Park Slope Reader

Nicole Kear

Dispatches From Babyville: Snow Day! a to-do list

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I love making to-do lists. In point of fact, I love crossing items off to-do lists and the only way you get to do that is if you make one first. I take tremendous pleasure in the act of drawing a thick, irrevocable line through a bullet-pointed item, be it a tedious errand or an onerous obligation.

When you’re a mother of three and two of those three are teens or teen-adjacents, when you have not only renounced most pleasure for yourself, but renounced pleasure in general, on principle, when your unofficial title is Mother, Fun-killer–well, when this is your situation, you get your kicks where you can. Things like seltzer make you unaccountably happy.

I can get a little evangelical about my to-do lists. Once you’ve found salvation, in any form, you want to share it, especially with your loved ones. Who, not to put too fine a point on it, have a lot of homework. 

Last year, my oldest child, known in these parts as Primo, started high school and his workload immediately multiplied by proportions that cannot be measured by math as we know it. His lightest night of work is more than my heaviest day, during finals, in college. My middle child, Seconda, started middle school and she too, experienced a massive increase in her workload. My littlest one, Terza, started first grade and, mercifully, continued to enjoy immunity from crushing piles of homework.

My solution to the Homework Overload was: Whiteboards. I brought home a large, lovely, dry erase board and an array of markers in enticing colors.

“So you can make a list of what homework you have to do, and in what order and how long it will take you!” I announced to my big kids. “You could use paper, too, but this is more eco-friendly!”

“Thanks?” was their reply. It meant, “No, thanks.” It meant, “Forget it.”

Seconda insisted she had things covered with her homework planner, which seemed nearly adequate for her level of work. But Primo would need a planner the size of War and Peace to organize his avalanche of work. So, with him, I pressed the matter. 

“Just try it,” I encouraged. “It’ll be useful!”

I placed the whiteboard on his desk and the next day, found it on the kitchen counter, blank and pristine. So I returned it to his desk, only to find it the next day, tossed into the pile of shoes by our front door.

“I found your whiteboard,” I told him, bringing it back into his room.

“Nooooooooo,” he moaned. “Please, anything but that.”

“How could you hate a whiteboard?” I was genuinely perplexed. “It’s so unobjectionable.”

“I don’t know but I do,” he explained. “I really, really hate it.”

“It’s like exercise,” I said. “You don’t feel the endorphins right away. You have to, you know, do it a lot before they kick in.”

“You never exercise,” he pointed out.

“Exactly,” I said. “Learn from my mistakes.”

I left the board on his desk and it soon went mysteriously missing. Rewards were offered for any information regarding its whereabouts but no information was given.

So I purchased another whiteboard, a double-sided one this time, and my family heaved a collective sigh. Even better, I soon found the original white board shoved into the back of the hall closet. Now I had two!

My husband and children started to make jokes about my unnatural love for whiteboards. Marriage proposals were suggested. My son asked if he should start calling the whiteboard Daddy.

“Whiteboards are really useful for making lists!” I protested. “This is a well-known fact! Ask an organizational expert!”

The answer to the question: when is it a good time to make a list is, of course, anytime. But there are better and worse occasions. As a list aficionado, I know that there are three conditions which, if they coincide, create the ideal opportunity for a to-do list. These conditions are:

  1. You have many, many things to do
  2. You have many, many hours of free time
  3. You have zero plans

Like, for example, a snow day. 

I understand that thrill at the prospect of making a mammoth to-do list is not everyone’s first response to discovering there will be a snow day. To be honest, it wasn’t my first response either. My first response involved a few more expletives. I stared down the barrel of sixteen hours filled with kids alternating between bingeing on social media and bingeing on video games with some intermittent bingeing on Netflix, all the while bickering with each other. And then, bathed in beatific light, a halo glimmering over its head, my whiteboard popped into my mind.

What my family and I were really facing was an unparalleled opportunity for productivity.

I rounded up the children and my husband. I retrieved the whiteboards.

“Today, we’re going to have fun!” I announced. “And we’re also going to get stuff done!”

I used my neglected dry erase markers and, on one whiteboard, wrote: “Have Fun!” and on the other, “Get Stuff Done!”

Then, I invited suggestions of things to do.

“Have Fun!” filled up quickly:

  1. Sledding
  2. Play in snow
  3. Make hot chocolate
  4. Watch movie
  5. Play with dolls
  6. Play new video game
  7. Make slime
  8. Paint nails

“Ok, we have plenty for ‘Have Fun!’” I pointed out. “What about ‘Get Stuff Done!’”

“That doesn’t rhyme, you know,” Primo pointed out.

“It’s a soft rhyme,” I replied. “Close enough.”

My husband offered up a few ideas.

  1. Clean bedrooms
  2. Cook chili
  3. Make a pie
  4. Homework
  5. Do laundry

There was talk of adding “Reading” to the list but I contested the point. 

“Reading should go on the ‘Have Fun!’ List,” I argued.

“Oh my God, Mom,” said Seconda. “That’s where I draw the line.”

“Fine,” I said, and added it to the “bad” list.

  1. Reading
  2. Pair socks
  3. Throw out expired medicine
  4. Organize earrings
  5. Sharpen pencils

I had other ideas, naturally, but the angry mob threatened mutiny. They wrestled the dry erase markers from my eager fingers. 

“You’re out of control,” little Terza said.

“Guys,” I said. “Guys. When you cross stuff off a list, it feels incredible! It’s so satisfying. It’s the best feeling in the world.” 

My son raised his eyebrows.

“I think that’s just you.” Primo said. “And you should get out more.”

I looked to my husband, dearest partner in greatness, for affirmation.

“I mean,” he said apologetically. “It is a snow day.”

I sighed heavily.

“Fine,” I said, using my eraser to wipe out items 7 and up on the “Get Stuff Done!” aka “Mom is a Dementor” list.

“One day, you will love a whiteboard, too.” I told my kids, “And when you do, I’ll be there to rejoice with you.”

But they were already getting into their snow pants and boots and hats and scarves. I put down my eraser and backed away from the whiteboard. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat. When you’re a mother of three, that sometimes is often. Even I could see that when life gives you snow, you gotta make snowmen.

Dispatches From Babyville: Becoming A City Kid

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Art by Heather Heckel

I hover. As a mother, I mean. Sometimes I try not to, and sometimes I lean into it but either way, it’s my instinct. I was raised by hoverers. I was also raised in Staten Island. These facts are unrelated but relevant to my point which is: I grew up in the city but was not a city kid – at least not until I started high school in Manhattan. I was neither sophisticated, nor saavy, nor independently mobile. 

Even as a little girl. I loved Manhattan – the lights! the smells! the people everywhere! – but I didn’t develop a borough inferiority complex until later, when I was in middle school. This, of course, is when one is most susceptible to developing complexes. 

My parents would drive me over the Verrazano into Bay Ridge every morning, and I would dream we’d keep going until we crossed that cathedral of bridges, with its twinned arches, into the glittering metropolis of Manhattan. I had a small town girl’s adoration of the city, which was stoked by my favorite sitcom, Mad About You. Nothing could be better, I thought, than to live in a doorman building and order Chinese food every other night. That was the life I wanted. 

And that life was mine, every time I visited my aunt, uncle and two cousins in their apartment on East 78th Street. I visited them frequently, for weeks at a time in the summer, like some kind of reverse Fresh Air Kid. When I was in high school, for almost three years, I lived with them Monday through Friday, because it took me just thirty minutes to get to school instead of an hour and a half and three modes of public transportation – bus, train and, incredibly, boat. 

Staying at my aunt’s apartment was like living in a Mad About You episode. I would greet the doorman on my way in, take the elevator sixteen stories up and gorge myself on Chicken Chow Fun and Moo Shu Pork from takeout containers. 

I even had a building bestie, Leah Goldstein. Leah was just my age and lived four floors below us. Leah was a city kid. She enjoyed an independence I dared not dream of. She walked places by herself. She took buses unsupervised. She had HBO and was permitted to watch anything she wanted, including Fatal Attraction. 

I was fairly successful at fitting in with Leah and her savvy, independent friends, but a close look would have revealed I was an impostor. For example, I made it through all of Fatal Attraction without closing my eyes, but had nightmares for months afterward. If I’m being honest, my palms still get a little clammy when I look in a bathroom mirror.  

One weekend afternoon, when I was about eleven, I was hanging out at Leah’s apartment, with her and her friends, when someone suggested we go out for lunch. 

“Ooooh, we should go to Hard Rock,” said a girl with killer bangs. 

There were murmurs of agreement and within minutes, feet were being shoved in shoes. 

“Let me just go grab my wallet,” I said. “Don’t leave without me.” 

I raced upstairs, beginning my begging before the door was even closed behind me. My mother was called. My request was denied.

I implored my mother. I bargained with her, I appealed to her basic humanity. 

“You can go,” she said. “As long as your aunt goes with you.”

It was a preposterous idea. It was like offering someone a freshly-baked chocolate cake that was full of dysentery. I told her as much, and amped up the waterworks. I was then, and am now, a fast and voluble crier. 

“What if,” my aunt chimed in. “What if Harry and I just happen to have lunch at Hard Rock too? At the same time? We won’t sit with you. We’ll just be there, on our own.”

“Because the food is so good,” my uncle Harry said. “And not at all overpriced.” 

Beggars can’t be choosers. People who have never been to the mysterious but inarguably incredible place called “Hard Rock” must find a way there, even if they are accompanied by a secret security detail.

“All right,” I agreed, grabbing my wallet. “Just walk really far behind us. And don’t- you know- talk to me. Or look at me too much. From now on, we’re strangers.” 

I still don’t understand why they caved to my outrageous demands, but a few minutes later, we were taking separate elevators down to the lobby, where I rejoined the group. To my horror, they’d decided in my absence we were going to take a cab to the restaurant. Which was not part of the plan I’d thrown together with my aunt. 

But, I reasoned, this is what city kids do. They probably come out of the womb hailing taxis. And so, throwing a discrete and apologetic glance at my aunt and uncle, who were waiting in the lobby, I piled into the taxi with the other kids. 

I wasn’t privy to the part where my aunt and uncle raced for the next taxi and yelled, “Follow that cab!” All I know is that soon after our group was seated at a large round table in the big, boisterous dining area of the Hard Rock Café- every bit as cool as I’d imagined-my aunt and uncle walked in and were ushered to a table on the upper level. 

I followed suit as Leah and the other kids ordered burgers, fries, milkshakes. It was, I thought, the best meal I’d ever eaten. The burgers were juicier, the fries crispier, the milkshakes creamier than their outer borough counterparts. I felt so suddenly grown-up. I was keenly aware that I was in the middle of an important metamorphosis. 

I would never be the same after dining (mostly) unsupervised at the coolest restaurant in the coolest city in the world. After this meal, I’d be an adult. A saavy, sophisticated adult. I’d be ready to pay rent for a studio apartment and tell tourists the fastest way to get to Bleecker Street from anywhere. It was a straight shot from here to Mad-About-You city -iving bliss.  

And then the waitress brought our bill. 

We were short. Significantly so. 

“You guys, we forgot about tax!” shrieked Leah. 

“Well, isn’t that, like, optional? Like a tip?” one of her friends ventured. 

Panic percolated among the group as it was concluded that tax was not optional. What would happen to us now? Would the waitress call the police? Would we have to wash dishes? 

 I glanced up and found my aunt and uncle paying their own bill. They’d just turned from a liability to an ass-saving asset. 

“Oh my God, you guys!” I exclaimed to the group. “This is so crazy but . . . I think that’s my aunt and uncle up there.” I pointed to their table. “How weird is that? They must be eating here too!” 

“Can you ask them to lend us some money?” Leah asked. 

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed. 

My aunt and uncle did not bother to mask their delight at this unexpected reversal. 

“Sorry,” my uncle teased. “But we have no idea who you are. We’re just perfect strangers enjoying a delicious lunch at the world-famous Hard Rock Café.” 

Back then, I didn’t understand this delight. Now that I’m a mother of kids around this age, I understand it all too well. It’s not just the simple satisfaction of being able to wield an, “I told you so.” It’s the desperately-needed confirmation that you, the parent (or parent proxy) know what you are doing. That, despite all the misgivings and mistakes, the bad calls, the wrong-headed battles waged (and lost), that you still possess enough parental instinct to get the job done. More specifically, it’s a welcome reminder that your kid (or surrogate kid) still needs you, even when they insist they don’t —and never will again.

So it was with immeasurable pleasure that my aunt and uncle descended the stairs to serve as a real-life deus ex machina. 

“Hi guys,” my uncle said. “I hear you’re a little short? We can cover you.” 

I emerged from the lunch a hero. Or at least, the guy that knew where to find the hero. 

When the bill was settled, my uncle asked: “How are you guys getting home?” 

“Oh, just walking,” Leah said. 

“We are too,” he replied. 

They trailed us the whole way home.

Heather Heckel is an artist and educator living in New York City. In addition to the Park Slope Reader, her clients include Whole Foods Market, Kids Footlocker, Juice Pharma Worldwide, and The Renwick Hotel. Her artwork and children’s book has won international awards, and she has been published numerous times in the 3×3 Professional Illustration Magazine. Recently she has completed artist-in-residencies through the National Park Service in Arkansas, Connecticut, Washington, and California. Heather is passionate about social and environmental justice, and is an advocate for human rights and animal rights.

heatherheckel.com

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Dispatches From Babyville: I Love New York In June

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Art by Heather Heckel

Plenty of people love New York in June. This list includes but is not limited to Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney and probably even a few people after 1959. But who, I ask you, still loves New York in July . . . to say nothing of August? 

New York in fall serves as the backdrop for romantic comedies. New York in summer serves as the backdrop for a different kind of film. Dog Day Afternoon. Summer of Sam. Do The Right Thing.

To quote another old song, to everything there is a season, and New York’s season is fall, possibly spring, maybe even winter. Never summer. Summer is when anyone who can flees the city and heads to other places. Places that smell like jasmine rather than rotting refuse. Places with fireflies instead of cockroaches.

I get it. I’d summer somewhere idyllic too, if I could. But since I’m stuck here for most of the season along with my three kids, I figure I’ll find some silver linings. Behold, one mother’s attempt to make lemonade out of lemons. And on that note . . . 

Reasons to Love NYC in Summer

1. Lemonade! Kids can move a lot of units.

Country Time lemonade might be iconic and all, but let’s get real. There are no customers on a dusty country road, or in front of a sweet-smelling, pristine suburban lawn. Smart city kids who pick even a halfway decent location will make bank. Save up those pennies and they’ll have enough for a MetroNorth ticket out of here.

2. Eating Italian ices on stoops

While we’re on the subject of refreshing treats, there is no experience more pleasurable, anywhere, than taking the first lick of a lemon Italian icey while sitting on a Brooklyn stoop on a sweltering day. I’m sure there’s data to support this somewhere. Check the Journal of Geographical Gastronomy. It’s science. 

3. Cold subways are the best subways

New York City subways get a lot wrong. Maybe they even get more wrong than they get right. But let’s pause here to commend the MTA for their top-notch air-conditioning. I concede that much of the enjoyment I feel when stepping into a cool subway car may be relief from escaping the unbearably hot platform, but what’s the difference really? Cold subways are the best subways. Which comes in handy when your subway gets held in between stations for 45 minutes.

4. The island of Coney

Sure, I could go to Turks and Caicos and find silky beaches with oceans as warm and unpolluted as baths. Yes, I could go to Hawaii and hike a volcano, frolicking through waterfalls (I’m speaking figuratively here. I can’t go to those places, or I would, posthaste). But can you play Shoot the Freak in Hawaii? Can you ride the Cyclone and eat a Nathan’s hot dog in Turks and Caicos? Does anywhere else in the world have a Mermaid Day parade where a stranger will hang their freakishly huge and incontrovertibly menacing boa constrictor around your two-year-old’s shoulders? I didn’t think so.

5. Shakespeare in the Park

Okay, fine, I admit it. I haven’t been to a Shakespeare in the Park performance since 2002, well before I had kids. But by Jove, I’m going to get those tickets this year, and I’m taking my son, no matter how much he protests Shakespeare is boring, and it’s going to be world-class theater served up free. And if I don’t make it, then I’ll take my children to an equally free, more kid-friendly and zero-hassle Piper production in the Astroturf.

6. Fire Hydrant Sprinklers

Nuff said. 

7. No one’s here

This, right here, is the real reason to love New York City in the summer. It is, possibly, a misanthropic perspective, but it’s valid. No one is here. That means you get to enjoy all the offerings of New York City which you typically can’t partake in, because of crowds. No one’s here so you can park your car, which is to say, you can use your car. No one’s here so you can eat at restaurants, without having to wait for two hours, or eat at 4:45. No one’s here. Yes, of course, the denizens of NYC are what make it so special, but sometimes you need a break from those denizens. A nice two-month-long break. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It’s like how you feel such pure, unadulterated love for your children when they’re sleeping. Since ours is the city that never sleeps,  this is how you achieve that feeling about New Yorkers.  

And there you have it—all the reasons to love New York in the summer. I tried to stretch this list to ten, I really did. But there are only and exactly seven reasons to love New York City in summer. If that’s not enough for you, well go ahead and book a flight to the Bahamas. Just don’t blame me when the Italian ices are lousy. 

Heather Heckel is an artist and educator living in New York City. In addition to the Park Slope Reader, her clients include Whole Foods Market, Kids Footlocker, Juice Pharma Worldwide, and The Renwick Hotel. Her artwork and children’s book has won international awards, and she has been published numerous times in the 3×3 Professional Illustration Magazine. Recently she has completed artist-in-residencies through the National Park Service in Arkansas, Connecticut, Washington, and California. Heather is passionate about social and environmental justice, and is an advocate for human rights and animal rights.

http://www.heatherheckel.com

https://www.instagram.com/heatherheckelart/?hl=en

Dispatches from Babyville: A Lit Legacy

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Art by Heather Heckel

I was a voracious reader as a child, a read-while-walking-down-the-sidewalk kind of bookworm. As an adult, I’ve moved apartments countless times and every time, during the brutal downsizing that precedes packing, I place one childhood book after another on the “Keep” pile, schlepping the yellow-paged books from one shoebox apartment to another. I love these books. They’re my Proustian madeline.

Naturally, I want to share these jewels of literature with my children, now aged 6, 11 and 14 years old. When they were very young, this was easy enough. Toddlers are happy to sit through any readaloud, be it an evergreen Sendak or a psychedelic Stephen Cosgrove. But when it comes to chapter books–the classics–I’ve been less successful in preserving my literary legacy. In fact, my children have flat-out rejected my legacy. Loudly, Repeatedly.

With my firstborn, Primo, I tried Heidi.

“You’re going to love it!” I assured my then nine-year-old. “She drinks milk from goats and she lives on a high mountaintop and her grandpa’s really grumpy.”

“Sounds boring,” he noted–to my mind, prematurely.

A few pages in, he confirmed his initial assesment.

“It is boring,” he pronounced.

So, I upped the ante. I acquired an audiobook version, in which a Swiss woman read the story in the most lilting, hypnotic accent imaginable. Her voice was more relaxing than a bottomless glass of Chardonnay. Turns out one man’s “relaxing” is another man’s “boring-est thing I ever heard.”

We listened while on a road trip, making it through three or four chapters before we arrived at our destination. Once out of the car, the children staged a mutiny and refused to get back in until I agreed to never play Heidi again. So, that was that.

Several years later, I tried Little Women, this time with Seconda, who was about eight. I hooked her by telling her that something really, really terrible happens in the middle of the book. Seconda really digs it when terrible things happen in books, so she agreed to try it. And she did. But we’d hardly made it past chapter two when she put the kabosh on the readaloud.

“But we didn’t get up to the terrible thing yet!” I reminded her.

She raised her eyebrows suspiciously. “I bet it’s not even that bad.”

“Oh, it’s bad. Trust me. Reaaaally awful. Tragic.”

“Does the dad die?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“The mom?”

“No.”

“Just tell me! I’m never going to read this book and I want to know.”

“If you want to find out what terrible, awful, sad and tragic thing happens,” I said, “you have to let me read it to you.”

“Okay,” she said, shrugging. “Forget it then.”

About two years later, when we were in the middle of an argument, she yelled: “And I know what happens at the end of Little Women! Beth dies!”

I gasped. “How did you find that out?”

“The internet, Mom!” she replied. “It’s called the internet!”

And then there was one.

My youngest, Terza, is six years old and, I am aware, my final shot. I knew I had to choose the classic carefully, so I left Little Women on the shelf, opting instead for A Little Princess.

A Little Princess has it all. There’s servitude, and rodent friends and orphanhood. There’s the word “princess” right there, in the title, irresistible to kids of the Cinderella-Ate-My Daughter age bracket.

Plus, I knew Terza liked my literary tastes. My husband and I had read the entire Ramona series to her–twice–using a few of my childhood volumes.

I hooked Terza with a tight elevator pitch. I kept her focused by doing all the voices. I even edited out some of the more boring adjectives.  

She was smitten for one night of bedtime reading and then another. We conducted light literary analysis on the way to school. We bonded over favorite quotes.

It’s not the legacy I planned but then again, in parenting, it never is.

“It’s working,” I thought with no small amount of self congratulation.

And then, on the third night, just after Ermegarde St. John was introduced, Terza cut me off mid-sentence and said, “I don’t want to read this. Let’s read Ramona again.”

“But–but what about Ermegarde St. John? We have to find out what happens to her. She has the best name ever! ERMEGARDE ST. JOHN!”

Terza shot me a “Mom, you’re really losing it” look. It’s troubling when your six-year-old appropriately uses that look on you.

“Can we please read just a little more?” I pleaded. “I really want to read it!”

“You can read it, Mommy. Later. After I go to bed.”

“But you didn’t even find out what terrible thing happens!” I blurted, floundering..

“I don’t care. I want to read Ramona.”

“Okay fine,” I said quickly. “I’ll tell you. Her father dies. She loses all her money! She has to become a servant in her own school!”

She shrugged. “So what?”

To which I could issue no reply. There is no coming back from “so what?”

I pulled Beezus and Ramona off the shelf and started reading, for the upteenth time, Cleary’s sturdy, steady prose. I began to feel, I think, what my daughter does while reading it –  bemused, delighted and more than anything, safe. Klickitat Street is no Sesame Street; you can’t have all sunny days in Portland after all. But when it does rain in Cleary’s world, there’s always an umbrella to stand under, metaphorically speaking, anyway. I understood then, that that’s what my little one is looking for when she reads. Or what she’s looking for right now, at least. Fair enough.

A week or so later, Terza was browsing Netflix when she cried out, “Look Mom! It’s that really boring book you kept trying to read to me. Can we watch the movie?”

“Are you kidding?” I wanted to say. ”Before finishing the book?”

Instead I said, “Sure” and made popcorn. We followed the trials and tribulations of Sara Crews and Ermegarde St. John and her rodent friends. Terza was riveted. She watched the movie again the next day.

It’s not the legacy I planned but then again, in parenting, it never is. I’ll take it.

The following morning, on our walk to school, she turned to me and said, as if conceding a point: “You were right, Mom. That is a really good story.”

Nicole C. Kear is the co-author of the new middle grade series, The Startup Squad, out this May, as well as author of the chapter book series, The Fix-It Friends, and the memoir Now I See You. You can find out more info at nicolekear.com.

Dispatches From Babyville: Winter Sports

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I should have been born a bear. Or a chipmunk. Any animal, really, that hibernates in the winter. I feel a kinship to these animals who share my belief that plunging temperatures are Nature’s way of saying: “Go away! Seriously, I mean it.”

For those who don’t heed her warning, Nature has to get real: “I guess you thought I was playing around? How about a little frostbite to set you straight? Or some hypothermia? Hey, don’t let that jagged icicle impale you on your way indoors.” 

Nature doesn’t have to tell me twice. She had me at frostbite. 

When it gets cold, to say nothing of freezing, my fight-or-flight instinct is unambiguous. I flee to warmth and cocoa and couches and books and Netflix. If I could curl up in a cave, lower my body temperature and slow my heart rate to one beat every forty five seconds, I would do it. What could be better than sleeping for three months straight? Wake me when it’s spring. 

So I find it perplexing that there are many people who take freezing temperatures as an invitation to head outdoors, and to remain there for hours, and to exert themselves physically, to the point of perspiration. 

I’m talking about winter sports. 

A few caveats: First, I am not a sporty person in general. You won’t find me playing volleyball on the beach either, though it does strike me as easy, natural pathway to fun. You’re lying there in the sun, doing nothing, and you see a ball in the soft sand. Huh, might be fun to give it a whack. Why not? I get that.

Second, it is true that winter seems to serve as an activator to my anxiety, the way contact lens solution magically turns glue into slime. In spring, summer and fall, I am a generally level-headed person with reasonable worries. Add snow. ice and a five o’clock sunset to the mix and I make Woody Allen look relaxed. 

So it is that when I look at sleds, I see only broken femurs and concussions. When I look at skis, it’s all paralysis and massive head injuries. Who can tell which came first, the chicken or the egg, but it is true that I did go skiing once, when I was sixteen, and it did not go well. 

I successfully rode the lift to the top of the hill. That part was fun, I concede. Then, on my way to the starting point at the hilltop, I crashed into a tree, and broke my ski. I had to slide down the hill on my heavily-insulated butt. 

So I do not ski. Or sled, either. But since I have three kids, aged 6, 11, and 14, people are always inviting me and the kids to join them in these activities. 

No sooner does the first layer of snow settle on the asphalt then moms and dads start texting: 

“Want 2 meet @park 2 sled?”

And all I can think is, “Why?” 

It’s like asking, “Want 2 get a colonoscopy?”

I will, if I must, but I don’t want to. Similarly, I would sled, were it necessary. The thing about parenting is, you realize that there is nothing you would not do, if you had to. If I found myself in a frozen tundra and the only source of food was three miles away, I’d fashion coats for my children and I from the skins of wolves, gnaw a tree down with my teeth and construct a sleigh. Then I’d sled the hell out of those three miles. 

But for fun? No, no, a thousands times no. 

Despite my long-standing aversion to winter sports, I want my kids to have fun, nay, magical winters, and I allow for the fact that these sports may be a part of that fun. So, I have made a small exception to my policy. Every year, I take the kids ice skating. 

It’s probably just as dangerous as the other sports, but it is far easier than sledding, and a fraction of the cost of skiing. Also, the outfits are way better. Even a Grinch is powerless to resist the charm of pom-poms.

On our annual skating excursion, I put helmets on the kids, and inform them of the hazards they must avoid. The one that I’ve fixated on is the danger of falling down on your hands and knees and having your fingers severed by a reckless skater who has accumulated too much momentum to stop. It’s not the worst thing that could happen on the ice, to be sure, but it is, strangely, the most vivid scenario in my mind. So we practice popping back up to our feet from prone positions until our digits seem sufficiently protected.. 

Then, we skate. Or, more accurately, we cling to the side of the rink and expend massive, immoderate amounts of effort remaining upright. We pant and whine and laugh and do Tonya Harding impressions. Then, suffused with relief at having survived the endeavor, I hobble off the ice and buy everyone cocoa. 

And I think, There, we did it. Magical winter fun accomplished. 

When my kids grow up, I have no doubt that one of them will move to Colorado, or Alaska, or some other place where winter is supersized. One of them undoubtedly will become a professional luger. And when that happens, I will put on my wolf skin coat, and brave the snow and ice to see them. Because I must.

Until then, you’ll find me on my couch, with the thermostat working overtime. Just like the bears do. 

Dispatches From Babyville: Lunch Duty

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , , , ,

Eternal summer is a dream when you’re a kid. When you’re a parent, not so much. Every year, the final week of August drags on interminably, just like the final week of each of my pregnancies, and I find myself wondering, “What if Labor Day never comes? What then?” So, when dawn breaks on the first day of school every year, I am full of wonder and gratitude. I want to kiss the Department of Education full on the lips.

The only thing that tempers this relief is the stack of lunchboxes on the kitchen counter. 

“Remember us?” the lunchboxes seem to hiss. “We’re baaaaaaack.”

 Really, it’s one lunchbox in particular. The one belonging to my six-year-old daughter, known in these parts as Terza. 

Terza is what’s commonly referred to as a picky eater, though “picky” is too demure and dainty a word to describe the iron-willed resistance she shows to consuming anything besides candy, crackers and pizza.

She has always been a discerning eater, even in the womb. She was so small in the sonograms, my obstetrician suggested I drink a milkshake daily to fatten her up. For the past six years, I’ve felt like a prince in a fairytale, only my quest is not to make the princess laugh, but to make the princess eat. Dinner and breakfast are hard enough but lunch, especially at school. is nearly impossible. 

It’s a classic case of getting a taste of your own medicine. I, too, was a finicky eater. 

My mother likes to recount how, when I was the age Terza is now, the only thing I’d bring to school for lunch was bread and water. 

“Like a prisoner!” she exclaims. 

I figured my mother could probably have stumbled upon an alternative to the prisoner meal, if only she’d tried a bit harder. This is the kind of asinine conclusion one makes before one has kids. When faced with Terza’s pickiness, I vowed to resolve the issue by trying hard, being creative and above all, listening to her input. 

“What would you like for lunch at school tomorrow?” I asked her. 

Once we worked through the unhelpful responses, “School? Don’t tell me I have to go to school again!” we arrived at the outlandish, “A hamburger and pasta with bechemel sauce.”

“How about mac and cheese?” I asked, searching for a feasible facsimile.

“Okay,” she replied. Convincingly, I should add. So I prepared mac and cheese in the morning and scooped it, fast, into her Thermos, so it would stay nice and hot for lunch. 

In the evening, when I unscrewed the Thermos lid, I found it full. Chock full. Brimming over. The Thermos was so full, it looked like she’d added macaroni. 

“You didn’t take a bite of your lunch!” I said.

“Mommy,” she replied. “I hate mac and cheese! Why did you put it in my lunchbox?” 

I’m sure she didn’t mean to gaslight me. Still, I was tempted to record our conversations to play back for her later. Nonetheless, the important thing was figuring out what to pack for tomorrow.

“Nothing,” she said. “I hate lunch.” 

“How about a cream-cheese sandwich?”

“Fine,” she agreed.

Of course, when I picked up Terza from school the next day, her lunchbox was full and her stomach was empty. She was ravenous. 

“Please, Mommy, can I have a bagel?” she begged, rivaling Oliver Twist in pathos. “I’m . . . just . . . so . . . hungry. I feel faint!”

 I procured her a bagel. I am an Italian mother after all. I am wired to feed children.

Watching her devour the bagel, I proposed that maybe she might enjoy a bagel in her lunchbox tomorrow,

Naturally, she agreed.

You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce what happened next. 

No matter what went in the lunchbox, it was returned uneaten. I began to suspect that Terza had a Magic Lunchbox. A Dark Magic Lunchbox. It made delicious things repellant. Except, strangely, for cookies. Those are immune. 

The solution was clear. School lunch. She didn’t eat that either–found it even more distasteful than anything I could prepare–but at least I didn’t have to toil over a steaming stove at 7 in the morning only to find the fruits of my labor untouched. School lunch seemed like a perfect solution to my problem, if not to hers. But the problem with parenting is your kids’ problems, really, are your problems too. Eventually, her pleading wore me down. 

“Please, Mommy, can’t you make me lunch?” she’d beg. “Don’t you want me to eat?”

Finally, I did the only thing I knew worked with picky eaters. Bread and water. 

In my defense, I added a peach. 

Because the peach was never eaten, I just left it in the lunchbox, day after day, whether from optimism or laziness, I’m not sure. Day after day, I persisted in my war of attrition with the peach. Day after day, I watched it grow more bruised and mangled. Finally, I could take it no longer. I euthanized the poor fruit. And I quit packing lunch. 

I am a determined person who tackles problems pro-actively, believing that with enough stamina and flexibility, one can find a solution to any conundrum, no matter how thorny. I am a person who is sometimes wrong. 

As a parent, of course, you have to keep trying. Or at least, someone does. Which is why I decided to pass the baton to my husband. 

“Here,” I said, handing over the Dark Magic Lunchbox. “Good luck.”

“What should I pack?” he asked, innocent that he was. 

I smiled. “Why don’t you ask her?” 

Nicole C. Kear is the author of The Fix-It Friends, a chapter book series for children (Macmillan Kids), as well as the memoir Now I See You (St. Martin’s Press).

Art by Heather Heckel

Dispatches From Babyville: SLIME!

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: ,

Re: SLIME

That was the subject heading of the email I received from my son’s middle school about a year and a half ago. I was perplexed. 

I was familiar with the word “slime.” One might use it in all sorts of contexts, especially in relation to snails, or the sludge found in the corners of showers. But I was confounded as to why the middle school would be sending an e-blast about it. 

By Nicole Caccavo Kear, art by Heather Heckel

“Please be advised that the possession or selling of slime is prohibited at school,” the email read, before going on to detail the consequences for slime infractions.

I had so many questions. What kind of slime were we talking about here? And why would a kid want to collect it, take it places and, most inscrutably, sell it?  Also, even if they did, why would the school have a formal position on it? 

I read the email to my husband, and we laughed about it.

“At the end of the day, it’s just slime,” I chuckled. “What could be so terrible about slime?”

There is an Italian proverb my grandmother is fond of using when I’m laughing about something that’s no laughing matter. “Ridi, ridi, che la mamma ha fatto i gnocchi.” It means, “Laugh, laugh, your mom made gnocchi.” Okay, so it’s one of those lost-in translation kinds of things, but the message is: “Go ahead and laugh, you moron! We’ll see who’s laughing soon.” 

It’s an apt proverb to use here as I think of myself a year and a half ago, ignorant about the slippery slope of slime. Laugh, laugh, your kid made slime.

It wasn’t my 7th grade son that succumbed to the slime craze. It was my 4th grade daughter, affectionately known in these pages as Seconda. 

“Mom,” she said after school one day, a few weeks after the enigmatic email. “Can I make slime?”  

Ahhh, I thought, this mysterious slime again. 

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s fun,” she answered. Then, sensing that this truthful response wasn’t hugely compelling to a parent, she added: “It’s science! Mixing stuff up.” 

The classic parental Achilles Heel – an educational activity that is just as fun for kids as it is enriching.  Extra points if it relates to math or science.

“Well,” I said. “How do you make it?”

She explained that it was super easy and there were tons of recipes on the internet – all you needed was glue, shaving cream and Borax. 

“You mean, the stuff you clean clothes with?” 

She looked at me like I was a headless kangaroo: “How should I know?” 

The aspect of laundering Seconda’s responsible for is clothing transport – moving the wet clothes to the dryer and the dry clothes to the folding station (AKA my bed). Considering the percentage of clothes that end up on the floor in the process of transport, I don’t think she’ll be promoted to detergent–dispensing any time soon. So, she doesn’t know Borax from Borat.

“I don’t think you should be playing with Borax,” I said. “It seems dangerous.” 

She paused, then said: “Yeah, some kids have been getting chemical burns.”

“WHAT?” I shrieked. It’s unsettling as a neurotic parent when the worst-case-scenario you’ve cooked up ends out being an under-estimation. “If you knew that, why’d you ask me to use it?” 

She shrugged. “I forgot.” Then she added. “But don’t worry, because we can use contact lens solution instead.” 

“That’s good,” I said, trying to imagine ways that contact solution could harm a child. It had the benefit of being engineered expressly to be put in the eye, so that was a definite plus. 

Unable to think of potential bodily harm caused by saline solution, I agreed. That was the beginning of it all.  Slime, like a vampire, has to be invited in. 

Seconda assured me the process would be easy and she could do it all on her own. I didn’t argue. I am sure there are moms out there who enjoy supervising science experiments but I am not one of them. So I accompanied her to get the supplies and then left her to it.

Within about fifteen minutes, there were disquieting noises coming from the kitchen. It wasn’t beakers exploding, but tempers. 

“This is SO dumb!” my daughter yelled. “It DOESN’T WORK!

I walked into the kitchen and gasped. The word “mess” doesn’t come close to describing it. I am reminded of a story I heard, about a Youtube sensation who made a music video using large quantities of chicken hearts. The mess produced was so epic that the cleaning person hired took one look, walked straight out of the house and never came back. It was an unsalvageable mess, one you simply abandon. I think the chicken hearts are still there. This was my reaction upon entering the kitchen after Seconda’s inaugural slime mission.  It hadn’t been a science experiment so much as a battle between her and the glue. The glue won. By a landslide.

“Well, that’s the end of that,” I said after the kitchen was cleaned.

I’ll pause as we both laugh at my naivete.

Because, of course, failing to successfully make the slime only intensified my daughter’s yearning to get it right. A few weeks later, she started begging for another shot, taking a different tack. She reasoned that it was an activity we could do together — mother/ daughter bonding time! Mother/ daughter bonding science time! Did she mention she might want to be a neuroscientist when she grew up? Plus, she’d read that playing with slime was very therapeutic. It helped with stress and anxiety. 

“What helps with the stress and anxiety caused by the slime, though?” I asked. “That’s what I want to know.” 

You don’t need to be Stephen King to put this story together. 

The Slime Kraken had been unleashed. Eventually, I thought, this will get boring. After all, there are so many truly fascinating things that get boring so quickly for children; how could this – the combining of glue, shaving cream and contact lens solution – have unending hypnotic appeal? And yet it does. Maybe it’s because there’s limitless varieties of slime – from the obvious (fluffy slime) to the surprising (snow slime) to the nauseating (butter slime). It seems that you can make slime out of virtually anything – provided it is messy, and hard to get off a carpet. I bought my Kindergartener a pack of Model Magic and was glad to see Seconda partake in the art fun. A few minutes later, I saw her kneading her portion of Model Magic into one of her countless slime vats. 

“What?” she said when I gave her a look. “It makes super spongey slime.”

Her level of fixation is straight-up King Midas. I wouldn’t be surprised if I caught her trying to turn her sister into slime. 

The trouble with slime is, once you get rid of the Borax, it’s hard to point to what’s objectionable about it. Sure, there’s the mess, though this can, with enough rules born of trial-and-error, be contained. Seconda has waged the battle with the glue enough times that she’s able to win it more often than not, and my kitchen doesn’t need to be abandoned like a chicken-heart-strewn-music-video-set. 

Sure, there are slime accidents, and I have, on more than one occasion, stepped right into a sticky, gooey pile of glue gunk on my living room floor. Then I’ll banish slime for a while. and that works, for a few weeks . . . maybe months. Banishing always seems like an easy fix but read Romeo and Juliet or Sleeping Beauty and you’ll see how well it works out. Especially when the thing you’re banishing is mess. Because, when dealing with kids, when is there not a mess? Pretty much only when they’re plugged into screens — which is a whole other ball of wax. 

Maybe the reason the slime craze is so irritating is that I can’t fathom its appeal. 

“Why?” I’ve asked Seconda. “Why do you love slime so much?”

“It’s so satisfying,” is always her reply.

 There couldn’t be a more vague description of its allure. I just don’t get it. 

Which, I guess, means I’m officially the parent of a tween. 

Nicole C. Kear is the author of the chapter book series for children, The Fix-It Friends (Macmillan Kids). You can find more info at fixitfriendsbooks.com

 

Illustration by Heather Heckel

Be Prepared

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , , , , ,

 

I never went to sleepaway camp as a child. I never wanted to, really, and it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing my over-protective mother would have suggested. She wouldn’t even let my sisters take candy from strangers on Halloween, opting instead to drive us to pre-arranged trick-or-treating sites, where we could trust the Kit-Kats were razor-blade-free. My mother was what is now called a helicopter parent, though that would be an understatement, I think, for her style of watchful parenting.  

I always thought she went way overboard with her constant worrying.  Then I had children. And I still thought it was pretty overboard. And then I sent those children to sleepaway camp. 

It was the packing list that activated my anxiety. Not so much what was on the list, but what wasn’t. 

“I thought the list would be longer,” I told my husband David, handing over the single–sided sheet. “Can this really be all a ten-year-old needs? For two weeks? In the woods?”

Woods make me nervous. This is mainly because I’m a city girl, but the fairytales I read as a child didn’t help. In fairytales, nothing good every happens in the woods. When kids enter the woods, witches try to eat them and wolves try to eat them and huntsman try to rip their hearts out of their chests. 

“Everything she needs is on there,” said David, a veteran sleepaway camper and former Boy Scout. Despite his experience, I didn’t find this reassuring. He doesn’t really subscribe to the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared!” He’s a classic under-packer and the few times we’ve hiked, he’s refused to carry bear spray, and only begrudgingly consented to a bear whistle. 

So I decided to trust my instincts and use the camp’s packing list as a first draft, a rough outline on which to build. I wanted to benefit from the experience of other parents so I posted on Facebook, soliciting suggestions of items to add. 

“A bathrobe,” one friend wrote. “So she doesn’t have to walk from the bathrooms to her cabin in a towel.” 

“Flip flops, for the gross showers,” wrote another.

I read these to my husband, with satisfaction. 

“See? This stuff didn’t even occur to us!” I told him. “And we don’t want her walking around in a towel, for God’s sake. In the woods.”

“So pack her a bathrobe.” 

“Of course I’m packing her a bathrobe,” I said. “The point is, we almost overlooked all this stuff.”

“And she would have been fine,” he grumbled.

“And she would have gotten Athlete’s Foot.”

Another friend responded to my post, advising that I treat my daughter’s clothes with permethrin. When I, ignorant, asked what this was, she explained it was a tick repellant. 

Ticks. 

Ticks.

I’d been so busy worrying about bears that I’d forgotten about ticks. Lyme-disease-carrying poppy-seed-sized ticks. What else, I wondered, was I forgetting about? 

I purchased a large vat of Permethrin, which ended up being a sandora’s Box. Where do you draw the line on what gets treated? Shirts and shorts, obviously. But what about pajamas? And sheets? And the now-indispensable bathrobe? 

I chatted with another mom who was also sending her daughter to sleepaway camp for the first time, and at first, this fellow feeling relaxed me.

.“The more you know, the more you worry,” she said. 

“It’s true,” I agreed. 

“Il’s like, I used to enjoy water parks,” she sighed.

“What’s wrong with water parks?”  

“Oh, just the pedophiles.” 

“WHAT PEDOPHILES?” I nearly screamed. 

“Oh, it’s just – you didn’t know that water parks are, like, the number one place to find pedophiles?”

“No,” I said. “I did not know that.” 

There was much I did not know. The awareness of how much was, to say the least, disquieting.

The more I worried, the more stuff I added to my packing list. I could not eradicate ticks, or far worse things, but I could pack stuff to repel them.  My list swelled. 

I packed three different kinds of flashlights, with extra batteries, because if the woods are menacing, imagine the woods in the dark. 

I packed a battery-opened fan to clip onto the bed because what if it was broiling hot at night and she couldn’t fall asleep and that led to insomnia which can really ruin your day, I thought at 2am. 

I packed a large pile of pre-addressed and pre-stamped enough envelopes.

“It couldn’t be easier for her to write to us now?” I showed David with pride. 

“You could write the letters for her,” he said.  

“I’m just worried she won’t communicate with us and we won’t know what’s going on.” 

“Oh I know what you’re worried about,” he said. “Trust me.” 

Drowning. 

Tick bites.

Homicidal maniac loose in the woods.  

Bullying. 

Bears. 

Social isolation.

Meningitis.

Nuclear warfare.

Getting lost in the woods. 

Insomnia. 

Homesickness. 

That she’d have so much fun, her life back at home would pale in comparison, and she’d forever chase the halcyon days of summer camp. 

My list grew. It needed staples.

Worrying is really very exhausting but what’s far more exhausting is worrying while pretending you are not – the which is critical, of course. Because you want your child to be unfettered and free and have a great time! And not give a passing thought to secondary drowning!  I thought, more than once, that it was lucky I’d been professionally trained as an actress. 

The monumentally time-consuming and expensive feat of procuring every item on my list was only matched in difficulty by the feat of fitting it all in the oversize duffel bag I had purchased. I was up past midnight on the night before she left, but I managed to make it work. Before I zipped it closed and handed it over to David, I had the idea to write little notes of love and encouragement and to tuck them into pairs of socks and shirts and bathrobe pockets. Then I went to bed and worried that those notes might be embarrassing and lead to public ridicule and potentially bullying, item number four on my list of Stuff to Worry About. But by then, the duffel bag had been lugged out to the car and was out of reach. 

I knew it would be a battle not to cry when we said goodbye, but it was a battle I waged fiercely, knowing she’d take her cue from me, and it was a battle I won. My eyes were dry as I waved brightly and walked, fast, out the screen door. 

What I didn’t know is that immediately after that, I’d start to feel relieved. I waited for the other shoe to drop but it didn’t. My worry was dialed way down from High to a Low Simmer, the kind you can ignore. What took its place was excitement about all the adventures my daughter would have. 

As we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge, almost back home, I said to David: “I’m actually feeling better.”

“Good,” he said. “I thought you would. You like to be prepared. Though you do tend to go way overboard.”

“But I let them go trick-or-treating!” I protested. “And I really never worry about razor blades in the Kit Kats.”

He nodded. “We all have to start somewhere.”

 

 

Nicole C. Kear is the author of The Fix-It Friends chapter book series for children, including the most recent titles, Three’s A Crowd and Eyes on the Prize. You can find more info at nicolekear.com.

Illustration by Heather Heckel

 

 

How Do I Love Thee, NYC

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

I don’t need an “I heart NY” T-shirt to proclaim my love. The proof is in the being here. As a native, I didn’t have to come here from somewhere else, but I’ve stayed. I’ve chosen to make this city home to my three kids, aged 5, 10 and 13. So, clearly, I love New York. 

But not always. 

Any relationship takes work, and my long-term love affair with the city is no different.  As places go, it’s not the easiest to keep loving. It’s high-maintenance, draining, often temperamental. It can be difficult, sometimes maddeningly so.  I just finished helping my son apply to high school while also helping my daughter apply to middle school – and if that doesn’t explain why New York and I are on the outs, nothing will.

If I could find a T shirt to express my feelings about NY of late, it wouldn’t be “I heart NY.” It would be “I have-to-sometimes-wonder-what-the-hell-I’m-still-doing-in NYC.”  Life would be easier, and cheaper, and warmer, in a lot of other places.

When this happens, when I’m fed up with re-routed trains, and exorbitantly-priced cups of coffee, when I’ve had enough of the (sometimes literal) rat race, and with the anxiety and stress that sometimes seems inescapable in the city that never sleeps — when this happens, I need to focus on the little things I love about my hometown.

I can remind myself of the big perks, the headliners – the diversity, the culture from museums to plays to music, the incredible schools I’m now intimately acquainted with – but those things, while convincing on a cerebral level, don’t make my heart melt. It’s like reading your husband’s resume – it reminds you he looks good on paper but, it doesn’t make you swoon. What makes you swoon are the small idiosyncrasies, his off-kilter sarcasm, the scratch of his unshaved face, the particular tilt of his head as he looks at you over the tops of his glasses.

What makes me swoon for this city are the same kind of small stuff, stuff that doesn’t mean anything but, at the same time, means everything. How do I love thee, NYC? Let me count the ways.

1) Secret subway art 

Have you ever been on the D train, wearily staring out the filthy window, as the subway barrels out of DeKalb? And then, suddenly you think you’re seeing things because, somehow, impossibly, you seem to watching a movie on the subway wall? It’s not the mad musings of an addled brain, it’s Bill Brand’s Masstransiscope, a flipbook-style moving picture painted in the old Myrtle station. There’s so many little gems of subway art like this – the Beehive Lights at Broadway-Lafayette are another one of my favorites. That surprise, that unexpected delight, the beauty when you least expect it, that’s exactly what I love most about New York.

2) Bodega cats

Just bodegas, themselves, should be high on any list of things to love about NYC They’re the kind of things you don’t miss until they’re gone. Such was the case when I moved to LA and couldn’t figure out where to get an egg-and-cheese sandwich for under $3 in three minutes or less, while also buying Tylenol and laundry detergent. Bodegas are enough to love on their own. But the cats that live in bodegas, and create for my animal-loving (and animal-deprived) children an extensive network of surrogate pets – well, those turn the bodegas from great to beloved.

3) Walk-and-eat pizza

There is no pizza, anywhere, more portable than the New York slice.  Okay, Rome maybe. But, even then, the square shape makes it less ideal for eating while walking. The New York slice pleases palates, wallets and tight schedules, all at the same time. Let us never take it for granted.

 

4) The New York minute

Sometimes, when I’m outside of New York, I can’t help but feel like I’ve taken some psychedelic drug that make time slow to a crawl, just meeeeeeeelt, like I’m in a Dali painting. Things that take 30 seconds in NYC, like tossing a pizza pie into a box, take five . . . full . . . minutes. Now, this item probably should go on the list of “Things About NYC that Ruin You for Other Places and Probably, Just Ruin You in General” but I’m choosing to put it here. A minute in New York counts for five in most other places. So, in a way, we’re living longer. If you don’t count the toll exacted by such stress.

5) People wearing incredible things

In all sense of the word incredible – the good, the bad, and the incomprehensible. Once I saw a bunch of youngish-sounding guys wearing paper bags on their heads. Not only do I enjoy how much more interesting this makes a commute, I also relish the freedom it affords me. Knowing that a paper bag is a feasible apparel option for me – well, that’s priceless.

6) Hearing more languages than you knew existed

On the bus and the train and the sidewalk, in pharmacies and coffee shops and laundromats and banks and bathrooms and elevators. Not only do I love hearing the sounds of words I don’t understand, I love hearing my kids hear those sounds. Because what those sounds unlock is the understanding that the world is big, so big, bigger than us, bigger than we can even imagine. And what a thing to know.

7) People making music everywhere

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, raises my spirits like the right busker singing the right song at the right time. Just this morning, a guy with a guitar and a killer voice singing “I’ll Fly Away” brought grace and gratitude to my morning commute.

There’s one such moment I always think of as a kind of quintessential New York moment, a magic moment that stands apart from the rest of memory in a little well-preserved bubble. It was about two years ago, a Sunday afternoon in May and my daughter, then 8, and I were on our way to Union Square, to see a guy about a hamster. It was her first-ever real pet, and she was brimming over with joyful anticipation. A trio of men walked into our car, singing “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” and the way their voices worked together, you could tell they’d been working together for a while. It was a big,robust sound that filled the whole car, and made us look up and smile. The passengers enjoyed the song, so much so that the trio stuck around and as we pulled into the Prince Street started a new song. “Raspberry Beret.”

“It’s Prince!” my daughter exclaimed, “On Prince Street!”

It was, indeed. Prince had died only weeks before so our listening had an unusual reverence to it.

Maybe it was because my daughter was clapping with particular fervor, or maybe it was the dollar she dropped in the hat held out for donations, but when they were done with Prince, they started singing “My Girl.” To my girl. It was a sudden, sweet serenade and my daughter beamed every bit as bright as sunshine on a rainy day.

The voices of these three strangers twined together to express, perfectly, the full feeling in my heart just then. And for a moment, I think all of us on the train felt it – or, if not all then, many. The trio and I did, at least, and my girl did, too.

A moment later, we got off the train at Union Square. My daughter was smiling the kind of smile mothers live for.

“I think that was a good omen,” she said.

I smiled back. “Me, too.”

 

Nicole C. Kear is the author of The Fix-It Friends chapter book series for kids, including Eyes on the Prize, and Three’s A Crowd, released this January from Macmillan Kids. For more info, visit fixitfriendsbooks.com.

Art by Brenda Cibrian

ONE BAD APPLE

By Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: , , , , , ,

You know when you share something you love with someone you love only to find they don’t love it the way you do? Or, even, at all? I’ve been on the receiving end of this equation frequently. It happens every time my 12 and 10-year old kids show me something on Youtube.

“Isn’t this hilarious?” they’ll ask, peering over at me expectantly.

“Uh huh,” I’ll reply, trying to simulate a smile. “Funny.”

But really I am thinking, “Is the damage done to my children’s brains from this onslaught of insipid garbage reparable?”

I love my kids but I do not always love what they love.  YouTube clips just aren’t my thing.

Recently, I was on the other end of this equation.

Recently, I took my grandmother apple picking.

Apple picking, to my mind, is far less objectionable than YouTube clips. In fact, it seems totally unobjectionable. What’s not to love about apple picking?

The orchard is beautiful. It smells good. You get all the benefits of nature, without having to get too dirty or exhausted, without incurring a lot of expense or doing much preparation. It’s Nature Lite, which is always my preference. And then, of course, there’s the apples. Who doesn’t love sinking their teeth through the taut skin of a perfectly tart Mutsu, newly plucked from its branch?

My grandmother, as it turns out.

It’s not that my grandmother doesn’t enjoy chomping into a nice Mutsu. She’d just prefer it if the Mutsu was eaten first.

My grandmother, Nonny, lived through World War ii, in Italy. This experience has made her averse to several things, not the least of which is wastefulness. It’s one of her defining characteristics — that, her obsessive cleanliness and her addiction to Dr. Phil.

Instead of the ubiquitous parental refrain, “Children in Africa are starving!” in my house, when you didn’t finish your food, you heard, “During the war, we woulda killed for dis rotten tomato!”

My grandmother eats leftovers, exclusively. Consequently, she doesn’t eat meals with us. She waits until we leave, takes stock of her leftovers and feasts on rejects. I can’t be sure because I’m not privy to this part, but I believe that in addition to her enjoyment of the food, there’s an added sense of purpose she feels, not unlike a solider in combat. She is, in a way, a soldier, waging a one-woman war against waste.

I didn’t forget this about Nonny when I invited her apple picking. It’s not something you can forget. It’s like forgetting that Dora’s an explorer or that dogs have fur.

What I’d forgotten is that apple picking is pretty much an exercise in waste.

It was mid-October, and we piled into the car early, positioning Nonny in the backseat with the kids. This is the only seat she will accept, Within an hour and a half, we were pulling through the orchard gate. Spirits were high, though – it’s worth noting – not infection. t

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I asked Nonny.

“Sure,” she said shrugging. She did not look displeased, which, sometimes, is the best you can hope for with grandmothers.

We decided our plan of attack while looking for a parking space.  First, Mutsu, if there were any left. Then Empires, Macintoshes and Red Delicious, for my husband. I find Red Delicious apples pedestrian but permissible. Jonagolds, or any other variety of Golden Delicious apples, on the other hand, is where I draw the line. I’d rather eat a pear.

My kids bounded out of the car and sprung into Turbo Picking mode while I helped Nonny out of the backseat.

“Be careful!” I warned Nonny as she stepped out. “The ground is covered in apples – it’s slippery.”

She looked down to the carpet of rotting apples underfoot, so many apples it looked more like a monochromatic ball pit than a grassy knoll. She gasped audibly.

“Whadda heck is dis?”

“Oh, it’s always like that,” I reassured her. “The apples fall and they rot or whatever.”

My 10-year-old daughter had, by then, already yanked an apple, taken a bite and was hurling it as far as she could over our heads.

“This tree’s no good!” my daughter announced. “Keep moving.”

“Whaddaya doin’?” Nonny shrieked. “You take-a one bite and trow it away?”

“No, No, Nonny, it’s okay,” I clarified. “That’s what you do. You taste the apples, but you don’t eat the whole thing.”

I’ve always enjoyed this part of the picking, because it makes me feel like Ramona Quimby, when she hid in her basement and took one bite out of all those apples. The first bite is the best. You can’t argue with that.

By the time I’d finished explaining the apple tasting system to Nonny, my daughter had already tasted, and discarded, a handful more apples. With every apple abandoned, my grandmother grew more apoplectic, Apple-plectic, if you will.

“Gimme da apples!” she ordered. “I gonna finish dem.”

So we did. We’d take a bite then pass them to Nonny. She ate as fast as she could. But there were many of us and only one of her. Soon, her hands were full of once-bitten apples. Soon, she started to look a little nauseous.

“Stop eating all the apples,” I warned her. “You’re going to get sick.”

“You wanna me to waste all de apples? Come on!” she said, her voice full of disgust.

Several times, I caught her picking apples up off the ground and polishing them on her shirt.

“Nothin’a da matta wit dis one!” she protested.

The kids were happy.

David and I were happy.

Nonny, not so much.

“Nonny, isn’t this fun?” I asked.

“Okay,” she replied, not able to mask the pained expression on her face.

We ate our picnic lunch — cold cuts piled on Italian bread. When asked what kind of sandwich she’d like, my grandmother replied, “Gimme what nobody else wants.”

After a few hours, we loaded everyone in the car, and heaved the massive, bulging bag of apples into the trunk.

“So, what’d you think?” I asked Nonny, turning around to face her.

“Very nice,” she said, but any fool could see it had been a trial. She doesn’t simulate smiles. It’s the prerogative of the over-80 crowd.

“And look at all the apples we got!” I continued, not one to give up easy.

“Please!” she protested. “No more apples! I neva wanna see anotha apple as long as I live!”

Not only had Nonny not enjoyed our excursion but, I realized, it was entirely possible that I had ruined apples for her, forever.

From now on, the only place I’m taking Nonny apple picking is the supermarket.

 

Nicole C. Kear is the author of THE FIX-IT FRIENDS (Macmillan Kids), a chapter book series for children. You can find books 1 through 4 in bookstores now, and more info on FixItFriendsBooks.com.