Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Friend #67

I actually debated for a week about making Friend #67 public. He is so interesting and yet so...um...interesting.
His name is Parker. He is close friends with my brother and sister-in-law. Parker's reputation precedes him in a way that no other can.
I've been hearing about the Parker-and-Kelly team for a few months because they were expecting a baby during the same months as my brother and sister-in-law, Parris. While in the hospital waiting for my niece to arrive, my brother mentioned that they were going to save the placenta. "Hmmm," I thought to myself. My brother explained, "Our friend Parker made placenta vitamins when his son was born a few weeks ago and he's going to do it for us." Awkward stares filled the delivery room. He explained the theory that essential vitamins are lost when the placenta exits the body, and by turning the placenta into pills, the mother can replace those lost nutrients with her own. Gag. I think I threw up in my mouth a bit.
Fast forward one week. We're sitting on my brother's couch and he shows me the infamous jar of placenta vitamins that Parker has, in fact, created for Parris's enjoyment.
Here's how he did it (Warning: Gag factor in full-force): My brother took the placenta home in a double-baggie and stored it in his refrigerator. He then gave the placenta to Parker, who dried it out and baked it on low heat for eight hours in the oven (think beef jerky.) Parker crushes the remains up and transfers it into empty pill capsules found at the health food store.
I finally met Parker at the baby shower two weeks after my niece was born. With me being a bit inebriated , Parker was christened "Placenta Boy". He was proud of his work, however.
Gift-opening time arrived. The baby received the usual toys and clothes. Then it was time to open Parker and Kelly's gift. The first gift in the bag was an adorable set of tactile burp cloths for the baby to experience touching different textures. Parker and Kelly were up all night making these, of course.
Then Parris pulled out a roll of butcher paper. "Ohhhh, I know what this is!" she screamed. In his defense, Parker warned Parris that the shower attendees may not want to see this. But we did...sort of.
Parris unrolled a set of prints...made from her placenta blood. It looked like a massacre. It looked exactly like what it was: placenta blood dripped on butcher paper. "I'm going to frame these!" Parris exclaimed, excitedly.
And that was the height of the baby shower.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Friend #66

I first met Friend #66 over an email. He was sending his reply to an invitation I'd sent him for my sister-in-law's baby shower. His grammar, eloquence with words, and spirituality reached out of the computer and made me almost stop breathing for a minute. All this in one little email.
His name is John Michael.
After reading the response, which had all the makings of an educated Southern gentleman in the early 1900's, I called my sister-in-law, Parris. "WHO IS this guy? I need to meet him!" Parris just smiled for a minute, "Oh, you're going to love John Michael!" I asked what his story was, and how a man could be so amazing in just one email. "I can't explain it, he's just wonderful." Great. Just wonderful. And although I'm solidly attached to my Michael, I couldn't wait to meet this man. Call it an English teacher's dream. And besides, I was pretty sure someone as fabulous as this man, was gay.
The day of the shower arrived and my hostess aura must have been shining because the first person to arrive shouted, "HI!!!" I spun around and saw this beautiful man who looked like the love child of Eddie Vedder and Robert Plant. Tall, with long, curly, dark hair, wearing a white linen button-down shirt, jeans and flip-flops. Before I could ask his name, this man gave me a huge bear hug and said, "Hi, I'm John Michael!" I was giddy and my Mike got a bit jealous, I could tell. We introduced ourselves for a minute and then he went to fill out a name tag. (I typically don't do name tags, but I found some really cool ones that said "Hi, My name is _____ and my special talent is _______" and "Hi, My name is _______ and I am the guest-of-honor's _______").
John Michael's name tag said "Hi, My name is John Michael and my special talent is Love." So perfect for such a man.
As I learned more about him, he revealed this: John Michael is a gay, republican, psychic/exorcist who actually attended the seminary. Intrigued? So was I! He emitted positivity, acceptance and grace. Everything he talked about was so joyful, it made me want to join whatever cult he was selling. (But he would never have a cult because he's too nice.)
It didn't surprise me that John Michael knew the entire beautiful gay wait staff at the restaurant. It also didn't surprise me that he had to leave early. (People that great always have a full social schedule, don't you know?)
I got another bear hug when he left and my teenage girl's heart sighed and wished I'd see him again.

Friends #64 and #65

I had to lump these two characters into one blog for the simple fact that for the entire hour I spent with them, they never left each other's side. And not in a good way.
Rachel and Chris are the parents of a little girl in Jack's class. We met at the Bouncy place where I brought the boys to play for an hour. Rachel introduced herself and immediately started talking about the kids' teacher Mrs. G. She asked me what I thought of Mrs. G and I told her that Mrs. G is one of my closest friends, so close, in fact, that she threw my baby shower when I was pregnant with Jack. I sensed that she wanted to gossip about my friend Mrs. G but she was cut off when her husband Chris introduced his self.
So there we stood, watching our kids bounce with Rachel on one side of me, and Chris on the other. This was a couple who didn't seem to be "in tune" with what each other was doing. Chris was talking in my right ear about his favorite band, Kiss (strange first conversation, right?) and Rachel was yapping in my ear about having Taco Bell on her shirt. Nodding in a forward direction seemed to be the way to go for me. When the kids moved to a new bouncy area, we did the three-person shuffle as we retained our positions. I tried to get away to check on Isaiah but these people just kept talking!
"...and then I told my daughter that she could not wear her jellys to school! Can you believe jellys are in style again..."
"...I just heard that Megadeth is coming to the Arizona State Fair! How rad is that? I'm gonna ask my neighbor if he wants to go..."
"...Hannah Montana...birthday party at 6pm tonight...teach Sunday school...Do you go to a gym?...Weight Watchers...my parents live off the 202 and Gilbert..."
"...when Metallica came to town I was in the 8th row...my other son broke his collar bone..."
How much can a person talk before realizing that the listener isn't listening? I remember learning the etiquette rules of conversation in 6th grade. Apparently these people didn't.
So for the rest of the year now, I will be avoiding this family at every social school event.
But before I left, they invited Jackson to their other child's birthday party next month. I'll just pretend I didn't hear them.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Friend #63

Indulgence will ruin a child. In my almost 13 years of parenting I have learned (and am still learning) to control what my children receive during non-gifting events. When we go to Chuck E Cheese, they get a set number of tokens and when they're gone, they're gone. I do not say "yes" to every play date or fun event that appears to us. My kids need to learn the idea of moderation in order to control their spending and impulses when they're adults.
This weekend I met Kim, who is the mother of Jeremy, one of Isaiah's friends. Jeremy rallied his junior high friends together for a fun get-together at the local trampoline and bounce center. I taught Isaiah that when he's invited to an event, he needs to approach me with his request to attend with the full story: who will be there, what time, where is it, how much will it cost, and how will you get to and from the event. He finally got all the information together on the first try when he asked if he could go with his friends. A dozen 7th graders would meet at 11am on Monday at the bounce center, pay $10/hr to play, and transportation would be provided by each kid's parent. Simple enough.
We arrived at the bounce center 15 minutes early (I am the sole early bird in Arizona and I thank my MN roots for that...Minnesotans like to arrive early to help the hostess set up, typically, and being late is looked at as rude and inconsiderate.) At 11:05, Jeremy and his mom Kim showed up. She and I chatted about the normal "mother of a preteen" issues as we waited for the other kids to show up. In the meantime, we discussed how long the kids would be allowed to play.
"I'm going to let Isaiah play for an hour and I think I'll stay and let Jackson play too." Although pleasant, Kim said, "Oh...well...I'm going to let Jeremy stay for the maximum - three hours. Isaiah's going to miss out on all the fun if he leaves early!" I kindly explained that I am all for letting my kids have fun, but I'm not going to cater my day off to my kids' play needs at a screaming $10 per hour play center.
Then two more moms arrived with their boys. "How long are you going to let your boys stay?" I asked one mom. "As long as this lasts!" she laughed as she held up a $20 bill. The other mom consulted with all of us before deciding how long her son would be allowed to stay. So it looked like everyone would stay 2-3 hours except for Isaiah, who was just excited to be hanging out with friends at all. Then Isaiah's buddy Tommy showed up with his dad, Joe. Joe is like me...practical. He and I decided that after an hour of playing, I would bring the kids home and Tommy and Isaiah would have a united front when they needed to leave "early."
While bouncing Jackson ran into his classmate, Emerson (whose parents will be friends 64 and 65.) At the one-hour mark, I went to gather the three boys and found the sweatiest, wettest kids in the world. I knew they had a blast and I knew they were ready to leave. They thanked me for bringing them and as we walked out, Jeremy ran up to us and asked me if I could bring him home. "But you still have two hours left!" I explained. "I'm bored and my mom's not coming for a while." I let him call Kim and she convinced him to stay, reminding him that she had paid $30 for him to play.
I laughed a little inside and walked out the door.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Friend #62


This has been the most precious week of my life thus far. I am a brand-new aunt. Something you must learn about me is that I love babies more than just about anything on this planet. Everyone knows this. I'm even a little concerned that a few students may have had babies, just to make Ms. Peters happy.

Being an aunt to a newborn is much, much different than being a mom. I don't have to wake up 10 times per night to feed the baby. I don't have the hormonal shifts when breastfeeding, showering, or watching baby shows on TV. I don't have to shuffle a newborn and a toddler on the same lap. I don't have to worry about returning to work.

All I have to do is snuggle with my favorite (only) niece, Kennedy. All she will ever ask of me is to hang out and I will gladly oblige. It's obvious that this 3-day-old baby already has me wrapped around her wrinkly little finger. The fact is, she had me at "I'm pregnant!" and then again at, "It's going to be a girl!" I could gush on and on about how wonderful this week has been, but then you'd never meet my 62nd friend...

As I drove to the hospital on the second night of Kennedy's stay, I wondered to my son, whether Pediatric nurses ever lose that "Babies are so precious and special" feeling. What I mean is, when you're helping deliver babies 40 hours per week, you see a TON of babies. Healthy babies, sick babies, cute babies, deformed babies, even God forbid, dead babies. At what point does one turn off their sensitivity button and just see the little critters as "clients"?

I made a point to ask my sister-in-law's nurse, Jo, about her career. I asked her if she ever becomes disenchanted with babies. "Oh gosh, no! Babies will always be special." Phew, I was at ease after that. "Now parents? Those are the ones you wanna smack upside the head once in a while!" I'm sure. I've seen parents all over town, but never in such a hectic and stressful place as a hospital. Jo told us about how families sometimes choose this time to air their grievances with each other and disregard any hospital staff who may interfere for the safety of the babies.

I admire Jo a lot. With the amount of giddiness I have toward babies, it would be heartbreaking to go into work each day with the possibility that I may have to hold a deceased child. Or an unwanted child. I compared me working in a pediatric ward to the time I volunteered at the Humane Society as a teen. I wanted to bring every animal home (I only actually brought three home over the course of a year.)

If I could do it, Jo's job would be perfect for me. But for now, I've got a little girl who has stolen my heart and that's good enough for me.