Happy Birthday Kyle!

We love you we do; we love you we do; but don’t get excited – we love Kevin too!  Mostly because the law says we have to…and the fact that he’s in Spain means I can say this and he can’t do nuthin about it!

Happy Birthday, Kyle – 15 years ago, February 16^th, 1996 at 8:28 AM you burst into this world; not crying but more just looking around with ‘hmm-okay, so this is it’ expression on your face.  You’ve always been the bonus child; we already had one of each flavor so there was no pressure to ‘produce’ anything.  More than the spare to the heir, you quickly carved out your place in our family as the imaginative, inquisitive kid.  In your world, race cars and golf balls could play baseball on a deck of playing cards and it all made sense.  We knew early on that you were a math whiz – your favorite number?-Nine, as in ‘engine, engine number nine, going down the party line.’  (Don’t even need to look up the words to that book; it is engrained in my memory from the hundreds of bedtime readings).   Soon you were doing math equations in your head, serving now as Mom’s on the spot calculator.  And oh, that quick, sardonic and hysterical sense of humor you possess – you are the sort of quiet kid who keeps the best zingers in his back pocket.

Do you remember a year ago?  We had just dragged ourselves back from Hawaii.  You were dreaming about going back and becoming a surfing instructor – dude, who needs college?  We were engrossed with watching the Winter Olympics in Vancouver – curling and snowboarding being the events of the day.  You were rocking out your 8^th grade year at MTCES.  You’d decided to go to Badin High School and were in the process of ‘going green’.  You also had an infected fingernail on one hand; and a broken index finger courtesy of basketball on the other hand that required months of wearing a cast. 

Oh, and you had cancer too, though we didn’t know it at the time. 

Fast forward one year later – just ONE YEAR – a year that feels like a lifetime, but really is nothing more than a year.  Now?  You’re rocking out your freshman year at Badin, taking every opportunity to ‘live green.’  You’ve made new friends and worked at keeping your old ones too.  You’re back in the gym, working hard and dreaming of football glory.  You’ve sailed the Caribbean, met a TV idol, felt great, felt lousy and somewhere in between you have begun to redefine your life’s goals.  And now that you’re 15, you can officially date – though Dad and I just can’t believe that time has come around – not because we don’t trust you, but it’s just another sign that we are so darn old.  You look great.  You feel great.   Cancer-schmancer!  You kicked its butt, but good. 

So we’re off to celebrate another year down with a birthday dinner at the Montgomery Inn Boathouse (thank God for small favors that it isn’t Chuck-E-Cheese anymore)!  Hopefully you’ll wear your new England’s Premier League “Drogba” Chelsea  Team jersey.  We’ll talk about your Make-a-Wish trip.  And Dad and I will try and pry information out of you about any girl who’s caught your eye.  I doubt we’ll have much luck, but it will be fun to try.

Happy Birthday, indeed.  

Love, Mom and Dad

I'M BORED

Okay.  There were two words in my kid-dom that you never uttered for fear of a stern lecture and hours of chores.

I’m bored.

That little phrase, uttered quickly and usually with deep regret afterwards was met with an arched eyebrow by Dad and a gritty smile by Mom. “Really?  You’re bored.  Let’s just see if we can fix that!”

Well.  Out would come a list of chores that indentured servants would weep over.  Clean the garage.  Polish the silver.  Remove the china from the hutch and wash it.  By hand.  (Even if you thought you could cheat and put some pieces in the dishwasher, there was just one problem – no dishwasher.)  Fluff pillows.  Shell peas.  Beat rugs.  Organize the linen closets.  Clean under beds.  And my mom’s all time favorite, wash the walls and ceilings.  With Spic-n-Span!  The smell of that particular cleanser makes my arm cramp to this day.

Believe it or not, even Rob and I agree on this!  Me: Did you ever tell your parents “I’m bored”?  Rob:  No.  Me:  Why?  Rob:  Cuz they madja work.  Swing camera to teenager who rolls his eyes and continues channel surfing.

And get this – the work list wasn’t optional.  No take backs.  Not mere suggestions, either.  You’re bored?  You worked.  I wonder how the ‘yea, right Mom’ look my teenaged son gave me today would have played for my Dad when I gave teenager a work list in response to his ‘I’m bored’. 

The thing of it is that by today’s standard, we had every right to be bored!  Our homes growing up were more like Fantasy Farm and less like the Disney Worlds of today.  Case in point:

• Books came from the Library that was too far to walk or ride my bike to. No Amazon, no Kindle.  You can be surprised at how many times you can read a Nancy Drew book.
• We had one TV, there were 3 channels, 2 antennas, no remote, and it was stationed in the Living Room, where I ranked in some position behind (in order) Dad, Mom, and Older siblings.  Channel surfing was when you got up, glided over to the TV and turned the dial.
• There were no DVDs or VCRs – movies were a once a year treat at a Drive-In theater that I wore my jammies to and played on the playground during half the movie and slept through the rest.  I was in high school before I remember seeing a movie in its entirety – “Star Wars”.  And remember this – The Wizard of Oz played once a year on TV.  And I bet you can remember when you parents first bought a color TV – no more ‘imagining’ the yellow brick road. 
• There was no computer, no video games.  I now believe our middle aged love for weekend trips to Las Vegas is based on the fact that all our childhood games required cards or dice and a dealer.
• We had one phone (that was a rotary dial party line for most of my childhood) and it was in the kitchen.  Text was notes you passed in study hall. If I wanted to talk with friends I had two choices - I wedged myself in a corner of the kitchen and tried to have the most whispered conversation that the lines could carry.  Otherwise I walked or rode my bike (that green 3 speed masterpiece that I earned by selling Christmas Cards door to door) or waited for school.

And yet, for the most part, we were never bored.  We seemed to make a whole lot of something out of nothing.  Rob swears he never even got Christmas gifts – a delusion shot down by looking at his parent’s old home movies.  He now contends that all those presents broke quickly, so he and his siblings had to play with sticks and rocks and cans.  We all spent a lot of time outside, who cares if the ‘weather was permitting’. 

Or maybe I’m just romanticizing; our house WAS pretty clean…At least now when I'm bored I can't make myself do anything!  Vegas anybody? 

Things my mother never told me, Part I

So.  I spend a lot of time working on computers.  And while staring at the screen reviewing my masterpieces, I prop my chin on my hand.  Except for, wait, ouch – what the …?  No, my arm is not asleep; I’m being pricked by - dun-dun-dun -chin hair. 

Okay, so I know that I am on a hair kick lately.  But this is more about hair where there wasn’t hair before.  I guess I always knew that my mom had chin hairs.  But she was, you know, old.  I mean, help me here, 50 isn’t old, right?  RIGHT?  Momma never told me there’s be hairs like these.

Sigh.  So, I imagined how that iconic mother-daughter conversation would go in 1973 when I was about 12 years old after learning about…you know.  Go back with me in time and reimagine this conversation…

(If you’re my age, picture or remember your mom delivering this cheery monologue in a sweet, sing-song voice, weeping slightly…)

“Well, you’re such a big girl now!  Now you know sweetie, that every month you’ll be visited by a horrible week of bloating and cramps and some facial pimples that mommy promises you will clear up by the time you are, well, you know sweetie, older!  And that ‘monthly visitor’ (slightly whispered) means that in 20 years or so, after you’re married and have a house you’ll have lots of babies!” 

And as you’re slinking from the room, staring into the bleak oblivion of your future as a mature woman, what if your Mom had added these gems to the pile…

Sing-song voice (only now with a slight edge)…”Well, now.  Don’t be sad, sugar!  This doesn’t last forever.  No, silly, one day your visitor won’t come anymore.”  Pausing here, looking a bit befuddled, she continues, her sing-song voice dropping down a notch.  “No, one day the visitor just doesn’t come anymore, but you sort of don’t notice because you’ll be so busy changing the bed sheets and washing your jammies from all the sweating, you know, even though it isn’t summer.”  Faltering even more, she hesitates, “Well, you won’t sleep very much, but you DO get more jewelry from your husband for some reason and, and…you’ll want to buy lots and lots of Kleenex boxes.”  Her voice dwindles away, as she stares ahead at nothing in particular.  You quietly whisper, “Mom, can I uh, go now?”  Shaking herself like a retriever, she smiles and nods.  “Ok, honey, you go on now.  Nothing to worry about here!”  And you just about make it to the door, when she calls out in that damned sing-song pitch again.  “Oh and honey, just a few more things.  The hair on your head will go gray, the hair on your upper lip will turn pitch black and the hair on your chinney-chin-chin will turn black, gray and white!  But don’t worry about finding those – they stick out, sharp as little razors!”  Horrified, you put your hands to your face, feeling for any incipient or wildly growing hairs.  “Pumpkin, don’t worry,” mom cajoles.  “Your eyesight will be so bad; you won’t be able to see them anyway.  Buh-bye now.  Have a good day!”

Wait guys, come back, COME BACK!  Repeat after me, it isn’t real, it isn't real.  It's just you know, all true. 

Well, I’m off to pluck.  With any luck and good bifocals, I’ll get the hairs on my chin.  If you see me with an eye patch though, try not to stare…

Bad Hair Day

So, this week I was asked by Ria Davidson, (a friend and co chairwoman of a new foundation formed to help bring joy and comfort to children, teens and young adults with blood diseases at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and their families called "The Dragonfly Foundation") if I would write a letter to be included with a grant application about hair loss for teens undergoing treatment.  If you don't know, my son Kyle spent a good part of last year battling Hodgkin's Lymphoma, before the Dragonfly Foundation was underway. 

I was honored to be asked to help participate in providing ideas and relief to families helping their kids, teens and young adults through this awful side-effect of most cancer treatments.  It really got me to thinking about my hair.  While I'm not obsessed with it, I acknowledge that my hair - caring for it, cleaning it, grooming it, styling it, coloring it - occupies a fair amount of my time and a significant chunk of my budget.  It is easy to become blase about something that fills our daily lives but we rarely allow ourselves to imagine what it would be like if our hair was gone. 

So.  I have included my letter and pictures, and the wise words of Charlie Chaplin:  "Hair is vitally personal to children.  They weep vigorously when it is cut for the first time; no matter how it grows, bushy, straight or curly, they feel they are being shorn of a part of their personality. "  My Autobiography, 1964
 

Yesterday I was running late for work, as I am wont to do every several days or so.  As a consequence, my shoulder length hair received a lot less attention than normal – a finger blow dry and a few quick run throughs with a brush and I was out the door.  Of course, I received numerous compliments at just how great my hair looked!  And then the usual Bad Hair Day Roundtable started.  “My hair is too thin.  My hair is too thick.  My hair is too greasy.  My hair is too dry.  My hair is too long, too short, too hard to manage, too gray.”  Around and around and around it goes...

But as I laughingly walked into my office, I was greeted by Kyle’s freshman school picture.  I still have my hair to fight with; to stroke lovingly; to flip back impertently; to preen over and complain about.  But who would I be if I didn’t have my hair?  What if my bad hair day was a no hair day?

Well, I’d still be me.  But it isn’t easy being you when your most common identifying feature disappears.  My son Kyle was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in June of last year.  Being a 14 year old, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital invited and encouraged Kyle to be a part of every discussion about his treatment.  At the end of his first exam, after hours of medical history, blood work, paper work and physical exams, the doctors in the room looked at Kyle and asked, do you have any questions?   And he did.  Just one.

Will I loose my hair during treatment?  And jokingly, the pediatrician nodded toward the oncologist and said if he doesn’t make your hair fall out, he’s not doing his job.  Which meant yes, your hair – the hair on your head, your eyelashes, your eyebrows, arm hair, leg hair and other places in between - would disappear. 

And so, Kyle was faced with the same choice so many other cancer patients wrestle with – shave my hair off before treatment begins or wait and see what happens?  Kyle chose the latter, daring cancer and chemotherapy to take his hair from him.  Sadly, it did, falling out in a random, patchy pattern, leaving a cloud of hair everywhere he went.  So, out came the hats.  Being summer, hats served a dual purpose – to cover the ‘calico-cat’ texture of his head and to protect him from the sun.

Baseball hats gave way to knitted caps which eventually went away altogether.  We soldiered on through successes and set backs tolerating the stares and whispers of the curious and sometimes insensitive people around us.  Finally Kyle was pronounced in remission in December.  Slowly, his hair has crept back, different than before and fascinating to watch.  But during his months of treatment, no one at the hospital ever talked with Kyle about his hair loss, about how he felt or offered suggestions about what we, his parents could do to help him.  And I guess we didn’t expect them too; we wanted the doctors and nurses to cure his cancer, first and foremost.

Enter the Dragonfly Foundation.  Their mission is simple – to bring comfort and joy to kids and families with cancer and blood diseases.  The goal of the "I'm Still Me" and “Made You Look” Programs is to change the stigma of "chemo kids" and to make hair loss as a result of treatment less traumatic for children, teens and young adults. In the process, they are hoping to remind the public that we can't forget to care while we wait for a cure.  Even though our family hopes and prays that we will never ever need the “Hairy Fairy” to visit us, we understand all too painfully how easily and cruelly a teenager can be defined just by his or her continual ‘No Hair/Bad Hair chemo days.’  Programs like these two could have made a world of difference to us.

For several months now, Kyle has complained bitterly that his high school freshman picture (at left) is displayed prominently in my office.  “Mom, I hate that picture – it doesn’t look like me”, he says.  Laughing, I pulled out his first studio baby picture, and I laid the two pictures sides by side.  “Doesn’t look like you?” I said.  “Sure it does – the same bright eyes, the same beautiful shaped head, and the same left sided, lopsided grin, complete with a dimple.”  Studying the pictures, he began to laugh.  “Yeah, he said, “I guess I do still look the same.  Weird, Mom!”

Pediatric cancer can rob you of so many things – hair, health, wealth, strength, sleep, even dreams of the future. Kids, teens and young adults with blood diseases can become defined by the disease and nothing more simply because of how they look.  But the “I’m Am Still Me” and “Made You Look” programs can provide that simple first step of restoring their dignity.  What a small price to pay!

 

Baby, it's cold outside!

Wow, when the temperature outside equals your shoe size, you know it’s darn cold.  So, lying in bed this last night and this morning, wrapped in my worn but warm comforter, I listened as the house creaked, groaned and popped around me.  Ghosts?  Large squirrels?  Naw, it was just the old abode, settling in against the elements.  And then I realized, just like owners and their dogs, my house is me.

Okay, every morning my first movements sound like my house on a zero temperature day.  The first stretches prompt a pop in the elbows.  The back soon follows and then vaulting up, each knee fires a warning shot to all around – get out of the way, middle-aged woman needs to get to the bathroom 10 seconds ago!

Hubby and I produce fireworks in the bedroom every morning.  No, not those kind of fireworks; our combined stretches, groan, pops and creaks sounds like the ending stanzas of The Overture of 1812.  Okay, truth be told, the sad fact is that is doesn’t have to be cold outside to hear any of these sounds; it’s just a daily performance. 

But back to the house.  Do houses age like dogs; you know, seven dog years for every human year?  Or is my house really just 20 years old and I’m now aging like a dog; 7 years every 12 months?  God knows, I look around home sweet home and I see me.

Cracked paint - that reflection stares back at me every day in the mirror putting on my makeup.

Peeling paint - Did I mention that it is winter?  Like Pig Pen in the Charles Scultz “Peanuts” cartoon strip, I leave a trail of dead skin in a little cloud wherever I go.

Leaky ceilings – yea, well, refer above about my race to the bathroom every morning.  Enough said.

Sagging stuff - wow, what on me doesn’t sag?  Plastic surgery is appealing, not so much to remake myself but to just move my body’s real estate back into the right zip code!

Worn fill-in-the-blank – like my carpets and blinds, you can file my hair and wardrobe under this category.

Chipped, dented and broken – teeth, knees and back nerves.  Oh, and you can throw eyes and stomach ulcers on top of that pile, too. 

You might think I hate my house.  Well, truth be told – I love my house despite all the signs of age.  Maybe in fact because of the signs of aging!  The gouges in the wall that you know SOMEBODY made but no one will own up to reminds me that a family lives here.  The beat up carpets are a reminder that we have aging pets and their end of life issues need to be respected because I would probably lose my mind and murder them both if they piddled, pooped or horked up on new berber.  The less than attractive afghan strewn across the couch, with a color palette that matches nothing was lovingly made by a long deceased aunt or grandma.

Okay.  Buying a home is easy.  Living in a home is a lot like a marriage covenant.  Think of the wedding vows – you should have to recite something similar at your closing:

            I, homeowner, promise to take you (insert address here), for my lawfully wedded home.  I promise to be true to you (no excessive HGTV or Homearama attendance!) in good times (BBQs!  Parties!  Christmas Day!), and bad (Wind damage!  Dead lawns!  Stopped toilets!).

            I take you from this day forward for better (new appliances!) or worse (broken faucets); for richer (you own a house now!  Richer will never happen!  BWHAHAHA!) or poorer (Ok, poorer is more like it.  Poorer is a constant in home ownership – see leaky bathroom and aging pets); in sickness (C’mon now; where is the first place anyone in your family crawls when they’re feeling lousy?  You can probably still name every spot in the house where your kid looked at you and said “I don’t feel good” followed immediately by a gushing rush of vomit), and in health (home is where your greatest rejoicing is done); til death do you part (and then – this is the best part – everything listed above becomes your KID’S problem!  How awesome is that!)

So, if it sounded like a demilitarized zone at your house last night or you thought there was a drive by shooting in your neighborhood, relax.  It’s just your old pile of bricks and sticks wrapping you in warmth and love.  Oh, and your house was making noises too.  (Look out for that bus honey!)

Happy Valentine's Day

(Or the alternate title of this blog – HOW MANY BACK RUBS WILL IT TAKE TO REMOVE THE BUS TRACKS FROM MY HUSBAND’S BACK…)

Okay – before I jet off in search of the perfect Valentine’s Day card which he finds and I never do (lovey-dovey-nice; smart-ass-expected), I offer my thoughts on the silly season of love…

So.  I once heard an acquaintance relate the following story at Wednesday bowling after Valentines Day.

           

She: “HE (meaning husband) won’t EVER buy me an appliance for any holiday ever again after our little “chat” last week!” (lifting wrist to show new tennis bracelet)

Chorus of other women present, heads nodding:  “You go, girl!  Right on! Amen, sister!”

And I remember thinking - Damn! If I said that, I wouldn’t get nuthin at all!

Yes.  I married an Engineer.

Engineers are like the 3^rd round draft pick in the gene pool.  Solid.  Dependable.  Not too flashy.  Great fathers.  Good providers.  They’re like the Schnauzers – cute, but not too cute; fiercely loyal and independent.  Their haircuts mean they don’t shed.  And oh, can they fix stuff; like a knife sharpener purchased for under $10 dollars 23 years ago; because hey, who would want to buy a new one when, with a little duct tape and some paper clips, the fixed one will last at least another week or so?!

Well, maybe I am being a bit harsh.  I’ve gotten flowers on the Day o’ Love before.  Just, you know, not every year.  And jewelry, which I’ve received a few times, is ‘so expected’ or so I’m told.  As I said, Rob always finds the perfect greeting card and is good for a beer and a shared Buffalo Chicken Salad at Putters. 

He insists that because he doesn’t lavish me with gifts every year, it makes the times he does just that more special.  I’m pretty sure that this statement is also Newton’s Third Principle of Diminishing Returns or some other engineering credo.  An engineer’s pocket protector might come out of an engineer’s shirt each night, but the mind set goes with him permanently. 

Okay.  True confessions.  Do I secretly long for a jeweled surprise in a purple Yelton’s box?  Or how about an arm full of yellow roses, too many to count?  Or maybe that he’ll whisk me away on a weekend trip that he planned?  Oh yea.  Seriously, do I hope that he will someday drop to one knee to serenade me in song and Josh Groban’s voice will issue forth?  Yea, baby, YEA!

Will I like my new knife sharpener and use it often?  Sigh.  Of course, I will.

So to all you ladies whose Valentine’s Day gifts will come in boxes stamped “Rival”, “KitchenAid” and “Presto”; to all those readers who have loved and ever been loved; I offer this classic expression of love, better than Hallmark, and etched on an engineer’s heart and in his actions (but would never pass his lips because it’s you know, poetry): 

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

WEENIE HUT JUNIOR

So, my mother, God rest her soul these 3 years, was an amazing woman.  She could cook and sing; she was a wizard with numbers.  She was a friend with anyone and everyone – the cashier who never spoke a word to me would share her life’s story within 2 minutes of striking up a conversation with my mom.  Truly a great lady and I miss her everyday.

But my mother had a physical anomaly, one that our family knew about, laughed about but didn’t routinely share with the world.

She described it this way - her bladder was under her eyes.

Yup, mom was a weeper.  And a weeper over just about anything-kid’s artwork, babies, Lassie TV programs, good news, bad news-all of it and any of it could trigger Niagara Falls, accompanied by her stock phrase, “God bless your/her/their heart(s)”.  Thus, she always kept tissues tucked in the sleeve of whatever garment she had on-robe, sweater, jackets – and if the shirt was sleeveless, the Kleenex got tucked into her bra strap.  So many Kleenex went through our laundry, I believed as a young child that my clothes were made of angora, soft and fur covered.  As for her sniffling, my sisters and I giggled; we rolled our eyes; we shrugged our shoulders and passed a hankie. 

There’s just one problem.  Along with the varicose veins and wide hips, I inherited the same anomaly.

Movies.  Graduations.  Mass.  Happy events.  Sad events.  It just doesn’t matter; I will boo-hoo at the drop of a hat.  My kids think it is hysterical, especially the boys.  They will encourage me to watch or read something, knowing the sad angle (at least sad to me), and then giggle like mad fiends when I start to snivel.  And as I age, the tears are quicker to come than ever-but never so more as when I’m sick.

Yes, I am a weenie. 

Case in point?  Last Thursday I had to have an epidural in my back to help alleviate a ruptured disc and nerve damage.  Now this isn’t my first time for this type of injection.  I had one in January and have had several others in previous years.  No sympathy please.  Hard living and a big butt will catch up with you somehow.

But back to my drama.  Mind you, I act brave.  I chit-chat with Rob on the way to the hospital, making small talk.  I smile and thank both the valet captain and the administrative assistant who checks me in.  I walk – ok, more like limp dragging my leg like a zombie - back to the exam room.  And then the nurse walks in.  To take my blood pressure – and it starts.  Tears.  I chew the inside of my cheeks, but no luck.  Down they pour.  All she’s doing is taking my blood pressure!  Asking me what drugs I take!  Taking my temperature!  And I am just sniffling away.  God bless Rob, after 28 years he knows not to ask.  The poor nurse however, is just plain baffled, especially when I tell her it is an inherited genetic defect.

Now you might say that I’m being too hard on myself.  An epidural is a difficult procedure, right? Especially when you don’t get a baby to hold afterwards.  EXCEPT, I’m tearing up as I type this.  Seriously.  Total wimp.  Either that or a commercial with kittens in it just came on the TV. 

Truly though, what makes it so hard is someone in my family just underwent a LOT of medical procedures in the past year.  And Kyle cried precisely 3 times.  During 6 months.  6 MONTHS!  Me? I cried at lunch today.  And I can’t even tell you over what. 

So, okay.  Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all.  I guess there are worse things to have inherited from her.  Besides, my family likes their laundry soft and fluffy, right?