Let's start with the good news. Because like last week's outfit, you have to hang your hat somewhere and I'm all about the silver lining.

The company was good, the egg hunt in the backyard a happy diversion and I didn't burn the ham. (Normally, we wouldn't worry about my ability to make a ham. I mean, HAM. Puh-lease. But on Saturday night I walloped a roast within an inch of its life and made very wet jerky so I skittered into Easter with a bit of a twitch and shake. Happily, all was well...)

The Menu:
Ham with cherry/orange Grand Marnier glaze
Scalloped potatoes
Mashed sweet potatoes
Asparagus with a citrus cream sauce
Stuffed tomatoes
Sweet baby peas
Homemade bread and fresh butter
Margarita Cheesecake
Chocolate Pudding Pie
Served with: Sangria, water and then coffee service.

Afterwards, we all went out for a waddle. We waddled up the block to the big park.

The playground structure was teeming with kids and parents, so my mom and Bear stopped there while the rest of us waddled the around the park.

By the time we got back, about 15 minutes later, my mother's face was a thundercloud.

Two brothers, aged about 8 and the other about 5, were bullying Bear.

The small one was calling Bear names to get him to chase him and then the big one would come up behind Bear and try to hurt him.

My mother saw what there were up to and stuck close. The small one didn't like that and kept telling my mother to go away and sit down. (How sick is that, telling the grown-up to go away so they could have my son all to themselves?) But even sticking close, her dogged interventions had little effect.

They didn't have any fear of her. They knew exactly how nasty they could be, where the line was. Thankfully, Bear grew pissed-off and marched away, telling them they weren't his friends and he didn't want to play with them.

Bear went off to sit at a picnic bench and he and my mom were sitting there as the rest of us came around the track.

The two boys didn't give up. They were still trying to engage Bear. We could see the little one running over to them, taunting Bear right in front of my mom's face. The big one stood watching from the jungle gym, and even I thought he was creepy and menacing. Such a little kid to have such a nasty expression.

Mom said it was like watching a sick kind of con act. You could tell that they had done this before, the little brother enticing the kids and the big brother hurting them.

As I approached, Bear got irritated and marched over to the where the bigger brother was at the top of a little ladder to confront him. The big brother started swinging his foot as my kid climbed, and you could see the "accidental" foot in my son's face coming.

I shouted, and jogged up. "Hey, big kid, it's time for my son to go home. Do me a favor and don't let him up there!" Big kid looked at me, the 4 adults behind me, and my mother approaching from the other direction, and stopped swinging his foot.

I grabbed my son under the arms and carried him right off the ladder and over to the path, where his dad and Godmother started tickling his exposed tummy. We headed home.

As we left the playground, Bear told us what happened. He told us about how the boys that they weren't his friends and he'd walked away from them.

"How do you feel?" I asked, after we all told him that walking away was the right thing to do.

"Good," Bear said.

We were reminded that in karate class, Bear has been taught how to deal with people who want to hurt him and he showed us how to break away and run somewhere safe and shout for help. That he knows there are bad people in the world.

The problem is that we never told him those bad people could be his own size.

Today, I have to sit down and warn his babysitter about those boys. My stomach hurts. I'm mad. I'm sad. My son is only 4 years old.

But yesterday signaled the beginning of the end of innocence.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 02:15 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 740 words, total size 4 kb.

1 My question, where the hell were their parents, and how could they possibly allow that behavior? My son is only three and I keep a sharp eye at the playground too. When we were visiting my mom in FL, there was this large group of older children throwing rocks, yes rocks around the playground, not pebbles, big rocks. No parent in sight. I tell you what, I had no issue telling them not once but twice to stop. They got all pissy with me, but they did. Man, I was just fuming. Sounds like bear has a good head on his shoulders.

Posted by: A.K. at March 28, 2005 02:37 AM (RNpdA)

2 I asked my mom that, too. She said that the boys' parents didn't seem to be anywhere. There was 2 other littler kids, younger than Bear, and their dad stuck VERY close to those two with an eagle eye on the bully kids. I wish we'd thought to ask them where their parents were, and make a bit of scene. I wish I was that outrageous, that it would have occurred to me. My only instinct was to physically grab my son to safety, before I even knew what was going on. I feel like a co-conspirator for not doing more to stand up to those boys.

Posted by: Elizabeth at March 28, 2005 02:45 AM (KaLQV)

3 yeah, cause I think I would have grabbed them by the ears, dragged them to their homes and told their parents to keep their brats off the playground if they can't play well with others.

Posted by: kalisah at March 28, 2005 03:29 AM (B6gHW)

4 and, ummm...not to get off track, but YOU COOKED ALL THAT???

Posted by: kalisah at March 28, 2005 03:29 AM (B6gHW)

5 The trouble with those neighborhood parks is that lazy parents will often let their kids walk over alone, especially if there's an older kid to "chaperone". I've had similar experiences at our park. The kids weren't necessarily malicious, but they were pushing, throwing things, running too fast, and generally being heedless of the little kids. There actually was a stupid little girl at the park one day who kept throwing trash at my son. Her mother was right there but had her head buried in a book. I've never confronted anyone yet. I just tell my son it's time to go home and play. It's hard to know what's the right thing to do. It could be that the kid's parents have no idea how mean he is, or it could be that they're even meaner, and that's where he learned it.

Posted by: notdonnareed at March 28, 2005 03:32 AM (82Da3)

6 To asnwer Kalisah's question: I planned the meal, bought the groceries, and made the ham, asparagus, peas and pudding pie. I made the roux for the cream sauce and let me friend finish seasoning it. She also made the cheesecake and fresh bread, her mom made the potatoes, CD and she made the sweet potatoes, my mom made the tomatoes, and Bear helped with sauce. Could I have made the meal? I have previous years. But this way was MUCH more fun (and sane) I must say ... and delicious!

Posted by: Elizabeth at March 28, 2005 03:46 AM (KaLQV)

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After such a dramatic week, it has been a very normal weekend. We've been cleaning, and shopping, and doing chores. CD and Bear have once again taken shovel and muscle to the tree stump on the edge of the driveway. And once again, they have turned back with that tree stump still firmly in the ground.

We figure it will take chains. And a 4X4. Maybe dynamite. Or a beaver.

I was up last night for a few hours, thinking.

It's difficult for me to think that somehow, the idea of a post-nup has demonized CD. I have done something, communicated something, wrong. And I don't know how to fix it.

My husband is not an American citizen. We did plan to sign a post-nup that had our agreement about Bear's nationality and raising in it.

We've both been exposed at what break-ups can do to children in multi-national relationships, so it just seemed like a reasonable thing to do. We just never followed through. It's hung on the to-do list for years.

In the shifting landscape of our marriage, we've said and done things we both regret. But we've always come back to our senses quickly. Even if we couldn't solve the problem, we found a way to be kind to each other.

But what if we couldn't?

So we thought about and agreed that Bear would have both his parents within a 50 mile radius. And be raised in America unless we both agreed otherwise. But be a citizen of both countries, and be exposed to both languages and customs.

We just never wrote it down.

Is it coming up now because things are rough? Yeah.

Is it coming up now because CD imagined a worst-case scenario and it scared him? Yeah.

Do I wish things were better between us? Hell, yeah.

I do, with all my heart.

I knew a guy once. Gorgeous. Charismatic. Successful. Promiscous. Always wore a condom. Always.

"Elizabeth," he once told me over lunch (just as friends. I knew better.) "You'd be amazed how many women try and convince me it's not necessary. Daft. Maybe crafty. I actually left an apartment once because she insisted we leave it off. No doing."

I never understand those women either. Protection in and of itself should never insinuate there's something irreedemably wrong. Sometimes all it means is: 'just in case'.

This piece of paper doesn't make CD a bad guy. I do not, in any way, resent him for asking for it. It was my idea in the first place, all those years ago.

Sure, I get mad at CD for many reasons. But not that he asked that we execute the post-nup before I take his son 4 hours away for a couple of months.

I can't imagine why I would say no.

So I was up for a few hours last night. Wondering if maybe I complained too much. Vented too hard. And I don't know what to do. I feel bad that anyone would think I was sleeping with the enemy. It's not how I feel. Isolated, angry, tearful? Yes. Pushed to the edge of the cliff and looking down sometimes? Yes. Scared? Yes, Yes. Uncertain, sad? Yes, again.

But no, not given up. No.

*sigh*

Posted by: Elizabeth at 07:09 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Hi, does anyone know a good family lawyer in the Chicago area?

I need someone competent and reasonable.

Please email me if you have any recommendations, thanks!

Posted by: Elizabeth at 03:11 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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RP, another MuNu blogger, has 2 amazing children - a girl and a boy. The girl is a little older, although they are close in age. They are close, period. Recently, he posted about how they hold hands in the car. Now he has a picture up.

I think about how my little brother and I weren't always close, but how we used to hold hands in the night when we were afraid. He would slip into my room in the dark, and sit on the floor by my bed, and reach up with his hand.

God, I miss the us we used to be.

Bear wants a sibling so desperately that it hurts. He turns friends into sisters and brothers. He begs for us to give him a baby to love.

I wish we had.

Somedays I feel like I have failed him in every part of my being by consigning him to life as an only child.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 07:15 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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