Bios, Theirs

I had a bio up for my CCEF Internship.  And soon my bio will be up for The Philly Doula Co-op.  And this past week, my niece asked me to give a look at hers as she applies for a teaching internship.  I've written about this before here.  What an awkward and interesting exercise.  Especially for someone with such people-pleasing, fear-of-others self-induced torture issues like myself.

Clara totally rocked it with the simple and gorgeous one she wrote for her class story.  She had the input to name the dog in the story after our doggie.  So her bio was simply, "Clara has her own dog at home named Millie."  I loved the understatement-statement in that.  She's so badassly-authorial.  It will be in another blog post but we got a letter that she won a prize for a poem.  Her first poem! Oh I could cry.

These would be their bios for right now:

Manny never met a Lego he didn't like.  He has mastered the art of riddle-telling.  At a crowded potluck, you can usually find him with the house-copy of The Far Side or Calvin and Hobbes.  His relational style features a sincerity of interest in others that catches you off-guard but completely warms you.

You don't want to befriend Benicio as much as you want to follow him.  He has a transfixing charm to him.  What he's enthusiastic about, you immediately want to do too.  And so you find yourself wanting to engage in ninja-tactics and also search for clues about National Treasure.  He loves soccer and has more assists than any kid you have ever met.  His favorite assignment this year was a writing an essay that if you made the teacher laugh out loud, you would get an automatic 100%.

These days, Clara signs her name, Candelaria M.B. Clearly, that indicates her name but also it suggests a startling professionalism for someone in first grade.  She loves to spend her time reading out loud to her sister, making origami fortune-tellers (good fortune=spa makeover, bad fortune=you're out of the club), and avoiding table-setting.

Calliope makes her life in Germantown.  Her primal fear is that she'll be left behind.  She is a maker of spaces and experiences.  Right now, she's got installations under the piano bench as well as beside her mother's nightstand.  Chosen materials are china tea-sets, sea glass and foreign coins.  Sometimes too, her medium is Goldsworthy-esque involving chrysanthemum petals and neon chalkdust.

Clara's Bike Injury 3.15

On this brisk morning off, we set a playdate with some DCS friends to meet at Allen’s Lane playground.  The boys were playing capture the flag.  Geoff was chatting with another dad.  And Clara had just finished some biking laps around the tennis court. I was chatting with a friend, not too far from Clara. 
She was on her bike on the hill.  She had JUST mastered the turn-your-bars-toward-where-you-fall steering.  But on the grassy hill, the bike started to coast and it fell to the left. Falling with it, the right handle bar, scraped her lower right lip and inner gums.  

There was a lot of blood.  I ran over to her, her pink coat soaked with blood down the front.  She soaked her helmet strap.  I think this is what scared her most.  Geoff, thank God we were both there, ran for our first aid kit.  He grabbed gauze for her and then whisked her off to the bathroom to rinse it off.  

Fast forward a half hour and Calliope, Clara and I are at St. Chris.  We found our regular pediatrician (read saint), Dr. Taylor, who I was hoping would say, “Oh, let me butterfly-bandage that and you’ll be on your way.”  However, he took one look at her and stood up.  Then he said, you need to go straight over to the plastic surgeon.  Clara and I cried. 

We took the long walk over to the ER, where we were labeled as INBOUND, which made things go faster.  When we got our little room, I dimmed the lights and found Nick Jr. on TV.  This helped a lot. Except for the bloody gauze we kept having to change, and clara holding it up to her face, it was like being at Nanay and Big Dad’s. 

Our former pediatrician, Dr. Casher, who works in the ER now, found us and wanted to say hi.  This was very comforting.  She said that it wouldn’t be that different when Clara split her chin when she was 4, and needed stitches.  Dr. Taylor found us again too and said that he thought she’d need IV sedation this time because she’s so much older now and when you stitch the face, you need to be really still.  I really questioned him on giving her sedation.  He said that part of the sedation contained an amnesiac so she wouldn’t have horrible associations with the hospital and what took place.   And he said that we’d be there for about 3 hours.  He brought each girl a book, which was so sweet.

The resident was a petite Ghanan woman with a neon yellow G-shock watch.  She was the first one to really shine the light onto the wound and probe the injury.  Then the Attending looked to be in his 50’s, a bearded marathoner-type.  The memorable thing that he did was to look right at Clara and ask, “Were you wearing a helmet?”  Thank the Lord, she was.  He didn’t ask me, he asked her point blank.  I thought that was interesting.

Fast forward another hour: The Kafers came to get Calliope, which was great.  Ellie and Ryan emerged bearing a grape lollipop, which is pretty much the best way she’d want to be greeted.  

Pretty much right then, the plastic surgeon enters.  He is from Serbia and he wears glasses by Dolce and Gabbana.  He has handsome disco-tech hair.  And he works to make Clara smile, not easy.   

He is incredibly calm and when I broach the sedation thing, he just looks at her and frowns his mouth down like, “Not necessary.”  He shows Clara everything, the thread, the Novacaine, the sterile field.  He asks me to help him by squirting the iodine on his gauze.  We stood over her and he asked if her lip was numb yet, and she would say, “No.” He’d ask again a few times more until it was clear it was numb.  Then he put a big kleenex over her face and she freaked out because she could no longer see.  I lay my head next to hers, both of us sort of under this big tissue.  

He did 10 stitches in all.  No sedation, only localized Novocaine.  Wanted pizza for dinner.  And is intent on going to ballet tomorrow.  

Let this day mark another time this girl faced adversity and came through.  

Mistletoe's Platonic Cousin by Clara

Geoff and a friend took the kids on a hike today.   Clara came home with a handmade decoration.  It is a pine branch with a red oak leaf pierced and hanging from the top.

According to Clara, you hang it up and then you ask people if they want to go under it and then hug.  It is called Mistle-ta.

Petitions for Prayer

I took the kids to the Solemn Novena after school a few weeks ago.  In the shrine part, there are huge banks of candles along the walls.  They are lined with velvet kneelers.  The arm rests of the kneelers are sort of like desks.  And there are little notepads, they almost look like prescription pads my Mom used to have.  And then of course, the tiny pencils.

At first, zero out of four kids were into being there.  It was after school and if given their choice, they would be biking, skateboarding, writing in a lockable diary, and playing teenager, respectively.   I felt for them, going along with me on this impromptu field trip.  So I fed them tourist food from the vending machines-- party mix and Doritos.  Chernobyl cheese was a big hit.

While they sat there eating in the little lunch room, I ran and grabbed four petition sheets for them.  These are the things they filled out:

Manny checked: peace of mind, overcoming a bad habit-"being so sensitive", peace in the home, peace among nations

Benicio checked:overcoming a bad habit-"picking nose," peace in the home, financial aid, success in business and my favorite--better working conditions.

Clara checked: return to the faith, peace in the home, peace among nations, foreign missions

Calliope:  just wrote in the open space, "love calliope"

My Margot, How Could I Forget?

Dear  Clara,

On the occasion of your Seventh Birthday, I wish to note that this is the age of reason.  This is something that was big for my mom and dad.  I guess it's a Catholic teaching, that this is the year you understand right and wrong, the year where you begin to think about next year.  Second Grade is the double-helix of sacraments, the big year that is bookended by First Reconciliation training in Fall and First Communion in Spring.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Right now, you are clear light.  Searing and canny about your opinions.  At school, you are rule-focused and adore the rituals--raising your hand.  Staying on green.  At soccer, you are all-team and all-hugs, looking to high-five each and everyone necessary, with your bay window-smile.  And seeing you at ballet, I would swear there was cloud in your shoes!

This summer, we were listening to "That's What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction. And you observed that the song was about Leah from Genesis.  That Rachel was the beautiful one and that Leah wasn't.  But that God thought that Leah really WAS the beautiful one. And that her beauty came from her inner humility and maybe even her humiliation of being the object of such a deception.  I think about you listening to "Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you. . . " and thinking about God saying this to this seemingly lesser sister.   I got such a theological-thrill from this.   Girl, where did you come from?  Listening to pop songs and deriving theological, inner-beauty-affirming, Biblical truth, what more could a mother ask for?

I can't believe it was seven years ago that you came into our life.  The weather was just like this, Autumn with its blazing leaves and weird warmth.   Shessy, Adri and the midwives running up our steps in the night to attend me, to meet you.  Your brothers wide-eyed in soft jammies.  This rosy-pink girl burst on the scene.  It was you, oh my gosh, Clara, it was you.  Joy doesn't begin to cover how happy.