The Burden of Being Atlas Jr.

publlished in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on April 29, 2011

The issue of weight has been weighing heavily on my mind. It has been weighing heavily on other parts too, of course, but we’re not here to talk about me. Notice how my photo cuts off before the wide-angle lens is required? Be thankful for good editorial insight: they know when and where to truncate things.


I don’t want to succumb to the pitfall of obsessing over my weight. The diet and weight loss industries are doing well enough without my chipping in my two cents into their billion-dollar bins.


Even so, weight is often on my mind. My youngest boy (recently turned six) is as scrawny as ever. He’s acting like adding even one ounce to his bony frame would be tantamount to adding to the burden of Atlas Almighty. Just tell me whether Atlas was still riding in a car seat after he turned six because he hadn’t reached forty pounds YET.


It’s a good thing little Atlas Junior is my sixth child. That way, I don’t have to get bent out of shape when someone sees him and asks if he is four years old. He is, after all, still comfortably wearing size 4T, as long we can classify comfortable as the elastic inside the pants’ waist being yanked to its tightest setting and his belt being set at maximum strength so that I only have to remind him fourteen times a day to pull up his pants. Why should I be offended? It’s not a crime to have a child of petite stature, even though we live in America, home of the super-sized portion. Admittedly, no teenaged boy is going to want to be classified as “petite,” criminal or no.


For many people, this Size-of-my-Child thing is a matter of supreme parental pride. They gloat over the percentile of their child’s height (or infant’s weight) as if it were a score indicating the child’s abilities or the parents’ competence, whether by way of being genetic contributors or as nutritional providers. “Why, little Frankie is in the 97% percentile for height,” they gloat, “but we don’t know where he gets it!” I want to warn them that the oxygen might be a little thinner up there where Frankie’s elevated brain resides, but I resist.


Even though it’s not a crime to have a child that’s on the left end of the bell curve, it still feels like a blemish against the maternal record for producing such a puny person in the first place or for allowing him to remain one. Were you eating enough protein during pregnancy, or were you busy putting down slabs of chocolate cake? What kind of lousy nutrition have I got my family engaged in? 

Or should I blame genetics?  Forget genetics.  Genetics is for people who can’t own up to their own faults. “You know, Little Sammy here might have been so much more productive, except he’s got that Excessive-TV-Watcher’s gene, you know?”


Because he is my sixth child, I am at least spared the self-doubt and insecurity when the grocery store clerk comments on Atlas Junior’s size after complimenting his cuteness and inquiring his age. The clerk gasps, “Oh, really? Jeez, my son is only three and he’s already this high.” She motions just below her pendulous bosom, and all I do is smile. All I CAN do is smile. Sometimes, smiling is as much a weapon as it is a defense. I want to say, “That’s great for you. Maybe next year your preschooler can bring you to work on piggy back with his massive self.”


So why can’t or won’t my little man pack on a pound or two? And then, a brilliant idea occurs to me. All over the media and marketing, we get pointers on what is contributing to our obesity. If I reverse the logic, couldn’t I impose on him all the things we are supposed to avoid in order to help him pack on the pounds? Or even ounces? I could be happy with ounces, you know.


Special K promises that people who eat breakfast tend to weigh less than people who don’t. Great. Make the kid skip breakfast. That should help him put on pounds.


Apparently, people who have regular bedtimes, as opposed to night owls fueling themselves on hard cinnamon candies, also tend to weigh less. I don’t know how much more productive night owls are, but they can certainly claim, in addition to the extra pounds, more cavities as well as a cranky need for caffeine in the mornings.


Also, people with sedentary lifestyles, especially those “engaged” (entranced?) in lots of TV-watching, also tend to carry excess weight. So here’s part two of my master plan, a double-jackpot: the sedentary night owl. Strap the boy down and force him to watch late-night TV. He might possibly gain weight, but he’s definitely bound to gain some worldly wisdom.


Then, when he’s tired and cranky the next day, especially after I make him skip breakfast, I will give him a doughnut, which he will ravenously wolf down. I’d add coffee to this regimen, but that might stunt his already stunted growth.


Ask me in a year whether I’ve achieved success. Or, just look for me around town. I’ll be the one riding piggyback on Atlas Jr.

Sugar, the Easter Bunny, and Spiritual Health

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on April 22, 2011

Sugar is to your physical health as the Easter Bunny is to your _________.  Just thought I’d mix things up with a little analogy. Sugar has been multitasking lately: It’s been in the news almost as much as it’s been in your food. Oh, please! Don’t act like you didn’t know it was in your salad as well as in your ketchup. And please don’t tell me you’ve been putting ketchup on your salad.

I also remind you that it is the season of standardized testing. Easter is here too, even though it took its sweet time. Had it arrived any later, retailers would be juxtaposing pastel candy eggs with red-and-and-blue paraphernalia. Maybe Easter decided to be Indian this year.

Good job trying to dodge the question. So, how would you complete this analogy? Sugar is to your Physical Health as the Easter Bunny is to your _______________…

a) Mental Health

b) Dental Health

c) Spiritual Health

d) Worldly Wealth

Let me help you a little. Immediately, you can cross off Mental Health and Dental Health because those choices rhyme. Test makers don’t want you getting cutesy with them; so don’t expect them to be cutesy with you. No rhymes.

You can cross off Worldly Wealth because there’s way too much alliteration going on, and this is no poetry contest. It’s a test. Remember? Also, you will notice that it is the only one that wavers from an ending of “Health” into “Wealth,” so that should alert you automatically that it must be wrong.

So, by sheer elimination, the correct answer must be c): Spiritual Health. Sugar is to your physical health as the Easter Bunny is to your spiritual health.

Walking through the store this week, I found myself increasingly annoyed by all the sugary treats crowding the aisles. Correction: I am annoyed with myself, and my face probably showed it. I couldn’t smile. Not completely. That’s because my face was still half-numb for the fillings for my cavities. I know. I have shown off about having a sweet tooth. Now I can show off about having decaying teeth.

I deserved it. This school year, I have kept myself awake at odd hours with little “injections” of sugar – mostly that hard cinnamon candy that isn’t the greatest for your dental health or your waistline. What waistline? I know. Yes, there comes a time to pay.

So, I’m walking around, metaphorically and literally in a state of semi-numbness. I am surrounded by chocolate bunnies, marshmallow peeps, pastel-wrapped chocolates, malted eggs, jellybeans, and chocolate crosses, of all things. And these things are jeering at me. Want some more candies, little girl? Or not-so-little girl?

I’m annoyed with myself for being annoyed. I feel like the Scrooge of Easter, but what’s going to be next? Are manufacturers going to give us pastel pasta sauce with which to celebrate the season? How about some cross-shaped noodles?

And again, I’m annoyed at my annoyance. Half way around the world, people are reeling from the after effects of violent earthquakes, aftershocks, tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns. In North Carolina, people are suffering heartache over lost lives and lost homes. I am concerned about the abundance of Easter candy.

The very fact that I can go casually to the store to select foods that are available in abundance, can raise my eyebrow at the ever-inching price of gasoline, (but not to the point that I’ve ditched driving), and can contemplate the price difference between nectarines and peaches, neither of which are local or in season here, is a little dismaying.

How can life be like this? Why do we live in a world with such a dichotomy?

And now I realize the root of my annoyance. I have a myriad of reasons to be overflowing with gratitude. I should be thankful for the Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. I should be thinking of His sacrifice and the crucifixion. Even if I am displeased with the ubiquitous nature of the Easter Bunny, I, too, have become distracted by him/it.

The Easter Bunny is our spiritual equivalent of sugar. Filled with calories that provide a quick rush of pleasure, he leaves out any nourishment – there is no message, no hope, no Good News. By the time the plate with the nutritious stuff rolls around, our bellies are achingly full and our teeth are smarting with the sweetness of the world’s pleasures.

No thanks. We really don’t want to hear about some dusty old preacher who revolutionized some dusty old place.

How much better the instant sugar rush that comes with the new dresses, shoes, and pastel purses. So it is with the Easter Bunny. He hops in and hogs the spotlight away from the meaning of Easter. He is not confrontational. He does not ask you to make any decisions or to rethink your life. Why think about Jesus when you are busy posing with the bunny?

My advice – cut the rabbit out of your Easter diet. Go lighter on the goodies, and seek the Good News. Spend time with the loves of your life, and Happy and Holy Resurrection Day. May you be blessed by its true meaning.

Reflections on the Art of being Late

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on April 15, 2011

I’m going to stop announcing a series of columns unless I write them all in one sitting, because sometimes, I have trouble revisiting topics.


A few weeks ago I had launched a diatribe against school fundraisers. The single-part “series” got interrupted because the next week I ran out of time and “recycled” an old column. The week after that, time ran out on me, meaning that I missed the column deadline. By fifteen minutes. But I missed it nonetheless, and that was the one about my middle son’s birthday.


I am often late for things. This is neither a confession nor gloating on my part; it is merely a sad observation. People are kind and say, “Yes, but you have six children,” as if I has just been caught up in childbirth, and could not make it on time like everyone else. They say it with sympathy, as if “Sixkids” were some chronic condition that requires you to take a treatment at the very moment you should be leaving the house.


I wish I had excuses, but the truth of the matter is that I have run on that fifteen-minutes-late clock all my life – pre-children, pre-marriage. Although I am often late, I am rarely too late like the time I missed the deadline.


Being five, ten, fifteen (name any multiple of five) minutes late, as an Indian-born person tends to be an accepted fact of life. My friend Becki is generous, organized, punctual, and always good for a chuckle. She is also American-American, for lack of any other ethnic label to pin on her. Becki was once invited to an Indian birthday party, and she arrived promptly at 4 PM, just as the invitation stated. Let’s just say that she ended up decorating for the party and keeping an eye on the birthday child while the hostess went up to get showered and ready. All the other invitees were Indian. No one else was going to show up until five o’clock, at the earliest. I guess being fashionably late, if you are Indian, might mean not showing up at all.


I tell you that story so you can understand my background. I’m tempted to say it is a cultural handicap, but I’m sure that out of the billion of so Indians, there must be a few punctual ones. I mean, there is a military in India, and people in the military are notorious for their painful punctuality. There are newspapers in India, too, and airplanes and trains that all have definite schedules and deadlines. Surely, there is an entire crop of disciplined Indian people. I should know, because I know one of them intimately. I’m married to him, and we get on each other’s nerves every time we have to go somewhere.


I was going to continue my rant against school fundraisers from a couple of weeks ago, and I still plan to - eventually. I’m not sure if it’s the frequency of fundraisers or the proliferation of them that bothers me, but they bother me.


In an ideal world, our children would be able to go to school and sit with a stick, some string, and a floor filled with sand, and the children would come up with some geometry that could take the Eureka out of Archimedes. The reality of the situation, though, is that if your child shows up at school with a stick, it would have to be confiscated as a weapon. The string could be used in vandalism, and forget the sand, because there is bound to be some poor, hyperactive-immune-system kid who is allergic to the stuff.


The last time I had felt real ire over selling of school things was back in 1995 – when my eldest daughter had entered kindergarten for all of five or six weeks. Now that I reflect on it, I can see that maybe, just maybe, I was a slightly obsessive parent. (Naturally, we can see I have recovered from that affliction!) There are a lot of things I did differently in parenting then than what I would do now.


In many ways, I see it as the difference between the way God the Father is portrayed in the Old Testament and God the Son is portrayed in the New Testament. (Now, you are welcome to email and correct my theology, because I have email and am used to being corrected. I have children, remember?)


Having six children in the space of fifteen years gives you time to mellow and rethink your strategy. You are not all wise. You are not that smart, either. At some point you realize that you are not going to win the battle. You just want to emerge from the fray somewhat mentally intact and having inflicted as few psychological wounds on your little loved ones.


I was strict and saw everything in black and white. Now I feel that I make more allowances. There is room for a little grace. I’m tempted to tell you, “more on this later” but we realize that could mean much, much, later. Right?

Happy Birthday, Niles

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat (Weekend Edition) on April 8th, 2011

I was going to continue my rant against school fundraisers, but last week I ran out of time and ended up recycling an old column, and this week, it happens that my middle son Niles is turning thirteen. He missed being an April Fool’s Baby with only minutes to spare. (Wait, if he had been born on April 1st, would that have made me the fool, since he was the baby? Thanks. Like I needed biological confirmation.) I had labored all day before that child was born, and even with the aid of Pitocin to speed the contractions along, it seemed to take forever. By the time you get to your fourth child, according to folklore, that child is supposed to practically deliver himself.


“Ooh! Hurry to the hospital…” or hurry and get your midwife to your home, because that child is going to be as easy to deliver as opening a pop-top can of soup or pineapple chunks. Gone is the need for a can opener – electric or otherwise.


Incidentally, does the term “midwife” sound antiquated to you? Nurse midwives are medical professionals who are highly trained and skilled. Yet, the term midwife conjures a Medieval image of calling in the woman up the street who has numerous surviving children. Furthermore, nurse midwives have all the training of nurses and then some. My nurse midwife in Ohio actually held a Ph.D. as well. Sadly, in the clinical setting she was not referred to as “Dr.” because of the possible confusion between academician and physician.


I know there are a number of male nurses. I’m not going to give you any statistics, because that would require work from me to dig up this information, and you, being a newsprint-reading sort of person, are probably the inquisitive and intellectual sort who is all too eager to look this up for yourself. I would not want to rob you of that simple joy.


All I can say is that during my husband’s twelve days of hospitalization last fall, I recall at least three male nurses who took great care of him. Now the question is, can a man be a midwife? I am sure there is some practical, gender-neutral term for the man who decides to undertake this profession. Is it a midspouse?


Anyway, what was the hold up in the delivery of my boy? I wouldn’t have been able to tell you then, but now that I’ve had thirteen years to get to know him, I know the exact cause of his in utero delay.


I suspect that this child was giving a lecture of some sort even back in the womb, and he just could not be interrupted from his oral delivery to participate in the delivery of the other kind. This child is just about the most talkative person I know. Right after, or possibly along with, my second daughter. Make that after my husband. And maybe after a couple of the other kids. OK – there’s really only one of the six children who hasn’t a lot to say, but of the other five talkers, I would say that Niles is the most talkative.


I realized this early in his youth, and knew that it would have a lifelong impact even when he was just a tot. When he was newly potty trained, he would wander into the bathroom, door ajar, and plant himself on the potty insert. All the while he was getting himself settled, he had hardly interrupted his flow of speech. We’re not going to talk about any other flows here, because that could embarrass my child, and we know that I am always so judicious about what I send to my editor’s desk. (Except that time I talked about boogers.)


There’s nothing wrong with being loquacious. In fact, it is always a good complement to a laconic individual. My only problem is that it really interferes with my own plans to impart knowledge, wisdom, and other vital instructions such as: "Unload the dishwasher! Dump out the trash!"


Once, when he was in second grade, just moments before heading off to bed, he leaned against the railing, cocked his head, and began a sort of monologue before he got the burning question that lay on his mind, “Mom, supposing that you happened to have something in your ear, like paper, or something…how difficult would it be to get it out?”


Yes, he has always used the longest words possible. When he was less than two, and wanted to talk about rubber bands, he called them rubber Band-aids. When he was looking at a plant, he even had to string that out to a “planet.” The worst was when he was telling a dinner guest that he had watched me preparing the chicken curry I served that night. He told them that he had seen me cutting the “raw-ten” chicken.


At the end of his ramble, it turned out that he had lodged a small wad of paper into his ear while trying to demonstrate a magic trick during recess. The resolution, after lots of home remedies, involved a trip to our wonderful pediatrician, Dr. Margaret Jeffries-Honeycutt.  Happy Birthday, Niles!