Teaching a Parrot New Tricks

My three-year-old son, the star of my column Rattled, has entered into a developmental stage where he repeats the same question over and over and over and over and over. A while back I made the mistake of telling him that we’ll be going on an airplane this summer to see family in Delaware. Now, he asks, “Are we going on the plane this summer?”  Then he lists the people we are going to see there. It’s non-stop. It made it slightly more tolerable when a friend of ours with a daughter described this stage. I’ve decided to try and make the most of it.

If this is the time when his brain wants him to learn and repeat, we’re going to start learning poems – real ones. This morning I got him started on To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick.

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may, 
    Old time is still a-flying : 
And this same flower that smiles to-day 
    To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

We’re working on the first stanza now. I may not be able to sneak veggies in well, but this little scream machine is going to be a Toast Master.

Rattled: The Musical

Rattled: Music lesson tests patience | savannahnow.com.

Rattled: Learning when to hold back | savannahnow.com

by Christine S. Lucas

Published April 20, 2013 in the Savannah Morning News

I am not a control-freak, but I have taken great comfort in my ability to soothe my son’s heart. I kiss boo-boos, fix food, wash and entertain him, but we finally reached something I couldn’t make better.

The saga began when I showed up at day care to learn that Elliot had “graduated” from his day care class. It seems a mother complained that he was hitting her little girl, and so my son graduated from a teacher he loved and children he’d been around since he was 8 months old. If he graduated, then his diploma must have read, “Suck it.” These were my thoughts as I went to fetch him from his new digs in the other wing.

It isn’t standard procedure for parents to be notified when a child progresses from one class to another, but Elliot was moved because of a complaint. Parents were, I imagine, kept from communicating because of the instinct to defend one’s own.

My issue is that one mother understandably expresses a problem, and her opinion is given complete weight enough to remove another child from class. Her point is taken into consideration, but it is done so while leaving another mother completely out of the loop. The end does not justify the means.

The reaction the day care staff expected, I came to resent this week. I have tried to remain positive that he has moved to a room that is good for him. His teacher is great, and he’s not languishing throughout the day. Now, however, for the first time he doesn’t want to go to school. At night he requests his old class before bed. He talks about it on the toilet, at the breakfast table, on the car ride, and mama can’t make it better. Only time will do that.

The hitting that prompted his being yanked has not continued at all in his current class. Not once. He’s learning new songs, keeping his Pull-ups in good shape, and he’s even been invited to a birthday party. The heartbreak that I couldn’t fix is starting to mend. What is replacing it, however, slowly, is a sense of pride in himself. It’s the first time he’s really had to test his coping skills, and I think he’s managing better than his mother.

The lesson of late has been learning when to hold back. The world is not a satin pillow on which my beloved can sit forever. At the park, I have to let him be his own protector sometimes.

A 6-year-old boy says “baby alert” at the approach of my child who only wants to play. On a cellular and energetic level I want to put that crummy loser in a half-nelson and make him eat monkey balls (from Sycamore trees). I can’t though, and Elliot learns to stand his ground — something very unbaby-like!

I also have to learn that Elliot can act a fool and it doesn’t reflect on me. When he furrows his brow at another child, I want to correct him. I don’t want kids to hate him. I want them to think he’s the lovable spec of God dust that happened to land before them. He’s a spirited spec, and he wants to get his way. Be compassionate. There I go trying to put him back on the pillow again. It’s so hard not to be protective.

In the constant comparison between working and nonworking mothers, this is where extra time benefits the parent. In the course of your day you see your child interact with more children. You learn whether his behavior is a one-time thing or a habit that needs more diligent correcting. When to intervene is probably the question parents ask themselves most often, and I doubt it’s going to get any easier.

At first I just wanted to keep him alive. Now he’s supposed to be a pleasure to be around, too? He’s supposed to be law-abiding and respectful? I’m going to need your help world. Be good to him, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.

I’ll try and have faith that good people will find him and good things will happen for him. It reminds me of a new ditty Elliot has been practicing of late. In his 3-year-old speech, it sounds like, “God our fodder. God our fodder.” When things we can’t control happen, we have to see the blessings among them. One is the smile that comes across my face when Elliot ends his religious tune saying, “Awwww, man.”

Christine Lucas writes about being a first-time mom and adventures with baby. Contact Christine at christineslucas@yahoo.com.

Rattled: A heartbreaker in training | savannahnow.com

Rattled: A heartbreaker in training | savannahnow.com.

In a Galaxie Far Far Away

When my Nanna died in 2006, something inside told me her 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 needed to come to Georgia. On this very blog, I wrote about our eventual desire to sell it. It had slipped down the priority list, as so many things do when a child is born.

We couldn’t sell it! For what seemed like forever, it sat in our driveway mirroring the guilt I felt for our not being able to revitalize it in the way we’d imagined. My son grew to know it has a play house where we’d sit in the afternoons. He was quite fond of it and listened while I spoke of a woman named LaVerne who had taken me for rides so many years before. It was the car we road in to Happy Harry’s Discount Drugs on Main Street in Newark, Delaware. My blanket had faded to a dull gray, and Nanna bought a magic potion that would turn it the rosiest of pinks.

I remember looking up at her in the driver’s seat. The edges of the memory are blurred. I think she had a scarf wrapped around her hair. There were sunglasses, and the world would have caved in upon her without fresh lipstick. My little boy didn’t know about that woman. He didn’t know about her heart, but he loved the knobs on her car’s radio. He loved the wheel and the lever that slid across turn to the air conditioner on.

We finally sold the Galaxie for fifty dollars less than my grandmother originally paid for it. We sold it to a charity called Limos 4 Kids. They take sick children for very special rides, and the Galaxie was going to have a new life as a Barney Fife squad car. (Click here to find the ’65 Ford Galaxie in the slide show.)

Elliot proudly showed the car off when the man and his wife came to pick it up.

We brought out the photo I’d taken of Nanna sitting on the hood. It was Easter Sunday and she was eighty years old at the time.

Then we said good-bye.

It was a little sad, but Nanna wasn’t in the car. I think she was smiling beside us in the driveway. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf. Her sunglasses were on, and her lipstick was flawless. I can almost hear her saying, “Tsk, tsk. Why in the world did you bring that thing all the way to Georgia?” It was a bridge, I’d tell her. One that we just found our way across.

Rattled: Embrace your child’s inner writer | savannahnow.com

Published March 9, 2102; Savannah Morning News

Does your child like writing? Have you asked? There are ways to tell whether you have a future Nora Ephron or Dan Brown on your hands.

The first time I was told to read to Elliot, we were still in the hospital. I was ravenous and began with the menu, “Once upon a time there were four, no five, slices of french toast and three plump sausages.”

Since that time we have been filling his brain with stories like Violet the Pilot, The Library Lion, and QuickBooks for Dummies. I look forward to a time in the future when he can string sentences together. If literacy is a coin, writing is the b side. There are ways you can encourage it in your children.

We know how to say, “Tell me about your picture.” Most parents are good at seeing a child’s promise in the visual arts. Writing talent is harder to spot early on. It’s less of a show pony. Wyman Bailey is a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Oglethorpe Charter School. His mom, Carol Bailey, says his talent started simply. He left his mother notes around the house.

“Well, he would tell me something he wanted to do,” Bailey says. “He would want to go to the mall, and then he would tell me all of the reasons he needed these things.”

An ordinary list written by your child is a window with an excellent view, but parents must not overlook it. For example, it tells you whether your child can spell. It tells you about the dying art of penmanship. Let’s also remember the effort. Writing a list means: This is important enough for me to take the time to put it on paper.

Last year Wyman started taking creative writing workshops with the local nonprofit called Deep. These workshops take place after school in over 17 different locations around Savannah and are taught by volunteer writing fellows. Donations enable the work of these kids to be professionally published and sold.

The story Wyman wrote for Deep is about a boy’s first kiss.

“It was really descriptive,” Wyman’s mother remembers. “I remember the girl had hair the color of lemonade and cotton candy lips.”

Was this nonfiction? Bailey suspects it was, but she admits she is not sure. “That’s when I figured out that the stuff he’s writing about, he’s thinking about. It’s stuff he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about.”

Writers are notoriously insecure about their writing, so count yourself lucky if your child shares a poem, story, or sentence. Choose your response carefully as well. You’re not an editor at The New Yorker. Your first response should not be to spell check or monitor punctuation. What if your child writes something shocking? Well, it might happen. Nail him to the wall, however, and you’ll no longer have a window seat. The view inside will be boarded up just like that. Wouldn’t it be better to draw more out and learn what’s cooking?

Wyman enjoys writing short stories that, according to his mom, are about three or four pages long. He has fun with it.

“I like to write, because it brings my entire imagination out,” he says. “It inspires me to do it again and again.” His story backdrops have included everything from the jungle to the sea. He has recently done one about two friends living in a concentration camp. “I also like to write because it usually is a way I get to tell people what’s going on in my head.” Wyman also says he loves the support he gets from the volunteers at Deep.

The fridge is good for drawing out all of the writers in your family. Magnetic Poetry is a company out of Minneapolis that makes all sorts of word magnets. In the Kids section of their website, magneticpoetry.com, you can try it out. The owner, not surprisingly, is a writer named Dave Kapell who was suffering from that viper bite known as writer’s block. He wrote down words on little pieces of paper to come up with song lyrics. The trouble was that he’d sneeze and blow away song after song. Magnets were his answer and might be yours too.

Start your own poem now: left, inside, lawnmower, shamrock, presentation, angry, founded, treats, dog, floated, sky, Susan Catron, urged, the, that, dug, stung, Oglethorpe, grommets, dentist, faxed, sprouted, duck, recycled, Pad Thai, Savannah, rabbit, don’t, at, what, sagos, plunge, mole bait, deflected, sunburnt, tabby, spirit, around, butter.

It is Nap Time MF!

My Frangelica. What else would I be calling my three-year-old who has hopped out of bed at nap time. The sweet couple of hours a day where we regroup are going to be leaving us soon. I know nap time can’t last forever, but…five more minutes! Come on!

I should have known, because today I was restless during his nap time. Should I meditate and then fall asleep after only balancing my three lower chakras? Should I read something useful? Should I take the movie back to Red Box? It was a cereal aisle of indecision. Should I eat cereal maybe?

The door opens and he’s got poo-poo. I stay positive, because he is serenading me with the song I began singing him at birth. I’m not proud, but here goes:  Let’s take the dookie from your diaper. Let’s take the mushy from your tushy. Let’s make your bootie feel better. Let’s make it not smell like cheddar. Then you improv with a little let’s take the dookie, let’s take dookie, let’s take the dookie.

I send him back to bed and fetch my laptop. Maybe I’ll write that masterpiece now.

The door opens and he comes back out,

Me: Elliot, it’s nap time. Go back to bed.

Elliot: No, I can’t because it’s time for oatmeal.

Me: No, it’s not. (Dad chimes in) Elliot go back to bed.

Elliot: Okay. (starts closing the hallway door.) I miss you, mama.

Me: I miss you too. Go to bed.

(From inside his room) Elliot: lalabla.

Me: Elliot go to sleep.

Elliot: What you say?

Me: Elliot Grissom go to sleep!

Elliot: What are you doing, mama?

Me: Waiting for you to go to sleep?

Elliot: What’s daddy doing?

Me: Waiting for you to go to sleep.

(Door opens to his bedroom and the hallway)

Elliot: What you say about me?

Me: Nothing. Go to sleep or no party (he has two birthdays).

Elliot: I miss you, mama.

BOTTOM LINE: KID IS OUT OF BED AND NOW I CAN’T WRITE THIS BLOG! GOD!!!!!!!

I’m back, and now I feel bad because he made me laugh then I yelled at him to get back in bed. Now he’s saying he had a bad dream, but he hasn’t fallen asleep. These two hours were going to be the time I buckled down, the time I wrote something or aligned myself with my soul purpose, or organized my fridge. Oh, gosh, these two hours I took for granted. Like my twenties they went by so fast.

Elliot:I had a bad dream.

Me: Go to sleep.

Elliot: Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

(Shhhhh. The WHY phase. GD it came so fast. I knew it was coming. I never read any books. Wasn’t there a brochure or something I tucked under the bed? No, that explains toxic shock syndrome. Grrrrrr.)

Elliot: I hurt myself. I have a boo-boo.

Me: (Not buying it and looking at his exposed elbow.)

Elliot’s brow is furrowed. It really hurts he tries to say. I feel like I’m trying to hide a fart in church. I can’t help but smile. Then the giggle rises and I bury my face into the side of a nearby cat to stop him from seeing.

Me: Go back to bed. It’s quiet time.

Happy Sunday!

Pour SOME Cinema Sugar on Me: Why Chick Flicks Work for Beginners

Don’t laugh at the typo in my title. The feed is old,  and I don’t know how to correct FROM to SOME without grabbing someone at WordPress by the scruff.

Okay, guys,chances are when you use the term chick flick, you are not dishing a compliment. But I’m here to tell you that they hold – NO – they are your sword in the stone. Harness the power, and you are are working with a Viagra lightsaber combination that will cut through the huge walls of crap woman use to protect themselves.

But, Christine, you’re a woman. Why are you betraying the rest of the girls in the moon hut? Ahh, I’m not betraying them. It’s a common misconception that women want you to fail. We don’t. We want you to succeed like you are riding the white smoke of a new Pope. We want to take the douche out of your Banana Republic, the lack of awareness out of your Gap, and the Bass Pro Shop out of the spells you attempt to cast.

I’m going to break the seduction down.

Let’s Start with the Basics

Appearances and age don’t matter. Sexy comes from inside and makes your outside magnetic.

Adam Arkin in Northern Exposure. We’ll see beyond your scruff. Your prickness translates to a challenge. If you treat us well, we win.

 Now it is clear. We  are attracted to the core. Why do nice guys finish last? That’s not true at all. You have to be nice, but you have to bury it like treasure! Women are more spiritual then ever now. We’re identifying with animal spirit guides and Egyptian Goddesses. We want to chase your nicesness down on a grassy Savannah, and we want to tear it out of you with our teeth. If you hand it to us, and Heaven forbid other women, it’s not satisfying. There has been no hunt for our inner lioness.

WARNING: THIS CLIP HAS BAD LANGUAGE NOT FIT FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE CURSE JARS.

Man, I wanted to climb into Lost in Translation and Fed Ex Bill Murray my carpet samples.

Why go with the son. I’d call Alan Arkin daddy. He’s got personality and baldness working for him. My armchair analyzing tells me women see bald men and we translate our love for our sons to adult men (we sexualize it). For example, we want to sit on your head, like we’ve successfully delivered breech. We also want to take you to our breast. Not for our satisfaction – because you need it.

Women spend a lot of time being critical of ourselves. We go to movies and imagine ourselves as the leading actress. We delude ourselves into thinking we have the hair we want, the good skin we want, and the right lines at the right time. We sip from these films like they are confidence smoothies. It’s why we see them in the theater and watch them whenever they are on television again and again and again.

Jason has confidence! He knows what he wants and goes after it. When the smart girls try to reason with him, it’s really them doing their own hunting. If he lets me live, that means he really loves me. It means I win!

In short, this first lesson is about encouraging women by engaging their inner huntress.

Academy Awards

Well, I am really happy that Anne Hathaway won. She’s been working forever.

Rattled: It’s Okay for Dads Too

I’ve been writing this column for three years, and I have largely focused on the moms out there. Dads out there, are you rattled, too?

Dads get flustered and overwhelmed just like moms, but different things get male noses out of joint. Just the other day, I sat in a Mexican restaurant enjoying the bliss that is a plate of chicken flautas topped with guac.

After a couple of minutes in my cumin cocoon, I began to wonder what had become of father and son. They’d gone to the restroom. A few minutes earlier, a waiter summoned me at my husband’s request — the Pull-Ups were in the car.

With that remedied, what was taking so long?

The guys returned, and my husband looked like Kermit the Frog with his face all folded in disgust.

“Was it bad?” I asked.

“He didn’t go,” said the frog. “I waited and waited, and he didn’t go. He just wanted to waste my time.”

The flauta in my mouth should have but failed to prevent my commentary. “I don’t think he put that much thought into it,” I suggested mildly.

That’s when I got the salsa stare. It had been an ugly experience where a hungry man had to do battle with a son wanting to touch every germ-ridden surface with the efficiency of someone hunting for a secret passage.

I can hardly take myself to the bathroom, so I’m glad that this is largely my husband’s job.

Just this evening, I was walking through the Publix parking lot and discovered my fly was down. I pulled my sweater low and tried to right the situation. Good, Christine. Get her up before the security camera at the entrance spots you. I did but then realized the security camera on the outside ATM had caught the whole thing.

Our child also has a love of buttons; more specifically, pressing them.

This is a little infuriating for me, because he’ll come up and press my laptop keyboard as I’m writing. Dad has an iPad, though. He’s been waiting all day to read that one story on ESPN.com, but Elliot’s little hand comes in and swipes the story away. Another brush across the touch screen, and he’s got dad’s tale of a pro-athlete choking on Donny Deutsch’s garden gnome locked deep in the bowels of the Library of Congress.

“What,” I ask, like my partner’s snit is a cat turd in my freshly raked Zen garden.

All I see is Elliot cuddled in his lap, snug as a bug.

It’s not that we don’t understand a man’s right to be angry or even annoyed, but we scope out our peace and defend it.

We got over our own snit minutes ago. Plus, fellas, we’ve got so much oxytocin running through us that we’re bonding with houseplants and pencil sharpeners half the time.

It’s got us empathizing with our young as much as we can, and then we move on to grieving for half-eaten Fruit Roll-Ups and bananas.

When we make peace over it, don’t you come in here and cock it up. Men only get surges of oxytocin during orgasm. Too bad.

We’ve spent all day long caring. We’re tired of caring. Well, all right. Give us a little red wine, and we’ll try to care some more.

Really, most dads work as hard and care as long as most moms.

Dads are at the park wiping runny noses, fixing snacks and doing the potty thing, just like us. They’re facing tantrums and trying to teach and tell bedtime stories. They’re allies who parent with a slightly different accent.

Dads don’t always make it clear when they’re worried, and moms don’t always see through our own haze to understand.

I guess the only thing we can try to do for each other is be aware, not just of the kid but each other.

Recognize each other’s tells. We do it for the children. Aww, you’re rubbing your ear. That means you’re tired.

Let’s look at our spouse, too. When mom puts her hair in three ponytails, I take over for a while. When dad starts a bitter search for every screwdriver he’s ever owned, that means he’s cooked.

Let’s take our own advice and try to shake more things off than we take personally.

Let’s encourage each other by granting solitude, me time, renewal.

Then, as a family, let us all go out and make fun of other families not doing it as well.

Christine Lucas writes about being a first-time mom and adventures with baby. Contact Christine at christineslucas@yahoo.com