The text from my friend Tracey asked simply: “Is Doug in Boston?”  For the past two years, my husband has run the country’s oldest, greatest marathon – but not today.  I texted back a simple ‘no’.  When she responded, “Good year to miss”, I asked why and then quickly thought to check Google News.  I heard from several family members and friends over the course of the next two hours, wondering if the husband was running.  Again, he wasn’t.  So when I subsequently contemplated how best to approach this latest horrific incident with the girls when I saw them at school, I was grateful I didn’t have to start with, “Your dad’s okay but there was a bombing at the Boston Marathon.”

I’m sad.  Aren’t we all?  And now to hear one of the dead was an 8-year-old boy – how do we handle this newest tragedy?  It’s Monday so I’ll talk about motherhood because many of these big, bad events have happened since I’ve had children.  On my own, I can foam at the mouth and call my friends, cry, and ask questions.  In regard to Phoenix, Aurora, and Newtown, we can righteously fight for more effective gun regulations.  But 9/11 and now today in Boston leave me searching for a meaningful approach with the girls.  How can I best assure them that this country remains a mostly safe and worthy place to live?  That life itself should not be approached tepidly simply because there are a few bad guys out there?

What I really wanted to say to my daughters was “I don’t want to talk about it” and “It’ll never happen to you” – but the former is unacceptable and the latter I can’t say with certainty.  We knew someone who died in the South Tower on 9/11.  The husband wasn’t in Boston today simply because he missed qualifying by a minute or two.  Am I scared?  No, but that didn’t stop me from crying while watching the news.  Every time something like this happens, I do think, It’s official. We’ve broken the world and now I have to tell the girls. But I can’t do that because deep down, I don’t believe it’s true.  In the words of my beloved Pink:

“Just a second, we’re not broken, just bent.”

And in terms of our dinnertime conversation this evening, I had to use the words of Mister Rogers.  Perhaps you saw this on Facebook after Aurora or Newtown.  It’s appropriate for today:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.’  To this day, especially in time of disaster, I remember my mother’s words and I am comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

We’re with you Boston.  We care.

(The following is an interview with an imaginary Republican congressman, Rick Offenbach, from Wisconsin.)

Daily Cup:

After Newtown, after the murder of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary, the tide turned in favor of more gun control legislation.  The thinking, from Democratic leaders and even some Republicans was, “Surely we can do something.”  Now, almost four months after twenty 6- and 7-year-old children were gunned down in their classroom, new legislation to reduce gun violence is not only disappearing, but existing laws will possibly be weakened.  Republicans in congress insist they will filibuster any attempt to infringe on 2^nd Amendment rights.  Dead children be damned.  You were one of the most outspoken among them until…

Rep. Rick Offenbach:

Until my 12-year-old son was shot and killed at a baseball game.

Daily Cup:

I’m sorry for your loss.  What happened?

Rep. Rick Offenbach:

His team was struggling so the coach was trying out different things.  He pulled the starting shortstop and replaced him with my son.  The other kid’s older brother, Nate, was…disabled.  He used to play baseball himself but was hit in the head by a line drive while pitching a few years back.  Suffered a TBI (traumatic brain injury).  Couldn’t make much sense of life.  When he saw his little brother sitting on the bench, I guess he got mad, thought he could do something about it.  Showed up at a Saturday game last month and started shooting.

Daily Cup:

He killed the coach also.

Offenbach:

And an umpire.  Then he killed himself.  They always do, don’t they?

Daily Cup:

He used a Glock?

Offenbach:

With 30 rounds.  Two other people were injured.

Daily Cup:

And so you think now some new gun laws might make a difference?

Offenbach:

I do.

Daily Cup:

Why were you so against them before?  Politico reported that the only gun you’ve ever owned was a hunting rifle.  New gun laws wouldn’t have affected you.

Offenbach:

I don’t like the government infringing on my rights.

Daily Cup:

No one does.  But protections and regulations aren’t for punitive purposes.  They’re to keep us safer.  They don’t work all the time but –

Offenbach:

– I understand that now.  That’s why I support them.

Daily Cup:

Because your son might be alive today –

Offenbach:

Maybe, yes — IF the shooter had to go through even a basic background check, but anyone can waltz into a gun show and walk out with a weapon.  He drove to one a hundred miles away, bought himself a Glock.  IF he hadn’t had so many bullets.  He was a terrible shot.  Out of the 30 rounds, there were only five victims.

Daily Cup:

But you’ve heard all the arguments the NRA makes, and successfully.  You know what you’re up against.  After Newtown, ninety percent of the country was behind new, extensive background check legislation and now we’re nowhere.  We are spineless, shameful, and prosaic.  Republican politicians, and a few Democrats, are more afraid of losing money and votes than they are of losing a loved one.  Statistics from other states and other countries with stricter gun laws point to an effective means in keeping more people alive/less people dead due to gun violence.  Forgive me for being insensitive, but you only flip-flopped because your son was killed.

At this point in the interview, Offenbach shut down.  We sat in silence for several minutes until I saw his shoulders drop.  He let out a long sigh.

Offenbach:

He was my only child.  My wife is staying with her mother because she can’t look at me.  She’s a part of that ninety percent.  Thought I should support new gun laws.

Daily Cup:

It seems to me that the GOP leadership is incapable of empathy.  They sympathized with the Newtown families but it’s not the same thing AT ALL, particularly if it only lasts five minutes.  Because they lack the imagination to put themselves in another’s shoes, and the courage to say no to the gun lobby, we are no further in addressing gun violence in this country.  What would you say to the comparisons being made between you and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who only came out in support of gay marriage after learning his own son was gay?

Offenbach:

I’d say personal experience is a powerful motivator.

Daily Cup:

But President Obama, the greater majority of the Democratic leadership and the citizens of this country are not motivated by personal experience.  We’re motivated by empathy.  Most of us have not been victims of gun violence. Most of us don’t have homosexual children.  Most of us here in California are perfectly capable of driving and talking on the phone at the same time, but when presented with statistics that showed we’d be safer as a whole if we switched exclusively to hands-free, collectively we accepted new rules.  How can we convince the GOP to be leaders in sensible new gun legislation – not because of tragic personal experience – but through empathy?

Offenbach:

I’m not sure.  Most of my colleagues have expressed sorrow for my loss while avoiding eye contact with me.  I had a friend diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few years back and I made excuses constantly why I couldn’t see him.  Heck, I couldn’t even call him because I was afraid that by acknowledging what he was going through, by being with him…like it was contagious or something.  So I suppose you’re right.  We’re afraid to be empathetic.  If they look me in the eye, they’ll have to feel some of what I feel, including the guilt of all the money we’ve taken from the gun lobby.

Daily Cup:

In 1980, California mother Candy Lightner buried her 13-year-old daughter who’d been killed by a drunk driver.  She started MADD and the estimated 30,000 drunk driving deaths that year have been reduced nearly in half, twenty-five years later.  Change takes time.  New gun control legislation – NOT punitive measures taken upon gun owners – won’t erase gun violence but it can certainly reduce it, more and more as time goes by.  The next Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner, or James Holmes may not have been born yet.  But in eighteen years, or twenty, if he goes to buy a gun and can’t, or can but not a large magazine, less people will die, including maybe someone’s son out playing baseball.  Does that sound about right to you?

Offenbach:

It does.  My colleagues have to look me in the eye when they tell me there’s nothing we can do.  I predict several of them won’t be able to, enough that we can tip the congressional balance in favor of sensible legislation, starting with universal background checks.

Daily Cup:

I hope you’re right.  Thank you for talking with me.

Offenbach:

Of course.

Read these articles:

Republicans Still Not Ready for Gun Control, Plotting Filibuster Instead by Joe Coscarelli

Don’t Know Much About Gun Laws by Joel Benenson and Katie Connolly

Armed Correlations by Adam Gopnik

The Second Amendment is All For Gun Control by Adam Winkler

Congress is back this week from their break (because they work so hard and effectively) and will address new gun control legislation.  At this point, the gun lobby is winning in ways they could only imagine in their dreams.  If only they could imagine losing a loved one to gun violence.  Call Congress.  Here’s how.

Some thoughts on current events that have nothing to do with motherhood:

The Pope: we’ll see.  He’s a Jesuit, which, according to my late father who attended Fordham, is the only order of priests worth belonging to.  Francis cares deeply about the poor and pays hotels bills on time and in person – great.  But it’s safe to say he won’t inspire radical changes within the doctrine of the Catholic Church, the changes essential for continued survival if it’s to recover from scandal and then remain relevant.  Until priests can marry and women can be ordained, I’ll continue to support my husband’s Anglican ways.  I realize permanent change happens slowly but it requires leaning into the direction of that change as a baby step.  Pope Francis exhibits no such leaning tendencies.  Too bad.  It feels like a missed opportunity – though I don’t think the conclave ever even saw an opportunity in front of them, or were aware of its necessity.  Therein lies the problem.

It came as no surprise to hear a judge struck down New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s big soda initiative.  As Justice Milton A. Tingling of Manhattan said, it was “arbitrary and capricious”.  You could be denied a big soda at a restaurant but walk down the street to the corner grocery and get all the Coke you wanted.  But that isn’t the point Sarah Palin, you childish idiot.  (Which perhaps makes me sound like a childish idiot for calling her names, but still…)  Bloomberg didn’t put the soda ban in place to demonstrate his power and illuminate big government.  He tried to draw attention to the fact that millions of New Yorkers (and Americans in general) are overweight, out of shape, and dying while costing the country billions in medical care.  Shame on him.  Let’s make sure that Big Food continues to support our need to kill ourselves, one Big Grab bag of Doritos and Big Gulp at a time.

Motherhood – it’s complicated but of this, I am sure: you pay now or you pay later.  Over the course of a weekend, any weekend (but specifically this last), my children hate me for brief periods of time.  I’ve asked them to pick up dog poop, clean their closets, hand over their cellphones at mealtime.  Occasionally, I don’t let them do the thing they want until they’ve done the thing they abhor.  They think I’m mean and sometimes, I am.  But I’m not doing them any favors by handling everything for them or conversely, letting them make a decision that isn’t theirs yet to make.  In other words, I’m still the boss (as is the husband, occasionally), which is how they’ll learn to be the boss of themselves one day.

Spring has sprung in Los Angeles and with it, the smells of night-blooming jasmine, orange blossoms, and my childhood.  No other time of year takes me back quite as much – to being nine- and ten-years-old, hiking around the hills of Encino and getting ready for the Miss Softball America season.  Life was uncomplicated, I was happy, and my parents were alive.  I miss my mom.  Just sayin’.

(Just pretend it’s Monday, okay?)

We’re giving the girls’ playroom a makeover because it’s time.  I’d become incapable of entering the room because I was afraid of what I’d find – mostly, kids lying horizontally on the trundle bed, eating crumbly food, watching inappropriate television, while dirty socks, moldy shoes, shin guards, and unidentified objects lurked beneath, and random art supplies stained the walls and carpet.  In a word: disgusting, or two words: health department.

I put on my hazmat gear two Sundays ago and started the clean up.  Before long, I came across the photo albums.  The next thing I knew, it was March.  It’s not my fault.  They’re like heroin, those albums.  As soon as you start looking through them, you can’t stop.  And there’s no methadone equivalent.  You either quit cold turkey because your family has fallen apart without you, or you grow old looking at pictures of your young self, or photos of your children when they were babies.  Where the hell did the time go?!  Damn, those girls were adorable, and boy did Miss T have a big head.

If you’re serious about getting anything done around the house, don’t get near the photo albums.  They’re different than iPhoto, where I’ve stored countless pictures, because iPhoto wasn’t around when Goldie was born or when Bun Bun got her first tooth or when my hair was still naturally red.  How many times have you come across a picture of your former self and thought, “I was so thin”?  And then contemplate the work it would take to be that thin again?  We all looked like puppies in those photos, scrubbed and fresh and young.  It’s taking everything in my power not to get up now and get back to thumbing through the pages.  Honestly, they’re that addictive.

I also came across the board books I refuse to dispose of because they defined my early years as a mother.  Miss Spider’s Tea Party was the first book I read to Goldie.  I can transport myself back into the corner of our old couch, Goldie curled up in my lap, tapping the pages of The Big Red Barn, urging me to read it ‘again, again’.  I won’t let go of Margaret Wise Brown’s Runaway Bunny either.  I always got a lump in my throat reading that one: “If you become a bird and fly away from me,” said his mother, “I will be a tree that you come home to.” Sniff, sniff.  Moo, Baa, La, La, La.  Is Your Mama a Llama? Sendak’s Nutshell Library, Boynton’s It’s Pajama Time, Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. There’s no way I’m throwing away Ian Falconer’s Olivia, even if the dog snacked on its corners.  I have my brother’s collection stacked neatly together – Metropolitan Cow, Friday Night at Hodge’s Café, The Pink Refrigerator, and nearly 14 others (look him up – Tim Egan).

There were CDs among the mess, too.  The one from our first Music Together class is staying.  Goldie sang “The Old Oak Tree” sitting in her car seat hundreds of time.  “Silly Songs” by Sesame Street.  “Broadway Kids”.  And then Francie Kelley’s “Wake Up and Go to Sleep” really brought me back.  Ten years ago, we sang along to the first track, “Ce Ce Te Nana” endlessly.  When we were invited back then to a mini-concert at the local bookstore by a mom at the girls’ new school, I scrunched my face when they started singing that song.  Turned out Francie Kelley was the mom and our world got smaller.  My daughters fell asleep to “Kiss the Moon and Stars Goodnight”, whether they were home or in the car.  Last week, after coming across all this nostalgia, Francie sent me her new CD for review, “Where Do You Want To Go Today?” and after listening, I can tell you I want to go to Africa, Hawaii, Jamaica, and back to Ireland.  She writes about them all, with a sound toddlers and new moms will love.  I sniffled again after hearing the short last track, “Mother’s Prayer” – you’ll have wings of your own; may they bring you safely home.  Stab me in the heart.

On “Modern Family” recently, Clare is caught inhaling baby Joe’s newborn smell.  I get it.  Sometimes, it’s nice to go back, to recall the beginnings of parenthood, the potential, the hopes, even the madness of it all.  Sifting through the flotsam and jetsam of the playroom, I was reminded of whom my daughters were, and then knocked off my feet by what they’ve become (or maybe it was the flattened soccer ball I stepped on).  My eighth-grader Goldie was just accepted to high school with honors and scholarships.  I am blessed.

The room was painted over the weekend and the carpet cleaner is coming today.  The furniture will be different.  The girls are ten, eleven, and thirteen – past the term ‘playroom’ or ‘playdate’.  (I never once said ‘inside voice’.)  We’re moving forward, so what do I call it now?  ‘Den’ has been taken.  ‘Rumpus room’?  I’m open to suggestions.

Stop me if I’ve told you this before: (I’m aware you can’t do that.  Let me keep writing.)  In 1999, nearly nine months pregnant with Goldie, I woke in the middle of the night for another bathroom visit.  Her birth was a mere week or two away and I suddenly thought, “This is permanent.  This isn’t just some temporary responsibility.  This kid is going to be around 24/7.  And I don’t really like kids.”  And then my heart started racing because ‘responsibility’ is not my middle name.  (Can you guess what is?)  In the days before she arrived, I told others of my panic and they all said the same thing, more or less.  “It’s different when it’s your own child.  Maternal instincts kick in.”  I thought of the billions of women (trillions?) who’d gone before me in the motherhood game and figured I wasn’t special.  I, too, would be okay.  And I was.

There’s a big soccer tournament going on in the Southland this month.  The first weekend of elimination play was supposed to be January 26-27.  Rained out, they moved the entire schedule to this past weekend.  Bun Bun’s game times were fine, down near San Diego, but Miss T’s involved a serious conflict with the Super Bowl.  I’m the big NFL fan in the family so normally, the husband would be with her except he works for a company that spent millions on an ad during the game, which he needed to track in real time on social media platforms.  And so Saturday, it was Bun Bun and I in Escondido.  Sunday, I stood shivering for Miss T’s 3:30pm kickoff up in Ventura, while the 49ers and Ravens lined up for theirs in New Orleans.  It was fútbol versus football and everyone who knows me would have thought something was terribly wrong in the universe if I wasn’t parked in front of a television yesterday afternoon with a bowl of Nacho Cheese Doritos in front of me.  And yet, I wasn’t.  It’s a crazy miracle, but the universe and I were fine.

When it comes to my children, I don’t have resentments.  I resent traffic.  I resent drivers in front of me who don’t pull out into the intersection to await a left turn.  I resent politicians who forget the reasons for which they serve.  I resent serial complainers.  I resent men sometimes when I think they have it easier than women.  (And then I remind myself they don’t.)  I resent those who won’t consider an assault weapons ban.  But with my girls, who can still annoy the hell out of me with requests, I don’t resent.  I don’t begrudge them what they need from me on their journey in life.  No, I don’t want to scoop them ice cream anymore when they can get their own, but if they’ve made a commitment and need me to help them honor that commitment – well, that’s my job and they’re my kids.  Can’t watch the first half of the Super Bowl because I’m outside on a beautiful winter’s day with my adorable ten-year-old who’s playing a mean game at center mid?  I’m okay with that.

Of course, when the whistle blew at game’s end, I hustled Miss T into the car to race the sixty miles home, hoping to start eating those Doritos early in the third quarter.  I arrived home shortly after Jacoby Jones’ record-setting touchdown, and just after the blackout.  It was a perfect power outage, allowing me to settle in, rewind, and view the highlights of Baltimore’s domination in the first half, and then watch as the 49ers made it a game.  The five of us were together, laughing at my sudden outbursts when plays fell apart, and all was good and right with the world.

To mothers out there who aren’t as far along as I am (with a fourth, sixth, and eighth grader) and think that whatever phase their child is going through, it will be the end of the world as they know it – it gets better.  I love being with my kids.  Things are still messy (literally and figuratively) but the girls are turning into creatures with whom I totally enjoy hanging out.

And okay, speaking of the Super Bowl, a few thoughts:

- I was rooting for the 49ers despite the fact that Jim Harbaugh’s temper scares me and I always hated how he’d come off the field when he played for the Colts and tell reporters first and foremost how he needed to thank his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I’m convinced that Jesus doesn’t pick teams in the NFL.  (It’s the same reason I’m bothered by Tebow, and Ray Lewis, among others.)

- Colin Kaepernick will have his day.  He and RGIII are the most exciting quarterbacks I can remember watching.

- I shunned social media during the game.  Too much pressure in the competition to come up with the funniest retort about the blackout.

- Beyonce nailed it.  Wow.

- Didn’t see many commercials but had no idea farmers were so awesome.  Cried over the Budweiser/”Warhorse” spot.  Hated the godaddy.com one.

Re: the gun control debate.  Did you watch the hearings?  Grrrrrrr.  Arrrrrrgh.  The gun lobby is counting on all of us to lose interest and/or cower beneath their constitutional confidence.  For today, read this: “Dangerous Gun Myths” from yesterday’s New York Times, and email Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, because she has a history of sensibility and could move from the dark Republican congressional side of this issue and come towards the light.

Make it a good week.