Sandy Slaga

Cornfields, Cher & Letting Go

Corn. Lots of it. Early morning in late August, and we are en route to my son’s freshman year in college. And there’s corn. Complete with tassels. You could spot drop a teenager into the middle of one of those fields and it’d be months before he’d surface.

My husband’s behind the wheel of our 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee since it’s the only one of our vehicles big enough for the task at hand. My son is semi-conscious in the front passenger seat.

A mega latte and I are in the right rear passenger seat next to my son’s laptop and a 3-drawer plastic storage chest filled with enough undershirts and socks to keep him out of the dorm laundry room for at least 2 weeks. Boxes are piled behind me along with the must-have 27″ flat screen TV which will be used, I’ve been assured, for educational purposes only. The upside is that I’m packed so tightly I’ll be sure to survive a rollover.

I’m iPodding Cher’s “Do You Believe in Life After Love” and Pure Prairie League’s “Amy” and looking at the cornfields. Not because the songs have anything to do with this moment but because if I blast them loudly enough, I’m blissfully distracted from the anvil on my chest and the lump in my throat.

I’ve been thinking about this day for months. One more chance to have our son as a captive audience to the wisdom that only a mother can give. I let an hour pass, listening to father and son do their man talk. I sip my latte and gather my thoughts.

The chatter ends. I let several more minutes pass in silence. When he’s good and relaxed, he’ll be more receptive.

“Caleb,” I begin, my voice quivering. “There are some things I want to say ….”

My husband turns and gestures. I glance forward.

My son is asleep.

I flash back to the first time I left him with a babysitter. His first day of kindergarten in his navy blue uniform shorts and white short-sleeved polo shirt, wearing a backpack almost as big as he and holding a role of contact paper.

More Cher and Pure Prairie League.

“You guys could go get my books while Ivan and I are setting up the room,” my son suddenly announces.

I snap out of my precious memories moment.

“Sure, son. Not only are we just waiting for another opportunity to open the checkbook, but please, let us pick up and deliver, too.”

I’d read in one of those annoying “letting go” books that you’d know when it was time to leave your college freshman on move-in day. You’d look around the room after unpacking and organizing closet space and drawers, which is a special mother-son bonding thing, and you’d see your child looking back at you. No words. Just The Look.

I wasn’t sure if I’d recognize The Look. I was used to giving it, not being the recipient.

So after I’d rearranged the closet and drawers he’d just organized, and I’m using that term very loosely, I looked across the room. He and his roommate were figuring out where to put the micro-fridge. I caught his eye. And I knew.

I’m fine. We’ll be seeing him in five weeks.

Now where the hell is my iPod?

C-Day Minus Three: Dorm Essentials

Choosing which items to buy and/or pack for my son’s rookie foray into post-secondary university housing should be simple. The items should be the ones I, his mother, choose.

After all, who knows better what he should have than I, his mother, myself a veteran of communal living quarters in the mid to late ’70s at Purdue University. That would be the same Purdue of Len Dawson, Bob Griese, Mike Phipps, Dave Butz, Drew Brees and Kyle Orton. And you can bet your spiral pass that those boys’ mothers chose their dorm essentials, too.

Last night my husband and my son’s father, who happen to be the same man, attempted to point out not only the errors in my choices but also the flaws in my reasoning. “I was an eighteen-year-old boy going away to college,” my husband declared, “and I know what he needs and what he’ll be branded a girlie man for having.”

This is a misguided primal need exhibited by fathers in order to protect their sons from the girlie man label and keep them steeped in the manly man category. Grunting and back slapping are optional.

And so it went.

A fan for cooling and proper air circulation. Won’t need one, quipped my husband. The dorm is air-conditioned. The fact that the thermostat is controlled by the university housing czar and that when winter comes could be set at 78 degrees is irrelevant.

A container for Q-tips. A cute but manly one that can sit atop his dresser along with assorted toiletries. Nope. A waste. Store brand sandwich-size baggies will do the job. Delirium. My son living out of baggies? Not happening.

Febreeze to simulate partially pleasant odors in his room as needed, particularly before a visit from parents. What for? Let him open the window and fan a towel to suck in the fresh air.

Face lotion. He can use body lotion, my husband insisted. No, he can’t. He needs special face lotion so he isn’t slathering additional muck on his expensive dermatologist-groomed face.

Antimicrobial pillow and mattress protectors to ward off foreign pathogens. Unnecessary. It’s like day care, my husband said. Expose the kid to as many germs as possible. It’ll build up his immunity. Over my dead menopausal body.

Storage organizers for his closet and drawers. To have a place for everything and keep everything in its place. What fantasy was I indulging, my husband gibed. This was the kid who has one storage receptacle. That being the floor space in front of his closet. I shot my husband The Look and added a multitiered storage cart to my shopping list.

But to keep his testosterone from hyperventilating, I’ll pass on the cucumber melon shower gel.

C-Day Minus Four

My eighteen-year-old son leaves for college in four days. Actually, his father, sister and I are leaving with him. We, however, will be returning home.

Preparations are going as well as can be expected.

My son is counting the days with a gusto that only eighteen-year-old hormones in anticipation of no curfew can exhibit.

His father is in recovery from calculating tuition, room and board and books.

I am trying to maintain some sort of balance between the blithering, menopausal no-it’s-too-soon-he’s-my-baby mom and the you-taught-him-well-now-let-him-fly mother.

And so I am preparing for his flight.

Since he’ll be three hours deep into the cornfields of west central Illinois with only a Walmart, KMart and Walgreens to which to turn for civilization, I am seeing to it that the boy has what his mother says he needs.

Ground zero is the basement ping pong table. Six open cardboard boxes await my packing instructions.

The extra-long sheet set which has, of course, been freshly laundered since how could anyone think of sleeping on sheets fresh out of the wrapper. One bunny soft blue blanket which he’ll need when it gets cold, he just doesn’t know it yet. A fluffy pad to give some ooomph to the piece of cardboard that university housing calls a mattress. And his old comforter because a new one won’t have embedded dog hair and cigar ashes to remind him of home.

Shower flip flops so at least his feet remain free of communicable diseases. Enough shampoo, shower gel, razors, deodorant and body spray to make it through Thanksgiving or my first visit, whichever comes first.

One large jar of peanut butter and an extra large bag of Tostitos (don’t ask) for when he sleeps through breakfast. Or lunch. Or supper.

Other assorted items which I decide between now and Saturday that he needs.

And those items which his father can see to it that he gets because I’m the mother and I refuse to acknowledge his need for such things.

Stay tuned.

Transatlantic Teenagers

I’ve never been to Europe. My husband hasn’t been to Europe since traveling with his German born-and-raised parents to visit family when he was thirteen.

Be that as it may, we decided to give our children an opportunity neither of us had.

The Teenagers are on a thirteen day tour of Europe with a school group. Twenty-one teenagers. Three chaperones. One tour guide. Germany. Italy. Switzerland. Paris. For fun. No grandparents and second cousins to visit. Just hormones and a legal drinking age of 16 for beer and wine and 18 for spirits.

Day 3:

I arrive home to a voice mail from my husband, who’s in Boston on business, sounding the alarm. His online check reveals that the 17-year-old’s checking account is down $330 in two days. The itinerary shows the group to be in Munich.

Quite certain that my two years of college German thirty years ago won’t cut it, I call my mother-in-law who lives in Connecticut and ask her to attempt contact with my daughter at the hotel in Munich. She calls back to confirm that the voice at the other end speaks English and that the group is just checking into the hotel.

I call. I hear the hotel clerk announce to a packed lobby of teenagers that “Hannah’s mother is calling.”

“Oh my gawd, I can’t believe my mom is calling.” I can feel the transatlantic eye roll.

No big deal about the $330. Her digital camera broke, so she just had to buy a new one. Uh huh. Oh and could we advance a few hundred out of her next paycheck?

As an aside, I ask why we haven’t heard from her brother or her before now. Like, to let us know they arrived safely two days ago? Pffft. She just hasn’t had time. I ask how her brother is. Fine, she thinks, but she really doesn’t “hang” with him so she’s not sure.

Day 4:

On arriving home from a relaxing dinner out, my husband and I hear a frantic voice mail from the 18-year-old. “Are you there? Could somebody pick up? I need money! You must put money in my checking account! Like now!”

I dial the number of the hotel in Italy. On the other end of the line is an Italian gentleman who speaks no English but has a wife who speaks German. He attempts to ask me, in broken German, if I speak German and if I can call back later to speak with his wife. My repeatedly shouting my son’s name, that I am his mother and that I am calling from THE UNITED STATES gets me a loud click.

A couple hours later my son calls saying his account needs funds. Cuban cigars and “a few hits” of Jack and Coke later, he finds his budget in need. And, he will need additional beverages, particularly over the next two days. It’s his turn to room with the classmate no one wants.

I remark that a few cigars can’t be that much. Well, the cigars come in a box, I am informed. And they’re Cuban. To the tune of 65 Euros or roughly 90 dollars. For Cuban suicide sticks that stink up his clothes.

Jack and Coke, I learn, is Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola.

Germany. Over 1300 German breweries, many of whom have been brewing beer since the Reinheitsgebot was enacted in 1516. And the boy is drinking Jack and Coke.

Day 5:

The 18-year-old calls to make sure we’ve deposited his paycheck that I, his mother, picked up from his summer employer. He comments on “the price of stuff” and asks if I’m having a good time without his sister and him.

Day 9:

The 17-year-old calls saying she accidentally broke her father’s suitcase and bought a new pink one to replace it. Pink because that’s her color. Wants to know if we’ll reimburse her since it wasn’t her fault that her dad’s “cheap” suitcase didn’t hold up to her TLC. And he won’t mind using a pink suitcase for business trips, will he?

She also alerts me to the fact that she may still have bloodshot eyes Friday when she returns. She had a little to drink and threw up. But don’t worry, she says. She’s learned her lesson.

Day 10:

The 17-year-old calls to announce that she found the t-shirt she bought for her dad at the bottom of her back pack. But before she found it she bought a hat since she didn’t want to come home without a gift. So could I put more money in her account for the hat and the pink suitcase?

The 18-year-old is evidently otherwise occupied since I’ve not heard from him since Day 5.

4,000 miles. $6,000.

Cuban cigars, Jack and Coke, bloodshot eyes and a pink suitcase.

Makes a mother proud.

High School Limbo

Growing up Catholic, there were rules, and there were mysteries. Rules were things like Thou Shall Not Have Impure Thoughts. For the majority of the seventh grade, this was no easy task.

“But Sister,” one of my classmates wondered aloud, “what if you can’t help it? Is it still a sin?”

“Yes!” Sister Antonia barked. “A rule is a rule. If you break it, it’s a sin. And the only way to remove the sin is to go to confession and make a good Act of Contrition.”

Mysteries were something else. If Sister Antonia didn’t have a good explanation for something, the answer always was, “It’s a mystery.”

Take baptism. The rule said that only people who were baptized could get into heaven.

“But Sister,” we queried, “What happens if a two week old baby is dies? And, and the parents didn’t get the baby baptized yet? And, and you know, a baby can’t commit a sin, right Sister? But the baby can’t go to heaven ’cause it’s not baptized, right? Does the baby go to hell? Cause it’s not the baby’s fault it wasn’t baptized. So, where does the baby go, Sister?”

“We-e-ell,” Sister Antonia drawled through her thick rimless glasses, “that, children, is a mystery. God has a special place called Limbo for those babies.”

Limbo was a fuzzy place somewhere between heaven and hell. It was a nice enough place, but you didn’t make it to heaven. And you didn’t get to see God. Only people in heaven got to see God. So you just kind of floated around ad infinitum with all the other unbaptized babies.

The eighteen-year-old has been in high school limbo since last Friday. He finished semester exams, but the graduation ceremony and diploma don’t happen until this Thursday. So he’s designated this period as a sacred holding pattern during which he should have no obligations. No alarm. No curfew. No chores. No summer job search.

Jack Daniels and I conferred late into the evening. I emerged primed to engage the mind and will of an eighteen-year-old son in limbo with that of a fifty-one-year-old menopausal mother.

Parenting has its rules and its mysteries. I’m negotiating these next few days with both. Sister Antonia would be proud.

Anatomy of a Teenage Bathroom

Fortunately for my eighteen-year-old son, my methodical vacuuming of the family room this morning saved him from being the subject of a post entitled Anatomy of a Murder, In Cold Blood or even Murder on the Menopause Express.

Unfortunately for my eighteen-year-old son, the toilet is front and center when one walks by the always open door to his bathroom. Also unfortunately for him, his bedroom and bathroom are located adjacent to a major thoroughfare in our house, that being the hallway leading from the family room to the garage. And, of course, he has a fifty-year-old estrogen deficient mother in mid-life crisis. The perfect storm.

If I close my eyes, hold my breath, stick my fingers in my ears and drone “I can’t see you!”, it is possible to walk by my son’s bathroom and keep going. This, however, is futile. The hair beckons.

Hair. Copious amounts. On every surface, horizontal or vertical, in his bathroom. On top of the toilet tank. The sides of the tank. On the seat. Under the lid. In the little hinge things that connect the lid to the seat. On the rim. At the base. Behind the toilet. God help me it’s in the sink. Behind the faucet. And the shower? Don’t make me go there.

There is hair in places where there shouldn’t be hair. And it’s hair from areas of his body that … well, let’s just say it’s hair.

The amount of hair in various locales of his bathroom might lead one to believe that my son is walking around with no hair on his body. I assure you, that is not the case.

You’d think with the amount of dried toothpaste and shaving cream residue in his sink that the hairs would congregate there, all nice and matted. Or that the hand towel which hangs next to the sink and that my son treats as a wall hanging would step up and attract a few strays. Certainly the aerosol-driven wind gusts from the assorted cannisters of body spray should herd the little suckers into a corner.

Not to be. The hair is there.

Fortunately for my son, my week-long angst sees the light at the end of the hair. It’s Friday. Cleaning day again in Teenland.

Ain’t life grand?

Boobs by Vicki

Last weekend the seventeen-year-old announced that she was in dire need of new bras and asked if I’d go shopping with her.

It’s a rare occasion when I am asked to be seen in public with either of The Teenagers. And an invitation by my daughter to go shopping is like finding a hair of natural color on my head. Shocking, awesome and not to be missed.

After repositioning my lower jaw, I smiled nonchalantly and quipped, “Sure, honey. Sounds fun.”

Wrong answer.

“Fun? Mom, it’s just for bras. And I’m going to Victoria’s Secret.”

Now I’ve been a bra consumer since sixth grade. No brag, just fact. And the workhorse in my underwear stable was a J.C. Penney white cotton number. No push-ups. No demi cups. No plungers. No miracles. Just white cotton, elastic straps and a prayer to St. Bernadette, who I had decided to name as my personal patron saint of cleavage.

Bra shopping with my mother was like buying that-time-of-the-month supplies. An event to be endured and offered up as a down payment on the penance I’d get from Father Michael at confession the following week.

Each trip was the same. I’d tell Mom I was capable of maneuvering the elevated parts of my chest into a bra in the J.C. Penney dressing room. Mom would say no, we needed to be sure it fit, and that’s what the bra ladies were for. I figured there were only two parts that needed maneuvering, and I could manage. But it took three of us to accomplish the feat. My mother, the bra lady with the wrinkly cold hands and me. In a dingy little dressing room with dark brown drapes on rings for a door.

Flash forward to Vicki’s. After choosing several bras of assorted colors and styles, my daughter is escorted to a dressing room the size of my bathroom by a young woman in sleek black slacks with a headset. She enters the dressing room alone and emerges a few minutes later, a bright yellow demi cup in hand.

St. Bernadette, you can sit this one out.

The Law of English Muffins

The eighteen-year-old was late for breakfast this morning. Again.

Three years of law school, two bar exams and almost ten years of practicing law ain’t got nothing on one eighteen-year-old boy’s skill at driving me into a close relationship with Jack Daniels.

As I sucked in brewing coffee vapors, the scholar of AP X-Box Live and Honors Cigar Smoking announced his goal for the remaining three months of his high school career. To-wit: thou shalt not complete a full week of school. Leave early, arrive late. Fabricate illness. Whatever it takes.

I lovingly suggested that such reckless disregard for the climax of his Catholic education would perhaps not be wise within earshot of a menopausal mother who holds title to his car.

Then I popped his English muffins in the toaster, invoked St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, and savored a few minutes just hanging with my son before he left for school.

In another year and a half both of The Teenagers will be in college. The heavy lifting will be done. Then to law or not to law?

There have been mixed emotions since taking a break from law seven years ago. Was it the right thing to do? Have I been gone too long to go back? Have I wasted the degree and license?

God knows it’s been one fantruckingtastic moment after another being home. Expletive-laden X-Box Live chatter echoing in the heating ducts. The familiar 11 p.m. weeknight cabinet slamming and glass clanging in search of a bedtime snack. The aroma of maturing socks at the bottom of a bowling bag. The eyeball rolling and heavy sighing.

And the English muffins.

Cream cheese or peanut butter? OJ or milk? Yea, it’s been indulgent. Maybe even spoiling. But not for them. For me.

And while I may not miss the occasional expletives courtesy of the cheap heating vents, I will sure as hell miss the English muffins.

Open Before Christmas

Christmas came early this year. And just when I needed it.

The PDA or Parental Display of Affection is uncommon in the Parent-Teen world. Even rarer is the TRPDA. Teen Request for Parental Display of Affection.

And so it was that I hit pay dirt very early this morning.

I was awakened around 5 a.m. to the sound of my seventeen-year-old daughter’s voice, timid, frightened. “Mo-mmy? I had a bad dream.”

The far right will be relieved to know that the hard wiring installed in me somewhere between conception, labor and delivery is still intact. Between the “Mo-” and the “-mmy” I was conscious, vertical and capable of brain surgery if called upon.

She stood at the side of my bed, hands clasped together against her chest, shivering.

Instinctively I reached out. Tentative yet aching. Afraid that she’d tighten and recoil as had become our custom.

My palms gingerly cupped her shoulders as I pulled her in. Before either of us knew what had happened, she yielded. And I was holding her, rocking back and forth, back and forth.

Cradling her, we walked to her room. As she lay in bed, murmuring how she didn’t like bad dreams, I stroked her forehead, her cheeks. Like touching the face of God herself.

And then, the rhythmic breathing telling me all was well.

The break of dawn brought a cup of hot coffee and dreary, low 40s rain. But I’m unaware. My heart is afire.

A Night in December

‘Twas a night in December, and all through the house
not a body was stirring, not even my spouse.
School uniforms were lost in the house without care
in hopes that Christmas break soon would be there.

The Teenagers were grudgingly prone in their beds
while visions of homework invaded their heads.
And hub in his boxers and I with my wine
had just settled in and were feeling just fine.

When down in the kitchen there came such commotion,
the mom in me bolted with a single swift motion.
On down the stairs I flew in a blaze
then stopped - half-asleep, still in a daze.

The bulb on the stove shed just enough light
to illuminate the setting now clearly in sight.
When what to my misty eyes did appear?
Two toddlers in pjs, grins ear to ear!

With sippy cups of oj and blankies in hand
they whispered and giggled, then away they both ran.
But sure like the sunrise the bickering appeared
and they whined and they shouted, then taunted and jeered:

“No, Hannah! No, Caleb!” Now push, shove and pinch -
“Stop, Caleb! Mine, Hannah!” Neither one gave an inch.
To the top of the couch, to the top of the chair!
More shouting, more whining! And pulling of hair!

Then almost as quickly as the bick’ring had commenced
the chaos subsided, their voices less tense.
As I peered ‘round the corner to take just a peek,
they were cuddled and quiet, peaceful and meek.

The alarm broke the silence, the coffee is on,
All the noise in the kitchen soon will be gone.
My son now a senior, off to college next year,
His sister, a junior; It’s becoming quite clear.

In Christmases future we may be apart,
and those Christmases past take a piece of my heart,
So I’ll live in the moments we’re given this year
And cherish the gift of my babes being near.