Leilen's Tales from the Crib

A Mother's Day Wish

2010-05-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

Honk: So what do you want to do today?

Me: Hmmm... What do I want to do for Mother's Day... Not much. Maybe just to be entertained, inspired, touched, educated, moved, charmed, amused, and cherished.

Honk: How 'bout fed?

Me: That'll work.

Speakin' My Language

2009-06-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

The Lakers are playing tonight which means this evening's conversations with Honk will be about as stimulating as a Will Farrell movie. Here's one that took place five minutes ago:

From the kitchen I yell to Honk who's eating dinner in front of the TV, "How are they (Lakers) doing?"

him: "It's great, Hon! Thanks so much!"

me: "Whaaaat?... No, not the food! The Lakers! What's the SCORE?"

him: "Ohhhh..." (Still no answer to my question.)

me: "So, exactly how much of what I say do you hear when the game's on?"

him: "Not bad. How are you?"

The Teacher Becomes the Student

2009-05-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

"Where did you learn that?" I've been asking this question a lot lately. It seems my daughter has mutated into Google Girl, a walking, talking encyclopedia of preschool facts. All day long Lil' Miss Smarty Pants fires a barrage of "Did you know...?" questions at me. It's like living with a Snapple bottle lid.

She says things like, "Mom, did you know red and blue are colors of the rainbow and together they make purple?" or "Did you know dreams come from our head? Our head makes up stories while we're sleeping." Yesterday, while pushing her on the swings at the park she imparts more of her scientific knowledge to me, "Mom, when the sun's out it makes shadows on the ground. See?"

Who is teaching her this stuff? Her preschool teacher? Dora, maybe? And what kind of lousy excuse of a mother am I? Shouldn't she be learning this stuff from me? And while we're on the subject, since when did a cocoon become a "chrysalis"?

This morning as I was madly trying to squeeze some honey onto my toast she starts in again, "Mom, did you know bees make honey?"

"Yes, actually. I did know that one." (I am pathetically proud of myself for this achievement.)

"Did you know the bees use sunflowers to make it?"

Now I am very quiet. I intensely focus on buttering my toast, hoping she is not expecting some kind of response from me. I'm not sure about this one. My gut tells me she's giving false information, but her confidence is making me second guess myself. Deep inside my brain, the questions begin to swirl, "Bees use sunflowers to make honey? No they don't! Or do they...? I don't think so, but maybe they do... I don't know! I DON'T KNOW!!!"

Something tells me motherhood has a truckload of butt kicking in store for me.

To Walk is Human, To Swim Divine

2009-05-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such fear and pessimism about the future. The economic crisis, terrorism, and global warming have cast a dark shadow over many Americans and their dreams for the years ahead.

But recently, I discovered that for some (okay, for one) the future is much more grim than just melting ice caps and evaporating 401K's.

A few nights ago, I sat in the bathroom reading a magazine while Lil' Miss and Baby Dude were taking a bath. As she was assisting her Barbie mermaid dive in and out of bath bubbles, Lil' Miss looked up at me and excitedly announced, "Mom, when I grow up I'm going to be a mermaid!"

me: "Oh yeah?"

her: "Yeah!"

Not wanting to break her heart by revealing the mythical nature of mermaids, I decided to crush her dreams for the future instead. "Well, Honey, I don't think you can become a mermaid. I think you're either born a girl or a mermaid. It's either legs or fins."

her: "Oh..."

me: "Do you think you're going to be okay with a life of legs?"

her: "Yeah, I guess so..."

I've never seen such dejection on a four year-old's face. For Lil' Miss, this is the worst reality of the Great Recession. I know, kiddo. Bipedalism stinks.

Please Pass the Kleenex Box (again...)

2009-04-30T13:39:00.001-07:00

I recently accepted a part-time teaching job at a private school in our area. I know, I'm very fortunate. In this tough economy, most people are happy just to hold onto the jobs they have, let alone find new employment opportunities that just so happen to meet their family's every conceivable need.

However, right now I must admit that I'd rather be accepting a job at Hogwarts. Maybe as their new professor of phlegmology? Then I could point a wand right at my nose and cast the disappearing spell, "EVANESCO SNOT-O!"

I'm sick of being sick.

Is There a Doctah in the House?

2009-04-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

Bubby always had a way with words. They usually went something like, "You never call, you never write...," or "A little makeup couldn't hurt every once in a while," or "Are you really going out looking like that?" The words I heard most often growing up were, "I don't care who you marry as long as he's a Jewish doctor." She was slightly hung up on the idea. I could've been a drug dealer or double agent to the Russians and she would've been as happy as a matzo ball backstroking in a bowl of chicken soup so long as I was married to a chosen physician.

Honk never had a chance with her. ("Not a Jew?" "Not a DOCTOR?") Eventually though, the surfing gentile won her over with his charm and equally sarcastic wit. But not without any residue. For the remainder of her life, she never called him by his first name. Claiming "senior moments", Bubby always referred to him as "Sheldon" in a desperate attempt to Jew-ify his last name. He got her back by always responding to her with some random name, "Yes, Nancy?"

I think she was still secretly hoping I'd make it up to her by becoming a doctor myself. That's the least a good Jewish girl could do for her Bubby, right? But recently I was reminded just how far I really was from fulfilling the medical dreams Bubby had for me.

I had just picked up Lil' Miss from preschool and was meeting Katy and the boys over at Rubio's for lunch. The kids were all huddled around the gigantic aquarium while we were deciding what to order. Suddenly, the room was filled with the shrieking screams of a baby. My baby. I spun around and found Baby Dude hunched over on the ground, his head just inches away from the corner of a metal post. He was screaming hysterically. I raced over, picked him up, and that's when I noticed the blood pouring out of his forehead. There was a deep gash above his left eye. It was gruesome, right out of a horror movie. I'm pretty sure I saw tendons, muscles, and maybe even a few organs exposed in that wound. Blood was spilling out of it and streaming down his face, onto his clothes, and onto my clothes.

There wasn't a moment to lose. Baby Dude needed medical attention, stat! While I was no doctor, I figured it was as good a time as any to prove that I could act like one. And that's exactly what I would have done if the room hadn't started spinning and my legs hadn't turned to rubber. I just stood there, holding my screaming, blood-gushing boy, and crying right along with him. I was about as useful as a latka in a frisbee contest.

But, thankfully, help was on its way. Katy immediately grabbed paper towels and applied pressure to his wound to stop the bleeding (which evidently is a much better approach than just standing there moaning, "I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do!"). Katy fielded questions and suggestions from the concerned customers crowding around us. Katy kindly refused the creepy church leader's offer to stay at Rubios and watch our other kids while she and I took Baby Dude to the hospital (freak!). Katy moved car seats and ushered all of us into her van after everyone in Rubio's begged her not to let me get behind the wheel. Katy drove us to the ER, steering with one hand and passing out suckers and fruit loops to all of our sobbing children in the back seats with the other. Katy did damage control after hearing my hysterical, hardly-coherent phone call to Honk in which I instructed him to "LEAVE WORK IMMEDIATELY, THERE'S BEEN A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT!" Katy quickly called him back and whispered into the phone, "Your son's fine, but you need to go to the ER and be with your wife." Katy basically saved the day.

When Honk arrived at the ER a few minutes later, he too was a cool cucumber. He calmly picked up our boy, checked out the gash and commented, "Nice one, Frankenstein." Honk helped hold Baby Dude down while the doctors glued his head back together. He watched them with the interest and intensity of an observing medical student. I, on the other hand, stood shaking in the corner, facing the wall with my back to our precious little boy until they were done. As we left the ER, Honk turned to me and asked, "Honey, why are you such a wuss? Seriously, you need to toughen up. He's a BOY. We're gonna be back here with this kid like eighty more times in the next fifteen years." (Don't sugar coat it, Honk. Tell me how you really feel!)

No, I'm still not even close to doctor material and I have a strong feeling that I won't be much better in the future. But I'm sure Bubby would be proud of me. I may not know how to stomach the gory messes of life, but I sure know how to surround myself with people who do. And that's worth some kind of degree, isn't it?

Babysitter's Note

2009-03-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I subbed at the middle school where I used to teach. I don't leave the kids all day like that very often which probably explains the absurd note I left for our babysitter. If you'd call it a note. More like a case study in maternal neurosis. Here's the note beloved babysitter Amy had to sift through early Wednesday morning:

"Hi Amy!
Thank you so much for watching the kids today. My mom will be here at 1pm to pick them up and take them back to her house. She'll put Baby Dude down for a nap at her house so don't let that fellah fall asleep. Do whatever it takes, Amy, and look alive, little boy. Look alive!

Here's just a few "foods" for thought about the day:

Lunch stuff is in the fridge- goods to make pb&j, turkey and cheese sandwiches, etc. I also bought you a salad because I couldn't remember if you were one of those "free-range" types and based on their customer service, I'm pretty sure Vons could care less about the quality of their turkeys' lives.

Help yourself to whatever else you can find- EXCEPT THE SPAGHETTI! It's older than Dick Cheney and probably tastes just as bad.

Baby Dude could also be fine with cut-up turkey, apple slices, string cheese and raisins in case you're like me and get a kick out of making separate meals for everyone.

I left money on the counter for you to take a walk to Golden Spoon after lunch if you want. Be forewarned: Lil' Miss may present a very convincing argument that "My mom MAKES me eat two toppings of m&m's on my frozen yogurt." Be strong, Amy. Be strong.

And some activity ideas...

play with toys
read books
puzzles
playdoh
sing songs
sidewalk chalk
hopscotch
go for a walk
go to the park
practice shapes and letters
paint
play in the front yard
play in the backyard
dance (no, I don't know where she learned those moves...)
brush up on conversational Spanish
compose sonnets
joust
arrange flowers (neighbor's flowers, please...)
think outside the box
think inside the box (see Baby Dude's closet for large box)
party like it's 1999
study Nostradamus
reinvent the wheel
shoot the breeze
trap freeloading neighborhood cats who use our backyard like a tollroad
Ignore abovementioned activities and just watch cartoons the whole time (Just make sure you turn the tv off and quickly grab a book to read to them when my mom's car pulls up in the driveway.)

Sorry if I was too detail-oriented (not neurotic, not micro-managing. Detail-oriented.). I just didn't want you to feel stuck or lost like I do most of the time as a mother. Call us if you need ANYTHING! ~Leilen"

Okay, so maybe this wasn't the EXACT note I left her, but it was pretty close. My first draft was even worse. Yes, I write multiple drafts and revisions of my babysitter notes. You got a problem with that?

Marshmellow Heaven

2009-03-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

The kids never leave Lainey and Nudge's house empty-handed. The last time we headed home from their house Lil' Miss and Baby Dude were clutching dixie cups filled to the rim with miniature multi-colored marshmellows. Thanks, Mom.

A few minutes into our drive home, I heard Lil' Miss let out a deep sigh and lament, "Huuuuhhhhh! Only one left..."

I immediately jumped on the opportunity to engage in one of my favorite past times- inanimate object impersonations.

"Oh, please! Please don't eat me!" I pleaded. "I know I'm sweet and soft, but I don't want to go in your stomach. I want to live! I want travel, maybe take up watercoloring... I have a family who will miss me!"

To this, my precocious little princess replied, "Don't worry. Your family's ALREADY in my tummy!"

25 Things

2009-02-28T15:58:00.000-08:00

1. I hate tomatoes but love salsa. Yes, I realize they’re pretty much the same thing.
2. I daydream A LOT about Italy. I fell in love with the land, culture, people, and history while backpacking in Europe with friends after college. Sometimes I can hear it calling me back. “Leeeeileeeeennnn, Leeeeeileeeennnn…”, but in more of a big-fat-Italian-woman-yelling-at-me-to-get-out-of-her-restaurant kind of voice.
3. As a kid, I was convinced that my extraordinary young life was the subject of an ongoing documentary. Every joke I told, every milestone, every contemplative moment alone were all caught on tape by hidden cameras tracking my every move. A small part of me is still waiting for the video release of “The Leilen Show”.
4. I’m a wee bit neurotic about matching colors. Shirts match shoes, walls match curtains… you get the point. Working with my dad to choose the color scheme for my website was the only time I thought he might actually throw me out of his office. Being “matchy-matchy” is my one O.C.D.
5. I enjoy the Great Outdoors, but I don’t crave it the way my “woodsy” friends do. I’d rather go to a great museum and stare at paintings of beautiful sunsets and majestic mountains. Embarrassing, but true.
6. I’m filled with dread every time a small utensil slips down the kitchen drain. If there’s ever a time that my garbage disposal would mysteriously come to life I just know it would be when my unsuspecting fingers are dangly in its jaws.
7. I no longer correct people who mispronounce my name. I enjoy hearing the variations of name mutilation. It drives Honk bonkers.
8. I don’t like authentic cuisine. I’d take a greasy plate of nachos at the local Don Jose’s over real south-of-the-border tacos from a stand in Rosarito any day of the week.
9. I spent my entire childhood wishing I could be Pippi Longstocking, that adventurous, big-toothed redhead with levitating braids. I ached to fly an abandoned airplane by flapping my arms, commandeer an island overrun by pirates, and turn a bed into a hot air balloon. The pet monkey and horse I could do without, and maybe that whiney Aunika too, but Tommy I’d keep.
10. I’ve always enjoyed writing but never thought I was very good at it in high school. Now I teach kids how to write.
11. In the sixth grade, I was sent to the school district as a finalist in a penmanship competition. If you’ve seen my handwriting you understand how ironic that is.
12. I think my ears are otherworldly, very Lord of the Rings-ish. At Christmas, Honk always reminds me how good it is of Santa to let me, his most trusted elf, come home for the holidays.
13. I was born into a family of musicians but I can barely keep rhythm. I really didn’t mind except during family jam sessions when I became the “Clapper in the Wings”.
14. I love all things ancient. Someday I hope to go on an archaeological dig in Turkey or Iraq. I’d also love to learn how to read cuneiform. How cool would that be to write my grocery list in cuneiform? Lugging a wet clay tablet around Vons might get old though...
15. I really don’t like being in charge. Second or third in command is fine with me. This is strange considering I was a teacher, but there you have it.
16. I’m a hippie at heart, but don’t tell my husband this. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to convince him otherwise.
17. I love to drive around old cities and look at the houses. Beautiful Victorian architecture makes my heart race. If a wrap-around porch or dormer windows are involved, I might be moved to tears.
18. A bouquet of flowers is always nice, but a bag of starfish or sand dollars could really get my motor runnin’.
19. I was surprised by how natural motherhood came to me. I had never spent much time with babies and never claimed to suffer from “baby fever”. My first ever diaper change was in the maternity ward. But then, if those mothering instincts didn’t kick in! I remember calling Amber a few weeks after Lil' Miss's birth and proudly announcing, “She’s three weeks today! I’ve kept her alive for THREE WHOLE WEEKS!”
20. Of all the world’s heartbreaks, I’m most burdened by abused kids. I hope to be a foster parent someday.
21. I have a thing for hammocks. Add a cozy quilt, a great book, and a glass of lemonade and kids, you’re on your own!
22. I always blame my “fashionlessness” on an unwillingness to spend a lot of money on clothes. But even if money was no object, would I do any better?
23. I value honesty in my friendships. Although the truth hurts, I always feel like my friends really care about me when they call me out on something. How much you wanna bet I get eight million phone calls this week from all of you with old grudges against me that you’re dying to get off your chest?
24. The older I get, the simpler I want life to be. I hope my faith, relationships, and life pursuits become more about love and joy and less about everything else.
25. Maybe I wouldn’t mind teaching college someday. Just throwing it out there.

Kings and Queens

2009-02-15T15:02:00.000-08:00

While perusing the books and toy department of TJ MAXX...

Lil' Miss: Mom, did you know I'm really good at riding my bike?

me: Yep.

Lil' Miss: I'm the Queen of Riding Bikes!

me: Hmmm.

Lil' Miss: And Baby Dude is the King of Diapers!

me: That's for sure.

(Silence.)

me: Hey, what about me?

Lil' Miss: You're the Queen of Diet Coke!

ee: No, you've got me confused with my soda mentor, your Annie Weenie (Auntie Wendy).

Lil' Miss: Oh... well then, you're the Queen of... of... PRESENTS!

me: That's convenient, considering where we are.

Beating Around the Blush

2009-02-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I walked into my bathroom and caught Lil' Miss red-handed. Or should I say red-faced? With powder brush in hand, she was dousing her cheeks with my blush. I think she was going for the Russian nesting doll look.
I was shocked. She was busted. But just as I was about to reprimand her for getting into my make-up she quickly reassured me, "No, Mom, it's okay. I'm fiiiiiine. It's me, Mom. It's JUST ME! "

Either she really believes I share her fear of face paint, or that was the shrewdest act of punishment evasion I've ever witnessed.

Why Your Internet Connection Keeps Crashing

2009-02-01T14:50:00.001-08:00

I imagine the internet airways are pretty tied up today because of this:

Banish Boring Words is finally available for preodering today!

http://books.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=banish+boring+words&r=1

How to make an "Impression" on a Potential Employer

2009-01-31T11:25:00.000-08:00

1. Complete application and drop off paper work at job site. Don't call ahead of time despite potential employer's email request that you make an appointment. Just show up unannounced. This will establish you as an independent, "out-of-the-box" thinker.

2. Bring someone along with you, if you like. Perhaps the company of your two-year-old in a stroller? Just be sure not to strap him in so he has full range of motion when the time is right.

3. You probably thought you could just hand off your paperwork to the secretary and be on your way. Not so. The secretary will ask you to wait in the lobby while she phones the head of HR to come out and speak with you. Do not be alarmed. Although you will interrupt HR's urgent project or important meeting when she gets your call, just remember that you are more important and worth every moment of her valuable time.

4. When she takes you back to her office, she will waste no time going over the necessary information. Simultaneously, your two-year-old will announce that he is "done" sitting quietly in the stroller. His squawking and arm flailing will reach new heights of hysteria that leave even YOU speechless. Immediately remove two-year-old from stroller while never breaking eye contact with HR. Stay calm. HR is too impressed by your multi-tasking to be annoyed by two-year-old.

5. Continue pretending to listen to HR's instructions while holding two-year-old in your arms. He's really "done" with this place now and is going to let you know it. You will suffer repeated, close-range blows to your face from those sweet, chubby little hands. The slaps will be coming at you so quickly you will not be able to stop them. Keep smiling and nodding at the appropriate times. You will find it increasingly difficult to maintain your composure when he grabs a handful of your lips and begins to twist them around on your face like a knob. Continue with the smiling and head nodding. You are truly showcasing your crisis management skills now.

6. Unexpectedly, your potential employer will appear and invite you into a conference room to meet the entire staff. Put aside the challenges you've faced thus far because now's your time to shine. Smile and shake hands with confidence as if to say, "Look at me! I'm your gal!" Try not to read too much into their facial expressions. True, a few of them look confused, maybe even a bit uncomfortable, but they probably just ate too much for lunch.

7. It's time to leave the job site and give yourself a pat on the back. You were the picture of professionalism!

8. As you buckle your two-year-old into his car seat, happen to glance into the car window. You may notice long, dark streaks across your cheek in a shade of red bearing a striking resemblance to the lipstick you applied this morning. At this point, I have no further assistance to offer you. You are on your own with this one. Good Luck! (You're going to need it...)

So, Where've You Been?

2009-01-31T07:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't been around much lately. In fact, my time here has been dwindling significantly over the last couple of months. At first, I blamed it on the hectic holiday season, but come on now, it's February already. Besides, I wouldn't exactly call not shopping, not cooking, and not going anywhere a "hectic" Christmas.

Then the blame shifted to the kids. They are clearly "anti-blogging". Every time I sit down to do a little tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard, one of them suddenly appears with a Code Red situation for me to handle. Just five minutes ago, Lil' Miss called me into the bathroom to help her clean up a wad of wet toilet paper on the bathroom floor which, by the way, was not wet with water.

Baby Dude prefers a more direct approach to "Operation: Abort Mother's Blogging". While I'm on the computer, he climbs up on my chair, wiggles his way behind me, and hooks his arms around my neck in a choke hold. Shockingly, I don't write very well while being strangled to death. I know, I'm a weak person.

Dude's also adopted a new nighttime persona- Mr. Light Sleeper. And did I mention that his room is right next to the computer? So every time I attempt to bust out a few words, he lets me have it. I can hear him flopping around in his crib and then he starts in with that ridiculous moaning like I was blowing a trumpet in his ear. Such a baby! I told Honk I needed a laptop because I CAN'T GET ANY WRITING DONE IN THIS HOUSE ANYMORE! and he said something about millions of jobs lost, homes in foreclosure and impending financial doom, but yeah honey, we'll get you that laptop.

Truth be told, the absence of blogging probably has a lot to do with the financial crisis. So many unanswered questions about the future. Everything feels uncertain and unknown. I can't think straight! I guess all this stress and fear has really put a crink in my creative hose.

But maybe I should be writing no matter what. Maybe it will remind me that life goes on. I mean, God is always with me anyways, right? Can blogging be a sign of faith?

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

2009-01-17T15:54:00.000-08:00

Not to go all Taoist on you, but lately I've been thinking about the philosophy of Yin and Yang, the idea that everything in life has opposing forces or dualities like dark and light, negative and positive. No, I'm not really considering the ascetic life of a Chinese monk (although an occasional vow of silence is seriously tempting...), I'm just saying that I can see some truth in it.

Take my job, for instance. As a part-time writing tutor, I can set my own hours, help contribute to the family income, and continually flex my teaching muscles. Not to mention, since my business is based on referrals, I've never had to do any marketing (with the exception of one hot, miserable summer that I spent schlepping tutoring flyers throughout local neighborhoods while Baby Hulk and Lil' Electra clawed each other's eyes out in the jogger). But best of all, I can still be home with my kids. Is there a Yang, a "light" side to my job? Oh yeah, and man, that light is BLINDING.

But let us also consider the Yin. While tutoring does allow me to be home with Lil' Miss and Baby Dude, I'm not really there for them. I'm working, an action defined by my kids as "not playing with us". And so far, I haven't been very successful at revising a student's essay while outwitting Lil' Miss in a game of Old Maid at the same time. (Believe me, I've tried.) It's a tough balancing act, one that keeps me dog-paddling in a pool of guilt. But fortunately, we have a slew of fabulous babysitters (whose names and phone numbers I will never, ever, EVER give you, not even if you pin me down, sit on my chest, and dangle a loogie over my head, so don't even ask). My kids absolutely adore our sitters and would happily leave me face down in a ditch if it meant fifteen minutes in their presence, so that helps. But even still, I feel pulled in two directions, one of which is not bringing me any closer to a "Mother-of-the-Year" banquet held in my honor.

Moreover, I'm forced to deal with some "interesting" behavior due to the nature of my clientele. I'm still not exactly sure how this happened, but I pretty much own the local market on tutoring third and fourth grade boys in writing. It's a bizarre phenomenon. As are those boys. God love 'em, but they are a strange breed. They can be hysterically funny and head-waggingly weird all in an hour's time. When asked to elaborate with details about why their summer trip to San Francisco was so amazing, they randomly blurt out, "I like CHICKEN!" When pressed to develop a resolution for their story about buried treasure they explain, "Then I'll wipe out all the pirates with my machine gun and blow up their lifeless bodies with hand grenades!" (Notice there's still no mention of buried treasure, but at least some good action verbs...) My personal favorite was the use of a shotgun in a lovely story titled, "Saving the Puppy". On the bright side? I've become somewhat of an expert on World War II aircraft and weaponry. Yay!!

Sometimes I feel more like an animal trainer or cat herder than teacher, like that long forgotten white-woman-turned-Indian, "Dances with Squirrels". Although they crack me up most of the time, these boys can also drive me batty. Last week I watched in horror as one of them with a nasty winter cold played basketball with his used Kleenex. Don't believe me? Here's the "Snot Box" he was aiming for.

Their distractibility is mind blowing. It doesn't take much- a rustling leaf in the backyard, a car alarm going off, the sound of their own breathing- to launch their minds like misguided missiles into mental galaxies far, far away. The discovery of eraser shavings on the table or the sight of a water ring left by their cup could easily hypnotize them for eons. "Well," you say, "at least their sitting still, right?" Sure, if by "sitting still" you mean kicking the legs of my table, tapping their pencil like Ringo Starr, and asking to use the bathroom every three seconds.

My tutoring sessions have become breeding grounds for absurd tangents and unsolicited advice. Summarizing an article about the history of kites could easily segue into a discussion about the intelligence of octopuses and whether they'd make good tutoring students. I especially enjoy their insightful parenting wisdom such as, "Hey, you know what you should do when Baby Dude cries? You should just put him in his room and lock the door until he stops. Just leave him in there, for hours and hours... Some things just take time with kids." I usually respond with, "Remind me not to call you in eight years to babysit them."

It's all pretty harmless so I wouldn't exactly say my job has a dark side. Maybe just a shady one at times. But this is true of most things in life. There are always things to be thankful for and always things to complain about. I guess it just depends on what you choose to focus on. For example, I'm pretty thankful that I don't have to tutor octopuses. How's that for optimism?

A Year in Review

2009-01-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

Some of my friends like to look through their calendars at the end of the year to reflect back on memorable people, places, and events. I think it's much more interesting to clean out the "Favorites" file on my internet browser. As I search to delete old websites that I've bookmarked over the year, I find myself smiling the same way I do when I look through an old photo album. I even learn a few life lessons along the way. Here are just a few of "my favorite things" of 2008.

1. www.crateandbarrel.com
Apparently, I was in the market for one of these entryway benches because there were at least fifteen other sites similar to this one, all of them benches of dark wood, approximately thirty-six inches long. Funny how I completely forgot about it, the bench I just HAD to have, the bench I fantasized about, arranged under our entryway mirror in my mind a thousand times...

2. http://www.theracingexperience.com/
I spent weeks researching various car racing schools for Honk's birthday. I think this example serves as some pretty good evidence that despite my incessant throat clearing, a decade of dinners consisting of tacos, spaghetti, taco salad, and spaghetti salad, and whiny complaints about dirty, discarded socks, I am still the BEST WIFE EVER!!!

3. http://www.cuddlebabies.com/
I remember how stoked I was to discover this site. They sent me a printing kit so my kids' actual handprints could be scanned onto silver charms. Very cool. These charms earned me the highly sought after "Daughter-In-Law-of-the-Year" award.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend these precious charms to you because dealing with their customer service was about as enjoyable as having a broken arm reset. They overcharged me, never returned my phone calls, and basically gave me the run-around. (Bitter? Who's bitter?) This one is a great reminder that you can have a great product (or image or message or philosophy etc., etc.), but if you don't treat people well, who cares? As it stands, I'd rather wear my children's toenail clippings around my neck than one of their stupid charms (unless they'd like to return my money and my phone calls in which case, YES, of course I'll wear your adorable charms...)

4. www.disney.go.com/magicartist/coloring/index.html
I'd say about half of my 2008 bookmarks were princess-related sites: princess videos, princess toys, princess gowns, princess games... This one is an online princess coloring page from the Disney website.

Holy Fairy Godmother, was that girl crazy about princesses! Almost everything we did and everywhere we went involved some element of princessmania. How many trips to the grocery store, the bank, and the library did those princess gowns make? At some point they no longer felt like cartoon characters, but like distant relatives or ancestors whom we kept alive with our dress-ups and reinactments.

But those gowns don't get out all that much anymore. Occasionally, when a friend comes over to play, Lil' Miss might take out her princess barbie dolls or open the lid to her chest and rummage around for a certain gown, but not all that often. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Lil' Miss's princess stage might be coming to a close. For all my eye rolling and deep sighing while assisting in those countless princess wardrobe changes, I will really miss those ladies. (sniff, sniff...)

5. http://www.customcorsets.com/
About this time last year, I was being prepped for abdominal surgery. After delivering Baby Dude, I discovered an abnormal lump under my right rib cage. I showed family members and close friends who felt it and said, "Hmmm... You should definitely get that thing checked out." I went to my Primary Physician who felt it and said, "Hmmm... You should definitely have a surgeon check that thing out." I went to a reputable Newport Beach surgeon who felt it and said, "Hmmm... hernia? tumor? CANCER? You should definitely have an ultrasound taken of that thing, whatever it is... I'm still scheduling you for surgery next week."

I went to get an ultrasound and quietly asked the technician, "So, listen. I know you're not supposed to say anything, but just between you and me, what do YOU think it is?" She never took her eyes off of that ultrasound machine when she whispered under her breath, "So they really ruled out a floating rib?"

"A WHAT? I asked.

"A floating rib. Go look it up. I'm just saying, it looks and feels like one to me..."

I raced home and typed in "floating rib" on the internet. In case you're an anatomical nitwit like myself, allow me to introduce you: Reader, Floating Rib. Floating rib, Reader.

Floating ribs are classified as our bottommost ribs which are not attached to our ribcage. They are actually joined to our back vertebrae, making them more... pliable. During my floating rib research, I discovered numerous accounts of women who after giving birth to big babies (Baby Dude definitely fell in the "big baby" category at 9 lbs, 11 oz.) discovered ribs poking out of their abdomens. Apparently, big, uterus-hogging babies can actually push out or reshape the floating ribs. My reading convinced me that it was definitely a floating rib. It had to be! It was the only thing that made any sense. But I was still scheduled for surgery in a few days!

Meanwhile, the ultrasound tests came back inconclusive. I mentioned the floating rib to my primary physician who said, "Hmmm... could be!" I mentioned the floating rib to my surgeon who said, "Hmmm... could be! Uhhhhh... let's postpone surgery for now."

Good idea, doc! Geez, so much for faith in the medical profession! If I ever encounter another body oddity again, I'm going straight to an ultrasound technician and to the only true, unbiased source of knowledge left on this planet- Wikipedia!

Relieved that cancer, tumors, and surgery were no longer on my long list of things to worry about, I still had to deal with the rib protrusion. It looked like a baby alien had burrowed itself in my body cavity and was trying to poke it's head out through my stomach. (Maybe an exaggeration, but only a slight one.) What was I supposed to do? Ignore it? Pretend that everyone's ribs open and close like security gates? Now how was I supposed to enter and win the Mrs. Huntington Beach beauty/bathing suit competition? (Hey! What are you laughing about!) I had to explore my options and that's when I came up with this brilliant idea:

That's right, a custom-made corset. Think Elizabethan-Courtier-Meets-Suburban-Housewife, minus the sultry poses and seductive eyes. I know. Not exactly what you were thinking for me, but I was desperate! How else was I supposed to force my mutant rib into submission?

Lucky for me (and for my family, friends, and anyone else who comes in contact with me), I would soon discover from internet testimonials that these expensive boa constrictors for the waist are uncomfortable, sweaty, and must be worn all day and all night for MONTHS AT A TIME. I tried to imagine how I'd carry out my motherly duties with one of these things on. "Sorry, kids. Mommy can't play Hide-n-Seek anymore because I can no longer bend down. I also can't give baths, cook, or do any other activity requiring physical movement. Mommy would also appreciate it if you didn't make her laugh or turn too quickly unless you enjoy watching her cry like a wounded puppy."

It's been quite a while since I've come back to this site. It's a good reminder that life's uncertainties and unexpecteds can make you feel terrible and desperate in the moment. But usually, time has a way of working things out or helping you to forget. At least until bathing suit season comes around again...

I know, this post was WAY too long. But we're talking about a whole year here! I could waste an hour of your reading time just talking about port-a-potties, so what'dya expect?

It's amazing to think about all that goes on in one year, isn't it?

On the Right Track This Christmas?

2008-12-27T07:44:00.000-08:00

Honk and I had decided months ago that this would be a simple Christmas. We were determined to escape the crazy consumerism that distracts us from the true meaning of the holidays. It was time to get back to basics and focus on what was really important, like the birth of the savior, the love of family and friends, and the fact that we're broke. Our poor, deprived children would have to figure out some way to survive this winter without mindblowing toys like this kiddie ice rink (which can be yours too for the low, low price of $39.99!) American conspicuous consumption at its finest...

This Christmas would not find me wandering aimlessly through Target in a trance-like state, hypnotized by holiday toy sales. You would not discover me dazed in the princess aisle, slack-jawed and muttering to myself, "Must get her more princess dolls. NEED more princess dolls..." Those frivolous spending days were just where my pre-offspring waistline was- long gone with no foreseeable plans of returning.

We agreed to only buy the kids a couple of gifts, so we had to make them good ones- ones we knew they'd really love that would also hold their attention for more than three seconds. To me, this seemed like an easy task for a couple of reasons: 1. I am very in-tune with my children 2. At this point, I will do just about anything to end Lil' Miss's incessant pleas for "the pink Hannah Atana microphone because I want to sing so beautifully for everyone". And for Baby Dude? Well, I'd already bought his Christmas present months ago.

Nice, huh? Yeah, I thought so too. We bought the train set on sale way back during the summer and the beautiful table was courtesy of Grandpa Nudge and Grandma Lainey. I couldn't wait to see him play with it. He was crazy about those cars on tracks. Every time we browsed a toy store with one of those train tables set up, he'd go nutzo, running over to it and wiggling around like a dancin' fool. He was into it, pushing the train UP the hill, DOWN the hill, IN the tunnel, OUT of the tunnel... It was a strange sight to witness such raw intensity on the face of our happy-go-lucky boy.

Giving him that train set was what I was most excited about Christmas morning. I could hardly wait to see the expression on his face, to see him scream, shake, and dance around like a fool. Maybe he'd be so moved he'd even speak his first intelligible words or cry tears of joy. I was picturing Laura Ingall's face at the sight of that shiny copper penny in her Christmas stocking. Yeah, I may have set myself up for some disappointment.

Almost one week later he still hasn't touched that train set, hasn't even made eye contact with it. He's been too busy working on this...

Snow simulation thanks to the styrofoam packaging in the train table box. Niiiicccce...

I'd be great to find some deep meaning in all of this, maybe a connection to our ingenius plan to keep Christmas simple this year, but I'm way too annoyed to bother. All I know is that if he doesn't start pushing Thomas the train through that tunnel here pretty soon, he's getting an empty plastic water bottle from Santa next year.

Crustaceas Santas

2008-12-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

If you've been following this blog at all then it will come as no surprise to you when I say that I've always been a bit of a worrier. (At this time, please refrain from smirking at your computer monitor and yelling, "Uh, yeah... Ya think?!") I've pretty much made an art form out of it. I can worry myself into a tightly wound bundle of nerves over just about anything. Growing up, I nearly made myself sick stressing about homework, failed alarm clocks, earthquake escape routes, undetected diseases, and the resurrection of Richard Ramirez (a.k.a the Night Stalker) who I believed had some unfinished business with me. And it's only intensified with motherhood. Now my fears and anxieties involve strange-looking rashes, sharp objects in little hands, asthmatic coughing attacks, delayed language, and unlocked doors from which Bonnie and Clyde could escape unnoticed.

Unfortunately, I may have passed this worrying gene on to Lil' Miss. The girl definitely has her share of phobias. These include but are not limited to face paint, old people with long hair, masks, old people with long beards, character costumes, and old people with loud voices. As you can imagine, this does not bode well for a certain gift-giving grandpa-type who we like to make a big deal about this time of year. Santa is definitely outside the Christmas periphery in our house. Literally. Lil' Miss has made it perfectly clear that he's not welcomed in here. No rooftop. No chimney. No tiptoe-ing around our living room with that long white beard and crazy red suit. She's agreed to leave a plate of cookies and a glass of milk out on the front porch for him in exchange for the presents he promised, but that's as close as he'll be getting to this house.

The advent calendar she picked out says it all.

Yep, it was the only Christmas scene where Santa was OUTSIDE, peeking in through the window.

I really thought I had Lil' Miss's Scorn of Santa all figured out. I believed in time she'd grow to love that white hair and beard as much as all the other kids in the world did. But a recent conversation revealed that I didn't have a clue about the nature of my daughter's fear.

We were all sitting around the kitchen table talking about Christmas when Honk in usual fashion pushed the Santa issue a bit too hard. "Are you SURE you don't want to sleep out on the couch so you can see Santa when he comes down the chimney?" (Why do boys taunt us so?) Lil' Miss immediately curled up into herself and hid behind one of the chairs. She wouldn't even respond to his question. She was truly panicked at the prospect of that scenario. I think it was the first time Honk realized how intense her fear of Santa was and he whispered to me, "Man, she's seriously freaked out by him!"

Wanting him to understand her the way I thought I did, I suggested, "Lil' Miss, why don't you tell Daddy why you're scared of Santa."

Slowly, she crept out from behind the chair and held up her hands like she was making sock puppets. Then she opened and closed them like Pac Man and said, "Well, there's his Santa claws..."

Are you kidding me? Had the poor girl really mistaken his last name for a pair of pointed appendages? No wonder she didn't want to have anything to do with him! Santa was really just a GIANT LOBSTER disguised behind a long white beard and red suit! Now when I think about all those times we begged her to take a picture on Santa's lap, her butt cheeks only inches away from those sharp pinchers craftily hidden in his furry gloves... I can still see the absolute terror on her face.

As much as I liked the idea of Santa, I've decided to let it go. He's not the true meaning of Christmas anyways. And now I have one less thing to worry about as a mother. There's no longer a reason to fear the day I'll have to tell Lil' Miss that Santa doesn't really exist. She will not shed tears and her heart will not be broken. Quite the opposite, in fact. That revelation would probably be the best Christmas gift I could give her.

Oye! Have I Got a Boy for YOU!

2008-12-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

Lil' Miss's preschool teacher is very thorough. On a dry erase board propped up outside her classroom, she jots down the day's highlights and even some reminders for parents to look over at pick-up time. It's a lifesaver for featherbrains such as myself. Tuesday's board said,

-Practiced Christmas songs
-Read story about baby Jesus
-Painted wreaths
-Don't forget to peek at our work on the art wall today!

At dismissal, all the moms filed into the room to collect our kids and check out their work. The teacher had asked each child the same question and typed up their responses on festive paper. The question was, "If you could give Jesus one gift this Christmas, what would you give Him?" Their answers were precious.

Elysse said, " ... I'd give Him a baby doll for Him to hold."

Charlie said, " ... I'd give Him a shirt to put in His closet."

Leah said, " ... I'd give Him a phone so He could call my mommy."

Lil' Miss said, " ... I'd give Him my friend Sophia so He could have someone to talk to."

Huddled together, all the moms just stood there looking up at the board and smiling until the teacher suddenly piped up, "You know, I did have to tweak Lil' Miss's original answer." She was not looking at me when she announced this, and I was way too afraid and embarrassed to ask what, praytell, my dear child had said. But, lucky for me, one of the other moms was not. "What did she SAY?"

"... I'd give him a woman."

Leave it to Lil' Miss Yenta to make sure that not even the Creator of the Universe was spending the holidays alone. Gotta love that kid!

Mom! Baby Dude's Ruining Christmas!

2008-12-09T13:47:00.001-08:00

The bad news?

Baby Grinch was definitely ruining Christmas.

The good news?

He finally found a use for Honk's dirty, discarded socks.

As Lil' Miss would say, "order-ments!"

Holy Infant, so Tender and Mild

2008-12-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

This year, Lil' Miss is playing the angel in her preschool's Christmas Nativity and I can't decide if I'm more excited to see her perform or to see Baby Dude's reaction from the front row. I know, first hand, that holiday entertainment can come in the most unexpected ways.

Every Christmas, my community Bible study also puts on a reinactment of the Navitity for the kids in the children's program. The teachers construct a pretty cool-looking manger scene and perform a theatrical retelling of the story. It's very dramatic. Plus, their costumes look historically accurate which always earns an extra point in my book. All the VIP's are there: the shepherds, wise men, animals, an angel, Mary, Joseph, and of course, baby Jesus. The kids LOVE it.

A couple of years ago, the head honchos in the children's department decided to get all fancy and scrap the plastic baby Jesus doll for a REAL baby instead. I'm guessing the "baby-saves-the-world" theme was a hard sell to kids who were probably wondering, "Why isn't he moving? Or crying? Save the world? How 'bout just BLINK YOUR EYES, baby Jesus? Let's start with that!"

So, about this time two years ago, the children's director peeked her head into my Bible study group, the group specifically for new moms. She was full of smiles and hellos but there was something suspicious about the way she never made eye contact with us. She was too busy inspecting the precious cargo in our arms. She just stood there, smiling and scanning the room like a hungry lion among gazelles. "We need a baby. A strapping young lad who can handle a tight swaddling." All eyes fell on me and the two-month old in my arms. Baby Dude was the Chosen One. Apparently everyone was in agreement that my boy was the only one who could play the baby king. This did not surprise me. They saw in him what I saw- a sweet, contented child destined for greatness. That and the fact that he was the only boy in the room.

I squirmed in my seat as all the moms smiled in my direction. This arrangement made me uncomfortable. It felt very stage-momish, like one day I'm offering him up in the baby Jesus gig and the next I'm driving him to L.A. for a Pamper's commercial. Or like an inferiority complex waiting to happen. Would he always feel like I was comparing him to the messiah he once played? Would he become one of those obsessive kids who rewrote his homework over and over again until it was perfect and all the while ranted, "I'LL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!"? Not to mention the concerns I had about Lil' Miss, only a two-year-old at the time. She was still new to big sisterhood and was having enough trouble just accepting the fact that we were actually going to keep Baby Dude, that we would NOT be returning him to the Rent-a-Baby center after all. The competition for attention was already fierce. Now cute little Mr. Perfecto has to be the SAVIOR OF THE WORLD? Couldn't he settle for best thumb sucker or loudest crier? In the end, I consented, but not without hesitation.

The next week I arrived a bit early and met the costumed teachers in the classroom where the Nativity would be performed. The plan was that I'd hang out behind the manger set with Baby Dude in my arms and pass him through the window to "Mary" when she arrived on the scene. It seemed like a no-brainer until the kids arrived and I discovered that Lil' Miss was sitting in the front row, dead center, just a few feet away from where I was crouched down holding Baby Dude. I held my breath, hoping and praying she would not see me. I watched as she surveyed the stage scene, examining every detail like a city building inspector. It was only a matter of time now.

Sure enough, a few moments later, she caught a glimpse of me through the window. You could actually see her thinking, "What the... ? Is that my... ?" Then she got up off her little chair and leaned forward, even squinted her eyes a bit to get a closer look. All I could do was sit there perfectly still and try to pretend that I didn't see her. But it was too late. We were in an undeniable staredown. I could see the brow furrowing, the eyes welling and the lip quivering. I panicked. That was my baby girl on the verge. So, I sheepishly smiled and waved back.

That move was stupidity at its finest. It just confirmed for her that she was only a few feet and a cardboard wall away from the loving arms of her mama. The floodgates opened and Lil' Miss started to cry. Actually, she was laughing and crying at the same time. It was so sad that I almost joined in. I could hear a nearby teacher consoling her, "It's okay, honey! It's okay." That poor thing, all red-faced and sniffling, was trying to get her act together but every time she looked in my direction a new wave of weeping would crash over her.

She finally calmed down just as the play began, but every time a new character came onto the scene, she started in again with the wailing and nervous laughing. When the beautiful white angel appeared, she reached her breaking point, blubbering all over again with tears streaming down her cheeks. The whole room was dead silent except for the heart-wrenching sobs of my daughter. And while all this was going on, my blessed son, full of grace and light, rested peacefully in the manger.

If the point of all this was to help us remember the story of Christmas, then mission accomplished. I'll never forget.

She said, He Said

2008-12-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

Lil' Miss and Baby Dude are still young enough to think cleaning the house is fun. Not as fun as making a decent mess, but still a good time. When I'm vacuuming, they follow me around with their popping push-toys and little lawnmower. When I'm wiping countertops, they grab their own rag to "redo" my work. When I finish cleaning the glass patio door, they're right behind me, scrubbing it with a soapy sponge. Very helpful, indeed.

Of course, this optimistic view of housework does not apply to cleaning up their own rooms... by themselves. If I'm not there, singing the "Clean-up, Clean-up" song and putting away toys right alongside them, they want no part in it. It's probably because they just can't stand being away from me... Yeah, right! More like misery loves company.

Yesterday, I told Lil' Miss she had to put her toys away in her room, a chore that involves picking up her princesses and putting them in baskets underneath her bed. Simple enough for a bright, able-bodied four-year-old. Or so you'd think. I might as well have told her to paint the ceiling or build a bookshelf by her response. She was a wreck, rolling around on the carpet, sobbing and moaning. "Moooooommmm! I caaaaannnn't! It's tooooooo haaaaarrrrrd!" Think Pat from Saturday Night Live.

me: Honey, you can do this! You're a big girl and you're a lot tougher than you think.

her: No, I'm nooooot! I caaaaannnn't dooooooo iiiiiiiiit!

me: Yes, you caaaaaaan! (This did not go over very well.)

her: I CAAAAAANNNN'T!

me: Wait. I have an idea. Why don't you pray and ask God to help you do this. He's always with you and you can talk to him about how hard it is. I bet He'll help you.

her: Alright...

With shoulders hunched and head bowed, she slowly shuffled to her room and returned a few minutes later.

her: Mom, I prayed.

me: You did? How'd it go?

her: Good. God said He was going to help me.

me: That's so great! Why don't you go ahead then and get started cleaning your room.

her: No, Mom. God said He can do it all by Hisself.

Bi-Monthly Meltdown

2008-11-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

It's like clockwork. One minute I'm going about my business, working around the house or playing with the kids and the next I'm frantically running from room-to-room, digging through drawers, pulling out couch cushions, and talking to myself like a crackhead. I've just remembered the library books are due and I don't have the slightest idea where they are.

How does this happen, EVERY TIME? Am I really that unorganized around here? I have literally torn the house apart, the kids' rooms are in shambles, and still, no books. My heart is pounding through my chest. I'm a bundle of nerves. It's that junior high I can't-find-my-homework feeling all over again except this time I'm an adult and I should know better and the librarians look like they want to hurt me and have mustaches and are wheeling in a dollie to hold the mountain of late fees piling up in front of me.

I can't help but wonder, did I miss something here? Was there a library orientation I forgot to sign up for? Or a handout titled, "The Idiot's Guide to Keeping Track of Your Books" that I didn't pick up?

Jennifer calls me while I'm flinging everything out of Lil' Miss's closet. "You do know what the librarians are going to say, don't you? The same thing they always tell me. 'Keep 'em in a bag!'" Well now, that's pure GENIUS! I wish I'd thought of that! And yeah, it'd make perfect sense if I didn't have a two-year-old who strictly adheres to the Toddler Ten Commandments, one of which states, "Thou shalt dump out all bags and scatter their contents like the wind." This comes right after, "Thou shalt stand up and pee on your sister's head when taking a bath."

While all this psycho searching and ranting is going on, the kids continue to do whatever it is they're doing, completely unfazed by the crazy lady who's running around the house screaming, "Where could they be? WHERE COULD THEY BE!!!" They don't even so much as lift an eye in my direction. They may have seen this once or twice before. Later, as they pick through the upheavel, the mounds of messes left in my wake, they'll thank me for finding the beloved Barbie lost under their bed or that truck wedged behind the chair. I have found everything that has gone MIA in the last couple of weeks, everything except for those blasted books.

Eventually though, Lil' Miss who is busy putting together a puzzle, will catch on that I'm having one of those meltdowns again (the rocking and thumb sucking in the corner usually give it away). She graciously steps in. "Mom, they're in Baby Dude's room!"

I head towards his room, a room I have already checked like eight thousand times, but, whatever. I'll humor the kid. A few minutes later, I yell out in an almost sing-songy voice, "Nope! Not in here!"

"Yeah! They are!" she sings back.

"I don't know how! I've looked everywhere!"

"Check the closet shelves!"

I do and they're right in front of me. Right there, the whole bloody time. I trudge into the kitchen where Lil' Miss is still busy with that puzzle at the kitchen table. I humbly thank her and she gives me one of her silent, closed-mouth head nods like she's the Holy Roman Pope. I'm left standing there, thinking about what a shame it is that in a couple of weeks I'll forget how she's the one who always finds them, how she always knows where they are. I'll be too busy with my crazy house ransacking to remember.

Girls Rule, Boys Drool (for now, at least...)

2008-11-26T08:55:00.000-08:00

If Lil' Miss ever decides to hang up her zippered sweatshirts for the simpler life of the orthodox, I have no doubt in my mind she'd make a great Amish. Not only does the girl love to wear jaw-dropping, grand entrance-making costumes in public, but she's also a firm believer in gender separation. These days it's all about the "sisters before misters".

Just this morning while we were all cuddling in bed together, she scooted over by me and announced to Honk, "This is the girl's side. No boys allowed!" Last weekend, on our way to a friend's house for a Thanksgiving Potluck dinner she asked, "Mom, will all the girls be together in one room and the boys in another?" To say the kid is obsessed with female solidarity is an understatement.

This probably explains why I don't have much alone time anymore. Every outing, every errand, and every room I enter is accompanied by my pint-sized girlfriend. We are not only joined at the hip, but at the leg, the arm, and the head. (Did I mention the earlobes? Yeah, the earlobes too.) As XX chromosomes, I'm guessing she feels a special bond with me, like we're on the same team or that we come from the same litter of puppies. When we're together, walking and holding hands, she likes to say, "Mom, you and me, we're girls together!" When were getting ready in the morning she'll suggest, "Mom, let's both wear pink today because we're girls together!" Or my favorite one, "Mom, don't worry. I'll stay and watch you go potty because we're GIRLS TOGETHER!"

For the most part, I think it's sweet and cute and funny. Honk thinks it's annoying. Lil' Miss is constantly reprimanding him for invading our girl space. The other morning when Lil' Miss crawled into bed with us, we struck up an impassioned discussion about poenawlish. And right as our pink vs. red debate started to get a little heated, Honk tried to cut in with a question of his own. Lil' Miss rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. She flipped over to face him and held up a stop-sign hand, "Dad, hold on a second. HOLD ON!" Then she turned back toward me and said, "I'm sorry, what were you saying, Mom?" Feeling more than a little slighted, Honk reminded her, "Hey I'M the adult and YOU'RE the kid here!" Honk has been announcing this obvious but largely ignored fact a lot lately.

As you can imagine, this Girl Power is REALLY infringing on Honk's attempts to "mess with me". It's kind of like having a junior high best friend all over again. She's fun, sweet, and a bit on the possessive side, giving your other friends the dagger eyes of death when they come within five yards of you. Last Saturday morning, I completely overslept and was still conked out when Honk returned home from running errands with Lil' Miss. He came lumbering into our room like Paul Bunyan, all loud and obnoxious, banging things around and making a huge ruckus. Then he dove onto the bed and flopped around like a carp fish, trying to crush me in my deep sleep. When that only brought about slight moanings, he set in with the expected poking and prodding until I was sounding less like a cow and more like a ticked-off wife. But I didn't need to take action. The Girlinator had already come to my rescue. "Dad! Leave her alone! LEAVE HER ALONE!!!" She was literally shooing him out of the room. And just before she closed the door behind her so I could work out my grogginess in peace, she peeked her head in the door and said, "Sorry 'bout that, Mom. Sorry 'bout that."

I always knew I'd feel protective towards my kids. I just never figured they'd feel the same about me. I'm sure this female unity phase is just that, and soon she'll go back to being a Daddy's girl. So, I think I'll milk this one for as long as I can.

Lighting Up Trees and Faces This Christmas

2008-11-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

For years now, we've made it a tradition to kick off the holiday season with the Fashion Island Tree Lighting Ceremony. It's always the weekend before Thanksgiving and it's always a magical affair. There's the wildly-entertaining Christmas musical performed by students of the California Conservatory of the Arts followed by the much anticipated illumination of Fashion Island's majestic, skyscraping Christmas tree. And, of course, a mob of spectators smashed up against eachother, standing shoulder-to-shoulder out in the cold to watch the show. But, 'tis the season, right?

This year we impressed ourselves by getting there a whole fifteen minutes before showtime. This meant that after much elbowing and apologetic smiling, we found a tiny spot to stand where we could actually see the stage, from the front, no less. Never mind that we were clear across the courtyard over by the Christmas tree, about a football field away from it all. We had a place of our own!

After we'd folded up the stroller and tucked it under the Christmas tree (an unexpected advantage to our location), we tried to settle into our two cubic feet of space. Lil' Miss stood right next to me and looked like a kid lost in the forest. She was encircled by a wall of adults, GIANTS towering over her. The poor girl was trapped with nowhere to go and nothing to look at other than what was at eye level, a row of saggy butts. She looked up at me and I could see the panic setting in. I scooped her up in my arms and that's when it became immediately clear the kids would have to be held THE ENTIRE TIME if we were going to enjoy any of this. I had forgotten about this.

Apparently, the show was running a little late (either that or those fifteen minutes with a forty pound preschooler in my arms just seemed like an eternity). This was not good. Honk and I exchanged "Are we having fun yet?" looks. We still had an entire show to stand through and my arm muscles were already burning. I could practically see the flames under my skin. How was I going to manage this? I needed a new game plan. I hoisted Lil' Miss onto my shoulders to give my arms a rest and Lil' Miss a better view of the stage. I must have looked like some kind of female bodybuilder to the people around us, just grabbing my kid like that and flinging her over my head. This was a nice change from the "weaker vessel" routine I'm usually trying to pull off and use to my advantage.

Finally, the music started and the show began. I sent up a little prayer of thanksgiving. Right away, I knew this was right up Lil' Miss's princess-loving, ballet-dancing, broadway-singing alley. The girl was in her element. She was mesmerized by the whimsical set, elaborate costumes, and impressive performances. Every once in a while she'd yell down to me, "Mom, this is SO beautiful!" Not fun. Not great. Not even cute. BEAUTIFUL. I was going to have to take her word for it. I was not watching the show. I was too busy dying a slow, painful death under the weight of the increasingly heavy child perched on my shoulders. She had been up there for quite a while now and my body wasn't taking this free ride lightly. The agony was almost unbearable. Sharp, piercing pain shot through my shoulders and neck. Muscles I didn't even know I had started to spasm. A continuous burning and throbbing permeated my upper back. I was losing oxygen from the strangled hold my hooded sweatshirt had on my airways. I could feel the hordes of people that surrounded us closing in on me. This was the beginning of the end. Between whimpered cries and futile attempts at pain management, I mapped out the people in the crowd best suited to break my fall when I passed out: definitely big mullet man with goosedown jacket.

But then, out of nowhere, a welcomed diversion. A drama even more dramatic than mine (if you can believe it). A mother had somehow weasled her way through the crowd and parked it right next to us. She was holding a baby in her arms and was accompanied by a little girl about the same age as Lil' Miss who had the same lost-in-the-forest expression on her face. The girl was distraught. She could hear the beautiful music and singing, but couldn't see a smidge of the show. It was too sad for words. "Mama, please! Hold me! Hold me! I can't see! I can't see!" The mother who was already balancing said baby in her arms made little effort. "I can't. I don't know where your dad is. Sorry." The little girl kept begging, pleading with her mom to pick her up but the mother wasn't budging. My heart was breaking.

And that's when the pain in my shoulders and neck completely disappeared. How could I be bothered by a little crink in the neck when a child was being deprived the magic of Christmas? An inner battle raged in my head. The socially-appropriate part of my brain was warning, "Leilen, she is NOT your child. There is nothing you can do about this. Just mind your own business and watch the show!" Unfortunately, that part was being drowned out by a much louder, more obnoxious part of my brain, the part that is convinced the whole universe depends on me, like I'm some kind of superhero to short people.

I tapped the twenty-something man standing in front of us on the shoulder and said, "Hey, there's a little girl behind you who can't see the show and I was wondering if maybe you might ask her mom if you could hold her so she could watch." He looked at me like I'd just asked him to take off his pants and fling them into the crowd. But, good guy that he was, he went ahead and asked her anyways. The mother was happy to accept the generous offer and passed the kid off to him. He lifted the girl up onto his shoulders and I watched as her whole face lit up, instantly beaming at the musical extravaganza before her. It was the most genuinely happy smile I'd ever seen.

I couldn't stop smiling either. It felt great to help make that happen. Sure, it was just a little girl getting to watch the tail end of a Christmas show, but still. It reminded me that making people happy can be pretty simple. It doesn't always require a lot of money, commitment or organ transplants. And it can even make your own pain less noticeable. Come to find out, it just takes a little willingness and a lot of khutspe.

2008-11-19T21:03:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Tori.

Crisis in Candyland

2008-11-18T22:15:00.000-08:00

Oh my GOSH! Would somebody PLEASE get over here right now and stage an intervention for me the way my adorably stern college roomates tried to do when I kept losing my car keys at the library and I couldn't drive myself back to the apartment and the library was too far to walk so I had to call them and they had to come get me... at midnight? The thing is, I think I may have jinxed myself a month ago when I wrote that I didn't like Halloween candy because now I seriously can't stop eating it! And I no longer have the will power to throw it out and my plan to fit in my old prom dress for my twentieth reunion is slipping through my fingers the same way those mini M&M's do when I'm frantically trying to pour them out before anyone sees me. So, please, HURRY! And bring a few mini Twix while you're at it because my supply is running low...

Port-a-Party Part II

2008-11-17T12:37:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I suggested that we take a long walk at the beach to which Lil' Miss responded, "Mom, I want to go to the beach and go potty... in the blue thing." I think I herniated a disk I was laughing so hard. When I'd finally caught my breath she asked, "Mom, what's so funny? Can't we just go to Dog Beach so I can go potty?"

I wish I'd known the entertainment value of the "blue thing" BEFORE I'd purchased tickets to see the Nutcracker.

Out with the OLD, In with the NEW

2008-11-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, a teachable moment presents itself. I really try not to botch these up. They help off-set all the stupid "Did I really just say that outloud?" moments that plague me the majority of the time. But sometimes, no matter how wise my words or how pure my intentions, the wires get crossed and the message is lost.

A few days ago, we were cruising around a shopping center and an elderly woman walked by us. I stopped the stroller and smiled at her as she slowly shuffled along. Her back was severely hunched over and her feet barely covered any distance with each step. But eventually she passed us and Lil' Miss asked, "Mom, what's wrong with her?"

"Well, sometimes when people get older, their bodies start to hurt and they have to walk slowly."

"Oh."

"Remember when you stubbed your toe this morning and you had to walk really slow because it hurt so bad? That's how old people feel. Only their whole body is like a stubbed toe."

"Oh."

"So that's why it's important to be kind and patient with them. We need to smile, wait, and help them if we can."

"Oh."

We walked on in silence and I could tell she was really thinking about it. My mind raced to the future where I saw my little Mother Teresa to-be dedicated to the cause of kindness, living a selfless life of service to the old and frail. And it was all because of ME! My patient example, my profound words.

Then Lil' Miss turned to me and said, "Mom, some people move slow because they're OLD."

"Yeah, that's right, honey."

Then she takes off running ahead of me, pumping her arms and legs as fast as she can and yells back over her shoulder, "But look at me! I move fast because I'm NEW!!!"

In Opposition to TV Naaaaaay-Sayers!

2008-11-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

And to think people really believe television inhibits the imagination... Pshaw!!!

It doesn't hurt that she has really smart toys.

Port-a-Party

2008-11-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

As a mom, there are some things you just have to get over. Like how your kids suffer temporary hearing loss when you call them to bed but can respond with bat echolocation when you slowly unwrap a Twix bar from the closet. Or when people tell you how adorable your kids are and then follow it up by saying that they look EXACTLY like your husband. Or the way they top off the bath you've just given them by dashing into the backyard to sprinkle plant dirt over their heads.

Actually, this last one has given me some trouble. I'm not "getting over" the germ and dirt dilemna as well as I'd hoped. In fact, the older I get, the less tolerable I am towards it. I wouldn't exactly call myself a germaphobe, but I'm well on my way. Ask any of our nature-loving friends who've invited us to go camping with them countless times over the years and they'll tell you they've never heard so many lame excuses come out of one person's mouth. I can only assume they still invite us because they like to annoy me.

Life as a marginal clean-freak is a strange reality for me because I was the complete opposite growing up. According to family folklore, I was part gopher or wombat as a kid. In my world, every day was Earth Day. If I wasn't digging a jacuzzi-sized hole in the backyard, then I was busy building my lucrative mud pie business, or more likely, racing handmade boats down street gutters. I remember eating my dinner in the bathtub on more than one occassion because my own family couldn't stand the sight of me at the table. Every few days my poor mom had to wrestle me into the shower because the PigPen Cloud had reappeared. My childhood nickname said it all. Rather than going for one of the obvious choices like Princess or SweetPea, my family settled on something a little less conventional. Sootsie. As in SOOT, meaning DIRT. Yeah, it was that bad.

I recently thought about this transformation from grimy girl to antibacterial adult when the kids and I joined our neighbor Linda and her yellow lab, Nettie, at Dog Beach. We were so excited to spend an afternoon playing in the sand and surf with our neighborhood pals. So excited, in fact, that I didn't really consider the details of being on a beach overrun by animals- slobbering, peeing, and pooping animals. Not exactly the ideal environment for someone who can barely stomach changing her own kids' diapers.

As we followed the path down into the sand, my heart started racing. I felt like I was going to be sick. Then we were there, within steps of the sand, sand that I suddenly realized had been ca-caed on by millions upon millions of dogs for millions upon millions of years, sand that was about to come oozing between my toes. I wanted to turn around, go racing back up the trail to the car, but Lil' Miss was way ahead of me, skipping and giggling as her feet kicked up clouds of excrement. I made my way toward her and watched as she set down her bucket of beach toys. The sight of those toys by the water reminded me that we were not only going to walk across this sand, we were going to play in it. Dig in it, roll around in it, and, in the case of Baby Dude, FEAST on it. I could barely keep down whatever was trying to make it's way back up my throat. I tried to follow the same advice I give Lil' Miss when panic sets in, "Breathe, girl. BREATHE!"

And just as I started to calm down, Lil' Miss announced, "I have to go potty!" Upon further inquiry, I discovered it was not the kind of potty that can be resolved in the ocean. I looked around, half hoping a beachfront restaurant with well-maintained bathrooms in the rear (no pun intended) had suddenly appeared, but no such luck. Only a row of port-a-potties back by the trail we started at. This was pure torture. I'd have gladly taken the rack over this.

While Linda stayed with Baby Dude, I grabbed Lil' Miss's hand and half-ran across that sand over to those bright blue potty rooms, our own private cesspool. I coached and lectured Lil' Miss the entire way and in between her huffs and puffs (because I was walking REALLY FAST) she said, "I know, Mom. I won't touch ANYTHING." In moments, we stood in front of one of the doors and I just stared at it. Not moving, not doing anything. Other than cringing. I REALLY didn't want to do this, but I also knew that my daughter really needed to "go". Ironically, this filthy stall was the only civility separating us from those beach-squatting dogs. It had to be done.

Not wanting to touch the handle, I pried open the door with my foot figuring it had already been contaminated by the sand. I will spare you a description of what I saw inside. I won't tell you about the murky substance on the floor, or the soggy clumps of toilet paper, or the trail of ants or anything else. I will only say that while I was laying down enough toilet paper to mummify an Egyptian and ranting like a crazy woman, "No! Don't touch the walls! Don't touch the seat! Don't touch ANYTHING!", I failed to notice my own girl's reaction to this glorified outhouse. She'd never seen one of these, let alone used one. And while she sat there, surveying the squalor, she looked up at me with the hugest smile on her face and exclaimed, "Mom, this is so much FUN!"

On the Tutoring Altar

2008-11-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

It's important to recognize the value of personal sacrifice. Not so much for the opportunities to build character but more for the benefits of guilt-ridden sympathy from loved ones who feel indebted to you.

Recently, I started tutoring on Tuesday nights. The deal is I drive to my students' homes for one-hour sessions while Honk stays home to watch the kids. By the time I pull in the driveway, it's usually a quarter to ten. It's a LONG day. Feel bad for me? You're not alone. Honk is not crazy about this arrangement either. As I'm leaving, he shoves a consolatory cookie in my mouth and looks at me with "I'm-so-sorry" eyes, like I'm being deployed overseas or like he's been forced to sell me to a sheik who's coincidentally in the market for a smart-alecky wife with an aversion to cooking.

Later, when I return home and walk in the front door, Honk is there, the picture of husbandly love and support. But it's no wonder why. He is only responding to me, the picture of wifely drama and pity. I am the quintessential martyr. My shoulders are sagging, my head is hanging low and there might be some deep sighing going on as well. I collapse on the couch and repeatedly use the words "tired" and "exhausting" in every imaginable context. "Man, I'm tired of the elections, aren't you?" or "Campaigning must be exhausting for the candidates..." And most of the time, I'm not making any effort at subtlety.

But the truth is Tuesday night tutoring isn't all that bad. Yeah, I'm tired, but it does have its perks. On the way to and from my students' homes, I enjoy the rare opportunity of driving in an empty car that so far (fingers crossed!) hasn't tried to kick the back of my seat or ask me "Are we almost there yet?". I also get to listen to songs with lyrics that don't involve animals playing musical instruments or animals chasing eachother around mulberry bushes or animals who are blind with severed body parts. I go to nice homes in nice neighborhoods owned by nice families with nice kids. It's actually pretty... nice.

But I see no reason why I should publicize this information. Honk's giving me the royal treatment when I get home. And the fact that it's given out of guilt really doesn't make it any less enjoyable for me. I see no point in biting hands or looking in horses' mouths. Just take it where you can get it! Last week, I came home and discovered Honk had fluffed my pillows, folded back my blankets, and in lieu of a chocolate, left a note on my side of the bed that read,

Wifie,
Thanks for working so hard for us. We appreciate you.
Love, Honk

My husband arranged hotel turn-down service for me! How awesome is THAT!!! With this kind of sympathy, I'd be a fool to open my pie hole unless it's to reassure him that he and the kids are worth all the pain of my sacrifice. Besides, a little guilt never hurt anyone. At least, that's what Bubby, my mentor in martyrdom, used to say.

2008-11-04T08:35:00.001-08:00

Dishwasher Disallusionment

2008-11-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

Turns out, somebody still has to load the dishes, BY HAND! And maybe that somebody's hands are a little busy these days with other things like say, TAKING CARE OF THE CHILDREN. I can't believe I fell for his super capacity tub of LIES!!!

Morning Hugs and Slugs

2008-11-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

The morning crib retrieval of Baby Dude is one of the highlights of my day. There is some definite crying involved, but not sad, tearful crying. It's more of an annoyed "Get-me-out-of-this-cage!" cry. Sometimes I'm glad he's not talking yet.

It takes me awhile to convince the awake part of my brain that he really isn't going to stop making all that racket, but eventually I get it, and drag my body out of bed. Lil' Miss who's been up for HOURS now, reading the paper and getting her personal things in order, is either right on my tail reminding me, "Mom. Mom. MOM! He's cry-ing!" or she's already IN the crib with him, bouncing away like a circus performer.

At first sight of me, he is smiling and doing his fancy footwork in the crib. I can't help but wonder if he's really excited to see me or if I'm just his ticket out of this place. I try to make small talk with him ("Hi, my boy! Did you have a good night's sleep? How'ya doin', little man!"), but he is clearly uninterested. He wants OUT! He's whimpering and clawing at my arms, those mechanical cranes able to hoist him up, over, and into freedom. I reach in, scoop him up under his arms, and begin the ascent. But just as his hands are within reach of my neck, he grabs on and hugs me tightly, his chubby little arms squeezed around my neck and his cheek smooshed up into mine. He is even moaning a little, like a dog being scratched behind the ear.

I soak it in and let my heart melt in my chest. This hug is pure joy and I relish in it. I squeeze him back, trying to hold on to whatever I can of this moment. It's important to take it in, enjoy it while I can, because in just a few seconds he's going to lean back, give me one of his toothy grins that could launch a thousand ships, and slug me right in the mouth.

Chip Off the Ol' Block

2008-10-29T10:02:00.001-07:00

People sometimes ask me if I think Baby Dude resembles Honk. I always answer this question with a resounding, "Yes!" But it's not just because he inherited his father's smiling eyes and mischievous grin. Their similarities extend far beyond physical appearances.

Like father...

...like son.
What is it with boys and their dirty, discarded socks? It's just a matter of time before BD is helping himself to all the cash in my purse and using my Swiss-formulated, botanically-based, dermatologist-tested face soap as body wash.

2008-10-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Surviving the Good Doctor Doldrums

2008-10-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

"Good things come to those who wait." Wise words coming from someone who's probably never stepped foot in a pediatrician's office before. I don't care how "good" your pediatrician is, no amount of attentiveness or sound medical advice from your kids' doctor is going to make up for the TWO HOURS you will spend in a crowded waiting room with a sea of boogery, feverish little people, most of whom are wiping their snot all over your orifices. That's the problem with good doctors. It doesn't take long before everyone else on the planet has figured this out about them.

Over the years, I've learned to accept our pediatrician appointments for what they are: an all-day affair that require the planning and packing of a weekend camping trip. It doesn't matter if I've made the appointment MONTHS AHEAD OF TIME, I'm still going to make lunches, pack a change of clothes, and fill a duffle bag full of the kids' favorite toys and books because we'll be spending most of our afternoon parked on those multi-colored, polka-dotted, navy blue couches that already feel like a second home.

Surprisingly, this is not the time to chat or be chummy with the other moms in the waiting room. We are all in unspoken agreement that this experience is way too annoying and exhausting to "make nice" with eachother. Besides, I don't have time for small talk about preschools or potty training. I'm busy chasing Baby Dude who's on the lam, has dashed out of the waiting room and bolted down the hall into one of the patient rooms for the FIFTIETH time. And when I am not sprinting through the doctor's office, I will play referee over the only two toys in the waiting room, toys that instigate vicious, screaming fights between stir crazy kids.

Eventually though, just as I'm about to foil Baby Dude's plan to launch a children's book into the fish aquarium, the nurse will call our name and send us back to one of the patient rooms. But, this is not the end of our doctor visit nightmare. This is where the heat gets turned up a few notches. Here we will spend yet ANOTHER HOUR waiting in an even smaller room where toys and books have been replaced by dangerous doctor tools. Think Edgar Allen Poe's Pit and the Pendulum, pediatrician style.

It's about this time that my survival instincts start kicking in. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but mothers are the GRANDMOTHER of invention. With a little creativity and a lot of imagination, entertainment in these painfully boring rooms is readily available. It just comes in the most unexpected place...

TA-DA!

No, not the bed, silly stethoscope! The crinkly white paper ON the bed! You know, that laser shield of protection against germs and diseases as your two-year-old kicks, wiggles, and wrestles all over it trying to escape from the nurse's infamous "measuring of the cranium".

If ripped off and wadded into a tight ball, that seemingly useless paper can present countless sporting opportunities like...

soccer!

and trash can basketball!

Goin' in for the lay-up! Nice shot, BD!

And if sports isn't your thing, there's always the game we call "Wig-Out"!

Lil' Miss calls this one the "Rapunzel".

For more of an international look, there's the "Aladdin".

And my personal favorite, "Little Heidi".

It also works as the "Pippi" with a little tweaking.

But our adventures in paper hair coiffing are cut short because the good doctor has arrived! Can you believe it? See how fast the time went by? I actually look disappointed when she finally walks in because we hadn't tried out the "Beehive" or the "Afro" yet. And we never got a chance to play jumprope or tug-o-war! We need more TIME!

Just as I'm contemplating how we can linger a little longer in this room, alone with that thick roll of white crinkly paper, the good doctor reminds me that the kids are due for shots today, THREE SHOTS EACH! And now nothing, not the sports, not the hair, and not even the suckers waiting for my soon-to-be sobbing children sounds good anymore.

Scheduling Conflicts at the Office

2008-10-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

I tend to be a slow mover in the morning. Of course, it has nothing to do with Baby Dude's middle-of-the-night cries from the crib or Lil' Miss's four a.m. requests from the bathroom to "Wipe me!". I'm sure it's just that I've become a terribly lazy person over the years. When I finally wobble out of bed (right about the time Honk stands in the doorway and yells, "I'm leaving now and the kids are wandering around the house unsupervised!"), I make my way to the kitchen, a place I will not leave for the next two hours. What exactly I busy myself with in there is a mystery to me. I know there are some frozen waffles involved and that I may say something along the lines of "Remember, little girl, no talking to Mommy until she gets out of her pajamas..." (something that won't happen until lunch time), but everything else is a blur.

Baby Dude, on the other hand, is quite "motivated" in the morning. In fact, he's not only gotten the worm, he's dissected it and tossed it's segmented body parts around the backyard long before the early bird has even taken its first morning stretch. Baby Dude's productivity in the day's first hours is a credit to two-year-olds everywhere. I should be so efficient in the morning! (I should also be so lucky to get a full night's sleep ever again in my life.)

Baby Dude's day begins with an early morning power walk through the park. Nothing like some physical conditioning in the great outdoors among God's creatures. My guess is he's not the only one with a raised heart rate.

Then, it's back home and into the kitchen where he whips up a quick breakfast. I encourage his interests in cooking. If I play my cards right, I won't cook anothter meal after his twelfth birthday. Ten years to go!
Then some laundry folding. He complains that he's always buried in it.

Tell me about it!

After that, he gets started on Feng Shui plans for the toy room. I'm still a bit unclear on the layout, but I'm not the genius here. One must have an eye for these things.

Next, music composition. According to today's young artists, it's all about the journey, not the destination.

And then, vocal exercises. Right now, he's belting out a deep, soulful rendition of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun".
Then some light mechanical repairs. His first published book on automotives will be titled, Caring for Your Car, Handy Manny Style.
This is followed by some research on children's literature.

And, of course, he always leaves himself a little time for emails. Now you can stop wondering who's been sending you all those anonymous chain letters. Don't forget to forward this blog to ten people!

Right about this time, I've finally pulled myself together and am ready to take on the world, or at least Albertsons. But the timing is all wrong. Baby Dude has worn himself out from his own busy activities this morning and desperately needs a nap. We won't be leaving this house any time soon. Maybe, when you boil it all down, life is really about being flexible. That and something about loving your neighbor as yourself, or whatever.

Candy-licious

2008-10-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

I love this time of year. The warm, breezy weather. The electric sunsets that splatter oranges, pinks, and purples across the sky. The changing leaves and pumpkin patches. And, to top it off, the arrival of Halloween. Yes, guilty as charged. I love Halloween. It is one of my favorite holidays. I could do without the scary stuff, but the costumes, I like.

Honk, for the life of him, cannot understand why. He's almost hostile about it, attacking me in angry whispers so a jilted Christmas won't overhear. "Halloween? Seriously? What's wrong with you?" The only reason he even puts up with "this nonsense" every year is because he knows there's a truck load of Smarties waiting for him when it's all over.

It's definitely not about the candy for me. I realize admitting this is grounds for stoning in America, but I really don't like candy. I mean, SURE, if I'm at your house and you put a bowl of M&M's out in front of me, I'm going to eat them. But, trust me, I'm not enjoying myself. I am merely showing respect to you, my host, who has graciously offered me food. But you are not surprised by this because we are friends. You already know the depths of sacrifice and suffering I will endure on your behalf. That being said, I do believe that under certain conditions I could be more motivated to do the trick-or-treating thing. If neighbors started passing out homemade brownies, cookies, or slices of chocolate cake instead of candy, I'd be knocking on their doors at sunrise, dressed as a singing and dancing purple dinosaur.

Lil' Miss, on the other hand, is very tolerant of the candy tradition. I'm not sure why. The kids rarely get any candy from me, so I'm guessing it's from all of you, our so-called "friends and family" who sneak them Three Musketeers and Jelly Beans when my back is turned.

Last year on Halloween, we took them out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood for the first time. In just under an hour, our fluttering, pink ballerina collected enough sweets to rot the teeth of every child in a four mile radius. After we had finished, we headed home, practically dragging Lil' Miss's five-ton candy basket along the sidewalk. She never took her gumball-sized eyes off of that bag the whole way.

When we finally walked in the door, we sat Lil' Miss down and set the terms of a candy deal. "You can have two pieces of candy tonight. JUST TWO!" She did not whine or protest at all. She chose her two pieces and happily ate them with a contented smile on her face. At the time, I marvelled at what an obedient and respectful child we had. In hindsight, the "look-how-good-and-easygoing-I-am?" routine was obviously just a ploy to win our trust and ultimately distract us.

Honk and I had just put Baby Dude to sleep when we both noticed things were unusually quiet at the other end of the house. We quickly headed back to the kitchen, but Lil' Miss was nowhere in sight. We checked her room. We searched the living room, bathrooms, and other bedrooms. There was no response when we called out her name. We were starting to panic and began rechecking all of the rooms of the house again. That's when I noticed them, a scattering of candy wrappers on the carpet in the living room. Then the tip of a size 6 ballet slipper from under the end table. "Lil' Miss? Come on out of there right now!" Ever so slowly, she crept out from under the table, toting a much lighter candy basket. Her face told us the whole story. Chocolate was smeared across her lips and cheeks and her wide eyes looked more greedy than guilty.

"Lil' Miss, what are you DOING? We told you two pieces. TWO PIECES! Look at all this! You disobedyed us. Is there something you would like to say to us about the candy?"

"I like it."

2008-10-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

Mother Poppins and the Birthday Cake Mishap

2008-10-12T11:37:00.001-07:00

The conversation was not going well and I was starting to get nervous.

"Lil' Miss, are you excited about the birthday party?"
"Yeah! My friends and I are gonna be ballerinas!"
"Well, no. It's not a ballerina party."
"Princesses?"
"No, honey, it's not really a dress-up party."
"Oh... A princess bounce house though, right?"
"No."
"Oh... A pony bounce house?"
"No, but the pinata is a pony."
"Oh... I know! It's a pirate bounce house!"
"No..."
"Strawberry Shortcake?"
"No. It's Curious George, remember?"
"Oh... but we're gonna have CAKE at the party!"
"No. Brownie cupcakes."
"Oh..."

And so on, and so forth. This was not boding well for the next day's party or for my children's memories of me as a party planner. I was beginning to wonder if this was how my mom felt after a birthday mishap that I've playfully tormented her about for the last three decades. Before I explain, I should probably give some background information about my mom first.

Anyone who knows my mother would agree that she's got a bit of genius in her fingertips. Whether playing a musical instrument, creating an abstract painting, sewing a quilt, or cooking a marvelous holiday meal for fifty people, everything the lady touches turns to gold. As a kid, she reminded me of one of my favorite movie characters, Mary Poppins, that heel-clicking magical mystery who was "Practically Perfect in Every Way". I marveled at the way my mom could turn ordinary household objects like paper plates, pipe cleaners, and uncooked noodles into an exciting rainy day craft. And while plenty of other kids have mothers who played the piano, I doubt any of them sat in church and watched while theirs rocked out on stage with an electric base guitar.

When the Cabbage Patch craze took off, my mom didn't go out and buy one for me, she MADE one, complete with yarn hair, clothes and movable limbs. MOVABLE LIMBS! She made most of my clothes as well. Not just because we were po (more mother eye rolling at reference to impoverished past), but because she could do it better. And right she was. My unique and stylish dresses were the talk of the playground. Except for the knitted two-piece bathing suit (a very bad idea for reasons I'm still not ready to talk about), I loved everything she made me.

But most notably, my mom is a "great cooker" and everyone knows it. How many times did my high school friends just "happen to be in the neighborhood" around dinnertime hoping for a chance to partake of her culinary delights? Without a moment's hesitation, my mom would whip up a plate for them, concocting brand new meals if necessary. I, unfortunately, did not inherit this gift. The very thought of having to feed more hungry people makes me want to beat myself over the head with a rolling pin. This beating might take some time, however, since I first must FIND the rolling pin which is probably buried in some far, dark corner of a kitchen cabinet under other dusty and lonely cooking utensils. (A rolling pin is a cooking utensil, right?) The truth is, I had no idea how good I had it in the food department until I went off to college and realized creamy chicken pot pies, succulent steaks with buttery baked potatoes, and cheesy lasagnas served with warm garlic bread don't just cook themselves in the kitchen, even if you send out good thoughts and positive affirmations to your oven.

But, as everyone knows, genius feeds on new ideas and new ideas must be tested. How else does creative talent evolve? And so, my dad, brother, and I occasionally became her guinea pigs for unusual recipes that... took the road less travelled. Most of the time, they turned out okay, but every now and then, her meal experiments resulted in cuisinary carnage that no amount of smiling or "mmm-hmmm"ing could cover up. (No offense, Mom.)

Such was the case on my seventh birthday. It was going to be the slumber party of the year, maybe even the decade. I was convinced that future second grade girls would look across the field to the upper grade playground, point in my direction, and whisper to eachother, "Yeah, there she is! She's the one who had that slumber party!" The games, snacks, dancing, and singing would be legendary. But most importantly, my mom was making the most amazing cake these girls would ever sink their baby teeth into. It was a checkerboard cake and it was magnificent! Almost too beautiful to eat. It looked a lot like this: This cake did, however, have one fatal flaw. My mom, after successfully pulling a perfect checkerboard cake from the oven, decided to "try something new" with the frosting. Now, I'm no Julia Childs, but even I could tell you this was a bad idea: sour cream cake frosting. SOUR CREAM FROSTING on a CAKE! This would make perfect sense if she was serving pieces of a gigantic baked potato for dessert, but on a CAKE? To this day, I've never seen such torment on the faces of cake eaters as I did at that slumber party. Needless to say, that exquisite cake went largely untouched and my mom has never made it since. I'm sure my tireless heckling over the years about the "Sour Cream Cake Frosting Incident" has squelched any aspirations to do so.

As for my own children's birthday party this weekend, it was a total success, despite my poor judgement in planning a party theme. Everyone came laughing and left crying. A good time was had by all. I realized though that the only reason I make such a big deal about the "Sour Cream Cake Frosting Incident" is because my mom set the bar so high. Those rare blunders are just ASKING to be pantsed right in the middle of the playground. I have to pick on Mother Poppins about something! My children will not be tempted to taunt me in this way. They will spend their childhood being surprised when I don't screw things up. And that's just the way I like it. As I've always said, "Keep the expectations low, so no one's disappointed." Words to live by.

The 409's Messin' with my Mind

2008-10-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

Few things in life give me more satisfaction than a clean house. When all the furniture has been dusted and that last bathroom floor has been scrubbed, I couldn't be happier if I'd been handed a free week's stay at the Hyatt in Kauai. Well, that's a ridiculous comparison, but you get the point. With hands on hips, a smile on my face, and the smell of 409 in the air, I stand in the middle of the kitchen to survey the sterileness, the "next to godliness". I imagine the experience is much like that of a priest's after performing an exorcism when he announces, "Brothers and Sisters, this house is CLEAN!"

I'm not at all saying that I like house work, but it is nice to OCCASSIONALLY look into a mirror and actually see your reflection staring back. Besides, l think my most interesting thoughts come to me during cleaning, especially when I close the bathroom door and allow the chemical fumes of cleaning agents to overtake my mind. Today, I was wiping down the kids' bathroom countertop and couldn't quite seem to get rid of this...

Not a modern work of art. Princess toothpaste. Princess toothpaste smeared by two-year-old fingertips which were then undoubtedly shoved into two-year-old mouth. To me, it looks (and apparently tastes) more like the insides of a jelly donut than that which protects and fluoridates young teeth. Like his older sister, Baby Dude has inherited the recessive gene responsible for compulsive toothpaste consumption. Recent studies confirm this gene is passed down from father to child.

The sight of Smeared Princess Paste brought an almost forgotten memory to mind. I suddenly recalled a holiday trip to visit Honk's family in Boston. One of our favorite experiences there was walking the Freedom Trail. I especially loved the guided tour of the Paul Revere House with its sparsely decorated rooms, Colonnial furnishings, and tiny staircases.

It was restaged by historical preservationists to look exactly the same as when he lived there, as if the Reveres had just stepped out for a quick morning stroll or cup o' tea and would be returning shortly (only to find an onslaught of strangers traipsing through their house).

I loved this room the most. The tour guide explained that their beds were not mattresses, but a series of criss-crossed ropes that were pulled tight before they slept. Thus, our often-stated but rarely-understood bedtime saying, "Good night, sleep tight."

So, why the mini-history lesson? Well, it got me thinking about preserving life "just as it was" with everything in its place like a time capsule. What if our house is someday preserved exactly as is, smeared princess paste and all, as a museum for posterity? The childhood residence of the famed modern artist Lil' Miss and the legendary quarterback Baby Dude now open to the public as a historical landmark? Hey, it's possible! I started looking around the house and at all the things in it with different eyes, trying to imagine what a guided tour of our house might be like. Let's listen in on just a segment of the tour...

"You're now standing before the artist's first work table. Lil' Miss was famous for saying that the process of cutting paper into tiny, microscopic pieces and then scattering them across an open area, say... the entire kitchen floor, helped to clear her mind and let the creative juices flow. "

"Over here, you'll see some of Lil' Miss's very first works of art. Bathroom walls served as her first canvases and pencil was her favorite medium. She said bathrooms offered her silent seclusion, a place to quietly 'slip away and create'."

This was also the time at which she first experimented with stickers, a breakthrough technique that would later become known as 'Adhesives on Mirrors'."

"Now let's step into the toy room to take a look at Baby Dude's first ball collection. That's right. Before he could even say 'Mama', he was chuckin' these spheres right at her head!"

"And it wasn't only balls that Baby Dude threw. He also trained with this round plastic toy coin to enhance his arm strength. At the tender age of two, he hurled this toy into the toilet with superhuman force. Legend tells us his parents paid sixty-five dollars to have their plumber fish it out of the pipes. Tremendous strength for such a little man!"

"And finally, I'd like everyone to gather in close to take a look at what many of you came here to see, his very first football. Baby Dude loved to clutch this sippy cup under his arm as he'd run throughout the house. A true quarterback in the making... He could spiral throw that cup across the room and nail his target, usually his family members' foreheads, with record accuracy. No doubt, he was destined for football greatness."

Okay, I admit this might be a little over the top, but it does make a person wonder. You never know where your beginnings might ultimately lead you and what legacy you might leave behind. My legacy, of course, will be "Disturbing Thoughts While Cleaning the Bathroom".

Fifty Years and Counting...

2008-10-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend my great Auntie Blossom and Uncle Harry celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Family and close friends gathered around in my cousin's living room as they renewed vows in a traditional Jewish ceremony. Amid the soft glow of candles and twinkle of champagne glasses, everyone laughed, cried, and shared stories to honor their example, the tremendous gift of their enduring love and commitment.

After the service, I whispered into Uncle Harry's ear, "So, can you tell me the secret to a long, happy marriage? He yelled back, "WHAT?!" I asked the question again, a little louder this time, and he answered matter-of-factly, "Listen to eachother. How else do you know what's going on?" Simple but sound advice. Ironic too. He was asked the same question on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and his response was, "I just ignore her." But that was far from true. It was obvious they we're eachother's best friend.

In the car on the way home, I thought about the significance of the night's event. SIXTY YEARS! Holy matrimony! That is a looooong time, almost twice as long as my entire life! As my cousin Gail said during the ceremony, "Doing ANYTHING consistently for sixty years is impressive, let alone marriage!" I looked over at Honk as he was driving and singing away to some '80's song on the radio. "Well, honey, ten years down! Fifty to go!" I may have been joking, but the whole experience did make me contemplate fifty more years with this guy.

Fifty more years of unsolved mysteries like how a devoted fan to the sport of basketball could be such a bad shot when it comes to throwing his clothes in the hamper. Or how he could seriously believe that surfing is the cure for the common cold and lower back pain. Or how saying "just kidding" two days after the fact does not technically constitute lying.

Fifty more years of wet, potting soil footprints across my kitchen floor. Of his crazy, mismatched "weekend wear". Of his nearly-naked plant watering.

Fifty more years of fearful entrances into dark rooms as he lurks behind a door or under a bed. Of shrieking screams as he dangles dead spiders and trapped mice in my face. Of his pleadings that I look at his open wound or feel his popping knee cap "just one more time".

Fifty more years of watching The Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, and, of course, The Bachelorette. Of sitting through all of his car-racing, jet-flying, and FBI-dodging action movies. Oh, dear Lord, fifty more years of TOP GUN! I don't even want to try to figure out how many times I've endured this dreaded movie over the years, Honk reciting all the lines right along with the characters like a dubbed-in karate movie. An exhausting experience for my gag reflex. All the self control I can muster barely keeps me from hurling a lamp at the television when that flight suit appears on the screen and Maverick says, "That's right, Ice man. I am dangerous."

But there's also this...

Fifty more years of backyard barbequing to the tunes of Jack Johnson. Of dinners and great conversations at our favorite restaurants. Of sunset walks, beach bike rides, and long drives down the coast.

Fifty more years of his legendary "booty dance" at wedding receptions. Of inside jokes confirmed with a look and a smile. Of witty one-liners that bring me to laughing tears.

Fifty more years of watching my children's faces light up at the sight of him. Of Saturday morning Donut Dates with Daddy. Of security knowing they'll never question his love.

Fifty more years of fitting perfectly into his hug. Of his knowing just what to say when I'm sad. Of a devoted family man and loving husband. Of a best friend.

Yeah, I think I'll keep him. It's safe to say that I agree with the great Lewis of the 1980's, Mr. Huey Lewis, when he sang, "Yes, it's true. I'm so happy to be stuck with you."

Tyson's Individually-Wrapped Chicken Rant

2008-10-07T14:35:00.001-07:00

Is it me or is this the cruelest form of packaging? As if I don't have enough problems just COOKING the chicken! Now I have to pick, pick, pick at the corner openings of these stupid wrappers which never actually open anyways. I end up stabbing them with a steak knife and wrestling apart the vacuum seal after ten solid minutes of pulling, stretching, and yanking. Now I'm all sweaty, my arms are tired, and I don't even want to eat the chicken anymore.

I would've definitely called it quits if not for a little four-year-old flattery earlier today. During lunch, Lil' Miss looked up at me between bites to say, "Mom, you're a good cooker. You cook good peanut butter sandwiches!" At this point, I refuse to argue with myself about whether or not assembling a peanut butter and jelly sandwich qualifies as "cooking". It's a compliment, something I could really use right now, so I'm takin' it. And I think I'll add this to the growing list of reasons to love her. She is right, you know. I really do have a way with spreading peanut butter across a piece of bread.

Attention, Shoppers!

2008-09-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

I love a good deal as much as the next shopper, but probably not for the same reasons. For years, I thought my frugality had to do with a sharply-disputed memory from my childhood involving a certain pair of cowboy boots. The way I remember it, my parents could not afford to buy me shoes in the third grade so I wore a pair of crummy ol' hand-me-down boots every day that year. [Cue my mother's eye rolling as she reads this.] I can just hear the exasperation in her voice as she protests, "No, Leilen. You WANTED to wear those ridiculous boots every day. We begged and pleaded with you to take them off, but you insisted on wearing them, practically wore them to BED every night. You just don't remember!" Oh, I remember, alright! I remember the bitter contempt in Bratty Becky's eyes as she looked me up-and-down on Western Day and sniggered, "I just knew you'd wear those boots today." I mean, come on! What kid WANTS to compete in the third grade's most prestigious agility competition, the Chinese Jumprope Championship, wearing cowboy boots the size of Texas?! Not exactly my idea of vessels of nimbleness.

But if I were to be totally honest, I doubt my bargain hunting has much to do with the boots (There, I said it, Ma) or with trying to stretch the dollar. For me, sales are all about stickin' it to the Man. I like knowing that in some small corner of the universe, usually the children's books section of TJ MAXX, I've got the upper hand on the free market. If I find a perfectly good Sandra Boynton board book with a few nicks in the binding, and I'm able to convince the sales clerk to mark it down a buck or two, it's as good as saying, "Ha! Take that, Corporate America! How do you like THEM profit margins!!!"

Last week, I drove for thirty-five minutes to a Mervyns out in the middle of nowhere because it had a Disney Giselle doll on sale for 30% off. Probably not one of my smartest shopping moments when you factor in the amount of money I spent driving my gas-guzzling SUV there and back, but I had my reasons. This doll, the only thing Lil' Miss wanted, HAD TO HAVE for her birthday, was no longer available in any of the stores and could only be found online where it was being sold for fifteen dollars more. Fifteen wasted dollars! Do you know how many Del Taco diet cokes that could buy? And there is no way, not even if I am led by a trail of homemade chocolate chip cookies, that I am EVER going to pay full price for something I know is on sale somewhere else. I'd sooner dip my contact lenses in tobasco sauce.

Never mind that I ended up just giving her the dumb doll on the way home, pulling the car over and untwisting every last one of those wretched metal ties from the box, just so I didn't have to listen to one more round of, "I know, Giselle. I love you too. Soon we'll be together like a real princess family..." What choice did I have? If I waited a couple of weeks to give Lil' Miss the doll on her actual birthday, she'd be lugging that box around with us everywhere we went, hugging it, stroking it, and talking to it like some crazy kid with an army of invisible friends in her head. Note to self: Don't take birthday kid with you to buy birthday present. Almost as smart as touring the L.A. King Tut Exhibit with screaming, crying, arm-flailing toddler who thinks your brilliant idea of taking a stroller nap is as poopy as her diaper. Good times, good times...

But this weekend, my sale savvyness definitely paid off. I think I proved, once again, that a mother armed with confidence and a really good coupon is a force to be reckoned with. It was time to update my boy's mug shot at the Target Portrait Studio where I have become somewhat of a local over the last few years. I arrived for our appointment with a buttoned-up, hair-slicked and wildly handsome Baby Dude, but where were my girls? Where were studio photographers Red-headed Jennifer and Pregnant-Once-Again Breann who knew my kids and, more importantly, knew my $8.99 portrait package coupon? Who's this guy? Mr. Smiley with the Mickey Mouse voice?

He ushered us back to the photo room and Baby Dude plopped his butt right down on the red light in the middle of the white backdrop. (He knows the drill.) Mickey started asking him how old he was. I was struggling to conceal the smirk on my face. How old he is? Not old enough to tell you how old he is! This is your GREAT plan to bring out my son's beautiful smile? What else have you got in that photo bag of tricks? Where's the pink feather duster to tickle his feet? Or the talking tennis ball? Tell me you've got the TALKING TENNIS BALL!!!

Nevertheless, my happy-go-lucky boy produced some of the greatest smiling shots ever, no thanks to Mickey. Photo Guy then loaded them up on the computer so I could choose which picture I wanted for the $8.99 portrait package special. And this is where most mothers go wrong. They can't just choose ONE picture. They make the fatal mistake of viewing each adorable shot as a guilt-ridden mother rather than as a hardcore business woman. I wish I had a digitally-enhanced 8x10 for every time one of my friends left for Target with an $8.99 coupon clutched tightly in her hand and returned home with a $200 portrait bill shoved way down at the bottom of her pants pocket. Ladies, photo previewing is NOT the time for tearful regrets about all the pictures you never took or bought. It is, however, the time to wear your "Don't Mess with Mama" t-shirt and to then STICK IT TO THE MAN!

But this time even I was starting to buckle. Every last one of those pictures was so stinkin' CUTE. Darn that boy and his edible face! I was seriously wavering, even considering the unthinkable- $3.99 portrait sheets! Ughhh! What was happening to me? Mickey must have seen the vulnerable look in my eyes because he immediately swooped in on me like a ravenous pterodactyl, snatched the computer mouse out of my hand, and demanded, "No, you HAVE to get this one. It would make great wallet shots and 5x7's are a must! Then some 3x5's of this one and more wallets of that one. Definitely an 8x10 of this one!" And that was all the overzealous, money-grubbing photo guy had to say to snap me out of my swindled stupor. I looked him square in the face and said, "Actually, I'll only being buying one shot because I'm using my $8.99 portrait package coupon today, thank you very much." And that was that. He rang me up, handed me my receipt for $9.69 ($8.99 + taxes), and sent us on our way.

I gave up some pretty adorable, never-to-be-seen-again shots of Baby Dude that day, especially that one of him in profile sitting on the crate. But it was a small price to pay for preserving my tenacious grit. Actually, you can't put a price on that.

Why Late Naps are not Allowed Here Anymore

2008-09-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

This is not a crime scene, but it might as well be. Few scenarios frighten me more. Upon discovery, I plunge to the ground in a heap of jumbled limbs and drown in my own tears. Any mother would if their own child had just committed this act of high treason against them.

There's no simple solution. Waking her up is easier said than done. That's because she's not really "napping". Naps are quick, light rests. This is neither of those things. It's more like a light coma. I am almost ashamed to admit some of the tactics I've resorted to in trying to wake her- shaking, tickling, tapping, tapping really hard, bruise-free pinching, hair pulling (but not yanking), yelling, and bending her body into a sitting position which I definitely do not recommend unless you enjoy watching your child's cranium snap back-and-forth like a bobble head. But it doesn't matter anyways. Sleeping Beauty is just going to keep right on doing what she does best.

So you ask, "Why such drama over a little girl gettin' some early evening shut-eye? Let the girl snooze, for cryin' out loud!" Oh, so naive!! Sleepy Head here conked out at five-thirty which means she'll be up around eight-thirty and won't fall back asleep again until about midnight. Do you know how many times I'm going to be watching Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Blossom Festival on repeat play over the next several hours? No, you're in the dark about this one, literally, because you went to bed (something I will sit here on the couch and fantasize about with my eyes open) long before Apple Dumpling finished singing her never-ending solo for the eighth time. Anyways, I just wanted to say good night to everyone.

Love is Patient. Love is Kind.

2008-09-22T08:43:00.001-07:00

Teaching Sunday school has offered quite an education for me. Besides confirming that I can't glue on a googly eye to save my life, it has also given me a Master's degree in humility. Or is it in humiliation?... Either way, I'm pretty sure I won't be awarded Sunday School Teacher of the Year any time soon.

With all my teaching experience, you'd think I'd be a pro with the little guys. I taught crazy, hormonal junior highers for years, so how hard could a dozen preschoolers be? Kids are kids, right? WRONG. Preschoolers are nothing like junior highers. They're nothing like any group I've ever worked with before. And truth be told, they scare the living waters out of me. Not individually, but as a group. The way I see it, they're just one squirt of Elmer's glue away from a mob- a screaming, running, crying mob that rises up against me in total anarchy.

The only thing I have going for me besides a gift for being obnoxiously silly while leading the group in songs (I do a mean version of "This Little Light of Mine") is a genuine enthusiasm for retelling the Bible story. I really try to get into it, not the Miss Betty kind of "into it", but, you know, into it. I figure this is the meaty part of the morning, so I better really pack a good punch while I have their attention for all of thirty seconds.

But not even my heartfelt reinactment or inspiring memory verse are any match for the faculties of a four-year-old, and soon it all starts to unravel. You can only widen your eyes, lean into their circle, and talk with a loud, airy voice for so long before they're looking at you like you've been eating the playdoh again. And if that's not enough, I'll surely blow it at the end by bringing up some over-the-top theological question like, "So, why do you think God hardened Pharaoh's heart when it was time to let His people go?" (Yep, introduce a discussion about predestination and free will by age of four... that sounds about right.) These questions are always followed by a long, painful silence complete with crickets chirping in the background. Then they start fidgeting, playing with the carpet, and picking at the scabs on their legs. Soon they'll be looking around at eachother like, "Hey, do you think ol' Frog Eyes here is done freaking out, cuz I see a highrise of blocks over there just begging me to play Godzilla."

You'd think having my daughter in the class would offer me some measure of support or solace. Not exactly. Most of the time, she's leading the rebellion. I'm pretty sure there's some unwritten law out there in the universe that says, "The children of the teacher make the worst students of all." It's sounds crazy, but it's true. At least that's what I keep telling myself because if she's actually this unruly for the other teachers, then it's time to pass on my mother torch to someone a little more qualified than myself, someone like Larry the Cucumber.

If we're all sitting in a circle on the floor, Lil' Miss is the only one sitting in a chair, five feet behind us, arms crossed and scowling. If we're singing and doing the hand motions for "He's Got the Whole World", she's giving a solo performance of "Tree Blowing in the Wind" instead, an interpretive dance she's been working on. If I'm telling the Bible story, she's clawing her way into my lap, grabbing the felt board characters out of my hand, and demanding, "I want to be Mary. I'm MARY!!!" Now that's what I call mother-daughter bonding! It's all enough to have me throwing my hands up in the air and crying out to my Creator, "Why bother?! What's the point anyway? It's not like she's even LISTENING!"

But little did I know that even while Lil' Miss was boycotting craft time and hiding behind the sound equipment during clean-up, she was definitely listening. A few weeks ago, I was having a "less-than-perfect mother" kind of a day. I'd already been busted for passing on an inappropriate comment to Lil' Miss who then ratted me out and shared it with a neighbor. (There's nothing cute about your sweet little girl saying goodbye to a neighbor by yelling, "Beat it, Barbara!". Let's just say Barbara was more forgiving about it than Honk was.) I moped around the house feeling like the most unfit mother on the planet and wondered how I could quickly change my ways. My friend Jennifer, a veteran mother of three, happened to call during this time. She's pretty smart and I usually listen to what she has to say. "Trust me. You'll stop saying it. When your kids embarrass you enough times, you'll stop." Still, I was planning my penance.

But it was unnecessary. My redemption was on its way. We were all sitting around in the living room when Honk said something mildly sarcastic, something Lil' Miss perceived as mean. "That's not nice, Dad. 'Love is patient. Love is kind'". The room instantly fell silent. We just stared at her, our eyes following her around the room like she was the angel Gabriel making a guest appearance. Finally, Honk managed to say, "Honey, where did you hear that?" To which my girl, that blessed child of light, responded with, "Mommy. Mommy taught it to me at church." I don't know where the conversation went after that. I couldn't hear anything over the choir of heavenly hosts singing sweet hallelujahs in my ears.

Unfortunately, "Love is patient. Love is kind." has lost a bit of its impact over the last few weeks. It has suffered terribly at the hands of Overkill. Now Honk and I can't so much as look cross-eyed at eachother without hearing a pious Lil' Miss chant, "Love is patient. Love is kind!" Even still, our house reigns as Most Peaceful Place on the Planet right now. No one dares to raise a harsh voice for fear of enduring yet another recitation of the Sunday school memory verse. More importantly, I've learned a powerful lesson about hanging in there and doing the right thing, even if she seems too busy choreographing her latest interpretive dance to notice. After all, "Love is patient. Love is kind."

Is This Normal?

2008-09-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

A while back, a friend sent me an email that included a video from the Today Show. It featured a seventeen-month old girl who could read. "Oh yeah, right! SURE, she can read. This outta be good!" I scoffed. But no joke, the kid was actually reading. READING! Real Words! Words that I still struggle to pronounce! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was beyond amazing. It was freaky.

Of course, I didn't have much time to marvel over this because in the next moment I was made aware of my own boy of eighteen-months who was in the room next to me performing his own kind of wonder. Ignoring the perfectly good educational toys that surrounded him, he was repeatedly slamming the door up against the wall and laughing his head off with each thundering crash.

It was hard not to play the "Let's Compare Our Kids!" game for at least a few moments. Was my boy normal? The boy who still only refers to me as "Do-pa-ba" and whose only interest in literacy is throwing my magazines into the toilet? Meanwhile, genius girl was probably smokin' her parents at Scrabble and reading bedtime stories to herself at night. I imagined her as the designated car navigator, reading mapquest directions from her carseat. "No, Mom. It clearly says to make a left first, at the stop sign. THEN a right at the intersection." What I imagined for my own son was quite different. I pictured him as a preschool escapee wandering down long hallways, slamming doors, and giggling. Should I be worried?

My mind raced to explain away the glaring disparity between the two. I convinced myself that the girl's parents, both speech pathologists, were probably using her in some type of research experiment, testing the limits of the human brain. They subjected her to countless hours of flashcard drills, withholding snacks and naps until she got all the words right. They played subliminal messages in her room while she slept, a steady stream of sight words wafting into her ears all night long. I thought about what my cousin Sarah would say about all this, "Eh, don't sweat it. That kid'll be the next Unibomber by age fifteen." Pathetically, I consoled myself that the girl was not a happy child, probably miserable, whereas happiness seeped out of every pore of my boy's body. And wasn't that more important anyways?

But the truth is that girl's mom was just as worried as I was, only she worried about different, maybe even scarier things than me. It's funny. I've spent most of my life trying to be different, trying to set myself apart from the rest of the world. And now, as a mother? I want nothing more than for my kids to be just like everyone else, disappear into that overwhelming majority we call "normal". For some reason, it just feels like the safest place for them to be right now. Maybe, once I know for sure that they're ok, I'll feel differently. But for now, I'll spend my days worrying, praying and documenting the occasional glimpse of genius.

Link to unhappy Unibomber baby who also happens to read:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23557147#23557147

POWER to the Princess!

2008-09-13T09:23:00.001-07:00

I was down on the floor playing a little game I like to call "I'm Gonna Get You!" It's your basic kid-stalking game where I slowly crawl towards them on all fours growling like a rabid dog and they run for the hills, screaming and laughing. The game usually ends with me backing them into some small corner in the house where I tickle the heck out of them. Start to finish, it's wonderful for their gross motor skills.

But then Lil' Miss bolts out of the room and moments later yells, "Mom! You help me?" She was in her room digging in her dress-up chest and flinging princess dresses over her shoulder.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"My power."

"Your WHAT?

"My POW-ER. You know. It's white and yellow?"

I have no idea what she's talking about, but just then she finds it. She's smiling and holding her Snow White cape. "Here it is! My POWER will help me protect Baby Dude when you try to 'get' him."

My dear girl has summoned the universe's two greatest powers- princess AND superhero- to protect the little brother she loves. My heart is overflowing with motherly pride.

The Love of Clean Carpet is the Root of all Evil

2008-09-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

I guess I had it coming. Who did I think I was? A new dishwasher AND professional carpet cleaning? IN THE SAME WEEK? No one's entitled to that kind of happiness. Yeah, I was asking, maybe even begging for it.

There was no question that it had to be done. In eighteen short months, my children had managed to turn our beautiful new berber carpet into a Jackson Pollock masterpiece of muddy shoe stains, dried milk trails, and jelly hand smears. My own attempts at cleaning the carpet only made things worse- soapy water stains on top of the existing dribbles and splotches. It was definitely time to call in the professionals.

Ever the bargain hunter, I spent a good few weeks gathering referrals from friends, calling carpet cleaning companies, asking for quotes, passing out after hearing the quotes, calling more companies, more passing out and crying until I finally settled on South Coast Chem Dry. By no means my cheapest option, this decision was based solely on Danielle's very convincing testimonial, a friend who is also raising a budding young carpet artist.

So a week from yesterday, Mr. Chem Dry came. He CAME, he WASHED, he CONQUERED. That David Copperfield of carpet cleaning made every last one of those horrendous stains magically disappear. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was so beautiful, so magnificent. We had new wall-to-wall carpet all over again! I couldn't stop smiling. I was tingling with joy. I wanted to shout from my rooftop, "Life is good, isn't it world?" I felt love for my enemies and compassion for the less fortunate. In that moment, I was sure my clean carpets had ended world hunger, cured all diseases, and brought about world peace. All was finally right in the universe.

Never mind that for the next two days my children found me almost unbearable to live with. I was like a museum security guard protecting an ancient relic. Gone were their carefree days of sneaking into the toy room with sippy cups and graham crackers. Their mother had been replaced by a broken record of rebukes. "Oh no, you don't! Off the carpet! Get back here with that! Sit down at the table!" But I didn't care what they thought of me. I was still high on carpet cleaning fumes. I walked around the house all day, wandering from one carpeted room to the next. I just kept staring at it and smiling, like it was a newborn baby. I couldn't wait for Honk to return from his four-day business trip so he could see what I had made happen, what beauty I had restored to our home. Surely this would confirm my position as Favorite Wife Ever.

And return, he did. Exactly two days later, we heard his car pull up and watched him walk across the grass to the front porch. Our boy had come home to us. He opened the front door and walked into the living room where we greeted him with a flood of hugs and kisses. Then after we'd shared the week's events and highlights, I giddily showed him what he had yet to notice. No, he didn't beat his chest or cry tears of joy, but I knew from the look on his face that he was more than pleased. Like me, he had given up hope that this type of clean was ever possible again. Realizing we'd been given a second chance, we renewed vows to eachother and to the carpet. "I promise not to wear my shoes on the carpet anymore." "I promise not to eat on the couch or leave drinks on the table where they might spill." Filled with new optimism, we were both committed to the cause.

And it was right about then that Honk asked, "Hey, what are all THESE spots?" My legs couldn't move fast enough to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, there was a fresh trail of dark brown marks all the way from the living room to the tiled entryway. My stomach lurched up into my throat and I gasped in horror, "Oh no! Nooooooo! GET OFF OF MY CARPET!!!" Honk practically flew from the couch to the tile. He quickly checked the bottom of his shoes and what I saw shattered my heart into a million pieces. He opened the front door where an identical trail was mapped from the porch to the grass. I never actually cried, but I believe the moaning was far worse. I couldn't move. I was frozen. I kept my hands pressed up tightly against the sides of my head so it wouldn't explode.

Honk didn't waste any time. He dropped his shoes outside and raced for the cleaning supplies. Poor guy had been home all of five minutes and was down on the floor scrubbing cat poop out of the carpet. I joined him in the cleaning, my glaring eyes nearly burning holes in his forehead. Finally, he looked up at me like an abandoned puppy and quietly said, "Welcome home?"

One week later, I think I've finally forgiven Honk for the carpet debacle. And yes, I KNOW it was not even his fault, a completely unintentional disaster that he had absolutely no control over. I said I forgave him, didn't I? Forgiven, but maybe not totally forgotten. It does seem to creep up at the most unforseen moments. A couple days ago I left a note on the counter that read,

"Honk,
Went with kiddos to market. Be back WAY before the crap on our newly-cleaned carpet disappears.
Love you, Wifie"

Some things take time. Lucky for me, I've got a good man who loves me, inspite of me. He's not going anywhere- just like that crap on our newly-cleaned carpet.

**This post is dedicated to Sarah Byrne, our good friend's twenty-year-old cat who passed away this week. She lived a long, loving life and was way too classy of a broad to do what I've just described here. You'll be missed, Sarah.

Get the Guns and Huntin' Dogs! It's Birthday Season!

2008-09-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

It's pretty safe to say (assuming I still know how to count backwards nine months) that most of our friends have included "make a baby" on their list of New Year's Resolutions over the last few years. Not only do Lil' Miss and Baby Dude have birthdays during the fall, but so do most of their friends. (By "their friends" I'm really referring to the children of MY friends. All of our kids play together and love eachother because, well... they don't have a choice.) So around this time of year, we experience an avalanche of birthday parties. I'm not exaggerating when I say Lil' Miss and Baby Dude will be jumping in bounce houses, wailing on pinatas, and stuffing their faces with cake and ice cream all while wearing balloon hats taller than their own bodies for the next ten Saturdays in a row.

As you can imagine, all of us moms are in a mad dash to get a date on the calendar for our own kid's party. This is the only time of year that the sight of an EVITE in my email folder can launch me into a tirade of truck-driving curses, knowing that one of my "stay-on-top-of-things" friends has beat me to a date. (You ladies know who you are...) And don't even get me started on the nerve-racking pressure of trying to come up with a party theme that hasn't already been done a million times before. Now add to this the fact that my kids' birthdays are only nine days apart. Seriously, how much easier would it be to combine the two parties? Maybe a Princesses and Pirates theme? But how do you convince a four-year-old princess, a very traditional princess, that pirates should be welcome, too? That given all his wild, swashbuckling adventures of looting and womanizing on the high seas, Captain Hook would actually make a far more interesting guest than let's say stuffy ol' Prince Charming? But this kind of negotiating with Lil' Miss is going to take time, some back-massaging, fingernail-painting, Pirate Booty-licking time! Time that
I DON'T HAVE!!!

While I may not have the party situation nailed down yet, one thing I do know for sure. This year there will be no sheepish, self-effacing answers when fielding questions about gifts for my children. In the past, when friends or relatives have asked what they could get the kids, I always himmed and hawed, trying to appear modest and uninterested. I'd reply with, "No presents, just your presence." Well, don't expect an idiotic response like that from me this year! That line got washed away and is floatin' down that river we call the RECESSION! Times they are a' changin'. These days I'm seriously practical and practically serious. So this year I've devised a sensible birthday list for my children that you are more than welcome to use if you haven't already dropped dead from party helium balloon inhalation:

For Baby Dude- Please, no toys. Most toys have pieces that must be picked up and put away and you all know how I feel about that. Baby Dude would much rather take a scenic drive along the coast anyways. He'd like gas cards in lieu of toys. He also loves snacks and would appreciate a gift card to Vons or Albertsons.
For Lil' Miss- She is still very much into playing dress up and is insistent on owning her own pair of black heels, a women's size 9. She feels the quality and style of Nine West or Kenneth Cole would suit her just fine. She'd also like to glam up in a fancy new black dress, a women's size 6. A gift receipt would be appreciated though, in the off-chance that she decides she would actually enjoy breathing in the gown and exchanges it for a size 8 instead. Please, nothing too revealing. She's just a kid, for crying out loud!

Hey, I know this is unconventional, but this is what THEY want. And who am I to stomp on their birthday dreams?

Love at First Load

2008-09-06T09:13:00.001-07:00

Take a good look at this picture because it's the last of its kind. In just a few short hours, the new man in my life will be here to sweep me off my feet with his Sheer Clean Wash System, Super Capacity Tub, 36 Targeted Spray Jets, EZ2Lift Adjustable Upper Rack, and Quiet Partner IV Sound Package. His food disposal and self-cleaning filter alone were more than enough to have me throwing my arms around his 24-inch frame and professing, "You COMPLETE me!"

And now I'd like you to meet the man himself, Whirlpool GU2700XTSQ...

Not to worry, Honk. It's true Mr. Whirl has a Hi-Temp Scrub Option, but there's no competing with your Michael Phelps shaven chest.

Storytime

2008-09-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

Tuesday mornings are all about Storytime at the library. Lil' Miss, Baby Dude, and I are regular patrons and look forward to our weekly dose of campy songs, clever books, animal puppets, and felt board stories. This week, we arrived just a few minutes before showtime and shuffled into the already packed ampitheatre. We climbed the stairs to the top row and found a spot with a decent view of the stage and of HER, the real reason we come here. Miss Betty.

Standing a mere four feet, ten inches tall and weighing in at ninety pounds, Miss Betty is a sight to behold. With her snowy white, bowl-cut hair, padded appliqued vest, and colored jeans hiked up a half a mile above her waist, this wiry sprite definitely looks the part. But don't let her size or age fool you. Miss Betty has the energy of an Iditarod Husky. She doesn't just sing the songs, she BELTS them. Her feet don't march, they STOMP. She doesn't speak for the book characters, she BECOMES them. Whether taking on a squeaking mouse, a roaring lion, or a honking goose, she delivers her voices as if the fate of the universe depends on it. She is so completely in her element here that it makes a person wonder if she not only works in the library, but was BORN AND RAISED in it, under the care of the she-librarians in the Children's Department. And for the record, I'm not entirely convinced she does all this for the kids. I'm not even sure she LIKES kids. But that's neither here nor there. Miss Betty has a storytelling destiny to fulfill. And while she may not high-five little Jimmy or smile sweetly at Betty Sue, she IS changing young lives, one pop-up book at a time.

But back to Storytime... Miss Betty came bounding onto the stage and immediately began her charismatic singing and motioning. Unfortunately, I knew by the end of the first song that today was NOT going to be a homerun. For some reason, Lil' Miss and Baby Dude weren't feelin' it. Miss Betty was as lively as always and the "Back to School" theme seemed interesting enough, but Lil' Miss and Baby Dude were unimpressed. They didn't sing, clap, or even honk their horns as the wheels of the school bus went round and round. They were BORED. Baby Dude leaned back against me and turned his head to the side to settle in for a nap in my arms. And Lil' Miss was hanging all over me, draping her body over my legs and sighing continuously. It was NOT going well. I found myself checking the clock every couple of minutes and even considering the unthinkable- sneaking out the back door.

But then something unexpected happened. Storytime was coming to an end and Miss Betty decided to sing a silly rendition of "The Animals on the Bus". It was all going along as you'd expect until Miss Betty began the verse, "The Seals on the Bus". Miss Betty was really getting into it, becoming very excited about clapping and barking like a seal. In fact, she was headed down that precarious path we call OUT OF CONTROL. Her clapping fins were swinging wildly across the stage and her guttural seal bark was so deafening that the kids in the front row covered their ears. She kept whipping her head back and forth like a drunk rock concert fan. The lady had lost it. SNAPPED. One too many choruses of "Skidamarink" I suppose. You could tell all the mothers were trying to pretend that it wasn't happening, that is wasn't a big deal, but their smiles began to quiver and they were all nervously looking around at eachother. It was getting noticeably quiet in there. AWK-WARD.

And that's when it happened. Miss Betty had finally gotten her attention. Lil' Miss shot to her feet, leaned toward the stage, and never took her eyes off of that batty seal. The girl was busting up. She was doubled over, holding her gut, laughing her head off. The place was eerily silent except for the uncontrollable guffaws of Lil' Miss who was practically rolling around on the carpet. Grinning from ear to ear, she cupped my face in her hands and cried, "Mom, that is one CRAZY lady!"

There's no doubt about it. My kids feel right at home with craziness, and I don't have the slightest idea why.

2008-09-01T13:42:00.001-07:00

Putting and Moving

2008-09-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've just finished folding yet another load of clothes from the endless, ever-growing pile of laundry that's haunting me in the garage. As I scoop up a stack of towels to put away in the bathroom, Lil' Miss asks,

"Mom, what are you doing?"
"Putting these towels away."
"Why?"
"Because they go under the sink in the bathroom."
"Why?"

I'm about to follow up on this question, when it occurs to me that she's not just playing the precious "I'm-Bored-So-I'm-Just-Going-To-Keep-Asking-You-Why" Game. She really wants to know why I don't just leave the towels there, right where I folded them on the kitchen table. Leave them there, FOREVER. All I can come up with is "Because that's where they go." I really don't have a show-stopping answer for her.

Then it hits me. I spend a significant amount of time, A LOT OF TIME each day putting things away, moving things from one place to another. All day long I'm collecting toys, tossing trash, gathering dirty clothes, and reorganizing. A never-ending flurry of bending down, picking up, moving, and putting away, and all for what? For NOTHING. No reason that makes any sense to them! All my "putting" and "moving" are just the works of a crazy woman, the compulsive repetitions of a maniacal crackpot. If not for the food and the love and the dance parties in the kitchen, they'd have thrown my butt out on the streets a long time ago.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes, Hold the Pancakes

2008-08-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

Making pancakes is a true labor of love around here. Not because I hate cooking (which I do), nor because I'm lousy at it (also true), but because of the level of chaos involved. From the moment the griddle crash-lands onto the burner, Lil' Miss is on the move, heading for the kitchen with single-minded resolve. She could not be more determined to get somewhere if the Mothership had landed and was calling her home. She swiftly slides a chair across the floor and warns "Watch out, watch out, people!" so she can bunker down right in front of, not next to, but IN FRONT OF, the stove.

By the time I grab onto the chair, she's already standing on it, death-gripping a mixing spoon in her hand. She's in a trance-like state, her lazer beam eyes on lock-down with the batter bowl, ready to swoop down and knuckle-slap any trespassers with that spoon-yielding hand. She looks like a deranged pirate guarding precious buried treasure.

Shaking my head, I drag the chair over while she's still standing on it and commence the measuring and pouring of the batter. There's no question who will do the stirring. It's always better if I just back away and let her carry out this little charade on her own. Holding a spoon in the bowl, she aimlessly moves her hands around in half-hearted circles, a decoy for the shameless amount of batter she is simultaneously shoveling into her mouth.

I've decided to go for Mother of the Year and add chocolate chips. But just as I tip the bag into the batter bowl, Lil' Miss lunges towards it (I'm assuming to help me pour), knocking it out of my hand and dumping half of the bag's contents into the bowl. Now I'm staring at an enormous mound, a mountainous island of brown chips jutting out of a sea of pancake mix, a noticeably small sea in comparison to the Chocolate Mt. Everest that has just erupted. I shake the bowl to even things out and now I can't even see the batter anymore. The chips are so thick it takes both of my hands firmly clutching the spoon to stir them around.

A hungry Baby Dude starts scream-crying in the middle of the kitchen floor and I start making those "ughhhh-ing" sounds, the ones I make when I am clearly stressed. It's yet another breakfast disaster. Lil' Miss, always willing to comfort those she's just driven crazy, starts rubbing my back, in beautiful batter-worthy circles no less, and says, "It's okay, Mom. It's okay. He's not crying. He's just speaking Spanish." Strangely, this somehow makes me feel better.

I'd love nothing more than to toss this defective concoction into the trash and go back to doing what I do best for breakfast- filling the food trough with Cheerios. But, as you all know, I am green now, very eco-friendly, so this is not a viable option. Instead I reconcile myself to the fact that my kids will be eating chocolate cakes drizzled with batter for breakfast. And as I watch them devouring this Sugarfest, melted chocolate smeared across their cheeks (and forehead in the case of Baby Dude), a wicked smile spreads across my face as I realize they'll be smack dab in the middle of Sunday School by the time this glucose overdose hits their bloodstream. Of course, it is not until we are walking out the door for church that I remember WHO is scheduled to teach their Sunday School class this week.

If Mothers Wrote Math Textbooks

2008-08-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

Now here's a few word problems to consider...

1. If a mother is moving east across the house, cleaning at a rate of fifteen toys per minute while her two-year-old boy is traveling west, knocking down books and chucking shoes at a rate of...so-many-she-can't-keep-track per second, at what time will mother call it quits and retire on the couch?

2. What is the probability of a mother who's already eaten ten peanut m&m's from the jumbo bag polishing off the rest of those precious morsels if BOTH kids are crying?

3. If a two-year-old has one poopy diaper and the mother only has two hands in which to wrestle down that little alligator on the changing table, how many books, toys, and goofy songs will she need to preoccupy him with until she's finished cleaning up that second viewing of yesterday's lunch at Rubio's?

4. 6. What is the ratio of time a mother spends thinking about sleep to the actual amount of time spent sleeping? Write your answer as a fraction and then go play while mother tests this one out for herself.

5. If a mother DESPERATELY needs a diet coke fix but doesn't want to get out of the car with the kids to go into the grocery store for just one measly item so instead opts for the nearby Del Taco drive-through where a silly little drink that is mostly ice anyways costs a buck fifty which is crazy when you think about how much a whole liter would cost, but, oh well, she's already there, and, oh just PERFECT, she only has a dollar forty-five and that's AFTER scrounging at the bottom of her purse, under her seat, and in the ashtray, what angle in degrees will the smile that she flashes the cashier need to be?

Michael Phelps Makes Me Itchy

2008-08-24T21:14:00.001-07:00

For most of us, watching recaps of Mr. Phelps' gold winning races during the closing ceremonies was more than inspiring. Honk was especially moved. Moved enough to get off the couch and come back twenty minutes later with his entire chest shaved off. We'll see how "slender and sleek" he feels when that tuft starts making a comeback in a few hours...

A Mind-Body Connection

2008-08-21T22:22:00.000-07:00

Why blog, you say? Because blogging is going to finally make an honest writing teacher out of me. For years, I've preached to my students about the welcoming arms of Writing, that Mother of Essay Exiles, who cries,

"Give me your frustrated, your literal-minded,
Your left-brained masses yearning to be creative,
The math-science kids of your classrooms.
Send these, the disorganized, writing test-tossed to me..."

I lecture all the live long day about how writing is just like anything else- a skill that must be practiced, worked at, and reworked. That some days it's pretty good and some days it's cat-spray-on-your-front-door bad. That it's really not as if authors walk around under a constant cloud of inspiration. (Settle down there, Stephen King. We all know you're the exception.) And that the point is to JUST DO IT, while wearing Nikes, if that helps. Too bad for me, I never believed a word I said, thought it was all just a load of... SENTENCE FRAGMENTS... when it came to my own writing.

BUT ME NOT HYP-O-CRITE A-NY-MORE. ME WRITE TOO. ME NE-AN-DER-THAL, BUT NOT HYP-O-CRITE. And now I'm a few months into this "blogging thing" and sometimes it feels good and other times feels like that stupid cat turned the handle on the front door, walked directly into our house, and peed right on my new Nikes. Tonight might be more smelly wet shoes. We'll have to see.

Now I'm just hoping that this writing muscle I've just started flexing will somehow be a positive influence on the rest of my body, preferably the muscles in my abdomen, arms, and legs... but especially my abdomen... and my upper back. If the exercised part of my mind that's writing this blog could just send a shout-out of encouragement to the rest of my body to get off it's lazy butt and go for a run, or even just a walk, at least to the end of the street FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, that would be cool. Then I would no longer have to control the urge to be violent every time Lil' Miss grabs my belly and asks, "When is the baby coming, Mom?" which makes my cells divide at a world record pace, not enough to burn any calories, but definitely enough to point in the direction of my stomach and answer her with, "YOU! YOU did this to me! You and your brother with your nine and ten pound bodies respectively that caused strangers to stop and stare in utter disbelief at the country fair's grand prize winning watermelons growing in my stomach!"

If only I could summon my Olympic hopeful eleven-year-old gymnast version of myself, the one with rock hard abs and rippling biceps who was too focused on training as if I was the second coming of Nadia Comaneci to appreciate how fit she was. Until then, it's back to Golden Spoon for another dish of consolatory yogurt to go with my three helpings of brownie topping while I rehearse the Every Monday Morning plan to get in shape.

Don't Judge a Picture by its... Picture.

2008-08-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a total newbie to the world of Facebook and know my way around there about as well as I knew the difference between Norwalk and Norway on the 405 Freeway at the age of sixteen (a story for another time...). Seriously, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm still not exactly sure what purpose it serves. I just knew that if I ever wanted to see Nikki's pictures of Africa in this lifetime I was going to have to sign up on Facebook. So please do not expect me to send you flair or to play you a game of scrabble because I'm just getting comfortable with the idea that I'm actually allowed to write on my walls.

However, I was able to add a picture of myself last week, a technological achievement of cosmic proportions. Now, before you get all hot under the collar and pipe up about how it's not even a REMOTELY accurate depiction of the Me that you know (and have grown to love?) with its post-modern, overexposed, off-centered, mysterious three-quarter turned profile, and muted earthy color palette reminiscient of an Andrew Wyeth painting, I'd like you all to know that the fact that I even had a usable picture to upload is a miracle of nature.

As you may have guessed by now, I'm a little neurotic about protecting my children's identities on the internet. There are no shortage of lunatics out there and while I may not be able to shelter them from my frozen meal disasters or the angry female folk rock music of the 90's that I just can't seem to break free from, I can limit their exposure on the internet. (Never mind the obscene amount of embarrassing details I reveal about them in my blog that they will never forgive me for which is why I'm not pushing the whole "reading" thing with Lil' Miss.) The downside is that most family pictures, some really cute ones in Hawaii I might add, cannot be used. So, do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent picture of myself, one that does NOT include braces or a pitiful version of the "Rachel" haircut, or the extra Freshman Fifteen that stayed with me way past my college graduation day?

Add to this the fact that I've been the designated family photographer since day one. So while we have eight million pictures of Baby Dude, Lil' Miss, Baby Dude and Lil' Miss, Baby Dude, Lil' Miss and Honk, there are a total of three, I repeat THREE pictures taken of me over the last four years. Two of the three pictures are non-options. They're the ones where I'm sprawled like a whale across a hospital bed in the maternity ward and I haven't slept in days or put on makeup and my body is still a mutant version of itself and I'm surrounded by machines and IV tubes hanging down around me like seaweed. It's fair to say that these photos would probably not bring about the confirmation of too many new friends. At least the types of friends I'm used to making.

So that left me with option number three, a family picture taken from a substantial distance by Nana six months ago at Disneyland. We were standing in front of the castle and right as we were all about to smile the heck out of ourselves, we heard the cries of a frantic mother looking for her lost daughter. My head snapped in her direction just as Nana snapped the picture. I was so caught up in that harrowing moment that I actually didn't even remember taking this picture until I found it on my camera much later. I immediately raced over to the mother, grabbed her by the shoulders, looked her square in the eyes and said, "Honey, nobody knows your daughter, so stop yelling her name. What is she WEARING?" After she tells me I cup my hands around my mouth and start bellowing right in the middle of the castle plaza like a squire announcing the king's orders, "Listen up! We've got a lost girl, about eight years old, blond hair, wearing a hot pink dress." Within three minutes, the little girl, albeit shaken and crying, was reunited with her mother. Now I realize that many people were looking for her, so I'm not going to take full credit for that Happily Ever After. Just partial credit, maybe seventy-five percent. Let's just say that I've never been more proud of my psychotic fear of child abduction, a gripping terror that led me to devise this remarkable (admit it, you're impressed) recovery plan.

And this, my skeptical neysayers, is why after blowing up my Facebook picture to its Greatest Magnified Capability (GMC? New photography term I've just coined, Nikki?) and steering it over as far away as possible from the head of my pure and innocent daughter who was sitting in my lap and whose image will not be shown on the internet until she is old enough to launch that WipGwoss line she's been trying out, you only see a hazy picture of my head in the corner looking away in another direction. Now don't you feel bad for calling me a pretentious avangardist?

So while my picture may very well be one of the greatest hoaxes of the twenty-first century, it's not without good reason. Besides, how many people can say that they bust a gut cracking up at themselves every time they open their Facebook profile? And one of these days I might be able to stop laughing long enough to figure out how to return that message you sent me three weeks ago.

A Miss Understanding

2008-08-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

From the hallway, I hear Lil' Miss crying, SOBBING in the kitchen. But no sprinting, dashing, or gasping was done on my part. Experience has taught me that I'd be raising my heart rate for a dropped pencil or misplaced necklace rather than a severed hand. So as I make my way into the kitchen, I yell, "Are you okay?" which of course is code for "Are you almost finished crying?" When I finally appear, she bursts into another round of tears and says, "Mom, you just make me sad!"

I'm confused, seeing as how I was on the other side of the house. But hey, anything's possible around here. So I rub her back and ask her to tell me what I've done this time. She cries, "You just closed the bathroom door!"

Now I'm in a state of total bewilderment because I thought everyone in this family was in agreement that the bathroom door must stay closed, that an open bathroom door is like a formal letter-pressed invitation for Baby Dude to wade in the toilet water. So I say, "Why, dear child, does closing the bathroom door make you SAD?" To which she wraps her arms around my legs and responds, "Because I love you."

And now I'm scratching my head trying to follow my daughter's logic and feeling a strong affinity to Honk who countless times throughout our marriage has gaped at me in disbelief and said, "I just don't understand you."

The Takeover

2008-08-16T11:55:00.001-07:00

This happens way more often than I'd like to admit. Lil' Miss asks for some lunch, some Banana Cream Pie yogurt, please. (Yes, she is slowly dipping her toes into the rest of the yogurt pool. Progress is being made.) She gobbles this down and then puts in a request for a fruit roll-up which I promptly agree to so that I can rush back onto the couch where I have been napping for the last half hour.

But re-entry into the sleeposphere is never achieved. The obnoxiously loud crinkling of the fruit roll-up wrapper has officially woken me up. Determined to hold onto some semblance of my slumber bliss, I choose the next best thing to sleep which, of course, is food. I decide on a sandwich to take advantage of the thinly-sliced smoked mesquite turkey I purchased from the deli a few days ago. After I finish making my plate, I yell out to Lil' Miss, "Do you want a turkey sandwich?" Now, I know she's going to say no , but every mother is fully aware that it's better to ask this question before you put everything away because the moment they see you sitting down at the table with your thickly-stacked turkey and cheese sandwich garnished with honey mustard pretzel nuggets and your tall glass of chilled lemonade and your excellent reading material (referred to as People Magazine by some common folk), and the big hunkin' smile plastered on your face, they're going to ask you for a sandwich.

I think I was four bites into my lunch when Lil' Miss "Whatcha Got There?" came strolling into the kitchen. I tried to play it cool, slowly chewing my sandwich and turning the pages of my magazine without ever making eye contact. But then it came. "Mom, can I have some?" I knew there was no way she would really eat a whole sandwich or even half of one so I offered, "How 'bout you just take a few bites off my plate?" And a few bites she did. And a few more. Until a small corner of crust was all that remained of my delicious sandwich. Now having worked her way through most of the pretzels, she was asking for more and while I was up getting HER more of MY pretzels, she climbed into my chair where she could have better access to the goods on my plate. I, apparently, will be sitting in the chair next to her now where my hand will be repeatedly slapped and swatted away as I reach for pretzels off my own plate.

Facing defeat, I realize there's not enough turkey left for another sandwich and anyways I'm too embarrassed now to show my face around the turkey and cheese who've both watched this entire humiliation unfold. So could you just do me a favor and tell me that I'm the one still in charge around here because I'm a little fuzzy on that point.

We Girls

2008-08-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

It's the end of a very long day. I'm wrapping up a bedtime tuck-in with Lil' Miss when she pleads, "Mom, you yay down wiff me for a yiddow bit?"

"Okay, honey. For a minute." I scooch her over and lay down beside her. She has my neck in a choke-hug and is gently kissing my forehead the way she always does, the way that makes me feel like I'm the little girl and she's the mommy. I lean over and whisper, "I love you, my girl. Do you know you're my special girl?"

"Yeah. Mom? Are we girls, you and me?"

"Yeah."

"And Daddy and Baby Dude are boys?"

"Yeah."

"And you and me and Madie and Ella are girls?"

"Mmhmm..."

"And Daddy and Baby Dude and Andy and John and Larry are boys?"

"Mmhmmm."

"And you and me and Madie and Ella and Travis, no, not Travis, and Keeli and Mrs. B are girls?"

"Yep."

And Daddy and Baby Dude and Travis and Trevor and John Paul are boys?

"Uh-huh."

"Oh... Mom! Why don't YOU try? YOU say all the boys and girls in the whole world!"

"Hmmm, that's a tough one, Sweet Pea. No can do."

As I try a bedtime departure, she wraps her octopus tentacles around my body and cries, "No, Mommy! Don't leave! You CAN do it! I promise!"

She actually thinks this self-esteem building is going to work on me, and, in fact, it does. I lay back down on the edge of her bed and now she's squeezing me so tightly that her arm muscles are quivering. In that moment, I wonder if she feels the same way I used to feel hugging my mom: like there couldn't possibly be a safer place in the whole world. I sure hope so.

Plant Guy

2008-08-09T08:51:00.001-07:00

me: Knock, knock! (You say, "Who's there?")
you: Who's there?
me: Palm Tree.
you: Palm Tree who?
me: Palm Tree who is dead because you forgot to water me while Plant Papa was gone on business.

What's that? Not funny, you say? Darn right it's not funny! What makes you think there's anything even remotely humorous about a dead palm tree? Trust me. I'm an expert in this area. No one knows more than I do what serious business plant watering is when you're left as Second in Command, not to mention what serious consequences lay in wait for those who don't take it seriously. Unless of course you'd enjoy being scorned by your husband who now only addresses you as "Murderess Madagascariensis".

I don't remember signing up for this on our wedding day, but back then he wasn't quite the palm enthusiast* he is today. Was there an exact moment that triggered this tropical fascination or did it grow slowly over time? (ha ha! a little plant humor for you...). Actually, no one is exactly sure when it all took root (baa haa! Help yourself to seconds!), but Honk's mom, Nana, seems to think it was the bonzai tree she gave him for eighth grade graduation. She said he was meticulous about his watering, pruning, and styling of that Japanese work of art. Never mind that she killed it months later, starving it to death while he was on an extended surf trip. Oh the wrath she must have endured! I feel your pain, Nana. He should have taken that as a definite foreshadowing of the type of care another woman in his life would one day provide (or not provide) his plants. Listen to the signs, people. The SIGNS!

Our own children, on the other hand, having been born into this gardening subculture, are very much at home with it. They completely understand that while they are Dad's favored children, they are by no means his only children. There are the "other kids" to attend to. Rather than begrudging this fact, Lil' Miss and even Baby Dude join in at the end of a long work day to help with the watering of the heliconias, flame throwers, ferns, purple royals, fox tails, gingers, crown shaft kings, elephant ears, triangle palms, giant fish tails, cannae lilies, and kentias with as much enthusiasm as their father. Occasionally, I sense a little jealous tension between Lil' Miss and the dypsis baronii or sometimes even the chamberonya macrocarpa when Dad pays them too much attention, but it usually blows over quickly. And one time, I did catch Baby Dude pulling and fondling the howea forsteriana fronds, but can you blame him? In the plant world, she's a hottie!

Plants and palms are as much a part of our kids' lives as goldfish crackers and Hide-and-Seek. Lil' Miss and Baby Dude are locals at Escondido plant sales where they munch on barbequed hamburgers and run up and down the aisles of ti plants and bromeliads. I swear they could probably even speak a broken form of Latin after listening to the plant chatter of Dad and other members of The Palm Society of Southern California who strut around nurseries talking like Roman senators and wearing t-shirts that say "Got Trunk?"

It's a strange, unexpected world I find myself in, but one I'm grateful for. Even though I whine and drag my feet when he steers me over to see new flowers on a plant, I'm thankful that he's "into" so many things in life. I like it that he has such interesting interests. It makes life, well, interesting. Besides, I love the smile that settles on his face when he's sitting out back on a bench staring out at his lush garden. A seriously impressive creation. And COME ON, didn't you see our house when we first moved in, the post nuclear wasteland we called a backyard? It's an exotic tropical paradise now, thanks to the fine work of Plant Papa.

So, to answer your question, yes, I am watering the kids, Honk. Love and miss you. By the way, Baby Dude is cleaning out your closet. At least that's what he's telling me he's doing...

*Is is me, or is that just a fancy word for "geek"?

Taking One for the Planet

2008-08-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

For the most part, I'm not very "green", environmentally speaking. I'd probably be considered more of a lemon-lime or chartreuse, to be honest. I'm committed to the givens, throwing plastic and paper into the proper waste recepticles, turning off lights when I remember to (or at least dimming them), tailgating car bumpers for better fuel efficiency, and conserving water by drinking Diet Coke, but that's about it. It feels a bit overwhelming to think about saving the planet when I'm mostly digging around the bottom of my purse looking for spare change so I can pay for the cheaper, nonbiodegradable baby wipes in quarters and dimes.

What happened to the vegetarian high school hippie who gave away all her perfectly good leather shoes and wore puffy-painted shirts that preached "Recycle, Reuse, or Regret!"? Where is that tree-hugging, hemp-wearing girl now? I'll tell you where she is. She's in the kitchen serving up chicken nuggets on paper plates and wiping spilled milk with a wad of paper towels. When Gore called it an inconvenience, he wasn't kidding.

But since Honk left on his business trip, I'm proud to say I've been very good to Mother Earth. First of all, I'm pretty sure I never showered yesterday. That wasn't actually planned but a respectable step in the direction of water conservation nonetheless. I didn't bathe the kids either. In fact, Baby Dude just stayed in his pajamas all day which also saved me a load of laundry and water. I also didn't cook. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and Lunchables for dinner. I'd say that's pretty energy efficient. Most importantly, I found Baby Dude sucking on an almost completely full container of contact lens solution and I didn't throw it away. What a waste of money and plastic! Now that I'm thinking about it, I might be eco-friendly after all! Now, where are those puffy paints...

A Note from Young Superman's Mother

2008-08-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Luther,

We are so fortunate to have you as our new neighbor. Thank you for helping me with Baby Dude yesterday. He runs down the street SO FAST. We like to think of him as our Little Speeding Bullet. Lucky for me you grabbed him. I'm sure he didn't mean to squeeze your arm so hard as he pulled away from you.

And yes, it's official now. My sweet, loveable boy is a "handful". Whether he's climbing on the table to help himself to a banana, throwing loose bricks across the yard, standing on the counter to turn the light switch on-off, on-off, on-off, baptising books in the bathtub, flushing candles down the toilet, or leaping tall couch pillows in a single bound, this kid is into everything. Even his sister announces his arrival into the room with, "Uh-oh, here comes Trouble!" And he's SO STRONG! Last night he disappearred for a few minutes and this is what I found in his wake.

Seriously, how did he DO that? Anyways, thanks again for your help and for loaning the kids your rock collection. What kind did you say they were? Krypto-something or other? Well, whatever. That was nice of you. Have a great day!

Sincerely,

your neighbor Leilen

Let the Games Begin!

2008-08-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

As we are just days away from the Olympics in Beijing, I realize I have begun running my own marathon of sorts. Honk* just left this morning for a ten-day business trip (Gasp! Gulp! whimper...). But we're okay here. Go home, now. Nothing to see, nothing to see... I might be ALL ALONE to singlehandedly feed, change, bathe, clothe, read to, sing for, pray with, tuck in, give milk to, tuck back in, sing AGAIN, retuck, threaten to torch every last princess dress if she gets out of that bed ONE MORE TIME, and pray with again for "Patience, Lord. PATIENCE!" while waiting for our planet to casually stroll around its axis ten more times, but don't you go frettin' over little ol' Leilen. You just stay right where you are with your feet up on the couch sipping that pink lemonade through a straw so the temperature of the clanking ice isn't too cold for your mouth. We'll be just fine. As my Bubby used to say, "Don't worry about me. I'll get a stranger to help." (Hey, you don't survive a Jewish upbringing without mastering some of the fine art of passive-aggressive guilt.)

*Honk is husband's nickname. It was Honey which was shortened to Hon but then became Honk in an email because the "K" and Comma keys are close neighbors and I think Comma was out of town that day and "K" was over feeding her cats.

A Well-Deserved Snooze

2008-08-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

I'm all for Good Samaritan sacrificial love, but mornings are hardly the time to practice that kind of righteousness. Sleep is too rare a commodity these days to go playing Johnny Do-gooder in the manana. In my experience, that miserable time between asleep and awake when a thick layer of grogginess sits on my head like a soggy diaper is better spent squabbling with my husband about who should take the A.M. shift of Peewee Patrol.

"You do it."
"No, you."
"You."
"You."
"You."
"You."

This impressive meeting of the minds can go on for days.

Morning arbitration wouldn't even exist if not for the rising and shining of a certain perky little girl who insists on buzzing back and forth between both sides of our bed announcing her morning requests: cup of milk, commencement of cartoons, morning paper... "Is it me, or is she talking REALLY LOUD? Go away, Little Girl. We're asleep." But like a pesky fly, she grows more agitated the more I swat her away.

It won't be long now before her cries to "get up" are drowned out by a certain baby seagull squawking in his crib. And herein lies the dilemna. Baby Dude must be "gotten" which means someone has to slide out of three layers of 600 count Egyptian cotton, lift a fifty pound head from a hotel goosedown pillow, and slink down a long hallway on spaghetti noodle legs that definitely haven't gotten this memo yet.

Around here you have to earn the right to sleep in a few extra minutes. Like a couple of rebel cowboys in a showdown duel, we bring out all the big guns:

"I did it yesterday."
"I did it the three days before."
"I was up in the middle of the night with them."
"I have an important meeting today."
"I have to take them to Costco. Do you have any idea how much energy that requires?"

We are pathetic, I know. But occassionally, the comebacks reach a calibur of such genius proportions that the other must kowtow in an act of submissive, bootlicking reverence. Such was the case this morning after we had exhausted all the usual suspects.

Annoyed and clearly running out of ideas he fires back with a simple, "Rise!"

Shaking my head at his sad attempt I respond, "That's it? Oh, dear me. You're going to have to do A LOT better than that if you really want me to get up. If you'd been smart about it, you'd have said something more like, 'Rise, my beautiful butterfly, like the dawn on a clear blue day!'"

Without a moment's hesitation he quips, "Rise, my vampire of the coffin, like a bat out of a dark cave!"

No question, I would be getting Baby Dude this morning.

Livin' the Dream

2008-08-04T19:42:00.000-07:00

A trail of clumpy wet sand meanders across our bathroom floor and blankets the bottom of our bathtub. To most, a disgusting word picture, but to me it's beauty personified.

It's the drop-of-a-hat decision to put on our swimsuits, lather on sunblock, and hop on our bikes to the beach. It's the smile taking up half of Baby Dude's face, the half that is not being eaten by the enormous helmet on his head. It's the giggly voice of Lil' Miss strapped in the kid's seat behind me yelling, "Move it, Sister! Daddy's way up there!" It's locking our bikes together, dropping our towels and flipflops in the sand, and making a bee line for the shore. It's Lil' Miss holding Daddy's hand as they leap and karate chop crashing waves. It's her arms squeezed tightly around his neck as he carries her past the shore break to the glassy swells where they slide up and over, up and over. It's stomping, splashing, and making footprints in the wet sand with Baby Dude. It's the look of sheer joy on his face as he scoops up a wad of mud and chucks it right at my head. It's the horrified looks of castle builders as Mr. Fee-Fie-Foe-Fum demolishes their fortresses with his tiny hands of doom. It is not, I repeat, NOT the slimy sandcrabs Daddy throws at Mommy, but it is the laughter, the smiles, and the "Isn't-this-the-best?" looks we share a hundred times. It's the perfect feeling of family completeness.

This, I confess, is either a tired mom's worst excuse for not cleaning a bathroom, or the best reason ever.

Can You Feel the Love Tonight?

2008-07-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

husband: Doesn't ice cream sound good right now?

me: (Silence. I know what's coming.)

husband: Should I go get some?

me: Sure. (Here it comes...)

husband: Ohhh, I'm SO tired. Do you want to go get some?

me: No thanks. I'm tired. It's late.

husband: Oh. Yeah. Right, right. I'll go. (Silence. No movement on his end of the couch.) Man, it was such a stressful day. I'm totally feeling it in my back. It's KILLING me...

me: Fine. I'll go.

husband: Really? Ok, but only if you want to.

me: Remember when we we're first married and you never let me go anywhere at night because you were terrified something horrible might happen to me?

husband: Yeah... Vanilla Heathbar sounds good to me.

Dude Looks Like a Lady

2008-07-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Christmas in July on our kitchen floor. Mr. and Mrs. Claus, masquerading as Grandma Lainey and Grandpa Nudge, dropped by with a jumbo-sized black trash bag stuffed to the gills with old princess gowns from our friend Jennie's granddaughter. Lil' Miss was awestruck. Dumbstruck. Movestruck. She just sat there. The phrase "She didn't know what to do with herself" comes to mind. Nearly drowning in the foofy mounds of pastel taffeta and chiffon, I could see she needed a moment in the coach's corner, "Breathe, honey. Breeeeeathe."

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day playing wardrobe assistant. Putting on the blue Cinderella gown with matching clutch bag. Now taking it off. Now the chartreuse Tinkerbell ballet suit with biddy wings. Now taking it off. Now the Snow White dress with white cape that is not quite making it over her head. Now taking it off (but not without first bracing my hand against her skull for leverage against said cape). Replacing with pink Aurora dress and crown, and so on, and so forth... All of it exhausting, but too precious and short-lived in the whole scheme of life to really complain about.

Little did we know that the Mary Poppins bag-of-neverending-princess-costumes had one final gift to bestow. One costume, nearly overlooked and discarded down at the bottom of the bag, was discovered by Lil' Miss early this morning. Not even remotely princessish, this prize find ended up providing more entertainment than any of those frilly frocks ever could. Lil' Miss decided that this little doosey was definitely going to be worn, but not by just anyone. It could only be worn by one, THE one, worthy of all its splendor. I couldn't have agreed more. I grabbed the garb and scooped him into my lap. I was prepared to do whatever it took to wrestle him into this thing, but wiggle and squirm, he did not. He wanted to wear it, knew he was MEANT to wear it. From the candycane-stripped knee high socks all the way up to the red-haired night cap, he sat perfectly still, a willing participant. A good man knows when destiny is staring him straight in the knickers.

Funny how the word "destiny" never came up in my husband's emailed response when I sent him this picture. I do vaguely remember him saying something like, "if he... crossdresser... blame you..." Oh well. It was hours ago, so it's all a bit fuzzy to me now.

Sight for Sore Eyes

2008-07-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

I'd be willing to bet that the word "disheveled" was definitely invented by a young mom. Only a young mom could come up with a word that so perfectly describes the way I look and feel most mornings. Actually, the word "haggard" works too.

This morning is no exception. I am hardly the diva at dawn. To write this, I'm typing with one hand and with the other pushing back a mop of nearly dreadlocked hair swirling around my head like a cotton candy machine. I have an inch thick line of black mascara smeared in football fashion under my eyes, and my eyeglasses are teetering on my nose at a forty-five degree angle. It's amazing my husband can stomach a goodbye kiss this morning. I know I couldn't.

Actually, the eyeglass mishap could have been prevented. As I fell asleep reading last night, I took them off by dropping them over the side of the bed. And truth be known, anything on the floor is fair game in our house. So as Baby Dude came bounding into my room first thing this morning, his destruction detector honed right in on those perfectly intact frames. I wince at the thought of BD's chubby, sticky fingers crushing its bridge and twisting each temple. Knowing my glasses the way I do, I'm sure they were cowering in his sight, screaming at decibals too high for human ears, begging for mercy. But sadly, no rescue ever came. Hours later, I found my glasses rammed between the tv and the entertainment unit, a bruised, beaten, and humiliated shell of a frame. I tried everything to revive its original shape, but there is no question now that a trip to Costco's optometry office is in order. As for the restored dignity of my glasses, well, let's just say we're still not on speaking terms.

As for my morning slovenliness (another, possibly even better word to describe my condition in the wee hours), it stands in stark contrast to the regality of Lil' Miss. While I stumble around in the kitchen playing the part of mummy from the crypt, she is all aglow, gliding through each room in a glittery pink princess gown and white flowy wedding veil that is trailing down her back. How she finds the will and where-with-all to put herself together like that each morning is beyond me. Maybe it's because these princess ensembles are not just costumes to her but the expression of her true nature. She is not just a simile of a princess, she is the whole stinkin' metaphor. Well, maybe its high time that I claim my own royal metaphor! You know, I could use a little glitter and silk myself every once in a while. And as the queen of this castle, I deserve it! So, um...does this mean I get to go shopping?

First Lie

2008-07-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

Some sounds are undeniable and this one was no exception. The unmistakeable, meat-tenderizing "thunk" of a child's punch. I quickly moved from the kitchen to the living room where, sure enough, Baby Dude was leaning over the coffee table, his back arched out and his mouth gaped open in a "Did-she-really-just-do-that-to-me?" expression. Lil' Miss was close at hand, a little too close actually. Her hands were fiddling nervously behind her back and her guilty eyes were looking everywhere but at me.

"Lil' Miss, did something happen to Baby Dude?"
"Nuffing happened, Mom. I didn't do nuffing to him."

No response came from me. I was too stunned to speak. I needed to sit down. Now I was the one asking the question, "Did she really just do that to me?" I knew this day would eventually come, as it does for most parents, so why was I so surprised, so unprepared? First smile, first laugh, first tumble, even first tantrum I was ready for, but first lie?

Ordinarily when she'd hang up her angel wings and wander from the straight and narrow, she'd always come right out with it, even if she hadn't been caught. No coaxing required. She'd climb into my lap (a makeshift confessional of sorts) where I'd wrap arms of absolution around her and offer atonement in the form of a "time out". After apologies were made and forgiveness granted, she'd return to her playing- a lighter, freer version of herself. And this, like clockwork, is the way it always went. Purge, Pardon, Penance, Play. Purge, Pardon, Penance, Play. So why the sudden need to conceal the truth? Had I been taking her pure honesty for granted? Didn't she know how important trust was in a relationship? I had to help her understand.

"Honey, let's say one morning Mommy told you that if you were a good girl all day, I'd give you a piece of cake before bedtime. So all day you did what you were told and listened to Mommy. You were SO excited for the cake Mommy had promised you. (Lil' Miss's eyes are lit up so I know I've got her.) But at the end of the day when you asked Mommy for your piece of cake I said, 'I never told you that I'd give you cake. You can't have cake!' And let's say the next day, I promised you the same thing, but at the end of the day I again refused to give you some cake. Well, you would be so hurt and sad. And maybe after a while you would stop believing Mommy about the cake. Mommy kept lying and you just couldn't trust me anymore. Lil' Miss, do you understand why it's so important to be honest and tell the truth? It's so people will trust and believe you. Now, is there something you'd like to tell me about what happened with your brother?"

"No, nuffing happened. But Mom, can I have a piece of cake?"

The Grass is Always Greener (and Naked) on the Other Side

2008-07-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

Soon after we moved into this house, my husband became obsessed with replacing our fences. The fence we share with our neighbor Barbara could hardly be considered a wall. It's more like a picket fence, a reasonable height if you're a family of dorps. As it happens, Baby Dude's window is just a stone's throw from Barbara's room and a constant source of anxiety for my husband. "We need block walls. We can see right into her room!" he rants, his voice almost reaching hysteria. He is terrified that one of these days he'll be minding his own business and happen to glance out the window only to have a "close-encounter-of-the-naked-kind" with Barbara. For some reason when I imagine this scenario she is not only naked but also dancing around the room to psychedelic music, her sagging seventy-year-old body swinging in slo-mo to the beat.

But truth be known, Barbara was actually the one who should've been afraid, been very afraid. She was the one "exposed to the exposed", if you will. Last Saturday afternoon, Barbara had taken out the trash and was heading back inside when she made the fateful decision to look up in the direction of our house. The garage door was open as it usually is on the weekends and standing amid the bikes, strollers, and surfboards that clutter our garage was my husband's stark naked body. He was apparently trying to put on his wetsuit when she caught sight of him. He must have heard her jaw hit the ground. He quickly looked up, and their eyes locked. There was no covering up and definitely no way to pull off a "maybe-she-didn't-see-me" exit strategy. What to do? He did the only thing you can do in situations like this. He said hello. I know, very "An-Affair-to-Remember/Sleepless-in-Seattle"ish but without the sentimental saccharinity or fully-clothed actors. No doubt, Barbara returned to her house, to her "happy place", a little more worldly and a lot more wobbly.

This story was not much of a surprise to me. At our old house with its monumentally tall block walls, I often found him watering the backyard plants in nothing but his ankle socks, a vision in white minus the beautiful bride and gown. He argues that he did it just to shock me, but I know better. He's a naturist at heart. Sometimes after he surfs, I find him showering au naturel in the backyard which I suspect is the real reason why he wants better fence coverage. So until we can afford to replace these fences, think twice before peeking into our backyard, or it won't just be the green grass and palm trees that you'll be admiring. Sorry, Babs. This warning is coming one week and ten seconds too late for you.

2008-07-16T20:34:00.001-07:00

A Waste is a Terrible Thing to Mind

2008-07-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

Motherhood has definitely tampered with my faculties. It's hard for me to believe that just a few years ago I was a Socrates of sorts, guiding young minds to deeper levels of critical thinking and reasoning. Now I'm lucky if I remember to zip up my pants before leaving the house, let alone think or say anything reasonable.

Take today's lunch, for example. Why am I playing verbal tennis with Lil' Miss about the order in which she consumes her food? It's all equally disgusting and terrible for her, food I would never dream of putting in my own mouth (except for maybe a few or, let's be honest, all of those shoestring fries). But instead I choose to engage. "No, no. If you want any fries you have to eat your corn dog first." (Yeah, that sounds about right. Eat the greasy, artery-constricting corn dog equivalent to a week's worth of fat before indulging in the triple bypass french fries. Mmmhmm... good logic, Mom.)

Or how 'bout the absurd amount of time I spend negotiating. "Tell you what, honey. If you let Mom write this one email, you can wear your bathing suit over your clothes when we go to the grocery store. Do we have a deal?"

Or the unimagineable things I say that would sound so ridiculous to an outsider but make perfect sense given the situation. "Lil Miss, if you brush your teeth again, you'll have to go into time out." What they wouldn't know is that our little dental hygenist has already cost me fifteen dollars this month in toothpaste replacements because of that irresistable strawberry flavor.

Or the empty threats. I know it's wrong and horrible and will probably cost me an arm and a leg in therapy bills so she can deal with issues of abandonment, but I still call out this final warning every time we're running late, "Okay, I guess we'll be leaving without you!" A frantic Lil' Miss comes tearing out of the house with every conceivable toy tucked under her arms like a quarterback gunning it for the end zone yelling, "Wait! WAAAAAIT!!!"

Who or what's to blame? Was it the massive amounts of hormones pumping through my body during pregnancy? The wear-and-tear of conversing all day with little people who ask the same question ten times before really wanting to know the answer? Or maybe karma for all the sarcastic comments I made as a young teacher about obnoxious parents who seemed so "completely unreasonable" about their students? Whatever the case may be, I have plenty of time to ponder it. I don't think I'll be leaving Crazy Town any time soon.

The Wishing Well

2008-07-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

Afternoon naps? Check. Sippy cup refills? Check. Painted pictures and assembled puzzles? Check, check. It was the long, slow part of the day in the late afternoon when time stretches out like a Salvador Dali clock. Too early to cook dinner (or so I told myself) and too late to make a trip to the park. But the natives were clearly restless, on the verge of some misdemeanor offense. Lil' Miss wandered aimlessly from room to room while Baby Dude loitered about in the kitchen slamming cabinet doors and cackling each time the pots inside clanged together. Trouble was brewing like a cumulonimbus. "Kids, get your shoes. We're going on a walk!"

In a flash, Baby Dude and I were out the door and headed down the driveway. I lugged the red plastic car stroller out of the garage and buckled him inside. Baby Dude was practically break dancing in his seat, shimmying with excitement and shaking in all directions at once. (Yes, it is possible to shake in all directions at once. Don't argue with me.) I called for Lil' Miss who soon appeared in the doorway accessorized with her own little pink stroller and baby doll strapped inside. She tore off down our walkway at a mad speed, the wheels of her stroller only making contact with the cement one side at a time. The baby doll was death-gripping the sides of the stroller as she flopped about, her meerkat eyes pleading with me to save her. Sorry, baby, you're on your own this time.

Just as we walked past our own house I couldn't help but smile when Lil' Miss asked me the question she always asks at the beginning of our neighorhood walks. "Mom, can we see the Wishing Well?"

One of our neighbors down at the end of the street has a fountain near their front door. It's a wooden water well with a hanging bucket that continuously trickles water down into the well. It's very storybookish and for some reason reminds me of the charming hillside houses I took pictures of during my travels through Switzerland. Not an edifice I would choose to put in my front yard, (preferring the cozy beach decor of soggy wetsuits strewn along our walkway), but still very cute.

Lil' Miss would respectfully disagree. She would never describe the Wishing Well as "cute" even though it's the word she uses for everything she likes and she would never reduce it to a distant memory of a place she once visited. To Lil' Miss, the Wishing Well is much more. It's confimation. It's finally the proof she's been waiting for, the union of fact and fiction, the trace of fairy dust right under our noses (or at least at the end of our street). It's hallowed ground, worthy of a whispered voice and tiptoed steps.

We quietly park our strollers in front of the house and mouse over to the Well. Lil' Miss is wearing a smile of pure joy. She is standing perfectly still, waiting and watching. Even I half expect a sea nymph to poke her head up out of the water well to greet us. As she does every time we visit, Lil' Miss asks, "Can I see it closer?"

"No, honey. It's not our house and not our garden. Let's just look from here." And while this is true, I partly keep her at a distance so the Well doesn't lose the otherworldly magic it holds for her.

Then suddenly a rumbling sound comes from the garage. The garage door is opening and a man comes walking out. We have never seen one of the owners of this house during our visits to the Wishing Well. I am nervous and embarrassed because we look strange standing so close to his front door. Sheepishly I say, "Hi. We were just admiring your Wishing Well." He seems confused and walks over to see for himself. "Oh, the fountain! Help yourself. Come any time!" He is very sweet and so I try to include him in on our secret. "You wouldn't by any chance know where Snow White is would you? I'm running out of excuses to explain her absence." He is chuckling but clearly has no idea what I'm talking about. I realize he is not ready for this yet.

As we get the babies strapped back into their strollers and head toward home, Lil' Miss pipes up , "Mom, I know where Snow White is. She's in the castle with the prince and the three dorps!" I turn my head away because I'm laughing so hard. And once again, I'm reminded that it's not my job to solve all the mysteries of the imagination. That job position has already been filled by a younger, shorter, and much more qualified person than me.

No Thanks. You Can Keep Your Stupid Rose.

2008-07-08T07:28:00.001-07:00

The only thing more surprising to me than The Bachelorette's DeAnna choosing Jesse over Jason at last night's Rose Ceremony is the fact that I actually sat and watched it. Disgusting, I know. But really, what choice did I have? If I wanted to spend any quality time with my husband last night I was going to have to share him with all those morons on the Bachelorette. After ten years of marrriage, I am still rattled by my husband's fascination with this reality show and its ugly stepbrother, The Bachelor.

Any of you who know my husband are probably scratching your heads in disbelief. Join the club. We're talking about a guy who has surfed daring waters all over the world, traveled by seaplane to remote fishing resorts in Alaska, and has snowboarded the backcountry of Utah. He's an outdoorsman, a true man's man. He greets his friends with, "Hey there, tough guy!" He's ruled by logic, common sense, and answers only to the voice of reason (which of course means I'm ignored much of the time around here). So it begs the question, "Why, why in the name of all that is masculine does he like watching this show?"

I've posed this question more times than I can count over the years. As a matter of fact, I bring it up every time he makes me sit down and watch one of these excruciating episodes with him. And with the dreamy eyes of a teenager watching High School Musical for the first time he says, "I don't know. I guess I just like to figure out which guy she's gonna pick."

So each week I sit on the couch, squirming, crawling out of my skin for an entire hour while perfect strangers throw themselves at eachother, cry like little girls (I'm talking about the men here), and declare undying love and devotion to someone they've only known for twenty days in the Bahamas. It's completely unrealistic, voyeuristic and pukey enough to make me hack off every rose in my neighbor's yard. No offense, Muriel.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out why he wants to watch it with me. I'm a nightmare. Throughout the entire show, I'm yelling at the TV and at him for making me watch it. I curse these desperate fools for their shallowness, their "ho"-ness. I scold their friends and families for putting up with it. All the while he ignores my rants and continues to watch, peaking between the stars dancing in his eyes. Every so often he'll lift up his head which has been resting amorously on the arm of the couch to invite me over for a cuddle with him, probably hoping to quiet me down long enough so he can hear what they're saying.

My only consolation is that I don't have to deal with midweek Bachelorette "rehash". That's taken care of by the girls at his office. As the ladies chat between cubicles about the previous night's episode, my husband will suddenly interject from his office across the hall, "I know! I can't believe she dumped Jeremy! He was so much better for her!" I feel nauseous just imagining the looks on their faces.

It just shows to go you that everyone, even the Chuck Norrises of the world, need a little wiggle room. Fine. Watch the stupid show. But just don't expect me to ever jump up and down over a bouquet of roses. Those flowers were goners eight seasons ago. You're better off bringing home two tickets to the Bahamas. And if you're good, I'll let you hold my hand as we ride horses along the shore, the Carribbean ocean water lapping up our legs and the wind blowing through my hair, just like on episode ten with DeAnna and Jesse.

Lil' Miss's Room- 3,584 , Leilen- 0

2008-07-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

I surrender. I am but a pawn in your tireless game. I sit here, surrounded by a pile of books, dresses, and hundreds of microscopic princess accessories that I already put away just hours ago. The fight is over. You are the undisputed victor. I give in to the clutter. I give in to the mess.

2008-07-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

The Virtues of the Babysitting-Playdate

2008-07-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

Today I did the best kind of babysitting. The kind where you're helping out a friend who loves you for it, but really it's a no-brainer. It was more like hosting a playdate because the kids are close in age and get along famously. No matter how you slice it, a win-win.

A babysitting-playdate is a great time had by all. They're playing, laughing, having a grand ol' time. And the extra bonus is that your kids have some fresh meat for their latest imaginative games. Today's "meat", if you will, was Ella, a beautiful and sweet five-year-old who is adored by Lil' Miss. Immediately after Ella's dad dropped her off this morning, the girls began their transformations into royal princesses complete with shimmering gowns, tiaras, and high heels. I'm still amazed by the immediate magical effect these princess get-ups have on them. Their necks suddenly stiffen, their noses turn up, and their chests puff out. They are also noticeably quiet, practically speechless at the majesty of their own beauty. To be sure, this is the work of the infamous Fairy Snob Mother.

After my inspection of their beautifulness, the dramatic reinactment began. As usual, Lil' Miss played the part of Sip-n-Rooney, better known as Sleeping Beauty, while Ella took the traditional role of her namesake, Cinderella. I'm not exactly sure about the details of the plot, but I know they were looking for Cinderella's lost stepsisters who must have gone through some intensive family counseling because they were now "very nice". In a strange turn of events, Cinderella swiped the poison apple from Snow White (who was probably quite thankful later on) and lay sprawled out on the floor, teetering on the brink of a "deep sleep". She did, however, experience a brief moment of consciousness in which she lifted her head and whispered, "Go get the prince!" Lil' Miss sprang into action. She raced through the house yelling, "Prince! Prince! Where are you?" She finally found the handsome suitor in his room, knocking all the books off his shelf and squealing with delight as some of them crashed into the wall. Baby Dude was oblivious to the fact that he was about to take the role of leading man in the most dramatic love story of all times. Enter the Wicked Stepmother. Fearing what this scene might lead to, I plucked him up off the carpet and called for a Popcorn Intermission.

One entirely selfish motive for sponsoring a babysitting-playdate is that I love witnessing the hilarious interactions and conversations that take place between these little people. While playing various games throughout the morning, Ella would suddenly blurt out the word "boring" which sounded more like, "Borrrrrinnnggg!", something she no doubt picked up at preschool from a kid with an older sibling. Lil' Miss soon caught on to this and tried it out herself. But somehow the word got lost in translation. "Boring" became "moring" and late into the evening we could still hear Lil' Miss yell from all parts of the house, "Morrrrrinnnnng!"

The less obvious but equally significant reason for a babysitting-playdate is that it opens a vast portal to priceless dirt on your friends. While driving Ella home today, she shared an interesting morsel from the backseat about her mother. "You know what, Leilen? One time when we were leaving Jennifer's house, my mom killed a duck. We ran over it." Actually, I think she used the word "squished". Upon further questioning, I learned that it was not the first duck her mom's annihilated. I decided to press the issue a bit. "So, Ella, what else has your mom run over?" And although nothing came to her mind at the time, it's a subject I'll gladly revisit . The beauty is I've got Ella once a week for the rest of the month. Heh, heh, heh...

A Serious "Chip" Chat

2008-06-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

Today I took the kids to lunch at Chipotle to enjoy one of their delectable burrito bowls. I scooped out a section of burrito for both kids and added a sprinkle of chips on top. About half way through the meal, Lil' Miss looked up at me with an intense, almost troubled expression on her face. "Mom, I need to talk to you about something."
"Uh, you do?" I asked a little nervously.
"Yes. I want to talk to you... about the chips."
"The chips?"
"Yes. The chips."
"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"
"I don't have anymore. I need more chips."

Aye Caramba! All that build up for a few extra chips? What kind of intensity will I be dealing with during the "Mom-I-Need-to-Talk-to-You" conversations of the teenage years? Something tells me we won't be talking about chip refills either...

2008-06-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

The "Nicking" of a Name

2008-06-24T21:31:00.001-07:00

He's not being rude and he's definitely not hard-of-hearing. If my son doesn't answer when you call his name, it's probably because he still doesn't know what it is. How could he? The last time he heard it was from a nurse as we were leaving the hospital with him for the first time. For all the hours my husband and I spent discussing and even arguing about what to call our son, his birth name never made it past the maternity ward.

I found an old email that I wrote to a friend just days after our baby was "renamed":
It was obvious (my husband) was trying to help (our daughter) feel more comfortable around her new baby brother. While holding the baby in his arms, he said, "Hey girl, come over here and check out the little dude. Can you say 'Dude'?" Without a moment's hesitation, she blurted out,"Duuude!" We were stunned. This from a girl who's hardly spoken a single word at all, who refuses to say "mama", "dada", or even "spa pedicure" for all my pleadings. To our utter amazement, she said "Dude", clear as day, with perfect pronunciation. The bigger surprise was the next morning when the baby started crying, and we heard a little voice from her room yell, "Baby Duuuuude?!!" I'm sure you can imagine the great effort (my husband) made to hide the grin on his face. She might as well have just pulled off her first barrel at River Jetties in his proud mind. I corrected her, but she just stared blankly back at me and again yelled for "Baby Duuuuude!" It's been a couple of days now, and although I have been working to reprogram the baby's birth name in her mind, she still refers to him as "Baby Dude". I've almost completely given up and have actually heard the words "Baby Dude" come out of my own mouth a few times. You know, I always wondered if my kids would end up with nicknames, but I just never imagined I'd have a"Baby Dude" less than two weeks after in utero.

2008-06-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Nighty-Night? Yeah, Right!

2008-06-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

Late last night my husband and I suddenly heard the all too familiar footsteps of our daughter as she shuffled into the room. She had her Hello Kitty blanket draped over her head and she was stumbling into everything like an intoxicated E.T. Finally, she found her way over to our bed, lowered herself down onto the floor and laid there, perfectly still in the fetal position. We shot eachother a quick, knowing smile. My husband then scooped her up in his arms and carried her back into bed. To any outsider, I know this scene would have seemed bizarre, but in this house a little sleepwalking is the least of my nighttime worries.

The thing is I never thought much about sleep before marriage and kids. I mean, really, what was there to think about? It was just something I had to do. I didn't even really like sleeping. Too much wasted time. In college, I hung a sign on my dorm wall that read, "You can sleep when you're dead!" Now whenever I think about that sign I wish I could go back in time and slap my younger self. If I'd only known then what I know now, maybe I would've used my time a little more effectively, going into a sort of sleep hibernation to store up some much needed REM's for the present tense.

Here's the other thing. Maybe I never thought about sleep because I was so good at it. I don't mean to brag, but I've always been a great sleeper. Just give me a place to lay my head and Mr. Sandman will take care of the rest. It doesn't even have to be a good place. I've been known to saw logs on any number of couches, carpets, futons, hammocks, cots, rafts, hiking trails, houseboat roofs, airport terminals (thanks for the free night, Heathrow), and according to my baby book, even dresser drawers. I will say that I wasn't fond of sleeping on Colorado Boulevard the night before the Rose Parade but that was more because I didn't like getting my head run over by a motorcyclist than because I was uncomfortable.

I had no idea that an entirely different world of sleep existed and that I was about to enter it. Rewind ten years ago to July 4th, 1998. My wedding day. The day I gave up my hand, my heart, and my sleep to the bonds of matrimony. My husband is a great many things, but a good sleeper he is not. Throughout any given night, he will toss, turn, talk, yell, fluff pillows, flatten pillows, add pillows, and chuck pillows, all within an arm's length of my face. He gives a whole new meaning to the term "pillow talk". In the beginning, it was kind of funny. I'd have full conversations with him while he was asleep. One time he kept repeating, "Kevin... Calculate, Kevin, calculate!" We never did figure out who this unknown accountant was, but to this day, Kevin continues to be the fall guy for everything in our house.
"Honey, did you leave the back door open?"
"No. It was Kevin."

In time, I even initiated my own sleep chats. They always took place when he came into the room a little too noisily after I'd fallen asleep . We had the exact same conversation every time. I'm not kidding. It was uncanny the way we repeated the same lines, word-for-word, like we were rehearsing for a play. Frantically, I'd bolt up out of bed and yell out into the dark,
"Who's there?!"
"It's me."
"Who's me?!"
"Your husband!"
"Who's my husband?"
At this point in the interrogation, he usually just gave up and went to bed, leaving me completely muddled as to who he was and what he was doing in my bedroom. He'd always recount this incident to me in the morning but I never had any recollection of it.

Things only got crazier when Lil' Miss was born. This blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked bundle of love was the antithesis of good sleep. She slept during the day and wanted to play all night. I think pediatricians refer to it as "day-night confusion", but to every young mom in its throes, it goes by a different name: sleep deprivation. We tried EVERYTHING. I fed her, bathed her, and put her to bed at the same time to establish a consistent evening schedule. I found the bath soap with the most suggestive sleep-aid label: "Johnson's Bedtime Bath, Proven to help baby SLEEP BETTER", half expecting her to nod off in the bathtub as I massaged it into her skin. I kept the lights dimmed and cursed my husband if he ever spoke above a whisper. Through clenched teeth I'd scream, "Don't you know I'm trying to create a quiet, peaceful environment for our daughter to SLEEEEEEEP!!!" Even now, all this time later, I still cringe whenever I see those onesies that read, "Party, My Crib, 2 a.m.".

But nothing worked. Weeks turned into months, and months eventually turned into a year. I started to lose my nerve. As my other young mom friends came to life, refreshed and bright-eyed from their full nights of heavenly peace, I became more and more haggard, even jittery. I could fill groceries with the bags under my eyes. I mumbled to myself throughout the day and burst into tears when I made clumsy mistakes. Truly, I'm amazed I never got into any car accidents. There should be laws prohibiting new moms to drive at all. Now I'm convinced that those "Baby on Board" signs are not to protect the precious cargo inside, but to protect YOU, the defensive driver, because you know that new mom driver is holding her eyelids open with toothpicks.

On one early morning that I had never really woken up from (because you have to actually go to sleep to then wake up...) my husband was getting ready for work and asked, "Honey, what's all over the light switch... Hey, what's all over your neck?". I glanced down to find baby poop smeared all over my chest. Yes, I was that tired. I don't think I even cleaned myself up right away, rationalizing that baby poop doesn't really smell much anyways.

We eventually resorted to the cursed "Cry-it-Out". Wag your fingers all you want, La Leche Leaguers, it WORKED! Even still, it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. I felt like a soldier stationed outside her bedroom, armed with a can of diet coke and listening for any crib ambushes she might attempt. It took ten full nights to get her to sleep. During most of those nights she cried for two hours straight. Sometimes, I could no longer hear her crying because my own sobbing drowned it out. Our neighbors gave weak smiles and claimed they "could barely hear a thing", but I know deep down they hated us for putting them through it too. Oh well, served them right for all the parties their teenage son threw when they'd go out of town.

I'd like to say that was the end of that, but it wasn't. A few months later, her younger brother was born and he also liked to party a la noche. I won't lie. I live in a constant state of mental haziness and daydream way too much about napping. And while no one in my family sleeps well, I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. I could, however, be tempted by a free stay at one of those sleep study centers...

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

2008-06-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

One of my parenting magazines arrived yesterday so I sat down for a few minutes to have a quick skim. I came across an interview with a pediatrician that really surprised me. He was asked, "Please speak for all doctors. What is the most annoying thing we parents do?" His response was, "Overreact to the little ills of childhood. American kids are the healthiest humans who have ever lived. But their parents often fear they're one sniffle away from certain doom."

Hmmmm... He really has no idea why my generation of parents are crazy paranoid about everything? I wonder if he's ever even read this magazine? I doubt it. If he had, he'd know why. Just take a look at some of the topics included in this month's issue:
Baby Obesity Risk
Is it Really ADHD?
Worms Warning
Hot Topic: Vaccines and Autism
Why Babies Need Shots
Do Babies Need to Take Vitamin Supplements?
Product Recalls
Top 7 Hazards (Of summer)
Too Much Television
Warning: Don't Drink the Water!

This one killed me. It was titled It Happened to Me: "My Daughter's ear grew over her earring!" Yep, it's true. Apparantly, a doctor had to surgically reopen the ear hole of this poor eight-year-old to remove her earring. And she can't be the only one. No, no. This story took up half of the page so there must be others, probably MILLIONS of little girls out there whose ears are slowly devouring their heart-shaped gold studs, right at this very moment. Now tell me, who has time to worry about inflated gas prices or the housing market recession when, at any moment, my children's body parts may suddenly start expanding, taking over their clothes, shoes, and toys? "Baby Dude, where's your bouncy ball? It was in your hand just a second ago..." And I'll tell you one thing, Lil' Miss can beg and cry all the way to Oprah, but there's no way she's ever getting her ears pierced. E-VER.

Sometimes reading these magazines is like being on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride where one moment it's "La-la-la, Baking Cupcakes, Summertime Games, having a good time..." and the next few pages you're bombarded by signs reading "Go back! Do Not Enter! Danger Ahead!" To be honest, I'm surprised that young parents today aren't even more neurotic than they are. With so much to worry about, I'm pretty sure the only reason I can even sleep at night is sheer exhaustion.

I could have gone on, but I'm already breaking out in a sweat just writing this, so I have to stop. I will say this: Sometimes I long for those peace-loving, easy-does-it days our parents knew, the days of pregnant smokers, babyoil tans, and carseat-less station wagons ("Just lay them down in the back. The rolling around helps put them to sleep."). Today's young parents have been brought up in a culture of fear in that we're afraid of what we know and terrified of what we don't know. It's not that we want to be ignorant, but we could definitely go for more of the bliss. I'm pretty sure that's where faith comes in and I let someone else, someone just a wee bit more in control of the situation than I am, take the reigns. Which sounds nice because I could sure use a nap right now.

Our Little Prince

2008-06-13T13:48:00.001-07:00

It takes a special guy to be the little brother of a princess. Baby Dude has already been subjected to countless humiliations he's hopefully too young to ever remember. Since his sister has two years on him, princess gowns outnumber pirate swords three-to-one. So, things can get a little confusing around here. In fact, it's not uncommon to witness Baby Dude kicking a soccer ball or throwing legos across the room while sporting a tiara. Just yesterday afternoon, as I walked one of my students to her mother's car, I looked back to find Baby Dude close in tow, swinging a metallic pink purse in his hand and wearing a silly grin.

Games have taken on a bizarre twist as well. Last night during bathtime, Lil' Miss insisted on playing "Little Baby Mermaid", a game that involves holding Baby Dude with one hand and dumping water over his head with the other. This baptism is narrated by the sweetest, most serene voice ever heard this side of heaven. Ever so softly, Lil' Miss reassures, "Here you go, Little Baby Mermaid. Here you go..."

Interestingly enough, this bathing ritual eventually helped clear up an unrelated mystery for me. It struck me as odd the way Lil' Miss suddenly gave up playing with her baby dolls while her other gal pals still couldn't seem to get enough of them. Her girlfriends, the perfect models of attachment parenting, took their babies everywhere with them while the long forgotten babies of Lil' Miss went unfed, unrocked, and unloved for weeks at a time. What had happened? Would she one day grow up to abandon her own children? Then it occurred to me- they didn't have younger siblings. Why bother with a store-bought Baby Angel Annabel when Lil' Miss was already upgraded to a homemade model of Baby Smother Brother?

It definitely explained why she could never keep her hands off Baby Dude , the squirming piglet restrained in her lap, her arms squeezed tightly around his neck. I wish I had a housecleaner for every time I heard her yell from the other room, "Mom! He's ok. He's ok, Mom!" which definitely meant that he was NOT ok. Now that I think about it, it may even explain why he was such a late walker. The poor guy was probably ready to go months before he actually took that first step but could never seem to break free from his older sister's "loving embrace". And does he scream or fight back? No, not really. Our little champ just takes it like a man, letting her mother him, and biding his time until this nurturing phase runs its full course.

When the family is all gathered together and Lil' Miss has pinned Baby Dude down in her lap again for the umpteenth time, their dad is fond of saying, "You better enjoy this now, little girl, cuz some day he's gonna thump on you." It's a little frightening how excited we both are for that day to come.

Lily Redeems Herself

2008-06-12T19:33:00.001-07:00

The name "Lily" holds celebrity status in our house. She is the beloved thirteen-year-old who lives across the street and babysits for me when I'm tutoring. I kid you not when I say my eyes well up with tears at the very thought of this young lady. She has a beautiful smile, a sweet voice, and most importantly, she has captured the heart of my little girl. The thing about Lily is that when she babysits, there is no SITTING involved. She is the Navy Seal of babysitters, running, hiding, army crawling if necessary. And no game is out of the question. I've witnessed her easily transition from a game of Hide and Seek, to sidewalk chalk, to Leap Frog, to a tea party within an hour's time. Lily has even been known to hang around and continue the game of Tree Frog or Duck, Duck, Goose long after I've finished tutoring. And if that wasn't enough to make us devoted fans, Lily gave us her old Disney Princess videos as well as a tiara for Lil' Miss to wear while watching them. She could do no wrong as far as our family was concerned.

But then a couple of months ago, Lily decided to go and have a life of her own. Her mom called informing us that Lily had made the school play and would no longer be able to babysit due to afterschool rehearsals. I immediately went into panic mode. My heart started racing and my breathing grew heavy. Lily's mom went on to say something about the musical Aladdin, but all I heard was, "No more Lily. No more Lily. Your daughter's heart will be broken. You will do the breaking." Without even hanging up the phone, I marched across the street to tell Lily how sorry I was that she would have to quit the school play. Unaware of the havoc her new acting career was wreaking in my life, she just giggled at my demand and said she'd let us know when she'd be performing. How could she even THINK of her drama when I was up to my armpits in my own?

Needless to say, we've been "Lily-less" for quite some time now. If anything, the absence of our special sitter just confirms how much Lil' Miss loves her. After all this time, my little girl still asks where "Yih-wee" is and why she can't play with her. And to be honest, I'd pretty much forgotten about the musical. Lily was so excited about the theatrical turn her life had taken but I was too busy missing her to pay any attention.

However, all that was about to change. Last Friday afternoon, Lily's mom stood in her driveway holding up two pieces of paper, tickets for that night's performance of Aladdin. "A princess story AND Lily? Are you kidding me? Of COURSE we can go!" I raced into the house and told Lil' Miss the good news. She could hardly keep her eyes in her head and danced around the room like a banshee. We quickly showered, put on fancy dresses and added some shiny pink "liploss". (One must always, respectfully, dress to impress when going to the theatre, even if by "theatre" I mean the local middle school cafeteria.)

Giddy with the excitement that only an evening of princess pageantry can bring, we anxiously drove to the school and made our way past the crowded entrance to the front row where Lily's mom was saving our seats. As we settled in, I noticed that Lil' Miss, usually quite the chatterbox, sat perfectly still and silent in the seat next to mine with her hands neatly folded in her lap. The girl was speechless! Hypnotized by the colorful scenes and props, she could barely take her eyes off the stage long enough to blink. Then the lights suddenly dimmed, the curtains parted, and the music cued. I pulled her up into my lap, wrapped my arms around her, and rested my chin on her head, taking advantage of this opportunity for a lengthy cuddle.

And although she watched most of the play peeking through the cracks between her fingers (we hadn't figured on the frightening face make-up of the genie and the monkey that only a hand covering her face could allay), my little girl was transfixed, touched by Lilymania. Almost one week later, she is still a screaming, swooning groupie of the "moozicul" and chatters on and on about how beautiful everything was, especially Lily.

2008-06-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes my own thoughts embarrass me.

2008-06-11T10:23:00.001-07:00

"I wonder if some women remarry just to re-register. Admit it. It was pretty fun..."

"I always feel so much better after a good cry. I wonder how many calories a woman burns after a really good cry, the kind of cry where your eyes are swollen shut and the pounding in your head reaches a 9.5 on the migraine scale. I would much rather have a good cry than go for a twenty minute jog..."

"I really like those stickers on the backs of cars that use cartoon people or flip flops or even turtles to represent each family member. Sometimes when I pass one of these cars, I hold my breath and slowly glance over, wondering, hoping that maybe this time I just might actually see a real family of turtles in those seats..."

"I wonder why I get so excited when I hear that a pregnant friend will deliver at Hoag. Is it the new state-of-the-art women's wing with private ocean rooms? Or the nationally-acclaimed physicians and nursing staff? It must be that I'm reminded of my own experiences there giving birth to those tiny miracles, my heavenly bundles of joy. Naaaah! It's the cranberry spritzers. Definitely the spritzers..."

"I wonder if an electronic stud finder would make a good birthday present for a girl friend going through a break up..."

"I wonder if 'Boobs Magilicutty', our eighty-year-old neighbor across the street (who never wears a shirt even if it's Decemeber and flaunts his manbreasts every time he takes out the trash) is as jealous of me as I am of him..."

I know, it's amazing I have any friends at all.

Every Last One of Them

2008-06-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

I warned him. I told him if he wanted any he'd just have to take it to work with him or he'd never even see a trace of them when he got home. I definitely gave fair warning but that guy is still going to come home thinking he's getting some. Does he just believe the best in me, think I'm a changed woman? Poor, unfortunate soul...

I do this EVERY time. It's like a tape recording that I could rewind over and over again throughout my life. I can't help myself. Each time I'm convinced it's going to be different, that I'll do better, but it's always the same. One leads to another, and another, and another...

I have a full jar of Halloween candy above the refrigerator and an uneaten carton of ice cream in the freezer, but the container of chocolate chip cookies I baked yesterday is completely vacant. I didn't even give any to the kids! I'm nervously pacing around the house and dragging a guilty tail between my legs, but the honest truth is that if given the opportunity to do it all over again, I know I would. If I think hard enough, I can still taste those chocolaty sweet bits of heaven in my mouth...

The Carrot Dance

2008-06-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Deciding what to eat around here during the day is never much of a problem. It's either going to be orange yogurt or pink yogurt. Occasionally, things change up a bit and a request is put in for yellow or even green yogurt, but that's about it. Lil' Miss is your classic picky eater. If she was stranded on a deserted island and could choose the foods she'd be left with, I have no doubt she would take, well... yogurt, of course, but also some cheese sticks (yeah, I think we've got dairy covered on her food pyramid) and Pirate Booty which would definitely come in handy if she runs into any scallywags.

Now before you look down your nose and condemn me as a rug-of-a-mother, you must know that I have tried everything short of hog-tying to get her to eat more foods. I don't keep unhealthy snacks in the house, she's rarely given desserts, and she's gone to bed hungry rather than eat the food I've made for dinner more times than I can count. I've tried the "just-three-bites" approach which later turned into the "Ok, fine. Just-two-bites" and eventually dwindled into the "How 'bout just a little nibble, Sweetie Pie?" (Thanks Tori, but apparently that method only works at YOUR house.) So, I'd finally resolved myself to the idea that she's probably not going to die of yogurt poisoning and that she'll eventually try new foods in her own time. And that's the way its been, until last night...

It was nothing short of a nutritional miracle. At the risk of sacrilege, we're talking Weeping Mary Statue miracle. While Lil' Miss was eating the aforementioned yogurt (I believe pink this time), Baby Dude and I munched on carrots dipped in ranch dressing. And then suddenly, as I snapped apart a particularly large carrot stick with my teeth, it came to me. I can't explain it. I mean, how do you explain divine revelation? I had composed countless impromptu songs before, but this one was on par with no other. It was exceptional, bordering on perfection. The melody carried an upbeat, almost ethereal sound and the lyrics expressed a soulful honesty. Huge smiles beamed on their faces as they sat transfixed by their mother who was clearly in a prophetic state. Snapping apart another carrot, I launched into the chorus again, this time adding choreographed dance moves to accompany the song. The room erupted with applause and cheers. Baby Dude immediately joined in and at the snap of his own carrot stick, the song began a third time. His tippy-toed feet marched to the beat and his arms swung back-and-forth in perfect rhythm. Thatta boy. He was definitely tracking me. This girl didn't have a chance. Sure enough, by the fifth chorus she was snapping her own carrots to begin the song and in just a short time had devoured an entire bag of those divine veggies. Oh yeah...uh-huh!

And now, without further ado, I give you, "The Carrot Dance"...

The carrot dance,
The carrot dance,
The carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot dance!
The carrot dance,
The carrot dance,
The carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot dance!

Leave the Toes to the Pros

2008-06-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

Today marks the weekly "Painting of the Nails". A far cry from the Running of the Bulls, but tradition is tradition, right? Actually, I'm not a huge fan of this activity but I doubt even you could deny Lil' Miss when she asks for "pink farkly poe-nawlish".

First of all, I really don't like being so up close and personal with my toes like that. (Does anyone?) I know they help out with balance and what not, but I just don't care to spend a lot of time with them. Not to mention, I broke a toe a couple years ago and since then things have never quite been the same. The toe decided to use it as an opportunity to redefine itself, take the road less travelled, if you will. Rather than curving downward in a gentle slope like all the other good little piggies, this one turned east, pushing up against its neighbor toe to the right. Doesn't sound too awful except that it created an unnaturally large gap between itself and neighbor to the left. In short, because of "I've Just Gotta be Me" toe number three, I have a perpetual peace sign staring back at me all day like a third eye. Creepy doesn't even cut it.

But if I were to be totally honest, the real reason I hate painting nails is that I suck at it. No seriously, I'm terrible at it and it baffles me. How is it possible that with years of practice coloring in the lines, perfecting margin doodles, and even getting the attention of a high school art teacher, I can't for the life of me keep the paint off my skin?

Meanwhile, Lil' Miss had finished painting her own hands, I mean nails, in about 2.5 nanoseconds and then began to move in on mine. "No, no," I said. "Back off, sister. Mommy's going to do her own nails this time." I wish I could tell you that today was my day, the day I exceeded even my own expectations of nail polish perfection. But it was not to be. I should've just let Lil' Miss have her way with them. At least I'd have a decent excuse to explain why my toes looked like Freddie Krueger's. The truth is she'd probably do a better job anyways.

The Trouble with Lulls

2008-06-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Every mother fears it. That unnatural silence which unexpectedly settles on a house in the late morning after all the favorite toys and books have been handled and tossed aside. It is eerie and it always, I mean ALWAYS, forbodes wickedness. So, at the first sounds of silence this morning, I sprang into action. Starting in the main rooms, I searched the living room, kitchen, den, and then worked my way through the bedrooms, darting in and out of each room like a panther. And then, finally, I found them. Actually, I smelled them before I found them. They were hiding in the bathroom like a couple of teenagers smoking out behind campus, this time trading butts for a bottle. Lil' Miss was sitting on the shower ledge massaging a glob of plumeria-scented lotion into her thighs. She was moving her hands around in circular motions, no doubt the influence of her many trips with Dad to the chiropractor. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted him. Baby Dude was crouched down in the corner, shoveling lotion straight into his mouth. His face was all contorted but he was undetoured. Maybe he thought it was an acquired taste. As I initiated damage control, I couldn't help but smile at how the silence always gives them away. "In the bathroom, with the lotion, Miss Scarlett!!"

The Charge is in Charge

2008-06-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Baby Dude locked me out again today. He so knows what he’s doing. I could feel him snickering at me from the other side of the garage door. Yep, there I was again, in my pajamas, opening up the garage, then running around to the front of the house and pounding on the front door for Lil’ Miss to let me in. It’s become such standard protocol around here that she doesn’t even ask about it anymore, just opens the door for me and goes back to whatever toy she’s playing with. The only difference this time was that I happened to be on the phone with Katy while this whole charade was being played out. When it was all over, she had the nerve to suggest I hide an extra house key in the garage. Geez! Look who’s so preachy! Never you mind the fire department incident two years ago with Lil' Miss wailing from her carseat inside the locked car and the location of the extra set of keys just beyond my mind's reach. Bottom line: I'd rather keep believing that I'm proving who's really boss around here than give in to his little antics. I showed him!!!