Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 95

Little Boy, Big Ears

Scene 1: Friday night, and the ballgame is not going well. Christian and Nicholas are cuddled on the couch watching, but it’s time to shut the TV off and do whatever has reached the top of the docket. Probably bedtime.  Christian sighs and gets up to turn off the TV, just as another run comes home. “Crap,” he says, and shuts the TV off.

Nicholas throws his hands up in the air. “Crap,” he says melodramatically.

“Nicholas, you do not say that word. Even if Daddy does,” I say, giving a severe look to my husband, who is laughing sheepishly.

Scene 2: Monday morning, standing out on the driveway waiting for the bus to come for Julianna. It’s late. It’s been late a lot lately, but this is getting ridiculous. School starts in eight minutes, and still no bus. I go inside and call the bus barn, where the receptionist tells me they have a substitute driver, and we’re her next stop. No more than five minutes. “School starts in five minutes,” I snap, and hang up, wondering if I should just pile the kids in the van and take her to school myself. “Come on, stupid bus driver!” I gripe.

Ten minutes later we’re still waiting, throwing the basketball back and forth on the driveway, and I’m gnashing my teeth. “Mommy, whay is the stupid bus dwivoy?” Nicholas asks. (He still has problems with “r”‘s.) And my insides electrify. What have I just taught my son? I take a deep breath. “Honey, the bus driver is not stupid. People just have a hard time finding our house for some reason, and I’m frustrated.”

He thinks for a minute. “But whay is the stupid bus dwivoy?” he asks again.

“Nicholas, Mommy was wrong to call her stupid. She’s not stupid, and that was unkind. You don’t call people stupid.”

“But whay is the bus dwivoy who’s being stupid?” Nicholas is not to be deterred.

“Nicholas. I told you, I should not have said that. Do not say that word again. I don’t want to hear it again. You understand?”

Nicholas doesn’t say it again. I shake my head. Alex has always been able–and more to the point, willing–to distinguish the things parents sometimes say and shouldn’t, and to abstain from them himself. Obviously, we’ve gotten careless. I call the bus company, give them a good tongue lashing, and load the kids in the van. Julianna is twenty minutes late for school by the time we get there–Nicholas in bare feet slap-slapping along the institutional tile floors, Michael whining because he has a cold and wanted a nap half an hour ago. Julianna darts into the classroom without a backward glance–ungrateful little wench–and we head back to the van.

“Mommy, who is the stupid bus dwivoy?” Nicholas asks.

And if it wasn’t clear before, I realize I have a new prayer:

Set a guard, LORD, before my mouth,

keep watch over the door of my lips. (Ps. 141:3)

 

Mall Musings

Static Electricity Ball at the St. Louis Magic House (Photo credit: AdrienneMay)

I don’t understand the aesthetic that governs the catwalk model. The last several weeks, I’ve spent time in a public mall lounge in front of Target, waiting for Alex to get finished with his theater practice. In this lounge they’re playing a video of women modeling what we’re presumably supposed to be wearing this season. But I have trouble focusing on the clothes because of the women. For one thing, they all look like they’re grinding their hip joints to smithereens. It just can’t be good for the body to walk that way. Then there’s the hairstyles. Some of them are fine, but some of them look like they walked over to one of those fun-house electric balls, put their hands on it, and started spraying the hair into place.

But the real puzzler for me is the blank expression, the eyes fixed on nothing, straight in front of the face. Like they’re supposed to look as miserable as possible while wearing these super-expensive clothes. How is that supposed to make me want to buy the clothes? I want to jump into the TV and yell “boo,” just to see if they’re real people or robots.

People watching at the mall is interesting on a Saturday morning. So many couples wandering the hallways together, carrying insulated foam cups, wearing smart, stylish outfits. So many double strollers with carriers in them. Are there really that many twins now? It can’t all be natural, it must be fertility treatments, right? What have we done to ourselves to cause this epidemic of women’s bodies that won’t do what they’re created to do?

Of course, there are plenty of people wearing sweats, too. That brings me to an interesting observation. I first noticed the phenomenon when we went to the Lantern Festival in August. I dressed carefully–for comfort. I knew we were going to be walking around in 100 degree temperatures for hours. So I was astonished at the number of women who came that evening dressed in gorgeous sundresses, their hair styled in sheets to hang down their back. But the guys? The guys accompanying these women were slobs, every one. Sloppy t shirts, frayed jeans shorts, worn-out sandals.

I saw it again last week driving to writers’ group on campus: a college-age girl in a slinky black mini dress, long boots, sparkly pantyhose, walking with her (presumed) boyfriend, who was wearing paint-splattered sweat shorts and a triple-X sweatshirt.

Now, I know boys don’t, as a rule, like to dress up, but really? There’s a difference between “casual” and “slob.” But then again, it’s like pulling teeth finding nice casual clothes for boys. Alex doesn’t much care for getting dressed up in a suit for church, so I try to have nice polo shirts and khakis in his closet so he can go semi-dressed. But it can be hard to find that kind of clothing for boys. The girls’ sections are packed with cute clothes in various levels of dressiness, but the boys’ sections are overrun with what we would have called skater clothes in high school.

Oh, dear. I’m becoming an old fogey. Oh, let’s face it. I was born an old fogey.

Sunday Snippets

Joining up late this week with Sunday Snippets. We had a date night last night. Ice skating and dinner out….

Here’s my week in a peek:

Confessions of a Wedding Singer. You know you always wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes during the show, right? (Unfortunately I will not be doing any singing right now as I have a sore throat so bad I had to take ibuprofen in the night to sleep. :/ )

A Theory of Relativity

Julianna wrote a guest blog post for me this week for Down Syndrome Awareness Month.

And then there are my 7 Quick Takes, about dieting and health, and a fiction piece about a little boy who thinks his dad is Superman.

Food and Dieting and Healthy Stuff, Oh My (a 7QT post)

___1___

scale (Photo credit: Judy **)

Remember a few weeks ago, when I crowed that I had dipped below my prepregnancy weight? I should have shut up. Because I’ve regained 3 pounds since then. And the worst of it is, I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff to become healthier, and I’ve been exercising more. So imagine my teeth gnashing.

___2___

Michael still “nurses” 4x a day–morning, night, and naps–but I put it in quotes because if we miss one I don’t notice, and he spends half his time jerking his head this way and that at any noise or interesting object. Nursing is virtually done; I’m just holding on. In any case, neither he nor I are exchanging significant caloric content that way, so I figure it’s safe to go to the next level (the one I’ve been trying like the dickens to avoid by making lifestyle changes), namely….

___3___

I started a diet this week. Sort of. A friend of mine suggested loseit.com, and I signed up and started counting calories for losing 1/2 pound a week. I thought that seemed reasonable. Know how many calories loseit.com gave me? 1660. Ayah! I went over by 250 the first day, and I was STARVING ALL DAY. STAR.VING. I’ve spent so long paying attention to carbs, and virtually everything high in protein is also high in calories. I have to shift my entire way of thinking. By dinnertime on the first day, Christian was laughing. “There’s going to be a blog post on this, isn’t there?” Well, it would mostly be griping, so I’ll try to refrain, but… Well, anyway.

___4___

At the same time, I’m trying to learn to make the homemade cakes turn out moist. Not that I’m ever going to get to eat one again, but I can dream, right? Here’s the list of tips I found:

a) use buttermilk or sour cream instead of milk

b) cut the fat by 15% and subsitute glycerine (whatever THAT is…)

c) stir the flour with a fork to incorporate some air; flour compacts and you use too much.

Anybody else have any wisdom to share? And remember, from-scratch cakes. I’ve decided I love the moistness of mixes, but the taste of homemade is better.

___5___

Cubscouts compete in a Raingutter Regatta race (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last night Christian and Alex had “raingutter regatta” for the Cub Scouts. If you don’t know what that is, it’s building a boat with two runners, a sail and a rudder, and you blow them down the “track” to see whose goes fastest. (That’s such a boy thing. The Cub Scouts are such an eye opener for me.) Afterward, Christian and Alex were heading out to come home and heard screaming in the boys’ bathroom. Christian ducked his head in and found some of the boys trying to race their boats in the toilet.

___6___

As bad as the drought was this year, I had zero expectations for fall color. So when our trees turned crimson and gold, I chalked it up to the watering…until the walnut tree in the woods went through an alchemical process, and the baby maples in the woods began glowing. I can’t explain it, but it’s made me very happy.

___7___

Last but not least, here’s a fiction piece, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Related articles

Calories: How to Know if You Go Too Low (everydayhealth.com)
Losing Body Fat (ultimate-vitality.com)
A Shame-Free Food Lifestyle (health.usnews.com)

Fiction Friday: Misunderstandings

superman (Photo credit: scottfeldstein)

“Hey, Jenny!” My little brother’s voice pokes through my hazy brain as I try to figure out what  propensity and vouch mean, and what in the world they have to do with a headless horseman.

I pull off an ear bud. “What?”

Caleb quivers with excitement. “Guess what, Jenny? Daddy is Superman!“

“What?” I want to laugh, but he’s obviously serious. “What are you talking about?”

“I just heard Mommy on the phone. She said Daddy was off doing his Superman thing.”

I start to answer, but then I remember Mom saying I have to be thoughtful and not spoil my brother’s innocence, whatever that means. I think she just wants to make sure I don’t spill the beans about Santa.

But it doesn’t really matter, because Caleb’s already on to the next thing. “You know what that means? I must have superpowers, too!” His eyes pop open wide, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. “I know! I know! Remember how Daddy told me I’m flying, the day we were jumping on the tamp-ling?” He crashes through the back door, leaving me to de-code my homework in peace.

Fridays I have to babysit till Mom and Dad get home from work. Caleb gets off the bus with puffy eyes, like he’s been crying all the way home. “The boys laughed at me!” he says. “They told me Superman’s not real. I told them yes he is, but they made fun of me.”

“W-well,” I say, “he…” But when I see his big red eyes, I feel bad. “He, uh…he wants people to think he isn’t real, ‘cuz otherwise he couldn’t get anything done, y’know?”

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “But that’s his job, Jenny.” He sticks his chin in the air. “I’ll prove it!” he says, and runs off.

Ugh! Mom’s gotta talk to him before he does something stupid, like…

“Caleb, get down off the roof!” I shriek, running toward the house, but it’s too late. He’s got one fist out in front of him, and one curled up by his chest, and he launches into space.

I am so never babysitting again.

*

This week’s prompt brought to you by Write On Edge, who challenged us this week to share what happens when you eavesdrop on a conversation and take the wrong idea away.

Call Me Julianna (or: Confessions of a Diminutive Drama Queen)

For this week’s Down syndrome post, I invite you to hop on over to Snaps of Our Life, where I was privileged to write a guest post Julianna was invited to share a bit about herself. Do you know that stinker decided to model her self-reflections after Melville’s most famous opening? She has no shame.

A Theory of Relativity

From our family portrait session on Sunday: one of the many shots that won’t make the wall, as Nicholas was too busy minding Julianna’s business to be bothered looking at the camera

I remember a day, long ago, when we had a long list of household essentials we needed, and having nothing else to do, Christian and I went out after lunch to run errands. It was a gorgeous day, so we impulsively hopped over to the state park and took a hike. By then it was getting late enough in the afternoon to be thinking about dinner, and we hadn’t gotten anything out at home or even thought about what to make. “Feel like going out to dinner?” one of us asked, and the other one shrugged and said, “Sure!” During the course of dinner, we decided to go see a movie. The upshot of all this spontaneity was that our errand run, which began around 1p.m., turned into a date night lasting until eleven.

Such profligate use of time is my Shangri La now. Parenthood is such a strange bird–children evoke such conflicting reactions. You feel shackled to a routine you can’t escape, and you long for freedom, and yet you know if you had that freedom it would feel unsafe, empty, shallow. Pick any five-minute window during the day and you’re guaranteed to feel within it insurmountable frustration and breathtaking sweetness in quick succession.

On Sunday, the three oldest kids all went to Children’s Liturgy together. Christian was holding Michael, and as the kids left the pew I glanced over at him and found him a full six feet away from me. I scooted down the bench, which felt an oddly conspicuous thing to do, and as I snuggled into his arm for the Liturgy of the Word I looked toward the group of kids preparing to head across the hall. Alex was holding both his little siblings’ hands. Nicholas and Julianna stood half his height–Julianna had maybe two inches on Nicholas, but no more. “Christian,” I whispered, “they do look like twins.”

It was a moment of clarity, illuminating why my life is as chaotic as it is. For the last couple of years, I have focused my sights on this fall as the point at which “the worst would be over.” I knew it would be hard with Julianna lagging so far behind developmentally, shepherding Nicholas through the terrible threes while nursing a baby. But the point at which Julianna went to kindergarten and Nicholas began preschool–I expected a real breath of relief when school started this year. And it hasn’t really worked out that way. In part, it’s because I instituted changes at home–beginning to practice my flute again (however little), attending a class for my own spiritual development, which wipes out one of Nicholas’ school days.

But it’s also because the kids are getting older and having their own activities. Cub Scouts is so much more intensive than I anticipated, and those swim lessons for Julianna–brutal. We quit after one session.

Frankly, these days I think of having one child as a Shangri-La of freedom. And as I contemplate the relative perspective on life of an overwhelmed mother of one and a juggling-it-all-sometimes-successfully-sometimes-not mother of four (Mommy, I’m going poo-poo! Nicholas interrupts me from the bathroom by calling–twice, because you know, good news always gets better with repetition), I’m beginning to wonder if relief from the chaos is only going to come with the onset of the empty nest. To wonder if between now and then, it’s never going to get any better, only worse–that even the school days will never settle down and offer me the freedom to sit still for a while without thinking of the ten dozen things I should be doing instead.

It’s not a thought I find comforting. But maybe I’m overreacting. After all, even with his activities, Alex isn’t high maintenance anymore. Nicholas will reach independence before Julianna, but someday even she will be able to get dressed and go to the bathroom without my help. And maybe, when that Shangri-La day arrives, things will look quite different.

Confessions of a Wedding Singer

At my sister’s wedding in 2007

A professional musician is supposed to be ready for anything, so that no matter what happens, the wedding goes off smoothly. You’re supposed to leave your concerns at the door–this day isn’t about you, after all; you’re an employee.

But sometimes, life butts in.

There was that day when we were playing my cousin’s wedding, and my firstborn toddler, who had a sinus infection, was crying with his aunt a few rows away. So we brought him over to the music area. My uncle, the father of the bride, got up to sing the Ave Maria with Christian on piano and me playing harmony on my flute.

There’s some disagreement about what happened next. When Alex made a break for freedom via the alley beside the piano, Christian remembers hurling a foot out to block his way; I remember lunging forward and grabbing him with my right hand while I held some note that only required the left hand. We were trying not to make a scene, but, well, there’s no hiding something like that.

There was the time Nicholas, who was two or three months old and thus accompanying us to the wedding, decided it was time to nurse just as I stood up to go sing the psalm. Christian spent that psalm playing piano with two hands and one foot while the other rocked the car seat.

There was the day when I felt my voice preparing to crack as I headed for a high note on the psalm, and I managed to pull back in time to stop it…at the cost of a severe, uncontrollable coughing fit that lasted the duration of the psalm, which Christian finished out for me from the piano. (I felt terrible about that one.)

This weekend, the big football game started mid-afternoon; a much-needed storm moved in just before 3, when we were due at the campus chapel to get set up for a wedding. There were a lot of wet tuxedos entering the building, and a low, distant rumble of thunder. We played the prelude and the mothers walked in…and Christian’s iPhone, sitting on top of the old upright Steinway, dinged loudly.

(I guess I didn’t mention it’s a work phone, did I? Texts on Saturday afternoon = bad news for a university PR guy.)

I could see his entire body tense as his two jobs went to war with each other, but it was a short-lived struggle; the bridesmaids were ready to come in. He reached up and hit the “mute” on the phone.

I sidled around the piano and looked at the message:

They evacuated the stadium for lightning. Do you have a phone # for ____?

I whispered the message to Christian, who tensed further. “I do, but it’s on that card in my wallet in my back pocket. I’ll play the processional. You text him.”

(Actually, I don’t think he said most of that, but the advantage of playing weddings with your spouse is the mind-reading.)

Well, this particular chapel is set up with the musicians behind a vertical-wood-paneled screen, so he started the Canon in D and shifted his weight while I reached into his back pocket and started wriggling the wallet out.

And then he hit THAT NOTE. The note in which it becomes painfully clear to everyone in the room that the piano has not been tuned. We both froze. “FORGET IT!” hissed Christian. “PLAY!”

You all knew that weddings involved drama, but did you ever know how much happened behind the scenes?

Sunday Snippets

Time for a gray, peak-color-autumn edition of Sunday Snippets, hosted by RAnn of This, That and The Other Thing.

My contributions:

The Five Best Gifts Ever Given To Me

Cracked Halo

When You’re Standing On The Precipice

And a short fiction piece: #secretpiefridge

Fiction Friday: #SecretPieFridge

Photo by bartb_pt, via Flickr

“It must have something to do with the Aztecs,” said Matt.

I glanced over at Jude, who was staring at the words on his laptop screen with the heel of his hand jammed into his temple. He was biting his lip to keep from laughing.

“You mean the Mayans, numbskull.” Tina stuck a post-it note on Matt’s forehead. “Jude, pass me that bowl of chips.”

Jude shoved the bowl across the table. Tina grabbed a generous handful and swiped her finger across her tablet screen. “I hate playing read-the-teacher’s-mind,” she griped.

“I hate group projects,” said Matt. “We need some music.” He punched a button, and Lady Gaga started coming out of the speakers. Tina and I groaned. Jude hunched his shoulders but didn’t say anything. He picked up a pen and started scribbling on the paper by his keyboard.

“Hey, Casey, you got some Mountain Dew?” Tina said.

This study session was quickly going down the tubes. Jude and I were going to end up doing the whole thing the night before it was due. Like always. And Matt hated group projects? “Come on, you guys. We’re supposed to be working.”

“Tina, did you see this video?”

Sighing, I got up to go find a soda for Tina. By the time I got back, she and Matt were roaring with laughter at something on Facebook. She didn’t even acknowledge when I set the can down.

I slid back into my seat and saw a slip of folded paper sticking out from under my computer. I glanced at Jude in time to see his eyes flicker toward me and then back to his work. The edge of his mouth was turned up just a bit.

My insides did a little hop-skip. Carefully, I unfolded it.

Let’s ditch them and go see a movie.

I tried to bite off the smile–our relationship status was supposed to be a secret–but I couldn’t do it. “Hey, guys, my mom made a pie. It’s upstairs in the fridge. You guys want to go serve it up while we work on this?”

Matt offered a courtly bow. “Each according to his ability,” he said. “C’mon, Tina.”

Jude and I met each other’s eyes as they disappeared up the stairs. By the time they hit the kitchen, we were out the door, hand in hand.

*

In two weeks, I’m slated to do a “reading” for junior-high students at our local Catholic school as part of their read-a-thon. Most of what I write is so adult, I realized I need something targeted more toward that age group, so I set that as a goal this week. How’d I do? (Incidentally, does anyone else find that it’s easier to write a piece the more parameters you place upon yourself? I seem to have an easier time coming up with ideas and structure if I have multiple factors to combine. This week’s Write On Edge prompt was to take the cryptic hashtag #secretpiefridge and come up with an origin for it. I’m not completely happy with the “secret” part of this, but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised with the way this came out.