My grandma's hands

When I was born my maternal grandmother and both my paternal grandparents were still alive. My Grandpa Thompson died when I was seven, and I honestly don't remember any meaningful interaction with him. I don't remember ever sitting on his knee; I don't remember even any conversations we ever had. I'm sure we must have, our regular Sunday drive destination with Dad was his parents' house. I remember the way he looked, but mostly I remember running downstairs to explore their basement while the grown ups stayed upstairs to talk.

I remember a lot more of my Grandma Thompson. She lived the longest of all my grandparents, and we continued driving to visit her on Sundays (or she'd come to us, for dinner) for years and years. My dad is her eldest son and the only one of her kids who lived in the state, so we saw her a lot. She ate very slowly—we'd sometimes linger at the table for up to 30 minutes after we were all finished eating dinner, while she ate and talked. And she loved the attention that being sick got her. As my own father said, "She'd rather go to the hospital than out to dinner." She was the landing place for all my out-of-state cousins, so I spent many a happy day there at her house playing and chasing, running up and down the sidewalk and out in the back yard. My dad's youngest sister Aunt Kathy lived on the east coast the whole time I was growing up, and so she'd come for a month at a time in the summer to visit. And I'd spend days and night at grandma's playing with my east coast cousin Leslie, having the grandest time. Grandma Thompson had trees that every year bore the most delicious bing cherries, bushels and bushels of them. "Don't eat too many, you'll get diarrhea," my mom always warned. I ate all I could hold and did fine digestively. ;) Grandma always gave me one dollar for every birthday and every Christmas, clear up until I got married. After I married birthdays were just a card, and Christmas was some dishtowels. She died while I was on vacation in the Pacific Northwest, the day after I found out I was pregnant with Ethan. I missed her funeral.

I know it is bad form for a parent to admit to a favorite child, and I'm sure the same applies to grandparents with their grandchildren. But I have no problem with reverse favoritism. My mom's mom, Grandma Harrison, was hands down my favorite grandparent. She died when I was 18, and I miss her. On my wedding day, on the days my babies were born, I wish she was there to be a part of it, to be a part of my children's lives. Every Christmas when I pull out the decorations I still look at and hold the little hand-sewn stockings and wrappings she made for my Christmas presents.

For many years when I was really small, Grandma Harrison lived right next-door to us. I could see her garden through the backyard fence, and I only had to walk up a small alley to get to her house. I spent so much time there with her! She was my mom's #1 babysitter for me. Whenever one of my older sisters had a baby and mom was gone for a few days, I went to grandma's. How much easier could it be? I still walked to and from school, I could even still play with all my neighborhood friends. When Mom and Dad went to Peru to pick up my brother Mike at the end of his LDS mission, I stayed with grandma. Whenever she was baking bread I was right nearby so I could have a slice while it was still hot, and whenever I asked her she made my two favorite foods for me. My mouth still waters for creamed tuna.

Grandma Harrison was old already by the time I was born. She was born on 30 or 31 October 1894-6 (one of those three years, he parents didn't keep a good record) so by the time I was old enough to know her she was already >75 years old. She lived to be >90. She was never spry. She wasn't the sort who'd sit on the floor with me and play dolls, or who even walked outside with me to watch me ride my bike. We mostly played quiet games of checkers or paper dolls, or read quietly side by side, or she puttered around while I played in her toy room. We watched Lawrence Welk, and she never missed As The World Turns. We hung her nylon stockings to dry, and I colored pictures. She put my just-washed hair up into pin curls. We tied quilts. But I knew she loved me. I think that's what made all the difference. She wasn't a playmate, but she loved me—loved me as much as my mother did.

She later moved to an apartment in The Belvedere downtown, and that was pretty exciting too. My mom would drop me off to stay with her for a couple of nights, and the two of us would toddle next door to Hansen Planetarium to look at all the displays (though she didn't really like the star shows) or right across the street to the ZCMI Center mall, where we'd get lunch in a sit-down restaurant and then browse the old lady stores. Then we'd go back to her apartment for As The World Turns and reruns of Lawrence Welk and I'd look at her silver plated hairbrush and drink white tea (which was just milk, sugar, and hot water) out of her china cups. She'd sometimes send a little something home with me from one of her shelves—I have a beautiful antique glass apothecary jar filled with rose petals from a dozen roses her husband gave her. She disbursed all her meaningful possessions years before she died, right into the hands of her loved ones.

Later yet she moved to a little house one of my mom's sisters owned. I was a teen by then, and would still stay with her for a night or two, and she'd always make me white tea and creamed tuna (usually both nights). I always tried her sugar-free diabetic cookies or candy and wish she had real ones. And we'd play checkers or watch TV or read, and I knew she loved me. She let me have two of her china cups that I always drank white tea out of.

Grandma Harrison had beautiful white, curly hair. I suspect she even cut it in her own bathroom sometimes, and yet she never had to do anything more than wet it to look like she'd just had it done professionally. And I loved her hands. I thought they were so beautiful. Her nails were always long and usually painted, and he hands were just so delicate. She crocheted, she knitted, she sewed, everything without a pattern and very lopsided. I have a hand-sewed asymmetrical cloth doll she made me, wearing a dress of the same fabric as Grandma's muu muu. (The doll's name is Big Mukahamas. One day my sister Joan and I were playing indians with our cloth dolls, and the name stuck.) I just loved looking at her hands. The knuckles were knobbly from arthritis and the veins were prominent through the paper-thin skin, but I thought she should be a hand model.

I was thinking of her hands last night while I painted my nails. Sometimes I still dream of her, dream that she just walks into the room looking a little younger and healthier than when I knew her and we catch up where we left off. I bring in my children and she already knows them all, and she loves them as much as I do. I almost always wake up crying, because I do miss her. And I miss holding her hands.

Starved For Celebrity: 10 Celebs With Bad Body Habits

We’ve compiled a list of other celebrity women who admitted that the fame game has had a negative impact on their health and body image. Take a lesson from them—thin is not as important as healthy.
Starved For Celebrity: 10 Celebs With Bad Body Habits | The Frisky

"As long as I'm in this business, I'm going to be hungry."
"It’s like they pay me not to eat. It’s a living hell.”
When I read quotes like this, I realize why I am not and never will be celebrity-thin. It isn't worth it to me, in the least, to "always be hungry".

I'm so sorry that it is worth it to them.

Conversation with my cute brother

My brother Mike sends out links and articles to all of us, all day long. Most of them are political; I read some of these, and some I file away in case I feel like reading them later. But he sends out some other stuff too, and today it was an article about Halloween. Here's an excerpt:

Even when I was a kid, back in the "Bewitched" and "Brady Bunch" costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties. That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger's Halloween candy. As a panel of "experts" on the "Today" show warned viewers recently: Don't let your children trick-or-treat without you "any earlier than age 13, because people put on masks, they put on disguises, and there are still people who do bad things." Perhaps there are. But Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation." In fact, she says, "We almost called this paper, 'Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year,' because it was just so incredibly rare to see anything happen on that day."

I remember the big thing I was warned against as a child was apples. Oh yes, scary apples, because the neighbors were almost certainly inserting razor blades into them, so that when I bit in I would cut up my gums. Packaged chocolate was infinitely preferable to apples. Talk about wacky ideas!

Mike is 14 years older than I am. He was already gadding about hither and yon in his teens when I was tiny. This is what he said to me about his growing up years, when I responded about the Halloween article:

In the background there’s a general theme that I have often thought about. Maybe you have too (but I don’t know what life’s like in Fairview). The general theme is: When did my childhood become today’s childhood? I am not being critical of my mother. Heavens, I loved my childhood. I would throw my baseball glove over the handlebars, leave the house after breakfast, not return until lunch, and literally not see an adult in between. The same for the afternoon’s activities. We played baseball for hours anywhere we could. We were sandlot types. I remember many hours on the (summer, meaning no school in session) playground at Rosecrest. But we played a significant share of ball in the street, on pavement. I guess that means we “saw” adults, because we would have to stand aside while cars passed through our game. Of course baseball wasn’t the only thing we played. I would also ride my bicycle to Evergreen Park and we would spend hours playing in the creek, actually outside the fenced area of the park. To the best of my memory, I never even asked permission, other than to “go out and play.” And, of course, we were at the pool just about every single day. The pool rules were (if I remember) that a 12 year old (sibling) could supervise any number of under-12s that a parent was comfortable with. We rarely had an adult with us once Sherri turned 12. Hours and hours of unstructured time, with almost zero adult supervision (although you would feel safe to go to any adult, anywhere if you had trouble).

Our own mother, of 7 children, as said to me that she doesn’t know how parents today do it. For a while I was puzzled, but came to understand that she was commenting on the scenario above. She did not feel like she had to organize playtime and be with her kids every second of the day.

He's right, I've spent a lot of time pondering this very thing. My childhood sounds much like Mike's, although I don't think our mother would have let me ride my bike to Evergreen Park because I'd have to cross two very busy streets. So she was a bit more afraid of traffic those 14 years later. Also, the unsupervised pool age was 14 in my time, but as long as there was someone (anyone!) 14+ years old my mom let me stay and swim. And since I went up by my lonesome to check and see if there was anyone 14+, I did sometimes fudge that rule. I spent all day every day at the pool, never even going home for lunch, arriving at 9 or 10 in the morning and not leaving until 4 or 5, never had to check in, had no cell phone for her to check on me. She just assumed all day long I hadn't drowned and I'd toddle home eventually.

I never remember worrying about lunch at all when I was a kid; Mom wasn't worried either. If I was hungry, I guess I went home or ate a snack with friends. But once I left the house I just stayed gone until I was done with whatever I was doing, sometimes 8 hours later. I know that was all 30+ years ago, but find it hard to believe that in just 30 short years it could go from what I experienced to the overprotective helicopter parenting of today.

Fairview is very small town, very safe; what's more, I have a big acre of grass, lots of trees to climb, during the summer we have a pool, and my very own yard is filled with wonder. So my kids are pretty unscheduled and unsupervised. And my peers/friends always look me askance, because my kids don't go from city league soccer to baseball to football to basketball and back to soccer. And because we don't have a Wii (though we actually are pondering getting one). I make my kids ride their bikes around and rollerblade and sometimes take their younger siblings down to the creek by the horse field. And I am definitely my mom's daughter; I never go with them. Sometimes it's because I'm lazy or don't want to go out in the 90º+ heat, sometimes it's because a little quiet "me" time is precious, sometimes it's because I figure they can do it on their own. (So far, I'm right.)

Safest day of the year. Interesting.

And you have to test them, right? To be sure they're on grade level?

This is the question I get most, hands down, when uninitiated people are asking me about homeschool.

Answer: no. In Utah, there is no oversight, no regulation of homeschool. I can take my kids to the schools when they are doing standardized testing, or I can use any measures I myself deem reliable to check their progression. No one is going to come check up on me at all, so I even can just stay in bed all day, and let them build Legos and watch movies and never crack a book. I can do that.

But why on earth would I? Why would I sabotage my kids like that? I keep them home because I believe I'm educating them better than the public schools do, not because I want to go easy on them. I want them to have a broader and deeper knowledge base, not be doing first grade work at the age of ten. I want them to be productive, contributing members of society, capable of supporting themselves and their families. I do not wish them to be eternal infants forever dependent upon me.

And it always freaks me right the heck out when I find out about families who do just that. They withdraw all their kids from school and keep them home, and then never crack a book. Can't be bothered to work up a curriculum. Spend their day in bed.

I mean, I have sympathy for health problems, or depression. Sure, there are some things that keep you in bed all day, legitimately. But in those cases, public service announcement, PUT THE KIDS IN SCHOOL. They may struggle socially. They may be behind their grade level. They may have to start with short vowel sounds and three-letter words. But Concerned Parent, is that not better than sitting around all day, not learning to read or write or do math at all? Isn't it? A little?

I cannot even wrap my mind around a parent who would find the public school system so risky (?) that they would rather have their kid at home doing literally nothing educational than be in school and learn something.

(Yes, I know a family doing precisely this. My fifth grader is by far more accomplished in every subject than their 18YO eldest, who has "graduated". Which, when there's no oversight or regulation other than a mom's say-so, is without actual meaning under certain circumstances.)

Little Frankenstein

Wednesday was a weird, wacky day. The kids were rolling and stomping and steamrolling through the house, and I could. not. get. them. to. settle. down. At all. Lots of yelling, lots of noise. Occasional crying when someone [usually Kyrie] got hurt. I'd say, "Calm down, guys. Stop now. Someone's going to get hurt even worse."

At about 3:45 pm it finally happened. Kyrie screaming like crazy, so naturally I assumed it was she who was hurt. But no. "Mom! He's bleeding! He's going to need stitches. MOM!"

Well I don't automatically assume stitches are needed on the advice of my six-year-old. I gathered Macklin onto my lap and applied pressure for a long time, going through lots of tissue. About 20 minutes later he was really quite calmed and the bleeding had stopped. Now, remember: I get nauseated when I even think my kids are hurt. I just can't stand for them to be in pain. I lifted the tissue, and Mack's forehead was gaping wide open. I quickly put the tissue back and loaded him into the Suburban, and called the clinic on the way: "I have a kid who needs stitches, I'll be there in 10 minutes, I hope you can work me in."

They did, bless them, saving me $50 over the cost of an ER visit. Our good friend and neighbor Dr. Allan Day did the stitches, it required two deep stitches and four on the surface.





Though he'd just had stitches in his toe about six weeks ago, I still thought he was pretty brave. He definitely remembered the numbing shots and dreaded them the worst; and though he did scream his little lungs out, he was perfectly still and didn't thrash around for that part. Then while Dr. Day was doing the stitches Macklin was telling him all the subtleties of just who is an Autobot and who is a Decepticon in Transformers 2, and spoiling the ending of Iron Man 2.

I bought him a doughnut for his bravery. (Last time he got a tiny little ice cream cone.) On the way home he said, "I don't want stitches ever again. Those shots hurt! And I don't want more shots. But next time I get stitches, let's get a snowcone."

Unfortunately (?) the stitches will be out next Monday, so we can't even work this into a nifty Halloween costume.