All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teats

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.

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Radio We Can Agree On

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.

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New England Mamas

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.

That Old House

The fact that I now live ten miles away from the United States' biggest and most profitable casino belies the fact that gambling makes me twitch. I hate the temporary uncertainty and the long-term losses. I hate seeing half of our state's elderly population hooked up to the slots via Wampum cards on lanyards. I hate the rank air. I do like the free drinks, but I have to imbibe vast amounts before I can convince myself that all those bourbon and cokes negate the overall soul-sucking nature of the business.

Unfortunately, there's more than one way to gamble, and we've been doing it for over a year and a half in the real estate market. We've been paying two mortgages since we relocated in July. As our new home thrives around our growing family, our original place sits forlorn on its little hill overlooking the Interstate, waiting for a buyer.

Today I got to thinking about the offers we didn't take. The price we didn't lower quickly enough. The renters that almost burned it down. Everything related to the sale of that house has been a roll of the dice. It could be sold by now if a different number had come up on just one of those tosses.

Or it could have disappeared. One of the offers early on came from a neighbor who made his intentions clear--he wanted the property for its commerically zoned land, not for the house. He would have demolished the 200 year old Cape in favor of the expansion of his business. We decided we couldn't be complicit in the destruction of an antique treasure and told him, in no uncertain terms, "no."

I'm still glad we rejected his offer (which seemed a tad low at the time, but looks higher and higher in hindsight), though there's a sting each time our bank account bleeds out the next mortgage payment. If we didn't care so much about history, we'd have a much easier time funding the present. But so it goes. Another one of life's little lessons.

One of the most expensive locations in real estate? The moral high ground.



Cross-posted at New England Mamas.

Write a Book with Blurb

This is the jacket of the hardcover book I created as a birthday gift for The Partner:























Find out more about my wholly satisfying artistic endeavor over at New England Mamas, where I'm hanging out today.


___

A Winter's Walk Where The Car Couldn't Take Us

I was detained by snow at the bottom of our 1/4 mile long driveway this afternoon on our way home from a doctor's appointment. Amidst a flurry of profanity that fell somewhere between my imagination and audible levels, I got out of the car and made my way to The Boss's backseat office. I pulled on her hat and stuffed her hands into mittens. The woven pink and white tubes where her thumbs were supposed to go hung limply. I didn't have the time or inclination to fight her opposable digits into place.

The winding, unpaved driveway leading up to our home is owned by our neighbors. An easement granting us right-of-way is the only thing that allows us legal access to the rest of the world. The problem with such an arrangement is that we have an almost total lack of control when it comes to maintaining the driveway. In the spring and summer, it is one huge mud rut that's a rainstorm or two away from total annihilation. In the winter, it's traversable only by off-road vehicle. That's all well and good for my neighbors and my husband. As we found out today, it doesn't bode so well for me and the Boss in my rear-wheel drive Caddy.

Once The Boss and I were properly protected from the storm (except that both of us were wearing unseasonable footwear), I hooked her legs to my waist and began to trudge up the hill, keeping to the impressions made by the wheels of the neighbor's Cherokee. I started to breathe heavily, as I am prone to do when exercise induces my asthma. The Boss heard my jagged exhales and turned her gaze onto me.

"You're lucky," she said.

"What?" I cocked an ear closer to her mouth because I was almost certain I hadn't heard her right.

"You're so lucky."

"How?" I resisted the urge to snort, mostly because I was already having enough trouble breathing.

"You're walking in the snow," she replied.

And in that moment, looking onto her smooth, red-cheeked face, feeling her legs against my hip as they reached longingly for the road, I saw how I could be construed as lucky. The snow fell in fluffs and landed unspoiled everywhere. Naked trees were dressed in its shimmers. The dirt was gone. My stacked heels pressed the white cover in quick, crisp steps.

The Boss smacked her lips and opened her mouth as her head fell back in abandon. Her teeth--two curved rows of hard-won enamel--surrounded a fleshy pad that was desperate for its first taste of snow.

Everything in that instant was clear. So many shades of pink, and then the whiteness. The Boss, ruddy in my arms, saw the white all around her. I couldn't keep my eyes away from the vivid hue of her complexion as it fed off blood coursing hot just below the surface. There was only truth in her newness.

Suddenly, I wondered how I could have considered myself anything but lucky.


***
Cross posted at New England Mamas.

Grand Opening - New England Mamas

Hailing as I do from Connecticut, I am happy to be associated with the New England Mamas, a group of bloggers from all over our stoically frigid corner of the country. The new site was created to lend a regional slant to a wide array of topics while remaining readable and relevant to readers everywhere. And this week, my friends, just happens to be the official grand opening.

If you head over there to read a bit about my ineptitude in the kitchen, you will also have the opportunity to win one of ten prizes offered up as part of the inaugural festivities. Some of the donated items include local favorites like Little New Englander onesies, Brooks Pond car seat/stroller covers, and Yellowhale Photography. We're grateful for the support of all contributing businesses and we're encouraged by each and every reader who stops by.

I hope you'll check us out, and I hope you'll like what you find.

Looking For Lost Ponies

Sometimes The Boss's hold on sanity seems tenuous at best (though perhaps this can be said of all toddlers, and, more than likely, a vast majority of adults). In no instance is that sense of detachment more apparent than when horses are involved.

To hear The Boss talk, you would think she has a horse. She will converse at length about her imaginary equine. Once I came home from a meeting only to be cornered in the bathroom by The Boss as she regaled me with a long, drawn out story involving the horse kicking down a fence. There were cows and sheep involved, too. And hay.

When the Boss is sad or uncomfortable in a situation, she looks immediately for this horse. "Where's my horse? I can't find my horse!" The hysteria grows with each syllable; the pout becomes more pronounced. Her lips throb beneath wide eyes.

It's disconcerting to watch her search for something that doesn't exist. I can figure out what she's thinking when she reaches out for a hug. I understand what "I want to go home" means, even when she's already there. But this epic quest for her horse renders me helpless.

Today, I thought we found one. Two of them, actually. This week's playgroup was held at a house with a pasture and riding ring on its property. We brought the kids out to say hello and goodbye to the horses on our way out. But instead of warming up to these creatures that she talks about incessantly, The Boss backed away.

"She's afraid," I marvelled to the rest of the group.

"I'm not afraid." She looked up at me with defiant eyes. "I'm never afraid!" There was a strength to her convictions that did not jive with her small, wavering voice. "I'm never afraid!" She turned toward the empty riding ring and walked in that direction, away from the snuffles and thumps of the two real life horses. I followed her.

"That's where the horses jump," I said, bending on one knee to her level.

She nodded. This pleased her. She relaxed. Her back was turned to the whinnying reality around which the rest of the children were still gathered with their mothers.

She stood in front of the ring for a long time, watching imaginary horses leap over logs painted white.

"Horses jumpin," she chortled, her breath a contented and audible sigh.



Cross-posted at New England Mamas. It's new! It's improved! Stop by to see what the other frosty northeasterners have to say.

In My Shoes

Last night I was making dinner when I looked over my shoulder and thought to myself, “Who is that little girl stomping through the kitchen in my shoes?”

I wasn’t so much questioning her identity as I was marveling at her very existence. In that moment, as I diced an onion for the horseradish pasta salad I was craving, the October air was abnormally warm in its gentle push through the windows, and the waning daylight was natural and calm. It wasn’t unlike other occasions over the past thirty years when I felt relaxed and unattached to time. The difference between last night and the rest of my life was the girl with tiny feet passing through my periphery in very, very big shoes.

Read more here. . .


Note: Believe it or not, I will be participating in NaBloPoMo again this year. It stands for National Blog Posting Month and it entails publishing a new blog entry every day during November. I pulled it off last year and I plan to do it again this time around. Coming off roughly 3 months of non-posting, I realize that it's often feast or famine around here. But such is life.

Finding the Catskill Mountain House

We were staying at a small bed & breakfast in the mid-Hudson River Valley this week when we found out--on our last day there, of course--about a nearby site that was heralded as just the balm for sore eyes. Needing no convincing, and not daunted in the least by unfavorable weather conditions, we headed out in the direction of the Catskill Mountains toward what James Fenimore Cooper called the “greatest wonder of all creation.”

. . .continued, with photo illustrations, here.

The Dazzling Uncertainty of It*

This week has been typical pre-autumnal fare in New England. A tropical day followed by a sweatshirt day followed by a knee-high rubber boots day. Now the sun shines again, and somewhere in the yellow I find the energy and strength to recap for you the meteorological schizophrenia.

On Monday it occured to me that I am far more optimistic than I give myself credit for. It was a startling realization that came on the sandaled heels of these last days of summer. The day before had been balmy. Why I assumed that trend would continue is beyond me. I'm usually a glass-half-empty type girl, and I've lived in Connecticut long enough to know that a little skepticism in regard to the weather (or most anything, really) is healthy. But there I was with The Boss, standing in our driveway, both of us donning sundresses and flip flops. . .

. . .Find the continuation to this post over at New England Mamas. It won't take you long to get there. This is New England, after all.



*Mark Twain, from a speech on the weather