Was it enough?

We dropped our daughter off at college last week.

We got her set up in her dorm room. Very easy move in. She has what we're calling her "limbless couch" under her lofted bed, where I expect she'll spend a lot of her recharging time. (The couch is armless, and also sits directly on the floor, so, no limbs.) We took her to an early dinner. We walked around some of the campus and a bit of the main street in town. We met her charming roommate from Pakistan. And then we left her there at North Hall.

I didn't cry until that last hug. Aden said something about it feeling strange that we were leaving her and she wasn't going home with us. I told her I've spent her whole life trying to not leave her behind anywhere, so it was odd for me, too. She stood on the sidewalk and watched us walk away. And I burst into tears.

Her first night in the dorm was Thursday. She's now spent three nights away from us. She's fine. It's all fine. But the closest thing this feels like to me is when we moved her as a baby into her own room to start sleeping through the night. We kept our babies in a co-sleeper attached to our bed when we brought each of them home. It was a safe space for a baby to sleep where I could still scoop them up easily when needed. I liked having them right there essentially in my bed where I could watch them breathe. But then at four months when Aden didn't need to eat in the night anymore, and was sleeping seven hours or more at a stretch, we moved her to her own crib and I cried. It felt stupid to cry. But I missed her.

I miss her now, too. And just like when she was a baby, and I could count easily on one hand how many nights she'd spent in her own room, it's hard. In a few weeks, I won't be able to recall exactly how many nights she's been away. But today that number is three and I feel it acutely.

Technology is easing things, though. When Aden was originally preparing to leave for school in 2020 (before the world shut down and she deferred college), I asked what the easiest way to stay in touch with her would be. I'm not a person who texts or video chats, but I would do those things if that meant keeping in touch with Aden. She told me she prefers Discord. So I joined Discord as "Aden's Mom" since she was the only person I planned to talk to there. But then things got extended into various family chats, and it looks like I have confessed to a favorite child because I am "Aden's Mom" in all of them until I can figure out how to change it.

Through Discord I've gotten to see Aden's new art supplies and admire her new textbooks. (UW Stout is smart about everything, so the art supplies are bundled into affordable kits at a local store, and all the books are rented and collected from the library.) She got help from her dad for her roommate's phone problems. Last night we gathered as a family online to play a couple rounds of Jack Box, and it was fun to hear her laugh and interact with her siblings like normal. We were even able to watch another episode of Star Trek together by streaming Netflix over Discord, and we commented as usual about Klingons and Vulcans during the show. Aden was watching from her bed with headphones on, and I could hear her roommate chatting once in a while with someone on the other side of the room.

It's comforting, because she's away, but she can still participate in regular family stuff here and there. I suspect once classes start we'll hear less from her, but for now? While those nights away I can still count on one hand? I like that she's as close as my phone.

I can't imagine anyone is surprised by the idea that I miss my daughter. But the main thing I'm pondering as she ostensibly begins life on her own as an adult is did I do enough to prepare her? And was her childhood okay?

Because it sort of hit me all at once that her childhood is over. Officially and forever done, so whatever I meant to do by now as part of that, I've missed my chance.

We did lots of good things, but was it enough? There were books I didn't read her, and movies we didn't see. Did I take her enough places? Add enough special touches here and there? Should I have made her practice more? I'm feeling guilty about any time that I yelled and I shouldn't have. We got her a dog, but he was so weird. I think I should have taken her roller skating more often. I feel like there were crafts we were supposed to do together, or wisdom I should have imparted.

Was it a good childhood? Because it was up to me to make it so, and I hope I did okay.

And is she ready to be an adult? In many ways, more than I was when I left for college. But in others, maybe not?

She still doesn't have a driver's license. She does know how to vote. Cooking we've got covered, because at this point she's a better and more adventurous cook than I am. She can swim, so at least I made sure that happened. She doesn't use the phone well and she's bad at making appointments, so maybe I should have done more there? How? 

My mother once told me that she never wanted keep us as little kids because she loved interacting with me and my brothers as adults, but that it would be nice to go visit us as small children again. Isn't that a lovely idea? I think about it a lot. But I also think it would completely tear my heart apart to go back and see Aden as the chatty three-year-old she used to be, or the clever eleven-year-old, or the mysteriously empathetic baby she was in my arms.

I still remember that baby in my body, kicking me at orchestra rehearsals every time the music stopped. Eighteen years seems like a long time to get to show things to a person. How did I miss so much? How can it be done already? I cannot believe my first baby is in college.

I miss her. I'm excited for her. I hope she's doing okay. I hope I gave her enough.

 

Catching up and making plans (and random thoughts I want to get out)

You know what's exciting about 2021 so far? PLANS! There are plans again.

I used to feel somewhat constrained by endless plans, but now I understand they are necessary anchors on the calendar and in our memories. It's hard to recall anything in any order in 2020 because after things shut down in March, everything was the same, and there was nothing to look forward to. My daughter and I were trying to remember anything about last summer, and the best we could come up with was it got warmer for a while, and then it wasn't. We had to go out of our way to make Easter look different from the days around it. I don't know if we even noticed 4th of July. No Halloween. (No costumes.) I think we did Thanksgiving twice for some reason. I made a special effort on each of the kids' birthdays, but that took all of my creative energy. I was fortunate to have taken a couple of trips to the cottage (which was a safe and isolated place to go), but there were no family trips. The year was mostly a sad blur.

But what a difference vaccinations make.

There are things happening! With the promise of more things happening to come! I just returned from a road trip where I got to visit and hug vaccinated family and friends in several states, and it was wonderful.

I drove both my daughters to NYC where they are staying with my brother and his family for a while. (That will be a whole other post soon, once I download photos.) The three of us got to stay with my aunt and uncle in Ohio in their beautiful new home, I hugged cousins, we ate together and laughed and it all felt like normal again. I hung out in NYC long enough to help get my girls acclimated to life in the city, and then I drove home via Michigan so I could spend a little time with my mom, and have dinner with my (all fully vaccinated) friends. It feels a bit miraculous.

It's like we're living a fourth act of "Our Town," where after discovering that it is the mundane that is extraordinary, and the most basic connections between people that matter most, we don't have to stay dead, but can instead return to life again with renewed appreciation. I wonder how long after masks and social distancing are a distant memory we will retain that.

School updates:

Quinn went back to in-person school a couple of weeks ago. Kids still had the option of staying virtual, and at first Quinn thought he'd stick with that for safety reasons, but he's graduating from 8th grade. He's been at Fernwood Montessori for a decade, and in the fall he heads off to high school, and he wanted the chance to walk around his school again, and see his friends and teachers. We decided a good compromise was to not have him take the bus. (It turns out he preferred having us drive him anyway, he just didn't want to inconvenience us.) He's in school four days a week (Wednesdays are still virtual), we drive him there, he walks himself home, and it's going well. Everyone wears masks, the kids eat at their desks (with dividers between them at that time since their masks are off), the number of kids per room is limited so they have a system that rotates different kids out into the hall on different days, and they do Covid testing on groups periodically. He's glad to be back. He says he pushes himself to do more when he's physically in school. I'm happy he gets to have a more conclusive end to his time at Fernwood. (Unlike Aden who is still somewhat traumatized by having her senior year of high school simply end unceremoniously.)

Mona is finished with her junior year, having done all of it virtually. In fact, she took the few finals she didn't exempt on her laptop in NYC. Virtual school worked out fine for her in many ways. She's been able to manage her pain issues better from home, so her work didn't suffer. Her grades are fine. She's even on track to graduate early since she took classes ahead each summer. It was certainly not ideal, but I would say Mona is among those for whom online school during the pandemic worked out okay.

Aden wound up deferring both semesters of her first year at UW Stout, but is on track to start for real, in person, in a dorm, this fall. (Finally.) I won't lie and say it hasn't been nice having her around an extra year, but I think we're both ready for her to head off to college in a few months. Last year at this time she was anxious about leaving home. But now she's had a whole lot more of home than anyone bargained for, and after a truly boring gap year, she's excited for the next step. Her lineup of art classes sound wonderful, and I think she'll have a great freshman year. I'm glad she opted out of a first year of college that would have been all quarantine and virtual classes. 

Vaccines: Ian, Aden and I, all got Moderna shots. Ian and Aden felt a bit icky for a day after the second shot, but I had no reaction at all. Mona got Pfizer shots, also with no reaction. Quinn got his first Pfizer shot the day it was approved for teens, and still has his second shot coming up. Nurses at the vaccination centers remarked on how fun it was to give shots to people who were actually excited about it.

Work: We are starting to plan ahead for opening up the violin store to people again. We've been lucky to still have steady work all through the pandemic, but it's been different. The teaching studio closed last March, but will finally have students in it again starting in a couple of weeks. Sales were down for a while, but are back to normal. Repairs never stopped. Rentals stayed the same. I've discovered it's much easier to organize my time with appointments rather than open hours, so I think we'll keep that. Starting in the fall we'll have open hours two days a week, but otherwise be by appointment. I need more time in my shop at home. I need longer stretches to get work done without interruption. In the meantime, we are cleaning and organizing, and getting ready to let people step inside our door. That will feel weird after so much quiet.

Rehearsals and Performances: I was lucky to have been able to play a few orchestra concerts this past season. I'm glad we had a virtual option for the audience, and hope we keep that going forward. (I loved that my out of town family members could watch us play.) I'm excited about the upcoming season. I've also missed playing with the mandolin orchestra, and look forward to making music with that group again. I've gotten used to playing in a mask. I've gotten used to not having a stand partner or sharing music.

Latin: Who knows? Latin lessons with Quinn was one of the early casualties of the pandemic for us. He'd like to go back, but he feels (okay, WE feel) that we've forgotten so much by now, that starting up again could be painful. I told him we'd wait until he gets into a rhythm of things in high school and then see how much extra time he actually has.

Star Trek: At the beginning of the lock down, we (like many) were looking for things to watch, and Aden agreed to binge a Star Trek series with me. I decided if we were only going to watch one, then Deep Space Nine was a good choice, since it has a story line that wraps up cleanly, and I knew she'd like the characters.

We got through it faster than expected, so then moved on (back) to Next Generation. But I started toward the end of season two, because as much nostalgia as many of us have for Picard and his crew, lots of TNG does not hold up well. Some of the early episodes are downright unwatchable. Most episodes don't even pass a basic Bechdel Test. (For those of you unaware, the Bechdel Test wants you to ask: 1. Is there more than one woman in the story? 2. Do the women talk to each other? 3. If they talk to each other, is it about something other than a man? It is deeply sad how few things pass this meager test.)

Anyway, now we are on Voyager, and I am surprised at how much better it is than I remembered. I think I was influenced by a bunch of the whining from fans around it when it came out that was probably rooted in misogynistic nonsense. The show is great. It's funny, it can get quite dark, the characters are interesting and likable, and it's often challenging. Nearly all the time in TNG, and a lot of the time in DS9, Aden would guess the outcome of an episode in the first few minutes. Voyager? She seldom knows what's coming, and that's rare and delightful. Nearly every episode easily passes the Bechdel Test, and the captain is still distinctly in command while managing to be personable in a way none of the other captains ever were. And the overall feel is far more "Trek" than almost anything, since there is no Federation red tape or politics. They are actually trekking across the galaxy and exploring all new things.

But the most startling Voyager moment for us recently was the episode in the Void, where the ship is essentially set to stay on autopilot for years, there are no stars outside the windows, and there is nothing to do. They are just making their way across the Void and biding their time, which has the captain depressed, people eating at odd times, and everyone feeling like they should be enjoying the "vacation" but instead it has everyone on edge and feeling off. Aden looked at me and said, "Oh, this is the pandemic." And she was right. That episode was far more relatable now than the first time I saw it.

In any case, for me a minor joy of pandemic life, has been curling up with my oldest child almost every night (often with a bowl of popcorn between us) and watching Star Trek. That part I will always look back on fondly.

The binge show of choice for me and Quinn has been The Amazing Race. We started back on season one (about twenty years old at this point) and are somewhere in season fifteen now. Quinn has excellent knowledge of geography, so for him I think it's mostly interesting to see so many places around the world, but the game itself is entertaining. I'm flattered that my kids think Ian and I would do well on the race if we were in it. (I think we do have good complementary skill sets, but I don't run, and there is a lot of running on that show.) We've even adopted a new family phrase based on a moment in season one: There was a mother daughter team--Emily and her mom--and the mom was really steady and nice. Early on, all the teams are challenged to zip line across a really deep drop somewhere in South America, and one of the strong young men gets really scared, but the mother daughter team did it just fine. This causes the girlfriend of the nervous man to complain, "Emily's MOM did it!" So now that's what we say when any of us hesitates about doing something we're nervous about.

My house is the messiest it's ever been. Three teenagers locked in a house for a year is a bad idea in terms of housekeeping. At some point I'll have to do something about it, but not yet.

I finished my fourth novel over a year ago, but have been mired in the complications of querying agents. One asked to see the manuscript back in September, but I still haven't heard back. Other writers I know say that's not that unusual, especially during the pandemic. I may self-publish again out of sheer impatience soon. But it's a fun book that should appeal to a large audience, so for now I will keep trying. (I'm looking forward to sharing it! You'll like it.)

We still miss our dog. My brother on the other side of Wisconsin recently lost his dog, too. It's been a bad year for pets.

Although our bird remains wildly entertaining. Keiko only hears us talk about Keiko, so the only thing he tells us is, "Adorable Keiko bird, such a cute bird" etc. I had no idea a pet bird could be so interesting and funny.

Aden got to do a trip to the cottage with a friend earlier this month where I left them on their own for about a week. That felt sort of wild to have a kid be that grown up. Along the same lines, Mona wants to get better at driving, and she did a big chunk of driving across both Indiana and Pennsylvania on our recent trip. It is surreal to have your child in the driver's seat.

We're planning a trip up the East Coast this summer. That was supposed to happen in 2020, but you know... 2020. I'm looking forward to it.

Our family finally watched Hamilton not long ago. I was surprised and pleased to discover it deserved all the hype and acclaim it's gotten. It's a truly remarkable achievement. I found out as I was leaving NY that Lin-Manuel Miranda lives in my brother's building in Washington Heights, so I didn't get a chance to tell him so directly. Next time! (My kids are still in NY, so I told them to tell Mr Miranda I said "Hi" if they bump into him.)

I finally figured out the way for me to use my phone is to put it in a wallet, so I keep track of where it is. I'm also learning that texting is useful when your kids aren't living with you. Still not crazy about having a phone, though.

I think that's enough updating for the night. If you came this far, thanks for joining me on a rambling exercise in marking this place in time! It never looks worthwhile until years go by and I forget everything. (That's the true value of a blog.)

Source Material

We first instituted Friday Night Movie Night in our home when Ian was deployed the second time.  I found it easier to keep the kids (and myself) distracted from his absence if we always had short term goals to look forward to.  Having Movie Night never be more than a week away helped more than you can imagine.

The challenge has always been finding movies for all of us to enjoy; nothing too scary or complicated for the youngest and nothing that will annoy or bore the adults to death.  So far we've done pretty well (and I will list suggestions for family movies at the end of this post if anyone's interested).

In the past year or so, we've decided to focus on what Ian and I term "Source Material."  Our kids are old enough that they've been exposed to a ton of media, and they constantly take in references to older movies and shows without realizing it.  We find ourselves regularly trying to explain certain jokes that go right over their heads during programs like Futurama, the Simpsons, and Phineas and Ferb.  (Thank goodness for YouTube.  I have paused episodes of Phineas and Ferb just to show the kids the opening themes to The Love Boat and Gilligan's Island--among other things--so they would appreciate the spoofs.)

But explaining things only goes so far.  Why not go right to the source and let them see for themselves?

Watching "TV"

(Note: There are probably random spoilers in here.  Not that it should matter, honestly.  I don't often find learning plot points about most things ruins them.  Good stories are made in the way they are told, not usually in what they are about.  But fair warning here just the same because who knows what I might say?)

I watch a lot of "TV."  But what I'm calling "TV" my kids would call "Movies."  They call everything on a screen a Movie.  Except for things they watch on particular YouTube Channels, but even odd things here and there on YouTube they call Movies.  (If you have half an hour the clip in that link is very funny.)  I'm starting to wonder if we need new terms in general.  Maybe "Features" for what I think of as movies, and "Serial Dramas/Comedies" for what I think of as television.

I want to say the main difference between movies and television has to do with telling a single, contained story, versus drawing one out in parts, possibly over years.  But there are still exceptions there, because, you know, Star Wars.  And I remember seeing the movie Shoah over the course of two nights when it came out, because its total running length on screen was over nine hours, and there are entire British television series that can be viewed in less time.  There are movies that are essentially parts of a series, such as the Up documentaries (the first one of those I saw in a theater was 28 Up as a child and I look forward to the next installment every seven years).  Star Trek straddles both worlds but tells its best stories on TV in my opinion.  TV allows characters and ideas to develop in ways movies don't have patience for.

Well-Rounded Education (Babble)

My daughters both get homework packets from school.  Mona gets one every Thursday and it is due the following Thursday.  The packet usually contains some reading and some math, and sometimes it’s specifically tailored toward whatever she needs more practice with at a particular moment (extra pages of subtraction work thrown in, for instance).

The nice part about this system is you can spread out the assignments however you like, maybe a little each day or all the reading first, etc.  But Mona is an intense sort of child and she insists on doing all of the homework packet the day she brings it home.  This is often biting off more than she can chew and puts us in the odd position of pleading with our daughter to stop doing homework and please just go play for a while and relax while she grits her teeth clutches her pencil more tightly.  In any case, it’s not hard to get Mona to do her homework, it’s just hard for us not to all get too stressed out as she’s doing it.

Aden, on the other hand, gets a homework packet every Friday.  There are twelve packets in a grading period.  They are due the day before report cards come out.  Ideally she should be doing them a little each day and finishing each packet over the course of a week.  We used to have a system where she had to sit at the kitchen table when she got home from school and finish some homework before she could use her computer or watch TV.  Then several weeks ago she insisted that she was finding time during school hours to work on her packets.  She didn’t need to bring them home.  She’d rather work on them at school with the resources they have there.  Sure.  Ian and I didn’t quite buy that, but we’ve also passed fourth grade already so this is her deal.


Well, strangely (by which I mean unsurprisingly) enough during the four day weekend before all of Aden’s homework packets were due, she pulled five of them out of her backpack and asked for help.  It was a long weekend, and not just because of the banking holidays the public school system had invented on either end of it.

I was sick in bed the whole time, and Aden spent long hours sprawled out on top of my covers scribbling at her lap desk and asking for definitions of words like ‘prescription’ and ‘dictator.’  As silly as it was for her to be cramming in so much work at the end of the grading period, it was fun having Aden on the bed working away.  She’s nice company even when she drives us crazy.

Being sick in bed for me usually involves movie and TV marathons on my laptop.  (I have now seen nearly every episode of Law and Order Criminal Intent, as well as Downton Abbey and some random classic films such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s.)  At one point as Aden was catching up on some math I decided to pull up the recent Star Trek movie.

I am a pretty hopeless Star Trek nerd.  I like to watch things on my computer at work as I rehair bows or clean violins, so over the past several months I re-watched every old episode of Voyager, and am currently into season two of Deep Space Nine (ah the 90’s design aesthetic and stirrup pants!).  I can tell you my favorite Picard episodes, talk about the Q Continuum for too long, and am still bothered that Data’s makeup looked so weird in the movies compared to the television series.  Curling up with my husband to watch anything Star Trek makes me happy.

Aden, of course, asked what I was watching.

“The newest Star Trek movie,” I said.  Then realizing how little our entertainment preferences overlap I asked, “Do you know Star Trek?”

Aden replied, “I know Chewbacca.”

!!????!!!?

How did I raise a daughter for ten years in my house who doesn’t know the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars?

I’m not pretending this is important information.  I know it’s silly.  But there is such a thing as cultural literacy and it’s good to have a sense of what other people may be interested in out in the world even if it’s not something you pursue yourself.  I don’t care about sports, but I had my grandma explain the rules of football to me when I enrolled at The Ohio State University and I even attended a couple of Buckeye games.  Not my thing, but I still thought it was a good idea to have a sense of what so many other people around me seemed to care so much about.  It helped me to understand those people better.  Now, I’m not saying knowing the difference between a Bajoran and an Andorian will necessarily help my daughter relate to many people, but it will at least help her talk to her own parents.  I had let down my child in her science fiction education!

I told her to put her pencil away and come sit where she could see the screen better.  I explained this one guy was playing a very young Kirk, and that our friend Kirk back in Michigan picked out his name when he moved to this country based on that character.  I showed her which guy was Spock, and explained Vulcans have pointy ears and prize logic.  I told her about how her Uncle Barrett once played Spock in one of our New Year’s Eve events where we all acted out a Star Trek play and Spock got to do a tragic death scene.  I pointed out how expendable people on away missions were usually in red shirts.  (She was worried about the red shirts but I told her lots of people die on Star Trek and the red shirts are people we don’t know and don’t get attached to, which, oddly, she accepted.)  I explained the name of the ship they were on was the Enterprise, and that enough real people who care about space travel love Star Trek that one of the NASA space shuttles was called Enterprise, too.

I warned Aden before scenes that could be too scary and knew when to tell her to shut her eyes.  She thought Scotty was funny.  I explained as many inside jokes as I could, and tried to get her to understand that the time line of this story was in an alternate universe.  That Star Trek was wacky like that, so even though it was sad the planet Vulcan was destroyed it was just fine in a different reality.  She stayed up well past bedtime and watched the whole thing.  Then I pulled up an episode of the original series and showed her William Shatner as Captain Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy has Mr Spock, etc.

Before sending her off to bed I told Aden I will watch any Star Trek with her anytime she likes.  She smiled and said that would be fun.  She was probably just being nice.
It’s so funny the things we assume our children will know just because we do.  My poor father who spent so many years teaching other people’s children to speak French completely forgot to teach it to my brothers and me.  I asked him for some key phrases after I graduated from college and was heading off to Europe with Ian to backpack around for a month, and dad looked perplexed.

“But you speak French!” he said.

“No, I speak Spanish.  Remember when I lived in Mexico?”

My brothers, home from college that summer, happened to be sitting in the dining room and he looked at them and said, “Well, you both speak French, don’t you?”

Arno looked up and said, “No, dad, Japanese.”  Barrett replied, “German.”

I’ve never seen my dad look so dumbfounded.  He’d neglected to teach us French while we were under his roof and we’d grown up and gone off and it was too late!  I suppose in the hectic day to day life of a parent we always figure there will be time tomorrow.  Then a lifetime slips by.

Is it important that my kids learn that Jedis and Klingons don’t mix (other than at Comicon)?  Probably not.  But I’m going to teach them anyway.  Because it’s something I know, and by knowing I know it my kids will know me a bit better.  It means a lot to me that I know my mom loves old black and white horror films, can make her own paper, and cries at certain commercials.  Whenever I see a reference to The Incredible Shrinking Man or Day of the Triffids it makes me nostalgic for the Saturday afternoons growing up when my mom would work on the laundry with Sir Graves Ghastly hosting horror films on TV while my brothers and I played all over the house.  Those details spell home.  I’m not altogether sure what details my own kids are absorbing.

But we haven’t completely failed Aden in her science fiction education.  She knows what a Dalek is and would probably call a British police box a TARDIS if she ever saw one.  And she does know Chewbacca.  There’s still some time before she grows up and leaves us to share with her my favorite books and maybe even teach her how to sharpen a block plane.  I think her dad would like to teach her to ski.  As ridiculous as it sounds, realizing Aden’s lack of Star Trek exposure has me thinking more critically about what are the things I would be sad not to have shared before she’s no longer a regular member of our household anymore.

What do I want her to know about me that I want to be the one to tell her?  We’re starting small, with red shirts and snickerdoodles, but it’s a serious question.  What do I teach before it all slips by?  Where shall we boldly go where no one has gone before?  (And how many infinitives shall we split on the way?)

UPDATE (Oct 2015): I have since been corrected that my brother, Arno, speaks fairly good French, and Barrett knows a bit as well, so it is only I who managed not to pick up any of that language growing up.  (I don't think I'm misremembering that scene, though, but I suspect it my brothers were really teasing.)