My Sister the Reader

Happy Friday!

Babies

Shifty-eyed Blog

Without a doubt, my wife is my best friend, but my mother is my other best friend.  She's been in town twelve hours.

She dropped this gem at breakfast:  "Two things I don't trust are blogs and journals."  To which I replied "Jewels?"  I mean, I guess they're a little suspicious, sure -- oh, "journals."  Duly noted.

Last year she tried to convince me that debit cards are a scam by the banks.

Parents Are People.

To Do List

How does a person keep up with Huffingtonpost.com?  300+ posts since this morning.  We might have to break up.  I'm just not ready for this kind of commitment.

Super-ego

My mother flies into town this evening, and I am so excited to see her.  We will take long walks along the beach, browse for used books and furniture, and linger in the unique and numerous coffee shops for which the city is famous.  And so far today I have swept (hall, living room, office, bedroom, bathroom), dusted (living room, bathroom, office, kitchen), and scrubbed (tub, toilet, sink).

To put this in context: my mother majored in home economics as a college student, and my mother is famous in my marriage for casually commenting, "you girls don't like to clean."

Therefore I scoop the hair out of the drain, wipe mystery grime off the moldings, and otherwise clean the apartment within an inch of its dust and soap-scum ridden life (conscious that most of it was last cleaned before her last visit).  I ponder the new crop of tumbleweeds that catch on the electrical cords and the sticky things that help chairs slide on the floor.  Some of it is hair, and I can even discern whose, but how come this self-attracting fluff?  Maybe it's the stuff that used to be where there are now holes in other things.  A new definition of antimatter.  Chores, like car rides, are so good for philosophy.  I'm sure Newton did plenty of both.

In my labors, and to avoid worrying that I am fanning the smoldering fire of my perfectionism, I tell myself that a good host anticipates a guest's needs and provides an environment that makes them feel comfortable.  Furthermore, this is an important exercise in perspective-taking.  I am a considerate, empathetic daughter who is comfortable in herself and above all, very grown up.  I put the broom in the hall closet, envisioning my mother next to me and spying each exposed grain of sand and wisp of dust in the shadows. 

When I imagine an omniscient mother, it is easy for me to understand Western religion.  There's an appeal to having a wondrous and terrible overseer, when the alternative is only you.

Update:  within hours of arrival

My other car is a dragon.

One day I will write the post "why I read fantasy" (or maybe I'll start simply with a bullet list).  Suffice it to say, there were times in my life when harpies, goblins, and tough little pull-herself-up-by-her-bootstraps princesses were just as real to me as Brownie leaders, lunch ladies, and the office of the registrar.

As this school year draws to a close, the number of families clamoring for diagnostic reports exceeds that which I can hold in my head, and I've rediscovered Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern.  I first read these books by checking them out of the high school library, but I enjoy them just as much now, if not more so, as a quasi-adult who actually reads the subplots concerning grown-up characters in between the major developments in the YA love story.  At least most of the time.  And when I skip ahead to the good parts, I almost always go back and read what I've skipped.

When I was a teenager, one of my Christmas gifts was The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, containing, among other things, a recipe for bubbly pies that I never got around to baking.  But maybe this weekend is the time.  Happily, my fellow nerds have posted several recipes (most regrettably restricted to "Terran blueberries") across the interweb.  Berries have been half price for a few weeks  now.  And it sure beats report-writing.

Skinny Pants

In general, I feel as friendly towards "today's" clothes fashions as my father does towards today's music (read: not friendly at all, Limp Bizkit/triangle fringe scarf was the last straw).  However, I (Dr. Stylez, PhD) am tickled by the emergence of stretch pants (or, as we called them in my house growing up, "skinny pants") as a real and true thing people wear outside their homes.

As a kid shaped like a ravioli on two pieces of spaghetti, I insisted on soft fabrics and elastic waistbands.  I also avoided sports of all kinds, learned to jump rope in fourth grade, brought a selection of novels to Field Day, and earned the famous report card comment "needs to play more with others" -- all stories for another time.

At any rate, corduroy, khaki, or, heaven forbid, jeans had no place in my childhood wardrobe, at least until as a preteen I started caring more about what other kids thought than my own comfort.  25 years, yoga, vegetarian diet, and an arguable waist later, and getting dressed on non-office "jeans days" feels like stepping into a dark-washed field trip to Adventureland.   And now the skinny pant has become a respected wardrobe element (you've come a long way, baby).  Not exactly business casual perhaps (though what, as we have established, do I know?), but widely regarded as "cool" for weekends, extending to a sub-class of the skinny pant that disguises itself as jeans.  Which begs the question, how many fashion editors and trend setters are skinny ravioli all growed up?

Imagine Her

My sister, whose amazingness is as certain as her fate to appear in future "blugs," lives on the post-colonial East Coast (East Coast!) of our fair continent.  She runs marathons and writes important articles about very tiny invisible fossils shaped like pasta.  (Seriously, this worries me a little bit.  When she has to speak at conferences, she has a first grade class paint her a new diorama.)  Nevertheless, my sister is considerate, creative, very pretty, and Very Smart.  And if one day the teeny tiny invisible fossils turn out to be pretend, well, how could she have known?

Anyway, she and her significant other just bought a boat!  (A boat!)  It's not even invisible!  More importantly, four life jackets go with it.  Hooray summer vacation!

Fingers crossed we won't turn into a starchy glob out on the water.

Outside the Touch of Time

It's hard to believe that the second half of my sibling workshop is tonight (scheduled in November).  Whew, where does the time go?  By the time I finish this post I'll be 45 years old.

In the five or so years that I've been (occasionally) researching and presenting on sibling issues, I've learned some important things:

1. The sibling relationship is the longest-lasting close relationship in life.
2. Conflicts (compromises, communication) with siblings provide important preparation for our adult relationships.
3. Significant pieces of our identities develop in the context of the sibling relationship.
4. Most typically-developing siblings of kids with autism see themselves as more similar than different from their brother or sister with special needs.

(Those interested in more information about the importance of the sibling relationship could certainly start here.  For ideas and advice on parenting siblings, try here.)


In preparation for my talk, I'm reading John Gottman's Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, which one could describe (and he sort of does) as the perfect union of science and parenting tips.  And stopping to give thanks for my parents (both oldest siblings) and my sister, who enabled the practice of my communication skills until they were nearly functional.


Sometimes I sing this at the office, just to keep things real (and groovy).  It's amazing how much we accomplish in therapy (or our own intimate relationships) when we start with permission to feel.

In other news, it's my sister's 28th birthday next week.  Happy Birthday, Dooze!