He ain't heavy

I pseudo-lamented last year that our Christmas traditions have changed; the kids are getting older and the things we used to do, like sending them to bed at a reasonable hour so that we can spend an hour or two curled around each other on the sofa, have gone by the wayside. Last year we got home from church, and the kids stayed up. And it was all right; I missed that quite time with Char but realized that there will come a day when I'll wish the kids were all there there making more noise than I would like.

This year I expected more changes; the family is bigger, all the kids are older, and they had their own expectations about how we would celebrate. Alex was fully prepared to suck it up and go to church with us on the 24th, but the truth is that none of us have been to Mass in months, and I wasn't especially inclined to force everyone, myself included into dressing up and sitting through a service I was sure would leave both Alex and myself with a bitter taste. So we stayed home; the kids had friends over until early evening, when Brad and Craig showed up, and for the first time I can remember we spent Christmas Eve at home.

This was also the first Christmas I've spent with my brother in at least 3 decades. To be honest, I wasn't sure how it would go. He had his own traditions with his kids and grandkids and I knew he would miss them, and I really wasn't sure how the stress of being away from his kids would affect him. For his sake, it was an alcohol-free holiday; he wouldn't have said anything if there had been a bottle of wine or if Brad had brought a twelve pack of beer, but neither Char nor I wanted to shove that in his face. Brad was not thrilled, but only because his tradition includes a shot of something strong at midnight. He doesn't remember when he started it, but Char thinks it goes way back to when she was a toddler, but neither of them really remembers.

Weeks ago Char started to pepper Craig with questions about the things he typically did on Christmas. While nothing we did was going to take the sting out of not seeing his grandkids, she was certain that if we embraced a few of his traditions that it might help. And I think she was right; his thing at Christmas is baking, and our kids were all over it. After dinner they spent the evening in the kitchen with him baking cookies and a couple of pies; Char and I sat at the breakfast bar watching and keeping them company, and it was obvious Craig was in his element. I don't think it was the baking so much as it was that he had the kids' attention, cooperation, and more importantly, they hung on every word he said. It was loud and it was messy, but it was also wonderful to see.

The kids were up late into the night again; after the last of the cookies came out of the oven they broke out the board games again, and while Char and I cleaned up the baking mess they gave Craig a taste of what it's like to constantly lose to them.

Christmas day brought the rest of the family; the true test of Craig's ability to withstand the masses. With Erin and Miko's kids here, the noise level shoots through the roof, and it's a constant battle to keep the smallest ones from pulling down the tree, eating things off the floor they shouldn't, crawling or toddling into walls, bookcases, or the TV. Craig put himself in charge of keeping track of Thad and Alex laid claim to Travis, so that Mom and Dad could relax a bit; more than that, it turned into being something to really see, how well my brother interacts with the little kids, and how a grandfather he could be if he got a better chance at it.

I think next year, as his own kids relax about him, he'll have more opportunities to be a grandfather. I don't think he'll ever move back home, but as he holds tight to his sobriety, I see his kids being willing to bring theirs here to visit him. As it is, all of his boys called him on Christmas and he got to talk to most of his grandkids.

How Craig is doing and how determined he is, that's really the only gift I needed this year.

I am proud of him. That's not something I ever thought I would feel where he's concerned. But I am definitely proud of him.

He's been into the Beatles lately

Kevin, singing under his breath as we made our way through the mall in search of facilities:

Let me pee, let me pee, let me pee, oh let me pee; there must be a restroom, let me pee-eeeee

I don't think he realized he wasn't just singing in his head, which just made it funnier to us.

Just don't call him Twinkletoes

Last night was the second holiday dance recital Kevin has participated in. Last year he was the new kid, and as new as he was he held his own and did well enough that people were talking about it later. He showed grace and flexibility, but his creativity stood out. While last year was a mashup of musical genre and dancing styles (Kevin and the older kids who helped him out danced to Stray Cat Strut and were followed by ballet and then a wildly entertaining group Broadway number) they had a holiday theme this year and did most of the numbers in large groups.

One of the things I appreciate about this school is that the instructors allow the kids to explore their own ideas, and they come up with the basic ideas themselves; they flesh it out as a group and the teachers help with the final choreography. The end result is that the performances are fresh and original, a little quirky at times, and the kids really get into it. They don't wind up doing the same things year after year; there's no annual performance of something in particular and nothing written in stone that can't be changed on a whim. New students are taken as seriously as long time students, and there is firm encouragement for the more experienced kids to help their new friends.

The end result is a recital the parents enjoy as much, if not more than, the kids.

Kevin danced in more than half of the numbers this year, and I was blown away by how good he's gotten since last year, and last year I was amazed at his talent and composure. I had one of those moments; this isn't something Kevin does because it's a neat past time. This is something Kevin does because it's what he is.

He was good at TKD (something he still does once a week or so) but he's much more of a dancer than he ever was a martial artist.

Thump has mentioned those moments to me before, when you see your kid doing something and it all clicks into place, when it hits you that they have actually found their "bliss." Char and I were talking about that during intermission, how Thump was on Facebook during the intermission of Romeo and Juliet, talking about how her son can never stop acting. I thought I got it then, but I evidently didn't. But I got it last night.

Granted, I grasp that Kevin is only 11 years old (or, at his insistence, "Almost twelve!") and he interests could switch gears on a whim. My gut, though, tells me this kid is headed for something creative, and as much as I don't want him to be in a hurry to grow up, I also can't wait to see where his interests take him.

Another one I need to scare off

There's another squeaky new-teenage kid hanging around the house, staring at my daughter like she's it and he's going to die if she doesn't smile at him one more more time he dies. And I'm thinking, I can help with that.

He's been sniffing around here for about a week, and I'm not sure what his name is, but I think Rach and Kevin have been calling him "Cheese." Seriously, what I hear is "Cheese" but I haven't wanted her to think I care enough to ask to be sure.

I'd ask Alex, but his reaction to Cheese is close to mine: no trust there, he just glares at the kid. This works for me, because if this kid is as afraid of Alex as he seems to be of me, maybe he won't be the little dick that SETH! turned out to be.

I've made it pretty clear to Rachel that he can hang around here the same as her other friends, but there's no going out yet. She turns 14 in January, and if he's still hanging around, I'll relent then.

Since the school change, Rachel and Kevin have both been much happier kids. It's been interesting to see them explore their individuality; they don't have to wear uniforms to school anymore, so we did cut them loose in the mall for the most part (Rachel shopped with Alex, Kevin was with us but he had free reign) to buy school clothes, and I admit I was surprised at their choices. Alex was given permission to say no to some things we thought Rachel would want, but for the most part she's dressing far more conservatively than we supposed she would. Jeans and cute t-shirts, tighter than I would like but Char has pointed out more than once that we can't fight biology, and the shirts are going to seem tighter to dad than they really are. I expected Kevin to head for designer clothing since he seems interested in it, but he wanted jeans, slacks, and t-shirts. I really thought he would be the kid in the dress slacks and fitted dress shirts, and I still see him in that in high school, but he wants to be comfortable to horse around, something he actually gets time to do in the new school.

We can't complain about their grades, either. Rachel is trying again, mostly B's, and Kevin is doing really well, A's and B's with a little struggling in math, but Alex is helping him there.

And Alex is facing finals; he recently got the first C of his life and it was a wake-up call for him. A good thing, overall. He's using all his free time to study and to help Stephanie with her homework (really, it's a way for them to spend time together since they don't have much right now.) He put in the paperwork to graduate at the semester break, and next semester it will be college classes only, but we also talked to the principal and she wanted Alex to understand that he is still considered a part of the class and is welcome to attend the prom and other activities until the end of the year.

After the end of the semester, though, his focus in on February 2, 2011. Not that he gives a damn about his mother's and my 16th anniversary: he can get his learner's permit then. Presuming I allow it.

Just stuff

While my brother was visiting his kids over Thanksgiving, TK was out doing something I didn’t think he’d ever do. He went house hunting. His apartment is nice enough, but he feels it’s getting tight when his kids are there, and he’s pretty sure his living arrangements with Craig are going to be long term. I worried about that for a fraction of a second, because it felt like I was pushing my brother off on him, but he was quick to point out that he likes having Craig as a roommate and this will help continue that, and he really needs more space for his kids. He’s found a few places he’s interested in, but waited until Craig came back to look at them.

We’re all pretty sure Craig is here long term. He had a hard time at home, and stayed for the most part in the house. He wasn’t willing to venture out often because he worried about the people he would run into and the temptations that would pull at him. Here, those people aren’t an issue, and he hasn’t created any undesirable places to hang out. He’s not working a program like AA, but he is staying in therapy, working with a psychiatrist specializing in addiction issues.

He’s doing well, and I’m proud of him. I never thought he would come this far, and I never thought we would have any kind of amicable relationship again. But we’re here, he’s becoming more a part of the family every day, and we’re hanging out.

His next step is finding a job. Five years ago he could have walked into a job easily; his personal life was screwed up but he’s always been damned good at his job, but right now he probably can’t even get seasonal work. We want him to wait for January or even February, once the holidays are over, but he seems bent on at least trying.

I have to support that. He’s willing to have the door slammed in his face, but who knows, he might land something really good.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for him.

We really are more normal than we seem

For a few minutes on the plane, Craig and I discussed putting his house up for sale. It's paid for; he could live off the money from it for a couple of years while he gets his feet planted a little more firmly, or if he finds a job it would give him a cushion, something he doesn't feel he has enough of. I get a say in it; his house is the family house, where we grew up, it's supposed to be divided equally between the three of us if ever sold. Craig moved into it when I moved my parents closer to me; it wasn't a wanted move on his part, but our parents didn't want to sell it at the time, and he'd given up his house to his ex. He would have been happy enough in an apartment somewhere, but he had kids, and our parents were more comfortable with the idea that family was living in their house, not tenants.

So we talked about selling it; I have no problem with Craig selling it and keeping the proceeds, but we both assumed our sister would. And that's not laying judgment on her; it's as much hers as it is mine, I just happen to think it's more Craig's than anyone's.

A few minutes into batting the idea around, though, he said he couldn't do it. His best times were spent in that house. Some of his worst, too, but I take it as a good sign that he's focused on the good. For the most part lately he's been looking forward, but with the house he can't help but stay a little bit in the past. He's torn. He doubts he can ever go home again for good, but he wants that option. So in the meantime, he'll pack up what he wants to take, stick the rest in storage, and his youngest will move into the house.

Like our parents, we want family living there, not tenants. And we want family that would respect the property as more than just a place to live; Craig's son will never forget that first and foremost this was the place his grandparents chose to make a home for their kids. One of the first things Craig did when we got here was to ask his son if he would move in; as awful as it is, we wanted that set before our sister got wind of anything. She could make a case for being the one to take over that house, but the truth is that it wouldn't be well cared for. And as screwed up as Craig has been, he took care of our parents' house. Which is why I can think of it as his house now and not theirs; Val might intend to take care of it, but she tends to live on impulse, and we've both seen the results of her impulses. I've spent years mopping up the results of one of her impulses, and I don't think my niece will ever get over it.

So he's packing. He's not finding a lot that he wants to take with him; most of it he thinks he can leave behind--the furniture his son can use--but there are a few things he's wrapping carefully in bubblewrap and setting in boxes. There have been a few things he's thought I might want, but most of that--pictures--we can have copies made. There's one thing, though, that we're surprised to find. Neither of us can figure out why it's still here, and why our mother didn't take it with her when she and Da moved. It was a fixture in our lives, something we took note of frequently, something we were encouraged to touch and to hold, but to always put back exactly where we found it, as we found it, nestled on top of her dresser, leaning against the mirror.

It's a very old, very small toy puppy; if you saw one in a store today you'd think it was a prototype for a Beanie Baby, but this is 52 years old. It's not worn out, but you can tell by looking at it that it's old. Other than the times we picked it up when we were little, it was never really played with, never held tight by little hands. At best, it was cradled in the crook of a baby's arm, or brushed gently against her cheeks. When our parents decided to leave Ireland for the U.S., they didn't bring much with them, other than their kids, but this made the trip wrapped in a soft cloth in our mother's purse, and it's the only thing they had, other than a few pictures, of the daughter they lost at just a few months old.

She was born before either of us; Val was only a year or so old, so none of us have any real memories of her, but that puppy is something we all connect with her. I know our mother was likely terrified that one of us would destroy it, but she desperately wanted us to have some kind of connection to our sister, which is why she allowed us to touch the toy at all. Craig and I are puzzled, though, why it was left behind. He'd seen it every day for a dozen years and never thought much about that; it was where it always was, and he left it there, but now there's this looming why in front of us. He says if he had clued into it, he would have sent it when she died so that she could be buried with it.

Craig realized, too, that the puppy belongs on that dresser, and he doesn't want to leave that behind; his son would respect it, but his grandkids might not. They're good kids, but they are just little kids. He offered it to me, reasoning that I had the space for it, but something tells me he needs it more. He can jam the dresser into his room at TK's, and TK won't mind.

He keeps trying to argue the point, but when it comes right down to it, for all these years he's basically cared for our parents' most bitter but very treasured memory, and that might be intentional. When they first moved, I think they expected to eventually go home; Craig was moving in and would watch the house, but I wonder, too, if our mother hadn't fully intended for him to be the one to care for her daughter's only material possession. I wonder if she hoped some kind of stronger connection would develop for him. Or knowing her, hoped that her Angelica (not her name, but what she was called all the time) would become Craig's guardian angel.

Our mother believed in saints and angels, and I wouldn't be the least but surprised if somewhere in the back of her mind was the idea that somehow her lost baby could be Craig's guiding force.

I don't think she could have ever accepted that the specter of the sister we never knew may have played a part in his tendency toward self destruction. It's something we've been talking about, though, the unspoken expectations of being raised in the shadow of someone who never had the chance to be anything other than the perfection that she surely was.

There's definitely a lot to wade through when he gets back. I'm heading home tomorrow, with assurances from all his kids that they'll stand guard between Craig and Val (who is pissed beyond pissed that she wasn't told what was happening. I get that, but in this Craig comes first.) I had lunch with her yesterday, and she still doesn't grasp her role in keeping Craig a functional drunk, and still doesn't get why he can't handle just one drink or how even being around it can unravel everything he's managed to do to get even a toehold on recovery. Still, she was glad to see me, something I didn't really expect.

You know, we all had a perfectly normal childhood. Our parents were as good as parents get. It makes one wonder how the hell we all got so screwed up, because it really wasn't anything they did or didn't do.

Homeward Bound

In a couple of hours, my brother and I will be getting on a plane and taking him home. He wants to spend Thanksgiving with his kids and grandkids, and who can blame him? He hasn’t seen them in months and he misses them; more than that he appreciates them, and wants to figure out ways to show them.

There are two things he won’t be doing, however. He won’t be seeing our sister. He won’t be staying.

Our sister is one of his triggers. While she can be a heavy drinker, she can also walk away from a bottle of alcohol without a second thought, but she has no issue with convincing him that it’s all right to go hang at a bar with her, that she’ll stop him at “just a couple of drinks.” He didn’t understand for years why he allowed her to manipulate him, or why she does it, but he’s made a decision important to his ongoing recovery: he can’t see her right now. He’s not sure he can tell her no, and he’s not at all sure she respects his efforts to stop abusing his body.

His boys are fully prepared to physically block her way to him, though I doubt it will be an issue. I don’t think anyone has told her that he’s coming home, so she’s not sitting there making plans. Once we’re there I’ll call her, and I’d like to see her for lunch or dinner, and I hope she’s not too offended by the fact that I won’t allow any access to Craig, and once I go home his kids will make sure it doesn’t happen.

And he’s not staying. One of the things we’ll do in the next few days is arrange to have his stuff packed up and moved, and then I’ll come home. After Thanksgiving his son will fly back here with him, because Craig does not want to fly alone. He’s fully capable, but he has a few doubts about being by himself in a situation where a few bucks will get him a drink or two. He’s fairly sure his internal dialogue will try to justify it as “just one drink” and he’s very aware now that just one drink will never be possible.

If you had asked me a year ago if I would be willingly bringing my brother this far into my life, I wouldn’t have even been able to laugh it off because that was a level of absurd too impossible to think about. But now he’s moving here, maybe not for good but for a year or two. It’s either this or move somewhere else, because he’s fairly sure that going home for good is the wrong move.

The thing that has been most helpful to him here, I think, is living with TK. With TK there’s no emotional baggage to pick through as there would be with me, and TK has significant experience in helping people pick through their personal crap. Their friendship is somewhat symbiotic; TK helps Craig with his addiction issues, Craig helps TK with his relationship issues. That’s something I never saw coming, because Craig doesn’t have the greatest track record, but apparently TK is learning from Craig’s mistakes.

This isn’t all about Craig, either. It started with him asking for help, but it’s turning out to be important to both of us, and not just important to our relationship as brothers. We’ve touched upon a few things that I’d frankly never considered as being pivotal in childhood development for each of us, though I should have. We seemed to have taken then same issue and gone in different directions with it, something both curious and little bit sad.

I’ll touch on that some other time.

But, in any case, we’re going home, me for a few days, Craig for a couple of weeks.

In No Particular Order

• The kids hate lunch at the new school; we're making them buy lunch for the first week to see how it goes.
• I hate them riding the school bus; I did not realize it would be an issue, but I hate handing them over to the bus driver. I'll get over it.
• They're still excited about the new school but it's only been two days.
• Both have had far less homework; Kevin is a little ahead of the curriculum right now, but he needs the brush up, so that's all right.
• PE is a joke, according to Rachel, but she likes her gym clothes. I never realized that was an issue. Shorts, t-shirt, it looks the same to me.
• Kevin likes PE; they played dodgeball today, and he's a hard target to hit.
• Rachel likes that she knows kids in every class, and has friends in most of them; I like that she's come home smiling the last two days.
• Kevin misses Elizabeth, but he'll see her in dance classes, and she'll be at the public school next semester.
• We're taking bets on two things: when the first phone call from the old school comes regarding donations we typically have made every year, and how much longer the school will stay open. They shot themselves in the foot with the huge tuition hike this year. I am not inclined to support it anymore.
• My apathy runs deep; none of us have set foot in church in a couple of months. Yet, if anything, we've noted the kids reaching towards religion on their own, something they didn't do often before.
• Ski season starts soon. That has nothing to do with anything else, but we're all looking forward to it, and the boys have already hinted at wanting snowboards for Christmas.
• Seriously thinking about taking the tuition money and putting a down payment on a place near one of the ski resorts. I have a feeling we'll be spending nearly that much on condo rentals anyway.

Cuz teh kidz knead an edumacashun.

So.

While Char and I were flitting halfway around the world, getting acquainted with family I had not seen since infancy—and a side trip to visit my cousin's grave; his is a sad story I may someday share—and meeting Peter's family, Brad held down the fort here and stayed with the kids. And while he was at it, he overindulged them on a daily basis, claiming he was exercising his God-given rights as a Grandfather.

While we were gone, the last friend Rachel really had at school left for public school, and while Kevin likes his new teacher, the teasing and not-so-subtle threats continued from his former classmates. Rachel has just been miserable, and Kevin—while he says he can handle it and he's not worried or upset—shouldn't have to deal with any of this.

We promised the kids we'd take a much more serious look at their school situation when we returned, and we did. As is our right, even in this private school, we dropped in unannounced with the intent to wander around a bit and see what exactly is going on around the campus. What struck us both is that it's eerily quiet. A year ago the place was crawling with kids and the noise level was disturbing. Now, it seems like there are only half the numbers of students that there were. It wouldn't surprise me, given that tuition jumped 25% from last year to this year, to find out that enrollment halved.

Still, we didn't expect what we found. Rachel complained that she wasn't against making new friends, but there just weren't that many kids her age around. Given that she has her late grandfather's tendency towards hyperbole, we didn't think it was that bad, but in clearer perspective, it is that bad. There were enough seventh graders last year for three separate homerooms; this year there is one eighth grade homeroom, and it's not large. Most of Rachel's classmates are boys; she's as boy-crazy as the next 13 year old girl, but those aren't the kids she wants to hang around and gossip with.

The final straw, so to speak, came from Damien (yes, that Damien.) We decided to have lunch with the kids and he was there with his girlfriend, looking for Rachel. With Alex not there at lunch anymore, he's taken it upon himself to look after Rachel and to make sure she's not sitting alone all the time.

Trust me, I never thought I would be grateful to this kid for anything. But he has matured considerably in the last year, and is starting to think of others and considers how his impulses affect them before he acts. He struggles with it, but is trying hard (his father has related to TK) to stop being a boy and start being a man. I can appreciate that. While Char waited for Kevin, Damien pulled me aside and told me something Rachel never has.

She cries, nearly every day. He sees her in the morning before going to class, and she's usually teary-eyed as she heads to homeroom. Most of the time when he sees her at lunch, it looks like she's been crying. As far as he can tell—and he's been checking around—no one is picking on her or teasing her, she's just sad. His girlfriend says that from what she can tell talking to Rachel, she's just very lonely and every day feels like she's the new kid. Except, eventually the new kid makes friends, and three months into the school year she doesn't know anyone she feels like she can trust.

The older kids don't want to hang around the junior high kids. The younger kids are afraid of the eight graders. Rachel is floundering in a sea of boys just hitting puberty, and while she enjoys flirting with them, she doesn't see being friends with any of them.

Damien had a sense of why we were there, and just wanted me to know.

The thing is, Rachel has plenty of friends. Our house crawls with her friends after school and on weekends; it's not as if she lacks for someone in whom she can confide, and she texts like a maniac. All her friends are now enrolled in the public school, though, and something about being alone during the school day gnaws at her.

If it were a simple matter of the only thing wrong being that Rachel is lonely at school, we'd work harder at helping her find ways to cope. It's not a fatal situation; she has an abundance of friends and doesn't lack for contact with them. But we have become disenchanted with this school to a degree that makes it seem like more effort than it's worth to push her to suck it up and deal with it. And in the meantime, her grades were beginning to suffer.

Believe me, we went back and forth more than once, we spoke to the parents of many of her and Kevin's friends about changing to the public school and how happy they we were with the level of education their kids are getting, and across the board they seem satisfied. There is some teaching of the tests, but otherwise the teachers seem engaged and interested in what they're teaching the kids.

We gave them the final choice: stay put, or transfer to a new school. We realized that one might want to stay and another might want to transfer, and we were ready to deal with it, but both Kevin and Rachel jumped at it. So Friday morning we took them over to the school they would be attending and they were given a tour and assigned lockers, and after that we formally withdrew them from their current school.

Kevin will be there for the next two years; Rachel only until the end of this school year, but she didn't want to wait, and I can't blame her.

Alex, on the other hand, is sticking with it. If he transferred, it was unclear where he would be placed within the public school system, as a sophomore or a junior, and the way things are now he can apply to graduate at the semester break this year if he wants to. He has all his required classes and will be done with his electives, but he could easily stay put and graduate next year with the rest of his class if he wants.

I highly doubt that's what he wants.
Funny enough, as we were filling out the withdrawal paperwork, for the first time since Alex and Rachel started there, we were offered a discount on their tuition if we would keep them enrolled. There was no making the woman understand that money was not the issue (though I will be glad to not write that check this January) but the kids' long term happiness was.

The concept seemed foreign; kids' happiness? Should that even matter?

It does to me.

Dona Nobis Pacem

They can stop now.

Just before Kevin turns 12, Alex will be eligible to get his learner's permit. He is under the mistaken notion that this is a given thing, and that on the appointed day, March 2, 2011, he will be taken to the DMV where he will take, and pass, the exam necessary to begin the process of learning how to drive. Granted, our lives will become somewhat easier once he has his full license, but there's that time in between getting the permit and getting a full license that will present more headaches than I care to contemplate.

His best friend has a learner's permit now, and they both keep pointing out how wonderful life will be when Evan turns 16 and has his license. In their imaginations, Evan has his own car and they're driving all over the place, going to parties, going on double dates. The reality is that we have graduated licensing and with that comes restrictions and curfews, and that doesn't include all the parental rules that will be heaped on top of everything else. Their disappointment will be palpable.

Evan's parents have no intention of getting him a car; he seems to think one will magically appear in the driveway on his 16th birthday, no matter what they tell him. He's done nothing towards earning the money to buy one for himself. We have no intention of allowing Alex to ride as a passenger with Evan until he has more experience behind the wheel, and the penalties for being caught as his passenger will be steep. He's been told this more than once, but he's 15; it goes in one ear and out the other so fast that I can nearly see his hair float from the gush of wind it generates.

Don't get me wrong; they're both good kids and trustworthy, but I was a teenage boy with a new license. I remember how stupid I was, especially behind the wheel. I remember how stupid my friends were--and I'm looking at you, Thump--when it came to cars. My life would be easier if we allowed Alex to ride from the high school to the college every afternoon with Evan, but that's not going to happen this year.

I fully expect to re-earn my World's Meanest Dad trophy.

A year from now, however, Alex will have a license, and based on the cash he's saving, he'll have his own car. I was on board with the idea of buying another family car, one he could use for school and to run errands for us, but not one of which he had control. But, I made the mistake of telling him that if he saved up enough, I would not only allow him to buy a car, I would match his funds. That was before I got a look at his bank balance, and I've regretted the promise ever since.

This is the part of parenthood I never gave the full weight of consideration to: my kids are growing up far quicker than I would like. Alex is on the cusp of driving; Rachel turns 14 in January and based on what we did with Alex, we'll have to fully open the door to dating, and Kevin is speeding towards puberty and more pitfalls than I suspect I can imagine.

We're trying to hold on as best we can, but they're getting away from us, and dammit, they're laughing at us as they go.

Laughing until the first time Alex wants to ride somewhere with Evan, anyway.

Not really eavesdropping

Last night Rachel stomped down the hall and loudly announced There's a LIZARD in my bathroom.

This prompted both boys to jump up and run down the hall to see for themselves; I got up, but being that it wasn't a rattlesnake or tarantula, I was in far less of a hurry.

Before I turned the corner toward her bathroom I heard this:

Alex: I think it's a gekko.
Rachel: KILL IT!
Kevin: No, don't kill it. I don't think they carry diseases and they eat bugs. And, you'll save ten percent on your car insurance.

I think this trumps the earlier overheard exchange between Alex and Stephanie:

Steph: I don't want to write this paper. The month is almost over.
Alex: October?
Steph: Breast Awareness month.
Alex: Really? I'm aware of yours every month.

Blowing off the cobwebs

If you ever want to lose blogging momentum, go away for three weeks. It also helps if prior to that you're so busy trying to wrangle two teenagers and a kid who thinks he's a teenager that you just lose track of the blog.

My sister's wedding was wonderful. It was small the way she wanted, just family and a few friends, but it was traditional enough to make our dad happy. He finally got to give away one of his daughters, and before Nika and Peter left the reception (dinner party, really) he told his new son-in-law that returns are allowed, but there's a hefty restocking fee. And I think Peter is taking him seriously.

They took off on their honeymoon and Ian and I took off for Belgium, where he had some buisness to take care of. After getting the ball rolling on that we went to visit some of his family in Ireland. That was absolutely beautiful. He was born in a small coastal town but doesn't really remember much of it, so seeing things was as new to him as it was to me. He has a huge extended family and they made a point of coming together for a family dinner when we were there, even though he doesn't really know most of them. It was still fun, and felt a lot like home.

After that we met Nika and Peter in Johannesburg to meet Peter's family. I expected that to be awkward, but they were very welcoming and a little offended that we intended to stay in a hotel. we spent most of our time with them and didn't get out to see much, but that turned out to be all right. By the time we left they all felt like family, and we were certain that we'd like to bring the kids back next year.

After that we all flew into London, and I headed home with Nika and Peter; Ian had to go back to Belgium and is still there. The business he needed to take care of turned out to be stickier than we originally thought it would be, and I have no idea when he'll be able to come home, but he can't leave until he has everything settled.

I really would like it to be soon, though, because the kids feel like it's his job all over again, and even though he's just taking care of a personal business matter, they're all on edge. I swear, if one more teenager rolls eyes at me...Well, I'll call my dad and let him handle it :)

Learning to be clear

I felt it wise this afternoon to remind the kids that while we are gone, there will be no spur of the moment parties, no "but we're just hanging out," and no blaringly loud music.

They looked at each other, then at their grandfather, and Alex said He's probably the one you need to say that to.

And he was right. So I told Brad there would be no parties, no hanging out, no loud music.

He's still pouting.

We have calm, sort of

We have achieved a level of calm on the school front; Kevin is happy enough in his new class and the teasing has abated. This is mostly owed, I think, to the dawning realization on the part of his former homeroom classmates that their teacher is the sort who has to have someone to pick on, and now one of them is about to become her target. Instead of feeling vindicated, he worries mostly that whomever winds up in her sights won't have the support that he did, and her tyranny will continue without interference. He's probably right; she's not new to teaching and likely has a pattern of abuse that rides the line between being distasteful and worthy of being fired. She doesn't have tenure, but she's still there, making young lives miserable.

Rachel still isn't happy because she's lonely and doesn't quite fit in with the kids who are making an effort to be friendly; she grasps that the age difference right now is too much; they're all 17 and 18, and she's 13. She understands that they're being nice, but those friendships don't extend beyond lunch hour. She really only seems to come alive once she's home and is on the phone with her friends, or if they're hanging around here. We've been waffling on what to do for her; she desperately wants us to pull her out of school now and let her attend public school with her friends, but we think that this is important for her to face, at least for a little while. It's painful but it's not fatal, and we will address it further in a few weeks. We have options for her, and if she doesn't begin making friends, we'll do something more.

This isn't an emergency for her; she's not being threatened, her education isn't in peril. She's simply unhappy and lonely, and while we hate seeing her like this, it isn't something over which we need to leap into action.

The main concern we have is that while we're gone, all the kids will be safe where they are. Alex is doing just fine with his schedule and is doing well, so we're not terribly worried about him, and I'm confident Brad can handle any issues that come up with Rachel or Kevin.

The wedding is in a week, and while we're all looking forward to it, I also think we'll be glad when it's over. Peter and Nika will leave on their honeymoon Thursday night and Char and I will follow on Saturday. In spite of my initial reservations about going on their honeymoon, after the summer we had (very enjoyable, but extremely busy) and the stresses the kids' school has imposed lately, I think we're going to relish the time away.

Oh, and for the record, I can passably understand a few different languages, but that doesn't mean I also speak them with any appreciable skill, and I certainly can't read or write anything other than English. If you find me online using something other than English, I'm using Google Translator.

File this under things I SHOULD know about my husband

Last night we went to my dad's bar to hang around for a little while; TK was bringing his new girlfriend and he wanted us to meet her. He knows better than to make it seem like he was seeing if she passed muster, though I think that's part of it. He's had a few girlfriends over the past couple of years that neither of us could stand (but we did honestly try) and that makes it a little uncomfortable when you're trying to hang out with a friend.

Everything was going quite nicely; she was personable and warm, though there was a little bit of a language barrier because English is not her first language and she doesn't understand some idioms. TK thinks it's cute. I thought she was funny and friendly, and that she was someone we could all get along with.

Then her cell phone rang and TK said she needed to take the call, because she was expecting one from her brother. She started to excuse herself from the table but Ian waved it off and said he didn't mind. So she took the call there, and as she spoke to her brother in French, I realized Ian's eyes had squinted just a tiny bit and then he was mostly expressionless. She only spoke on the phone for a minute or so before she hung up, and when she did Ian got up, reached for my hand, and said, "It was nice to meet you. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way, so we'll call it a night now and leave you two alone."

I was speechless and had no idea what was going on, and neither did TK, who started to follow us to the door with a "what the hell?" look on his face.

"She said," Ian told him, "that she couldn't beleive she was stuck in such a wretched bar with your idiot friends, and she couldn't wait to get out of here."

Now, here is where I should have been offended, but the only thing I thought was, "How did you understand that?"

You would think that after all these years I would have known that he can speak French. I didn't have a clue. And on the drive home I learned that he speaks a couple other languages; he can't read them, necessarily, but he can understand and speak them passibly.

I shouldn't be surprised, because his job used to take him all over the world and he needed to be able to understand what was going on around him, but I had no clue.

And now I wonder what else I don't know about him, and how I can figure it out. I think that's one of the things I like, that he can still surprise me once in a while.

Don't let her fool you--

--she didn't just get up out of her chair in the principal's office, she had to be restrained from twisting Barbie's little Play-do head off.

There's no protecting them enough

Over a week ago we "requested" that Kevin be moved to a different teacher's class, a request that's been pretty much shoved aside. Ian has been on it every day, getting excuse after excuse, mostly in the vein of "there's no space in the other classes," and "we have to find another student willing to switch." Which we both find to be total BS. Kevin assured us he could handle things until it happened, but we got a phone call yesterday morning from the principal, because Kevin refused to return to class after the mid-morning break. He didn't just refuse to go back to class, he went to the principal's office on his own and told her he would just wait there until she found him another teacher.

Fortunately, she has a sense of humor and does seem to get him. (She's also not the person Ian's been dealing with on this, but that's really neither here nor there.) The end result was us in her office with Kevin, and us all having to face down his teacher. The problem of the day wasn't so much that she's spent the week giving him grief, but that his classmates have taken her obvious opinion about him as permission to pick on him, and she's not doing anything to stop it. That part of it, we weren't aware of until we were sitting there listening to Kevin pour his heart out.

But before his teacher could counter, Ian held up his hand to stop her and asked Kevin quietly, "Why does it bother you if your classmates think that you're gay? Whether you are or not doesn't even matter, and their labeling you would only matter if being gay was offensive. It's not."

This is where Kevin gave us a major, major lesson in not only parenting, but political correctness. He was already upset, and everything that had been thrown at him and boiling in him was painted on his face in a red flush and I could tell he was straining to not cry. All I wanted was to pick him up and take him out of there, but I knew for one Ian wouldn't have let that happen, and that Kevin needed to get this out. And I'm paraphrasing his and Ian's conversation here, for the most part, but it's 99% on the mark.

"How would you like it if everyone started saying you were German?" he asked Ian. "You know you're Irish, but everyone keeps saying how German you are,"

"I think it would be puzzling at first and then annoying. But there's nothing wrong with being German, either, Kevin."

"But then what if they started saying it like it was wrong? And then they started calling you a 'kraut' or 'Jew baby killer?' There's nothing wrong with being German but it's wrong to call anyone those names. There's nothing offensive about being gay but when everyone is laughing at you and calling you queer and a fag, that's offensive."

Quietly, and just to Kevin, Ian said, "Yes, it is. Said like that, it's very offensive."

I think at that Kevin started to relax because he knew he had made his point to us and we knew just how upset he really was, but then his teacher opened her mouth and said, "Kevin, we just don't want you to go to hell."

I was out of my chair, Ian twitched towards her, but it was Kevin who exploded. "I'm not going to hell, because God's not as mean as you are."

I don't know what she was going to say to that, but when her mouth opened again Ian told her to shut it, because every word that came out of her was only fodder for a lawsuit; the principal asked her to leave, probably because what she worries about the most isn't that we'll sue, but that we really will pull our kids out of the school, and along with it the tuition we pay for all three kids and all those checks Ian writes throughout the year to support different activities. After some quieter discussion with Kevin about the things that have been going on in his classroom and the taunts he's been putting up with, she suggested we take him home for the rest of the day and that he would have a new teacher in the morning.

After Ian picked up Alex and Rachel later in the day, we got a phone call from the new teacher, who specifically asked to speak to him; she wanted to tell him how excited she was to have him in her class and that she was looking forward to seeing him in the morning. Ian and I relaxed somewhat because she was Rachel's home room teacher in 6th grade and Rachel loved having her, and we got along with her. Kevin had been very tense all day and relaxed quite a bit after that phone call, but he still wasn't looking forward to school today.

We dropped the kids off a little early this morning (he didn't want either of us to go speak with his new teacher yet) and Rachel went with him to introduce him to her old teacher. This afternoon he was obviously relieved, and asked if he could go to dance class today (he's missed several because he just hasn't felt like it.) Ian took him, and sat in the waiting area with other parents and some little girls, including Elizabeth, who were waiting to get onto the floor while the teacher went over some new steps with Kevin. The girls were watching him and talking about what had happened at school. Ian says he tried to mostly ignore it, because kids are going to talk, and he wasn't worried about what these particular kids were saying about Kevin, but just before the teacher gestured for girls to come onto the floor, he overheard Elizabeth say, "Well, he doesn't kiss like he's gay."

Ian was amused, but made sure he didn't let them know he had heard that.

The thing is, we know this isn't over. Kevin can relax a little bit, but he still has to face many of the same kids and all of the garbage they now think is fine to throw at him. We also know that we can't protect him from all of it, and that we shouldn't protect him from all of it, but right now, he's still just a little boy. We're not at all certain keeping him in this school is a good idea and we're exploring the options available for both him and Rachel. If he was 5 or 6 years older, I think we would encourage him to face this head on, but right now he's too young and the damage would be too far reaching.

But he really did stand up for himself in the principal's office yesterday, and even if it sounds like he was snotty, we're proud of him. He understands the difference between what someone is and what people say about it, and he understands fairness.

UndrMeanie

Since the accident over a year ago, I've gained around 25 pounds, and none of it is muscle. This wouldn't be half as annoying as it is, but I'm married to a man who can pound back 3,000 calories a day and not gain a thing, or if he does gain it's all muscle. Now, he knows better than to point out the obvious to me, like get back to the dojang or put in a little more effort at the gym. Or even spend more time in the pool. When I complain about it, once in a while I see his eyebrow arch and I know he's thinking those things, but he usually keeps it to himself. Sometimes, things slip out.

My sister and I are both sweating out fitting into our dresses for her wedding. I know I've gained a few pounds since I bought mine and she says she probably has. A couple of days ago we made the mistake of commiserating with each other in front of Ian and Peter, and Ian off-handedly said, "Well, then put down the cupcakes." (For the record, we had cookies in front of us but I swear we weren't eating them!) He accepted being called a few choice names, and I thought that was the end of it.

But no, yesterday I got home from picking the kids up and what had he done? He made cupcakes! He swears it was a coincidence, but I think we all know better. He's just a little shit.

Time in a broken bottle

We're giving serious thought to finding a new school for the kids. Several of their friends are already gone, their parents moving them from this parochial setting to either public schools or charter schools; between the transportation headaches for Alex, Rachel not giving a damn one way one the other about school in general, and Kevin having a teacher so homophobic that she's hell bent on forcing her own warped version of what a man is on him, we're questioning the value of keeping them there.

The dissatisfaction has grown from a small kernal of wondering what the hell was starting to happen over the last few years to full blown, WTF this year. The level of education has been above acceptable, that level has been how we've justified the expense, but how the kids are being treated, and how they feel in the current school climate is what bothers us so much. We can deal with Alex having to be carted around all day in order to get his classes in; technically at the end of this semester he can apply to graduate. He has all the credits he needs and will have all the required classes. We've encouraged him to stay in order to have the full high school experience with his friends, but as his friends trickle out the door there are fewer reasons for him to remain there. Half of his friends are doing what he's doing: three classes at the high school in the morning, then being picked up and taken to the community college for the rest of their classes. The other half of his circle of friends is comprised of kids who have left in favor of public school, and a few who are there because their parents are either ultra-Catholic and approve of the climate change, or they're on scholarship and don't want to lose that. He doesn't seem to think it matters particularly what he does; his friends, for the most part, live nearby and if we allow him to graduate he won't lose his social circle. Some of the other things we worry about on his behalf, things like the experience of going to the prom, he says he'll still have. Even if he leaves, he can still go to those things with his girlfriend.

Rachel simply doesn't seem to care about school this year. Most of her friends left over the school year; a few moved, most are now in the public school, but the former friend reminding her day in and day out of how much her life sucks is the little shithead who broke her heart over the summer. She's a personable kid and usually has no trouble making new friends, but the joy of everything seem to have been sucked right out of it for her and she's not even trying. The one person who seems to be looking out for her after Alex leaves campus is, surprisingly, Damien. Yes, that Damien (this is a kid who has changed so much he really isn't the same person anymore.) Kevin says that no matter where Rachel hides in the cafeteria at lunch, or if she's at a bench outside, Damien and his girlfriend find her and sit with her, so she's not alone. But she is adrift.

Kevin, though, has the worst of it this year. This is the first year of junior high, an introductory year, which helps; the sixth grade kids have half a day with one teacher, and then they move between three classes with other teachers. His homeroom teacher, the one he is stuck with most of the day, has decided that Kevin is too effeminate and that it's her lot on life to get him to man up. Her words. "Man up." Without going into specifics, partly to protect him and partly because there very well may be legal remedy involved, she is embracing the Catholic line and seems to believe that her job and his soul depend on getting him to become just another testosterone laden pubescent drone. He was uncertain about her on the first day of school, less certain the second, and distraught by the third. I've already engaged in two discussions with her and another with the school principal, but I don't see her behaviors changing any more than I expect Kevin's to change.

He's had in-school suspension once so far, the school year only a couple of weeks old, for being overheard grumbling, "I'm not gay but you're a royal bitch."

The easy answer is to have him switch classes, and that's likely what will happen. But until that can be facilitated, he's stuck with a teacher who has made up her mind about him in an unfavorable light, judging him for who she thinks he might be and not who he definitely is. She doesn't accept my insistence that he is not old enough to really know who he is and that he should have the support and tolerance of the adults around him while he figures it out, nor does she agree that whatever he might be should be accepted regardless. We must, she seems to think, "pray for him." Unspoken: pray the gay away.

This may be our breaking point.

Alex is ready to move on, Rachel wants to be with her friends, and if the school refuses to support me on Kevin's issues--the likely scenario is that we'll move the kids to other schools. It would be the first time they haven't all attended the same campus, and the first time they haven't had each other to turn to at school.

We are having dinner with Elizabeth's parents tomorrow, because they have many of the same concerns as we do and many of the same questions, and as close as she and Kevin are, if she leaves for a public school, it might be better for his sake if he does as well.

Eventually, I think it's inevitable; it really comes down to when.

Really. What?

Ian and Craig will be back here tomorrow; he's checked out of rehab and they're taking a day to just hang together, see a movie, whatever. I looked at several apartments but Craig but wasn't sure what he would really like, so TK offered to let him stay with him for a while; he may be the one person iuniquely qualified to deal with Craig. They know each other but not too well, and TK has a lot of experience dealing with other peoples' problems, leftover skills from his priestly days.

One thing Ian mentioned on the phone was that, even though Craig has a job waiting for him at home, he wants to work while he's here (probably because he's not sure he's ever going back, I think.) I mentioned it casually to my Dad, who right off the bat offered to give Craig a job.

My Dad runs a bar.

Craig is an alcholic.

I have no idea what he was thinking.

Anyway, they'll be back tomorrow and our lives are either going to relax just a tad more or get incredibly compicated. The kids are a mix of excited and hesitant; they want to meet Craig, but we haven't complately shielded them from some of the stupid things he's done, so they're understandly worried.

It'll be fine. Craig only gets one chance, so either the kids will have an uncle they really like, or he'll be gone so fast they won't have a chance to get burned.

But really, what was my dad thinking?

I Ramble

This is our summer of being so completely non-busy that we're busier than ever. It's the first summer that we're both nearly always available to the kids, and the first time they've lived so close to their friends that it doesn't require major planning in order for them to hang out. Granted, there has always been a friend or two hanging around, but that also meant that someone's parents had to drive them all the way out to the sticks, and either Char or I had to drive them back later; that was time consuming and meant that the kids didn't do nearly as much with their friends over summers past.

Since school let out, this house has been dripping with kids. If we don't have plans as a family and we're going to be home, the kids' friends are here, hanging out by the pool, creating more noise than I really care for and eating more food than I thought was possible. But, it's not really a complaint. They're all happy and enjoying life as much as we hoped they would. With their friends hanging out here, we know where they are and what they're doing, even if what they're doing is compelling Char and I to do a hell of a lot of grocery shopping.

This is also Kevin's summer, apparently. He's grown, literally and figuratively. Last year he was still a small kid with child-like tendencies; this year he's half a foot taller, more mature, and losing that little boy look. He's gone from being a nearly shy kid to a very outgoing and social creature, something I don't think would have happened if we hadn't moved. Before, he had two or three friends close friends; these days he's a social butterfly, and better yet, those friends get him. They don't question his occasional affectation, they don't make fun of him when he points out their fashion faux pas; they also don't question why he is the way he is yet still seems attached at the hip to Elizabeth and damn near breathes her name instead of just saying it.

Too late in the summer, really, he decided he wanted to go to camp; we could have gotten him into the last two week session at the camp he wanted to attend, but we waffled hard. His friends get him; other kids might not, and while we know that sooner or later he'll have to face the cruelty that other people can sling at kids who are just a little but different, we just weren't sure that eleven years old is the right age to let him see just how mean people can be.

At the last minute, when we had to say yes or no, Alex told Kevin that camp without his friends would suck, so why not just have a weekend camp in the back yard? He could have a couple of his friends over, they'd sleep in tents outside, use the fire pit as a campfire, and Alex would be their “camp counselor.” There would be swimming, games, anything they really wanted to do, and he promised that none of his friends or Rachel's friends would hang around.

Kevin latched onto it; in the grander scheme of things, he would much prefer to hang with his friends, and if his big brother was going to personally assure a good time, then it was going to be awesome.

Out of necessity, I spent a lot of time this weekend just watching them. Alex and Kevin have the relationship I didn't quite have with my brother. Craig and I were close, sure, but there was always that something in between us, some river or resentment that neither of us could cross. It helps that there are a few years between my boys, and that Kevin looks up to Alex rather than competing with him; still, I watched them this weekend and felt a few too many pangs of what-if.

Craig is essentially done with this part of rehab. He can leave the facility at any time, but hasn't because he doesn't know what his next step should be. He still has a job waiting for him at home, but going home means going back to all his triggers, and the people who are more than happy to drag him back out of sobriety. He is, wisely, reluctant to do that.

He also hasn't asked me what I think he should do. But over the weekend, as we watched our kids entertain each other and Kevin's friends, Char and I talked about it. We both know Craig won't ask, because he feels like we've already done enough and that he should be able to figure out where to go from here. She and I agree, though, he shouldn't be expected to know for sure what his next step should be, and that he should be allowed some paralyzing fear. This is all new for him, and he'll need some support to make it work.

I've been reluctant to let him into my life, for many obvious and not very obvious reasons. My kids don't know him; that was not Craig's choice, but Char's and my decision, made before Kevin was even born. Over the years I've been certain it was the right one; the kids were too young to deal with his personality—though Alex has spoken to him on the phone often enough—and Kevin was far, far too sensitive to even try.

But, things have changed. My kids have changed, and my brother is working very hard at changing. We may never have the relationship my boys have, but we at least have a chance at some sort of relationship. I doubt it will ever be easy, but unless I let a wall down, we'll never know.

If you know me even remotely well, you know how hard it is for me to let anyone peek over that wall, let alone let them over it. But later today I'm getting on a plane so that I can be there when my brother “graduates” from rehab. If he agrees to come with me, while we get him checked out and get his personal stuff in order, Char will rent him an apartment nearby. He can keep working on his sobriety here, away from the things that keep sending him back to drinking and drugs, and with any luck, he and I can start rebuilding our relationship.

I am still reluctant to let him into my kids' lives; I don't think he'd pull any of the kinds of crap on them he has on me, but I'm still not sure what kind of chance he has to stay alive much less sober. But, so many things have changed in the last year—Char's sister showing up and how much she's changed, how the kids are thriving, especially Kevin—that I feel like I need to give him this chance, and by letting him into my life showing him I do have some faith in him.

I'll probably always think he's a damned idiot (still bitter about him trying to sell me to the nuns, I guess) and I'm not sure I'll ever really let my guard completely down, but if I don't give him a reasonable chance, who else will?

Alex gives Kevin chances all the time. He accepts his little brother for who he is and how he is, he embraces it and protects Kevin when he can. I've seen it over and over this summer, and it was so apparent over this weekend. I know there are times when Kevin annoys the hell out of Alex, but he still makes the effort to be what Kevin needs him to be, and I'm certain that's a part of why this has turned out to be Kevin's summer.

That's the least I can do for my brother. If I can't try to be what he needs, when he's trying so hard to be what I need, then I've failed on more fronts than just the brotherhood one.

How I Know He is FAR Too Involved With the Cat Blogosphere...

I was out late with my sister last night, and Ian tried to wait up for me, but wound up falling asleep on the couch. It was around two in the morning and I tried to gently wake him, just enough so that he could stumble towards the bedroom, and as he started to get up he asked me, quite seriously, "Do you think that when his mom isn't home that Jeter really doesn't get his food mashed up the right way?"

"Who," I needed to know to get the bigger picture, "is Jeter?"

"Skeezix's buddy," he sighed, just short of rolling his eyes at me.

Well, of course, it all makes sense.

"Daisy is his girlfriend," he muttered as he stumbled down the hall. "Skeez's. Not Jeter's."

I'm glad I know that little factoid.

"She's a model."

It took a few moments for the whole thing to sink in; he wasn't talking about people, he was talking about some of his favorite cat bloggers. And while I enjoy a few of the cat blogs, too, I don't beleive I've ever had them quite so firmly on my mind.

Deep down, I think he really wants to know, though. Just how well mashed up is Jeter's food? ;)

Knot tying

Char's sister, Nika, is getting married in October. What started out as them just wanting to get a few people together and run to Vegas to make it official and to party has turned into a small family affair complete with everyone having to rent formal wear or shop for the perfect dress, and a post-ceremony reception in which there will be an annoying DJ, dancing, and a buffet.

This isn't what Peter and Nika had planned on, but when the discussion over Vegas and would kids be included or not, would there be pre-ceremony drinking or not, Brad got very, very quiet, so quiet that it was hanging in the air and slapping everyone upside the head.

I didn't get to be there when your sister got married, and I was damned sure I'd never be there to see you get married. Since I get to see it, I'd like to see it done right.

“Right” in his eyes means the wedding dress, the giving away of the bride, and a minister overseeing it all, not an Elvis impersonator.

The couple has been living together for a few years and don't really care; they just want to finally make it legal. If Brad wants to see his little girl get married with, as he puts it, style and class, then that's what they're going to do.

What he didn't implicitly say, but Char and I both realized, was that he's actually a little ticked off that we rushed into getting married, and didn't take the time to have a “real” wedding ceremony. He would have flown across the country for it; at the time we didn't think he wanted to. So there's some guilt brewing around here, but there's nothing we can do about it now.

If there's going to be a real wedding, there's going to be a best man, matron of honor, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and a honeymoon. And all of that, too, has become a family affair.

Somehow, in the middle of talking about it all, Char and I wound up agreeing to go on Nika and Peter's honeymoon.

The whole concept of a honeymoon is a little outdated, don't you think? We just want to take a short vacation. Come on, this will be fun!

I don't find the concept outdated; I think it's not only normal but important for a newly married couple to celebrate their nuptials privately, no matter how many times they've already seen each other naked. I agreed to the vacation, but only if we meet up with them a couple of days later.

The kids are staying home; they're not happy about it, but hell, they'll get over it. Brad was invited, but that invitation was met with a snort of derision. He'd prefer to stay home and corrupt his grandkids.

It's something to look forward to, anyway. A few days away with Char, in a nice hotel room, even if I do have to place nice with the in-laws. That's a hardship, you know. Spending time with those people. Maybe I'll spend it drunk ;)

40

Char began and is ending her birthday the same way: just a little bit drunk. Last night she and her sister went out with a few friends to start the celebrating a little early, and celebrate they did. She called home twice; the first time it was to let me know they had changed their plans and would not be going to a movie after dinner, and the second time to let me know that her dad makes the most BITCHIN' Long Island Iced Teas, and that the new backup bartender has BOOBS OUT TO HERE, and I really might want to drive over and take a look for myself, because, she's is so totally hot that I just might switch teams, but you can come watch.

She denies this now.

She was greeted this morning with a chorus of Happy birthday! from all three kids at once (hell, yes, they knew she'd be hung over) and after that she swore she was never drinking again (that lasted until Brad started making daiquiris.)

What she wanted most out of her birthday was a day with family; she didn't want a bunch of stuff (but don't look at me like that, because I bought her a motorcycle a couple of weeks ago and she threatened my junk if I bought anything else), she just wanted to spend it with the people who matter to her. (When she said that, she wasn't counting on having a hangover, but after some Motrin after breakfast and a really tall daiquiri she felt muchbetter.) We fired up the grill, watched the kids play in the pool, had several mock arguments over who got to hold the baby (her birthday, she won), and just enjoyed the day.

But right now she's a little bit tipsy and she and her sister are sitting out by the pool, having fits of laughter over Brad's girlfriend tripping over her own feet and falling into the pool this afternoon (they don't exactly like the woman) and Travis toddling around all afternoon pointing at people and squealing “You hotstf!”

(Hot stuff; when pressed to tell how he learned that, Erin just glared at Miko.)

Granted, Char isn't happy that she's forty, but then again, she is.

I just hope today was exactly what she wanted.

Every breath she takes...

If I sleep tonight, I'll be surprised. If I sleep tomorrow night, I'll be very surprised. I fully expect that I'll sit up in bed all night long, listening to the sound of breath being inhaled, breath being exhaled. I expect it because all day I have been consumed with the realization that around 10 a.m. tomorrow, it will mark one year since Char drove through an intersection and was very nearly killed by a drunk driver going nearly 80 miles an hour.

Undoubtedly, the driver's family is going through their own agony, remembering that he blew through a red light at nearly 80 miles an hour, and like a bad game of craps, tossed down the dice that would forever alter the trajectories of two families. I don't dwell on them, to be honest. I'm sure that him being dead sucks, but had he lived it might suck worse. All I care about is what he did, and what he did was change my wife's life forever. He ripped her away from the path she was on and slammed her down violently onto another. She had no choice in the matter, but she will live with the consequences of his choices for the rest of her life.

Don't get me wrong; I am grateful beyond my ability to convey that she lived through it and that the aftermath was not far worse than it was. I waited for that other shoe to drop, ready to dive and catch it, but it never did fall. She handled the resulting nightmares well, she powered her way past a few paralyzing memories, and proved to me again and again that she is far stronger than I will ever be, and that she has more grace of forgiveness than I ever will. But as grateful as I am that she wasn't killed and that we have the hope of many, many years to come, I am still angry that it happened in the first place. I am angry that so many choices were taken from her.

She would tell me to let it go; she has told me to let it go, but that hasn't been something I've been able to do. The truth is, if the other driver hadn't killed himself, I probably would have had to be physically restrained from causing him permanent physical harm. I'm not proud of that. But the heartburn of anger has made me realize that my capabilities to cause great harm could likely not be held in check.

Char usually brushes the changes off as nothing; she reminds me that our lives are, in the dying wake of the accident, better than they were. The kids are happier; they're thriving in the new neighborhood and in the availability of both of their parents. I am, aside from unexpected moments of being pissed off, a much calmer person than I was before. Char is more direct with me; she says what she wants and she makes sure I understand how important some things are to her.

But she had to give up a lot. She says it just isn't as important as it was, but I know she misses teaching TKD. She misses jogging with me; hell, I miss her jogging with me and as a result don't get out nearly as often as I did. She hates the reactions she gets from people who haven't seen her since the accident, and she hates the lingering pain. We all hate that the pain is likely permanent.

So yes, I am still angry about it. I haven't been able to let it go, give it over to the universe, whatever. While I am grateful that she was able to create so much good from the turmoil, bringing our family even closer together, I still resent the way it happened.

I resent the hell out of the grandiose selfishness the idiot who hit her must have had.

But, I am grateful. And a year later I am amazed at how far she's come, how far we've all come, and how worth it the fight to get here has been.

She spent her 39th birthday in ICU, too drugged up to speak, in too much pain for more than moderate awareness. This year, her 40th, when she probably would have been complaining about it being forty, we're all celebrating that she gets to turn forty. The woman could have anything she wanted, I would do anything she wanted to mark the occasion, but all she wants is her family around her. she wants to spend the day with the kids, her father and sister and almost brother-in-law, and with our niece and grandkids and You're-Here-Again? Dack and Theresa and TK. So that's what she's getting; she doesn't want stuff, she wants us.

And cake. A very large spice cake sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar, and God help anyone who get in between it and the birthday girl.

But tonight, there's a very good chance I will sit up in bed to listen to her breathe, and trust me, I will treasure every breath she takes.

Just so there's not an entire month without a post

We've been busy. Not mega-busy in the sense that we barely have time to breathe let alone sit down and blog, but busy in the sense that we're all more wrapped up in family time and the sheer joy of not having a ton of stuff hanging over us, that to be honest, blogging never occurs to either of us.

I have stray thoughts of I should blog that when the kids do or say things, but it never seems to make it past that transient thought.

Still, the summer so far in a nutshell:

• Alex's plans for a summer semester of college fell through when the classes he had enrolled in were cancelled. He was upset and unhappy for a day or two, until he realized that the free time meant potential employment and more time to hang around the pool with Steph, and 500 of their friends.
• Alex is working for his grandfather two days a week; his job is mostly to scrub the hell out of the restrooms at the bar, move stock from one spot to another; anything away from the alcohol, and he's the scut slave. So far, he loves it; he's saving for a car.
• Rachel is living life with her cell phone glued to her hand, texting so much I think she's developing calluses. Because, OMG, not seeing anyone for five full minutes requires IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. Half of what she texts is still to SETH! who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time here.
• Kevin is entrenched in the dance school; I don't think he's stepped foot into the dojang since school let out. He's taking every dance class available to him, and survived a week of Dance Camp. He was also very disappointed that one does not go away to a sleepover dance camp, it's more of a day camp type thing.
• This house is crawling with teenagers and tweenagers every damned day. If there are fewer than 6 kids that don't live here, I'm surprised. If there are 10 or more, I'm not surprised. They all at least call before they show up, but Char has an open-house policy for the kids' friends when we're home, so they're always welcome. But frak, they eat like crazy and were feeding them all
• The sheer volume of kids was a good excuse to buy a bigger grill.
• Char turns 40 in one week. There must be a party for that ;)

Hopefully it won't be nearly another month until there's another post.

(this one was written with some Thumpa-help, to be honest.)

The oldest two have been grounded this week; while arguing is not forbidden here, getting physical is, and I walked in just as Rachel tried to kick Alex in the groin and as he blocked the kick and shoved her back. I don't care what the fight was about; I care that they struck out at each other. So their first week of summer vacation was spent grounded.

They were pissed off for the first day, but settled into the fact that they weren't going anywhere they wanted to go and they weren't texting, emailing, or talking on Facebook with their friends. They each got one text to let Stephanie and Seth know that they would be out of touch for the week, but that was it. The only way out of the house was with a parent, and any incoming phone calls resulted in Char or me taking messages.

I have to admit, they were pretty well behaved for a couple of grounded teens, and the level of drama in this house was fairly low for the entire week. But with the sheer amount of time that they had, without the distractions for friends and homework, when boredom set in they started paying attention to their parents, and they started asking questions.

Several nights ago Kevin spent the night with Brad, and the other two decided they wanted to play board games with us. Scrabble. I don't relish this game with Alex, because he wins every time I wind up feeling a little bit stupid for the difference in his and my vocabulary. That night was no different; he played the board like a master and created words that I was sure were made up but weren't.

On the other hand, I know I'm going to lose to him, so I tend to relax and just let it happen; when I relaxed, so do the kids, and they start talking. We got to hear about that last week of school, the fun injected into classes after the exams were over, and the friends who wouldn't be returning to school next year because they were either moving or transferring to public schools.

Eventually, they wanted to know about the friends we had when we were growing up. Were we still friends? Did we keep in touch? And since then I've been thinking a lot about high school and the people who mattered.

The reality is that I only keep in touch with one person from my youth. There would be two, but the person I connected with the strongest, and who was my best friend from eighth grade on, died when I was 20 years old. For a long time I was sure that my first born son would be named after him, until the time came to actually ponder baby names and the only other person from those days convinced me he would have hated that.

Anyway, the kids wanted to know about him. What he was like, why we were friends. Did I think we would still be friends even today? Would they have liked him? Did I still miss him?

Yes.

Truth be told, it's not as if I think about him every day. I still miss him, but it's been 29 years and the pain of losing my best friend has faded from sharp to wistful. I don't doubt that we would still be friends today; I strongly suspect that he would have followed the same paths I took in life, although he came weighed down with a lot more baggage.

As the kids picked my brain about him, I realized that his life was a good lesson for them. He represents the sharp divide between having been loved and searching for love. He was adrift in his own family, virtually abandoned to raising himself, and because of it, he made choices that he otherwise wouldn't have.

In intellect, Alex reminds me a lot of him. By our junior year he was emancipated from his parents and living in the dorms at a local university, having graduated early. But he ached for family, and what he couldn't have by right, he tried to create. When he was sixteen, newly emancipated, he got his sometimes-girlfriend pregnant, and in trying to do what was right, he married her.

Yeah, at sixteen.

He wasn't in love, but he wasn't going to walk away from his child, not after having been left behind by his own parents. But he was just sixteen, and struggled. He dropped out of school and scrambled for jobs that didn't pay enough for rent let alone food for his new family. He lived on adrenaline and the generosity of his friends' parents.

Even so, he had a future. He hit bottom and was climbing his way back up with a job that gave some relief, and after the birth of his son he was offered a scholarship. There was hope.

And then there was a horrific car wreck that ripped his family from him. Where he wasn't in love when he got married, he did love his young wife, and his son was like breath to him. He was seventeen years old, and lost everything.

He could have given up, but after nearly a year of agony, during which he had hidden himself away from life so well that we all really did think he'd gone off somewhere to die, he resurfaced, determined to live. He still wanted what he had been cheated out of twice, he wanted a family. He wanted to grow up more, finish school, get the golden job, and then find someone.

When I started college, he transferred and had stepped onto that path with me; we had the same terms to our scholarships and the promise of post-college emoployment. By my sophomore year, his junior, he had solid plans. He knew what he wanted, and he was pretty sure how he wanted to get it. And an idea of with whom.

We were nineteen, and we had everything to look forward to.

He was nineteen, and he felt a lump. And he ignored it. He never mentioned it to anyone, not until it was of a size that was so uncomfortable that he had to tell someone. He went to my father first, and didn't fight it when my mother dragged him off to see a doctor.

Nineteen. He'd been abandoned by his parents, married, fathered a child, been widowed and had his son ripped from his life, and he was suddenly looking at a diagnosis that gave him only six more months to live.

If he had paid attention to that lump and asked for help early on, he would probably be alive today, because even then testicular cancer had a high cure rate.

I do think of him often enough that the unfairness of his life stings; He died when he was just twenty, and his son should have been three and a half. But I also don't think of him often enough that when I do, I feel a little guilty. He wanted what I have; he deserved what I have.

None of that even comes close to saying why we were friends, and the kids are still picking my brain about him, looking for stories about why we were friends and what we did to get into trouble together.

But where things fell short for him, that's what I've been thinking about.

I want the kids to grasp how much promise he had, and how a few bad choices made getting anywhere hard as hell, and I want them to see how hard it was for him to get to the few places he was able, and how horribly things can go wrong. Because when you're sixteen and you crave love that badly, you just don't see how anything can go wrong.

Countdown to Thursday

A cliche as it is, the last 10 days have been busy as hell. Between work on my dad's house, field trips, dance and TKD classes, and helping Alex and Rachel prepare for finals, we're tired enough that ten o'clock rolls and around and we just fall into bed. This is the last week of school, though, and today is the last field trip to chaperon. I went on three last week, two with Kevin's class (zoo and museum) and one with Rachel's class (museum) but Ian went today: to the amusement park. He agreed to go, I think, because 1) there's a ton of junk food there and 2) Rachel really wanted him to.

He also went because the Parent In Charge asked him to, specifically. Seventh grade boys aren't all that intimidated by the moms that typically go on the field trips, but they're usually wary of Ian and do what he says. The kids like him because he lets them get away with a lot, but he's physically intimidating enough that when he tells them to do something or stop doing something, they listen. Not that they don't complain, but they listen.

I may wish later I'd tagged along, but frankly after last week, I've had enough for this school year. The field trips were fun, but wrangling all those kids is very tiring, and it just makes a person realize that there's no amount of money good enough for the teachers who deal with them 5 days a week.

I'd like to go to bed now

Yep, long week; I am borderline exhausted and would really like to be asleep right now. I was, in fact, for an hour or so, but Mz. Horny Hands pushed her way to the middle of the bed and is now lying there with arms outstretched as if awaiting crucifixion. She's also snoring lightly, but it sounds like angry bees are about to sprout forth from her head and I don't really want to be right there if they do.

So, I got up and risked waking her up by turning the computer on. I doubt the sound of typing will wake her; she's used to it by now, although it's been a long time since I've crawled out of bed in the middle of the night.

Fortunately, Brad has to work tomorrow, so I won't be dragging my sorry ass over there to haul his construction crap all over the place. This is going slower than the other renovation work we've done; a bathroom is more involved than the painting, floor work, and wall moving we've done. It's slowed a little more due to holding back on certain aspects because Brad wants to teach Alex how to do some of it, which means we'll be doing some serious work on Saturday.

Tomorrow, also, TK returns from his mini-vacation, and I think the students will be happy about that. I've been a tired grump during classes this week and rather than teach I've been conditioning: they work out hard while I stand there and pretend I'm doing it for their own good. I don't have to pay such close attention to technique during conditioning classes, I only have to make sure no one gets hurt.

Only one person had to leave the floor to throw up, so I'm not convinced it was a successful week.

Char is right, however; I'm not sure why we ever thought spending so much time on the dojang was a stellar idea. It certainly lacks importance to us now.

A week full of Mondays

Busy doesn't even begin to cover the last few days. Between Ian and my Dad practically demolishing part of his house and the beginning of the rebuild, the kids all needing to be taken to dance, TKD, the library, and them needing help with year end projects, trying to get things done around our own house, and having Erin and Miko and the kids over, I don't think we've had much chance to just sit still since Saturday.

Ian has been running ragged, helping my Dad completely rip out one of his bathrooms, and they're taking the construction slowly because Alex wants to learn how to do everything, and he's been filling in at the dojang so that TK can take a few days to spend with his kids sans Mom; I think I saw him for all of 45 minutes on Monday and maybe an hour yesterday, and he won't get home tonight until after 8. It reminds me too much of when he was working and I was teaching at the dojang, and I'm not liking it at all. I really don't know now why we sandwiched our family life into such a compressed time frame for so long, and why we thought it was even remotely worth it. I really would like to find the us from 12-13 years ago and slap the living daylights out of them with the warning that the dojang is not worth all the time it will take away from family.

At least we figured it out before the kids were full grown and it was too late.

I'll be glad when this week is over.

Hope, just a little bit

In old movies and TV shows, Dad comes home from a trip and the kids all run to the door to greet him, happy and excited, asking Did you bring me anything? I walked through the door today and Rachel barely looked up, Alex grunted, and Kevin was bellowing Turn, turn turn! to whatever video game he was playing.

Char walked in, and was greeted with a chorus of Hi, Mom!

I see how it is.

Craig is all right. He's not great, but he's not awful; he's right on track, although some physical issues that have become apparent are giving him fits and starts. They still haven't fully addressed his blood sugar issues, and I'm not sure if they think it will stabilize and they're leaving it alone for right now or if they're waiting for some magic number, but they are keeping track. He's lost quite a bit of weight because he hasn't been able to keep much down, but yesterday he was able to eat, which perhaps not so coincidentally coincided with him finally starting to open up and talk.

My brother has some deep issues, most of which I was unaware, a few that I was acutely aware of. A few that directly involve me, and some that are indirectly caused by me. But he's talking, unpacking the baggage, so to speak. Even when he's out of rehab he'll be in therapy for a long, long time, I think.

Something that really jumped out at me: he started drinking when he was 13. That's Rachel's age. He hadn't even gotten through puberty and he was getting trashed on a fairly regular basis. He had no clue then what stepping into the party lifestyle would do to him as an adult, or how it would mold the decisions he would make in regards to simple things like homework, graduation, going to college or not. He resents the hell out of realizing that he drank his way out of any chance of getting a scholarship, effectively drinking himself into only having a high school education when deep down he wanted more. He resents the hell out of the idea that of all three of us, I was the only one who went to college; he knows I went on a scholarship, but it's muddled in his brain as me being the chosen one, the golden boy our parents anointed with a baccalaureate degree and a job clear across the country.

I had what he wanted: the degree, the job, and the girl. He has no idea what getting that degree cost me, why I agreed to the terms of the scholarship and the job, and I won't tell him because it wouldn't help anything; it's enough to know that even though he does understand that the road I took was nothing personal, to him it felt personal. To him it felt like I was getting it all, and he was getting a minimum wage job bagging groceries.

And the girl; he despises the fact that I dated Kathy all though high school and then married her. She was the one thing that mattered more than anything to him, and he always held out hope of "someday."

He also knows that hoping for that someday never made much sense. He married very young, too, had three boys, and in spite of himself tried hard to make the marriage work. When it didn't, it was just another thing he felt like he'd screwed up.

His list of things he thinks he screwed up is long, and it's a bit self-pitying, but I can understand that. He's barely scratching the surface of himself and has a long, long way to go.

He wanted to know how many times he's been in rehab, and I couldn't answer. Six? Seven? Twelve? I know he's tried it more times that I've strong armed him into it, but this is the first time I've ever felt like he's committed to it. Even so, right now I'm only giving him a 50-50 shot at carrying this off. He has too many demons, and while he accepts his own role in most of those, the weight of it all might be too much to bear.

Still, I have hope. This is the first time I'm not hearing excuses from him. He knows he stated this 37 years ago, when he was too young to accept that first drink, but he no longer blames the person who gave it to him. He's embarrassed for the things he's done and ashamed of some of his behaviors, but most of all, he's talking and it's not coated in BS.

And yes, he is the charmer and flirt Char mentioned, but that is who he is. It's been a part of his personality since he was very little. He very well could use his charm to gain trust from some woman, but to his credit that hasn't been one of his worst traits; I think I've mentioned before that he is very respectful of women, careful and considerate. It's with other men that he can be a real son of a bitch, where the drinking escalates and the testosterone rears its ugly head. He knows this; he knows he has to work on it.

But, 50-50, and to be honest, a year ago I would have guessed he had less than a 10% chance of ever being sober for more than six months at a time.

Vee Hav Vays

I've had some good reminders over the last couple of days on why I don't want to be in the position where Ian feels like he has to draw something out of me. He is very, very good at sitting down with someone who has something to tell but doesn't want to and getting them to spill it without them realizing that he's gently manipulated the conversation into going in the direction he wants. I've watched him these last couple of days sit there with his brother and his brother's counselor, and draw out of him things he just didn't want to talk about or couldn't bring himself to talk about; they've all been issues the counselor has tried to pull from Craig but just couldn't get him to talk about.

Ian makes it feel like such simple, social conversation, but for whatever reason, he can subtly nudge things into getting him the information he wants. I don't quite know how he does it, but he knows it's as skill he has, and I never want to be on the other end of it (anymore than I already have been; I'm sure he's gotten me to talk without me realizing it before.) He's usually not persistent about it; he doesn't manipulate the kids into talking about things they don't really want to talk about and wouldn't unless he thought it was critically important, but they probably wouldn't realize what was happening until they'd already told him what he wants to know.

I don't think Craig realizes what Ian has been doing, but he's talking to Ian and letting the counselor listen in. This afternoon I wasn't sure if my being there was a hindrance or not (because Craig is really getting into some deep territory) so I came back to the hotel to call the kids and then kick back for a while. It hasn't been all super-intense picking at Craig's brain; at least from where Craig sits it's been more like his brother happily came to visit, has taken him out on a pass to get some lunch and just get out for a little bit, and like they're just getting to know each other again. And I'm starting to see how they were when they were kids; they were very close then, even if they fought a lot, and I can see how easy they can be with each other. I can also see how much Craig loves Ian, and how very jealous he is of Ian. There's a lot of conflict there, like he doesn't quite get why he wants their relationship again, but resents it all the same.

We're going to head home tomorrow; Craig seems to be all right and even managed to eat and keep food down today, and Ian will come back once in a while when he thinks Craig needs him to. I'm not sure how often I'll come with him, but I've been very surprised to realize just how charming Craig can be and how much I actually like him.

I promised him I wouldn't abandon him...

It's been, what, a week and a half since Craig entered rehab? This past week has been a flurry of activity for him, most of it medical and mental health screenings, and he's not doing as well as he had hoped. His blood sugar is all over the place, he's still having issues eating without nausea, and they had to remove a polyp from his sinuses.

He's an addict; there was a question of whether he should take pain medication afterward or not. He didn't think it mattered, because it's been a long time since he was able to feel anything from narcotics; I'm guessing that's because his liver is probably barely functioning.

In any case, he feels like shit, sounds worse, and needs someone. So tomorrow Char and I are heading out for a few days, for moral support if nothing else. I don't know what we can do for him other than talk to his doctors and find out how he's really doing, and then just be there for him, but that might be all he needs right now.

The things heroes are made of

Char and I sat in the warmth and dryness of the car while we waited for school to let out; it was rainy and heavily windy, and as the kids practically fought their way across the parking lot, hair whipping around wildly, Char mused that it was time to take the boys for haircuts.

I reminded her that Kevin wanted a mohawk.

Her sigh was tinged with resignation, but she nodded and said it was fine; everyone else was right, the hair would grow back if he hated it. Her only caveat was to not get the sides shaved; he could have the mohawk, but only sort of. Leave a quarter inch of hair, two to three on top, so that if he really hated it, we could cut it and he'd still have hair.

Worked for me.

I dropped her and Rachel off at home and took the boys to the barber. This guy has been cutting their hair as long as I can remember; I don't think he gave Alex his first non-parental haircut, but it's been almost that long. He's as old as Moses, but he keeps up with trends, and neither of them have ever had a problem decribing what they want.

Alex keeps his hair on the longish side; it's never been down to his shoulders, but it's thick and just long enough that it drives Brad nuts and inspires the occasional "Alexandria" comment. It doesn't matter to me; he can grow it as long as the school dress code allows as long as he keeps it clean and combed. I don't even watch as he gets it cut; he's long past the age where he needs supervision or permission for what he wants.

Kevin, on the other hand, at least needs to check with me before the scissors come out. He sat next to me while Alex went first, and once Alex was in the chair I told him that his mother had agreed; he could get the mohawk as long as the sides weren't shaved.

He sighed much the same way Char had, and said No. Elizabeth thinks it would look weird and everyone would make fun of me, so I don't want one now.

Telling him that what everyone else thought didn't matter was pointless; he's eleven, he cares what his friends think. But, he didn't want the same "little boy" haircut; he had no idea what he wanted. While he waited for his turn, he looked though a few books, and didn't find anything he liked.

And then Alex was done.

He came into the waiting area, his hair now nearly military short; trimmed over the ears, seriously tapered in back, just a little bit longer on top. He looks a little older even, and far more serious.

Kevin went wide-eyed and asked quietly, Can I copy your haircut?

Alex grunted Sure as he flopped down into the chair and Kevin damn near floated back to get his hair cut. That Alex didn't mind being copied meant a lot to Kevin; he still has a bit of hero-worship going on for his older brother, and there aren't many things he can copy from Alex.

But the haircut, that was one, and I don't think I've ever seen him so happy to have it done.

Where Alex looks a little older (he didn't need that) and a little more serious, Kevin looks like a preteen trying hard, but it suits him.

On the way home, Kevin reminded me that we'd said that if he could save enough money to get his ear pierced, he could do it. And he asked Rachel, who told him it only cost her fifteen dollars to get hers done, and That was BOTH ears!

I agree; we had said that.

I have twenty dollars, he informed me. Can I still do it?

Char might get upset, but we'd agreed to it, so I told him yes, he could still do it--but not today. Give Mom a little fair warning.

And ask Elizabeth if it's all right, Alex teased.

Kevin just smiled. Elizabeth, it seems, loves the idea. She thinks he should get a tiny diamond stud at first, and then get a hoop later.

You'll look good Alex assured him. If it really looks good, can I copy you?

I'm surprised Kevin didn't explode with joy right there in the back seat.

So tomorrow after school I'm taking them both to the mall, God help me, and letting Kevin get his ear pierced, and in all liklihood, Alex as well.

I bet Alex checks with Stephanie first, though.

I would.