FaceTime doesn’t take the place of hugs and kisses and giggles and holding hands to cross a street; or reading a book with the full weight of not one, but TWO little humans taking up every inch of my lap and my arms, but since it’s all we have right now, I will attempt to be grateful.
A bit of light in the darkness, and isn’t that what the original Hannukah was all about?
Happy Hannukah!
That’s the question (with apologies to William Shakespeare).
Quick post:
There’s a lively discussion on NextDoor about a woman who was walking on a local trail with her nine-year-old son when he needed to relieve himself and did so a few feet off the trail in the bushes.
This is not a remote trail, it’s pretty much in the city, paved and well-traveled.
Apparently a woman stopped to stare and made the boy feel uncomfortable. There were quite a few negative comments directed toward the woman who (allegedly) was looking, comments like “mind your own business”…
Mine seems to be the ONLY comment that talked about the possibility that it might be inappropriate for a boy that age to urinate in public.
In my opinion, I think this would be a different story if it was a toddler in the middle of toilet training, but a nine-year-old is too old for that behavior.
Normally I don’t respond to NextDoor because it’s a dark hole like Facebook, but I felt compelled to share my thoughts.
What if it was a nine-year-old girl? Does that change anything?
Obviously, they were in plain sight. I wouldn’t want my son or my grandkids to see someone else’s body parts or something that should be private.
What if there was a predator around?
I’ve hiked a lot in many different wild places and had to find a secret spot myself, but this location isn’t a forest or a remote mountain trail. It’s a mile-long walkway paralleling the railroad tracks with houses and windows all around.
Your opinion?
I love jewelry boxes. I love them so much that I wanted to pass on the sweet tradition and sent baby Char a ballerina musical jewelry box fit for a princess that plays a tune from Swan Lake. Char wore a rainbow colored tutu for Halloween, so it’s definitely this Grandma’s job to nurture an early appreciation for dance.
It turned out that she loved it so much (and so did Theo) that I had to send him one too, only his featured characters that twirl around from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince and plays Mozart’s Eine Klene Nachtmusik. It’s about the right time for him to read that book, too.
I also found a new one for me (of course), and it’s better in real life than the photos portrayed on Amazon. The green is truly a beautiful background for the gold dragon. This one doesn’t play music but I have another one that does, so I’m content.
Now we’re all happily playing with our new boxes…a thousand miles away from each other.
This year, October 10 is known as Columbus Day. Some states have proposed legislation to legally replace the holiday, but as of today, none have passed.
I don’t acknowledge Columbus Day because it’s more of the same; entitled males making unilateral decisions without regard for anything but their own selfishness.
They continually attempt to push candidates and legislation that will eventually completely strip women of any right to autonomy over our own body.
Even the grandkids know what this day really is all about: good for my son/DIL talking TRUTH.
Friday thoughts…
(inspo = something or someone that serves as inspiration or motivation.)
I’m a forever child, never to grow up, still talking like the perpetual thirteen-year-old that I was/am, and sometimes a fairy princess in an enchanted forest with flowers in my hair surrounded by gentle creatures.
It used to irk my son when I’d repeat key phrases from South Park or Beavis and Butthead that were sooo INAPPROPRIATE, but now he laughs with me. A snarky chuckle, but a laugh nonetheless.
One day when he was in graduate school, we were eating lunch with a few of his friends and he put me on the spot and made me imitate Towlie from South Park. “Wanna get high?” in that Towlie voice. Good sports, we all laughed. I knew they were laughing AT me, but it wasn’t in a mean way. I laughed at myself, too. The jokes on them though, ‘cos whatever I did as a mom inspired my son to become a professor. HAHAHA.
Here’s Towlie in case you didn’t have a teenage son in the 90s…
NEVER GROW UP, that’s my mantra. (A girly Peter Pan without leaving all the narcissistic destruction in my wake.)
Just now at the ATT store I noticed that I was the ONLY one who was enthralled with two little starlings who walked all around me in a circle, not a care in the world with regard to humans and cars, and then I looked up and saw a gigantic White Egret. There was a UPS man parked right next to me and he followed my gaze as I was looking up, so I said, “Look at the beautiful white egret!” Nothing. “It’s a BIRD.” Nothing. “It’s really special!” Nothing. He continued with his stressed and frenzied pace to get those packages delivered and delivered and delivered. He looked at me like I was slightly off center but I wanted to tell him that he’d have a better day if he stopped just for a minute to BREATHE and LOOK UP.
There are miracles all around to be seen and heard. The simple things are the greatest bringers of joy and gratitude. It’s also true a Chanel handbag can bring its own kind of joy, as much as a seashell. Same.
Back to inspo…
What’s MY inspo? Now it’s mostly Theo and Charlotte, and always my original Angel Boy, that’s a given.
I’m putting the finishing touches on Theo’s half birthday gift, another one of my personalized books with photos and beginner words that I write just for him.
Yes, we celebrate half birthdays around here. It’s a tradition started by my mom, the original Charlotte. Hee hee. Not only did I get presents on my dad’s birthday, I received gifts and HALF a cake on my half birthday in November. The same was done for AB and now his kids. I think it’s an awesome tradition.
When my son turned twenty-one, I embarrassed him (yet again) in front of his friends with my speech about my love for every breath he’s ever taken and then gave him a gift of a star that I named for him because he was and will always be my entire universe. Check it out: International Star Registry, Scutum RA18h 47m 46d D-12′ 24′
Do you celebrate half birthdays?
What’s your inspo?
No one can pinpoint the etymology of this phrase with regard to our extremely precocious almost 4.5 year-old, but yesterday was the first time I heard it.
We were FaceTiming so he could tell me about their week-long camping trip. He was regaling me with how much fun he had and how he went surfing and how his baby sister enjoyed her first time living on the feral, as we say.
As an aside, he started referring to his almost one-year-old sister as “Missy” and when I asked him who he was talking about, Mom took the phone and said he started calling her that after I sent an Amelia Bedelia book where the child she babysits for is called “Missy.” T has a very active imagination.
As, we’re chatting and he shows me some new crystals he got at a yard sale–green and purple, his two favorite colors–I heard Dad in the background say, “Tell Grandma about the lake we went to this morning.”
“Oh yeah, hey man, I jumped all the way in from really high, you would have been too scared, little Grandma!”
I said, “What lake?” and “What did you just say?”
And he replied, “Let me ask Daddy.”
He walks over to where Dad is sitting on the sofa (I’m dragged along on FaceTIme) and says, “Hey, man, what was the name of the lake we went to?”
My son started snickering and said. “It was Kachess Lake”.
T said, “Hey man, it was Kachess Lake”.
I replied, “Oh, I saw the pictures and thought it was Green Lake.”
He corrected me, “No, man, it was Kachess Lake. Hey man, did you see me jump?”
“I did. You are a brave boy. Hand the phone to Dad for a minute, please.”
“Hey J-boy. What’s up, man? Where did he get that?”
*snickering again*
“We have no idea; he must have heard it somewhere or maybe on Sesame Street, that’s all we can think of, but literally EVERY other word out of his mouth is ‘man this or man that’.”
“Hey man, I’m gonna hit the red button now. Is that OK, Grandma?”
“Yeah, man, that’s cool. Catch you later. Bye, Angel Boy.”
Have you ever heard a little one use that term in the proper context? He sounds so grown up, so sophisticated. SOOOO precocious. Heaven help us when he’s an actual teenager.
What’s up?
This is just a random post to test the waters with the new WordPress format WHICH I HATE HATE HATE. For me, it’s taking all the fun out of writing. It’s clumsy and NOT user-friendly.
By now if you have read even a couple of my posts, you know that I am unapologetically a MOM first and foremost. All I ever wanted was to be the mom of one boy, and my wish came true. Not only is he brilliant and kind and a great dad, he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever known.
He’s a professor of German language and philosophy. That’s actually what his Yale PhD is called: Germanic Language and Literatures.
At my insistence, he’s been teaching it to Angel Boy 2.0 but it’s harder than it seems. We do refer to raccoons as Waschbär, though, so that’s progress, I guess.
I don’t speak Deutsch, I do better in French or Spanish, but I used to help when he was first taking German in high school, like conjugating trinken to getruken.
We practiced with 3X5 cards every day until his conversational skills surpassed my ability to decipher even a single word.
When he did his junior year abroad in Goettingen, I visited him (as the good Jewish mommy-drone that I am) and was continually impressed by his fluency and beautiful accent. People thought he was a native speaker, and I was/am so proud of my Engel Junge (Angel Boy).
I learned to say Tschüss instead of auf Wiedersehen every time we left a store, and that’s about it for my language skills.
He wrote a book entitled The Geological Unconscious
GERMAN LITERATURE AND THE MINERAL IMAGINARY
It probably won’t be read by too many people but that’s OK ‘cos I’m mentioned in it, so my life’s work is done.
Here’s the link to that post: https://enchantedseashells.com/2020/05/14/happy-birthday-to-meeeee/
Romeo and Juliet
Spoken by Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Do you like your name, the name you were given–the name on your birth certificate?
I don’t like my name.
For as long as I can remember, every single time I hear someone call me by my name, my very first thought is “that’s not my name”.
Is that weird? Am I weird?
For a nanosecond, I have to remind myself that it’s ME they’re referring to, because not only do I not like my name, I really feel that it’s not actually my name.
“Oh, you’re talking to ME?”
I don’t know what it is, but it’s not the one that’s on my birth certificate.
I remember telling my mom that I didn’t like my name and that I was also curious why my brother had a middle name but I didn’t, and she told me to choose my own middle name and it wouldn’t be legal nor official, but it would be something special just for me.
So I named myself Aurora, because that’s who I identify with. Aurora means dawn, but I chose it because of Sleeping Beauty. Princess Aurora (also known as Briar Rose) is the daughter of King Stefan and Queen Leah. On the day of her christening, Aurora was cursed to die by the evil fairy Maleficent. We all know she’s awakened by the prince’s kiss of true love. My mom read me that story so many times, i memorized it. What she failed to impress upon me was that it was just a fantasy, not real life.
Only one person has ever known that’s my secret name.
Some call me Rose or Rosebud, even Angel Boy refers to me as Princess (which is pretty funny when he does it in public, haha), but none of those are my given name, either.
When I meet new people or I’m introduced and asked what I like to be called, half the time I don’t have an answer or I say it doesn’t matter or I’ve even asked what do they think my name should be? What do I look like?
Additionally, no one can spell my real name right and that’s part of the problem, I think. I’ve spent my entire life correcting the spelling which only contributes to my possibly delusional introspection that I’m a mistake–an aberration; a typographical error.
Maybe I don’t really exist. Maybe I’m a character in a fairy tale minus the fairytale ending.
Being and nothingness. Maybe Sartre had it all figured out–this little existential crisis of mine isn’t even original. (Or NON-existential, in my case.) This existentialist philosophy is a study of the consciousness of being. Or not being, which is tiring my non-existent brain.
Except the one name I always respond to with a smile in my heart is “Grandma”.
Or “Mom”.
Because that’s who I am.
Always. Always. Always.
My little guy and I LOVE LOVE to search for rocks and seashells and feathers and other treasures.
It doesn’t matter if we’re walking in the neighborhood or at the beach or in the mountains, we make time to search for Mother Nature’s precious gifts.
Holding a rock in his little (but almost as big as mine) hand, he says, “Is this a keeper, Grandma?”
I take a look, think for a minute, and reply, “No, not that one. It’s not asking me to come home. Let’s leave it for someone else to find and bring to their house.”
“How about THIS one, Grandma?”
“Oh YES, T! That’s exactly the kind I love. It’s perfect.”
“OK, you bring it home with you and I’ll see it when we come to your house.”
“Why do you love rocks so much?”
“Great question, T. I love them because they make me happy and I like to collect pretty things. Why do YOU like rocks?”
“They make ME happy, too, Grandma!”
“OK. Think about this. You like it when you get presents in the mail, right? Well, this is getting presents too, but they don’t cost money and we get to have so much fun finding them together, so when we’re not together, we can remember what fun we had.”
“Hey, T, is this the kind that you like?”
I’m holding a pure white oval rock.
“Oh yes! Do you want it, Grandma?”
“That’s very kind of you to think about me, T, but this one is for you. Let’s look for more.”
At this point, all my pockets are full and weighted down by rocks and seashells, and my backpack has no more room, either.
“T, look at me, I’m all loaded down! Let’s leave some to find next time, OK?”
“Grandma, we love rocks so much, don’t we? I put the special ones in the little box you sent me. Where do you keep yours?”
“My special favorites are on the windowsill in my bedroom, so I can see them every day and think about you.”
“Can you take a picture of them and send it to me?”
“I sure will, little buddy.”
2020 Update:
I’m going to re-post an old one from 2014 because I just saw this meme that triggered a memory. There have been many other moments like this, but the one that came first to my mind was at the hospital where we waited hours for the surgeon to walk off the elevator and tell us what the hell happened to my baby boy, and IF he was going to survive. Or not. I was strong, I was calm, I didn’t cry at all in front of anyone, but at one point, I remember going to the bathroom to cry a bit in private so I wouldn’t scare DIL, and I looked at myself in the mirror and told myself that if I cried, he died, so STOP IT and I forced myself to only think positive thoughts about the outcome. I’m not one that likes the anxiety of a cliffhanger, so I’ll tell you that he DID survive AND thrive, and that’s why we now have Angel Boy 2.0 and Angel Girl 2.0. But on that day and for two months after that, every day might have been his last, and I’m grateful for his every breath. If you know me IRL, you’ll know that is a very true statement.
May 2014
They are always our babies, no matter their age, ya know?
Right now, things have calmed down a bit. Fingers crossed, we’ve avoided a crisis of nightmare proportions…
…Monday 3:00 a.m., the incessant ringing of my cell jolts me awake.
I can’t find the damn phone and it stops ringing only to start again.
This time I found it buried under a pile of clean laundry.
When I saw my daughter-in-law’s name on the screen, I almost didn’t want to answer it.
Nothing good comes from a phone call at 3:00 a.m.
Nothing.
And not this time, either.
With a bad connection and dropped words, trying to hear/not wanting to hear, she told me that my son, Angel Boy, was taken to an ER in Rhode Island because of excruciating stomach pains and vomiting.
“What?” That’s all I could say. She had to repeat herself a few times and talk slowly. I wasn’t comprehending.
The pain was worsening and his belly had become distended and was filling with fluid.
The first thing you think of is appendicitis or even a burst appendix, but the tests were inconclusive.
There were other diagnoses floating around but none of the tests pointed to a specific diagnosis: gastritis, diverticulitis, colitis…
The pain was overwhelming and not responsive to morphine.
There seemed to be no other alternative than to admit him and prepare for more invasive testing.
A surgical team was hastily thrown together as exploratory surgery seemed to be the only option.
We’re in California. I’s 3:00 a.m. What do we do?
The Universe was in alignment and we were able to get the last seats on a direct flight out first thing in the morning and we arrived at the hospital in time to discuss Angel Boy’s medical condition.
Whatever it was, was serious, and needed immediate intervention.
Or. Or I won’t say, but you get the picture. OR is NOT good.
Because his belly was continuing to distend as it filled with fluid and the pain was increasing, there seemed no alternative than a laparascopy with a camera.
The head surgeon speculated about what he might find: a possible bowel obstruction AND something with his appendix.
We gave him the go ahead to fix what he saw, no matter what he found.
We all kissed him goodbye as the first pre-op drugs entered his body and the surgery commenced at 8:00 p.m.
At 10:30 the surgeon came out with a smile.
Apparently, my son had a congenital defect we were never aware of — because up until then it had never caused a problem.
An abnormal sac or pouch that develops at a weak point in the intestines is known as a diverticulum. In some instances, people are born with a diverticulum in their intestines. This condition is called Meckel’s diverticulum.
Meckel’s diverticulum develops between the 5th and 7th weeks of fetal growth.
Because the condition is present at birth, it is classified as a congenital health issue. Although it generally remains silent, life threatening complications may arise.
And they did.
It was a perfect storm of a worst case scenario.
He had a massive bowel obstruction; intestines were strangulated and all knotted up. By the time the surgery started, two feet (24 inches!!!) of intestine had lost blood supply and died, all within a time span of twelve hours. The surgeon removed the necrotic part, did a resection, including eight inches of colon and removal of his appendix.
Without this life-saving surgery, there is no doubt that this Mother’s Day would not have been. It’s anticipated that he’ll have a rapid recovery — he’s already walking around around due in large part to his overall good health and fitness level.
Now, as soon as he’s released and we can fly him back to SoCal, my Mother’s Day will be spent caring for my Angel Boy and nursing him back to health.
His future is as bright as it ever was; this was just a brief course change in a life full of joy and adventure.
P.S. The surgical team at Rhode Island Hospital were/are AMAZING. We lucked out with a guy who clearly enjoys what he does, who knew his way around this type of surgery, and explained it all to us with intelligence and humor.
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 