On Three, Kids

Change of address

2009-04-06T20:13:00.004-05:00

{crickets chirping}

No one is here.

Nope: I'm over at my brand-new blog, with my very own domain!

Go here. Now. http://www.onthreekids.com/ It's very cool. Same me (funny, sexy, insightful, enlightening, empathetic, glamorous... fill in whatever flattering adjectives you'd like), new address.

That's where I'll be posting from now on. Update your subscriptions, your bookmarks, however you find me. Tell your friends. Tell your mom. I've moved, starting now.

So go. http://www.onthreekids.com/

What are you still doing here? Go. Now. You'll like it. See ya over there.

{chirp}

Through a child's eyes and other cliches

2009-03-31T09:21:00.008-05:00

Evan drew this picture at preschool yesterday. "It's our family in our van, driving home the other night." "The other night" was the night it was 10:30 pm and we were barreling down the interstate approximately faster than the speed of light and Caleb was crying really hard and then threw up and everyone was unhappy. Anyway. Apparently Evan remembers it a little differently. Here's the art:

And here's my deconstruction, courtesy Child Psychiatry 101:

Legend:

1. This is me. I'm smiling. And I have Crazy Eyes, which is alarming. And, also, accurate.

2. This is Evan. Silly me. I thought this was Jeff in the passenger seat. Emphatic no. It's Evan and he's the same size as I am and he's enormously happy to be next to me.

3. This is Jeff. He's tiny. And sticking his tongue out. And below me.

4. This is Jensen. Inexplicably, he has no hair and bears a striking resemblance to Ike from South Park*. He also lacks much by way of facial features. Hm.

5. This is Caleb, sitting in the way back and crying what appear to be tears of blood. Which is also rather accurate at this particular point in our trip.

6. Our mysterious sixth passenger. I quote the artist here: "I really don't know who that is, Mom." It's unclear whether he really thought there was an invisible person in the van with us that night, or whether this person just showed up in the drawing. Interesting.

Evan's world is a very interesting place. Also straight out of a textbook.

_____________

* In the interest of responsible parenting I feel like I should clarify: Evan has never seen South Park. (Even though it is, perhaps, my favorite tv show.) Therefore, any similarities to Ike must be purely coincidental, which makes it a bit more eerie.

Kitchen Utensils and Marital Stability

2009-03-30T05:56:00.005-05:00

The following is an example of why I know, in my heart, that Jeff and I will never get divorced. This discussion took place during dinner preparation the other night.

Me: Man, I really hate this potato masher.
Jeff: Me too. It sucks.
Me: I think we should commit to addressing this problem.
Jeff: Yeah.
Jeff: I'm really glad we had this talk.
Me: throws potato masher in trash can

Seriously, with communication like that, what could ever go wrong?

Never mind the fact that we will probably forget to buy a new potato masher. Never mind the fact that sometime next month one of us will be looking for the potato masher and will snark at the other, "What the hell did you do with the potato masher?!" and the other will respond, "Me? Why is it always me? I didn't do anything with it. What did you do with it?" And the other will mutter under his/her breath, "Whatever. Screw you." Never mind the fact that this scenario is a very real possibility.

Okay. But here's how I really know we'll never get divorced: that argument won't matter a bit. We'll forget to buy a new potato masher for the next 14 months, and we'll bicker about it. And it won't matter at all.

People like us, we could put Dr. Phil out of work. Maybe.

Distracted

2009-03-27T13:03:00.003-05:00

Where is Teresa? Why isn't she keeping us up-to-date on the thrilling! and fascinating! details of her week? Has she abandoned us?!

It certainly has been a thrilling and fascinating week here. And I would love nothing more than to tell you about our enthralling trip to Iowa to visit grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins; or the exciting story of doing laundry when we got home; or how great it is to have Jeff home on vacation and the boys home on spring break, and how I only want to strangle them a little bit and kind of can't wait for them to get the hell out of the house; or what a great day-trip we had on Wednesday visiting more aunts and uncles and cousins and how awesome it was when Caleb cried so hard he threw up in the van on the way home at 10:30 that night; or how (after making it known how much I dislike her) I decided to devote myself to cooking only Rachael Ray's recipes this week and how much my entire family has loved every single meal so I guess I'm retracting my complaints about her; or how Caleb has decided having his diaper changed is entirely undignified so he rolls around and tries to flop off the changing table and how he manages to get poop everywhere now; or how I finally decided to quit whining and get physical therapy for my knees and the therapist broke my heart but gave me exercises that have made my butt so sore I can hardly walk, much less sit down to pee....

I'd love to tell you about all these things. But I can't.

See, I'm busy acquiring my credentials to be a Certified Computer Geek.

I am venturing into the deep, dark world of self-hosting this little blog. Which is great. (!) But it requires a bit of education on my part. My computer time right now is being spent delving the underworld of the interwebs.

Sadly, then, I don't have time to tell you all the things I just told you about.

Back to learning about FTP. Or whatever it's called. Next thing you know I'll being playing World of Warcraft. Or hacking Gymboree. Or Pottery Barn. It's a slippery slope, this computer business.

In our own backyard

2009-03-26T09:38:00.004-05:00

I'm so proud of Jensen. He's growing up, and he's reached a new developmental milestone: he's completely embarrassed by me. I'm an outcast. Awesome.

When I visit his classroom, I can see the excitement in his eyes. But he plays it cool, keeping his distance. He definitely doesn't want anyone else to know he's happy to see his mother. And public displays of affection have been completely outlawed. Yeah, it hurts, but it's okay; it's normal. And it gives me some power over him. When he gets a little uppity, I can put him in his place by whispering, "I love you." He immediately panics and dies a little inside and looks around to make sure none of his friends heard me.

In the confines of our home, though, he still lets himself be a little boy sometimes. Still needs hugs. Still wants to hold my hand. But only sometimes. We caught some of these increasingly-rare moments on film last week, but I had to promise not to show these photos to any of his friends. He's safe, as long as no eight-year-old boys read my blog (which would be very weird).

This kid-formerly-known-as-cuddly, he makes my heart sing.

In which I alienate half of my family

2009-03-23T23:02:00.009-05:00

So there we were last weekend, watching basketball. Lots of basketball. Too much basketball. Perhaps everyone got a little tired of basketball.

Maybe because we were bored, we had a drink. Or two. Or three. The conversation started to get a little strange. Before I knew it, in an odd convergence of pop-cultural references, we were discussing basketball, Twitter, Howie Long, "On Golden Pond," and Rosie O'Donnell.

But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was when my brother-in-law Dustin felt compelled to share (out of the clear blue sky): "You know, I think Stephen Colbert is my man-crush."

It immediately got stranger when my husband added, "I'd have to say that, from an avuncular* standpoint, Warren Buffet is my mine."

All I can say is that I love it when people hand me blog posts on a silver platter.

_________
*Avuncular meaning "like an uncle." Truly, I don't want to know why my husband associates "uncle-like" with bromance. Do not think for a minute that this doesn't disturb me.

Oh, and my sincerest apologies to Stephen Colbert, Warren Buffet, and Photoshop.

Oh, and: Truce?

Death by Five Iron

2009-03-22T19:48:00.003-05:00

Last night I had the opportunity to play Wii Golf. Most people wouldn't guess that I was on the golf team in high school. Nor would they guess that I was a bit of a cheerleader. But I was both. And I'll tell you what: that Wii Golf is a (frighteningly) realistic game.

In tenth grade, for reasons even I don't understand, I joined the golf team. I lived in a tiny, nine-hole-course-in-the-middle-of-a-cornfield kind of town. You didn't have to try out for the team, although I'm guessing they re-thought that policy after I left.

I had never even teed off, much less played nine holes, much less eighteen. My parents weren't small-town country club people, so I hadn't even golfed casually. But I'm a quick study and I was determined, so I got myself a cheap set of clubs and hit the links.

It. Sucked.

It was boring. God, was it boring. (The only thing more mind-numbing than watching golf on television is actually playing golf.) It took hours of my time after school every night. Because it was Iowa in the spring, it was freezing. We had fluorescent golf balls because sometimes it snowed. The coach was 27 different kinds of mean. And most of all, I was the worst golfer who ever golfed.

I'm not just saying that for effect or to be modest. If memory serves me correctly, my career best score on a podunk nine-hole course was 97. (Which may also be my career best bowling score. Coincidence? I think not.)

But I wasn't a quitter. I stuck with it.

For a while.

Until The Meet Which Shall Remain Nameless, in a town about an hour away. I was assigned to golf with three girls from the other school, which for a 16-year-old girl is a fate worse than death. I hit divot after divot, lost ball after ball. I got so mad that I threw my club, which the coach conveniently witnessed. (He yelled at me.) It was 45 degrees and I was miserable.

I was down to my very last ball. And I hit it. Into the creek.

There was no choice but to retrieve it. So I climbed down the muddy banks of the creek, reached over to get my ball... and fell into the water.

Immediately I decided I didn't really need that ball. Because right then and there, I realized my brief but storied golf career was over. I climbed out of the water, grabbed my clubs, and turned my back on a life of pseudo-elite ugly shoes and stupid little skirts and sun visors. I walked quietly back to the bus and that's where I sat until it was time for the long ride home.

So back to Wii Golf, last night. We played for a while, and I finished 14 over par. After two holes.

Like I said: realistic.

What's The Deal With That?

2009-03-18T06:31:00.008-05:00

There we were, innocently looking for oatmeal in the cereal aisle. And this geriatric-ish lady who was apparently looking for All-Bran (or whatever, but I'm pretty sure she looked like the All-Bran type), smiled at my kids. And said to me, "Don't you think the baby is a little fat?"

WTF?! I didn't say that out loud. And I'm pretty sure I didn't kick her in the nuts. But I could have.

The thing is, she's not the first person to make that observation. Several people have said it, even family members. Can someone please explain to me why people think it's okay to say something like that?

Even if he were fat, is there some kind of alternate universe where it's okay to point that out? Did I miss some sort of loophole in Decency 101? Even my four-year-old knows better than to say things like this. I think. I hope.

But: he's not fat. He's perfect. Of course, as his mother, I am genetically required to think that. You judge. Is his baby chub so alarming that you would ever feel compelled to call it to my attention?

Nope, didn't think so.

People: he's a toddler. Last I knew, they are not supposed to be anorexic.

He used to be anorexic. This is the same baby who weighed six and a half scrawny pounds until he was two months old. It took him that long to gain any weight. He was bony. And bony babies are frightening. So chubby? Seems especially gratifying on him.

I pay very little attention to growth curves. But I have to have some defense against people who apparently have no control over what they say. His numbers? As of yesterday, he is in the 75th percentile for height and 60th percentile for weight. See? He's actually underweight! He's practically wasting away, for God's sake. Take that, All-Bran Lady.

So: what's the deal with people thinking it's okay to say things like that?

And, um, what's the deal with me being so sensitive about it?

Supermommy (who has amazing Photoshop skills, by the way) is hosting a new feature: "What's the Deal with That?" Wednesday. Check out more entries (or rants, as the case may be) here.

Smile

2009-03-17T06:45:00.000-05:00

These are some of my school portraits. My impulse is to try to narrate these photos. I want to write about them and capture what happened to me. I want to put words to it all.

But I don't think I need to.

1974, age four

1975, age five

1976, age six

1977, age seven

1978, age eight

1979, age nine

1980, age ten

And that was me. That is me.

Do I need to tell you that my mother sewed most of those clothes, and that I adored them? Do I need to tell you that, starting when I was eight, the photographers always positioned me very carefully in order to hide the massive defect lurking on the left side of my neck? Do I need to tell you how much I hated Picture Day?

Do I need to tell you that these pictures still hurt?

No.

But I should tell you this. My eight-year-old looked at these photos. And he became quiet and was obviously confused. "What happened, Mom? Why were you so sad? Why did you stop smiling?" he asked.

My response surprised me a little. Because even though I had tears in my eyes, I smiled at him. Not an awkward smile. Not a pacifying smile. Not a fake smile.

I smiled genuinely, with almost overwhelming happiness. Because even though the pain of that little girl is still a part of me, I made it. The tumor didn't kill me. The sadness didn't kill me. I made it.

And now? Now I smile.

A nooth gwush on my tooth bwush

2009-03-13T16:40:00.003-05:00

Evan has conquered the "l!" No longer do we hear "wego" instead of "lego" or "wike" instead of "like" or "heh-wo" instead of "hello." Nope. He is the master of the "l."

The "r?" Not quite.

Red is "wed." "Tired" is "ti-uwd." "Crazy" is "cwazy." And so on.

So the other day I had a bit of a jolt when he said to me, with no prior warning, "There's a wocket in my pocket."

Ahem. My first thought was, honestly, "That, dear Evan, is too much information."

Turns out he was innocently mentioning the Dr. Seuss book. Really, I wish he'd give me a little context before he brings up things like that.

These days

2009-03-12T15:12:00.005-05:00

Hey, you know what a stay-at-home-mother of a free-range toddler accomplishes during the day? Not a damn thing. Know what a stay-at-home-mother of a free-range toddler who has cut back to one nap a day accomplishes? Exactly half of not a damn thing.

It's been a long week, and I've concluded I'm a slow learner. Because this toddler-induced-havoc is no easier for me now than it was seven years ago.

Call it Chaos Equilibrium. My house is a mess. But it's probably less messy than it would be if I tried to actually clean it up. So in the interest of losing as little ground as possible, not to mention my toddler's safety, I've just thrown in the towel. I know this will pass. But until it does, I'm going to feel like a massive failure.

Here's a (very) abbreviated list of all the things I don't do anymore. It's awesome.

Unload the dishwasher. I can't open the dishwasher, because Caleb loves nothing more than to crawl inside and pull out, say, knives. Or (if the dishes therein are dirty) he makes a snack from day-old sour cream and dessicated chicken. The corollary here, of course, is that I can't load the dishwasher either. Which means that dirty dishes pile up on the counter all day long, mocking my worthlessness every time I enter the kitchen. I swear I can actually hear the dishes laughing at me. (Or perhaps that's because I'm delusional. Whatever.)

Nourish myself. I'll go to the ends of the earth to make sure my kids get whole grains and fresh fruits and/or vegetables at every meal. Meanwhile, my lunch yesterday consisted of a handful of potato chips eaten while I stood at the kitchen counter. I've also grown fond of (ahem) Shamrock Shakes from the drive-thru. But it's all I can do to feed the kids before Caleb is in the refrigerator eating rotting cilantro or raw pork. If I took time to make something for myself he'd probably have power tools out and be embarking on some home renovation.

Give a rat's ass about my appearance. This fact was helpfully driven home yesterday as I tried to avoid eye contact with the other moms at preschool pick-up. Now, I did shower yesterday. And I think I brushed my teeth, but don't quote me on that. I do know for an actual fact that I forgot deoderant. I laugh in the face of make-up. And if my clothing doesn't sport at least one stain and 7% spandex, I'm overdressed.

Go to the bathroom without a little boy looking up my crotch. Or unrolling the toilet paper all over the floor. Neither one fazes me anymore.

Fold laundry. Vacuum. Clean windows. Ad nauseum. I can't even be bothered to explain the apocalyptic things that transpire when I dare pay attention to anything that isn't a 23-pound squawking, walking, pooping ball of joy. (One word: Staplegate.)

Write a decent blog post. Apparently. Self-explanatory.

Do "arts and crafts" or "educational activities" or other things that good parents do with their children. *snorts with laughter* (I think I should get bonus points for stacking blocks with Caleb for, like, 45 minutes yesterday, though.) (He didn't even notice that my eyes were glazed over and I was drooling.)

So, yes. Chaos Equilibrium. Feeling like an epic failure. The thing is, nobody around here really cares besides me. This should probably be a comfort. But, you know? It's really not. I guess it's time to pull up my yoga pants, straighten my ratty t-shirt, and get on with the important business of accomplishing nothing. Because that's my job, and it's time to come to grips with it.

In which I avoid all maternal sentimentality

2009-03-11T09:38:00.006-05:00

Eight years ago yesterday, I got this:

Okay, I didn't just "get" him. My midwife had to drag him from my limp, spent body after 33 hours of labor and three and a half hours of pushing and swearing and punching my husband. Still, I couldn't have been happier if someone had just handed him to me with a pretty bow on his precious, slimy head.

Anyway. Yesterday, this was what he looked like:

Yeah, he's turning into a big kid. I can't say anything about this that hasn't been said before, so I'll spare you the over-the-top sentimentality (for today, anyway). Instead I'll share with you his oh-so-elaborate big-kid birthday wish list:

An iPod Touch. As if.
For me to be his "maid." Because, you know, I don't serve this function every other day of the year. But specifically, he wanted me to make his bed, clear his dishes from the table, and put his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper.
Sugared cereal for breakfast.
And an exotic birthday dinner consisting of grilled cheese, on white, with American cheese. (He's lived here long enough to know that if he doesn't specify he'll get cheddar on wheat and that is most definitely not birthday fare.) A side of fries. "The kind you buy in the freezer at the store and then put in the oven," he specified. "Oh, and we should probably have some vegetables with that," he continued. "How about broccoli?" Yeah, my kid asked for broccoli on his birthday. And he's apparently a pretty cheap date.

It pretty much goes without saying that there was no iPod. But he didn't mind. The Cocoa Krispies and mushy white bread more than made up for that. Maybe next year he'll go really crazy and ask for, like, a can of soup. Dream big, big boy.

Birds and bees and frogs

2009-03-05T14:04:00.005-06:00

Ah, spring. Warmer air, longer days, green grass. And the incessant chirping of millions of horny frogs in our backyard.

Our yard backs a creek bed. Turns out the creek is a hotbed of amphibian lust. At the beginning of the week, we noticed a soft hum. It has now grown to a dull, annoying roar. While the frogs have impressive stamina, it's irritating.

Last night it was embarrassingly loud, leading to this brief discussion.

Jensen: "Hm. Frogs must be mating."
Me: "uh..." (Really, not a big deal. But it was the first time he had discussed "mating" with me and I was oh-so-briefly stunned.)
Me again: "I wonder what 'mating' means...." (Awesome recovery, huh? He thought, rightfully, that I was a total dork.)
Jensen: "It means they're trying to make babies, Mom." (Just a hint of an eye roll, combined with a ripple of shut-up-I-am-so-not-discussing-this-with-you-Mom.)

Okay, so he now knows what "mating" means, at least in a general sense. This is progress. It means his understanding of things reproductive and/or amorous has advanced beyond the Wheat Thins phase. Which is highly reassuring.

Perhaps I should thank the frogs for such a meaningful educational opportunity. Mostly, though, I just hope that they're all satisfied soon. Because the mental image of what's going on back there is just gross.

Wacky Wednesday

2009-03-04T13:36:00.004-06:00

In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday, Evan's preschool is celebrating Wacky Wednesday today. Nothing could be more appropriate for Evan, because, well, Evan.

Behold, my stylish and introverted son:

Oh, look: he's acting sweet:

Dancing, not scratching his butt. Really:

To be honest, this is pretty much how he dresses everyday. At least today he has an excuse. You can't really see the red and blue hair gel, but it's highly cool. Oh, and I convinced him not to wear the socks on his hands. But they really did complete the look.

He gets his fashion sense from his dad. 100%.

Losing my cool

2009-03-03T14:59:00.000-06:00

Here's some good news: Caleb's abdominal x-ray yesterday was clear, meaning that there are no more staples in his intestines. Which implies that there were at one point staples in his intestines. Which is true, because last Sunday he ate a bunch of them in an episode my sister now refers to as "Staplegate."

You know what's scary? Having your toddler smile at you and show you a mouth full of shiny and silver and very sharp staples.

You know what's scarier? Completely freaking out about it.

Which I promptly did. I could only imagine horrible consequences to what happened, but didn't want to imagine that any of those things could happen to my baby. Somewhere between those conflicting impulses, my brain short-circuited. (Ask the older boys. They will probably confirm lots of yelling and perhaps some crying on my part.) My husband, from out of town of course, had to ask the right questions and gather the right information and tell me to take our son to the emergency room.

Which I should have known. I used to be an ICU nurse. I used to thrive on emergencies.

I worked in an ICU with inconceivably ill patients, patients on ventilators and continuous dialysis and with EEG machines and invasive heart monitors and sometimes invasive brain monitors. I managed emergencies daily. Several times a day, even. The mantra of any good ICU nurse is, "What is the worst thing that could happen to my patient today, and how will I respond?" That's how I thought. That's how I handled crises that verged on tragedy.

And tragedy was commonplace. Cardiac arrest. Patients who just stopped breathing. Or pulled out their life-saving breathing tubes. Or bled out. Or had near-fatal seizures. Those things were, sadly, routine. Once I had to take down a psychotic patient who was attempting to stab me with a syringe full of his HIV-positive blood. Another time I had to confront a patient's mother who shot up meth at her son's bedside, right in front of me. And so on and so forth.

Through it all I learned to be cool. Quiet. Deliberate. I was an adrenaline junkie, but I was very controlled. And I was good at it. Because I let my imagination run wild and was prepared for the worst possible scenario at any given moment.

But now I have lost my cool. I cannot be a mother the same way I was an ICU nurse. "What's the worst thing that could happen?" This is a question I cannot allow myself, as a mother. The worst is unthinkable. But it is a question that is always roiling beneath the surface. I wake up in the night and wonder if the baby is breathing. When the kids go outside to play I hope nobody gets abducted. When they ride in someone else's car, I fear a fatal car accident. (It's a bit humbling to admit these terrifying instincts. Please tell me I'm not alone.)

But I cannot allow these doubts to become conscious thoughts. Not the least because I do not want to overparent and raise my children in a paranoid bubble. But also because I've become superstitious: if I give words to those thoughts, they might come true. I might actually make them happen by thinking them. I know that's irrational. But I still think it.

So when Caleb ate staples (and the x-ray at the ER proved that he did), the ICU nurse in me knew what to worry about: GI bleed. Bowel perforation. Sepsis. But the mother in me could not think those things. I was stuck between knowing and absolutely not wanting to know, and I panicked.

All is well now. Caleb's good. I figured out where he got the staples and have addressed that (let's just say an older brother thinks the stapler is really interesting). And after a glorious week of examining dirty diapers and worrying about his every hiccup or whine, I'm fine. I'm thinking I need to work on my emergency protocol, but still: we're all okay.

So, if anyone wants to nominate me for Mother of the Year now, that'd be great. Just don't all speak up at once. That would just be embarrassing.

Are you there, God? It's me...

2009-03-02T13:38:00.006-06:00

Just a follow-up to let you know that Evan remains at the top of his game.

Over the weekend, he was curious about punctuation marks. Being the English-degree-type that I am, I was more than happy to embark on this thrilling discussion. I figured the question marks and exclamation points would be his favorites. They're dramatic! Fun!! Expressive!!!

But, no, he liked the periods.

He liked them so much that he began decorating his drawings with periods.

"Hey, Evan, tell me about your picture," I said. Innocently.

More than a little condescendingly, he answered, "Well, Mom, it's a girl. With a period."

I swear, I cannot make this stuff up.

Good morning, sunshine

2009-02-26T09:07:00.003-06:00

I'll admit it: I'm not a morning person.

But every once in a while, a morning comes along that reminds me how much I hate mornings. Take today, for instance.

1) At 5:45 this morning, Jeff comes to the sofa and wakes me up and I have a stiff neck from hell. (Here's something fun: Jeff snores like a friggin' bear. And is self-righteous about it. So last night, for the very first time ever, I got pissed off and slept on the sofa and fell asleep to a decidedly un-funny Conan O'Brian rerun and got about five hours of sleep and woke up even more pissed off. I swear to God that if Jeff does not address this snoring issue, things will get nuclear around here. Dude had better bring me flowers tonight. He won't. Maybe you should call him and tell him it would be a damn good idea. But I digress.)

2) Before I am out of the shower (where I plan my husband's untimely demise, because I do my best thinking in the shower), before I have a cup of coffee in my irrational self, Caleb wakes up screaming. Perfect. He screams for two hours. Perfecter. Evan then wakes up and whines at me for an hour. Perfectest.

3) Cue thunderstorm. Jensen is petrified of thunderstorms and plasters himself to my side.

(Backstory: our family has some collective post-traumatic stress disorder regarding thunderstorms. A few years ago we had something pretty awful happen during a storm and, turns out, we're all a little freaky about it. We need therapy.)

So here's where we are so far: I am homicidal, Caleb is screaming, Evan is whining, and Jensen has reverted to age three. Okay, on with the story.

4) Because the children have secretly decided they hate me and want me to move out, my breakfast consists of lukewarm coffee and stale rocky road brownies that I shove in my face as I stand over the sink while three children attempt to climb my legs.

5) I decide to take Jensen to school. Seems wise. As much as I am tempted, I choose not to make him wait at the bus stop in the hail and lightning. 'Cause I'm nice like that.

6) I indulge Evan and tell him he doesn't have to wear shoes in the car. And to play along I wear my slippers. After all, we're just dropping Jensen off and don't have to get out of the car.

7) About a mile down the winding road in the pouring rain in morning traffic, Evan yells, "I'm sick! I'm going to throw up!!!" I yell, "NO!!! Hold it! Don't let it out!!!" And I do not know what to do because we are not wearing shoes. I pull over on a country road and frantically look for something-- anything!-- to use as a barf bucket. Fortunately, yesterday I bought an enormous pink Rubbermaid container (for Valentine's decorations, because I like my storeroom to be color-coded, no joke) and left it in the van. (Some might call that being lazy. I call it planning ahead.) And that's all I have for him. So there he sits, crying and compliantly puking into this pink box that is bigger than he is. And from the back of the van Jensen is yelling, "This is just great! I'm going to be late to school!"

8) We drive to school in a van that reeks of throw-up. But: Jensen wasn't late! (And I have to cling to that fact because it's the only damn thing that went right all morning.)

9) We get home and I think the hell must be over. I decide I'm going to pick up the pieces and get on with my day. I take the Rubbermaid box to the sink to wash it out. And as I am rinsing it out with the sprayer, the sprayer explodes and shoots water and vomit everywhere. All over me. All over the ceiling. (Did I mention that Evan ate blackberries for breakfast?)

And that's where we are so far. Caleb's napping. Evan's curled up on the sofa (you know, the place I slept last night...) with an old trash can and a baby blanket, watching Sesame Street. And I'm wondering what kind of cocktail is acceptable at 9:50 am. Scotch seems a little heavy for this time of day. Tequila shots? Gin? Beer? I'll let you know what I decide.

Update: As I prepared to hit "Publish" about five minutes ago, our brand-new bazillion-dollar television just quit working and won't turn on. And Evan is still sick on the sofa and can't go to school today. And Caleb woke up screaming from his nap. And I've decided on tequila. Just so you know.

Does this mean I get a black bodysuit and a whip?

2009-02-25T10:02:00.006-06:00

I think I stopped paying attention to Evan for a while. (With three kids, somebody's always getting the short end of the attention stick. So far they've all survived.) Because I kind of forgot how funny he is. But this week he's been in rare form. Witness:

Upon asking what sugar is made of, during orgiastic consumption of Valentine's candy: "What? Sugar is made out of sugar?! That's amazing! I LOVE sugar!!!" Yes. Yes, he does. Like this.

Unprompted comment, upon sitting down at the table for lunch: "Whew. Good thing I am not bleeding." Which is true. It's always a good thing when no one is bleeding. Except it's more true for Evan than for most. (See here. Or here. Or here.)

"Mom, we're like the Penguin and Catwoman." How so, Evan? "Well, the Penguin is in love with Catwoman and they're going to get married. And I'm in love with you and we're going to get married, too." But, Evan, I'm already married to Dad. "What?! When did you do that???"

From behind the closed bathroom door. Which had been closed for an alarming amount of time: "Um, Mom, do you twust me? Just twust me, Mom. Twust me."

He's very fun, this kid. I might consider renting him out.... Contact me if you're interested.

The order of things

2009-02-24T08:29:00.002-06:00

This time, the third time, I was prepared.

But still: that did not prevent my breath from catching, for just a moment, when I realized that you were walking away from me.

Because that's what you were born to do.

Safe journeys, little one.

Tough stuff

2009-02-23T12:55:00.006-06:00

"You know, I'm thinking about getting some piercings," Jensen announced at the dinner table on Saturday.

Specifically, he was thinking about his eyebrow, his nose, and his lip. And maybe his tongue.

He's seven. And, ever the optimist, he looked hopefully from Jeff to me.

This was easy, obvious. No. You can't [pierce, tattoo, smoke, swear, fill in the blank] until you're old enough to understand the consequences. Easy. And he accepted our answer without protest.

"That's okay. Maybe when I'm a teenager," he said, giving us a few years' reprieve.

He won't accept "no" so easily when he's seventeen.

Already, the questions are getting tougher. Some are philosophical, some are (um) mechanical, some are moral. Some are yes/no questions. Some require reference materials. But regardless of their nature, the things he thinks about are becoming more challenging, and he's thinking more critically about our answers. Gone are the days of, "How come my hair is curly?" or "Why is the grass green?"

Now it's this:

"Is God a person?"

"What is sexual maturity?"

And, sickeningly, after a recent local gang bust, when all the suspects' photos were published on the front page of the newspaper, "Why do so many people in gangs have brown skin?"

Our approach to the Big Questions has always been to give as much honest information as he seems to be ready for, to be open to further questions, to try to communicate our moral convictions. And to be honest when we don't know the answers.

It's worked. So far. But I'm not naive. His growing mind and his growing conscience are going to start pushing us more.

Truthfully, I think most of what we teach him will be passive, will occur in day-to-day life rather than in some grand pronouncements. But I like the Big Questions. I like the gray areas. I like having to resist the temptation to answer questions with overly simplistic black and white answers. There are times when black and white applies, of course. No hurting other people. No stealing. No piercings on a seven-year-old. Some things are wrong, and some things are right. But a lot of things are somewhere in between, and he's starting to venture into the gray.

And the questions are going to keep getting tougher. The innocence is ending. There are times when I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge, or if I will be in the years to come.

So, I'm looking for some input. What is the hardest question your growing kids have asked? How did you respond?

Keeping house

2009-02-22T13:20:00.003-06:00

It's Sunday. Slow blog day. Time to catch up on a couple of things.

I do not like housekeeping. I do not like blog housekeeping, either. I like the writing and the posting and the commenting. I hate the housekeeping. I've been neglecting it. But! Here I am, trying to straighten things up just a bit.

Two little things I need to share, both in the Shameless Self-Promotion Department. (If there's anything I'm worse at than housekeeping, it's self-promotion. Really. So I'm really going out on a limb with this. Please make it worth my while.)

The first is embarrassing. I was messing around with Feedburner this week and, um, totally screwed up the link. So if you subscribe, your subscription was probably lost. (Yet one more reason I am not a computer engineer....) I set it all back up again and promise never, ever to touch it again. So just please subscribe. Again.

Second: Twitter. Yep, it's true. I love it! And now I've dusted off my old account and am actually using it. I opened it a few months ago and then didn't do a thing with it. But now I need some help. Please note, to your right, the "Follow me on Twitter" button. Click it. Follow me. I have embarrassingly few followers, but I'm new. Help my fragile ego.... Follow me! (And, need I remind you? Three boys. Ridiculous things happen around here all the time. Probably you want the details.)

Okay, that's it. That's all the housekeeping and groveling I can take for one day. See you on Twitter.

Out sick

2009-02-19T13:21:00.003-06:00

This isn't a post. It's an anti-post. It's a post about why it's not a post.

Okay, fine then: it's an excuse.

But you see? This is still kicking my butt. And I could live with drowning in my own snot and sounding like I've been smoking four packs a day since I was three and with the frequent attempts to actually cough up lung tissue. But another symptom seems to be that I have been robbed of all motivation to remain upright or awake. I am pathologically tired.

And I have to dig deep, because I have to be "on" all weekend. Because my husband is working two 24-hour on-call shifts at the hospital so I get to be single mom extraordinaire. And it's Pinewood Derby weekend, people! (And let's not be mistaken: I will use those as further excuses as to why I will not be posting for a few days.)

Shoot. me. now.

So. Instead of posting (because remember: this is not a post) I'm going to take a nap now.

Back soon.

For Real: The First Cut

2009-02-17T06:30:00.000-06:00

The first time wasn’t the worst. But it was bad enough.

The ceiling must have been a hundred feet high, and I was tiny, floating in an endless outer space of a cold green room. Everywhere I looked was institutional, antiseptic green: a color reserved for prisons and junior high schools and hospitals. And blinding sunlight poured in the windows. Except it couldn’t have been sunlight. Could it? It must have been the lights, as far away and as bright as the sun, because operating rooms don’t have windows. There were voices, but no faces. Voices that yelled from far away, but I knew they were talking to me because sometimes I heard my name. I couldn’t see clearly, could barely hear in the thin, electric air.

A cliché: I was too scared to cry. My naked little body shivered on the table, only a sheet covering me. But I couldn’t cry, or speak. I wanted to ask someone to hold my hand. But my tears and my voice were squashed back into me by the weight of the fear and the enormous space.

Earlier, in my room, they had made me take off all my clothes. “Can I keep my underwear?” I wanted to know. I would have felt safer with my underwear. “No,” the orderly said. So I lay on a bed, utterly naked, and he covered me with the sheet and some people came and pushed me to a freight elevator which took us up six flights to the operating room. I shivered the whole way.

Years later, when I was a nurse at the same hospital, we used that same freight elevator to transport dead bodies to the basement morgue. They were naked, too, covered only with a sheet. I used to wonder if they could feel the cold.

In the strange green operating room, a voice told me it was time to go to sleep. A mask was pushed down onto my nose and mouth, and I couldn’t breathe. I shook free, shook my head "no." It was shocking, how bad the mask smelled, how bad its air tasted: like rubber, like alcohol, like poison. Again the mask, and I did not want to breathe. I fought. “Count backwards from 100,” someone yelled, “and you’ll fall asleep before you get to one.” I didn’t want to, and shook my head again. But then I breathed the poison and counted because I was supposed to and because I was a good girl.

“100, 99….”

I made it to 93.

But they lied: it wasn’t like falling asleep. It felt violent, like my wakefulness was forced out of me, like my head was being held underwater. Ultimately I couldn’t have fought anymore, even if I had tried. I thought I was going to die, but I counted backwards like I was told.

While I lay unconscious in that operating room, my parents sat in the waiting room. They sat for too long, and they knew it. Something was wrong. They knew. When my surgeon finally did emerge, he looked their way, then shook his head and turned and walked away.

Something was wrong.

My father recently told me that he has always felt fortunate for the life he’s led. Except for that moment. When my doctor couldn’t face them, Dad said, it was the worst moment of his life. That, he said, made him question.

But the surgeon returned and explained. He didn’t understand what he had found inside of me. He didn’t know what to do. The tumor was trying to kill me. But he was afraid that by doing something, anything, he might kill me. So they took biopsies and closed me back up.

He couldn’t fix me.

Later, after I was sewn together, I fought to wake up. I was still shivering, I was vomiting, I was crying. I wanted my mom, and then she appeared through the anesthetic fog. I wanted my underwear, and the nurse laughed at my request, and then put them on me and I felt warmer. I slept again and the horrible poisonous medicine slowly evaporated from my body.

When I was a nurse there, twenty years later, I used to sneak away from my shifts in the ICU. Sometimes in the middle of the night I would visit the old operating room, long since abandoned and converted to a storage area. And I would sit in the corner on the cold tile floor and breathe deeply and try to turn time backwards. I tried to remember. I tried to listen. I looked for my terrified eight-year-old self in that eerie, deadly quiet space.

I never found her.

And because I never found her there, I started to wonder. Had I imagined the fear, the cold, the bewilderment? Could it really have been that bad?

A few years ago, I stumbled across a plain and frightened piece of my little girl self. I was sorting through papers from my childhood, and among my third-grade math worksheets and my eight-year-old's drawings, I found it.

It was a neatly folded note, written to my mother on the eve of my second hospitalization. Large, deliberate child's script, in bright blue marker, mistakes crossed out, with tear stains blotting some of the careful words.

“Dear Mommy,
I’m scared and don’t want to go to the hospital. Last time I was
really scared. I am scared this time, too.
Your Daughter,
Teresa”

When I read that, I knew. It had all been real. I had been as scared as I remembered. The note was a simple testament to how bad that first time had been.

And I didn't even know how much worse things would get.

Rising to the Brussels sprouts challenge

2009-02-16T07:03:00.000-06:00

This is what happens when my kids say to me (in the produce aisle): "Mom, what are those little cabbage-looking things?"

Really, they should know better. They've lived with me their entire lives. They should know that, before they know what hit them, those little cabbage-looking things will end up in our shopping cart. And they should also know that, before they can say "Ewwww," those little cabbage-looking things will be on their dinner plates. Because I will not back down from a challenge. They should know.

True to form, I met this challenge. Without further ado, my kids eating Brussels sprouts:

They loved them.

Evan had four helpings. Four. I had to tell him to leave some for the rest of us. Even Jensen (who was initially pretty sure I was trying to poison him) had, like, two and a half servings. I'm guessing it didn't hurt that I braised them in bacon fat and apple cider and garlic and thyme, but I figured I only had one chance to make a first impression. You do what you gotta do. The fact remains: my kids love Brussels sprouts.

Ladies and gentlemen, my work here is done. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a little economic crisis that needs to be addressed, and then some heads need to be screwed on straight in Congress. And if I have some extra time, I may zip on over to the Middle East.

I'll be home in time for dinner.

Now I'm a research scientist

2009-02-13T13:54:00.003-06:00

I heard the NIH is getting a bunch of cash in the pending stimulus package. I'm sure they think they have plenty of good uses for the money, but I have a proposal: a Department of Domestic Biochemistry. This is my first scholarly submission. Though not exactly ground-breaking, I don't think anyone can possibly deny its scientific merit.

The Efficacy of Mothers as a Growth Medium for Pediatric Pathogens

It is generally believed that children are carriers of, if not infected with, a wide variety of virulent pathogens continually between the months of October and April annually. It is also commonly believed that children, because they are filthy little beasts, are highly effective transmitters of these pathogens. This article examines the efficacy of child-maternal disease transmission.

Methods
Test group: One (1) female mother, age 39, was individually innoculated with the organism Nares Verdi Snotulinum in the following manner: a single pediatric vector, age one year, deposited a nose full of bright green nasal mucous ("snot") into his mother's mouth by placing his nose directly into her mouth and blowing. Snot transfer rate was 100%.

Control group: One (1) male father, age 34, was not innoculated.

Results
Innoculation occured on Day One (Monday) at 1700 hours. No maternal changes were noted on Days Two and Three. On Day Four (Thursday) at 1500 hours, the mother reported subjective changes such as fatigue and mild headache. Within two hours she was sitting motionless in a living room chair with measurable nasal congestion, while her children ran wild and ate alarming amounts of candy and played "toss the baby." By 1945 hours (ahem, 7:45 pm, people) she was unconscious in bed in her pajamas with a box of tissues, displaying all signs of fulminant Nares Verdi Snotulinum infection. The control group remained (of course) asymptomatic.

Extensive statistical analysis showed a 100% correlation between the following variables: motherhood, placement of pediatric snot in mouth, and upper respiratory infection.

Conclusion
In the experimental household, if a child is displaying symptoms of the "common cold," he will with 100% reliability deposit infected mucous on the mother, and she will also become infected within 72-96 hours. In the majority of cases the father will remain disease-free. No further research on this topic is warranted.

For real: Claiming what is mine

2009-02-12T14:44:00.000-06:00

I wanted to be able to look in the mirror. That was all. It seems simple enough. But it took me the better part of a decade to be able to do that one little thing.

My ultimate goal, I suppose, was larger than just the mirror: I wanted to not hate myself. Even more: I wanted to accept myself. But before I could accept myself, I had to accept my face. Before I could accept my face, I had to be able to look at it in the mirror.

And twenty years ago, I could not do that.

I hated the way I looked, hated myself, so badly that I couldn't even look at myself. I simply did not do it. I never looked at a picture of myself. (If you think you hate pictures of yourself, try being me for a moment or two.) And mirrors posed a problem. Of course, I couldn't avoid mirrors. But I developed an uncanny ability to look at only half of my face. Or to look at my reflection without really internalizing what was there. I could brush my hair or wash my face while literally looking at only the right side of my face. I learned to put on make-up without really seeing beyond the mechanics of the application. It became second nature. (The vision in my left eye is drastically worse than my right eye. Sometimes I wonder if it's because I just stopped using it.)

I knew what was there, of course, in the mirror and on my face: an ugly scar, a large hole, a drooping eye, an unmoving mouth. I knew these things. But I did my best not to associate these things with myself. I never really looked. I was scared of the details, terrified of the whole. In the mirror, and perhaps everywhere else, I was half a face.

This was not how I wanted to be. I wanted to look at myself. I wanted to see what others saw. I wanted to face the truth. I wanted to be complete.

So I fought.

It took years. I increased the scope of my vision in the mirror by literally a fraction of an inch at a time. I would take a quick peek at my sunken ear, or at my sagging lower eyelid, and I would be paralyzed. I would be ill. I would cry. I would be unable to look again for weeks. I was sickened by what I saw. I did not want this person to be me.

But as devastating as it seemed at times, as much self-hate as I was forced to own, as deeply as it challenged my sense of who I was... I did not give up. I fought, for years. And I won.

And I thought I was done.

My soul settled. I had a successful career. I married, had children. I flourished in loving and in being loved. I busied myself with the day-to-day issues that distract all parents. After a lifetime of grief and rage and hiding, the issues surrounding my face slid into the background.

And I was more than happy to let it go. I was happy to be at peace, happy to be normal, happy to be just another boring mom. I was happy to be able to ignore that part of myself. I was happy.

But it wasn't over.

As I said, my ultimate goal had always been self-acceptance. And I had come a long way. I could leave the house. I could tolerate the public stares. I knew what I looked like. These were no small feats.

But even though I had come a long way toward my goal, I had never told my entire story to anyone, not even to myself. I was finally able to look in the mirror, but I wasn't able to tell the story of the person who looked back at me.

So here I find myself. I have begun to tell the story. It is not easy. Sometimes as I write I shake. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I get sick. But I've done it all before. Just as I had to struggle to face the mirror, I will struggle to tell my story.

My silence about my face has been profound. I am putting forth memories that I have never shared. I tucked them away years ago, never planning to revisit them. I would much rather forget them.

But they haven't gone away. My story hasn't gone away. For three decades I have kept this story to myself. I can't be complete until the people in my life know me. For real.

I have been overwhelmed by your kindness and encouragement. I never thought anyone would care about this. So to those of you who have commented, here or on Facebook, to those of you who have e-mailed, to those of you who have called, to those of you who have just read in silence: thank you. That's all I can say. I'll keep telling the story as I am able, but in the meantime: thank you. You will never know what you have done for me....

Not wordless. But it is Wednesday.

2009-02-11T13:39:00.004-06:00

This, I suppose, is filler.

I was going through old photos yesterday, looking for something else, but I kept coming across photos of Jensen. Insanely adorable photos of my first-born. Photos that I remember like they were yesterday. Photos that are almost eight years old.

How could I not share?

Plus I had to get yesterday's humiliating post about my undies off the front page.

When yoga pants go bad

2009-02-10T14:14:00.010-06:00

Dear Dad: I love you. Do not read this post. 'kay, thanks.

Oooh, I got new workout clothes! For the first time since before I was pregnant with Caleb. This is exciting in my sad little world.

So exciting that last night I carefully laid out my new workout clothes before bed. So exciting that this morning I popped right out of bed in anticipation of putting on the new workout clothes.

So exciting that I checked myself out in the mirror before I left. And from the front, I looked pretty good. From the side, I noticed my trunk looked a bit, um, lumpy. From the back, it was tragic.

I had four butt cheeks. Like this:

Turns out yoga pants are entirely incompatible with my undies of choice:

Plain ol' hiphugger bikinis. Totally comfy, no creeping, minimal panty lines. Perfect under my jeans (which are not mom jeans, I swear). But it turns out yoga pants do not camouflage how the elastic in the undies dissects my aging, post-three-babies derriere in half perfectly. Horizontally. Like my ass has an equator or something.

Four butt cheeks on one person is not good.

This led to an emergency phone call to my sister. What should I do?!

Try a thong! she said.

Oh, okay. Seriously, I'm not even going to give you much of a visual on this one. Remember: three babies. If you've birthed babies, you know why I don't wear a thong. If you haven't had them, you don't want to know. Trust me.

I'm not at all opposed to some sexy lingerie. But, um, these would kill me. I would die from wearing ill-advised undies to the gym. Not the way I want to go out.

So after I vetoed that, she suggested a boy short. Like this:

This makes me laugh out loud. I don't know if I've ever, in my life, worn anything less flattering than boy short undies. These are not only incompatible with yoga pants, they are incompatible with the human body. Nobody looks like this photo. I could put them on in a pitch-black closet with no mirror in sight and still know that I look like a complete jack-ass. Nope.

She was out of suggestions. So I explained my quandry to my ever-stylish husband, and asked: what kind of undies should I wear under my pretty new yoga pants?

He evidently agreed that the panty lines were problematic, and helpfully suggested Spanx. (I do not want to know why my husband knows what Spanx are.) Yes, he really said that. So I was supposed to wear these under my low-rise yoga pants:

They come up to your navel, people. And then all the jiggly parts just squeeze out over and under the Spanx.

No.

So, in the end, I just recognized that I have no pride. I arranged the hiphuggers and the rear end as carefully as possible and went to the gym.

And worked out really, really hard.

Having four butt cheeks is kind of motivating like that.

Update (because this post definitely deserves an update): my brilliant and bored sister has decided that yoga pants need built-in undies, like running shorts have. No creep, no show. So, Makers of Yoga Pants: get on it.

Weekly Winners: Very cool

2009-02-08T11:59:00.000-06:00

A quick note on my stunning slackeratiousness: these photos are two weeks old. It has taken me that long to remember to post them. But they are too cool not to share. Sorry for the delay.

Jeff brought home a huge cooler full of dry ice from work one evening.
You know what's fun? To put a piece of dry ice into a glass of water:

You know what's even more fun? To dump the entire cooler full of dry ice into the bathtub:

For more amazing photos from some really great blogs, head over here to check out Lotus's Weekly Winners.

The Big Blue Box: A Rant

2009-02-07T13:55:00.004-06:00

Dear WalMart,

I quit you.

You suck my soul dry.

On an average trip: I have to park in the very back of the parking lot because everybody always wants to go to your stupid store. I have to dodge two or three cars in your parking lot driven by people who don't feel they need to actually obey the stop sign and wait for a woman and her three children. The greeter accosts my children and slaps stickers all over them-- even the baby, even when I say, "No, thank you" because he just eats them, and even my almost eight-year-old, even when he shies away and shakes his head suspiciously. You are always sold out of at least one basic staple on my list and I can never find anyone to help me when I have a question. I can never find green onions. I have to wait multiple times for people who think it is their God-given right to block an entire aisle while they take 15 minutes to select hair dye in the perfect shade of "cheap" or adult diapers or processed cheese food or just the right monster-truck-emblazoned t-shirt. I then wait another 15 minutes in line to check out. (You have 32 check-out aisles. At any given time, four are open. At the most.) I wait for this long in an aisle lined with candy and soda and disposable lighters and disgusting fruit-flavored chewing gum and celebrity gossip magazines and beef jerky and car "fresheners" which my children know they can't have but after waiting that long they get just a bit restless. And when I am finally able to check out, the checker is invariably sullen and wears enormous amounts of black eyeliner and says nothing to me except the dollar amount that I owe (which is always too high, because somewhere along the line I lose all focus and just start throwing random things in the cart that aren't on my list and which I later regret purchasing but it seems like a major hassle to return them). By the time we actually get to leave your God-forsaken store my children are starving and beg for Subway which is conveniently placed by the front door, just before the 10,000 slot machines with candy and toys in them. When we actually make it through that pediatric and economic minefield, it's back out to brave the terrifying parking lot again.

Also: your shopping carts are repulsive (although Caleb really likes to suck on the cart handles). You try to sell cheap worthless plastic crap to my children who are futile against your least-common-denominator marketing. ("Live better! Buy more sh*t you don't need!") You sell ammunition and cold, cheap beer and 17 flavors of PopTarts but no decent fresh produce. The fluorescent lights make my kids look like they're in liver failure.

By the time I'm done, it is difficult to think about anything but escape.

And then, yesterday. As usual, I was stressed out and zoned out and crabby as I left. The kids were tired and bored and whiney. We all just wanted to go home. In the parking lot I realized I forgot to buy diapers. Somebody was waiting for my parking place.

And then. Then I slammed Evan's hand in the van door. His entire hand. The door latched. His hand bruised and swelled immediately and he had a big ugly red line across it.

It was sickening.

This is not your fault, WalMart. I know that you did not make me do this. But it made me realize how miserable you make me. When I leave you I am defensive and irritable and distracted and hating. Every time.

We've all heard the arguments about whether WalMart is a good corporate citizen, about what WalMart does to local economies, about what WalMart has done to the face of America (and now the world). I don't know about these things. I don't know whether the anti-WalMart rhetoric is holding true, or whether it's just theory. What I do know is that it's tempting, the thought that I can buy toilet paper and bananas and diapers and socks and pregnancy tests and Christmas decor under one roof. Especially when you are the closest store to me. Especially when it's all less expensive at your store. What else I know is how ugly I feel every single time I visit you.

It isn't worth it, on a personal scale or from a more global perspective.

So I am declaring here and now that I will be taking my business elsewhere. Somewhere slightly less ugly, somewhere that makes the world slightly less ugly, somewhere that makes me feel slightly less ugly. This isn't a naive call to action (I don't have that in me). Me versus the WalMart Industrial Complex? Hardly. I'm just telling you what I'm doing.

You can take your dietary supplements and Rubbermaid bins and ugly baby clothes and store-brand white bread and 823 brands of frozen pizza and "Proud to Be An American" cd's and particle board furniture and everything that contains high-fructose corn syrup and all the other stuff I might actually buy there, and you can shove it, WalMart.

Ciao.

(PS-- Evan's hand is fine. It only took a two-hour field trip to the doctor's office to determine this, but he is fine.)

The Sound of Silence

2009-02-05T13:56:00.002-06:00

Last night the boys listened to the radio. A Rock And Roll Song came on, with a great big Guitar Solo. Evan stopped dead in his tracks and said, "Hey! He's playing the air guitar!!!"

Jeff cocked his head, raised his eyebrow. "Um, Evan, you know the air guitar doesn't make any sound, right?"

Evan shot Jeff a withering look. "Yes it does! Listen to this," he said.

He then grabbed his air guitar and ripped off an impressive solo that would have made Eddie Van Halen proud.

"Didja hear that? That," he pronounced smugly, "is what the air guitar sounds like."

Having obviously schooled his father, he carefully put down his instrument, turned his back, and walked away.

I'm wondering if we can teach him to have an air tantrum. Or slam an air door. The possibilities with a four-year-old are almost endless, no?

First steps

2009-02-04T13:26:00.001-06:00

Ten Ways I Know I Am Not A Toddler

2009-02-03T14:45:00.004-06:00

I need some help.

I realized today that I live like a toddler. Seriously, my daily routine is almost indistinguishable from that of my kids. I eat on their schedules, I listen to their damn music (I still love you, Dan Zanes, but I think we need some time apart), I spend a good portion of every day picking up (or tripping over or swearing at) brightly colored plastic toys. If it weren't for the Diet Coke and random, lame attempts at housekeeping, I'd swear I was, like, two years old.

It’s time to step back and inventory my life, to reassure myself that I am indeed an adult. Time for a list.

How I Know That I Am Not A Toddler, by Me

I drink my beer from the bottle, not from a sippy cup. And I don't cut it with whole milk.
Graham crackers and/or vanilla wafers are not the high point of my day (unless it's been a really crappy day).
I understand that Elmo is make-believe.
When I drool it's because I'm tired as hell, not because I'm teething.
I try to remember to refer to my husband as "Jeff" and not as "Daddy," but sometimes I slip and this troubles me.
When life throws me a curveball and naptime is delayed by 20 minutes, I can adapt without having a complete meltdown. Unless it's been a really crappy day.
Nobody has ever once told me that my fat dimpled thighs are “cute.”
Diapers. Enough said.
I am smarter than a dog. (But toddlers are cuter.)
Generally speaking, gravity does not kick my ass several times a day.

Okay.

I'm good.

Not about the shoes

2009-02-02T14:15:00.004-06:00

I told a lie last week. But some are forgivable, right? Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, claiming to not know what happened to the rest of the Junior Mints…. Sometimes being a grown-up means you have to not tell the truth. It’s a complicated world. (I will hunt you down and do terrible things to you if you tell my children I said that, by the way.)

Anyway, my birthday was Saturday, and I desperately wanted two things: Madden ’09 (shut up) and a pair of faux-fur leopard-print clogs. I don’t know what it says about me that those were the two things I wanted most in the world; you can judge that for yourselves.

Jeff took the boys shopping while I was freezing my ass off (aka "vacationing") in Minnesota last week. We talked on Skype (is there a verb form of Skype? “We Skyped”?) on Tuesday morning. Evan’s getting better, but he’s not a real pro at the whole secret-keeping bit yet. So he promptly blurted out, “We went shopping yesterday and got you Madden ’09!” Which promptly inspired Jensen to attempt to clobber Evan. Which promptly inspired Evan to cry hysterically.

Which promptly inspired me to lie. I knew exactly what Evan had said. But without missing a beat I lied. “I didn’t understand you Evan. The sound wasn’t very good. Jensen, why are you so mad? I didn’t hear what Evan said.” It worked: Jensen was placated and Evan’s tears dried and Jeff tried not to laugh.

So Evan spilled the Madden beans. Jeff spilled the clog beans. These shoes were driving me nuts, and I was on the verge of just buying them. “Operation Leopard Print is complete,” he told me, afraid that I would get them myself. (Very tricky little code he used, eh? He’s clever like that.)

On Saturday morning, my gifts were on the table. Jensen had wrapped them himself (in carefully-chosen Christmas paper) with his brand-new Swiss army knife. Visions of arterial lacerations aside, I was very proud of him. He was proud of him.

Both boys jumped and danced and could not wait for me to open my gifts. Their excitement was bubbling over, and I couldn’t resist whipping them into a frenzy. “I wonder what’s in those boxes?” I asked. “What did you guys get me?” And every time I asked they collapsed in giggles.

I tortured them for as long as I thought advisable. (I didn't want anyone to either wet his pants or start crying or both.) Then I opened my gifts.

Guess what I got? Madden ’09 and a very cool pair of Danish leopard-print clogs. Great gifts. No surprises.

Saturday may have been the official Best Birthday Ever, and not because I got what I asked for. The boys’ happiness was better than any surprise they could have purchased. And I’m not lying at all.

For Real: Best Friends

2009-01-27T10:30:00.003-06:00

I had a friend, and her name was Sarah (but not really).

We stayed overnight at each other’s houses. We had long secret talks on the playground at recess. We drew pictures and designed clothes and ambitiously planned our adult lives. We brushed each other’s hair and played Barbies and traded clothes.

We were little girl best friends.

Except something didn’t feel right. Not “best.” And maybe not even “friends.”

In fourth grade (or maybe it was fifth), Sarah was staying overnight at my house. It was night and we were in my lavender bedroom sitting on my pink gingham-checked bedspread, looking for things to do as we stayed up late together. She proposed we write slam books.

I didn’t know what a slam book was. Turns out she didn’t really, either, but here is how she explained it to me: we were each to write down a secret about each other, and when we were done we would read our secrets aloud. I remember thinking this sounded boring and pointless, but she really wanted to do it, and I certainly didn’t have a better plan.

I don’t know what I wrote about her; I had trouble thinking of anything. But I remember clearly what she wrote about me: “You have a face only a mother could love.”

“It means you’re ugly,” she explained when I looked at her, confused and hurt and suddenly wanting to ask my parents to take her home. The rest of the sleepover wasn’t much fun.

Also in fourth grade (or maybe it was fifth), there was a bully. Her name was Angie (but not really). One day in the school bathroom I heard her talking about me to her group of five or six followers. “Teresa is ugly,” she said. “She’s stupid.” Her friends nodded.

I had already become used to people staring and making faces and even calling me names. I had learned to accept insults, and I had never rebutted.

But for some reason, on this day I was outraged. Maybe I had had enough.

I confronted her. “I heard you talking about me,” I said. She lied. She denied it. But I persisted and finally she confessed. “Fine, you’re right. What about it?” she spat. And, inexplicably, she challenged me to a fight. Equally inexplicably, I accepted her challenge. I committed myself to my first and last fight.

At lunch recess we met at the designated place on the playground between the jungle gym and the merry-go-round. Angie and I faced off. She had a large group of girls standing behind her. Behind me stood Sarah, my best friend. My only friend.

It was over almost instantly. Angie reached over and slapped my face. “You’re ugly,” she stated, plainly and spitefully.

It couldn’t have been a terribly hard slap, but it knocked me to the ground. Never before had I expressed any grief over all that had happened to me. I hadn’t complained or cried or stood up for myself or asked for any help in my struggles. On that day, though, that single insulting slap carried the full weight of all my unspoken grief.

And as I sat on the ground in devastated tears, Sarah walked away. My only friend turned away and went to stand with Angie, my tormentor.

“Why?” I implored between sobs.

“Because,” said Sarah, “I agree with her.”

Our friendship dissolved after that. Several times she tried to break up with me. “I just don’t think I can be friends with… someone like you,” she would say. "I don't think we have much in common." She would name the pretty girls in our class she wanted to be friends with instead, girls who were nice enough but who had also demonstrated that they had no interest in being my friends.

I cried and begged her not to leave. I was hurt that I wasn’t worthy of her friendship. And no small part of me was terrified. I didn’t think I could make any other friends. I would be alone.

But eventually she left. I was never angry at her. I certainly kept my distance, and I was hurt, but I wasn't angry. Mostly I was deeply, fundamentally embarrassed. I don't think I ever really thought her actions were my fault, but I definitely understood that by virtue of the way I looked, I deserved it all.

My humiliation prevented me from telling my parents why our friendship evaporated. I'm sure they wondered what happened. I didn't want to disappoint them; I was too ashamed to admit my social failures; I didn't want them to worry. I kept it a secret in order to protect myself and (I thought) to protect them. Those were the earliest of many years of feeling marginalized and lonely and ugly, and keeping those feelings tucked safely away, telling no one how badly I hurt.

But here is the thing I keep coming back to as I remember those years and as I hope my children never hurt so deeply and as I try to understand how cruel people can be: I am okay. I made it. And I am happy.

I had a friend, and her name was Sarah (but not really). And in fourth grade (or maybe it was fifth) she taught me a painful and valuable lesson about what a strong person I am.

The Sister Collective

2009-01-26T09:00:00.005-06:00

Most days, I am not a pink puffy heart kind of a person. Not that I wouldn't like to be; it's just not me.

But my sister, Ali? With her unnatural affinity for refined sugar and all things Hello Kitty, she is the very definition of pink puffy hearts.

But there are other things we share. Like an obsession with George Michael (most favoritest: Wham! Rap). And avocadoes. And jeans from, I kid you not, The Buckle. And any food containing soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and green onions. "Cooks Illustrated" magazine. Fiestaware. Turtleneck sweaters. Anything from Aveda. Cribbage. Twizzlers. Southern Comfort Old-Fashioneds (God, they're good). Knitting. Football. Cheap flip-flops.

We dress identically without planning it. Our children confuse us for each other. We lie to our husbands about how much time we talk to each other on the phone. We dream about living next door to each other. (Only because we don't think our husbands would consent to actually sharing a house.)

I could go on, but I don't want to overwhelm anyone with our coolness.

For her, I abandoned my husband and children for four entire days (okay, that kind of needed to happen). For her, I flew to The Great White North. In January. For her, I am freezing my arse off this week.

I totally pink puffy heart my sister.

Back to reality

2009-01-22T06:15:00.000-06:00

Tuesday rocked me.

The inauguration moved my spirit like nothing has in a long, long time. I gathered my children in my lap and sat in front of the television to watch President Obama deliver his inaugural address. With tears streaming down my face, I dreamt big dreams and tried my hardest to impress this memory on my heart forever.

When Evan, in an uncanny impersonation of a teenage girl, said, "Is this guy, like, ever going to be done? He's getting annoying."

So. Ruling out the chance that my four-year-old son is in fact a pubescent female, I can only surmise one of two other things.

The first possibility is that Evan, at the age of four, is a Republican. sigh

Either that, or in four years, the Inauguration Planning Committee (or whoever puts this shindig together) needs to seriously consider the timing of the inaugural ceremony, possibly going so far as to actually consult with me, so it does not conflict with my preschooler's lunch hour. Because I don't care if world sentiment is shifting and wrongs are being righted and the nation is joined in harmony for a few precious moments. When it's time for peanut butter and jelly, everything else must wait.

Everything, dammit.

Now that we've clarified our agenda, carry on, Mr. President.

Wordless Wednesday: Yogurt

2009-01-20T21:06:00.003-06:00

For real: Alone

2009-01-19T20:03:00.006-06:00

Oatmeal is the loneliest food.

It's difficult to believe that oatmeal became a symbol for much of the unhappiness I experienced as a child. But that's exactly what happened during those early and bewildering hospitalizations.

There was pain, and fear, and grief, of course. But loneliness was the most pervasive emotion I endured. It had a physical presence that I still recall clearly: a frigid weight that radiated from my stomach, a sort of sick anticipation that tingled in my arms and legs and left a watery metallic taste in my mouth. It echoed inside me. It made me shiver.

I was eight years old, in a huge hospital, many miles from home. My parents spent countless hours with me, but they had two other children and jobs and lives that had to be tended whether I was sick or healthy. They sacrificed much during that time, more than I will probably ever know. But I still spent many cold hours by myself, waiting for someone to come. Waiting for everything to be okay again.

And of all the lonely hours, breakfast was by far the worst part of every single day. After the doctors made rounds early in the morning, but before my parents arrived, a dietary aide would bring my breakfast and place it on my tray-table. And there I would sit, alone, with the head of my bed elevated. I was groggy from pain medication and weak from lack of activity and awkward from IV tubing and rubber drains. My head and face were heavily bandaged. My jaw didn't work properly and I couldn't get the food from the tray to my mouth without spilling all over myself.

I wanted help.

I needed help.

No help came.

So instead of eating I would stare at my gelatinous oatmeal swimming in a pool of tepid milk, feeling the lonely sickness. And I would cry for my mom. No one ever saw these tears.

Other meals were bad too. Once a nurse thought it would be "good for me" to join the other patients in the day room for lunch. It was a miserable room that smelled of antiseptic and dust, with brown-tiled floors, a black-and-white television, and ancient board games on the bookshelf. I did not want to be there, and to escape I decided to read a book while I ate. The nurse snatched the book away and scolded me harshly for reading at the table. She called me "rude," she made my stomach hurt. I stared at the table and blinked back tears and knew I was in this alone.

There were times, of course, when generous people who could perhaps sense my loneliness tried to help. They did help. But somehow their acts of kindness also served to highlight my isolation.

For instance, there was the Sunday afternoon I lay in bed staring at a football game on the television. Alone. Sad. A custodian came in to sweep. "I like football, too," he said comfortingly, pulling up a chair. And he sat with me and held my small hand, bruised from IV's, in his big brown hand. We quietly watched the game together.

But he wasn't my dad.

And I adored Nancy, one of my nurses. She was 28, she told me, and she was beautiful, with long, dark-brown, feathered hair. Bedtime was lonesome; I always felt lost. No one ever told me "good night" or tucked the blankets around me. I was left to fend for myself and usually just fell asleep to the blue glow of the tv. But one night I was particularly restless and sad, and climbed over my bedrail and navigated my IV pole down the hall, the tile cold on my bare feet. When I got to the nurses' desk, Nancy smiled sadly at me. I started crying and meekly asked if someone would please tuck me in. "Oh, sweetie," she said, and picked me up and carried me to bed and rocked me to sleep.

But she wasn't my mom.

Repeated hospitalizations never entirely numbed me to the loneliness of being hurt and scared and sick in a big, fluorescent institution, but I got used to it. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I wanted desperately to know that I wasn't isolated in my experience. I wanted someone to understand, but it quickly became clear that no one did. No one could. At a young age I came to a resigned understanding that I really was alone.

At some point, I stopped waiting for everything to be okay. Then, what had begun as enforced isolation in the hospital morphed into a more generalized voluntary solitude that eventually became a source of comfort. It was easier to remain alone than to open myself to the insensitivity or rejection or cruelty that I frequently encountered. Friendships became difficult to establish, exhausting to maintain. I spent a lot of years isolating myself to varying degrees in the interest of self-protection.

I don't isolate myself anymore. I socialize, and have friends. But to this day I remain a bit of an outsider; I am just as happy to be by myself as with others. Maybe I have some lingering trust or self-confidence issues; I guess such problems would be natural. But they are minor now, and generally transient when they do arise.

No, mostly I am just very accustomed to being alone. It is peaceful. I am okay with that.

I have grown, and by some miracle I am secure. But still, there is the oatmeal: thirty years later, it brings tears to my eyes when I try to eat it. I cannot stand oatmeal.

It isn't over

2009-01-19T12:46:00.004-06:00

Every year on Dr. King's birthday I read from a book of his speeches and essays. This is part of what I read this morning. Tomorrow will be a momentous day, but do not be fooled into thinking that having our first African-American president means that we have arrived. Dr. King's work is not done. When I read this, I know that there is hope. None of us knows where we are headed, but there is hope.

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life which surrounds him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid." I still believe that we shall overcome.

This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.

(from Dr. King's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, December 10, 1964; published in A Testament of Hope, HarperCollins Publishers, 1986)

Lovey Fail

2009-01-16T10:04:00.005-06:00

Until recently, I was an unmitigated failure in the "lovey" department.

I guess I just assumed that all kids have loveys. A tattered baby blanket or a beat-up stuffed animal or something (anything!) that they take to bed with them every night and cuddle with when their little worlds spin out of control. Something that makes everything okay.

But not my kids. I've actually tried to encourage this kind of attachment, but I must have missed the chapter on self-comfort in the motherhood how-to manual.

Jensen sucked his fingers. He sucked his fingers so much that he had a chronic fungal infection in his fingernails. (Lovely.) He sucked them until he was five, by the way, but he doesn't anymore so I won't dwell on that. That's how he made himself happy. Every once in a while he would decide to take something to bed with him at night, but it was always something decidedly un-cuddly, like a toy tractor or a football. And it was never consistent. If things got overwhelming he just popped his fingers in his mouth and sucked away.

Evan never consented to be comforted by anything. Not his thumb, not a pacifier, not me, and certainly nothing as silly as a blanket or an animal. Nothing. He still doesn't find much of anything that consoles him if he's unhappy, and I'm here to tell you that all of our lives would be a little easier if something calmed him down. A stuffed animal, perhaps. Or cigarettes. Or Jim Beam.

But Caleb has recently shown some promise in the lovey department. He sucks his fingers, too. But if he's really unhappy, we've stumbled across something that he adores.

A 15-ounce bottle of Johnson's Baby Lotion.

Yep.

He cuddles it and snuggles it and talks to that stupid thing. He kisses it. He plays peek-a-boo with it, for God's sake.

My infant son is in love with a bottle of lotion.

I'm not sure this can be considered a success.

The fine art of forgetting

2009-01-15T13:40:00.002-06:00

There is a name for this.

My sister called yesterday. She sounded tiny and tired and defeated. Before too many words were said, she was crying.

She had lost her wallet, and didn't even know it for three days. She was angry at herself and embarrassed and didn't understand how this could happen. She's a new mom, and this was her first time her Type A personality had crumbled.

Me? I'm used to this. After eight years I just assume that I will embarrass myself on a daily basis. I never know what form my absent-mindedness will take, but I know it will happen.

Like the time my husband was gone on business and not only did I leave the front door unlocked, I left it wide open all night long. In January, in Iowa. And yes, it was below zero that night.

Or the time I just forgot to go to work.

Or the time I remembered to go to work but couldn't because I could not find my keys anywhere. Couldn't find the spare keys, either.

Or the time I left the keys in the car and left the car running (unintentionally) while I grocery shopped, then proceeded to leave my purchased groceries inside the store when I left.

Or the time I forgot to renew my thyroid medication prescription. For an entire month.

Or the time I neglected to renew my driver's license for so long I had to take the written test and the driving test. Oh, and there's the other time I did that, too.

Or the time I sent Jensen for a week-long vacation at his grandparents' without his suitcase, which I had lovingly packed and placed carefully by the front door so I wouldn't forget it.

Or the time I permanently lost my glasses. The ones I didn't replace because I decided it's just easier to be slightly visually-impaired than to try to keep track of yet one more thing.

Or.... I have to stop now, before somebody comes and removes my children from my custody.

Smartest parenting move we ever made was deciding that the birth control pill should probably not be our contraceptive method of choice. Seriously: we'd have seven kids by now. At least.

You know the story: I'm relatively intelligent, relatively high-functioning, relatively organized. (Don't we all think these things about ourselves?) But on any given day there may well be no milk in the refrigerator because I keep forgetting to buy it. Or there may be four gallons of milk in the refrigerator because I keep forgetting that I remembered to buy it.

So, yes, there's a name for this phenomenon, but I don't like it: "mommy brain." I find it troublesome anytime an adult refers to another adult (or herself) as "mommy." But, more importantly, the term implies that there's something inherently wrong with a mother's intelligence. It's condescending.

Nevertheless. There is something that happens when we find ourselves permanently and irrevocably in charge of another human being. Something that leaves us mentally disconnected, grasping at cognitive straws far too often. No matter how well we plan, how many lists we make, how many times we check and double-check... sometimes we forget.

We are tired, chronically, from waking with babies and sleeping with one ear cocked and never really allowing ourselves to rest. We are responsible for something so big that we cannot wrap our exhausted brains around it, and we are distracted by being needed incessantly. And, maybe most importantly, our brains and our hearts are no longer our own. We are taken over by these little people who move into our homes and into our souls and make everything else-- wallets and glasses and keys-- entirely secondary.

Call it mommy brain if you must. I don't like it but I probably won't argue with you. Because it's true that something in me is just not quite capable of addressing life's pettiest tasks sometimes. I like to think it's gotten better, but I'm not sure the evidence supports that assertion. I've learned to live with it, Jeff has learned to live with it, and (aside from my occasionally-bruised ego) we are none the worse for it.

So, Ali, I can't promise you that it will get better, but I can tell you that you'll learn to accomodate your sometimes-slippery mental state. And if you can't take it anymore and need to talk to someone who understands, call me. If you can find the phone.

I dread the teenage years

2009-01-14T10:03:00.004-06:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Evan is gonna give us a run for our money.

Jensen has an official Cub Scout t-shirt that he wears to school on meeting days. He's very proud of it.

Yesterday at breakfast he explained gravely to Evan and me, "It's Tuesday today, so I'm wearing my Cub Scout t-shirt to school. That's the rule, and it's serious. I can only ever wear it on Tuesday."

Without batting an eyelash, sweet Evan put down his spoon and said, thoughtfully and to no one in particular, "You know what I'd do if I had that shirt? I'd wear it on Saturday."

Then he turned back to his Raisin Bran.

If Jensen had an aneurysm anywhere in that curly head of his, it would have blown then and there. He had to physically restrain himself from knocking Evan's little block off.

Seriously. Evan's very life teeters in the balance some days and he doesn't even know it.

For real, part two

2009-01-13T06:40:00.001-06:00

It was a tumor.

There had been much hand-wringing about what could possibly be wrong. My face was swelling by the hour, it seemed. And it hurt, curiously and sickeningly. I was to become intimately familiar with pain over the next months and years, but this was a unique pain that still haunts me on occasion. The skin covering my left neck stretched tight and burning over a malicious bulge that pushed on my jaw and throat and ear and made everything hurt deep into the bone. It made me cry and it scared me. There was something wrong.

That morning everything had been, quite literally, fine. There was no indication that this would be the day that everything changed. But by afternoon my jaw hurt so badly I couldn’t lie down on that side. It happened that quickly. Something was very wrong.

Nobody really knew what it was. After mumps was dismissed and my tonsils were ruled out and an abscess was rejected, my local doctor called in the experts. This was 30-some-odd years ago, and there were no CT scans or MRI's or other such diagnostic tools. Instead doctors probed and palpated and measured and examined my painful jaw and considered. And after all this, they declared it was a tumor.

My newly-acquired surgeon wore cowboy boots and had a big, bushy moustache. In his Texas-sized drawl that matched his Texas-sized stature, he announced that this tumor was the size of his Texas-sized fist, holding up his closed hand to demonstrate. And it was firmly planted in the small jaw of a shy, tow-headed seven-year-old girl. Me.

In the weird culture of medical celebrity, this tumor had the makings of twisted stardom. Not only was it huge, it was “rare as a hen’s tooth,” in the words of this surgeon, who had scoured the literature and found nothing comparable. With its remarkable size and originality, it was bound for grand rounds and medical journals and craniofacial conferences. It was a supermodel playing to medical photographers and throngs of surgical residents. It became a separate entity, and I was its vulnerable and unasked host.

There was a problem, though. This tumor, with Texas-sized greed, was pressing on my carotid artery and was growing at an alarming rate. It was trying to kill me.

It had to come out, and my surgeon and his cadre of loyal followers dutifully removed it. This was no time for conservative measures, either: nobody knew if it was cancerous. It had to come out before they could determine that. And to play it safe, they had to assume the worst, which meant they had to remove a lot of surrounding and seemingly healthy tissue. (It wasn’t cancerous, in the end.)

The left seventh cranial nerve wasn’t salvageable; the tumor had devoured it. In case you’re curious, that’s the nerve that gives you the ability to smile, and frown, and close your eye, and feel things touching your skin, and taste, and lots of other things. To address the cancer issue, they removed lymph nodes, and bone, and muscle, and some thyroid gland, and various other pieces of me. Important stuff, but stuff that you can learn to live without.

Kind of.

*********

Surgeons have a phrase that they like to use to describe what they do: “Cut to cure.”

And they cut me, liberally. They had no choice; my life was being threatened and they had to act. So they opened up my head and neck as wide as they could. They peeled up my face and essentially removed my left ear to get at all the offending and potentially-offending flesh. Then they sewed it all back together as well as they could, which as it turns out wasn’t very well at all. They cut, and then sewed, and left me with a hole in my neck and a sunken ear and half a face that was for all intents and purposes dead, and a ten-inch scar running right down the middle of it all.

They cut. As a matter of fact, they butchered.

But cure? No. This tumor and its repercussions crushed my soul in ways that wouldn’t become apparent for a long time. I didn’t smile for a photo for years—I don’t think I ever smiled for a single school picture after this. I grew so used to social exclusion that I just kind of withdrew from my peers rather than risk inevitable rejection. I was angry beyond all reason. I hid it all well, but these things, and much more, were symptoms of an ailment that lay deep beyond the reach of the surgeons' scalpels.

The day that tumor appeared was the day that everything changed. My surgeons saved my life, but that was only the proverbial beginning of my medical and emotional journey. And as for finding a cure?

I was left to do that on my own.

Vote for Pedro

2009-01-09T10:57:00.006-06:00

This week could have been devastating.

If I were at all sensitive about my age, which I am (thankfully) not.

First of all, I got my very first gray hair ever in my entire life this week. I only noticed it because it was curly and wiry and the rest of my [insert pathetic adjective: thin, limp, stringy... whatever] hair just hangs sadly from my head despite every $60 volumizing product in the entire world. I don't think I would have noticed it otherwise, because let's face it, it's hard to distinguish gray from dishwater blonde. This gray hair, though? It sticks straight out like a corkscrew. I like it. It has some life to it.

Second of all, Jensen and I had another esteem-boosting "holy hell, Mom, you are old as dirt" discussion. It involved the song "Jukebox Hero" by Foreigner. He's always thought it was called "Juicebox Litterbug" and sings his little heart out to it. This song really speaks to a seven-year-old-rock-star-wanna-be, even if he doesn't know the correct words. The other day, though, it dawned on him that maybe he had the wrong lyrics and asked for some help. I corrected him, reluctantly. Personally I like his version better.

Then he wondered what a jukebox is.

Me: "A machine that plays records."
Jensen: "Um, what's a record?"
Me: "Oh, just something we used back in the days of the wooden Lite Brite peg."
Jensen: "Whoa. Was it fun to grow up in the Olden Days?"

Like I said, it could have been a rough week. Instead, a Juicebox Litterbug died and I began to go gray and it made me smile.

(Oh, the year on "Jukebox Hero?" 1981. I was in fifth grade, people. It is described as "vintage" on YouTube. Yep.)

(And perhaps this is a good time to start pimping my birthday, which is on the last day of this month and which I adore, even if it does make me almost almost forty.)

Wordless Wednesday, for real

2009-01-07T07:00:00.002-06:00

This photo has words. You can find them here....

For real

2009-01-06T06:00:00.002-06:00

My real-life name is Teresa, and that seems like a fair enough place to start.

Maybe eight months ago I started blogging about my kids and then, like the true mom blogger I am becoming, I realized I wanted to talk about myself or even some other random stuff. It all just kind of happened without any planning and the other day it occurred to me that, if you don’t know me outside of this blog (all four of you), your view of me is rather limited. These are the things you know: I’m a stay-at-home-mom with three sons. My hair is blonde, ish. I’m kind of chronically sleep-deprived, though that’s improving. I voted for Obama. And I drive a minivan.

This person I've just described? This pasty, nice, excruciatingly dull person who appears to have no personality whatsoever? This is not me. (Please God let this person not be me.)

No.

So: my name is Teresa and I am not very good at self-disclosure and I haven't been completely forthcoming and there's something that I want to share. But the disclosure bit is hard for me. I’m shy. And, mostly, I cannot imagine that anyone would care about my life. It’s not unremarkable. But why would anyone care? I guess we’ll see.

Let’s start somewhere in the middle, and I’ll tell you the story of the Goldfish. I lived in Beijing, China sometime in the early 1990’s (and I’d have to think really hard to remember which year exactly). I went there chasing a dying relationship that had grown unpleasant but was at least proof that someone besides my parents could love me. I went there to fight demons and hate myself and run from ugliness and hide from beauty. I went there because I was sad and hurt and not at all the person I wanted to be. I went there because I didn’t want to stay here. But whatever. I didn’t know any of that at the time. I just went because I could.

I wandered around in a cacophonous city of car horns, bicycle bells, and a loud brassy language that I didn’t understand. I breathed in the pervasive odor of garlic and burning coal and rotting vegetables and human waste and incense and fried food and cigarette smoke and car exhaust and people and people and people. I turned away men who mistook me for a Russian prostitute (this I've never understood, but I probably could have made a fair bit of cash). I spent my nights getting blind drunk with a crazy group of expats who were convinced of their own glamour and who didn’t seem completely averse to self-destruction. It was lots of fun when it wasn’t crushing me.

Somewhere in the haze of hangovers and and homesickness and really good food, I started noticing the paintings of fish. You know, the koi. They mesmerized me. And, as with just about everything during those months, I completely misunderstood them. Turns out that in Chinese culture, the fish symbolizes wealth. (Whatever about that; I pay so little attention to money that it’s dangerous sometimes.) I didn’t get that at the time. I just knew that these paintings really resonated with something inside me.

I didn’t understand why.

I'll tell you more about this later, but since I had been eight years old, well-meaning people told me that it's what "below the surface" that counts. It’s a cliché, and people said it because they didn't know what else to say. They wanted to make me feel better. They wanted me to be happy. And it had always meant exactly nothing to me. It was a condescending platitude.

But then I tore myself out of the context of my self-pity. I went to Beijing. In a chaotic city that provided very little comfort to a sad, lonely, and angry Iowa girl, I started learning to see beauty beneath the turbulent surface. I found beauty in eating spicy noodles for breakfast. I found beauty in practicing my infantile and ugly Chinese on helpful cabbies. I found beauty in riding my bicycle past an abandoned and eerie Tiananmen Square at midnight.

And eventually I started learning where to find the beauty in myself.

I had never in my life seen beauty look back at me in the mirror. Lord knows I had spent countless hours looking. Hoping. Desperate. And hating.

But once I learned what had drawn me to the symbol of the Goldfish, I realized that I had been looking in the wrong place. The mirror wasn't going to show me what I wanted to see. Once I learned to dive deeper, I began to find peace. It didn't happen quickly or easily. And do not misunderstand: I am not all Pollyanna about this. I still have bad days and some days I cry and some days I rage and some days I wish pathetically that I were someone else. But those days are fewer now.

So, my real name is Teresa and that’s the story of the Goldfish. It's the middle-ish part of a much bigger story, which I'm not quite ready to share yet. (Soon, I promise.) In the meantime, the illustrated version will appear here on Wednesday. You might want to see where it all led….

This post is absolutely not brought to you by the letter "S"

2009-01-02T07:25:00.003-06:00

This is just one example of why four-year-olds shouldn't be elected president or perform brain surgery. Or a lot of other things.

Two things you should know:

We don't watch a lot of tv. But Evan does kind-of-semi-regularly watch Sesame Street. On public television (ie, PBS).
He is going through this thing where he constantly asks us to spell words. 273 times a day. (254 of those words are "dinosaur," by the way.) I'll be ready for Scripps any day now.

So the other day:

Evan: "Mommy, how do you spell 'PBS?'"

Me: "Well, let me think about that...."

Evan: "P! B!... But what's the last letter?"

Me: "Hmmm. S, maybe?"

Evan: "No!!! It's not S! You're wrong!"

Me: "What letter is it?"

Evan: "L."

And that was the end of the discussion.

Any questions? I'm sure Evan will be happy to answer them for you.

...and you can't make me

2009-01-01T09:41:00.006-06:00

If I make a resolution not to make a New Year's resolution, have I failed already?

I guess today I'm supposed to make some sort of resolutions. I've never made a New Year's resolution in my life. The usual suspects don't apply. I'm so old and dull that I don't remember the last cigarette I had. If I lose any more weight my husband's going to commit me to an eating disorders program. I can't stay up late enough to drink too much. Don't get me wrong: it's not that I don't think I could use some improvement. Hardly. I just don't necessarily think a resolution made out of sentimentality and obligation is going to help in that department. I'm way too far gone for that sort of intervention.

Anyway. That's going to change this year.

I've thought about it for weeks now. And I'm ready to resolve. Here is my self-improvement promise for 2009:

I hereby solemnly swear that I will not read

a single paragraph of the Twilight series.

Sounds pretty simple, right? Don't be deceived. With this ubiquitous pop-culture cotton candy, it's going to be harder than it seems.

I know this from experience. I did the same thing with Forest Gump. I can't explain. I'm really not a movie snob, or a book snob. But I got so tired of people telling me that I "had" to see that damn movie that I put up a wall. I refused. Call me a petty rebel. No, I did not "have" to see it.

And I still haven't.

But I haven't entirely escaped it. Tom Hanks, a lot of walking, some historical traveling, something about "Mama." I could probably tell the story. Even with some serious effort, I couldn't entirely avoid the narrative.

Now, "Twilight." Vampires, right? Edward, and Bella? Is that it? About 17 books? A movie with some guy who's supposed to be smoldering but really doesn't strike me as being terribly attractive?

This isn't going to be easy. I've already gathered that I am the last mommy blogger on the continent who has not read these books. (Please correct me if I'm wrong; I'd love to not be alone in this.) My sister even threatened to read them.

I will not.

And that is my very first New Year's resolution. Probably this won't make me a better person. But I guess it does prove that three kids and marriage (not entirely in that order) and my failed attempts at Donna Reed-ism haven't completely changed me. The piercings are gone, but I can still rebel. Just a little.

Update: The day I posted this I read about PBN's "2009-- Year of the Mom" campaign at Motherhood Uncensored, which poses the question, "What are you doing to prioritize yourself this year?" And even though my post started out as a bit of a joke, this is exactly what I want accomplish: to learn to stay true to myself as I struggle to find my own way amidst my roles as mom, wife, sister, daughter, "housewife" (which makes me laugh), and whatever else it is that I claim to be. Yeah, I'm a little bit of a rebel. I have been since I was a kid. (I'm a very well-behaved rebel, but still....) And if boycotting "Twilight" helps me hold on to that and aids me on my journey, then I will have grown a little this year.

I think what I'm trying to say is "Happy New Year"

2008-12-31T06:16:00.003-06:00

Hmmm. December 31, you say? Time to bid a fond farewell to 2008?

Can't do it.

I almost always get choked up on New Year's Eve, especially since I've become a mother. It's usually bittersweet to file a year of love and "firsts" and my boys' childhoods in the "Past" drawer. Auld lang syne and all that.

But not this year. This year there is no bitter with the sweet. I'm happy to see it go. It hasn't been an overwhelmingly bad year. It's just been too much, relentlessly so. Too much worry (sick kid, house-selling), too much change (new baby, new town, new house), too much insomnia... just too much. I'm ready to move on.

I'm ready to make this house our own, ready to tie up the loose ends, ready to feel like we belong here. I'm tired of not having any dining room furniture and of the echo in that empty room. I'm tired of not having a backyard the kids can play in (stupid new grass that didn't grow the first time). I'm tired of not having our pictures on the walls and tired of our china still being in boxes and tired of not knowing which of the bazillions of eye doctors in the phone book to call because I'm squinting all the time.

Things are better. My stomach doesn't hurt with worry about making two mortgage payments or about the kids' adjustment or my husband's new job. I don't even worry about his 30-mile commute; for a while I was preoccupied with the idea of him driving too fast and ending up in the ditch, or worse.

And we do have some pictures on the walls. The two boxes of china are the only boxes that remain packed-up. We only have one mortgage payment again. And the kids are happy and have friends and I have a new dentist and my husband swears he drives safely. Everybody's seemingly healthy.

I sleep like a rock now, unconscious. Six months ago I was lucky to get four hours of sleep a night. I've never had stress insomnia before. It sucked. And, you know. Baby. He kind of caused some sleep problems too, starting about two days after I got pregnant. Now he sleeps. I sleep. We are much more able to cope.

So, yeah, things have taken a turn for the better in the past couple of months. But still. I wouldn't choose to relive this year. If I got stuck in some sort of endless 2008 loop, I'd eventually run out of steam. It would not be pretty.

I sat down intending to write a smart-ass post about kicking 2008 to the curb. I have no idea how this got so serious. Perhaps I still harbor some pent-up resentment about this almost-but-not-quite-harrowing year?...

Perhaps.

Anyway. Tonight it's over. Tonight I can shed all that has cumulatively weighed me down this year, take a deep breath, and maybe let my innate optimism start to flow again.

So, um, 2008? Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Auld lang syne and all that.

And Happy New Year, everyone.

Sarcasm doesn't translate in e-mail or seven-year-olds

2008-12-30T09:47:00.004-06:00

I've been more than a little neglectful of my little blog recently.

You know. Christmas.

Santa went high-tech this year. (I'll spare the gory details of how insanely sore I am from WiiFit. You'd be jealous, I know. "Can't blog! Must hula-hoop!") This led to a very thoughtful discussion with Jensen about gifts I got as a child. He's pretty sure I'm lucky I didn't die of boredom before my ninth birthday.

Jensen: "Did you ever get a Wii when you were a kid?"
Me: "Well, no, Wii hadn't been invented yet."
Jensen: "Oh. Well, what about a PS3?"
Me: "Um, no."
Jensen: "PS2?"
Me: blank stare
Jensen: "What about a flat-screen tv?"
Me: "No, but we did get a tv with a remote when I was 11."
Jensen: "Did you at least have computer games?!"
Me: "..."

I lacked the energy to explain the Apple IIe and Oregon Trail and Lemonade Stand all in amazing low-resolution graphics, which we didn't even get until I was 13.

This conversation got very old very quickly.

But they also got a Lite Brite, which almost kills me with nostalgia.

Jensen: "You did have a Lite Brite when you were a kid, right?"
Me: "Yes!!!" Success! My childhood didn't totally suck!
Jensen: "But did you have pegs for it?"
Me: "Well, they hadn't invented that part yet, so we had to whittle our own out of sticks from the backyard."

He believed me.

Now he looks at me with an air of admiration and absolute pity. I probably deserve both.

Sorry, can't blog now...

2008-12-29T13:01:00.003-06:00

...Wii are kind of preoccupied. Back soon, promise.

Merry.

2008-12-24T06:12:00.004-06:00

This, I do not understand: how is it that only a few days ago the winter solstice brought us the shortest day of the year? And today, December 24 is unquestionably the longest day of the year?

Today I spend wrapping up some last minute tasks (although I am not a high-pressure Christmas kind of a person) and preparing Christmas Eve dinner and getting the house ready for tomorrow morning's chaos.

But mostly today I spend pacifying the children, who will not think they can possibly wait until tomorrow morning. Whose happy anticipation threatens to spill over at every minute. Who will spend the day carefully watching the gifts under the tree and making sure the fireplace is ready for Santa, and who will by tonight be checking the skies and listening for bells outside their bedroom window.

Christmas here will be a magical day. I hope it is for you too. I wish you much happiness.

Weekly Winners

2008-12-21T09:36:00.008-06:00

The week before Christmas, and we ate some pomegranate.

And had a snow day.

Or two.

Somebody got sick.

We dreamed a little.

And explored a bit.

And watched, and waited.

See all of this week's Weekly Winners participants here, at sarcasticmom.com.

Three Kids Christmas Blowout: Great Big Happy Family

2008-12-19T14:32:00.006-06:00

This was all my cousins' fault. My older cousins, I might add.

Because of them, I was sneaking down the stairs in the middle of the night, barefoot, on Christmas Eve. I crept past my parents' bedroom. Past the room where my aunt and uncle were sleeping. And slowly, slowly, I descended, hoping the stairs didn't creak. Hoping my parents wouldn't wake up. Hoping to find magic.

This was bad. I was a very good girl. But this? This was very, very naughty.

And it thrilled me. In a terrible and beautiful way.

I was six years old, and my cousins had come for Christmas. We all camped out on my bedroom floor in our sleeping bags, even the little kids. After our parents tucked us in, we were too excited to sleep. We talked. We planned. We were going to catch Santa Claus.

Steve must have been the ringleader. He was, after all, the oldest and wisest. So when he declared he saw the red glow of Rudolph's nose outside the window, I just knew he was right. When he and his sister, Laurie, announced that somebody was going to have to go downstairs to bust the jolly old guy, I was right there with them. And when they told me I was the one to go, well... I would have followed them to the ends of the earth. I didn't like it. But I did it.

Downstairs I crept. I made it as far as the living room. That was all I needed to see. The room was overflowing with presents, glowing blue in the moonlight. The floor was covered, and the evidence was overwhelming: he had arrived. He had come and gone in the blink of an eye, had disappeared before I had seen him, and had set the scene for a joyous Christmas morning.

I was relieved. My mission was complete, I hadn't been caught, and I had pleased my cousins. Best of all: I had found magic.

I don't remember what I got for Christmas that year. It doesn't matter. What I remember, 32 years later, is the unbridled delight of that night. My belief was enchanted, my anticipation electrifying. My cousins had helped create one of the happiest memories of my life.

Until recently, my kids didn't have any cousins. Then they had two. As of this week, they have three (welcome, Jaden!). And any minute now, there will be yet another (hurry, Baby, hurry!). This is a mere handful compared to the bushel of cousins I have, but no matter.

They will be family; they will be cousins. Our brothers and sister and their children will come to visit at Christmas or during the summer or on birthdays. And our children will run off together to play and and to pretend and to scheme and to forge years of memories of their own.

My kids don't know it yet. But these cousins are the best Christmas gifts they'll ever receive.

First snow

2008-12-17T06:09:00.003-06:00

(My first Wordless Wednesday offering....)

Three Kids Christmas Blowout: Stocking Stuffers

2008-12-15T20:01:00.008-06:00

More Christmas Joy, Three Kids Style! Today Evan shares his thoughts on justice and stocking stuffers. Feel the love....

Oooo, Evan's really thinking hard about this whole Santa Claus bit. Today on the way home from the grocery store he asked, apparently apropos of nothing, "Mommy, what's that thing that Santa brings you if you're not nice?"

"You mean coal?" I offered, wondering (hoping! foolishly!) if he was finally deciding to rectify his pre-Christmas behavior.

"Mmm-hmmm," he agreed.

He gave this idea some serious preschool thought. I could almost hear the gears turning in his sweet little head.

And then with complete glee and certainty and all the attitude a four-year-old who is out of arm's reach of his older brother can muster, he turned to the back seat and announced: "Hey Jensen! Know what?! You are gettin' coal for Christmas this year 'cause you are soooo naughty to me!!!"

Well. Glad we got that clarified, then.

Three Kids Christmas Blowout: The Tree

2008-12-14T21:02:00.011-06:00

Christmas: it's coming! Or perhaps you were already aware. Anyway, I'm going to do some posts to let you know how we're doing Christmas, Three Kids Style. Chaos! Fun! And Very Much Happiness....

This is the Year of the Homemade Ornament.

You know that gorgeous tree on the front of the Pottery Barn catalog? Gold and bronze and white and perfect?

Yeah, that's not our tree. Not even a distant cousin.

Our tree is garish and bright and mismatched. It looks like Buddy the Elf got drunk and decorated. It's a real tree that's a little droopy and has some great big holes. It is perfect.

So, the handmade ornaments. It has been Arts and Crafts Central around our house. Here are the older boys proudly showing off some of their handiwork:

First they painted about 7425 wooden beads and put them on strings for garland. (Thanks, Grandma Jeri, for the artistic supervision. Oh, and the 5527 beads you personally painted.) (And also, thanks to Mr Lady for the superb idea, which somehow inspired me to do all the rest of the homemade stuff.) It looks like this:

Then they made candy canes out of beads and pipe cleaners. I remember these from when I was little. I thought they were beautiful. Still do:

Then Jensen went over to Grandpa Bill's workshop and used a (gulp) jigsaw and made some wooden ornaments for us. As an added bonus, Jensen returned home with all of his fingers. And some of these:

Then we made these cinnamon and applesauce cutouts that made the house smell so strongly of cinnamon that our eyes watered and the baby sneezed uncontrollably. These are another Blast from the Past; I remember making them with Mom when I was little:

Then we put it all together, and it is perfect. I know, I know: the tree leans. Perfect. And we don't have anything at all on the lower branches, because the decorations are so beautiful that Caleb cannot resist eating them. Again, perfect. The kids? love it. I? love it. Jeff? um, doesn't really say much about it, but I'm just sure he loves it too. (He's just reserved....)

So, behold: The Most Beautiful Christmas Tree Ever. Oh, and Pottery Barn? Yeah, you wish your tree looked this good.

If you have any ideas for handmade decorations, please leave a comment. We're definitely making more next year.

Faith Restored

2008-12-13T15:27:00.002-06:00

I was having a bit of a breakdown last night.

You knew this was coming. I nursed Caleb for the last time. {sigh} I thought I was going to be sane, planned to be objective and strong, but when it was all said and done I was a mess. Melancholy, morose me.

Then my husband made popcorn and gave me a beer and sat me down in front of the television.

And you know what was on?

"Talladega Nights."

It saved me.

Please do not ask me how I ended up with the sense of humor of a teenage boy. Let's just chalk it up to me being complex and intriguing.

All I know is that there must be a God, and last night God sent Will Farrell to pull me back from an abyss of self-pity.

The end.

Next stop: Nice List

2008-12-11T06:53:00.006-06:00

The Christmas anticipation has been a little hard on Evan. I'm not sure he knows what exactly he's anticipating, but he knows he's supposed to be excited and is behaving accordingly. His emotional thermostat is set somewhere between Irrationally Exuberant and Total Friggin' Meltdown.

If we all live until the 25th it might be considered a Christmas Miracle.

This is probably why I was so receptive the other day when he was in a quiet, cuddly mood. And he said, in his best Eddie Haskell impersonation, "Mommy, how is your body getting so thin? Look at you-- you're so skinny! I love you!"

Mind you, I am at least emotionally intact enough (most days, anyway) that neither my body image nor my self-worth are vulnerable to a four-year-old's perception of me. Still, he made me smile.

He's not wrong. Those of you who know me in real life (you lucky dogs!) know that, at about five feet 10 inches and a size four, or even a two, I am relatively thin. And perhaps he's remembering last Christmas season, when I was terminally pregnant and approximately the size of our minivan. So, objectively, he's right.

And I do not want to make too big a deal out of his comment.

But still, this has not been sitting entirely well with me. Why did he choose to comment on this? Where did he learn that this is a compliment? Why does he think that my thinness makes me worthy of his love, or at least the statement of his love?

Again, those of you who know me IRL (oh, your good fortune never ends!) know about my physical difference, my anomaly. (Those of you who don't know me: I should probably get around to explaining this sometime soon.) I grew up looking different than most people, and far different than any social construct of beauty. I'm really not terribly sensitive about it anymore, but I've learned a lot. For instance: value statements about physical traits are absolutely insubstantial. Criticisms or compliments, such comments miss the point. Ultimately they are empty. And I want my kids, eventually, to understand this.

(I also learned that adolescence absolutely sucks. But that's another post. Or maybe a novel.)

Evan was just happy the other day, conversing and practicing a social skill. No big deal. But still. He's already learning. Despite what Jeff and I attempt to model, he's absorbing these socially-enforced ideals of beauty and goodness and desirability. And it bothers me. Just a little. Just enough to let me know, as a parent, what I'm up against as I try to define the values I want my children to inherit.

However. He also called my dishwater-blonde hair "golden" the other day. "Mommy, your hair is beautiful and golden," he said. And it made me happy. I'm not immune. I just hope he's not doing this to get on Santa's Nice List....

A momentary lapse

2008-12-09T06:45:00.007-06:00

I shouldn't want this.

But I do. I want it. I want to freeze this moment, this beautiful moment that defies adjectives. I want my baby to be a baby forever. I want him to nuzzle his face into the crook of my neck. I want his angel curls to smell of sweet baby shampoo. I want to share his whispered baby conversations. I want him to suck his fingers and stroke my hair when he is tired. I want his buttery skin to stay this soft, I want his legs to stay chubby and his pot-belly cute, and I want him to remain the happiest person I've ever known.

I want him to need me. To love me without question. I want his world to remain safe and bright and warm.

I want. Forever.

Most days I resist this. Most days I am more than happy to let time pass. I am content to let our future itself be testament to our past. Knowing that there is no sense in wishing for the impossible. Knowing that there are unforeseen and better moments to come. Knowing that even as I forget the details, this magical and challenging year that we have lived together will shape the people both of us will grow into. Most days I have faith.

But today I cannot resist. Today I remember that I've forgotten so much already. Today I remember that there will be no more babies to remind me. I struggle to impress this moment on my mind and soul indelibly. I do not want to forget a single heartbreaking detail. How can I remember? How can I make sure this moment never fades? I hold him closer, I close my eyes, I grasp. And I fail.

Today I want to hold him here forever.

The Day I Turned One. By Caleb.

2008-12-08T10:24:00.008-06:00

First my grandmas and grandpas came over because they love me.

Then I opened my presents.

Then I ate the bows.

Then I was cute.

Then we ate cake. (I was the only one who was naked.)

Then I was cute again. And fell asleep.

And then I was one.

Friday Purge

2008-12-05T13:33:00.003-06:00

Oh, the writer's block. I do not know why. I swear, just a week ago I had about 8362694 good ideas for posts. This week? Zilch. So I'm making a list. A brain-purging list.

1. My son's first birthday is in less than 48 hours. Mind you, we still don't have a gift for him. Furthermore, we have no idea what to get him. Further furthermore, Christmas is in three weeks, and we have no idea what to get the poor kid for that obligatory gift-giving day either. This, Caleb, is the burden of being the third boy-child. Get used to it....

2. This morning on my way to the gym I heard a song by Journey. (I am a child of the 70's and 80's. I adore Journey. Don't judge me.) Anyway, hearing this song brought about the jolting and disturbing realization that I had some kind of a lurid dream involving Steve Perry last night. I'm ashamed. And intrigued.

3. I have been in bed by 9pm every night this week. (While visions of Steve Perry dance in my head, evidently....) So perhaps I'm not having writer's block. Maybe I'm just hibernating.

4. Caleb is almost weaned-- it's gone off without a hitch. Which would be great except for the fact that it's making me insurmountably sad. This seems like it deserves its own post, perhaps. Because I know you're all dying to hear about my maternal instability.

5. John McCain strikes again: this one needs a little explanation. Maybe you remember that when Evan gets "dressed up" he thinks he looks like the Senator from Arizona. Today he decided to get dressed up. But he only made it half-way there before he got a little distracted. So when I left this morning he was dressed in a blue oxford shirt, a red sweater vest, and not a stitch of clothing from the waist down. And he was doing some kind of kung fu-inspired dance and singing, "I look like John McCain!" The potential analyses of this are disturbing. And hilarious.

This seems like a good place to stop. Hopefully next week I'll be inspired again....

Taking stock

2008-12-03T14:14:00.005-06:00

I have no idea why I even bothered to get up yesterday. It pretty much seemed like I failed at every single thing I touched. Here's a list. Read it: you'll feel better about yourself.

I was being all efficient and got to Lowe's bright and early-- did you know all their Christmas stuff is 50% off?! You know what else? It really sucks when you lock your keys in your car. I had to call my in-laws and totally admit what an idiot I am and they drove to my house and got my spare keys and came to bail me out, while I strolled around Lowe's with a whining four-year-old and a screaming baby. The guys in Lumber looked at me like I had an arm growing out of my head. This episode should have served as warning that the rest of my day would be best spent drinking Bailey's on the rocks, rather than trying to be productive.
Turns out that at least half of what I bought was wrong and has to be returned.
I left one of my bags in the store.
I tried to get gas but couldn't make the pump work.
I couldn't write a blog post to save my life.
Hell, I couldn't even write a coherent grocery list.
As a direct result of Failure #5, we had no usable food in the house. Unless you count whole wheat flour, two eggs, apple cider, an overripe banana, moldy sour cream, and Velveeta. Oh, and Bailey's. And plenty of beer. For some reason I was having trouble whipping that up into a meal.
I ate ice cream. Twice.
When I finally managed to scavenge some food it took 45 minutes longer to cook than I had anticipated, making my son and husband late for The Meeting of the Venerable Cub Scouts.
Somewhere in the haze, Evan had a monster temper tantrum. Enormous.

Perhaps for the sake of comparison I should make a list of everything that went well yesterday:

No one got arrested.
No one got food poisoning.
I got to watch "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" with Evan. (The Burger Meister Meister Burger rocks.)
I went to bed at 8:30. Such mediocre ineptitude (or is it inept mediocrity? a question for the ages) is exhausting.

Told ya.

I can't wait to get old

2008-12-01T15:59:00.004-06:00

Here was my Thanksgiving: I had to travel 220 miles by myself. And when I say "by myself" I mean with three children. And no husband. (Having an awesome schedule is not a benefit of working in the healthcare industry.)

We stopped at McDonald's for lunch in Nowheresville, Iowa. At the same exact time as a van full of folks from the local retirement home. Fortunately I made it into line in front of them. (I was not in the mood to listen to six elderly ladies try to decide whether they wanted a chicken sandwich or a hamburger to go with their decaf.)

But as I got my tray, I noticed an Old Guy (really. old.) looking pointedly at Evan, who was holding onto my pant leg. He looked for a minute and said to me, "His shoe's untied."

I had one armful of squiggly baby and my other hand was precariously balancing a tray loaded with Happy Meals and life-sustaining Diet Coke (for me, not the kids, because pumping them full of caffeine and sticking them back in the van for the remainder of the trip would be suicide). Oh, and I'm a nurse. I've worked in a lot (lot!) of nursing homes in my time. Just so you know.

I smiled and said, "Yes! It is!" Evan's shoes are untied approximately 107% of the time. I really don't care. But Old Guy was not okay with this situation.

"Well, aren't you gonna tie it?" he said accusingly.

This struck me as ridiculous.

We exchanged blank stares for a minute, Old Guy waiting for me to tie the shoe and me considering the possibility that he was experiencing some degree of synaptic failure.

"Right, then!" I chirped and turned away.

Turns out Old Guy was seated at the table next to us. He was the only gentleman present, surrounded by a bevy of glowing, bewigged female admirers. Over his coffee and fish sandwich, he was holding forth about all sorts of stuff. I was kind of caught up in making sure the baby wasn't trying to steal my fries and listening to the big kids argue about important plot devices in "Madagascar 2," so I certainly wasn't paying attention to Old Guy's diatribe.

But then. Then I overheard him say, "And that will definitely get you laid."

I swear that's what he said. His adoring audience smiled benignly. They didn't really react as I would have. But I swear to God he was telling them how to get laid in The Home.

I think Evan spilled his milk right about then so I had to tear my attention away from his geriatric wisdom. But this half-unglued-alpha-male-octagenarian totally made my day.

Warning: may contain graphic cuteness. And thankfulness.

2008-11-26T13:44:00.000-06:00

Technical difficulties solved (thanks to my brother-in-law), here is my blog video debut. It's not a minivan giveaway, but it's still worth watching.

I'm pretty sure that sometimes I come off as being a sarcastic ingrate. I am sarcastic, but I am very, very grateful for all that I have. Chief among my blessings are my superhero husband and three beautiful boys and the best family in the entire world. This, everyone, is why I am thankful. Happy Thanksgiving!

A post about why there's no post

2008-11-26T07:01:00.003-06:00

Oh no! I'm having some, um, technical difficulties. I'm working on a post titled, roughly, "What I am thankful for," (without the dangling preposition, of course) but am having trouble. I'll tell you what I'm not thankful for: a piece of sh*t stupid computer that seems to be in its death throes. Anyway. I'll be back, with a stupendous post that involves video! and music! and a minivan giveaway! Okay, scratch the minivan. But check back soon, cause after I get some help from my awesome, computerly-talented brother-in-law, I'll have a Thanksgiving surprise.

A little help, please

2008-11-25T06:54:00.011-06:00

I think I'm having writer's block. I've been trying to write a post on National Adoption Month for days now. I finally just threw in the towel; it ain't gonna happen. There's too much I want to say, it's too tied in knots, and nobody would want to read it. So, I'm stealing a post from my sister, Ali, instead. She and her husband are adopting a son from South Korea next month. She wrote this recently, and I thought it was lovely:

Jaden will have three moms in his life. I think a lot about all three of these moms on a daily basis: his first mother, his foster mother, and me. I think about these three moms so much. I will meet his foster mother soon. She has taken care of him every day since he was just a tiny, tiny baby. She knows his cries when he is hungry, she took care of him this fall when he was sick, and she is preparing to say good-bye to him in the next few weeks. I want to write her a letter to have translated into Korean. I want to tell her how much peace her love and care has brought to my husband and me during these torturous weeks waiting to meet our son. I want to tell her thank you.

I may or may not ever meet Jaden's first mother-- his birthmother. Her story is one I cannot imagine, but her life will be linked forever to mine. I do not want to trivialize or minimalize her decisions and sacrifices by speculating what may or may not have been. But I do want to recognize that I think of her daily. She knew Jaden from the beginning, and has given us a son to love for a lifetime. Our gratitude for this is indescribable.

Over the past two weeks, I feel like I have started identifying as a mother. There is no rulebook here-- becoming a mother through adoption. I am overcome with excitement, fear, love, amazement, and awe simultaneously. I'm going to be Jaden's mom. I don't want to let his other two down.

Ali writes about her adoption process on her blog, Days of Our Lives. (Kindly direct all complaints about that unfortunate title to her.) Congratulations, Ali and Dustin. Words cannot express how happy I am for you.

The glass half-full: at least he still had his pants

2008-11-24T09:38:00.009-06:00

Sometimes I like to think I remember what it's like to be a kid. And then something happens to remind me that I have absolutely no clue.

For instance, take Friday.

It's fair to say that Jensen had a bad Friday. Among other things:

He didn't have a coat to wear to school (and it was pretty chilly) because he left it in Jeff's car the night before. Instead he wore a woefully inadequate sweatshirt.
His teacher moved him to a different desk because he keeps getting in trouble for talking too much.
He lost his hat and gloves. It was the second time he'd worn them.
I had the nerve to make him call the bus barn to check the lost and found for said hat and gloves. This was mortifying for him. This may be one of those moments he relives in a therapy session in 17 years.

He doesn't like to screw up (usually) and by bedtime the weight of the day had crushed him. He was in tears, and my mommy heart kind of ached for him.

Oh, but wait. Turns out he had withheld the best part. Saturday morning he worked up the nerve to tell me that he also lost his shirt at school.

I'll let that sink in.

Yes, he misplaced what most would consider to be an essential article of clothing. Don't you hate it when that happens? He doesn't really remember where or why he took it off. "I think my top half got kind of hot," was the best explanation he could offer. Which makes sense, in a random sort of way. Still, questions abound.

So, like I said, things like this prove that I really have no insight into my kids' realities. But even if I could remember how overwhelming it sometimes is to be seven, I truly don't think that inexplicably ending up half-naked would be on my radar.

The complete and total idiot's guide to Christmas card photos

2008-11-20T10:33:00.012-06:00

Here's a fun! and easy! way to start the holiday season: a do-it-yourself Christmas card photo shoot! After all, nothing says "festive" like crying children and swearing parents. Want awesome holiday pics like ours? Here's a foolproof step-by-step guide:

1) Do not plan ahead. This is crucial. Pictures better reflect your kids' personalities when they're spontaneous. So spring it on them (and your photographer/husband) with no advanced warning. (Added bonus: your husband will love you for this!)

2) Get the kids completely wound up. This always makes for successful pictures.

3) Coordinated outfits are not necessary. Maybe try for something without food stains or holes, but really... who cares? Although, in retrospect, I kind of wish we'd gone with Evan's "A Very Camo Christmas" theme. Combat-themed Christmas cards rock.

4) Make sure your husband has to spend at least 37 minutes making unnecessary (he says "nuanced," whatever) camera adjustments. This gives the kids adequate time to start pinching each other and assures that someone will start crying.

5) Bribe kids with leftover Halloween candy that no one wants. Example: "I'll give you Milk Duds if you stop crying." It kind of works.

6) Time to put the baby in the frame! Be sure to get him overexcited so he wants to kiss everyone.

7) "Smile!"

8) "No, kids, your real smiles."

9) "Um, guys, could you maybe not show us your tonsils?"

10) {sigh} Put away the camera. Tell your husband to stop dropping f-bombs in front of the kids. Open a beer. Consider studying up on Photoshop; after all, with the 54 pictures he just took, there's gotta be something salvageable. Right?

11) Make a note to call the Sears Portrait Studio first thing in the morning.

Motherhood is really hard, the weaning edition

2008-11-19T06:21:00.007-06:00

Bony babies aren't cute. They look like scrawny birds. They look fetal, while at the same time looking eerily geriatric. But they do not look cute or cuddly or nurtured.

Caleb didn't gain weight for the first two months of his life. As a matter of fact he lost weight, and an alarming amount of it. It was only after we started "supplementing" breastfeeding with formula that he at least went into a weight holding-pattern. We never really figured out what was wrong. He fell asleep every time I put him to the breast. He didn't latch on well. He just didn't care.

When we poured formula down his little baby throat, he would accept it. This at least prevented the doctor from calling him "failure to thrive," which, despite my academic and clinical knowledge as a nurse, I heard as a criticism of my abilities. But I stubbornly would not give up the hope of breastfeeding. I nursed him every two hours, by the timer, around the clock. For sixty-some-odd days.

I cried. A lot. Every time I held his bony little body I felt a sickening thud of failure. Every time someone said, "Oh, he's so tiny!" I heard an indictment of my mothering abilities.

Breastfeeding had always come very easily for me and my babies. My first two babies were fat, pink piggies who nursed like champions, and I was a milk machine. This time, I felt dried up. Rejected. I did not recognize mothering from behind a bottle, but nursing, which had been the very definition of mothering for me, an act of nurturing, nourishing, and symbiosis, was failing. Nothing seemed right anymore. I didn't want formula to be the answer. But bottles were quickly becoming preferable to an exercise in desperation.

Then, he figured it out, almost literally overnight. His older brother was in the hospital, having had emergency lung surgery. I was at my wit's end, sleepless, worrying about two children. And he just started doing it right, and got fat and greedy and cute. Somehow, all those hours and tears and worries paid off.

And now? After all that hard work, the gratification of success, the struggle to define myself, yet again, as a mother, I'm weaning him. I am taking it away from him. After all that effort, I'm walking away from it.

Because I can't do it anymore.

Yes, breastfeeding is amazing. Beautiful. You know all the arguments. They're all true. And you know what else? It is one of the hardest things I've ever done. It leaves me exhausted, physically and emotionally. I can't eat enough to maintain energy for both of us. I'm still up at least once a night. I hate the way it makes my body look-- soft and matronly and indulgent. There are days when I just do not want to be touched, or needed in such a, well, needy way. I'm ready for Jeff to be the one who can make it all better sometimes. I want to recognize myself inside this body again. I am, quite literally, sucked dry.

So the weaning begins, hopefully to be done somewhere right around his first birthday next month.

And, as breastfeeding is a perfect metaphor for my mothering style, weaning is the logical extension of that metaphor. Where do I draw the line? How do I embrace the conflicting emotions that arise in this one parenting act? The wanting to be "free," the guilt associated with that desire?

I've done it twice before. This is the last time. One of these days, one of these nursings will be the last one-- the very thought leaves me feeling distinctly adrift. It's almost unthinkable that I will never do this again, that my little Caleb is growing apart from me, and that there will never be another little baby who needs me to give him sustenance. And yet. I am looking very forward to the liberation.

It's part of the complex balance that I must negotiate, measuring my impulses as mother, wife, woman, daughter, sister, me.... It's all in there, tugging at me, and none of it is black and white. I just have to find the best shade of gray that I can.

Can I just suspend his development now?

2008-11-18T11:06:00.008-06:00

Jensen drew this picture of me this weekend. (And, yes, I did ask his permission to use it on my blog. I did not tell him what I was going to write about it. Whatever.)

I know, I know. There are a couple of problems with his rendering of moi. First: I have no hair. Second: what's going on with my nose? But those things pale in comparison with the real problem. Let's zoom in a bit:

Me: "Um, what's on my tummy?

Jensen: (all sly, wink, wink) "You know...."

Me: "Uh..." (I'm in a total panic, wondering if I'm pregnant again and my seven-year-old knows before I do. Once I decide that this is definitely not the case, I continue my query.)

Me: "No, I guess I really don't know what that is."

Jensen: (still sly, kind of pointing to his chest) "What do girls have that boys don't?"

Me: "..."

So tell me: what's more troubling? The fact that my kid drew my boobs, or the fact that they're on my abdomen? God, the truth hurts.

Do NOT put this inside a dead bird

2008-11-17T09:28:00.007-06:00

I heard a rumor that Thanksgiving is approaching. Which seems pretty ridiculous, you know, because I could have sworn that it's still September. Early October at the latest. But, I looked at the calendar and it's true: Thanksgiving is next week. Insanity, I tell you.

Guess I'd better get thinking about food.

Interestingly, for someone who loves to cook and for a holiday completely centered around an enormous meal, I really don't like Thanksgiving dinner. It's all so geriatric cafeteria. Turkey? Bleh. Don't even get me started on gravy: it's slop. Cranberry sauce? Sweet potatoes with marshmallows? Are you joking?! But: I really like green bean casserole, the kind with cream of mushroom soup and those divine french-fried onions. And stuffing. I. love. stuffing.

In truth, I'm a food snob, kinda. I'm fully committed to things like fresh herbs and unsalted butter and homemade marinara and mincing my own garlic. Stuff like that. But my favorite stuffing is a far cry from any of that. It is comfort food. And it is heavenly.

The stuffing we make is a recipe from my Grandma Klages, a Depression-era German farmwife extraordinaire. Actually, the recipe came from one of her friends, I think. We make, like, quadruple recipes because it's so scrumptious. (Frequently I only eat this and the Green Bean Delight.) And you will notice that it does not call for real butter. Nope. It calls for "oleo," which is how my grandmother referred to margarine. Actually, the full name was "oleomargarine." Old School, man. Anyway, despite my uppity food ways, I have never used butter in this recipe.

Please also note that this stuffing does not get stuffed into a bird. That is a repulsive practice, as far as I'm concerned. (Seriously: shoving mushy bread up a dead bird's butt?! Who thought of this?) I actually physically gagged the first time I had stuffing that had actually been cooked inside a carcass: so goopy, so funky, so... ugh. Technically, I guess, this is "dressing" rather than "stuffing." Stuff, if you must. But you do so at your own risk. I will not stuff, and will stubbornly continue to call this "stuffing."

And a final note: it's a pretty loose recipe. I think most of the measurements are just estimates that have been written down over the years. It has not been refined in a test kitchen or written according to formula. You just kind of make it however seems right.

So here it is:
The Best Stuffing That Was Never Stuffed
1 package breadcrumbs (8 oz)
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stick oleo
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
4 cups chicken broth (in my experience, it needs more so it doesn't get dry)
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Poultry seasoning, or sage (it doesn't say how much. Maybe a teaspoon? More?)

Cook oleo, celery, and onion. Add salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. Mix with breadcrumbs. Mix broth, milk, and eggs together. Stir into bread mixture. Bake in a 9x13 pan at 350 degrees for about an hour.

Now I must go find a turkey, I suppose. I still can't believe Thanksgiving is next week. Seriously, I'm so lucky I don't live in Canada, because if I'd had to be ready for Thanksgiving a month ago, I'd have been completely hosed.

[Oh, and I'm contributing this to Mr. Lady's call for Thanksgiving recipes at Whiskey in My Sippy Cup, which was one of the very first blogs I ever started reading and it is awesome. Seriously, I'm a complete blogging amateur and am totally unworthy of putting anything up there, but I'm just gonna suck it up and do it. (And she does live in Canada, by the way.)]

TGIF

2008-11-14T09:06:00.005-06:00

Ooo, a weekend! I'm so excited. I'm a little hesitant to tell you what we're doing, because I don't want to make anybody jealous. But I can tell you're dying to find out, so read on:

Friday
No school. God, I hate no-school days. This morning will be tolerable. It's the afternoon that's a bitch. However! Because I'll still harbor some fantasy that I'm borderline-competent, maybe when Caleb is napping we'll do something fun! and together! that good moms do with their kids, like make cookies!!! Which will be really fun for, like, two minutes and 29 seconds until Evan starts whining about how he wants a cookie before the oven is even heated and Jensen starts telling him to shut up and then they argue about who gets to help and somebody drops an egg on the floor and then I discover we're out of flour and Evan is still whining and Jensen thumps him on the back of the head and I start yelling which wakes up the baby who then screams for the next 45 minutes and I can get nothing else done and when Jeff (finally!) gets home the kitchen is a disaster, I'm a stark-raving bitch and two-thirds of the kids are crying and Jensen is big-kid surly and there are no cookies and I'm cracking open a beer.

Okay. So much for Friday. Let's move on.

Saturday
I already hate Saturday. This morning Jeff leaves at 5:45am and won't return until Sunday. This day? Is the reason that God invented television and McDonald's. I will wake up Saturday morning already having abandoned any thoughts of competency. I suck. This is the day that I probably won't even take a shower. Doesn't matter, though, because I won't see another human being besides the children, who don't notice whether I get to eat, much less groom. My only adult interaction will occur on Facebook, which I will check compulsively but will have me in a total funk by about 12:30 pm because nobody is sending me messages because everyone else has a life.

And because I'm the sole parent here I won't even be able to drink. I'll have to self-medicate with large amounts of Doritos and left-over Halloween candy.

The only things that could make Saturday any worse would be a trip to Super WalMart, an outbreak of explosive diarrhea, or maybe a traumatic amputation.

Bleh.

Sunday
Soon after breakfast, Jeff comes home. Yea! Today has to be better, right?

Hell, no. Because you know what I get to do this afternoon? Accompany Evan to a preschool birthday party. Betcha can't guess where? Oh, all, right: Chuck E. Cheese's. Which was invented by a germ-loving, parent-hating, bioterrorist crackhead who makes the worst pizza in the world. I don't even think the place has a liquor license, which means I'll have to take a flask. I think if I fill it with peppermint schnapps the other moms probably will just think I'm chewing gum to make my breath so minty-fresh and won't suspect it's because I'm hiding out behind the whack-a-mole game doing shots. I'll try to make it behind the ski-jump-thing to curl up and pass out.

So, yeah, that's the plan. I feel a little better, having gotten this off my chest. But still: it's gonna be a long-ass weekend. Feel free to send prayers. Condolences. Benzodiazepines. Whatever.

Maybe I'll enter another contest someday

2008-11-13T07:00:00.010-06:00

I just won something!!!

The Blurb/Parent Bloggers Network Halloween photo contest, to be exact. Grand Prize, even.

I've been kind of waiting for the results, and was excited to the announcement in my reader this morning. I figured my best shot was at Best Handmade Costume. But my heart sank as I scrolled down, because when I saw the jellyfish that won that category, I knew I had been outdone.

"Better luck next time, me," I thought, and continued to scroll down to admire the remaining winners.

And I about passed out when I saw my little Jensen, all dressed up as a mummy, under "Grand Prize Winner." Shut. Up.

Seriously. I never enter contests, because I am shy and it feels like self-promotion to me, and I am the worst self-promoter in the entire world. If my life depended on me being a salesperson, I would die. No question.

But for some reason I entered the contest and now I have $75 toward publishing a Blurb book of my blog-- what better way to document my beginning ventures into this crazy blogging world?

Thanks a million to PBN and Blurb and their judges: Tracey of Mother May I and Shutter Sisters, Casey of Moosh in Indy, and Aimee of Greeblemonkey. Congratulations to the other winners with their amazing (seriously, the pink baby octupus? that is so cute it shouldn't be legal) costumes, and to all the entrants, who all had great costumes and great posts. And be sure to click through to see the winners here-- they're adorable!

Update: At breakfast, I told Jensen his picture won. "Isn't that exciting?!" I asked. He agreed that it was. Then, with all the seriousness a seven-year-old can muster, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "But, Mom, remember not to brag." Buzzkill.

The National Association of Rubber Chickens for the Improvement of Public Education

2008-11-12T09:26:00.009-06:00

I do not understand the power of the rubber chicken.

Jensen earned a prize at school the other day for meeting behavioral expectations. Woo-hoo! I guess he didn't bite anybody or pee on his desk or take a semi-automatic weapon to school. He damn well better not do those things, but according to his school, such remarkable behavior earned him a prize.

You know what he got? A friggin' rubber chicken. Public tax dollars at work.

But I should not belittle it. It's the best toy in the world.

The minute he touches it, he gets this smarmy look on his face and thinks he has been instantly transformed into The Funniest Person In The World.

The weird thing is, it has the same eerie power over the rest of us. The mere sight of it sends Evan into fits of giggles. Just talking about it cracks us up. "Jensen, take your chicken off the counter." "Your chicken smells bad." "No, you may not take your chicken to Cub Scouts." It's all too stupid. Jeff hid it in the bushes last night. A massive chicken hunt ensued. The kids collapsed with the sheer hilarity of it all. (I don't get it, either.)

So he got a prize for doing what we expect him to do. I'm not at all sure that sticker charts are going to counter the personal and societal demons that many kids wrestle-- the kids who do bite and bring weapons to school and other sad and scary things. Quite probably, rewards from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes are not going to provide enough incentive to motivate long-term success. But if they make day-to-day classroom management a bit easier, then so be it.

Now. I'm going to carefully back down off my soap box, go locate this chicken, and rig it up in a stock pot on the stovetop. That'll kill him.

Political advertising dollars well-spent

2008-11-11T06:36:00.000-06:00

Bear with me; or, more precisely, bear with Evan. I'm sure you're sick to death of politics and politicians. But Evan is only four, and is not known for adjusting to change well. The abrupt end to the feeding frenzy has left him feeling a bit lost.

You probably all know my political leanings. Evan, on the other hand, simply adores John McCain. Perhaps it's his grandfatherly appearance. Perhaps it's that he referred to everyone as his "friend." Perhaps it's the military connection; as a boy's boy, Evan has a developmentally-appropriate interest in all things explosive. I don't know, but Evan talks about him fondly. Every time he wears self-proclaimed "fancy clothes" (ie, shirts with buttons and without stains or tears), he struts around proudly and says, "I look like John McCain!"

Yesterday he drew this picture:

Evan: "Mommy, this one is John McCain and this one is George Bush. [thoughtful pause] Are John McCain and George Bush brothers?"

Me: "No, they aren't."

Evan: "But look at this picture. Don't you think they look a lot alike?"

Who can argue with such logic?

Anyway. I don't know whether the Obama campaign should be ashamed that a four-year-old took their advertisements so literally, or embarrassed that they didn't come up with this idea....

And this is how road rage starts

2008-11-09T20:18:00.004-06:00

Jensen got kind of bored during that week he was quarantined and missed 157 days of school. In order to keep him from passing time by tattooing "love" and "hate" on his knuckles, we allowed him to play some video games.

So, there he sat, playing some kind of driving game. (Harrowing, by the way. Based on this demonstration, he may be allowed to drive when he's, like, 31.) He was wearing plastic Halloween vampire teeth, because what self-respecting seven-year-old boy doesn't wear vampire dentures while playing video games? I don't remember what I was doing, but for the sake of argument, let's say I was cleaning. Or pretending to clean. Whatever.

Oh, and before I go any further, let me just offer some self-defense: I have never (I don't think) dropped an F-bomb on another driver. Maybe some other charming stuff, but not that. At least not with kids in the car.

So, Jensen, driving like a maniac, suddenly cut loose with an explosive "Buck you!" Remember, vampire teeth: the "B" was pretty fuzzy. Not unlike an "F."

This, understandably, caught my attention. "Excuse me?" I politely inquired.

Jensen repeated, "Buck you!" Again with the fuzzy "B."

I icily asked to whom he was speaking.

"That other car! Buck you!"

Because I thought good parenting skills would dictate that I clarify before yelling, I asked, "Would you kindly remove the teeth and spell that?"

He removed the prosthetic teeth. And with enormous eye-rolling and sighing and condescension implying that I was quite possibly the stupidest creature to ever take in air, he enunciated:
"B. U. C. K. Y. O. U."

"Oh," I said, my mind temporarily dulled by his dramatically anticlimactic answer.

"What did you think I said, Mom? Gee-eez."

When he uses questionable vocabularial (?!) acquisitions, I'm usually pretty quick to go into full Boring Mom Mode: do you know what that means, is that really what you want to say, respect, blah, blah, blahhh-ahh-ahhh....

But I totally copped out on this one. Because: 1) I didn't really know what this meant; and 2) after the whole Wheat Thins Incident, I wasn't really sure I wanted to get into it.

My husband, the technology buff

2008-11-07T13:16:00.010-06:00

Despite all the contagion around here, Jeff managed to have a birthday. We got him a {gasp} digital camera. (A Nikon D-90, if you're a camera nerd like he is.) He was a little reluctant to give up the ol' film, but I forced him.

And now he's cuddling the owner's manual at night and won't quit talking about his new camera. He's all like, "Do you know how awesome this is?!" and I'm all like, "Um, yeah, honey, there's a reason you're the last person in the lower 48 to get one of these things."

He's all about the nature photography. He's taken exactly 29172650 photographs of leaves, trees, twigs, sunrises, acorns, bird poop, ponds, sunsets, insects, branches, clouds, and dead grass. (Okay, I'm joking about the bird poop. But not about the other stuff.)

And, I'll admit, they're pretty:

But I can only look at maybe 764 of those before I get a little bored. To redeem himself, though, he's been taking the kids on his photography hikes. So I have a whole bunch (like 200, without even exaggerating) of pictures like this:

And this:

I think next I'll introduce him to the internet. That'll really blow his mind.

When creme brulee goes bad

2008-11-06T15:06:00.005-06:00

Having survived Halloween and CNN's totally stupid holographic coverage of the election, I can get back to writing about significant, news-worthy issues. Like vomit.

I cannot stand throw-up. It makes me limp and quivery. With division of labor, I'm the poop-parent, and Jeff's the puke-parent. He takes care of any mess that comes out the top end, and I take care of the bottom-end disasters.

Most of the time.

Sunday night, we were safely tucked into bed and I was peacefully not having nightmares about Sarah Palin being our president, but was awakened by the creepy feeling that someone was watching me.

Jensen was hovering over me. "Mom, my stomach hurts." Great. Evan had been throwing up (so. many. times.) for 24 hours, so this only made sense. And with a silent, decisive nod, he clapped his hand over his mouth, turned and bolted into our bathroom. Then, just as abruptly, he stopped running. And I heard a loud splat.

Jeff (who had also awakened by now) yelled, "Run!!!" So Jensen recommenced running to our toilet to finish the job.

Jeff took him upstairs to clean up, and I just lay in bed and waited for Jeff to return and clean up the carnage. But he didn't come back. For ages.

Finally, because I couldn't stand the stench anymore, I ventured into the bathroom to survey the damage. Jensen had puked creme brulee from Jeff's birthday dinner all over the place. Floor, toilet, walls, bathtub, door: everywhere.

Holy hell.

Creme brulee: heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar. (Definitely not for those with weak coronary-artery constitutions. But sooo good.) It was like cleaning up an oil slick (thankfully, there were no waterfowl in our bathroom, because it would have been an enormous pain to get them cleaned up). I used an entire roll of paper towels, and a lot of chemicals (I had to use something to cut the fat), but I got it done. I weakly made my way into the laundry room, where, to my happy surprise, a mountain of stinking bed linens awaited me. Gawd.

When Jeff had gone upstairs to help Jensen clean up, he found Evan in a dead sleep, entirely encrusted in dried vomit. He had thrown up in his sleep. And then Jensen threw up again. So I was forced to wash out two beds' worth of disgusting sheets. I cannot describe the depth of my disappointment. Between the bathroom and the chunky sheets, it took an hour and a half to clean up.

We threw open the windows, scrubbed grout, and cleaned floors multiple times. After about 36 hours, the nose-hair-singeing, lingering reek of vomit no longer permeated the air and our bathroom floor was no longer slippery and greasy. And while I'm tempted to say we've emerged from the puke-ocalypse, I really don't want to jinx anything.

And I think it's safe to say it'll be a while before I eat creme brulee again.

Joy

2008-11-05T10:12:00.008-06:00

I did not vote for Barack Obama because of the color of his skin. I voted for Barack Obama because I am a Democrat, and his ideology most closely matched mine in this election. Because he has a singular blend of superior intellect, insight, and charisma that give him leadership skills this nation sorely needs. Because I believe that "change" means something much deeper than simply putting a different body in the Oval Office. And probably some other reasons, too.

But last night: last night my tears of joy were because of the color of his skin.

Last night my tears of joy were for the millions of people in this nation who have never felt part of the national dialogue, who have been marginalized and disenfranchised and ignored by a country which only occasionally has a painfully honest discussion about race. The people who finally felt like they are valued threads in the fabric of our history, our democracy. People who have been hurt, and whose hurt has left them, and me, feeling powerless. But last night our country banded together to fight the pain.

I am not naive. I do not for a moment believe that this rights all wrongs, real or perceived, or that there will be no more wrongs. Nor do I believe that Obama is any sort of saviour or revolutionary. And of course there is still a nation to be governed, with wars and crises and many dysfuctional groups of various skin colors, various socioeconomic classes, various religious beliefs. The sheen will wear off this humbling election and the very real work will remain.

But last night, the world shifted just a bit.

Late last night I awoke Jensen to tell him that Obama had won. Through a sleepy, satisfied smile he murmured, "America elected its first brown president."

Yes, baby. Yes we did.

Put away the hate

2008-11-04T08:03:00.004-06:00

You know what we do today: we choose.

Spirits are running high (myself included). That's great: that's how it should be. Get out there, cheer for your candidate, (more importantly) vote for your candidate, tell the world how you feel. It's become a bit tedious of late, and the campaign has seemed to last far too long, but for the first time I can remember in a presidential election, the air is sizzling. Awesome.

You know what we need to do tomorrow? Put away the hate.

Tomorrow (or tonight, depending on how sleep-deprived you are and how late you can stay up, so you where I fall) we'll know. Tomorrow it will be time to put away the spiteful accusations and underhanded dealings and the ludicrous hyperbole. It won't be easy; lots of things have been said, fires of fear and uncertainty have been stoked relentlessly. It won't necessarily be easy to extinguish those flames, but we really must.

You don't need to abandon your principles. By all means, hold your convictions. I just happen to feel very strongly that we should all hold fairness and respect as part of those convictions. Dissent plays an important role in politics. Unfortunately it's sometimes difficult to negotiate the line between dissent and disrespect. As happens every campaign, negotiation of that line has failed miserably. It's fair to say that "civility" has melted a bit in the heat of campaign rhetoric. Please help me reclaim it.

Today it is our responsibility to vote.

Tomorrow it is our responsibility to give congratulations and respect to the winner, to pour a big bucket of decency on the hateful embers of this long campaign.

He may just be presidential material

2008-11-03T14:58:00.005-06:00

Here are a few special Evan moments from the past week:

On human rights: He drew a picture of a guy on a surfboard. (Surprisingly good detail.) He told me it was a "waterboarder" and that he was wearing a special suit so he didn't get hurt.
On politics: He has a t-shirt that says "Future President" on the front, a gift from a proud grandparent convinced of great things ahead. He wore it last week. Backwards.
On self-regulation: I found him plundering his Halloween candy Saturday morning. Told him he really needed to ask before gorging on sugar. He replied, "Well, I was by myself. So I asked myself. And myself said okay."
On fashion: We ran errands on Saturday. It took several hours. He insisted on wearing white socks on his hands the entire time. We got a few strange looks.
On bodily integrity: After vomiting for the fourth time the other night, he started crying. Because he was worried that his skeleton might get hurt.

He's a lot of fun to live with. When he's not puking or making us crazy, anyway.

Trick or (cough, sniffle) treat (barf)

2008-11-02T16:07:00.006-06:00

We are in the midst of a Week of Pestilence at our house. However, the infectious disease gods smiled on us on Friday, and granted us a 24-hour reprieve from all things febrile, snotty, and vomitous. (I don't care if it's not a word. You know what I mean.) We were able to trick-or-treat with a minimum of tuberculosis-like hacking, so the other parents out with their little non-crusty-nosed-cuties didn't look at us like we were criminals. This is good, since the kids were up at 6:15 Friday morning, jumping on my bed, yelling, "It's Halloween! It's Halloween!!!" We'd have had outright mutiny if they hadn't been able to go.

This is as good a group photo as we could get, and even this involved Grandpa Bill wrestling with Caleb. Calm, smiley, all-together-now-kids photo? Not gonna happen.

And: here it is! The Wall-E costume. It was pretty awesome, and a couple of people told me it was the best costume they saw all night. Which made the roughly 239 hours I spent on it almost worthwhile. In honor of all those hours (and Evan's insistence that he was going to be Wall-E), I'm totally entering this photo in Blurb's Halloween photo contest in the Best Handmade Costume Category:

And here's Jensen, looking creepier than I imagined he could. ("Cute" is soooo passe.... Even though he's still adorable.) (And, I know, the eye make-up's not so great, but he was done holding still. We had to make it quick.) As long as I'm at it, I'm entering this one in the same contest for the Best Photo:

Don't worry, things have returned to their sickly baseline here. After the Halloween break from all things infectious, the kids are back at it. Evan's been throwing up since last night. (And no, it's not from too much candy. I don't think.) Jensen suggested that we just dress them all in fluorescent green and they could go as germs. Which isn't a half-bad idea....

Thanks to Blurb/Parent Bloggers Network for sponsoring the photo contest.

This will have to do

2008-10-31T10:44:00.003-05:00

Because I know myself too well, I realize I might have this year's Halloween pics posted by, oh, Easter. So, to hold you over, this is last year. Note: only two children.

At least maybe the pumpkins had fun

2008-10-31T09:22:00.006-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, we carved pumpkins on Tuesday night. It was not a particularly fun experience.

When we were getting ready for bed that night, we were not discussing pumpkins. Nothing even remotely related to pumpkins. However, my butt muscles were sore, like I had gone for a long run or something. But I hadn't. So I mentioned this.

Me: "My butt muscles are sore, like I went for a long run or something. But I didn't."
Jeff: (in a truly caring and concerned voice) "Do you think you hurt it while you were carving pumpkins?" [emphasis added]
Me: "..."
Me: "?"
Me: "You are so weird."

So, seriously: what did he think I was doing to those pumpkins to make my ass hurt?

My contribution to the election dialogue

2008-10-30T10:30:00.003-05:00

Being a "good" Democrat, two days ago I received an "invitation" to Obama's rally, RSVP requested. Here is my response. Read, and prepare to watch my poor tired brain actually melt:

Dear Senator Obama,

I regret to inform you that I will be unable to attend your rally tonight.

It's not that I don't want to be there. Outside, in the cold, with about 50,000 (give or take 43,000) of my closest friends who are waving signs and yelling and and looking toward you for political or financial or social salvation and trying to crush my child (who desperately wants to attend) and wanting to be a part of history or whatever. Ooo, maybe it will rain. It sounds awesome and I wish I could come. I do.

But, dude: 9:30? pm?! Is this a joke??!! The night before Halloween, when I must stay up late putting the finishing (aka "procrastinated") touches on the kids' Halloween costumes? (And by "late" I mean 9pm. At the outside.) After my kids have been sick and I've been sick and I really need a vacation from, well, not working and I've been a total insomniac and the thought of sacrificing a potential hour or two of sleep is enough to make me cry, even if it means I get to see you...?

No way. No. Way.

I want you to get elected next week. If my brain weren't numb from fatigue, I might try to verbalize my substantial feelings about the election and how interested I am in what the results will tell us about our country, but since I can't put together a coherent thought and since I'm pretty sure there's not a single angle of this protracted race that hasn't been analyzed to death, I'll just say "ditto" to all the liberal blogs (my guilty pleasure of late) and leave it at that. I really, really want you to win. But sorry, B. Can't come. Sleep wins. If I weren't so committed to you, I might cast a write-in vote for Sleep.

Have a good visit. I'll see you in the Huffington Post. And thanks for the invitation.

Sincerely, me

It's the Really Ugly Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

2008-10-29T06:51:00.006-05:00

We took the "tough love" approach to pumpkin-carving last night.

Jensen has, in his seven and a half years, never placed his hand inside a pumpkin. He's always convinced us to do his dirty work. But not this year. "No scooping, no carving," we said. It worked. After several minutes of pouting, cajoling, and fake barfing, he sucked it up and scooped. And did a fair job. Fair.

Then it was time to carve. You know those carving kits they sell now? With all the (very useful, by the way) little saws and hundreds of completely impractical patterns so you can have your own "original" pumpkin? He wanted to one of those designs. If you're a parent, you know exactly where this is going. {groan}

(This, by the way, prompted all kinds of "when I was a kid" comments from his parents: "...we never needed any pattern to carve our pumpkins," and "...I don't see what's wrong with just doing a face with triangle eyes," and that sort of thing. We were only partly joking.)

He chose a spider. And worked hard on it for about seven minutes. During which time I helped Evan. Evan, you will recall, is four. And very prone to self-injury. He's not allowed within six feet of a carving utensil. So he dictated to me what he wanted on his tiny pumpkin: a t-rex (?!), frontal view, with nose holes. And boogers.

As soon as I finished that work of art, and it truly is something to behold, I got manipulated into finishing Jensen's spider. Yeah, so much for tough love.

When I finished, about 45 minutes later, Jensen was in bed, Evan and Caleb were crying, and Jeff was begging for beer. I was in a lovely mood.

We have the lamest pumpkins in the world this year. Maybe tonight I'll manage to find some candles so we can bask in the glow of their mediocrity.

Stop me now. Please.

2008-10-28T14:47:00.008-05:00

I'm going to confide in you now, and what I say will probably shock you: I am a craft whore. I know, I know, I'm totally playing against type. A stay-at-home-mom who drives a mini-van and is also into crafts? Stunning.

Sadly true. I knit. I scrapbook. I cross-stitch, and I don't even like the finished product here. I quilt. I decorate cakes on occasion. If macrame were still popular, I'd be making plant hangers as if there were no tomorrow. (I made the coolest beaded macrame belt when I was, like, seven. I wish I still had it.) Hell, you could probably convince me to crochet those terrifying ladies in dresses with the garish plastic doll heads that my grandma used to put over the spare roll of toilet paper.... Yeah, I'd do it.

It's genetic. I got it from my mom, who puts me to shame. She never buys anything. She sees something in a store, says dismissively, "Oh, I could make that," and then goes home and does it, about a thousand times better than anything you could buy. It's true. Ask my sister.

This crafty-gene is relevant right now because it's Halloween. I've spent uncounted hours this week making costumes. A mummy? No problem. Wall-E? Has spiraled out of all control. My arsenal this week has consisted of: spray paint (lots of spray paint), a hot glue gun, acrylic paints, an exacto knife, a sponge, a Sharpie pen, felt, styrofoam, wooden dowels, construction paper, masking tape, safety goggles, craft foam, a staple gun, trash bags, a big ol' cardboard box, black tea, a sewing machine, and-- this one kills me-- decoupage medium. I kid you not. And I'm not done yet. In fact, I suspect I need to make another trip to the local craft superstore.

So I must sign off now and continue my costume construction. If the kids aren't good, maybe I'll just hot-glue them to the walls. (Kidding.) (Kind of.)

Revenge of the boobs, or, How I learned to quit complaining

2008-10-27T07:49:00.004-05:00

Last week, against my own better judgment, I wrote a post about how much I hate my boobs. The upshot was that they've become unelastic, unattractive, utilitarian (who knew how many "u" adjectives apply to human breasts?) appendages that I don't even recognize anymore. I was (and still am) tired of them and I said I wanted to have them removed.

Then Sunshine wrote a couple of nice posts (thoughtful without being sentimental) in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, and then I felt like a total dork for a) complaining, and b) threatening to cut my breasts off.

Evidently my boobs also took offense at my complaints, and decided to make me pay for my insensitivity. Friday afternoon (at about 4pm; too late to get into my regular doctor or to the urgent care clinic, of course) I came down with a blazing case of mastitis. In case you've never had the pleasure, I'll summarize: it's a breast infection (most common in breast-feeding women) that gives you a high fever and the infected boob gets a big lump in it and hurts like it's been put through a meat grinder, but the rest of you also feels so incredibly sh**ty that you don't really even notice the boob pain. It. Sucks. As a result of this lovely disease, I spent the weekend in bed with a fever that gave me convulsive chills and I hurt all over and hated everyone and everything.

(I'm feeling better now, thanks for asking.)

As awful as this weekend was, it was a mere annoyance compared to the unthinkable and all-too-common experience of breast cancer. My boobs (contrary to what I thought 48 hours ago) were not trying to kill me; they just wanted to make me suffer a bit. (It worked, by the way.)

Even in the midst of feeling like hell, though, a couple of thoughts occurred to me:

While my boobs have become very irritating, I am lucky to have the luxury of even joking about removing them: there are maybe hundreds of thousands of women this year alone who will not have a choice in this matter; and
My boobs are evidently even more powerful than I had heretofore imagined, and have the supernatural ability to exact vengeance on me when I am mean to them.

I had it easy. I went to the doctor and got a prescription and am well on the road to recovery. I will heal without going through months of soul-wrenching treatment, emptying my bank account, wrestling with my self-image, or being forced to face my own mortality. Next time I find a lump in my breast I may not be so lucky. I know that.

It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

When science goes bad

2008-10-24T06:29:00.004-05:00

Second grade has been good to Jensen so far, thanks in no small part to science class. His sole stated reason for wanting to attend school has always been, "For science class." (I think he wants to learn how to blow things up, but maybe I'm wrong.) Sadly, it appears that our public education system does not trust five- and six-year-olds with bunsen burners or frog carcasses.

This year is different, though. They're doing experiments, and in his mind it's PhD-caliber stuff. Yesterday he came home with his first "lab sheet." They timed how long it took to melt ice. Here's the transcript (emphasis added):

Describe how you melted your ice. I put it in my armpit, my shoo [sic], my shirt, and down my pants. I rubbed it in my hands and on my back.
How long did it take your ice cube to melt? 13 minutes

Right. I was a science geek, and I'll admit it to anybody. My favorite college class? Organic chemistry. I went to Science Nerd Camp and was even a runner-up for a national science symposium. But I'm pretty sure I never put any experimental object down my pants. I hope he loses this urge before he moves into the realm of hydrochloric acid....

There's no title for something this gross

2008-10-23T13:37:00.005-05:00

All of a sudden, Caleb cares about what he eats. He's getting finicky. Like the other night when he turned up his cute nose at carrots and some expensive organic whole-milk yogurt that I buy because I'm so paranoid about what goes into his little baby body.

Probably because he was full of tree mulch, which he had spent the last 20 minutes eating in the front yard.

This got me thinking about some of the completely repulsive things my kids have eaten. I mean, they've all eaten dirt, or three-day-old dessicated "leftovers" they discover under the kitchen table. That stuff is pedestrian, for amateurs. I'm talking about the stuff that actually made me gag a little.

Like when Jensen announced at dinner, "You know, flies don't taste as good as they look." (He got bored one day in kindergarten and decided to eat a fly and didn't really care for it.) Or when he made Evan eat a worm after he watched the movie "How to Eat Fried Worms." (That is the grossest movie ever made, by the way.)

Or when he discovered old gum on the bottom of a restaurant table. Or when Evan plopped down on a theater floor and made a meal of what he found there.

That stuff is yucky, but I think most parents (at least parents of boy-children) have similar tales.

But: brace yourselves. Because this next one is Really Bad.

When one of the big boys (who shall remain nameless) was a pre-walker, he had diaper rash. We let him crawl around with a bare butt, to air him out a little. And because it was cute. Until we found him sitting in a corner, happily snacking away on his own poo. It was in his hair. In his ears. Up his nose. And in his mouth.

Not cute anymore.

Jeff wimped out, and left the room gagging. (This from a man who ate his lunch while watching a doctor break my water last time I was in labor. Ew.) Which meant I had to clean up this 9-month old human octopus who was covered in crap.

Baby wipes. Q-tips. Washcloths. Baby shampoo. Ivory soap. After I figured out where to start (his hands) I got the majority of him cleaned up pretty easily. But how was I supposed to clean out his precious mouth? I wiped it out with a washcloth, but that didn't really get it all. It was still plenty yucky in there.

Turns out the answer was right in front of me: Jeff's toothbrush. Of course! (That's the price he paid for sticking me with this horrific task.) So I brushed the babe's mouth until I made him gag, and called it good. I'll tell you what, though, it was a while before I let the little guy give me one of those wet, sloppy, open-mouth baby kisses.

(Because I love my husband, and am not [entirely] evil, I did tell him about the toothbrush before bedtime hygiene. Probably would have made for a better story if I hadn't. But, seriously....)

I've never heard anyone share a similar story. Which leads me to wonder: is it because everyone else has enough common sense not to admit that this happened to them? Or is it because we are the worst parents in the world and nobody else would ever allow this to happen in the first place? If you could set my mind at ease, I'd really appreciate it.

A bazillion words

2008-10-22T10:21:00.009-05:00

This is a stegosaurus. At night (note the black sky). Oh, and it has toenails.

This is a football game. Missouri vs. Oklahoma State. Please observe the facemasks. Jensen's been perfecting the facemasks lately.

This morning I found a piece of paper on the kitchen table. Evan had drawn the above dinosaur on one side. Jensen had drawn the football game on the other. I don't think I could create a better metaphor.

One tooth at a time

2008-10-21T14:51:00.005-05:00

I was chatting. I'm always chatting at football games. I always pledge to pay attention, but after the first few plays, I just can't help myself. So Sunday afternoon I was chatting, and not watching the action on the field, when I heard my name being called. "We need you..." the coach said as he trotted over to me.

I, of course, assumed the worst. Perhaps my child was unconscious on the field? Paralyzed in flag football? A brief sinking feeling settled in my stomach. (He had taken a cleat to the head a week earlier. These games can be rough.)

The coach opened his hand and handed me a bloody tooth. Jensen lost a tooth.

All the parents on the sidelines applauded and Jensen gave me a proud wave and flashed a slightly bloody smile before he got back in formation. I held the tooth carefully and allowed myself only brief memories of when he had gotten it as a baby, how much he had cried about it, how I had marked the event on the calendar. Now I held the precious tooth in my hand and felt happy and sad at the same time.

He's growing up, and has the great big crooked teeth to prove it. Sunday night he got out his Tooth Fairy pillow and tucked away the lost tooth and placed it on his bed. And very slyly asked if maybe I wasn't the Tooth Fairy. I very truthfully told him no (I'm not, but that's not saying anything about Jeff) and waited for more questions about it. None came, but they aren't far off. I don't think Santa will survive this Christmas.

He's growing up, playing football, needing braces on his new big-kid teeth, his world becoming a little less magical. I love this kid.

Why we stopped contributing to the Netflix Charitable Organization

2008-10-20T15:57:00.007-05:00

Another Friday night, another misguided attempt at some sort of grown-up life. We (gasp!) watched a movie. A rented movie. Which has inspired me to write this letter:

Dear Mr. or Ms. Film-maker: Your movies are too damn long. Please make them shorter. Thanks a bunch. Sincerely, me

That ought to get some response, dontcha think? Pretty eloquent, I am.

We rented "Into the Wild." Good movie. Definitely would recommend it. As long as you have the ability to stay up past 9pm and still function the next day. It could have been edited down to about 45 minutes, I think: Boy hates parents, boy shuns societal trappings and becomes a modern-day hobo, boy meets some nice people, boy goes to Alaska, and finally (don't worry, I won't spoil it just in case I'm not the last person in the whole world to have seen this movie, even though I probably am) the Moving Ending.

As we were watching, I started to notice that things were dragging on a bit. It was over at 11:30pm. Which is the new 3:30am. We were in bed by 11:38, and Jeff said, "I think that was a really bad idea."

Righto. Baby started crying at 11:45. He was sick. He cried for hours. He cried so much that we fell asleep when he was crying and woke up who-knows-how-long-later (15 minutes? two hours? no way to know) and he was still crying. The last time I looked at the clock it was 4:38am. At 5:30, Jeff had to get up and go to work for 24 hours. Saturday was the longest, crappiest day ever. I felt like a had a hangover, but I didn't do anything even remotely fun to deserve it.

This is why we canceled Netflix.

If they can put a three-hour commentary by the director on a DVD, and all kinds of other lame crap that nobody ever watches, why can't they include a condensed version of the movie for parents of young children? I could maintain at least a vague knowledge of movies that have come out in the past five years and get some sleep.

I know, I know: the "art." I'm a lit major. I'm all about nuance and symbolism and character development and references. I love it. But all those things are luxuries. Sleep is not. I have faith that someday I will appreciate aesthetics again. For now I must be a pragmatist, though. Which means I need Cliffs Notes versions of films. Expediency. However: I sincerely doubt any film-maker has much appreciation for my plight.

I survived. I got some sleep Sunday night, and feel better today. Completely culturally illiterate, but at least rested.

Maybe I'm an Amazon

2008-10-17T08:54:00.008-05:00

Disclaimer: If you are a male who knows me in real life, you may want to consider not reading this post. If you are my father or my father-in-law, I expressly forbid you to read further. Turn back now, and we will be able to look each other in the eye tomorrow. Thank you.

It had to happen. I knew that, even with my trepidations about over-sharing, I would eventually write about this. Every nearly-40-year-old woman, every woman who has borne children, every woman who looks at magazines in the grocery store check-out aisle becomes alarmed at the condition of her breasts. I am no exception.

My boobs. They've had a good run. They've done everything I've asked of them, and have gone above and beyond. I fear we're reaching the end of the line, though. They are on the brink of outliving their functional life. Matter of fact, I think they are begging not only for mercy, but to be put out of their misery. I'm considering obliging them.

They were good to me. Back in the Hot Bod days, these 34C girls won the admiration of many. Men lusted; women coveted. They were gorgeous. Assuming a biological imperative, they've done their job and then some. In their youthful, firm glory, they played at least a small part (you'll have to ask Jeff exactly how much) in securing me an outstanding mate. They helped lure him into propagation of the species (he didn't want three kids, but he was powerless). And aesthetics aside, after each reproduction they dutifully fed my fat, hungry babies with very few complaints.

They're tired, now, though. They've spent the last few years in noticeable decline. We're officially out of the Hot Bod stage. (Seems like I'm moving quickly into the Saggy-Please-Keep-Yourself-Covered stage.) The babies have been no less than disastrous for my boobs. Depending on where I am in the whole knocked-up-breastfeeding-recovering (sweet relief!) continuum, my bra size swings wildly between a very deflated 32A and a 36F. My skin is pretty elastic-- three babies and not a single stretch mark on my tummy-- but not that elastic. Last time I was pregnant Jeff called my enormous boobs "weapons of mass destruction" (at least the Bush administration has given us some useful phraseology). Last time I wasn't pregnant or nursing (god, that was a long time ago) he likened them to tennis balls dropped in a pair of pantyhose. Nice visual, huh?

Caleb dealt the fatal blow on Tuesday. He bit my nipple. Hard. Not just a little "oh, that kind of hurt" nip. This was a searing "holy hell blinding white light" kind of thing. He broke the skin. (Three years of breastfeeding, and this has never happened before.) It hurts so bad I'm having trouble sleeping. It brings tears to my eyes.

And I think that was it. I think they're officially done, my boobs. In an occasional fit of wanting to relive their glory days, I give brief consideration to having a boob job. (Not so much to make them bigger-- I'd just like to lift them off my abdomen.) But you know what I'd really rather do? Cut them off. We have surgically assured that we will have no more babies (good old Jeff stepped up to the plate on that one), and in a couple of short months Caleb will have his first birthday and I will wean him and will have absolutely no need for breasts anymore.

So, like I said, I'm seriously considering their pleas for mercy. I'll let you know if I find a cooperative surgeon.

My poor husband's hair

2008-10-16T13:39:00.004-05:00

Jeff got a haircut. Contrary to what you may think, this is post-worthy, because he only does it about twice a year. If that.

He has Lyle-Lovett-hair. It's as tall as it is long. Curly. Black (at least the part that isn't gray). Kind of wiry. You can also call him Kramer if you want. Anyway, his hair was pretty long/tall when he left on Tuesday. When he returned it was way short. I call it his Repulican 'do.

He may never get it cut again, based on our responses:

Jensen: (snort) Actually, Dad, that looks kind of ridiculous.

Me: Dude, you're getting whitewalls.

Evan (it took him several hours to notice): Daddy, your hair is kind of different. Jeff: What's different about it? Evan: It's kind of... flat. Jeff: Why do you suppose that is? Evan: I don't know... you washed it?

Poor Jeff.

Cute? Yep. Coordinated? Well...

2008-10-14T14:08:00.007-05:00

I suppose you might consider wearing a crash helmet to dinner "overly cautious."

However, if you were Evan, you'd probably find it very appropriate. Reassuring. Necessary, even.

Gravity is not Evan's friend. This kid falls more than anyone I've ever met. A couple of Sundays ago I decided to count how many crashes he had during the week. By Monday evening I had counted 27, and I'm pretty sure I missed a few. I stopped keeping track. Too depressing.

A typical scenario might look like this: Evan walking along a completely even and straight sidewalk, shoes tied (ie, no shoelaces over which to trip), no obstacles in his path. He's singing a little song, happy as a lark, and boom! he's sprawled flat out with scraped knees and a bloody lip.

What happened?!

I don't know why my child can't remain upright. Perhaps he is just more sensitive to the earth's rotation than are the rest of us? Maybe he's like one of those goats that collapses when it is startled? Who knows. I suspect he's just rather uncoordinated.

He's been doing this since he became mobile. He used to spend a lot of time crying, and I used to spend a lot of time worrying. Now we take it in stride. Usually he pops up and smiles and says, "I'm all right!" and goes on his merry way. He has-- astoundingly-- survived four years without a single trip to the emergency room. The other day he tried to climb a tree, which I was pretty sure would end at the hospital, but he survived even that. He's lucky he's so indestructable. A weaker individual would have broken many bones and had some nasty internal bleeding by now.

Evidently he's starting to understand that he is a danger to himself, however. Why else would he have worn his bike helmet to dinner?

How Christopher Columbus ruined Christmas

2008-10-13T14:49:00.003-05:00

First, an explanation: I am, by nature, a procrastinator. Mostly reformed, now that I'm an adult. I totally plead the Fifth regarding my college years-- all eight of them (two degrees, remember?!)-- but that's a different story and involves several irritated landlords and uptight professors so let's talk about that another day. Can't dwell on that. But I do tend to revert to my "I'll-do-it-tomorrow" ways when I get stressed.

Next, an excuse: I've been very stressed this year. Again, I'll spare you the details, which are (astoundingly!) simultaneously boring and insomnia-producing. Just stressful.

The logical, and correct, conclusion is that I've been putting off a few things lately. Nothing that's going to land me in small-claims court or cause the kids' teachers to call social services. My life isn't that exciting. Neither are the things I've been procrastinating.

For instance: we moved, what, five and a half months ago? Sounds about right. And I was being super-responsible about it. I had change-of-address cards all ready to mail within about two weeks of our move. I just needed stamps, so I dutifully placed the cards in a neat stack on the corner of the desk. In May.

They're still there.

Without stamps.

It's October.

Oh, but this morning, I decided to take that bull by the horns. I was going to slap stamps on those babies and get them in the mail. That was my one goal for the day. Woo-hoo! Go me!!!

(My motivation, by the way? Easy: Christmas is only about two months away. And I love getting Christmas cards. How am I going to get lots and lots of Christmas cards if people can't find me?)

I got those kids loaded in the car and made a special trip to the post office. 100% of the kids cried during the trip, and Evan got carsick, but I was not to be deterred. Give me stamps or give me death!

Hey, guess what today is? Columbus Day.

And for some stupid reason that only the federal government understands, the friggin' post office is closed today. Don't get me started.

No stamps. Change of address cards remain on the desk. Motivation has all but evaporated. I probably won't get any Christmas cards this year, either.

Small things

2008-10-10T09:47:00.004-05:00

If you've ever lived with a toddler or preschooler, you know that they have control issues.

It turns out that living with a bunch of kids has also given me some control issues. (Just ask my husband.)

It's been a bad week on this front, mostly due to Caleb's two-pronged approach to Mommy Torture. Firstly, he has a cold. This means he's fussy, crying a lot, up every few hours at night, and wants to be carried almost constantly. Secondly, when he does allow me to put him down (only briefly, mind you), he's hell-bent on destruction: climbing bookshelves, shredding books, crawling into the dishwasher and then falling out, and so on. Even when he's not crying, I cannot leave him alone for a second.

I find this part of motherhood to be maddening: nothing occurs on my terms. I've spent the week staggering around in sleep-deprived, shower-deprived, out-of-control fatigue. I can't get anything done, quite literally. I've stopped trying. I ordered pizza for dinner last night. There are toys scattered on every horizontal surface in the house. Crazy-making, for me. When I have a free minute, for some self-defeating reason, I spend it on the computer reading about the disaster-formerly-known-as-the-economy, or this horrifying election season. Which makes me feel even worse.

This morning Caleb awoke at 5:45, ready to get up. Which meant for me: no shower, no breakfast, no sense of control or accomplishment. I had failed before I even started.

Except I didn't play along.

I calmly put him back in his crib, much to his disappointment. I happily made a pot of coffee. When I got into the shower, he was fussing. I let the hot water clear the cobwebs, and when I emerged he was still protesting (though not too forcefully). I dried my hair, and when I turned off the dryer he was still complaining. I made my bed. I picked up my room.

In short I did what I wanted to do. Those things that I used to do every morning, before Number Three came along. Those things that, even if I don't get another damned thing done this day, make me feel as if I've accomplished something-- petty as though it may be.

Then I went to save my baby from his crib-prison. He smiled at me, and I smiled back.

This is my life right now. It's a small world which I currently occupy, defined by bed-making and laundry-doing and child-feeding. Big Questions are beyond my grasp, which I sometimes find disappointing. But for now, it's mostly okay. As long as I can occasionally say that I've done these little things on my terms, I'm satisfied. For now.