Volunteerism….

I have vague memories of being a ‘Candy striper’ for a few moments in high school..or rather of the unflattering shirtdress-styled uniform. But I’m not really sure. Maybe it was my sister who was? A career in the healthcare field was never in the cards for me.

What I do have are vivid memories of my first volunteer experience at a nursing home when I was in junior high in the early 1970s. They weren’t called assisted living facilities then, and what those elderly people were doing there could hardly be called living.

In high school, I volunteered in a classroom of special needs children. Never had I considered being a teacher a career choice, either. I knew I would never have the patience to teach students with any needs, although I enjoyed my time volunteering with Special Olympics.

(Note to all my former college students: I did gain more patience by the time y’all and I were in the classroom together!)

Fast forward a few years, and my volunteer ‘career’ started in earnest: my eldest son went off to kindergarten. Oh the marvelous opportunities for mommies and daddies to be a part of the classroom experience. My first foray was to the pumpkin patch one sunny fall day to ride herd on a bunch of five and six year-olds as they selected their future Jack ‘o Lanterns with other parents.

And for the most part, for the last 17 years I feel I did contribute as a volunteer and did have my own life enriched. My favorite ‘job’ ever, paid or unpaid, was working in the North Elementary School library in Morgantown, West Virginia. My boys are nearly five years apart so I had plenty of time to spread my volunteer wings. Then-librarian Vicki Wilson remains one of my favorite people ever and that’s where I developed my adult love of young adult and middle grade books. Not to mention the joy (usually) of helping kids in a book CENTRIC environment.

Numerous highs, and the occasional lows, have occurred over the years. All the Read Aloud time in the classroom (which my husband participated in also), the homeroom parties (wrapping kids in toilet paper at Halloween to turn them into silent mummies remains one of my favorites), the middle school trip to New York City where one mom abandoned her group to go off on her own, which resulted in my group gaining one of my older son’s best friends still to this day, the list seems, well endless.

Until today.

Tonight is a sports picnic, which I’m marking as my final act ever of mom volunteerism. This year, along with a super awesome group of moms and dads, I was a ‘spirit’ mom for two sports.

Recently I finished three years of being involved with our church’s middle schoolers, two as a confirmation small group leader. I wanted to ‘pay it forward’ because we moved here when our youngest was in 8^th grade, and he received a warm welcome at this church. I had a wonderful group of girls, and the class as a whole was lively and engaging.

But it’s time to ‘retire.’ My youngest graduates from high school next year and heads to college.

I wouldn’t change anything about the experiences of the last 17 years, except maybe the accidental-crashing-glass shelves-laden-with-snow globes debacle that involved 5^th graders at a museum in Pittsburgh years ago….

Being a volunteer is not about ‘you’ (me), but I do cherish one memory above all else….

I’m in the middle of a crowded CROWDED ballroom at the student union at a university for a ‘don’t do bad things’ field trip with middle schoolers. All the schools in the county have sent their kids for this fun educational activity. The snow globes shattering woulda been preferable to this….

Somebody tells the kids to sit down for the ‘fun’ lecture so I sit down with them and look around. I’m the only adult sitting on the hard floor. So I say to no one in particular:  “Why am I the only parent sitting on the floor”?

To which one of my older son’s classmates replied “Because you care.”

I did care.

Of course there was the time as PTO co-president, I left a meeting rather than take a swing at the principal – verbally – and the counselor had to talk me off the ledge…but for the most part it’s been a great ride.

And I never lost any kids on any field trips…permanently.

Where the Wild Things Are Going

Image from Maruice Sendak's
Unreleased Drawings and prints

The inscription on our battered copy of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ is dated Dec. 21^st, 1991 and reads:

Erik,

Happy 1^st Birthday!

May you always be the king of your dreams.

Lots of love,

Andrea Prior

 Andrea or “An-N-INA” – as our older son called her – was Erik’s first babysitter. Years ago her dad (a chancellor at an Eastern school who died unexpectedly this year) and her mom took my husband and me under their wing at Northern Arizona University. Andrea’s mother, Merry Lu, and I had both grown up in Michigan and shared a love of reading and a mutual disdain for

A. returning things (she always made my returns)

and B. making phone calls (I always made hotel reservations, etc. for her). 

With Merry Lu, I attended my first book group meeting and went on my first ‘faculty wives’ hike. From her I learned how to identify Indian Paintbrush and how to gently remove spiders from one’s house and take them outside instead of squashing. Sadly only the former took.

When Erik was born, Andrea became his beloved babysitter. The night my husband and I celebrated our 10^th anniversary we came home at midnight to find Andrea pushing our earache-plagued toddler outside in his stroller. She was a natural.  Erik has grown into a globetrotter, and both Andrea and her mom loved travel. Following in her parents footsteps,  Andrea chose teaching as a profession – one that took her from a reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to Japan.

        

Last fall, Erik spent a weekend in Japan while on study abroad in Seoul, South Korea.  He enjoyed Seoul so much he returned for a second term and is due home the end of June. One more semester of college here in Nebraska, then he graduates and no doubt heads off to the world again.

 How you gonna keep ‘em down on the prairie after they’ve seen Asia and Europe?

Meanwhile, ‘little brother’ Andrew is approximately five days away from officially being a senior in high school.  We’ve yet to have a senior in high school since Erik bypassed all that, leaving home at 16 to become a foreign exchange student in Germany and then going to college early.

As chronicled before, Erik’s been going since he was a toddler…literally trying to head for the Mexican border (five hours away) during a moms and tots playgroups in Flagstaff while other children happily played in the sandboxes or swing sets.  I’m used to Erik going, to relishing the moments when he’s around, and knowing he’ll no doubt always live in some far-flung place.

So it’s taken me by enormous surprise to feel so discombobulated by the thought of Andrew going off to college in a year. At the closest he’ll go two minutes away, at the longest two hours.

But it’s not really about that is it?

The appointment for senior pictures is already made and on the calendar for this summer. Graduation party venues have already been discussed. A year is a very long time and yet, in this week that saw the death of Maurice Sendak, the beloved author of “Where the Wild Things Are,” I have two sons on the cusp of starting amazing new journeys and many friends in similar situations.

It seems like only yesterday the wild rumpus started….

This too shall pass…

… is one of the ‘mantras’ I’m trying to adopt for 2012. Another is ‘Just say no’ when you can. Lately, however, I need to admonish myself to ‘Just quit whining!’

This year I vowed to banish negativity from my life – when at all possible. Also, I promised myself this was my last year of volunteering – for anything.

The time has come.

My 21-year-old returns from studying abroad in Seoul this summer and has one more semester before graduating from college. My ‘volunteer career’ (as chronicled before here) started in a pumpkin patch when he was a kindergartner.

Another phrase I’ve embraced is ‘don’t engage’ as in when confronted by bullies, idiots, annoying people – let it go. There’s nothing rotten-to-the-core people dislike more than not having someone to spar with.

Life is simply too short to engage negative people.

But lately I feel I’m turning into a negative, whiney person and, whereas I’m not the Pollyanna my positive (and God bless him for it!) husband is… I don’t like being whiney.

Previously in this space I’ve chronicled the tale of ‘Whiney Girl Rides a Bike.”

When Erik was in first grade each night he brought home a text to read out loud to us. One story detailed the life of a cranky girl who did not like to ride her bike. It’s not quite the purple prose of the Dick and Jane years my husband and I endured (I went from Spot and Puff to Nancy Drew to J. D. Salinger and Stephen King, thank you very much). It does mimic that early reader style somewhat: “I do not like my red bike. I do not want to ride my red bike. Blah blah blah.”

You get the idea.

All three of us -- dad, mom, and first grader -- concurred this story should have been called “Whiney Girl Rides a Bike.”

We all also agreed whiney girl needed to get over it.

Me included.

Hair today, gone tomorrow?

Part 1:

Besides my weight, the only (trivial) thing I obsess about is my hair, which I’m in the process of growing out for the –nth time. My current coif resembles the ‘do I sported when I gave birth to my second son -- who will be a senior in high school next year – with considerably more gray. Length just below the ears, flat and rounded at the same time, and no idea when I had my last haircut.

Unfortunately my hair doesn’t seem to be growing down. Instead it’s tufting out.

This, according to an article in the current issue of More Magazine, is due to the ‘50s’…not the Bill Haley Rock Around the clock decade but the age span that apparently is hardest on a woman’s hair. Blame menopause the magazine advises. I say blame being the mother of a teenager….

Whatever the cause, follicles are supposed to settle down in the 60s… shades of the Age of Aquarius….

Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do? A trip to my amazing stylist would solve a lot of problems, but I’m afraid I’d plead with her to cut it all off…been there, done that off and on since the 80s.

All I want is a sleek, swingy chin-length bob or lob or whatever it’s being called these days. Instead I have the same hairdo I did in hospital shots from 1995 after 25 plus hours of labor.

Part 2:

In the YMCA pool during an aqua fitness class I plead with my friend/hairstylist for help. Sans scissors in the chlorinated depths, she works out a time I can come see her for some follicle ‘shaping.’

A day later I’m less helmet-headed and back on track. With summer approaching (and record highs in our Midwestern spring), I’m enviously looking at New Wave/Punk/Pixie cuts – but resisting.

Maybe when the next decade rolls around and a whole lotta pounds roll off.

Now, to quote Nora Ephron, “I feel bad about my neck.”

Sigh.

Love is (was) in the air...

…or it would be, if it could find a place to breathe among the piles of papers scattered around my home office. The Valentine’s Day card I bought for my husband more than a month ago is safely tucked away in my sock drawer – I think. And we have tentative plans to go to a $2 showing of The Muppet Movie at the mall theater, plus it’s ‘free popcorn’ night.

In six month’s from tomorrow, we’ll celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary. My goal is to have the office shoveled out by then. But I can’t complain since it’s my mess. Piles = projects = work = employment in the life of a freelancer.

I wrote the above a week ago, and that’s as far as I got. Valentine’s Day is history, and we’re on to Fat Tuesday. I did find the card, we didn’t make the movie, and the work hasn’t let up -- which is still a good thing.

Mulling exactly where this is going (a treatise on the passage of time? a paean to true love? a procrastination tool to avoid the deadline work staring me in the face?), all that comes to me is how happy it made me to take the morning ‘off’ to dust.

I love dusting, watching the powdery surfaces (okay it’s been awhile!) gleam from a combination of elbow grease and Murphy’s Oil Soap spray. Okay, this chore gets done enough that not much elbow grease is required.

Bathroom cleaning is high on my list too.

Lest I sound like Snow White and Cinderella all wrapped up in one (minus the teeny tiny Disney waistlines, perfectly coiffed hair, and dewdrop eyes), let me add I loathe cooking. Given a choice between sweeping the hearth and preparing a meal, hand me the broom. I’d take soot over char any time.

Fortunately the only time I have to cook is when my spouse is out of town. If I were single, a bowl of Cheerios would be on the menu most nights, but my mom (who lives with us) and I will take turns making dinner when our ‘chef’ is gone. Usually I cook for us, and she cooks for the teenager. His standards are higher than ours. Teenager also can cook as can his older brother, who makes fabulous sushi.

They take after their dad.

I used to cook in the early days of our marriage: homemade macaroni and cheese, beef ‘roly poly’ (yes, it made the eater resemble the name), popovers with Chicken a’ la King….

And I baked, oh did I bake…. (in my defense I do still enjoy baking but try to avoid the kitchen unless scrubbing pots and pans or Windexing something) Pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, lemon bars, biscuits, cinnamon rolls… just typing the words expands my hips.

Of course that all changed when my husband was diagnosed with diabetes more than a decade ago. He took over the cooking to the betterment of both of us.

We’re not thin by any means, but we aren’t as pudgy as we were during those early years. I collect cookbooks (oh the irony!), and sometimes I’ll see a fabulous recipe and think maybe I should try cooking once in a while.

Then I think ‘why’? I know how good I’ve got it (I’m very proud of the fact I’ve never cooked/ruined a Thanksgiving turkey). I have a husband who not only brings home the bacon, he fries it up too.

Saves us a lot of calls to the fire department.

Punxsutawney Phil

Groundhog Day is just around the corner, and I’ve yet to write a New Year’s post. December was all about DEADlines. The last time I blogged was on eldest son Erik’s 21^st birthday on December 21. That was right before he flew home from studying abroad in South Korea. In less than a week he leaves on the first leg of his sojourn back to Seoul for the second term.

Erik spent the better part of this afternoon putting together a schedule and registering for classes. When I couldn’t give him a definitive explanation for why a class that meets for four hours a day is worth three credit hours, he was puzzled. After all I spent years teaching and advising at the university level.

I told him to ask his father.

Tonight his 16-year-old brother, Andrew, was looking at the general studies requirements for the major he’s interested in at the local university father teaches at.

This one knows better than to ask me questions on matters of academics, although in a previous ‘life’ I did have a few answers.

I don’t miss teaching and I really REALLY don’t miss advising, although I do still miss many of my students.

More than a few are parents themselves now, which kind of makes me feel like an honorary – aunt. Surely you didn’t think I was going to use the ‘G’ word?

I know all the rhetoric about age being a state of mind, you’re only as young as you feel, etc. but I ain’t buying it. When I was pregnant with Andrew, I was classified as being of ‘advanced maternal age.’ I was pushing 36.

Never, ever do I get baby fever…not even puppy fever. This morning Erik laid out the classifieds from the Omaha newspaper and circled the ad for the $500 Labradoodles (I have allergies). This same Erik is leaving the country for five more months then will finish up college and then venture out for parts known or unknown. No puppy passports right now. I told him if his father, who periodically lobbies for a dog, gives up his motorcycle I’d be happy to get us all a puppy.

No takers.

Last weekend, though, a strange thing happened. Nostalgia for the baby years sideswiped me. Even though I had babies, I’m not a baby person. My husband is wonderful with babies, I’m skittish. I went to a couples baby shower for a delightful woman in my book group. The event was for two couples; the other mom-to-be was Erik’s children’s literature teacher last year and his minor advisor. She’s sweet and smart, and watching the joy on her husband’s face as he took his turn opening presents was worth the price of admission.

I, however, spent the rest of the weekend morbidly depressed. Former students having babies are one thing, former professors of my own son having first babies?

Intellectually I know my husband got his first assistant professor position at the tender age of 27, but were we ever really that young?

Over the years I’ve been to and hosted a multitude of baby showers – and never felt the urge to return to those rewarding exhausting times.

But for a fleeting moment on a mild January afternoon, I was transported back to those days of diapers (and diaper rash), onesies, and fleece.

The trip didn’t last very long. And for my children the adventure is just beginning.

But just to be on the safe side, I recycled the classifieds.

Happy 21st Birthday to my firstborn

Last night I laid awake pondering everything I need to do to meet work deadlines. Fortunately a marathon baking session on the weekend took care of the last of the big holiday prep. But I wanted to make time to write a birthday blog post about older son, Erik. He’s studying abroad in Seoul, South Korea and turned 21 today in his time zone.

Lying in bed I imagined the low tones of Garrison Keillor intoning, “It was a quiet week in Lake Wobegone” resonating in my swirling thoughts.

Except it hasn’t been a quiet anything here on the prairie with time for reflection and musings. I went back and read what I penned two years ago, which struck me as a lovely paen to a son’s birthday along with being a thoughtful essay on children growing up.

This year he’s just getting cash.

But I still feel I would be remiss if I didn’t at least note this milestone birthday. A little more than two years ago, I started blogging for a variety of reasons, including writing about holding on and letting go of children, facing a new decade, and switching to writing fulltime.

Ironically the busier I get as a writer, the less time I have to write. That’s a good thing. But I do miss mulling and musing.

On the other hand, I’ve come a long way in the holding on and letting go department. The death this week of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il didn’t send me into paroxysms of inner turmoil because I have a child in South Korea. Erik and his father talk U.S. and world politics; I prefer to handle the more mundane topics.

At six a.m., Seoul time, late afternoon prairie time, Erik called just to chat. I wished him a happy birthday and before we hung up, asked him if he needed anything. He said maybe thirty dollars for food money when he hits the San Francisco and Denver legs on the long trip home. I told him I’d have his father deposit fifty. I also like to handle another ‘m’ word: money.

This is the child who left home at 16 to be a foreign exchange student in Germany. Now that his younger brother, Andrew, is driving, I marvel we let Erik drive cross-country at age 17 in an aging Honda Civic with 200,000 miles on it and no air conditioner. Andrew could do it, but I don’t think I could stand the worry the second time around.

But of course I could and would. When it’s time for the chicks to fly the nest, and the timing is different for each son or daughter, I know to step back and enjoy the beauty of the flight. This doesn’t mean it’s not difficult, but it does mean we did our job as parents right.

Later this week, Erik will be winging his way home for a short duration. I want to wish this son, born in record cold in Arizona 21 years ago, a happy birthday.

Sometimes I marvel how I can remember each detail of that day snow dusted the cacti and can’t remember yesterday. But I think that’s why parents can let go and yet hold on.

Memories don’t leave us, even when our children do.