I rode the train downtown for a doctor appointment yesterday. It had been quite a while since I’d been on a train, and it reminded me of what, I think, is an amazing story from when I lived in Chicago, when I rode the El all the time.

I had gone downtown I think to meet Hubby, who was just a boyfriend at the time, for lunch. On my way back I was heading up the stairs to the el (that’s “elevated” for you non-Chicagoans) and noticed that a man who had been sitting on the steps there happened to stand up as I walked by, and it felt a little odd because he’d gotten awfully close. Sure enough, when I got upstairs and sat down on the bench to wait for the train, I saw that my backpack was open and my wallet was missing. I got backup and headed back downstairs to see if he was still there, having no idea what I would do if I actually did find him.

He wasn’t to be seen, so I went to the counter and asked the woman working if she had seen him, and told her I’d just been robbed. Just then, a woman came down the stairs from the other side of the tracks and asked if I had just had my wallet stolen. She said she’d seen the man come up her side, take the money out of a pink wallet (yes, I had a pink wallet) and throw it in the trash. She then noticed that I had just arrived and then headed back downstairs on the other side of the tracks.

This meant the man who had pick-pocketed me was upstairs waiting for the train to arrive, temporarily stuck because the only way down is via the stairs that we are currently at the bottom of, blocking his would-be escape route. But we can hear that train coming down the track, which would allow him to get on and get away. So the woman working begins to try and call the approaching train on a walkie talkie, but she soon realizes the batteries are dead and it’s not working. As she tries to find a new set of batteries and install them, we hear the train getting closer and closer.

In the meantime, I have called Hubby, the then-boyfriend, and he has arrived quickly since he’d just walked me to the train stop after our lunch. And he has now decided that he is going to go upstairs and confront this man and get my wallet back because the approaching train probably isn’t going to be stopped in time. He heads up the stars as I scream at him to stay, not knowing what this dude may have in his pockets or do to my kind-hearted, gentle boyfriend were he to confront him. Envision, if you will, me at the bottom of the train steps screaming at him to come back and sobbing, and the woman who had originally come to tell where Dude was is screaming at the CTA employee to hurry up and stop the train!

Here’s where it gets good. A man passing by saw all this happening and headed up the stairs without saying anything to us right before Hubby. So Hubby was walking behind this guy, wondering what he was going to do to the man who had my wallet once he saw who he was of the group upstairs, but just as he approached him, the man walking in front of him grabs the perpetrator and throws him up against the wall, yelling at him to give him “the girl’s wallet.” Hubby stood in awe (and maybe he can add a bit to this in the comments since he is the one who witnessed it firsthand:)

Meanwhile, I am still downstairs in a wreck with the other two women, when I see Hubby running down the stairs with a huge smile on his face, waving my pink wallet around in the air, gleefully. Right behind him comes the thief, held tight by the random passerby who decided to rectify this situation on his own. Once to the bottom of the stairs, the hero of the story holds the guy up against the wall as we wait for the police to arrive. Unfortunately, the dude did run away when the hero looked away for a moment, and although he chased him, the dude escaped.

I like to remember this story because, despite the fact that I was robbed, I think it is proof that what some believe about city dwellers as cold, cynical people who only care for themselves (and I think there definitely is a stereotype out there about big city living), there are two people who, on that day, got involved in something they easily could have ignored. The woman who saw the man come up to the platform could have just looked the other way. And then, the man who heard what had happened and took it upon himself to go up the stairs and wrestle a man down to the ground and then bring him back down, prisoner style, certainly went above and beyond for a total stranger. It was a pretty amazing thing to witness, in retrospect.

Labels: Hubby, Learn More Every Day, Tales

I’ll tell you a little secret: I’m not really a baby person. I’m really not. Babies always sort of freaked me out growing up. I guess I didn’t have much experience with them or something, and well, I guess I just didn’t get the whole babies are so great/cute/cuddly thing. To me they were just little scary things that cried a lot for no known reason.

One time a friend of mine who babysat for her neighbor wasn’t free one night, and she gave the woman my name as a possible fill-in. So the woman hired me to come over that night and take care of her baby, who was probably I dunno, like seven months or something - how would I know? I didn’t know squat about babies at the time. Anyway, I remember her mentioning something about some cereal in the cabinet if the baby got hungry, and then she was gone. When it was clear the baby might be hungry, as in, was screaming and I knew not why, I went to get the kid some cereal. She wouldn’t eat it, and I didn’t know what to do. Now when I think back I know the poor thing probably didn’t eat the FROSTED MINI-WHEATS I tried to give her because the mom meant INFANT cereal, which I probably had never even seen or heard of before. Ugh. You wonder how this woman left me with her baby, and I tell you, I wonder the same thing.

Anyway, babies always scared me, and there was no time when this was more true than when I was left alone with my own baby for the first time. After Sam was born and I was still in the hospital, I was petrified every time I was left alone with him. I specifically remember that Hubby had to drive my mom home one night, and that meant I had to be left in the room with him all by myself. Certainly part of my fear was that I was recovering from a Cesarean and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to physically do what was needed without help, but there was also the fear that I just wouldn’t know the answer. I wouldn’t know what to if he started to cry; I wouldn’t know how to soothe him, or hold him, or nurse him. As he slept in my lap nursing, I just kept willing him to stay asleep, feeling petrified at every noise that might stir him and he’d start crying. And this is how I felt every time I was alone with my new baby.

On the day we were supposed to come home from the hospital, I remember trying to keep Hubby in the room with me until the very last possible minute. We had to wait for someone to come and get me and wheel me out in a wheelchair, and I didn’t want my husband to leave and go get the car ready until the guy had arrived to get me. But, of course, they wanted him to go down and get the car early so that they could be sure he’d be down there and ready to pick me up. After he left, Sam started crying, and I tried everything I could. I nursed him, changed him, changed his clothes, tried to burp him, nursed him again. And then the guy arrived and I had to put Sam in the carseat by myself - the nurse said they were not legally allowed to help me - and by then I was pretty much frantic. Sam screamed all the way to the car and most of the way home, until he fell asleep, and that pretty much set the tone for the first six months of his life, crazy, fussy thing that he was.

I’m not sure exactly when that fear, that sense of utter terror started to lift. Certainly I was forced to face it increasingly more often as time went on and I was left to care for Sam on my own. My mom eventually went home. Hubby went back to work, and then it was just the two of us, Sam and myself. Sometimes I felt crazy, because for a person who already felt traumatized by babies from the start, Sam was ahem, quite challenging. He cried all the time, and I never knew why, never knew what to do. Often I cried with him as we sat in our hot Chicago apartment asking each other what was wrong. It was a hard time for me. It was isolating to be not only a new mom, but to feel like I couldn’t do any of the new mom things that all the other new moms did in order to meet each other. Sam just wouldn’t have it.

But somehow, at some point, we sort of got into a groove. We didn’t do much, but we worked it out. We went on our walk with him in the snugli each morning and we’d stop at the little corner store to get myself a vita-water once he fell asleep, his sun hat covering his eyes. And then we’d go sit at the playground, which was always empty because it was so hot. I’d keep him asleep in the pack for as long as possible, just as I did at the hospital, because I knew once he woke up he’d be crying again. And I’d berate myself for having to have a Cesarean, telling myself that had I been able to have the birth I’d wanted then he would have been a happier baby.

Then we’d come home and peel ourselves off of each other, wet with each other’s sweat since that summer really was ridiculously hot. I’d spend the rest of the day trying to keep both of us fed, which was hard since he couldn’t be put down EVER, and then trying to keep him asleep. I’d lay next to him on the bed and nurse him to keep him napping while I watched movies on mute with the subtitles on so as not to wake him. I listened to lullaby CDs over and over again while holding him and trying to settle him down by bouncing on an exercise ball (we went through probably 4 of those). I’d sing him songs and read him books for as long as he would let me. And I really don’t know how else we passed the time. Eventually I started having an old student of mine come in a few times a week so that I could shower every so often and eat a meal while sitting down.

And then, one day, he started to smile at me. Not too far after that he started to laugh. Soon he’d bop his little head and dance. I’d play music and he’d nod and smile at me while in his swing. I’d tear up as I looked back at him feeling such an overwhelming sense of happiness that I just couldn’t contain myself. It was something so big; it was like nothing I’d ever felt in my entire life.

I was never a baby person. And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t one of those moms who looked at their baby and in an instant felt bonded and whole, nor did I instantly know what to do to for him when he cried, like I had some sort of mother’s intuition that told me all the answers. On the contrary, it took some time. It probably took the duration of a summer, the time that Sam and I worked it out together, just the two of us, and he taught me what being a mom was all about. I would easily describe it as the hardest time in my life. I would also say it was the best.

Labels: Mommyhood, Tales

Nearly four years ago The Hubs and I went on a trip to Wisconsin, sort of a last hoorah before he began his second year of law school, and I went back to teaching in September. It wasn’t much of a trip, just to an inn with some restaurants, a pool, tennis courts (we were beginners, but very into tennis at the time), and about the right amount of activity to make us feel like we’d gotten to get away for a break before the drudgery began again. What you need to know, Dear Reader, before I continue with this story, is that we had also been “trying” for one month. With the expectation that getting pregnant would probably take six months or so, we decided to go ahead and get going on that, hoping we’d be successful at some point throughout the year…

So we set off. We swam in the pool, ate at nice restaurants, and had a leisurely time. But not long into our little excursion, things got weird. Let me be more specific: I got weird. It began at the tennis court, on a fairly hot day. We were new at tennis, so it wasn’t totally out of the ordinary for one of us to get frustrated with our own lack of ability, but go ahead and fast forward to the part where I am sitting in the middle of the tennis court crying and yelling at him that he is hitting the ball out of my reach on purpose!!! To which he would have said, had he not be petrified of me at the time, “Isn’t that the object of the game?” Instead, he recommended I drink more water and we head to our room for a rest. I declared that no, we would continue playing, but then every time I was forced to bend over and pick up a ball from the ground, I would start crying again.

We didn’t know why.

When we finally headed in, me, red-faced and swollen, him, dumbfounded, we had to climb a fairly substantial hill to get back to the inn. I had to stop and rest half way through. As you can imagine - more crying. But why do I have to stop and rest?! Why can’t I climb this hill?! YOU don’t have to rest. Let’s just go! At which point I proceeded to huff up the hill, tears still streaming down my face due to total exhaustion, with a bit of stubbornness thrown in.
We didn’t know why.

Inside our air conditioned room, we watched the US Open. I took a pregnancy test, just because I had them with me despite the fact that I knew it would be too early, but sometimes you just gotta check, right? It was negative.

Then the food thing began. Let me just say, I am big on elaborate breakfasts, especially at restaurants, so when I ordered toast and plain scrambled eggs one morning, The Hubs looked at me and doubt passed before his eyes - he wasn’t sure who I was. This was the woman who had eaten huge plates of blueberry pancakes every morning for eight days straight when we were on our honeymoon. When the food came, I ate only the toast.

We still didn’t know why.

That night, when it was time to discuss our dinner plans, I declared that I wanted to stay in and order room service, didn’t feel like going out. More importantly, I wanted French onion soup and apple pie for dinner. As The Hubs scanned the room service menu he said they might not have those things; apple pie was not listed. I said he’d better call down and see if they had some, because I was going to have French onion soup and apple pie for dinner, even if he had to go out and find me some apple pie. Mercifully (for him) they had both items and they arrived to our room a bit later. When the food was presented on the table, I’ll admit, it looked a bit odd, the combination that I’d required, that is. I’d probably never ordered onion soup before in my life.

But the weirder thing was the whole apple pie bit. I’d always hated baked apples. In fact, they make me gag because of the texture. Hubs had heard my story about the time my dad made me try apple pie at a restaurant with his parents even though I told him I didn’t like it, and I proceeded to gag and barf in front of my grandparents when he insisted (he never made me try it again after that:) And now, here we were sitting at a table with really salty soup and mushy pie before us, after it had been made abundantly clear that these were the necessary items, on penalty of who knows what, should they not have made it to my stomach in a timely fashion. I scarfed them down and went to bed early.

And still, we really didn’t know why. . .because apparently we are morons.

About a week later when we were home again. I took another test, and my heart stopped for a moment.

Then I took another.

Then I switched brands and took another.

Then I called Hubs. I had done this while he was at school, because I was so certain they would be negative anyway so it wouldn’t matter. I’d always regret that decision, wishing we could have been together for it. I spoke to him between classes, and told him there might be news, but that I wasn’t sure yet (um, how?) He went back to class, and at some point leaned back in his chair in a weird daze, tilting the whole thing over and falling out of his seat during the lecture in the stadium style classroom.

When he came home finally, I took another, fully expecting the result to be different now that he was here, because obviously it would be impossible for us to be pregnant on the first try.

That was test four (as my four fingers indicate). And he looked at me and said, “We did it!” And here I am, finally letting it hit me as we stood over the tests in our bathroom.

And here he is, looking proud and, um, potent.

And there we sat, having flashbacks of the previous week, the crying, the salty soup, the toast, the crazy woman (me), and, of course, the beer I shared with him, the seared rare tuna I ate for dinner one night, the underwater breath-holding contest we played in the pool, withholding oxygen from our poor spawn (I won though).

And then we knew why.

And we haven’t gotten to get back on the tennis court since.

Labels: Hubby, Pictures, Pregnant, Tales, Vacations and travel

So there I am, sitting at the MOST AWESOME PLAYGROUND EVER, congratulating Hubby and myself for making the drive and getting there on such a beautiful day without any major mishaps. Robby and I are enjoying the breeze while Sam plays in the huge sandbox with his Dad. Looking around and taking in the view . . . when I look over and what do my eyes behold but another dad helping his son to pee on the fence of the playground. Uh huh. There they are, zippin’ up. Lovely. I mean, yeah, toilet training, but can you really not go another 20 feet to the edge of the woods over there, really? Excellent lesson.

Aaaahhh…summer breeze. Relaaax. Not too hot. Robby loves the breeze and laughs when it blows his hair. Enjoying the day, but then, “This must be the swing for RETARDED PEOPLE!” I look around to see what horrible person has just proclaimed this, expecting to see a delinquent high schooler trying to impress his friends, but no, it’s another dad. He’s talking about one of those big-seated swings that seem to be at all the playgrounds here. Then he sits his abnormally large butt in it and says again, louder this time, “Yeah. It’s a RETARDED PEOPLE SWING. Heh heh. Retarded people.” Um, how about the swing for assholes? The assholes swing. Heh heh. Assholes. I sat there, willing it to break as he tried to push himself higher by yanking on the chain . . .

Breathe. Relaaax. The weather is just perfect. We’ll have to come back here often despite the longish drive. It’s just such a great playground. Robby and I are watching a mom and her daughters fly a butterfly kite. He loves it . . . sniff . . . sniff sniff. Do I smell smoke? Is someone seriously smoking out here? I turn to see behind me a couple laying on a blanket WITH THEIR KIDS, and smoking. On a gorgeous day, with bountiful fresh air. And I’m sitting like 10 feet away and FEEDING my BABY for goodness sake. I refuse to even try and understand this, not because I think they owe it to me, but they’re sitting with their kids . . .

Turning my attention back to the swings. Aahhh. Joyful children, laughing and smiling…no, wait, that one’s crying. In fact she’s sort of petrified looking and sobbing and yelling for her Dad to stop pushing her so high (and believe me, it was really freakin’ high), and yet he continues, telling her “it’s fine.” And the point of this would be . . . what, exactly?

So go ahead - who wins it?

Is it:

a) “Let’s go pee on the fence, son” dad

b) Asshole on a swing

c) Parents who smoke around their kids (and others’ babies at playgrounds on gorgeous days)

d) Asshole pushing a swing

Labels: Tales

Perhaps it took us too long to get our lawn cut after we moved in, because I’m starting to wonder if one of the neighbors put a hex on us or something. Let me share the evidence - all of this, with the exception of my trip down the stairs, has occurred in the past 76 hours.

Exhibit A

See that butt-ugly medieval torture device-styled chandelier? I swear, I don’t know what the previous owners of this house were thinking sometimes. Nothing quite like sitting down to dinner and immediately being reminded of people on the rack or hanging from the dungeon ceiling by their toenails. Anyway, see the nice looking prongs protruding from the bottom? Yeah. Banged my head on that after having to stand and reach across the table for something.

Exhibit B

See my butt-ugly, bloody toe? Yeah, did that pulling a new stroller out of a box.

Exhibit C

I was called 2 hours after dropping Sam off at his new summer camp program because he was so upset that he couldn’t calm himself down. Nothing like that has EVER happened with him before. I’ve pulled him out of the program. And now I get to have both kids with me…all day…every day…for every moment…of every day…for the rest of the summer… not to mention the fact that it was emotionally exhausting and very hard on both of us.

Exhibit D

Remember when I was all excited about us finally getting life insurance? Yeah, well turns out I was DENIED a policy based on something that happened with my heart after Sam was born, something that I have no symptoms for, don’t need medication for, and have been told repeatedly by cardiologists that it is perfectly under control and that I am healthy. Yeah, denied. In addition, the bloodwork we had done for our application showed that Hubby had some sort of liver problem. So he scrambled around trying to get a doctor appointment and in the meantime did a bunch of research that led him to believe he had liver cancer or gall stones. And then when he met with our doctor learned that it was most likely a false test based on the rest of the bloodwork results and considering the fact that the tech who came to our house was TOTALLY INCOMPETENT. Still, not something you want to wonder about for 24 hours. And did I mention I was denied?

Exhibit E

My slippage on the stairs. And I realize this bruise is not impressive at all, but bear in mind that this photo was taken 11 DAYS later. This is what it looks like now. And also bear in mind that you are not seeing a photo of my butt-ugly butt…heh heh…

Exhibit F

Then there’s the Maki incident, of course. And he is home now, by the way, and thank you all for your kind words. He is actually much more lively than I’d expected him to ever be again. We’ve been told a year would be great, but it could be days, weeks, or months. Here he is enjoying and contemplating life.

So what do you think? Hexed or what? What is UP, Dude?!

Labels: House, Pictures, Tales

I awoke to rain and a toddler who refused to go to school. I knew the latter was crucial since said toddler would not be getting out of the house due to the former, so I started the long process of getting a writhing child out the door in a timely fashion. He’s usually very excited to go to school, so this was a little weird to me. He was adamant that he was not down with school today, not cool with walking to the car, and generally just “vewy angwy!”

And you know me - I started to wonder what awful thing had happened at school that made him so upset about going. Had a classmate been mean to him and the teacher didn’t help? Had he gotten into trouble and no one told me? Had he gotten hurt?

So as we drove there I continued to ask him why he didn’t want to go. I started talking about how they would get to go to the “big room” to play instruments since it was raining outside, and then he yelled, “No! I NOT want to pway Duckduckgoose!”

“Oh, did you play Duck-Duck-Goose at school?”

“Yes. It raining and I NOT want to pway.” Aha, so on rainy days they not only go to the big room for instruments, but also for games. That was a relief.

But then, about four seconds later, I started up again - Wait, why does he hate Duck-Duck-Goose so much? Does nobody pick him as the goose? Is he always the first one “out”? Do they put him in “the pot?” Oh God, they shame him and make him sit in the pot so that all the other kids can sit around him in the circle and stare at him because he was out first. He’s already having sport-related school anxiety! He’s going to hate gym. He’s going to have stomach aches on Field Day. He’s going to be like my brother and run himself into a wall to break his arm so that he can get out of P.E. because a shattered ulna feels better than the shame of being a non-athlete . . .

“You put your hands on the heads and I NOT want them to touch my head.”

“What?”

“I NOT WANT THEM TO TOUCH MY HEAD!”

“You mean you don’t like Duck-Duck-Goose because they touch your head? It’s not because of the part where you have to run around the circle and get chased and sit in the pot if you are out?”

“No, that a wittle fun. Running part is fun. I just not want them to touch my head.”

” . . . Ohhhhhh.”

When I picked him up two hours later I looked in the window to see Sam happily sitting in a circle with his hand stuck out so that the kid who was the ducker could walk by and tap him high five style - “Gooooooose!” - and Sam running and laughing around and around the whole room as the teachers tried to direct the two boys to at least head in the general direction of the circle, which had really spread out into something more like a line. There was no “out,” no “pot,” and absolutely no shame.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Tales, Talking, The Big One

Today we visited our house, our very first house. Hubby and I have lived in various apartments since we graduated from college nearly ten years ago. We close at the end of this month. Very exciting, very overwhelming. We took measurements and tried to place furniture in our minds. We need to look at paint cards and buy a lawn mower. It’s like we’ve been college kids for years, living on a budget in small apartments. We’ve been kids with kids. But look at us now! A house, life insurance policies; we’re so very adult. It’s been a long time coming.

I’ll tell you what I won’t miss - apartment neighbors. I would say one of the main reasons I have wanted us to buy us a house so much has been to get away from crappy neighbors. Yes, I realize it is possible to have crappy neighbors in a nice neighborhood, and that in many ways it is worse because you are stuck with them when you own a home. But I think nothing can compare to sharing walls (or floors, or ceilings) with really bad neighbors. We’ve had some really “special” people surrounding us in our years of apartment living. It’s always something that’s really difficult to deal with when the people who live around you are bothersome. You can’t really do much for fear you will make things worse, and then they are still your neighbors, just now they hate you for say, calling the cops, writing a letter to their landlord, etc.

Usually I resort to writing letters in my head to make me feel better. I’ve told these people off repeatedly in my mind, drafting letters to be stuck on their door for them to find, but I never actually do the sticking. Perhaps I can find some closure if I get them out of my head and share them here. So, from our most inoffensive bad neighbors to the ones that I will truly never forget, I give you part one of a series of “Letters to My Bad Neighbors.”

Dear Dude and Wife Upstairs,

We hear you. We hear everything you do.

Wife, how can you stand your husband’s laugh? How can you hear it, day after day? The high pitched, hyena-like cackle: wuuuuuhp (a sharp scoop of roughly an octave here) buhp buhp buhp buhp buhp. Tell me, exactly how much pot are you guys smoking each day because WOW, it’s gotta be a lot.

I have to tell you that you guys are not nearly as good at Rock Band/Guitar Hero as you think you are. Practice has not made you any better either. Your rendition of Black Hole Sun has not improved with time. Although, I must say, I would rather hear your stoned, tone-deaf incantations than feel our apartment shake each time you dropped a bomb in your previous air strike game that you played for twelve hour sessions every Saturday.

I think it is safe to say that if I can tell you what movie you are watching just from hearing the soundtrack through my ceiling (Gladiator, by the way), that it might be a tad too loud.

Can’t say we’ll miss you, I just hope we get out of here before you get yourselves a Wii.

The fam downstairs

Labels: House, Tales