Who knew

Things I have learned from my children over the last few days:

From Shawn Joaquin

Indians did not have cows; the cows went someplace else. Therefore the Indians did not have milk. And they could not go to the store to buy milk because they don't have wallets.

From Madelena

It IS possible to put a band-aid on a cut on the inside of your lower lip if you really, really try and are not afraid of choking to death. 

Santa: Super Spy. Enforcer. Jesus.

With Christmas fast approaching, Gregg and I are determined to avoid the debacle of last year - presents are limited, Santa gifts will be presented unwrapped, and with the growing awareness of the Power of Santa, we have implemented Operation "He is Watching".

When Shawn Joaquin wakes us for the fifth time in the darkest hour of any night, we invoke the name of Santa: "Do you think Santa thinks that waking up your parents means you're being a GOOD boy or a BAD boy? What happens if you're not a GOOD boy?" With a whimper and a mumbled "I want presents" Shawn Joaquin shuffles back to bed.

When Shawn Joaquin runs away from us and laughs to avoid any discipline, we have only to say "Santa is watching" to stop him dead in his tracks. When he is clearly wrestling with whether to smack his sister in the middle of her back or kiss her gently on the head, we simply say "What would Santa do?"

We know that the years are limited in which the invocation of Santa will be so powerful, and we are determined to make full use of them. Just last night the Power of Santa compelled Shawn Joaquin to fetch a beer for Gregg, to wipe his own bottom thoroughly and with gusto, and to finish his salad and pasta before leaving the table. Santa has helped him dress with fewer tears in the morning, get out of bed slightly less in the middle of the night, and to be exponentially more helpful in general.  

While we are trying to remind the kids that Christmas is about giving and about taking care of our family, friends and even strangers who might not have the wealth that we have — well beyond the financial, with health, love and security as critical elements of our well-being — we have been grateful to have the lure of Christmas morning greed to drive better behavior, even if only for a few weeks. So for now we say thanks, fat guy. We raise our sugar cookies to you. Then it's back to the wails, crying and tantrums that have marked this winter of our discontent....and Shawn Joaquin may even shed a tear or two of his own. 

Sit Ubu, Sit

At the beginning of the school year, Shawn Joaquin aligned himself with two of the more outgoing boys in class. This had both its plusses and minuses - Shawn Joaquin can be quite reticent, and his admiration of these boys would sometimes drive him to try new things and other times to try bad things to impress them. But at least he was getting out.

I recently asked him if he still played with them, and his answer was a simple "no". 

"Well, who DO you play with?"

"I play with Diego and Marisol."

This thrilled me, since both kids are well-known to me and as sweet and innocent as Shawn Joaquin.  And Shawn Joaquin plans on marrying Marisol, whom we would gladly welcome as a daughter-in-law.

"What do you do when you play?"

"We play house."

"And what do you DO when you play house?"

"Well...Marisol is the mom. Diego is the dad. And I'm the DOG! AWHOOOOOOOO! I bark and howl a lot, but I don't get to talk." 

With that the complex reality of preschool social hierarchy was made somewhat clearer to me. And I had to remind myself that in our house it's the dog who never gets in trouble, is always fed on time, comes when called, and is generally well-regarded and the least likely to fling poop or yogurt on the floor. So you go for it, Shawn Joaquin. I mean...sit boy, sit. Good dog.

I Do NOT Have Sh**ty Taste in Music

As the holidays approach with the unsettling shadow of my brother's death casting a pall over it, I find myself filled with angst and ennui with an occasional flicker of peppermint-bark induced giddiness. I remember all too well the surreal holiday season of 2001, as I sat for days on end on my sofa with my hands limp at my side, watching the tree crisp into a brown, potentially incendiary homage to my grief. The feeling of wanting to scream and often doing so, so unbelievable was his death and ruthless separation from us. Constantly and senselessly wondering if he was okay, sometimes questioning the mere fact of his death. I spent months like that, alternating high-functioning, over-compensating workaholic drive with complete catatonia at home. The dogs were not walked for six months, phone calls were never returned, mail left unopened, plants left to die, and whatever I wore to work that day became my pajamas for the night. To undress was more effort than I could imagine, and Tylenol PM became my best friend.

The immediate duties of dealing with Shawn's body, his home, car and the crew hired to clean up the scene of his death all fell to me. It was a morbid, awful and seemingly inhuman and incomprehensible task -- but as the only semi-functioning adult in our family, it was mine to accomplish. I talked to mortuaries, the coroner, police, his landlord, his long-distance girlfriend, and had the terrible task of calling all of my parents' friends and extended family to let them know what had happened. Each call was a terrible reminder of the first call, when I had to wake my parents in the middle of the night to tell them their only son was gone.

Finally I had to brace myself and go to Shawn's home to pick up his Jeep. I was at a near breaking point, and the only thing I would be spared was actually entering his home -- due to the circumstances surrounding his death, his home was locked down and only professionals were able to enter. My sister drove me to his apartment and all but peeled out as she dropped me on the edge of the driveway. My hands shook so badly as I tried to put the key in the Jeep door that I dropped the keys repeatedly on the asphalt. Finally I stepped in and sat with my eyes closed, hands at 10 and 2... just breathing in the essence of my brother. Coffee. Cigarettes. Straw. A slightly minty aftershave. I finally opened my eyes and took in the scene.

An AA meeting guide. Multiple crushed Starbucks' cups. Shredded rolls of Tums, matchbooks and crumpled, empty packs of cigarettes. A Hunter S. Thompson book on the seat. And a coffee-stained envelope taped to the front of his stereo with these words scrawled on it in his nearly unintelligible hand: I do NOT have sh**ty taste in music.



At that, all my tears and tension turned into choking laughter - that sign and this scene summed up so much of my brother, so tough and yet constantly needing to remind himself that he was not the kid who used to be beaten up on a regular basis, teased constantly and made to feel less than the creative and special boy that he was. I turned the key in the ignition, immediately assaulted with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. As I drove his car to the car wash (where I would later discover a loaded handgun in a Kleenex box under the seat - an apparently common finding in Louisiana), I listened to a compilation CD filled with songs that I too listened to regularly. Tom Waits, unknown or lesser known artists, tunes from our high school days and some played only on current college radio. And in those tunes was reminded of the sameness between us rather than the distance that lead to his demise. I knew that while my brother's body was gone and would never again be touched or hugged or pushed away...he was part of me and as inseparable from my life as the air that filled my lungs.

As the anniversary of my brother's death arrives today, I realize that the last few years have not allowed me to slip into the catatonia that was mine each December for the first three after his death. Too many people rely on my competence and remind me that while my brother is no longer here, his legacy is: his death pushed me to stop waiting and become a mother, and it is therefore because of him that I have my amazing son - his namesake. So instead of reflecting of all that is lost I must focus on what is here before me. As well as the good memories I have of Shawn before his cruel departure.

I look back at days spent at the Pannikin in La Jolla in the early 80s, studiously ignoring each other but arriving and leaving together. Playing air hockey on Christmas Eve in Baton Rouge, Shawn sweating like an old man in the December heat of the fun center. Miniature golf games with Shawn doing color commentary with each play, pushing his hair back from his forehead to ensure greater visibility of the hole underneath the windmill. Shawn pulling a wagon with a one-year old Sam in it, his dog Barney chasing them around the vast lawn of my parents' backyard. Driving over to his house to see him in the upstairs window - sitting on the sofa with his arm around his dog, back to the window, as they watched TV together in his dark apartment. Memories of him scaring the crap out of me after we had secretly stayed up to watch forbidden horror movies; sneaking out on to our patio roof to read, never answering our parents' call; running through eucalyptus canyons with him all day, exploring drainage pipes and caves and other dangerous but exciting landscapes. Running home from the park to tell my mom that Chris Hodges was once again beating my brother up for no reason other than the dozens of kids who would gather to watch him do so. Shawn being forced to go on my first date with me, and his gracious offer to crawl up the driveway, outside of my dad's sight, so my date could kiss me goodbye. Little did I know that he was actually just setting up a diversion so my parents might not notice that he himself was stoned and possibly drunk.

So today, instead of mourning what is not here and lighting my usual candle to mark the five days between his death and discovering it, I will celebrate his life. I will focus on all our memories, the son that is here due to the impetus of his death, and the fact that I was so fortunate to have had someone who made me feel so happy, so angry, so frustrated, so challenged, so safe, so worried and ultimately like I had a twin - sometimes evil, sometimes not - who shared my life for 36 years and contributed to the mom, wife, friend and daughter I am today.

Deja vu

We have entered into the winter of our discontent, back into full-force sleep issues that make me feel like the worst parent in the world when I reflect on my 3am behavior — driven to madness after being awakened for the 11th time that night by the same crying, screaming child who, when asked "What's wrong? What do you want?", can only scream "NOTHING! STOP BEING MAD TO ME! YOU'RE NOT NICE!" within inches of either my head or his sleeping sister's door. 

This summer, when dealing with similar issues, a well-meaning, just-out-of-school therapist suggested that perhaps this was all due to Shawn Joaquin not breast-feeding as an infant and the only hope was to return him to that time in his life. She suggested we cuddle skin-to-skin for up to 45 minutes at dawn, with his chest pressed to my belly and his cheek to my breast as I fed him white chocolate to emulate the sweet taste of breast milk. After attempting to drive the images of "The Good Mother" from my head, I declined and headed to the pharmacy to refill our prescriptions for Atarax, liquid sleep for children. Thankfully, within two weeks the situation seemed to have righted itself and our wake-ups were limited to once a night and were delivered in sotto voce rather than screams. 

Now we're back to screams that can only be avoided through bribery: "If you sleep tonight, you can watch [Happy Feet, The Bee Movie, Backyardigans, Shrek the Halls, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Jolt] tomorrow." We have tried to up the ante from a single night to two nights per movie, which meant that Bolt actually took a full week to earn and early morning questions included "Can I see the movie now? Can I see it?" followed by wails when the sleepy answer was a slurred NO. 

I mentioned this in passing to someone at Peet's, who chided me for using crappy commercialism to bribe my son. "You know, he'd be so happy to just get a hug and a kiss and an 'I'm proud of you' in the morning — have you tried gold stars?" After a spit-take with hot coffee I thanked the clearly not-a-mom-to-real-children and went on my way. Then I reconsidered. We had tried the gold-stars approach in the past to no avail, but perhaps he was just too young to understand. At home, I broached the subject with him.

"Shawn Joaquin, how about if we make a really cool chart. And every time you sleep through the night or are a good listener, you'll get a gold star on the chart. When you have 10 gold stars, we can go to the movies or go pick out a special book at the bookstore."

"Can I go to the movies tomorrow?"

"No...you have to get gold stars first."

"What's gold? What do I do with them? Can I take them to the movies? Are they stickers? Madelena likes stickers. MADELENA, MAMA HAS STICKERS FOR YOU! Mama, what can I watch? WHAT MOVIE CAN I SEE? NOW? NOW? NOW! NOW!"

And with that I realized that I should stick to what I know - one good night's sleep in trade for one viewing of a not-so-crappy movie and some microwaved popcorn. A small price to pay, with no one losing yet another night's sleep or one's taste for white chocolate.