For the Class of 2026

(This post was originally written in August 2012.  It's amazing to me that the sun has risen and set every single day since then),

This morning, on our last day of vacation on Long Beach Island, I set my iPhone alarm early so that I could walk the four blocks to the beach to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean.  I had told E the night before about my plans, and he wanted in.  So at 5:35 am, I nudged him gently awake, pulled a sweatshirt over him, and we set off, his sleepy hand in mine, down to the shore.  On the way, the lights in a bagel shop had just flickered on, so we stopped for a plain hot bagel for E and a steaming cup of coffee for me.  

At one point on our walk, he looked up and noticed the moon, which had just begun to blend in with the brightening sky.   When we got to the beach, we took off our shoes and walked along the damp sand, dipping our toes in the chilled water.  The tide was low and E wanted to know why the water was so much farther out than when he had splashed in the waves all week.  Drawing on my rudimentary knowledge of seventh grade oceanography, I explained how the moon acts like a magnet, pulling the water closer and then pushing it back.  As the sun began its daily ascent, coloring the sky an orange-pink and then daytime yellow, I marveled at how it seemed so unordinary, how this ritual of nature seemed more like a singular brilliant performance.  Emmet chased his extra-long shadow on the uninhabited beach.  I snapped pictures frantically, of Emmet and of the sunrise, afraid to miss even one second of these precious minutes before summer was over. 

A few days earlier, I’d done the same thing, snapping away as my almost-five year old navigated an oversized slice of pizza into his tiny mouth, until finally he scowled, “Stop taking pictures of me, Mom!”   Sheepishly, I turned my iPhone off and let him eat his pizza in peace, without my persistent demands to “Smile!”, “Say cheese!”, or “Look at me!”  But less than an hour later, I had whipped it out again.  I couldn’t resist the ice cream on his nose or the victorious grin at the bottom of a formidable waterslide.  By the end of the week, he categorically refused to smile for any picture, much less shout out for gorgonzola.   My frenetic picture-taking is annoying to him, but I don’t care.  I need to capture every moment before Emmet begins kindergarten next week.   Yes, kindergarten.  As a friend posted on Facebook last night, “This shit is getting real!”  And it is this reality that has hovered over my entire summer, making me nostalgic for changing diapers, cutting up his grapes into quarters, even Yo Gabba Gabba.  Ok, maybe not that.

But, to be fair, entering kindergarten is big.  Kindergarten begins a twelve-year course, which, for Emmet, will commence next week and hopefully culminate on a June day in 2026.  I am delighted with the school we have chosen for him and it was a pleasure to take him to Target to pick out an R2D2 lunchbox and Lightning McQueen backpack. But the fact that he is part of the “Class of 2026,” unnerves me: it places him in that  “race to the top,” or “race to nowhere,” but nevertheless a race that I worry may move too quickly for him, and definitely too rapidly for an amateur photographer like me.   

I’ve been a teacher for 17 years.  My first class of third graders turns 25 this year.  (According to Facebook, at least one of them has a kid; I’m a grandteacher!)  I know how quickly kindergarten will become first grade, and all the grades after that.  I have previewed his entire school trajectory: memorizing multiplication tables, dissecting a worm, visiting Washington DC on the 8th grade trip, attending a prom.  Suddenly, Emmet’s provincial world has blown up; he will be part of a force that is bigger than he.    

But it’s also kind of cool.  This person, created from our dust and love, will be a bit in a gargantuan machine, a working part of the American education system.  His standardized test scores will count towards national averages.  He might be a whiz at math. He may enter science or writing contests that reveal vital truths and lead to important discoveries.  I suspect that his current love of maps will translate into a love of geography, and may compel him to travel to places his parents have never been.  

I realize that my frenetic photography is less about capturing moments than it is about freezing time altogether.  And I know that I can do that as well as the moon can stem the tides. I will just have to settle for watching my own little force of nature, my brilliant sun and son, as he creates his own command performances.  I will be the one holding the camera.  

Welcome to Emmet's House

 

    As we pulled out of our driveway that early April day, Emmet noticed a bird’s nest at the edge of our lawn. A lone housefinch, chest flushed red, peered at us as we waved goodbye to our home. 

“See you in June!” Emmet chirped from the backseat, settling into a worn copy of Dog Man.  We were headed 150 miles northeast to Boston, clinging to hope that the bone marrow transplant he would undergo in less than a week would return him to health and more carefree days. My mind drifted to Joni Mitchell’s Circle Game, the unofficial anthem to seasons and summer camp.

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons

Skated over ten clear frozen streams

Emmet is ten, I mused, like the boy in the song. I winced, remembering that Emmet would miss another summer at his own beloved sleep away camp.

Words like, when you're older, must appease him

And promises of someday make his dreams

The seasons had gone round and round, but for us, they had morphed into one long, seasonless night as Emmet's hospital stay extended from April to May then June, July, August, September. 

It turns out “when you’re older” is not a given, and promises of someday aren’t always kept. In late September, Jeff and I returned home, the backseat empty.

We hadn't waited at the hospital to hear the official cause of death. After three transplants, multiple rounds of chemo, and, finally, intubation, we knew Emmet's body had simply had enough. 

“I can’t take it anymore,” he’d wailed, as they rolled his bed to the ICU for the last time. As though he were ninety years old and not almost eleven.

“You can,” I’d begged. “Every day is one day closer to going home.”

But he knew. I knew. We didn’t know we knew. 

When Jeff and I stumbled into our house that late September day, it was as if we’d plummeted from the sky, wings shredded, into the broken remains of a nest we didn’t recognize anymore. Our grief exploded through the doorway, spattering each corner of our house with drops of despair.  My sister and brother-in-law were there to break our fall, as we fell to the floor sobbing, clipped and broken. 

Still taped to our front door was a red paper square Emmet made when he was five, in shaky letters: Wlcum to Emmets house.

Was it still Emmet’s house? Was it still ours? 

When a nest is shattered, birds don’t always fly away. Some circle back, again and again, hovering over the broken twigs, in what biologists call “searching behavior,” frantically looking for their nest or young. Some birds linger around a destroyed nest, unable to comprehend their loss. A mother bird may leave the nest—somewhere quieter, somewhere she can rebuild.

The following weeks we moved in a fog around the house. Echoes of baseball catches and games of tag reverberated in our backyard. His room lay untouched—unfinished books on his nightstand, dirty laundry in his hamper. At night, I crawled into his bed and buried my face in the pillowcase that still held his scent, fainter each day.

We decided to put the house on the market. 

“We can look at those apartments downtown by the water,” I suggested to Jeff.  “There’s a gym in the building.”

As if a Peloton could make up for the loss of our child.

We saw shiny new buildings with glass walls, perched high above the harbor—luxury nests, far from the wreckage of our own. I pictured long walks by the harbor, breathing in salty air, cleansing the sludge in my brain, the ache in my bones.  

But I feared the quiet and the thoughts that crept into my head. What if I had noticed his bruises earlier? What if we’d opted for the stronger chemotherapy? What if we had waited a few months longer for a better match? What if we’d chosen a different hospital?

We found a different one-bedroom apartment, steps away from a movie theater and a Mexican restaurant that smelled of cilantro and grease.  It was loud. Chaotic. Safe. We decided to sign a one-year lease. The woman at the rental office was on vacation, but the papers would be ready next week.

When we got home that afternoon, I saw the housefinch, her breast as crimson as the leaves that had already fallen, like a ripened nectarine. She sat on the same high branch. Why was she here, lingering in a vacated tree, tangled in the branches of a nest with no leaves, no protection, no warmth?

Some birds refuse to leave their nests. 

We didn’t sign the lease. 

We couldn't leave. Some part of me, steeped in magical thinking, believed that if we stayed–if we didn’t change the address of his world—he’d know where to find us. Understanding something in your mind doesn’t mean it’s fully absorbed by your heart.

Time passed. The grief didn’t fade but the memories became fuzzier, the pain softer.

A new son arrived in our nest and with him, an understanding: home isn’t the nest itself, but the echoes within it. The joy of rebuilding. The love that lingers in the rafters. The screeches of little boys discovering dragonflies. The way that 3-year old Oz hugs the stuffed elephant that his big brother left behind. 

The red square of paper that flutters each time we open the door.  

Wlcum to Emmets house.

Dear Camp Photographer....

Dear Camp Photographer,

I know we had a complicated relationship last summer when Emmet was at sleep-away camp for three and a half weeks.  I spent hours scouring the camp photo website, refreshing and refreshing.  I searched for any sign of my child: a piece of his ear, a corner of his T-shirt, a recognizable shoe.  And then, when there were photos of his whole, actual face and body, I wondered why he was standing two feet behind a happy-looking group of kids or why he was wearing long pants and long sleeves on a 90-degree day or why he was smiling ear-to-ear as his head popped out of a metal garbage can.  I implored you to take more photographs of my boy (ok, never directly to you, but isn’t telepathy in your job description?)

Anyway, I’m here to make amends.  I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you planned to put my overdressed little boy in scores of photos this summer.  And if you weren’t, we had a plan for that too: I may or may not have offered him $1 for every photo in which I could actually discern his face, and since he is saving up for more Nintendo Switch games, I was expecting scads.  Furthermore, he had signed up for photography as an elective because he realized the power of being behind the camera. (Everyone loves the camp photographer, right?)

But, as Steinbeck warned, the best laid plans of mice and men—and moms—sometimes go awry.

Yup, the plan was for me to see lots more of Emmet this summer.  But not in the way it unfolded.   You see, Emmet was recently diagnosed with a bone marrow disease that will keep him away from his summer home this year.  If you were taking pictures of him this summer, you’d see a lot of bruises and little red dots called petechiae all over his body.   Sometimes, now, when I look at the pictures from last summer, I wonder what was brewing inside his body as he played four square or sailed on Lake Potanipo.   Were his platelets already dwindling?  Was his bone marrow already sleeping on the job, causing his red and white blood cell production to subside?  

So this summer, instead of sailing and four square, Emmet will be home with his dad and me.  There will be a field trip to the hospital for a few days, where he will undergo immunosuppressive therapy treatment that will basically suppress his immune system and hopefully, reboot it.  After that, “Camp Home” will commence.  Electives will include playing badminton in our yard, reading books together, and way more video games than there ought to be.  Rest hour will be extended, and evening activities will consist of barbecues, watching movies, and playing Exploding Cats and other oddly named board games.  There won’t be any color war but there will be lots of hugs and ice cream and probably eye-rolling at my attempt to be “counselor Mom.” 

And, dear camp photographer, next summer I hope to be cursing you once again—from behind my computer screen, of course—for not having enough pictures of my kid.

Fondly,

Lisa M.     

Don't Kill the Mockingbird

Two days before Parkland, a trending post on my Facebook feed featured an article about how schools in Minnesota and Mississippi were eliminating Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird from their curriculums because “there is some [racist] language in the book that makes people uncomfortable.”

As an eighth grade English teacher, this distressed me; my richest discussions with my students about social justice and empathy have emerged from reading this novel together.   Plus, all the hot topics are addressed: addiction, racial inequality, gun control.  To Kill a Mockingbird has been resonant and relevant since it was published in 1960.

Then Parkland happened and I realized how pivotal this book is at this particular American moment.  In her masterpiece, Lee reveals what courage really is and, poignantly, what it isn’t.  

For those who might have forgotten the finer details, To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer who chooses to defend a black man in a trial in 1930s Alabama.  To his two children, Jem and Scout, he is a feeble old man: he doesn’t play football or wrestle, and he is always putting the kibosh on the fun they have tormenting their outcast neighbor Boo Radley. (Is it coming back to you yet?)

One day, a rabid dog comes limping onto the Finch property.  The town’s sheriff, (“ the good guy with the gun”) afraid he would miss his target, summons Atticus, who is known as “the best shot in town”-- unbeknownst to his own children.  Atticus shoots the dog dead in one shot. When this hidden talent is revealed, Jem and Scout are delighted.  Their dad has the coolest trait of all: he can shoot! Atticus is redeemed in his children’s eyes.

Shortly after this incident, Atticus dispatches Scout and Jem to the old and sickly Mrs. Dubose’s house, where they have been ordered to read to the cantankerous woman each afternoon for a month.  They sit and watch her, repulsed, as her head lolls, her eyes roll back, and her frail body writhes in pain.  They are relieved when their month-long stint is up, but soon after, Atticus reports that Mrs. Dubose has died.  

He explains that she had been sick for a long time, prescribed morphine for her pain.  When the doctor told her she only had a few months left to live, she decided to quit morphine. This was an excruciatingly painful process, as evidenced by Jem and Scout, but Mrs. Dubose succeeded in dying on her own terms, free from the bonds of addiction.  Atticus calls her the bravest woman he ever knew, and explains to his children why he sent them over to read with her:

"I wanted to show you what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Atticus knows that his children, with their simple thinking, equate heroic courage with guns.  He sends them to Mrs. Dubose to show them that real courage is not about guns, but about fighting for what you believe in, even if it’s difficult and painful; even if you know you will lose.  

Atticus further underscores his point by discouraging his children from shooting guns at any live creature.  But, he says, “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird….mockingbirds don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.” In other words, it is downright wrong to use a gun to kill something purely innocent, like mockingbirds.  

Or children.   

Lee couldn’t be clearer: courage is personified by the Parkland students and those following their lead.  Courage isn’t men, women, or teachers with guns. Courage is students who take a stand for what they believe is right, despite the greatest of odds and the deepest of pockets.  These teens are brazen and fearless, going head-to-head with the NRA, challenging old norms and outdated ideas with new, hard-won understandings about human rights.

They are inspiring a movement among their peers. Students are marching to their state capitals, planning walk-outs, and writing open letters on social media forums.  They are risking punishment at school, possibly jeopardizing their admittance to colleges (though it is notable that many colleges are sending out statements that this activism will not impact their admission). They are learning that change will not come easy, if at all, but they are all in anyway.  

"It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Sometimes you do.  

To Kill a Mockingbird is more important now than ever.  Literature, with its universal ideas and timeless messages, can bring us together, as we drift apart in so many other ways.  This novel teaches us what true courage is, how taking a stand can make a difference, how empathy can ease tensions within a community.  LITERATURE MAKES US BETTER HUMAN BEINGS.

But only if we read it.

It is the wrong time to remove this book from a school’s curriculum.  This book belongs front and center in the classroom, not relegated to some dusty shelves for kids to find for themselves.  Teachers must share this book and facilitate the difficult conversations it elicits, even about racial slurs and social justice.  These discussions are what will allow real progress to happen.   

Classrooms have become battlefields, both literally and metaphorically.  We must all summon our courage--the kind that Harper Lee extolled--and make sure our classrooms are places where ideas are the only things flying across the room.    

   

The Snow Day

Snow Day

I could see the snow falling from the window of my bedroom, before I even stepped out of bed.  Ashy tree limbs were already being weighed down by this first snow of the season.  

“Seymour, Stamford, Stratford, Trumbull…”   I snapped off the radio on my night table, as the announcer confirmed my most fervent wish: snow day!   I pulled the covers gleefully to my chin as I considered how to spend my free day.  I could finish Sweet Valley High #12 and start #13, or challenge my sister to a Go Fish card tournament.  I would make macaroni and cheese on the stove and baby hot dogs in the toaster.  Our mess-averse mother would be going to work, so what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Snow days held delicious possibilities for a fourteen year old.   

After a morning of watching The Sound of Music for the hundredth time, I made lunch for Amy and myself, boiling the tiny macaroni from the blue box, cutting butter and measuring out  milk, and finally sprinkling in that utterly orange packet of powder .  We ladeled big ceramic bowls of the steaming fluorescent concoction for ourselves, and carefully brought our food to the family room to eat in front of the television—a forbidden delight.  We settled into the deep brown velvet couch –our mother really didn’t like dirt--and Amy went back to the kitchen to make us hot chocolate.   I flipped through all thirteen channels before deciding on As the World Turns.   I was fairly bored by soap operas, but fascinated by the actress’ makeup.  Their faces looked like palettes to me: blank slates on which artists could color, shade, line, gloss and brush.   The effect was dramatic and reminded me of the charcoal drawings we did in art class. 

Amy came back with two mugs, clanking them down noisily on the large tinted-glass coffee table, spilling some of the sweet brown liquid.  I made a note to clean it up later, as we settled back with our perfect snow-day lunch, discussing our afternoon sledding plans.

As the world turned on our TV, our regularly scheduled program was interrupted by the exciting news of a rocket launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  The Space Shuttle Challenger was notable because there was a “civilian” on board the spacecraft—a teacher from North Carolina.  While I couldn’t relate to astronauts, a teacher was different.  I had a feeling that I wanted to be a teacher someday, and the prospect of one in space fascinated me.  Christa McAuliffe.  Her name already felt legendary to me.  In the pictures, her eyes looked kind and I bet she was the kind of teacher who made school fun for her students.  Along with her were six other astronauts, who would accompany her into space, all donning bright orange spacesuits with the NASA logo emblazoned across the front.  I watched video footage from minutes earlier, as the Seven walked down the runway toward the Challenger, holding their helmets at their sides.  They were all smiling, looking calm and composed.  I imagined that their unruffled demeanor belied a bubbling excitement underneath.   I leaned forward and put my bowl down on the coffee table to watch history unfold, live, as NASA launched the spacecraft for the world to see.  

“Tee minus 10,9,8,7,6…we have main engine start…4, 3, 2, 1, lift-off! Lift off of the 25^th space shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower.” The announcer’s voice rose on the second “lift off” and I could hear the exhilaration in his voice.  I watched as the shuttle launched powerfully into the clear blue sky, a nimble dolphin leaping from the water, rotating slowly, at once heavy and graceful.    I remember feeling amazed at how this profoundly dense machine could move so delicately, so purposefully towards the heavens.   I was mesmerized.   I kept imagining how Christa the schoolteacher felt, looking out the shuttle window, watching the earth become smaller and smaller.  

Then, 73 seconds later, the graceful arc turned into a hellish dive, right in front of my eyes.  The spectacular scene became at once horrific, as the beautiful flying machine exploded into debris, dust, and fire; a mass of cloud spewing two snaky white plumes on either side.   I didn’t know what was happening.  Amy looked to me for an explanation, her blue eyes wide with alarm and confusion.

“What happened?  Are the astronauts going to die?”

At the time, I actually imagined that they might not.  The sophisticated spacecraft had to have an eject button that could catapult the astronauts to safety.  I imagined that later that night, they would be found, maybe hurt and tangled up in a parachute in the middle of the woods somewhere, but alive.   That hope was quickly dashed by the newscasters.   The six astronauts and one “civilian” were dead.  I didn’t understand why the newscasters kept making that distinction between astronaut and civilian; to me, seven people had just been killed.  Just 73 seconds earlier, seven families who had been gazing upwards with pride and triumph were now watching the sky in despair and anguish.   From my living room, I felt their devastation.  

I was supposed to be in school that cold day in January, watching a film about eastern aboriginal tribes or learning algebra or making charcoal drawings. Instead I had a snow day and I watched a soap opera that got interrupted by a tragedy.  

The Window

Twelve years, six apartments, two serious relationships, and approximately 800 first dates after I moved into New York City for graduate school, I finally found my husband at age 34.

Divorced with three kids, Jeff was sweet, sincere, and lacked a city-savviness that I found refreshing. Our first date involved sushi, a long walk on a cool spring night, and baking gluten-free cookies until well past midnight. When he called me the following evening to ask when he could see me again, I dared to feel giddy and hopeful for the first time in a long while.

Read the rest on Kveller!

http://www.kveller.com/marrying-late-didnt-stop-me-from-having-a-family/

Counting Blessings

(posted on Scarymommy, September 18, 2014)

I just sold my Pottery Barn changing table on craigslist, so it’s official: I’m only having one kid.

My family has not taken the shape I expected it would, back when I was first expecting. 

Eight years ago when I started dating Jeff a divorced father of three small children, I had been galavanting around New York City for over a decade, unsure if I would ever meet my future husband.  On the one month anniversary of our first date, I confronted him with my deal breaker question:

 “Do you want to have more kids?” I asked, prepared for my whirlwind romance to end.

“I’d have one or two,” he said.  I heard “two,” and dared to be hopeful that Jeff was “the one.” 

Six weeks after our wedding, I became pregnant with Emmet, at the “advanced maternal age” of 36.  In my mind, that left plenty of time to have another before I reached the super-advanced maternal age of 40.  But we agreed to not even talk about it until Emmet was one year old. I turned my attention to my beautiful baby boy, and put the conversation away for a year.  

But when Emmet turned one, Jeff tensed up and avoided my eyes when I brought up number two.  I knew that he was feeling the emotional and financial pressure of supporting two families. I decided not to push it too hard, afraid it might drive us apart, as my maternal age kept galloping along.  

“I just want Emmet to have siblings,” I’d reason.

“Emmet already has siblings,” he reminded me.  

It is worth mentioning that Jeff’s kids are outstanding.  At ages 12, 14, and 15, they love Emmet completely, and include him much more than I remember including my own younger sister in my social life. Emmet has no idea what a “half” sibling is and even when he learns, it won’t matter to him.  If you ask him, he will proudly tell you he has two “brudders” and a sister, who write him letters from sleep away camp and cave in to endless demands for “Too Many Monkeys.” 

But we only get to see them on alternate weekends, and I wanted for Emmet what I had with my own sister: a daily companion with whom to ride bikes before dinner, whisper late at night, or roll eyes when Mom is being totally embarrassing. 

My friends’ families were starting to multiply. When they would share the joyful news that they were expecting Baby #2, I cringed and smiled.

“That’s the best news!” I’d say, my voice unnaturally high and shaky.  I was happy for them, but unhappy for me. I felt my family was incomplete. 

To boot, we moved into a community where dozens of families have multiple kids.  At one of my first events at Emmet’s preschool, a small woman covered from head to toe in black, a basketball of a belly protruding from her tiny frame, greeted me warmly, asking if Emmet had any siblings.  As usual, I felt like I had to make an excuse for having just one child.

 “He has three half-siblings, so sometimes we have a pretty full house,” I explained, maybe just a wee bit patronizingly.  “Is this your first?”

“My ninth,” she responded.   

Poof. Smugness evaporated. She had a full-time Little League team to my part-time four square.  

As I turned 37, 38, 39, I started to worry about my waning window of fertility.   But then, just a few weeks before my 40th birthday, I was surprised and thrilled when I peed on a stick and two short lines appeared, a veritable “equals” sign that rendered me equal to my fellow moms with two kids.  

My anxieties about having an only child suddenly became irrelevant, and I began making important plans in my head, like how to transform the guest bedroom into a baby’s room and how to cleverly announce my pregnancy on Facebook. But seven weeks into it, on a balmy night at my parents’ house in Florida, an unwanted splotch punctuated a heartbreaking end to those plans.    

After that, it became clear to me that a second child was unlikely.  My body clearly wasn’t into it and my heart began to follow suit.  

At first, I rationalized that it was much more manageable to watch one kid in the pool and to pack just one nut-free, well-balanced lunch.  It was easier to send just one child to the private school that we fell in love with or to summer camp for a full eight weeks.  It was simpler to bathe one child and brush one set of teeth after a long, exhausting day of work.  

I wouldn’t have minded reading an extra bedtime story or two. Though probably not nine. 

So I arrange lots of playdates, plan vacations with other families, and make sure that we spend as much time as possible with Emmet’s cousins, “brudders,” and sister. I try to surround him with people who love him, always.  I have come to realize that family isn’t a number.  

And the only thing I count are my blessings. 

Epic Fail

This past summer, I taught my child to fail.

This must defy some canon of parenthood, which compels us to equip our children with all the things they need to succeed.

But by summer’s end, my husband and I had exhausted our bag of tricks (and our patience) trying to teach almost-6-year old Emmet to ride his two-wheel bike: the same bike from which he had begged us to remove the training wheels, after watching a younger neighbor zipping around on two wheels.

Read the rest on kveller.com!

http://www.kveller.com/how-i-taught-my-son-to-fail/

The Passover Story in Rhyme

The Passover Story: Board Book Style
An oldie, but goodie!  Jeff and I wrote this "Passover story" a few years ago, when Emmet was delighted by (obsessed with) Sandra Boynton board  books.  Enjoy!!

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A Pharoah says “WORK!”

The Jews say “Nahhhh”

Baby Moses in the river cries 

“Whaa Whaa Whaa”

Moses was saved

Raised by Pharoah’s crew

Even within the palace walls

Moses knew he was a Jew

“No, No” Moses says

“This isn’t right

My fellow Jews work

All day and night”

Moses warns of plagues

“There will be 10 in a row

Pharoah, if you don’t let

My people go”

Pharoah says

With a hardened heart

“Sorry Mo

No Jews will depart”

So…..

Blood said, “drip”

And Frogs said, “ribbit”

Vemin said, “squeak”

And beasts said, “GIBBET”

Cattle disease said, MOO…aaahhh

And boils said, “Pop”

Hail said, “Ping, Ping, Ping”

Locusts ate the crop

Darkness took over

Pharoah was torn

Then came the Slaying

Of the first born

Oops!

Pharoah said to Moses

“You Jews are so clever”

“Gather up your things

And leave Egypt forever”

The Jews left so quickly

Without time for bread to rise

Pharoah changed his mind

And yelled, “GO GET THOSE GUYS!”

Pharoah almost caught the Jews

But for them G-d parted the sea

The Jews made it across safely

And then they were finally free

Happy Pesach!!!

xo Lisa and Jeff

The Swimming Lesson

Sunday mornings should be stress-free.

Mostly, they are. Even though Emmet toddles into our room before first light, it’s okay because he climbs into our bed and cuddles and demands juice and smushes his nose right up against mine before bursting into a maniacal Ray Liotta-in-Goodfellas laugh.  I love it.

And most Sundays, I get to exercise for an hour while Jeff brings Emmet to his swimming lesson, which happen to be in the same building as the gym.  Emmet took his first swimming lessons at 9 months old.  Obviously, at that young age, a parent is required to be in the water with his or her little swimmer. Also obvious was the fact that swimming lessons would be Jeff’s purview: even my chubby, dimple-legged baby boy couldn’t coax my post-baby body into a bathing suit in public. However, I was more than happy to tag along, toting our video camera, animal crackers, and my own chlorine-soaked memories of swimming lessons past.

Emmet’s early swimming lessons were a pleasure for me. Fully-clothed and dry, I walked the length of the indoor pool behind the camera lens, proudly capturing Emmet’s first splashes, kicks, and bubbles-- all achieved safely in the arms of his father.  Added bonus: I made friends with some of the other sidelined moms who were likewise disinclined to get in the pool.  We bragged about our baby’s milestones and commiserated about their sleeping habits.  Swimming lessons turned out to be a well-needed break for the poolside mommies.   

So it was without hesitation that we signed Emmet up for a second set of Sunday swim lessons this fall (got a great deal on Living Social), right before he turned three.  Again, Jeff was the designated swim parent, as even three years later, my post-baby body was still not in tact, but I figured this would at least give me Sundays to work on it.  

That first weekend in September, we arrived at the JCC ready for action: the boys in their bathing suits, towels hanging around their necks, and me, ready to take on nautilus equipment. After running a few torturous miles on the treadmill (thank goodness for gym TVs and The Millionaire Matchmaker), I was surprised to see a wet-headed Emmet and bone-dry Jeff at our designated meeting spot.   Jeff explained that, upon arriving at the pool, the new instructor had whisked Emmet away, strapped an egg-shaped piece of blue Styrofoam across his tiny chest, and shooed Jeff over to the bleachers. 

I pictured Emmet, alone and adrift in a sea of needy toddlers left to fend for himself.  My dismay must have shown because Jeff quickly told me, “He loved it.  He had a great time!”  

“But he’s too little to swim by himself,” I whined.

“He was wearing the bubble,” Jeff reminded me.

“Kids drown all the time, even with bubbles,” I snapped back.  I haven’t actually seen this statistic, but I’m sure that some kid somewhere had drowned despite wearing Styrofoam.  So there.

But Jeff’s status as swim parent was reaffirmed.  Kids can smell fear.

But last Sunday morning, as Jeff was flipping pancakes for breakfast, I suddenly looked at the time and realized that Emmet’s swim lesson was starting in nine minutes.

“I’ll just take him,” I said, scrambling to pack his towel and underwear into his swim bag.  I hoped the aroma of butter and syrup would overpower the smell of my panic.

Emmet and I got to the pool just as Alan, the swim instructor, was fastening bubbles on the other three kids in the class.   I walked Emmet over to Alan.

“Hey, Emmet!  Give me some knuckles!”  

Emmet broke into a big smile and ran over to give Alan a fist bump, while Alan secured Emmet’s bubble.  I stood there at the head of the pool, until I realized that there were no other parents on the deck.  I was also wearing “street shoes” which was expressly forbidden by at least three large signs around the pool.  I scampered up to the spectator section.

My stomach was in knots and my sweat had nothing to do with the shock of ninety degree air that greeted me upon walking into the natatorium.  Emmet's flotation device was too loose; I could see that the strap was slipping down his chest, which made the Styrofoam bubble rise up in the back, pushing Emmet down deeper, so that his chin was constantly grazing the water.  Didn’t someone see how the pool water could rush into his little mouth?  Or how if the bubble just rose up a little bit more, it could actually propel him face down in the water? And worse, why was the instructor half a pool lap away from my baby, paying attention to the more experienced swimmers?  Would he even have time to get to Emmet should Emmet start to splutter and submerge?

I paced the length of the pool, this time not taking pictures or admiring my son’s splashes, but mentally willing him to make it to the other end.  Some moms I know yelled out hellos, but I couldn’t stop to talk: I had to make sure Emmet didn’t drown.

But the thing is that Emmet didn’t seem that concerned.   He was just sort of bobbing around like a cork in lane three.  When the water came close to his mouth, he pressed his lips together more tightly.  When the water tossed him around a bit, he kicked his legs just enough to upright himself.  I didn’t see “great time” written on his face, but he didn’t look particularly apprehensive.  He looked over at me, watching him from the sidelines, and yelled out, “Hi, Mama!  I’m swimming!” He was cool, much more so than his fretful mama, confident in his own ability to keep himself, quite literally, afloat. And that was the real swimming lesson.   

The Passover Story: Board Book Style

An oldie, but goodie!  Jeff and I wrote this "Passover story" a few years ago, when Emmet was delighted by (obsessed with) Sandra Boynton board  books.  Enjoy!!

A Pharoah says “WORK!”

The Jews say “Nahhhh”

Baby Moses in the river cries 

“Whaa Whaa Whaa”

Moses was saved

Raised by Pharoah’s crew

Even within the palace walls

Moses knew he was a Jew

“No, No” Moses says

“This isn’t right

My fellow Jews work

All day and night”

Moses warns of plagues

“There will be 10 in a row

Pharoah, if you don’t let

My people go”

Pharoah says

With a hardened heart

“Sorry Mo

No Jews will depart”

So…..

Blood said, “drip”

And Frogs said, “ribbit”

Vemin said, “squeak”

And beasts said, “GIBBET”

Cattle disease said, MOO…aaahhh

And boils said, “Pop”

Hail said, “Ping, Ping, Ping”

Locusts ate the crop

Darkness took over

Pharoah was torn

Then came the Slaying

Of the first born

Oops!

Pharoah said to Moses

“You Jews are so clever”

“Gather up your things

And leave Egypt forever”

The Jews left so quickly

Without time for bread to rise

Pharoah changed his mind

And yelled, “GO GET THOSE GUYS!”

Pharoah almost caught the Jews

But for them G-d parted the sea

The Jews made it across safely

And then they were finally free

Happy Pesach!!!

xo Lisa and Jeff