Purge

My parents are cleaning out their basement. Suddenly all of my childhood things are taking up too much space in their downstairs landfill. My junk is therefore being transferred here box by box, and I have the job of going through it all and deciding what is worth keeping and what I need to throw out.

Really, very little of it is actually worth keeping. I mean, there's nothing of value. But there are things like my sticker albums from elementary school that are just difficult to let go -- an entire page of scratch-and-sniff stickers, and the pizza one still smells! There are things from high school and college as well -- prom pictures, class notes.

I came across some unfinished letters I'd written to my college roommates after they graduated and I was still in summer school wondering if my double major was such a good idea after all. The letters were all poignant for one reason or another -- I smiled through tears as I read a letter about the wedding of a roommate, for instance. But one of the letters particularly upset me. It contained a word-for-word account of a conversation I had had with my father -- one of the conversations in which I was told no man would ever want me.

I had forgotten just how painful it all was -- the intense anger and the feelings of worthlessness, the way I loved and hated each man I met, the way I assumed they were all as disgusted by me as my father was, the way I both dared and begged them to prove him wrong. As much as I loved college, as much fun as I had with my roommates, I am glad that time in my life is over. It was several years before I began to realize my father might be wrong, and even longer before I truly believed he was wrong.

And lately, when I think back, sometimes I wonder if it really happened at all. Maybe I imagined those cruel words coming from his mouth. How could the man who so totally adores my children and treats them with such tenderness, have said those things to me? I must have made it all up, right? Or provoked him? Or allowed the memory to become an unfair exaggeration of the truth?

Yet here is a letter I wrote only two days after an incident about which I had completely forgotten. I remember pieces of earlier conversations -- ones in high school and one in my freshman or sophomore year of college. But the one I wrote of in that unfinished letter I had allowed myself to forget totally.

It reminds me that I have exaggerated nothing, that in fact I have allowed myself some forgetting, choosing to forgive rather than hold on to every wrong. I am glad about the forgiveness, and in some ways the forgetting. Yet I don't want to forget completely -- I need to remember that it happened, that I shouldn't let my guard down completely, that I have a daughter to protect, that it wasn't my fault.

I hold it in my hand and can't let go of it, this yellowed piece of paper, my absolution.

Three Talk

Oh, the things my son says now that he is three . . .

• He loves to mix his languages -- English, Hebrew, and the Spanish he learns from Dora the Explorer. It's Spanheblish, if you will. The other day he said, "Okay, Dora, I'm going to count to ten and then it will be time to get out of the bathtub. Tres, mayo, dos . . . ." He also gets the "Aw, man!" that Swiper the Sneaky Fox says on Dora the Explorer, confused with the Amen we say at the end of prayers; his exclamation of disappointment sounds like, "Aw, mane!" But my favorite is his all-purpose made-up Spanheblish word cinco b'nai which can be used as almost any part of speech and whose true meaning remains a mystery. As in, "Oh, you are cinco b'nai!"

• The kid loves cars. Or perhaps I should say he is obsessed with cars. He can name several makes/models by sight, including the Toyota Camry, the Ford Taurus, the Chevy Cavalier, and the Mercury Grand Marquis. Down the street from our house is parked a Hyundai that has been in a nasty crash. He talks about it all the time. Today as I gave him a nectarine that had gotten a little squashed on its way home from the supermarket, he said, "It's smooshed up like a Hyundai!" He has also nicknamed the Hyundai after his great-grandmother who has had several falls and broken bones -- because it's "all crashed up" the way she is.

• He says a lot of grown-up words like pedestrian, kaput, and ignition, but he still has some endearing mispronunciations. A couple of my favorites: "I can't wait to go to preschool! I'm going to be so besided!" and "Hunk the horn, Daddy!"

• He has a flair for the dramatic. (Wonder where he gets that?) Today, when asked why he hit his sister in the head, he responded, "Because my baby sister is not my friend and I won't let her in my room because I am a bad man and I might die some day!" Well, okay then. Sheesh. When he was two, he just said he didn't know.

Just Some Pathetic Squeaks From My Hamster Cage

Even introverts need to go out into the world every once in a while. I am no exception. To say that I am feeling frustrated and isolated lately would be an understatement.

It's not that I haven't tried to meet people or find activities in which to get my kids and/or me involved. It's that either A) there is very little in this area that is not church-related, B) I'm just very bad at finding the stuff, or C) the activities are here but are all sort of like "easter eggs" on DVD's -- they're not on the main menu and instead are available only if you happen to stumble upon them or if you talk to someone who is in the know. I am not in the know, and I know nobody in the know.

Today I took both of my children to the library by myself. It was the first time I'd tried it alone at this particular library, which does not have parking very close by. The kids were really well-behaved. Even so, by the end of the trip -- which involved the way-too-complicated process of getting a new library card, asking a very surly librarian (surly librarians are hard to find, but I found one) for help in finding a potty-training video, keeping my children from pulling every video off the shelf while said surly librarian finally tracked down the one I was looking for, accidentally setting off the library I'm-stealing-a-book alarm, getting in the way of an angry man on his cellphone, and navigating crosswalks with two small children and an armful of books -- I was wet with sweat. Still, it was encouraging to know it could be done since I'm thinking of weekly storytime. And the change of scenery was worth it.

As soon as we got back home, the kids and I were itching to get out again. So, in frustration because it is too steamy and wet and stormy to play either in our yard or at the park, and in total desperation for something to do where other people are, I planned something new for us: McDonald's.

We went to the McDonald's with the indoor playground. Will I ever do this again by myself? It is doubtful. I'm not worried so much about the food -- the kids were too preoccupied with the play equipment to eat much of anything -- as I am about the play equipment.

Here's how it went. My son, after having begged to get on the play equipment, was afraid to climb on anything. My daughter, on the other hand, was attempting acrobatic feats of which even the members of Circ du Soleil are fearful. I was pulling her down while encouraging my son to climb up. Finally, he climbed up the series of platforms to the beginning of the tunnel. Which is way up high. And very long and curvy. And twisty and maze-like. And opaque. After a few moments of having him out of my sight, I heard echoing through the tunnels, "MOMMY! HELP! MOMMY! GET ME DOWN! MOMMY!"

I looked overhead at the layers of twisting hamster tubing, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face in one of the small windows. Nothing. But the cries continued, "MOMMY! HELP! COME GET ME, MOMMY! I NEED YOU!"

I imagined his being stuck in the tube, unable to move, or worse yet, being held down by a bigger kid. I could feel my blood pressure rise. "It's okay, sweetie," I called, sounding very calm, "just turn around and come back." But all the while I was trying to think what I would tell my husband if I lost the kid in there. What if he never came out? What if he eventually stopped crying and I had no way to know if he was alive or dead? Surely this view, gazing up at a twisting intestine-like child trap, hearing a cacophony of shrieks smattered with the familiar cries of my child, is one of the lower circles of hell about which Dante wrote, I thought.

After several minutes, my son appeared above me at one of the openings of the tunnel. I called for him to come on out. "MOMMY! COME GET ME!" he replied and disappeared into the tunnel again.

The signs at the playground say parents are encouraged to play. There is no posted weight limit. Still, I worried. And even if it COULD hold me, there was the business of my daughter, with whom I am not coordinated enough to climb, and who is too small to be left alone. I began to scan the room for other adults who looked trustworthy. I was zeroing in on a couple possibilities, remembering the horrible dream I had last night about my daughter's falling and breaking her arm, wondering if it was an omen that she would be abducted in a McDonald's Playland, when lo and behold, who should appear at the bottom of the slide, but my son.

There he was with tear-stained cheeks and snot-covered upper lip, but otherwise intact. "You made it!" I cried.

"I want to do it again!" he shouted as he took off for the beginning of the tunnel.

His second adventure was a repeat of the first, except this time he went higher and cried louder. Just as before, when he emerged from the slide, he wanted to go again.

I, however, had had all I could take. I managed to get both kids and their Happy Meal toys out to the car. We made it home and into the house with both kids and one Happy Meal toy. Not such bad stats, really.

I'm telling you, I have to get out more. Really. I'm not kidding. Otherwise one day my husband is going to get a call from the McDonald's manager.

"Hello, sir, I'm calling from McDonald's. The one with the Playland."

"What? She took the kids there AGAIN? Are they okay?"

"Your kids are fine. They're romping in the ball pit right now. It's your wife I'm calling about. It seems she's in a fetal position in a secluded corner of the Playland hamster tubing."

"Is she hurt?"

"Oh, I don't know, sir. We have this happen from time to time. But you're going to need to find a way to get her out because several of the children are becoming upset; she's blocking their way to the slide."

C'mon, Just One Bite

My mother was the one who lent me The Red Tent, so when I realized its author Anita Diamant is also the author of a book I tried to get my mom to read a few months ago but which she declined because she said she was too busy, I naturally saw the perfect opportunity to push the book on her again.

"Here's your book back, Mom," I said, handing her The Red Tent, "and here is another book of mine by Anita Diamant. It's the one you didn't have time to read a while back, but I figured you have time now and might like it since it's by the same author."

And so I handed her How to Be a Jewish Parent.

As my husband later put it, "She had the same look on her face that I have on my face when someone tries to give me broccoli."

So that didn't go over so well. Even though I explained that it has a great overview of the Jewish holidays, etc., and that it is written not only for Jewish parents but also for non-Jewish parents and grandparents.

I wouldn't have been so pushy about it except my mom is pretty hands-on with the religious stuff lately. She buys religious books for the kids and seems to think that if the books don't mention Jesus or anyone from the New Testament, then it's automatically okay for Jewish kids. You know, because Judaism is just Christianity minus Jesus.

She got my son a book last week that talks about getting down on our knees and praying to the heavenly father before bed. Hello? Does this sound like a Jewish book? She helps put the kids to bed and hears us sing them the Shema in non-kneeling position every time she comes over, so I guess I don't get why she doesn't get it. She later -- as in after she had read my son the book and played the accompanying CD a few times -- said, "This is okay, isn't it?"

At which point I said it was fine, partly because she asked in front of the kids while she had the CD playing, and partly because I'm just a big chicken. So after she left, I just sneaked the book into my closet with a few other inappropriate gifts the kids have been given by well-meaning relatives. She wasn't meaning to be pushy or underhanded. She was just so confident that the book would be Jew-approved that she didn't think to ask until later.

I'm going to have to have a talk with her about either letting us buy the religious stuff or asking before she buys. I'm thinking if she reads How to Be a Jewish Parent, she might learn something, though, and make the talk go a little smoother. It's a good book, really, and it might help her grasp the concept that there just might be more to Judaism than the absence of the J-man.

And yet I am not so hopeful, as I have never seen my husband eat broccoli, no matter how many creative ways I have served it.

From the Junk Drawer, Volume 2

I've had company for the past three days and haven't had time to post. Especially since my house guest was unaware of my blog. (Sh!) One of these days I'll post something brilliant (cough) and coherent (cough cough) again, but for today, well, it's just this:

• I discovered a toad while I was mowing the yard. I ran as fast as I could to get the kids. Showing them critters is a big thing with me. Our old house had almost no yard and very few critters, so each turtle, ladybug, spider, caterpillar, robin, and squirrel is special. To me. "Look!" I said. "A toad! You've never seen a toad before, have you?" "Toad!" said my daughter. "That's right, baby sister, it's a toad," my son said sweetly before turning back to me and asking, "Can I go ride my motorcycle now?"

• I got new glasses. What, you say I look lovely, that the color of the frames brings out the natural highlights in my hair, that the shape of the lenses compliments the curve of my cheekbones? Oh, thank you for noticing. It's slightly pitiful when you get new glasses and realize that almost no one is going to see them. At least my daughter noticed. And keeps noticing. "New glasses!" she says, grinning and smudging them with her little pointer finger every time she looks at me. She's my sunshine, and I love every smudge she makes.

• The kids had their check-ups today. My son was sweet and cooperative. My daughter threw the mother of all fits when the nurses tried to weigh and measure her. The doctor eventually popped his head in and said, "Do you need a stun gun?" She's feisty, that daughter of mine. Wonder where she gets it?

• The basement leak problem has prompted me to spend much time on Gorilla Ladders inspecting gutters, and still more time on my knees peering into drains. Caulk is the answer, I believe. So I bought some. I felt powerful, tough, yet strangely feminine as I walked to the caulking section of Home Depot and read the labels, choosing two separate containers of caulk for two separate jobs. Do you know there is cement caulking, and also caulking for gutters? Oh, and there are more kinds, too, but I don't remember them. I was feeling proud and particularly sensual as I drove home dreaming of doing some down and dirty caulking. The euphoria might have lasted longer had I read the labels thoroughly enough to realize the application of caulk requires a caulking gun. Oh. I thought you just popped the cap and squeezed. You know, like Balmex.

Just a Quick Oil Change

We should have aborted the mission. The omens were bad. The entrails of wild animals were fraught with all the things with which wild animal entrails should not be fraught. But we, confident in our parenting skills and desperate to get the oil changed in both cars, persisted. Will we never learn?

As soon as we arrived at the shop and got the kids out of the cars, the first omen appeared: my son had wet pants. He's not potty-trained yet (sigh) and had just been changed before we left the house ten minutes earlier, but now one leg was just soaked. Such a diaper leak is very rare. Still, I did not see the omens. "No problem," I said. "We'll just buy a new pair of pants at the shopping center and change him in the bathroom." We were planning to shop while the cars were being worked on anyway.

So just a few minutes later we had already found a suitable change of clothes. My husband headed to the check-out counter with my son while I took my daughter to get a cart to let the kids ride in -- there weren't any carts at the entrance we had used. As soon as I put my daughter into the cart, she began to scream. The kind of screaming that makes even the nicest customers lose their patience. The kind of scream at the exact frequency that triggers an involuntary contraction of the facial muscles into a scowl. And believe me, I was scowling as well.

I learned when my son was that age that giving in to the screaming is just asking for more screaming later, so I opted to let her scream it out. Of course, my son was never one to scream like that. I pushed the cart, its red-faced siren blaring, toward the check-out counter -- you know, to let my husband know where we were in case he had suffered sudden profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss since I last saw him. He was just finishing his purchase and glanced our way, then slumped his shoulders, shook his head, and said something to the cashier that made her laugh. He later told me he had said, "I'm going back to my own private hell now."

So then my husband headed to the restroom to change the boy, which I hear was no easy task. I, meanwhile, pushed the cart as quickly as I could, attempting to travel faster than the speed of sound so that no one else would hear the scream or scowl the scowl. It didn't work, and then I saw an exit. I rounded a corner with precision and headed for the open door, thinking her screams would be lost in the sounds of traffic in the parking lot and that she could finish her fit out there. But she saw the exit, guessed my plan, and popped her thumb into her mouth, silencing her fit and saving the rest for later.

As I headed back to the part of the store where the restroom is, sweet sounds like, "Apple, Mommy!" and "Balloon, Mommy!" issued from her angelic mouth -- that same mouth -- drawing smiles from strangers. Surely all was well now.

Before long, we were all shopping happily. We put some charcoal into the cart. My son, who was riding in the basket part of the cart, decided he wanted to use the bag of charcoal as a bed. He pushed and pulled and re-arranged the bag but just wasn't able to find a comfortable way to lie. On a bag of charcoal. This frustrated him. Before long he was screaming, "HOW DO I SLEEP ON IT?"

My husband shushed him while I quickly arranged the charcoal bag and explained he could use it as a cushion behind his back. This calmed him, but the attention we were giving him angered the teething one, and the hideous screams began again. We were ready to ignore her -- and the scowls -- when she, in her hysterical flailing, banged her chin on the cart. So of course, I had to take her out to comfort her and check out the boo-boo and kiss it and make sure it wasn't bleeding. Her chin was a bit red, but she wasn't seriously hurt and stopped crying almost instantly. And of course, you know that once a kid is out of the cart, there is no putting her back in. That's just the law of nature. It's like birth -- once they're born, they can't go back in. The exit has been completed.

So I carried her until I thought my arms might fall off. Then my husband suggested we do a little grocery shopping. Sure, I said, because I knew where there was a bench my daughter and I could sit on while the guys shopped. We sat for a good long while until my daughter decided she wanted to walk.

"Hold hand, Mommy," she was saying, struggling to get out of my arms and onto her feet. Fine, I thought. She can walk, and we can join the guys for the rest of the shopping trip. We found them before long. All we had to do was follow the sound of my son's yelling. He wasn't crying, just making annoying shrieking sounds that would have landed him in the car in a heartbeat if the car hadn't been in the shop getting its oil changed. But as I was saying, they were easy to find, and our shopping trip continued. As we headed up the frozen foods aisle, my daughter decided she wanted to stoop and pick up every piece of dirt on the floor. She alternated between the stooping and the running in front of me and yelling, "Pick up, Mommy!"

I muttered to my husband, "My patience is gone." He nodded sympathetically, reached into the freezer, and pulled out two containers of Ben and Jerry's, one of which I could see was Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. Oh, yeah. I just found my second wind.

So we found the endurance to check out and trudge back to the auto shop. As we were checking out our groceries, though, I noted with horror that the only fruit or vegetable in the entire purchase was the bag of cherries I had grabbed right as we were heading to the check-out. I was getting the "look what the fat lady's buying" glances from the other customers, and I wanted to scream, "But it was the THIN one who did the shopping! I was busy doing damage control!"

There is a rule, you know. If you're fat and you're going to the store, even if it's to pick up eggs for a birthday cake you're baking for an anorexic neighbor, you MUST purchase at least one vegetable. Fresh spinach is best. If you can afford organic, that's even better. If you do not follow this rule, you'll get the sneers and the evil eye. Or you could always go the opposite route and get on your cell phone (assuming you have one -- I don't) and pretend to call someone, saying, "Do you think a dozen eggs is enough to make myself that six-cheese omelet? I need an afternoon snack before my dinner of fried cheese and pork rinds." Either way, don't be caught shopping fat without a plan.

And whatever you do, if you have small children, don't change the oil in both your cars on the same day; there should always be a get-away vehicle. According to the stickers on our car windshields, we don't have to think about doing this again until September. That gives us three months to think this through, to make the plans, to examine the entrails, to do some potty-training. And to learn how to change our own oil.

How Is It That I'm Old Enough to Remember Twenty Years Ago As If It Were Yesterday?

I stole this idea -- you know, sort of a self-tagging thing -- from Meredith at the Daily Kvetch.

20 years ago I . . .

• was fourteen years old and had just finished eighth grade.
• had a crush on a high school senior with whom I am quite lucky I didn't end up.
• was relatively slim after months of living on seven hundred calories a day.
• spent the summer helping my father put in hay and had quite the tractor tan.

10 years ago I . . .

• was twenty-four and had just finished my first year of teaching at a residential school for the deaf.
• had just made a vow to stop purging and was beginning another calorie-counting diet with a punishing exercise program.
• I got my two cats, who were just tiny kittens at the time.

5 years ago I . . .

• had been married for ten wonderful months to my soulmate and was planning a vacation to the beach withhim.
• was was finishing my sixth year of teaching, my fourth year at a large public high school.
• was just starting to try to get pregnant.

3 years ago I . . .

• had a two-week-old son wand was trying to figure out breastfeeding. My son was nursing every hour and a half, my nipples were killing me, and I was severely sleep-deprived. I recall wondering if the difficulties we had had conceiving/carrying a baby had been a warning that I wasn't mother material.
• was getting visits from my students who wanted to see the new baby. I felt totally overwhelmed by company, yet I was glad they were there since part of me was missing my job already.

1 year ago I . . .

• was spending my mornings taking my two-year-old son and my six-month-old daughter outside into our tiny, treeless backyard, where my daughter would either sleep or scream/spit up while my son played on his slide or with his sand and water table.
• was helping my husband send out resumes and applications for a new job. He had had some interviews but hadn't had any good offers yet.

So far this year I . . .

• cuddled and snuggled and read to and played with my beautiful children.
• spent a lot of evenings cuddling and watching Netflix movies with my husband.
• realized I might like to become a Jew.
• hosted my second Passover seder.
• started this blog.

Yesterday I . . .

• did laundry, fed the kids, changed countless diapers, took the kids for a walk, read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus at least ten times, showed my children a bird's nest, and used those fun little bathtub coloring tablets to turn the kids' bathwater blue.
• finished a great book called The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.
• enjoyed letting my husband grill so I wouldn't have to cook dinner.
• used our new, but already quite used, shop vac downstairs because, dammit, it's still leaking.

Today I . . .

• spent the morning cleaning the house, which already looks messed up again.
• am making challah for dinner tonight.
• told my son, while rocking him and getting ready to sing to him before his nap, about how I love him even when I don't like his behavior -- hitting, pinching, etc. -- and about all the wonderful things he does that make me very proud, a list of which I was lovingly enumerating when he looked me in the eye and said, "Sing."

Tomorrow I will . . .

• relax with my family.
• probably read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus at least twenty times.

In the next year I will . . .

• begin my conversion process. (See, I'm being decisive today.)
• find a pre-school for my son.
• find a way to get out of the house at least one day a week, whether it's through membership in some kind of organization, a class, or a part-time job.
• find a babysitter so that my husband and I can go out more.
• go on our very first vacation as a family of four.
• enjoy every minute of my children's silliness.
  

Hey, This Is Encouraging

I took this idea from TikkunGer. Here are my Belief-O-Matic results. Well, it looks as if I'm on the right track! You know, according to an online quiz and a website about which I know nothing. But aren't quizzes fun when the results come out the way you want them to?

1. Reform Judaism (100%)
2. Bahá'í Faith (85%)
3. Sikhism (84%)
4. Orthodox Judaism (81%)
5. Unitarian Universalism (80%)
6. Liberal Quakers (79%)
7. Islam (77%)
8. Neo-Pagan (69%)
9. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (66%)
10. Jainism (61%)
11. New Age (54%)
12. Mahayana Buddhism (53%)
13. Hinduism (51%)
14. Scientology (51%)
15. New Thought (50%)
16. Secular Humanism (50%)
17. Orthodox Quaker (44%)
18. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (42%)
19. Theravada Buddhism (40%)
20. Taoism (34%)
21. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (33%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (33%)
23. Nontheist (33%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (29%)
25. Roman Catholic (29%)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (27%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (23%)

What Do You Mean They Don't Make Elmo Shoes With a Reinforced Steel Toe?

Just look at these suckers!

Oh, I can hear it now: Tsk, tsk, tsk. Your poor child needs new shoes. You let him go out in those things? There are holes in the toes! His feet will get wet! What kind of a mother are you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But do you know these shoes are only two months old? That’s right. Two months.

Then explain the holes in the toes! Does your son walk on his tip-toes? And if so, why haven’t you gotten that checked out?

Oh, dear reader, when I saw the holes in the shoes, I was baffled myself at first. But then it dawned on me. He is not a tippy-toe walker, but a stunt man. He uses the toes of his shoes as brakes when he flies down our sloped driveway on his “motorcycle,” a modern version of the Big Wheel.

Everyone who visits nearly has a heart attack when they see him fly down that hill. They gasp and clutch their chests and then sigh in relief when my son stops just short of the brick wall or the garage door. I used to do the gasp/clutch thing myself. But he’s actually quite good at stopping himself.

I’ll just have to remember not to let him ride his motorcycle in his new Bob the Builder sandals.

You Won't Find This Route on Map Quest

I've been thinking more about my post from Tuesday, specifically the part about the "daddy issues" and the Tori Amos lyrics. The more I think about it, the more I think maybe it's really okay, that those things are just part of my history but do not in any way sum me up.

When you get where you want to be, it doesn't matter how many dead-ends you bumped into along the way, or that if you hadn't hit that dead-end, you might have ended up somewhere else just as nice. This is where you are, and there is no going back to undo a wrong turn or a roadblock. The mistakes and rough parts in the journey are as much a part of the journey as the parts in which you were on the right road.

You know, back when I was teaching, I attended a workshop one summer in which the director, a good man overall but a guy who didn't always think before he spoke, heard me stutter severely as I read aloud a passage I had written, and he burst out laughing, saying, "You teach the deaf, right? So it doesn't matter that you stutter . . . because your students can't hear you!" And he laughed until he had tears in his eyes. I handled it with grace, partly out of pity for the fellow teachers who sat around the table looking horrified at the director's reaction, and partly because I am too stubborn to let someone so insensitive see how deeply I am hurt.

Part of what hurt me is that it's true, at least a little (although my job included a lot of speaking, including voice interpreting for deaf students). My stuttering surely had something to do with my major in deaf education. I didn't sit down and say, "Okay, I stutter. There's not much else I can do, so I guess I'll teach deaf kids." But the fact that I fell in love with American Sign Language at the age of twelve did have a lot to do with my stutter. I remember learning the manual alphabet and a few signs so that when I stuttered so badly in class that I could not speak, I could fingerspell the answers below my desk as a sort of rebellion, a way to prove to myself that I knew the answers. That led to more reading about ASL and Deaf Culture, and eventually I knew that was what I was supposed to do with my life. And as awesome as it is to know a second language in which I am completely fluent (um, as far as stuttering goes -- I'd say proficient is more accurate as far as my linguistic competency in ASL is concerned -- I still have that "hearing accent."), that has nothing to do with what I truly love about the Deaf Community and my (former) job. Does it really matter how I got here, a teacher of deaf students, as long as I'm staying for the right reasons? Does the fact that an imperfection led me to my vocation make me any less of a teacher? Of course not.

When you get where you want to be, it doesn't matter how many dead-ends you bumped into along the way, or that if you hadn't made that wrong turn, you might have ended up somewhere else just as nice. This is where you are, and there is no going back to undo a wrong turn or a roadblock. The mistakes and rough parts in the journey are as much a part of the journey as the parts in which you were on the right road.

So I could hide from the fact that I spent a lot of years being angry with my father, or that I had some issues with dating Christian guys, or that I had(have?) problems with male authority. But it was all just part of my journey. Why be ashamed of it, really? It's just part of how I came to be here, standing where I am, with a choice in front of me.

Conversion Confusion, Part 2

About a week ago, greatly discouraged, I decided that conversion just wasn't for me. It wasn't that there was something about Judaism I didn't like, or that I had some revival of Christian faith or anything. It was more that I didn't think I could ever fit in somewhere else any better than (or even as well as) I already fit in where I am. I resigned myself to life as a misfit, wearing the wrong label, doing what feels right in my own home, while keeping silent about it with the rest of the world.

And then I picked up a copy of Reform Judaism, where I read Rabbi Eric Yoffie's "Dear Reader: We Need to Ask," in which he pretty much responds to this post without ever having read it. He said what I haven't heard before, that I'm welcome. I'm not saying anyone has been unwelcoming in the least, only that no one ever actually invited me to consider conversion. At first I considered it respectful that no one asked, but later, my insecurities getting the best of me, I began to wonder if I was seen as damaged goods, if maybe they didn't ask because they were hoping I wouldn't convert. So it was nice to have an invitation of sorts. I'm thinking now that being where I'm not sure I'm wanted is what's not for me, not so much conversion.

So am I ready to convert? I've been thinking about the psychology of religious conversion. I'm sure there have been studies, or at least some generalizations made, on the subject, but I haven't read any of that. I have wondered if a desire to convert from one's family's religion to another is some kind of character flaw. What is wrong with me that my ancestors' way of life is not good enough for me? Why does Judaism work better for me than Christianity?

Christians believe in a definite male deity, even one in human form, while Judaism talks of a deity neither male nor female and not really human. Is that part of what I like? I cannot ignore the possibility that I am going to have problems with any religion in which I am to worship a male anything. Not that I hate men -- don't get me wrong. But it should be obvious to anyone who has been reading my page that I have daddy issues. I love my father, and he loves me, but our relationship has always been a power struggle. And when I was in college, my anthem was Tori Amos's "Precious Things" with the lines (and please pardon the, ahem, strong lyrics),

"I want to smash the faces of all the beautiful boys, those Christian boys.
So you can make me cum, that doesn't make you Jesus. "

Eek. Yeah. So I think I need to thoroughly examine my motivations here. Really, honestly, I don't think I want to convert to escape Christianity or to assert my feminism or anything like that, any more than I think I married my husband solely because he wasn't one of "those Christian boys." If so, I would have converted a long time ago to something, anything, or called myself an atheist. I think I have really fallen in love with Judaism. But what if I'm wrong? What if this is just some emotional, knee-jerk thing that I'm doing for the wrong reasons? What are the right reasons? I don't think conversion for another person, even a husband or a child, is enough. So what are my reasons?

One of the many things that what I know so far of Judaism has done for me is to help me to step outside myself, and I want to say to make me less selfish, but I think it's at least partly self-consciousness I'm talking about instead of selfishness . . . although I'm beginning to see that the two are not so different. The emphasis on getting involved, not only with community, but with social change, is something I love. In Christianity, getting involved is great, but in Judaism, it is expected.

And so, when I, with my natural tendencies toward introversion and my extra added insecurities about too many things to count, tend to slink off into the shadows thinking I have nothing to offer, it is Judaism that helps me step outside of my own discomfort and use what I have been given to change the world in positive ways. Not that I'm very good at that stepping out thing right now, or in changing much of anything. But I'm working on it, and I see it all in such a different light now. It's not, "Be confident," but, "Be part of the world." In the former, the focus is on changing myself so that I will be ready/good enough to act, whereas in the latter, the focus is on the world itself and the changes needed and my obligation to act. When you're part of a larger whole, your little flaws and fears don't matter so much; instead, you just work alongside everyone else in whatever way you can to keep the big world turning.

Is that a good enough reason? I don't know. But I'll keep thinking about it. You know, now that I've been asked.

Passing Gold

I think my kidneys are in cahoots with some no-good health insurance scammers. Last August I passed a kidney stone worth its weight -- er, a million times its weight -- in gold. We are still getting the bills for that dumbass little piece of calcification. I'm mad. I mean, come on. My urinary tract just happens to decide on the first day of my husband's new insurance plan, to squeeze out a golden egg, er, stone that leaves me vomiting and unable to walk? Oh, yeah, I think it was a set-up.

The best part is that my husband's new company dropped the insurance plan just before we had paid off the sky-high deductible (the exact amount of which, by the way, I still don't know because I was too busy packing up all our belongings, trying to keep our house in good enough shape to show to prospective buyers, and looking for a new house in another town . . . oh, yeah, and taking care of a toddler and an infant . . . to actually look through all the stacks of paperwork that insurance companies usually, but in this case maybe not, send listing a million things you don't need to know plus somewhere in small print your deductible), so we had to start all over just four months later with a new deductible with a new company. Which is why I have not gone to the optometrist or my gynecologist. Because damn, my parts just cost too much.

Thank goodness I didn't go to the ER for that stupid gold nugget. I said I didn't have time, and I just barfed and writhed until the pain finally subsided a bit. I happened to have a doctor appointment the next day -- pre-eclampsia follow-up -- and waited until then to tell her about my barfing and my, by then, just very sore side. She sent me for a CT scan or an MRI or whatever -- don't know what the difference is. Except I'm betting the one I got was the more expensive of the two. The only reason I agreed to take the time to go was that I was afraid it might, just might, have something to do with my reproductive organs, which are in cahoots with someone or other, too, because they cost me a lot but mostly just give me grief and pain.

When the CT/MRI results came back showing a small kidney stone remaining, it was the doc's best guess that that's what had caused the barfing and writhing episode. HOWEVER, and there is always a however when we are dealing with deceitful kidneys, there was a "large mass" on the right side. They couldn't identify it, but suspected it was my ovary, since they couldn't find it anywhere else. Okay, next time I will know that this is just doctor-speak for "everything is fine but we're covering our asses." But my doc recommended an ultrasound to find my ovary.

Now, how an ovary could go missing without my knowing it, I do not know. I can see it now: a postcard in the mail saying MISSING! with a pic of my right ovary, complete with age-enhanced endometrial adhesions. Last seen: November 2004. Last seen with: and a pic of the ob/gyn who performed my c-section.

But I digress. I let them look for the missing ovary because A)I had no idea what the deductible was on our new insurance, and B) the word ovary scares me because during my c-section from hell (which lasted way longer than scheduled because they couldn't close until they removed a large fibroid tumor that just happened to be sticking out of the incision, and for which I was given a spinal instead of an epidural so that there was limited time for them to work until the anesthesia wore off, so that, although it didn't really hurt, I definitely felt every single staple go into my body when they finally were able to close -- oh, yeah, and this was all before my blood pressure skyrocketed), I, drifting in and out of consciousness, clearly heard the doctor say, "Looks like ovarian cancer." Now, sure, he could have been talking about some other patient, or even the cauliflower in the salad he'd had for lunch that day, or whatever, but since he was standing over my splayed insides, with his hands inside said insides, I naturally figured he was talking about me. And so I thought I had cancer for the next two weeks, during which I told no one because I didn't want to upset them, and I just waited for the lab results to come back. I guess they were okay because no one told me I had cancer, and they did eventually let me leave the hospital. Still, still, when someone tells me my ovary went missing after a scare like that, I let them torture me with the magic trans-vaginal ultrasound wand.

Which apparently cost a fortune, according to our most recent bill.

You know, I think the ovary was in cahoots with the kidney, and that's why he was missing. I'm sure it's back now, lounging around in the vacant double lot left by the fibroid tumor, snacking on caviar -- little cannibal that it is -- bought with the pay-off from the insurance scam.

Well, I have three words to say to you, little bastards: EARLY ORGAN DONATION, that's what! How ya like them apples?

Blessing in Disguise

Here's one of the gifts my son got for his birthday. I was not entirely enthusiastic about it until I realized A) we do have enough level room for it outside if we put it on the deck, B) it inflates or deflates in 30 seconds, C) it provides great exercise opportunities for my children, and D) it acts almost like a cage, allowing me to go for minutes at a time without being wallowed.

You have probably guessed that the anonymous little jumpers there are my son and daughter, but if you look closely, you will see my husband sitting there as well. He is being wallowed by my daughter in this particular shot. My husband, blessed with a high metabolism, a naturally small build, and an inability to eat when he is stressed, is able to get in there with both kids at the same time and still come in under the weight limit for the contraption. I alone, however, exceed the weight limit. The kids' favorite game right now is to throw balls at my husband so that he will yell, "Ow!" It's the kind of game I discourage, but hey, the cage, er, bouncer, is his domain; the hefty unwallowed one will just mind her own business this time.

Squooshy

"Mommy, your tummy is fat," my son says as he hugs me and snuggles on me in the bed this morning. It is not an insult, just an observation about the body of a person he loves. "You're squooshy. I love to squoosh you."

I'm a little unsure how to deal with the F-word -- fat, I mean. This is the first time he has called me fat. I don't mind his saying my tummy is fat . . . because it is. He says it with the same love with which he says, "Daddy, you're bald." My husband is balding, technically, but I am, technically or otherwise, just plain fat. But my husband doesn't take offense. And I don't either.

At some point, we need to explain that most people don't like to be called fat, even lovingly . . . and that lots of times, if I'm perfectly honest, I don't either. But that will be his first lesson in fat phobia, and it's a lesson I don't want him to learn yet. At the same time, if he has to learn it, I'd rather he learn it from me so that I can teach him my values: 1) Fat is just another physical characteristic, 2) Bodies come in different shapes and sizes, and everyone is beautiful in his or her own way, 3) Anyone and everyone can try to be healthy, regardless of physical characteristics such as weight. 3) We don't say things that will hurt people's feelings.

How much sense does all that make, though? If fat is okay, why does being called fat hurt people's feelings? Similarly, if short is okay, why does being called short hurt people's feelings? If bald is okay, why does being called bald hurt people's feelings? Ah, for now, we'll have to keep it simple. Maybe, "It's not polite to make comments to people about their bodies."

Sigh. I like it that he says I'm squooshy. He says sometimes, "Mommy, you are so lovable." I like it that my son loves me as I am, that my softness is just another lovable part of me. One day he'll learn to look at me differently, but I love that, for now, he loves my squooshability.