Are We There Yet?

Psssst.

2009-08-29T07:49:00.001-07:00

http://kkieding2.blogspot.com/

She's Got a Point

2009-01-31T20:46:00.000-08:00

~Overheard in the car while driving home from school~

"Paige?"
"Yes, mommy?"
"Just once I would like you to run into my arms when I pick you up from school."
"...(long silence)...Oh."
"I'd like you to RUN. And then LEAP. I mean, really LEAP INTO MY ARMS. And SMILE! I would swing you around so high your legs would fly out. You would laugh. I know it would be fun. I wish you would do that. Run and leap. That is my wish."
"Hmm. That is your wish?"
"Yes. That is my wish."
"Well...you might want to blow out a dandelion."

Pardon My French

2009-01-23T20:53:00.000-08:00

As a general rule I try not to curse unless I stub my toe, and I certainly do not use cuss words in essays. This particular essay, however, might just call for the f-bomb. In a good way though, for as impossible as it may seem, I believe I have officially discovered the Secret to a Successful Family Vacation™. This
fool-proof technique requires no extra cash or time-consuming planning, nor does it necessitate any additional baby gear or organic products. It’s simple, really. Think of it as a way of keeping your emotions in check. A state of mind, if you will.
So what’s the Secret to a Successful Family Vacation™?
HAVE REDICULOUSLY LOW EXPECTATIONS. Lower than low. And then go even lower.

For example, when you feel yourself starting to smile as you search for hotels online and find one that offers free parking, a free breakfast buffet and free kid activities “while their parents enjoy a cocktail at our nightly happy hour,” just remind yourself what has happened on your last three consecutive vacations. That’s right…now it’s all coming back to you, and it has nothing to do with lack of water pressure or the measily thread count of your hotel sheets. Remember how you only got four hours of sleep (from midnight to two, and then from four to six) because first the baby woke up and then the Kindergartner woke up and then the husband woke up, all needing your attention? That should wipe the online-hotel-researching smile right off your face.

And then, when you find yourself beginning to salivate over the new book you will read in the car on the way to your destination while the kids are asleep in the back, consider how children are innately wired. Remind yourself gently that despite leaving your house exactly at nap-time and making sure you have sufficiently worn them out earlier that morning and giving them just the tiniest bit of…oh, I don’t know…Benadryl or whatnot, your children will not sleep for the entire four-hour car ride. That is, until you are pulling into the hotel parking lot, at which point you will glance back to discover them both having just nodded off in their car seats.

But even that might not be enough to keep your vacation anticipation at bay, so you might need to remind yourself of the DVD fiasco. Yes, you heard me. Remember how you charged up the portable DVD player a few days before leaving, specifically for use in the car while driving through L.A. traffic? And how you had decided to hide it under the porta-crib and wait until the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT for its reveal? After exhausting all other available resources in the surrounding area? And the baby was screaming and the Kindergartner was whining and the husband was grumbling but you were calm and serene and centered, knowing you still had that ace in your pocket: the coveted new Disney Princess movie? And then you finally pulled out the DVD player only to discover it had been left on all night and therefore had zero battery power? And you really felt like weeping because this was day number two of vacation and you were operating on only four hours of sleep? Exactly.

And then, my friends, if you still have expectations higher than, say, the bottom of the Grand Canyon, just whisper “The Pasadena Cheesecake Factory” to yourself. That should do the trick. Sure, it might seem funny now, but at the time there was nothing funny about physically dragging a screaming, squirming, kicking two-year-old from a crowded restaurant because she saw a little girl eating there that looked like her friend Mia. Remember how your husband tried to explain to her that yes, that little girl had the same black curls as Mia and was about the same age as Mia, but the real Mia lived in Santa Barbara, and we were currently in Pasadena, and therefore that little girl was definitely not Mia? But the tantrum continued to escalate, maybe due to hunger, maybe due to fatigue, maybe due to assorted colds or rashes or general malaise. It brought to mind a similar memory of a certain Starbucks incident, during which your two-year-old was convinced the pre-teen female with the long blond hair sitting outside was her cousin Ella. After trying to reason with your daughter and begging her to stop yelling and pointing, you were forced to either leave the coffeehouse immediately, without having enjoyed your just-paid-for grande non-fat whipped-cream-enhanced drink, or walk up to a total stranger and ask her if your child might please just sit on her lap, if only for a moment, because she looked uncannily similar to your niece, Ella.

Anyway, last weekend I was finally able to test my Successful Family Vacation™ theory. During the early planning stages of the weekend, when I would begin to feel the corners of my mouth curl up at the thought of having our daddy all to ourselves - sans laptop - for three days, I made sure to crush my soaring spirit immediately. I also gave myself a stern talking-to as I packed, reminding myself that vacations are exhausting, expensive and evil. And of course I took the liberty of expecting every single little thing to go wrong. And guess what? I am pleased to report we had an absolutely amazing weekend. One of our best! My Successful Family Vacation ™ theory proved to be viable, as well as correct! Statistically speaking, after being prepared for everything to go wrong, I found that roughly 58% of the time I was pleasantly surprised. Seriously folks, it really did work like a charm. It worked like a fucking charm.

Many Thanks for the Birthday Gifts

2009-01-12T21:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Candace,

Thank you for being my babysitter and for the Where the Wild Things Are stuffed animals. Unfortunately, my mom thought they were super creepy so she put them in the Goodwill pile. She said she’s always hated that book and its sinister accoutrements and it used to give her nightmares and classic children’s story her butt! That was fine with me because I liked the 10-cent balloon you gave me better than any present I’ve ever received from anyone in my entire life. Ever.

I love you, Candace!

Love,
Carly

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Thank you for the money. I looooove money. You can ask my parents. When I see money I demand to hold it and then I say, “Two money! Two money!” until they give me another piece of money. The girls at the coffee shop think it’s cute but my dad is so over it. Plus, sometimes I put it in my mouth, which my mom thinks is disgusting. One time I swallowed a penny. We never found it.

I love you, Grandma and Grandpa!

Love,
Carly

Dear Sis-sie,

Thanks for grabbing the stuffed doggy you gave me and claiming him as your own as soon as I tore off the wrapping paper and sleeping with him every night since my birthday so now I’m kind of confused and actually think he might be yours instead of mine because I’m still so fresh and my brain hasn’t fully developed yet even though I’m two now.

Your devoted little sister,
Car-Car

Dear Cousin Ella,

Thank you for the stuffed bunnies. I really love stuffed animals. They have been especially useful as of late, seeing as my older sister is a bit socially awkward these days. You see, my mom named one bunny “Bunny Paige” and the other bunny “Bunny Mikayla” and now she forces my sister to role-play before bed every night.

Mom: “Hi Bunny Paige! I like your shirt!”
Paige: (instead of saying nothing, or worse, running away) “Thanks!”
Mom: “Want to play with me on the swings, Bunny Paige?”
Paige: (instead of saying no, she’d rather eat lunch, which has actually happened) “Sure!”
Mom: “After swinging, let’s go play on the monkey bars!”
Paige: (instead of crying) “OK!”

And then they pretend the bunnies are holding hands and skipping to the monkey bars. It’s fairly lame and the results have yet to be determined, but we remain forever optimistic.

I love you, Ella!

Love,
Carly

Dear Nana and Papa,

Thank you for the half-hour animated movie. My mom let me watch it TWO TIMES IN A ROW today because she had to get some dinner on the table before my dad got home and she was tired of hearing our incessant whining and seriously, how is she supposed to get anything done with me hanging on her all the time and she can’t even pee in peace these days and she keeps waiting for it to get easier but it hasn’t, really.

I love you, Nana and Papa!

Love,
Carly

Dear Grandpa Ron and Grandma Linda,

Thank you for the music box, the board books, the polka-dot hoodie, the card, the stickers, the stuffed animals, the purple onesie, the pink t-shirt, the dark pink yoga pants, the socks and the rainbow-striped pants. I can’t help wondering if the quantity of presents somehow correlates to your distance from Santa Barbara! But that’s a separate issue entirely! My mom especially likes the rainbow-striped pants and is going to make me wear them just to see the look on my dad’s face. He won’t like them at all but what does he know about fashion? His credibility is shot. One time my dad dressed my sister for daycare and put her pink striped overalls on backwards! Can you imagine? Overalls! On backwards! One might wonder how, exactly, that is possible! My mom arrived to pick her up and Candace said, “Kenny put her clothes on backwards again,” which indicated, of course, that this particular mistake had happened before! My mom just couldn’t believe it. Once out of general daycare vicinity she mumbled under her breath that similar to failing a gym class, one has to really TRY to put overalls on backwards!!!

Bygones! I love you!

Love,
Carly

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thanks for a big fat NOTHING. Oh wait, let me rephrase that. Thanks for “trying” to find me a tricycle. I believe you when you say you “searched everywhere” and there were “none to be had.” I’m sure you were correct when you claimed the “Christmas Shoppers” had “taken” all the tricycles. Mom, I’ve got three words for you: ToysRUs. Dot. Com.

But seriously, thanks a lot for “trying”. I really “appreciate” it.

Sincerely,
Your second child, the one without the baby book, the one wearing all the hand-me-downs, the one with no pictures from the age of two months until her first birthday and only sporadic shots (at best) after that, Carly Lynn Kieding.

Holidays in a Nutshell, Haiku Style

2009-01-01T21:01:00.001-08:00

Christmas Eve with friends:

Soup, wine, a dropped loaf of bread.

Kids watch for Santa.

Toys! Toys everywhere!

With what does she choose to play?

My blue kitchen sponge.

Her first tooth is lost
On Christmas Day, post dinner.

She smiles. We cheer!

Tooth two is lost on

New Years Eve. The tooth fairy

Forgets to come! Crap!

January first:

Time to start resolutions.
I sit down to write...

Potty Time

2008-12-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

Our very own Carly Lynn, one month shy of her 2nd birthday, pooped on the potty yesterday. This was not expected, nor particularly encouraged. Apparently she has chosen to potty train herself. To say I have not embarked on "training" her would be putting it mildly. For starters, I have no earthly idea where our tiny plastic potty chair is. Garage sale victim, probably. And our little seat with the glow-in-the-dark ducks that fits over the real potty seat? Ha! I gave it to Jill, and when I called her to see if William (or Will-Yummy, as we like to call him) was still using it, she described how it really needed a good bleaching before she gave it back. A really really good bleaching, if you know what I mean. I told her she could just go ahead and keep it.

So anyway, Carly pooped. Me? I vacillated. Sure, I gave her a cheer and a hug as I patted her bare bottom and told her she was my big girl. Because, you see, my practical side was thrilled with the prospect of saving $50 per month on diapers. However! My other practical side (the side that has already been through this with another child) was decidedly less thrilled with the idea of having to scout out all the decent bathrooms in the greater Santa Barbara area. "Maybe she'll be the kind of kid that only wants to poop at home," Jill offered tentatively. Well, maybe...but let's just say I've started to mentally calculate how many minutes it will take us to run from various points of interest on State Street to the women's lounge on the 2nd floor of Nordstrom's.

Conversely, as is the case with most first-time mothers, I was über eager to potty train Paige. Ah, the excitement! The adventure! I bought books and everything. I even bought a travel potty. You know: the kind you take in the car with a plastic bag to…well…catch it. The first (and last) time we used it was on the way to Palm Springs. From the backseat, Paige asked in a very polite and quiet voice if I could please pull over so she could use the potty. I was thrilled that she asked and thrilled to use our new portable potty. I immediately slammed on the brakes, a bit too enthusiastically maybe, spraying gravel everywhere as the car came to a complete and total stop on the edge of the freeway. Paige got out and sat on the potty, on the shoulder of a busy road, and peed with unwavering confidence. What a big girl! After the deed was done, I was left to struggle with the bag of pee. Should I just pour it out on the side of the road? Or should I zip it up and hope the unique interlocking zipper really did seal securely and lock in freshness? As I was considering my predicament, I glanced over at Paige, who was pulling up her pants and adjusting a pair of sparkly pink toddler-sized sunglasses. Without even looking at me she said, “Mommy? I hope you have more plastic bags, because I’m gonna have to pee A LOT on vacation.”

And that, my friends, is when I realized potty training isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Happy Birthday, Dear Paige

2008-12-14T20:33:00.000-08:00

Paige turned six yesterday.

We, her devoted but weary parents, warned her months ago that certain things - how should I put this? - change when one turns six. Still, despite our solemn warnings, her face looked a tad shocked when we joyfully sang the birthday song we had practiced:

Happy Birthday to You!
Now TIE YOUR OWN SHOES
And CLEAR YOUR DINNER PLATE, TOO
Happy Birthday to You!

As Kenny and I high-fived one another on our perfect pitch and hilarious rendition of a timeless classic, Paige looked at Carly and rolled her eyes in annoyance. I must have forgotten that when one turns six, one begins to have a bit of an attitude to go along with a new chore chart.

Great Expectations Gone Bad

2008-12-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

I've been worrying about Paige's social development (or lack thereof) lately. I've been frantically scheduling play-dates and obsessing over various mothers' seemingly random comments and desperately scanning internet articles on how to raise confident daughters with high self-esteem and unshakable poise. And you know what? It's all making me a little bit crazier than I already am.

So I sat myself down last night and told myself to breathe. And then I asked myself...I mean I really, really asked myself..."Jeeze, how much can you possibly expect from one tiny little girl? She is brilliant, sweet, kind, a healthy eater, a great sleeper, a loving big sister, a rule-follower, a kisser and a hugger and a cuddler, a homework-lover, a ballet-practicing, a funny, a super-duper-creative, a sensitive and compassionate 5-year-old! And now you want her to be THE MOST POPULAR KID IN THE CLASS, TOO?!”

And although I heard myself admit, “Well….yes….” somehow I still felt a little bit better about everything.

Sweet Baby Dreams

2008-10-29T21:21:00.000-07:00

I will rock you ‘til you sleep
Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word
As I lift you silently into your crib
Your eyes open wide in panic
Your body tenses
Your mind wakes
You cry out
So once again, we rock.

I will rock you ‘til you sleep
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
The chair creaks loudly on bamboo floor
How could it not?
It has rocked your mama, your uncle, your sister
And, of course, you.
It is old and tired and weak
(But still willing)
And so we rock.

I will rock you ‘til you sleep
You Are My Sunshine
We are hot, pressed together chest to chest
Old Navy t-shirt to pink footed pajamas
My mind wanders
Thinking about tasks unfinished
Dishes in the sink
Laundry in the dryer
Toys on the stairs
Husbands and 5-year-olds
But still…back and forth…we rock.

I will rock you ‘til you sleep
Sleep, Baby, Sleep
You detest darkness and beg for mama
Not daddy
Not sissy
Not binkie, blankie or bear
Only mama, mama, mama
There are worse things, I tell myself, than rocking a baby to sleep
Together we gaze at your pineapple nightlight
As we rock.

I will rock you ‘til you sleep
Until your eyes are closed
Until your breath is even
Until your lips are parted, almost smiling
Until you dream sweet baby dreams
Your damp curls lift and fall softly as I sing
Jesus Loves Me, This I Know
And you are sound asleep
Most definitely, unquestionably, sound asleep
But still,
I rock.

Delicious Weightlessness

2008-10-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

“Mommy? Do I have to go to swim lessons?
“Yes.”
“But why do I have to go to swim lessons?”
“Because, honey. Because we want you to be safe.”
“But whyyyyy?”
“Because we don’t want you to drown.”
“But LOTS of kids drown all the time and they’re ok…”

We were on our way to Paige’s twice-weekly swim lessons and, as usual, there was semi-resigned whining accompanied by casual drowning references. This was certainly not the first time the topic of drowning has, shall we say, surfaced. Months ago, when what has now been dubbed “The Drowning Incident” occurred, drowning was all she talked about. It was her point of reference: The Day She Drowned. As in, “Remember the day I drowned?” or “Nana made us s’mores in her fireplace that day…was that before or after I drowned?” or “Can we go swimming at Nana’s house today, except this time can I not drown?”

I will spare you “The Drowning Incident” details, but suffice to say Paige really can doggy-paddle when her life depends on it. Not that her life even remotely depended on it…seeing as Nana was all but two feet away from her…but you see, she comes from a long line of dramatic exaggerators, so we cater to her theatrical drowning references and do not challenge her memory of the event. Poor thing. She dog-paddled furiously, teeth gritted, eyes wide and frantic. Nana scooped her up swiftly and sat her on the side of the pool, and between Paige’s coughs and sputters and gasps for air (keep in mind she never actually went under the surface) it suddenly became clear to me that she really could swim! I just needed to sign her up for a few more lessons to convince her to label it “swimming” instead of “drowning.” (Especially when it comes up in casual conversation with, say, the grocery store checker.)

And so I discussed it with Kenny and we tried it again, those excruciatingly frustrating swim lessons, praying that the third time really would be the charm and that she would finally learn to put her head under water without dissolving into a hysterical mess. And thus far (except for the half-hearted whining in the car beforehand) she seemed to be enjoying the lessons. Her teacher, Austin, is quiet and calm and pushes her just far enough out of her comfort zone so that continual progress, albeit slight, is made. Slow and steady, I keep telling myself as I write out the weekly checks. Slow and steady.

On this particular day Austin was showing her how to float on her back in the shallow end of the pool. I was sitting next to Paige’s towel on the designated parent bench, trying to act disinterested. I happened to glance up from my magazine at the exact moment that Austin gently released his hands from her body. I sat on the bench, frozen, not daring to take a breath, as Paige floated. Unassisted. On her back. By herself. Her body was in the shape of a cross: legs straight, toes slightly pointed, arms spread wide, palms open. Her hair floated softly in the water, making a swirly brown halo around her face. Paige’s eyes were closed and she looked so peaceful and serene that it seemed as though she might be sleeping. And get this: the moment I glanced up at her, a sunbeam – I kid you not – suddenly hit her whole face, like some sort of heavenly spotlight. It made me want to weep, it was so magical. Looking at her from my seat on the bench, it occurred to me that she resembled a small, 5-year-old Jesus. That is, if Jesus had taken swim lessons and floated on his back sporting a pink ruffled bikini and a slightly scratched pair of youth-sized swim goggles.

Paige kept floating and I kept staring and not breathing. The look of peaceful surrender, the water lapping softly against the edge of the pool, the angelic sunbeam...it was all just too much. So of course I had go and ruin it by doing something idiotic: I cheered. It was an involuntary response, I swear. Trust me – if you had a daughter that had taken swim lessons from three different teachers in three different pools over the last three years and still cried when you rinsed shampoo out of her hair because a tiny dribble of water had run into her ear, and if that daughter was floating on her back unassisted – you would cheer, too. My totally-embarrassing-and-way-too-shrill cheer broke the silence and instantly destroyed the moment. Paige’s eyes flew open and her head jerked toward me and all four of her limbs began thrashing in every direction and Austin, poor Austin, had to grab her by the left shoulder before she sank to the bottom like a bikini-encased stone.

In the end it didn’t matter though, because Paige and I both knew we had witnessed an historical event. We didn’t discuss it much, but we smiled shyly at each other and held hands a little bit tighter as we walked back to the car that day. No, it wasn’t a perfectly-executed dismount from the high-dive, or a come-from-behind victory at the Olympics. It wasn’t the winning leg of a 4x100 relay or even the securing of a spot on the high school swim team. It was only an all-too-brief minute of delicious weightlessness. Of quiet surrender. But somehow, for that one ephemeral moment in a luke-warm pool on a Thursday afternoon in October, it was enough.

It's Not Easy, Being Five

2008-09-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

You have GOT to be kidding me. Seriously, if I weren’t so exhausted I would be hysterical. As if we don’t have enough skills on which to work. As if learning to rattle off one’s home phone number in an emergency situation or navigating the monkey bars with speed and dexterity is not pressure enough. As if learning to swim in a pool (or at least how not to drown), learning to pump on a playground swing (or at least without strange spasm-like jerks), and learning to ride one’s bike sans training wheels (or at least not dissolving into tears when one’s mother suggests trying) is not already enough on our plate. Now you’re telling me that kids shoes in size 11-1/2 have actual laces? As in, the tying kind? Ha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Her Carpet Square is Orange

2008-08-28T16:06:00.001-07:00

It’s 8:15am on Day #3 and we're doing fine. Much better than the previous two days, in fact. Paige knows her spot. She marches in with great purpose, sits on her orange carpet square and waits reverently. She doesn’t strain to look out the window like the other Kindergartners, hoping to see her parents one last time before the bell rings. No. That would be very un-Paige-like. There will be no giggles or even crooked smiles as I try in vain to make her laugh from outside the classroom by making ridiculous faces. Instead, she sits criss-cross-apple-sauce-style and stares straight ahead with intent focus, like if she concentrates hard enough she just might be able to teach herself to read multi-syllable words through osmosis. She’s all business, that girl. My First-Time-Kindergartner Girl.

I, on the other hand, am a bit of a sloppy mess these days. It turns out I am a poor candidate for this First-Time-Kindergartener thing. Who knew? This realization stunned me, as I have never been the type to wish my children would stay small forever. On the contrary, I can’t wait until they are old enough to get their own cereal for breakfast, make their own beds, go to the store to fetch me chocolate, or in Carly’s case, wipe their own butts. And that is why I was shocked when the tears began to flow that first day of Kindergarten. Why was I crying? This was ridiculous! After all, I was thrilled Paige was starting Kindergarten! We were enrolled in an excellent school and it was FREE, people. What’s not to like? Seriously, for the love, why all the tears?

Someone could’ve warned me, at least. That would have been nice. Someone with a child over the age of, oh I don’t know, FIVE maybe. Someone who had already traversed this path --- this monumental, mystifying, emotionally-charged path --- could’ve warned me of all its potential pitfalls. But noooooo, I did not get the memo. It reminded me of how, after delivering one's first child, one finds herself horribly and inexplicably constipated! With absolutely no warning! Shocked and unwarned! Not once is the possibility of...impaction...ever discussed within the hushed confines of childbirth classes! And so one has no choice but to trudge bravely through the healing process, vowing to pass on this vital information to generations of future mothers through blog essays so no one will have to endure recuperation without adequate stool softener. But I digress...

Anyway. On that recent gloomy Monday morning, I found myself naive and unwarned as I attempted to navigate passages previously uncharted. Without so much as a “watch out” from any number of friends or neighbors or relatives with older, post-Kindergarten children, I dressed my first born in a yellow skirt with a smattering of beach balls on its ruffles and a new Gap t-shirt in a brilliant shade of turquoise. I brushed her hair and handed her a backpack that seemed much too big and serious for a sweet child with a freshly-cut bob and a still-healing skinned knee. The gravel crunched under our feet as we walked toward Ms. Ellis’ class, Room #K2. Paige held my hand and I looked down at the freckles covering her little Kindergarten nose and that’s when things got a bit dicey.

I might’ve held it together had I not overheard a father saying to a child, “Well…sometimes mommies just cry when their little girls go to school.” And that, my friends, is all it took. I dissolved into a sobbing mess, mascara bleeding down my cheeks, head hanging low from embarrassment and pure sorrow. I thought about how we had toured the school with the principal many months ago and how excited we had been. How Kenny and I just knew this was going to be an amazing experience for Paige and how she was so, so ready. The principal had boasted proudly, between peeks into the library and cafeteria, that there had not been one single crier at the beginning of last year! He was unquestionably pleased with this fact, as though he had personally raised dozens of well-adjusted and emotionally competent 5-year-olds. Not one single crier! At the time I assumed he had meant the children, but now I was wondering if he had meant the parents.

And now here we were, with new outfits and new haircuts and new schedules and the realization that there was just a little too much newness for this particular First-Time-Kindergarten Mommy. I stood there, rooted in my spot next to the block table, until I heard Ms. Ellis inform the children that it was now time to say a special goodbye to their parents and start their first fun-packed day of Kindergarten. Paige looked up at me and considered my puffy eyes and running mascara. There was a long, sad pause. She stood on her tiptoes and motioned me closer. Then quietly, with gravity way beyond her 5 ½ years, she whispered, “How many times do I get to play on the playground today?” And that’s when I knew I was truly alone. That this was my problem, not hers. That I was the one stunted emotionally, not Paige. But along with coming to terms with my gaping emotional chasm, I felt a tinge of relief. After all, we had now completed one small battle in the great war of parenting: we had somehow raised a fully-functioning Kindergartner. And here she was, in the flesh, two skinny arms and two skinned-up knees and one sponge-like brain, wondering how many times she could play on the monkey bars today. I felt the moment go from cramped and overcast to spacious and...well...primary-colored. I leaned close and whispered, “Once.” She nodded solemnly, found her orange carpet square, sat down with crossed legs and focused on the large capital letter posters lining the walls of room #K2.

Lost Is the New Found

2008-08-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

“What’s this?” Paige asked. I turned around to see her behind me, holding a small black velvet box. I had to think for a moment. I hadn’t seen that box in over 9 years. Paige had found it in the bottom drawer of the bathroom, where it was stuck in a scratched plastic container with old costume jewelry. Apparently it hadn’t made the cut to the jewelry box on top of the counter holding the real jewelry and accoutrements. It was hexagon shaped, with thin gold piping along the edges and a sweet little clasp. It was the kind of box-with-clasp for which a 5-year-old girl would just die. The kind they would claim immediately as their own and use with their Barbies and doll houses.

“It’s my engagement ring box,” I told her. “Daddy gave it to me when he asked me to marry him.” She looked inside the box, felt its velvet and then stuck her pinky fingernail into the slot that is designed to hold a ring. She turned to me abruptly. “Give me your ring, please.” Easy there, girlfriend. Slow down. I felt the need to explain: “Honey, I don’t like to take off my ring. It’s too special and I’m afraid it will get lost. Plus, my finger will be naked.” The naked comment made her giggle, sure, but she did not forget her request. “Pleeeeeeaase!” she asked again…and again…and again…

I ultimately relented when I heard Carly begin to wail downstairs. (She was pushing a doll stroller around the living room and was stuck between the couch and the tent we had built earlier, from an old flannel sheet and a collection of kitchen chairs.) “Fine. But you CANNOT lose this ring, Paige. Do you understand me? YOU CANNOT. If you lose this ring, I will cry. YOU WILL MAKE MOMMY CRY.” Carly continued to call for help as I struggled to take off my ring. It had become a permanent part of my left hand, you know. I placed it in Paige’s upturned, slightly grubby palm and ran downstairs to free Carly from a tangle of flannel sheets.

Later that night as I was brushing my teeth I noticed something felt, well, off. My ring! Not on my finger! No need to panic, Krista. It has got to be in this house somewhere. Unless, of course, Carly found it and then it could be anywhere. My hair stood on end and adrenalin pumped hard as I spit out (spat?) my toothpaste and tried to decide where to start the search. Then I took a few deep breaths, rolled my neck to get the cricks out and dove in. Maybe Paige put it in the jewelry box on top of the counter. Nope. In the drawers? No. Kenny’s drawers? No way. There was a knot in my stomach now. It felt like mild dread, the feeling you get when you lose something dear to you, something important, like time or friendship or a second chance. Like, for instance, a big editor at HarperCollins passed on your book proposal and you're afraid that might have been your only chance and now it’s gone. Yes, it felt like that.

I looked in my nightstand drawer. I looked between all the parenting magazines and the half-solved crossword puzzles. Nothing. I looked in Kenny’s nightstand drawer. In desperation, I searched under the bed, thinking she might have kicked it there by accident. I started to cry a little, silently, with my head under the khaki-colored bed skirt.

I hunted in the study. The desk drawers, the book shelf, the filing cabinet, the wicker toy basket. I was crying a little harder now, sniffing audibly, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. I wondered how I was going to explain to Kenny that I had taken off my ring and given it to Paige to play with. Like it was some sort of plastic pre-K toy! I imagined defensively telling him that he just didn't understand; that Carly had been caught in flannel sheets and Paige had been pleading and I was just so, so tired and I had simply made a hasty decision. A very large, expensive, hasty decision.

It was right about then that I hit rock bottom: I attempted to wake Paige to ask her where the ring was. I opened the door to her nightlight-lit room, walked straight to her bed and shook her. Her bed rattled but there was no response. I shook her again, harder. Damn, how could she be so soundly asleep already? I had just read her a story, like, 15 minutes ago! I thought about my ring and how it was platinum, the so-called strongest medal, and how we had laughed when we discovered it bent slightly on one side, and how I had come to love that slight bend. I thought about the wedding band we had bought to go with it, and how we returned it the next week because the beauty of my engagement ring made the wedding band look, well, cheap. I thought about how Kenny had sold his boat slip for $26,000 and used part of the proceeds to buy my ring, and how that same boat slip, 9 years later, is now worth over $300,000. My "$300,000 Ring", he calls it. I sniffed miserably and walked out of Paige’s room.

I was out of ideas and out of energy. Walking into the living room, I knew I had to tell Kenny. The ring was missing. Gone, maybe. But then, just as I felt like shaking my fist at God and demanding to know specific details about how he planned on solving this little problem of mine, I saw it. There, on the side table right next to my husband, was the little box. I snatched it up like candy from a piñata and turned the clasp, praying…PRAYING…the ring would be inside. It was. The ring was inside, and then it was out, and then it was on my finger, where it settled quickly into the well-worn groove from which it had come.

Kenny looked up when he heard me approach. He was on the couch watching CNN. “Hey. What’s up?” he asked. Casual. Content. (It was clear all of his possessions were presently accounted for.) Relaxed, confident Kenny, giver of engagement rings to future harried, sniffling mothers of curious 5-year-old girls. I considered his question and then shrugged. "What’s up? Oh…well…nothing much, really,” I answered as I sat down beside him, blinking quickly and watching blurry CNN headlines roll across the screen.

In Case You Were Wondering

2008-08-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

I am quite sure that you, my dear readers, have questions. Burning questions. And by “you”, I mean all three of my fans, including my mother. Seeing as I haven’t been posting essays very regularly, you're probably wondering what's been going on, right? Well! There are a number of reasons I have not posted many essays lately, the most prominent of which is that my life is currently very, very boring. I really don’t have much to talk about. (And that in itself is really saying something.) Besides Carly’s mysterious rash, the kids have been healthy. The husband is good, there have been no children lost on vacations and *sigh* no additional publishing credits to claim. Rest assured I have a few essays in the works. However! Until I post a new story for the three of you to enjoy but not comment on, let’s just take a moment to catch up, yes?

* Carly has been assessed by three different development therapists, all of whom had two things in common: 1) They couldn’t believe how advanced her large and fine motor skills are, and 2) They couldn’t believe how quiet she is. She will be starting speech therapy in the next few weeks and will soon be saying more than “mama” and “hi”.

* A few days after posting The Nest, there was a big development: Left and Center flew the coop. Right hung out for a few more days and then disappeared as well. Kenny cleaned up the nest, power-washed the deck and now it’s like it never happened. Except that I got a few pictures:

* Meredith’s very sweet but very, very, very small baby is not so small anymore. After spending about 1 month in the hospital, she was able to come home and be a regular fussy newborn. A tall, skinny, fussy newborn, that is. ‘Cause that’s how she rolls.

* Paige will be starting Kindergarten in 2 weeks. We are making a Target run this weekend in search of a princess-themed backpack and lunchbox.

Three fans: please stay tuned! There will be more excitement to write about in the coming weeks, as we take our first family vacation since Las Vegas and I send my first-born…my sensitive, sweet, deodorant-wearing Paige…to real school.

Top 10 Reasons My Day Was Better Than Yours

2008-07-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

10) Getting out of the shower and hearing Carly crying mama mama mama and knowing my 30 minutes of alone time before work, during which I dry my hair, put on make-up and pee without interruption, is totally shot. Having the distinct sense that this day might quickly spiral downhill.

9) Changing Carly’s morning diaper and discovering a mysterious rash covering her lower back and belly.

8) At work, calling the babysitter to check in and being told that the rash has now spread to Carly’s neck and upper thighs.

7) Leaving work in a frantic rush to get home in order to take Carly to the nearest doctor’s office and realizing, while driving home, I will now have to finish my work reports after the girls have gone to bed and the house has been picked up, at roughly 9:00pm this evening.

6) While still driving home, realizing I forgot my laptop at work and because my husband is gone this evening I will now have to load the girls into the car after dinner to go back to work to get my computer in order to finish said reports.

5) Walking into the kitchen and seeing Carly, tear streaks still visible, eating Kettle Corn and chocolate ice cream for lunch. The babysitter apologizing continually, swearing that she tried fruit and veggies and cheese and turkey but Carly screamed until she was given popcorn and ice cream. Paige concurring with the babysitter’s story and shaking her head solemnly. Reminding myself that ice cream is actually a dairy product, and that the goal is to have Carly eat a balanced diet including all major food groups throughout the course of a week, and that today’s food group is just the fat group, that’s all.

4) Hearing the babysitter (a former preschool teacher who is used to being with dozens of kids every day) say on her way out the door, “No offense, but I think I’ve decided I don’t want to have kids for a while, ha ha ha!”

3) On the way to the doctor’s office, hearing Paige ask numerous times, without even attempting to conceal her glee, “Will Carly get a shot? Will Carly get a shot? Will Carly get a shot?” And then hearing the same question a few more times in the lobby of the doctor’s office, where there is a 30-60 minute wait.

2) Having Carly fall asleep on my lap in the waiting room, and realizing that any hope for a long, juicy nap this afternoon is now officially dashed.

1) Carly screaming as the doctor examines her rash, which turns out to be a simple reaction to a virus she’s been fighting for the last few days, and glancing over at Paige, who has now crawled up onto the examining table and is laying there, waiting. Waiting for what, the doctor and I do not know. Noticing she has her hands casually laced behind her head and her legs spread very wide, I mean eagle wide, we’re talking pap-smear wide, and hearing her call liltingly to the doctor, “Oooo-kaaay. I’m reeeeaaa-dy!”

We're In the Latter Group

2008-07-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

When Paige was about three weeks old I joined a mother’s group that met weekly. The infants of the group were all roughly the same age, so we did what normal parents do: secretly compared our own brilliant babies to the other...well...not-so-brilliant babies. Every week I would, out of the corner of my blood-shot eye, take stock of how Paige measured up. And every week I would either find my already larger-than-life chest puffed up even larger with milky pride, or my already beaten-down baby brain even more crushed and overwhelmed in defeat. Either way, I usually ended up with a stomach ache. However! I continued to attend the meetings, because besides the exhilarating competition, I liked the mothers and the babies and the fact that snacks were served and consumed with great passion each week.

During one meeting we were gabbing and eating (as usual) and I, being thirsty, got up to fetch a drink. I wedged Paige’s roly-poly little 3-month-old body between two couch pillows and made my way through the maze of chew-toys and binkies to the kitchen. My friend Christine went absolutely crazy. In a good way! She couldn’t believe Paige could just sit there, on her own, like a big girl. She went on and on, pep-squad style. You would have thought Paige had stood up and started reciting the Gettysburg Address or something. Christine kept saying, “Wow! I wish Joey could just sit like that all by himself! She's, like, amazing!”

I attempted for a few brief moments to act modest, but then I surrendered to my barely-veiled emotions and began to swell with pride. Oh, the delight! The exhilaration! Christine’s comments made such an impression that I even remember what Paige was wearing (a yellow sundress), what the couch looked like (dark green ultra suede with plaid throw pillows) and what day of the week it was (Wednesday morning, approximately 10:15am). I told my husband about it later that night and, as expected, we both stepped forward to claim responsibility for Paige’s innate bodily control and balance. It didn’t matter to us that she had been stuffed like a Little Smokie between two large plaid throw pillows, or that she couldn’t have moved even if she had wanted to, or that all she had really done was keep her eyes open with a semi-blank stare. It was clear she was brilliant and waaaaay ahead of the development curve ball. My feelings of superiority and haughtiness lasted a blissful 7 days, until the next weekly meeting, when it was announced with great fanfare that one of the other babies had gotten her first tooth.

Since that day 5 ½ years ago, I’ve decided there are two types of people in this world: those with children who hit their development milestones on time, and those with children who do not. And guess what? I am, for the first time, finding myself in the latter group. And let’s just be clear, people: it sucks. It sucks to have an 18-month-old that only says two or three words. It especially sucks when you’re at Disneyland because, just like when you’re trying to get pregnant and all you see are happy pregnant women, all I saw at Disneyland were 18-month-old little girls talking with clarity and great enthusiasm to their mothers. It made me want to weep. Those little smarty-pants Disneyland girls were saying things like, “Up!” and “Where Mickey?” So not fair! When will Carly start rattling off Disney characters? For the love of God, how long must this poor, exasperated mother wait? Like it would be so much skin off the Universe’s nose!

Sure, it could be a lot worse. It’s not like we’re dealing with flesh-eating bacteria or inhaler-requiring asthma or anything even remotely life or death threatening. I mean, everyone eventually learns to talk, right? And just because we’ve spoken to one pediatrician and one audiologist and two speech therapists and all four of them recommend Carly get assessed for delayed speech, it’s really no big deal, right? I don’t mean to harp on this subject. It’s just that I’m genetically wired to be anxious and apprehensive and panic-y and worry-ish. I am a joy to be around these days. A regular 4th-of-July picnic! But enough about me. Let’s talk about Carly.

As of today, Carly and I have decided to create a club. This club will be called The Late Bloomers Club, and only late bloomers will be allowed to join. (We briefly considered calling it The Delayed Club, but that would necessitate the involvement of the Tri Counties Regional Center, and we are involved with them enough already thank you very much.) Anyway. This is what the invitation to our first club meeting will say:

19 months and still not talking? WELCOME TO OUR CLUB! 18 months and not walking? Hey, crawl right in! Oh! Not crawling yet? Well, we never met an sitter we didn’t like. What? Not even sitting up? No pressure and no problem! You can lie on your back and stare up at the sky, and then roll over for some tummy-time at your earliest convenience. Oh, rolling over is a bit of a problem still? Well then, just lie there and shoot us your biggest, brightest, most charming smile! Oh. Not smiling yet? Wow….you really are a late bloomer. But hey! We’ll take you anyway, because our standards are very, very low!

During our club meetings we won’t really do much. We’ll just sit around oogling each other and spreading unconditional love and encouragement. Oh – and we’ll eat. A lot. Because Carly and I love to eat, despite the fact she’s still only 20 pounds at age 1 ½. She burns it off, I swear. And furthermore, it doesn’t matter what size she is or how much she talks because we, her family, know that she’s perfect and brilliant in every way. No pediatrician or audiologist on the West Coast can convince us otherwise. We love her completely and unconditionally, but I might love her just a tiny bit more if she’d say, oh I don’t know, “Where Mickey?” or something cute like that. And preferably today please, as we’re meeting with the speech therapist tomorrow afternoon.

It Only Takes One Yes (part 4 of 4...finally)

2008-07-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

Ok. So where were we? Ah yes, your friend was enduring her second round of head-shots. It was slow going and she was grumpy, but the photo Gods happened to be smiling on her that day, because against all hungry-preschooler-cranky-toddler-tired-mama odds, one of the photos actually worked. There seemed to be an easiness to it, a simplicity. A slight tilt of the 5-year-old’s chin, a couple of sweet grins, three sets of matching eyes. Plus, if one were to glance quickly at the photo without focusing, one would hardly notice the wrinkles around your friend’s eyes.

And so it was with an audible sigh of relief that your author friend forwarded yet another picture (this one possessing the correct number of resolution pixels) to the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor and the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor’s Art Director. She pushed the send button and held her breath. It had been such a long road already. Surely this picture would do. Surely her essay would finally be published.

Yes! Yes yes yes! The Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor loved the picture! In fact, everyone loved the picture! They loved the setting and the lighting and the sweet grins and the three sets of matching eyes. It was perfect. But – guess what! - there was a small problem. From the Art Director came the dreaded email: “Hi Krista. We love the picture of you and your daughters, but we really need a horizontal picture to insert into the magazine. The one you gave us is vertical. Do you have a similar photo in horizontal form?”

This. Is. Not. Happening.

How could she possibly duplicate the world’s most perfect picture for the third time? Was this the Universe telling her to just give up already on this stupid head-shot thing and forget about this dumb writing thing and just to go back to scrawling long-hand in a ratty old journal like she did in high school? Your friend’s chest tightened with anxiety. For a moment she was quite certain they would change their minds and pull her essay from their publication if she told them the truth, which was, of course, that she did not have that picture in horizontal form. She wondered if her neighbor --- the photographer of the two previous pictures --- was home this afternoon for a 5-alarm emergency photo shoot. (But on second thought she decided he was probably home due to his current job as, ahem, a "consultant".) She thought about the hair needing to be washed, the casual pose needing to be captured, the smiles needing to be elicited, the darker lipstick needing to be applied, the depleted energy needing to be replenished. She thought about the baby, currently napping, and the preschooler, happily coloring. She sighed, heavily. However! She was a tenacious little beaver, this friend of yours! She would do this! She would prevail! And so your friend pushed up her sleeves, rolled her neck a few times to get the kinks out and reminded herself that it only takes one yes. Then she answered the email.

“No,” she replied firmly. No, she absolutely did not have that picture in horizontal form. No, no, no. They would just have to make due with the vertical picture. And even as she typed it, she realized that “NO” was a complete sentence and any bumbling, hesitant apologies were unnecessary. Although this realization hardly qualified as news-worthy, a subtle sense of victory was felt as she reclaimed the teeniest bit of creative power.

And just like that, the world’s most perfect picture was CROPPED by a very kind, talented Art Director and inserted above her essay into a glossy local publication for 80,000 of your friend’s closest friends to view. Her first published essay and a big fat picture to boot! And all it took was:

- 12 months of writing
- 2 months of submitting
- Many weeks of breath-holding
- One darker shade of lipstick
- 27 digital pictures
- $24 FedEx fee
- One email rejecting her perfect but pixel-challenged photo
- 9 additional digital photos
- One yes
- One no
- And one artfully cropped picture, of the vertical persuasion

Ah, sweet victory. Published! She enjoyed her two minutes of fame because, well, who doesn't? She rested easy that night, imagining many more "yeses" to come. But even more important was the fact that it was plain to see, when looking at that perfectly cropped picture above her essay, that both of her daughters had somehow inherited her deep-cobalt-blue eyes.

The Third Word

2008-07-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

We’ve got quite a problem on our hands, people. And I don’t mean the type of problem at which you can throw money to fix. If that were the case, well, let’s just say I’d have taken out a home-equity loan by now.

Miss Carly has a doctor appointment next week. It’s just your average garden-variety 18-month appointment, so technically speaking it shouldn’t pose much of a problem, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong. You see, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a bit of an edgy person. It appears that I might be just a tad prone to totally obsessing over tiny things like the growth and development of my children. So when I realized that Carly’s doctor appointment was quickly approaching, I panicked. First I panicked about how little she is and how she’s probably still off the weight charts. This kid of mine eats constantly, with great enthusiasm, but still possesses the skinniest little chicken limbs ever. There are no rolls around her thighs, no dimples on the back of her hands, not even a little pot-belly. I mean, I can see her back ribs. So in light of our approaching appointment, coming to terms with the fact that she still wears 9-12 month clothing was difficult enough…but it felt like a Disneyland Vacation compared to what popped into my head next.

Carly refuses to talk. Flat out refuses. I like to tell myself that she’s just stubborn, and then I like to go one step further and blame it all on my husband’s side of the family, but I think I’m just kidding myself. All the parenting books and articles and magazines and instruction manuals say that an 18-month-old child should say between 5-20 words. Carly says two, and that’s on a good day. She says “mama” (Does that even count? Isn’t that, like, innate or something?) and she says “hi.” Actually, “hi” could probably count as a triple-letter-word-score due purely to the degree of cuteness in which she says it. She cocks her head like a little puppy and bats her eyelashes alluringly and says it in a two-syllable southern accent sort of way. It sounds like “hay-eee”. We enjoy sitting and staring at each other for hours (ok, maybe three minutes) and saying “hay-eee” back and forth, nose to nose, until we both get bored or hungry.

But I digress. Besides “mama” and “hay-eee”, we’ve got nothin’, people. Oh, but I try. I try to force the language skills. I read to her daily and name every noun in the greater Santa Barbara area, hoping she will suddenly strike up a breezy conversation. As I put on her shoes I say things – really idiotic things – like, “Now I am putting on your shoes. Shoes. See? These are your shoes.” She gives me a look that says, No shit. I got it. Jeeze, can we just go outside already?

That doctor appointment is looming dangerously close, and I gotta tell you people, my nerves are shot. How do I explain to our pediatrician that there is nothing wrong with my daughter or her hearing or her intellect, and that she just chooses not to talk? After all, Carly has her own way of communicating. She points and grunts, mostly. It’s fairly easy to figure out what she wants. And if one happens to be in a pleasant mood, sometimes it’s even kind of fun, like a baby version of the classic game Hot & Cold. Instead of saying “hot” or “cold” (that’ll be the day) Carly grunts and waves her skinny little arms in the air if I’m getting hotter, and then shrieks and arches her back violently if I’m getting colder. If it didn’t reinforce my fears of having a mute, speechless, uncommunicative child, it might even be a fun.

The speech issue reached a fevered pitch last weekend, when we were all begging Carly to say something, anything, to stave off the dreadful feeling deep in our bones of the upcoming doctor appointment and how we were destined to fail miserably. We bribed her with candy and asked her to repeat words like “ball” and “tree” but she would just shake her head vehemently and run outside to chase birds. Our frantic requests quickly spiraled downhill until we hit rock bottom: “Carly, sweety? Can you say….DELAYED?” And then, in one final desperate attempt, "Carly, honey pie? Can you say…SPEECH PATHOLOGIST?” She studied my lips and began twisting her mouth, and for a moment I held my breath, thinking she might just pull off a miracle…but then…she broke into a wide grin and yelled loudly, “Da!” and ran outside again. I hung my head in defeat.

Well-meaning folks invariably say things like, “Oh, don’t you worry now! She’s probably one of those kids that will just start talking in complete sentences!” Or, “Be careful what you wish for! Soon she’ll start talking and she won’t ever stop and then you’ll really be sorry, ha ha ha!” Ha ha, indeed. As if I haven’t heard that one before. To those well-meaning folks I say: No. No, I will not be sorry when Carly finally begins to speak. Instead, I will ask her, “What the heck took you so long?” to which I will expect an eloquent and descriptive answer, including a few sentences of compound-complex nature, along with graphic adverbs, an adjective clause and a dangling participle or two.

Our somewhat gloomy outlook took a slight upturn yesterday when we stumbled upon a (small but valid) beacon of hope. The girls were in the living room wrestling over a coveted stuffed bear. I was boiling pasta and tossing salad when suddenly I heard Carly squeal, “MINE! Mine mine mine!” I stopped tossing the salad and slowly turned to look at Paige. Paige stopped grabbing the stuffed animal and slowly turned to look at me. Our eyes widened as we broke into simultaneous grins. Screw the salad! I ran to Paige and Paige jumped up to meet me and we threw our arms up in joyfully exuberance. Yes, Carly! we shouted. Yes! It’s yours! Yours yours yours! We clasped hands and danced, Paige and I, Ring-Around-the-Rosie-style, next to our adorable THREE-WORD-REPERTOIRE baby. Ashes, ashes, we all fell down, as Carly clutched the bear to her chest, cocked her head thoughtfully, and seemed to wonder why she had been born into such an odd, odd family.

I Can't Take the Heat

2008-07-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

It’s a Thursday evening and we’re having scrambled eggs, turkey bacon and a fruit salad for dinner. I know it’s basic, but my husband is munching away happily because this is one of his favorite meals. He has told me, gently, in the best possible way, that maybe I should “stick to the basics before trying anything experimental.”

Early in our relationship I invited him over to my apartment for dinner. I had slaved and sweated over a pan of home-made mac & cheese, making the sauce from scratch and everything, including no less than three kinds of cheese. He dutifully ate it, and thanked me politely. When I asked what he thought (what possessed me to ask what he thought?) he said, sheepishly, like a good new boyfriend, that he “liked the stuff from the blue box.”

Since I am of hearty stock, not to be swayed easily, a few weeks later I took the liberty of cooking and serving him a beautiful plate of sautéed veggies over rice. Again he ate it. Slowly. Loyally. But later he confessed he “preferred stuff with meat in it.” I found out soon enough (after he had already stolen my heart) that his mother is an AMAZING cook…one to which no daughter-in-law should ever be compared. So what’s a girl to do except keep on trying? Which, of course, brings me to the meatloaf incident. I was making meatloaf for dinner – because hey, I'm no brain surgeon - but I figured there was a lot of meat in meatloaf. Everything was going smashingly until I opened the door to the oven to check on our loaf of meat. There was some sort of sadistic back-draft and the meatloaf exploded, singeing my gelled curls and causing me to burst into meat-laced tears.

The first holiday dinner I attended at my mother-in-law’s house was Thanksgiving, 1997. In addition to the perfectly moist turkey, the perfectly seasoned potatoes and the perfectly lump-free gravy, there was the lefsa. Joanie, being the sweet and humble mother-in-law that she is, explained to her son’s new date (me) that lefsa is a Norwegian traditional dish made out of potatoes. She ate it growing up, and serves it to her own family on special occasions. It’s basically a thin potato pancake smothered with butter and sugar. What’s not to like? Of course it was great, but between bites of lefsa I was thinking two things:
1) I want another one of these things, and
2) The closest thing to lefsa I can offer Kenny is a frozen waffle from Trader Joe’s.

It’s not like I haven’t tried. Joanie has written down all the favorite family recipes with step-by-step instructions so my sister-in-law and I can make them in our own kitchens. For a while we tried making her famous biscuits. We would follow her recipe EXACTLY but they never turned out like her biscuits. I would call Joanie up to whine about it, and she would sweetly suggest that I try new baking powder. I would purchase new baking powder and make them again, but they still would suck. Then she wondered, kindly, gently, if maybe I was stirring the dough too much. After each suggestion I would go back to the drawing board, or in this case the cutting board, and try it again. Finally, after exhausting all possibilities, at a large family gathering my biscuit abilities were being debated and it was determined that I just needed to --- I am not making this up --- put more LOVE into my biscuits.

You know, you’d think growing up on a farm like I did that I would’ve gotten some great cooking skills through osmosis or something. It just plain didn’t happen. And that is why I am taking no chances with my own daughters. I am teaching them the exact position in which to hold a can of Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits so that when it hits the counter it opens on the first try with a loud, satisfying POP.

The Nest

2008-06-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

There is a full moon rising tonight. I can see it clearly through the rungs of our ladder, currently propped outside the kitchen window. The ladder frames the moon nicely, in a shabby chic sort of way, like a silvery picture frame graced with old bits of neutral-colored paint from various household projects. If you were to climb the ladder almost to the top and look about 10 degrees to your right, you would discover the most amazing sight: a perfectly constructed bird’s nest, straight out of Wild Kingdom, holding three of the cutest little baby birds ever imaginable. My birds will look at you curiously as you peer into their nest. They will open their beady eyes and crane their wee necks, as if to convince you they are tougher and bigger than a mere 4 inches. It is such a riot. I’ve invited most of the neighborhood kids over to observe them already. They are quite tolerant of visitors. I like to think my little birds are thoughtful and intelligent, but judging by the size of their heads, I’m probably being a bit too generous. I’m just proud, I guess. And I don’t even like birds.

I haven’t liked birds since the 6th grade, when I climbed the tree in our front yard with my neighbor Tina. It was a hot day in Kansas, and muggy, one of those summer days when you feel sticky even in the cool of an oak tree. We were running from the boys, which was as good an activity as any in 6th grade. Well! One can only assume there must have been a nest hidden in that big oak tree because as soon as we got comfortable on our designated branches, two birds very deliberately began dive-bombing us. They were like enemy aircraft with poop ammunition, and that is scary shit for a 10 year old girl with scrawny legs and thick glasses. I managed to escape in a cloud of frantic confusion and acorns, but one of our attackers flew down and landed on Tina’s head, which is an image that has been burned into the back of my retinas, where it will remain for the rest of my days. To say I totally freaked would be putting it mildly. Tina screamed and jumped out of the tree. Then she stopped, dropped and rolled, like she was on fire.

After that, I really hated birds. (Up until then I had only disliked them intensely.) It very well might be a fear thing. I don’t like their jerky movements or their pointy beaks. And I especially don’t like their talons, whatever they are. Even their name…say it with me…BIRD…sounds callous and clipped. It does not, shall we say, roll pleasantly off the tongue. For whatever reason, however, I seem to have made an exception for the three young birds living outside our kitchen window. Those little guys instantly wormed their way (so to speak) into my anti-bird heart.

Paige and I discovered them one morning last week. What is that crazy squawking noise? we asked ourselves. They were loud, our little ones. I drug the ladder to the deck and climbed to the top and shrieked. I couldn’t believe a mama bird had chosen --- out of all the other, better, more worthy eaves in the neighborhood --- she had chosen our eaves under which to build her nest. Surely this was a good karmic sign, no? Paige was thrilled. They needed names, of course, which proved difficult. The fact that we were not privy to the sex of our birds caused undue stress. Should we call them Mommy, Daddy and Paige? No, that would leave Carly out. How about Larry, Curly and Mo? No, I hate that dumb show. Maybe One, Two and Three? Too uncreative. We finally decided on Left, Right and Center. With me being so practical, and Paige being so literal, those names just seemed to resonate.

Their mommy comes to feed them every morning as I’m washing dishes. Our ears are trained now. Just as I can hear Carly crying two blocks away (with my iPod on), I can hear the baby birds squeaking with joy to see their parents, even if I’m upstairs taking a shower. We know their habits. When they eat, when they sleep, when they’re up for visitors. They lead a simple, honest existence. We should all be so lucky.

There is a downside to being a baby bird, however. They are so very, very ugly. Unbelievably ugly. They are haphazardly fuzzy, which is not a good look for any species, really. They are also gray-ish and pointy-ish and beady-ish, with faces only a mother - a mother of the bird persuasion – could love. But the fact that they are so unsightly makes me want to scoop them up and hold them protectively to my chest. Don’t worry, little guys, you still look cute to me, I would tell them. For I ask you, who among us has not endured an awkward stage? Need I remind you of your 7th grade school picture? Sure, your hair might have been feathered beautifully, but your shiny Farrah Fawcett locks were surely overpowered by the twin glares of your braces and glasses. And don’t even get me started on your skin issues.

I check our nest periodically throughout the day, like any good caretaker. I like to see their little heads pop up and acknowledge me, in their small-brained sort of way. I savor my birds and their time with us, for it’s not often one is able to get so close to baby wildlife. I know there will soon come a day when they will open their little gray wings and fly, leaving me in the kitchen washing dishes, and I shudder to think how sloppily I might handle my very own Empty Nest Syndrome. But for now they are still here, outside the kitchen window. And as I lie in bed tonight I take comfort in the fact that all my favorite little chickadees are safe and sound, asleep under the eaves, below a warm summer moon: Kenny, Paige, Carly, Left, Right and Center.

It Only Takes One Yes (part 3 of 4)

2008-06-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

The continuing saga of your friend and her headshot…

So, amazingly, there was this picture: a simple, beautiful picture of your friend and her two daughters. The picture was taken by their neighbor. The lighting was perfect and the background was lush and green, and captured in the photo were two devilish grins from the younger participants as well as one flattering upper arm view from the oldest participant. It was perfect. A miracle, in fact. Such relief did your friend feel as she hit the send button to forward the digital photo to the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor of the local publication that it felt as if she had crossed some sort of finish line. Not exactly a marathon finish line; more like a 5k-after-being-up-all-night-with-a-newborn finish line.

As expected, the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor and crew loved the picture. And your friend loved seeing the picture on their website, under the “columnists” tab. She was a columnist! It said so right there on the internet! And everyone knows that information found on the internet is – duh! - totally true! Still, every time she turned on the computer and checked the publication’s website, which was a lot, she would feel a moment of pure panic before her photo appeared, like they might have changed her mind and deleted her brief bio and perfect photo from the columnist tab. Let’s just forget this ever happened, your friend imagined them saying. We were just kidding about the columnist thing. But then the photo would appear and her heart would swell like a giant orb of glow sticks and pop rocks. It was almost enough just to have her picture posted on the publication’s website. Almost.

For months your friend waited for her essay to be published while secretly concocting a myriad viable excuses for family and friends as to why it was not going to be. She periodically (ok, almost daily) checked to make sure her image was still on the columnist page. Months went by. Two entire seasons, in fact. Finally, when she was about to give up all hope of fame and fortune, another email arrived from the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor: “Hi Krista. We love the picture of you and your daughters, but it is too small for us to use in the magazine. Do you have the original file? Or the original picture?”

Yes! Yes yes yes! They still wanted her! But no! No no no! She did not have an original picture. She wrote back to the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor: “Sure! No problem! Of course I will forward the original picture right away!” As your friend hit the send button, she hoped her email would come across as breezy and casual, yet helpful and efficient. What she felt, in reality, was panicky and anxious, over-eager and nauseous.

Focusing on the task at hand, she downloaded, uploaded, edited, ordered in triplicate, and over-nighted that perfect picture. It was not cheap to order a picture to be delivered via overnight mail. Highway robbery, to be sure. But she was a columnist and these things were to be expected, right? A columnist has to roll with the FedEx punches. The picture arrived on her doorstep within 24 hours and was sent to the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor the very next day. Breezy, casual, helpful and efficient! But there was a problem: “Hi Krista. I received your original picture, but the quality is JUST TERRIBLE! We can’t use this. I’m afraid we need a new picture.”

Uh, excuse me? Come again? Your friend’s stomach churned and gurgled with acid. She rested her weary head in her hands for a brief moment. She thought of having to wake up the baby to take another(less pixel-challenged) picture. But there was no guarantee the new picture would be anywhere close to as perfect as the poor-quality-with-flattering-upper-arm-views picture. She was beginning to hate the phrase “head-shot.” Seriously, who did she think she was, getting a head shot? But she had no choice. She sucked it up (or in the case of her stomach, still churning with acid, she sucked it in), called her neighbor the photographer, washed her hair, found and applied make-up, scrubbed and dressed the kids, fed the baby a snack, put on some lipstick, waited until the lighting was right, and took another round of digital photos, smiling tensely. The fun was over. It was torture.

But somewhere between the first stiff picture and the last silly picture (her youngest was crawling up her chest like a baby koala and her oldest was making bunny ears and sticking out her tongue), your friend relaxed and started to enjoy the photo shoot. Well, maybe "enjoy" is too strong of a word. More like "tolerated with only the mildest of clenched jaws." She kept reminding herself that it only takes one yes, and that she only needed one decent picture, and that she had come so far and was this close to being published.

So what happens next? You’ll have to find out in installment #4…

On Deck Stain and Forgiveness

2008-06-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

You know when your kid poops in his pants, but instead of rinsing the underwear with a pair of tongs in the toilet and then washing them in scalding water and then bleaching them not once, but twice, you decide instead to just throw that particular pair away? Then, wracked with guilt, you think: what a shameful waste of money…but a few moments later you think: I can get another 3-pack at Sears for $7.95. So in the end, when you consider the time and effort and grossness, you decide it really is a better deal to just to buy another 3-pack? Well, it was kind of like that. Except for the poop.

It wasn’t poop, but it was just as bad: deck stain. I threw her whole outfit away...the pink velour yoga pants, the striped top, even the ruffled socks. I was really mad. I threw everything, with great flourish, right out the 2nd story bathroom window. It felt liberating, like I was throwing assorted items owned by a cheating boyfriend (various pieces of clothing, a few cd’s, maybe even a small television) out an apartment window onto a busy sidewalk below. In reality, I just threw one ruined pink outfit, size 12 months, out the window of a small, single-family home. Her yoga pants landed with a loud splat on the patio, loud enough to cause Carly to look up at me and grin. I glared back. I wasn’t ready to make nice yet.

She was in the bathtub by that time. I dumped her in there fully clothed, including her shoes. In less chaotic times I surely would’ve recalled that water and oil-based-deck-stain do not mix, but what can I say? I was frantic. She walked into the room covered with deck stain, from her little bald head (bald if you don’t count a spot in the back where she has grown a sort of curly auburn-colored mullet) down to her pink leather Mary Janes. I wasn’t sure what effect deck stain would have on toddler skin, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t as mild as, say, Johnson’s & Johnson’s Bedtime Lotion. I knew I had to do something fast, but I hesitated. My adrenalin pumped and my forehead throbbed but I just stood there wondering what I should attack first with my cleaning accoutrements: Carly or the carpet?

I chose Carly. I am not at all sure I made the right choice, as I’ve discovered through trial and error that skin is slightly easier to clean than carpet. (I’m not admitting to anything, but hypothetically speaking, if you had a daughter that was naked one afternoon and crawling up a carpeted flight of stairs, and she pulled over to the side like she was at a truck stop or something and decided to take a quick poop, you would probably want to catch that little gem with your bare hands. It is, after all, much easier to scrub your hands of all remnants of poop than to scrub all remnants of poop from the fibers of tufted weave carpet. I’m just saying.)

Anyway. I grabbed Carly, who was dripping of deck stain, held her at arm’s length and ran to the bathroom. She laughed. She was enjoying this. I turned the bathtub on full blast, dumped her in, and screamed at Paige to watch her sister so I could run to get the carpet cleaner. (Yes, of course I have read that children can drown in one inch of water, but I prefer to think of that as some sort of sick urban legend.) I returned to the bathroom moments later, panting, to see Carly standing in the bathtub next to the faucet. Her diaper was filled with water and slipping south toward the ankles. Like a frog trying to catch a fly, she had thrust her tongue out as far as possible and was slurping up the rushing water without so much as clearing her throat. Still panicky, I scanned the bathtub for cleaning supplies but realized that her bottle of Tiny Tillia Flower Power Head-to-Toe Foamy Wash was as good as empty. Why was it empty, you ask? Because moments before the disastrous deck stain incident, she used the convenient hand-pump of her Tiny Tillia Flower Power Head-to-Toe Foamy Wash as a straw to suck down roughly one third of the bottle. Which kind of explains why I wasn’t watching her when she discovered the open gallon of liquid that looked suspiciously like melted caramel candy and, thanks to its delightful viscosity, smeared it effortlessly into the mullet on the back of her head: I was searching for the number of poison control.

You know, when dealing with a particularly chaotic moment, it is sometimes hard to remember the thousand ways in which your child will break your heart infinitely worse than this. It is difficult to maintain a positive perspective when you are scrubbing deck stain from the inside of a tiny ear and the owner of said ear gives you a look that clearly says, despite the brutal ear scubbing, that she is thoroughly satisfied with her decision to play in the gallon of deck stain. In fact, she is thoroughly satisfied with all the decisions she has ever made in her entire life. And furthermore, it was all worth it, if only for a moment of being able to feel the slimy coolness between her fingers and under her nails and in her hair, and to see the stunned look on her mother’s face.

And so we, as parents, continue to scrub. We scrub the dirt and the grime and the deck stain from the pores of their skin, even while knowing that this scrubbing only prepares them for their next exhilarating adventure. We are merely passengers on this bus. We are passengers sans control knobs, forced to sit behind our tiny drivers and wearily grip a worn bag filled with Barbie Band-Aids, soapy washcloths, a spare 3-pack of underwear, perhaps some bleach, and if we’re truly prepared, a bit of paint thinner. We sit and we grip our bags and console ourselves with the fact that it’s only carpet for God’s sake, and those pink velour yoga pants were getting a little too tight anyway.

It Only Takes One Yes (part 2 of 4)

2008-05-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

Say you still have this friend, the same one, except now this friend needs a headshot. A headshot! Exactly how does one prepare for a headshot? One must wash one’s hair, this much is known. One must also locate various make-up supplies. But first, one must google “headshot” to see what one should wear and how one should pose.

So this is exactly what your friend does. While the baby is napping, she googles and researches and washes and styles and, generally speaking, tarts herself up. She discovers and subsequently applies the darker shade of lipstick that has not been discovered or applied since before the birth of her second child. In fact, she believes the last time she wore that particular shade of lipstick she was trying to seduce her husband in order to have a second child. It seems to have worked. But that is neither here nor there, except for the fact that that’s what got her into this mess in the first place.

At any rate, she then contacts her neighbor, who happens to be a gifted graphic designer and a fabulous photographer, to ask him if he would be willing to shoot a few frames of her. I need a headshot, she says, and the words sound funny coming out of her mouth. Because, she explains to him (and herself), she has been asked by the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor of a local publication for a picture! Because, she further explains, her essay is going to be printed in the very next issue of said publication! Because it really is true: it only takes one yes! Your friend’s neighbor is glad to help, as he currently works from home and spends part of his day searching for any sort of distraction. (The tiniest one will do.) He readily agrees to shoot a few frames of her that very afternoon. She is thrilled, this author friend of yours. She is thrilled to be getting a headshot, but mostly she is thrilled to have washed her hair and to be wearing lipstick and nice clothes and such. She gives herself the once over in the full-length mirror and most definitely likes what she sees. Yes, she is looking good in the neighborhood. Quite literally! While still in the "looking good!" frame of mind, she goes to visit her working-at-home neighbor to confirm the photo shoot’s time and location. Holding her older child’s hand and her younger child on her left hip, she rings the doorbell and thinks how effortless this is: two kids, being published, wearing lipstick, looking good.

Her neighbor opens the door with a big smile. He confirms the time and place and then nonchalantly, mostly as an after-thought, says, “Sure, no problem. Just come on down when you fix your hair and put on some make-up and stuff.” Your friend is silent for a moment. She masks her disappointment easily because, like most mothers, she is an expert at masking disappointment. And besides, it is almost comical. She sighs quietly and shifts the baby from her left hip to her right hip as she contemplates explaining to him that she is already wearing lipstick – the darker shade, see? – and that she has already washed and fixed her hair. But she doesn’t. That would take too much effort, and she is suddenly feeling peaked. Instead, your friend just nods a little too enthusiastically and says, “Oh yes, of course I will fix myself up a bit for the headshot.” Then she walks home, dragging her children behind her.

What happens next? You’ll have to find out in installment #3…

It Only Takes One Yes (part 1 of 2...or 4)

2008-05-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

Say you have this friend. This friend has been busy writing stuff down. She’s been writing stuff down about her kids and sometimes her husband or her friends or her work. Every so often, on days that she feels particularly brave, she submits an essay or two to various publications whose headquarters are located in her surrounding area. She finds that email submissions work well because she doesn’t have to hear the recipients boo her in person. Also, if she doesn’t receive a response, she can always blame it on faulty technology. (i.e. Her email must not have showed up in their in-box; hence, no bubbly email reply asking her to become a regular columnist. )

Anyway. Your friend keeps writing stuff down, like a tenacious little beaver, between loads of laundry and daily family urgencies. She tries, sometimes clumsily, to get out of her own way and write with a sense of easiness and authenticity. Once in a while she is just brave enough to submit an essay or two and she continues to tell herself that it only takes one yes. It only takes one yes. Days go by and sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith, but she just keeps writing stuff down. And then one day it happens. She opens her email and there it is: a reply from the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor of a really great local publication. This woman thinks your friend’s essays are “v-e-r-y good” and she is interested in publishing a few of them. Apparently this woman’s email system has not been hindered by faulty technology like the rest of the idiot publishers your friend has attempted to contact! Your friend’s eyes literally pop out of her head. She freezes for a brief moment. Then she jumps up and something escapes from her throat --- it sounds like the yelp of a frightened puppy mixed with the grunt of a first-time mother in early labor. Panic…shock…amazement…joy.

And so, a few days later, she meets with the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor. That is to say she attempts to meet with her. The first time they decide to meet, she arrives at the agreed-upon restaurant early, adorned in lipstick, hands clammy and slightly shaking. Luckily she has asked a friend what she should wear in order to look more, well, writer-ish. She is dressed in khakis, a thin black v-neck sweater and fake snake-skin loafers, and she waits and waits and waits for the Owner-Founder-Publisher-Editor that never arrives. The woman actually forgets to show up! Your friend finally summons the nerve to call her and then manages to nervously laugh it off and reschedule. On the way home she wonders how a meeting that seemed so insanely monumental to her could be so completely trivial to someone else.

But then, the very next week, they actually do meet. And they laugh and chat like old girlfriends, eating cookies and drinking mango iced tea. They talk about writing and publishing and books and magazines and ideas and goals. Your friend is so buzzed after the meeting that it is hard to tell what is to blame: the thought that someone actually noticed her writing, or the three glasses of heavily-sugared mango iced tea. She goes to bed that night and stares up at the ceiling, wide awake until the wee hours of the morning, grinning like a crazy monkey with a full and grateful soul. See? She whispers to the dark. It only takes one yes.

What happens next? You’ll have to find out in installment #2…

All That Glitters...

2008-05-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

It was not my intent to cry like a baby. No. No, it was not. But you see, I’ve been extra sensitive and emotional lately. (Which, as anyone who knows me would agree, is really saying something.) I’ve found myself crying at nearly everything: dog food commercials, slap-stick movies, premature babies (ok, probably warranted), emails from girlfriends, phone calls from husbands. Could it be PMS? Maybe. Could it be the realization that my daughters are growing up? Perhaps. Could it be that I am becoming more aligned with my higher self and perceive feelings and emotions more intensely? I’d like to think so. But it’s probably PMS.

Violent emotional swings notwithstanding, I should have been more prepared when Paige got home from school on Friday. She burst into the living room after being picked up from school by her grandma and screamed, “HAPPY MUDDERS DAY!” with such joy it was like we had just been rescued by allied forces after a long, cold winter. I should have known she was going to make me a sappy Mother’s Day present in preschool. After all, that’s what preschoolers do! They make stuff. I know this, of course, because I am the recipient of all of Paige’s art projects. I drag dozens, no hundreds, of them home weekly. One might wonder what I do with all of them. Well, I do what every other preschool parent does:

Step 1: Keep art project in backseat of car for four days because it takes too much energy to bring into house. Plus, glitter will undoubtedly make a big mess on counter(s).

Step 2: Bring project into house and leave on kitchen counter for four additional days because it takes too much energy to figure out where to display said project.

Step 3: With wet sponge, clean up glitter on kitchen counter, being careful not to touch project, as any shift in paper will cause additional glitter to detach.

Step 4: Decide, with newfound courage, to throw project in trash because child has not mentioned it since date of creation.

Step 5: On second thought, decide to put project behind broken chair in storage crawl space under house, just in case.

Step 6: Guilt-ridden, bring project back into house amid trail of glitter. Tape project to middle of refrigerator. Act confused when child asks with discernable disappointment how in the world project got shoved behind the broken chair in the storage crawl space under house because she wanted that one, mommy!

Few make the final cut, but when I spot a true masterpiece, I can’t help it: I cry. And so I cried when Paige ran into the living room and handed me a piece of pink paper in the shape of a lopsided heart. I noticed there were a few minor rips around the edges which were fixed with scotch tape. One spot near the bottom was wavy, like it had been clenched in a sweaty fist the whole ride home. It was decorated with baubles and jewels and glitter. Ah, the never-ending glitter! I could pave a road to the moon and back with all the glitter my daughter has exploited in her short, shimmery life. To the untrained eye it didn’t look like much: a pink heart with crooked edges, a few jewels, a few words. I, however, have a penchant for art of this nature.

I took one look at that heart and read what it said and – Hello PMS! – I just lost it. I burst into tears. I sobbed like a weenie. Paige was thrilled. At the wise old age of 5 she can tell the difference between tears of pain and tears of joy, and she knew that she had hit the mother lode, so to speak, with this one. I sobbed and hugged her so hard she had to push me away for fear of accidental suffocation. I read the words printed on the heart again, this time out loud:

“I love it when my mommy tucks me into bed at night.”

Oh, the emotion! The raw, uncensored sentiment! The tears flowed anew as I told her how thrilled I was to be her mom and how much I loved my extraordinary present. I reminded her that she had made me a mom! The post-nasal drip continued, and as it combined with my tears I noticed it created a slight saltiness in my throat, not unlike the aftertaste of, say, string cheese. Which was just fine with me, as I’ve never met a slice of cheese I didn’t like. Especially during PMS.

So, the question is: what will happen to this Mother’s Day masterpiece? Will it end up in the storage unit beneath our house, dusty and sad and forgotten? Will it be just another one of Paige’s projects that didn’t quite make the refrigerator cut? What would you do? Would you keep this gift, the one with the extra glitter, the one that was created especially for you by the child that made you a parent?

Why yes. Yes, you would.

For Meredith

2008-05-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

May 4, 2008

Dear Baby Anna,

Welcome to the world, baby girl! (The hug is implied.)

First off, let me just say that you are one tall drink 'o water! Skinny, sure, but baby’s got legs! I can’t wait to see the look on all those uppity full-term baby faces when you show up dressed in some sassy little tunic and a pair of boot-cut jeans in size 0-3 months! Can you imagine? It kills me! Jeans, size 0-3! Boot-cut!

Now, Anna. I know you were ready to get this party started, but sheesh, could you have given us a little more warning? I mean seriously, did you have to begin your debut in the middle of Nordstrom’s Café? Forget about ever being able to look at the chicken salad in the same way --- heck, we just plain weren’t ready for you! No car seat! No nursery paint! No rocking chair! No decision regarding whether to keep the couch and cover it with a creamy new slipcover or ditch the couch in favor of an entire new one! Here’s a tip: next time you’re invited to a party, let’s try to follow in your mother’s footsteps. (She’s always holding things up, you know.) Try showing up “fashionably late” instead of, oh I don’t know, nine weeks early!

And one more thing: don’t worry about that breathing stuff. You’ll figure it out. Sometimes I, too, forget to breathe. I’ve found in times of stress, if you get right down to it, breathing is just plain overrated. I say, whatever! But damn girl, those legs on you! Breathing machine or not, you’re still the cutest kid in the NICU and I’m not just saying that. By the way, I always knew you were a girl.

So tell your mom congrats. Tell her to brush up on her Goodnight Moon and not to worry about attending that last birthing class (unless she’d like to teach it). Tell her to go out and buy some cute pink stuff. And tell her: Welcome to the Club! Her application has officially been accepted.

Love,
Krista

Things Learned

2008-05-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

1) Cereal: not just for breakfast anymore
2) The only thing a 15-month-old willingly shares is germs
3) This working stuff is really cutting into my free time

My Mute Emaciated Pee-Wee

2008-04-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well-Visits. That's what the doctor's office likes to call them. Usually they’re no big deal. A few pokes, a few tears, a co-payment and a stale sugarless lollipop. Before you know it you’re back at home making peanut butter sandwiches for lunch while your preschooler gyrates to the tune of “I like to move it, move it” and your toddler drops an entire roll of toilet paper into the toilet. Or maybe that’s just me.

At any rate, I expected this doctor’s visit to be typical. Breezy, even. Having been through at least a thousand of these so-called “Well-Visits”, ok maybe I’m rounding up, but still --- I knew the drill. Carly would be weighed and measured. Milestones would be discussed. The doctor would be amazed at her utter strength and dexterity. “Oh, I know,” I would say, lowering my head in what I hoped would seem like a gracious and humble manner. “She was a very early walker. 10 months on the dot, but who’s counting?” And later, “Yes, big heads run in our family. But isn’t that a sign of intelligence? Ha Ha Ha!” And near the end of the appointment, “I agree, she is very petite. Wouldn’t you know, she just burns it all off! Did I mention how she walked at 10 months?” Yes, I was pumped and ready for this doctor’s visit. I packed the diaper bag, hummed the soundtrack from Rocky and felt supremely confident. Maybe even a little cocky.

I expected a pleasant ego-building visit, but something went horribly wrong. It seems there were some, well, issues. Nothing earth shattering, but issues nonetheless. And that, my friends, was a curve ball for which I wasn’t quite prepared. Normally I soak up the doctor’s compliments like a wet vac. I've never worried about Carly being in the 1st percentile for height and weight (meaning out of 100 children, 99 of them ~~have bigger butts~~ weigh more than she does). She was still in the normal range, after all. However, on this particular morning, it seems as if Carly had dropped off the idiotic weight chart all together. And although getting her precise weight proved to be impossible due to her intense need to wiggle, I believe the doctor’s exact words were, “Wow, we need to get some meat on them bones!” Nice.

And then there was the language issue. When asked how many words she was currently saying, I hesitated. It was a foolish error on my part and recovery proved almost impossible. “Well…hmmm…I guess she sort of says ‘mama’….and if you catch her in the right mood it sounds like she says something that semi-resembles the word ‘kitty’…and she waves and claps a lot, does that count?” I found myself wanting desperately to explain that she is much too busy scaling walls and building block towers and climbing out of windows and striking yoga poses and running down sidewalks to actually stop to talk. And seriously, is that really such a bad thing? Finding it difficult to summon the energy for a plausible explanation, I just sat there looking blankly at the sea life mural as he told me he’d like her to be saying at least 5 words by this point, but he was sure everything was fine, not to worry, just keep reading to her as much as possible. The sea life mural blurred briefly as I received what felt like a quick sucker punch to the stomach.

Carly continued to run around the examination room in her diaper while I sat very still, watching Dr. Pediatrician’s lips move in slow motion and hearing only a muffled wah waaah wah waaah waaaaah and thinking: So let me get this straight. What I’m hearing you say, doc – can I call you doc? - is that my daughter is an exceptionally scrawny speechless kid. A mute emaciated pee-wee. A non-verbal little person.

Well! Let me assure you that I high-tailed it out of that…that…doctor’s office. Or at least I would have, had I not needed to pack up our bags, change Carly’s diaper, make an 18-month appointment at the front desk and pony up the co-payment. Still! You can be sure I grabbed my skinny little mute and raced home, thinking about all the things I should’ve said in that room. Things along the lines of, “But with childhood obesity on the rise in our country, shouldn’t petite-ness be considered a good thing? Plus, don’t you find her kind of cute? And seriously, shouldn’t we all aim to talk just a little less?”

Back in the comfort of our non-threatening home I held Carly up by her bony zero-percentile armpits and told her not to worry about that archaic weight chart and those so-called verbal development guidelines. I assured her that she was the most wonderfully perfect child I’ve ever known, tied for first place with her big sister, and she’s a very lucky girl. Why? Because today for lunch we are going to have ice cream, cashews and butter! And guess what else! After lunch we are going to sit on the couch and eat dark chocolate and read books until our legs go numb and we're hungry for more ice cream!

Sin City

2008-04-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Having just returned from a family trip to Las Vegas, I think it’s safe to conclude we will be staying in the tri-county area for the next ten years or so. It seems as if going on vacation causes me to lose things. Little things, like time and money. Oh, and kids.

It wasn’t my fault (exactly). I really do look after my kids (mostly). The goal has always been to keep my children safe and fed and relatively well-groomed. Sure it’s a lofty goal, but most of the time I succeed. However! There is something about vacationing with children that turns me into a frenzied absentminded nit-wit, despite my excessive planning and deep breathing techniques.

On the second night of our trip I found it difficult to sleep. Perhaps it was because our hotel was under the flight path of a very busy airport, or maybe it was due to the Mary J Blige song performing incessantly - live and in concert! - in my head. Whatever the reason, my eyes stung and my head ached and still I couldn’t sleep. I suppose it didn’t help that I snuck out of bed all naughty-like and stumbled down the shabby hallway into the casino to locate the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop I had spied earlier. I felt I would finally be able to relax after yielding to my craving. Instead, I just felt a little chubbier.

Later, as I maneuvered my way back into bed between three snoring bodies of various shapes and sizes, I wondered why I had ever agreed to this trip. Carly was so annoyingly active these days. I mean seriously, it bordered on rudeness. She was impossible to keep track of in a small, padded room, let alone in a city of over 500,000 smoking-drinking-doughnut-eating people. It had taken all of our energy to just get here. As soon as we boarded the plane she had begun acting like a crazed caged orangutan hunting for small bugs and I realized, with great hostility, that I could kiss my vacation (and I use the term “vacation” in the loosest possible way) goodbye.

On the other hand, Paige was a traveler’s dream. She’s my little pleaser. Sweet as a lollipop, that Paige. Always aiming for perfection. As Kenny and I wrestled with Carly in the airport terminal and in the hotel room and in the casino lobby and in the bathroom stall and in the buffet line, Paige was always happy to help. She retrieved fallen binkies and thrown sippy-cups, she held doors and elevators, she followed instructions without question as we frantically bellowed them out.

So imagine my shock, dear readers, on the morning of day #3 when I opened the door of our hotel room to find Paige staring back at me from the hallway with a disturbingly blank look. I was groggy from my sleepless night and I gaped at her, motionless, for a long while. I thought I was dreaming, and I noticed that her polka-dot nightgown blended nicely with the gaudy wallpaper. She looked like a lost baby bird. Next to Paige stood a woman who I took to be an infinitely more accomplished mother. She was dripping with scorn and contempt. “Is this your little girl?” she asked. (It was really more of a demand than a question.) “She’s been knocking on your door for a REALLY…LONG…TIME.” I didn’t even answer that woman, the more worthy mother, who just maybe had read a few more parenting books than me and almost certainly remembered to fasten the dead bolt of the hotel room and all that other dumb stuff. She’s probably the type that gave her children real baths last night, with soap and everything, instead of taking them for a quick dip in the hotel pool. Of course I found myself wanting disaster and calamity to rain down upon this other mother…that is, as soon I called child protective services to turn myself in. I grabbed Paige’s bony little shoulder and hustled her into the room with such intensity that she started to cry. I hadn’t even realized she was missing.

We all piled onto the bed, and as Kenny wiped Paige’s tears with the thin hotel sheet she described in great detail how she had gone next door to visit grandpa and grandma. Come on over anytime! they had said. So Paige did what she had been taught to do: she followed directions. While Kenny and Carly and I were still sleeping she left our hotel room, silently, so as not to be a bother. The only glitch was that grandpa was on an early-morning walk and grandma happened to be taking a shower and Paige became locked out of both hotel rooms, shivering in the hallway, in her yellow polka-dot nightgown, holding her stuffed gecko and needing to pee. She had knocked and knocked. Sweetly. Politely. Like one might tap on the glass of an aquarium. With gentleness and great care, lest you risk disturbing the fragile environment or causing any inconvenience to the sea life.

Paige’s tears stopped but still we stayed on that hotel bed, each of us heavy with the thought of what almost-kind-of-could’ve-might’ve happened. Eight legs and eight arms, all accounted for, tangled together in a heap. We hung on tight and longed for home, listening to the sound of airplanes flying overhead to faraway tropical destinations.

Beach Glass

2008-03-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

We kept wiping the sand from our eyes but it didn’t make the ocean appear any less grey or angry. It was windy and Paige and I were bundled up in sweatshirts and jeans, barefoot, toes painted. The tops of our heads were almost touching as we squatted near the water’s edge and poked the sand in focused silence.

“Is this a good one?” she asked. I looked up and saw she was holding a small triangular-shaped piece of glass, the color of a worn dollar bill. Yes, I said, it’s perfect. We added it to the small collection that was already in my sweatshirt pocket. It clinked as it settled.

I have always longed for a beach glass collection. I’ve always wanted to be one of those people that owned a large heavy mason jar filled with beach glass --- real beach glass that was picked by hand from local beaches and displayed in a sunny kitchen or a guest bathroom. The problem was that it had always seemed too daunting a task to actually start collecting. How do you begin? Do you have just a couple of pieces floating around in an empty iced tea bottle for a while? Should you hide the bottle in the linen closet until the collection is more respectable? Is there a magic number of pieces you must amass before exhibiting them in the proper manner? And so, with all these perceived road blocks, I had never quite gotten around to starting a collection until that very day, when I looked down and saw a tiny bit of amber glass smiling up at me from next to my big toe. I grinned and thought, if not now… then when? I picked it up and put in my pocket and – just like that – our collection was started.

Paige had been upset earlier. There had been tears. My first-born is so very, very sensitive. When we arrived in the parking lot she was in a hurry to get out of the car and had opened her door too quickly and dented the truck next to us. She looked up at me and in a flash I saw her eyes cloud. Her little 5-year-old soul is utterly transparent. I saw the shock, then the embarrassment, then the fear, and then, of course, the shame. She was devastated. It didn’t matter to her that the truck’s owner was a friend of ours and that he was very kind about the incident and that he bent down to tell Paige it was no big deal and that no one got hurt and that trucks can be fixed. She still buried her face into the soft of my belly and sobbed in silent anguish. It was then that I decided to take her for a walk on the beach, and it was then that we decided today was, without question, the day we should start our glass collection. We dipped our toes into the sandy foam and began to dig.

The arrival of the helicopters caused us both to look up in surprise. It was jarring, going from hearing only the rushing sound of waves to being bombarded with the noise of helicopter blades whirling so close to where we were squatting. Paige squinted from the sound, like it hurt. The helicopters kept flying, in an organized zigzag pattern, next to the shoreline as we hunted for treasures. Again and again they flew over us. It reminded me of the MASH theme song. Then, abruptly, I realized the helicopters must be looking for someone; someone that was in trouble. I knelt down heavily, and as the grains of sand dug a pattern into my knees I suddenly felt very weary.

Paige continued to search for beach glass, and although dried tear streaks were still visible on both cheeks, her breath was no longer jagged. She seemed calm and content and focused on the task at hand. There was no reason to explain to her the arrival of the helicopters. She didn’t need to know about the man that had fallen off a small sailboat wearing only a light wetsuit and no life jacket. She didn’t need to know that it had happened only a few minutes ago, right about the time she had found our prized piece of cobalt-colored glass, or that it had happened very close to us, as we kept our heads bent down for protection from the wind. She didn’t need to know that it was just too gusty for that little boat and its inexperienced sailors. Too windy, too rough, too raw. She didn’t need to know that within hours the search effort would become a recovery effort, and that the man’s friend, who had also been on the boat but had swam to shore safely, would be out on the beach all that night, waving a flickering flashlight toward the ocean, screaming his friend’s name into the darkness until he lost his voice. All she needed to know was that it was imperative to start our beach glass collection today. Right now, in fact. And so, from the safety of shore, we huddled together for warmth and comfort and continued to search.

Girl Stuff

2008-03-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Carly found the tampon drawer yesterday. She fell in love at once with the fun shape and the crinkly packaging. She ran up and down the hallway with one tampon in each hand and another in her mouth. How could I not laugh? Kenny visibly cringed and muttered, “You better move those things to a higher drawer.” Carly kept running and I kept laughing. Then Paige perked up and asked, “What are they for?” and that’s when things got a bit dicey. I mean, how do you explain a tampon to a 5-year-old? One wouldn’t want to go into too much detail, but one would still want to be honest. I said something about being old enough to be a mommy and using them sort of like a diaper or some such nonsense and I managed to go from enjoying a really funny moment to feeling like a dim-witted sack of a mother in about two seconds. I just wasn’t ready for a question like that! I thought I had years before having to deal with things of that nature, right? Right?

Wrong. That evening I went to my girlfriend’s house to help with a fundraiser for our preschool. As we absent-mindedly sorted See’s candy orders, she informed me that a mutual friend of ours had taken her daughter to UCLA to see a specialist regarding – are you sitting down? - symptoms of early puberty. My jaw dropped. Or at least it would have, had I not been sampling a dark chocolate bordeaux. I was stunned. I mean, this is the sweetest, cutest, smartest, most petite little girl and she is exactly Paige’s age. We’re talking puberty, people! At five! Though I know there are ways it can be treated and it’s not exactly what one would consider a life-threatening situation…still! My heart went out to her parents and, being the frantic-high-strung-worry-wart that I am, I immediately became convinced something was up with my own child, too. I continued to sort candy (one for you, two for me) until ever-so-casually asking my friend, “So, anyway. About this puberty thing. How did they notice? What were the signs?” She told me what they had observed, which boiled down to indisputable signs of puberty that any parent might notice when a daughter is, say, 13 years old.

While driving home I pondered some little issues that had surfaced with Paige recently. No big deal, really. A few pimples on her forehead. A whitehead on her nose. Clogged pores, perhaps? But what about the hair that suddenly needed washing every day? Doesn’t hair get greasier when puberty hits? And what about the fact that Paige had suddenly outgrown all her pants and was always complaining of being hungry? Was this your average garden-variety growth spurt, or should I be making my own appointment with a UCLA specialist? It suddenly was all making sense, in some terrible heart-breakingly unspeakable way. By the time I arrived home and entered the living room where Paige was sitting on the couch, I was in a full-blown state of panic.

So I did what any parent would do in a similar situation. I walked over to her, lifted up her arm, wedged my nose deep into her armpit and inhaled with great determination. And what did I find? I found she smelled like a grown man. A grown man of the contractor profession perhaps, one that had worked in desert-like conditions all day without the benefit of a shade tree or modern-day deodorant. She smelled rotten. Like real body odor. After I came to my senses I stared at her incredulously. I stared at her like I was trying to understand how an alien had walked into my house, stolen my sweet-smelling daughter and replaced her with this…this…smelly person. She stared back at me, cocked her head, and asked tenderly, “What?”

Well! I ask you, how could I have not known that my own daughter was going through puberty at five years old? This was insane! This must be some sort of world record! Of course I quickly booted up the computer and googled “5 year old puberty” but couldn’t find much research on the subject. Like I said, Guinness Book, here we come. Later that night while helping her into her pajamas I was able to nonchalantly sneak a (desperate) peek at her 5-year-old chest. Whew! Still flat as a pancake. But my relief was quickly replaced by an even more dreadful thought: maybe she really was going through puberty but – horror of horrors - she will always be FLAT AS A PANCAKE!!

At that point there was only one thing left to do: call my mother. Luckily she was home and I was able to explain the whole ghastly situation in breathless run-on sentences. She listened intently and even laughed a little which made me laugh a little too. I really hate it when that happens. Finally I was done. “Fascinating!” she replied. Not exactly the reaction I expected, but I took it in stride and together we decided on a plan of action. Jointly, as a united front, as two women who have been through puberty themselves and who care deeply about Paige and women’s bodies in general, we determined that perhaps I should wait on calling the specialist at UCLA, and that I should try, instead, to scrub under Paige’s arms with a nice bar of Dial soap.

Amazingly enough, so far it’s been working. However! That still doesn’t help me with the tampon explanation, or the fact that Carly has now has discovered the condoms.

We're Not Sick

2008-03-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

Collectively, as a group, we are not sick today. Nor have we been sick for the past four days. This is something to be noted and celebrated, because out of the last three months (mid-December through mid-March, but who’s counting?) on any given day at least one of us in this family has been sick. And for a hideous 5-day period in December we were ALL sick. But yesterday as I was folding laundry, having just put my youngest to bed, I stopped and sat for a moment and reflected on how lovely it felt that for once no one had a runny nose or a nightly cough or a sinus infection or even a headache. We were all so blessedly normal.

Well…maybe not “normal” exactly. After all, at Kenny’s birthday dinner last weekend, as he blew out his candles he said, “I just wish Carly was normal!” We all laughed but then stopped abruptly after glancing over at Carly, who was in the kitchen holding the metal pasta strainer over her head and doing deep knee-bends. But that’s a completely different issue.

Anyway. It feels wonderful to finally be a healthy family. It is something to really savor, like a tootsie pop or a snow day. I can’t help thinking maybe I should set up a nice sterile quarantine area in our house and buy us all matching biohazard masks. Not because we’re sick, but because we’re finally well. Do you think that would be going a bit too far? I mean, considering what we’ve been through in the last three months?

The four of us each deal with being sick in our own special way. I myself prefer a passive-aggressive approach. I pretend I don’t have a hacking cough and that my eyes are definitely not swollen shut with goobers, and then I start to grumble softly, asking no one in particular (ok, sometimes I’m asking my husband) why I have to do everything around here when I’m sick for God’s sake. I tend to alternate between charging full steam ahead with all daily planned activities and moaning dramatically on the living room floor with self-pity and professed exhaustion. What can I say? It’s a technique that has proven itself to work well for me.

My husband, whom I love dearly, tends to be a bit of a hypochondriac. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. This is a man - a very manly-man mind you! - that is brought to his knees by the onset of a simple cold. (Years ago, when we first began dating, I heard from a mutual friend that he had just taken himself to the Emergency Room for a case of the sniffles. I am not kidding. You can’t make stuff like this up.) At any rate, through the years he has learned to visit the E.R. for more life-threatening emergencies and now when he gets sick he just tends to barrage me with innumerable questions. “Do you think I’m getting the flu?” And then, “Do you think I have polyps in my sinuses?” or, “What’s this bump on my head? Does it look funny?” Then, “Should I take some cough syrup?” or, “Do you think I should I start a round of antibiotics?” It is quite disconcerting and takes great effort to appear composed when I really want to turn to him and shout, “I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU DO, YOU BIG BABY! JUST BE A FREAKIN’ MAN AND GET ME SOMETHING TO WIPE CARLY’S NOSE ALREADY!” But then again, I tend to be a bit jumpy when I’m around sick people.

Carly doesn’t get jumpy. Carly is always a good sport, even when she’s sick. How could she not be, considering she usually gets sick first and passes all her germs so lovingly and consistently to the other members of her family? How nice for her. Truthfully, I don’t even think she minds being sick. She still gets coddled, just more often. She gets held more and soothed more and she even gets to use her binkie more. She gets to have orange Gatorade in her sippy cup instead of plain old water! What’s not to like? I’ll tell you what's not to like: that bulb thing that they give you in the hospital when you have a baby, the thing that sucks all the snot out of little noses. She takes one look at me with that torture device and, wheezing like a champ, runs lickety-split to hide behind Paige.

Speaking of Paige…she’s a bit dramatic, our Paige. This characteristic is greatly exacerbated when she’s unwell. Case in point: the splinter incident. Paige was nursing a cold last week and happened to go outside and get the teeniest little splinter in her foot. She sobbed hysterically and begged us to call Grandma and Grandpa to cancel daddy’s birthday dinner because she just…couldn’t…walk. You would’ve thought her entire leg was trapped in a lawn mower or something. She desperately wanted the splinter out, so I held her down while Kenny plucked it out, and when she started screaming, “STOP NOW DADDY! STOP NOW! PUT MY SKIN BACK ON! PUT IT BACK ON NOW!” I just couldn’t help it --- I started laughing maniacally and for a second I wasn’t sure if I was actually laughing or crying. You see, we have just been sick, collectively, as a group, for so very long.

And now we are not. We are all healthy. But guess what? Carly’s daycare provider just called to inform me she has bronchitis. And she’s not quite sure if it’s contagious...

Would You Like Fries With That?

2008-03-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

It’s not that I don’t watch her. It’s just that she’s so darn fast! The kid can race across a crowded living room without so much as breaking a sweat, dodging left and swerving right, attacking and devouring shoes, books and Trader Joe’s bags before I can say, “Hey you! Come back here! Please do not eat those newspaper classifieds!”

Don’t get me wrong. I love that she’s fiercely independent and wants to explore her surroundings. I even defended her when Paige howled inconsolably after discovering Carly had chewed on her favorite book. I tried to explain that Carly learns about things by putting them in her mouth. What she could possibly learn from swallowing the corner of Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses, I have no idea. Still, I guess my explanation sounded plausible because Paige seemed to understand and surrender her bookshelf for the greater good. Later, with the gravest face I could muster, I picked up Carly by her armpits and held her at eye level. “Girlfriend,” I pleaded, “this has got to stop! Must you put every…single…little…thing…in your mouth?” She looked so cute with her nose inches away from mine and her shoulders hunched up to her ears like a pint-sized football player. She kept running in place – even at 4 feet above ground – and we both began to laugh because she thought I was going to tickle her. And I did. Right after I pulled a rubber band out of her mouth.

Yes, our oral-fixated Carly continues to put things in her mouth when we’re sufficiently distracted, and we continue to take them out and examine them in disbelief. Last week went something like this:

Monday - I was making dinner when I heard Carly coughing in her sister’s room. I ran to check on her, leaving my veggies half chopped and my garlic bread half buttered. She looked up at me, guilt ridden, trying not to chew too obviously. I dug a large Strawberry Shortcake sticker out of her mouth. She had flipped up the edge of Paige’s heavy round shag rug, found a sticker stuck to the bottom of the middle of the rug, then proceeded to peel and eat.

Tuesday - We were eating lunch at a restaurant when she grabbed a large lemon wedge out of her dad’s iced tea and stuck it in her mouth without so much as wincing. We watched in astonishment as she wrestled that lemon to the ground, pinned its arm behind its back and gave it a good wedgie.

Wednesday - I was following her as she crawled up the stairs. She was being so sweet. Almost too good. Too quiet. Too agreeable. Naturally, I became suspicious something was in her mouth. I forced open her little chops and found – I kid you not – a used ear plug. I have no idea where it came from. I threw it away as I tried to choke down the bit of breakfast that had just come up in my throat.

Thursday - Paige was playing in her room with a friend when they discovered a very important Barbie shoe missing. This particular shoe matches all of Barbie’s outfits and is stylish as well as comfortable. Everyone knows how rare it is to find a pair of stylish, comfortable shoes that match everything! The urgency of this situation cannot be underestimated. Together we searched for and found the coveted shoe. A bit slobbery, yes, but Paige was able to clean it right up and get Barbie to her party on time.

Friday - I was putting groceries away while Carly studied me intently. As soon as I was hidden deep in the vegetable drawers of the fridge, she made her move. She raced to a bag of groceries, pulled out the Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, bit off the metal top and watched with pleasure as the rolls popped out and expanded all over the floor. She then enjoyed a quick lunch of raw crescent dough (and one can only assume it was served with a small side of dust bunnies).

Saturday - While brushing my teeth, Carly was playing about 5 feet away from me on the floor of our bedroom. This room is thoroughly baby-proofed and there is nothing for her to ruin. Or so I thought. I mean, I know I enjoyed some wild parties and juicy hook-ups in my younger days, but I had no idea my college journal, circa 1989, would be so freaking’ tasty 18 years later!

Sunday - My mom and her husband recently bought a house and we were all celebrating the closing of escrow with a picnic of pizza and champagne in their new living room. The 4 adults that were watching Carly that evening all agreed it was a wonderful place for her to explore, seeing as the house was completely bare. Let me repeat: the house was completely bare. The ultimate baby-proofed environment, right? Ha! Kenny was on his back playing “airplane” with Carly when I saw something fall directly from her laughing, open mouth into his shocked, open windpipe. “GLUCK.” He sat up with a start and pulled a large bolt from his mouth. Who knows how long she had held that bolt, like a pinch of Copenhagen, between her cheek and gum. No wonder she didn't want any pizza.

What a week. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Rumor has it that when Kenny was Carly’s age, his mom caught him chewing a mouthful of gravel. And liking it! It’s clear that all this nonsense comes from his side of the family.

Club Kindergarten

2008-03-08T21:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Principal,

Thank you for your time yesterday. I enjoyed meeting you and touring your school. And wow, what are the chances I would get such a personal one-on-one tour? You might try to convince me that all the new Kindergarten parents get a tour such as the one we enjoyed together yesterday, and that I just happened to be the only parent signed up for yesterday’s tour. I choose to believe, however, that you reserved that half hour just for lucky, lucky me. Was it because I told you I am on the board of Paige’s preschool? (Never mind that there are only about 5 of us and I really don’t have to do anything except voice the occasional “aye” in unison.) Or maybe it was because I am the co-chair for the See’s Candy fund raiser this year? (No one knows that I did it for the large free samples of milk chocolate eggs filled with peanut butter and dark chocolate eggs filled with butter pecans.) Well! Whatever the reason, when you gave me that tour, I felt special. I felt like I was being courted and asked to join some sort of exclusive club! So of course it came as no surprise to me, being fellow club members and all, that we shared a few jokes and shared a few smiles. Then you got all serious on me and shared a few learning theories.

Mr. Principal, I am writing to tell you that your enthusiasm regarding Kindergarten got me so delighted that it was all I could do to stop myself from standing up, placing my shaking hand over my heart and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance! It made me want to grab my check book and write you a large post-dated check to ensure adequate funding for the music program! Not that it would clear! I got so excited that I felt like I had to use the bathroom, which is exactly how I feel when I go grocery shopping and spot a sale sign on a family-sized box of Cheez-Its!

In all honesty, my husband and I are thrilled to be in such a stellar public school district and to be accepted into your school without doing much of anything extraordinary (although filling out that mound of enrollment paperwork was extraordinary enough, ha ha). However! I do think it’s vital that you know the following: even if your school was the most exclusive private school on the central coast, I still believe our Paige would be accepted without question, based purely on the fact that she is so deliciously tousled when she wakes up in the morning, plus she smells really good behind her ears. Go ahead, Mr. Principal, take a big whiff sometime! Seriously, the kid smells like glazed donuts! Lucky, lucky her! I realize, though, that accepting Paige solely on the basis of her general yumminess might be frowned upon by the school board, so it is will great pleasure that I elucidate even further.

You see, when our Paige was still in my belly, my husband and I solemnly discussed the possibility that she would come out wrinkled and red and alien-like. We agreed that even if she seemed perfectly beautiful and brilliant to us, she might not seem beautiful and brilliant to everyone else. We promised to remind ourselves of that fact after she was born. But then – surprise! – she came out and guess what? She really WAS the most beautiful baby in the entire tri-county area! And I’m not just saying that! But get this…it soon became obvious that she was also the smartest! Lucky, lucky us! We were practically rendered speechless. Practically! Mr. Principal, you will want to weep in reverence and awe at how amazing she is. For instance:

She has mastered the simile: “This piece of cereal sinks like a boat when I poke it down with my finger.”

She has amazing deduction skills: “If I put my whole fist in my bowl of cereal one more time, I will get in trouble.”

She understands simple math: “If I take Carly’s bowl of cereal away from her, she will have zero bowls of cereal left.”

She has studied spelling: “Mom and dad both yelled ‘No.’ That starts with an ‘n’, right?”

I mean, this is a kid that is ripe for learning. This is a kid that picked up a birthday card from our kitchen counter, studied it with brow-furled concentration, then slammed it back down on the counter muttering, “Oh for-get it! I can’t read yet..."as she walked away shaking her head. Did I mention she’s just a tad bit dramatic? For the LIFE of me, I don’t know WHERE on EARTH she gets THAT characteristic!

In closing, Mr. Principal, we are delighted to fully and officially accept your invitation to become full-fledged members of your school this fall, despite the fact that no acceptance is actually necessary and you have to take us even if you don’t want to. You are one lucky, lucky guy.

Sincerely,

Krista
Mother of Paige, yummiest of all new Kindergarteners

What Came First, the Chicken or the Neurosis?

2008-03-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

There’s been a big, big development around here: I found the chicken! I FOUND THE CHICKEN! I looked under the bed and there it was, just smiling up at me. Like a gift from the heavens! It was if the angels themselves had reached down and said to me, here is your chicken, you poor, poor child. May your soul rest soundly tonight, knowing that the chicken has finally been found. Do you, my friends, know what this means? No! I don’t think you do! You are probably wondering why this chicken is so important, and why it needed to be found so urgently! To answer these questions and to grasp the significance of this issue, one must delve deeply into the mind of yours truly, a card-carrying-obsessive-compulsive-excessively-militant-organizational-fanatic. And proud of it.

I have always been this way, since I was a wee babe. This is the way I am wired. This is my biological landscape. I can’t help it. Even when I was a baby I was a bit, well, fastidious. For one thing, I didn’t like to get dirty. Can you imagine? A baby! Not wanting to get dirty! Now that I am an adult, not only do I value general cleanliness, I also prefer things orderly and in their proper place. Rigid? Perhaps. Structured? Definitely. So when something gets lost (I prefer to say “misplaced”), like a tiny 1-inch-square wooden puzzle piece in the shape of a chicken for example, it’s as if there is a tiny 1-inch-square piece of my brain that just doesn’t feel right. My skittish psyche flits around like an anxious hummingbird, knowing something is out of place and tapping me repeatedly on the shoulder every few minutes as a reminder. Ha! As if I could forget about the missing chicken puzzle piece! I searched and searched for that stupid chicken and then finally gave up --- reluctantly, of course --- figuring it would reveal itself at some point and until then I would just have to try to get on with my life. Well! Every time I grabbed a book from Paige’s bookshelf it would seem as if her stack of wooden puzzles was taunting me and then I would think about how the barnyard puzzle was so pitifully incomplete and my blood pressure would increase just the teeniest little bit and I would feel kind of itchy all over.

Now before you go judging me and wondering how I possibly have time to, for instance, write my grocery list in the exact order of the aisles (to promote efficiency) or arrange my chopped vegetables in neat little piles on my cutting board according to color (because it looks so pretty) or create a highlighted spreadsheet of every single Christmas present needed for the 2005 holiday season including a flow chart showing the shortest path between shopping centers (so I could complete my shopping in one exhilarating day), let me just defend myself. As my husband says, if getting up out of bed at 10pm because I can’t sleep and deciding to vacuum the living room is the worst thing I do, well, let’s just say there are worse addictions to have. I mean, if you really think about it, we’re all a little crazy on this bus. My vice of choice just happens to be obsessive-compulsive-excessively-militant-organization. So sue me! Or better yet, let me help you organize your closet by color and season!

Luckily for the sweet but somewhat misguided souls closest to me, I usually don’t force my neurotic organizational standards on anyone besides myself. No, I most certainly don’t. However! That’s not to say I don’t feel a little tingle up my spine when I notice a good old fashioned flow chart on someone else’s desk. When I catch sight of a random organizational tool upon a clean work surface, I tend to breathe a deep happy sigh of wonderment and relief. Oh, the thrill of finding a kindred spirit! I instinctively want to be that person’s friend, whether or not they are accepting applications.

Of course my type-A craziness has not gone unnoticed by my family. Just the other day I walked downstairs to find the living room in shambles. Paige’s art supplies were everywhere. Papers, stickers, markers, paints and crayons were wedged into every available crevice, like a diaper bag on a cross-country airplane flight. I felt the familiar tightening of my chest but stopped short when Paige glanced up at me. She cocked her little 5-year-old head thoughtfully and said, “Mommy…? Are you ok with this mess…?” My heart lurched with sudden overwhelming pride. I mean, the very fact that she even asked! I can’t help it --- I like that in a kid. Later, after Paige was done playing, we cleaned up the mess together. We tidied everything nicely and put it all away in its proper place and even straightened her bed and fluffed her pillows. Paige surveyed her space slowly and then let out an audible sigh of contentment. “Oooh, everything is so nice and clean now,” she gushed. “It makes me feel so…so… comfortable!”

I know what you mean, babe. I know what you mean.

I Still Got It, Girls

2008-02-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

Carly is 13 months old. This means, of course, that 14 months ago she was still in my belly, sloshing around and blissfully unaware of the fact that she had yet to grow eyebrows. This just blows me away. She is still so new to this world, so – oh, what’s the word? - fresh. Jeeze, I have cans of tuna that are older than her.

Yes, Carly is only 13 months old. I, however, am 451 months. Go ahead ---divide by twelve (I know you want to). If little Miss Carly might be considered “fresh”, one might consider me (for example) a honey-glazed ham, nicely displayed but priced for quick liquidation. Now, I’m not saying I’m anywhere near my expiration date. I’m just saying I’m like a ham on the day after Easter: still looks good on your plate, still boasts plenty of protein, still has a little sugar around the edges…just not quite as enticing as it would’ve been a few days before Easter brunch with your in-laws.

I don’t usually compare myself to a day-old ham. It’s just that lately I have been noticing a slight change in my appearance. Nothing drastic, mind you. Just a few minor lines around my eyes and…ok, fine, I’ll tell you…the nightmarish vision that I can’t get out of my head of when I bent down to touch my toes and noticed that the skin around my knees looked distinctly crepe-like. What the heck? I stayed bent over at the waist for a long time, immobilized and confused, staring upside down at my knees while nursing my wounded psyche. I wondered when, exactly, I acquired crepe-y skin on my knee caps. For the second time in my entire life, I felt old.

The first time I felt old was about a month before Carly was born. Being heavy with child, I was feeling oh-so-attractive and oh-so-full of energy (and I was oh-so-fun to be with, just ask my husband). Paige and I were at the zoo, eating Ritz crackers and watching the gibbon monkeys beat up on each other. This is a favorite activity of ours, and we especially love it when they start screeching right in each other’s faces. It never gets old! At any rate, a dirty old sea gull honed in on our pile of Ritz like a heat-seeking missile and I’m sure you can guess what happened next. He grabbed them all? Wrong. He pooped on my head. I felt the warm goop on the top of my head start to slide off to the left side, much like a dollop of melted nacho cheese slides off a tortilla chip at a high school basketball game. I freaked. I fell to my knees on the sidewalk, crushing most of our Ritz in the process, grabbed Paige by her little shoulders and asked her desperately if she saw a big white pile of goop in my hair. After examining me thoroughly she answered that no, she did not see a big white pile of anything. She did, however, see a number of little white hairs. Oh, thanks kid. And I was just feeling so good about myself.

Luckily for ½-priced-white-haired hams like me, the universe has a way of evening things out. This happened to me yesterday. You see, after being gone for an entire year I recently went back to work at my old company. Most of the people I previously worked with are still around, but there are a few new faces. Yesterday morning I was helping myself to a Gatorade (side note: one of the perks of working at my place of employment is the never-ending supply of snacks, the importance of which cannot be underestimated, and the impact of which will by meticulously analyzed in a forth-coming essay). Anyway, I was in the employee kitchen when I happened to see someone I hadn’t yet met. I nodded hello and went about my daily routine of grabbing free food to horde away at my desk in a squirrel-like fashion. A few minutes later a friend/coworker met me back at my computer, steaming cup of coffee in hand and said, “Well! After you walked away, Dave paid you a nice compliment.” I looked up eagerly, practically drooling. After the knee cap debacle I was so in need of a compliment. “Yeah, he asked if you were one of the new interns!”

Inside my 451-month-old brain the neurons were all high-fiving each other, but outside I just smiled and took another swig of my drink. Saaah-weeet!! (And I don’t just mean the orange-flavored Gatorade or the fact that it was free. Ha!) Dave’s compliment, coupled with the fact that I happened to be sporting a rather large pimple on the upper right quadrant of my forehead made me feel...well.. just like a kid again! Not quite as young as the cans of tuna in my pantry, but darn close.

Happy Valentine's Day to Me!

2008-02-15T22:01:00.000-08:00

As far as I’m concerned, Valentine’s Day ranks right up there with, say, unloading the dishwasher. It’s not that I have anything against celebrating a day of love…and I do enjoy the gluttonous chocolate consumption…it’s just that I prefer holidays that don’t have any gift-giving pressure attached to them. Give me Thanksgiving any day of the week. Now that’s a holiday. No gifts. Less stress. Lots of food. What’s not to like? But I digress…

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and just as in previous years, it proved to be a bit tense. The nonsense all started last week when we were with some friends and Paige caught sight of our neighbor Eileen’s diamond necklace. Eileen’s necklace is cross-shaped. It’s also large and sparkly and stunningly beautiful. I, too, am the proud owner of a diamond cross necklace. The only difference is that my necklace is not even slightly large and not particularly stunning, as it needs to be cleaned desperately. Still, I love it and wear it almost every day. It’s little and cute and reminds me to be thankful. At any rate, Paige, dazed and drunk from the sight of a fabulous piece of sparkly jewelry, announced in front of a number of our acquaintances, “MOMMY! SHE HAS A NECKLACE JUST LIKE YOURS ONLY HERS IS MUCH BIGGER!”

A bit awkward, yes, but not completely unrecoverable. Eileen laughed and said something about how she’s sure it’s probably about the same size. But Paige was adamant. NO, she said. Eileen’s necklace was A LOT BIGGER. She was REALLY VERY SURE OF IT.

Now, this might be hard for some people to believe but I swear to you: that conversation didn’t bother me one little bit. I thought it was funny! Kenny, however, caught wind of the exchange, and being the ultra-competitive person that he is, decided his wife must immediately have a brand new cross-shaped diamond necklace, at least as big - if not bigger - than his neighbor’s wife’s cross-shaped diamond necklace. And so he apparently pounded and puffed his manly chest and went downtown on Valentine’s Day Eve to conquer the local jewelry store salesman.

Here is the problem: I couldn’t care less about jewelry (the one exception being my engagement ring, for which I was so desperate that in a moment of pure madness I promised to give my beloved foot rubs every night for an entire year if he would just give me that damn ring). Other than the engagement-ring-foot-rub-fiasco, I’m not what you would call a big jewelry enthusiast. After all, I’m just a simple corn-fed working girl from eastern Kansas, where it’s a well-known fact that the less you have and the harder you work, the faster you get to heaven. And though I’ve lived in California for almost 20 years, I still don’t have the courage to spend money on, say, jewelry. Even if it is in the holiest of shapes.

And so on Valentine’s Day morning when Kenny triumphantly pulled a business card out of his pocket to show me the actual size of the new diamond cross necklace he had purchased but not yet picked up (he actually made the salesman draw a picture of it), I was stunned. I was a little snotty too, which was not exactly the reaction Kenny was hoping for. The dimensions appeared so huge to me -- totally inappropriate for a demure woman of my nature -- and as I held the business card picture up to my neck I thought: 1) How can I, a simple farm girl from the Midwest, possibly pull off wearing something like this, and 2) There will literally be three and a half months of groceries hanging around my neck.

I mean, jeeze, this is just so not what we should be spending money on right now. We could pay our mortgage with this necklace! We could go away for a week! Or even longer if we used our airline miles! We could fix Kenny’s catalytic converter! We could buy groceries for 3 ½ freakin’ months! But later as I opened the box and desperately attempted to continue displaying my modest and humble (did I mention self-righteous?) character, I found myself unable to stop grinning. Wow. It was very shiny. So this is what it feels like to receive a huge piece of jewelry as a gift. I had no idea it was so thrilling! Mortgage payment, schmortgage payment! In my lowly farm girl hand I was holding the most stunningly beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever had the pleasure of…well…holding. I donned my new necklace and felt its heavy coolness on the skin covering my corn-fed sternum and decided maybe I would pay Eileen a little visit. You know, just casually stop by her house to say, oh I don’t know, “Happy Valentine’s Day” or something. As I skipped over to the kitchen window to see if Eileen’s car was in her driveway I decided Kenny’s ultra-competitive chest-pounding nature might not be such a bad thing when it comes to your average gift-giving holiday. After all, on Thanksgiving he just eats a lot and takes a nap.

Panic, Anyone?

2008-02-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

It felt like a shot of adrenalin had just been injected directly into my heart. If someone were to look at my chest at that moment they would have easily been able to see violent heart palpitations through my cable-knit sweater. What in the sweet name of Jesus had possessed me to raise my hand and offer to read my essay in front of a room of complete strangers? These were strangers that were probably better writers than me, and almost certainly smarter and prettier and better drivers and more popular, too.

Describing me as eager would have been an understatement as I walked into the auditorium earlier that morning, all bright-eyed and disgustingly bushy-tailed, like I was a high school pep squad leader or something. I was attending my first writer’s conference, and I had been looking forward to this conference for months. I’d even had the foresight to bring a few writing samples with me, on the off chance that a real live agent would be in the audience and see me across the crowded room and say to himself, wow...I have just GOT to read that woman’s work!!

Surprisingly, although the morning was almost over, no Hollywood agents that happened to be in the crowd had approached me with a two-book contract yet. My carefully printed essays were still clutched to my chest (organized in a nice folder with my contact information – home phone, cell phone, work phone, husband’s phone, mother’s phone, neighbor’s phone - prominently displayed). I was thinking about this folder, and how maybe I should set it down instead of holding it pressed against my bosom, thus preventing blood from entering my fingertips, when the seminar leader asked if anyone had brought writing samples. My hand shot up before my brain could stop it. In a flash I realized my mistake. Panic began to engulf me and I attempted to lower my arm as quickly as possible, but it was too late. The teacher had seen me! She had seen me and confirmed, in front of all the prettier, smarter, writier people, that I did indeed have a sample that I would be happy to share with millions of strangers. I mean dozens of classmates. Whatever.

The teacher had been coaching us on crafting well-written query letters --- something on which I could definitely use pointers. Unfortunately, after raising my hand and offering to read my work, I didn’t hear another word she said. I soon discovered taking notes was useless, as my brain had checked out completely. It was much too busy freaking out to listen and respond. My heart was pounding and my palms were clammy and my torso – I am not making this up – began to shake violently. I felt as if I was on one of those vibrating exercise machines with a money-back guarantee and lots of advanced scientific research that can be bought in three easy payments of $29.99 at 3am in the morning. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop the torso shaking so I just tried to remind myself what the keynote speaker had said a few minutes earlier: “It’s not cancer. It’s just a book.”

Even more disturbing than the shaking body and the pounding heart was the sudden realization, as I nonchalantly opened my folder to decide which essay to read, that everything I had brought was total crap. Not one word made any sense and how could I have thought I had one droplet of talent and WHAT WAS I THINKING when I offered to read in front of anyone besides my own mother? Wasn’t it enough pressure to raise two children and hold down a part-time job and keep a marriage together and make sure the house is clean and the fridge is stocked? Now you’re telling me I have to get up in front of millions of prettier, smarter, writier strangers and be laughed right out of the auditorium? I mean, who needs it!? It’s over, I thought. I have no choice but to pack up my folder, leave the premises immediately, drive straight home and forget this whole stupid writing thing ever happened.

As I rifled through my folder of crap, my thoughts flashed to the reoccurring nightmare I have occasionally --- the one where I’m in college and I can’t find my classroom and (no, I’m not naked) there’s a test and I haven’t even bought the text book yet. Unfortunately, this was no dream, sister! This was real life, and the realization of that fact did not help my panicking-shaking-pounding-sweating issue. Just as I considered holding my breath long enough to pass out and be carried out on a gurney, thus retaining some small shred of dignity, my dilated pupils focused on the woman sitting in front of me. She had brought a book to the conference that she'd written and published, and she showed it off proudly to everyone in her vicinity before the keynote speaker began. It was a children’s book, and seeing as I fashion myself a bit of an expert in children’s books (liking both children and books), I scanned her book with mild interest. Perhaps it was due to my overt raging jealousy, but I didn’t find her book particularly clever, or even very appealing. And so a few hours later as I gasped for oxygen and hung onto my chair with cold white knuckles, I found myself thinking, hey, if she has the guts to let strangers read her work, then I should have the guts too. That single tiny thought calmed me down just enough to realize – guess what! – we were out of time. Class was over.

My Favorite Ballerina

2008-02-01T20:01:00.000-08:00

They looked so sweet and beautiful that it was almost too painful to watch. Paige was focusing hard, her little brow furled and her lips tight with determination. The only time I caught a slight grin was when they were pretending to be butterflies, flitting around the room on their tip-toes, leaning to the right and waving scarves in the air like they were wearing high heels and hailing a New York City taxi cab.

It was Paige’s first ballet class, and it was going very, very well. I felt relief wash over me to the beat of the classical music playing on the boom box. My breath began to slow and my shoulders started to relax and lower from their places next to my ears. I had been so nervous, wondering what this first time would bring! Our track record with group activities such as this was not, shall we say, stellar. But when I had asked her the other day whether she would rather take soccer or karate, she had answered, “Ballet.” How could I say no? She knows every note of The Nutcracker by heart. She loves dressing up and actually can tap out a rhythm with her toe. And then there’s Kenny, who was thrilled with the fact that at least one of his girls (and it’s not me we’re talking about) wants to wear dresses and tights and really relish in her own sugary girl-ness.

And so, with much encouragement from my husband, I hesitantly plunked down a small fortune on a pair of pink tights, a pair of pink ballet shoes, a black leotard, and 3 months of lessons at a local dance studio. Cha-ching!

It seemed worth it though, as I watched that first class from the sidelines. Anyone with the intellect of a pea would’ve been able to tell that Paige was a natural, despite the occasional clomping like a Shetland pony. She performed brilliantly and learned the steps and positions effortlessly. (It will be our little secret that the steps were actually very slow and easy and it reminded me of something I read in a book once, of a sign hanging in a kindergarten classroom that said, “Start out slow, then taper off.”)

By the end of class it was obvious we had a star on our hands. I looked around, wishing there was someone with whom to share the joy. I mean, who knew?! It was so exhilarating to know that we had really found it! We had found her thing! And what luck to have stumbled upon it at such an early age! Her path was crystal clear, and as God as my witness, this was just the beginning! It didn’t faze me one little iota when the teacher came up to me after class and instead of professing her amazement at Paige’s talent, asked me to please stop by the office to pay for the lesson as soon as possible. Nope, didn’t deter me a bit. One might have dubbed me the perfect stage mom: I was vicariously high as a freakin’ kite. I was so thrilled with Paige’s courageousness and her innate (although maybe a tad ragged around the edges) ability that I gave her an unsolicited piece of chocolate that had been stashed in my purse and hoisted her up onto my back for a piggy-back ride to the car. I hugged her hard and told her how proud I was. She shrugged, unimpressed, and ate the chocolate in one bite.

That night I begged and pleaded for her to put on her outfit for daddy to see. I tried to get her to practice some positions, but she wasn’t interested. She wanted, instead, to play hide-and-seek-peek-a-boo with her sister, which basically consisted of hiding behind chairs and screaming BOOOO at Carly when she walked by, effectively scaring the pants off her and causing her to pee and poop and burst into tears simultaneously. Apparently it’s more fun than practicing ballet. Later, while brushing her teeth, she confided with great seriousness and gravity something from which I haven’t yet quite recovered.

~~~

Pink tights, pink shoes and black leotard…$42.

12 group lessons plus a non-refundable registration fee…$235.

The look on mommy’s face when you tell her you’re “just not really sure you want to take ballet lessons after all”…priceless.

A Dry Run of Sorts

2008-01-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

Woke up early to sound of heavy rain. Thought to self, Perfect. Matches my mood. Could not go back to sleep, despite cozy comforter and position switching and backwards counting. Became very nostalgic, thinking about being away from youngest child all morning, as I am starting work in a few days and wanted to practice new daycare routine. A dry run of sorts.

Preschool child got up, in good mood, chatted away to no one in particular about very old rock she found at beach. Youngest child got up, in foul mood, fussed away to no one in particular about teething and such. Husband still asleep. Can only assume, taking into consideration peaceful snoring, mood is just fine.

Dropped baby off at daycare. She’s a daycare girl now. My little daycare person. Yep, D-A-Y-C-A-R-E. Said word to self in car while driving away in heavy rain.

Stopped at corner to pound steering wheel and cry. Told self that this is all part of life and that things change and kids grow and daycare child will be fine and I will be fine and this is just the teeniest of transitions. Reminded self that preschool child was put in full-time daycare at three months of age and she turned out perfectly fine, besides strong dislike of change and occasional bout with obsessive-compulsive behavior (most likely due to faulty genetics and not from daycare facility). Also reminded self that I am only working 4 mornings a week. Felt a bit overly dramatic, but then decided to really own misery and wallow in it. Turned on sad country music station and sang along, wiping eyes and snot on sleeve, not caring about person in car parked next to me, until glancing over and realizing she was an acquaintance. Thought to self, acquaintance will most likely no longer care to be friends, especially after seeing me wipe snot on sleeve. At any rate, probably does not associate with person who has child in daycare. Suddenly had urge to call new boss, and ask her calmly how it felt to be responsible for separating a mother from a child. Does she feel good? Well? Does she?

Went to bank. Withdrew funds from secret account for immediate shopping spree therapy.

Went to drugstore. Bought shampoo. While walking through candy aisle, realized did not have breakfast this morning. Picked up king-size Butterfinger and large orange Gatorade. Contemplated buying smaller size, but then remembered poor baby was in daycare and that I should take myself through the day with great kindness and lots of treats. Bought large size.

Went to cowboy-themed shop to return tiny moccasins, too small for daycare child. Did not find anything to exchange them for, so bought husband two new pairs of socks. Thought how lucky he is to have me.

Looked at clock. Decided it must have stopped. Only had used up one hour so far. Missed daycare child dreadfully. Put on shimmery lip gloss, kept in car in case of emergencies.

Went to Trader Joe’s. Ran into (literally) the mother of one of preschool daughter’s friends. Felt desperate to convey how I am going back to work on Monday and my baby is in daycare. Kept mouth shut, for fear of being one of those women who shares too much and sucks energy from all living sources. Although, thought to self, could use some stolen energy today. Was glad I had put on lip gloss, at least.

Lugged groceries to car, despite heavy downpour. Called husband after very loud thunder boom. Made sure he wasn’t hit by lightening. Husband said, “Not yet.”

Went to gym to reactivate membership. Felt very righteous. At least one good thing will come from daycare: having time to exercise at real facility instead of strapping disgruntled daycare child into jogger stroller for jaunt around block twice a week. Decided to eat healthier too.

Went to McDonalds for lunch. Ordered cheeseburger with extra pickles and chocolate milk. Did quick stalker-like-drive-by past daycare house. Felt very highschoolish, but relieved to see daycare provider’s car still in driveway. Decided that was good sign. Not in emergency room of local hospital.

Checked cell phone to make sure was working. It was. No missed calls.

Thought about friend Jill’s comment to me, 7 months ago, when it was thought I might have to rejoin work force sooner than anticipated. Feeling quite distraught, I reached out to her, and she, sincerely trying to make me feel better had said, “Well, it will be much easier to go back to work when she’s 5 months old than when she’s a year old.” At the time, felt quite sure she had no freakin idea what she was talking about, but now seems as if she had a small but valid point.

Picked up daycare child. Looked her over carefully. Very carefully. Determined all extremities still intact. Thought about countless errands that were completed in short amount of time. Decided maybe the occasional morning at daycare would not scar youngest child for life. Made note to self to ask husband how he felt about me not working, but instead just running errands and going to gym four mornings a week.

Wished self luck with that one.

The Big Decision

2008-01-21T12:38:00.000-08:00

I looked down at my hand and was surprised to see that it was shaking slightly. Maybe I wasn’t quite ready for this. I was poised to cut Carly’s beloved blankie in half. Why, you ask? Because after being a stay-at-home mom for an entire year, I am going back to work next week and Carly is starting daycare. My husband has been asking me…or actually, he’s been telling me…well, really, he’s been pleading with me to cut her pink-and-white striped blanket in half, just in case the unthinkable should happen and it gets lost in the daily daycare shuffle.

You might think I'm being just a tad overly dramatic. Let me explain something to you: this is the blanket she winds around her head while she sleeps every night. The blanket that comforts her when she falls down and goes boom. The blanket she frantically sucks on when she’s teething. The blanket she first learned to play peek-a-boo under. This is her blankie, and its significance cannot be overstated. Picturing Carly without her blankie is like picturing her on water skis. The whole situation is making me edgy. Get a grip, I tell myself, how bad can it be? Cutting it is a risky decision, sure, but kids are resilient, right? So why am I so hesitant? I’ve found if you think about anything for too long it starts to get jumbled in your head and then you wonder if you’re making the right decision and then you wonder what decision you were supposed to be making in the first place. And that is most definitely not a good place to be in while wielding kitchen sheers and holding an offspring's much-loved blankie.

I felt backed into a corner, like I had no choice but to cut it in half. Maybe I was a bit defensive too, seeing as I was all but baring my teeth and growling. Intellectually I knew it would be a wise decision to have another lovie, albeit half the size, waiting in the wings. Thank God I had the presence of mind a few years ago to cut Paige’s blanket into three pieces! We lost half of her blanket at the harbor, we lost a quarter of it in the customs line at Heathrow Airport and the other quarter is tucked safely in the top drawer of her dresser, faded, dingy, and shredded to fiercely-loved bits.

I know there are umpteen-million things that could happen to Carly’s blankie when she is at daycare. For instance, I could forget to collect it when I pick her up. Or my husband could forget to bring it when he drops her off. It could get ripped, soiled, burned, blown up, thrown away, thrown up on, thrown up on the roof, eaten or worse…lost. And as every parent knows, hell hath no fury like a child missing her lovey. The mere thought of losing this simple pink-striped Carter’s brand waffle-weave receiving blanket (of which I cannot find another, and trust me, I’ve tried) is too chilling for words and causes me to break into a cold sweat.

Plus, even if I could find another (which I cannot), it wouldn’t have that smell. I know you know what I’m talking about, girlfriend. Dried slobber, a bit of snot, some dirt and grease perhaps. Is it just me, or does the item start to smell kinda, well, good after a while? Sometimes when no one is looking I’ll bury my face into Carly’s blankie and inhale deeply, like a smoker getting a hit after a cross-country airplane flight. It smells sweet, like Carly’s little body and detergent and drool and last night’s dinner.

My hand was still shaking. I contemplated my new job and putting Carly into childcare and having to divide our baby’s beloved blankie into two pieces. Was I really making the right decision? Was it the right decision for our daughter, or was I just doing this for my own convenience? Is this what Dr. Spock would recommend? Was the timing right? Was I truly ready to make that first cut?

Hey, wait a minute. Was I questioning going back to work, or was I questioning cutting Carly’s blanket in half? I guess it doesn’t really matter. The issues are the same. And so here I sit, scissors in hand, but not…quite…ready.

Fun Times

2008-01-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

Carly has the flu. The first day I felt sorry for her (of course!) and very loving and accommodating. She appeared so small, so pitiful, sitting on my lap with her wilted hands folded primly in front of her. I asked her if she would like me to rub her back or rock her or would she like some juice, perhaps? I felt protective, very mama-bear-like. That was the first day. By the next day I was feeling sick too and I found her little “flu” routine to be a bit taxing and, if you ask me, somewhat unnecessary and rude.

Now here we are, night three of waking up to Carly screaming for God-knows-what reason (like I said, excessive and unwarranted) and I’m just a smidgen irritated with the whole situation. Last night, for instance, I was enjoying such a pleasant dream. In my dream I was wandering around a huge old library, looking for the “V” section because – I am not making this up – I wanted to learn about vegetables. I remember wondering what, exactly, did I want to know? I mean, who was I in this dream, the Iron Chef? At any rate, I was swimming in slow motion through rows of dusty books and when I finally found the correct card catalog drawer I felt quite pleased with myself. This was a very large and confusing library and nothing made much sense. Plus, it smelled weird. I had just located the vegetable section when I began hearing an oddly familiar high-pitched wail, which I found very annoying, and in my dream I looked around impatiently for the parents of the offending child to do something already so I could get back to my vegetable research. Then slowly, very slowly, and in a painful haze, I came to realize that the offending child was actually my own live infant crying downstairs and I thought, with great hostility, oh this is just perfect, she ruined my dream and now she’s crying her vile reptilian head off again.

Now I ask you, is that so wrong? You see readers, if I hadn’t been so bone-crushingly exhausted, I might have had a different reaction, but this was night three of being woken up every few hours to wipe her snotty face and to find her binkie and to rock her and to pat her little bottom and to lift her back into her crib. Night three. And so I was angry. Very, very angry.

She continued to wail as I walked into her room, though she seemed thrilled to see me. Through the darkness I noticed she lifted her little arms up in a “V”, which I took to mean Victory for Team Baby. I am not a competitive person, but that just really rubbed me the wrong way. Still, I picked her up and held her to my chest and my hostility receded the tiniest bit as she burrowed her chin into me. She smelled good, like a mixture of pity, dried snot and fabric softener. I was still a little irritated and sang a lullaby to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that went something like this:

Carly Lynn you are a pain
In my butt again tonight.
Do you always have to cry?
How can you have so much snot?
Carly Lynn as soon as you’re
Feeling better, you’ll get a big fat long TIME OUT missy.

The song made both of us feel a little more composed. As I put her back in her crib I decided that maybe we should keep her, despite her crusty nose. But just to make sure she knew who was boss in this house (ha – it’s Paige), I whispered to her as I left the room that if she so much as made a peep before 6:30am, I don’t care how good she smells, we are SO going to return her and get our money back.

Somebody, Please, Give Me a Good Story

2008-01-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

You are a writer and cannot be stopped. You are determined to write. Something. Anything. You’ve read that you should write at least 300 words a day, but sadly, today you are fresh out of inspiring thoughts. So desperate are you for new ideas, in a moment of madness you decide to write in 2nd person. You think it might stimulate your floundering creativity.

Sure, you’ve had a few promising false starts this week. Story ideas that seem to show potential, like the essay about Paige’s first ballet lesson, or Carly’s bout with the flu, or the job offer that you officially accepted, or your butter-laden 2-hour-long steak dinner with two girlfriends the other night. But nothing has presented itself with joyous pandemonium and surged from your muse to your brain and then down to your fingertips in the usual free-flowing fashion. Could this be writer’s block, you wonder with apprehension. Please let me think of something witty to write. But nothing comes.

It doesn’t help that your email is not working. You are expecting emails - important emails! - which would inspire you to rise above this so-called “block” and write with great fervor, pouring out dazzling words in fully-formed paragraphs and exploring great truths with candor, wit and authenticity. These important emails might be from any number of random newspaper editors that you are quite sure will want to hire you to write a column for them on a regular basis. In fact, they're probably wondering why you haven’t replied to their email yet. They might be thinking you are playing hard to get and that you are quite crafty and that you would like to get paid more per column. But no, you are not crafty. It’s just that your email isn’t working, which is slowly driving you insane, and you hope this new insanity issue does not hinder your chances of becoming the next break-through novelist.

You just did a word count, and you have officially written over 300 words now. Isn’t that enough for the day? Yes, you think it is. You are ready for a nap.

That's All, Folks

2008-01-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

Sooo…that’s it? We’re done? Just like that? It’s over for good? The proverbial fat lady has sung? Well! As I fumbled my way down the hallway like a drunken undergrad, I found myself wanting to do one of two things: either curl up into the fetal position and weep large salty tears of sorrow, or sing Joy to the World with my arms uplifted at the top of San Bernardino County’s Mount Baldy. I did neither. I was too tired and too bewildered. I couldn’t believe that I had just nursed my baby for the Very. Last. Time. Ever. It was perfectly clear, as Carly arched her little back and squawked with frustration over the lack of milk, that it was over. This was the last time.

It was 5:50am as I finally made my way back to bed and slithered under the thick down comforter. I turned to Kenny and said, “Hey! Guess what? I think Carly is officially weaned!” He groaned, “Mmm,” like a cow. He was asleep, which was disappointing. I thought he would be thrilled. I expected a much stronger reaction from my husband, who has always posessed a healthy appreciation for a nice set of ta-tas. This was a man that upon realization of our first pregnancy, slowly turned to me, looked at my breasts longingly and said, “Those aren’t mine anymore, are they?” To which I answered, somberly, “No, honey. I’m sorry. They’re not.”

As I shivered under the covers, I thought about the past 12 months of planning every stinking day around the baby’s nursing schedule. And now suddenly, just like that, it was really over! I was free! Shouldn’t there be some sort of celebration to mark the monumental occasion of officially reclaiming my chest? A barbeque in my honor perhaps, or a three-tiered chocolate cake or a troop of clowns blowing up balloons in the shape of farm animals. Something. Fireworks would do the trick. I’m not talking 4th-of-July-Birth-of-our-Country fireworks. No, that would be a little over the top. I’m just talking about the type of fireworks that one would commission if, say, one was wealthy and getting married in Martha’s Vineyard, for instance. Not that we’re even remotely close to being wealthy or anything. Plus, we’ve been married for 8 looooong years and rarely experience fireworks anymore, if you know what I mean. But that’s a whole different essay.

Actually, I think I’d like to hold an awards ceremony for my body. It still amazes me that my little boobies have managed to keep alive two completely healthy small people. At my awards ceremony I would go up to the podium and thank all the individuals that have helped me and my breasts get to this point:

I’d like to thank my OBGYN, who delivered both my kids and in her most calming southern accent told me I could save a fortune if I just breastfed my babies. I’d like to thank our pediatrician, who encouraged me to keep breast feeding, even though my poor skinny little baby had bony chicken legs and was in the 5th percentile for height and weight. I’d like to thank the lactation consultant who told me, “just let it drip on the pillow, honey,” when I called her, wailing hysterically, quite sure I had just drowned my new baby in breast milk. I’d like to thank my family, who patiently waited for my return to the table as I nursed Carly in the bathroom of the Las Vegas Hard Rock Café, sitting on a cold toilet seat. But most of all, I’d like to thank my breasts. Without you two, well… let’s just say…you’re what got me into this wonderful mess in the first place. Thank you so much! I love you! God bless! Good night!

Of course, sadly, there was no awards show and no fireworks display. There was no marching band or clowns or trumpet solo or even a semi-conscience husband. It was just me and my faithful old stretched-out leaky breasts. If my body was finally my own again, why did I feel so dejected? I pulled the duvet cover up to my chin, hugged my chest and tried to determine whether to laugh or cry. Which, come to think of it, happens a lot in parenting.

Steve-o, the Christmas Hero

2007-12-30T20:34:00.000-08:00

He entered our lives suddenly and without warning. One December morning we were blissfully unaware of his existence but by the following evening we were depending on him much like a naked, desperate baby would depend on his own harried mother. It was clear that he was our only hope, and was therefore quickly placed on a lofty pedestal worthy of treasures such as Kenny’s 1965 Mustang, Paige’s battery-operated princess crown, and my hidden stash of Girl Scout Thin Mints.

His name was Steve the Exterminator, and while other exterminators stuttered their way through a monologue that invariably ended with, “we don’t really deal with animals of that sort,” Steve answered my desperate phone call on the first ring and never even flinched as I breathlessly explained our crisis. He was clearly up for the challenge. I sensed he really, really, really enjoyed his job. A little too much, perhaps? The last four digits of the man’s cell phone number spelled R-A-T-S, for God’s sake. Somehow, in my frantic and bewildered state, I found his phone number oddly reassuring. I felt it showed a sort of child-like exuberance for a line of work that few possessed the moral fiber to tolerate. His business card had a hand-stamped picture of a raccoon directly under the R-A-T-S phone number. I noticed there was no last name, just Steve the Exterminator. Mysterious, I thought. Very mysterious.

We needed Steve, and we needed him now. You see, there was a family of skunks living under our house. We were not aware of this fact until we asked a heating professional to examine our heating ducts. The heating guy took one look, uttered a cuss word under his breath, shook his head incredulously and demanded that his partner “get a look at this.” I felt my blood pressure rise as I imagined what must be a dead body (or two) wrapped around our crushed heating ducts. But no, there was no dead body; only a very large pile of skunk doo-doo along with yards and yards of unrecognizable pipe remains. Our shiny, silver ducts had been completely shredded --- we’re talking parmesan cheese here --- sheet metal and all, by the tenacious skunk family. I could just picture it: Mr. Skunk busily biting through metal and foam while Mrs. Skunk hand-stitched decadent down-filled comforters for the master bedroom and the cheerful nursery they had carved out for themselves under the floor boards of Carly’s room. I’m sure they were looking forward to a cozy winter, for as we turned up the thermostat and scratched our heads regarding the inconsistency of our heating vents, they would be getting nice and toasty in their beautifully appointed deluxe condo. Suddenly it all made sense: why only four rooms in our house received heat, why we occasionally endured the horridly-pungent skunk aroma that had the power to wake us from a deep slumber, and why we see Mr. Skunk amble slowly past Carly’s sliding glass door each morning, no less than three feet away from where I am changing her diaper. He turns his head slowly toward us and does not attempt to mask his disdain, like we are invading his space. Carly sees him and gleefully shouts, “Da!” She thinks he is beautiful. Babies prefer black and white, after all. She loves him as she loves all living creatures that walk on four legs and have a long, swishy tail.

And so it came to be that Steve the Exterminator entered our lives that December morning, wearing a Santa hat, a large faded red sweatshirt and a devilish grin. He got straight to work, with a sparkle in his eye and a spring in his step. Not much of a talker, that Steve, and I found myself nervously making conversation while holding Carly close to my chest. She was fascinated by this eccentric man and his strange muddled speech and the way his belly shook like a bowl full of...well...you know. Soon four additional neighborhood children were at our house, seemingly hearing the silent call of this modern-day pied piper. They peered quietly over his shoulder as he worked. He winked at me and said, “looks like I’ve got myself a couple of little elf helpers,” as he showed 6-year-old Jason from across the street how to fasten a small spring-loaded screen door to the hole that was, evidently, the skunk family’s foyer. Carly smiled and flirted with him. I laughed uneasily. Who was this Steve guy? And where exactly did he come from?

He finished the job quickly and efficiently, cleaned up his supplies, batted away the dust on his knees and bid the children a jovial goodbye. He gave Carly a quick wink, tipped his Santa hat to me and drove off in an old red truck. For a moment I felt a sort of kindled passion rise up in my chest, like maybe I should hoist my can of Raid Insect Repellant with brave determination and strive for excellence. I, too, could help people in their darkest hour, when they had exhausted all phone book listings and had been rejected by countless exterminators. I could trap and release (in a wooded, uninhabited, secret location) God’s poor misguided, misunderstood and misinterpreted creatures. My life would be simple yet utterly heroic. Like Steve’s! But then I remembered that I don’t like to get dirty.

As I watched that red pickup truck turn the corner and fade into a hazy cloud of exhaust fumes, I couldn’t help but think we had just witnessed some sort of holiday miracle. Steve had materialized from thin air, wearing a faded red sweatshirt, a Santa hat and a crooked little grin. He had fixed our problem within minutes of his arrival and then disappeared as quickly as he had come, to the jingling sounds of…no, not sleigh bells…but a faulty catalytic converter. His job here was done. I was quite certain that was the last we would ever hear of Steve the Exterminator. And I was right.

Until 5 days later, when we received his exorbitant and decidedly grinch-like bill.

Nocturnal Grocery Shopping

2007-12-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

This is for Jill, who passionately hates grocery shopping...even at night.

When it’s finally 8
And the girls are all tucked
I look in our cupboard
And decide I am f#$%*d.

(Please pardon my French
But this is real serious
So let me explain -
I know you are curious)

I’ve got nothing to pack
In Paige’s lunch tomorrow
‘Cept cold mac ‘n cheese
It fills me with sorrow.

Then suddenly I remember
How wonderful it is
To go shopping at night
(Just me, not the kids)

The aisles are clear
The produce is straight
The lanes are all empty
I don’t have to wait.

It’s so calm and quiet
Viewing fruit with no kids
I decide citrus looks great
In huge pyramids.

I consider the ice cream
I scrutinize the bread
I have time to calculate
The best prices in my head.

No rushing to get home
For the baby’s 2:00 nap
No pleading to sit down! as she
Unbuckles the cart strap.

Before paying the bill
I can mingle up front
Even glance through a magazine
Or two, if I want.

And as I drive home
Snacking on some chips
Besides crumbs, there's a grin
On my serene, salty lips.

But my smile fades quickly
And I feel like a fool
‘Cause I forgot to buy food
That’s suitable for school.

Paige still needs a lunch!
Just what will I pack?
Oh well! Too bad!
Guess I’ll have to go back.

Trust Me on This One

2007-12-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

I was eating my second cupcake when the baby shower hostess handed me a beautifully decorated piece of heavy card stock and suggested I write a word of advice for the mother-to-be. It was a sweet idea, and the other guests nodded and smiled enthusiastically. The hostess was young, perfectly coifed and confident in her role. Her house was decorated chicly, complete with a Martha-Stewart-like miniature lime tree tied with blue and pink ribbons as well as a flat-screen TV showing a picture of the glowing mother-to-be’s belly. This is the type of thing you can pull off before you have kids, I thought to myself. I finished the cupcake and started in on a chocolate-dipped strawberry as I mulled over which crucial piece of advice to give my friend.

I first thought about offering insights regarding nursing. For example, no one told me that breastmilk looks surprisingly similar to the soy milk a certain husband might pour on his cereal every morning. That would’ve been nice to know. Also, as a new mom, she might want to think about buying herself a nice state-of-the-art underwire bra. I had no idea that in the course of a year I would morph from a 36-B into a 36-LONG. But then again, maybe that was just me.

Next I thought about suggesting that she invest in a few bags of frozen peas. Few people know that your average humble bag of peas has multiple uses, all of which are exceptionally practical for a new mother. For instance, when her child is first born, she can use the bags to soothe her newly-stretched-out breasts (see details above). A jolly green giant ice pack, if you will. And when her child is older and has more teeth, frozen peas can be served as a side-dish for dinner. Her kid will devour them because she has been told that the yummy peas are little ice cream treats! This will work like a charm until the child gets real ice cream from her grandmother, which essentially blows that story to bits. It’s a good thing there is yet another use for the peas: when the kid is a toddler and going through a picky eating phase, mama can throw those same frozen peas into a tuna casserole for some extra Vitamin K and fiber, and no one will be the wiser! Brilliant!

I also briefly considered discussing the baby registry and telling her gently that, unfortunately, she had registered for all the wrong things. Instead of the ultra-plush satin-trimmed teething blanket and the hooded bath towel made of imported cotton terry in the shape of a baby duck, she should’ve asked for the following:
1) Stool softener
2) Sanitary products
3) Nipple cream
4) Ear plugs

Finally I contemplated writing (in scrawling, tormented letters), “DON’T DO IT!” or “BETTER YOU THAN ME!” but then I felt bad and choked on my lemon square. I couldn’t write something like that --- it sounded kind of cruel and besides, she was a friend of mine and I wanted to ask her for the recipe of the cinnamon cake. In the end I got nostalgic and even a bit misty-eyed as I wrote a sincere, simple message, similar to the many pieces of advice that were written in Paige’s baby book at my own baby shower. I told her to savor this wonderful, amazing, beautiful time because it is so unbelievably precious and goes by so freakin’ quick. Oh, and one more thing: at times, parenthood feels like having the muzzle of a tiny loaded gun held ever-so-gently to your temple. It almost tickles, but you’re afraid to move in case something triggers a small but lethal explosion. This type of detonation - brought about by your own pint-sized offspring - knocks every mother, with or without her bag of peas, back a few precious hard-earned notches.

But don’t worry. You’ll love it!

Leaving Miss Carly

2007-12-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

How will they ever manage without me? How can I possibly write down all of the different scenarios and how best to proceed when they occur? There are guidelines – strict guidelines! – that must be followed if one would like to maintain a small shred of one’s sanity. These guidelines are set in 11-month-old stone, and to ignore them is to invite pure chaos and bedlam into your quiet, peaceful world.

Well! Despite my grave warnings, something tells me these guidelines might be discarded next weekend by my own mother. You see, my husband and I are taking Paige to Disneyland for her 5th birthday, so as we make our way from the Magic Kingdom to our hotel room, dazed, over-stimulated and broke, Carly (bless her little 11-month-old heart) will be at home with my mother. Nana, we call her. The problem? Although I am looking forward to lavishing Paige with all the sugary-goodness of It’s a Small World, I am embarrassingly anxious about leaving Carly, even if it’s with our very own Nana, for 48 whole hours.

When I voice my concerns, Nana pooh-poohs me and tells me to relax already. She “claims” to have raised children, this mother of mine. Two of them, in fact. But how do I really know she took care of me as an infant? Am I expected to just believe all the pictures, the baby book, the birth certificate, the hospital record, the witnesses and the striking resemblance that we share? I mean, this is the well-being of my child we’re talking about here. Tell me, reader, what would you do? Would you shrug it off and smile sweetly when your mother swears she has changed hundreds of dirty diapers and can handle a few more with one hand tied behind her back? Would you believe her when she tells you that she’s infinitely capable of putting her granddaughter to bed in the precise manner of which she has become accustomed? Would you find it even the slightest bit unnerving when she says breezily, for the twelfth time, “Honey, please stop worrying! We’ll be fine.”

Oh, really? You’ll be fine? Let me break it down for you, Nana (if that really is your name). We are leaving in 3 days. That is not possibly enough time to produce the spreadsheets and bar graphs and flow charts and diagrams needed for your childcare tenure. For example: if Carly wakes up before 6:45am, I feed her and put her back to bed until 7:30am. But if she wakes up after 6:45am, even if her first tiny yelp is heard at exactly 6:46am, she gets fed and is then heaved into bed with mom and dad for some snuggle time, during which she scratches dad’s nose, pulls mom’s ears, pokes dad’s eyes, and has three close calls as she hurls herself dangerously close to the edge of our bed. Call me crazy, but I don’t think there is a word processing program on the market today with the capacity to describe our morning ritual in the meticulous detail of which is required.

Would a color-coded flow chart be able to show the route that we take around the neighborhood after dinner each evening? Our nightly trail - I am not making this up - takes us past the skittish tabby, the slobbering and hyperactive black lab, the prickly bougainvillea bush, the oddly bent stop sign and the screaming newborn’s house across the street (three houses down on the left). Is our worn, comfortable path something that could be reproduced via a mapquest.com query? I think not, considering the point is to not take the road most traveled.

The highchair tray that has the uncooperative latch. The pineapple-shaped nightlight that’s difficult to turn on and off. The exact way to change her diapers while she stands up and eats Ritz crackers next to the wicker toy box. The way she likes to be rocked before bed with her blanket covering her left eye and how to whisper “Nigh-Nigh” to her, leaving off the “t”, as you gently lay her down in her crib with her head in the direction of the dresser so she can see her pink stuffed dog on top. The list goes on. How can I possibly explain it all? The sheer magnitude of this list keeps me up at night when I consider leaving my baby – my Carly! - for 48 hours. But even as these random issues haunt me and I wonder how they will ever endure the weekend without me, another much more disturbing thought creeps into my brain. Sure, maybe they can’t survive without me. But jeeze…what if they can?

Two Girls and Their Cheese

2007-12-10T15:10:00.000-08:00

You are a mom. You reflect on the clear autumn sunlight shining into the kitchen as you enjoy another bite of your lunch. The baby is munching blissfully in her highchair next to you. No TV. No radio. No words. Just you and the baby and the warm sunshine on your cheek. You close your eyes and inhale and exhale deeply, like you’re practicing some sort of eating-lunch-at-the-kitchen-table yoga pose. Yum. You soak up the sun, feeling your heart swell and your stomach flutter. You’re sure you have never tasted grapes as sweet and crunchy as these. They sit on your tongue for a moment before you bite down to find the earthy sweetness. The baby is enjoying them too, in cute little chunks. The cucumber, the red pepper, the melted cheese on the thick homemade tortillas….why does everything taste so good today? Is it the sunshine? The rare contentedness that can be felt, for an ephemeral moment, drifting through the house? It doesn’t matter. You just sit quietly and focus on savoring the gift: the sweet, simple company of the baby and how lucky you feel to be right here, right now. You play a quick game of peek-a-boo with a napkin to get a giggle out of your lunch date. She loves it and smiles broadly between bites of tortilla and cheese. It occurs to you with sudden blinding clarity that there is nowhere on this earth you would rather be right now than in this cozy kitchen with the sunshine and the baby and the melted cheese.
…..

You are a baby. You feel the warm sunlight on the back of your head. It sneaks over the top of your highchair and tickles the upper part of your neck. It feels like love. The house, for once, is quiet. You consider your mom, who is sitting next to you eating. She smiles at you. You smile back, trying not to drop a piece of grape out of your mouth. You’ve found that that’s what happens when you smile too broadly --- things drop out of your mouth and it’s difficult to get them back in. The grapes are amazing. And the tortillas. But the cheese is by far your favorite. It is gooey and salty and melty and extra good today. Why does it taste so good? It doesn’t matter. You just enjoy it. You keep munching silently, cocking your head every few moments and glancing up at your lunch date to make sure everything is still as it should be. Suddenly she turns to you and holds a napkin in front of her face. Wait! Where’d she go? Oh, there she is! The game of peek-a-boo triggers a giggle, which forces you to retrieve the bite of food that falls out of your mouth. Your heart is warm. You feel like laughing and clapping and singing, so you do. Your sticky fists jab the air, conducting a jubilant symphony of cubed grapes and bits of tortilla. It occurs to you with sudden blinding clarity that there is nowhere on this earth you would rather be right now than in this cozy kitchen with the sunshine and the mom and the melted cheese.

Care for a Syringe with that Milk?

2007-12-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

Carly leans back, closes her eyes, smiles a sloppy grin, and attempts to lick a small puddle of milk collecting in the corner of her lips. She is satiated. Spent. Drunk. I sigh and wonder, Is there a 12-step program for milk-addicted infants and the mothers who love them?

It’s a drug, this stuff. I don’t care if the vice of choice is breast milk or formula, nursing or bottles. It makes no difference. Try cajoling your infant out of their daily fix and there will be hell to pay. You’ll soon find out that you are most definitely not in control of the situation. Your child, like anyone with an addictive personality, can be sweet as sugar one minute and a nasty howling beast the next. They can also be surprisingly good at manipulating you. Trust me, I’ve been there.

I’ve tried numerous strategies to break her habit, with distraction usually being my first defense. Much like a recovering smoker diverts himself by anxiously chewing gum or knitting dozens of scarves, I try to sidetrack Carly. I take her outside and show her a butterfly. We get the mail. We pet a cat or water the bamboo. This technique works great for a few minutes, but then she’s back to frantically sucking on my shoulder and tugging at my bra strap. My pint-sized addict doesn’t easily forget…and she’s way past the point of being fooled.

The first step to recovery, as everyone knows, is admitting you have a problem. Carly says, “I don’t have no stinkin’ problem.” She thinks it’s all fun and games and that she can stop any time she wants. She thinks she crawls better when she nurses. She thinks her habit isn’t hurting anyone and that everyone should mind their own freakin’ business already. In fact, Carly actually thinks the problem is me. She might have a (very small and practically insignificant) point. I am, after all, the typical co-dependent-passive-aggressive-enabler in this particular situation. Co-dependent because my body will essentially burst if I don’t continue to nurse every 3 hours during the day. Passive-aggressive because I complain about it to anyone who will listen but then I am putty in her hands when she cries and buries her sticky little cheeks into my chest, saying urgently, “mama mama mama!” And although I loathe to admit it, I might also be just the teeniest bit of an enabler. Part of me enjoys the fact that no one can soothe Carly like I can.

On a good note, I do take comfort in the fact that we haven’t passed the point of no return. I know mothers with kids that nursed right up until the child could actually ask for it. With real words! One mother recently told me that she nursed her daughter until she was almost two, and near the end, her daughter would look up at mom sadly and say, “Der no milk in der!” I also know a kid that would walk right up and start unbuttoning his mom’s shirt. So far, Carly doesn’t know how to pull up my t-shirt or say, “May I please have a bit of milk, mother?” but trust me, it’s right around the corner. Can you say, INTERVENTION?

It’s time Carly starts making amends for her errors (spit up perpetually on my left shoulder, for one thing) and learns to live a new life with a new code of behavior. Maybe she could even start her own support group to help other infants who are experiencing the same compulsion. At least that would get us out of the house a few days a week. And come to think of it, maybe that would distract me from my daily 3pm I’m-totally-jonesing-so-get-out-of-my-way-unless-you-have-chocolate obsession. Hey, I never said it didn’t run in the family.

The Million Dollar Question

2007-11-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

Oh, great. Here we go again. I braced myself for the inevitable as I walked into Paige’s preschool classroom. Fortunately she was still outside playing with her little buddies, which meant I had time, should the need arise, to collect myself and smile brightly after enduring yet another dismal parental disappointment: Paige’s answer to The Question of the Day. These daily questions (as well as the inventive answers from her preschool comrades) are posted on a sheet of poster board, written with permanent marker in large teacher-like letters and prominently displayed on the wall by the lunchbox shelf. Each day the mothers and fathers read their kid’s perfectly brilliant little answer. “How sweet!” they murmur approvingly. “Out of the mouths of babes!” Everyone enjoys this exercise. Everyone, that is, except Paige.

The first few days I was able to laugh about it. So what if her answers seemed a bit…off? After all, she is shy by nature and was still getting used to a new classroom, a new teacher and new students. I imagined Paige at Circle Time, feeling small and scared, and how daunting it must be for her to inform eight eager colleagues what her favorite color is and why. I nervously chuckled about it with my husband at home. “She just needs to warm up,” we told each other. “She’s choosy when it comes to conversing with people. Not much of a small-talker. Takes after her daddy. Yep, that must be it.” But the questions kept coming and Paige’s answers kept making us cringe. Reading each of her replies felt like biting down on a small piece of tinfoil. Although her teacher assured us she was a happy, well-adjusted kid, we secretly wondered if she had some sort of terrible social disorder and if the Department of Social Services should be contacted by day’s end, if not sooner, to begin a myriad of early intervention therapy sessions, thus preventing further social delay.

Questions like, “What Did You Have for Breakfast?” were met with answers such as “cereal” or “toast” or “pancakes” from her schoolmates. Paige’s answer was, and I quote, “It was too long ago to remember.” Uh…ok.

The age-old question, “What Is Your Favorite Color?” was answered with “blue” or “pink” or “green” in most cases. Paige’s reply? “White”. Huh?? That’s not even a color.

When the music teacher didn’t show up one day, the question was, “What Do You Think Happened to Putnam?” Most kids guessed something like, “He had a flat tire” or “He’s probably sick.” Paige’s answer was, “I have no idea.” Niiice.

The question that really threw me into a full-blown panic was “What Do You Like About Yourself?” Paige’s friend Joey said “I like the way my blood pumps through my body”. Another kid said, “I like my strong bones” and someone else answered, “I like how I brush my teeth.” To my complete shock and horror, Paige responded, “Nothing.” My heart thumped loudly as I raced home to google "how to cultivate self-confidence in a preschooler super quickly." As luck would have it, Back-To-School night was that very evening. As dozens of parents walked around chatting breezily, sipping cider and fussing proudly over their brilliant (and socially advanced) kid’s art projects, they were also able to read, in large print, how my child apparently has zero self-esteem and little, if any, skills in verbal communication. This does not bode well for potential play-date invitations, I thought as I grabbed another muffin from the basket on the bead table.

Luckily I have come to realize that most childhood dilemmas tend to fix themselves, and this one was no exception. When we finally stopped obsessing over her social skills – guess what! – Paige began to look forward to Circle Time and even enjoy the Question. In fact, these days when Circle Time rolls around, the teacher has a hard time getting Paige to stop answering. She wants to discuss everything: her house, her lack of pets, her little sister, what she wants for her birthday, the color of her eyes, and how her grandpa lives in Kansas where it snows. To my extreme mortification, she even shared how her own mother once wet her pants! That little story was meant for her ears only! Taken completely out of context! Told in jest during a particularly frustrating episode of potty-training! Not to be shared in Circle Time! And most definitely not to be written with permanent marker on neon-green poster board!

Pants-wetting story aside, I knew we had successfully navigated the Circle Time issue when the Question of the Day was, “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?” Of course there were the standard answers of “fireman” and “teacher” and “stewardess”. One little girl wanted to be a cheerleader, which seemed fitting, because she is - to this day - the reigning Miss Popularity of the pre-K class. After anxiously scanning the poster board for Paige’s answer, I found it at the very bottom. My heart lurched and my eyes stung as I blinked quickly. It read simply, “I want to be a mommy.”

I’ve never been so proud.

Picture This

2007-11-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Was it really worth a thousand words? Probably not, considering I had to devour an entire Butterfinger Bar and a fistful of Smarties afterwards just to calm myself down. Squinting from a splitting headache while driving home, I asked myself for the umpteenth time: why why why? What in the name of sweet Jesus possessed me to book that appointment at Sears Portrait Studio? At 37 years old, have I not learned to hang up the phone mid-sentence when my instincts tell me something will probably go terribly wrong?

I had good intentions. I planned the time and date carefully. It had to be on a Tuesday or a Thursday, when Paige is home from preschool. It had to be between naps and after lunch but before the 2pm bottle and before Spongebob comes on in the afternoon. I also picked their outfits carefully. They needed to correlate, but not in a lame matchy-matchy sort of way. I find it bothersome when I see a 3-generation family portrait in which everyone from Grandpa Joe to baby Emma is wearing the exact same chambray shirt. With that in mind, I picked out two dresses: Paige’s Hawaiian print dress in pinks and greens, and Carly’s pink polo dress with the matching panties. When Paige protested, saying she didn’t want to wear that particular dress, in my crazy desperation I told her – I’m not making this up - that Sears has a rule that you must wear a dress with flowers on it. She pointed out that Carly’s dress did not boast a single flower of any size, shape or color. I countered that the rule only applied to “big girls”, ages 4 through 8. She fought me until I gave in and let her wear a different pink dress with rickrack and ribbon instead of the floral print. What can I say? We were running late.

I wore pink too, just in case. I briefly entertained an outlandish fantasy during which the studio personnel commented on how I looked amazing for having two kids and that I should model and can they just shoot some pictures of me with the girls and then, what the heck, just a few rolls of me alone? I snapped out of it quickly, remembering the last time I had a similar daydream. I was playing with Paige in a Palm Springs hotel pool, and MTV happened to be there filming a Spring Break special. “This is it,” I thought giddily. “This is my big chance! I’m going to be famous!” I turned to let the cameras see my good side as I gracefully threw a smiling, adorable Paige into the air. I was so engrossed in looking cool and concocting the story I would tell my co-workers on Monday morning that I didn’t hear the camera man ask me, in the nicest possible way, to please get out of the pool. He had to ask me twice.

The first few Sears pictures went fine. Fun, even. But things quickly started to deteriorate. Soon Carly was crawling over lab equipment and Paige was refusing to stand up. Refusing to stand up! How is it that kids, when they don’t want to move, can instantly morph into a 100-pound wet noodle? The picture-taker looked to me for guidance, but I just shrugged. I had already weighed the option of throwing my back out versus getting a decent picture of Paige, and decided that she would stand up when she was good and ready and that was that.

Soon after the wet noodle incident the photo shoot came to an abrupt end. I knew I still had to pick out the prints, but by this time Carly was in a full-blown fit and I was trying anything I could think of to calm her. I even let her crawl around on the filthy floor and play with the big bead toy in the corner. The toy had looked charming and sweet upon arrival, but now, seen through my desperate eyes, seemed to be teeming with dreadful germs from hundreds of other kids that surely had sucked on it. We had been there almost 1 ½ hours, and I was so distracted and hungry that I gave up paying attention and ordered whatever the Portrait Studio Manager put in front of me. For all I know, I’ll be receiving a life-sized picture of the girls superimposed with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause on a pastel-rainbow-striped background for only 3 easy payments of $29.99. Here’s my credit card, whatever, fine, sure, I’ll take it. Just please let us leave.

That evening, when everyone was finally fed and clean and happy, I viewed the digital pictures that Sears had given me on a CD. I sent out an email to friends and family saying, “The two attached pictures pretty much sum up our experience at Sears today. Enjoy.” The picture of Paige shows her looking down at her toes, clearly on the verge of tears. She’s holding a wilted fake flower loosely in her hand as it drags on the ground. The picture of Carly was taken a few moments later. It shows her with the same fake flower stuffed into her mouth. She’s chewing with such unwavering focus it’s as if she knows she’s going to be kept at the Sears Portrait Studio against her will, and that wilted, dirty flower is the last meal she will be enjoying for a long, long time.

The Universe Stole My Lunch

2007-11-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

“Do you get it?” I asked Kenny as I vigorously dug both elbows into his lower spine, trying to massage him back to his former self. “The Universe sent you a message. It is clearly telling you to S-L-O-O-O-W D-O-O-O-W-N.”

He winced. Whether the pain was caused by my elbows in his back or my metaphysical babbling in his ear, I’m not sure. At any rate, I was ever-so-patiently explaining how there are no real mistakes in life. Everything happens exactly as it is supposed to happen, and everything happens for a reason. The Universe always provides, and sometimes, like yesterday, the Universe kicks you in the butt (or in Kenny’s case, the lower back).

24 hours ago we were feeling great. Industrious and efficient, even. We were cleaning out the garage because in our Universe we like things tidy. Kenny bent over to pick up a broken stereo receiver and the next thing I knew he was down. On the ground. No, not on the area rug in our nice, sunny living room…on the cold, hard cement between the curb and the garage door. He was moaning and – I’ve never actually used this word before but in this case it is appropriate – writhing in pain, clutching his back with one hand and wiping away tears with the other. My strong, manly husband was actually crying! I froze. Paige was scared, seeing her dad there on the ground. She kept tugging on my pant leg and asking me, “What’s wrong with daddy? What’s wrong with daddy?” in a small, wounded voice. I quickly glanced over at Carly. She was obliviously crawling through the mud with a large chunk of bark in her mouth, heading straight toward our fountain. I stood there, frozen, holding a broken lamp and an old extension cord, not knowing where to run first.

But that was yesterday. Yes, I thought to myself as I fluffed my hair and added a touch of lipstick, it was clear the Universe had spoken. Kenny was stressed from work and he had obviously been trying to do too much. He needed to slow down. Although I hated to see him in pain, I was (almost) glad that his own body had finally forced him to rest --- albeit flat on his back with the TV remote and a large bottle of Advil.

I asked him sweetly if I could get him anything before I left for my lunch date. Glass of water perhaps? Maybe an apple? Fresh ice pack? I’m here to help. He was grumpy and bitterly disappointed to be out of commission for a few days. Luckily his foul mood was directed toward the Universe and not toward his very helpful and notably excited wife.

I was so looking forward to my lunch. I was meeting a real live author that had just published her debut novel. I couldn’t wait to pick her brain and discuss everything having to do with the subject of writing. I was so eager it was almost embarrassing, as I fell all over myself trying to get ready. What exactly should one wear if one is going to be in the company of an artist? Oh, and the restaurant! The restaurant we had chosen serves the most divine fried chicken salad. Just thinking about the lunch menu made me salivate, not to mention perusing that menu with a real live author, who I was quite sure would quickly become a dear friend of mine and help me – with great success – break into the world of published writing. It was destined to be a perfect afternoon.

I rushed to check my email one last time before heading out the door. There, in my inbox, was a short note. It seems as though my soon-to-be friend, the real live author, had come down with a stomach virus and would have to postpone our lunch.

I turned off the computer and S-L-O-W-L-Y walked down the stairs and over to the couch. Grabbing the remote, I sat down with a heavy sigh. “She’s sick.” I told Kenny simply. “Lunch has been canceled.” He looked at me thoughtfully and then shrugged and gave me a half-hearted shoulder pat. “Well,” he offered, “I guess the Universe didn’t want to go to lunch today.”

A Family Affair

2007-09-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

Well! I just got off the phone with my perpetually cheerful mother, and frankly, I am quite disturbed by our conversation. It seems as if she and her husband of one year, Stephen (whom we adore completely and unabashedly), have planned a little trip…to South Africa. And here's the kicker: for practically five weeks! Although I admit that it sounds like a perfectly brilliant continent on which to celebrate one’s first anniversary, couldn’t they have chosen someplace 9,000 miles closer to us…like Ventura or thereabouts? Something tells me our stretch of the freeway wasn’t featured in their Conde Nast Traveler Magazine this month. In that case, mom and Stephen: please listen up. Stop gathering your passports and credit cards for one moment. Put the insect repellent down, step away from the new digital camera and give me your full attention. There is something that, in light of your recent travel developments, I must get off my chest before it eats me alive (similar to a South African cheetah), and that is: WHAT ABOUT ME?!

Tell me, mother, as you bought those three pairs of cropped cargo pants in various desert-toned twills at Costco last weekend, did you stop, even for a moment, to consider my feelings? You and I both know that we cannot go more than a few days without seeing or speaking to each other. Have you thought about the fact that your safari guide might not be able to procure, oh I don’t know, an internet connection out in the middle of Kruger National Park? Will there be cell phone capabilities at that wildlife-infested water hole in the Kalahari? Right. I didn’t think so.

So where, exactly, does that leave me and the girls?

Who am I supposed to call when Carly pulls out a fist-full of Paige’s hair while simultaneously spitting up her lunch in Paige’s left eye? This kind of thing happens to me on a daily basis! Who will cheer me up after a fitful night of sleep during which Carly wakes up Paige who wakes up me who begrudgingly lets Kenny sleep? Who will be there for me when Paige tells me as we’re driving home from school that her belly hurts but she’s not car sick; she just swallowed too much of her own snot? You might suggest that I call my husband. WRONG! TRIED THAT ALREADY! Something tells me his cell phone will conveniently be turned off again (he swears it gets turned off automatically in his pocket as he walks around, but I’m starting to wonder). And that’s another thing: who will babysit the girls on Saturday night so Kenny and I can go out to eat in a civilized manner instead of having to tag-team it and scream over the mind-jarring noise of pin-ball machines at Dean-o’s Pizzeria?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you and Stephen are enjoying all your fancy-schmancy travel. I was fine with your trip to Las Vegas to see Mary and Chuck. After all, that was only a 4-day weekend and Stephen thoughtfully kept his cell phone on. Your little jaunt to England was also bearable, namely because I took the girls to visit their cousins in Riverside at the same time. I even accepted (albeit somewhat hesitantly) your trip to China last fall. Thankfully, at the time I was wholly consumed with Paige starting preschool as well as obsessing over my ever-growing pregnant belly. I didn’t have time to even notice you were gone, much less stop thinking about me, me, me! But sheesh, South Africa for five weeks?! That is simply not ok! A girl’s gotta have her boundaries!

So that settles it. Stephen already knows that marrying you meant marrying your family as well, so I’m sure he’ll be pleased with my decision. If Cape Town’s Table Mountain won’t come to Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara will go to Cape Town’s Table Mountain. First anniversary, be damned! Just give me a minute to find our industrial-sized box of diapers and our no-tears PABA-free sunscreen. Great news! The girls and I are coming with you!

Here Comes Trouble

2007-09-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

~
I knew this day was coming,
It was right around the bend.
I tried to warn our neighbors
And unsuspecting friends.

I told them to be careful,
To padlock all their doors.
And perhaps, time permitting
They should even mop their floors.

Close your windows tight!
I warned them more than once,
Because this day’s been coming
It seems to me, for months.

You can feel the dark clouds gather,
Though the day feels nice and warm.
Don’t let the sunshine fool you -
It’s the calm before the storm.

It’s time I faced the facts:
Although it’s no one’s fault
My pleasant, peaceful world
Is grinding to a halt.

So batten down the hatches!
Good Lord, save us all!
I knew this day was coming...
Carly learned to crawl.

In Pursuit of Purple

2007-09-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

They must have looked huge to her, those agapanthus. They towered above her 2 ½ foot frame, even as she stretched, teeth gritted and brow furrowed, to reach the flowers. They were a brilliant shade of violet. For once I put our overly-committed schedule on hold to let my 10-month-old study the huge mass of tubular-shaped purple flowers for as long as she wanted. She stretched up again, grunting softly, straining against her stroller’s 3-point harness. Can’t…quite…reach.

Paige and I were on a walk around the neighborhood and I was pointing out all the plants that I knew the names of, which weren’t many. Bamboo, rosemary, jade, lantana, geraniums, agapanthus. That about covered it. Oh, and bird-of-paradise. When we had stopped to consider the giant bird-of-paradise growing in our yard, it reminded me of years ago when a friend from Kansas came to visit me in Santa Barbara. As my friend and I toodled around town in my 1989 red Mazda, she couldn’t get over all the bird-of-paradise plants just “growing wild” as she called it. She was working in a flower shop in Manhattan, Kansas at the time, where bird-of-paradise was considered very exotic. Not to mention very expensive. She was so amazed by the local vegetation that she even called the manager of her shop and told her in detail how she would be walking down the street in Santa Barbara and then boom! Right there in front of her would be a huge bird-of-paradise plant. This is madness, she had said. Now, 13 years later, as Paige seriously studied the vivid purple hue of the agapanthus she looked to be thinking the same thing: This is madness. How have I not noticed these things before?

Paige protested, but I held firm: it was time to head home. We were hosting a little barbeque that night, and as Kenny hosed off the deck and got the grill ready, I made a salad and gave Paige a quick bath. I dressed her in freshly-washed jammies, white with yellow ducks, the kind with the feet in them and a zipper that zips from the toes up to the neck. She looked so cute and cozy with ducks on her bottom and she smelled so good from the baby shampoo that I kept feeling a rush of butterflies in my stomach. Pure joy. I couldn’t get enough of her. As my friend Jill says, sometimes they’re so yummy you just want to spread ‘em on toast.

When our neighbors started arriving for dinner, I flitted around like a distracted hummingbird, filling wine glasses and grabbing cold beers for the guys. We had the stereo going and people were mingling and drifting into the kitchen and then back to the deck. Paige was entertaining herself, crawling around the house in her duck jammies, every few minutes stopping to give someone a shy smile. She loved the activity and the continuous hum of chatter and laughter. It was a beautiful Sunday evening: cool and clear, with a bright moon rising. If you held your breath and quieted our wind chimes for a moment, you could even hear the ocean.

I was offering a helping of tri-tip to our neighbor DeeDee, when she wondered out loud, “Hey, where’s Paige?” Although I had seen her on the deck about 10 minutes before, I felt a sudden rush of adrenalin as all the hair on my neck stood at attention. I called out to Kenny, “Is Paige out there with you?” and he called back, “No – I thought she was with you!” Although I tried to play it cool for the sake of our guests, panic started to slowly grip my throat and I felt my heart begin to beat quickly against my chest. Of course she’s around, I thought, she couldn’t have gone very far…she can’t even walk yet. “Paaa-iiiige! Paaa-iiiige!” I called as I turned on all the lights and looked in every room in the house. Nothing.

After exhausting all hiding possibilities inside, I went out to the deck to find Kenny. All of our dinner guests happened to be out there at the same time, and together, as one unit, we looked up and let out a collective gasp. Paige was in our neighbor’s yard. Across the street. A sort of weird guttural animal-like sound came out of me. She had made her way, backwards, down a flight of stairs off our deck. When she had gotten to the landing, she had turned 90 degrees and continued crawling down, all the way to the sidewalk. Deliberate and focused, she then made her way across the bricks in front of the garage, past the orange tabby cat dozing by our sega palm tree, and down off the curb. Next she inched her way across the street. I like to think she looked both ways first. At any rate, Paige then climbed up another curb, made a perfect right turn and, full of purpose and determination, crawled down the sidewalk and into our neighbor’s yard. As I rushed to pick her up, I noticed that despite the grass and asphalt stains, her white jammies were still shining in the moonlight. I grabbed her and hugged her to my chest hard --- a little too hard maybe, because she started to cry.

But then again, maybe she started to cry because I had picked her up moments before she uncurled her fat dimpled fist to finally – finally! – reach that one coveted purple agapanthus bud.

Feel the Burn

2007-09-06T15:54:00.000-07:00

There are many ways to effectively end a romance. You could change your phone number. You could use a tried-and-true break-up line. You could act too needy or too cold. Or, as in my case, you could just stop showing up.

My love affair with the gym began innocently enough. I’d like to say it was love at first sight, but the gym and I wanted to take things slowly. I had just graduated from college and had landed a job in a stock brokerage firm, where I was required to be at work every morning at 5:30am. My boyfriend worked evenings, so I started going to the gym after work to pass the time. Being a regular at the local gym got me a number of things, like a new heart rate, new biceps and even a new boyfriend. The gym and I were off to a promising start.

When the aforementioned new boyfriend dumped me, the gym was my saving grace. Like any reliable friend ready to pick me up when I stumbled, I drunk-dialed the gym and it actually answered on the first ring. I decided to work out instead of wallow. However, there were other times when my relationship with the gym was somewhat one-sided. Occasionally I liked it more than it like me. When the gym was closed on some silly holiday, like, oh I don’t know, Thanksgiving or something, I was hurt. How could it do that to me? So unfair! Were we dating, or were we just friends with benefits? I found out later (by calling the automated hotline listing the gym's hours of operation) that, as in many passionate liaisons, the gym had just needed some space.

The pinnacle of our relationship was when I met my husband at the gym. He asked me to go sailing with him the very next Wednesday. One year and two months later, I went. He proposed at the gym too, in front of his weight-lifting buddies. The joy! I wiped away euphoric tears in the middle of the free weight section and then ditched my step-aerobics class in favor of driving straight to Jill’s house to show off my new ring. Kenny continued lifting weights, but that’s ancient history, no? The gym had been kind to me and I wanted to give it a big hug. I contemplated calling the marketing department to tell them I had a winning idea for a national ad campaign: You can get more than a great body at the gym! You can get a husband!

My connection with the gym started to unravel when I had my first child. In retrospect, I should’ve sat the gym down and said “we need to talk”, but who has the time? I was working over 40 hours a week, taking care of a household and a baby, trying to maintain some sort of sanity. I thought it would be great if Paige started going to the daycare at the gym a few times a week so I could work out. She hated it. We only tried it a few times. The last time we went, I was on the treadmill for exactly 4 minutes when I saw one of the daycare workers come out of the kids' room and start to look around. I know all the parents were thinking “oh please, don’t pick me, please not me” but sure enough, she picked me, even though I kept my head down and pretended not to see her walk toward me and then stop within inches of my body, waiting patiently for me to acknowledge her presence. She told me that Paige was standing in the middle of the room, sobbing hysterically, telling everyone not to touch her. Well! Great workout! Thanks a lot! See you tomorrow!

The final straw came when I was 8 months pregnant with my second child. I was still hauling myself and my belly to the gym a few times a week, bulging obscenely under my Nike t-shirt. I was quite a sight, but I didn’t care. When you become comfortable in a relationship, the make-up and the hair and the jewelry tend to go by the wayside. At any rate, my belly and I went to the front desk one day to put my membership on hold, for obvious reasons. I was not breaking up; this was just a trial separation. The front desk person looked me straight in the eye and said “We’ll need to get a note from your doctor to prove that you are, indeed, pregnant.” Riiiight. Yes, I’m sure a number of women have tried the old “fake pregnancy” routine to get out of paying for a few months of membership fees. If there’s one thing I will not tolerate in a relationship, it’s the inability to trust. I broke it off right then and there. I even gave back my key.

Time heals all wounds they say, and I have hope that some day soon the gym and I will rekindle our on-again-off-again affair. I do feel pangs of guilt every once in a while, as I work up a sweat pushing the jogger stroller up the hill toward our house. It feels like I’m cheating or something. But then I remind myself that we’re on a break. The gym is more like a brother to me these days. I think we’re better off as friends. It’s not it. It’s me.

Princess Paige

2007-09-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

It’s not that I have anything against Walt Disney, per se. In fact, in a Pop Culture Sociology class that I took in my junior year at UC Santa Barbara, my final term paper (12 whole double-spaced pages, not counting the bibliography) was on Mickey Mouse. The professor wrote on the top of the first page, in a fat red sharpie, that although he liked my choice of topic, I had “failed to go into enough depth about the mouse’s history and how his likeness shaped the popular culture of the 1920’s and 1930’s and in turn became one of the most recognizable symbols in the world”. WHATEVER!

Nope, I have no problem with certain historical aspects of Disney and his multi-billion dollar universe. It’s just that before I had kids, I told dozens of people that I would rather stick a hot poker in my eye than ever buy a character-inspired piece of anything for my future children. There are some things that just would not happen in my lifetime. Period. Unfortunately for my husband and me, but fortunately for my daughters, things have a way of, shall we say…changing…when you have kids. With kids (and with husbands and with life in general), you have pick your battles.

Well Paige, you win. You’ve systematically worn me down. If you look over there at your Cinderella balloon flying dangerously close to the open living room window, you can see my white flag of surrender flying right beside it. I give up.

You want to wear your Snow White underwear tomorrow to school? Sure. I’ll do a special load of whites to make sure they’re ready to go. You want me to keep searching for all the available “princess books” for you in the library, even after I have gotten down on my hands and knees to look under “D” for Disney and “W” for Walt? No problem. I’ll drag your crying sister away from the picture book she’s chewing on to sheepishly ask the librarian for help, and in doing so, admit that I have no freakin’ idea how the Dewey Decimal System actually works. You want me to buy you that pink Rapunzel head band, although you sob large dramatic tears if I so much as walk toward you with a comb? Hey, why not? You did, after all, see the head band from across the crowded drug store and hone in on it like a heat-seeking missile, forsaking even the candy aisle. Sleeping Beauty Magnets? Fine. Jasmine Playing Cards? Check. Belle Nightlight? Of course. Ariel toothbrush and toothpaste? Sure. Oral health is just as important to me as it is to the next mom. And besides, everyone knows that the local pediatric dental office is most definitely not The Happiest Place on Earth.

Yesterday we received a catalog in the mail which contained pages and pages of Halloween Costumes that you could order for your little ones with just one easy payment of $19.99. Paige ran to me holding the catalog, enthusiastically showing me pictures of little girls dressed as Snow White or Cinderella, standing next to – I am not making this up – their moms dressed as Snow White or Cinderella. I recoiled in horror, telling her in no uncertain terms that I don’t care how beautiful Cinderella’s blue polyester dress is, I will absolutely not be ordering that dress in a woman’s size six! I mean, come on now! There are some things that a parent just needs to stand her ground on, and this is one of them. I flatly refuse to dress as Snow White at age 37. Jeeze, what’s next, buying a mini-van?

Although…I have to admit…the built-in DVD player would be most helpful as we fight painfully slow LA traffic in a few months, making our way down to Disneyland for Paige’s 5th birthday.

Six Useful Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Pediatrician Visits

2007-09-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or does a routine appointment at the pediatrician’s office have the ability to strike anxiety and dread, as well as joyful euphoria in the heart of every mother? (I suppose it doesn’t help that I find my pediatrician just the merest bit attractive, but we won’t go into that right now.) As I was saying, the first visit to the doctor after your little bundle of joy is born is truly a monumental event, one which is not to be taken lightly. One must prepare. One must pack a diaper bag. One must even take a shower, which has not been done by one in a long time. In the interest of helping other mothers navigate that first treacherous pediatrician visit, here are some helpful tips I’m happy to share (not that any of these have actually happened to me or anything):

Tip #1 – Always bring a change of clothes for your little one. You do not, under any circumstances, want to walk into that waiting room and find that there is another 5-day-old in a cuter outfit. You will never get another chance to make that first impression. Actually you do get another chance in two weeks for her next round of shots, but who’s counting? While you’re at it, bring a change of clothes for yourself too, because we all know that those first few weeks are all about “fluids”.

Tip #2 – Prepare, prepare, prepare. When you look at your calendar after your child is born and see that every square is blank except for the one 5 days after her birth, where there is written in a fat red sharpie “DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENT”, do not arrive at your own doctor’s office instead of hers, then panic and be unable to remember where her doctor’s office is, or what his name is, or if she does in fact even have a doctor at this point.

Tip #3 – Bring your husband along. Do not get frustrated when he asks a million irritating questions in the car about everything under the sun (things like “what’s for dinner?” are particularly grating), and then becomes completely mute and stares blankly when you ask him if he has any questions for the doctor regarding the well being of his first-born child.

Tip #4 – When the doctor examines your daughter and remarks, “Wow, she has really straight feet”, by all means take that to indicate that you are unsurpassed in the field of mothering and are, in fact, the finest mother the doctor has ever met in his practice to date.

Tip #5 – When the doctor further examines your daughter and remarks, “Well, we’d like her to be gaining about an ounce per day at this point”, do not call your mother as soon as you get into the car, hysterical, blubbering something about your child being completely off the weight charts and that you just knew this motherhood thing would be a disastrous endeavor.

Tip #6 – Lastly, when the doctor casually asks how you are, to make polite doctor-mother conversation, feel free to instantaneously break down in tears. Say to yourself, to hell with the kid, let’s talk about me! And while we’re at it, doc, maybe you could write me just the teeniest little prescription, you know, if it’s not too much trouble...

…..

I hope you have found these tips helpful. My next chapter will be titled: After the First 5 Days: When the Crap Really Hits the Diaper.

Hello, My Name is Krista, and I’m a Writer

2007-09-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

This writing thing is new to me, but I’m quickly making up for lost time. As I obliviously go about my day, getting groceries and washing a load of whites and feeding Cheerios to my 7-month-old, ideas for stories come to me in bright flashes. This morning, for instance, I was paying our bills and I started thinking about the fact that we’ve spent exactly $416.20 on swimming lessons for Paige and what has it gotten us? Paige can officially blow bubbles. I don’t mean go under water and blow bubbles. I mean gingerly, ever so cautiously, touch her bottom lip to three inches of bath water and softly blow air out of her mouth to make…a bubble. I’m just not sure if swimming lessons have been the best investment at this point. When I have a thought that makes me smile and has even the slightest bit of promise, I will scramble to find a pen and paper to jot it down. I have been known to write phrases or ideas on grocery lists, electric bills, and even a stray life insurance policy that was minding its own business on our kitchen counter. When I finally find the time to sit down at my computer to write, I type and type and type, barely able to get the words down quick enough, wishing I had paid more attention in my 7th grade typing class so I could type even faster. I usually keep going until Carly, who has been rolling around (slobbering profusely) under my computer chair for the past 28 minutes, begins to cry. I give her our calculator to chew on, desperate for 5 more minutes of writing time. Rookie author exceptionally dedicated to her craft? Yes. Mother-of-the-Year Award? Uh, no.

Once I finish the first draft of an essay and re-read it, say, 14 times, I usually send it off to a select group of people, including my best friend, prior co-workers, my husband and my mother. I wait at the computer after hitting the send button for their reply emails to come flowing in, raving about my latest escapade that was so eloquently captured by my fantastic writing skills. Nothing happens. I hit the “refresh” button, though intellectually I know this is not necessary because a new email will automatically pop up in my inbox. That’s strange, I think to myself, the “automatic email in the inbox” feature must be broken today. I hit the refresh button again, but still no emails. This is when I begin to feel uneasy. I open up my newest essay, the one that I’ve just sent to everyone west of the Mississippi, to read for the 15th time. Immediately I see a glaring grammatical error. And then another one. I am horrified. The more I read, the worse it seems. In fact, the whole damn story doesn’t make a bit of sense anymore. My writing career, such as it is, is officially over before it’s begun. I imagine my friends and family emailing amongst themselves, asking each other how best to break it to me that I suck. Just as I convince myself that my next writing project will be to update my resume so I can get a real job, OH HAPPY DAY, an email pops up. It’s from my mother, but it still counts. I open it instantly, relieved and anxious to read her praise of my story. It says: “Hi honey. Would you and Kenny and the girls like to have dinner at our house tonight? Let me know. xox, Mom” I am crushed. Though tempered by the thought that I will not have to cook dinner tonight, this is unquestionably the low point of my day. Since I truly have reached the breaking point and cannot take the pressure for one more minute, I decide to give my mom a call. She answers on the first ring, full of irritating good cheer. I find a few things to talk about, random stupid things, so as not to seem too desperate. I ask “Is it sunny down there?”, even though she lives only 15 minutes away from me and I know the answer already because I’m staring out my kitchen window. Then I ask her, ever so casually, what she thought of my essay. Turns out she hasn’t even read it yet. She promises to read it and I promise to come to dinner that night. My mood is sour as I hang up the phone. I turn on the TV, then open the fridge to search for something with a lot of sugar and/or salt in it. The phone rings. It’s my mom. At least, I think it’s my mom. I can’t tell immediately because all I hear is hysterical laughter. In fact, she’s so hysterical that I start to laugh too, even though I don’t know what I’m laughing about. Between hoots and snorts she breathlessly tells me that she just read my essay and it is “just fabulous”. At that point I could’ve reminded myself that the story actually was about her, and that I had described her in quite a flattering light, and that this might be why she thinks it’s fabulous. But instead, I just bask in the glow of her laughter. I soak it up, like a cat in the sun. It is so intoxicating and delicious that I want to lick the phone. I love my mom. Hell, I love the whole world!

And then my muse and I are off and running again, confident of my abilities, envisioning my first book signing event and the witty remarks I will make. I am surely the most gifted writer in California. Or at least in Santa Barbara. Well, ok, I think I’m probably one of the most grammatically correct writers in our school district (no offense to any parent whose child attends Washington School). Fine. I’m the funniest writer in our household, and that’s for sure, especially since neither of our daughters can write yet. Well actually, Paige can write her name, but that is SORELY LACKING in the humor department.

Be Like a Preschooler: Lighten Up!

2007-09-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

We had invited a few close friends to join us on a beautiful power boat to take a pleasure cruise around the harbor one afternoon. The beautiful power boat was not ours. One of the perks of my husband being a yacht broker is that occasionally he is able to make arrangements with the owners of such boats so he can use them. This particular boat is immaculate. It’s painted an extraordinarily rich, luscious navy blue, which we all decide makes it look much more expensive. Our friend Larry, who always joins us on these expeditions, belts out a familiar line between bottles of Miller Genuine Draft, “Ha! Some people pay for this!” to which I say, without missing a beat because we’ve said it many times before, “But not us!” and we all laugh. We are living the high life.

I am feeling quite proud of myself, as the wife of the driver of the borrowed boat, and I take my role seriously. I show people around, pointing out special features and reminding Paige and her friend Zoë not to wipe their greasy hands on the beautiful white leather seats. Paige and Zoë agree solemnly to wipe their hands on their shirts instead, and then continue to run around, looking here and there, thoroughly enjoying wearing their Barbie life jackets and being on a boat. They are carefree and innocent preschoolers, loving every minute of this adventure.

Soon it becomes clear that Carly wants to nurse. I decide to go down below deck so as not to expose my bare nipple to Larry et al. Paige and Zoë are playing down there, exploring every corner of the boat and asking my husband what certain switches do. They are full of curiosity, and as soon as I start to nurse Carly, I can tell they are fascinated. They stop playing and give me their full attention. Zoë asks, “How does it get out?” Instantly I realize that this is a teachable moment. I need to be honest and truthful, without going into too much detail. This is an opportunity that should not be taken lightly, and one that I cannot afford to mess up. My thoughts flash back to when I was in grade school and my mother insisted on having those horrible deep talks with me (during which I completely and utterly mortified) and using correct terminology for everything, like “penis”. At the time I just wanted to shrink up and die, but now as a mother, I’m beginning to understand the importance of educating your child at home about such matters, before they can hear it from their buddies as school.

Zoë asks again, more urgently, “How does it get out?”

So I begin. I tell Paige and Zoë, “When you are big enough to be mommies, and if you grow a baby in your belly and decide you want to nurse that baby, your bodies will make some milk”. At that point I glance up at their faces and notice that they are hanging on every word, eyes wide, mouths slightly open. I see that Zoë has a weird look on her face, like she’s thinking I’m slightly crazy and that I’m going to use the word “penis” or something, but of course I will have to save that for another conversation. So far this is going well, I think to myself. I must choose my words carefully. I take a deep breath and continue. “When you have milk in your body and if you eat healthy foods (I throw that one in because Paige is going through a picky-eating phase), your baby can nurse from your booby. Your boobies have tiny holes in them, and when the baby sucks, the milk comes out. It’s nature’s way. Puppies and kitties feed their babies like that too!” I figure that last comment will add a little extra drama. I am decidedly pleased with my explanation. Success! I feel good about myself as a mother and my abilities to communicate honestly and openly with my daughter and her friend. I look down at Carly, still nursing, and think smugly that someday soon she too will be able to benefit from my thoughtful explanations. If I could pat myself on the back without dropping the baby, I would.

Then Zoë says, “No. I mean how does it get out? How does your boob get out of your bra?”

I can’t help but laugh. I tell her that I just unsnap the strap and I’m good to go. As the girls and I head back up into the sun, I smile to myself, slightly embarrassed at my overly-dramatic way of handling the last 10 minutes. I should be more preschool-like and not to take things so seriously. I mean, come on now, how serious can you be when the left side of your nursing bra is still unsnapped and there is baby puke down the middle of your t-shirt?

You Say Tomato

2007-09-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

I’ve systematically killed every live plant in our home, which is to say I am quite a disappointment to my ancestors, considering I grew up on a farm in Kansas. I remember helping Grandma pick vegetables from her garden every summer. I loved it but got a stern talkin’ to each year because I would eat every vegetable that I picked. The memory is so clear: thick Midwest humidity, sweat and dirt under my fingernails, the feel of a baby carrot coming up with it’s roots still intact, the pop of a pea pod as you open it up to eat it when Grandma’s got her back turned. Yep, Grandma was a master of the garden, picking and canning vegetables till the cows came home, and I’m not kidding about the cow part.

My own mom has a green thumb as well. She successfully cultivates a large garden every year with lettuce, tomatoes, corn, green peppers, radishes and lots of other important vegetables. In fact, my 4-year-old was with my mom a few days ago and walked out to see the garden and exclaimed “MY GOD, that’s a big tomato”, which pretty much sums it up. As great as she is in the garden, a little known fact about my mom is that her real talent is keeping cut flowers alive. She can keep a grocery-store-bought bouquet of roses fresh for like, 6 months. She tenderly trims their stems, feeds them whatever plants eat and clears a space for them in the fridge every night. If there was some sort of “Keeping Cut Flowers Alive” contest, you can bet your bottom dollar she would win the blue ribbon (despite the fact that I have now given away all her trade secrets).

Unfortunately I don’t possess the green thumb that Grandma and mom enjoy. For me it’s a question of patience…as in, I don’t have any. I don’t trim the stupid stems. I don’t water and Lord knows I don’t fertilize. My husband just rolls his eyes as one by one he replaces the plants that I kill with very high-quality (they’re really quite authentic looking!) fake ones.

This Spring I decided it would be fun for Paige if we had a tomato plant. After consulting my mother about what size pot to buy (she recommended “a big one”), I bought a big pot and a cute-as-a-button little cherry tomato plant, and brought it home to Kenny in the hopes he would plant it for us. He did --- directly into fertilizer. I thought, great idea! Now I don’t have to fertilize it! The little index card said it would “bear fruit in 60 days”. Paige and I marked it on our calendar and waited with great anticipation. Everything was fine until we went away for the weekend and forgot to have someone water our tomato plant. When we got home it was undeniably dead. Kenny gave me “the look” and set about reviving it. He entered the house about 30 minutes later, beads of sweat on his brow (like he had given it mouth-to-mouth or something), looking triumphant. He had saved the tomato plant! He told me sternly (Grandma-like) not to forget to water it. I followed his directions and watered it every day. When it turned yellow because it was getting too much water, he said “What the heck are you doing to it?!” and I panicked and stopped watering it, which of course was another poor decision. So now it’s not only yellow, but also extremely wilted. I am forced to walk past that plant each time I want to enter our front door, which is a lot, and I’m reminded yet again that I have failed miserably. At this point I have stopped watering it completely in the hopes of putting it out of its misery, but – I kid you not - the thing just won’t die. It’s the tomato plant from hell. How something so ugly and lifeless can keep producing the most perfectly delicious little cherry tomatoes for Paige’s lunches, is really beyond me. I’ll have to ask Grandma about that one.

Halloween Schmalloween

2007-09-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

I hate Halloween. The only redeeming quality is the candy. I’m convinced it all stems back to my childhood, when I endured a very traumatic costume experience. In kindergarten, my mom made me an Indian Girl costume. (Keep in mind we had never heard of the phrase “Native American” in 1975.) The costume was perfect – in a 70’s sort of way - and I wore it proudly to school for the Halloween party. It was made out of burlap, with first a row of orange rick-rack, and then a row of yellow rick-rack around the arms, neck and bottom hem. My mom had also frayed the edges very authentically. I probably also sported a home-made headband with feathers, but I don’t remember. I remember the dress in such detail because I wore it for 3 (yes, THREE) years in a row. The first year it was down to my knees. The second year it was quite a bit shorter, so I wore a pair of shorts underneath, just in case I wanted to play on the monkey bars at recess. The third year I pretty much just wore it as a shirt. I have asked my mom a number of times why she didn’t get me a new costume. She has apologized, and it always goes something like this: "I’m so sorry, honey! We just didn’t have a lot of money back then!", or "I’m so sorry, honey! It just looked so cute on you!", or "I’m so sorry, honey! You never asked for a new costume!"

And so it was with great trepidation that I asked my own toddler, 30 years later, what she wanted to be for Halloween. Without hesitation, she answered “a dog”. Oh that’s just great. Where am I supposed to find a dog costume in size 3T? I decided to drop the issue, confident that she would forget our conversation and wind up being some sort of princess/fairy combination like all the other (normal) little girls.

We didn’t speak about it for a few weeks. Then, two days before Halloween, when it became painfully clear that the costume issue needed to be addressed again, I took her to the drug store down the street. Since it was so close to the actual holiday, I knew I could find a bargain on a ready-made Cinderella outfit. So what if it was stifling polyester and scratched the crap out of her neck? It was off the rack, size 3T and the price was right. Paige and I browsed the selection and found a plethora of Cinderella’s, Spider Men and those ninja turtle things. I talked up the princess dress shamelessly: “Isn’t this beautiful? It’s pink, your favorite color! Wow, I bet Zoe would love this! You can pick it out and we’ll get it right now!” etc. etc. After each comment she would agree with me enthusiastically. Finally she looked up at me and said, “When can we get my dog costume?” I knew then I was officially defeated.

I threw her in the car and drove to the thrift shop. We found a pair of grey sweat pants (size 3T) and a grey zip-up hooded sweatshirt (size 3T). Then it was off to the craft store. Pipe cleaners, black and brown felt, a package of face paint. I stayed up the next night until midnight, cutting out little felt spots and stitching them onto the sweats by hand. I made ears, a tail, everything. I grumbled and cursed the whole time.

The next morning before work I packed the finished costume in a bag for Paige to change into at daycare for their party. When I picked her up after work, I saw her, head-first in a bucket, bobbing for apples. She was in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. I asked her childcare provider, a dear friend of mine, where her costume was. “Oh! It’s been so unseasonably hot today, she just wanted to wear her t-shirt.”

I have one picture of Paige in her dog costume. I made her put it on when we got home from daycare. She sports a tense smile and if you look closely you can see a ribbon of sweat dripping down her forehead.

My Dearest Carly

2007-09-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

To: Baby Carly
From: Your Mother
Re: You’ve got some explaining to do, missy

My Dearest Carly,

While I am certainly glad you are enjoying your first trip to Kansas, spending time with your grandparents and meeting aunts and uncles you did not, until now, know existed, there is one thing we most urgently need to discuss: sleep.

However, before we chat about your utter disregard of sleep, let me just say a few words about our vacation. I know travel is not for the faint of heart. I understand that your routine has been thrown out the window. I also realize you are completely out of your element and that Kansas could not be more different than Santa Barbara. Carly, please do not judge Kansas solely on the sign we passed on the highway reading “Taco Bell, 39 Miles”, or on the stifling humidity, or the rabies-filled squirrels that ran about our feet as we ambled through the tiny zoo searching for the 52-year-old bear named “Brownie” that was asleep (“Is he dead?” your sister wondered) in his pee-smelling concrete cave. It would be wiser, when remembering your first trip to Kansas to reminisce about the wonderful price of newly-released movies ($1), the delicious fat-filled meals we enjoyed with relatives that squeezed-smothered-kissed-poked-prodded you trying to elicit a smile, and the nice young man that helped us with your stroller at the local J.C. Pennies, sporting a much-loved t-shirt reading “I’m A Keeper”.

Now, about this sleep thing. I realize you are “sleeping” in a porta-crib in a home that is 60 years old and tends to creak loudly when we so much as suck in a breath. And yes, I’m also taking into account the fact that it is 92 degrees at 6:20 in the morning here, which is not conducive to a good night’s sleep for 7-month-olds. And of course there is the issue of the bedroom ceiling fan, which elicits odd noises that leaves us wondering if it is going to take flight at any moment and cut us both into (sweaty) pieces. NONETHELESS! It is most definitely not okay for you to have regressed so much that you now are waking up three times per night – namely at 3am, 5am and 7am - to nurse of all things!! Carly Lynn! You have not nursed this much since you were a tiny babe, just home from the hospital! Furthermore, please do not let me catch you grinning widely at me when I peek down at your porta-crib to make sure you are finally asleep. These antics do not allow either one of us a solid night’s sleep. You might think, erroneously, that I am partly to blame for this problem. You might remind me that I am the one that leaps across the dark room in a single bound, stuffing my breast into your mouth quickly before you make another peep, so as not to wake our hosts or your older sibling. Fine, fine. However, when you then look up at me in the moonlight, taking my entire boob with you, and you bat your eye lashes and actually – I swear! – whisper “sucka”…..well! That is just wrong.

Let me just warn you, my sweet, that this behavior is unacceptable and it will not continue when we get home. Mark my words! Oh sure, you can get away with it now, being at grandpa and grandma’s house. After all, if you so much as utter a whimper one of your doting grandparents snatch you up from the carpeted living room floor and give you a teether, a snack, a tickle, a stuffed animal, a dollar, a chocolate bar, anything to make sure you are so completely coddled that you do not even have to wipe your own bottom…..oh wait….you know what I mean.

ANYWAY, when we arrive home in Santa Barbara, things are going to change. After I have cleaned up the house from the effects of having your father there by himself pretending to be a bachelor for a week, you and I are going to sit down and have a serious talk about the night ahead. And while your father and sister are sleeping soundly that first night, you and I will be participating in a battle of wills. You will be pleading to nurse, explaining through your sobs that you love it oh-so-much because it’s always the perfect temperature and it comes in such cute little containers. Meanwhile, I will be frantically stuffing ear plugs into my ears, trying to get past the guilt at the seemingly impossible task of letting you “cry it out”. Believe me, my dear --- it will hurt me more than it hurts you. And I’m not just talking about my newly-engorged breasts.

I’ve got my eye on you young lady.

All my love,
Your eternally devoted and sleep-deprived mother

PS. Please do not feel as if I have singled you out. I am also writing your sister a letter regarding her unacceptable behavior in the airplane bathroom.

Star Spangled Santa

2007-09-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

I saw the ad in the NewsPress and decided right then and there to clear our calendar (such as it was) to attend the event. Santa was going to be at the Sea Center on the pier from 10am – 2pm next Saturday. This was my chance to instill a little holiday magic into our week and introduce my first-born, the solemn one, to jolly St. Nick. Lately she had been struggling to grasp how Santa, Jesus, the Easter Bunny, her guardian angel, the Tooth Fairy and Rudolph all fit together. In fact, when I approached the topic of Mary and attempted to explain that “Mary had baby Jesus”, Paige’s response was “she also had a little lamb”. So there you go.

We arrived at the Sea Center, cheeks flush with excitement, or actually, I was flush with excitement and Paige was a bit unsure. We held hands as we took the elevator up to the 2nd floor. I brushed the hair out of her eyes and cleaned a smudge of jelly off her cheek to make the most out of the “free picture” included in the Santa Package that we had bought at the entrance. We followed the signs to Santa’s Workshop and found the door suspiciously closed and quiet on the other side. Suddenly an elf (crap, we hadn’t even talked about elves yet) opened the door and invited us in. Intimidating is an understatement. There, in the middle of a big empty room, was Santa. He smelled faintly musty, as did his mildly-creepy-looking elf. Another elf, a picture-taking-helper-elf, was also in the room. I did a quick check on Paige, whose eyes were huge. Standing perfectly still, staring at Santa, she looked very, very small. I had the sudden fleeting urge to pick her up and throw her over my shoulder and make a run for it. I imagined trying to explain to my husband, my mother, my husband’s mother, my husband’s sister, my brother, my best friend, my boss, my neighbor and my neighbor’s daughter (who all knew we were visiting Santa) how Paige had burst into tears and we had to exit the vicinity before even getting our parking ticket validated.

I was stunned when Paige walked slowly up to Santa and gingerly held out her arms so he could pick her up. The picture-taking elf and the mildly-creepy-elf and I all smiled proudly. Santa patted her on the knee as she leaned ever-so-slightly to the left, trying to escape his beard that was itching the top of her head. He asked her what she wanted. She said, and I quote, “AN AMERICAN FLAG.” Silence. I thought I heard the creepy-elf snicker. Santa gave me a puzzled look and smiled sweetly at Paige as he repeated her request to make sure he had heard correctly. “You want an American Flag?” Then I really did hear the creepy-elf begin to giggle. The picture-taking elf, Santa and I all started laughing. This is a great story, I thought to myself. The only person not laughing was my daughter. Santa suddenly got serious and asked if my husband was in the military. The elves looked at me with sympathy and nodded in unison. Uh…no, I said, he’s at home sitting on the couch.

As we drove out of the parking lot I looked through the car window and smiled as I suddenly understood. After all, I hadn’t yet had the chance to warn Paige that in years to come she would have to learn to tell all sorts of well-meaning relatives/friends/strangers what she wanted for Christmas. Up until now, she had no idea that it was even an option. In her haste to please the mildly-creepy-looking-elf, the picture-taking-helper-elf, musty-smelling Santa and her own overly-enthusiastic mother, Paige had panicked when asked what she wanted. She had said the first thing that popped into her little 3-year-old brain. And there, flying in the December breeze, directly outside the 2nd floor window of the Sea Center, was a huge American Flag.

Baby Blues

2007-09-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

When you’ve just had a baby and are in the middle of post-partum baby blues, it is no laughing matter, and one that should be discussed immediately with your local health practitioner, or priest or clergy, or mother or sister-in-law, or acupuncturist, or best friend, or in my case, anyone who would listen. This included the mailman, the guys who came to paint our deck, and the nice young man that stocks produce at our neighborhood grocery store.

However, when you’ve finally dug your way out of that big black hole of chaos and are able to reflect back --- damn, does it seem funny. I’m sure nothing like this has ever happened to you, but just for kicks, I thought I’d share a few precious memories of my first few weeks with Carly. Like the time Carly was 3 weeks old and I called my girlfriend in hysterics, complaining that it took HOURS to get her back to sleep. When Jill asked me to slow down and explain it in detail, I said (between ragged breaths), “Well, she eats and then I rock and walk and rock and walk and she just REFUSES TO GO TO SLEEP! THIS IS NOT NORMAL, I TELL YOU!!” Jill actually chuckled (which is every post-partum-depression-girl’s nightmare) and said “There’s nothing wrong with her…she’s just…awake.” Well! I’m sure you would’ve known that, but I didn’t. And then there was the time that Carly was howling and completely out of control, right before some visitors were due to arrive, so I just gave up and started howling right along with her, and she looked at me and was quiet for a moment because I had totally blew her mind. Then she said (or at least she would’ve said, had she had the capacity to talk), “You want something to cry about? I’ll give you something to cry about!” after which she really let loose. Or how about when I was forced to call my 3rd lactation consultant in so many weeks, and between sobs I managed to inquire about my current predicament affectionately called “excessive let-down” (where you actually drown your infant in breast milk, which is something I’m sure your boobs never did). The nice lactation consultant said, “you just let it drip on a pillow, honey, just let it keep drippin’ and everything is gonna be ok.” Well bless her milky little heart. She was really excited about my problem and swore that it was her best phone call of the day, and I found myself thinking, wow, this woman really loves to talk about breast milk. I’m sure the “drip solution” would’ve been a great choice for you had you been in the same situation, but considering my type-A personality and tendency toward obsessive compulsiveness, frankly, letting it drip on a pillow was just not an option for me. As if I didn’t already have enough to worry about without having to wash 12 extra pillow cases each day!

Eventually I came up with my own creative solutions. For instance, before our first child was born, I was given a wonderful book called “The Happiest Baby on the Block”, by Dr. Harvey Karp, which tells of the five S’s: swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging and sucking. In theory, these 5 techniques should stop the crying and make every baby, well, the happiest baby on the block. Unfortunately, they forgot to add the 6th S: suffocating. I have found that it really is quite effective. (Note: Just kidding! Feeble attempt at a joke! Please do not try at home!) But seriously, duct tape does work nicely to keep a binkie in a mouth…but I’m sure you would never do anything like that.

Price Check, Aisle Five

2007-09-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

My husband was sitting on the couch, reading the morning paper, when I heard him ask “Do we have any more grapefruit?” A simple question, yes, but one that instantly cut me to the quick. You see, I might be an average cook (at best), but the kitchen is still my domain. I take great pleasure in stocking the fridge and the pantry so well that when Kenny or Paige ask for something, I can find that item in a split second, bringing it out from behind a can of old green beans with a flourish, as if to say, “TA-DA! Am I not the most brilliant and organized wife and mother in the entire tri-county area?!” to which they must agree, or risk being fed hotdogs every night for a week. I pride myself in knowing everything about our kitchen, including where Paige’s favorite Dora the Explorer cup is (in the dishwasher), or how the oven cooks hotter than the knob says (just turn it down 25 degrees) and I most definitely know how many grapefruit we have, which at the moment is….well…none. I guess Carly and I are taking a trip to the grocery store.

It’s not the biggest, or the brightest, or even the cleanest for that matter, but I’ve been shopping at the grocery store down the street for years and I like it. I like it because it’s cheap and I know where everything is. Also, the produce guys and the checkers all know me. They wink at Paige and tell her she’s getting big. They make googly faces at Carly until she graces them with a smile. Today, however, I am in a foul mood and do not want to make nice with anyone. I start going through the aisles and realize I need quite a few things. My cart is getting heavy, but so far Carly is doing fine --- not like that one time when we were half done shopping and she started crying so loudly that I just picked her up and walked out, abandoning my grocery cart and all of its contents in the frozen food section.

When I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten everything, I head up to the front and join one of the two lines that are formed. I get to the front of the line and immediately sense that something is wrong. This is not good. I look at the checker and do not recognize him. He is young and he is new, which in the high-stakes world of grocery shopping is a lethal combination. I quickly evaluate the situation, wondering if I should grab my food off the belt and move to the other line (the one that is going much quicker because that checker has worked here for years), but I decide that would be rude so I resign myself to sticking it out. My checker immediately tries to engage me in conversation. I feel like saying, “Hey buddy, enough with the chit-chat. Who are you and what have you done with the regular guy?” but instead I just smile nervously and hand him my discount card. Since he is new, he goes painfully slow, scanning each item and physically picking it up and moving it toward the end of his station next to the bags. I want to tell him that this is unnecessary and for the sake of efficiency he should use the belt that automatically moves items toward the bagging area. All at once I realize that we haven’t even gotten to the produce yet, which is what really distinguishes the good checkers from…the new ones. Since this shopping trip I went heavy on the fruits and veggies (thanks in part to Kenny’s grapefruit comment), good Lord, are we in trouble. Out of sympathy as well as the need to get the heck out of there, I attempt to help him, so I actually – I am not making this up – start turning the fruits around in their little plastic bags so he can quickly see the numbered stickers and be more efficient. He laughs uneasily and apologizes for being so slow. He says, “This produce stuff really gets me”, which I find to be an odd comment for a checker to make.

He gets to the vegetables and, just as I thought, everything goes to hell. He says to me, “What are these again?” and I answer, “those are radishes.” He grins and says, oh right, that was on the tip of my tongue. A few minutes later he asks, “And what are these?” and I say “those are red potatoes”. I begin to think it has something to do with the color red, like maybe he’s color blind or something. I’ve never worked in a grocery store (I was too busy working at fast food establishments in my teen years), so I am not familiar with their applications. I imagine they ask about prior arrests and outstanding warrants, and perhaps even strengths and weaknesses, but I doubt if they ask potential employees if they are color blind. Just a hunch.

When I’m about ready to jump out of my skin with frustration, he suddenly leans over and pats Carly’s leg. She gives him a big gummy grin, and I feel my heart soften. I know from experience that children can see directly into a person’s soul, so anyone that Paige or Carly smile at can’t be all that bad. I end up joking with my checker about the weather or something silly like that, and even tell him to have a good day. He means well and heck, he’s new, let’s cut him some slack.

Carly and I sing to the radio on the way home from the grocery store. I am in a better mood, thinking that our little adventure might even have the makings of a good story. I begin unloading the groceries, smiling to myself about the color-blind theory, when a thought pops into my head that makes my blood run cold. I forgot to get grapefruit.

Conversations with a 4-year-old…Don't Try This at Home

2007-09-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

As if washing Paige’s hair and getting her to eat a vegetable – any vegetable! And Trader Joe’s veggie puffs don’t count! - isn’t challenging enough, lately I’ve had to deflect a constant barrage of questions as well. I have learned from experience that most conversations with Paige begin and end the same way. Basically Paige is curious or bored and keeps asking me question after question until she backs me into a corner and I just give up and mumble, exhausted, one of three standard answers: 1) I don’t know why, or 2) Because I said so, or 3) That’s just the way God made it. Sure, these conversations start off pleasant enough, with blinding cheerfulness and great expectations on my part, but when they finally grind to a slow and painful stop, I can’t help feeling defensive and downright lame. The following exchange depicts an actual conversation I had with Paige a few days ago.

Paige: (seeing a produce truck barrel down the freeway next to us) “How does stuff get into the stores? From God?”

Krista: (chuckling to myself and thinking how charming and naïve my daughter is) “Well actually honey, trucks and trains bring the fruits and vegetables to the grocery stores. That’s how the stuff gets there.”

Paige: “But how do the fruit and vegetables get into the trucks?”

Krista: “Farmers help load it into the big trucks after they grow it.” (Then, having the bright idea of making this a “teachable moment”, I continue, which is a fatal error on my part. An obvious rookie move.) “Do you remember what is needed for a seed to grow?”

Paige: (Exasperated and thinking ‘Hey - I’m supposed to be asking the questions here’) “Sure. Dirt, sun, water and love. But how do the seeds get into the ground?”

Krista: (Beginning to feel a bit edgy, somehow knowing that this is going to end badly) “The farmers plant the seeds into the ground.”

Paige: But where do the seeds come from?”

Krista: (heavy silence, Jeopardy theme song playing in brain, telling self to think think think but jeeze where the heck do the seeds actually come from? I mean, I guess if you take corn for instance, the kernels might dry up and become corn seeds, but what about tomatoes, carrots, celery….crap, this is taking way too long….someone help me please…anyone?…)

Paige: (triumphant, because she’s officially defeated me) “That’s what I thought. From God.”

…..

Today she actually asked me why a bird is called a bird. You have got to be kidding me. I was just about to use standard answer #1 (“I don’t know why”), when it dawned on me that I might have to bring out the big guns and try answer #4. Using answer #4 is, by anyone’s standards, a bold move. It’s the answer to which all other answers are measured. Risky, yes, but when used in the correct way, it really packs a punch and can stop a toddler dead in their tracks. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I went for it. I looked her straight in the eye and said, “Ask daddy.”

Baby Makes Three

2007-09-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

There is a popular reality show on TV that I like to watch while folding laundry in the afternoons. It documents the first 36 hours that a couple is home from the hospital after having a baby. Since Carly is usually taking a nap when the show airs, I am free to really focus on the TV while matching socks. I talk out loud to the people being filmed, as if they can hear me. I roll my eyes at them and say things like “Well! What exactly did you think would happen?” or “Oh, paaah-leeese!” Yesterday I was working my way through a load of darks when I flipped on the TV and found the show. This particular episode was about a married couple in Los Angeles that had given birth to an adorable, albeit slightly jaundiced, son. Occasionally the show highlights same-sex couples or surrogate mothers or single mothers, and I find these stories much more fascinating, as I am sure you can bet your child’s booties that there is some real drama lurking right behind the cameras. However, yesterday the show was documenting your every-day average couple in Southern California. The only thing semi-different about them was that the husband was an auditioning (read: starving) actor, but come to think of it, I guess that’s not very rare in Southern California. As I finished folding Kenny’s t-shirts I found myself wishing the producers would delve more into the money issues of this particular couple: out-of-work actor meets Southern Belle who is accustomed to the finer things in life, they get married and have baby and come home to a rented apartment with a broken air conditioner.

Of course the money topic wasn’t discussed, as this is a family show that rarely depicts anything negative that happens in the first 36 hours after coming home from the hospital. I find this amusing. The couple usually worries that their new child isn’t eating enough (been there), or that the mother has nursing issues (done that). Once in a while the baby cries the whole night and the parents make a tense joke about “wanting to send him back” but then quickly tell the camera man they are just kidding and that although their lives will never be the same, they couldn’t be happier or more content. Well! The first night I was home with Paige, I really did want to send her back, and there was no joking about it. Sure, the exhaustion from 32 hours of labor didn’t help the situation. (Ok, fine, my doctor, who is by all accounts a wonderful person, wrote in my chart that my labor lasted a mere 12 hours, but what does she know anyway?) Also not helping on that first night at home was the fact that we were living out of one room in my mom’s house while our own home was being remodeled. Oh, and let’s not forget that I was severely constipated and limping around pitifully while healing from a 3rd degree tear. For those of you that don’t know, and without going into too much detail, let me just tell you that a 4th degree tear is…well…all the way through…if you know what I mean. Basically, one more degree and I would’ve been a goner. To make matters worse, on that first fateful night I managed to fall down the stairs with Paige in my arms, landing hard on my severely constipated butt and my still-healing stitches holding together my 3rd degree tear. Kenny heard me yell and ran to the stairs in a single bound, as did my mother. Kenny grabbed the baby (she was fine) and my mom grabbed me (I was not fine). Finally I managed to calm down Paige by drowning her with milk from my throbbing hard-as-rocks breasts. My mom went to bed and Kenny and I were left to fend for ourselves.

In the TV show, they film the parents getting the baby ready for bed that first night, which usually includes dressing them in cute little pajamas and putting the baby in his brand new bassinette, then smiling at the camera wearily and saying that they hope to get a few hours of sleep. The show then fast forwards to the next morning, with the new family lounging in bed, fully enjoying being a unit of three. The mother-in-law is usually in the kitchen scrambling some eggs and making fresh orange juice. This is where I usually glare at the TV and say “Oh, paaah-leeese!”, because in our case it was nothing like that. It was the longest, most horrible night of my life. Paige would not stop crying. She cried and cried and cried. I tried swaddling, pacifiers, swinging, shushing, walking, bouncing, pleading, praying, everything. Around 4am, after being awake all night, I finally brought Paige into bed with Kenny (who I would’ve said was sleeping like a baby, except by then I knew that babies don’t actually sleep) and told him, sobbing, that I didn’t know what to do with her. He stuck his pinky in her mouth and she sucked on it for about one minute and then fell fast asleep. That’s when I remembered the one thing I hadn’t yet tried: FEEDING.

Four years later, as I sit in my living room folding a pair of jeans and my Kansas State Wildcats t-shirt, I watch the end of the show. This is my favorite part because the camera crews come back a few weeks later to check on the new family. The mom is always wearing beautiful make-up and is looking much more refreshed and about 15 pounds lighter, and the dad (in this case) is enjoying a steady paycheck thanks to landing a string of detergent commercials. The baby is holding his head up, very aware of his surroundings, and practically crawling and speaking French at 5 weeks. It’s clear to see, in fact, that this baby is undoubtedly a genius. As I put the laundry away in our dresser I envision what really goes on after the camera crews leave. The dad walks into the kitchen after a long day of work on the set and sees the mom grumbling at the sink. The mom almost certainly glares at the dad and says something like, “Would it kill you to wash your dirty dishes once in a while? Do I have to do everything around here?” The dad hisses back, “Hey! I’m working my (bleep) off to keep a roof over our kid’s head. I don’t need this (bleep) from you!!” To which the mom answers, “Well at least you get out of the house once in a while! I can’t even take a crap by myself these days!” Then the dad makes the fatal error of asking what’s for dinner. The mom turns and stomps out of the room, swinging the baby over her shoulder, yelling “Make your own (bleeping) dinner! I’m going (bleeping) shopping!” just as the baby spits up all over her new Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag. Aaaaand…CUT.

Sleep is for Sissies

2007-09-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

When my sister-in-law’s kids were younger, she told me their family would play “musical beds” at night. They would go to sleep in their respective rooms but throughout the night, for one reason or another (usually having to do with a child needing to go pee or having a bad dream), they would wake up and start switching beds. I imagined some dreadful circus-like music playing in each of their heads and when the music stopped, someone was left out in the cold and had to sleep on the family room couch with Sparky the cat.

Like my sister-in-law, sleep is a fleeting luxury for me. It’s been especially challenging since having kids. A typical night in our house goes something like this:

8:48pm – Both kids are in bed. The kitchen is clean and the toys are picked up. I’m feeling positive about the prospect of a good night’s sleep. I wash my face, brush my teeth and hop into bed to read a magazine. I’m hopeful and content. Kenny is on the computer, researching vintage cars.

9:52pm – I yell to Kenny, “Honey, come to bed! It’s almost 10:00!” He’ll be right in, just one more minute.

10:27pm – Kenny comes to bed, kisses me good night, promptly rolls over and steals all covers, starts to snore softly, and is out like a light for the remainder of the night. Bastard!

11:36pm – I glance at the clock. Can’t sleep. I get up and close the sliding door to our patio. The wind chimes were being too “chimey”.

11:48pm – I get up again and turn on the ceiling fan. Since I closed the sliding door to our patio, it’s too stuffy. Kenny is still snoring, oblivious. I think of how he’s told me that if I can’t sleep, I should at least just lie in bed and “rest my body”. That’s easy for you to say, Mr. I-Never-Have-Insomnia. I roll over and give the covers a deliberate tug.

12:16am – I look at the clock. Oh good, if I go to sleep this very minute, I still have 6 hours before getting up to nurse Carly. I try to quiet my mind. I take a stab at every relaxation technique I can dredge up. I ground myself. I count backwards. I visualize yoga poses that don’t even exist yet. Unfortunately, a song from Paige’s “Toddler Tunes” video is running through my head. It’s got to be the worst possible song, “There’s a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza”, because it goes on….and on….and on…

12:56am – Crap. Carly is crying. I go downstairs to stick a binkie back in her mouth, ever so careful not to make eye contact. She hears me enter her room and gives me the hugest full-face grin. I can’t help but smile back and pick up her warm little body, which means, of course, that I’m screwed. I guess there are worse things to do than rock a baby back to sleep at 1am, right?

3:13am – Am I dreaming? No, Paige is really calling to me. I go back downstairs, half asleep, help her go to the bathroom and then tuck her, angel bear, her baby doll, big buddy, and assorted other stuffed animals back into bed.

5:50am – Kenny’s alarm goes off. He’s off to the gym. I figure, what the heck, the night is shot anyway, why don’t I just get up and nurse Carly right now and then try to get another hour of sleep?

6:13am – Carly is happily sucking as my head keeps falling backwards on the couch. I’m actually falling asleep while nursing.

7:16am – Kenny is home from the gym. Time to get Paige up, make her breakfast and get her ready for preschool. As I’m packing her lunch, I hear Carly waking up and wonder how I will get through this day on just a few hours of disjointed sleep. I then count the hours until I get to go to bed again, which happens to be 14.

Once in a blue moon, when the planets are aligned, I get to sleep through the night. This actually happened last night. This morning I woke up at 7:20am and opened my eyes to see Kenny, just home from the gym, standing over me holding Carly. I could tell she had been crying for a while because her breath was jagged and her little face was mottled and red. She was pissed. She looked at me as if to say “What the heck mom! I was crying! Why didn’t you come get me?” I smiled and held out my arms to her and thought: WOW, it’s amazing what a good night sleep you can get if you close the baby’s door, close your own door, turn on the ceiling fan, turn off the baby monitor, have a glass of wine, stick in two ear plugs and take a Tylenol PM!

Jump On In, the Water’s Great!

2007-09-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

My day started off just how I like it: efficient. Laundry was done by 10am, dishes were put away, beds were made, Carly took a nap right on schedule. Since I was feeling so capable as a mother, I decided to go for broke and tell Paige we could go to the wading pool after lunch. She was thrilled. When Carly woke up, precisely at 11am (as scheduled), I made three lunches: one for Carly, one for Paige and one for Kenny. I was feeling good. This was going to be a great day. Then I focused on the task at hand: getting the girls ready for the pool. There was much debate as to what swimsuit Paige should wear. The towel was also an issue….I was instructed to bring the GREEN towel, not the other green towel for drying off. I packed our bag: sunscreen, hat for Paige, hat for me, hat for Carly, Carly’s swimsuit, toys, water, a nutritious snack (like I said, I was feeling capable), towel, blanket, even a camera. I got myself ready and got Carly into the car seat. Ooops, I forgot to fix myself a lunch. I wolf down a sandwich and a ½ eaten nectarine as Carly starts to cry because she’s still in her car seat, waiting. Paige refuses to go to the bathroom because the princess sticker she’s put on her swimsuit will fall off when she sits on the potty. I explain that it doesn’t matter because it’s going to fall off anyway, when she gets into the pool. “I KNOW THAT MOM”, she says. Carly cries. Kenny says (from the couch) “I didn’t get the spreadsheet you tried to email me this morning”, so I run upstairs, turn on the computer and print out the spreadsheet. Carly continues to cry, but things are looking up since we’re finally in the car, ready to go.

Parking is a big problem. I fly past a good spot, so I decide to slow down and change lanes to catch the next one. I immediately see two more spots, on the other side of the street, but I can’t get to them because I have changed lanes. I go around the block. Twice. Carly begins to cry. When I pass the original spot, someone is just pulling in. The second spot is taken as well. I feel myself begin to get desperate. Carly is crying and I am sweating. Paige is singing “The Farmer in the Dell” and will not stop, EVER. We finally find a spot a few blocks away and get all the gear out of the car. Now I am pushing a stroller (Carly is happy to be out of the car so she’s not crying), carrying our huge bag and holding on to Paige’s hand. Our big umbrella is on top of the stroller, hitting - no joke - each and every tree we pass.

We get to the pool and it’s not very crowded. The water sparkles in the sunlight. I am so happy to be there that I can’t wipe the grin off my face. Paige is excited and starts to take her shoes off before we even get to our spot. This is going to be great. I can just FEEL the water – so refreshing – it’s all worth it. Even Carly is smiling. I put up the umbrella, spread out the blanket, put more sunscreen on Paige. We’re absolutely giddy with anticipation. WE MADE IT. Just then, a lifeguard walks up and says nonchalantly, “We’re closing the pool. Someone pooped.”

-----
Paige sobs silently as we exit the pool area. As we pass by another family, they have to move out of the way because I almost smack them with our umbrella that’s back on top of the stroller. I hear one of the kids say, “What’s the big deal? I pee in the pool all the time.”

Check, Please.

2007-09-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

I find it ironic, seeing as I have tendencies toward vegetarianism, that I married someone who feels a meal is not complete without a large hunk of meat. The type of meat is not nearly as important as the size of meat, but if asked point-blank, my husband would probably say he prefers a good solid steak to all those "sissy" meats such as marinated chicken breast or pecan-encrusted halibut. Oh, and then there's bacon. His absolute favorite would be a bacon-wrapped fillet. He wonders: what’s not to like?

When we were invited to join another couple for dinner at a local Italian restaurant one Friday night, it didn’t surprise me in the least when Kenny asked the waitress if they could make him a bacon-wrapped fillet. It wasn't on the menu, but being a successful salesman, Kenny has perfected the art of asking for what he wants - in the nicest possible way - and almost always getting it. It's really quite irritating. In fact, he asks so politely that often the people that are being asked the request actually end up wanting to do him a favor, wanting to help him, wanting to make him happy, wanting to please him. "Wow, this all looks great," he said with a grin, "but I don't suppose it would be possible to get a bacon-wrapped fillet, would it?" The weary waitress didn't know what hit her. She agreed to ask the chef if that would be possible. However, she didn’t know if they even had any bacon. She would have to check. She would get back to us. Sigh.

None of us were surprised when the waitress came back to fill up our wine glasses and with a resigned smile told us that the bacon-wrapped fillet would be no problem at all. The chef was glad to accommodate his request. Figures.

As I made my way to the restroom, I glanced through the swinging doors to the kitchen. There, in the middle of the kitchen was – I kid you not – at least a half dozen people hovering around the chef. Waiters, hostesses, sous chefs, buss boys, you name it, they were squeezed chest to chest, watching the chef attend to something on the stainless steel counter. Kenny’s steak! Being wrapped! It was being prepared with such care and attention that I burst out laughing, deciding to skip the bathroom in favor of running back to our table-mates to tell them the good news.

The steak was delivered, by the chef himself, with great fanfare. The four of us strained our necks, eagerly leaning forward to analyze Kenny’s plate. Steamed veggies, baked potato and steak --- it was all there. But wow. It was the hugest steak we had ever seen. They had wrapped the bacon not around the edge, as you would think, but around and around and around the middle of the steak, using no less than a ½ pound of USDA grade A prime thick-cut bacon. It was essentially a pig hugging a cow. Three of us were horrified. Kenny was thrilled. He finished every bite, and then tended to the separate "desert compartment" in his stomach, savoring a crème brule as well.

When we finally stepped out into the night air, laughing giddily from the bottle of wine and hastily buttoning coats over full bellies, I smiled at my husband and grabbed his hand. We passed a young couple being seated by the hostess and I heard Kenny tell them, “Try the bacon-wrapped fillet. It’s amazing.”