Pet Peeves

This morning, at preschool, my son threw a miniature fit. He drew a picture, folded it up neatly, and attempted to stick it in his pocket. “No,” said the teacher, “you’re supposed to hang it on the wall.”

This was not what he had planned; he cried a bit, stomped off to the hallway and pouted for a minute or two. The teacher, who is smarter than him, left him alone; eventually he came back inside and everything was fine. He just needed to get it off his chest. He forgave his teacher; she couldn’t know she had made a cardinal mistake by deciding something without him.

Mendel believes in discussing things, weighing options, carefully coming to an agreement. He is all about compromise and input, and would love it if we took a vote on everything. Maybe I have taken him to too many board meetings; he is a democratic creature, and does not respond well when simply told what to do.

Getting a little worked up now and then is acceptable behavior, I think; we all have our pet peeves. Mine is wasting food: you finish your plate, and if it really can’t be eaten anymore it is composted. My daughter hates turtlenecks and sleeping under a blanket. My husband has a thing about ugly shoes, and the use of the word “piggy-back” during meetings. The essence of a good pet peeve, however, is that it isn’t something you are confronted with all the time.

The thing with Mendel’s pet peeve is, he’s taking it too far. After all, you can’t argue every decision in life; at some point you just have to accept the status quo and get in line. You can’t argue with the weather or with traffic lights, and Tuesday will not magically turn into Friday just because you come up with great arguments. This means he gets his feathers ruffled on an hourly basis.

My hope is that, at some point, he will update his pet peeve. Maybe he can start disliking something that he doesn’t experience so often, like Christmas Elves, or people who hand out toothpaste on Halloween. Groundhog Day, Fireworks, or the Super Bowl: there are many things that you confront once a year, for a short period, so you more or less get 11 anger-free months. I think it’s a great idea.

Now, how do I go about fostering a deep-seated hatred of Elves?

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From Macaroni Art to David Lynch

My son came home the other day with macaroni art. Okay, technically, it wasn’t macaroni; it was differently shaped pasta, spray-painted and glued in a random pattern to a piece of paper. It wasn’t an isolated incident either; earlier this week, he glued Apple Jack cereal to cardboard; I ask you, is this an acceptable thing to be doing during an artist’s formative years?

“What are they teaching you at that preschool,” I asked him, “How do you ever expect to become a fabulous artist if you waste your talent on macaroni?” He shrugged and walked away. He didn’t ask me to put it on the fridge, either: instead, he kind of hid it underneath a pile of mail where I came upon it by accident. He seemed slightly embarrassed about the whole thing. “Don’t do this again,” I warned him, “or there will be consequences.”

Then I remember a documentary about David Lynch I watched years ago. In it, Lynch talks about some recent artwork he’s been working on: he has nailed several slabs of raw meat to a board, and is watching it decompose. First, it changes color, then it become infested by maggots; eventually it turns into a nasty slimy mess, crawling with bugs and the stench becomes unbearable. I think his son talks about marching ants in one of the scenes; the whole family appears slightly disgusted but otherwise unfazed. It’s art, although perhaps not for the masses, but what are you going to do in this day and age, when everything’s been done before? You expand your horizon, that’s what; you find society’s limits, and you challenge them.

The limits in our house definitely include macaroni art; it’s stale, it’s childish, and it’s something I thought Mendel had left behind when he grew out of his diapers. Maybe because of that attitude, we have turned it into a taboo: art with food? Bah!
Taboos are solid gold, as far as artists are concerned, and when you look at it that way, even macaroni art can become fresh and modern again.
Also, he’s watched that strawberry scene in Across the Universe many times, so maybe this isn’t a lapse; maybe it’s a developmental leap. Yes, that must be it. I guess this marks the beginning of Mendel’s food period; I wonder how long it will last. Perhaps I should dig up the macaroni sheet, and hang it on the fridge after all.

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Dancing Barefoot in the Rain

This column previously appeared in The Jewish Press, June 2008

Spring is here; the jar that my daughter brings to me says so. Inside, I find a bug and some leafy greens; she proudly tells me she “screwed the lid on extra tight so Mr. Bug won’t escape”. I explain that Mr. Bug probably won’t survive the lack of oxygen, and with a disappointed look she takes her brand-new pet back outside and releases him.  In truth, I don’t have the faintest idea how long a bug can live in a jar, but I’m not willing to find out. There’s a reason I have the exterminator stop by my house every two months.

Fortunately, there are other ways to freak your parents out when the weather gets nice, and my children know them all. We’ve already had the first accident (our daughter Isabella falling out of a tree) and the first really dumb idea (our son Mendel using a rake to play horse while standing in a wheelbarrow). Our kids find that nice weather is best enjoyed in an atmosphere of danger.

            I am not entirely convinced I am the right parent for the season. I hate bugs, and I don’t like swimming. I despise that the maple tree in front of my house seems to drop a hundred branches every time the wind blows, and that the hot sun makes the trashcan smell like something furry died in there; most of all, I hate how by the time my house settles down it is too dark to truly enjoy my garden. Of course, I would love to be a fun mom, and sometimes I think I am, but these days I mostly hear myself say things like Stop stepping on the flowers, That roof is not for climbing, and, most popular of all: Get out of the compost heap! No wonder my children look at me as if they wish I’d turn into a garden gnome. What fun is a back yard if you can’t get dirty and destroy things? Where’s my summer spirit?

            When I was little, I practically lived outside during the summer. I grew up near the woods, and there wasn’t a tree I didn’t climb, an adventure I didn’t have, or a dare I didn’t fall for. The only rule my parents had was: “be home in time for dinner”, and even that I often didn’t stick to (Sorry, mom). Yet now that I am a mother myself, and my children’s outside is the size of a postage stamp compared to the world I used to play in, I am suddenly the biggest chicken on the block. Obviously, it’s time for an attitude adjustment.

            Someone very smart once told me that G-d does not perform unnecessary miracles; if you can fix things yourself, He will not split the Red Sea for you. So now what? I decide I have to set some new ground rules, starting with less interference on my part. This means, if Isabella and Mendel are outside, let them be outside in the fullest sense of the word. So what if they get dirty, so what if their shins bruise until they look like the map of Europe; it’s not the end of the world if they wear the signs of summer. And with Memorial Day just around the corner, we have many warm months ahead of us, so I might as well relax. And they don’t need to know that I peek out the window every two minutes, and then give myself a stern talking to. Maybe I’ll get really brave and introduce some shock treatment: next time there’s a summer storm, we can all go outside and dance barefoot in the rain.

Let’s hope it stays dry until deep into August.