If you never read Coraline and don’t want to know one smidgen about the book (I am being careful not to spoil it), don’t read these posts.  They are about infertility, but they springboard off the book.

People have often told me that I would enjoy Neil Gaiman’s books, so I started two this week during my stint at the library.  And they’re right, at least insofar as Coraline. (It’s taking me much longer to get into The Graveyard Book, which I checked out on the Wolvog’s account, and I’m hoping this doesn’t screw him up when he goes in this week to take out his umpteenth book on care of guinea pigs — do you think he’s trying to send me a hint?).  It is wonderfully creepy in the usual wonderfully creepy sense — rats crawling over bodies, neighbours with invisible mouse circuses, and — of course — doors which sometimes open up into strange, dark worlds.

It is also making me squirm in the not-so-creepy sense.  In the hitting-a-little-too-close-to-home sense.

Take, for instance, the premise of the book.  Coraline, pretty much ignored by her parents, finds a door in their new house which leads to a similar-yet-different world where her other mother and other father are waiting with good tasting food and lots of toys and love galore — waiting for a little girl just like Coraline to heap on all of their love.

Do you see what I mean by discomforting?

“We’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” said Coraline’s other father.”

“For me?”

“Yes,” said the other mother.  “It wasn’t the same here without you.  But we knew you’d arrive one day, and then we could be a proper family.”

I’m not sure what Gaiman’s experience with infertility has been if at all (according to Wikipedia — and I take everything written on Wikipedia as incontrovertible fact — he has three children; but you never know how families come about), but these first encounters with the other parents feel very familiar to me.  As in, they feel like me, perhaps without the button eyes.

There is a scene where they show Coraline a false memory of her real parents being thrilled that they are rid of her and can finally do all the things they wanted to do but were held back by having a child.  The other mother says,

If they have left you, Coraline, it must be because they became bored of you, or tired.  Now, I will never become bored of you, and I will never abandon you.  You will always be safe here with me.

Back when I was a teacher, I had a conference with a student’s parents that I was told by their child were fairly absentee.  During the conference, I mentioned the tiny comics the boy always drew, and they looked at each other blankly.  I kept saying, “the comics, the illustrations, the ones he does in that notebook that he carries around.”  They had no idea.

I went home and cried to Josh, “they have a kid and they don’t even know him.  They’re not even grateful that they have him in their life or interested in who he is.  And we’re the ones who can’t have a child?  And they can procreate?  If he were my child, I’d know about the comics.”

I said this hundreds of times during my years as a teacher.  I would see parents who I deemed unappreciative.  And it’s hubris to think like that; to think that you’d be different if you were the parent.  That you’d be perfect and never get bored and never yell.  You’d appreciate every single day you had with that child and always know what is important in their life.

After all, I was a damn fine teacher and babysitter.  Everyone commented that I had infinite wells of patience.

I wanted a child so badly, that I started looking at all other parents as the people who took my child, my space at the parenting table, as if there were a finite number of parents in the world.  I would look at their tantruming child and think, “if they were mine, they’d be happy.  If they were mine, they wouldn’t be lying on the floor of Target, sobbing loudly.  So how come that person can be a parent and not me?”

There is something about the other mother in Coraline, her insinuations that she would be different if she could move into the spot of real mother, that hit a little too close to home.  Because I’ve thought these things before.  And while this book may be labeled a tale of horror because of the crawling rats and blank, button eyes, for me, it’s scary to take a step back and reexamine the thoughts I had back when I was sitting behind the teacher’s desk, conferencing with parents, and coveting so badly that I would make any promise to get out of that pain.

Those promises are unkeepable.  Most parents are doing the best they can do.  And even grateful parents grow bored sometimes or angry sometimes.  Even parents who care a great deal miss the fact that their child is drawing tiny comics during school hours if their child chooses not to show them the notebook.  That infinite wells of patience can dry up when the right conditions present themselves.  And the world can’t all be pancakes-for-breakfast and lullabies-at-night forever.  That real life gets in the way of the fantasy, and that most parents are just trying to balance it.  As best they can. Under the circumstances.

This post is for everyone who is at their wit’s end today.  This post is for everyone who wonders if they could really do any better if they were the parents.  This post is for everyone who is still waiting; still coveting; still hoping that a child walks into your life.

Disclaimer: I am midway through the book, and these are my thoughts midway through the book.  I may have a very different reaction to the other parents once I get to the last page.

A long time ago, I considered getting a masters in Library Science but didn’t go ahead with the degree.  The reality was that I didn’t want to do the majority of the job — the research, the book purchasing, the archiving.  What I wanted to do was work in a local library — someplace small — and check-in and out book as well as reshelve.  And that was it.

The library in the twins’ school mentioned that they needed a volunteer, and I jumped at the position.  It is exactly what I wanted and nothing more.  I reshelve all the books that come in and lovingly move books back to their proper spot when I find them out of place.  I look up titles for students and help them navigate the Dewey Decimal System.  And I use this rockin’ scanner to read the barcodes and check out books.

When I have nothing to do, I slip a book off the shelf — usually something I read when I was a child — and read behind the desk.

It’s an idyllic life.

The youngest kids have a library card with a bar code I can scan, but the older students simply tell me their last name and I look it up in the computer.

Sometimes, when I type in the last name, more than one choice pops up.  Sometimes it is clear that the boy standing in front of me is not Mary, so I’ll go with the male name that shares that common last name.  Sometimes I ask if the other person is a sibling, and it almost always is even with the really common last names.  And then the kid rolls his eyes and says, “that’s my little brother” as if it’s really painful to admit that the other person is related to him.  And sometimes, if the child is younger, they’ll proudly say, “that’s my big sister!” and be thrilled to pass along this information.

This girl was standing in front of me, ready to check out a book, and she mumbled her last name.  Two names popped up — both girl names — and I asked which one she was.  She looked confused, so I said the two names aloud and she looked at the computer screen, pointing to the correct one.

As I checked out her book, she admitted that one of the choices was obviously her first name, but the second choice — which belonged to someone else — was also her middle name.  Which is why she had been confused for a moment.

And since this girl had an unusual last name, and I assumed that the girls must be related, I asked if her parents had given her sister her middle name as her sister’s first name.

Again, the girl was confused and she told me that the other girl in the machine wasn’t her sister.  It was just another girl in another grade; someone she only knew existed because other people had thought they might be related at school.

“My sister died a while ago,” she said.  And after the words left her mouth, she looked shocked at herself, like she couldn’t believe she had said that aloud.

I told her how sorry I was and she looked stricken by that as well, as if she couldn’t believe that I wasn’t going to change the subject.

And then she grabbed her book and ran from the desk.

And it stuck with me all day.

Almost 200 people have already submitted to the Creme de la Creme.  The December 15th soft deadline is quickly approaching, and this is your penultimate kick in the ass to submit before this deadline passes.  What does the December 15th deadline mean?  That your blog post will be up on the list on January 1st.  Anything that comes in December 16th–January 31st will go on the list, but it most likely won’t be up there when the list first goes up.

There are about 2600 blogs on the blogroll, but only a predicted 300 or so will be on the list when it closes (rough estimate based on submissions so far as compared with past years).  So if you haven’t yet submitted, and any of these are your excuses, I’ve provided you with my response to your lack of participation.

I’m not going to submit a post because I’m too cool for school and I don’t do that kumbaya crap even though I like you Mel and I’m going to read the list on January 1st.

Listen up, Missy.  Er … actually, I don’t have anything harsher than “listen up, Missy” in my pocket for this one.  But seriously?  If you think your blog is too good for this list or that you are somehow better than everyone else, it might actually be best if you stay away.  This space is a welcome table where everyone sits on the same plane.  And I don’t want that energy here.

The energy I want is the sort we brought to the What If project, with 450 thoughts coming together to show the diversity of our experience.

I’m new to blogging, and I feel shy.

You are putting your inner most thoughts out there for the world to read: you are not as shy as you think.  Oh!  You mean that you don’t feel like you belong yet.  Well, that’s all the more reason to participate.  Here’s a door into the community — one that is wide-open for you to walk through — and it’s a chance to meet a lot of other bloggers as well as have them find you.  Be a part of something: throw a post onto the list.

I’m so busy.  I want to do this, but it’s like #64829 on my to-do list.

I get it.  This time of year is busy.  And something like this has to fall low on the to-do list.  But you don’t have to stress about it or do it alone.  Have people help you with the choice.  Grab a handful of posts you like, construct a blog post asking people to vote, and voila — you have your submission for the Creme de la Creme.

I think this list is stupid, and I don’t want to be part of it.

Totally valid reason not to participate.  But I have to ask, why are you reading this blog?  I mean, the list is definitely an offshoot of my blog and all the thoughts contained within.  I’m not sure how you can enjoy the blog, but not enjoy the list.  Or why you bother to read something you don’t enjoy, learn from, find support within, etc.  I just don’t waste my time like that, so I’ve always been fascinated by people who do.

I’m now parenting, and I feel shy submitting a post from this year even though I often still mention infertility, loss, or adoption.

Parenting is the desire or goal (or was the desire or goal) of everyone on the blogroll.  And reaching parenthood doesn’t erase all that came before it.  I personally like seeing a range of posts on the list — from those still in the trenches to those parenting after infertility or loss.  I try to ensure that the blurb that comes after gives people a heads up about the contents so they can skip over any that sound too painful to read in their current state (though hopefully they will double back and read them later).  Please do submit because your viewpoint is still valid and necessary.

I closed my blog in 2010 and it feels strange to now submit something to the list when I don’t want new readers.

Then perhaps don’t look at this list as a way to catch new readers.  Look at it as a goodbye to your old readers; a parting gift.  If you wrote even one post in 2010, please include it on the list.

Thank you to everyone who has already submitted.  And I declare today International Go-and-Bug-Your-Favourite-Blogger-to-Submit Day.  Ask people you read if they’ve submitted, and suggest your favourite post if they haven’t.  Tweet about it, Facebook about it, blog about it.  And make sure that everyone in the ALI community knows that they’re welcome.

How do you submit to the 2010 list (and yes, the post needs to come from 2010)?  Read this post about the Creme de la Creme list and follow the instructions.

Yesterday morning, at 9 am, Paz swung by the house to pick me up and we took a girls’ road trip up to Hershey — 2 hours away — to meet up with M.  We ate chocolate (though not enough), dragged Paz on the ride, and then had a four hour lunch at this tiny restaurant.  The day rocked so hardcore.

I’ve known M and Paz for almost 4 years, and being with them is like putting on a pair of black swingy pants — totally comfortable but not in a boring sit-on-the-sofa-in-sweats sort of way.  These women are do-ers and thinkers and sassy and funny.  They are the type of people you can fall into a four hour lunch with and still emerge with things to discuss on the ride home.

We know a lot of face-to-face people in common because we’re all in TOOTPU, but we also overlap with hundreds of bloggers that we all virtually know.  For instance, I was finally able to share the thought I have every time I go into the bathroom at Chocolate World — I think of Julie and her dislike of people using their foot to flush a toilet and how someone has invented a public toilet to send a clear message about dirty shoes and flushing.  And rather than say, “who is Julie?” everyone nodded and said, “what do you think of hovering over toilets?”

The topic of those who have stopped blogging came up too, and Paz and I mused on the many reasons why people close their blogs.  Sometimes it’s clear — the story has ended, the person got too busy to write, they were a sporadic poster to start with and now you’re not sure if they’re done writing or if this is just one of their long pauses.

But we were musing more about the ones that don’t have a clear ending.  The person posted regularly, didn’t seem to be at a natural break, and simply said, “goodbye!”  And then they disappeared into the ether.  Every once in a while, they pop back into a comment section, but they transition from writing semi-daily to not writing at all.  And it just makes you wonder — how do you lose that routine and not miss it at all?  I am not talking about the people who switch blogging spaces, but the people who stop writing altogether and float away after having a pretty regular writing routine.

Which bloggers who used to squat in the blogosphere do you miss now that they’ve moved on to other things?  Who do you wonder about?

And on that note, help me out with the blog closure section of the Creme de la Creme list.  Is there anyone you can think of who closed (not moved, but clearly said goodbye to readers, closed a blog, and stopped writing) in 2010?

On Thursday morning, my son announces that he wants to buy lunch at school. They are serving pizza — one of the 6 foods he currently eats — which he claims “looked good” when he saw it on someone else’s tray earlier this month. I suspect the real reason he wants to buy lunch has to do with the fact that his kindergarten teacher has a song she sings each morning for the lunch buyers that includes their name (it really is a catchy song — I sing it all the time in the house) whereas she says the names of the lunch bringers. I am sure this is a matter of time constraints since there are more bringers than buyers, and the song is used to work teaching moments even into the mundane classroom business tasks, but the song has a strong pull. Most kids ask to buy at some point just to hear their name sung out to the class.

I could lie and say that I have nothing against school lunch, but I have a lot against school lunches, even though I remember the joy I felt the few times I bought lunch when I was little. I mean, come on, it’s a rite of passage. Not just the eating the strange and plastic-y food stuffs (because you can get that at home with a bag of Doritos), but the standing in line, the smell, the pride in having your own money to spend. He wants to show me that he’s responsible. That he can go to the kindergarteners’ version of a restaurant, order his meal, and pay for it (with money I gave him) … ALL BY HIMSELF.

I should want to encourage this because it certainly saves me time to not have to make food or pack the lunchbox or wash the reusable lunch equipment — even if it’s just for a day. It’s a responsibility thing for him, but it’s a break for me. A cheap break at that — lunch only costs $2.50 per meal.

So those are the good parts about buying lunch — responsibility for him, a break for me — so why does his request to purchase lunch strike such fear in my heart?

When we were taking a tour of the school last year, we swung by the lunch room and the guide told us about the lunch routine. She started ticking off some of the things kids can buy and when she mentioned the pizza, she touched my arm with concern and said, “I don’t want you to worry, but the cheese isn’t real cheese. It isn’t dairy.”

I’m not sure why I would be worried about cheese being made from milk. Frankly, I was worried about why it wasn’t made from milk. I inquired what the cheese was if not dairy, and she shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know.” And while I was fairly calm over the idea of pizza, THAT was what freaked me out.

Because I think we’ve all seen enough of Jamie Oliver’s tears to know that there is very little food in school lunches these days. There is food stuff. There are chemicals and strange preservatives. There are schools that have started making healthful choices, but even with those healthful choices, you simply can’t provide meals to that many kids that match the quality of what can be made in small batches at home.

Canned or frozen vegetables are used because the school staff doesn’t have time to individually shell peas. My pizza at home has homemade, high-protein dough, homemade tomato sauce, and real cheese. Their pizza at school comes shrink wrapped in plastic. And I can’t expect more than that because it’s a small staff who need to put out many meals. And they do it well and they do it within a small budget, they just can’t compete with homemade food.

A friend who has a first grader was over this summer and she warned me about school lunches. “I ate there once,” she said. “The menu said it was serving mac-n-cheese and green beans. Then the food came out on the tray. The mac-n-cheese was inexplicably smothered in an additional layer of sour cream and shredded cheese. The grey, canned green beans were covered by a pool of cream of mushroom soup and another layer of shredded cheese. This was not food. This was a heart attack waiting to happen.”

I am cognizant of the fact that if you live in America and you don’t live in an underground bunker off the grid, your child will be exposed to junk food everywhere they turn; and that junk is the stumbling blocks towards good health. It is so much easier — and tastier — to allow yourself to fall over those stumbling blocks than it is to pick your way around them. Junk food tastes good. I’m sure this pizza will taste great and he’ll want it several more times. And there’s nothing wrong with eating that junk food every once in a while, but it’s a slippery slope. Just as you can’t eat just one Pringle, it’s hard to taste junk food and go back to eating the good stuff — especially when you’re still surrounded by the junk food. In my experience, junk food went from every once in a while to a daily struggle not to consume it. Even if I restrain myself from consuming it by not stocking it in the house, I still think about it. Junk food can be as bad as any addictive drug.

So I don’t want to start down this road because I’m not sure how to temper it, how to keep a rein on what he’s consuming until he can make good choices for himself. I want him to love his body and treat it right, much like how expensive car drivers croon over their vehicles, giving them the best gasoline, the best oil change service. He loves to cook with me, and I want him to always choose that slow food that we took time to make well over the fast food that fills the body, but provides little nutrition.

And an additional issue is that out of the house, my kids eat vegetarian. They can tick off what they can eat and what they can’t, but school lunch creates a sticky zone. They serve chicken nuggets and veggie nuggets on the same day, and my son mentioned wanting to buy the veggie ones. Yet he would never be able to tell the difference between the two if he was given the wrong one. I was told that when they serve pancakes, sausage comes on every plate. And we just don’t eat food that has been on the same plate as meat, much less pork. It becomes a matter of assimilation vs. ethics — I want them to be like all the other kids at school, but I also want us to stand by our beliefs regardless of where we go (at least until they’re 16 and we’ve told them that they can do as they please, meatwise).

And then there are food allergies. My twins have mild allergies, but still, I don’t want them exposed to their food allergens. They won’t necessarily know if something contains one of their allergens. It just feels like another bomb in this potential minefield.

On Friday morning, I put $2.50 in a sealed envelope. I write a message to his teacher on the front of the envelope and mention that I’ll be volunteering in the school library that day if there is any problem. When his class marches down the hallway to the lunch room, I give him a little space to get his food all by himself — after all, responsibility is one of the good points about this — and then sneak into the lunch room to wait for him.

Except he doesn’t come out of the lunch line.

So I tuck back into the kitchen area to see what is taking so long, and he is paused by the cashier station, unable to remember his pin number. I quickly call it out so he can punch it in, and duck back out again to give him his space. He marches proudly past me, clutching his styrofoam tray (the environmentalist in me cringes at all the single-use items): a slice of pizza, a bag of baby carrots … and a bottle of chocolate milk.

Except my son is allergic to chocolate milk.

I mention that to the supervisor, and she admits that my son told her that he was allergic, though he took it anyway because water costs extra. I quickly pay the difference, rush to grab the milk off his tray, and pass him the water he requested. It is all of my fears realized — that he wouldn’t remember the pin number for his account (though the adults in the lunch room could help him with that one), that he would take the wrong food (though I was there to catch that before it ended poorly), that he would eat the least nutritional, unenvironmentally-friendly lunch possible (no helping that).

But he loves it.

He sits there with his lunch, proudly eating it while talking with his friends. He radiates pride. It is as if he has just completed an Iron Man. And if I can buy that for $2.50, even with the hit his body and the environment takes in the process, it feels like a small price to pay for the occasional responsibility-building experience.

I walk out of the building and call my husband. And I cry on the ride home; because he is suddenly so grown-up, so mature, so not-my-little-baby anymore.

And just maybe, behind the nutritional arguments and the environmental arguments and all the other arguments against school lunch that I pull from my bag, my real problem with buying lunch is the process of letting go. Of letting them take control of their own destiny and knowing that I need to let them age away from me and my packed lunches.

One greasy, dairy-free slice of pizza at a time.

Do your kids buy or bring lunch at school?

Cross-posted with BlogHer.