Not So Much about Santa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Meeting Rose

Last week there was a volunteer meeting at Chaparral House, and a woman from hospice came to talk about death and grieving. I was looking forward to it. A few times on our Wednesday visits Kate and I had gone to Rose’s room and found the door ominously closed. I panicked on my walk to the nurses’ station with my heart rising up in my throat, but each time one of the nurses has bluntly told me something along the lines of, “Rose is in the activities room watching a movie.” Okay. Phew!

I’ve intentionally avoided asking anyone about the state of Rose’s health, even when she was briefly hospitalized a month ago. I don’t even know how old she is, but I assume somewhere in her eighties. For a while I told myself I didn’t want to invade her privacy, but I knew I really just wanted to be in denial about Rose’s age and frailty. So, I figured this meeting might push me towards a reality check, and help to gird me for what inevitably lies ahead.

The hospice woman, Karen, was amazing. Kind and articulate. I savored every word she said. She was the kind of person who you wish you could go up to after an inspiring lecture or concert and say something to them that would make them like you as much as you like them–make you stand out in the crowd amidst all their other admirers. You just wanted to be her friend.

So, cool Karen talked to us about the people who we visit at Chaparral House, and the fact that they’re at the end of their lives, what that means, how we can talk to them about that when/if appropriate, and how to handle those conversations in the moment and in our own heads. All really good practical stuff that got me a bit more geared up to some day deal with these things with Rose.

Then she opened the meeting up for more of a conversation, and asked us (about 10 volunteers and a few staffers) to share what experiences we’d had, if any, with grief. A few people spoke, then the woman to the left of me offered up her story. She said when she was 20 her 45-year-old mother died. As a result she and her sister had to care for their six younger siblings (including two–yes two–sets of twins). The woman said she was so overwhelmed by having to take on all that work that she never had time to mourn for her mother. Understandably, in the course of saying all this, she broke down.

Here she was crying for what seemed like one of the first times about her mother’s death over 30 years ago. And then she started talking about her work at Chaparral House—that she’s visiting with women who are around the age her mother would be now. It doesn’t take a shrink to see why she’s there and what she is doing. Her story was so tragic. I couldn’t imagine being in her shoes so I couldn’t quite empathize, but my God I felt for her. How great that she found Chaparral House, I thought.

And then I started to piece together my ‘grief experience’ in my mind, and considered whether I wanted to say anything aloud to the group. I also thought about how I’d explain what brought me to Chaparral House.

This is essentially what I said:

“My mother died a little over two years ago, and she said she never wanted my sisters or I to care for her if her illness got to a point where she was really incapacitated. And it ended up that her descent was really sudden and rapid. One day my sister Marie called to say I should probably fly home.

At one point during that first visit Rose muttered something that sounded like Polish to Kate. Yes, she said, she was born in Poland and left after the war. My mother was also Polish–well, born to Polish immigrants.”

So, it seemed somewhat fortuitous that Kate and I found Rose. She needs a grandchild. Kate needs a Polish bopchi. And so in that way that it’s easy to make a crack psychological diagnosis of the person sitting next you but seems impossible to diagnose yourself, it became more clear than ever to me in that meeting why Rose is so special to us. Because of my mother, it will be extra hard for me when Rose is gone.

I’ve lamented before that without my mother here I miss being able to call her to drone on about Kate’s many wonders—and to know that avid grandmother that she was, she’d share my enthusiasm for every small thing.

This past Wednesday I was holding Kate on my lap and Rose leaned in to look at her and said, “Ah, you see that? Her ears.They are so tiny and so perfect.” I shot back, “I know! Aren’t they?” And for the next five minutes we talked about Kate’s precious ears. It was great.

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, but 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 truly is something down-to-earth and likeable about Katie Couric. She’s articulate and all, but can be really goofy, and shares a good deal of personal stuff on the show that makes her seem like you and me, not some rich celebrity. Not that I didn’t already know everything that there was to know about her 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 celebrity daughter my mother never had. For all her accomplishments, my mother was bursting with maternal pride. And she’d ruefully express concern over Katie’s bad haircuts, or love life exploits. It seemed that despite the fact that she 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—our own back yard!

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 as she did 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, and 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! He dresses so beautifully.”

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 was clearly not eating the eggs I’d cooked her, we could 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 Marie pointed out, Mom would have been happy at least that Meredith Viera was stepping in. She went to the Lincoln School in Providence, you know.

8 Months Old and a Slap Upside the Head

Today our wonderful gift of a sweet angel baby is 8 months old, or two-thirds, as Mark has enjoyed saying. It’s so terribly boring to drone on about how deeply and absolutely we love and adore her. We can say it to each other of course, and tell her all the time, but I still feel the need to shout it from the proverbial rooftop.

Again, it’s a time when it rots that my mother isn’t at the other end of 401-253-8370 any more. Dialing that number is ingrained in me, and I think she was home and answered the phone 99.5% of the time I called. (One of the perks of having a hermit mom. That is something Kate will never benefit from, unless I am suddenly overcome with agoraphobia.) So yeah. I want to call my mother and tell her ad nauseum how beautiful and sweet Kate is. And not being able to makes me feel like I’m having to contain my excitement. I’m not so good at that.

So today she is 8 months old. And I think Mark and I have done a pretty good job with her thus far. From what we can tell she isn’t on drugs, and I haven’t heard a single swear come out of her mouth. And aside from occaisionally turning her nose up at her dinner, and not yet knowing how to change her own diapers, I think our challenges with her are reasonable. Someone asked me at the nursing home today how old she is and when I told him I said, “It seems like it went by fast, but also like I can’t remember the time before her.” Of course, that was just me trying to say something profound. I do remember napping whenever I wanted to and having the freedom to go out at night on a lark.

So far Kate has eaten sweet potatoes, summer squash, carrots, apples, pears, peas, avocado, bananas–and rice cereal and oatmeal. But I feel like I need to introduce some of the less-sweet and enticing foods so she doesn’t grow up only willing to eat candied yams with mini-marshmallows for every meal. So on our way home from visting Rose at Chaparral House, we stopped at Berkeley Bowl.

If you have never been to Berkeley Bowl and get aroused by produce, this place is for you. It’s like a fruit and vegetable stand on steriods with a fancy gourmet grocery store attached to it. And the variety. Oy! In the realm of eggplant alone, you could probably find 8 types. Sure, we’ve all heard of Japanese eggplant, and think that we’re pretty food-savvy because of it. But Berkeley Bowl will bust out something like Orange Siberian Eggplant, and show you who’s boss. It’s humbling.

The down side of Berkeley Bowl is that everyone else in Berkeley knows how great it is and at any given time, one-half of the city’s population is there playing bumper-cars with their shopping carts. Those erstwhile hippies get all agro over the veggies too. I’ve seen turf wars there more nasty than one I saw in NYC when two women were fighting over a pair of pants at a Donna Karan sample sale. (Maggie: I’m thinking I just may need a riot shield after all.)

So the most divine and excellent of all small people, Miss Kate, and I were wandering the aisles looking for some food to cook, puree, and freeze in ice cube trays. I was carrying her in the Ergo, which is a kind of front-pack thingy that is more fun than having the kid in a far-away stroller (i.e. I can get to her easier to smother with love in the Ergo). Here we are, two innocent produce-gawkers trying to determine what’s what, when a guy who is speed-walking frantically and weilding a yellow plastic shopping basket decides he’s in the wrong aisle, spins around, and smacks my precious sweet Katie in the forehead with his basket.

She was so shocked it took a second for her to do anything. I mean, it seemed so long that I wondered if it even really hit her, or if she was just going to shrug it off. Oh no. She let out a volume-11 wail that had Mr. I’m-in-a-Hurry practically wetting his pants. Good. Serves him right.

I was hugging the poor girl and hoping it was one of those things we could push past pretty quickly, since The Aggressor was clearly feeling terrible and I immediately went to my typical trying-to-make-him-feel-better place. Silly person that I am. When she wasn’t settling down quickly, the guy came to his senses and returned to his impatient mode. “Can’t you bounce her up and down some?” Why oh why didn’t I have the presence of mind to say, “So you’re going to clock my baby in the head with your hard shopping basket, and then tell me how to soothe her?!”

Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to have a goose egg or bruise on her forehead. The long-term psychological fall-out is, of course, TBD. Despite that, I think she’ll be wearing a helmet on all future Berkeley Bowl outings.

Christmas in May

I ventured down to the basement today in search of my bag o’ bathing suits. Our basement is pretty big for a California basement–or at least everyone who sees it seems all surprised by it. And of course, when there is space to fill with crap, one tends to find crap to fill it with. Mark and I excel in pack-rattery anyway. So there are about 25 boxes of books we have no room for upstairs, bulky kitchen appliances we don’t often use, furniture from my mother’s house, boxes of out-of-season clothes that we never unpacked when we moved but are maybe now in season again (hard to tell), and a new layer of baby-related gear and clothing.

So, I was spelunking through it all. Within 4 seconds I’d forgotten why I was down there and just started checking stuff out, and trying to cull through and organize it a bit.

I’ve always liked to store things properly, but with my mother gone, I feel especially protective of the things that were hers. A) It’s old and/or valuable, or just something I really like, and B) it was hers and even if it was an old sock I’m sentimental about it. (I truly have held onto pairs of socks that were hers. Wait for me to show up on Oprah with some psychiatrist who is guiding me through throwing out theadbare tennis peds while I’m cry convulsively.)

After focusing on the clothing situation (piles to bring upstairs, piles to donate, oops–this goes in the maternity box), I A.D.D.ed my way over to the holiday section. With all my Christmas stuff plus my obsession with Halloween costumes, it’s practically a holiday “department.” I realized that some Christmas boxes could clearly be condensed. One just had bubble wrap in it that had once protected ornaments, and two long cotton tubular sacks with pink closure ribbons at the ends. I had no idea what the hell they were for and was going to (uncharacteristically) throw them away, when I noticed a paper note pinned to one that had “12 days of Christmas” written on it.

Oh my God. How cool. They were the custom-made storage bags for the Christmas wall-hanging and Christmas tree skirt Mark’s great grandmother, Grandma Kohl, had made. For some reason, standing there in the basement, I wanted to almost cry. Thank God I didn’t throw them out.

Mark’s great grandmother is long gone. I’m pretty sure she’s Mark’s mom’s mom’s mom. And as far as we can tell she’s the red-head who is genetically responsible for Kate’s strawberry blonde locks. The women on Mark’s mom’s side of the family LIVE FOREVER. I mean, these women have amazing staying power–into their 90s most of them. And I think they have tended to be pretty on top of their games into their dotage.

So, somewhere in her 90s, Grandma Kohl, crafty woman that she was, made Mark and his sister Lori (and likely all her other great-grandchilden) these amazing Christmas tree skirts, and wall-hangings that depict each of the 12 days of Christmas. They are tacky and flashy felt-and-sequin things that are truly exquisite. I have loved them dearly since Mark’s mom sent them to us this fall. (In his bachelorhood Mark never had need–and likely desire–for them.)

Both pieces have incredible detail–depicting everything from lords a’ leapin’, to Santa and a chimney, to partridges in trees with little porcelain pears hanging from them. They were assembled not only with flamboyant artistry, but with incredible care and attention to detail. The Christmas tree skirt even had a line marked with loosely-sewn white thread indicating where to cut so the circle could be wrapped around the tree. They stir up something in my inner Martha-Stewart soul. I guess it’s respect for such quality work, together with a love of family, traditions, Christmas. You don’t spend so much time on these things unless you love Christmas, and the people that you are making them for. And to think that the woman was in her 90s!

When Peggy sent them to us, it was oddly like getting a gift from the grave for Grandma Kohl. Here we were, still newlyweds and with a young baby, setting up house. It was clearly time for us to have and love these pieces. They are now part of our family’s Christmas tradition. Something Kate’s red-headed great great great grandmother made for us without even knowing Kate or I would be there to enjoy them.

I managed to easily find the tree skirt and the wall-hanging and to carefully move them from the box and garbage bag they were in to the cotton storage bags. Thank you, thank you, Grandma Kohl. I promise to always use the proper storage bags to keep your hard work safe, and when she is old enough, I will tell Kate about how special these decorations are that you made for us long ago. I’m also saving your hand-written tag–it’s something that seems to connect you to these things, and to us, even closer.

First Annual Mother’s Day

My first Mother’s Day has come and gone, and I realized that an unexpected by-product this year was that I didn’t mope around looking at everyone taking their mothers out to brunch and feel sorry for myself. It could be intepretted as egocentric, but be that as it may, it seemed therapeutic indulging in happiness about being a mother, rather than spending the day regretting that mine isn’t alive any more.

Generally on weekend mornings Mark and I conduct a groggy early morning bargaining session to determine who will get up with Kate. (Today’s unlucky person gets to sleep in tomorrow.) It’s a time when Mark’s midwestern upbringing leaves him at a terrible disadvantage. The conversation often goes something like this:

Kate: Waa waaa

Mark: Uhhh… Do you want to get her, or should I?

Me: Uhhhh. Um, I’ll get up. I’ll get her. It’s my turn.

Kate: Waaa waaa.

Me: Ugh…. Okay, I’ll get up in a minute.

Mark: Okay. Did you want me to just get her?

Me: Oh would you? Thank you so much, honey.

Invariably, in his half-awake state, my otherwise sharp-as-a-tack hubby reverts to the Midwestern Polite/Indecisive Conversation Format (TM). He manages to back himself into the job, even when the conversation started with me staking claim to it. Poor lamb. I lie in wait, knowing he will offer again, and when he does, I relent. I’m really just being a good wife. I don’t want to argue with my husband.

Anyway, a conversation very much like the one above took place on Saturday morning. I believe Mark had even gotten out of bed and suited up to go fetch Kate, when I explained (since I do have a heart, and it does sadden me somewhat to see him fall into my trap) that he’d also be getting up with her the next day, it being Mother’s Day. Hell if I’m waking up early that day. With that 411, he stripped down and hopped back into bed faster than you can say “return to REM cycle.” It was the closest I’d come to dodging duty, and then having to step up.

So, Sunday, I slept in. Mark made a bacony breakfast. In order to make it a dream day I hit up a few local yard sales with Kate while Mark finished concocting a fancy chicken salad. Then we packed up the Subaru and all went to Lake Anza in Tilden Park for a picnic. It was in the 80s and people were swimming. I don’t know much about lakes, but it looked like good clean fun. There was a 1950′s patina on the whole scene.

Kate clearly doesn’t get the “it’s Mother’s Day so I must treat thee like Cleopatra” thing yet. In fact, instead of changing her own diapers, taking extended naps, and just smiling prettily whenever I looked her way, she was kinda cranky.

Post-picnic I jaunted off for a hot tub and massage with my mother’s group cohort Sacha. It was part of my gift, along with some excellent cherry-pattern PJs and a scrapbook album (more on that later). But when I got back from the spa, the best Mother’s Day gift came when I rejoined my little family. Mark and Kate were on the front porch escaping the heat of the house. Kate took a look and me and absolutely lit up. She had a huge smile and was kicking her legs like she was going to jump out of her pants.

Mark, on the other hand, looked glassy-eyed and exhausted–and chagrined to see Kate being so chipper. He’d spent the better part of the 3 hours I was gone trying to get her to stop crying. Even though Mark had wanted to do all the parenting chores all day, I told him he should take a nap while I fed her. Poor guy could barely keep his eyes open.

I sat on the floor and fed Kate some summer squash puree and she bit down on the spoon with every bite. This doesn’t make for easy-going, but that day I was just loving it. It’s what *my daughter* does when she eats. What a lucky person I was. My sweet husband sacked out in bed, exhausted from putting his all into making my first Mother’s Day perfect. And my little gnawing baby, rubbing squash into her hair and eyebrows and filling her mama with love and gratitude.