Sprite's Keeper

Protecting Our Kids (Or Are We Just Blowing Smoke?)

Hi, I'm Jen. I'm a former smoker. It's been.....carry the 2.....multiply the 3....Hell, I don't know anymore.

(Sometimes, I compare smoking to drinking. You never really quit. You just take REALLY long pauses because if you are weak, you could fall right back into the routine.)

I started when I was 20. I really couldn't tell you why. It pissed off my parents. I was raging against the machine. I was attracted to Joe Camel. Pick one. I was addicted, although I was not as hardcore as others. I could go a couple of days without one before it would draw me in again.

I finally stopped pilfering cigarettes from my best friend when I found out I was pregnant. I haven't touched them since. (John is extremely grateful since he is not a smoker and hated the smell of it on my clothes and hair and basically EVERYTHING I was around. Funny that I never noticed the smell until pregnancy gave me hound dog strength sniffers and then I was repulsed by something that had never really bothered me just months earlier.)

I'm not here to preach about the horrors of smoking. I understand the horrors, I understand the risks, and I understand that the smokers understand this as well. They hear it on a regular basis from the nonsmokers. My best friend, Susan, is a smoker and has been hitting up the cancer sticks since we were an impressionable 16. (I'm trying to remember here, Sue. Let me know if I'm off. I mean, off on this. I know I'm just OFF, but the off I'm referring to is, aw, you know what I mean!) I know she knows how harmful they are, and I would love to see her quit, but I will not hound her with pamphlets when she visits, because I will lose my Starbucks friend. And I'm already losing some Starbucks in my area. And that is sad.

I am writing this post because another blog friend, Lisa, over at Boondocks Ramblings, wrote an interesting post about buying a Curious George book for her son Jonathan, since he seemed to like the monkey with the wandering mind. She looked through the book and saw something in one of the pictures which really is shocking these days, a man sitting on a picnic blanket with his family and smoking. (I'm sure that back in the day this illustration was originally produced, the audience would have been more horrified with the clothes the man was wearing than the burning cigarette.)

I don't think her intention was to call attention to the irresponsible artist who drew that illustration, more to point it out in a Ha!Ha! Look what I found! way since this is something you just don't see in kids' literature anymore.

Yet, I know many mothers personally, who would have placed a call to the publisher and demanded a reprint, recant, and burning of the "offensive" books along with full refund and public apology.

Why is smoking so offensive to parents nowadays? Why is it being rated like a language in the films? I'm going to focus on pop culture here, mostly because Lisa found this picture in a children's book, a popular one at that.

In today's All About Health-minded society, we are constantly reminded about the dangers of nicotine and smoking and the steps Hollywood and the media at large are taking to stop smoking from looking enticing to the virgin-eyed teens (RIGHT.). It's even affecting the ratings system in films so parents can go the extra step to make sure their child won't see the character puffing away on film. (Although they only have to look out the car window on the way home to blow that theory to Hell.)

However...

I find it almost impossible to escape tobacco's history in pop culture and the way it was almost celebrated back in the 60's and prior. Almost every classic movie before then had a major character smoking in it. Women were offered cigarettes from their would be heroes, because it was considered classy and polite. ("Cancer, milady?" "Why, thank you, kind sir.") "Thinking" men needed a cigarette or cigar to occupy their fingers and mouths while they chewed the scenery in the days of method acting. It was cool. ( Did the first shot of Danny Zuuko not have a cigarette hanging out of his mouth in "Grease"?) (And yet so many kids with the ever obsessive parents out there know every line to the movie...Whoa, did I just stumble upon a possible contradiction? Yes, I think I did.)

 Smoking is and always has been a lingering smell in pop culture. It even infiltrated the cornerstone of our most revered childhood dream makers. WALT DISNEY was a notorious chain smoker. (They airbrushed the cigarettes out of the pictures in the 80's to make him look more innocent because EVERY picture had a smoldering cigarette in it.) Smoking made it into the animated classics like "101 Dalmations" where Cruela Deville was puffing away.

No matter how much we try to shield our kids from this stuff, they will see it and notice it and may even imitate it. (Does anyone else remember the bubble gum cigarettes back in the 80's where if you puffed really hard, you could blow sugar smoke? That didn't do any damage, right? Right?)

It's our jobs as parents to educate the kiddies and make sure they understand why they shouldn't smoke. It's our jobs to be as proactive as we can to make sure our children understand the dangers of it and how to react positively to peer pressure.

But when they turn 18, our jobs will become more of a consulting gig, and we will have to take a back seat as they decide for themselves whether or not to ride the tobacco train, and no matter how much we tried to shield them or teach them about it, as my parents did with me, some of them will still go ahead and puff away, as I did.

Maybe, this will all be a non-issue by the time Sprite is old enough to be impacted by it, but I will be honest with her and tell her that Mommy did smoke when she was younger. But Daddy didn't. And hopefully, she'll inherit Daddy's common sense.

Fish Out of Water

Oh, my Land'o'lakes, what have we done?

John, you started it. (But I finished it, so technically, it's a wash.)

After Sprite had a very peaceful night in her Elmo couch, enjoying what I assumed to be a temporary parole from the crib bars, thoughts started to take shape in my mind of a future without the safety of the pen. (I know, I know, I shouldn't think.)

As Sprite played in her room the day after, I kept looking towards the crib. Then my inner voice started talking and had a one sided conversation with my reasoning.

You know, she did fine last night without the crib. And don't forget the crib is convertible, just take the front off and you have a toddler bed. Because, that's what she is, a toddler. It will be very easy to make the change. The kid will be fine. She's growing up and all you're doing is holding up the process. You're almost out of Ziploc bags. There was a coupon in the Costco mailer. Better cut it out while you're looking for the Allen wrench. Shut up, shut up, shut up!

I made up my mind and marched over to find John who would in turn find an Allen wrench since my inner voice neglected to tell me what one looked like, let alone where it was. Once he returned with it (And let me tell you, it looks NOTHING like a wrench, Allen!), I banished Sprite from her room while I made the transformation, turning her nursery into a little girl's room. (You would think John is the hands-on one in this relationship. Nope. All me. I like to build. Bookshelves, tables, drama...)

The whole process took less than 10 minutes. I thought there would be more fanfare than that. I thought it would require time and effort, a major shake down to find the manual, sweat and tears, and at least a cameo appearance by a D-list celebrity. Actually, it took 4 steps of unscrewing and re-screwing of the posts to convert it, mere seconds to remember the manual had been zip-tied to the bottom of her mattress springs and within reaching distance, a few tears as I visualized her falling out of the bed, and a door knock by our neighbor who looks like she could have been in an 80's movie, but is definitely not a celebrity.

Sprite came into her room as I carted out the front slats (which had her aquarium still attached. *Sob!* I used to covet that thing when Sprite was just a month old and hated to be put down. I always used the aquarium since the music would last for 15 minutes so I could eat something/use the bathroom/take a shower/let the dogs out. No more fishies. *Sniff.*). She paused as she took in the new look of her bed/former crib and immediately jumped onto it after realizing she no longer needed Mommy or Daddy to lift her for access.

Last night, she looked excited to be trying her new bed. (Yeah, it's been there since the beginning, but now there's an front entrance. It's new to her.) John decided we should lay out the Elmo couch in front of it in case she had a dream about qualifying for the gymastics portion of the Olympics and pole vaulted herself out of bed.

Sprite watched from her perch on her BRAND NEW toddler bed as we set up the couch and then immediately jumped onto the Elmo couch and snuggled down.

She didn't want to sleep in the bed.

John and I looked at each other. "Maybe she'll climb into the bed after we leave," he suggested. We said our good nights, collected our kisses, and closed her door.

I checked on her 30 minutes later. She was asleep, looking like a party crasher in her own room as she was splaid out on her Elmo pull out while the bed was occupied by the dolls she had thrown up there.

When John and I re-grouped for bed, we confirmed she was probably unsure about the bed seeing as this was a new change. And just like the fishies in the aquarium have a new view of the guest room while we figure out storage, Sprite has a new view of her own situation and is probably trying to adjust to the change as well.

I, for one, am never listening to my inner voice again.

Except for the Ziploc bags. We do need to buy more.

Leap of Faith

I promised myself I wouldn't discuss this. I promised myself I wouldn't open Pandora's box and spill its contents for all the world to see (all 10 of you). I also promised myself that I would not curse in front of Sprite, so, eh.

I am Jewish. (With all my talk of guilt, you probably knew that.) I come from a Reformed (more like really relaxed) Jewish upbringing in which I was a Hebrew school drop out before I turned 10. I have a scientific approach to religion in general, but I believe there is a God because I choose to. There has to be a Higher Power for us to be here. But I digress from that. (And regress, which is actually progress, and I should really try to stay on tangent here.. I guess.) (Sorry, couldn't help it.)

John is not Jewish. Yes, his last name is Cohen, but he is Catholic. Born and raised in a Catholic household that went to church every Sunday and Wednesday. His parents are still very dedicated to the Church they're affiliated with and even help with the masses.

When I first met John, I caught the Cohen and thought to myself, "Ooh, a nice looking Jewish boy!" In fact, I didn't believe him when he told me he could speak fluent Spanish. ( I was wrong on dos counts.) But, he had nice eyes, so I started dating him.

Well, guess what? We fell in love. When we started talking marriage, the topic of religion came up now and then, but never really raised too much of an issue. We were married by a Notary and I changed my name. My relatives didn't question it either, most of them assuming I had not gone the gentile route and married me a goyem since I went from one Jewish sounding last name to another. (In theory, since he is a Cohen, I'm only bending the rules, not breaking them, right?) (Right?)

Religion reared it's holy head when we found out we were pregnant. Which way would the faith pendulum swing? Dum dum dum..

We looked into our histories and discovered some interesting things:

John's family actually originated in Austria (which is where his dad and his brother got their brilliant blue eyes) WAY back when as Jewish Cohen's and ended up in Venezuela and Dominican Republic where one of the then Jewish Cohen's met and married a Catholic woman. In the Catholic and Jewish faith, religion follows the mother, therefore Catholic Cohen's ensued. (A lot of them. I mean, one of John's ancestors had around 69 kids according to my father-in-law, who I thought was teasing me at first, but no one has clued me in yet as to if he really was kidding or not. And from what I understand, there's a whole lot of them in the Dominican phone book, so there may be some truth to that..)

No such adventures on my side. My religious tree looks like a telephone pole as both my parents were born and raised Jewish. I did the dreidel spins, stared wistfully at other people's Christmas trees, and celebrated the 7 days, 8 nights of Hannakuh (also spelled Hanukkah, Channakuh, etc. Pick one.).

So, knowing we were about to bring a little girl into the world, the families started buzzing about whether or not she would be baptized or named by a rabbi or, gulp!, live in blasphemy.

John and I weighed all the options and talked at length about how to resolve this holy issue and keep it from turning into a holy war.

During these discussions, I found out some interesting things about John's upbringing. And this is coming from him, so, if any of it is wrong, it's all on him.

As an infant in Venezuela, he was circumcised by a Mohel (sometimes pronounced moyil). For those unfamiliar with Judaism, a Mohel is a specially trained, um, circumciser who does the procedure as part of a religious ceremony in which prayers are said over the baby boy as he gets his bits hacked at with a butter knife. (I kid, I kid!) (Steak knife.) (Again, for this and this alone, SO happy we have a girl.)

So, John actually has dabbled in the Jewish faith. (Well, a part of him dabbled in the Jewish faith.) (What, poor taste?)

Anyway, moving forward, John was baptized and raised Catholic and that's where it counts.

When we made the decision to raise Sprite in the Jewish faith, we made a couple of provisions as well.

1. She would be exposed to both faiths as much as possible and we would celebrate Christmas as well as Hannakuh. (i.e. Santa will be making a stop at our home this year. He may ignore me, but the fat man is gonna give my little girl presents if I have to hold Rudolph hostage.)

2. She would be raised with a belief in God, as both of our faiths agree on it.

3. I will not stop her from going to church with her grandparents when she's in town for it and will also encourage her to go to church on the special occasions like Christmas Eve (which is actually quite beautiful).

My only limitations are her being offered communion, not because of what it represents, but because of what it represents. (Hm, this needs explanation. I know what communion represents, but I consider it more an of insult to the church and us looking ignorant if my daughter is taking the holy wafer when she's not baptized.)

So, we made it official. 3 weeks after her birth, we had a baby naming in which she was given a Hebrew name and officially introduced to the Jewish community. (A small little get together held at my parents' home where the family Rabbi said some prayers over her and everyone shouted "Mazel Tov!", and we ate. And ate. I called it a "Bagel and a Blessing.") My in-laws were in attendance to support us in our decision and this has brought all of our families closer together.

John calls Sprite and me his Jewish girls and my joke is now that I kept looking for the Jew in his family and it turns out it was me.

We're happy with our decision. Sprite is happy and she would be happy no matter what spiritual decision we make, because right now, the only thing that counts in her eyes is that Mommy and Daddy are there for her and each other.

Amen.

(Ooh, was that Amen snarky even though I didn't mean it to be? Oh, now I'm feeling guilty!)

(I am so gonna be smote for this.)

(Dude, my mom just called as I was finishing this. How does she DO that?)