Lucky

There are two times when other people tell me I am lucky. The first is when I tell them that my husband and I "trade shifts" and don't have a full-time nanny with a British accent to rear our progeny when we are working outside the home.

The second is when I tell them that I don't have to pay taxes because I am too pretty for all that. "You're so lucky!" they cry, opposing finger and thumb propping up their jaws. I know, I demur, it's just that Uncle Sam and I have an understanding, you see...when you look this good, you are considered a natural treasure, you know?

 

But back to the part about my good fortune in picking a mate who is willing at times to stay home with at least one of our children while I go to work. Apparently, according to many, many people, this makes me lucky. ME. And I know this. I am lucky because I like my job and it is ever so much easier to teach a 90 minute class on interactive online journalism without two little talking turnips asking if I can help them with the Netflix again. I am lucky for that.

You know who else is lucky? My kids. They get loads of facetime with their daddy who enjoys rough-housing and playing a game called "trap challenge" of which my uptight introverted ways do not really permit me to engage in readily. They have a special rapport with their father and they have a strong attachment with both parents, which I've heard is a valuable thing to carry through this life full of hollowness and quagmires.

Oh, one more person is lucky, though! Guess who? Wow, you're good. It's true, my husband is lucky to be both a father who can spend quality time with his children and also do meaningful work outside the home. He did not have a father who was able to do this with his children. My husband tells everyone that he loves his time he loves going to the gym during the day, going grocery shopping when the aisles are not blocked by the rush hour crew.

We hear you, Universe. We are aware of our good luck in this arrangement.

Even though sometimes this arrangement stinks. The part no one remembers is that when you have two parents of young children "trading shifts," the two parents are rarely home TOGETHER. Together to have a fluid conversation, or a meal, or a hug. Or, you know. wink wink. Because you are flexing your hours in every which way, you are often working late into the night.

Trading shifts also requires that one parent is the "birthday party parent" or the "room parent" or the "family ambassador of all social gatherings" which is fine except when people do that nervous thing where they don't know what else to ask you at the birthday party so instead of saying, "Wow, it's GREAT to see YOU! How have YOU been?" they choose not to treat you like a whole person but only half of the whole and immediately charge into, "Heyyy, where's your husband?" Or your wife, as the case may be. That's annoying, isn't it? Even though you know it's not malintentioned. You know what I mean? You know what I mean.

This arrangement of the present is still infinitely better than the way we lived formerly in Boston where Loverpants held down 3 jobs and I had all these graduate classes and adjunct teachings and newborns to feed and toddlers to not loose in Target and--WOW, that life was cray.

What it all boils down to is that any person in this great wide world who has an even wider number of choices as to how to pursue his/her life as a parent or a pilot or a pizzamaker or a piano player or all of the above (at once!) is incredibly lucky.

To have choices makes one lucky. Also, having: an education, family supports, community resources, healthcare, and a number of well-fitting pairs of Spanx also make one especially lucky, as well. But that all is another conversation for another day.

For now, I consider myself lucky to call you a reader and friend.

Luckily yours, Kendra

What I want to remember about Christmas 2013

- Seeing Frozen with the Stanwicks and my babies.- Taking many walks out in the legit MidWestern cold - Cousin Sean with hilarious running commentary about Settlers of Catan - Cousins Colleen, Kathleen and Maureen waxing humorous re: Buzzfeed - Mom running a beauty spa with Baby Girl - The old man "making it rain" per Connor - Goobs and the iPad book - Umma letting me sleep until obscene hours - Apa being persuaded that he would be able to sell his house for a million dollars if he adopted a digital thermometer - Joe keeping the kiddies entertained from the trunk - Winter hike even though my kiddies were wearing the worst whineypants

- Little Man's new "funny face." - Yoga at Inner Bliss; Tammy telling everyone, "I bet you are all thinking Santa's not going to bring you anything," and me feeling confident about the opposite.

3 ways #frozen gets it right about older sisters

You know I am the mother of a young daughter and therefore I was practically conscripted to see "Frozen" which...was not a chore at all.  In spite of the absurdly small waists and absurdly big doe eyes of the main characters Ana and Elsa, I enjoyed it immensely. I know you have all overdosed on the soundtrack and have gone back to watch it in 3D and you are SUCH a fangirl of the girl power message of the film, but, to quote Princess Anna, "Can I say something crazy?" Because I really think our heroine is Elsa. And here are 3 reasons why (spoiler alert):

1. Elsa gives up a life of interaction in order to shield her little sister Anna from harm.

This is what older sisters do. We have powers that can be used for good or evil--okay, so all of us do. By virtue of being an elder sister, though, we are endowed with a special blend of power and pressure. We pave the way for things. We break our parents in. We are the kids that they test their flashcards on, their ability to negotiate The Terms of Things with us. They tell us stuff, much of which we wish they didn't. We overhear things and we work awfully hard, just like Elsa does, to shield our younger sibling(s) from these truths.

Anna doesn't understand this and she gets all the sympathy when she has no one to help her build a snowman. What she doesn't understand, of course, is that the person who can help her build the best snowman, to help her have the most fun making the coolest things, also has the power to destroy everything, and this is really really painful for older siblings. We want so much to be cool with everything, to give our sibs rides places and teach them stuff that no one else is going to teach them, but we know too much. We know the consequences and they are grave.

2. Elsa has to grieve alone, grow up alone, accept the throne alone.

Think about Princes William and Harry for a moment. Who's allowed to be the baller? Who's allowed to run amok in college, to keep calm and frat boy on?

Harry, right? He's the younger one. He's free to be. William, on the other hand, he's no Free Willy. He has to be upstanding. Everyone knows he's heir to the throne. He carries the burden of eldership, of mentorship. He can't disgrace the crown in the same way a younger sibling can, a younger sibling who is not as accountable to the lineage as directly as big bro is.

Anna, as the younger sister, could conceivably have left the castle gates and pursued friendships and romantic relationships freely. Instead, we are led to believe that she stays inside the castle until Elsa's coronation. Elsa, however, was quarantined to her room so as not to harm anyone with her powers to freeze minds and hearts.

I have felt this way for at least 3,004 years. As the oldest of my siblings and all of my cousins, I wish the I did not have to be the first one to leave home, to go to college, to get married, to have children. Okay, so I didn't HAVE to do all those things. I could have waited, but I chose to do all those things when I did, and that was first in line (I think? Anyone else get secretly knocked up? I'll find out somehow, I'm the oldest, afterall.) There's just something appealing about someone else setting up shop in the Promised Land and sending you a postcard "Awaiting your arrival--xoxo, Your Older, Wiser Cousin."

Anna is the supposed hero of the film because she saves Arendelle. But she's also terribly hasty and impulsive and creates a whole lotta mess in her wake. Elsa abandons the kingdom, sure. But she also has the best of intentions in secluding herself because she knows a few things, like how you shouldn't get engaged to some guy the same night you meet him at a party.

Older sisters, and maybe all older siblings, know they are under the microscope. They know their decisions can't be rash because too many people are affected, too much residue will trickle down. Elsa is a neutral character in Hans Christian Andersen's "Snow Queen" tale, but Elsa is rewritten as a protagonist in the Disney adaptation. In "Let it Go (The Reprise)," she tells Anna, "Go back home/Your life awaits/Go enjoy the sun and/Open up the gates."  I just don't think you can argue that it takes guts to live alone and it's lonely at the top (of the mountain and the siblings pile).

3. Elsa still listens to Anna.

Her love for Anna does not trump her ability to pull rank on Anna. She listens and cares and knows that ceasing the eternal winter is her job. But she is not so arrogant as to say, "I've got this." In fact, Elsa says the opposite. She doesn't know how to cease winter. Still, she cares enough about her kingdom and her sister to leave the mountain where she is safe among her frozen sculptures to go try and remedy the deep freeze with Anna. This is also an accurate portrayal of elder sibling heroics. We know we are better with and because of our little sibs. They give us the courage to do what we need to do. They believe in us enough that we can carpe diem or carpe frozen, as the case may be.

I am forever indebted to my siblings for teaching me humility most especially, among other virtues. For loving me when I was and am undeserving. And for sitting with me in the 2nd row of "Frozen" along with my munchkins :)