Sunday

Got a “not good news” call yesterday from my friend Amelia who I’ve known since we crawled around on blankets in each other’s backyards as our mothers looked fabulous in cat’s eye glasses and clam-diggers. Turns out her mother has cancer. It’s something that was just discovered in the past week, and they don’t yet know what course of action the doctors will recommend. I’m so incredibly sick of hearing about people getting cancer. What the hell is out there that’s poisoning us? And can’t it skip over the people I love?

What’s weird is that our neighbor who is pregnant just lost her father to a heart attack. And here is Amelia, eight weeks until her due date, and dealing with this horrible diagnosis that leaves her stressed out and emotional and checking on airline policies to see when and if she can fly, instead of nesting like a maniac like she should be.

At least there’s no terrible conclusive word on her condition. So I’m summoning all my powers of cancer-ridding thoughts and sending them across the country to beloved Mrs. D. Damn it.

After getting off the phone Mark and I were off to do some errands and I said I really should visit Rose first. She’s been in her final days for about a week now, and even though someone is supposed to call me from the nursing home if her “status changes,” I still wasn’t sure whether she’d be there when we arrived. I was already so sad about Mrs. D, but since geography prevented me from being with her (another adoptive granny to Kate), I’d try my luck at seeing Rose.

When we arrived, Marie, an administrator at the nursing home who loves Rose like a Mama, told us Rose was out in the garden. I had to admit that for a second I thought, “Alive in the garden?” Marie said they were able to move her into a kind of wheelchair bed and roll her out there. She was getting a manicure actually, from her son’s girlfriend. They were all out there–Rose’ twin sons and the girlfriend. Walk to the yard and turn all the way around to the left, she said, and we’d see them. “I’m sure they’d love to have you join them.”

Mark and I looked at each other as we headed for the back door. Huh. We’d been geared up to brace for news that she’d died, so it was odd shifting gears to the fact that she was getting a manicure outside. Odd but good, mind you.

Sure enough there they were. The garden was in bloom and sun was peeking in from the shade of the trees, and there was Rose in a hot pink fleece robe and black and white patterned scarf. He sons stood up when we approached (she raised ‘em right) and I introduced Mark, and we met Stephanie, Martin’s girlfriend, who was sweetly holding Rose’s hand.

Rose was more lucid than she’d been in days. She still dozed off often, but when she did open her eyes she smiled and laughed to see Kate. She even scolded us for not dressing her warmly enough. “That baby needs socks!” she said to Mark. Her sons shook their heads and chuckled. (Those twins tend to move in unison that way.)

We had a lovely visit. The weather was warm and comfortable, our sprits were high, and the garden was so peaceful and intimate that you’d never know looking down at our little party we were sitting outside a nursing home. Rose’s sons joked that according to their mother, none of us would ever be dressed warmly enough. We even took some great pictures.

It seemed, if only for a little while, Rose was back.

Grandma Rose, We Love You

Our neighbor’s father died suddenly after a heart attack a few weeks ago, and as someone who has lost a parent myself, I wish I had special powers to offer her some consolation. But it doesn’t really work that way. She’s now a member of a club that no one wants to be part of.

As I’ve been thinking about what she’s going through I keep coming back to this idea that when you lose a parent it’s like one of the anchors in your world goes away. Or, at least that’s what it was like for me. Over time you manage to rebalance the load, so the weight that one anchor used to shoulder gets redistributed between the others. In my case, Mark, who was a fiance when my mother died and a husband soon thereafter, took the lion’s share of the load. Still, you always sense the loss of that anchor.

So the last time I saw Rose was Saturday. We went by to bring her a collage of photos of her and Kate, taken at our various visits with her.

She had her dentures out, and with the oxygen tubes in her nose and her thin frail body curled up in bed, she barely resembled the spunky Rose we’d come to know. She slept mostly but opened her eyes a couple times and seemed to express a spark of excitement at the sight of Kate. She even managed to sputter out something about Kate’s ears, which she’s always cooed over.

I handed her the collage and couldn’t help but wonder what sense she had of what was happening. Her dark eyes stood out so strongly against her pale skin and looked so sad and beseeching. Even though she wasn’t really speaking it was like she was trying to connect with me somehow. And I hoped the collage didn’t come off to her as some sort of inappropriate parting gift. More than anything I just wanted her to be able to look at pictures of Kate when we weren’t there, in case they could bring her any small amount of happiness at this stage. And I wrote, “Grandma Rose, We Love You” on it—something we’d never told her.

Tomorrow we’re going back. I have no idea whether she’ll still be there or not. I’ve felt guilty about not visiting for the past few days, but my heart has been so heavy I didn’t know if I could bear it. Selfish, I know.

Just last week I got an email from the Chaparral House volunteer coordinator about an upcoming event, and I emailed him back to let him know that I was starting a new job soon and I didn’t know how often Kate and I would be able to visit. As someone who tends to over-commit myself, it seemed like the responsible thing to do, much as I hated to do it. When I’m not working, my first commitment needs to be to my family. But after sending the email I felt terrible. Like I was betraying Rose.

And then, with two weeks left until my job starts, we visit Rose on Friday and see that she’ll likely be gone before I even set foot in my new office. It’s wrenching to think of how that timing has worked out. Not that I feel like I had some cosmic hand in Rose’s decline, but it just feels like another loss, another change, in the midst of my struggle over leaving Kate to return to work. Why does so much need to happen at once?

Kate and I met Rose on March 1st of this year. A short time really, though it represents the majority of Kate’s life. And in our weekly visits, it’s been clear that my role has been as the conduit. I’m really just the person who brings Kate to see Rose. I’ve often asked Rose about her life and her family, but she’s never really indulged in those conversations. They represented a tiny amount of the time we spent together. Invariably Rose would give me a quick answer and then change the subject to point out something Kate was doing, or to start singing a song in Polish to her. I was always happy to follow her lead.

When I think about all that I know about Rose, it’s really quite little. And with her sketchy memory and occasional bouts of confusion, I was never certain that what she was saying was ever exactly correct. Despite that I realized that somewhere along the way Rose has become one of my anchors. And it breaks my heart to have to let go of another one.

Our Rose

What do you do when the grandmother you’ve found for your daughter, in an attempt to fill the hole where her dead grandmother would be, is also dying?

Friday Kate and I went to Chaparral House to see Rose. She was sleeping and had on oxygen, but she’s had that intermittently in the past, so I didn’t think much of it. They tell the volunteers to gently wake up the folks you’re visiting if they’re asleep–since the sleep is pretty much due to boredom, or the grogginess they feel from their meds. But when I tried to rouse Rose over the course of a few minutes she just softy muttered and shook her head and wouldn’t open her eyes.

I wandered into the hall trying to decide if I’d drop in on someone else there for a visit, but truthfully, aside from quick hallway chats with Dorothy, there isn’t anyone aside from Rose with whom we have a strong connection there. I passed one of the nurses, a sassy African-American woman who always wears loud smocks and who I know is close with Rose too. She pulled me aside.

“Rose is in a, well, in a new place. It’s her heart. But I know she’d love a visit from you guys, even if you just sit by her bed.”

This wasn’t good news, I knew. But the mind has a way of interpreting things as it wants to sometimes, and I decided not to delve deeper into what she meant by “a new place.” Maybe this was just a passing episode. Rose had nodded off a couple times during a recent visit from us, which was unusual, but in general she’s seemed so vital and healthy. I mean, at least compared to the other folks there. Rose snubbed her nose at the food and often rolled her eyes at the other residents. I always took that as a good sign. She was stronger, smarter, more with-it than the others–enough so to look down on them, and at times the whole nursing home scene.

Kate and I went back in and eventually Rose opened her eyes for a couple short spells. She smiled to see Kate, but there was something different about her. She talked much less than usual and was clearly weaker, maybe even thinner. She was in a new place. But I still didn’t want to think about just where that was, or worse, where it was taking her.

After a while Kate was getting squirmy and Rose was clearly needing rest, so we headed out. All volunteers are required to write into log books about their visits with residents. You’re supposed to say a bit about how they were doing (cheerful, complained about pain, incoherent, confused). The comments are compiled and sent out as part of monthly reports that go out to the family of (or whoever pays the bills for) the resident.

When I opened the page for Rose I happened to read the comment written by a volunteer who’d visited with her the day before. “Sat with Rose and said my goodbyes. Very sad.” It was one time when the volunteer wrote how they were doing, instead of the resident.

And it spelled out for me the thought I was trying to push away and deny.

As I walked out to the car and started strapping Kate into her car seat, something about how unaware she was of what was happening–her excited reaction to finding a toy on her seat, when my heart was so heavy–struck me, turning the wetness in my eyes to sobs.

Kate looked up at me and registered concern for a moment, but then looked back down at her lion, and smiled, finding a good place to gnaw on. She seemed so innocent and naive, it killed me. The poor girl had no idea that she was about to lose one of her biggest fans.

Living with the Queen

Kate has known how to wave for a while now. Like her crawling, she started backwards–she said “bye-bye” first and would use it for greeting people and for departing their company. And she used to just clench and unclench her fist to wave, which was probably my fault. In teaching her how to wave I think I over-dramatized the motion because I somehow thought it would make her “get it” easier (like speaking loudly to those who don’t understand your language).

Thankfully, despite my poor training, Kate’s waves have gotten much lighter and airier. She daintily moves her limp hand at the wrist with a bit of a regal air.

And there just aren’t enough people out there for Kate to satisfy her need for waving, so recently she’s taken up waving at things. She’ll wake up from a nap, crawl to the edge of her crib and wave at the books on her bookshelf. Or I’ll be changing her and tell her she can get down and play with her toys in a minute, and she’ll look over at the box of toys on the floor and wave at them. It’s her way of saying, “Don’t y’all worry! I’ll be right there!” Today she waved at the heating duct grate on the dining room floor, and at the Infant Tylenol. She’s unstoppable.

In a recent nanny interview Kate was being about as coy and sweet and charming as a baby could be. She was “dancing”–sitting up with her shoulders hunched and bouncing–while smiling at the Perspective Nanny. Then she decided to crawl off somewhere, and when she passed my desk she stopped, looked through the legs of the chair at us and gave her regal wave, then turned around and continued crawling off. I couldn’t have stage-managed a cuter set of moves. (Needless to say, a Kate-Love spell was effectively cast upon the Perspective Nanny.)

Friday we drove over to visit Ellen in the late afternoon on a wild hair (hare?). Kate was occupying herself in the living room as Ellen made tea and I tore through her pantry looking for something sweet and fattening. I looked in on Kate at one point and she let go of the stuffed frog she was playing with and took off to find another toy, then I imagine her internal dialogue to be something like, “Where are my manners?” So she stopped and looked back at the frog and gave it a little wave. Such a polite gal we have.

What Was I Thinking?

How foolish of me to think I could go up against the mighty power of the Jinx!

After two nights in which she slept for 11-hour stretches, last night Kate returned to her old tricks and woke up at 2:30AM. I really shouldn’t complain because I nursed her and she was back asleep in no time.

But still. I should know better to have ever said anything.

I Never Said This

Zeal was over to babysit a few weeks ago. (Yes, when you live in Northern California the friendly neighborhood teenager’s name is Zeal.) Zeal is a good kid and seems pretty responsible, but he’s fairly young still and so when he sits for Kate it’s always when she’s already gone to sleep and we just need someone sitting in the house to sniff the air occasionally for signs of fire.

So he was over and we were going out to dinner with Melissa and Adam, who are also parents. And Zeal’s hanging out chatting with everyone as I run around and do things like move my wallet of the diaper bag into a big girl purse. And Adam says something about Kate and Zeal says, “Yeah, she’s never woken up any of the times I’ve been here to babysit.” And all four of us stop in our tracks and whine, “Zeeeal. You’re not supposed to say that! Now it’s jinxed.”

For some reason you can take a person who is otherwise not superstitious at all, make them a new parent, and before you know it the almighty Power of Jinx is a governing force in their lives. It’s like you’re suddenly slung back into 1st grade step-on-a-crack-break-your-mother’s-back rules. And it all comes from early in your baby’s life, when you’ve gotten burned because you mentioned to someone, “Yeah, Kate doesn’t really spit up a lot.” Or: “It seems we’ve finally said goodbye to the ‘evening fussies.’” Or best yet, “She’s been so great about going down for her naps lately.” Of course, the moment the words are uttered your baby has somehow intuited your smugness and resolves to display their powers to un-do exactly what it was you were so thrilled about. Bookies in Vegas should take money on the odds, because it’s amazing how often it happens.

And as all parents of babies know, especially when it comes to all things sleep related, you don’t f around. Your baby’s sleep, and therefore your sleep, is a commodity more precious than gold, platinum–you name your gem or precious metal.

With all that said, it is with extreme trepidation, and with many an offering to the gods and godesses of all things jinxy, that I share this tale.

The night before last I woke up and rolled over, catching the numbers on the clock along the way. It should be know that if you can see a bright strobe of light emanating from the earth skyward, it’s my alarm clock. The numbers on my clock are so blindingly bright that I could put my pillow over it and I’d still be able to make out the time. At any rate (geez, I’m good at tangents, eh?), the time on the clock was 3:30AM. And Kate had not woken up yet.

Generally she’s been waking up once a night, any time between 1-ish and 2-ish, at which point I go nurse her, slap her back in the crib, and she sleeps until 7:00 or so.

Mark happened to also wake up when I’d rolled over, and he too had the time burnt into his retinas by the laser light of my clock. We discussed the significance of the situation.

Me: It’s 3:30 and she hasn’t gotten up yet.

Him: Wow.

Me: Do you think she’s okay?

Him: I don’t know. Yeah…probably.

A few minutes pass in which we both feign non-concern.

Him: Can you hear her breathe on the monitor?

[I turn up the monitor volume and press it to my ear. I just get hissing white noise.]

Me: Hard to tell. Can you hear anything?

Him: [With ear pressed to hissing monitor] Uh, no.

Me: Do you think you should go in and check on her? But if she’s just sleeping and we wake her up, maybe we’d be screwing up the first night she sleeps through the night.

Him: Yeah, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get in there without waking her. It’s risky.

Me: You know, I’m sure she’s fine. I’m going to go back to sleep.

Him: Yeah, you’re right.

Then I fell back asleep and Mark laid in bed ramrod awake for the next 2 1/2 hours.

Eventually at 5:30 I woke up when I heard Kate squawk. Hooray! She is alive and she slept for a record stretch (from 7PM to 5:30AM)! Double happiness! And no, she wasn’t up for the day (thankfully). I nursed her and she went back to sleep until her usual 7-ish wake-up time.

Then last night (Gods of Jinxitude, please have mercy on me for sharing this), she slept straight through until 6AM.

Let it be known I would NEVER imply that a new pattern is forming. Do that and I’ll be up with her every two hours for the next month. All I’m saying is that it was nice to have her sleep the way she did for the past couple nights.

Now we’ve just got to work on Mark’s sleep.

The Cranky McCluskys

Yesterday, man, were we cranky. I’m not sure who started it but Kate was not herself. Maybe teething, maybe just asserting an uglier part of her personality that thankfully has been dormant for much of her existence. And she didn’t take a morning nap and then I was jangled because it didn’t give me a break and then I was snappish with Mark and/or either he or I or Kate started it all and it unraveled from there. At any rate, there was not a lot of merrymaking at this house yesterday. Nothing too terribly miserable either–just cranky.

At one point we took Kate to a local kiddy park that a kind of crazy person in the ‘hood always talks about, and once we were there and Kate was on the swings for 3.5 minutes Mark and I looked at each other and wondered what else to do. Sometimes you just forget what to do with the baby and the time before her bedtime stretches on infinitely, like when you’re watching the clock at a temp job.

And during this jaunt to the park, in which we spent a sum total of 8 minutes (but were at least grateful for having used up that much of time), Mark said something about the four-day weekend and running out of baby-entertainment ideas. Even though I was right there with him–baffled as to what to do with her, with all of us, next–it was an interesting insight into what it’s like to have a job and not just do the Kate thing day after day.

This is of particular interest because I now have a job. Well, I got a job and I guess that means I “have” it, though it hasn’t manifested itself into something that I go and do yet. Right now it just exists in the abstract, and my attention is focused on telling my friends and family the “I have a job” story, and looking for a nanny.

I met a nanny today who I’d held out irrational hope for as being a perfect Mary Poppins. She was the first person I interviewed and even though she was smart and sweet and seemed to be someone who would be responsible and maybe even fun with Kate, I didn’t feel like she was The One. She didn’t sufficiently flip out over Kate’s beauty, intelligence, and charisma. And the fact that I didn’t love her, and either apparently did Kate, left me feeling like I might get to a place of feeling desperate or scared or having to make a childcare decision that doesn’t rock me to my soul with right-ness. Though really, I know Mark and myself enough to know we would never do that.

Today Kate exhibited more nap-refusal and crankitude that made me start thinking like Mark was yesterday. Soon there will be a day when I know that even if she’s having a rare grumpy day or even just an episode, I’ll have another place to go/thing to do tomorrow, and somehow that will make it easier to endure the fuss. (Of course, even having that thought made me feel guilty…)

It reminded me of the thing that you do when you’re moving out of New York City. (I did this, but I assume anyone who leaves there does it too.) So, when you move out of New York, in the time that you know you are moving but you haven’t yet gone, you let all the totally crappy things about living there seep into your consciousness. Actually, you not only let them seep in, you celebrate them:
No more urine drenched subway tunnels!
No more $17 omelets!
No more having your feet in your shower stall when you’re sitting on the toilet because your bathroom is so damn small!

Well, you get the point. There is no place like New York. The place you are going won’t have anywhere near the energy or the opportunities or the 4AM Indian food delivery. But you need to rationalize hard about how you are making the right decision.

With my return to work date looming, I’m trying to trick myself into this very headset. So I will be away from Kate for 30 hours a week. Well, I’ll have fewer stinky diapers to change! I won’t be calling Mark at his office when she’s cranky and I just need to vent for a sec because I won’t be there either! I’ll…

God, the fact is, it’s hard to even come up with the reasons why it’ll be good to leave her. So instead of thinking of all the things that suck about NYC, I think I need to focus on the good things that await me in the place I am going to.

And hopefully, I’ll have a much greater appreciation for all manner of stinky diapers, toddler meltdowns, and long days before bedtimes when I get them.

Baby!

What’s that expression? Learn a new word, then use it three times and it’s yours. Something like that.

Anyway, Kate is either unclear on the concept of three or is just an overachiever (or both), because her newest word is baby, and I think she says it about 50 times a day.

Sometimes when she says it, it’s relevant. She’ll point to a baby in a stroller when we’re waiting in line at the coffee shop: “Baby!” Or she’ll see the cluster of aging birth announcements on our refrigerator: “Bay-bee!” Of course, we were all excited when she did this the first few times. “Did you hear that?” we’d call out to each other from another room. “What a smart girl!”

But since then Kate’s managed to discern the inner baby in nearly anything, animate or inanimate. At times she gets into this kind of baby channeling mode, where she repeats it over and over again while she’s focused on something like picking the kernels off of the corn cob I’ve given her to gnaw on. “Beh-bee, beh-bee, behhhh-beeee.” She kinda slurs it a bit, in a drunken way.

Or we’re driving along and she’s sitting in her car seat looking out as the highway flies by, and she’ll let one rip out of the blue, loudly and with defiance: “BEH-bee!” It can be startling.

Then there are the times when, despite myself, I’ve let the word slip out of my own lips “What a good baby I have,” I’ll coo as I’m changing her diaper, then I realize what I’ve done. She’ll look at me all wild-eyed like a junkie getting a fix: “Baby?” she’ll ask incredulously. Then with a happy languor she’ll relax and say it again, “Baaay-beeee.”

Yes, Kate. Baby.

In the past when she’s learned a new trick we’ve noticed she’s appeared to forget how to do other things. It pains me to admit this. (And Harvard, if you’re reading, this may well be how early genius manifests itself.) I asked Mark the other day if he’s heard her say Mama or Dada recently, words she’d mastered months ago. Sure enough, he couldn’t remember her having said either in quite some time.

I looked at her intently. “Mama! Mama!” She looked up at me from where she was sorting through a pile of DVD cases on the floor. “Mama!” I tried again brightly, encouraging her.

Nothing. No response. No glimmer of recognition.

She was probably thinking, “What is up with her? Doesn’t she remember that my name is Kate?”

She Bows Down Before Me

Some of the changes in Kate are fairly subtle, but since we’re constantly inspecting her every move with a fervor and fascination that’ll likely dissipate with any of her future siblings, we’re able to pick up on even the slightest development.

Just last week if you handed her a teddy bear she’d just try to gnaw its ear off. But in the past few days she’s developed some kind of nurture reflex. So, if you hold the big frog puppet (which actually scares Mark since it’s so realistic looking) in front of her, she’ll watch you make it dance around for a little while, then eventually she’ll lunge for it and give it a hug. It’s so damn cute Mark had her doing it about a dozen times on Sunday. And the cool thing is, she keeps doing it! I love a baby that does tricks when she’s supposed to.

So a not so subtle development is that she’s crawling now. (Relief! She’s normal!) Well, in all honesty, she sometimes crawls like a normal baby, and sometimes drags one leg straight out to her side as if it’s a wooden appendage that’s just coming along for the ride.

This morning as I was drying my hair she was playing with some toys on the bathroom floor. All of a sudden I felt her lunge at my feet. She’d crawled up to me to have at my big pink flamingo slippers. I stepped back a few feet and she zoomed back in, pouncing down on them for another hug.

Good stuff, that.

Aunt Flo Returns

In this family we’re huge fans of the Dr. Seuss book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?. Not for its soul-affirming feel-good message, but for how totally funny and over-the-top weird and frankly kinda trippy it is. The copy we have is one that Mark got from his Grandma and Grandpa Kohl in 1977 before his family moved from Ohio to Franklin, PA. A few months ago I found it in a box of our books, and was amazed that I’d never read it before, and it’s soooo good. I know I’m not the first to have noticed, but Dr. Seuss’ imagination is brilliant! I want to sit next to that guy at a dinner party, though I think he might be dead.

So yesterday we walked to 4th Street in Berkeley with Adam for the sole purpose of requisitioning ourselves some first-rate ice cream at Sketch. (They make better ice cream than they do websites, btw.) Along the way something caused either Mark or I to refer to that book, and if you’re talkin’ books it seems the odds are good that Adam has read whatever it is you’re talking about. And his son Raulie is one year old today (happy birthday, Small Man!) so one would assume he’s done some solid work reading or rereading the kid stuff. But, sadly and shockingly, this Dr. Suess oeuvre has managed to evade even Adam.

If you too haven’t read it, seek out this book immediately. Until then, I’ll share the section Mark was recounting yesterday:

And poor Mr. Bix!
Every morning at six,
poor Mr. Bix has his Borfin to fix!
[The illustration is of an exhausted old bald man getting out of bed and to confront a big wilted-looking Rube Goldbergesque machine]

It doesn’t seem fair. It just doesn’t seem right,
but his Borfin just seems to go shlump every night.
It shlumps in a heap, sadly needing repair.
Bix figures it’s due to the local night air.

It takes him all day to un-shlump it.
And then…
the night air comes back
and it shlumps once again!

So don’t you feel blue. Don’t get down in the dumps.
You’re lucky you don’t have a Borfin that shlumps.

You think that’s good. Wait til you get to the part about the pants-eating plants in the forests of France!

At any rate, my Borfin–or more precisely I–just could not get un-shlumped today. From the moment I blearily slung my legs off the side of the bed like a paraplegic, and gave myself a couple minutes to tap into my usual wellspring of energy and sass before standing (it was oddly un-locate-able), I was clearly off to a bad start. After one look at me, Mark valiantly offered to take my waking-up-with-Kate shift, sweetheart that he is. But no, I persevered. I need to hone my maternal matyrdom eventually, and this morning was as good a time as any. Besides, I can generally shake off most anything in the morning, even without caffeine or drugs.

And for an hour or so, I managed to deal with Kate in a fairly high-functioning mode. But by the time Mark woke up my backache was back in full throttle and I’d suddenly detected a headache worming its way into my cranium. With just ten minutes to go before I had to nurse her before her nap, I crawled back into bed laughing as I called out to Mark that quite suddenly I fell like sheer Hell. Could he wake me up in 10 minutes?

Despite a short shopping trip to buy Mark a new suit (God, he looks cute in pin stripes) in which I experienced a moderate period of un-shlumpedness (Nordstrom can have an amazing Perking Effect, I’ve found), I was not myself, and got to wondering what was going on with me. I napped twice when Kate did but still couldn’t wake up. I’ve been eating sugar non-stop but still have a bottomless craving for it. And I have a small approximation of a zit between my eyes (whenever I say I have a zit, Mark says, “You call THAT a zit?”). It looks like a bindi that nature intended.

No, no, I’m not pregnant. Though it did seem like pregnancy-type symptoms.

By the end of the day I went to the bathroom and realized (d’oh!) that I’d gotten my period! After a nearly two-year pregnancy and post-pregnancy hiatus, Aunt Flo was back for a visit. As I dusted off my Costco lifetime supply-sized box of Tampax, I called out my news to Mark. “I’m not crazy! There was something going on with me!”

Heck, I feel like a school girl again. It made me remember the first time I “got it.” My mother had taken me to Brick Market Place in Newport to get a wooden-handled Pappagallo purse. It was Middle School couture at the time. I think that day I got a hot pink one with my monogram on it, and a Kelly green one. Later, I amassed a small legion of covers, most likely with matching headbands. Anyway, that day I had a lower backache which was a totally new and weird thing. It was bothering me, but I thought nothing of it until we got home and I realized why. (No matter how many health filmstrips I’d watched, I still missed all the warning signs.) When I walked downstairs to where my mom was standing at the kitchen sink (I can picture it really clearly, actually), she responded to my news with little surprise or fanfare. It was in keeping with her New England roots, and I frankly wouldn’t have wanted her to react any other way.

Which is funny because I can just picture how I’ll be when Kate gets her period for the first time. I’m sure I’ll be all crying and hugging her, and then when we’re out at the grocery store or something, I’ll feel compelled to put my arm around Kate and announce to the check-out lady that my little girl became a woman today. I know it will annoy and embarrass her to her core, but sometimes you just have a feeling about what you’ll do in a given situation, and you just can’t deny it.