I’ve rambled on endlessly in this space about trying to break the circles that surround my family’s history…of mental illness, of abuse, of neglect, of just generally being really shitty people. My brother and I both have struggled with this since before we had kids, more-so after. We both have days when we lay in bed at night, taking our searching moral inventories, balancing what we did that day against what was done to us and hoping the plus goes in our columns.

More often than not, however, those moments happen on the hour, on the half-hour, minute-by-minute. When something like what is ingrained in not just our memory but our flesh and our DNA becomes so wrapped into every minute of your life, it’s a battle of epic proportions to rise above it. You blink, you forget for just one second what you know you should do, and you’re throwing a child across a room because that’s what you know to do. That’s what you learned. That’s the kind of person you were born to be

Except, if you’re really really on top of it, it’s not the kind of person you are at all. We are really, really on top of it, and more importantly, we’re really afraid that we’re not. There are no better motivating factors in the world than fear and love.

As so we fight every day to make sure that our kids lives don’t even bear a vague resemblance to the lives we had. And you know what? We’re doing it. I’ve had kids for 12 1/2 years, he’s had kids for 9, and so far we’ve managed to raise kids who couldn’t comprehend our lives if they tried. They’ll never know anything we knew (except Douglas Adams, of course) and they’ll never see anything we saw (except Labyrinth).

Well, at least, not by our doing.

The truth of the matter is that somethings are just out of your control, maybe destined to be, maybe just sickeningly predictable because kids are kids.

A few weeks ago my brother called me to tell me that his oldest almost-but-not-quite broke his middle son’s arm. I laughed and asked if I should get the jump rope ready. He laughed, too, but only a little, because what he knows and I know but they don’t know and that you don’t know is that when I was four, he broke my arm with nothing more than a jump rope, a set of bunkbeds, an astonishing-for-six-years-old understanding of basic physics and a strong desire to again be an only child.

Like,’ bone sticking out at an angle bones don’t stick’ broke my arm. Like, ‘a night at the ER and a splint and a sling on the arm that I wrote with, right before I started kindergarten’ broke my arm.

This is why I can kick your ass at pool today, because I can shoot with both hands. Everything has a silver lining.

But his kids did not succeed in reenacting one of the more traumatic events of our childhood (what happened after isn’t exactly fit for discussion in polite society, if you know what I mean) but they did remind us how fragile the line we walk on is, the one between what is in our control and what is not.

And then, of course, last week, the phone rings at way too early for the phone to be ringing and it’s my brother, who just says, “So…” and sits there on the line, breathing. I went through the Rolodex of people in our lives with whom I have not yet found closure with, and picked which one I was prepared to tuck into a casket with my unresolved issues before I asked what happened.

He said, “So, 2of4…”

And I said, “Oh no he didn’t…”

And he said, “Yup, going into surgery. Best case scenario, 3 pins. Worst case scenario, 3 pins and a metal plate holding the bones in his arm together for life.”

And I said, “Bunk beds?”

And he said, “Better. Dog pile.”

And I said, “Do I need to get out the jump rope?”

And we had a really good, long, nervous as all fuck laugh because we are learning that, though we can’t stop the timeline of history from repeating itself, we can stop the way the story plays out. Now we have the excuse, and quite possibly the responsibility, to share a little bit of our story with our kids, albeit re-written slightly, and that is a really exciting prospect. The idea of being able to look at our kids and say, “Yeah, that happened to us, too, this one time that we were really bored and testing the laws of gravity…” is foreign to us, and so is letting go of all that old shit we lug around with us every day.

But not every circle has to be a scary thing. Not every pattern needs to be broken. Neither do any more arms, children. You’ve made your point. Now get with wrapping each other in bubble wrap and staying in one piece forever, because you’re giving my brother and me nervous disorders.

Not at all unrelated aside: I have a new post up at Polite Fictions, if you’re into that sort of thing.

One of these days, I might actually post something on this blog again. Maybe. Life, she is distracting me. In the meantime, I’ve decided to try my hand at writing fiction. Because creative expression is the need of my soul.

*Darn tootin’*

Anyway, my fiction cherry has been popped, and my ass will be, too, if God catches wind of that story. Or worse, my mother. My contribution to the Polite Fiction’s Alphabet of Regret is J, which is for {redacted}.

I wait until it’s too late to take my kids to the doctor. I have an 11 year old with asthma because I listened to the doctor who said he had a cold and didn’t start ignoring the doctor until the pneumonia had almost fixed itself and his lungs had almost said, “Fine, do it yourself.”

We did it ourselves for a week in Children’s Hospital to get his pulse-ox above 80. We’ll be doing it ourselves for the rest of his life, with the assistance of steroidal inhalants.

I under-react or I over-react, medically. Usually, one directly follows the other. Like the time I, oh yes I did, apologized to the mother of the girl who’s feet hit my 2 year old’s face at full-speed on a gymnastics center swing and threw her 20 feet across the gym floor. I actually checked on that girl to make sure she was okay before I realized, “Hey, my child is no longer conscious.” Then I lost my fucking mind and cried sososo hard that we waited for exactly 3.2 seconds in a Canadian emergency room to be seen. They sent two doctors…one for her, one for me.

I wish I was kidding.

However, when it comes to blood and bones and oxygen, I don’t fuck around. You bleed? You visit the ER. You wheeze? We go to the ER. You break? I take a quick pregnancy test because you and me are about to spend some time under an x-ray machine. Even if it’s your eye socket and even I know there isn’t a cast in the world for a broken eye socket.

So my daughter has been sick since Christmas Eve. My mother in law has been, too. They’ve been boogie-nosed, fever burning, cold-sweating, sleeping all day, up all night petri-dishes. My mother in law said her lungs felt like dried up coal. My daughter said her ears were screaming at her. But they did it together, at the same time, and that screams of virus. I don’t go to the doctor for viruses. I also don’t pay people to tell me I have blue eyes or blond hair. I can see that for myself, thanks, and I have plenty of other things I’d like to waste $20 on.

Fevers don’t scare me, either. Once you have a kid who bottoms out a thermometer so many times his doctor tells you to stop bringing him in every time he does it, you giggle off 103. Because you know how to treat it. I KNOW how to treat a fever. It’s my superpower; that and stain removal.

But after a good week, week and a half, of fevers and no sleep and sneezing and coughing that just kept getting worse, I started to worry. One girl is 4, one is 68, and neither are strong enough to endure something like, oh, say, the swine flu.

And that’s when I realized that I’d been ignoring the swine flu in a child and an elderly woman with asthma. All of the symptoms were right there in front of me…fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. We won’t discuss the diarrhea.

My daughter started waking up in the middle of the night on fucking FIRE and twitching in my arms. Twitching, people. My mother in law started sleeping so late into the day, I started sending her son to poke her and make sure she was still alive. When death became a symptom we were actively checking for, I made them go to the doctor.

I walked into the ER and said I KNEW they both had the swine flu and they were dying and please save them from my reckless endangerment. They each were examined thoroughly and I was reminded that when a child tells you her ears are screaming at her, she typically has an infection. IN HER EARS. And my mother in law? Bronchitis. My first clue would have been that the place where her BRONCHIAL TUBES live felt dried up.

This was exactly as embarrassing as that time I ran my child to the ER at 3 in the morning because I KNEW she was asphyxiating and they KNEW she had the croup. Which, yeah….I’d effectively treated numerous times using only a shower and the agreeable Colorado nighttime air for over a decade with my boys. AND I’ve read Anne of Green Gables, like, a bazillion times.

They bill you three thousand dollars to sit in an ER overnight and watch Ed, Edd and Eddie re-runs with a one year old. Just sayin’.

My kid learned how to read so he could play a video game.

After that, I never argued video games again. Maybe I’ll decompose someday with Sonic Heroes in my head, but it’ll be worth it, if for nothing more than that.

My family, we’re gamers. Not me, exactly, but the rest of them, for sure. My dad, my brother, my nephews, my boys…they likey their games. They used to be a mindless time-suck (really, Jungle Hunt has NO practical life applications outside of Compton) but something has happened in the gaming industry. Someone grew a brain.

We hung out with the people at EA a few months ago, and the woman who hosted us told us about the CEO of the Hasbro division at EA, how he had kids and gave up his spot in some other branch of EA to run the Hasbro side, because his kids shifted his priorities, and he realized that he could help make kids a little better, a little smarter, a little more eager to learn with his games. That’s kind of awesome, if you ask me.

Even more than my kids being able to see the world through a well-coded video game, I’ve seen than, through these games, the gap between our generations is being bridged. We’re driving down te street one day and Dream On comes on the radio. 2of3 asks me to turn it up. I oblige. He starts singing along and then asks me if I’ve ever heard of a band called Aerosmith.

Um, the name is vaguely familiar, yes.

Because my kids play Guitar Hero, they’ve learned to love the music I grew up with. And don’t think I haven’t spent the last decade trying to indoctrinate them into the House Of Zepplin. They just don’t listen to me, because I am old and boring an don’t know shit about that which is cool. But Rock Band does.

This new wave of video games is leveling the playing field in a lot of ways for families. It’s making what we loved acceptable and accessible to our kids. And I, for one, am grateful for it. It’s also giving us more options for family time. Wii Sports? Yep, my kids will spend all day kicking my ass at tennis. And I’ll gladly waste away any afternoon with my best friend Sheryl letting her kick my ass at it, too. When I first moved back in with my husband, after the Great Divorce, we spent those awkward first weeks at night together having hours on hours of sports.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…that damn Wii saved my marriage. Not kidding.

I couldn’t actually ride a skateboard again, even if the Space Invader aliens came down and threatened my life with fluorescent green laser blips if I didn’t. But my kids can, and that makes my 13 year old heart skip a pubescent beat. All I wanted were a bunch of little skate rats, and I got them. And maybe its not the same as me, outside, at the skatepark on a half pipe, but I have to admit that this skateboarding game we got to play,with Tony Hawk, was pretty fucking awesome, if for nothing else, the hearty laugh they had at my uncoordinated ass. 

Which they kicked.

Again.

Maybe that’s the key to successful parent/child relations…finding something you used to be able to do, and letting your kids absolutely cream you at it.

Hi, this is Chris again.  It’s “Chris Talkin.” (I’m the only American I know who watches Corner Gas).

Anyways, I just received this beauty of an email from Mr. Lady, who’s without computer for a little while:

“It’s my harddrive. Which is quite dead. Now would be an excellent time to cream me on my blog. If you’re into that sort of thing.”

Innuendos aside — oh that’s going to be tough — I thought I would go ahead give my geeky public service message about backing things up on your computer.

It is not if your computer crashes, it’s when your computer crashes.  And you should be prepared for that event so it’s not catastrophic but merely an annoyance while you catch up on DVR’d shows (Lost?  Antitrust?  Oh how I like Rachel Leigh Cook as a computer geek.)

Here goes…

FIRST:  Sign up for an online backup service.  It’s way cheaper than your txt message plan.   They work one of two ways:  either you check off the folders you want to backup, or it creates a drive (like C:\ or F:\) where you can save your files.  And the rest is magic.  Your files will be safely and securely transferred to online storage where you can easily retrieve them from another computer or get them back after yours is rebuilt.  It’s so easy your mom can do it.

I know people who use the following services and have been happy with them:

http://www.jungledisk.com/

http://www.ibackup.com/

http://www.carbonite.com/

Make sure whichever service you choose automatically encrypts (protects) your files in case somebody evil gains access to them (all three services listed above do).

Speaking of evil, if you hate Rush Limbaugh then don’t choose carbonite.com because they advertise on his show.  (Personally I kinda like El Rushbo, a fact which totally gets me laid at Tea Parties, weddings, and anywhere in Lubbock, TX)

Seriously though, this online backup stuff is super cheap and only takes a few mouse clicks (or clit tickles if you have a Dell or IBM laptop) to set up and it’s so easy my 16 month old niece can do it.  Maybe not, but she can totally unlock my iPhone and scroll through pictures in the photo album.

[Mr. Lady should pay close attention to this item because I don't think she had a backup.  Scorch!]

SECOND:  All those cd’s and pieces of paper that come with your computer?  Keep them.  Stuff them under the couch, in a drawer, or with your spouse’s oil change records for as long as you have the computer.  If you’re getting a used computer then make sure you get those disks from the previous owner.  If you no longer have the computer then you are safe to throw them away.  It’s a mindless step, but it can save a bunch of time or money when you have to reinstall Windows or OS X.

THIRD:  Mac OS X and Windows Vista have pretty nice “time machine” or “restore” systems.  These basically take a snapshot of critical files which can be reapplied/reverted if the system files are corrupted.   I highly recommend you take a snapshot periodically because it there’s a change it might save some trouble.

LAST:  If you have a computer for your kids, it will get toasted on a regular basis.  Save yourself some trouble and learn about Live CD’s.  They are basically full computer systems on a CD — no installation required.  Simply pop in the cd and turn her on.  The kids won’t be able to break anything, and if something stops working then a simple reboot gets you back to a clean slate.  I like Knoppix because it’s totally free and works well.  Edubuntu is for younger children and also looks interesting.

This concludes my public service message.  Happy porn surfing!