Before each of our sons was born, husband #1 and I would discuss what they would look like, which of our traits they would inherit. We knew they would have blue eyes because we both have blue eyes, but beyond that, it was all up in the air. Would they be able to balance a checkbook like their father or would they round up to the nearest dollar like their mother? Would they like sports or would they be musical? It is easy to have this discussion when you have the innocence of new parents. Of course, I am quick to blame all of the negative stuff on his side of the family (well, because it is true), but some of the characteristics are quite obvious to those who know both of us.
That being said, two weeks ago I listed the new/different things for me to worry about with son #2 going to the West Coast in lieu of Israel. Silly me, thinking I had them all covered, and believe me, I know that I am not in control of anything. (No, I will not insert a self-deprecating comment here having to do with food intake.)
Things were going along smoothly (because no news is good news, right?). He never called us because he turned his phone in. Now, I don’t have girls so I don’t know if they are as ridiculous as boys, but my son decided to participate in a contest to see who could NOT get his phone back the longest. (Please don’t ask what the “prize” was for this contest; I still have yet to get an answer to that question.) This means we rarely heard from him. We would see pictures he was “tagged” in on Facebook, and we would hear from his friends; once he called us from a friend’s phone, but his familiar number never showed up on our caller ID. I even offered to pay for his friend’s phone bill because I kept texting him about the status of my kid.
And then we got a call, “Hi, Mom, um, they are taking me to the Urgent Care because I got a sunburn. It is sort of bad and I sort of can’t walk; but don’t worry.”
What?!?!? One, you never say “don’t worry” to your mother and two, “what?!?!?!” My questions outnumbered his statements by 40 to 1. Starting with, “I packed you all of that sunscreen, didn’t you put it on??” That was followed by several expletives about how I failed him as a mother and how could I get to Vegas to help him, but that it was really his father’s fault because why did he get sunburned so badly? Because he has his father’s Snow White skin? (Look at that, I just compared husband #1 to a Disney character…I guess Snow White is better than one of the dwarfs…). And of course it was going to end up being his father’s fault, even if he didn’t have his skin tone because everything is his fault.
The problem with all of the technology we have today is that he was able to send me a picture of his burnt legs from his friend’s smart phone (since he handed in his dumb phone, which means that even if he had his phone, it doesn’t have a camera, so I guess him not having a phone didn’t really make a difference). We won’t go into the photos. They were really, really bad. I sent them to my friend from high school, a guy I have not spoken to in 26 years, and that is exactly the last time I spoke to him, 26 years and a lifetime ago. He is a doctor in Vegas and his wife is a nurse. This proved to be quite helpful because they helped me help son #2 get the medical care he needed. And just to point out that there are still some really special people in this world, his wife, a woman I have never met and have never spoken to, showed up at the burn unit with donuts to check on the well-being of my son.
In the end, though in pain, but healing, son #2 is doing much better. We made him lose the contest and take back his phone so I could continue to annoy him on a daily basis and make sure his legs haven’t fallen off—because that is my job. Being far away from him has not been easy, but I have eaten my way through it. And the lesson we learn from this column is WEAR SUNSCREEN EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!! (This message was approved by the wife of my favorite red-headed dermatologist.)
Credits for the title of this article go to husband #1 for being so clever.
Banji Latkin Ganchrow is a Teaneck resident and writer who enjoys traveling across the country by car with her husband and three sons. She is also the author of the blog holycrapimgonnabe40 and hopes to, one day, write a best-selling novel and appear on the Ellen Show.
By Banji Latkin Ganchrow
