This morning in our kitchen:
Kate: “Grandma! We’re out of milk! Da-da says we’re out of milk!”
Me: [calling out from bed] “No we’re not, honey. There’s a half-gallon lying down in the fridge.”
Mark: “Ah. Mom’s right. Here it is.”
Kate: [skipping around the house] “We’re into milk! We’re into milk!”
If I do one thing right as a parent I hope I can avoid squelching Kate’s amazing imagination. I mean, the things she comes up with make your wildest drug trips seem mundane. That is, if you were someone who were to ever have had a wild drug trip.
Sometimes in the middle of dinner she’ll bust out something like this, which she said the other night, “When I was a big girl I had a witch with a tiny tiny tiny skateboard and she lived under the dining room table in such a silly place. It was SO silly!”
But more often it’s when she’s the teacher and Paige, or Mark, or I–or all three of us–are the students. There’s a lot of homeschoolin’ going on around here, thanks to Kate. Aside from compulsively covering babies with blanket after blanket all over the house, Kate’s second favorite thing to do is to be the teacher. And God help you if you don’t want to be the student.
Sometimes it starts with her singing the circle song from preschool which is how they wrangle the kids together every morning. It seems to be some global concept since every toddler I know in a wide variety of school settings has their own version of circle time.
And if it’s not circle time you’re needing to take part in it’s “I read you a book, then I change you diaper.” Or “then we play outside.” Generally followed by a patronizing tilt of the head and a soft-spoken, “Okay? Okay!” If you’re ever here and this happens and you need all your concentration because you’re performing a complex surgery or something, still just say “okay” since she really doesn’t require your active participation to plow forward in this game.
The other day Kate was “reading” a book to me, and the first few pages were mind-blowingly wacky and funny. Sometimes she says each word really slowly while she’s thinking up what to say next. Mark and I are often on tenterhooks awaiting what weirdness will come. It’s kind of like playing that add a-word-and-built-a-sentence game, but with just one person.
So since she was on a roll, I asked her to hold on while I found a pen and a piece of paper. I’m not sure how much awareness she had of my taking dictation–since the story did get a bit more subdued at that point–at any rate, here it is. Imagine her turning the pages and reading to me in a sing-songy patronizing voice.
The book was called Frederick, about a mouse:
The sun came up and I was eating some corn.
Some mouses went to a place called OSH.
Then a SoBe comb came. [I drink SoBe drinks, but have no idea what a "SoBe comb" is.]
And when I was SoBe comb I was a nice SoBe comb.
[Flips to the front to read an inscription, though there is none.] By Aunt Ellen. I love Kate.
I cleaned up all the cheese.
I ate up all the cheese.
They fell.
“Then we ate potatoes and falled asleep,” said the mouse.
They say, “Oh!” Can I fall asleep?”
“Yes,” said Omar.
Next she read 101 Dalmations:
[announcing title] All My Baby’s Changers
All my baby’s changers.
I go to my home and licked my baby’s changers hand. [When asked what a
changer is, "A kind of woman who knocks you down."]
D at changer goes, “Woo!”
That’s what she says.
I was a good doggie.
“Oh!” they say to my old grandmother. “Oh! I can come here.”
Then the pokey doggie doodle dosh.
I hope I was good.
I go to my home and wash my hode. [I double-checked this, and she did say "hode."]
I’m not going to go out of my hode. I’m going to stay at my hode.
I’m going to rush out the door.
Then Cinderella said, “Oh! I can come here!”
Then Cinderella placed a change to my home.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Story time is now over. The library will be closing in five minutes.
The next time you’re looking for a good way to express the concept of ‘nearly impossible’ you can say, “Why it’s just like giving a toddler eye drops!”
And for ‘utterly impossible’ tack onto that, “When you’ve only had 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before!”
And for extra credit you can also say, “And the kid’s in a shopping cart in the Target parking lot because it’s there that you realize you should’ve given her the eye drops an hour ago!”
Fun! [She says while rifling through the medicine cabinet for any leftover C-section meds that might have mind-altering effects.]
What makes this ordeal truly Orwellian for me, is that with pink eye being as turbo-contagious as it is, I’m in solitary confinement with the Tasmanian Devil Patient. Well, me and wee Paigey, who I’ve been trying to keep out of Kate’s germ-infested “I-wanna-hug-my-sista” reach.
I mean, Paigey is already afflicted with a variety of her own wretched skin maladies. Despite all my dairy denial everything has flared up again in extremis. The last thing she needs is to add pink eye to the mix. Right now going cheek to cheek with Paige feels like cuddling up with a burlap sack. One that flakes on you. Hopefully the dermatologist tomorrow can proffer an easy, instant, non-steroidal cure.
See? Even when the going gets tough I’m a die-hard optimist.
That said, is it too late to get my old job back?
This morning Kate was shuffling through a stack of family photos my sister-in-law Lori recently sent.
Kate: “Cute cute cute!”
Me: [seeing that she's looking at a picture of John holding Gavin] “Who?”
Kate: “Uncle John! He is sooooo cute!”
Apparently she digs a man in uniform. And really, who can blame her?
To any parents who are planning to move their child from a crib to a Big Girl or Big Boy bed:
In order to glamorize many of the wonderful attributes of big beds versus cribs, such as the existence of pillows, do not–I repeat do not–incorporate pillow fluffing into your child’s bedtime ritual.
Why, you ask?
Well, depending on the child’s tenacity in the excuses-to-stay-up arena, this could turn into a task you are called upon to do several times at nap time and night time.
And if you can imagine such a thing, the requests–annoying as they are in and of themselves–are made exceedingly more malodorous due to the way they are typically expressed.
“FLUFF MY PILLOW, MAMA! Fluff. My. PILLOOOOOOW!”
Unless of course, you enjoy feeling more like your child’s indentured servant than you perhaps already do. Then by all means, develop a robust and complex pillow fluffing tradition.
Signed,
Kate’s Personal Pillow Fluffer
So Paigey is starting to laugh! I discovered this the other day when I was doing the old baby routine of big inhale followed by lunge for the cheek or neck and kiss kiss kiss. That one evidently just slays her.
Her laugh is this kind of slow staccato haaa-haaa-haaa. Hopefully it’ll soften and lighten up a bit over time so she doesn’t suffer some horrible Seinfeldian fate. (“So I was out with this really attractive woman the other night. We’re having this great conversation over dinner, but then I said something funny and…”)
Anyway, yesterday while peppering her with a skillion Obsessive Maternal Cheek Kisses and trying to elicit more laughs from her I realized that her cheeks were as sweet and soft as–as normal baby cheeks! No dry leathery skin! No stinky yeast funk rising up from her neck! No scratch scabs criss-crossing her face! All this and no zits too!
Woo hoo! The I-can’t-eat-anything-I-want-to diet seems to be paying off. Even tonight as we were sitting on the couch in the sweet post-kid-bedtime lull, Mark said, “So it’s kind of like Paige is finally our soft sweet baby.”
I’m thrilled. And of course, now I want to eat her.
Though Miss Sweet Cheeks did get me up a couple times last night. Enough to leave me feeling somewhat zombie-like this morning as I showered, dressed and fed her, and bustled Kate off to school (usually Mark’s gig, but he had his every-decade-or-so dentist appointment today).
Usually when Kate goes to school it’s like I’m playing Beat the Clock to see how much I can cram into five toddler-free hours. Achiever that I am, what I can accomplish is generally quite impressive. Though not today.
Every American mother worth her weight in Merona clothing certainly starts most errand outings at Target. Of course half the fun of Targe-ay has historically been my latte stop at the embedded Starbucks. Alas, this morning I tried to satisfy myself with one of their fairly crummy blueberry muffins, with hopes that they aren’t made with any butter. Somehow it didn’t give me the kick I was needing.
At one point after I’d ticked all the things I needed off my list, and after Paige had fallen asleep in the shopping cart, I realized that for some Godforsaken amount of time I’d just been kind of sleepwalking around the store–leaning into the shopping cart like it was some kind of walker and mindlessly making my way up and down the aisles. I have no idea how long I’d been doing this, but when it dawned on my that I should “wake up” and get out of the store I could barely shake myself into action. Getting to the check-out area seemed an epic moon walk away. But as I looked around at the other shopping Mamas I realized I wasn’t alone.
How many other women find themselves wandering the aisles aimlessly at Target, basking in the upbeat merchandising, browsing anonymously in a low-impact with slight feeling-of-accomplishment way? It’s like airplane sleeping–you’re kinda asleep but you can still hear the flight attendants walking through the plane asking everyone, “Pasta or chicken? Pasta or chicken?”
I’m telling you women like me are EVERYWHERE. Targets around the country are packed with us, haplessly sleep walking until the older kid needs to get picked up from school, and racking up couple-hundred-dollar tabs for non-essential items. If we all didn’t come by our exhaustion honestly and I didn’t love the company as ardently as I do, I’d think Target was pumping some kinda mind-control chemical out through the air ducts.
Outside the store–once I finally swam through a Jello-like haze to get there–I stopped at the nursery to look for a plant for the great one-dollar plant stand I got at a yard sale this weekend. (Plant stand = $1, Fern = $20. Bargain? You decide.)
A woman around my age and her mother walked past me. Glancing down at my cart I heard the older woman say, “Oh look at that fern. Do you remember when I was trying to grow those?”
For some reason it totally reminded me of my mother. She was an avid gardener and I don’t remember if she went through a fern-growing phase, but it’s the kind of thing I could just picture her saying. “Oh those gerananiums. I tried and tried to grow them in that side garden we had.”
The thought came at me in that gut-punching kind of way that you never expect. It’s like when Mother’s Day approaches and you gear yourself up for being all sad that your mother’s not alive and then a few days later you realize that you never even had a Big Sad Moment that day. Then you hear some mom talking to her daughter about her fern-growin’ and you want to sit on the floor at the Target nursery and cry.
There must be something in the air around here–or maybe it’s my mother herself–but Kate has gotten on this kick of saying “I’m calling your Mama,” whenever I unwittingly leave one of the phones in her reach. “What you Mama’s name again?” she’ll ask. “Vicki? I’m calling Vicki. Hello Kristen’s Mama! This is Kate! How are you? Okay, you talk to my Mama now.” Then she hands the phone to me.
The first time this happened Mark was listening from the kitchen and walked into Paige’s room where Kate and I were. His face was all red and covered with tears. Oddly, I wasn’t crying. I was too busy thinking about what I’d say if I really could talk to my mother on the phone. In Kate’s game I’ve said something like, “Hi Mom. I’m here with Kate and Paige and we’re thinking about you!” Then Kate is off busying herself with another toy, or grabs the phone back and starts dialing Tokyo.
The whole thing also has me wondering why Kate asks me about my mother, but hasn’t ever thought to ask where she is, or why she hasn’t met her. Of course I’m avoiding telling her about death until she’s at least 25.
Yesterday when we were in the park having a PB&J picnic, a mother was coercing her kids to get in their stroller. “Come on, Lucy, we have to go home! Grandma’s coming over for lunch.” How jealous-making is that? First off their grandma is alive, secondly she lives close enough to come over for lunch.
It’s not fair. I miss my Mama.
Hi Mom. I have two beautiful daughters now, Kate and Paige. I know you would just love them. Paigey’s had a skin thing but it’s so much better now. And Kate loves school and is such a good big sister. And even though we’re sometimes tired or impatient I think Mark and I are doing a pretty good job with them. And I really really really wish you could come over for lunch some day.
1. Circles aren’t round. They’re “ground.”
2. Despite what the American Academy of Pediatrics may think, babies should actually be put to sleep on their tummies, face down. Babies who “aren’t feeling well” should be completely covered–head and all–with several layers of blankets. (Kate practices this technique excessively on her dolls, leaving sleeping baby land mines on the floor all over the house.)
3. Elmo’s last name is McClusky.
When I was an editorial slave at a health magazine in New York ages and ages ago probably long before you were even born, I got to go on a couple amazing press junkets. One was a cruise through the Caribbean.
Cunard was trying to appeal to a younger demographic by billing the typical cruise–gambling, midnight gut-busting all-you-can-hork buffets, and oldsters bobbing in the pool like some scene from Cocoon–as some sporty excursion-based boat trip with a healthy menu and lots of other young active folks who can stay up late without having to modulate their pacemakers.
So here we were–about a dozen health writers in our twenties, mostly from New York–all feeling very cynical that the cruise would offer anything than overcooked food drowned in cream sauces (it didn’t) and all very smug that, starving journalists that we were, we were able to cruise around the Caribbean eating overcooked food drowned in cream sauces for free.
We flew from New York to Florida and then to Peurto Rico where the cruise ship was docked. Rather where she was docked. (I love any excuse to call a boat “she,” don’t you?) In Puerto Rico we had some time to kill so the turbo-chipper PR gal who was chaperoning us in a desperate attempt to ensure we were ga-ga over all things Cunard, took us to a little outdoor bar on the beach.
It was warm. It was sunny. There was no traffic, towering concrete buildings, burnt peanut smells from sidewalk vendors, or homeless men sleeping in the gutter. It was quiet, except for some tropically music playing on some crappy stereo. Manhattan and all its smells, sounds and stresses was worlds away.
But as they say, you can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can’t–well, you know the saying.
Let’s just say that the service at this little cantina wasn’t exactly snappy. And although everything about this setting would have any other mortal content–happy even–our group was collectively busting a neck vein with stress. “Where the hell are our drinks?” one guy groused. “What in fuck’s name happened to our waiter?” someone else demanded. “This is totally unacceptable. They’ve got to be kidding if they expect a tip after this.” (I happen to have committed these actual comments to memory…)
I was right along there with everyone. Well, I think I was probably willing to give the waiter a tip, but anyway it was the first time I realized that it takes at least a few days for a vacationing New Yorker to decompress enough to even realize they aren’t in their office any more. I think for some people it takes longer. (Those men you see lying on the beach screaming, “Buy! Sell!” into the waves? New Yorkers.)
Once they do relax, let’s just say how one defines “relax” certainly varies. The state of relaxation some New Yorkers eventually attain sipping umbrella drinks under a palapa, may well put, say, a Californian, into cardiac arrest.
I have a friend whose family lives in Bermuda. You’d piss your pants laughing to hear him talk about what it’s like getting off a plane from New York and into a car there, where the speed limit is 25 MPH. For him it was the cruelest form of torture.
At any rate, I’m thinking about all this as I sit on our front porch with an iced tea and a baggy full of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. It’s in the high 70′s today and there’s a slight breeze causing my new hanging plants to waft gracefully and send out a hit of jasmine-smell every once and a while. And aside from the intermittent crackling of the baby monitor, it’s pretty quiet here. Especially because both the girls are asleep.
I should put that in italics: Both the girls are asleep.
Yes, without having to invest in the Pottery Barn Kids monogrammed kelly green leather restraint straps, it appears that Kate is actually taking a nap. (This, if you can tell, hasn’t been happening very consistently despite all my desperate entreaties to The Man Upstairs.)
This lovely calm and aloneness is strange. I’m so unaccustomed to it I need some time to settle into it. I spend the first few minutes walking around in circles like a dog trying to find the right place to lie down. Something so rare, so special, must be appreciated and savored to the fullest extent.
But how?
After wracking my brain to determine what I need to do–no wait, what I want to do with this time–the realization washes over me like a warm gulp of bourbon.
I’m going to sit here with my feet propped up on the wicker chair, stare out across the porch, and do absolutely nothing.
And….begin!
Let’s just say that yesterday I wasn’t one of those Mamas who was at brunch serenely residing over perfectly behaved children in a state of maternal bliss. Mind you, it wasn’t anything that anyone did per se. We had a lovely day planned and took the ferry to SF and ate a delicious lunch at The Slanted Door.
I think with my birthday the day before and the expectation of a double-billed weekend of an all-about-me Saturday followed by an all-about-me Sunday, somewhere along the line I somehow lost steam. Imagine! It must be my newly advanced age… And, sure, maybe there was a bit of the it’s-my-party-and-I’ll-cry-if-I-want-to syndrome (something I’d hoped I’d outgrown after the weeping by the clothesline incident on my 6th birthday).
Whatever the reason, ooh-wee! I was unsatisfied, dehydrated, impatient, and willing to sell Kate on eBay for five cents. Thankfully I can’t get online with my cell phone.
Hindsight being 20/20, I realize now what I really needed to do was be curled up alone in bed with an IV drip of something renewing. It’s always a struggle deciding whether to spend Mother’s Day with the family or miles and miles away from them. And I think the solution is one part family time, one part alone time, and one part “something renewing.” You know, like whatever Keith Richards uses to reinvigorate himself.
I had a brief emotional upswing in the afternoon after the whole family managed to simultaneously nap, but it wasn’t until I got up with Paige at 12:30AM that I started thinking happy thoughts about Mother’s Day–how kinda weird and cool it is that it’s become a holiday that’s celebrated by my contemporaries now. It’s like after all those years as an underclassman, we’re finally the seniors. Woot!
So as it sometimes happens when I get up with Paige, I spend the whole time desperate to crawl back in bed to sleep, but when I get there I find that I’m wide awake. So I started thinking of all my Mama friends–quite a long list of them at this juncture in life–and how all of them really are rocking hard as moms in all different kinds of ways.
So here’s a shout-out to you gals. Toss your breast pads in the air like the hat in the opening sequence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and take a long deep bow for an exhausting, harrowing, heart-warming, and hilarious job well done.
To Julie, Gianni and Tea’s mom, who realized what her family needed was (sniff!) no longer in SF, and like a protective Mama bear whose instincts are keen, moved the clan to a new family-fabulous life in Boulder. Some moms get practical short haircuts when they have kids, but Julie keeps it real by dying her hair bright red and being more likely to be mistaken for a rock star than a mom who brings home the bacon, wipes snotty noses, and writes a brilliant and funny blog.
To Megan, Mama of the delightful Miss Ella B and twins Kate and Wes. Twins who she not only gestated (which alone was an act of staggering bodily strength and heroism) but who she’s raising with incredible patience, love, and enviable organization, oftentimes solo due to a hard-workin’ hubbie. May the gods send you endless blessings for each diaper you’ve ever changed, Megan! You are a wonder, even when you’re way too tired to realize it yourself.
To Story, my homie from RI who is bringin’ up two male Savages–that being their last name. It’s an ironic name since these boys will no doubt be the ones you want your daughter to hang out with in college–the ones you hope she’ll be smart enough to date since they’ll not only be well-mannered and have hearts of gold, but they’ll be hot and kick-ass snowboarders.
To Sacha, mother of fearless Owen and future supermodel Ellie, who manages to make motherhood look like an effortless task on an endless To Do list. These children will never comprehend why other parents don’t consistently throw perfectly-appointed theme parties with clever give-away gifts and cupcakes so good the adults must resist wrestling them from the hands of children.
Speaking of hostesses, Shelley, mother of three beautiful kids who The Gap should be commissioning to model–has never once had her title of World’s Greatest Cook and Impromptu Hostess jeopardized with the birth of each successive child. (Don’t most other moms of three serve Tombstone Pizzas four nights a week and have a dinner party, say, once every three years?) May we always be able to drop in for dinner on a Tuesday night to see that you’ve made the recent Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Shrimp Fra Diablo and an apple pie, and have plenty to happily share. We are truly not worthy, yet we tuck our napkins under our chins with wholehearted amazement and appreciation.
And to Mary, my new friend and mother of the gorgeous doe-eyed sweeties Will and Skylar, who has taken sleep deprivation to an art form nearly as formidable as her photography. My wish for you is that the Sand Man not only pays you a visit, but moves in as an au pair, forever at your disposal. For each wakeless hour in which you should be in a deep REM cycle, may you someday bask lazily in the sun at the vast Italian villa your children eventually buy you.
Oh, there are so many other Mamas whose incredible accomplishments and myriad mundane daily duties I wish to salute…
Jennifer, the do-it-all working stay-at-home mom who doesn’t let the fact that brewing daily adventures takes time and energy stop her from doing it anyway.
Lisa who wrangles two big-brown-eyed beauties, has taken on some godforsaken tech consulting project that she’s effectively teaching herself how to do as she goes, and through it all is a devout reader of this blog!
And there’s Brooke, my neighbor whose mothering I’ve really just witnessed from intermittent sidewalk exchanges but from what I can tell has managed to raise two adult sons who are polite and sweet and who–from the looks of it over here across the street anyways–all seem to enjoy spending time together. (Mental note to interrogate her to determine how she did it.)
Oh, and Lori. Lori! Let’s not forget my sister-in-law who seems to be a made-for-the-job natural, and thank goodness as she often holds down the fort with Gavin and Olivia when her husband is out for days–sometimes weeks–Coast Guarding. All that and she still manages to paint every room in her house and make the world’s best homemade mac and cheese.
There are countless other Miracle Mamas who spring to mind who I’d love to mention–my sister Marie, for instance, who by now is no doubt washing the entire freshman class at Brown’s laundry–but if I enumerate each one and try to pay them justice I won’t have time to replant the flowerbed annuals, have a hot meal on the table when Mark gets home, wax my armpits, or finish sewing all the kids clothes…
So, in the imperfect but well-meaning way that many mothers take it all on, I salute you all, Mamas! Like some Oscar nominee I humbly declare that, shucks, it’s an honor to just be in your ranks. Happy belated Mother’s Day to you! Keep up the good work women, and here’s to hoping you didn’t have your grumpy on quite as much as I did yesterday.
xoxo,
kristen
Kate came out of my room today wearing one of my nursing bras.
“You have a bra on!,” I said, stating what seemed to be the obvious.
“No, it’s a Moby Wrap,” she clarified. In other words, a baby carrier.
One of the bra cups was centered across her chest and she had a wooden toy orange juice bottle snapped into it. Or rather, a “baby,” as it were.
It was actually quite clever how she could snap in and remove the baby with the drop-down bra cup. Kate’s mothering skills and childcare innovation are on the rise every day. Nothing like being lapped at your job by your two-year-old.
In other news, Paige is talking. Well, only one word really–Mama.
Now, you might think that at three months she isn’t really saying Mama, and I’m just hearing what I want to hear. But Mark’s heard it too. A bunch of times! She only says it when she’s crying, and when she does say it, it sounds quite distinct.
Since I am willing to accept other explanations of what it is that she’s saying (if anything), I’ve considered the possibility that the word Mama was derived long ago from a sound that babies often make while crying. (Granted, I never heard Kate say it when she cried as a baby, nor have I heard this from any other babies I know. I prefer to believe Paige is a linguistic wunderkind.)
At any rate, if my theory is right–that the name Mama came from a common sound babies make–I guess us mothers should just be happy that what our children call us doesn’t approximate a fart.
