The Harlem Globetrotters are coming to Brooklyn!

Ethan hanging out with the Harlem Globetrotters - how cool is THAT?

People? You know me. I don't do a lot of promoting on my blog. I am not much about the products or the events. I am a writer. Who has a blog.

But when the lovely marketing folks from the Harlem Globetrotters contacted me about being one of their social media moms and promoting their upcoming New York City game on October 7th with a ticket discount code? I jumped at the chance. I may have even done a little jig.

Because my boys? Basketball? The great LOVE of their lives. About the one thing they both agree on. And the Globetrotters? An amazing family-oriented organization that does a whole lot more than just play basketball. They go into communities and make a difference. They inspire.

Also? Super nice folks. I know because I got to meet some of them. And Ethan? He got to PLAY BALL WITH THEM!

Yes, last week there was a small media event in the city for some of us mom and dad bloggers and our kids. Five members of the team took time off from their strenuous pre-season training to come say hello, sign some autographs, and play a little one-on-one with the under-five-foot set.

Ethan got to go toe-to-toe with Buckets, TNT, Slick, Big Easy and Hammer on the lovely basketball courts at The Sports Club/LA – New York on the Upper East Side.
 
He got his jersey signed by the gang, too (now never to be washed!) and we watched a demonstration of their famed "magic circle" where the players show off their neatest tricks.

 

Ethan had a BLAST, as you can plainly see. And I have to tell you these players were as nice as they were talented and funny.

Talking with Big Easy, I mentioned that Ethan had an equally basketball-loving autistic twin brother who couldn't be there that day (due to school transportation issues) and he expressed genuine regret that he didn't get the chance to play ball with him, was happy to hear that Jake would be coming to the game in October and told me he wanted to be sure to meet him then. Just... wow!

(Seems like the Globetrotters regularly work with and have special sensitivity to Special Needs kids on top of everything else. Could they be more perfect?)

So, from everything I have read about them, and then meeting them in person and seeing how roll (and spin and bounce) I can say I am over-the-top excited about going to their game on October 7th. And if you live in (or are visiting) the New York City area and have kids, I strongly encourage you to come join us at the game. It's going to be a great show, a blast, a whole lot of fun.

And as this show also happens to be the GRAND opening of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn (new home of the Brooklyn Nets), you get bragging rights to being one of the first people to see the joint from the inside. Yet more cool.

Now the ticket specifics: The Harlem Globetrotters are coming to play at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Sunday October 7th and I have a discount code for tickets for you all:

Click on the graphic above, or this link: GLOBETROTTERS at BARCLAYS CENTER and then the "Buy Tickets NOW!" link on that page. At the ticketmaster site that brings you to, enter my code: SQUASHED in the "Promotions and Special Offers" ticketing option and you will get $7 off each ticket you purchase. Voila!

Note that this is Columbus Day Weekend - so even though it's Sunday, it's NOT a SCHOOL NIGHT!

I also encourage you to find out more about and connect with the Globetrotters - they're VERY accessible. You can find them on Twitter, here: https://twitter.com/Globies and on Facebook, here: http://www.facebook.com/HarlemGlobetrotters.

Hope to see you at the game! We'll be there. With bells on.
 

**Disclosure: I am being compensated for my promotion of the Globetrotters in two ways. As an associate I will be receiving a small percentage of the money for tickets sold with my discount code. I will also receive tickets to the game for my family. All opinions of the Globetrotters and my experiences with them are unbiased and wholly my own.**

Wordless Wednesday: Cheerful Things

Ethan has taken up Soccer!

I fully realize yesterday's post while lyrical, was also quite melancholic. And though that's just the way I've been rolling lately, I don't want to constantly be bringing you all down with me.

So in an effort to lighten things up around here... may I offer a few pictures of some cheerful things from the past week or so:

I saw THIS while passing the Guggenheim on the 5th Avenue bus. Cool.

Jake went to a birthday party and got a balloon

My latest pedicure: electric metallic blue!

Ethan's soccer shoes: electric metallic blue!

Finally: Ethan playing basketball 1 on 1 with a Globetrotter!

And THIS right here? Much more news tomorrow. The Harlem Globetrotters are AWESOME and you can find out for yourself on October 7th! (Come back tomorrow to hear all about it, or scroll down to the bottom of THIS POST if you just can't wait.)

Vacation plus Reality, with Pictures

A beautiful morning in Great Barrington

We are here on vacation, in a setting so idyllic it makes my heart zing every time I open my eyes and look around. My in-laws' beautiful Great Barrington house.

Boys actually playing together in pool = big win

And yet it is impossible to just relax and let myself be transported, for I am tethered to so much (phone calls, phone calls, phone calls about my mom). I didn't even make it into the pool yesterday. Though the boys did (all three).

3 guys in the pool

Coming back here, year after year, we have developed some traditions.  I spend as much time barefoot as possible - and take a picture of my feet in the grass, to remember this time by. Check!

I took some lovely portraits of the boys:

There was the 3rd annual watering of the car, an anticipated event now. This year Ethan did not fully join in, but he helped Jake fill the can. Cooperation at its finest. And the old beast is (marginally) cleaner, so there is that.

We had our walkabout in town, replete with a foraging session at the candy shop and a tour of Toms Toys, the lovely independent toy store on Main Street. I remember buying them Thomas trains there. (How fast they grow up. Sigh.)

Spinning the pinwheel outside Toms Toys

We found a local ball field and the guys had a game of catch. Thank goodness there was a basketball court there too.

Indoor diversions? Screens screens screens. Plus a 500 piece World Map puzzle Ethan and I worked on for 3 days. The Indonesian islands nearly killed us, but we got it done!

And then there is the new...

A this Greek restaurant, Ethan ordered the grilled SALMON off the kids menu and proceeded to eat it and ENJOY it. Anyone who knows what a picky and stalwart "kid food only" eater Ethan has been over the years is now probably thinking I was hallucinating at last night's dinner.

But no, it was real and he was thrilled that we were thrilled. As Jacob likes salmon, too, this means there is now something I can actually cook for a family meal that is healthy and everyone will eat. Not having regular family meals, the way I did growing up, the way I assumed I would in the family I created is a never-ending source of guilt and sadness for me.

This will make it easier to achieve, at least once a week. Salmon. Whew!

Ethan awaiting incoming ball

Underlying and overlaying all this classic vacation stuff, however, is my mother. All that I have to do for her in the next few weeks is a weight on my shoulders. How lonely she is in this week without my visit, a stone in my heart.

Compound that with feeling so sad and guilty that we never brought her here on vacation with us. Last year would have been the perfect year, after my frail and unmovable father had passed, yet when she was still hale enough herself to travel, to swim. Now is too late, she is so diminished.

I spot a hummingbird flitting amidst the morning glories outside the kitchen window and think "Oh, Mom would have loved to see this!" I would cry and cry about it, if I didn't need to make breakfast and put on my happy face for the boys.

Watching the kids cavort in the pool whilst in my PJs? Priceless.

So this is us on vacation. Just trying to have a little fun. To not think too much. And I'm determined to rest up a little bit before the shitstorm of caretaking that's going to hit upon our reentry on Friday.

Wish us luck, once again. Thanks. 

On the M5 Bus

On the M5 bus, rolling along Riverside Drive, we are passing playgrounds my kids used to roam in years and years and years past.

When you're thick in the middle of it, you really don't think: "This phase is going to zip by and be gone in a blink, so I better stop and treasure every moment." even though EVERYONE with older kids tells you to.

Each day drags on so, you think: "I'm going to be spending the rest of my motherloving life in this godforsaken playground with sand down my shirt, fighting the squirrels for possession of my kids' snacks!"

But no. You spin around three times and squint at the sun, and those days are long gone; barely a wisp of a memory to look back on fondly... Playgrounds full of shade and welcoming benches you could park yourself on - at least for a little while, when the activity localized on this particular climbing bar, that particular tire swing.

Though these were also the days of "Push me Mommy, push me! Push me higher, and higher, and higher, and higher." And "Noooooo, it's more fun when you do it!" And aching arms. But worth it for the happily worn out, easier to bed down children.

Now playgrounds are "boring & for babies" and the good basketball hoops in this city are few and far between and often taken over by teens and beyond; grown-ups taking their sport very seriously and yelling at the kids whose errant bouncing balls interfere with their a-little-more-intense-than-friendly games.

A little old to be dominating a schoolyard, no?

I want to yell at them: "You're in a SCHOOLYARD, dude. First off - lighten up! Second off - don't you think you should give the kids whose school this is the chance to play in their Own. Damn. Yard?!?!?!

But I don't want my nose broken so I keep my mouth shut. Also it would embarrass my son who wants nothing more than to play, but is totally intimidated by these big, sweaty men.

So we bide our time, wait for a half court to open up.

Because my boys, they love their basketball.  And playgrounds are for babies.

Ethan & Jacob, July 2004

I miss those babies, I do.

I am linking this up with Just Write, because this was definitely free-written; just a little slice of life and thought.

Wordless Wednesday: Spring has Sprung!

New York City abloom

Oh poor neglected blog child, once again I am ignoring you for the one who screams the loudest. Listen to Your Mother is eating your lunch in blogging energy. We have near daily "Meet the Cast" posts going up, sponsors are coming in fast and furious and they need logos to be set and up and linked and... and...

But it is Wednesday today, glorious in its Wordlessness. So I can toss a few recent photos up onto a page and call it a post. Hooray!

Actually, we have a bit of catching up to do, folks. So here's the past few weeks in pictures Instagram (my latest addiction)...

First? A few weeks ago Jake asked for and got his spring haircut:

Before: Gloriously shaggy

Just look at those about-to-go curls

After: Handsome and proud

Ethan, on the other hand? No haircut yet.

Here he is the morning of his class's mock trial for their colonial history unit (love his creative teacher). He's the lawyer defending the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, and really wanted to dress the part. Hence the suit and red power tie.

Ethan is bemused by the incongruity of fancy suit and basketball

Speaking of Basketball, the season has sadly come to a close. Here are the boys proudly holding their trophies at their respective celebrations:

And finally? Spring has come early to New York City this year.  It seems like every branch and stem in the city has just violently burst forth into bloom. And I captured a few with my phone camera, because like my mother, I love flowers.

Enjoy the spring my friends! (The past few days' cold snap notwithstanding.)

First Love, Lost

"I feel so empty" Ethan wails, sobs racking his lithe body. "I will never, EVER be happy again."

"Oh, babe, I know. Loss hurts. But there will be others, really, you have to believe that." I try to soothe with my feeble, old, mom-wisdom.

"No, not like this one, it will never be the same, it was PERFECT. My first!" Ethan is the picture of abject misery, poster child for a broken heart. So deeply teenagerish, how could he only be nine?

"I know honey, you are sad and disappointed. this hurts, this sucks." I am doing this by the book: first the empathy and mirroring, then the (as yet futile) attempt to incite perspective. 

"I hate her, I hate her, she was so wrong to do this, she needs to pay!"

I want to join him in his wrath, want to rain down fire upon the person responsible for my son's pain and loss, his inconsolable sadness. But I know it is my job to steer him clear of these dark waters, to be the cooler head at the table.

"Nothing lasts forever, honey."

"But this was my first, it was PERFECT."

"Yes, babe, it seems that way now, but you WILL be able to love another, I'm sure."

"Nooooooo! No basketball will ever be the same, that one was THE ONE!"

Yes.

We're talking about my son's first, dearly beloved full size basketball, a Wilson; the one he got this past spring, almost a year ago now, carried around with him nearly every day of his life, ever since.

His one true love.

What, did you really think we were talking about a girl?

Please. He's only nine.

And yet, the feelings, the words? A lost first love, for sure.

Startling in their intensity, but then my son is, ever, intense.

And now, you may be wondering how did his life-love, his perfect first ball disappear?  

What happened was this:

In the schoolyard that morning, waiting for the teachers to emerge and ferry their charges to classrooms, A Rule was broken. While balls may be played with in the yard at pick-up time, morning line-up time needs to be more orderly, less chaotic, so balls must be stowed or held, quiescent in still hands. Otherwise, temporary confiscation is the penalty.

But 9 year-olds are 9 year-olds and the sight of an unoccupied ball drives them to frenzy. They often get played with. Even if Ethan is trying to be obedient, a friend of his will come up, knock the ball out of his hands, and start to toss it about. Cries of protest will go unheeded. Fun will ensue.

But, it must be said, regular reminder letters sent from the Assistant Principal to the contrary. enforcement of such rule is lax, haphazard and spotty. And in all the years of ball-carrying, Ethan had never suffered a confiscation until now.

And thus he wasn't quite sure of the way of it: who actually held the ball, and how and when could he ask for it back.

When I arrived that evening to pick Ethan up from afterschool (with Jacob in tow this day, of course, just to complicate matters), I found a wide eyed Ethan with trembling lip, telling me that no one could find his ball, nor had any idea where it was.

Sure I could quickly resolve this, we began to investigate. We chased a lot of wild geese, up and down the stairs of the school, Ethan growing ever and ever more despondent with each dead end.

Finally, we spoke to the principal, who was still in the main office, and she suggested it was best to throw in the towel for the night, resume investigations during school hours the next day, when the confiscating aide (the "She" of Ethan's vowed vengeance) would be present.

But then, on our way out the door, someone confided in us that it's not the first time a ball has gone missing and that we shouldn't get our hopes up, it was likely gone.

And thus started the full on breaking of Ethan's heart.

And it did not help, in any way shape or form, that Jacob was with us that night, as Ethan howled out his pain on the sidewalk. Because Jake was being Jake: excited and engaged by Ethan's sadness and upsetness, alternating between empathy and laughing delight. Both reactions exceedingly annoying to his brother.

Not only was Jacob enjoying Ethan's big emotions, he was also narrating them. Loudly.

Nothing a nine year-old boy wants to hear when he is trying to keep it together, in his autistic brother's piercing voice: "Ethan is CRYING, Mom! (big giggle) Ethan is SAD!"

And Jake's attempts at "help" even worse: "Take a DEEP breath Ethan! Calm down, Ethan! It's OK Ethan!" Yikes!

Eventually, there was calmness. Bargains were made. In spite of the late hour and still as yet unfed children, we trudged to the nearby Models to see if we could purchase a replacement ball only to find nary a Wilson in a sea of Spaldings and Nikes.

Then we found out that, well, yeah, Ethan's true love WAS a super special, only rarely available model, and it had been a special purchase at the time we'd gotten it.

A different ball was finally deemed acceptable and purchased. Back home Ethan's equilibrium returned, with only occasional declarations of "I still feel empty" interspersed with evening business as usual.

And it all blew over in a few days. (Especially as the original ball was eventually located at the school.)

But I have to say the reaction, the extreme over-reaction? Did give me pause. Not one to let things roll off his back, he feels deeply, this boy of mine.

And I know this is just a slim preview of what is coming, the first actual girl to break his heart. The earth will quake, a lake of tears will be shed, I have not the slightest doubt. And I will be sorely pressed to control my urge to clock her one.

And then, this, really gave me pause:

When I had tried to console him with the idea that it could be worse, that his ball could have rolled into the street and been squashed dead, absolutely gone forever? He countered that THAT would actually have been better, a clean break.

And added that a big part of his pain was in the knowing that: "My ball is out there, but someone else is playing with it. It still exists, my perfect ball, but NOT for me. Someone else gets its perfect bounce, gets to shoot hoops with it. I just HATE thinking of MY ball in someone else's hands."

Hmmm... just change "it" to "her" and... well, it gets kinds creepy.

Time for a little talk about what makes healthy relationships.

I want to make sure he really understands that the "better dead than in someone else's hands" concept is NOT okay when applied to human beings. Capiche? 

So, on that romantic note: Happy Valentine's Day folks!

(Yes, this is my Valentine's post. I know it's a day late. I have a bad cold & feel like crap. At least it's about love. Unlike last year, when I wrote Not a Valentine's Day Post)


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SOC Sunday: Nearly Human

Yup, Sunday again. Technically. It still feels like Saturday to me because I haven't gone to sleep yet. Or rather I should say "haven't gone to bed yet." Because that hour spent semi-sitting up, slumped on the sofa with the TV playing to my closed eyelids was sleep. Sorta.

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Well, I am happy to report that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, and I am, in fact feeling much better. FINALLY. Feeling something like a human being again. SHOCKING.

Not quite human enough, unfortunately, to take the kids sledding, in spite of the inches of snow today. Human enough, however, to have fun tossing snowballs with Ethan on the way to the corner diner where we met his best friend for lunch today,. We scraped fresh snow off the parked cars on the two blocks of our walk and packed it down as best we could.

The snowballs were fluffy, disintegrating as they flew. Which was fine by me as Ethan still has the tendency to make up for accuracy deficits by standing WAY too close when he lobs them.

It was lovely to get out of the house, to snarf down a quick lunch and steal a few minutes of uninterrupted grown-up conversation with my friend, the mother of Ethan;s friend. Sacrificing my iphone to the boys greasy food fingers was so worth it.

And then, Saturday being Saturday, there was basketballl. This week was my turn with Jake, who did not want to leave the cozy confines of home/cat/TV, but I made come out anyway because the wide world must not be ignored.

He kept thinking that every snow-covered car we passed was OUR car, and it distressed him no end that we had not found our car yet, no matter how many times I explained to him that we were, in fact, parked one block away in the OPPOSITE direction of the school he plays basketball in, so would definitely NOT not be seeing our car on our walk there.

But Jake being Jake, he still had to ask about it. Every. parked. car. we. passed. And I also answered the question "What color is our car, Mom?" about 1,000 times on that 10 block walk, too. (It's still green.)

I was worn out by the time we arrived. Getting Jake out of his snowboots and into his sneakers left me wanting to collapse in a puddle. And taking his mittens off reminded him how he had left his other pair at school and nearly set off another crying jag like the one he'd had upon arriving home on Friday. But only nearly. (Thank goodness.)

But still my heart swelled with pride as I heard the coach setting up Jake's new helper this week by telling him: "You'll be paired up with Jacob today, he;s our best shooter." And even though Ethan's games are more exciting and coherent, actually recognizable as "games," there is something so sweet about the special needs division; our kids trying so hard, their one-on-one helpers so kind.

And then afterwards we met up on Broadway with Ethan and Daddy for a snack and slogging home through the snow together. And then, home, the boys even played together for a few minutes -- if you count sitting on each other with the sitee attempting to throw the sitter off to be playing. (And i do, i SO DO!)

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OK, I cheated tonight! Clearly this was longer than 5 minutes - more like 10-15. But it felt to good to feel human enough to want to write, I just couldn't stop. I figure I will be forgiven. (Right, Fadra?)

And now? To bed!
 
New to SOCS?  It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump.  Want to try it?  Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

You can do it, too!  Click on the picture link and let's hear your 5 minutes of brilliance...

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Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Last Saturday, after the boys' basketball games...

Ethan & a friend enjoying a post-game ice cream

Jacob, still moody after the previous night's MASSIVE meltdown

And you thought I couldn't do it! (Hell, I thought I couldn't do it, either.)

And, as usual, I’m linking up to Wordless / Wordful Wednesdays... at Angry Julie Monday... at 5 Minutes for Mom... at live and love...out loud... at Dagmar*s momsense... at Parenting by Dummies.  



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Step by Step

Saturdays, these days, my husband and I divide and conquer to bring the boys to their simultaneous basketball practices, and it was my turn for Jake.

Jacob truly loves basketball and the "Challenger" Special Needs division we finally found for him to play in last year, but was having a hard time sharing the ball after all those months of getting his own when we went to shoot baskets in the schoolyards.

Jake shoots wonderfully well, but the rules of the game, remembering to dribble, the need to pass, to pay attention to what other people on the court are doing... all these things continue to elude him. Autism, you know.

Jake kept chasing after the kids with the balls and yelling "STOP! That's mine!" Cringe.

I try not to interfere, to intervene too much when we're at basketball, try to give him his independence, to not be "that mom" kid-coaching from the sidelines. Yet the actual coaches seemed too busy to deal with this really-not-OK behavior and I couldn't let him terrorize the other kids, who were mostly younger and / or smaller than my giant son.

I kept popping out of my seat, running up to Jake to remind him that game is played with ONE ball and everybody shares it. Or yelling something to that effect when he was within earshot of my seat on the parent bench.

A couple of times he came over to me looking sad, and I kept sending him back into the game after a quick hug or a deep drink of water, reminding him to stay with the other kids wearing red vests and to keep his eyes on the ball.

Jake held it together during practice, drifting in and out of connection with the drills and game. But afterward as we were getting our coats on I saw the eyes blinking, the lip trembling, the sadness welling up; and on it came.

So I sat with my son, sobbing and wailing. I held my son, lost and losing it, his words coming out in a jumbled salad I could not make sense of.

And then in the middle of it all, he looked me in the eyes and asked the most amazing thing:

"What's happening to my brain, Mom?"

WHAT?

This level of self-awareness, recognizing that something in his brain is going haywire?

Monumental.

Unprecedented.

An incredible thing that I feared I would never see.

And then Jake was telling me that he was going to go home and cry at Cocoa the cat, and that then she would be mad at him, and he started to caterwaul anew.

I was trying to piece it together, realizing he might be thinking I was mad at him for having had a hard time in the game, and maybe even mad at him for crying, now.

I kept telling him to look in my eyes and see that I wasn't mad, that no one was mad at him, that I was proud of him for how hard he had tried playing basketball today, that it's fine to cry if he's sad, but that maybe his brain was stuck, and if he wanted to stop crying I would help him.

"Remember to breathe Jacob; slow breaths; in, out; one, two."

He gained his composure, only to lose it again. Again and again. We were going to be late for the movies.

And then one of the coaches came over and praised his shooting abilities, promised he would get more ball time next week.

And maybe my murmured words of love, of soothing, had washed over him enough that they were sinking in.

Or maybe his brain finally stopped misbehaving, let him move on

But suddenly it was OK again.

My boy smiled. Said: "I want to eat popcorn at the movies, Mom."

And so off we went.

And loved the movie as Jake loves all movies, although this movie, Hugo, was particularly lovable. (Paris in the 30's, a history of cinema, what's not to love?)

And when we stopped for a quick grocery shopping before coming home, Jake was remarkably present, helpful. He reminded me that we needed bananas, picked out a nice ripe-but-not-over-ripe bunch himself without any prompting at all.

Hungry for dinner, we hopped a cab home, and as we pulled up in front of our building he said: "Thank you driver, for taking us home!" to the cabbie, more polite by far than his twin ever is.

And so deep into the evening I pondered my son and his question.

A sign that more self-awareness will one day come.

That one day I may actually know my son Jacob's innermost thoughts, a cypher no longer.

Patience is now needed. For this can not be pulled from him, but rather, I must wait for it to blossom.

Wait for his next step, in this dance that he alone knows.

Let him be.

Enough as he is, and embracing what he will become.

Embracing what will come.

I am linking this post up to Be Enough Me Mondays at Just. Be. Enough.

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