Monthly Archives: September 2017

No Way Through It But to Do It

kids-and-homework

She is at the kitchen counter, tongue jutted out over her top lip, pencil in an awkward grip, tears rolling down her face.

“There’s so much of this!” she says, between strangled sobs.

I chop carrots, a profile at a counter perpendicular to the one where her science book, notebook, tablet, and half-eaten bowl of cheese crackers are scattered. Her hair is in her eyes, and she keeps angrily tucking it behind her ear. I put down the knife, rinse my hands, wipe them on the back pockets of my jeans, and walk gently and slowly around the edges of the counter. I pull her hair back and wrap it into a quick ponytail, and then I kiss the top of her warm, slightly-sweaty head.

“No way through it but to do it,” I tell her.

She falls forward, her head in her arms, and cries, still gripping the pencil. I rub her back, softly, and rest my cheek on her neck to whisper in her ear, little useless things about getting a drink of water, taking a five minute break, finishing her snack. She growls and rises, determined through tears to get it done.

I straighten and make my way back toward the carrots, noting that her sister is on the couch in the next room, laptop propped on her knees, papers everywhere, water bottle cuddled against her side. She’s absentmindedly eating a package of dried seaweed, listening to music, and occasionally holding her phone up at just the right angle for a photo containing only half her face. She looks up, and I blow her a kiss. She smiles, waves, and catches it.

The battle rages on at the counter.

I wonder what made my two daughters so different: the older one go-with-the-flow, flexible, arched toward satisfaction; and the younger one frustrated, questioning, mourning, her happiness easily won but equally easily lost. Continue Reading…

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How to Feed the People You Host

holiday-table

I’ve spent some holiday dinners eating dry bread and salad.

In front of me on the table were platters piled high with other food, but because of a combination of my vegetarianism and allergies, only the bread and salad were real options for me. In those moments, I harbored no ill will toward my hosts; having hosted holidays before, I knew that it took a lot of work to accommodate the preferences and allergies of a complicated group of guests. It’s not a job for an inexperienced or inexact home chef. I knew all this as I sat and ate my undressed salad, nibbling on my plain bread, and I wasn’t bitter.

Still, I’ve tried never to do that to a guest in my own home unless I had no other choice. Over the years, I’ve had guests for Jewish holiday meals who ate no carbohydrates, no grains, no gluten, no dairy, no beans, no soy, no tomatoes, no nuts, no broccoli, no cinnamon — not to mention the years when my own child was on the six-food-elimination-diet or the chylothorax diet. I’ve managed, in most cases, to offer at least two tasty options to each person — even options that others at the table would enjoy, too. It takes planning, but it’s not impossible.

Here’s how I’ve done it: Continue Reading…

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A Letter to My Friends Coping with IEPs and 504s

Dear friends,

i-see-you-worried-parentsI read every single Facebook post you share about your children.

When the school year begins and my children are worried about whether their friends will be in class with them, I see your worry scroll across the screen in a darker, more anxious tone. Will the new teacher understand your son? Will the school protect your daughter from her nut allergy? Will the one-on-one aide be reliable, communicative, loving?

I know you probably wonder if anyone whose child doesn’t need that level of support has even noticed you. Perhaps that flicker of wonder passes quickly as you walk away from the schoolyard each morning to a list of therapists and specialists to call, or perhaps it digs in more deeply as you watch other parents’ first-day-of-school photos scroll past, uncomplicated. Continue Reading…

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Padding

padding-relief

 

She’s ok, I thought, looking at her on the couch with her water bottle and her picked-at bowl of green jello. She’s ok and she will be ok. She’s ok and she will be ok. She’s-ok-and-she-will-be-ok, she-will-be-ok, she-will-be-ok, she-will-be-ok…

Parents like me, whose children have been through medical scares or ongoing health-related issues, often talk about the long-term anxiety that follows. Certainly in the immediate aftermath — even once the drama is months behind us — the expectation that we’ll worry more about our children is palpable. After my daughter Sammi’s last major surgery, the teachers and administrators in her school were incredibly kind and as careful as they could be to accommodate her healing, even in ways that might have been fussier than necessary for her but were utterly crucial for me and my comfort level. On major milestones — when she was allowed to return to recess, when she ate her first sandwich after years of a damaged esophagus, and on the anniversaries of the surgery that healed her, friends have cheered and celebrated with me, remembered and sighed in relief at my side.

But now it has been three-and-a-half years since the biggest legitimate worries subsided. There can be no mistaking her vitality. While there were years when even strangers could look at my daughter and suspect something was not quite right, now the most they might notice is that she’s slightly shorter than her classmates. I have little on which to base my worry these days, except for history and, I must admit, mild post-traumatic stress. Continue Reading…

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