The Brothers Henig

When I was brought home from the hospital, my big brother D, who was three at the time, was allowed to hold me somewhat unsupervised. As the story goes, he decided he was done holding me, let go, and I plopped onto the floor. Then he asked when they were taking me back to the hospital.

When we placed Cody in Jacob's lap today, I was careful to keep my hands on both kids at all time, but I didn't have much to fear. Jacob was so gentle, and he kept kissing Cody: "Kiss eyes. Kiss ears. Kiss nose." He also kept saying, "I love Cody" over and over again. What's that pool of liquid over there? Oh right, it's my heart.

With all the good news, I know that this is also a complicated time for Jacob, and I want to be mindful of that. Later in the afternoon, we watched a Netflix together,  Rugrats: The Movie. What neither Josh nor I realized is that this movie is about a little boy who gets a baby brother who cries all the time and the parents ignore the older brother. Well, maybe the movie is about more than that, but that's about as far as we got before Jacob turned to me with his eyes full of tears and said, "Watch Madagascar?" What's that cracking sound? Oh right, it's my heart.

Could this day get any better?

We started the day with a Vikings playoff win, Daddy & Jacob got some shots (of the H1N1 variety) and had a Borders Books date, they are bringing home Pluto's (the best salads ever!!) and the Golden Globes are starting in 15 min. Also? I haven't changed out of my PJs or done anything besides blow my nose all day. Loverly, just loverly.

Christmas!

Eight Crazy Nights

This Advent season, I’ve been introducing Jacob to some of my Christmas traditions, like a Christmas tree, Advent calendar (chocolate!) and Advent wreath and candles. He’s most intrigued by the wreath and candles, which he likes to blow out every night and sing “Happy Birthday.” The first time I impulsively inserted “Jesus” in the final refrain, and it’s kind of stuck. With all the Jesus happening in our house, I think it’s only fair to inject a little Jewishness into the scene.

Unlike my frenzy of decorating and tree trimming and humming of Christmas hymns, Josh is pretty neutral. He’s neither repelled by all the Jesus around here, but he’s not running out to get a menorah either. So mainly this Jesus guilt is all me. I want to model inclusivity to Jacob, and make sure that he understands where he comes from on both sides, and the best way that I know how to do this is through tradition.

While I grew up in a town where we had a lot of Jewish friends and got a taste of it, I don’t know all that much about Jewish cultural traditions beyond some Yiddish and that our family friend A’s potato kugel on Christmas is one of the best things I ever tasted. So, I’m starting with what is familiar and comfortable to me: food. While I have ambitions of brisket, I’m trying to be realistic about my current energy stores.

Thus, I present to you the Henig’s Hanukkah 2009: Eight nights of latkes. Basically, I’m going to do my best to create some Jewish sides over the next eight days as an entry point for Jacob and myself. I’ll mainly stick to latkes (potato, zucchini, carrot and yam, oh my!) and mix in a potato kugel and veggie kugel for fun. We won’t be doing 8 presents or the lighting of the menorah, but this is a starting point for me to help honor Josh’s ancestry.

As I’ve mentioned, Josh’s grandparents were the only surviving members of their family. Without them, I would not have the family or life that I have right now, and I am so grateful for that they made it through and created the family that exists today. I’m not going to diminish my own background and traditions, but there is plenty of light to shine on each of our worlds, and if anything, celebration of light is what this season is all about.

Lessons from a Marriage, Vol. I

Ask most marrieds, smug, happy or miserable, and they'd probably agree that trust is one of the most important pieces of a good marriage.

So last night, when Josh said, "I'm going to cut Jacob's hair," I gave him the scissors and let him have at it. Oh the urge to Micro-mommy was strong, I tell you what, but I held back. I put aside the visions of Jacob looking like a Mr. Bigglesworth from Austin Powers in our Christmas pics, and went into another room.

The result? Short, very short. Maybe cut his hair dry next time short. But he's adorable, and Daddy did a very nice job.

To return the favor, Josh let me cut his hair this afternoon. Isn't one trust session enough?! But that's what marriage and parenting is all about, pushing through those comfort zones.

I am happy to say that Josh still has hair on his head and I did not snip off his ears, and my comfort zone is sufficiently stretched for one day.

Semantics

By my count, the house that I grew up in contained 24 rooms and 5.5 bathrooms, from the basement to the third floor, not including closets. In sharp contrast, I choose to live in a house that is less than 2,000 square feet (less than half of 20 Maple’s first floor alone) but that’s for another time.

Like me, my mother is a lover of words. So in addition to the usual words (bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, etc) the lexicon of my childhood home included a powder room, a front hall closet, back hall closet, vestibule, butler’s pantry, parlor and library. My siblings and I re-named these rooms by their use, so the “back hall closet,” which housed soccer balls, shin guards, tennis rackets and balls and other sports accessories was called the “sports closet.”

We are WASPs, so as you can imagine, this resulted in some fiery showdowns:
Mom: “Will you put your ice skates/cleats/racket in the back hall closet?”
Child: “You mean the sports closet?”
Mom: “Yes, the BACK HALL closet.”

Recently, my brother-in-law was looking for something in our house; let’s just call it a hoosywhatsy for the sake of this story.
Me: “Oh sure, it’s in the media room”
B-i-L: “You mean the tv room?”
Me: “Uh, yeah, the media room.”

Ahem.

Hello, Kettle? This is Pot. You’re black.

Penance

When I was growing up in the Episcopal Church, the congregation spoke a general confession every Sunday from the Book of Common Prayer:

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

I have to admit that this prayer never gave me much comfort. I secretly envied my Catholic friends, who had an opportunity to provide a list of their wrongdoings and get a specific punishment; I loved the concreteness of their ritual.

Now I am a grown up, and I attend a different kind of Church each week. This week, Stroller Strides was held on Thanksgiving, and I had not been in attendance since October 24. While there was no need for confession, my penance was as clear as any Hail Mary or Our Father: inability to move for three days.

The Church of the Holy Endorphins, Northern CA Parish

When I was growing up, our Sunday ritual revolved around the morning Eucharist at St. John’s Episcopal Church, two blocks from our house. I wore my red leather Mary Janes on special occasions, and counted the big hats on Easter Sunday, but most of my time was spent sitting at my parents’ feet, drawing on the weekly program with one of the many pens that my father always carried in his suit, perhaps for this specific purpose. After church there was coffee hour in the Parish Hall, which was only memorable to me in that when I was three, I walked into a stray cigarette that was about toddler cheek height. I actually don’t remember the event, just the cigarette shaped slight crater in my cheek today that always reminds me of church.

Aaaannnyyyywhoo.

We had a core social group of a few other couples and their kids: The Cordes’, the Stewarts, and the Bradleys. We spent many holidays together over the years; in addition to the religious connection, we found a social network for our family.

I think about church a lot now that I’m a parent, as well as ritual, especially now that the holiday season is beginning. While Josh is Jewish, from what I gather he did not have similar formal traditions and rituals to what I experienced growing up. That was one thing that was so appealing about him, that holidays were not so dependent on having a specific ritual. Sometimes rituals can be tiring, and for a while, I wanted a break.

Parenting has brought out some of the ritual in me. At this time, we’ve decided to forgo formal religious institutions, but we do have a weekend tradition. Every Saturday morning (barring illness, morning sickness, or pre-relative cleaning frenzies), we load up the car and drive to a local park, where we attend Stroller Strides, our “mom & baby” (and dads) fitness class.

We don’t wear the big hats and Mary Janes of my childhood, but I do make sure to have my trusty visor to shield against the sun, and a solid pair of running shoes.

We don’t have hymns, but we do sing songs to help us through the prayer of resistance bands: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

We don’t have the blood or body of Christ, but we do have sweat pouring down our bodies, and G2 and granola bars to re-fuel after class.

We don’t have the coffee hour in the parish hall, but we do have abs and stretching by the playground as our kids get their own workout after spending an hour in their strollers.

We don’t have the Christmas Pageant, or Palm Sunday, or an Easter Egg Hunt, but we do have holiday themed circuit training (tomorrow is the Halloween class, so we'll be doing pumpkin squats or something like that)

Stroller Strides, much like church, has gotten me through some big fears. Fear of exercising in front of people (SS is at a park that is usually filled with our future fellow parishioners, “Temple of the Saturday morning Soccer Match,”), fear of running, pushing through the nausea to find that exercise can help.

Last Saturday, we hosted a small pumpkin carving party, and as some of my fellow Stroller Striders and I chatted while our kids raced around our yard, covered in washable marker from decorating pumpkins and piling on top of one another into the hammock, I felt so happy and realized that for now, our quirky kind of church will do just fine.

Monkey Brain

When I was a kid, my family was teased me about an alleged obsession with bathrooms. Whenever we’d go out to dinner, I’d inevitably spend some time in the ladies room, and apparently too much time, according to the fam.

No one asked me why I spent so much time in the bathroom, and I assure you that it wasn’t some obsessive-compulsiveritual of washing my hands 20 times before eating. I was the youngest of four, and a Monkey Brain to boot; sitting around a table with a bunch of older people was bo-ring. The main thing that got me through these dinners was the distraction of food, or going through my dad’s wallet. However, once I learned to read, and found some of my mom’s credit cards that were “accidently” in my Dad’s wallet, my snooping days were over and it was all about food.

So I checked out the bathrooms of every restaurant we visited. My favorite by far was the “ladies lounge” at our yacht club, which was a suite that included full doors on each stall and a separate room with big mirrors, and cute settees for ladies to re-apply their makeup or just take a break from being fascinating by sitting on one of the ornate settees. I also liked walking through the attached coat closet, feeling the softness of the furs in winter before I realized that fur is murder. By the time I returned to the table, my food would be waiting for me, and I’d be on the downhill slope of having to sit still and listening to the boring adult talk.

Yesterday, it took 10 minutes for my computer to start up, so I defragmented my very fragmented hard drive. After returning voicemail and reading through everything work related that I could, my Monkey Brain was about to explode at my computer, which said “24% complete” after an hour.

So, I took a page from my younger days and decided to head to the adult equivalent of my childhood ladies lounge trips: Walgreens. 30 minutes, 1 bottle of nail polish, the latest copy of Allure and several salty snacks later, I returned to a fully defragmented computer.

Works every time.

Mini-me nephew

When Josh's brother Dan was a toddler, he moonlighted as a food thief, wandering their Minnesota neighborhood, testing for open doors and raiding cabinets. My favorite family story is of little Danny being caught red-handed in a box of Pop Tarts. Having been raised in a trans-fat free household, I love that image because they would have been my contra-ban of choice as well.

Today, Jacob channeled Dan circa 1979-80 (Dan is 8 1/2 years younger than Josh). As Josh sat in the backyard grading, Jacob orbited him happily, coloring, checking out the garden hose, delivering our neighbor's rotting persimmons into our compost bin, shadowing Daddy like Dan once shadowed Josh.

Meanwhile, I was being a good little recessionista by trading foodstuffs with my neighbor: I shared tomato jam (with tomatoes from their garden) as well as spaghetti squash with roasted veggies & ricotta. In return, we received homemade spaghetti sauce, 2 cupcakes and two loaves of yummy banana-walnut cake. I left the loaves of banana-walnut cake on our butcher block to cool, well above little hands.

Or so I thought.

Later in the afternoon, it was quiet. Too quiet. I looked for Jacob and found him sitting on our snuggler, perched over a loaf of banana cake, digging a trench in the middle of the loaf, licking cake off his fingers and saying, "Ooooohh, nummy, nummy, nummy! Dee-li-cious!"

His "Unca Dan" would be so proud.