actually, i was not prepared for the sight of my own son holding a needle (!) and thread (!!!) , and a very green satiny material, the kind you see used in really shiny lingerie . Upon closer inspection, i realized that my son, my very boyish, rowdy, ebullient, soccer playing, hard kicking, testosterone awakening bundle of joy, was...embroidering ????
He was stitching , stitching, stitching. Cross there, then here, and voila, they formed little X's in neat little progressions. Wow. You did that? i queried. All by myself , he said smugly.
This was an awakening of sorts for me. After all, all this time, i took it for granted that i was all for gender equality. women should have equal rights, the glass ceiling has long been shattered, and us women stood under it to catch the shards that fell and ground them out to fine dust with our designer shod feet, just to make sure. anybody else who thought differently was a Neanderthal. but now that the tables were turned...i wasn't quite sure how to react to the sight of this boy deftly pushing a needle in and out of this fabric.
He was enjoying it, actually enjoying it! Look mom, he adds with relish, my teacher said my stitches were really neat.
And they were. I was astounded. he was almost 80% done. and he wasn't about to put it down either, to perhaps play with his Wii or to kick his soccerball out in the garden. He was determined to finish it. for the first time , his toys and games and books took the back seat. My son, the french knot expert. My son the embroiderer. My son...a future Dior or Lauren ? Heck, i don't mind at all--- after all !!!!!!!
He did come home one day with the news that he got the highest marks for that embroidery project , that turned out to be a pillow case for a small bolster pillow something. It turned out really nice, despite and inspite of that so satiny and so shiny green fabric (that of course was redundant, but i still can't get over that shine, nor that green-ness). A far cry from my own efforts when i was in grade school myself, and every stitch i made using a french needle for a home ec project somehow always turned dark or gray or plain dirty, no matter how many times i washed my hands before starting.And i never got to finish any home ec project either, not a single one for embroidery. well, i guess he didn't get his embroidery skills from my side of the family then. But i was thrilled that his very green , very satiny, very shiny bolster pillow was ...well ...perfect. Perfectly satiny, shiny and green. I loved it!
And so did my son, who proceeded to kick his bolster pillow around the room. Look mom, i can kick it ...and...and----- it hasn't broken anything !
Well. I didn't rush out to buy him bolts of textiles and fabrics and skeins of threads and yarns that day.True, he loved that bolster pillow , until the day it went to bolster pillow heaven. But sadly, he never picked up the needle again. Sigh. I guess his inner Dior or Lauren wasn't nurtured enough...but hey, there's hope yet. who knows, maybe one day, he will discover...crochet.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sisterhood of the travelling reviewers
I used to believe that nothing can equal the girlfriends you made in childhood. I really thought that no one knows you better than that best friend you found in kindergarten, the one who saw you and knew you before you became a goddess, a vamp, a b____, whatever. She was there when you lost so badly at hopscotch that you never picked up the game again. she was there when your teacher labeled you an egghead, and forever consigned you to being elected class president, and therefore in your other classmates' eyes-- a certified geek. tsk tsk, do you even , ever outgrow that ? how can you even run away from the image and figure someone had of you, someone who goes a long, long way back, before you even became you?
But then something happens to that best friend. maybe she moved away...or transfers schools. Or maybe you just both simply grow up... and choose lives so different from each other...
Happily, there's another kind of sister you will discover, who will be stickier than glue. Am talking tight here. And it's the friendship between women , mothers like yourselves whom you meet once your kids become of school age. There's a certain inevitability to it. It's some kind of chemical bonding, or perhaps a primal need as old as the first cavewomen who shared each other's clubs as they watched over their sons doing some stone age homework. But it is a known fact, women will be attracted to other women, and they will know who they will bond with. Most probably, these women just both honed into each other's peculiar kind of smell and look, that first day. Mothers who bring their kids the first time to school must smell different after all, a mixture of anticipation and dread , a kind of heady scent that only another mother's radar would have picked up. Such friendships are created from such events, created by some really unique circumstances (first day at kindergarten jitters, first day at pta, first day at the principal's office ---these are life changing events that only moms can relate to !) ---But thankfully, one that happens when you've grown already, yes,you've lived already, and have done some pretty neat things, one of which is having a child who you must now bring to school. In short, this is a friendship you discover when you are already an adult, and you go into it with both eyes wide open. Talk about consenting adults---it works the same way . These are women who become sisters, not by blood , but by choice.
The beginnings of this sisterhood may be a tad ordinary. So there she is standing next to you perhaps by the school gate, on the first day of school, her neck as long as yours in craning for a last look at your little one setting off for kindergarten. There she is too anxiously awaiting dismissal time, hoping that her son won't run down the stairs too fast ( you told your son the same thing too, anyway ) or play too long before he remembers that mom is picking him up and he must be there at gate 5 on time so she doesn't have to park..
You may have said hi or smiled at each other the first time, or maybe you just sat next to her at the very first PTA meeting and you both got sucked into volunteering to head the thing. That was the beginning. the fact that you have sons and daughters of the same age, and who share the same school, and therefore the same teachers, subjects, books, p.e. classes, class schedules, projects, field trips, reviewers, exams, ---how can you run out of things to talk and bond about ?
This is where the sisterhood of the travelling reviewers is born. It's sisters holding each others' hands as we navigate the stormy wild waters of motherhood. Its sisters comforting sisters in the face of our fears for our grade school age kids : the spectre of failing grades (what, you didn't know that grade school is scarier than law school??? it is, take my word for it)...the pressure of unsubmitted or late projects or projects that our sons can 't do and so (gasp!) we must do ourselves. Or worse, projects we only heard about the same morning they were supposed to be submitted!
It's a sisterhood born of guilty consciences (do i make my son study harder or just recognize that he is not so into books? ) , it is a sisterhood created from one's need to unload, to declutter or simply to just realize that i don't have to do this alone, that other women are also raising their children, and may be at various times, as confused, disheartened, excited , clueless , eager , hopeful, desperate, engaged, energetic, etc etc, as i am. So here i am, saddled with the same reviewers to do as you are, carrying the same load of playdates, soccer camps , music lessons and guitar lessons and birthday parties and presents to wrap and notebooks and school books to cover, or highlight or study so i can teach it to my son ---please embrace me as your sister, and let us raise our children together, so to speak. for starters, how good at math are you ? YOU have a BS in accounting??? Whoa. I'll do language then, you do Math.Wanna share a test reviewer? :-D
But then something happens to that best friend. maybe she moved away...or transfers schools. Or maybe you just both simply grow up... and choose lives so different from each other...
Happily, there's another kind of sister you will discover, who will be stickier than glue. Am talking tight here. And it's the friendship between women , mothers like yourselves whom you meet once your kids become of school age. There's a certain inevitability to it. It's some kind of chemical bonding, or perhaps a primal need as old as the first cavewomen who shared each other's clubs as they watched over their sons doing some stone age homework. But it is a known fact, women will be attracted to other women, and they will know who they will bond with. Most probably, these women just both honed into each other's peculiar kind of smell and look, that first day. Mothers who bring their kids the first time to school must smell different after all, a mixture of anticipation and dread , a kind of heady scent that only another mother's radar would have picked up. Such friendships are created from such events, created by some really unique circumstances (first day at kindergarten jitters, first day at pta, first day at the principal's office ---these are life changing events that only moms can relate to !) ---But thankfully, one that happens when you've grown already, yes,you've lived already, and have done some pretty neat things, one of which is having a child who you must now bring to school. In short, this is a friendship you discover when you are already an adult, and you go into it with both eyes wide open. Talk about consenting adults---it works the same way . These are women who become sisters, not by blood , but by choice.
The beginnings of this sisterhood may be a tad ordinary. So there she is standing next to you perhaps by the school gate, on the first day of school, her neck as long as yours in craning for a last look at your little one setting off for kindergarten. There she is too anxiously awaiting dismissal time, hoping that her son won't run down the stairs too fast ( you told your son the same thing too, anyway ) or play too long before he remembers that mom is picking him up and he must be there at gate 5 on time so she doesn't have to park..
You may have said hi or smiled at each other the first time, or maybe you just sat next to her at the very first PTA meeting and you both got sucked into volunteering to head the thing. That was the beginning. the fact that you have sons and daughters of the same age, and who share the same school, and therefore the same teachers, subjects, books, p.e. classes, class schedules, projects, field trips, reviewers, exams, ---how can you run out of things to talk and bond about ?
This is where the sisterhood of the travelling reviewers is born. It's sisters holding each others' hands as we navigate the stormy wild waters of motherhood. Its sisters comforting sisters in the face of our fears for our grade school age kids : the spectre of failing grades (what, you didn't know that grade school is scarier than law school??? it is, take my word for it)...the pressure of unsubmitted or late projects or projects that our sons can 't do and so (gasp!) we must do ourselves. Or worse, projects we only heard about the same morning they were supposed to be submitted!
It's a sisterhood born of guilty consciences (do i make my son study harder or just recognize that he is not so into books? ) , it is a sisterhood created from one's need to unload, to declutter or simply to just realize that i don't have to do this alone, that other women are also raising their children, and may be at various times, as confused, disheartened, excited , clueless , eager , hopeful, desperate, engaged, energetic, etc etc, as i am. So here i am, saddled with the same reviewers to do as you are, carrying the same load of playdates, soccer camps , music lessons and guitar lessons and birthday parties and presents to wrap and notebooks and school books to cover, or highlight or study so i can teach it to my son ---please embrace me as your sister, and let us raise our children together, so to speak. for starters, how good at math are you ? YOU have a BS in accounting??? Whoa. I'll do language then, you do Math.Wanna share a test reviewer? :-D
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