clueless but hopeful mama

Love

2012-02-13T22:36:00.001-05:00

"Mommy? If you're not sure you believe in God, what do you believe in?"

"I believe in love, Z, that much I know for sure. Love. And, you know, for a lot of people, God is love."

"....Huh? I thought he was a man!"

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I have friends who hate Valentine's Day. They think it's a fake holiday, manufactured by corporations interested only in giving you another reason to part with your hard earned dollars.

I understand this inclination; I do. I resist the commercialization of most holidays and am forever striving to celebrate them in ways that are meaningful to - and representative of - our family.

Which is why Valentine's Day in our home is all about homemade treats. And love.

I believe in love. I believe that love is a more powerful force than hate or fear. I believe that all that is lost, can be found through love.

And I believe that love, in all its forms, must be celebrated.

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I was sitting on the couch with my husband one night last week, sewing some felt valentine hearts for the girls to search the house for on Valentine's day morning.

"Hey, you gonna make anything for me?" he says lightly, a twinkle in his eye.

"Yee-s," I say indignantly, making a mental note to think of something, anything, to make for him, too.

There may or may not be naughty fortunes in a few of these.

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"I got VALENTIMES!" E shrieks, raising her paper bag from preschool. "From my FRIENDS!"

She couldn't be more proud and shows them to her sister before clutching them to her chest.

"They're MINE. I love them," she says before giving each and every one a gentle kiss as her sister puts the finishing touches on her handmade valentines.

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We are baking heart shaped cookies in the afternoon sunlight and listening to "All You Need is Love" and laughing and I think I am the luckiest person in the whole world.

And then there are tears and struggles over who gets which stool and whether someone dropped flour on purpose or accident and in the mayhem I forget to set the timer so this batch is overdone and . . .

I sing "All You Need is Love" a little bit louder.

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Happy Valentine's Day, my friends. I hope you are celebrating in whatever ways stoke the love in your heart.

Tears

2012-02-09T14:08:00.001-05:00

Her tears come quickly. Out of nowhere. They usually burst forth right alongside loud words and a spastic body and a twisted up face. For her, frustration must take many, many exits in its release.

They come every day, I think. Though there's probably been a tear-free day or two here and there, I honestly can't remember a day that didn't include them. Every frustration, every banged knee, every thwarted ambition has the potential to bring them out. Sometimes they are gone just as quickly as they appeared. Sometimes they linger like an oblivious, unwanted house guest.

And I am, as ever, caught between parenting ideals. I want her to be tough. To muster a steely strength that can keep her focused and calm as life throws her the inevitable speed bumps and road blocks. At the same time, I also want her to love and accept who she is, every single part of her, including her own darkness. I want her to feel safe and understood and deeply, deeply okay being just as she is.

Even - especially - when "as she is" is extremely sensitive.

In pursuit of resiliency, I am sometimes heartless, answering a BANG! OW! WAHHHHHHHH! with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a wordless pat on the head. I have been known to look down at her tearful face with weary resignation, as if to say: What is it this time? I have, on occasion, reminded her that when she screams and cries so often, over relatively tiny events, she is training me to ignore her yells. Which means if something truly awful were to happen someday, much like the townspeople and the boy who cried wolf, I may not heed her call.

I'm okay with this approach most of the time. I like to imagine that my calm, impassive reaction reflects back to her that minor bumps and bruises are all in a day's work and not such a big deal after all. I don't know if it really does. I can only hope so.

But sometimes, when I look at her tear-streaked face - really look - I remember. I remember crying over anything and everything. I remember tears that came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. I remember physical discomfort as being impossible to bear, emotional discomfort as nothing short of torture.

I remember being five and being completely and totally at the mercy of my own tear ducts.

Those are the times that I engage with her, probably more than I should. I can't will myself to turn away from her pain. I can't help but reach out to her.

To say: I know. Let it out.

And: It's really, really okay.

Plan B

2012-01-27T14:24:00.002-05:00

Z is one of those kids who has always needed to know what's going to happen and when and how and why. She likes things to be predictable and structured and doesn't manage well when plans change suddenly.

Of course, life is all about plans changing suddenly.

When she was younger, we bent over backwards to not rock her world too often, for her - and our own - sanity. Now we realize that we cannot structure her whole life; she's going to need to learn how to roll with it when plans change. Our new goal is to maximize her resilience and give her confidence in her own flexibility.

So we work with her, as best we can. We point out and applaud any examples of her mental flexibility. We try to model our own. When planning the following day, we now talk about "Plan A" with either a direct mention or the understood implication that we might need to make up and accept a "Plan B" or even a "Plan C".

This is helpful, but only to a point. Because, you see, she's also a worrier. Sometimes when we lay out what we hope will happen, she'll mentally reach into the "Plan B" realm and not be able to come back out, worrying endlessly about all the things that could keep her beloved Plan A from happening.

Which brings us back to why we originally structured our lives for her benefit: it reduces every one's stress.

It's a one step forward, two steps back sort of process. Some days, she'll rally when disapointed and say "Well, we just need to figure out a Plan B, right?" Other days, she'll act as if the world is ending and no "Plan B" will do.

Today especially, I know how she feels.

I am supposed to be arriving in Connecticut right about now. Then I'm supposed to pick up my rental car and drive to Massachusetts to see my college roommate and meet her twin baby boys. In a few short hours, I should be sitting on her couch, holding one or two babies, sniffing their sweet heads.

Instead I'm sitting here choking down crackers after being felled by a stomach bug.

We've been planning this trip for months, since before the boys were even born in November. I've been itching to be there - to help out, to hold babies, to hold her hand - for months now. CG and I found a good weekend, bought a airline ticket (with trip insurance THANK GOODNESS) and I waited with bated breath, counting down the days.

Then, last weekend, E threw up in her sleep. So began my countdown.

I was anxious about catching it, even more than usual. I washed my hands incessantly. I pushed her away when she tried to touch my face or kiss my lips. Any rumble in my belly brought on a new wave of anxiety.

All of that was for naught, as I found out around 2 am Thursday morning.

The timing of it couldn't be much worse. It just really sucks.

I don't want a "Plan B". I wanted my "Plan A".

Intwerupon!

2012-01-23T17:32:00.001-05:00

I don't know when exactly but sometime in the past year, it slowly dawned on us that we have TWO actual child people in our house. It sure was a calmer, quieter household when we had one child and one baby/toddler we sort of - not really, but kind of - ignored.

Z has always controlled the airways. She was an only child for the first three years of her life and I spent all day in one-way and, eventually, real, honest-to-goodness, two-way conversations with her. By the time she was a toddler and talking in earnest, our dinner table conversations were pretty much dominated by whatever bizarre-o thing was running through her head.

As Z got older, the conversations in the car, on a walk, at the table became a place to chat about our days, to ask burning questions about dinosaurs, to test out nonsense jokes that made us roll our eyes. She's always been a part of the conversation because, of course she was. Slowly, falteringly, we taught her about taking turns in a conversation, not interrupting, listening patiently for the whole question before answering.

Then E started talking. And she wanted her fair share of the airwaves. At first it was loud babbling, with shrieking sprinkled in for punctuation, any sounds she could muster just to contribute and be part of the family. Now it is full sentences or, her current favorite, Christmas carols sung at top volume. All while someone else is trying to talk about their day.

Momentarily resting her sledding muscles, and her vocal cords.

Logically one would think that this would cause Z to calmly sigh and resolve to be an excellent example of polite conversational skills.

What? That's not logical? NO WONDER.

Now our house during daylight hours is a swirl of little people talking over one another. I am constantly one "conversation" away from a headache. We are working on remedial conversational skills with Z and basic NO SCREAMING PLEASE instructions with E. I bark endlessly: "Just a minute! I can't hear you until I finish hearing your sister!" "Inside voices!" "One at a time!" and "No interruptions, please!"

So, of course, E has taken to yelling, when I'm in conversation with someone else: "INTWERUPON!!! INTWERUPON!"

At least she's aware of what she's doing? It's a start?

Where's my Advil.....

My mahster baathroom

2012-01-18T14:10:00.000-05:00

When we bought our first house in Pasadena, one of my massage clients at the time said "Congratulations!" and then, without missing a beat, "Tell me all about the master bathroom!" Actually what she said was "mahster baathroom" with a slight British accent which was totally ridiculous as she had never traveled outside of California. (Say what you want about Madonna and her accent but at least she actually lives in England.) While I was used to my client's fake accent and her chummy way of asking about my life, I was stunned by her basic assumption. For, you see, our new house was quirky and lovely and sunny and perfect and.... TINY, with one weensy bathroom that could not rightly be called the master anything.

We loved that house, including its tiny bathroom. But when we later planned to move here to Virginia, with two children and a dog, we had lived through several rounds of houseguests - and stomach bugs - so knew we wanted at least two bathrooms. Buying our current house from far away was challenging; I spent many, many hours squinting at real estate photos on my computer screen trying to figure out how a certain room really looked, how it would feel to walk through the space and make it our own.

Our new home was clearly right for us from the beginning. We were looking for something bigger than our old house but not too big, close enough to town to walk easily but on a quiet street, preferably a cul de sac. We found it and snatched it up and didn't really think too much about why the seller didn't post photos of the master bathroom. We knew it existed, we just didn't have photos of it.

I was tempted to call my old client and crow, "I have a mahster baathroom now!" But then I would have had to actually pick up a telephone and we all know that's just a crazy thing to do unless a gun is pointed to your head.

What we discovered was that our new mahster baathroom hadn't been touched in the 30+ years since the house was built. Luckily, it was built with the cheapest contractor grade materials which were starting to disintegrate! The toilet rarely flushed properly, the tiles were crumbling in spots, the sinks and shower head and tub were all bizarrely - uncomfortably - low to the ground as if they knew we would be bringing in two little ankle-biters who would rule our lives.

We began fantasizing about remodeling the bathroom from the moment we moved in.

We started the actual process a year later with budgets and savings accounts and architect-designer friends and many, many bathroom magazines. The actual, honest-to-goodness remodeling began last week.

Here is our bathroom a week ago, Monday 8 am, right before a sledgehammer smashed its beige blahness to smithereens.

And here's where this post starts to go off the rails. Because, you see, when I look at these photos, I see a perfectly functional bathroom. Boring and blah but basically functional (mostly) and all the little crumbly issues could be dealt with in spots and we had gotten used to stooping over the sinks and under the shower head and not bothering ever to take a bath because the water only covered the back 1/4 of our bodies.

If we had just accepted it as it was, then all this money we are spending to make it nice and modern and fulfilling of every capitalist middle class fantasy would be free to donate to someone without a job and a comfortable house, someone without any bathroom, master or not.

I have been haunted by this post by Catherine Newman which I read right after the new year, ie. right after we had signed the contract to actually start remodeling our bathroom.

"We stretch to give, and I hope you do too. There are some good resources at the end of that piece about how to find organizations to give to, although we give everything we give to Partners in Health, and I feel good about that choice. And every year, it comes down to the same question: build a mud room, or give it away. And every year I think that people need to not be holding dying children in their arms more than we need a better place to keep our boots.
I'm all about "tax the rich," "eat the rich," and occupy everything. You know my politics. But with respect to the developing world, upon whose backs we have amassed much of our nation's wealth, we are the 1%. Even if, yes, you trip over a lot of shoes and coats and backpacks when you walk directly into our dirty kitchen from the muddy outdoors."

After I read that post, I couldn't get it out of my mind: People need to not be holding dying children in their arms more than we need - a new master bathroom. When it's stated like that, how can you ever purchase anything "extra" for yourself ever again?

I can't help it, I am trembling with guilt over our master bath remodel. Which is ridiculous, I know. Is there anything less tragic than middle class, liberal, privileged guilt over their freaking bathroom remodel? Perhaps a long winded blog post about a master bath remodel? Jeezus.

I really have one of two options as a reasonable adult: I can insist we forgo the new modern bathroom and give the money to reputable charities or I can enjoy the remodel, grateful for my good fortune, and accept the reality that I am enjoying a luxury that few in the world can afford.

I seem unable to choose either of these options.

I'm remembering this post too, which I found last year on (in)significant detail, by mimismartypants.

"My brain does a serious push-pull when it comes to larger questions of how to be in the world. Specifically, stuff. There are things I want. I want a remodeled kitchen, with an extremely kick-ass stove. I want to put a skylight in our stairway. I want to make over the upstairs bathroom with an extremely expensive shower. I want lots of new shoes, an upgraded iPhone, new pots and pans, an Xbox with Kinect (embarrassing, but true), a few sessions of personal training. I want a long interesting vacation to a foreign country.

Then I start to freak out about the cost. And not just the cost as in our personal budget, but about whether remodeling the bathroom or buying an Xbox is more or less the same as kicking a poor person in the face. There are people in the world who will watch their children die of hunger, and I am thinking about dropping fifty bucks on an All-Clad saucepan? Really?

And sure, I could send fifty bucks to a hunger relief agency, and I do that periodically, although the charity budget has to be split several ways because everything matters!

It does not change the fact that I still want the saucepan."

This is the rub: I could have insisted we not remodel, given the money to charity. But it would not have changed the fact that I still want the saucepan.

What do you all do, if and when you have extra money? Does it go into home improvements of the practical or enjoyable kind? Does it go into long term saving? Does it go to help people who have so much less than we do?

Sisters

2012-01-15T21:50:00.003-05:00

They are so close; they really have no choice. They can't get away; they are almost always there. One does something, the other tries it out. One laughs, the other laughs.

One cries, the other cries.

I took a photography class today called Mothers Who Click (Cross one off of my 40 for 40 list! Yay!). In it, we were asked to pay attention to what shots we are always trying to capture: a real smile out of a non-smiler, a perfectly posed portrait, a peewee football action shot. There was no question for me: I am always trying to capture my girls together in a candid moment that perfectly represents them at this exact moment in time.

I hope that one day, when they have the choice, repeatedly, to be together or be apart, they will chose to be together. And that I am there to take their picture.

Sisters from Clueless But Hopeful on Vimeo.

Music: "Sisters" by Sarah Battens

I (don't) know you

2012-01-10T14:31:00.002-05:00

Dear Z,

I like to think I know you.

You are so like me, I say sometimes. We are so alike. Later, you repeat it back to me, especially when you're feeling scared or sensitive about something. I'm sensitive like you, right Mama? That's why I'm scared of monsters?

Yes, I say. We are a couple of sensitive flowers.

I understand when you desperately want to play with other kids but don't know how to approach them. I wince in recognition when you cover your ears and cower in loud places. I know immediately when you are grouchy and unreasonable due to hunger and hand you a packet of almonds I keep in my purse for me - and now, for you.

I think these similarities are a gift to us both. They bring to our relationship a recognition, a mirroring of experience. They help me feel close to you, even during your most exasperating behavior. I think they alleviate some of your loneliness and pain when you are scared or hurting, because you know I understand, even if my response to you is not always as sympathetic or calm as we both would like.

Sometimes this knowing you through my own experience gets in the way of really seeing you, though. I have to remind myself that you are not scared of heights or high speed or being upside down; that was - IS - me. I have to remind myself that while you worry when approaching new kids, you still do it, rather than hiding behind your mother sucking your thumb like *ahem* someone you know.

That elusive thing we call balance is what I'm looking for, of course. I want to let our similarities be a comfort and a way to connect, not a constraint or a prophecy. I want you to understand and love the parts of you that are like me, the parts of you that are like your father and the parts of you that are unlike anyone else in the history of time.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

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Dear E,

I sometimes think I don't know you.

Where did you come from? I think and, sometimes say, gazing at you in bafflement.

You are the little sister in our household equation and as a fellow little sister I understand the feeling of looking up to a sibling, the constant desire to run with the big kids.

But that is where my easy recognition ends.

You are slippery, stubborn, resilient, and not terribly interested in rules. I am surprised time and again that you wake so slowly, completely uninterested in food, while your sister and I are wide awake in seconds, demanding food before anything else and lots of it, please.

I don't want to simplify your complexities by saying that Z is like me and you are like your father but, of course, I think those things from time to time. I don't want to be so determinate about it, to divide you two and act as if each one of you belongs to one of us, when of course, we all belong to each other and to ourselves and to the universe in equal measure.

I think our differences are a gift to us both. You are not a mirror for my own reactions, my swirling, volatile moods. I see you as a separate person so much more easily than your sister, either because you are my second child or because you are so seemingly different from me or both.

I don't want to divide up personality traits and assign them like a warden: You are the sensitive one and you are the confident one. I want you to know that, in this life, you get to try on all the adjectives you like, my dear, including the ones you think your older sister has already taken.

The truth is: you have parts of me and parts of your father and parts that are uniquely, spectacularly you.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

40 for 40

2012-01-04T17:27:00.000-05:00

When I turn 40 this year, I would like to feel ... triumphant. So on November 28th of this year, this whole resolution/goal/to-do list thing will either make me feel terribly accomplished or terribly DEPRESSED. Whee!

I got this idea from Greenstyle Mom: 40 things to do in the year I turn 40. If you click over to her blog, you'll notice that she's going to do a back flip off a diving board and complete a marathon AND a triathalon. Mine are decidedly less impressive.

A lot of the things listed below either scare me, overwhelm me or just get lost in the shuffle. But they're all doable. Hopefully I'll find the impetus to get off my duff and just do them already!

1. Take a hike on the Appalachian Trail. It's close by! I've driven by it! And waved!
2. Submit writing to three different places, web or print.
3. Go out dancing (any kind!) with my husband.
4. Visit an art museum in DC with the girls (I'll be sure to warn all you local folks so you can steer clear).
5. Take the girls on a new hike.
6. Take a new exercise class.
7. Hold a freestanding headstand.
8. Hold a family fire drill.
9. Volunteer my time. Somewhere.
10. Go waterskiing again.
11. Take the girls on a hike to see my favorite waterfalls this summer in Vermont.
12. Start a baby clothes quilt (or just donate the freaking baby clothes already.)
13. Drive to West Virginia. It's so close! I've never been!
14. Show our girls the Atlantic Ocean. They've never seen it from this coast (Jamaica doesn't count in my book!) and that just feels wrong.
15. Take the dog for a hike, just the two of us.
16. Meditate. At least once.
17. Lie in bed until 8 am at least once. Just because.
18. Paint our living room.
19. Learn to love the old rug and curtains in our living room or get new ones.
20. Hang pictures on the walls in the basement.
21. Part my hair on the other side for a day. Just to see.
22. Wear earrings at least once a week.
23. Take a full day media/web fast.
24. Plant a new vegetable in our garden bed.
25. Take out all my camera lenses and remember what they're for.
26. Take at least one decent picture of the girls every week.
27. Tackle our filing cabinet.
28. Get our taxes done without needing an extension. *ahem* CG *ahem*
29. Sit down with CG and take a good, brave, come-to-Jesus look at our finances.
30. Check out the local Unitarian Church. IN PERSON.
31. Pick and freeze blueberries.
32. Make tiramisu, CG's favorite dessert, from scratch.
33. Visit the National Zoo with the girls.
34. Celebrate my tenth wedding anniversary in some exciting way.
35. Take my husband on a surprise date.
36. Take a creative workshop of any kind. Yoga. Writing. Sewing. Photography.
37. Write a 'just because' letter and mail it.
38. Host a Scrabble party, since my husband refuses to play with me.
39. Go on a family bike ride that finishes in a picnic.
40. Post here about these as I accomplish them!

The Annual Year End ReCap

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

This is my fourth year (!) doing Linda's year end recap. For a little history, here's 2008, 2009. and 2010. If you do this meme too, put a link in the comments, I'd love to read yours!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

I wrote a bunch more about being depressed. So much so that I even published a non-anonymous piece about my depression on babble.com.
I had a mid-blog-life crisis and spent a little money for a bloggy makeover courtesy of the ever-patient Nap Warden.
We decided we're done having babies.
I watched Z in her first dance recital.
Z started kindergarten and E started part-time preschool. And I realized this didn't mean I would magically have the time, motivation and focus to do anything other than the usual housework.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I'm liking the idea of a list of goals rather than the more general resolutions. Look for it in a scintilating post in the next few weekzzzzzzz.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My best friend from college had twin baby boys in November who I have yet to meet, which is totally unacceptable and will be fixed when I go visit and help out in January! Then there's Marie Green! And B!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, thank goodness, we got a reprieve this year. Which we feel we totally deserve, after last year.

5. What countries did you visit?

We went to Jamaica with my parents in February. And, though it was far from perfect, I'm about ready to go back. NOW. I even got to meet another Amalah-inspired blogger!

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

This is what I said last year: "I'm still searching for that elusive "sense of connectedness". I would love to feel more like a "Virginian". I want this house, this town, this state to be my home and I know that just takes time and effort. I want to feel part of a community. I want to feel like I belong."

Oh it is SLOW, this community building stuff. I'm starting to feel myself sinking into my life here more and more. I can't go anywhere without running into someone I know. And I really know no one. It's a small town and it feels that way, in good and bad ways. Now, I'm not sure I really want to feel like a "Virginian". I guess I want to feel like myself, not like I have to change in any way to fit in here.

Something else I'd like: a sense of my next step. Writing more? Taking some online classes? Weaving my dog's hair into award-winning sweaters? Beuller?

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

November 16, 2011. The day my best friend delivered her beautiful, healthy baby boys!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Reconnecting with my husband in a meaningful way. The previous two years were not easy in our marriage. It was hard, in ways I haven't fully shared here because they are between us. But I can say this: this year has been a year of rebuilding and I am oh so grateful for him, for our partnership and for our future together.

9. What was your biggest failure?

It is always the same, every single year: losing my temper. Each and every time it happens I think: who is this monster?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Why can I never think of anything for this question? Um, maybe my bloggy makeover?

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The street protestors both here and abroad. Power to the people!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Casey Anthony. I'm still hoping humanity is basically decent. But, MAN, sometimes it's hard to tell.

14. Where did most of your money go?

It's the same every year: mortgage, insurances/taxes, preschool, Wegmans, Target, Amazon. Will someday this list include things like a speed boat ride around the island of Capri? Maybe?

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

When my babble post went live and when Peggy Orenstein linked to this blog post in a tweet, I pretty much peed my pants.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

The soundtrack to the Nutcracker has been playing on repeat in our house for the last three weeks, so I'm going to have to say the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happpier! Thank you Pr0zac!
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter! Thank you Pr0zac! And cookies!
c) richer or poorer? Poorer: paying for two girls in school and the soon-to-be-renovated master bathroom has done a number on our bottom line.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Writing. Returning emails and phone calls quickly. Exercising.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Same as every year: "Lost my temper. Curled inward instead of reaching outward."

20. How did you spend Christmas?

At home with my parents who braved our collective illness to spend it with us. This year, the girls were so fun, so excited, so happy with each and every present. I loved every nose-blowing moment of it.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Just the usual, daily falling in love with my family.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Um. We don't watch much. The shows we usually make time for: The Daily Show, Breaking Bad, and Modern Family.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Blerg. The word "hate" gives me the heebie jeebies.

24. What was the best book you read?

I'm going to have to say "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett. But I read a whole bunch of good books this year.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Missy Higgins.

26. What did you want and get?

A year with no deaths in our family.
A weekend away with my husband.

27. What did you want and not get?
Wow. I can't think of anything. How's that for contentment!

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
"Super 8", "Away We Go" and "Crazy Stupid Love". And I don't think I have laughed at anything this year as much as I laughed at Maya Rudolph kneeling down in a Manhattan street in "Bridesmaids".

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 39 on the Monday after Thanksgiving. It was a quiet day and I was very happy.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A professional organizer to snap our house into shape.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Another day, another pair of elastic waist pants.

32. What kept you sane?

Pr0zac, exercise, blogging, reading, family and friends.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Oh, I'll jump on the Ryan Gosling bandwagon. Why not?

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

It's a tie between the right to marry someone of the same sex and the right to peacefully protest.

35. Who did you miss?

If I don't get to see my best friend and her newborn twins soon, I may spontaneously combust.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
That being happy as a SAHM, and being sane, are a quiet joy, one that isn't easily recognized from the outside but is oh so wonderful on the inside.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"Your warm whispers. Out of the darkness, they carry my heart." - Missy Higgins

Happy New Year everyone!

A few of my favorite posts of 2011

2011-12-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

I'm sick. The girls are sick. There has been no school or outside of the house activities for over a week. My head is so full of snot, I am pretty sure if I bent over to clean up the shreds of wrapping paper littering our floor I would fall over. So. No writing (or cleaning) from me. Just reading.

If you're housebound as well and looking for good reading, here's my totally non-comprehensive listing of favorite blog posts from the year. These are some of the posts that stuck with me, for whatever reason. I am not listing amalah or dooce or anyone else with a quadrillion readers already. Perhaps you will discover your new favorite blog. They are listed in totally random order because I tried to alphabatize them and went cross-eyed.

This year I discovered Ann Wyse. Her subtext? Is so up my alley. And when she wrote about moving away and being moved away from, or holding onto babyhood just a little longer, I was right there with her.

Check out my local friend Beyond Diapers. I love this meditation on skin and this one on homesickness, the existential kind.

I happen to think that Erica is a spectacular twitter-er. But her blog, well, that's great stuff too. The girl is funny. SO funny. So honest.

I've met B, over at Late Night Feedings, in person. She's just as lovely as she seems. This year I've lived vicariously through her and her new baby and I love this post about the baby-kid hybrid.

Okay, she has a million readers but still, if you don't already, read Swistle, who's always at her best when illuminating the little stuff that's actually huge. Like this recent post about the differences between being gifted vs. ahead. Or this perfect post, or this one with the best title EVER - OH NO WAIT - THIS is the best title ever. And if you want to freak right the eff out, go ahead and read this post.

Mo Mommy- I do love when she puts on her thinking cap or gets poetic or shares her copious stores of wisdom. She also has some of the most adorable, funniest kid pictures ever, like the last shot in this post.

I love Princess Nebraska and you will too, if only for her hysterical Advent posts this year, including my favorite one. But also her important questions, and posts where she feels like my sista and for when she makes me laugh and nod my head in agreement so hard my eyeballs start to make a loud squishy sound.

My friend Twisterfish started out her blog with a bang this year with polished posts like this one. Her writing is deeply felt and opinionated. What's not to love?

If there is a heaven, Doing my Best is going there for sure, not only for her Crappy Day Present exchanges ("Making the world a better place, one crappy day present at a time!") but also for her informative, necessary posts about cleaning toilets and dishwashers and for letting us see the beauty that is this homecoming.

I have decided Marie Green is my real and true friend, even though we've never met. Because blogs are real life, okay? They are windows in our real lives; we share our ups and our downs. If I happened to live close enough, I would have totally broken down her door to hold her new baby. We're all here, she said this year. What a joy it is to have shared this part of her journey.

Another local friend: Rebecca at Expedition Kids. When she writes, I swear I can hear her talking, which is, I think, one of the best compliments to give a writer. Check out "I am a Mother" and "Going to the doctor is like going for a job interview".

Hillary and Michelle at Not Raising Brats remind us that Disney Eats Brains (HA!), that the little heartbreaks are good training grounds, and moving on is almost always harder for us.

Whimsy. She always, always uses her words like delicate sculptural tools. Read her, remember, rejoice, and definitely envy her daughter's wardrobe.

Another discovery of mine this year: Pamela. I keep commenting on her blog about wanting her to write a book, by which I mean her words deserve a large audience and the permanence of the printed page. But it is not my intention to malign blogging, because it gives us gifts like this, and this, and this. Those words don't have to be in book form to make them worthwhile, to make them magic.

Sarah, over at Semi-Desparate Housewife, is wiser than her years. She and I share an addiction to chocolate but even when we are so, so different (READ: I am not a clean freak), I find her take on things incisive and always funny.

Speaking of funny: Tess. Her blog is brilliantly, intimidatingly hysterical. See: her treatise on Bucking the Rider. And the laughing from this post woke my husband from a deep slumber.

Check out Amy. I'm a fan of hers, as she has a gift for so often wrapping beautiful words around pain over at Chicken and Cheese.

After meeting her in Jamaica in 2010, Stephanie at (In)significant Detail, continues to inspire me with her crystal clear posts on subjects like fake spring and next steps.

D e v a n over at All D's sent me such an awesome Crappy Day Package and made my week a whole lot brighter with this post.

Oh crap, I'm running on fumes here but I haven't run out of inspiring bloggers!

Charming Gardener's thoughts on her next act. Parking at Home has had a rough year, made better by a well-timed Crappy Day Package. Issa, on going off her anti-depressants. Purdy Bird, on adjusting to life with two kids. Gina, with a post that includes THE BEST caramel corn recipe, to which my expanded waistline can attest. Alice had some of the best Halloween costumes I've ever seen.

Okay, my linking finger is officially broken. Tell me: who else should I be reading?

Unexpected Gifts

2011-12-20T10:04:00.002-05:00

'Tis the season of expected - and unexpected - gifts.

There are the many - too many - gifts currently squirreled away in closets that will be opened on Christmas morning, the ones that have arrived from Amazon and Zappos and anyplace else with free shipping. Most of them requested, known about ahead of time, expected. Still wonderful, hopefully. Still bringing a little bit of joy to those we love.

Our abundance expands to embarrassing heights this time of year, no matter how much I try to limit it. We are filled to the brim with gifts of every kind.

Including the unexpected gifts.

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It's never the things I expect that bring me Christmas joy.

Going to a farm to cut down our live Christmas tree? Turned ugly when Z threw a volcanic fit about not getting enough hot chocolate and I seethed the entire drive home.

Trimming our tree? Included more fights, whining and broken ornaments than joy.

But then I got a lovely shock: Z, who last year left a ballet performance in hysterics just as it started because it was too dark, the room had no windows and the ballet might include "mean people", watched a full-length Nutcracker, with stars in her eyes and a whispered question on her lips every two seconds. She's hardly talked of anything else since.

And thank goodness for the unexpected joy of watching my Santa-hat wearing girls traipse through Target choosing toys for the Toys For Tots bin. I expected: fits about not getting the toys themselves. I got: my girls talking about what other kids might like and how much fun it was to buy gifts for other kids.

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I almost missed signing up for Doing My Best's brilliant Crappy Day Present exchange. I sometimes read blog posts through my reader in the glowy haze of 6:27 am when I'm wrapped in a gigantic fuzzy bathrobe, so big it seems to extend all the way up to my brain. That damn bathrobe blurs all possible thought and action and usually prevents comments on your blog posts.

But I did sign up for this awesome adventure and I got to drop off a package to a local friend/blogger on a day I knew deserved a crappy day package and it felt so good.

Then I promptly forgot that I was going to get one myself, until one day last week, when this arrived from Devan.

It was a normal day, really, and actually a pretty nice one. But as soon as the package arrived, as if on cue, the girls started to squabble and it only took two minutes of listening to them to decide I was allowed to open - and consume most of - a chocolate bar. (Dark! With sea salt!)

Yes. That's better.

I wasn't sure what to do with the rest of the presents after that. I mean, it is so close to Christmas, it isn't like I have to wait very long for gifts. I feel a little guilty about this mound of presents that are all just for me.

These presents feel so different than any other presents. They were given to me, yes, but then I chose to give them to myself. And not when I'm usually inclined to give things to myself, on the days when I'm feeling flush, happy, generous with everything and everyone, myself included. I'm supposed to wait for a crappy day and give myself a package.

Is this a crappy enough day? What about today? Does today warrant a little pampering? My answer is usually no.

Whenever I'm having an actually, truly, verifiably crappy day? I don't think I deserve a present. There is a menacing voice in my head that says if I'm having a crappy day it's all my fault and I should suffer.

Oh ho ho! All this guilt and I'm not even a little bit Catholic!

In my head, it's not that there aren't days that are crappy enough, it's that I'm not good enough.

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When E started coughing and sniffling last week, I assumed it was a cold. Oh well. Hopefully it will pass soon.

But by Friday her cough turned into a vicious bark and her temperature rose. So I took her to the doctor, just in case it was something treatable so we could nip it in the bud before our busy week of shopping and cooking and socializing and, most importantly, the arrival of my parents for Christmas.

An hour and a half later, E was diagnosed with RSV and we were advised to keep her away from people, especially babies, and probably my dad, who's suffering with recurrent bronchitis and crippling headaches after three years of lung and brain cancer treatments.

Suddenly my plans for a busy, social week before Christmas rolled over and died. No school for E. No attending school holiday celebrations for E or Z. No gym classes for me. No date nights. No visits with our friends' new baby. No shopping, grocery or Christmas. And, worst of all, possibly no visit from my parents.

I let myself be very, very sad. But after a few days, a different feeling crept up, something like relief. I can't run around town shopping, dragging E in tow. We can't go to all of these events we've been invited to.

The sudden curtailing of our week was sad, yes, but also, at the risk of sounding like a total Pollyanna, a most unexpected gift.

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On a crappy day this weekend, when I hadn't been my Oprah-worthy Best Self or even her half-way decent second cousin, I opened a Crappy Day Present.

As I opened it, I could feel the bad feelings well up. You don't deserve this. You just overreacted with the girts and could have done this and that and THAT so much better.

I put my makeup brushes into my pretty new makeup bag and I put my new mud mask on the side of the sink for use at bedtime and I put those thoughts out of my head.

Because I deserve these unexpected gifts. All of them.

You do, too.

(Happy Holidays!)

Parenting in today's Little House

2011-12-15T20:30:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure that rereading the Little House on the Prairie books is irrevocably fu#king with my parenting.

I mean, I LOVED these books as a kid but I just have to laugh at their well-mannered protagonists now. As Z said the other night in the middle of Farmer Boy, with its earnest, perfectly behaved Almanzo: "Did they really work like that? ALL DAY? With no play? And no whining??" In between explaining the effort required to run a family farm and the expectation that children were seen and not heard, it all starts to seem so foreign to both of us as to strain credulity. On Sundays in that Little House on the Prairie, Laura and her sisters had to sit quietly and not run or play or talk loudly. For a whole day. Is that even physically possible?

I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure my children would spontaneously combust if that was required of them.

Plucky Almanzo works his tail off from dawn till dusk with nary a complaint or disciplinary action. And I can barely get my children to clean up their wad of plastic toys when I ask very nicely with my big girl words AND promise a favorite snack at the end of it.

Were the children of the Little House era a completely different species from the modern day, singing, twirling tyrants that inhabit my Little House in the Suburbs?

Were they running on hot and cold FEAR of beatings?

I'm fighting this feeling that I must be doing it all wrong. The parenting books that I like, that resonate with me and my values, are all about playful, connected, positive parenting. I'm all about parenting through love and connection and firm but non-punitive consequences.

I'm pretty sure Ma didn't make up special songs or games or resort to outright bribery to get her daughters to help out with basic chores on a daily basis. And did they really never whine? EVER?? I've come to think of whining as a perfectly normal, expected 4 year old tone of voice.

My girls' modern first-world lives are certainly cushy, probably much too cushy for our naturally self-centered brains to handle. Though I require an ever increasing contribution from both of them, these "chores" are laughable when compared to the real work done by Laura and Almanzo and their cohort.

Perhaps what I really need to be doing is throwing my girls out back with a hoe and a bag of seeds and working them till they drop. But that's about all I can take away from these books.

Because, let's be honest, there will be no fear-mongering or beatings here. Unless you count the beating of my own head against the wall.

Holiday presents: you can't win

2011-12-13T09:09:00.001-05:00

How do you do your Holiday shopping? Here are the options as I see them:

Option #1: The gift that you yourself already own and like.
Pros: You know it's decent if you already own and like it.
Cons: You might look a little uninspired or even regift-y. ("Hi! Here's your gift! I already own several and love them! ...... I did not just wrap up one from my own kitchen drawer, I swear!")

Options #2: The gift you like but wouldn't buy for yourself normally.
Pro: You like it! It's likable! And maybe you wouldn't normally buy it because it's a real treat.
Con: If you wouldn't buy it for yourself normally, perhaps it's because it's not really, truly worth it. Or it's expensive and that credit card statement is going to HURT come January.

Option #3: The gift you don't like in the hopes that you are hitting it out of the park for someone with VASTLY different tastes than you.
Pro: You are being thoughtful and thinking outside of your box! You are really embracing the Christmas spirit by trying to intuit what someone very different from yourself would like!
Con: There is the possibility that you are sending the message that you DO like this item and therefore you are telling them this is YOUR taste and this is what to get YOU.

Option #4: The generic gift that anyone, anywhere with half a brain/heart would like.
Pro: Hard to go wrong! It won't be memorably awful!
Con: Generic items can be boring and, um, generic. It won't be memorable, PERIOD.

Option #5: The highly suggestive gift.
Pro: You heard a friend lamenting her poor cooking. So you buy her a great cook book and a nice spatula. You are thoughtful and encouraging!
Con: You could come across as a pushy, pedantic a-hole with a hidden message about your recipient's inferiority/weaknesses.

Option #6: The official wishlist gift.
Pro: You know EXACTLY what they really want and need. You can rest easy knowing you are fulfilling a clear wish of theirs.
Con: There is ZERO excitement and suspense. Unless, of course, you are "Santa" and fulfilling the wishlist of a 4 year old.

Option #7: The handmade gift.
Pro: Not too expensive! And I have such grand ideas! I know it means SO MUCH to get something that someone hand made.
Con: My grand ideas greatly exceed both my skill level and my time-management skills.

What's that you say? You've already finished your holiday shopping! EXCELLENT. Come on over and HELP ME. I'm feeling a tad bit overwhelmed with tasks and under-equipped with holiday spirit.

This week's lessons

2011-12-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Z and E,

You have taught me that all those years in therapy talking about my childhood and my parents and my weaknesses were so very worth it.

You have taught me that I will most likely benefit from therapy for the rest of my life. And that I should probably start saving now for your therapy.

You have taught me that I am always only one tickle-hug away from feeling absolute joy.

You have taught me that the magic of Christmas is about ritual, memory, and time spent with people we love.

You have taught me that if Santa really is magic, you might as well ask for his help "cleaning the ocean."

You have taught me that "matching" is a subjective, relative and possibly unnecessary term, especially when everything you're wearing has your favorite color in it somewhere.

You have taught me that sometimes you just need to stop everything and help a worm make it safely to the other side of the driveway.

You have taught me to plan extra time to get anywhere lest there be a worm in need of rescuing somewhere along the way.

You have reminded me again and again that everything changes: toddlers who angrily refused any and all hair grooming can one day become French-braided kindergarteners.

And these are the lessons I learned from you just this week.

Yours in concurrent growing, learning, and love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Books 2011, part two

2011-12-05T10:39:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again! Time to buy... BOOKS! (Or, conversely, put a whole bunch on your library request list.)

As always, I'm reviewing only from memory, no picking up the book or looking things up on the internet. So it pays to be memorable. Unless it was memorably TERRIBLE.

Last years' books reviewed here. The first part of this year's books reviewed here.

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers. I read this after it was recommended to me by Stephanie. Sellers wrote this memoir about her profound inability to recognize faces, even those of her loved ones. Prosopagnosia (Okay, cheating already! I did have to look up how to spell that.) is very rare and not well understood. What is clear: you don't want it. It makes everything from everyday social graces to lifelong intimacy so much harder. Recommended for: the memoir-lover, the psychology lover.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. Everyone was reading this, it seemed, and so like a good little lemming, I got it from the library. It's a long, gothic vampire/witch tale about a scholarly woman who discovers she's one of the most powerful witches in all of .. witch-dom. She falls in love (SLOWLY) with a vampire who's bent on protecting her and the whole thing should be super exciting and plotty (because, ahem, the language is not why you are reading this book) and YET. SLOW. SO SLOW. But people loved it and if you're one of them, I'm sure it'd make a great gift. Recommend for: the girl who can't get enough vampires.

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. Ooh, ooh, OOH. I liked this! C'mon brain, remember this one! Um... novel set in the months leading up to World War II following the concurrent stories of a postmistress in Cape Cod and a female journalist in Europe. A great woman-centered novel. Recommended for: friends/sisters/aunts/mothers who love fiction.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I liked this one too! A beautifully written novel about a scientist asked to head into the jungle to find her missing colleague. I love Ann Patchett's writing and found the plot interesting and even the completely bizarre plot points seemed almost real. Also: the best ending EVER. Recommended for: fiction lovers of all stripes.

The Anti-Romantic Child by Priscilla Gilman. Okay, this was a weird one for me. Priscilla Gilman is a Wordsworth scholar who had a deeply romantic view of childhood. Until she became a mother. Her memoir tells the story of her own childhood, her intellectual studies and her journey mothering her son, whose baffling development challenges everything she thinks she knows. It's an interesting memoir, though the language felt thick and heavy at parts. Recommended for: the neurotic English major who just had a baby.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. BIZARRE-O novel about a girl who can sense the emotions of people through the food they make. It besets her in early adolescence and we follow her as she tries to stay sane and make a life for herself. I really like the use of magical realism in suburbia. But there was a crazy subplot with her brother that sort of derailed things for me for a bit, so I can't say I loved this book. Recommended for: the magical-realism lover who can take a mental leap or three.

A Mind at a Time by Mel Levine. I think every parent and teacher should read this book. Right now. Go get this book and read it. But I did have a serious issue that I wrote about here. Recommended for: the parenting book reader in your life.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. The first in a trilogy of YA fiction about werewolves. I liked this one enough to read the next one. Recommended for: YA/werewolf fiction lovers.

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater. Bad. Just bad. Made me decide I didn't like the first one after all.

Quirky Kids by Perri Klass, MD and Maureen Costello, MD. This parenting book would be a good fit for parents of kids on the autism spectrum or somewhere close. It wasn't as good a fit for us and our kids, so I skimmed. Recommended for: parents of kids on the Autism spectrum or somewhere close.

The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen. A great, somewhat depressing novel about a family who lose an infant just hours after birth. The premise alone sets the dark tone, though the writing is lovely and the author is thoughtful and wise in her development of her characters and plot. Recommended for: fiction lovers who enjoy a walk on the dark, sad side.

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. A longish novel written from alternating points of view of four women in three generations of a family. The action centers around a summer house in Maine and each character reveals a deeply divided aspect of this dysfunctional family. I felt like I recognized this family and grew to care about them because of, or in spite of, their glaring faults. Recommended for: anyone who has a family cabin, and female fiction lovers.

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee by Wendy Mogel. A parenting book with heart, this one was also recommended to me by Stephanie. Mogel applies traditional Jewish teachings to modern child-rearing and I found this such an affirming, positive, beautiful view of parenthood that parents of ALL spiritual persuasions can enjoy. Recommended for: the parenting book lover who is Jewish or open to learning from other religions.

Divergent by Veronica Roth. YA novel about a dystopian future where teenagers must decide their future roles in one fateful day. Fast-paced, fun, full of romance and violence. Recommended for: the YA lover in your life.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn. I learned a few things from this memoir of a trained chef who helps regular folks learn how to cook better: 1. Most people don't know how to hold a knife properly. 2. I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO HOLD A KNIFE PROPERLY. 3. Basic things such as how to hold a knife properly make a big difference in how confident people feel in their kitchens. This book made me take a good look at my own kitchen habits and I learned some valuable lessons that have made my shopping and cooking a lot more efficient. Recommended for: the food lover, memoir lover.

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. I know several people who did not like this book. But I am not one of them. I loved how Perrotta took his wild premise - a mysterious Rapture-like event has caused the disappearance of thousands of people, of all different religions and moral characters - and let it play out in the normal suburban lives of a small town. I didn't like all the characters, I didn't like some of their decisions, but each chapter felt like a little wrapped package with careful corners and clear intent. Recommended for: the fiction lover.

The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball. My mom gave me this memoir and told me I'd love it. And I did. In this traditional, major-life-change memoir, Kimball interviews an idealistic farmer who shows her a completely different world from the one she knows. She falls in love with him, leaves her New York city life and all her high heels behind and together they construct a farm so old school they use horse drawn plows instead of tractors. Recommended for: the memoir lover, the food lover, the wannabe farmer.

Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey. I love this book. SO MUCH. I wrote a whole long post about it and how it fits our needs and our family and our challenges right now but it turned out to be one of those posts where you're pretty sure you're sharing too much about your children and you don't want them to hate you (more) later in life because of your blog so you move it to your diary folder and pat yourself on the back. (Maybe we need a secret blog specifically about our kids and their issues. A Constance, Jr.??) Recommended for: the parenting book lover.

So that's it! Now it's your turn. What are your favorite books of the year? What books are you giving as gifts this year?

My inner tenth grader still pegs her jeans

2011-11-29T13:11:00.000-05:00

As twentieth high school reunions go, I'm thinking mine was a little lame. No major blowups, no tearful confessions, no hookups.

(That I saw anyway.)

My high school's reunion was on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so I'm assuming most of the people attending either have family who still live in the area or they themselves still live in the area. Fifty some of us milled around our town community center for a somewhat stilted cocktail party.

There were people there I didn't talk to in high school. And OH LOOK I STILL DIDN'T TALK TO THEM. But it was so different this time. When we didn't speak in high school, I was positive it was because there was something wrong with me. Surely they were passing judgment on my spiral perm or finding me lacking in other major ways, perhaps my inability to correctly peg my jeans. And while it's totally possible this was happening then, and - WHO KNOWS - now, I find the difference is this: I don't care.

Like, I REALLY don't care.

I am surprised by how little I care. I spoke with the people I really wanted to see, met significant others, and even chatted with a few people who wandered past or joined conversations I was already in. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the people I saw and catching up on their lives. Everyone else was just there.

On the schadenfreude level, there is something refreshing about seeing that the popular kids have aged just like the rest of us. We're all a little thicker, a little more wrinkled. Intellectually I knew this, but seeing it person, and realizing on an emotional level that they are just people, feels like a balm on my inner tenth grade soul. It retroactively changes my perception of high school. They are people. They WERE people. They weren't gods. They didn't lead perfect lives.

This reunion allowed for an integration that I didn't know I needed. I can integrate who these people were then with who they are now. I can integrate who I was then with who I am now. My inner tenth grader is soothed and calmed and feeling a whole lot better about herself.

Have you gone to a high school reunion? How was it?

It's my birthday and I'll blog if I want to

2011-11-28T17:12:00.001-05:00

It's my birthday and I am blogging instead of picking up the house, moving along the laundry, emptying the dishwasher, I BETTER STOP LISTING THINGS BEFORE I FEEL GUILTY.

Instead, I'm here to post a slightly lackluster video of my kids singing me happy birthday. What is with the "cha cha cha HI-YA!" thing anyway? Do your kids do this too? Is Happy Birthday not happy enough without some strange karate/cheerleading add-on?

I am thankful for....

2011-11-22T09:41:00.001-05:00

The powerful, healthy lungs that produce the ear-piercing noise.

The wealth and comfort that produces the towering laundry pile.

The budding intellects that inspire the endless maddening stream of questions.

The easy supply of food that produces the copious dishes in the sink.

The strength of spirit that produces the crazy-making misbehavior.

The imperfect family members that are here, now, that remind me of the imperfect family that I wish were here.

The fullness of this life that produces the clutter and work and exhaustion.

Happy Thanksgiving from this Clueless But Hopeful Mama

A few of my favorite things

2011-11-21T06:40:00.006-05:00

I am not a good shopper. I do not enjoy shopping. I get twitchy and impatient after about 20 minutes and immediately need to go lie down in a dark room with one of those soft, heavy lavender thingies over my eyes.

I wish I was a better shopper as there's nothing as impressive to me as the perfect present. It says: I love you and I know you and I care enough to find something that shows it.

I wish I could make presents for everyone: no shopping! Showing I care with my time and intention! Except I don't usually have the time or energy or -let's face it- SKILLS to make presents for most people.

So, I try to make it the few stores in town and I do a LOT of internet shopping. Basically, if it doesn't come from a local craft fair, Target or Amazon, I don't buy it. I also steal people's ideas right and left. So I thought I would post a few of my favorite things that I use all the time in the hopes that some of you might post the same and if we all post these things, we'll have a nice large pool of fabulous things to buy for our friends and family, yes?

(To be extra clear, I have not been compensated in any way for suggesting these products. I just love them. I am now an Amazon Affiliate so if you do buy something off these links, I suppose I'll make a penny or three. I don't really know. If they ever send me money from it, I'll do a giveaway.)

Okay, so I found all these on a tour of my house. Some of my favorite things:

These flip top snack cups from oxox are awesome. My mom gave me some and we use them every day in lunch bags for hard boiled eggs, peeled oranges, cheese cubes, EVERYTHING. Both kids can easily open them AND close them. Shiny, happy colors! The lids don't get lost! Dishwasher safe! WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?!?!

I drop my phone AT LEAST twice a day. My kids are known to grab it with sticky fingers and try desperately to get to the games and videos before mom notices that their fingers still have orange juice and maple syrup all over them. But because it's in this Otterbox phone case, I don't panic. I like not panicking.

With the onset of winter comes the most ridiculously cracked cuticles known to mother-kind. Further compounding this problem is that I don't like most hand creams, they're either greasy or overly scented or too wimpy for my cuticles. But this one, from Restoration Hardware, ROCKS. After two days of applying it at night, I indeed have no cracks. May I recommend the Meyer Lemon scent? It reminds me of our Meyer Lemon tree. I miss that damned tree so much that I might be tempted to lick your hands if I meet you and you're wearing this cream.

These wedgets are one of the best loved toys in our house. I've found that most of my friends have never seen them/played with them. They are one of those rare toys that *I* enjoy playing with. So there.

My good friend K (Who just had twin boys!! SQUEEEE!!!!) got this for E last year. I.... have no idea what it is. But every single kid who sees it instantly knows what it is. So far it's been a stool, a turtle shell, a baby bed, an American Girl doll sled, a dog house, a doll rocker, a hat, a mouse house, a sand scooper, a pool for Barbies, etc. etc. etc. LOVE IT.

Our German friend, who was just visiting us for a few days, brought these gorgeous pencils for Z. They are easily the nicest colored pencils I've ever seen. And looky - Amazon has them!

We're always trying to decrease our household waste and we were going through a lot of straws. Enter: stainless steel straws! I bought these for the girls a few months ago and we all like them. A good investment, dishwasher safe, etc. Perfect stocking stuffer!

Have you ever gone to a new salon for a haircut and been conned into buying expensive shampoo? I haven't for a long time, but I liked the smell of the shampoo my new stylist used so much that I bought this Eufora shampoo (as well as the leave-in conditioner) and I'M SO GLAD I DID. You need very little. It makes my hair bouncier and shinier and it doesn't get greasy after a day of sweating. A treat for sure but worth it.

I'm assuming if you like to bake, you already some of these silicone baking liners. No? Well. Let's hope you have some of them under that Christmas tree. No more need for parchment paper! Reusable! Great to use on the counter top when rolling out dough!

Okay I don't actually own this rad pasta spoon. But I want to! How cute is it? VERY CUTE. Stocking stuffer! Rawr!!

That's it for now. Off you go! Write your own post on your favorite items around your house! Bonus points if you got them from Amazon/Target/someplace with free shipping! I need to do some shopping!

(Exclamation Points!)

"I HAVE FLEM IN MY MOUTH"

2011-11-18T06:17:00.000-05:00

So said the note I wrote to my parents and slipped under their bedroom door, early one morning. I don't know how old I was when I wrote that note, but it's possible I was almost a teenager, as I'm not sure when, if ever, I really learned the correct spelling of phlegm. (As evidence, my fingers just twisted and jumbled as they tried to type it. P...h...l...? Huh?)

Sometime last year, on a visit to my parents, I found a whole cache of these notes that my mom had saved and filed along with other written bits from my childhood. There were a disconcerting number of these sick notes, which she had asked me to slip under her door rather than wake her up before dawn with my current tale of non-urgent physical woe.

I was a bit of a melodramatic hypochondriac as a kid. To my mind, every sensation, even the slightly uncomfortable ones, merited mention and an immediate fix or, at the very least, an extreme display of sympathy. The notes she saved included details of every possible bodily fluid and symptom: how much and what color and how uncomfortable.

I wanted my mom to know. To make me better. Or just to see and understand and hold it in her hand.

I now have a child much like this.

Anytime she feels a sensation in her stomach, she needs to lie down with a warm water bottle. Every bump requires a rest with an ice pack. If her throat is sore, the resulting frown is intense. I struggle to find the right response, as sympathy and exasperation rise in equal measure to her every complaint.

I am surprised by how I can rise to the occasion of caring for an ill child. I am someone with an overabundance of sensitivity myself, and a deep-seated fear of vomiting, but I sat with a two year old Z on my lap while she suffered a long night with rotovirus. Every 45 minutes, she awoke and lost the paltry contents of her stomach into towels on my lap, whimpering at the end and gazing at me with confusion and desperation. Why is this happening to me? Make it stop.

That my first instinct was not disgust and a desire to run but deep sympathy and a futile desire to take her pain away was shocking to me at the time. One of my biggest fears about parenting was that I wasn't sure I had the strength and selflessness to deal with a violently sick child. I was sure I would run at the first sound of retching.

There is something elemental, animalistic, about parenting a sick child. You cannot help but be intimately involved with the details of their illness; not only can you not walk away from the disgusting parts, you are often covered in them.

Even as my girls get older, I am surprised by how close I am to all the action. At five, Z still hands me balled tissues with the snot on the OUTSIDE rather than the inside and has to be reminded that even though she's sick, I believe she's capable of getting them to the trashcan two feet from me.

But I think I understand. She wants to hand it to me. She's saying: Here Mom. Here's my sickness. Please, please take it away.

And I still wish I could.

The lengths we will go to

2011-11-15T17:19:00.006-05:00

I am about to turn 39. I'm also about to attend my 20th high school reunion.

I can't get too worked up about the birthday but the reunion fills me with a certain level of dread. I was invisible in high school, or felt that way anyway, until my senior year when I finally had a serious boyfriend and a coterie of friends. I was ignored and sometimes ridiculed because I was a straight-arrow, feminist geek, a liberal instead of the mandatory Republican, a quiet, pale, acne-prone dancer with a bad perm instead of the preferred tanned field hockey player with a sheet of straight blond hair.

I am not excited to relieve all those feelings again. But I'm going to be in town anyway, for Thanksgiving at my parents' house, and several friends are attending the reunion, people I really and truly liked then and now. So I will get dressed up and drag my husband for moral, and possibly literal physical, support while I nervously blab about my kids over cocktails. I imagine myself slyly assessing whether everyone looks about as wrinkled as me.

I'm almost 39 and I feel pretty good about how I look. Until I look at a recent photograph or in a mirror.

As a twenty something, I was totally mystified when an older client of mine told me, "When I look in the mirror, I have no idea who the old lady is who's looking back at me."

Now I totally understand what she means.

I can't decide if it's a good or bad sign that I feel so much better about myself before I look in the mirror. When I glance at my reflection, I always, immediately, grimace and pick and criticize.

Is this what we're taught to do as women? To pick our appearances apart into acceptable and unacceptable pieces? How can I teach my daughters NOT to do this?

I want to look in the mirror and feel simple acceptance. I want to feel the same way about myself after I look at a photograph as before. I want to see my lines and bumps as part of the whole, rather than pieces to be assessed and remedied.

Is this even possible?

-------------

I went to the dermatologist a month ago, to finally do something about the acne that's plagued me since E weaned herself over a year ago. It was the first time I'd seen one since before I got pregnant with Z and I was unprepared for the onslaught of suggestions. Botox for the wrinkles in my forehead, if I want to. Topicals for the acne AND the wrinkles, of course. Microdermabrasion, to kick it all off.

I guffawed self-consciously at the suggestion of Botox. But I accepted the prescription for a retinol to address the acne (and, ahem, the wrinkles). And I set up an appointment for microdermabrasion to "kick it all off".

My mom has long held a respectable limit on the lengths she will go to to look youthful. No injections, no surgeries. Topicals are fine. She looks fabulous, much younger than her years, and I've always thought I would emulate her in this way.

"Once you get started with all these procedures, where do you stop?" she rhetorically asks. "At some point, you just have to accept how old you are."

Indeed.

------------

I have a hernia, and an abdominal split, that could be surgically repaired. When I asked a doctor about it, he said it would be considered cosmetic surgery at this point, since it's not painful to me and doesn't yet involve my intestines. But it's possible that it could get bigger, become painful, and he suggested doing it before then, just in case.

"As part of a tummy tuck," he said lightly.

Um.

Did he just suggest this former Pilates instructor should get a tummy tuck? Oh my battered, aching pride.

Whatever you want to call the surgery, I'm not sure I would pay all that money, or undergo general anesthesia, for what is really, truly, essentially cosmetic at this point.

Some days, though, the thought of losing the loose skin around my mid section fills me with a undeniable longing. What would it mean to no longer feel that discomfort of skin folding over itself whenever I buckle my pants? Could I actually wear a two piece bathing suit again in this lifetime?

Would I ever consider undergoing cosmetic surgery, of any kind?

Would you? Where do you draw the line?

Just when you figure it out

2011-11-10T07:11:00.001-05:00

When I was dancing in my twenties, it seemed every year I slowly got a little bit wiser and more skilled in every aspect of my dancing. I also got more injured, and therefore, closer and closer to not dancing any more.

By the time I stopped, I was dancing as well as I ever had. I was more comfortable, more confident, more present in every moment. I was also seeing more chiropractors and massage therapists and physical therapists every week to manage my injuries. And I was a married 31 year old who wanted to have babies, plural.

I was finally figuring out how to be comfortable on stage, how to bring my whole true self into the performance process, right as I was giving it up and moving on.

It was sad to me that I couldn't have used my hard earned wisdom for just a little longer. It seemed unfair that I should finally get through a performance without wanting to vomit from anxiety and have it be my very last one.

That last performance was an odd experience. To feel excitement before a show instead of dread. To stand backstage, bouncing on my toes to stay warm as I waited for the whisper yell: "Places!" and not feel the usual stomach lurch when it finally came. To wish, as the applause began, that it wasn't over, that we could do it just one more time.

There are, of course, parallels to mothering my girls.

Every time we go through a new stage with Z, I am fearful, anxious, clueless. I read, I experiment, I learn some things. Then I get to go through it again with E, who, while she's a different child, provides an opportunity to apply at least some of what I learned the first time around with Z. By the time E's moving on, I feel almost comfortable with that stage of motherhood. Almost confident and present and capable.

I feel this familiar swelling inside, a feeling of beginning to own myself in this process, of knowing myself as a mother just like I ever so slowly grew to know myself as a dancer.

This is yet another reason it is sad to not have another child. This is yet another reason I find myself all too happily offering my opinion about friends' babies. Even when they don't ask for it.

In each phase, I find myself wishing I could use this self-knowledge just a little longer. In each phase, I wish I wasn't so slow in becoming who I want to be.

In each phase, I wish I could do it again, just one more time.

Instead, I am attempting something new: to carry over some of that fledgling confidence into each new phase with Z or E. To quiet the anxious voices inside that tell me I'm no good at this, that I'll mess them up, these perfect beloved creatures. To remind myself that we'll figure it out together.

I remind myself that every day is a chance to apply all I've learned along the way. My growing wisdom and confidence isn't lost just because my children are getting older. It informs every moment I spend with them, even after they leave the phase I just figured out.

That has to be enough.

Halloween Candy: the evolution

2011-11-08T21:03:00.002-05:00

Hmmm, they're selling Halloween candy already? Well. I'm too smart for that. I'm not buying any because I'll just eat it all before Halloween.

There's that Halloween Candy again, right at the end of the aisle, lying in wait. NOT BUYING YET, ye evil temptress.

I'll just buy a few bags. Of candy I don't particularly like. There. I'm early AND I won't be tempted.

There are the bags I bought. Just waiting there on the shelf in the dining room. NOT TEMPTING ME.

It's been a really rough day and I'm hungry and we have no cookies or chocolate in this whole entire house. OKAY FINE, I'LL EAT PEANUT M&Ms.

Hey, Peanut M&Ms are not that bad!

I think I need to try pretzel M&Ms to see how they are .... *scarf*SNARF*

Hmm. 9:40 am and I've already yelled at the girls? I'll just put a bag of Skittles in my pocket and dole it out whenever I feel grumpy.

I FORGOT SUGAR CRASHES MAKE ME MORE GRUMPY.

I'm so ill from eating all this Halloween Candy. I'm putting it up high so I won't eat any more.

I forgot there's a convenient stool right here....

Thank goodness Halloween is today. Finally, I'll get rid of all this candy.

Not only is there tons of candy left but the girls got another METRIC TON of candy. DAMN IT.

Okay, Z, if you insist, I'll sample a few other types of candy. *scarf*SNARF*

Last day of the candy. Tonight the Candy Fairy comes to take it all away. THANK GOD.

OH WAIT. I'M THE CANDY FAIRY.

(I'm going to send off that candy to the troops. Tomorrow. Now, if only I can get through tonight without eating it all....)

I am...

2011-11-06T06:01:00.004-05:00

(Inspired by Alli Worthington's "I am... " Project)

I am a mess.

I have said or written or thought that phrase more times than I can count, usually with a tinge of self-hatred and often with the word "such" inserted in there for emphasis.

It is an admission. It is a request for sympathy, empathy, or even - I'LL TAKE IT - pity. It is a preemptive excuse.

It is a blanket with which to cover myself and hide.

But maybe it could be an acceptance. Maybe it could be a non-judgmental fact. Maybe it could be embraced. Maybe it could be a rallying cry.

In mess there is reality.

Honesty.

Children.

Dogs.

Love.

Life.

The truth: there is so much I value more than perfectly clean tidiness.

I AM A MESS!

Make Believe

2011-11-03T13:07:00.005-04:00

"Dress up!" E yells after I give her some playtime options. I dutifully follow her to the basement, hoping I can play at least some of my parts lying down.

She pulls on her sister's Cinderella shoes and a bejewelled tiara and says "Me princess. You prince. Come marry me."

I laugh and ask what I wear as her prince. She finds me a black skirt and I rest it on my head like a veil which makes her giggle.

"No. Me doctor. You sick," E says, face serious, eyes focused. "You need shot."

When I open my eyes wide at this scary turn of events, she pats my arm. "Don't worry Mommy. I be very, very gentle. Pomise."

She rummages in the dress up bin, pushing aside layers of tulle and silk to find her stethoscope. She listens to my arm for a long time and returns to the bin.

Instead of finding her yellow plastic needle, she pulls out a glittery silver wand and taps my head, gently. "I'm Glenda. You Doroffy. You want to go home."

"Yes, I do," I say solemnly not missing a beat. "I miss Auntie Em and Uncle Henry."

"No worry, Mommy Doroffy. You can go home. Kick your heels."

I stand up, close my eyes and click my heels on the basement carpet.

"Dream of home, " she instructs.

I do. I imagine a place where I am myself, all parts, easy and hard, lovable and not so much. A place where I am safe, loved, surrounded by the warmth and flotsam of children and pets and a partner who gets me. I open my eyes and there she is, my E, waiting for me.

Here I am.

Home.

Spooked

2011-10-31T08:05:00.001-04:00

My mom said to me a few months ago, "This stage of mothering is about preparing you for my death."

It was a reasonable thing to say, even though she's an incredibly fit and healthy 67 year old, because we lost my father in law a year and a half ago, a sudden and devastating loss that his family will wrestle with for many years to come.

It was reasonable for her to say this because, of course, this preparation will take quite a long time.

Then, a week and a half ago, I got a phone call from my mom as she lay in the ER awaiting treatment for what would eventually be discovered to be a perforated appendix. She was heavily medicated but lucid enough to tell me not to come. There was no need. They would just take it out and she could go home.

But it wasn't that easy; there were complications. She's still there. So I went to her on Saturday, just long enough to sit with her, massage her head, and walk slow laps with her around her hospital wing.

No matter how rationally you understand the fragility of our physical bodies, it's a shock to see a parent sick, weak. Mortal.

We like to think we know what to expect, but like a snowstorm before Halloween, we never know what to expect. If we're lucky, we might see things coming a day or two ahead, a forecast, an inkling of the change to come.

If we're really lucky, the change is a small, unexpected storm. The snow will melt tomorrow and the flowers will still be there, underneath.

My mom is teaching me about positivity and humor and how together they create resilience. She's teaching me about mortality. And about letting go.

I guess I could consider this part of that preparation for her death. But I don't want to.

I just don't want to.

Work

2011-10-27T14:24:00.001-04:00

Apparently, E has read the Two Year Old Job Description.

She only wants to do things for herself things that are forbidden and/or dangerous, otherwise she'd like to be carried and entertained constantly thankyouverymuch. She is uninterested in being buckled, wiped, brushed, or instructed in much of anything. She sings to her own reflection in the toilet handle as she flushes it over and over and over again.

She scribbles on the wall with a pencil and when I try to redirect her to some paper, she walks into the bathroom to draw on the wall in privacy. When I take the pencil away from her, she pulls her stool up to the counter to slyly fetch another one. When I take that one away and redirect her to another activity, she'll wait a few minutes and then sneak off to pull another pencil stub from thin air with which she'll happily decorate the couch.

It helps to think of this kind of behavior as normal. It helps even more to think that it is part of her learning necessary information about the world and how it works.

I remind myself of every cliche from every parenting book: Her job is to test me. What seems like unreasonableness and general jackassery is how she is learning about the world and her power in it.

If learning about the world and all its rules is her job, am I her boss or her coworker or some poor tired underling silently counting the minutes 'till quitting time?

Or am I some combination of the three?

-----------------------

CG drives off each morning with Z in his car, while E and I hang in the doorway, waving, blowing kisses, making the "I love you" sign with our fingers.

After dropping Z at school, his workdays are filled with meetings; sometimes the meetings are back to back to back with no breaks and no chance to prepare for the next or process the last.

Some days, he dreams of quitting his job and being a flight instructor. Some days, he feels so very lucky; he not only found a job in a terrible job market, he found a pretty damn awesome job where he does high level science-y things.

He comes home to dinner on the table and girls ready to talk about their days or throw themselves in a fit at his feet, he never can predict. He comes home to a few hours of constant co-parenting, to dinner and Candyland and books and bedtimes, his car ride home the only buffer between his two very different but important jobs. He comes home to a wife who greets him with a meaningful kiss or a weary grunt, he never can predict.

I remind myself of just how demanding his job is, and I stoke the fires of gratitude nestled deep in my belly. I remind myself of how hard he works so I can stay home and how present he is with us when he gets home.

I remind myself of all this so that I don't imagine his workday as a relaxing bastion of calm yet stimulating adult interactions and resent the crap out of him for it.

--------------------------

Z has started to read and write, like some kind of person. I knew this would happen eventually but watching it unfold is still ... magical. It's like when your baby starts to talk honest to goodness words and you suddenly see them as some little magician or spectacular acrobat performing an impossible feat.

How did she do that?! How is it possible that someone who once couldn't reliably get her fist in her mouth can now read and write her own stories?

She is so serious about her work, which in Montessori is what they call ... everything they do. Her reports from school are mostly glowing, she works hard, she's progressing quickly. She proudly shows us her thick stack of stories and math sheets and labeled pumpkin drawings that come home every week and we ooh and aah over them with real appreciation and wonder.

Tell me about this work. When did you learn all the parts of the fruit bat?

Then she throws a fit about cleaning up her toys and the spell is broken. I bite my cheek to keep from yelling "Are you freaking KIDDING ME?! You are one of the luckiest children on the face of the earth who's only job is to LEARN and you are complaining about picking up a few measly dolls?!?! Dolls that were, just so you know, possibly made by little fingers who aren't allowed to go to school and whose parents aren't able to buy them much of anything let alone lovingly remind them time and again to PUT THEIR COPIOUS SHIT AWAY."

Instead, I calmly remind her that her job isn't just to learn at school. Her responsibilities at home are just as important: we all contribute to keeping our home peaceful and running smoothly.

She flops and whines and stomps and I'm worried she doesn't really get it at all but eventually she starts this onerous work of cleaning up her embarrassingly large array of toys, this most important work of learning to be a decent human being.

-------------

In all my time as a SAHM, I have put the emphasis on the mother in that acronym. I think of myself as primarily here for my children, for our relationship, for the bonding and care-taking that we as a family value so deeply.

In our current reality, though, now that Z is in kindergarten and E is in preschool three mornings a week, it's becoming obvious that I am mostly a housewife. A domestic engineer. My work is primarily about keeping our household running.

I only flinched once while typing that!

(Okay, maybe twice.)

A great deal of my time is spent procuring, cleaning, organizing and purging household goods. I buy and recycle and scrub and tidy and file and throw away, all day long. I stem the tide of of the kindergartener's "collections" and process the high volume of artwork. I regularly have to bring order to the pantry, the linen closet, the top of the washing machine, the girls' toy containers. When, due to illness or busyness, I stop this process for a day or three, we are instantly covered in dolls, papers, dishes and - OH MY YES IT'S A CLICHE FOR A REASON - laundry.

It doesn't look that bad, until you realize I just emptied it YESTERDAY.
(I think we need a bigger laundry basket.)

Some days, I have my head so far up my laundry pile that I cannot see past it. Some days, I swear I would love my family so much more if they could just stop producing laundry or dishes or both for ONE MEASLY HOUR. Some days, the relative merits of Spray & Wash vs. Oxyclean is the deepest my thought processes go.

(Team Oxyclean, all the way.)

I vacillate between trying to find meaning in the drudgery and just getting it over with as quickly as I can. I can be all zen and slow and deep or I can just be done already and go read "Divergent" like I really want to.

(Seriously. If you like dystopian YA novels, Divergent's your next favorite book.)

I had such high hopes for how much free time I'd have when E started preschool. Remember? I was starry-eyed with the potential.

What I have actually done with those preschool hours: seen a number of doctors for various minor issues, exercised a bit more, tackled a few small house projects, and run the usual errands more efficiently. Yep. That's pretty much it.

I am often struck by how quickly the preschool time goes, how little I can actually accomplish in 2 hours and 40 minutes. Every preschool day, I glance past the loftier someday to-do list and feel the stronger pull of my mundane everyday to-do list. If I cross all those things off during preschool hours, I'll have the afternoon to spend enjoying the girls instead of running them around town in the car or pushing them away as I fold laundry. Creating more relaxing time with them is hard to pass up. That is why I'm home isn't it?

It seems I can try to cram more in - more writing, more ambition - or I can slow down and do what I'm already doing calmly and well.

What does it say about me that I'm not sure which track to take?

I want to have work that isn't just about this house. I want to have work that isn't just about my children. But I'm beginning to realize that even when they are older and busier, all the work that this household requires isn't going to just disappear.

I am so blessed that I am able to stay home now. I am so fortunate for the material comfort we possess that makes it possible.

I stoke those fires of gratitude too, as I never want to forget how lucky I am, even as I hunger for more, that vague, unhumble, distinctly un-zen-like more.

The Mommy Potty Book

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

(With thanks and apologies to Joanna Cole and the Parenting with Crappy Pictures blog, both of which are inspiring and brilliant in totally different ways.)

My Apologies

2011-10-13T13:20:00.002-04:00

Dear Z,

Sometimes I am sorry you were born first. It just doesn’t seem fair that you were born to a mother who knew so little about babies, who was anxious and fearful so much of the time. There were nights when I would look down at you and just cry, from overwhelming love, yes, but also from fear and crushing responsibility and abject terror. I’m sorry to say that my tears have fallen on your face more times than any other person in the world, except probably my mom.

(I am sorry, Mom.)

I am sorry for loving you so much. Sometimes I feel the burdensome weight of my love for you, my first born, the way I sink into your good moments as if they have everything - anything - to do with me, the way I covet your hugs and kisses because I know they aren’t given easily and therefore, are so very precious.

I’m sorry too for the gaps and snags in my love. The moments when my best self is not in charge, when I just can’t find the strength to lead with love and care. The imperfections that make me human affect you in ways I wish they didn't. I know we are both good enough and that is good enough but damn, I wish I could be just a little bit better sometimes. For you.

I’m sorry for sometimes forgetting how little you are. For expecting you to always be my “big girl” and for letting your verbal abilities, which have always outpaced your emotional maturity, fake me into thinking you are older than you are. You should be allowed to curl up and be little sometimes, too.

I am sorry for that time I grabbed your shoulder roughly and you looked at me with fear in your eyes and my teeth were set so hard I'm sure you could hear my metal fillings grinding out a tinny percussive song. I hope you forget that moment and I promise to remember it enough for the both of us.

I am sorry for apologizing for things I shouldn't and missing things I should.

I am sorry to say that these apologies are only the ones I could think of today, while you watched a Dora.

Love,
Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

-----------------

Dear E,

Sometimes I am sorry you were born second. It just doesn’t seem fair that you were born to a mother who felt stretched beyond her capacity, torn by her responsibilities for two little people who both needed so much from her. There were nights when I would look at you and cry when I realized I had pretty much ignored you for most of the day, dragging you around in your car seat, strapping you to my back for hours spent in the playground/playgroup/grocery store/kitchen. That I didn’t even have the time or energy to do anything differently made it even worse, somehow.

I am sorry for loving you so much. Sometimes I feel the burdensome weight of my love for you, my baby, the way I cradle you like you are an infant even though you are so big now, the way I greedily gather your kisses and hugs, so freely given and never, ever too much, and never, ever enough.

I’m sorry too for the gaps and snags in my love. The moments when my best self is not in charge, when I just can’t find the strength to lead with love and care. The imperfections that make me human affect you in ways I wish they didn't. I know we are both good enough and that is good enough but damn, I wish I could be just a little bit better sometimes. For you.

I’m sorry for forgetting how big you are sometimes. For expecting you to be “my baby" too often, for too long. I'm sorry for sometimes failing to see that you are getting bigger every day and are capable of handling the expectations and responsibilities of a big kid.

I am sorry for the time I left you strapped in your car seat, screaming, just closed the car door and cried myself for quite a while before I opened the door again and took you out. I know I did the right thing for myself at that moment but I really hate when the right thing for me is not the best thing for you. I know you won't remember that, as you were just a baby. And I know I will remember it enough for the both of us.

I am sorry for apologizing for things I shouldn't and missing things I should.

I am sorry to say that these apologies are only the ones I could think of today, while you watched a Dora.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Flexibility

2011-10-06T17:02:00.002-04:00

My friend and I are in the part of the gym reserved for stretching, lying on our backs, right legs in the air. Mine is pointed up at the ceiling, knee straight, hers is in a similar spot but her knee is bent, her leg is shaking, and she is howling.

"You're so flexible! I used to be flexible!" she laments, glancing at me.

I hear this often from friends and I never know how to respond.

I'm not actually that flexible, for a former dancer?

I know, right. I used to be more flexible too?

Thanks?

Mulling my options, I say nothing and chuckle in what I hope is a supportive way but is probably just ambiguous and weird. We breathe together, imagining what our sixteen year old bodies could do, or what we think they used to be able to do, or what we wish they could have done. I close my eyes and fight the urge to push further, instead letting my shoulders drop just a little of their near constant effort.

Next to us is another woman, a girl really, with her ipod dialed up to DEAFEN and one leg up by her ear. I try to keep my eyes on my own mat but inside my head I can't help but enviously imagine, for the millionth time in my life, hip sockets that are carved open, nearly flat like dinner plates, rather than the curved, deep cups that are mine.

I also guiltily imagine her in fifty years, with hearing aids.

----------------

I was sixteen when my hips and knees started to bother me. I was dancing most days of the week, spending hours on pointe. Standing at the barre, forcing my toes out to form a straight line with my feet, I was acutely aware that my body was never meant to do this, even more so than most bodies. My natural turn-out is closer to ninety degrees than the desired one eighty; my knees and ankles twisted and torqued to make it happen, more or less, but I wasn't fooling anyone, least of all my hip sockets.

In college, I took the train down to New York City to see a highly esteemed doctor whose office walls were crowded with a thrilling photo gallery of famous ballerinas and sports figures.

"You're a dancer?" he asked incredulously, looking at my x-rays. "Your hips are built for marathon running, my dear, not dancing."

"Yeah, well, I'm not a ballet dancer anymore, mostly modern now, so...."

"Still. Wow."

"..."

"I'll give you a prescription for physical therapy but at a certain point, your limits are your limits," he shrugged, resignedly handing me a piece of paper.

As I walked down his hallway to leave, this time ignoring the brilliant faces of ballerinas I've admired since I was a little girl, I balled up the paper in my hand. Though I would later carefully smooth it out and send it through the proper channels to get as much help as I could for my poor battered hips, right then I just wanted to squash his words.

Squash them and throw them away.

-------

We are fully into the swing of the school year and it's still study in adjustment. Z is clearly tired by the end of her school day and laments how little time she now has by herself. Every day it seems something brand new and yet completely, exhaustingly old blows up in our faces.

Recently it was suggested to us that we start experimenting with less structure in her home life, giving her a safe space to practice dealing with a world that is unpredictable and chaotic. Messing with her schedule is something we have been loathe to do since she was a small baby and loudly expressed her dislike of change and variety. Most of the time, we eat and sleep and play in timed chunks specifically calibrated to maximize the potential for smooth transitions.

"So she's not fond of change and she's struggling with flexibility and transitions? Hmm.... who's she like?" I was asked.

"I have no idea," I said, smiling cheekily at my obvious lie.

-------------------------

Last week Z woke up sick. From her first wincing swallow, my mind raced ahead to every cancellation that would be necessary in the next few days. My list started with the kids' cancellations and progressed quickly to the total reorganization that my life and personal plans that would need to happen with a sick kid at home for at least a day or two.

It took me a few minutes to realize I was writing a to-do list instead of bringing Z a spoonful of honey and giving her a hug.

I resolved - again - to hug first next time.

------------

My limits are there. They are real. My emotional structure, like my hip structure, feels restricted and compressed most days, frustrating me even as I stretch myself up to its' edges.

I don't fear the wrinkly sagging of old age nearly as much as the deep, entrenching rigidity.

I know it is my job as a parent to help Z accept who she is and reach past what she thinks she's capable of. To teach her that her personal limits are strengths, are weaknesses, are real, are worth accepting, are worth stretching past.

How do we simultaneously teach, and work on ourselves, acceptance and ambition?

I know I will never, ever get my leg up to my ear. I know I will always struggle when my day changes course suddenly.

But that doesn't mean I should ever stop stretching.

Possession

2011-09-28T14:06:00.009-04:00

We have entered a stage in our house that I fear will be a long one: the stage of wishing for two of every single toy. Which, of course, isn't reasonable or practical but still every single time the girls are going toe to toe over some broken toy telephone that no one has played with in over year, I think "Where did we get that?", which inevitably leads to "Should we get another one?" and then, because I'm equal parts imaginative and desperate, "Can I pull another one out of my ass RIGHT NOW to stop the screaming?"

But even if I were able to conjure up another deeply precious broken toy telephone, I know the fighting wouldn't end there. Oh no. Then they're be some blow-up about whose broken toy telephone was MORE precious, the new old one or the old old one. And one of them would surely look slightly different and therefore be the better of the two and then we'd be right back where we started, with me going slightly insane from the whining.

E is two years old and, therefore, deeply in the MINE stage. Everything she sees is hers. Everything she wants is hers. And, especially, everything that her sister is currently holding is HERS.

We went through this MINE stage with Z, of course, but when she was two, she had the benefit of living in a house where every single toy WAS hers. As CG and I were not about to fight with her over the stuffed dog in her hands, there were precious few instances of her battling over toys.

E, on the other hand, entered a house where every single toy belonged to her big sister. We rarely bought toys for Z, yet we managed to acquire a stunning number of them simply through gifts and hand-me-downs and some universal plastic toy osmosis. We have a decently stocked playroom in the basement and the Useless-Toy Fairy has to visit regularly in the dead of night to take the lamer toys to never never land.

I do not want to buy more toys just so that E has the same number of toys as her older sister. I also am having a hard time asking Z to share all of these things that were specifically given to her. Because, of course, she remembers everything about her toys. She can't remember where she put her lunch bag or her shoes or her favorite head band but BOY HOWDY she can tell you that that long-ignored plastic bracelet that I want to throw away was from the goody bag of so-and-so's birthday party and she needs it to remember that day and she (suddenly) can't bear to be apart from it ever.

Z has helped clean out her toy bins before, which is always an excruciating process during which she claims to adore things she hasn't played with in literally YEARS. We've talked about how we need to make room for new toys and have space to find and enjoy the ones we have by getting rid of old ones, either by giving them to her sister or to "kids who don't have as many toys".

We've also started talking recently about how we, as a family, share most of the things in our house. We each may have a few things that belong just to us, that we don't share, like our toothbrushes, eating utensils, a few special stuffed animals/dolls. But the rest of our things really belong to the whole family. Even the toys.

There's something bigger I want to get through to Z, and I'm not sure if it's possible at this age. That these possessions only have the value that we place on them. That we can chose whether something is valuable to us or not. That letting something go doesn't have to mean letting go of the enjoyment you had with it.

And that the two year old will let you have the red straw if can convince her that the green one is the one you really want.

Old Wounds

2011-09-26T07:13:00.003-04:00

They say that parenthood can help you heal your own wounds from childhood. I always assumed that applied to extreme situations. People who were beaten as children - they can cuddle their kids instead! Or people who were called bad names - they can use gentle words with their kids! And their inner child is healed! Huzzah!

But what about the tiny wounds? The minor ones we forgot about? The ones we do to ourselves?

Can those heal too?

--------

I still tell Z stories about me when I was little. And they often pertain to issues of our time together. It is not lost on either of us that I sometimes make them up or at least embellish, and thankfully she no longer insists that they "actually happened". But more often than not these days, I have real stories to tell. Because I struggled with many of the same things, little and big, that she does.

Watching her wrestle with similar challenges can be painful. But healing to, as I relearn what I forgot I knew.

Sometimes, I learn something new, for the first time.

--------------

When I was in middle and high school, my two best friends were singers. They sang in church and choirs and school musicals. I joined them at the tryouts for our school musicals, because I wanted to dance and because I wanted to belong to the chummy theater-kid group.

Unfortunately, I had to sing to gain entry.

Though I eventually made it in, my audition keep me up at night for days beforehand and the resulting squawking played in an endless loop in my head for years afterward as part of "Why I Suck, The Greatest Hits Edition."

One day, the week before opening night for Hello Dolly, I was asked to mouth the lyrics, as I often stood front and center as a dancer but my off key voice was hopeless and distracting to the other performers.

I never really sang in front of other people after that, unless I was intentionally singing terribly, which I always do during Happy Birthday. Because it's my signature, you see! It's not because I'm trying to cover up my discomfort! I swear!

Other than that, I rarely sang as an adult. Not even all by myself in the shower or the car.

Then I had Z. I was supposed to sing to her, the books said, and there were all those Mommy and Me-type classes where I felt a little sorry for the teachers belting out "Old MacDonald" for the 1000th time, all by themselves, as I mouthed the words along. So I started singing to Z, quietly, privately at first, unsure how I'd sound or how it'd feel. Eventually, singing became part of our daily lives. It's a veritable tuneless Sing Off in here.

Z hated being strapped into her car seat and stroller as a baby and toddler and would scream and scream, unless we sang to her. So we did, endless rounds of every song I learned from Mommy and Me. Somewhere between "The Ants Go Marching" and "The Wheels on the Bus", I discovered something that surprised me: I LIKE to sing. Like, REALLY like to sing.

I'm still not great, I know. But I do it all the time with my girls now. Even in front of other people.

"Mom? I love to listen to you sing!" Z says frequently these days.

Every time it's like a healing balm on a tiny wound I had forgotten I even had.

Baby girl

2011-09-20T13:05:00.013-04:00

We walk up to the door of her preschool classroom, the one with her name printed neatly on a yellow daisy, a single flower in a large paper bouquet. We both knock, her soft knuckles banging into the wood, mine lightly rapping.

There is loud crying on the other side of the door. The kind of crying that makes me want to turn around, cancel my dentist appointment and snuggle with my girl for the rest of the morning. Instead, we smile at each other and then at the teacher who opens the door and welcomes us in.

I kiss the top of her head and wave goodbye. She walks in without glancing back at me, looking instead at the boy with tears streaming down his face.

The door closes behind her and I walk away, the wails of someone else's baby ringing in my ears.

----------------

When I come to pick her up, she jumps into my arms - this girl, she's a jumper - and we cuddle for a minute. I sniff her hair, ask her about her morning, gather her things.

In the car she sings a new song, one I don't recognize, and it makes her laugh to hear me guess at the lyrics and title.

"Duckie goes shopping? In a barn? With a shoe?"

When we get home, she's yawning repeatedly, ready for lunch and a nap in that order, or possibly the reverse.

She wants "hum - hum, pret - pret and nofing else!" and I put hummus and pretzels and nothing else - besides a few baby carrots and maybe some cucumber slices and OH LOOK a sugar snap pea! - on her plate. She pushes our seats together so we are touching and grabs one of my hands to cuddle with while she eats. Half way through the meal, this closeness isn't enough and she climbs into my lap.

I think about CG and how we agreed that our kids needed to sit in their own seats during meals, no exceptions. I think about Z and the battles we had with her at this age, ending several meals when she refused to stay seated.

I think about this as I let E sit on my lap and we feed each other, pausing to give and receive kisses and nose nuzzles and giggly hugs. I let the guilt slip away, there is no one else here. She needs this closeness. I need this closeness. No one has to know.

When I tuck her in for her nap, she stretches almost all the way across her crib and I think it's past time to take the side off her crib but I'm just not ready yet and I close the door and walk away, the tune about Duckie going shopping ringing in my ears.

If only it were that simple.

2011-09-13T14:34:00.005-04:00

We are in week two of school. I am sitting in a mostly clutter-free living room, the dog asleep at my side. After spending the first hour of E's naptime cleaning, tidying, doing dishes, prepping dinner, paying bills, and emailing, I am here. Sitting in front of my computer.

With a blank screen and a baby monitor hissing the almost silent noises of my used-to-be-a-baby.

I wanted this time to write. I was so looking forward to having this time - the mornings when E's in school and the afternoons when E naps and Z is still in school - to not only get things together in the house but to get things together IN MY LIFE. Chief among the things I wanted to do: write more.

If only it were that simple.

So far I've managed to pack my free time with long overdue doctor's appointments (Pap smear and mole check ahoy!) and assorted house projects. The free hours are much more easily frittered away than I realized.

I wanted to find more space in my day for this blog, but also for bigger things. I have an idea that really excites me for a novel (Ambitious!) and I have written exactly none of it. I have ideas for posts that I could market as a freelancer. I have written none of them.

I will start today. With this blog post.

Hmmm, maybe it is that simple.

(And the toddler, on cue: "Mommyyyyyyy!!!!")

(Inspired by Jennifer at Playgroups are No Place for Children and Heather at The Extraordinary Ordinary.)

Love the message, hate the messenger

2011-09-09T13:30:00.002-04:00

When I first heard John Mayer sing "Your Body is a Wonderland", I , like most other warm blooded females, felt my heart, my brain and my nethers sing in tingly harmony. I mean, the man is celebrating his beloved and her body and their lurve discovery in a sensitive, woman-centered song. What's not to like?

Then came the interviews where he spewed sexist, racist, homophobic crap and I basically can't listen to any of his songs anymore.

"If you want love, we'll make it" now sounds less like a loving invitation and more and more like an lecherous imperative.

I know we are all multi-faceted creatures, capable of a stunning combination of positive and negative behavior. But what do we do with someone who, let's say, produces great art but is a raging asshole in the rest of his life? How do we reconcile the beauty in someone with the "My dick is sort of like a white supremacist" beast? Does one cancel the other out?

I'm currently having this problem as I read a particularly helpful book. It is filled with information about the ways that children learn and how we can help them capitalize on their particular set of strengths and manage their particular set of weaknesses. After reading many books that jump into the alphabet soup of labels, it's been a welcome revelation to read this view: that while we all have weaknesses, only some get labeled, only some will show up in school. Our job, as parents and teachers, is to help our kids understand how their own unique mind works and find a life path for which they are well suited.

This book was recommended to me by a dear friend who works with learning disabled kids as The One to read, though she warned me of its author's issues first. I've begun making a mental list of the friends who might benefit from its information. As I read, Dr. Levine's tone is warm and engaging, especially as he invites us into his sessions where he celebrates a student's strengths while also helping them manage their weaknesses.

But, also as I read, I cannot get out of my mind that Dr. Levine was charged with sexually abusing over 50 of his former patients and eventually committed suicide in 2011, the day after he was formally charged. Every anecdote, every patient he writes about with such apparent care and wisdom, could be one of the ones who now accuses him of abuse.

I know he was never proven guilty. I know he maintained his innocence, up to and including his suicide note (Why, yes, I did Google his suicide note. Technology for the anxiety-producing win!). But after reading enough reports from the accusers, it seems like an awful lot of smoke to not be coming from a fire.

It is not my job to determine his guilt or innocence. But as I continue to read this book and find more and more wisdom in its pages, I am increasingly sickened that such a person might also be capable of something so horrible.

What are we to do with the message when the messenger is deeply, deeply flawed?

The last drop of baby shampoo

2011-09-05T16:01:00.001-04:00

Dear E,

Before your older sister was born, I went to Target to pick a baby shampoo. I read ingredient lists and tried to care about the potentially dangerous chemicals in each bottle but mostly, I surreptitiously took the caps off and sniffed the heck out of them.

It was no contest, I knew instantly which one I wanted to sniff on my baby's hair and skin for the next few years. It smelled of honey: sticky, sweet and clean.

Your sister got baths every night before we realized that this routine was responsible for drying her skin so badly it flaked off in her sleep no matter how much cream we slathered on.
It was hard to let that part of her bedtime routine go, mostly because smelling her soft clean hair made nursing her in the wee hours bearable.

I've bought the same baby shampoo countless times since, and though you started off your life getting far fewer baths than your sister (the blessing and the curse of being the second child, my dear), you also always emerge from your baths with the faint scent of honey.

But lately, you and your sister have been wanting to take showers, standing up, washing your hair in the spray. Your sister's hair is full and thick and getting longer and more tangled by the day and it's obvious at five that she needs some heavy duty conditioning, so last week I pawed through my stash of leftover toiletries and gave her some grown up shampoo and conditioner scented with jasmine and anise.

No more honey for her.

You, not to be outdone, wanted whatever your sister has and begged for your sister's big green shampoo bottle as soon as I reached for the thin one with bees and honeycomb on the label.

I insisted, it's the honey shampoo or nothing, kid.

But then I realized the bottle is almost empty. And I don't think I'll buy another bottle.

I'm trying not to want to stunt your growth, but it's hard, you see. Letting your babyness go feels like letting go of a special kind of love, one that I won't ever feel again, not like this.

You start preschool this week and we're both nervous. When we visited last week - met your teacher, played with the toys - I kept finding fault in everything. Your teacher didn't say much to you! Your classroom is a little small! One of the moms was loudly pushing her daughter to perform for the teacher and say all her colors and sing the alphabet! Clearly, this place SUCKS.

I sat there, smiling at you, jabbering about how this is fun! and you'll love it! and all I wanted to do was scoop you up and run out the door and bury my head in your honey scented hair.

But it's time. You're ready. I'm ready.

And there's only one last drop of honey shampoo left in the bottle.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

It Looked Better In My Head

2011-09-01T13:45:00.011-04:00

If I ever had a design/organization blog - and this is EXTREMELY unlikely, as you are about to see - it would be named "It Looked Better In My Head".

Example A: My corner cabinet/Lazy Susan.

I carefully chose contact paper I liked! With nice colors! To cover the hideous old rusted shelves in this cabinet!

And with it's mismatched edges and ripples, it looks kinda WORSE!

Mistake #2: My bedroom.

When we bought the house, the walls of the master bedroom were bright mustard yellow, the curtains were dark brown. I wanted a serene space with gray-blue walls and a lot of light.... except when I sleep when it must be PITCH BLACK.

We had a bunch of the rooms in the house painted while we moved, so we randomly chose a gray blue while in a new-baby-while-moving-across-the-country haze. It's a tad more baby blue than I wanted but when we arrived, all I cared about was it wasn't mustard yellow.

When we moved in, we kept the previous owners' plastic-y dark brown curtains up because we didn't have other options. I grew quite fond of them for the sole reason that they kept the light out pretty well and with a three month old, having sleep possible at all hours is paramount. Also I think I like dark brown and light blue together (In my head it's so restful!) so I convinced CG that we should spend a serious chunk of our decorating budget on buying nice, new curtains. That are ALSO POOP BROWN.

(I don't know what I was thinking.)

(I was thinking I liked sleep.)

(Every time CG closes the curtains, he mutters "I hate these curtains".)

On the third hand: Our bathroom sink

Our bathroom has one tiny medicine cabinet that fits basically nothing and two cavernous under-sink cabinets that become toiletry black holes so we wind up putting most of our every day toiletries on the counter in a messy disorganized heap.

So. I went to Target and bought a slew of clear (makes the space look bigger!) plastic (easy to clean!) bathroom organizers (buying "organizers" instantly makes me more organized!).

Now, behold the beauty of:

Same clutter: now in little plastic boxes!!

Next up: help me title my cooking blog.

a. The Accident Prone Chef
b. Cooking with Jenna, and a Hazmat Crew
c. Your Flesh Might Burn But Your Cookies Will Be DELISH

I have a gift for burning the inside of my arm.

Look! It's a match set! (And these are just from this week! Every week it's something new broken, burned, shattered, cracked, melted, or accidentally set on fire. Lots of content!)

I still get angry

2011-08-31T12:30:00.000-04:00

Q: What is the easiest, fastest way to make something change?
A: Blog about it.

When I wrote the babble piece about my decision to take anti-depressants last winter, I was still working on accepting this dark part of me. I was also feeling just a tad bit high from feeling better, especially the change in my ability to tolerate the type of frustration that is an inevitable part of parenting. My longer fuse was the best, most high-inducing result of my medication.

I have come down just a bit now.

I still feel like the medication I take has helped me immensely. I believe it is a huge part of why my life, my marriage, my parenting and my psyche are so much better today than this time last year. Pr0zac brought my mood up enough that the community building, self care and therapy I've been working so hard on actually made a difference. But sure enough, as soon as I blogged about it, extra-publicly, a harsh reality set in: I still get angry and I still don't know how to deal with it.

Being home with the girls this summer was not easy for me. Their intense interactions, while often heartbreakingly loving and sweet, are just as often loud and combative. My days are filled with high drama, even higher decibel levels, and constant mediation. This week has its own challenges: CG's away and Z started full day school, with our usual collective issues in transitioning.

In the past few weeks, I've found myself gritting my teeth again, yelling when I should have walked away, apologizing later. It was a particularly ironic time to also fielding comments on a public piece about Feeling Better. There have been moments I felt like a fraud.

On the whole, I am feeling so much better. On the whole, I am happier, more patient on this medication.

And I am still a deeply imperfect person. I still get frustrated and angry with my children and medication has softened that but can't fundamentally change that.

When talking to my mom last night, I lamented a scene earlier in the day, when the girls repeatedly interrupted a phone conversation I was having and then followed me while I tried to get away from them to calm myself down. "But I was yelling and stomping around and felt so angry and out of control," I said to her.

"That's what anger looks like," she said kindly. "It's okay to get angry."

I know it's okay to get angry - theoretically. I know it's supposed to be healthy to let it out. But I hate the way it feels: the muscular tension, the burning desire to destroy something, the momentary lapse of my relative sanity. And I hate that my children, who look to me as an example of how to behave, who are so small and vulnerable, see me like that.

Z and I talk a lot about what to do with our "bad" feelings, because she's an emotional, intense, sensitive person, too. We talk about how it feels to be sad or angry or frustrated, what we want to do when we feel that way but shouldn't because it might hurt other people or ourselves, what we can do to help ourselves that is healthy and reasonable.

I just wish I was more than a step ahead of her on this journey.

On the brink

2011-08-28T06:49:00.000-04:00

Last summer, Z struggled with swimming. Getting her face wet, her hair wet, her ears, mouth, eyes, any of it, all of it, was unbearable. She loved to play in the water and to swim with her swim vest, but only if water never touched anything north of her neck. She clung to me sometimes, taking cover, wanting protection.

This was a bit trying and I fought a vague, deep, familiar worry that this would never pass. That this time, this struggle would be permanent.

My ability to worry that things won't change knows no bounds; it repeatedly trumps all evidence to the contrary. That every moment of life is change is evident in every breath. I ignore this clear truth, I dig in my heels and fight it, even when it doesn't serve me or the people I love.

As this summer began, Z swam a lot, but always with her swim vest on. She slowly, imperceptibly grew more comfortable in the water. Her face got splashed and she miraculously survived. Her ears filled with water and then drained fully, none the worse for wear.

Still, though, the swim vest.

Two weeks ago, after lamenting to us that the summer was almost over and she still didn't know how to really swim, she started a "swim camp": thirty minutes a day every day, three students, one teacher. And within two days, she had herself a fully submerged doggy paddle.

I was astonished, though I knew, if I actually thought about it like a normal person, that this day would come eventually.

But here it was, she was swimming. And it felt like a victory, a miracle.

Last week, at the end of the camp, they were working on jumping into the water. By this point, she could slide into the water and submerge herself slowly but jumping in - fast, high, deep - was new. She couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

She sat on the edge of the pool and said, "It's like I'm ready to jump in and I'm not, all at the same time."

"I understand that feeling," I told her. "And it's okay. Keep enjoying your time in the pool and you'll get there. Look at how far you've gotten already!"

She nodded and smiled and a new confidence shone in her eyes as she slipped into the pool, and splashed away from me.

She no longer clings to me in the water. I only watch her as she floats and spins and splashes beyond my grasp.

She starts kindergarten tomorrow. I feel like I'm ready to jump in and I'm not, all at the same time.

Our unlived lives

2011-08-21T11:10:00.033-04:00

Saturday night, we had dinner with a couple I've never met before. They are co-workers of my husband's, meaning they are both highly educated scientists, meaning I would be completely and totally outnumbered by PhDs.

I go into these dinners knowing full well that I will be lost several times in the midst of the conversation; I accept this. My husband is supportive and does all he can to ease my discomfort. I remind myself that I'm happy with what I've done with my life so far, and that no matter how many degrees they have, I am not inferior.

But I do still have to remind myself of this, every time.

This couple was very nice, friendly, warm and they were interested and able to talk about a lot of things besides science. They asked me about myself and steered the conversation back to topics I could participate in when it turned inevitably to the science, gossip and acronyms of their workplace.

Then, after I mentioned that the girls start school next week, Z for full day kindergarten and E for three mornings a week, the husband asked me: "So, after taking five years off to raise your kids, are you happy with that decision?"

"........"

I paused, blinked a few times and said, "Well, that's the $25,000 question now isn't it?" and we all laughed, me uncomfortably, while I silently begged for someone to change the subject.

I wish I had had the presence of mind to answer our dinner guest - a childless, highly esteemed scientist, who had no idea how prickily I would respond to his question - with a proud, confident, quick answer: "Yes, I am happy with the decision I made. And I can't wait to see what I do next."

Instead my ambivalence ruled and I went to bed with his question still ringing in my head. Have I taken "five years off"? Off of what? How many more years will I "take off"? Am I happy with this decision?

When I woke up, I read the Lives column of today's Sunday New York Times, which is tied with the Modern Love column as my biggest NYT obsession, and this quote jumped out at me. "She even threw Carl Yung at me: 'Nothing has a stronger influence.... on their children than the unlived lives of their parents."

I believe that many parents, perhaps all, have "unlived lives", the shadow hopes and identities and plans that are repressed or simply set aside as the pressures and obligations of parenthood take over. That this happens seems a natural component of parenthood, moms and dads, employed and staying at home. Perhaps it is even an inevitable part of growing up, whether you become parent or chose childlessness.

The danger for SAHMs seems deeper to me, though maybe this is just because it's where I am, right now. Those of us who chose to - or must - spend our time at home for large portions of our kids' childhoods run the risk of investing ourselves so deeply in our children that we cannot see past them. Or we interrupt our own job development and momentum at a time when others are just picking up steam in their self-discovery. We leave - or never enter- the world of outside work, where achievement and advancement are overt, measurable, and - in some segments of society - deeply valued above all else.

Among the many things I wish I had had the fortitude to tell our dinner guests, the first was that I have not really taken time off of anything. My dancing "career", which I really must put in quotes as I barely earned any money ever, was naturally coming to an end when I got pregnant, and all the various other ways I filled in my gaping financial gaps never really amounted to a "career" without quotes either. In the circles that he and my husband run in, most couples meet when they both are in graduate school, support each other through dissertation writing, and coordinate two job searches in the hope of arriving in the same general vicinity as one another as they juggle the demands of two high level academic positions.

That was not our story.

There is little question that my "unlived life" is an intellectual one. When I decided, in my twenties, not to go to graduate school but instead to dance and wait tables and become a massage therapist and write grants and etc. etc. etc.... it was with the naive thought that I could always go to graduate school "later". But as open as life can seem to a twenty year old, it sure feels different to this almost forty year old. The daily choices that you make dig grooves, slowly, imperceptibly, until one day you wake up and realize that your groove is so deep you can't see out of it and that you haven't used your brain in any majorly intellectual way in so long you're pretty sure you can no longer count as high as the number of IQ points you have lost.

The thought of going back to graduate school at this point in my life seems impossible, for lots of reasons, the first of which is that I'm no longer sure what I would study in the first place. Perhaps it seems impossible because of where we live, far out from a major city. Or maybe it's due to the creep of middle-aged mental rigidity; the neurons that once held statistics and vocabulary and the square root of the hypotenuse surely have withered irreparably, that ship has clearly sailed. Drawing another ship into this harbor seems naive, a hazy daydream, to be quickly set aside as soon as the clothes dryer beeps.

Or maybe this is just the remnants of my depression, a habit of negative thinking that keeps me from experiencing joyful possibility.

I know this: I hold inside me an "unlived life', one about graduate school, the promise of in depth study of something that fascinates me, that I want to recover or discover or possibly take a good look at and finally, fully, put to rest.

Do you have an "unlived life"?

Free time! It's coming!

2011-08-14T20:05:00.004-04:00

In just a few weeks, Z will be in full day kindergarten and E will be in preschool for three mornings a week. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around all the kid-free time I'm about to have. It is currently a mirage in the distance. One which I fantasize about regularly as it ever so slowly approaches. Oh, all the glorious free time I will have!

In reality, of course, it will be far too easy for me to fill the 9 hours a week of kid-free time. Our house alone could use that attention and then some. Organizing, cleaning, decorating: none of these things come naturally to me and there are a handful of rooms in our home that could use 9 hours a week - EACH - for many months.

I have a list of doctor appointments I've put off making for months or, in some cases, years. Basic self-care seems like a good use of the time, doesn't it?

I want to write more. I don't know what that means yet, but I am thinking of setting aside at least one of the mornings that E's in preschool to find out. Writing is, to be honest, another form of self-care for me, though it often feels selfish, I hope to find a way to make some money at it, too.

In general, I know I want to use the time in a way that benefits both me and my family. I want to do things that will ease the load on all of us when we are together. That is, after all, a major benefit of me not working, one of the biggest gifts that I give my family: nights and weekends are for relaxing, being together, seeing friends, exploring, and sometimes tackling major house projects. I can do the shopping, cleaning, laundry, and general housekeeping on weekdays.

I want to use the time in a way that opens my world up, instead of closes it further. I have relished the closing of focus that comes with a beloved child's birth. I have spend the better portion of the last five years focused so much on the minutiae of what happens inside our little home, my gaze narrowed even further to two faces and two bottoms, that I have barely registered the world at large. I am now ready for a wider horizon.

This clearly means that I need to seriously limit the amount of time that I spend in the house during my kid-free time. I fantasize about really cleaning and organizing our pantry so that it will no longer look like we are preparing - sloppily- for Armageddon. Our garden needs dedicated attention. The closets all need to be rejiggered in a major way. But as much as I dream of all those places being shiny and organized, I know that I desperately need to extend my gaze past my pantry, my garden, my closets.

I want to reach out more into the community. About as often as I fantasize about cleaning out our pantry, I fantasize about walking into the Habitat for Humanity offices around the corner from my house and offering them three hours a week of whatever they deem me capable. Or finding other volunteer opportunities to take me out of my tiny world, if only for a few hours.

I realize I am getting ahead of myself. I think I'll start with a few doctor's appointments and maybe give myself one morning a week to just write for three hours straight and see what happens.

And there is always that pantry.

Love and care

2011-08-11T06:36:00.001-04:00

Reading Oprah magazine can be a dangerous thing, especially when one is prone to adopting all self-help spiels within a ten yard radius. I have to gently remind myself that these articles are not direct personal missives that I must immediately employ.

I have a great idea for a memoir! I'll follow all the advice ever given by Oprah and her minions for a year and .... oh wait.

Martha Beck's work, though, often speaks to me. I loved her memoir about the birth of her child, "Expecting Adam", and her monthly Oprah columns always seem to highlight something I struggle with.

This latest one- about the difference between loving someone and caring for them- is no exception. In it, Ms. Beck recounts telling a client of hers: "I love you. I don't care what happens to you."

Now I think Ms. Beck is clearly going for shock value here. To the overly sincere among us, the thought of saying "I don't care what you do" to someone we love is incomprehensible. Of course we care what they do. We care about everything.

Caring, Ms. Beck says, "with it's shades of sadness, fear and insistence on specific outcomes- is not love. In fact, when care appears, unconditional love often vanishes."

She is not talking about parenting here, clearly. As parents we need to care, do we not? I care whether my kids brush their teeth, act safely, treat others respectfully. I believe it is my job to do so. How else will they become healthy, loving, productive members of society? Aren't we supposed to keep our eyes, at least partially, on "specific outcomes", if only of the "don't wind up an axe-murderer" variety?

Or maybe this reveals an inherently cynical, Calvinist, pessimistic view of humanity on my part. On some level, I assume that if parents loosen their grip on their child's every behavior, the next generation will fall into a pit of depravity.

I know this is an essential part of my work as a mother: to detach just enough, to give my kids the space to be their own imperfectly perfect snowflake selves. As Ms. Beck tells us: "Real healing, real love comes from people who are both totally committed to helping- and able to emotionally detach."

This has long been my problem. This is why I didn't go into social work when I graduated from college: I had no ability to emotionally detach from the people I met when working in my social work internships. I cried into my pillow every night about the kids I worked with in the special ed classroom. I overextended myself when working as an advocate for battered women, taking their calls late at night in my dorm room, never saying no. I have always been committed to helping- and completely unable to emotionally detach.

Is emotional detachment, on some level, a healthy thing for a mother to have? And if so, how the heck can I get some?

I get invested in the people I love. So invested that I begin to think that I know best how they should be living. So invested that I think if they would just do xyz....

I've been noticing this since I read the article: when I have an internal reaction to the behavior of someone I love, am I trying to control their behavior? Can I let go of what I think they should be doing and how I think they should be doing it and just let them be? Can I do all that and still love them, unconditionally? This has been so helpful in dealing with the adults in my life. I believe this bit of Ms. Beck's advice is deeply useful.

But, of course, as a mother of young children, I immediately come back to my relationship with my girls. I am struck by how much time and effort and CARE I put into mothering them. So much so that I care deeply about what they do and how they do it. That investment is part of mothering, in these younger years, isn't it? They are still learning so much and it is my job as a parent to teach them what is expected of them.

So how and when do I move to loving them unconditionally, emotionally detaching from what exactly they are doing? How and when do I know to relax the reigns of correcting and structuring and teaching and just let them be who they are?

It seems obvious that we as parents will get this balance wrong at some point. We will not care enough about what our kids are doing, not give them enough structure or high enough expectations and they will never learn manners or self protection or the satisfaction of achievement.

And if we care too much for too long? We will surely foster dependence and resentment, stunting their self-awareness and our own lives in the process.

I do not want to be a mother who lives for her kids. I do not want to be so invested in their lives that I fall apart at their eventual departure from this nest. I do not want to care so much what they do and how they do it that I forget to just love them.

My mom took Pr0zac and all I got was this lousy blog post

2011-08-08T07:54:00.013-04:00

Today, an essay I wrote over six months ago went up on babble.com. When I wrote it, the admission of my depression was still a new one to me, a recent discovery after a difficult year filled with several of the top stressors one can face. I was not a catatonic, softly weepy sylph like I imagined depressed people would be. I was, in short, a bitch.

Today I don't think about being depressed much, because I'm not. I mean, I DO still have depression, I guess, but having been on this medication for almost a year now, I don't experience the worst of those feelings any more. In fact, after blogging about depression a bunch last winter, I haven't written about it at all since then. Whether it's the magic of Pr0zac or time healing these wounds, depression just hasn't been on my mind. Can I get an AMEN?

Perhaps the biggest surprise to me is that I'm still myself while taking this little pill. I was so worried medication would change my personality in ways I could never recover and it just hasn't, I'm still me. Pr0zac took the edge off of some pretty awful feelings and set free the parts of myself so tramped down by negativity that I couldn't see the forest for all the m-f-ing trees. People told me it was possible to feel lighter, happier, but in the depths of my depression, I wouldn't let myself believe them.

Every time friends and loved ones tried to throw me a life preserver, I was sure they were trying to hit me on the head with a hard, white doughnut.

I have been unbelievably lucky with my medication so far. I'm on a low dose of the very first medication I've ever tried, with side effects that are minor and debatable. I know this is the not the case for many, many people. Reading about the trials of anti-depressant medication over at dooce or finslippy is not for the faint of heart.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do think there have been some effects besides the desired disappearance of my darkest moods. Though I was far from organized perfection, before I started taking Pr0zac, I was perpetually on time, remembered to mail things a week before they were due, kept on top of my kids' whereabouts at all times. Now, it's not unusual for me to be 10 minutes late, to forget to mail birthday cards till the day of the birthday, to let my kids wander just a little further from me. Sometimes this relaxation of vigilance feels foreign, unsafe. Mostly it feels like a long, slow exhale.

I'm also not sleeping as much as I used to, or maybe I'm just waking up more easily, more refreshed and ready to tackle my day. Since I'm no longer plagued by late night insomnia or early morning fantasies of running away, good sleep is easier to come by. At first I was so concerned about my new-found positive energy that I convinced myself that I must be bipolar. Yep, I almost didn't let myself enjoy feeling better.

There's been a lot in the news lately about anti-depressants being no more effective than a placebo. To that I say this: I don't really care. I know how I felt before I started taking this medication and I know how I feel now. I don't care if the pills are full of brain enhancing medication or simple sugar or bee spit. I'm forever grateful for the change they've given me.

One of my biggest fears in starting this medication was how I would eventually get off of it. (Way to put the cart before the horse, depressed lady!) I'm not worried about that at the moment. Maybe I will need to continue taking medication for the rest of my life. That thought, which used to terrify me, seems reasonable to me today, given how I currently feel. I want to feel this way, like a normal person with a balance of good days and bad days, for the rest of my life. And if medication is what I need for that to be true, then so be it.

Making the decision to take that first Pr0zac pill was a deeply scary leap for me. After years of talking and crying and talking some more, I swallowed and waited and hoped. I gave up control, admitted I needed help and let go of my deepest preconceived notions about myself.

Making the decision to become even more public with this decision, to publish the babble piece, is another scary leap. While my maiden name is the same as several actresses and at least one TV character, it is still the name that most people who've known me would Google.

Well, here I am, friend from sixth grade. Yes, I do now need to wear a bra every day, but not for the reasons I'd always hoped.

Now, would you go over to the babble piece and say hi?

The Hair

2011-08-03T06:29:00.030-04:00

Z wants to grow her hair long.

I'm surprised by this request, as she has hated having her hair washed, brushed, combed, pony-tailed, TOUCHED since birth. She emerged from my undercarriage with a thick, full head of hair and never looked back. As it grew in unwieldy, scraggly tufts, my every attempt at brushing, barrettes or ponytails, no matter how benignly gentle, were met with angry rebukes. I was not interested in fighting with her about her hair. So another Dorothy Hammill was born.

Z, age TINY.

This short haircut of Z's was so easy, for all of us. We took her to get her hair cut every six weeks, where she could zone out to Dora while the scissors flew around her head. We washed it once a week, we brushed it maybe twice as often. The rest of the time, her hair was just there.

I look at little girls with long, smooth ponytails or complicated braids and wonder how much effort goes into that style and whether it was their idea or their parents'? I know some girls love having their hair fussed over, and maybe some really enjoy sitting still while their mothers pull a brush through tangled knots and OKAY, REALLY? DO ANY LITTLE GIRLS LIKE THIS??

I've really loved Z's short hair, not only because it minimizes the number of minutes I have to listen to whining, screaming or "YOU'RE PULLING OUT MY SCALP!" but also because it's so darn spunky. I liked that it set her apart from all the girls with long hair in ponytails. I liked thinking she was doing her own thing.

Though, I realize as I write this, it was most likely entirely MY thing.

Is our girls' hair, and what we do with it, really all about us?

---------

When I was about five, my mother took me to a hairdresser, whispered a request and sat back to watch as the hairdresser proceeded to slice off many inches of thick, tangled hair that I refused to brush. I was shocked, and deeply unhappy with what was deemed a "pixie cut" by the hairdresser and a "boy cut" by every kid in our neighborhood. Gone was the wrangling over hair brushing but also gone was the clearest marker of my femininity. I did NOT approve.

I grew my hair long as fast as I could and kept it long for the rest of my childhood.

I remind my mother of this moment as often as possible for maximum guilt inducement.

-------------------

Sometime this Spring, Z began asking us to let her grow her hair long. I reminded her that if she had long hair, we'd have to wash it more often, put it up out of her face sometimes, and brush it much more often, figuring that this undesirable list would quickly put the kibosh on her plans. It did, for about a month, but then the requests began again in earnest.

"Just cut my bangs, Mommy, let the rest grow LONG."

She doesn't seem to have a specific reason for wanting long hair- she's not desperate for a ponytail, she doesn't have favorite barrettes she's just dying to wear, in fact she still hates those things most of the time. With nothing else clearly forming her opinion, I can't help but wonder if the dominant cultural imperative of Pretty Women Have Long Hair has made it through to her brain.

---------------

When I was a sophomore in college, I spent a session at a summer dance festival in Massachusetts. Something magical and deeply adolescent happens at these summer programs: you imagine you are changing in some radical way. I was still convinced I could shed parts of myself like a snakeskin, becoming someone slippery, daring, new.

The culmination of this summer's transformation was a very short haircut from a pricey Boston hairdresser. A bunch of hot, sticky days spent in un-airconditioned dance studios with hair stuck all over my face and a little encouragement from my best friend gave me the push I needed for a drastic cut. I walked out of there feeling like a million spunky bucks. For the last week of the dance festival, I swear I danced a little sassier, like I left some of my reserve along with my hair on the salon floor.

But then I got back to my little college town, where no one was capable of cutting my wavy hair in any style but "ten year old boy" and "blue haired granny". I felt I had to wear dangly earrings and makeup every day to counteract the neutering combination of my butchered hair and curve-less figure.

I quickly grew it long again.

-------------

Z is about to start kindergarten, and the gravitational pull of peer influence is getting stronger by the day. I see her carefully watching her friends, trying out what they say on her own lips, seeing if it fits. I can only assume that being one of the few five year old girls she knows with short hair is starting to feel uncomfortable.

I know I have consciously made her hair low fuss because I myself am low fuss about my hair. I use my blow dryer only for special occasions, like when icicles might form on it if I walk out with it dripping wet in February. My flat iron gets dusted off maybe twice a year. I once got in a raging fight with a boyfriend who complimented me on "brushing" my hair, after I had spent an hour blowing it dry, applying four different products and flat-ironing it. If it looked like this when I brushed it, IT WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS EVERY DAY, BUDDY.

Wow. I could still get into that fight TODAY.

I like to think that how I spend my time, every minute, counts. And my girls are paying attention. When CG and I have date nights, I spend time dressing up, putting on makeup, BRUSHING MY HAIR (Anyone want to have this fight with me? I'M READY.). I make an effort to celebrate our dates, to mark them as special, with a little extra effort. I feel good when I'm making these preparations and I think this is a fine message to send to my girls.

But day to day? I've got better things to do than fuss over my hair for an hour. I think this is a GREAT message to send to my girls.

However, I do have long hair. Yes, I've had short, spunky haircuts before. But they never worked for me. I like having long(ish) hair. I feel naked without a ponytail. I've figured out what works for me and I'm sticking to it. I no longer believe that a haircut can change my life.

Sometimes I worry Z will be at a disadvantage socially because I haven't taught her all the girly things she might need to know to fit in with her peers. It is my inner teenager that worries this, of course. I know that what I really want for her is the self-confidence to create her own sense of style and beauty and comfort.

We are going to try this idea of hers, letting her grow her hair long. She needs to be allowed to figure out what works for her. I'm not sure how this'll go but it is her body, and as she gets older, she's going to want to experiment and own every part of it.

Even the dead parts that need to be brushed. Daily.

Postcard from Vermont: I could tell you

2011-08-01T11:17:00.001-04:00

I could tell you about the morning I spent sitting on our screen porch watching the sun sparkle on the lake while my two girls played on the floor of their bedroom, shared books from my mother's childhood and giggled.

Or I could tell you about the morning it was rainy and we'd all been up since 6 and the kids were bored with the toys here and I'd lost my temper with the whining several times and it was only 9:20 am.

I could tell you about swimming twice a day in the lake and how deeply joyful it is to watch the girls come to love it as much as I do.

Or I could tell you about how Z shrieks every time she sees algae or snails or dragonflies and how E is completely fearless of the water and gives me an anxiety attack every time she jumps at me from the dock with no warning, a tiny twenty-six pound missile.

I'm struggling in writing, as in life, with where to focus my eyes. There is so much fullness here, so much beauty. And there is so much challenge and frustration and imbalance. And somehow, on vacation, it all seems that much more acute.

I don't want to write arching platitudes, projecting into the world only the best, most polished parts of myself and my life.

Nor do I want to write only of the challenges, the darkness, leaving only evidence of my every misstep.

Maybe I could just tell you that I have returned from a two and a half week summer vacation with my kids at my parents lake houses and that would be enough.

Postcard from Vermont: Learning to Waterski

2011-07-23T12:45:00.002-04:00

I waterskiied when I was a teenager. At least I think I did, I actually can't remember. I know I knee-boarded and skurfed and possibly tried other water sports with silly sounding names, mostly on a creek in New Jersey that everyone calls a "crick", and mostly because my daredevil boyfriend-at-the-time wanted me to.

I would never say I love any of the water sports I've tried. In general, I don't enjoy going fast and I've avoided any activity that is even vaguely dangerous since I was a little girl. I've known this about myself for some time, I fully accept this: I go slow.

Some people's brains just aren't wired to like adrenaline, I say, confident and a touch defensive. Some people get high from adrenaline, some people get anxious. Me? I get anxious. I prefer to go slow.

There are always good reasons not to downhill ski or take a turn on the precarious rope swing or leap off a perfectly good cliff into a pool of water. First it was: I'm a dancer and I can't risk hurting my legs. Then it was: I'm a massage therapist and dancer and I can't risk hurting my arms or legs. Now it's: I'm a mom and I can't risk hurting any part of me.

Next up: I'm too old. I might break a hip.

I have a girl who gets anxious too. But she really, really likes to go fast.

Faster! Higher! She cries at every opportunity. I don't understand how she can have the anxious part of me but also love the adrenaline rush of high speed, tall heights, dangerous moments.

We talked about it this week after her first time tubing. When the boat speeds up and you feel your pulse quicken, is that fear or excitement? I asked her, wondering about it for myself too.

Both, she said.

And it is.

I got really scared when I got in the water to waterski today, I told Z, in confidence, one anxious female to another. But I took deep breaths and I focused on the positive and I tried to clear my mind any time worrying thoughts entered.

And then I was waterskiing.

If left to my own devices, I do prefer to go slow. I would have been content to never waterski as an adult. If not for my daredevil husband and his siblings who wanted to feel closer to their waterskiing dad, I would likely have passed from this world without ever having done it again. Even after trying it this week and enjoying it in spite of myself, I will continue to avoid the fast, the high, the scary, the dangerous. And I will probably always get anxious.

But I'm realizing that can all be true and I can still go fast, sometimes.

I can stand up even when the fall is inevitable.

Postcard from Vermont: The Slide

2011-07-21T07:01:00.002-04:00

Papa

2011-07-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

My favorite picture of them.

She says she won't ever forget him. She still regularly draws pictures of them together, of him alone in a field of grass, of him "as he looks now, wherever he is."

She looks at photos of him while teaching her sister to say the word "Papa", the name she gave to their grandfather who left us a year ago today.

Note the Scotch Tape all over this very good sport of a Papa.

We didn't know he wouldn't be there for more trips to the zoo, more Christmases, more birthdays. We didn't know our last visit with him was the last.

His gentle hand on her shoulder gets me every time.

She says she won't forget him but we know he'll fade in her memory. How can he not? She was four when he died.

I want her to remember how he used to lovingly call her "Zo", how he read her stories, covered in Scotch Tape because she wanted him to be "Tape Boy", how he spent half an hour in the bathroom with her when she was potty training and sang to her while she sat there.

And what can we say to E, who will surely not remember him at all? There is only one set of photos of him holding her, and I remember so clearly having to rush to get the camera to take them, because she clingy at the time and was sure to start crying at any second.

I am so grateful I got the camera in time.

She will hopefully see his smile and know something about his character and his love.

My father-in-law so loved his family, and while we grieve the loss of his presence in our lives, I grieve too the loss of his presence in his granddaughters' lives.

We've gathered here in Vermont, alone at my parents' lake houses, to remember him. We're eating his favorite foods, baking his favorite cakes, looking at pictures, lighting candles, telling stories, laughing and crying. Every time someone calls for "Dad" in this house, right now, it is my husband who answers, bittersweetly, all of us wishing he wasn't the only Dad here, now.

This time of remembrance is for his wife and his kids who miss my father in law daily and deeply and will do so for the rest of their lives. It is also for his grandkids, who may not remember him much at all.

We are teaching them to grieve, as we stumble through it ourselves.

Postcard from Vermont: The Peace of Wild Things

2011-07-17T07:05:00.001-04:00

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron
feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Little pieces of cotton

2011-07-12T10:56:00.034-04:00

My dear friend from college is having twin boys this fall. So I picked through the trash bags and plastic bins of outgrown baby clothes I've squirrelled away in our basement, finding every stitch of clothing that might be reasonably worn by boys.

It all fits in a large duffle bag, which will fly with us to Vermont tomorrow so I can hand deliver them to her in Western Massachusetts. This feels good and right. I can't wait to see her babies in these clothes.

Two other good friends had baby girls in the past year. Earlier in the week, I sent off a box to each of them, filled with gently used, and gently wept over, baby girl clothes.

But there's all this left.

I safely stashed a few dozen of my very favorite pieces of clothing in a bin aptly titled "sentimental baby clothes". It is close to breaking, as it is stuffed beyond reason.

I like to picture these clothes being worn by a granddaughter one day. I imagine my girls as adults, seeing these clothes, feeling them, knowing that I cherished them in these clothes so much that my love is embedded in every cotton fiber.

There's another stash of baby clothes that I can't seem to part with despite their noticeable stains and worn knees. I have set them aside with the idea of making the spit-up free stretches into quilts. (I honestly don't know how I feel about "baby clothes quilts". I can't imagine my kids really wanting to sleep under one past the age of ...8? So am I doomed to store them for even longer, because not only will I have saved the precious clothes but I'll have spent copious amounts of time and/or money making a quilt out of them?)

I know there are baby girls out there who could use these clothes, worn knees or not. I am researching which local charities are best suited to take them.

I just need to get past this stumbling block: getting rid of my girls' baby clothes feels like giving away tiny pieces of my love for them.

Of course, I know my love isn't so easily disposed of and I also know this isn't really about baby clothes. It's about saying goodbye to mothering babies.

These clothes, even the stained ones, even the ones that I didn't like much in the first place, immediately bring back the feeling of a little warm body nestled against me in a sling. Each cotton onesie reminds me of wrestling with snaps during diaper changes; I can almost feel the pudgy thighs that depressed like risen dough with the tip of a finger.

These memories come flooding back as I finger the cotton dresses of their babyhood and I want to grasp those moments closer, just one more time.

A friend once advised me to clean up puke by convincing myself that it was cat food. It's just cat food is the mantra I've said every time our girls have had a stomach bug. It helps me divorce myself from my present reality just enough to do what needs to be done.

I tried a similar mantra today, folding a onesie and putting it in a trash bag. This isn't my love. This isn't my girls. This isn't their babyhood.

It's just a little piece of cotton.

Improvisation

2011-07-10T15:10:00.003-04:00

I walked into the vast gym and stared at the way the dancers moved, confused. Nothing about their movements looked remotely familiar. Some dancers spun alone, lost in their own rhythm. Other dancers' bodies twisted around each other, pressing fleshy bits into bony bits until a lift happened, a leg took a ride on a shoulder, a head rested heavily on the crook of an arm. There was no noticeable step.

"You must be J. You're in the right place," a woman said striding toward me. I figured she was the dance company director that I spoke with on the phone. I had called everyone I could find in the phone book in a desperate attempt to find dance in western Maine and this was the best fit, a collegiate improvisational dance company which was open to members of the surrounding community.

"So this is improvisation."

"Yep. Jump in when you're ready."

I had been dancing for 18 years at this point, studying ballet, modern, jazz, and flamenco, performing for audiences large and small. I was comfortable with the dance I knew: there was a right and a wrong way to do things. I liked to know where I stood, even if where I stood was Not Measuring Up.

I couldn't remember the last time I had improvised anything. Maybe when I was four and dance class included scarves and moving to music however you wanted. All my training since then had been about molding my body into shapes specified by someone else. The counts mattered, the height, the speed, the rhythm, everything was specific and precise and external. Not mine.

In the gymnasium, surrounded by strangers, I started dancing by myself. I tried to move however I felt. I felt..... self conscious. Weird. Incompetent.

Without much thought, I started to fall into choreography I knew. When I glanced up at the director, she smiled knowingly at me.

Busted.

--------------------

E was a few weeks old. When I laid her on the bed to change her poopy diaper, I made a startling discovery: we were out of wipes. OUT. OF. WIPES. As in: not a single wipe in the whole entire house. Not in a car. Not in a tree. Not in my purse. WIPES, WHERE CAN YOU BE? (Sorry. Too much Dr. Suess.)

So I did the only logical thing: I sat down and cried and tried to imagine taking E to the store to buy more wipes with orange newborn poop oozing all over her car seat and I cried some more.

I had never run out of wipes before this. Ever. I viewed motherhood as some sort of long-winded boy scout test- I would always be prepared.

But this was during the first few weeks of a new baby, the first month of two kids, the first week of my husband back at work. What I'm saying is: this juggler was suddenly dropping many, many balls.

Then CG gently pointed out that we could just use moistened paper towels, as they are quite similar to wipes.

"But you are supposed to wipe babies with WIPES," I wailed, because I had read the books and followed the rules and knew the facts.

"Lots of people don't have wipes," he said, handing me a wet paper towel.

"Oh. Right." Right.

-------------------

When I entered the dance studio, the first thing I noticed was the smell. Perhaps "stench" is a more appropriate word? When you read the words "dirty hippies" do your nostrils fill with the memory of unwashed armpits and dirty feet, with a lingering aftertaste of patchouli? Then that's about right.

Some dancers ringed the sides of the studio, sitting, drinking water, watching the action in the center. The action looked like... well, it looked like what I imagine an orgy looks like. People pressing into each other, hair and sweat and skin intermixing in strange and possibly unhygienic ways. Bodies were tumbling over one another, leaving, coming back, flinging themselves at a new partner. It was a dazzling, dizzying mess of dance.

This was my first Contact Improvisation jam in San Francisco. But I had done this before! Last year, in Maine! I could do this!

Before I even sat down, I was immediately invited to dance by a particularly sweaty man.

Um, is this how it works here? Like a cotillion? Oooookaaaaayyy.

He started right in, pressing into me, giving me his weight, nudging me to give mine. I can do this, just goooo with it, I repeatedly thought as I rolled around with him, and also this: Whatever you do, don't press your face into his crotch.

When it was over, I smelled of him and, him of me, probably.

'You're new here," he declared, not a question, he was sure.

"Yep."

"Well, welcome. Enjoy yourself and don't worry so much. There's no right way to do this."

"Right." Right.

----------------------

When I became a mom, I knew I had more than my fair share of anxiety about motherhood. But I was sure that my conscientiousness, my preparedness, my lifelong need to plan out a schedule, consult experts, bring small packages of snacks and water and tissues with me everywhere would all finally be put to use.

I mean, there were good reasons friends had jokingly called me "Mom" for years.

What I didn't know was that all my preparedness would be beside the point. That my small forays into dance improvisation had taught me more about motherhood than a lifetime of carrying snacks in my purse.

---------------

I was excited and a little nervous to take class with a new teacher from Europe. I liked her warm, easy manner right away and only flinched once when she told us the second half of the class would be improvisation. I had, after all, been improvising for several years by now.

I opened up under her kind gaze. She encouraged me to reach beyond anything I had done before.

At the end of the first week, she approached me after class. Would I like to work with her company on a performance piece? It would be loosely structured, mostly improvised.

"Yes, yes I would," I said, not having to think twice.

--------------

For the last three Wednesdays, Z and E and I have set out on Adventure Afternoons. I got the idea from a tweet of Backpacking Dad's where he mentioned it being "Adventure Day" and asking his daughter which direction they should drive.

I thought, well doesn't that sound like something a spontaneous, flexible, improvisational parent would do.

Too bad Z and E don't have one of those.

But I want to be one of those parents. And why can't I be?

I told Z we would start the next day: Adventure Afternoon. She could chose the direction we would drive and then we'd set out, looking for new places to go, new things to see. North, South, East, West.

Of course, I couldn't help myself: I researched it all first. I made lists of possible places in each direction, found their addresses and phone numbers, filled a bag with water, snacks, a camera, crayons, changes of clothes, WIPES.

First, Z chose South. Turns out, if you drive due South of us, you don't find much but farmland. But off we drove anyway.

Both hands on the wheel, crazy lady.

Just when things started to get a little hairy (There may have been whining about BOREDOM from the back and hissing about FUN from the front.), we happened upon the most beautiful little plant nursery complete with an awesome wooden ship and train for kids to play on. The girls exclaimed over brightly colored plants and became "fairy pirates" and shared some local apple/cherry cider.

Fairy Pirates still walk the plank.

Z exalted as we got back in the car: "We never would have found this without Adventure Afternoon! What will we find next?!"

Our next adventures (West and East) included trips to a roller rink, the best playground I've found in our area, an inflatable bounce gym, running through outside sprinklers and enjoying ice cream smoothies even though it was right before dinner.

I know this is the way some people live every day. I'm sure there are plenty of parents who don't need to set aside a specific afternoon for Adventure with a capital A. But for me, it's been a revelation.

I can still carry snacks and wipes and addresses but we don't have to know exactly where we're headed. We can follow our nose and whims, our intention clear and open.

We can improvise.

Transitions

2011-07-05T06:48:00.001-04:00

In dance, transitions should be invisible, devoid of noticeable effort. The moment between each step should not really exist, but since, of course, it does, it should exist in such an organic way so as to connect two disparate elements seamlessly. Truly gifted dancers do this naturally, their muscles and tendons seem to reach through their skin to find the next movement, keeping it all together as a whole.

My favorite dance teacher used to say: "Transitions are dancing; they are what keeps choreography from being a string of tricks and poses".

Not surprisingly, transitions are the hardest, most nuanced part of dancing.

------------------------

From the last week of school, to the first week of camp.

From afternoon gymnastics classes and rigid bedtimes to afternoons spent with the sprinkler and hose and bedtimes pushed for BBQs or firefly catching or just because we didn't realize how late it was.

From air conditioning to steamy pavement to stuffy car and back again. From wet bathing suits to nubby towels to dry sundresses.

From just finding our stride and rhythm, to having to find a new stride, all over again.

------------

Years ago, I attended a summer dance festival that culminated in a night of performances in a lofty barn surrounded by looming white mountains. Near the end of the show, a spot normally reserved for the most esteemed teachers, one of the students took to the stage, sweaty, beaming, alone in a halo of light.

He was clearly preparing for something monumental.

The music started and he just stood there in fifth position, gazing out at us and seeming to pulse with energy. Then he took off in a single movement, not a magnificent leap or a spinning turn or any of the latest tricks we all tried our hand at that summer. Instead, in the brief moment before the lights went out again, he executed one perfect "contretemps", a small, classical, normally ignored transition step.

The roar afterward was deafening.

For just a moment, there had been nothing but that one step, one that is usually forgotten, rushed through to get to the next thing. He gave every molecule in his body over to that moment and made us pay attention to the lowly contretemps.

"Transitions are everything," our teachers had been saying all summer. But it took this performance for us to actually pay attention and see.

-----------

Dropping Z off at her first day of camp, we are both immediately overwhelmed, overstimulated. Drop off is in a large basketball court, not the type of room exactly known for soothing acoustics, filled with nervous children, not the type of people exactly known for quiet calm.

She clings to me, asks me to stay and I don't blame her. There is nothing welcoming here, unless you find a teeming mass of children with backpacks welcoming. I stay, shooting plaintive looks to the teenage counselors who watch, disinterested or unaware, from the other side of the room.

Her counselor finally leads her group out the door, off to arts and crafts or music or, uh, 'smores? Z waves, wary, not quite ready to go to the next thing.

But the next thing is here and she must move toward it and I must let her.

----------------

I sit on the couch folding laundry and watching "So You Think You Can Dance". I am a bit twitchy as I watch, dying to dance like that, some of my muscles remembering how good it felt, others reminding me that much of it hurt, still others reminding me I was never that good, never, ever.

There are showboats on this show, dancers with big leaps and turns and legs always extended up to here. They want to catch our eye, impress us. This is TV, after all; there is very little room for nuance.

I am impressed, not by tricks, but by the dancers who move through each movement as if propelled by tidal forces barely within their control. They ride those waves with a potent mix of abandon, trust, and curiosity. Whoa, yeah, and where does this lead? They make it look easy, every trick, every transition, just flowing out of them, each movement as effortless as the last.

I stop folding and just watch.

---------------

I pick Z up from camp, leading her out the door by the hand, E perched on one hip. Z prances to the car, bubbling over about a new funny song and the "orgamami" they did in art. We are all smiling.

But when we get to the car, she winds herself quickly into a fit. I didn't bring her any water for the 5 minute car ride home and she's THIRSTY and her water bottle is EMPTY. It's HOT IN HERE. NOOOOOO, I DON'T WANT TO GET IN MY CAR SEAT. WREAAAAAAA.

I can feel my jaw tighten and I fight the urge to forcefully move us on to the next thing: carseats, home, lunch, nap/quiet-time and on and on and on. These moments, caught between different parts of our day, between one world and the next, one activity and the next, they just don't come easy for Z. Or me. It seems she struggles every time to change gears, to let go, to accept what's next. I struggle every time not to rush or ignore or force.

I close my eyes and wait a breath, half listening to the tantrum I am still learning that I cannot end or control.

I tell her plenty of cool water is at home, the AC's coming on now, let me know when you're ready to sit in your carseat. And then I wait, arms vaguely open if she wants help or a hug.

It takes just long enough for me to question my approach. Then she's in her seat, wiping her tears, ready to go.

Ready for the next thing.

-------------

We are learning to ride these transitions together. They matter. They are a part of our lives that I am learning to shine a light on. They seemed inconsequential, unimportant, unworthy of my time and effort.

But Z has shown me that transitions are not to be ignored.

It is my hope that, one day, we will both approach them fearlessly, navigate them seamlessly, with abandon, trust and curiosity. Like the very best dancers.

I LOVE your dre- I mean, uh, isn't this weather nice?!

2011-06-30T20:41:00.010-04:00

I can't get this recent column by Lisa Bloom out of my head.

In the piece, Ms. Bloom asks us to question our habit (It is my habit. Is it yours, too? I fear it's our collective, societal habit.) of always complimenting little girls on what they're wearing or how they look when greeting them.

Before reading this article, I never questioned this behavior, in myself or others. I mean, I don't tell our neighbor's 6 year old she looks like a beautiful shiny princess! or tell the 9 year old down the street she looks so slim in those new pants! But I often remark on how colorful their shoes are or how fancy their dress is or how much I like their pigtails. Because I do! I love those things!

And I like to give and receive compliments as much as the next woman. Compliments are one of the biggest social cues we females use to grease the wheels of social interaction. To tell someone I like you! or I'm friendly! we resort to complimenting their clothing, shoes, physique.

Since reading this article I am shocked to notice just how hard it is for me to say something, ANYTHING else to a girl when first greeting her.

I love your dress! comes rolling off my tongue before I can stop it.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with complimenting a girl on her dress, especially if she's particularly excited about it. But when we always focus our attention on how girls look, I have to believe it feeds into a deep cultural pressure to value looks above all. And if this is the prevailing message everyone, EVEN US FEMINISTS, are sending to the little girls in our world, isn't that sad? And harmful?

I'm going to work on finding other ways to greet the little girls in my world. Will you do the same or do you think this is a load of hooey?

Happy Anniversary, complete with maggots

2011-06-29T09:07:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning, 7:12 am. I rolled the trash cans down the driveway and left them at the curb. As I turned away, a motion caught my eye. Specifically a tidal wave of white wriggly maggots that foamed out from under the slightly ajar trash can lid.

Now. I am not a huge EEK-BUG! kind of person but I do have my limits. Yesterday I discovered maggots are significantly past my limit.

You see, my husband has been known to put things into the trash can without putting them in a plastic trash bag first. I have reminded him that this can leave the trash cans themselves quite dirty and stinky and I do not have any wish to clean them out by hand, if you get my drift. He wants to reduce how much we use plastic, a goal to which I also aspire.

However. When he put sub-par Indian take-out in the trash last week, the tops of some of the containers came open, the trash can lid was left ajar and flies found it and made their little babies and MAGGOTS OMG GAG RETCH BLEH.

I have to say I surprised myself. I wasn't angry at him. I understood his point of view, his choices, even though different from mine, were valid.

I told him about the maggots and we both screwed up our faces in matching horror. Gross, he said. Sorry.

Today, we have been married exactly nine years.

I am so proud of who we were nine years ago, young and brave and hopeful, and who we are now, older and wizened but still hopeful.

I was trying this morning to remember our wedding vows, we wrote them ourselves on a hike in the Berkeley Hills above his house. I knew I had them somewhere and finally found a copy, stuffed into our wedding album.

They were about listening, comforting, encouraging. About "supporting you as an individual and embracing you as a partner." But no where did they mention maggots.

Perhaps we need to add that one in.

Happy Anniversary CG.

Where I'm From

2011-06-27T07:03:00.012-04:00

I am from Duct Tape, from Johnny Walker and Johann Sebastian Bach.
I am from a once-condemned Victorian, the bedroom where mushrooms grew out of the floor now covered with rose colored carpet, singed black in spots by a dropped curling iron.
I am from dogwoods, poison ivy, and blueberries outside the back door.
I am from the traveling salesmen and the conscientious objectors, from Lorna and Janet, from Marshalls and Riggs.
I am from hot-tempered dancers and quirky book collectors.
From Ugga Muggo and I'll give you something to cry about.
I am from a funky round building that looked nothing like an actual church, but everything like the only church I've ever loved.
I'm from the garden state, with the big hair pictures and defensiveness to prove it, from raw milk and Silver Queen corn and David Eyre's Pancake.
From the girl with the silver pin piercing her plaid skirt in history class, the boy who knocked himself out on the hood of a car on the day of their first date, the woman who beat little children at cards because they should learn now how to win - and lose.
I am from the damp woods of Lake Dunmore and the crystal cabinets of Princeton, from the most loving of laps, the only kind of luxury I ever needed.

Inspired by Playgroups are No Place For Children who got the template here. If you feel inspired to do your own, put the link in my comments!

Books 2011, part one

2011-06-23T16:58:00.001-04:00

As we are at the half way mark (Happy Solstice!) of the year, I decided I would do the first part of my annual book review. Hopefully I'll remember some of them better than if I waited until the end of the year and maybe you'll find your summer reading. As always, I don't allow myself to peruse them again, I have to write my little review here without consulting the book. Given my Swiss cheese brain, this can be challenging.

1. Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand. I loved "Seabiscuit" and have been drawn to non-fiction survivor stories for as long as I can remember, so I assumed I would LOVE this book. I did enjoy it and reveled in the happy ending. But the middle. Oh the long, terrifying middle. It just hurt my heart. There were whole chapters I had to read in furtive glances, and only during they day, lest the horrific images (made all the more horrific by the fact that they were true) invade my dreams. What that poor man - and many, many others - endured was unfathomable. His story is triumphant and Ms. Hillenbrand's writing, graceful. But still, I wince just thinking about it.

2. Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan. This novel was sent to me by a friend who still lives in Pasadena, where we moved from two years ago. It's a sweet tale of a middle-aged woman finding love and finding herself after her husband dies. Light and sweet.

3. Love and Anger: the Parental Dilemma by Nancy Samalin. Oh hai. I should probably go reread this book. All I remember is that it was helpful to hear how many parents struggle with their tempers. It didn't miraculously erase my temper but it made me face it and own it. Yes, more work to be done here.

4. Understanding Girls with ADHD by Patricia Quinn. I read this. It helped. It's still by my bedside.

5. The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein. This book stunned me, I must say. The true story of the author's childhood growing up in WWII England on a street divided down the middle with Jews on one side and Christians on the other. When his sister falls in love with a Christian boy from the other side of the street, the story really takes off. The author wrote this book when he was in his 90s, and he continued to publish memoirs until his very recent death. What an inspiration!

6. The Stay At Home Survival Guide by Melissa Stanton. If I remember correctly, it was Ask Moxie's review of this book that made me put it on my library list. I liked it, though couldn't fully relate to the author (who, like many of the SAHMs she interviewed, was formerly a high powered career woman, ie. NOT ME). I think the most useful information I got from it was to not be passive about finances. CG and I have a pretty traditional breakdown in our marriage and he does all of the banking and bill paying, but after reading this book we meet regularly (okay, SEMI-regularly) to discuss where our finances are, what's coming up, what we need to change.

7. Half a Life by Darin Strauss. Oh, I gulped this book down. It's a spare memoir written at the point in the author's life when he can factually say "Half my life ago, I killed a girl." After his car struck and killed a girl on a bike, it was ruled an accident and his life was forever altered. It is a swirling commentary on the self-centeredness of youth, the vicissitudes of fate, the ever present guilt and impossible need for redemption that follows a horrible mistake that cannot be undone. I found it moving and thought-provoking and gave a copy to several friends. If memoirs are your thing, go forth and read.

8. The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil. Okay, I barely remember this book. I read it on vacation in Jamaica, which was weird because it was about a beach town but a foggy English one. I liked it, I think. Aaaand I can't remember it! There was knitting in it! I'm pretty sure about that!

9. Dispatches from a Not-So-Perfect Life by Faulkner Fox . A mommy memoir of extraordinary depth, insight, and ambivalence. The author ruminates on a long-held fantasy: a seaside home, herself seated at a desk, writing, her husband cooking in the kitchen, their child playing nearby. Could this be possible? Why not, especially if she marries a fellow feminist? She struggles mightily to find something approaching this fantasy and, though I often grimaced at her palpable resentment and dare-I-say-it RAGE, I found her a deeply compelling companion in my own motherhood journey.

10. Half Baked by Alexa Stevenson. Do you read Flotsam? Of course you do. Because you value good writing. Because you enjoy peering into a mind that is sharp and sweet and wise. That is why you should also read this book about the pregnancy and dramatic birth of her daughter, Simone. I knew how it all turned out and yet I held my breath, read slowly and enjoyed every word.

11. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. This was a book club book, chosen because we all enjoyed Brooks' previous novel "The Year of Wonders", about a small town ravaged by the plague. In "People of the Book", Brooks weaves a tale around all the people who had a part in saving a precious Jewish text, the Sarajevo Haggadah. Each chapter feels like a novel in and of itself and after finishing, I wanted to immediately reread it to put the pieces back together with all the new information. There's something here for everyone: romance, intrigue, history, and, above all, lyrical writing.

12. Poser, my life in twenty-three yoga poses by Claire Dederer. A memoir of a new mother who studies yoga and sees it with a slightly cynical, skeptical eye but still embraces it, in all it's confusing glory? YES PLEASE. I loved this book. I loved that she doesn't take herself, or yoga, too seriously. I loved her easy, smooth writing style. I loved her meditations on parenting and yoga and generational change.

13. To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing our Inner Housewife by Caitlin Flanagan. I remember when this book first came out, it caused quite a stir. I read reviews of it, exclamatory, volatile reviews, and wondered just what could be so upsetting? Well. Now I know. This book had me cheering at parts and raving at others. I found it well written but maddening in content at times. She is an "anti-feminist" for starters, which makes me so crazy, DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THIS. She is well-to-do with plenty of household help and quite opinionated about the role of mothers today - one could safely say this is a dangerous combination. If you can get past all that (and, trust me, it was hard for me to do so), she has some fascinating sections on the history of housewifery, the deep conflicts in hiring her family's nanny, and the careful parsing of her mother's role vs. her own. Would be a good book club book for those not too scared to argue with their friends about these touchy subjects.

14. Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. I so loved Genova's first novel "Still Alice" and was hoping this would be as wonderful. Um, not quite. The story of a type-a woman who, following a car accident, suffers from a condition called "left neglect" (Get the title? har har), it didn't stir me nearly as much as "Still Alice". I found the premise a little cliche (A type-a career woman takes a hard look at her life and decides to to make some changes after an accident. Yeah. Been there, done that.). But I finished it and will read whatever she writes next.

15. Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein. As I've already written about this book, if you have daughters or care about little girls or are interested in the cultural pressures on women, READ THIS BOOK NOW.

16. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. I wanted to love this. It got such great reviews. I just.... didn't. Long and swampy and I'm embarrassed to say I barely finished it.

17. Room by Emma Donaghue. Oh this book haunts me still. I don't want to give anything away, because even though I was tremendously moved by this story, I knew a lot about it before reading it and I'm sure it's even more wondrous if you don't know anything about the plot going in. Just read it.

18. Without a Map by Meredith Hall. I picked this up from the library after reading that Catherine Newman liked it. Yes, I'm swayed by such things. And with good reason. This memoir surprised me. It goes places I didn't expect in it's exploration of the author's experience as a teenager giving her baby up for adoption and the years that follow. Two thumbs up.

19. Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett. This story of the friendship between authors Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy gives insight into what it's like to be an up-and-coming author and what it means to be a friend. I was really enjoyed this book and took to my bed early just to read it.

20. Bossypants by Tina Fey. Perfection. Take it to the beach/on the plane/to the pool. Light and funny, of course.

21. This is Not the Story You Think It Is..... by Laura Munson. I read this book because I remembered fondly Ms. Munson's Modern Love column about the same topic- how she reacted to her husband's sudden pronouncement that he didn't love her anymore and wanted out of their marriage by saying "I don't buy it" and proceeding to love him and wait it out. When I imagine this scenario in my own life, I think I would cry and beat my breast and ululate and generally fall apart. So I was fascinated by the concept that there could be such a different reaction and that it might work. It did work, he came around, they stayed together. Amazing. Unfortunately I didn't love her narrative voice. Oh well. Still interesting to ponder and discuss.

22. Long Drive Home by Will Allison. I picked this one up at the library on a lark. I liked it, and I think it would be a good book group book. It's short and clear cut: a man is driving his daughter home from school when he gets a little carried away with his own road rage, including one split second decision that results in a boy's death. The ensuing story of how it unravels his life isn't surprising, really, but I was surprised by how much I cared about the characters, and how real and true they felt to me.

23. The Girls From Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow. Given a friend's warning, I was expecting to dislike this, and I did. I should have LOVED this book. I love non-fiction! About women's lives! Friendship! But these women! Alternatively bored and ANNOYED THE PISS OUT OF ME!

24. The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obrect. The reviews of this novel couldn't be more glowing. The writing is beautiful, the plot unfolds like a fairy tale, complete with a deaf-mute tiger lover, a "deathless man", war torn Yugoslavia and the whole thing PUT ME TO SLEEP. Seriously. I usually stay up way too late reading and every single time I picked up this book, I was out within two pages. WTH? I did finish it but it took me forEVER. Perhaps my days of reading "literary fiction" are over?

25. The Pull of the Moon by Elisabeth Berg. I love Elisabeth Berg but hadn't ever read this particular novel. When Linda quoted from it a few weeks back, I put it on my library list. What a little gem! This story of a woman who, at 50, leaves her husband and her life behind to take a road trip left me cheering. Enjoy!

Phew! That took me longer than I thought it would.

Now, go forth and comment with your favorite recent read!

Happy Reading!

The Day after Father's Day

2011-06-20T14:00:00.002-04:00

I was planning on calling my dad all morning, but was so focused on the girls and CG, that I figured I'd wait till later. I spent the entirety of naptime cleaning up from our breakfast and getting ready for the afternoon and then all of a sudden it was 3:30 and so it was that my dad called me on Father's day.

It was snack time for the girls and they were loud but his voice was lighter than it has been in a long time and seemed to float above their noise. He had finally gotten back to the carving studio and, though the radiation has rendered his hands unsafe for the bigger power tools, he dug out his hand tools and was able to carve, just a little. I smiled at the unmistakable joy in his voice. And then my brother beeped in and we both had to go and we said, loudly over the din, LOVE YOU.

Before I hung up, I told him I would call him back later that night and felt so grateful to be able to say that, so nonchalant like that.

I forgot to call him back until it was too late to call.

--------

CG and I went out to dinner, feeling just a tad guilty about arranging a date night on Father's Day, knowing that very soon, all he'll want on this day is MORE time with his kids.

But we sat at a window seat two top in our favorite restaurant in town, holding hands and talking about the summer and his work and all the places we want to travel someday, anything but the fact that he doesn't get to call his dad on Father's Day or any more days ever again.

Then the bartender stepped outside the front door to greet a little boy and a young woman. He dropped down low to scoop the boy up in his arms and the boy yelped and grinned and kissed his daddy on the cheek. We smiled and squeezed each other's hand and were fine, really, until it was time for the boy and his mom to leave. The boy clung to his daddy and cried NO, wanting to stay with him, just a minute more. His mom, eyes full of apologies, pulled him away and down the street as quickly as she could.

CG met the bartender's eyes as he walked back in.

"That's tough, man" my husband said, feeling it in every way.

----------------------

My husband stepped into our garage yesterday and up to his workbench, which he hadn't touched in months, moving the tools to their rightful places, cataloging the household things he can change and fix and help. Like my dad did when I was little. Like his dad did for his family.

He could not call his father yesterday, but I like to think that, in the garage, he talks to him, if not in words then in hammers and wrenches and saws.

The great chocolate experiment

2011-06-15T06:51:00.001-04:00

In the last few years, it's become clear to me that I have an addiction to chocolate.

I came a little late in life to the chocolate party, in fact, I didn't like it much until I was in my late twenties. Now I need chocolate some days more than others but every. single. day. I require at least a little Vitamin C (as we call it in our house.)

I know better than to think of this as something I must change completely. I firmly believe that chocolate, in moderation, is fine. A health food even!

But I also hate feeling like I have to have chocolate to get through a day. I don't want to have to break off a chunk of anything every three hours to survive. I want to believe I'm stronger than that.

I know that our housebound existence is in large part the issue here. Most weeks I spend a good portion of my day at home and I eat every single meal here. This means that the pantry, with its delicious chocolate, is right there CALLING MY NAME.

About a month ago, when we ran out of chocolate and I was at the grocery store feeling annoyed that I now require three chocolate bars to get through the week (it used to be ONE), I decided to not buy any, quit cold turkey, just to see what would happen.

(Stupid, I know.)

By the end of the first day, I was twitchy, prowling the pantry for the last handful of chocolate chips. On the second day, I resorted to unsweetened baking chocolate. Day three, I was eying the cocoa when I found one piece of Z's leftover Halloween candy, crumbled in the corner of the pantry. As I licked my finger to pick up the crumbs from the shelf, I felt as close as I've ever been to reenacting a scene from "Requiem for a Dream".

(Have you seen that movie? If not, don't. My nightmares are still fed by it.)

On day four, I went to the store and bought a damn chocolate bar.

The next week, my plan was simply to reduce my consumption. So I bought two bars of a flavor that aren't my favorite, hoping this would diminish their allure.

It didn't.

The following week, I tried answering the craving with something else: drinking a glass of water or eating a handful of nuts before having any chocolate. I cannot tell you how annoying it is to want chocolate but to eat nuts instead. I don't want NUTS, I WANT CHOCOLATE, my taste buds and brain chemistry raged at me.

My current plan is sort of working. I buy smaller bars, for one. (These are my current favorite!) I also try to drink enough water and eat protein at each meal. When I feel a craving for chocolate, I check in with myself, see if I'm feeling stressed (the answer is usually YES) and if there's something else I can do to handle it, like deep breathing, a little yoga, or a mama time out.

But mostly I try to eat chocolate with gratitude and moderation. In the morning, I break one half of a chocolate bar into smaller pieces and remind myself that it's okay to have some when I want, but those pieces should last the day.

They usually do. Every once in a while, I don't even eat my "allotment".

This current state feels okay, good even. This love of chocolate feels like my need to exercise. Or my current reliance on Pr0zac. I like chocolate, it makes me feel good, it gives me a boost when I need it, it helps tip the scales of each day toward happiness.

At the moment, I feel like I've found a reasonable place somewhere between fighting it and overindulging.

What about you? Do you indulge in chocolate? Fight it? Smoke heavy drugs instead?

The promise of summer

2011-06-13T07:18:00.001-04:00

Z has been begging us to let her set up a lemonade stand since winter. No sooner had we explained that people don't tend to stop and buy ice cold lemonade when there's two feet of snow on the ground, than we had to put the kibosh on her new plan: going door to door selling hot chocolate in February.

"We'll do a lemonade stand this summer, Z," I solemnly vowed.

"You promise?" she said, unconvinced.

"I promise."

When summer reared its sweaty head a few weeks ago, she started begging again in earnest, convincing me to buy some lemonade mix and debating the best size cup for maximum profit. She spent some time making - and, after her sister defaced the first one, remaking- a lemonade stand sign. Finding the perfect spot to set up was the easy part: the gazebo at the end of our cul de sac is shady and quaint. She was ready.

Every few days she asked if this could be the day and I always put her off, for one reason or another. It wasn't hot enough, people don't want lemonade unless it's really hot. We didn't have enough time that afternoon; we need lots of time to make the lemonade, set up, sell, and clean up. Mostly, it all boiled down to this: I didn't feel like it.

I was the Scrooge of lemonade stands.

Last Tuesday was the first really, really hot day of summer. We didn't have anything we had to do or anywhere we had to go.

I took a long blink and a deep breath and told her to get out the lemonade mix.

You should have seen her face. This Scrooge felt more than a little guilty for withholding that kind of joy for so long.

Once we set up, it took two minutes before she was lamenting the lack of real customers (apparently her sister pilfering from the till doesn't count). Luckily, it took only three minutes for the first customer to show up.

The First Sale Victory Dance.

Frankly, I was shocked at how many people stopped. Until I took this picture:

I know I'm biased but really, how could you resist buying lemonade from these two?

The girls smiled and waved at every car that passed by, barely bothered by the gnats swarming around our faces. Very few cars passed by without stopping or at least promising to come back later. The girls hopped up and down every time and Z could barely keep it together, she was so excited by her success.

By the end of it, they were exhausted and elated: They had sold out! Everyone told them how great the lemonade was! Next time we'll sell COOKIES TOO!

"Can we do that again tomorrow, Mama?!" Z asked, batting at her ear.

"Not tomorrow, sweetheart, but sometime soon, sure." I hedged.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Over dinner that night, Z complained fiercely about her ear, she was sure there was a bug in it, and it was driving her crazy. CG was working late and I couldn't see anything in there, even using two different flashlights, looking from every angle short of standing on my head. Dr. Google recommended flushing it out with water, which I tried to no avail. Since she was seriously carrying on, I piled both girls into the car and headed out to the closest urgent care.

They got us into a room after about a half hour and the doctor quickly confirmed that there was, in fact, a bug in her ear. But it was deep inside her ear canal and to get it out Z would have to lie perfectly still so that he wouldn't damage her eardrum.

Unfortunately, Z is not one to lie still when scared or in pain or BOTH.

"Z, I promise, if you lie still, it will be over super fast."

"Promise it won't hurt?"

"It shouldn't hurt, if you lie still," I said, not looking her in the eye.

An hour and many screams later, he suggested we try the ER, where they would have better, smaller instruments. And possibly someone used to wrestling badgers.

By now, CG had picked up E, thank goodness, as she had taken to flinging herself off of the exam table trailing the paper sheet behind her like a worthless parachute.

As Z and I headed off to the ER, she asked me endless questions about the hospital: had I ever been there- no having babies didn't count- what will they do to her ear, would it hurt, what would it look like, would she have to stay there overnight....

"Promise it won't hurt when they take the bug out?"

"They'll do their best," was all I could say, knowing better than to promise now.

We joined the other sad sacks in the ER waiting room: a feverish baby asleep on her mom's shoulder, a teenager doubled over a barf bin, a dusty man holding gauze on his forehead, a toothless woman shuffling around and smiling at people and walls, all of us waiting for our turn. Waiting for our luck to turn.

"Promise you'll come back with me. Promise there's no shot or surgery. Promise you'll stay with me." she begged, her big eyes staring at the lone retching teenager.

"I promise." I said easily, relieved by my confidence in these promises. I kissed her cheek, right below her wet eyelashes, just above a smattering of brand new freckles. "I promise."

It was finally our turn and the doctor tried three different ways to get the bug out, each time more impossible than the last until she finally emerged from behind the curtain with a long syringe.

"NO! NO! NOOOOOOO!"

"It's not a shot, Z. I promise. It's. NOT. A. SHOT." My face was pleading, my hands squeezing her arms.

"You promise?" Her eyes, bloodshot from crying, searched my face.

"I swear to you. I promise. I PROMISE."

The syringe got the bug out, a tiny biting gnat, full of Z's blood. We saved it, curled up in a paper towel and smushed into my purse.

As we drove home, the lights of the freeway a blurry moving picture, she closed her eyes.

"I'm glad the bug is out, Mama."

"Me, too, Boo."

"Can we have a lemonade stand again tomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow, but soon, I promise. And next time, we'll be sure to put on bug spray."

"Watch me, Mommy!"

2011-06-09T17:28:00.015-04:00

"Watsh me, Mom-ME!" she says and I do, I always do. I think she asks because she wants to be seen. Or because she needs the information my reaction gives her: Is this okay? Funny? Against the rules?

Sometimes I wonder if her experience doesn't seem real to her unless my eyes see it. I wonder if she feels like she's a part of me- the way that I feel her to be, so much so that I need to remind myself that her body, her mind, her life, is her own.

She looks to me as she would look to a mirror, to check herself, to see herself reflected.

I think this is the most awesome, terrifying power of a primary caregiver: my reaction, more than anything else in her world, teaches her about the nuances of behavior, how the world works, what is expected of her.

Her older sister doesn't ask me to watch her much anymore. Z is slipping into the phase of life where she wants to hide some things from me; walking into other rooms to play, closing her door, answering "nothing" when I ask her what's going on.

Still, I watch both my girls.

One I watch fully, loudly, vigilant for falls and chokables, issuing corrections and reminders, exalting over victories large and small. The other I watch a little more silently every day, around corners and in the dark, trying to step in only when necessary, my worries now consumed with rudeness or social ineptitude or dark information trading hands.

"Watch me Mommy!" they say, until they don't say it anymore.

But still, we watch.

How to make reusable fabric gift bags, or how I sort of turned around a sucky day

2011-06-08T08:37:00.002-04:00

Last week, I had a bad day. Nothing spectacular, just your run-of-the-mill, too much laundry, too much whining, not enough chocolate in the house, Bad Day.

That night, CG had to work late and I was faced with a messy house, a DVR full of nothing but kids shows and a book club book that I was really not enjoying.

So I did what any self-respecting person would: I decided to make fabric gift bags.

Back in January, inspired by Soule Mama and full of new year's resolution energy, I bought some holiday fabric on sale imagining I would make fabric gift bags "some time this summer". That way, when the holidays came around, I would be ready with homemade fabric gift bags to wrap presents with and wouldn't stress out by adding extra crafting things to do around the already crazy holiday time.

(Just typing that, I am officially impressed with myself. Being green, planning ahead, taking care of myself, ALL OF IT. GO ME!)

Did you have a crappy day? Want to make some fabric gift bags? It's fun! And you'll feel so on top of it! JOIN ME!

1. Artfully arrange your fabric and ribbon selection and take a picture.

2. Decide the toy clutter in the background muddles the photo. Leave the clutter, take another photo, clutter a little less visible.

3. Set up your only-used-for-sewing iron. Take a photo.

4. Take another photo from a different angle that proves the iron is plugged in! And turned on!

5. Select the fabric, thread and ribbon for Fabric Gift Bag 1.0

6. Plug in, thread and bobbin the sewing machine. Lay out fabric. The instructions say to make a long rectangle. Get scared, as you prefer to be told EXACTLY what to cut.

7. Fold fabric in half, good sides together. Eyeballing it - living la vida LOCA!- cut a very poor semblance of a rectangle, complete with jagged uneven edges. (AH CRAP.)

8. Measure, mark and carefully trim into an actual rectangle.

9. Sew (FINALLY!) a half inch seam on each side.

10. Ignore the suggestion of "French Seams" as they are clearly too fussy for the likes of you. Instead, trim seam edges with pinking shears because it looks pretty (and to keep the fabric from fraying.)

11. Fold over the top edge a little less than 1 inch. (Look at me! I'm actually measuring a true inch!) Fold again another inch and pin.

12. Put fabric in machine, trying to convince yourself that you don't really need to press this seam first. Almost start sewing when you come to your senses. Press the damn thing to be sure your seam will be even and lovely.

13. @#*%($&@#$%! But I pressed it! I DID. WHY IS IT NOT EVEN AND LOVELY?

14. Cry a little. Gnash your teeth. Tell yourself that it's just a fabric gift bag, move on and cut two pieces of ribbon. Cut it long since you have no idea how this will actually work.

15. Turn the bag right side out. Fold one inch at the end of the ribbon and pin to the middle of the top edge of the bag.

16. Oops. Pin the other way. I think. Sew that m-effer and quickly do another one on the other side because YOU'RE IN THE HOME STRETCH GO TEAM WIN. (Editor's note: This last step is WRONG. Consult the real directions for this part.)

17. You're done! YAY! Now go get the nearest thing that might fit in it and wrap that sucker up while singing "Rudolf the Red Fingered Sewer".

18. What. The. Hell.?

19. !*(@%*$#$%*!!

20. Okay, I sewed the ribbons wrong. But this sort of works. Shut it, I'M GOING WITH IT.

21. Beautiful! Fun (mostly)! (Don't look too closely.)

(Yup. Probably a good idea to just read the real instructions here.)

No Words

2011-06-06T08:19:00.003-04:00

What your mailbox (and lawn art) say to me

2011-06-03T08:22:00.005-04:00

Rain or shine, freezing cold or burning hot, I try to take Sweet Dog and E for a walk every day. It doesn't always happen, but maybe five days out of the week we make a loop in our neighborhood specifically chosen for it's relative lack of scary backyard dogs.

I got lost a bunch of times walking in our neighborhood when we first moved here, sometimes choosing streets full of fenced-in dogs who were SURE we were intent on invading their homes to carve out their owners' hearts with E's sippy cup lid. Now that I've got my perfect loop, I stick to it.

The things I noticed first were the mailboxes. Everyone in our neighborhood has one, right beside their driveway, out at the curb.

Saying: "STEAL MY MAIL. IT'S RIGHT HERE."

(Isn't that what they're saying? Or is this is what happens to your brain when you've lived in urban California for too long? It took about three months of me running out to retrieve the mail as soon as it was delivered to realize that even if I left it there for a few hours, or even several days, NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN TO IT. Except maybe your kindly neighbor would take it in for you and bring it you with a plate of home-made cookies.)

Most of the mailboxes in our neighborhood are run-of-the-mill black ones.

A basic mailbox: white post, black mailbox, red flag.
(Weeds around base, optional or, in our case, inevitable.)

Some neighbors change their mailbox sleeves to match each upcoming holiday. You know which neighbor is going through a hard time when you see a snowmen mailbox sleeve in June. (Urban friends: Yes, they make decorator sleeves for mailboxes. I KNOW, crazy, right?)

There are a few favorite mailboxes on my route that always call out to me and now they feel like old friends with whom I can converse.

(Okay, yes, I could use a few more friends here.)

This one reminds me of my grandparents' old airstream trailer, which my toddler brother called a "crailer". Hence E greets this one with: "Hi crailer me-box!"

This one calls out to me: "Feel free to rest your Big Gulp Slushie right here!"

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Mailbox.

Top rack dishwasher safe! Caution: may warp and/or acquire stubborn tomato sauce stains with regular use.

Often, there will be a seemingly endless row of plain black mailboxes and then...
*BAM* "I LIKE FLOWERS!"

Okay, can we talk about this for a minute? Any Southerners out there care to help me understand this one? This "lawn ornament" is out front of a neighbors' house. In case you can't see it well, because I was too polite/chicken-shit to get close enough to take a proper picture so I had to take it from a moving vehicle, this is an African-American lawn jockey. On the lawn of elderly WHITE neighbors. W. T. H. In what universe is this not offensive?

This is the South: Neighbors put racist statues on their lawn, and then bring you your mail with a plate of homemade cookies.

One of the Many Reasons I Love Him

2011-05-31T16:32:00.003-04:00

Dear E and Z,

One day last month our family took a hike in a nearby park. It was the first time in a long time we had taken you hiking and, Z, you were not too thrilled with the idea. I was worried about this little endeavor but I love hiking so much and hoped we could get you to enjoy it rather than complain the whole way.

Luckily, after initially wanting to be carried (E) and fearing bees and bears and poison ivy (Z), you got into it. Both of you ran down the muddy trail, squealing over bugs and picking up rocks that were definitely dinosaur bones.

We got all the way down to the river, where the mud had gone to business school and set up a LLC. In an instant, Z, you slipped and fell right on your bottom with a terrific muddy splat, flinging brown spots all over your legs, face, arms and your frilly black and white polka dot dress. (Yes, we tried to get you to hike in something else, you wouldn't have it. It was the frilly dress or nothing.) You burst into tears, wailing that you weren't pretty anymore.

Your dad. Oh your dad. He squatted down right in front of you, completely earnest and sincere. Scooping up mud with his fingers he proceeded to war-paint his own face. With the first stroke he said "Am I still beautiful to you, Z?" and you smiled through your tears and said "yes". At the second stroke- "How about now?"- you giggled a "yes" and the final stroke brought a raucous, hysterical "YES!".

He then looked deeply into your face and said "You are beautiful no matter what, no matter how much mud you have on you. In fact, I think you look more beautiful now, because you are real and outside and having fun."

And then, E, you immediately, happily, smeared mud all over yourself.

(Ah well.)

As we hiked back to the car, all of us muddy from head to toe, I thought, for the hundredth time, what a gift this man is. To us all.

You are beautiful, no matter what.

Amen.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Oh, Go Play in the Street

2011-05-26T13:45:00.002-04:00

"Street, please, Mama?" E says, her face turning toward me, her eyes big and hopeful.

"Yes, E, you can go into the street, " I say, smiling at her polite request.

Yes, we let our kids play in the street. As long as there's an adult there to watch. Both girls are careful, always running full tilt toward the sidewalk at the first sound of a car's motor.

But both girls are small, shorter than the hood of most cars, so we always watch vigilantly for cars. We constantly remind them they can't be seen by drivers and so must be extra alert and extra careful.

We know this is not the safest idea. We didn't always do it; we waited a year after moving here before we let Z ride her bike anywhere but the sidewalk, finally relenting when she learned how to pedal AND steer at the same time. Not long after, her sister joined her, running her doll stroller in circles. And then the dog wanted to join in and pretty soon the whole family spends long periods of time hanging out in middle of the street.

We are fortunate enough to live at the bulb-end of a cul de sac, what must be the ultimate in suburban living. Cars who come down our street are either neighbors coming home or lost, wandering strangers. We've come to trust and love our little quiet stretch of pavement.

Years ago, I read a book for a book group I was in at the time called "Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in An American City" by Peter D. Norton. The history of the street as a concept was something I had never considered much before and I was struck by how much the use of streets has changed, from the early days of a pedestrian thoroughfare to one dominated by the automobile.

"Until the 1920s, under prevailing conceptions of the street, cars were at best uninvited guests. To many they were unruly intruders. They obstructed and endangered street users of long-standing legitimacy. "

"Today we tend to regard streets as motor thoroughfares, and we tend to project this construction back to pre-automotive streets. In retrospect, therefore, the use of streets for children's play (for example) can seem obviously wrong, and thus the departure of children from streets with the arrival of automobiles can seem an obvious and simple necessity. Only when we can see the prevailing social construction of the street from the perspective of its own time can we also see the car as the intruder."

Truth be told, the book is a little dry and academic for my tastes but even though I normally remember so little of what I read, I remember large sections of this book, dogearing so many pages that the top of it is noticeably thicker than the bottom. I think it stayed with me because when I read it, Zoe had just been born and we lived on a busy street in California, one of the few around without a stop sign at every intersection, so we were a popular choice for people who wanted to race to their destination, sometimes literally. We immediately feared for her safety, the random screeching of muscle cars racing or teenagers on motorcycles or commuters headed home after a long day who were desperate to shave off a few seconds from their ride home raced by close enough to rattle our windows.

As long as we were in that house, we obviously could never let our child play in the street or anywhere near it and even limited our time in the front yard. What certainly didn't help: one neighbor told us stories about the year before we moved in when, on two separate occasions, wayward cars came flying up the curb into her front yard, flattening three foot shrubs.

So when we looked for a house in Virginia, we knew we wanted to be walking distance to town - I was adamant I didn't want to have to drive to get EVERYWHERE - but we also wanted a quiet, peaceful place. One with a very low potential for flying cars landing on front lawns.

We feel so lucky to have found the house that we did. Walking distance to the rec center and the coffee shop, on a quiet street, surrounded by (mostly) lovely neighbors.

Neighbors who don't mind us playing in the street. (I think.)

I didn't understand the value of a cul de sac until we moved here. I spent the last fifteen years of my life living on busy streets, major thoroughfares with fast cars and limited safety.

And now I am officially in love with the cul de sac.

I do believe my suburbanization is complete.

How about you? Do you let your kids play in the street?

The gift inside the craft

2011-05-19T09:27:00.017-04:00

Dear E,

I don't do as much crafting for you girls as I'd originally envisioned. I wanted to be the mom who makes every Halloween costume, celebrates every holiday with unique hand-made crafts. Instead, I'm obsessed with reading and taking long walks and I'm just not terribly good at sewing. Plus I'm morally opposed to ironing on a regular basis and sewing involves a vexing amount of ironing.

But your birthdays always bring out the wanna-be crafter in me.

Today you turn two and, true to form, last night I was up late finishing the bag and crown and banner I made for you.

I craft for the same reason I write- I want to remember, create, preserve. I want to leave behind a beautiful remnant of who we are, right now. I love the process of taking raw materials- words and thoughts, fabric and string - and making something with them.

I craft to tell you just how special you are to me, how worthy of my time and my attention. I want to create something that tells you who I think you are, who I see when I look at you. I try to stitch your tenacious, resilient, loving spirit into every seam.

Unfortunately, I also craft like I parent: half blind.

Clueless. But hopeful.

What I make is far from ideal. Every jagged seam is a lesson in acceptance of imperfection. Every time I embrace the mistakes - take a breath and rip out a seam, or gaze at an off stitch and leave it - I remember that this is life. Not perfect. Always changing. Full of possibility. Full of opportunities to try again.

The reverse is also true: I parent like I craft.

I start by reading books and blogs, coveting what I read and see and hear. I am filled with inspiration! And Capital L Love! I have a visionary plan!

Then I dive in with much preparation and gusto!

Things rarely turn out as I envisioned.

I drop stitches, pucker seams, sew uneven lines.

I try so hard, too hard. I want to cry.

I cry.

Sometimes I walk away. Sometimes I yell into a pillow.

I come back, try something else, stand back, see if it works. I think through the possibilities, consult with books and friends, try again and again.

And again.

It's still not perfect.

I let it be. I sit there and look and accept where it's going.

I realize that if I'm conscientious and open, careful and curious, it turns into something wonderful, all on it's own, with just the right amount of help.

I have to keep learning this same lesson over and over again. I try not to think of this as a failure. I try to think of it as a gift I give to us both: accepting the purse with it's uneven straps, and the scarf that's just a little wider than I'd intended and the crown with a rough edge, it's all about accepting myself, and accepting you, just as we are. Imperfect, surprising, different every day.

Happy Birthday E. I love you with every imperfect bone in my body.

love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Stick a Fork in Us?

2011-05-16T18:50:00.001-04:00

We're done having babies. Really done.

We know this. We've been in agreement for a long time. Two kids and done. I'm approaching 40, I don't multi-task well, we feel settled with our two girls, we want to travel overseas as a family. We're done.

So why am I suddenly craving a baby? (And chocolate. And a nap. But mostly, a baby.)

At almost two, E's non-baby-ness is pretty hard to ignore. She's repeating words and phrases, speaking in sentences, insisting on dressing, buckling, zipping BY SELF. She sits tall and heavy on my hip or walks at a good clip beside me. I no longer have to stoop to one side to hold her hand or slow my pace at all. Sometimes I have to speed up to stay with her.

She's also fond of standing on top of things. Any thing. Every thing.

It is no secret that I love babies. Newborns with their sleepy, fuzzy sweetness, three month olds that greet you with full-face smiles and an earth-shattering whole body wiggle, six month olds who are discovering their fingers! and TOES!, I love them all.

But I declare to anyone who will listen that 8 months is my all time favorite age. Eight month olds giggle like it's their job, usually sleep decently, and are mobile but not TOO mobile. Their personality blossoms right before your eyes. I could hold and sniff and kiss 8 month olds for the rest of my life.

Z, 8 months old.

E, 8 months old.

I have to keep reminding myself that 8 month olds turn into 3 year olds at a frustratingly unstoppable rate.

Some acquaintances here with ~~babies~~ toddlers E's age are pregnant again or already have a new baby. After listening to my unearthly squeals over a baby at the playground the other day, Z asked me if I will change my mind and have another baby one day. I told her no but I didn't exactly sound convincing. To anyone.

Not fair to ask me when I am holding a sweet smelling baby, Z! NOT FAIR.

I didn't always know I would love babies. Before Z was born I had very limited experience with them. So I was a little surprised by the sudden, overwhelming love I felt for Z when she was born. But I was truly shocked that it was possible to love another baby like that, like I instantly did the moment E was born.

It's a dangerous thing to love E like I do, to have felt my heart expand and grow in the way it immediately did when she was born. The love I feel for her whispers a wild secret to me: as many as you'd have, that's how many you would love like this.

This just might be how Duggars are made.

We live in a small town/exurb/nowheresville which means that most people who move here do so because they have families or want some space or both. (And possibly, because they are just dying to drive an hour and a half into DC every day.) Large families are much more common here than in the LA area where we moved from. I've heard the various conjectures about why this is:

It's self-selecting; people who want more kids move to places like our town to live.

Or

There isn't much to do out here except make more babies to hang out with your kids and your neighbors and your neighbors' kids. It's not like you're missing out on some serious local nightlife by having a big family. It's not like you can't afford to eat in the plethora of 4 star restaurants or shop in the chic boutiques on every corner. What's one more soccer uniform? What's one more pigtailed stick figure sticker on the back of your minivan?

I found this on a Google image search. I kinda love it.

I guess there could be some grain of truth in both of those explanations. Mostly I hear the truth deep within the friends who are pregnant with their third (and fourth): people have instinctive desires for a certain size family, a certain number of children, and they don't always know ahead of time what that number is. That deep need for another child ("craving" sounds so crass but what other word is there?) must be fed or quelled, somehow.

Whatever the reason is, there is something about living here that makes have a larger family seem possible, desirable, normal.

But to be clear, I don't think it's peer pressure that stokes my babymania; it's my baby turning into a NOTBABY that started a baby craving deep in my belly. It's the baby-loving part of me that I suspect would feel that way no matter how many kids I have.

I do feel like our family is complete. I don't feel like there's someone missing, some baby out there I'm waiting to meet. That helps me stay settled, use birth control, write this blog post.

But to know I would love another baby this much is hard to ignore. To say goodbye to ever holding another baby of my own in my arms is just plain old SAD.

Anyone have an 8 month old they'd like to loan out for a few days?

Kisses

2011-05-10T15:29:00.001-04:00

E climbs into my lap, by hook or by crook, by knees, knuckles or teeth. She clasps my face between her palms and comes in slower than a teenage first kiss and much more self-assured. I don't think I've ever been sized up at such close range, as many times, as intensely, as by my children.

Her lips are just above mine, damp against the divot between my mouth and nose. The sound comes a beat later, delayed and garbled like an imprecise movie dub.

*MWACH*

I nuzzle her neck, kiss her head, inhale the warm, sweet smell that feels less and less like an extension of myself and more like a little person I happen to know well.

--------

I remember the day I stopped letting my older daughter kiss me on the lips. She was 18 months old and she had just started her first week at part-time daycare.

She came home, after hours away, and I asked and guessed and wished to know what had happened while she was there. After a year and a half of knowing everything, I could no longer know much of anything about her day.

She smelled different. Like salty playdough and flowery foreign diapers and a stranger's heavy perfume. I would kiss her head and immediately plan to bathe her, to reclaim her.

I stopped kissing Z on the lips that week because she suddenly got sick. Very sick. The kind of sick that makes you call daycare a petri dish and a sick factory and a germatorium. That winter was a Russian roulette of sick, as she cycled through every type of illness, including ones that sounded like they were reserved for cloven farm animals.

I knew she'd get these illnesses eventually, if not at 18 months, then in preschool or kindergarten or from the playground. And I liked so much of what happened when she went to daycare, me being challenged and freed by working a little, her learning and growing and playing in ways I could never have done for her by myself. We still had plenty of time together, I was still a constant in her days.

But I missed kissing her on the lips. And I missed knowing her, every inch and bit and minute of her.

----------

The summer is coming. CG and I are filling in our calendar with summer camps and trips to Vermont and plans to swim and go to the beach and visit local farms as often as possible. We will be busy. The good kind of busy.

I want to soak all this in, these days "at home', because in the fall, Z will be a kindergartner, gone from 8:30-2:30, 5 days a week. E will start a morning preschool, three days a week.

I will have more time than I can fathom to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and possibly, even, to earn some money. Or to get the laundry dried before it turns moldy in my washing machine. Either or.

I work every day at appreciating this time, not wishing it away or begging it to go faster. I know I will miss it when it's gone.

Just like I miss those kisses from Z.

A Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T08:28:00.002-04:00

When I remember to breathe and to write and to read
When I dance and I laugh and I see

When I take pics and bake cakes and make messes
When we all dress in our craziest dresses

When I give hugs and hold firm and stay calm
When I slip a finger into one tiny palm

When I get giggles and hugs and "I love you"s
When I give us all an episode of Blue's Clues

When I plant kisses on faces and flowers in pots
When I am thanked for the latest wiping of snot

When we have days full of books and laughter and play
These all make for a Happy Mother's Day

A Piece of Advice

2011-05-06T08:31:00.001-04:00

I don't remember when my mother started asking me for advice. I only remember I thought it was weird. Why would she be asking me for advice? She's the one who tells me how to get every manner of stain out of clothing and how to get over a cold and how to stand up for myself and how much of life is what you make it.

She made a point of it though, usually at the end of cross-country visits to me when I was living in San Francisco in my twenties. She would get a very serious look on her face, elbows resting on the flea market kitchen table, and give me a look that said I really want to hear.

I don't know what I told her; I think I usually hemmed and hawed and told her not to mix navy and black or you really ought to try Ethiopian food, it's amazing, honest.

Whatever I did say, she always nodded solemnly and thanked me.

She still does this, from time to time, ask me for advice, though I'm now in my late thirties and much more apt to give her advice, unsolicited. Don't freak out about the computer, Mom, it only makes it harder to figure it out. Read this book, you'll love it. Get rid of that shirt, it makes your boobs look weird.

She takes them all in stride, probably because there is undeniable respect and love behind every conversation, even the pointed, opinionated ones.

Maybe, even, especially those ones.

---------------

Z was watching me exercise the other day and I asked her if she wanted to try what I was doing. It's called "swimming", I said. Because it looks like you're swimming, BADLY.

She set about trying it, declaring with premature confidence before she even hit the floor, That's EASY for me.

This has become her favorite response to trying new things. It replaces last month's favorite, an equally strenuous and equally presumptive: I can't do that.

Both responses drive me nuts, because they're closed, preemptive. They don't allow for experimentation, they don't let the experience unfold.

So I took a breath and told her all that. I told her that life is about trying new things and allowing experiences to surprise you. That I hoped she would be open-minded, curious, adventurous.

She nodded in the resigned way of people used to being told what to do by people who think they know everything, so I said, for the first time, That's my advice for you. Do you have any advice for me today, anything you think I could work on?

She looked at me, looked at the ground, and told me that I could work on not losing my temper when she does something wrong.

Yeah.

That.

I thanked her, hugged her and told her I would. I will. I want to work on being more patient and thank you for the reminder and I love you so much.

And she smiled and said, Now we both have something to work on!

Always, darlin'. Always.

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This is a special place to be, sandwiched between my mother and my daughters. To feel this kind of love, the kind that gives and receives advice of the very best and hardest kind, from both a mother and a daughter? It is one of the richest, most blessed places to be.

Happy (almost) Mother's Day.