Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde

I am no stranger to the symptoms of ADHD in young boys.  I have experience in babysitting, day care, teaching preschool, teaching kindergarten, teaching first and second grade.  I know all about the hyperactivity, the skittering from one activity to the next, the absolute need to balance on one toe while rotating an arm at the shoulder, in order to be able to complete a paper.  I know that ADHD makes every moment new, so that you can't remember what happened last time, let alone stop and think about what might happen this time.  I've had student upon student upon student experience this.  So, yes, I get ADHD.  I really do.

But, then, we got Ben.

 

Aahh, Ben-Ben Hall.  Mr. B.  Bud.  I am not sure I have ever met a human being with such enthusiasm ("Grammy got me pantses!  Yes!  Pantses!  I love pantses!"), energy, and zest for life.  Ben attacks every task with all the confidence a four-year-old can muster, knowing in his heart-of-hearts that, truly, he will be awesome at anything he tries.  He loves to be the Helper Boy:  washing dishes, holding tools for a project, picking up toys (though not necessarily toys he has left out), folding laundry, fetching items around the house.  He loves to "read" words, to practice writing his letters, to hear books read aloud, to sing and dance in the kitchen.  Ben will sit very still for a hair cut, telling cute stories and entertaining the hairdresser.  He's an excellent patient when ill, allowing nurses and doctors to check his ears, swab his throat, even give him a shot.  Above all things, he adores his baby sister.  He wants to sleep in her room, hug her and kiss her non-stop, comfort her when she's hurt, play with her 24/7.  Actually, he vehemently loves all of his family.  When his older sister was gone for two days, he sat in his top bunk and sang for twenty minutes, "I miss my Sissy, she is my friend.  I love my big Sissy.  I wish she was here."  Recently, he asked, "Mom, when I live with you when I'm a big boy, can I have my own cat?  I will keep all of its poop in the closet under the stairs."  He is adament that, when he is grown, he will still live with me.  He'd like to marry me (yes, this does absolutely melt my heart), but he's accepted that this is not possible.  He says he'll settle for just "livin' with ya" for the rest of his life.  He was horrified when I once implied that he might want to live with someone else when he was grown.  He is a lovey, sweet, wonderful human being who brings joy into everything he does. 

 

Then, there is the one I refer to as "Benjamin Cleveland Hall."  Yes, it is often necessary to middle name him.  This boy, this devil child, I simply do not know where he comes from. 

 

For a while, we blamed the turtles.  Ben went through an obsession with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who really aren't bad guys when you think about it, but they do kind of wrestle with and tease each other, in addition to fighting the Krang with an arsenal of ninja weapons.  So, no more TMNT in our house; well, no more watching them anyway.

 

 

This did not have the desired effect.  We still have the hitting, tackling, kicking, biting, screaming, throwing...  You get the point.  He will be doing something mildly annoying-- say, kicking the table leg-- and I will ask him to please stop.  He ignores.  "Ben, Mommy asked you to please stop kicking the table leg," I say, with a little more force.  Now he will look at me, smirk, and kick the table leg two more times, for good measure.  Now what the hell is that?  "Benjamin, this is what I am talking about when I say you need to be a good listener.  If you kick the table leg again, you will have to go for time out."  This time, there is no pause, no room left for me to wonder if perhaps he's misunderstood.  Oh no.  He kicks with abandon, thumps that table leg nice and loud, and yells something like, "Kicking the leg!  Kicking the leg!  I am kicking the table leeeeeeeeeeg!"  Turd.  So, then I have to cart him off to his bedroom, give him time out, let him hang until he yells from the room, "Mom, I'm ready to be a nice boy now."  What is it in him that needs this "rahr" moment with me?

 

And, really, that table leg story is nothin'.  Once, I took Ben and Becca to Wal-Mart.  (Already, moms across the world are audibly moaning.)  I got them one of those carts with the double, side-by-side seats, with an entire cart attached to the front.  I can't believe a person doesn't need to show a CDL to drive one of those suckers, but that's another story.  Anyway, we start out on our venture, and Ben is slightly squishing Bec, just to see how far he can push her.  "Ben," I say, "are we getting gummies today?"  (Ben's favorite treat, second only to cinnamon graham crackers, are fruit snacks.  He finds great joy in selecting which character gummies we will have for the week.  He is actually quite fair in making sure Becca gets a choice she enjoys, as well.) 

 

"Of course, Mom, we gotta have gummies," is the reply.  So, I try to use the gummies as leverage.  We go directly to the gummy aisle, make our selection, and I have him hold the box.  I figure that any other off-the-playbook behavior can be curbed with a "Hey, we'll have to put back your gummies" comment.  Boy, am I wrong.

 

The subtle squishing turns to all-out pushing in the dairy aisle.  You know, waaaaay at the back of the store, where you're really just starting to knock out the items on your list?  I threaten the gummies, tell Ben to knock it off, start moving faster.

 

By cleaners and paper towels, Ben has pushed Becca to the point that she is trying to bite.  I remove her from the side-by-side, and put her in the front cart seat.  Unfortunately, she is now facing her nemesis, and his legs are longer.

 

In the baking aisle, the kicking is in full swing.  I am attempting to get in between them, hold his legs down, spit through my teeth, "Don't make me take these gummies back."

 

Well, in canned goods, I have to do it.  I'm just not one of those moms.  I can't make a threat, restate it, and then pretend it never happened.  Right by the canned asparagus (who really buys that shit, anyway?), Ben smacks Becca over the head with the gummy box, sending her into a fit of hysterics so loud that we are now getting some looks.  Just looks at this point, but looks all the same.  Three or four more aisles to go, but I have to take back those damn gummies.

 

So, we backtrack, and I put the (sorry, Wal-Mart) now mangled box of gummies back on the shelf.  I also move Becca back to the blue side-by-side, and buckle Ben's 45-pound, 47-inch-tall writhing body into the cart seat.  Again, unfortunately, the dude has long legs.  He can still kick Becca, and now more like in her face than just her legs or feet.

 

It is at this time that the screaming begins.  Oh, and Ben makes some noise, too.

 

Ben starts bellowing "I waaaaaaaaant my gummmmmmmies!" at a volume previously reserved for civil war operations without anethesia.  I pick up Becca out of the cart, carry her, and drag the cart by the front, so that Ben's fit of grand magnitude is at least not causing anyone else bodily harm.  He chooses to bend and contort in ways I've never seen so that he can grab items from the cart and hurl them down the aisle.  Did I mention that we just need to hit the produce section and we're done?

 

Somehow, by the grace of God, by the grandor of Allah, by sheer force of will, take your pick, we make it through the check out line.  It is, of course, not without some nosy bitch making a comment to my son about behaving himself in the store (really?), lots of snobby looks from fellow shoppers (parenting in progress people), and running into one of Eric's sugary sweet co-workers whose children probably never even sneezed loudly.

 

As we head out, it is seventeen degrees in the winter air, and Ben refuses to put on his coat.  Thank you, Mother Nature, for helping to drive that point home.  I put Becca immediately into her carseat, turn on the heat for her, unload the groceries as slowly as I can into the back of the jeep.  Then, I turn to the now-silent, uncontrollably shivering Ben.

 

"Mom," he says, "what does the moon do when it's cold?  Does his mommy rub his hands together like you do for me?"

 

"I don't know, Bubba," I say, and let it all ekk out of me.  Because by the time we get home, he'll have sung me "We Will Rock You" and told me a story about day care where he helped Becca go on the sled, and I won't even remember most of what happened in the store.  I'll just be glad to be home, with my sweet little boy.

 

* Photos courtsey of Digital Story Book, Jamie Trost



My Land!

While I was off gallivanting around at Saturn Booksellers, my biological father was leaving a message on my answering machine about my grandmother.  "Your grandma's not doing too well," he said.  "She's starting to kind of shut down."

Shut down.  My grandma's starting to shut down.  My grandma, who once rose at 4:00 every day and provided meals and cared for the children and ran the errands and milked the cows and fed the cats and took care of the whole house.  My grandma who knew everyone in town and all their stories, who (like me) made friends in line at the gas station, who would talk your ear off until you walked away.  My grandma who would play cards until the wee hours of the morning, because she wouldn't let you go to bed until she won.  And you couldn't "let" her win, oh no, it had to feel real.  How does a person like her begin this process, begin to "shut down"? Well, I'll tell you.

First, you lose your sister.  Your only sister.  Your older sister, who had been there every moment of your life.  Your best friend in the world, the person you went to for every problem, discussion, joy, anything.  Your sister who always gave in to you when you were growing up, who pin curled your hair every week, who took care of you, even when you were taking care of others.

Next, you lose your husband of 61 years.  Your husband, who always kept life interesting by trying to find a way to contradict your every word, but still love you with every fiber of his being.  Your husband, with whom you lived and worked, raised two children, milked hundreds of cows, farmed acre after acre of land.  Your best card partner, your musical accompaniment in church (saxophone or clarinet?), the other main character in every story of your adult life.

After you've lost the two of them, you try to find a niche in your new life.  You move away from the farm, into town, into the house where your husband's mother lived.  You bring some of your things, you take in a cat, you try to feel at home in a new place.  But, still, your family worries, and so you move again, after a while, into an apartment in town, where maybe there will be more people to talk to.

You bring your furniture to remind you of home, a chair, a lamp, a mirror, but most things don't fit, and you have to get all new.  You start a new hobby, puzzles, and hope that this will help to fill some of the emptiness that you feel.  But, already, the shutting down has begun, as you drive less and less, and you feel more and more separate from your little family, your church, and your friends.

Then, as if you have not lost enough, you lose your son.  He is your oldest, your firstborn, the one who has lived the closest.  He has come to visit often, daily even, and helped to care for animals, your home, for you.  It is unexpected, and it is a blow from which you will never really recover.  The shutting down is accelerated a little, as another piece of you is buried beneath the ground.

After this, you slowly withdraw.  Your remaining son, your daughter-in-law, your grandchildren, they all try to keep you going in this world, but it is the next world that has a stronger call.  Your family tells you stories of the here and now, but these are not your children anymore, or even your grandchildren.  They are your great-grandchildren, and the distance in generations makes them almost strangers, characters in a book you once read, a special fondness for them is all that you can muster anymore.  You lose friends, lifelong friends, and reminisce in your own head about when you were the young ones, caring for the old.

You move to assisted living, where your family knows you'll be well cared for, but where you feel you're being put "out to pasture."  After a while, you no longer attend meals, or take walks down the hall, but prefer sitting in your room playing solitaire on your Kindle to pretending to listen to other ladies repeat the same stories of their former lives.

You're not ill, you're not depressed, you're ready.  Ready to hang up the hat you've worn on this earth in exchange for your halo.

My grandmother is shutting down.  She has been for years.  Slowly, at first, but now at a speed that my father just can't take.  Selfishly, I want to medicate her.  I want her pulled out of this funk and put back into the goofy lady who'd exclaim, "My land!" when I'd trump her ace.  I want her to be the grandma who always played dominoes with me, who called me "Lollie," who gave me a red hot at night when she took her pills (so I wouldn't feel left out), who joked with me about everything, who told me point blank "I was pregnant when I got married, you know," even though she'd never spoken about it with another soul.

Grams, remember when you used to slide your seat back and play "low rider" in the yellow car, curlers in your hair, on the way home from Aunt Sylvie's?  Remember when we used to mow the lawn at the first farm?  Remember when you were so mad at me because I wouldn't take the dead mouse in the bucket out to the barn, and Aunt Sylvie carried the bucket out for me?  Remember all the times I came downstairs in my pajamas and socks, and you made me crisp white toast with little slices of real butter?  Remember when you taught me to make butterscotch pie, and I just plain couldn't beat the egg whites hard enough into meringue?  Remember when you'd tell me stories about when you and Pa first got married, and you kept threatening to go live with your mother?  Remember watching "Days of Our Lives" and "Family Feud" (we always wanted to go on as "The Good Family")?  Remember tiny milky ways in the freezer, Pa's kettle popcorn, chicken and homemade noodles, cake with caramel frosting?  Remember saying "Laurie, your own grandmother?!" when I'd take the deuce of diamonds in Kerseiney (I think it's actually called "Casino," Grams, but I'd never call it anything else)?  Remember when we'd go in the camper to the auction and get chicken barbecue and I'd be terrified to go in the barn, but you'd hold my hand, even when I was way too old?  Remember, Grams, remember? I do.  I always will.

Selfishly, I want you, that Grandma, to stay forever.  But, I know.  When I go to sleep each night next to my best friend, the love of my life, I know that, if he goes before me, I will begin to shut down, too.  I know Pa's got a seat saved for you at the card table, with Ike and Peg, and maybe Aunt Sylvie's learned to play, who knows.  Shoot the moon, Grams.  Shoot the moon.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Well, it finally happened. I taught Emma how to shave her legs today.  My baby girl.  Wasn't I just holding her down to force her to let me brush her teeth?  Actually, I was, but that's more due to kinesthetic issues than due to age.  I guess a better question is, how did time go so fast?  I feel like I have been sitting still in time, stuck at 25 or 26 years old, but she and Ben and Becca just keep zipping on past me.

My friend, Molly, told a story the other day of a lady saying to her about Molly's newborn baby, "Oh, how sweet.  Time does fly, doesn't it?"  The thing is, right at that moment, when you're trying to get through the grocery store and Ben is screaming "I want my gummies!" and Becca is running dangerously close to the endcap of wine bottles and Emma wants to discuss what she can eat for lunches next year and some lady you used to go to church with wants to talk about how your parents are doing... No, it doesn't "fly."  Time doesn't fly at all, in the thick of those moments.

But, then again, when I watch Ben and Becca sit next to one another on the floor and "read" books, or see Ben riding his bike down the road, or I teach Em about shaving against the direction of the hair (and NEVER sideways)... Yeah, time does fly.  It flies so quickly I'm afraid to blink, for fear they'll leave and I won't have soaked up all the love and joy and laughter and hugs and kisses and hilarious stories that I'll need to keep me satisfied when they're gone on their own journeys.

It's so hard to keep that perspective, when they're bickering, when dinner and dishes need to be done, when I'm confronted with yet another mound of laundry (Seriously, are they changing sets of clothing for each quarter of their day? "This is my mid-day ensemble and I'll be changing at the hour for my stroll along the terrace."  One pair of underwear per day, Ben Hall, that's all ya need!).  It really is a wonderful life (yes, George) and I really do appreciate my family.  I just hope I can keep it all balanced and myself mindful before it's all over.

For now, I will tuck in my mind the picture of Emma, concentrating so hard, trying not to nick herself, going slowly up the shin and over the knee, her literal journey a figurative reminder of climbing the hill to adulthood.  Maybe next time we'll even take off the razor guard.