A little mystery, please

I am only 29 years old, so I know that I’m not wallowing in a fog of nostalgia when I say: Who on Earth lets their daughter out of the house wearing a Prom dress like this? Seriously? The video of the news story is down below, but here’s a picture from Boing Boing just to give you an idea:

Apparently the theme at Prom this year was “Streetwalker”. Or not. Predictably, when Marche Taylor showed up to her high school prom wearing this little scrap, she was denied entrance, then arrested because she started making a big scene. Stay classy, Marche.

Whatever happened to leaving a few things to the imagination? Whatever happened to cultivating an air of mystery? Because if a modest dress = mystery, then this dress = “Chapter 1: The butler did it! In the pantry with the candlestick! THE END.”

One thing I noted while watching the news video is that the girl’s mom and dad are nowhere to be seen. Please tell me they’re at the library, checking out a parenting book.

The Lost Boys of the FLDS

It’s been just over a month since the government raid on the polygamist Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, and I continue to be amazed at the appalling spectacle of the whole thing.

Obviously, the state government has bitten off a lot more than they can chew. The raid was poorly executed, ill-advised in the first place, and possibly illegal. But if I object to the raid at all, it’s because of the sloppy handling, not because I disagree with the state’s decision to investigate. Certainly not because of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints’ tearjerker Captive FLDS Children website and interviews featuring weeping mothers begging to see their children again.

It’s not that I’m unsympathetic—I never like to see children being taken away from their parents unless there is a darn good reason for it. And if the state felt that the children were in imminent danger of abuse, I think they should have taken the men away and left the women and children at the ranch while they investigated. But as impatient as I feel toward the Texas authorities, I confess that my pity for the FLDS parents is somewhat limited.

They’re working overtime to present themselves as law-abiding citizens who were peacefully practicing their religion before the bad old state came in and tore children and parents apart, but the FLDS was tearing families apart all by themselves long before the YFZ raid, and all in the name of their religion, too.

So, yes: go look at the pictures on their Captive FLDS Children site. Lots of mothers, most of whom were raised in the FLDS faith. Lots of children—boys and girls—also being raised in the faith. But how many FLDS men do you see? Not many, and it’s not just because of the raid.

The FLDS depends on an extremely lopsided male-to-female ratio to achieve the kind of polygamous marriages they’re known for. The YFZ Ranch is utterly typical of the sect. According to a CNN article:

Of the 463 children, 250 are girls and 213 are boys. Children 13 and younger are about evenly split — 197 girls and 196 boys — but there are only 17 boys aged 14 to 17, compared with the 53 girls in that age range.

So what do they do with the extra boys? Kick ‘em out.

It’s a well-documented practice among the FLDS: in order for older men to have their pick of young plural wives, they commonly excommunicate teenage boys—some as young as 13—for ridiculously minor infractions like listening to CDs, wearing short sleeves, or talking to girls. Hundreds of boys are being systematically exiled to a world they know nothing about, convinced they’re going to hell, and never allowed to see their mothers again. Many are so hopeless and confused that they turn to drugs, alcohol, or even self-harm. And small wonder why. Consider a passage from this article:

Abandoned by his family, faith, and community, Gideon Barlow arrived here an orphan from another world.

The freckle-faced 17-year-old said he was left to fend for himself last year after being forced out of Colorado City, Ariz., just over the [Utah] state line.

”I couldn’t see how my mom would let them do what they did to me,” he said.

When he tried to visit her on Mother’s Day, he said, she told him to stay away. When he begged to give her a present, she said she wanted nothing. ”I am dead to her now,” he said.

So, though I’m sure the FLDS women are sincere when they tell the media how badly they want their children back—what mother wouldn’t be?—I’d be a lot more sympathetic if these women were willing to go to the mat to protect their sons. Where are the mothers’ tears for those children?

Heartsick

I have so many things to blog about, but let me take a minute here and ask you all for some prayers.

My dear friends, J. and R. had their baby on Friday, and on Saturday they learned that he has a serious heart valve defect. They thought at first he might have to have immediate surgery, but at this point they think a life-long course of medication will control it.

J. sounded like he hadn’t slept in four days when I talked to him this morning. He hadn’t. R. is exhausted too, not only from the emergency C-section but from the grief of being in a different hospital than her baby, and all while watching the other happy families up and down the hallway who are cuddling their new babies.

I wish so much that their birth had been easier. Not just the baby’s—though I’m sure they rather not have had an emergency C-section—but their birth as parents. Even under the best of circumstances, a new mother and father come wailing into a new world that seems larger, colder, and scarier because there is so suddenly so much more to lose. Our hearts are wounded, too, and there is no easy pill to take for it.

So please, if you’re the praying type, say a prayer for healing and peace for this new little family. If you’re not the praying type, keep a good thought for them anyway, and all of you go home tonight and love your own family extra hard.

I am knitter, hear me roar

Remember how I said I was going to knit a cardigan to go with Baby Girl’s Easter dress? Remember how I said that only a week before Easter? So of course I only finished it two days ago, which is plenty of time to go with her Easter dress…next year.

So yes, it took me a while, mostly because of the unholy trinity of knitting obstacles: lack of time, ADD, and inexperience. Trying to find time to knit was like waiting for the planets to align. And when I did find time, I still had to unravel the tangle of unfamiliar stitches and pattern abbreviations like any other newbie knitter (do what through the back loops?). And even after I had the stitches down pat, I suffered needlessly because I would get all ADD and make the most unbelievable mistakes. You know that Bible verse that says “let not the left hand know what the right is doing?” Yeah, that.

Example: My mother-in-law was visiting a few weeks ago, and I decided to sew together the front and back at the right shoulder. I had already done the left shoulder, and seaming turned out to be super-easy. So no sweat, right? Wrong. So so so wrong.

I carefully aligned the pieces, then executed a flawless three-needle bind-off with my nose about three inches from the sweater. Then after my triumphant finish, I zoomed out and realized that the front piece was backwards. As in, purl side out, stockinette side in. I could have wept.

I grimly undid the shoulder seam and started again. This time I made sure the right side was out. Another flawless three-needle bind-off: w00t. Then I realized the shoulder seam was on the wrong side. Let me explain that more fully: sewing two pieces of knitting together makes a big huge speed bump of a seam. It’s supposed to go on the inside of the project, but mine was on the outside, perched up there on the shoulder like a fat pink woolly worm. A saner woman than I would torched the whole thing at this point, needles and all. Instead, I undid the seam–AGAIN–and did it one more time. With a rum and coke. This time I got it right, and it was 2 a.m. at that point, so there was mercifully nobody awake to see me taunting a ball of pink alpaca yarn. Okay, so maybe that was a bit much. Probably should have left out the victory dance, anyway.

I didn’t take pictures of that particular screw-up, but I just had to snap a shot or two of my next mistake. I…well, I don’t even know how to justify this. Baby Girl had a cold this past week, so I was a bit distracted with her anyway. As I was rocking her bouncy seat with my big toe, I was attempting to sew up the side and down to the end of the sleeve while simultaneously watching Training Day. I think you know where this is going, and that it is not a good place. That it is, in fact, the crafting equivalent of a dark alley in Compton.

But let me not waste words where a picture will suffice:

See what I did there? That’s the left front sewn onto the back right side. No kidding. The front right side and sleeve are both flapping around uselessly up top. But I had not come so far, only to let that sweater defeat me now. I gritted my teeth and undid the seam, which I was getting quite good at.

By that time the knitting gods must have been done laughing at me, because I had no more mishaps and was completely done the next day. Here it is, in all its glory:

Is it not nifty? It is so nifty. And soft. And the perfect size for Baby Girl. And best of all, completely finished.

Next project: SOCK WARS!!!! What’s that? Why yes, I am a masochist, thanks for asking.

Okay, now that’s just disgusting

Progress update on Baby Girl: at seven months and some change, she can sit up on her own, roll around, do a baby push-up, and sort of wiggle around if she wants to move a foot or so away. She clearly wants to crawl, and keeps trying to do this little froggy kick with her legs while she’s in push-up mode. Little did I know that, even without executing a proper crawl, the girl can really move it. She could have picked a better way to show me, though. Oh, how I wish she had.

On Saturday I put her down on her little play mat so that I could get some housework done. I did the dishes; she was laying on her mat and kicking up her heels. I cleared off the kitchen table; she was laying on her side and gurgling at her stuffed poodle. I started sweeping the floor, but had to stop and run for the ringing phone in the next room; no sweat, she was still on her mat, waving her fingers around in front of her face.

Less than two minutes later, I came back into the living room and Gentle Readers, I just about died. Baby Girl had somehow managed to creep, wriggle and roll almost six feet away from her mat in that short amount of time. And there she was, happily playing in a huge pile of swept-up dust bunnies and other assorted funk that was destined for the dust pan. As I stood there in that one endless, horrified moment of discovery, she lifted one drooly, dog hair-covered fist and put it in her mouth.

I tried so hard not to scream. I almost succeeded. Baby Girl got a thorough and immediate bath, but it appears to have been a fruitless effort because she now has a mild cold. Splendid.

You know, the longer I write this blog, the more I wonder why CPS hasn’t contacted me yet for a friendly chat.

Jackass: the name says it all

Oh my dear heavens. I was flipping channels the other night, and I happened to catch part of one of the Jackass movies on TV the other night. My IQ may never recover. I knew what the show was about, but I’d never actually sat down and watched it. You will not be surprised when I say that it was hands-down the most idiotic thing I have ever seen.

After five minutes of slack-jawed staring, I started to feel bad that I wasn’t doing something useful like solving world hunger or organizing my shoe rack instead of watching such dreck. I almost couldn’t look away (I did look away though–five minutes was just about five minutes too many). Worse yet, I realized that I actually kind of did want to see what happened when Johnny Knoxville rode a homemade rocket off the end of a boat ramp. Self-knowledge is a terrible thing.

I guess I can see why Jackass appeals to their target audience: it’s exactly the kind of thing boys love to dream up, though few actually go so far as carrying them out. Heck, I went to Prom with a guy who once set his own butt cheeks on fire. He is now an upstanding and prominent member of this community.

I hope the same holds true for the Sprog. I’m worried about all the shenanigans he will undoubtedly get into, terrified that he’s going to get killed in an ill-advised Crisco/unicycle stunt, but still hopeful that he’ll manage to make it to his mid-20s when his brain is fully mature. Til then, though, I’ve put a parental lock on all Jackass reruns and movies. No sense in giving him any creative ideas.

Discuss: Jackass, boys, and the allure of pranks and stunts.

Prepare to get slimed

My friend Shannon told me yesterday that she’s setting up a clothesline in her backyard. And boy, was she excited about it. She was talking about lumber and nylon rope the way most women talk about their wedding dresses. At first I thought, “Well, okay, pioneer lady. Whatever floats your boat.” Then I did a little research online, and Shannon? I am here to eat my hat. A clothes line, it turns out, is a wonderful way to preserve clothing, save money, and decrease the risk of a house fire.

In fact, what I read was so convincing that I’m going to look into getting one of my own. I even found an online store dedicated entirely to—you guessed it—clotheslines and related stuff.

And while I was poking around (admittedly, on Fark), I came across a recipe for homemade laundry detergent that costs nearly nothing to make and is said to clean magnificently. Bonus: it looks like something from the props department of You Can’t Do That on Television.

My husband is usually pretty tolerant of my (okay, sometimes) half-baked plots to save money and be nice to the planet, so hopefully I can convince him to let me give this a try. Perhaps I’ll woo him with the prospect of recouping the money he just spent on plane tickets to go to a gaming convention in Seattle this summer. Wait a minute, forget the sweet-talking. I just gave him the green light to fly cross-country to an event that has “Can I bring my light saber” in the FAQ. Surely that earns me a pass on the clothesline, right?

Discuss: Do any of you use a clothesline or make your own laundry soap? Do you find it easy to keep up with, and does it save you much money? Any tips?

Party like a rock star

Yesterday was the Sprog’s 4th birthday. Yes, really. Tomorrow he’s going to be 9, and next week he will want to borrow the car. *waves cane around*

Some of you may recall my horror at the price tag attached to last year’s birthday party. And not the memorable stuff, either, like activities or gifts. Nope, I spent $60 on assorted Spider-Man decorations that were destined to sparkle for one brief moment and then get tossed aside, not unlike your average Hollywood starlet. And that was just the paper junk. I spent another $50 or so on food, invitations, and games.

Not this year, I told myself. It wasn’t just that I wanted to spend less; it was that I wanted to spend my money on things the Sprog might actually care about. I also wanted to make it as stress-free as possible– a resolution strengthened mightily by an article I saw on Friday that discussed the outrageous amounts of time and money some parents are investing in all-out blow-out birthday bashes for their children.

Read the article—seriously, it’s gruesome. And while you’re at it, check out the link provided to Birthdays Without Pressure, which has even more unbelievable anecdotes. My favorite was the $10 million bat mitzvah this one guy threw for his daughter. Dude rented the Rainbow Room and hired Aerosmith, Don Henley and 50 Cent. Of course, it’s not hard to finance that kind of shindig when you’re (allegedly) a fraudulent war profiteer, but whatever: details.

Most of us don’t have that kind of cash, honestly earned or not. And even if we did, should we really be spending $5,000 on a kid’s birthday party? I can see $1,000 for a really special occasion, like a quinciañera or a Sweet Sixteen. But otherwise? I dunno, why not just get the kid their own Visa now, because living within their means is clearly going to be a foreign concept.

We have a lot more money in the bank this year than we did last year, but time is at a premium. And like I said, there’s no reason I have to stress out for the Sprog to have a fun birthday. So yesterday afternoon, I invited immediate family, grandparents, and his two best friends over for cake and ice cream. I put up a few decorations and made an earnest, but homely, birthday cake (see right). No party games—I just let the kids play with the Sprog’s toys while the adults chatted and ate cake. Then we opened presents. Then my mother and I drove the three boys and Baby Girl to the bowling alley for a few games. Then I took them to McDonald’s for Happy Meals. Then we dropped them off at home. The end. And you know what? I spent about half as much as I did last year, but with only a tenth of the time and stress, and everyone had a great time.

My expenditures were as follows: $3 for plain red paper plates and cups, $2 for Star Wars balloons (splurge), $4 for a Darth Vader pin that said “Birthday Jedi” (splurge), $4 for a 4-pack of cardboard Darth Vader masks (splurge, but the kids loved them), $1 for a birthday candle, $2 for cake mix and icing, $3 on yellow decorator icing with a tip, $18 for bowling, and $18 for three Happy Meals, plus dinner for my mom and I. So, $55 total, and only about $10 of that was total frippery. Not too bad for a party with 15 people in attendance.

And do you know what the best part was? Because we pared things down this year, we had a lot more time to enjoy the party with the Sprog and our guests, and we were also able to budget a little bit more for his birthday presents (a bicycle and a Star Wars pop-up book).

The Sprog was thrilled with the bowling and the Happy Meals, elated to have a Star Wars themed birthday party, and he was (thankfully) impressed with my dippy attempt at a Star Wars cake (in case you’re wondering, those are Darth Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi action figures that I just stuck in the icing for effect). He said he felt like a “very special birthday boy” with his Birthday Jedi pin, too. Which he was. And I didn’t have to hire Aerosmith to make him feel that way, either.

Discuss: What’s too much for a kid’s birthday party? Got any birthday party war stories?

All I want for Christmas is LEAD

Why it pays to keep up with the CPSC recalls: I just learned that a novelty inkpen I allowed the Sprog to buy just before Christmas has been recalled because the surface paint on it is chock full o’ lead.

Wunderbar. Now I have to go home and hunt down that stupid snowman pen. I’m cringing to think how many times the Sprog has probably put that thing in his mouth. I’m paranoid about lead, so I’ve always told him never to put toys in his mouth, but I can’t be there 24/7.

Worst thing about all this is that I now feel really skittish about allowing the Sprog his usual treat of one item from the dollar bin when we go to Michael’s (I figure it’s the least I can do after making him stand around while I compare five kinds of pink yarn). Maybe I could ask him to pick something not made from plastic, nor covered in paint? But that pretty much leaves soap, stationery, and grosgrain ribbon. Yeah, I bet he’ll love that. Hm, what to do…

P.S. If you want to sign up to to the CPSC’s e-mail list, go here. You select which kinds of recalls you want to be notified about, and they’ll send you an accordingly tailored email every time there’s a recall. I get about one email a week from them for children’s clothes and toys, so it won’t kill your email storage space.

In which Heather is a centerfold

Okay, not quite. More like a teeny tiny blurb off to the side on one page of the new Parenting Magazine. I confess, I haven’t actually seen it yet, but I’ve been too busy plotting creative ways to blow the check I got from Jeopardy yesterday. Magic 8 Ball says we’re fixing the porch, but it’s more fun to imagine spending it at IKEA giving it to charity buying all the seasons of Battlestar Galactica going to the Bahamas taking over the whole world with an elite cadre of trained chimps. They shoot to kill. Yes.

Er, anyway, if you haven’t seen the blurb, you may have guessed that it’s about my appearance on Jeopardy. When the editor contacted me and said they wanted to do this little write-up, I remember blurting, “You are aware that I lost, right? Badly.” She was aware, and said it was cool that I even showed up that soon after birth. Aw… *kicks toe in the dirt* Well…okay. Go for it, I said.

And there you have it. My fifteen minutes of fame extended by a gasping few seconds (which is only ever a significant amount of time if you’re a History Channel narrator rhapsodizing about how we heaved our indomitable selves up from the sea and breathed air like three seconds ago, if all of the Earth’s history were collapsed into a single day).

What was I saying? Oh yes: to those of you who only came here because of Parenting Magazine, welcome and stick around; I don’t bite very hard. Usually.

Thunder = drums. Of Doom.

It’s Friday night, but it doesn’t feel like Friday night. Man, you could have brought in the groceries with the bags under my eyes today. I suspect I was one of many exhausted parents, though, considering the fury of the thunderstorms we had Thursday night.

I didn’t actually get to sleep until 4 a.m. because the Sprog kept waking up and calling for me every time he heard a big clap of thunder. Not that I blame him, poor kid. I would have allowed him to sleep in my bed, but my husband has to work Saturday and the Sprog is a notoriously bad bunkmate. He kicks, rolls around, burrows into your armpit, grinds his teeth, and snores like a trucker. No thank you.

So I sat in the living room and knitted, and when he called for me, I went upstairs and loved on him. Eventually, though, it got to where I kinda sorta wanted to sleep. Silly me. It looked like it wasn’t going to happen, but then I Got An Idea. A terrible, awful okay, pretty darn good idea.

My husband always insists that the Sprog wear proper ear protection if he wants to watch Daddy play the drums, so we got a pair of Junior-sized soundproof headphones for him. You know the kind, serious-looking and big as a can of Spam on each side. When my husband is wearing the big boy version of those headphones, I can stand literally two feet away and scream at him, and he can’t hear it.

So I went downstairs and snagged the Sprog’s headphones, trotted back up to his room and presented them to him with the solemn promise that he would hear no more scary noises if he would just wear them. Did he want them? He nodded his head so fast he about got brain slosh. Clapped them on his ears, figured out how to lay on his back so they wouldn’t fall off, then smiled.

“Thanks, Mommy,” he sighed as he snuggled down deeper into the covers.

“No problem, sweetie,” I said.

“WHAT?” he yelled.

I pulled the headphones out an inch and said, “Love you, babe. Get some sleep.”

“Okay, Mom,” he said, his eyes already heavy. I turned the light back out, and within three minutes I heard him snoring over the baby monitor as the thunder growled away.

I am a freaking ROCK STAR.

New Kids going around the block again

Oh my giddy aunt. The New Kids on the Block are getting back together for a reunion tour.

I’m probably dating myself here, but WOW does this bring back memories of the 5th grade. My my, remember those skinny ties, stone-washed jeans and screen-printed silk shirts? Be still my heart.

The boy band New Kids on the Block, which sold 70 million albums in the 1980s and early ’90s, has reunited and plans to release a new album and go on

tour. The reunion comes 20 years after the release of the group’s

multiplatinum album, “Hangin’ Tough.” [...]

[Donnie] Wahlberg said he was persuaded to get back together with his former bandmates — Joey McIntyre, brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight and Danny Wood — when they decided to record new music. Wahlberg said he wrote 80 percent of the new material with McIntyre and Jordan Knight.

“I had no interest going out on a nostalgia tour and singing the same material,” said Wahlberg, 38.

But he added: “We absolutely will do the old songs for sure.”

Sucks to be Joey McIntyre, then, eh? I’d hate to think what they’re going to have to do to him to help him hit those falsetto notes in Please Don’t Go Girl. But then, as this entire tour proves, dignity wears a dog collar when the almighty dollar goes walking.

Speaking of which, I just have to mention the comments on the Boston Herald story, which are hands down the funniest part of this whole thing:

Donny, this Teddy from Howes St remember last fall sox/tribe playoff game we were smoking on yawkey way when I suggested you “put the band back together”. Well I want my cut.Call me…
#234045 - Apr 3, 2008 8:00 AM EDT

Donny, Gerry from Victoria St here I was there with Teddy from Howes St Don’t welch out on the dough man.

#234225 - Apr 3, 2008 9:45 AM EDT

*snort*

I wasn’t the biggest NKOTB fan in the world, but whatever, I’m not passing judgment because I still know every single word to Cold Hearted Snake. Um. And the lyrics to every song on Licensed to Ill. Oh, the 80s.

What do you all think about this tour? Did you like the New Kids back in the day? Hate them? Agonize over which one you’d marry the day they finally realized how special you were?

Oh, and if you’re reading this Jordan, please know that despite my cynical demeanor and disdain for your music, I never gave up on you in my heart. It just wasn’t meant to be, darling.

My husband and I: Just a couple of April Fools

I didn’t blog about this on Tuesday because people always think it’s an April Fool’s joke, but April 1st was my wedding anniversary. Eight years, if you can believe it.

I’ve been a little concerned lately because, what with my now-full time status at work and a new baby, we haven’t had a lot of time to work on our relationship. In fact, between his work schedule and mine, I didn’t actually see him this week until Wednesday night. But whatever stresses we’re going through these days, I have a feeling that the bedrock of our marriage is doing just fine.

One clue to that came after I fell back into bed at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday after an hour of “quality time” with Baby Girl. She had been sort of sniffly for the past few days, but when I went to answer her cries that morning, I found her feverish, oozing green snot, and with a barking cough. Poor baby—is there anything more pathetic than that weak little sick cry?

She needed Baby Tylenol, but I discovered to my horror that there were only a few drops left. There was enough for most of a dose, so I gave her that and watched to see if it helped. It seemed to be bringing the fever down after half an hour, so I suctioned her nose (again) and put her back to bed.

My husband woke up when I came back to bed and asked me if the baby was okay. I filled him in on the situation briefly, and wondered aloud what I was going to do after everyone got up in a few hours and she needed more Tylenol. The husband had to get up really early to go to work, so it wasn’t like I could ask him to go buy it. I figured I’d have to take the kids to Kroger to get more, but I really didn’t want to take a sick baby out on a blustery day.

I fell asleep, but woke up briefly at 6:30 a.m. when my husband kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, “Happy Anniversary, honey. I went and got you some more Baby Tylenol. It’s on the dresser. I gotta run or I’m going to be late.” And then he was gone. Bless him, he must have gotten up at 5:30 to pull that off, and he had to work a 12-hour shift.

I had read once that one thing that kills marriages is when husbands and wives stop doing nice little things for each other. By that measure, I guess we’re doing pretty well after all.

Happy (belated) Anniversary, babe—here’s to many more years of April Foolishness.

Surfing the internet: horror and delight

Surfing around on the internet yesterday, I found two things of interest:

1) It seems that you can now buy fake lower back tattoos for young girls out of a vending machine at Toys R Us. For serious. I am sitting here trying to imagine what kind of parent would fork over that 50 cents and say, “Sure, pumpkin! Want a Red Bull and vodka while you’re at it?”

But then, I was raised very conservatively as a kid. As in, I was never allowed to own Garbage Pail Kids cards, purchase candy cigarettes, or say “cooties” (my mother showed me a full-color medical textbook illustration of said cootie and told me to get my science straight). So maybe I’m out of date on these things. I mean, look, do what you want with your skin if you’re an adult, but I’m not quite sure this is the right look for an 8-year-old. Is this really that heinous, or am I just old-fashioned?

2) The Sprog and I are huge fans of Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart pop-up books (we have the dinosaur one, the medieval castle one, the Noah’s Ark one, and The Wizard of Oz), but here’s a nifty alphabet pop-up book that has stolen my affection:

WANT. Of course, it doesn’t come out until October. But I know a certain Sprog who might be getting Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy for his birthday next month.

A mighty duck

I took the Sprog ice skating today, and I feel like I have been beaten with a hockey stick.

He was so excited though, it was all worth it. I rented him the little double bladed skates that strap onto his sneakers with buckles, and while he was tromping around the lobby in his nifty new footgear, I was struggling to get my own skates on.

I did not realize this, but my feet have really gotten a lot wider since I had two kids. I used to work there at the Ice Center, what, 10 years ago?, and their rental skates usually felt okay. Not great, because they’re rentals, but good enough to get around without pain when I was the skate guard. But today, man, it felt like I was wearing skates from Torquemada’s designer label.

So the Sprog and I set out around the rink, hugging close to the wall. We had gotten from the rental counter a funny little thing to help him balance; it looks like a walker that an elderly person might use, but with no wheels—just smooth metal bars on the bottom and a padded bar up top to hold onto. The Sprog held onto the walker, I stood behind him and put my hands over his hands, and we inched our way across the ice like some kind of sad crippled moose. It was hilarious to watch the way his feet moved—he looked like Snagglepuss getting ready to exit stage left or something.

About halfway around the rink, my feet felt like they were going to fall off, so we clackered back to the rental counter and I traded my figure skates for hockey skates. I thought it might be harder to hold the Sprog up if he slipped, since hockey skates don’t have a burr on the toe to grab the ice, but I just couldn’t keep going on the figure skates. And for $15, you’d better believe I wasn’t about to quit.

So, now with Skates 2.0, I took the Sprog back out on the ice, but this time he refused to use the walker. Which was great and all for him being brave and independent, but he just kept falling on his butt. Or would have, if I hadn’t held him up. My wrists took the brunt of that activity, and now they are really hurting. So is my lower back, because I spent the entire time hunched over like Quasimodo so I could hold his hands.

I was trying to keep him from falling because I was so afraid he was going to smack his head on the ice. I thought about bringing his little Batman bicycle helmet, but if I had done that, I might as well have written “Helicopter Mom” on my forehead with a Sharpie.

Anyhow, the Sprog had a great time, and he now cherishes a burning desire to be a professional zamboni driver when he grows up. As long as he makes enough money to pay for my wrist surgery, fine by me.