Sock Trauma

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

This is the refrain of Oscar as we trudge up the hill on the way to swim lessons at the rec center.

Is it the hill bringing him down?

No.

The trudging?

No.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!

Is it the socks?

Yes! How did you guess?

Apparently Oscar is being tortured by his socks. I made him wear socks since it is only about 35 degrees out, and they are evil, badly fitting socks that refuse to stay up where he wants.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

I can't stand it either. Oscar's whining/complaining is almost more than I can bear. With three kids, sometimes I feel like someone is constantly whining or complaining or crying around me. Especially when we are tired. Like today. I would like to turn around and explode, but I suck it up, and try for the ignore approach.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

What is amazing to me is our capacity as humans to stand - anything. In instances like sock trauma with my kids, an image of the WWII concentration camp survivors comes to my mind. A photo is burned in my mind of a bunch of starving, skeletal men in beards peering out of bunk beds. How did they stand it? How did they keep going day after day with no clothes, little food, rampant disease, working literally to death, living in the midst of insanity?

How did they stand it? What else could they done? What choice did they really have?

Life hands us things that we must stand. Like sock trauma and whining and concentration camps. With each delivery of my children, there was always a point pushing my kids out, when I felt like I could not endure another second. With Tildy I specifically remember bouncing up and down in bed with her head lodged halfway out in the middle of the burn, "Get out! Stop hurting me! You are ripping me in two!" The nurses were there immediately to make sure that stand it I would - before I gave my daughter brain damage.

I stood it.

Luckily for us, most of the time we are not caught in life's choices midway through child delivery. Life usually presents choices. We do not have to stand most of what we do not want to stand.

I mowed lawns for several summers in college. This was the best job even if it did contribute to the weathered appearance of me today. To walk around getting exercise all day, breathing in freshly cut grass, dreaming my thoughts in my head while listening on my Walkman to Sinead O'Connor - and to be paid for this temporary bliss!

But there was one thorn in my side. I believe her name was Lynn. She was a co-worker. A complaining co-worker. After each lawn section was completed we would load up our mowers and ourselves into a trailer and drive to another section to begin anew. This was a chance for us to take a break and socialize. But for Lynn it was a chance to compare notes on everything bad about this job.

Lynn wasn't my child. I didn't have to stand it. So one day I did explode. "Stop your whining! If you don't like this job, go find another one! I love this job, and you are ruining it for me!"

Amazingly enough, she listened. I no longer had to stand Lynn. And she no longer had to stand mowing lawns. I think she got a job in the library. Probably she had to be quiet there.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

I am still sucking, sucking, sucking it up. I am ignoring, ignoring, ignoring.

And finally I am rewarded for my patience.

Joyful quiet.