Rox and Roll

Each other's keeper

One of the reasons that we have (only) two children is how very well our two "go" together.  Despite their 4.5 year age difference, they love each other so fiercely, so protectively that, at times, it's mind-blowing.  I can't punish one -- even if it's for, say, hurting the other -- without the other one getting angry.  The other day, when I took away Petunia's iPod touch as punishment, Dash handed me his, too -- as if to say, "we're in this together, Mom, with or without you."

When Dash received a Barnes and Noble gift card for his 5th birthday, his first thought was to take Petunia shopping.  We recently spent the card, and he told Petunia to "pick out a book for you that I can buy with my credit card!"  And then he found another book (about the Beatles) that they could read together.

Petunia operates the same way.  If she's buying a "midoz" (collectible Japanese eraser that's around 99 cents), she always asks to get one for Dash... same if it's a book or a movie from the library or a trip to Starbucks.  Dash has been known to refuse a trip to his favorite ice cream shop unless Petunia is coming along, too.  Now, I love my siblings, too, but I never would've refused ice cream unless they got some, too.  That's just un... un... unsiblinglike?  improper?  weird?

And then tonight, as Dash was going to bed, I talked with him about his first-ever upcoming t-ball bat-a-thon.  I talked with him about how to fundraise (ask relatives and friends!), about how the money would benefit t-ball (field maintenace) and about winning prizes for helping out with the fundraising.

His first question?

"Is there something for Petunia, too?"

Not what are the prizes, not how many can I win, not oooh, I hope there's a cool hat... but "what do they have for my sister?"

Oh, how I wish I could just freeze them like this.  I want to freeze Petunia at 9.5 and Dash at 5 and remember them always loving each other this much.  I want to engrave in my mind the image of Petunia playing school with Dash and successfully getting him to count and to copy things she writes ... them playing Playmobil together, or wrestling with each other and the dog ... trying to teach each other to skateboard, digging inchworms, running and laughing and playing and doing all of those things that childhood is all about.

I don't want to tell them that when they're older, it'll be so much harder to laugh together, because they'll live on opposite coasts -- and tickle-fights are a lot harder with that much space in between.

But, then again, I doubt they'll ever be that far apart for that long, and that's just fine with me.

Every day is Earth Day around here

In this post, I am participating in the Silicon Valley Moms Blog book club.  We read National Geographic's "Green Guide for Families: The Complete Reference for Eco-friendly Parents."  Our book club does not do book reviews but, rather, enjoys books as a springboard for blogging topics.  This is my tribute to Earth Day on April 22.

Around here, Earth Day is a pretty big deal, mostly because of Petunia.  Since around age 3, she has been an environmental activist versed in earth-friendliness well beyond her years.  I blame Scholastic for this, as I ordered some books on the topic of Earth Day with the preschool book order her first year, and, ever since, they've been among our favorites: books like The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge, the Little Critter series' "It's Earth Day" by Mercer Mayer, and MathStart's Earth Day -- Hooray! (and many, many more -- I'm a bookaholic!).

Since my mother was once arrested for environmental activism (I was a teenager at the time), I guess I can also say that the apple didn't fall far from the tree; I've always been eco-conscious, too, and sought to instill in my children some basic good, green habits: things like turning the water off when brushing their teeth, turning off lights, and re-wearing some clothes (like PJs and jeans) rather than launder things unnecessarily.

Petunia has increased our desire to live this way simply by her passion for it.  Example: The girl refuses to use paper towels or hand dryers after washing her hands, and she can tell you exactly how many trees it takes to make a roll of paper towels and exactly how much energy a dryer uses -- and why dryers are no more environmental than towels.  Instead, the girl asks that we wave our hands around or use our pants(!).  I'm old school, and I view the wiping-dry process as part of the cleaning process, but I'm trying to acknowledge her efforts by giving her some "people towels" on Earth Day this year; they are personal, portable, reusable, organic cotton handtowels.  I'm not sure she'll love the idea, though, because a) I bought something, which is not green, and b) they'll need to be washed sometimes, which is not green, and c) she likes making a statement about green-ness.  

In any event, why, as a family, do we bother to think about these things?

We bother because our family is educated and does believe that global warming is a truth.  (If you don't, please, go and join the "birthers" and other buffoons on someone else's blog.  I can't handle ignorance of scientific fact.)  We bother because we inherited an Earth dirtier than the one on which our parents were born.  We bother because China and India won't bother anytime soon, and, even if we absolutely hate the weak-willed way America has been handling that global crisis, we acknowledge a need to do what we can to offset bigger polluters.  That's why we bike and walk wherever we can as often as we can: to work, to school, to dinner in town; and the benefit of that beyond the "green" factor is our health.

And that, health, is why I bother a little more these days.  This past year has revealed some significant, chronic health issues for me, specifically in my lungs.  The genesis of these issues is still being investigated, but a number of factors are likely contributors: smoking households, growing up in a valley with air inversion, and exposure to toxins from coal and steel are all strong possibilities.  I can't look backward, though, and get bitter about the places and way in which I grew up.  But I can look forward and do a little more so that someone down the line might breathe a little easier, literally.

For me, looking forward means continuing to improve our household's eco-consciousness because we can always do better in that regard.  But it also means taking on some bigger things.  I'll be paying a little more attention to legislation surrounding Big Tobacco, and I'll also be paying attention to climate and energy legislation.  I'll be researching Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s fight against mountain top coal removal, perhaps the worst environmental travesty ever in America and one to which President Obama has paid little attention. In general, I'll be asking a little more outloud why America is so coal-dependent.  I may be West Virginian by birth, and I know coal is at the heart of the state's industry: but how many mining disasters do we have to see, how many people need to die of mining-related ailments and suffer lifelong debilitating health issues before we realize that there are other, better ways to fuel the state's economy (more training for a knowledge, not labor, economy, and nuclear energy are some examples). 

And I'll do these things because I care about the Earth, but more because I care about its people.  I never smoked so much as a puff of a cigarette in my life, yet I know what it feels like to be suffocating.  And that feeling, rather than make me sad, empowers me to want to say: You do not have a right to smoke around me.  You do not have a right to pollute my air or my water with your industrial waste.  You do not have a right to rape the Earth by whatever means necessary to access a fossil fuel on which our dependency must wane. 

To that end, every day has to be Earth Day, because shaking our heads and wondering about how change is going to come isn't going to make any kind of a difference.  And I refuse to leave my kids with an Earth dirtier than the ones my parents left me. 

*****

This post was inspired by National Geographic's Green Guide to Family Living.  I was given a copy of the book for the purposes of inspiring the above post; I was not compensated in any other way nor required to write anything specific.

While participation in the Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club specifically does not involve reviews, I always add a note regarding whether or not a book is worth reading or purchasing.  In this case, my answer is: maybe.  Since it's a "green" book, I don't think you should buy it; I think you should borrow mine or check it out of the library -- unless you're a family who really isn't green at all yet, and then it's probably good to have around as a constant reminder.  I learned some new tips from it, like ways to encourage my Petunia to take meaningful action (letter-writing campaign opportunities, etc.), and it's always good to learn something new. 

Happy reading, and happy Earth Day!

GIVEAWAY! Fantastic Mr. Fox on DVD

Based on a Roald Dahl book, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a tale about what can go awry when a fox caves into his sneaky nature.  The film tells a story of fox-nature, adaptation, survival, struggle and, most of all perhaps, family that is compelling to all ages watching.

Hands-down, my kids and I believe that Fantastic Mr. Fox should've won the Best Animated Film Oscar.  Sure, it's an honor just to be nominated, but we LOVED this movie far, far better than the winner (Up).  When I asked Petunia why she loved Fantastic Mr. Fox so much, she said because it's funny and because it's different, and I agree; there's nothing formulaic about this wonderful film.  It's also in stop-motion animation, which is a medium we often don't see.  Another big plus is how Director Wes Anderson loaded the film with a top-notch cast: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe...wow.  This is a movie worth owning.

To that end, the good folks at Twentieth Century Fox and MGM Home Entertainment are allowing me to give away up to three DVDs of this magnificent film.  To enter, leave a comment below.  Winners will be selected this Friday, April 16, at 9 pm PDT (that's midnight EDT).  Soon after, I will be giving away Amelia on DVD... so stay tuned for more film reviews from Rox and Roll!

P.S. If your kids loved Fantastic Mr. Fox, they'll love these activity pages, too.  Click the image to enlarge, print, and enjoy!

  

* Disclaimer: I received a screener copy of Fantastic Mr. Fox from Twentieth Century Fox/MGM Home Entertainment but have received no compensation otherwise for this review.  I did not commit to a positive review, but I offer the giveaway to my readers because I sincerely liked (loved!) this movie and think you will, too.  Good luck to you!

A New Normal

I purposefully didn't mark the date on which I visited Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital last summer with the worst pain I've ever had in my life.  While I'd been sick for about a month beforehand, suddenly I felt myself being stabbed in the side with an icepick, taking my breath away and making me unable to speak or move or think.  I didn't know what was happening to me, but it's fair to say that I was disturbed when the doctor came in to show me the CT scan results, crying, begging me to take pain medication (I'd refused all but Motrin) because it was the worst atypical pneumonia she'd ever seen.  I didn't mark the date, because, from that point, none of it ever really went away... the pneumonia cleared some, then came back, then cleared, then came back, and the pain comes and goes.  I still take only Motrin and have convinced myself that I can manage it simply by willing it away.  As the Zen proverb suggests, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.  I opt out.

But then there's the other pain, and that's the pain that I felt last week when my godsend of a pulmonologist met with me to review the results of my second bronchoscopy; he indicated that this thing, whatever "it" is, is probably my "new normal."  "Nothing voids the warranty," he indicated, but "it" is not going away.  I'll undergo a lot more testing and start rotating on and off of drugs every three weeks.  I'll be a pulmonology patient for the long haul.  Maybe someday something will show up on a new test -- a new allergy, or some autoimmune condition -- or there will be a surgical correction for the huge diverticulum that makes it more likely that I'll get pneumonia again and again.  But for now, this is life: limited.  Or is it?

If I can will away the physical pain, and if I can will away the hurt from being defective (that's what it feels like; might as well call it what it is), then perhaps I can will myself to live as normally as possible.  Yes, perhaps there's a "new normal," one that includes about seven drugs already with more to come, but who says that can't be pretty close to my "old" normal?  (Let me just stop here to give a shout out to those who say "was she ever normal?"  I laugh with you!)

So, with that, I started walking.  The doctor reassured me that exercise won't kill me, just to acknowledge my limits and start slow as the inflammation, hopefully, dies down with the new meds.  I took my daughter with me, because I'm still afraid to exert at all and be alone, and we walked.  Finally, I felt free, and I realized that there were probably a few moments here and there that I thought I probably wouldn't be here right now to walk with her -- that life wouldn't ever be normal again (whether "new" or "old"). It's a terrible feeling, much worse than stabbing pain in the side; it's like a collapse of the heart.

Some of that heart is still collapsed a little, for another downside of living with a chronic illness is having to watch others cope with it.  From my husband who has held my hand without a single complaint, to the kids who have had to become more independent and a lot more patient, to my parents whose feelings I can't imagine, to the friends who don't know what to say... illness changes them all, too.  It changes them in good ways; you sure do learn who your friends are when you're down and out.  Some people don't believe it because you "don't look sick."  And some people just don't care; why call to see how someone's doing to hear a sad story that interrupts your otherwise happy life?  Then some people are real jerks, sweating the small stuff and trying to make you suffer for their pettiness.  I pray for those people the most, for they're like the people who questioned Jesus's treatment of lepers and prostitutes.  They just don't get that life isn't always sunshine and roses -- and they also don't understand, like I'm starting to, that sometimes a whole lot of good comes from something pretty awful.

And that's where I am now: with all I'm learning about people and about sickness by going through this, something I like has come out of it, and that's a "new normal" me -- a me that, quite frankly, I like a lot better than the me I was before this happened.  I do a whole lot of things that I didn't used to do.  I say "no," and I don't feel guilty about it.  I don't pick fights, but I also don't lay down and take being pushed around.  I stand up for myself a lot better, but I also let things go a lot more.  I choose to spend my still-limited energy on things that are important; when doing something involves a trade-off in fatigue, it has to really be worth it.  I smile and laugh a lot more, and I don't cry -- I can't, because it creates mucus, which is a big part of my lung problem.  I play harmonica in my car.  (Believe it or not, that's pulmonary therapy!)  I don't stress out (that's bad for anyone's health), and I focus on happiness.  As Aeschylus wrote, "happiness is a choice that requires effort at all times."  Boy, is that ever the truth!  People will continue to be petty naysayers, and reacting to them or letting them bring me down is not an option.  I can focus on all of the good and positive wonder in my life -- a fantastic family, the world's best husband, remarkable children, and a whole lot of friends who never would bail me out of jail because they'd be in there with me saying "damn, that was fun!"   (Not that I plan on going to jail anytime soon...)

I think a lot can happen in someone's life to give them a new perspective on what's important, and I also believe that anyone can change into a different person at any time... sometimes that's good, sometimes not.  I'm not thrilled that it took my sickness to teach me to live a little differently, to let go a little more, and to realize the richness of friends I have while also cutting loose the ones that had no time for me in my hour of need.  I don't have to be a perfect person in order to feel that I'm entitled to live a good, fulfilling life for as long as I have one to live; I just have to "be my best self," and I define that.  I'm a work in progress, as we all are. 

So... that's my "new normal."  I've heard a lot of "you're handling this really well" from people, and I'm thankful for that.  I have no room in my already-cluttered mind for self-pity or wallowing; after all, I have no more right to be here and to be free of illness than anyone else does.  And a positive attitude does go a long way, even if dealing with negative things.  I'll walk a little farther each day until, finally, I've walked as close to wellness as I can manage.  My lungs may be weakened, but my spirit is stronger thanks to those who lift me up.  How blessed I am to be surrounded by so many angels.