a rugs life

My track record with resisting temptation of the edible variety is not good. I spent one summer, after quitting smoking, systematically clearing out the local convenience store of M&N chocolate peanuts. The situation got so bad that I would get one bag of M&Ns after lunch, swearing it  would last the rest of the day. But just before dinner I’d be back again, looking nonchalant, hoping that the clerks had changed shifts in the interim.

Years later I swore off sweets and desserts, but instead developed a nightly peanut butter and jelly sandwich habit.

And last winter I could not go to sleep without a dish of maple syrup yogurt for a night cap.

My newest obsession is Honey Crisp apples. I’m not going to tell you how good they are, because I don’t want you buying up the local stock.

However, I will reveal that they can only be purchased from farmers markets. Yesterday I got a bad hankering for one. Searching for a farmers market on a Tuesday, I saw one listed in Copley Square. Taking a huge detour on my bike trip from Kendall Square to Longwood, I stopped and got a bag of them. I was five minutes late to where I was going but had a tidy little stash of juicy sweet orbs tucked into my backpack and I felt smug and satsfied.

I’ve been avoiding many problems this fall, brushing them to the back of the queue, pretending they’re not there, or will go away if ignored. You know the drill.

Anyway, one of the problems I’ve been avoiding is telling my daughter’s teacher about a vacation in mid-October which will necessitate my daughter being out of school for a day. Those of you who are parents know that a vacation day such as this is an unexcused absence, and no laughing matter in the arena of elementary school.

Another problem is a ‘teacher professional day’ that is also happening sometime in mid-October. I detest ‘professional days’. The school closes down arbitrarily, and working parents are supposed to I-do-not-know what… beg babysitters? Bring ones child to work? Who knows. Anyway, I’d been avoiding thinking about it but this week I finally looked it up in the calendar.

It was incomprehensible. I checked and double checked. The vacation day and the professional day are the same day.

My daughter has several cognitive and gross motor delays and she’s received remedial services over the past several years. Earlier this month, she went through her 3-year comprehensive review.

The school psychologist and I talked on the phone last week and although she had many lovely things to say about Rada — her personality, her enthusiasm, her verbal intelligence, etc. — the psychologist also brought up what appear to be several pronounced limitations around visio-spacial ability, hand-eye coordination, and extremely weak upper-body muscle tone. Apparently some of these can be ameliorated with continuing OT and PT, but with all the kindness and compassion that she could muster, the psychologist saw clear limitations to Rada’s ability to participate in serious athletics. Hearing this felt like a gate clanging shut for Rada’s future. I listened with tears in my eyes, and kept telling myself that this fabulous daughter had many other talents, passions and skills. A life without athletics would still be a full one.

But the next day on the soccer field as I was sitting watching Rada play, I realized that the gate was in no way shut… in fact it was very much ajar.

Although fully 4 inches shorter than the rest of her team, Rada streaks down the field, opportunistically steals balls from the opposing team, throws lob kicks that completely reverse the ball’s direction, and then stands there only slightly-out-of-breath ready for the next challenge, while team members and fans scream, “Way to go Rada!”

Visio-spatial challenges? Hand-eye coordination?

Whatever.

Following the directions on their website, this is how I got to KidsPlayground from Somerville last weekend:

I fondly remember my pet worm Henry. I found him one afternoon in the school yard. A suitable habitat was constructed for Henry, filled with earth and leaves. I’m not exactly sure how long he stayed with me before being released to the wild or coming to a less auspicious end.

Recently, Rada took ‘Ben’ under her wing. Ben is a lovely dull brown earth worm who appears to have been residing in the back yard. Rada and I found a plastic container, punched holes for air, filled it with earth and leaves and brought it into the house with Ben inside. Rada spent the rest of the afternoon, talking to and training Ben.

“Come, Ben. Come here! No, Ben! Bad worm. Ben, listen to me… don’t do that… come here. Good worm! Hey, Mom: I trained him to come when I called!”

This morning however, Rada informed me that Ben’s ‘cage’ smelled awful. ‘He must have pooped’. So we decided to re-release Ben back to his natural surroundings. Hopefully Ben is doing fine and has moved on to other habitats, though Rada was sure she saw him among the hostas this afternoon when we came home.

R: Mom, I think I have a noodle in my nose.
M: How did that happen?
R: Well, I was smelling the noodle and I sniffed it right into my nose.
M: Hm…
R: Wait a minute. Its not a noodle; its just snot.
M: Oh, good.

Seen on a wall in Providence, RI on the campus of Brown University.

Last week we went to buy turtles.

We’d seen some cute little green ones owned by our neighbors, and they seemed easy to care for. So after a long discussion on responsibility and ownership, we headed to the pet store. Rada had already picked out names for them and was very excited.

The clerk, however, was scandalized at our request, informing us that turtle ownership was illegal in Massachusetts. “You might buy them under the table in Chinatown,” he said, “but you won’t find them here.” Thinking back, I remembered that those turtles we saw did belong to a pleasant Asian family…

Anyway, there we were, stalled in the pet store. Rada looked crestfallen and ready to cry. But instead, like a “phoenix rising from the ashes” of her disappointment, I saw a stubborn determination emerge. And then it slowly dawned on me. I wasn’t going to get out of the place without bringing home some sort of living being in a cardboard box, bowl or plastic bag.

Rada started looking around purposefully for her Plan B pet. Hoping to sway her choice, I pointed out the colorful the betta fish ($1.99 each) but instead she looked admiringly at some bearded lizards ($39.99). Negotiations continued as I ooh-ed and aah-ed over the golden hamsters ($4.99). But she turned up her nose, promptly leading me to the ferrets ($55.99).

Worried that we were headed for a stand-off, I noticed a cage full of white mice. Scrawny little things with red eyes and pink tails, but at $2.29 a piece, I was game. Rada immediately took interest. We found a clerk to help us with our purchase. He was quite surprised and whispered to me that most white mice were purchased… um… for food (the store had a large reptile section).

I nodded pleasantly, assuring him that we definitely wanted them as pets. So he set us up with a cage, wheel, food, bedding, etc. And we took them home.

Cycling home from work, I noticed someone had spilled a box of crayons in the street:

The next day, they were still there, but more downtrodden:

And today there was still an echo of color in the street: