor friends and the unlucky wait-staff to deal with the mess at the table. I peeled my shirt off and lamely attempted to rinse it in the sink. I wracked my brain about what to do: Wear the shirt? Nonchalantly proceed back to the table in a hot pink lace bra? Neither option seemed feasible. Finally it hit me – I had a coat at the table that was comprised of a shell and a liner. If I could get to the table and retrieve the coat, I could ditch my vomit-soaked shirt and simply wear the liner. I was thinking out loud and noticed Chester staring at me, wide-eyed. “Mommy?” he said, “You’re not going to go out there like THAT are you?” “No Chester,” I said, “I’ll have to put the wet shirt back on just to get out there and back.” He looked extremely relieved. “Oh good, because if you went out there like that, people would see your  . . . um, your . . . THOSE!” he said as he motioned in the general direction of my chest.

My plan worked and we managed to get through the rest of the dinner without incident. By the time we pulled into our driveway, I was blaming the whole episode on sugary snacks. We were minutes, if not seconds, from getting out of the car when Chester started puking again. After several more rounds, I got him tucked in and went to bed thinking it must be a stomach bug. It wasn’t until I was drifting off to sleep that I thought back to the fall off the stool and began wondering if there might be a connection. It worried me enough to get up and call the after-hours nurse who instructed us to go to the hospital immediately. We checked into Children’s Hospital ER at about 10 p.m. And then we waited, and waited, and waited while Chester puked into trash cans and bedpans. For whatever reason, every kid in the city was sick or injured on that particular night. To make a long story a little less long, there was a lot more waiting – waiting for an intake nurse, waiting for the resident doctor, waiting for the attending doctor, waiting for an MRI and waiting for results. Thankfully nothing was wrong with Chester’s adorable little head; it was just a coincidence that he came down with a stomach bug mere hours after a significant fall. We got home around 4 a.m. and a very short two hours later, Chester was up and ready to go as if nothing had ever happened. Of course.  

There has been a laundry list of other minor illnesses and injuries – I’ve thrown my back out twice in my life, both times in the past five years and both times when Matt was out of town – but not all of the bad luck that befalls us in Matt’s absence involves medical issues. Oh no, we’ve had ant infestations, clogged toilets, more flat tires than I can count and a fairly significant car accident to deal with.

Of all the ridiculous fiascos we’ve had, the most current has got to be one of the most dramatic and unbelievable. It ranks because of its one-two punch cruelty, its inclusion of things I hate (namely spiders, coldness and sewage) and its staggering financial impact. It all started last Sunday night after a long day of work. I arrived home to find Chester and his babysitter sitting in the dark. “There was a burning smell so we turned everything off,” Karen reported. I could definitely smell it, but I couldn’t figure out the source. An hour later, I noticed the house was getting colder and colder despite my repeated attempts to crank up the thermostat. A phone call to Matt in the middle of his work day in China confirmed that something must have gone wrong with the furnace. “You’re going to have to go down in the basement and check it out,” Matt calmly instructed. My response was an incredulous “WHAT?!” followed by a swift and firm, “No way!” Our basement is unfinished. (“Unfinished” is putting it nicely.) Half of the basement is concrete and exposed wood, the other half is earth, aka dirt, soil and all the creepy crawlies that live in it. Guess which half the furnace is in? I make a point of spending as little time as possible in our basement and would rather be subjected to all sorts of awfulness than venture into the dirt side. I steeled myself, grabbed a flashlight and outfitted Chester in his rain boots before we made the descent. With Matt on “Face Time” (as if he could protect me from spiders through our phones – the iPhone is an amazing device, but as far as I know, there is not yet an app for that), I did what I had to do. We determined something was definitely wrong and that we would have to suffer through a cold night and call the furnace people in the morning. My final task was to flip the furnace switch to “off.” Apparently there is some mercy, goodness and light in the world, because I was able to do it using a long dowel found in a corner of the basement, thus preventing me from crawling any further into the dirt. We bundled up and had a good space heater upstairs, but when we woke up in the morning, it was 28 degrees outside and 48 degrees inside our house. Brrrr.

I spent Monday morning waiting for the furnace guy to arrive and the afternoon waiting while he fixed it. The computer board was fried – literally a blackened, melted mess. The good news is that replacement parts were available. So, I got to spend $1,500 to repair my existing furnace, instead of $5,000 to purchase a new furnace, and it’s a good thing because the excitement was just beginning.

We had happy, warm, peaceful nights in our house Monday and Tuesday, and I actually thought I might have a chance of catching up at work before all hell broke loose Wednesday morning. Still bleary-eyed, I went into our downstairs bathroom and found myself ankle-deep in sewage – a very bad start to a day. I cleaned up the mess, plunged the toilet and it flushed just fine. Relieved, I tried one more flush to be sure – massive quantities of sewage once again spilled into my bathroom. Cursing and crying, I cleaned up again. “We’ll just have to use the upstairs bathroom until Daddy gets home and figures this out,” I told Chester. This is the kind of thing husbands are for, right? Before we left the house for the day, I ventured back into the downstairs bathroom one more time and . . . stepped into ankle-deep sewage. Clearly, a bigger problem than I had initially suspected. I rushed Chester to school, called the plumber, resigned myself to another missed day of work and waited.

It didn’t take long for the plumbers to figure out something significant was going on. Just how significant was unclear until they jack-hammered open a chunk of my driveway, dug up the main sewer line and cut it open. Well, actually they didn’t have to cut it open, the 87 year old, terra cotta pipe simply disintegrated. (Clay! What were the contractors of 1925 thinking?) A solid mass of roots and muck was revealed, packed so tight it was formed to the pipe’s exact size and shape. The pipe was breaking and clogged for most of the way to the street, where our sewer connects to the city system. The verdict was in – we need to replace the entire thing to the tune of $12,250. The grand total with tax is a whopping $13,463. I don’t know about most people but we don’t have that kind of money sitting around waiting to be spent on something as boring (and yet damnably necessary) as a sewer line. I gritted my teeth as I extended our home equity line of credit, futilely attempting to steady my breath and calm my churning stomach. All I can think about now is that we could have taken several exotic vacations that would have resulted in lifelong memories, or I could have acquired a drop-dead stunning piece of sparkle that would have delighted me forever. We could have purchased a new car to replace one of our rapidly aging ones. I’d even take replacing the roof (which we desperately need to do) over a new sewer line; at least you can SEE a roof. But no, instead, I dropped fifteen grand this week on a part for my furnace and a pipe that resides under the ground and carries poop. Glamour factor: Zero.

In summary, there is a dark force working against me. It causes disaster and destruction while Matt is traveling and I’m home alone trying to be a responsible home owner, a good mom and a competent professional at the same time. This would be worse if I thought Matt enjoyed being on the road, but I know he doesn’t. He crams his 6’6” frame into airplanes for crazy-long flights. He stays in hotels that are, at best, business-traveler-bland. He sleeps very little, stresses a lot and works like a madman. All the while very much wishing he could be home instead.

Of all the bad weeks that Chester and I have had while Matt is away, this has been one of the worst. So maybe “I wish you were here” isn’t the best way to express my sentiments. Heck, I don’t even want to be here! Why would I wish it on someone else? How about this instead . . .

I wish we were both there.

It's Grand

My family is a classic example of the modern norm: People moving far away from families of origin for school or jobs or other adventures, and then starting their own families in relative isolation from extended relatives. I currently live 500 miles from my parents and air travel isn’t a great option since they live two and a half hours from an airport of significant size. My husband’s parents live on the other side of the country and his siblings are scattered about as far and wide as you can get within the contiguous United States: Seattle, Columbus, Pittsburgh and Austin. I didn’t think much of this situation one way or the other until we had a child.

I have a fantastic relationship with my parents and I’ve always missed them, but now I miss them like crazy. I am insanely jealous of friends who have their parents down the street, in the next town or even within a couple of hours. I fantasize about how much easier my life would be if one of Chester’s grandmas were around to pick him up in a pinch, provide a much needed date night or spend a couple of hours with him so I could get to a yoga class on the weekend. And I’m not just envious of the built-in help that nearby grandparents provide; I’m also jealous of the time spent together and how it nurtures and benefits all the relationships involved.

My mom recently headed home after a wonderful week and a half visit. I had a rather obvious, but profound nonetheless, realization the night before she left. We were having dinner at our neighborhood Thai restaurant. Chester and my mom were laughing and playing on their side of the table, Matt and I were having a pleasant conversation on our side. It felt so natural and normal and good, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, “Wow, this is how it was for the vast majority of history!” (Maybe not eating lemongrass tofu and drinking Singha, but the extended family part.)

While the nuclear-family-in-relative-isolation trend is recent considering the course of human history, I’m not the first generation in my family to do it this way. For most of my childhood, we didn’t live near any of my grandparents either. There was a brief stretch of living two or three doors down the street from my mom’s parents when I was around four years old, and I still remember it, these 30-some years later, as a charmed time.

We lived several states away from my dad’s parents – I can probably count the times I saw my dad’s father on one hand. We only visited my grandma every few summers, and because she ran a bar for a living and slept during the days, I didn’t see her much. When I was eleven years old, we moved to my dad’s hometown where his mother lived. Even then, I only saw her occasionally – mostly on holidays – and we were never close. She came across as judgmental and seemed to care far more about her Daschund than any human-being in her life. As an adult, I’ve heard stories about her – how she spent whole summers as a young girl trekking through the Oregon wilderness on a horse, for example – that make me wish I had gotten to know her better.

I had a close relationship with both of my mom’s parents, but my grandpa Chester and I had a special bond to say the least. The year or two we lived next to them was truly magical for me. I loved being able to run down the street and see my grandpa any time I wanted. I told him secrets. We built towers and cities out of blocks. We played “Barrel of Monkeys,”  “High Card Takes the Trick,” and “Go Fish.” We grew pollywogs in my plastic pool. We made trips to A&W for root beer floats. He was particularly fond of taking walks and I was always willing to tag along – he had a way of making a simple jaunt around the neighborhood seem like a grand adventure. To put it simply, my grandpa was the coolest, most fun person in the universe as far as I was concerned. He even had a “hook” instead of a right hand. It was like having the kindest and most loving pirate in the world as my very own grandpa. What could be better than that, for crying out loud?! (Answer: nothing.) He occupied a place in my heart and a status in my mind that no one else could fill, not then and not since. 

Me and my Grandpa Chester

  

When we moved to Brookings, Oregon in 1983, my mom’s parents decided to move there too. Any anxiety I felt about being the new girl, in a new town was completely overshadowed by the excitement of living near my grandpa again. I couldn’t wait to sleep over at their house on the weekends, explore new walking routes and have all sorts of adventures. It was, indeed, as wonderful as I had hoped . . . for a few short months. My opportunity to live near my grandpa again ended tragically and much, much too soon when my grandpa took his own life. After that, my grandma moved to California to be near my uncle. She passed away about five years later when I was in high school. I never got to know her very well – when my grandpa was alive, I was attached at the hip to him. After he died, my grandma was (understandably) depressed. She cried every time she called our house and that was difficult for a self-absorbed teenage girl to handle in an empathetic manner. I got into the habit of passing her off to my mom as quickly as I could when I did end up with one of her calls.

I don’t think a day has gone by in my life that I haven’t thought of and missed my grandpa. The emotions have gone back and forth over the years from shock to confusion to anger to sadness, but mostly I just miss him and wonder what my life and our relationship would have been like had he been around long enough to know me as a teenager, a college student, an adult. I still admire him and hope that he would be proud of me. When I had my son, there was no question that he would be named after his great grandpa. There is a photo in my son’s room of my grandpa wearing his signature cowboy hat. Chester asks about him a lot “Where is his arm?” (Good question. He lost it in a farming accident.) “Was he a cowboy?” (Yes, he was.) “Did he ever see me?” (Sadly, no, he did not.)

Given my relationship with my grandpa Chester, it has been fascinating and emotional to watch the relationship develop between my son Chester and my mom. To say they are “close” is a gross understatement of reality. They are like two peas in a pod. Seeing the two of them together is like watching my own memories – it’s as if they are a reflection, a remnant, a recreation of my grandpa and me. I could just sit and watch them together for hours, and I’d very much like to do it more often than two or three times a year.

Chester and his "Grammy" (aka my mom)

Chester was not happy when my mom left after this most recent visit. He took to calling her “Grammy” during her stay and for days he made tearful demands for her . . .

“Chester, what would you like for dinner?”

“I want my Grammy?!”

“Have a good day at school. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Will Grammy be with you when you pick me up?”

“No, Chester, Grandma had to go home.”

“I want Grammy!”

“OK, Chester it’s time for your bath.”

“I want Grammy!”

“Hey Chester, do you want to watch a movie with me?”

“I want Grammy!”

You get the idea. It has been a little over a week now and he has finally settled back into day-to-day life without “Grammy,” but we all miss her and the easy happiness that seemed to flow when she was here.

Chester doesn’t get to see my parents nearly enough, and he has even fewer opportunities to see Matt’s parents. We live on opposite sides of the country, which makes frequent visits problematic for a number of reasons, both financial and logistical. The times Chester has spent with his “Grandma and Grandpa B” have been truly wonderful. He was immediately drawn to my father-in-law the first time they saw each other when Chester was a year old. I will never forget him sitting in Grandpa B’s lap, pulling and snapping his suspenders over and over again with smiles and giggles of delight. Since our last visit with them a year ago, Grandpa B and Chester have a running joke about potato chips and Chester’s reluctance (OK, downright refusal) to share them.

Matt’s mom is the quintessential grandma in the spoiling sense. If there were such a thing, she would be the undefeated, world champion of doting grandmas. She adores Chester and makes everything all about him (in a beautiful, self-esteem-nurturing way). When we visited them last Thanksgiving, Grandma B kept telling him “Chester, this is YOUR party! This is all for you.” He was eating it up and Matt and I kept shooting each other this-is-really-sweet-but-he-is-going-to-be-unbearable-when-we-go-home looks. One day, while they were snuggled up on the couch together watching a cartoon, she said it again, “Chester, this is YOUR party. You are the STAR!” He thought for a few seconds and said, “If I’m the star, does that mean everybody else is just ornaments?” Now if that isn’t how a grandma is supposed to make you feel, I don’t know what is.

Fortunately, the love runs deep in all directions between Chester and his grandparents; deep enough to translate through cards and emails and phone calls and sharing photos via the internet. I still wish we got to see them all more often and I dream of how wonderful it would be to have them living close by. For now we’re counting the days until we go to “Grammy” and grandpa’s house for Christmas, and I’m not-so-subtly reminding my mom that there are many lovely homes available for sale, right here in our neighborhood.