Real Life Make Believe

28 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Natalie in What's a mom to do?

I have a hard time lying to my kids. Therefore I cringe every time they ask me if something is “real.”  IMG379

I know that children and adults have very different concepts of “real,” and so my young boys might not be mature enough to realize that something they “see” is pretend. So normally when they ask me if something is “real” I reply with something diplomatic like, “What do you think?”

It works well with questions like: “Is Hogwarts real?” and “Are Megaladon’s real?”

Deep down I don’t think it’s lying if I go along with their make-beliefs. I certainly don’t want to be the one that stomps out their imaginations and crushes their creativity. But lately they are killing me with their fantastical realities.

Here are a few examples of how “real” our life has been lately:

Gingerbread Revenge

A couple of months ago I wrote about our Gingerbread tragedy. You can read about that here. It was highly traumatic.

I thought we had put the gingerbread cookie fiasco long behind us. I even vowed never to make the mischievous men again. Then my 6-year-old came down with a stomachache. He was positive that the one gingerbread cookie he ate was taking its revenge on his belly. He went so far to tell me that he saw a YouTube video of a gingerbread man attacking someone’s insides. Seriously? Is it revenge?  (Or just indigestion?)

We spotted evidence of those pesky men again last week. They stomped all over our driveway during a snowstorm. There were “gingerbread” prints scattered all along our pathway to our detached garage. (That or they were just melted circles where I had tossed rock salt onto the cement the day before.)

Cupid spotting

My four-year-old came home from preschool one day with Valentine’s Day stickers. He and his older brother asked me about the bow-and-arrow holding naked angel sticker. I told them it was cupid – a baby angel who flies around on Valentine’s Day in his birthday suit shooting people with heart-tipped arrows, making them fall in love.

All day Feb. 14 we “saw” cupid flying around our hometown. We went to a basketball game as a family that evening and spotted cupid dozens of times zooming through the night sky.

On our way into the stadium we saw a long white, pencil-thin pole in the parking lot. They were certain that it was the back to one of cupid’s arrows. (That or just a piece of trash that had been run over multiple times.)

After they were jumping around, thrilled that they found some cupid evidence, I didn’t have the heart to tell them I thought it was garbage. Instead I said something like, “Don’t touch it, it might still have a love spell on it.”

Power to the Rangers

My boys have been training for weeks now to be Samurai Power Rangers. They have been doing their own form of sit-ups and push-ups as well as punching, kicking and sword whacking nearly every pillow in my home. They have masks, spin swords and morphers to assist in their training.

One day while practicing their ninja skills I heard loud, happy screaming from the living room. Their spin swords were shooting off light! (That or the sun was just reflecting off of the silver base of the sword, flashing a burst of light onto our living room walls.) But they were convinced it was a sign that they were true ninjas!

Spy Signal

A while ago my boys were playing with real walkie talkies. They were running around the house shouting things like, “over and out,” and “please repeat that.”

Suddenly someone else jumped onto the same frequency and they picked up another message.

Of course it was a nearby spy. (That or a local hunter or someone simply using a walkie talkie for work.) They tried for hours to communicate with the other person. They carried those black walkie talkies around the house for days trying to send signals to the “spies.” But they never heard them again.

Fossil Find

Last week my boys were paleontologists – brushing off stones and studying them with magnifying glasses. They were certain they had unearthed authentic dinosaur fossils that were buried in my front flowerbed. My oldest began making a fossil discovery checklist. It included things like: it smells like dirt, it has scratches on it, etc.

We have found “fossils” in our yard before. It’s been all I could do a couple of times to talk my 6-year-old down from driving our discoveries straight to the Natural History Museum.

I have a very active imagination. I still believe there are monsters lurking in the corners of my basement. But I am 99.9 percent certain that these “fossils” are just ordinary rocks. I’m not about to embarrass myself in public by claiming there are dinosaur bones beneath my humble home.

So to appease my 6-year-old son, I decided we would write a letter to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden – a place we frequently visit – asking them how to determine if a fossil is really a fossil. We mailed the letter and less than a week later we got a reply. My boys were thrilled that someone wrote back!

The education coordinator at the park didn’t know the exact scientific method for authenticating fossils, but she forwarded our letter on to the man who runs the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake. Hopefully he’ll be able to clear the air on our “fossils.”

I’m sure that if we find out our bits of rock aren’t from ancient creatures, it won’t stop my boys from digging around the yard looking for other dinosaur pieces. Because, the one thing I have learned from my creative kids is you can’t stop their imaginations from rolling.

So while I admit that I don’t like “lying” to my children, I’ve decided it’s more fun to live in the world of pretend. It’s more magical, more adventurous. And there really isn’t any harm in it.

Besides, who wouldn’t want to live in a world where rocks are bones, cookies come alive and a chubby naked baby shoots people on Valentine’s Day?

Thawing

21 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Natalie in Dealing with Death

It has been the coldest winter that I can ever remember yet somehow I feel warmer than I have in a really long time. ice-cube-md

Don’t get me wrong, I still wear my moon boots with my pajama pants to take the kids to school and I sit under an electric heated lap quilt most of the day. I’m not talking about being warmer physically.

I’m talking about warming up emotionally.

Somehow the giant piece of ice that froze around my heart when Luca died has slowly been melting.

Bit by bit it gets easier for me to deal with his loss. My heart is thawing and so is my anger and bitterness.

I’m not saying that I am forgetting my son who would turn 3 this April. Coping with the grief that has come with his loss is still an uphill battle I will continue to fight. But I’m slowly starting to realize that my life can be warm and happy even though he can’t be in it.

I was horrified when someone told me that time heals all wounds. Now, I am wondering if that’s partially true. Although I will forever carry the scar, I think my wound is slowly healing.

How can I tell that I’m thawing? I finally feel like living again.

For a long time I didn’t want to do anything. My life was all about making it through the day, the hour, the minute.

Now I want to run, chase and tickle my kids. I want to learn how to cook apple pies and warm, fluffy rolls. I want to imparare italiano. And I want to stay up late reading, learning and growing.

Every once in a while an ice piece will chip off and I’ll feel a chill again. Like when I start sewing tiny baby gowns to donate to other families who will experience a loss. Or when I hear on the news that Utah might ban wish lanterns. Or I visit a tiny rectangular headstone with my baby’s picture in the top right corner.

It’s then that I remember how cold my loss has made me. How lonely I am to see my baby again, if only for a moment.

But in a strange, unexplainable way, I am grateful for those ice chips. They remind me that Luca was real. They remind me that I am real.

Sometimes I get so busy wrapped up in my daily life that I stop and question if delivering my baby stillborn was all just a horrific nightmare.

Those sudden chills remind me that I am human and that I lost something I wanted deeply.

But those chips, while they chill me to the core, come and go. And while his loss was once all consuming, it is much less so now.

Much of my sorrow has transformed into curiosity. I think of my baby often and wonder what he would be like.

Would he love sharks like my oldest son? Would he dress as Peter Pan and challenge his 4-year-old Hook-loving brother?

Would we be fighting him to wear underwear and grow out of his pacifier? Would he cuddle to me during naptime?

Sometimes I sit back and day dream that he would do all of those things. And though thoughts of what Luca would have been like remind me of his absence, they also make me smile.

Lanterns May Still Soar

14 Feb 2013 8 Comments

by Natalie in Dealing with Death, My Angel Baby, What's a mom to do? Tags: ,

Author’s Note: This is an update to my previous post regarding HB217 that is working its was through the Utah State Legislature.

luca lantern

For those of you who didn’t see my special edition of Boogers on the Wall on Sunday, I wrote an open letter to the Utah State Fire Marshal regarding the proposed amendment to the Utah State Fire Code that would outlaw sky lanterns.

We have sent sky lanterns to Luca each year on his birthday. It is such a peaceful, beautiful way to remember my little angel baby on the anniversary of the day I delivered him.

But a proposed amendment to the Utah State Fire Code would classify the lanterns as unattended fires, therefore rendering them illegal.

I have anxiously been watching and waiting for news from the House of Representatives about the proposed amendment – HB217. I signed up to receive email notifications when anything changes.

Yesterday news came.

I received an email stating that the bill’s sponsor, Rep. James Dunnigan R- Taylorsville, modified the amendment. Instead of completely banning the lanterns, Dunnigan proposed that the amendment include an exception: “Use of a sky lantern is permitted beginning on January 1 through May 31 and beginning on November 1 through December 31 of each year.”

I didn’t know if I should cry or jump up and down with joy! It’s amazing what little things make a grieving mother’s day.

The House of Representatives standing committee on Business and Labor gave the bill a favorable recommendation yesterday. I’ll keep watching and waiting for updates.

I know the bill isn’t finalized and things can still change, but the possibility of being able to continue a sentimental tradition on the day my baby flew to heaven has me overjoyed!

Extinguishing Sky Lanters: My Opinion on the Proposed State Fire Code Amendment

09 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by Natalie in My Angel Baby, What's a mom to do? Tags: , ,

Author’s note: This is a special edition of Boogers on the Wall. Normally I’d wait to post this on Thursday, but with the legislative session in full swing  I don’t want to wait another moment before declaring how I feel about a proposed amendment to the state fire code.

lantern

Dear Utah State Fire Marshal Coy Porter,

Before you ban one of my favorite simple, significant traditions I’d like to let you know what I really think of the one-word “Sky Lantern” amendment to the state fire code that will force me to end the only thing I look forward to on the anniversary of my son’s death.

First of all, I’d like to know how a biodegradable piece of floating tissue paper is a big enough issue to warrant so much of your attention.

It seems like figuring out how to better control shrapnel sparks from bullets on mountain gun ranges and people who shoot illegal flame-showering firework rockets into the sky would be more effective in curbing Utah’s annual summer fire frenzy.

The new legislation, proposed by Rep. James Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, would identify sky lanterns as “unattended fires,” therefore rendering the beautiful floating lanterns illegal.

Have you ever lit one? Have you seen how long the unattended fire burns? Two. Minutes. Max. I have video documentation of several of them rising, floating, extinguishing and falling.

A recent news article quoted you saying, “… we just want to make sure that they don’t have an incident that would cause a lot of damage to property.”

Well, you better ban little toy magnifying glasses and boxes of strike anywhere matches while you’re at it. And how about those throw down snappy things that kids chuck at the sidewalk, even they might pose some sort of fire threat.

Then there’s rubbing alcohol and gasoline. You can’t tell me that they wouldn’t be able to create an “incident that would cause a lot of damage to property.”

In 2011, 355 fires in Utah were classified as “cooking fires, confined to a container.” Does this mean you are going to force Utahns to stop grilling? Should I cancel my plans for my annual Memorial Day barbecue too?

That same year 575 fires were described as “Passenger vehicle fires.” Am I going to be able to continue to ride in a car?

Accidents happen. I understand that there is a small possibility that a stray lantern could malfunction and light another object on fire. I’ll even acknowledge that a neighbor’s tree caught fire after Jimmer Fredette lit hundreds of lanterns last May at his wedding rehearsal in Denver, and that last summer a St. George-wildland fire was started by a sky lantern.

But just because accidents happened and something could be a threat, doesn’t mean that the government should intervene upon my freedoms and tell me that they are going to start controlling yet another small, harmless part of my life.

To propose an amendment that forces me to stop memorializing my son in a simple, elegant way, is yet another unnecessary government control.

If the state of Utah banned everything that Utahns do that might damage property, we’d all end up sitting on couches all day staring at our televisions.

Maybe specific condition-based restrictions are a better idea for the lanterns. Like banning them in the scorching summer months when the dry, brittle grass is more likely to ignite, or not allowing them when it’s windy.

Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like I was once again being told what I couldn’t do with my life.

We have sent lanterns into the sky each year on my son’s birthday. He was born stillborn April 22, 2010.

As my family and I watch mesmerized by the lights raising in the sky it fills me with hope. Hope that my little baby can somehow see the same lights I see. Hope that he may be able to reach his little hand out to touch the top of one of the lanterns. Hope that someday I’ll see him again.

It may sound cheesy, but those lanterns have peacefully connected me to my son the past two years. I like to think they are his floating birthday candles that he blows out before sending back down to me on earth.

The proposed amended fire code will extinguish that sense of hope. Luckily, if passed it would not be implemented until this summer. That means I’m going to light up the sky with them this spring.

Sincerely,

Natalie Clemens

Electrical Breakdown

07 Feb 2013 2 Comments

by Natalie in Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do?

Two weeks ago I was an inch away from setting fire to my Kindle Fire.

After several days indoors with my kids during a three-day weekend I was at my wits end. I couldn’t take the whining, fighting and lying around doing nothing but staring at the black rectangular magic box any longer.

It was turning my boys’ brains to mush and there was a constant “When is it my turn?” hum coming from my living room.

No matter how much I begged they wouldn’t stop.

The Kindle must have known I was plotting against it and decided to give out on it’s own.  The jack where you plug it in to an electrical outlet came too loose and the device wouldn’t charge anymore.

We’ve been waiting for Amazon to send us a new one ever since and I have loved the break. I am amazed at how well my boys have played together without it.

They have lived as paleontologists scratching at rocks, desperately digging for dinosaur bones.

They have started secret workout routines in their bedroom as they prepare to be a new breed of ninja Power Rangers.

They have slid down our mini backyard hill and dug out an igloo-style snow fort in our front yard.

They have transformed my tiny kitchen into the Energy Solutions Arena while practicing bounce passes.

They have unrooted themselves from my living room couch and played more on their own in the past two weeks than they have in a long time. And although I have had to help them clean up a lot more messes – I nearly lost it one afternoon when they dumped every one of their toy tubs out in their room – I have been thoroughly enjoying our Kindle-free life.

I don’t know how other mothers feel, but I feel like my children lazily reach for an electronic device for entertainment. It’s easier for them to zone in to Netflix or tap at an Angry Bird than it is to run around the house finding each other in hide and seek.

I know there are amazing things that my children can learn from the Internet, and it’s fun for them to sit down and try out a new app, but this mom is going to draw up some electronic limitations.

I don’t want to cripple my kids in this electonics-based society. I realize that they will use sophisticated electronic tools throughout their lives.

But I’ve got to find a healthy balance that suits our family.

I am sure that once our new Kindle gets here my children will continue to get plenty of hands-on playing time, but I’m still going to make them unplug, power down the device and play for real.