A Letter to a Fellow Mother

To the Mother of the boy who jumped out of my daughter’s window last night:

Last night, I searched the internet looking to find the full name of your son. Lucky for me, I used to skip trace at my previous job, and so did Mike. I happen to know some cops and other people who can get information. So now I know who he is. And I know who you are. (The internet is the damnedest thing. You can find ANYTHING on it…IF you know where to look.)

I wanted to come to your house last night. Not because I think that you knew what your son was up to…No, I wanted to come to your house last night to ask you that you kindly tell your son that he is not welcome at my house. Or my daughter’s dad’s house. Or anywhere near my daughter, regardless of her location.

I was angry. REALLY angry. I considered calling the cops. I even asked some of my friends who are cops if I could have your son arrested for trespassing. In retrospect, that was hasty. And my anger took over my rational thought process. While this may have been your son’s idea (according to my daughter, who is prone to lying and whose credibility and integrity is completely shot), I realize that your son may also just be an immature child struggling with boundaries and the way of the world.

And so I found you, and through the miracle of the internet, I have the opportunity to send you a message. And I was going to...Except I couldn’t figure out what I really wanted to say to you. Because you, like me, probably didn’t have any idea that your son was at my daughter’s house. Because you, like me, probably didn’t have any idea that your son and my daughter had devised this secret plot to “hang out”. Because you undoubtedly didn’t know that my daughter was already grounded for “hanging out” with your son on a clandestine meeting at 1am a month ago.

But I wonder: do you, like me, want to know that this is what your son was doing? Because if the situation were flip-flopped, I WOULD want to know.

So I’m going to tell you what happened:

Yesterday I went to the bus stop to pick my daughter up to take her grocery shopping with me (2:30pm). She refused. She didn't want to come. Weird. Because she ALWAYS wants to come. So I drove her and her brother to their dad's house. I dropped them off and drove two doors down and I got a funny feeling. I even sat there for 10 minutes trying to figure out if I should just make her come with me. I was in a bad mood, and figured that was the reason for the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. So I left and went to the grocery store.

About an hour later (3:30pm) I got a text from my son asking if he could go to his friend's house to stay the night. He's been really good, doing very well in school and I had no reason to say no. I just forgot that he had been the only barrier between Lilly and her being left to her own devices. I said ok, we cleared it with his dad, and his friend's dad came to pick him up. Which, because I wasn't even thinking, left Lilly alone.

When my ex-husband, Brandon, got home yesterday evening (approx 5:30pm) there was a strange car parked just past his house. He went to it. There was a boy inside. He knocked on the window and asked if he could help him. The boy lied, "I'm just waiting here for my mom who's in that house right there." Brandon left it alone but apparently it still had his hairs standing on end because he took a picture of the license plate.

He went inside and was promptly greeted by a cheery and chatty daughter (which was weird in and of itself). Something still seemed off and he went into her room, where the window was wide open. He asked her why the window was open and she lied (it's 25 degrees at this point). He walked away, and was still bothered. He took a flashlight outside and there were footprints in the snow out of her window to where the car had been. BUSTED!

At first, she lied about anyone being there, but finally fessed up. It was your son, the same boy that she snuck out to see a month prior with her friend. The boy that my daughter was no longer allowed to see or talk to had been IN HER DAD'S HOUSE!

She doesn't even know your son. She says she had only met him that one other time. She didn’t even know his last name or really anything about him and now they are exchanging bodily fluids with one another.

So I got a phone call. “Can you come over here RIGHT NOW. I think someone has been in my house (this was before she confessed) and I need you to calm me down and keep me away from our daughter.” So I went over to his house. On a Friday evening. Right when I was making my dinner. When I should’ve been relaxing.

That’s what happened first. Here’s what happened next…

I wanted to find out who you are and where you live and pay you a visit. So that you could potentially help me to keep your son from contacting my daughter ever again. And, in fact, when I thought I found out who you were, we DID drive there to confront your son. But we had the wrong name. And the wrong address.

So I had my daughter call your son. I wanted to ask her to set your son up. To tell him that she had gotten out of the house and to meet her somewhere. But I thought better of that. I had her call him and tell him that we were sitting in a car, in Lake Stevens, and that her parents wanted to know his last name and his address. Because we were on our way to his house.

Like any typical teenager he refused. (To be honest, I probably would have, too.) He said he wasn’t home. He begged us not to go to your house because you were at work and your husband was sleeping and had to get up very early. He again refused to give up the information we were seeking. So Brandon took the phone.

Your son confirmed that the car parked at his house, the car we have a picture of the license plate, was YOUR car. A car registered in YOUR name. Brandon told your son that we will find out the information we want, the easy way or the hard way. At that point your son gave up his last name. But would not divulge your address. (He said he didn’t know it – “it’s on 56th St I think?”) He again begged Brandon not to show up at his house. Armed with your last name, and my connections, I found out who your son was. And I found out who you are.

But I was still angry.

And not thinking rationally.

So I haven’t contacted you. And I don’t know if I will.

Brandon and I did, unconditionally, unwelcome your son from either of our houses. We also asked that he stay as far away from our daughter as possible. I hope that he will heed our warning. Frankly, we’d rather never have to deal with him, or you, ever. We’d like you to be able to live a long, healthy, happy and prosperous life without ever having to meet us; to deal with this shit.

Only time will tell how that will end.

Here’s what I wonder about your son:

(I apologize in advance if I seem crass, or uncaring. I’m still pretty angry. Mostly at my daughter – but anger doesn't often accompany rational thought - so I'm mad at your son too.)

First, how desperate is he? He’s a senior in high school. At a big school. With nearly 2000 students. Roughly half of them are girls. Seems like he’s a loser if he can’t find anyone interested in him there. Why is he interested in my 14-year-old, freshman daughter? I can only think of one reason. I mean she’s pretty, and a pretty dynamic human being, but I doubt that is what has him so captivated.

Second, what gives your son the right to come into someone’s house without permission? This, on top of the fact that he knows that my daughter is grounded, in part, because of him! And, for all he knows, the father of this teen-aged girl is armed and dangerous; a man likely to shoot people he finds sneaking in or out of windows in order to protect his family.

Third, does your son lie like my daughter does? Is he a natural manipulator? Does he know that my daughter battles depression and anxiety? Does he know that she struggles very much with acceptance and craves affection? Does he know that she is very gullible with the prospect that someone “actually likes her”? Because if he knows any of those things, and is still manipulating her into “hanging out” with him, then he’s a total piece of shit. And you should be ashamed. (There’s that crass, unfiltered anger I was talking about.)

In some ways, I hope you see this. It’s embarrassing. To me. To my daughter. To our family. But I wonder if it will help even one person. Perhaps a parent, so that they know they are not alone in feeling like a failure (like I do). Or maybe a kid, who might accidentally bump into this post and have an ah-ha moment of clarity and make some adjustment in their life. Or maybe it will help no one but me – because it is cathartic for me to feel like I got to tell you this, even if it never reaches you. (Which, in other ways, I hope it doesn’t.)

Funny, my friend posted a link to this blog post this morning, and part of it said this:

“I think parenting young children (and old ones, I’ve heard) is a little like climbing Mount Everest. Brave, adventurous souls try it because they’ve heard there’s magic in the climb. They try because they believe that finishing, or even attempting the climb are impressive accomplishments. They try because during the climb, if they allow themselves to pause and lift their eyes and minds from the pain and drudgery, the views are breathtaking. They try because even though it hurts and it’s hard, there are moments that make it worth the hard. These moments are so intense and unique that many people who reach the top start planning, almost immediately, to climb again. Even though any climber will tell you that most of the climb is treacherous, exhausting, killer. That they literally cried most of the way up.

And so I think that if there were people stationed, say, every thirty feet along Mount Everest yelling to the climbers – “ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF!? IF NOT, YOU SHOULD BE! ONE DAY YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU DIDN’T!” TRUST US!! IT’LL BE OVER TOO SOON! CARPE DIEM!” – those well-meaning, nostalgic cheerleaders might be physically thrown from the mountain.” (Click here for the link to the full article)

This couldn’t have come at a more apropos time. As I sit at my computer crying, I think this author nailed it. Right now I’m only half way up the mountain. And I want to quit. I want to be warm and comfortable and not struggling to move forward. But I am not a quitter. And I will not quit the hardest, most challenging job I’ve ever been awarded.

And I don’t expect that you will either. We can’t. It’s built into us as mother's to continue to help our kids be successful, decent human beings. But it’s harder to do that when you don’t know what they’re up to.

THIS is the letter I would send, IF I was going to send it. Would you?

A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives

When I was a little girl my Momma never went anywhere without a book. Some mass market paperback version of the new Stephen King, or Dean Koontz was always tucked in her purse. She bestowed a love of reading on to me at such an early age.

I poured through books as an elementary school kid. I even won a contest in 1^st grade for reading 100 books in one school year! As I became a teenager, when the phone and eventually “hanging out” took over my life, while I would pick up a book now and then, I rarely read past the requirements of my English classes. In college it was even worse. Who the hell has time to read for pleasure in college?!?! When you show up on the first day, listen to lecture, and in your first class are assigned 9 chapters……before TOMORROW? Yeah, no escaping into a love story tonight! (This implies that I always read the material for my class the next day. Sometimes I would – if something better didn’t come along. I mean when your neighbor is having a get-together, you can’t not show, can you?)

After college I would read books every now and then. But I got out of college and had a baby. Ya know, there should be a billboard in front of every high school about babies: Sleep too much? Too much time on your hands? Think about yourself too much? Desire financial responsibility for the rest of your life? Too much time NOT cleaning up bodily fluids? HAVE A BABY! As the kids got older, and would ACTUALLY go to bed at a decent hour, I did read progressively more, but I’ve always been a busybody and have always had too many irons in the fire. For me time has always been like alcohol to an alcoholic, as soon as I have a little bit, I promptly consume it.

When I started the work I’m doing now, all time for books went out the window. I found myself working increasingly more hours and, when I would have time for a book, I was reading contracts, or books on negotiation techniques. I obsess. And, when I find something to obsess over, I go all in. There’s no obsession I work at half ass. If I’ve decided it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing RIGHT.

Now, as I am older, and my kids prefer video games and smart phones to my presence, I find myself with a little more time. Or at least I am attempting to make a little more time in my life. It has become clear to me that the life of obsession, over only one thing, is unsustainable. And so I’m diversifying my obsessions.

Lucky for me, Mikey shares many of these traits. And our obsessions are very similar in so many ways. We recently sat down before the end of the year and brainstormed a list of things we’d like to do in the upcoming year. Over half or more of the things on my list and his matched. One of them was “Read more books.”

In the last six months or so, we find ourselves particularly enjoying spending hours at the thrift store searching through books. For us, owning books seems something akin to collecting antiques. Eventually we figure a book, written on paper, and bound in such an artistic way, will be a thing of the past. And we just aren’t ready to let go of that past. Whether they ever are worth anything? I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care. I love a good book collection – always have. And so we are building ours.

The thing is though, we love books so much, and are interested in so much, that there are times we walk out of there with 2 paper bags full of books. Since we’ve done this a few times now, we talked about limiting ourselves to a weekly trip, with a preset amount to spend: $13.05. That is the price of 5 books (if they are on the high end of the pricing scale). We decided that we will shop as usual and if the combination of the books in our hands at the end of our trip is greater than 5, we will have to start bargaining over which ones to put back. (Fortunate for me that I negotiate for a living – however he’s pretty. damn. good.)

Yesterday, after we hit the gym, we wandered over to see what we could find. Funny, when you’ve bought a hundred books in the last month you’d think there’s nothing left to want to buy. WRONG! We left a couple on the shelf (with no real bickering) and brought 5 home.

And I can’t wait to go back! It could be worse...at least this latest obsession is fairly inexpensive. And we're making reading time a priority - I've already read 3 books in the last 2 weeks!

The Holy Grail....I Think I Found It!

Me and my big ideas. I’m always searching. Always on the lookout for something awesome that could make a difference in my world. Sometimes because I’m just curious, and sometimes out of necessity.

My Crock Pot has been something of a monkey on my back since I got it. First, I wanted a programmable Crock Pot, and I got one. Except it isn’t programmable on the front end, only in its cook time (start in the morning when you leave and then it holds your food on warm until you turn it off). Second, it cooks FAR hotter than I believe a Crock Pot should cook on low heat. Third, the handle slowly started to crumble – not a huge functional issue, but a pain none the less. Fourth, I must’ve slammed it down on the counter a little too hard one time as one of the legs is dented in so that I must put a kitchen towel underneath so that she stays level during use. Mostly, I just needed a new one.

A shot of the handle on my ghetto Crock Pot with the gangsta lean

In spending some time searching for the Crock Pot of my dreams some other appliances passed through the Google indexes – some of which I had noticed before only briefly, and some that I had never heard of. I was looking for a number of things in a slow cooker:

1. A machine that would take whatever I dumped into it in the morning and make it into a delectable meal by the time I got home from work.
2. A machine that was programmable…ON THE FRONT END! I want to put my food in the pot, and if it only takes 4 hours to cook, and I’m leaving at 8am, and returning at 4pm, it will not start cooking until noon.
3. A machine big enough to cook a roast that is several pounds.

And then I noticed the Instant Pot. I quickly scrolled through article after article on Pinterest. I searched through recipes, through what to do if you’re a beginner, I Googled what it would cook, how it could be used, how big it was, what you could put in it, how easy it was to figure everything out. And when I was done with my research, I KNEW that the Instant Pot was what I wanted. I quickly added it to my Wish List (something I’ll write about another time).

The battle ensued between Mikey and my Momma as to who was going to present this culinary treasure to me on Christmas. My Momma emerged the victor – though Mikey will likely reap most of the spoils. My parents got me the Instant Pot, a lid, and a cookbook to help me start making delicious, healthy meals.

I pulled it out of the box on New Year’s Day and read the entire manual. (Yes, I’m THAT person.) After reading the manual, and a few articles from Pinterest on how to start out, I cooked myself some water – a first step in preparing the machine for other gastronomic magic.

In our house we try to eat healthy – as healthy as possible. And we love to snack on hard boiled eggs. Side note: Did you know hard boiled eggs provide good fats, are naturally high in protein, contain good amounts of vitamin A & D, and is only 80 calories? When I found a recipe to cook hard boiled eggs in 5 minutes – YES PLEASE! Incidentally, being a pressure cooker, the Instant Pot should help us keep out of restaurants so much. To demonstrate how much time it saves: It will cook dry beans in under an hour!

I followed the very simple instructions on how to cook the eggs: 1 cup of water in the pot, add steamer tray, place eggs in, close lid and set timer. That’s it. The recipe promised perfectly cooked eggs, with shells that peel off easily. And it did not disappoint! No more ugly deviled eggs!

I haven’t had a chance to cook anything else in my Instant Pot yet (spent the following day zoodling (more on that later) but I’m ready to roll. I seriously can’t wait to put my ol’ Crock Pot on the Buy Nothing site….and maybe my rice cooker too!

Beginning the Journey

While I've always enjoyed writing, I had an English teacher in 9th grade who inspired and challenged me to push the boudaries of my creativity; to put some real effort into developing a piece of writing instead of spewing whatever came to mind first (which I probably would've pulled a solid A minus on anyway!) I excelled in that class and it created the foundation for my writing ability throughout college and beyond. I've been known to create insightful and thought provoking writing; sometimes about a subject I know nothing about!

I love the written language. I like the shape of the letters and how different words look in different fonts. I like the fact that the English language is so convoluted in its rules, or guidelines, and yet I am an excellent speller. For me writing is an outlet, an accomplishment, and my most successful way of communicating.

When I graduated from High School I told that teacher that I would dedicate my first book to him. Sadly, it remains unwritten. But here I am attempting this journal of sorts: things that happen, things I wish for, things I like, things I don't, and generally documenting my life story. It's no book Mr. Hamel, but I will still dedicate it to you! Thank you for one of the greatest gifts I posess!

Nik