Ohio Moms Blog

Fear of the mullet

I’ve been taking my son to one of those haircutting places where you sit in a mini-airplane or fire truck and stay pleasantly distracted by mind-numbing cartoons ever since he was two. After the first haircut, he never had big tears or major discomfort. He loves it when they wash his hair, takes direction well and only moderately winces when they brush out the tangles.

What we do have trouble with, however, is the hairdresser’s universal fear of the mullet.

My son prefers that his hair stay on the long side, even when it prompts his friends to say things to him like “you look like a fashion girl,” as one did the other day. He looked in he mirror and said. “Hm. Yeah, I do a little” before shrugging it off. I adore the fact that he’s man enough to look how he likes to look and not mind a little girl confusion, at least for now.

Motherhood in the age of Twitter

In my earliest days as a parent, as I gawked at my son like an alien miracle, it didn’t take long to realize how isolating motherhood can be.

Several of my longtime friends didn’t have children, or if they did, they were well past the days of diapers and colic. They came over and did all of the requisite oohing and ahhing, then quickly returned to their worldly concerns, which involved choosing between high-decibel concerts, work dramas and — basically — nothing close to my worldly concerns.

Meanwhile, I Googled every sideways burp and funny-colored poop and cognitive milestone. I reached out to online parenting communities and sometimes got an answer, but didn’t really connect with anyone in them. I started blogging quietly, and (I thought) in the dark, until I got an unexpected comment or two. Then, slowly but surely, I had new friendships with moms begin to grow out of blogging, as well as a few guru-student moments in which some other blogging mother wrote exactly what I needed to hear that day. Then I would join the commenting chorus of “amens.”

Baby talk and the dental drill

My son has a passion for scientific information that tends to catch people unaware. At the end of visit with a potential kindergarten the other day, he turned to the teacher and said, “plasma...” expectantly, then tilted his head, contemplating his next thought. The man looked at him and waited patiently for the follow-up to this proclamation, which, after a very pregnant pause, was: “creates antibodies.”

When he opened his eyes and stretched his body for the first time the next day, he stared at a reflection on the bedroom ceiling and said “hmm… that looks like a womb without a baby in it.” I looked up and indeed saw a uterus-like shape made up of morning light.

He had his first cavity filled on luminous uterus morning. I had recently switched him to a periodontist, because there are things to play with there, people there that are used to talking to children. Then, as I opened the car door, I started to get worried because I realized there are people who are used to talking to children there. These people could say a lot of nice things while wielding drills and send all kinds of mixed signals to my son, who, on the cusp of five, still trusts me, and the choices I make for his comfort and safety a lot.

The Walmart Child-Puncher

Last week, the story broke here in Columbus that a retired state employee had been stalking the aisles at north side Walmart, looking for children to hurt. He would wait for parents to get distracted or look another direction, then hit the kids in the back of the head with a closed fist, keys protruding between his fingers.

This was a new ritual for him, beginning as 2010 rolled in. But it took more than two months before he was caught. A mom, freaked by the sight of her son’s bloodied head, saw the man beating a retreat, then followed him to the parking lot and led him back to store security, where he eventually admitted his crimes. Store cameras revealed four assaults on that day – including two on children whose parents didn’t report them. (All four were little boys.)

According to news coverage, the man said that it was the thrill of being able to get away with such an act right under parents’ noses that spurred him. He liked that little children couldn’t defend themselves and counted on the fact that their sudden tears created too much confusion for anyone to look his way.

The police didn’t release his picture, because they now know he was making a habit of this, and they are hoping that other families come forward to press charges. Not surprisingly, the public defender has said that he has mental health issues – it’s hard to imagine anything else fueling this kind of cruelty — and his ex-wife has told the media that she divorced him because he won’t take his medication.

Risking limb and livelihood

I took a lot of time for career and leisure and belated growing up before I had my son…. about 13 years’ worth. As a journalist/editor/web content-type person, I logged hundreds, sometimes thousands of words and myriad mouse-clicks on my computer for work, and sometimes as many for my online social life.

Because I’ve always preferred life as a freelancer to working for other people, I tried to be smart about taking care of myself. After my first few muscle kinks and dull aches, I learned to pay better attention to my body. I did a lot gentle yoga to make sure my spine stayed in line. I put lights and wrist-rests in the advised places to avoid eyestrain and carpal tunnel. I even slept with an ergonomic sleeve. And when I felt myself knotting up in spite of all of those precautions, I went in for some medical massage. My meticulousness drew more than one odd stare from coworkers, but my arms, shoulders and fingers were my livelihood.

Then came my boy. And my realization that we were both happiest being as close as we could be. There were years of wearing him in a sling or mei-tai. There was extended nursing, including plenty of typing with my arms arched around his hungry body, doing whatever I could to simultaneously nourish him and be clever about reviewing a Beyoncé concert on an overnight deadline. I knocked lots of assignments out in double-time as he napped or his dad took care of him, throwing break-time cautions out with the bathwater

Between rock and a heart place

When I was in college in western Massachusetts, I spent the better part of one evening trying to convince a new group of friends that Columbus, Ohio had all of the modern amenities one can find on the East coast... public transportation, people who made art and music, even modern marvels like indoor plumbing. The tavern we were sitting in, I pointed out to my friends, was close enough to a number of cows and sheep that we could give them nicknames and greet them daily if we wanted. This was not the case at my suburban Ohio home. I would have to take a drive to find a real farm cow.

After I felt I’d sufficiently disabused them of their stereotypes, we all retired to the living room of a campus apartment to watch David Letterman together. His number one comic bit that night? “Cow Cam,” featuring a lovely Holstein with a video camera strapped to her head that he introduced, then reintroduced and reintroduced as “Ludmilla the cow from Columbus, Ohio.”  Thanks, Dave.

I’ve found myself in that same conversation repeatedly over the years, usually as an editor covering my piece of the U.S. while networked with colleagues from other parts of the country. I’ve spent many a conference and conference call dispelling myths and exaggerations about the flatness of the state — both culturally and topographically.

Ohio may look simply pastoral from the sky, or even from the freeway, but it’s full of rusted out old factories, a boatload of colleges, tons of artists with families and a population that lives in mostly urban settings. We have scenic foothills in the east and south, lake beaches at the neckline and flattened plains from the navel westward.  

Art vs. Zombies

I’m not a big believer in putting padded walls between my son and the rest of the world. That means I don’t only take him to places that are designated for children. Truthfully, the marketing campaigns directed at children in “kid-friendly” places are often so offensive that we avoid them altogether. I’ll take a wall full of nude paintings over fuzzy corporate characters paid to give my child unimaginative coloring sheets emblazoned with insurance company logos any day.

So we see grown-up music at outdoor festivals. We visit galleries, whether the art is playful and folksy or highbrow and abstract. We look for events that are interesting and present an opportunity to see and talk about creative ideas, history and expression.

I want my kid to consume art, to suspect it and revere it, to love it, to hate it, to be able to discuss it, even if it's controversial or difficult. I grew up the child of an educator who taught me that art evokes more questions than answers. I want my son to always be looking for new questions.

This weekend we went to a warehouse that has a maze of artists’ studios inside of it, a place we enjoy and visit three or four times a year. They had an open house with lots of affordable artwork up for sale.