My brother is happy. I hadn't realized it until lately, but he was never happy before. Even as a kid, I don't think he was entirely happy. Don't get me wrong; there are things that have always brought joy into his life, like his kids, but real happiness has been just out of his reach.
He had all the markers of adult happiness: he had a good job, a house, terrific kids, and friends. From the outside, he probably did look happy. When he was sober, I probably assumed he was happy, too. But I didn't realize how unhappy he'd been until I saw the switch flip in February, and watched him soak up a massive tidal wave of happiness.
Her name is Francis, "but please, call me Frankie."
She's a friend of TK's ex, Becky (yes, that Becky, Char's former best friend) and they met when Frankie showed up at TK's in early February to pick up the kids. He says it was instant attraction and I don't doubt it on his end, but there must have been something because she kept finding reasons to show up at their place.
When Char and I met her, we liked her almost instantly, but we both harbored some doubts.
She knows what he's been up against, though. He's been honest with her about his addictions and why he's here instead of living near his kids. He's been upfront about his past relationships and she hasn't run screaming. He's also been clear about the fact that he could disappear in the middle of the night without any notice if he feels like he's about to slip and asks me to slap his ass back into rehab.
She's fine with it. She doesn't drink around him. She doesn't hold his past against him. And if he runs off to rehab again, she just wants one of us to let her know. She's also determined to help him get healthier than he's been; while he's done very well in his fight against alcohol and drug cravings, he hasn't done as well where food and fitness are concerned. He was getting too thin, but in the last couple of months she's cooked for him, convinced him that he'll have a much easier time keeping up with him if he actually eats. She's getting him to take long walks--I tried getting him into the gym but all he ever really did there was flirt with some of the women there. She's getting him to care more about himself.
He did care enough about himself to ask for help in the first place, but Frankie has tapped into something deeper, and he's just incredibly happy right now.
We had dinner with them last night, and when she and Char wandered off to the ladies room, I felt myself channeling my dad and in my best imitation of him, leaned across the table and told him, Jaysus, boy, don't you fock this up.
He doesn't want to, but I don't think he realizes that Char and I really don't want him to.
Frankie's a keeper. For no other reason than she makes him happy.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
But I need them to have bedtimes!
Several weeks before his birthday, we asked Kevin what he wanted most. And his answer--a later bedtime. That seems like a reasonable request, but he's been problematic where bedtime is concerned since he was a toddler. He has to be reminded and pushed toward the bathroom, re-reminded that he needs to shower, re-re-reminded that lights out at 9:30 does not mean turning the light off but then turning a radio on and singing with it for the next hour.
We decided to give it a try, though. Weekends he's allowed to stay up later anyway, so we offered him the chance to judge for himself how late he thought he could stay up and still be able to drag himself out of bed in the morning.
Friday night he stayed up until 12:30 and was not happy when he and to get up at 8 to get to his dance class on time. Last night he went to bed at 11, and was still not happy when I got him up at 8 this morning for the hell of it.
We planned on telling him this afternoon that he needed to be in bed no later than 10 on school nights, and even then we might change that if he has issues getting up and ready for school.
But then I overheard him talking to Alex, who offered brotherly advice:
We could tell him the same thing over and over and he wouldn't listen; Alex says it once, and I know he'll listen.
So tonight we're just going to wait and see what he does. It would be very nice to not have the nightly go-to-bed struggle.
On the other hand, it's just another step towards all the kids being grown up, and I'm nowhere near ready for that. Next year he'll be a teenager, and I think he's going to be a fun teenager, but I can't help but dwell on the idea that Alex is heading towards being gone sooner instead of later, and Rachel won't be too far behind him.
You really don't get enough time to raise your kids, do you?
We decided to give it a try, though. Weekends he's allowed to stay up later anyway, so we offered him the chance to judge for himself how late he thought he could stay up and still be able to drag himself out of bed in the morning.
Friday night he stayed up until 12:30 and was not happy when he and to get up at 8 to get to his dance class on time. Last night he went to bed at 11, and was still not happy when I got him up at 8 this morning for the hell of it.
We planned on telling him this afternoon that he needed to be in bed no later than 10 on school nights, and even then we might change that if he has issues getting up and ready for school.
But then I overheard him talking to Alex, who offered brotherly advice:
Don't be stupid about it. Just because they didn't give you a bedtime doesn't mean you don't have one. Rachel can stay up all night if she wants but she always goes to bed by ten thirty. I go around eleven thirty. Give ten o'clock a try for a week, and if you can still get up, try ten thirty. Just don't be stupid.
We could tell him the same thing over and over and he wouldn't listen; Alex says it once, and I know he'll listen.
So tonight we're just going to wait and see what he does. It would be very nice to not have the nightly go-to-bed struggle.
On the other hand, it's just another step towards all the kids being grown up, and I'm nowhere near ready for that. Next year he'll be a teenager, and I think he's going to be a fun teenager, but I can't help but dwell on the idea that Alex is heading towards being gone sooner instead of later, and Rachel won't be too far behind him.
You really don't get enough time to raise your kids, do you?
Friday, March 11, 2011
12...
Kevin is definitely our sensitive kid; when the earthquake hit Japan yesterday, we turned the TV off and worked at keeping him away from the news. We didn't want to close him off from what was happening, but we didn't want him to see it as it unfolded, and as it turns out, that was probably a good thing.
If we'd let him watch and he had seen footage of the tsunami as it rolled into Japan, and the live coverage of people and cars speeding down roads trying to save their own lives as that water rushed in, he would have been one wrecked kid today.
He can handle knowing about it; he can't handle seeing it, not as it happens
Still, this morning Alex was up earlier than Kevin and woke me up; he'd been watching the news, following events as they unfolded, curious about how Hawaii and the western U.S. was going to hold up to what was headed for them. In watching it all he realized that Kevin was going to go to school and likely they would watch some coverage in class, and thought we might want to prepare him for what he would see.
Horribly, I admit, my first thought was that this was a shitty start to his 12th birthday.
Alex woke him up early and while he was still trying to shake the sleep away, we tried to explain to him what had been happening all night, the enormity of the damage in Japan, the possibilities of what it also might mean for Hawaii and the west coast, and then let him decide if he wanted to see it at home before going to school.
He wanted to see it.
While we sat there watching video from yesterday and last night, Alex offered him explanations of how tsunamis function, why boats are safer at sea than docked, and some of the things that can happen when the water reaches land.
It was informative to me, as well.
Kevin watched with interest, but not agony, which was what we worried about. He asked questions, gave a few of his own observations, but he absorbed it better than I expected. When he left to catch the bus, we were satisfied that if he had to watch video of the quake and tsunami at school he wouldn't be too shaken by it.
That didn't keep us from worrying while he was in school.
He got home a little while ago, and they did discuss it at school but they weren't shown anything too graphic. And he said that what he chewed on the most all day long wasn't the people, though he does feel bad for them, but the animals. He wondered how many people had to run and leave their pets behind. He was bothered by the idea of so many stray cats and dogs being swept up. Even the lost livestock bothered him.
Still, he was all right, and what he took from it was that he wants us to be prepared for something awful. Where, he wanted to know, are the cat carriers? How fast can we get to them? If we had to grab and go, would we be able to get all the cats and the dog?
I didn't know. I wasn't going to tell him we could, because in a true emergency, we're grabbing the kids. If we can get the pets, we'll get them.
What he wants now is to have carriers in every closet, and near the front door. I don't know that we'll do that, because there are a hell of a lot of closets in this house, but we can make sure there are enough in the front closet, easy to get to. And we can place some in the closets we know the cats like to hide in.
This is how he turned 12, spending the day contemplating what to do in an emergency, and his thoughts were less with himself than they were with others.
He wants to go out to dinner for his birthday, but before we go he just wants to go outside and take Tank for a walk, then play a few video games with Alex and Rachel. Last year he was learning to snowboard; this year he just wants to hang.
Next year he turns 13, and I'm not sure either of us likes the idea of 3 teenagers in the house. Damn.
If we'd let him watch and he had seen footage of the tsunami as it rolled into Japan, and the live coverage of people and cars speeding down roads trying to save their own lives as that water rushed in, he would have been one wrecked kid today.
He can handle knowing about it; he can't handle seeing it, not as it happens
Still, this morning Alex was up earlier than Kevin and woke me up; he'd been watching the news, following events as they unfolded, curious about how Hawaii and the western U.S. was going to hold up to what was headed for them. In watching it all he realized that Kevin was going to go to school and likely they would watch some coverage in class, and thought we might want to prepare him for what he would see.
Horribly, I admit, my first thought was that this was a shitty start to his 12th birthday.
Alex woke him up early and while he was still trying to shake the sleep away, we tried to explain to him what had been happening all night, the enormity of the damage in Japan, the possibilities of what it also might mean for Hawaii and the west coast, and then let him decide if he wanted to see it at home before going to school.
He wanted to see it.
While we sat there watching video from yesterday and last night, Alex offered him explanations of how tsunamis function, why boats are safer at sea than docked, and some of the things that can happen when the water reaches land.
It was informative to me, as well.
Kevin watched with interest, but not agony, which was what we worried about. He asked questions, gave a few of his own observations, but he absorbed it better than I expected. When he left to catch the bus, we were satisfied that if he had to watch video of the quake and tsunami at school he wouldn't be too shaken by it.
That didn't keep us from worrying while he was in school.
He got home a little while ago, and they did discuss it at school but they weren't shown anything too graphic. And he said that what he chewed on the most all day long wasn't the people, though he does feel bad for them, but the animals. He wondered how many people had to run and leave their pets behind. He was bothered by the idea of so many stray cats and dogs being swept up. Even the lost livestock bothered him.
Still, he was all right, and what he took from it was that he wants us to be prepared for something awful. Where, he wanted to know, are the cat carriers? How fast can we get to them? If we had to grab and go, would we be able to get all the cats and the dog?
I didn't know. I wasn't going to tell him we could, because in a true emergency, we're grabbing the kids. If we can get the pets, we'll get them.
What he wants now is to have carriers in every closet, and near the front door. I don't know that we'll do that, because there are a hell of a lot of closets in this house, but we can make sure there are enough in the front closet, easy to get to. And we can place some in the closets we know the cats like to hide in.
This is how he turned 12, spending the day contemplating what to do in an emergency, and his thoughts were less with himself than they were with others.
He wants to go out to dinner for his birthday, but before we go he just wants to go outside and take Tank for a walk, then play a few video games with Alex and Rachel. Last year he was learning to snowboard; this year he just wants to hang.
Next year he turns 13, and I'm not sure either of us likes the idea of 3 teenagers in the house. Damn.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The wheels on the car go round and round
March 2nd was Alex's Magic Day--the day he was old enough to take the test to get his learner's permit. I've tortured him for weeks with it, never saying whether we were going to allow him to take the test or not. He asked, but the answer was always, "We'll see." There was no needed explanation for "we'll see" because he knows well what it means. We'll see about grades, behavior, cooperation, attitude, and how good the bribes are.
We had no intention of not allowing him to take the test, but I also know better than to promise anything. If he'd shown up with another tattoo, there would be no permit. Slacked off on his share of the kids' chores, no permit. There were a lot of things that could get in between him and that trip to the DMV, and I wasn't saying yes or no until the evening of March 1st. There was only one incident lately that had "no" on the tip of my tongue, one that only would have delayed it a day or two, when he exploded at Kevin for being in his room. Kids yell at each other, sure, but that doesn't mean we allow it as a matter of course. But, when Char pointed out that Alex had asked him nicely to stay out of his room because he had math homework papers all over the place and he really didn't want anything scattered, but Kevin went in anyway and moved a critical paper, I could hardly hold that against him.
Wednesday morning before his first class I took him to take the test; we waited an hour before he could take it, it only took him 10 minutes to take the actual test, and it was another 30 minutes of bullshit waiting until he had her permit in hand.
And then I was a total dick and would not let him drive to school.
After I picked him up in the afternoon I took him to the old dojang and let him drive around the parking lot at about 15 mph, and he practiced braking, backing up, and parking, and it was enough to make him happy. I'll take him back tomorrow, but I'm not letting him onto a street until he's started driver's ed, which begins Monday.
Char refuses to be the parent responsible for teaching him to drive. She doesn't want to be in the car until I'm sure he's a good driver; it's less a fear of what might go wrong and that he's going to wreck than it is a fear that she's going to shriek and scare him at the wrong moment. This is fine; my mother wouldn't ride with me for a long time, either. I was taught to drive by my dad, who wasn't driving at all at the time.
I am resigned to not driving for the next six months, at least when it's just the two of us in the car. I don't think he'll be practicing with the other kids in the car yet.
I have no real worries about how good a driver he'll be. I worry about the fact that when he gets his license he'll have a 16 year old's brain in his head, and with that comes questionable judgment. I worry that he'll be 16, with his own car, a girlfriend, and will no longer be chauffeured around on dates. That combined with the 16 year old brain, it gives me pause.
For now, though, I'm going to try to enjoy the process of watching him grow a little. I haven't forgotten what a big deal getting my license was and how it felt the first time I took the car out on my own. I never would have guessed that my parents were probably nervous wrecks about it, and I hope he doesn't realize it, either.
We had no intention of not allowing him to take the test, but I also know better than to promise anything. If he'd shown up with another tattoo, there would be no permit. Slacked off on his share of the kids' chores, no permit. There were a lot of things that could get in between him and that trip to the DMV, and I wasn't saying yes or no until the evening of March 1st. There was only one incident lately that had "no" on the tip of my tongue, one that only would have delayed it a day or two, when he exploded at Kevin for being in his room. Kids yell at each other, sure, but that doesn't mean we allow it as a matter of course. But, when Char pointed out that Alex had asked him nicely to stay out of his room because he had math homework papers all over the place and he really didn't want anything scattered, but Kevin went in anyway and moved a critical paper, I could hardly hold that against him.
Wednesday morning before his first class I took him to take the test; we waited an hour before he could take it, it only took him 10 minutes to take the actual test, and it was another 30 minutes of bullshit waiting until he had her permit in hand.
And then I was a total dick and would not let him drive to school.
After I picked him up in the afternoon I took him to the old dojang and let him drive around the parking lot at about 15 mph, and he practiced braking, backing up, and parking, and it was enough to make him happy. I'll take him back tomorrow, but I'm not letting him onto a street until he's started driver's ed, which begins Monday.
Char refuses to be the parent responsible for teaching him to drive. She doesn't want to be in the car until I'm sure he's a good driver; it's less a fear of what might go wrong and that he's going to wreck than it is a fear that she's going to shriek and scare him at the wrong moment. This is fine; my mother wouldn't ride with me for a long time, either. I was taught to drive by my dad, who wasn't driving at all at the time.
I am resigned to not driving for the next six months, at least when it's just the two of us in the car. I don't think he'll be practicing with the other kids in the car yet.
I have no real worries about how good a driver he'll be. I worry about the fact that when he gets his license he'll have a 16 year old's brain in his head, and with that comes questionable judgment. I worry that he'll be 16, with his own car, a girlfriend, and will no longer be chauffeured around on dates. That combined with the 16 year old brain, it gives me pause.
For now, though, I'm going to try to enjoy the process of watching him grow a little. I haven't forgotten what a big deal getting my license was and how it felt the first time I took the car out on my own. I never would have guessed that my parents were probably nervous wrecks about it, and I hope he doesn't realize it, either.
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