Social Gracious

A Fish Story

About a year ago, we bought two fish for the kiddos.  Like all low rent fish who are not cared for by people who have a certain yen for the care of creatures that dwell in aquariums, they eventually died.  The first to succumb was Diva’s fish, who she named Hannahbelle.  I noticed the lady Hannahbelle floating belly up in the little tank late in the evening, and alerted UberGeek to our plight.  Then I grabbed the little green handled scoop and “fished” her out.  We gave the fish an unceremonial flushing and bid her farewell while she circled the drain.  I told UberGeek I would talk to Diva in the morning about the demise of her fish; that’s not his thing. 

In the morning, as I was showering, a terrible thing happened; Diva woke up and noticed the fish was gone.  She approached UberGeek, and he panicked. UberGeek said the first thing that came to his mind, “Hannahbelle went on vacation!  She wanted to see the world like Nemo.”  UberGeek was thinking to himself that he would replace the ill fated Hannahbelle with a similar fish and save his daughter the heartache.  She would never know the difference, right?

Time went by as it does, grocery lists lengthened, laundry loads hummed, until finally over a year had passed.  The lovely Hannahbelle, despite all the good intentions, was never replaced.  Recently, we were out shopping at Wally World picking up some necessities when the kids begged to pass by the pet supplies area.  As we walked past the tanks Diva began to sniffle, “I miss Hannahbelle, she went on vacation a long, long time ago and she never came back. Daddy, where is Hannahbelle?”

Eddie turned to look at his sister with a very serious look on his face, “Diva, that fish is dead and it’s never coming back!  Fish don’t go on vacation.”

I suppose Santa Claus is next.

Touchdown Wishes and Gridiron Dreams

Just the other afternoon UberGeek came wandering toward me where I was working in the office, as he approached I noted a definite twinkle in his eye. "Kristie, do you know what Eddie just told me?" he asked. I didn't. "He said that one day I am going to be watching him on the television!" So you might be wondering, is that because my bright and beautiful boy is aspiring to a career in public service, or journalism perhaps? No, of course not, Eddie is referring to football! The kids don't watch much TV but during football season it's a television marathon each weekend. My son, at five years old, knows many teams by the color of their uniform, calls out plays to UberGeek when he is in another room and is just generally football crazed.  UberGeek has tried to involve Diva similarly, but she generally insists on doing dance moves across the living room during the games. Still, both Diva and Eddie are probably more educated in the ways of football than I am.

When UberGeek thinks of his son playing football he dreams of the two of them tossing around the ol' pigskin in the yard, discussing strategies and watching instant replays together. When I think of my son playing football there are three things that occur to me, spinal cord injury, brain injury (a concussion counts as a brain injury), and disability. "Kristie, he won't be a defensive back, he's not built for it, those are the guys who get spinal cord injuries, they take the hits." Uh, hem, he is five years old, he's not built for anything really in my mind. I do understand that having a child who shares his passion for football is a dream come true, I just wish the dream would remain on the couch or the living room floor with a Nerf ball.

Skinny Kids

 
 

This weekend dear friends (dear since they took both of ours plus two of theirs for several hours and still said no to drugs) took our kids to a great city event.  They volunteered for this to help out UberGeek and I, since we would be getting ready for the kiddos fifth birthday party.   Several hours later all the kids returned home exhausted, spent and with a bounty of free loot that included a little paper from one of the local medical centers.  The paper had their current height and weight written on it.  I thanked my friend profusely, tucked the kids in for a nap and put the papers in the drawer for a later date.  Then UberGeek and I frantically continued our birthday party preparations.

Later, after the party was over, all was cleaned up and a sigh of relief was breathed, I dragged out the little papers.  I was curious as to how tall the kiddos were and those growth percentile calculators are readily available online. 

Diva used to be a cute chubby baby, well, not so much chubby as fat.  UberGeek and I fought over who had to carry her, "No, I'm not carrying Jaba, you carry her, I'm taking the skinny one in the carrier." Even her feet were fat, I couldn't fit them in any normal shoes, I had to purchase extra wide baby shoes for the fat pads that crept over the top.  She was a soft, squishy, huggy, happy baby. Then she started walking and it was all over, it became obvious that UberGeek's metabolism genetics had blessedly been passed down to her.  Within six months or so my child became thin.  Now, at five, she is a little taller than average, just over the 79th percentile but only in the 2nd percentile for weight.  So 98 percent of kids her age are heavier than she is.  Thank goodness Osh Kosh and Children's Place make slim pants with adjustable waists. 

Eddie Haskell has always been skinny.  At birth he was just under six pounds, stark white and bruised after having been kicked by his twin sister mercilessly in utero.  He was long and lean, already tall as a baby.  With most babies people comment on how beautiful they are, my mom took one look at him and said "Poor little thing, he just looks like a turtle out of his shell."  It was true, wrinkled and wise, with a furrowed brow he looked up at us as if to say, "Really, could you put me back in for just a couple more weeks? It was my sister who was ready to be born."  He has been around the fifth percentile for weight since birth. 

Once he scaled the heights of the 25th percentile before he started walking, and when I began supplementing breast milk with formula.  As soon as he was mobile it was back to the fifth percentile.  He is warm to the touch most of the time, a little metabolic oven in action, all sharp knees and elbows akimbo.  Eddie looks just like childhood photos of UberGeek, so much so that it tugs on my heart, I wonder if it touches his mother as much as it does me to see how alike they are.  Probably it is more so, since she has all those little boy memories; I only have pictures. I checked his percentiles and he is predictably in the 7th percentile for weight and the 97th for height. 

I used to worry about my kids, afraid that I would take them in for one of those regular check ups and the pediatrician would give me the evil eye.  Instead she asks me if they eat (they do), then she asks me what kinds of foods they eat (all kinds unless in a picky phase) and general questions about their diet and habits. Then she looks at their history and pronounces them sound and healthy.  UberGeek never worries, he just gives me a look, "All those growth charts are skewed now by all the obese kids.  Our kids are fine. We just have skinny kids, at least they don't eat candy."  Subject closed.

Rock Obama

Recently I was washing Eddie Haskell's hair in the shower, scrubbing away while he chatted about this and that.  He looked down at himself, turned his palms up, then down as if inspecting his skin for a bug bite.  Then he said, "Mama, there is someone in my class with brown skin and brown hair."  I said "Yes, just like Mama's friend Miss Y and her family, remember them?" One of my best friends who lived just down the street had two sets of twins but sadly for me, and the kids since they had nearby playmates, they moved two years ago to another state.  "Also, our President, Barack Obama has brown skin too" I said.  "Rock Obama!" he replied. Eddie was quiet for a minute, soaping himself, then he piped up with, "And just like Diva has brown hair and I have blond hair."  "Yes" I said, "just like that, people have all different colors of hair and skin."  Then he was done and onto his next topic. 

I wish it was just like that, for his whole life.  Now, in preschool, my children are unaware of prejudice and racism, kids are kids to them.  Another mom and I were talking about the way our kids describe other people.  They never, ever identify them by race, but rather a clear description of their hair color, eye color, skin color, activities and other factors.  It's such a beautiful time of innocence and it is sad to me that at some point they will begin using the common words we use to categorize different ethnicities rather than their much more accurate current descriptions.

UberGeek and I grew up in Northern Virginia, near Washington, DC,  for much of our lives. There is such a richness of different cultures, ethnicities and religions and diversity is easy to come by.  Now, transplanted to another locale, I often miss how easy it was to find and make friends with people from other cultures,  in our Virginia home they were my co-workers, neighbors and members of social groups I belonged to. During a recent trip home to Northern Virginia I was driving to the grocery store when a man in a canary yellow turban drove by me.  I immediately called my friend, who is also from the DC area, but now lives in Ponte Vedra Beach.  "I just saw a man drive by in a bright yellow turban" I said "I've really missed being at home." She laughed and said, "I know what you mean."

There is diversity in my community here, but I find I have to seek it out.  I love to learn about other people's cultures, try out their foods and ask their opinions on different things. Sometimes the best mirror of yourself and your society is a reflection in eyes that see things not as you do.

Dry Pants Ice Cream

Dry Pants Ice Cream

We have been buying diapers or Pull Ups now for over four years. Both children were successfully potty trained around three years old and Diva went all night in underwear not long after. Eddie Haskell however, seemed to have a camel-like bladder that stored up an entire days urine for the night. During the day he almost never had an accident, we didn't even have to remind him to use the bathroom, oh but the nights were long. We started by not letting him drink anything after 6:30 or so in the evening and then of course taking him to the bathroom just before bed. Then we'd wake him before we went to bed around 10 to go potty again. It didn't seem to matter, he'd be totally soaked by morning.

Eddie Haskell has a mind of his own. When he was three we had been attempting to potty train him for some time. He was having none of it, preferring the convenience of peeing in his Pull Up to the hassle of underwear. At home we forced him to wear underwear but at school he had to be able to go a few days without accidents in order to be sent to school in big boy underwear. Not long after Christmas, he asked us for the Geotrax Grand Central Station which he saw at Target. I told him that we could not afford to buy him that toy because we had to buy $14.99 worth of Pull Ups every bloody week. I told him that if he could go a week at school without accidents and save me the Pull Up money the toy was his. He got a gleam of determination in his eye which I figured would last about two hours, tops. Like his father however, when he decides he is going to do something, he does. That week he had two accidents, the entire week and we figured that was close enough, the Grand Central Station was his.

The kiddos are almost five and I began worrying that we would have to save money not only for college tuition but also for a lifetime supply of night time Pull Ups for Eddie Haskell. How would he get the girls? He'd forever be relegated to the role of Wingman wearing Pull Ups to bed! UberGeek had a plan. There is nothing Eddie Haskell likes better than treats, preferably ice cream. UberGeek laid down the potty gauntlet, if Eddie could go three nights with dry pants he could pick any treat spot he wanted to go to for dessert after dinner. That first night as we sat on the couch after tucking in the little people, we heard the patter of little feet down the hallway, the toilet seat lifted, a flush and handwashing many, many times. Eddie Haskell did make it through that first night dry as can be, he was dry the second night and the third too. He picked Kilwin's for his treat spot and I have to tell you that I think that was some of the sweetest ice cream I have ever tasted.