Guest Post by Miss Kate, Age 7.5

A Great Winter Braeck

HI! I am Kate and I am going to tell you about my winter break.

So it all steard in the airport. I was pulling my things so were my mom and dad. my sister was dansing  all about are feet. oh great. On the plane I playd  on the ornge ipone. before we  new it we were in NYC.

In NYC we were staing at or friends Mick and Lorn’s house.

My mom and dad took me and paige to FAO SHWOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was soooooo cool. Then we wint to American Girl and had a tea party with the dolls! It was sooooooo cool to!

I loved it in NYC! In NYC we wint on a horse dron carge ride. The horse’s name was Bruno like my grandpa and grandma’s dog!

After 2 days we wint on a bus to Bristol, RI. In Bristol we selberadit Christmas with my grandma and grandpa, thare dog Bruno, my Aunt Ellen and 2 casins and my Aunt Mrey, Uncal Jonh, and casins Rory and Jonh.

My sister thinks Christmas is geting not giving. Not rite.

IT SNODE WEN WE WERE THAR! I made a snow pup!

My Dad left bofor New Year and my mom and sister and me had New Year in Bristol too.

On or last day we wint ice sckading! I loved it! It was my first time. My sister did not go on the ice. It was silly. Ice sckating was her iday! But she is going to try agin.

So that was my winter brack!

The end.

Minnesota: Land of 10,000 Bright Ideas (and Some Lakes)

I’m considering changing the name of this blog to vactionload. Although that really doesn’t mean anything. It might actually be an even worse name than motherload.

Besides, someone from The New York Times is probably already using that name.

We got back from The Land of 10,000 Lakes earlier this week, not to be confused with The Land of 10,000 Latkes which I’m not sure but I think is in New York somewhere. Or maybe Florida. Anyway, Mark went to college there (I know what you’re thinking: Harvard isn’t in Minnesota. He actually went to Princeton. Okay, so not really, but the school he went to did end in -ton. And for that reason alone it should be in the Ivy League, don’t you think?)

Turns out that Mark’s college chums who we see on this trip both are brewers. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF THAT? It’s like finding out that you have to go see your friend’s band, but then learning that there will be free money given away there that night. Except that Mark’s friends aren’t in a band. And the whole “friend’s band” thing implies it’s a band you’d never really want to listen to. (Special message to my friends in bands: I am so not talking about YOUR bands.) Anyway, the lucky thing is that Mark’s non-band friends not only don’t sing bad loud songs they wrote themselves that you have to pretend you like, but they’re also actually quite lovely to spend time with.

And guess what else? FREE BEER.

And they made delicioso chilaquiles for breakfast. With homemade salsa. And homemade TORTILLA CHIPS. I mean, that is if you like that kinda thing.

When you spend a lot of time with free beer—I mean people who are in the malted beverage business—it’s amazing how many really terrific ideas you come up with. And how often you have to pee.

And since so many brilliant ideas came to me this weekend I just couldn’t keep them pent up.

Brilliant idea #1: Make a beer that doesn’t make you have to pee. I know what you’re thinking–I’m a FREAKING GENIUS.  And, you know, you’re right. I mean, even if the beer just wells up inside your belly and sloshes around, wouldn’t that be the best? Like, if there could be some kinda time-release pee chemical that allows you to not have to relieve yourself of your night’s-worth (or day’s-worth, or day-and-night’s-worth) of drinking until the next morning, HOW GOOD WOULD THAT BE? Don’t get me wrong, that would be one loooong tinkle sesh. But think of all the time saved stumbling around in a bathroom when you’d really rather be with your friends burping the alphabet or having a long-distance gleeking competition. (Note to Budweiser: You’d better not steal this idea. The seven readers of this blog will testify in court that I had it first.)

ANOTHER million-dollar idea. Our friend Gary works at a brewery called Bell’s. (Even though Bell is someone’s name I think, their logo has three bells on it, but whenever I look at it I just see Pilgrim hats. Am I normal? Am I drunk? Quite possibly.) Anyway, because I’m such a giver I’ve come up with the name for their next best-selling, brilliantly-branded beer: Bell’s Palsy. You love it, right? I’m still working on the jingle, but I think it’s something like, “Finally, a beer with long-term neurological side-effects.”

I lost my fishing virginity. Guess what? This old 40-something gal just popped her fishing cherry! That’s what fisher-folk call it, right? And what’s weird is for something so dumb and boring fishing is SO MUCH FUN. I had absolutely no skill, luck, or natural talent for this “sport” and didn’t catch a single fish all weekend. But it’s clearly an optimist’s sport. I just kept casting.

I got carded. As in, a waitress asked to see my I.D. before serving me alcohol in a restaurant. And might I add she did not ask if I had a brail version of my driver’s license. It was so unusual as to be terrifying. If a gal my age could be confused with someone under 21 I can only conclude that the women of Minnesota are experiencing severe and horrific accelerated-aging issues brought on by exposure to cold weather. And lutefisk. I’m currently drafting a business plan to develop a vast network of free plastic surgery clinics throughout the state (this is Brilliant Idea #3 for those keeping count). I’m coming, gals! You just hold tight.

Families should always pack a non-parent. THANK GOD our dear friend Gary, “Uncle Gary” to our girls, hasn’t come to his senses and refused to take part in this annual vacation. Being with a sweet, kind-hearted person who isn’t in the daily parenting trenches means when your kid whines for someone to read to them, SOMEONE WILL. It means when your kid tangles their fishing line for the gumpzillionth time, he will be patient enough to untangle it. And did I mention he makes delicious life-affirming beer? What parent doesn’t need one of those in the morning?

Airport sinks don’t see me. You know those magical sinks in airport bathrooms that are supposed to turn on when you walk up to them? They never, EVER work for me. Truly, if I want any hopes of clean hands I have to have my kids stand in front of them for me. When I’ve traveled alone and stood in front of those sinks with a glop of pink liquid soap in my hands and a tauntingly bone-dry faucet staring back at me, strangers have stepped in to help me with this. People who maybe were about to miss their flights but were moved by my pathetic Invisible to Sinks Syndrome. Although I do appear in photographs, I have considered the fact that I’m some kind of ghost. It’s just hard to know who to go to for verification on that. I’m not sure I’ll ever know why this happens so I’ll just assume it means that I’m very very pretty. And smart.

After reading all this blather you might wonder—or more likely you don’t give a rat’s ass—whether this string of unrelated musings and occurrences in sum total equaled a swell all-around vacation. To that I say in the words of many a Minnesotan, you betcha.

Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dogs’ Tails

During my first pregnancy I was convinced I was having a boy. I was of “advanced maternal age” so I had tons of testing, prodding, and scanning. Through it all I never wanted the doctors to tell me the gender of the baby.

Because I knew anyway. I mean, I was having a boy.

If I weren’t so convinced on my own, my notion was confirmed by everyone whose paths I crossed. A coworker accosted me in the office bathroom investigating the color of the veins in my arms (green not blue). My drycleaner clucked over the shape of my belly. And my pulse kept no secrets from my massage therapist. They all agreed: boy, boy, boy.

When that baby finally finally emerged—9 days late, 4 1/2 hours of pushing and one C-section later (though who’s counting)—Mark took one look at it and said, “It’s a… girl?” As if he wasn’t quite sure he could believe it himself.

With Baby #2, same routine. I was at that point an even OLDER mother. I was tested ad nauseum (pun intended). And despite how handy folks insisted it would be for us to know whether we should  let go of or launder all of Kate’s girl clothes, we were steadfast in not knowing the kid’s gender ’til birth.

Besides, we KNEW it was a boy. (Ahem.)

Enter Paige Victoria.

Clearly our daughters were setting us up for a lifetime of pulling fast ones. Yes, the unpredictability of women is something I always reveled in personally, like some license to live impulsively and erratically. Until I became the mother of two girls.

A couple weeks ago while in the car—the setting for ALL awkward questions, right?—Kate said, “So Daddy said he wanted to have a boy.”

Oh, MARK. You and your honesty. Some day, when it’s much too late, I will teach that spouse of mine to lie to the children.

I nervously looked in the rear view mirror at Kate and said, “Well, no. Well… yes, Dad did. Well, I wanted— I mean, you know? When you’re having a baby all you really want is a healthy kiddo. We love having two girls. We couldn’t imagine it any other way.”

In fact, I was scared to death of the thought of a having a boy. Me, the youngest of four girls. What does one DO with boys? How does one play with boys? What do boys even wear? (The first thought that comes to mind is Toughskins, but I’m guessing they don’t even make those any more.)

For a while my oldest sister wiped her toddler-son’s boy parts with toilet paper. This, the innocent mistake of a woman who’d never encountered the task before. Then my brother-in-law passed by the bathroom one day and caught her in the act. He sighed, intercepted, closed the door, and showed my nephew the ropes, boy style.

Later, when my sis would grab T.P. by force of habit my nephew would bellow, “NO! Daddy says SHAKE it!”

Who knew “shaking” was part of the male tinkling process? For all I know, you probably don’t even say “tinkle” when you’re a boy.

One of the best parts of our summer in Rhode Island was spending time with my glorious friend Story. She is as lovely, creative, and unique as that most-excellent name of hers implies. Plus she’s an uh-mazing cook—even with this raw food kick she’s on.

While I was making girl babies on the West Coast, Story was populating the East Coast with boys. With two boys, that is. But when you consider the size of Rhode Island, that’s nearly impressive.

Anyway, one day last month when we were at Story’s hipster house, her boys were outside playing with plastic machetes of some sort while my girls were clinging to us in the kitchen like mewling kittens. After lunch Story promised to show Kate her craft studio, an oasis of fabulous vintage fabrics, various paints and papers, and nests of knitting stuff. A bunch of her tote bags and pillows were lying around and I made a fair number of if-you’re-looking-for-someone-to-give-this-to kinda requests.

Kate was in HEAVEN. She was wide-eyed, running her hand down the project table like it was the fender of a cherry red Porsche. I could’ve left her there for months and she wouldn’t have even noticed I was gone.

In a reverential whisper she asked Story, “Could we—could I—do some watercolor paint?”

Next scene is Kate set up in an adirondack chair in their large lovely yard, painting en plein air. Paige is tootling around the vegetable garden spritzing the veggies and flowers with a spray bottle. And Story is on their heels with her camera, capturing every second.

Me? I’m on the hammock with Story’s two boys. Not ON it, necessarily—more like hanging on it. We’re taking turns pushing each other, wicked hard. We’re giving that hammock a work-out, cushions flying, stomachs churning, and shouting, “HARDER!” as we clutched the rope mesh (and each other) for dear life. Every once and a while a plastic light saber gets in on the action causing Story to look up from Kate’s butterfly painting to yell cautions to her youngest.

But we are FINE. Better than fine. In fact, I’m making a mental note to schedule more roughhousing in my life.

Last week was my friend Mary’s son’s b-day. You know, Mary who did the awesome guest post on her summers in Maine. I am SO BAD at buying presents for boys. I have no idea what boys like. All I know is Star Wars and Legos, but any Legos set that seems worth giving is far outside my birthday budget.

Mary’s son was turning seven. Seven, seven, seven, I thought. The fake electric guitar we got him last year will be hard to top.

Then it struck me–what every young boy wants and every mother fears: a SKATEBOARD. As we picked it out at the store I texted Mary. “Don’t be mad at me for what I’m getting Will.”

And thankfully, she wasn’t. Which is good because, for the record, I really only ever wanted to have girls, but every once and I while I still like to invoke my role in the village and pitch in on raising my friends’ sons. Or at the very least, do some roughhousing with them.

Wat I Did on My Summr Vacashin, by Kate

We’re back from our epic, excellent, six-week trip to the East Coast.

We spent time in five states, saw dozens of friends, had one car get hit and another break down, and—despite what my friend Drew thinks—attended only one parade. But it was a doozy.

My father and his wife should get blood transfusions to revive themselves after the tantrums, food fights, sibling spats, and other appalling behavior we exhibited while under their roof. And I wish their cleaners luck removing all the sand we dragged in.

The girls ate three things all summer: hot dogs, carrots, and ice cream. A couple times they had corn. Me? I lugged my juicer everywhere and obsessively counted my steps with my FitBit.

We visited the town library A LOT, and leathered up our skin from many long days at the beach.

So much more happened, but I’ve got a cold and I’m cranky and I’m on Day 30—yes, THIRTY—of solo parenting. So I did what any self-respecting, lazy-ass mother would do: I had my kid do it. Which is to say, I asked my six-year-old, Kate, to come up with a post on our summer vacation.

She LOVED the idea. She’s told every person who’s called our house, every friend we’ve seen, our fish and our mailman that she’s going to be featured here. So this decision was also a good PR move.

Kate wrote this herself (on paper first) and picked out all the photos. Keep in mind she’s at a groovy progressive school where phonetic spelling reigns supreme. As do exclamation points, apparently.

I got a shot of her entering some last-minute edits. She’s already asked me how old you have to be to have your own blog. So look out world.

Wat I Did on My Summr Vacashin, by Kate 

I love sumrre! It rocks!

I wint to Bristol! My sister Paige ate a lot of donuts.

I saw the 4th ov Joliye prad! There wre horsis ther. It wus loooooooong! The bands wer asam!

I have a unckl hoo is a dog. He is so cut! His name is Bruno.

In Cape Code it was fun. We wint on a bote cold Bristol Girl! It wus fun!!!!! We saw seals. Thay wre cyot!

We wint to to Broklin. I got a doll. A Amarukin Girl Doll. My frend gav it to me!

We wint on a long driv to Vrginya! Ther we wint to a weding. The brid wus byotefll!

My grandma gave me a french brade.

I lost 2 teeth. I got a silvr dolr!

We wnt to Cunnetecot. Thear we wnt toobing.

My hayr trnd green from a pool! It looks bettar now.

We had a grate sumre!

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.

*  *  *

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.

The Name Game

On the brink of my eighth year of marriage I’ve discovered the key component of successful matrimony: that both parties find stupid, ongoing jokes hi-larious.

This is what it is like in my marriage. There are things that are so horrendously obtuse–absurd things that we’ve joked about for years—that we still laugh wine out of our noses about. Yes, it’s the spewing of wine from our nasal cavities–a sort of pinot noir neti pot cleansing—that keeps our love alive.

That, and we both hate mushrooms.

Anyway, one of the things we find freakin’ side-splitting has to do with names. And pretending we regret what we named our girls whenever we hear another, well… ‘noteworthy’ name.

Of course, the names don’t even need to be first names. Anything ridiculous will do.

Take last night. Had we been watching the Olympics together (versus me watching on my parents’ TV in Rhode Island and Mark watching LIVE in London), when the female swimmer Ranomi Kromodijojo’s name appeared on the screen, in a matter of seconds either Mark or I would say, “Remember when we almost named Kate Kromodijojo?”

I know, I know. It’s only funny to us.

Opportunities for this name game ABOUND. And thank God, really, because our marriage is strengthened mightily every time we repeat this joke.

Just this weekend, with Mark nowhere in sight, I was visiting friends in Connecticut who offered to take me and the girls to an amusement park called—get this—Lake Quassapaug. QUASSA-paug? How freakin’ beautiful is THAT? I couldn’t resist. I turned to my friend’s niece Sarah and say, “Your parents almost named you Quassapaug you know.”

I got an excellent tween-aged whatchu-talkin’-bout-Willis look. Then she walked away.

Anyway, the past several weeks in Rhode Island have provided rich fodder for this game, specifically in the arena of Native American town names. Like, on the drive to my dad’s from Logan Airport we pass a town called Assonet. There’s just so much to love about that. It never fails to pique my stuck-in-second-grade sense of humor.

In fact, I believe on more than one occasion I’ve busted out in my best 80′s Newcleus voice, “Ass ON it. Ass ON it. Ass on-non-on-non-on ON it.”

Think of those poor soul’s at Assonet High. College admissions officers must accept them based on pity alone. Who cares about his SAT scores! Get that child OUT of that tragically-named town!

Yawgoo Valley, Wickaboxet, Mashapaug, Pettaquamscutt Rock, the Woonasquatucket River. If I had a piece of wampum for every excellent Indian name I’ve encountered this vacation I’d be a rich rich woman.

I can’t imagine saying these words in every day parlance. My friend’s son played little league against a team from Wanskuck. What do the kids from that team chant to psyche themselves up before a game? “Wanskuck! We don’t suck!”

A couple weeks ago I got fired up on the idea of renaming Paige Wampanoag (pronounced WOMP-uh-nog) after a small, un-impressive highway—the Wampanoag Trail—we sometimes take to Providence. After several weeks of blissful Rhode Island livin’, it seemed a fitting homage. Or rather, a wicked good idea. (We’d also considered Sachuest for Paige, to honor our favorite Newport beach, since it’s other name, Second Beach, wasn’t as pretty with McClusky.)

As for big sister Kate, I was thinking of rebranding her with a more food-related moniker: Little Neck. You like?! Quahog (pronounced KO-hog)—the giant hard-shelled clam the state’s renowned for—is another contender, though we could always employ it as a middle name.

Anyway, I’m en route to New York to the annual BlogHer conference. I had grand plans to redesign this blog before the event—like making the push to get in shape before your wedding day. I even considered renaming the thing. But as you can see, I never quite got around to it. And honestly, the way my brain’s been working this summer, it’s probably best I didn’t.

Things Dads Do

The other day The Husband delightedly informed me that he’d taught our six-year-old how to pee in the shower.

I was so proud.

I mean, this from the man who (until I set him straight) believed you shouldn’t flush Kleenex down the toilet because it’s somehow different from toilet paper. And here I’d always thought sending pee down the shower pipe was verboten. There’s so much we can learn from each other.

Having Mark coach our sweet six-year-old on such a great time-saving tip made me think of all the other gaps I’d leave in our children’s knowledge base if I didn’t have him around. This thought was underscored by the fact that I’m on Day 13 of solo parenting. (Not that I’m counting.) That’s because Mark had to touch base at his San Francisco office before jaunting off to cover the Olympics in London. All the while I’ve remained on vacation on the East Coast with the girls, clinging to my charming hometown like a rabid koala.

All together, I’ll be tending to the child-folk for a sum total of 31 nights (32 days). But again, who’s counting?

Anyway, I started thinking about the other things that Daddy does that the kids will miss out on while he’s gone.

Changing batteries: This is something that I really never even CONSIDER doing. Paige could be ecstatically interacting with a toy that suddenly craps out and I’ll report through her tears, “Well, Dad will be home in seven hours, and he can change the batteries then.” I can’t imagine what I’d do about this if I were a single parent. I’m somehow trapped in some ivory tower were battery changing is just not done. Without Mark I can imagine the smoke detectors in the house starting to beep. I’d have to take them off the wall and silence them with a hammer. If any of the kids’ toys ever ran out of juice we’d have to just toss them in the give-away pile.

Gluing stuff: Not far from The Husband’s “Needs new batteries” pile I’ve amassed a small “Needs gluing” pile. This includes the shattered legs of a porcelain doll Kate insisted on taking to a taqueria for dinner and promptly dropped on the sidewalk. (She may never walk again.) It also includes a tea-set teapot handle, and distressingly, the head of a Cinderella piggy bank. Gluing is man’s work. Mark reinforces this in my mind when he informs the children of the special types of glue that he needs for various broken items. Though that could just be his way of staving off having to deal with this chore. That Cinderella head has been unhinged for some time now. Whatever the case, the whole glue scene is Greek to me. If something breaks while Daddy is away, maybe all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can swing by to help me out—though I hear their track record isn’t so good.

Making pancakes: Do you know of any mother who makes pancakes for her kids on the weekends? NO. This is what father’s are uniquely wired to do. Sometimes my kids ask me to make them pancakes, and I just laugh. To tell you the truth, I have no idea how two-mom households ever enjoy homemade pancake breakfasts. I will have to ask around about this and get back to you.

Teaching driving: This is blessedly not something I’ll have to concern myself with while Mark is away. Unless they suddenly lower the legal driving age by ten years. But when the time comes this SO seems like a Dad-will-do-it kinda thing. I know I bucked and jolted and skidded across the Newport Creamery parking lot when my dad endeavored to instruct me on driving a stick shift. All that tension and repeated bellowing of “EASE UP on the clutch–EASE UP ON IT!” seems to clearly be father’s work. (See also: Teaching Skiing.)

In our house Mark also does a bunch of things I realize many other dads probably don’t. And for that I’m grateful. Anything remotely technical, gadget-y or computerish, of course, falls to him. As does the assembly of any toys more complicated than putting a tube top on a Polly Pocket. (Although I did assemble a high chair once, and I’m proud to report that no children were ever injured sitting in that chair.)

The Husband is also the primary kid bather in our division of labor, and as a subset of those responsibilities he most often clips the children’s nails.

He performs all the small surgeries in the house too–removing splinters, trimming hangnails, washing dirt out of skinned knees, and doing whatever is needed to blisters, burns, and boil-like things (which I’d really rather not know about). After these episodes Kate invariably staggers from the bathroom brandishing big bandages or tourniquets and proclaiming, “Daddy is just like a doctor.”

When the time comes for me to contemplate cosmetic surgery, I’m considering just having Mark do it to defray costs. But hopefully, in the month that he’s away the toll of taking on parenting without my dear husband won’t be so great I’ll need to accelerate the scheduling of any anti-aging surgeries. Which is a good thing since as soon as he walks in the door I imagine there will be a lot of gluing and battery-changing that he’ll have to catch up on.

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By the way, you can follow Mark’s excellent coverage of the Olympics for Wired at Wired Playbook.

Guest Post: Photographer Mary McHenry

I’ve been thinking a lot about my upcoming trip to Rhode Island. Every summer I seem to tack another week onto our visit there. It’s so heavenly with the beaches and the old friends and the small town vibe. Not to mention the love-fest between my dad and stepmother and my kids.

This year since Mark will be in London covering the Olympics and I’m not working, I decided the girls and I should just stay ’til I go to BlogHer. So we’ll be there for about five weeks, with some jaunts to Cape Cod, New Yawk, and a wedding in Virginia.

Yippee! We leave Saturday. I can already taste the Del’s lemonade.

As it turns out, some of my best friends in Oakland venture back East for a chunk of summer too. My crazy-talented photographer friend, Mary McHenry, is one of them.

Mary has a fabulous photo blog that’ll keep you up all night scrolling through to the next post. Mine, as you know, is all about words. It struck me that a guest post from Mary about her summers in Maine would be a real treat for you all.

Lucky for you, she agreed to do it.

Enjoy!

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Do you have one of those places that you keep traveling back to, year after year? You know, like your personal Wailing Wall? Maine is my spot.

I was born in a little coastal town in Maine and lived there until I was 12, when we moved to… Miami!  I know, strange.  My mom learned to salsa dance and order Cuban food. I learned there are such things as “brand names” and “different religions.”  This strange world was surprising and fun and we made wonderful new friends.

But as soon as school ended in June, we would pack up our cats and go back to Maine.

An old summer house had been passed onto to us, which we share with a bunch of cousins. Imagine faded shingles, fine chipped china, no TV, and the same Newsweek in the bathroom since 1986.

Many years later, I still return every summer. I go through all sorts of life changes but the house and land I visit there doesn’t. There is something so deeply comforting about this.

These days I make this pilgrimage from Oakland, California with my own family. We grumble over the expensive tickets and the ten-plus hour flying days, and we arrive at the house bedraggled at around 1AM. But it doesn’t matter. It all falls away—in fact, the world falls away—and I am back.

My bones just feel right there. I see my children, now four and six, starting to form the same connection to the place. I want the smells and feelings of Maine to imprint in their little psyches so they too will have this strange calling to come back.

Mary McHenry is a documentary wedding and portrait photographer based in the Bay Area. To see more of her work visit www.marymchenry.com. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Pink Eyes, Bare Butts, and a Long Car Ride

The past two months ’round here have been all about travel. And before you get some Brangelina-like image of us globe-trotting to exotic locales, let me clarify. We’re not talking family fun. More like a series of work trips. In rapid succession.

Mark and I have been tag-teaming on childcare like some Spandex-and-rhinestone clad husband and wife wrestling team. Lately our kids have no idea who’ll be picking them up from school. Mom? Dad? Some babysitter? Bueller?

It started with the girls and I spending Spring Break in Palm Springs with my sis. That was, in fact, a vacation. The day after we got home Mark went to Baton Rouge for work. Then I jetted to a writers’ workshop in Dayton. (You know… London, Paris, Dayton, Ohio). And let’s see, we had about a week at home then I left for Miami. Followed days later by Mark doing Dallas. Or rather, going there on business.

Kate’s school camping trip was right after Mark got back from the Lone Star State. And it’s a family affair, not something you stick your kid on a bus for, wave goodbye, then go home, crack a few beers, and revel in sweet childless-ness.

Group events like this don’t rate high on Mark’s social scorecard. Even when he’s not fried from work.

Frankly, even I—the turbo extrovert—was feeling more ‘hafta-go’ than ‘wanna-go.’ But the girls’ve been talking about this trip since we went last year. And we figured once we got there—after the FIVE-HOUR drive—the splendor of the gorgeous river, the charm of the rustic cabins, horseback riding and s’mores-making, and the kids romping in nature like wood nymphs, would make it all worthwhile.

So Friday Mark took the afternoon off work and at 1:30 we set out. Half-dead or not, we were camping.

More than three hours into our journey and deep into a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle book-on-CD, Paige bellowed from the back seat, “My EYE hurts!”

I twisted around to take a look and saw green globs of gunk swimming in her peeper.

Kate yelled with a mixture of joy and disgust, “It looks like SNOT! She has snot in her eye!”

I sighed and turned back to Mark, “It also looks like pink eye.”

We were in the middle of nowhere. Twenty-five minutes from a teensy town that was the last outpost of civilization before we got to the campsite.

I called our doctor who phoned a prescription into the wee town’s drug store. Then Mark and I whisper-strategized about what to do. I was loath to give up our plan, but we couldn’t bring pus-eyed Paige to a kid-packed weekend. Slipping her into the crowd and playing dumb would be poor form. (Although for a few minutes I did try to sell Mark on the idea.)

The girls were incredibly mellow and understanding when we told them we were going to have to miss the camping trip. They said, “No problem, Mom and Dad! We get it. These things happen.”

Oh wait, that’s not how it went at all.

No, they completely lost their freaking sh*t. “I have been waiting for this trip ALL YEAR,” Kate moaned like a petulant teen. Paige, ever the follower, chimed in with the same refrain.

There was hysterical convulsive crying. There was kicking of the seats in front of them (which Mark and I happened to be seated in). There was bartering, “Why CAN’T Paige go camping with the pink eye?” (Since getting it once as a toddler Kate calls conjunctivitis “the pink eye” like “the evil eye,” which is actually quite apt.)

And despite how unenthused Mark and I had been about the trip, the realization that we couldn’t go after all was surprisingly distressing. It’s confusing finding out you don’t have to do what you didn’t want to do in the first place—but had already planned and packed and driven hundreds of miles for.

Instead we were facing a pink eye quarantine home-lockdown weekend. Maniacally wiping down surfaces with disinfectant. Incessantly reminding our four-year-old to not touch her itchy eye. And freaking out every time our own eyeballs felt the slightest bit tingly. What fun.

At the strip mall drug store in Downtrodden Town, USA, Mark and I announced, “Paige, we have to put this medicine in your eye.”

We sold it all wrong. We might as well have offered to give her a shot too. She started shrieking, “No! NO. Nooooo!!!” Clipping a rabid badger’s toenails would’ve been a more pleasant undertaking.

So we had to get all parental straight-jacket on her—me leaning into her legs and holding her arms down while Mark pried her goopy eyelid open to squeeze in the drops. Did I mention this took place with her lying down on the sidewalk? Classy stuff.

To ensure no passers-by missed this scene Paige kept up a hearty howl, thrashing and kicking demonically. A teen-aged couple who’d stopped to crack open a Mountain Dew for their baby looked at our little sidewalk scene with disdain.

Not our finest hour of parenting.

Back in the car, an hour’s drive later—headed back toward Oakland—we stop at an In-n-Out Burger for dinner. By then Paige’s eye was swollen near shut and the skin half-way down her cheek was pink and puffy.

While waiting for our food at an outdoor table, Kate had me time her while she ran between garbage cans. Paige sat snorfling snot and eye goo onto her lovey Panda-y, which had become a teeming breeding ground of conjunctivitis bacteria. (Mental note: Douse Panda-y in gasoline and torch him at first possible opportunity.)

When Mark came out with our food, he pointed out a couple who were changing their baby’s diaper on a nearby table. Sure, we had a kid with us whose face was inflamed, seeping pus, and as contagious as the Ebola Virus. But STILL. A diaper? On a restaurant table?

I don’t think that’s what In-n-Out had in mind when they coined the term “animal style.”

Maybe these brilliant bio-hazard spreaders, the parents of the Mountain-Dew drinkin’ baby, and Mark and me with our sidewalk-splayed straight-jacket approach to eye care could form some Pathetic Parenting Alliance. There’s so much we could learn from each other.

I dove for our camping-gear crammed car. I didn’t care how long the trip home took, I was hell-bent on getting back to civilization.

After more than two hours of hellish highway driving (and more mind-numbing Mrs. Piggle Wiggle audio books) we pulled into our driveway. It was 8:30 on Friday night. Seven hours after we’d left.

It was the longest drive ever taken for a fast-food meal.

But by Sunday I realized the miraculous. We’d spent a wonderfully mellow two days all together. At home.

The girls and I planted flowers. Mark hit golf balls. We went to bed early and slept late. Kate brought Pink-Eye Paige breakfast in bed, and showered her with home made Get Well cards. We made s’mores on the gas stove. And Mark even found a way to administer eye drops that made Paige giggle not scream.

Sunday evening—when P’s eye was returning to normal—an impromptu cocktail party sprouted up on our porch. Neighbors brought cutting boards loaded with cheese, olives, and bread. Mark whipped up cocktails and handed out beer. And the neighborhood kids jump-roped and biked up and down the block while we peered through sheets of mylar at the eclipse.

It was exactly the weekend we needed.

Sometimes the universe just takes care of you, and points you in the right direction. Even if it takes a seven-hour car ride to get you there.

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Want to read a truly terrifying travel tale? Check out my original Travel Don’ts post. It’s a *motherload* classic.

Miami Heat

Don’t tell Oakland, but I’ve been cheating on it. With Miami.

And it was a hot, steamy affair.

I was there for the Mom 2.0 Summit, a gathering of mom bloggers, media mavens, and marketers. And mark my words, this was no tragic conference like in that movie Cedar Rapids. No, I went to white parties poolside, a throw-down at the Versace mansion, and spent three gloriously muggy days shashaying around the Key Biscayne Ritz.

If you’ve never stayed at a Ritz Carlton, I assure you it’s got Howard Johnsons beat.

I also stayed at my friend’s parents’ crazy-sick digs for a night. Their backyard is a manicured jungle paradise. An orchid thief’s wet dream. They’ve got a lagoony swimming pool, a waterfall, a dense thatch of palm trees, and the perfect number of tropical flowers so as not to be tacky.

I half-expected Christopher Atkins to swim out from the faux rock formation in an ultra-suede man-thong and crack open a coconut for my drinking pleasure.

Hey, a gal can dream.

There was even gunfire and explosions in the near distance. I thought my hosts just wanted me to feel at home, but it turns out the show Burn Notice was filming in their swank ‘hood. I took the dog for a walk to suss out the scene, but sadly wasn’t discovered by any talent scouts.

But lest you think all this indulgence was for naught, I actually learned something on this trip too.

Like, did you know it smells like poo in the bathroom of the Versace mansion? Yuh-huh it does. I mean, prolly not all the time, but it certainly did when I was in it. They also have a bidet in there, in case you want to hose down the ole undercarriage. So thoughtful.

From chatting with others at the conference I realized I’m missing a child. These days everyone seems to have three. Apparently three kids is the new chai latte. Some overachievers even have SIX. And they’re still stylish, not Basset-Hound droopy with exhaustion, or rocking on the floor of a closet clutching a bottle of bourbon. Go figure. Good for them.

I learned this scary stat: 60% of girls don’t engage in daily activities because they don’t like how they look. SIXTY percent. Terrifying, no? Dove soap is doing extremely cool work about girls and self-esteem that you should check out. And they didn’t even pay me to say that. Hell, I use Ivory for God’s sake.

Another thing I found out—one of the most hilarious bloggers battles crippling depression. Sometimes she can’t even get out of bed for a week at a time. Totally intense hearing the Goddess of Funny talk so candidly about that.

If you enlist a few hundred mamas to break a Twitter record set by Justin Beiber, they will fail. And their friends will all wonder what the bejesus got into them that they were tweeting “I admire you” to everyone they knew for an hour. (The sangria helped.)

Brene Brown is as likeable, warm, and wise in person as she was in her Ted talk. (Okay so I actually haven’t seen her Ted talk yet, but plan too really soon.) Her Mom 2.0 keynote on “The Power to Fail” was dazzling. And, at long last, it justified my Calculus grade in high school.

Didja know every Ritz has a dramatic open staircase? They think women should always be able to make a grand entrance. My friend Meg who usedta work there told me this. It’s good of them to look out for us gals that way. I’ll be sure to pack a ball gown and tiara for my next Ritz vacation.

I found out that maternity fashion diva Liz Lange responds to all her customer service questions HERSELF. And she looks fabulous in turquoise.

And then, get this—at the Ritz there’s a guy who walks around with a wooden xylophone playing a ding-dang-dong tune when a session’s about to start. FOR REAL this is what he does. It’s like when the lights at the library flash when it’s about to close, but it’s a grown man in a uniform ding-dang-donging. I didn’t request any wake-up calls while I was there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if instead of your phone ringing that dude comes into your room and leans over your bed to xylophone you awake.

I’d love to share more about my trip to Miami, but I’m too busy strapping on my stiletto sandals and wiggling into my bikini top for this afternoon’s school pick-up.

See how much I’ve learned?

That hippie preschool in Berkeley has no idea what’s coming.