When your kids' jam is not your jam

Our girl has been singing Dynamite all day. When she is not singing that Taio Cruz song using all the wrong lyrics except for a strong repetition of Dynamite/AY-O/Let Go, she is humming it. Or whistling it. There is only one person who enjoys whistling and it is the person whistling. Everyone else is:

Pow-pow with that Dynamite. It was really proud-making, hauling my kids en route to Vacation Bible School this morning where they would spend the morning with throngs of children named Josiah and Jedediah and Jeremiah, all rocking their VBS camp shirts, eating little campfire-themed snacks and doing mini-campsite lantern crafts, singing around the proverbial campfire at the top of their lungs, "God's love is like an ocean!", while, in preparation, my kids were belting out:

We gon' rock this club, We gon’ go all night, We gon’ light it up, Like it’s dynamite!

I think it set just the right tone.

By dinner, Baby Girl was still doing her best rendering of Dynamite and, oddly, I was experiencing a similar set of explosives igniting in my frontal lobe. I usually have no problem in asking my children to cease doing the annoying thing, but the girl was just beyond. She didn't even realize she was singing it on loop, muttering unconsciously. Finally, as I stared across the table, I was trying to piece together a diversion from her club-thumping rhythms, when Little Man had just the right words.

He said, "Sis, do you have another jam?"

I wanted to smother-hug him and cover him with thousands of kisses. How sweet and polite is he? And also, how hip, to just ask little miss pop songstress if she had another track in her rotation.

Then, I realized. He was wondering if she literally had another jam.

On siblings, neck strangles, and advantages

"That was nice, Baby Girl," I said after I saw her putting her brother into an affectionate neck strangle. "I gave [Little Man] a hug and told him he did a good job," she said.

It wasn't that she knew he did a good job; she spent the entirety of the T-ball game sifting through the nearby stream for minnows.

It wasn't that this was our routine after games: hugs and attaboys.

I think it was that she knew he needed it. Siblings can sense these unspoken needs in a way that is hard to qualify or quantify but which seems as true and clear as a car emerging from the car wash. Perhaps that is what siblings are: people who have come through the same wash cycle, people who've been scrubbed by the same soap, buffed by the same brushes, people who entered and exited from the same places. And sometimes they're not even biological.

My friend Haddy says she loves "to see siblings becoming." I think this is perfectly put. After just a week at home with my kids on summer vacation, I love to see them becoming so much more than the girl and boy who were knit together in the same pouch. Their identities as singular punks are evolving just as surely as the identity they share as a sibling set: they are whole people and they are part of a whole greater than themselves. They share a horizontal relationship that will be recognized with confirmations, like, "Ah, of course, you are his sister," and, at times, with incredulity "Oh! He's your brother?!"  that I'm sure will follow them well into their adulthood.

I am grateful to have witnessed their early moments of gelling and the inevitable moments where they beat the tar out of one another. I am overcome sometimes how two people who didn't get to choose one another for five years continue to choose one another: as playmates, as best frenemies.  I think about the disadvantages they have, living so many hundreds of miles removed from any family. How they don't know many of their grands and aunties and uncles and cousins in anything more than monochrome, in one dimension.

But then I think about the great, immeasurable advantage of just having a sibling with whom to suffer these really weird parents. Even if they have nothing in common, have disparate life goals, have no abiding interest in pursuing a meaningful relationship with one another--siblings have the goods on one another. They understand how each other came to be, far better than their parents could ever fathom. They will know the ticking of each other's hearts, not just the steady rhythmic beats but the wild, erratic hiccups and dips and the soul-thirst for a hug after a T-ball game, where upon a little brother, aka "Little Bother" asked the snack provider for an extra juicebox. "For my sister."

This might be the last time (see also: offending object in ear)

At the risk of being suspected of Munchausen by Proxy syndrome, I would like to share the following as I trust I am not alone. This past week I had the double sads. One, Little Man had a 104 degree temperature. Poor little lambchop. My sadness doubled down when I realized this might be the last time I take care of a child who can legitimately curl up into my lap when sick. Petite, short-waisted mother. Children with large melon heads and lanky limbs. There's a reason why there's a role reversal in Love You Forever by Robert Munsch (which sounds a little like Munchausen, though that is neither here nor there, hey?). The son gets bigger. The tiny mother does not.

Little Man was just the right size for snuggling as we monitored his fever. Just a lovely fit for carrying into the urgent care when he said his legs were in too much pain. Perfect ergonomics for holding while he slept in the waiting room.

The shame in my game was discovered upon the doctor examining Little Man, "What's this green stuff in his ear?"

I wished I had a remote clue. I mean, the possibilities were endless. Sweater fuzz? Shards of a tennis ball? Mutagent ooze?

After several rounds of ear irrigation (earrigation?) which convinced me of the wonders of both plumbing and medical school, the errant pea-sized serving of neon green play-dough was properly extracted from the ear canal and the origins of his ear infection and possibly the accompanying wicked case of strep throat were discovered.

Totes love when we get our co-pay's worth!! With a freezer pop to boot!

The inevitable cocktail of pink medicine and probiotic gummies was acquired from the latenight Walgreen's and our boy was returned to golden Tylenol-induced slumbers.

He was back on his bike by noon the next day and even as I mourned the role of wee person caregiver that is starting to pedal away from me like a ninja turtle on a two-wheeler, I gave thanks that this is an anomaly. There are millions of parents around the world who are in constant caregiver mode to sick children or sick parents, whose most precious resources of energy and clarity of mind are constantly depleted ("Thanks, Obama" not necessary).

**Awkward bust-a-move to charitable donation talk**

A couple funds that are close to my heart that I know do a great job of supporting parents as they fight disease or care for children with compromised immune systems, etc. etc. are the following:

JDRF Ronald McDonald House St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Kinder Key for Nationwide Childrens Hospitals And you? What are your favorite organizations to support?