Sometimes it's the little things

I've got a lot going on these days (don't we all?!) and am having a hard time stopping the spinning in my brain. Most of it is good things, there's just a lot of it and some of it is pushing me way beyond my comfort zone. I'm neglecting things left and right (and not just this blog), snapping at my kids (more than they deserve), and spending more than the usual amount of time trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing or what it was I came into this particular room to get.

But for about five minutes tonight, I had the sense to step back and see the actual moment I was in. And it was glorious.

It looked like this:

My children are making dinner. They know I'm overwhelmed, so they volunteered. They've already followed my recipe for crab cakes (gluten-free, of course) and actually cleaned up as they went. Pippi is forming patties and dropping them into the hot pan while Junius cuts up broccoli crowns and places them in the steamer. At the same time, I'm prepping ingredients to make oatmeal muffins so that we have breakfast and snacks for later in the week. Once the crab cakes are cooking, Pippi comes over to stir the oats into the bowl of wet ingredients. Out of nowhere, Junius starts singing "Eye of the Tiger." None of us knows all the words, so it's a funny blend of humming and words, but it's some kind of perfect.

In this moment -- maybe just this one, but at least this one -- I realize I am crushing it as a parent.

My husband wisely told me to go write it down. So I did.

(Note: My children are now watching "Danger Mouse" on the Kindle at the kitchen counter and we haven't started eating dinner yet. Even parents who are crushing it need Netflix sometimes.)

Now she is 9

Earlier this year, my baby girl turned 9.

She is a force of nature. A force to be reckoned with. An unstoppable force pressing and pushing against an unmovable object. The eighth wonder of the world. She is headstrong, sensitive, unyielding and tender all in the span of an hour. Within the same day, I am the best mommy in the world and also [eye roll, hip cocked, head to the side, foot stomp] the single person most ruining her life. She is 9 going on 19.

There are days I am in awe of her and just as many days that I do. not. know. what to do with her.

At some point on the way to turning 9, she had a big growth spurt that stretched her legs to new lengths. This spring, when the weather started to turn warm, she pulled out her sporty shorts from last year -- the running shorts style, elastic waist with the unders built in. When they were new, they fit her fine, but now a year later, they barely cover her bum.

"Are those too small?" I ask when she tries them on. "Do you need new shorts?"

"No," she says, then pauses and looks down at herself. "Well, maybe."

So we head to Target, source of all things, to look for new running shorts. I point to shorts after shorts in the girls section, only to watch her shake her head at each adorable pair. She tells me she doesn't want the short kind, but instead is looking for the longer, basketball style shorts. You know, she tells me, like what Junius wears.

By now, I suppose I should expect the opposite of whatever I expected when it comes to Pippi. There's so much about her that I don't understand and can't predict. Often it seems she chooses the contrary answer just for sport.

"Why do you want to dress like your brother?" I ask, still somehow surprised.

She has her answer ready: "Because his shorts have pockets."

* * *

Growing up, I was an "outfit" kind of girl. I loved dressing up, for play and for real. There was no throwing on whatever was clean -- each night, I would plan my outfit for the next day. As soon as I turned 16, I got a job at the Limited Express (hello, late 80s) to support my shopping habit. I rarely wore jeans to school, owned very few t-shirts with writing on them. I was a lot of things, but sporty wasn't one of them.

When Pippi was born, once I recovered from the shock of having a girl, I reveled in all the adorable tiny outfits. Baby girls get so many fun options that just don't exist for baby boys. She was like the best dress-up doll I ever had. Once she was old enough to dress herself, she quickly exerted her own opinions over her wardrobe -- but the results were so spectacular that I couldn't say no. In fact, I bought even more colorful and patterned and sparkly pieces to give her better options to mix into her preschool fashionista fabulousness.

After she completed kindergarten, however, she drifted away from the adorable outfits and the layers of ruffles and accessories toward a daily uniform of sporty shorts and oversized t-shirts paired with Nike socks and running shoes. At first I pushed back, continued buying matching sets of patterned shirts and skirts or sweet, twirly dresses. Eventually I realized I was wasting my money and waging a losing battle.

One day, as I looked at her in all her sporty glory, it dawned on me that she was comfortable -- literally and emotionally -- just the way she was. Why was I trying to force her into the self-conscious fashion rules that still plague me? Did I really want to be the one to teach her to worry about how she looks?

I made a conscious decision to let go and let her be in charge of her wardrobe. We bought leggings and running shorts, no skirts or outfits. If it wasn't church or a special event, I stayed out of her closet. Which brings us back to buying sporty shorts at Target...

* * *

Pockets. She had me at pockets.

I might not understand wanting to wear basketball shorts and oversized t-shirts, but hell yeah I understand the desire for pockets. My favorite dresses, skirts, even pajama pants and one chambray tunic all have pockets. Compliment any woman on her dress and her first response, if it has pockets, will be to smile broadly and announce to you, "Thanks! It has pockets!" Through the magic of Twitter I recently learned of one woman who had pockets in her wedding dress, which almost made me want to get married again because that sounded so brilliant.

So off we went in search of basketball-style shorts with pockets, only to discover that those sons of bitches don't put pockets in girls' basketball shorts.

And that is how I found myself shopping with my daughter in the boys' section at Target, where she selected two pairs of knee-length shorts with pockets that look so exactly like her brother's shorts that I had to write her initials on the tags so that I know they're hers when they come through the wash.

* * *

When Hillary Clinton metaphorically broke the glass ceiling at last year's Democratic Convention and when Elizabeth Warren persisted in spite of those working to silence her and when women (and men) all over the world marched together this January, they were fighting for women on a very grand and global scale. I won't pretend that one trip to Target deserves the same significance.

But I'm more than a little proud of my fierce daughter who is not deterred by the fact that some clothing designer thinks girls don't need pockets or even by the fact that her mom wishes she would wear some of those pretty skirts shoved in the back of her dresser drawer. With any luck, she and I will continue to connect over clothes with pockets and maybe discover some other things along the way that will bind us closer together. I'm trying to remind myself to listen more and love better, even as she pushes me in ways I don't understand.

So, you be you, Pippilotta. Be patient with me. And I'll do my best to keep up.

Learning the #$@&%*! language

As one of the millions of big and small decisions my husband and I make as parents, we agreed that we wouldn't keep words a secret from our kids. And by "words," of course, I mean the "bad words." It's an age-appropriate, as-needed sort of lesson set, but we figured that all those bad words would seem less alluring, less powerful -- and (hopefully) less likely to get hurled at us -- if the kids knew what they were and knew they could ask us about them.

So over the past few years, we (my husband, mostly) have been dealing out a few choice ones now and then during bedtime chats with Junius. We started with the less controversial ones -- like explaining that the S-word isn't actually "stupid" or that the D-word isn't actually "dumb." As he got older, the words got a bit stronger, including the F-word, the A-word and so on.

Junius seems to savor these tidbits of verbal exotica and feels empowered not to use them. In fact, his favorite swear phrase, borrowed from this book, is to shout, "Curses and foul language!" Try it -- t's really quite satisfying.

We've only just started sharing the first words with Pippi, or so I thought. Which brings me to a little story that just needed to be captured somewhere, so here goes...

* * *

One day this fall while we were standing around at school pick-up, my friend H was sharing concern that her daughter (Pippi's friend) had somehow wandered into another person's virtual house in Minecraft and read an inappropriate word that was plastered on the wall. H was consulting Junius, as a former Minecraft fan, about how her daughter could have gotten into someone else's space in the online game.

Junius, after clarifying that he no longer played Minecraft (because I guess 5th grade boys don't want to get lumped in with 2nd grade girls), told H he wasn't sure how that could have happened. Then he asked the all important question: "What was the word?"

My friend looked at me, I nodded, then she told him: "Well, it was the F-word."

Junius gasped quietly and looked gravely concerned, immediately understanding why H was worried about her young daughter's experience.

Somewhere during this conversation, Pippi had strolled up unnoticed and was listening in. As she watched her brother frown knowingly about the seriousness of the matter, she leaned in a little closer to H and looked up at her.

"Mrs. H?" she asked in a hushed voice. "Was it fuck?"

* * *

So there you have it. No good parenting deed goes unpunished.

If your kids are playing with my kids and come home with some new vocabulary, you're welcome. And my apologies.

Seven, going on seventeen

Dear Pippi --

I completely missed your birthday month on the blog this year. Not your actual birthday, of course -- for that there was the sleepover party with your besties and the dinner with grandparents and the earlier dinner with your other grandparents plus the museum party with school friends and about 847 presents that were exactly what you wanted.

No need to feel neglected, I just missed the writing about it in your actual birth month. If it makes you feel any better, I was even later writing about your brother's last birthday. It seems to be the state of affairs these days at My Convertible Life. (Although if you're using this blog for some sort of archival study one day, then apologies for having apparently missed last year's post altogether. At least I wrote about turning five.)

You turned seven this birthday. Seven doesn't scare me so much, except that you seem to be seven going on 17 -- and that is terrifying.

Right now, you still love me. You actually tell me that, almost every day. You give me tight hugs and pronounce me "the best mommy ever in the whole universe" on a regular basis. You ask for extra kisses when I drop you off at 1st grade, even when I'm running late for work and being short with you. You want to be my sidekick, want me to be your playmate, want to show me everything.

Sometimes I catch myself wondering when it's going to stop. When are you going to be too big, too grown, too stylish and notice that I am too old, too embarrassing, too out-dated?

I try not to worry, to stay in the moment. I hug you back until you let go first, fill your pockets with blown kisses to save for later, lie beside you and scratch your back at night. I admire how funny, smart and strong you are. Some days I remember.

Then there are days when I forget everything except that, no matter how frustrated I am, I am not allowed to sell you on Craigslist. Those days -- when you don't listen, don't follow directions, don't want anything to do with me -- push me past my limits. And yet still, even on those days, you love me. I hope you know that I love you, too.

When you ask funny questions like "What does Taylor Swift mean when she says she's a nightmare dressed like a daydream?" I know you're just trying to make sense of the lyrics you're shockingly good at remembering. But it also reminds me that there is so much you don't know about, don't understand, might not be prepared for. You are my baby and I want to protect you from all of them.

There will be hundreds (millions?) of things in the coming years that I will get wrong with you -- things that will disappoint or infuriate you. I can already see some of them, but I'm not sure that will help me avoid the mistakes. When those moments come, I hope that both of us will feel some tiny pull back to these days to bind us together.

You are my second child, my last born. When you were brand new, I was able to soak in all your warm, round, sweet babyness in a way that I couldn't in the early terrifying first-born days with your brother. So bear with me while I try to keep you small for just a little bit longer, keep telling me you love me and be patient with me on the days I forget.

I love you, baby girl.
- Mommy

How do you grade a school? See for yourself.

Yesterday morning, a friend texted me following a tour of our assigned middle school. Our oldest kids are slated to go there after next school year -- she's planning ahead, visiting magnet schools as well as our base school.

Her text: "VERY impressed!"

After her visit, my friend happily talked about "the spirit" of the school and how the students were "so proud and so excited." When's the last time you saw middle schoolers excited about school? That sense of community, combined with a growing engineering program, connections with NC State and enthusiastic teachers is what won her over.

This morning, the newspaper ran a full-page listing of the letter grades assigned yesterday to all public schools in North Carolina for the first time. According to that report, this same school is a D.

So who's right?

I'm betting on the assessment made after actually going to the school, hearing from the students and talking to the teachers. That barely passing grade from the state is calculated using only last year's scores on end-of-grade reading and math tests (80%) and a small measure of student academic growth (20%) -- it doesn't come close to capturing the full picture of what students and teachers are accomplishing in the school, where more than half the population lives in poverty.

In a statement Thursday about the grades, Senator Pro Tem Phil Berger (R) basically attacked anyone questioning the validity of the labels. "We’re troubled by early knee-jerk reactions that appear to condemn poor children to automatic failure," Berger said. "And we reject the premise that high poverty schools are incapable of excelling, since today’s report shows numerous examples that are proving that myth wrong. We must give these grades a chance to work so we can learn from them and improve outcomes for our children.” (WRAL)

Berger seems to think that it's the grades that will change the schools, not leadership development, instructional supports or professional salaries for teachers. Despite Berger's allegation, no one believes that "high poverty schools are incapable" -- but decades of research and observation tell us that poverty creates challenges and obstacles to effective teaching and learning that have to be overcome. Slapping a letter grade on a school won't change that.

Rep. Craig Horn (R), chairman of the House K-12 education committee, acknowledges that the formula might need to be adjusted, but says the letter grades are easy for parents to understand. "At least A, B, C, D and F, people have a much more definitive idea of how that school is performing and will make judgments accordingly," Horn said (WRAL).

It's exactly those "judgements" that scare me.

When parents see a D or F assigned to a school, it will be easy to remove that school from the consideration set. But when parents make decisions about whether or not to send their children to a certain school based only on that letter grade, they could be missing out on a great school. That decision can quickly turn into a vicious cycle for the school, where reputation becomes reality as more parents with the means to make different choices opt out of the school.

That's not what I want for any school -- but especially not for the school my son is likely to attend in another year, a school that has worked hard to become a popular choice after spending years rumored as a school to avoid.

Even Republican Senator Jerry Tillman, sponsor of the original bill calling for performance grades, predicted that the grades "may fall along demographic lines." Then the senator, also a former public school administrator, added this surprising statement: "If that's the case, I will be pushing to see some changes. I'd rather be in a D school making great growth than in an A school where growth is stagnant. I know if these kids are growing, there has to be good teaching and good leadership for that to be occurring." (The N&O)

I don't expect to see changes to the law any time soon -- Sen. Tillman acknowledged as much, and Sen. Berger is far too pleased with the law as it stands.

What I hope, though, is that parents and community members won't judge schools by this law. I hope that they will take the time to walk into these schools and judge for themselves. Look for the good teaching and good leadership that Sen. Tillman referenced. Get a sense of the community in the school, watch how students interact with each other and with their teachers.

The feeling you have inside the school will tell you far more than any letter grade -- regardless of what that letter happens to be.

J-Fest 2014: The Last Single Digit Year

Dear Junius --

Technically it's still your birth month for a couple more hours, so I'm going to just call this a victory. If you're reading this years later and you don't remember, I promise we didn't miss your actual 9th birthday -- I just missed writing about you on the day, that's all.

When you were younger, I remember thinking that I'd have so much more time to write once you and your sister were older and in school. That's just one item on a long list of things I've been wrong about when it comes to parenting.

I'd like to claim that the reason I haven't written a whole series of posts about you and your birthday this month is because I've been so busy spending time with you and treasuring the fantastic little man that you're becoming. But the truth is that I've been overwhelmed doing pretty much the opposite of that -- ignoring you in order to squeeze in more than my scheduled hours at work and then collapsing on the couch when we are finally home together again.

It hasn't been the July I was hoping for.

We are both first borns, you and I. Not just any old first borns either -- we are textbook cases. We want everything to be fair and everyone to love us. We want the whole world to be happy and we want at least partial credit for making it that way. We want to know the plan in advance. And sometimes we just want to be home where we can control the little space in our own rooms because everywhere else is too crazy. I watch you crumble sometimes as you wrestle with reality and I ache for you. It is all painfully familiar.

But there are some things you've already figured out that took me much longer to discover. Even when you'd rather stay safe at home, you put on a brave face and walk into spaces where you know no one in hopes that it might be worthwhile. You volunteer to be the first to fight Darth Vader, or skate onto center ice and fist bump NHL players before the national anthem. You're developing a tough side that you can hold together for at least a few minutes. You attract friends among strangers easily. It is all quite impressive.

This crazy July, in between the billable hours, I have managed to teach you a few things that seemed worth passing on. You're now hooked on solitaire, a perfect game for the kid who likes rules and fairness. You've discovered the power of the pointy elbow, that family trait useful for boxing out and pushing through. You can fry an egg and cook chicken nuggets, which gets you two of your favorite meals. And you've learned to keep a book in your bag at all times, just in case you've got 15 minutes to spend reading while you wait.

I am hopeful that we will find times to slow down and appreciate your being 9 this year. Your next birthday brings double-digits and I don't expect I'll handle it well.

But I worry that life is going to get in my way, so I'm asking for your help. Maybe now and then you could remind me to say yes when you ask me to play horse or Monopoly. Maybe sometimes you could let me skip Monopoly and play solitaire at the kitchen counter while I make dinner. And maybe some days you'll just tuck in beside me on the couch when that's all I've got left.

I love you, my firstborn. Thanks for being patient with me.
- Mommy

It's a Girl

This post is from my piece at last year's Listen to Your Mother show in Raleigh. You can watch me here, but I realized I never posted the text. Excited to go see this year's show tonight as an audience member!

When she’s older, my daughter will probably hate me for saying this, or even thinking it. But I didn’t want to have a girl.

My son was about to turn two that Father’s Day morning when I peed on the stick and realized we were going to have another baby. Junius was finally starting to sleep more at night. Life was just beginning to feel manageable again. While I was excited to be pregnant, I was equally overwhelmed by the idea of beginning it all again.

As the weeks went by, my second pregnancy mirrored the first. I was tired, but never sick and only occasionally queasy. Girth increased steadily with weight, matching the first pregnancy pound for pound and inch for inch week by week.

This baby is a boy, I thought -- just like the first. If it were a girl, I would know. I would feel different and I would be vomiting. But everything was the same and I was relieved.

I imagined we would become “Cyndi and the boys.” Our sons would be buddies and build LEGOS and play basketball. My husband would take them camping and fishing on weekends while I stayed home and went for pedicures and read books. Yes, they might be loud or messy, but it would be worth it.

It’s the American way: boys love their mamas. They would love me, cherish me and never, ever turn on me.

Because ladies, let’s be honest. We save the really bad shit for our mamas.

I wasn’t a crazy or rebellious kid. I have always had a good relationship with both of my parents. But in my teen years, something changed. I was mean to my mother and treated her in ways that I never would my father. Even when I wasn’t upset with my mom, I still held back my disaster meltdown moments until she was the only one around to deal with me.

The best of daughters seem to go through rough times with their mothers. And that’s the good ones. The rest wind up hating their moms, vowing never to be like them, and rolling their eyes and yelling obscenities at them.

So when the ultrasound revealed that this new baby was a girl? I was terrified.

And I hated myself for it.

I was supposed to be excited. A son AND a daughter. One of each! Isn’t that what everyone wants? Slugs and snails meets sugar and spice. The perfect family.

Except that I wanted a matched set. Wouldn’t it be so much easier -- and so much less frightening -- to have another boy? I was getting good at being a boy mama. Starting over with a newborn was scary enough without the specter of one day having to share my house with a hormonal pre-teen girl.

For two weeks, my husband and I didn’t tell anyone we’d found out it was a girl -- not even our parents or our son. We practiced at home saying “she” and “her” instead of “it” and “the baby.” We talked about girl names. We thought about friends who had painted nurseries pink in preparation, only to discover on birth day that their baby had been hiding his little boy parts when the ultrasound tech was looking. Maybe the ultrasound was wrong?

Of course it wasn’t wrong. Our baby girl arrived as scheduled on Feb. 22, 2008, beautiful and round and perfect.

It turns out that I was wrong about not wanting a daughter. The last months of my pregnancy gave me time to get used to the idea. When she was born, I already knew her -- and I loved her immediately. Five years later, Pippi is sweet and funny and crazy smart. She sings and dances constantly through each day, strutting her stuff in pink cowgirl boots and mismatched outfits. She possesses a powerful confidence at age five that will hopefully carry her far in life.

But it also turns out that I was kind of right to be afraid. Pippi may only be five, but she’s already giving me a run for my money. She saves her worst behavior for me and her best for her teachers. She tells lies and tests limits and pushes my buttons in ways that make me grind my teeth and bang my head into my hands. She is a Daddy’s Girl -- apparently it takes one to make one -- and she already seems to know that she can be meaner to me than she treats him.

She is the best and worst of having a daughter. And I am lucky to have made her.

So I try hard to give her the most important things my mother has always given me. A patient ear. A loving heart. A shoulder to cry on. And a wonderful father for the many times ahead when she doesn’t want any of those things from me.

Road Trips

My family didn’t take many big trips when I was a kid. We spent most summer vacations at North or South Carolina beaches or visiting my grandparents in Virginia.

On the occasion that we went somewhere more exotic -- like Washington, D.C., or New York --  we always drove and we always checked out any colleges that were nearby. But a college visit with my dad didn’t usually involve an official tour or a trip into the admissions office. Instead, we mostly just drove through campus and saw whatever we could see from the car, then we kept going.

These little side trips became known as The Dave Drive-By.

Then the summer after my freshman year in college, my parents, brother and I took our first big family trip on an airplane – we flew to San Francisco, where we rented a big white Lincoln Town Car. I think the trunk on that thing was bigger than my first dorm room. Two weeks -- and four states, three national parks (four if you count Las Vegas), more than a dozen friends and relatives, and at least three colleges/universities -- later, we flew home from Phoenix.

That trip went down in family history as the Official Drive-By of The West. It was kind of a strange trip – I was 19 and used to living away from home, my brother was 15 and probably used to having me away from home. All four of us shared hotel rooms (when we weren’t staying with friends or family) and did pretty much everything together for the whole two weeks. I think back on it and wonder if my parents were crazy or clueless or both.

But I also can’t stop myself from grinning any time I think about that trip. My brother and I cracked endless jokes about the distance between the front seat and the back seat of the land yacht. We met relatives who last remembered seeing us when my brother was in diapers. My all ventured a little out of our comfort zones, saw places that were completely different than anywhere we’d ever been. We listened to a lot of Toad the Wet Sprocket.

More than 20 years later, that trip stands out as a mile-marker in my family history.

So far this year, my husband and I have taken our kids on our own version of The Drive-By in two opposite directions. In January, we drove to Pittsburgh (because who doesn't want to go to Pittsburgh in January?!) to see friends, tour the science center, ride the gondola, drive by the house my parents lived in when I was born, visit the Cathedral of Learning at Pitt, go ice skating outside and see the Penguins play hockey. In February, we drove to Disney World for the first time -- a more traditional kind of kid trip that still had that Drive-By feel as we whizzed through three parks in three days.

I wonder if my kids will remember 2014 as the Year of the Road Trip. Actually, I wonder if they will even remember 2014 at all. I’m pretty sure we were crazy for driving nearly nine hours to Pittsburgh, spending two days there and driving what turned into more than 11 hours back through a snow storm.  Pulling them out of school for two days to drive to Florida and back doesn't exactly seem logical either.

Even still, I find myself wondering how our kids will remember these trips and how their memories will be different from mine. Will Pippi recall the long, boring drive, or only the fact that she got to swim in the hotel pool and order room service for dinner? Will Junius wish we'd flown to Florida, or just laugh when he thinks back to shouting "THAT WAS AWESOME" on his first roller coaster?

And will either of them ever know how lucky they really are? Guess we'll keep planning Drive-Bys to remind them.

Good Sport

For a woman who never played organized sports growing up – unless you count driveway kickball, which wasn’t really all that organized but was highly competitive – I’ve made a real commitment to team athletics for my kids. Like many suburban moms, I drive them to and from practices, bring snacks, cheer for everyone and spend large chunks of my life sitting on bleachers in conditions that are often too cold or too hot to be pleasant.

While it’s nice to imagine that they might turn out to be college-scholarship athletes, I’m not overly concerned that they excel at the sports they play. As hokey as it sounds, I really just want them to learn how to be a good teammate, engage in healthy exercise, develop a few leadership skills, and have a lot of fun.

It’s more important to me that they learn how to be good sports than to be good at sports.

In his most recent basketball season, Junius and his team had a perfect record – they managed to go eight straight games without winning a single one. Coming off an undefeated season with his hockey team, I worried that he might lose interest in basketball – or at least in his teammates – given their apparent lack of success.

During the final game last month, Junius scored a personal best 14 points. But the game highlight occurred when the ball wasn’t even in play.

As he followed his team back into the gym after halftime, Junius ran in front of his team’s bench, launched into a halfway decent cartwheel and burst out laughing as he bounced down next to the other boys.

When I asked him after the game why he did the cartwheel – an unusually showy move for him – he replied simply, “I wanted to rally my team, mom!”

That cartwheel rally didn’t affect the game’s outcome, but it made an otherwise losing season worth every butt-numbing minute in the stands.

First Time

Last Wednesday, my husband and I picked up our kids from school at lunchtime and announced that we were taking them to Disney World for the first time. As in, right now, the car is packed, let’s go make dreams come true, we have three days to live the magic.

We expected their reaction would be something like this:

Children’s mouths drop, we beam at them lovingly. Their eyes light up as they shout, “SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! THAT’S INCREDIBLE! YOU ARE THE BEST PARENTS EVERRRRR!” And then we all melt into a group hug and sing Disney tunes for nine hours in the car.

Instead, it went more like this:

Children’s faces remain blank. They look skeptical and mutter, “I don’t believe you. Are you serious?” We show them the packed car and the magic bands and promise that we are telling the truth. They complain, “But it’s Wednesday. We don’t want to miss P.E.” And we suggest that perhaps three days in Disney is even better than P.E. And then they both say, “Can I play on the iPad in the car?” Twenty minutes down the road they start asking if we are in Florida yet. The only Disney songs we sing are from the Frozen soundtrack on continuous loop.

Hmph. I don’t know what Mr. P is doing in those phys ed classes, but it must be incredible.

The good news is that they got progressively more excited throughout the nine-or-so-hour drive and were totally wound up by the time we checked into our hotel at 10 p.m. Awesome.

Now that we’ve been back home for a few days, I’ve realized that taking your kids to Disney World for the first time is a lot like having your first newborn.

While you’re in the midst of it, you’re completely overwhelmed by the rapid swings between totally amazing and amazingly hard. But once it’s over, you forget all the crying and the exhaustion and that inexplicable sticky mess on your shirt. All you remember are the sweet, fun, photogenic moments and you decide you must do it again because you’ve learned so much from surviving the first one and you want to see if you can do an even better job the second time around.

At least the next time – if our bodies and our bank account can survive a next time – I’ll be expecting a different reaction when we give them the good news. Maybe it will go something like this:

Wow, Mom! That sounds even better than a whole day of P.E.!

Warm Heart

Parenthood is filled with lots of crappy moments.

Kids are whiny and messy and exhausting. There are snow days that you have to juggle with work that doesn’t close when school does. You make dinner every single night, half the time working like a short-order cook, and still they complain. They never clean their rooms without being asked – and still don’t do it when you do ask them. They pick and fight with each other. They are demanding.

But the beauty of parenthood is found in just as many tiny, lovely moments.

Even as they grow, they’ll still snuggle on the couch with me. They look like angels tucked into their beds, sleeping soundly as they snore. Sometimes they love my cooking, announcing loudly that no one makes better pancakes than mine. They give hugs and kisses freely. There are chances to be proud of them in public. Once in a while, they even ask me how my day went and actually listen to my response.

Yesterday – after the mess of putting on and taking off snow pants, snow boots, snow-covered gloves and hats, after lunch custom-made for each child because they couldn’t possibly eat the same thing, after the whining about what can we do and why can’t we watch another show – the kids and I headed back out into the cold to find some friends for sledding. As we started up the hill, each child dragging a sled, Pippi started complaining that her sled was too heavy.

“Hey, Mom,” says Junius, smiling. “I’ve got an idea. You pull my sled and I’ll pull Pippi in her sled!”

“Thank you, Junius!” Pippi replied, as he held the sled for her to climb into. Then they headed on up the hill together, with me just behind them.

My feet were cold, but my heart was melty.

Choosing Kindergarten

When I was a senior in high school, I applied and was accepted to four universities. That was great – except that the only one I could afford to go to was my last choice.

Thankfully my last choice was still a very good option and it only took about two weeks on campus before I was completely on board. By the end of my freshman year, I couldn’t imagine ever going to the other three schools.

What I learned through that experience (among other things) is that college was ultimately what I made it. If I showed up ready, made an effort in my classes, talked with my professors, spent time making good friends and really invested in the school, then I was going to love it.

I feel the same way about my kids’ elementary school – and I want to say that to parents of rising kindergartners around the county as they fret over choosing the right school for their children. 

It’s time for families in Wake County to register for kindergarten, a milestone packed with emotion. And here, in addition to the angst over letting your little person spend the better part of five days a week with kids and adults you’ve never met, there’s the added stress of deciding on which school(s) to choose -- or wondering if you really even have a choice. We’re lucky here to have a lot of good options, but that creates its own challenges.

All over the district, parents are touring magnet schools, visiting their base school and weighing a host of other options both public and private -- although depending on where they live and what their circumstances are, some may have more real choices than others. A few years ago I was where they are now and I remember how worried I was about making just the right choice – a choice that was ultimately controlled by where the district had space for us.

Now that we’ve been in two different elementary schools over the past four years (through our choice, not a reassignment), I can see that we are fortunate to be in the same position I was as a high school senior. All of our options were good ones – some a better fit than others, but none of them bad. And ultimately what we – both the kids and our whole family – get out of the school is based on what we put into it.

Our children showed up prepared for school – a luxury that not every child starts with, I realize. My kids make an effort in their classes, learning to read and write, add and multiply, think and talk. They’ve made friends, in class and on the playground – and we’ve made parent friends, too, helping on field trips or waiting at school pick-up. As a family, we have invested in elementary school, not just through our donations to the PTA, but with our time and energy, through our communications with teachers, in our conversations at home with our kids.

So if you’re one of these parents in the midst of school decisions, here are a few thoughts:

• It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. This is a big deal.
• Kindergarten rocks. It’s absolutely incredible to watch those little people grow.
• Go visit all the schools you’re interested in. There’s a lot you can learn from the way a school feels when you walk through it.
• Talk with parents whose kids actually attend the school. Don’t put stock in hearsay and rumors. 
• Know that every school will have teachers you love and others who aren’t as good a fit for your child. No school is perfect, not even Hogwarts.
• Keep in mind that numbers – test scores, demographics and the rest – only tell part of the story. Don’t make assumptions.
• Remember that your attitude toward the school sets the tone for your child. 
• Trust that if you invest in your school, you’ll get a great return. 

Oh, and pack some tissues for yourself on the first day of school. It’s a doozy – but it’s worth it.

More thoughts on kindergarten and school choice:

• Redshirting in Kindergarten
• The Burden of Making Decisions 

In Which My Daughter Tries to Kill Me By Refusing to Sleep Through the Night

In case you thought perhaps Pippi's bedtime was all moonlight and unicorns, with little back-scratching fairies who carried her off to sleep, here's your reality check.


Pippi was generally a better sleeper than her brother was as a baby -- although truthfully that’s a pretty low bar. But where Junius tried to kill us quickly through insanely intense sleep deprivation during his first year, his sister has taken the slow-torture approach and is trying to bring about my demise in a more methodical, diabolical fashion.

She continues -- even at age five-and-three-quarters -- to wake up during the night (sometimes more than once) and require attention. Sometimes she calls from her bed, with a sing-song "Moooooooooooooo-mmyyyyyyyyyyyyyy." Then there’s a 15-second pause, followed by the same pitch of Moooooooooooooo-mmyyyyyyyyyyyyyy," (almost never "Daaaaaaaaa-ddyyyyyyyy") which continues steadily until I go into her room. Other times she appears at the edge of the bed, as if by magic, her round face and hot breath an inch from mine -- which still scares the crap out of me when I realize she’s there. Frequently she wakes up around 5:00, which gives her plenty of time to go back to sleep while robbing me of my last 30 minutes before I have to get up for boot camp.

I am basically rude and not at all sympathetic to her when this happens. But I walk her back to her bed, tuck her in and tell her I love her -- because I just. want. to go. back. to sleep.

It seemed we had finally bribed parented our way out of this deadly pattern a couple of months ago. But she has resumed her nocturnal neediness over the past week. Why? I have no idea.

Well, actually, I have a few…

27 Reasons That May or May Not Explain Why My Daughter Wakes Up During the Night

1. She is lonely.
2. She needs to pee.
3. She needs to pee and wants to use my bathroom instead of hers.
4. She needed to pee and just wanted to tell me that she already went. All by herself.
5. She peed and now she wants someone to tuck her in.
6. She wants someone to lie down with her.
7. She wants someone to lie down with her who is a human and not one of her “friends” that is a stuffed animal.
8. Her bed is too crowded.
9. She just wants some company.
10. She wants to know if it’s time to get up.
11. She wants to know how much longer until morning.
12. Her legs itch.
13. He back itches.
14. She can’t find Shirley (the Sheep, pictured above).
15. She wants to know if she has school tomorrow.
16. Or the next day?
17. She just remembered a funny story about what happened at school yesterday and needs to tell me about it right now.
18. She had a bad dream.
19. She had a silly dream. And needs to tell me about it right now.
20. She wonders how many days it is until her birthday and how many friends she can invite to her party and can it please be a sleep-over?
21. Her room is too dark.
22. Her nightlight is too bright.
23. There were these really awesome Hello Kitty socks in the dollar bin at Target and she wants to know if we could go buy them in the morning.
24. Her closet doors are open.
25. She thought her brother was up.
26. She wants to know if she can play Minecraft on Daddy’s iPad.
27. She needs a tissue. And she may or may not have a nosebleed.

If you've got any favorite reasons from your own house, feel free to add them below in the comments. If you've got those kids who magically slept through the night as a six-week-old baby and never looked back, then you should just keep that to yourself.

Love in the Time of Back Scratching

When she’s older, I hope my daughter remembers the back scratching.

Actually I hope she remembers all of the wonderful, caring, selfless things I do for her – like make dinner every night, paint her nails, “help” clean her room, take her to playdates, buy her clothes, do her laundry, color pictures, play Go Fish, take her to the ballet. But if she only remembers the back scratching and it makes her smile, that would be a good start.

Most nights I’m the one putting her to bed. We read a book, say prayers, then turn out the light – at which point she immediately asks me to scratch her back. Sometimes she also requests a song or a story, but always the back.

“If I’m very still and very quiet, mommy, will you please scratch my back?” she asks, anticipating the requirements before I can say them and turning her face to the wall so her back is pointing at me.

I’m always exhausted at this point in the night. Ready to be done with bedtime so I can have my own time to write, read, watch TV or (gasp) be with my husband. I don’t actually like doing bedtime because the whole routine just makes me tired.

But I cannot say no to the back scratching request.

When I was a kid, I loved having my back scratched. Okay, I still do. My mom, a pianist, never had long nails, but she had the gentlest touch and the patience of a saint. Sometimes, if I managed to randomly sit close enough to her hand, she would absent-mindedly start scratching my back simply because it was there and that was what she did. It’s a most ordinary and yet most intimate gesture.

One day, if Pippi is lucky enough to have her own exhausting little person to put to bed, I hope she’ll catch a memory of snuggling under her blanket with her soft, small back sticking out. I hope she’ll recall my weary fingertips running circles across her pajamas and her skin, through her fresh-from-the-bath hair.

And I hope she’ll know in that moment that – despite all the times I wasn't what she needed me to be – I have always loved her.

LTYM: Watch Me Read to You!

Who knew that watching a video of myself presenting my writing on stage at the Listen to Your Mother show in May would make me more nervous than actually presenting my writing on stage at the show? But when I got the email today saying the videos had been posted, my heart started racing and my palms got all sweaty.

Watching myself is crazy weird. That's all I have to say about that.

But I loved being part of this show with our amazing producers Marty and Keanne and all of the great cast members, so I absolutely must share it with you. Now go fix yourself a beverage, find a comfortable spot to sit, and settle in to watch our show...



After you've watched all the awesomeness from the Raleigh-Durham show (trust me when I tell you to it's worth watching them ALL), be sure to check out the other 23 cities. 

The LTYM video launch is made possible thanks to our national video sponsor The Partnership at Drugfree.org. We are proud to promote their message of preventing prescription drug misuse and abuse.  Take a moment and check out The Medicine Abuse Project to learn more and join me in taking the Pledge.

LTYM Raleigh-Durham would also like to thank local video sponsor Myriad Media for videoing the performances.

J-Fest 2013: A Champion Boy

"He's a champion baby, Cyndi."

That's the first thing I remember my husband telling me about our newborn son after I regained consciousness following the c-section. Once he persuaded me that I wasn't actually dead, that proud new papa talked a blue streak about our sweet baby boy to bring me back to my now-expanded family.

"You should see his hands! He's amazing. Just a champion baby." He said it like I'd had some control over how this tiny baby had turned out, like we had really accomplished something.

And considering that we had just made an actual, real-live person, I guess we really did accomplish something.

Eight years later, that champion baby has turned into a champion boy. Eight.

It's a funny age -- too big to be little, yet still too little to be big. Some days, I think even he doesn't know which direction he wants to lean. And I'm not so sure either.

I love so many quirky things about the Junius who is temporarily trapped between infant and teen...

...that he says "funiture" and "tooken," but can explain the difference between a slapshot, a snapshot and a wrister.

...that he wants me to read to him at night, even though he can read whole chapter books on his own.

...that he asks to snuggle with me on the couch, even though he's so big I can barely pick him up anymore.

...that he cracks up at the poop jokes on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, even though he doesn't understand the news context of most of the show.

..that he sleeps with Baby and Blanket tucked close beside him in bed, even though he leaves them at home when he sleeps over at a friend's house.

...that he asks me about my day sometimes, but mostly just wants to know if my favorite part of the day involved him.

In another eight years, he will ask to borrow the car and I will wonder where the time has gone. He'll probably know how to conjugate the verb "to take" by then and he likely won't be clutching a small, white teddy bear in his sleep. But with any luck, he'll still want to curl up on the couch with me and read a book or just talk about the day. And I'll try in vain to resist the urge to tell him he's still my champion baby.

Happy birthday, Junebug. I love you.

Eye of the Beholder

Throughout my life, my mom has always told me that I'm pretty. That's a great thing for a girl's ego -- except that often my mother does it in the context of disparaging herself at the same time.

"I wish my hair were shiny and beautiful like yours -- mine is so gray and flat now."

"You have such a nice figure -- I can't wear dresses like that anymore."

"Your teeth are so straight and white -- I've always hated my teeth."

The truth is that my mom is pretty -- and I look a lot like her, so it must be true. She's also 28 years older than I am, so I have a bit of an advantage.

Her habit of putting herself down while simultaneously lifting me up always makes me self-conscious. It's not a competition, I want to tell her. We are always our own worst critics (see the latest from Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign for more on that one). We're both getting older and changing, but I like to believe that neither one of us looks our age.

Then I look at Pippi. And suddenly I see what my mom sees when she looks at me. She's perfect and gorgeous and way more amazing than I am -- but unlike me, she has always looked more like her dad than her mom.

Until today.

This afternoon, Pippi and I went to our favorite salon so that she could get a summer haircut and donate her beautiful, shiny, sun-streaked ponytail to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. As Stephanie snipped and trimmed a sassy little bob and Pippi winked and grinned at herself in the mirror, I watched my long-haired daughter start to look just a little like me for the first time.

Looking at her wearing my haircut -- and grinning from ear to ear -- made my heart melt just a little. When I texted pictures to my husband so he could see the new do, he texted back, "Beautiful! She looks like you now ;)" -- and that made me melt just a little bit more.

It's a funny thing about motherhood, how each stage makes me understand something about my own mother. I'm starting to get it, what she sees when she looks at me. When I look at Pippi, I know she's prettier than I am -- the difference is that she's already got such a big head (literally and figuratively), that I'll be keeping that opinion to myself.

Click here to see the 1977 photo of my mom and me in our matching (Dorothy Hamill) haircuts, along with photos of Pippi's first haircut.

A Prayer for the Living

When seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed into Columbine High School and murdered 12 classmates and one teacher before committing suicide on an April morning in 1999, I was an 11th grade English teacher in Charlotte, NC. That afternoon, I sat on a desk in front of the television in my empty classroom, paralyzed by the story playing out on the news.

That could have happened at my school, I thought. Could have happened at any school. And I was terrified, trying to imagine what I would have done if I'd been the teacher facing the end of a loaded shotgun.

This past Friday, when the news alert landed in my inbox with the headline "'Several' Students, Adults Dead After Elementary School Shooting In Conn.," I was frozen again. But this time the fear was different. This time I wasn't in a North Carolina classroom -- this time, my son was.

The rational part of my brain knew he was fine, knew the situation was unspeakably horrible but also hundreds of miles away. Still, the rest of me -- all the mom parts of me -- needed to get to my son as quickly as possible and hold him close.

Since Friday afternoon, I've read pieces of articles, heard bits of stories, all of which stop me in my tracks and reduce me to tears so that I'm forced to look away. After Columbine, I was scared. But Sandy Hook has pierced down under my skin, broken into my heart in ways that I cannot really explain except to say that I am a mom now. When I think of those in the school who were both teachers and parents, I cannot even comprehend what they experienced.

I hear the story of the police officer who slipped his badge under the door so the kids in hiding would know it was safe to come out, listen to the rabbi talk about trying to help a grieving mother breathe, read about one father who found his child alive and another father who didn't, imagine the terror everyone must have felt -- and my brain simply starts to shut down. My heart constricts, my stomach drops, I can't breathe. If my child were among the missing, I am certain that I would simply cease to exist.

And yet these parents are still breathing, in spite of it all.

So that is all I can think to pray for today. Please, God, help the survivors to breathe. Find air for them to fill their lungs so they can find a way back to living. Make space for them -- the parents and students and teachers -- to catch a breath now and then that will be deep enough to force the pain out and lift them up to the light for just a moment.

Friday's 5: Things I Learned on Vacation

We spent last week at the beach. It was glorious -- even with one rainy day and two cloudy days. I won't bore you with the details of drip castles and sunscreen and sand in the bath tub and trying to force Junius to let me take his picture. But I will share with you five random things I learned while at the beach.

1. Good books are even better with cocktails. Before I left for the beach, a friend recommended that I bring a copy of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. And she suggested that I enjoy a mai tai along with it. Spot on, with both recommendations -- although I'd add a good gin & tonic to the beverage list. As a result, I've decided that all literary selections should come with a drink menu.

2. Some women shave their faces. Not because of a hair issue, but to slough off dead skin cells in order to look younger. And by "some women" I mean someone other than me who may or may not be one of my friends at the beach. I'm not a dermatologist, I haven't tried this, and I'm not making this up -- I'm just sharing. And no, I don't have a picture for this one.

3. Beach olympics are perfect on a cloudy day. You'll be totally jealous when I tell you this, but one of our friends organized "olympic events" including sack races, hula hooping and water balloon tosses -- complete with a hand-stitched olympic flag and "Chariots of Fire" playing in the background. There were also olympic ring tattoos and gold medals for everyone. See? Jealous, right?

4. Dress appropriately for the battleship tour. They don't tell you this on the website for the USS North Carolina, so I'm going to give you the straight truth. We stopped in Wilmington on our way home to tour the WWII battleship. Being an actual battleship, it's very interesting, seriously enormous and crazy hot (no air conditioning) -- all of which they mention on the site. What they don't tell you is that you SHOULD NOT WEAR A SKIRT. My above-the-knee swingy knit skirt was great for the temperatures, but not so smart for climbing up and down the dozens of ladders all over the ship while strangers stand below. Now you know.

5. Popsicles are for breakfast. Or at least they are on check-out day. In year's past, I've always ended up throwing the leftover popsicles in the trash -- not like they're going to survive the trip home in the cooler. This year I was awarded Rock Star Mom status when I handed my kids popsicles and paper towels and sent them out on the deck at 9 a.m. while we packed up the house.

Now it's your turn. What random knowledge have you acquired this summer? Share with us so that all may know...

Rules of the Name Game

Now and then, I write about something controversial here at My Convertible Life. Things like redshirting in kindergarten, voting against Amendment One, assigning students to public schools or pole-dancing on Sundays.

But after a serious discussion with our beach friends on Sunday night (what... you don't sit on the beach at night with your friends and discuss parenting rules?), I realized I may have missed weighing in on an even bigger, more controversial debate: what name children should use when addressing adults.

Among the group of about seven parents, we could not find consensus about whether to use Mr/Mrs Lastname or Mr/Ms Firstname or some combination of the two. And we may have been drinking a few mai tais, which probably clouded our capacity for agreement and raised the volume on our discussion.

So, like all good parents, I turned to Twitter and Facebook to crowd-source the answer. Here is what I learned:

1. Lots of you have strong opinions about this issue. (Who knew?)
2. There is no definitive answer.

Yeah. Not so helpful.

Given the clear gap in parenting guidelines, I'm going to invent my own based on the range of replies I got. You may now follow these rules and recommend them to your friends:

1. It's never wrong for a kid to call an adult by Mr/Mrs Lastname. If you need an easy default, that's it. If your child says, "Mrs. Garbanzo, may I have a cookie?" she can always say, "What nice manners you have. Of course you may -- and please, just call me Ms. Lucy."
2. It's easier to correct the formal to informal than the other way around. In the previous scenario, if your kid said, "Ms. Lucy, may I have a cookie?" she's going to feel bitchy having to say, "Yes, you may, but you have to call me Mrs. Garbanzo."
3. If you live in the South, you have more leeway for using Mr/Ms Firstname. Most of my Facebook/Twitter experts seemed to feel that it's "both sweet and respectful" in a Southern kind of way.
4. If you have close friends who know your kids well, you can use something less formal -- either Mr/Ms Firstname or Auntie/Uncle Firstname (although that can get confusing with your actual relatives) or even just using their first name. The only non-relative adults I called by their first names (to their faces) when I was a teen were my BFF's parents and my piano teachers.
5. When in doubt, your children may refer to me as The Queen or Your Royal Highness. This goes for my own children as well.

In analyzing the debate, I observed two things:

1. The rationale for using Mr/Ms Lastname seems to be respect -- that it's a way for children to respect adults and to recognize that they are expected to listen to the adults. This is certainly the case for calling your teachers (once you've graduated from preschool) by their surnames.
2. The rationale for using using Mr/Ms Firstname is a little less clear. For some, it's probably just a general desire to be less formal -- calling a young mom Mrs. Garbanzo might have her checking over her shoulder for her mother-in-law. For others, it's a way to demystify names ahead of the shift when kids become adults themselves -- after you've spent 20 years calling someone Mrs. Garbanzo, it can be tough to start calling her Lucy even when you're more of a peer. I still have friends from high school whose parents I cannot bring myself to call by their first names, more than 20 years post-graduation.

Okay, so those are my rules. What are yours?