Bun Notice

My name is Rosanne Catalano. I used to have a life, until… 

“We’ve got a positive test on you. You’re pregnant.” 

When you’re a parent, you’ve got nothing: no cash, no time, no job history. You’re stuck in whatever city you decided to get knocked up in. You clean whatever shit comes your way. You rely on anyone who’s still talking to you: your equally fried mom friends; an old friend who used to party with you; family, too—if you’re desperate. And the down and out spouse you married along the way. 

Bottom line: As long as you’re a parent, you’re not going anywhere.

When you’re a parent, even the simplest operations require detailed planning. A well-equipped go-bag can be a huge asset, but human variables can create insurmountable obstacles.

Little A., Human Variable

There are several options for dealing with the human variables: force, avoidance, and bribery. Force can be crude and isn’t the most reliable method. And you can only work the avoidance angle for so long, so it usually comes down to bribery.

The Bribe

In parenting, you often run into a mark who thinks she knows more than you. This can put a serious hitch in your operation unless you nip it in the bud.

Know-It-All Mark

Everyone has a favorite technique for nipping things in the bud, but it usually comes down to bribery.

Bribed Mark

New parents frequently attempt to plan escapes. More experienced parents realize these operations have a very low success rate. If you have to plan an escape—like, for example, when your sanity is absolutely on the line—the best option is to have a well-trained extraction team.

Well-Trained Extraction Team

You still may not get away clean, but that will give you your best chance.

Really, I’d like to give a shout-out to all my fellow parental operatives out there, especially all the awesome moms I know, who really keep me going. And I owe so much to all the extraction teams who offer us a chance to breathe—our great stake-out artists (sitters) and our family, whether or not we're desperate. Most of all, thanks to my husband, the best partner/arms dealer a girl could ask for.

My Kids, the Space Geeks

What do you do with a lazy weekend morning?

My kids jump on Dad’s suggestion that we watch Nova. And, while they’re engrossed by the story of Einstein’s flexible model of space-time replacing Newton’s more solid concept, I marvel that I gave birth to these creatures.

For me, space and the stars just…well, they just are. I’ve enjoyed my times spent stargazing at camp, in Maine, on various beaches, but I’ve stuck to a romantic contemplation of the superficial beauties of space.

For the kids, it’s more about what exactly would happen to spaghetti in a black hole or how exactly our sun will end or whether there is gravity in your mouth. (Little A. concluded that he does, in fact, have gravity in his mouth.)

So today they spent an hour transfixed by the idea that all three-dimensional artifacts may be holograms of two-dimensional information on a plane somewhere (Don’t ask me! I don’t really get it!) and the coolest thing happened.

The NOVA episode included a lot of interviews with Peter Higgs, the physicist who (if I’m following correctly) posited the existence of the Higgs Field and the miniscule particles that confer mass on everything. Translation: he came up with the idea that there were little bitty particles that make EVERYTHING exist as matter. They give stuff its stuff-ness, aka matter.

As the episode originally aired in November 2011, many physicists commented that they believe the Higgs boson particle exists and it’s just a matter of time before it’s observed.

The really cool part? Just the day before we’d had the radio on in the car and heard an article about the discovery of the Higgs boson particle on July 4!

Even I couldn’t believe how exciting it was to hear all these scientist talking about how much proof of this particle’s existence would mean…if it happened…and to know that it just happened!

So I guess I’m a bit of a space geek, too. If you’re a dreamer, you kind of have to be, don’t you?

Explosive Humor

Disclaimer: I love my kids. I may possibly think they’re funnier than they actually are. Maybe not. You be the judge.

I do know this. Say what you will about infancy—and we had some magic moments—THIS is why I became a parent. Moments like this are my paycheck.

The other night at dinner, we were discussing one of the kids’ enduring fascinations, volcanoes. Unfortunately, Little A. still gets a few initial consonant sounds mixed up, so he was discussing “bolcanoes.”

Cut to scene.

S.: (seven-years-old, knows everything): “It’s not a BALL-cano; it’s a VOL-cano. I mean, if it were a ball-cano, it would shoot lots of different kinds of balls into the sky, and big piles of balls would slide down the side of the mountain…”

Little A. giggles.

“…and then the balls would scoop people up and slide them down the mountain and into a giant ball pit.”

Little A belly laughs.

Little A.: “Or a fall-cano!”

S: “Yeah, it could suck you in, so you go up the mountain and just fall in…”

Little A. (demonstrating with his hands): “Yeah, you could go <makes moving noise> up the mountain and then <makes crashing noise>.”

S. (remembering other family obsession): “It would be like a black hole!”

Mom: “Or it could just spray colorful fall leaves.”

Crickets. Mom’s not funny.

S: “What about a call-cano? It would be full of people going, ‘Hell-o-o-o-o! Hell-o-o-!’”

Dad: “And phones ringing.”

Everyone makes various phone ring noises. We’re all laughing our heads off by now.

S: “It could be a mall-cano, and be full of shoppers and clothes and pretzels…”

Dad: “Don’t forget cell phones and Starbucks!”

Kids giggle.

S.: “Or what if it was a Saul-cano? It would shoot Bible stories all over the place!”

Mom: (unable to resist) “But if a really bright light hit it, it would be a Paul-cano!”

S. giggles. Dad rolls eyes.

Then we all took a break to eat some more homemade pasta. Yep, I really wrote this whole post as an excuse to post a picture of our homemade spaghetti. After years of pasta failure, we got some right!

Camp: The Next Generation

I’m still trying to get back into the swing of things after our time away. Making my usual pancakes-sausage-eggs weekend breakfast today nearly gave me a hernia. It’s hard to believe that the habits of years can be monkeyed with by just two weeks away!

I have no regrets, though.

Among other It’s-SO-worth-it moments on our trip, I had the privilege of witnessing my daughter’s first week at summer camp. Not that I hovered over her all week like the helicopter parent I strive not to be, but I did drop her off, I didn’t get all the letters she had too much fun to send, and I did pick her up, letting two hours of “And, last week at camp, we…” wash over me as we drove home.

She has returned to the topic many times since, even after that first, epic two-hour gush!

I love Camp Arrowhead in Lewes, DE—my sisters were campers there, my sisters and I all worked there, and I wouldn’t send my seven-year-old anywhere else.

So, yes, S. got a little tense on the way there. I’ve learned that when S. feels nervous, she gets kind of tight and grey. She looks down and barely speaks. And that’s where things stood when we pulled onto the property. We drove along the shaded, shell drive at the mandatory 10 mph with our windows down, soaking up the smell of pines, only barely tainted by the old-marsh smell of the shells.

We ran into the property manager, who welcomed us, beginning a series of we’re-related-to-a-rock-star encounters. Everyone approached us with a smile and a huge welcome, but when they found out about my sister—we’ll call her Aunt C— who worked at Camp Arrowhead just last summer, they all went nuts! So S. began to look up out of the corner of her eyes. Her shoulders eased a bit, and a hint of color came into her face.

Halfway through luggage line, everyone saw our Florida plates and one super-excited CIT ran up, hollering, “Are you all from Florida? I’m from Tampa!” We had a great chat, and S. perked up a bit more. And so it went, all the way through the check in with the nurse, with the store manager, with everyone. By the time I took this picture S. had come almost all the way back to us.

Then we met her counselor. I’ve been in the counselor’s shoes a few times, and I can honestly say I hope I did as well as she did. She greeted me with a smile, politely and positively, but she connected with S. right away…perfection! I knew it was time to go, so we did. (Little A. did need the bathroom and, on the way back, we saw S. chatting so fast to her counselor that she didn’t even notice us!)

So I didn’t feel one iota nervous. I honestly didn’t, and that shocked me.

It did get a little hairy on the first full day of camp, when the teeny local papers started reporting a random storm with 65 mph winds had cut water and power to camp, dropped a massive tree across the road, and created a gas leak causing evacuations everywhere. Mostly, I worried that camp might need a few extra hands—I knew S. would be fine. But it turns out teeny local papers may exaggerate occasionally! Storm, yes, power and water out for a few hours, yes, but all else fine. And S. learned a whole slew of circle games that we have not even begun to explore!

She really didn’t write, and it really was because she had too much fun. That’s fine because, beyond the deluge of band camp Camp Arrowhead stories, three things really showed me that she got camp.

The first came when I wanted to go visit my old unit. A hundred years ago, my campers and I painted the inside of our outhouse pretty colors. (This may or may not have been an attempt to relocate the 8-inch wolf spider that lived between the studs RIGHT behind the seat.) Of course, the next year it became a boys’ unit. This makes me laugh.

The kids reacting to the alleged outhouse smell...

They don’t use the outhouses anymore (the spider has sole possession now), but it’s still there and I had to take a picture. Displaying all the profound wisdom expected from the mouths of babes, S. watched me photograph a 18+-year-old, decommissioned outhouse and said, “Mom, if this was anywhere but camp, people would think you’re nuts.”

I nearly burst into tears. Isn’t that the essence of camp in one sentence? Anywhere else, people think you’re nuts—but not here.

When we got home, we unpacked the car and I got my second surprise. I never would have asked S. to help me carry her trunk before, but it hit me that campers help each other with trunks all the time. So I said, “Hey, want to help?” And she settled right in, grabbing the front handle with both arms behind her and taking off toward the house. Just as I thought how many campers I’ve seen do that, she said, with far more pride than whine, “This is the way we carried the cooler to Outpost. We had to take turns because it was heavy.”

And camp grew my daughter up a few leaps and bounds.

The most bittersweet part came the next morning. In a quiet moment, I caught S. wiping tears from her eyes. She really didn’t want to tell me why, but eventually she said, “I know it’s silly, but I miss camp!”

Oh, sweet girl.

I said, “That’s not silly. I miss camp, too. But just think—you can go back next year.”

Now, I truly said that just to affirm her feelings. I wanted her to know it’s normal to miss things you like and that I got it. But she came back a couple hours later and floored me.

“Mom, I feel sorry for you. You’ve been missing camp for a really long time.”

Yes, sweet girl, I have. But I cannot think of anything better than watching you grow into your time there!

MUCH love to all the staff at Camp Arrowhead— past, present, and future!

 

Warm-Up Blog

Time to get back into the swing of things!

After our two-week trip up north to visit my family, I need to ease myself back into all my routines—including blogging. The simplest little things trip me up right now, like the first time I tried to fasten the dog’s collar. That totally habitual movement managed to escape me in two weeks!

I’m also feeling odd typing at a desk on a keyboard rather than on my phone, and I’ve had the obligatory waking-up-with-NO-idea-where-I-am panics. Of course.

One thing went back on track far more easily than I deserve. Appropriately, my warm-up blog will be about running!

Of course, I had big plans for keeping up my training while traveling. A massive cold complete with laryngitis pretty much killed the first week—and made it really fun to manage the kids!—so I admit it, I gave up. I still managed to lose weight somehow, so I’m now halfway to the weight I want for the Tough Mudder in December. Very good news!

Please don’t ask how I lost weight on vacation—I have no earthly idea. If I knew, I’d patent it and be rich!

But maybe that’s why my first run back this morning went so undeservedly well. I managed three miles in 28 minutes, then did my “chaser” mile with the dog. No, he’s really good. It’s just hard to think of it as a real run when we stop four times in a mile.

So that’s my lower body. My upper body training???? Well, I’m confident in my pull muscles, thanks to hauling boxes for a week, but I think my hard-won beginnings of push muscles have withered away.

Time to drop and give me twenty! Fifteen! Twelve! Six good ones and six halfsies!

…and then I’ll sit down.