Why This Jewish Girl is a Church Lady.

I’m a little confusing religiously.  People that I’ve always known think I’ve undergone some kind of conversion and those who are newer friends think I’m a devoted Christian based on how much I talk about my church.  Neither is true.  I’m as Jewish as the day I was born and I have no desire or need to be Christian.  I am, however, a passionate Unitarian Universalist.  I love being Jewish and I love being UU.  The two go together quite nicely as I see it.

Jewishness for me is a culture thing.  I love the food, laden as it is in schmaltz (chicken fat).  I even like chopped liver and Gefilte fish – well, the real kind, not the creepy stuff that comes in a jar.  I love lighting Sabbath candles on Friday nights because the ritual connects me to my ancestors and to thousands of others who are lighting candles and saying prayers at the exact same time that I am.  I love that it brings my family together for just a few minutes during the week to reflect in something greater than ourselves.  I am my Jewish history and am proud to be part of a lineage of a people so strong, so brave and so determined to survive.  I relish in the language and only wish I knew more Yiddish.  What other language contains so many idioms involving onions  – Insults that are so powerful in its authentic language yet so absurd in translation like my ultimate favorite which in context might be spoken to your worst enemy, “Zol dir vaksen tzibbeles fun pupik” which so eloquently  means, “May onions grow from your navel.”  I feel comfortable walking in to any Jewish gathering or synagogue and relaxing into the drone of a Hebrew speaking rabbi though I only understand about five words.  It’s a powerful connection to know I’m surrounded by an entire community that shares my sinus issues and who also most likely has relatives who were involved in the Holocaust. There’s a comfort level there that I can’t quite explain.

BUT, the religious dogma doesn’t really work for me.  I disagree with a lot of it.  I don’t buy into most of it.  It’s just not my thing.  I actually wasn’t even looking for a new spirituality when I bumped into UU.  I was at a coffeehouse (folk concert with great baked goods at intermission) with a girlfriend one night about 15 years ago.  It was at her UU church in Salem, MA and she asked me if I wanted to come to a service the next morning.  Being single and not having much of a life at the time, I agreed.  Twelve hours later I fell in love.  With Marta the minister, the congregation, the music, all of it.  Marta’s words were about love and healing and life.  The sermons touched me so deeply, I cried during most of them.  She didn’t promise me the ‘answers’ but taught me the questions.  However, she soon moved on and though I stayed through the interim minister and then a short period with the new minister, it wasn’t the same or maybe I wasn’t the same.  UU’s are a melting pot of faiths and lifestyles and though I loved them all, I wasn’t any one of them.  I was in my 20’s and single and really needed a social life that involved dating.  So I eventually moved on as well.

A few years later brought my husband into my life.  Interestingly enough, though Bob was raised Methodist, at the time I met him, he was involved in the Cambridge UU church.  When he moved in with me in Danvers it no longer made sense geographically to keep attending that congregation.  But when we got engaged and moved to Georgetown, we decided it was important for us to find a spiritual home together for the family we hoped to create.  We started shopping and tried some interesting congregations – one Jewish, one Christian and a few UU’s.  We discovered we were UU’s at heart and settled into North Parish of North Andover the summer we were married.  I have a photo of us the following spring, heavily pregnant with Sam, signing the membership book.

What is the draw to Unitarian Universalism?  As one of our friends recently said, “It’s everything good and just in the world”.  And I believe this to be true.  We don’t go to church because we have to or feel guilty if we don’t.  We go because we actually like being there.  It’s fun.  It’s not about religion or God or dogma.  It’s not about taking someone else’s word for how to live your life.  It’s a community of people who deeply care about the world around them and have committed to traveling the road together regardless of their beliefs, background, history or lifestyle.  It’s a dedication to raising our kids to be open minded enough to discover their truth and their path.  Each class of graduating seniors that we send off every year is comprised of admirably thoughtful, intelligent, passionate young adults.  I want that for my children.  I want that for myself.

As a child I would go with my Orthodox Jewish grandparents to their synagogue where the men sat on one side and the women on the other.  One day, I wanted to go visit my grandfather, but my grandma said, “No, no, you can’t do that!”  I answered, “Of course I can.  I just need to walk across that aisle.”  And I did, as my grandmother called after me and spit away the evil eye.  I wouldn’t change those memories for the world.  I’m proud of my heritage.  Just as I’m proud today to be a church lady.

Ps. For more information about North Parish of North Andover, check out:  www.NorthParish.org

Pps. For more information about Unitarian Universalism in general, check out:  www.UUA.org

Ppps. I’m not trying to convert anyone (really!), but if you’re at all interested in checking out a service just to see what it’s about, you’re invited to join us any Sunday at 9am.  Kids are always welcome.

Chocolate or lack thereof

Forty-two days.  It’s been forty-two days that I have not had one bite of chocolate.  Or sugar.  Or grain.  Any kind.  No bread, pasta, cookies, bagels – nothing – nada.  Okay, not totally true, but pretty damn close to it.  I allow myself a scant teaspoon of agave syrup in coffee and I had two bites of Sam’s quesadilla last night which, at least, was made with corn so was gluten free.  I’m pretty proud of myself.  And pretty pissed off at the scale.  For all my trouble I’ve lost .2 pounds.  Notice the decimal point in front of the 2 lest you think I lost 2 whole pounds.

Why am I torturing myself like this?  Well, more than anything I want to lose the 10 pounds that refuse to leave my body.  And why are 10 pounds so important?  So that people will stop asking me when I’m due or shaking their heads in astonishment when they see me with my brood and exclaim, “ And you’re having another one!”  I have an abdominal muscle separation called a diastasis from the twin pregnancy.  So I’m always going to look a little pregnant, but I figure if I’m smaller all over, it won’t be so noticeable.  In addition to pure vanity, I want to be healthier.  Although I eat pretty well all day, it goes to crap when the kids go to bed.  After a day of keeping the children alive, I deserve, I owe it to myself to eat vast quantities of chocolate in the form of cookies, cake, ice cream or just plain old chocolate.  I’ve been known to eat half a bag of chocolate chips at a time.  I always buy them intending to make cookies for the kids, but never do as I eat them before they make it into the dough.  Just don’t keep that stuff in the house, you say?  Right. I own a five year old and a husband who don’t have body image issues.  And if there really isn’t a scrap of anything good in the house, a force much more powerful than myself drives me to CVS right before they close  to buy overpriced Ben and Jerry’s.  I can’t have 1 of anything – one bite or one piece or one scoop.  One cookie or a couple pieces of high quality dark chocolate that are supposed to satisfy me do anything but.  All it does is turn me into a ravaged lunatic who needs the whole package, container, or gallon of whatever it is.  This might make me an addict.

I have a couple of friends doing this paleo diet thing which consists of eating like our cave people ancestors.  Hunting and gathering.  Meat, veggies, berries, nuts.  That’s pretty much it.  It’s supposed to be really healthy so I figured I’d give it a whirl especially since it excludes most of the bad things that I eat.  Also, going gluten free has really made a difference for my son Sam so I want to know what it would do for me.  But I still eat dairy which is called lacto-paleo in the diet world.  I also sneak in some beans which are not allowed though I’m not sure why.  It might be because they contain phytic acid.  But the pro and cons of phytic acid are a little controversial so I’m giving in to my chickpea cravings.  Not that I’m prone to these, but I actually made a chickpea lunch last week that was unusually tasty. Recipe included at the end of the post.

In addition to the last 6 weeks of depravity, I am running 2 – 3 times a week (I hate running, but am getting better at it) along with taking 1 or 2 classes at the gym each week.  I lost 2 pounds the first week and 2 more the week after.  But gained back 2 the next week.  I weighed myself this morning even though I’m really trying to only weigh myself once a week on Sunday mornings and I was back up to where I started save .3 lbs.  All I can say is I better pee a lot or take an enormous – okay too much information -  before my official weigh in tomorrow or…or….or…I’ll cry and then eat an entire pan of brownies for lunch.

 

Warm Chickpea Salad

1 can chickpeas

red onion chopped

1-2 carrots diced

1 tomato chopped

feta cheese

cumin

ghee

 

melt ghee in saucepan – sauté carrot for a few minutes – add drained, rinsed chickpeas – sauté a while longer- add a little cumin – add red onion – sauté a few more minutes – put it all in a bowl – mix in tomato – top with feta.

Arctic Seals

I don’t remember how old Sam was the first time he woke up in the middle of the night struggling to breath and barking like a seal.  Bob and I, like frantic new parents, phoned the doctor on call and pulled on clothes ready to rush him to the emergency room.  In tears, I told the doctor that Sam wasn’t breathing.  “Is that him?” asked the doctor referring to Sam who was intermittently crying and barking in the background.  When I said yes, he responded dryly, “He’s breathing.”  I’m pretty sure I also heard him yawn and roll his eyes.  He told me that he had croup and to take him outside for a while and then to come to sick call in the morning.

The nurses definitely have a better sense of humor about these things such as the time when we were visiting my mother in Florida.  Sam woke up in the morning and when I went to change him, little pieces of clear pulp spilled out of his diaper.  I was terrified that he had contracted a rare penile disease.  My mother was terrified that her leather sofa was ruined.  I called our pediatrician back home and was shaking as I tried to explain what had happened.  She asked me if we were using a different kind of diaper.  We were as my mother had bought some in preparation  for our visit.  She then explained that the lining of some brands was made of gel and would break open if very saturated.  Well, how was I supposed to know?  At least the nurse was kind and we both had a good chuckle over it.  My mother’s sofa was okay too, in case you were wondering.

Until Sam was about three, he had several more croup episodes and going outside worked like magic every time.  Last night, at five years old, he came into our room barking and crying – really scared.  He didn’t remember this ever happening before.  He said he couldn’t breath.  I gently reassured him that he was getting enough air to be just fine, but that we were going outside.  I grabbed a blanket  and the two of us sat on the front deck for a while at 2:30 in the morning.  It was really quiet except for the wind, but we were warm enough with Sam on my lap and the blanket wrapped around both of us.  We counted stars and Sam told me that he thought that going outside helped his cough because the wind blew it away up into outer space.  His breathing became quieter and more even and he asked to go back inside to bed.  I know he didn’t feel good and I knew how monstrously tired I would be (and am) today, but I savor every minute that I and my little boy get to snuggle outside, in the middle of the night counting stars.

Adventures in Gluten Free

I consider myself an excellent cook, but a baker I am not. My mother outsourced all of her baking to Betty Crocker and Entenmann’s so I never learned the subtleties of why the milk had to be ice cold or the eggs needed to be stiff (whatever that meant).  Combining wet and dry ingredients separately before mixing together seemed like a grand waste of another clean bowl. I don’t claim to make the best banana bread, best pie crust or the best anything.  I know I don’t so rarely try.

Until we discovered that my five year old son’s behavior improved drastically when we removed gluten from his diet.

I quickly found suitable replacements for most of his favorite foods – bread, pasta, cereal bars, cookies, ice cream cones.  And then, just as quickly, I tired of paying astronomical prices for it all.  So now and again I toy with baking which for someone who doesn’t bake is all the more challenging while using gluten free flour and dough mixes.  It doesn’t act like dough should.  It’s not particularly stretchy and is impossible to roll out.  Instead it’s thick and sticky.  Unable to roll out a pizza crust one night, I had to pat little bits of it into place on the pizza pan and then mash it together to make it stick while coaxing it off of my fingers.

Astoundingly, Sam has embraced this new diet.  Maybe it makes him feel special or cool somehow.  He always asks if there’s gluten in things before he eats them and doesn’t get too bent out of shape if he can’t have what the other kids are having as long as I’ve packed up gluten free treats for him.  He’s thrilled that bananas and snow, two of his favorite foods, are naturally gluten free.  However, it’s been a while since he’s had his ultimate favorite treat – Munchkins.  And it’s wearing on him.

So today I had two goals.  I wanted to fold and put away the enormous laundry dune in the living room and cook dinner before I had to pick up kids after school.  I did neither.  Instead, I made donuts.  Or at least gave it my best shot.

I browsed through a zillion online recipes and found one that seemed doable.  I even blended the milk and eggs with an electric mixer until light and fluffy though by the time I added in the other ingredients, the mixture looked kind of flat.  I wanted chocolate donuts and couldn’t find a recipe specific for this so tossed in an undefined amount of cocoa powder and because that made the dough too thick, I put in more milk than I was supposed to. (See why I don’t bake?)  The recipe said to drop teaspoons of batter into the hot oil and I should get perfect little balls of donut that floated up and flipped themselves over to cook.  My batter didn’t drop off anything, but needed to be pried off the spoon and landed awkwardly in the pan forming amoeba shaped blobs that weren’t going to roll over without lots of help.

The end result looked like greasy, brown, fried dough balls from the Topsfield Fair only with more density.  The batter remnants sticking to the mixing bowl were characteristic  of thin set mortar.  And I had no idea what to do with a quart of used cooking oil.  Would it be bad for the septic system if poured down the drain?  How about if I flushed it down the toilet?

I heavily coated the munchkins with confectioners sugar and cocoa hoping to disguise their obvious flaws.  I tasted one and was not impressed, but dutifully piled them into a Ziploc bag for later.  When my husband came home from work, he opened the fridge for a beverage , saw them and happily said, “Oh!  You made meatballs?”

The true test was when Sam finished his dinner and zealously bit into his first munchkin.  “I love it!” He yelled and devoured it along with another one.  I sighed in relief.  I haven’t always been so lucky.  He usually takes a bite of something and kindly says, “I like it.  I just don’t want it right now.”  Maybe the excitement of being able to eat munchkins again was big enough to cover up the discrepancy in flavor.  Maybe this will give me courage to try making homemade ravioli.

Passive Aggressive Pizza

I spend an unreasonable amount of time cooking and an even more absurd amount of time researching, planning and purchasing food.  Each week, I shop for food from at least 2 stores sometimes adding a trip or two to a local farm. Every week I say I’m going to take it easy and give myself a break.  Like this week for example.  I’ve been exhausted and we are going away for the weekend so I only needed meals for Sunday though Thursday.  My pared down menu looked like this:  Dinners for us:  salmon cakes fried in coconut oil with wasabi mayonnaise, grilled cheese with tomato chickpea soup, polenta lasagna, chicken stew, and leftover night.  I also made a lentil/sweet potato stew for the babies to freeze.  The salmon, soup and stew were made from scratch, the lasagna I took a couple of short cuts by using jarred sauce and frozen spinach.

And the funny part about it is that no one in my house cares what we eat except me.  Bob would be happy with hamburger helper. The only thing Sam will eat involving anything besides heating (like hotdogs) is muffins that I bake and the babies would prefer that I feed them solely out of jars.  I think I actually saw them roll their eyes tonight as I pulled out the hand mill and ground up their stew.  Yet I insist on buying eggs only from local farms where I can see the hens strutting around outside and most other things from Trader Joes.  I’m addicted to nourishedkitchen.com and have started soaking my grains prior to cooking them.  I even went online to see what owning a cow would entail as I’d really like to start using raw milk for the kids but it’s SO expensive.  I sometimes make my children miserable because I spend so much time in the kitchen cooking while they crawl around my feet vying for my attention.  They just want my time and I spend so much of it trying to feed them well.

I’m descended from Jewish parents and grandparents.  Food equaling love is as hardwired into my brain as guilt is for everything else.  Also, it’s one of the few creative outlets that I can justify while being mostly home with my children.  Add to that a political/environmental message that I’m not going to buy into the status quo of factory farming, GMO’s and preservatives to keep my food shelf stable for years and bingo, it’s a perfect equation for food obsession.  It also provides an outlet for my passive aggressiveness.  I was really annoyed at Bob the other day so when I went to the market, I bought him a preservative laden frozen pizza to eat on my work night.  That’ll teach him.

I’m trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from our cupboards making space for new residents like grass fed ghee, dried lentils, beans, quinoa, barley, local honey, polenta etc. I only usually buy organic the ‘dirty dozen’ fruits and vegetables.  I’m not completely nuts, at least not yet.  If I’m at someone else’s house or at a restaurant, I eat what looks good and don’t worry about what’s in it. I probably will eat a Big Mac again someday.  The one item I refuse to eat out of principle is veal.  I found out where veal came from when I was away for a semester of college in Scotland.  I immediately called my mother collect to frantically forbid her from ever eating veal again and I’ve not eaten it since. And I try really hard not to judge other people by the food they purchase and eat.  Even if there are Hostess cupcakes in their grocery carts.  Although I don’t necessarily agree with the reasons most people are vegetarian or vegan, I do agree with personal choice as long as it’s healthy.  Being vegan doesn’t equal a healthy diet any more than going to the gym every day promises a healthy body.  You could just be going to take a shower in peace while your kids are in the babysitting room.  (Not me, of course)

My hunch is that our diets are responsible for so many illnesses and autoimmune disorders out there.  There’s probably many other contributing factors, but this one I have some control over, at least until my kids are old enough to trade their hummus on sprouted wheat bread for boloney and cheese on white in the school cafeteria.  I’ll let you know what happens after that!

Stalking authors

I’m not sure when I fell in love with books.  I remember being very excited when told we were going to learn to read in first grade.  It took off from there.  I read mostly everything I could get my hands on.  I particularly liked stories about animals, magical places and anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I’m actually sort of a Laura Ingalls Wilder fanatic.  I know more about her than most people I’ve actually met.  I’ve read all the books she wrote and most of those written about her.  My husband obtained a copy of her original unpublished manuscript as a gift one mother’s day.  And I’ve traveled to many of the places and homes where she has lived.

In a world where heroes are hard to come by, mine became authors.  I admire the honesty and courage it takes to write down what you think, feel and create and send it off into the world.  Also, we usually don’t get to meet the people that write our books so we can’t judge them the way we can others in the limelight.  We don’t usually know what their values are, if they use paper or plastic, if they’ve ever cheated on their spouses.  Some live in far off places or are deceased.

I read a book some years back called ‘Rowing to Latitude’ about a woman and her husband who rowed by kayak and skiff around Alaska and other remote northern coastlines for months at a time.  Having been enamored with Alaska and a desire to travel there for years, I was quite taken with this couple’s adventurousness.  So I googled the author to find out more about her and what she had written.  I learned that she was scheduled to do a reading and book signing not far from where I lived and worked.  I knew I had to meet this person.  So, I called the venue and offered a free massage session to the author while she was in town.  If I haven’t mentioned it, I’m a licensed massage therapist.  Not just some creepy person who like to touch strangers.

They asked her.  She accepted.  Yippee!!!!  I met her briefly at the book signing and she came to my office the next day.  Now, I’ve been a massage therapist for a long time and have worked on all kinds of people from all walks of life, but that day I was nervous.  I was working on a ‘real author’.  Sweating bullets, I was afraid that I smelled.  No one wants a massage from someone who smells bad.  But it seemed to go fine and she ended up giving me travel tips on going to Alaska like driving to Newark and flying from there which saves hundreds of dollars.  She also offered up her house for me and my boyfriend (now husband) to stay in.  I was inspired so we flew to Alaska from Newark later that year.  We stayed with her and her husband for 3 nights out of our two weeks, which was a hospitable respite after staying in hostels, the rest of the time.  We were so taken with the state, we seriously considered moving there.  I still aspire to become a sourdough.

Another favorite author of mine is Anne Lamott.  She’s a hilarious, politically liberal, born again Christian, sober, intellectual, single mom in her fifties.  She writes like I think.  I love her non-fiction more than I love her fiction and have always said that if I could have a cup of coffee with anyone it would be her.  Every so often I google her too to see if she’s written anything new or maybe has decided to teach writing again.  A few months ago, I learned that she would be doing a reading/signing in Brookline.  Not near me, but not too far.  I put it on my calendar to make sure I didn’t book any work for that night.  I considered making my massage offer again, but decided it was too far from my office to really make sense.  A couple of nights before the event, I went online to get directions to the bookstore and was devastated to find out that you needed a ticket to see her and that they were sold out.  Panicking instead of sleeping that night, I called the bookstore the next day pleading with them.  They told me to show up early and I would probably get in.  It was called for 6pm so I planned to be there at 5pm as doors opened at 5:30.  I found a babysitter so I could leave the house early.

Boston is a crazy city to drive in and I’m bad at it despite living in close proximity most of my life.  So I got kind of lost and everyplace I was wanted to make a u-turn said that I couldn’t.  And those damn trolley cars made me afraid to turn illegally for fear I would get hit.  And I didn’t know there was a Red Sox/Yankees game that night so traffic was atrocious.  Which means that I left my house at 4pm and didn’t get there until 5:50pm.  Somehow, though, they had an extra ticket and since I was alone, I got a good seat.

She was so cool and funny and everything I wanted her to be.  She talked about things that resonated with me like faith and motherhood.  It was great.  And then on to the book signing.  I bought her new book and waited in line.  I had no idea what I’d say to her when I met her.  At the reading she had joked that she didn’t personalize books, but would sign anything we’d like her to so inside my book I wrote, “Keep writing!  And it was great to meet you too!”  I noticed that people were filing through the line quickly, not really spending too much time talking to her.  How could they not?  I was so excited that we were breathing the same air I couldn’t imagine exchanging words and it would be happening in – just- a – few- more-minutes.  I still didn’t know what I was going to say.  And THEN I was standing in front of her holding out my book.  I became a babbling idiot.  I thanked her.  I told her there was nothing I could say to convey how excited I was to meet her without security carting me off.  I babbled some more about the coffee thing and how she would be my top choice to have coffee with and then as she and the line behind me waited patiently, I asked her if she wanted to go out for coffee.  And then I died.  The words hung in the air just too far out of my reach to suck them back in.  Shockingly, she declined though her eyes were kind and compassionate.  She signed my book without reading my inscription and I slunk back to my car too embarrassed to breath.  I tried to make myself feel better by telling myself that what I lacked in boundaries, I made up for in guts.  After telling some friends about what I did, they laughed and asked me if I could spell s-t-a-l-k-e-r.  Nice.  Real nice.  She’s still one of my favorite authors even if she didn’t want to be my new best friend and I highly recommend her books.  My favorites are:  ‘Operating Instructions’, ‘Bird by Bird’, and ‘Traveling Mercies’.

My three sons

I sit down to relax and enjoy my first cup of coffee of the day. How I look forward to and love the moment of the first steaming sip.  How dismayed I am that it’s 9:30 at night and this is the first possible time that I’ve had to sit down with a cup of Joe all day.  Shower?  What shower?  I gave up on that idea hours ago.  I still had high hopes about having morning coffee when I let go of the shower.  I never understood the shower thing before I had the babies.  I was even smug about my daily shower after having my first son.  When other moms said they just couldn’t, inside I secretly thought they weren’t organized and must not be very good parents.  Now, I get it.  I can’t bear the thought of getting up earlier than all of them to shower.  I certainly can’t fit it in during the morning chaos of getting out the door.  I sneak it in on days that the babies nap, but if I have phone calls to return or want to eat lunch, I just might miss my window of opportunity.  I could strap the babies in their car seats and bring them in the bathroom with me, but they’ve been known to cry and whine during the entire shower.  I can’t even begin to tell you how soothing that is.  I’m not that dirty to begin with.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I had kids.  I didn’t have a picture in my head of what it would look like.  Maybe I should have.  I think I hoping for more of a feeling like camaraderie or connection or togetherness.  Like the Brady Bunch or Little House on the Prairie.  But Bobby wasn’t having problems with behavior at school.  Laura wasn’t suffering from gross motor skill delays and Ma wasn’t upset because she didn’t advocate earlier when she suspected that one of her children had a sensory integration disorder.  My brain doesn’t feel big enough to take all of this in along with the regular stuff that needs to get done.  I love my children dearly and just want them to be okay and ‘normal’.  Now I get the task of digesting enormous amounts of information so I can make decisions on what kind of interventions to put in place which could play a big part in how they turn out.  That much responsibility is staggering.  I’m not functioning in a vacuum.  I have my husband, the school, our pediatrician, early intervention, a special care coordinator and a behavioral therapist providing their input and evaluations will be performed by even more health professionals, but I know my kids better than anyone and it will be my choices that ultimately decide what services we utilize.  What if I pick the wrong ones?  I vacillate between thinking my kids are already doomed to being completely screwed up and then thinking they look and act so completely Norman Rockwell that I wonder what I’m doing with this child care staff in my arsenal.

Sam and I were cuddling on the couch tonight before bed.  He gently put his hand on my check, smiled and said,
“ Shayna Punim”  which is Yiddish for ‘beautiful face’.  How could this be the same child who is suspected of not feeling empathy, but instead has OCD?  And little Lucas today rolled over onto his belly and lifted his head to look at something like it’s no big ‘thang’ when just last night I lay in bed freaking out at the thought that he could have an undiagnosed tumor in his neck.  At a year old, he rarely turns onto his belly, isn’t crawling and only locomoted once by using his head as a fulcrum to scoot a few feet across the playroom floor.   He can only hold his head up for a few minutes before it slides down to the left side while in a prone position.

I mean you look around at all these people around us and it’s a lot of people, right?  And someone gave birth to and raised them all.  And survived the process.  Not that they all did a particularly stellar job or that I like every product that they developed, but they did persevere the best they could with the knowledge they had.  Kind of like me.  And I have a new respect for all those parents out there.

I have a t-shirt that says, ‘it’s not what happens, but how you react to it.”  I totally believe that’s true though my reaction generally includes feeling sorry for myself followed by lots of chocolate.  (Which is an upgrade from alcohol and a lot of cigarettes) Coping skills are a little low on my totem pole of personal abilities.  But some things are harder to cope with than others.  In just the past week, I’ve heard stories from others including a friend’s car accident that put her boyfriend’s son in a cast, a woman whose addict father died some years ago from an overdose and a dear old friend who had to make hard decisions about her ill mother’s final hours of life.  It’s not easy out there for most people though it can look that way from the outside, can’t it?  That part is hard wired into us though I’m not sure why.

The grass is greener syndrome strikes us from our first days.  I’m watching it unfold before my eyes right now.  At 11 months, Skyler and Lucas eye each other’s identical bottles suspiciously and frequently either swap or wrench one out of the others mouth in order to gain possession of both.  They always want the toy the other is holding.  It’s crazy and I don’t understand.  What need did this behavior evolve to fill?

Luckily we are adaptable beings.  I’m amazed at how our minds can wrap around problems and tragedies that seem impossible at first.  Even now, it’s been a few days since I began writing this post and I feel better than I did.  My sense of humor is returning.  My children are the same kids as they were before I found out they might soon receive new labels and insurance codes.  No one is granted immunity from life’s burdens.  But if I along with everyone I know put all of their problems in a big pile and we had to choose which ones we’d rather have.  I still think I’d pick my own.  How about you?