December 23rd, 2014 § Comments Off on TMI* § permalink
*Too Much Information. In other words, this post is not for the faint of heart. If this is you, move along.
(Still here? Okay.)
Yesterday morning, the boy picked up a piece of mail from my gynecologist that was sitting on the counter. “What’s this?” he asked.
“It says my lady parts are good,” I told him.
He opened the paper. “What’s a pap smear?”
“It’s a test women get to make sure everything is doing okay down there,” I said.
“How do they do it?” he asked.
“Well,” I said, thinking about how one explains a pap smear. “The doctor takes this thing called a ‘speculum’ and she puts it inside the woman’s vaginal canal and she cranks it open.” I make eh-eh-eh cranking noises here. “And then she sticks a long Q-tip inside of me to reach my cervix so she can take a tissue sample to make sure there’s no cervical cancer.”
“A speculum?” he asked.
“I bet we can find a picture online,” I said, and in a few minutes, the boy and I were engrossed in an article from The Atlantic called “Why No One Can Design a Better Speculum.” We only got through the first page because we had to leave for school but the first page really gave all the info we needed.
Also yesterday morning. The girl is, um, backed up. I fed her an Ex Lax and sent her to school. When I picked her up today, there wasn’t much movement. So of course I told Adam. Because wouldn’t a father want to know about that stuff?
Me: Pie still hasn’t pooped.
Me: Oh, wait! She might be pooping. Not sure.
Adam: We have the best IM conversations.
Me: Listen. I can have IM conversations with someone else, if you don’t like it. I’m sure the Duchess would be fascinated to know about your daughter’s bowel movements.
Adam: \o/
Me: If the boy can handle speculums, you can handle poop!
Oddly, I didn’t hear from him again. Whatever.
And if anyone wants to I.M. about poop–or speculums–just give me a buzz.
People who know me outside of this blog know that I’m obsessed–and obsessed is an understatement here–with genealogy. I’ve let it take over a huge portion of my life, as I’m able to chalk it up to “research.” As someone who is interested in writing about different periods of time, I’m using what I find as the basis for writing. All it takes is one small detail, one tidbit and my mind is reeling and I wonder, “What’s the story behind that?” Since I’ll never know the real stories, I simply make up my own. Or, even if I do know the story, I’ll make up what I think is a better story.
When I began this endeavor, all I had was a general outline of a family tree my grandfather had started many years ago, in the days before the Internet and Skype and digital photography. Now, I use Ancestry.com to make my tree and I’m able to share it with family members who add information or as a way to connect with relatives I didn’t even know I had. Thanks to technology, I’ve been able to fill in many gaps, find pictures, gravestones, records, people.
One of the things that always disturbed me, on that original family tree, were all the places where the line ended abruptly. A single name, nothing more, and the notation, “D 1941.”
My great-grandfather and my great-grandmother–on the sheet they are the ones who made it out, Abe and Yetta–were from the same town in Latvia, Varaklani (spelled oh-so-many ways, but that is the current spelling). In 1897, Jews made up 75% of the population in the town. Today, as I understand it, there is a single Jewish family still living there. On my great-grandmother’s side, there were as many “dead ends” on the family tree. Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel, keeps a record of all who have perished. Survivors post Pages of Testimony of those who were killed. Page after page of my Varaklani relatives reads a variation of the same: “1941 Shot by Germans.”
Today is Yom HaShoah–Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day that Jewish people recall the lives of those who were lost. Now that I know so many of the names, now that I see how much of my family died, I feel a need to speak their names, to let the world know that they are remembered. My family, at least the ones I know about:
Killed in Kobryn, Belarus (read “From an Eyewitness”):
my great-great grandfather, Yitzak Leder 1862-1941
his second wife, Sarah Feignbaum Leder
his children (from both his marriages):
Velvel Leder
Chaya Leder
Leah Leder
Miriam Leder
Pinchas Leader
Killed in a camp after being sent from Suwalki to Biala Podlaska
My great-great grandfather, Chaim Brennholz, 1864-194?
Yaacob Brenholc, who was the coach of the Maccabee’s soccer team in Suwalki, Poland, perished in the Holocaust, but we don’t know where or when.
I know I will uncover more names on my family tree, more dead ends. I worry about the day that no one remembers those who were killed, when the survivors are all gone, and the Holocaust is merely an entry in a history book. We need to remember them all–those who were strong and fought (these photos are particularly moving) and those who were strong and lost. My family.
My memory is terrible. Details always disappear and faces blur in my memories, which is one of the reasons I persist in this blog; it gives me a point of reference, a way to recall what I was doing/thinking/feeling at a particular time. Unless the event is something I did over and over, it’s lost in the crevices of my mind. I remember the things we did regularly: Breakfast at Nancy’s when we lived in Boulder, where every week my mother would reprimand my father, “Butter or whipped cream. Not both.” The bike route I took every morning through the woodsy back areas on my way to elementary school in South Miami, when that stupid orange bike safety flag my mom made me put on the back of my seat would bend and get caught in the trees (this was in the pre-helmet days of bike riding. Remember those days?). The yearly Passover seders at my grandparents where my grandfather whipped through the seder and my grandmother made amazing potatoes, which was all I would really eat, because everything else she cooked was just this side of inedible. Cue Tevye, but for me, tradition is what it’s all about, and what I constantly try to reinforce with my own family. The kids probably won’t remember the singular things we do–the art projects and science experiments that were one-off–but they will recall what we do regularly: homemade hallah every Friday night, the book fairy who brings them surprise reads, our morning walks to school.
Which is why it was so important to me that my kids bet in yesterday’s Kentucky Derby. Because betting… it’s a family tradition from my childhood.
My grandfather loved a good bet. He always took our bets, didn’t matter if it had him betting against his favorite team (I’m pretty sure he was still betting on his favorites with a bookie). He taught me about spreads and odds and he always paid up promptly. When my grandfather passed away, my father took over the position of family bookie. He pays the track odds, plus 10 percent.
For the past week, the kids and I have been going over the horses. To my surprise, neither of them bet on Hansen (an all-white horse). I tried to convince Pie to put her money on Done Talking, but she clearly isn’t and refused to bite.
The way my kids bet so clearly defines their personalities. Doodles wanted to bet on both the horse with the best odds and the longest odds, so he had the potential to make the most money, but had a safety bet as a just in case. I told him one bet, so he went with the favorite (at the time of his betting), which was Bodemeister. Pie wanted to go for the biggest bucks. She kept looking over the odds to find the one with the longest odds, so her dollar was on Prospective. Adam was half asleep on his Saturday nap, so the kids pretty much picked for him: Daddy Nose Best. Watching the race was a family event, and even though Adam and I passed on the mint juleps this year, everyone was excited, even though all three of them lost.
As for me? Well, if you’ve read this blog long enough, you’ll know exactly who I picked. Guess that next round is on me. Tradition!
Families unravel over so many things. Some families fall apart over money. Other times, outside interests can interfere with family life, creating strife. Now and then, it’s the general malaise of life that can cause discord in a family. None of these are ailing my family. My family is having fits. But the root of our problems is, well, a cow.
Longtime readers will know that cows have played a significant role in my life since my wee years. As a young impressionable child living in the oh-so-wilds of Westchester County, I had a paralyzing fear of cows. “Scared cow,” I’d tell my folks, worried that somehow one of those tremendous farms creatures would find its way into my second floor, dormered room in the not-even-remotely rural suburbs of New York City. My parents would have to demonstrate that the cows were merely shadows on the wall or figments of my imagination. At the ripe old age of three, though, I shed my fear of cows when my newborn sister was brought to live in my room. “The Tweedle Twirp will protect me from cows,” I wisely said, and I suppose it worked; a cow has not bothered me since my younger sister was born.
Over the years, though, the cow has remained a prominent figure in my world. I have to take many pictures of myself in front of cows to prove to my father that, yes, I am over my phobia.
Flash forward to two years ago. At the now-infamous New Year’s eve Yankee swap, my mother received a cow. Not just any cow: a cow that sits on a shelf in the fridge and moos every time you open the door. My mother dutifully put the cow in the fridge, which annoyed the hell out of my father, but amused me greatly every time I came home. What an amazing thing! A cow that mooed at me! “I wish I had a cow like that!” I said this year on our visit. “It can be arranged,” my mother said.
Sure enough, when the package we send ourselves after vacation arrived (full of the gifts the kids received and all our summer-y clothes), nestled among the bathing suits was the cow.
Oh joy! I immediately put the cow in the fridge. From two rooms away I can hear it moo and it still makes me giggle. Not so much my family, though. “OMG! I HATE THAT COW!” Pie yells. “Mom, seriously. Can we get rid of the cow?” Doodles begs. “That cow is going to come to an unhappy ending,” Adam threatens. “Don’t be surprised if you wake up one morning with a cow head next to you.”
The cow is driving a wedge between me and my family. But in the battle between family and cow, the cow will prevail!
October 22nd, 2011 § Comments Off on We Are Family (In a Completely Different Way) § permalink
I HAVE A NIECE! Yes, this is big news in our house. I didn’t think it would ever happen, given that the Tweedle Twirp and her boyfriend of almost 20 years have declared themselves child-free (because apparently “childless” is not P.C.). But Adam’s brother has decided that procreation is not a bad thing, and my kids now have a first cousin.
The beautiful little girl, who shall henceforth be referred to as Dutch—Dutchie while she’s a baby—is healthy and sweet. I think I surprised my brother-in-law when I deferred on holding her, but as I had amply warned his wife, I don’t do babies till they have neck control (my kids have no such compunctions). Seriously, yes, I know I’ve had two of my own, but babies still scare the sh*t out of me.
Other random thoughts:
We asked Pie, who still has a nightly habit of crawling in to our bed:
Me: Who do you think will stop sleeping with her mom and dad first? You or Dutchie.
Pie: I don’t know!
Me: I bet Dutchie.
Doodles: Yeah.
Pie: You know, it’s all your fault! You put me in your bed when I was a baby and you got me in the habit of it! You can’t blame me! You did it!
Adam: I think she’s got you there.
Traffic on the way home from New Hampshire today was fierce. My boy said: “This f*king traffic is ridiculous!”
My daughter replied, “At least he used ‘f*cking* appropriately.”
Yes, I’ve raised them right.
My town has an e-mail list. Two, actually. A town-wide one and one specifically for parents. The one for parents has had a thread about allergen-free Halloween candy. If your kid has an allergy, I’m going to do my best to have some safe candy for him or her. I generally keep Skittles or the like on hand. But someone wrote in on the list saying she is picky about what her kids eat (no artificial flavorings, colorings, or preservatives) and she’d love it if people offered “healthy treats.” Really? Look, I have the last kids on the face of this planet who have never eaten at a McDonald’s (I actually have Pie scared of it: “The food has chemicals in it!!”) but even I let them have treats. If the candy is going to make your child sick, I’m happy to try and accommodate you, because no kid should be denied the fun of trick or treating. But if you just have a stick up your ass, well, too bad. Keep your kid home.
Oh, do you hear that? I think it’s Pie. Making her way to our bed….
October 19th, 2011 § Comments Off on We Are Family § permalink
One of the dilemmas writers have is knowing where to draw the line when writing about family. Our local writing center, Grub Street, has occasionally offered classes about how to write about family, what to do when family objects to their portrayals, and the like.
This hasn’t been something I’ve worried about in the past. My father has practically begged me to write about our family once everyone who would care about it is dead. Or more specifically, once he’s dead and doesn’t have to hear about it from everyone (this is not me being morbid, folks, I swear. My father really does talk like this). Of course, I should point out that by “family” he means “my mother’s family,” so he has less at stake here.
I do write about family, but more often, I write about things that most families wouldn’t love. Not my family. My essay just came out in the Bellevue Literary Review, and I sent my parents a copy. It’s about me. In it, I have sex. With someone who wasn’t my boyfriend. And I get sick from having sex. In a foreign country. I admit, I had a few twinges about showing it to them, but hey, I’m 43 years old. I lived a long life before I got here. They know it. Now they know it in print. It didn’t bother them at all.
But I have to wonder, now, what will my kids think. Of course I didn’t show them the essay. And I won’t. But someday, when they’re adults, they may come across it. And while I don’t mind, I have a feeling they might. My mother, the artist, frequently has made pieces with a sexual bent, and I remember when Richard, my 10th grade boyfriend, came to pick me up and asked, “Why are there French ticklers in your front hallway?” Okay, the first thing I had to do was figure out what French ticklers were. But then I was mortified. My mother was amused. (The sculpture was of this era, in case you’re curious.) I can imagine the same for my kids. I’ll be amused. They’ll be horrified.
But what about writing about the kids. An essay appeared a couple of years ago about a woman who wrote about her son’s drug addiction. He was not happy with the book, and she was lambasted by the public for writing it. Yet writing scathing things about family is nothing new. Writing things that family members get angry about is also nothing new. I feel like I’m a little inured. Again, I refer you to my mother. She’s made my family fair game in her art (it’s hard to see, but there are some pictures in here of Adam and the boy; she’s also done tons of the Tweedle Twirp); I know she expects me to do the same.
At this point, the kids say things to me like, “Are you going to blog about that?” But they’ve never read the blog. And I’d like to keep it that way for at least a little while. I’ve definitely censored myself since having kids. As bitchy as I can get, I used to be far worse. I’ve stopped singling out people who annoy me, as it was one thing when I had to worry about them hating me (I never cared). I do worry about them taking it out on my kids.
For now, I’ll keep writing. About sex. About family. About life. And I’ll try not to censor myself. Because the kids are going to need something to talk about in therapy!
