"You'll get hemorrhoids"

     I despised my clothes when I was a child.  While all the other kids in my class wore cool ripped jeans, neon stripes, Jams, and parachute pants, I was forced to wear pretty corduroy jumpers, plaid kilts, and monogrammed sweaters.  I was a target: the dorky kid with the weird clothes.  But, did I complain to my Mom about her purchasing choices?   Nope!  I just thought it was my lot in life.  I wore what she gave me, never sharing my misery.  

     I can’t fault my mom. She didn’t know.  As a substitute teacher at my schools, she fraternized with all my teachers, only hearing how adorable I looked in my Animal Cracker tailored outfits with matching ribbons in my hair. In high school I finally mustered the courage to tell her the truth, and she was mortified to hear about my experiences and bewildered that I never confessed my feelings.

Thirty plus years later, I am now the mom buying clothes for my little girl.  But, unlike me, my daughter has no problem telling me exactly what she thinks about my purchasing choices for her.  Here's a great example from this week.

     “Today is picture day at school, Madeleine Stone.  I laid out your new dress on your bed.” A few minutes later, she walked into my bathroom wearing the dress along with the most despicable face.  Her lips were puckered together, as if she had just sucked on a lemon.  The scowl spread across her eyes was augmented by her tightly crossed arms in front of her body and the guttural “uhhhh!” of disgust she uttered from her vocal chords.      

     “I don’t like it!” she said.

     “Oh, you look adorable,” I responded.  “Just wait until you see it with the matching beret.”

     “No!” she said stomping her foot and shaking her head in disgust.

     Okay, I thought. Remember how you felt wearing something you hated to school? Don’t do this to your daughter. ..But, she’s out of her mind…This dress oozes with style. …not to mention I paid an arm and a leg for it.

     As complacent of a child as I was, my daughter is equally obstinate.  When she doesn’t like something, you know it, it’s almost impossible to change her mind.  I’ll talk her into it, I thought, she’s only four.   And that’s when I started selling my pitch!

     “When I showed it to you the other day, Squirt, you said you loved it.”

     “Not anymore. It’s got black in it, and I don’t’ like black.”

     “But look at this adorable beret”

     “I want to wear a barrette, not a beret”

     “Barrette, beret; they’re almost the same. “

     “No, they’re not.”

     I ran to her room to get her globe.  “Look here, Squirt.” Pointing to Europe, “This beret came all the way from France.  It traveled across the Atlantic Ocean just so you could wear it.” Putting my right index finger on France and my left index finger on Texas, “It traveled so far.  How cool is that…to get to wear something from so far away?” 

     Just a little white lie, I thought. She was starting to cave, I could see the curiosity building up in her eyes.

      “No!”

      Dang, I thought, I almost had her.  

     It was time to bring out the big guns. “Madeleine Stone, you told me that you liked it, and that’s why I pulled the tags off.  This dress and beret were not cheap.  And if you’re not going to wear it, then you owe me some money.”

      “How much?”

      “It will cost you your allowance for an entire year.” (She gets $1 a week for spending.)

      Snap, I got her!

      “Fine. I’ll wear it, but only once.”

      “Three times,” I bartered.

      “Two times,” she countered.

      “Two times plus when you go and see Santa.” Tricky tricky.

      “I’m not wearing this for Santa Clause. He’d hate it too.”  

      “Okay, then three times, but you don’t have to wear it when you see Santa.”

      “Deal.”

      “Alright, then! Now, go get in the car.”

      But she wasn’t happy about it. Wearing her Probably-Not-From-France beret and dress, she mumbled and grumbled all the way to school.

      “What did you say, Squirt?” I asked, eyeing her in my rear view mirror.

      “I said I’m going to sit on the toilet all day so nobody sees me.”

      “Well, then you’ll get hemorrhoids.” Did I really just say that to my four-year old?

      “Whatsa Hemoroy?”
      “Something you don’t want.”
      “Why not?”“Cuz they hurt.”
      “Where?”
      “Your bottom.”
      “NOOOOOO!!!!”

      Oh, boy.  Time to change the subject. 

      “Will you please smile for your pictures, today?”

      “I’ll try, but it’ll be hard wearing this dress.” 
      “That’s all I ask, Squirt, just try.”
      “Fine.”

     We bantered on and on all the way to school.  Luckily, she was so hyper-focused on the outfit that she forgot all about the hemorrhoids.  I pulled into the school’s driveway, but she refused to get out of the car. Oh, what have I done? 

      Her teacher walked up to my car, opened the door, and exclaimed, “Well, don’t you look beautiful in your new dress, Madeleine Stone.” Madeleine Stone scrunched up her face in disagreement, but took her teacher’s hand and exited the vehicle.
      “Love ya, Squirt” I hollered from my lowered passenger window, but she kept walking.  My heart ached. All this over a stupid dress.
      Before closing the classroom door behind her, Madeleine Stone’s teacher turned around to say, “Great outfit, Amanda, I love it!”  Of course you do, so did my teachers. …Oh, my poor baby—never again! 

[Fast forward to the end of the day] 

    “Okay, Squirt, you can take off that dress now,” I informed Madeleine Stone as we walked into the house.

    “I don’t want to!”

    “What? Why not?”

    “Cuz I like it.”

    “Since when?”

    “Since now.  It looks like a bee costume. Can I wear it for Halloween?” With that she buzzed around the room, happy as a bumble bee in a flower patch.  

    Are you kidding me?

     So, there it is: a tale of two daughters. One daughter, quietly tenacious, while the other boisterously fickle. I wasted precious hours worrying about the emotional trauma I had inflicted on my daughter, projecting my past onto her, when, all the while, she was buzzing around like a busy bee wearing her new favorite dress.  

 

Apple, we have a problem....It's you.

Phantom Vibration Syndrome? What is that? I thought.  According to Dr. Larry Rosen, a guest on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, phantom vibration is a recent phenomenon associated with an individual believing her phone is vibrating when, in reality, it is not. The confused soul reaches into her purse to find that she had been deceived—not by her phone; rather, by her mind. Sound familiar?

Well, it sure did to me.  I experience phantom vibrations all the time.  Evidently, I’m not alone because it happens so often to so many people that legitimate research is being conducted on the occurrence.   As I listened to the program, I began to worry.  Dr. Rosen compared it to obsessive behavioral disorders, “How is constantly picking up your phone any different than washing your hands over and over again?” he asked.  (I’m paraphrasing here.) 

 

Me? Obsessive compulsive?  No way! … Well, Hmmmmm.

Dr. Rosen really got me thinking about my own habits, could I be addicted to my smart phone?  I decided to try a little experiment of my own. 

1.       How often do I think about using my smart phone?

2.       How do I feel physically and mentally when I reach for my phone?

Every time I thought about picking up my phone or actually did pick up my phone, I marked it on a sheet of paper and then wrote down how I felt at that moment.   Tracking occurred for one day, beginning as soon as i woke up and ending at 6:30pm when my husband, Matt, caught me in the act. We were sitting in the kitchen talking about our day when I interrupted his story.

“Damn,” I said, and got up from the table to get my notebook out of my purse.  Matt watched me curiously as I made a mark on a sheet of paper and wrote down a few notes.  When I returned to the table, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I thought about my phone again.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. That’s when I told him about my experiment.

 

“Well, how many times have you reached for your phone today?” he questioned.

“I don’t know. I haven’t done the math yet.”

“Go get it, and let’s find out,” he encouraged, laughing.

Adding up all the little check marks I quickly realized, Apple, we have a problem…and it’s you. I had reached for my iPhone sixty-seven times that day. No wonder I can't get anything done! I told Matt the figure, and his eyes widened with shock. 

“Do you think that’s a lot?” I asked.

“Yea, Babe, that’s a lot.  You use your phone more than I do, and I use mine for work.”

I reviewed my observations about how I felt at the moment I wanted to use my phone, and most of the comments indicated signs of anxiety. But the following notation cleared away any doubt I had about my predicament, “I looked at my hand, and saw that I was holding my phone, not knowing how it got there.”  

While I’m no psychologist, I have enough lay-person training to say that I have a problem.  Obviously I need to redefine the parameters of my relationship with my smart phone, and I’d love to hear some of your techniques for keeping a healthy rapport with your technical devices.  I’ll keep you updated on my recovery; I just won’t use my smart phone to do it.

To hear the original story that inspired this blog, please visit:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/30/226820044/phantom-phone-vibrations-so-common-they-ve-changed-our-brains

Get Up That Tree

Nature is a dominant theme in my writing, and I think it is so because it has been my most constant companion. Wherever I go, I can find it:

In the city or in the country,
in the sky or on the ground,
look, listen, and feel—
Nature is all around.

And when I do find it, even if it’s only a few blades of grass sticking through a crack in a concrete sidewalk, it brings me peace.

I think that’s because I grew up in the outdoors. As a child, I was deeply connected to nature—in tune with the environment around me. I played outside so often that I could tell it was dinnertime just by seeing the shape of the shadows from the sun. Who needed a watch when you had Mother Nature?  She ran better than any old Timex.

When I climbed a tree as a kid, the only thing I thought about was getting up the tree,

 If I grab that branch with this hand and pull up, then my foot can go right there.

My mind had a singular focus, clear of all other distractions. I wasn’t thinking about the pile of homework waiting for me in my room or why my softball coach moved me down in the batting order. My focus was simple—get up that tree.

I don’t climb as many trees as I use to, but nature still has that effect on me.  Nature reminds me to take a few breaths and calm my mind of all the extraneous worries keeping me from accomplishing the task at hand. 

When I find that I’m overwhelmed by the to-do list running through my head, I leave my cell phone on the table and step outside. Five minutes, that’s all it takes (well, maybe ten if it’s a particularly difficult day).   My technique is simple: I find one natural element and give it my full attention: 

An ant crawling up the wall,
birds flying up high,
a leaf about to fall,
or a cloud slowly passing by.

When my mind stops racing
and I can describe
the way ants are marching
in one long line,

I count to three
now knowing,
just breath…
               breath…
                        breath,

I’m ready to go inside.

A New Career

My friends told me my life would change when I became a mom, and, while I knew I would have to adjust my ways, I truly didn’t anticipate the level of my metamorphosis.  At first I noticed little adaptations such as new eating habits, a visceral distaste for violent films, and spontaneously speaking in rhyme

      all the time,
          which is fine,
               ‘til you lose your mind,
                    which is a sign,
                         that it’s time,
                              to no longer rhyme.

    

While all of these were unforeseen, I never-ever-not-in-a-million-years, thought I would give up my career; a career for which I endured eleven years of higher education and finally had earned my way up to a director level position.  But the strings of motherhood pulled me towards my daughter and away from the corporate ladder.   

My husband’s career financially allowed me to morph from a multi-million dollar strategic leader to play-date planner extraordinaire efficiently juggling swim lessons, ballet classes, birthday parties, and pre-k fund raisers.  Over a year has passed since I hung up my new “Stay-at Home Mom” shingle, and I have no regrets. Someday I’ll rejoin the rat race, but for now, I’ll just enjoy the only rat in my life—Chucky Cheese.  (Or is he a mouse?)

In my new role, I have discovered that reading encompasses a huge chunk of my time.  My daughter, Madeleine, and I love going on literary adventures together.  We have read just about every children’s book in the library, and it was these mental explorations that inspired me to put pen to paper and rekindle my passion for writing.

When I was in elementary school, I won first place for my short story, Hello Mother, Hello Father, about a topsy-turvy summer camp experience.  Ever since then, writing has been woven throughout my life in a variety of forms: pathetic poetry, dreary diaries, pointed press-releases, and riveting research.  Except for my dissertation I never took my writing seriously; that is, until I found my muse, Madeleine. 

Last fall, she and I engaged in an outdoor inquiry lesson about an orb-weaver spider that had built a web outside our kitchen window.  We had such a fun day watching and learning about “Charlotte” (I know—what an original name for a spider), that I decided to write down our adventure.   As I re-read my journal entry, I thought, this would be an awesome children’s book.  I was often frustrated that the majority of children’s science books I read to Madeleine had male protagonists and that when a female character did find her way into the story she often shrieked and shrilled when she saw bugs, snakes, and all slimy things. 

Let me jump on my academic soap box for a moment.  Research indicates that we have a true problem in this country with young women not engaging in the fields of science, mathematics, technology, and engineering; and I believe that much of that lack of involvement is due to poor modeling. The media (books, movies, cartoons, etc.) doesn’t often portray girls in these roles, and when they do the girls are often stereotyped in not so flattering ways.

 

Jumping back off my box; after reading my journal entry and knowing what I know about girls’ science education, I had an epiphany.  This children’s’ book could be my contribution: promoting science as something cool not only to girls but also to boys.

 

And that is how my new career began as a children’s book author.  Do I have anything published? Nope; not yet.  But this is only the beginning.

While children, nature, and education are near and dear to my heart, I also have other topics that you will read about in my future blogs.  My interests span a variety of areas such as culture, leadership, business management, food, friendship, parenting, and much more.  So if you’re not interested in the topic of the week, then come back the next for a taste of something different. You never know what I might write about:  how getting lost at the Opryland Hotel landed me a graduate assistantship; my life as a vegetarian married to a hunter, academic ramblings, science projects exploding in my kitchen, or even some pathetic poetry.     

Thanks for tuning in!