Hi Swistle,

I know you sometimes post reader questions, and this came to mind while reading your post about Rob coming home from college and the dynamics between an older child and parents. I also know you had a hard time with your mother-in-law.

I commented that, as the mother of all boys, I have a huge fear—my biggest parenting fear, in fact—that my boys will all marry women who dislike me or don’t care about having a relationship with me, and I will end up not having a close or satisfying relationship with my adult sons (or grandkids, for that matter.). Right now, my boys are all still little enough that they worship me and I am the center of their world, and I know that all goes away and that’s natural, but I hate to think that someday these little boys will end up like my husband is with his mother: frequently annoyed and rather distant.

Let me explain: I have a very annoying mother-in-law. I won’t go into the many, many examples I could share (which are endlessly entertaining to my friends), but she is a strong mix of passive-aggressive and undermining. She also possesses some of my most disliked personality flaws, including being braggy and two-faced. She certainly doesn’t think I worship my husband enough, and that he is above and beyond what I could ever deserve. We are very different in pretty much every way.

As a result, I’m sure I have complained and griped about her to my husband more than my fair share, but he agrees with me on all points and now feels much closer to my family. (I am biased, but I do think my parents and siblings are pretty darn great.) He has actually told me that he feels closer to my siblings than his, that he respects my parents opinions more and prefers to get their advice on things instead, and so on. Which is great for me now, but I fear that karma is going to bite me and I’m going to end up living the rhyme, “A son is a son till he marries his wife, but a daughter’s a daughter for the rest of my life.” It certainly feels true to me now.

So, for debate—this is long, please feel free to cut out all the backstory—what makes for a bad or good mother-in-law? What can we moms do to avoid those strained relationships with our future in-laws? I am heartened to know that my mom had a wonderful relationship with my paternal grandma, and I know there are other cases like that. But—what makes for those good and bad relationships? To be fair, my MIL was not a bad mom—very affectionate and fawning and permissive and special snow-flakey, but not a bad mom. She loves her kids a lot. I feel certain that my MIL believes she is actually an *excellent* mother and mother-in-law, and would be absolutely baffled to hear anything to the contrary. Is being self-aware enough?? How do I know whether I am self-aware? Maybe I, too, am actually a super annoying person?!

Thanks!

I am RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. The discussion has come up often with various of my friends, as our children approach the era of bringing new people legally into our families. How can we avoid being Bad Mothers-in-Law, when surely the bad mothers-in-law we know did not SET OUT to be terrible, and yet they STILL ARE?

(A digression already, when we have hardly even gotten started: I am going to be talking primarily about mothers-in-law, because in our society the mother-in-law relationship is considered the fraught one, and the father-in-law relationship is not. An individual father-in-law can have serious faults, but we don’t talk about fathers-in-law as a group the way we talk about mothers-in-law. This could be yet another area where women are held to a different/higher standard—like when female politicians must be likeable and have pleasant voices and answer questions about how they’re taking care of their children, while male politicians needn’t do any of those things. Or it could be that women in general really do act differently in this role than men do, and/or that fathers-in-law are just as problematic but in ways our society doesn’t criticize/punish them for. It is worth noting that in my first marriage, my father-in-law was difficult and manipulative, and my mother-in-law was pleasant and friendly—and yet at the time, I blamed her for the issues. In my second marriage, my mother-in-law drove me up a wall but on the other hand my father-in-law had almost nothing to do with us or his grandchildren, except to call every couple of years and try to get us to make him feel better about how bad he felt about being so terrible, so I’d say he was actually much worse. Anyway. Back to the post. I had just finished asking how on earth we were going to avoid being bad mothers-in-law, when presumably no one SET OUT to be a bad mother-in-law and yet many of them WERE.)

I was particularly perplexed by the way my mother-in-law considered herself to be an EXCELLENT mother-in-law. She would tell me about her sister-in-law and what a dreadful time her daughters-in-law had with her, and how lucky I was. How LUCKY I was. Meanwhile I was spending huge portions of her visits DAYDREAMING ABOUT UNTRACEABLE POISONS. When she died unexpectedly (NOT FROM UNTRACEABLE POISON), I was SUFFUSED WITH HAPPINESS!! and I still think of it now from time to time, with happy feelings of relief and luckiness at having been spared. We do not want our sons- and daughters-in-law SUFFUSED WITH HAPPINESS and FEELING RELIEVED AND LUCKY when we die! How how how can we avoid this??

(Well, and it’s not as scary as what I’m working myself up to, here. In-laws are for the most part non-chosen family members, and so it’s normal for them to be, er, not what we’d choose. And yet many of us accept that and adjust to it and cope with it and stay polite and everything is basically fine, and everyone is doing their best to get along, and no one is swooning with delight but also no one is daydreaming about untraceable poisons. I had a particularly bad experience with my mother-in-law, but that’s not the usual. Some in-laws feel friendly toward each other! Some of them even love each other devotedly! Some prefer their in-laws to their own actual family members! But it’s understandable that we would worry about the less-favorable outcomes and hope to do what we can to prevent them.)

One problem is that the whole situation is EXTREMELY DEPENDENT on the personality combinations involved. That is, I am willing to conceive of a person who might have married Paul and found his mother delightful. His mother did not like me very much, and our personalities were not a good match; some of her most aggravating qualities might not have been brought out at all if she’d had a different sort of daughter-in-law, or might have been brought out but not perceived as aggravating, or might have been perceived as aggravating but then swiftly and decisively dealt with. There could be areas where neither of us were at fault: our personalities just didn’t work out well together.

But also, my mother-in-law really was an oblivious and difficult person. That is, I can write some of this off as personality conflicts, no one’s fault, etc., but she was the kind of person who, with a topic as minor as “how to cook taco meat,” thought of there as being one Right Way (her way) and a whole bunch of Stupid Ways—not DIFFERENT ways but STUPID ways. She would tell stories about other people (often they were pointed stories about how those people did something I happened to also do), and she’d roll her eyes and make scoffing sounds about any decisions that were different than hers, and she’d say “It was just so STUPID!,” and make closing remarks like “Well, but they didn’t ask me!” as if that made her a reasonable, accepting person resigned to her fate as Cassandra, always right but never consulted/believed.

My hope is that we are starting from a place where we already know not to do this. And that as we get older, we will remain aware that there are many different right ways to live a life, and that those ways suit different people, and that two people can live very differently indeed (even including the way they cook taco meat) and still both be living the Right Way for them. And that we will able to apply that point of view to our daughters- and sons-in-laws as broadly and lovingly and supportively as we would want our mothers- and fathers-in-law to apply it to us. And that we can try not to be actively difficult people. And that our children will not bring actively difficult people into our lives. This is a lot of hopes.

I share your worry about getting a son-in-law or daughter-in-law who actively badmouths me to my child and turns my child against me. Basically I am worried I will get the same thing in a daughter/son-in-law that I had in a mother-in-law: someone who thinks there is one Right way to do things and all the other ways (definitely including mine) are Stupid, and that this should be regularly and scoffingly pointed out to my child until he/she agrees and scorns me for it. I guess this means I am hoping I have children who grow up understanding that just because they prefer to do things a certain way doesn’t mean preferring to do things a different way is stupid/wrong/gross/bad. And that if my children DO understand that, they will not be as likely to link their lives to people who think otherwise. Though attraction is a marvel, and makes all kinds of combinations happen.

Another concern I have is that the very ways we consider ourselves delightfully Not Difficult could be THE VERY THINGS that drive our children and their partners up a wall. My mother-in-law considered herself SUCH an easy houseguest, because unlike her parents she didn’t expect us to give up our bed for her—but “giving the guest the best bed in the house” was not a concept I was familiar with in my extended family, so I failed to appreciate her graciousness in not demanding to sleep in my bed. (Also, she mentioned it every time she visited, which made it seem like maybe she DID want us to give up our bed.) And there was a whole interesting category of things where she would say proudly that she didn’t need to be entertained, she didn’t need special meals cooked—but then she did need to be entertained and she did need special meals cooked, it’s just that her idea of entertainment and special cooking were not the same as mine, so what she saw as low-maintenance (she thought everyone should be eating salt-free and low-fat, so it was not special that she needed those kinds of meals) I saw as high-maintenance, and I don’t know if there was any way around that. Or wait, actually I do know the way around that: I think the key may be to avoid bragging about how easy we are, and to avoid assuming we’re easy and delightful.

I worry too because sometimes I see “Can’t Win” talk going on with relationships like these: it’s easy to do it when we don’t like someone or find the relationship difficult (see also: Bitch Eating Crackers). Like, if a mother-in-law visits, she’s a burden and an intrusion; but if she doesn’t, she doesn’t care about her grandchildren and she’s wrong for expecting people to travel to her. If she sends gifts, she’s sending things no one wants, and/or spending either too much or too little, and/or buying things WE wanted to buy the children, and/or buying things we didn’t want the children to have, and so on; if she doesn’t, she doesn’t even care enough to send gifts to her own grandchildren / doesn’t even care enough to mark their special occasions. If she asks for updates/photos, she’s demanding and needy; if she doesn’t, she doesn’t care and isn’t involved. Can’t win. I tried to correct that with my attitude toward my own mother-in-law: if she did something I didn’t like, I’d think “Would I be any happier if she did something else instead, or would I find a way to criticize her no matter what?” This led me to give credit where credit was due: she visited often and was involved with her grandchildren, which was GOOD; she sent gifts and cards and letters, which was GOOD; she was interested in updates and photos, which was GOOD. I’m going to try to remember to apply this also to my future sons- and daughters-in-law, and avoid thinking of them in Can’t Win ways if we don’t happen to like each other very much.

Okay, do we have a rough plan here?

1. We can emphasize to our children (and model it in the way we speak of others) that there are different Right Ways to live for different people: that two people can live differently and yet both be living exactly the right way for their own lives.

2. We can try to remember this ourselves as we get older, and not fall into the trap of thinking that younger people need us to tell them how to live exactly like we did/do.

3. We can be aware of the odd dynamics inherent to the whole “building family out of people who didn’t used to be family” concept, and expect to need to do our share to make these relationships go smoothly, and not panic if the relationships aren’t all great ones. We can hope that our children will bring dear good nice people into our lives, but we can focus on hoping our children will find the people who are right for THEM, not right for US.

4. We can try to be Not Difficult, and to avoid the common pitfalls (being critical, being intrusive, giving too much unasked-for input, scoffing at new developments and saying “We didn’t do things like that in MY day and we all survived!”), but not assume that we are succeeding, and not brag that we are succeeding.

5. In situations where personalities are not a delightful fit, we can do our part to make sure we are not putting our sons- and daughters-in-law into Can’t Win situations where we manage to think of them poorly no matter what they do. We can hope they will do the same for us.

6. We can hope that our fretfulness and anxiety on this topic already puts us ahead of the people who plow into this assuming they’re the best mothers-in-law ever and that their daughters- and son-in-law can’t WAIT to hear wise instructions on how they should run their lives in every detail.

More things to add to the list? Some of you are mothers-in-law already, and I hope you will tell us everything you know, everything you’ve learned, everything you’re doing. Some of you may have active mother-in-law situations going on right now, situations that are giving you lots of ideas of things to do differently when it’s your turn, and I hope you will tell us all of those ideas.

Today we have this from Phancymama:

We got an Alexa and a dot for Christmas, and I would love a post on this where I could read lots of comments from other people! I also find myself wishing for Alexa in the car. And I feel like my feelings run from “incredibly useful” to “I forget it’s there” and I have the feeling I’m missing some of the tricks and tips. (For instance I ask about the weather but not the news!)

I have a first-generation Echo, but it looks like those are only being sold refurbished and the second-generation Echo is the current thing. I also have a second-generation Dot. Here is what I use my Alexa Echo/Dot for:

1. Every single morning, I ask it for the news (“Alexa, what’s the news?”). I had to set up what news source I wanted (I do set-up stuff on https://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#cards (I just type in alexa.amazon.com and it adds the other stuff automatically), but there is an Alexa app that lets you do it too and makes more sense if you use the Alexa for lists; I started to install the app long ago, but I seem to remember feeling uncomfortable at the time with the permissions/access it wanted), and I chose NPR. You can also set up more than one source, so that it will go through them one after another, but NPR is about exactly the amount of news I want in the morning, delivered in exactly the right tone of voice.

2. Songs! So many songs! “Alexa, play On Melancholy Hill,” “Alexa, play Magic by The Cars,” “Alexa, play Dancer in a Daydream,” “Alexa, play Fever by Peggy Lee.” Sometimes she needs title and artist, sometimes just title: there’s more than one song called Magic; there’s more than one artist who sings Fever. There is a rotating list of songs she’ll say she can only play a sample of, and that’s annoying, so for Christmas I asked for and received a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited, the $3.99/month version that gives access on just one device. Paul thought this was silly and wanted to get the $7.99/month plan that would cover both devices, but even the $3.99/month adds up, and I wanted to try it out for awhile in a way that would let me compare and see if it gave me enough more songs to be worth it. So far I really like it: when I came home from The Greatest Showman and wanted the soundtrack, the Echo played it for me right away; when I was folding laundry later and asked the Dot for the same thing, it said I would need Amazon Music Unlimited for that.

2a. Asking what song is playing. I LOVE this. I say, “Alexa, what is this?” and she says “This is Let the Games Begin, by AJR,” or whatever.

2b. Asking for a radio station. I have a radio in the kitchen, but it only gets two stations I like. So I’ll ask Alexa to play a different station. I’ve asked her to play Rob’s college radio station, which was fun. It can be a little tricky to get the one I want, because she can play practically anything, so it’s best if you know the call letters.

2c. Asking her to play songs by a certain artist. I’ll say, “Alexa, play songs by AJR,” and she’ll shuffle songs by AJR.

2d. Asking her to make an assorted playlist based on a certain artist. I’ll say, “Alexa, play Peter Cetera radio,” and she’ll play an assortment of songs: some Peter Cetera, some of a similar style, some from that time period, and some weird choices that don’t make any sense. If she plays a song I don’t like, I say “Alexa, thumbs down” and she puts it on a don’t-play list. If she’s playing a song I don’t want to forbid but neither do I want to hear it right now, I say, “Alexa, skip this one” or “Alexa, next.”

2e. Asking for a song I don’t know the title/artist of. “Alexa, play the song that goes ‘Every time I see you falling’.”

2f. Asking for a type of music. “Alexa, play ’80s hits,” “Alexa, play ’90s alternative rock,” “Alexa, play classical music,” “Alexa, play Christmas music.” I’ve had mixed success with this: sometimes I get exactly what I want, but sometimes she’ll play, like, a bunch of music that may be from the ’80s but nothing I recognize, or she’ll get weirdly overly-specific and say “Playing Christmas Country Down Home Favorites” or “Playing music by Bach.” No, no: I wanted an ASSORTMENT of Christmas/classical.

3. Timer/alarm. Mostly I’d rather just set a regular old timer. But it’s handy to have the Alexa when I’m out of timers (the kids walk off with them, or all the timers are in use) or if I’m doing something that makes it inconvenient, like washing dishes. She can do a timer (“Alexa, set a timer for eight minutes”) or an alarm (“Alexa, set an alarm for 1:30”).

4. General information. Sometimes I hear a news story that I don’t quite understand because I didn’t pay attention in American Government class or whatever, or sometimes a kid will ask me a question I don’t know the answer to, or Paul needs to know YET AGAIN how many tablespoons are in a quarter-cup (IT’S FOUR, PAUL. It’s ALWAYS FOUR), so we ask Alexa. Sometimes she doesn’t know, or doesn’t understand the question.

5. Weather: “Alexa, what’s the weather?,” “Alexa, will it snow tomorrow?,” “Alexa, what’s the temperature outside?,” “Alexa, what will the weather be like on Saturday?”

6. “Alexa, teach me something new.” She’ll tell you something neat about dogs! or stars! or the crippling effects of a break-up!

7. “Alexa, tell me a joke.” (Mostly the kids do this one.)

8. Random number generator. If you tell her to roll a die, she’ll give you a number between one and six. Or you can ask her to roll a hundred dice. Or flip a coin. Or give you a random number between one and a hundred.

Phancymama and I would like to hear how you use your Alexa.

Oh good morning! This is a good day for discussing unders!

Can you please, please write an update on plus size womens underwear? I REALLY need to find a new style and brand, but those images of thin mannequins make it impossible to know how different styles will fit a post-baby, aging body. I remember some suggestions of Jockey and some pricier options from a plus-sized store, but I wonder if you tried them and if they were worth the cost?

Thanks.

I just looked up the post where I asked for suggestions, and I see I included a good morning with that one, too. Apparently the underwear topic is in the mental filing cabinet right next to that greeting.

I will start by telling you how I chose the three kinds I tried: by whim. I SHOULD have made a list and tallied votes for each suggestion, and thought about which kinds seemed like the best bets, and maybe gone in person to some stores where I could try pairs on—but instead I did it with thrashing impulsive decisions, followed by getting overwhelmed and stopping the research abruptly; and I couldn’t bring myself to try anything on, or buy anything that wasn’t sold in a three-pack. Here are the three new kinds I tried:

Jockey Elance French Cut
Fruit of the Loom Fit for Me Hi-Cut
another Fruit of the Loom kind but without the sporty waistband

Also, in a triumph of hope over experience, I bought another pack of Hanes XTemp hi-cuts (the ones that started this whole process by changing their fit) at Target—AND THIS TIME THEY DID FIT. So I don’t know if the sizing changed back or what. However, now I can’t find the hi-cuts at Target at all and can only get them on Amazon, and I’m worried that if I order those they’ll be the ones that were like a full size too small; the reviews seem to support this concern. Some of the pairs I have are starting to get pretty tattered, which is sad.

Let’s start with the ones I don’t even have a link for. I got them at Walmarrrt. They don’t have the wider waistband I prefer, just the thin kind, but at least it was covered with comfy fabric. They were fine. Just fine. Surprisingly stretchy and thin (not in a good way for me, but I think they’d feel nice and disappear-y to someone who liked that feeling), comfy enough I guess—but I never reach for them first. Of the four kinds, I reach for them third. They don’t feel particularly cute. I feel as if the fit of them accentuates the postpartum-body issues in a discouraging way.

The only ones they win against are the Jockey ones. The Jockey ones SHOULD be my favorites: they’re 100% cotton and the fabric feels really nice; they were the most expensive and seem well-made. But on me they’re like an exaggeration of hi-cut: very, very high, to the point where I feel as if they are peeking out of the top of my jeans. Maybe I should have ordered one size down? I don’t know. I just know I choose them fourth.

Second place goes to the Hanes XTemp. Comfy, cute, good colors when I could still choose the colors. But too risky to buy anymore, so I am gradually letting them go, emotionally speaking.

First place goes to the ones I thought would be my least favorite, the Fruit of the Loom Fit for Me ones with the sporty waistband. You know me well enough to know that “sporty” is not an adjective on my vision board. And the elastic waist looked pinchy in the pictures, and I’d specifically wanted a fabric-covered waistband. But the waist isn’t pinchy, and they’re comfy, and I think they’re pretty cute, and I really love the colors. So I buy those now, is the upshot.

We have a charming follow-up question on the First Kisses post:

*cough*Could you maybe do a follow-up post on what makes a good kiss/tips for being a good kisser?*cough* (It’s always good to learn knew things, right? *dies of embarrassment*)

Well! I have been thinking about this and I am not sure I can come up with a decisive answer. Or rather, I CAN come to a decisive answer, and it is this: if this question COULD be answered, it would already HAVE BEEN answered and we all would have studied the answer very carefully and now we would all know for sure that our studying had paid off.

Instead, if you were like me, you read the scene in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret where they practice kissing their pillows, and you gamely tried it yourself because apparently that is a thing we do, but then thought, “…But how does this help? Where are the…lips of this pillow?”

It’s like trying to find information on making hard-boiled eggs easier to peel: there are half a dozen methods people SWEAR by, and absolutely no agreement on which one actually works, and in my own experience each method works sometimes and fails to work other times, and apparently it matters hugely what kind of eggs you start with, so anyway you can rest assured that it is a question for the ages and not something there’s a simple answer for. Same with kissing.

And people LIKE different things. This is where we depart from hard-boiled eggs, because with eggs we all agree on the correct result: the shell should be off of the egg, and the shell-less egg should be whole and smooth, and not very much time should have passed. With kissing, some people get dopey-eyed over soft tender kisses and some people prefer to spend the next day with an ice pack pressed to their swollen, abraded lower face, and there are more kinds of kissing than ways to peel an egg, so it’s hard to know what to advise.

I do think we can say one thing based on the comments on the kissing post, and it is this: the problem, when there is a problem, is usually the tongue. Too much, or too soon, or too much accompanying saliva, or some combination of those things. Go easy on the tongue, is my advice; and if in doubt, wait longer to introduce it.

Also, I think it’s safe to say that kissing can take practice, especially with someone new. There are a bunch of things that vary from person to person, and those things take some time to figure out, and it is perfectly normal to bump teeth or to feel uncertain about how long a kiss should last or whatever. With time and familiarity, the protocol is established and things get less uncertain.

Hi- I am in need of your gift giving expertise! I have read you for years, and know you are way better at this kind of thing than I am! Here is the situation. I teach 3rd grade and one of my students was diagnosed with cancer in November. I have a third grade son myself. He knows my student and this hits very home to me! My class knows that H has cancer. ( That was not a fun lesson – what is cancer, how does it spread, what treatments are, etc.). So, H is getting chemo at the hospital on and off until February and will hopefully be able to come back to school in March or April, which is an eternity for a third grader! We have taken photos and emailed, and my class and the other third grade classes send cards once a week. For a big Christmas thing, I went to Build A Bear, got 25 of the hearts they stuff in the Bears, had my class sign them and make a wish for H, took photos, brought them back to Build a bear, took pictures of my son stuffing them in the bear, bought a Star Wars outfit ( that the boy likes). I took pictures of the bear around school, went to Target and had a photo book made. It was cute and he loved it. But, he is out for three more months. I want him to realize we are all thinking of him without just sending photos of us having fun ( too bad you aren’t here! We are having a party without you!) and without being too expensive. I am sure he got plenty of Christmas gifts from family and friends, so I’m looking for smaller, meaningful gifts that tell an 8 year old boy to stay strong. Any ideas? Thanks so much!
Becky

This is a hard question to even think about, because it is so sad. Henry is 8 and in the third grade, so you and I both have a very vivid mental picture here. Trying to picture what Henry might like in this situation is…a challenge, on several levels.

My opinion is that you have already had the best idea. The Build-a-Bear-with-25-hearts-signed-by-fellow-students gift was inspired, and better than anything I would have thought of. It’s sentimental and thoughtful and a great group-effort project, and resulted in a comfort item for him to hold onto. And you are already doing my next idea, which is to send regular photos and letters. You are so on this, I feel as if any suggestions I make will be things you have already thought of.

I think at this point I would focus on the letters. If you would like to do more, I think a very nice idea would be to find some way to symbolically include H in your events and celebrations, and send photos of THAT, plus a souvenir when applicable.

Here is the sort of thing I have in mind. I can picture having a photo of his face enlarged to life-sized, and putting it on a life-sized paper doll (class project: trace another student who is about his size, everyone help color it in), and then including that life-sized paper doll in various classroom events. And then I’d take photos of it with the other students, and send those photos to him with, say, a cookie from the party, and a holiday card signed by the class.

At Valentine’s Day, he could receive a class-made mailbox filled with valentines, plus a little plate of treats from the party, plus a photo of his paper doll standing by the mailbox receiving the valentines, surrounded by fellow students. After field trips, he could receive a set of photos of his paper doll on the field trip, and brochures from the location. I am not sure, since I can’t count this experience among my own, but I THINK if I were him that would make me feel included and remembered and “We are always thinking of you,” and not “We are having fun without you.”

Another idea is to talk to the child’s parent and ask what might be appreciated. Perhaps his parent will say, “Oh, he LOVES getting mail!,” and you can set up a mailbox for him in the classroom and incorporate it into a lesson plan about letter-writing, and/or have everyone contribute a dollar toward a subscription to a children’s magazine. Or perhaps his parent will say, “He is SO BORED!,” and your class can brainstorm ideas for things to send him: puzzles, books, workbooks. Or maybe he could use another pair of comfy pajamas, and everyone could chip in and help choose them.

I have a feeling that some or all of the parents of the other children in your classroom will be eager to participate. I do have experience with THIS role, unfortunately, and I remember wishing there was a way I could DO something. If a teacher had said, “If you can, please send $1 a month for little treats and gifts,” or “This year we are all doing all of our Secret Santa gifts for H,” or “Please help your child write a letter,” or “We will be sending valentines to H,” I would have been SO GLAD to have something practical to do.

Update:

Hello
I wrote to you a few months ago about a student in my third grade class who was out getting treatment for cancer.  I really appreciated all of the suggestions, and thought it was time for an update.  The good news is that H is now considered cancer free and has returned to school!
He was gone for four months.  Using Skype to keep in touch was useful, but it was kind of hard to arrange times when he felt well and it was good timing for us.  We did send lots of pictures and cards.  Each week one of the third grade classrooms send cards.  He sent in his Valentines and we sent his home to him.  He also had a birthday and we sent a video of us singing and holding up signs.  He sent us a video of his how to speech that we did in class.  I liked the idea of the ” flat H” and if he had been gone longer I would have done that too.
He had a pretty low immune system when he came back and no hair but I warned the class about germs and stocked up on hand sanitizer. He wanted to just slide right back into the rhythm of the class, but that took a few weeks.  What really helped was having the Child Life specialist from the hospital come in and give a presentation about cancer, chemo, MRI’s and ports.  I think it really made H feel better – that everyone else finally had an idea of what he had gone through.
Now his hair is mostly grown in, he is caught up both academically and socially.  He still attends a lot of special events for cancer survivors, but otherwise is a normal third grader.  Thank you so much for your help!
Becky