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One could say FAILURE, but I beg to differ. I did set out to write a post every day for the month of November, and at that I certainly did fail. However, since I have absolutely no idea of who reads my blog or of how many of you are out there, I felt no real need to perform for anyone other than me. This led me to stay in a warm bed, get my kids off to school on time, sit and daydream about writing instead of writing, etc. I can let myself down, that has never been a problem, but I really do not like to let others down. So there it is. Now maybe if some of you left a comment or two, that would change things, but probably not.
On our way to MN for Thanksgiving we had a very Pitzian moment at a cheese shop. Before I go any further with this story it is important to know that we have been struggling with Oscar and Alban in the burping department. Oscar finds it incredibly humorous to burp. So funny, in fact, that he ‘fake burps’ a lot and that brings the hammer down here at the house. It is out of control and very age appropriate, unfortunately for us. So here is the Pitzian moment in the cheese shop in Tomah, WI:
Ian: Oscar! Stop scratching your bum with your lollipop!
Marsha (to Ian): You know, it was heartwarming moments like this that I dreamed about when we decided to have children. And now all my dreams have come true.
Ian (to Marsha): fake burp
Marsha and Ian: fits of laughter.
Oscar and Alban: What??? What??? Why are you laughing??
If someone asked me to sum up our family, I think I would send them that exchange. That is us to the core. And for that, I will always be thankful.
We are headed into the frenzy of getting ready for our trip to MN for Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to leaving for a few days and getting a new look on life and a new look at the world, or at viewing a different landscape.
I don’t know why leaving our house for a few days causes me so much anxiety, but, well there it is. I leave things for the last minute (a born procrastinator) and then run around the house in a manic state and then just sink into the passenger seat and relax until I realize we have forgotten something important and wait for the car to turn around and start the manic process all over until I can sink back into the passenger seat and relax. That is pretty much it. Happens every time even if I pack a few days in advance. There could be some psycho-social revelation waiting for me to discover, but I would just rather say, “Yeah. Accepting the fact that I get ready to leave my house in a state of sheer anxiety when traveling. It is where I am and probably where I am going to stay.” Getting ready for mania tomorrow morning. No need for coffee in the early a.m..
I am looking forward to being in one of my favorite cities. I look forward to being in a city that fits like a glove. One in which I can find my way like going home to my childhood house. In a sense that is what I am doing. I grew up in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I found my true love there. I met lifetime friends. I realized passions and values and created a community of like minded people. I learned how manage relationships. I grew up. I am going home.
I will spend time in Uptown; I will go out and have coffee with an old friend and lover. I will take time to be with my husband in the late afternoon on Friday and we will go to galleries and eat yummy food and be together in places that take us back to a time when we met and discovered each other. It already feels right. It already feels like part of me is healing. Minneapolis is my touchstone. I am going home to become grounded and ready for challenges here in Madison.
I am also going to face Thanksgiving without my brother Linn for the first time in about 15 years. I will look for him in the corner, drinking scotch with my bother-in-law and husband. I will listen for his stories. I will miss holding his hand and talking about my plans, about his plans, about what the future might hold. I will simply miss him. I am going to face life without him for the first time, really. I have not had to face walking into his house and finding him gone. I will face his absence at Thanksgiving and for me it will be my first true test in letting him go.
I don’t want to let him go. I want him back for me and for his family and for our mother and my siblings. But I will keep that to myself. Those spending Thanksgiving with us in MN have faced his physical absence on many occasions. They have gone through the pain of expecting him and receiving his absence many times. It will still be painful. It will still be uncomfortable. It will still fill the room at times. And in that, we will all be together. We will also quietly know that he was a person to be thankful for knowing. Flawed? Oh, hell yes. But he was also an amazing person who gave and gave without complaint. A person who loved to be with others and enjoy some of the best things in life. Someone who could amplify his enjoyment of life exponentially by sharing it with others. That is what we will miss. That is what I will long for when I am home. That is something I will have to find in myself.
So we are off. We are going to envelop ourselves in our family. Revel in the sheer number of us. Enjoy being with one another. Laugh, eat, tell stories, listen, and play. My family fills me up and makes me whole. I am going to get filled up and made whole again. I will bring that back to my true home and give it all back to my boys … all of them.
Here are some pictures of the boys. I am supposed to be cleaning our office space but instead I am trying to figure out the photo software on our laptop and it is not going that great. I will need to do some more information gathering in order to make this work for me. I miss my rudimentary program on our PC.
Oscar had an interesting hockey game yesterday. They played against kids that were almost twice their size and got beaten soundly and goodly. He took it well. He stayed back by the goal and hung out there for a good part of the game. He saw a lot of action because the other team was scoring with or without him in front of their net.
Alban is off to school today with a barrette in his hair. I need to get both of them in for a hair cut soon.
alban-in-leaves-1.jpgalban-in-leaves-1.jpg
Happy, happy Oscar
Happy, Happy, Happy Oscar
In the leaves
Alban on skates
Down but not out
While Oscar and Alban were coloring their Saluki helmets today, Alban was distressed about his artistic abilities. He kept disparaging that he only “scribbled” and that he needed help around the “rounds”. I helped him from time to time and when Alban showed Oscar his finished product Oscar said, “Alban! That looks so good that my heart is ready to explode!”
Alban was eating Crack-Ups, the popping candy and he told us, “They move around and tickle my mouth!”
Yep. They sure are cute.
It is starting to feel more and more like winter. I do expect the occasional respite from the cold, but it is time to make sure we have enough mittens to last at least two month, enough hats to make it through December, and enough wood to keep the family room warm
We have, we hope, successfully sealed the mice out or in. We will know if we have sealed them in the house in less than a week (the smell will be over-powering). Overall this experience has been extremely unpleasant, but not shattering, although at times that was a fine line. We are about $600 into it and we have another 2 to 300 left to fix a window so they can’t come in. I am thankful that we can absorb this cost, but I am a little anxious about what will get left undone by this unexpected expense. Do we ignore that the dishwasher is dying? Do we postpone even further our beautiful wood steps? Do we let all the little repairs that look slightly unsightly go until I just can’t stand it any longer? Do I use the money I made in my investment club to cover the cost of a mice infestation? Should I start randomly hocking wares from our home on eBay? What? Certainly not the stairs. I can’t give up my stairs.
Right now I could entertain the idea of getting rid of or outright selling our kids. Oscar and Alban are sitting at the table and arguing over who may have which helmet from the small Lego collection they have brought up the stairs. Now, let us please ignore the fact that they have about 2,000,000 small Lego pieces in the basement. And we must not consider that they have about 1,000 ‘helmets’ for the ‘guys’ that they are making at the kitchen table. In their world that have a small number of helmets that ‘belong’ to Oscar and so there is much posturing and heated discussion about who will get what. Alban keeps asking over and over for just one helmet for his space guy. Oscar is telling him to be quiet so he can just think! Oscar is mean, Alban is a baby. Oscar’s guy is lose, Alban’s guy is going to get killed. Alban is not going to be Oscar’s friend anymore, Oscar hates Alban and will never play with him again.
In the time it took me to type this while trying to mediate the dispute, they are now playing very nicely and battling out some interstellar war that only they can understand. Oscar might win the most, but Alban is convinced that he will. Oscar’s guys are going to be hard because he wants to win and Alban’s guys are soft so they are going to lose. Alban’s guys are the hardest and they will smash into Oscar’s guys until they break apart and make Oscar very angry. Neither one will lose and neither one will win. It will just miraculously be bedtime and we will all trudge upstairs and call it a day.
I will put the boys to bed and come downstairs and have have a glass of wine and decide what will be our next move. Whatever it will be, it will be right for us. We will stay warm, we will have enough to eat, we will be together and we will be able to sit and think about life and watch the winter trees.
Oscar somehow picked up the art of tripping while watching D2: The Mighty Ducks. I knew that Emilio Estevez could be annoying, but I didn’t expect Oscar to start picking up penalties at the age of 5.
I am off to get said lad from school, it is early release day which also means that it is “Art Monday”. We will be finishing our masks and hopefully playing outside because it is blessedly beautiful out. People are scrambling to get their Christmas decorations out while it is 60 degrees. I have my hopes set on Global Warming and will do my outdoor decorating in December when it is 55.
Ian is off to Chicago until tomorrow night late so it is truly just the three of us the next few days, well four if you count Reggie and many, many more than that if you count the mice. Tomorrow our handy-person will arrive and start closing those suckers out. I am thoroughly disgusted by all of this. I don’t even like being home. Ugh.
I ordered two books pertaining to parenting with depression yesterday. For the first time in a long time I have just about had it making it through every day dealing with depression. I get angry very easily which is not a trait you want to have while raising a 5 and a 3-year-old. Hopefully Amazon will give me the insight I need in order to talk to my therapist with a more direct and effective dialogue.
I also have a husband dealing with an insurmountable amount of work (home around 10:30 p.m. and sometimes with a brief in had to proof) and a beloved and much relied upon secretary diagnosed with cancer in just about every part of her body. How do you handle losing someone you really respect and to whom you entrust a good portion of your career? Ian just seems flat to me. Struggling with his workload and losing his precious side-kick. The woman with lighting speed and an eye for detail. Shelley, who wants to talk to his wife and asks frequently and excitedly about his kids. Ian’s workplace has changed so much over the last few moths. He has lost one very good colleague, a person he relies upon to kvetch and collaborate. And now Shelley. We will move past this but ….
I wonder about our karma these days. What did we do in a previous life that has led us to this point? One of my good friends referred to us a fragile; on a roller coaster of emotions that just doesn’t seem to stop. It hurt, but it is true. We seem to be the most ineffectual pinball ball on earth – bouncing from one bad bumper pad to another, always going down the replay slide but to no real gain. Maybe once we get rid of the mice, see Shelley through her illness and get Ian to a point where he can come home by 6:30 every night we will hit a stride of happy events and small victories.
However, I have to say that our boys (annoying as they are), have been our saving grace. Oscar’s passion for hockey and
Alban’s love of skating have sustained me to a large extent. Sure I didn’t want to become an Hockey Mom, but Ian and I talked, endlessly it seemed, about our children and their future interests. What we always agreed upon was that we wanted them, more than anything, to find something that sparked their interest, something that made them happy, something that introduced them to the magic of passion (as long as it wasn’t hockey or football). And I think that both boys have done that.
Oscar is focused out on that rink. He falls and gets up. He throws himself in front of the goal in order to stop a shot. He skates with an abandon that scares me. He is truly puck focused and forgets (much to my dismay and anxiety) about skating and goes along with determination and blind ambition. He is in love and to make the sport with the best dress-up equipment even more enticing, he now has shoulder pads. He is fully geared up and ready to go.
Alban has hockey on the brain 24/7. He wakes up and requests “D2: The Mighty Ducks”. He plays floor hockey in the basement with himself and has been demanding Rollerblades so he can play street hockey this summer. He has skating lessons twice a week and requests to call his coach as soon as we are a block away from the ice arena on his skating days. He talks about hockey, he loves to watch hockey, and he absolutely loves skating (or whatever you would call struggling to stay up on hockey skates).
We have become the epitome of what I wanted all of us to stay away from, but we have also become everything I ever hoped for. How is that for balance? Mice or no mice, cancer or no cancer, work or no work, we will be at the ice rink this Sunday, Tuesday and twice on Thursday helping our children achieve whatever the set out to achieve.
We have had our share of emotional busyness along with just simply being busy. Today our very wonderful exterminator, Mary, came to check the mice bait and she stood there and said “WOW” about four times before I had the guts to ask her what was so amazing. We have been the home to hundreds of mice, apparently. We went outside to check the ‘points of entry’ and what we found were some cracks in the mortar of our home and staging areas for the mice behind our shutters. Phase two of the attack on the pestilence begins. I have never been so creeped out to live in my own home before.
Alban was up last night with a nice barky cough that took us from the hot steam of the shower to the cool outside and then back into bed next to the cool mist humidifier. This morning Oscar came in to snuggle with Ian, Alban and me and I was surrounded by Ian’s dry hacking cough, Oscar’s full cough, and Alban’s croupy cough. I just sighed and got my sick crew up and going and sent most of them out the door. Even Reggie came home with a little kennel cough but, thank goodness, that has subsided so at least now I have another healthy member of the family I can count on. Today, as Alban maintains an upright position he sounds much better. In fact right now he is demanding an ‘oval’ otherwise known as a Werther’s Original and oatmeal with rock sugar. I better get busy.
I sat up in bed last night realizing that I had forgotten to post yesterday and I tried to get out of my nice warm bed to come downstairs to the land of cold floors but I just couldn’t do it. Oh, well. What will be will be.
Yesterday afternoon Oscar and I participated in “Art Mondays” with Leslie, Finn, Lucas and Walker. We worked on making traditional Mexican or Japanese masks. It was a great lesson in art in the sense that the boys will have at least two Mondays of mask making. Art, we told them, does not always happen in one sitting; it may take a life-time, two days, two years, or two hours … you never know.
The boys chose their masks and traced the outline and other features they wanted on the mask onto paper that will be taken to Kinkos and put onto very sturdy cardstock. Then we will cut them out and paint or color them in and have some spectacular masks. I will put photos up of the boys decked out in their finished product.
Alban has his first learn-to-skate class today at 10:30 a.m., or as he refers to it he has “ice time.” He is so excited and I am anxious to get him out there and moving around on the ice. He has such a low center of gravity he should be able to catch on very quickly. That, and he is one focused kid when it comes to skating. More than anything he wants to be like his brother and play hockey. I will keep him on that ice through every season hoping that he will become an amazing skater so when he does face other kids on the hockey rink he will be able to out fox them so he doesn’t get crushed due to his size.
Off to school, playgroup, skating lessons, volunteering at the preschool and grocery shopping today. We are busy and very, very happy.
I am already one day short of my goal of posting every day in the month of November. Not happy with that. When I realized today that I had waited too long yesterday to post, I thought about writing a list of things that I need to stop procrastinating on, but, well, you know the rest.
Oscar had his first hockey game today. To say it was one of the funniest and cutest things I have ever seen would not be doing it justice. Oscar literally threw himself into the game. He was the only player to check himself hard into the boards. His helmet hitting the boards gave off quite the sound. But he got up and started going after the puck again with a focus and determination that is his personality to the core. Gotta get that puck, gotta get that puck in the goal, gotta be able to lift up my stick and yell ‘goal’, gotta be able to say I did it ….
The thing about watching him play is that even a complete stranger can see how much he loves it. He LOVES it and he is getting better each practice. He is starting to glide, he can kind of stop (see above reference to checking), and he is turning a wide turn while gliding. All of this allows him to focus on the puck, which makes him extremely happy.
I just love watching him play. He looks joyfully focused. That is more than I could ever ask for in any activity he pursue. As long as he continues to love it, and as long as he will want to play at whatever level he ends up at (they start separating by skill level next year), I want him to play. I will want to watch him play.
Life with Oscar will never, ever be dull. And it will always be full of joy.
I will share photos as soon as I can (I didn’t take them myself, a friend did.)
