Messy vs. Neat

My second- and third-born children are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to keeping their rooms neat, and I've often wondered why--they share the same gene pool, they grew up in the same environment, and yet they are nothing alike in this particular area.  No matter how many times I asked my son to clean his room or pitched in and cleaned it myself, it just didn't stay clean.  By the time he was in as in high school, I gave up hounding him about it.  Occasionally, he took it upon himself to clean things up, but most of the time, you could barely see the floor--it was covered with piles of dirty clothes, stacks of clean clothes, books, sneakers, candy wrappers, and school papers.  I think he actually liked the way his room looked and felt when it was clean, but it didn't matter enough to him to keep it that way since the mess didn't really bother him.   In contrast, my daughter's room is a model of organization.  She makes her bed every morning, her dresser drawers hold neat stacks of clothes, her closet is organized by color, her bookshelves are carefully arranged and maintained.  When she comes home from a trip, she unpacks immediately and puts everything away.  She can't understand why anyone wouldn't do this or how a person could take off clothes and leave them on the floor instead of putting them away.  Thinking about this difference between two of my kids made me realize something.  As our kids grow up and leave home, it's easy for us parents to blame ourselves when one of them is in distress.  We're quick to worry that maybe we didn't do enough as parents or maybe we did too much.  Even when it's not quite rational, we fall into the trap of thinking that if we'd just been better parents, our children wouldn't be suffering.  But if I think just about Darton's room vs. Em's room, I can easily see that it wasn't anything I did or didn't do as a parent that made one of them messy and the other neat--it's just the way they are. So maybe instead of getting caught up in blaming ourselves, the best thing we parents can do is to help our kids through the hard times they will inevitably face as adults, whether this means helping them clean up a mess to find something they've lost, encouraging them to relax and take things in stride, or simply reminding them how very much they are loved.

Best Exotic Advice (from the Marigold Hotel)

"There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it, only a present that builds and creates itself as the past withdraws."  --The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I know the first part of this quote is true--I can't bring back the days when my children were still at home, when my dad was still alive, or when Steve didn't have prostate cancer, no matter how much I long for them. And I know that longing for something that can never be is more than just an exercise in futility, it can actually be destructive in that it wastes a lot of emotional energy and hampers you from being present in the present.  So this brings me to the intriguing second part of the quote.  I'm afraid I have been making the mistake of thinking that what I should be doing is gathering up what is left and making the best of things.  But that's not at all what this quote is saying--instead, it is suggesting that if we allow the past to be the past and stop tugging it forward with our longings, then the present is free to grow in ways that might surprise us.  Maybe there is something new and important for us to do or be in our fifties or sixties or seventies that we weren't ready for when we were in our twenties or thirties or forties.  I know it's just a line from a movie, but it feels true to me.  Plus, I want it to be true.  So I'm going to hold onto to this hopeful bit of advice and see what happens!

Dear Mom

Today is my mom's birthday, her eightieth birthday.  In honor of her eight decades, here are eight things she did that had a powerful effect on me as a kid and as a parent:  1) She read to us: in the car, on the couch, in the park, and my favorite--from the floor of the hallway between the girls' room and the boys' room at bedtime. 2) She told us stories from her childhood, stories so vividly remembered and recounted that it made us feel as though we'd been there.  Not only did we get to know her childhood self, but she showed us how important it is to remember and tell the stories of our lives.  3) She taught us to notice and value the natural world.  She pointed out birds and bird calls, identified wild flowers, and helped us catch tadpoles.  Once she sent each of us into the backyard with a muffin tin with instructions to collect twelve different nature samples, one for each muffin cup. 4) She took us to Sunday school, Sunday morning church, Sunday evening church, Tuesday afternoon Bible club, Wednesday night prayer meeting, and summer Vacation Bible School, thus making sure we knew we were "precious in His sight." 5) She made a family dinner every night.  One of my favorite sights was coming home after high school play practice and seeing steamed up kitchen windows because that meant it was spaghetti night!  6) She was cheerful during hard times.  Holidays were kind of tough on my dad, especially Christmas.  One Christmas Eve, he was having a bad time, so my mom told us to bundle up for a walk.  She had the Coleman lantern, and it was snowing.  We were showing her how to do the walk from The Monkees, and her feet went out from under her on the slippery road. Down she went; the lantern flew out of her hand and smashed on the snowy street.  The four of us kids froze, fearing the worst--an angry or hurt Mom to go with our sad Dad.  Then we realized she wasn't crying or mad, she was laughing, and our Christmas Eve was merry again.  7) She made celebrations out of little things: biking to the gas station for banana popsicles, sprinkling salt on sweet red apples while we watched Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, decorating our paper lunch bags on field trip days, dropping everything to fly a kite on a day when the wind was just right or build a snowman when the snow was just right. And finally, 8) She made sure we knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we were loved. Thanks, Mom, and Happy Birthday!

Let's Go, Buffalo!

I grew up in Steeler country, back in the days of Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, and Lynn Swann.  When we settled in western New York in the mid-'80s, I started hearing about another football team: the Buffalo Bills.  I didn't pay too much attention to them at first, but by then end of the '80s and the beginning of the '90s, they were impossible to ignore.  I remember buying our first little Buffalo Bills sweatshirt for the spirit days they had on Fridays when my oldest child was in kindergarten.  From then on, we never looked back.  Despite the four Super Bowl losses and many other heartbreaking losses in the years since then, we've never stopped rooting for the Bills.  We watched training camp on hot summer afternoons when it used to be held at SUNY Fredonia and waited in line for autographs after the practices; we bought Flutie Flakes and more Buffalo Bills jerseys and t-shirts and hats and wall hangings and mugs than I can count; and all three of my kids have been to Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park to watch the Bills in person.  My middle child, who is, by far, the biggest Bills fan in our family, is there today.  For his sake and all the other loyal Bills fans at the game, I hope they pull off a win.  But even if they don't, we'll all keep cheering for them and believing that the next win, the next playoff run, and the next Super Bowl are just around the corner.  Let's go, Buffalo!

It's Just Broccoli

My youngest moved out of the dorm and into a college-owned townhouse at the beginning of this school year, and as a result has been eating in the dining hall less and cooking more.  I finally finished copying the recipes for her red binder (Recipes), so she has that with her.  But there are a lot of little things that aren't in there.  Sunday afternoon we were talking on the phone, and she asked how long you could keep broccoli in the fridge and how much she should cook for one person--she was worried she was eating too many carbs and not enough veggies.  After our conversation, she headed off to the little local grocery store in search of broccoli.  Around dinner time, I got a text saying, "so to cook broccoli, do you just put it in a pot of water?"  I texted back a few instructions, and she replied, "okay thanks hope i can make it like you."  I smiled to myself thinking, It's just broccoli.  A little while later I got back-to-back texts; the first one said, "it's good!" and then came the one that has stayed with me all week: "tasted like home :) ."  I came to realize that it wasn't "just broccoli"; it was my college-age daughter taking care of herself, eating her veggies, and carrying forward into her life-away-from-home something I never even realized I was passing along.  Broccoli is the one vegetable everybody in our family likes; I can't imagine how many florets I've cut and cooked over the years.  But to me, it was always just something to go along with the meal, something I fixed almost without thinking about it.  I never thought about it "tasting like home."  And maybe that's a good lesson for those of us in the process of letting go of our kids--they're going to be just fine; they have picked up and taken with them all the things they want and need most.

A Simple Pleasure

When I was growing up, my parents drank a lot of coffee, usually instant coffee.  On special occasions, my mom made coffee in her percolator, and the dark, rich smell filled the house.  But I didn't start drinking coffee until my college years.  I think I can actually remember my very first cup.  I was a theatre major, and our technical rehearsals used to last into the wee hours of the morning.  The directors had a much-used, rarely-if-ever-cleaned automatic drip coffee maker in their office, and when I could barely keep my eyes open, I poured a cup of their strong, bitter coffee into a styrofoam cup and added some sugar and powdered creamer.  It's a wonder I kept on drinking it after that first cup, but I did, and a good cup of coffee has become one of my favorite simple pleasures.  My husband doesn't drink coffee, so I was always on my own in my coffee brewing and drinking.  I tried the blue cans of Maxwell House, like my mom often bought, and the red cans of Folgers, like my mother-in-law used, and finally settled for a while on Chock full o' Nuts in the cheerful yellow cans.  Then I began to notice how strong and smooth my Costa Rican sister-in-law's coffee was and found out she ground her own beans.  The next time she visited home, she brought back some whole bean Costa Rican coffee for me.  When that ran out, I bought whole beans from a little coffee shop in town whose owner one day made me coffee in a French press when their espresso machine wasn't working.  When that shop closed its doors, I started ordering beans online and kept using a French press.  These days, I have my coffee beans roasted just for me by the partner of one of my colleagues in the English department.  He buys green coffee beans and roasts them just for me.  During the school year we exchange money and coffee on campus, but during the summer months and on vacations, he delivers my beans to my porch by bicycle!  I don't know what makes some people coffee drinkers and others not.  Of my coffee-drinking parents' four kids, only two of us drink coffee, and just one of my three kids has picked up the habit.  What I do know is how much I look forward to my simple pleasure each morning.

Whatever You Are--Be a Good One

Somewhere fairly early in his school career, my middle child was assigned a president report on Abraham Lincoln.  He was a bit of a procrastinator when it came to school reports, and I remember well the frenzied night before the report was due--while he was feverishly working on the report, I was trying to make a stovepipe hat out of black construction paper (which isn't as easy as you might think).  The next day he delivered his report dressed as Abraham Lincoln, and life moved on.  But for years afterwards, whenever he got to choose his own topic for a report, he prudently chose Abraham Lincoln.  So when he graduated from high school, I got this plaque for his wall:

I was thinking about Lincoln's words today when we left Cancer Care of Western New York after my husband's prostate cancer treatment consultation.  I have long admired people who are good at what they do, and everyone we met with during our two-hour visit today was "a good one."  From the patient advocate who had to ask personal questions and explain nitty gritty details and did so with both warmth and humor to the woman in billing who had already called our insurance company and was able to answer questions we didn't even know to ask, everyone was professional, efficient, and kinder than necessary (three more traits I admire).  Although our heads were spinning and hearts were thumping a little when we left, we felt as though we were in good, caring, competent hands.  I hope Lincoln's words stay with my middle son and my other two children because "being a good one" matters.

Just What We Needed

Despite my earlier hopeful blog post (Here We Go Again) about having developed a bit of resilience in dealing with my kids' comings and goings, there hasn't been much bounce in my step since I got back from moving our youngest in for another year of college.  In fact, the long weekend was starting to look very long indeed.  We had no real plans, no Labor Day barbecues; even the college pool is closed until Tuesday, so no lap swimming.  I was starting to feel a little lost and forlorn, and then a text arrived from our middle child: "I'm on my way back" (and by back, he meant back to Fredonia, back home).  What a difference it makes to have a visit from a child right when you need one.  We played two sets of tennis after he arrived tonight; we'll have a child in his bedroom when we wake up in the morning; there will be another face at the table and more tennis tomorrow.  And when he leaves on Monday, maybe we'll be over the worst of the end-of-summer adjustment for another year.