kiwords

An Open Letter to the Anti-Abortion Protesters I Passed This Afternoon

I was driving along, heading home in the middle of a busy happy Saturday, with the two older boys in the van, when I saw you. On the side of the road, with your signs, pushing leaflets at passing cars. You looked part scared, part thrilled by the anger directed back at you. Because if you are hated, you must be on the right path, am I right? You were so young, all of you. Maybe in your twenties.

And your signs. Oh my, your signs. I understand what it is that you were trying to say, that abortion is a terrible thing, and we should not pretend it is something benign. Oh, but. 

Would you listen to me if I told you that I, too, am a Christian? (Although of the Catholic persuasion, which I am betting does not count to you.) Would you be able to hear me if I said that I, too, think it is a terribly sad thing when any baby dies, from any cause, at any age? I would also tell you that it's more complicated than you think, but oh, you are so young, and I'm not sure you can hear that just yet.

I'm sorry. I remember being so young and how infuriating the smug knowingness of middle age was. I'm trying not to talk down to you, because I truly wish you could hear me. 

Your signs. The pictures. I believe your intentions are...can I bring myself to say "good"? How can you tell yourself that those pictures convince anyone of anything good? Do you really think that weighs in on the side of life?

All I can tell you with any authority is what your pictures did to me. Because I am not a pregnant woman, I may not matter to you. But the tiny, red-skinned body, laid across someone's fingertips? My own daughter was just a few weeks older than that baby when she died. And the severed limbs? The waxy arm and leg, looking like doll's parts, except for the bloody ends? That's what they did to my daughter's body to safely remove her from me. 

I may not matter to you, but when I saw your pictures, I yelped. "Don't look at them, don't look," I begged my sons irrationally. What would you do, if you were a teen? My hands went numb and the world narrowed down to a dark tunnel for a moment. I could not breathe I could not think I could not unsee what you did. My belly ached where my baby should be, nearly term, pressing out in every direction, making it hard to draw a deep breath.

The van grew thickly silent, and I somehow managed to drive away. The boys were still, not wanting to face again the broken bits of their mother. 

You can tell yourself you're doing God's work, I suppose. I'm sure you have people insisting that's true. I can't see how you can truly believe you're preventing abortions. Maybe your goal is simply to accuse. I don't know, I never read anywhere in my Bible about Jesus coming into the world to brutalize the brokenhearted. But I don't suppose we'll ever see that the same way.

All I can tell you is what you did to me.

School year wrap up

As of today, all the children in our house are DONE with school year 11/12! Can I get a WOOOHOOOO? So I thought I'd finish up the year with a look at how each kid is doing.

Tre made the Dean's List. Again. Could I be any more annoying with my smugness? He is lovely and good, that child, and I am delighted by him. He is mostly delighted by his girlfriend. I said to him, sort of teasing, "The two of you look at each other like you invented light." He laughed and replied, "We did." He said it like he was joking, but I don't think he was, entirely.

But his girlfriend isn't the only one with whom he is smitten. 

Now all he needs is a summer job and a car, and the world is pretty much his oyster. 

Max had a slightly rough school year, mostly because...okay, because Max is 13. And he is wonderful and smart and funny and strong, but he is also 13. I'm just saying.

He is, whether he knows it yet or not, something of a super hero. And he totally rocked math this year.

 

Raphael has been, by turns, the most adorable, sweet boy and a great big pill. I was talking to a friend today who said, "Yeah. Fifth grade. Those kids are impossible." I'm so glad next year we have sixth grade to look forward to, instead. HA! HA HA HA!

He is still obsessed with origami, and folds the most amazing things. He's made huge improvements in writing and not pitching a fit at math. He still likes to go places with his mom, and I truly appreciate that.

Finally, Sophia mostly would like to be held. By whomever is not currently holding her.

She is busy and attitudinal, and the other day she wrote this:

(That says "Mommy" and "Sophia." CLEARLY.)

She is obviously brilliant. Yes, I am still being annoyingly smug. I can't help it - my kids are great. And I declare this school year a success and this class here:

Hereby PROMOTED!

(It's a relief to everyone.)

 

Pick the caption

I think this picture could be captioned one of three ways:

1) - Awww! 

2) - If she would just sleep at night, like a normal human being, then she wouldn't be suddenly overtaken by sleep while being read a book by her big brother, leaving us holding our breaths, waiting for the inevitable rage when she wakes up and realizes what happened.

or 

3) - Who put great big man hands at the end of my little Max's arms? 

What it's like having a newly licensed driver in the family.

Having a newly licenced driver in the family changes things. For instance, you would not believe how many errands a 16 year old boy has to run every day after school. It is boggling.

Fortunately, gas prices are so low...oh, wait. Well, that's okay, because we have so much money left over after paying insurance...um. But I guess it really helps us save up to get Tre his own car...hmmm. I guess it's a good thing that remodeling a house is such a cash-positive endevor. Ha! Ha ha! *headdesk*

When I get in my van after he's used it, the seat is moved back about a mile. I think he's mocking me.

And the radio station is always changed. And loud. And the bass is turned waaaaaaay up, so when I switch it to NPR, the timbre of the announcer's voices makes my doors rattle.

Okay, it's actually all the junk stuffed in the door compartments. Shaddup.

I know how old this next part makes me sound, okay? I know it's not original, that Grok's father grunted with irritation when Grok pounded two rocks together rhythmically, because HE didn't need that noise when HE was young. Running from saber-toothed tigers was PLENTY FUN ENOUGH FOR HIM. But. Have you heard of Dubstep? Better yet, have you HEARD Dubstep? It's...mostly it's just synthesizer-ish repetitive dance music, with questionable lyrics, and then randomly they insert a sound like a screwdriver being dropped in a blender. It makes my eyelid twitch.

This evening Tre was driving me somewhere, and a "song" came on, and the lyrics said something like, "I totally drank too much last night," and Tre reached over and turned it down.

"You know," I said, "I think I can handle it."

"Are you sure?" he asked, without a trace of sarcasm.

And that is what it's like, having a newly licensed driver in the family. It's kind of great.

At least, I hope it is.

Today was Max's concert for Honor Band. He was, of course, everything that is perfect and brilliant about saxophone, and the phenomenal improvement seen in the beginning band over the last nine months can mostly be attributed to him. You know. Objectively speaking.

But at the beginning of the program, a trumpet ensemble played the Star Spangled Banner. When the audience realized what they were playing, everyone rose to their feet. The sound of them - of us - standing in an instant display of respect brought tears to my eyes.

And yes, it is a shade sentimental, to get weepy over our national anthem, and yes, patriotism is a concept that only gets more intense and complicated the older I get. But today was the first time in months that I have cried over anything other than my own pitiful self.

And I like to think that's progress. 

Chicken Rx

This morning, after dropping Max and Raphael off at Monday school, Sophia and I went out to the new house to visit the chickens. They live there, instead of here, for the same reasons we need a new house. There is simply. no. room. But Mom and Dad are already living out at the new house (albeit in a maze of boxes and construction - and their house is waaaaay further along than ours is. Deep breath.), and they are caring for the chickens for now.

I know, I know, people who adore their chickens are slightly odd. But y'all! They're so ADORABLE! And sort of dumb and lively and adorable a few more times. We just huddled around their box and exclaimed over them and laughed. It's miller moth season here in Colorado, which means that the air is thick with the rotten little buggers, fluttering dustily around, hell-bent on getting stuck in my hair (apparently my curls exude the gentle glow of a porch light). But since the chicks are in a box with a light bulb hanging over them, keeping them warm, they are also a great moth magnet. And when one flutters close enough, those sweet little puff balls turn into MOTH SEEKING WEAPONS OF DESTRUCTION. 

One of them would snatch a moth out of the air, then race around the box, with the moth flapping wildly on both sides of its beak. The other three would scramble after the victorious one, peeping in hot pursuit. Sometimes a tug of war would ensue, and one chick would run off, triumphant! with a wing in its beak. 

Once two chicks caught moths simultaneously, and the resulting excitement/confusion was almost too much for the other two, who raced back and forth, unable to decide who to chase. Sophia and I were in stitches.

Hmm. Do you think it's safe for such tiny chickens to be eating great big moths? Hang on, I have to google something...

Honestly, though, I don't know how I'd stop them. They're FIERCE. And the best part is the minute the moth was eaten, all of them would blink and look around like, uh...what? What was I doing just now? I...uh...peep.

Gifted is what they are. 

So anyway, yes I know it's a bit silly to be so chicken-smitten. But this is what passes for sanity in my life. In the last month, by contrast, Tre has a) gotten himself a girlfriend, who is a junior so he b) accompanied her to prom and then c) got himself a driver's license so today he could d) ask to borrow the car and drive to Target to buy himself a razor today so he could f) shave his actual face. 

No, none of that is bad, but lordy is it a lot to process. There are new details to figure out (say, does anyone have a used car they'd like to sell? We're in the market for something affordable, gas efficient, that doesn't go fast, ever, under any circumstances, with no back seat, and if it came with a trunk full of cash for paying insurance premiums, that would be GREAT. Tre would like something red, with a phenomenal sound system, but that's totally negotiable). I'm processing slow these days anyhow, and a few hours of chick versus moth is just what the weary mama ordered.

I won Mother's Day.

I don't care what you got for Mother's Day (if you are a mother, and celebrate like that). I don't care if your loved ones showered you with chocolate, or flowers, or diamonds. I don't care if you got a year of maid service (hmmm...no, it's close there, but I still won). A yacht, a island paradise getaway, a new dinette set (why have I turned into Bob Barker all of a sudden?) - none of them can compare with what *I* got for Mother's Day.

Behold...

Also, I am eating M&Ms I found in the bottom of my purse. I think they've been there a while.

So I'm sitting in a Starbucks right now, and the lady who was in line in front of me is a complete nut job. You would not believe the efforts required to make her caramel macchiato right. To sum up: she required her foam in a separate cup. I am just saying.

She was (as I mentioned) in line ahead of me, but because I can order a drink like a normal person, I got to my seat first. That was nice, because I was able to snag one of the two soft armchairs next to each other. I'm meeting a friend, so that was good. But then nut job separate foam girl comes and sits in the other chair. Dang. She was with a guy, and she started loudly telling him to pull over a chair and a table and set the computer there and and and. So I scooped my stuff up to move. Meeting a friend, see. 

"OH NO!" she protested, "DON'T MOVE! You stay! He can sit over there! WE," here she made dramatic hand gestures from her chest toward me, "WE are what matter here."

"It's okay. I'm meeting someone, so we'll just grab a table."

"NO! You stay HERE!"

"Uh...thanks. But I'm....meeting someone...so...." And with that, I scurried off.

Now I'm sitting here, thinking about how annoying she is, and feeling simultaneously bravely snarky for blogging grumpily about her when she's sitting eleven feet away, and also very petty and childish, for blogging her at all. 

Sophia got very little sleep last night, and has been a complete bear all day. There is no slight to small or imaginary to ruin her life right now, and Raphael in particular has been her nemesis. Whenever he bumps into her/looks at her wrong/breathes an unfair share of her air/takes up actual physical space in the world as we know it, she responds by throwing things at him, stomping her foot, and shrieking, "NO NO NO! I woke up MAD TODAY."

And maybe, after all, that is my problem, and not the separate foam lady at all. Maybe I just woke up intolerant.

Although I still think it's polite to ask before sitting in the other armchair at Starbucks. 

Sweet Sophia Ann

Guess who turned three? Her actual birthday was Friday, but we postponed it, because Good Friday seems like such a GRIM day for a birthday. How do you word those invitations? "Come celebrate with us! The party theme is torture and death!" 

So instead we waited until Monday. Sophia didn't even know we'd missed her actual birthday, although the boys keep telling me they're going to tell her about it when she's older. I hope they wait until she's 13 or so, because I'm guessing she's going to be looking for reasons to be furious with me right about then. It's like a delayed-release birthday gift, really!

Since it was HER birthday (more or less), she got to pick what we had for dinner. This explains why we had fries and pink smoothies as an actual meal. Clay and my parents think I'm insane. But it was Sophia's birthday, and she enjoyed it.

Eventually, as she does with any meal that involves catsup (or chetchup, as she calls it), she moved to a true gourmet's appreciation of this wonderful...vegetable. Totally a vegetable. 

The party activity was decorating her cupcakes. Her PINK cupcakes. 

Those bowls of frosting were for her use alone. That was a brilliant move on my part. Genius. I like to set the bar low for myself, in terms of achievement, but let me tell you: that was the exact right thing to do. 

Once the cupcakes were decorated, we stuck three candles in hers and sang to her. This was such a hit with her that once we were done, we were allowed to do it all over again.

And now she is three, which is very, very big. Sometimes she comes sauntering out of her room and informs me that she was just now, in our house, growing. That is why she is so big. 

She loves to make her brothers laugh, which is not actually so hard. Tonight she sang them a song about tooting, and they were hysterical with laughter...okay, I laughed too. You had to be there. It was good. 

She paints roughly one million pictures a day, and tells that many stories and sings that many songs. She is funny and bossy and animated and strong willed and likes pink. She is our Sophia (aka Camel, Tweety Ann, or Lamination Ann. Max comes up with most of the nicknames. I cannot explain them). 

And someday we just hope she comes out of her shell, just a little. 

 

She is such a joy and yes, a million times yes, she dresses her own stubborn self. She is three, and she takes my breath away.

 

 

 

Saturday I was under a cloud. There were small reasons for this, like when I was planning my meals for the week I realized that I was hosting the Easter meal, then had two birthdays (Sophia and Clay), and then had to write a biography for my grandmother before flying out to California for her funeral on Thursday. And then I had a minor mental breakdown, because SERIOUSLY?

By the way, my grandmother died. It was February 19, the night before we buried Eva. It was so fast that at the luncheon after Eva's funeral, I asked Mom, "Hey, how's Grandma doing today?" And she looked stricken and, because she does not lie to me, she said, "She...died last night." And I cocked my head at her, and the wheels in my head spun for a moment, and then I took that information and boxed it up and there it stays. She was Vivian, my dad's mom. And her mother was named Eva. Anyhow. It's all boxed up right now, you see? So I couldn't possibly talk about her.

So anyhow, after my little (super helpful) breakdown, I took off into my day, trying to get all the groceries bought and errands run and a quick run through the gym because the only thing heavier than my actual weight is the load of self-loathing I carry about my actual weight. And I had to buy a new dress, in a shockingly large size, or wear my bathrobe to the Easter vigil that night. 

And that really was the reason I was so heavy with sadness, that service, that night. The boys were being received into the church, and I wasn't. It's my marriage, still not blessed, because Clay's annulment hasn't come through yet (ohpleaseohplease). So until that's taken care of, I can't take the final step. I'm not in yet.

It's...what? Funny? Humbling is probably more like it. For years I've stood apart from the Catholic Church and sniffed at it. You can't have me. I know better. And now, here I am, with my nose pressed to the glass, and I want nothing more. 

A few weeks ago I sat in the last RCIA class, the course of study you go through to join the church. They were discussing all the details of the services that would bring everyone into the church. I sat there, trying to be grown up about it, because despite how I tell the story, not everything is actually about me. But across the room was a woman with her newly-walking baby girl, and I could not stop watching her lurch across the floor, and suddenly I was awash in longing for things I cannot have. For full communion in my church, for a bright eyed baby girl, for a full, deep breath, for my life to feel like home again.

I mostly hid in the bathroom for the rest of that class, but whatever. I couldn't exactly hide in the bathroom that night, while my sons became Catholic.

A quick aside here: people have asked me if it's hard to have my sons become Catholic when I can't. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. I am grateful that the Church, in her wisdom, does not hold the messes in my and Clay's life against our children. They are completely their own people, and I am so glad that the graces of full communion are available to them. And I'm not saying that I resent this holdup for me, either. If you're not ready to submit to the authority of the Church, well then, I wouldn't think it would be all that hard to have to wait. It's a whole package deal, isn't it?

Anyhow, that's where I was for most of Saturday. Anxious and sad (and fat) and stressed. I didn't want to cry through this very important event in the boys' life. I wanted to be there, I HAD to be there, and yet I wasn't sure how good of a job I could do at being there.

The service started at eight, in darkness. We filed in, carrying candles. There were Bible readings, outlining the story of salvation, and moments of total darkness, save for the light of the Christ candle. Then the people who were being baptized were brought forward. I watched them file by, the adults all people I have come to know over the last eight months. When they leaned over the baptismal font and offered themselves up to the death and rebirth that baptism is, I found myself only able to smile and sing along. It is so beautiful, all of it, the water and the oil and the words. All of it, so ancient and beautiful and true. My sons stood in front of the church and declared their belief in firm voices and were marked as God's own and called by the names of their patron saints, St. Michael the Archangel, St. Frances, St. Anthony. Oh yes, please. Please pray for them.

After the baptisms the priest took a bowl of the water from the baptismal font. He believes - strongly - in really using the holy water and anointing oil. I mean really using it. After he anoints someone with oil, they glisten. He took a pine branch and dipped it in the water and then flung the water at the congregation. Because we were standing directly in front of him, Clay and I got drenched. Like, water was dripping off our chins and I was glad I wasn't wearing a white shirt. DRENCHED. 

We laughed and looked at each other. Life can be surprisingly harsh sometimes. But then again, there are blessings too that take your breath away.