Strandblog

Happiness Is...

2008-07-17T23:15:00.002-05:00

After reports of sassiness in our beloved daughter from two different non-parental caregivers this week, I came down hard on her. (You've got to know it's bad if her own grandmother is commenting on it, right?) When she refused to apologize for talking smart to Miss A. while I was doing yoga at church, I sent her to bed at 7 o'clock and decided to pack away the thousand or so stuffed animals that she plays with daily to be earned back with good behavior.

Thinking this was the harshest thing I could do, I was surprised when she said "I'm going to help you" and joined in the sweep, herding critters from around her room and plunking them in the giant suitcase I was filling.

When that was beyond capacity, she said, "What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to put them in this basket," I told her.

"OK," she said cheerily.

I was puzzled. "You seem almost happy about this," I said.

"I sort of am," she replied.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"I'm not actually sure," she said, smiling.

She was asleep six minutes later, so I have a hunch it was fatigue-induced insanity.

Language Lessons

2008-07-13T22:10:00.002-05:00

The kids and I were out on the patio enjoying the summer weather one afternoon when I was inspired to do one of the "mommy"-est things I can think of—I presented a platter of watermelon wedges for us to snack on.

We quickly decimated the sizable stack, with little but a pile of rinds and that last lone wedge that no one ever eats left on the plate. My boy sat staring at it, remarking on the katydids gathering there, and suddenly said, "Here are two that are getting ready to mate."

Keeping my cool, as parenting magazines have instructed me to do in situations involving sexuality, I asked him, "Mate? What's that?"

He thought for a moment and then said, "It's like 'marry' in animal language."

That interpretation bodes well for his teenage years, I hope.

Movin' On Up

2008-05-21T10:34:00.004-05:00

For the third time this week, I'm staring down a blank page in Microsoft Word, trying to figure out where to start an article that's due in a hurry. So I thought I'd get my creative juices flowing here first instead. (By the way, recently read a blurb from a George Orwell essay in which he said you should never use in your writing a phrase you've heard or read before, so sorry about that "creative juices" bit. Getting creative isn't looking too promising...)

There's not much that's more creative than kindergarten, where learning is play and play is constant. We went a couple of weeks ago to our baby's kindergarten orientation (yes, both our kids will be in school next year!), and the teacher kicked off the event by musing on independence. She exhorted us to let our kids do as much for themselves as possible this summer, but then softened a bit, saying that while she'd encourage our little ones to try tying their own shoes or opening their own milk cartons first, she would indeed help them when they needed it.

That's the point at which our girl, from her perch on one of those tiny kindergarten chairs, leaned in my direction and stage-whispered, "It sounds pretty good so far."

Mars and Venus Go Shopping

2008-05-02T08:52:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, I enjoyed a glorious solo trip to the grocery store. Yes, my standards for "glorious" have dropped slightly since I had children, but those of you who have taken kids under 10 up and down the aisles of Pick 'N Save or Wegmans of Kings know completely what I mean.

As I unloaded my heaping cart, I surveyed at the folks around me doing the same and noticed a fellow in the next check-out line over buying two packages of bologna and an industrial-sized bag of store-brand Berry Puffs cereal. Pushing my cart out of the store, I saw an older gent carrying a single plastic grocery sack with nothing but a giant can of Maxwell House inside. I imagined these fellows arriving home to their wives, who would shake their heads and sigh.

Family Connections

2008-04-04T06:38:00.002-05:00

My girl and I had the following conversation as we walked toward her brother's school to pick him up one recent afternoon:

Her: Mama, we can't forget to pick him up because he's our brother. Well, he's my brother, but he's your son and you're his mama.

Me: That's right.

Her: And I'm your daughter and you're my mama.

Me: Uh huh.

Her: And you're Daddy's life and he's your husband.

Me: What?

Her: You're Daddy's life and he's your husband.

I was pretty hesitant to correct her.

Enjoying the Ride

2008-03-13T23:08:00.003-05:00

I am not a shopper. This is difficult for a woman who grew up with three sisters and two close female cousins to admit, but crowds and capitalism both sort of freak me out.

It's also unfortunate for me as a resident of the Fox Cities, or "Wisconsin's Shopping Place," as the local chamber of commerce has dubbed our tiny metropolis. The moniker refers primarily to the attraction that is the Fox River Mall, a monolithic presence along the community's main traffic artery since the '80s, when I was growing up in Green Bay. I made a pilgrimage or two with high school friends then, but only because I had to in order to be cool.

Now I avoid the place like the plague, especially at Christmas. I'll skulk around its fringes early in the morning or late at night, but I steer almost completely clear on the weekends. It's scary for me. Really.

That's why it's surprising that I've been there twice in the last month — once four weeks ago to pick up drapes I'd ordered from JC Penney and to get the kids' hair cut, and again today to retrieve my daughter from a shopping/babysitting excursion with her grandma...and to make good on a promise I'd made those four weeks ago.

You see, I had tried to make heading to market after school on a Friday seem appealing to my kids by extending a carrot — if they behaved while I paid for my window treatments, I'd pony up for a gumball of their choosing from the ridiculous menagerie of flavors outside the Pearle Vision. This really only worked on my daughter, since my son couldn't be coaxed to tolerate shopping under any circumstances — and then my daughter fell asleep in the car prior to our arrival at the mall. So I snuck in and snuck out without visiting Candyland.

But she remembered. And she hasn't let me forget.

So today when we were in the 'hood, I decided to deliver. (Plus I had to make a return at Target, so there was something in it for me, too.) We strolled into the mall proper, both with purses in hand, skipping the candy machines to have a ride on one of the amusements in the mall corridor instead.

At the veritable funland we came upon, there were five rides in a gluttonous array. She quickly decided to plug her coins into the fire truck, but the ride was over all too soon. So she dropped another 50 cents in the ATV and again was left wanting.

We made our way to the train next, and moments after it started its rocking, with her head bobbing to and fro, she said, "You know what I want to ride next, Mommy?"

I, in my wisdom, said, "Just enjoy the ride you're on, honey."

Those words have been ringing in my ears ever since. Next time we run into each other, repeat them back to me, if you would.

A Few 4-Year-Old Funnies

2008-02-25T11:34:00.002-06:00

Despite the fact that Mama was facing a deadline and not in the mood for folly last night, I was persuaded to participate in the "family laugh circle" by an insistent 6-year-old. The four of us placed ourselves strategically on the floor, with each person's head on another's tummy, and let the jokes begin.

The best—and worst—ones came from the youngest member of our clan, whose delivery can make even the utterly illogical hilarious.

"What did 29 say to 21?" she asked. The punchline? "Hey, look out! You're in an air balloon!"

And another: "What did the bear say to its honey?" A short pause, and then: "Hey, honey! Wake up, 'cause I'm gonna eat'cha!"

She's not ready for stand-up yet, but she had a friendly audience in her family.

One Telltale Sign Your Child Is Sick

2008-02-07T18:28:00.000-06:00

After dinner tonight—a dinner our girl barely touched—I served up bowls of ice cream for all. Probably not the best idea (Did I mention that our youngest hardly ate?), but I wanted some, so that's kind of how it had to play out.

Anyway, I put her bowl in front of her on the sofa, where we had all settled in to veg for a while. Then, after polishing mine off, I went to the kitchen to load the dishwasher—and eat what was left in the carton. (There wasn't much. Honest.)

When I returned to the TV room, there was our girl, nearly zonked on the couch with the untouched ice cream still before her.

"I'm just gonna take a little nap before I eat this," she said.

I practically ran for the thermometer.

Fun with Prepositions

2008-01-25T15:33:00.000-06:00

My beloved and I gave our girl a pair of flowered tights for Christmas, which she recently got around to wearing. Most of the 27 pairs she has currently are a size 2-4, but I grabbed these dandies in a 4-6x.

Well, it turns out 4-6x is quite a lot bigger than 2-4. Quite.

As I watched her pull them on for the first time, I commented, "Wow, those are pretty spacious, kiddo."

She looked up at me and said reassuringly, "But these will grow into me, Mommy."

Her choice of words called to mind the black ooze from Spiderman 3 and made me long for such a garment, which would make the interminable process of getting dressed in the morning one step shorter.

Choose Your Lessons Carefully: A Trilogy

2008-01-24T21:25:00.000-06:00

It's hard being a mom. Hard to know when to seize those teachable moments and when to let them slip through your fingers, or to toss them aside and just do what's fun rather than educational or character-building.

(1) Spontaneous Generosity

Our daughter brought to church a few weeks ago the little pink purse inherited from a much older, much cooler fourth-grader down the block. Inside, she had tucked the Barbie wallet, also pink, given her by her Gramma S. for Christmas, and inside THAT was a five-dollar bill, as well as two of the quarters she'd earned by keeping her (yes, you guessed it) pink undies clean prior to using the bathroom.

As we sat waiting for the service to start, our girl fiddled with the envelopes intended for those in the pews who didn't have their own. Our kids, like all kids, like to write their names or, better yet, nonsense ones like "Gladnos" on the line and fill in ridiculous numbers next to the dollar sign. (I figure our donation easily covers the cost of the wasted paper each week, the wasting of which greatly aids my spiritual development, mostly by preventing me from going insane trying to keep kids quiet until the children's sermon.)

On this Sunday, the little dear was not messing around. She was serious about the envelope, carefully printing her full name and placing the two quarters she'd toted inside.

I thought all was said and done after I'd helped her seal the envelope, but I looked over a minute later to find her opening it again. "I want to put this in, too," she said, cracking her wallet and pulling out the fiver.

My first instinct was to talk her out of it. Five bucks from Gramma? That was for toys, or candy, or another set of markers, not for the church! I leaned in to explain this to her...and then I stopped. Tell her NOT to give money to the church? So she could buy MORE stuff she didn't need? How was I going to make that one make sense?

We crossed out the 50 cents and penciled in $5.50 instead. And she put it in the collection and hasn't missed it since.

(2) I'm Good and I Know It

Our boy is student of the week at school right now. That has meant special privileges, a visit by his mom and sis to read a Winnie-the-Pooh story to the class, and a bulletin board devoted solely to him.

On that bulletin board, his teachers have displayed the answers he provided to a questionnaire sent home last Thursday. It included queries both simple and profound: What is your favorite food? What do you like best at school? Whom do you admire? And my favorite, What are you good at?

Each question appeared in a small word balloon with two short lines beneath it for the answer. And for all of the questions preceding the "good at" one, our boy had supplied the requisite one to five words needed to fill the lines. It wasn't until line after line of things he was good at billowed out of their associated balloon that I took note of what he was up to.

'Is that too much?' I thought. When the other students of the week were written up in the newsletter, only one thing they were good at was mentioned. Had the teachers edited their lists? Was my kid particularly vain?

I considered stopping him, telling him it might seem boastful. But I stopped myself instead. Why make him think he shouldn't be proud of all he can do? Wouldn't that also lead him to believe I wasn't proud of him?

As I bit my tongue, he added one more thing to the "good at" list: Loving my family! Just like that, with an exclamation point at the end. Thank God I kept my big, helpful, lesson-teaching Mommy mouth shut.

(3) Absolutely Fabulous

We have a narrow expanse of hardwood floor between the front door and the stairs leading to the second story of our house that has served many a purpose in the life of our family. Early on, it was a long, smooth surface for walking practice. Later, it became a boundless tableau for huge games of dominoes. More recently, it has morphed into an indoor soccer field. And this fall, it made its debut as fashion runway.

After a day of consignment shopping with my mom, I came home with bags of finds—a top here, a skirt there, a jacket yet elsewhere—that I, like a hunter home with his kill, was dying to show off. Not so much because I'm showy, but because I was excited about the several fresh outfits I had put together after spending little more than $50.

My beloved asked, "When's the style show?" So I went to my boudoir to don my first ensemble and then sashayed down the stairs, across the runway, and back, with the expected pauses, turns, and head tosses for dramatic effect.

The kids were mesmerized. They had never seen this Mommy before.

There have been several spins on the catwalk since then—"slide shows," our girl calls them—and I do not feel the doubt I originally did about whether they glamorize materialism. Not everything has to be taken seriously. I don't have to spend so much time wagging my finger or cocking my head at the kids in an undying effort to instill in them Important Values. Sometimes I can just have fun, lest I forget that that's an important value, too.

The Power of Observation

2008-01-03T11:45:00.000-06:00

This conversation took place between my daughter and me today as I prepared lunch:

Me: (Retrieving a jar of pickles from fridge.)

Daughter: Oh, Mama, can we have TWO pickles with our lunch?

Me: (Removing lid from jar and fishing the first pickle out.) Sure.

Daughter: (Eyeing with disdain the smallish pickle I'm about to put on her plate.) Two FAT ones?

Me: (Popping the offending pickle into my mouth.) OK, two fat ones.

Daughter: The skinny ones look like dog weiners.

Me: Where have you seen a dog weiner?

Daughter: On a dog.

Christmas Crunch Time

2007-12-15T07:14:00.000-06:00

When my beloved came to bed at 1:30 a.m. last night after I had been asleep since 9:30 p.m., I felt relatively wide awake for a spell. This may have something to do with sleep patterns—I've always heard that waking after four hours makes it hard to fall back asleep—but probably has more to do with my high level of anxiety at the moment.

I found myself spinning my wheels thinking about the Christmas cards I needed to write, the Christmas cookies I needed to bake, the Chex Mix I wanted to prepare, the shopping still left to do, and the story I have due on Monday that's about 30 percent complete. As all this was rolling around in my head, I asked him what he'd been up to. He went for a run, he told me, shortly after I went to bed. And then he caught up on some websites he likes to read, watched part of a movie, and basically bummed around for four hours.

Despite the fact that this is completely just—I spent a couple of hours after school visiting with two friends while our kids played with their sons—I found myself wishing I'd given him a list. Perhaps he could have baked some cookies or started addressing envelopes since the cards aren't ready yet.

It seems that any hard feelings I harbored ran pretty deep, because I had a dream after I went back to sleep.

I dreamed I was rushing into a store to get some last-minute Christmas-related thing I needed. And there was an elf with a giant jingle bell at the entrance. And he was ringing that bell and hopping around in front of me and wasn't going to let me by until I turned jolly. And that wasn't going to happen.

I don't know who got aggressive first, but the elf and I wound up tussling, with me eventually pushing him to the floor. Once I had extracted myself from his limbs, I stood up to see Santa standing on a platform some distance away. He was looking at me and was obviously poised to take up the elf's cause of spreading good cheer.

But I was not taking the bait. While he Ho-ho-hoed away, I shouted at him, "Now I know why you can enjoy Christmas!"

And this next part I said aloud—and loudly—as I sat up in bed awake: "Because you're a MAN!"

I think I need to lighten up.

'Tis the Season...

2007-12-14T17:59:00.000-06:00

...for letting a cup of tea steep for more than an hour before remembering that you made it...and then doing it again a second time.

...for putting the lights on the Christmas tree with "help" from a 4-year-old who follows you on 15 to 20 circuits around the tree as if clinging to your tail.

...for brilliantly buying your mother-in-law a wine bottle evacuator...the exact same gift you bought her last year.

...for a firefighter-like drill to throw on coats and boots before dashing out the door to see Santa (who is actually an off-duty firefighter himself) go past your house on a flatbed trailer, complete with holiday tunes and eight pressboard reindeer.

...for discovering the day before you plan to bake six dozen cookies to exchange with friends that your oven element has given up the ghost.

...for an industrial-size tub of Hershey's Cocoa Powder going up in a giant sandstorm-like poof when you drop it on your kitchen floor while baking.

(That last one happened to a friend of mine...the rest are ALL me.)

Decking the Halls

2007-12-06T09:26:00.000-06:00

Chip, chip, chip.

Hear that?

Tap, tap, chip, chip, chip.

That's the sound of me chipping away at my Christmas decorating. For my mom and siblings, decorating is an Event, one that requires entire rooms to stage and entire days to complete. For me, it's something that fills in the nonexistent nooks and crannies of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Granted, I don't have a whole lot of stuff to put up. Three boxes, tops, and they fit tidily in the space beneath the basement stairs, living a life from January to November very similar to that of Harry Potter. But even that seems a chore to me.

I seem to be missing the X-linked chromosome that makes me interested in this kind of thing. But my daughter isn't. After 20 minutes of hauling things up the stairs (and cleaning up after one glass ornament that never saw the light of day on the main level of our home), I was about done for last night. But she begged me to get more stuff out, to lift her up to the nails from which I'd removed "ordinary time" photos and tchochkes so she could place a wreath, a snowman, an Oriental Trading Christmas tree that our boy made in Sunday school two years ago. So I did.

After we'd washed the decorative towels, I asked my girl to hang them in the bathrooms. Then I sent her in to tell me what they said.

"What's the first letter?" I asked her.

"J!" she shouted triumphantly back.

I listened as she worked it out in her head.

"Juh...juh...joe...joe-eee...joe..."

Then she popped out the door and said, "Joy!"

And she was right.

Pile-Up

2007-11-17T09:34:00.000-06:00

Getting this working/mothering balance right is tough stuff.

I felt like a genius for being a freelancer on Thursday when I was home with both kids (our boy had a day off for teacher conferences) making a few work phone calls in the AM while still in my workout clothes from a pre-dawn basement weight training session. We had a leisurely lunchtime playdate with some friends who were also not working or in school that day, and then I came home and made soup from scratch for dinner. From scratch! Even the broth!

Then came Friday, which started off in my the same idyllic manner. A coffee date with a friend/writing colleague and her baby, lunch with my beloved and the kids, a little work wedged in for good measure while my boy played a computer game. We were headed to our church to watch a movie that evening when it hit me: I had a story due in a week, I hadn't heard from two of the sources I had calls out to, and Thanksgiving would gobble up half of my workdays between now and my deadline.

In work, as in mothering, focus is critical. And in work, as in mothering, it's generally hard to come by, at least if you want to accomplish everything you aim to complete. I've visualized this with piles of blocks. My beloved, God bless him, earns more than 80 percent of all our money. He goes to work, spends nine or so hours a day there, does his thing, and comes home. Yes, he helps out with the kids and household tasks, but he's definitely the sous homemaker. He has a tall, tall column of "work blocks" with just a handful on the home heap.

I, on the other hand, have a wide swath of block piles, several of which are similar in height. There's work, mothering, homekeeping, and church life management, among others. No one pile is dominant; my life, rather than a bar graph, is a scatter plot of disparate activities. Like now, for instance, when I'm trying to put a coherent thought together, and our 4-year-old is climbing on me, chanting "Mommy" over and over in my ear because it's snowing outside and she wants help putting on her tights (she loves tights more than life itself) under her jeans so she can go outside and play.

It's a tough, wonderful, mixed-up, bountiful life.

Remarkable

2007-11-15T10:06:00.000-06:00

I learned something important today. Food coloring may indelibly stain skin (the Smurf-blue fingertip I used to scrub at an offending spot proves it), but with a little Zout and an All/Oxi-Clean cocktail, even the meanest-looking stains wash out of clothes.

Laugh-In

2007-11-08T18:12:00.000-06:00

Since we hadn't yet gotten around to putting the furniture back after having the carpets cleaned, there were some wide-open spaces in our house that weren't usually wide open. One such space was the landing outside the kids' bedrooms, where we handle bedtime business like flossing teeth and reading books.

The four of us were hanging out there--something we can't generally do for lack of square footage--sort of lolling around. Then I got us arranged in a "laugh chain" like I had done in Brownies once: you lay your head on someone's belly, and someone else lays their head on yours, and so on. Then you tell jokes, and everyone's heads bob up and down, which leads to more laughing. It's a good time.

With our boy left out ("Why isn't my head on anyone's tummy, Mommy?"), we decided to make a laugh circle so everyone could fully participate. Then came the jokes.

The funniest was from my beloved, who asked, "How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" The answer: "Two--one to get the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored power tools."

Of course, the kids didn't appreciate his humor, so we had to listen to their jokes, too. And since one of the cherubs is four, that meant not all the jokes made sense.

There was one from our boy, which he'd read in Highlights: "What's a dectective's favorite dance?" Answer: "Evi-dance."

Yuk yuk. Then came a series from our girl, all of which involved either bunnies or objects that were within her line of sight. An example (shared haltingly as she made it up in her head): "Why...did the spider...go on the lightswitch?" The punchline: "Because it was his food!"

Inspired, her brother piped in with, "What did the bunny say to the carrot man?" What other than, "Hey, Mr. Carrot Man, give me a carrot!"

To that one, our girl responded, "Hey, I know that joke. It's one of mine!"

Patience Is a Virtue

2007-11-08T11:31:00.000-06:00

On those days when I'm feeling less than patient with my children, I'm going to look back at this grocery list, which I painstakingly dictated to my 4-year-old transcriptionist before a trip to the store. (Click on the object for a larger version.) Letter by letter, baby. It was a miraculous act of tolerance.

Disturbing

2007-09-25T21:14:00.000-05:00

I found these two characters on the floor of the X-room a couple of days ago. Your first instinct about what you saw was probably correct. At left is the Angel of the Lord (from a Playmobil Nativity set) packing major heat; at right, the baby Jesus, unswaddled and likely unhinged.

Classic Moments in Parenting

2007-09-12T23:21:00.000-05:00

Since he learned to ride his bike, our boy loves to cycle to school. We were doing so on Monday, having gotten a bit of a late start, and I was rather coarsely telling him we needed to get going if we wanted to arrive on time (I hate being late).

Then I noticed he didn't have his backpack. And neither did I.

I stationed him where he was and wheeled around to peddle one block home to grab it. As I rounded the corner to where he was waiting, I shouted, "OK! Start going! Pedal!"

He did, but I wasn't satisfied. Despite the 15mph wind that was buffeting our faces, I wanted him to MOVE.

"You've got to pedal!" I told him. "Come on, pedal!"

By now, he was growing cross. Who wouldn't be?

"Mom, when you talk to me, you don't sound like a mother," he said angrily. "You sound like some kind of villain who doesn't like children!"

I didn't know he knew the word "villain." I guess I wish he didn't.

Notes from the Living Room

2007-09-09T07:19:00.001-05:00

I was roused from a too-short sleep this morning by our boy, with whom I had promised to build Cyclone Defender first thing. There was renewed interest in this Lego Exo-Force battlebot yesterday when, during a family shopping outing, the little guy spent $6 from Auntie K. plus $2 of allowance (he actually dusted the entire X-room!) on Cyclone Defender's nemesis -- Claw Crusher, an evil battlebot with a robot for a pilot rather than a molded plastic man with purple hair.

He's had his eye on that prize for some time now. It was his original target the day we picked up Cyclone Defender, a booby prize of sorts since Claw Crusher was out of stock. As luck would have it, we got Wal*Mart's last one on yesterday's trip.

After we had successfully reconstructed Cyclone Defender, a battle on the living room floor ensued, complete with realistic laser sounds, the clashing of swords, and other such drama, all discussed by brother and sister in advance in "How about..." language.

"How about Claw Crusher grabs Cyclone Defender's shield with his claw?" brother asked.

"And how about Cyclone Defender shoots Claw Crusher to get free?" he added.

Then sister piped in. "And how about that's when the pink poodle comes out of her hiding place?" she said, retrieving the ferocious, six-inch beast so it could enter the action, snarling and growling for all her candy-colored self was worth.

School Days

2007-09-08T19:38:00.000-05:00

I'm sure all you parents out there are as convinced as I am that back-to-school time is far tougher on the parents than it is on the kids. The shopping, the schedule shifts, the stacks of papers coming from and going to school. It can be a bit much, but I'm happy to report we have all taken it in stride thus far.

The first few days have gone smooth as silk, at least for the kids. We lay clothes out the night before, in the hallway where they practically trip over them before they reach the stairs that lead downward to their toys and their breakfast bowls. Dressing and brushing BEFORE anything else was such a simple change, but one that has made everyone happier, most especially me.

I'm still adjusting to my new working hours. Instead of Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, I'm now working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with a day off in between each session to spend with our girl. My rhythm is a bit clunky -- phone calls that I used to make Monday now need to be made Friday in order to meet writing deadlines on Wednesday, etc. -- but I'm figuring it out.

The wee one clung a bit to my leg on her first day of preschool, but she eventually found something to do, as well as an old pal from her day care days. She likes what she calls the "field trips to the park" and the art time.

Our boy seems tickled to be back in class, particularly since he can now ride his bike, training wheel-free, to school. We got him a lock to secure his cycle, and he keeps a key in a special pocket in his backpack. This, to him, is a tremendously grown-up responsibility, and it's cool to watch how carefully he uses this new device.

When I asked him whether he thought first grade was going to be as fun as kindergarten, he said, "Yes. Even better!" Who could ask for anthing more? Certainly not me, but I got it anyway when eavesdropping on a phone conversation between him and his Grandma A. She asked him whether any of his friends were in his class, and he said, "They're almost all my friends. There are only three I'm still getting to know."

Last Day of Summer

2007-09-03T20:57:00.000-05:00

OK, so it's not officially the last day of summer. But tomorrow our boy starts first grade, so it sure feels like it.

We carpe'ed the diem by taking a family outing to beautiful Doty Park, where Auntie K. kept our girl busy on the monkey bars and by the lake and my beloved and I kept our boy busy by having him chase tennis balls while we battled it out on the court. (We petered out after two partial sets dominated by Beloved: 5-1, 4-2.)

During the course of play, I could see that our little guy was getting pretty hot. He had dressed himself in a long-sleeved t-shirt (there was a previous post on this), and he was running A LOT. (My forehand's pretty bad about half the time.)

"Do you want to take off your t-shirt?" I asked him.

"Not in a public park, Mommy," he said, taken aback by the suggestion.

"It's OK for boys to take their shirts off, honey," I said.

"Well, that's OK. I don't want to," he said.

A while later, he had gotten hotter and was sitting on a park bench beside the court. He looked over at me and said, "I want to take my shirt off now, Mommy."

"That's fine," I said. "Go ahead."

When I glanced over after the next volley, he was still seated on the park bench. He was indeed shirtless, but he had his t-shirt draped over his tummy so less than half his torso was showing.

After reading in the paper this week about how local school districts enforce their dress codes (kids refer to the "Three Bs" rule: no bellies, breasts, or boxers), I'm quite happy to have such a modest child headed back to school.

My Life in Pictures

2007-09-02T15:17:00.000-05:00

Our boy learned to use the digital camera recently. He'll occasionally snap a shot of me caught completely off guard, usually yawning or with a mouthful of food or something equally attractive.

More often, though, he photographs his true love -- his Legos. I'll download pictures off the camera (as I did this afternoon to send images of a freshly minted family to the proud mom and dad) and discover a handful of close-ups like this one. He takes these shots in theory to post them to his Lego Club Web page. In practicality, they never see the light of day. Until now.

I find myself wondering...did this happen to moms in the pre-digital era, too? Would you find yourselves standing in Walgreen's or Wolworth's or wherever it was you took your pictures to have them developed (not in one hour, but in a few days) leafing through those funky black-and-whites with the white border to discover a shot so random and unfamiliar that it had to have been kid-produced? Or am I just careless with my camera?

Vivid Descriptions

2007-08-29T22:02:00.000-05:00

Here's proof positive that we unlearn how to describe things clearly as we age.

Lego Club met yesterday -- that's the forum in which our boy gets to dictate to one of his parents what he or she will build by theme (small vehicles, spacecraft, and robots are just a few of the categories). We were working on security guard stuff during this particular session, and I had been instructed to create "a station the security guards could use for relaxing."

I don't know about you, but when I want to relax, there's usually coffee or tea involved. Thus, I immediately began making the security guards a cozy kitchen with a nice, long table at which they could sit and kvetch between shifts.

The Lego Club director disapproved. "They don't need a table like that, Mama," he told me.

"They don't?" I asked.

"No," he said. "If they need a table at all, it would be just a little Oprah table."

"Oprah table?" I asked. "What's that like?"

"It's just a little table, maybe with some flowers on it sort of toward the front, and it's by some chairs," he said. "It's for sort of like a meeting."

"Where did you see that?" I asked. "On Oprah?"

"Yes," he said.

"And the meeting?" I asked.

"It's usually two women," he said.

Of course it is.

Interesting Wordplay

2007-08-28T22:05:00.000-05:00

Our kids have been watching a lot of Scooby-Doo lately. My beloved rented a DVD of the first five episodes of the show from the video store a few weeks ago, and they've been into that groovy scene ever since.

This interest has manifested itself in clever word games, usually involving "Scooby speak," in which they start each word they utter with an 'r'. But even that gets a bit dull at times, so they mix it up with nonsensical rhyming words beginning with other letters.

Our daughter demonstrated for me today. She was insisting that she wanted to help me fold laundry (hooray!), but I told her we needed to clean up the kitchen from lunch first.

"Clean up the bitch-bin?" she said.

Some days, that would be a pretty good descriptor.

I Deserved It

2007-08-16T20:11:00.000-05:00

This evening before bedtime, my girl and I were snuggling in the hall when I noticed a suspect aroma. I sent her to the bathroom and, as she was situating herself on the potty, I asked, "Is your bottom stinky, honey?"

"No," she responded, looking at me. "Is yours?"

Halloween Warm-Up

2007-08-13T20:31:00.000-05:00

I don't know where the notion came from -- perhaps it was the book Clifford's First Halloween, one can never be sure of these things -- but our kids got a bee in their collective bonnet about bobbing for apples. The day they first asked if they could do it, we were unfortunately out of apples. Because they asked so persistently (read: I wanted to make them STOP), I decided to let them try the cherries and blueberries I had in the fridge instead. The bad news: those fruits don't float, leading to a couple of near-drownings.

When next we got to the store, they helpfully reminded me to buy apples and asked me to get out the "bobbing bowl" before we were even out of the car. Because the specimens we had chosen were so huge, I cut them in half to ease the process. It was still pretty impossible for them, but nonetheless, they had a good time.

Every Girl (and Boy) Is a Princess

2007-08-11T15:52:00.000-05:00

One of us appears to be enjoying playing dress-up more than the other. Our boy reminds me just a bit of Victoria Beckham in this photo.

HGTV in Her Future?

2007-08-11T15:44:00.000-05:00

Our daughter has a decorating style all her own. You might call it "bark deco." She has emptied out her overstuffed stuffed animal bin and has put its contents on display over every flat surface in her bedroom. It's charming, disarming, and hard to dust. (Like I dust.)

An Exciting Afternoon

2007-08-11T15:22:00.000-05:00

Despite the 90-plus degree temps today, the kids and I took an outing to an area middle school for a bike-riding lesson. Our not-so-little guy was just about ready to roll on his own, but it's hard to help him build confidence on city streets with bumpy sidewalks and ramps onto and off of the street.

So we took to the track, which had been freshly re-paved, adding to the sweltering heat. Back and forth we rode on one of the 100-meter straightaways, having better luck with balance when the strong winds were at our backs. And quickly, I was running along beside him, reaching out only every so often for a minor course correction. He did it! Even starting and stopping.

Don't tell anyone we forgot his helmet at home.

How About That?

2007-08-11T15:15:00.001-05:00

If communication is the key to solid relationships, then our kids are building a firm foundation for a long and beautiful friendship.

They play imaginatively together often -- just about anytime they're not fighting, as a matter of fact -- and when they do, they continuously consult with each other about exactly what it is they're doing.

"How about you're hunting in the forest for a cat, but you find a kitten instead? And how about I'm the kitten?" our girl will say.

"And how about when I find you, we both curl up in the chair and you pretend you're sleeping, and I'll sleep next to you?" our boy will respond.

It goes on and on like that, the two of them "how-abouting" over and over until they agree on a scenario to play out.

I'm glad they're collaborating. It's a lot better than any other option I can think of.

Words I Never Thought I'd Say

2007-08-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

Early this morning, I was outside watering plants, a fact to which I alerted my children so they wouldn't wonder where I was when they noticed I was gone.

Since they had been engrossed in play, I wasn't expecting them to wander out to find me, but naturally, they did. Such is the allure of a mother.

Fortunately, I had progressed to the front yard by the time they ambled out the front door, dressed inappropriately for the outdoors.

"You can't be outside in underwear and a boa!" I said.

And that was to our son.

Curious

2007-08-08T14:47:00.000-05:00

We got a sitter last night so that my beloved and I could enjoy a luxurious TWO-HOUR dinner at the Appollon, this great Greek place in downtown Appleton. With conversation veering from his upcoming milestone birthday to our wedding almost eight years ago, we had a wonderful time.

And we came home to discover a wonderful surprise. Our sitter had made brownies with the kids and had done all the dishes, many of which remained in the drying rack. What could be better than coming home to a clean kitchen?

This morning, when I was putting the dishes away, I found my potato ricer in with the mixing bowls and measuring cups. Puzzling. I haven't used it in years, so at least it saw some action...whatever it might have been.

Just Mom and Me

2007-08-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

I usually reserve this space for writing about my kids, but today I'm going to write about me being a kid--my mom's kid, in particular.

You see, Dad's gone on his annual fishing trip to Canada, which leaves Mom gloriously alone for a week. My use of the word 'gloriously' should communicate that she loves it...not the absence of my father, but the solitude of living alone that she never really had moving from her childhood home to her marital one at 21.

I almost felt guilty asking her to share her alone time with me, given how rare it is. But I did, offering to take her out to dinner. She suggested we stay in instead, eating take-out Chinese on her new patio.

I'm so glad she had that idea, because it was fantastic to sit beside the new fieldstone fountain looking out at the old yard that I knew and loved so well. Mom had a vase of cut flowers on the table, got out some funky triangular plates, and poured us each a glass of wine. We ate, periodically checking the jars of pickles she had been canning when I arrived to see if they'd sealed. (When I walked in the back door, the smell of garlic, dill, and brine took me back about a quarter-century in an instant.)

After we'd finished our meal, we toured the gardens...beds that have multiplied exponentially in the time the four of us girls have been out of the house. We talked about which plants were thriving and which were failing, and what ones might be divided and shared this fall or next spring. Then we stopped and picked heaping handfuls of raspberries, carried them back to the table, and ate them with our fortune cookies, both of which held messages about adventure.

What an adventure motherhood and daughterhood are! Some of our efforts thrive, some fail, but like the perennials in my mom's garden, there's always plenty to share.

Busted

2007-08-02T07:44:00.001-05:00

After emptying the dishwasher this morning, I stepped into the dining room, where the kids were practicing letters at the table (it's almost back-to-school time!). There, I was hit with a barrage of most unexpected questions.

"Mama, what is the Easter Bunny really?" our girl asked.

"What do you mean?" I said.

That's when Mr. Inquisitive piped in. "I think it's the mommies and the daddies, and they sneak out at night (there was cartoonish tiptoeing pantomimed here), get the treats, and sneak back in," he said.

"Hmmm," I said, not really prepared for this conversation in early August. "What's got you thinking about that?"

"Well, it's like a magician does magic TRICKS and not real magic, Daddy told me once," our boy said. "And sometimes they make a rabbit come out of a hat. But I think that really, the rabbit is just hidden down in the bottom of the hat (again, cartoonish crouching), and there's a lid over it or something. And then the magician says, 'Close your eyes!' And then he throws the lid off to the side or something and says, 'Open your eyes!' and then the rabbit hops out."

"And what does all that have to do with Easter?" I asked.

"It's just an example of how bunnies aren't magic," he said. Hard to argue with that, so I punted instead.

"Well," I said, "I think we should talk about this again when it's closer to Easter." And then I gracefully exited, stage left. Smooth.

A Jarring Revelation

2007-07-20T21:54:00.000-05:00

In the course of playing Duck Duck Goose in the backyard tonight after our dinner of ribs and corn on the cob, I learned about the "cookie jar."

This was an element of the immortal children's game that my playmates and I had never incorporated. When the first goose was tagged, our son said, "You're in the cookie jar!" That's the place in the center of the circle where you sit, a lame, uh, goose, until the next unfortunate soul is caught by the ducker.

When I sat down for my first spell in the cookie jar, our daughter looked at me with sincere sadness and sympathy. Wanting to put her mind at ease, I smiled at her and said, "It's OK. I like to be in the cookie jar."

Our boy then added, "Yeah, because you can eat as many cookies as you want and no one will know."

That, I suppose, is every child's fantasy.

Chasing the Birds and the Bees Back to Their Nests and Hives

2007-07-20T18:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was briefing the kids on our plans to have some friends over for dinner that evening. I explained that they were Mr. and Mrs. D., and that Mr. D. was a friend of mine from my former job.

"Do they have any kids?" our daughter asked.

"No, they don't," I said. "They just got married last year, and, well, they may never have kids or they may wait a while to have them. A lot of married couples like to just be married first and have kids a little later."

"How do they keep the baby from getting in her tummy?" our boy asked, clearly thinking that these things just HAPPEN when people get married and that that's how it works.

Casually, and averting eye contact, I responded, "Mommies and daddies have a special way of putting a baby in the mommy's tummy."

"Oh," he said. "And they just haven't done that yet." True in a sense, and all the information he needs at age 6.

Strandbergs' Book of Quotations

2007-07-13T13:42:00.000-05:00

This morning, my daughter and I were wrapping a couple of birthday gifts to bring to a friend's house. Since she was "helping," we were doing it awkwardly on the kitchen floor, where I hadn't noticed there were a few small puddles of water from when I'd last washed my hands. Naturally, the gift wound up in one of the puddles.

Inspecting the damage, I said, "Bummer. I wish this hadn't gotten wet."

"Maybe if you don't tell anyone about it, your wish will come true," my girl helpfully suggested.

###

While playing at said friend's house later in the day, my son was admiring a particular toy that his playmate was wielding.

"That's a cool sword," he said.

My girlfriend told him, "That came from Japan." She'd just been there on a business trip.

"Hmm," my boy replied. "Most things come from China."

Home Sweet Foam

2007-07-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

Our daughter celebrated her fourth birthday a week or so ago. For the first time ever, my beloved did the shopping for this illustrious occasion, mostly because he was in the vicinity of our local educational toy store on his way home from a volleyball match two nights before the big day.

Let me say first that I was very proud of him for this. He really did an exceptional job--with all the gifts but one. I call his judgement into question on the modeling foam.

Ever heard of modeling foam? I hadn't either. It's this amazing substance consisting of (I kid you not) tiny colored spheres 1mm or less in diameter that supposedly (and I place emphasis on that word) adhere to each other but not to your hands or anything else.

Ha.

This morning, I was picking microscopic pink and white foam bits off the couch, attempting to sweep them off the hardwood floor in the dining room, plucking them from the bristles of the broom...it was a nightmare, especially when combined with the task of convincing my cherubs to tidy up thousands of Legos, hundreds of molded plastic animals, and dozens of markers.

Managing the whole endeavor proved too much for me, and I started doling out punishment as a result, including the dreaded bedroom time-out for our wee one. Then, when I went to retrieve her from her confines, I discovered that the foam pellets also functioned in much the same way as burrs, attaching themselves to my daughter's flesh and then dislodging onto her comforter, her rug, and a multitude of other things she came into contact with while apparently rolling around, wailing and gnashing her teeth in protest of her short-term incarceration.

If it weren't for its educational qualities, I'd say damn the stuff to the depths of Hades. You know what? I'll go ahead and say that anyway.

Uh Oh...Spaghetti-Os

2007-07-10T10:23:00.001-05:00

Once again on this hot, sticky morning, our six-year-old dressed himself in thick sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. The torso wardrobe problem is partly my fault; he can't reach short-sleeved shirts to pull them off the hangers in his closet, and I've done nothing to remedy that.

As a result, this sort of thing has happened frequently this summer. Each time, I gently suggest that he might get too hot in the 90-degree temps and that perhaps he'd like to change. The response is invariably the same: eye rolling and arm waving accompanied by grunts of frustration and annoyance.

Today was no different. "I don't WANT to change. I always tell you that," he said. No kidding.

"Well, I just want you to be comfortable, honey. That's part of my job," I said.

He thought for a second, and then he said, "If it was really hot and I was a girl, I'd wear Spaghetti-Os," he said.

"Spaghetti-Os?!" I asked. "Like the food?"

He looked up at me. "You know," he said, tracing a line over each of his shoulders. "Those shirts with the skinny little things on them."

"Spaghetti straps," I said. "Not Spaghetti-Os. And I thought those were against the rules at Roosevelt School."

"They are," he said, "but it's summer."

My point exactly.

Pretty as a Princess

2007-07-08T12:50:00.001-05:00

While showering this morning, I detected a presence outside the frosted glass door. This is not an unusual occurrence, but what was unusual about this visit was that it was not accompanied by shouted accusations against a sibling.

As I exited the stall still dripping, I saw something on the bath mat and quickly stepped to the side to avoid it. There awaiting me was a collage created with the Disney princess art kit our daughter had received from one set of grandparents for her birthday. Festooned with princess stickers and stamps, it had obviously taken some time to create.

I picked it up, dabbed dry the spots where I'd dripped on it, and set it on the counter, then leaned out the bathroom door to look for the artist. I found her, grinning, in our bedroom.

"Did you make this for me?!" I asked.

"Yes," she said, and gave me a kiss.

"It's just beautiful!" I said. Then, wanting to emphasize that it was beautiful not because of all the princesses but because of the one who'd put it together, I decided to ask some questions along the line of beauty.

"Who do you think is more beautiful, Cinderella or Mommy?" I asked, still wrapped in a towel, my hair disheveled and damp.

She looked at me for a long moment, squinted her eyes just a bit in thought, and said, "You, when your hair is dry."

If You Want to Be a Badger, Then Come Along with Me...

2007-06-10T22:47:00.000-05:00

My family marked a major milestone this weekend. It's one that many of my fellow UW alumni probably checked off their chidren's lists somewhere between "rolling over" and "eating solid food"--visiting Madison for the first time.

But not me. I wanted to save the inaugural campus tour for a time when it would be meaningful and memorable...and also for a time when I wouldn't have to push a stroller up Bascom Hill. That just seemed undignified and uncool, not to mention far too physically taxing. I had to struggle back when I was young and fit not to pant like a dog by the time I got to the top; I can only imagine what it would be like now, 11+ years later, with an 80-pound payload. No thank you.

The visit coincided handily with a trip to esoteric speaker store Madisound that my beloved and his stepdad had planned. His mom, the kids, and I tagged along in a separate vehicle, with our party planning to reunite at the Union Terrace in the late afternoon.

That gave us a little better than three hours to hit the highlights of a city whose magical elements I was still uncovering when I left campus after five years as a student. Decision-making would be key.

My first one was perhaps the best. We arrived in town at 11:30am, and rather than start our foray on an empty stomach, I figured we'd eat on our way in. But where? I happily recalled all the ethnic restaurants I'd enjoyed as a student but quickly eliminated Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine as unappealing to the particular young palates I had to satisfy. I loathed the thought of fast food in such a place, but what else to do?

Then I remembered Ella's Deli, with its circus-like, kid-friendly atmosphere and the carousel in the parking lot. And boy, did I pick a winner.

It was hard to imagine the kids liking anything better than that, but our next stop, the Wisconsin State Capitol, did the trick. As we walked the marble halls, my little guy looked up at me with eyes full of emotion and said, "Thank you so much for planning this trip to Madison, Mama. Thank you!"

Despite my numerous visits to the impressive building, we even got to do something I'd never done before--climb the stairs to the 4th-floor observation deck that wraps the base of the dome. The views were stellar! It was the first time I had ever experienced downtown Madison as an ithsmus rather than understanding it to be one from a map.

From the capitol, we headed for the pedestrian mall between Bascom Hill and State Street, where we bought fruit smoothies to sip. Heaven! Refreshed and refueled, the kids and I started to climb the six-story incline. Halfway up, my boy turned to me, said, "That's far enough," then did a 180 and began running down. How many times as a student did I long to do the same?

The capstone of the afternoon was a visit to the Memorial Union Terrace, where we waited in line for a half-hour for Babcock Hall ice cream, then waited some more for one of the famed metal tables to open up. Our patience was rewarded, and we sat and enjoyed the views to live jazz from the stage.

Sunday School Is Working

2007-03-04T20:30:00.000-06:00

Mornings around here can be frustrating. The first bell at school rings at 8:10, which means that I must hit the shower by 6:30 or all hope of a calm departure is lost. And even then, all bets are off on whether it will be calm. No, actually, I'd have to say the safest bet is that things will not be calm as we're preparing to leave the house. (What a luxury an attached garage must be.)

I have done nearly all that I can to enable my kids to be self-sufficient in the "getting ready to go" department. Their coats and snowpants are hung in plain sight on hooks low enough that they can reach them. Boots and shoes are on an open shelf just inside the back door. Hats and mittens reside in the clear plastic pockets of the huge shoe organizer hung inside a nearby closet door. Everything is within easy reach except, of course, the will to actually put all these things on themselves.

I was having one of my almost daily "getting ready to go" meltdowns as I directed the kids to don boots and place shoes in backpacks. "Mommy has set up the world so that you can do all of these things yourselves!" I ranted as I tugged a hat on a head.

Our daughter looked rather crossly at me and said, "You didn't set up the world, Mama. GOD set up the world!"

Right she was. And what I wouldn't give for a little help from God each morning to find missing mittens or coax a belligerent pair of arms into a coat.

One for the "Not What I Expected" File

2007-03-04T20:14:00.000-06:00

After having been homebound for 48 hours by the confluence of my beloved's (well-deserved!) snowboarding trip to Canada and my son's raging, 104 F fever, the kids and I were itching to get out this afternoon. OK, it was mostly me, but I had a plan that would sweeten the deal for them. We'd return three videos that were two days late (I dropped and ran...can't wait to see the late fee on that one) and then drive through McDonald's to get Happy Meals for them and a shamrock shake for me. (I make this sacred pilgrimage once a year. It started when I was 16, and, in its inaugural year, it involved a blizzard, a huge white whale of a car, a ditch at a busy intersection, and two guys, one of whom I was dating at the time and one that I'd be dating shortly. But that's another story.)

The kids were rather frustratedly sipping at their shakes during the drive home—they don't call them "Triple Thick" for nothing—and listening to a collection of catchy children's tunes. "The Farmer in the Dell" was spinning as we traversed our last mile.

When the song ended, our eldest asked, "What does the rat take?"

In the version of this song that I've heard most often, there was no rat—there was a mouse, and it takes the cheese, an inanimate object that concluded things tidily. But in this version, the cat takes the rat, and that was that.

"I know!" our boy said after a pause. "The rat takes the black death."

'Well,' I thought. 'That's something.'

"What do you know about the black death?" I asked him.

"It's a kind of illness," he said.

"And where did you hear about it?" I asked.

"I read about it in 'Why Do Castles Have Moats,'" he said.

I have the Southwest Book peddler to thank for that one. He swooped upon me when I was the young, vulnerable mother of an 11-month-old who was just looking for an adult to talk to. His 19-year-old self was close enough. Sixty dollars later, I think he enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.

When It Rains, It Pours

2007-02-05T13:39:00.000-06:00

As a parent, you get a lot of questions from your kids that are difficult to answer. Here's one from my daughter, asked when we were adding some Morton's Salt to our brownies yesterday afternoon:

"Mommy, why is that lady carrying salt with her everywhere she goes?"

It defies explanation.

Purl, Interrupted

2007-02-04T20:39:00.000-06:00

"Mommy, can you open these paints for me?"

"Mama, can you get me a snack?"

"Mama, will you play tic-tac-toe with me?"

After dozens of questions just like these this afternoon while I was in the midst of starting a new knitting project—awkwardly, since it's only the third in my lifetime—I realized why women have for generations taken needles in hand. I suspect it's because it leaves you almost literally "tied up" and unable to respond to such requests.

With fingers and thumb twisted in yarn, there is a visual cue that says loud and clear, "Mommy is not available." At least that's what I'd like to think.

Knitting takes my mind to a place far removed from the one I occupy physically. When I knit, I enter a state much like the one my dad fell into while he was reading the paper. I used to have to call him by his first name to get his attention; my kids have resorted to shoving something—anything—in front of my pattern to get mine.

"As soon as I'm done with my row" has replaced "in a minute" in my parental lexicon.

Crisis Averted

2007-02-02T22:33:00.000-06:00

Since she was a baby, our daughter has had a star-crossed love that was never meant to be. The object of her affection was actually intended for me. It is a loosely woven, decorative nursery blanket that my mom gave me when our eldest was born—something lightweight with which I could cover up while nursing a baby in the cool of a summer night.

Something about its fringed edges and smooth texture captivated her in her early months, and the blanket was mine no more. It was especially important to her when she was sleeping, so she always had it with her in her crib despite the fact that it truly was not intended to be functional in this way.

This was proven to me one day when I went to retrieve her after a nap and found her lying on her back with a long thread liberated from the blanket's warp and weft and wrapped around her neck. I took it immediately to my sewing machine and unleashed holy hell on it until none of its fibers were going anywhere. (I've had to do that at least twice since then.)

Suffice it to say that the girl loves this blankie. It is her most vital possession. That's why I was mildly concerned to find it missing two nights ago.

It wasn't missing, really. I knew we'd had it at church that afternoon; I knew I'd carried it to the fellowship hall to help the kids into their coats and boots; I just didn't know where it had gone from there. And I didn't notice its absence until tuck-in time, when I wound up filling in, an only partially satisfactory substitue for the lovey.

Yesterday afternoon, we went back to church for what I thought would be a straightforward retrieval mission. Not so. We checked the fellowship hall, the nursery, the preschool room, and then the office to no avail. I started to sweat.

The church secretary called the custodian on a walkie-talkie, and I walked down the hall to meet him in the nursery.

"Is it white?" he called from inside the room.

"Sort of," I said. "It's cream-colored–and–tan checkered." I felt hopeful...until I walked in and saw that what he had found was obviously not our blankie.

"I'm almost positive I had it in the fellowship hall, but I already checked there," I said. "The only other place it might be is in the parking lot."

The custodian's eyes widened slightly. "Was it like a towel?" he asked.

"Well, it doesn't look like much of a blanket anymore," I had to admit.

"I picked something up in the parking lot this morning and thought it was a towel. It had some snow on it, and I figured someone had dropped a rag or something," he said. Then he was silent. I instantly knew what this meant.

Just to confirm, I asked, "Did you throw it away?"

"Yes," he said.

"Is it inside?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Is it in the Dumpster?"

"Yes," he said.

The next question was the hardest. "Did they pick up the trash today?" I asked.

"No," he said. "They come for it on Tuesdays."

"Then I'm going in," I told him.

He led me to the Dumpster in question, lifted the lid, and—much to my surprise and pleasure—grabbed a black trash bag himself. After a quick look inside, he reached for another, sifted through it, and pulled out...THE BLANKIE!!!

"THERE IT IS!" I said to the little girl I was holding and the world in general.

Thank God for small favors.

How You Know Pharmaceutical Commercials Are Overdone

2007-01-02T21:57:00.000-06:00

I've discovered a new salve for the souls of both my five-year-old and me...and it's not so new after all. It hearkens back to my grade school days in P.E. and brings back memories of being beaned in the head by overzealous to-be football players.

Yes, I'm talking about dodgeball.

He picked it up one October day during the "school days off" program at the Y. Unbelievable that a purportedly Christian organization would allow such an activity under its roof, but what can you do? He played it and fell in love with the drama, the warfare, and, well, the beaning.

We recently invented a two-player outdoor version of the game in which we throw one of those light-up spiny rubber balls at each other, and the boy who comes home from school sulky and belligerent quickly turns euphoric during our rounds and remains so for quite some time afterward. For my part, the game fulfills a New Year's resolution to spend more time outdoors, and it gives me the exercise that I often miss in the morning.

With temps in the upper 40s F today, we went outside at 3:30 to play for a while. Exuberant over the unseasonably warm weather, I ran around like a nut, taunting my pursuer to come and get me. I even went so far as to run backward across our backyard, urging him to bring it on.

The problem was that I forgot about the sandbox.

Before I knew what was happening, I was falling backward into the Little Tikes slide that winters in the sandbox and then striking one buttock on the edge of the sandbox before landing on my back in the matted grass.

Our boy walked over. "That should be on 'America's Funniest Videos, Mama," he said. It's his favorite show, so I had to forgive him.

Moaning and holding the spots on my calf and thigh that would be bruised, I said, "Usually when we're playing with someone and they fall down, we help them up. Can you help me, please?"

I reached up and grabbed his hand, standing as I said, "Ow, that's really gonna hurt tomorrow. My leg really hurts."

He looked at me. "Maybe you should see your doctor," he said. "Do you have restless legs?"

A Charlie Brown Christmas

2006-12-19T20:49:00.000-06:00

Maybe it was the tater tots we'd had for dinner—my grandmother used to make them when all the cousins gathered at her house on Sunday nights to eat rotisserie chicken and watch the Disney movie—but I waxed sentimental when watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with the kids a couple of evenings ago. Could I really be viewing this childhood staple with my own children? It was surreal.

When piano-playing Schroeder rebuffed Lucy's advances by plunking out "Jingle Bells" on the keys with one finger and then rolled into a syncopated number, our boy said, "That's jazz! Hey, man, that's not Christmas music...that's jazz!" A few minutes later, as Linus recited his biblical soliloquy, I got all verklempt watching the kids watch his performance. And I about lost it when, as Charlie Brown was carrying his pathetic little tree home to decorate it, our little guy started singing along with the soundtrack's lilting instrumental of "O Christmas Tree."

If I could skip all the madness for more moments like that, I would.

Santa's Secret Is Out

2006-12-07T23:18:00.000-06:00

When I was a girl, I thought (like all kids do) that Santa got around in a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer—nine if you count Rudolph—and that he left all the present preparation to the elves.

Now that I'm grown, I know that Santa skulks around between 8 and 11pm when the mall is tolerable and, when it really matters, has little regard for sales. He also occasionally breaks up a late-night shopping trip with a 10pm Cosmopolitan. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Scenes from a Weekend

2006-11-04T18:17:00.000-06:00

Ever heard a heart splitting in two? It sounds eerily like this:

"Mama, when am I going to be a baby again so I can stay home with you?"

This came from my daughter as I was snuggling the kids during family nap time on Friday. There'd been a noon release from the elementary school, so we were all home together by 12:30pm. Probing a bit, I learned that her comment had more to do with fear of the biter in her class than with sadness borne of premature separation from her mother. Nonetheless, the damage had been done and the guilt had taken hold.

I think I earned freedom from at least a bit of that guilt after dealing calmly with what can only be described as an utter sh*tstorm. Within three minutes of each other this evening, our two kids had attacks of diarrhea that left not one but two bathroom floors, toilets, sets of clothing, and little bodies dreadfully soiled. As I scrubbed the younger one off in the tub, she looked up at me and said, "Mama? I love you."

"I love you, too, honey," I said back.

"But I don't love when poop gets all over the place," she responded.

"Me either," I concurred.

Metamorphosis Realized

2006-10-10T22:59:00.000-05:00

We spent the last weekend of September—the weekend of my sister's and my dad's birthdays—camping with my extended family northeast of Green Bay. We had a lovely time despite less than lovely weather. With our kids and my niece and nephews all three or older now, crowd control is that much easier.

Getting ready to camp, of course, is not easy. There's a lot of gear to be hauled out of the basement and some serious pondering of what clothes to bring. I covered all the bases this time, packing everything from t-shirts to stocking caps, and was glad for it given that I slept in my beanie.

One thing made our preparations easier—the fact that our pets, Makayla and Makenzie, were low-maintenance. In fact, given that they were in coccoons, they were actually no-maintenance.

The operative word there is "were." When we returned, I peeked into their cereal bowl expecting two green lumps adhered to the wall and instead found two white butterflies. My little science experiment worked!

It was two days later when both kids were awake simultaneously and it was no longer raining that we had our grand release in the backyard. I took the Saran wrap off the top of the bowl, and one of the moths flew immediately into the corner by the back door where all the cobwebs are. I gasped when I saw it land there and not move (what a terrible, if realistic, way for this science experiment of ours to end!), but it was a false alarm. The little critter was just resting after its first flight of more than an inch.

The other one stayed in the bowl for a while, long enough to make me think it wasn't going to make it. But a couple of hours later, it was gone, too.

Woofy and Meowy

2006-09-28T15:54:00.000-05:00

I asked our girl yesterday, "Do you want to come with me to church to get your brother from Youth Alive, or do you want to stay here with Daddy?"

"I want to go get Woofy," she said.

For just a second, I wasn't sure what she meant. Then I remembered that she is "Meowy" and he is "Woofy" when the two of them play Animal Rescue, an amusement they cooked up based on their individual interests—his in rescue vehicles and hers in animals.

They play AR daily, often first thing in the morning and again when "Woofy" returns from kindergarten. In fact, they're playing right now.

As you might imagine, "Woofy" is the alpha dog, providing leadership in dreaming up dramatic rescues in which elephants are hauled to the animal hospital in the back of Army jeeps or lions are carried off in aerial ladder trucks. (The fact that I know what an aerial ladder truck is frightens me just a little.)

While the throaty siren sounds "Woofy" is extremely skilled at making sometimes get annoying, the cooperation between the two of them to find something mutually satisfying to do together is more than worth tolerating a few loud whoops and wails.

More on the Perfect Pet

2006-09-28T15:47:00.000-05:00

Just to keep you all posted, I did some research online and discovered that Makayla and Mackenzie, the green caterpillars that infested our broccoli and our hearts, are cabbageworms that will eventually (and perhaps only theoretically) turn into those ubiquitous white butterflies you see all over in the summertime. I found very little information on their care and feeding but plenty of tips on how to remove or destroy them.

I had gone looking for details on their development after they both started pupating (is that a word?) shortly after they took up residence in a cereal bowl on our kitchen countertop. It seems that the time spent in our crisper drawer simulated the onset of winter, sending them into their coccoons for a long seasonal nap. I'm hoping, given that their winter sleep will occur at room temperature, that they'll not take months to hatch, but my Google searches yielded no timeframe for their reemergence.

The Perfect Pet

2006-09-21T16:02:00.000-05:00

Big news on Twelfth Street! We have pets!

Their names are Makayla and Mackenzie, and we welcomed them into our home—and more specifically, our crisper drawer—about a week ago.

In preparing some broccoli for steaming at lunchtime yesterday, I discovered two inch-long green caterpillars happily noshing on the florets of one of the two heads remaining in the bag. Sadly, we'd eaten a third one a couple of days before. (In the name of frugality, I went ahead and steamed the insect-free head yesterday but couldn't bring myself to eat it once it was on my plate.)

When I plucked them from the stem to show our son, he immediately said, "Let's keep them! They can be our pets!"

So I put them in a cereal bowl and only wondered for a few seconds what to put in there for food. If they'd survived on broccoli at 37 deg F for seven days, then clearly the crucifer was the right choice.

My first animal-tending error was not putting anything over the bowl to keep the critters inside. When I went to peek at them a couple of hours later (yes, I'd fallen for the little buggers), I only found one. A thorough inspection of the kitchen turned up the other, who was crawling down the leg of the butcher block table.

With perforated Saran wrap in place, "Caterpillar Cove" has effectively contained the creepy crawlers for over 24 hours now. I'm not sure how long we'll keep them, but what I am pretty sure of is that I can keep them alive longer than I did our last pet—a goldfish I believe I asphyxiated by not treating the tap water with which I filled his bowl after cleaning it. Just a couple of crudite and a little peace and quiet and they seem to do just fine.

To Sleep, To Dream...

2006-09-17T15:51:00.000-05:00

There is cornmeal and orzo all over the dining room floor. No less than four loads of laundry threaten mutiny in the basement. Our shrubs are bullying each other for space, demanding in the passive way of plants to be pruned.

And yet I spent almost two hours asleep this afternoon.

I did the same thing yesterday and both Saturday and Sunday last weekend. If I could remember that long ago, I'd probably tell you this has been going on for weeks. But I'm too tired to recall accurately.

There are several reasons for all this napping, the first and most important of which is that I'm tired. I don't like "wasting time" in this way, but it seems it's necessary. I'm guessing it's mostly because, with almost eight prime hours of my weekdays now taken up by dropping kids off, working, and picking kids up, I have been trying to squeeze more life out of the neglected hours between 5 and 6:30 AM and 8:30 and 11 PM.

For example, one day this week I got up at 5:25 AM to meet a girlfriend for a workout at the Y. That same evening, I met another girlfriend for a glass of wine, returning home at 10:30 PM to read the newspaper for a half hour or so. There have been pre-dawn runs and post-twilight shopping trips. It's a bit odd skulking around at odd hours like that, but it's what I have to do to keep the refrigerator stocked and maintain friendships and sanity.

My habits are healthy in some ways, but are apparently not healthy in at least one critical one. I instituted the "family nap" several weekends ago partly because our three-year-old has grown accustomed to naptime being a communal activity, something she does with her day care friends, but mostly because I'm just so doggone tired in the afternoon.

Relationships with others and self, exercise, work, play, and sleep...how does it all fit in a day?

I think I'll sleep on that.

A Surprising Grasp on Vocabulary

2006-09-10T10:43:00.000-05:00

The other night as we proceeded through our bedtime ritual, our three-year-old squirmed out of my arms as I attempted to brush her teeth.

Having reached the point in the ritual at which I had lost patience with disruptions, I said to her, "Come back here! We don't get up and march around while we're brushing our teeth!"

She gave me a little look and began lifting her knees up in front of her, high-stepping around the hall outside the bathroom with her toothbrush hanging blatantly from her mouth.

Kids.

Houses of Cards

2006-09-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

My beloved, our son, and I just finished playing a few rounds of Crazy Eights. When the young one wandered off to the computer to check out Playmobil.com, his papa remained on the living room floor where we'd been playing, building squarish, cabana-like card houses connected to each other by single-card bridges.

Our boy, frustrated that one of his favorite Web sites was temporarily out of service, stomped off to the couch to sulk. To cheer him, I pointed to the card houses and said, "Hey, look at what Daddy's doing!"

He gave them a quick glance and, in demonstration that last summer's Jerusalem Marketplace vacation Bible school had had some impact, said, "Cool! He's building a little Jesus town."

Our Reading Specialist

2006-09-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

I took our kindergartener for an assessment with his teacher this week. He and all of his classmates met one-on-one with Mrs. W. during the first week of school so she could have a little look-see at their basic skills—counting, literacy, and the like.

I paced outside the classroom while I waited for them to finish. I'd been planning to go for a midday walk (I don't often escape from my office during the day) until Mrs. W. said she'd only need a few minutes to check things out. After I'd read the school board minutes posted outside the office and made a lap around the island of coathooks to browse the names of our boy's classroom companions, I resorted to flipping through a copy of Nick Jr. Magazine.

I was reading with interest a "clippable prank," an "official" school postcard kids could send to their moms and dads inviting them to participate in the Parents' Gymnastics Expo and Flugelhorn Concert—one I found funny since my beloved actually plays the flugelhorn—when teacher and pupil emerged into the hallway.

Bringing our boy to me, Mrs. W. said, "He reads!"

"Yes, he does," I said. "I couldn't remember if I'd told you at the Back-to-School Picnic."

"Well, it's probably better that you didn't," she said. "Lots of parents tell me that their kids can read, and they can't."

We went on to discuss what she thought would be the best course of action. He'd meet with a reading specialist to determine the level at which he'd need to work to keep learning, and then during class time focused on reading, he'd probably meet with the specialist instead.

While hearing that your child is advanced beyond his peers is a boost to the ego, I didn't take this plan in without some trepidation. "I worked independently on reading in first grade, too," I said, remembering that while the other kids clustered at tables stacked with books intended for the Brown Group or the Green Group, I sat alone, the sole member of the Pink Group. "I do want to make sure he's learning as much as he can, but I'll want us to keep a close eye on how he's doing with being separated from the other kids."

For the child that told me he didn't get lonely when he played by himself, he "got happy" instead, I'll start by assuming that trudging onward and upward at his own pace will be a good thing. But you can be assured that Mama will be watching.

Back to School

2006-09-09T10:23:00.000-05:00

Our boy started kindergarten this week, the same week my beloved resigned from the job he'd held for 16 years to pursue a new one. Plenty of change is afoot here, and it's had me thinking about choices and progress and supporting each other through unknown territory.

Waiting on the playground with our boy for the morning's first bell has been a time of reflection for me—remembering my childhood on a similar playground, recalling the two years I spent at home alone with our first-born before his sister came along, wondering whether working is the right thing for all of us while the kids are still relatively young. Running through the pea gravel to scale the jungle gym would have probably been a better, more sanity-producing use of my time. Instead, I stood with the other kindergarten moms I knew and made small talk that failed to chase away all that was on my mind.

I wonder how much longer our boy will want me to escort him to the wall where the kindergarteners line up before class starts, how many more days or weeks will pass before he just climbs out of the car in the morning, waves goodbye, and dashes off to play without a worry.

I wonder whether we'd be happier, all of us, if I were pushing the kids in the stroller to drop him off, taking in the morning air and chatting about what we saw along the way, instead of rushing out the door for two drop-offs, one at school and one at day care, so that I can rush to work, rush through my to-do list there, and rush back for an on-time pick-up.

I wonder how I can make changes to my work schedule so that we can all have what we seem to enjoy—for me, the ability to participate in something productive and stimulating outside our home while still having time for family and friends; for our girl, some time to socialize with playmates; for our boy, ample time to play alone at home; for all of us, a rhythm that is mutually satisfying.

But when I stop wondering, I see that even though it's tough sometimes, the kids are happy, they're learning and growing, and they're still the same kids they were before my transition to work in the spring. I see that our boy loves kindergarten far more than he did day care. And I see that one of my most important roles as mother is setting the tone in our home. It's all too true that if the matriarch isn't content with her situation, ain't nobody content with theirs.

(Liquor)ice

2006-09-09T10:14:00.000-05:00

A Saturday or so ago, my beloved and I decided it was a good night to share a bottle of wine over dinner. The problem was that we didn't have any, so he determined he'd run out to get some.

Since I was outside both gardening and attending to the kids, he chose to ease my burden by taking one of them along. He asked our daughter, "Honey, do you want to come along with Daddy to the liquor store?"

"OK," she said, "but will you give me some licorice when we're there?" We had just picked some up while back-to-school shopping, so I figured that's what she was interested in.

"I can get you some to take along in the car," said Daddy. "Is that what you want?"

"No, I mean we're going to the licorice store, so we have to get some licorice," she said.

Mom's Day Out

2006-08-19T20:25:00.000-05:00

21 days...an unbelievable, incomprehensible gap in my blog record of our life! How have that many days passed without my sitting at the computer to write?

I suppose it has to do with the fact that I'm sitting at the computer writing most of the day these days, and that's it's less attractive to do so in the evenings. Lately, I've been wiped out at night. Not sure what that's about, but it could be that in late summer, I'm heading into my dormant stage.

For the next four days, though, I'll definitely have a reprieve from dormancy. I am, for the first time in five years, without children and staying in my own house! Through a discrepancy in the amounts of vacation time my beloved and I each enjoy, I am skipping the first half of this year's trip to New Jersey to visit grandpa and grandma, rather gloriously staying in Neenah all by myself. Of course, I'll miss my family and regret the fun times in which I won't take part, but I'm going to try to make th best of the situation.

I started today by spending six hours shopping. Six hours! It was ridiculous. My three main tasks: (1) try on and purchase running shoes, (2) try on and purchase a bathing suit, and (3) try on and purchase bras. These are not things you would want to tackle with kids in tow. And I managed all three. Mission accomplished!

Additionally, I have the trunk of my car packed to the hilt with outgrown toys that have been accumulating in the storage closets. When would I have carted these items to Goodwill before now, I ask? It's the perfect opportunity to winnow with impunity.

Also, I spent some time cleaning off the refrigerator. An overly extensive collection of artwork was thinned to my preferred minimalist state, and among the photos, drawings, and newsletters I removed from beneath magnets trembling with exertion was a note my beloved jotted months ago, when he was discussing the remodeling of the shower in our master bath with our son.

You see, this project has gone uncompleted for some time now. And our boy was asking why. His father explained that it was just something that he never took the time to do, so it never got done.

The dear child said to his daddy, "If you fix it a little bit each day, you'll have time to play, too."

Daddy responded, "You are very wise!"

Our boy, impressed with himself, said, "How do I know so much?"

Come On, Get Happy

2006-07-29T15:48:00.000-05:00

There are several exciting events happening in our area this weekend. Less than an hour to the north, 16 tall ships sailed into the harbor in Green Bay for a three-day festival. And a half-hour's drive south, Oshkosh is hosting the annual Experimental Aircraft Association Convention, an annual hullabaloo attended by some 750,000 people.

Working for a lifestyle publication, I get to learn of all these fabulous occurences at least two months in advance, fantasize about how much the kids, my beloved, and I will enjoy them...and then occasionally berate myself because I'm too tired as a result of working at said publication to actually get out and enjoy the Fox Cities lifestyle, thus robbing my children of their rightful enrichment.

Today has been such a day. The sun is shining, and I spent nearly the entire afternoon asleep. It was a Family Nap, which redeemed it somewhat, but it still felt a lot like wasted time.

Once I'd fully regained my senses, had a fortifying handful of Life cereal and a peach ("They sure are full of juice, Mommy," my daughter said), and read a couple of magazine articles until I didn't feel crabby anymore, I went upstairs to ask my silently playing son if he wanted to go for a bike ride.

"Where?" he asked. "Dairy Queen?"

"Well, I didn't think that," I said. "Just a ride."

"I don't really want to go for a ride. I just want to play," he told me. "I haven't had a lot of time to play."

He was right, at least as far as his own precious toys were concerned.

"You really like to play by yourself," I said, assuming he'd been happily doing so for the two hours his sister and I had been conked out. "What do you like about playing by yourself?"

"It's really quiet," he said. "And you can do whatever you want, and no one wrecks what you're building. It's just nice and quiet," he trailed off.

"Do you ever get lonely when you play by yourself?" I asked.

"No, I get happy when I play by myself," he said.

Proof positive that ignoring your kids is, as I've often believed, sometimes the best parenting tactic available. And that kids don't need tall ship festivals or aircraft conventions to grow up balanced and wise.

Think Yourself Happy

2006-07-24T20:45:00.000-05:00

Exceptional Things I Did Today

(1) Turned the apparent hatch of an entire colony of houseflies somewhere within the confines of our home into fun in the form of a "fly hunt" with my son. (I will not reveal how many flies we killed; it is too mortifying.)

(2) Untangled an angry nest of beads and necklaces in the fabric-covered, floral-print, hinged jewelry box "inherited" from my beloved's grandmother after she died just over a year ago. Patience is not a virtue I have mastered--until it comes to working the knots out of jewelry. It is one of my lesser known talents.

(3) Set up a "jewelry store" with the liberated items to the pleasure of my daughter.

(4) Made the "pilot's dashboard" my son spotted in the book 365 TV-Free Activities to Do with Your Kids with a small cardboard box, the lid from a container of ricotta cheese, a stray screw I found on the kitchen counter, a piece of rope, and an empty toilet paper roll that I had fortuitously left in the bathroom this morning. (That may make me "MomGuyver.")

(5) Managed to construct a relatively balanced meal of leftover pancakes, hot dogs, and broccoli from a pathetically understocked kitchen--without having a breakdown when the slightly healthier eggs that had been slated for the role of protein had a suspect milkiness about their whites. (When the only fresh fruits and vegetables you have left in the house are a single lime, half a red onion, and a wilted partial head of Romaine, you know it's time to head to the market.)

(6) Kept my cool when an impossibly pointy Lego subassembly left on the bathroom floor wedged itself about half an inch into my left forefoot.

(7) Walked away after the second request for a drink of water instead of sticking around for the third, fourth, and fifth.

(8) Wrote something positive in my blog even though I didn't start feeling positive until I began composing this list in my head.

Another Example of the Surprising Wisdom of Children

2006-07-24T20:17:00.000-05:00

I kept our girl home from school today given that she spiked a fever last night after 12 or so hours "in the clear." When she awoke this morning at 98.6 F, I was tempted to ignore her day care's 24-hours-fever-free policy, but realizing that it's in the best interest of everyone, I reluctantly adhered to it.

Still, I had work to do, so I put in a video under the guise of "allowing her to rest" so that I could do some copyediting. After a few episodes of Little People, we drove to my office, where I spoke briefly with our intern and parked my girl on my chair as I shoved a couple of files into my tote bag. Needing a paper clip for some documents I was gathering, I opened the desk drawer, much to the youngster's amazement. So many interesting things to see! Scissors! Post-It Notes!

She messed around in there as I continued to shove about four times the work I would actually do in the afternoon into my satchel. Just as I was finishing up, I stood to hear a dulled slamming of the desk drawer--and to see that the slam had been dulled by two fingers of her right hand. Her mouth was frozen open, poised for the blood-curdling scream that is always delayed proportionately to the degree of pain in which the young lass finds herself.

Two things registered in my mind, almost simultaneously: Get digits out of drawer. Remove child from small room where colleague is conducting phone interview for story.

I carried her out to the lobby, where she let loose for all she was worth. The flesh beneath two of her fingernails was purple, and her face was approaching the same hue. I looked up to see all my co-workers within my line of vision agape and staring--and when I caught their eye, they quickly looked down and pretended that this was the least interesting thing that had happened that morning. And on she wailed.

It will be no surprise that she fell asleep during the drive home...and that, as a result of her in-transit snooze, she of course didn't even take the nap that I was relying on to do all the work that I had just picked up.

When I carried a tray of grilled cheese sandwiches into my bedroom where I'd plopped her with an ice pack while I made lunch, she smiled for the first time since the incident. Though she still wouldn't let me so much as look at her fingers, she did let me (and the puppy she was holding) kiss her wrist and her hand. After we had done so, I looked in her eyes and said, "I'm so sorry about your fingers, honey."

And she said, "But it wasn't your fault, Mommy. It was kind of me who did it."

Thank goodness she understands what an apology is supposed to be. Now if only I can change my ways before she picks up my passive, diluted version thereof.

Twisted Theology

2006-07-22T15:37:00.000-05:00

As we sat down to a lunch of reheated Papa Murphy's pizza this afternoon, I reached for the kids' hands to say our prayer. It's a simple one which goes like this:

Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let your gifts to us be blessed. Amen.

However, when the kids lead the way, it sounds more like, "Calorjesbeagessanletchorgifstousbeblessamen.

I decided to slow them down a bit after we'd speed-prayed and asked them if they knew what our prayer meant. They looked at me with spoonfuls of applesauce in their mouths and said nothing.

"When we pray, we're asking Jesus to be with us while we eat and for him to bless everything he gives us, including our food," I said.

Our three-year-old responded, "And we can't see him because he's in the wall."

Her brother quickly corrected her. "No, we can't see him because he's dead."

"Yeah," said little sis. "A dead guy in the wall."

Not quite my point, but at least I got them thinking about it.

Nobody's Perfect

2006-07-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

When your kids are scrappin' and screamin', there are few tactics as effective as the one I employed earlier this evening to stop their battle in its tracks--bursting into tears.

It had been a rough day, one complete with workplace setbacks and a day care drive-by that made me miserable about not stopping (too time-consuming and/or too difficult for the kids to separate from me a second time in one day, I figured). Plus it's hot today, and I didn't get much sleep last night, what with the wee-hours thunderstorm we had and the frightened little somnabulist it blew into my bed.

Excuses, excuses. I suppose a woman doesn't have to justify treating herself to a little cry once in a while.

The kids didn't like it much. It scares them to see a grown-up lose control. When they asked why I was crying, I told them what I've always told them when I come to tears in their presence: "Mommy's just tired." Then I retreated to my room for a time-out.

A few minutes later, our boy made his way quietly up the stairs and in the door. He came to the side of the bed, where my head was resting on a pillow. "Mommy, you'll have to remember to wake up soon, because it's almost nighttime," he said, touching my cheek gently.

"Mommy's not sleeping, honey. I'm just lying here for a while," I told him. Then I offered up a lesson against self-abuse. "Mommy made some mistakes at work today, and I'm feeling worse about them than I should."

In all his five-year-old wisdom, he said, "Well, a hard day is a hard day. But you shouldn't feel sad. No one is perfect. Not even the person who tells you what to do."

If he can come up with thoughts like that, I must be doing something well. Not perfectly, but well.

Heaps of Love

2006-07-18T07:34:00.000-05:00

Last summer, an ice cream parlor and candy store opened in downtown Neenah. They sell the tasty, hard-packed ice cream that's not available at fast-food-style soft-serve outlets, and they also carry an infinite variety of old-fashioned candies--the kinds you remember from when you were a kid, no matter how old you are. For me, the hot dog gum and candy cigarettes are favorites; yours would no doubt be different but equally nostalgic. (Say what you will about candy cigarettes being nostalgic for me.)

We occasionally make a bike trip to this ice cream parlor for a treat. The last time we did, it was a sweltering Saturday afternoon--so sweltering, in fact, that we ate our ice cream inside rather than on the bench out front. (To me, there's nothing better than a drippy ice cream cone eaten in the sun.)

Each of us painstakingly selected our flavor, some of us more painstakingly than others. For our son, it's almost invariably this dark, dark Zanzibar chocolate, a variety too sophisticated for his five-year-old taste, but one he likes nonetheless. Our daughter chose some pink-and-blue concoction, and my beloved went for something kind of fruity...fresh strawberries or raspberries, I think.

I, on the other hand, picked "Heaps of Love," a base of vanilla ice cream bursting with basically everything the makers could cram in...brownies, cookie dough, candied pecans, chocolate chunks. It was the "indecisive" flavor, but it was decidedly good.

We sat down at the only kiddie table in the place. It had a tiny umbrella and two miniscule chairs. Daddy and I sat on the floor.

It's our tradition to trade licks once we have cones in hand, which we proceeded to do. Our boy looked at mine before licking it and said, "What's yours, Mama?"

"It's called 'Heaps of Love,'" I told him. "Try it."

He did. Then he smiled and said, "It tastes like love."

And he was right.

A Million Little Pieces

2006-07-09T06:38:00.000-05:00

Summer is upon us, and it's time to be footloose and fancy-free. By footloose, I of course mean "loose of shoes."

Barefoot is the way to be when it's summertime and the livin' is easy. At least that's the way the kids prefer it, even after our youngest stepped on something—possibly the rusty stump of a former fencepost, we're not sure—while playing hide and seek in the further reaches of our small yard. (The prescription for oral antibiotics that the doctor wrote us "just in case" was blown to Timbuktu in Friday's strong winds, but that's another blog post.)

Anyway, I'm known to run around unshod myself some of the time, but I'll tell you what...it's much safer to do so OUTSIDE these days than IN. Because since the tidal wave of two kids' birthdays in eight days hit our house, you need to step with extreme caution around here. Now that he's five, our eldest has graduated to regular Legos, no longer as interested in their easier-to-spot Duplo siblings. There are Playmobil figures and accessories to contend with, too. The crazy Germans that design those things must breed their children to be extremely organized from birth, because I haven't yet found in one of the sets the one accessory I'd find most useful—a tweezers to pluck embedded wrist cuffs or tiny swords from the soles of my feet.

The situation is a bit better with our now three-year-old's stuff. There's no risk of tetanus from a puncture wound inflicted by a puzzle piece or a Little People Person. However, given that those Little People have evolved into beefy, unswallowable beings, there is the chance you'll turn an ankle if you're not watching your step.

Like I've always said after Christmas, it takes me a week to assimilate new inventory into our collection. That leaves me three more days to find homes for our million little pieces.

A Boy with a Bird's Eye View--and Two Moms That Were Chickens

2006-06-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

Our pastor and his wife are having their house painted. This seems like a detail irrelevant to this blog until I tell you that they live only a few blocks from us AND that the walls and gingerbread of their three-story, nineteenth-century beauty require a hydraulic "man lift" to reach.

After dinner on Monday and per their invitation, we took a wagon ride to their house to inspect this piece of heavy equipment. The painter happened to be preparing to leave as we arrived, and he offered to take our boy for a ride in the bucket. Let's just say he didn't have to offer twice.

I figured the ride would be just a few feet straight up and back down. I was mistaken. After shifting course to avoid damaging the porch, the bucket's occupants checked out a tall pine tree and inspected the roof of the second story from well above it--all while the lady of the house and I looked on with a mixture of bemusement and terror.

He did make it safely down. And luckily for you, kind Mrs. M. was not too terrified to snap a photo or two to commemorate the occasion.

Overheard Before Church This Morning

2006-06-25T21:03:00.000-05:00

Son and daughter were playing rescue in the living room while I cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast.

Son (warmly): Bye! See you next time you get in a car crash!

Daughter: OK!

Son (cheerily): Call 911!

It Should Have Been Obvious

2006-06-25T20:47:00.000-05:00

The image above is a detail from one of two drawings I found lying in the hall on the second floor of our house. They've been lying there for a while, I must admit, but this evening, the kids and I (mostly I) tidied up impressively. So when I encountered the pictures this time, I was bound and determined to do something with them.

My M.O. when it comes to dispensation of art projects either to the Big Bin of Art Projects or to recycling involves studying the piece for either: (1) iconic images that depict something particularly emblematic of the artist at that point in his or her childhood or (2) the word "love" as it pertains to Mom or Dad (OK, mostly Mom). In the case of the two drawings in question, one was run of the mill, while the other contained some rescue-related sketches that might qualify it for archival storage.

After covertly disposing of the former, I approached the four-year-old artist about the latter. Pointing to the "don't" sign with the stick person inside it, I asked, "What does this symbol mean, honey?"

He walked over, looked at the picture for the briefest of moments, and said without missing a beat, "The letters mean 'Life Guard Rescue,' and that (pointing to the picture) means, 'No diving so hard on the diving board that (his arms started flapping here) you look like you have two arms on each side.' Because if you do that, you might hit your head on the bottom of the pool."

A guffaw was all I could summon in response.

The Pint-casso in our Family

2006-06-21T21:47:00.000-05:00

I have never been much of an artist. All the sculptures I made in middle school, many of which my mom is still saving, were angular and geometric--and not that attractive. Most were painted in simple, primary colors or fired with a single hue of glaze. In kindergarten, when my classmates were going wild on their bonnets for our Easter parade, adorning them with basketfuls of Easter grass and tiny bunnies and chicks, I festooned my plain white woven hat with a single bright pink rose, ignoring my teacher's coaxing to get a little more creative. I guess I was a minimalist from birth.

That's why, despite my beloved's excellent eye for photography, I'm a little surprised by the tremendous attention our daughter, at nearly three, pays to art projects. I figured my inability would trump any artistic aptitude of his, genetically speaking. But it doesn't appear to have done so.

This girl once spent a focused hour painting My Little Pony pictures with one of those rectangular white plastic palettes. And she painted in the lines and with a wide range of colors.

In school, she's equally intense. She and her cohorts began a couple of weeks ago to create a series of animals to decorate their room. They started with paper-plate lions with construction paper-strip manes. The strips were naturally pre-cut, but the glueing was in the tots' hands following a demo by the teachers.

When I arrived to pick my cherub up that afternoon, I was escorted to the wall of felines by Miss A. and asked if I could guess which lion was my girl's. I scanned the menagerie, spotting quite a number of cats who looked like they could use a touch of Rogaine (Roar-gaine?). And then my eyes fell on a lion with a gloriously full and tastefully multi-hued mane which was carefully arranged around its face.

"Yes, that's the one," said Miss A. "She really surprises us with her art."

She really surprises me, too. The last couple of days, she's been into making "cards" for her papa. These consist of a sheet of drawing paper crowded with stickers. While working on one yesterday, she accidentally tore one of the stickers in half and went hunting in the art cupboard for some Elmer's glue to remedy the situation.

That glue provided the inspiration for a new media, I discovered this afternoon as I was summoning the troops for our walk to a neighbor's summer solstice celebration. When I found her, she was sitting on the dining room floor with the bottle of white, sticky stuff, adhering colored pencils (pointy at both ends from big brother's sharpening phase a couple of months ago) to the aforementioned drawing paper.

"I can't leave yet," she said. "I'm making another card for Daddy."

Look out, Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol. We've got a budding modernist on our hands.

Once Bitten, Twice Wry

2006-06-20T20:29:00.000-05:00

Even my most faithful readers have no doubt given up on me following my two-week post drought. I have an explanation, if you will humor me a moment, and then a real entry.

The thing is, I've been a bit terrified of blogging since I reentered the workaday world. I'm spending about 50% less time with my kids during the week since I started working in April, and I find that some of the stuff I'm wanting to write about focuses on ME rather than on THEM. This fact has been a slap in the face for a woman (every woman?) who returns to the workforce after being at home for a while and struggles with the "self"-ishness of this decision. 'If I'm thinking so much about myself,' I reason, 'that I can only come up with blog content that centers on MY experience, then I MUST be a greedy person and (yes, here it comes) a BAD MOTHER.'

And we all know there's no reasoning with the voice of irrational guilt. So all I can say is this: there it is.

Now on to the real content, which just so happens to be about one of my children. (Irrational Guilt 0, Lisa 1).

If you've been with Strandblog for a while, you'll recall a post entitled, "When Sarcasm Bites Back." This was written the day I realized that my four-year-old was beginning to grasp that most snarky of linguistic tools. Based on an exchange yesterday, it seems he has indeed been bitten by the sarcasm bug.

We had just dropped my beloved off for yet another business trip, and none of us were too happy about it. This was evident in the expressions I saw on our kids' faces as I stood outside the car at the terminal while Daddy, still in the passenger seat, bid them farewell...for the fifth time in two months. The corners of their mouths hung down, and they looked at their father from beneath lowered eyelids. (When I shortened my focal distance just a bit, my reflection in the car window revealed a similar sad pout on my own face.)

When we had slogged through the sweet sorrow of parting and were making our way out the airport driveway, I asked my son, "How do you feel about Daddy leaving again?"

He was silent, so I asked again. "How does Daddy going away again make you feel, honey?"

His response was deadpan. "Great," he said.

"Great?!" I exclaimed, my surprise evident. "You feel great about Daddy leaving?"

"Well," he said, not impatiently but kindly and by way of explanation, "not the regular great but that other kind of great. You know, the kind of great when you miss your favorite show on TV or something like that."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I know that kind of great."

And so does he. All too well.

Mobile Mispronunciation

2006-06-07T06:16:00.000-05:00

For quite some time now, our little guy has called my mobile phone a "cellophone." I had interpreted this mispronunciation as a cross with cellophane (and have spelled it just now accordingly).

It was recently that it occurred to me that he likely has no idea what cellophane is and that he probably wasn't confusing those two words. I thought a little harder about it, and--pop!--I made what I think is the right connection.

It's a rhyming thing, and a different spelling will make it clear. He associates a "celephone" with the "telephone," as any intelligent person would.

So now I'm going to start a campaign to rename the technology. Want to sign on?

Pit-Pat-Paddle-Pat, Pit-Pat-Waddle-Pat

2006-05-25T20:01:00.000-05:00

There is a bridge out near my workplace around which the public works department has set up a lengthier-than-desired official detour. Ingeniously--and not too surprisingly--a few of us have discovered a secret "back way" to our office building.

This definitively unofficial route takes a driver down a street that winds between the many paper mills and machinists' quarters that line the Fox River. Taking this route might be disruptive to the workers in the area, who have to cross this street to get from one building to another on their "campuses," but it's quicker than the city-sanctioned detour--and people always do what's most efficient. (I'll never forget the countless paths barren of grass that popped up at UW-Madison wherever the sidewalk layout did not provide the most direct route from one place to another.)

I was traversing this route on my way home from work today when I had to slow down not for a semi backing up to a loading dock but rather for a four-member family of Canadian geese. Mom led the way, followed by two babies, and Dad brought up the rear.

They hesitated for a spell at the side of the road, disoriented by the noise of motors and factories. I stopped, but another driver wasn't so sure he wanted to give them the right of way. Still, the courageous birds marched forward, forcing my oncoming counterpart to either yield or be branded vicious and evil. He yielded.

As I watched those geese cross the street, afraid yet fairly certain they were safe in herding their young toward the puddle for which they were headed, I thought how much like them we need to be as parents. We may not be quite sure where we're going or what path is safest, but as long as we do what we can to protect our kids, we trudge onward and hope that society as a whole will see the value in what we're doing and give us the benefit of the doubt--and a little help across a busy street when necessary.

The Life of the Mind

2006-05-25T19:53:00.000-05:00

Since the rescue helicopter moved from the living room to our boy's bedroom a couple of weeks ago, morphing into an urban search and rescue vehicle in the process, a new step has been added to our bedtime routine. It involves moving the many boxes, kits, hats, and jackets needed by an EMT from the red Little Tykes race car bed (which doubles as the aforementioned rescue vehicle) to the book-reading chair beside it.

We were making this move tonight when our boy announced, "Tomorrow's Friday!"

"Yes, it is," I said.

"Friday is the day I don't work, so we can leave all this stuff in the chair instead of putting it back in the car," he said.

"OK," I said. "That sounds good."

And then I wondered what conversation or negotiation between my beloved and me he overheard that led him to make that declaration. Were we talking through the "day care dance," reviewing pick-up arrangements and planning car seat placements? Or were we discussing days off and determining who'd be working what extra hours to prepare for being away from the office?

Whatever the case, it's clear that he's always--ALWAYS--listening and learning. That's both encouraging and scary.

Full House

2006-05-21T21:40:00.000-05:00

Our little girl loves her Little People, and judging by the looks of this photo, her Little People love each other, too.

Speaking "Midwestern"

2006-05-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

I went through a stage in the latter half of my college years, particularly when I started working as an intern for a large corporation in the Fox Cities, during which I strove to eliminate from my diction any trace of Wisconsinite vowel sounds. This came about mostly in reaction to new friends from Indiana or Ohio teasing me about the way I said things like "toast" or "boat." The looong 'o' that sounded completely normal to me apparently sounded a lot like a foghorn to them.

So I worked hard to sound like I was from, well, nowhere in particular, eliminating words like "bubbler" from my vocabulary, until people were occasionally surprised to learn that I was from Green Bay. I still struggle with "toast," but I've mastered nipping my 'o's in the bud more than I have triumphed over the "you/ya" dichotomy.

It must be the German heritage of our area, but I say "ya" without even thinking about it. "I love ya," I tell the kids when I tuck them into bed. "See ya," I say to friends when we part company.

Our boy has taken note of and deeply internalized this, I learned during last week's annual meeting with our financial planner. We had picked up Happy Meals for the kids on the way to the meeting, hoping to keep them more content than they had been during last year's review, when a tall (and graciously fake) tree had been knocked over against a glass tabletop.

The kids were divvying up the goods as we started to talk with our money man, taking napkins, ketchup packets, and milk chugs out of the communal bag that contained all the "extras." I saw our boy pull an item from the bag and hand it to his sister, saying clearly, "Here, sis...this one's for 'ya.'" And he pronounced it 'yah,' like one might say to a horse that one wants to get a-movin'.

I'm going to have to work on that.

Romp and Circumstance

2006-05-20T20:54:00.000-05:00

There is something very moving about a bird's-eye view of a sea of mortarboards in motion. Given the shape and dimensions of this most unusual type of headwear, a mortarboard viewed from above renders its wearer more or less anonymous, leaving the observer of a graduation ceremony with a timeless, big-picture impression of the importance of education to society at large, rather than just to the individual.

Most of us have at one time or another had such an angle on a graduation; typically, it is achieved at a large proceeding in a university stadium or a high school gym. I got to experience it in a preschool classroom, where all views were of the bird's-eye variety since the graduates were only waist high.

I was surprised by how emotional the simple sight of twenty-plus pint-sized kids in red caps and gowns made me. And that was before the ceremony even started.

The children sang to entertain their adoring friends and relations, and the finale--a long-standing tradition in the school--was a song called, "Love Grows." Its lyrics were sweet and plain:

Love grows, one by one,
Two by two, and four by four.
Love grows 'round like a circle
And comes back knocking at your front door.

There was a verse, too, about taking the hand of a friend, which the tiny choristers naturally did as they sang. Encouraged by their teachers, that is how the kids had referred to each other all year--as "friends"--even if they weren't entirely and equally chummy with every member of the class. "Time to listen, friends," Mrs. C. would say before running down the rules for swimming or passing out the supplies for a project. Theirs was an insulated, egalitarian society built on the premise of sharing and caring, one on which the rest of the world should be modeled.

And here they were, graduating and ready to move on to the harsher reality of elementary school. Yes, it's silly to call kindergarten "harsh," but what I mean is that it's a first step toward the divisions and social segregation that inevitably occur in the school setting. I don't remember having a lot of enemies in the early grades, but I do recall that I didn't call everyone "friend," either.

Preschool has prepared our son and his 23 "friends" developmentally and academically for their entry into "real" school...and I hope it has set the stage for them socially, too. Because it sure would be nice to see them all join hands to sing again 13 years from now.

Kissing Capers

2006-05-20T17:42:00.000-05:00

Our precious girl started a fun new game this week. When I give her a smack on her kisser, she swipes her tongue across her lips and says, "I licked it off, Mommy!"

I kiss her again. Another lick.

I thought I'd make the game more interesting after a bath one night by kissing her big toe after she'd "removed" three or four kisses from her little mouth. Without batting an eye, she lifted her foot to her mouth and licked her toe. Her knee and forearm followed.

When I attempted to stymie her by kissing the small of her back, she twisted her arm behind her and "wiped" the kiss off.

Not a bad way to hold Mommy's attention longer than the duration of a single kiss.

An Interesting Bit of Trivia

2006-05-20T17:20:00.000-05:00

As we were driving home from this afternoon's library visit, a small boy's voice reported the following from the back seat:

"Mommy, did you know that some people in Australia, Africa, and South America like scars?"

"No," I responded. "That's pretty interesting, though."

When we got home, I inspected the "Cuts, Scrapes, Scabs, and Scars" book he had checked out, and on page 25, I found the illustration you see here.

Literacy is SO cool.

When the Training Wheels Come Off

2006-05-16T21:34:00.000-05:00

Since my beloved has returned from several weeks of barely interrupted business travel, we've been catching up on family time (which partly explains the dearth of blog posts lately), and one of the family activities I wanted him here for was the removal of the training wheels. I had decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time for our boy to give "free wheeling" a go.

Here's why I made that decision: There's something about the bursting forth of spring that makes us all want to venture into something fresh, something new. Learning to ride a bike is one such adventure of self-discovery and growth, I figured. That, and I was too lazy to search for the right wrench to make the necessary adjustments to our son's less and less even (and more and more treacherous) bicycle support system while the toolkeeper was away.

Tonight, the now resident toolkeeper found the elusive wrench and loosed the nuts and bolts that had kept our firstborn upright since his fourth birthday. And I learned why the image of the parent running alongside a nearly five-year-old child on a bicycle with no training wheels is so iconic.

As I kept pace with the peddler (an excellent workout for the hamstrings, by the way), holding the back of the seat with my right hand and palming the end of the handlebars with my left as we made our way up the block, I coached and cheered for all I was worth, grabbing his hip or seizing the reigns according to need. And then a point came when the handlebars hovered out of my fingers' grasp and my grip on the seat fell away by instinct, and there he was, riding a bike.

I started to laugh. He did, too.

"You're doing it!" I said.

"I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" he echoed, and though I couldn't see his face, I knew he was smiling.

Three or four seconds and about 10 yards later, I lunged to his aid, letting him tumble slowly into the grass toward which his collision course was taking him. He was even happy to fall.

I was happy, too. I was happy that I knew when to hold on and when to let go and when to take hold again.

That, after all, is the essence of parenting.

Vocabularious

2006-05-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things about watching my kids grow has been observing how their speech develops. Pronouns, syntax, verb tenses...it's all too precious to a word lover like me. It's a good reminder, too, of how non-intuitive the English language is when you hear your children use words like "goed" or "throwed." No wonder we need a Spanish version of the national anthem. There are probably no easy translations for words like "o'er" and "ramparts."

Anyway, I introduce this topic because, as I was doing my semi-annual ironing the other day, my two-year-old, whom I had admonished to stay far, far from the ironing board as she watched me, looked up at me and said, "Mama, can you give me a flavor?"

My mind went immediately to the local ice cream parlor, where we had stopped as a reward for good behavior after a recent Mother's Day shopping trip to a trinkets-and-delicates gift shop. (There's nothing quite so nerve-wracking as taking two preschoolers into a tiny store with more glass in it than you'd find in the entire Marshall Field's housewares department.)

"What did you say, honey?" I asked her, stalling as I tried to figure out why she'd be asking for ice cream at 9 AM.

She pointed at the floor beneath the ironing board. "I dropped my blankie," she said. "Can you give me a flavor and pick it up?"

Siren Song

2006-05-07T21:07:00.000-05:00

We were halfway down the long hallway into our church's sanctuary this morning when it occured to me that the "special effects" button on the firefighter's helmet my son was wearing might be a problem. Push it, and a wailing fire truck siren sounds.

Now, you may question my judgement around letting him wear the firefighter's helmet into church in the first place. I questioned it, too. But sometimes, I just roll with what makes the kid happy rather than what social norms dictate.

Given that, I'm not okay with noisemaking, battery-operated toys in a religious service. So I did my best to remove the helmet from his possession as we entered, setting it beside me on the seat to keep it under my guard.

The introductory portion of the service was a bit drawn out--lots of announcements and talking of little interest to the kids--so our eldest got restless.

"Can I get a Worship Bag, Mama?" he asked. The Worship Bag contains a board book, laminated bookmarks for locating songs in the hymn book, and some pipe cleaners--a low-key, low-volume entertainment kit.

"Not now," I told him. "Wait until everyone is done talking."

I figured I'd let him cross the front of the church once the choir stood to sing its anthem. When I saw one of the choir members rise, I sent him scurrying for his target. It was then that I noticed the choir was not only standing but was on the move, heading to the stairs just a few feet in front of where we sat in the front pew. His re-entry, it seemed, was going to be slightly problematic.

As I signaled for our boy to dodge the choir director, who was now standing right next to our pew and blowing into a pitchpipe, I shifted in my seat to make room for the child, picking up the firefighter's helmet as I did so in order to move it out of the way. (Can you guess where this is going?)

I pushed the "special effects" button.

The siren sounded--just as an a capella soloist began to sing.

I dove under the pew to muffle the sound and to hide my face as much as possible.

When I had sat up again, my boy leaned over and asked sternly, "Mama, WHY did you push that button?"

I deserved it.

It's Grand Being a Grandma

2006-04-30T23:16:00.000-05:00

Over dinner tonight, my son asked me, "Do you want to hear something a little sad, Mama?"

"What is it, honey?" I asked.

He held up his hand with his thumb and forefinger an inch or so apart. Then he said, "I love Grandma more than I love you, but only this much."

Then he flung his arms wide and added, "But I love you THIS much, so it's not that big a deal."

"Oh," I said, amused. "Well, that's OK, I guess. But why do you love Grandma more than you love me?"

"Because you talk on the phone all the time," he said.

Guess he's a little envious of my new Motorola V557.

X Marks the (Many) Spots

2006-04-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

Our boy asked me yesterday, "Do you know how to make an 'X' in the bathroom?"

"No," I said. "How do you do it?"

He went on to describe to me how if two boys use the same potty, and one starts first, followed by the other, you can make an 'X.'

I think I'll be having a conversation with his teacher tomorrow morning.

Lost

2006-04-30T06:55:00.000-05:00

Those of you who heard the story of me losing my elder child for about 10 minutes at the Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee a year or so ago will be flabbergasted to hear that something along the same lines happened with my younger one just a few days ago. More flabbergasted than anyone, though, was me, who SWORE I'd never allow it to happen again.

My delusion of control crumbled in, of all places, a fabric store--a place not typically considered the haunt of freaks and perverts.

In the ongoing effort to make the transition to "school" easier as my work hours begin to ramp up, I needed some velour to create a small "soft pillow" to be stationed at day care. Our boy has a large purple one, which was made to replace his "soft thing," a leopard-print remnant of the velvet-like fabric I had used to fashion a cavewoman costume for a Halloween party nearly three years ago. The desired softness had apparently gone out of the "soft thing," and the pillow had become the new favorite.

It is bulky, however, and not easily transported--or remembered at pick-up time. And all parents know that bedtime without a lovey is an upleasant time indeed.

As we perused the bolts at Jo-Ann Fabric last Thursday, I asked my assistant to choose the fabric type and print that he wanted me to use. After I rejected a "fashion fabric" that was selling for $19.99 a yard, he selected a camouflage fleece for one face of the pillow and a matching green velour for the other.

Having fabric cut in such a store requires some attention and thinking, especially if you buy fabric as infrequently as I do. How much would I need? Is it impolite to buy only one-quarter of a yard? Would I want more to replace the as-yet nonexistent pillow when it wore out? These questions and more buzzed about my brain as I faced the less-than-happy employee waiting to do my bidding.

Once I had made my decisions and was ready to check out, I turned and said, "OK, kids--time to go!" They had been following each other in loops around the displays of bolts, and I had for the most part maintained an auditory awareness of their whereabouts. Or so I thought.

Big brother quickly appeared from between two rows of fabric, but as I made a pass along the ends of the remaining rows, little sis was nowhere to be seen. Figuring she was still on the move, I made another pass. And then another. Then I looked a little further out into the notions and scissors, and still I didn't find her.

That's when I began calling her name. A minute went by. Soon I was shouting. Another 30 seconds, and I was almost running and yelling for her as I went. Other women in the store took up the search. An employee called for her over the PA system: "Sweetheart, your mommy is looking for you."

Nothing.

It had probably been three minutes, maybe four, and I had already begun to resign myself to never holding her or giving her Eskimo kisses again. I remembered seeing a lady in the store who was no longer there and thought, 'She's taken her!' I spotted the security camera above the door and figured at least the police would have something to provide TV stations when they posted the Amber alert.

And then I heard two women shout, "She's right here!"

I ran to where they were, overjoyed. When I saw what had been going on, a little bit of anger tainted the joy.

The little imp had tucked herself away in a cubby beneath one of the fabric displays and had let the draping ends of the bolts cover her up. And she had intentionally not made a peep.

She was playing hide and seek.

Joy, of course, won out, and I picked her up and hugged her close. I thanked the women, customers and employees alike, who had taken up the search. We checked out and walked out the door to the car. And then we headed to Chuck E. Cheese, where we were due to meet some friends for dinner.

I found their numerical hand stamp scheme reassuring. Perhaps I could pitch it to Jo-Ann Fabrics.

Bits and Pieces

2006-04-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

Since my brain seems to be running a mile a minute from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep (sometimes as late as 2:30 AM!!!), I'm going to offer up a smorgasbord of tasty tidbits--and one not-so-tasty one--rather than a coherent missive in this post. Here goes:

(1) Wardrobe Malfunction

Today was a frenzy from the moment I got up. I taught my strength-training class for the last time at the Y, surprising myself by getting emotional when bidding my students farewell. Some of them have been with me for the entire four years that I've been an instructor there and have become my friends.

I wanted to linger with them over the hugs they offered up before putting their dumbells away, but alas, I had to dash to the locker room to do my reverse-Superman switcheroo (Get it? I go from ultra-strong Superman to nerdy journalist Clark Kent?) to get to the magazine office by 10 AM. I soared through showering--and then discovered in dressing that my last-minute change-of-outfit decision had foiled me. I had a pink top--and a black bra. Oops. Nothing a one-mile detour for a stop at home couldn't fix.

(2) Will Work for (Soiled) Food

The rush to the office was called for by a roundtable discussion my co-editors and I were hosting in Green Bay at noon. It was a lovely affair, but the work involved didn't leave a lot of time for eating the Roly Poly sandwiches we had provided for the participants. And I had to run off to another meeting in town, for which I was clearly going to be late.

I grabbed a paper plate, some napkins, a wrap, and a bag of chips, slung my tote bag, my purse, a videocamera, and its associated tripod over my shoulders and carried the teetering lunch out to my car. There, I set it down on the hood while I fumbled the rest of my gear into the trunk. As I did so, I heard a gust of wind and the distinct sound of a sturdy, round, paper object hitting the asphalt beside my car.

With a cry of despair, I hurried to the scene of the accident and found my turkey-avodaco wrap laying beside my front driver's side tire. It was 1:23 PM, and I wouldn't have a prayer of getting any more food until 2:30 at the earliest. I hadn't eaten anything except a few pieces of candy corn since 6:45 AM.

I looked at the fallen sandwich for a few moments.

I picked it up.

I ate it.

(3) It's Cliche for a Reason

After dinner tonight, the kids were chatting me up like crazy. Our boy was particularly effusive on the subject of "The Land Before Time 11," a video he watched during rest time at school today. (He told me repeatedly when I spoke of it as simply "The Land Before Time" that the "11" was a crucial part of the title. Especially crucial if you're the obviously successful marketer of TLBT videos, I suppose.)

Once we had covered the plot thoroughly, we moved on to other subjects. And out of, well, the clear blue, he asked me the iconic question which represents the epitome of childhood curiosity:

"Mama, why is the sky blue?"

Having taken many chemistry and physics classes in my lifetime, I actually tried to answer. But since I had just moments earlier explained to the cherubs--who asked why I had them hold one hand up when they promised me they'd go right to the bathtub after we ran out to get milk--what a courtroom was and how witnesses were sworn in, I didn't try too hard.

Silence Is Golden

2006-04-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

If silence is golden, then the silence that follows a trip to borrow library books must be the 24-karat variety. After our Saturday morning stop at the public library, the kids rushed into the house with their separately bagged three books apiece and sat soundlessly in the living room for 15 minutes poring over their finds.

This is one of the early rewards of literacy--a young child's ability to entertain, educate, and amuse herself with a book. And it is the encouragement I offer to parents who doubt that reading to a six-month-old who'd rather chew on a book than listen to it does any good. It most assuredly does.

Quotable Quote

2006-04-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

Getting in the car yesterday for a trip to get haircuts, my son, who had just eaten a chunk of chocolate rabbit from his Easter basket, turned to me and said, "Mama, when I'm a parent and my kids ask for candy, I'll always say yes."

"You will?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because I will love them so much," he said.

How manipulative and clever of him.

Brotherly (and Sisterly) Love

2006-04-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

The other day, our little girl was out playing in the yard with a neighbor about her age, and a non-malicious shove sent her face-first onto the ground. She stood up crying and was whisked into the house for some therapeutic cuddling.

Inside the house, her big brother, made curious by her sobbing, approached with a concerned expression. Looking her in the eye, the wannabe rescuer asked sweetly, "Do you need a Band-Aid, tape, or a splint?"

This kind of care between the two of them sometimes surprises and always pleases me. Observing it, I've come to convince myself that my children are the only two in the world who won't go through adolescent periods of despising and/or ignoring each other. No, they will exchange only tender, encouraging words and will adore each other invariably.

Their behavior--and particularly our son's--during the first week of their mama's new job further enforced that wishful perception of mine. On my first day of work, I found myself in a bit of a self-absorbed tizzy as I dropped them off. I was naturally worried about them, but I was also dwelling on what *I* was doing and how these choices of *MINE* would affect them.

In a missing-the-forest-for-the-trees phenomenon, that tizzy of mine--supposedly centered on their well-being--kept me from noticing what they were experiencing in that moment. I was off in the future, wondering whether their verbal skills would dwindle or whether their personalities would morph from sweet to aggressive, while they were, as always, there in the present, taking in what was before them.

I got the young one settled first that day and then located coat hook and storage basket for the elder. I was hugging him goodbye and was ready to leave, already bracing for the heartache that would bring on, when the boy said, "Mama, I want to say goodbye to my sister."

That snapped me back to the moment--a moment in which two constant playmates were separated in a way foreign to them. And while it made me sad to be responsible for bringing on this separation five months earlier than kindergarten would have, it also made me incredibly grateful that my children love each other so well--and, according to my fantasy, that they'll do so without hiccup or interruption for the rest of their lives.

No Greater Love Than This...

2006-04-21T07:41:00.000-05:00

With their starting school this week, I thought perhaps my kids would hate me for my choice to go back to work. I pictured them coming home like sullen little teenagers, shooting disparaging glances my way from beneath heavy eyelids.

Instead, I have been surprised that they have both been verbally expressing their love for me MORE than before. Maybe that's because they want reassurance that, even though I'm not with them all day, I still love them just as much. I prefer to think that it's because they can tell how happy I am, AND because they're truly having fun at school.

Whatever the case, here's one way in which my boy shared his love for me:

Boy: I love you SOOOO much, Mama!

Me: I love you SOOOO much, too, honey.

Boy: I love you more than you even know, Mama.

Me: You do?

Boy: Yes. I love you as much as I love...my rescue helicopter.

Given his obsession with his rescue helicopter (a chair in our living room filled with makeshift rescue supplies, for those of you who are new), I'll take that with joy.

Our girl has been showing her love in a different way. She is constantly kissing me, and when she does, she insists, "Say 'thank you' when I kiss you, Mommy!" And then she proceeds to do so about 15 consecutive times. Again, I'll take it.

Small Miracles

2006-04-18T23:17:00.000-05:00

A remarkable thing happened when I dropped the kids off at "school" for the first time on Monday so that I could start my new job and career. I walked out the door of the child care center and my heart kept on beating. It ached just a bit, but it didn't freeze up or fall out of my body--it kept on doing its job.

And then another remarkable thing happened. Before I reached my car, I ran into two women from our church headed into the community center for a workout. And I got to have a hug and shed a couple of tears, and then I was OK.

It's marvelous how, if you're looking for them, small miracles abound.

Resurrection

2006-04-16T22:41:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is my first day of work.

That's not to say, of course, that I haven't been working during the five years since our eldest was born. Even with my outside work as a fitness instructor and freelance writer aside, I've never worked so hard in my life.

But this is work in the traditional sense; I am expected at a certain place from 8:30 AM until 2:30 PM each day and am, as one of my friends put it, "working for the Man" again.

Mercifully, I have been incredibly busy for the last few days getting ready for my third-annual Easter party for my family. There were cookies to cut out and bake, an artichoke-and-leek appetizer to prepare, sweet potatoes to bake in advance, and, subsequently, a dripped-upon oven to clean. With all that activity, I've hardly had a moment to think--or, as I'm more likely to do, obsess--about what this work is going to mean for me and for my family.

The kids, as I've already noted, seem pleased as punch to be starting school. And I'm truly excited about the work I'll be doing. It's just such a change. And change is both exhilarating and scary.

It seems serendipitous to be embarking on this adventure the day after Easter, a time of transformation on a divine scale. Our pastor preached in church this morning that WE are the resurrection, charged with carrying on the work of justice, mercy, and peace in our work and our world. I pray I can effectively combine my personal resurrection as a professional woman with that charge.

Dyeing and Rising

2006-04-13T21:45:00.000-05:00

The kids and I dyed Easter eggs tonight. We started with two dozen and, between a couple of accidents and an intentional consumption, wound up with 21.

My childhood recollections of dyeing eggs conjure it as an hours-long event that took most of an afternoon. Our go at it lasted somewhere around 17 minutes. Prep and clean-up, of course, took much longer than that, especially given the orange dye incident.

I had used an eight-cup measure to pour the cold water into all the fizzy vinegar-and-color tablet concoctions, and that vessel sat empty on the table when the last egg was colored. So, thinking this would be a good time for a hands-on color-combining lesson, I said, "Who wants to have fun with colors?"

Our boy shouted, "Me!" And before I knew what was happening, he violently poured the entire contents of the orange dye cup into the eight-cup measure, which I was holding in my hand. Like a skateboarder in a half-pipe, the fancifully hued liquid shot over the top of the container, splashing onto the table, the boy, and the upholstered dining chair on which he had been sitting.

As I attempted to scrub the spots out of the chair, I wondered whether the stains were the connection between coloring Easter eggs and what Easter's REALLY about...

Here's the link I came up with: We dye eggs to remind us of the stain that was washed away by the death and resurrection of Jesus. We can try to clean it up ourselves, as I did with the chair, but it doesn't work. We need something divinely cleansing to do it.

Now I just have to chew on where the bunny enters the equation.

TV Dinners

2006-04-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. Occasionally--maybe once a week--I let the kids eat in front of the TV. Sometimes it's because my beloved and I want to have a nice dinner alone without paying a sitter, sometimes it's because the meal I've prepared is lackluster and I know they won't notice or complain if they're watching Bob the Builder while the eat it, and sometimes it's because I'm just plain lazy and don't have the energy to fight the good fight.

I know this is taboo. It will increase their risk of obesity, the parenting books say, because they eat mindlessly when their attention is otherwise occupied. But here's the upside of mindless eating--they clear their plates, and if their plates are filled with lean meats, fruits, and vegetables, that's not such a bad thing.

Tonight, I was making dinner in a hurry before interviewing a source by phone for an article I'm writing, so I popped in a video to keep the kids occupied. And then I figured since I had just popped it in, I'd let them keep watching while they ate their grilled cheese and mixed veggies on the coffee table. I sat down on the floor near them to eat my leftover mini-meatloaf (a concoction they soundly rejected last night despite my leaving out any ingredient I thought might be objectionable).

"You know," I said guiltily, "we don't eat in front of the TV all the time."

"I know!" said our boy hastily, trying to silence me so I wouldn't disturb his viewing.

Then his little sister piped in with a clever insight: "Sometime we can sit on the other side of the table and look at the couch instead."

Surprises Big and Small

2006-04-11T21:26:00.000-05:00

My children never cease to surprise me in big and small ways.

Let's start with small. I purchased a week or so ago a box of the new Yogurt-Cluster Life cereal. It's regular old Life, which my kids love, with what are described as "yogurt-dipped oat clusters" interspersed. I assume the oat clusters are just recycled, smashed-up Life cereal, but what do I know?

After the first time I served the kids this stuff for breakfast, I found two little mounds of clusters on the table next to where their bowls had been. They were not fans.

Now, over the weekend, my mom came down to bail out my sick, sorry self, and she stopped at the grocery store on the way, picking up a box of Yogurt Burst Cheerios. I smiled to myself when I saw them, thinking how much I'd be enjoying them (since the kids surely wouldn't).

But wouldn't you know it--when I opened those Cheerios this morning to pour myself a bowl, the tykes both asked for some and then couldn't get enough. "Can we have Yogurt Burst Cheerios for our morning snack, Mama?" they asked. And while I made dinner, they said, "We'd like some Yogurt Burst Cheerios as an appetizer."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Cheerios made of oats? So wouldn't Cheerios covered in yogurt basically be "yogurt-dipped oat clusters?" I was, as the opening line of this post suggested, surprised.

Now for the big surprise. It was just after lunch when I took a big gulp and decided to tell the kids about my new job. (I may be telling some of you about it for the first time here.)

"Guess what, kids? Mommy's going to be starting a new job soon," I said.

"What are you going to do, Mama?" my son asked.

"Well, I'm going to be a writer and an editor," I replied.

"What does an editor do?" he asked.

"An editor sort of makes a magazine. So that's what I'm going to be doing," I said.

The boy grinned like mad and literally fell off his stool. He seemed genuinely excited. Then he said, "I think you should be a writer, editor, and FIRE FIGHTER!"

And our little girl added, "And a rock climber!"

With things going well so far, I went on, saying, "My new job means I'll be working in an office like Daddy, but not the same office. And I'll be working at the same time that Daddy is working."

Then the concern swept in. "Who's going to stay with us?" big brother asked.

That's when I told them about their new school.

"I don't want to go," he responded.

But then I told him and his sister about the new school, about how they'd get to be with friends all day, go to the park, play at Adventure Alley, do art projects, and even eat lunch there.

"We get to eat lunch there?!" he shouted, smiling again.

"Yes," I said. "And you're going to be a Bear, and your sister is going to be a Little Pal. And you won't be in the same room, but your rooms will be right next to each other, so if you want to see each other, you can just ask your teacher."

Now they were both smiling. And the big guy said, "What if we smash into each other like this (clap!) because we like each other so much?"

What if. You could have knocked me over with a feather. They were pleased about this. So I can be, too.

Rescue Me

2006-04-09T20:42:00.000-05:00

For a little better than a week now, we've had a police helicopter taking center stage in our living room. But I must correct myself. For the first half of the week, it was a police boat; it morphed when a particular rescue called for hoisting capabilities, and it hasn't looked back.

The body of the helicopter is our overstuffed armchair, and it has many accessories. On one arm sits a white stuffed animal in a shoebox-sized bin; this is the police dog in its kennel. On the other arm is an art set-turned-first-aid kit-turned-police computer (it flips open and closed just like Mommy's laptop!). The seat holds a box containing Band-Aids, a walkie-talkie, a couple of Ace bandages used as seat belts or rapelling cables, and a long stick with a ribbon tied to the top of it (not sure what that is).

On the floor in front of the chair lies the yellow lid of our plastic toybox, which as near as I can make out is some sort of staging platform for dramatic rescues. My Bible, resting to the side of the chair, has become a hoist basket, and the magazine rack in which I used to keep my reading now serves as extra storage space.

The piece de resistance is a realistic rescue vehicle light from the Magna Wheels Fire Rescue set which actually flashes and sounds a siren when a button is pressed. This is situated atop the chair back, just where it ought to be.

This police helicopter keeps our dear boy entertained a good portion of each day but makes for difficult grown-up entertainment, forcing living room occupants to sit in a line on the couch rather than facing each other. But let's face it--with as sick as we've been, no one's visiting anyway, so the helicopter can stay.

Staring at the helicopter this afternoon, I found myself wondering why so many little boys--and my little boy in particular--are fascinated by police cars, ambulances, and the like, and why so many want to be fire fighters or sheriffs when they grow up. What is it that makes these hero roles attractive?

All these jobs essentially involve stepping in and solving problems, often major, life-threatening ones. Is this hero-worship an early manifestation and emulation of the male need to "fix" things? Do men from preschool age on up long to set things right? Women find this both attractive--the "man in uniform" thing--and annoying--the "can't you just listen without trying to solve my problems?" thing.

Maybe once my fever goes away and I get up off the couch again I won't spend my days making such huge leaps. But for now, it's all I've got to entertain me. That, and dispatching the police helicopter.