Zero to sixty

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speedometer

Man, I had a hard time with the girls on Sunday.  They were at their moody worst on the way to church, and the drama continued as we went into church.  The 8-year-old was being incredibly sensitive and reactionary, melting down over each perceived (or real) slight or indignation from her sister.  And that 12-year-old sister was providing plenty of slights and indignations.  On the sly, I asked for an extra extra “moments of silence to quiet our minds and hearts” that morning.  I got ’em, and the girls got donuts, so somehow we’d reset before heading home.  But, man oh man, it was tough.

I remember, sort of, what it felt like to be 12.  I remember that bubbling, burning sense of rage that would come of of nowhere and be directed usually at my parents. I remember being convinced that my parents were absolutely, without questions, two of the stupidest people to ever walk the earth.  I remember my mood plummeting to abysmal lows, ending in florid sobs on my bed, the kind that ended with those hiccuping, choking gasps.  And I remember that getting to the point of those hiccuping gasps somehow felt good.  I remember falling into fits of laughter so extreme that they’d make me weep, breathless.  I remember that quite often all of these things would happen within the space of any hour.

I’ve christened this preteen to teenage phenomenon Going From Zero To Sixty.  Those unpredictable, uncontrollable emotional shifts.  And boy has the 12-year-old been going from zero to sixty lately. And although I remember feeling that way and can empathize to an extent, I now feel a great deal more empathy toward my own parents, especially my mother.  The sleepless parenting of an infant was tough, but dare I say, this is tougher.  It’s tough to absorb and roll with all of the waves of emotion and not be tempted to answer back in kind. Good Lord, sometimes I want to collapse in florid sobs, but there’s dinner to get on the table!  I haven’t cussed at her yet, but I’m completely confident that it’s just a matter of time, and I want to save up that shocking first time for a moment when I really need to make an impact. 

Moms who’ve been through it reassure me that this is normal, that this too will pass, but that these next few years are going to be tough. Factoring in the 8-year-old, it’ll be a good 10 years before I’m done being jerked around and pummeled by Zero To Sixty moments.  This is why I’ve subscribed to a wine of the month club .  This is why I do yoga on unlimited passes.  And this is why I’m writing this. I know it drives them nuts to hear me kibitz on parenting.  But good lord, can I get an Amen?

Point of Clarification

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A funny thing happened at barre class the other day.  I’ve been trying to go every day of the week as part of a challenge involving a sticker chart.  I’m surprised how much a publicly placed sticker reward chart still works on me at 42 years old.  Anyway, I’ve been going to classes that I don’t normally attend.  I had a new teacher and she seemed so familiar to me, I kept trying to figure out where our paths had crossed in the past.  She taught class the following morning as well, and I went through this with her. Where have I seen you before? Could it be yoga? What about kids’ ballet class? Finally she just looks at me and says, “you know, I taught class yesterday, right?  You saw me yesterday.”  I cracked up and let her know that, yes, I remembered her from the previous day.  Oh my God, I’m so glad she sought clarification, because what if she really thought that I didn’t remember her from a day ago? She would have been silently concerned that I was extraordinarily unobservant or else had dementia.

movie theater seat

How many times have people assumed that I said or thought something weird and not sought clarification?  How many people are hauling around these odd ideas about me that aren’t true? How many people have written me off because I said something that needed clarification?  How many people have I written off for lack of clarification?  I remember a mom that I used to sit by at the Swimtastic every Saturday morning, and we’d chat. Early on in the acquaintanceship she was sharing her concern about going to movie theaters she worried about knives in the seats.  Was there some news item about knife-spiked movie seats that I missed? I quickly adjusted my thinking to assign an abnormal level of paranoia to this woman.  Every week for the next couple of years we’d chat, and I’d silently be adding a grain of salt to her stories, assuming she was a crazy knife worrier.  It was only years later that I realized that she must have said “lice” and I’d misunderstood her entirely. Because, you know, knife in a movie seat is something that someone would say, apparently. I can only claim chronic sleep deprivation for that misunderstanding.

En pointe

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At the end of last school year Natalie’s ballet teacher, Miss Lori, told her that she was ready to go en pointe.  That is, she had reached sufficient musculoskeletal maturity to beginning dancing on her toes.  Natalie had been enrolled in the beginner pointe class for several months, although in regular shoes. Before that she took several years of pre-pointe classes in addition to her regular ballet classes.  Prior to Miss Lori’s announcement I had no real idea of her progress, especially when it came to subtleties in strength and flexibility. She had long since outpaced my dance knowledge base.  So I was surprised and proud when I heard the news. It was a great lesson in hard work and dedication over time having a tangible payoff. There wasn’t anything magic to the formula. She showed up, worked hard, and made progress.  And now she was ready for the coveted pointe shoes!

pointe shoe

Ummm…looks like fun?

 

I learned that buying one’s first pair of pointe shoes isn’t something that can be done online, or even casually at the studio where other types of dance shoes are normally purchased.  It is a lengthy process of trial and error to find the right shoe, something liker Ollivander’s wand shop. Only instead of a magically gifted wizard, there are knowledgeable employees.  Students from Next Step Dance Studio are fitted at Ballera in Brookfield.

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Ollivander’s

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Ballera

Natalie, along with two of her classmates, were scheduled along with their ballet teacher, Miss Lori.  Unfortunately on the day, Miss Lori was sick and couldn’t come along to approve the final selection. However, we’d already had to delay due to schedules, and she was confident in their fitting and sent the girls with their parents to be fitted.

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Scarlett, Abby, & Natalie

When we arrived, I was surprised at the number of girls being fitted for pointe shoes!  I learned that the shop’s work is seasonal, with a big rush during September to mid-October, coinciding with the beginning of a new dance year.  Natalie’s friend, Scarlett, had already been fitted, and she hung around to browse the leotards while her friends went through the process. The store keeps a detailed binder on all dancers who they’ve fitted, as well as information on the general requirements for the dancers’ studios.  NSDS prefers several American-made brands, which is nice as they are slightly less expensive than some of the European models. Rachel, the young woman fitting Natalie, measured her feet, examined them, and began pulling likely models.

Natalie was fitted with a toe pad that dancers wear under the shoes, and was advised as to what a good fit would feel like.  Long story short: it would be more tolerably uncomfortable than a less well fitting shoe. Sometimes dancers need additional supports for their toes like lambs’ wool or toe spacers, but Natalie’s feet were standard enough to require only the basics.  Rachel pulled out the first pair, nestled in a box. They were so shiny and pristine, the toes as yet unscuffed. Unlike pointe shoes that you might see on ballerinas or in pictures, they are sold without ribbons. She slipped her feet into the first pair and Rachel had her perform several maneuvers.  Then she held her hands and assisted her en pointe. It must have felt so weird the first time!

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Discussing how the ribbon-less shoes should feel

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Trying the first pair

Rachel wasn’t happy with the fit of the very first pair of shoes, and she pulled out a pair of Capezios.  She went through the same maneuvers, and Rachel just sat back and said “Wow. We’ll try on more, but I really think that these are the ones!”  And her prediction was correct. She had Natalie try on about five more pairs, but they kept going back to the Capezios.  Lucky Natalie. Her other friend, Abby, took over an hour to be fitted, due to her unique feet–size 10 ½ narrow!  She ended up needing a Russian-made pair, and her fitter thanked her for providing a fun challenge.

en pointeWith the winning pair established, Rachel led her to a small barre in front of a mirror and go up en pointe to see herself, for one last inspection.  She then had her go into sous-sus for me to get a picture. Natalie reluctantly took her shoes off, and I reminded her that she couldn’t wear them around until Miss Lori had a chance to approve them in class on Monday.  I was instructed on how to sew on ribbons and elastic, and Natalie was instructed on care of the shoes. The toes are made firm through layers of cardboard and glue, kind of like papier-mache, but with the final product being like a block of wood.  Her shoes would need to dry thoroughly after every use. To help with this we bought a small mesh bag to store them, and when we got home she made two sachets out of rice and old tights to put in the toes. We’ll see how the fastidious care lasts on the rush of leaving the dance studio after several hours of class.  

 

 

Finally, we rang up.  I asked the cashier for a picture, and she obliged.  I wanted to document the fact that these shoes are not cheap.  Luckily Natalie fit well in an American brand. The shoes and storage bag ended up costing in the neighborhood of $100.  A quick online search suggests that I will be buying more pairs on the order of months versus years.

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Obliging cashier

 

In the end, the cost of the shoes and the years of dance are more than worth it for our family.  Natalie has learned discipline and the reward of hard work through dance. She has made lifelong friends, and I always know that an hour spent at the studio is an hour well spent.  I look forward to watching this next stage of development in her dance life.

Gobsmacked

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blasey ford

I just finished watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify.  I was intermittently proud, sympathetic, enraged, and devastated.  I don’t know if I’ll watch Kavanaugh.  Probably.  But here’s some thoughts, in no particular order, that I need to get out there.

Groups of laughing teenage boys are the scariest thing on earth.

Dr. Blasey-Ford said that the most memorable part of her assault was the laughter.  Even if you haven’t suffered sexual assault, I’d be surprised if most women can’t describes events of humiliation at the hands of laughing groups of teenage boys.  Building up their social capital at the expense of women.  It’s gross.   And then those guys get to grow up and cash in on that social capital and forget all about it while we get to develop eating disorders and seek healing through therapy.  Did you catch it?  In an interview afterward, Senator Graham suggested that she should have been doing just that, telling her story to a therapist rather than them.

The criminal justice metaphor doesn’t apply

Just because you want something–a job, a TV show, a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court–doesn’t mean that the only thing standing in your way is a guilty verdict in a criminal trial.  Stop saying things like innocent until proven guilty.  This is a job interview.  If I was interviewing someone for any other job–nanny, CEO, Jiffy Lube employe– the whiff of stink that Kavanaugh leaves in his wake would immediately disqualify that person.  Would you hire this guy to be your nanny?  Would you leave your daughter alone with Trump?  Come on.

They’re going to infantilize the hell out of her

“We should be nice to her.”  That was Grassley’s closing comment before excusing the witness. They’ll say that it doesn’t matter if we believe her or not, poor confused little dear.  We are to pity her, being manipulated by those mean old attorneys and Democrats.  Baloney.

I want better

I’d like those people awarded with the keys to the country to be smarter than me, to be more self-sacrificing than me, to be more noble than I am.  To have never been an egregious, laughing, teenage sycophant.

Dream Big

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My 8-year-old has been obsessed with America’s Got Talent.  We were happy that the Asian card trick guy, Shin Lim, won.  He was both of our top choices.  Go watch that link, I still get chills.  I also especially like how he always looks a liiiiiiittle bit constipated during his act.  Keeps Jimmy in business.

She is also now determined to be on AGT some day. She’s currently torn between trying to actually HAVE a super award winning talent, or developing a weird talent that will get her on an early show and then  eliminated.  I pointed out that the former route would involved a lot of practicing and experience performing in front of people. Some of these people might include her class or her school. Well that didn’t sound too good, so she’s currently thinking a lot about how many animal sounds she might be able to realistically master in the next couple of years.  She figures that’s good for an early round.  

Now when I was little?   I wanted to be on Star Search.  And, I’m embarrassed to admit it, I really wanted to be one of the Spokesmodels that Ed McMahon ogled.  They had to have “beauty, poise, and the ability to speak effectively.” Each model had a pre-taped package of them modeling three outfits in fuzzily lit settings, and then the camera cut to them in real life, walking across the stage to Ed and throwing to commercial.  I’ve gone back to check, and the modeling seemed to involve a lot of touching of one’s hair, enormous earrings, enormous-er hair, hose matched to shoe color, and wind machines.  They were also incredibly trashy in a daytime soap opera kind of a way, and I’m not sure how I was allowed to watch these given that I couldn’t watch Three’s Company.

spokesmodel

I know that some people have gone on to actual careers after Star Search–Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Dave Chapelle.  There’s a whole list on Wikipedia. I never heard of any of the season winners of the Spokesmodel competition. But there, buried at the bottom, Sharon Stone actually competed as a Spokesmodel on one episode!  So I don’t know, my daughter might have the right idea–better to just be a flash in the pan on one of these shows that actually win the whole thing.

I still have a little bit of a crush on constipated Shin Lim, though.

 

Sweet Dreams

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Apparently I’m stressed about something lately, because I keep having my current stress dream.  The one that my brain defaults to now is this:  I’m somehow called back to my former job as a hospitalist, taking care of sick kids in the hospital along with a team of residents and medical students.  My dream brain somehow knows that I can’t do this job anymore, I don’t currently hold hospital privileges anywhere.  As I maneuver through the complexities of the dream, I’m always slightly worried that someone will figure out that I can’t really be doing this anymore.  But I’m never THAT worried because, hey, it’s their fault for putting me on the schedule!

hospital

Good Lord, they expect me to know what’s going on!

In the dream I’m taking over a panel of patients that I know absolutely nothing about.  Permutations of the dream involve my never having been to the hospital, not being able to log onto a computer, getting locked in the call room, falling asleep, or sitting down at 8 p.m. and realizing that I haven’t even begun to chart on any of the 32 patients on my service.  Oh wait, that last one is an actual memory, never mind.  Last night’s dream I added in an extra nuance of having to take care of one of my infant patients while working and someone misplacing the patient.  You know, the usual.  Occasionally I’ll have enough dreaming awareness and announce to everyone that I don’t actually work there anymore and walk away.  Thank God for sentient dreaming.

The only other two worry dreams that I still have with any regularity are the “All the teeth have come loose in my jaw and I’m spitting them out like a character on Hee Haw”  and “Back to High School.”  The first one I can’t make sense of, but apparently I’m not the only one who has it.  The second one always has a flavor of my subconscious reconciling the impossibility of that dream with the fact that it’s happening anyway.  I have been sent back to high school because I’d registered for a class that I never bothered showing up for and never dropped, so my high school transcript is “incomplete” and this needs to be rectified.  So I’m my 42 year old self, back in high school.  I have the same locker, and of course most of the dream revolves around not remembering the combination or, if I do get into it, realizing that all of my school supplies aren’t there anymore.  Shocking.

Last night I had a completely new worry dream, and I’m not sure what to make of it.  I’m in a TV cooking show, and I’ve somehow progressed far beyond my abilities.  This is more Top Chef than Worst Cooks in America.  The other contestants are already plating and I haven’t even managed to locate a cutting board.  So I woke up this morning with pressing need to do some relaxation.  And organize the cupboards.

cutting board

Stuff of nightmares

The Ol’ Deer Snare

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Last weekend the girls stayed at my mom and dad’s.  Staying at Grandma and Grandpa’s is always an interesting experience.  In addition to the treats that are only available there, being in your parent’s childhood home unaccompanied makes for prime snooping time.  When I was little, overnights meant staying up late to watch bowling over a dish of ice milk.  I could stumble across books my mom read as a child, or toys my dad played with, or leftover adolescent residue in their bedrooms. My own parents have moved from my childhood home, so my and my siblings’ childhood detritus has been neatened up a bit.  Still, the Fischer Price farm set is available for my girls, just as when I was a kid, and the same recycled crafts are dragged out for Grandma’s instruction. This time, the gals and Grandma produced pom poms.

The girls also learned about Davy Crockett;  my parents figured out how to use the DVR.  In addition to catching up on Monk and Gunsmoke, they recorded a couple of the Disney Davy Crockett classics.  Growing up, my entire family was well versed in Davy Crockett, thanks to my brother Pete.  The kid was obsessed.  He had a fake coonskin cap and musket by age four, and was devoted to the movies.  We saw all of them multiple times, having recorded them onto VHS during Sunday night Disney Family Movie time.

Dad chose to introduce the girls to the classic, Davy Crockett and the River Pirates, featuring such seminal scenes as the trick shootout with Davy’s nemesis, Mike Fink, and the battle with the injuns, now shockingly inappropriate.  The best scene, though, is when Mike Fink sings his personal anthem, Mike Fink, King of the River.  Dad queued up the scene, and he and I joined in the singing, much to the girls slack-jawed amazement, complete with saucy hip twitches.

After I’d gone, they must have really dug into the Davy Crockett lore.  Most notably Pete’s penchant for setting deer snares to try and catch my mother.  After supper, while mom cleaned up in the kitchen, Pete donned his coonskin cap and fashioned snares out of jump ropes.  Then he and my dad would give each other the signal–the old hoot owl–and shimmy on their bellies into the kitchen to set the snare behind mom at the sink.  She was required to pretend not to notice the grown man and child slithering loudly on the linoleum behind her.  We girls would have been in the other room, studiously ignoring the proceedings. When the signal was given, mom would somehow step into the jump rope snare, fall dramatically to the floor, and be strung up.  I can’t remember what usually happened after that, but God bless her, right?  I can’t stress enough:  THIS HAPPENED REPEATEDLY!

So this morning, I opened the bathroom door and stepped neatly over the jump rope lying on my bedroom floor.  I’m used to unexpected debris magically appearing in otherwise clean rooms. Then I noticed my 8-year-old attached to the end of the rope, looking at me with a look of malignant disappointment.  Noted.  The ol’ deer snare had been resurrected.

When I came down the stairs I noticed another hot pink loop of rope at the bottom of the stairs.  Shoving aside my thoughts of lunches to be made and time running short, I made my way down, paused dramatically in the snare, and fell victim to the newest iteration of Davy Crockett, kind of the wild frontier.