Doesn't she look innocent?

The subject line of the email read: Cialis_Viagra_Ritalin__Percocet__Adderall!!! It’s as if they wanted to get my attention one way or the other.

Attention. Two of my children take medication for ADHD. I was thinking back to the days before they did, back when the kids were tiny. Bedtimes were an absolute horror show, because by then I was exhausted, and the ones with ADHD just got more active when they were tired.

I relied heavily on ritual. At one point I had three children really close together (an infant, a two year old and a six year old. OK, you probably had more and closer, but this stretched me.)

I would put the baby to sleep, put the two and 6 year old into their bunk beds after they were clean, and tell them a story. Sometimes it would be a book, but they liked the stories about themselves the best. They LOVED the stories about when they had been caught  doing some criminal action or another- they could listen to those night after night. “Do you remember when you were brushing your teeth by yourself and you stuffed every single toothbrush down the the sink drain? Do you remember when you were playing the piano and decided to color every single key a different color with your new box of crayons?”

If I was too tired to regale them with stories of their misadventures, we read something like “Goodnight, Moon” or “Where the Wild Things Are” or “I’ll Love You Forever”- the latter when they were older. After the story we had the nightly joke. “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Banana.” “Banana who?”

“Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Banana.” “Banana who?”

“Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Banana.” “Banana who?” [continue until point of pain]

“Knock knock.” “Who’s there?’ “Orange.” “Orange who?” “Orange you glad I didn’t say ‘Banana’?”

Now they are older. Little ones bring this constant veil of exhaustion, or at least they did for me. I look at pictures of myself from that time and feel like taking the baby for a couple of hours so that I could take a nap. But once they are older they bring a whole different skill set into play.

My twenty year old lost her license because she was driving with her friends past the state-mandated curfew and the occupants of her automobile mouthed off to the officer who stopped them. No drugs, no alcohol- just bad attitudes, a towed car and a suspended license. To get the license back she would have to take an anger management class and write a letter of apology. She refused to write the letter, and still can’t drive.

And other things similar to this happen. It’s like a switch flips when they turn 16 and they feel this burning urge to create more of those criminally-oriented bedtime stories. Where the Wild Things Are? They were living in my house until my son turned 18, and then they sailed away- probably until the 11 year old invites them back.

If I had to share any tip to getting through those years it would be this: the 20 year old daughter, when she was about 16, crawled under my bed and hid. I brought some laundry up and had put it on my bed in preparation of folding it, and she snaked both hands out and grabbed me by the ankles.

When they were little, that would have sent me through the roof, screaming along the way. My daughter was disappointed because I didn’t even flinch- not on purpose. It just wasn’t in me any more to be frightened of what hypothetically lived under the bed, when every time the car went on the road with a teenager behind the wheel my nerves began the countdown until he or she arrived home in one piece.

That’s the tip: when you get that call- and chances are you will- with a crying teenager at the other end, take a deep breath. Put the hysteria to sleep until the morning and take care of business. And realize that someday they will have children just like themselves.

Orange you glad I didn’t say “Banana”?

This child doesn't have a disrespectful bone in her body

Becca and Jenny

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This morning I was getting Jenny ready for school- the usual sheepdog-nipping-at-the-heels stuff of trying to leave on time. I raced out to the car, and Jenny tossed one of her hundreds of questions a day at me. “Can we repaint our house?’ she wanted to know.

“No sweetie,” I answered. “We have vinyl siding and the paint won’t stick.” “Well, can we just paint spots on it, like the house down the road?”

“No, honey. People don’t paint spots on their houses.” “Yes, they do.” “No, they don’t.”

It was about this time when she pointed and said, “Yes they do- LOOK!” And it was about this time that I nearly drove off of the road, because there, right in front of me, I saw

This isn’t a photoshopped picture- this is exactly what we saw. Jenny, at 10, had several different theories as to why the house looked the way it did. “The grandchildren were visiting, and they asked their grandparents if they could paint spots on the house, and the grandparents didn’t want to say no, so they did.”

“Or maybe the kids each wanted to paint the house a different color, and this is how they solved the problem.”

Each scenario described the children wanting to add sparkle to their lives, and the grandparents (all of Jenny’s have died) begrudgingly helping. The parents were not called on to act.

So what does that mean? Maybe it’s time for me to dust off my bubble wand. Or run through the sprinkler on the next warm day. Or spend 3 days hot-glue-gunning Mentos to dental floss so we could re-create the eepy-bird fountains:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX4_OrRZa1g]

We never had so much fun before with diet soda, and I doubt we ever will again.

And that’s the thing: this moment you have now- that’s where you need to be happy, because you want to say, “I never had so much fun before, and I doubt I ever will again,” and mean it.

I wonder if paint CAN stick to vinyl siding?

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I always love driving in to the city to pick up my daughter at her apartment. I used to fear driving there, but honestly? Nothing scares me anymore. I have developed this kind of he-who-hesitates-is-lost mentality, and in the city I have learned to drive at least aggressively enough.

But my favorite part of it is having my daughter in the car with me. We have similar taste in music and senses of humor- heaven help her- and we usually spend a good part of the ride home wailing with laughter.

Yesterday I picked her up. She got into the car. I noticed that her hair was pulled back and she was wearing her hoodie pulled up. We got her settled with her dirty laundry, and started back for home. A few minutes into the ride, she said, “Do you remember when I was 3 years old and cut my own bangs?” I knew what was coming so I started laughing.

She said, “I was all alone last night and bored, so I decided to cut my hair. It didn’t look that great so I cut a little more, and that didn’t work so I decided to layer it to frame my face.” By this time we were both laughing so hard we had were crying, and if I had not been a danger on the road prior to this, I now crossed that delicate line. She pulled off the hoodie and I could see chopped up bits of hair, staggered like a Jack-O-Lantern’s teeth, and her bangs in the front were so short that her cowlick made them stand up center-left.

When I could finally catch my breath I said, “Becca, what were you thinking of?” She told me that once she started she just had to keep going, and asked me in a worried voice, “Do you think I have OCD?” “No,” I replied, “I think you are human.”

Everyone has done something like that. You just know you should stop, but you keep going anyway. There are lots of reasons for this: everyone else is doing it; you’ve messed something up and you’re pretty sure that you can fix it if you just keep at it; maybe you think that if you try something just a little differently your success at it will improve.

And you know what? You probably succeed once in a great while, and that’s just enough to keep you with the scissors to your hair. This random intermittent reinforcement- the occasional success- can keep you trying even though, like in my daughter’s case, some situations can’t be helped by your behavior.

What a human thing! Happens in personal life, happens professionally. We’re all guilty of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results,  or using a technique that worked years ago and resisting change. 

At least it was only her hair.

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Today I am helping out backstage at my 10 year old daughter’s play. The phone keeps ringing, which is driving me slightly nuts because I have to put off responding to any real estate matters, and I hate doing that, even for a few hours. No choice, however, so I am taking a deep breath and trying to get over myself.

Because, really, it is not my day today- this day belongs firmly to my daughter and the other little ones who have practiced twice a week (and every single day, this week). There are two performances today, and one tomorrow, and the kids are tired. I looked over at the group of “rabbits” in the wings earlier, and one little bunny was curled up on the floor waiting for her cue- nearly asleep.

Grueling. But it’s a great story. The production is a version of the “Velveteen Rabbit,” and if you haven’t read it, you ought to. I won’t give anything away by giving you the Cliff’s Notes version. Little boy gets toy rabbit for birthday, drags toy rabbit around everywhere, loves toy rabbit. Boy gets scarlet fever, pulls through. Nanny is told to remove everything boy has been in contact with and burn it. Before toy rabbit is destroyed, he is turned into a real rabbit by fairy because  boy loved him so. Premise is simple; the actual story is fairly elegant, and seeing a group of elementary students, many still believers in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, act it out is like sprinkling it with fairy dust.

It’s interesting that it is told from the point of view of the velveteen rabbit- that makes the story charming to adults. But what catches the child is the child acknowledges the depth of the love that is attached to a favorite plaything. Most children remember the fierceness of this love. It is absolutely consuming. My daughter Rebecca had a blanket- not even a toy- and she lost it once. She was miserable- she pined, she couldn’t sleep; it reminded me of the pain people newly-in-love feel when they are forced to be apart, except the blanket wouldn’t annoy her two years down the road by leaving his dirty socks rolled up in a ball in the middle of the living room.

But be that as it may, each child gasps- aloud or internally- when that stuffed rabbit gets carted off in the wheelbarrow to be burned. What on the surface to the adults in the audience is a charming story akin to Pinocchio touches something deep in the marrow of the child in the audience.

One thing that this is reminding me is that children, for the most part, are wired to try. These kids are all exhausted, yet when the music starts, their eyes snap open, they stop whining and bickering, and dance and sing for all they are worth. Tickets would be cheap at twice the price.

So I think that’s one thing. But the best thing is this- remember the intensity with which you once loved when you were little, and drag that along into your adult life, even if it hurts so bad you can’t bear it sometimes. Feelings that make you suck in your breath through your teeth- with pleasure or pain- are the cayenne in life.

And don’t we all need a little fire?

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