Life Lessons, Tiger and Lucy Style

Each morning, JT awakens excited to see his kittens. He's a very responsible pet owner, checking their food and water and setting out their toys so that they won't miss us when we go to school. He folds a blanket in the morning so that they have a comfy place to rest. He speaks to them in a gentle voice, petting them with a soft hand.

When Lisa left, I worried that JT would internalize her message that it's okay to cut and run when the going gets hard. But it would seem that he heard my message instead: loving others is one part joy and one part responsibility, each important in their own way. He's learning how to care for his creatures and to take pleasure in doing so. He's making his mama proud.

Paging Dr. Freud

I wore this velvet shirt for a presentation on Monday and JT just couldn't get enough of it. He ran his hands all over me, stroking the plush fabric and telling me how much he liked how it felt. He asked me to get him a shirt just like it. Last night he asked if he could sleep with my velvet shirt.

I think that this is exactly what the religious right is concerned about.

Block Party

My neighborhood has a block party twice a year, for the 4th of July and in the fall for Oktoberfest. Yesterday was the Oktoberfest party and JT and I joined in the fun (he did not have a beer). We brought two things I never would have made if Lisa had been in the mix: baked brie and olive crostini. The food was a hit and I was happy to be able to make what I please.

So there.

If I Could Stop Time

The prompt over at Sunday Scribblings this week is "what would you do if you could stop time?" It's a perfect prompt for me because I think of this quite often. And I know exactly what I would do if I could stop time.

Last night JT had a nightmare and so in the middle of the night my big, long boy joined me in my bed. The child is a heat-generating machine and was a most pleasant addition under the quilts on a cold fall night. He slept in my bed when he was an infant because we were – gasp – advocates of the family bed. Some of my best memories of baby JT's infancy are those early mornings when all three of us would come awake at the same time, together and whole, a complete and happy family.

He's been sleeping alone for years now and other things have changed as well. But through the years I have often wished that I could hit the rewind button and re-live some of the moments of my son's life.

I'd like to hold his baby self again for the very first time. I still recall the feelings which overwhelmed me at that moment, how much I instantly loved him. I vividly recall the things I told him on his first day of life, when I held him and smelled him and looked into his big dark eyes and promised him that I would always love him and that he would have a happy, happy life. Things felt so sure and so true on that day and I'd like to be there again.

I'd like to re-live his first Mother's Day, when fresh out of his bath, lying on our bed wrapped in his yellow towel, he laughed for the first time. It was a big belly laugh and Lisa and I just stood there amazed at this tiny miracle that we had in our lives. We laughed with him that day.

I'd watch again as my grandmother held her 5 month old grandson for the first time. I took a picture of that moment, never imagining that it would be the last week that I would see her alive.

I'd like to stand in the hallway in my house in Nebraska and re-live that moment when I heard my 11 month old son say his first word....."toothbrush, toothbrush, toothbrush" he chanted as he walked around the house on his unsturdy legs.

I'd re-live every Christmas morning since my boy was old enough to truly understand and appreciate the concept of Santa Claus. I'd watch his eyes grow wide with joy and wonder as he came downstairs to see what Santa had left for him. I'd enjoy the happiness of that moment.

And I think that I'd like to re-live a moment that happened just yesterday. It was a rough day - more on that later - and we were heading into Target when JT looked at me and saw tears on my cheeks. He took hold of my hand and gently said to me, "It's going to be okay, Mama." And with his warm hand holding mine I really believed that it might be okay someday.

There are so many more moments that I would re-live. But until I get that magical rewind button, memories will have to suffice.

And they do.

Go Tigers!

Friday night JT attended his first college football game. And while his usual pattern is to root for whatever team is winning, this time he cheered for the Princeton Tigers the whole time. It was a Tiger loyalty thing.

Miss A taught him the rules of the game. Miss T endured a whole lot of taunting (and teased right back). Both of them spoiled the boy rotten......and my does he love that foam Tiger paw.

And of course it must be noted a happy boy means a happy Mama.

The Trouble with Prep School

In the middle of my free period, I walk down the hall to get a drink of water. There are four kids in the hall, hanging out by the lockers. All four of them are working on schoolwork. They are diligent and quiet. So quiet that we can all hear my shoes squeak as I walk by.

If these kids were normal, they'd be bad and rebellious in the halls and no one would hear the embarrassing squeak of brown suede.

The Cosmos Whacks Me on the Noggin

I am teaching Buddhism to freshman this week.

I'll give y'all time to digest that fact.

So there I am, giving them the down low on Siddartha and his revelations, when I find myself writing the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism on the chalkboard. To whit:

1. Sorrow (or suffering) is part of life.
2. People suffer because they are constantly wanting and trying to get things they cannot have.
3. The way to escape suffering is to overcome these frustrating desires and reach a stage of "not wanting."
4. Finally, the Buddha pointed out the steps on the path to enlightenment, or nirvana.....this is the Eightfold Path.

Okay, that explains why I've hit a rough-patch: wanting and trying to get what I cannot have. The challenge is finding a way toward not wanting............and that ain't so easy.

We take up with the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment later this week. Maybe that will help.

Things You Wait a Lifetime to Hear

I'm explaining to my therapist how difficult it is for me to believe that my departed partner was faking affection for me over the last two years (this, not to be confused with the seven years prior to that when she didn't love me). So I catalog some of the events in that period, including my 38th birthday, where she went out of her way to make me feel well-loved (the tea party, the diamond earrings in the gazebo) but now claims that she was faking it.

And my therapist says: "wow, that's just creepy."

So there you have it. A clinical diagnosis. She's creepy.

Not to mention out of her freakin' mind.

Devolution

Setting the scene: It's 3rd period American Government and the class is the recipient of a tasty discussion of federalism.

Me: So we're going to talk about devolution today.

Anonymous Student #1: Is that the process whereby people turn back into monkeys? Laughter ensues.

Me: Yes, indeed it is. And I can see that many of you in this class have already completed that process.

Duh

I basically work from the belief that people are rational creatures, driven by their self-interest and acting accordingly. That needn't be a bad thing. For example, it could be that Mother Theresa served her self-interest by helping the poor. That made her happy, made her feel good, and so that's what she did. If I were an economist, I would speak of this in terms of maximizing my utility. But I am not an economist, so I just call it self-interest.

And let me say again that I believe everybody does this. It provides structure to the world, the fact that you can count on people to be rational and self-interested. It is a basic human assumption that people want to live. That's why terrorism is so scary: terrorists don't care if they live and thus are willing to take action that the rest of us will not undertake. And now I am starting to wonder whether Kim Jung-Il of North Korea is rational in the traditional sense. Because if he's not we've got ourselves some serious, serious trouble.

I like to assume that elected government officials are actually worrying about this as well. But I sometimes fear that assumption is irrational.