24/7

Nothing is Simple

2011-06-06T11:59:00.000-05:00

Number Two is full of love. He spews it unconditionally. When I donned a bikini top yesterday in preparation for some power washing, he told me he loves my boobies. When we read a Cars book before bed, he looked at an illustration of Mack and said "I love that trailer." Should we pass by a farm on the way to drop off The Boss at school, I can count on him expressing his devotion to "that cow."

He loves colors, friends, and tasty food. He loves breezes and puddle splashing. He loves planes, trains and automobiles. He loves shooting "hoots," which is his word for basketball.

Sometimes when I think of Number Two, I think of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man. He's only three, but I can't help pondering the person he is poised to become.

Mama told me when I was young
Come sit beside me, my only son,
And listen closely to what I say.
And if you do this
It'll help you some sunny day.

Oh, take your time...Don't live too fast,
Troubles will come and they will pass.
Go find a woman and you'll find love,
And don't forget son,
There is someone up above.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won't you do this for me son,
If you can?

The thing is, unlike the boy in the song, my son doesn't need his mama to tell him how to be. He just knows. And unlike the mama in the song, I'm not sure simplicity is what I want for him. I'm not accustomed to simple kind of men.

I don't know what to make of this little guy who simply loves.

Bababooey

2011-03-29T08:43:00.005-05:00

There was nothing to do while Number Two dawdled over his dinner plate but look at him. I studied a face that had thinned out in the pattern following babies to boyhood. He ate sweetly. He's the only one who makes chewing sounds I don't mind listening to.

He watched me watching him. "I love your eyes," he said, his mouth a green gape of broccoli.

The unexpected compliment drew a smile from my lips. I laughed a little, my grin growing.

"And your big teeth," he added.

The Second Child

2011-03-28T09:03:00.005-05:00

The morning was cold and quiet. The Boss busied herself getting dressed. The Partner set out cereal. I took a shower. In the midst of the footsteps, the clank of the bowl, and the running water, there was silence.

Number Two was away at the paternal grandparents'. I imagined he had no idea what to do with all the attention. Here, at home, he is swept up in the day-to-day of our four person household. He is carried in The Boss's wake. At least that's what I thought until his absence indicated otherwise.

On that silent Sunday I realized Number Two has his own drive. His feet pound the floor with distinct energy. He labels everything loudly. He's no bystander. He's on the cusp of three and I never knew this about him.

It's not that I don't see my two children apart. The Boss goes to school every day. From 8:30 to 3, it's me and Number Two. But it's so fast. There are errands to run and playgroups to attend and toddler "'nastics" classes to get to. Somehow he always seems to be in the shadow of activity. At the school parking lot, The Boss's huge aura swallows him up again. The fact that he's large and lively inside of it is not as apparent as it otherwise could be.

At home, at night, Number Two was still away. The Boss was perplexed. "It's so weird," she said. "This morning I wished he was in my room waking me up like always. But I don't like it when he does that! I want to sleep and he says 'wake up!' I don't like it, but I miss it. That's so weird." She shook her head at the opposition of these emotions. It was new to her.

The evening routine went smoothly. It was mostly self-directed by The Boss. There were no diapers to change, no extra stories to read, no peripheral obligations. There was no din.

I shook my head. This was new to me.

Acceptance

2011-03-24T08:46:00.004-05:00

First there was The Boss. She sucked up undiluted attention for almost three years. The arrival of Number Two did little to alter our firstborn's theatrical bid for the eye of everyone around her. I could almost see the thought bubble swirling around her blond, straight-haired head: "If I ignore him, it's like he doesn't even exist!"

It's been three more years. The Boss has been a sibling for half her life but she won't admit it. She is only now beginning to accept her brother's existence as a little playmate, a little laugher, a little stealer and pooper and parrot.

There was a form to fill out yesterday that asked for my children's ages. "3 and 5," I wrote. 3 and 5? I thought. Is that all there is between them? Well, not really. There's only a two month span during which their ages will indicate such closeness. Come July, and The Boss's 6th birthday, they will spread out again. 3 and 6. Two years and nine months simplified. Distance.

Last night The Partner and I huddled at the bottom of the stairs, trying to go unnoticed, as The Boss told a story to Number Two up on the second floor. Using the illustrations from a Clifford's Puppy Days book as her guide, she wove a personalized tale for her brother. Number Two chortled in all the right places. I heard him flop around. This one-on-one time with his sister-hero was a shock to each extremity. He listened with spastic glee.

Soon enough three years won't mean much. It will be like there's no distance at all; like there never was. But right now three years divides The Boss's life in two. Three years is Number Two's entire existence. Right here, right now--this is where they meet in the middle.

Number Two sneaks up behind The Boss and throws his tiny arms around her waist. He laughs maniacally. The Boss tries to shake him off. Then she begins to run, dragging his red-Kedded feet behind her.

"Mo-om! Da-ad! Get him off me!" It's a half-laugh, half-scream. "I can't get him to let go!"

I cross my arms and lean back against the kitchen counter. The Partner settles in beside me. We're both smiling.

Pole Dancing for Jesus

2011-03-23T12:46:00.004-05:00

From the "Only in Texas" files comes Pole Dancing for Jesus.

It seems to me that some things should remain sacred. And some things that aren't, shouldn't. Regardless of your views on Jesus--mortal or immortal--he just doesn't seem like the type of guy that anyone should be polishing chrome for. Isn't it the life-long goal of most fathers to keep their daughter's off the pole?

Don't get me wrong. I think pole dancing can be fun, sexy and great for a wide range of muscle groups. But it's a sad state of affairs if the only way you can rationalize studio time is by declaring Jesus your sanctioning body.

As Americans, we need to do a lot more work toward embracing sexuality. What I'm questioning is the productivity of wrapping the pole in the shroud of Jesus.

Some Songs for Your Sunday

2011-03-20T13:37:00.002-05:00

In an unexpected turn of events, I have become quite enamored of Simon & Garfunkel. I mean, I've always liked them well enough, but I tuned in to Sirius Satellite Radio's "all Simon & Garfunkel, all the time" special station not thinking I would get as caught up as I did in the lyrics and harmonies of old favorites as well as songs I'd never heard before.

It's been two weeks of immersion in S&G studies. I now consider myself qualified to release a Top Ten* list of my favorite songs performed by Paul and Art. Without further a-duo...

12. El Condor Pasa

11. Feuilles-O

10. A Hazy Shade Of Winter

9. The Boxer

8. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

7. Keep the Customer Satisfied

6. Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard

5. Mrs. Robinson

4. Slip Slidin' Away

3. He Was My Brother

2. Cecilia

1. Bridge Over Troubled Waters

*Upon deeper reflection, I was unable to narrow down the list to only ten favorites.

No Mommy No Cry

2011-03-17T13:27:00.007-05:00

Today fists were raised through wide open car windows in solidarity with spring. The blue above was brighter in the warmth. On a tree across the street from Number Two's pre-pre-school building, three shirts--one each in red, blue and green--waved with the current and proclaimed "No nuclear nothing! Never! Ban it from the planet!"

Number Two and I exited the school close to noon. He ran ahead, enjoying the feel of his feet on the non-icy surface. "Hold my hand, please?" I asked.

"I run!" he shouted, blazing ahead.

I put on a melodramatic pout which was probably more enjoyable than it should have been. I threw in a gratuitous shoulder heave as if sobbing. "But I want to you hold your hand!"

He slowed.

"I know! I'll hold your hand and we can run together!" I grabbed his tiny fingers and we padded off toward sun that layered itself hotly over the salt-film of my car. We dislodged at a bumper that was worse for the wear after a season of rock-hard snow banks. I threw his backpack into the backseat and stepped back only to find him standing next to me with his hand held out for the taking. I clasped it in mine.

"Hold hands," he said. "Mommy no cry."

The Faux Fevered Fives

2011-03-17T08:15:00.008-05:00

The Boss has taken to exploiting our sick leave policy. At first I didn't think anything of it; throat cultures at the doctor's office confirmed strep throat in two separate instances earlier this winter, so there was no question about the validity of her claims. Then I began getting phone calls from school with reports that The Boss was not acting like herself and was sporting a 99 degree temperature. I'd pick her up early only to see a radical transformation as soon as we got home.

It took me an entire season of cases, both confirmed and questionable, to start looking a little more deeply at the situation. It was just this week, after the assistant teacher at The Boss's school told me that my daughter had been complaining about an earache and an upset stomach, that I sat down for a talk with The Boss.

"So how exactly do you feel?" I asked.

"My stomach hurts," she said.

"What does it feel like?"

"Like hot, bubbly goo," she said. "Like my insides are burning my bones."

I sighed. Then I launched into the line of questioning that would either confirm or invalidate my hypothesis. "Did anything bad happen at school today?"

"Well..."

"Yes?"

"Well, something might have happened."

"Like?"

"J. kept pushing me and he wouldn't stop when I asked him to."

More questioning of the "yes?" and "like?" kind drew out a clearer explanation of the event. After her schoolmate J. had repeatedly ignored The Boss's requests, she went to the teacher for help. In the Montessori manner of conflict resolution, the teacher facilitated another conversation between the two children. The Boss stated her case. Then, she told me, J. gave a perfunctory "sorry." What led to the stomachache, it seems, was J's lack of remorse. The Boss felt sad and maybe a bit afraid because she knew J didn't really care about her feelings.

The Boss is hysterically funny. She's smart. She knows her audience. But underneath it all, the sensitivity she's been hiding so well is beginning to seep out. Tears of a clown, they say. A clown with irritable bowels, anyway.

I'm sure it's all terribly predictable from a developmental standpoint, but watching The Boss--the unflappable Boss--operating from a place of sadness and fear is disconcerting to a parent experiencing this all for the first time.

It's also a reminder that I have to step up my game. As solid and as capable as my daughter is--and despite the fact that she sometimes seems more 25 than 5--the truth is that The Boss isn't going to raise herself. Left to her own devices, I fear for a future in which she becomes a stand-up comedian climbing the ladder to either SNL cast member status or that of a professional Friars' Club roaster. And we all know what happens after that.

At least now I have an inkling about what's going on. I don't claim any more insight than that, but it's something to work with. I can start trying to make sure that the Boss doesn't feel the need to waste sick days on growing pains.

24/7 News

2011-03-14T09:54:00.007-05:00

The Partner feels about cable news the same way he feels about reality television and speed limits. They exist because people are not willing--or in some cases, able--to think for themselves. Also, they have bad taste.

I used to have a compulsive cable news habit. At work, I could be found at any given time on either the CNN.com, Foxnews.com or MSNBC.com exit of the Information Superhighway. At home, the themed breaking-news beat of the second Iraq war was a soundtrack to life in the small beige and white apartment (with pink bathroom) where I resided as a recent college graduate.

The Partner married me despite this character flaw and was heartened to see that the birth of our first child brought to an abrupt end my interest in the world around me. I could no longer endure stories about death, terror and/or global warming. I retreated under the rock of new parenthood to the place where many others in similar circumstances navigated dark, labyrinthine passages that reverberated with infant cries and reeked of shit.

This weekend, the coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan brought me out from under the rock. My two children--not babies anymore--crawled with me, their eyes unaccustomed to the glare. The Boss's ears perked up and her eyebrows raised at radio reports. Number Two ran in circles around the coffee table as he screamed about trucks and trains.

I went down to the garage at one point to update The Partner on the apparent meltdown occurring in one (or two, or three, or four) of the reactors at the Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan.

"I know," he said. "I got that from reading one article. I didn't need to sit in front of the TV all night listening to the same facts over and over. Not to mention a bunch of talking heads who have no idea what's going on."

I look at it differently. In this day and age, I acknowledge the need to search through a lot of bullshit--on television, Web sites, social networking venues an even local telephone trees--to unshelf a nugget of truth. Diverse perspectives can enhance a story as much as they can muddle it. You have to be a media savvy consumer; you can't just buy everything. The difference between me and The Partner is that I enjoy a shopping spree while he'd rather grab the staples and exit through the self checkout.

I've been without news, relatively speaking, for almost six years now. Maybe this zeal I'm exhibiting comes from repression. Maybe in a few months I'll start to agree with The Partner that it's just too much--the expert commentary, the videos, the Tweeting, and the Facebook updates. Or maybe I'll start to tune out his declarations about right and wrong in favor of coming to my own conclusions.

Give Him a Break

2011-03-12T12:26:00.006-05:00

Number Two, like the rest of childkind, is on his own schedule. Like many parents, however, The Partner and I decided we wanted him on our timeline. We brought in professionals of the state-sanctioned child-development kind to assess his progress when he was 18 months old. They found him significantly delayed in several areas including those of expressive and receptive speech. Fast-forward one year (because that's how time travels): our formerly delayed son has been diagnosed "normal."

Sometimes the words come so fast they are barely intelligible. Some of them seem disconnected both to each other and to a overriding thought process. Other times a few key phrases hint at the fact that he knows much more than he's saying.

Yesterday Number Two was in his car seat on our way to a friend's house when he reacted to something I told him with obvious displeasure.

"That's stupid," he said.

"What did you say?" I demanded. I wasn't sure, or didn't want to believe, that the garbled words I heard were actually what I thought they might be. We don't allow talk like that in our house. On the other hand, he had to learn it somewhere--and it was probably here.

"Kiss!" he said, puckering up in deflection of the matter as he always does when a conversation is heading somewhere he doesn't want it to.

"What did you say?" I repeated.

He sighed. "I just talkin'. Give break."

I had to smile. He offered a valid point. Isn't that what we wanted? After all the effort we put into getting him to a place that I now think he would've arrived at without our intercession, maybe it's time to give the kid a break.

Sometimes it's just talk.

Appropriate Behavior

2011-03-10T09:32:00.006-05:00

The Boss is now 5 1/2 years old. I'm sorry if I've blogged in such a woefully inconsistent manner that this is a surprise to you. I find it pretty shocking myself.

Yesterday there was ROFLing in the aisles of TJ Maxx as my daughter regaled everyone in the store with her perspective on life, liberty and the pursuit of the clearance rack. Her voice was clear and confident beyond her years; her observations carried. Whether she was talking to me or to strangers, everyone within five racks got the gist. And appreciated it. I think most people left that store in better spirits than they arrived.

In the fitting room, where we both tried on an array of clothes that--based on previous experience--was bound to disappoint, a voice carried over the veneered partition from another stall: "Your daughter is very entertaining!" Every so often, a chortle from the attendant reinforced that fact as The Boss was holding sway over the entire fitting room from behind her red curtain.

The last dress in my pile was made of silvery lace. Thick straps secured it over my shoulders, at which point the dress just hung there. "It looks so...straight," I complained as I pivoted on socked feet to better view the different angles.

"That dress has no boobs," The Boss said.

"Yeah," I sighed. "That would be the problem."

The Boss, however, did not see this as an obstacle to overcome. Her eyes and cheeks were vivid. "You should wear that to my birthday party!" she declared. "It's very appropriate."

I raised my eyebrows--not at my 5 year old's use of the word "appropriate," since I'd long become accustomed to her vocabulary--but at the very idea. "Why is it 'appropriate' not to have boobs at your birthday party?"

"I don't have boobs." Her look was like, duh. "Nobody else will either. Well, except daddy. He has big boobs. Big, hairy ones." She drew out each word into an expansive descriptor and added hand gestures for my benefit.

Suddenly laughter was a chorus in the fitting room of TJ Maxx. In our mirrored microcosm, I could see fluorescent lighting intensify the flush of my cheeks; I saw the reflection of my budding comedian watching me for a reaction. Big, hairy ones. I was practically crying. The Boss nodded, satisfied.

For now she is still 5 1/2 years old, and I am the only audience she needs.

The Biggest Fear

2010-08-03T16:37:00.005-05:00

She's five now, but we haven't had enough time to realize how much she knows. She's almost four feet of feelings, but we forget. Like this afternoon, when I shouted to The Partner in his home office about the nearby shooting in which at least nine people were killed.

"The guy killed nine people," I shouted. "Did you know?"

"Yeah, I heard that," he said.

I went back to the Hartford Courant article laid out on my computer screen. I read about the disgruntled employee of the largest Budweiser distributor in the state. He was, allegedly, a "disciplinary problem." I didn't hear The Boss come up behind my scratchy swivel-chair on wheels.

"Tell me it's not coming here," she said.

"Tell you what's not coming here?" I asked, hoping she was talking about something different. She does that a lot. But she looked at me knowingly. Then she pulled her hand across her throat, pointer finger out, making a sucking sound as she did it.

I stared.

She did it again. Finger across the neck. The sucking sound.

"No," I said. "It's not coming here."

***

Several nights ago, apropos of nothing, The Boss said to me: "Why wouldn't I love my mommy?"

(See, I told you she does this; she brings things up out of nowhere I can see.)

"I don't know. Why wouldn't you?"

"Because I'd be dead."

I have words, but with her I can't always summon them. I said "oh."

"But you're in luck, 'cause I love you."

___

Renewing My License

2010-07-30T18:30:00.004-05:00

I went to the DMV to renew my license on my 32nd birthday because that was the date it expired, and I like to wait till the last minute. The air from sky down was blue and balmy, which was a pleasant change from sticky. I took a tree-lined route that canopied vividly without all that haze. Simon and Garfunkel's Cecilia came on and I belted out the words to the thunky beat as I revved my car close to the red line just because I could. There was too much congestion on the semi-country road to keep up any speed for long. With the kids back home with The Partner, I enjoyed the solitude, the green and gold, and the snarl of my engine on the ride to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The front lot was full as I pulled in. I drove around to a spot behind the building. I got out of the car, still feeling free, which was a remarkable feeling considering my destination. I hiked my purse over my shoulder and walked along 70s-era bureaucratic bricks that climbed high with no windows to let in, or out, such things as light or sanity. As I was about to turn the corner, a whistle emerged from the car passing by. "Niiice!" the driver called out.

If my car had been closer or if I had looked as straggly as I usually do, I would not have assumed his comment was directed toward me. As it was, my guy-magnet vehicle was nowhere nearby, and I had actually taken some effort to put myself together that morning. He wasn't appreciating my ride; he wasn't mocking me. There I was, 32 years old, being cat-called. This was a birthday gift. I resisted the urge to do a jig and settled, instead, for pushing my purse back up on straightened shoulders. I purposely avoided looking at him, or even at his car. I didn't want the probable reality of what such a cat-caller would look like (or drive) to chase away my warm fuzzies.

I hummed a tune--probably Cecilia--as I pulled open the metal-lined glass door that marked the entrance to the DMV in grime. On the other side of the vestibule, a man held open the next door, balancing a large Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and a sheaf of forms against the handle. I smiled and said thanks.

Then I got in line and waited for the rest of my life.

Gift Giving

2010-07-21T10:48:00.004-05:00

Happy birthday to you. I shuffled all groggy and froggy into the Boss's bedroom, the detritus of sleep sticking in the corners of my eyes and in my throat. Happy birthday to you. A smile pushed all her facial features upward as looked over at me from the book that was open in her lap. Happy birthday dear Boss, happy birthday to you. Tossing the pages aside, she slid off her bed and landed, in a few strides, at my side.

"Thank you, mom," she said, ever mannerful. She held my gaze with eyes that I still maintain are the only thing she got from me. The artful gradations of blue were framed by a blond bob. The changes weren't sudden, exactly--I had been aware of something creeping up on me--but she seemed striking in her growth. Her legs and arms dangled with a distinct lack of baby fat from her solid core. She leaned into me. "Even though it's my birthday, I have a present for you," she said. "Do you want it?"

"Of course I do!"

The gift was a hug. She enveloped me where I stood, wrapping her arms around hips that were much wider than they had been just over five years earlier. My hipbones fit into the bend of her elbows as she squeezed. I crosssed my arms over her back and tried to meet her strength with my own.

She tells the story, you know. I only write it down.

***

The thing that sticks with me is The Boss's breath when she was just-born. Holding on is no mean feat, considering the amount of Morphine coursing through my veins at the time. Forever and ever, the scent of rubbing alcohol will make me think of pure baby girl. I didn't expect her to smell like that when I put my face to hers the first time. I hurt everywhere. The pain, drugs and lost time conspired to take away all of the primal exhilaration that is (supposed to be) childbirth. But then I saw my husband's tears, and I smelled my daughter's breath like muted isoproponol on wet, red lips, and I knew that something monumental was happening. I knew it, and I almost felt it. But mostly I felt bad, my arm limp around the swaddled mass that exuded perfect newness. I couldn't stop shivering. I was glad when my husband took her away so I could lose consciousness again.

I fell into a sleep void of all senses except her breath on my face.

***

She toddles. Almost fifteen months from the day she first set foot on Earth, she began making her own treads. I know she's no trailblazer, but the implications in her own small sphere are enormous. My daughter is making her way in the world.

Her gait is precarious. Each step seems too light to hold her, but the halting weight of one foot against the ground, then the other, pushes her forward in a baby gust. I stop counting the movements; it seems as if she will go on forever. Then her confidence falls out from under her as she folds to a neat stop on her knees.

This is how she will get where she's going. It's literal now, but soon enough the baby steps will mean something different. It's careful exploration. It's tentativeness. It's the way one feels out a world where solidity, texture and layout is uncertain. Her first day of school. A part in a play. A sleepover. A test. This is how she will learn, by pushing herself on her own terms.

I am proud of her pacing. I thought early on that I wanted her to be the first at everything. I wanted her to be precocious. A fat, walking, talking bundle of joy. And don't get me wrong--she's joyful. But she's also small and comtemplative; calm and observant. I am so enamored of her unexpected personality that any desire I had for her to be something other than she is vanished in the gray fog of so many pre-parental ideals.

Now I know that her whims are her own. Her timing is impeccable. She is exactly right.

***

Roughly three hours before the first labor contraction of my second childbirth hit, The Boss had a precognitive existential crisis. She was sitting on our bed as The Partner and I nested our way through a much needed pick-up of the bedroom. Maybe it was witnessing this act of cleaning that shocked her system, so foreign was the idea of seeing her mother with a duster in one hand and vacuum in the other. Maybe it was the intuition of the imminent arrival of a sibling. Whatever the cause, it's safe to say that The Boss freaked out.

"It's not fun being bigger and older!" she shrieked suddenly. It came out of nowhere. She rose to her feet on the semi-firm mattress and threw herself prone. "It's not fun!" She was screaming again, and rising again. Then she threw herself back. She was crying.

"What's wrong, honey?" The Partner and I climbed onto the bed with her, patting and consoling and wondering. We had hazy notions of what troubled her, but we wanted her to articulate it. We wanted to say the right things back.

She probably wanted words, too. But all that came out was I don't know.

***

It might've been spilled milk, or the fact that that dinner got cold while we were waiting for The Partner to finish a conference call, or maybe that someone ganked the last of the banana bread. The cause doesn't matter as much as the admission.

"It's all my fault," The Partner said, throwing up his hands in martyrdom. "It's always my fault."

The Boss looked over at me. "It's his fault," she confirmed. "Not ours."

I laughed. I had to. But the chuckle lost depth as I thought of growing up in a house where my mother would drop a glass in the kitchen and immediately blame the wreckage on someone else, even if the nearest person was minding her own business upstairs in my bedroom, reading Judy Blume through spectacles as thick as magnifying glasses.

"It's nobody's fault." I spoke more for The Boss's benefit than to validate The Partner's histrionics. "We don't need to blame anyone."

The Boss's eyes were wide with knowledge that belied her three uneventful years. She looked from me to her father before settling back on me. Her voice was a blend of confidence and whisper. It was as if she didn't want to burden me too heavily with the truth. "But sometimes people have fault."

So I conceded. How could I not? I marveled at our daughter with a headshake and a shrug, then I dismissed the issue from the table. "You're right. Sometimes people do have fault. You're absolutely right." I was sure it was something we'd be able to discuss in more detail for the rest of our lives.

***

From the moment she was ripped from my gaping abdomen while I laid there unconscious, The Boss has been the one in charge. Three years of experience only rendered her more effective.

At three, The Boss is benevolent. She drops lispy words of encouragement like candy: "I really love you, Mommy" or "You're beautiful." She says "please" and "thank you" and "may I use that when you're done?"

She only breaks down occasionally, though you don't want to be the one called into her office to witness that harangue.

She is a people person, too. She chats with strangers in the supermarket about subjects ranging from her weekend plans to bodily functions to her upcoming pre-school matriculation. These strangers are usually charmed by her voice and passion. I am always proud. Okay, well, sometimes--in the case of the exclamations on functional anatomy--I admit to being a tad bit embarrassed.

Her thoughts and emotions are vivid. They're right there. She's a magnifying glass that uses sunlight to ignite everything in the line of sight. Without her, I wouldn't notice half of what's around me, and there'd be no fire.

I told The Boss that her birthday was also my anniversary. "You made me a mom," I said. "Before that, I was just Binky."

She laughed, like that was so silly. "You're not Binky. You're Mommy Binky." She threw everything into the giggle that followed, the sound coming from her diaphragm and emerging deeper and louder than one would expect from a just-turned-three-year-old. She always laughs like that. "You're not Binky. Nope."

"That's right," I agreed, matching her laugh. "That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you."

***

The Partner was home all day with no big plans to fix all that was failing around him. We ate breakfast first, which he cleared as I nursed Number Two. Then the baby napped. The Partner and The Boss played a board game. I shut the door on them all and ran a bath.

Later we watched home movies of The Boss when she was the age Number Two is now. I had no recollection. Was she really ever so tiny? I looked down to where she sat, nestled in my arm on the love seat, and I found it hard to see her as anything other than what she was at that very moment. The past, though vivid on the screen, was faded; the future, a blur. I patted the solid bend of her leg next to mine.

The Boss's bath came before dinner. I lined up foam letters in short word formation on the wall of the tub. I held my breath as The Boss sounded out the first one."Puh-ah-duh. P-a-d. Pad!"

I screamed and clapped. I ran to get the Partner, who wore mechanics' overalls as he worked under my car in the garage. He followed me up the stairs to the bathroom."You've got to see this," I said.

I arranged three more letters in front of The Boss, who was splashing slap-happy as the center of attention. "She can read! She can really read!"

She studied the word. "Buh..."

The Partner and I stared down, nodding her on. My eyebrows were high in my forehead. I still wasn't breathing. "Yes?" I sucked in air, prodding.

"Buh...ah...guh. B-a-g. Bag!" The Boss fell forward like a seal, splashing water over the side of the tub, sending the letters sailing away. We were all spastic.

At the end of the night, after the dishwasher had been loaded and the kids' beds filled, The Partner and I sat down to a movie. I don't like to be sad on purpose, but I suggested The Bucket List anyway, thinking that an uplift would prevail. And it did. We've never been immune to schmaltz.

Toward the end I cried so hard that my face hurt where the tears clogged my sinuses.

"It was the little girl that got me," The Partner said. She was the new found granddaughter Jack Nicholson kissed on the cheek; she was the most beautiful girl in the world. "I can't see a little blond and not think of our own adorable kid." His eyes were puffy. He sighed beneath the weight of pride. That breath propelled him into the star-struck addendum that follows almost any mention of The Boss: "She's the best." It takes a little more air away each time. "The best."

***

Even though it's my birthday, I have a present for you. Do you want it?

___

Recollections From the South of France

2010-07-20T11:55:00.004-05:00

Our arrival at the Nice airport was heralded, if not by The Boss's immediate declaration that she had "to go potty," then by the one she made minutes later when she was finally and firmly entrenched in the bathroom stall: "It smells like horse poop in here!" My own keen sense of observation honed in on the lack of hand soap and paper towels. We scrubbed our hands under the running water and then wiped them on our thighs.

Back at the baggage claim, a greeter (not unlike those stationed at the entrances of WalMarts back here in the States, except that she was thin and French and pretty) had pity upon our poor hunchbacked party and wheeled a baggage buggy in our direction. We loaded four suitcases in excess of 160 pounds onto the cart and made our way across the glass-lined building, through Customs, and into the direct sunlight.

"France is so beautiful!" The Boss enthused, all traces of horse poop erased from her nasal memory. The scaly, sharp-fronded glory of so many palm trees made my four year old gasp; she watched them wave in the Taxis' wind. Small cars darted all around us, puttering into traffic circles or detours forced by airport construction. The Partner's two French uncles led us to a set of outside elevators below the parking garage. From there, we were delivered to the family compound.

The eldest of The Partner's uncles--il s'appelle Attilio--presided over a swath of property only two or three miles from the Mediterranean. On it he had built homes for his three sons, each modern villa connected by Attilio's green house, where, at the time of our arrival, tomatoes, green beans, and zucchini flourished. The three new houses and Attilio's old one, where he lived with his wife, Colette, sat at the base of the city of Biot, which climbed in blocky, stucco steps up a seastruck mountain.

A straight path led from the house in which we were staying (it belonged to the youngest of Attilio's sons) to the home of the patriarch himself. We would walk that small hill--just a asphalt tease before the steep cobblestones that could take us to the city if we wished--each noontime and night. Meals were served in an extended outdoor banquet that spilled over with meat and shellfish and wine. On our first day there, Number Two fell asleep at the table, his forehead pressed against the wooden lip. Nine of us shared one bottle of champagne and five of wine.

I stumbled home soon after for siesta, leaving The Partner and the kids with their long lost family. I prepared for the welcome release of afternoon sleep with a tumbler of gaseous water (it sounds better in French). The bubbles effervesced 24 hours, 2 continents, and approximately one liter of alcohol into the stuff dreams are made of. I lowered myself onto the bed of white linen, letting the down of duvet and pillow swallow me. The breeze, trapped between mountain and sea, whirled at my back.

The Kiss Keeper

2010-07-19T11:43:00.004-05:00

Number Two, despite being put together of mostly inscrutable parts, is straight-forward in matters of the heart. He is a kisser. He puckers whenever the urge strikes, thwack-ing toward me with mouth and legs working in concert. He will continue to suck his bottom lip into his bottom teeth, with the top lip breaking the suction loudly, over and over until I lower my own face to his. Then he'll smile into a turn. Then he'll waddle off. Then he will be, once more, the cryptic kid--but only until he kisses again, with the generosity of a soul that knows just how much to share and just how much to save for later.

A Moment of Weakness

2010-07-17T17:56:00.004-05:00

Today, in my cleaning closet, I realized there are people whose entire homes smell like that. I took a deep breath, savoring the toxic odor of clean, before I stepped back into my hallway. Humid air hugged me. It was eau de grass clippings and last night's dinner and dog, with just the slightest hint of diaper. I thought of slipping back into the closet, settling on the floor amidst detritus of the kind that collects on closet floors, and letting my head fall back on the inhale. Cleanliness. Purity. Starch and bleach. I stared at the blond wood whorls on the door as I fantasized about what lay inside. Then I shook myself back to reality.

That stuff'll kill you.

___

Running Away

2010-05-25T11:41:00.004-05:00

Number Two runs in a jig, his feet kicking out to the sides yet propelling him forward. "No run! No run!" he shouts as short legs splay from his torso, the swish and the sweep finding a strange traction. I’m not sure if he knows what he’s saying. I can’t be sure that I know what words are coming out of his mouth. But it sounds like “no run” as he burns rubber in light-up sneakers that illuminate trails at home, at the ballpark, at the furniture store, and on the sidewalk in front of his sister’s school.

Number Two doesn’t seem to need words the way The Boss does. He is absorbed by process while his sister thrives on explanation. Number Two runs to feel the earth more, to feel the wind more, to feel the catch in his lungs and then the exhale. The Boss, on the other hand, runs so that she can be the first person to arrive at the finish line with a story to tell.

When my son moves, he is so solid on the ground that he seems to weigh down the sky. “No run! No run!” The language is what floats away. Does he mean he knows the rules, but is flaunting them? Is he telling me I shouldn’t chase him? Is he saying no to everything except the race? “No! Run!”

I don’t get it. I don't get him. But as Number Two darts away from my grasp in a fit of laughter, I see that my running enigma is sure enough for the both of us. Steady enough, too.

Healthy Eating (for Dogs)

2010-05-24T10:28:00.004-05:00

The Boss loves nothing more than hearkening back to the days of youth. Currently, this gives her a three year span to work with. Her own memories can take her back to the latter half of two; her family's nostalgia fills her in on the rest.

"Remember when you used to eat dog food when you were a baby?" I asked The Boss one night as we dumped a new bag of Rachel Ray's Nutrish dog food into Roxie's Rubbermaid receptacle. "It was no fluke, either. You went back for seconds." I giggled at the stupid things people will do before they learn about pet food processing. The Partner lent a chuckle.

The Boss, who likes to be involved in family amusements not just by inclusion but by shared memory, looked at me. She looked at her father. She looked at the replenished container busting forth with red, green and brown kiblets. "Okay, I guess I'll try some." She shrugged. "I guess."

The Partner and I did a double-take. "Whoa, hold up," I said. "I did not even ask you to eat dog food."

She shrugged again, this time incorporating her abundance of expression and the stretch of her neck into the shoulder roll. "No, no, it's okay. I'll try some." The only fear in her eyes was the kind derived from the suspicion that her parents would get in the way of her fun. The Boss was hell-bent on reliving her past.

She needn't have worried about any trouble from me. I just stood there, all "what?" and "uh, wait a minute. What?"

The Partner raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and reached into the stash of Nutrish. He grabbed a handful for his daughter to choose from. The Boss dug her small palm into his big one, angling to possess the offering in its entirety. "You don't have to eat all of it!" The Partner's words came out in a surprised sort of chortle.

The Boss faltered for a minute. I imagine she was going over, in her mind's eye, what she perceived to be her past dog food-eating triumph. She didn't just want to recreate the moment; she wanted to improve upon it. Her hand halted over her father's for just long enough to be discernible. Then she took it all. And then she at it, one kibble at a time.

I was turning circles in amusement, watching my back for the arrival of the state Department of Children & Families. The Partner was marveling at his daughter's gutsy quirks. "Well, what does it taste like?" one or the other of us asked, finally.

"It doesn't really taste like anything I've ever had." She pondered the question, mulling the grainy chunks over in her mouth and mind. "Well, it kind of tastes like chicken. Kind of."

Playing in the Dark

2010-03-04T10:37:00.003-05:00

Number Two is an incoherent one. He talks and talks, but the sense is peculiar to him. He hums his own songs in the sweetest tones. He plays in circles around the spaces we inhabit so solidly in deference to the demands of the day. Sometimes he escapes to the basement and plays in the dark.

One evening I came home from something or other, entering the lowest level through the garage. I shut the door behind me into darkness. I was about to ascend the stairs when I heard the "hi." The voice was pitched and eerie. It came close to the floor behind me. I turned to see Number Two, barely, waiting in a shadow as big as the room. I scooped him up and carried him toward the brightness of the main floor.

"How long was he down there?" I asked The Partner.

"Not long," he shrugged.

I released Number Two to the wooden planks of the dining room, where his feet pushed off in a waddle-run. He shrieked, jazz hands waving in flight. Then he was gone again. We heard toys spring into action on the other side of the house. Wheels in need of lubrication rolled over the carpet. The alphabet emerged muted from plastic casing in need of batteries. The Partner and I stood still. Sometimes it's as if Number Two hogs all mobility.

Other times it's as if we all move around him.

On Marriage

2010-02-06T17:36:00.002-05:00

Life is predominantly bullshit. If I had to put a figure to it, I’d estimate 95% of everyday living is flotsam we fabricate to keep things interesting. Five percent is truth. That’s where love is, and hate. You have to look in the five to find out if the rest is worth it.

Someone told me a marriage is salvageable if there’s love. Period. “Do you love him?” Yes or no. There’s no choice C, no #3. Don’t examine the bullshit; it colors things in sepia. The answer is in the 5%. “Do you love him?”

If you say yes, that’s all that matters. Not money, not sex, not a clean house or a job that sucks. All those things are effects. The cause is separate. “Do you love him?”

If you say no, that too is an encompassing truth. Ninety-five percent can drive you crazy, but it doesn’t have to. Love isn’t always the answer. “Do you love him?”

I do.

The Bright Side

2010-01-20T14:04:00.003-05:00

Little lamb bones stared up at us from our plates. I don't generally cook lamb, but my mother-in-law does. She had served the rare delicacy at The Partner's 32nd birthday celebration. I brought out the leftovers at home the next night because, while I don't generally cook it, I have no qualms about reheating it.

The Boss pondered the meat and bone curiously. I think the difference between that piece of meat and the others she eats unquestioningly on a regular basis lays in the nomenclature. "Lamb" is straightforward. Things like "hamburger" and "roast" and "hot dog" beat around the bush a bit more. One can eat them without being reminded via word choice that the food he is consuming once romped around a pasture or looked out longingly from a cage.

"The lamb that had the bones tooken out of it must be dead now, right?" The Boss asked us, looking more toward The Partner than toward me. He's the one with the answers.

"Yup," The Partner said.

"Um, yup," I agreed.

She didn't quite gesticulate into one huge shrug, but she might as well have. "No more life for him." If there was any sorrow in her voice, it was overwritten by the optimism in her follow-up. "But the lambs that weren't food, more life for them!"

The Best Mom I Ever Had

2010-01-19T09:19:00.004-05:00

She says "You're the best mom in the world." She means her world, of course, which is vastly different from the greater and lesser world around her. Nobody else would consider me the best mom; nobody else needs to (her brother excluded). When she says I'm the best, she means it. And I am.

Are there better moms? Most of them are. But other moms don't matter. There's something liberating about being held accountable only to the authority of my children. I don't have to worry about what others think and there's no need to curry the favor of strangers. When it comes to bestowing best mom status, only my children can do it.

I've never been the best at anything before; I wouldn't believe it if someone told me I was. There's just too much competition and I'm too realistic. But when The Boss says "You're the best," or when she narrows it down to "you're the best mom in the mom's club," or when she opens it back up again to "you're the best mom in the whole, wide world," I see that it's true. I could never be anything greater than what my four year old thinks I am.

Still, some of my realism's been passed down. Some of my sarcasm is evident in the eye-rolls that come more often now. The Boss has been honing a sense of irony since before she could put words to wit. She knows what I know. Every so often she speaks it beneath a cocked eyebrow and lit cheeks:

"You're the best mom I ever had."

That Look

2010-01-03T17:16:00.003-05:00

Number Two doesn't listen to me. If I so much as mention his name within earshot, he will freeze in place and refuse to move even an eyeball in my direction. He's unbudgeable.

The same child is putty in his father's hands. All The Partner has to do is look slightly perturbed at an action Number Two is taking and it will cease immediately.

Under The Partner's watch, Number Two finishes his plate. Under mine, he is liable to starve. Number Two sleeps at The Partner's behest; he splits ears with his shrieks at mine. I don't think I lack severity or foll0w-through, so I'm not sure where the exact discrepancy lays. All I know is that The Partner has officially made himself indispensable around here, as if being the main breadwinner and the brains behind this operation hadn't set him up in high enough regard already.

The Boss, too, knows how it is. She referenced this fact as Number Two was wailing in his room after I put him to bed last night. The Partner was setting a new CD to "play" at the tail end of The Boss's nightly pre-sleep ritual in her own room down the hall. She wrinkled her nose as if Number Two's screams smelled funny. She looked to The Partner. "You're the boss of my brother, right?"

"Right," The Partner affirmed.

She nodded, looking him directly in those hazel peepers that can silence a beast. "Then go in there and give him the hairy eyeball," she said.

All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teats

2009-12-29T13:25:00.002-05:00

There was a time, however brief, that I possessed a chest. It may not have been bountiful, but it was not board-like, either. The first sign of increased cup size manifested itself shortly before the birth of my daughter and lasted through a single suckling year. The bounty returned with my second child. Twenty months later, it is beginning to recede again as my son cuts back to a 2- or 3-times-a-day nursing schedule. Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my boobs the most.

Read more...

Best Behavior

2009-12-23T13:24:00.003-05:00

We were sitting at the lunch table when The Boss referenced Christmas for the 3,100,068th this week by way of a declaration related to all the presents she would be receiving.

The Partner, who was working from home because nobody else at the office would be there to notice, looked at his offspring in alarm. "Who's getting you a lot of presents?"

"Santa Claus," The Boss said.

"Oh, phew. I was getting worried. I mean, I didn't get you a lot of presents. How do you know Santa will?"

The Boss looked at him with an air of confident--and maybe just a bit withering--excitement. Her cheeks shone reddish pink as if exerted by expectation. She was almost levitating on her bench seat with the force of her glee. Finally, she erupted:

"Because I've been good all damn day!"

A Christmas Miracle

2009-12-18T10:11:00.005-05:00

The Partner and I have something of a contentious marriage. This is no secret. Most of our fights revolve around the fact that The Partner is right and I am wrong. He had me convinced of this dynamic until two days ago.

My epiphany had roots near the mailbox, at the spot where I picked up two packages sitting together in a clear, plastic bag. I looked at the top package to see my name printed on the front. I will admit that I am not totally faultless in this; I did, as I so often do, fail to think my next action through. I just assumed that the two packages were part of one shipment and that both had been directed to me. I opened the first, then the other. One held a hundred Christmas cards of my own design, ready to be served with a salutation and an address label. The other held Arrested Development, the complete series. I didn't scratch my head for long before closing the lid to the box so that I could see it had not, in fact, been addressed to me--though the status of that DVD set on my Christmas wishlist assured me that I was the gift's final destination.

I made it back into the house to tell The Partner of my blunder. I handed him the violated package. "Oops," I said. "I accidentally opened it."

He glared at me. While I did not exactly misread his expression, I did not understand the gravity of it. So I went on. "And, ha, this is funny...I know about the popcorn popper you got me, too. What were you thinking, leaving it right there in the open?"

The next five minutes were a flurry of boxes and bubble wrap as The Partner threw packing material all around the office amidst declarations that he was "giving up!" He was freakishly serious.

"If you didn't want me to find the popcorn popper, why didn't you hide it?" I inquired.

"Why should I have to hide it? You're not a child!"

I just stood there, open mouthed, in apparent dispute of that assertion. I did not even know how to respond. Finally, I summoned the words. "You left the box in the middle of the office right with everyone else's gifts. I went through them to see what had arrived and how much I was going to have to wrap. I assumed you wouldn't leave any of my presents right there where I could find them."

"What about the fact that the popcorn popper box was on its side, facing the wall?"

"What?" I looked at him with more childlike confusion. "It was facing the wall? What the hell is that supposed to indicate? The box's position means nothing to me! It was in a pile with everything else we are giving for Christmas so I OPENED IT!"

But he insisted I was supposed to know that side-lying boxes, even when in plain sight, were verboten boxes. He attempted to make me feel stupid and wrong in the face of his righteous brilliance. But this is where my epiphany arose fully and in all its splendor. I am not stupid and wrong.

Suddenly 11 years of fighting were called into question. His skillful use of logic and argument had, over time, convinced me of the permanent fault line that was a fissure through my body. He was articulate, reasoned and extremely determined. I was uninformed and confused. His very refusal to ever say "I'm sorry" reinforced his steadfast convictions.

Large issues related to money, parenting and sex have always clouded my understanding with their enormity. But this small argument, I could see through. Easily. It was ridiculous.

Yes, I opened two boxes that I shouldn't have. No, I did not do it on purpose. I refuse to take the blame just because he made no attempt to protect his purchases from my scatterbrained ways.

In the end, though, he ended up giving me one of the best gifts I've ever received. I never would've found it if I didn't accidentally stumble upon Arrested Development and an electric popcorn maker two weeks before Christmas. This gift is the serenity I felt as I listened to him yell and swear and throw things. It's the calmness I experienced in the face of blame. For the first time in my life, I felt 100% certain that The Partner was not right.

And if he is not right about this, the skies are alight with the possibilities of what other untold wonders he may be wrong about. My reality shines with the brightness of countless Christmas lights. I hear the Hallelujah Chorus swell around me. I smell Hot Buttered Rum and I taste victory. Whoever said 'tis better to give than receive never got a doozie like this one.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Gingerbreadman's Junk

2009-12-13T18:40:00.002-05:00

I was working on an article at my computer in the kitchen while The Partner and The Boss made gingerbread magic in the dining room behind me. The clack of the computer keys in front of me were my soundtrack until a sound from candyland jarred me out of my reverie.

"That will be his penis," I heard The Boss say.

I did a doubletake. "What?" I demanded.

I heard The Partner stifle a laugh.

This I had to see for myself. I walked into the dining room.

"What?" I repeated.

"A penis," she said.

"Where?" I asked.

"Here," The Boss said. She pointed to a small bead, edible and red, that she'd stuck under the gingerbreadman's crotch.

All I could do was nod, thoughtfully. What I was thinking about was how hard I could laugh and still maintain some semblance of maturity. Apparently I gave The Boss just enough convulsive laughter to glom onto. She loves an appreciative audience.

"Penis." She let it rip once more, her tone short and emphatic. She looked up at me with an arched eyebrow. I half expected her to launch into a chorus of penispenispenispenis, but it appears she's gotten too sophisticated. She left it at that.

And I left the room to go write about it.

Oh Damn

2009-12-09T16:26:00.004-05:00

Here's the thing about Number Two: he's gruff. When he's nursing, I can't look down at him too long without my face being slapped away by his hand. Over the course of the day, whenever he finds something awry, he will point at it and shout "oh, damn!" Repeatedly. Part of me would like to believe that's not what he's actually saying, but it's obviously the sentiment and more than likely the curse.

He's huggy, though. He wraps his arms around my leg willy-nilly as we go about our business. He kisses with his bottom lip sticking out and fat. He hangs onto is sister like he's hanging on for life. He says thanks.

He's an enigma. That's not to say I know any parent who's got his or her child all figured out. It's just that, in my limited experience as the mother of two, I see him as the child who plays it closest to the vest. He's the one with more words than he lets on; he's the one who chooses them slyly.

He's nineteen months old and I can already tell I'm never going to figure him out.

Maybe Santa Drives a Caddy

2009-12-07T11:35:00.007-05:00

Santa Claus came to the town green yesterday, bringing with him red- and green-sweatered elves eerily reminiscent of local middle school students. The Boss went moony, her eyes full and shining at the sight of him. I was more discerning, raising an eyebrow at the rough outline of what seemed like foam padding underneath the worn red velveteen and the belt held in place with a paper clip.

"Where's his sleigh?" The Boss whispered to me.

I looked around. "Hmm, I don't know." I cast a long glance to the roof of the historic grange building around which we were assembled for the tree lighting. "No sleigh there. Maybe it's on the other side?"

The Boss was skeptical. She stared at the roofline, as if willing a magical Christmas menagerie to appear. She did a full body pout that started with the crease of her forehead and ended with heels stomping into the ground. "Humph," she breathed out. "Not even a single reindeer."

The Moon Sees the Somebody I Would Like to See

2009-12-02T12:47:00.007-05:00

I have two babies born under a full moon. Naysayers cite coincidence; I have more faith in the pull of that celestial mother globe.

My first birth story is lit by the moon, its natural image pervading a tale that turned mostly medical when I looked away from the light.

"The half hour ride to the hospital at 2 a.m. was black, peaceful and portentous. I was becoming more aware by the second that I was taking a one-way trip out of my old life. I was attuned to every shadow, every curve of the road, every shard of moonlight that lead the way. The Dixie Chicks sung “Landslide” on the radio and I was overwhelmed. Then the hospital was on my right, and I looked at the elongated glass façade of the state-of-the-art facility that I had driven by so many times, never knowing when I’d end up inside, but always aware that I would not come out the same.

We walked in the emergency entrance as directed by the on-call doctor and signed in. A Women and Infants nurse was dispatched as our escort. On our way to the labor and delivery wing, we wound through an emergency ward of moaners, pukers and passed-out invalids presumably drawn in by the pull of that full moon. “This is much worse than usual,” said the nurse. 'I’m glad you’re not having contractions so we can just get through here fast.'”

My research now indicates that the moon's effect is focused on the amniotic fluids. Just as she influences the earth's tides, she has reach into the wet parts of ourselves. In an article about the moon's effect on natural childbirth, author David Rose writes that, as a woman's body readies itself for birth, "the amniotic sac becomes distended to the point where it will easily burst if put under pressure. Under normal circumstances, the pressure of labor contractions bursts the sac. During a full moon, the pressure caused by the moon’s effect on the water inside the sac can cause the same things to happen, but without the accompanying contractions."

He goes on to say that "natural childbirth doesn’t always move forward and with no other signs of labor present, the obstetrician may decide to induce the birth." His own study of the personal stories of women he knows found that of 8 women with births set into motion when their water broke at the full moon, there were no contractions present in five of them.

It is no official study by any means, but it sheds so much (moon)light on my own experience. My water broke in a slow trickle in the afternoon before the full moon. Absolutely no contractions accompanied the rupture until they were brought on forcibly by Pitocin 20 hours later. I was led to believe this slow leak with no contractions was a somewhat odd occurrence, but I should've trusted my body and nature more than that. Nothing is new under the sun...or the moon.

Whoomp (There It Is)

2009-12-01T19:47:00.006-05:00

Number Two has precious few words. I might worry about it more if he didn't do things like shout out "Whoomp, there it is" at random intervals over the course of the day. He heard the song one time, a week and a half ago, and up it pops in casual conversation to this day. I will admit that it sounds more like "Whoop, deer-is," but for a 19-month-old whose entire vocabulary consists of "ball," "dog," "dad," and "thanks," there is something impressive about his grasp of the Tag Team concept.

"I'm taking it back to the old school,
'Cause I'm an old fool who's so cool"

(Seriously, though, doesn't he look about 19 years old in this picture?)

I Finished NaBloPoMo '09

2009-11-30T20:07:00.008-05:00

I saw this badge on the National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) site. It best represented my successful completion of the challenge, so I took it. It reminds me of my favorite sarcastic retro slogan:

Anyhoo.

This was the easiest go I've had at NaBloPoMo since I started participating in the thirty-day blog posting challenge three years ago. I think the secret was in the fact that, for the first time in my writing life, I gave up all regard for the opinions of others. I didn't censor myself or hold out for brilliance that I was completely delusional to think would ever come. I just wrote. Many of my posts this month were longer than those I usually commit to this blog. I'm pretty sure they were more boring. They were the essence of what Anne Lamott terms the "shitty first draft" in her archetypal book on the writing process, Bird By Bird.

I'm not sure if her words were working at my subconscious when I embarked on NaBloPoMo this month or if I somehow came to the conclusion on my own, but, either way, her message exemplifies my guiding force in posting daily throughout November. "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people," Lamott wrote. "It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft."

In letting go of that dictatorial inner voice, I was able to write a lot. The fact that most of it was shitty doesn't mean there weren't pieces of goodness in there: images that just might show up in the novel I am starting on; memories that can help shape my characters; and experiments in style and grammar that have, at the very least, potential to enhance my craft. While my posts this month are likely to remain "shitty first drafts," it's reasonable to think that they might spawn other shitty first drafts that will actually go on to become something more.

Now that I understand the cramping effects of perfectionism, the next most important step is making sure I don't lose the discipline of the past thirty days. Discipline has always been my biggest deficit. It's a whole other chapter in Lamott's book; one that I will, like everything else, have to learn for myself, and in my own sweet time.

The Handyman

2009-11-29T19:13:00.003-05:00

The Partner can now add "Exterminator" to his resume of life.

I thought it would take a professional to eradicate the pests that were leaving their excretions from stove-top utensil rest to the seat of Number Two's high chair. The Partner disagreed. Armed with information from the Internet and an arsenal from Home Depot, he set to plugging up every crevice in the kitchen with steel wool and foam sealant. It seems to have worked.

Every time I think of him knee-deep in poop where he pulled out the dishwasher to lay waste to the mouse colony, I am amazed at the lengths to which he will go in order to avoid paying an outside party. He's not phased by pellet-sized proof of diseased products of digestion. He is not deterred by mishaps involving foam sealant on his forearm that must be removed with paint thinner. He just does what he has to do. I will never cease to be impressed at how competently he manages the thankless tasks that keep our house in running order.

As The Boss likes to say, he really does come in handy sometimes.

Keeping the Kiss

2009-11-28T22:54:00.007-05:00

This is how Number Two kisses, with his bottom lip pushed out and his chin jutting in the direction of the recipient. I've seen cute things in my day, but not like this. I never want him to stop. More than that, I don't want to forget it.

I can't remember anything. By the time Number Two got here, it was as if I was taking care of a newborn--then an infant, then a toddler--for the first time. The Boss's babyhood was not even a memory. I know from mining my mother and mother-in-law for their own reminiscences that this is not unusual. They don't remember a thing, either, though they deny it to varying degrees. I won't deny it. I think the forgetting is one of the most woeful parts of being a parent.

But this time I have a picture and I have these words. I will make this memory stick.

I'm keeping the kiss.

Learning to Count

2009-11-27T18:26:00.006-05:00

This morning was a rare opportunity to lay in bed with nothing pressing on us but The Boss as she bounced all over our duvet-covered limbs. The Partner was on edge, ready to double over in protection of the family jewels if one of The Boss's feet landed in the wrong place. I vacillated between trying to fall back asleep and making the most of this just-the-three-of-us time. Rain beat against the roof.

"I'd hate to be any shopper waiting in line for Door Buster sales at 4 this morning," he said.

"Amen." I nodded in happy acknowledgement of our dry and uncrowded environs. Relatively speaking, anyway. The Boss did a flying squirrel and landed between us.

"Hey, The Boss's friend B. counted to 200 the other day in the car when I picked her up for a playdate," I mentioned to The Partner, apropos of nothing but the nagging need I have to compare my kids to every other child within a five year age radius.

"Let's hear how high you can count," The Partner prompted. Numbers are not The Boss's strong suit. She's like me in that regard.

The Boss obliged her father. She stumbled here and there, requiring a bit of help each time she hit a new group of tens.

"18, 19, 11, 20," she said.

"No, not 11. It's 19, 20," The Partner got her back on the right track. She chugged along until 29.

"Thirty," he prodded. Then, as something of an aside: "It should really be threety, shouldn't it?"

We giggled, me moreso than The Boss. I was embarrasingly amused. "Yeah, and twenty should be twoty! " I squealed. "Twoty-one, twoty-two..." I couldn't go on. I rolled over, incoherent, on twoty-two.

The Boss pulled energy from my laughter and threw herself in a gleeful heap near where The Partner's hip rested alongside mine. "Ah, the fun of the times," she sighed as she settled into the feathery nest of down. "The laughter of the family."

The Partner and I looked at each other over The Boss's head, shaking our heads and laughing out loud. We do this a lot. She is always saying things that bring out our mutual amazement in this thing we've created. Ah, the fun of the times, I repeated, just to hear it again. The laughter of the family. The Boss snuggled into our giggling mass.

Sometimes I think our daughter is four going on twoty-nine.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T21:47:00.005-05:00

The Boss has a well defined and passionately protected sense of self. She doesn't take well to being told that a belief she holds true is false. It's like the time (yesterday, in fact; if it was any less recent I would've already forgotten it) that The Partner dismissed something she told him with an "in your dreams." That's what he said. In your dreams. I thought it was a bit rude when I heard it, but I didn't comment. Turns out, I didn't have to. The Boss defended herself.

"Dreams can come true, you know," she informed him. She was matter of fact and emphatic. She may have been just a teensy bit haughty, too.

Yes! I thought. Thatta girl.

The Partner shrugged his shoulders and cocked his head to the side in concession. I could tell from his smile that The Boss had hit him in that oft-wounded spot somewhere between the heart and the funny bone (where would that be, exactly--the armpit?). She is one of the only people in the world who can change his perception of things. She is the one in the best position to make him realize that, yes, dreams can come true. I was proud of her creativity and conviction. I was grateful that she knew the perfect way to deliver a message that her father wouldn't have given a second thought to if it had come from anyone but her.

This holiday, I'm thankful for fathers and daughters.

The Place To Be This Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T16:40:00.004-05:00

This period of my life--with two young children, a dog, a rodent infestation, and a husband (in no particular order)--seems to be exemplified by shit. It's everywhere I look. It's everything I smell, sometimes to the point that I can almost--I can't really, can I?--taste it.

We have mice again. As a result, my constant scrubbing and spraying and vacuuming and mopping has made the kitchen the cleanest it's ever been. Yet it's never been filthier. I've seen brown rice nuggets in places no human being should ever see them. I've heard mouse friends frolicking in the walls behind me while I watch television. They fall from wooden supports and then scamper back up again while I raise the volume on Glee to drown out their chorus.

Number Two earns his nickname roughly five times a day with big, black blueberry poops. The kid loves fruit, what can I say? Everywhere I turn there is more of it.

I made the mistake of making chili the other night and then serving it as leftovers the next. The Partner has never let loose the likes of the olfactory assault he's been waging ever since. I can't be near him. I just CANNOT be near him.

I'd like to leave the mice home for Thanksgiving; find a grandparent to change each and every one of Number Two's diapers; and situate myself in a corner far removed from General McFarter. But, wouldn't you know: we're hosting the holiday at our place this year. We will have to work together, all day, as a family.

I'd better light a lot of candles.

Don't you wish you could join us?

Radio We Can Agree On

2009-11-24T13:30:00.003-05:00

I purchased my Sirius Satellite Radio unit because of Howard Stern back in 2005. His two stations, Howard 100 and Howard 101, have been bringing me untold hours of joy ever since. Before he slipped the surly bonds of terrestrial radio, I listened to his show in syndication on WCCC, the local indie station with the claim to fame of having employed Stern as a morning DJ thirty years ago. While Stern’s detractors are legion here and anywhere, his Connecticut fan base rivals that of any other stronghold he fought to win over the past three decades.

There is an obvious discrepancy between parenthood and my subscription to the Howard Stern channels. Though I held out as long as I could—until my 2 year old daughter switched up Bob the Builder with the name of the Stern Show producer and started singing “Bababooey, yes you can!” at the supermarket—I was forced to curtail my listening habits while she was in the car. It was at that point I discovered a benefit I hadn’t anticipated when I signed on with Sirius more than six months before my daughter was born. That happy surprise was Kids Place Live. The KPL programming fell on the exact opposite end of the listener spectrum from the Howard Stern Show and would become our third most listened-to station.

Read more...

Homemade

2009-11-23T13:09:00.004-05:00

I have recently come into my own in the gift giving department. I just cannot get enough of it. I spend hours and hours brainstorming and creating personalized items to give to my nearest and dearest. I also jump on any opportunity to participate in holiday gift exchanges of the Secret Santa variety. Trying to think of the perfect idea for someone I would not ordinarily be gifting with my presents leaves me happily exhausted.

This year I am creating these offerings with the aid of Photoshop, a printer, bulk stationary, and a lot of thought as to what colors and images best represent the recipient. The process is as much for me as it is for them. In reflecting on the people I'm making these gifts for, I get to relive why it is that they're special to me. I hope that when they receive them, they'll be reminded in this small way why I'm special to them.

I'm no Martha Stewart. I'm not crafty or scrappy. I just like to mess around with design software and order a lot of envelopes. I used to roll my eyes whenever my mother would ask for something homemade for the holidays. That would always be at the top of her list, right after the completely pie-in-the-sky request for "good children." Why would she want something I made? Didn't she think she deserved something she could actually use?

Maybe I'm getting old, but homemade makes a lot of sense to me now. It's more personal. It can be economical. It can, despite the misgivings of my youthful self, actually be useful. It can fulfill something in both the gifter and giftee.

I'm surprised just how much I am looking forward to this homemade Christmas.

New England Mamas

2009-11-22T21:19:00.006-05:00

New England Mamas is back. The blog, devoted to all that is maternal in our steepled corner of the country, has returned from its hiatus with a new organizational structure and several additional voices. I'm excited to be a contributing writer to New England Mamas once again. My first post, which will appear sometime this week, will supply the missing link between Howard Stern and contemporary children's radio programming. Check in daily over at New England Mamas until the connection is revealed.

Wordless

2009-11-21T18:16:00.003-05:00

Number Two gives kisses with his bottom lip protruding. It would look like a pout if it weren't for the raised eyebrow, indicative of his sly wait for the object of his affection to offer a cheek.

Number Two can focus with angry intensity. His eyes narrow only enough to pull his nose and upper lip into a sneer. The expanse of hazel seems suddenly darker. I am looking at my husband, minus 30 years.

Number Two's eyes can be bright as light shining over his laugh. A tickle can do it, or a toss in the air, but mainly it's The Boss who elicits the most guttural glee from this tiny, stoic man. He giggles in bursts, each one louder than the last. For a short while it seems like he never wants to stop.

At nineteen months, has very few words. Number Two gets his point across with two sharp eyes and mouth that is in turn kissable and vindictive. He leaves no room for questioning. His silence is crystal clear.

Better Get Used to It

2009-11-20T20:08:00.004-05:00

Making friends has been something of a challenge since I became a mother. It's not that I lack acquaintances; I know plenty of people of the playgroup persuasion. The problem is that I haven't been able to get past the kids we have in common to find out if, maybe, we have other mutual interests as well.

Some of my closest friends are mothers. These friendships, however, were not formed under the influence of children. I've known some of these women since early childhood, others since middle school, and some since college. A few surfed in more recently through bulletin boards and blogs. I got to know them all before they spawned those little pieces of themselves that rendered them incapable of fully focusing on anything else. Now I love their children, too.

But the women I meet for the first time through my children are harder to get to know. They're moms first; what they are beyond that is beyond me. I could probably coax the information out of them if I was more socially inclined. But I guess I'm not interested in working that hard. That's as good an explanation as any. There's got to be some reason why I've been hauling my children off to group activities and playdates with the same women for two years now without one serious friendship to show for it.

Today The Boss came home from school with the latest report on a begrudging friend whom I'll call A. This child is not afraid to proclaim her need to "get used" to someone before committing to friendship. A. stands in stark contrast to The Boss, who throws her love around like the kind of sparkling confetti that gets into everything and keeps showing up even when you think you've vacuumed up the last of it. A. didn't play with me today, The Boss would intone sadly. She's still not used to me. Though I'd noticed them together more and more on the playground, it was still anyone's guess whether A. felt she had become properly accustomed to my daughter. Until today.

The Boss brought the message home from school. She bounced with the delivery of it, her cheeks little splotches of red beneath round eyes.

"Mommy, mommy! A. says she'll be used to me as long as I don't pick my nose!"

I laughed. I patted The Boss on the head. Then I nodded thoughtfully.

Friends take some getting used to.

The Tie That Binds

2009-11-19T14:29:00.006-05:00

My mother hasn't spoken to me for two months. I don't know why. There was no inciting event of which I am aware, but that doesn't mean something didn't happen that she perceives as such. What I do know is she is not a happy person right now. The reasons behind this really have very little to do with me--as far as I know--but the fallout of her misery has reach.

I'm new to this mothering thing. She is a veteran. I have babies and hope. She has grown children that remind her of her failures. It's sad to watch, and scarier to contemplate.

Today Number Two fell asleep on my chest during a nursing session. His head rested in the crook of my arm while his midsection lay heavy on mine. He was a soft, sleepy weight. I tried to relax in this moment with my loving and dependent baby, but all I could think about was the fact that I am giving up our newness with each passing minute. Soon my two children will be out of this stage where they know they need me. Reality has already begun to take over where there had heretofore only been hope. They are no longer newborns, infants or wobbling toddlers. They're the realization of my dreams. Here's why that's scary: hope is all good; reality is good and bad.

Once my mother was like me. She loved her little baby. That baby was her chief interest. Then the baby grew up and suddenly it was hard to see how closely bonded they had been.

There's always something between a mother and her child. When a child is born, the connection is not figurative. There's the cord, then the breast, then arms that hold tight and easy in the absence of resistance. But babies grow and go. Still, there's that connection--this time it is figurative--which finds its strength in shapelessness. Sometimes it's so hard to see and feel that you'd swear it was no longer there. It is, though. And it's working harder than ever to do its job.

Blogging, I Have Forsaken You

2009-11-18T20:40:00.005-05:00

It's been 18 straight days of posting, people. I need a drink.

There's Someone For Everybody

2009-11-17T17:58:00.005-05:00

It's no secret. The Partner and I don't always get along. There are times when we contemplate, longingly, life apart. But then I get back to the day-to-day realities of the outside world and I realize that I don't always get along with much of anybody, at which point it's him I drag my lonely ass home to for comfort. That must be, I have to think, why we belong together. It doesn't seem readily apparent when we're screaming at each other about the laundry or other things left undone, but this is the truth that continues to guide us:

We can tolerate nobody else the way we tolerate each other; we tolerate each other the way nobody else can.

The Effect of Hairy Armpits

2009-11-16T16:34:00.006-05:00

Roughly ten years have elapsed since the heyday that was The Partner's college years. Nowhere is this more evident than in the condition of his fraternity tee-shirts. All across his collection there are holes in the necklines, holes along the bottoms and, as will be shown here today, big gapers in the underarms. But until a breach gets so big that it causes the shirt to fall off his body of its own volition, The Partner will continue to wear the soft, cottony vehicle of the Pi Kappa Phi logo with pride.

Today I walked into our home office with one of the worst offenders and held it up for the Partner's scrutiny. "What am I supposed to do with this?" I demanded. I could've stuck my entire head through the fissure in the seam of the right sleeve.

Sensing a commotion, The Boss ran into the room behind me.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I'm trying to figure out what your father expects me to do with this shirt."

She looked at the shirt. Then she raised her eyebrows and looked at The Partner.

"There's nothing wrong with that shirt," he said. "Do you think there's anything wrong with the shirt?"

She looked like she wasn't sure if this was a joke or not. "Well, you might show your hair. Of your armpit."

I stifled the kind of guffaw that builds up when a parent thinks her child is the funniest thing on the planet.

"But won't it act like a vent and keep my arm cool?" The Partner spoke as if in jest, yet he was completely serious.

The Boss did a headshake/eyeroll that conveyed not only her distrust of, but disappointment with, the world around her. She looked from one crazy parent to the other. She looked once more at the aerated shirt. "Ugh," she said. "This is a gross talk." Then she ran out of the room.

I'm a little surprised that this conversation, out of all the doozies The Boss has been privy to, is the one to bring out the first glimpse of the kind of childhood angst that can only be caused by hopelessly embarrassing parents. One thing I know for certain, though, is that there's a lot more arm hair where this came from. And while I mean it more literally in The Partner's case and more figuratively in my own, the fact remains that neither one of us is afraid to let it blow in the breeze.

An Early Christmas Present

2009-11-15T18:04:00.007-05:00

It was like Christmas this morning as I raced downstairs at the news, delivered by The Partner, that our friend Lauren had made us a video. As a photographer/storyteller, Lauren has a gift for seeing past the bullshit that can cloud our vision and conveying the clear and important aspects of life. I watched the video with my two children--whose adorableness has been so lovingly chronicled by Lauren these past three years--and was reminded just how good I have it.

For Binky from Lauren Malone on Vimeo.

The One With a Lot of Vitriol

2009-11-14T15:12:00.007-05:00

A lot of Stay-At-Home Mothers like to say that their husbands don't appreciate how much work they do every day. They say these men don't understand how difficult it is to keep one, two, three-plus children working as a functioning unit on a day-to-day basis. I was one of those mothers. I successfully played that card for four years. Today I was forced to show my hand.

I left the children with The Partner in the morning and headed out for a conference held by the mom's group to which I belong. I was gone for roughly seven hours. There was much professed joy among the conference-goers about having a few hours away from the children. We ate chicken Caesar salad and chocolate cake. We discussed organizational structure and playgroup etiquette. There was much discussion of the Swine Flu. We went home.

I came back to The Partner's declaration that he'd discovered my ruse.

"What ruse?" I asked.

"The one where you tell me it's impossible to clean the house with two kids running around."

"Oh," I said.

"Yeah. I cleaned the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher, hand washed the plastic, vacuumed the entire first floor, and am now working on the basement. And The Boss didn't watch any TV while I did it."

"Oh." I repeated. What else was I supposed to say? The jig is up. I'm a bad parent. I live in a cesspool of my own creation and my children watch too much TV.

It's unfortunate that not only am I worthless as a mother, but I have no quantifiable value as a professional, either. If I did, I could go out and bring home the bacon while The Partner stayed home and did his sterling job raising the kids.

"Oh, yeah, and it's a good thing I didn't have any plans to leave the house today," The Partner added. "I couldn't find any socks for Number Two. If I'm going to have to dress the kids, it would be nice if I could find their clothes in the middle of all the different piles of laundry laying around here."

I looked at him with huge, cornered, round saucer eyes. Gulp. "Yeah, well, actually he's out of clean socks. I forgot about that."

The Partner's eyes, on other hand, were slits. He shook his head disgustedly.

I shook mine too. I'm so sick of always being wrong. But I'm even sicker of him always being right.

In Jersey Number Two

2009-11-13T15:48:00.005-05:00

I wish you could see Number Two catch a football. I never had an iota of interest in pigskin (or, in this case, Nerfskin) till I first witnessed my 18 month-old's arms come up in casual receipt of that ball. I threw it over and over--not from afar, yet further every time--toward his baby chest. He was so cool. His catch and clutch seemed natural in a way that made me believe the energy of the recipient could have more effect on an object's trajectory than that of the sender. The ball just fell into his arms. One second his hands would be at his sides, pudgy little puckers over each knuckle. He'd appear not even to be watching me. Then I'd lift the ball into the air and, after a short flight, it would land in an easy embrace I hadn't even known my son was open to.

In these moments, it's not that he's a boy to me. It isn't about the gleeful recognition of stereotypes proven true. It's about a baby gaining control of his spastic hands and his hard-heeled feet. It's about his stoic face going smiley with pride. It's about a simple game that is already making him joyful, and all the possibilities it holds for a long life of playing time.

And I Know How to Use It

2009-11-12T15:19:00.008-05:00

Since three out of four of my readers (you can choose to read that as 75 percent, but the truth is I only have four total readers) would like to know more about the car referenced in yesterday's post, I am here today to deliver.

Without further ado...
(captions provided by The Partner)

Check out that ass!

2001 BMW M5

Nice headlights baby. Wanna take me home?

I must say I am perplexed by The Partner's captions. I mean, he cannot actually think of my car as feminine, can he? I'm sorry to burst The Partner's xenon headlights, but my car is manly. He is 4,000 lbs of testosterone-laced steel and plastic. He's aggressive. He sports black leather and a vast array of gizmos. And if that doesn't convince you, here's one simple fact to drive my point home:

My car has a stick.

When Good Things Happen to Bad Drivers

2009-11-11T14:01:00.008-05:00

I have never been ogled like this before. Men stop in their tracks as I pass by. Mouths drop open and saliva pools in the corners. Fantasies that have been laying as dormant as the old sports car they traded in for a mini-van are fueled once again.

You see, I drive a car I have no business even getting behind the wheel of. I'd give you the make and model but, frankly, it's too embarrassing. I'm not worthy of this machine. Besides, it's mostly women that read this blog, and the name won't mean anything to most of you. It certainly didn't mean anything to me before The Partner brought it to my attention. My old car had succumbed to an incurable radiator problem at 200,000+ miles; I was in need of wheels. It meant so much to The Partner to have this car in his garage that he was willing to take the extreme measure of letting me drive it.

Perhaps these thoughts are running through your head: "He lets you drive it? What do you mean, he lets you drive it? This is the 21st century! This is the USA! You have every bit as much of a right to drive any car as he does!" Well, you're wrong. Or at least you don't know the whole story.

The story is that I kill cars. Well, body panels, anyway. I've left plastic pieces and rim residue all over the northeast since I first started driving 13 years ago. I never met a curb I wouldn't kiss; there's no median I won't sidle up against. I'm fine on the open road, but I don't do well with barriers.

I've already done things to this car that would make men weep. There are two holes in the front bumper. The back passenger side rim has road rash. I've already gone through several tires, though I don't think all of that was my fault. It could use a wash. What I really should be driving is a 1989 Honda Civic.

I met my car in Queens one spring afternoon. I drove it home, adjusting myself to the 6-speed transmission and the growl of its engine. The Partner followed behind in my old car as it made its last hurrah. We stopped at a diner in Stamford for a bite to eat. Our waiter took our order. He brought us drinks. I didn't think much of it when I saw him walk outside and stand against the railing of the concrete steps that lead to the parking lot, or when I saw him come back in.

He looked at The Partner as he delivered our meals a while later. "Is that your car?" he asked. He had that moony look I've become accustomed to. It must be the kind of gaze beautiful women receive on a daily basis, just by virtue of being alive, by deigning to grace with their gorgeousness any given venue.

I have to give my husband credit. He didn't so much as blanch, or stutter to get the words out. "It's my wife's," he informed the waiter.

I nodded sheepishly. "It's wasted on me." He needed to know I was aware of that fact.

To this day I feel like a fraud whenever compliments come the way of my car. I know I should assume a macho air, thumping the hood in a way that conveys my pride without leaving so much as a trace of sweat on the paint.

4.9 liters, baby. 394 horsepower. Those are the vital stats I imagine myself offering when prompted. But it never happens that way. I get too flustered. I don't even know what those numbers mean. Usually I just shrug. "But, hey, look at this! It fits three carseats!" I gesture to the back, where my two children and another friend from pre-school enjoy their ride in the fiercest vehicle in the carpool.

Then I shrug again. "Totally wasted on me, I know."

Day is Done

2009-11-10T19:09:00.004-05:00

I daydreamed of bed and a book as I drove around on several afternoon errands. All I wanted was to be under the covers at home with a new bestseller in one hand and a cup of decaf hazelnut coffee (topped with whipped cream) in the other.

When I picked up The Boss from pre-school, the air in the car began to hang even heavier with our collective fatigue. "I'm miserable," The Boss said.

"Why?"

"Because you woke me up too early this morning."

I sighed. Back to the daydream: I pull the yellow flannel sheets up to my chin, forming a cocoon of aloneness from which I can't be blamed for everyone else's problems. We drove home in silence.

It's 7:20 now, and with just a few more checkboxes left to mark off on the To Do list that is every day with children, I am committed to making today's daydream an early evening reality. Goodnight, all. Here's to waking well on Wednesday.

Mister

2009-11-09T20:36:00.005-05:00

This afternoon Number Two refused to eat his bread, letting the pieces fall to the floor all around him in gracious offering to our dog.

"No more of that," I said. "No more feeding your bread to the dog."

He froze in mid-throw. That's what he does whenever I reprimand him. All his processes came to a halt, his stare blank yet guilty. A piece of bread was suspended in his hand as he waited me out.

"What did I say, mister?"

He slowly moved the bread back to the tray of his high chair. Then The Boss's gleeful voice piped up from the living room. "Mister is his name when he's in trouble!"

No Mom is an Island

2009-11-08T15:58:00.009-05:00

I am a hypochondriac on a good day. On a bad day, I'd sooner put the house on lockdown than venture into a world filled with bacteria, pesticides, pestilence, mold, #3 plastics, and the types of people who change their children's diapers on dining tables at Burger King.

I worry that my son has autism. I worry that my husband will die of cancer. I worry about Alzheimer's for my parents, but I can push such fears aside with the knowledge that heart disease will probably get them first.

I worry about vaccines and I worry about not getting vaccines. That, my friends, is the stuff of an internal dialogue so vertiginous that I could puke just thinking about it. Sometimes I talk to my husband about my fears and he calls me crazy. That usually makes me feel better. Sometimes he agrees with me. That's when we're screwed.

The Boss, as always, is the voice of reason. She recently picked up on my paranoia of outside places when I was hemming and hawing about going to the store because, I rationalized, The Boss had a cough. Nevermind that the cough had been her only symptom for over a week. She'd gone to school every day on schedule and had a grand old time. She was fine. We all knew it. I just wanted an excuse to stay home.

"Don't worry, mommy," she said. She brought the bend of her elbow to her mouth, her round baby blues looking out at me pointedly over her arm. She made a small hacking sound in demonstration. "I cough always in the crook, and I wash my hands a lot."

I Can't Stop Laughing At This

2009-11-07T22:15:00.003-05:00

Here I am circa 1987. If this doesn't exemplify my childhood, I don't know what does.

Our Photo Album

2009-11-06T18:28:00.005-05:00

I came upon this snapshot during my futile search for photographic proof of the Cookie Monster sweatshirt. It was in an album of my early years. The same book is littered with photos of my mother, who was roughly the same age I am now. She was beautiful. She was unlined. She was unfettered by even one extra pound. She seemed happy enough.

I find it so hard to see the mother I know now in that Kodaked woman with the black, black hair. I find it even harder not to fear the future. What would she have thought if she could've looked into the time-weary eyes of some fortune teller and seen herself as I do? She could only have been incredulous. No way. No fucking way.

They were my formative years, but I think they shaped her, too. Being a wife and mother can teach you more than you ever imagined you'd learn about yourself. It can be the most rewarding role of your life. But it can also guide you--with a hand so gentle you'd never think it was holding you back--into so much rationalization and cover up that you fail to see how things could be any way other than they are. You can play the martyr so well that you become one.

I don't know what happened. I was sheltered from most of the details of my parents' lives by virtue of being their daughter. I know little bits here and there, but they only serve to emphasize that I know nothing. I grew up happy, along with my siblings, and maybe my mother thinks that's the only thing that matters. In fact, I know she does.

I look at the photo album and I have to disagree. My baby book isn't just about me, the baby. It's about my parents, too. It's about the early choices that made the rest of their lives.

Cookie Monster

2009-11-05T13:09:00.004-05:00

Today's Cookie Monster theme on Google (it's the 30th anniversary of Sesame Street), along with reminding me that I'm getting older, brings to mind a childhood sweatshirt. It was white and worn. Memory makes it brighter than it probably was, donned so often by the grimy frame of me as a four year old. It had a blue band around the neckline and the wrists. It had Cookie Monster on the front.

That was my summer sweatshirt. I'd wear it at bedtime when there was no bed in sight. Staying up late enough to necessitate layers in mid-July was always a treat. The amusement park; the cottage on Lake George; the back yard, watching puppies being born. Darkness would fall and the sun-fade would herald the first phase of night, the one that plucked goosebumps from my unprotected skin as wind blew my parents' cares into gentle eddies that I couldn't see, even if I knew where to look.

Mom pulled the sweatshirt over my head. The cotton was pilled on the inside. The fabric was strange to touch, and even stranger to taste, grating against my teeth when I pulled the collar over my mouth. But the outside was smooth, and that's the part I enjoy remembering. Bright and white and blue.

One evening daddy came home and said "Let's go to the amusement park." I wore the sweatshirt then. One ride at the park featured several brightly colored motorcycles that thunk-thunked where each wooden plank connected to the next on a circular track. There were buzzers on all the bikes that blended into a cacophony of childish zealotry. There were lights in long lines--some blinking, some glaring--wrapping around canopies and climbing poles. I felt light. Riding on a stationary motorcycle at children's speed, I carried away those cares of my parents just like the wind. I hugged myself and rubbed two tiny forearms, content in Cookie Monster, ensconced in a lit summer night.

Looks Like the Mug Shot After a Baby Bender

2009-11-04T18:37:00.003-05:00

Is this the face of H1N1? It would be alarmist of me to presume so. All I know for sure is that it's the face of a 104 temperature, body-shakin' chills, blue hands and feet, and one surly disposition. I'd write more, but my baby beckons...and that's one face only a mother can care for.

I Must Be Doing Something Right

2009-11-03T19:40:00.006-05:00

Motherhood can be thankless, but my four year old daughter is not. Her manners are impeccable; her perspective, astute. One day we were riding in the car when she dropped her juice box. This is a story that illustrates my premise.

I leaned back from my seat on the front passenger side and reached blindly for the carton. My arm did a lot of flailing as the center console dug into my chest, which was protected only by the merest hint of cleavage-enhancing foam. I made an "umph" sound to ensure that my effort would be noted. A few more lunges awarded me the prize, and I waved it victoriously in The Boss's direction. She reached out from her five-point perch and grabbed the juice.

As I settled back into my seat, I heard the Boss's sweet "thanks, mom." This time I only had to crane my neck slightly to smile at her. She brought the juice box to her mouth, then paused before taking a sip. "You come in handy sometimes," she said.

Line of Sight

2009-11-02T11:53:00.004-05:00

I see Number Two through the corner of my eye. It seems, too often now, that other things hold the bulk of my attention. I was looking at the computer printer when my second born took his first steps. Suddenly he was at my side, having taken not one, not two, but a stumbling number of strides I hadn't even noticed.

I talk with other mothers at the park, or climb a ladder at The Boss's directive, while my son stands mired in wood chips next to a swing. He's not verbal like his big sister was (and is). He does not demand attention with a smile and a laugh the way she always has. The Boss insists upon sharp focus; Number Two is peripheral.

He is short and strangely solid. He's never weighed much, but you wouldn't know it from looking at him sideways. His hair is white and his eyes are freaking huge. Sometimes when I don't expect him to be looking at me, I jump back from the shock of his scrutiny.

You don't have to look close to see his beauty. I embrace that now, though I used to pride myself on a lack of maternal delusion when it came to my children's physical attributes. I think most parents believe their children to be among the most beautiful specimens on the planet. With The Boss, I made it clear that I understood my daughter's rightful place in the order of things. Yes, she is above average; no, her face is not destined to launch a thousand ships. But whose is?

Now I realize that trying so hard to be impartial is tiring. When my gaze finally settles on Number Two at the end of the day, or maybe at odd intervals somewhere in the middle, I see the most handsome boy I have ever known. He looks a lot like his father, a bit like my brother.

In his wide eyes there's even something of me.

No Promises

2009-11-01T14:09:00.005-05:00

It is that time again, wherein I post every day for a month to make up for posting only once during each 29-31 day cycle the rest of the year. I've participated in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) several times now. Two separate Novembers ended in the fulfillment of my daily-posting obligation; only one November met with failure sometime around Thanksgiving. I'm confident that this year will be another success story.

Sometimes, though, confidence is misplaced and a little honesty would serve me better. I realize this in theory. The other day I witnessed a more practical approach.

My friend was frazzled at the library as she chased her four year old son and his wild friend who, she was startled to realize, had never before visited any hallowed institution of reading. The two boys--led by the unconsecrated one--tore through the aisles as they screamed and shrieked and demanded cartoon DVDs. My friend looked at The Boss, standing demurely in the children's book section, and weakly suggested a trade. I laughed a little too hard. Sometimes I lack empathy.

Finally, we all exited the library together. My friend's hair was actually standing up, the curls frizzing above brows gone berserk. I would've felt bad for her, but I knew the playdate would be over in a half hour.

"Boys, next time we come back to the library, you are going to have to be better behaved," she said.

I did a double take. Come back? Some people never learn.

Her son nodded his shaggy blond head as he climbed into his car seat. Then the other boy leapt over the center console into the driver's spot, where he grabbed the steering wheel and began to rev his verbal motor in the absence of the car key. Spit flew.

She prodded him. "Next time you'll have to be a bit quieter, and you'll have to walk more slowly."

He shrugged and, with a sure self-awareness that belied his four years, laid it on the line there in the parking lot. "No promises," he said. No promises.

The Freakin' Stink

2009-10-02T12:12:00.005-05:00

It happened on the way home from The Partner's parents' house. Apparently, they fed me something they shouldn't have. I let one loose in the midst of a car load consisting of The Partner, The Boss, Number Two, the dog, and me, the fart queen. The odor made its way back to The Boss.

"Ewww! What is that freakin' stink?" she yelled. "What is it? What's the freakin' stink?"

I tried to decide whether to laugh hysterically or to suggest that she reevaluate her word choice. Instead, I indulged the conversation. "It was me. I farted."

"Oh, so you're the freakin' stink," she said. Then, because she's nothing if not supportive: "That's okay. I still love you."

The Boss: In It to Win It

2009-09-19T13:16:00.005-05:00

I have no idea what The Boss knows. I haven't got any context for this four year old girl and the way in which she assigns meaning to the world around her. Hints come out only in cryptic bits.

"I don't want to go to heaven. I want to live more," she told me as we watched an HBO Family show that broached the topic of death in a segment on dreamcatchers. "I want to live more than ever."

I nodded. She was nestled in the microsuede loveseat across from me. I was on the sofa, where the leather crackled beneath me as I pulled my feet in close to my seat. It was cold. I rubbed my hands together, less in heated promise than in prayer. I am always searching for the words. "You will," I said. Yeah, that's good, I thought to myself. I nodded again. "You will."

Do Re Mi on the Loudspeakers, or, Aunt Flo Has Left the Building

2009-09-18T10:28:00.005-05:00

I was crying in front of the laptop, moved to tears by the viral video of 200 people dancing to The Sound of Music's Do Re Mi at a train station in Antwerp. From the first splash of the salt-laced liquid on my desk, I had to wonder what the hell was wrong with me. I cried and contemplated, unable to enjoy the strange wonder of the moment.

A quick assessment of the facts didn't lead to me to any conclusions: a catchy tune reverberating from loudspeakers across a huge expanse of stone and marble; people going about their business; a few of them breaking into dance; more and more joining in; and, finally, a whole lotta happiness! As it ended, I remained in front of my computer, stumped. I couldn't understand why my emotions needed out of my body so badly because of a bunch of Belgians.

That's when the first of two truths became evident. The logical idea of questioning my hormones reminded me immediately that it was, indeed, almost that time of the month. My visit to the loo a few minutes later proved that it was exactly that time of the month. I felt strangely proud of the fact that my mind was so in tune with my body that I could pinpoint just when my monthly need for Tampax would commence. I am nothing if not self-aware.

The second truth--what is left when I consider that even hormones need some basis in logic with which to operate--is that I love spectacle. I love boardwalks with neon lights flashing and amusement rides twirling in the hot night. I love propagandist montages with soaring eagles and black and white photos of immigrants. I love gospel choirs. I'd love the circus if it didn't smell so bad. I am putty in the hands of those seeking to play with people's emotion. I love a parade!

It's a nice video. It would have something for all the senses, if only one could feel the grime of the train station and smell the body odor of 600 Europeans. It filled me to the brim with happiness, forcing out these womanly tears of the temporarily insane. But so what if I'm a little nuts. Worse things have happened. Worse things will continue to happen. And when they do, spectacles like these that will remind me that it is still possible to be overcome by something good.

Put Down the Phone

2009-09-14T12:14:00.007-05:00

It was the end of a day full of errands as The Partner, the kids and I traveled up a two lane state highway toward home. This particular stretch of semi-bucolic road is known as a death trap due, in part, to exorbitant levels of traffic that would be better routed elsewhere. Construction began in 1971 on an expressway to alleviate the congestion, but was halted because of lack of funding. The half-baked expressway ends abruptly in my town, with traffic forced to exit before the weedy approach to an overpass that leads nowhere.

It's imperative to stay in one's own lane in the best of circumstances; on this road, it's the only means of survival. There WILL be oncoming traffic. On this trip home, we were following a young driver who, apparently, didn't get that email. And it wasn't for lack of it being sent through his BlackBerry.

The car swerved slightly into the oncoming lane. It's to early to be drunk, I thought, though I know the laws of probability didn't mean it wasn't possible. The car swerved again, right next to an SUV sailing by in the other direction.

"I bet that asshole is texting," The Partner said.

We followed the car for five or so miles until the intersection that serves as the center of our town, and as a busy thoroughfare between towns much larger. Both cars stopped at the traffic light side by side as we lined up to turn right. The other car's passenger side window was open. The Partner rolled down his.

"Put down the phone!" The Partner yelled.

A tow headed teenager was caught in mid-grin as he chuckled at a message on the cell in his hand. He jolted, searching for the source of the directive. The boy clutched his phone as he focused in on us, agape.

"You were all over the road back there!" Evidently, this young man had never been spoken to like that. He could do nothing but stare. The phone hovered.

"PUT DOWN THE FUCKING PHONE!"

The boy jumped, the cell coming to a rest in the center console. The light changed. We drove off in separate directions.

If The Partner's reaction seems overblown and indicative of supreme road rage, there may be some truth to that conclusion. But more pressing in The Partner's mind were the images of a YouTube video he saw recently that graphically depicts a car accident resulting from a young driver texting while driving. I haven't seen it--won't watch it--but The Partner told me as much as I could handle. He said it showed a small child in the backseat, strapped into a a carseat behind two dead parents. Then a tiny voice: "Mommy, daddy, wake up!"

That is what gets The Partner. That is the only thing that melts his heart of ice. Every tiny voice is The Boss's, every baby girl is his. As far as the protection of his daughter is concerned, his is a primal rage, on the road or anywhere else.

Put down the fucking phone.

Me Time

2009-09-03T12:09:00.006-05:00

Parenting young children requires a selflessness that is more apparent in its whole than its parts. On any given day, I don't necessarily recognize that my every act is dependent upon one of the subordinates running around at my feet. I might grab a cup of coffee and think it's about me, or read a chapter from a book and feel renewed. I might even get out for an evening with the Partner. But I know that, looking back on it when I am in the position to do so, I will understand that there was a span of 10+ years during which I was not myself. I was the mother of small children.

I define my personal time by small pleasures. For the road: one medium iced coffee, one sugar, skim milk. I drive scenic routes through our rural Connecticut environs for the sake of peace and quiet. I listen to the Howard Stern Show if the situation is right (e.g. the child(ren) in the car are under the age of 2 and/or not sufficiently verbal to rat me out to anyone). At home, I sneak in some HGTV. After the kids go to bed, I might drink wine from a box (it's come a long way) or bourbon and Coke. Through it all, I read at random moments.

The bigger projects are done in fits and starts, while the kids are sleeping, or at school, or the TV is on. It’s so haphazard. I make plans for myself that aren't kid-related and I wonder how I will get them done. I'm sure that, a few years from now, I'll see this period even more clearly for the personal impasse that it is and be amazed that I accomplished anything at all.

Research for my novel happens while Number Two naps or when The Partner can stay home to watch the kids. I coordinate the production of a quarterly town magazine that is about to cease publication because I cannot be the editor, business manager and layout designer all at once. For free. At morning meetings or in scattered moments after noon, I help run a club that gives other parents of younger children an outlet for themselves and their kids.

This morning Number Two threw his arms around my leg while I fried up two eggs in the kitchen. I think he said "I love you."

These days are busy and full. They aren't mine, but that's fine. One day I'll have time for me again, and that's precisely when I'll begin to look longingly at exactly what I have now: a quick coffee from the Keurig; sheets of paper strewn about my office covered in ideas for plot and characterization; one load in the washer, one in the dryer, four on the floor; and a growing baby clinging to my right calf, reminding me exactly why the best moments of my life aren't about me at all.

Undefined Value

2009-09-01T13:14:00.005-05:00

A group of women got to talking about life insurance coverage. Who has it, who doesn't. I mentioned that my husband, at my urging, finally bucked up and purchased a policy for himself, but that I do not personally have one. The latter fact is based on The Partner's assertion that I have no monetary value, which is a supportable (and sad) assertion once one does the math. I am currently raising my kids and working on a novel; neither gig promises a big payoff anytime soon.

Some of these women were confounded by this logic, and probably more than a little offended by the idea that stay-at-home moms are construed by some as having no value. The added cost of child care alone, they said, was enough justification for purchasing a policy in my name.

I brought the issue to The Partner before I responded to the group. Not wanting to put words in his mouth, and not wanting to spew out that kind of shit in my own name, I looked for a quote. He chose his words carefully. He knew this would end up on the Internet.

"You used the words 'no value' and that's not true," he said. "It's just that your value is not high enough that it justifies the additional insurance premiums."

Oh, right. I nodded. Please go on.

"I make enough money that, if you were not around, there would be extra costs but it would be within my means."

I nodded again. He saw my skepticism and he leaned back in a shrug that said sorry, but I can't fight facts.

"Having a lot of insurance just means that people have a vested interest in your death." He smiled apologetically. "You should be happy that you're not insured. You're worth more to me alive than dead."

I laughed. A lot. Long and hard.

He kills me.

Bloody Right

2009-08-27T12:21:00.006-05:00

It was cool yellows and blues and greens outside when I brought The Boss to the lab for bloodwork this morning. Inside, the empty office was shockingly white. It smelled of a cleaning product and paint combo. The Boss, though feverish and fatigued for the five days prior, galloped around the waiting room with vigor. When the sole phlebotomist on duty brought us back to the bloodwork room, she gestured to Number Two and asked who was going to hold him. I looked at her, I looked at him, and I looked at The Boss. "I am," I said.

"Then who's going to sit with her?"

"She can sit there by herself," I said.

The nurse gave me a skeptical look. A four year old? Alone in that stark white seat for a blood draw? Well, I never. "If she can't sit still, I'll have to send you to another lab with more staff. I'm all alone here."

I nodded. I was, strangely, not worried.

The Boss climbed into the chair with the kind of confident ease she brings to everything she does. The nurse tied the rubbery band tight around her arm and, without fanfare and with only a "don't move, now," slid the needle into her arm. The Boss watched everything, unflinchingly.

It was over in seconds, and the nurse was flabbergasted. That's what she said. "I am flabbergasted." I would've liked to have been a little I-told-you-so about it, but I was too discombobulated to muster the smiling raise of my eyebrows.

"I have never, ever, in all my years seen a child sit there like that," she said. She was no spring chicken, either. "Most adults aren't that good."

I nodded. I fall into that category myself. It was probably better that I hadn't held The Boss in my lap as that needle went in. She would've sensed my fear. She would've known that this was, perhaps, a situation to be wary of. Instead she saw me right there in front of her, a squirming boy in my arms, and knew I trusted her to be where she was. The Boss has always done well by my faith.

I guess that means I've done well by her.

The Bathroom Soap Opera

2009-08-23T16:00:00.005-05:00

"I can't reach the hand soap on the bathroom counter," The Boss said, bursting into the living room in a flurry of eye rolls and the pursing of lips.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize." I was a bit taken aback by the histrionics. I directed her toward more accessible soap and told her I'd rectify the situation when I was done feeding her brother.

The Boss was not deterred. "Why did you do that, mom? Why'd you put the soap so far back?" She stared at me with her father's righteousness while she contorted her mouth into one of so many expressions that even strangers comment on. "Did you think my arm was as long as yours? Did you?"

I refrained from comment.

The Boss's eyebrows danced above huge blue disks, rising and falling amidst all that width of sight. Then she flourished her right arm in accusation and demonstration. "It's this long, mom. My arm is this long."

***

Parenting requires a change in perspective. So often, it demands a getting-down-on-one's-knees approach. Whether it's a proactive lowering to see things at a child's level or a request for forgiveness that comes after the fact, I've discovered that I cannot effectively mother my children from 5 feet plus. If I didn't consciously acknowledge this before today, I have no choice but to keep it in mind from now on. The Boss told me so. And thus it is.

For a short girl, The Boss has high expectations.

Don't Burst His Bubble

2009-07-20T13:29:00.003-05:00

Number Two loves balls. His own, of course (what boy doesn't?), but also the other varieties: beach, base, basket, tennis, foam, and bouncy, just to name a few. His infatuation started with a balloon and now that's what he calls all these round objects, invoking the name with a precise glee that contradicts his otherwise meager vocabulary. My boy cannot--dare I say will not--utter the word "mama," but balloon rolls off his tongue with a smooth "ball" and then an "OON" that pops.

He could play with his balls all day (not unlike The Partner, though in that case I'm again referring to the baser definition). Number Two once had a pink helium-filled balloon that he chased around the house for a week until it was nothing but a pathetic choking hazard. He learned to walk, I believe, because it was easier to carry balls that way. He won't eat when in the presence of balls because food just isn't as interesting.

I was worried about his lack of vocabulary until "balloon" came along. Now I realize he only says what he wants to say. He is pointed. He is determined. He is a toddling, ball-holding bundle of obsession.

My baby boy's got balls.

A Trip Halfway Across the Country - Part II (In No Particular Order)

2009-07-13T13:01:00.004-05:00

We took our 27' recreational vehicle across 8 states with 6 occupants in 4 days before arriving in Missouri. Two of the travellers were under 4 years of age; one was over 60; another was a dog. The Partner drove. I sat in the front passenger seat, alternately reading, sleeping, and watching corn stalks whizz by.

The Boss's oft-professed hatred of Interstates did not articulate itself on the journey, except for one or two "I do not care for highways" that she threw in more as statements of fact than of complaint. Number Two kicked up his heels in his bucket car seat and only resorted to cries upon becoming hungry, a condition quickly alleviated when my mother would rush to his side with gifts of crackers and cheese.

We drove for more than 9 hours a day on the way out. We'd stay each night at a different state park or, on one occasion, at the home of friends. Each day got later, with the sun and moon competing for evening domination. The moon won out, as it always does, but the brighter ball of light put up a more valiant fight than it ever did back home in the northeast.

The rhythm of asphalt under 15,000 pounds of automobile set the tone to our days. The Partner and I were discordant in the front seats during arguments that went largely unheard by those in the back. My mother read to the Boss, or read to herself, or looked out the window for 40 year old memories in the form of defunct Indiana Army bases.

We saw things we don't usually see, like porcupines in the median, and Sonic Drive-Ins, and a river called the Mississippi. Most of all we saw this huge part of the United States that is integral in a way we'd never understood as suburbanized citizens of Connecticut.

The ride was long and uneventful. We drove for 1600 miles on the roads that drive us.

A Trip Halfway Across the Country - Part I (In No Particular Order)

2009-07-08T14:23:00.007-05:00

The house sat on a lake in Kansas. Unlike Kansas, it was modern and glassy. Like Kansas, it sprawled. The place belonged to the daughter of my father's brother, and it was our first visit.

Uncle Sonny left Hartford for good in the 50s. He stopped in Topeka more than twenty years ago, setting up house in grand style. His daughter's place is grander still, built on the strength of her husband's endodontics practice in a town with lots of bad teeth and few practitioners with the two extra years of schooling necessary to root all those canals.

Not long after we arrived, my mother asked me if I'd seen the bathroom. "It has a window for a wall," she whispered. I raised an eyebrow at her. "A window," she repeated. "For a wall!"

Two Bud Light Lime's later, I saw it for myself. I closed the door behind me to find a toilet to my left, a sink like white art to my right, and an unobstructed view of the lake in front of me. The wall was floor-to-ceiling glass. A screen, which could be raised and lowered via a control panel next to the door, was in the descended position. I could see out, but nobody could see in. Not unless they really tried, anyway.

The grass rolled from patio to deck to beach. Two boats sat parallel on a slip. The Boss was a red, white and blue dart across it all. The Partner sat on an weather proof cushion under a tree as he pulled at a beer bottle while talking to the endodontist. I went about my business, more conscious than usual of my every shadowy move. I exited with my back to the door until the last moment, marveling.

After awhile, dusk fell. My northeastern nights are early; these were late and lazy. The sun was weightless in its last gold hold-off to night. The Partner suddenly nudged me from where we stood on the grass between the house and the lake. "Oh my God, I can see someone in the bathroom!"

I looked up one level and my eyes went buggy. The familiar stoop of shoulders like my father's, of a craggy face like Uncle Jack's, was centered in that clear square of glass. I looked away. "We've got to tell someone," I said, not waiting to lurch off toward the patio in search of my cousin, or the endodontist, or any of the family members in a position to do something (although I'm not sure what) about it.

Uncle Sonny is the oldest of my uncles. He's a sharp shooting joker with three children and a bevy of grands and greats. A year ago, or maybe two, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. There's medicine now to slow the progression, but his wife told me it's not working. The first night we arrived, he locked himself in his truck and couldn't get out. At a picnic on the fourth, he met an old acquaintance he no longer knew. My aunt says she can't get used to it, this evolution amidst the sameness of each new day.

"There's someone using the bathroom with the shade up!" I said to Andy, the first of my second cousins that I came upon.

"It's Uncle Sonny," The Partner added.

Andy turned back to the house and went in through the sliding doors. My duty done, I leaned against the deck railing. I thought of the shade's control panel right next to the light switch; I thought how the mistake could easily happen. I thought of the murkiness of the short-term against the clear view of a lake made to glisten by the tips of a fading sun. Below Uncle Sonny, his children and his brothers' children conversed, relaxed. Our own children played.

He looked over it all--caught inside that strange, contemporary enclosure of bodily functions--for all the world to see.

The Blue Glow

2009-06-17T11:10:00.012-05:00

Sometimes at night, the tinted screen of the computer makes a haze that is the only evidence an outsider can see of life within my window.

This is me when I'm reading your blog, or clicking on the "newlywed" bulletin board I continue to visit without knowing why, or Googling "recurrent high fever infants" to find some reasoning behind the fact that Number Two spikes a temperature of 104 if he so much as looks at a bacterium.

Sometimes the calendar on the wall is two weeks out of date; sometimes it's a month. Sometimes my answering machine blinks with a message that I've already heard, being that I was sitting right in front of it as the caller left a taped proclamation of her desire to speak with me. Sometimes my desk is messier. It's rarely neat.

The glow is more fascinating than the reality. It's the not knowing. It's the imagination of children as they drive by houses on a summer evening, looking in windows while the warm air pushes through their own cracked glass.

It's always bluer on the other side.

***

Thanks to Mrs. Chicken and Lauren for inspiring this post.

A Precursor to Another Father's Day

2009-06-15T11:57:00.005-05:00

I found The Partner's first Father's Day in an old blog of mine. It went like this:

Last night The Partner did the most amazing thing. He walked into the banshee's lair, placed his hand on her writhing back, and lulled her to sleep with his presence. The incredible part isn't that she calmed down so easily; it's that he reached out. The gesture was a year in the making. His hands-on approach toward swapping out car engines or turbo-charging lawnmowers never extended to the day-to-day maintenance of a baby. What he wanted from life was simple: cars, trucks, boats, cable television and pie. He thought a wife to hand him the torque wrench and laugh uproariously at his jokes would be quite nice, too. At 27, he was sure he had a few more good years of buying toys and watching Modern Marvels on the History Channel before Father's Day would be anything but a celebration of his own dad's role in his upbringing. At 28, he realized he was wrong. Much petulance ensued.

When I told him I was pregnant and he was unenthused, I pushed it to the back of my mind with the ever hopeful "he'll get excited when I start to show and it becomes more real to him." When I started to show, I figured he'd come around when he felt her kick from within. When her kick made him jerk his hand back with an incredulous "it's like a God damned alien in there," I was sure that her birth would be the moment of true acceptance. Unfortunately, I was unconscious for that and cannot make an identification either way. All I know is that I came to and there was nothing to indicate that the bond I was anticipating had been forged. Until yesterday. Until Father's Day.

The Partner was adamant that he didn't want any gifts. So I didn't get him any. But we had what turned out to be a nice visit to his parents' house and, on the drive down, I laughed a lot. He likes when I do that and I guess, yesterday, it was as good for him as it was for me. At his parents' home, we conversed and ate and ogled the happy baby. Our dog drank too much water and peed on their carpet. The ride home was companionably silent.

After I nursed The Boss and put her in her crib, she was too exhausted to sleep. The air was thick with humidity and with dust from the inaugural use of our big box fan. I laid on top of the sheets in my underwear while she cried it out. I heard my husband at the top of the stairs and saw the hall go black. I thought the creaking floorboards would lead him to our bedroom, but the doorway remained empty. Suddenly there was only the white hot noise of the fan. Several minutes later he padded into bed. He set the alarm for 7:30 a.m.

"How'd you get her to do that?" I asked the ceiling as he laid on his back beside me.

"I just put my hand on her back till she fell asleep."

"Oh." A breeze that wasn't light or heavy rustled through the curtains. I thought, this is why I love the beginning of summer. Things you have been waiting for so long finally start to happen.

Inscrutable

2009-06-09T08:47:00.007-05:00

I don't know Number Two.

I know he likes balloons and baths. I know he's calm most of the time, except for when he's tired, or when I return from somewhere else and he suddenly realizes I was gone. Then his upper lip starts to quiver over a straight bottom one, and his eyes wrinkle a bit as tears wait for just one more crease to push them over the edge.

But in this one whole year, I don't yet know him.

His time is his alone. My time is for feeding and changing him; for meeting every ramped up demand of his big sister; for housework and homework. He plays by my side, or crawls fast around the first floor in time with the rhythms of our life. His moves don't elicit the attention that The Boss's every one earned the first time around. I don't force myself into his head the way I did with his sister. There are too many heads now. There is too much going on to figure it all out. He's happy to avoid analysis. He's content with a tickle and a big laugh.

When The Boss was one, I did not understand the shortness of twelve months. So I had to know her right away. I made it my business. Now I know a year is a blink--the kind of blink, like Number Two's, that finally makes the tears spill over--and that it doesn't have to hold all the answers.

I will know him soon enough. I'll know him well enough. Then, and for a short time, I'll know him better than anybody.

100 Things About Me - Part IV

2009-06-08T13:48:00.004-05:00

76. After some job changes, and in yet another example of the efficacy of a liberal arts degree, I worked in a factory bending metal for several months during 2002.
77. The Partner asked my father for permission to marry me in a clandestine driveway encounter at my parents’ house while I sat oblivious in the living room.
78. My father told my mother, who promptly told me.
79. I get angry just thinking about it.
80. The proposal, slightly less of a surprise than intended, came on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, which was the site of one of our earliest and most romantic dates.
81. The Partner-to-be and I bought a house in sin.
82. There was a mechanical bull at our wedding reception.
83. The latter part of our European honeymoon was spent with my in-laws.
84. When I got pregnant three months later, we waited till the end of the first trimester to tell anyone, including my parents.
85. My mother expressed outrage at not being trusted with the secret.
86. The Boss’s birth was a medical clusterfuck, if you’ll pardon the expression. Proper English simply does not convey my meaning.
87. The Boss was such a good baby.
88. If only my hormones were as cooperative.
89. I am a stay-at-home mom in name only. The Boss and I prefer to go out.
90. I put 30,000 miles on the car that first year.
91. I love Cadillacs.
92. It wasn’t until I became a mother that really became myself.
93. I completed my first book project when The Boss was a year old.
94. When she was two, we moved to the home in which we hope to raise our family.
95. She did not take kindly to the news that she was to become a big sister.
96. The Boss sensed imminent labor before I did. Hours before my first contraction hit, she let out a shriek. “It’s not fun being bigger and older!” She threw herself face-down onto our bed. “It’s not fun!” She threw herself back. The Partner and I reached out to her in our last huddle as a family of three.
97. I gave birth to Number Two after fifteen drug-free hours, thanks to The Partner and our Fairy Goddoula.
98. My son’s first year was a blur.
99. I don’t expect that view to change.
100. I save moments in writing because my clarity comes from words.

All Rabbits Go to Heaven

2009-06-04T18:03:00.004-05:00

Roxie was out of food. The Boss and I walked into the local dispensary of Wellness dog chow to stock back up. The store was filled with agricultural sundries as well as an array of gifts displayed around horse, American Flag, and lighthouse themes. Upon entrance, we were met by a collection of fowl pecking out at us from a multi-level enclosure.

The Boss watched for a few seconds, jumping back as one of the stringy chicks threatened to gouge out part of her anatomy. Then she submitted an interesting tidbit for discussion. "One of the animals in our class died. Fluffy died."

"Oh. Oh!" The sudden arrival of this moment, amidst caged turkeys at the feed store, caught me off guard. I knew it was important; I knew I should speak. But I've never been good under pressure. It's been accomplishment enough when I don't begin to flap my arms and hop around on one foot during a crisis situation.

"It's okay," The Boss told me. She was somber but sure. "Miss Kathy buried her."

"Oh. Oh!" I felt choked up by the loss of the white rabbit that had been a part of The Boss's daily life during her first year at school. I needed to say something to comfort her. The lack of words, coupled with my fierce desire to speak anyway, caused me to stutter a few times on "I."

The Boss stopped me. "It's okay," she repeated, more adamantly this time. Then she shrugged. Her arms were out at her sides, palms up, as if holding necessary weight atop each hand.

She thought for a minute, searching, like me, for words of comfort. I couldn't believe it. My daughter was trying to soothe us both.

"Fluffy is safe," The Boss said, finally. Her shoulders lifted again. "It's okay."

Note: Looking for the final installment of 100 Things About Me? Well, I guess it's not the first time I left you hanging. Numbers 76-100 will be posted shortly.

100 Things About Me - Part III

2009-06-02T10:05:00.008-05:00

51. I expected to share my first college dorm room with another student, but I sent in my registration form too late and was put in a single on the hall of misfit frosh.
52. I wore a sterling silver crucifix around my neck the day my parents dropped me off in Virginia. I’ve been told I struck my hallmates as quiet and demure, but that was mostly because my mother did all the talking.
53. I secured a date with a cadet from the Virginia Military Institute on my second day at school.
54. There was a Lost Boys poster on my wall and a bottle of Jim Beam on my dresser.
55. My closest friends that year were from southwest Virginia, upstate New York, and Maine. Only one remains in touch.
56. I met my future husband via the Member Directory search function of America On-Line during the fall of my sophomore year. I was supposed to be studying for mid-terms. Sending random Instant Messages to remote frat boys proved more productive.
57. We met in person the following spring. Up until that point, I hadn’t even seen a photo of him, though he’d seen mine. It didn’t matter. I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed.
58. I wasn’t.
59. We dated casually for the next two years.
60. My next batch of close college friends were keepers. We’re the same way—each of us as crazy as the other, each as crazy as we ever were—to this day.
61. My college summers revolved around the 3-11 p.m. shift at the snack shack where I’d been employed since high school.
62. After work, I'd go home to my parent's place and put on jogging clothes to run four dark miles.
63. Each jogging session was accompanied by the mixed tape made by my one remaining freshman friend. I remember the songs to this day: Shelter From the Storm by Dylan, Wannabe by the Spice Girls, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac.
64. Then I'd come home, eat a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats, and chat online with The Partner-to-be until 4 in the morning.
65. While maintaining one casual, long distance relationship, I started dating a VMI cadet back at college.
66. At the end of our junior year, we traveled cross country to his home in Washington. His truck had a manual transmission which I learned to operate respectably, if not well.
67. His mother drank a nightly Manhattan on the patio beneath a sun that set so slowly it seemed to brighten midnight.
68. When the cadet finally decided I needed to choose between him and The Partner, it was a no-brainer.
69. I think I miss his mother the most.
70. It wasn’t until the morning of graduation that I learned I had not earned the concentration in creative writing I anticipated in conjunction with my English Literature major. I was one class short. Luckily, my second degree in Communication Studies remained unscathed.
71. My graduation gift from The Partner was a smaller, personalized version of the monogrammed ID bracelet he wore every day.
72. When my first job as a certified professional landed me near The Partner’s hometown, I told everyone that I wasn’t following him. It was partly true, inasmuch as he wasn’t living there at the time--he was finishing up college in New York. Still, I had reason to hope he’d move back.
73. He didn’t.
74. He first told me loved me in a drunken stupor on his 22nd birthday, right before he pulled down my pants in a forced moon on the overtime cop working the bar across the street.
75. I arrived early at work one remarkably blue-skied morning. It was the last time I’d have no context for the statement I overheard on the other side of my cube: “A plane flew into the World Trade Center.” What? My eyebrows crunched in confusion; my fingers tapped CNN.com into existence on the screen of my Mac. What?

100 Things About Me - Part II

2009-05-29T14:03:00.003-05:00

26. My brother had the kind of temper that would make a huge vein pop out on his forehead.
27. I was afraid of that vein.
28. My fourth grade teacher was a recent divorcee. One day she told us about her wedding dress and what a colossal pain in the ass it was to put on. She described hundreds of buttons all along the back that took her bridesmaid an hour to secure.
29. I won grand prize at the town-wide Fine Arts Fair, circa 1989, for my book titled “Witchimina Fafner and the Popularity Elixir.”
30. In junior high, I would wear sneakers on gym day no matter what else I had on. It was not unusual to see me in a sweater, a suede skirt, nylons and white Reeboks.
31. I ran for eighth grade class president on the “Don’t Clown Around, Vote for Binky” ticket.
32. I lost.
33. I hated junior high.
34. My sister was born when I was thirteen years old.
35. As a pre-teen, I became infatuated with the movie Young Guns and the series Young Riders. I wrapped a sheet of blue construction paper around a coffee tin, cut a slot in the cover, and christened it my “Wild West Fund.” I called the 1-800 number advertised on television for a free Texas travel guide. I never saved up.
36. Subsequent infatuations included the Italian mafia, racecar drivers, and the men of the United States military.
37. The best teacher I ever had was my ninth grade civics teacher. He took a group of us to Yale to see Norman Mailer speak and another group of us to visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. He gave me a copy of Armies of the Night; Ben Bradlee’s autobiography; and a written recommendation that my college interviewer said she would never forget.
38. The worst teacher I ever had taught Shakespeare as an elective. His was more of a core curriculum mentality. On the second occasion that I forgot to bring my big, honking anthology to class, he took me out into the hall and berated me for several minutes. He had closed the classroom door; it shook from the screaming.
39. There were days when the only person who would sit at my table during lunch was the learning disabled boy who bagged groceries for me at the supermarket where I worked as a cashier.
40. I hated high school.
41. I was a member of the creative writing club and editor of the literary magazine.
42. One day, just before I turned seventeen, it occurred to me that there was nothing stopping me from having sex.
43. So I did.
44. It was a marvelous epiphany.
45. I started looking for colleges based on two criteria: distance from home and the quality of the creative writing program.
46. When I found the school that fit the bill perfectly, I was not deterred by the fact that it was an all women’s college.
47. I figured I could do without the day-to-day distraction of men.
48. I did, however, make sure there was ample supply nearby.
49. My early decision application was accepted.
50. I got a D in English on my final high school report card.

100 Things About Me - Part I

2009-05-28T11:38:00.003-05:00

1. I am a New Englander born and raised; I used to think that stoicism lacks story, but now I know it’s just a different way of telling.
2. There’s addiction in my blood.
3. I was an only child for my formative years. Though I have a brother and a sister, as well as a half-brother and half-sister, mine is more of a sole child psychology.
4. I remember very little from those years, except for:
5. The time we stayed in a cottage on the Sacandaga and bats flew in my bedroom;
6. Dad’s weeks-long stay at that place in New Hampshire, which I visited wearing my corduroy coat with the faux fur trim;
7. The smell of Marlboro hands;
8. And throwing up once at daycare.
9. My parents were cops.
10. They dated only a few months before they married.
11. They were married a year and a half before they had me.
12. I was conceived after the wedding of a good friend of my father. Mom brings up this fact whenever the couple’s anniversary is mentioned, which, thankfully, is not often.
13. Mom is similarly free in divulging the fact that I was a conehead at birth. Personally, I don’t see why she has to draw such attention to her vaginal canal.
14. My first bedroom was wallpapered with pale blue partridges.
15. I hated naptime.
16. I remember reading my first word. It was S-T-O-P on a sign near the supermarket. I was in the back of my father’s small pickup, sitting on the wheel well under the cap. One could travel like that back then.
17. Each of my grandparents died when I was small. Well, not my mother’s father, but we were estranged from him, so it was all the same to me.
18. I had four uncles on my father’s side and three on my mom’s.
19. I was six years old when my brother was born.
20. We moved to a house with a pool when I was seven.
21. I have a summer birthday.
22. Uncle Bob was the lifeguard at each year's pool party.
23. I always wanted an ice cream cake, but I seldom got one.
24. My mom once gave me a horrible home perm. Combined with my Coke bottle eyeglasses and that fact that they were consistently focused on a book, it is no surprise I was the biggest nerd in town.
25. In third grade, I was the teacher’s pet.

A Spring Landscape

2009-05-01T09:21:00.004-05:00

There’s no rain now, but the fog is thin everywhere. It mutes the foliage just starting to show. The green is more startling at ground level, where a lawnmower could stand to chug if the rusting heap weren’t still parked next to the shed, enmeshed in a pile of detritus from last year’s fall.

On the tree where pears will grow, there are white blooms in leaf jackets. The evergreens nearby haven’t changed. The bee baum looks coarse in all this wetness; when the sun shines again I will clip the stalks low to make room for new growth that will become a base for humming birds and for the fuzzy flying buzz that lends the plant its name.

Up high, it could still be winter. If there are buds there, then they are no brighter than the gray. Bony knuckles clench in a wave; if it’s “hi” or “bye,” I don’t know. I can’t hear above the wind, but I can see them clearly, the vapor accentuating their witchy plainness: fat for stalks but thin for trees, bending high but unmoving where bark meets root.

It’s steel in the sky, a woody mold just below, and then, at my feet, so much lushness where the slush used to be.

Green rises like heat. Soon it will eat the trees. It will mix with the sun to turn the sky blue.

Smoke Through a Keyhole

2009-03-30T10:47:00.008-05:00

The Partner was home all day with no big plans to fix all that was failing around him. We ate breakfast first, which he cleared as I nursed Number Two. Then the baby napped. The Partner and The Boss played a board game. I shut the door on them all and ran a bath.

Later we watched home movies of The Boss when she was the age Number Two is now. I had no recollection. Was she really ever so tiny? I looked down to where she sat, nestled in my arm on the love seat, and I found it hard to see her as anything other than what she was at that very moment. The past, though vivid on the screen, was faded; the future, a blur. I patted the solid bend of her leg next to mine.

Then we were diverted to a flea market, where we bought a camping chair for $2. At home again, I cleaned up breakfast pans I'd left sitting. The Partner kissed my neck from behind me. The Boss watched a movie. Number Two played in a pen of primary colors.

The Boss's bath came before dinner. I lined up foam letters in short word formation on the wall of the tub. I held my breath as The Boss sounded out the first one.

"Puh-ah-duh. P-a-d. Pad!"

I screamed and clapped. I ran to get the Partner, who wore mechanics' overalls as he worked under my car in the garage. He followed me up the stairs to the bathroom.

"You've got to see this." I arranged three more letters in front of The Boss, who was splashing slap-happy as the center of attention. "She can read! She can really read!"

She studied the word. "Buh..."

The Partner and I stared down, nodding her on. My eyebrows were high in my forehead. I still wasn't breathing. "Yes?" I sucked in air, prodding.

"Buh...ah...guh. B-a-g. Bag!" The Boss fell forward like a seal, splashing water over the side of the tub, sending the letters sailing away. We were all spastic.

At the end of the night, after the dishwasher had been loaded and the kids' beds filled, The Partner and I sat down to a movie. I don't like to be sad on purpose, but I suggested The Bucket List anyway, thinking that an uplift would prevail. And it did. We've never been immune to schmaltz. Toward the end I cried so hard that my face hurt where the tears clogged my sinuses.

"It was the little girl that got me," The Partner said. She was the new found granddaughter Jack Nicholson kissed on the cheek; she was the most beautiful girl in the world. "I can't see a little blond and not think of our own adorable kid." His eyes were puffy. He sighed beneath the weight of pride. That breath propelled him into the star-struck addendum that follows almost any mention of The Boss: "She's the best." It takes a little more air away each time. "The best."

You won't hear me deny it. I've said it right here. We'll never be immune to schmaltz.

The Boss Needs a New Pair of Shoes

2009-03-26T16:32:00.005-05:00

The Boss has been down to one pair of shoes--snow boots, actually--for more than a month. Since the freezing New England temperatures hadn't done anything to contraindicate the use of fur-lined vinyl over plastic soles, I was not motivated to purchase alternate footwear when I first realized she had outgrown every other pair of shoes she owned.

Things changed yesterday. It was at the track behind the elementary school that she found herself left in the dust (let's be honest here--it was mud; I mean, the boots weren't totally unjustified) when the two boys she was playing with took off running. She couldn't keep up. She could only clomp. Then she could only slump. Then she could only sit there, kicking a sad sole into the dirt as her hair hung in front of her face.

My girl knows how to hang with the big boys. What stopped her from matching their stride this time was my bad planning and my inability to accept the ferocious pace at which young feet bust out of whatever tries to hold them in. I got down on the ground beside her and promised I'd take her for new sneakers as soon as possible.

Soon was today; possible was the mall. She found princess sneakers with lights that flashed in the rubber with each footfall. They were on clearance. I bought them. She insisted on holding the bag. We were on our way to the elevator when she saw a mannequin sporting bright pajamas on a pedestal ahead. "Look mom!" She shouted. "Look at that role model!"

She was running in front of me, the plastic sack smacking her thigh as her still-booted feet threatened to trip her up. She was enchanted by the smooth facelessness of the dummy. I half-grinned at her malapropism and half-cringed at her gait.

One thing was certain: if she fell flat on her face, it would be MY fault, not that of the role model she was looking up to.

Not Just a Spoke in My Menstrual Cycle

2009-03-24T10:41:00.006-05:00

The second half of any given 28-day span will find me with the hormonal urge to do nothing but watch HGTV and read crime fiction. I am more content to think than do. I don't plan ahead and I don't create. I'm a slave to the whims of estrogen.

I envy men their even keel. My husband's brain chemistry is simple and safe. In my head, on the other hand, it feels as if a middle school student with poor grades is conducting a never ending science experiment. It's all Bunsen burners and volatile solutions and things that go BOOM.

I'm menstrually manic. I fly high for the first half of the month; I creep below the radar for the second. More than childbirth or having to pee sitting down, it's these moods that make me wax bitter about being a women.

If I didn't have a history of breast cancer in the family, I'd pop a pill to regulate those hormones faster than you could say YAZ®. Instead, I let nature take its course.

Picture Day

2009-03-19T10:40:00.003-05:00

I bent into low balance on the balls of my feet as I hugged The Boss. "Have a great day," I said to the space between ear and cheek, then I kissed her there for good measure. "Don't forget to give your school picture form to your teacher."

Even as I gave that parting message, I wasn't much concerned about my daughter's follow-through. Maybe she'd remember, maybe she wouldn't. She's three years old. Things have a way of working out whether one makes a formal declaration as to the presence of a $22 check in one's backpack or not.

The Boss turned away from me and walked toward the end of the hall, where her head teacher waited in greeting. Per classroom custom, The Boss extended her hand and the teacher shook it.

"Wait, I have something for you," The Boss said, bending with purpose over her kangaroo backback and pulling a folded sheet of paper from the pouch. Her confidence belied her age as she handed the paper to the teacher.

"Thank you," said Miss Kathy.

"Thanks!" chirped The Boss.

I had been watching the exchange from the foyer door. That girl in the quilted botton-down coat made me marvel. There seemed to be nothing of me in her--not the forgetfulness, not the social distance, not the awkward manners. Her teacher smiled down at her and then looked over at me with a wink of amusement at The Boss's grace and courtesy.

I acknowledged Miss Kathy with a shake of my head. In the smile and the sigh, I meant to say I don't know where she gets it, and, in the incredulity, she is a person all her own.

These Precious Moments

2009-03-16T10:16:00.012-05:00

It was Wacky Hat Friday at the Catholic school in which I was a kindergartener. I wore a party hat--the cone-shaped kind with the annoying elastic digging into my chin--that my mother had covered with orange felt and decorated with construction paper dots. Bobbling atop the hat was a star on a coil. The class lurched into the auditorium for an assembly that I can only imagine was the culmination of yet another fundraiser.

A raffle was taking place onstage. I remember nothing of the offerings except for two Precious Moments baby dolls. They had blond hair and huge eyes. They were huggable-soft. I held my raffle ticket in a hand that shook to the beat of my thumping heart. At five years old, I'd never wanted anything so badly.

I didn't win, of course. The difference between then and now is that I actually thought I would. I probably cried. I'm sure I was sad all day. It is what I remember as my first disappointment.

Now I have a three year old daughter and a real-life baby doll of my very own. And suddenly, in the memory of twenty-five years, I realize that the gratification I sought in those Jesus Loves Me dolls wasn't denied but delayed. That blond hair, those big eyes and the huggable-softness of a gurgling core.

I can't believe it. I finally won something.

Photo by Lauren

A Bright Spot in Children's Night Lights: Sylvania PalPODzzz

2009-03-12T07:22:00.018-05:00

There are some things a night light can do, and some things it just might. The list for The Boss's new Sylvania PalPODzzz™ Portable Nightlight looks something like this:

CAN DO:

Light a dark room with a soft LED glow when the ladybug is docked on its pod. It automatically brightens as the room darkens.

Illuminate a path with a rechargeable LED flashlight beam when the ladybug is removed from its pod.

Act as a backup light during power outages.

Look really cute while it's performing the above functions (note: the photo does not do it justice).

Ladybug model

JUST MIGHT:

Help you potty train your child through the night. I had high hopes that the novelty of the fun little ladybug flashlight would lure The Boss out of the comfort of her bed and onto the potty, but it didn't happen. It turns out, however, that there is a rational basis to my wishful thinking , and it's been supported by Surrender Dorothy's experience. The PalPODzzz just may work as a night-training aid for your child, too.

Rocket ship model

Enter to win! The Parent Bloggers Network is hosting a blog blast! Write a post on your blog about your kids’ excuses for getting out of bedtime, and win a gift pack of super Sylvania products valued at $200! Visit the Parent Bloggers Network for more details.

My Muse Macabre

2009-03-11T09:08:00.007-05:00

Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses came on the cable screen the night my then-soon-to-be husband celebrated his bachelor party in Montreal. I was home alone, a fat goblet of wine threatening to overflow onto the coffee table in front of me as I chain smoked out the window with clandestine vigor. The fingers of my lift hand released their weak grip on the remote control and it fell to my side. I watched the whole horror show.

Triumph of Death c. 1562 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

I have a confused fascination with the macabre. Sometimes I can't look away and sometimes I can't look. There's a canvas print of the Triumph of Death hanging on my living room wall; I asked for and received part of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights for Christmas. The final painting in the room is a thrift shop find of a statue coming to life as decapitated heads watch with eyes and maws agape. I'm not sure most people notice. I know I generally don't.

I want to write a novel that is gothic and contemporary. Place is character. A house, maybe, where people have no choice but to notice the freaky paintings on the wall.

I can get there if I stop looking away.

Two Days in the Life

2009-03-05T11:18:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I left wet laundry in the washing machine. Today the whole load smells like a SweeTart.

Yesterday I agreed to be a speaker at a meeting about emotional support for birthing mothers. Today I tell myself I'll come up with my talking points tomorrow.

Yesterday I sat in our green, micro suede love seat while I fed Number Two. I looked down at him between pages of the book I was reading and thought "I need to just watch him, I need to slow down." He slurped a contented tempo. Today I sit in the same love seat, falling into a pillow, still trying to match his pace.

Yesterday I found a stash of saved emails and a journal from my college days. The Partner spent two hours reading through my angst, which was all about him. He thought it was funny and sweet. Today is just like yesterday; it's nothing like ten years ago.

Times are Tough

2009-03-02T15:24:00.006-05:00

Today I interviewed The Boss about her perceptions of me in the hope of eliciting some blog fodder. It worked for Toyfoto when she turned her reporter's notebook on her daughter, Annabel.

I did not have similar success.

The long list of questions included ones like this, "what do you do that makes your mom happy?" (her answer: not doing something bad) and this, "what do you do that makes your mom sad?" (her answer: doing something bad).

I almost threw in the towel completely when she cited "vegetables" as my favorite food. The exercise was shaping up to be a bust.

I didn't know that The Partner was listening from his home workstation in the corner of the kitchen until question #13 came up.

"What's your mom's job?" I asked The Boss.

"Cleaning the house," she replied.

I made a self-conscious little tee-hee at my daughter's gross misperception as the background click of the computer keyboard ceased beneath The Partner's fingers. There was glee in the gloat that emanated from the other room:

"You're fired!"

Ah, Youth: Eluding and Deluding Me

2009-02-27T12:33:00.005-05:00

The Boss notices everything. She remembers it all. I wish I had those qualities. She's three years old and I'm already jealous of her gifts.

"She's going to be the famous writer I've always wanted to be and I'm not going to be able to handle it," I told The Partner over dinner.

As usual, he refused to indulge me. "Don't worry. She might turn out to be a scientist." He looked over at the continent map she'd traced and colored at school that day. "Or a geographer."

"Maybe," I murmured. I slowly warmed up the idea. Then The Boss made another witty observation from across the table and even as I choked on laughter, my confidence cooled. I sighed. The Boss returned her attention to chasing rollaway peas around her plate with a spoon. "She's so much smarter than I ever was," I said.

The Partner was patient in his explanation of the circle of life. "At the stage she's at, it's her job to absorb things. It's all she does. She's supposed to notice the flowers. She's supposed to remember the colors. At the stage we're at, it's our job to filter out the noise." He looked me in the eyes, his own gaze narrowing as he went from theoretical to practical. "You? You can't afford to be distracted by the pretty flowers on the side of the road while you're driving."

I offered up the quick snort of acknowledgement he was looking for, then tossed his jibe aside. "But I can train myself. I can go back to her stage, to that frame of mind. It'll make me a better writer. I can be more observant and I can make myself remember things." I became increasingly impassioned with each passing phrase.

The Partner nodded. He's always been my biggest supporter. "Just not while you're driving," he said.

***

We have a winner! Liz Barlow, the woman who has only ever won a fanny pack, was randomly selected as the recipient of a MilkBank Breastmilk Storage System courtesy of Parent Bloggers Network. Congrats, Liz! Please email me with your contact information via the link in the upper right corner of this page so that I can get your prize right out to you. Thanks for playing.

Like Father, Like Son...Maybe

2009-02-26T12:28:00.007-05:00

I understand that children are designed to look like their fathers at birth so that the male's desire to flee is kept in check by his ego. Women as a whole do not need additional incentives to stick by their babies; men, on the other hand, lack nine months of shared biology tying them to their offspring. They look for themselves in the newness. They see the resemblence and think, "yeah, I guess he is mine."

There's no doubt that Number Two as a newborn looked uncannily like The Partner. And what do you know? Ten months in, The Partner is still here.

Now that the bond has been set and the child is biologically free to grow into his own person, I wonder how he will look? Am I deluding myself to think that there just might be a little of me in him after all? Recent findings support my theory. Just the other day a friend's mother told me that my son is so much cuter than he was as a newborn.

But you be the judge. Here I am, splish-splashing wild and free at 7.5 months:

And here is Number two at the same age:

I think the eyes have it.

___

It's a Contest! Win Here and Take Your Milk to the Bank!

2009-02-24T08:54:00.008-05:00

My mother-in-law still has nightmares about the time The Partner and I absconded to a Bed and Breakfast in New Paltz, leaving our son with her for the long weekend. Everything was hunky dory until the second night, when a vomit-storm was the sight that greeted her as she walked into the guest bedroom to find out what was bothering her screaming grandson.

It's six months later and she can't let it go. "Oh la la," she says (seriously, I'm not stereotyping) in a French accent that belies almost 40 years on US soil. "My poor bebe. I think of him like that, all covered in..." she trails off, unable to articulate the horror. "Oh, my poor bebe."

I can't be sure, but I've since wondered if expressed-breastmilk-gone-bad might have been the culprit. From breast to freezer to refrigerator, and from baggie to bottle, there are many chances in the milk storage process for things to go awry. Maybe I'm just indulging in the international maternal pastime of blaming oneself for every harm that befalls one's child, but it stands to reason that there are a lot of leaks in the system.

Then Parent Bloggers Network sent me this product to try out: The MilkBank Breastmilk Storage System. It takes the leaks out of breastmilk storage/feeding with a vacuum that pumps excess oxygen from the storage bottle, creating an airtight seal.

Perhaps the use of exclamation points here will best convey my excitement about these facts that I really feel people need to know:

The vacuum pump keeps more nutrients in your milk!

Milk stored in the MilkBank system will stay fresh longer than milk stored in other bottles or baggies--longer than six months!

MilkBank bottles and storage containers will not leak your precious supply all over the diaper bag!

The Fully-Vented bottle system allows feeding bottles to double as a milk storage system, thus minimizing the milk/nutrient loss associated with transferring milk from storage bottles/bags! (Did you know that the majority of nutrients in breastmilk reside in the lipids (or fats), and fats tend to stick to the sides of containers? Thus, the more often milk is transferred, the more nutrients are lost)

MilkBank is BPA, pthalate, and PVC-free!

MilkBank is not, I repeat, NOT made in China!

MilkBank is not just for pumping moms. The bottles are great for formula as well, having been designed to insulate the milk (studies show that keeping it warm improves nutrient ingestion) and to keep it from leaking. MilkBank Triple-Vented bottles help bubbles bypass the milk, therefore reducing colic, and making feeding easier for baby.

You can check out the MilkBank product line at its Web site or head out to Babies R Us to look it over in person.

But before you do that, take a minute to win your very own MilkBank Storage System right here! That's a value of $29.99, folks. Just leave a comment below by Friday (Feb. 27) at noon, and I will pick one winner at random. Be sure to check back later that day to see if you've won.

***

We have a winner! Liz Barlow, the woman who has only ever won a fanny pack, was randomly selected as the recipient of a MilkBank Breastmilk Storage System courtesy of Parent Bloggers Network. Congrats, Liz! Please email me with your contact information via the link in the upper right corner of this page so that I can get your prize right out to you. Thanks for playing.

In the Wilds of Fairfield County

2009-02-23T09:37:00.006-05:00

The helicopters were swarming overhead as we drank champagne and ate cake in celebration of my mother-in-law's 69th birthday last week.

"That's not normal," I said, peering out the bay window to see the lights of the helicopters flickering between the knuckled limbs of so many North Stamford trees. "We should turn on the news to find out what's going on."

My mother-in-law pressed the Bose system into action. 1010 WINS came on, a strange mix of high quality stereo mixed with antiquated terrestrial radio signals. Somewhere between the weather report and the commercials, we lost interest and began to drift in separate directions to other rooms of the house.

"The Merritt's closed in Norwalk because of an accident," my mother-in-law called out. We all nodded. The Partner went to check the details on the Internet so that we could plan an alternate route home. I wandered back into the kitchen, puzzling over the fact that five choppers were circling backyard because of an accident 15 miles down the highway.

I stood at the window. I watched the lights. I heard the hover. Then, out of the corner of my ear, the radio announcer barked out the story that came to me only in keywords. "Stabbed. Chimpanzee. Rock Rimmon Road."

"That's it!" I shouted. "A chimp was stabbed on Rock Rimmon Road!" My mother-in-law didn't even look up from the recipe for cabbage and apples she was writing down for me. In that moment, based on two keywords and the name of a street one block over, it was hard to understand why all those helicopters were hell bent on bringing the story of a bloody chimpanzee to the nation.

I know now, and every time I hear the latest information leaking out from the press, I feel a tightness in my chest that makes it just a bit harder to breathe. One of the goriest scenes ever to breach the wooded canopy of Fairfield County privilege played out as I clinked glasses with my husband's family on a lazy President's Day.

Stories that hit close to home hit harder. It's not that they're worse or sadder or more deserving of reflection than other catastrophes; it's that they're easier to relate to. It's the path of proximity: there but for the grace of God go I. A widow whose daughter was killed in a car accident raises her chimpanzee like a son. She sleeps in the same bed with him; he surfs the Internet; he once took a downtown joyride. The details are a stretch, but the results of the chimp's final rampage bring out a common, primal fear. A friend of the widow is torn apart by the chimp. Face, hands. The terror in the backyard is a reminder of unknown perils at home.

I saw the helicopter lights shine down on truths that had been so well hidden beneath the landscaped forests in which my husband was raised. No matter where you go, how much you make, or with whom you surround yourself, the facts are the same: people can be crazy, animals are wild, and tragedy so often begets the same.

Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?

2009-02-18T13:50:00.007-05:00

It might've been spilled milk, or the fact that that dinner got cold while we were waiting for The Partner to finish a conference call, or maybe that someone ganked the last of the banana bread. The cause doesn't matter as much as the admission.

"It's all my fault," The Partner said, throwing up his hands in martyrdom. "It's always my fault."

The Boss looked over at me. "It's his fault," she confirmed. "Not ours."

I laughed. I had to. But the chuckle lost depth as I thought of growing up in a house where my mother would drop a glass in the kitchen and immediately blame the wreckage on someone else, even if the nearest person was minding her own business upstairs in my bedroom, reading Judy Blume through spectacles as thick as magnifying glasses.

"It's nobody's fault." I spoke more for The Boss's benefit than to validate The Partner's histrionics. "We don't need to blame anyone."

The Boss's eyes were wide with knowledge that belied her three uneventful years. She looked from me to her father before settling back on me. Her voice was a blend of confidence and whisper. It was as if she didn't want to burden me too heavily with the truth. "But sometimes people have fault."

I gasped out a smile the way I do so often when I can't believe the words that have just come out of The Boss's mouth. I never expect the perspective, the grace, the matter-of-fact observations that elude many a person ten times her age.

So I conceded. How could I not? I marveled at our daughter with a headshake and a shrug, then I dismissed the issue from the table, sure that we'd be able to discuss it in more detail for the rest of our lives. "You're right. Sometimes people do have fault. You're absolutely right."

Short Month Complex

2009-02-15T11:37:00.005-05:00

The Boss is prey for February's smarmy charms. Each time the temperature rises above 40 degrees, my naive little girl proclaims the arrival of spring. Little does she know that everything February gives gets grabbed right back again.

We all must carry some of The Boss's optimism. There'd be a mass exodus to Florida right around the time the groundhog emerged if we didn't delude ourselves just a little about the coming of spring. Still, I am predominantly pessimistic.

I know it behooves me to enjoy the warmth instead of bemoaning the tease, but I can't help hating February. She's just such a bitch. She's hot and cold and long and short. She's dead presidents. She's $50 for a pile of frozen roses. February is deep and dark.

If I am to embrace any of The Boss's budding positivity, it's going to be at the end of the month, when February cuts herself short. That very stuntedness may contribute to something of a Napoleon Complex, exacerbating the cruelness of her reign the whole month through, but it doesn't matter by the time the 28th comes along. At that point, it's over. She's done. And not a day too soon.

Only February can make March look good.

A Hot One in the Small Town This Morning

2009-02-12T10:37:00.004-05:00

I was going to begin this post with the assertion that "I saved the day!" Then I reviewed the situation in my head and realized I'd be better served by crawling under a rock to hide in embarrassment than trying to claim any responsibility for the successful resolution of the emergency on Old Route 2.

I was taking the scenic route home from dropping off The Boss at pre-school when I noticed flames shooting up from a wood pile situated beneath a simple roof atop four posts. The metal chimney sticking through the low peak was beginning to spew smoke. It sort of made sense. It didn't totally seem out of place. I take the scenic route quite frequently in our bucolic neck of the woods, and small bonfires are common occurrences. I drove on.

About three quarters of a second later, my mental processes sent up the danger flare. The burning wood I had seen was stacked neatly and high. There was enough there to heat a New England home for a month. I began to question the logic of purposely burning it in its stacks. Something was not right. I turned around in a driveway and backtracked to the scene.

The flames were spreading brightly. I puzzled over the incongruity. I picked up the phone. This is the embarrassing part. I called The Partner.

"Okay, you gotta answer me fast. This is important. Is there any situation in which a person would purposely burn wood stacked up in a shed?" I asked.

"What?"

"God! Just answer me! I don't want to call 9-1-1 if this is, like, normal, but I'm driving home on Old Route 2 and there's wood in a shack and it's burning!"

"Um, I don't know. I guess," he muttered. Then the head shake I could almost hear over the phone: "What?"

I blew out air up past my upper lip in a frustrated sigh. "Now the roof is on fire. This has to be an emergency. I gotta go. Bye."

Then, and only then, did I call 9-1-1. A heavy breeze swept peals of orange and red in curls around the posts of the shed. The heat bit back at the wind.

It never ceases to amaze me what I take as commonplace. Each day is normal until proven otherwise. My instincts are buried beneath routine. I should've known right away that something was amiss; upon second glance, I should've called in the Fire Department.

There are those that tell us to "be vigilant." That's well and good, if you can see past the quotidian haze. I don't always look that deeply. And when I do notice something awry, I question myself, not the scene.

Now I know not to assume that a February fire in an open field is there only to ward off the chill.

More To Love

2009-02-11T10:35:00.003-05:00

The Boss was in the kitchen with my mother. I was sitting with The Partner at the dining room table when we overheard a plaintive, pipsqueaked "what's that?"

"That's medecine to help me lose weight," nana said.

Though a wall stood between us, I had no trouble picturing my mother lifting a capsule from the "Sunday" compartment of her pill organizer while my daughter looked on with big blue eyes that see everything and forget nothing.

I recalled my mother's mention of the Hoodia supplement earlier in her visit. I'd raised my eyebrows just short of an eye roll, a familiar facial tic that my mother dismissed with the assurance that her doctor had told her it was safe. The finality of her statement precluded conversation.

In the kitchen with The Boss, it seemed nana had re-opened the issue for discussion. "Do you think I'm too big?" she asked The Boss.

"No."

"You don't think I should be skinny like your mommy?"

"No." The Boss was matter of fact. She wasn't wise; she wasn't trite. Her voice trilled with the naturalness of an I Love You. "You should be just like you are," she said.

Taking the (Strawberry Short) Cake

2009-02-10T11:35:00.003-05:00

I don't remember much about the Strawberry Shortcake of my childhood except the smell of her red head. I know that I dressed up in her likeness when I was about five, but that comes from a Polaroid and not from my own recollection.

Watching the new Strawberry Shortcake Happily Ever After DVD with The Boss didn't bring forth any latent memories, but at least there was a sense of familiarity that I just don't get when trying to sit through freakshows like Yo Gabba Gabba. The Boss liked it because a) there's a lot of pink, b) it's about princesses, and c) it involves moving pictures on a screen. Really, the former two reasons are like strawberry frosting on the latter, which has always stood on its own. The Boss is not picky when it comes to the television.

I'd rather put in a DVD than leave my daughter at the mercy of television programming (which is not to say she doesn't watch way more than her fair share of Nickelodeon and the Public Broadcasting Station). It's not just the commercials that bother me, though they are bad enough. It's the fact that even PBS isn't safe anymore. I mean, have you met Caillou? He alone must be responsible for spawning millions of whiny brats from sea to shining sea. PBS should be paying us to listen to that kid kvetch.

At least with DVDs, I can watch it once and know what I'm getting. The Boss can watch it fifty times and still be satisfied. Strawberry Shortcake Happily Ever After is an example of a show we can both be okay with. It's cute and catchy and berry, berry pink. With an updated spin on old fairy tales, the two episodes strive to teach kindness and to empower the princess. It's a little bit me and a little bit her.

WIN IT! Parent Bloggers Network has two copies of “Happily Ever After” to give away. Just leave them a comment describing your memories of Strawberry Shortcake from when you were young. They’ll draw two winners at random from among all the commenters on the launch of the Happily Ever After campaign (US and Canada only, please).