Will I Ever Be Hungry Again?

Oy, am I full.

I think it’s the culmination of a week’s worth of eating. And with each meal I’m surpassing my body’s natural step-away-now-you’ve-had-enough signal, and even the back-up i’m-serious-stop-all-intake-immediately warning sign and continuing gorging myself convinced that there’s some under-utilized gastro-intestinal space somewhere where I can pack away a couple more Christams cookies, pieces of gingerbread, Toblerone chocolate, or in the case of this past lunch, a simple cup of hot chocolate. How is it that of all things it’s one small liquid beverage that managed to send me over the edge to bloated sloshing Santa-belly mode. Forget the Betty Ford Clinic. My first stop post-holidays is Over Eaters Anonymous.

In one famous moment in my shared-memory life with Mark, we ate dinner at some German restaurant in Hayes Valley called Supenkutchen (go with my spelling here). We were out with our incredibly fabulous friends Scot and Sheryl, and some friend of theirs who was in from Europe or somewhere who was probably a world-famous cyclist, though I wouldn’t have known. So this dinner. Well, first off, it’s a German restaurant, so it’s hardly the 70’s diet dinner of cottage cheese and canned fruit, right? But add to that the fact that they serve post-War portions at this place: two gigantic slabs of meat, with a pound or so of schnitzel on the side, on a platter that’d fit your Grandma’s turkey, along with the requisite pints of beer. I have to burp just thinking about it.

After that meal I was so full, so miserably overstuffed physically and so filled with self-loathing for having gotten myself into that place, I was over-the-top Crabby. Famously Crabby. I mean, I was lashing out at myself and others with the helpless frustration of a boa constrictor who’s trying to digest a small goat.

Now, if ever I am crabby (rare an occasion as it is), Mark and I measure my crabbiness on a scale relative to that night.

Scot and Sheryl and their maybe-famous guest ended up staying at our grand Noe Valley flat that night, and as I changed the sheets on the guest bed I remember biting Sheryl’s head off when she asked something meek, kind, and innocent like, “Can I help you?” You’d have thought I’d already bitten off enough that night.

At any rate, all the food, plus the intermittent gloom of the weather, and either too much sleep, or not enough, have left me feeling somewhat logie this week. I’ve gotten to sleep late thanks to Grandma Peggy being here and spending lots of QT with Kate, and we’ve all taken Family Naps (TM) when Kate has taken hers in the afternoons, but still I’m finding myself somehow sleepy.

Maybe slowing down and relaxing–which I generally tend to find stressful and have trouble comprehending its popularity–has exhausted me.

Yesterday I dragged myself to yoga, and despite how smelly I realized my feet were once class was underway (somehow my personal hygiene has also dropped off this week), I think it was a good effort to shake off my lazy sleepy holiday schlump. Today my stomach muscles feel slightly sore which is gratifying.

I think it’s from yoga, and not my excessive food intake, but it’s anyone’s guess.

Another theory: Kate has somehow tapped into the wellspring of my energy and is wielding it wildly for her own personal gain. The gal is on a general all-out blitz. She officially started walking this week. And not just the we’ll-crouch—and-hold-out-our-arms-while-she-walks-towards-us thing. She’s now often walking on her own volition to get around. Sure, at times she stumbles and sways and falls on her ass. And part of the time she still opts to crawl. But she probably gets that from me.

And that little mouth of hers is working as hard as her legs. We were in the car the other day and Mark turned to me and said, “My God will she ever stop?,” and in that way that there’s some annoying background noise that you hadn’t noticed until someone points it out, I realized she’d been talking non-stop for the past half-hour.

“Baby, baby, baby, doggie, Santa, Grandma, Dadda, baby, baby, baby, doe, doe, doe. Uh-oooh! Uh-oooh! More. More. More. Rabbit! Rabbit!”

For the love of God, it’s exhausting just listening.

But she’s our own little Energizer Bunny Love Bug. And with all her drunken sailor walking, and the accompanying bar-fight facial bruises, scrapes and contusions she’s collected on her mobile adventures and interactions with Christmas present toys, the gal is ridiculously adorable. So much so that one must grab her and squeeeeze her and give her no less than a hundred kisses, like it or not.

And mostly, she’s got better things to do. Now she wriggles out of your clutches and says “Doe! Doe! Doe!,” which if you choose to accept it is her way of telling you she’d like you to put her down. She’s got places to be, man.

And if there’s anyone to blame for her being wired for action, it’s me. I’m just hopeful that at some point soon we’re able to re-distribute the energy levels between us a bit more equally. It’s weird not being the one whose stumbling around wildly and talking non-stop.

Nearly Christmas

I’ve been a cookie baking fool. Over the course of the past few weekends I’ve been producing cookies at a furious pace and maniacally labeling freezer bags and Tupperware with cookie types and dates and storing them up for Christmas. Then to top it off I made cranberry bread this morning. I’m like a conscientious squirrel readying myself for the long cold months, and I can only imagine if I were one of the other squirrels I’d hate me.

But the fact is, aside from the by-product that it will be nice to have an assortment of cookies for those who stop by for some McClusky family holiday cheer, I think the cookie baking somehow turned into this nostalgic refuge for connecting with my mom.

There is something about getting your house ready for Christmas when you’re the one playing Santa. I want it to be nice. I want the tree to be pretty–not over-the-top fancy, but sweet and nice and covered in ornaments that have meaning to me or Mark and someday when she’s old enough to grock it all, to Kate.

My mother kicked ass at Christmas. Not that she’d ever take any credit for it, and not that she was showy about it. But she made pinecone wreaths, she baked and cooked special food, she hacked down her own tree with an axe and made a profusion of Chex Mix.

Going through all the motions this year I’ve given myself time to do it without stress and panic and the fear that I wasn’t going to have time to do everything I wanted to do. Even though it’s taken time and energy and planning, it’s this weirdly rewarding act—getting ready for Christmas—which was totally devoid of external pressure. How comforting it is putting a perfect double batch of Mark’s family chocolate cookies in the freezer.

And part of the comfort of it all is the knowledge that I’m doing the things that my mother did year after year—and since this is the first time we are having our own Christmas and not going home to RI, doing this all myself has made me realize all that goes into it. She’s been on my mind so much as I set out the manger figurines, or wrangle with fresh garland that I’m determined to frame the front door with, or put the cards in the little red wooden sleigh every day after Mark and Kate and I open them together. By repeating this well-worn ritual that she performed for so many years it’s like I’ve somehow been hanging out with her.

Part of the connection comes from the fact that so many of the decorations, the manger, the sleigh, the ceramic angels that lean towards each other and kiss–and are surprisingly not tacky, though in describing them it’s hard to imagine how they couldn’t be. So many of the things were hers. And I think she knew that of all of us I would cherish them the most. I think before she was even sick she said that I’d get the manger “one day.”

Peggy arrived today, and after going to a Christmas party we came home and got Kate to bed and watched a movie called The Family Stone. I guess I’d put it on our Netflix queue at some point thinking it was a light-as-a-feather comedy about a guy taking his girlfriend home at Christmas and she’s all New York and uptight and they’re all mellow and quirky but tight-knit and they give her a hard time.

It turns out the movie, while also being about the anal girlfriend thing, was more about this amazing family who lived in this huge old house that was totally enviable, but also a real family house with the requisite set of mismatched coffee mugs. Diane Keaton plays the eccentric but crazy-with-love mother of five distinctly different but successful in their own way adult children.

Somewhere towards the end, I realized that somehow my perspective on movies like this has totally shifted. I’m not identifying with the horror of being the child whose parents make a scene in front of the new significant other. I’m not picturing myself as the derelict daughter who wants to make the girlfriend’s life hell because she’s protecting her brother. I’m totally putting myself into the mother role—even though the mother is probably in her sixties in the movie. I’m thinking about how great it would be to have a brood of five children, who are all unique and fabulous and who unconditionally adore me despite my idiosyncrasies. I’m relieved to see that as this mother I’ve managed to hold onto my smart and funny husband who I still connect with and who isn’t afraid to hug and kiss our adult sons and tell them how much he loves them. From the snow-covered house to the cute gay son to the high-thread count sheets and patterned wallpaper, it was a nice daydreamy kind of fantasy.

I kicked Mark who was lying on the couch next to me. “Five kids,” I say. “How great is that?”

And of course, before they spell out what was going to happen in the otherwise light and breezy movie, it dawns on me that, of course (duh), the mother is sick. Just when you might be nearing the point of finding the family all to perfect in their garrulous noogie-giving love for each other, you realize that they are about to lose their most central character.

So here I am. Having spent the past few weeks channeling my own mother and hoping that somehow from wherever she is seeing me and admiring the fine job I’m doing of feathering the McClusky family Christmas nest. Then after renting an unsuspecting holiday hoax movie I’m suddenly crying over the fictitious dying mother who I wanted to be, and over the searingly sad pang of goneness of my own mother. No gut-wrenching sobs, mind you. Just the kind of weepiness that anyone would get watching a movie like that, but at a deeper, more personal level.

Maybe my mother is communicating with me through my Netflix queue. I swear I don’t remember ever having picked that movie, but it seemed to have made its way to me at a perfect time. Maybe I needed some sort of culmination to it all. Some big emotional moment to work out all these stray thoughts I’ve been having about Mom, so I can settle into Mark and Kate and the here and now and focus on the great new Christmas we are about to have–thanks in no small part to all my hard work.

We Were Called Up

Last week or so, one night as Mark was falling off to sleep, he groggily mentioned to me that he got an invitation to the French Laundry holiday open house.

It was bizarre. Sharing this information so off-handedly, and so many hours after having actually gotten the invitation. Within seconds I was straddling him in bed pumping him for information as if I were giving him CPR.

Since Mark had interviewed Chef Keller for a Wired story, and then attended another event where he was at Boulevard, Mark has managed to get in with His people.

Once I managed to drag every detail he remembered about the invitation–which was sitting on his desk at work, right out in the open!–my heart was racing wildly. To us, this is like an invitation to The White House. Or better.

We had a couple plans already for the party day. Maia’s ballet class was performing The Nutcracker. Whatever. She’s eight. There will be other performances in her childhood that we can attend. And our friends Megan and Jason, who have moved here after an episode in San Diego, have invited us over a shameful number of times and somehow fate has intervened every one. This time, I just had to shamelessly admit to why we wouldn’t be there. Thankfully, Jason understood the magnitude of the social occasion that we were privy to, and even went so far as to say they’d take our place if we suddenly fell in. (Leaving the guests they’d invited to their holiday party to fend for themselves?)

Well, like all days one looks forward to, this one came and went. Today we packed Kate up and took her to Shell and Don’s where we had a sitter watch her, since they were off at their own thing. I’d fretted over what to wear. Of course, the perfect outfits were all trapped at the dry cleaner and I decided it wasn’t worth it breaking in to emancipate them. (The dry cleaner already hates me for bringing them so many Kate-vomit-strewn clothes recently.) So I took a skirt that was too formal for a daytime party and paired it with a sweater that was too informal for the skirt, and put on some cute shoes and looked and felt all mismatched.

Of course we ran late. Of course I’d envisioned arriving at the stroke if 12:30 and staying the full four hours. But when we did pull up, we were almost surprised to see people pouring out of the place. The garden packed with folks, the balconies seemingly spilling over with people packing food into their mouths and clutching champagne flutes. We got to see this group several times as we circled around looking for parking, and Mark commented that we weren’t the only guests. Of course I’d known that, but someone seeing all those people was dismaying. There were so many of them! Eating my food! Drinking my French champagne! And where was Chef Keller, waiting to personally greet us with a holiday wish and maybe even a little gift of chutney, with a green ribbon on it?

My disdain for the other guests didn’t relent once we were amidst them. They were everywhere. And instead of the subdued and exclusive party I was envisioning, I felt instead like I was elbowing my way through a Filene’s Basement sale. There were food tables stationed with servers, but lines to get to them. At times, at the dessert tables, platters would remain empty. When we were inside my coat was too hot and I needed to fumble with it and my glass and plate with no assistance from the first-rate staff. At one point I noticed a tablecloth had a large dark streak of some sauce across it. Sure the food, when we got some, was good. But the whole event did something to tarnish my impression of Keller’s perfection.

At one point in the tent, I was chatting with a co-worker of Mark’s who had randomly been invited to the party from a local Napa friend. I turned to see Mark, who was standing next to me, chatting with Him. He’s so thin and looks kinda old. He was wearing a dark suit and bright red clogs.

Mark touched my elbow and graciously introduced me. “My wife Kristen.” And I looked at him and stammered something about everything being so lovely and happy holidays and then embarrassingly I said what “an honor” it was to be there. I was a bumbling star-struck foodie, standing humbly before a world-class gourmet great.

I didn’t mention to him about the spilled sauce upstairs on the fois gras table. I mean, everyone has their moments of holiday recklessness, right? They slosh a little run over the edge of the punch bowl and who’s to worry? It’s a party! They overcook the Swedish meatballs and still set them out on the buffet table.

Today wasn’t perfection. It wasn’t what I’d envisioned. And damn those people who showed up in jeans. Jeans! But despite it all I think I’m willing to give ole Thomas a second chance.

Not So Much about Santa

The rains are here. Well, not at this moment, but they arrived yesterday and today is all gloom and impending showers. So now I’m charged with having to translate my concept of a white Christmas to a wet Christmas, seeing as it’s the first year we’re staying in California for it.

In the past, I never worried if I wasn’t in the Christmas spirit as I was working through the month of December and doing my Christmas shopping in palm-tree-lined Union Square. My single-gal tradition was always to go to Brooklyn for a couple days to visit with Mike and Lorin before heading home to RI for the holiday. And if I wasn’t absently humming The Little Drummer Boy before, I knew I’d get a turbo dose of Christmas once I touched down in NY. There is something about the cold, and the frenzy, and the hanging with Mike for our traditional holiday fancy dinner out, and sure, the store windows in Manhattan, that mere mortals can’t combat. Like it or not, Jewish, Islamic, Catholic, you get swept up in it.

This year we’ll be here. And Peggy is coming which will be great. But there won’t be snow or good bagels, or Aunt Mary’s Christmas Even 7-fish feast, or my mother’s sausage stuffing that Marie always makes, not to mention Marie’s exceptional pumpkin and apple pies. She somehow got the pie-perfect gene from Mom.

So yesterday I took Kate for her picture with Santa. She’s been looking at Santas in books and ornaments and storefront displays, and can even say something approximating Santa. But seeing him in person sent her into utter freak out. I mean, sure, the guy was some fifty-something unemployed hack with yellowed teeth (the ones he had) and an intermittently surly attitude. But still. Here we were, driven to Marin, where we’d met up with Shauna and Baby Kieran, our Yeshi-midwife friends who we’d fallen out of touch with and had Santa pics taken with last year. And once we got into the little Santa hut and I approached him, Kate clung to me like a panicked koala. And just moments after I’d told Shauna while waiting in line that Kate only nurses at night and before naps, she starts frantically signing for milk while looking at Santa wild-eyed.

Ultimately we got a shot where Kate’s halfway on my lap and Santa’s and I’m leaning out of the way. Kate isn’t actively crying, and nor is Santa, but both of them look like they need someone to cut them a break. I think we’ll reserve the Santa pics for the grandparents this year, and come up with Plan B for the Christmas cards.

Kate slept on our drive home, and as she was waking up I pulled into the Safeway parking lot, feeling ambitious that I’d make dinner. After unbuckling Kate from her seat to put her in the Ergo pack, she looked up at me innocently and let loose a fury of vomit. Twice.

I was drenched, she was drenched. And the diaper bag with the wipes was on the floor of the front seat, buried under 4 large shopping bags. It could have been buried in the ground and would have seemed easier for me to get to.

For the first time since having Kate I was truly stumped. How do I move the two of us, her on my lap facing me with her legs wrapped around my waist, with a pool of puke balanced between us, to get the wipes? And really, even if they were right there at hand, the wipes seemed an utterly inadequate tool to handle this job.

Someone pulled up in the parking spot next to me in a huge SUV. I was sitting with the back car door open, mentally floundering about what to do. I considered yelling out to the woman for help at least getting the wipes. But she was worlds away and was gone before I summoned the words.

So I clutched whimpering Kate to me and waddling around the front of the car, balancing her and the pool of puke. I managed to open the front door and prop myself against the seat edge pushing back all the shopping bags. Then I started stripped us down. Kate’s jacket, her beautiful handmade sweater from Mrs. Brown, her sweet ivory velvet dress (all fancy for her Santa pic), and her also-sopping tights. Without a better thought at hand, I dumped the clothes in a pile on the ground in the parking lot.

At this point Kate is cold and crying. And then it starts to rain. (Of course.) I peel off my cashmere sweater and add it to the heap. Thankfully I’m wearing a tank top.

Amazingly I had a change of clothes for Kate. I’d brought it in case the dress got annoying for her to stay in. So, while she bawled at top decibels now, I dressed her, and with one hand while holding her dumped the contents of one of the shopping bags on the car seat and piled the puke-strewn clothes into it. At least were only 5 minutes from home.

So we’re three days into this little virus thing, which the nanny called on Thursday night to inform us she too became plagued with. It’s got to end soon.

Undeterred by it all I have every intention of forging on with holiday-spirit-making activities. I got up early with Kate and readied myself to make about 5 different kinds of Christmas cookies–some from Mark’s family traditions and some from mine. I may even tackle the Italian filled cookies that are a bear to assemble, but my mother always diligently produced. And unless she’s looking Martian green, we’ll trundle Kate off to a Christmas tree farm to cut down a tree and ride on their little Christmas train later today.

If it kills me, and all of us, we will get in the Christmas spirit, damn it.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!

Damned Indecision

Of course, just when my nanny frustration level reaches a peak of what I think is no return, something happens to make me decide to re-embrace Shelly. I know it’s a far-flung comparison, but I totally get how people in abusive relationships convince themselves to stick around. One day is bad, and the next day the person shows all their wonderful attributes. It almost makes me question myself. Was she really that bitchy?

So with the main issue being the have-to-be-home-down-to-the-minute, the day after our last “episode” in which I’d mistaken an early-home day for a late-home day, I hit a shitload of traffic going home. And traffic itself doesn’t even get to me any more. Who cares about sitting in traffic. It’s me envisioning the hell I’ll pay when I walk in the door late. And even cringing at the thought of calling to confess that a second night in a row I’m going to be late.

I mean, it is my lateness. So maybe I’m truly at fault… though she was pretty nasty that night. Oh God, see? I go round and round.

So I’m all scared and I call to say I’m in traffic and I’ll be late. She asks how late, and I want to say, “How the hell do I know?” but I just say, “It’s hard to say. Hopefully not too late.”

Then I steel myself to what is going to happen when I walk in the door. It’s like getting in trouble when you are a teenager and you decide that you can hear anything. All you need to do is stand there and listen to your mother rant on at you about whatever it is that you did, and you think that you can take it, you just have to stand there and listen and then it will be over. It’s just words, right?

So I summon my teen-like powers of negative energy rebuffing, and unlock the door to walk into a picture of domestic bliss. Kate is in her high chair, gurgling happily at Shelly and eating dinner. Shelly greets me with a smile and says she started giving Katie (as she always calls her) some dinner. She gives me a run-down of their day, and tells me more about the cold she fears Kate is catching. (She’d called during the day to tell me about it too.) She suggests I take her to a doctor.

Then the next day, which she has off, she calls in the afternoon to check on how Kate is doing and what the doctor had to say.

Oy! This makes it hard to stay annoyed with her. Am I crazy? Or worse, am I just lazy and don’t want to put the effort into finding someone else? Someone who is maybe better on the getting-home-late front, but doesn’t love Kate as much, or cook her healthy food, or take a geunine interest in teaching her things.

We’ve talked about finding another family with a baby Kate’s age or slightly older who might want to do share-care part-time. So, some of the time Kate would have a playmate, and some time she’d have solo nanny time.

Tonight when I got home, Shelly–all happy and friendly and cute with Kate and nice to me–reminded me I should post a listing to find another family. And I’ve been dragging my heels since I don’t know whether she’s a long-term solution for us. Why bring another family into the situation? And how can I write an ad, conceivably extolling Shelly’s virtues to someone else seeking a nanny, when I have my own issues with her?

If I were a friend with this problem the advice I would give would be to at least, at first, talk to the nanny. Express all the concerns I’ve had with her and explain that it’s been frustrating. See if there is a way to improve the situation. But somehow when I get home from work every night I just want to be with Kate, and don’t want to get into it.

If she could only be consistently annoying–and not totally great when she’s not being annoying–it’d be so much easier.

Maybe I just need to set a deadline for myself. By the end of the week I will talk to her about this. Ugh. I have never been one for these kinds of conversations, but feel like I’ve gotten better about them since I’ve had to give feedback to people at work over the years and learned to not shy away from it.

Okay. Resolved to do this now. Will report back with my progress.

Oh and P.S. The other thing I need to make a decision on is when to wean Kate. I seem to keep saying I want to, then get lured back in by wanting to give her what she wants, especially since I’m away from her for work and then feel guilty about denying her.

Must decide what to do, or decide to not decide on anything for a while. But will decide on that later.

Baby Born!

After many weeks of bad-news calls from Amelia, I answered the phone yesterday to hear her say, “I have a baby boy here!”

Yippee!!! Malcolm Francis Myrick was born on November 1st at around 1PM in Washington, DC. He weighs 5 3/4 pounds, and is 20 inches long.

Today we got to see pictures–Bismarck has already busted out some photo montages complete with music!–and he is adorable. Mark thinks he has Amelia’s eyes. Amelia thinks he has her hair. I don’t know yet what Bismarck thinks, but from the pictures it’s clear he’s one proud Papa.

We are sooo happy for Amelia and Bismarck. I know that Grandma Frances is out there somewhere smiling down on her beautiful grandson.

No no no

I remember being at a friend’s baby shower a couple years ago, long before Kate was a twinkle in my uterus. A new mom with her teeny baby was there, talking to the mom of an older kid. New Mom was seeking out all manner of advice, and at one point asked Older Kid Mom, “Do you tell him no?” And I swear I wanted to lean forward and say, “Come again?,” but I was just overhearing a conversation from across the room, so I tried to just tune my ears in more inconspicuously.

Older Kid Mom actually said no. No, that she doesn’t say no to her kid. I felt like screaming across the room, “What the hell are you talking about? Is this seriously some new parenting approach? You’ve GOT to be kidding!” But again, since this was not my conversation, I managed to stifle my incredulous reaction.

Fast forward to the McClusky house a couple years later. As you peer into the windows you see that the woman who’d been babyless at the earlier baby shower has had a child of her own. And wow! What a beauty she is.

But I digress…

So anyway, a few weeks ago Mark and I finally gave into the reality of our need do more–okay, some–babyproofing. Kate’s still not walking, but walking be damned, you can cover some serious ground on all fours it turns out. And everything not intended for infant exploration is of course infinitely enticing, like the fireplace (even sans a blazing set of logs, still not the blest place for play). Also, the stereo, which is perfectly at Kate-level and offers a wonderful variety of knobs and buttons for the pushing and the twisting.

Thanks to his natural house-handiness and some research conducted with other new parents facing the same problem, Mark managed to rig up a Plexiglas shield which he Velcroed to the front of the stereo case. The other night Kate crawled up to the stereo and even though she couldn’t get at it, she looked at it and said evenly, “No no no.” Well, it sounded more like, “Nnnnuh, nuh, nuh,” which as it turns out is exactly what I say to her.

It’s funny in an oh-that’s-what-I-do way having your admonishments tossed back at you. Turns out something you come out with in the heat of the moment is actually making an impression on that little mind! I think it’s why so many people end up freaking out when they hear themselves use the same expressions with their kids that their parents used with them. You just have some weird reflex to say something before the volume on your stereo is turned up to an eardrum-splitting decibel.

Kate has since busted out the “no no no” a couple other times. Reaching for the knob for the drain midway through her bath, she turned to me and said, “Nnnuh nuh nuh.” Crawling along the hallway and stopping to look at the electrical sockets (at long last, covered with childproof plastic plugs), she looked over her shoulder at me: “Nnnnuh nuh nuh.” It’s like she’s stored away every place in the house where I’ve ever said it to her, and says it back to me to show me she’s paying attention.

Well, I guess I’m not that far off from the Mother Who Doesn’t Say No. I guess I’m trying to soft pedal a bit on the stern “No” and heck, it seems like it just might be working.

Seems like it might finally be time to watch all our language around Miss Kate. It’s ultimately cute and funny hearing the no no no mimicry, but I’ll be less charmed hearing her repeat what I scream out when I stub my toe some day.

Nannies and Boyfriends

Sometimes I wonder if my brain works very differently than other peoples’. It seems that I can’t have an experience without somehow tying it to something else in my life. I mean, I guess that’s how we all operate on some level, to process change. But for me sometimes it feels more like a game of Concentration. I turn over one Jack and know I’ve seen another Jack somewhere…but where was it? It’s fun to me to make the connection.

So Shelly. Our nanny. As I’ve not been shy about sharing, we got off to a rocky start. I was returning to work after a year off. Mark was traveling for business. Shelly was new to all of us. And in addition to the new job, new team, new industry, I had a new commute which I’d yet to understand the traffic/distance and timing ins-and-outs of.

Most of my family and friends offered their shoulders for me to unburden myself upon that first week. I was going to be 5 minutes late getting home on my second day of work, and Shelly’s reaction was less than easy-going. It was a stressful interaction with her that dominoed to Kate also being stressed, and especially without Mark here to help me wrangle with it, the whole experience lead me to question where she was truly The One to care for Kate.

Well since then the job has become less new. I have an understanding of the intricacies of the commute. Mark has been traveling less for work. And I ironed out some issues with Shelly’s hours that allow me more wiggle room in my drive home. She and I have also gotten to know each other better. And she and Kate have clearly forged a bond.

And yet, the outpouring of support from those family members and friends who had my back when I was sure the nanny should go, haven’t all caught up with our current state of contentedness. When they inquire whether we’ve found someone new, I feel the need to justify and explain why we haven’t and how we’ve had a change of heart. And still I worry that the kind inquirer won’t really believe me, or think I’ve made the best decision.

It leaves me feeling like you do when you and your boyfriend have a fight, or break up, or he just does something jerky. You do what any typical gal does–reach out to your posse for support. And often that support comes in the form of “you’re too good for him,” “you should ditch the dope” and sometimes even the candid I’m-telling-you-this-because-I’m-your-friend-and-care-about-you “I never really liked him in the first place.”

Which all gets a bit sticky once the incident that set off all the need for all the extra love and support is past, and you find yourself back together with said BF and feeling all butterfly-stomachy in love again. Those conversations in which you and you friends fantasized about him getting afflicted with a lifetime worth of he’ll-never-date-again acne suddenly need to be swept under the carpet by all parties. When both groups are together again, say, you sitting on your parent’s couch snuggling with the guy who they know did you wrong, you’re aware that your parents are secretly still cursing him, but you want them to see that he’s changed! He’s different now! Everything is okay–really.

Alas, I fear that’s where I’ve landed with poor Shelly. Will she ever meet a friend without them wondering what it was she was so hopped-up to get to that she couldn’t stay 5 extra minutes with Kate that evening? Are they judging me and Mark as parents who really should find another nanny but are maybe just too lazy? Or worse, don’t care enough about who watches Kate?

And maybe in my most self-doubting moments, do I fear that they are right?

In my Mental Game of Concentration, I have to compare it to yet another thing. It’s like looking for apartments. When you’re looking, you want it all–hardwood floors, fireplace, parking, walk to BART. And when you finally get a place you’re thrilled that you didn’t have to take that place that was so dark, or expensive, or whatever. But you still can torture yourself with the fantasy that the perfect reasonably-priced rental with a hot tub in back and a Viking range was out there and you missed it.

Ah, well. Yesterday I went for a walk with Kate when I got back from my work trip in LA. I was looking up at the Berkeley hills and remembering when we just moved here how I felt so misplaced in this neighborhood. (After a dozen years in Noe Valley, it’s no wonder.) But now, I look up at those hills and revel in their beauty. I look at our little local library and the coffee shops and people with their yoga mats tucked under their arms waiting to cross the street, and I think of how lucky we are to be here. Without a doubt, this is home now.

Our rocky start aside, I’ve been getting some of that feel-good vibe from Shelly recently too. Seeing the great healthy meals she cooks for Kate, the way she teaches her little games and how to blow kisses. The care and concern she’s expressed in the past couple days about Kate’s runny nose.

Hopefully some day all the friends who have ever heard me kvetch about Shelly will know that Mark, Kate and I feel content and lucky to have found her, and confident that we have the right nanny–even if there may be one out there who’s just as good who charges a little less.

Sending Love to Mrs. D, Wherever She Is

Amelia’s mother died today. I don’t think I’ve even begun to fathom that she is gone.

She was as good as a second mother to me. Someone who I leaned on when my mother was sick and then departed. I don’t know what it will be like to go to Bristol and not be able to visit her. Sit at her table in her bright kitchen with the fish wallpaper and the multi-colored chairs that Amelia painted in high school. Sit at the table and have a cup of tea or cocoa and maybe some Greek dessert Mr. D brought home from one of his restaurant-owner friends. And talk in that totally comfortable homey way that has no pretension or need for a can-I-come-over-now? call or even the need to be showered, social, or in a good mood.

The thing is that it’s not even the more recent visits to Mrs. D’s kitchen, centered around taking Kate to show her off, that are most fresh in my memory. I remember sitting there on freezing RI nights in high school like it was yesterday. I swear there were times when it was colder in their house than it was outside, and that’s with the wind coming off the water. (Mr. D was renowned for being cheap about turning up the heat.) I’ve also been there for countless Forth of July’s from childhood to adulthood. I can hear in my mind Mrs. D with her unique almost haughty-sounding accent. She’s holding me in front of her with her hands on my shoulders pointed at some Greek or Italian relative, and asking, “Do you know Kristen? Fred and Vicki Bruno’s youngest? Well really at this point she’s practically my daughter too.”

Once in high school when Amelia’s lose-a-few pounds diet had clearly gone beyond the point of healthiness, I confronted Mrs. Demopulos in that same kitchen. Somehow I’d managed to find a time when no one else was around and I screwed up my courage to get to the bottom of things. Why had she let Amelia get so thin, so sick? Why wasn’t she doing anything about it? How could she let this happen?

In my New England upbringing I’d never dream of calling an adult by their first name, never mind being so brazen and disrespectful as to confront them this way. But I was also driven by the passion of a teenager who knows they are doing the right thing. And by my love for Amelia, whose health and life I was suddenly scared shitless about.

God knows what I had said that day or how I said it, but Mrs. D in her proud manner and New England private way stiffened her back and brushed me off. It was the first (and only time) I felt a divide between us, and that fact alone made me even more scared about how catastrophic whatever was happening had the potential to be. In a clipped manner and with few words, she assured me they were dealing with it. She gave me no insight into what “it” even was, or what they were doing, or how I could help, and most of all she gave me no assurance that it would be okay. And eventually it was. But I never talked to Mrs. D about it again, and really never talked to Amelia about it either.

I always love going home to Rhode Island as anyone who knows me knows. It’s beautiful there. I’ve got family and friends who have known me since I toddled out of the bathroom at Sam’s Pizza with my pants and underwear around my legs asking for help. The food is good and familiar and practically all the places that I’ve liked eating at since I was a kid are still in business. And everywhere you go people, some who you don’t even recognize, know you. There’s something about that history that keeps a gal real and grounded.

So, in the time that I went off to Ohio for college, or to Paris to study, or moved to NYC, or finally away to San Francisco. In the time that I had small jobs that grew to bigger jobs, or boyfriends who I was crazy about, or brought home, or just talked about dreamily, or lamented that I’d been dumped by. In the time that I had bad asymmetrical haircuts, or gained my freshman 15, or thought I was Miss Thing for wearing a suit to my big-deal job, I always had home to touch down on to put everything in perspective.

And no matter how cool, or smart, or city-savvy, or in love, or engaged or pregnant you are, when you’re sitting at the table at the Demopulos’ house, you are still just Kristen. Still just Fred and Vicki’s youngest. There’s no air that you can put on that can’t be seen through in a second. What’s amazing was through it all I was never laughed out of the place. I was never called on my attitude or pretension or fashion-don’t of the moment. And I have no doubt there were many times when they had to stifle laughter or the desire to slap me back into reality. And sure, sometimes I did get brought down to earth. But mostly I was cheered on, questioned, inspected, embraced, and told to put on one of the many sweaters Mrs. D had made. “No we won’t turn the heat up.”

The last time I saw Mrs. Demopulos she gave Kate some books. She’d asked me what it was that Kate really needed and I’d turned her in that direction. Of all the special books Kate has gotten from family and friends, for some reason no one but Mrs. Demopulos has inscribed them, and I’ve often wished people had, since many of them are real keepers.

When I first introduced Kate to Mrs. D last Christmas I handed the baby to her and said, “This is Grandma Frances.” It was my little way of expressing the respect and special place that she held in my world, and by transference, Kate’s. At the time I didn’t even know that it had registered with her. But this summer, after she gave me the books and verified that we didn’t already own them, she grabbed a pen to inscribe them, and as she wrote she slowly said aloud, “To Kate, with love from Grandma Frances, July 2006,” and I was touched that she had clearly taken note of (and maybe even pride in) her special title.

What’s surreal about the fact that Mrs. Demopulos died today (a phrase it horrifies me to even type) is that it won’t even really hit me that she’s gone until the next time that I’m home and I have to fight the way my body is hard-wired to go to her house to see her.

But I don’t even pretend to suffer a millionth of what her family is going through now. Amelia is giving birth to what would be Frances’ first grandchild in two weeks.

HMS Pinafore, Kate, and a Mama’s Fierce Love

In a lifetime that’s been characterized by obsessive parental love, Miss Kate is currently experiencing a particularly high period of maternal adoration. Or, to say it more plainly: My God, can I love this baby any more?

It would almost be sickening except for the fact that it’s just at the apex of intensity without reaching that I’m-so-excited-I-have-a-headache place.

I’ve described my pride and excitement about Kate in high school play terms before. (This probably relates to what I’ve realized as an adult was my freakishly positive and happy high school experience.) At any rate, the play thing is something I use to explain how I feel about the fact that my dad and oldest sister and a ton of other family and friends don’t get to see Kate anywhere near as much as I wish they could. To me it’s like when you’re in the high school play. You’ve been rehearsing for so long, memorizing lines, singing your heart out, putting all your extra energy into it. You get to that place where you surpass the fear that it could be terrible and even arrive at the realization that it will be really quite good. When the performances finally arrive and your family is in the audience watching, you’re so damn proud of yourself and happy and excited to have them there. It’s a total high.

Okay, so stay with me here. Having Kate is like being in this incredible Broadway performance in the lead role and singing and performing in a way that is so exceptional and impressive that it astounds even you. It totally exceeds your expectations. But the thing is, instead of getting that thrill that everyone you care about and want to be proud of you (and sure, even those who you want to impress) will come, the fact is that people can’t make it to every performance. So sometimes you’re there bursting with pride and excitement and a desire to show off, and there’s no outlet for it.

Especially with my mother gone, I get these sudden pangs of wanting her to be able to see how amazing Kate is. To even just look at her her beautiful sweetness once. Those times are this whole feeling at its worst.

So sometimes it’s like Mark and I are just here in our little house in Oakland that just seems like any other little house but if you were to look inside you’d see that there is this wonder child who is being more beautiful and smart and sweet than you could ever imagine a baby to be. Whose little naked butt when she’s standing up holding onto the edge of the bathtub as she watches the water fill it up is so ridiculously cute you need to kiss it (yes, actually kiss her ass!). And all of this is just happening in here night after night with people just naively walking by outside having no idea!

Sometimes I just have to out and tell people, like my sister Marie when we’re on the phone, “My God, you have to see this baby. Like right now.” Of course it’s impossible for her to crawl through the phone line. But I really have thought that if she knew what Kate was doing at that moment and how great it was, she’d get on a cross-country plane immediately.

I guess it’s just in my nature to want to share great stuff. In the middle of an amazing massage I spend half the time thinking of how I have to get Mark to get a massage just like it. And part is just the exuberant braggart in me who wants to shout about Kate from the rooftops. “Amazing baby here! She giggles! She points at random things and says, ‘Ba ba!’ She has soft blonde hair with little wispy curls! She puts her head down on your shoulder to hug you! She says ‘baby’ like a CD that’s skipping and it’s so damn silly and funny and sweet you’d just love it, I know!”

Sometimes when I get swept up I call Ellen to see if she wants to come over last minute for dinner. Of course it’s in the guise of wanting to see her and the kids. And sure I do want to see them. But I also just really want them to see Kate.

Anyway, most of the time the last-minute dinners don’t work out, or we’re just in our day-to-day family routine. So what happens when it’s just us is that Mark and I marvel to each other. Sometimes Mark will just look at me with his eyes wide and say, “That baby.” And I know he means, “My God she is so staggeringly amazing. We are so lucky. How could we ever love anything quite so much?” Word to that, Dada.

And thankfully we do get opportunities to see other people who genuinely share our excitement. The mother’s group mamas totally appreciate all the other mamas’ babies. We thump each other on the backs regularly about the wonder of each other’s small beings. It’s nice.

And of course, when we do get to see grandparents, we get to connect with those who are similarly afflicted with The Crazy Love Glee. In Kentucky Peggy told us how Kate held her arms out for Gary (a.k.a. Papa) to pick her up, and I know he must have just melted. In that church-basement-sharing kind of way, it feels good to be around others who share our disease.

I guess all this is one reason why having Kate makes me want to spend the holidays with extended family more than ever. I’m so excited about The Miller Family Thanksgiving (TM) just because we can all hang out and delight in Kate and Gavin and family and love and luck.

And after two years of Mark unsuccessfully jockeying for the whole “starting our own family traditions at home” thing, this year he wins. We’ll stay in California for Christmas. It’s not that I won’t be happy being with Mark and Kate. Just the opposite really. I’ll be giddy with joy and love and pride and thankfulness. It’s just that sometimes when I feel that way I wish I could have all my family and friends experiencing it right there with me, and cheering me on from the audience.