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Topics Chosen by Others: Talking to Your Kids about S-E-X

February 3, 2012 in Family, My Three Cents

from Ann:

Easy E and A Bird (all we need is a Bee)

I have two sons. My oldest  is twelve. My youngest is ten. It is most definitely time to check back in and have the updated and age-appropriate SEX talk. Because we have boys and because Dave is the adult male of the family, I always hoped he would be the one who took the lead in all sex-related matters. However, knowing my lovely husband as I do, I also realize that I am the one who has to get the awkward-conversation-with-your-child ball rolling. I will be the one that says, “Hey Dave, it is time to talk to the boys about [insert uncomfortable topic here].” When I have asked him to talk to Kyle & Eli he always does.  He sticks to the facts and I think the boys respond well to his line of reasoning. In contrast, even the mention of words like, “sex, girls, or babies,” makes them squirm, look away and say things like, “Are you done yet?” I must admit as Kyle is a little older her is less squirmy and seems more interested in what I have to say. I does not hurt that the school held the “maturation” class with Kyle’s grade last year. He seems more confident and less freaked out.

Today  I did want to test the waters and see what my younger son knew. He has always asked my about kissing and girls and has always seemed aware of what’s up or so I thought.  Even though I knew he might cringe (and he did) when I brought up the subject, I decided I would try to bring it up anyway.

I went downstairs. Eli was chilling and watching TV. Oddly, the TV room seems to be a place where we have had a lot of these “uncomfortable” conversations. I grabbed the remote, paused the television and casually asked Eli, “Hey, do kids talk about sex at school?” (Wait! Before I blurted out my question, I warned him that I wanted to talk to him about something important. I needed to ask him a big question and I was ok with his answers.)

E: Completely weirded out by my question he responded, “Mom. No. No they don’t.”
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Thinking your child is going to die and what that does to your head

February 1, 2012 in Family, Health, Stevens Johnson Syndrome

Kyle and Stevens Johnson Syndrome

I put some sad music on. Nothing like Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel to do the trick. I am trying to find that space. I need to heal that space. Whenever I go to that space my words immediately become clunky, jumbled and paralyzed. I do not know how to say it or what to say. I keep trying. I see it. I see last year. And when I think about last year, everything I see hits me in a giant, suffocating wave. I feel like drowning and I try to push through. I am clumsy as I keep trying to tell our story. At the very least, I want generations of family to feel inspired, to feel blessed, to be grateful that their predecessor Kyle was a freaking super hero and so was Eli, his rockstar brother. I do not want our story lost. Most people know that Kyle was very very sick last year. Stevens-Johnson Syndromewas the mean ugly train that took us for a very scary and terrible ride. In bits and pieces I have awkwardly tried to tell our story. It still feels trite. I still feel awkward. Right at the moment I think about this past year or try to write about this past year, I short circuit and in my body I sense how I think I would feel if a semi-truck were barreling towards me and in my mind I see that the semi-truck is seconds from impact. Bam! Time stops. I feel that feeling you get, you know, that the terror you sense when you are watching a horror movie. You know that something bad is going to happen. You see that something bad is going to happen. You want to reach into the screen and say, “Hey, don’t open the door. Really! Please do not open the door! He has a knife. Seriously! Step away from the door!” The person cannot hear you and there is nothing you can do except cover your eyes. And before the semi comes crashing into me, I hold my breath and slam on the brakes.

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I needed to Fix Myself

January 27, 2012 in Family, Health

I was pregnant here. You can see the beginnings of my pregnant belly. 6.17.06

Dave & Me. Thanksgiving 2011

As I crawled in bed late last night Dave, who was already in bed, said, “I read what you posted. Wow! That was a lot. That was really good. You are a good writer.”

Thinking he was talking about the post I had just written on Overweight Women, confused and perplexed I said, “Well, thanks, um, didn’t you edit that post earlier?”

“No. The one you posted on Facebook.” He responded.

“Oh. My Fix-You Post.” I said and because I was tired and caught of guard by his thoughtful comment, I mean, (I don’t think Dave would feel especially compassionate about the overweight woman who was smoking while carrying her catheter bag into her dialysis appointment), I continued, “I am working on my archives. That was one of the last posts I wrote  before I quit blogging and it was one of the first posts I was able to recover from the sever-back-up Vortex. It was always a favorite.  I didn’t read it today. It is too sad.”

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Alligators in my Dreams and Divorce

January 25, 2012 in Family, My Three Cents, People I know

Celebration, Florida

With my hands tied I cannot speak about what I have been processing lately (my childhood, it always goes back to my childhood). I would love to share about my one friend (my texting buddy) who is struggling and I am dying to write about that really off-guard moment (with family), which triggered a pain that took me all the way back to Mr. Eide (our next door neighbor) and my five-year-old-girl aligator dreams. I had so many freaking aligator-in-the-backyard-pond dreams that I began to refer to them as if they were my very own middle-of-the-night television series. Even when I would run into my mom’s room screaming, I would sob, heave, sniff and sob some more, “Mom, I had that same one two nights ago and it still scared me!” I would shake and shiver uncontrollably until she calmed me down and then I would spend the rest of the night sleeping in her bed until I had so many dreams that my mom and step-dad began making me a bed on the floor. Today I am not ready to get into it. Be advised, however, that anything I write now is totally being controlled by my aligator pain [wink wink].

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Thinking of Michelle

January 17, 2012 in Family, People I know

Kyle & Eli February 9, 2007

It was a really weird, last-minute-holiday-shopping type of day. I was buying Christmas and Kyle’s Birthday presents. With the Winter Solstice staring me in the face, it was dark early and I must admit that I let the darkness creep inside too. I was hungry, needed some sugar or caffeine and wanted to get back to Park City.

I waited and waited to make a lefthand turn out of the 33rd South Salt Lake City Red Balloon, and the holiday traffic was not letting up. Tired of waiting, I took a right instead and found myself trying to navigate a different route back to the highway.

It was really no coincidence that as I drove West down 33rd South, then made a righthand turn at 2000 East and saw La Puente Restaurant sitting there on the Northwest Corner, that I started thinking about Kyle’s pre-school friend/cousin, Sam Williams.  La Puente was the last place I saw Michelle, Sam, Ben & Ana.  Kyle & Sam are the same age and Ben & Ana were roughly the same ages Kyle and Eli are now.  Back in 2007 it was the Williams Family and their tragedy that nearly brought me back to blogging.  I have wanted to write about this, but it never felt right until now.

My Boys Today

It all began when Kyle was in pre-school.  He came home  one day, excitedly handed me an eight and a half by eleven lined sheet of paper with the name Sam and a phone number written so big the letters filled the entire sheet. “Mom. Mom. You know Sam?”

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