Bad Witness

When I picked Kate up from preschool yesterday, here’s the conversation we had:

Me: “How was school today?”

Kate: [silent]

Me: “It’s bad manners to not respond when someone asks you something, you know.”

Kate: “It was good.”

Me: “What did you do?”

Kate: “We did a lot a lot a lot of things.”

Me: “Did you play outside?”

Kate: “Yes.”

Me: “You did? I’m surprised since it’s raining so hard. You really played outside today?”

Kate: “No! Yes… No!”

Me: “What is it? Did you play outside?”

Kate: “No. Yes! Yes!”

Me: “Who did you play with today?”

Kate: “No one. I played by myself.”

Me: “Why?”

Kate: “I wanted to.”

Me: “Oh, that’s good. It’s nice to play alone sometimes.”

Kate: “I’m mad at everyone.”

Me: “Why?”

Kate: “I had a rough day.”

Me: “You did? I’m sorry to hear that. Who said that?”

Kate: [whispering] “Me.”

Me: “Why did you have a rough day?”

Kate: [still whispering] “Everybody ate me.”

Me: “Oh.”

Kate: [still whispering] “And then Batman came.”

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Lord

We just got back from a super fun long weekend in Lake Tahoe.

Kate went sledding for the first time–actually saw a legitimate amount of snow for the first time. (“You know what, Mama? It looks like Fluff.” That’s my sugar-free girl!) We had some delicious hilarious gin-and-wine-drenched dinners with the fabulous Mama Posse families, and boiled ourselves silly in a huge hot tub. I even got a kid-free day of snowboarding in with my girls Sacha and Mary.

But of all of it, one comment from our friend Jack made our whole weekend.

The kids–all nine of them–were blessedly asleep, and us grown-ups were eating a lovely pasta dish the Grippies had prepared. Jack was sitting near Mark and I, and at one point when another conversation was brewing at the far end of the table, Jack looked up from his plate and said to Mark and I, “You know, I wanted to mention to you guys about Kate–”

At which point I inhaled and winced, bracing myself for whatever it was he was about to say.

That she pooped on the floor in the bathroom earlier, and he had to clean it up? That she bit off a chunk of his daughter’s ear, Mike Tyson-style? That he’s never met such a, well, “spirited” child–how do we keep up with her?

It’s not that Kate’s so out of control, really. It’s just that with a three-year-old there’s really no telling what may happen. Especially on a weekend when she’s marauding 24×7 in a large pack of friends like some feral child on speed.

Anyway, as Mark and I exchange a quick nervous glance, Jack finishes his sentence saying, “–that she’s really polite.”

Mark and I lean in stunned and say in unison: “Really? Polite?”

Jack: “Yeah. I mean, in interactions I’ve had with her this weekend she’s been, you know, really good about saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and stuff.”

Mark and I grinned and gleefully grasped each others’ hands like game show contestants who’d just won a car. Relieved, thrilled, and incredulous that all the seemingly futile work of reminding Miss Kate to “use her manners” in what seems like three-minute intervals over the course of the past two-plus years, might actually, really, finally, be paying off.

Will you get a load of that.

The New Otter on the Block

I realize most American kids probably don’t have sea otter stuffed animals. But in the Bay Area kids eat goat cheese not Kraft Singles, and sea otters are as a common a sight in stuffed animal menageries as stepstools are in family bathrooms.

The reason we’re all hopped up on otters has nothing to do with Otter Pops–which, don’t get me wrong, totally rock. It’s more about the beasties’ local presence here, of course. And for anyone who hasn’t had the nature-lovin’ luck of seeing the ridiculously adorable things frollicking in the chilly Pacific drink, chances are they’ve been to one of the sea otter feedings at the tremendous Monterey Aquarium.

It’s the place where Mark and I are always so blindly overcome with crazy sea otter love we’re elbowing young innocents out of the way so we can get a better look. Aside from their whiskery teddybear-like rolly polly playful cuteness, watching them eat–lying on their backs munching food that’s clamped between their front paws–is so insanely delightful it could melt even Charles Manson’s heart.

God, it’s good clean fun.

How can you not stop by the gift store afterwards to bring home the closest approximation to the real thing?

Of course, I got Kate’s stuffed sea otter at a yard sale, but that’s only because my genetic make-up virtually prevents me from shopping at full retail. Or maybe it’s more that I just love a good bargain. But I digress.

So, in the throngs of stuffed animals with whom we reside, Kate decided last night to single out her long-neglected sea otter for some intensive attention and maternal adoration.

Since then–less than 24 hours ago, mind you–I’ve started collecting some of the sea otter data points that Kate’s been imparting to Mark and me. Mark, the dear, has been tenacious about filling me in on any info she’s shared with him that I might’ve possibly missed.

“Do you know my sea otter? My sea otter’s name is Benny.”

“Benny’s last name is MacDonald.”

“Do you know what? Benny has an ear infection and it’s really bad. See? Right there is his ear.”

“Benny got lost at a yard sale. He was running around.”

“Did you know? Benny is a girl.”

“Benny is a boy but doesn’t have a penis. Not all boys have penises, you know.”

” Shhhh… Benny is sleeping now with a friend. Do you know the friend’s name? It’s Benny too. They both have the name Benny, yeah.”

“Benny’s owner said he needs to be combed–his fur.”

“Benny’s owner is named Maria. He got lost and I found him and I thought that I will be his owner.”

“Benny has a purple toothbrush. He doesn’t like it any more.”

It’s hard to know if we’ve just scratched the surface of what we’ll be learning about Benny, or if by sundown he’ll be back on the bottom of a toy bin, wedged between a princess shoe and a ceramic ladybug teapot. Later today I might use up the last tea bag in a box, and that empty vessel could suddenly be thrust to the center of Kate’s pretend universe. That’s just how things roll around here.

Whatever the case, the amount of love, attention, and pretend otter ear drops that have been administered to dear Benny should hold him over for a good long time.

Not Quite Ready to Be Set Free

Yesterday was Kate’s first visit to a dentist. And as we sat in the cheesy Hawaiian-themed waiting room, another mother came in with two older kids. Her daughter immediately flounced to the floor to engage with Paigey. And the mom pulled up a tiny surfboard shaped chair, sat, and smiled down at them.

After a few minutes she looked up at me and said, “Please pardon the loud rumblings from my uterus.” A comment which took me a beat to grock, but then totally slayed me.

Me: “Oh God, I hear you. She’s my baby and she has the same effect on me.”

Her: “Here I am, I’m 43, and I already have three kids. When’m I going to get over this?”

Which brings me to the rhetorical question, just how supremely do women rock?

I love that within three minutes of being in each others’ orbits this total stranger and I are revealing our deep down irrational-but-real want-another-baby cravings. It’s the kind of intimacy that some men who were college roommates and have been playing tennis together every Saturday since the first Bush administration still haven’t achieved.

And her remark is timed perfectly to my just-the-other-night musings. Paige refused to nurse, which had me convinced she was harboring a devastating rife-with-hearing-loss ear infection. (I’ve never understood when mother’s say their kids just stopped wanting to nurse one day, since that’s so not been how my boob-junkie kids roll.)

Paigey was back to her old milk-chugging self a few hours later, but the experience got me thinking as I was a-sway on the ugly Dutalier glider. If I were to suddenly stop breastfeeding, it seems like I’d need to put my body to another practical use. Truly. In much of the past four-and-a-half years I’ve either been gestating or breastfeeding, and odd as it is even for me to realize, it’s set me in a kind of groove I’m not sure how to get out of.

Doing neither of those things seems so, uh, kinda lazy. Or maybe it’s not that so much as just not productive enough.

Years ago when Mark (then I) started seriously obsessing over cooking, we read Michael Ruhlman’s excellent The Making of a Chef–a great first person account of a foodie journalist being thrown into the mix at the hardcore Culinary Institute of America. Aside from food chemistry and knife skills, clean-as-you-go, and never serve anything that you know ain’t right, one of the critical things you learn at cooking school is how to be crazy efficient. If the walk-in’s at the end of the kitchen, you think of all the things you’ll need from there so you can make just one trip. And on the way back to your station you grab the Chinoise or mixing bowls or grater that you’ll need from the drying racks. It’s all piled up in front of you so your arms are breaking and you can barely see, but the other thing that you learn in cooking school is cooking is hard work. That is, it’s physically taxing.

In cramped, fast-paced, and (proverbially and literally) hot restaurant kitchens, running around in circles is for rookies. It’s just not done. It confuses your mind, expends unnecessary energy and ultimately puts you in the weeds. In other words, a quick way to find yourself out on the sidewalk, considering getting an office temp job to pay the rent.

So Ruhlman. He describes how this hyper-efficient planning and intense economy of movement unsurprisingly slipped over into his out-of-the-kitchen time. (Kind of like when I played so much backgammon in college I’d look at a pub booth packed with people as a cluster of pieces–all safe since there wasn’t one sitting out alone. For my brain at least, that was the result of excessive backgammon. Imagine if I’d used that time to study!) So Ruhlman described how one day he realized he was getting ready in the morning in turbo efficient mode. Get socks and shoes and grab car keys and knife case all in one quick sweep of his apartment. Socks and shoes on mechanically fast, grab keys and knife case, and up and off you go. Or something like that.

And so here I am, just three days away from Paige’s first birthday and realizing how this mother thing has managed to wire me in a similar way. Efficient? Yes. Getting kids bathed, diapered, dressed, fed, snacks packed, car toys grabbed, hats, sweaters, shoes that have been already pulled off put back on. All that glamor that you know every mother–including your own back in the day (call her right now and thank her, please) goes through.
 
But aside from the machinations of kid tendin’, there’s of course the physical connection us mothers have. And whether we’re precious about it and read non-stop about how it all works or not, it just happens. We’re using our bodies to the fullest of their capabilities, like old-school VCRs that–though baffling and unused to their max by most folks–without even reading the manual we’re instinctively able to do the trickiest things to like updating the clocks, and setting them to advance record.

It’s actually weird how mindlessly one can grow a healthy baby.

There are the glossy hair ‘I am woman hear me roar’ pregnancy highs, and the all-my-friends-are-dumb-when-they’re-drunk-and-I’m-sober resentment. Stuff even outsiders can cotton to. But more discreet, and ultimately more powerful, is the latent accustomedness your body seems to develop for being put to these practical maternal uses. So from where I’m standing, at the precipice of not having such a physical Mama task ever again, one might be left feeling somewhat un-tethered. A bit lost.

It’s the place where some woman, no doubt, feel liberated, set free. Back to one’s skinny jeans for good.

But for me, and it seems for the dental office Mama too, it’s a much harder transition. Bittersweet in all the love and intimacy and care that was associated with all those bodily demands, despite how grueling they could sometimes be. There’s an unaddressed expectation, a void that some of us reckon with, when our bodies are suddenly not called into service any more.

Perhaps I’ll have to take up tennis. My mother always played a wicked doubles game. Maybe I can just try to make that do.

Damn Karma and All Its Relentlessness

For weeks now I’ve been screaming at the TV, bellowing desperately at Top Chef contestant Melissa to–for the love of sweet Jesus–puleeeease do something about her wretched hair.

My God, Paige could cut better bangs blindfolded with a Swiss Army knife.

I mean, doesn’t that show have any stylists who have a heart? And wouldn’t you think that that woman has a friend or relative–just one–who’d mercifully perform a hair intervention on her? And then there’s the Goddess/Hostess Padma. Can’t she help a sister out? Just someone, anyone please do something about those lifeless, scraggly, dishwater blonde, cut from ear-to-ear like Moe from The Three Stooges bangs.

If not, eventually I’m going to dislocate my vocal chords yelling at the TV. Or worse, wake the children.

Speaking of the offspring, shameful as it is to admit, we’ve been taking Kate to our exorbitant yet fabulous hair salon in SF. Jeneil, the owner/stylist, is an old friend of Mark’s and cuts his meterosexy hair. And after years of my allegience to a reliable-cheap-yet-glamorless salon, she now also does mine. Jeneil and Kate totally dig each other. (Reason #1 why Kate’ll run off and get sleeve tattoos the first chance she gets.) So Mark and I are blasting our way through the kids’ college funds on our own tresses, but for now Kate’s haircuts there are free.

The problem is, as much as it makes me sound all bridge-and-tunnel, it’s a hassle getting the girl to the city for her haircuts. Especially since the kiddie salon that the fancy Oakland set (bet you didn’t know there was such a thing) brings their shorties to is just two blocks from our house.

So, reluctantly, we tried it.

Our first trip there, despite my feeling overwrought with cheating-on-Jeneil guilt, the Rasta owner gave Kate a decent cut. And she flipped over the free balloon and cheap Made in China toy she picked out of their treasure chest. Oh, and did I mention there are TVs at every station to lull the wee ones into not-savagely-thrashing submission? Kate would sell her sister to watch an episode of Sesame Street, so watching TV during a haircut is bliss to her. Sheer bliss.

I know it’s clear where this is going.

Yesterday at the kiddle salon, the Rasta steps aside and some chick asks Kate to hop in the chair. I was about to protest but within seconds Kate was in a deep unshakeable TV trance. And I figured, how bad can a haircut be?

Well, yes. Payback for all the crap I’ve ever hurled at Melissa with the Short Bus Bangs. Kate is now her wee sorry-headed doppelganger.

At least she doesn’t also have Melissa’s fierce black eyebrows.

Let Loose the Princess Fury

Thursday afternoon I got a babysitter for no reason other than the psychological thrill of three hours of Me Time. Sometimes looking forward to it or just knowing it’s approaching supplies more of a feel-good shock therapy jolt to my psyche than the actual kid-free time itself.  

So, mere minutes before the nanny arrived, I decided I’d set off for San Francisco for some thrift shopping. There’s something so stupid about paying $20 an hour to pick through two-dollar-ninety-nine-cent clothing alongside hipsters and the homeless that I just couldn’t resist.

Besides, Thrift Town is where I’m closest to God. Or rather, the place where in the acquisition of bargains I feel a rush that’s akin to religious fervor.  

My sisters call another Mission bastion, Community Thrift, “church.” I’ve never asked if it’s due to the reverence that they have for it, or that it’s a must on Sundays, when folks unload all their didn’t-sell yard sale items and the place brims with all manner of fresh crap. In the same way Kitchen Confidential taught us not to get fish on Tuesdays at restaurants, Ellen and Judy can direct you to the right crap store on the right day to give you the best shot of unearthing what it is you’re hankerin’ for.

It’s a gift, really.

At any rate, the religious metaphors also show you the effect that a childhood of being pulled by our ears to church every Sunday had on my sisters and I (i.e. we’re quick to reference but not participate in church activities). And it underscores the extent to which we Brunos exalt a good bargain.

So, childless and fancy-free I pushed open the doors to big grungy sweetly-stinky Thrift Town feeling the anticipatory titillation that comes with not knowing what dazzling finds await. And the first thing I see in the shelves of random crap along the entryway wall is a box covered over with Saran Wrap and housing–unused!–all the brightly colored plastic Snow White-branded crap a little girl could ever wish for (or break within moments of adoring ownership). It was $3.99.

Now I’m hardly a super crunchy Waldorf School Mama, but I have discouraged childhood TV-watchin’ nearly in its entirety. I despise kid crap that’s branded with licensed characters, prefer wooden toys to plastic, and have steered Kate clear of anything princess-related as if it were, uh, the Ebola Virus.

But I know not every mother is as fetishistic about avoiding these things as I am. And since my desire to home school the girls in order to maintain their commercial purity is as strong as my desire to pluck each of my not-exactly-lacking Italian-American leg hairs, I’m realistic about the fact that they’ll be exposed to it eventually.

To introduce it myself though just seems like a slippery slope. One viewing of SpongeBob SquarePants leads to excessive begging for crap at Target, and next thing you know she’s using intravenous drugs.

Maybe it was the feel-good high from my break from ass- and nose-wiping, or the alcohol hit I got off the breath of the bum next to me, but I picked up the thing and decided on the spot, what the heck. I’ll buy a little princess crap for Miss Kate.

The thing is, I’m a survivor of a sugar-free childhood. Well, nearly sugar free. There are naturally occurring sugars in fruit, right?

A bottle of soda rarely darkened our door, and sugary cereals were disparaged like the devil’s own drug. But, like me, my mother’s desire to shield me from the things she disliked only went so far. Which is to say, she let me out of the house. So, when visiting friends I perved out over the presence of forbidden foods.

Me: “You have Pop Tarts?! Aren’t you afraid your mother’ll see them in that cupboard?”

My friend: “What do you mean? My mom bought those for me.”

At which point my head exploded.

So, looking through the re-packaged plastic on this treasure trove of princess crap, I made my peace with the thought that maybe this petite offering might be enough to satisfy Kate’s burgeoning princess curiosity for now. Or at least safeguard her from short-circuiting (and ultimately stealing) the next faux-fur Cinderella dress-up cape she comes across at a friend’s house.

Plus, it’s kind of funny watching her teeter around the house on those oh-so-wholesome red plastic mini-heels.

And best of all, it was a great bargain.

Report from the Night Shift

Last night The McClusky Sisters besieged my sleep with a brutal one-two punch. With Mark gone to wait in endless taxi lines at CES in Vegas, I’m running solo on the ‘renting. And hanging on by a thread to tell the tale.

So, is it just me, or is waking from a deep sleep to find a small child silently standing inches from your face scary as shit? I mean, maybe I’ve watched The Shining a few too many times in college, but I can’t begin to fathom how parents of twins survive seeing two kids standing in a hallway in the middle of the night. Horrific on so many levels.

The suddenly-standing-right-there kid is one thing, but the plaintive cry of, “I don’t waaaaaaanna sleep!” called across the albeit small house–and a look at the digital clock revealing it’s 1:32AM–is quite another. Even if you know every other time you’ve heard this lament The Whiner has successfully been marched back to bed with some threat like, “It’s the middle of the night and yes, you WILL sleep!” hissed into her ear–even knowing that’s probably how it’ll go down, the vision of what your night could turn into if the little beastie did refuse to sleep is just unspeakably ugly.

Waking up this way is less than ideal, but half of what I’m all pissy about is that Kate’s sleep issues are something I realized–how to say this?–I blame totally on Mark. Since he still can’t lactate (damn it) the natural division of nighttime labor has been Mark serving as Kate’s night nurse and me tending to Paige’s milk-swillin’ needs. Mark’s just such a softie. He ambles out of bed and gently ushers Kate to her
room instead of blowing a whistle loudly in her face as I might do in
order to, you know, break the cycle.

With sleep being my Super Power (along with parallel parking), I’m usually able to snooze through most of Kate’s creepy suddenly-standing-there late-night visits to our room. And I drown out her vocal requests with the patented pillow-over-the-head approach.

So while Mark’s slumming in a luxury hotel, getting buttered up by every hi-tech trade show gadget pimp, and eating out at Bouchon, Craft, and the best Thai restaurant this side of Chiang Mai, I’m home wrangling with the wretched nighttime duet that he and Kate sometimes dance.

I mean, I don’t mean to sound bitter.

But maybe my lack of REM is actually mustering in me a wee bit of co-parenting empathy on this subject. In the past, when I’ve stretched, smiled and offered up a well-rested morning greeting to Mark, commenting on how Paigey “slept through, God bless her,” he’s often looked back at me through bloodshot eyes muttering slack-jawed that Kate “was up four–or mabye it was five–times.” It’s not that I don’t feel bad for the guy, but when he adds that from 1:30 to 3:00 he “couldn’t sleep at all,” he loses me.

As a professional sleeper I know there’s some good shut-eye to be gotten between those 30-second back-in-your-beddie-bye jaunts. It’s always baffled me that between these quick promenades Mark’s often in bed wired and wild-eyed.

But now, like some Scrooge who grew a heart overnight, I’ve come to understand Mark’s plight. The thing is, after the girl cons you into thinking she’s ready to doze off at the first tuck-in, you foolishly climb back into bed, and just when your body temp’s returned to duvet-level warmth and you’re drifting off into a dream about having had a really popular prom date, SHE’S BACK. This time wailing loudly near the baby’s bedroom door. “MAMA!!! I. Can’t. SLEEEEEEP!”

Suffice it to say, it’s jarring.

If it weren’t for fear that she’d disturb The One That Insists On Drinking Milk From Your Boobies If Awoken, you wouldn’t be springing out of bed in a flash to hush hush hush her and direct her back toward her room whispering a strained aren’t-your-blankets-so-cozy-honey pep talk in her ear.

If it’s not already clear, we’re quite religious about not solving this problem by inviting her into our Child-Free Zone, I mean bed.

So, more soporific promises from Kate and another walk back to my own bed, but this time I can’t help but be wary. Why get cozy when the other shoe could drop at any moment? She could be back again before I even have time to lament the oh-so-wretched hour. And when the rattle of the heater cranks up I find myself straining to listen, thinking I’m hearing her door crack open again. It’s like that one ring on the Motorola RAZR phone that always had you thinking it was ringing when it wasn’t. (Admit it. You always fell for that too.)

So, not one to be rooked into nodding off again, this time I’m on ambush alert. I’m almost wanting her to get up and just get it the hell over with. Will she do the spooky silent child by the bed move, or the bellow from down the hall? What’s it gonna be, Kate?! BRING IT ON, SISTER.

But eventually enough time passes, and I let go, roll over, and well, you can guess what happens when I just drift off. “MOMMY!!”

Digital clock now says 2:53AM.

To anyone who may have seen me carrying a child fireman-style over my shoulder while growling “No more getting up, and I MEAN IT!” threats under my breath, thanks a bunch for not calling Child Protective Services.

I think this process took place five times last night. Or maybe four. I lost count some time after losing my will to live.

And once Kate lost interest in seeing how far she could push me before I’d put her up for bid on eBay, her World Wrestling Federation partner, Paige, tagged in.      

It was like Paige was perched in the corner of the ring waiting for the bell to sound so she could pounce on my last 3 hours of sleep like a rabid monkey. (I know this is mixing a metaphor, but on such limited sleep this is the best I can muster, people.)

And what a show Miss Paige put on! The baby who generally gets up once at night–if that–squawked first at midnight, prior to Kate’s onsalught, then came at me with two additional awake-itudes spaced out for maximum snoozing interference at 4:00 and 5:30.

At 5:45 I crawled to bed. Cold. Tapped dry of milk. Frantic for sleep but gun-shy about giving into it. And desperately, miserably missing my partner in parenting, our family’s fearless father, my dear sweet Mark.

He who was alseep in some hotel bed. Likely a bit boozed up after some work party or dinner. Stretched out solo in a huge king bed, maybe with another one like it nearby just for throwing his books and clothes and cell phone on.

Hopefully getting a deep restful night’s sleep to fortify him for the family life awaiting his return. At which point I will never again doubt, question, or criticize any of his middle of the night sleep shenanigans, because I’ll be so damn happy happy happy to just have him back.   

No Place Like Cards for the Holidays

The most socially acceptable medium for showing off one’s kids seems to be the holiday photo card. I mean, it beats the expense, travel, trauma–and let’s face it, limited exposure–of the child pageant circuit.

My sister Judy always calls in any feedback she’s gotten about our cards, which is nice. She covers off on some of the “what cute kids!” compliments that I might otherwise miss out on.

Judy’s best friend Lindelle, who lives on the East Coast, apparently called her last year at 5AM California time squealing about Kate’s posed-by-the-fir-tree innocent beauty. (Despite the two plus decades Judy’s been out here Lindelle has not yet caught on to–or simply decided to ignore–the time difference.) Good Auntie that Judy is, she was willing to take the call despite the early hour, in order to thoroughly process and discuss all elements of the card. (And that’s just one reason why they’re from-womb-to-tomb friends.) 

Judy called in her report about this year’s card a couple weeks ago. Blah blah blah Kate is pretty. And apparently word on the street is that Paigey’s a ringer for our mom. When I shared this with Mark, he claimed he’d been hearing that Paige is a wee version of him.

In either case, both these comments set off my internal awww meter.

But then with further reflection–and a dash of neuroses–it got me wondering. If Paige looks like my mother and Mark, then Mark looks like my mother, right? So does that mean that in some short-circuited Electra-like Complex I married my, uh, mother? And then, did my mother and I give birth to a female baby who looks like my shoulda-been husband?

It’s all just too frightening and confusing.

Maybe next year we’ll just send out cards with pictures of Santa. 

Mama’s Little Girl

My mother used to make up crap constantly. I mean, it was all in the service of urging one of her four daughters to do something, and as the mother of one child who’s turned the unbearable age of three, I can feel her pain. At one point the poor woman had a newborn, an 11-month old, and a 22-month-old. (Then ten years later I happily hit the scene. Surprise!)

Anyway, knowing what I know now, whatever the woman went through to get through the day is totally fine by me.

Her specialty was outlining elaborate reasons why things should be done. Often she’d add some statistics to back-up her argument. And I’m not talking about the classics like “you have to wait at least an hour to swim after eating.” She’d bust out much more detailed data. And although she’s not around to ask the origins of her plentiful stats, I have every reason to believe that based on how convenient they were to her–and the fact that with re-use the numbers sometimes changed–I’d wager she made them up on the spot.

“95% of household accidents happen from untied shoes!” she’d bellow after me as I ran through the house.

Throughout the winter months I’d hear some variant of:
“If you don’t wear a hat you lose 85% of your body heat through your head.”

And of course there was:
“70% of kids who sit that close to the TV develop vision problems, you know.”

Her: “Do you know how many kids who ride their bikes without helmets get into accidents and turn into vegetables?
Me: “Uh… sixty-five percent?”

Who knows. Maybe in Reader’s Digest or whatever women’s magazines she was reading at the time they had entire sections devoted to citing maternally-weildible stats like these. Perhaps she really did have primary sources for it all.

She also had an arsenal of other warnings. They were statistic-free but still rife with veiled health threats: “Drinking coffee will stunt your growth” was one of her evergreens, though I don’t remember ever wanting so much as a taste of her coffee when she was having a cup. Maybe the sum-total of her maternal sleep deprivation by the time I was born led her to preemptively fend people away from her coffee. And again, who could blame her?

Even later in her life when she was so sick that her body could barely process food, she’d insist we stop at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home from chemotherapy. Something I argued fruitlessly with her about until, requesting the doctor back me up one day, he pulled me outside the exam room to gingerly advise me that if coffee was something she enjoyed “at this point in her life” I should just let her have it.

Hello gut-wrenching reality check.

But anyway, where the hell was I? Mom. Coffee. And most importantly stunted growth–believe it or not, that being the little nugget that I was making my way toward. (Still happy you’ve come along for the ride?)

The thing is with Paige–the gal I’ve been trying to get to through all this Mom memory blather–is that she’s so utterly delightful, delicious and unbearably baby-like still. It devastates me to think of her growing up. Truly! If only I thought the coffee could stunt her growth, I’d give it a shot. (Then I’d just need to figure out how to administer it, since at the ripe age of 11 months beverage-wise the gal’s still exclusively about the boob.)

When Kate was a baby I did one of the smartest things a new mother could do. I got a sitter to come over one day a week–the neighbor’s part-time nanny who wanted extra hours. She watched Kate on Friday nights too so Mark and I could go on dates, ultimately talking about how much we adored (and missed) Kate.

I’ve said it before and no truer words have I spoken: Better to pay for babysitting now than marriage counseling later. (Copyright, 2005-2008 McClusky)

Aaaanyway, it was that nanny, Blanca, who dealt me my first eye-opener about Kate’s growth. I was looking through some larger-sized baby clothes and commenting on how darling they’d be once Kate fit into them. And in her sweetest, non-confrontational, most respectful way, Blanca looked me straight in the eye and said, “Uh, Kristen? She’ll fit into those now!”

And sure, it turned out that maybe I was infantilizing ole’ Kater Tot a wee bit. I realized that maybe we were shimmying her into the 3 to 6 month clothing when really, heck, those 9-month duds weren’t exactly big on her. (Or maybe even fit.) It was just…she was my baaaby! If she was fitting into these bigger clothes it meant–absurd as it is to consider when it’s a matter of months–she was growing up.

This brought into perspective the crying jag a friend told me about years earlier when her husband assembled their first-born’s crib. The baby wasn’t even three-months-old, and was just making the move out of the bassinet. As her husband toiled over the assembly directions, Lisa threw herself on their bed for a dramatic “she’s growing up sooo fast” bawling sesh.

Today I think this is not crazy-lady behavior at all.

Well, whatever psychological force was holding me back from Kate’s move away from babydom seems to only be amplified with Paigey Wig. With Kate, I think it was that she was my first. But with Paige, she’s my last! And such a dumpling, that one! A living doll, I tell you!

Isn’t it okay for me to still dress her in snap-crotch onesies when she’s in high school? And really, what 8-year-old needs treads on their shoes when a soft hand-knitted booty is so much comfier? And say what you will about the independence kids get from walking about on their own. Isn’t there something to be said for the cozy warmth and security that a sling could provide a preteen during those often awkward and trying pubescent years?

Of course, taking the worst possible opportunity to do it, when she’s pushing herself backwards around her room (her brand of crawling) and sobbing dramatically because she needs a nap, I decided to go through Paige’s drawers today and purloin all the obviously outgrown clothes.

Alas, there’s no future sib to get another round of wear out of the burgundy Catamini romper, or the brilliant NASA shirt our friend Kenneth gave Paige. Gone for good is the peach cashmere cable knit cardigan that made both Kate and Paige’s cheeks look flushed and utterly edible. And even the threadbare but darling Carter’s standbys–the now-pilly footy PJs with the lamb and giraffe appliques. I’d think twice about putting them in a thrift store pile based on their condition alone, but can’t bear to rid myself of the outfits my sweet girls wore curled up like angels asleep in their cribs. (Sleep has so many rich positive memories for mothers.)

For weeks–maybe months–now, Mark has emerged from dressing Paige remarking that he’d had to “wedge a leg” of hers into a certain pair of pants or had to “stuff her into” her pink hooded coat. (His none-too-subtle cues to me to get the girl some new clothes.) And half-heartedly I’d mumble something to appease him for the moment.

Well Miss Paige, today you’ve officially made the transition to 18-month-old clothing. (The fact that baby clothes are often sized older than the wee ones themselves is particularly cruel to me and my type.) May your plump little ham hock thighs never strain beneath the pressure of the 0 to 6 month pea green Zutano fleece pants again. And know that even if we don’t have the good fortune that you somehow acquire coffee, devise a way to consume it, and it actually results in retarding your growth–even if that never comes to pass, just know that you’ll still always be my little girl.    

“And a chick-eh-en in a pear tree…”

A few weeks ago while getting a mani/pedi I picked up some should’ve-been-too-ashamed-to-read-it-in-public mag. You know, something that makes Us read like The New Yorker. And nearly instantly all of my being was sucked into a story about how Mariah Carey–a celebrity I’ve utterly NO interest in (or so I thought)–spends Christmas.
  
Since I know you too are now desperate to hear just how Mariah rocks around her Christmas tree, I’ll share some highlights.

The girl says she’s all about traditions. Every year when her jet lands in Aspen, she insists her waiting limo has Christmas tunes cranked, and she pops some bubbly for the ride to her home, which Martha-like elves have already decorated. Then off to the slopes? No, no! Too chilly there! Instead she spends at least one day lolling about trying on clothes–figuring out just what she’ll sport on Santa’s big day. (Though I think even Kate could tell her it’ll be some variant of her Spandexy micro-mini ‘n stilettos uniform.) She packs the house with all manner of joyous relatives and friends, and her shopping is both excessive and last-minute, leaving her up nearly all night Xmas Eve wrapping the pressies old school, yo. Unfortunately her personal hand-wrapping results in her sleeping through most of Christmas Day, which she admits is hard on the children. Despite her pleas otherwise, her posse waits for her to wake up to open presents. (“Okay kids! It’s 4PM and Auntie Mariah got out of bed. Now you can open your stockings!”)

There was more, but really. It was all I could do to not to lean over, spread my knees, and barf into the warm water basin my feet were soaking in.

I mean come on, people. Who doesn’t give their limo driver Christmas off?

Despite me not getting my diva on with quite the same excessitude as Mariah, Christmas Chez McClusky this year was indeed quite splendid.

It being a time of wonder and such, here are a few of my own holiday discoveries. (Best for me to jot down some reflections before a Woman’s Day writer tracks me down for a big story next year.)

It’s amazing the impact one mention of Jesus from the old neighbor lady can have on a 3-year-old from a non-religious family (i.e. us). “Is Baby Gee-ziz sleeping in that little box, Mama? Is there birthday cake for Baby Gee-ziz? Does Baby Gee-ziz have a lamby?” For the love of God, Kate!

Odds are we’re the only family with a chicken mask as an angel on top of our tree. Which may be a good thing.

Even after 9 years my husband can write something in a card that makes me cry. (Happy tears, that is.) What’s staggering is he pulled this off twice this Christmas.

Paige sat by the tree on Christmas morning laughing and clapping her hands like a little tin toy monkey. It’s incredible that I’ve managed to resist devouring her.

New friends who feel like old friends are a gift indeed. We spent a warm wine-drenched Christmas Eve with dear friends who we didn’t even know last year.

You know your the-economy-sucks plans to hold back on shopping failed when you find yourself imploring your child to stop playing with her new toys so she can unwrap her scads of remaining pressies.

Sometimes the cheap-o stocking stuffers–like the clear rubber ball filled with water and sparkly green glitter–are the super-fun sleeper gifts that even the adults can’t help but obsess over.

Thanks to a Christmas-gift book, we’ve all fallen in love with a duck named Lemon, who we’re now corresponding with via email. Go figure.

I helped Paige tear the paper off a gift from Mark’s sis and her family. A hardcover book entitled Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. Now, I hold out every hope that Miss Paigey will be an early and avid reader, but the subject matter of this particular volume seemed a bit, well, off for the wee gal. (She’s much more a tennis person than lacrosse if you ask me.) Anyway, turns out Amazon screwed up, leaving us to imagine a 65-year-old attorney opening a Fisher-Price plush bowling set and wondering what the fuck his brother had been thinking.

My husband can cook circles around your husband. Proven once again by the amazing pork roast he prepared sous-vide. 

Hands down the best bad Christmas song is Dominick the Donkey. Thanks to the streaming holiday music channel, Mark, Kate, and I are all possessed by the verses, “Hey! Chingedy ching. (hee-haw, hee-haw) It’s Dominick the donkey! Chingedy ching. (hee-haw, hee-haw) The Italian Christmas donkey!” Sheesh.

Our friend Dave carried Kate on his shoulders for much of our yearly Christmas hike–running in circles, bumping her up and down, and causing her to screech with non-stop glee despite the whipping winds and Arctic-to-us cold. You can’t help but love your own children, but watching your friends treat them with silly gregarious happy love is a deeply good tonic indeed.

And with no relation to the holiday whatsoever, yesterday I managed to solve the damned Changing Table Problem, whereby once you lay Paige down she grabs the stack of clean diapers and starts winging them across the room like a Frisbee-throwing machine (or the paperboy in that old video game you maybe used to play). Yesterday, in what turned out to be a “the obvious answer ain’t always the most evident” situation, I simply moved the wipes to where the diapers were and the dipes out of reach where the wipes used to be. (Duh!) I’m not sure what’s more troubling: that it took weeks of Mark and I running interceptions on flying diapers before I cracked this case, or the fact that this New Changing Table World Order will improve the quality of my life to a staggering extent. (Just more clues that it might be time to go back to work.)
 
Mariah be damned. Our homey Oakland Christmas was divine and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. My only regret being that now that it’s over I won’t be able to leverage good “Santa’s watchin’” behavior out of Kate any more. At least not for another 10 months or so.