Ragnar Relay

This weekend a team of 12 people will be running a 200 mile Ragnar Relay in Jack's honor. They will run through the night from Cumberland, MD to Washington, DC in a collision of athletic prowess, sleep deprivation, body odor, and hysterical laughter.

The team includes Tim, his sister, my sister, his cousins, family friends, Jack's baseball coach, and an EMT from the night of the accident who has become a friend. They call themselves "Jack's Lanterns" and they race to bring light out of a dark situation. I thought you would like to read this awesome article my sister wrote about the team and why she runs.

Scroll down a few pages and you'll see a familiar face.


Go, Jack's Lanterns, Go!

Sifting and Sorting

We have been doing house stuff-- purging and rearranging rooms-- as we strategize the next steps for our family.

I took it upon myself to take apart Jack's room. It was my choice, yet it was still unbelievably difficult. I do not recommend doing this before it's absolutely necessary. And for some, it could be fine to leave things exactly where they are forever. When my mom died, I took 10 years before I was ready, and I resented anyone telling me I should do it sooner. It was their problem, trying to control my actions and responses, not mine.

As you know, our family motto is, "The best things in life aren't things," and as I moved Jack's things and boxed many of them up, I wept, not over the objects, but over the hands that had arranged them just so. A Lego creation is just a Lego creation when I've moved it to a box, whereas when it's set up on a shelf, in a funny little tableau that tells a story, it's part of Jack.

I moved the new school shoes that had been waiting by his bedroom door, yet never got worn. They look so small now, even though they were slightly too large for him when I bought them. His friend Cortland came over to help me carry boxes. He knew how much Jack treasured his Legos, and he handled them with reverence and care. When I looked down and saw Cortland's enormous man-feet I bit the inside of my cheek to try to keep from crying. It didn't work.

I packed scout and baseball uniforms and butter-soft t-shirts, rubbing the fabric between my fingers, lifting them to my face in a futile attempt to catch a scent now long gone.

I found all his baby clothes and the baby calendar where I'd proudly written down when he said his first word, "Bird," at barely 7 months old. And I sifted through school work, which he'd kept neatly in a plastic tub, every single stitch of it, preschool through 6th grade. Every paper, every project, every doodle.

There was a lot of yearning, remembering, and loving as I did this. As I allowed myself many trips to the recycling bin for the things I didn't end up saving. I leaned over the trashcan-- full of notebooks, and binders and papers and things my son no longer needed-- and  the heavy lid came crashing down on my cheek. Tears sprang up again as a pink welt formed. Really? Really?

I made a ton of progress last Thursday, due mainly to the fact that my friend Cindy showed up unannounced and with boxes. We matched each Lego set to its instructions and original box (thanks for being a saver, Jack!) and we cried. It was Margaret's last day of school and I wanted to do the hardest part, the Legos, while she was gone. "Did you take pictures of the order everything was in?" she asked when she got home and surveyed the empty shelves. "Yes." "Good."

After she was in bed, I did what any mentally and physically exhausted mom does, vacuumed the shit out of the family room rug. I ran the vacuum roughly back and forth, jerking it this way and that in  frustration. But the stupid vacuum wasn't working and was dropping stuff right back out again. I took it to the kitchen to empty it over the trash can and investigate. When I pulled the bottom off, a square piece of paper blocked the suction. Three words in my messy handwriting, that I must have jotted down at some point when pondering Jack, my book, this life:

Love never ends.

I do believe this. With my whole heart. You can too.

From Tim

A year ago, Jack and I took a trip to San Diego for Spring Break, headed for the Legoland, the Mecca for Lego fans young and old. The trip was a late brithday present. I remember Jack asking why we were taking this big trip for his 12th birthday. "Shouldn't we wait until next year when I turn 13? That's a big birthday." I don't know why we decided to go last year. Maybe we were concerned that Legoland would not sound as cool to a 13-year old boy about to complete this first year of middle school. In any event, we made the trip, and I am so grateful that we did. We stayed with Anna's cousin Mark while in San Diego, and he was a great host. Jack and I drove to LA to watch the Dodgers, Jack's little league team last year. The game ended in dramatic fashion with a walk-off home run and high fives and fist pumps all around. But the next day was the big event: a day at Legoland. And it did not disappoint. Jack (and I) were in awe of the hundreds of Lego creations. While other kids sped by each display, Jack methodically examined each one, from every angle possible. I felt an urge to hurry him along, concerned that we would not be able to see everything in the park. But I backed off and let him enjoy the day at HIS pace. This day was for him. Jack made me take pictures of everything. At first I insisted that he get in each picture, learning from Anna that photos are much more fun to look at later when they have people in them. But after awhile I got tired of making Jack pose, so I just kept clicking away at the hundreds of Lego diplays, until the battery on my phone died. Recalling our trip a year later, I am so thankful that we shared that time together. It is one of my favorite memories of Jack and is special for me because it was just the two of us spending time doing the things that we liked to do the most. But at the same time, as I reflect on our trip a year later, I am so disappointed and angry that Jack and I won't have another opportunity to get away, just the two of us, and seize the day like we did in San Diego--at least not in this life. I love you, Jack.

P.S. From Anna-- As I drove the kids home from school that rainy Thursday in September, Jack asked again why we had given him his "big trip" when he was 12. I can't remember what I answered. Margaret then said she would be more than happy to wait until she was 13 if it meant we would let her go somewhere "really good" like the Bahamas!

Big Money

Do you and your significant other have the same spending style? For the most part, Tom and I do. This helps avoid a lot of stress in our relationship.

Neither of us goes for fancy things. I’m not saying I don’t drool when I see a granite countertop or my neighbor’s new windows that actually open and close, but aside from an obsession with “house stuff,” I’m not a big spender. You know about my thrift store jaunts and dumpster diving. And when it comes to clothes, I’d rather wait 6 months and wear a knock-off than be on the cutting edge.

Our charitable giving is also aligned. We love to give money away. Oops, I bet there is some Internet troll-like thing that scours the Net for the words, “We love to give money away.” Before my in box starts filling up with messages about somebody’s poor uncle Jed or Mrs. Mary Williams in Africa let me just say we already have designated charities we support.

However, when it comes to two areas we differ. Electronics and Legos. I would be content to use my TV/VCR combo, while Tom has jumped on the crazy and possibly fleeting bandwagon of DVD’s, HDTV, DV-R and goodness knows what else! You can read about his hilarious encounter with his Blackberry here. Okay, so maybe it’s not a bandwagon, but you saw what happened to Beta and 8-track tapes. I’d just hate to jump into anything too soon.

We also differ when it comes to Legos. You may hear that girls are more expensive than boys, but in our house that isn’t true. For Molly’s birthday, we can barely figure out what to get her. Her room is already filled with tchochkes, and her idea of a good time is to line up little slips of paper and play school with her stuffed animals.

Her tastes are not expensive, b/c she doesn’t discriminate between Swarovski Crystal and a cotton ball rich in sentimental value. Her wallet is full (although I do borrow from it from time to time), and her Wal-Mart and Target gift cards sit unused, taunting me from the pile of rubble that is her room.

Jake, however, is always plotting his next Lego purchase. Birthdays are a Lego explosion around here. When I wonder aloud to Tom if there is such a thing as Too Many Legos, he gives me a blank stare. I guess it’s the equivalent of asking him if one could have too many baseball cards.

When I point out that our latest acquisition of Lego Café Corner, retail $139.99, could buy 1.5 pregnant goats through The Heifer Project or enough mosquito netting for a small village, I am looked at as a spoilsport.

Yet, if we journey back two Christmases ago, let’s see who was spoiling the sport….

We had purchased Molly an American Girl Doll named Samantha. The week before Christmas we got a call from our local toy store that out of 1,400 entries, I had WON another American Girl doll! Talk about a girl’s Christmas dreams coming true (Molly’s, not mine…really).

The first thing Tom asked me was, “You’re going to return the first doll, right?” Hell, no. Let’s not penalize the girl for my good fortune! I stood my ground, we ended up keeping both dolls, and of course Molly is now back to playing with cotton balls and q-tips.

So I’m wondering, in these days of belt-tightening and reprioritizing, which are just nice ways of saying the crappy economy, how do you spend, how do you save? If you are married, how do you and your spouse deal with different spending styles?

On Discovering My Son is a KABOB*

I've been a tad stressed about writing because this is my 100th post. A lot of people do something special for their 100th, such as writing 100 things about themselves. I've got squat! So I hope a regular post will do.

I’ve been meaning to share with you an event that Jake, Molly and I attended called Brick Fair. As you know, Jake is a huge Lego fan. On the first day of school when he told the class he wanted to be a Lego designer when he grew up, he said some kids laughed at him. So, when outraged Mommy found out there would be a Lego extravaganza in our town, I took him, hoping to support his passion.

Molly wasn’t psyched to go along, but she rose to the occasion. Thousands, yes thousands, of people lined up around the outside of a hotel waiting to get in. A woman with 3 kids and a stroller smoked in our faces as we waited—thanks Lego Mom! 45 minutes and $30 later we were in and surrounded by AFOL’s.

AFOL’s are Adult Fans of Legos. You see, while this event attracted numerous children, it was really a weekend convention geared to adults who still love to build with Legos. They painstaking planned, assembled, disassembled, transported and reassembled behemoth creations—castles, cities, bridges, a huge American flag, and mythical creatures—so they could share them with fellow AFOL’s and children. There were awesome robots. In one entire room, a huge chain reaction machine involving Legos, pulleys, computers and trains, transported little balls from one place to another. The men (yes, mostly men here) wore headsets and communicated with one another electronically. Jake was in heaven.

Now, I don’t mean to be harsh, but I know that Trekkies and Star Wars fans get mucho grief about how geeky they are. Let’s just say AFOL’s can hold their own in geekdom. While on the one hand I was encouraging Jake to explore his passion and assuring him he never need outgrow his Legos, I also inwardly hoped he wouldn’t become one of the AFOL’s walking around gushing at different creations, taking pictures, wielding an 8” x 8” jumbo Lego-covered name badge with nary a child in sight. I'm hoping he'll at least have a kid as a cover. A few young AFOL couples (matching plastic Lego badges, striped knees socks and overalls, no children) convinced me that Jake can one day find a woman to share his brick building passion.

I did crack up over one dad’s amazing creation—our favorite of Brick Fair. It was a humongous castle complete with secret passages, moats, a dungeon, a chapel, etc. dubbed “Kathryn’s Castle” in honor of his daughter. As he spends thousands of dollars adding to it in his basement, he can just tell his wife he’s doing it for his daughter. Yeah, right Dad.

Oh, AFOL’s are very touchy about, well, touching. Head bent over Lego bricks, no eye contact whatsoever, an AFOL can somehow sense if little fingers are sneaking close to a colorful brick. “Hands off!” they shout, never raising their eyes from their work. Jake already hates it when anyone goes near his Lego creations, so he will be well prepared for this aspect of AFOL-dom.

In all, Brick Fair rocked. I got to feel like a supportive mom, and of course I loved my window into a subculture I heretofore had no idea existed. Jake felt buoyed in the knowledge that he was not alone in his love for all things brick. Molly, well Molly got to get her shopping mojo on by buying a few trinkets for Jake and herself. Tom? He was at the office, which is good since he can’t stand crowds. Next year, however, is his turn. In fact, his mom and dad still have his old box of Legos from childhood, so Tom could still turn into an AFOL and I can be his NLS.



A few terms:

“Adult Fan Of LEGO or AFOL refers to those adult hobbyists who build with or collect LEGO. Quite often these people played with LEGO as children, went through what are called Dark Ages, in which their interest in LEGO waned, but then regained their enthusiasm for the hobby.”

NLSO - Non-LEGO Significant Other: the partners of AFOLs
NLS - Non-LEGO Spouse: like NLSO but requires marriage
NLF - Non-LEGO Friend: other people in the lives of AFOLs
*KABOB - Kid with a Bunch of Bricks

Christmas in October?

I'm having a hard time getting pumped up for Christmas shopping for the kids (yes, we are already thinking of this at our house) when a lot of their toys are still wrapped in garbage bags from this summer's lice infestation. They haven't missed them at all.

It's disheartening to have so much junk that you need to get rid of some before bringing more in. I feel bad about it, but we grant Jake's gift requests much more willingly than Molly's because he wants things like Legos. Okay, he just wants Legos. Tom was a big Lego guy when he was little, so we have the nostalgia factor going on. I don't like the outrageous prices, considering he already has thousands of pieces, but the plus for me is that they store neatly in nice plastic tubs. I like order.

Molly's requests usually cost 1/10th the amount of Jake's, but they just don't have the same appeal to us. She is as happy playing with a piece of yarn, a roll of scotch tape and a tube of lip gloss as a $50 toy. This leads to good, creative play that is a cheaper, but exponentially messier than Jake's. It kind of makes me just want to buy her a pack of pipe cleaners and a cool temp glue gun and set her loose with them.

She is not a hoarder, but she could be described as a collector. Chaff and grain are thrown together in various piles around her very small pink bedroom. Clothes mingle with stuffed animals, schoolwork, and Ranger Rick magazines. Sometimes I go in and throw away little slips of paper and various treasures when she's off at school, but I feel like a jerk doing so. Why is a plastic Lego precious, but not a scribbled song lyric by a future Rock and Roll star?

If she asked for one high quality item (read: American Girl doll) rather than a dozen little plastic items (Littlest Pet Shop animals again!) it'd be easier to comply. But the American Girl dolls have been in lice quarantine since September and have not been missed. Now I'm afraid she's going to ask for MORE stuffed animals to bring into the fold.

When the kids were younger we got them each three gifts: one book, one toy, and one board game. We got this number from the gifts the 3 Wise Men brought baby Jesus. I am not sure when we stopped doing this, but it wasn't because the kids asked for more. As parents, we would just see one more cute thing and want to buy it-- another book, a calendar, a toy car. Before we knew it, our 3 gift limit was shot. Last year I had a whole stocking full of thrift shop goodies that were simply overflow presents.

When I was little, we seldom got anything on our lists. I now know that's probably because I asked for crap and my mom was crap-averse. I'd like to post a Christmas list I found in which I asked for a Shrunken Head Kit that could turn an ordinary apple into a delightful shrunken head. Hmmm. I usually moped around on Christmas thinking I'd gotten the shaft once again. Calling my neighbors, the Joneses, never helped matters. Keeping up with them, as I'm sure you could guess, proved almost impossible.

Oh well, I have 2 1/2 months to ponder these things. The economy could answer some of these questions for me, or at least motivate us to re-institute the 3 gift tradition.