When Liam and Caleb were little, they both loved Going on a Bear Hunt. Remember that?

Going on a bear hunt.

We’re going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We’re not scared!

And then there’s the long tall grass to get through, swishy-swashy; and the mud, squelch-squerch…and pretty much every other obstacle known to human kind, each with its own sound effect.

And the refrain, of course is “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it… oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”

They do get through it, find a bear, are afraid of the bear, run back through all that crap, and climb into bed with the covers over their heads.  Very satisfying. Except for the poor bear, who is left alone to wander the seashore.

I’m thinking about bear hunts these days as older son tries to adjust to his new school.  It’s his second new school in six months–not easy to do, by a long shot, I know–and he’s pretty clear that we’ve ruined his life.  I don’t have the heart to tell him that he’s only eleven. The life-ruining hasn’t even begun. Wait till he’s sixteen and I show up at some party where he’s all cool with the hair gel and the soccer jersey and then I trill from the front hall that it’s time to come home and practice the euphonium. That will be life-ruining.

He has forgotten the lesson of the bear hunt. He can’t believe that he won’t be in the middle of a rocky transition forever. As far as he’s concerned, his new school is an abysmal failure, a prison, a nightmare from which he will never, ever awake. And we’ve ruined his life.

School is stupid and British spelling is stupid and English history is stupid and oh by the way, we ruined his life.

Here’s the thing about Liam: he hates not knowing. He’s a perfectionist in pretty much everything and as a result of that (says moi, armchair shrink), when he explodes because of all the pressure he puts on himself, he explodes BIG and DRAMATICAL and WITH BAD WORDS.  Let’s keep in mind that his mamma is a card carrying member of the Good Enough Club and Husband aims for perfection but then he can’t ever remember where he put it, so we’re both quite puzzled about Liam’s need to be perfect.  Fortunately–or unfortunately–he often comes quite close: perfect report cards; chosen for this honor or that selective program or that elite soccer squad.  He works hard; he pushes himself; he’ll kill himself trying to get something right.  And also manages to be goofy and silly and dance around in his underpants to Kesha songs.

“Passionate” is the word I always use for Liam and I am reminded again, in these past few weeks, that passion is a double-edged emotion.  The highs are really, really high, and the lows are cataclysmic.  He’s in a cataclysmic low right now as he tries to suss out the new system, tries to remember that gray is now grey, and color is now colour.  There have been sinkers–not quite as epic as when we first arrived in Abu Dhabi, but close–and as usual, I try to deal with them with some ad hoc mixture of empathy, firmness, listening, berating, whispers, shouts, hugs, threats, and bribes.

Yes. My parenting has lacked consistency lately.  Thanks for that insight.  And Husband and I aren’t always on the same parenting page at the same time, which adds a whole ‘nother level of wonderfulness to the situation: he wants to cajole when I want to be firm; he berates when I want to offer hugs. I don’t know if we’re complementing each other or just muddying the already swirling waters.

I am trying to remember my own bear hunt lessons, oh yes I am. I tell myself we’ve just got to get through all this swishy-swashy grass–and my sister (so wise and yet…younger. How can that be?) reminds me (and I then remind Liam) that it won’t be like this forever. But. When your adorable boy in his navy blue blazer is whisper-screaming at you that you’re an idiot and (say it with me) you’ve ruined his life–in the elevator of our building–with other people on the elevator- AT 6:50 IN THE MORNING…well, let’s just say it’s hard to hang on.

For a brief nano-second I thought, what if I just smacked him? Just flipped his cheek with my hand to jolt him out of his hysteria?

I didn’t flip his cheek. In a triumph of will over emotion, I hugged him close and told him it wouldn’t be like this forever.

I am not sure he believes me. I am, after all, the woman who has ruined his life.

Going through it. That’s the thing that sucks, about life and bear hunts, both.

squelch-squerch-squelch-squerch…

image source

this post is linked up with the new improved (probably lemon-scented) blog formerly known as lovelinks: yeah, write. so yeah, right, click on over, read some fabulous writing, then come back later in the week and vote vote vote.

1. “because I said so, that’s why.” Yes. That was me. And more than once. The phrase of parental last resort–and it’s not a resort that I’d like to visit as often as I seem to be doing.

2. There was a time, back in the day, when I thought team sports were the exclusive realm of the Great Santini and his offspring. I didn’t play a team sport growing up (me and hand-eye coordination were strangers for a long, long time); I don’t follow a particular team; I don’t get the whole “team” thing. Mostly I just don’t play well with others, is what it boils down to.  But then Liam fell in love with soccer and there I was…standing on the sidelines in the freezing cold, driving all over New York to games, and here in Abu Dhabi, I’m back in the shlep-wagon, out to soccer school, over to practice…And you know what? Being on a soccer team (and having the great coaches he had in NYC–thank you, Sean and Marcus) — it’s the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him.  Of course, my weekends are shot to hell, but hey, who needs a weekend away, right? Rah rah rah go team.

3. “do you know how many starving children there are in the world who would eat that?” I have a very clear memory, when my mother would say that to me, of saying back to her “well why don’t you mail my food to the kids in Biafra then, hmm?”  Funny, she didn’t seem to appreciate that idea. I remember also thinking to myself “I will never, ever say such a stupid thing to my kids.”  Yeah. Well. Um. What can I say. It’s true, dammit. So eat your carrots!

4. In graduate school, I spent a lot of time thinking about feminism, poststructuralism, gender theory, and other stuff that now makes my early-middle-aged brain hurt to even contemplate. At the time, however, my friends and I sat around talking learnedly about how gender differences were really just socially constructed ideologies that could be done away with if parents would just be a little more, you know, thoughtful.  I believed my own words until the first time my little boy picked up a stick and said “pwang pwang pwang…”  I’m still a feminist but now I’m a feminist who has to accept that she has sons who will, for reasons known only to their DNA, step over or around the socks on the floor, leave the toilet seat down, and look at her blankly when she says “why did you knock that over?” Let me be clear–they are made to put the socks in the laundry, wipe off the toilet seat, pick up the thing they knocked down. But I’m fighting against genetics, here, people, which means that, yes, I’ve been that person who smiles and shrugs and says “well (nervous giggle), you know, boys…” Ugh.

5. Related to 4: when my boys were toddlers, I’d watch their adorable chubby selves playing “bakery” in the sandbox and look in horror at those ill-bred “big boys” playing chase and I’m-gonna-shoot-you-with-my-triblatteringlaserpistolgrappler.  I’d be all smug and judgey and decide that the mothers of these boys had utterly failed. I mean really, what mother would let her children play such a violent game? Um…hi. That would be me. And I’ve even said “run around and chase with your friends,” because I recognize that children are like puppies. They need to be exercised regularly or they’ll just wreck the furniture. .

6. MY children will never be like those OTHER children who walk around surgically attached to their screens. Cue hysterical laughter here. Computers, e-readers, DSi, iPod touch…the electronics in this family could stock an Apple store. I think we manage their computer time pretty well but the sad fact is that when screens are up, bickering is down.

7.  You know how when you were little and your mom would spit a bit on her shirttail or (worse) her fingers and smootch at your cheek to get off the remnants of your last meal? And remember how you thought “god that is gross!” Remember how you thought, nah, you’d never do such a thing? Yep. I thought so too. And then just yesterday, I grabbed Caleb’s arm just before he got on the school bus and swiped–with my shirt and some spit–at the glob of jam on his cheek. He said “MOM THAT’S DISGUSTING” and squirmed away.

8. I never thought I would have sons.  How’s that for hubris? I always wanted to have children but in my mind’s eye, it was always me and charlottedoralucyameliaruby reading Little House on the Prairie and playing dress-up and then later, when they were grownups, my daughters and I would hang out and have long conversations about Life and Shoes and Relationships. They’d tell me what to wear so I didn’t look too dowdy and we’d be the best of friends.  But noooo, the gods have a larky sense of humor and so I am the mother of boys, which means I don’t sit on the beach and flip through magazines. No, it’s SWIM and DIG and PLAY BALL WITH ME and DIG and SWIM.  And when I’m an old woman living alone with a hundred cats, the boys will buy me the valu-pak of Depends and the high-grade cat food, and congratulate themselves on being good sons.

9. I would never make separate meals for my picky eaters. If they don’t want to eat what I cook, then they’ll go hungry. HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHA My children’s eating habits keep me in a state of perpetual humility. I have failed here and here and here and will probably fail again at dinner tonight.

10. God. Some people just can’t shut up about their damn kids. That’s what I thought. And then I started a blog.

Double-dipping this week: this post also links to the wonderful lovelinks site–it’s like Cheers bar for small bloggers (or micro bloggers, in my case). It’s where everyone knows our (screen) name and they’re always glad we came, where everybody can see that all our troubles are the same…and now everyone knows that I’m old enough to remember that show when it wasn’t in reruns! Click on the button below to find some great reading–and then come back on Thursday to vote for your favorites. I won’t even be mad if you don’t vote for me!

The ad is from 1981, not a year particularly celebrated for female achievement (although it was the year Britney Spears was born, so I suppose that counts for something).

I love legos and this ad only stoked my lego-love. My kids are lego freaks and over the years, my only consolation for finding those sharp-edged pieces in the couch, on the floor, embedded in rugs–on pretty much any flat surface–has been to feel all smug that my kids play with such a gender-neutral toy, a toy that is endlessly creative, blah blah blah.

Then I saw this ad on the lego page site:

If Polly Pocket mated with a Star Wars mini-fig, or if hookers gave away bobble-head doll versions of themselves…here’s what would result: chicks hangin’ at the Friends cafe.  When you click on the live screen, these figures sway back and forth, hugging each other and kissing each other on the cheeks. Maybe they’re whispering sweet nothings to one another–maybe it’s the lego version of “The L Word.”

But no. Nothing so interesting as a set of interlocking lesbians.  Instead we’re told that “Stephanie” likes planning parties; that “Andrea” thinks music puts life in full color (the only African American in the group and she’s the one telling us about music?); that “Emma” likes drawing, fashion, and make-overs. Girls who receive these sets can build a tree house, a car, an animal hospital, a beauty shop, or a cafe.  There are no intricate moving parts and when the sets are completed they look really bad dollhouses.  I imagine that completing Emma’s treehouse might not give the same sense of accomplishment as building this:

This thing swivels, jiggles, and moves; it creates destruction and chaos–and when you’re done playing with it in this form, you can take apart the pieces and combine them with any other lego pieces into any creation you can imagine. Emma’s tree house is always going to be Emma’s tree house. I suppose you could take the tree apart and stick the branches onto Mia’s animal hospital, but somehow that doesn’t strike me as satisfying.

Let’s recap, shall we? In the span of thirty years we’ve gone from celebrating a scruffy little girl’s ability to build whatever the hell she wants from a pile of multi-colored bricks to teaching girls that their strengths include parties, fuzzy animals, and make-overs.

Lego isn’t the disease, obviously, just a symptom. (In writing this post, I found out that several organizations devoted to challenging gender stereotypes are up in arms about these new girlie-gos).  Lego claims that it was just–wait for it–responding to consumer desires.  Apparently little girls only want to play with beauty parlors and kittens, so Lego made beauty parlors and kittens.

Okay. Even Lego has to make a buck, I guess (although with a lego set purchased every seven seconds or something, seems to me the company could’ve tried taking the high road). And okay, boys and girls have different ways of playing, I get that (years of watching perfectly innocent sticks become swords, guns, airplanes–pretty much anything that makes a noise or could inflict bodily harm). So yeah, maybe a seven-year-old girl wouldn’t want to build the Star Wars Death Star (and then un-make it, turn it into 85 other things, and then two years later whine “why can’t we make the deaaaaaath staaaaaaaarrrrrrr”).

And so even okay, make a “girl” Lego set. But what about a Princess Knight or Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, or Wonder Woman? What about a group of girl pirates or airship captains?  If you’re going to target to girls, could you at least make your product…interesting?  Complicated? Challenging? Unusual? Little girls may want to play beauty shop, or maybe they want to imagine themselves in tree houses, but hell, couldn’t they at least get a measly multi-piece alien swamp speeder into the bargain?  Something with a little, you know, oomph to it?

Lego. I expected more from you. And so did that little girl in 1981.

join legos & lovelinks! more L words (and lots of others just over there–click the badge & you’ll see

Herewith:

1. Give up cheese
I grew up in northern Illinois, where it’s not a meal unless a dairy product is involved.  If I gave up cheese I might starve.

2. Give up sunbathing
The damage has been done: hours and hours and days of baking in the sun, slathered in baby oil and sometimes holding a it foil-wrapped album cover under my face to make sure that every inch of me got baked (remember albums? So much more useful than a CD and way more useful than an MP3 file).  Now I live in perpetual summer– my only concession is a face cream with SPF.

3. Give up bread and bread-related products
I’d rather sell my children.

4. Stop spending so much time with this newfangled Internet thing.
But then who would I talk to?

5. Learn to meditate.
Love all that stillness and focus, concentrating only on the breath–was that a ding announcing a new message? Did someone comment on my last post? Do we need milk? More cheese?

6. Learn to scuba  dive.
Confession: the idea of being in all that water scares me. Plus did you see that movie? Plus sharks. Plus weird tentacly things.

7. Accept that the Kardashians deserve all the attention heaped on them by the media.
It would be easier to believe that the world is flat or that the Easter Bunny is real.

8. Learn to troubleshoot my own tech problems.
But if I did that, then what would Husband do for fun? He wouldn’t be able to mock me, or sigh in a long-suffering way, so for his sake, I will maintain my learned helplessness.

9. Give up my love affair with my iPhone & be friends with my little Nokia clamshell.
Ha! The new one–iPhone4S (I like to think of it as iPhone 4 Steve) is out finally in Abu Dhabi, so pretty much right after I write this post, I am hauling ass to Etisalat (the AD phone company) to get myself a new iPhone that will work here. Anyone have any suggestions for new apps?  And do we think that Siri will speak to me in Arabic?

10.  Stop making resolutions.
But I love lists! If I were brave, I’d make a list like Eden Kennedy (that’s the Fussy lady), and commit to loving everyone and tell the truth, but I think that is too much for me. How about I just resolve to stop yelling at my children. Or at least, I won’t yell at them on an hourly basis. How about once a day? That’s a resolution I might be able to keep.

Anyway.  We’re on the corner of Sixth Avenue when Caleb offers me these valuable insights on baby-making and marriage.

Caleb: I know why Uncle can’t get married. He doesn’t have any sperm.

Me, jolted out of late-night stupor: Wha?

Caleb: Daddy said, it had to do with a sperm bank and stuff.

Me: Wha?

Caleb: Daddy said that Uncle put the sperm in a sperm bank and then N’s mom got some because she couldn’t have a baby and she wanted one, and that’s how she got N.

Me: And so what does that have to do with getting married?

Caleb: Well Uncle’s sperm is all in the bank so he doesn’t have any left.

Me: And you need sperm to get married?

Caleb, patiently: Well YEAH, of course!  But he doesn’t have any left, so he can’t get married.

So there you go. This whole time I’d been thinking my bro was single because finding someone interested in settling down, in Hollywood, is sort of like expecting that Russell Brand & Katy Perry were going to last–when in fact, it’s just a sperm thing.  Glad we could clear that up for you.

Caleb and I are linked up to lovelinks…you should go there too and read around. Then come back on Thursday and vote for three of your favorites. Probably not as much fun as sperm donation, but hey, you can do lovelinks in your office during lunch!

Leaping between two points, just lifting off from where he’d been, not quite touched down on where he’s going. Not a bad metaphor for the year that’s been and the year that’s to come.

What else does this snapshot show me? That I need to learn how to use my new camera so that the kid is in focus, not the house in the background.

Happy New Year, to friends and loved ones in all hemispheres.

I’d sort of forgotten it was Monday, and then I saw Stasha’s great list about “first things” in 2011–the topic came from Bridget at Twinisms. Stasha’s  list is short so you can read it and get back to the cookies/football/champagne/snow-ball fight.

This year has been full of firsts, including our first Christmas at my sister’s new house in New Jersey, where champagne has been flowing with great abundance. It seems to me that if we could get most of the warring factions in the world on a steady IV drip of Moet or Perrier-Jouet, we might solve a number of the world’s problems.  Just a thought.

Significant firsts of 2011, in no particular order:

1. My sister’s second baby–another daughter–was born in April. She is the second baby but I couldn’t be at the hospital for the first baby’s birth, so  this is a first. Now, in December, that tiny morsel is all thighs and cheeks and big round eyes. Delicious:

2. I rode an elephant.

3. We hired a cleaning lady, which is a bit like suddenly having a fairy godmother.

4. Liam started playing the euphonium in his sixth-grade band. Some children play the flute, or the clarinet. In extreme cases, maybe the drums. My son chose the mini-tuba, which is about as big as his torso.

5. I started stand-up paddle-boarding.  An hour paddling around on the flat waters of the Gulf in the early morning makes everything seem okay.  Santa brought me an underwater camera, so now I can take pictures while I paddle around.  I may start saving my dirham for my own board.

6. The fluffy July trees of Hyde Park got me so inspired I got myself some new kicks and started running. I’m a long, long long way from even running even a mile without stopping, but I still get an endorphin rush that (temporarily) squashes my desire to eat cookies.

7. Finally got through all eighty gazillion pages of Book Five of the Game of Thrones series only to discover that it’s not over. George R. Martin is writing another freaking book that I will probably have to read just to find out what the hell happens.

8. Caleb became a voracious reader. Not sure if that’s a “first,” exactly, but it’s pretty significant.

9 & 10.  Started linking this blog to other sites, particularly (duh) Stasha’s listicles and freefringes lovelinks.  (Hey! I won editor’s choice at lovelinks last week, too. What a nice holiday gift, don’t you think? Winning is like a little black dress: always appropriate and goes with everything).  Reading the writers on these blog lists helped me weather those first weeks in Abu Dhabi; I’m grateful to both Stasha and Erica M for creating these online communities.

no, I’m not pregnant. it’s just that in the beginning of the fourth month, if you are pregnant, you can kind of let your breath out. the worry of the first trimester is over and now (usually inshallah and knock on wood), you can just settle into the “new normal” of losing your waistline and growing your appetite.  It’s our fourth-month anniversary of moving to Abu Dhabi and I’m feeling myself let my breath out…but this time, part of why I can do that has to do with these boys–not babies any more–who have helped ease my own transition. This letter is for them.

My dear boys,

Today we have lived in Abu Dhabi for four months.  In that span of time, we’ve had to evacuate our building in the middle of the night (down 37 flights of stairs, on September 11th, no less!); we’ve traveled in India, explored the oasis city of Al Ain, kayaked in a mangrove swamp during a lunar eclipse, and one of us (lucky dog sixth grader) spent a week in Ephesus.

These adventures are nothing, however,  compared to the everyday adventure of establishing our new lives in Abu Dhabi.  The little things were, in some ways, the most difficult: we couldn’t find the right sheets for your beds, or the right pillows (note to self: when repatriating family, bring your own linens, even if you’re moving into a furnished apartment).  Our great quest for Toys R Us was a bust: no up-to-date legos, no Nerf basketball.  On the other hand, the Toys R Us is linked to a Tru-Value hardware store, so we didn’t find Nerf but I found all-important bathroom hooks and a new spatula.  We sorted out grocery stores, bookstores, and spent more hours than I’m sure you care to remember wandering the aisles of Ikea.

In four short months, the two of you started a new school, made new friends, joined new soccer teams, learned to love butter chicken from Moti Mahal Deluxe and any form of Lebanese chicken shish tawook.  You found the humor in our endless quest to find decent pizza, and you’ve found the joy in walking to the naan bakery for fresh bread.

You settled in. You figured it out. And then a few weeks ago, we asked you to change again and start a new school in January. You grumbled, you griped, there were tears.  Maybe even a few slammed doors.  But the other morning, when I dropped you off for your “come meet your new teacher day,” off you went, smiling, heads held high, arms around each others shoulders.

The two of you have spent more time together in the last four months than you have in years.  There aren’t as many friends clamoring for attention, or as many activities—we move more slowly here than we did in New York.  Together the two of you could fuel a city with your creative energies: building lego ships and towers more elaborate than any store-bought set; writing and illustrating stories, creating computer games, building sand castles that stretch half the length of the beach.  And okay, sometimes you use that creative energy to annoy the living crap out of each other, which is probably to be expected, right?  But do you really, really have to argue debate—in ever louder voices—about the possibility of a mouse surviving a sandstorm?

Bicker McBickersons notwithstanding, the two of you have astonished and impressed me over the last four months. Your curiosity, (relative) good humor, and resilience have helped me to survive this transition.  Even when you’re making me angry—as when one of you screamed “shit head” the other night—I’m still impressed: you yelled it in Arabic.

I hope you both feel as proud of yourselves as I feel of you.

Love, Mommy

ps: say “shit head” again, in any language, and you’re toast.

it’s lovelinks time! i’m linking up and you should too! click this nifty button and bring your blog over to the linkup! Or don’t bring your blog, just come read some funny smart writing…then come back on Thursday and vote for your three favorites. It’s a lot easier than holiday shopping, I guarantee!