Priceless

You can't put a value on things like togetherness, when the company is welcome. Laughing freely and holding on at all costs. A family at the dinner table telling stories. Owing nothing to each other; owing everything for each other.

Wouldn't you know that The Partner and I finally came to a common marital understanding--bought and paid for by 4+ years of misinterpretation--just as he took a new job that will have him working 13 hour days. When we didn't want to have anything to do with each other, his schedule was open. Now that we do, I'll barely see him. And neither will the kids.

In this economy, there's little room for the luxuries money can't buy. Time as a family would be nice, but eating together is secondary to having food on the table. It'd be fun to take a trip, but the journey is secondary to having a car with gas in it. This is how we've chosen to live.

The Partner could've declined this new position on the other side of the state, but it would've been risky. Our was an unspoken agreement when we realized that now is not the time to get audacious. He has a good job that pays the bills. He'll try it out, waiting to see how the work goes and how the world turns. If he must commute each day, so be it. If he can work out some work-from-home scheduling, even better. But as long as the dollar is in such a state of flex, we've got to bend with it. At least for now.

Then we can reevaluate.

***

Thanks to Toyfoto for bestowing upon me the Kreativ Blogger award. A talented writer as well as photographer, she knows a thing or two about creativity. I am so flattered that she thought of me when passing the award along.

With the Kreativ Blogger badge came this dictate: share six things you value and six things you don't, then pass the award to six other bloggers. I took a kreativ stab at the first assignment in the section above (read: I honed in on a couple key words and then did what I wanted to do anyway). Below, I'll do the rest of the honors.

My picks:

(This) Girl's Gone Child - If you've been to her blog, you know why I think she's one of the most creative people around. If you haven't, then your first visit will clue you in pretty fast.

Things I Carry: Memoir - Lauren is a creative force that blows in like a constructive hurricane. She is able to sweep people up with her words and pictures in such a smooth way that it takes awhile before they realize they are being carried.

one plus two - jen looks at this world with eyes that see things not only as they are, but as they could be if people worked together to make the picture brighter and clearer. There is creativity in the vision and in the way she shares it.

i obsess. - Debbie is one creative motherfucker. There is nothing linear about her. She is so imaginative it hurts.

Motherhood Uncensored - Kristen turned blogging into a business according to several inventive models.

My Mom Genes - Duff and Fitz, the duo behind this relatively new blog, have taken on the mission of assuring new mothers everywhere that they are not crazy or alone. Their unique viewpoints combine to make us realize we're not so different after all.

The Parental Prerogative

When it comes to parenthood, there’s not a single way to act or a lone way to feel. From the first day a mother-to-be sees the vast selection of pre-natal vitamins arrayed before her, it is apparent that this whole with-child thing is about choice.

Formula or breast milk? Ferber or the Family Bed? Robeez or Pediped? Becoming a parent is one decision that will be made over and over for the rest of your life.

My husband likes to think that he has control over everything. His actions are dictated by rational thought. With the birth of our first child, he did not automatically feel the intense emotional bond that is touted everywhere from Kodak commercials to a grandmother’s cribside coos. Nor did I. Part of the reason may have been the emergency c-section under general anaesthesia for which neither of us was present (he, physically; me, consciously). But more than than that, it is the fact that people can come at one universal experience from very different directions, and can retreat on similarly varied paths.

READ MORE...

Blogging For Friends

The Boss and Annabel

Photo by toyfoto

Sometimes making friends is easy. When both parties to something potentially amicable are open and fearless, then striking up a friendship can be a breeze. Other times, the direction of the wind isn't so favorable.

The Boss has a propensity for close human interaction that I lack. Maybe that's the difference between 3 and 30. She is now building the relationships that I've been coasting on for decades. My best friends were all made during childhood--as a toddler at parties with the children of my parent's friends, then in elementary school, then high school, then college. Now the legacies of those years are scattered across the country. I keep in touch as best a phone-phobic person like myself can. But when I get together with those tried and true friends (with varying degrees of regularity), it's like old times.

Now, when I make an acquaintance, it seems I don't know how to bridge the divide between old times and new. I want a friendship with history even though I've not only forgotten how to make history happen, but I've lost track of the time it takes. I see other women in my mother's group become fast friends and I wonder why I'm not that close to any of them. Is it because I don't like to talk on the phone? Is it because I have nothing to say, anyway? Is it because I'm not fun, or am too opinionated, or because I think my shit doesn't stink? I mean, do I smell?

In the blogosphere, it's easier to get to know people. I put myself out there in posts and if someone reads my blog regularly, it's probably because there's something about me they can relate to. If I read their blog as well, a circle is formed. Without actual events shared in real life, history can evolve. And it has, in several cases. There are bloggers I've never met on the terrestrial plane but with whom I know I would love to hang out. It wouldn't be awkward. We already know too much about each other to waste time with filler. We'd get right to the good stuff.

I proved it last weekend when I went to visit Toyfoto with The Partner, The Boss, and Number Two in tow. I already knew the writer of Ittybits & Pieces to be smart, funny, talented and thoughtful. I've been reading her blog for almost two years now (can it really be that long?). When she invited us up, even her warnings about their incontinent dog didn't give me pause.

One would not have guessed that our feet never crossed paths before Saturday. Between our two families of four, we had plenty to do and plenty to talk about. Our husbands, even though they didn't have blogs on which to base the rapport, got along well. Our girls had the kind of fun that resulted in the kind of strife only two headstrong pre-schoolers can bring upon themselves. Our little boys either sat there being cute (mine) or toddled around being cute (hers).

With children and goats running amok amidst the fall foliage in one of my favorite corners of the northeast, I was relieved to find out that I can still make friends. And my thanks must go in part to the Internet*.

Photo by toyfoto

*which, by the way, Toyfoto's 102-year old grandfather-in-law helped invent.

Filling Up the Six Pack

Number Two is preparing to join the world on the move. He's not crawling yet; he's not quite sitting on his own. But he's been set in motion.

He throws himself from his bouncer like a blond midget kamikaze, then hangs upside-down from his lap belt until I right him again. He repeated the act four times just this morning. Still, I'm not ready to face the idea that my baby has outgrown his first recliner.

The Boss was keen to the incongruity the first time she saw her brother pull himself to a full sitting position on that very bouncer. She glanced twice at him, then once at me.

"Look, mom," she said, her voice strange in its confusion. "His head is standing."

I looked, just like she told me to. And it was so very, very odd to see him like that. He wasn't just there. He wasn't crying. He wasn't sleeping or eating. His eyes weren't everywhere; instead, they were fixed. He was flexing abdominal muscles in expression of his fiercest desire to date. He was reaching up without holding on.

Number Two is getting ready to go places.

Number Two relaxes after a strenuous set of crunches.

My Baby, Brought to You By the Internet

This is what our baby would look like if The Partner and I did not produce offspring that refuse to acknowledge my existence in any of their bodily features:



For the first time, I'm thankful that our actual children are not our composites. We don't look so hot when merged.

Go make your own baby online! It's not as much fun as having sex but it's a lot less painful than childbirth.

To Be Three Years Old

The Boss has grabbed on to the same cold I recently acquired. Its main manifestation is a hoarse voice. Yesterday, I asked her how she was doing as I walked her out the door after a day at pre-school.

"I'm doing well." The small rasp of her voice was matter-of-fact. I was already chuckling to myself at the grammatical maturity of her statement when she propelled herself to even higher levels of coherence. "The only problem," she told me through the phlegm, "is that I can't speak normally."

At times like that I am impressed with her intellect. On other occasions, like when she decides she would rather sleep in a tangle of pee-soaked sheets than inform me she wet the bed, I am less overcome by her mental prowess.

Through it all, though, I continue to be amazed by the human being unfolding before me--even when the creases release the odor of hours-old urine.

At three, she is her own strange person and her parents' enigma. At three, she is stinkin' smart.

Two Days Late and a Holler Short

A virtual baby shower was held this weekend for GGC and Kristen as each awaits the birth of her second and third child, respectively.

Is that sentence even grammatically correct? Oh my God, I have no idea. That's where I am right now.

Anyway, I missed the shower. The brain of mine that is currently in hiding from the Strunk and White grammar police also balked at the price of admission to the virtual shower: one blog-ode extolling the virtues of newborn babes. Sometimes I get into this mood where I am unable to write about weighty subjects because I feel I can't do them justice. I am in such a mood now, as I have been for the past weekend. And certainly there are few things weightier than bringing a new life into the world--even if it only comes in at 7 lbs 1 oz, like the baby Boss, or 6 lbs 15 ozs, like my recently-born little boy.

So as I sit here typing with the latter in my lap--he's simultaneously eating, sleeping and pooping--I will let these words suffice:

Best wishes, Kristen. By now you're such a professional at this mothering thing--not to mention this blogging thing--that any wishes I can give are a meager offering compared to what you've already accrued. That won't stop me, of course. Here's to continued success in all your endeavors.

And I am so happy to be able to send much love to you, Rebecca, as you put the finishing touches on your next great work. Tell the story until it comes true, right? You've already started to weave the words behind this new life. I can't wait till she comes true through you.

Better late than never.

Today in Connecticut, a Plague of Frogs

I am plagued by frogs. There's a croak beneath each footfall once I step outside the house. As The Partner mows the lawn, I can picture the wet, green whir under the deck of his antique Gravely.

I'm disgusted. I just want to sit outside and read. I don't want to scratch my scalp repeatedly in fear of the frog-itch as I hug my knees to my chest on a chair. I'd like to recline beneath the mild sun that still, even after noon, feels damp from the previous night's dew.

I can't relax. I start to wonder about other plagues. Layoffs. Chemicals in plastic baby bottles. Foreclosures. Pesticides in my leafy greens. This is why I don't watch current events on TV anymore. It's irrational and alarmist, but that's me. I'm too affected by BREAKING NEWS. And it's all BREAKING NEWS these days.

If I see death and devastation in backyard frogs, I see the apocalypse on CNN.


And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.


___

Being My Own Boss

I am incapacitated by a preponderance of time. With The Boss off at school for six and a half hours each day and with Number Two still in a two-nap-a-day phase, I have moments where I could never collect them before. I have quiet spaces. I have broken chunks of blank slate.

It's not that I lack things to do; in fact, I have so much to do that I don't know where to start. There are books to read so that I have novels to write. There are freelance writing jobs for a little cash and some immediate gratification. There are volunteer roles I sometimes wonder why I took on. There's a blog I can't bring myself to update more than once a week. There's a house I haven't cleaned in four months. There are leaves starting to fall.

I could be doing something big right now, like starting that novel or increasing my freelancing load so that writing becomes more of a career than a side-job. But I don't know how to structure myself. I see the open expanse of possibilities and I just sit here as if I have no options at all.

When I worked in an office, my day was structured for me. When The Boss was born, the newness of her demands shaped my days. As she grew, she held onto most of my attention. Then her brother arrived and every moment I had was a single bubble bursting into two. I didn't need to schedule my own small projects because it was easier to get to them in fits and starts whenever I had the chance. The amount of effort it would've taken to organize my life was beyond my time and energy level. So my projects remained insignificant and largely undone.

Now I want to do more. But I don't know where or how to start. Instead of sitting here staring at my navel, marveling at the way it keeps my insides from spilling out, I want to try to turn this post into something productive. So I will ask you--all four of you dear, dear readers--how you manage to get anything done. How do you make time for personal and professional fulfillment while continuing to cater to your kids? How do you prioritize all the different things you need to do as a mother, wife, and all-around human being?

This is what happens when The Boss is out. I surf the Internet all day and get nothing done.

Three Hours

It was the same damn sky. I left the driveway in my car as a fusion of Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World came on the satellite radio. The overall effect of high blue and a gentle warble atop the ukulele should've inspired something like contentment, but instead I listened closely to the lyrics for a meaning I could relate to. It was right there. I didn't have to wait long. The wonderful world over the rainbow is a dream.

Before I got into the car I watched a ceremony and fed the baby. Then I drove to book club, where a group of us sat for two hours discussing things like organic food, the ubiquitousness of corn, and too many roosters in my friend's coop. Afterward I tooled over to the gas station to put $55 onto my credit card for transmittal to the Gulf.

Soon after my day began--at home, while the baby ate, at ten till nine--a young woman was reading the As on the alphabetical list of victims from the Twin Towers. Z did not come till I returned home, ten minutes shy of noon. In the car and at book club and next to the pump, there was a soundtrack of names I couldn't hear being mic'd over a chasm.

Three hours. With all the motions, emotions, and thoughts (about the day-to-day, but also about things less grounded) inherent in that span, I was able to contextualize in time the meaning of 2,751.

It was 180 minutes of living in the time it took to read the names of the dead.

That was the Twin Towers alone. Add Shanksville. Add the Pentagon. Then Afghanistan and Iraq. Each name buys me time that--at any given moment--I don't even realize is being paid for. But then I stop to think. And when the world doesn't stop with me, I start to understand.

There are not enough hours in the day. There are never enough hours in the day.

Her First Day of School

The September sun falls through trees onto old red farmhouses rendered dazzling by the light. I drive through glare that is no longer a summer shock, but a gold as intoxicating as currency. The first month of fall in New England is paler than both the preceding season and the autumn depths to come; it has less of an edge. I open my driver's seat window for a smudge-free view that allows the air to rush in as I am engulfed in senses that assure me I am sitting on the better side of just-right.

The Boss goes to pre-school every day now. She was eased into it by mild rays of sun warming her back as she prepared to step through the door for the first time. Her teacher was inside, The Boss was on the verge, and I was behind it all. I expected the teacher to use welcoming words or, at the very least, some hand gestures to indicate the way, but the blond-grey stranger just stood there with a smile that told me nothing. I looked at The Boss, whose lock on me was a blue mirror. I raised my shoulders and we both turned again to the teacher. I don't remember what method--a sweep of the arm, a nod, or a complete lack of direction--that Miss Kathy used to force my hand, but I finally realized what I had to do. My shrug became a gentle nudge against The Boss's kangaroo backpack and I'm sure that I held my breath as she lurched into Room 1. I backed into the September shine.

In the car now it is just me and Number Two, like it used to be me and The Boss. The roll of the tires over farm-hugging curves and marshy side roads comforts me; it lulls my son. The Boss's constant hum of energy is criss-cross-applesauced into morning circle back at school. In her absence is calm lethargy. Number Two looks out the back of the car from his infant carseat. My front facing vantage point is different. Still, we can both see early leaves detach from their support systems and float to the ground all around us.

We will start to get to know each other like this--as scenes of what will become his childhood speed by. It is September, and the greens and golds are faded to start with.


___

Please Pass the Breast Milk

We are sitting at the dinner table as The Boss forks pork chop and peas into her mouth with agonizing slowness. She talks more than she eats, a fact that stretches out dinnertime by a good hour on a nightly basis. She chews, she swallows, and she licks the residue from the corners of her mouth. Then she speaks.

"Why don't men have milk in their boobs?"

The Partner and I grin at each other from where we sit before The Boss. I remain mute long enough to indicate that he's going to have to take this one.

"Because men aren't designed to have babies and feed them. But women are."

The Boss nods her understanding. The up-and-down shake of her head is deliberate. Her mind processes information the same way her back teeth grind down pork to a swallowable squish--with the utmost thoroughness. But she's still only three years old. There are some concepts that elude her. She doesn't know about time, for instance: how fast it goes, and that it stops for no one.

"When I grow older and my boobs get bigger," she says, "I can feed my brother."

Random Notes from the Dentist's Chair

The hygienist pulled a file from a tray that gleamed the silver shine of something sterile and applied it--with quick, cursory strokes--to the tip of the dental pick. When she took the instrument to my teeth, sweeping the metal just under my gums, my eyes shut into a grimace that pulled my cheeks with it. I widened my jaw to counteract the scrunch.

As she worked on my teeth and more than likely rehearsed the ol' "perhaps it's time you acknowledged the existence of dental floss" lecture in her head, I was left to my own mental devices. This is what I thought as I lay there with a bloddy, gaping maw: I would rather get weekly pap smears than go through this crap twice a year.

If flossing is the answer, it's not an easy one. I mean, do I even know anyone who flosses? The Partner doesn't. My parents don't. I saw a lot of things amidst the communal indiscretion of dorm living during my college days, but flossing wasn't among them. I can only come up with one friend that I know for sure used to floss on a daily basis (while watching television, no less)--but she is now the mother of infant triplets and I have to wonder how she could possibly find a spare minute, let alone the requisite amount of energy, to suck on tooth string once every 24 hours. If I'm wrong, I hope she'll comment below. I may very well be wrong. The girl is shockingly disciplined.

When the dentist came in to poke around the hygienist's handiwork in an effort to at least make it look like he was doing something to earn the $300/hour being billed to my insurance company, he told me I really work my jaw like a pro. Okay, he didn't use those exact words, but I'm sure I'm not flattering myself too much. What he said was, "you're the ideal patient, the way you hold your mouth open so wide."

That's not what he tells all the girls, is it?

Self-Six

Jocelyn, a beautiful writer with a beautiful son and a beautiful husband and a whole bunch of beautiful stories to her credit (if you think I'm overdoing the beautifuls, just go to her site and try to tell me I'm wrong) tagged me for a meme asking participants to create a memoir in six words.

Here's mine:

This stoic New Englander laughs anyway.

Photo by Lauren

For some more six word memoirs--some haunting, some funny, some obscure--go here.

And to do my memely duty, I'm passing it along to Mrs. Chicken, Amy at Binkytown, Lauren at Memoir, Fitz and/or Duff at My Mom Genes, and jen at one plus two. There's something about this meme that really intrigues me. I can't wait to see how each of you spins your own six word yarn.

1. Write a six-word memoir.

2. Post it to your blog, maybe with a pic.

3. Link to the person who tagged you

4. Tag a few folks

5. Leave a comment for them with an invite to play.

A Chicken Nugget

You can find me over at Chicken and Cheese, where I am guest posting for Mrs. Chicken. She had herself a baby boy just a couple weeks ago. The two of us are now situational sisters, both raising a pre-school girl and an infant boy while building a freelance writing career. I'm happy to have such a talented, sensitive and funny woman to share the experience with.

If you aren't familiar with her site, take some time to look around when you get there. Chicken and Cheese is an eat-in establishment. A drive-thru just wouldn't do.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

The Partner walked out of the house this morning on his way to work with a purple umbrella tucked under his arm. "I'm going toleave this in your car because it's supposed to rain today."

It was a sweet, protective gesture on its face. I think I swooned a bit. But it was early, and my mind was still cloudy. Things became clearer When I really started to think about the underlying meaning.

This is what raingear says about my general level of competence in any given situation: Not only do I not know enough to come in out of the rain, but I'm incapable of remembering my own umbrella.

On the bright side, The Boss always remembers her umbrella.

___

The White Trash Mom Handbook

The White Trash Mom Handbook by Michelle Lamar with Molly Wendland actually has very little to do with being white or trashy. If you find that fact disappointing, the WTMH is probably not for you. But if you enjoy a bit of tackiness more as a literary conceit than a literal comparison, read on.

Being a White Trash Mom as Lamar describes it is accepting the fact that you can't do it "all." It's about embracing your imperfections and having a little fun with them. The book is based on the premise that today's society pressures parents to be perfect, leading mere mortal mothers to fight for the unobtainable Supermom status. It's a losing battle with an imaginary foe. You're not perfect, and neither is anyone else.

Right now my oldest child, aged 3, is about to start nursery school. The WTMH tells me that parenting in pre-school is bush-league compared to the K-12 years of professional bullshit. That's a scary concept, because I'm already getting inklings that even pre-school politics are outside my comfort zone. I have a lot to learn from the White Trash Moms.

Some key things I discovered are:

1) Brown-nosing your children's teachers is crucial. They can make your kids' lives much easier if they have the motivation to do so. Give them presents. Donate school supplies. Volunteer to help cut out shapes for that activity or to collect and organize all those General Mills Box Tops. Your children will thank you (probably not literally, but the sentiment will shine through).

2) It's important to be true to yourself and your morals, but know that a certain degree of conformity (or the illusion of such) is necessary if you don't want your children to have to deal with the re-percussions of their mom marching to the beat of her own drummer. It's all about working the system from the inside--from fake-baking for the holiday party (caramel squares melted over fork-smushed, store-brought brownies to create that all important homemade look) to picking the volunteer duty with the best return on your investment.

3) One should never, ever (Lamar used 26 ever's to drive this point home) confront the parents of a child who is bullying your own. "For the most part," Lamar writes, "kids who are jerks have parents who are jerks."

The White Trash Mom Handbook is not about maneuvering your way around the trailer park, barefoot with a bump. It's about navigating the school yard as a parent. I heard about the book through the Parent Bloggers Network, and I'm glad I did.

Sightseeing

Last week The Boss honed her networking skills while on vacation in Acadia National Park. She made friends everywhere she went. The fact that she is so gregarious and charming never ceases to amaze me. I did not exhibit those traits as a child, and it's such non-familiarity that makes my daughter seem so much more strange and wonderful to me.

At dinner on a deck in Bar Harbor, The Boss walked up to a girl who appeared to be right around her age.

"What's your name?" The Boss inquired.

"Hannah," the girl replied.

"Hi, Hannah," said The Boss. Then she went on to engage Hannah in a conversation about several of the most recent things to catch her fancy, including the life sized whale perched behind the restaurant at which we were eating. "Did you see that fank whale back there? Mom and dad said I can go touch it after we eat." Fank, in case you were wondering, is three-year-old-speak for fake.

"That's not a fank whale," said three-and-a-half-year-old Hannah, calling upon the six months of experience she had on The Boss. "It's a sculpture."

The Boss was all agreement. "Yes, yes. A sculpture." They went on like that for more than ten minutes as The Partner and I watched, transfixed. At that moment in time, on a warm deck in Maine while the sun shone on a high tide, I was sure I had never been better entertained in any of my thirty years. The best things in life are ones first experienced, and everything about the scene was new. From what The Boss saw and discussed with Hannah to the way we hung on their every word, there was no room for the jaded.

***

Later, atop Cadillac Mountain, The Boss held onto her father's hand as the two of them tromped over flat rocks toward the ocean view. She was prepared for what we had promised her would be an amazing sight. Squeezing his knuckles with baby-soft reassurance, The Boss looked up at The Partner.

"I'll keep my blue eyes open so I don't miss the scenery," she said.

___

A Change of Heart

This is a ridiculous story. I was once playing Donkey Kong on the Intellivision with my father around the time that such a game console was popular. It was my father's turn, and he made it all the way up to Donkey Kong only to be crushed by a barrel right at the big ape's feet. It was an understandable mistake; not realizing he had one last ladder to climb, he thought he'd already beaten the round.

I was a sensitive child. That's the only explanation. With dad's game ended, he asked if I wanted to play. I said no. Then I went to my room and cried because my poor father hadn't known that the game wasn't over. I thought my father knew everything. I was moved to tears because he didn't.

I'm thinking about that today because I still hate the idea of my father facing disappointment, or the unknown, or fear. The lesson I first learned from Donkey Kong has only been reinforced as I've grown. My father is human. It's a strange understanding to have as someone's child--knowing that while I can control my own emotions, I am powerless when it comes to his.

My dad went in today for a cardioversion, which is an electrical shock to re-set the heart so the heart's natural pacemaker can take over. His first appointment earlier this week was cut short when it was shown that the medication used to thin his blood had not thinned it enough to reduce the risk of stroke associated with the procedure. So he went back in today. I'm still waiting to hear how it went.

I get all tight in the windpipe area just thinking about it. And, yes, I still think it's ridiculous that my first premonition of that feeling came in highly pixelated form on an old, wood-paneled console channeling Intellivision.

The 30th

Last night, on my 30th birthday, we went to a seaside restaurant in Narragansett. Upon our return to the car after our meal, The Boss peered over a stone wall nearly as tall as she was to an ocean that crashed into rocks below us and stretched out in seeming endlessness before us.

"I can't believe my mind!" she marveled. She meant "eyes," but I liked her spin.

As she focused on the blue beyond, three categories of people squeezed by on the sidewalk: teenagers on the fast track to what lay in front of them; groups of elderly women in no hurry at all; and joggers making a loop. I watched them, then took in my family standing still at my side. The Boss took in sea and sky. Number Two looked at a strange combination of everything and nothing. From a perspective six feet high, The Partner kept a constant scan of all of us (with a few backward glances to the restaurant, where the hostess with the 20 inch waist floated by in front of each new party).

So this is thirty, I thought. The reality coursed through the different levels of my subconscious and my everyday brain, as muddy and salty as the Atlantic.

I can't believe my mind, either.