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My Little Garbage Collector A mom discovers her influence over her daughter. Page 5
Unsure One mom’s honest reflections on her feelings about pregnancy #2 Page 21
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| This Issue |
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8 Cover photo taken by Annette Steele at a market in the Republic of Djibouti, Africa. Visit Anette and Ed’s “Diary of a Circumnavigation” sv-doodlebug.com All internal photos/ sketches are from istockphoto.com unless otherwise noted.
Editor in Chief & Publisher Heather Janssen Contributing Editors Corey Radman Abra Houchin, Assistant to the Editor Stephanie Rayburn Design Director & Chief Designer Makeesha Fisher Copy Editor Kirstan Morris Marketing Consultant Kyndra Wilson
Editor’s Note
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Cultural Views from the Motherworld My Little Garbage Collector Rachael E. Jones
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Wipers: Unite! Tenley French
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Thoughts and Perspectives The Changing Names of Motherhood Lynn Dean 10 A Visit to the Surgeon Kim Spencer 13
21 Photos & Submissions Wanted!! We are always accepting cover photos, interior photos, visual art and written submissions (essays, short fiction, poetry, shreds). Please email all submissions to submit@ getbornmag.com and include a title and bio with written submissions and a caption and title (optional) along with your name and location with photos. We want to hear from you! Shreds & Comments: letters@getbornmag.com
Go With the Flow Corey Radman
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Advertising: advertise@getbornmag.com
Confessions from a Supermom Heather Schichtel
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Honest mother lit.: submit@getbornmag.com. Title your piece and include a short bio at the end.
Fiction James Brown is Alive and Doing Laundry in South Lake Tahoe Stefanie Freele
get born reserves the right to edit any submissions for quality and clarity.
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Naked Truth Unsure Katie Harris
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Circumcision Christiana Thomas
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Poetry Four AM Kim Spencer
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Winter, 2009
Long before entering the ranks of
My Little Garbage Collector
her character
Rachel E. Jones
was being
adulthood,
molded and shaped by the quality of what I left behind.
Maggie and I walked hand in hand down the bumpy dirt road in Djibouti. “Wait, mommy,” she said and bent to the ground. A flock of crows burst from a Neem tree, filling the air with hurtling black bodies and curdling caws. I didn’t look at what had attracted Maggie’s attention for another two blocks.
Somali language lessons, broken crayons, pink plastic ice cream spoons, sparkling rocks and broken shells, dried-up pens and a wad of grocery store receipts were tucked away under the pillow, lifting it off the bed. I sat, stunned, on the edge of the mattress. Why would Maggie collect this junk? What made her dig through our trash? Pick up filthy garbage from the street? Hold on to used spoons? She had a closet full of toys and books, maybe not as many as she would own if she lived in America, but certainly enough to keep her busy in Djibouti.
“Look what I found!” she boasted. I glanced down and yelped. “Drop it!” I shouted.
Was collecting trash a sign of a deeper issue? Was she trying to send me a message? Maybe she was feeling insecure after our emergency evacuation from Somalia. Maybe she feared losing all our possessions again. Maybe she hated going back and forth from the US to Africa and was trying to cling to whatever stability she could find. I began watching Maggie play, analyzing what she was attracted to and mentally noting every item she tucked into her garbage collection. The collection expanded from under the pillow to a small cupboard and now included empty green strawberry baskets, broken hair binders and half of a miniature Djiboutian flag. The door barely shut and I wondered when she would need to move her collection to a closet. An intriguing pattern emerged in Maggie’s hoarding. She seemed most powerfully drawn to objects I had recently used. She eagerly reached for receipts at the store and slipped them into her pocket. She waited in the kitchen
Before I could swat at her wrist, Maggie dropped the bloody syringe and tubing to the ground. She looked up at me and her lower lip began to tremble. Tears filled her eyes as she kicked at the needle, sending puffs of dirt up around our ankles. “That could make you very sick, honey,” I said. “You can’t pick up everything you see on the ground.” Maggie wouldn’t speak to me the rest of the way home. I hadn’t paid much attention to Maggie’s habit of collecting garbage until she couldn’t sleep on her pillow any longer. She curled into a ball in the middle of her bed, an arm draped over her My Little Kitty pillowcase. While she was at kindergarten one morning, I went snooping. Scraps of discarded office paper, notebooks filled with old 5
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while I washed the strawberries and asked for the basket. I flicked snapped hair binders into the garbage and she was there, scooping them out. I realized that I didn’t have a daughter with a compulsive fear of losing everything. She had been too young when we left Somalia to know what was happening anyway. I didn’t have a daughter who lacked an appropriate amount of toys. I didn’t have a daughter who hated being a third culture kid; transported between two worlds. I had a daughter. And she wanted to be like me. While some of what Maggie collected was truly trash, the vast majority of her treasures mirrored my actions and my values. I kept a box of memorabilia from Somalia in my closet, so she gathered what she considered memorable from Djibouti, including used syringes, to keep in her collection. My recipe box overflowed with scribbled-on index cards and recipes clipped from American magazines.
“Where did you get that?” I said as I ripped it off his finger. He pointed at Maggie. She ducked her head and I ordered Henry to go wash his hands. “And where did you get it, Maggie?” “The trash can in your bathroom,” she said, her cheeks pink. “What is it?” “It’s garbage, is what it is,” I said. Her eyes were wide and curious and I read into her mind. I just want to be like you, mommy. “Do you like to have the things I use when I’m done with them?” She nodded. “How about if, when I’m done, I show something to you and then you can decide if you want it or not?” “Okay.” “If I don’t show you something, you can’t have it.” “Okay.” She grinned. Now she was free. I had given her the honor of choosing when to copy me and when not to, rather than dictating it. I stared at my daughter. She looked like me, she sounded like me, she imitated me, she collected pieces of me. A precious weight settled onto my chest as the implication sunk in. At least for now, I was her role model. I was both humbled and amazed. What kind of woman did I want Maggie to become? Maggie was always watching, picking up on subtle clues to the mystery of my adult world she was eager to join and yet terrified to be absorbed by. The clues she followed were the ones I threw out or gave away. She was free to experiment; to organize recipes, to pretend to study a foreign language, to discover what was hygienic or not, to know when to help the poor. Long before entering the ranks of adulthood, her character was being molded and shaped by the quality of what I left behind. ❀ Rachel Jones lives a semi-nomadic lifestyle in the Horn of Africa. She has lived in three African nations and currently resides in Djibouti with her husband and 3 children.
After trying and disliking a new meal, I threw the papers away. Maggie retrieved them and formed a miniature collection. When I determined it was time to deliver handme down clothing to the Ethiopian refugees living behind our house, she rescued a shirt of mine to wear as pajamas, then picked through her clothes and filled a plastic bag to give away. Before my eyes, she was turning into a young woman, forming habits based on what she observed in me. I had always imagined my daughter would imitate me in some way but generally I thought of it in terms of trying on my makeup or slipping on my high heels. I wasn’t sure how to guide her regarding which discarded items to hold on to or which collecting habits to mimic, so I did nothing. Until the tampon. Maggie’s twin brother Henry came to dinner one night and held his hands under the table. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “My finger’s stuck,” he said. “In what?” “I don’t know.” “Show me,” I said. He pulled his hand out. His middle finger was stuck in a white cardboard tampon applicator. 6
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Cultural Views from the Motherworld www.getbornmag.com
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W i pers : U n i te ! Tenley French
“
To be a
My name is Tenley French and I am a Stay-At-Home Mom. I am twenty months into my full-time SAH status, and it has taken me almost that long to openly volunteer that information to those with whom I am not well acquainted. In the beginning, I desperately hoped that people wouldn’t ask. It was pathetic. I would completely change the course of a conversation, stay clear of personal survey or financial applications and even avoid old acquaintances and coworkers to prevent being posed the dreaded question: “What do you do?”
housewife is ... a difficult, a wrenching, sometimes an ungrateful job if it is looked
After I realized that complete avoidance was impossible, I experimented with alternative descriptions. “I’m working at home now” backfired when followed by further inquiries of the nature of my work. I started picturing the multitude of paying jobs that ARE accomplished from home. It felt misleading to put myself in that category – my days are usually monetary sinks.
on only as a job. Regarded as a profession, it is the noblest as it is the most ancient of the catalogue. Let none persuade us differently or the world is lost indeed. ~ Phyllis Mcginley
”
Another answer I used for a while took the form of, “Well, in my previous life I....and now I’m at home.” But, that suggested some serious insecurity. They weren’t asking what I did in the past. I may as well have mentioned my graduate school GPA to further demonstrate my need to compensate. My final attempt – humble downplay – was simply, “I’m just a Mom.” But that was misleading from every angle imaginable. Again, it didn’t accurately answer the question, as many women are successful both as a mother and in their job. Also, it was a disparaging something I choose to do. The word ‘just’ caused me to cringe, but I found myself resorting to it again and again.
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I reached the zenith of my identity issue during an aerobic class at my neighborhood gym. I raised my hand when the instructor asked if anyone was new and she responded by asking IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, “Great, and what do you do for a living?” I blushed - visibly - stammered, looked at the tennis shoes in standing in front of me and mumbled something to the nature of, “Um...I’m a Mom... at home.” I found myself wishing she had asked me only three months prior, when I still worked. I was shocked by my own degree of embarrassment. When had this choice, this opportunity, evolved into a shameful confession?
for you,” I extrapolate their thoughts with, ‘but not for me.’ Have I succumbed to the same misogyny that permeates our society? Does the problem originate with my own insecurity? Should I list my years as a “home-maker” on my curriculum vitae, or will I be laughed out of the job interview? Should I stop whining and start appreciating an opportunity that millions of women world-wide wouldn’t take for granted? YES. The whole issue stirs up something simmering and angry and intangible inside me. I want to stand on my countertops, with the perfect not-too-scratchy but suitably-stainscourging dish rag in arms and shout, “Wipers, Unite!”
Twenty months ago I was working as a scientist for a small bio-tech company. I was listed as the Primary Investigator on the federal grant that provided our funding. I had a laptop, an office, multiple scientific publications and three years of post-graduate experience in a 4th story laboratory with an unobstructed view of Long’s Peak. Alright, so the laptop belonged to the company and the windowless office was shared with an enormous instrument and a graduate student, but the view from my lab bench was truly breathtaking.
Because, if all of the Mothers – no matter what we call ourselves and regardless of our vocational status – can take a greater sense of pride in ourselves, then it would really help when we have to respond to that worthless question that in no way reflects WHO we are and HOW we are capable. Let’s start a movement to encourage each other, challenge each other, and especially hire each other when and if we decide to resume our paying careers.
Having just one child, I worked part-time while my daughter was in day care. Aside from the occasional remorse at handing over my baby to her teachers twice a week, it was an ideal arrangement.
Let’s take pride in our answers, so that the next time I’m in the gym and someone asks me what I do, I can drop to the floor, gun out twenty push-ups and then innocently ask, “Is that what you meant, or do you want to see what I’m really capable of ?” ❀ Tenley works as a homemaking / youth-rearing engineer, now with a third child under her tutelage. In her free time (and sometimes during the forced “breaks” of her working hours), she enjoys listening to talk radio, planning exercise workouts that rarely materialize, reading scientific journals, managing her music collection on iTunes, engaging in fragmented and run-on conversations with colleagues in her field (i.e. fellow moms) and staring blankly into space. She is always game for philosophical musings on both the delights and gross injustices of her chosen occupation, especially over an Americano or a glass of red wine.
Almost exactly when my second daughter entered the world, my company’s federal grant expired. I looked on the timing as a ‘sign’ to follow through with myand my husband’s original intentions to have one of us stay home with the kids. I turned in my pipette for a baby monitor, and replaced my lab coat with chenille sweats. On a good day, I relish the time spent with my girls: giggling, teaching them to say and read words, watching them learn how to walk, run and attempt the yoga moves they see me do. On a bad day, I grumble, fantasize about going back to work, and refer to myself as a professional wiper. I wipe faces, bottoms, floors, counter-tops, clothes, car-seats and the memory of all prior accomplishment.
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Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy what I do. I am a damn fine wiper and I’ve even managed to delegate a few wiping roles to my three-year-old daughter. The problem lies with my embarrassment and hesitancy to admit as much.
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The shame that creeps into my voice when I describe my profession makes me indignant. Society says it values that sacrifice, but I, for one, don’t feel it. When people respond to my confession of staying home with “Good
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| Thoughts and Perspectives | The Changing Names of Motherhood Lynn Dean
There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger. -Agatha Christie
I
It must have been kids night at the restaurant. Every other booth was filled with little ones. An overly affectionate two-year-old caught my eye. “Mama, mama,” he pleaded reaching out to her as he tried to wriggle his way into her lap. With fork in one hand, knife in the other, the harried mother unsuccessfully tried to fend off his advances. “Tommy, sit down and eat your mac and cheese,” she said exasperated as she removed him from his new perch and plunked him down next to her. His puckered lips transformed into a frown. Could a disappointed whimper, or worse, wail be next? 10
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Oh, how I remember well the days when my name was “mama.” And sometimes I long for the loving adoration of a two-year-old. Not the temper tantrums, mind you, not the constant no’s, just that overflowing love accompanied by slobbery kisses and chubby hands reaching up, begging to be snuggled. In just the blink of an eye, my name went from “Mama” to “Mommy” to “Mom” and now to “Muuther.” There are no more chubby little hands reaching up to me asking for an “uppie.” Instead, I’m the “little one” reaching up. “I tower over you, Mother,” my 6'2" son who’s still growing, brags proudly, as if he had something to do with the genetic code at work inside of him. As if he were the one buying the eight tons of food he eats each week! (I had heard that growing boys eat a lot, but who knew “a lot” was this much!) My son’s chubby hands and stubby fingers have been replaced by a manly version replete with bulging veins. Today, if I want to kiss my son, I have to catch him first– not an easy task– he’s too quick and agile. Sometimes I try to sneak up on him and plant a soft kiss on his not-yet-fuzzy cheek, but all too often his keen hearing alerts him to my approaching attack and he jerks around scaring me out of my wits. Both girls are tall, too. I used to be tall– 5'8". What happened? Even the “baby” is taller than I am. Every now and then, when I unexpectedly get a glimpse of her, I’m taken aback by the girl-woman before me. What happened to the little curly haired child that followed me from room to room repeating “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” until she got my undivided attention? And who are these people that live in my house, anyway? My cheerful, always well-behaved children (not) have transformed into what can only be likened to aliens. Not the
mean, mom-eating kind (well, okay sometimes I wonder), but rather a cross between a childlike ET and an impish Wookiee. My aliens can sometimes show incredible kindness. Like the time my youngest teen made her older sister soup and toast just because she wasn’t feeling well. But just as quickly as Bill Bixby could transform from mildmannered doctor to the Incredible Hulk, my teens can go from sweet siblings to irritating monsters with perpetual cases of PMS. “Make him stop,” the youngest cries. “I’m not doing anything,” her brother interjects sheepishly, an innocent look pasted on his face. “Uh, huh,” the little one retorts, “He keeps throwing the ball up and down, up and down, up and down. He’s doing it just to bug me!” “I am not!” retorts the instigator. “I’m just amusing myself.” “Well go do it outside and leave me in peace,” I finally say once I can’t stand the bickering any more. Peace and quiet. It’s something I once longed for. Prayed for. Now, for the most part, my prayers have been answered, and many nights the house is eerily quiet. I no longer have to share my couch, or my television, with three little people who each want to watch something different. (That’s why God made VCR’s!) I no longer need to know the words to the Sesame Street song, or remember the name of King Friday’s son, Prince something or other. Now most nights, at least two of the three kids are gone. When they were toddlers, I could dream of nothing more than a few minutes alone. Now I long for just a few moments with each of my children. When they were preschoolers, they regaled me with every boring detail from the story of how Jimmy came to fall off the jungle gym to the chewing gum stuck Billy stuck in Melissa’s hair. Now I long for any little tidbit of information. I hope
for something more than a “fine” when I ask how the test went, or an “okay” when I ask about their day. When they were in kindergarten, I knew the answer to every questionthere was nothing I couldn’t do, at least in their minds. Today, it seems I know nothing. Today all that adoration I once endured has been transformed into exasperation. “You just want to control my life,” the littlest will spout. “You tell me what I can and cannot wear, what time to be home, and who I can hang out with! You say you’re protecting me, but you just want to control me!” Ah, the sweet sounds of motherhood! If the truth be told, I really enjoy the teenage years, outbursts and all. Every once in a while a teen will plop down beside me and tell me about her latest crush. Or, rarely, ask my advice on some meaty issue. Sometimes they will even tell me they love me. In those times all the crying, yelling, pouting and shouting are worth it. The aliens retreat, and my soon-to-be adults emerge stronger and ready to take on the world without me. And if, per chance, my name is once again Mommy, uttered in the softest of voices, it can only mean one thing. Somebody wants money!
❀ To Educate. To Inspire. To Entertain. Lynn M. Dean is a Colorado writer and mother of three. Her work has won first place awards from the National Federation of Press Women, a Parenting Publications of America Award of Excellence, and numerous first place awards from the Colorado Press Women. Lynn specializes in the areas of parenting, education, lifestyle, health and medicine, home and garden, women’s issues and beading. As a published writer for more than 25 years, she has written more than 500 articles which have appeared in over 100 different publications in 35 states.
W
When I was fourteen, a group of well-intentioned church leaders planned a kidnapping youth trip to the water park in the big city. They must have schemed for weeks to get all the permissions and transportation arrangements, even borrowing an RV to make the three hour drive more fun. When they snagged me from my bed at 5 a.m., they were giddy with anticipation. Somehow I’m going to have to teach her the trick I haven’t yet learned myself: let go. Situations beyond my control feel to me like being in water. It’s like I’m thrashing my way down a river, trying like hell to sail magnificently, but drowning instead. If I could float with the current and be buoyed by the chaos instead of trying to grab it and make it behave, maybe it would be easier.
All I remember about the experience was being incredibly annoyed that I hadn’t been told about it in advance. I bitched and moaned about every inconvenience all day long. “I already had plans. My mother forgot to pack a bra and she sent the stupid outfit that she bought. I hate this outfit. I don’t even like most of these people,” I whined. Sad, isn’t it? My ungrateful snottiness must have seemed appalling to those kind women, who kept encouraging me to, “Go with the flow.” All I have to offer in my defense is that I think I was born this way. I just can’t let go of power over my life like that. It’s hard to admit, but I am a huge control freak. I fear that by letting go I will be letting Important Matters slip away -- that I won’t be vigilant and appointments will be missed or someone will be hurt or irritated because I forgot something. I hate to disappoint people. In my adult endeavors, I have mostly figured out how to work with or around my inner control freak. But mothering is a different matter entirely.
Floating seems like a reasonable goal, even for control freaks like us. However, lurking in the back of my mind is the fear that by letting go of some of those details bobbing beyond my fingertips, I’ll be letting something crucial slip away. Someone, somewhere might be let down. To let the details drift off like floaty toys at the pool is to trust to luck that mistakes won’t happen.
The whole point of mothering is to turn control, bit by bit, over to these little people who still pick their noses and suck their thumbs. How, when they’re so little, is it possible to be confident in their judgment? To complicate matters, my daughter has many of the same attributes that I do. At a play date today at our house, she followed the other girl around taking all of the toys out of her hand, saying, “No you can’t play with that because it’s mine.”
All that vigilance takes time and effort. I seem to constantly be taming the minutia of life rather than spending time on endeavors that could really affect change in my life or in my family’s. I think it’s that way for a lot of moms. If I can’t really ensure a perfect day, then at least I can ensure that the laundry is done perfectly. My daughter is grabby and bossy, but the grocery shopping and subsequent dinners are nutritious and wholesome. “Nope,
It’s hard for me to watch. Sadly, she shares my genes. My girl is a huge control freak too. I worry that I have somehow passed on these self-centered traits. I remember doing the same things to playmates, who eventually decided that they just didn’t want to play with me. There were a lot of lonely recesses for me. I would feel like a terrible failure if she endured the same, self-induced exile. 12
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Thoughts and Perspectives www.getbornmag.com
Go
my daughter and I are learning to float. We go to the pool every Tuesday. Me in a bikini with a huge pregnant belly, my daughter in her sparkly mermaid swimsuit: together we practice letting go. We relax, lay back, and try not to panic. It’s behavioral therapy in the shallow end. Zen meditation with floaty toys.
W
no high-fructose corn syrup in there,” I think. I’m subtly aware that time spent reading labels in the store is time I could be feeding my soul by writing, or walking, or drinking beer in the sunshine. But I couldn’t do that – dinner wouldn’t get made!
ith The Flow
Maybe we’ll figure it out together… at least for a little while. To be honest, though, I could really use a pair of water wings.
Corey Radman
I can’t avoid every mistake and I definitely can’t control my four-year-old’s behavior. I know that. Mothering is different than the other jobs I have had in my life, where a goal was set, and then I followed the plan and completed it.
❀ Corey Radman is a writer and mother living in Fort Collins, who tries not to let the most neurotic parts of her personality show too much. She is a contributing editor for get born magazine.
We relax, lay back,
This job didn’t come with a set of plans and I’ll never really know which of the things I say or do for my daughter every day will have an impact. If mothering is about letting go, how will I ever know which worries to release? The organic snacks? Learning to share? Swimming lessons? The details I grip so tightly sometimes really are a matter of crucial importance, and sometimes they’re just noise.
and try not to panic. It’s behavioral therapy in the shallow end. Zen meditation with floaty toys. Maybe
The one thing that gives me hope is the knowledge that most of us (and our mothers) muddled through somehow and we survived to adulthood. Most of the people I know seem to function without having grabby tantrums and don’t look like they suffered any toxic poisonings from their childhood food.
we’ll figure it out together… at least for a little while. To be honest, though, I could really use a pair of water wings.
To try to work toward that goal of releasing the worries, 13
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I awoke at 4 with the back of a cat Pressed against my face I stroked The soft warm body Tempting to star t its engines Little cars to run around my brain It remained quiet and unwilling Like an exhausted lover. My little daughter sensing awakeness In her room Joins me in my bed Taking over it entirely Making snorkeling sounds like an old man Having a bad dream. Reaching out to feel if I am still there I place a pillow in her grasp And arise to put kettle to flame To taste the brown hot Warmth of the day. I welcome the slipper y honey of bees And cur ve of spoon On my tongue And tr y to avoid thinking Of it as bee vomit When I swallow The sweet glob of amber Like the eyes of my dog. I drink in a memor y While at the computer Clattering my spoon I search for poetr y To read To inspire And find myself forming one Instead. There’s beauty in the solitar y early morning Of writing Before the car toons and noise of children Jostle the house cat awake
Four AM Kim Spencer
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The Visit to the Surgeon Kim Spencer
We arrive at the surgeon’s office through a referral for my daughter’s minor hernia. As we sit in the waiting room, I convince her that everything is going to be fine, no worries, she’ll make it no problem on that fateful day. The only problem is I haven’t reassured myself. I have this nagging worry about my child having surgery and don’t want to think about her mortality.
She applies a cold compress to my forehead and my feet are elevated by some unseen assistant. The tieclad gentleman’s identity comes back to my horror. I’ve passed out in front of my daughter’s surgeon. I can only imagine he’s embarrassed and feeling useless, as the conscientious nurse fusses over me insisting on getting a wheel chair, which I adamantly refuse since I am only footsteps from the examination table.
When discussing her current status, prognosis, and the duration of healing with her surgeon, all of this information sits well with me. There is no chair grasping wooziness, no pant unbuttoning nausea, no unbearable heat that causes me to strip off my fleece top. That is, not until the explicit details come out. “Here is where the incision will be made….intestine poking through….tying off…. sewing up….anesthesia….” As the particulars are described vivid detail, I begin to check out. My daughter smiles at the doctor’s joke, while I grasp my chair trying to remain conscious. Stupidly, I stand and ask where the bathroom is so that I can better deal with my irrational terror.
I look for my daughter, the source of my unsteadiness. She sits on the doctor’s examining table where I’d left her, staring down at me. “Mom,” she declares, “you’re so embarrassing!” Don’t I know it. It’s refreshingly reassuring to know I haven’t been drugged and date raped, but humiliating to realize I’ve fallen over like a fat slob onto the floor. I can only hope I fell gracefully and didn’t fart or pull the doctor’s back out as he reached to catch me. I apologize profusely to the nurse and doctor while my daughter moans, “Mommm!” When I am back in my chair, feeling slightly wobbly with an apple juice chaser in my hand, I chat with my daughter about my dramatic collapse. “I’ve always wanted to pass out, but never could,” she declares. “How’d you do it?” My impressionable daughter is awed by my ability to pass out as if it’s a beautiful thing. It’s really my way of avoiding the terrifying possibility of losing her, but I can’t tell her this.
That’s when my dramatic downfall begins. I could have passed out in the chair, feigned sleepiness, blamed it on a narcoleptic disorder or some religious epiphany, but instead I swoon like a damsel in distress and topple over onto the floor. Now this gray haired man wearing a tie has his face dangerously close to mine and I feel all woozy and boneless so I can’t smack him -- though I want to. Waking up on a floor not knowing how I got there nor whose face is looking into mine is a humbling, frightening experience.
So we laugh instead as we make our way out the office door and down the elevator to leave. She puts me in my place as a mom by reminding me of my clumsy mom-ness and inelegant descent, “You know you had your pants button undone!” Great. I laugh, hoping her doctor doesn’t really know what I was thinking when I shrieked into his face. After all, I am placing my child’s life in this man’s hands.
I cry out, immediately convinced of the worst; I’ve been drugged, kidnapped and dragged somewhere by a homicidal sicko for some perverted purpose. In moments, however, my heated sluggishness begins to wear off and a woman tells me, “You’re at our doctors’ office. You passed out.”
❀ Kim Spencer is an elementary school teacher in Fort Collins. She's trying to perfect more graceful moves these days.
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“You are such a great mother.” This statement always takes me aback. I guess I should be flattered. Friends and family say it and I smile, thank them and try to change the subject. When I hear it from total strangers however, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Who are you? How long have you been watching us? Did I scratch my butt? Pick my nose? Make a disparaging remark to my husband?
Confessions
from a Supermom Heather schichtel
I am not used to the attention that comes with a special needs child. When I hear the great mother comment I am tempted to come back with something smart-assed. Really? ‘Cuz I just shotgunned a beer in the bathroom. Or Aww gee thanks, my parole officer thinks so too. My favorite is “You are such a good mother for taking care of her.” Well thanks but, did I have a choice? She is after all my daughter and I love her more than oxygen, water or red wine but really, I didn’t sign up for tube feedings, seizures, therapy and the many issues that come with being Samantha’s mom. And I would give my right arm, left leg, heart and soul to make her better. Am I still a great mother? I am a mom. I have days when the TV is on, when Samantha is wiggling around on the floor, perhaps a little too long before being repositioned. I have nights; 2:00 in the morning when Samantha is still awake and I am wandering around the house raking my sleep-deprived brain for another strategy to get her to sleep. I curse God, rage at the heavens and console myself with yet another glass of wine.
“I will pray for you.”
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Heather Schichtel is a free-lance writer, parent advocate and full time mom to her daughter Samantha. You can follow their story at www.samsmom-heathers.blogspot.com or contact Heather directly at heather.schichtel@gmail.com
I really do appreciate this one. Any healing thoughts sent off into the universe are a good thing. However, after a tough night when I have told the world what I think of its crappy divine plan for me, when I have flipped off the heavens with both fingers, I am really tempted to say. “Well thank you but you might want to wait a day or two; God and I are in the midst of a heavy duty argument. You might not get through.” I did not write this as my pity party. Well, okay, maybe I did. Bring some Ritz crackers, and that really funky orange cheese in the squeeze can. We can talk about your pain, my pain, examine the ingredients of that funky orange cheese and perhaps the ingredients of our lives. As parents, as humans, as people in this world, we all have pain. Just because my pain, my daughter’s disability, is visible to the world doesn’t make anyone else’s pain any less real. It certainly doesn’t make me a better mother.
“That which doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger.” I have evaluated the super-beings with super-human strength and they all have issues. The Incredible Hulk, major anger issues. King Kong, a great big monkey with an attachment disorder. Even Superman lived a life hiding his true 16
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Thoughts and Perspectives www.getbornmag.com
identity,misunderstood and yearning to belong. I don’t want to be any stronger. Because it’s just not fair is it? Whatever our pain may be: a disabled child, an ailing parent, cancer, divorce, foreclosure; it’s not the life we signed up for. When I imagined my married, parental life years ago it did not include anything messy or ugly. It did not include tough decisions. It did not include being such a grown up.
“Life is not fair.”
“
Unfortunately
this earth is not.. .
My Grandma, Emma Mae, used to say this to me when I didn’t get my way. I used to think that life was not fair because my brother cheated at monopoly or he got the bigger slice of pizza. My reaction would be to stomp my feet, throw a couple pillows around, pout in the corner. It still is, but no one thinks it’s cute anymore. Emma Mae never told me that the UN-fairness in life is doled out in disease, poverty, death. No one told me that ecstasy and despair are secret bedfellows and that they walk hand in hand. As an adult, moments of shear joy are coupled with moments of pain so intense it’s like someone ripped your heart out of your chest. And I used to think fairness was all about the last slice of pizza. I now relish the days where I truly am the Supermom. I puff out my chest. Give my best profile shot and stare knowingly into the horizon, my cape flowing in the wind. I’m smarter now though. I keep an eye on my back. The heavens are smiling down, and yet still recording the last time I flipped them the double bird. I now keep my pink Wellies and a bottle of Merlot by the door. You never know when life’s muddy slog will get the best of you.
a fairy-land, but a struggle for life, perfectly natural and therefore extremely harsh. ~ Martin Bormann
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SHRED The progression of a marriage: After being married to my husband, John, for almost 54 years now, I can look back and mark the phases of our marriage by the questions John asked me when he came home in the evening. Before children: “How was your day?” After the first child: “What did you do today?” After the second child: “How did it go today?” After the third child: “Did you get anything done today?” During the teen years: “What was your day like?” Back at work with the children out of the house: “How was your day?” Now in our 70s, as we live with the aches and pains of aging, it has become: “How do you feel today?” The end-of-the-day question has always been tenderly asked and my responses patiently listened to, and that may be one good reason why our marriage has lasted so long. Jimmie Snider, mother of 3, a grandmother of 3, and a great-grandmother of 1
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Stu is driving to South Lake Tahoe, to take his postpartum-strained woman to the snow, to take his nineweek-old infant through a storm, to take his neglected Stefanie Freele dog on a five hour car ride, and to take himself into his woman’s good graces. And, he’s hungry. Even though Stu has considered more than once, stopping the car on the whitened highway and plunging himself over a cliff so he could plop into a cozy pile of snow and hide until his wife is logical again or the baby is able to tend to itself, he’s not dressed warmly enough for months or years in a snowbank, has no snacks in his jacket, and he must focus on The Family.
James Brown Is Alive & Doing Laundry In South Lake Tahoe
The Family is: the woman, Stu, their baby, the dog. It is almost blizzarding, the windshieldwiper fluid is frozen, the window is frosted, the dog is antsy, the baby whimpering, the woman – who should be happy, she nagged for days to go to the snow – is intermittently admiring the snow and whining about cramped legs. Stu is trapped, by the car, The Family, his own legs, and the snow, which is falling, falling, falling.
This story was originally published by Flash Fiction Online and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Megan’s legs are killing her, mostly because her shoes don’t fit. Her man thinks that her feet will go back to a previous size after she loses the last eleven pounds. No shoes fit and she just knows her three-hundred-dollar ski boots will be terrible. She removes her shoes – she should have done this miles ago- and feels instant relief. She is also relieved that the baby is calm. The baby coos and says “eh” and “oooh” and wiggles his little fists. The dog lies with her head on the baby’s carseat. Megan remarks that this is adorable. Her man grunts. Phillip, who is nine weeks old and does not have control of his muscles just yet, sees the dog’s head and would like to touch her, especially the black circle around the dog’s eye, however Phillip’s little fists go every which way, but not that way. He grunts little noises when his fists don’t do what he wants them to do. Beebop, the dog, wishes she had a yellow squeaker toy. Like the one at home. The yellow one sitting on her roundy bed. If she had the yellow squeaker toy, she would squeak it and thrust it into the fist of the baby. Perhaps the baby would throw it for her, because her man and woman never throw anything anymore. Stu is afraid to talk because his woman might cry again. She cries a lot lately, even though he is working harder than he ever has before, he is bringing in a good paycheck, and is taking The Family on their first vacation. Instead, he is silent. The snow is falling, falling, falling, and he thinks he might just have to pull over, run out into the snow and scream into the darkening forest. But, then he might get lost, and have to eat his horse, like the Donner party. But he doesn’t have a horse, and the Donner party ate themselves and their horses in North Lake Tahoe, not South. They didn’t have cell phones. Megan is trying not to cry. She is sick of being fat, sick of being a milk machine, sick of not having her own income, sick of being dependent on her man, and sick of not knowing what to do when the baby cries. It is her first baby and sometimes she doesn’t think she has any idea of what she is doing. She feels like an imposter and is terrified someone will catch on very soon and point at her, yell at her, and take her child away from her, because
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she is a crybaby. She knows this is stupid and feels like crying even more when she realizes the stupidity of her stupidity. Phillip watches the dog blink and this is interesting. But, a flailing fist pops up and punches Phillip in the eye and he lets out a cry. Beebop curls into a ball away from the crying baby who has just punched himself in the eye. The cries are a lot like the sound of her squeaker toy and Beebop lets out a worldweary sigh. Stu hears the dog sigh, the baby cry, and notices his woman’s discomfort. He is helpless and wants to say something, but knows if he says anything, anything at all, even something he thinks is nice, or helpful, or pleasant, or cheerful, his woman might weep. And then he’d have two criers and one sigher. Megan squirms and through the snow reads the signs on the hotels and restaurants. The car stops at a red. In front of a laundromat, on the sidewalk, stands a dark man with black hair in a leather jacket. He wiggles thick eyebrows up and down and squints in the snow as he smokes a cigarette. Megan speaks. “Hey, look, James Brown.” Phillip hears his mother’s voice – her happy voice – and pauses. Beebop lets her tail wag once and sits up. Mom’s happy. Mom’s happy. Stu catches sight of the man. His woman is correct: there stands a guy that looks just like a happy James Brown. “He’s alive and doing laundry.” Stu says. The man’s eyebrows wiggle. He looks over toward The Family and opens up his jacket revealing a shirt that reads glittery, “Giving Up Food For Funk.”
❀ Stefanie Freele’s short story collection “Feeding Strays” will be released by Lost Horse Press in 2009. She has a MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts:Whidbey Writers Workshop and has recently been added to the editorial staff of SmokeLong Quarterly.
Stu’s woman grins. “It is James Brown, downtown.” The dog studies James Brown while whapping her tail on the baby’s car seat. The baby says “oooo oooo.” “Right on, Right on.” Stu presses the button, lowering the windows. Cold pine air drifts in. His woman lets her arm out and brings back snowflakes on her sweater to show everyone.
SHRED My sister and her husband regularly take their kids to church. They also take the two boys (3-year-old Riley and 8-week-old Griffin) up for communion where the boys receive a blessing from the pastor. We’re Lutherans. Amy says she’s never really sure how much Riley gets out of the service, but she was surprised when later in the day he came over while she was feeding Griffin a bottle and gently placed his hand on his little brother’s head. “Oh little one,” he said. “Fall off the ghost.” Amy was puzzled so she asked Riley to repeat what he said. He did and then she asked, “Do you mean Father, Son and Holy Ghost?” “That’s what I said,” he replied. “Fall off the ghost.” Amy Geddes mother of two sons, Riley, 4 and Griffin, 6 months
naked truth
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photo from istockphoto.com
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Unsure
Katie Harris
“Aren’t you excited?” Well-meaning friends and relatives ask the inevitable question. I answer “I just need some time to get used to the idea,” or, “Reality just hasn’t sunk in yet” depending on the audience. The truth? No. Not even a little. Not even an ounce. From the moment I saw those two evil little pink lines appear on the stick I knew that this would be nothing like last time. My first pregnancy: I made a scavenger hunt for my husband to discover the news when he got home from work. I walked around with a stupid grin on my face for the entire nine months, not letting anything get me down. I was nice!! I had names picked out, the nursery painted and decorated, and adorable onesies in every age group washed and ready to be worn, all by the start of my second trimester. I rubbed my belly constantly, and talked and sang to the little tadpole like a crazy person. At the end of a relatively easy labor, I stayed up for three straight days just staring in awe at my baby girl and thanking my lucky stars. Preggo number 2: I called my husband, alternately screaming and sobbing. My exact words were, “Why am I pregnant?” I am cranky, tired, and have no interest in taking care of my husband or daughter. I am a fucking bitch. Only name so far: “This mess;” as in “you got me into this mess...” I listen to Raffi with my one-year-old all day. There will be no singing. My first delivery was far too easy– I can’t get that lucky twice can I? And as for thanking my lucky stars... there’s been far more cursing of them thus far. My husband and I always planned on having another baby, we just didn’t plan on having one this soon. So
when I innocently took the pregnancy test due to the most indiscreet of symptoms, I never really thought I could be pregnant. Maybe that was the problem– I wasn’t desperately waiting, praying for a positive result. Rather, it was more of an afterthought; a sweeping glance as I walked out of the bathroom on my way to school. A glance that turned my world upside down. My husband is excited. Our family is excited. I hope that some of their excitement will rub off on me, but it hasn’t happened. Instead, I remain somewhere between denial and failure to care whatsoever. I wonder if this is how all parents of “surprise” children feel. I sign up for one of those websites that
e-mail you each week with pictures of how your baby’s growing. I go to my doctor appointment and listen to the heartbeat, feigning a smile when they look my way. But none of it ignites a spark. I am worried. What if my attitude doesn’t change? What if I never get motivated to choose a name, or paint the new nursery, or go through my daughter’s outgrown clothes? And scariest of all, what if the baby comes and I don’t love him? What if I never do? I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, that I’ll come around. I try to believe that it’s impossible not to love your own baby. But I’ve been telling myself these things for a while now and nothing has changed. I never imagined I’d be telling my husband “not right now” when he asked me how I wanted to decorate the nursery. I have reasons for my less-than21
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joyfulness. I have yet to finish my under grad degree which I have been patiently working on for several years now between work and child-rearing. We are flat broke and I am insuranceless. I don’t have as much time for my daughter now as I’d like and the thought of taking any more time from her to give to a new baby sickens me inside. I recently quit breast-feeding and for the first time in two years my body is all mine again. Honestly, I’ve only lately been able to enjoy a full night’s sleep and jeans that fit again, and I’m not ready to give those things up. And knowing how selfish that sounds only makes me feel worse. I obsess over little things, like how I’ll get the grocery shopping done with two babies, or whether my daughter will be able to sleep through the new baby’s midnight wails. I receive constant reassurance from friends and family members who have been in the same situation, but I have yet to hear any real solutions. The one I do hear a lot is “just wait until your husband’s home to go do anything.” I may be alone on this, but I do not do well crammed in the house all day. Even if I have to carry a car seat on each arm, I will be going out. I want my sleep back, I want my wine back, and I want my sex-life back. But now it’s going to be another year or two, and I’ve got to deal with that. So I guess this is how I deal. By just ignoring it. I know it won’t go away but at least I won’t lose my sanity worrying. Maybe as my belly starts to expand and I feel those first little flutters of feet kicking, I’ll come around. After all, it’s impossible not to love your own baby... right?
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Katie Harris is a to-be mother of two and a senior in journalism at Colorado State who is learning that the older she gets, the more she has left to learn.
Circumcision
Christiana Thomas
In two months I will give birth to a baby boy, or so I’m told. Not that I have many doubts. On my refrigerator is a series of three ultrasound pictures from when the little guy was 20 weeks old: the first two show a lovely face in profile, growing ribs, and tiny hands; The third is a full-on crotch shot with boy parts in obvious black and white relief. I leave the pictures up mostly so I can enjoy watching friends squint and then squirm as they realize what they’re looking at, but also to remind myself of what will soon be happening. This one is a boy. The little fetal penis is causing some amount of concern in my household, namely around the matter of circumcision. My husband is for it. He’s circumcised, as is just about everyone he knows, and he wants our son to grow up feeling that he has a normal penis. I’m against it, on the admittedly shaky logical grounds that elective surgery to alter an infant’s private parts just feels somehow wrong. And because my gut instinct is a pretty poor foundation on which to build a case that will convince my husband, I set about looking for facts to justify my opinion.
circumcise, he would let me know that he has no lasting psychological scars as a result of his own circumcision, and that would be the end of that argument. Second, we’re told that grown men have better sex when they’re left uncircumcised. Again, this is probably a valid assessment, but it is clearly a solution in search of a problem. My own husband seems quite happy with his sexual experience, if perhaps somewhat less satisfied with its frequency. And this seems to be the norm among the circumcised. Based on a completely unscientific survey of my friends (Happy hour; half-price margaritas), it’s pretty clear that my fellow mothers’ main sexual complaint is not that their husbands don’t like sex. I am frankly unequal to the logical task of convincing my husband that liking sex even more than he currently does would be an advantage. On the other side of the divide are the Jews, and some members of the medical community. Since we are confirmed Goy in my household, I don’t feel too terribly swayed by the cultural tradition argument. The main medical arguments for circumcision consist of the fact that circumcised boys are extremely unlikely to get a urinary tract infection in the first year of their lives, and later when they are sexually active, they are less likely to either contract or spread STDs if exposed to them (see the Mayo Clinic website at www. mayoclinic.com/health/circumcision for more details).
I started my search the way one does anymore - on Google - but the internet turns out to be no help in providing information to guide our decision in a more reasoned way. On one side is a vocal group of mothers (backed up by some members of the medical community), who argue against the cutting loudly, in annoying fonts, with excessive use of boldface. Their argument consists of the following points: First, apparently, circumcision is excessively painful. Given what it is, I’m sure this is true. But we’re talking about a procedure performed with the assistance of local anesthesia, and pre-memory. I feel certain that if I tried to use the pain angle to convince my husband not to
So the sum total of all this is that moms who like me are reluctant to circumcise their boys make the choice to avoid inflicting pain, help them be more interested in sex, and make them better able to spread STDs to their female partners later in life. What are we thinking here? Having found nothing to bolster my intuitive conclusion 22
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Naked Truth www.getbornmag.com
on-line, I began polling my girlfriends about their attitudes toward circumcision. Amazingly, everyone proved more than willing—eager even---to tell me their feelings on the subject and to reveal the status of their husband’s and/or children’s privates. Again, I found that despite the logical conundrum involved, it’s almost uniformly the moms who are against the procedure, and the men who seem indifferent to or in favor of it. Occasionally, I’ll find a mom who is pro-circumcision for the cuteness factor, stating a basic preference for the appearance of a clean and “perky” (thank you, Seinfeld) appendage. Never having actually seen an adult male with an uncircumcised penis, I’ll have to take their word here, and yet, I can’t help but feel that this also rings hollow. I mean, penises don’t look especially cute regardless of what one does to dress them up (though many a gas station vending machine promises otherwise). Flipping through a Playgirl, I confess to finding the photos sort of hilarious - all those serious looking men dressed up as firefighters but otherwise naked. Ultimately, I think it’s a blessing that you don’t actually get to see the thing when you are in the middle of sex, or it might be challenging to retain your earnestness for the project. In the end, I suspect that if we opt not to circumcise, it will be on the basis of what has turned out to be a rather odd coincidence. My husband knows exactly one person his own age who is uncircumcised, and that guy happened to get a perfect score on the SATs, gained early admission to Harvard, and is now teaching at another Ivy League school. By asking around a bit during my pregnancy, I’ve found another fellow our age with an uncut penis, and he’s a great writer, physically active, and attended Cornell for his undergraduate studies. So among our social network anyway, there are only two uncircumcised men, both of whom are brilliant and boast an Ivy League education. I’m left with a horrifying thought: Is it possible that men actually do think with their dicks? I recognize that early acceptance to Harvard is a bit much to ask of an intact foreskin. And yet I can’t help but be at least a little bit convinced that there’s some connection there, and it’s this fact that I’m using to build my case. Our Ivy League friends have opted not to circumcise their own sons, meaning that if we go that route Junior won’t be the only boy in the locker room who looks different. At least the nerds and the children of other nerds will look like him. That’s good enough for me.
❀ Christiana spends most of her time breathing. Additionally, she writes grants, runs a tight ship, and cultivates a highly literary sense of righteous indignation. She is the mother of two children, one of whom has a very cute, uncircumsized penis.
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