The Workplace Evaluation

My boss is a passionate 17 month old. She puckers up in a kiss when she wants one in return. She calls out "hug" and throws her arm around whichever of my body parts is level with her at the time. She says "wuv wuh" upon her retreat, always. That's "I love you," for those in need of a translation.

Her rampant affection shows me I'm doing a good job. I am not wracked by guilt for my little misdeeds because I know that the whole of my actions has created the kind of environment in which she feels safe to express her attachment to the people in her life. She is as comfortable with others as she is with me. She is kind and mannerful. She is only beastly to the dog.

I make mistakes all the time. I lose my temper. I have been known to listen to inappropriate material on satellite radio while she's in the car (Can anyone say "Bubba the Love Sponge"? The Boss can.) I blog when I should be playing with her. I can listen to her cry at bedtime with little in the way of introspection. In many ways, I am not what the parenting books say I should be. But how authoritative are most of those texts, anyway? I mean, I could write one if I really wanted to, and we all know how full of crap that self-help tome would be.

When she turns two, and promptly turns on me, I will still know I'm a good mother. She'll test the boundaries of the foundation I've helped set for her, but it will always be her home. Our home.

I'm not sure where this confidence comes from. It's perspective that I am not blessed with in other aspects of my life. Am I a good person? I don't know. Am I a good wife? Probably not.

But I look at my daughter and it is clear to me that I am doing something right.

The Other Side of Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford's star shone in his wife Betty's light. She radiated modern American energy that helped bring an entire nation out of the pale back in the 70s, when suppression and secrecy were replaced by straight talk about recovery. What was muted turned bright as she shook hands, held hands, and, most recently, laid her own hands on her husband's casket.

Betty Ford is powerful in a way that's easy for us to take for granted today. It's the power of free thought that combines with free speech to forge an honest depiction of what it means to be a woman. As First Lady, she talked about issues that affect more of us than those in the spotlight during the first 3/4 of a century would have liked us to believe: equal rights, abortion, addiction and cancer.

My grandmother died of cancer at a time when the word was only beginning to take hold in vernacular. Betty Ford's candid fight against breast cancer had come to light several years before, but the message was slow in making its way to New Britain, Connecticut. My grandmother's doctors never uttered the word. It was the kind of denial that affected not only her diagnosis and treatment, but also her family's ability to say goodbye.

Now it is my father suffering from cancer, and the change in perception is dramatic. Betty Ford's message has taken root. My mother goes with him to his appointments and marvels at entire facilities devoted to a condition that took her own mother's life with little fanfare 25 years before. She shakes her head and repeats the same thing every time I see her: "Before, they never even said the word."

Betty Ford says the words. She understands the importance of healing. She makes me believe in time and place and how, sometimes, the right person has a way of showing up when we need her. She is as fiery and resilient as the country that faltered before her. Her voice is strong. She has made it easier for us all to speak.

President Ford's legacy lives on.

A Better Man

I read in today's newspaper that Ben Franklin once had this advice to give upon the onslaught of a new year: "Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." Since Mr. Franklin is widely regarded as a guy who knew what he was talking about, I concluded that deeper reflection on these particular words was in order. So I thought about it, and two questions came to mind:

1. Do I really need to find a better man?

and

2. Since that's probably not what he meant, then what can I do to become a better man?

I pondered the latter and produced this list. Please feel free to submit any of your own ideas on how to become a better man in the comment section.


A. As mentioned previously, I will be a better driver. To truly man it up, I will exercise my enhanced prowess at no less than 90 miles per hour while scanning the medians and wooded areas for carefully concealed cops-in-wait. I will learn to identify all unmarked Crown Victorias and Malibus. Failing to do so will ensure a $620 ticket for speeding in a work zone, swerving to pass, and tailgating. I will drive with one hand in my pants at all times.

B. I will cook macaroni and cheese or Stouffer's Skillet Sensations every night. I will lick the plate clean so that only the most cursory of swipes with the sponge will be necessary afterward. I will leave the rest of the dishes piled up for a real woman to take care of.

C. I will plaster my work area with photos of women and cars of foreign make. Well, only the cars need to be foreign; the women can go either way. That they are naked is the only important thing.

D. I will not change a single diaper. I will potty train my 18 month old daughter in a single weekend. I will sit her on the toilet and stare at her with stern eyes of narrow fixation until I scare the piss out of her. I will be so proud.

E. In word and deed, I will remind all members of the household that I am king. I will huddle over my laptop each night balancing the online checkbook as the cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching of my Quicken financial software reverberates against the walls. I will scrutinize unnecessary purchases. I will bemoan the fact that the local coffee drive-thru now takes credit cards, a fact that a certain household member of the weaker sex deems irresistable. I will input all receipts into the register and then I will shred them with glee. Then I will go back to the Internet, where I will search for spare parts to soup up my riding lawnmower. I will try to figure out how to type and drink a beer with one hand down my pants.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

During my freshman year of college, I fancied myself a Philosophy major. My heart would flutter, my mouth would water and my eyes would glaze over at the sound of such names as Socrates, Descartes, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche. Even though my career in Philosophy did not pan out, I still consider myself a novice philosopher. I take every opportunity to ponder the nature of the Universe and to theorize about my existence in it.

This philosopher part of me has remained much the same these past 20 years...

Unchanged.

As I was driving into my office this morning, I heard the words of one of my favorite modern philosophers. He is an American philosopher who hails from Jersey. You may recognize his words…

...No one can save me
The damage is done

Shot through the heart,
And you’re to blame.
You give love…
A bad name.

The haunting lyrics of the venerated Bon Jovi gave me pause. I would hate to have the reputation of giving anything a “bad name,” let alone tainting the sanctity of the meaning of love. Upon hearing these words, I was compelled to reflect upon myself and my actions in the role of Mother.

Last night, my 3 year old daughter was up all night long with the stomach flu. For most of the night, I held her in my arms while she rocked back and forth in agony from the pain in her stomach. At the appropriate moment I leaned her body over the toilet, pulled back her long hair while she wretched uncontrollably and then gave her water to rinse out her mouth. After each of these rounds, I snuggled beside her on the couch while she watched Noggin and waited until the next episode of sickness overtook her.

At around 3am, as the waves of nausea finally subsided, we both stumbled to bed and crawled under the covers to get some much needed rest. She curled her slight frame into me, looked at me with startling intensity and whispered, “Mommy, thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for helping me to throw up and for snuggling me on the couch. I love you, Mommy.”

My daughter adores me. She loves me with absolute abandon. The magnitude of her unabated love for me is, to say the very least, staggering. As such, I am at once honored and frightened.

She will not always look at me with those adoring eyes. Someday, all too soon, she will be a teenager. Her all-consuming love for me will...

Change.

So, when Jon’s words cascaded over me in the car this morning, I was desperate to think of a way that I might live up to my daughter’s adoration. How do I make sure that when she turns 13 years old she won’t slam her bedroom door and then scream at me from her guarded position, “You suck as a mother! You give love a bad name!”

After much thought I decided that I can not do anything to ensure her constant, steady love for me…especially when she enters the dreaded teen years. But, even though her love for me may change, I must make certain that my love for her…

Remains the same.

Hi! My name is Bobita. I am visiting today from Blooming Yaya for January's Blog Exchange. Usually you can find me there detailing various moments of my life...which may or may not include one or more of my three children, an irreverent husband, the perpetual piles of laundry cluttering my house and occasional ponderings of the Universe.

Please visit ECR at my place today...and make certain to visit the other members of this month's Blog Exchange. If you would like to join the Blog Exchange, you can find out how at the new and improved BE Web site. Come on...you know you want to!

A Holiday Card for You

Over the arduous, weeks-long process that is the sending out of holiday cards in my household, I often thought of you blog buddies and how deserving you are of the message I mailed out to the friends and family members whose addresses I possess. Since snail mail does not befit our Internet friendship, I hope you will accept the electronic transmission of this year's 24/7 holiday greeting. You all have made this past year richer and more enlightening than I thought possible.




Lest you ruin your eyes trying to view my poor attempts at getting the inside of the card to convert to readable jpg format, I will save you some effort by pointing you to the the original post from which I lifted the text, as it appeared here.

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Driving Headlong Into the New Year

Merging is a necessary driving skill that one can conceivably go an entire lifetime without learning. By "one," I mean "me." And by "an entire lifetime," I mean "my days are numbered."

I've heard rumors that the theory of stress as a trigger for ulcers has been debunked, but if it is in fact true, then The Partner is being overcome by gastric acid as he reads this. My lack of driving skills is the bane of his existence. It is at the very foundation of his puzzlement every time he looks at me. He is the speed-happy connoisseur of all things automotive; I am the Sunday-driving shorty who pushes Cadillacs into the ground.

I love to drive. Don't get me wrong. I must get in the car and roll onto the open road at least once a day or I will cross over into crazy. You would think that, with all the practice, I'd have mastered a few vehicular basics by now. But there are curbs, guard rails and store fronts all over the northeast that would prove you wrong. If it can't get out of its own way, I'll hit it.

When it comes to merging--particularly onto highways--my success rate is based purely on the fact that most other cars on my roads can, in fact, get out of their own way. . .and mine. If that was not the case, I would've been an American-made flapjack on Interstate 84 the day I got my license. I cannot explain this belief I have that any given lane is mine for the taking, but it's deeply ingrained. I am far more likely to accelerate into place and look over my shoulder as an "Oh, Shit" afterthought than to take any preventative action. I can't help but wonder if it isn't a deadly form of ADHD.

Somehow, I've made it to the cusp of 2007. I'm older, wiser and more maternal. Since I can no longer take anything lightly, I must now resolve to take action. This year, I will not drive like an idiot.

Inasmuch as biology and genetics will allow, of course.

Who Stole the Mistletoe?

We racked up 300 miles in the car this Christmas weekend on visits to the homes of sundry parents and siblings, but I wasn't overtaken by the spirit of the season till I was back home late Monday night, watching Everybody Loves Raymond in bed with The Partner.

It's hectic, this business of trying to fit the extended family into our fledgling yet already dysfunctional unit of mother, father and baby. The Partner and I spent the majority of the long weekend vowing to return the gifts we'd purchased for each other as we fought our way from the parking meter at a metropolitan Target to several big box stores, bobbing and weaving through traffic patterns along Route 1. It wasn't the holiday throngs against which we were struggling; it was ourselves. The pressure of trying to please everyone else left little in the way of time or inclination when it came to considering our own marriage.

It should be more apparent than it is, the idea that presenting a united front is far more likely to earn us a victory against the forces of commercialization and sprawl than waging war against each other. When things are going well, it's easy to see that. We're a team. We're good together. We can make each other laugh. We show each other truths that, for some pig-headed reason, are not readily apparent. But add a stressor to the situation and it becomes easy to believe that the alliance is unneccessary. Suddenly we're crossing our arms and trading barbs. The zingers are only momentarily satisfying.

On the first floor of a downtown Target that somehow took 5 flights of stairs to access, I found my husband after waiting for him at the car for 25 minutes. It was Christmas Eve's eve.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked as he spotted me near the front.

"I've been waiting at the car!" A typical disregard for decibel levels and privacy was evident in my shriek. "Where the hell have you been?"

A middle aged couple walking by looked over with a series of good natured guffaws born of experience. "Don't worry," said the wife, "it'll be over in two more days." They continued merrily along.

The Partner laughed politely, smiling over his shoulder as they passed. I straightface-stared at him until they turned the corner and his smile vanished. We squared off in the aisle between hosiery and popcorn tins. After some seconds of squinty-eyed silence, he stormed off. I sighed and turned toward the automatic sweep of the glass doors, my heels digging loud into the linoleum.

Then the penultimate evening became Christmas Eve and feigned civility begot the next day. We traveled from one state to another and across the line again. All was familial and festive as deep as anyone cared to look. Suddenly it was 11 p.m. on the 25th and The Boss was nestled snug in her sleep sack as The Partner and I fell into our own bed. I'm sure my exhale was audible.

"How about that Christmas kiss?" The Partner suggested.

Finally.



Edited to add: The Partner sent me the following link in an email today. It was too good not to pass along. Make sure the volume is turned on to fully enjoy another Christmas Kiss.


___

Baby Love

The Boss has taken to belting out "baby" at intervals for which I cannot seem to determine the motivation. She learned the word just last week when her grandparents brought her first baby doll. She held it; she kissed it; she fed it a bottle. She called it "baby."

Since then, the word has taken on a heightened significance. She looks at pictures of herself as a newborn and says "baby." She wakes from nap screeching "baby" as a way to get my attention. She looks in the mirror and sees a baby. When her father puts her in her crib at night, it's to a chorus of "baby, baby, baby."

We first thought she was asking for her doll each time she'd say it. That quickly proved not to be the case. Then I started thinking she was simply babbling to hear herself speak (which, by the way, would be yet another indication that she is almost entirely her father's daughter). But with each passing "baby," the truth became clearer and clearer to me. The Boss is starting to figure herself out.

When she wakes from naps, she's telling me she's ready to be picked up. "This baby is done sleeping" would be the rough translation, I think. It's a basic tactic, but even before I figured out the meaning, it worked.

That baby in the mirror is her. "Guk! Baby!" becomes "Look! It's me! I'm a baby!" to the enlightened mama.

And at bedtime, it's again the girl that hates her crib. "I'm not tired. Why don't you get it? Babies don't like to sleep!"

Watching her slow ride into the realms of thinking, feeling and articulating makes me feel like the only mother in the world--past, present and future. I've heard about the joys of watching children grow, but other people's recollections never meant anything to me. They still mean nothing. The only thing that reverberates against the closed doors of perception is the strange, personal newness of growing my own human being. Her life is something I need to experience for myself to truly understand.

I will learn slowly and, more often than not, the hard way; but even if she's more her father's daughter than she is mine, so will she.

What's That Smell?

I just came back from a week-long ski vacation. If you can identify this mountain, you win...absolutely nothing.

This view is from the condo where The Partner and I stayed with three friends. That's a total of four skiiers, plus me. I don't ski. I wouldn't touch a chair lift with a four foot ski pole. As they say on Sesame Street (or at least they did 25 years ago when I was watching it): "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong."

I thought that a genuine hatred of all things wintry and snow-based would not be enough to ruin a week set apart from all the demands of real life. I thought that relaxing with a book and then doing some window shopping while the rest of the group hit the slopes would suffice. I mistakenly believed that I'd get some writing done.

I was wrong. It turns out I am far too lazy, selfish and hedonistic to embrace a vacation that does not revolve around my own interests and pleasures. Boredom bred resentment and suddenly I was that person I was before The Boss came along and forced me to cut the crap.

I wanted all The Partner's attention. While he was skiing, I sulked around town and then sat on a non-moving bus, talking to myself out loud about how the transportation system's poorly placed and misleading signage was ruining my life. When The Partner got back to the condo, I was surly. I got surlier still when he wanted to go to bed at 9:30 after a day of high-altitude exertion. Then surly turned forlorn as I stared at my glass of red wine.

It's my lack of perspective that ruined it for me. Inward focus renders the big picture peripheral. I wasted all the views.

Sitting here now, it's easy to see what a spoiled brat I was being. I should've made the most of the freedom that is a new place. I should've been happy that my husband was engaging in something he loves and almost never gets the chance to do. I went into it thinking I would have a good time, but, upon arrival, I didn't do anything to help the good time along.

I'd like to think I learned something from the experience. I'd like for The Partner and my friends to think I learned something, too, so that they might actually entertain the notion of going somewhere with me again. As it was, I was no fun. No fun at all.

It was like a fart in a car, that bad attitude of mine. It ruined it for everyone. And though I might have felt good letting it out, I was just as much stuck in the stink as the rest of the passengers.

Spirits

The Partner and I have a spirited marriage. While other parents talk about their spirited children--and all the inherent extremes of energy, sensitivity, insightfulness, intelligence and discipline issues--I find those characteristics more prevalent in our own wed-locked union than in our daughter.

For us, being married is the most difficult aspect of being parents. But that doesn't mean I'm any more prone to giving up on our husband-and-wife status than another mother would be to giving up on her precocious toddler. Nobody said it would be easy. The fact that nobody told me it would be this hard is irrelevant.

We fight all the time. We alternately scream and ignore. We forgive on incompatible timelines. He tries to hold my hand when I have yet to unclench the fist at my side. He puts on a good face in public. I, on the other hand, will put nothing or nobody on--when I am done, not a single person is left unaware of the true state of affairs.

The nature of this "spirit" is such that the depth of its negativity is countered on the high-flying upswing. I find The Partner hysterically funny. He is never disappointed by the kind of shocking anecdotes that come out of my mouth. He is the left brain to my right. He is my biggest supporter.

It's only been two years. Maybe our extremes will slowly shift toward the center. On the other hand, maybe they'll continue to skew the spectrum. The only thing I'm sure about is that today's chaos leaves us with little time or energy to ponder realities that aren't here and now.

But it all begs the question: What becomes of spirited children when they grow up?


___

The Boss Fills In

I'm swamped. Who isn't, right? Since I don't have time to pull together four coherent sentences, I thought I'd bring in The Boss to do a guest post. Not that's she's coherent, either. But she's really cute.

With this quick transcription, I will be on my way. Here goes:

Hi! Look. Bear. Look. Hat. Dog! Dog! Look. Ball. Thank you.

~ The Boss, age 16 months

Photo by Lauren

Fun With Fiction!

As part of Mrs. Chicken's Mother of All Memes, I am continuing on the fictional foray that began today at her blog. She started the story. I will add to it. When I am done with my contribution, I will tag someone else from a predetermined list of willing pawns (see below). If you would like to be added to the list, I suggest you ingratiate yourself over at Chicken and Cheese, because I've got nothing to do with organizing this thing. I just work here.

Now, without further ado. . .

I thought I saw him at the grocery store. It was raining that afternoon, and he had an umbrella. The red and white triangles that made up his portable shelter partly obscured his face, but I caught a glimpse of his eyes. Those eyes. Huge, blue and empty.

When he left me I remember searching their vast cerulean expanse for some sign, some flicker of love. It rained that day, too. Why does it rain when you lose someone you love? My tears left him unmoved. I don’t know why that surprised me.

The baby kicked in my cart and I let my gaze fall on her face. Her father’s eyes stared back at me. Green eyes, warm and full of life.“Mamma?” she said. “Mamma!”

The question-turned-exclamation jarred me out of my reverie. There was pressure in my temples and behind the hazel tint of my colored contact lenses. "Mamma's here," I cooed. My voice was a manufactured kind of soothing. I leaned in and brushed a kiss over Bethany's forehead, where a drop of rainwater hung like the tiniest Swarovski pendant. Its chain was made of fine blond locks.

"What do you think, baby girl?" I asked as I pulled her into my arms. "Is it time to go home?" Her searching legs and center of gravity found all the right contours as she settled atop the jut of my hip. I tugged at her coat until the hood framed her face, then I stepped into the rain. A small deluge of water streamed off the curve of the lowercase "o" on the Save-A-Lot sign and landed at the back of my neck. I could feel the tag from my shirt sticking sharp and soggy to my skin.

I sighed against Bethany's face and tried to avoid the bigger puddles on our way to my twenty year old Civic, which was miraculously close. One row over and three cars ahead, I saw a familiar red and white umbrella spanning the gap between an open door and the driver's seat of a rusty 4Runner that had to be as old as my own piece of junk. They guy I'd mistaken for Paul sat sideways and watched the rain as he talked into a cell phone.


I tag Creative Type Dad since a little male perspective just might do this story good.

Participants List:
Occidental Girl
Meg
Bethany
Christy
Heather
Michelle
Mrs. Maladjusted
Kristi
Desitin's Child
Tater And Tot
Word Girl

Five Things You May Or May Not Know About. . .

ME

1. My obsession with dangerous men began at age 11. The categorical chronology and duration of infatuation are as follows:

Wild West outlaws - roughly two years
Italian mafia bosses, capos, consiglieres and accountants - a year and a half
Race car drivers - three years
Members of the armed services - ten years

2. Then I married a management major from Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute.

3. The fact that I implied my fixation with military men is over is a complete bastardization of the truth. But I thought it was only proper to pretend.

4. Then I changed my mind.

5. My husband is not going to be happy about this post.


THE BOSS

1. She has long fingers and tiny toes.

2. Half of her food ends up in her hair during any given meal.

3. Her breath smelled like rubbing alcohol when she was born and, in my morphine induced stupor, I would've drunk a whole bottle of the stuff just to keep the scent around.

4. At home, she can fall flat on her face, get a bloody lip and a forehead egg, and be on her giggling way in seconds. If she's at the playground, however, where one of her friends gives her so much as a playful shove, she's inconsolable for the next five minutes.

5. Her father is adamant in his belief that she is the cutest baby, ever. I, myself, am a little more rational about the whole issue.


Today's meme was brought to you by Chicky, Chicky Baby. I tag the following people to continue the barrage of random and/or interesting facts about parent and child(ren):

Mrs. Chicken and Emmie

lildb and J

Jenifer and her two little ones


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Perfect Posts and the Patriarchy

They say perfection is in the eye of beholder.

If I do say so myself, Masked Mom and Mrs. Chicken have impeccable taste. So what if I'm biased?

Each of these lovely, generous ladies has nominated a different post of mine for the November Perfect Post Awards hosted by Petroville and Suburban Turmoil. Thanks to MM and Mrs. C for the nod and to the Perfect Post hosts for carrying on this monthly tradition.

In this award show, all nominees are winners. That's the part my husband didn't get.

"But being nominated means you are put in the running for an award. Being nominated isn't the award itself."

"Ah, that's where you're wrong," said I. "This is the momosphere. It's all very Montessori. Negative competition is damaging to our inner growth."

"Well, then no one can actually be a winner," said he. "And thus, you are all losers."

I rolled my eyes. This was coming from a guy who has a fifth place trophy displayed prominently in our living room. Fifth place or--as he would say if he was referring to anyone but himself--fourth loser. He won it by driving around a bunch of cones set up on a dirt field in mid-nowhere New Hampshire.

Do you know what? I think a good husband is in the eye of the beholder as well.

If you see me squinting a lot, you'll know why.


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The Almighty Green

As the holiday season approaches, the world is filled with many colors that help get us into the Christmas spirit. There’s the red and white striped candy canes, the multi-colored twinkling lights on trees and in yards, gaily wrapped gifts and fancy new holiday clothing for special occasions. All of which we are told that we need so we can celebrate.

But, in order to have all of these festive “must haves” there is one color you must have more of than anything else.

Green. As in cash. *Cue strains of “Money, money, money, money….MONEY!” from The Apprentice.

Yes, green seems to be the most popular color around this time of year, much to the delight of the store owners and the disdain of the consumers. We are trained to open our wallets and spend, spend, spend. And we do, sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes willingly, but all in the name of The Holiday Spirit.

Now don’t get me wrong. I loves me some shopping as much as the next girl, albeit not in the throes of The Last Minute Holiday Dash. But I got to thinking. Over the years, where has all my cashola come from? When I was younger, I loved the wads of bills that I collected for my holiday stash. Although nowadays I carry my debit card more often than the actual green stuff, what kinds of jobs have I had to make it appear in my bank account?

Over the years I have done many things for money. Many boring things. I’ve waited tables in many different establishments. I’ve delivered newspapers and flowers. I’ve done babysitting for kids, run a camp for kids, tutored kids and taught kids. I’ve dished yogurt at TCBY and sold books in a bookstore. I’ve washed cars and mowed lawns.

Yawn.

Unless you count the time I stapled my tongue for money at the request of a childhood friend (which, by the way, was so not worth the dollar I made doing it), or the time I posed semi-nude for a college art class, I played it safe.

People will do some wild things for money. All you have to do is watch reality TV to find some of them. They will eat all kinds of funky things that are not supposed to be eaten, swap wives, lose weight, perform dangerous stunts, persuade a bachelor into a proposal, or race around the world.

Would I do wild things for money? I took this test to see. I would like to say that I did something exciting in my lifetime for money, but I can’t. There were no Indecent Proposals for me. No earth shattering choices I had to make about what I would do or how badly I wanted or needed the money.

I earned no awards for being Miss I’ll Try Anything Once. I did, however, earn a lot of cash doing a lot of honest hard work. And I guess that’s something to be proud of, but not very exciting.

So I’ll take my wallet and my little safe self and head to the mall.

Right after I stop at the ATM.

***

Hi! I’m Kim. I am visiting today from In Full Bloom for December’s Blog Exchange. I spend my time there detailing some of the moments of my life, including my two kids and a wonderful husband. I also have a pet peeve or two!

Please visit ECR today at my place and be sure to visit the other members of this month’s Blog Exchange. If you would like to participate in next month's Blog Exchange, let Kristen know. We’d love to have you!

Victory Speech

30 days and 9,500 words later, I have fulfilled my NaBloPoMo obligations.

I'd like to thank God that it's over.

I'd also like to thank my husband for not complaining too loudly when he was forced to wear non-matching socks in the absence of any freshly laundered matches.

I can't forget my dog, who ate poop just so I'd have something to write about.

Thanks also go out to Blogger for unveiling a beta version that ate up at least one of my posts and ensured that anyone trying to stay abreast of my site via Bloglines got the shaft. I eat your hate like love*.

And the one to whom I owe it all: The Boss. You're the reason I started blogging. More than ever, I am truly me because of you. Thank you for being there. Thank you for not being there. Thank you for thanking me.




*Current Google research indicates this quote is attributable to the band Bikini Kill, but it came to me on the penultimate page of an issue of Sassy Magazine circa 1990.

The Boss At Sixteen

The Boss's baby book has not been updated since she was two weeks old. It would've been so simple for me to crack the pastel binding on a more consistent basis, inserting one-liners, dates and strands of my baby's fine hair. It would've been easy, in dribs and drabs.

But I've never been one to just fill in the blanks. Empty lines between pre-packaged words are too shallow for my pen. I have to start something, to finish it.

Because I have this blog, I'm not sweating the baby book. The milestones are here. It is the way I feel about life, as it happens. But in between the recollections, however complete I believe them to be, is a lack of some simple detail. The plain facts. Truth that has shed its clothes for some good, old fashioned fun.

So here are the things I've thought about putting in the baby book lately, but have neglected.

- At 16 months of age, The Boss begins to show an interest in books.

- They are balloons, but she calls them "balls."

- She wears her fork as a "hat" at dinner.

- Her vocabulary consists of the aforementioned "ball" and "hat," as well as "thank you,"
"hi," "dog," "that," "look," "eye," "head," "dad," and, finally, "mama."

- After 6 p.m. she tends to walk like a drunk.

- She gives and receives kisses indiscriminately.

- She shows culinary appreciation with a hearty "mmmmm!" after each bite.

- She terrorizes the dog.

- The dog terrorizes her.

- Her favorite food is broccoli.

- She sleeps till ten most mornings.

And thus, my posterity-driven conscience can breathe easier until next month.

Thank You

Today I brought The Boss with me into the basement. We stepped over puddles that would send any other homeowner running to the nearest sump pump dealer, only to find out there ain't nothing that will keep a 200+ year old house dry. The Boss wobbled her way along the edges of the trench that ran the entire perimeter of the foundation. There was the thin sound of water in a skinny stream. We stopped at the washing machine.

I was pleased to find that The Boss is shaping up to be the housekeeper I never was. "Here," I said, handing her a sock. "Will you please help mama do the laundry?"

She took the sock. "Thank you," she said. Then she threw it through the front loading portal.

I handed her a tee shirt.

"Thank you." In it went.

Another sock. "Thank you."

A pair of boxers. "Thank you."

Another "thank you" and she was tangled up in one of her father's shirts. While she tried to extricate herself from the armpit stains, I snuck the rest of the load into the basin. I marveled at this girl of mine, who has been saying "thank you" in all the right places since before she was a year old. Amidst unexceptional motor skills and an average vocabulary, it is her manners that stand out.

I can't claim any responsibility for this whatsoever. Not because I am an innate ingrate, but because I know my mother was the one who taught this to her. I dropped her off one weekend at nana and poppy's house when she was about ten months old to find a changed girl upon my return. Though she couldn't walk or indulge in a conversation that didn't involve "da," "dog," or "gak," she would accept the cup from your hand with a "thank you." Then she would sip from it, exhaling with that audible sigh of quenched thirst when she was through. If you gave her food, she'd say "mmmmm."

All these were things nana taught her. From me, she got nothing. No tricks to whip out at a party. No sweet gestures that make others giggle at her gratitude.

It's a sad realization that I must not play with her enough. I don't test her imagination and her intellect with every interaction. Of course, I don't do a lot of things that grandparents know how to do, being that they're generations deep into parenthood and I'm just starting out. Being that they have time and memory. Being that they can send the kid home when they're done.

I know I have to cut myself some slack. But I also have to remember something:

It's not just The Boss who has a lot of learning to do.

A Winter Warning

The news on the cover of today's local paper was bleak. Below the fold but still very much on my radar, I learned that we can expect a "colder-than-average winter this year, with an increased chance of snow." Being that cold and snow are the very things I hate most about this tiny section of the USA, I sense that I am on the cusp of four long, dark months in New England.

Not the least of my problems with the extreme season is the idea that any barrier between myself and hypothermia cannot be taken for granted. It is not a baseless fear, this image I have in my mind of getting stranded in my temperamental car in -10 degree Fahrenheit weather on the side of a rural road with no cell reception for miles. Winter is a certain kind of helplessness. I've only experienced it a few times, but there is pain that would have you believe cold can crush bone into fragments.

It is no coincidence that my husband's grandmother, though she took 97 years to die, did it during the record breaking cold snap of 2004. It shouldn't have mattered, being that she was untouched by the elements in the toasty in-law apartment of her son's home, but she hated winter, too. On the other side of an ice webbed window, winter sucked the marrow from her bones.

NaBloPoMonopoly

26 days of blogging and a holiday weekend behind me, I am feeling the NaBloPoMo drain. Today I take Mr. Moneybags from the clink to the bank with this Get Out of Jail Free card.

See you on the other side of GO, where I can assure you I will not be collecting $200.

The Fortune Cookie

I bought a package of fortune cookies from the local supermarket to accompany a stir fry dinner I made a few weeks back. We read our three fortunes that night and I didn't think about the rest of the box until The Boss pulled it out of the cabinet earlier this evening and handed me a little plastic pouch with a thin, hard cookie enclosed. I bit it open with my teeth and handed it her. She wandered away. Not long after, I heard my husband speak out.

As I turned the corner, he was reading the fortune strip from the Boss's cookie. "Your ideals are well within your reach," he told her, sagely. Then he thought about it, and he raised an eyebrow.

He looked at The Boss, who was stretching a tiny hand, her fingers disproportionately long and slender, high above her head as she extended it over the tabletop in an attempt to grasp the cordless telephone laying in wait. One finger after another crept forward on the laminate until she was able to knock the phone off its perch. She was halfway to dialing China when The Partner scooped her into his arms and severed the connection. Then he looked at me.

"You heard the fortune," I shrugged. "It's all within her reach. I think it's about time we started child-proofing this place. "

Thanksgiving Detox

Thanks to paper plates and giblets wrapped in paper, Thanksgiving at my house went off with relative smoothness.

Late the night before, while I prepared the turkey to soak overnight in salt water brine, I did not have high hopes for such a pleasant result. As I stuffed my hand in the main turkey cavity in much the same way I search, blindly, for my glasses if they accidentally fall off the nightstand, I came upon what I presumed to be the neck. It was frozen to the rest of the turkey, which was strange when you consider that the turkey I so carefully selected and paid for was labeled "fresh." Why the inside of my fresh turkey was a flaking ice cube is beyond me.

At any rate, I pulled on the neck. It wouldn't budge. Then I pulled some more. It still wouldn't move. Knowing nothing about turkeys, I wondered if was still attached to the spine, or something. Then suddenly it gave. I started, and then I screamed. I screamed so loud that one would have thought the gates of Hell opened and unleashed upon me the Ghosts-Of-Junior-High-School-Gym-Classes-Past. The Boss, who was situated behind me in a saucer, did not know what to make of it. So she started screaming, too. She was inconsolable for the better part of ten minutes. Her father patted her back and she bawled over his shoulder while I stood over the sink, my gloved hands clutching a long, frozen neck.

I thought about the way parents are not supposed to show fear. They are supposed to be a safe haven for their children. I wondered how that worked, exactly. It wasn't all that long ago that I was a child myself. When was I supposed to become fearless? When was I supposed to get myself together, reining in all the ragged ends of my dramatic and spastic (one of my friend's coined it "dramastic") personality? My daughter is 16 months old now and I show no signs of changing. Have I doomed her to a life of uncertainty and trepidation?

At any rate, she got over it. I bagged the neck and stuffed it into the freezer for my mom to take home, then I dumped my 20-pounder into the brine and called it a night. I wondered if I wasn't possibly forgetting something, but I didn't care enough to ponder the question too deeply.

At Thanksgiving dinner the next day, as my mother helped my husband carve a turkey I am proud to say was as moist and flavorful as I could've hoped, she peered curiously into the bird. "What's this?" She poked around with the electric knife, then she tried to stifle her grin. "I think you missed something."

"Oh, no," I said, the reality of my ignorance becoming clear. "It's the giblets, isn't it? I didn't take out the giblets."

She held out a paper-wrapped package of innards. "Yes,these are the giblets."

What I've been saying all along--which is that I know nothing about cooking a turkey--is no exaggeration. It's not that I forgot to remove the giblets. It's that I didn't know where the giblets were. When the neck popped out in a frozen mass the night before, I just assumed the giblets were included. It was easier to make that assumption than it would've been to violate another of that poor bird's orifices.

"Well, at least they were wrapped in paper," my mom said.

"That's for sure!" chortled my mother-in-law. "If they were wrapped in plastic, that turkey would've been toxic!"

I had to laugh, too. I mean, how could I not? As we all filled our plates and clinked wine glasses in thanks, I was already fat and happy with perspective. I was grateful for our large and ever-growing family, all present and accounted for; for our table full of food; and, of course, for giblets wrapped the old fashioned way.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time for stories. It starts in the morning as radio stations play special programming aimed at listeners in the kitchen and on the road. Demographic studies and Arbitron ratings must have proven that today, more than any other day, we focus more on the words than the music: Alice's Restaurant on the local independent rock station; short stories read by their authors on NPR; tales of the olden days on the A.M. local.

Then family and friends roll in, and the stories get personal. Words like wine flow around a table or a fire-lit living room; they skim the heads of scampering kids. Now the words on the radio--snow songs crooned in the background--are secondary. The Thanksgiving picture is one of sound, smell, taste and warmth. It's more complete than yesterday; so much more substantial than tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Enjoy the tales and the telling.

Ask Patty--Go Ahead, Ask Her

Roxie the family pet is making the rounds. Just today she was featured on a Web site catering to the automotive needs of women. If you're wondering what my dog has to do with female drivers, I'll tell you that the connection will become clearer once you stop over to say hi. And after you do that, you should cruise around the rest of the site for a look at the automotive world from a woman's perspective. The site has been featured in papers like the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and was recently a presence at BlogHer '06.

As someone who has been reduced to a snot-faced, blathering mess at more than one car repair facility by technicians who were out to take me for a ride, I am all about a Web site devoted to helping women assume the driver's position when it comes to navigating the slaloms of car buying and car maintenance. If only Patty could also teach me how to merge correctly and not to hit curbs.

Anyway, check it out. And tell them Roxie sent ya.

The Tail End of Autumn in New England

The fall of the frostbitten scarecrow.

May your November nights be warm and comfortable, and your December days not too much of a pain in the. . .well, you know.

To The Family Pet on Thanksgiving

Dear Roxie,

Upon my homecoming from the Supermarket today, as I walked through the door with a 20 pound turkey hanging from one hand and a 20 pound girl tucked under the opposite arm, I saw laid out before me the evidence of gratitude. I saw that pit bulls, too, can give thanks. It is in the wag of their hind quarters that shimmies out through their tails; it is in the incessant licking; and it is in the fabric of three sofas ripped open with love.

This year, I know who it is that has taken over receipt of your doting energies. I see the bond form a tighter strangle-hold every day. You and The Boss. The Boss and you. She feeds you. You sniff her butt. She drops heavy objects on your back. You eat her socks. The two of you cannot get enough of each other.

I'm sorry I did not take you along for the ride to Price Chopper today, as I know how you feel about the separation. I just thought it was a little too cold out to leave you in the car, and supermarkets do not generally smile upon dogs in the turkey section. Perhaps I should enlist the practiced hand of a mental health professional to write the kind of doctor's note that would allow me to bring you with me, everywhere, in your capacity as my state-sanctioned "emotional service pet"--kind of like a seeing-eye dog, only for crazies. Because that is where I'm headed, buddy. Your love is slowly driving me insane.

Here's what I saw on the floor of the kitchen when I walked in the door just an hour or so ago: an empty ice cream container, a plastic dessert tray, the crystallized remnants of a doubly soiled diaper, and a host of brown baby wipes.

I remember that diaper when it was still intact. It was particularly foul. I threw it in the un-lidded garbage receptacle next to the front door with the intent of bagging it up and dumping it into the can outside on my way to the grocery store. Well, like everything else, I forgot. It's my own fault. It usually is.

I know you love The Boss and can't get enough of her toddling goodness. I know she feeds you every day from her own plate--a ravioli flung here, a waffle square tossed there. Just the other day we had to let your collar out a rung to accomodate your ever expanding neckline. But I have to tell you, Rox-o, it doesn't taste nearly as good second hand. Mealtime with The Boss is NOT a gift that keeps on giving. Just because we let you get away with sneaking morsels of your own solidified waste in the backyard does not mean eating our daughter's poop is okay. Because it is not okay. It is not okay.

You're thorough, though, I'll give you that. All that was left for me to clean up was a few shreds of papery plastic, some crystals and the wipes. I'm sure the bacteria that remain, so gloriously invisible to the naked eye, are nothing a can of Lysol (or two) won't eradicate. All's well that ends well, right?

Right, Roxie. Right. But I'm sure you'll understand why we won't be letting you into our bed tonight. Or maybe you won't quite make the connection, and will patter off huffily, in the dead of night, in search of something else to be thankful for. And if my negligence in appropriately dog-proofing the house is any indication, you'll probably find it.

I have nobody but myself to blame. You, I can't help but love every bit as much as before. Maybe more, because that's the kind of sucker I am.

May your Thanksgiving be filled with scraps never before digested,
ECR

Ten Things He Loves About Me, Plus One

Earlier this month I posted a list of 10 Things I Hate About Me. Were this any other month, I would've probably left it at that. But this is NaBloPoMo and, as it's the Monday before Thanksgiving, my time and inspiration are in short supply. To that end, I enlisted my husband's help in following up on the first 10 Things post via this latest bastardization of the game I like to call She Said/He Said.

SHE SAID: Please list 10 Things You Love About Me.

HE SAID: Would five be enough?

SHE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING, BUT RAISED HER EYEBROWS IN A POINTED MANNER

HE SAID: Fine. In no particular order, here goes:


1. talented writer

2. does cute things to surprise me

3. popped out a really cute baby (that looks like me)

4. tries a new recipe for dinner several times a week

5. is a freak in bed

6. pushes me to succeed

7. always wears thongs

8. has good taste in home decorating

9. laughs at my jokes no matter how dumb they are

10. likes to go places and see/do new things

11. drives a car that has allowed me to hone my mechanic skills


SHE SAID: Awwwww. But I'm not sure about #6. You make it sound like I nag you. I don't nag. You're the nag, remember?

HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING, BUT RAISED HIS FINGER IN A POINTED MANNER

Sunday Dinner

Things I should be doing tonight instead of blogging:

- The dishes.

- Something that pays money so that I can afford to remodel our kitchen into something that actually includes counters. Because we currently have none. Seriously. None. Okay, maybe one, but it can barely fit a spice rack and a block of Henckel's. In case you were wondering, that's why we keep dirty dishes on the stove.

- Figuring out how the heck I am going to cook my first full Thanksgiving meal in the culinary cubicle that is our kitchen.

Completely Useless Information That I Would Never Share If I Had Anything Better To Write About, Brought to You By NaBloPoMo

The states in red? I've visited 'em. The rest is a gray void that I won't be happy 'til I've filled.

I want to travel cross-country on a southern bent in a rented Winnebago for the better part of the month of May.


Create your own personalized map of the USA

A Novel Concept

My mother consented to putting a boring, traditional name on my birth certificate because she knew full well it was just a piece of paper. As soon as the ink dried, she set out to tell everyone my nickname.

I was Binky from the beginning.

When I first expressed an interest in being a writer at the age of 5, she told me I had the perfect name for it. "People won't forget Binky," she said. Even at 5, I must have rolled my eyes.

Who knows if I'd ever actually use that name on a published work. It's all moot at this point, as I have yet to commit any fiction of length to my computer screen. The idea of a royalty check signed over to any of my identities is still a dreamy, out-of-focus concept.

However, I have recently finished a 25,000 word manuscript for a non-fiction project I was commissioned to write by a trio in the process of building their own publishing company. The agreement I signed precludes me from going into detail until the project is unveiled sometime around the New Year. It's nothing earth shattering, but I'm proud of each and every one of those 25,000 words and I hold them up as proof that I actually CAN write a book.

If confidence is the foundation on which one builds a novel, then I guess I've got the basement. I even have some tools. What I lack is the most rudimentary blueprint. I just don't know what to write. I've got some characters, sure. I have a few settings. I just don't know how to nail them together, and am not entirely sure they'll fit.

I've joined a blogosphere-inspired writing group that I hope will be just the thing I need to get productive. A few days into it, I can already tell that the experience, discipline, and enthusiasm brought to the cyber-table by the other participants can only enhance my craft.

Now, if I could just find a cleaning group to inspire me to get the laundry done. . .

Diagnosis

Because the lack of communication in my family extends not only to the way we convey information but also to how we receive it, I had to deduce the name of my father’s cancer from a few clues dangled in front of me via a telephone call from my mother.

“Your father can’t remember the name of his cancer,” she said.

“What?”

“He said the doctor told him but that it's long and he can't remember it. There are three words and it begins with an ‘sz’ or something.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” I sat there a moment in disbelief before practicality overcame me. I held the phone to my ear as I leaned into my computer and fired up Google.

“One thing your father did get out of the him is that this cancer has an 80% cure rate.” A lifetime of hope and fear was in the heft of those words. “I couldn’t believe the doctor actually said it. Cancer. The whole time my mother was dying, her doctors never once uttered that word.”

“Um-hum. Um-hum.” The computer keys tap-danced staccato under my practiced fingers. “Squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx,” I said, suddenly.

“Yes, that must be it! Where did you find it?”

“Google.”

“S-Q-what?”

“Squamous cell carcinoma.”

“How do you spell that?”

“S-Q-U-A-M-O-U-S.”

“Definitely. That's it. Wait till I tell your father. He’ll be so happy.” She chuckled at the absurdity of it. “Would you believe he was actually shocked when he found out it was cancer? You should’ve seen his face. All those years of drinking and smoking and now using that chewing tobacco, and still his eyes were as wide as saucers. He just thought it couldn’t happen to him.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I remember when he was a police officer and how he’d always say he was okay with the idea of being killed by a bullet, but he’d never want to die of cancer.”

“So he smoked two packs a day.”

I could see her on the other line, shrugging off my sarcasm. “He just didn’t want a drawn out death, by any disease. But he always said cancer.”

“Then why…” I trailed off into the realm of speechlessness I’d be better off to visit more frequently. Brief silence ensued.

“Well, anyway, how do you spell that again?” My mother was bright with the solid prospects of my investigative discovery.

“S-Q-U-A-M-O-U-S.”



____

What Do You Do When Your Dishwasher Stops Working?

The warranty on the dishwasher my husband acquired through marriage has long since expired. Daily, and with a sigh, he resigns himself all over again to glasses that are not quite clean and teflon pans that are indelibly traced with soap scum. This dishwasher--never a finely tuned machine to begin with--gets more unreliable by the day.

Still, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't trade me in even if he could.

I'm a bad housekeeper. My mop is the dog's tongue and my vacuum is the handheld Black & Decker I nose into corners to remove blatant webs of dust. Only when there is not a single family member left with a clean pair of underwear to his or her name will I do the laundry. Upstairs, where no house guests may roam, it is hard to see the floor for all the clutter.

I'd like to clean it all up. I really would. But my messes are slow-growing and layered like certain fungi. To wipe out the scourge would take at least 4 days devoid of any other commitment, including motherhood, writing and sleep. And I'll tell you this: If I had that kind of vacation time coming to me, I'd spend it on the terrace of a spotless, beach-front hotel room with maid service before I'd waste a minute of it cleaning my own house.

I know some of the beliefs I hold, like this anti-cleaning one, are not easily supportable, so I have taken to collecting witty aphorisms that bolster my cause. I will end today's post with one of them, which I discovered on my mother's refrigerator when I was about ten years old. It's been there ever since.

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing." ~ Phyllis Diller

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Blogger Scorned

I am going to wait and see if the post I just spent over an hour crafting decides to show up below. As it stands, there is an emtpy space that was NOT there when I hit "publish post" just a few moments ago, so naively satisfied with my words.

You can imagine my surprise when I went to view the fruits of my labor and saw that no content conveyed with the title. I was so flustered, in fact, that I proceeded to engage in a series of missteps that made it so the "recover post" feature in Blogger was no longer an option. Though I have some of my post saved, the final third of it is missing, and therein lies my anger.

See, I have this problem where I cannot make myself re-write something that has disappeared. I just get too angry. I feel like the Internet has robbed me of words that I will never again be able to come up with, and I get so caught up in the rightous indignation of being the victim that I cannot possibly find any energy left over with which to write something in replacement.

I realize this borders on insanity and that it's wholly unproductive, but that's an issue for the psychiatrist's couch that I see no point in burdening you with here today.

So, unless someone has some great advice about how to retrieve lost words from the Blogger Dashboard, or unless they magically reappear of their own volition, you will never know what happened in the Dunkin Donuts Drive Thru More Than a Month Ago.

Somehow I think you'll survive.

To The Person In Front of Me at the Dunkin Donuts Drive-Thru More Than a Month Ago

The Bad Aunt

I am off to deliver belated birthday gifts to my niece and nephew, whose birthdays were in September and October, respectively. I am a bad, bad aunt. The sheer amount of groveling I feel compelled to do at their feet this afternoon precludes me from writing anything of length here today.

Instead, I leave you with this photo of The Boss and my shining star of a brother, who could never be construed as bad.

Flashback

The Good Uncle, December '05

The Bright Side of a Rainy Sunday

- I slept in till 10:30 this morning. When I picked up The Boss from my parent's house sometime after noon, she was nap-lacking and slap-happy, but she shrieked with the thrill of seeing me.

- I dropped off my brother's clean clothes--laundered with love by our mom--at his college dorm and he joined me and The Boss on a trip to the UCONN children's book fair. We shared an oversized umbrella beneath the driving rain. Inside the building, The Boss gave the hairy eyeball to a host of children's book characters. Each time she turned away, unimpressed, I shrugged my shoulders and stuck out my upturned hands in exaggerated deference to the mesh eyeballs of Clifford, A Wild Thing, and one of the Berenstein Bears.

- We drove home inside grayness that was sopping like a dirty, wrung-out towel. Upon the completion of the evening's after-dinner diaper change, I took the night-ready Boss into her bedroom for a story. I read to her from a book about penguins with tactile illustrations. The pads of my fingers drifted over each page as I spoke the words. The Boss rubbed her eyes and slumped to one side. Only fatigue can keep her down long enough for a story. She's not a reader yet, but I can't help but hope we're getting there.


Inspired by prompt #6 of Margaret Mason's No One Cares What You Had For Lunch: 100 Ideas For Your Blog, which encourages you to "Count Your Blessings."

Let Me Tell You Where To Go

I came across Jocelyn's Stories courtesy of this link. Blogging Baby, I owe you one--not for mentioning this here humble little site (though I am surely surprised and thankful) but for bringing to my attention a blog that highlights the everyday wonder of life in posts both verbal and visual. After reading only a few of Jocelyn's stories, I began to think that her son's look of wide-eyed amazement might be his own early acknowledgement of the scope of his mother's talents.

I could go on, but I won't. Anything I say will be redundant once you discover Jocelyn's Stories for yourself.

Out Of Office Reply

The moon was low and elusive on my winding drive from central Connecticut to the northeast corner. Its half-buddha belly was the fattest I'd ever seen. I turned a bend near the gold dome of the capital building and the shadowed orb disappeared, only to emerge again next to the sillhouette of another insurance building.

I sat by myself in the car, except for a strange loneliness that was so thick it seemed to take on its own form. There were only indents in the place where The Boss's carseat had been secured a half hour earlier. Now her seat was latched into my parent's mini-van and she was tucked away sleepily in the room I'd called mine as a child.

When I left her for this overnight visit with my parents so I could finish painting our living room, which had been sitting in a semi-finished state for three weeks, The Boss conveyed for the first time a genuine attachment to her mama. I know because she said it--"mama!"--as the tears formed along her lids and her mouth made the slow, hysterical square that always came before the swell. She was wailing.

I stood in the doorway. For a long time I watched her watching me. In fifteen months, she had never noticed me leave.

"You just need to go," my father said from his seat in front of the big screen television, where his scratchy words floated over her screams. "You're making it harder on her."

So I pushed open the door and walked through. I got in the car and was almost five miles down the road before I noticed the gaping yellow moon.

Growing Up

My father has a pain in the neck, and this time I'm not talking about my mother. He goes in on Wednesday for a biopsy on the tumor in his throat.

There has been a constant stream of nicotine in his system, with no exaggeration whatsoever, since childhood. First, it took the form of Marlboro Reds. About fourteen years ago, after the birth of my younger sister coupled with a stern warning from his doctor that an emphysema diagnosis was immiment, he switched to Kodiak chewing tobacco.

My father is not a weak person. He has kicked numerous addictions with not the slightest trace of relapse. If he knew something he was doing--something over which he had control--was hurting someone, he would stop it.

My mother told me recently that he confided to her he doesn't think he will live five more years. Furthermore, he doesn't care. This is interesting on many levels, not the least of which is this: I am shocked he and my mother actually talk to each other. Theirs has always been a marriage of my mother's monologues and my father's "yeah, yeah's." The very presence of such open communication is proof itself that something is up.

I will admit I took a strange comfort in the fact that he is not afraid of dying. But, as mom said to dad, "what about us?" What about the wife of 29 years? What about the daughter who is not yet fifteen years old? What about the grandchildren?

Questions. Right now they're all we have. Maybe we only ever have questions. Living is the big unknowable, and even more than dying, it's the thing we must truly seek to understand.

Ten Things I Hate About Me*

1. That my eyesight would've rendered me a casualty of Darwin's theory had I been born before the advent of modern optometry.

2. That I hate talking on the phone.

3. That my hair is too sparse and thin to attractively accomodate the bangs I really need to cover my big forehead.

4. That I am inherently lazy.

5. That verbal expressions of love, sympathy, regret or contrition flow from me like sludge.

6. That I cannot do simple math.

7. That I am persona non grata in public libraries all over the tri state area due to the grotesque nature of my overdue fines.

8. That I am not inherently thoughtful.

9. That, when it comes to house keeping, I am about as effective as a slug--I am slow, I rarely get anything done, and I am more likely than not to leave a nasty residue.

10. That I don't regularly tell my husband how much I love him: for his selflessness; his intelligence; his humor; his contributions to this family; and for the way he has helped me become the person I was always meant to be.

*Meme courtesy of Chicken and Cheese. Go ahead, try it yourself. Spread the self-loathing.

A Public Hearing

When I carried The Boss into the voting booth today and closed the curtain behind me, I was terrified that she would pull the red lever and finish out my session before I had even made it through the eleven different charter revisions, let alone weighed in the world famous Lieberman/Lamont question.

Luckily for me, she was too busy playing Peek-A-Bo over my shoulder by sticking her head through the curtain and ogling the gray haired poll workers situated in front of the booth. At first. My luck ran out somewhere around "state senate," which was conveniently where all the names began to float around in an unrecognizable muddle before me. I struggled to remember who was who. Which guy stood for what. I started wondering about definitions, like what it means to be a Connecticut Libertarian. All the while, The Boss pulled my hair and threated to flip switches. Patience drained out of me. She wiggled. She kicked me in the kidneys. I couldn't remember for the life of me anyone's stance on the issues. "I don't know what to do!" I said to myself and The Boss.

"I think the woman in the first booth needs help," the only male poll worker in the place shouted out.

A different, more placid voice was suddenly right outside my metal cube. "Can I help you, dear?"

"Oh, no, thanks!" I said awkwardly, shifting The Boss's weight on my hip. "I was talking to my daughter."

Everyone laughed. I cringed. Then there was that male voice again, either jovial or gruff: "Looks like someone needs to get their hearing aid checked!"

I felt like the school kid getting yelled at by the librarian for speaking too loud in a sacred institution. Then I got indignant, wondering why I, one of fourteen residents under the age of thirty who came out to vote at that particular polling station, was being singled out by the octogenarian set with a God damn joke about, of all things, hearing aids.

The Boss must've sensed that I was at the end of my rope, because she quickly busied herself with her own shoelace. I flicked the last few switches with a huff and pulled the big, red lever.

I high-tailed it out of there without getting an "I Voted" sticker.

The Halloween Report

The Boss's first Halloween as a semi-cognizant human being has come and gone. She won't remember it, but The Partner and I know it's the start of many childhood memories she'll come to cherish as much as we do.

She was a little bopper, all 33 inches of her, in a poodle skirt with her name on it and a sparkly black neck scarf. Wobbly on new saddle shoes, she showed off her new skills in upright navigation. The orange sand pail she clutched in her hands was the best I could do at the last minute after I realized I forgot to buy the plastic pumpkin she really should have had for her initial foray into the land of trick-or-treats.

We only visited one house, and it was right next door. To go any further on the main thoroughfare that is our street would've jeopardized all our lives if we chose to walk it and would've been a completely unncessary pain in the hind quarters had we decided to throw her in and out of her carseat for a door-to-door drive. Since she was too young to care, I made the executive decision to hit up the neighbors and call it a night. I think The Partner was the only one who was really disappointed on account of the fact that free candy is a concept he's all too willing to exploit.

The Boss toddled between us, three hands-in-hand. We descended our driveway as the familiar breeze of disbelief swept over me, warm in the temperate night. "I can't believe we're trick or treating with our daughter," I said. "Our own daughter." The porch lit darkness was surreal. I thought about the Halloweens to come, and how fast her tentative wobbles would become sure-footed races to the next house. And I thought, because this is how I am, about the swiftness with which she would become too old for the childish pastime. I thought about the years between her last Halloween as a child and her first Halloween with her own. In the few paces from our driveway to the neighbor's, I thought about it all.

A friend told me about her young daughter's reaction to the holiday and I realized that little girl was feeling the same sort of disbelief as I was, except that her awe was derived from the newness and wonder of the costumes and candy and not from the company. "It's like a dream!" were the words her mother told me she repeatedly chanted as doors opened and shut and her pumpkin booty grew. "I just can't believe it. It's like a dream!"

And it was like a dream. When our neighbors held out a tray of chocolates, The Boss reached in for a miniature bar with unsure fingers. She grabbed it. She took it. She held it up for our approval. Then she went to put it back.

"No, that's for you!" I laughed, while The Partner showed her how to deposit it in her pail and then tried to get her to go back for more. But The Boss was already overwhelmed. I clutched her wispy, pink-skirtedness to my chest and kissed her head. I saw the lone piece of candy in her bucket and smiled.

There'll be much more where that came from.

Random Notes on Headgear

The Boss thinks anything that goes on her head--including her hair--is a hat. She has been known to sit in her carseat and pat herself on the head repeatedly, all the while chanting "hat," "hat."

Yesterday at the store, she put a basket on her head and, with glee, shouted "hat!" Then she did it again, and again.

FLASHBACK

The Boss's First Hat

Someone Give This Girl Her Own Show on MSNBC!

With Tuesday's elections drawing near, we interrupt the rhetoric for a little bit of straight talk from one of Virginia's youngest constituents.

"Jim Webb is in a contest, and he wants to get a job. The other guy is bad. Well, not like bad. I think he just doesn't say please or thank you...and he might not share." ~ Bella, Age 4

An Introduction

It occurs to me that I've yet to properly introduce myself, despite the fact that this blog has been up and running since July. Well, there's no time like the present, right? That adage doesn't normally slip so easily from my tongue. I'm ECR: wife, mother, writer and supreme procrastinator.

College educated in the liberal arts, I work at home as a freelance writer. I've been doing so since my daughter was born in July of 2005. I feel more secure in my own personal and professional identity now that I am a wife and mother than I ever did when it was just me. Free from the distractions of a 40-hour work week outside the home, I’ve been able to concentrate on my family, my writing, and myself.

Parenthood hasn’t come easy to my husband and I, not in terms of how we relate to our daughter or how we relate to each other, but it has made us a family. We may not know always how to communicate, but we sure love to talk. We are rabid advocates of free speech, and it is evident in how we raise our daughter. She is currently exercising said right with much passion in the form of "dad," “look,” “dog,” “thank you,” “hat,” and “gak.”

I blog in search of the discipline necessary to the write the novels I've known I would write since I was five years old. I blog in search of the words. I didn't know I was blogging for the community I would find here, but it turns out that's part of it, too. It's a community compelling me to write every day this month as part of NaBloPoMo.

So, for the rest of you bloggers out there who are committing your words to computer screens all over the world for 30 straight days, tell me this: who are you? With a month's worth of whitespace to fill, I hope you'll have no excuse to dismiss this burning question.

A Killingly Call To Action

I am sickened. Not, this time, by Staphylococcus , rotavirus or the flu. Not by the cold that's going around or the expired milk in the fridge. What has been making my stomach turn is the nauseating lack of support for education evident in every referendum, budget vote and public meeting since I moved here almost three years ago. Our public high school was put on academic probation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in 2004 and a total loss of accreditation is looming with the start of the new year.

The lack of support for education is not coming from inside the schools. There, people care. I have heard countless positive stories about teachers and administrators who put priority number one on shaping the amorphous minds of children into thinking, feeling vessels of productivity. They want kids in this town to have every resource possible. They want them to feel part of a community that lives for their future. Inside each elementary, middle and high school, our kids know they count.

A loss of accreditation doesn't change that. What it represents is a failure within the greater community, where the most vocal taxpayers espouse priorities that do not reflect a forward thinking and sympathetic mindset.

I've been to town council meetings where the education budget was debated inside an auditorium filled almost entirely with retirees. They slam the Board of Education. They slam the teachers. They slam custodians and bus drivers. They say they are not slamming children, but the children take the hit.

High School principal Mary Christian was quoted on the front page of today's Norwich Bulletin as saying that accreditation is a matter of credibility. "Accreditation is a stamp of approval that shows the community is providing support and stability. It shows we are working on programs and curriculum," she said.

When the high school was put on a warning list in 1998, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges presented the town with a list of 25 concerns to be addressed, most of which revolved around a crowded and antiquated building. In 2004, the high school was put on probation. According to the Bulletin, "little change" or "no change" is the status of most of those 25 bullet points to date.

Time and time again, referenda have taken place on the building of a new school. Each vote is met with a campaign by the "Citizens for Limited Taxation" to veto progress. A vote on the site for the new school that finally passed in 2005 was overturned this year. Though state subsidies for construction ensure that the costs of building a new school are actually less than those entailed in updating the existing structure, the residents most likely to go to the voting booth each time it's rolled out continue to stand by the notion that fiscal responsibility and responsibility to our children are mutually exclusive concepts.

I called the Office of the Superintendent today to ask how I can most effectively stand up for the importance of education in this town, especially as it relates to the high school. Unfortunately, I discovered that there are no organized support mechanisms beyond the obvious civic opportunties presented at town council, Board of Education, and various committee meetings.

It seems that the successful grass roots advocacy of the Citizens for Limited Taxation remains largely unchallenged. If we, as supporters of education, can learn anything from their efforts, it's that the passion and energy of a few motivated people truly CAN make a difference.

Margaret Mead, a student of anthropology and human nature, said it famously: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

But without action, these are only words. Please pass this message on to anyone you know with a vested interest in Killingly's future. Leave a comment with your ideas about how we can prove to the children that their education is one of our highest priorities. If you do not live here, I welcome any stories you may be able to share about successful advocacy in your city or town.

As always, I can be reached via email at ecregan@ct.metrocast.net.

File Under "Open Letters, Misc."

Dear President's Choice,

The other day we bought a package of your chocolate chip cookies. They appeared to be very well sealed as usual. When I opened them that night - a night after a very long day of wrangling two insane children, a night where I felt I deserved a treat with a cup of tea, a night where I thought having a cookie or six would make me feel better - I was very disappointed to bite into the first cookie and find that it was stale. Rather than crunching like I expected it to, it was somewhere between crunchy and soft.

It was rather unpleasant and I was very let down since your chocolate chip and chocolate chunk cookies are usually so satisfying.

No, I can't take the bag back to the store for a full refund on your behalf or for an exchange. I ate them. All of them.

They may have been sort of gross, but I was a desperate woman.

Thanks anyway,

Sherry

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Dear Dollarama,

Thank you for existing. I don't know how anyone ever survived before you. I know my mother used to shop at K-Mart when I was a little girl, regularly enough that I referred to my little savings box as my K-Mart box. I would save any money given to me and keep it in that box and then go buy a toy at K-Mart. Still, even their decent prices were nothing in comparison to the joys of the dollar store.

And the sheer volume of crap, um stuff, that you sell is amazing. The other day we managed to buy lasagna pans, a cat dish, hamster food, multi-surface cleaner, candy, socks, soap, art supplies, and Halloween stuff all in one fell swoop. It was also dirt cheap.

Thanks for providing me with a place to buy way too much stuff.

Sherry

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Dear idiot drivers,

There was a reason that the province of Quebec was reluctant to make it legal to turn right on a red light even though many other places had already done so. It was because of morons who are incapable of doing two things at once, like driving and thinking at the same time.

You are allowed to turn on red. However you are only supposed to do that when the road you are turning on to is actually clear. You are not supposed to whip out and veer wildly into the oncoming traffic.

Also, you in the red car? You're also not supposed to sit behind a car such as, oh OURS, honking madly because you think it's your god-given right to turn on the red light. We weren't turning because three lanes worth of traffic were driving down the street at the time and we weren't interested in being involved in an accident.

Jackass.
Sherry

PS - Nice finger! Look I have one too!

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Dear cute guy at the pumpkin stand,

Thank you for being nice enough to help me carry the pumpkins to the car and thank you for setting them right in the trunk and making sure they wouldn't roll around and for being such a gentleman. With all the idiots around (see above letter), it's nice to have someone with such great manners and people skills.

And thank you for finding me two really good pumpkins since I know that it was kind of last minute in the season to be thinking, "oh duh I need pumpkins!" I really appreciate it and our jack-o-lanterns came out really great.

Mostly though, thanks for being hot. Really.

Fanning self,
Sherry

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Dear costume makers,

Next year you should just go ahead and make a costume out of fishnet stockings and latex and label it "My First Slut Costume". What is with all the costumes geared for kids that are revealing and trampy? Do parents actually buy that stuff for their young kids? A 16-year-old in a somewhat revealing costume is self-expression and kind of understandable; I was 16 once too and I get it. A six-year-old in flimsy costumes? Not cool.

I'm almost expecting to see kids as young as ten walking around next year in nothing more than a thong, stilletos, and a couple of pasties and announcing they're dressed as strippers.

Thank you for making at least a fe acceptable costumes for kids. I'm relieved that my four-year-old can be a normal Red Riding Hood.

Next year let's try to be age-appropriate!

Sincerely,
A confused mother

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Dear parents in our area,

Thank you for being generous with the candy when we were out trick-or-treating. My dauther hauled in a lot of loot last night. My husband and I both appreciate it since we can now gorge ourselves on mini chocolate bars and candy when the kids are in bed.

Sherry

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Sherry is a Canadian mother of two who often composes letters in her head even though she rarely writes any for real. She does freelance web design and writing and when she has a spare moment she blogs about the Chaos Theory that is her life.


This post is part of the monthly Blog Exchange. In the spirit of blog camaraderie, you can find my own Open Letter at Sherry's site. For even more in therapeutic correspondence, click here, where you can also find out how to participate in the next Blog Exchange.