Comfort Food

This weekend, I get to sing with my boys.

Before I had my boyos, I had my boys. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and auditioned for and was welcomed into a cover band that played out and about here in Arlington, DC and more. I spent 5 wonderful years with these guys. I mean, they drove me CRAZY sometimes, and it's 100% certain that there were times that they probably wanted to throttle me.  But the best years of my life as an individual were spent with them, traveling, performing, and joking. I can remember times I laughed so hard I cried, and then I was so emotionally spent I couldn't stop crying (that was in Kosovo...)  They called me on my stupid, selfish bullshit. The shows kept me up well past a normal bedtime, preparing me for life as a new parent (and then, essentially, just as a parent).

I love them. I hope they know it. I'm not good about saying it to them because, (a) at the time, it would have been super weird and awkward and (b) I basically was a guy when with them, and guys just don't blurt out "I love you!" all the time, from what I'm told.

Anyway, by sheer dumb luck (and smelling nice), I got to be with them in the late 90s/early 00s. And when I called and emailed earlier this year and said, hey, would you come play our annual pig roast, they all said yes.

My boyos didn't really get it. To them, I already play with "the band" because half of the current band is half of the line-up of the OLD band. I tried to explain why I was so excited. Total blank eyes. But, being children, I finally found the link.

I said, you know when I make you your favorite meal? And it tastes really good, and it makes you feel warm inside and good inside?

"Yeah." Their eyes brightened in recognition of that feeling.

Well, that's what playing with my boys is like for me. I'm so grateful they are coming to play with me. It's the comfort food of my soul. And my soul is in desperate need of nourishing.

Life's Trap Doors

So a few days ago, someone around me used the phrase "the short bus" to describe the bus service for special needs children. While I'm certain that no harm was intended, it stopped me cold. The second those words were out in the air, a trap door opened underneath me.  Another person nearby could tell, and was quietly, unobtrusively, and wonderfully supportive of me, but it was truly a bucket of ice water being dropped on me. I had Tucker with me (who seems to have not heard it, or not cared) so I sucked the tears back in as quickly as I could and moved on with the day, but it's been lingering, and it occurred to me that the trap door nature is the part that is bothering me the most. I don't like this feeling that I caught myself by the fingertips at the edge, and have to awkwardly find a way back up.

I am a calm person in an emergency. But the trap door part of my life now is going to be probably the hardest, because I cannot predict them. Trap doors. Landmines. There's all kinds of imagery I could use. The image isn't what matters. It's the feeling of your stomach dropping out that you cannot predict or avoid. And the worry that your sensitive little ones are going to hear disparaging things and want explanations that you don't readily have. And the internal sadness that people can be thoughtless, including you. Seems pretty much like life, right? Why is this so much harder now?

I'm still sorting through it. Any ideas you have would be appreciated.

Parenting to Enough

I have an admission to make, and it's going to sound bad or judgemental but it is not intended to.

I don't read parenting books. I don't read parenting articles. None of it. 

I stopped short about 6 weeks into parenthood. Firstly because I was exhausted and susceptible to every type of paranoia out there about every possible thing that could be going wrong with what I'm doing. Who needs that kind on pressure on top of being wholly responsible for a person OUTSIDE your own body for the first time? But then, a few weeks later, it was because basically none of it applied, and I had a host of other reading and learning to get done that was more critical.

My initial logic (most likely flawed) was...well, lots of people have done it without the experts telling them what to do because there were fewer communication vehicles, and I'm pretty well educated AND have common sense. I can do this. Also, my kid is not a type.

For Connor, this turned out to be a really good thing, because letting go of all that reading, that pressure to be perfect and help him/nurture him into perfection would have been an Herculean effort with little return.  

Then, when it came to the other boys, I just leaned on the "our family is different, so we can't..." as my excuse. Yes, it's an excuse. To be the best at anything, there's the combination of natural talent and study. I was a good student, and would usually put in the effort to become fluent in something. Enough work to play basketball well. Enough work to dance well enough to be cast in a musical. Enough work to be near the top of my class, but not the very, very top.  Enough.

I feel now like a lot of parenting is getting to enough. I do enough that they keep growing, physically and emotionally. Life is not perfect, and it can't be. You can joke about the Disney Princesses perfect lives, who sang with the animals, and that those same animals helped those princesses...but remember - Cinderella was enslaved by her stepmother and Snow White had to run away so that her stepmother would think she was dead. So....emotionally speaking, what the HELL? I'd rather have a choppy, disjointed, love-them-one-minute-hate-them-the-next relationship with my kids, because it's natural. More so than anthropomorphizing animals to entertain children (and make them terrified of step-mothers). It's natural to have feelings, and to be overwhelmed at times. I don't TELL them that. They know when I am annoyed, or mad, or even seething. Usually, I have to get to seething before they care. They're kids. OF COURSE. I remember when I was probably 9 years old, and my mother had reached her limit (or so it seemed to me) at the war-zone condition of my bedroom. She very dramatically beat her fists on the wall and possibly even threatened to remove everything on the floor and throw it away. She wailed. Full on wailing. I was terrified. I'd never once seen her lose her cool like that, and felt terrible that I had caused it.

I'm still a slob, but less so. It's been 34 years or so since that happens and I can still see her in the hallway outside my room, and then the little flowers on the wallpaper in my room as I sat in there after she was done, crying and hoping that my mom still loved me. (There was a lot of drama going on that night, as it turns out.)

It's examples from my past that I try to channel as a parent. And if my kids' doctor says to me, "I think you should read up on these things..." I will. But until that, I'm going to do my best with the tools I was born with, or those I can construct without Youtube instructional videos.

Spring Break

We're all on spring break these days. We started ours off by flying to visit Shannon & Todd in Chicago. It was windy and a bit chilly but not bad, considering. They live in a nice 3 bedroom place 4 flights up. There's no chance we could have traveled there with Connor and stayed with them. Just getting him up and down the stairs would have taken 20 minutes and exceptional coordination (one adult per flight, maybe?) Of course, if we'd had to, we would have. It's what we always did. He probably would have loved chopped up deep dish pizza. He loved big flavors. But the wind would have bothered Connor too, and feeding him from the hot dog stand by the Field Museum? Impossible. He would have enjoyed seeing some of the exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry probably. I'm so glad we were able to go and share time with Shannon & Todd, and see about 1% of the awesome stuff we could go see there. Looking forward to another trip there, maybe in the summer time next time!

We went to the nursery today to get plants for this year's memorial garden. The boys selected a yellow jasmine plant, hyacinths, and some orange flowers I've never heard of. Oh, and Gerbera daisies, my favorite. I also grabbed a beautiful (in my opinion) hydrangea bush. I really hope it flourishes. The honeysuckle vine from Megan and Tlaloc and the lavender from Shannon and Todd are still going strong.  The butterfly bush from my parents and the lilac bush from Erin are resurging after a long and weird winter. It's 60 degrees! It's below freezing and snowing for 36 hours!  It's 60 degrees again!

Tucker also wants to try growing corn, so we bought corn seeds. I'll let you know how the garden grows (on the side - no food items in the memorial garden). The cherry trees here in DC have reached their peak, and the air on my block is filled with small white petals floating down in the breeze now. It reminds me a bit too much of snow but the warm air helps...some.

So this weekend, during Easter, we will plant some new life in Connor's garden. It seems like a very good way to celebrate Easter and to remember him a little more than usual. If you get a chance, plant a seed for him. I know he'll rain down, and shine down, on those plants for you.

Snooping

It's a time honored tradition...you snoop in your sibling's stuff...your parent finds something you carefully hid...to snoop is human nature. But beware...you will almost always find something you don't want to see.

Today, I was the parent reader in Tucker's class. I love his class, and I'm happy to have the chance to be with him. Because the younger boys went to a cooperative preschool, we knew their classmates (and their classmates' families) really well and I miss knowing everyone.

I arrived today and waited at Tucker's desk for the class to return from PE. In that time honored tradition...I started shifting through the mess inside his desk. First, I got his reading books all piled together. Then I pulled out his Reading and Writing notebook. There were many pages in a row of what must be work related to classroom materials. I held the book in my hand, and it opened to a page almost midway through the composition book naturally. There, 20 pages beyond his classwork, was this:

I think this is what he wrote:

Connor's Dath (death)

It was a normal day.

my dad got up

he discovered Connor was dead.

He started to cry.

Me and my brother got up.

(Unintelligible) on the floor was my dad sobbing.

My poor littlest man. But what en elegant expression from a 6 year old (who was a 4 year old when this happened!) There was a check-mark next to it, which means I think his teacher saw the work. I'm glad I saw it, but wish I hadn't, also.

Smiley Face

As many of you may have seen, I recently changed my facebook profile photo to a very young and very smiley Connor.

Connor did not smile in the traditional sense very often. So when it happened in front of you, it felt like the clouds had parted and sunshine was streaming all over your heart. He didn't have a lot of really dramatic facial expressions, so this one was always so huge in intent it just made life amazing.  As he grew, it became harder to make him smile. The guaranteed smile-inducer was to bounce him, big time, on a bed or sofa. If you went on long enough, he's also laugh, another thing that rarely happened. As he grew, it became really hard to safely bounce him.

I miss that little chuckle.

One thing I've found out recently from his brothers, though, is that in their minds, he was always smiling. I showed them the photo, and they said, "Yeah, Mom, of course he was smiling," as though it was a daily occurrence and I was crazytown.

I am not crazytown. But I love that in their minds, this was his norm.

Then yesterday, I received a card from the parents of one of his former classmates (and her mom), and it was so touching. I opened the card, and written in childish handwriting at the bottom of the card was this: We remember Connor! Love from (name redacted) (but it was his classmate). Her mother had traced out the letters and his former classmate had written them herself. This student LOOOOOOOOOOVED Connor.  I mean, the showers of love he got daily from her made the notes in his book most days. When she moved up to another school, we wondered how they would both do as they were in effect besties. I miss seeing her smiling face, and remember being in class with him and her constant and devoted attention to him. I think she would have done everything for him - fed him, given him something to drink, helped him with his school work.

I am thrilled to see that she's learning some writing, even if it's still with support.  We can do a lot with support. Look at me, remaining a functioning human being thanks to the support from all y'all, even in this horrible month of February.

So I'll wrap this up with another smile from Mr. Personality. See how alight his face is! THIS is what I remember and miss the most...those brief seconds when we connected in joy.

Anniversary

It's back. That dreaded day is back.

I spent the weekend with my family, enjoying where we grew up and watching a new life unfold onstage in the form of my mother's latest "baby." It was a lovely way to spend the weekend.

But today still came. I woke up. I read in bed. I got up right around the same time as I did two years ago. But today is different, of course. Today, I didn't have to rush down the stairs when Lee came to tell me what he's discovered.  But he is at the forefront of my mind. I drank a cup of coffee and thought about him. I moved the laundry along and thought about him.  Etcetera ad nauseum.

And so I've been contemplating all the wondrous ways you all reached out to me (and us) on this day and in the days after. As I closed my dresser drawer having pulled out some clothes for today, about 3 sweet seconds of music box tinkling occurred.

I don't have a music box. I opened and closed the drawer again. No response. I looked through the drawers a bit in case there was something in there that would produce that. Nothing.

So he sent me a song, and I treasure it. Rest on, little man.