What s a parent to do?
We have boys. All of you parents of girls were gloating about your daughters pottie training themselves before their first birthday and I was being prayerful that my sons would be trained before college. But I knew payback would come. I assumed it would happen during the teen age years, when my sons still spoke to me and your daughters stamped their feet and screamed you ruined my life at you all. It seems now that we have an added bit of insurance that our son will keep himself safe and pure (assuming that that is a good thing). Last weekend our 4th grader
Zachary bought himself a Dungeon & Dragons set. He won't be having sex for a long long time.
A Pilgrimage is Made by Jennifer Simon April 2008
During spring vacation we took the boys to New York City for two days. We met up with the
family of Zachary s best friend (Peter Fox) and toured a variety of the city s activities.
The highlight for all 3 boys was a return to the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Plaza.
This two story game mania extravaganza is chock full of pre-pubescent boys, bleary eyed parents
and games you can play. The first floor has stations with game boys, the small hand held games
kids love. The second floor is even better with at least a dozen stations with wii s hooked up
to 42 flat screen TVs. There's even a two case "museum" where you can see the growth of gameboy
models from the long ago nineties. Much to our surprise and delight, Peter s dad Bob volunteered
to watch the three boys, allowing Robert, Pam, and I to ditch and run, oh I mean, to visit a nearby cultural institution.
We three happy and free grown ups strolled over to the Museum of Arts and Design on 53rd.
We saw two nice exhibits (Pricked: Extreme Embroidery and Cheers! A MAD collection of Goblets)
and wandered through a couple of design stores in the area. After the first store Robert looked
at his watch, noted that it had been over 45 minutes, and suggested we think about heading back.
Pam and I agreed and promptly walked into the next store. While in line at the register Robert
said that it had been an hour and maybe we should get back. He anxiously said that maybe the
boys were done and bored and waiting for us. While I agree that Peter s dad had gone way beyond
the call of duty, I still haven t gotten over Robert s assertion that three 9 to 11 year old boys
could possibly be bored in Nintendo World.
At this point we did head back to the guys. Two of the three were in tears within a minute of us
making contact. All three claimed they hadn t gotten to play ANY games. This is impressive since
when we left them at Nintendo World all three were playing games and when we got back they were all
playing games. Somehow in between they had so little fun, that they needed to stay another half an
hour to make up for it. We sent Bob out for a restorative, and well earned, cup of coffee and handled the rest from there.
By way of balance, that morning while waiting for the train I talked to another mom heading into the city.
In her group were two moms and 4 daughters. All the girls were holding large dolls, that as the mother
of a son I had to guess were American Girl dolls. I confirmed that they were making a pilgrimage to
the American Girl Place (5th & 49th) in roughly the same neighborhood as Nintendo World. I saw the
same group again when we got off the train that afternoon. All the girls carried large maroon
American Girl Place bags and everyone looked tired.
Elementary School Band Concert - by Jennifer Simon January 31, 2008
OK, so we made it through the strings - 3 Blind Mice as a round and the unusual choice of Up on Cripple Creek.
It was painful, but it was quick. Next up was the band. My son plays flute. We randomly chose to sit on the
left side of the auditorium; naturally Zachary was on the right side of the stage. He is very tall, so we were able
to see him a bit, at least when he was sitting up straight, so basically we could see him occasionally. My hat is
off to the band leader. I mean I wouldn t want to be left in charge of 50 eleven year olds even if it did come with
the responsibility of teaching them to play and read music. The 7 pieces covered a variety of styles and featured
different instrumental sections not that I could follow any of the melodies and most importantly I don t think
any of them hit 3 minutes in length. Two genres covered, just chorus to go.
For the chorus section of the performance the children all lined up on risers at the edge of the stage. This was
a nice opportunity to see how the many kids we have known for so many years are doing. Which boys were turning
into their fathers, which girls had begun to develop. They all looked so shiny and eager. Some of them had even combed their hair.
Again my son was on the far side of the stage from us. That didn t stop us from noticing that he had developed
a strange case of lock jaw. His condition only allowed his mouth to open an inch or two and the sides of his mouth
to twitch, but alas he couldn't form clear words, except for the occasional yawn in the middle of a song. Hopefully
there were no deaf parents in the audience trying to follow the evening by lip reading. If there were, they were
fat out of luck when it came to watching Zachary.
My husband and I aren t exactly surprised by Zachary s lack of elocution. Receiving mumbled one word answers to
direct questions have been part of our lives for some time now. Most of the time when Zachary asks us a question
sentences come with an alarming lack of nouns. Here s a typical exchange:
Zachary Can I make popcorn if I do it completely myself?
5 minutes later
Zachary (calling from another room) How long?
In the long run the concert wasn t too bad. By that I mean that it wasn t too long. Aesthetically speaking it
was every bit as g-d awful as we expected, but the performance ran only 45 minutes. So we got off pretty lightly.
These performances are really about payback anyway. Payback for when my own parents had to sit through our concerts.
My parents definitely attended their fair share. While I never played an instrument, one brother played the clarinet
and the other the trumpet. I gave up chorus after only a year, but participated in drama throughout high school,
working on as many as 5 shows a year. I kindly didn t ask my mom to come to Zachary s concert. It wasn t just
the 75 minute drive on winding roads in the dark, but the performance happened during Jeopardy. Emailed pictures would suffice.
There will be another concert in May and we have already been warned that this one will be longer and involve an art show and refreshments.
Oh goodie let's get the kids sugared up right before bedtime on a school night. But in all likelihood, that will be our final chorus concert.
Zachary is very shy. He hates being called out. He doesn t speak up and can only manage the band because he can hide in a group.
His 5th class grade wrote and performed a play at Halloween. When Zachary brought me the permission slip to participate he had
already filled in the form checking off that he wanted to work on stage crew in pen. Zachary plans to continue to play the
flute and recorder, but with his matriculation to middle school he can give up chorus. No major loss to the vocal community.
Last month the first of the forms arrived for his upcoming change to middle school. Our town has two middle schools residing
down the street from each other. Apparently the building you end up in depends on a combination of the language you will be
studying (Mandarin Chinese is only offered in one building) a choice of Band, Chorus, or Orchestra and the usual combination
of friends and sibling history. I guess Zachary is growing up, because again he brought the form to me fully filled out ready
for me to sign. If he s anything like I was, by the time he hits high school he won t even need me for a signature.
As with all milestones in life, your children s growth has its goods and bads. Occasionally Zachary will still hold my hand
when we walk together, but no overly demonstrative hugs or kisses are allowed. In general he is only mildly embarrassed by
my existence as a human being. I must admit that as I have become aware of the mild blush on his face when ever family and
school functions cross, I am very tempted to do and say things to see how red he can get. I know that acting weird to mortify
you child is just plain WRONG, but it seems like so much fun. I mean really, if he is going to feel humiliated no matter
what I do or say, how I look or act, why not make the most of it? Who says red fright wigs are only for Halloween?
Middle New England winters are strange. Well I guess that s not surprising because weather in general is strange.
Here by us in Eastern Massachusetts winters are fickle. One year there will be almost no snow, another year has tons, but regular with melts,
and during another it snows regularly and stays below freezing causing massive accumulations. The past few years have been pretty dry.
Not much snow and regular melting which prevents it piling up. I love this, I hate snow and all things winter related.
But several years of dry weather means that we are due for a whopper this year and my fearful predictions are shaping up to be true.
Around us there typically has been only a dusting or two by Christmas, with maybe a touch of accumulation. This year there was almost two feet of
snow on the ground by late December. We have had an early school dismissal and a late start already, with some towns having had two school day
cancellations. Even several days of drizzling during Christmas vacation had barely put a dent into the mess. Worse yet the warming and freezing had
resulted in a hard crust on the snow, making it impossible to shovel and extremely slow to melt.
My 8 year old son Jared was outside yesterday with a friend playing in the snow. Zachary my 11 year old wisely stayed inside with me.
Zach pointed out that Jared was trying to make a snow angel. He was lying on the snow flapping his arms back and forth, but there was enough
of an ice crust that he was just lying on top making no impression. It may have been futile on his part, but it was pretty funny to watch.
Last night I pointed out to my husband Robert that we had some water dripping inside the house. It was coming in around the top edge of a window.
He went off into guy mode informing me we had an ice dam.
The first floor of our house is larger than the second. Snow had melted on the first floor addition s roof and flowed to the edge and then refroze.
A ridge of ice had formed and now additional snow melt was unable to get over the dam and finding its way into the house.
People in cold weather states talk about ice dams much the way I suppose, people in hot weather states talk about how to keep your
dashboard from melting in the sun. Everyone has their own strategy for preventing the problem and Lord knows everyone has advice
once the problem occurs. Keep the roof shoveled, keep an attic window cracked, or open, crank the heat, add gutters, wait for spring.
Anyone who has never experienced the problem naturally assumes that ice dam formation is largely the fault of the home owner, much as people with mellow children assume that bad children s behavior is really the fault of their parents. Up until that fateful
night I had never had an ice dam and, I had been a member of the, blame the victim - category. Now here I was, having unexpectedly
switched camps, looking at a pool of icy water all over my kitchen floor.
If I were a reporter (instead of a regular Jane attempting a pithy essay), here s where I would put a nice paragraph full of great
statistics about winter weather, snow accumulation and the dollar value of damage resulting from ice dams. I might even make up to date
comments about current global warming research. My excuse for skipping it, is not just that I can t be bothered spending an afternoon with Google.
I figure if you are from a cold place, you know what I am talking about. If you re not, you don t really care. If this essay should ever
appear in a format for which I get paid, I will fill this paragraph in nicely. Oh, who am I kidding, I will probably just delete it.
But I digress . . .
My boss is from Vermont and a font of wonderful Vermonter stories. He told me how when he was a boy the house he was living in also
had a larger first story and a flat roof. Probably the only flat roof in the state. His father would have him and his brother go out
onto the roof to shovel the snow off. They would shovel it down into a pile and then were allowed to jump off the roof into the pile.
Yes their dad let them jump off the roof! The only rule was that no one was allowed to break a leg. I suppose if you are going to pick
a rule, that s a pretty good one. He said that being first was scary because you didn t know if there was enough snow, but after that it
was a lot of fun. My only response along with a look of horror was did your mother know about this?
So in response to our very own ice dam - I curled up by the wood stove with a book (Yiddish Policeman s Union). A fore mentioned husband
stomped upstairs carrying mysterious implements. Suddenly there was a ton of noise as he stared pushing accumulated ice and snow off of the roof.
Later on it started raining buckets outside of one window as he dumped hot water down the roof. I kept expecting each crash to be followed by the
body of my husband flying through the air like something from a Tim Allen Christmas movie and then landing in a snow bank in the yard
or worse on the frozen cement steps.
Once Robert had chilled the entire house down to 50 degrees he declared that he had done all he could do. He closed window and tracked
snow melt back through the house. Later I made sure to let him know how hard it had been for me to sit there worrying about him falling
off the roof. He said I could have done something about it. I said yes, you re right next time I will change rooms. He said uh,
that's not what I meant. I replied "Yeah, I know but it works for me."
The following day I was outside futilely chipping at the many inches of accumulated ice on our front steps when something caught my eye.
At the end of our street there is a 3 story apartment building with a fairly steeply pitched roof. A roof pitched steeper than the average
house, and at least 10 feet taller. There were two guys up on the roof pushing snow off. Image standing 60 feet up on a steep angle, on
accumulated snow. You are using a shovel and shoving snow forward and hopefully not sending yourself off as well. I watched in fascination
and horror for a few minutes. The mother in me desperately wanted to tell them to be careful. At the same time I knew this was insane.
They are standing 3 stories up on a roof looking down. I am sure they know they need to be careful. Finally I had to walk away out of fear
that they would fall, and out and out of guilt that it would somehow be my fault because I hadn t warned them of the dangers.
My husband's dare devil method of shoveling and hot water did work for a few days. But then time passed, more snow fell, temperatures
stayed low and then a hint of a warmer front arrived. One weekday I came down stairs all bleary eyed (pre-coffee) to find a new puddle
on the wood floor. My initial reaction was annoyance at the hubby. After all he had come down first and not dealt with it.
Then I grudgingly allowed that his barely dawn start of the day with the rest of us still snuggly asleep upstairs, granted him some lee way.
I sopped up the mess and placed a towel on the window sill. Naturally with drips happening about 1 per second this was only a short term measure.
I went upstairs and opened a hall window to look at the first floor roof. I could see where my husband had made two paths at 45 degree
angles from the window to the edge of the roof right above each of the windows where we were having problems. The trenches were
still there, but half filled in with new snow. By this time my sons were up and dressed and to my surprise my 11 year old stopped
and asked what was up. I was surprised because I wasn't serving food or sorting Pokemon cards, the only two activities I figured
he would notice me engaged in. Suddenly, I had an idea. "Hey Zachary how would you like to go out on the roof and shovel off some snow?
He said Yeah sure. And I sent him off to put on boots and bring a small shovel. I then sent him out onto the roof. OK this bears repeating.
I sent my 11 year old onto the roof to shovel snow. I had my younger son get a bucket (an old cat littler container) and start filling
the tub with hot water. I hung half out the window directing Zachary and saying be careful every other sentence. Despite his
assurances that he could go out further I did stop him about 4 feet from the edge. I then bucket brigaded hot water to him until
we had run the tank dry. My over arching excuse for sending my child onto the roof was that while Zachary was strong enough to accept
a bucket of water through the window and tip it over, he wasn t strong enough for us to have changed places. I get queasy imagining the
vast amounts of water he would have spilled filling the bucket and then getting the buckets down the hallway.
In the mean time my 8 year old is bouncing up and down next to the window and we are having the expected dialogue while I trudge
water down the hall. Jared Can I go out on the roof? Me No Jared Why can t I go out Me You re not big enough Jared
When will I be big enough? Me Later Jared Next year? Me, grunting through my 10th trip Yeah sure. Jared
We start a new year in a couple of weeks, so I can go out on the roof in a couple of weeks? Me No I meant like in a year from now.
Jared jubilantly I get to go out on the roof when I m 9! Me realizing I might have made a mistake uh, yeah, I guess so.
Jared still wanted desperately to help. When we had run out of water I had Zachary come back inside (and change his socks).
I brought up the bucket of salt and let Jared lean out the window and throw cups fulls of it along the path Zachary had cleared.
Yeah I realize it might not be the best thing for the roof, but I was running out of time and while the edge was cleared there
was still copious dripping happening inside. Soon after I left the house with a new towel draped on the sill and drove the kids
to school only a few minutes late.
In working on the conclusion for this little piece I somehow want to some things up implying that a circle has been completed.
After all aren't the best journeys in life circular? Even if it's going from a question, to a lesson learned to a new deeper question.
I must admit though that this experience has been pretty linear and I can t claim any deep inner meanings.
In a short time I went from being afraid of having my husband out on the roof, to sending my own child out there.
It just goes to show you . . . well pretty much nothing at all. No matter, we just had a warm spell and after 6 days of
having dirty water drip on my head every time I went out the front door, the roof is clear.
A day of rain now seems to be taking care of the rest of the accumulated ice. Unfortunately it s only early January,
so this is a cycle that is likely to be repeated 3 or more times before true spring arrives.
Me Sure.
Zachary Where is it?
Me What?
Zachary How long?
Me 15 inches.
Zachary No, how long?
Me 2 days and 3 hours.
Zachary No, how long in here.
Me Oh, you mean - How long do I heat the butter in the microwave to get it to melt?
Zachary Yeah.
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