How the Tooth Fairy Got Hoodwinked

A classic 'disappointed' look.

Our middle guy FINALLY, just days after his sixth birthday, lost his first tooth. Hours later he also lost his second tooth. We're calling it a "two-fer."

I say FINALLY because the "grown up" teeth had already entered the picture and those front two bottom baby teeth had been dangling for quite a while. It was uncomfortable to eat with him.

It's been a four long decades since I first lost a tooth, but I think I 'get' the fear factor. To a six-year-old, losing a tooth, at least the first one, is a pretty scary deal. He might be thinking 'if my tooth can just fall out, and if Uncle JB's hair falls out, what else? Will my eyeball just fall out some day?'

So the Tooth Fairy entered our home again last night. I woke up earlier than necessary this morning worrying, "Did we forget?" So I woke Kevin to get his confirmation that he did indeed take care of the Fairy visit. He had; I caught a few more winks.

Then Toby came in, box of teeth in hand, claiming the Tooth Fairy didn't come.

Well, that woke me up.

I thought quickly and said, "Oh, the Tooth Fairy must've thought you wanted to save those special teeth, so she* left them for you." (Unlike the mean, nasty Tonsil Fairy, who said it was against hospital bio hazardous waste rules that we couldn't take his tonsils and adenoids home with us.)

Toby added, "But she didn't leave me anything."

A quick visit to his room, turning over pillows, a dozen stuffed animals, blankets, pulling out the bed from the wall, sure that the $20 (Tooth Fairy pays big for the first tooth, and when you have a two-fer, well ...) had simply fallen somewhere.

The bill was not to be found. Kevin joined in the search, confused. In desperation, not wanting to let his son down (he looked so genuinely hurt), Kevin grabbed a second $20 bill and planted it between the mattress and box spring and suggested Toby look a little longer.

He found the new money and was thrilled. And only then did he share that in fact, the Tooth Fairy had come. He then pulled out the original $20 from his book case, adding, "See, I hid it over here."

Not knowing whether to scream, cry or laugh, I excused myself and laughed in private. Then I wondered, "What was that boy thinking? What is going through his head? Why would he hide the money, very convincingly lie to us, with very genuinely saddened face, voice, body, demeanor, and tell us the Tooth Fairy had forgotten him.

Those are the questions I plan to take with me to our first therapy visit.

And that, my friends, is how the Tooth Fairy got hoodwinked. Be warned.

Cheers!

*Is the Tooth Fairy male or female? I believe it is male. Kevin, female. Discuss among yourselves.

The Ring's The Thing

It's been, as of today, 15 years since I married my first husband. So we're celebrating big tonight, with him leading our oldest son's baseball practice and me cooking up some spaghetti. Perhaps I'll change out of my yoga clothes and not put on my sleep pants before 7 p.m. 

Such is life after 15 years of wedded bliss and three young sons.

But there have been some gestures.

The man I married 15 years ago sent me a dozen beautiful roses. Romantic, classic.

My lead-by-example inlaws (married 49 years, and counting!) sent a card and called early in the morning.

My 'best woman' (I hated the term 'maid of honor'...how is it an honor being any one's maid?) sent me a congratulatory text message. Thoughtful, modern.

And I visited John, my local jeweler to investigate repairing my wedding ring. Yep, I broke it a couple of weeks ago. Caught my finger in a folding chair that I happened to be folding at the time. It's now oval shaped, although my finger remains round, and the solitaire diamond, although in tact, is bent backwards.

Turns out repairing a 15+-year-old ring that's been smashed is not as simple as you might think. Turns out that a decade and a half of cleaning as well as swimming in chlorinated pools with the ring on has made the gold band very fragile.

At least the marriage is stronger than the ring, which is really the point of this 'happy anniversary' blog. (Romantic, modern, right?)

But I can't wrap this up without my favorite wedding ring story from the past 15 years.  Only a year into our marriage, Kevin had a work trip to Las Vegas. I knew he'd spend a fair amount of time out in the sun, as he was training for one of his many marathons, so I had nagged -- I mean, reminded -- him to pack sunscreen and to use it.

When I got home from work, I noticed his sun screen still on the bathroom sink. So later that evening when he called, I believe I said, "I have a bone to pick with you," or, "I'm some kinda mad." Anyway, the rookie says, "Oh, yeah, I know, I left my wedding ring on the dresser."

What? You went to Las Vegas without your wife or your wedding ring? Forget about the sun screen.

Happy anniversary, Kevin!

Good Grief!

Good. Grief. Good, grief. Good grief!

As they say, punctuation matters.

I was brought up in a world, or at least in a culture, in which grief is not a shared emotion. I came to believe that was a good thing.

Be strong.

Have faith, or Faith, if you prefer.

Remember it it not your will but God's will.

I heard those phrases during many a crisis ... parents' deaths, fertility challenges, fleeing Manhattan after 9/11. And I believed them.

I live in that same world now as an adult, a world in which we give very little credence to grief, in which there's all but a note in our i-calendars that says, "OK, time to move on."

Grief has been on my mind for a week now, since the unexpected death of a neighbor and friend, the dad to two of my boys' friends. Of course, I've been very sensitive to what my boys are feeling and thinking. So I keep asking them about what they are feeling and thinking. Then my oldest snapped at me, "Why do you keep asking me about this? Leave it alone."

That's when I realized it was my grief I was trying to get my son to feel, to express. He may or may not grieve. As long as he supports his friend, he doesn't need to, I suppose. But I need to, and I've sensed that many in our community need to as well.

I need to grieve a little more publicly than usual. Hence, this blog entry.

But as usual, my sons bring a much-needed lightness to me when dealing with dark issues. Last night at dinner, after Kevin, Luke and I returned from the memorial reception for our friend, the youngest grilled his Dad on death. "How many sleeps until you die? Until mom dies? Until I die?" And it kept coming back to the simplest thing for the little guy. "But who would fix me breakfast?"

While their self-centeredness drives me crazy at times, it saved us on this tough subject. Because I feel safe in assuring the boys that there will always be someone to take care of them. When they are as old as we are, they will have friends and perhaps their own children to do it, just like my boys take care of me and shine their light all around on those dark days.

Cheers! La Chaim!
 

A New Kind of Soccer Mom

If only my husband and eldest son had not laughed maniacally at the mere invitation from a new gal pal that I join her newly forming soccer team, I might not have even considered it.

But when you laugh at The Mom, you will suffer The Consequences.

In this case, they will be required to attend every Friday night game, just like I've attended nearly every Saturday morning soccer game for years for my oldest, and countless baseball games.

Their laughter is not without warrant. Not only have I never played soccer, or any team sport for that matter -- in my life -- I am simply not athletic. Most friends and acquaintances know that I've run five marathons and countless shorter distance races over the past 20-plus years, as well as completed a couple of triathlons and duathlons. But friends who know me well, know that I run only because I'm not coordinated to do much else.

Karen's Recipe for Running:
1. put one foot in front of the other, quickly
2. repeat

Race medals ... perhaps soccer medals
will adorn my basement walls next?

But a fellow baseball/t-ball mom said she was putting a team together to play in our sleepy suburb's women's league and assured me 'no experience necessary.' In fact, she wrote in her recruiting email, the league is "really just an excuse for spry women well out of their college years to laugh a lot and then drink on Friday evening."

She had me at 'spry.' I mean, I've never been called spry before, and I was flattered. And as the saying goes, flattery will get you everywhere.

I just hope it doesn't get me a trip to the ER.

Bucket List-Making Time



My boys looking down on creation (from Sears/Willis Tower).

A wide berth exists between the 'great' ideas in my mind for my Chaos blog and my mediocre execution on paper, or, more precisely, on screen, of these ideas.

The ideas pop up several times a day -- often after surviving a Poison Control scare or while enjoying momentary peace on a child-free run or when experiencing a evanescent moment of clarity brought on by a glass of really good wine.

But while the ideas come and go, time only goes. And goes fast. Rearing children makes for long days but fast years, as my husband likes to say.

I once told a friend who asked why I wasn't blogging more regularly that I either need inspiration or I need time. If I have the time, I will find the inspiration. If I have the inspiration, I will find the time.

That is true for everything it is we want to do in life but just don't get around to it.

Which is why a bucket list is in order. I'm looking back on 44 years today. Yep, this is my birthday blog. And I'll cry if I want to.

No, just kidding. We're going to keep this light, per usual.

But lately I have been reminded of the tenuous nature of this thing we call 'life.' What is normal and good, albeit often challenging, today, can be gone tomorrow.

So before I'm "looking down on creation" permanently, I'm going to pull that bucket list together, but not until the round of golf my husband promised me for my birthday. (Ok, #1 on bucket list -- learn to golf.)

Fore!

Puberty? Again? And Again, and Again?

God help me. Puberty the first time, that being my own, was terrible enough. I mean, it's been 30 (plus?) years, and I still remember how terrible it was.

As a parent of a 10-year-old boy (and two more younger ones), it has dawned on me that I'm going to have to go through it at least three more times.

God help me.

I realize I probably have it easier, as a mother of three boys than a mother of three girls. Really. I get it.

Still, I'm not liking what's happening in this house. The moods. I'm not talking about mine. We're all pretty used to mine. I'm talking about Son One, the one who sorta smells, the one who thinks I'm a total idiot. The one who is eating me out of house and home.

One minute, he's a happy-go-lucky fourth grader; the next, he's a brooding, sulking punk.

One day, he's begging me to drive him to and from school; the next, he's shooing me away when I creep up in my swaggerwagon in a downpour. Oh, is that a GIRL you're walking with, in the rain? My bad.

Harry Potter and the Hunger Games are put away on the bookshelf. But I find a Spanx catalog under his pillow?

So I tell the dad, the husband, about these developments.

He says, "It sounds like it's time to have The Talk." I correct him. "It's time that YOU have The Talk."

We discuss whom we can go to for advice on how, when to do this. We decide maybe one of our closest friends, who's so far gotten three of four of his kids through puberty, might just want to give our son The Talk. But that doesn't seem right, to delegate The Talk.

In a conversation the other day about why Son One couldn't see a particular movie, the word "sex" came up. Father/Husband asked, "Do you know what 'sex' means?"

Son One says, sheepishly, "Yaaayyh." I prod, "Ok, what?" He answers, "It's when people are kissing in bed."

OK. I'm good with that. Yep, that's what it means when your are 10 years old. That's all you need to know. Until the book, How to Talk to Your Kids About Sex arrives from Barnes & Noble.

I'm a sucker for those parenting books. They look good on my bedside table.

Good luck out there!

Who's in Charge Here?

I have a book next to my 'reading chair,' a.k.a. my 'clothes-awaiting-folding-and-putting-away chair,' titled "Who's the Boss?" It is subtitled, "How to Regain and Maintain Your Parental Authority When Kids Rule the Roost."

After yesterday's shenanigans, I think I'd better move it up my reading list, because the day was not pretty from a parenting standpoint.

First there was the half-naked almost-3-year-old son dancing on my yoga blocks. I posted a (discreet) photo on my Facebook status, prompting my husband to later ask why our youngest son didn't have on any pants. I explained that he had taken off his own underpants and was trying on undies from one of his older brother's dressers. He's pull them on and say "See, they fit," when of course, they didn't. Then he would say, after every try-on, "I'd better put these back or Tob'll get ANGRY."

So after trying on about 10 pairs, he just decided he didn't need any at all. He found an old broken set of headphones, placed them on his head, pulled out my yoga blocks from my dusty 'fitness paraphernalia basket,' and started demonstrating his finest Solid Gold moves.

I put away the work I was attempting to do, got some pants on the boy, and played puzzles with him. Figured if this were a cry for attention, I'd better give him some.

Later in the day, this same son came in from playing outside. This time, he had on pants but nothing else. Yes, it's a warmer-than-usual winter, but clothes are still required for outdoor play. I asked why he took of his coat, hat, shirt, mittens, socks and shoes and he said that the slide was "slippier" this way. It was then I noticed one of our many snow sleds on top of the garage. Fun, in his mind, and catastrophe in mine, was clearly avoided, so I'll put this in the win column.

Only a few hours later there was a knock at my front door. Opposite me stood one of my oldest son's buddies. I was certainly glad to see him but was confused when he told me why he'd walked home from school with Luke. "Toby called this morning and said it was ok with you that I come over."

Well, of course, I always enjoy Luke's friends to come over to play. But why, and when, exactly, was the middle guy making calls and setting up his older brother's social life for him?

My husband of course had the same question when I told him about my day. "Where were you?" he rightly asked. "I was standing right there," I countered. "He'd asked me to help him call Papa and Grandma, and I showed him how he can scroll caller ID to find their number. God only knows who else he may have called this morning!"

Clearly it's time to up the parenting during the day here. So if I don't return your call, your email, or update my Facebook status for the next few months, know that I'm trying to pay a bit more attention around the house here, and I have a few parenting books to devour.

I may be the same woman I was when I woke up yesterday, but, kids, there's a new sheriff in town.

In the words of Rihanna, "I'll drink to that." Cheers, my friends and happy weekend.

TJ's new PJs

TJ's new PJs are purple with decorative birds.  I know the design is intended for girls. But he doesn't. He says he's 'warm and cozy,' and has been begging for 'footie' pajamas for weeks. They're hard to find in a 5T. But Costco had a table-full of Carter's footie flannel pajamas yesterday when we made a quick stop for the essentials (eggs and wine).

My first stab at the dinosaur, pirate and sporting-themed designs netted me about 20 pairs in 3T and another 15 in 6 months. Neither was going to work. 

So I dug deeper, trying not to make too much of a mess (I worked retail once; I know how it goes). The sign told me I had a chance: Carters One-Piece Pajamas, 6mos-5T, $7.99.

My second go of it netted me another few dozen 3Ts and several 18-months. Finally, a dinosaur 4T and the purple, birded 5T. I held up the 4T to TJ's back. Nope, way too small. The 5T was going to fit perfectly.

"But those are girl ... ," Luke started before I shot him one of my shut-your-pie-hole-before-I-shut-it-for-you looks.

"I love them," said TJ. "Can I wear them now?"

I figured for $8, if after only two weeks he decided they were too girly, I'd send them on their way to our pint-sized niece. But for now, the boy is warm and cozy. 

Which melts my heart.

Happy new year! Stay warm, stay cozy.