Ask Me Anything

In a grab for Thumper's Attention Whore Crown (I'd look GREAT in a tiara!) I jumped on the bandwagon and started a formspring page. I had it sent to oush the questions and answers to Facebook, but I got so many questions right off the the bat that it would just clutter my friends' pages, and I don't want to be that guy.

For now, if you want to read the questions and answers, just pop on over to the page at formspring. It's not set up to allow comments or back and forth dialog, but I'll figure a way around that, at least until the questions trickle down to be reasonable to push to FB again. You people are funny and thoughtful; I kinda like the dialog.

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With some help from Thump, you can add comments to the answers at a new blog, Ask Undr Anything; you can read, comment, and ask questions there.

I will win that Attention Whore Crown one way or another.

S-k-o-o-l

Alex called from school during his lunch break; the placement tests for math, science, and English are Monday, and he needed to know for sure whether or not he was taking them. If he was, we had to call the school and let them know so that his absence for the day was excused, or one of us would have to go into the office when we picked them up, because while we were off being awful parents keeping our kids out of school for three days, a notice was sent home with the expectation that it would be returned, signed, noting that we intended for our child to take said tests.

When I picked them up from school (having called the office, I didn't see a point of having to get out of the car if I didn't need to) he was carrying a load of books, and had Rachel and Kevin carrying even more for him.

I need to cram for the tests. I want to ace them.

To me, that defeats the purpose of these particular tests, but if the kid wants to spend his weekend studying, I'm not going to stop him. He's intelligent enough; he asked that we keep him in check, make sure he takes breaks, and for God's sake make sure he stops at 5 p.m. Saturday and jumps in the shower, because Stephanie is coming over at 6 and the world will end if he has even a hint of B.O.

(Yet another reason to like this girl; she doesn't expect him to take her out every weekend. She grasps the problems of neither of them being old enough to drive, and doesn't mind just hanging out, and really doesn't mind hanging out here. They don't seem to mind if Kevin and Rachel watch whichever movie they've rented with them, and Alex doesn't mind when Stephanie disappears into Rachel's room to do whatever it is teenage girls do. I'm honestly not sure.)

He hit the books as soon as we got home, getting his regular homework out of the way, and didn't surface until Char called him out of the den for dinner. Rachel peppered him with questions about what he thought the tests would be like and how hard; Kevin wanted to know if he thought college was going to be fun or too much work. After some consideration they all decided that it couldn't be too hard, because they'd all been there while I slogged through my master's and PhD. If Dad can do it...

Your father can do a lot of things what would surprise you, Char told them. He might have made it look easy, but he worked hard.

Before I could revel in the compliment, Alex looked at her, quite seriously, and asked, What about you, Mom? Why didn't you ever go to college?

The easy answer was that when she graduated from high school, her choices were 1) get a job, 2) get a job, or 3) become a stripper, which is just another job. As badly as Brad wanted it for her, he didn't have the means at the time to pay for even community college, but he did have a friend of a friend of a friend, who could put in a good word for her for a job that would actually take her places.

So she took the job, moved clear across the country, and here we are now.

Did you ever want to go to college?

She did; I remember her mentioning it a few times when we were dating. It wasn't something she could easily accomplish at the time, though, not with her work schedule, and not with the expense of living on the east coast. She was, however, putting money aside so that her sister would be able to at least go to a community college. She thought that between what she could save and what her father could scrape up, Nika would have a chance at getting a little more out of her education than she had.

Before Char could deny having ever wanted a higher education, I answered for her. She'd wanted to, and we have even talked about her going after we got married, but it never happened.

The placement tests are walk-in, and open to anyone, Alex told her. And you have lots of time to get an application in for the summer term. I need a ride there everyday, anyway, you know.

I think Char was amused. Not tempted, but amused, and she pointed out to Alex that she was turning 40 this year, a little old to be thinking about getting a college education that would take four or five years to get through.

How old will you be in four or five years if you don't start now?

She tried to stumble through an answer, and lamely popped out with how I had wanted to take a class or two, thinking about getting my teaching credential. She never mentioned that she mostly did not want me to do that.

So? The SUV has like seven seats, Mom, you'll both fit on the ride to school every day.

Her next counter was that she didn't need a college education to be a Mom; whether she learned more about Shakespeare or not, or if she learned anything about basic algebra, that wasn't going to make a difference in how the house got cleaned, the laundry got done, and dinner got on the table. And she was perfectly happy with the life she has.

What about education for the sake of itself? You don't need a reason to learn, and there is no reason for not being open to learning new things.

But--

No one said you had to get a degree. Just take some classes.

But--

Take a class with Dad. Men like hot co-eds, you know.

There was no but there; I agreed with the boy, and told her I'd be more than happy to take a class or two with her, and I'd work hard to not embarrass her.

Her back is up against the wall, and she doesn't have a compelling reason to not take those placement tests on Monday. The problem is, she also doesn't think she has a valid reason to take the tests and then apply to the school.

So help Alex and I out here; give her a reason or two. She wanted this fifteen years ago, there's not a thing standing in her way other than the voices in her head.

Help me convince her.

We think, but very little

Nika's fiancee, Peter, didn't realize until last night that one of our kids was adopted; we didn't tell him which one, it was more like “Guess and if you get it right, you get an extra slice of birthday cake.” The kids were all at the table, laughing over a first-grader joke that Toni thought was the funnies thing ever, and I don't think they knew what the adults standing in the kitchen were talking about.

Peter considered it for a bit; Kevin has so many of Ian's talents—they can both dance like there's no tomorrow, they can both sing beautifully, and Kevin mimics Ian's habit of raising one eyebrow when he's either surprised by something or just doesn't completely buy what someone is telling him. And he looks like me; I evidently take after my mother's Hispanic roots, and Kevin is more Hispanic than anything else.

Rachel doesn't really look like either of us, and there's no clear composite of Ian's Irishness or my racial mix to be found by just looking at her. She's quieter than anyone else in this house (we think she got that all out of her system when she was a toddler) and much more deliberate in how she approaches things. The boys are both very outgoing, while she's a bit shy and it took her a while to warm up to both Peter and Nika.

Alex doesn't really look like either of us as well, but he has Ian's moodiness surrounding him(I'm sorry, sweetheart, but you are moody), and he's as deliberately ponderous as Ian is (without the shades of annoying paranoia.) He has Ian's quirky sense of humor, he plays the piano as beautifully as Ian does, he's as fiercely protective as his father and as generous. He has my eyes, and is sometimes as stubborn as I can be.

Kevin and Alex, Peter decided, were far too much like their parents; Kevin looks like me, Alex acts like Ian. He concluded that it had to be Rachel.

We let him have another slice of birthday cake anyway.

With a lot of parents, you ask them which of their kids is the adopted one and they have to stop and think about it; I don't think I've ever had to do that, but I am often taken aback by the question, because it's usually asked as if it matters. It doesn't. Ian pointed out while he was musing Kevin's birthday and that moment we first held him, the connection was the same. I did all the things with him that I did with Alex and Rachel when they were placed in my arms, and tough guy Ian, he cried the first time he held all three kids.

So no, I don't have to stop and think about it; maybe because there was something very special about the way Kevin came to us, that the people in my family knew before we did that we were his parents. That he's our son is an act of providence.

I love that from the outside, it's not that easy to guess which of the kids was that gift of fortune and destiny; that's how it should be. I love that Alex looks like his grandpa Conor and that Rachel looks like her grandma Maureen, and I admit, I especially love that Kevin looks so much like me. That no one can be sure, or that it would never occur to anyone that we adopted one of the kids, just serves as proof that families aren't created from biology, but from the heart.

Eventually the kids did notice that we were all looking at them and wanted to know why. Peter shrugged and told Kevin, “I was just telling your Mom how much you look like her.”

Kevin laughed and said, “Better Mom than Dad.”

Like Ian, I have a hard time believing he's eleven years old. Unlike Ian, I can't wait to see the teenager he'll be and the man he'll become. Because for all our faults, I think we're doing a pretty good job with these kids, and I want to see them as adults.

But not too soon. I'm allowed to be inconsistent in that; it's a rite of motherhood.

It's hard to type in the car

The key to a quiet drive home seems to be to run the kids ragged for three days; we're halfway home, and they all conked out after ten minutes in the car. I felt a little bad, telling Kevin we had to leave because he was having a great time and getting the hang of the snowboard, but Char's Dad and sister will be waiting at the house, along with Erin and the grandkids, solely to celebrate Kevin's birthday. Erin baked a cake, which was enough to get him off the board and into the car; he was excited about seeing them all and can't wait to tell them about learning to snowboard, but it didn't take long for his chatter to slow and then stop, and for Rachel and Alex to both drift off, too (needless to say, Char's driving; I'm not stupid enough to drive and type at the same time. Not quite.)

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and without intending to, woke Char around 5 with the aroma of coffee. She didn't seem to mind too much; we took the chance to sit there and take in the view one last time, musing over the scramble eleven years ago when we got the call to tell us Char's cousin was in labor and had decided she would just "hold that baby in place" until we got there. We called Brad and woke him (are you fucking insane? It's the goddamned middle of the night and that kid isn't popping out for at least twelve fucking hours, and can't Conor watch the damned kids until after lunch? I'll be fucking awake by then. Yeah, if you thought I had a mouth, you should wake him up at five in the morning sometime) and were headed for the airport by six (and yes, my Dad was able to watch Alex and Rachel for a few hours, but not for a few days; he needed Brad's help for that) and in California in time for Kevin's birth.

(So there you go. One state to cross off your Where in the World are Undr and Char? list.)

While we weren't in the delivery room, Char was the first non-medical person to hold Kevin, gave him his first kiss, told him for the first time how loved he was. When she handed him to me, it was just as overwhelming as the moment I first held Alex and first held Rachel; it didn't matter whose DNA this baby had, he was every bit my son, and I felt that instant connection. I loved him before he was born, but that moment--it was no different than what I felt with our other kids, and honestly, that surprised me.

It was hard as hell to let the nurse take him; we had agreed, reluctantly, that if she wanted to, his birth mother would be able to see him without us, to hold him just once to say goodbye. That terrified us; she still had the right to change her mind, and who could not want that perfect little boy? She was only 13, but she carried him for nine months and gave birth to him; it was a haunting possibility that left us both scared as hell until his biological grandmother, Char's aunt, sought us out to tell us to not worry; she'd been with her daughter while she said goodbye to him, and while it was hard, she knew she just couldn't keep him. She was grateful that we wanted him so badly; it wasn't just that we would be able to give him anything he needed and much of what he just wanted; she was handing him over to someone with her own blood. Like Char, one of her parents is black, the other is white and hispanic. Kevin's biological father is white and hispanic. She wanted Kevin to fit in; like Char, she'd never felt like she fit anywhere, and knew she was stuck where she was at until she was old enough to run.

Char's aunt said simply She's thirteen going on thirty. She made a mistake, but she's smart enough to know the right thing to do.

We both wonder from time to time how often she dwells on him; she's twenty four now, graduated from college, and has gotten out of the neighborhood Char ran from when she was eighteen. We also both wonder when Kevin will ask to meet her; I have mixed feelings about that, but I know he's curious and sooner or later he'll want to. We agreed years ago that once he was eighteen we wouldn't stand in his way, and we would facilitate the meeting, but if he asks before then, we're just not sure.

But we have right now. And right now our youngest son is drooling in the back seat of the car, and we're headed towards home where he'll spend what's left of his birthday with most of the people who love him. I only quantify that because I have no doubt that his biological mother and grandmother love him; the people waiting at home, though, are the people who matter most to him right now.

When the kids got up at 6--they purposely got up early to get in as much time on the skis and snowboards as they could--Char dug a tape measure out of her purse; it's a tradition, measure the kids on their birthday to see how tall they've gotten. In the last year he's shot up over 3 inches and is starting to lose that small-for-my-age look. He's a shade under the five feet tall I wasn't sure he'd actually see before becoming a teenager, but he hasn't lost his goofy, funny, bright outlook to the teenage gloom and doom, and I hope he never does. He's an amazing kid, and there isn't a day that we aren't grateful that Char's very young cousin trusted us to give him a good life.

But damn. He's eleven. This is the last of his little-boy years. Next year he'll be a pre-teen, and the year after, a teenager.

Damn.

He wants to fly

I appreciate the good thoughts, but I'm fine, really. I was a little numb yesterday, but who wouldn't be?

Kevin's birthday is tomorrow; he'll turn 11 while trying to shred down the beginner's hill on a rented snowboard. We asked him what he wanted to do on his birthday, his answer was "get a snowboard and try it." So today he and Alex took a 4 hour snowboard class, and then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get the hang of it.

In his head, Kevin soars like this:

In reality, his day went more like this:

But he still had fun, so tomorrow we'll rent the boys boards again, and either Char or I will ski the beginner's slope with them while the other skis the blues with Rachel (she was offered the chance to take the class, but pointedly turned her nose up at it; in Rachel-speak this means "I really want to, but they'll make me look bad, and I refuse to look bad next to my little brother, so next year, when they're really good, I'll want to take the class so I look pretty good for a beginner." I totally understand.) I imagine we'll stay out as long as they want and then head home by evening, give Kevin as much of his birthday in the snow as he was hoping for.

I expected to have to drag the boys off the slopes this afternoon, but they were both tired and ready to go by four o'clock, and starving on top of it. We caved to the pleas coming from the back seat to stop for food, because they were going to DIE before we could get back to the condo (10 minutes away), elicited a promise that they wouldn't cram themselves full of junk, and stopped at a buffet. Alex at a buffet is almost fascinating to watch; he gets my money's worth, and neither of us is sure exactly where all that food he inhales goes. Kevin nearly kept up with him tonight, prompting Rachel to complain that they were "gross" and "embarrassing."

Tonight they're all playing Scrabble (and letting Kevin win), and Char and I are going to just sit here and enjoy the killer view we have from the condo. This beats adjoining hotel rooms hands down and is cheaper, so I wish we'd discovered this place years ago.

The kids were right; this trip has been a hell of a lot more fun with Char along than it would have been. She's a hell of a lot more fun to share a bed with than Alex.

And so it goes

Char took the kids out for dinner (which defeats the purpose of our having gotten a rental condo, specifically so we could cook for the kids and not stuff them full of more junk) in order to give me some time to myself. There's a pizza place just down the road with an arcade, so she whipped Kevin into an excited frenzy about it in order to get the other kids to not complain about it, told them I had a headache and they'd bring me a pizza later, and got them out without much fuss.

My phone rang this afternoon and I pulled off to the side of the ski run to see who it was, and almost shoved the phone back into my pocket because I knew what the news would be when I picked up. The kids were all well ahead of me and Char stopped long enough to see what was up, and followed them without question when she saw the look on my face. The call was from one of Tanner's boys; Kathy passed away this morning. She was only 48 years old, and as far as I know, had been perfectly healthy.

I think I'm numb. I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing her or speaking to her again, but I don't like the idea that she's just not tucked away safely somewhere, reveling in her step-grandmotherhood.

We managed a couple more runs before Kevin's energy started to wear off, and I realized I was watching Alex ski ahead of us all more than I watched the other two kids. Not long after Kathy and I split, she had a very brief relationship with an old friend, got pregnant, and lost the baby at about 6 months. I was angry about it at the time; she hadn't wanted kids, yet there she was having one and happy about it. When she lost it, I was probably not as sympathetic as I could have been, but I did feel for her. She'd had a taste of realizing that things weren't always as cut and dried as they seemed, and that she did want motherhood as an option. I may have taken it personally for a while, realizing that she did want kids after all, just not with me, but I got over it quickly enough.

But I was watching Alex today and realzed that if she'd had that baby, he or she would be fifteen, almost sixteen.

That's been stuck in my head all afternoon. I could pick it apart to figure out why, but I'm not in the mood for much introspection. I just feel bad for her, and I feel bad for Tanner; I feel bad for Kathy's parents and brother, and yes, I feel a little bad for myself. We never had the marriage we both thought we would, but there was a time when I loved her and when she loved me, and all we wanted for each other, even in the end of our relationship, was the best.

I've also spent a lot of time this afternoon watching my wife; you know I adore this woman, and I wouldn't trade a moment of my life with her for anything. She is everything to me, and in my son's words, I'm "totally gay for her."

I wouldn't have any of this if sixteen years ago Kathy hadn't had the courage to admit that we were over, that we'd begun the ending of our relationship on a cold afternoon four years earlier, and that she just couldn't stay.

I wish she had gotten everything out of life that she wanted; I wish I hadn't been the cause of so much pain in her life, that I hadn't been the driving force behind some of her biggest terrors. I wish I had done better. I also wish she had been given a couple of dozen more years with Tanner and his kids.

No, I won't go to her funeral. It's more than the awkwardness that would inflict on her family; for one very specific reason she wouldn't want me there, and I respect that. I don't need to say goodbye, and I can wish her family well without being there. But I will miss the idea that she's out there somewhere, finally happy.

I am grateful she got that, though; she was happy, and she deserved that.

Stasis

Whatever I feel, which at this point is empathy for Tanner, I have to keep it to myself, at least around the kids. Whatever they think about the fact that I had a life before they were born, they don't need to be beat over the head with it, and Kevin's birthday is in 3 days. I refused to cast a pall over that. We're taking the kids skiing tomorrow and we'll be there for a few days; whatever happens I can suck it up.

Our fingers are definitely crossed that Kathy surprises everyone and recovers, but the truth is that even if she lives, it might not be the life she would want for herself. It could wind up being the life I know she'll despise.

That would really suck.