Katie Couric in the House

On Sunday I got back from BlogHer, which was in New Yawk City this year. There were more than 5,000 attendees, nearly all gals. It’s a hen party extraordinaire. Picture men’s rooms reconfigured with curtains covering urinals, and hordes of card-swapping bloggers who probably all have synchronized periods now.

There’s also a lot of goofy dancing the parties, with women wearing unicorn horns, tiaras, and even McDonalds bags on their heads. It’s kinda like an eighth grade dance at a really big girls’ school where everyone wears name tags.

If you like that kinda thing.

After attending Erma and Mom 2.0 this spring, I realized was a bit maxed on standard blog conference fare. How many times can I hear how to increase site traffic while still never taking it to heart? The agenda felt like a menu packed with nothing I was in the mood to eat.

But you go to these events for the people. I bunked with Jill, and bowled with Tracey. It took a cross-country trip to lay eyes on five-and-dime homies Heather ‘n Whitney from Rookie Moms and 510 Families. I reconnected with sweet-as-can-be Jennifer from World Moms Blog. The Bearded Iris cheered me on when I got picked for the LTYM open mic (though instead of this I shoulda read the post I wrote for her). And I had great chats with some homeschoolin’ mamas, Daze of Adventure Jenn, joy-finding mother-of-seven Rachel, and queen bee Nicole. I’m hoping they can teach me math some day.

The keynotes were impressive too. This dude named Barack Obama addressed the conference via live video. Heard of him? With my great timing this took place while I was still on the train, cursing Amtrack’s crappy wi-fi.

Martha Stewart showed for lunch on Friday. She wore fab-u-LUSS orange platforms but otherwise didn’t set my heart a flutter. There was a lot of “we’ve made THOU-sands of products” and “thank GOD my driver was there” kinda talk. I think I prefer Prison Martha.

The gal who did have me swooning was Saturday’s keynote, the incomparably cute Katie Couric. You just wanted to go home with her to do pedicures and oatmeal facials, and to raid her closet. She’s like your old college roommate who hit the big time. During her talk Marinka tweeted, “It’s impossible not to adore her.” True dat.

Since I’ve been too busy hobnobbing with bloggers to actually blog, I’m sharing a post I wrote in June 2006, when Katie was leaving the Today show.

Read it and weep, peeps.

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Farewell, Katie

Katie Couric, that is. For those sub-stone dwellers, Wednesday was Katie Couric’s last day after a 15-year stint on the Today show. And uncool as it is to admit, it kills me that she’s leaving. This is right up there with my despair over Judging Amy going off the air, though the Katie Couric thing is probably remotely more socially-acceptable to admit.

The thing is, I didn’t even watch the Today show very often. Still, it was somehow comforting knowing it was there. I’m one of those can’t-have-the-TV-on-when-it’s-sunny-out types. Or at least, I’m assuming there are others like me, and that collectively we make up a type. So the last time I really indulged in the show was during The Rains.

There’s truly something down-to-earth and likeable about Katie Couric. She’s articulate and all, but can be really goofy too. She shares a good deal of personal stuff on the show that makes her seem all normal, not like some rich celebrity. Not that I didn’t already know everything that there was to know about Katie from my mother.

My mother was a world-class Katie Couric fan. Aside from the more largely known facts of her husband’s death from colon cancer, my mother knew that Katie was one of four girls, and the youngest. (Starting to sound familiar?) She was the celeb daughter my mother never had. For all her accomplishments, my mother was bursting with maternal pride. She’d ruefully express concern over Katie’s bad haircuts or love-life exploits. It seemed that despite the fact that Mom was one of millions of other fans, my mother saw herself as having a unique connection to Katie Couric. I guess that’s the secret to her success.

For the record, my mother also adored Matt Lauer. “He got his start in Rhode Island, you know!” For anyone who might have thought he cut his teeth in some other market, my mother had a grass-roots campaign going to ensure she spread the word that he started on Evening Magazine in Providence—back when he even had hair!

So, once in an unusual twist of Bruno-family geo-positioning, my sister Ellen, my mother, and I were all in New York City at the same time. Mom was watching Ellen’s kids while she attended some film thing, and I was passing through to visit Mike and Lorin before a trip home to Bristol. The gods would never smile on us this way again, I thought. My mother was hardly one for jaunting off to NYC at the drop of a hat. I suggested I pick her up at a painfully early hour at her hotel, and we make ourselves part of the nuisance that gathers outside the Today show studio. My mother was thrilled with the idea. I think she got plenty of mileage out of the adventure before we even went.

Of course, that morning I woke up with the after-affects of a few glasses of wine throbbing through my skull. But I felt like a parent who’d promised an excited child something. I dragged myself awake and managed to shower and get from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

Tragically, Katie Couric was out that day. We were peering into the studio and didn’t see her. I thought my mother would be crushed, but she brushed it off and focused her attention on the dashing Matt Lauer. “Look at the cut of his suit. Those pants!”

Mark Tivoed the show that day, and in a pan of the crowd you can see Mom and I waving along with all the other camera-hungry fans. And I have some good photos too. Mom was wearing a blue scarf on her head babushka-style.

When she was sick she told me that day was one of her “highlights.” And in the days that I was home taking care of her, we would wake up every morning and tune into the show on the old kitchen TV with the rabbit-ears antenna. Even when she was in an ornery sick-of-being-sick mood, or I was stressed because she wasn’t eating the eggs I’d cooked her, we’d sit in front of the Today show and let the light and chipper mood of it all wash over us.

Of course, half the fun was making fun of things. “Celine Dion. What a puke,” she’d say. Or we’d ravage the culinary merits of the meal a guest chef had prepared.

So last night I finally tuned into my recording of Katie’s final show, and had a good bawl. With Mom gone, the show had provided me with some connection, some continuation with her. And not only does it kill me that she wasn’t around to call when the announcement was made that Katie was leaving, it just sucks that for me here now it won’t be the same any more.

As my sister Marie pointed out, Mom would’ve been happy at least that Meredith Viera was stepping in. She went to the Lincoln School in Providence, you know.

Love You Long Time, Ladies

Last week my kid’s hippie preschool had a “Mothers and Others” breakfast. Because if they didn’t include “others” some crazed PC parent would be enraged and offended and break all the windows and set the garbage cans on fire. Then go live a tree for ten months to protest.

Yawn. Just another day in Berkeley.

The breakfast was lovely actually, and one of the mothers—or maybe she was one of the others—was telling me her four-year-old has been asking a lot of heavy questions lately.

“So the other day she says, ‘What happens to you after you die?’”

“And I tell her, ‘You know, that’s a very good question, Lindsey, but I don’t know really know the answer.”

The mom looks up, “So she says, ‘Well why don’t you just Google it, Mom?’”

Honestly, I was about to give the woman the very same advice. (I always thought that Lindsey seemed like a smart kid.)

Instead I recommended the mom get a tattoo of the exchange. I was willing to get a matching one. I mean, some of these gems you’ve got to write down to remember. Others need commemorating in a more lasting manner.

As mamas I love that we have a front-row seat to all this crap. We work damn hard for the access, but times like those help get you through the day.

Ever since getting my very own C-section scar, I’ve been goony with adoration for mothers. I realize it’s narcissistic that it took me having to become a mom to appreciate all my mother did, but I’d guess I’m not alone.

I’ve learned a shit ton from my friends over the years, but I’ve found the mom-friend provides a unique level of intimacy. Hell, I’ve shared tips for unplugging breast ducts with total strangers in the produce aisle at Safeway. Imagine how I am with mamas I know—and love.

Today I want to honor the moms whose wisdom, talent, humor, and guilt-free ability to drink during playdates has dramatically improved my adventure in motherhood.

Like my friend Mary. Why spend the money on an overpriced plastic Barbie Dream House, when you can make one from a shoe box? It’s brilliant. She’s also happened to take every beautiful photo of my family that I could never take myself. When I’m sitting in a nursing home in my own diaper some day, I’ll be fondly looking at photos Mary took of my family, and blasting Glory Days REALLY LOUD from my clock radio.

And Megan? She taught me about the transformative powers of drinking a cold beer in a hot shower at the end of the day. It’s the modern mother’s Calgon bath. If you’ve never done this, I beg you to try it right now.

My friend Sacha took her kids to museums when they still had their umbilical stumps intact. And I’m not talking about kiddie museums, though she does those too. Those kids know their way around The Asian Art Museum and The De Young like most kids know the playspace at Chuck E Cheese.

I have another friend named Megan, and it’s the weirdest most impressive thing. Every time I’ve seen her daughters outdoors—in photos or in the flesh—they are, get this, wearing HATS. Like, they keep them on their heads. I don’t know what more I can say about that other than, wow. I think Kate wore a hat for 20 seconds once. It was one of those pink and blue striped caps they stick on newborns in the hospital. Even though she couldn’t focus her eyes she clawed that thing off her head nearly instantly. And hasn’t worn a hat since.

My neighbor/friend/walking partner Jen is the cleverist, most creative, all-natural homemade kinda mama I know. Luckily she lives next door and my kids often glom onto her fabulous sewing, rubber stamping, or gardening projects. Her kids come to our house to watch TV.

And Becca—wait, is this starting to sound like that B-52s song 52 Girls? (Don’t worry, it’s not the extended dance mix—it’ll be over soon.) So Becca is a triathlete, ER doc, the first lady of Surly beer, and… I swear there was something else. Oh, right! She has FOUR YOUNG BOYS. Quattro. And a puppy. Becca is my in-the-moment mama role model. Her boys ask her to read Harry Potter, play Candy Land, or build forts ALL DAY LONG—when she’s not at work pulling forks out of people’s eyeballs, that is. Becca always says yes.

If everything goes according to my plans Becca and I will plan a wedding together some day. For our kids, I mean. I’m not professing my love for her here. At least not that kinda love.

My sis-in-law Lori is a military mother o’ two. Her husband’s gone tons, so she cares for their kiddos and cooks like Betty Crocker like it’s no big thing. She’s the master of the early bedtime, which is a brilliant alternative to strangling your children when it’s been a long day.

Lori’s family moves a lot, on accounta the way the military does that to you. That gal can unpack a house and have her kids enrolled in the local school in, like, 20 minutes. It’s really quite impressive.

While we’re at it my neighbor Brooke is a military mama with a deployed son. There are yellow ribbons round her old oak trees, for realz.

My hat goes off to both you mamas.

And here’s to all the moms who I’ve openly—or in a more closeted fashion—adopted since my own mom left the planet. (To be clear, she died. She’s not an astronaut.)

France Demopolus’ kitchen table is where I’ve felt unconditional love since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. If I could make my home this way for even one of my kids’ friends, it’d make up for other things in my life, like not competing in the Olympics or never having gone to summer camp.

And my mother-in-law Peggy has wiped my children’s butts, folded my family’s laundry, and drank white wine with me at the end more days than I can count. She’s also told me more than once, “You’re doing a great job with those girls.” And whether or not she’s been paid to say that, it’s amazingly good to hear.

I’m totally out about my adoration for my friend’s mom Claudia. She’s an elementary school teacher, a reading expert [swoon], and a world-class grandma. And if you ask her how an 8-hour drive was, she lights up like you’re asking about her wedding day and says, “So. Much. Fun.” The woman has a good time getting her teeth cleaned, I swear. I wanna live like her.

Enough of my ramblings. It’s probably time for you to ring the bell for another mimosa or foot rub. Or if you’re a dad, to peel more grapes for your wife. Or pull that B-mer with the big red novelty bow around to the front of the house.

The way I see it, being a mom on Mother’s Day is like getting an Oscar nomination. It makes me want to say what an honor it is to even be in the company of these talented, amazing women. And I’d also like to thank Harvey Weinstein.

Don’t forget your sunscreen today, and grab a light sweater, honey, and I’ll see you back here in a couple days. xoxoxo

Happy Easter-Passover Hybrid

I heard the most EXCELLENT thing this week. I was chatting with a mom from Kate’s school, and her cell phone buzzed with a text. She leaned over to look at it, and slowly said aloud as she typed, “Yes, we’re still on for Saturday night.”

Then she looked at me. “We’re hosting a Seder this weekend—not because we’re Jewish or anything—but Dustin,” she nodded in the direction of her son, “wants to be half-Jewish.”

“Wait—” I said, confused, “Dustin’s half-Jewish?”

“No, no,” she explained laughing. “Not Jewish at all. But he wants to be half-Jewish.”

Okay, so how rad is THAT?

As a fervid, shameless wanna-be Jew (and the mother of one as well), this news shook me to my goy core. I’d never pondered the concept of half-Jewdom, and it struck me as sheer genius.

I mean, as a half-Jew you can just pick and choose what you want to get out of the either scene, right? Not into gefilte fish? Why should you be? That’s your WASP genes talking. Don’t want to sit through synagogue? Wear a yarmulke? Or miss out on Santa Claus, Christmas trees, or sneaking spiked egg nog? No problemo! That’s your other half talkin’. Take what you want. Leave the rest behind.

On the other hand, you’ve also got free reign to stuff yourself sick with latkes, call your grandparents Bubbe and Zeyde, feel a deep dramatic connection with Fiddler on the Roof, and have a blow-out bat mitzvah that’d make a Kardashian wedding look like a low-budg gig at a VFW hall.

Man, I’m all hopped up on the brilliant potential of it all.

Needless to say, I wanna be half-Jewish now too. DESPERATELY. And I no doubt freaked out that poor kid the other day when I got all in-his-face freaky fired up. “Dustin! I LOVE that!” I bellowed. “I wanna to be half-Jewish too!”

He was all wide-eyed backing towards his mother’s car, like, “Okay, Kate’s-weirdo-mom… whatEV.” But of course, he was too polite to say that.

Alas, until the time I’m fully indoctrinated in half-Judaism (in a ceremony I’ve yet to concept but will certainly relay the details of here), I’m staring down the barrel of a full-on Easter-only celebration this weekend. Somehow we’ve fallen off the guest list of our friends’ Seder, no doubt because I over enthusiastically made all manner of faux-pas in past years, tapping bitter herbs behind my ears like perfume and feigning gagging noises when Uncle Myron poured me a glass of Manischewitz.

Or maybe it’s just that they’re out of town this weekend.

Anyway, our Easter plan is brunch and and an egg hunt with our turbo-creative neighbors. Their yard is a gorgeous overgrown garden paradise that makes you feel like you’re in some Tuscan village not a suburban North Oakland double lot. Mark’s baking cinnamon buns and will no doubt bust out some highbrow mimosa-like drink.

There will be plenty of other folks and food there too, but there’s part of me that still needs a ham-and-scalloped-potato dinner later in the day as well. Oh, and green beans. Might as well go full-bore traditional.

So I’ll be the last-minute loser at Honey Baked tomorrow being told there’s only a 65-pound 280-dollar ham available that’ll feed 30-40 buffet style or 80-100 for apps. And because I’ll feel like a failure making pasta for dinner on Easter, I’ll buy the damn thing and we’ll be eating ham ’til Fourth of July.

But really, really what I want more than anything is a ham made by my Aunt Jennie. The woman is truly a wizard with a ham. I mean, grown men have wept eating her ham. It’s like some crazy gift, her and the hams.

When my mother was sick Aunt Jennie came to visit with my cousin Sue. They live a couple hours away. The day before, Mom was having a bad day and didn’t get out of bed. But at one of the times when she woke up she told me, “Call Aunt Jennie and tell her when she comes tomorrow not to bring a damn ham.” (Mark still cannot say the word ham without using the adjective “damn.”)

Of course, it’s not like Aunt Jennie had even said she was bringing one. But in one of those ways that you know your siblings inside and out, my mother just knew Jennie, and that Jennie would think a ham was in order.

That’s how Jennie rolls. With a large home-baked ham in tow.

So I called her. “You guys still planning to come?”

“Oooh yuh, yuh,” she clucked.

“Okay, so Mom said for you not to worry about bringing a ham,” I said. Then thinking better of it I added, “I mean, really? She said not to being a damn ham.”

Aunt Jennie just said, “I’m bringing a ham. See you tomorrow.”

And really, when I hung up the phone my sisters and I were relieved that Mom’s request carried no weight. Why would you EVER want to dissuade that woman from working her magic?

My Aunt Jennie is a world-class crack-up. She’s always been my favorite aunt—and my mom’s from a family with eight kids, so that’s actually saying a lot. Jennie has chutzpah like nobody’s business. She’s in her eighties and still works taking care of “old people” (as she puts it). She’s a first-rate grandmother, buying her grandchildren laptops, watching broods of kids after school, and cooking massive Sunday dinners. You can’t leave her house without a plate of something “to have later” and money she managed to stick in your bag “for something for the kids.”

And she will make you piss your pants laughing, in the most dry, innocent-about-her-humor way. Get her talking about the geezers she’s cared for who’ve hit on her. (Scary proof that even decrepit and in oxygen tents all men ever think about is sex.) You’ll nearly pull a Mama Cass on the ham you’re horkin’ down you’ll be howling so loud.

Anyway, God bless my most excellent, one-in-a-million Aunt Jennie. She recently had a mild stroke. Word is it wasn’t so bad, and I truly hope that’s true. If I know her she’s bounced back, poo-pooed anyone who so much as asked after her health, and is planning to serve up a meal this Sunday that’d make Jesus rise from the dead with a napkin tucked under his chin.

If I weren’t 3,000 damn miles away I’d be pulling up a seat myself to that table, as excited about the company as I’d be about the food.

Anyway, as you’re tucking into your holiday meal this weekend—whether it includes matzoh crackers or a green bean casserole, I’d sure appreciate it if you sent a little healing thought my Aunt Jennie’s way. Think of it as paying homage to the High Priestess of Ham.

And if that doesn’t feel quite right to you because you keep kosher or are somehow not a fan of pig meat, no worries. Feel free to consider yourself half-Gentile, if only for the moment.

My Mama Purse

When I was a kid my mother’s purse was a no-touch zone. If I ever needed anything from it, I’d bring it to her and she’d dig it out for me.

I doubt there was anything I wasn’t supposed to see in there. And I don’t think it was that Mom didn’t trust me with her stuff (though in my pilfering teen years she probably should’ve had this concern). I’d guess my mother made her purse off limits simply to set some personal boundaries. Staking out a bit of space that my three sisters and I couldn’t climb on, paw through, or otherwise disrupt. A small spot of sanity and control.

For me, my No Kid Zone is my desk. Beware the child who drops so much as a Polly Pocket shoe on its adult-only surface. Take heed all ye youngsters who dare grab a pen or roll of tape from its hallowed drawers.

I am vigilant about staking out that small three-by-five-foot surface as my sole, highly-protected territory. Even when I really don’t care that they’re grabbing a paper clip or Post-It—even then, I generally tend to hoot and howl and swat their hands away. “Do you take things from Mama’s desk?” I bellow. “Nooooooo. You do NOT touch anything on Mama’s desk.”

I rather enjoy the chances I get to refresh these hard and fast rules in the minds of my young, forgetful daughters. I’d go so far as to pee on the four corners of that desk, if marking my territory that way wasn’t so stinky and likely to warp the wood.

We live in a cozy Craftsman cottage. I share my room. I share my bed. I sometimes share food that’s en route to my mouth. I tend to pee with the persistent presence of children asking me to get them Band-Aids, tell them stories, or make their sister “give it back.” Even my bras have been unearthed from laundry baskets and paraded around in by my little darling devils.

Not much of mine ’round here is sacred. So I think threatening to remove the hands of those who deposit fists-full of acorns or Old Maid playing cards on my desk is utterly justifiable. What’s that expression? Oh, yes: No court would convict me.

As for my purse? In the great tradition of my own mother, my purse is also off limits for my kids. In theory at least. I no longer carry a diaper bag (yee-ha!). In fact, long before I really should have given up on a diaper bag, I did. I just couldn’t bear the bulky awkwardness of it any more. So I’ve just come to accept that whatever I need to carry—for myself or someone else—I shove into my purse.

Last night I was out with some friends and was looking for something—tickets to the show we were seeing, I think. As I clawed through my overcrowded purse, dumping items out onto the bar, I was appalled by what I came across. Here I was having a gals night out, trying desperately to appear cool and un-mom-like, but this is what I found in my purse—beyond the standard wallet, sunglasses, make-up bag, and flask (okay, just kidding about the sunglasses):

• 3 tattered ticket stubs to the SF Ballet’s Nutcracker (December 13, 2011 performance) which I’ve been saving to shove in a box to eventually stick in a scrapbook
• 1 Dum Dum lollipop (root beer), 1 Tootsie Roll pop (lemon-lime), and one lollipop stick and wrapper (grape)
• 2 safety pins
• 2 ponytail holders
• 1 lavendar plastic doll-sized dog bowl
• 1 small metal tin filled with pink plastic beads, fabric roses, and wooden doll cookies
• 2 Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies (miraculously un-crushed)
• 1 yellow sparkly flower clip-on barrette
• 1 box of crayons
• Various pieces of free-range crayon
• 1 plastic Heinz ketchup packet
• 2 mint tea bags (Proof I’m getting old—I carry my own tea with me. Agh! Before I know it I’ll be ordering hot water with lemon at restaurants.)
• 2 United Airlines baggage tags. I had so many things to keep track of on my last flight I labelled everything obsessively—even my purse. (Say what you will about this dorky tactic, but neither a child nor a suitcase went missing that day.)
•  5 grocery lists
• 1 egg-shaped Eos lip balm with a kid-sized bite taken out of it
• 1 “redeem for one hug” ticket

I may think that my purse is one of the last bastions of my personal space, but this exercise clearly illustrates I’m losing ground. Even if that is the case, it’s hard to say when a doll-sized dog bowl might come in handy, you know? I mean, maybe having all this stuff within reach isn’t such a bad thing after all.

What do you have in your mama purse?

Tears of a Non-Football Fan

About a month ago I cried about the New England Patriots. This took place the night before the Super Bowl, mind you. And it had nothing to do with the team, their ensuing game, or giving a rat’s ass about football whatsoever. It had to do with the last time they won the Super Bowl. Or at least, what was happening in my life at that time.

For some reason I thought about this as I was brushing my teeth to go to bed. As I thought of our next day’s plans—going to a friend’s house to watch the game—a distinct image popped into my mind, and started me bawling.

It was of a long table that was set up as you entered the cafeteria at Rhode Island Hospital. It was 2004 and the Patriots had just won the Super Bowl. And three adult goofballs dressed top to bottom in Patriots-branded, -logoed, and -colored clothing, were selling t-shirts. Or giving away memorabilia. Or something. The women were wearing plastic dangly football helmet earrings, the man some sort of over-sized foam hat.

They were assaultingly upbeat, overly-chatty, and blindingly bright. If Saturday Night Live were to do a parody of three football fans who were manning a table selling sports schwag, this would be what they’d look like.

I half-expected Will Ferrell to jump out from behind the rack of cafeteria trays and start doing a Patriots cheer.

My mother and I managed to make our way past the Patriots posse without becoming ensnared in their boosterism. To call Mom and I football fans would be an outrageous, imprisonable lie. Neither of us had ever really watched a game, nor did we understand the most fundamental rules of play. And, as with all things we personally didn’t care for, we felt compelled to mock those who did.

I have no idea what it was my mother muttered under her breath to me that day, but I’ve no doubt it was brutal and hilarious.

So then, it was that little flash of a memory that got me teary. Okay, so maybe it was closer to sobby.

Thinking of that dumb table of dumb people was like a time machine blast back to the days when my mom and I were no stranger to that hospital. In fact, we had little routines set up—bunches of them. I’d drop her at the curb, park the car, meet her in the waiting room. I’d have my needlepoint, she’d have her crossword puzzle books. Between appointments we’d moon over how sweet her oncologist was, and we’d walk the long mural-lined hallways to the cafeteria where we’d both get the soup we’d decided “wasn’t half-bad.”

We came to know nurses. We smiled at receptionists. We complimented cheerful hot pink cardigans. And every new doctor my mother met she’d insist was “about 14 years old.”

The telling of it makes it seem nearly pleasant, and in some ways we made it so. Mom was a pro at pretending none of it was happening—so I had a good mentor. She’d shop at her small-town grocery store weighing 90 pounds and wearing a wig, but lecture my sisters and I to not tell anyone she was sick. Everyone just played along.

Minus her intermittently nauseous chemo days, or the bad-news doctor’s appointments, or the moments when she seemed to be vying for Most Ornery Patient (for which she was a worthy contender) we maintained a sort of emotional equilibrium.

But this veneer of pleasantness came with a persistent low-grade stomach ache. Mine that is. Little breaks in the day—counting out a fist-full of pills and marking them off on the refrigerator spreadsheet—reminded me that my days having a mother were a limited time engagement.

An undercurrent of heartache was lurking inside me, waiting for any chance it could get to rise up from the strict diet of denial that my mother had put us all on.

Thinking of that damn Patriots table was like an express train to that slice of time. A stretch I rarely harken back to now. There’s not much reason to, really. Most memories skip over that period to all the pre-cancer days. And in a numbers game kind of way, there are simply many more of those for me to draw from. Thank God.

But here’s what’s weird. As I sobbed with my foamy toothbrush sticking out of my mouth, it somehow felt kinda good to feel so bad. To connect with such a raw emotion about my mom again. All these years have diluted that heart-wrenching time for me. Now I’m used to her not being here. I’ve nearly lost the urge to pick up the phone and call her (unless I hear interesting news about a childhood friend). I can even think of her now and feel happy.

Tapping into this bygone sorrow got me thinking I should go back to the hospital on my upcoming trip to Rhode Island. I was even thinking I’d take the girls.

I’m not sure why this seemed like a good idea, or what I was intending to do there. Trust me, the chicken soup wasn’t that good. I guess I hoped wandering through one of our last stomping grounds might make me feel closer to my mom—even if it was in a sad way.

Or maybe I was hoping some nurse would recognize me—seven years later. You always want to think you were memorable. That you were their favorites, right?

I got back from Rhode Island last week, and while I was there I never made it to the hospital. By the time I touched down—hell, by the time I woke up the day after my tooth brushing tear-fest—I was in a totally different space. In fact, when I thought again about the table of goofball football fans I realized something about that moment. As my mother and I were walking past and secretly mocking them, they were looking at us and seeing a somewhat shell-shocked woman guiding along her older, very sick mother.

Interesting to put yourself in the foam Patriots hat sometime.

Anyway, those poor chumps were no doubt just trying to bring some cheer to people’s days. Distract folks from their current states of mind. And that day—and again the other night—in a twisted way, they certainly did.

I’m a Loser

On Mark and my first wedding anniversary we’d recently moved into our house, and I was pregnant. Extremely pregnant.

Before heading out to a celebratory dinner (where Mark would drink expensive wine and I’d sip water), he gave me a present. We were in what would be the baby’s room, sitting on the floor. And Mark handed me a little turquoise box from a brilliantly-branded jewelry store. I think you know the place.

Inside it was a beautiful necklace—a platinum chain and a diamond solitaire pendant. I absolutely LOVED it.

Mark put it on me, and we sat there on the floor for a while, looking at the new crib and rocking chair and the pile of laundered, twice-rinsed baby clothes, marveling over how much our lives had changed in one year’s time.

Then Mark had to stand up and grab both my hands in order to pry me up off the floor.

Ah, good times.

A few weeks ago we went to Seattle. We had an amazing weekend with wonderful friends. We ate at great restaurants, got a private tour of Chihuly‘s studio, went for walks on the beach, and even saw two bald eagles up close and personal.

But somehow in the course of all that fun I lost my diamond necklace. And I’m just sick about it.

The thing is, I was insanely organized that weekend. Like even more so than usual. Our hosts don’t have children, so I tried my utmost to keep the sprawl of our stuff controlled. I folded clothes and placed them neatly back in our luggage. I paired shoes closely together and set them at the edge of our beds. I gathered wayward toothbrushes, detangling spray, and princess panties that had been flung around the bathroom and tucked everything away in its place.

So I’m not sure how that necklace got away.

Damn my recent growth spurt around accessorizing. A couple years ago I wouldn’t even HAVE another necklace to change into. But recently I’ve made an effort to mix things up a bit. I’ve bought some bold, statement-ish jewelry hoping to up my maternal style quotient.

All I know is that beloved diamond necklace went to Seattle and never came back.

This is the WORST feeling. That pit-in-your-stomach, beating yourself up, woulda coulda shoulda feeling.

The thing is I also know what it’s like to feel this way then to suddenly find the lost item and to snap out of it. To feel awash with sudden relief and renewed love for that once-lost thing. I keep hoping I’m at the brink of finding the necklace on the bottom of my toiletry kit (even though I’ve emptied it out and shook it upside down eight times now).

But as the weeks march on and it doesn’t turn up, I’m losing hope.

All this would be bad enough on its own, but a couple weeks before Seattle I pulled another regret-laden move. It was a rainy, stormy, low-visibility morning. I was driving to work in a crazy slew of traffic. My 20-minute drive took nearly an hour.

I finally arrived at the parking garage in downtown San Fran. Hurray! I made it in one piece.

But when I pulled into the garage and took a sharp right to get into the row of to-be-parked cars I heard a loud scraping sound. No, it was more like a crunching. I looked up to see that I’d hit the edge of the doorway—a wall covered with a black rubber bumper and bright yellow reflective tape.

I’m such an optimist that I hopped out of the car, hopeful that—despite the horrific crunch of metal—the damage wasn’t too bad. [Let me throw my head back here for some hearty rueful laughter.]  Yeah, well, no luck there. I pretty much took out the front passenger-side door AND the rear passenger-side door. Oh, and I scraped up the edge of the bumper too, just for good measure.

I’m not sure why I’m in this self-destructive mode. Maybe my moons are in retrograde? Or my insurance company is controlling my actions like a marionette? Maybe—despite my age, my marital and maternal status, and my professional standing—I’m still that irresponsible, reckless teen who crashed her car into a snow bank, lost her mother’s pearls, and had her Kelly green rugby shirt stolen because she didn’t lock her locker.

I don’t feel like that girl any more, but try as I will, maybe I just can’t shake her.

The other night at dinner Paige asked me to tell her a story about when I was “a little girl.” I find these requests both sweet and annoying. The egomaniac in me loves the invitation to hold court on my favorite topic: myself. But the tired old mom in me just wants to clear the dishes off the table and start running the bath water. Haggard Mom thinks summoning up some story to tell takes more energy than she has.

But egomania won out.

Me: “Okay, so when I was a little girl my mother used to save all the old stale cereal and crackers and bread that we didn’t eat. She’d put it in the trunk of her car. And whenever she drove past the golf course or the pond on Poppasquash Road she’d pull over and feed the old crackers and stuff to the ducks.”

Kate: [wild-eyed] “You’re not supposed to do that!”

Me: “What?”

Kate: “Feed bread to ducks! We just learned this on our field trip. If ducks eat bread they get this disease where their wings get stuck like this [holds her arms straight out behind her]. Then they can’t fly!”

For some reason in my wrung out, end of the day, slaphappy mode, I found this utterly hilarious. And I started to laugh.

Kate: “No, Mom, it’s true! Their wings get like this [holds her arms out stiffly again]. It’s NOT FUNNY.”

And really, it’s not funny. But something about my daughter’s sweet earnestness, and something about how all those years my mother was trying to do something good but was essentially crippling the object of her affection—gave me a taste of how powerless we can be as we make our ways through the world. Try as we may to do the right thing, sometimes the universe conspires against us.

Unfinished Business

There was one thing my sister Ellen and I both wanted of my mother’s after she died. It wasn’t an Oriental carpet or a strand of pearls. It was a little piece of scratch paper Mom had pinned to a bulletin board. In her cramped, scrawly handwriting it said: “A well kept house is the sign of a misspent life.”

This, as it turns out, was my mother’s credo.

She wasn’t a total slob, but… how can I put this? She sometimes prioritized other things over cleaning.

I can imagine her glee stumbling across that quote one day, finding it the perfect validation for the dust bunnies under our beds and our sink full of dishes. Lesser, boring people would have their sink sparkling—but not her! She had better things to do.

I’m pretty sure that things like this skip a generation. My mother was an expert procrastinator. I grew up to be a militant project manager. She was a master of disorganization, always puttering around muttering things like, “I remember thinking I’d put that in a really good place. But where was it?” Me? I pride myself on an OCD-level of organization. And in terms of cleanliness and clutter, let’s put it this way—before I ever leave the house, I tidy up and wipe everything down as if I’ll bump into the Queen at Safeway and invite her straight home for a cup of tea.

Yes, I am NOT my mother’s daughter when it comes to housekeeping. But man, I still wanted that little hand-written note of hers. Precisely because it was so her. (Turns out, my sister kept the original and gave me a xerox copy. Which was just fine by me.)

God knows some of my less stellar parenting moments have erupted in those times of frantic leaving-the-house cleaning. I’ll have just finished picking up Cinderella playing cards littered all the way down the hall, and will walk into the living room to see that Paige has pulled every DVD off the shelf, opened the boxes, and is flinging the discs around like Frisbees. It’s that hair-pulling one step forward, two steps back thing. You finally think you’re ready to leave the house, and the baby poops. It’s inevitable.

Of course, all these leads me to the conclusion that my girls will grow up to keep towering piles of magazines around like my mother did. It will be their rebellion for having weathered my uptight neat-freakishness.

And really, if that’s the case it’d be fine by me. (As long as they let me clean when I go to their houses.) If they come by some bad habits on their own, I’m fine with that. We’re all human. But if they’re bad at something because I am? Well, that’s a different matter altogether. As a parent I want to try to breed the bad parts of me out of them.

Which is why I’ve been serving up a lot of Parental Lecture #239 lately. Which is to say, “Finish what you start.”

The thing is, I’ve been finding scores of inch-long, unfinished friendship bracelets all over the house. Someone comes to visit, Kate interrogates them about their favorite colors, and furiously starts knotting and braiding away. But inevitably something else catches her attention. She’s off with the sidewalk chalk or reading to her dolls in a fort, and that orange, black, and gray bracelet that was our friend Mike’s personal palette, is left unfinished.

She’ll start making a birthday card, then wander into the kitchen to find a snack. She’s excited about a new library book, but after two nights and two chapters, would rather we “please please pleeeez” read Ivy & Bean instead.

Now, you may be thinking that the girl is only five years old. (Or perhaps you’re wondering how old she is. Better yet, you may not give a rat’s ass.) Whatever the case, she turns six next month. So really, this kind of behavior is pretty typical kid stuff. And I get that. I certainly don’t want her goose-stepping around the house, finishing each drawing/game/activity with clinical precision, then hitting a stop watch and logging it into a book. But I do want her to understand the benefit of sticking with something. I want her to feel the satisfaction of hard work paying off. And I don’t want her to grow up to be someone who starts things and never finishes them. Like, uh… like sometimes I do.

Because, I don’t know about you, but I have a kinda mental list of all the things I’ve taken on that somehow never got off the ground. Things that excited me and inspired me and I’d even told my friends about when they asked me, “What’s new?”

And what’s funny is, I’m the last person you’d think of as a slacker. In the Enneagram—this interesting personality-mapping system that you should really buy a book about the next time you go to a ski house for a weekend with some friends—I’m a #3. The Achiever. Still somehow, I house this mild frustration within myself about all the projects I bailed on. And I guess if this is something fixable—something I can somehow deter my kids from doing—then, by gum, I’m going to try.

On New Year’s Day last year our Oakland posse came over for brunch. And we did this thing where we took the things about the prior year that we wanted to forget, or not carry into the new year, or just get over, and we wrote them on little scraps of paper. (Aren’t we SO California groovy? You probably just ate egg casserole and drank off your hang-over at your New Year’s brunch.)  Initially we stuck the papers in a little plastic doll potty I found in one of the girls’ rooms. It seemed like a good metaphor to flush those things away. But later in the day, once we had a fire in the fireplace—and a few mimosas in our systems—we started reading them aloud and tossing them into the flames.

It was good therapy. (Though I still sometimes do lose my temper with the kids.)

Anyway I wonder if, in the same vein, I can list the unfinished projects that gnaw at me here. And by virtue of enumerating and accepting them perhaps I can exorcise them from my mind.

Hell, I figure it’s worth a try.

Things I Started and Never Finished:

• Scrapbooking. I spent HUNDREDS of dollars on papers, stickers, scalloped scissors, and flower-shaped hole punchers. I painstakingly produced a few pages–maybe six—and found I was psychotically hell-bent on making each one a creative masterpiece worthy of the Scrapbook Hall of Fame (which I think is in Cleveland somewhere near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). I got through Kate’s first five weeks of life then quit, utterly spent. Continuing at that rate would have been a 90-plus hour a week job. And that was before Paige with all her scrap-worthy moments was even born.
• Compiling photo albums—actual book ones with pages you can turn. I can’t help but think that by the time my kids are adults the internet will be like an 8-track tape. “Photos of your first birthday? I have them right here! Don’t you worry, we just need to spark up the old internet to get them. Stand back now! This can get loud—and smokey!”
• Hell, I’d be happy to have up-to-date photos on our Fickr account posted. Or even just downloaded onto my computer. Our digital camera is like 20 old rolls of film that have never been dropped off at MotoPhoto.
• The marathon I attended an inspirational Team in Training meeting for 9 years ago, then gave up on after my knee got jenky after just two training runs.

• The needlepoint of a bunny (what was I thinking?) that I worked on during endless doctor appointments, and chemo and radiation sessions with my mother. I would get SO engrossed in it, that after sitting in a stiff gray waiting room chair for an entire day, my mother would finally be ready to go and I’d beg, “Can we just stay a little longer so I can finish all the red flower petals?”

• And that damn needlepoint reminds me of the owl hook rug I started as a kid. I had big plans for that acrylic throw rug. Big plans. I think my mom kept that unfinished masterpiece in the attic for decades after I’d abandoned it. She apparently had faith in my ability to some day complete that project. The fool.
• There’s that book about the orchid thief, and one about a Parisian piano shop, and many many other books I started and never finished even though I always claim to be someone who “can’t start a new book ’til I finish the one I’m reading, even if I hate it.” If I ever use that line on you, know that it’s a lie. (Even though I still like to think it’s true.)

• And of course, the biggest ugliest most brutal unfinished project—my book. Yes, my book idea that I was so impassioned and inspired and determined about, the research material for which is now sitting pitifully in a box on our basement floor. I’m not sure if my energy for it petered out because I stopped believing in my idea, or if I stopped believing in my idea because I never put enough energy into getting it rolling. If I could only get back the money I spent on childcare while trying to finish that damn proposal. It’d probably amount to the proceeds I’d have made on the book if I ever got it published.

Oh, I’m sure there are more more more things on this list. I have boxes of fabric and pillow stuffing and yarn—the vestiges of  creative undertakings that died on the vine. I have vintage buttons I planned to sew on cardigans. Growth charts for both girls devoid of hash marks for each year’s passage.

Some of this is maybe just life—you’re bound to find yourself in the not-yet-completed part of some undertaking. But at times, in the middle of the night, these things can weigh on me. My Achiever personality frets over what I’ve failed to do, instead of reveling in my accomplishments.

Last summer we vacationed with friends who have four boys. If her offspring wasn’t time-sucking enough, in her off-mama hours the woman is an E.R. doc. And a triathlete. Her husband commandeers a fairly new, wildly successful craft brewery which struggles to keep pace with the demand for their product. They’ve got one of those big white boards in their kitchen that outlines everyone’s schedule for the week. Take it from me, these people are BUSY.

But I was blown away but how thoughtfully they manage their lives on a minute by minute basis. Like how, whenever one of the boys pulls on the mom’s arm and asks, “Can you read to me? Can we play Zingo? Do you want to play freeze tag?” More often than not, her answer is Yes.

It made me realize how often my answer is No. I can’t read because I’m cooking dinner. I can’t pretend I’m your baby, I’m sending a work email. No, no no. When really, doing any of these things takes just a few minutes. (Except, of course, a hellishly endless game of Chutes and Ladders.)

But really, will the world fall apart if I play a couple hot rounds of Go Fish, instead of emptying the dishwasher right away?

When the girls want to know some day why they don’t have baby books—why I can’t remember the exact date they took their first steps, or can’t put my fingers on a photo of their kindergarten play—I hope I’ll be able to remind them of that huge hopscotch we drew along the length of our block’s sidewalk. And I hope that that will somehow be enough.

As for that book proposal? I think I just need to get off my ass.

What have you started that you never finished?

Opening Windows

Was it just me, or did everyone adore their pediatrician when they were little?

I mean, not love love. Not like in any Electra Complex sorta way. It’s just that for me going to the doctor was always a super happy event. Even when I had to get shots.

I’ll call him Dr. Unger. And what I remember about the guy was this: He had pictures of his patients covering one wall of his office. Even though I wasn’t in any of them (something I never dreamed of—as a fourth child, photos of me were rare), there was something so free-spirited and fabulous about the collage. To my kid brain, at least. No adult I knew dared to decorate this way.

Of course, as a mother now myself I now know nearly every pediatrician does this, at least at the holidays with photo cards. But at the time it was one more thing that made Dr. Unger so dazzling.

For some reason I always thought he looked like a handsome version of—get this—Jerry Lewis. Ha! Absurd, right? I’m not sure where I got that idea, but I remember thinking I was pretty cool for coming up with it. I mean, this was the age of Tab and Fresca people. I’m no spring chicken. So, along with thinking that shag carpets were an acceptable floor covering and Pacers were cool-looking cars, we we clearly devoid of handsome celebs—leaving me to have to summon in my youthful imagination what Jerry Lewis mighta looked like if he didn’t look the way he did.

I know what you’re thinking: I’m an over-achiever. And you’re absolutely right.

Anyway, Dr. Unger had this nurse (or was she a secretary?) who was ancient, and crisp white uniformed, and super old school. She ran that office like a Swiss train. Or a Swiss clock. Something Swiss. (But not cheese.)

She was a mighty force, but her air of authority was never off-putting. She made it clear the place would fall to ruins without her, yet managed to be all smiles and winks. And she had a very chummy, insider-ish way of talking to my mom. As if we were a special family she was truly happy to see.

She probably made everyone feel that way. And good for her, if she did.

“Oh that Dr. Unger,” my mother would say admiringly, as we walked down the floating staircase (very mod at the time) to the parking lot, and she lit up a brown More cigarette. Mom adored Dr. Unger as much as I did. In that “he’s SO good at his job” kinda way. Though, who knows? Maybe she had a thing for Jerry Lewis too.

Whatever the case, there was a real sense of us feeling lucky that he was our doctor. I mean, we’d drive a half-hour to get to his office. This is halfway ‘cross the state when you consider we were in Rhode Island. But mom was resolute that he was “the best” so she’d dress us up for an outing to “the city” for every little check-up and sniffle. (Shorts, for your information, were an unacceptable clothing option for the city according to Mom. She stopped just short of making us wear gloves and bonnets.)

Aside from an allergy test where he pricked different parts of my arm with a short four-pronged needle, and aside from getting to pick out a lollipop after getting a shot, for all my admiration for Dr. Unger, I don’t remember any specific interactions I had with the guy. But I do remember one thing he told my mother once. He said, “The best thing you can do for a child is to keep their window open when they sleep.”

And so, all these years later I can’t help but think of Dr. Unger when I tuck my girls in at night. Unless it’s super cold out, I try to at least keep one window in their rooms cracked.

It’s such a little thing, but when I do it I feel like I’m tapping into some old world wisdom. Like I’m channeling some simple maternal legacy, since it was something my mother did with us. Because, of course, Dr. Unger’s word was gospel. Mom wouldn’t dare go up against doctor’s orders. And she always prided herself on the fact that my sisters and I never got sick. Something I’ve gotta admit, I love about my kids too. (Though now that I’ve said that I’m sure they’ll be plagued with an endless stream of sniffles, sore throats, and all-night puking sessions.)

Anyway, more often than not old clashes with new. And this small window thing is no exception.

Because one day, in a stream of chatter about everything and nothing at all (my favorite kind of conversation), my Mama Posse friend Maggie mentioned that she always closes her kids’ bedroom windows at night. And locks them. “Even,” she added, “if it’s, like, 100 degrees out.” (Though, blessedly, the Bar Area never gets near that hot.) Ever since the Polly Klaas thing, she said she’s not taking any chances.

Several weeks later, another member of the Mama Posse (we don’t have matching tattoos or embroidered satin jackets, I swear) was showing us the new extension they’d put on her house. Their fab-u-luss new master suite is pretty removed from their kids’ rooms. And so then she mentioned something about locking the kids’ bedroom windows at night.

And so, I took pause. (It’s such an odd expression, “took pause,” but I’d like to use it here, if y’all don’t mind.)

Because my Mama Posse mamas are women I’ve known since I used the word “latching” several times a day, and my C-section scar was still an incision. Back when a wrap-around nursing pillow was a regular accessory on my couch, and I hadn’t yet mastered breastfeeding while waiting in line at Trader Joe’s. In other words, I’ve know them since the infancy of my motherhood.

And we have talked about it ALL, these women and I. If my mama friends had told me that slathering my baby in mayo was an effective cure for colic, or way get her to sleep, or to take a bottle,  I’d be scooping the stuff out of a jar with my bare hands and lubing that baby right up—no questions asked—even though I’m pretty much phobic about the stuff.

I seek and trust and respect their opinions on all things motherly above and beyond Dr. Spock even. But above Dr. Unger? And my own Mama?

I was perplexed.

So hearing their stance on window openage got me thinking. Am I acting irresponsibly? Am I playing with fire, all for the sake of some fresh air? Does old school wisdom not translate so well into the modern day?

Our nice neighborhoods aside, the fact is, we live in the fourth most dangerous city in the U.S. At least, that’s what my sister told me she read on AOL once. It’s not like we’re in the little Mayberry-like town that I grew up in.

But somehow, somewhere along the line, the fearful “someone’s going to break in and take her” feeling I had about both my girls when they moved out of our bed-side bassinet and into their own rooms seems to have dissipated. Not that I’m concerned about their safety any less. But now that they walk and talk and wear friendship bracelets and request “alone time” and know the lyrics to Justin Beiber songs, I have a whole new host of concerns that have apparently put kidnapping low on the list.

Or maybe it’s that I could imagine someone wanting to steal an angelic sleeping baby, but can’t fathom the desire to make off with a child who has a 20-minute screaming tantrum because I won’t give her a cookie three minutes after she’s had an ice cream cone.

Besides, the way our house is set up, our first floor windows are super high up. Definitely un-attainable by even the tallest thief or kidnapper.

And the place is hardly vast. If either girl sneezes in their room, we can pretty much hear it from ours. I always said the baby monitors we used were vanity items.

Last summer my neighbor started letting her third-grader walk the couple blocks to our local library. This seemed kind of wild to me at the time—who knows what could happen in that short distance, even with the most careful and responsible child? But I’m coming around to understanding what she allowed it. It’s no Mayberry here, but it IS a sweet little neighborhood we’re in. And if we can’t relax and enjoy it—if we can’t give our kids small tastes of independence, bite by bite—then we’re just letting the terrorist win. Or someone who we don’t want to win.

Who knows what I’ll be allowing my girls to do a few years from now. I hope I have some of that “let them out of the nest” courage my friend next door has with her kids. More likely I’ll be jumping out of the bushes when they’re in college to walk them across the quad at night.

In the meantime, I’m taking what feels like a small but valiant stance on the windows. Barring any large-ladder wielding weirdos, I think we’re safe having them open.

After dredging up all these memories of Dr. Unger, I just Googled the guy. I was half-scared I’d get an obit. In that clueless kid-like way, I have no idea how old he was when I was his patient. (Though I know I was wedging my college-aged ass into a kiddie chair in his waiting room when I last saw him, and he gently referred me to a grown-up doctor.) Thrillingly, I found a listing for him. He is alive and well—and still even in practice! Those kids who’s pics are in the collage on the wall of his office today are lucky little patients.

After more prowling around The Internets I found one of those doctor directory websites, which had this line on him: “Years since graduating from medical school: 57.” My math’s not good, but I think that takes him to a ripe old age.

Good for him. Must be all those nights sleeping with his window open that’ve kept him going.

I Plan to Age and Tell

When my mom was little she was poor as dirt.

She was never one to wax nostalgic, but she did tell me a few stories about those days. Just snippets really. And they underscored the fact that—during The Depression when her dad ditched his wife and their eight (yes, EIGHT) children—she and her sibs didn’t exactly pass the time playing with Barbie Dream Houses, or spiffing up their new Huffy bikes with handle-bar streamers.

No, theirs was much more of a kick-the-can existence.

I got the impression there was also a lot of hanging out on their front porch. (See? It’s in my genes.) It was a roost from which they could survey the ‘hood. And wait for something exciting to happen.

Mom was the seventh child, but had one younger brother, my Uncle Eddy. The two of them had a little routine they’d put on for passers-by.

“What time is it?” Mom would ask with dramatic flourish.

And looking at his bare wrist Eddy would reply, “Why, it’s—one hundred o’clock!”

Yeah, okay. So it’s not much of a story, right?

To be honest, I’m not too clear on why she found that so uproarious. Maybe ’cause it showed how kids trying to act cool and grown-up invariably blow their own covers? Perhaps she wanted to console me that I wasn’t the last child on earth to learn to tell time? (Though I think I was close.)

Whatever the case, Paige has been playing her own numbers game recently. But she’s hardly grand enough to get even close to the realm of 100. These days for Paigey everything is about five.

Five is Paige’s exaggeration number. According to a theory of my friend Ruby’s, everyone has an exaggeration number. It’s the number they fall back on when they’re awash in hyperbole. If I remember correctly, Ruby’s was 52 for a while. Which meant it wouldn’t be uncommon for her to say something like, “It took me forever to get out of the grocery store. There were, like, 52 people in line in front of me.”

I mean, I think her number was 52. Ruby’s Exaggeration Number Phase was back when she lived in Sausalito, which was about a million years ago.

So Paige and five. If someone asks her how old she is, she’ll sometimes smirk and say, “Five.” Her big sister is five, therefore five is the baddest-ass coolest big girl age you could ever want to be.  (Though I must say, Paige’s delivery is never terribly convincing. She’ll have some trouble passing off a fake I.D. some day—which I’m thrilled about.)

I often ask the girls, “Did I tell you how much I love you yet today?” And with Kate this triggers a response like, “Yes, and I love you 50 Redwood trees, 100 houses, and a million firetrucks high!”

Paigey says, “I love you five.”

Which just slays me with a tidal wave of mama love.

When I was talking to Paige’s preschool teacher recently I mentioned how she has this five thing. He’s one of those child development gurus who always has a nugget of wisdom to share, even when he’s handing you a plastic bag full of urine-drenched clothing. And he said that for kids Paige’s age—which, for the record, is three—five is the largest number that they can grock. They can say bigger numbers and even count, but I guess their brains can’t wrangle with anything that’s more than five.

Who knew?

My brain has similar challenges accepting the greatness of some numbers. Specifically 44. Which happens to be the age that I turned on Tuesday.

44! How the hell did that happen? In my mind my age seems to default somewhere around 32. But somehow a dozen years got slapped onto my brain’s grasp of my age without me even noticing. Scary.

When I was little I never understood why asking grown-ups their age—especially women—was so verboten. At the grocery store shopping for my birthday party once my mother bumped into a friend. The woman leaned over and asked how old I was turning. After telling her I said, “And how old are you?” At which point my mama nearly fainted into the nectarine display.

Not asking women their age was a lesson that was beaten into me as a child. And every time I was reminded of this particular point of etiquette I resolved to not become one of those women myself. Clearly they felt some shame about their age, which mystified me.

Who really cares how old you are anyway? I mean, I only asked Mrs. Froncillo that day in the grocery store to be polite. You know, since she’d asked me.

The fact is, I do feel a bit weird about how old I am now. In the Bay Area I’m hardly the only 40-something with young kids. But I’m also not the spring chicken of the PTA. Many of my friends are younger then me. Hell, I’ve even got four years on my husband.

But that’s only part of what galls me about this 44 thing. I just feel so much younger than 44 implies. It seems out-of-whack and unfair to have to have that big number as my reality.

Despite all that, there’s some part of me that feels a strong pull to do right by my childhood self. I vowed in a grocery store produce aisle that I’d never be one of those vain, self-obsessed grown-ups who feels the need to hide her age. So this is my year to push aside any glimmers of my own anxiety.

I’m gonna take back my age.

I don’t plan to declare it when I meet you for the first time. I’m not getting a tattoo of two intertwined fours by my ankle. But if it comes up in conversation, I’m not shying away from saying, “I am 44 years old, thankyouverymuch.”

I’ve actually had a few chances to test this out over the past few days, and have gotten delightful reactions like, “No WAY. You look awesome!” And, “Rock on, sister.” And even a “You’re 44 years young,” which kind of indicates to me that I really AM old. But I know they were trying to be kind.

But whatEV. If I keep this up I’m hoping the mini-stomachache that precedes the announcement of my age will eventually go away. I’m hoping that I’ll train myself into coming around to the fact that 44 really is okay.

My friend’s father turned 75 recently. And the report from the birthday bash they threw him was that at some point in the evening he dropped to the floor and did 75 push ups. To the wild applause of his guests, of course.

How rad is that? Way to show you’ve still got it.

So here’s my plan. Every time I feel the sensation of Age Shame coming on, I’m going to get on the floor and do a bunch of push-ups. If I keep it up I’ll be able to wow the attendees at my 75th party some day.

Hey, I’ll be an old woman with a grossly over-developed upper body. I’ve got that to look forward to.

In the meantime, I can rest assured knowing that however old I am, in Paige’s eyes right now I’m only five.

The Recipe Box

I recently discovered granola. Turns out it’s really good with fruit and yogurt.

Who knew?

I realize this is not a revolutionary finding. I think others before me have stumbled upon this holy trinity of foods. But what can I say? I’m a late bloomer.

At the holidays some friends brought us homemade granola as a hostess gift. It sat around for a while until I was desperate for food one day. Then, as these things usually go with me, I became obsessed with it. After devouring it all, I needed to lay in new supplies. And I remembered that my mother used to make her own really really good granola.

Over the years I’ve found that taste memories have been a weirdly strong way of reconnecting with my bygone Mama—through her wine biscuits, her chourico and peppers, and especially her Polish golumpki. So I was especially fired up to unearth this long-forgotten recipe.

And, luckily for me, I have her old recipe box.

I grabbed the black Tupperware thing from my cookbook shelf. It’s hardly a charming tin box decorated with little red roosters or the word “recipes” in some cute script. This thing is a dull dark rubber, awkwardly bigger than your typical 3×5 cards, and hard to wedge into a cupboard alongside anything else. It’s unapologetic in its homeliness and obtrusiveness. And, like everything in the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle life of my mom’s, it’s utterly and thoroughly disorganized.

Of the 200-plus index cards, newspaper clippings, and recipes scrawled on random notepaper (“Glens Falls Cement Company” and “State of Rhode Island House of Representatives”), there was no way to distinguish entrees from side dishes from desserts. If I wanted my granola taste flashback, it was going to take some digging.

But as I sifted through the recipes, some hilarious in their typification of the Bruno family’s Americana cuisine—Seven-Layered Salad, Seafood Newburg, Strawberry Molded Salad, Magic Cookie Bars—I came across something totally unexpected. Postcards that my sisters and I, along with some other folks, had sent to Mom.

I had my kids late in life (told you I was a later bloomer). I’ve spent the majority of my existence child-free. But there are times when I feel an especially acute super-saturated dose of mama-ness. And it’s not when one of the girls runs to me for a hug ’cause she bonked her head, or when one of them screams from the bathroom hallway, “I had an accident!” It’s other weird little times that are harder to put my finger on. But I do know that one of them for sure is when I feel the need to hold onto something that my daughters made for me.

This fall, with Kate just a few weeks into kindergarten, Mark and I went to Back to School night. All the parents were given a little envelope of things their kid had made for them. The one from Kate contained a bunch of different drawings, and a strip of maroon paper that had the words “My family is ____.” printed on it. In the space Kate had written in “SPSHL.”

I wanted to weep with how sweet it was, and run around the room waving it in the faces of all the other parents. “Look what my smart Katie did! I didn’t even know she could sound out and write words! Is this not TO DIE FOR?!”

If only there were a locket big enough for me to hang that thing from my neck every day. It’d be like some maternal gang medallion.

If the house ever goes up in flames, I’m running back in to get that scrap of paper.

So anyway, finding these post cards, wedged into my mom’s recipe box with the same lack of order everything else was shoved in there, was like unearthing a trove of her my-family-is-SPSHL papers. Things I can imagine she wanted to look back on one day. You know, some day when she was hot on the trail of her Spicy Swedish Meatballs recipe.

One card from 1996 is from my cousin Nancy, who my mom considered to be her fifth daughter. It’s entitled “Route 1 to San Francsico” and pictures the Pacific Coast’s dramatic cliffs and coastline. “I have sore, tired feet from traipsing all over this beautiful city,” Nancy wrote. “The weather has been pretty weird—but a nice change from R.I. heat and humidity.”

One card from London, date-stamped 1998 is in my sister Marie’s writing. “Yesterday was the queen’s birthday and they had a special ceremony at the changing of the guard.” Turns out they never laid eyes on her Highness, as they were hoping to. On that card my nephew—now a few years out of college—signed his full name in a sweet, loopy school-boy script.

And from Venice, in a card without a date, my other nephew reveals, “Daddy got us lost twice already.”

There’s a card from me praising the wonders of the new-fangled heat-resistent spatula, two of which I’d apparently included with the note. And my friend Amelia sent a save-worthy card, addressed to “Mrs. B” as she called her, thanking mom for the meatballs she’d made her and remarking, “despite my protestations, I haven’t taken off the kakhi J. Crew shorts since you kindly passed them along.”

There was one from my junior semester in Paris, and another from my sister’s visit to Rome. For all I know more cards will fall out of Mom’s battered Betty Crocker cook book the next time I haul it out for something.

Did I feel at all voyeuristic reading mail that was addressed to my mom? Nah.

The fact that they were postcards—generally not the medium one reserves for private or intimate communication—helped me get past any such thoughts. And with her gone, I can’t help but feel like any new discoveries about her world are fair game.  In fact, they’re happy accidents I relish.

Besides, it wasn’t the contents of the cards that was revelatory. It was finding them in this unlikely spot. Getting a glimmer of insight into what it was my mother held dear. Always one to choose home over travel, I imagine my mother cared less for the places we all went, and more for the fact that her people thought about her when they were away.

Kate’s class put on a play a couple weeks back. A fabulous rain-forest-themed musical where the kids sang in English and Spanish, signed all the words in ASL, helped make their costumes, and painted and built out the dizzying colorful set.

It was a tour de force. The students have come light years from their “My family is____.” exercise. And Kate, as Tree Frog #2, was unstoppable.

The day after the play Kate’s backpack was brimming with artwork as usual. As I sifted through the crumpled papers—some penned by Katie, other art-gifts drawn by her friends (“To my frend Kate, Love Emily”) I came across a yellow envelope that said MOM in red, surrounded by black hearts and stars. Inside it was this letter:

Thac you MOM!

For makeg my costom.

It was grat. Avre wun wonid to tac picshrs uv me! Thac you for hlpeg me practist my lins.

Love Kate

I had to sit down on the kitchen floor to read it again.

Thank you, my dear Katie. I’m not sure where I’ll stow this little gem, but you can bet that this letter is a keeper.

As for the rest of you, if you’re ever seeking out a recipe for Ratatouille, Tuna Casserole, Green Tomatoe [sic] Relish, Pecan Sandies, or something simply called Bean Bake, I’m your gal. I’ve also got one for a little crowd-pleaser called Cut Glass Torte, which involves two different colors of Jell-O, whipped cream, and graham cracker crumbs. Take that, Alice Waters!