Danny at 8 years-old, maybe
Scene: Sitting in a client meeting in the middle of an extremely busy (out of the basement) day.
Phone rings.
Quick glance and my son’s number comes up. I excuse myself for a moment and explain I am concerned as he rarely calls. Texts, sure, but call… this could be serious.
Me: Hey man, everything ok?
Danny: Yeh, sure.
Me: Wassup.
Danny: Just called to say Happy Valentine’s Day.
Time to Cry Tuesday… enough said.
Filed under danny, Time to Cry Tuesdays
Are you suffering from Snow Fatigue? Or perhaps PTSFS (Post Traumatic Snow Fatigue Syndrome). Then again, how can we reach the post- traumatic phase when the damn snow keeps falling? Enough already, right?
This morning I was listening to another weather report warning me of yet more accumulation – this time with the added treat of ice on top of all the snow. Just at the moment that I thought I would surely scream, my son sent me an instant message with a link. It simply said, “My friend showed me this. I knew you would love it.”
Now, there is really nothing on earth better than a kid that knows you so well he can imagine you sitting at your desk cracking up at a ridiculous video. It was as if he could feel my weather disgust halfway across the country and knew just when to send out some relief. Funny thing about having a stupid sense of humor… I am pretty sure it is genetic.
So, my poor frozen Northeast friends, here is some relief – Danny style, to chase those blues away. And for those who are in more temperate climates, you will just love this for no other reason than it is so endearing. Warning: you will be singing this song for the better part of the day.
Filed under absurdities, danny, humor, Time to Cry Tuesdays, weather
Can you pick up a beer bottle with your toes? No? Well then you do not have monkey feet.
My son, on the other hand, was able to pick up that bottle with his lengthy digits with great ease. (no, he could not bring the bottle to his lips, that would make him double jointed).
Please do not underestimate this great talent. At the very least I am sure he is eligible for Letterman’s Stupid Human Tricks. Like all idiotic parents of our generation, we like to encourage what makes our children unique. You know, ‘we all have talents…blah, blah, blah’. I am surprised he was not trophied for this as a young boy.
It is amazing how long those toes are. His big toe actually looks like my thumb! It is uncanny.
Moral of the story: never dare an 18-year-old to do anything; chances are he will find a way to do it.
Filed under absurdities, body image, carry a camera, danny, family, humor, magnet for the absurd
Home. It’s more than just a house. Sometimes it is not even the ‘right’ house. Certainly not the dream house. But definitely home. With its drafty windows, ancient kitchen and not enough space… I still take comfort within these walls.
This is the place where the kids came home from the hospital and now come home from college. Where I walked the floors with them as teething, croupy, bronchitis babies and walked the floors again alone waiting to hear that garage door open when they started to drive.
And now this house – that has been so quiet these past months – is starting to come back alive with laundry and the smell of bacon. One kid home, first with a stomach virus and then a with her boyfriend. (21-year-olds get better quickly). And the other kid will be home before Tuesday comes to a close.
Not only have my children been gone, but their friends have been missed almost as much. I cannot wait for the door to open to those man-boys who love yodels and hug me till I almost fall over. Who initial the fruit and leave notes in the cup cakes and whose humor keeps me laughing all night long. I long for a foyer full of big sneakers and the shouting of video games in the basement. I can’t wait to have a late night kitchen full of young women who want to bake and hear all the plans of the lives they will soon enter when they graduate. I am thrilled to line this house with air mattresses and make breakfast for the masses.
There is now life in rooms that since the summer laid silent. And if these walls could talk they would tell the tales of a family that has grown up here. The years seem to echo in these walls, and as I walk through them things catch my eye that make me smile. For instance, the photo above brings me back 20 years. That would be a drip of Baby Tylenol on the wall in my daughter’s room. We have painted it twice since then, but it would appear that Tylenol trumps Benjamin Moore and it keeps bleeding through. It is a reminder of the strong will she had as a baby that serves her so well as a young woman.
If these walls could talk they would tell you that maybe this family never got to upgrade their house, but they have certainly built themselves a warm, solid place filled with love that they can always call home.
To my beautiful kids: don’t believe what they say…. You can ALWAYS go home again.
Happy Thanksgiving all. May you and your families feel at home no matter where you may be. And may your turkey not be pink when you carve it.
It is a bittersweet fact that as your kids grow, the time you spend as a family shrinks. If you have done your job well, their lives are full. If you are lucky, yours are as well.
We are four people with very full lives. Not one of us is the type to be idle or feel lonely. We have a great extended family, many friends and rich lives. We work hard and play hard.
Blah. Blah. Blah. Ok, so that is all academic. And though it is true on some level, after 21 years of being a family unit, you crave that time when you can be together. And you learn to appreciate the moments for what they are… fleeting and precious.
This weekend we visited our kids at college. If you don’t follow this blog regularly, my kids are away at school together as a freshman and a senior.
They love it. I love it more.
Parent’s weekend = fly. drive. eat. reverse. repeat.
But for twenty precious minutes, just the four of us sat on the couch in my daughter’s apartment and were simply US.
In all caps.
Nothing special was said. (oh except when my son told us about his human sexuality class and said he now knows more about the vagina than he ever cared to know – now that is something you rarely hear from a 18-year-old boy) There were no real heavy parenting moments. We just WERE. (again in caps)
And to me, there is nothing better on this earth than a little time with just us four…
even if it was only for twenty.
Filed under college, danny, family, gary, Jana, relationships, Time to Cry Tuesdays
Ah, Big 10 football and a rainy morning in Madison, Wisconsin. The late morning kick-off is no reason not to pre-game when you are in college. And for the young woman on the left, the mid-40 degree weather and drizzling chill was no reason to wear sleeves either.
This apartment was a half a block from Randall Stadium and there were no shortages of cheers from the crowd as they passed them by. You have to love the spirit of college football; and the complete joy they get from being fans.
This was the last home game my daughter, the senior, will attend as a student and marked the end of the first season for my son, the freshman. With a final score of 83 to 20 this home season went out with a bang. (this is not the official last home game which takes place Thanksgiving weekend, but it is the last one for my kids). UW set a school record and tied a Big Ten record for points scored and scored more points than any other FBS team this season.
I must apologize to you all for not getting the best shot of the day, which was the two guys walking down the street in the freezing cold rain in nothing but sneakers and badger g-strings.
I know, I am slipping up, sorry.
Filed under carry a camera, college, current events, danny, family, humor, Jana, sports, travel
photo: Jana Levinson
For those who do not know, I have two Badgers. That would be a freshman and a senior at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And these two bleed red. Well, ok, we all bleed red but they bleed Badger red. Go red. Camp Randall sea of red on game day red.
And if you follow college football, then you would know that this past Saturday night the #11 Badgers beat #1 Ohio State in the game of the decade. As my daughter described it, the place was electric from the moment of kick off. As well it should have been since they scored in the first 12 seconds of the game. The level of intensity never let up. As you can see, they rushed the field at the end of the game; something she had never seen in her 4 years there. Her friend who was visiting said this was up with the top 5 days of her life and she was not even a student there!
But this is not about football. Well it is, but not really. This is about belonging. About a sense of place and feeling a part of something that is way bigger than you could explain, yet it feels like it is simply a part of who you are. My kids are lucky to have had this at camp. And now in college they have what feels like camp on steroids.
81,194 people jammed into that stadium, all chanting, cheering and praying together for that win. For their team. Their school. Their culture. Damn, it does not get better than that.
We go through that crazy college app process praying that our kids will find a place to ‘be happy’. A place they feel they belong. A place to grow that will shape their lives, not just in the classroom, but out as well.
I am a firm believer that much of what they learn there is not academic. The community of Madison has been as strong a teacher for my daughter as her professors have been. I can only hope for the same for my son.
Everyone gets hung up on the career prep in college. Sure we want them to get jobs and be fulfilled and self sufficient. But maybe part of what makes them ready to go out into the world is to know WHO they are, not necessarily WHAT they want to be.
And that, my friends, is something to think about.
Filed under college, danny, family, Jana, Time to Cry Tuesdays
There is nothing like the wonder of a 5th birthday party when the birthday boy gets to open his presents after the festivities. What I would not give to know what gift prompted that perfect little thrilled face on my boy. And the equally impressed face of my other little boy to his left. Of course, his sister – the Boss, was on hand to make sure he opened his gifts correctly.
Fast forward 15 years that flew by so quickly I am suffering from a little mommy whiplash today just thinking about it. And there is my boy, firmly planted in his new college life, most probably still fast asleep right now.
But waiting for him in the package room in the dorm would be the ever famous box of…
you guessed it: 18 presents. This idea came from my friend Karen and I copied her for Jana’s 21st. Of course sending it to Spain cost more than the contents but it was surely worth it.
So, to my 18 year old ‘baby’, may this day and your new life be as filled with wonder and excitement as your 5-year-old face in the picture above. And know that no matter how old you get, you will always be a little bit of that bowl hair cut sporting, basketball jersey and t-shirt wearing, lego building little guy in this mom’s heart.
Happy Birthday Danny Boy. Be all you can be and…
be careful.
Love you, man!
Filed under advice to my son, college, danny, moms
“Mom, when are we going to go and get my stuff?”
That was the question in the last dream I had before I woke up. And there I was lying in bed thinking of what a busy day I had today and how guilty I felt that I did not have time to go with him to ‘get his stuff’.
Until I realized that there was no stuff to get (we had surely ‘gotten’ more ‘stuff’ over the past 4 days than humanly possibly). AND there was no Danny.
Yes, kiddies, after a year of ‘lasts’ and goodbyes ad nauseum as each of his friends left for college, my boy finally left too. Taking pride in being a family that is not prone to drama we were about on our last nerve until the moving day finally came. It feels like he has been going for so long I wonder why I felt so shocked this morning that he was actually gone.
So here is the thing; it comes in waves. When you think you have totally got your shit together and you know your kid is ready – and frankly so are you(ish) – it grabs you around the chest and chokes you so can barely breathe. You know it is time for him to move on to start his LIFE (note the caps) and time for you to discover the next phase of yours. Of course you know all this!
And then there is that moment. Like the one in the Starbucks on State Street while I was ordering Shaken Iced Tea Lemonades and they had the nerve to play Cat Stevens Father and Son:
It’s not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You’re still young, that’s your fault,
There’s so much you have to go through…
And there was my boy, sitting in the dim light at the back of the Starbucks with the sunlight streaming in through the window shining an eery glow around his silhouette. There he was with his scruffy beard and his Allman Bros. t-shirt and I realized that I had no choice but to let him go… for real.
And yes, I did start to cry right then and there in the Starbucks on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin. And no he was not all that happy with me but he did get it. Because he knew that by the end of the weekend when we left him and his sister, we would be leaving half our family halfway across the country. And there is simply nothing easy about that.
… Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away.
Filed under advice to my son, college, danny, family, Jana, parenting, Time to Cry Tuesdays
Hold on to your kleenex, kiddies, we are in countdown mode till the youngest child goes off to college. I will spare the drama, but this post had to be written.
Those who are walking down this road with me, we all know that this will be the fall of doing whatever the hell we want. And that surely does ease the pain of letting go. But every so often there is a moment. One that gets stuck in your throat and makes it just a little harder to breathe than you would like.
This past weekend I got my boy back for a few short days between counselor at camp and freshman at college. As we pulled into the zip code he had just enough time to shower before we were off to a 5 family farewell dinner with some of ‘his boys’.
Of course we had to torture them with the cameras a bit. But I am pretty sure that this post will make them glad that we did. For in picture number one below, you will find some of the very same smiles as picture number two. They may be hard to find, what with the facial hair and the hunky builds (I knew you guys would love that one), but they are the very same smiles that kept us moms going all these years.
We cheered at the sidelines for all these athletes, and of course virtually for our ‘mathlete’. We have lived through your joys and disappointments together as a community of families as if each and every one of you were our very own; because in essence you were.
We let you puke on our couches (as little ones) and in our cars (as not so little ones). Our homes were all yours, and of course so were our fridges and pantries. Never once did our love for you fail, even when your judgement sometimes did. The friendships you have shared through these years are nothing to be taken lightly.
May you always know the feeling of someone having your back the way you have here with each other. And may your moms survive this without putting you over the edge.
I love you all. Now go out and be all you can be.
And for G-d’s sake, be careful!
Oh, and of course remember to come back and eat me out of house and home whenever your hearts’ desire.
Filed under advice to my son, carry a camera, danny, parenting, Time to Cry Tuesdays
i could cry but i don't have time 