Keeping in touch

by Patti Dickinson

Eight kids, a mom and a dad, and two spouses. Six geographical cities represented. All part of an email experiment. In the past, I have sent group emails to my college kids, and then the ones that are married with kids get individual emails. The kids still at home get no emails unless it is to say, "I guess you are not planning on having a weekend.....unless/until that train wreck of a room of yours is cleaned up first. And we are going to use my definition of clean, not yours." Not too sure why this method of communicating got started, but this week, I decided to shake things up. One massive group email. If everyone hit "reply all", this would be a terrific way to keep in touch.

We got off to a stutter start. Claire got a little too excited telling me the story about how she had two people over for dinner the night before, cooked a nice roast, and after dinner decided it would be a good time to do the self-clean oven routine. Long story short, the oven caught on fire, because of the grease that was on the bottom of the oven because the aluminum pan she was using had a tear in it (she wondered why she didn't have many drippings for gravy.....) The fire department came (I never did hear what they had to do to put out the fire) because the highlight of the evening was that my three year old grandson Ben got to sit in the fire truck with a fireman hat on, turning the steering wheel from side to side, etc. He got an invitation to come by the station sometime. (Bet that's on the schedule for today!)

The upshot here is that within twelve hours, every one of my kids had responded. And not in a vacuum. Responded to what had been said by the other siblings....

This is a new phase.....and I am still adjusting. The house is not as full anymore. Not full of voices, not full of laundry, not full of the remnants of a kid-cooked meal of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese --- orange powder on the counter and little orange crescents in the sink. Now we stay in touch differently. But I guess the mom in this picture is a little bit transparent. Needing to hear from the nest of kids who grew up under this roof...needing a quick snapshot of what their lives look like at this moment in time.

Yup. One content mom.

At the end of the bed

by

Patti Dickinson

I had a teary, homesick phone call from one of my out-of-the-house kids the other day. This particular kid just graduated from Knox College last spring, and is now finding her way as a newly-launched adult in Chicago. She had an internship at The Vitalist Theatre that began in early June, and it is stuttering to the end as she wraps up assistant-stage-managing "The Night Season". The good news is that she has another internship at The Eclipse Theatre beginning in October, with a two week overlap with The Vitalist. This new job is a step up....she will be dropping the "assistant" prefix and stage-manage! It is during those two weeks that she will find out what she is made of, working two full-time jobs and putting a lot of miles on that rusted blue Schwinn.

As we talked through life's highs and lows.....the highs --- how the new job will be only a five mile bike ride from her apartment, instead of the six and a half miles she has been peddling. Inclement weather? Not to worry. The buses in Chicago are equipped with bike racks on the front! Also in the going-well column is that she has a third interview with North Face. A job that pays a real salary, instead of the paying-your-dues internships that are resume boosters and put very little food on the table! The lows include some boyfriend issues, a tangled web of decisions waiting to be made. She needs a backboard, and I am happy to fill that role, although I probably interjected my two cents more often than I should have. And she got quiet. And I kept saying, "What, Kathleen?" Wanting her to fill the silence so I knew how to proceed in the conversation. And she said, "Mom....I just need a weekend at home. I just need some time to talk at the end of your bed."

You know those times when you are in perfect synchronicity with someone else? How both of you know exactly what the other is thinking/feeling without any more words that that?

Some of the most important moments in our lives have happened with a kid perched on the bottom of our bed. Me at the pillow end, the kid in question at the bottom. Facing each other. The perfect combination of eye contact and closeness to make the rest of the world fall back. And all that matters is the two of us. Allowing the power of family, this kid of mine that I physically brought into this world after carting her around for nine months to emerge. Now she, at 23, still feels the pull to revisit that place where problems get solved, tears are okay, the Kleenex box between us. And whatever is wrong, while maybe not righted at that very moment, is more clearly understood just having shared it with someone who loves them so very much. Just putting words to the feelings in a safe place. There is something sacred about that.

At the end of the bed.....we've talked about broken friendships, promises and boyfriend splits. We've waxed poetic and shared fears, worries and hard-to-put-into-words disappointments. It's where Wood and I heard about first dates. And last dates. Where I heard every last detail about the Father-Daughter Dance at Bishop Miege where Wood Dickinson took three daughters to dance. Where we talked over where to go to college and where they got a speeding ticket. And why they missed their curfew....again. All of these conversations took place as the day wound down. When the harshness of the world outside our windows seemed to retreat a bit.

Yes, we've lost some sleep over those late night conversations. But I've gained so much more. This tradition made me a non-believer in bedtimes. Too rigid. I don't shoo my kids to bed. I welcome them to ours.....to sit a spell. It is, hands-down, one of the Dickinson Family's best traditions.

2/3 Full Inbox

by

Patti Dickinson

Kathleen, my newly-graduated daughter, is living in Chicago, working at The Vitalist Theatre. She has an internship that runs through October. She is the assistant-stage manager on "The Night Season", working fourteen hour days. Not even a text message in the last ten days.

Andrew, a college freshman, has been at The University of Nebraska for a week today. He's sent nothing but text messages. What I know: he loves his classes. His roommate drinks Pepsi all day long. He has 72 of 100 pages read for a paper he has to write for his political science class. That's about it. Maybe it's the male/female thing. Women want details. I want to know what he and his roommate talked about as this kid is guzzling the liquid nourishment. I want to know what he had for lunch and how it tasted. I want to know what the kid is like that he played tennis with --- where he's from, what brought him to UNL, if he has a girlfriend....

Mary Morgan is in Denver. Junior year nursing student. Big talker. She calls. Sometimes an email. Rarely a text. Her stories are almost explosive. I can picture her, walking to class, talking to me, waving her arms around, stopping on the sidewalk to get a point across that requires all of her be focused on the telling. She called with details about her nursing classes. She learned how to put on gloves without compromising sterility, and how to restrain a patient. (Hmmm...wonder if that will come in handy one day when she has to restrain some Kindergartner for their school shots....just about one of a handful of times that my husband took one of the kids to the pediatrician and he came home from his trip with five year old Mary, with his hair standing on end, with a report that no fewer than three nurses had to hold her down....now obviously none of those nurses's strong suit was patient restraint!!!)

Same mom and dad. Such different communication styles. But last night I wrote an email and in the subject line was "Mary wins the Gold Award". That got them going. Told them that Mary won, Andrew came in second and Kathleen was bringing up the rear. So you think sibling rivalry is only for the single digit years? Ohhhhh no. These kids are 23, 20 and 18.

But I got two emails out of the deal. In my in-box, first thing this morning!

The rearview mirror

by

Patti Dickinson

Last Thursday, we took Andrew to college. Kid #6. He is a freshman at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He is our first kid to go to college with a car. The emotional climate was a mixed bag. Wood was all about the statistics and minutia, how many miles, putting the address in the GPS, checking the gas tank, the mileage, the ETA. I was all about figuring out how to breathe with a lump in my throat the size of a softball and Andrew was steeling himself for being plunked from an environment where he was comfortable, into a new environment that is 202 miles away, and 18,000 kids strong. Wood and I drove in my car with Andrew's stuff, and he followed behind in his car, also loaded with everything that will recreate home 3 hours and 40 minutes away.

So I drove, Wood navigated. (I drive a lot, because I have a hard time sitting still in the passenger seat and if I am doing something, I don't need to stop for snacks or something to drink every 45 minutes.)

I kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure Andrew was keeping pace (that's another whole story, let's just leave it that sometimes my pace is a little fast, and I certainly don't want to leave this already-a-wreck of a kid in the dust on some highway four states from home). Yes, I was looking back, both literally and figuratively.

And I did a lot of that that day. I reminisced. I cried. A lot. Eighteen years, over in a flash. Eighteen years of learning to ride his bike, scoring that first soccer goal with his quick glance to the sidelines knowing that we were there. Wood and I screaming shamelessly. The first day of school. Walking into his Kindergarten classroom with his madras shorts, his buttoned-up-to-the-neck polo shirt, brand spanking new tennis shoes and backpack. And the hundreds of papers, spelling tests, book reports and art projects that came through our back door at the end of the elementary days. The friendships, the rivalries. The ups and the downs. The backs and the forths. The weeks, months, years. Andrew will now be waking up somewhere else in the morning. He will be finding his own way. He will be making most of his decisions independently.

Move-in went smoothly. Boxes hauled up four flights of stairs. His roommate got there, and we shared a few laughs over this kid's Pepsi addiction when he wasn't in the room. He brought 8 12-packs of Pepsi. I guess that kid runs on caffeine.

After the move-in, we took Andrew to lunch at Olive Garden. I looked up once and caught his eye. I teared up....knowing that we were counting down to the inevitable goodbye. He mouthed "Not yet, mom." He wasn't ready for my tears. Must be hard being a kid, watching your mom cry.

So we dropped him off at his car, so that he could go from there and find the building to pick up his parking sticker. He hugged me hard. I hugged him back. Hard. And we left. Drove off, with me wiping tears, sobbing. Not over. But --- kind of over.

I miss him....the funny stuff he does with Meghan at dinner....she calls him "Andy" ( a nickname that never stuck) and he looks at her, with a whimsical smile and a slight shake of his head. I miss the political talk at the table, the banter back and forth about what's going on on Capitol Hill. The background noise of Bill O'Reilly. I haven't made salsa in a week. No one else in the family calls it a food group. No more pitchers of red Crystal Light in the refrig. No more mountains of clothes, backed up in the laundry room. There is a small pile of his clothes, what he wore the day before he left, and strangely, after all the complaining about clothes never getting put away that I have done, I am comforted with that small pile of his clean clothes. Now Meghan will have to be trained to take over the mowing job, and hauling the trash cans to the end of the driveway on Sunday nights.

So --- as all the grandmas used to say to me, as I stood in the grocery store with five kids, at least one of which was having a meltdown because I wouldn't let him/her have m & m's at 9:00 in the morning, "Cherish this time...all too soon they will be grown...." And I used to think, as I hauled the kid off the floor to a standing position, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????"

They were right.

What a difference a year makes....

First day of school for Meghan, my high school sophomore.

Looking back a year, she was leaving here for her first day of high school with a knot in her stomach, fear in her eyes and as close to tears as a kid could get. The whole can-I-find-my-locker, and then realizing once-I-find-it-can-I-open-it???? Couple that with the three day volleyball tryouts that was putting yourself way out there and I had a kid who was a train wreck. So much to go wrong, and any one of those things could make the wheels fall off the day. She survived, made the team, made the grade, made some friends, made some good decisions and made us proud.

by

Patti Dickinson

Today I sent a kid to school who is confident (the irony is that she got the exact same locker and combination that she had last year!!!) She is meeting her friends at her locker, who all have Honor's biology together. She knows her way around the building and knows a little bit better who she is, where she fits and what new leaps she's going to take this year.

This year the volleyball tryouts are less stressful than they were last year. Last year the dialogue was "if I make the team...." and this year it's "what team I make...." And closing in on six feet (she will only admit to 5'10") doesn't hurt in that middle hitter position!

I love these teen years. They aren't for the faint of heart....but it is terrific to see a kid negotiating life with a primitive map. And the important part is that the moral compass is pointing due north.

Missing those kids already

by

Patti Dickinson

It's that time of year.....the dwindling days of August segue into a life that is measured by semesters. Flip flops scattered throughout each room of the house are replaced by backpacks, volleyball knee pads and Strawberry Gatorade bottles. It's time for school to start. I am reminded of the lyrics to one of my favorite tunes, Closing Time, by Semisonic. "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

And so, the summer of 2009 is almost over. This summer Kathleen graduated from Knox and took up residence in Chicago, and is finding her way in the "real world". Mary got into Nursing School, and sat at the table this morning, ordering her stethoscope and scrubs for her clinicals. Andrew is loading up the dining room with boxes the way only a first-time-heading-off-to-college-kid can. Toaster and a dvd player. Toast and a movie....that should get a college kid through the worst of days... Meghan is ready for her sophomore year, anticipating volleyball tryouts. Margaret is on a different journey....finding her way through the maze of middle school.

I can sense the college kids pulling away a bit....making it easier for them, in a week or two to end their summer at home. Leaving boyfriends/girlfriends behind. A sadness that none of us are talking about. We know what's coming but we don't speak of it. I miss the small things....the chime of the door alarm as the teenagers come in, late at night, one at a time. I miss sitting in the kitchen with my kids, as they one at a time come downstairs in the morning, sleepy eyed, and sit at the table and talk to me. This is conversation that can only happen face-to-face.

How blessed I am that I dread the beginning of school....we trade those flip flops and the scent of suntan lotion and wet towels all over the house for backpacks, homework at the kitchen table, lost library books and a schedule with little flexibility. I'm sort of one of the last moms standing....fighting back tears as we take those oh-so-corny first day of school pictures in the driveway.

On the Threshold....

by

Patti Dickinson

As I hope some of you have noticed (smile) I have been floundering a bit with the blogging. Easter week saw this house packed to the rafters with my dad, recently widowed, my returning college kids, and my son and my granddaughter, coming up to go to Opening Day at the Royals. We had all eight kids home at the same time, which doesn't happen too frequently anymore.  So I left-it-all-behind --- the housework, the laundry, overseeing the science fair board, and the PTA stuff.  I cooked for a crowd again!  Just put a figurative sign out that said, "I am busy" and emitted those vibes to everyone who wasn't in the house. 

And the in-between was wonderful.  Lots of catching up (face it, those college kid stories are much better acted out, in real time, instead of emailed) laughing and reminiscing (I always learn something new during these conversations....usually something mischief-related.)  This time I learned that Kathleen and Mary Morgan are still having words about whether the tape was on too loud/soft and whether the fan was on too little/much. This is a going-on-fifteen year-battle from when they shared a room.  This was also the time that I learned that my daughter, Claire, told all her friends that her name was "Claire Annette" and that her grandfather was the inventor of the musical instrument of the same name.  

The goodbyes are always so agonizing.  I hold onto my departing kids just a bit longer than usual.  My dad is 82.  He doesn't walk with his confident stride anymore.  He sort of shuffles. He hangs onto the doorframe as he steps down the back step.  That brings tears.  And I will them back.  But the three kids who are standing there after Wood and my dad pull out of the driveway to go to the airport, know.  They know what I am thinking before I can say it.  They are nodding, heads cocked, ready to listen, hug, looking for me to take the lead.  And this is, indeed, the circle of life.  One day, it will be me, stepping carefully down the back step, as my kids and their kids watch. 

And four days later, my daughter Elizabeth delivers her second baby.  We keep Piper, kid #1 who is about to have her two year old world turned upside down by a seven pound screaming, demanding high maintenance sister!!   Standing in my daughter's hospital room, seeing the simultaneous glow of joy mixed with fatigue.  I see in her the ready-to-get-home-and-get-the-routine-figured-out impatience with the hospital rules.  And so it goes....new life, old life, both standing on thresholds.  

All-Out Cleanup, Family Style

by

Patti Dickinson

I love to do family-wide cleanups.  Much better than Mom-only cleanups.  I mean, we've got six times the manpower when all are engaged.  (Note: "Engaged" doesn't mean enthusiastic, or that the definition of "cleanup" is the same for all participants.) We are having lots of company for Easter. So I prepped the kids all week.  Told them what was coming on Sunday.  That way, when the actual day dawned, I didn't have to listen to a litany of excuses.  "I have homework", "My science fair project is due tomorrow, and I need one of those tri-fold boards and a glue stick" (and Hobby Lobby is closed on Sundays) or "I think I ate something that has me breaking out in a cold sweat and I am having some moderate heart palpitations."  This is what I've got to work with.

Cleaning day dawns.  Well, let me rephrase that.  Mid-afternoon dawns.  This is after a volleyball tournament that started with us leaving the house before seven a.m.  We pull in the driveway a little after two.  I know, a late start. Doesn't bode well.  

I am happy to report that the yard has been mowed.  Andrew and I had an agreement that I wouldn't bug him about mowing if it was done by Sunday.  I told him that he ought to check the weather forecast (he didn't) before he put it off to the last minute.  You know where this is going.  He mowed yesterday with a lot of wind (40 mph) and scattered sleet.  Good kid.  A man of his word.  

Inside, things weren't quite so wonderful.  I could hear the gentle echo of Mario Cart.  Two horizontal bodies camped out on the couches.  Chocolate milk glasses on the table, and a buffet of snacks (I am known neighborhood-wise for the good snacks we have at the Dickinson house). Ohhh boy.  I have my work cut out for me.

Well -- we got it all done.  Big yellow trash bags coming down the stairs and being carried out. You don't even want to know the before picture of those rooms.  But we pulled together and got the job done.  Of course I am paying for that today.  All the clothes that were on the floor of their rooms hit the laundry basket at the same time.  

 

Truth be told, the shoes in the middle of the entry hall, the papers on the refrig, the piles of clean clothes stacked, by-kid, in the laundry room (which is a "first floor" dresser), the toothpaste globs in the bathroom sinks, and the seven different bottles of shampoo on the shower floor are tangible signs that a lot of good living happens around here.  

Boys Will Be Boys in the Very Best Sense of the Word

by

Patti Dickinson

Funny story.  Andrew is a high school senior.  Managed the whole college application process seamlessly on his own. Reasonable number of speeding tickets (he comes from a maternal lead-foot so I share some of the blame.  I said some.) Gets himself up and out every morning. Cell phone alarm makes that happen. Does his homework.  Mows the yard with only a little coercion. So he's ready to be "launched".  The maturity is there. But wait.....a cops and robbers re-make?

The high school seniors play a game every spring.  It's called "Assassin" (I wish they hadn't called it that, because it sounds so uncivilized and bloody).  The game goes like this.  Whoever wants to play kicks in $5.  Each kid draws a name.  That is the kid they have to "get" with a water gun.  There are a bunch of rules.  You can't "get" someone in their house.  You can't "get" someone on school property. And no "gets" between midnight Friday and 6 pm on Sunday. If the police are called (because there are kids running around the neighborhood ambushing each other) then the kid whose house it is is out. Everything else is fair game.  The first night Andrew slept in the garage. Mattress, sleeping bag, something for breakfast.  He brought his toothbrush to school with him. Went right from sleeping bag into his car, so no one could get him.  Everytime he returns to the house, he calls from the garage and has whoever's home "check" the surrounding area, and then he comes toward the house like a rocket.  So far, so good.  He plots and plans his every move, based on how vulnerable he will be.  He thinks that Taco Bell and a tennis tournament go hand-in-hand.  He hasn't had a taco in a week because there is no drive-through. 

I have enjoyed every single minute of this.  There are still good kids out there. This is good clean fun.  It brings kids together.  The morning chatter at the lockers is all about who got who and under what circumstances. Kids are just looking for ways to be good. Believe it. 

Bleacher Madness

by

Patti Dickinson

Saturday morning before dawn, my husband Wood and I, and our high school freshman daughter left the house to drive thirty minutes away to a volleyball tournament.  Five teams were competing.  I had a book and my knitting, for the time that Meghan was refing and not playing. Wood and I were lucky enough to get seats at the very top of the bleachers, guaranteeing us a wall-backrest. We were staking out our territory! 

I am a people-watcher at heart.  I have a very wide nosy streak. I have been known to do the universal signal for "quiet", vertical index finger to lips, to Wood, in order to better listen to conversations on planes, in restaurants, well, just about anywhere.  One time, seated at a table at a nice restaurant, I watched a couple have an altercation at the next table, figured out quickly that this problem involved his mother-in-law and she got up from the table and left him sitting there by himself. Walked right out the door and never looked back. He stayed and finished his meal.  My husband would have missed the whole thing, left to his own, not-nosy devices.  

Back to the volleyball game ---  

Two people over from where I am sitting, is my next suspect. She is a woman in her late-forties.  (I heard her tell someone that she was 47....)  Everytime someone on her daughter's team made a mistake, she would sigh loudly, and shake her head.  Two mistakes in a row, and she would shout, "GET IN THE GAME.  GET THE BALL OVER, GIRLS."  (Isn't that kind of obvious?  This is Volleyball 101, getting the ball over.)  Third mistake?  Ohhh boy. This brings her to her feet, leaning dangerously over the row in front of her, red-faced, stabbing her finger at the players screaming, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?  TALK TO EACH OTHER. MOVE.  ARE YOU PLAYING VOLLEYBALL OR NOT????"  Then she sits down, looking exhausted.  Now wouldn't you just have loved to be her daughter?  Your mom, who probably needs a quick blood pressure check and a Valium IV, sitting in the bleachers, not there to celebrate the good stuff you're doing, but to keep a running critical commentary of your game. 

I mean this is the kind of rage someone would be justified in having if their grandmother just got run over.  Twice.   

And we wonder why our current generation has no manners???? She certainly didn't discriminate....everyone was an equal opportunity target for her rage.  Refs, kids, coaches. My mom would have said that she was "spitting nails". 

Either way....this woman spent the same twelve hours on the bleachers that we did.  She spent it screaming.  We spent it watching our daughter get some wonderful hits, and make some mistakes.  Life, right?  She is the reason that parents now have to sign "Code of Conduct" agreements.  I kept thinking to myself, "Why in the world is this woman so upset about high school volleyball?"  What am I missing here?  Why the rage?  Why the screaming?"  

I wonder how she would react if the next time she made a mistake, those around her reacted the way she did.   

Grandpa's Arms

by

Patti Dickinson

Just the other day my daughter Elizabeth came over for a visit with her daughter, Piper. Elizabeth is eight months pregnant with our fourth grandchild.  Piper went over to the kitchen window and saw our newly hammered-to-the-tree birdhouse.  She walked over to my husband, Wood and said, "Birdhouse"?  He took her hand, arranged her poncho and took her outside.  I watched from the window.  They walked hand-in-hand out to the tree, and he stooped to pick her up to allow her to look inside the house.  Just a few solitary moments together outside.  A grandpa and his granddaughter.  

Gave me pause....watching this man of mine who I have shared thirty-four years of marriage and raised eight kids with.  I wonder how many times he has bent over and scooped a kid into his arms.  To swing in circles in his arms, to bandage a bloody knee, to read a story, to lull to sleep, to quiet a nightmare, to buckle into a carseat, to haul out of a restaurant when the behavior fell apart.  

Now he is polishing those rusty skills and reinventing himself as a grandfather.