Parenting Faux Pas

jeanjames 5 Comments
The Tooth Fairy Sleeping on the Job.

The Tooth Fairy Sleeping on the Job.

So the tooth fairy didn’t show up last night.  Can you believe the nerve of that bitch?  If she could have only seen the look of sadness and disappointment on my son’s face.  God, I wanted to strangle her.  Who could do such a horrid thing to an innocent young boy so filled with the anticipation of reaching under his pillow first thing upon awakening, sliding his hand under to grasp that crisp dollar bill, or shiny gold dollar coin, only to come up empty handed?

One can only imagine how he lifted up that pillow, thinking to himself ‘this must be some kind of mistake’, while shaking the pillow several more times to see if the money somehow got caught up the pillow case.  Still empty.  Checking the sheets and duvet, thinking to himself maybe the money was just lost somewhere in his bed.  Nope, not there either.  Dejectedly, he walked down the hallway and into our room.  “Mom?” he shook me awake, eyes cast down, voice soft, “The tooth fairy didn’t come last night.”

Horror, panic, humiliation, settling into my emotional consciousness, and all before my first morning cup of coffee.  Please tell me this is just a nightmare.  Please pinch me so I can wake up and not have to see that look on my son’s face.  I look to my husband with eyes that say, “Didn’t you put the money under his pillow goddamnit?”  To which his eyes responded, “No, I thought you did it!”  Holy crap, how am I going to get out of this one?

‘Think fast!’ I thought to myself.  ‘You have to make this right, you have to make that look on your sons face go away.’  So I jumped out of bed and told my son, “Look, there must be some mistake, wait here, I’ll be right back.”  I ran as fast as I could downstairs to a change jar where I keep the one dollar coins.  I chose this because I never use coins, only dollar bills, and you can’t do a coin trick with a dollar bill now can you?  I ran back up the stairs and called to my son to meet me in his room.

And with all the magic of Santa Claus, I slipped that coin between his mattress and his bed frame, and voila!  Well, his eyes lit up and his mouth gasped in sheer delight, for the tooth fairy hadn’t forsaken him after all.  All was right in the universe again.  That’s the beauty of children.  They want to believe, so they do.  And so did I.

He had his dollar, I had his tooth, and peace of mind that I just avoided one of the biggest parenting faux pas to ever come my way.

My husband looked at me from the doorway and his eyes said “Nice going!”

I smiled back in agreement.  I’m not much of a magician, but if I didn’t make that moment right, I would never have been able to live with myself.  And as for the tooth fairy, well she’s just lucky I didn’t have to strangle her.

The Coal Fairy

The Coal Fairy

From now on when my son loses a tooth, I tell him we have to hang up a sign to remind him to put his tooth under his pillow at night.  Little does he know it’s really just a reminder to that pre-Alzheimer’s tooth fairy to keep her act together.

We’re parents and we’re human, and this was my faux pas.  Care to share yours?

Reposted courtesy of:     http://www.inthepowderroom.com

Night Shift

jeanjames 5 Comments

List of common nocturnal animals:  Skunk, Badger, Raccoon, Bat, Owl, Cat, Beaver, and Nurse.

Night Nurse Vol 4 Marvel Comics

Night Nurse Vol 4 Marvel Comics

It’s true, I’ve made the list.  I’m officially a part time nocturnal creature.  I stalk the night, creeping quietly along dim lit corridors, treading lightly on wooden clogs.  My ears are alert to the sounds of my watch, my pupils the size of a Philippine Tarsiers, my blood coagulated with over brewed caffeine; these are the physical changes which signal my evolutionary adaptation that, like my fellow nocturnal brethren, give me advantages to nighttime survival.

Philippine Tarsier

Philippine Tarsier

It is not truly human to be nocturnal.  We are not born this way.  The fossil record will no doubt show how the night nurse evolved in order to circumnavigate her intrinsic circadian rhythm, and flip the switch on Mother Nature herself.

Like the grey wolf, we nurses of the night shift travel in packs; each pack leery of the other.  I belong to the ICU pack.  We’re a bit of a rough bunch, but you have to be in order to survive.  Getting through a twelve hour night shift requires certain skills not for the weak.  Our pack is smaller than the day shift, so we have to learn to do more with less, it breeds cohesiveness.

One key to survival is our food supply.  Dinner is important, but a steady supply of sugar is imperative.   4 a.m. is my breaking point.  If I don’t have a cookie and cup of coffee then there’s a good chance I might tear someone’s head off, or fall asleep at the nurses’ station.

Our risks are great working the night shift:  obesity, breast cancer, motor vehicle accidents, and excessive bitchiness.  Why?  Because we’re too fucking tired, (except for the breast cancer; I’m not quite sure what that’s all about…yet.)  Maybe our breasts are also too fucking tired, I know mine seem a little droopy by the time I get home in the morning.

Despite these risks, I carry on, skulking through the night, poking and prodding at my critically ill patients; if I’m going to have to be awake all night then so are they.

This my friends is why your loved ones are sleeping all day.

We wake their asses up every two hours to turn them, every four hours to get a temperature, every hour to check their vital signs, every two hours to check their neurological status, then there’s the pain check, pee check, poop check, skin checks, tube checks, breathing checks, and just when they look comfortable I’ll check that too.  Talk about iatrogenically induced ICU psychosis.

This is the night shift, and all for an extra $3.00/hour.  Well maybe all that extra money will help pay for my breast cancer treatments in the future.

So take care when you see us out in the daylight, like a rabid animal, you want to approach with caution.  Our cars may weave and stagger, there may be a little bit of foaming at the mouth, and a general sense of confusion on our faces.  Let us pass quietly by as we crawl into our dark dens, shutting out the light with thick paneled, black out curtains, and eye masks that read ‘do not disturb’ (and we mean it…don’t!).

When light fades to dark and the moon rises with the glowing light of a halo, it will be time for us to emerge once more, vitamin D in hand, we return to our nocturnal family where we begin yet again …the night shift!

Photo by Donna Andrews Managing Director/Bear Curator North American Bear Center

Photo by Donna Andrews Managing Director/Bear Curator North American Bear Center

 

How Do I Love Thee (Google)? Let Me Card Catalog The Ways…

jeanjames 3 Comments
photo by Jean James

photo by Jean James

I love thee laptop to the length and width and height
My wireless can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the connections of wires and informative Grace.
I love thee to the level of modern day’s pace.
Most whimsical need, by fun and electric-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, your knowledge I Praise.
I love thee with a passion your speed doth amaze.
In my old library griefs, with card catalogs to hate.
I love thee with a love
Like Microsoft 8
With my lost pong, — I love thee with the breadth,
3G, 4G, the speed of all my life! — and, 5G if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

(Revised from the original version “How Do I Love Thee?  Let Me Count The Ways…” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

February is American heart month; it is a time when we celebrate Valentine’s Day, and the people we love.  It is a time of awareness and caring for that special organ that beats to its own drum. More than anything my heart is encapsulated by my family, but alas, I harbor a second love; a love of the internet.  I think anyone from my generation who had to go to a public library and struggle through an antiquated, cumbersome filing system probably loves the internet as much as me.

When I was a child in school, I was brought to the library.  It was in this institution that I was introduced to a code more complicated that Morse, more difficult to learn than Navajo, a code dating back to the Parisian revolution of 1789.  Leave it to the French to burden us with yet another complication of their sophisticated palette. What code was so burdensome to my youth as to inspire a love poem to the internet?  Why the card catalog of course.  If you are reading this and have no clue what a card catalog is then you are quite lucky for two reasons, one because you have never had to use a card catalog, and two, because you can click on the link above to learn what a card catalog is; a luxury unavailable to me as a kid.

Card Catalogen.wikipedia.org

Card Catalog
en.wikipedia.org

The first major orientation to any library was the location of the card catalog.  Mine was no different.  Without that giant wooden filing system, no book could be found.  The catalog cabinet was a series of mini filing drawers, each filled with standardized catalog cards measuring 7.5×12.5cm.  Each card was meant to display information regarding: title, author, and subject.  Further systematization by Melville Dewey allowed a person to locate a book to a particular shelf within the library via a series of itemizations consisting of ten classes, divided into ten divisions, each having ten sections.  This was known as the Dewey Decimal System.  Confused yet?  Me too.

collections.infocollections.org

Example of a card catalog card

It would take me almost all of my library period to try and locate the book I was assigned to find.  When I finally made it to the shelf that matched a number that looked something like this: 962.05 I would find 962.04, 962.03, but never would I be able to find 962.05…never.  And so this was the case no matter which library I frequented.  This meant I stopped frequenting the library.  In fact, I came to loathe the library.  I hated everything about it:  the quiet atmosphere, the nasty librarians, the Dewey decimal system, and most of all the imposing card catalog that held nothing but empty promises of books never to be found.

I tried soliciting help from the librarians, but I’ve learned over time that librarians must be a victim of some kind of social disorder that prevents them from enjoying contact with other human beings.  Why else work in a place where silence is the rule and the only words spoken are those enforcing that rule?

So yes, I love Google, I love the internet, I love anything that keeps me out of a library, out of reach from organized index cards with odd numbers on them, and away from shushing, socially inept, bookworms.

Just once I tried bringing my children to the public library.  I thought, ‘maybe times have changed.’  Maybe finding books with an online card catalog system would prove easy.  Maybe they’ve hired some people with a personality.  Maybe I was wrong.  Despite the fact that my library has a “children’s section”, quiet is still mandatory.  Despite the online card catalog, the book I wanted was still unavailable, and despite the fact that my son signed up for his very first library card and received a new pencil with the name and logo of our local library, the librarian scoffed at my daughter’s polite request for a pencil as well.  “When you are eligible for your library card my dear, then you will be eligible for a pencil.”

I fear the library will always be an archaic place that houses quiet and dark corners and people with index fingers permanently attached to their lips.  As for me I will sit at my laptop, with the sounds of laughter in the background, the light streaming through my windows, the books I downloaded onto my kindle, and my daughter happily drawing on her pencil sketch app from Google play.

Shhhhh…..

Have a Happy and Healthy Heart Month!!

Post Mortem Etiquette

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NYPD One Police Plaza

NYPD One Police Plaza

Did you ever notice that one of the many stupid things people say when you lose a loved one includes the line, “Oh, I’m so sorry, how old were they?”  Well, since I’ve lost someone close to me, where age was never a factor in determining my level of grief, I have come to both dread and outright hate this question.  But now that it has crawled its way into my consciousness, I have no choice but to confront it head on.

The question alone ‘How old were they?’, implies that based on the answer, the questioner can either have a reaction of utter dismay or a reaction of relief, either way it leaves the person who is actually grieving unnerved.  If I respond with “three months old“: dismay, if I respond “ninety“: relief, (followed by stupid response number two: “well, they lived a long life.”)  Am I supposed to buy that line of crap?  Am I supposed to feel less sad for someone I’ve known my whole life, let’s say my grandparent, vs. someone I’ve known for only three months.

Is my grief mitigated by age?

And then there’s the middle aged dilemma, not quite too young to evoke the shock and awe response, but not too old to get that 2nd line of crap.  In fact, people here aren’t quite sure what to do.  Here’s a suggestion, stop asking the fucking question!

My father died at age sixty-seven.  It was sudden and tragic.  Is my heartache any less?  Of course not.  I didn’t see him as young or old, I only saw him as my dad.

In this I am sure I am not alone.  No one wants to measure their grief in time.  From the new mother who gives birth to a stillborn, or the daughter who loses her ninety-six year old mother, grief is grief.

So to all of those thinking about asking this question next time you are face to face with someone who has just lost a loved one, don’t do it.  Be kind, say your sorry, give and hug and move on.  I know I don’t want to be remembered for how old I was when I died, but rather how I lived.

Don’t you?

Reposted courtesy of http://www.inthepowderroom.com

Mom’s Taking a Sick Day (goddammit!)

jeanjames 4 Comments

The other day I was feeling pretty sick, but as usual was on the schedule to work.  When I announced to my boss’ I was calling out sick; there was a moment of silence, followed by a cackling, belly full of laughter.  “Mom’s can’t call out sick!” responded my three little managers, rolling around on the floor still laughing.  Oh yeah, I thought.  I’d show them.  I was going to have a sick day goddammit!  Even if it killed me.

Lucky for me I got sick over Christmas break.  My husband was off from work all week which meant I had reinforcements.  So I made my announcement to my husband that I was sick, and needed the day off.  I got the same incredulous look from him that I got from the children, followed by the comment, “Really, you don’t look sick.”  I get this comment a lot.  I have the uncanny ability to look really well when I’m sick.  I’m naturally pale, and when I’m ill and running a low grade temperature, my cheeks take on this pinkish, rosy hue, that makes me look as if I’ve just come from a day at the beach.  The mucous packed sinus’ gives me just that bit of swelling that people pay their plastic surgeon thousands to recreate.  Instead of looking miserable, I look refreshed, so no one takes me seriously.

But I wasn’t going down without a fight, and sternly reinforced my position to my husband that I was indeed sick, and that I was taking the day off to recuperate.  He acquiesced, still suspicious that I was faking it, but smart enough to keep his mouth shut, avoiding unnecessary conflict.  Feeling somewhat vindicated, I dressed in my coziest pajamas, and snuggled myself under my warmest blanket on the couch, in front of the TV, just like my mom used do for me when I was a kid, (the same way I now do for my own children).

As I lay there in full command of the remote control, my three children stared at me in amazement, then fired a barrage of questions:  “Mom, why are you still in your p.j.’s?, Mom, are you sick? Mom, what are you watching?, Mom, can I watch cartoons? Mom, are you going to stay there all day? Mom, are you going to get up to go to the bathroom?  Whose going to feed us? Can we lay there with you?”  I soon realized that as long as I was in sight, I was in mind.  I got up, handed over the remote control, and made my way upstairs to my bed, shutting the door behind me.

Ah, peace and quite until…

‘Knock, knock’,

“Whose there?” I responded.

“Lettuce”

“Lettuce who?”

“Let us in Mom!”

Oh no, they were back; I hadn’t locked the door.  In they came like moths to a flame.  Armed with more questions about what I was doing in bed.  I asked them what their father was doing, and why didn’t they go spend some time with him.  Apparently they weren’t into a Judge Judy Christmas marathon, and wanted to be with me.  And I’m thinking, how is it my husband can spend the day on the couch, uninterrupted, completely healthy, and not helping to keep the children from disturbing their sick mother?  Again, I think he thinks I’m faking it.  And I’m thinking these kids are never going away.  I thought maybe if I could throw up they might get grossed out and leave, but the only person I was grossing out was myself.  What kind of low had I sunk to?

I needed someplace to go.  A reprieve for sick mom’s.  A place where the children couldn’t go, and my husband wouldn’t want to.  But where?  That type of retreat hadn’t been invented yet (but would be going right to the top of my nurse entrepreneur to do list).  I needed help now, and I knew just where to go.

I packed my overnight bag, pulled on my heavy winter coat, kissed my three kids on top of their heads, then said goodbye to my husband.  He looked at me surprised and said, “Where are you going?”  I replied, “To the only place I can get some peace and quiet.“, then walked out the door.

That afternoon, in my cozy p.j’s, snuggled under a warm blanket on the couch, watching T.V. I knew I finally was having that sick day I so deserved.  “More soup honey?”  said my mom as she checked my forehead for a temperature.  “No thanks.” I said.

Then I rolled over and fell fast asleep.

IMG_0067

Reposted courtesy of  http://www.inthepowderroom.com

Happy Belated New Year!

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001I know, I know it’s January 18th and I’m a little late for a Happy New Year.  The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind.  My family and I decided to drive from New York to Florida over the ten-day Christmas/New Year break: me, my husband, our three kids, and the dog.  After a treacherous 12 hour ride (that should have taken 8) over the mountains of Pennsylvania through the middle of a blizzard/ice storm, followed by a slow ride through thick fog, into lonely, dark, back woods, country roads, we made it to our first destination, Virginia.  This was our drop spot for the dog, who was to take her own vacation with my husband’s uncle and his two dogs. ( It’s still a toss up as to who had the better vacation.)

As for the kids, it wouldn’t be a trip to Florida if we didn’t hit some sort of amusement park; amusing for them, nauseating for me.  I happily spent the time with my five-year old, (who was too short for the big coasters), wandering around the Sesame play area of Busch Gardens.  I even managed to stomach the Grover Express, a kiddie roller coaster, that in my opinion, was way too fast and scary for me the little ones.  We spent a great week visiting with family and enjoying the sunshine, when sadly it was time to head home.

Our ride home was far less eventful.  We picked up our pooch, and made it back to New York where we were greeted by a blanket of snow and a frosting of ice.  Gotta love the winter!

We weren’t home a week, when two of my three kids came down with strep throat, and I have been playing nurse maid ever since.  It’s been sleepless nights, and countless doses of medicine; just in time to prepare me for my return to the night shift.  Yes, the night shift.  I’m going back to work in the ICU part-time on the night shift (it’s all that’s available for now).  I’m also going back to school.  So 2013 is going to be a very busy year for me.

On that note, I plan on reposting a few of my articles, (with permission of course), that I had written for a website known as In The Powder Room.  http://inthepowderroom.com I need a bit of time to catch up on the new posts I want to write, and I have a feeling I’m going to be a bit busy with school, work, family, and life in general.  So until I’m able to juggle it all, and figure it out, that’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.

I hope everyone who reads this had a great holiday season, is not too devastated by the flu, and has a wonderful 2013 to look forward to.

Happy New Year!!

Suicide…Nurses Who Take Their Own Lives

jeanjames 6 Comments
photo by Jean James

photo by Jean James

What drives a nurse to commit suicide?  In most cases the answer is simple; she or he has made a mistake, and usually that mistake has cost someone else their life or limb.  So why then did Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse responsible for transferring a hoax phone call to the Duchess of Cambridge’s nurse take her own life?  I’m not sure the answer is so simple here.

Jacintha Saldanha violated the British Department of Health‘s confidentiality code of disclosing information with appropriate care when she passed on an unconfirmed phone call made by two Australian D.J.’s posing as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles of England.  The D.J.’s, who were looking to solicit private information about the Duchess of Cambridge, decided to play a prank by placing a phony phone call to King Edward VII Hospital.  While impersonating the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales, they were easily able to deceive Nurse Saldanha into transferring them to Kate Middleton’s primary nurse, who then went on to divulge extremely sensitive medical information about the Duchess’ hyperemesis gravidarum while live on the radio.

Like all nurses who realize they made a mistake, I have no doubt Jacintha was filled with shame and embarrassment for the public spectacle that ensued after that phone call.  But was it worth taking her life?  Is any mistake worth taking your life?

The medical profession has one of the highest suicide rates.  The pressure to ‘Do no harm’ sits heavy on the shoulders of all who take that oath.  But what comes after ‘if harm is done’?  How do we counsel the person who may have made the mistake?  I know in America the answer is always the same, “You better get yourself a good lawyer!”  Then you’re dropped off at the edge of a steep cliff and left to fend for yourself.  Nurse Saldanha must have been dangling  precariously off the edge of that cliff.

According to news reports she did not share her mistake with her husband or two children.  I can only imagine the torture she put herself through.  You see, as a nurse, you don’t need to kill someone, or maim them, to feel you have done harm.  I’m guessing Nurse Saldanha felt betraying the Duchess’ privacy was harm enough.  Nurses are their own worst enemies  first.  What punitive damages come later could never possibly equate.

When a nurse or medical professional makes a mistake, immediate counseling and crisis intervention should be provided.  Nurses should not have to bury themselves in grief, fear, and shame.  No one wants to make a mistake.  Nurses work hard, are given heavy assignments, work long hours, are understaffed, expected to stay late, skip lunch, and rarely make it to the bathroom, all for the sake of caring for their patients.  We cater to abusive family members at times, abusive medical staff at times, abusive administrators at times and even abusive patients, and all the while we are expected to keep a smile on our face, and behave like ‘good girls’.

My heart breaks for Nurse Saldanha and her family.  Though I don’t know her professionally or personally, the reports I have read shed light on the kind of exemplary nurse, wife, mother and human being she was.  I’m saddened that her mistake and the insurmountable pressure that followed led her to take her own life.

Prime Minister David Cameron was quoted as saying, “There will be many lessons that need to be learned.”  This is true, but the one main lesson that needs to be learned is what drives a nurse to commit suicide, and how can we prevent this from ever happening again?

Related articles

“Honey…Where’s My…?”

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If you’re married, like me, then at some point, or perhaps every day, you hear the phrase, “Honey…Where’s my…?”  Where is your what:  your brain,  your eyes,  your f’ing common sense?  I’ll tell you where it is, it’s up your ass!  Why is it that men are incapable of ever finding something that belongs to them?  Why!!??  If it isn’t bad enough I have to deal with three kids asking me the same questions, why must I also have to accommodate a grown man?  I’m starting to really question the whole idea of man as hunter.  I don’t believe they could find a bear in the woods if they tried.  I’m sure ancient man was somehow grunting to their gatherer wives, “Honey…grunt grunt…have you seen my buffalo?”  Ancient woman, leading the way, rolling her eyes and pointing to a large, brown, furry thing right in front of him was probably wondering the same thing her futuristic female counter part was.  Let’s face it, it wasn’t a male scout invited to lead Louis and Clarke from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, nooo, it was Sacagawea, a woman, carrying a baby no less!!

On top of not being able to find anything, men also don’t notice anything.  They’re like camels with their heads buried in the sand, looking up only for food, drink, and sex.  Men never notice the things you do around the house, but boy do they have eyes for the things you haven’t done.  I love the question, “What have you done all day?”  What have I done all day!!??  Really??

Some days I do ten loads of laundry.  I purposefully leave two baskets overflowing with folded clean clothes at the bottom of the stairs in hopes that maybe my husband might pick one up on his way upstairs.  Two weeks later he’s calling down to me, “Honey have you seen my underwear?”  Yeah, I’d like to see it…in a bonfire!

So the other day I’m at work and I get a call from my husband.  The first question he asks me is, “When did you paint the patch on the wall in our bedroom?”  Let me just fill you in on the history of ‘the patch’.  Three years ago we moved into our house, my husband, who is not so handy, decides to rip the old light switch remote plate off the wall, leaving a hole in the sheet rock.   BTW, this was done after we had already paid a bundle to have the whole house painted.  So my carpenter, (A.K.A. house husband), came and patched the hole, and we had a good laugh at my husband’s un-handy man attempt.

What was really funny was that the patch then sat there; a big, white, square surrounded by a bold terra-cotta hue, above the new light switch, for the past two years.  I even went so far as to bring the paint can upstairs in hopes he might try to repair the damage he inflicted.  Well, when the dust level on the paint can started to make me sneeze, I realized it was time to take matters into my own hands, and paint that white patch myself.  Three weeks later, I got the call.

Right after I got my call that day, my colleague got a call from her husband; apparently I wasn’t the only one with ‘white patch’ issues.  In lieu of caring for our critically ill patients, we were fielding phone calls from the men in our lives, solving problems, helping with child care issues, and listening to the evangelical revelations of noticing paint on the wall.

As my friend hung up the phone, her head bowed and shaking back and force, the swears under her breath just barely audible, I felt a shared sense of shoes in that moment and wondered, ‘what are we going to do with our husbands?’

Then it dawned on me, the solutions to our problems.  Not one to revel in despair, I knew I needed to have an upbeat idea, one that would satisfy both me and my husband and put an end to what seemed a hopeless ending.

You know how we reward our children for good behavior with a sticker or a treat or provide them with a detailed chart, so they understand their responsibilities throughout the family, thus did I think men also required some sort of symbol; a beacon to guide them to an understanding of what was done in the house that day, or to take notice of something they might otherwise pass by without so much as a glance, a symbol that would turn a man’s head even if his head was so low from the game loss of his favorite football team that day.

It has been my experience that the only thing to give a man’s head whiplash faster than a car accident, is a set of large, round, heaving, carefully placed breasts between a low V-shaped ensemble on a voluptuous woman.   Instead of trying to tell a man what you did all day, you must show him with some fabulous tata’s.  Whether it’s a playboy printout, or a set you crafty mom’s have created from paper mache, breasts are breasts, and no man will look away.  Boobs on the laundry pile are a guarantee he’ll want to carry that load upstairs.  Dishes done, post those boobs on the dishwasher and he might empty that load faster than you think.  When he’s looking for something he can’t find, just pin a pair of luscious breasts on it, and bam, he’ll come for it.  New haircut…need I say more?

I’m tired of feeling bitter.  We women need to think outside the box, or the bra for that matter.  If an extra pair of breasts in this house can help me out, then I’m all for it.  God knows, as an A-cup, I can use all the breasts I can get!

Pet Funeral

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This past weekend my family held its first ever pet funeral.  A touching homage to Crystal, my daughters newly acquired Chinese fighting fish.  (If ever there was a reason not to give a kid a fish as a party favor, this would be it…fish die…more than they live.)  Crystal came to us, one of three fish (one for each of my children), as a birthday party ‘goody bag’.  Equipped with her own little fishbowl and a colorful, gravely carpet, she seemed like the perfect accessory for my seven-year old little girl.  As a bonus, on the way out of the pet store party place, one of the employees informed my daughter she had inadvertently received a beta fish, (worth more money), and was told the fish would live for at least ten years.  My daughter is the kind of kid who takes information, squirrels it away for a rainy day, and then uses it to her advantage when the time arises. (I’m thinking law school might be in her future.)

So it came as quite a surprise when Crystal turned up dead in her bowl thirteen days later; cause of death: unknown.  Thankfully for me, Crystal was a D.N.R. (Do Not Resuscitate), so my fish lip pucker wasn’t required.  After having a forensic review with the children, we were completely unable to come up with any evidence as to what or who may have killed our new family member.  The water was clean, there was food in the bowl, everyone in the family had an alibi that night (we were all sleeping), and so it remains a mystery.  My daughter, however, recalled quite clearly her fishes ten-year life expectancy, and is now gunning for the kid at the pet store.

I had to remind her that in times of grief it’s not unusual to want to bestow blame or anger on someone else.  I encouraged her to express her feelings and get it all out.  What I didn’t expect was my four-year olds reaction when he learned of Crystal’s untimely end.  The tears came freely for him, and I returned his grief with hugs and kisses.  So much for a toilet flush funeral, it was obvious we were going to have to go all out for our gal Crystal; it was time to open: The Pet Cemetery.

My kids have been to a pet cemetery before, (No, not the Stephen King kind), a local one at an old manor house along the Hudson River.  It is a peaceful place in the woods where several of the owners of the house had buried their beloved pets, and carved touching epitaphs honoring their memories.

My children rallied together, a band of broken hearts, with their shovels, rakes and picks, and got to work locating a beautiful spot adjacent to the woods, under a big oak tree, bordering the edge of our property.  They dug a shallow grave, collected branches of softly changing leaves, and picked flowers growing wildly in the yard.  A tombstone was chosen; it was grand and coated in delicate green moss; old worldly, and elegant, propped against the tree, it marked the final resting place of our fish Crystal.

When all the preparations were finalized, the children summoned my husband and me to the site of interment, where each of us were directed to say something positive about our too short-lived fish family member.  We closed with a Hail Mary, gently dropped the fresh dug earth back onto the fish, and encased her tomb with a crimson coat of leaves and flowers.

Tears were wiped, and a reception followed in the kitchen; all in all a beautiful ceremony.

And so it begins, our children’s introduction to death, but also their instinctual need to bury their dead with dignity and respect, for life IS precious, even if you are just a fish.

P.S.

Today I woke up and found Ember, my oldest son’s fish, dead at the bottom of his bowl.

I think we might have a serial killer in the house!

Cupcake Wars; Battling Childhood Obesity One Cupcake At a Time

jeanjames 2 Comments

Spider Halloween Cupcakes by Jean James

Why is it that when America has a problem with something their only solution is declare war on it?  There’s the war on drugs, the war on guns, the war on terror, the war on women, the war on Christmas, the war on cancer, the war on job creation, the war on marriage, the war on free speech, the war on war, the war on ethics, the war on working moms, the war on murder, the war on success, the war on sugary drinks, the war on fossil fuels, the war on soda, the war on obesity and therefore the war on cupcakes.  There are so many wars going on, I’m having a hard time keeping it all straight in my head.  Maybe there should be a war on declaring war on everything!  Just saying…

So back in 2010 the Obama administration signed into law the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HH-FKA).  This was enacted to battle both hunger and childhood obesity by presenting guidelines to improve the nutritious value of school lunches, while concurrently providing accessibility to lunch programs for children who were otherwise going to school hungry.  At the helm of the battleship USS Fat and Hungry Kids, is our effervescent First Lady, Michele Obama.  I applaud her efforts for drawing national awareness to a distended obesity crisis among children, teenagers, and adults.  But as a nurse, and a bit of cynic, I also realize that the obesity epidemic is costing the U.S. government approximately 3 billion dollars a year for those children covered under Medicaid, and about 11 billion dollars a year for those privately insured.  So when big money is at stake, it’s no wonder we have to declare war on something.  And that something right now is the cupcake.

Because of this new HH-FKA law, I received a notice home from my children’s elementary school principal  informing me that the time-honored tradition of bringing in cupcakes for your kid’s birthday party at school was being eliminated.  In lieu of cupcakes the notice recommended bringing in  “goodie bags”.   It seems our principal is going all Mayor Bloomberg on our kids big, fat asses, and has decided (along with the Federal Government), that they’ve had one cupcake too many.  I have to tell you that I received this notice on the same day I picked up my kids from school, and was slammed in the face by the odor of bacon wafting down the hallway from the cafeteria…you know bacon, the other white fat!

Now I don’t know about you, but I love making cupcakes for my kid’s birthday parties at school.  Two of them have birthdays in the fall, which gives me a whole lot of creativity time making Halloween themed spooky masterpieces.  The kids mostly love to look at the cupcake designs, eat the frosting off the top, and throw the rest of the cupcake in the garbage, so I’m pretty sure the caloric intake isn’t as high as the government might think.  The goodie bags, on the other hand, are mostly filled with candy (100% ingestion rate guaranteed) and or landfill crap (cheap toys imported from China probably coated in toxic lead levels).

Look, I get it, childhood obesity is ever-expanding, but I don’t need the President, the Mayor, or my school principal telling me what I can or cannot feed my kids.  We need to look a little deeper, beyond the batter and frosting, outside the schoolyard grounds, far, far away from the White House lawn, and into the windows of the kitchens of the culprits of the cause of the obese children.  If you’re a parent that means you!

17% of children and adolescents 2-19 years old are obese in this country.  If one parent is obese then their child has a 50% chance of being obese, if both parents are obese, that risk goes to 80%. It is the personal responsibility of parents to  provide an environment of health at home for themselves and their children.  I’m a parent, I’m not obese.  I exercise regularly, I eat right, and once in a while I like to enjoy a cupcake.  This problem of obesity is self-induced and self-indulgent.  Most people are quiet aware that they are overweight.  But try telling someone they can’t have something, and all you do is make them want it more.

America has not won one war it has declared war on.  We still have a drug problem, there are way too many guns on the street, the terrorists keep terrorizing us, people are still dying from cancer, and fat people keep getting fatter.  Government intervention is never the solution to solving personal problems.  Banning cupcakes from school isn’t going to make any child thinner.

This problems run deep in the psyche of Americans.  Somewhere in the last twenty years kids stopped being kids.  Playing video games won out to playing kick the can.  Paranoia won out to trusting that kids could play outside with their friends, and if as a parent you’re so worried about them being abducted, then get YOUR fat ass off the couch and go play with them!  We’ve become a nation of instant gratification and reward.  Had a hard day…I deserve a drink; boyfriend broke up with you, have a pint of Haagen-Dazs, kid throwing a temper tantrum, give him a cookie to shut him up.  Life isn’t easy, but  we don’t have to have a treat every time the going gets tough.

I worry about the weakness of overindulgent Americans, but I worry more about our weakness to stand up and keep big brother’s hands out of our cookie jars.