We're not in Kansas Anymore, Toto.

And now we are 16.

Last Sunday my youngest son turned 16. I wasn't there to celebrate, as my husband and I had to divide and conquer: I went to Parents Weekend for the college student; and dad managed birthday weekend (Chief's football game) mixed with high school Homecoming weekend for the sophomore. It's hard to believe this is where we are. 

Will was an easy pregnancy, even though he laid wrapped around me sideways like a damn tire and I always felt like I should turn sideways to walk through a doorway. And he was an easy delivery. My doctor suggested, since I had proven I could do this fairly uneventfully once before, that we schedule an induction on the due date. Works for me, I said. How about a week earlier? Funny, she said. But no.

Fine. On September 23rd I went in at 8 am, had a drip by 8:30, an epidural by 11, and a baby at 2:20 pm. Easy as pie. Except for the part where he peed into the doctor's face and hair as he skidded out the canal into her arms. He literally peed coming out. I may have mentioned this before, but this would be the first in a long history of peeing in inappropriate places. 

He was the most relaxed infant you've ever seen, except for the part where he screamed every day at 5:30 pm like a freaking clock. It was horrible, and there was nothing you could do to make it stop. I learned to relax and let it go. Visitors had more trouble accepting it. It didn't really stop until after he was four or five months old. He wasn't really a colicky baby, because it wasn't all the time, it was literally every day at 5:30 for about 30 minutes. Otherwise, he was pretty chill. 

Sometimes it's hard being the second child. Or the third, fourth, whatever. The youngest. There are no fancy scrapbooked baby picture albums, we can't even be bothered to doctor out the red eye sometimes. There's a lot of hand-me-down toys, clothes and shoes, at least until they're old enough to care or their bodies don't match the sizes anymore. 

Sometimes it's better, though. Parents hover less, when they've been through it all once before and everyone survived, so you get a little more freedom (or less, depending on that older sibling's choices.) I definitely hover less in some ways, but more in others. I'm trying to keep my helicopter parked and stored. I try harder now than I did with his older brother. 

I hovered over Will more when he was younger because he had no fear, of anything. Thus he had to be watched more closely. If there was water, he'd jump in, before he knew how to swim. I had to keep a boating certified floating vest on him - the kind with a handle at the top of the neck, anytime we went to a pool, because he would just jump right in. I put him in swim lessons at age 2, after I had to go in twice fully clothed to get him out of the pool, speedy little bugger. Once he knew how to swim, he started swan diving off the high dive, running from the back of the board. It was hard to watch, the lifeguards always stood up and prepared to go in until his little head popped up just as happy as he could be. Rock Climbing? Yes. Roller Coasters? Hell yes. Boogie Boarding? Eh, well, frankly he was more interested in just digging in the sand. An enigma, this one. 

This child who was once a chubby, dense toddler is now lean and stringy. He is a lot like my brother, actually, in build - lanky and broad shouldered, not as tall, though he will probably get taller than he is now; and personality - just as goddamn stubborn. He can't help that. He comes from a long line of midwestern, dustbowl surviving, stubborn as an ox and just as strong, do it my way, people. It runs deep.  

And as he got older, he did develop a wee bit of a temper. And by wee bit I mean Zero to Shit Storm in about 30 seconds. He didn't have a short fuse; he had no fuse at all. 

He can still throw down like the toddler days sometimes. Those hormones surging through his scrawny adolescent frame still sometimes takeover and push all brain function into the frontal lobe. The only difference is that it doesn't happen in the grocery store, it's a show reserved just for me or dad at home where it's safe. He can sometimes be a walking middle finger. We've learned to manage that a little better, as part of the overall protocol to help with focus and attention at school, and making sure he eats. He's like a Snickers commercial, put some food in him and the Gremlins go away. (Shut up about my mixed similes.)

But he's also kind. He loves little kids. He loves dogs, even though he's severely allergic to most of them (thus the poodle at our house.) He loves playing drums and marimba. He loves composing for percussion. And he's good at it, too. He loves playing goalkeeper in soccer. He likes all of these things more than school. He still has trouble maintaining focus, he got that from genetics, too. Sorry about that, dude. But he knows what he needs, he's learned how to set the right conditions to be successful, and sometimes he even makes those choices for himself without being reminded. Progress. 

I'm clean out of little people at my house. My fridge is full of Cokes and Gatorade instead of juice boxes, my freezer holds Hot Pockets instead of breaded Dino Chicken. Although, the frozen waffle supply is the pretty much the same. He drives himself most places, so he relies on me less, unless its far and/or at night. This is okay, and yet sometimes I am lost because of it. What will I do when he also leaves for college? I may have to side hustle and drive for Uber just to feel needed. 

He is doing so well overall, at 16, that most of the time I can keep my helicopter in storage. I keep her gassed up, though. You never know.

Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Eighteen years ago this morning, around 2 a.m., I waddled into the birthing center lobby at Menorah Medical Center to have a baby. They tried to send me home. My husband tried to say I told you so, then thought better of it and shut his fat mouth. Because I had had enough of these shenanigans, 24 solid hours of being squeezed like some giant hand was wringing out my guts like a wet washcloth was enough. I planted my feet and said with quivering lip, "I AM NOT LEAVING HERE WITHOUT A BABY." The night nurse sighed heavily and checked her watch, glanced at my husband who was quietly retreating further away from the desk, then said fine, we have rooms, I guess you can stay. 

Drew was born later that morning shortly after 11 a.m. He was perfect. 

As a toddler he put himself to bed at 7:45 p.m. every night, and fed himself from a baggie of Cheerios and an apple juice box and watched cartoons while we slept in on Saturday mornings. (Under the watchful eye of his dog, Cady the german shepherd, his second mother. Having following me around for nine months like a blind assistant dog, constantly underfoot practically tripping me every single day, now she ignored me completely and only had eyes for Drew. Unless I was letting him cry it out, in which case she came to me with disapproving stares, small yelps, and even low growls until I would retrieve him. She was not having this Dr. Ferber bullshit.) 

As a preschooler he talked early and often. Constantly, in fact. (Shocking, I know, that an offspring of mine would talk to a fencepost. Who knew.) He spoke in full, grammatically correct sentences by age three, and at age four would carry on conversations with strangers about the differences between a regular tractor, a back hoe, and a combine. God Forbid he spot an older man wearing a John Deer trucker hat. Be prepared to sit a while, sir. 

Much of his younger years are already documented here on this blog. I stopped writing here about my kids several years ago for a few reasons, time being one-I got busy. But also for their privacy. Birthdays are a little different, though. 

Today he is eighteen. We've disrupted his world this summer by moving house, and now are preparing to send him off to California to attend San Diego State University. He can't wait. He's excited to join the marching band, live in a dorm, and continue being the independent, level headed, don't look back kid he has always been. I've said it many times, in many places, and I've said to him as well: my son has never looked back to see if I was still standing there. I know this, because I am always still standing there, at least for a few more minutes. He is always just moving forward, on to the next thing.

He only ever looked back once, when he was six, and realized he was lost among the throngs of people at Disneyland. For five terrifying minutes of my life I had lost my kid in a giant theme park. But he found a safe, mommy-looking woman with a cell phone and she called me, and we had him back in less than ten minutes total. Lesson learned: he could get lost for a few minutes, and be okay. Moving on. 

He'll do just fine all the way out in California. He's comfortable there, after living there a few years and visiting so many more. We have friends he can reach out to for anything, surrogate family, if you will. He knows what to do if he gets lost. 

Happy birthday, Drew Boo. You're an adult, you even got a voter registration card in the mail. Use it.

Go as far as you want to go, buddy. You know how to find us.  

 

It Comes and Goes in Waves.

I tend not to be an openly emotional person, when I’m not spinning and exhausted from the vertigo, that is. I think I’ve written before about how I prefer to be the caregiver not the care receiver, and emotion indicates need, to me. I’m not a stoic, don’t get me wrong, I just prefer not to lose my shit in public. It isn’t that I’m not sensitive, I’m actually quite sensitive, I just don’t like to show it. It’s also because I don’t just cry a few tears to smudge my makeup, when I lose it, I LOSE IT HARD. I ugly cry, and it usually involves waves of sobbing and hyperventilating. Like, it freaks people out. Ergo, do not want. But I’m smart enough to know you can’t stop an avalanche, so I make an extended effort to make sure that when I feel an emotional response welling up that I can find a place where I can hide and do that privately. 

Interestingly, the new meds that I’m on to hold back the vertigo have had a side-effect of managing my moods and emotional responses, and as we’ve slid into May and my son’s graduation from high school, I’ve found that situations that would normally have sent me looking around in a panic for a place to hide and bawl have not bothered me much. Hmm. This is okay. I can work with that. It’s so much better than the crying that came every day with the vertigo earlier in the spring. So, so much better.

Last night was the last high school band concert my oldest son will participate in, and it was fun and bittersweet. And while I managed not to cry without too much effort, I could feel little rumblings of powdery snow shake loose from the snow-packed mountain of my carefully managed emotional stability.

Today, though. Today I didn’t make it. This morning, as happens on many a Thursday morning at the school where I teach, we celebrated a Bar Mitzvah of one of my adorable 7th grade students. And after he read his prayers, the rabbi gave his blessing. And today he really swung for the fences. He spoke of how special this child is, because of his sensitivity, and that in fact, the degree of his sensitivity is his gift, his service, to the world. It was lovely and sweet, and reminded me of my own son. Whoops. 

As I sat in the back listening, I could feel the heavy rumbling, setting off that avalanche as waves of snow started roaring down the mountain. I got up and snuck out the back, and began looking for a place to hide. I wasn’t going to be able to stop it. As it happens, I found my way into the office of our school psychologist, who, bless her heart, “went to a meeting” so I could lose my shit in peace for a few minutes.  

I’m good now. My in-laws arrive tomorrow evening, graduation is on Saturday, Mother’s Day is Sunday. Now that I’ve given myself a chance to let it out, the mountain is safe again.

Onward. 

 

 

Bullied, Bothered and Buckets.

I was bullied a lot in elementary school. Like, everyday, all day, not just by classmates but by teachers. And it was the 70s and 80s, there just wasn't as much focus on teaching educators about compassion and empathy and self-esteem and how that affects learning and development. I was actually quite bright, but the gifted teacher didn't want me because I was so hyper. My parents loved me and I knew that, they told me every single day how beautiful and amazing and special I was. But every time I walked out the door of my house and in through the doors of that school, I was immediately getting a different message. And soon I started to believe that message over the one my parents told me.

 

Because I understood fundamentally, they were my parents, they loved me by default. But they don't realize how worthless I am, because that's just how parents are, I thought. They are biased and blinded by their child that they created. These other people see the real me, the unbiased picture, and they tell the truth. I am stupid, I am dorky, I talk too much, I am a spazz, I am worthless. These were facts to me. I "add no value to the class, I only take away from other students by distracting them and keeping them from learning." I was told that, point blank by a teacher in 4th grade. She was young and had Farrah Faucett hair and dated a professional athlete, so clearly she knew what she was talking about. That was the message I understood.

 

So I got louder, and more obnoxious, because that was the role I was told to play. I was constantly seeking attention in whatever form I could get it from people at school, kids or teachers, anyone. My parents refused the school's recommendation to medicate me. I don't blame them. It was the early days of Ritalin, they worked with the information they had. And that information told them a 9 year old, 50# kid shouldn't be taking a Class II drug. Hindsight is 20/20, I don't judge. 

 

Another decision my parents made to try to combat the obvious emotional toll all of this was taking was to send me to therapy. It was a small group setting, with two other girls who came from abusive environments that included mental and physical injuries inflicted by others and self-inflicted, like cutting. I pitied them, sometimes openly, (ADHD doesn't come with filters, you know) because I didn't really understand how to absorb that kind of abuse. Developmentally I couldn't wrap my head around it. 

 

The only thing I learned in therapy was that my life was not that bad. That other kids had bigger problems, and that I should just shut up and take what I was given. And I didn't want to be friends with those girls anyway. Their lives were a disaster, I was just a girl from the suburbs who couldn't sit still or stand up for herself, I didn't have real problems. It was all in my head anyway, right? 

 

So, yeah. Therapy was a bust. 

 

Finally my parents made another decision. After 6th grade we moved south to a new, growing school district, to give me a new start where nobody knew me. Perhaps I would be able to find people who believed in my worth like they did, who would lift me up instead of crush me. It was the best decision they ever made on my behalf. Hands down. 

 

I took it seriously, my middle school fresh start. By then I understood what was offered by a new group of kids who didn't know me. I worked to change my personality. I tried to put a lid on the spazz girl inside. I learned to be self-deprecating and funny, using myself as the joke, because I found that if you put yourself down first, others wouldn't. Blonde jokes worked the best. I played myself as ditzy and silly, instead of stupid and dorky. Ditzy is cute, I learned. If you said something stupid but then giggled, like the cheerleaders did, teachers would look at you with exasperation but not say anything. They didn't put you down. Sometimes I was mean to the kids in worse shape than me, but I didn't like the way it felt. I knew what those pained expressions meant. I sometimes tried to make up for it when nobody was looking. Then I decided ignoring them was better. I pretended they didn't exist. 

 

And it mostly worked. By high school I was happily in the middle of the food chain, I had several good friends that I still have today, a merry band of goofballs who supported each other and told ourselves we were awesome. Each of us at any given time was smart, or pretty, hilarious, fearless, or talented, pick two. We stood together like a junior Justice League to deflect the attacks.

 

I also found my people in choir and theater geeks, and stoners. (The stoners were great, they happily accepted anyone as long as you had a few crumpled up bills for another dimebag, or maybe a bag of chips.) (This was back when pot was just pot, it wasn't laced with other, scarier things. Now, except in legalized areas, you have ZERO IDEA what you're actually getting in a small bag of marijuana. Don't do drugs, kids.)

 

In theater, with the performers, I learned I didn't have to be me, I could be somebody else! Someone written in a script, a character. I could be a princess! It was a magical discovery. And then I learned I could sing. I could hit high notes that nobody else could hit, apparently, which brought open mouth stares from the choir teacher, impressed nods and positive attention from everyone else. My high notes even had a special title that nobody else had: Coloratura Soprano. I was prized for my high notes. Classmates and teachers alike told me I was special, but also please stop talking, For the love of God.

 

More singing, less talking. Got it. 

 

I flew under the radar of the mean girls as much as possible, though the heady ego that came with my newly discovered high notes sometimes led me to fly higher, drawn to them like Icarus to the sun. But I'd fall scorched to the ground pretty quickly. Sometimes I stood up to them, if only temporarily. By now I had enough confidence that I sometimes deflected their gaze off the girls who couldn't defend themselves, who were lower than me on that ever present, unforgiving food chain. The same girls I had hurt or ignored in middle school, in some cases. Sometimes the bullies were impressed that I had the guts to stand up to them, even in my weird, self-deprecating, court jester way. It made me stronger, righting the wrongs of middle school, reducing my asshole footprint. It made me happier, and even more confident. 

 

The point that I want to make here, and there is one, is about what it really takes for kids to survive all this. The bullying and mental torture that I survived has colored every corner of the way I parent my children and engage with kids in my classroom. You might think that all this has made me the craziest helicopter mom alive, but no.

 

No really, I promise, although I am pretty quick to send a WTF email to a teacher, always tempered with an out, like "this is the story I got and we all know my kid isn't super reliable with details, so please give me more information." 

 

Anyway, here is what it takes: it takes tools. I had to make my own tools. And what I discovered as a parent, an adult, even the teacher in this scenario, is that we have to be the ones to give kids the tools. To survive as a soldier at war, you need a weapon. To survive a car crash you need a seat belt. Kids need tools to fight bullying. 

 

I try to give my kids tools to deal with these situations; where to go, who to tell, what to say, how to look for and find friends. And I try to listen, so that I can be a tool for them; give them more skills and tools for success, in addition to filling their little buckets with encouraging words. Verbal support means nothing as soon as they exit the door, because I know what awaits. It isn't that bullies take small withdrawals from the bucket like milk money; it's that they turn the bucket upside down. You can't fill an upside down bucket. Somebody has to flip it back over. 

 

########

 

Back in my elementary school of horrors, the lunch lady used the special education kids as a behavior reinforcement. Meaning, if you were naughty or couldn't stop talking between bites of shingle pizza or just generally annoyed her, she sent you over to sit at the table with the "retarded kids." (Again, early 80s. This was the terminology.)

 

Guess who drove her crazy? One guess. 

 

I spent a lot of time at that table. Initially I was terrified of it, not just for the public humiliation but because those kids were big, loud and unpredictable. (The SPED program at the time utilized space where it existed, and my school had room, so those students were sometimes older than typical elementary kids, therefore bigger.) But I also learned a lot, just by watching their teachers and paras engage with them. I learned empathy, compassion, tools for de-escalating, and that they weren't actually that unpredictable. Cognitively and intellectually disabled people don't have filters, if they are happy, it's clear. If they are in pain, you know. In fact, if you paid attention you could see what was going to set them off. And I learned some tools for mitigating that, sitting around that lunch table, eating shingle pizza and trying to scoop up loose corn with a fork. 

 

I choose that table, as an adult. As a teacher I am super tuned in to kids with special needs, especially ADHD, sensory integration disorder, and high-functioning autism spectrum. I can spot somebody who needs a little extra care in about three seconds. I'm able to quickly evaluate and offer some type of solution, or at least a short term fix: here have a snack, go take a break, be my helper and run an errand to the office, come sit by me, etc. 

 

Overall, I keep an eye on those for whom school is hard, with all the sitting still and the not talking and the navigating the food chain. And I shower them with positive attention, tools, and brain breaks. I make sure their bucket is turned right-side up so that it can be filled. I shower them with love. Because their parents are not wrong. They are beautiful, they are perfect, they are amazing. And they are worth it. 

Letting the Days Go By, Let the Water Hold Me Down

Another school year down. The boys' school district finished last Friday. Today at noon my school dismissed, my first year of teaching as a Real Teacher in the books. I really do feel a little like Pinocchio: A Real Teacher, like someone waved a magic wand over my head. A month ago I felt like there was no end in sight, and yet here we are. What an adventure we’ve had.

This year I started a new job, took on an extended volunteer job within Scouting that could have been at least a part-time, 20-hour per week job, and added an extra teenager to our already busy life. Why not? What could go wrong?

Here’s why not, roared back my aging body. My immune system apparently took it as a dare. YOU WANNA SEE WHAT HAPPENS? LET’S GO, DUMB GIRL. Let’s crank up the chronic pain, a couple of funky autoimmune disorders, rekindle those migraines AND migraine associated vertigo, which will keep you barely functioning sometimes for weeks at a time. HOW BOUT DA?

So yeah. I maybe overdid it this year. But I regret nothing, let’s make that clear.

Ten months ago I noticed a brief line in a school district newsletter about foreign exchange students, and suggested to my family, hey, that might be cool, why don’t we look into it? A week later we met a darling Korean teenager at the airport at 1:30 in the morning, fresh off a flight from Seoul. He was goofy and excited and quiet, all at the same time. He spoke a formal, classroom style of English, but he spoke it pretty well. He didn’t understand American sarcasm, memes, or my dad’s terrible jokes. He didn’t really speak unless someone spoke to him, initially. But he listened quite a bit. He always seemed to be off to the side, listening, watching, quietly taking it all in. I soon learned that when he needed something he would come find me in the kitchen and kind of hover nearby, until I asked, “is everything ok? Do you need anything?” He would say “well, actually…” And then we would drive to Target to retrieve whatever thing he needed for school or soccer or personal care.

He could sleep anywhere, at any time, but especially in the car. At first I chalked it up to the time change and jet-lag, daily soccer practice workouts and a full day of school in his second language. If we drove somewhere longer than five minutes away, he'd be asleep like a baby. It became something of a joke. Oh look, he’s asleep again, on the way to a restaurant for dinner out. So cute.

I made a conscious effort to slow down my speech and avoided using slang and contractions. I asked specific questions every day when I picked him up after soccer practice, good questions that did not allow yes or no answers, to force him to talk to me. I told him about my day after he told me about his, until eventually he began to ask about my day, unprompted. I corrected his grammar or word choice, and explained why. (My inner English major loved that part.)

Sometimes I let the car fill up with an awkward silence, just to see what would happen. My theory stands, as I found with my own kids, that teenagers love to talk when riding in the car, when adults can listen but not make eye contact while driving. He didn’t have a lot of social skills at first, and he kept to himself in his room quite a bit those first few months. My own boys are introverts, they prefer their video games and laptops to group engagement, so it was fine.  But we got into a rhythm as a family of five. I cooked a lot of rice in the fall, so he always had something comfortable available in the fridge. But honestly, he was the least picky eater in my house, he ate everything I put in front of him. We sat down to dinner together as a family this past year more than we have in several years, at least until spring came and everybody’s sports/activities/music/clubs schedule exploded again.

After the holidays and we went back to school in January, we hit a rough patch. My Mom attention-span got stretched a little thin. My bizarro, unexplainable, chronic pain (fibromyalgia) issues kicked in and I’m not gonna lie, it was likely stress related. I forgot things, or I got them wrong - the who what when why where part of our lives. My family isn’t used to me screwing that up so it was tough on everybody, especially me, so smug in my Supermom ego. Teenagers don’t forgive and forget easily. My kitchen became a constant scene of loud, dramatic, passive aggressive rhetorical questions: Why are there no forks? Who drank the last of the orange juice? Who ate my Poptarts? Why are there twelve pairs of shoes in the doorway? Who moved my backpack? I was supposed to take the first shower! (Hint, it wasn’t always the teenagers, sometimes it came from the adults.) Sometimes it felt like I was drowning in a sea of cranky, testosterone fueled drama, like an old episode of Real World: The Suburbs. We all got tired of each other at about the same time. I tried to tell myself maybe it was okay because all three boys were either alone in their rooms with the door shut, or arguing constantly, like bickering siblings.

This is normal, according to the exchange agency coordinator. Happens to many host families - the shine wears off. March and April screamed by, and suddenly it was almost time for end of year band concerts, dance club concerts, finals and graduation. Suddenly it became clear to all of us that our little experiment was about to end. The kids began to tolerate each other better, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. And our student friend became more and more sad, each day of May that went by, anticipating the end of this experience and life as a member of our family.

Back in August, on his first full weekend in Kansas, we went to a Royals baseball game, in part because my son's marching band was performing the National Anthem. Bookending his time here with live sports games, on his last evening in town before flying home to Korea we went to a SportingKC soccer game. We sat in the front row behind the corner kick flag, and had a blast. We took selfies with kitty noses and whiskers drawn in, and I commented “look how cute we are! I like that, it makes my face look less fat.” Actually, it's a feature, he replied. American sarcasm, achievement unlocked.

It was an amazing year. It wasn't perfect. Sometimes it was hard. I was often reminded why my husband and I had deliberately chosen to only have two kids. But seeing someone experience the life we take for granted was humbling, and I am grateful for it. I'm glad my children had a chance to see a different point of view. He played competitive soccer, read Hamlet (in his second language, can you imagine? The metaphors alone are barely understandable in English!) He went to prom, and patiently defended his beloved country to American teenagers who don’t understand the difference between North and South Korea.

 

Last August, I greeted an adorably awkward, foreign teenager at the airport, and brought him into my nest as one of my own.

Last Thursday morning I put a young man back on a plane to Seoul. And onward we go.

Little Shop of Horrors.

Earlier today, I was out in the yard with our exchange student, turning over rocks looking for bugs he can take into school for Zoology class. I was complaining about the weeds growing in among the newly seeded grass since we've had so much rain. 

Him: so you have drugs growing in your yard?
Me: ...?
Him: weeds is a drug, right?
Me: OH! No. Not that kind of weed. That's a nickname for marijuana. It's a plant. A weed is something that grows up through the grass.
Him: Right. A plant that is a drug. Weed. Also I heard it was called grass sometimes.
Me: Yes. No! Not exactly. It depends. Weed is just a nickname for a plant that grows in a place where you don't want it. But yes, it's also a nickname for the drug marijuana. Grass is also a nickname for marijuana, but it isn't the same as this grass. I don't have marijuana growing wild in my yard. This isn't Breaking Bad: Leawood edition.

 

He didn't look convinced. But whatever. 

(I would totally watch Breaking Bad: Leawood edition. I'm sure I would know some of the people.)

(The Grass Pad commercials don't really help. https://youtu.be/EEFW6jpvz8c)  

 

Even after almost eight months, there are still some cultural things that just don't compute. Like weeds that grow in the grass. Or that failure is okay in certain instances. Last week I had a conversation with him where he was telling me about a conversation with his mother. She wants him to stay the course on his original education plan, but now that he's had a taste of an English speaking life, he wants to try to test out of the rest of high school (like getting a GED in the United States,) and apply to an English speaking university there in Korea. It is a very distinguished program, and hard to get into, apparently. His mother is afraid he may fail to get in, and then he would be left with no options.

 

I had a hard time following the part where he'd be out of options, because couldn't he just go to a different university if he didn't get into the fancy English one? Finally, after going around in circles for a while, it hit me. 

 

It isn't that he wouldn't have other options if he fails to get in. The problem is that if he fails, it dishonors his family. 

 

To us, failing at something could be another chance to learn, to make yourself better. High school students in the U.S. often apply to schools knowing that they may not get into the one they really want, so there's is always a back up plan college choice. As a teacher and a parent, I spend a significant amount of time trying to convince kids that you should always try, don't let fear of failure dictate your choices. That does not exist in the Korean culture that this boy comes from. To his family, failure equals dishonor. Which translates into: if you aren't completely sure of the outcome, you shouldn't try something, because you might fail, and that would dishonor your family. This from a kid who took a risk to travel halfway around the world and live for ten months. But family is different. 

 

And then there is prom. Prom is both an intriguing event that represents the ultimate American teenage experience, and a complete nightmare for an introverted yet curious kid who sees the equation rejection=failure=dishonor front and center in his decision-making process. The whole situation is awkward and there really is no good way around it. I'm not much help, having last gone to prom almost 30 years ago. But he has learned that you have to plan ahead, you can't just decide to go for it and everything falls into place with something like prom. There's much more to it. Like who you are going with. And renting a tuxedo, which apparently nowadays has more options than girls have for formal dresses. And then there's the fact that you should actually ask the girl you have in mind to be your date to the prom before you rent a tux. Like, you have to actually speak to her. Even if you are just going as friends, and it isn't a real "date." Even if you are just planning to go in a big group of friends. You can't just assume it will all sort itself out and her thinking matches yours. Because it might turn out she already has a date. So yeah. That happened. 

 

Some things are harder to sort out than others. That rejection:failure thing can really sting, regardless of the cultural norm part.

 

The thing that has been the hardest for me to sort out is just how much work goes into having another teenager living in my home, especially when you are used to being a family of four. It isn't just one more kid, it's an entire life cycle. Another person who needs to be picked up or delivered to various places. Five people need a bigger table in a restaurant than a booth that is made for four. Another person to feed when making dinner, so you need more servings of everything. Another jug of milk each week. Fresh meat usually comes packaged in even numbered groups, so for five people you have to purchase six steaks. Canned biscuits come in packs of eight, so someone doesn't get two. To make sandwiches for five people requires almost an entire loaf of bread, and a weekly allotment of fresh deli meat grows exponentially. We often don't have enough clean forks in the drawer (I have a set of eight,) so we end up hand-washing some in order to even eat our dinner. Nevermind that at the same time that I had to adjust for having a fifth person at my dinner table, my own picky teenagers suddenly found their appetite. Yesterday in my fridge there was just a half gallon of milk, some leftover spaghetti that someone had partially eaten and then returned to the fridge with a fork inside (WTH? Who does that?), and some unsweetened cranberry juice. The meat drawer is always empty, the washing machine is always running, and forget trying to get a shower before ten o'clock at night. Mayhem indeed. 

 

We are moving toward the last six weeks of being a family of five. While it has been fun and interesting, it has also been exhausting, for everyone involved. We are looking foward to summer, and having our normal version of mayhem back. Whatever that is. 

 

 

 

 

 

Go West, Young Man.

We had a lovely Christmas season this year, although I spent less time on setting the scene, as it were, than I usually do. I was super sick over our Thanksgiving trip to Alabama, a nasty cold that eventually sidelined everyone except my youngest son. FYI, flying on multiple connections with vertigo-inducing fluid in your ear is not fun. So when we returned home I went to bed instead of dragging out the Christmas decorations. I did manage to get the 9 foot tall tree set up by myself a week later, thanks to the steroids prescribed to kill the vertigo, while everyone else was focused on football. But it stood bare in the foyer for almost two more weeks before I convinced the kids to string some lights around it and on Christmas eve, the exchange student hung some ornaments. I had fully intended to go all out this year, wanting to show our friend what Christmas in America is like. I completely failed at that. But I did manage to get everything wrapped and everyone seemed happy with their gifts.

Speaking of gifts, I had warned him, you will get lots of gifts from my family, do not feel like you should reciprocate. You are part of our family, this is how it is. He was deeply burdened by the situation, however, and though I understood his feelings I couldn't stop the Christmas train. I told him to let it go. He laughed, and relaxed and let my family fawn over him on Christmas day. 

The day after, we rose early and loaded the truck and drove to Colorado for the week. Everyone skied or snowboarded, except me, I was just along for the ride. I have enough issues just walking in a straight line without my head spinning these days, I didn't need to put myself into the extra physicality of skiing. I could just imagine myself halfway up the lift when the pressure of high altitude kicked on the vertigo light switch - how the F would I get back down the mountain then? Yeah, No thanks. Instead I went for groceries and cooked and hung out in our darling 1960s mountain cottage and sometimes held court at a table in the restaurant at the bottom of the lift. Snow covered teenagers would occasionally swoop in, grab a bunch of food and water, rest for a minute, then head back out to beat the mountain. 

The kids loved it. All three of them. My two boys had only ever actually skied here in Kansas City area, at what is really a glorified hill. They'd never experienced skiing in high altitude on a real mountain. The exchange student had skied a few times before. Athletically he's pretty strong, he had no difficulty adapting and conquering the mountain. My kids didn't have the same confidence going in, so they all ended up coming down the mountain separately most of the week. It took them all a few days to find their sweet spot, but on the last day they stayed together and had a blast. 

The weather was great. It was sunny and 30s-40s during the day, but when that sun goes behind the mountain it gets chilly, fast. We watched movies and played board games in our snug little cabin. We even saw a moose! 

We returned home on New Years Eve, stayed awake long enough to watch the ball drop in NYC an hour early, and called it good.

Welcome to 2017. May the odds be ever in your favor. 

 

 

 

Riding in Cars With Boys

I spend a lot of time in my car, driving teenagers to school, to sports, to Boy Scouts, and back home from all of these things. Riding in the car has always been a great place to get my kids to talk to me. It is reasonably safe, emotionally, because I can't spend time analyzing their face as they talk, I'm watching the road. Eye contact is scary. So it has always been the place where my kids drop big bombs of information. And I consider myself lucky on that front. So I don't mind all the driving. 

The extra teenager is warming up to this process, too. He's letting his guard down. He told me on the way home from his soccer game the other day that he likes knowing that I come to the game to watch him play, it makes him more comfortable. It was very sweet and vulnerable, and so earnest. So he's showing some emotional depth. He's also using cuss words. 

Well, okay he didn't really know what he was saying. Monday morning we got in the car to drop him off at the high school, which is on my way to work. On Mondays it is just the two of us, because my oldest has band practice before school, and my husband manages the middle school route. My friend got into the passenger seat and said to me, "Can I put this shit in here?" He was holding some papers that were in the seat and gesturing toward the glove box. (Why is that even the name of it? Nevermind.) 

Unsure if I heard him correctly, I asked him go repeat his question. Nope, I heard correctly. 

"Do you know what that means, the word 'shit'?" 

"It means papers."

"Well, no. Not really. It means poop." 

"Poop?" 

"Yep. People sometimes use it to refer to stuff, like papers. But it is technically a bad word, a curse word. Not that I care if you say it, but you should not say it at school or to a teacher."

"Oh. Okay. So can I put this shit in there?"

"Yes. Yes you can." 

I mean, he's 17, Not nine. He can say what he wants. He probably heard it from me in the first place. 

 

 

Four Five Seconds...

Three day weekends always seem to be harder from which to recover. You'd think starting the work week on a Tuesday would make it all easier, only four days of work and all, but somehow it is harder. Or maybe that's just us. In the span of a week we discovered that the new (to us) car we bought for my teenage son to drive might have a problem that will cost over a grand to fix. I'm somehow already so overcommitted I can barely see straight, and it's only early September. The extra teenager in the house is doing great, but he's also busy, playing soccer and doing debate. My husband is in a high travel period, anywhere from 2-4 days per week on the road. So, my oldest teenager is basically acting as the other carpooling parent in the household. Did I mention the car is suspect? 

The good news is that I'm the only one really freaking out underneath it all. Everyone is doing great. School is great, job is great, the kids are alright. We are getting into a good rhythm. The only problem I foresee in the near future is that our friend from Korea is going to need new clothes. He's 5'7" -ish with a 28 waist, according to his laundry. (He actually does his own laundry, but I sometimes switch it over. I'm no Mommy Dearest here.) He's taken to helping himself to ice cream after dinner, which is totally fine, I want him to feel like it's his home. He also really likes Rice Crispy Treats as snacks. But when soccer season is over, and our American eating habits catch up to him, it might get interesting real quick. 

 

 

All's Well That Ends Well.

So odd to suddenly remember that this site exists. I mean honestly, to see that in the sidebar I've posted here less than ten times since the last Presidential election, which, for the love of Peter, is happening again and it is quite the shit show. But we knew that would happen. Or at least, Mike Judge knew. 

Anyway, I think I might be able to get back into a reasonable writing schedule, because there are things about this year that I am going to want to remember later. It isn't that this year is all that different from others. My oldest son is a junior in high school, the same high school I once attended. My youngest son is in 8th grade, one final year of middle school. The dog is almost ten years old and going blind from the cataracts, so much so that he can't see in the dark and will freeze if he cannot see. The boys are in band, Boy Scouts, and play soccer. The husband travels for work, often. Not so different, but still busy. 

What is different about this year is that I have a new job. In the 12 years since I first decided to start blogging under We're Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto, a name I adopted because of the new experiences gained from moving to Southern California, no year since that very first has been as different as this one. My first as a certified teacher, in a private religious school, surrounded by a culture and a language with which I am not fluent. 

It is also different that I have a new child living in my house. Three weeks ago on a whim I noticed some information about foreign exchange students in a community newsletter. I mentioned it to my husband. He did not say no. I emailed the local contact for details and filled out the online form. Approximately six days later, at 1:30 in the morning, we met a boy from South Korea at the airport. He comes from a culture and a language in which I am not fluent. He isn't fluent in our culture, but is close to fluent in our language, and honestly by October he will be. He is a delight, and I think we are adjusting well to being a family of five for the next 10 months. We are slowing down our own speech, using fewer contractions, and sitting down to the dinner table politely (somewhat.) We may still be in the honeymoon phase, but I'll take it. 

So. Lots of new, lots of not all that new. In just the few short weeks since school started, I have already learned so much, both from the language and culture of my new school, and of my new family member. I've learned about things that are taken for granted in our culture, that are simply too foreign to make sense in theirs. For example, school lockers are a device that must surely line the doorways of Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell. Having free time to play video games is ridiculous, when one is used to the school day ending at 10 pm. And the word zombie in Hebrew? Still zombie, at least for the 6th graders having giggling fits playing with filters in my Graphic Design class.

It's gonna be a great year.