cat named pig

Siena slept over at her grandma and grandpa’s house last night, and won’t be home until later today. Matt and Elliot are playing”choo-choo trains” and a minute ago they called me into his room to show me a long fire truck completely loaded up with Fisher Price Little People .

“Tell Mama where the train is going.”

“Ma ah-MERICA!”

“They’re going to the Mall of America?”

“YEAH!”

(That’s right. That’s how we play here in Minnesota. Nothing symbolizes a fun outing like the MOA.)

Elliot then entertained us with some standing on one foot (holding onto door: several seconds. Not holding onto anything: less than one second.) and a BOONGA BONGA song and dance, which, if you’re not familiar with the art form, involves singing BOONGA BONGA and similar loudly while dancing and stomping in circles.

It occurs to me that Elliot has hardly ever had both parents’ attention all to himself since he was born. I think he’s enjoying it.

I’m crazy about this guy.

It’s time for another Catnamedpig Fashion Extravaganza, complete with photos and tips so you can recreate these looks at home. (You’re welcome.)

Q: What to wear when your friend comes over for a play date and your father puts you to work washing windows?

A: Doesn’t matter — get back to work! (But rain boots are a nice touch.)

An elephant hat goes great with anything. . .

. . . including camouflage pants.

I can’t believe I’m posting this, but yes, back in early March we were hanging out in our pj’s when we decided to go on a walk around the block. We all put on some boots (the louder the better, in my case) and went outside. Where people could see us.

The kids added bike helmets, for a little extra fashion flair, and I stole Matt’s jacket to complete my look. Yeah, you really do lose all dignity when you have children.

To relieve boredom in style, simply build a swimming pool, complete with water slide, out of couch cushions. Instant pool party! But what to wear?

Anything from pajama pants (top optional) to a swim suit. Dive on in!

And finally. . .

Sometimes, it’s not what you wear (polka-dot tights with sneakers, a sun dress and a hoodie?) but how you pose.

My friend Jamie wrote a blog post on a topic I had been kicking around in the back of my mind on Easter Sunday. I chose to rant about the bat in the wall instead, but when I read her post and started to formulate the world’s longest comment, I decided to just write about it here after all. 

I think religion and how to celebrate holidays are tricky subjects for many parents, especially when the parents’ religious beliefs differ or when the family does not attend services/belong to an organized religion, yet wants to have something to celebrate at festive times of the year. We fall into both categories, as do many people we know. 

In our non-religious household, we celebrate the arrival of Spring at Easter-time. We celebrate light, warmth and gathering with family at Christmas-time. A winter holiday of light and a spring holiday celebrating the life cycle of birth, death, and rebirth/renewal exist in many traditions in addition to Christianity, so it makes sense to us to mark these holidays. And whether it’s because we grew up with it or because of some innate human need to imbue certain times of the year with religious significance, it just feels right to be celebrating at these times. 

Families are all about compromise and blending. Holidays, to us, are all about family and tradition. While a Solstice celebration would probably be more in line with where I am on the religious/spiritual spectrum, Matt and I chose instead to pass along many of the Christmas traditions we grew up celebrating in our own families. Same with Easter: we don’t go to church but we do dye eggs and get together with both our families. By incorporating some of the popular elements of these holidays, I feel we honor the families/traditions we come from, and by adding our own unique elements and explanations, I feel we are adapting these traditions in a way that is meaningful for us. (I look forward to further “customizing” our family celebrations as the kids get older. This whole topic is something I very much want to discuss with them, when we get there.) 

I do wonder sometimes if it seems hypocritical or even offends people that we celebrate Christmas and Easter without much mention of Jesus. When we talk about Jesus, we describe him as a great teacher and leader, who emphasized peace and love. We’ve told Siena that Christmas celebrates his birth and Easter commemorates his death. (Sort of like a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, she probably thinks.) 

As she grows older and learns more of the story behind these days, she will come to understand that many, many people see Jesus as much more than a great leader. And she may decide she agrees with them. Or she may decide she believes something totally different. We just want to be sure she is the one deciding what feels right for her. (Elliot too, of course, assuming he ever sits still long enough to learn anything about any religion.)  

The last thing we would want to do is offend anyone who sees these holidays as sacred and our interpretation as irreverent, but we feel like this is a good starting point. We’ve tried to be age-appropriate and sensitive to all beliefs in our explanations. We look forward to our kids’ experiencing many different religious traditions and teachings, and we look forward to hearing what they think and what answers will resonate with them.

So, if you’re having a really slow day at work and you just got done reading Part 1 of this little blogathon and you’re still around, here is Part 2.

Siena had started crying over a reference to dying in the song “Dixie” at the end of Little House on the Prairie. I mean, crying. Sobbing. And then she told me she didn’t want to hear the song lyric about dying because she doesn’t want to die. And she knows she is going to die one day and she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to go in the ground.

It was at this point that my eyes threatened to overflow with tears.

She went on, “I don’t want you and Daddy and Elliot to die. And what if you and Daddy die while Elliot and I are still little and we have to get new parents?”

Before I could swallow the giant lump in my throat and formulate some sort of response, she kept going:

“And Grandma is really old. And Grandpa and the other Grandma and Grandpa. They’re going to die soon because they’re old and I don’t want them to die because I love them.”

[Apologies here to my parents and parents-in-law. It's not like Matt and I regularly discuss your old age or decrepitude in front of the kids or anything. We think you are all very young and healthy and we look forward to many years of asking you to babysit, which we know takes energy -- we wouldn't ask you if we thought you were too "old."]

The conversation continued in this vein for some time. I choked back my own tears and did my best to reassure Siena, without lying to her, that all her loved ones would be around for quite some time and that she herself had many years of playing princess (and reading more age-appropriate bedtime stories?) before she needed to reflect on her own mortality.

But when I had finally closed her door, I walked upstairs to where Matt was watching videos on Comedy Central and burst into tears as I relayed the conversation to him.

…..

A few days later, I came across this post in the NY Times Motherlode blog. And I thought about this reluctance to discuss hard subjects with our kids, as I had just experienced so vividly. Matt and I have always taken the approach that it’s best to be open and honest about everything that comes up. (At the same time, it’s not like we’ve gone looking for opportunities to introduce topics such as death or where babies come from — but we’ve agreed not to shy away from honest answers if our kids ask the questions.)

So, while I wanted to lie to her (”You’re not going to die! And Daddy and I will never die! We’ll always be here for you!”), I didn’t.

I told her that everyone dies, but most people live for a long time first and get to do many great and exciting things. I told her that when I think about dying, I remind myself of all the neat things I get to do first. Of all the wonderful people we have in our lives, friends and family we get to spend time with.

I talked about my Grandpa Charles, whose funeral she remembers attending, and Matt’s Grandpa Butch, who passed away when she was Elliot’s age. I told her that, yes, it was very sad and we miss them very much. But they were old, much older than her grandparents are now. They had seen wars and careers and children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They had traveled. They had had great adventures. And we still tell stories about them, so they are still with us in our memories. And when someone dies, that’s what you do — you keep them with you in your memory, in your heart.

Siena seemed somewhat reassured by all this (or maybe just too tired to keep talking). But I came away full of doubts and second-guessing. Maybe I should have just gone for easy reassurance, for now, and saved all the honesty for when she’s old enough to handle it better? (When is old enough to handle it better? I don’t want to die! I don’t want my loved ones to die! Agh! Where’s the chocolate?)

Maybe being matter-of-fact is not the best way to handle these hard topics with my sensitive daughter. But she’s perceptive, too — maybe if I hid too much she would see that I was being evasive and then the whole thing would be even more stressful for her. I don’t know.

All I know is, I went with my gut, which has been responsible for pretty much every other parenting decision I’ve made so far, from deciding to get pregnant in the first place to making waaay too many Wall-e cupcakes for Elliot’s second birthday. And while some decisions have been better (having the kids) than others (going up a pants size in a week), it feels better to me to be as honest-yet-reassuring as possible rather than hiding grandma’s china out of sight and praying my kids never think to ask where my grandmas are.

I guess my question to anyone still reading, if you can prop your eyelids open long enough to type a response, is what do you think when it comes to talking about death with kids? And seriously, where’s the chocolate beer?