Reverse psychology

french toast fairy, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

"I don't think there's room in that little mouth of yours for any more French toast, sweets," I tell her, my own fork jammed with the impromtu dinner.

"Oh sure there is. ... watch."

The big squeeze

Lunchtime walks, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

We interupt this "Baby Book Gone Wrong" to send the following message: Hell has frozen over.

The home fires and work flame have intersected, at least for the moment. It seems I'm getting whatever the opposite of DOOCED would be. ... perhaps we shall call it JUICED.

The newspaper where I work is trying to find its niche online and is asking me - apparently the only blogger in the office - to try and jumpstart them into the 21th century by getting reporters up to speed on what it means to keep a Web blog, not to mention get our Web site all decked out to show all these inner monologs off.

As a bumbling idiot myself when it comes to the nuts and bolts of computing (for all I know a squirrel on a wheel really does run things inside the whirring black box that sits on my desk), I've finally figured out how the twain shall meet technically if not thematically.

It's going to feel a little like walking uphill for a while though. Maybe I'll have to institute a Bring Your Kids (and Dog) To Work day once a week you know for laughs at the damage they can cause just to bring the whole mixing of lives thing full circle.

... Stay Tuned.

Let me whisper in your ear: Silas is Golden

HE SAYS, SHE SAYS, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Dear Silas,

I didn't cry when I left you with the sitter for the first time on Monday, but I was profoundly sad. I drove to work with my coffee, my lunch and a bag full of bottles and pumps hoping to keep you in milk until you are at least year old.

Everyone else was happy, or so it seemed. Your sister was excitedly anticipating a new ability to watch over you. When I she asked if it was time to go to the NEW BABYSITTER'S house and I told her "yes," flinching for the litany of "I love THE OLD BABYSITTER'S HOUSE," I was heartened and surprised to hear an enthusiastic "Hurray!"

It has occured to me, after weeks of explaining why she couldn't go back to Lori's house, why now it seems OK to be at Terri's. Lori didn't have room for you, her brother.

Her brother: The boy she will tell strangers about. The chain of thoughts that come stream out of her mouth when she meets someone new: "I have a baby brother. His name is Silas. He's a good boy. He loves me and I love him."

She wants to be with you more than she wants Lori; and that's something huge.

So please, dear boy, try to be patient with her when things aren't going your way. Try and be kind when she's angry with you for touching her stuff or when she wants her privacy. You will not remember this time, but you should know she loves you more than you might ever imagine.

She thinks Silas is Golden; Golden.

Love,

Mommy

'Tween and twitch

love, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Thrump, tum, tum. Thrump, tum, tum.

I shift in my seat, my back slumped into the same position it held three and a half months ago when my belly was arguably larger.

Can't call too early. They are not home. Traveling about the county, dropping off one kid to preschool and picking up another. Silas along for the ride.

I am restless. Working on the things I can, reading the news I largely ignored during the summer. Getting depressed. Another murder. Another health scare in Africa. Epidemic here. There. Everywhere.

I watch the clock. They should be home now. I call. Three rings, four rings. ... there is a connection and I hear screaming on the other end. Silas.

So often I listen to him cry and feel my own tears close to the surface. Not today. Today his tears comfort me a little. He misses me? Probably not. He isn't eating as well for the sitter as he did for my mother on our night out. Only two ounces so far. He's hungry. I've already pumped 8 ounces.

I hang up so as not to make it worse. I know how hard it is to do anything with a baby crying.

My eye starts to twitch with that familiar stress energy I haven't felt in I don't know how long.

I should really start sitting up straighter.

Over yonder ghost town

there's the city, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I go back to work tomorrow. And in preparation for the tumult, the hubs and I left the kids with my parents for a night on the town. While we went to dinner and a movie, they wrestled the girl into jammies and the boy into taking a bottle.

His first. Ever.

Of course we had to call home to see how things were going between dinner and catching the "3:10 to Yuma."

I have to admit my heart sank when my mother's cheery voice reported that he had to be coaxed a little but in no time boyo had sucked down the bottle like he was an old pro.

I wonder what it says about my parenting that I was secretly hoping he'd go on a milk strike without me? What does it say that the girl who in on a nap strike in my care gets the sleep she so clearly needs with the sitter?

It doesn't help that I spent my official last day of maternity leave at th Company Picnic, only to learn the extent of recent departures and future ones ... can you say skeleton crew?

anniversario felice

He asked me what I wanted for our anniversary.

I told him I already had my gift ...

poindexter pair, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Two nerdy kids in beer goggles.

Toothsome and then some

brushing teeth in birthday hat, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

All those sugary treats are haunting me. The fruit juices are laughing at me and the fluoride drops sitting on the counter, abandoned, are calling me "Drip."

Today we took ittybit to her first dentist appointment. She wasn't feeling up to it so I convinced the hygenist to bump my appointment up three days and clean my teeth so she could see the drill in action.

I had such a difficult time keeping a straight face as the masked hygenist chipped away at the tarter and plaque, polished my pearly whites with something suspiciously strawberry in flavor and sucked up saliva with the "slurping straw." For each time a new impliment was introduced, Ittybits eyes and nose came squarely into view, even blocking out the overhead light.

The dentist pronounced me a perfect patient and the spotlight turned to the girl. She bristled, bunched up in my arms and tried to hide. She eventually agreed to lay on top of me while the dentist counted her teeth (20) and looked around.

Not good.

She has one cavity smack dab in the center of her front teeth and it looks like she's going to need orthodontic correction eventually.

Because she wasn't terribly cooperative he's referred us to a pediatric dentist for treatment.

Of course the worst happened in the car when Annabel said my teeth were pretty, but hers were not. She had a cavity.

"My teeth are never, ever going to be pretty now."

**heavy sigh.

Superdooper pooper scooper

So next week I'm headed back to work. The very place that reported THIS bit of news last week.

GRRRRRREAT!!!

... And here we've had to hire a new babysitter. Someone who is legally able to take only two children, and had two spaces available. Someone, who as Ittybit puts it, "isn't Lori."

I know what she means. I feel it myself. She's probably perfectly fine, we just don't know her yet. Going back to work with such an unknown person taking care of the most important people in my life ... well I don't have to tell you what it feels like. If you've ever done it you know.

And now with this death in my head -- on the first day of daycare no less -- I can't imagine I'll be getting much work done.

Not that any babysitter -- or any mother, for that matter -- could prevent the death of an infant to SIDS. However, we'd always be thinking we could have done something should such a nightmare happen to us.

Even if that senario is rare, what's not rare in these early months when life seems so precarious, we are trudging back to work to make ends meet or to keep our jobs secure.

When I talk to people around the world who are given leave for 12 months to make sure the Next Generation gets a good start, I become enraged at the backward thinking that some say has made us a superpower ... Corporations over people.

I'll tell you what ... I for one would like our government to pay women to stay home with their infants for a year if they choose to do so. I'd gladly trade all the bullets we've used in Bagdad for that.

Who needs superpowers anyway? Isn't there some saying ... the bigger you are the harder you fall?

Seriously, if a superpower can't get you decent health care or family leave than how super can it be?

Oh, the suspense

So my writer-friend Martha (she's the purdy lady on the right) visited us yesterday for our second annual Apple Picking excursion at Love Apple Farm.

I've been compulsively checking her blog since she asked me for a few "web" sized photos of our day ...

There's no telling how much fun she will have with me and this clownshow I call a family.

Will she write about how Ittybit self imposed a time out so she wouldn't have to share her toys?

Will she write about how I LOST the keys to the car while we were at lunch (and still haven't found them)?

Will she discuss how the girls would rather go catepiller hunting than apple picking? Or that they had to TASTE every apple on every tree instead of putting ANY in the bag? Or how my Silas was determined to let her Sam suck on his hand?

She'll probably tell her readers all about how I dress in long sleeves and long pants whether it's 50 degrees or 80 degrees and my kid wears a tutu and cleats.

About how no matter what they're wearing, lately out kids wind up naked at some point during the playdate.

Or how about the pork loin we made for dinner that she helped nuke in the microwave when it turned out from the grill still a little pink?

She may even talk about the baby wearing freak I've become. Taking pride in taking out the trash, getting the laundry and balancing something on my head all while wearing the Champ. How I've tried to make her a convert, too.

Whatever it is she writes about, though, I guarantee it will be true and 100 percent more hilarious.

And away she goes

"I am going to be shy."

I've come to realize such statements are more of a wish than reality. She may not jump in with both feet, but girlfriend is taking notes.

Since Silas had a follow-up visit with the pediatric urologist, and my mom (who, with my father, who has taken Annabel when we need a "babysitter") had a dentist appointment, I decided it was time to take the new sitter for a test run.

It had been a good morning. She ate cereal, peas and corn (don't ask) and was in the car and ready to go to Terri's house by 7:30 a.m. When we got there Terri's son was waiting outside, ready for a playtime bonanza. He was ready to hunt dinosaurs, capture sharks or swing through the jungle vines. Annabel just wanted to watch.

She clung to my pants leg and defiantly informed Terri that her old sitter loved her and she likewise.

She didn't want to be disloyal, but she did want to play on the rope swing. She wanted to do projects and watch a Land Before Time. She wanted to eat lunch and oatmeal cookies.

When I told her it was time for me to go, she just said 'bye' as happily as if she were saying hello.

When I returned, she was happy to say hello but in no hurry to say goodbye.

The black hole that contains my thoughts

Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm saying. Please don't hold it against me.


In fewer than two weeks I will be returning to work. And that frightens me. So much so that I'm going to dig myself a hole in the taboo universe and write candidly about my day job, even though I know colleagues and (gulp) superiors read these ramblings from time to time.

As a second maternity leave draws to a close, I'm doing all the things that one might do to drive themselves crazy. I'm comparing the children, photographing them in similar ways at similar ages. I'm thinking ... This is my last baby; do I really want to miss this? And wondering why it is I work in the first place.

There's the insurance. There's the steady income. There's the independence. There's even a hint that I still enjoy the work ... which as the years go by, I must admit gets more and more defused in the scent of hopelessness.

See, folks, I'm not entirely sure what it is I'll be returning to when I go back to work October 1: Stock prices are in the toilet; A manager at my place of employment has left, co-workers who are already on the low side of the morale see-saw are worried about who will be the replacement; and my job description might change drastically as the people in charge scramble to keep the ship afloat.

I'm sure you've heard, newspapers everywhere are bleeding revenue. Readers are literally dying. Advertizing is going to online entertainment sites and Classifieds - once the bread and butter of periodicals in print -- have had thier obituaries published as Craig's List, e-bay and freecycle move into their old apartment. ... My little rag, just like all the others, is trying everything it can to keep its white-knuckled grip on viability.

There was a time when I loved my job. Well, that might not be entirely true. ... There was a time when I loved what I did. I loved my industry. Not to be a total shitheel, but I also ... for the most part ... love the people with whom I work. I may rail against the corporate skinflints and decry the industry's declining integrity, but I also call a spade a spade. I know if the industry was still in its golden age I'd never be hired to do what I do. For me to have a job as a "journalist" I needed the industry to lower its standards.

But be that as it may, gratitude can only last so long.

And this isn't an indictment of my industry, despite the fact that I have many complaints. This is just me thinking aloud when I would sound (and likely be) smarter silent. I'll begin at the beginning. The first job.

It was at a weekly. My boss was a person who mystified me. I liked her -- we all did -- but she never, ever seeemed to "do the right thing." We called her our layout stringer: a person who showed up in a whirl of activity on the days we put the paper together by hand -- yes I am that old -- and was virtually invisible at all other times.

When we lost a typist she informed us "we all" had to type press releases. Except she never typed a one. When we were drowning in dreck she just clucked in sympathy and then blew out the door in a puff of smoke from her Winston-Salems. When an office worker was reprimanded by off-site management for taking too many smoke breaks -- the perceived reason for underperformance (which was impossible as the dirty secret was that years after the smoking bans smokers were still puffing away at their desks) -- this boss didn't step up to save the woman's job. She didn't want to get in trouble, and she didn't want to have to leave her desk to light up.

There were many, many examples of such shortfalls. Every time the chips were down we thought she's come through for us, or at least attempt to lend a hand. But every time she found a way to cover her ass while we all stood around, mouths agape. And still we liked her. And still, like hopeful children of deadbeat dads, we gave her the benefit even though she never gave us anything but doubts.

You see, she was a person who was at one time fabled to be a bulldog. A full-steam-ahead go-getter. In the interim she had become a mother.

I think about her a lot these days as I'm looking ahead to long days of ferrying the children to daycare, dashing off to work and trying to get everything done -- not to mention replacement milk pumped -- before I have to reverse course. I know there must be someone or two or three out there who grumbles at my ability to keep bankers' hours in a newsroom but I don't let it get to me. I do my job as best I can. I no longer offer to do extra, but I don't hesitate if extra is asked of me.

But I have lost the fire.

I would like nothing better to rant about all the things I find wrong with our society -- one that claims to hold family values but only offers three months when babies are literally LIVING off their mother's tit exclusively for six months. But neither is this an indictment of capitalism. Someone is always getting a raw deal somewhere.

No this is about your head choosing to go back to work when your heart is begging to stay with your children. This is for every woman who wishes she could witness every smile, every laugh, every skinned knee while keeping a hand in her profession. This is about all the people who stop her in the street or the store at tell her to "enjoy this time." This is about every woman who's heart ever broke in a million pieces just thinking of how fast this time really does fly. Because in no time at all, she'll be going back to work and seeing her children at breakfast and bedtime. And in no time they'll be gone.

Yankme Candle

Ok. All the lovey, dovey junk aside -- the children are our future, a child is a marvel *blueshit -- we all know once you have kids a few things are never the same.

Now, I knew I was never going to be able to sleep in again. I knew that I was never going to be able to just go to the store, or to the bank or for a walk on my own. I knew that I was going to be wiping noses and bums and spills on the floor for the forseeable future. I knew that I was going to be answering the same question fifteen times a day for the next 18 years. I knew that I'd never be alone in the bathroom again for a long, long time. And yes, I know about LOCKING the bedroom door. (Ahem).

But I never really thought how having kids was going to affect YOU, the family and friends that I must buy gifts for at holidays.

It turns out that all the crap interesting tidbits parents have to buy as a result of student fundraising begins in PRESCHOOL. PRESCHOOL?!?

*BLINK* BLINK* BLINK*

So this stuff has to go somewhere folks, and Christmas is coming. ...

I hope you don't hold it against me. Remember, there are worse smelling things I could be sending you.

Big trouble

When Ittybit was his age I couldn't imagine getting angry with her. When I gazed into her eyes all I saw was sugar and spice. Even the unconsolable crying jags had a sweetness I didn't expect.

Babies. They are like little old souls despite their awkward, sideways smiles, their lack of motor control and almost total absence of articulation beyond nearly deafening screams.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I looked into her eyes, touched her face and wondered what she was going to be like when she was older. Even as she grew into her own person, enough of the baby remained. Or maybe it was the reverse. Maybe she grew into the sly little wit who I brought home from the hospital on the date she was due.

But lately not a day goes by that I'm not biting my lip and clenching every muscle in my body trying to hold back a rising flood of frustration. "Stop fidgeting. Don't touch that. Please put that down. Be gentle. Will you just sit still. You need to eat more. I made that for you and now you're not eating it. We have to leave now. Please brush your teeth. Don't swallow the toothpaste. We don't waste shampoo. Pick that up. You have to wear a sweater. PLEASE WEAR A SWEATER. Look at your lips they're blue. When I feel your arm it's FREEZING ..."

And with four words she wins the whole war: "Don't feel my arm."

As I hang my head in defeat this little guys is smiling up at me with his cockeyed grin.

And I know. ... I'm in big trouble.

Just keep swimming

23water, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Papa arrived this morning at 8:30 a.m. to take Ittybit to her first swimming lesson at the Y. And promptly at 8:31 a.m. they were out the door. She didn't even look back.

She didn't even utter the words she's been repeating since we told her she'd be learning to swim with her Papa: "OK. ... But I'm not going to put my head underwater, right?"

We didn't need to tell her that she wouldn't have to do anything she didn't want to do.

She grabbed her Dora the Explorer bag containing her new swimsuit and a blue towel (to match the color of the water) and she was gone.

Oh sure, Papa said I could go if I wanted, but I could tell by the sound of his voice that this was something he was hoping would be just for him and Annabel. Their special thing.

So I stayed back to drum my fingers on the table, drink coffee without the interruption of her sing-song voice asking me to play with her and her tiny animals on the livingroom floor, not to mention the possibility of a walk to the farmer's market without having to stop to check the cracks in the sidewalk for treasures.

I miss her already.

***UPDATE***

I haven't missed her FIRST swimming lesson after all. When she and Papa came home I yelled down the stairs, "Hey, how'd it go." And was answered by Papa saying "Not too well."

Turns out the pool lost a motor or something and has been out of commission since Thursday. Papa was disappointed. Annabel was disappointed. A bunch of kids and their parents were disappointed. And an elderly woman who was headed in as Annabel and Papa were headed out was probably disappointed, too.

ANNABEL: Are you going to swim?

LADY: Why yes I am. I go swimming here three times a week.

ANNABEL: Well not today. The pool is broken.

For a second I had a flashback to my ninth birthday (at least I think I was 9) and my father was taking me and two of my friends bowling. I was SOOOOOOOOOOO excited. It was going to be the absolute COOOOLEST, most SPECTACULAR birthday anyone under 10 EVER had.

But we got to the alley and it was closed. Who ever heard of a bowling alley closed on a Saturday?

Thinking fast my father hustled us back into the car and drove as swiftly as a man who NEVER drives faster 40 mph across the river to the Port of Albany. The. Stinky. Old. Port. Of. Albany. Where for a half an hour we watched a garbage barge load up. I'm fairly certain I cried for a week.

And yet, it's the ONLY birthday I remember. It's the only one worth talking about.

I didn't say anything, but I wondered what he did instead since the pair of miscreants didn't make it home until two hours after finding the drain pulled on their pool time. Did he take her to the Port?

"We went to Old MacDonalds and I played on the toys with the kids. It was GREAT."

Because he kinda resembles a geriatric heroin addict

papa, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

As you may recall, I am going to hell.

But since I've decided to at least TRY and be a responsible parent I've put an end to further viewings of "Little Miss Sunshine" by our own little miss sunshine.

However, I neglected to mention it to Jed.

I had to go to a board meeting at her preschool -- The Marilla Cuthbert Academy for Unspeakably Charming Children (or MCA-UCC for you acronym lovers) -- and in my absence, the daddy-person let her watch it.

At the part where Alan Arkin, the grandfather, meets his demise she becomes VERY concerned.

Daddy, I HAVE to call Papa. NOW!

... So Jed rings him up ...

"Hi, Papa? Hi. It's me. ANN-A-BEL.

Are you OK?"

Here's hoping this doesn't become part of show and tell.

War of the Roses

ME: The Nassau Public Library is showing "Flushed Away" on September 28th. It's a family night pajama party.

HIM: Are they showing it outside?

ME: No. They've got a little projector downstairs in the storytime room.

HIM: I am NOT spending our anniversary in the basement wearing fuzzy slippers.

ME: Well maybe Papa can take her.

HER: I don't want papa to take me. I want to go with yoooooooooooooooooooooou! MommyMommy MommyMommy Mommy MOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMEEEEEE!

ME: Well if you go with papa I'll bet that he'll let you get all hopped up on sugar ...

HER: OK. Going with Papa'd be good.

Wait a while and it changes

like the weather in NY, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

We just got back from a weekend trip to New York City, the cruxt of which was to visit the big Toy's R Us store in Times Square.

You may wonder why on Earth two reasonably intellengent people -- parents of Ittybit and Champ to be more precise -- would travel two hours on a train and then schlep the kids, two backpacks, a stroller and a camera to visit a toy store that arguable has less going for it than any of the the locally owned toy boxes in our own neighborhood?

The occasion was a "potty party" in honor of our dear friend CC, who was celebrating a dry summer by taking a few spins on the gigantic indoor farris wheel the toy behemoth has jammed inside its multi-storied establishment.

We thought we'd try and take it easy on ourselves and take a bite out of the Big Apple a day early, stay at a Greenwich Village hotel and see the Richard Serra show at MoMA.



I can honestly say we had a wonderful time, even though we expected to be shooting ourselves in the face bringing a nap-striking three-year-old through the bowels of Manhattan's mass transit system in a souped-up umbrella stroller and then making her stay in the contraption through five floors of modern art, when all she really wanted to do was see her friends and ride the ride.

I must also point out that waiting to cry and throw an all-out tantrum three hours into the museum experience should be put down on her application for sainthood. I, myself, lobbied for an hour at the museum and an hour at the Central Park Zoo. (I was overruled).

But I'm not bitter or anything.

Perhaps the most interesting part about the whole experience was just witnessing the city for the first time at the vantage of parenthood. New York, a place that ordinarily seems cold and austere despite its opulance, where people race from place to place and barely make eye-contact, melts when tiny tots are in the picture. Having children really is the great equalizer. Everyone stops to talk to the kids, to ask about the sling that kept Silas comfee and quiet the whole trip. It was exactly like being in a small town.

From the moment we stepped off 34th Street on our way to West 4th and back to Penn Station, we were engaged by people who wanted to know how old the baby was, how old Annabel was; they worried about his safety in the sling and wondered where I got it. They told me about deals they saw on such things in SoHo.

When Silas cried, grocery clerks clucked in empathy, coffeeshop baristas told us about their teenagers at home. ... how they'd go back to the baby days in an instant if they would just stay babies ... and hostesses at restaurants offered to walk him around so I could eat.

Everyone smiled and said 'Have a Nice Day.'

And they meant it.

Even in the toy store we had to admit the kid of ours who walks and talks was walking the line, and on her best behavior. The only thing I regret, out of the whole experience was not photographing the tower of boxes containing dolls fashioned from the musical "Hairspray" that Toys R' Us was hawking.

As teeny-bopper types were shrieking with glee at the chance to have their very own Amber Von Tussle doll, I found myself handling an Edna Turnblad, turning the box over and over in my hand and feeling sad. I wondered momentarily if John Waters is turning over in his grave ... then I realized the poor man's not even dead. Hell must have frozen over for sure.

Trouble sleeping

Silas woke me for his four o-clock feeding this morning by giggling.

That's right, GIGGLING.

Not one giggle such as he'd exhibited for the first time that afternoon, but multiple giggles. It was as if he woke from a dream that pleased him.

I couldn't go back to sleep.

I just stared at him as he slept smiling.

I'm sure it's a sign.

... All is well.

I hope, anyway.

What I did on my summer vacation ...

Let's be forthright, shall we?

Moms - stay-at-home or otherwise - don't really get summer vacations, now, do they? There's always a nose needing to be wiped, a knee needing to be sprayed with disinfectant (and then kissed) and a soccer/baseball/football player or track star that needs a lift to camp ... and back.

When I think of all the vacation time I wasted before children; time just frittered away walking on a beach, drinking in pubs or visiting places with breakables, I become wistful.



Because of Silas' arrival and the Family Medieval Leave Act, this year has been the closest to a summer vacation I've come since sophmore year, high school. (After that it was pretty much full-time summer jobs from then on.)

Oh sure I had surgical recovery and the addition of a new person to the family -- one that requires maintenance every two hours -- to contend with, but I also had 10 hours a day that was normally taken uo with work and commute. All I had to do was fill it up.

Easier said than done.

For the record:

Free play isn't free. For 90 seconds firstborn children will assemble all that is needed for a morning of spectacular, imagintive play. The debris will be scattered over four states. Yet as soon as you tell them that they will have to play by themselves, the scamps will lose all interest, abandoning the minefield of toys and begin a chant that will haunt you for the rest of the day: IDON'TKNOWHOWTO ....

Any craft projects that YOU conceive occupies a preschooler for approximately 13 minutes (and that's a successful one). It will also take 30 minutes to clean up, but you can't count those as part of your day since you can't push the vacuum for another four weeks thanks to the incision. And, once you've been cleared for takeoff, the baby will be sleeping during prime suction opportunities anyway.

Taking a walk to the nearest park will burn up a good hour and 17 minutes. You will be smacking yourself in the face with every pebble the kid picks up along the way (475) not to mention trying to figure out a way to slide down the curly slide with a baby in arms or bribe the only other child in the whole playground -- a bored looking pre-teen probably waiting for her ex-convict boyfriend -- to do it for you. Be prepared for a workout on the way home as you WILL be returning with a kicking, screaming banshee, slippery from reapplied sunscreen, because the only way she will ever be ready to leave a playground is if you promise the circus is offloading elephants in the driveway as she lollygags on the swings.

Lunch will be a solid 10 minutes of fun (and another 20 minutes of agony). You will spend four minutes asking your firstborn what they desire and be told all manner of non-procurable vittles: "I would like chocolate covered bees, pleeeeze." Of course when you finally negotiate for peanut butter sandwiches (with the crusts cut off) and you start making them, she'll tell you she really wanted peanut butter celery canoes.

During all this you will have to change the baby four times, change your shirt twice and your pants once. You still haven't showered, and the firstborn is only wearing underwear. You bribe the child into wearing clothes by telling her she can help you make cookies if she puts on a shirt and shorts. Chocolate chip? Is there any other kind?

But lo' there's no brown sugar. So off to the store you go. Packing the car with a half-naked kid, a screaming infant and about a week's worth of clothes should your car break down and hekp doesn't arrive for an hour. Granted, grocery stores take about two hours whether you are getting one item or 100. (I would explain in more detail, but I might cry just thinking about it).

There are some things that I think are FUN to do with kids, and baking happens to be on the top of the list. Cakes from a mix, Toll House from scratch ... doesn't matter. If they lose interst between the creaming of butter and sugar and the spooning heaps onto the baking sheet, just thrust a loaded mixer blade in thier direction and watch them disappear.

But that only fills three-quarters of a day ... if I bake one more thing I will be faced with a horrid choice: lose my husband to heart disease or open the most inconsistent bakery in the world, calling it "Some Like It Hot (But Most Like It Cooked).

You know what's filling the rest of the day, right? THE BOOB TUBE Oh, yeah ... I've still got laundry to wash and fold. But then I swear, I don't care if it is midnight before the house is finally silent, I'm sitting down to read that trashy beach novel. It's still summer right?

It was a tad squishy

Hello. Elliott?

Yeah. Well actually it's Annabel.

Yes.

Well ...

I had oatmeal this morning for breakfast. But you wouldn't have liked it. ... It had marshmellows in it.

Well, that's all.

Actually ... I have to go now.

Bye.

Little things

likes her caffeine, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I am no longer persona non grata here at Casa de Abba.

I think she was about two and still mispronouncing her own name when she thrust her hands into my camera lens and with the screech of three nightmarish words -- NO MORE PISHERS -- single-handedly assured herself a little brother.

Oh how times change.

Now that my camera is seeking out a smaller, less loquacious subject she is all smiles. Not to mention all "Here take my picture doing this ... how about if I hold it on my head. Wait! Here, look at this. ... I'm holding it between my legs. Isn't that funny? Quick take a picture."

I don't mean to give you the impression she's jealous of the attention Silas is getting; she doesn't seem peeved. She doesn't pull me away from him to look at her. I think she's just decided from watching that it's fun to pose.

It kind of took me by surprise this new interest in being photographed. I didn't really know what to do with it since I'm not typically interested in "look at me" type photographs. I'd much prefer she ignore me like she usually does the other 92 percent of the time I've got my camera in hand.

But I'm not going to complain about it; there's still plenty of candid moments even when she's saying cheese. It's just nice not to have to be a contortionist (or a magician) to catch them.

I know this phase won't last, though. One day she'll say Abba-cadabra or some other explosive command and it will be gone.

Team player

skins and shirts, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Under his breath I hear him say it: "Mama's boy."

There's an unmistakable laugh in his voice but I don't care. The expression makes me bristle with rage.

"That's not fair."

He's been crying since I made the handoff.

I'm trying to finish the tortilla pizzas. I'm not the one who usually does the cooking in this house. I need my wits about me as I'm searing chicken sausage.

At first it was slow, unsure chirps that could go either way. Soon it was clear the boyo was headed for the goal -- me.

I still had my sling around my shoulder, waiting for the exchange. Nothing.

"Are you OK," I call through the steam of the now translucent onions.

"Fine," he says in the adament yet disturbed voice of a dad struggling with the Fourth Trimester Blues. The first three months on the outside when only mama has the touch.

It's painful, really. As I sprinkle chopped peppers, onions and cheese over a thin layer of sauce, I find myself trying to soften the blow:

"He's just hungry."

"He has been fussy all day. It's not you."

But when dad hands him back he instantly settles.

"You realize once he's a little older YOU will be the hero, right?"

I've slid the tiny pizzas into the oven, and in minutes they are ready.

"Here. ... I'll trade ya."

Shhhhhhhh

We've been away at a family reunion of sorts in the beautiful state of Vermont. We stayed with my cousin near Burlington for a few days and then at a bed and breakfast in Waitsfield where the actual birthday party (for my father's sister) took place.

We've returned with a carload of funky laundry to a house full of dog hair, rancid food in the fridge and other real-world duties. Forgive me while I take my time getting back into the swing of things here in the virtual world.

Until then, I'd like you to meet "Bad Word Girl," Annabel's Easter Bunny-disguised bear. During this trip Ittybit decided the bear -- which came in her Easter Basket -- should finally have a name.

I'm not sure where she came up with "Bad Word Girl" since we've tried to instill the idea that there are no "bad" words, there are simply inappropriate times and places for certain word usages.

But, as cousin Bridget pointed out, "Inappropriate Word Usage Girl" is a little clunky.

Oh baby, talk to me

Dear Silas,

It's been two months already, but strangely enough it seems as if you've been in our lives all along.

If you were our firstborn I'd be able to tell you exactly how many times you sneezed in these last two months. I could tell you the exact day and minute of the first smile you'd shown that didn't appear to be pent up gas. But you are the second child, and while you were doing all those things I was looking away or tripping over toys I'd asked your sister to put away.

Instead of being able to pinpoint the exact second of your first smile, I can recall that the first time I noticed a non-sleeping smile was while we were in Maine visiting your Ama and cousin. It was about four weeks (a week sooner than your sister, I might add). Also I can tell you that while I have no idea how many sneezes or hiccups you've expelled, I know that after most sneezes you make a heartbreaking little sighin sound that will make me regret I didn't record it for posterity. (Yes, I know there's still time but I'm not too skilled in the moving pictures department. And since it takes effort, I know I'll just be sitting here on my brains hoping someone else will capture the moment.)

I also don't know when it was that you started trying to be a part of the family on your own, but I know that right now you are verbalizing up a storm. The colloquial term would be "cooing," I believe.

I don't remember Annabel doing this. But perhaps I was too busy looking at her to talk to her the way I talk to you. I never really expected you to talk back though. In the doctors' office, while we were waiting for your vaccinations, I was telling you all about the things on the counter I could identify. Cotton sqabs, tongue depressors, a measuring tape, soap ... that thing that you use to look in someone's ear ... And you started repeating what I said. Sort of.

Mostly it had the same pitch and length, but the words were in a language I haven't spoken for more than 30 years -- baby.

Now, just so you know, I don't go in for all that "wooby, wooby widdle baby" stuff. I speak to little people pretty much the same way I speak to the guy at the post office or in coffee shop: four stamps; black, no sugar. (Don't laugh, I get blank stares from them too.)

And yet, when I tell you about the grossness of the dog's drooling ways or wonder if you are more interested in listening to Dave Matthews or Parlament, I am delighted by your enthusiasm. Your "Eeeeyaaas" and "ooooos" sound remarkably positive as I'm reading to you from the grocery list.

"Oh your right! I did forget the Hearts and Os cereal. Annabel's favorite. You're such a good brother."

I'm glad you speak my language. When I ask you to look in the box where the cold food is one day, trying to remember the name for the refrigerator, I'm sure you'll know exactly what I mean.

Love,

Mama

Maternal salvation

I was taking a walk in my village last week with Silas in the sling when a car stopped me on a side street. As I was turning onto the street it was pulling out, so the couple inside had turned around and come back, catching up to me a few houses away from the corner.

They were an older couple, grandparents, and wanted to know how I liked my town. They were planning on moving up from Brooklyn.

My usual response when someone asks what I think of the place I live includes annecdotes about how years before I even considered moving here -- when i was the editor of a local weekly newspaper -- someone had spread a rumor about me being a lesbian and in a relationship with my assistant editor. I was pretty put off by the idea of people who don't know me from Paula Poundstone would have the time and inclination to spread rumors -- true or false. It seemed so ... Oh, I don't know ... antisocial? Not to mention that there's a certain Seinfeldian aspect to the situation: Who'd want to be friends ... or even spend a half hour ... with people like that?

But the couple in the car seemed nice, and I had nowhere to be. I was just out walking, enjoying the summer night and various sounds of window airconditioning units humming from every house I passed. So I smiled and told them a soften version of the truth: that it's a beautiful, quiet town and that there were scads of community-focused activities if one was inclined to take part.

They told me about themselves and kept peppering me with questions. How old was my baby? How long had I lived here? Was I originally from the area?

They wondered if I knew many mothers in town.

I told them that I didn't.

They wanted to know why.

I work. Being away from home more than 10 hours a day didn't leave room for much socializing, and most play groups were either private or suspended their schedules for the summer. I figured once my daughter was old enough to go to the local public school I'd make some more acquaintances. Until then my "social" life would remain on my couch at 10 p.m. while I'm surfing the Web.

That's when the curious woman in the passenger seat told me that she was a clinical psychologist and had made mothering her speciality. She studied women in mothers' groups. She even went as far as to tell me about groups in my area I might like to "check out."

"How interesting," I said, noting that while I don't belong to groups in the local community I did belong to an online forum of mothers that was much the same. We shared tips, recipes, angst and stories. We commiserate about lousy bosses, difficult mates, children we'd like to sell on e-bay. We exchange cards and ornaments at holidays. We bestow gifts at the birth of a child or condolences at the death of a parent or loved one. We chip in and send larger gifts to people who are really struggling with something, just to lift their spirits a little. We even made a point to see one another once a year and do it all over again in person.

I was thinking about all of this as the woman in the car dismissed my virtual support group with the wave of a hand. "You should really find people you can meet in person every week," she said, explaining that face-to-face contact was the "only" way to effectively survive motherhood.

I smiled and nodded and pretended to commit to memory the names she offered. But really I was just wondering when people like her would shift their studies from the handfuls of women who meet in the height of the afternoon -- many of them stay-at-home moms making use of the time between 9 and 5 when the husbands are away -- to the thousands who hash out the same things in the wee hours of the evening or during coffee breaks at work or when their kids are napping or their husbands away.

We laugh, we cry, we wrap our heads around other people's stories; their worries and their celebrations. We adjust our thinking. We gain a different perspective. We are irreverent, and kind, and silly. We lift each other up. The only difference in our virtual playgroup is that our kids only play in posted photographs.

Rather than benefiting the social needs of our children it's our minds and spirits that benefit. And the mind doesn't need to sip coffee from the same urn or eat cookies from the same plate to realize maternal salvation.

The heavyweight champeein of da world

champ, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I'm in love with the doctors in our pediatric practice. LOVE.

I would write bad poetry in their honor.

I would bake them little heart-shaped cakes.

I would wash their cars with a Q-Tip, that's how much I LOVE them.

Not only are they reassuring, but they always seem to smile. Our usual doctor was on vacation this week, a fact I was told beforehand, and it turns out her pitch-hitter was my favorite kind of substitute -- a joker.

DOC: "So ... How is he?"

MOM: "I'd say he's perfect."

DOC: "I'll be the judge of that. I'll be honest, haven't seen a perfect baby yet. ... looks like he gained 27 ounces in a month. ... good. Eyes, ears, throat, tummy, legs ... yup. He's perfect. Although I'll have to take off a half a point for that redness in the neck folds. ...

... HEY! He's the first kid to pee on me today.

MOM: See, I told you he was perfect. He's VERY protective of his mama.

Of course the guy earned my complete devotion, and potential for car detailing services, when I admitted the kid wasn't really perfect considering his wonky kidney and all ....

DOC: "Oh, that. I'd say those kind of kidney things are about as normal as cradle cap. The only reason it's moderate is because he's a baby. I'd be more concerned with some of the notations these places put on the reports ... Says here: "Patient didn't complain about pain in lower abdomen, back or groin. ... I can't wait to meet the newborn who complains. Oh look, also says here he's a non-smoker. Good. I wasn't looking forward to giving THAT lecture."

*Silas weighed in at 10 pounds, 11 ounces. It earns him a slot in the 25th percentile for weight. He measured 22 1/2 inches long (also 25th percentile) and his head is 38 cm in circumference (10th percentile).

Garden variety

Mommy, look!!!

This tomato has a scar just like yours.

New and improved

on top of the world in her new kicks, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I remember what it was like to get a new pair of sneakers.

I felt as if I could run faster, jump higher and do just about anything.

It was like getting a shot of instant invincibility.

Happily, that hasn't changed a bit. Annabel proudly announced that her new sneakers are going to help her practice her running. Not just that but that they help her get more "entergy." Enough to go to the moon, even.

I believe it. I never had sneaks THIS snazzy.

She's got the sass down

not pregnant, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

"Mommy? You were big when you were preglent. But now that you're not preglent you are not big anymore.

"Now daddy's preglent, but he's NOT having a baby right?

"RIGHT?!?"

Will wonders never cease?

how do pigs fly?, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Dear Annabel,

Were you wondering where I've been?

Nearly two months ago I disappeared. For three days I was gone. For three days your access to me was measured in minutes. You were amazing. You seemed to mature overnight.

You started speaking to strangers in sentences. You were in love with your little brother and you had barely met him.

None of that has changed. What has changed is that you share me now, and for a major portion of the day you are entertaining yourself, singing songs, reading books to your miniature animals, and finding new amusements while I hold the baby, change the baby, rock the baby or try and keep the baby happy.

You've not yet asked me to put the baby down or send the baby back. You've not shown even a smidgen of jealousy.

When your father comes home at night, I take walks around the village. With Silas. Not with you. I want to walk, and with you I have to stop for every leaf that's fallen from a tree and some that haven't.

But I gave in recently and took you along. Off we went, you in the stroller and your brother in the sling. I figured we'd be gone five minutes before you'd insist we turn back. You didn't, but we didn't get far either. We reached the village square and you heard music.

You made me stop so you could listen as the brass band played marches and show tunes. You begged me to stay there in the village center and let you out of the stroller.

I wasn't going to get my walk and I knew it.

I unbuckled you and you slid out from under the tray. You held out your hand to me, compelling me to come with as you danced in the cordoned off street.

I stood in the middle of the road trying not to look in the direction of our elderly neighbors, sitting in the lawnchairs they brought to sit on in the median lawns. Your moves were a combination of running around the flower patch and gyrations that would make Olive from Little Miss Sunshine proud. I laughed as they told you how well you dance, knowing full and well that Olive was indeed your mentor.

It was getting dark. I told you we'd stay for one more number and you weasled three more after that.

It was fun. I didn't much mind forgoing the walk.

The next day when you woke up, you asked me to play a game on the porch. You wanted me to bring your brother, even though he was crying.

"Maybe he just wants to hang out with me more."

I hugged you and told you how right you were and how happy you made me.

"You're happy mama? Then I'm happy, too."

It was a sobering moment, because it wasn't your words so much as the flash of sheer bewilderment and relief in your eyes that told me what I really needed to know. That I haven't really been there for you and you were waiting for me to come back. Waiting patiently at that.

I love you, kiddo ... all day and night.

Mama

Because we couldn't cram all the fun into just one Sunday ...

paint the town, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

oh ... and if you've got nothing to do tomorrow ...

jed's turning 37, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Pop on by.

Side by side

i've missed you film, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

How I've missed film. When I lugged two children and about 10 rolls of film into the lobby of my preferred pro lab it all came flooding back.

The magic that is photography.

A feeling.

A wordless wisdom that almost blindly catches a moment and holds it in ways you may not have intended or perhaps even noticed.

It's something digital doesn't do in the same way.

Digital has made me understand what instant gratification really means. Film makes you wait. It forces you to be judicious. It makes you pay otherwise. It also makes you remember things you might never have seen.

The thing is, I only shot a few rolls of film during the last week. The rest I found by going through boxes and drawers and glove compartments in several cars. What I found were six or so overheated, overdue, overlooked rolls to bring along for the ride.

I didn't have much hope for finding long lost gems. The rolls from last year or from 10 years ago didn't get developed for a reason. Mostly the images were sure to be afterthoughts. I didn't finish the roll and it stayed in the camera. It was last ditch efforts, usually not worthy of a second look. They were just because.

When the contact sheets came back there were amazing litle memories I'd completely forgotten. There were photographs from magazine jobs and weddings, there were pictures from my old apartment.

But somehow, years later, these trigger-happy castoffs seemed valuable even in their imperfection; perhaps because of their faults.


One roll from seven years ago contained a photograph of Jed holding a metal snow saucer, standing in front of Ledig House with Maggie by his side. We'd gone sledding with the dogs down the big hill despite only a smattering of snow that year. It was an old-time looking frame with a weird light-leak and funky coloring.

He wants me to make a larger print of it to hang in the house. He said he felt as if he were looking at his own father standing in front of the Captain's Walk . Timeless even while time passes.

It's made me want to keep my old Nikon as more than a paperweight. Keep it loaded and ready for a shot or two as an afterthought. Perhaps once every few years send off the rolls to see what, if any, treasures await.

Word.

?, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

... and I'm picking up $130 worth of processed film today.

... and I'm still considering the purchase of a new camera.

I have a problem. Perhaps a 12-step program is in order. It's either that or I'll need a second job.

Muddy waters

strong man, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

The summer is just flying by in a heat-soaked humid kind of way. We swelter at home or hole up in the only room with air conditioning, watching movies.

It's the kind of summer that makes me drool as I drive through the local communities counting backyard swimming pools. It's so bad it's even threatened to end my boycot of Walmart just so I can procure this blue monster for our backyard.

Thank goodness I can't commit to such an impulse buy.

Yesterday, while the kids and I were out running errands (bringing about 10 rolls of film to be processed) and getting lunch at Ralph's Pretty Good Cafe (which should really strive to become Ralph's FRIGGIN' AWESOME Cafe if they insist on continuting to hawk $7 grilled cheese sandwiches and $6.50 milkshakes) Annabel saw Crellin Pond and started the "I-want-to-swim-in-that-big-pool-with-all-those-kids" chant.

"Not THAT pond," I think to myself as I recall the countless times I'd driven past that body of water to see it covered completely in migrating Canada geese. How may times had I stepped in goose grease while taking the dogs for walks? No, I couldn't let her swim there.

So I diverted her attention until it was bedtime. "MAAAAYBE we can go swimming later after your nap (you know, the nap you no longer take?). Look, honey, you don't even have a bathing suit with you. ... Oh look, kiddo, a plane."

But I couldn't get around it forever. It's much to hot not to swim.

And today was perfect. It rained in the morning, Jed's job got postponed and it wasn't too terribly sunny. So we piled in the car and went to Grafton Lakes State Park, a swimming place of my childhood.

Sure, it's a trek but it's worth it. We can spend the day there. We could have a picnic. We could swim for as long as we like and not even have to think about how many septic tanks empty out into the water ... because the land is largely undeveloped.

Yeah. ... that's the kind of delightful stuff I think about now as a parent. Shite AND Shineola.

Smiling in your sleep

sweet sleep, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Dear Silas,

I had been holding off writing this first letter to you, dear boy, as I waited for you to put your stamp on me. With all the events preceeding and following your arrival -- some that don't even really pertain to you -- I wanted to get a better feel for who you are.

I waited for your first pediatric visit to see how big you were; to see how you measured up with another first visit I'd encountered. I waited to see how your eyebrows and lashes grew in. Would they be thick? Thin?

I waited long past your first smile ... four weeks was it? Perhaps gas? No matter, by six weeks you were smiling more broadly and often. And as always, even in utero, you still smile in your sleep.

It's probably going to annoy you, being second. Being the little brother. There will always be someone else leading the way.

It's tempting to compare, to look for differences: You don't cry too often (no matter what your sister says); You enjoy being worn in the sling; You do not like being put down; You accept "tummy time" with much more enthusiasm than you know who.

It is my theory that you will be a cuddly child. I could be wrong about that, of course, but what I'm probably not wrong about is that you will be a heartbreaker. Potentially mine.

It's been oppressively hot this summer. I can't bring myself to swaddle you in blankets, and yet I bundle you up in the pouch sling and wear you close to my heart. You are warm, your body a furnace just like mine, or so your father says anyway.

"It's like a fourth trimester," I tell folks when they comment on how content you seem all folded up like you are still inside. "Only without the heartburn and swollen ankles," I laugh.

Tonight, however, before the sun set completely and I turned the fans back from their outward stream, I saw the real you as we rocked in the chair. The you that has nothing to do with your birth order, or your sister or the million things that keep me from looking into your eyes every second of every hour of every day.

It's true what someone told me once. Despite all the struggle of having more work and less time; more hugs to give but less space in your arms, there is always room. Room that you didn't even know you had. Room that clears itself.

You came into that room without making a sound; you just slipped right in as if you were there all along.

I can't wait to get to know you, boyo. I have a feeling you are something special, too.

Love,

Mommy

Everyone needs a big brother, right?

broken, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

It's been like a year right? Or has it really only been a few days?

I've taken at least three rolls of film (unearthed from the haunted house that is my office) since my digital camera shit the proverbial bed. I flew through 108 exposures faster than poop through a goose. Three. Rolls. I'd say I'd spent all of 13 minutes composing and shooting those three rolls. In U.S. currency that's about $15 in materials and $30 in processing costs. $3.46 per minute.


Of course I haven't sent the rolls for processing.

Yet.

What I have done is sent my D70 on an all-expense-paid USPS tour of Manhattan, where it will enjoy three weeks (at least) of rest and relaxation at a premiere spa for unemployed photographic equipment.

I thought I could be faithful and await its return, however I find myself surfing the Web late at night looking for a replacement ... one with more power, especially in low light. It pains me that these cameras seem so disposable. A few years in service and a broken pin or a damaged sensor can wind up costing as much to repair as the camera costs to replace. I was hoping to stick it out, go back to film (which I love) and wait until the fix-it people tell me the good news: That just some spit and polish -- and $19.95 (payable in song) -- will send my baby home in tip-top shape.

But it all seems so unlikely. Silas keeps smiling and doing cute things, and Annabel has started to allow more access to her pretty face and funny antics. I'm starting to rationalize my consumerist ways. After all, at the rate I'm going, I'll have paid for a new camera by the time I get the old one back and it becomes second fiddle.

Note to self: Next time forget futzing with the memory card and hook the camera up to the computer directly. Leave the card alone. It's more trouble than it's worth.

From the archives ...

just like mommy, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

What do you get when you hand an expensive digital camera to a preschooler?

Do you know?

In my case, you get this ... or this ... or perhaps even this.

But what do you get when you put a memory card back into the camera in the dark? If you're someone like me you get this.

Shite. ... and, of course, the Champ picks today to start smiling ... and holding his head up ... and grabbing my hair with both hands. And Annabel even asked to have her picture taken, too.

You don't believe me, do you? I can't even prove it until I buy some film. ... I wonder if I remember how to use it?