Dear Children: A Case of the Pssts,

IMG_0657.JPG

I want to use this letter to warn you of a virus that is going around. It is called The “Psst.”

Please be very careful that you do not get it. It is contagious. It is spreading. It is disgusting.

Contact only derives from the ears.

Beware! The “Psst” is everywhere. It originates from a nasty form of gossip.

Gossip hurts everybody. Please… Do not engage in that form of sickness. It will eventually deteriorate your soul.

Be leery of anyone leaning over to whisper to you in public. They are infected. They do not realize everyone in the room is aware of their infliction.

Nothing good has ever come from a case of The “Pssts.”

The only cure is isolation.

If you see someone who is infected, it is best to ignore them. They might view your vulnerable ears as a challenge.

So, children, I beg of you:

“Cover your ears

And bite your tongue.

A case of The Pssts

Cannot be undone.”

Please be careful. And remember you will never regret the nice words you have said about someone but you will always regret most of the bad ones.

Here are some ear muffs. And a tongue depressor… Just in case.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Children: First Day Of School 2014

20140818-224523-81923044.jpg

I was informed over the summer that I do not know what junior high school boy’s fashion looks like. This might surprise you, but I am going to take that as a compliment. For many reasons.

I also learned this summer that I love sleep. Okay. This is not new. But gosh, I am going to miss late summer mornings. On the first day of school, I sobbed all of the way home after dropping you off and then crawled into bed and took a nap with your daddy. Just so you know this has continued for the last two days. It is my new favorite thing. A nap after waking. Although is that a nap? Or was my brief awake time merely a walking snooze?

Let us recount the first day of school for those of us not in our household:

I had thought the morning was going well. One child was out the door. I only had one to go. I thought it was the easy one. My daughter had needed me to flat iron her hair, help with her make-up and scrutinize her clothing skin exposure earlier in the morning. Okay, the last one was unwanted. But I cannot help it. I am a mom.

So, I thought I could cruise through the remainder of the morning with my son. All he had to do was put on a t-shirt and pants. Easy.

Except.

Well, the kid has been living in his pajamas and swim trunks for the last week. He went to put on his new first day of school shorts.

They would not button.

Not only would they not button. The button-hole and the button were so far apart it was The Grand Canyon Of Skin between them. What to do?

He unexpectedly had had a huge growth spurt and all of his pants suddenly did not fit. It was ten minutes before we had to leave.

Well, no big deal, I thought. I always purchase the next size up in pants on huge discounts when I see them. I pulled out a larger size replica of the shorts he had outgrown. They had been $6 at The Gap last year and still had the tags attached to them. They also surprisingly sported a large crusty yellow stain across the lower thigh when I went to take the tags off. This probably explains the low price and definitely explains the scream you heard from my house on Wednesday morning. There was no time to wash them. I hastily, and with great stress, found another pair in a drawer.

Note to self: next year have all of the first day of school outfits inspected and tried on before you have ten minutes to get to the school.

So, let us skip the remainder of the day (Nap. Eat. Nap. Worry) and get to the part where my children recounted their day to me over dinner:

Me to my son: “What was the best part of your day today?”

My son: “I really like my computer teacher.”

Me: “What do you like best about him?”

My son: “I love the chairs in his classroom.”

Me: “What?”

My son: “The chairs in his classroom. They swivel.”

Me: “The thing you like best about your teacher is his swivel chairs?”

My son: “Well, yea, and he has a cool classroom.”

And by cool classroom, he means a room filled with computers and swivel chairs. He lucked into his perfect elective. And hopefully not a swivel-chair-concussion.

I turned to my daughter and asked her the same question I had just asked my son, “What was the best part of your day today?”

My daughter: “Definitely the professional hugger at the pep rally.”

Me: “What the heck is a professional hugger?”

My daughter: “I don’t know but he made me cry.”

Me: “Because he hugged you?”

My daughter: “No, ugh, Mom! Because he gave the best speech.”

Me: “Did he hug anybody?”

My daughter: “No. Mom! There were hundreds of people there.”

Me: “Well, I would expect nothing less from a professional hugger. Hmmmm. I want to be hugged by a professional hugger. Maybe I am a professional hugger, only I don’t even know it because I can’t hug myself. Hug me. Let me know how I measure up.”

My daughter: “Mom! He didn’t hug me!”

Me: “Yes, I know. But as a professional hugger he must have looked very huggable so I bet you could imagine how he hugs. So just compare that to this.”

My daughter running away: “Mom!…”

That about sums it up. Swivel chairs and professional huggers. The first day of school is always full of surprises. I had started to cry that morning and my son had stopped me and said, “Mom. Don’t be that mom.”

He doesn’t know that I am always that mom.

This is a tough transitional year for me. I no longer have children in elementary school. And I never will again. No hallways decorated with sunshine faces. No noodle plates. Or Mother’s Day Teas. I have had to splinter my heart with a leftover noodle when a hole burst open from the dried-out Elmer’s glue that had been holding it together.

To my children:

Last year was an amazing school year.

You daughter, found your footing in high school and I trust in your growing maturity to continue to thrive. I am amazed at your generous spirit. Your ability to speak to anyone without fear. You surpassed me with your efficient order many years ago. Of papers. Plans. Life. You never judge and are always fair. I strive for your morals. I worry that you take on too much. An imperfectionist raising a perfectionist is my greatest challenge on my journey as your mother. You are inspiring.

You son, ended your early-childhood schooling with amazing grades and a vocabulary that I envy. You started a brand new school this year. With deodorant. Growth spurts. And a wise acceptance of change. I worry about your organizational skills that you unfortunately earned from your parents. But I have faith that you will do what you always do and breeze through your education as you gather every leaf on the tree of knowledge without ever seeming to need the wind to help you soar.

Good luck, my children. I am proud of you. Work hard. And may the Air of Wisdom be always a presence at your back and an easy whisper in your ear.

Love,

Mommy (sorry. Forgot. It is probably just Mom now)

That Mom

Dear Children: Yours

20140523-183707.jpg

When you are sick. I am nauseous.

When you are thirsty. I am parched.

When you are in pain. I am in agony.

When you have heart ache. My own heart breaks.

When you cry. My own eyes run rivers.

And it is not enough.

If I could but take all of your sickness. Your thirst. Your pain. Your heart ache. Your tears.

I would.

All of it.

All at once.

Not only would I take it.

I want it.

For my nutrients were once your nutrients. My blood became your blood. I once breathed air for you. The breath of life into you.

How is it then that I can not control the elements of your being?

I created you.

Yet I cannot control you.

Or the illness that strikes you. The sun that beats down on you. The movement in your body. Or the movement of another’s harsh words rolling from their tongue like a knife to your heart.

I once moved for you.

You once moved in me.

And there are no movements I can make to change the circumstances that face you.

It is every mother’s battle.

The inability to take on their children’s trials.

It is a war every mother would gladly fight.

We have polished our armor. We have sworn our oaths. Our swords belong to you, my children.

We are an army ready. Waiting. Eager.

We run our hands over your fevered brows and then those same hands tighten on our swords.

We wait for an opponent that will never face us.

Directly.

For although your life is yours, my child.

When the sickness, thirst, pain, heartache and tears come, I want it for my own.

What is mine will always be yours.

What is yours is yours.

Not mine.

Yours.

And I crumble next to you from the harsh truth of those words.

The ugliness of those five unchangeable letters.

As I search for the unsearchable. As I beg for the unattainable. As I reach for the unreachable. And I hope for the impossible.

I will wipe your brow of your heat, your eyes of your tears, your back of your worries, your mouth of your sickness, your shoulder in your pain.

I may not be able to take any of those troubles from you. But my heart. My soul.

My hands.

They are yours.

Dear Children: The Cut

20140420-214826.jpg

The hardest thing about being a parent (and there are many hard aspects to it, despite what you may think) is learning when to let go. Learning when to allow you to have your freedom. For eighteen years you are our responsibility and then one day, you just aren’t. One day you are your own responsibilty. If I never give you any freedom now, how will you know how to use it when it is finally all yours? Every bit of it.

How much space is too much?

How much space is too little?

If I let you go will you float away like a balloon and never return?

I’m having a hard time of it.

It would be an entirely easier decision if there were not crazy contraptions in the sky. Designed to steer you off course. There are balloon thiefs. And, worse, balloon poppers. There are balloon gangs. And, God forbid, balloon addicts addicted to getting high.

Life.

It is so so so so so so fragile.

And you are not of the age that you can understand that yet.

Last month, I let you go to your very first concert.

Without me.

I drove away and left you. A part of me felt empty. Disoriented. The mother beast in me was fighting with the fact that I had just left you. By yourself. Okay, you had two friends with you, but there was not an adult. It was such a tough decision. Did I make the right choice? Even dropping you off at the mall with your friends is hard.

You know I will not be giving you your online freedom until you reach eighteen. It is one thing to physically drop you off at a location with your friends where there might be predators. It is another thing entirely to let you navigate, by yourself, the entire dirty world of the internet where I know there are predators.

It is a scary world when the virtual one becomes more dangerous than the physical one.

God forbid those two should ever collide.

I recognize I am somewhat sidetracking, but it all has to do with the same thing. The ever so hard choices we parents have to make. The scary consequences we will have to face if we allow you to make the wrong ones.

And we will.

And I will.

And you will.

And I need to tighten this darn string. Because this letting go thing is killing me. And I have just discovered that the string of your balloon is tied directly to my heart. This is rather inconvenient timing. It is going to hurt to cut that string. It hurts when you pull on it. When you attempt to break free before the string has been allowed to fray. To naturally make the cut on its own.

I feel as though time is a pair of ruthless scissors.

The choices more important than helium or air.

I am the clown that cannot laugh. I cannot mold my balloon fast enough for the circus of life that awaits to take my creation away.

Life is not fair.

Nor a fair.

But I am preparing you for it nonetheless.

Those scissors are looming closer. They are so sharp. So cutting. So very dreadful.

It makes sense that their cut would hurt.

I just never thought it would hurt this much.