A Case for Arts in Education

My daughter was made for musical theatre. She sings everything, mostly her own creation. With established works, she takes license. The other day she graced us all with an impromptu performance from The Sound of Music.

“Doe, a dear, a female dear. Oh, a pocket full of snow.”

Cute as it was, I had to correct. “It’s actually: Ray, a drop of golden sun.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I like it my way.”

“Yeah, okay. But it’s ray. You know do-re-me-fa—”

“So THAT’s what that song is about?”

“Music, yes. You didn’t know that?”

“I thought it was just, like, a SONG!”

“It’s a song that helps you learn the musical notes.” Feeling triumphant, I continued to demonstrate the correct lyrics. “Me, a name I call myself. Fa, a long long way to—-”

“Fob.”

“Fa.”

“Fa, a long long way to—”

“Fob.”

“So, a needle pulling thread. La, a note to follow so. Tea, a drink with jam and bread—”

“Cookies.”

“What?”

“Tea goes with cookies.”

You know how this ends, right? She and I screaming our respective versions in a friendly yet mildly disturbing preview of ages 13-16. If only she would get the Katy Perry lyrics wrong.

The Legend of My Ten-Pound Baby

Despite the ever-increasing responsibilities, there are no promotions in motherhood. You’ll never get an annual review followed by a fat bonus and a healthy raise. There’s a once-a-year day of gratitude, but the rest of the time we take our props where we can. It is not enough that we (almost) singlehandedly grew an entire human being inside our bodies and then managed to keep the little sucker (literally) alive in the face of deadly car seats and crib bars. We value what we can quantify as credit for a job well done.

I earned a gold star for my daughter’s birth weight. Despite a carefully constructed birth plan, an ancient Korean midwife’s fetal turning technique, and my doula’s soothing-sounds-of-the-snow-owl CD, my second child, a precious flannel bundle, had to be pried out of me under anesthesia—with a big knife. She was born gray with an Apgar score of one, and nearly killed us both. Why? She was a ten-pound baby, that’s why. Ten.

Okay 9 pounds 14 1/2 ounces. I embellished, but when you have a baby that big you’re allowed to round up. An ounce and a half isn’t an exaggeration; it’s a shot of tequila. (Which may have taken the edge off the cheese-grater-on-nipple sensation of breastfeeding.) I’m just saying, it wasn’t a big fib. From Day One my daughter was a 10-pound baby. For the last decade all my kick-ass-ness as a mother has been implicit when I casually mentioned, “That one? Ten pounds.”

Okay, just under ten pounds. Who’s counting?

I would have perpetuated the legend indefinitely, but on her tenth birthday my daughter asked look at her baby book. This couldn’t go well. Surely she’d notice her book consisted of a few good pages, followed by a few more of random baby items, and then two-dozen blanks. I figured as long as we didn’t break out the meticulous record of Big Brother’s first year for a side-by-side comparison, she might never know that she was conceived primarily as a playmate for our favorite child. I shouldn’t have worried. All she wanted to see was her birth certificate. My husband and I beamed over her shoulder as she flipped through the handful of pages devoted to her first days. Then the trouble started. There on the first page of the sub-standard baby book was her birth announcement, the one I had created with my own breast milk-stained fingers.

“Do you see what I see?” I asked my husband.

“What?””

“Eight pounds fourteen ounces? What is that?”

“What?”

“She weighed ten pounds! Ten! Well, you know, nine fourteen.”

Like all good husbands faced with an unwinnable situation, he shrugged.

How could I have made such a mistake? As I paged through the official documentation, a ten-pound knot formed in my stomach. The hospital record of birth, her crib identification card, and in the doula’s notes all confirmed her actual birth weight: 8 pounds 14 1/2 ounces.

She wasn’t just under ten pounds at all. She was just under nine pounds. Nine. This fact would not reconcile with my myth. I was a five-foot-one She-Ra, a warrior among women, a ten-pound babymaker! Now what was I? Just over average? Big deal. And it wasn’t just about me. My daughter had bought into my heavy white lie too. The thought of her infant self as bigger than the rest had built up her self-image as a tough girl, maybe even helped her become the best defenseman on her ice hockey team. The facts presented in that stupid baby book shattered all that.

“You mean I wasn’t ten pounds?” She looked like I’d just wiped out the balance of her iTunes account.

“I don’t care what it says,” my husband told her. “You’ll always be a ten pounder to me.” He glanced in my direction. “And don’t worry, Babe. Your secret’s safe.”

The legend may live on, but I don’t feel right about keeping that gold star.

Why Don’t You Ever Text ME?

The other morning at breakfast the kids were mercilessly teasing their dad (I don’t know where they get it from…) about his lack of tech-savvy. He doesn’t text. Not even a little.

“Dad, I text you ALL the time,” my son said. “And you, like, NEVER answer.”

I was late to the joke, however. “You text him? You never text ME!”

“Mom, chillax.”

“No, I will not chillax. I can’t believe you don’t text ME.”

Enter the family opportunist, the as yet phoneless opportunist. My daughter, who has has been angling for my old iPhone since I upgraded, says, “I would text you, Mom.”

She’s good, that one. We’re keeping an eye on her.

Check out what bloggers much fancier than I have to say in this week’s BlogHer LG TextEd Roundup.

Show Me the REAL Texts

This morning I asked my son about a friend of his, who happens to be a girl. He got all sigh-ful and rolled his eyes in response.

“So you’re not going to tell me anything? Ever?”

No response.

“I tell you stuff.”

He gave me an I-call-bullshit look and said, “Okay, let me read your text messages.”

“You want to read my text messages?”

“Yes.”

“You want to read MY text messages?”

“Uh huh.”

“YOU want to read my text messages?”

“See. Told you.”

I took out my phone and began to read a scintillating conversation I’d had (in full sentences) with a girlfriend. Perhaps he sensed that I did not read the part where we switched from professional pursuits to her out of town date. I’d left out my advice to “Wear sexy underwear.”

“Show me the REAL text messages.”

It might be fun to have something to hide. But I don’t, as confirmed by a quick sample of my incoming texts. If my son wrestled my phone away from me now, this is what he’d find:

• Can you give me directions to your house?
• Thank you for following me [less exciting than it sounds]
• Can you pick me up when your meeting is over?
• Any hotties at the Chamber?
• I have a weakness for petit fours.
• Make sure you bring your email receipt to prove you paid.
• So, I’m just finishing our pasta when my kiddo said pleeeese don’t put veggies in it this time, please just make it regular! Like we punish them with veggies. [we do]
• Ha.
• Thanks for the helpful advice, as always. [sarcastic]
• Mr. Snowman has found his purpose in life
• I’m laughing hysterically at myself in this toga!
• K
• I got a second interview
• Down girl.

The outgoing messages are another story. [wink]

It is just as boring.

Do me a favor, someone, anyone–please send me a text I need to hide from my kids.

Texting: Make Mine Unlimited

This is the September edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!

A lot of things are different for our kids than they were for us. We didn’t have home theaters, decent video games, or twenty-four-seven kids’ TV shows. But it’s really the phones and the privacy they offer that change everything. Before my son started middle school I had made up my mind that I was not going to get him a phone.

“You’ll change your tune,” a friend told me. “What if he misses the bus?” she questioned. I rolled my eyes.

Cut to Christmas and my son tearing open a phone while his little sister calculates the number of months she has to wait for hers under the big-brother-broke-them-in algorithm. I’m still not convinced he needs a phone, but he wanted one and it was Christmas. Maybe I’m just jealous. Having a personal phone—not to mention a modest texting allowance—in the 6^th grade? I never had it so good.

Back in the olden days we didn’t even have cordless phones. They were all attached to a wall, either in your home or in public. You carried a quarter for a payphone and everyone could see you cry when your mom forgot to pick you up from soccer practice. When you got sick at school you had to use the office phone with its rotary dial and square buttons across the bottom. If you missed the bus you didn’t call anyone; you walked home. To have a private conversation at home you stretched the phone cord down that hall, pinching it in your bedroom door, then prayed your mom wouldn’t detach it from the wall while you were asking your BFF if she wanted to “go with” the new boy (who was named Curt or Tyler or Rob). Those deliriously fortunate enough to have a phone in their rooms knew their parents were listening in from the kitchen anyway.

Today’s kids don’t have to worry about parents overhearing conversations, partly because phones are rarely used for speaking to one another anymore. The important information—what band is cool, whose house they’re sleeping over at, and which color Converse to wear tomorrow—is all relayed via text. It goes without saying that back in the olden days we didn’t have our own secret language that our parents couldn’t figure out. We had to be clever and make plans while they weren’t listening or watching. (Whatever, Dad – no, you did NOT know we were “sneaking” out the sliding glass door.) Now kids speak in an ever-evolving code of letters and symbols—ikr? It’s a miracle our thumbs didn’t fall off–like the vestigial tail–from lack of use.

Popular as texting has become, I still thought my 11-year-old son was too young for it. I figured he just used the phone as a status symbol and to call me on the [many] days I forgot it was my turn at carpool. I didn’t realize he was using the text function at all until I started using it on my own phone. When my texts racked up I worried about the potential overage costs so I logged into my wireless account. While I was slightly under my plan limit of two hundred texts, my son was up to eight hundred twenty—two weeks into the billing cycle. I immediately called my provider to request unlimited texting.

I sensed a golden opportunity. His excess was just what I needed to institute the partial pay policy I should have started when we gave him the phone. I confronted him with the facts.

“But, Mom,” he almost cried, “it’s not like you can just end a conversation.”

Awww… proof that my baby boy is not yet a man.

I told him that instead of making him pay for the overage, he was going to chip in ten dollars a month toward his phone bill.

“But then I’ll have less money,” he whined.

I didn’t laugh. I did however take my platinum opportunity to ask for his phone– and read his texts. If I were a terrible person I would transcribe them here. Because they would make you laugh and reminisce over everything that was good and true and hasn’t changed about the summer before 7th grade. But I won’t. Because I am a good mother and because I’m beyond grateful for what I read there, in his private conversations with friends, both boys and girls. For now, for today–though he doesn’t realize it–my baby is as innocent as the day I brought him home wrapped in flannel and smelling like spit up. If only there were an unlimited plan for that.

You Might Be a Mother If…

Browsing around for something to write about, I became distracted by some spots on my screen. They didn’t wipe away easily so I did what any good mother would do. I put a little spit on that fancy electronic cleaning wipe and scrubbed them off.

We’ve Made it Past the Fourth of July

It’s really summer now – we’re deep into the heat of sunburn, the thick of the humidity. And what does that mean for parents everywhere? In my experience we fall out into two camps.

Parent A:  I can’t believe summer vacation is half over already! I’m starting to miss them just thinking of school starting again. It really is true – they grow up so fast. Treasure every moment!

Parent B: I cant’ believe I haven’t been institutionalized already. Actually, that might be a welcome rest. Only six weeks to go. I will make it. I will, right?

Which parent are you? On a given day?

Conservationist Rednecks in Training

My children care about the Earth. And they have lived in Arkansas for most of their lives. Hence the following exchange:

“Hey, Mom, did you know we saved three gallons of water today?”
“How did you do that?”
“We peed in the yard.”

Maternal pride swells.

My Ten Pound Baby Is Not

My daughter turned ten last week. She wanted to see her birth certificate so we got out the baby book. There on the first page a blatant error stood out. Her birth announcement read 8 pounds 14 ounces. Shocked that I would make such a mistake I searched for other documentation. The hospital record of birth, her crib identification card, and in the doula’s notes all confirmed her actual birth weight: 8 pounds 14 1/2 ounces. Damn. My second baby, the one who had to be pried out of me under anesthesia, the one with the Apgar score of 1, the one who nearly killed us both was a TEN pound baby. Ten.

Okay, so maybe I exaggerated a tiny bit. But when you have a baby that weighs in a 9 pound 14 1/2 ounces, you are allowed to round up. It’s an ounce and a half for goodness sake. And that’s just what I did, from day one she was a 10 pound baby. I told everyone, have been telling everyone for the last decade that I birthed a ten pound baby. It indicates my kick-ass-ness as a mother and underscores her tomboyish toughness. But she wasn’t just under 10 pounds; she was just under 9 pounds. The fact would not reconcile with my myth.

“I don’t care what it says,” my husband told her. “You’ll always be a ten pounder to me.”

That’s our story and we’re sticking with it.

I’ll Take Unlimited Texting Please

Recently I’ve discovered the joy of texting. In a world of ever faster, it really is faster. I’m tardy to the party, what’s referred to in marketing circles as a “late adopter.” I need but another form of instant feedback like I need another little black dress. However, I can think of nothing more fun. So as my texts racked up I worried about the potential overage costs. When I logged into my wireless account I found that while I was slightly under my plan limit of 200 texts, my son was up to 820. This was three weeks into the billing cycle.

I sensed a golden opportunity. His excess was just what I needed to institute the partial pay policy I should have started when we got him the phone for Christmas. I confronted him with the facts and told him that instead of making him pay for the overage, he was going to chip in $10 a month toward his phone bill. I swear he almost cried.

“What is wrong? You don’t want to pay?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I’ll have less money.”

I didn’t laugh. I did however take my platinum opportunity to ask for his phone– and read his texts. If I were a terrible person I would transcribe them here. Because they would make you laugh and reminisce over everything that was good and true and hasn’t changed about the summer before 7th grade. But I won’t. Because I am a good mother and because I am deliriously grateful about what I read there, in his private conversations with friends, both boys and girls. For now, for today–though he doesn’t realize it–my baby is as innocent as the day I brought him home wrapped in flannel and smelling like spit up. If only there were an unlimited plan for that.

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