My daughter’s favorite stuffy has been bedridden with a terrible cold for two days now. She’s also started writing/singing songs about needing to stay home to stay well.
We’ve had to walk a fine line between being open and honest with her — and keeping her at peace. But invariably every time we have to explain something new (why play dates are cancelled... why we aren’t going to preschool... why we can’t go to the playground... why we can’t go to restaurants... why we can’t go visit grandma...), the stress digs in a little deeper, no matter how delicately we deliver the words.
Just a reminder that even the littlest humans are indeed still human, and this is a tough time for them, too.
So be patient. Walk away if you get angry, and give them a hug even when their sadness defies all reason. Do whatever you can to make the most of this time together, and when all else fails, remember to give yourself a break, too.
The Dying of the Light
It has been two months since my father took his last breath. Two months, and still the most innocuous of scenes can trigger a gut punch that renders me nauseous and exhausted, craving sleep to shut out the memories.
Yesterday some loose skin on my daughter’s dry lips had that very effect. I don’t think I will ever look at faces the way I did before.
And I appreciate the beauty of a sip of water more than ever, knowing that some day there might come a time when I want nothing more and yet: cannot swallow.
Does anyone ever truly go “gentle” into that good night? Years ago when I first read Dylan Thomas’ best-known poem — quite possibly in my father’s seventh grade English class — I thought the poet’s words were solely a command to his father.
But now, a little wiser and certainly more weary, I see the poem’s “rage” in an entirely new light.
Two months have passed. And I am seething.
Lost Between Worlds
This was my first trip to my hometown without a dad to visit (memorial services notwithstanding). It felt upside down and incomplete, like holding a glass to your lips and expecting one drink, but finding yourself instead tasting another. The two flavors — one a ghost, the other your reality — at odds between your brain and your tongue as you fight to understand: What tyranny is this?
On Caroll Spinney's Passing
Caroll Spinney with Big Bird, his largest creation.
AP
One of my earliest memories as a child is being sucked through a clear plastic tube – a la those pneumatic tubes that bank drive-ups use – and zipped through a hospital, naked and exposed for all of the world to see while I screamed at the top of my lungs for someone to let me out.
Scratch that. One of my earliest NIGHTMARES as a child – one that continued to haunt me well into adulthood – was the result of being alone in a children’s hospital, my parents unable to be there all day, every day, with solo trips to CT scans and MRI machines leaving me with a lifelong fear of confined spaces and surly nurses.
It was a scary time for me, and it left a deep mark I still can’t entirely shake.
But there was one bright light. It was yellow, covered in soft feathers, and gifted to me by my big brother, who was visibly holding back tears as he gave it to me to keep me safe at the hospital.
It was a Big Bird doll in honor of my favorite Sesame Street character (the fact that he became my hospital buddy made me love him all the more). I have vague recollections of talking to him, and him to me, my little brain processing all the lessons I’d learned from the show and applying them to my new, terrifying world.
I remember, too, when my family moved a few years later, and that doll was somehow lost in the shuffle. Whether my parents donated him or tossed him and thought I wouldn’t notice or we just never unpacked that box, I don’t know, but I remember feeling so sad, so alone, when I couldn’t find him.
I felt a little like that today when I heard about Caroll Spinney’s passing. It’s so strange how the death of a celebrity – of someone we’ve never met but feel like we know – hits us in the gut. And though I’m sure Big Bird will continue to live on, this is the end of an era. Time is passing. Lives are passing.
And I find myself wishing, perhaps now more than ever, that I had something – anything – to bring me that same level of solace I once found in a tiny Big Bird doll.
Mis-Lead: Toxic Metal Continues to Find Its Way into Children's Products
Nothing says “sweet dreams” quite like a lead-laced sleeping bag.
One of the most upsetting things for me, as a first-time parent, was realizing my daughter’s first-ever sippy/straw cup contained lead paint. I’d spent HOURS looking for the perfect cup — one that stored her drink in glass (because of all the gross chemicals that leach into water from plastic); had a silicone straw (for the same reason); and yet was encased to prevent breaking if thrown or dropped. So when I discovered a cup from a “green” company that ticked all of those boxes, I felt like I’d hiked to the top of a parenting Everest.
That bubble burst in a (not-so) glorious fashion a few months later when a friend sent me an article that confirmed the unthinkable: the demarcations on the glass portion of said sippy cup were done with lead paint. And the silicone straw? It contained cadmium.
I was livid. Frustrated. Upset. How was this even possible? Isn’t lead paint — particularly for items INFANTS will come into contact with — banned? Would there be a recall? Was the company — which sold and continues to sell many of its products at Whole Foods — going to issue a massive apology, be completely ashamed, and explain away the matter as a manufacturing error?
The answers astounded me: there would be no recall. Having lead paint on a surface infants and toddlers drink from is somehow still legal (there are certain restrictions, but they’re a joke, particularly when you consider the amount of lead that is safe for babies and toddlers is ZERO).
Worse yet, even though the company (Green Sprouts) offered to replace the glasses with “paint free” ones for free, there was no real apology (and certainly not a recall). Rather, they explained it away as “within legal limits.” And I say again: NO AMOUNT OF LEAD IS “SAFE” FOR ANYONE, LEAST OF ALL SMALL CHILDREN. Even small amounts of lead exposure, particularly for infants and toddlers, can cause intellectual disabilities, brain damage, kidney failure and possibly death.
Lead paint should have gone the way of dinosaurs, blast into extinction by the meteor of public awareness. But instead: it persists — presumably because it’s dirt cheap — and even companies with “green” in their name and mission continue to use it with reckless abandon.
Skip ahead two years. I’m at Walmart looking for a camping chair for my daughter when I stumble upon this adorable rocket ship sleeping bag from Ozark Trail (Walmart’s own line of outdoor gear). It feels soft, like cotton, and since my daughter is currently obsessed with all things pertaining to space, it seemed like the perfect purchase. I was trying to figure out what the lining was made out of when I instead found a tag indicating the sleeping bag (for some inexplicable reason) contains lead and “can be harmful if chewed.”
All of the anger I felt two years ago came flooding back. Like many three-year olds, my daughter still puts WAAAYYY too many things in her mouth, and the odds of her eventually suckling on her sleeping bag are pretty high. So while on one hand I’m grateful they at least had the wherewithal/legal foresight to mark the bag with this disclaimer — our sippy cup manufacturer gave no such notice — I’m still beyond upset that lead is still widely used in consumer goods, particularly those made for children.
This. Is. Not. O. K.
So how do we make it stop? We could storm the legal bodies that set the limits (namely the CPSC, in the case of consumer goods), but no one really seems to listen to anyone unless money is exchanging hands. And let’s be honest: whether out of necessity or simply the desire to save, the vast majority of consumers are more likely to roll the dice on a cheaper product, rather than invest in a more expensive item that has been rigorously tested and certified to not contain harmful materials. Such products do exist in some consumer categories, but they are cost-prohibitive for many families (infuriating when you consider lead shouldn’t be allowed in any products regardless of price tag, and no companies should allow it under the flag of “well, it meets [lackluster] government regulations”) .
So what is a consumer to do?
For starters, look closely at product labels. If it has a “contains lead” warning, don’t buy it. If it includes a warning about how it doesn’t meet safety requirements for the state of California — the state with the strictest regulations — don’t buy it. Companies make merchandising decisions based on sales. If we keep buying it, they’ll keep making it. If we don’t buy it, they’ll eventually stop. It’s economics 101.
And if you buy something with no such warning label that is later determined to contain anything unsafe: raise a stink. Call them. Write them. Demand they do better, and stop buying them until they do.
Because contrary to many idioms, “love” isn’t the universal language — money is. And until we start speaking with our wallets, products containing lead and other harmful materials will continue to find their onto store shelves.