A LUE Baby Story (for Subspace Beacon)

Once upon a time (16yrs, 5mos, 22days), in So-So California, a baby boy was born to Mary-LUE and her husband, Paul.  It was a long day of labor, induced around six in the morning and concluding around six that evening after 3 1/2 hours of pushing.  (Yes.  3 1/2.  Hours.)  Baby LUE was 8 lbs., 13 oz. with an alien-shaped head, red, irritated eyes, and the tiniest bit of blond fuzz on top of his head.  

Mary-LUE was exhausted.  Paul was exhausted.  Sister-in-law-LUE, who was also present for the birth, was exhausted.  Approximately 24 hours earlier, this episode of Murphy Brown was on tv:

Mary-LUE, Paul, and Sister-in-law-LUE sat together watching this episode laughing. A kind of hee, hee, haw, haw laugh that seemed to say, "This is so funny. Ha, Ha. This is so funny. I'm not nervous about tomorrow. Tomorrow's delivery will be nothing like this. Hee. Haw. Help me!"

Well, Mary-LUE's labor was not a pretty site.  It would have been a lot funnier if Diane English would have written it, but like Murphy Brown's labor and delivery, there was lots of pain, lots of people trying to help, a time when Mary-LUE didn't think she could do it, and then this:

(Teen-LUE facsimile)

Well, actually, first there was this:

And the LUE family lived happily ever after... until the next delivery 7 years, 52 weeks later. But that's a story for another day.

Historical Note: The same day that Baby-LUE was born, Murphy Brown made headlines when Dan Quayle criticized her for promoting unwed motherhood.

5 down, 25 to go

LUE Rerun: Kindergarten

With so many of the bloggers I read experiencing children starting kindergarten this week, I decided to dust off the archives and republish this piece I wrote last year. I don't know that my experience with my son beginning his school career is the same as what these women will experience. I do know, though, that it will be something they will remember--always.

Kindergarten

She walked into the classroom, son’s hand in hers, and looked at all the desks, searching for his name. Colorful and inviting, the walls were decorated and the room ready for its new students. Today was the kindergarten tea, a time for her son, along with his classmates, to see his classroom and to meet his teacher so that he would be more comfortable for his first day of class. She didn’t anticipate any trouble. He had attended preschool on that campus for three years and she worked at the church office just across the parking lot. He was in comfortable and familiar territory.

As she showed her son all the room had to offer, a wave of emotion swept over her. Afraid she would start crying, she made excuses to leave early. Hurrying out, she took some deep breaths and the emotion subsided.

"What was that?" she asked herself. She was confused by the strength of feeling and unable to identify the specific emotion. She knew some mothers became emotional as their children started school but surely this was too strong a feeling to be that. Besides, she told herself, he had been in preschool for so long and would just be across the parking lot from her. She hadn’t thought this would bother her.

Pushing the thoughts and emotions aside, she went about her business the next couple of days. The first days of kindergarten were uneventful. Her son was fine. She was able to suppress any overwhelming feelings yet was never completely at ease. Friday came, and with it, the first school chapel. This was the only day the children had a specific dress code: shirts with collars and pants for the boys, skirts or dresses for the girls. No shorts allowed. The no shorts rule presented her with her first power struggle of elementary school. He only liked jeans or shorts and t-shirts. No collars on his shirts and no fat pants--his name for anything other than the hand-me-down Wrangler jeans he favored.

“It’s the rules. You have to wear this.” she stated patiently.

“No! I want shorts!” he demanded.

“You can’t wear shorts. It says in the student handbook. No shorts. I read it. You have to respect the rules even if you don’t agree with them,” she attempted to reason with him. Eventually, she won the battle but not without losing her patience and it was exhausting.

At the chapel hour, she headed over to the auditorium to sneak a peek at her little boy. The students filed in, class by class. She noticed one student, then another and another in shorts.

"Wait a minute. What is going on here?" she thought. Spotting Karen, the school vice principal and a good friend, she made her way over to her.

“Karen, so many boys are wearing shorts. The handbook said no shorts.”

“Dress shorts are allowed,” Karen answered matter-of-factly.

“I read through it more than once. I’m sure it said no shorts at all. I would have let him wear shorts. He wanted to wear shorts,” she began to get distressed.

“No. It says dress shorts are acceptable,” her friend reassured her.

She did not believe this and wouldn’t accept it until the manual was brought out. There in black and white were the words she had missed for some reason.

“For boys, acceptable dress includes collared shirts including knit polo shirts tucked in, pants, dress shorts, belt, sneakers...”

The dam burst of tears was released. All that fighting and struggle for nothing. Her friend tried to console her but she wasn’t in a place to be comforted. The emotion that began the day of the kindergarten tea was released now like a tidal wave and it had to run its course. She made her way back to her office sobbing. She would get the tears under control until someone would walk by and ask her what was wrong.

“I made him wear paaaaaants! I’m a horrible mom!” she wailed.

The men in her office, while sympathetic, did not quite understand this response. They humored her and gave her hugs, reassuring her that she was a wonderful mom. Although the shorts issue didn’t make sense to them, they were dads and knew not to reason with a mom in this state.

After she calmed down, she decided to try to at least alleviate her mistake. Rushing home, she picked up some suitable shorts and took them to his class. After asking permission from his teacher to help him change, she took her son into the class bathroom. As she helped him, she apologized tearfully.

“I’m so sorry, honey. I read the handbook wrong and you are able to wear nice shorts.”

He was happy to have shorts but otherwise seemed none the worse for wear. Obviously this was an experience that scarred only the mother and not the son. Over the next few days, with a little distance, she began to recognize the emotion she had been feeling: grief. That first shocking emotion that day in class was grief. She realized it now. It was the same feeling she experienced at the death of her grandfather, her brother, her grandmother. It didn’t make sense to her, though. Nobody had died. Her son had just started school.

Eventually she realized it wasn’t about being overprotective or nervous about her son’s readiness for school...

It wasn’t about being a horrible mother...

It wasn’t about shorts...

It was about what his beginning kindergarten represented: the death of his unencumbered life and his entering into a world of expectation and responsibility. He was no longer a child free of the world. Her baby was hers alone no longer. He was part of the world now.

He was ready. She was not.

Sleeping with Bread Monday: Mostly Grateful

In the last week, for what am I most grateful?

This past Wednesday I attended a funeral and it was at this celebration of a life well lived that I found many things for which to be grateful.

First, there was the woman herself. Arlein died after a long, long bout with aplastic anemia and breast cancer. She died in her home; friends and family, knowing the end was near, took advantage of the opportunity to share some last moments with her. I'm sure there was very little left unsaid when she passed away on February 14, 2007. Her husband requested that her body not be removed from the home until after midnight so that she would be home with him for at least some part of their 49th wedding anniversary, February 15th. (Every time I think about that, my heart scrunches up a bit with the ache and the beauty of it.) She was a woman of special grace who always looked to God for help in her troubles and for answers to her questions. It sounds trite but she was truly one of the nicest people I've ever met.

I'm grateful to have known her.

Arlein was one of a group of four friends which included my Aunt Margaret. Through my aunt and because I also worked with all the women at the same church, I became friends with each of them. My aunt was the first to die, almost nine years ago. Her death came at a time when I was overwhelmed by life and consequently, I didn't grieve her death well. Life got in the way. Arlein's funeral brought back memories of Aunt Margaret. Welcome memories. Warm memories. Bittersweet memories. I could experience those memories, pause for a moment while I did, and then move on. I still miss her but...

I'm grateful for my funny, opinionated, passionate, clean freak, vulnerable aunt.

The funeral was held at the church I worshiped at and worked at for years. It was a mini-reunion of sorts. My aunt's and Arlein's friends, grieving at this latest loss, nonetheless took up position in Room 215 to serve food at the reception which followed the service. I found myself at the back table with them and we chatted and caught up while filling pitchers with ice and water, laying out sandwiches and setting out desserts. Although I am young enough to be their daughter, I feel like one of the girls. Before I left, we made plans to get together for lunch soon.

Although I don't get to see them often, I am grateful for the warmth and companionship these amazing women give to me.

Of course, I also saw several other people I knew from working at the church. Inevitably, they asked about my children, the one they knew firsthand, Colin, and the one they only knew about because I didn't have her until after I stopped working there, Marley. Colin was a fixture at the church office from about two years old to six years old. These also happened to be some of the years I was most challenged by He Who Wishes Not To Be Mentioned. My co-workers heard and experienced many HWWNTBM stories and a couple of them came up at the funeral.

There was the couple who remembered Colin and his uncanny way of saying things which seemed beyond his years. They also remember his love of the Lion King, especially the story I told them about the day my son, around 2 1/2 years old, attacked me as I sat on the living room floor. Grasping my throat in his hands, he knocked me on my back and kept repeating, "Tell them the truth!" I was at a loss until I remembered a certain scene from the movie and was able to reply, "I killed Mufasa!" Having responded with the correct dialogue, my son released his choke hold and went on about his business.

Another woman, who no longer works at the church, started to say that she remembered something HWWNTBM said once. Before she could repeat it, she stopped herself thinking she had confused my son with someone else's. This son had once rolled down the window while her friend was driving, stuck his head out and yelled...

"That was HWWNTBM," I stopped her, mid-sentence. I refreshed her memory as to the details of the story. HWWNTBM and I were on the way to picking up his daddy at the airport. He was five years old and he and I had had a very rough week. This rough week continued in the car as we drove along, at which time he rolled down the window, stuck his head out and started screaming, "Help me! Help me!" I was completely in a panic thinking he was going to say that he was being kidnapped or some such dire circumstance. No, my darling boy continued, "Help me! Help me! My mom's an idiot!" I pulled over and gave him the never-stick-your-head-out-the-window again speech. Half-relieved that I wasn't having to explain to a policeman that I had not, in fact, kidnapped this kid and half-stunned at his outburst, I continued on my way to the airport so that daddy could relieve me from my post. By the next morning, I could find the humor in his outburst as did my co-workers.

These are just two of the many, many stories I could share. I love these stories. Remembering them, I see how far we've come, me and my boy. I was often at my wit's end with him and was not prepared for the challenges parenthood would bring. In addition, those specific years were especially rough for me emotionally as I had to grapple with many serious issues--in addition to parenting a spirited young boy. But that kid made me laugh and cry and wring my hands and burst with pride at his brilliance. I'm sure there are still many challenges for us but...

I'm grateful for that blond-haired, blue-eyed, imaginative, fierce little boy. He grew up too fast.

In the last week, for what am I least grateful?

Hmmm... writing about all the lovely things I have to be grateful for in the last week seems to have created a thick fog over the things for which I wasn't grateful. I have some vague memories of headaches from needing a chiropractic adjustment and some challenges getting Marley adjusted to school after a week of sickness. But hey, that's nothing compared to the good stuff, is it?

Links to other Sleeping with Bread posts can be found here.