Rite of Passage

It was bound to happen, but I thought it would be a few years down the line...

That, my friends, is my son's introduction to Playboy magazine. The magazine he will one day, invariably, read for the articles.

How did this chance meeting come to be, you ask?

Last week during winter vacation, Ethan and I spent a day trolling through one of my favorite little coastal towns; between bouts of collecting shells on one beach & pretending to be salty old pirates on another (being sure to keep at least 300 ft from the baby sea lion pups basking in the sun--its the law), we made a stop at my favorite vintage junky-artsy shop. There we climbed piles of broken tiles and glass (Mother of the Year award, right here, baby!!!) looking for the perfect pieces to use for stepping stones for our garden. We shuffled through a yard full of old door knockers, vintage winery signs, and the odd brass buddha. Think Anthropologie tchotchkes, but not mass produced. And cheaper.

At one point, nature called, and so we asked the nice little hoarder guy who owns the shop if there was a bathroom inside. He led us down a hallway of more flea-markety artsy junky stuff to a little bathroom. And there we met....the Playboy.

Vintage 1968 copy, still in its plastic wrapper. Just hanging out all Bunny-rific, on the counter of the bathroom. And like the proverbial moth to the flame, Ethan almost immediately assumed the posture above and maintained it the entire time we were in the bathroom. No questions, no "what is this?" No questions about the woman wearing the bunny ears bathing suit. Just quiet, reverential contemplation.

And its not like he hasn't seen women in bathing suits before. We go to stores where there are bathing suit sections and there are marketing ads of women in bikinis far skimpier than the tastefully provocative bunny ears one piece gracing the cover of this particular magazine. He spent a week on the beach last week in full view of any number of body types in any number of bathing suit styles. But for some reason, this image, with the letters PLAYBOY over it, captivated Ethan into a prolonged silence and appreciation I've not seen him maintain since he first discovered The Beatles.

Oh my.

Best Comment Evar!

So my last post a couple weeks ago about the The Fresh Beat Band garnered comments from my best bloggy friend, and yes, Amy, at first opportunity, we will be taking Ethan to see Paul McCartney (pleeeeeeeease don't drop dead, Sir Paul, until my kid has been in your presence--pleeeeeeeeasssseee!), and Sarah, I may have spit my drink out when you compared the first Marina to 90210's Andrea (pronounced, Awwwndraya, please).

But by far, my favorite comment on this post was left by "someone" called Fresh Beat Concert Tickets (her parents must have been clairvoyant hippies with bad taste in music), and it went something like this (Well, actually that's exactly how it went because I couldn't make up or edit these sentences no matter how hard I tried...)

The Fresh Beat Band is one of the most popular Band in our children’s and as well as youth also. The main thing in these are to target the child and use the memory of every person childhood life... I love TFBD

Um.

What now?

I just....I don't....WHAT?!!

Now this is not the first spam comment I've gotten before. Its not even the first one in which the grammar and usage has left a bit to be desired. But seriously, as a former English teacher, this comment makes my eye tic. Is someone being paid by some business to leave that comment? And do they know that the person they are paying to leave that comment is randomly picking words out of a thesaurus and threw the words Fresh Beat Band in there for good measure?

I have to say the phrase "target the children" made me look twice. Target them? That's pretty aggressive language for someone trying to promote a happy bouncy, loudly color-blocked quartet of kiddie entertainers who sing about friendship & the joy of making music.

So very weird. Perhaps my next career could consist of providing style & composition classes for blog spammers, because if we're going to get these types of comments anyway, they may as well be written in a way that does not make our eyes bleed. But then, I guess it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to mock them. And I do like mocking them.

Fresh Beat Mania....

Because we are gluttons for punishment ,super parents ,crazy, we got tickets to take Ethan to see the Fresh Beat Band last weekend. You know, these guys:

Freakishly cheerful singers of infuriatingly upbeat & ear-wormy kiddie tunes. Late 20-somethings pretending to be bouncy teens involved in some sort of otherwise un-academic "music school" in a town comprised entirely of smoothie shops & primary colors. So right up my alley. Oh my god, the horror.

Ethan's been watching the "Fresh Beats" since they were called the Jump Arounds and had the original Marina before she mysteriously disappeared (perhaps hacked up & turned into a fruity concoction by Melanie, the proprietor of the Goovy Smoothie). When they first appeared on the scene (before I learned how to operate the DVR), we planned our park trips around their TV schedule--much like I did my college class schedule in regards to General Hospital's air time. They were a major fixture in our daily entertainment line up, much of which consisted of music---Music Together class, Guitar Hero, and The Jump Around/Fresh Beats. At the sound of "What a great day!", signaling the final song & dance number of the show, Ethan would stop whatever he was doing & try to get his little 3.5 year old body to do the same thing as the 25 year old 6' tall blonde kid was doing on the TV screen. We are all grateful he wasn't ever injured in these attempts.

While his ardor has cooled somewhat and we no longer have to schedule our lives around Nick Jr's programming, when he hears that the Fresh Beat Band is coming up next, he is still very much a captive audience. And these days, a better dancer.

So we bought the tickets. For the show in Stockton, which is almost 2 hours away. Because the show 20 minutes away was sold out. Well. Was sold out of seats that we thought were good enough for our special snowflake (::hanging head in shame::)

We bought the tickets in January, but having learned our lesson about sharing information with Ethan too far in advance of a fun event, we kept our pie holes shut about it. Ethan's natural impatience combined with his burgeoning interest in all things clock/calendar related has made sharing any information with him about upcoming events, from vacations to impending play dates, a "how many more hours/minutes/days/seconds until...." nightmare. So it wasn't until Friday night that we spilled it that we had a "surprise" for him on Saturday. This, as expected, began a every-5-minute "is it time for my surprise" countdown that threatened to keep him awake well into the night, brain swirling over the possibilities of said surprise. Imagined surprise went from the mundane, "Is Daddy staying home from work tomorrow?" (um, yeah, its Saturday. Let's focus on days of the week in school a bit more, shall we?) to the grandiose "Are we going to London?!" (dial it back a bit, kid. Wait. Are we?!!! Are we going to London???!!!!)

The best part of the lead up was that every time we saw a Fresh Beat show or ad on Nick Jr, I'd casually throw out a "wouldn't it be so cool to see them in concert?" and Ethan would stop what he was doing and say, "I would love that. I would love to get up on stage and sing with them." Sigh.

Somehow we managed to get through breakfast, swim lessons, a few hours of incessant questioning and outlandish guesses on Saturday morning and then it was time to head to California's armpit, Stockton. Not a fancy place, that Stockton. Not what you'd call a destination.

Ethan's reaction at the big reveal, walking up to the theater and seeing the name Fresh Beat Band in lights, was more subdued than I had expected. Perhaps because he was in a state of total shock and emotional shut down--it seemed the only way to keep his head for exploding clear off his body in sheer excitement. But once we got in to our seats and were surrounded by the other mini-music-maniacs with their Fresh Beat Band shirts and flashing glow sticks (we were grateful that Ethan didn't once ask for a shirt, because...no. But we did indulge him in the flashing glow-stick), and he saw that stage all decked out in its mod-esque shapes and primary colors, he got all fever-pitchy and excited.

The rest is a bit of a blur, but it looked a lot like this:.

and this:

and so on...

At one point, the tall lanky beat-box "kid" came out into the audience (as a friend said later, they must draw straws pre-show and who ever gets the shortest one has to endure the throngs of slobbering preschooler/kindergarteners, rabid with looooooooooove and squeeeeeeee'ing delight the likes of which rivaled the panty-slinging histrionics usually found only at Elvis or Tom Jones concerts). As "Twist" neared our row, Ethan bounded out of his seat and ran, like a moth to flame to the TV-star turned "he's RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE" human being. Somehow he got through the throngs of other kids and gave Twist a giant bear hug and OMFGGGGGGGGGG, Twist hugged him right back, all happy & best buddy-like, and not at all Jerry Sundusky-ish. While it freaked me out to see my kid run into a crowd of kids in a semi-dark theater and hug a total man stranger (seriously, have our discussions about stranger danger meant nothing to him???!), it was sweet to see such crazy wish-fulfillment (and to set his future expectations so freaking high--yay us!) for our little guy.

It wasn't *quite* getting up on stage and singing with them, but Ethan was content, when the lights went up and the Fresh Beats disappeared off the stage and back into the realm of the TV screen, that he'd had a pretty awesome time.

Pintrest: More Than Just a Time Suck...sort of.

So we are finally at a school where holidays are actually acknowledged. Since my own teaching days, I have found myself always associated with schools (both public & private) that refuse to accept that you can put on a cowboy costume and not be a devil worshipper, or offend those people who think putting on a cowboy costume (or G-d forbid, a Harry Potter costume) makes you a devil worshipper. And Valentines Day has always been shunned in the class room either because of the inevitability of 25 children going face-down in piles of chocolate, thereby falling into sugar comas & inching this much closer to a life of morbid obesity, or oft-left out word "Saint" in front of it, which I guess makes it a religious holiday. And heaven forbid we offend anyone who doesn't acknowledge saints by eating a chocolate heart and a heart-shaped mold of sugar with the word "cutie" on it. I don't acknowledge saints as any sort of demi-gods, but I do love me a red velvet cupcake, so.....

We've already reveled in the joy that was dressing up for Halloween in kindergarten. Ethan donned his Transformers costume (and somehow managed to elude the clutches of Satan) and paraded around school with his friends. We did a craft and ate some treats (a mixture of uber healthy straw and kibble mixed in with the standard sugar overload one associates with Halloweens of old. And lo and behold, we all survived, both the threat of demonic possession and the risk of Type-II diabetes. Miraculous.

So as we neared the next formerly taboo holiday, I roamed the aisles of Target (starting promptly on Jan 2nd, before the ChristmaHannuKwanziKah and New Year Stuff was cold in its grave) looking at the variety of Valentines candies and crafts available for our mass consumption in the coming month. I was most delighted by the glitter Darth Moll boxed heart o' chocolates I found, because if Darth Moll isn't the very spitting image of baby Cupid, I don't know who is....right?

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that we were "strongly discouraged" from bringing candy into school attached to our valentines cards. Will the assault on traditional values never end? Sigh.

I kid. I'm actually relieved that Ethan won't be coming home from his party today with a bag full of chocolate covered goodies because when he does that, I gain 5lbs from the contact high of being that close to that much chocolates. And also, I eat them. all.

And really, Ethan's feelings for chocolate run very tepid. He doesn't get all swirling-optical-illusion eyes hypnotized by it like I do. So he doesn't care. When the kindergarten moms bring in treats for the parties, he is far more likely to knock a classmate over to get to the watermelon and grapes than the cupcakes. He has asked me, "Mommy, when will my sweet tooth come in?" I hope soon, because right now I'm the only one in the family with a sweet tooth, which means either we partake of NO sweets at all, or I eat ALL the sweets. Neither is an acceptable scenario in my book.

So, candy treats were out. I wracked my brain to think of something non-sugar/chocolate/delicious to go along with Ethan's store-bought Valentines (nothing says "I put a lot of time into this" like a fold over picture of Annakin Skywalker brandishing his lightsaber at you). And then I remembered one of the first things I'd every pinned on Pintrest, wayyyyyy back when.

You take bits of crayons (ideally the nubs of old, used up crayons--in our case, a brand new box of 48 because Ethan wasn't willing to part with his old 1/2 used crayons, and could not see the logic in claiming the new box as his own and chopping up the old crayons. Okay), chop them up, put the pieces in heart-shaped silicon molds, stick 'em in the oven for 10 minutes at 230 degees and VOILA! You have a plethora of funky, swirly, totally usable mult-colored crayon hearts.

Fun mother-son bonding, a handmade gift to go along w/ the store-bought-because-most-of-the-kids-can't-read-anyway cards, and? Zero calories (except for the little heart-shaped box of mini reeces peanut butter cups we split between us during production (and by "split between us" I mean I think Ethan might have eaten one)....so......)

Where does he get that penchant for flirting????.....

....oh. (me, circa 1976)

first we had to peel all the brand new crayons. This might have made me a little twitchy, but I kept reminding myself "they were only $2. they were only $2."

it was a lot of recycling....

then we smashed the pieces so they were nice and small...

While I chopped the crayons up handily with a knife, Ethan stirred the pieces up ever so helpfully in our mixing bowl, to ensure a pleasing color mixture. He begged to be able to chop up the crayons, but the pintrest "recipe" is for melted crayon hearts, not for melted lopped-off finger hearts. So.

Yeah, that cutting board is so trashed.

into the oven @ 230 degrees for 10 minutes...

oooooh, swirly....''

We popped them out of the silicon mold, taped them to the cards & mission accomplished!

We even had a few left over for ourselves to play with.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Heavy-hearted. Goodbye, SGK...

So unless your address contains the words "under a rock somewhere," you probably know about the whole Susan G Komen....disaster, fiasco, implosion, cluster--whatever you want to call it...that transpired last week. There was defunding, refunding, stories of lawsuits simply for using combinations of words that have been part of the English language LONG before the inception of SGK, information about the political leanings (and intolerant, hateful views) of some of the executives (not to mention the salaries of said execs). Somehow the fight to cure breast cancer became about a woman's right to choose. And millions of heads all over this country exploded in unison over Susan G Komen's decision to defund Planned Parenthood. And then, 48 hours later, millions of other heads all over the country exploded in unison as SGK decided to "re-fund" Planned Parenthood. It was a bad week all around for exploding heads.

There are so many layers of wrong involved in what Susan G Komen did last week. I just wouldn't even know where to begin and my blood pressure has finally come back to normal, so I'm not going to try to outline all the reasons I used the word "apoplectic" to describe my state of mind last week. Suffice it to say---it was the ugliest ugly that ever uglied. As each new revelation came out in the news, whether it be about how SGK sued other charities over the color pink and the word "cure," or the video of SGK's VP talking about how same sex couples shouldn't be allowed to adopt children, or the salaries of their executives (where exactly is the $$ for a nearly 500,000 salary for their CEO coming from?), my back muscles tightened exponentially until they commenced spasming sometime around Thursday morning.

While I should have been happy to read about the reversal of their decision to defund Planned Parenthood, the wishy-washiness of the decision was apparent in their statement. They said they are honoring all of their funding commitments this year & invite PP to apply again in the future. Hmmm....am I the only one who reads, "Fine. We'll give them their money this year, but we're going to spend the next year figuring out how to defund them again. And we'll be spending more of your hard-earned money on Ari Fleischer's consulting fees to figure out how do it better this time."? Yeah, so.....thanks, but no thanks, SGK.

Last night the group of amazing women I walked with last year met for the first time since our post-walk party in September. A couple of weeks ago, this reunion would have been to brainstorm training schedules, training walk locations and fundraising strategies. Instead, last night we sadly agreed that we are no longer going to associate ourselves with SGK. We agreed that given the circumstances surrounding the past week, and the colossal questions raised about SGK's distribution of funds and management and political associations, there is too much doubt in our minds to commit ourselves to their organization at this point.

It is heart-breaking because the experience of walking last year was one of the greatest of my life. It is heart breaking because of how hard we all worked to gather the money we blindly handed over to this behemoth of an organization with no idea what they were actually going to do with it. And heart-breaking because I realize that SGK still does lead the charge in funding research for finding a cure for breast cancer. I wish I could say I felt like the re-funding of PP and the resignation of Karen Handel was enough to restore my faith in the organization. But I can't. The taste left in my mouth is too foul and the doubt left in my mind is too powerful to wish away.

However, that does not mean I've come to the end of my participation in the fight to end breast cancer. While agreeing last night that we are no longer going to put forth our efforts in the name of the Susan G Komen organization, my team rededicated itself to the fight against breast cancer. It is horrifying how many of us know someone who has fought and won, is currently fighting, or has fought and tragically lost against this horrible disease--we simply can NOT turn our back on them, or the millions of other women who need the funds we are able to raise for research and treatment. So we will continue fundraising, holding our annual benefit concert and silent auction, and we will be researching smaller, local breast cancer charities and breast heath organizations to receive money we raise through those efforts. My hope is that other walkers in other parts of the country will consider going local as well, cutting out SGK as the middle man, making sure more of the money they raise goes directly to research and breast exams and treatment costs.

And I hope that SGK will be forced to use this experience as a turning point in their own management. I hope that those people who do choose to continue to fundraise and walk for SGK, regardless of what "side" of the Planned Parenthood funding fiasco they were on--will demand that SGK pare down its bureaucracy, abandon its practice of basing decisions on politics, and insist that they provide transparent and comprehensive information of where every penny raised by their loyal following goes.

My heart is heavy this morning as I close one chapter. But I'm looking forward to the next chapter and the renewed commitment my team has made to fighting breast cancer in our own little corner of the world and making a difference in the lives of the women (and men) in our communities.

My sincerest thanks to those of you who believed in me last year and contributed to my fundraising efforts. I am hopeful that the vast majority of the money I raised with my team went to research and funding we can feel proud of. And now we move on.

The One Where My Kid is "That Kid"....

Ethan has what one might refer to as "an excess of energy" most days. Its one of the reasons I believe he's weighing in at a whopping 33.8lbs at almost 6 years old (the other reason being that his favorite foods are watermelon and cucumbers. Seriously?! Eat a donut, kid!) So we try to keep as busy as possible. Park trips, play dates, light saber battles, and, on Tuesday afternoons, we head to little kid gymnastics place, where running around like a lunatic and turning summersaults until your equilibrium is permanently skewed is encouraged. The perfect place for Ethan.

But every once in awhile, Ethan goes beyond the realm of appropriate running and summersaulting. And he becomes....that kid. The one other parents can't help but watch with a mix of amusement and horror (light on the amusement, heavy on the horror), peeking around and wondering where is the woman who is raising this child to be just this side of neanderthal? Yesterday was that day.

Every 6 weeks or so, the gym has a parent participation session, where we're allowed to take off our shoes and go sit on the big red mats inside the gymnasium while our little ones show off their monkey-bar skills and chase the teacher around the room skipping and leaping and pretending to be ninjas, or whatever the hell it is they're doing. It's adorable.

Until your kid licks his own foot. Licks. His. Foot.

WHY why why would he do that?! I don't know, people. But he did. While sitting with his friendly little friends on the mat, waiting for instructions on what feat of strength and gymnastic-y skill they were to perform next, Ethan picked up his own little bare foot, inspected it seriously for a second or two, and then licked it. Twice. To, of course, the utter glee and fitful giggles of his friends. Thus proving to me that Ethan will do just about anything for a laugh and an adoring audience.

And I can only assume whatever he licked off of his foot had some sort of hallucinogenic property (or more likely, he was egged on by the laughter of the other kids), because after that, he was pretty much the whirling-est dervish that ever whirled. He could not contain his energy while his teacher was giving instructions and while the teacher was mid-sentence, Ethan decided to pop up and yell in my general direction, "I LOVE YOU, MOMMY!!!!!"

I whispered, "love you, too. sit down and listen," and hid my face in my hands while the other moms were either snickering or tsk'ing. I could tell the teacher was getting frustrated by Ethan's complete lack of even pretending to pay attention to anything he was saying. I was torn between taking over and disciplining him and sitting back and letting the teacher deal with him. None of the other kids seemed put out by his momentary lapse in self control, but every time he interrupted or got up to jump around while he "should" have been sitting, my inner highly-strung-overly-self-controlled 8 year old self got twitchy. I have issues.

As the teacher was finishing up giving instructions, Ethan decided that, having exhausted the taste sensations of his own feet, he would have to branch out, and he popped up again, grabbed his teacher's hand, and swung on it a couple of times.

And then licked it. Oh dear god. *twitch twitch*

Thankfully the teacher took it all in stride (and thankfully the gym comes equipped with all kinds of hand sanitizer dispensers), and after explaining kindly to Ethan that licking other peoples' hands was A.) not very polite, and B.) GROSS, he sent Ethan on his way to show off more epic gymnastic skills.

Like these:

A little pre-vaulting jazz hands...

Are you watching me? Are you watching me?! Do I have 100% of your attention?!!!

And post-vault jazz hands!

so. much. rolling.

going that way....

...and this way....

This is what he looks like most of the time--blurry from all the moving.

He's looking at the guy's hand like he's going to lick it again, isn't he?

Never happier than when he has all eyes on him.

And then there was much twirling....

crash landing...

And don't forget to swing on the bars...

look how happy he is--think he knows that some germ he licked off his foot is going to have him puking by Thursday? Probably not...

look how hard that girl's working to swing herself around the bar. My kid looks like he's sitting at a bar waiting for a margarita. Bless his little heart.

In hindsight, he was far less "that" kid than I initially thought in the moment--he was just so much more of a kid than I ever was. Sometimes its hard for me to gauge where the line is and when he's actually gone over it. True, licking his foot? And someone else's hand? Mortifying. But only for me. And only for a minute.

Knowledge Hodgepodge...

Ethan's brain seems to be expanding by leaps and bounds on any given day (or, more exactly, on every given day). He simply NEEEEEEDS to know and understand everything that is being said, and will ask an incessant stream of questions. It is for this reason that I can no longer listen to the inappropriate morning radio talk show on the way to school and why I refuse to let Ethan see an actual news broadcast. I am not prepared to answer all of those questions. As it is, questions about G-d and heaven and dinosaurs and tides and Star Wars and why leaves are green and worm holes and......omg, I need to lie down.

And while he is simply thirsting for this knowledge, he has a bit of a problem keeping it all straight in his mind. This is evident in his imaginative play. While a grown up would probably play Spider Man when s/he played Spider Man and dinosaurs when s/he played dinosaurs, Ethan tends to jumble them up....

Exhibit A: Spider Man rides the baby T-Rex...

Exhibit B: Mama T-Rex eats Spider Man...(cue Debbie Downer music...)

Exhibit C: "Spider Man head...nom nom nom...."

And he tends to get his history timeline a little mixed up....like when the "big bang" hit the dinosaurs....

please note the mangled Spider Man splayed out in to the side of the picture.
By the way, it seems my fate in life to never live in a house that has decent lighting for any type of photography. That's not at all frustrating.

I feel like Ethan knows SO much more than I did at his age--lunar eclipses, super novas, Martin Luther King Jr., Star Wars, how babies are born (born, not made. I'm not ready for how they're made.), super heros, how planes fly, what gravity is. He's asked questions and/or spouted out facts about these topics and countless more for at least half the amount of time he's been alive already. He can't seem to get enough knowledge. I don't remember being like that.

And I love that having all those little tidbits, however incomplete and over-simplified, in his mind gives him such huge leeway in what sort of imaginative play is possible.

Echo gets to join into the play as an "Echosaurus; he's a carnivore cat dinosaur, and he's the biggest dinosaur, even bigger than the T-Rex." Of course he is....

Another 60 Miles? Yeah. I Can Do That.

Do 1 in 8 women in the United States still get invasive breast cancer in their lifetime?

Is breast cancer still the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women worldwide?

Is a women in this country diagnosed with breast cancer every 4 minutes?

Were almost 40,000 women expected to die of breast cancer in this country in 2011 alone?

Yes.

Until the answer to all of these questions is "no", I can walk 60 miles.

I can walk for a friend and a former class mate who are fighting to rid their bodies of this disease.

I can walk for the researchers who live their lives to save the lives of others and need precious dollars to continue their work towards a cure.

I can walk for the uninsured single mom who can't afford her own screening or treatments and has kids at home who need their mother.

I can walk in memory of the almost 40,000 women who died of breast cancer last year.

I can walk for the teenage girl who held up a sign as I passed her on the Berkeley campus last year that read, "My mom had surgery yesterday; thank you so much for walking." I think of that girl, and her mother, and wonder how they are, often.

I can walk to celebrate the millions of women in this country who have stared down breast cancer in their own bodies and survived.

It is not easy; there are hours of commitment to training, fundraising, and blisters, and aching muscles and cramping arches and calves. There were moments last year during the walk when my feet barely fit back into my shoes and I wanted to get on the bus & give up. But it is nothing compared to fighting for your life against breast cancer.

I hope you'll find a way to donate to this cause--all of us know someone who has been, or will be, touched by this disease in our lifetimes, unless we can stop it. Please take a moment to click on the Susan G Komen link to the right of my blog and make a donation, however small, to help me reach my goal of $2300. There are no words to express my gratitude, but you will know, when the cure is found, and I believe it WILL be found, that you had a hand in making it so.

Thank you so much.