In which I'm Learning to Live with The Fear

My oldest boys have vasovagal episodes in response to painful stimuli. In other words, when they get hurt, they lose consciousness.

The boys have different pain thresholds, so this has happened only twice to Bubba but has happened about a dozen times to Froggy. Monkey hasn’t had an episode but is only just now about the age at which this first happened to his brothers.

At age six, Froggy has lost consciousness so many times that he can often anticipate when it’s going to happen. He tells me “the floor feels fuzzy.” I’ve been working with him to lie down wherever he is when this feeling comes over him, but he has yet to remember on his own, so I will either call to him to lie down when I’m suspicious he’s hurt badly enough to pass out or, if he’s close enough, scoop him up and lay him on my lap, feet elevated.

Froggy has lost consciousness eight times, give or take, in my arms.

I have watched his eyes roll back in his head, his body stiffen and convulse, and foam seep from his lips. I have held him while he holds his breath and then gasps for air, as his bladder and bowels relax and release. I have hugged him when he wakes up confused, panicked, wild-eyed, afraid, dazed.

On the outside, I suspect I appear calm. Even though I know Froggy can’t hear me, I soothe him with reminders. “Mommy’s here. I have you. Breathe, Froggy. Breathe. Wake up for me. Breathe. I’ve got you.” I hold him gently, remembering not to cling too tightly. I tell bystanders who’ve never witnessed this before, “It’s okay. He passes out when he’s in pain. He’ll be fine.” I must be convincing because the last time this happened, the other moms on the playground just went about their business, rarely even glancing back to see what was happening.

But the truth is, in those terrifying moments, I’m barely holding it together.

What if all the doctors are wrong and this isn’t benign? What if this episode is different from all the others before when he was just fine? What if he doesn’t gasp for breath this time? What if he doesn’t regain consciousness? What if he hurt himself too badly this time?

What if, at this very moment, I’m holding my son as he dies?

This is why, no matter how many times Froggy loses consciousness in my arms, it will never get easier. Because each and every time, I am confronted headlong with The Fear.

Usually, when we’re going about our day-to-day business, I can easily hold The Fear at bay. I don’t think about The Fear when I’m watching the boys play soccer or when we’re chatting about our days over dinner or when I’m folding laundry or when I’m mediating another disagreement. But sometimes The Fear creeps in: When the boys are sick and I can’t do anything to make them better. When, in the still of the night, I kiss them goodnight and marvel at my good fortune to be their mother and feel my heart race with the possibility that one day I might look back on The Fear and wonder if it was really a premonition.

When I’m holding my baby and it appears to all the outside world like his life is slipping away.

Sometimes, I think it would be easier if I didn’t love them so completely.

But I do. And because I do, the only response that makes any sense to me is to lean in. Lean into the love. Lean into The Fear.

When Bubba first lost consciousness, I had no idea that the boys had this condition, that it was normal, that I had the same condition. (Boy, did that realization explain a lot about my medical history.) So when my father yelled inside to call 911 because Corbin had hit his head and wasn’t breathing, I fell apart. I dialed 911, handed the phone to my stepmother, ran into the other room screaming, and crumbled, weeping, onto the floor. It wasn’t until my sister took me by the shoulders and firmly told me, “Bubba needs you. He needs his mother. Go to him.” that I came to my senses. (Yes, it was just as Lifetime movie-like as it sounds.)

Leaning in means that I now run to my boys when they’re hurt, even when I know they’re hurt badly enough that I will hold them while they slip out of consciousness and panic will grip me and The Fear will take hold. Leaning in means that when they wake up, the first thing they will see is their mother’s face, and they will know that I am always with them when they need me the most.

Leaning in means knowing that if The Fear becomes a reality the last thing my boys will know in this world is their mother’s touch and remembering that I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Leaning in is remembering that I never make good parenting choices when guided by fear. Leaning in means letting my boys decide when they’re ready to hop back on the monkey bars. Even if it’s just five minutes later. Leaning in means remembering that roughhousing and running and climbing and pushing limits and experiencing freedom are good and necessary for my boys.

Leaning in is giving myself over to loving them fiercely and completely, knowing that however long their lives are, this is the kind of mother I want to be and this is the kind of love my boys deserve to know.  Leaning in means tearing down any barriers I have feebly erected in an attempt to protect my fragile heart. Leaning into The Fear, sometimes, looks a lot like letting go.

The Dance

My husband’s parents just celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary.

Amazing. May we be so fortunate.

Mister and his brother hosted a dinner at a local restaurant, and family and friends flew in from hundreds of miles away. The evening was a tremendous success, and the following day Mister and I extended the celebration by hosting a brunch at our home. I panicked when he told me a couple of weeks prior that he wanted to do this, but I knew it was a good thing. So we set to work.

Mister set the menu. I tweaked it. (Too much gluten, not enough vegetables.) He approved. We divvied up cooking duties. He wrote his grocery list. I added my items. He shopped. (Bless him.) We figured out what would be cooked where and when. For two days, we alternated our prep work and cooking. The morning of the brunch, we covered each other when one of us needed to sneak out of the kitchen to shower and dress for the event. As soon as guests started to arrive, the food began rolling out.

I would visit with family and return to the kitchen to take care of something, only to discover that Mister had already handled it. So I’d do something else. He’d return to the kitchen after chatting to find what he needed to do had been done. So he’d do something else.

He gave tours of our home. I answered the door. He brewed more coffee. I consolidated food. He washed dishes. I put dishes away. He gathered coffee cups. I gathered napkins.

By the time the last guest left, the kitchen was spotless.

Besides the compliments that the food was delicious, guests told us that we made the brunch look effortless. The truth is… it was.

My husband tells everyone that he has made a life choice to never dance. I disagree. This brunch was nothing short of a beautifully executed dance. There was never a sharp word spoken or an accusatory question asked. In fact, we hardly spoke at all, not about logistics. We didn’t need to.  We smiled. We winked. We complimented each other’s food.

I’ve experienced this dance before. On the occasions we stay in a hotel as a family, we have a rhythm. Mister supervises bath time, while I lay out pajamas and the next day’s clothes. I distribute various lovies into the correct beds. I dress the littlest. Mister brushes little teeth. (We both give lots of hugs and kisses.) The next morning, I shower while Mister gets the boys dressed. He showers while I finish getting ready. He gathers our things. I pack them up. He herds the boys out the door. I do a final sweep of the rooms.

Dancing.

I thought our hotel dance was the result of practicing it a few times a year. Maybe it is, in part, but I realize now, after the anniversary brunch, that there’s more to it. Thirteen years into this marriage, we know each other so well that we can anticipate what the other one is thinking, what he will say, what move I’ll make next.

Don’t misunderstand. There are plenty of times when Mister and I trip over each others’ feet, step on toes, and struggle with the give and take of leading and following. But when we remember to listen for the same music, the dance is fluid, flawless.

I treasure the comfort and familiarity and routine that are the result of nearly twenty years with Mister. I feel safe and known. Still, I have occasionally missed the thrill of the first year, of falling in love. But I’m beginning to realize that the thrill is still there; I just have to look for it in different places. Weeks later, I’m still smiling from our beautiful brunch dance. It’s surprisingly, sweetly reminiscent of how I felt after Mister kissed me for the first time. And it fills me with the tingly anticipation of a lifetime of dances with my partner.

Photo credit: Ali Anderson Photography

Lessons from a Summer of Free-Range Parenting

Not long ago, I casually mentioned to another mom on the playground that my boys have been to the emergency room six times, twice by ambulance. Eyes suddenly opened wide, she slowly turned her head toward me to gauge my expression. (Was I serious? Was I appropriately horrified by that absurdly high number?) I understand. It wasn’t that long ago that I probably would have reacted the same way had the tables been turned. But ten years into this parenting journey, I’m starting to get a better handle on what kind of parent I want to be, and who I want to be is, in part, a mother who allows her children the kind of freedom that means that sometimes they will get hurt.

Still, this doesn’t always come easily for me. I fight my natural tendency to be a mother who protects at all costs. I’m bombarded by the message that the best kind of parents are those who know exactly where their children are and what they’re doing every second of every day. I question my choices when harm befalls children given this freedom, especially when the stories hit far too close to home. But I am determined to continue trying.

In fact, I recently realized that the two primary ways I assess my success as the mother of young children are 1. how kind they are to others and 2. whether or not their knees are skinned. So this picture of the boys in Maine this summer positively makes my heart sing. Their legs are bruised, scraped, bug bitten, and covered in sap and dirt. Just as they should be.

One of the many reasons I am grateful for our annual vacation in Maine is that it provides the perfect opportunity to parent the way I long to, largely free from all the influences that constantly whisper to me that I might be doing it all wrong. Our family spends several weeks in a cottage in a spruce forest on the bay. We leave to hike mountains and to restock the pantry, but much of our time is spent in camp with hours upon hours of time to just play. Play for me involves reading and crossword puzzles and naps, but for the boys, it means large swaths of time spent outside. My husband and I provide a few basic ground rules (like “You can’t go down to the float without a life jacket.”) and then let them run free. These are snapshots of what happened this summer:

• The boys spent hours in the boathouse, filled with tools and chemicals, and never touched anything they didn’t possess the skills to properly handle. 

• They fell down, got up, and returned immediately to what they were doing. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Sometimes they requested Bandaids; often they didn’t.

• They came home from tromping through the woods whenever they were hungry.

• They never wandered so far away that they got lost. 

• The nine year old decided he wanted to build a crab trap. After rummaging through the boathouse for supplies and crafting his trap, he caught dozens of crabs. He couldn’t stop grinning. 

• Without being told to stay away from the water’s edge, the three year old recognized the possible danger and threw rocks from further back. 

• No one ever needed a reminder to put on a life jacket before going down to the float.

• The three year old walked to another cottage in camp a quarter mile away, looking for his cousin, and when he didn’t find her, came right back home without our even knowing he wasn’t with his brothers. We didn’t find out about this adventure until much later in the day.

• When the nine year old took a nasty spill on his bike while coming down the steep, gravel driveway, he didn’t let it stop him from riding again, but he did recognize that he needed to do something differently on the next descent.

• The boys took turns trying to flip each other out of the hammock. They recognized on their own that they had to be gentler with the three year old. 

• The boys spent an entire morning with their cousins, planning and executing repairs to the decades-old tree house, including replacing rotten boards and completely rebuilding the ladder. They doled out jobs based on age and skill. The big kids looked out for the little kids. The boys decided on their own that the second level of the tree house didn’t look structurally sound enough to climb up to, so they didn’t.

• Mister and I almost never intervened in disagreements that happened outside of our cabin, and only once did anyone come to us needing help in resolving a problem. (Our answer was “Oh my goodness, your brother is freaking out; let him out of the outhouse!”)

I’m certain much more happened that I know nothing about. The boys spent hours tromping through the woods but reported on only a fraction of that time. Maybe one day they’ll tell me, when there’s enough distance that I’ll laugh rather than cringe. Or maybe they’ll hold those memories tightly and reminisce only with their brothers and cousins, their partners in crime. Either is just fine with me.

As a parent, I often act as though I suspect my children don’t possess the intelligence or self-control to prevent themselves from making every bad decision presented to them, when in reality, overwhelming evidence suggests that, in fact, my boys are quite capable of making sound decisions most of the time and that the few bad decisions they make are almost always rather routinely lousy and not dangerously so. So what I need to do is put in place a few safeguards for the really big dangers and for the temptations that are specific to my children and then step back.

One day this summer, I stepped outside and saw my nine year old walking by with a 2x4 about 6 feet long. Curious, I asked what he was doing. He reluctantly answered that he was going to use it as a sled to go down the hill behind our cottage. The 20-foot hill, riddled with new stumps, that ends right at the foundation of our house. It didn’t take more than a shocked look on my face for him to correctly guess that I thought that was a supremely bad idea. But I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t seen him as he walked by. Would a brother or cousin have warned him that was a dangerous idea? Would he have gotten set at the top of the hill, looked down at the stumps and at the wall that would stop his descent, and decided not to sled down? I suspect fear almost certainly would have stopped him. But what if it didn’t? What if he went careening down the hill? What if one of the boys had started mixing chemicals in the boathouse? What if someone had fallen through the floor of the tree house? What if the three year old had wandered up to the road?

My husband often tells the boys that not getting the result you hoped for doesn’t mean the decision was wrong. (These are the deep, difficult conversations that stem from losing a game of Yahtzee.) A boy with a broken arm, a concussion, or (please, dear God, no) something far worse doesn’t mean that my choice to offer my boys the freedom to play unsupervised in the woods or walk alone to a friend’s house or cook his own breakfast was wrong.

My job as a parent is not to prevent harm from ever coming to my children. That will happen, regardless of how tightly I hold the reins. (In fact, many of our boys’ injuries have occurred when Mister or I were just feet away.) My job is to help shape them into the best men they can possibly be. And I cannot achieve that goal if my boys have no sense of who they are apart from me, if they have not been allowed to experiment and fail, if they do not feel trusted to make good choices, or if they have never experienced the thrill of a success crafted entirely of their own making. If I don’t provide this space for them to spread their wings, I am guaranteed to thwart their potential. That’s a certainty far scarier to me.

When I have doubts that I’m on the wrong path, the smiles on the boys' faces, the way they straighten their backs with pride, the confidence in their voices, and the delightful way their thoughts bubble and tumble from their mouths is all the reminder I need to continue giving them the space to learn and explore, to fail and succeed on their own.

And when they do need me – to celebrate with them, to commiserate, to slap on a Bandaid – they know I’ll be right here, dozing on the couch with my book spread open, waiting for them.

A Letter to My Boys on the Occasion of Michael Brown's Death

[When Mister read this, he gently and correctly pointed out that this post doesn’t contain any insights he hasn’t read elsewhere. He’s right, and that’s okay with me. I needed to say this… for my boys and for me.]

To my precious boys,

Michael Brown is dead.

By the time you are old enough to truly understand what I’m writing to you today, Michael Brown’s name might be all but forgotten. It might have become buried in the growing list of names of boys and men who have died under similar circumstances. The events of last week may have become hazy because, tragically, his story is not unique. But I will remember Michael Brown’s name for us because it was his story that made me face many uncomfortable truths about my life and about our world.

For the last week, information has swirled about Michael Brown and the circumstances of his death. He was a black teenager, and the police officer who shot and killed him was white. He was unarmed. He was walking down the street with a friend. He would be attending college in the fall. He was shot six times. He allegedly had just robbed a store. He may have rushed the police officer. His body was left in the street for hours. It has been hard to make any sense of so much, often conflicting, information.

Eventually, I stopped trying to process the minutia of the story, stepped back, and took note of the broader story and who was saying what. It was only then, amidst the noise, that I finally, truly heard the voice of people of color crying, “Look!  Please!  It’s happening again! Another one of our children has died! What will it take for you to notice?!” Statistics I already knew suddenly morphed from mere numbers into names and faces and stories:  the startling rate of incarceration for black men, studies that point to a racial bias in law enforcement. A pattern appeared that had gotten lost when focusing narrowly on one story.

But it was one discovery that forever jolted me out of my previous, comfortable existence: Parents must have The Talk with their black sons. Mothers and fathers and grandparents and religious leaders have to tell their black sons how to respond with deference when they are stopped by police officers, how to react when clerks follow them around stores, how critical word choice and tone and demeanor are. They instruct their sons that good intentions aren’t enough, that simply not doing anything wrong is insufficient. Learning these lessons isn’t simply a matter of proper manners or upstanding morals; it is a matter of life and death.

I had been struggling to figure out what my response to Michael Brown’s death should be, and with this revelation, all at once it struck me: As long as mothers of black sons are having The Talk with their sons, I will have a similar Talk with you. Because good intentions and the simple absence of any wrongdoing are insufficient for you, as well. If you are doing nothing to fix the problem of racism, then you are complicit… as I have been. We will do better, together.

I don’t know exactly what doing something will look like for you or for me, but now that I have my head out of the sand, the first step is clear to me: Listen. Our brothers and sisters of color have stories they need us to hear. Ask them to tell you, and listen to their answers. I will start this important work and will do my best to share with you what I learn, until you are ready to join me.

At the same time, I will teach you about the privilege of being a white male in this world. I don’t want to make you feel ashamed of who you are – after all, you had no more control over your gender or the color of your skin than Michael Brown had – but I will try to teach you to use your privilege responsibly. We must stand with our brothers and sisters who have been oppressed. We must not let our fear of saying or doing the wrong thing prevent us from doing something.

And I promise to you that I will continue to work toward figuring out the next right step… because I want you and all our children to live in a just world.

Last year, as I was considering what might come next for me career-wise, I had a vision so clear it could have been mistaken for a memory. I was standing on a residential, urban street, in the doorway of a modest, brick building. I was there to serve the community. A black man about my age approached me, eyeing me suspiciously, and asked, “Why are you here?” I replied simply, “To listen.”

The vision ended there. I don’t know what comes next. But I now know the journey begins today.

Love,

Mommy

Seeing Grace

The day our family arrived in Maine for vacation was excruciatingly long.  We drove the last leg of our three-day trip, stopped at Mister’s family home just long enough to unload the (very full) trunk of Madge-the-hard-working-minivan, then headed to town for a grocery-shopping marathon.  When we returned three hours later, Mister tackled the kitchen, and I began unpacking a month’s worth of our Stuff.  At four o’clock, we both collapsed in deck chairs and declared our jobs Done Enough.  Then we looked at each other and agreed that we were both entirely too spent to cook dinner.  So thirty minutes later, we called the boys in from their adventures in the woods, climbed in Madge, and headed into town to grab a pizza.

Had Mister and I been thinking at all, after ordering the pizza, we would have crossed the street to the playground and let the boys run, but we were in let’s-get-everything-done-today-so-vacation-can-really-begin-tomorrow mode and decided to split up for quick runs to (yet another) grocery store, the hardware store, and the kids’ clothing store (because Bubba had grown out of all of his pajamas overnight).  Mister and I weren’t the only tired ones; the boys were exhausted from three days of being cooped up in a car, crappy food, and inadequate sleep.  Monkey was in particularly bad shape because he hadn’t gotten a proper nap in days, and he protested our plan loudly.

But Mister and I were determined.

I took all three boys into the kids’ store and had just started looking at the pajamas when Monkey decided I needed to fully understand how breathtakingly, irredeemably horrible this plan was.

He bit me.

Now, Monkey is a biter, and we’ve all been victims.  But this time, he took my thumb in his mouth and wouldn’t let go.  I actually had to pry his mouth off of me.  When I finally got my thumb out, I had a blood blister.

Okay, Love, message received. 

We walked back down the street toward the market with a completely inconsolable, irrational Monkey in tow.  He was exhausted and hungry (and three), and there was little I could do but grin and bear it.  When he spotted Daddy in the market, he wanted to go in, and he had calmed down enough (fussy but not loudly so) that I thought it was okay and might actually help to calm him further.  Mister was at one of two cash registers at the counter, and as we approached him, the other cash register freed up.  I asked the boys to gather closer so the next lady in line could get around us more easily.  As she passed, she grumbled,

“You should really take him outside.”

I’ve been a mother for almost ten years.  I’ve been the recipient of eye rolls, stares, raised eyebrows, and unwanted advice, but I have never, NEVER, had anyone talk to me like that about my children.  I bristled.  And, right or wrong, I turned to her and, in the most measured voice I could muster, said, “He has as much right to be here as you, ma’am.  You were three once, too.  You were three once, too.”  She never looked at me.  When she stepped out of the store, I soon followed because, by that point, Monkey was getting loud again.  I saw the lady retrieve her dog from another woman waiting on a nearby bench and continue walking down the sidewalk. 

I was barely holding it together.  Monkey was wailing again.  I was hungry and tired, too.  And, now, I was fuming from being the target of somebody’s judgment.

I kept walking back toward the pizza place, and as I passed the lady who had been tending the dog, she smiled and asked hopefully, “Did it help?”  I looked at her, obviously confused.  “Did it help to take him outside?” she clarified as she looked down at Monkey.  “My friend said she suggested you take him outside because that would help.”

“Um, I wouldn’t call what she said a ‘suggestion,'” I carefully started.  “She wasn’t particularly kind when she spoke to me.”

“Oh,” she said with a look that indicated that she was both startled but not terribly surprised.  “Where are you from?”

“Northern Virginia.  Near Washington, D.C.”

“I’m from New Jersey.  They’re [the locals*] still not nice to me either.”  She paused.  “I hope you have a good day.”

I lightened just a touch, though Monkey still screamed.

I reached the pizza place as a family was exiting.  They looked at Monkey and me and smiled.

Another family passed and did the same.

People murmured kind comments about their children and grandchildren and having been there, and I lightened even more.

A man approached and asked if the boys (Bubba and Froggy had since joined us) would like to pet his dogs.  He turned to me and gently said, “Sometimes they just need a little distraction.”

I teared up as I felt a weight continue to lift.

Mister approached and asked what happened.  He told me the cashiers in the market had said that they’d “defend” me if the grumbly woman had continued to make comments.

The weight all but disappeared.

As I reflected on the events of that afternoon, it struck me that I could react in one of two ways:  I could view the kindness and grace extended to Monkey and me as exceptional.  In a world filled with violence and distrust and selfishness and anger, here was a glimmer of hope for humanity, a step toward restoring my faith in people.  OR I could view the harsh comment as exceptional.  I could choose to believe that we are all – yes, even the grumbly market lady – struggling to do our best, sometimes more gracefully than others.  I could choose the attitude that my faith in humanity doesn’t need to be restored because it was never lost. 

I usually remember to choose the latter path, to keep my eyes open for those extending kindness and grace in both small and grand ways.  It is, of course, easier to do when a dozen strangers remind you of the goodness of people right after one gives you a glimpse into the struggle that resides in us all.  It’s harder to do when a hurt is followed by a slight, which is followed by an injustice.  But the truth of my life is that the moments when people have been kind and gracious and forgiving FAR outnumber the times when I’ve been hurt by them.  It’s not even close.  And I’d venture to guess that I’m not alone.  I suspect that what causes us to remember the instances when people hurt us is not how common they are but, quite the opposite, how relatively rare they are.

Friends have told me that the reason I am the recipient of these moments of grace is karma, because I try to extend the same grace to others.  Rather, I suspect it’s because I try (with varying degrees of success) to keep myself open to seeing kindness, even during my lowest moments.  I believe those grace-filled moments are there for all who are willing to receive them.  I could have kept my eyes on the sidewalk, retreated to Madge in tears, chosen to interpret people’s smiles as pity.  Instead, this time, I remembered to take a deep breath, stay in the moment, and meet the gazes of others.  And in doing so, I found in their eyes…

Compassion.

Understanding.

Empathy.

Sincerity.

Warmth.

Camaraderie.

Love.

Abundant grace.

*It is not my intent to disparage the islanders or Mainers in general.  I have long suspected that many struggle with the annual influx of tourists and summer residents, but most have been exceedingly welcoming to us.  I, also, don't pretend to assume the motivation of the lady in the market.

Geeks and Crabs

Bubba, at age 9, is an unabashed geek.  It’s one of the things I love most about him.  His current obsessions are Legos and anything and everything science-related, and as an extension (of design, construction, and physics), he loves engineering, though he doesn’t yet know to label it as such.

There are two ways Mister and I know when Bubba is in full-on geek out mode: He talks non-stop about a subject, and he starts bouncing.  He has been known to get so excited about his latest modifications to a Lego creation that he will, quite literally, follow me around the house explaining each change in great detail, barely stopping to take a breath.  When Bubba decided to see what bacteria he could culture from swabs taken around our house, he couldn’t stand still as Papa and I explained proper plating techniques.

I’m a science geek myself, so when Bubba wanted to start a “museum” of fossils and rocks and feathers and such in his closet, I didn’t hesitate to say “yes.”  When we were at the Field Museum recently and Bubba asked questions about the cell division exhibits, I had his full attention as I talked for ten minutes about mitosis vs. meiosis and sexual vs. asexual reproduction… until Mister pulled me away so we could be sure to see the Hall of Dinosaurs while we still had time.

But truth be told, as much as I adore Bubba’s geekiness, sometimes I find it a bit, well, tiresome.  At the boys’ request, I’ve sat down with them a few times to play Legos and have have been bored out of my mind.  They created landscapes and museums and ships.  And I made a box.  Not a very good one either.  My eyes might even occasionally glaze over when they show me yet another Lego creation that I cannot distinguish from the preceding dozen but that they insist is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT.  And when Bubba thrusts design after design for a rocket or a crossbow under my nose, I try to express interest, but I know so little about physics that I can’t begin to have a meaningful conversation about which design elements will work and which won’t and what chemical reaction would be safe enough but strong enough to provide the needed thrust. 

So when Bubba announced at dinner the other night that he was going to use the remains of our lobster dinner to go crabbing the next day, Mister’s and my response was something along the lines of “Mmm hmm, sure, that’s fine.”  I’m not even sure what he said really registered.  But the next day, he headed over to the boathouse to see what he could scrounge up for a crab trap.  He came back with a small, flat net to which he had hooked some ropes.  He excitedly explained that he was going to fill the net with “lobster guts,” lower it to the floor of the cove off the float, wait for the crabs to crawl in, and then raise the net.  “It’s simple, but I hope it’s effective,” he wished aloud over his creation.

Froggy was all in; he was as sure this would work as Bubba was.  I mustered a smile and a “Well, we’ll see what happens!”  Mister walked to the float with all the boys to get them off to a safe start but quickly came back and said, “We’ll see how long this lasts.”  Monkey announced that he “hated” crabbing.

Approximately two minutes later, there was a commotion, as the boys ran around, gathering additional supplies from the house and boathouse…

They had caught two crabs.

I hurried down to the float with Mister close behind me, and we watched as the boys caught crab after crab.  Froggy lowered the net to the floor of the cove.  The tide was too high for him to hold the ropes AND spread the net on the floor, but they had discovered it didn’t matter.  The crabs would crawl to the net, reach in for the lobsters, and get stuck for just long enough that the boys could hoist them out of the water.  As Froggy carefully raised the net, Bubba would slip an old, plastic flowerpot under the net to catch the crabs, then dump them in a pot filled with sea water.  Simple but effective, indeed.

“And to think, I designed this all by myself!” he beamed.

As Mister and I watched, we both confessed our previous doubts to Bubba and apologized.  Our penance was clear: We added steamed crabs to the evening menu.

As I watched Bubba proudly pick the tiniest bits of meat out of the crabs, I thought about how easy it is to encourage our children in their interests when they align with our own and how difficult it can be when their interests differ.  Maybe it’s because we honestly don’t know how to begin to support the interest.  Maybe it’s because, never having experienced such depth of interest (in the same subject or another, at this age or another), we doubt its sincerity or question its longevity.  Maybe we think the interest is frivolous and unimportant.

I’m relieved that Bubba’s confidence overrode my lukewarm response.  I’m glad that, for my many parenting faults, one thing I think I usually get right is providing lots of space and raw materials for unstructured play and exploration.  But most of all, I’m grateful for Bubba’s powerful reminder to me that his interests are something to be celebrated, not just tolerated.

I can’t pretend that I’ll no longer find conversations about Legos to be anything other than mind numbing, but maybe next time, that won’t stop me from pausing to really look at Bubba’s latest creation and the excitement on his face.  When Bubba chases me out the door on my way to Target to ask me to buy Mentos and Diet Coke for his latest rocket design, I hope I remember to rejoice in his love of engineering, rather than sigh at my growing shopping list.   Because even if I don’t share all of his interests, one thing I can get behind wholeheartedly is his excitement and curiosity -- the look of wonder on his face when he learns something new, his pride in seeing a project from idea through planning and execution to completion, how quickly he talks when theories he’s been noodling tumble out of him.  After all, that is part of what makes Bubba uniquely, beautifully himself.

Which reminds me... Does anyone know where I might stock up on supplies for building crossbows?

"Mommy, I want my tummy to be flatter."

Because I have boys, I was caught off guard when Froggy announced one morning that he wished his stomach were flatter.  It’s not that I thought boys were immune to body image issues; it’s just that it was really low on my List of Things to Worry about – way behind broken bones, accidental fires, and experiments with household chemicals, all of which we have miraculously avoided so far.  Nonetheless, I’ve heard enough about body image issues in girls to know that I had about 2.5 seconds to pick my jaw up off the floor, gather my thoughts, and get to the bottom of this.

“I love your body, Froggy. What made you think there’s something wrong with it?”

It was surprisingly straightforward to determine the root of the issue: early morning commercials.  Our boys don’t watch much TV.  What they do watch is largely limited to the early morning when I’m dozing for a few more minutes, showering, and preparing breakfast.  Because we reserve cartoons for weekend mornings, the boys watch The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel, Nat Geo Wild, etc.  As it turns out, there are A LOT of commercials for ab workout machines that target men. (sigh.)  I was frustrated that what I thought was good parenting (limiting junky TV) had backfired, but I was relieved that the flat stomach message wasn’t inadvertently coming from within our family.

The harder question to answer was what in the world to do next.  I quickly told Froggy again how much I loved his beautiful, strong body that was designed to do exactly what it needed to.  I repeated this message over the coming weeks, as it seemed appropriate, and from time to time (often as I was tucking him in for the night), I would pick a body part and tell him how much I loved it and why.  (“I loved seeing your strong legs kick the soccer ball today.”  “Isn’t it amazing how your body fought all of those germs without any medicine?”  “I love your broad shoulders because they remind me of Daddy.”)  He grinned at every affirmation.

I, also, grabbed my camera.  I’m always looking for an excuse to photograph my boys, and this seemed like an excellent one.  The first time I asked Froggy to take off his shirt, he refused.  The second time, he agreed but made me promise not to show anyone.  The third time, he balked only because I told him I wanted to shoot in the front yard, but he quickly warmed up, even flexing his muscles for me.

This week, I showed him the pictures again and told him it was time to do a little project with them.  Before I could finish my thought, he excitedly announced that he wanted to write a poem and ran off to find pencil and paper.  This is what he wrote:

[*Although I have never used the word “skinny” to describe Froggy’s body, I, also, have never presented the word as negative, just as a neutral descriptor.  I think he used it to contrast his current ideas about his body with the notion that he previously thought his stomach wasn’t flat enough.]

I think this poem positively oozes confidence.  And I feel the teeniest bit of accomplishment that maybe he is acknowledging my role in that confidence.  (I, also, LOVE that the poem doesn’t rhyme!)

Once Froggy had completed his poem, we sat down to brainstorm more about his body.  I wrote this letter to him:

Dear Froggy, 

When I look at your body, I see: 

Big, grey eyes, framed by enviably long lashes, that make me melt whenever you look at me.  

A smile that lights up your face and makes it impossible for others not to smile in your joyful presence. 

Cheeks that still hold memories of fullness from years of thumb sucking.

Strong, broad shoulders that remind me of Daddy’s and that might carry my grandchildren home from the playground one day. 

Arms and hands full of love.  Arms that give me “sweetest hugs,” tenderly bathe little Monkey, and lovingly massage my tired shoulders at the end of the day. 

Strong legs that are non-stop bundles of energy, that run, jump, kick, peddle, skip, and gallop until you fall into your bed, exhausted, each night. 

I love every inch of you. 

Love, 

Mommy

I read it to him while he giggled.  Then I asked him to tell me his favorite body part and to list other body parts he loves and why.  He dictated this note:

My favorite part of my body is my chest because it’s strong and it can puff out.  I love my stomach because I like it.  I love my legs because they walk.  I love my toes because they wiggle.  I love my head because it thinks.  I love my eyes because they help me see.  I love my ears because they help me hear.  And I love my mouth because my mouth helps me eat.  I love my tongue because it helps me taste.  I love my back because it helps me move.  I love my hands because they help me build stuff.  I love my bottom because it helps me poo to get all the food out.  I love my knees because they help me move my legs to walk.  I love my feet because they help me walk, too, because they move when I’m walking.  I love my bones because they’re my body.  I love my teeth because they help me chew.

When he was done, he asked me to print out his dictation and add a picture so he could put it on his magnet board and remember why he loves his body.

After I had compiled all of our work, I asked him if I could share our conversations and pictures and notes here with you all.  He hardly hesitated before agreeing.  I know body image issues might rear their ugly head again, but for now, this feels like progress.