On ugliness. And musical theatre.

It starts innocently enough: a child’s obsession with rescue vehicles. “What does the police do?” They help people. “How do they help people?” Well… I can feel my tongue slipping down the inexorable icy slope; broaching the subject of ‘bad’ hurtful people would be inevitable. And so an innocent question from a five year old evolves into a discussion on murder and prison.

The conversational topics I have covered lately with my five -year old encompass cancer, murder, prison, alzheimer’s… and there's always the eternal, undying subject of death.

Just the other night, following the previous night’s discussion on cancer which he had prompted just as I was leaving his bedroom, Sebastian asked: “When we’re died are we died forever or do we come back as a baby and then grow again. I tried to leave the unknowns open and to suggest a faith-based response. People have different beliefs. What do you want to believe? He thought for a moment. Then: “Does what each person believes happen to each person?” Hm. Stuck. My pragmatic kindergartner wanted hard facts. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded, “but how do you know? What if you really stay died?” He then decided he was going to die at age 100 and turned away to beckon the night's soft slumber. I smiled through the tears and turned to Liliana. She, at age three has but thoughts of jellybeans and puddles. And poo poo and pee pee: the eternally comical things in life.

Liliana doesn’t receive knowledge; she invents it. This is a child who cannot be read to or sung to; she insists on “reading” her own books, “singing” her own songs. She marches to the beat of her own drum. I like her stories. I hope she scribbles them and blares them -- big, bright, colorful, and delicious. The world needs them. I need them.

Because what’s out there is less than palatable. Indeed, this has been a season of horrible, violent stories. Over the winter break, I read Margaret Atwood’s Onyx and Crake, a futuristic fantasy of a dystopian world in which genetic engineering has run amok and global devastation has spread. And saw The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. Echoing Sebastian’s enduring question and plea, I found myself imploring: Why?

I remember the first time Sebastian was hit or pushed by another boy. He was two or three at the time and all he could do in the wake of the incident was to repeat “Why? Why?” through his throbbing tears. The idea that hurt could be intentional was beyond his comprehension. I wanted to give an arm and a leg to return to the moment before, to wipe away this ugly blotch from my toddler’s as yet tender existence.

As badly as we wish to, we can’t shield our children from life’s ugly stuff. But we can teach them how to respond to it: with empathy, with loving-kindness, with courage and compassion.

A few days ago, when I didn’t promptly cooperate with his specific and elaborate game request, Sebastian told me he’s the police and will take me and put me in jail. Ha. But just yesterday, while watching some cartoon on television, where one of the characters got teased, he asked in terrible distress, “But Why?” His why’s are the path to clarity, for better or for worse.

I can only endeavor to imbue the sadness and the fear with some teachable moment, some instance of compassion: to blend the awful with the hopeful, the sad with the happy.

Sebastian’s favorite movie nowadays is RENT. (His mother’s role as bohemian in Jonathan Larson’s raucous drama accounts for the then 3 -year old’s rather early introduction to this piece.) 

A little while ago he decided to broaden his repertoire of songs/scenes and we watched the I’ll Cover You Reprise – a stirring and heart-rending scene, where Collins sings to his deceased lover Angel at her funeral (Angel, the transvestite, is, as she would have wanted it, eternally a she to Sebastian. I repeatedly have to catch myself speaking of her as him. He corrects me every time.) Sebastian wants to know why Collins is crying as he sings, why he’s sad, why this song is so beautiful, why it is, as I have put it, sad and happy?  I say a few words about longing and enduring love. This is me blending.

I’ll Cover You is now one of his favorite scenes. I don’t know how much of the “happy and sad” he actually gets. But there’s a delicate poignancy in his endeavor to get it, to understand, to experience. As I watch him watching this moving scene, I feel it: that happy-sadness.

Not every musical scene around here is so tender. Tonight, the kids dumped the contents of every toy bin singing out “It’s a hard knock life for us”. I felt my blood boiling and was tempted to chime in “’stead of kisses you’ll get kicked”.  Then Sebastian started singing, in a sweet melodious voice: “No day but today”. I hearkened to my glorious heydays on the Venice Theatre stage, shut my eyes to the mess around me and belted out: “How about looooovve, measure in love, seasons of love”…

Forget the ugly. We’ll clean up tomorrow. 

Old School: $3.41

“Who wants to buy something? Who wants to buy something?” Sebastian’s keen and blaring pitches have become my wake up calls. I turn over in bed, glance bleary-eyed at the clock, and muster all the energy I can to call back in a semblance of great enthusiasm, “me, me, I want to buy something!”

The strident sing-songy pitch comes to a halt (time for another brief moment of shut-eye? I ponder dreamily), and Sebastian approaches my bed. After doling a detailed account of his offerings, he states simply “It’s $3.41.” I smile and nod; I knew that.

The other day, while trying to peer – rather inconspicuously -- through the window of the door to my kindergartner’s class, I discovered I was not alone. Joshua’s dad and I (“Sebastian’s mom”; you lose your first name when you have kids) started talking. The first topic naturally had to do with the great care with which one had to master this covert undercover feat of espionage; if you are noticed by a single child, it’s game over. The conversation then developed to a discussion on the benefits of ipads. Josh’s dad had mentioned various math learning games and exercises that he uses with his son. I offered that I know that their kindergarten teacher, Ms. Griggs, has an ipad and allows the kids time on it occasionally, though I didn’t know how much or in what capacity. And that I once saw a very moving documentary on autistic kids and what an extraordinarily revolutionary tool the ipad was in helping these kids express them-selves.

As Josh’s dad continued to sing praises to the ipad’s educational potential, I nodded, thinking, wow, I really ought to “get with the program.” And then I thought of the grand meal I had been served earlier that morning consisting of a plastic pizza, a plastic artichoke, and a plastic bunch of grapes. The meal, at Sebastian’s store, generated the usual bill, scribbled on a piece of lined paper torn out of a notebook: $3.41. The three is written backwards. I also thought of the note Sebastian handed to me after I had offered forty-one cents: handwritten from bottom to top in wobbly letters, it said: Sebastian’s store for Ima keep this until you pay 3 dollars.

Sebastian’s store is a fixture in our home. He plays it every day, offering fare, declaring prices, adding, subtracting, and making change. We have glimpsed in it teachable moments to foster math skills and writing (the addition of menus!), and the speed with which this five year old counts and makes change is remarkable.  I only recently figured out why so many of the meals at his store come to $3.41. That way he gets one of each coin: twonie, loonie, quarter, dime, nickel, and penny.

And so, for what it’s worth: my musings on the wonders of technology. And the marvels of going unplugged.

Learning is about being open to avenues of innovation while safeguarding the traditional. It is about creating an environment where both the new and the old can dwell side by side; where one can garner information from a computer and discuss this information -- face to face. Ultimately, it is the “face time” that we make, both on and off screen that shapes us. 

When I sit the kids in front of the tv screen and pop in a dvd, I try and be present with them. To add the human, the interactive, the face time to the screen time. Unless it's 7 am on a weekend; at these times I let the technological wonders stand on their own, and marvel at their miraculous ability to perform as a snooze button. In the pm spectrum, I try and be there; to prepare some laundry to fold, some popcorn to munch on, some snuggles to steal. In these moments, the speed and brightness that technology provides is balanced by the slowness and cloudiness of intimacy. That’s worth at least $3.41.

Socks and Roses

We are far from the land of pickles and popsicle-sticks, the city of sun-drenched beaches and dog shit. Very far. In the 6688 miles we have traveled, we have gone from pickles and popsicle-sticks to maple leaves and salmon; muddy buddies... and socks. 

The power struggles with Liliana over putting on socks before going outside over the last month have elicited that monstrous creature (that crazed me) that was the subject of a previous post. I yell “We’re in Canada now” to my toddler’s pointed declarations: “No, I only wear socks on airplanes.” I suspect that part of the reason that I get so mental during these recurring episodes is that I too am going through an adjustment period. Because I too want to wear socks only on airplanes. Sebastian and I play a game of “Rose and Thorn” every night at bedtime, recounting the best and worst parts of our day. Socks, quite frankly, are my thorn.

I’m working on the perspective thing. Got a pair of sexifying boots. And long sweater tunics. That helps. Mostly though, I think it’s a matter of time. Seeing my fabulous “wintry” reflection in the downtown store windows enough times. Or no longer noticing it at all.

Perspective and positive attitude are things I dish out liberally to my children (“socks are wonderful, they keep our feet warm, look at these flowers, and colorful stripes”), while trying hard to internalize them myself. 

A couple weeks ago, a week short of his fifth birthday, Sebastian had a bad fall. It was a running “face meets street curb” affair. Intense crying. Profuse bleeding.  A fire truck, ambulance, two teddy bears, hospital emergency room, and a balloon glove later, I was home tucking him in bed. I spoke of unexpected occurrences and pointed out both negative and positive varieties.  I introduced the idea of positive and negative within the same mix. 

We played our ritual game of Rose and Thorn. Through his lacerated lip and lacerated gum, Sebastian beamed, naming a string of roses: the nice women that helped us and called an ambulance, the teddy bear from the firemen, the teddy bear from the ambulance, the ride in the ambulance, the secret code to Emergency, the balloon glove from the doctor… And your thorn, I asked, anticipating the apparent answer. “That I fell”, he said. But a moment later he revised his version: “actually, that I fell was my rose!” My heart stirred: here was a kid, not yet 5, who was able to perceive the mixed bag that life hands you, the bitter along with the sweet. And to experience a sense of gratitude for the bitter – from which emerges the sweet (there is a Hebrew expression that intones: me’az yetze matok מעז יצא מתוק – from bitterness sweetness will emerge).  All the good stuff (the ambulance, fire truck, teddy bears etc), this child understood, would not have occurred had it not been for that awful fall. And that was enough to turn the fall on its head and make it into a good thing. A simple shift in perspective.

That same evening, hungry and too exhausted to prepare a meal, I had a fight with Lance over not having/planning/eating complete nutritious meals. He’d made himself a salad, I’d have been happy with a bowl of cereal but was too tired to even bother, yet hoped he would lovingly serve me his hale and hearty melange. It was one of those unsettling and unsettled arguments. Of the recurring sort. Each of us saying our part, not really meeting, duty-bound to come up with some sketch of an arrangement, acknowledging one another’s intent, but not probing the design, ok, let’s make an effort, work it out, can’t talk about this anymore, too tired, kind of episode.

A few days later, Sebastian’s energetic and buoyant voice floats across the kitchen table: “this is the best mac ‘n cheese EVER i the whole wide world” (הכי בעולם). I didn’t know if to laugh or cry. At that moment, I felt like the worst mom. And the best.  Worst wife? Best mom? Horrible both? Never mind. The final response was a twinge of gratitude. For my family. And a dose of perspective. I smiled through the tears. 

  

And began to think about smiles. And tears. Kids do a lot of that. Smiling and tearing. Their experience seems to be pointed, discrete, simple: hitting one another and sobbing one moment,  sharing and laughing the next. Liliana: “you’re annoying”(אתה מעצבן); Sebastian: “you’re crazy”(את משוגעת). Both quite accurate assessments, I concede. 

“I won’t be your friend ever ever ever ever”(אף אף אף אף פעם) turns, in the span of moments, into a train-ride in strung-together-boxes where conductor and passenger are in perfect harmony, charting out their itinerary to Israel, Russia, Mexico, Hawaii, Canada (that is Vancouver), Nanoose Bay and Victoria.

Us big people have our own version of tears and smiles, fighting and making up/out. We have our own flow. But its variety is different. Ours is more muddled, more nuanced, more complex. Protracted. And still, the wonder of time’s flow is absorbing.

A couple evenings ago Sebastian turned to me and asked (over a good balanced meal!): “Does air die?” Um, no, air doesn’t die. “Then I want to be air and not Sebastian, because then I’ll never die”. But air doesn’t have a family and thoughts and feelings and a girlfriend named Luka. That appeased him for a while. Maybe our rose is that our days our numbered and that our relationships are precious.

They are what we must take the time for. And when they get out of whack, time will traverse the distance with us. Whether it appears to be compressed or extended – time I suppose -- does its thing. And we wait it out. Because we need to believe that from the bitter, sweet will emerge: that the thorn will expose a rose. 

On Servanthood and Satisfaction

“Ima, how do you say ‘tova’ in English?” ‘Favor’, I offer graciously, secretly thrilled that this time the request for the “favor” is to be directed at the English speaker in the household.

“OK”, Sebastian utters, as he runs off. “Aba, can you do me a favor?” “Can you save this playdoh for me? But put the blue one here on the table, and the rest of it up high on top of the piano. And then color this heart with the purple marker and cut it out.

Favors, around here, are plentiful these days. But they seem to be conspicuously unilateral.

Afternoons at the park yield an interesting and very hands-on variety.

“Ima, at yechola laasot li tova?” Yes sir. “Fill the bucket with sand, half-dry half-wet sand, and then smooth it out like this and then bring it to me.”

Yes sir.

Ima, at yechola laasot li tova? Of course. Find me big stones and little stones. And then put the big ones here, but take out the most beautiful ones and put those in a separate pile here…

Yes sir.

Ima, can you bring me my toys and then put one pile here and one pile there?

Yes sir.

Then there’s of course the ubiquitous demands that are less, well, ‘favor’able: I’m thirsty, I’m hungry. I want this, I want that. Right at the moment I’ve sat my tired ass down.

I stand to command.

I recall an entertaining and boisterous dinner theatre show I once saw called Angry Housewives. It had an atonal and very resonant bit that droned, in a whiny sing-songy timbre: “you think I am your slave, you think I am your servant” ad nauseum. It was funny back then.

Sometimes it gets to me: the demands, the negotiations, the dawdling, the whining, the yelling, the clinging, the slave-ing, the servant-ing.

There are moments when I am driven to rocking out another hit tune from “Angry Housewives” – this one intoned in an unruly shriek: “eat your fucking cornflakes!”

Sometimes the violent and furious monster inside of me rips loose. And it scares even me. [Up side is I get lots of opportunities to model apologies once my boiling blood wanes to a simmer.)

And sometimes I turn around to hear Liliana laughing hysterically while Sebastian is animatedly gesturing and singing an improvised song to her. He’s cracking up at his brilliant lyrics (key words include tusik shamen (fat butt), and kaki (poop)). She’s cracking up at him. He feeds off of her, she off of him, in a spiral of unbridled joy and laughter. And I sit satiated, a happy haze filling my chest.

It struck me some days ago that my kids really like one another.  Sebastian will lift Liliana up as he balances her clumsily and precariously. The sight of it is so darn cute, I don’t even brace myself for potential falls.  She’ll address him with her most searching queries: “Sebastian, are these bubbles yours? Here chamudi (“cutie”). (Surely, if the object at hand were HIS CANDY, her sweet face and her twinkling eyes would betray a rather un-sweet personality). In this case, he’ll oblige, and confide delicately, “yes Liliana,” quickly adding, “but put it here – so Ima doesn’t see”.

I smile to myself. What I hear and don’t see won’t hurt me. The opposite, come to think of it, is also true; seeing and not hearing would be a welcome boon on many occasions. But the point is: the green-eyed monster is put to rest. For a while.

Things are cyclical. Transitory. Temporary. And that’s good. Tomorrow is only and always a day away. Even when it feels like the day is endless, like the fiery monster is about to combust, tomorrow is still only- a day- away.

And when I lay in bed at night (Lance assured me once that “they eventually HAVE to sleep”), I close my eyes and try to recall the hugs and the giggles – to see them, and to hear them. Because the days may be long; But the years are short.

NOs: Between Passion and Reason

NOOOOOOO!!!!

I am not talking about the reaction to a four-year old running onto the street to chase a ball god forbid, or to a dizzy two-year old spinning frighteningly close to the edge of the coffee table. No, this booming appeal that issues from my gut nearly every morning comes as a response to a simple, innocent, even estimable plea.

“I don’t need help”, I mutter under my breath as I make room for Liliana while she pushes the bulky dining room chair over to the kitchen counter, amiably entreats me to budge a little, ushers me aside, and blithely hops up grinning, “here we go”. The tuneful “Can I help you” chorus drives me batty. We’re not talking coq au vin or mac ‘n’ cheese. We’re talking cereal and milk, raspberry syrup and water. Something that normally takes two minutes that will now take three and a half… plus another two and a half for cleanup of spills.

Groan.

Then there’s the No that winds its way out, almost pleading, whimpering. It is extended, drawn, muffled, and sits in the chest, in a low weary register. It is the No that cries out as Sebastian takes out the green plastic mixing bowl, stacks the rainbow colored cupcake rammikins, and declares that it’s Kelev’s (stuffed animal dog's) birthday (again!) while calling out for the requisite ingredients – cocoa powder, syrup, icing sugar. He is serious and impassioned, and notices my trepidation.  “No it’s ok, I just need to make a cake for the party. There won’t be a mess.” I moan and accommodate, trying to be encouraging, trying to set limits. But we want to go out soon, better not start it now, we’ll do it later; Just wait till we go to Tata’s house in Vancouver, you’ll get to REALLY bake with her over there; OK, but you need to be very careful, I don’t want any spills or any mess, you know that part of a chef’s job is to also clean up.

There is a vast continent amidst the hilly terrain of parenthood that compels exacting negotiations between nurturing passions on the one hand, and setting limits on the other. Certainly, the fiery thrill that a child exhibits in pursuit of creative activities is rousing. I want to clasp that exuberant smile, to draw it out, to nourish it, to stretch it, to feel it. I want to go there -- be it baking, gardening, or finger-painting -- with abandon. But these pants just came out of the laundry; I just mopped the floor this morning; no-one’s going to be able to eat/use it, what a waste: The little nagging everyday pieces of order and composure that give us a framework, a margin, and very often, a certain peace, get in the way of messy creation.

There are urges, and there are mores.

Apropos: Liliana yanks on Sebastian’s penis, pronouncing delightedly, “ze kmo nadned” (“it’s like a swing”.)

Sebastian responds with a push, she with a pinch.

Lance tells me to let them punch and pinch and pull and learn to work things out on their own. I sit there and boil. I can’t do it. I need to intervene.

STOP IT!!!

Sebastian, for his part has devised a new tactic for dealing with his sweet and devilish sister. Little Mr. Canada is, for better or worse, becoming Israelicized. His latest approach is dreadfully effective and has me, frankly, at a loss as to how/whether to respond:  “Liliana, do you want me: to hit you/ to take it away from you? No, well then give it to me.” I’ve recently overheard him try out, to certain success, a positive twist on his fine-tuned line of attack: “Liliana, do you want a candy? Yes, well then…” The other day he methodically and thoughtfully (?) enlisted his technique for my benefit: “Liliana, do you want me to hit you? No, well then help Ima”. It was oddly sweet and disturbing, and I for my part, was bemusedly amused. When I tried to broach the subject, suggesting that this might not be the nicest way to ask for something, he plainly stated: “But it’s the only way she understands”. End of story: What can I say to such clear and effectual logic?

Yesterday, at a book sale, I came upon a book titled “The Book of Questions” with the subtitle Kids. I grabbed it and brusquely flipped through it, keenly hoping to discover among its pages some gems, some resources, some answers. But the book was deceptively faithful to its title. It was very simply, a book of questions, not answers. Stupid, I thought. What’s the big deal? I can write a book of questions. I want the answers.

But perhaps the answers cannot be clearly delineated. Perhaps the answers need to be navigated and negotiated, individually. Perhaps they can be glimpsed in the smile that gleams over the sticky, dusty kitchen counter. Or in that mystifying moment where a nudge or a shove triggers babbling laughs instead of shrieks.

In these moments, in the light that these glimpses reveal, I decide that I want to turn the impassioned no and the reasoned yes on their heads: To shout Yes, with an instructive measure of No, rather than to shout No, and concede Yes.

Post-script: I registered Sebastian for Chef Camp in Vancouver. Feeling very good about encouraging his passion for sifting, measuring, and mixing -- in someone else’s kitchen.