Playing with the band

they are darlins, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

If you were to ask me what I want Annabel to be when she grows up, I couldn't really say.

I could only tell you all the clichés, and you've probably already heard them: I want her to be happy. I want her to have integrity. I want her to be kind and loving and generous. I want her to use her mind and never let people with ill-intent screw with it.

One of the most difficult things to explain to a four-year-old (or even a forty-year-old for that matter) is the question: "Why don't they like me?

I hear my own mother's voice come out of my throat: "Honey, they just don't know you."

It breaks a mother’s heart to watch her child run from group to group, hoping to be included and finding only quizzical faces and flying hair as the bodies attached run in an opposite direction.

"Why won't they play with me?"

I know it's because kids are like that. Even she can be like that. There's nothing to be done but hold your head up and move on.

There we are she and I, sitting hip to hip, rocking on the hillside. I have no words of wisdom. I have no advice other than to tell her to persevere.

But I know she doesn't want to just run with the gangs that flock from hill to hill. She doesn't want to just be in their general vicinity. She wants to lead them and influence their play. She's got big ideas.

"Maybe if I play with my play picnic food someone will come up and want to play with it, too."

But as the minutes went by in our staged picnic of wooden meats, fish, cheeses and vegetables, no one was enticed.

"I know! I'll get my stickers and hand them out. Maybe then they'll play with me."

I pull the sheets of colorful stars from my bag and she runs toward the children. She wordlessly holds out her offering. Some of the kids come closer. Some of the younger ones, prompted by their mothers, wordlessly accept. Others just say "No, I don't want any stickers."

And this becomes the game she plays with herself. She no longer needs the children. She just needs the stickers.

"I have to find more people. I have to make sure EVERYONE gets a sticker!" she tells me. And then she's gone.

I catch a glimpse of her teal shirt, which, from a distance, looks perfectly free of cherry-ice stains and ground in dirt. She is milling about the clusters of adults sipping wine from glasses and waiting for the line at the buffet to draw inward, asking them if they'd like to chose a sticker.

Most oblige.

Who can say no to a little girl bestowing gifts?

Finally, she meets the only girls at the party willing to play.

Those Darlins.

And they were. Darling.

From their patch of grass in front of their performance space, the girls played with Annabel. Their friends juggled for her and played with her picnic foods. They accepted stickers. They danced with her and played hide and seek. They made sure to find her.

When it was time for their show to go on, she danced in the front row.

She was walking on air.

They dedicated a song to their biggest (and littlest) fan.

And she took every opportunity - every lull in the performance - to hug one of them around the knees (often encircling their guitars, too).

It's not every mother's dream for her children to reach for the stars, I suppose. ... But I don't really mind. I just wish Annabel didn't have to be so literal.

"I know it looks like play, Annabel, but really it's work."

I love

I love the fall when the leaves turn, and, at dusk when there's a deep blue sky, the trees look like they're lit from within.

I love going for long walks with Silas in the sling.

I love Annabel's voice; particularly her recent phone conversations.

I love the feeling of water coming out of my ear after swimming.

I love taking photographs.

I love getting into a warm bed.

I love the way Silas lights up whenever he sees me; I love that he crawls as fast as he can to reach me.

I love the sound of Canada geese.

I love walking oceanside in the morning with a cup of coffee. I love watching the dogs play in the surf.

I love naps.

I love reading again.

I love stouts.

I love taking my son to work with me on days he has doctors' appointments.

I love baking with Annabel.

I love when the kids play together.

I love a clean floor underneath bare feet.

I love the smell of clean laundry.

I love when the dog bows her head into my lap for a pat.

I love PlasmaCars and overalls and McDonald's toys.

I love that Annabel calls Kung Fu Panda "Pan Flu Panda."

I love that Silas tells me "NO" and "RAWR."

I love when someone nodds their head and says: "I know exactly what you mean."

And I love this:



and this:



and this:

The sound of Silas

invite, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Dear Silas,

How can a year have gone by so quickly? I remember your birthday as clearly as if it were yesterday.

I remember the heat of the day as I checked into the hospital. It was five o’clock in the evening; I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since 8 a.m. The staff all clucked their tongues when the head nurse told me the doctor was delayed. It would likely be another two hours or more before the show would get on the road.

Scheduling a caesarian section at night is just mean, I overheard one nurse whisper to another.

I hadn’t even thought about it until the night before when I tried to wrap my head around the radio meteorologist’s prediction of breathtaking heat.

How was I going to get through the day without being able to drink water?

How was I going to get through the day with my mind racing always to the darkest thoughts?

Everything about you seemed so stealthy.

The day before you were born the pre-operative check-in folks blinked nervously as I stood behind the glass window. They couldn’t find my name in their records. They didn’t want to say I wasn’t listed. It wasn’t until I told them I was having a planned c-section that they understood; I was in the wrong place. I should have gone to the maternity floor for that kind of pre-operative check-in.

Your father and I laughed that they couldn’t tell I was pregnant.

Stealth baby, that’s what we called you.

And you were stealthy, almost until the very beginning of term when your kidneys lit up our attentions and sent our emotions into a talespin.

That last day with you swimming around within, I lay in bed and hoped for the best but prepared for less.

It’s hard to think back to that day and the feelings of dread that wore on through it: The phone rang; it was the furniture store with “bad news.” They couldn’t get the bookcase I’d ordered for you along with a dresser.

“Bad news,” I snorted. “They have NO IDEA what bad news is.”

Bad news is not enjoying the last hours of this much anticipated pregnancy. Bad news is not playing with my first born on this, the last day of her being an only child. Bad news is what we were expecting. Being able to accept and move on was what we were hoping for.

But bad news is NOT what we got.

We got you; A healthy boy with a wonky kidney.

And had it not been for the handful of urology visits, and a couple of unpleasant tests, nothing would ever let on that you weren’t perfect in every way.

You have also cemented my belief that children are their own individual people from the moment they enter the world. You, my dear boy, are joyous and interested, cautious but willing to forge ahead into the unknown. You laugh with vigor and babble boisterously. Even in the early weeks of your life you were a strong force, one to be reckoned with.

We laughed at how you growled at your sister if her hugs were too tight. How you smiled and laughed whenever you opened your eyes.

I called you Mr. Seri-Oh-SO! and spun you like a clock – tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. It always made you laugh.

You said Mama amazingly fast: Amazingly. I know it was your first word in much the same way “Hi” was your sister’s first word. It was just a sound you made that we all knew to be a word with meaning.

We noticed last January that you hated the sound of Happy Birthday being sung. It made you cry then as quickly and surely as the word "NO" makes you crumple up and sob now, no matter what volume you hear it.

Mostly, though, you are a quiet soul. You are unconcerned with a hefty majority of physical discomforts. Nothing short of overtired makes you short tempered. I know when you’ve reached your end when you slip and fall, and just lay there sobbing quietly, not attempting to get up. I know when your limit has been passed when you stand up in your crib – a makeshift bed at best – and scream at the tops of your lungs.

You are accustomed to the warmth of a body as you sleep.

You are a stunning child; a watcher and a mover. You are non-stop and observer all in one. You test us with a fine sense of humor.

Each day since you came has been another in which we all seem to wonder what we did without you.

Without your happy kicks, without your joyful giggles, without your ‘what, you think I’m eating that?’ dismissal of virtually all food groups besides those that fall into the “berry” category, we are not whole.

You are like a puzzle piece we didn’t realize was missing.

Sleep comes easier with you in our lives. Annabel won’t rest until she hugs you goodnight.

Even Maddy must wonder how she managed to eke by each day without you sharing most of your food with her.

Of course I’d also like to know how it is that you’ve managed to keep up -- almost neck and neck -- with your sister on weight gain, and, in the final throes of your first annum, even pulled ahead. She was a powerhouse when it came to trying new foods, while you seem to thrive on air.

I suppose we will learn more about you as the years go on; we will pull out our hair and suck air through our teeth. There will be shouting matches and screamfests and many, many, many standoffs around unfinished plates. All those terrible things that make people wish they could have chosen their families… but don’t worry. There is love.

There may not be singing, but there is lots and lots of love.

And there will be ice cream.

Lots and lots of ice cream.


Have a happy birthday, kiddo!

With love and zerberts,

Mama


P.S. And one more thing: Please tell Annabel (when she asks) that you will NOT call me “MOTHER.” K? Thanks.

XXOO

P.P.S ... We'll be celebrating Silas' first year on Saturday, June 28. We'll be throwing things for both vegetarians and carnivors on the grill around 2 p.m. If you're in the neighborhood and would like to stop by, please do.

Ding-a-ling-a-ling

phone interview , originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Hi, Mom? I have a question for you: Who's picking me up at Amah and Papa's today?

I am.

Oh, Good. When are you going to come?

I'll be there in about a half hour.

How many minutes is that?

A half hour is thirty minutes.

Oh, O.K. I have another question for you. ... How would we get out of our house if there was a fire? Would we have to go out of the window?

I'm not sure. My guess is it would depend on where the fire was located. We'd probably just go down the stairs.

But we'd have to probably crawl on the floor, right?

That's good thinking. The best air will be low to the ground.

Mom, I have another question for you: If there was no toilet paper at the farmers' market. And there was no toilet paper anywhere else, what would we use for toilet paper?

I don't really know. Maybe we'd use leaves.

LEAVES? That's just crazy. ... Hey, do you have to go back to work?

Not just yet, I can still answer questions.

Good. I have ANOTHER question for you: Are we gonna eat dinner at Amahs?

Yes, we're eating dinner at Amah's

Oh GOOD! I was hoping you'd say that.

Hard work

sleeping bean, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I thought today would prove, finally, that Silas is too old to be coming to work with me. I was sure that he would be too demanding; that I wouldn't be able to get things done.

He had another follow-up examination with the urologist; just an ultrasound and consultation to see how the hydronephrosis is doing. Although from the way he carried on during the ultrasound one might think he was being poked with sharp sticks.

I know the medical people like to go from good side to not-so-good side when they are making comparison images, but geesh! He was only mildly put out while the technician scanned his right kidney (which is normal) and REALLY pissed off by the time he got to the left side. Really. Pissed.

The good news is the doctor says his stable if not slightly better. Of course the "improvement" could be a normal fluctuation in fluid swishing around in there but the doctor was adamant that it was "certainly no worse."

So 'yay' for progress.

And once we got back to the office, as you can see from the photo above, he slept like a baby.

Until he woke up and then reacquainted himself with his good ol' friend, Recycling.


Recycling, magnets, cars that zoom, balls and foam ballistics ... even something as simple as emptying out my wallet can occupy him for hours.
I just hope when it's quitting time, I'll be able to find my keys.

The broad brush

this is how we roll , originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Boys are non-stop. Or so people like to say.

Yet, Silas isn't as non-stop as he is on-going. Quietly on-going at that.

Although he makes his needs known, bleating in low-level alarm incessantly if his hands get stuck in the video player or the toy he's playing with rolls under the couch.

He's taking more and more steps; now choosing to walk places slowly when only last week he would have dropped to his knees and, head down, gone barrelling forward to his intended destination.

He's found the joys of riding toys; or more specifically he's found the joys of sitting on toys and waiting for a push.

He's found the chink in his sister's armor. The place where she will not good-naturedly let him take over. In internet gaming site starfall. When she's online choosing storylines and painting faces green she wants nothing to do with him and his meddling ways.

MOM!! He's pulling on the computer screen.
MOM!! Pick him up.
MOM!! Will you take him away?
Please?
Maybe he needs a time out.

So I pick him up and take him into the kitchen. He pulls on my pantlegs and roots through the drawer of plastic containers. He rearranges the cabinet that contains soups and dry goods. He takes magnets off the refrigerator and spirits them away under the kitchen table. He eats leftover cereal bits the dog missed from breakfast.

He is content.

Road work

sun-shiny-day, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Chatham has been going through some changes lately. Roads. Sidewalks. You know, paved. Streets, meanwhile, have been closed to traffic and difficult to traverse on foot.

It's been talk of the town for some time since many businesses here really depend on foot traffic to stay afloat.

It's kind of nice, though, to be able to let Ittybit run wild on the streets of Chatham without fear of her getting flattened by a truck.

Whatever you're doing this weekend, may you have sun-shiny-days.

Joyride

joy ride , originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Since we got these Plasma Cars at Goodwill last month, the hallways have been buzzing -- night and day -- with the whirring of their wheels.

Up. Down. Around. Repeat.

Silas usually rides with me while Annabel races on the power of her own steam.

But this week Annabel got to drive her little brother around for the first time, and I'm not sure if you can really tell from this photograph (to the uninitiated eye she looks slightly crazed) but boy was she excited.

To actually play with him and be in charge is HUGE to her. HUGE.

I can READ! I can READ!

So I learned I can still read books. But apparently I can only read books people send me for my birthday. Figuring out what's out there on my own is apparently too difficult.

What? It's been more than four years since Annabel was born and I've read a total of four books in all that time?

Four years, and the number of books written for people beyond the age of six that I've read can be counted on one hand. Good times, hey?

Well let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Jill Smolinski's "The Next Thing on My List" is everything the back cover says it will be: It's a fun read; it's quick; It's light hearted; and it ends all neat and even. In other words it's poifect.

It's the youngish woman's version of The Bucket List. Only the protagonist doesn't bother us with her own glorious dreams she's racing to accomplish before some unforeseen or tragic end befalls her ... because that would just be creepy.

Instead Smolinski gets the tragic stuff out of the way first thing. Our lovely leading lady, June, has an accident in her car and kills a woman - a virtual stranger - she'd offered a ride. Afterward she finds the unlucky person's list of things to do before she turns 25, and, out of a sense of guilt (or maybe just early middle-aged-but-not-yet-started-her-own-life enui) decides to complete the tasks in honor of the dead woman.

Because that's not at all creepy. No, not in the least.

I have to say the book is predictable, silly, lightweight and with a charming off-Hollywood Hollywood ending that brings it all back to our heroine reclaiming her own life. No way is it literature but who cares? It ends well.

Take this one to beach, folks. It's a page-turner that will bring a smile to your face on at least four separate occasions. You might even laugh (or at least chortle). I did.

(SELF) PUBLISHING UPDATE

The books I ordered from Blurb arrived. Cheapy-shipped and all, they arrived in time for the big dad day, and in perfect condition as well. They are each 20 pages hardbound with pictures imbedded in the covers (rather than a dust jacket).

The only thing that would have made them better is if I were a better page designer (within Blurb's templates of course) or if I was a better phographer/photo editor. Some images I selected, upon reflection, weren't terribly good. So I guess that's what? Cut and paster's remorse?

Because I wanted to put the HIP in our PEE

diaper change challenge, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

In 1961 ...

John F. Kennedy became the 35th president of the United States;

The Beatles performed for their first time at the Cavern Club;

The Peace Corps was established;

The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections;

The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins and fails in two days;

A Freedom Riders bus was fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors were beaten by an angry mob;

The British protectorate ends in Kuwait and it becomes an emirate;

Ernest Hemingway commits suicide by gunshot in Ketchum, Idaho;

Construction of the Berlin Wall begins, restricting movement between East Berlin and West Berlin and forming a clear boundary between West Germany and East Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe;

Digital photography invented by Eugene F. Lally presented in a technical paper at the American Rocket Society's Space Flight Report to the Nation in New York;

The Fantastic Four #1 debuted, launching the Marvel Universe and revolutionizing the American comic book industry;

Catch-22 is first published by Joseph Heller;

"Barbie" gets a boyfriend when the "Ken" doll is introduced;

AND

Ann Coulter, American author, political commentator and attorney was born.

Not all of these things were bad. Some of the developments of that year were downright wonderful.

Proctor and Gamble also introduced the disposable diaper in 1961,

Of course the Pamper - now just a slender, soft, chemical laden, cloth-esque, urine soaking titan of its former self - has the unique distinction of being loved AND hated. Beloved because it freed women from the drugery of piles of poopy laundry but reviled because its padded puffs have added to our disposable economy and tipped the balance on our beleaguered landfills.

Over the years the lowly Pamper has gone from looking and feeling like a pile of paper towels wrapped in a plastic bag to a thin piece of padding "that gently gathers at the legs" and holds a literal shit load of liquid. It has confounded upstanding grannies of all ilk with its easy tab closures ... (cartoon character in the front, yeah?) ... because (some of them) didn't have such novelties when they were raising their children.

So in honor of 1961 (also the year of George Clooney's birth) I've made some small changes that might mean BIG changes. I've invested in cloth diapers.

For $150, I've purchased eight different diapers, two diaper covers, four inserts, four cloth wipes and a wet bag.

I'm starting slow: Weekends and vacations at first. (I don't want to scare the babysitter). But hopefully - at home at least - we'll see a little less of Ernie and a little more of our earnings. We might even help save the Earth. Anything is possible.

I mean, truly. If I'm excited at the prospect of washing poopy diapers ANYTHING is possible.

This is a stick up

stick up, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

No. Really. Get it?

Stick?

Up?

*Crickets*

**CHIRPING**

Wha? These are the jokes here ... what can I say ...


Anyhoo. I don't really have anything nice, good, funny, compelling, serious, sobering, enlightening, uplifting or even mildly quixotic to say.

So I will share this:

MomsTeam is having a photo contest wherein you needn't even WIN to get a prize. All you have to do is be among the first 2,000 to send them a picture of your kid doing something - anything at all apparently - and you will get two boxes (36) Cliff Kid Z Bars.

Nice score, huh?

Guru says ...

love guru, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

It's quittin' time.

And what are we doing this weekend?

Same thing we do every weekend, try and take over the world of

Laundry
House cleaning(ish)
Grocery shopping for the week

Of course we have some kharma points to recover, too.

Remember these guys?

Well, I didn't really have the guts heart to mention that we're on our second replacement team. Well the original orange one (AKA Poppy) has survived but its partner -- the white one (AKA Marigold) -- and the subsequent two "dalmation" ones we added only a few weeks ago have been sent to retrieve their final reward in the septic tank.

This story isn't helping me feel any better either.

It also may explain why our freakishly fast "Poppy" swims to the top of the tank looking for food every time one of us walks in a room. She knows us big'uns are good for a pinch here and there.

Adding 'publisher' to my resume ... (I kid, I kid)

With Father's Day fast approaching I thought I'd give you all a preview of what the dad in this house will (hopefully*) be getting from Blurb come the third Sunday in June. I say "hopefully" because my cheap thrifty ways may thwart this goal since I refused to pony up the 20 smackeroos for speedy shipping.

The lovely and talented (and really and truly published) Binky from 24/7 turned me on to the idea earlier in the year when she posted about her experience creating a book for The Partner's birthday.

Back then I had been trying to get a Blurb book going as kind of an official hard-copy record of this here site, you know should something happen in the technical universe that slurps all this stuff off the page forever? But it was SO Slllllllllooow.

I had e-mailed Binky to see if she could walk me through the subtleties of Blurb's interface.

Turns out she used the good old cut and paste method while I tried the less than eloquent "slurp" feature. Slurp, in a word, sucked.

So I revised my objectives and decided to break in Blurb by making a much smaller book for Jed celebrating Father's Day. (Don't worry, he won't likely see the book before it arrives in our mailbox because he doesn't read these here ramblings of mine).

Blurb was still slow, but it worked. The photos were a little easier to work with than the text, but all in all the process wasn't that painful. I was a little shocked at how little I've written about my husband that HE would appreciate (hense why he likely doesn't read here) but I was kind of glad, too. Working with text was pretty clunky and on occasion made me want to push the laptop off the couch.

The best news, I guess, is that once I started working with it it seemed to get easier. I realized how long things would take to upload. I knew not to upload too much, and to have folders ready with images. I also learned that when text overflowed onto textboxes on the next page, editing in the original page didn't necessarily make it go away on the overflow box. Cutting without pasting was necessary. In other words, it forced me to be somewhat organized.

I was getting so comfortable with it that I made another book. For my dad.

Now, I can't tell you how they turned out just yet, (remember I'm too cheap for anything except parcel post atop the slowest of slow moving snails) but I thought if you were willing to take a risk (and aren't adverse to shelling out for a more speedy delivery) you might want to just throw caution to the wind this Father's Day.

And now for something completely different

and he's off ... damn, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

He's walking here. He's walking.

... a few steps anyway.

Bounce

web , originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I check my blog statistics all the time. It's a sickness. So I (literally) know where some of you are coming from.

For instance, I know some people are visiting from New York, New Jersey, California, Georgia, Oregon, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Louisiana, Virginia, Florida, Washington (both DC and the state), Kansas, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wisconsin, Texas. ... Some of you even stop over from Canada, London, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Netherlands, Brazil, Spain, Italy, India, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

Most of the visitors stay for a second or two; no doubt following their search engines recommending this place for such puzzling mysteries as "How do I check the pulse in my foot" or "sisterhood of the traveling boobies."

Truly, I can understand why someone looking for "Ubermale" wouldn't necessarily find much to interest them here.

But some of you do come back. And whether you comment or not, your presence is felt and cherished. I have always felt as if I've known where you are coming from (figuratively), too.

I'm honored so many of you spoke up and said your piece recently. Honored that you felt you needed to console me in my struggle to understand a thoughtless comment. One that was probably never meant to be taken as I took it.

I just wanted to thank you for your words. Every last one. They really do help me bounce back.

Mother F@&M^#!

Sooooo.

I learned something interesting today.

Seems there are some people out there (not saying who) who have made an important life decision upon meeting me.

Me, of all people.

They've decided against having children.

AGAINST IT.

After meeting ME.

Seriously. They actually said: "No. It was after meeting her."

Jed tried to make me feel better by saying I've really done the world a public service by influencing this particular decision, but I'm still a little raw. Do I give motherhood a bad name?

What yesterday taught me

Standing when sitting would suffice, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

The universe is a joker. It's a little like that kid you always ran into in high school as you were running to fourth-period Earth Science. Remember him? He was the one carrying not a single book, and yet he'd always manage to step right into your path. You tried to avoid him but you'd end up sidestepping as he eased into the same collision course again.

He'd smile a satanic grin just before saying: "Shall we dance?"

Eventually you'd end up spilling the leaning tower of school books you balanced in your arms anyway. You'd hear his laughter dissappear down the hall as you picked up your things. Alone.

He is the Universe conspiring against you. You hate him.

But underneath all false starts and bad vibes, there's still no denying that jackass of a universe has a secret crush on you.

Perhaps yesterday the universe was just trying to tell me something: "The light at 8 p.m. is just so much better the light at 8 a.m. anyway."

Thanks universe. Now how about tinkering a little with that Check Engine light?

It slices, it dices, it juliennes ... but it can't turn off my Check Engine light

ginger snap, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

It's been busy, busy, busy here at the house of toyland.

We went to a party on Sunday for which we were to bring a sidedish, and for which I impulse purchased a Zyliss folding mandolin while we were buying produce at the grocery store (so, as it turns out, I could more easily make mass quantities of tasteless au gratin potatoes AND slice a little skin off my left thumb.

Good times.

Monday -- because I have this amazing device that drastically reduces prep time for thinly sliced root vegetables -- I made a cucumber salad for our family picnic outing. But since Jed has decided he only likes sweet things made of chocolate, and informed me the sugared/vinegar dressing really didn't do much for him, I suggested he hold the slices firmly on his ass ... and stop talking to me.

Good times.

After we cleaned up and dragged took the kids on a lovely hike through the woods, he dropped me off at the auto repair shop where the mechanic had finally figured out why the Check Engine light was in constant party mode on my dashboard. Last year around this time the same mechanic fixed something, turned off the light, slapped an inspected sticker on the windshield, I paid him, drove away and two hours later the damn light was back on.

Being the lazy person I am I chose to ignore it for the next twelve months.

This time the mechanic pin-pointed a rusted out valve in the gas tank, fixed it, changed the oil and slapped on a new inspection sticker.

Finally. Good to go. Whew.

So I absconded with my recently injected, inspected, detected car (using my extra set of keys) and left a note saying I'd gladly pay him Tuesday.

Tuesday was its own disaster waiting to happen.

Everyone had the holiday weekend hangover, so we were already slow on the get-up-and-go. I was further delayed because after dropping off the kids at the babysitter's house I had to go back home and return the breast milk -- that I'd taken out but forgotten to bring to the baby sitter's when I'd dropped off the kids -- to the freezer.

Since I was already late decided I might as well:

1. Pay the mechanic for fixing my car. Dropped off a check.

2. Take the dog to the vet despite Jed saying he'd do it -- but never did even though the vet is two minutes from our house and he works near home and I work 45 minutes away and take the kids to the babysitter for a lovely two and a half hour commute each day -- but I'm not bitter. The dog needs surgery to remove a tumor on her leg. Shite. Scheduled that.

So so late now, might as well stop at the apple farm and buy some donuts for the people at work who are probably already picking up my slack.

Get back into the car and see the flashing lights of police cruisers ahead on the highway. Oh man, they're checking inspections (which I just had, hello ... mechanic and $375 worth of work to be inspectable) but the registration expired and still tentatively hanging on the windshild because I haven't yet peeled it off and replaced it with the one in the envelope that is stuffed in my bag. Have to go back and get Jed's car because I am NOT paying another fine for non-affixed registration thankyouverymuch.

Take a left out of that driveway and go back home. Run up the stairs to switch car keys, grab my gear from my car and transfer it to his, turn on the ignition and head for the highway.

Get into work, only to find out the jedster can't pick up the kids. Grrrrrrrrrreat! Never thought I'd get here now I have to hurry up and leave.

Of course, there I was wishing I could scrub that day right off the face of the calendar, when THIS day rears it's ugly head. Woke up to find that I'd forgotten to put the milk I'd pumped into the refrigerator. Dumped it down the sink. No shampoo left. Annabel's deciding she's too tired to get up. Drag her out of bed. Silas is throwing food at the dog, who is taking it an burying it in the couch. And Oh-look-at-the-time. Already running late.

While Jed gets Annabel to eat her cereal, I take the boy out on the porch and take a few (ok ...more than a few) pictures of him in his cute hand-me-down yellow jacket from the baby days of Annabel.

Got milk. Got lunches. Getting going. This day is going to be better.

We get to the sitter's house with not moment to spare. I make the transfer and off they go toward preschool and the rest of their day.

I'm still sitting there in the driveway, just trying to collect my wits, when I reach for the camera. I just want to take a quick peek at the boy in his yellow jacket before I hit the road again.

NO MEMORY CARD.

damn.

Damn.

Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn DAMN!

And that's when it happened, folks, I kid you not. ...

The Check Engine light, as if on cue, blinked back on.

The other woman

stinky-toe massage, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

She loves her brother. Sometimes a little too much.

Sometimes we have to exile her to her room for a little while so she can do a little reflecting on pushing him with her feet (until he falls).

"I was just trying to tickle him."

Sometimes we have to break up their hugs (before she squeezes the last breath from his little body) ...

"I was just trying to kiss him."

All this loving comes with lots of admonitions:

Please don't hold him back. Please don't take ALL his toys. Please don't try and pick him up. Please don't crawl on top of him. Please stop yelling at him. Please don't pull on his clothes. Please stop grabbing at him. ...

"I was just wanting to play with him!."

I've tried explaining to her that he won't be little for long. One day he may even be taller and bigger than she is. She doesn't believe me.
She puts growing older and growing bigger in the same category. ...

"How old are you going to be on your next birthday? ... I bet when that birthday comes you won't even be able to fit in your car!"

No. She doesn't believe me that he could ever be bigger than she is since he will never be older.

She can't imagine (the way I can) that her brother may some day wrestle her to the ground and hold a droplet of spittle an inch from her nose before she screams for mercy and he sucks it back into his mouth like a strand of spaghetti.

All she knows is that when he pulls her hair or scratches her arm, instead of reminding her that he's a baby we are now telling him to be gentle.

She beams whenever he is told to be easy on his sister.

With all these little talks about how it's going to be as he gets more and more mobile -- more and more independent and interested in finding out what makes things work -- you'd think that I'd have been preparing myself for the end of his existance being so mommy-centric.

You'd think it wouldn't have come as a complete shock to me when I awoke this morning to the scratchy nails of the son clawing over my face to flop down in the arms of his sister.

I couldn't help but smile when he settled right down in and started snoring again while she shifted a little but never woke up.

There's never been any doubt in my mind that she loves her brother. Now there's no doubt he loves her right back.

Trying to play my cards right

(magic nose) gobblin, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Jed and I are tripping over ourselves trying to witness our second child's firsts.

Last weekend, my hulking husband scrambled to his feet after playing on the kitchen floor with his son and roughly three thousand plastic containers and lids.

"He took his first steps."

Without even looking past the countertop, where the boy is hidden from view, I tell him "No. He didn't. What he's doing is called 'crusing.'"

"Well, I know what I saw, and this kid took a step."

"No. He didn't."

"Yes. He did!"

"No. He didn't."

"Yes. He did!"

"No. He didn't."

"Yes. He did!"

"Ok, this is getting us nowhere. I appreciate that you think Silas has taken a step, and that you want to be the first to witness this event, but I assure you he has not, in fact, started walking."

If I remain calm and collected, say my piece and turn back to what I was doing, I win. This, in poker terms, would be what they call a bluff.

Really, it's not fair that I get to witness all the firsts. I realize that. It's not fair that milestones in my babies lives don't actually happen unless I am there to witness them.

That old conundrum, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it; does it make a sound?" Well replace that old hunk of wood, root system and leaves with a chattering, wobbly boy baby, who has whole 'nother existence while his mommy's at work, and one can unequivocally say: "Nope. Not a sound."

Daycare providers all know that firsts happen first at home (even if they don't). They know that any telling of a first happening elsewhere will result in the one of the following responses:

"You're fired."

OR

"Oh, I forgot to mention, he started walking yesterday at 4:30 in the morning while I was trying to change his diaper and figure out that world peace thing."

OR

A wordless response might also result, wherein good ol' delusional mom turns into a puddle of heaving, sobbing Jell-O right before the caregiver's eyes.

Most daycare providers understand that we working moms can be an irrational a fragile set, so they wait until the mom comes in the next day and announces the kid's new skill.

No matter what game you're playing, this is known as a brilliant strategy. And a strategy that should be noted as being separate and apart from the ones we, as parents, are employing to ensure we triumph in the name game race ...

ME: "Who am I? MAMA. I'm MAMA."

HIM: "Hey Buddy, can you say DADA? Go ahead, say 'dada'."

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada!"

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada!"

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada?"

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada?"


...

....

...

CHAMP: "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

...

...

...

ITTYBIT: "I think he said 'Annabel'."


And that, dear friends, is what's called a trump.

** Yes, and for the record, the boyo took two steps last evening into his father's arms ... in my presence. He also says mama, dada and dog ... but never when we ask.

Who's on first?

going to alewife, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Jacob: Have you ever been to Subway?

Annabel: I don't think so ... but I have been to a train station.

Jacob: NO! Not a train station. Subway is a place you get food.

Annabel: Well, I got a popsicle at the train station.

Because I am your MAUTHER!!!

gurlfiend, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Lately we've created a place in our house, which, if it were orbiting, lightyears away from an early Star Wars set, would best be described as fun-sucking void where no sounds of glee can be heard.

It's next to the refrigerator, between the kitchen and dinning room.

And I am the gatekeeper.

Now as gatekeeper, I have standards to uphold.

Whenever there is even the hint of an uplifted lilt in a tiny voice over the steam of peas or the froth of milk, I stand there, arms crossed, breathing with my loudest ujjayi breath, lording over the proceedings.

"THERE WILL BE NO MIRTH IN THIS HOUSE," I bellow. "I HAVE DECREED IT and I. AM. YOUR. MAAAAUUUUUTHER. LUUUUUUKE."

And the giggles just bubble over the edge of the dinner table, popping each other as they multiply.

Even Silas thinks Darth Vader is funny.

She's not a follower

sheep, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

ITTYBIT: Papa and I went to the sheep farm today. Well, actually, we went with Elias and Mike. Mike drove. He told Elias to hold my hand but he put his hand in his pocket. I said he sometimes does that. It's ok. I don't mind.

The farm was really cool though. They had sheep and lambs and lots of things. The sheep have tags in their ears with their names on it; only they have numbers for names, which I think is pretty weird. They also get hooked up to machines and they milk them. They get a lot of milk. And then they make it into cheese and yogurt. I didn't like the yogurt though. Nobody did. The cheese was pretty good, though. I did like that. ... We had lots of snack back at school. We had grapes and honey dews, and the sheep cheese and crackers ... But it was funny. Elias didn't eat any snack ... not a bit.

MAMA: Well, what about the farm? Was there anything else?

ITTYBIT: Oh. Yeah. The farm. ... it was pretty great. Papa really had a good time. He even bought some blue cheese. He's going to leave it in our refrigerator. They showed us the cheese. It was in a thing and the blue cheese was at the top and the white cheese was at the bottom.

MAMA: Did you see any sheep getting sheared?

ITTYBIT: No. Wait. What does that mean? Sherrrrr?

MAMA: When sheep get their fur trimmed it's called shearing.

ITTYBIT: No. No. We didn't see that. But I did ask the farmer why that had a big fan in the barn.

*silence*

MAMA: Well. What did he say?

ITTYBIT: 'You ask really good questions.'

*silence*

MAMA: But what did he say the fan was for?

ITTYBIT: Oh, he said it just keeps the workers cool.

Elevensies

Dear Silas,

One month from today you will be a year old.

A. Year. Old.

Right this minute - exactly eleven months into your first year - you have two teeth (bottom), you are learning the joy of clapping and you still cry when a roomful of people (or even just one) sing 'Happy Birthday.' You make the sounds for "mama," and "dada," and "daw" (we think that's doggy). You've begun cruising around the furniture. You are standing up in the middle of the room, unassisted. You are crawling at sonic speed. You are also a thumb and forefinger (only one inch apart) from sleeping through the night.

You are getting so big.

Oh, but you are still such a sweet baby. Even if you poke me in the eyes, or claw at my mouth, or mash food into my nose.

Your sweet, crooked grin is still evidence that you have no ill intent. You are just finding out by poking around.

Some people (your amah) think you are just like me. Your appetite has been more along the lines of non-food stuffs, and you quietly go about your business without much fanfare. Visitors sometimes marvel at your calm demeanor.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "If he were my baby I'd forget all about him. It's like he's not here."

You are content to sit back and watch.

You can easily amuse yourself with rolling cars and wooden blocks.

You have found the shangrila that is your sister's room.

You can spend long periods of time putting smallish toys in plastic bottles.

You are even starting to learn that you must turn around before going down the two little steps between the diningroom and our bedrooms.

You are content. And we are content with you.

Until you splash in the dog bowl.

Or grab ceramic mugs off the table.

Or play with the toilet or in the tub or with the recycling.

Or fling food to the floor.

Or get screaming mad over not being allowed to play with sharp objects.

But even on the rare occasions when you DO get yourself into a little trouble; you're fairly low key.

Like last week when you discovered the fun little compartment in the VCR. It's perfect for sticking your fingers into. ... only when you do they don't come out. The more you pull the tighter it gets. The first time it happened you were afraid.

The kind of afraid that seemed to say: I may never get my hand back ever again. And I need these things to eat with. ... HHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEELLLLPPPP MMMMEEEEE!!!!!!

But that was about a dozen times ago. You've learned so much since that first frightening experience.

You still put your fingers into the slot, you still get them caught, but now when it happens you just stand there and wimper a little ... until we notice and rescue you.

My guess is by the time this time next month rolls around, you'll learn even more: like how many crackers can fit behind the flap.

Love and noisy kisses,
Mama

Freedom isn't synonymous with fairness

new addition to the playground, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Jed and I disagree.

Often.

About a lot of things.

For instance: He likes chocolate-based ice cream flavors while I prefer fruit or coffee-flavored confections;

He hates fish. I love fish.

He prefers peaches in his yogurt. I like berries.

He thinks children who make hideous experiments out of food items in the pantry should be made to eat their creations. I think a little "Time Out" and a lot more supervision is a more humane and appropriate consequence.

He also thinks a woman in Missouri, who was indicted on charges in connection with a "cyber bullying" event that ended after a teenage girl committed suicide, should go to jail.

I don't.

Not that I think Lori Drew doesn't deserve to be vilified in the press, or spurned by her neighbors, or considered to be America's Most Immature Mother for the next fifteen minutes or fifteen years for that matter. She definitely earns that disrespect.

But to make Cyber Bullying (or any bullying for that matter) a crime, I think, endangers our freedom of speech.

Jed puts himself in the place of the parents. He sees a woman who victimized a teenage girl, who set her up to take a fall. Even if she didn't know the girl would hang herself in the aftermath, she is culpable and should be punished by the law. He sees an event that is deeply disturbing, and that, from all media accounts, seems to be burgeoning as more and more people avail themselves of the thin blanket of anonymity the internet provides.

I see the many of the same things, and yet I also see that such a visceral reaction has caused a rush toward making outright and low-down meanness a crime. I see the disparity of having laws that apply justice arbitrarily. Why have different laws for cyberspace? In the real world, if they had passed fake notes in the classroom would they be in the courtroom? It's not really a different world. Harassment is harassment wherever it is found, whether on the schoolyard or in the boardroom or on a web page.

We all need a lesson in dealing with jerks that doesn't end up with a phone call to the local precinct. We need our children to be strong enough to ignore; to rise above their petty peers. Not only because bullies will always exist.

But because if this keeps up, one day free speech may not.

Say your criticism of treatment by a doctor, or shoddy service at a store, or any number of things you have a right to say becomes something criminal because someone else says you made it up intentionally?

Really, this type of legislation could go anywhere and apply to anything.

What about that boy to whom you gave your virginity IN REAL LIFE? He's the one who told you he'd love you forever and who broke up with you the next day. What about him? Some of you are probably wishing he could get his comeuppance, too. Maybe if he broke your heart in an e-mail, you'd get your shot.

To Jed, and many others I imagine, it may seem as if I am defending this monstrous woman who antagonized a child in her skewed understanding of fairness and lack of any semblance of parenting skills. Everyone, it seems, wants an eye for an eye.

I want to teach my kids that jerks are jerks; and nobody -- not even a Real Boy who tells you lies or says mean things — is worth your tears. You are better than that. We should all be better than that. We can unplug. We can move on. And we should.

Let the bullies of morning news magazines take care of the public shaming. They're already on it.

Food for thought

snack, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Food has never been my favorite topic. As the old saw goes: Some people eat to live and other people live to eat.

I don't really fit into either of those little niches.

I'm the person who seriously considers (and sometimes actually manages to) pack a healthy lunch but usually just eats whatever my pocket change buys from the bank of vending machines in the cafeteria.

Sadly, I approach the kids' lunches with the same wistful enthusiasm and failure to follow through.

I search flickr for lunch ideas; I buy resuable lunchboxes and have adopted some of the tricks used by bento box afficianados. I think about all the pretty things I can send for the babysitter to feed my kids while I'm at work.

I bask in the glow of the multi-colored foods Annabel has eaten since she was a tot, and wonder exactly when her palate will pale. I soldier through the fact that Silas eats hardly anything besides breastmilk and graham crackers. I know eventually he will eat the beige menu of a normal childhood.

I even dream of the loving little notes I will put in the lunch boxes once the kids can read.

On Monday mornings the sitter laughs at me as I show up with the kids and a grocery bag full of that day's lunch offerings carefully placed in containers or bagged with colorful ribbons.

Apple slices, berries, three colors of peppers, chicken nuggets, corn, snap peas, carrots, bagels, yogurt, cheerios, oatmeal, soup, corn chips and cookies.

But my ability to continue the planning and procuring of such pretty packages is shortlived.

The downhill slide starts on Tuesday as I'm lucky to have remembered to bring the kids. By Friday, if it weren't for the sitter, my kids would be eating lint from the floor and drinking water from the toilet.

She knows how to push buttons

damn hell bathroom, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

It never fails. As soon as you get to where you are going the preschool set needs to use the facilities. Doesn't matter if you've gone ten miles or ten feet, nature's call has a strong desire to see the decor and smell the handsoaps.

If the place has anything interesting at all -- an automatic hand dryer for instance -- you are destined to make multiple trips to the lav during the course of your shopping experience.

Potty training does have it's price after all. You might as well put the savings you gain from skipping the diapers aisle directly into the unnecessary things you will buy so as not to look like a schnorrer whenever your kid needs to use the washroom at a store that doesn't legally have to provide them to patrons.

"Oh, mama. Can you pick me up? I can't reach the sink. Look! The walls are purple. And they have that blowdryer thing on the wall. I want to push it again ... and again ... and again. Just one more time? Pleeeeeeeeeeeese oh Plaaaaaaaahhhhhhzzzzzz."

You can't stop progress

I would like you to move, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

But that doesn't stop me from trying.

I watch him struggle to his feet in the tub. It is with confidence and authority that I tell him to "sit down." Standing in the tub is not advisable for the less ambulatory among us. So many unnecessary accidents happen in the bathroom.

He struggles to his feet in the livingroom, gripping the sofa with both hands. I don't want him to walk. Not yet. He's still a baby; my baby.

But I can't really tell him to sit down.

Not with Jed sitting nearby with his one eyebrow raised anyway.

So I laugh, and tell him in unskilled French: "asseyez-toi, si vous plait."

It doesn't hurt any if he doesn't know what I'm saying, right?

How was your Mother's Day?

breakfast in bed, served family style, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

From our room at the Mirror Lake Inn I schlepped down four floors to the restaurant and (charging $9 to our tab) got two tiny boxes of cereal, a banana, a juice box and coffee so we could have breakfast in bed.

It was a good morning.

I would have said ... 'see you tomorrow' ... but I didn't want to jinx it

Did you miss me?

It's ok if you didn't. It's only one day. I know you all have busy lives that include crazy, mind-numbing deeply gratifying and wonderful things such as household chores and ignoring your spouse playing with your own kids.

I had an opthamology appointment: The kind in which they dilate my pupils to see the inside of my eyes.

For me it's an annual thing.

You see, I have a "freckle" located somewhere on my left eyeball, (how's that for sharing?) and the doctors like to keep a watch on it to make sure it doesn't change into something that begins with the Latin form of BAD.

I learned of the mole about five or six years ago, probably two decades after my previous opthamologic appointment.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a mole on your eye," the doctor asked.

"Uh. no."

"It's really not that uncommon. You are a freckled person. And you can get freckles and moles anywhere on your body."

During that visit I also found out I had "convergence," a condition in which the muscles of one eye aren't as strong as the muscles of the other eye."

"Did you have a lazy eye as a child?"

"Um. No. ..."

"Well. It's really no big deal. But it will get worse if you let it go. The good news is there are simple exercises you can do that will strengthen the muscles."

"Well could it be related to the massive amount of computer work I do?"

"Um. No."

Anyway, It was quite a shock that first appointment years ago. I had scheduled it first thing in the morning and had gone to work afterward, not realizing I wouldn't be able to SEE anything like WORDS on this here COMPUTER SCREEN for nearly three hours. Even with reversal drops to counteract the dilating ones, it was a long stretch of close-up blindness.

But all of that is really beside the point.

The point being: I am neurotic.

And this mole -- this TINY, TINY FRECKLE, as the doctor describes it -- is on my EYE.

MY EYE, PEOPLE!!!

And, as a consumate worrier, that just nerves me up.

So I go in there are hold my breath until they tell me it's all beautiful and stable and see you next year.

Which they did, luckily, before I turned blue.

You know where this is going, right?

you know where this is going, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

This little pea stone is going right in the boy's mouth.

No hesitation. No awkward fumbling over fingers and thumbs.

Right in.

He doesn't eat more than a thimbleful of genuine food items in any given day.

A bit of banana here, a taste of yogurt there.

He'll gum graham crackers until they are a taupe-colored paste and he'll share most of his Oatio's with the dog. Then he squirms to get down and prowl the kitchen for leftover cracker crumbs and pieces of dog kibble.

So why am I surprised that out on the playground these little rock morsels wouldn't seem like a delicacy?

Ice, Ice, Baby

ice maam , originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I had to leave work early today.

I had a problem with one of my mammary glands. The left one.

Took me by complete surprise. Ten months with the little guy and nary a hint of trouble. (Not like the last time where every four days I was dealing with something that looked like an alien life form inside my nursing top.)

I self diagnosed a caked breast ... basically a bunch of clogged milk ducts that made the whole thing swollen and painful. Nothing was coming out. Not even a trickle.

I checked in with Dr. Google, who recommended the same thing that the folks I fork over increasingly larger co-pays to did four years ago: hot compresses, warm showers, rest and plenty of nursing. The baby, they say, is the most efficient declogging agent.

Baby drain-o.

But guess what?

They are WRONG. WRONG. WRONG-O.

Now I know babies are efficient little suckers. And Silas was getting something alright, but he was jumping around like a chimp trying to get it. And even then it wasn't enough.

The breast still felt like a brick.

Moist heat? Sweartogod, the four times I had this with Annabel (two of which led to the need for antibiotics to get rid of mastitis) heat never did anything.

And then I thought. What about ICE? To stop swelling most SANE people recommend ice.

Guess what?

Six minutes after four cubes of ice in a Zip-Loc back were applied to general area, Silas nursed without any acrobatics and the clog got noticeably better. In an hour it was feeling back to normal.

So please, tell all your lactating friends ... Hell has frozen over and most doctors don't know or just don't believe. ... Ice, Ice, Baby

I wouldn't stand too close to me today

I'm feeling randomy. And not in a good way.

I've been pretay angray latelay.

Like the kind of angry one feels when they feel attacked. Or misunderstood. Or slighted. Or maligned. Even if no one else really thinks those things have happened to you at all. It's the kind of angry that turns into sadness.

I hate not being able to talk about it.

... But I'm not gonna talk about it.

I'm also pretty ticked at Hillary Clinton. Her insistance that a lifting of a gas tax will do anything to help the American people (regardless of who pays for it) is nothing more than pandering in my estimation. And really? I'm over it. We need to pay the piper and get used to big price tags at the pump. We need to use less energy all around and not just make our rampant consumption affordable.

... But I'm not going to bother you with that noise.

Speaking of Hillary. I'm seething a little over this and I really don't know why.

A lot about the piece bothers me, but for some reason what stands out most is this passage:

Old-guard feminists, for their part, seem not yet aware—or prepared to believe—that the younger generation is coming around. “Young women take a lot of things for granted,” Geraldine Ferraro told me. “We sometimes joke, ‘If you don’t get it, give it all back.’ We don’t want to say, ‘Look how bad it was.’ But they don’t know their workplaces are better because of loudmouths like me who said, ‘This is not how society should be run.’ ” Linda Hirshman, author of Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, said she thinks the feminist movement, even the third wave, may have seen its final days. For another movement to reach critical mass, she said, women in society may need to experience what she calls “an accretion of insult.” But with the inequities highlighted by Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid reminding us of the inequities we experience on a regular basis, the insults may have, well … accreted.

I huge part of me wants Hirshman, and Ferraro for that matter, to take a big giant leap off a steep, rocky cliff. I know it's been two years since I wrote this but I still feel pretty much the same way. We women need to stop beating each other to a bloody pulp and stick together, yet I don't think that means we should just toe the line.

... But I'm done with the big mouths and their causes.

Perhaps I'm also just done with the numbers. I'm done with the idea that feminists are disappointed in me. Done with people telling me what I, as a FILL IN THE BLANK, should do.

I'm done with the talking heads who pose as independent journalists sneaking in their agendas. Hell ... I'm kinda over agendas. I'm over insecurites. I'm over political correctness. I'm over the whole "you are right but you should have done it this way" arm-chair quarterbacking.

I know that lots of us just don't get along, but I'm really beginning to think that moving forward really isn't feasible because NO ONE CARES ABOUT MOVING FORWARD, we only care about moving in a direction that we've picked. We just call it forward. And that, to be quite blunt, sucks.

I suppose therein lies the lesson. My way or the highway is over.

I want to move on.

And I am moving on.

I am moving on.

I'm moving forward.

I'm moving backward.

I don't even care if I bump into to things along the way.

See, we bought some pre-owned cars over the weekend. But my conscience is in the clear. These babies are compact and cost a fraction of their original sticker price. Best of all they use no fossil (or even biofuels) to operate.

They are Plasma Cars ... and they rock the house.

And you know, I don't care if I'm just going to the other side of the house, I'm going to drive from now on. Forget walking.

The Second Act

Some virtual friends of mine are having seconds.

They've bellied up to the bar of motherhood once, drank down the sweet (and sometimes sour) nectar of the gods, and asked the barkeep for another shot.

Didn't matter that the first one may have given them swollen ankles, horrible heartburn, morning sickness or any number of uncomfortable ailments forty pounds of water, blood and baby (not to mention an entire new organ we women grow to sustain this new life) can cause. Still they came back asking for more.

I remember what this time felt like: the weeks and days before we were to meet Thing 2. It was just 10 months ago. I had wanted him SO much, and yet there I was worried about the change it would mean to our family.

*Could I love him as much as I loved his sister?
*Was I short changing her?
*Was I short changing him?
*How was I going to juggle another being when I felt I was dropping so many balls with the one already here?

Those questions were never answered in a way I can explain. I suppose I have no advice.

We women are all so different. Our children are, too. I don't know the people you are bringing into this world. But I do know that you can trust yourselves to know these new people when they arrive. Easy or challenging, you will figure it out together.

A very wise woman once told me that the first child comes into your life and turns it upside down. Turns it into a circus. The second child seems to sneak in quietly during an intermission. And when the show starts again you almost forget this new being wasn't there -- a part of the family -- right from the beginning.

Light at the end of the tunnel

up , originally uploaded by toyfoto.

That's what Fridays bring.

What's that sound?

paintbox, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I hear the scritch-scritching of a bristle brush against the nap of the canvas

The tinkle of metal against glass

The tap, tap, tapping of rims.

She had asked me to outline a princess that she could paint.

I took the canvas and a pen and drew something unremarkable.

After I was done she thanked me and was silent.

More tinkling of brush to glass. More scritch, scritch, scritching of paint on canvas.

Her color slowly obliterates my line.

Tinkle, tap, scritch, scritch ...

This is the sound of growing up.